DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE
We must now consider whether Irish genealogies were really traced or
not to those points which I have mentioned. Is there any documentary
evidence in support of such an assertion?
There is certainly some such evidence, and we shall proceed to examine
it.
In the Leabhar na h-Uidhre [Lowar na Heera], or Book of the Dun Cow,
the existing manuscript of which was transcribed about the year 1100,
in the Book of Leinster, transcribed about fifty years later, in the
Book of Ballymote and in the Book of Lecan, frequent reference is made
to an ancient book now lost called the Cin or Codex of Drom-sneachta.
This book, or a copy of it, existed down to the beginning of the
seventeenth century, for Keating quotes from it in his history, and
remarks at the same time, "and it was before the coming of Patrick to
Ireland the author of that book existed."[1] This evidence of Keating
might be brushed aside as an exaggeration did it stand alone, but
it does not, for in a partially effaced memorandum in the Book of
Leinster, transcribed from older books about the year 1150, we read:
"[Ernin, son of] Duach,[2] son of the king of Connacht, an ollav and
a prophet and a professor in history and a professor in wisdom; it was
he that collected the genealogies and histories of the men of Erin
into one, and that is the Cin Droma-sneachta." Now there were only two
Duachs according to our annals, one of these was great-grandson of
Niall of the Nine Hostages, and of course a pagan, who died in 379;
the other, who was an ancestor of the O'Flaherties, died one hundred
and twenty years later. It was Duach the pagan, whose second son was
Ernin; the other had only one son, whose name was Senach. If O'Curry
has read the half-effaced word correctly, then the book may have been,
as Keating says it was, written before St. Patrick's coming, and it
contained, as the various references to it show, a _repertoire_ of
genealogies collected by the son of a man who died in 379; this man,
too, being great-grandson of that Niall of the Nine Hostages in whose
son so large a number of the Eremonian genealogies converge.[3]
There are many considerations which lead me to believe that Irish
genealogical books were kept from the earliest introduction of the art
of writing, and kept with greater accuracy, perhaps, than any other
records of the past whatsoever. The chiefest of these is the well-known
fact that, under the tribal system, no one possessed lawfully any
portion of the soil inhabited by his tribe if he were not of the
same race with his chief. Consequently even those of lowest rank in
the tribe traced and recorded their pedigree with as much care as
did the highest, for "it was from his own genealogy each man of the
tribe, poor as well as rich, held the charter of his civil state, his
right of property in the cantred in which he was born."[4] All these
genealogies were entered in the local books of each tribe and were
preserved in the verses of the hereditary poets. There was no incentive
to action among the early Irish so stimulative as a remembrance of
their pedigree. It was the same among the Welsh, and probably among all
tribes of Celtic blood. We find the witty but unscrupulous Giraldus, in
the twelfth century, saying of his Welsh countrymen that every one of
them, even of the common people, observes the genealogy of his race,
and not only knows by heart his grandfathers and great-grandfathers,
but knows all his ancestors up to the sixth or seventh generation,[5]
or even still further, and promptly repeats his genealogy as Rhys, son
of Griffith, son of Rhys, son of Teudor, etc.[6]
The poet, Cuan O'Lochain, who died in the year 1024, gives a long
account of the Saltair of Tara now lost, the compilation of which he
ascribes to Cormac mac Art, who came to the throne in 227,[7] and
in which he says the synchronisms and chronology of all the kings
were written. The Book of Ballymote too quotes from an ancient book,
now lost, called the Book of the Uachongbhail, to the effect that
"the synchronisms and genealogies and succession of their kings and
monarchs, their battles, their contests, and their antiquities from
the world's beginning down to that time were written in it, and this is
the Saltair of Tara, which is the origin and fountain of the historians
of Erin from that period down to this time." This may not be convincing
proof that Cormac mac Art wrote the Saltair, but it is convincing proof
that what were counted as the very earliest books were filled with
genealogies.
The subject of tribal genealogy upon which the whole social fabric
depended was far too important to be left without a check in the hands
of tribal historians, however well-intentioned. And this check was
afforded by the great convention or Féis, which took place triennially
at Tara,[8] whither the historians had to bring their books that under
the scrutiny of the jealous eyes of rivals they might be purged of
whatever could not be substantiated, "and neither law nor usage nor
historic record was ever held as genuine until it had received such
approval, and nothing that disagreed with the Roll of Tara could be
respected as truth."[9]
"It was," says Duald Mac Firbis[10]--himself the author of probably the
greatest book of genealogies ever written, speaking about the chief
tribal historians of Ireland, "obligatory on every one of them who
followed it to purify the profession"; and he adds very significantly,
"Along with these [historians] the judges of Banba [Ireland] used to
be in like manner preserving the history, _for a man could not be a
judge without being a historian_, and he is not a historian who is not
a judge in the BRETHADH NIMHEDH,[11] that is the last book in the study
of the Shanachies and of the judges themselves."
The poets and historians "were obliged to be free from theft, and
killing, and satirising, and adultery, and everything that would be
a reproach to their learning." Mac Firbis, who was the last working
historian of a great professional family, puts the matter nobly and
well.
"Any Shanachie," he says, "whether an ollav or the next in rank, or
belonging to the order at all, who did not preserve these rules, lost
half his income and his dignity according to law, and was subject to
heavy penalties besides, so that it is not to be supposed that there
is in the world a person who would not prefer to tell the truth, if he
had no other reason than the fear of God and the loss of his dignity
and his income: and it is not becoming to charge partiality upon these
elected historians [of the nation]. However, if unworthy people did
write falsehood, and attributed it to a historian, it might become a
reproach to the order of historians if they were not on their guard,
and did not look to see whether it was out of their prime books of
authority that those writers obtained their knowledge. And that is
what should be done by every one, both by the lay scholar and the
professional historian--everything of which they have a suspicion,
to look for it, and if they do not find it confirmed in good books,
to note down its doubtfulness,[12] along with it, as I myself do
to certain races hereafter in this book, and it is thus that the
historians are freed from the errors of others, should these errors be
attributed to _them_, which God forbid."
I consider it next to impossible for any Gaelic pedigree to have been
materially tampered with from the introduction of the art of writing,
because tribal jealousies alone would have prevented it, and because
each stem of the four races was connected at some point with every
other stem, the whole clan system being inextricably intertwined, and
it was necessary for all the various tribal genealogies to agree, in
order that each branch, sub-branch, and family might fit, each in its
own place.
I have little doubt that the genealogy of O'Neill, for instance, which
traces him back to the father of Niall of the Nine Hostages who came
to the throne in 356 is substantially correct. Niall, it must be
remembered, was father of Laoghaire [Leary], who was king when St.
Patrick arrived, by which time, if not before, the art of writing was
known in Ireland. _À fortiori_, then, we may trust the pedigrees of the
O'Donnells and the rest who join that stem a little later on.
If this be acknowledged we may make a cautious step or two backwards.
No one, so far as I know, has much hesitation in acknowledging the
historic character of that King Laoghaire whom St. Patrick confronted,
nor of his father Niall of the Nine Hostages. But if we go so far, it
wants very little to bring us in among the Fenians themselves, and
the scenes connected with them and with Conn of the Hundred Battles;
for Niall's great-grandfather was that Fiachaidh who was slain by the
Three Collas--those who burnt Emania and destroyed the Red Branch--and
his father is Cairbré of the Liffey, who overthrew the Fenians, and
his father again is the great Cormac son of Art, son of Conn of the
Hundred Battles who divided the kingdom with Owen Mór. But it is from
the three grandsons of this Owen Mór the Eberians come, and from their
half-brother come the Ithians, so that up to this point I think Irish
genealogies may be in the main accepted. Even the O'Kavanaghs and their
other correlations, who do not join the stem of Eremon till between
500 or 600 years before Christ, yet pass through Enna Cennsalach, king
of Leinster, a perfectly historical character mentioned several times
in the Book of Armagh,[13] who slew the father of Niall of the Nine
Hostages; and I believe that, however we may account for the strange
fact that these septs join the Eremonian stem so many hundreds of
years before the O'Neills and the others, that up to this point their
genealogy too may be trusted.
If this is the case, and if it is true that every Gael belonging to
the Free Clans of Ireland could trace his pedigree with accuracy back
to the fourth, third, or even second century, it affords a strong
support to Irish history, and in my opinion considerably heightens
the credibility of our early annals, and renders the probability that
Finn mac Cool and the Red Branch heroes were real flesh and blood,
enormously greater than before. It will also put us on our guard
against quite accepting such sweeping generalisations as those of
Skene, when he says that the entire legendary history of Ireland prior
to the establishment of Christianity in the fifth century partakes
largely of a purely artificial character. We must not forget that
while no Irish genealogy is traced to the De Danann tribes, who were
undoubtedly gods, yet the ancestor of the Dalcassians--Cormac Cas,
Oilioll Olum's son--is said to have married Ossian's daughter.
[1] _See_ Haliday's "Keating," p. 215.
[2] See p. 15 of O'Curry's MS. Materials. There was some doubt in his
mind about the words in brackets, but as the sheets of his book were
passing through the press he took out the MS. for another look on a
particularly bright day, the result of which left him no doubt that he
had read the name correctly.
[3] For a typical citation of this book see p. 28 of O'Donovan's
"Genealogy of the Corca Laidh," in the "Miscellany of the Celtic
Society."
[4] _See_ "Celtic Miscellany," p. 144, O'Donovan's tract on Corca Laidh.
[5] "Generositatem vero et generis nobilitatem præ rebus omnibus magis
appetunt. Unde et generosa conjugia plus longe capiunt quam sumptuosa
vel opima. Genealogiam quoque generis sui etiam de populo quilibet
observat, et non solum, avos, atavos, sed usque ad sextam vel septimam
et ultra procul generationem, memoriter et prompte genus enarrat in
hunc modum Resus filius Griffini filii Resi filii Theodori, filii
Aeneæ, filii Hoeli filii Cadelli filii Roderici magni et sic deinceps.
"Genus itaque super omnia diligunt, et damna sanguinis atque dedecoris
ulciscuntur. Vindicis enim animi sunt et iræ cruentæ nec solum novas
et recentes injurias verum etiam veteres et antiquas velut instanter
vindicare parati" ("Cambriæ Descriptio," Cap. XVII.).
[6] O'Donovan says--I forget where--that he had tested in every part of
Ireland how far the popular memory could carry back its ancestors, and
found that it did not reach beyond the seventh generation.
[7] According to the "Four Masters"; in 213, according to Keating.
[8] But see O'Donovan's introduction to "The Book of Rights," where he
adduces some reasons for believing that it may have been a septennial
not a triennial convocation.
[9] _See_ Keating's History under the reign of Tuathal Teachtmhar.
[10] In the seventeenth century. His book on genealogies would, O'Curry
computed, fill 1,300 pages of the size of O'Donovan's "Four Masters."
[11] This was a very ancient law book, which is quoted at least a dozen
times in Cormac's Glossary, made in the ninth or tenth century.
[12] Thus quaintly expressed in the original, for which see O'Curry's
MS. Materials, p. 576: "muna ffaghuid dearbhtha iar ndeghleabhraibh é,
a chuntabhairt fén do chur re a chois."
[13] _See_ pp. 102, 113 of Father Hogan's "Documenta de S. Patricio ex
Libro Armachano," where he is called Endae. He persecuted Cuthbad's
three sons, "fosocart endae cennsalach fubîthin creitme riacâch," but
Patrick is said to have baptized his son, "Luid iarsuidiu cucrimthan
maccnêndi ceinnselich et ipse creditit."