EARLY IRISH CIVILISATION
It has been frequently assumed, especially by English writers, that the
pre-historic Irish, because of their remoteness from the Continent,
must have been ruder, wilder, and more uncivilised than the inhabitants
of Great Britain. But such an assumption is--to say nothing of our
literary remains--in no way borne out by the results of archæological
research. The contrary rather appears to be the case, that in point of
wealth, artistic feeling, and workmanship, the Irish of the Bronze Age
surpassed the inhabitants of Great Britain.
When we read such accounts as that, for example, in the Book of
Ballymote, of Cormac mac Art, taking his seat at the assembly in
Tara, all covered with gold and jewels, we must not set it down to
the perfervid imagination of the chronicler without first consulting
what Irish archæology has to say upon the point. The appearance of
Cormac (king of Ireland in the third century, and perhaps greatest
of pre-Christian monarchs), is thus described. "Beautiful," says the
writer, quoting probably from ancient accounts now lost, "was the
appearance of Cormac in that assembly, flowing and slightly curling
was his golden hair. A red buckler with stars and animals of gold and
fastenings of silver upon him. A crimson cloak in wide descending
folds around him, fastened at his neck with precious stones. A torque
of gold around his neck. A white shirt with a full collar, and
intertwined with red gold thread upon him. A girdle of gold, inlaid
with precious stones, was around him. Two wonderful shoes of gold,
with golden loops upon his feet. Two spears with golden sockets in his
hands, with many rivets of red bronze. And he was himself, besides,
symmetrical and beautiful of form, without blemish or reproach."
The abundance of gold ornament which Cormac is here represented as
wearing, is no mere imagination of the writer's. It is founded upon the
undoubted fact that of all countries in the West of Europe Ireland was
pre-eminent for its wealth in gold. How much wealthier was Ireland than
Great Britain may be imagined from the fact that while the collection
in the British Museum of pre-historic gold from England, Scotland,
and Wales together amounted a couple of years ago to some three dozen
ounces, that in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin weighs five hundred
and seventy ounces. And yet the collection in the Academy contains only
a small part of the gold-finds made in Ireland, for before 1861, when
the new law about treasure-trove came into force, great numbers of
gold objects are known to have been sold to the goldsmiths and melted
down. The wealth of Ireland in gold--some of it found and smelted in
the Wicklow mountains[1]--must have at an early period determined
continental trade in its direction, and we have seen that Tacitus
reported its harbours as being better known through trade than those
of Great Britain, or, on the most unfavourable reading of the passage,
as being "known by commerce and merchants."[2] This is also borne
out by archæologists. Professor Montelius, who has traced a close
connection in pre-historic times between Scandinavia and the West of
Europe,[3] regards much of the pre-historic gold found in the northern
countries as Irish. Speaking of certain gold ornaments found in Fünen,
which show, according to him, marked Irish influence, he writes:
"Gold ornaments like these have not been discovered elsewhere in
Scandinavia, while a great number of similar ornaments have been found
in the British Isles, especially in Ireland, whose wealth of gold in
the Bronze Age is amazing." Again he writes, "As certain of the gold
objects found in Denmark have been introduced demonstrably from the
British Islands, probably from Ireland, the thought is obvious--is not
a great part of the other gold objects found in Southern Scandinavia
also of Irish origin, and of the Bronze Age there?... for this island
[Ireland] was, during the Bronze Age, one of the lands of Europe
richest in gold." "No other country in Europe possesses so much
manufactured gold belonging to early and mediæval times," writes Mr.
Ernest Smith.[4]
It is true that the Irish Celts, despite their mineral wealth,
never minted coin, a want which has been adduced to prove a lack of
civilisation on their part. But, as Mr. Coffey points out, coinage
is a comparatively late invention; the Egyptians--for all their
civilisation--never possessed a native coinage, and even such ancient
trading cities as Carthage and Gades did not strike coins until a
late period. "A little reflection," says Professor Ridgeway, "shows
us that it has been quite possible for peoples to attain a high
degree of civilisation without feeling any need of what are properly
termed coins." "The absence of coinage," adds Mr. Coffey, "does not
necessarily imply the absence of a currency system, and Professor
Ridgeway has shown that the ancient Irish possessed a system of of
currency or values, and a standard of weights."
A most interesting paper by Mr. Johnson, a Dublin jeweller, recently
read before the Royal Irish Academy,[5] has shown with the authority
due to an expert, the marvellous skill with which the pre-historic
Irish worked their gold, and the wealth of proper appliances which they
must have possessed in order to turn out such unique and admirable
results.[6]
The workmanship of Irish bronze articles is also very fine, and fully
equal to that of Britain, while Greenwell considers their clay urns
and food-vessels superior to the British. In Ireland he says the urns,
"and especially the food vessels, are of better workmanship, and more
elaborately and tastefully ornamented than in most parts of Britain.
Many of the food vessels found in Argyleshire, and in other districts
in the Southwest of Scotland, as might be perhaps expected, are very
Irish in character, and may claim to be equally fine in taste and
delicate in workmanship with those of Ireland."[7]
The brilliant appearance of Cormac mac Art when presiding over the
assembly at Tara, covered with gold and jewels, receives enhanced
credibility from the proofs of early Irish wealth and culture that
I have just adduced. Let us glance at Tara itself, as it existed in
the time of Cormac, and see whether archæology can throw any light
upon the ancient accounts of that royal hill. It was round this hill
that the great Féis, or assemblage of the men of all Ireland, took
place triennially,[8] with a threefold purpose--to promulgate laws
universally binding upon all Ireland; to test, purge, and sanction
the annals and genealogies of Ireland, in the presence of all men, so
that no untruth or flaw might creep in; and, finally, to register the
same in the great national record, in later times called the Saltair
of Tara, so that cases of disputed succession might be peacefully
settled by reference to this central authoritative volume. The session
of the men of Ireland thus convened took place on the third day before
Samhain--November day--and ended the third day after it. We are told
that Cormac, who presided over these assemblies,[9] had ten persons
in constant waiting upon his person, who hardly ever left him. These
were a prince of noble blood, a druid, a physician, a brehon, a bard,
a historian, a musician, and three stewards. And Keating tells us that
the very same arrangement was observed from Cormac's time--in the
third century--to the death of Brian Boru in the eleventh, the only
alteration being that a Christian priest was substituted for the druid.
To accommodate the chiefs and princes who came to the great Féis,
Cormac built the renowned Teach Míodhchuarta [Toch Mee-coo-ar-ta] which
was able to accommodate a thousand persons, and which was used at once
for a house of assembly, a banqueting hall, and a sleeping abode. We
have two accounts of this hall and of the other monuments of Tara,
written, the one in poetry, the other in verse, some nine hundred
years ago. The prose of the Dinnseanchus describes accurately the lie
of the building, "to the north-west of the eastern mound." "The ruins
of this house"--it lay in ruins then as now--"are thus situated: the
lower part to the north and the higher part to the south; and walls are
raised about it to the east and to the west. The northern side of it
is enclosed and small, the lie of it is north and south. It is in the
form of a long house with twelve doors upon it, or fourteen, seven to
the west and seven to the east. This was the great house of a thousand
soldiers."[10] Keating, following his ancient authorities, graphically
describes the Tara assembly.
"The nobles," he writes, "both territorial lords and captains of
bands of warriors, were each man of them, always attended by his own
proper shield-bearer. Again their banquet-halls were arranged in the
following manner, to wit, they were long narrow buildings with tables
arranged along both the opposite walls of the hall; then along these
side walls there was placed a beam, in which were fixed numerous hooks
(one over the seat destined for each of the nobles), and between
every two of them there was but the breadth of one shield. Upon these
hooks the shanachy hung up the shields of the nobles previously to
their sitting down to the banquet, at which they all, both lords and
captains, sat each beneath his own shield. However, the most honoured
side of the house was occupied by the territorial lords, whilst the
captains of warriors[11] were seated opposite to them at the other.
The upper end of the hall was the place of the ollavs, while the lower
end was assigned to the attendants and the officers in waiting. It was
also prescribed that no man should be placed opposite another at the
same table, but that all, both territorial lords and captains, should
sit with their backs towards the wall, beneath their own shields.
Again, they never admitted females into their banquet-halls; these
had a hall of their own in which they were separately served. It was
likewise the prescribed usage to clear out the banquet-hall previous
to serving the assembled nobles therein. And no one was allowed to
remain in the building but three, namely, a Shanachy and a _bolsgaire_
[marshal or herald], and a trumpeter, the duty of which latter officer
was to summon all the guests to the banquet-hall by the sound of his
trumpet-horn. He had to sound his horn three times. At the first
blast the shield-bearers of the territorial chieftains assembled
round the door of the hall, where the marshal received from them the
shields of their lords, which he then, according to the directions
of the shanachy, hung up each in its assigned place. The trumpeter
then sounded his trumpet a second time, and the shield-bearers of
the chieftains of the military bands assembled round the door of the
banquet-hall, where the marshal received their lords' shields from
them also, and hung them up at the other side of the hall according to
the orders of the shanachy, and over the table of the warriors. The
trumpeter sounded his trumpet the third time, and thereupon both the
nobles and the warrior chiefs entered the banquet-hall, and then each
man sat down beneath his own shield, and thus were all contests for
precedency avoided amongst them."
These accounts of the Dinnseanchus and of Keating, taken from
authorities now lost, will be likely to receive additional credit when
we know that the statements made nine hundred years ago, when Tara
had even then lain in ruins for four centuries, have been verified in
every essential particular by the officers of the Ordnance Survey. The
statement in the Dinnseanchus made nearly nine hundred years ago that
there were either six or seven doors on each side, shows the condition
into which Tara had then fallen, one on each side being so obliterated
that now, also, it is difficult to say whether it was a door or not.
The length of the hall, according to Petrie's accurate measurements,
was _seven hundred and sixty feet_, and its breadth was nearly ninety.
There was a double row of benches on each side, running the entire
length of the hall, which would give four rows of men if we remember
that the guests were all seated on the same side of the tables, and
allowing the ample room of three feet to each man, this would just
give accommodation to a thousand. In the middle of the hall, running
down all the way between the benches, there was a row of fires, and
just above each fire was a spit descending from the roof, at which the
joints were roasted. There is a ground plan of the building, in the
Book of Leinster, and the figure of a cook is rudely drawn with his
mouth open, and a ladle in his hand to baste the joint. The king sat at
the southern end of the hall, and the servants and retainers occupied
the northern.
The banqueting-hall and all the other buildings at Tara were of
wood, nor is the absence of stone buildings in itself a proof of low
civilisation, since, in a country like Ireland, abounding in timber,
wood could be made to answer every purpose--as in point of fact it
does at this day over the greater part of America, and in all northern
countries where forests are numerous.[12] All or most Irish houses,
down to the period of the Danish invasions, were constructed of wood,
or of wood and clay mixed, or of clay and unmortared stones, and their
strongholds were of wooden pallisades planted upon clay earth-works.
This is the reason why so few remains of pre-historic buildings
have come down to us, but it is no reason for believing that, as in
Cormac's banquet-hall, rude palatial effects were not often produced.
An interesting poem in the Dialogue of the Sages, from the Book of
Lismore, describes the house of the Lady Credé, said to have been a
contemporary of Finn mac Cúmhail in the third century.[13] Though the
poem may not itself be very old, it no doubt embodies many ancient
truths, and is worth quoting from. A poet comes to woo the lady, and
brings this poem with him. Finn accompanies him. When they reached her
fortress "girls, yellow-haired, of marriageable age, showed on the
balconies of her bowers." The poet sang to her--
"Happy is the house in which she is
Between men and children and women,
Between druids and musical performers,
Between cupbearers and doorkeepers.[14]
Between equerries without fear,
And distributors who divide [the fare],
And, over all these, the command belongs
To Credé of the yellow hair.
* * * * *
The colour [of her house] is like the colour of lime,
Within it are couches and green rushes (?)
Within it are silks and blue mantles,
Within it are red, gold, and crystal cups.
Of its many chambers the corner stones,
Are all of silver and yellow gold,
In faultless stripes its thatch is spread,
Of wings of brown, and of crimson red.
Two door posts of green I see,
Door not devoid of beauty,
Of carved silver, long has it been renowned,
In the lintel that is over the door.
Credé's chair is on your left hand,
The pleasantest of the pleasant it is,
All over, a blaze[15] of Alpine gold
At the foot of her beautiful couch.
A splendid couch in full array
Stands directly above the chair;
It was made by _Tuile_ in the East,
Of yellow gold and precious stones.
There is another bed on your right hand
Of gold and silver without defect,
With curtains with soft [pillows],
With graceful rods of golden-bronze.
An hundred feet spans Credé's house
From one angle to the other,
And twenty feet are fully measured
In the breadth of its noble door.
Its portico is covered, too,
With wings of birds, both yellow and blue,
Its lawn in front and its well
Of crystal and of Carmogel."
The houses of the ancient Irish were either like Cormac's
banqueting-hall and Credé's house, built quadrilaterally of felled
trees or split planks planted upright in the earth, and thatched
overhead, or else, as was most usually the case, they were cylindrical
and made of wickerwork, with a cup-shaped roof, plastered with clay
and whitewashed. The magnificent dimensions of Cormac's palace,
verified as they are by the careful measurements of the Ordnance
Survey--a palace certainly erected in pagan times, since Tara was
deserted for ever about the year 550--bear evidence, like our wealth of
beautifully-wrought gold ornaments, and the superior workmanship of our
surviving articles of bronze and clay, to a high degree of civilisation
and culture amongst the pre-Christian Irish; I have here adduced them
as bearing indirect evidence in favour of the probability that a people
so civilised would have been likely to have seized on the invention of
writing when they first came in contact with it, and would have kept
their annals and genealogies all the more accurately from the very fact
that they were evidently so advanced in other matters.
[1] In the Irish Annals gold is said to have been first smelted in
Leinster. As late as the last century native gold was discovered on
the confines of Wicklow and Wexford, and nuggets of 22, 18, 9, and
7 ounces are recorded as having been found there. Mr. Coffey quotes
a most interesting account by a Mr. Weaver, director of the works
established there by the Irish Government before the Union to look for
gold. "The discovery of native gold in Ballinvally stream, at Croghan
Kinshella," says Mr. Weaver, "was at first kept secret, but being
divulged, almost the whole population of the immediate neighbourhood
flocked in to gather so rich a harvest, actually neglecting at the
time the produce of their own fields. This happened about the autumn
of the year 1796, when several hundreds of people might be seen daily
assembled digging and searching for gold in the banks and bed of the
stream. Considerable quantities were thus collected; this being as
it subsequently proved the most productive spot; and the populace
remained in undisturbed possession of the place for nearly six weeks,
when Government determined to commence active operations.... Regular
stream works were soon established, and up to the unhappy time of the
rebellion in May, 1798, when the works were destroyed, Government had
been fully reimbursed its advances; the produce of the undertaking
having defrayed its own expenses and left a surplus in hand." The total
amount of gold collected from this place in the last hundred years
is valued at about £30,000. This particular spot had been probably
overlooked, as Mr. Coffey remarks, by the searchers of earlier days,
but no doubt other auriferous streams in the Wicklow mountains had
given up their gold long since in pre-historic times to the ancient
workers. (_See_ Coffey's "Origins of Pre-historic Ornament in Ireland,"
p. 40.) Dr. Frazer, on the other hand, does not believe that any great
part of the gold found in Ireland is indigenous, and talks of Spain and
South Russia, and gold plundered from Britain. But if this be the case,
what an enormous pre-historic trade Ireland must have carried on, or
what a powerful invader she must have been to come by such quantities
of gold! (_See_ Dr. Frazer's paper in R.I.A. Proceedings, May, 1896).
He has since supplemented this by another in the Journal of the Royal
Society of Antiquaries in which he leans to the opinion that the Roman
_aurei_, the coins plundered from the Britons, were the real source of
Irish gold.
[2] See above, ch. II, note 11.
[3] "Verbindungen zwischen Skandinavien und dem westlichen Europa vor
Christi Geburt" ("Archiv für Anthropologie," vol. xix., quoted by Mr.
George Coffey in his "Origins of Pre-historic Ornament in Ireland," p.
63).
[4] "Notes on the Composition of Ancient Irish Gold and Silver
Ornaments," by Ernest A. Smith, Assoc. R.S.M., F.C.S., Royal School of
Mines, London, R. I. A. Transactions, May, 1896.
[5] "Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy," May, 1896. The tools and
appliances necessary for producing the fine gold fibulæ of a private
collector, which Mr. Johnson examined, would be, he says, "a furnace,
charcoal, crucible, mould for ingot, flux, bellows, several hammers,
anvil, swage anvil, swages, chisels for ornament, sectional tool for
producing concentric rings." On one of them, he says, "there is a
thickened edge and a beautiful moulded ornament on the outer side only,
which quite puzzles one as to how it was produced without suggesting
what are considered to be modern tools."
[6] A splendid find of gold ornaments made last year near the
estuary of the Foyle river, of a golden model of a boat, evidently a
votive offering, fitted with seat, mast, oars, and punting poles, an
exquisitely-wrought gold collar, decorated in relief with the most
beautiful embossed work, torques, neckchains, etc., has been dated from
internal evidences as work of the second century, the neck-chains being
clearly provincial Roman work of that date. It is to be regretted that
these exquisite articles have found their way to the British Museum,
where they will be practically lost, instead of being added to the
unique Irish collection in Dublin, to which they properly belong.
[7] Greenwell's "British Barrows," p. 62, quoted by Coffey.
[8] O'Donovan, in his preface to "The Book of Rights," gives some
reasons for believing that it may have been held only septennially.
[9] _See_ the Forus Feasa, p. 354 of O'Mahony's translation.
[10] _See_ Petrie's "Antiquities of Tara Hill," p. 129.
[11] This seems a plain allusion to the Fenians, believed in Ireland to
have been Cormac's militia.
[12] Bede mentions, if I remember rightly--I forget where--a church
built in the north of Britain, _more Scotorum, robore secto,_ "of
cleft oak, in the Irish fashion." The Columban churches were also of
wood and wattles, contemporaneous with which were the beehive cells
of uncemented stone, probably less warm and less comfortable than the
thatched houses. "Ce que nous savons des anciens édifices irlandais,"
says M. Jubainville, "donne le droit d'affirmer que la plupart des
constructions élevées à Emain macha [_i.e._, Emania, the capital
of Ulster, and of the Red Branch heroes, two miles west of Armagh]
pendant le période épique de l'histoire d'Irlande, ont dû être en bois;
cependant il y avait été employé au moins quelques pierres." Angus the
Culdee has a noble verse relating to the stones of Emania, the finest,
perhaps, in the whole Saltair na rann, "Emania's palace has vanished,
yet its stones still remain, but the Rome of the western world is now
Glendaloch of the gatherings," "is Ruam iarthair beatha Gleann dalach
dá locha."
[13] _See_ "Silva Gadelica," p. 111, and O'Curry's MS. Materials, p.
595.
[14]
Aibhinn in tech in atá,
Idir fira is maca is mná,
Idir dhruidh ocus aes ceóil,
Idir dhailiumh is dhoirseoir.
[15] Thus O'Curry translates _casair_ as if he had taken it to be
_lasair_. O'Grady translates "an overlay of Elpa's gold."