In our early literature there are many traces of an abiding tradition
that already before St. Patrick's mission there were Christians and
small Christian communities here and there in Ireland. Some of the
statements, especially as to the founders of certain sees, have been
discredited, being imputed to a desire to make out that these sees,
alleged to have been founded before St. Patrick's time, were therefore
independent of the jurisdiction and claims of Armagh, especially of
the temporal claims for revenue. It was claimed in particular for St.
Ailbhe and St. Iubhar, of the see of Emly, St. Declan of Ardmore, and
St. Ciarán of Saighir that they were already bishops in St. Patrick's
time. These things are stated in documents in which other things are
said that cannot be reconciled with historical fact. The date of St.
Iubhar's death, according to the Annals of Ulster, was 500, 501, or
504; of St. Ailbhe's, 534, or 542; and SS. Ciarán and Declan are both
said to have lived into the sixth century. Saint Iubhar appears to
have been the earliest of them and there is evidence that he received
episcopal consecration at the hands of St. Patrick. The case, however,
does not rest wholly or mainly on such unstable premises.
The genealogists of Corcu Loegdae, or Dáirine, claim that the people
of that state were the first in Ireland to receive Christianity; and
the claim at all events cannot be dismissed on the ground of
improbability. The diocese of Ross appears to represent the extent of
this little state in the twelfth century, but in earlier times its
territory covered a much larger area. Dwelling around several good
havens, which were most favourably situated in relation to the old
Atlantic trade route, the people were always a sea-going people. We
read of an O'Driscoll at the head of his fleet attacking the English
of Waterford. One of their chiefs takes his distinctive byname from
Gascony, another from Bordeaux. Thomas Davis's spirited ballad on the
Sack of Baltimore brings home to our minds how direct hostile
relations could exist between this region and the Mediterranean; and
where such hostile relations were possible, trade relations may be
taken as normal. It is by no means unlikely, then, that where the
Crescent could come on pirate galleys from Algiers, the Cross might
well have come in some early merchant ship from the Loire or the
Garonne.
St. Patrick himself, in his Confession, seems to testify by
implication to the existence not merely of individual Christians but
of Christian communities with their clergy in and before his time in
Ireland. "For your sake," he writes, "I have faced many dangers, going
even to the limits of the land where no one was before me, and whither
no one had yet come to baptise or ordain clergy or confirm the
faithful." This surely implies that there were places in Ireland, not
in the remoter parts, places where some had come before Patrick and
had performed the purely episcopal functions of ordination and
confirmation.
More definite still is the evidence of Prosper's Chronicle--direct
testimony, for the chronicler was in Rome at the time. Under the year
431, the chronicle has this entry: "To the Scots believing in Christ,
having been ordained by Pope Celestine, Palladius is sent as first
bishop." The natural interpretation of this statement, I think, is
that some Irish Christians sent a request to Rome to have a bishop
sent to them. The mission was considered an important one, for
Palladius, before his consecration as bishop, held a high
ecclesiastical office at Rome. He had also interested himself in the
religious concerns of Britain, having induced Pope Celestine two years
earlier to send a special mission to Britain to counteract the
teachings of a Pelagian bishop. In another work, St. Prosper refers to
these two missions together. Pope Celestine, he writes, "while he
laboured to keep the Roman island (_i.e._ Britain) Catholic, also, by
ordaining a bishop for the Scots, made the barbarous island
Christian"--barbarous meaning external to the Roman Empire. Even this
does not necessarily imply that before Palladius there were no bishops
in Ireland, but it does imply that these particular "Irish believing
in Christ," to whom Palladius was sent, had no bishop in communion
with Rome.
Pelagius, the author of the Pelagian heresy, was, according to St.
Jerome, a man "of the Irish nation, from the vicinity of the Britons,"
and St. Jerome again, in his vigorous style, speaks of Pelagius as one
"swelled out with the porridge of the Irish." Other contemporary
witnesses say that Pelagius was a Briton. This leaves us in doubt,
for, on the one hand, these may have applied the term Briton to anyone
from any part of the Pretanic islands, and on the other hand, St.
Jerome's language about Pelagius is the language of rhetorical
depreciation, and from what I have quoted from him in the foregoing
lecture, we may perhaps judge that by calling Pelagius a Scot, he
thought the more effectually to discredit him. The known career of
Pelagius lies between the years 398 and 418. One thing comes out
clearly enough from the contemptuous phrase--the Irish were known
abroad in St. Jerome's time as eaters of porridge.
The late Professor Zimmer, finding a somewhat obscure early reference
to the flight of learned people from Gaul during the Gothic and
Frankish invasions and to their finding a place of refuge in another
country, founded on this an interesting theory regarding the early
stages of Christianity and letters in Ireland. It was in Ireland, he
contends, that the refugees found a home, for Ireland was the only
land in Western Europe that escaped the Germanic invasions. To Ireland
they brought with them a certain devotion to the ancient literatures
of Greece and Rome. The limits of date for this learned migration,
according to Zimmer, are the years 419 and 507, and he holds that it
actually took place about midway between those dates, _i.e._, about
the middle of the fifth century.
To make this theory of a learned migration from Western Gaul to
Ireland more easily accepted, Zimmer gives a valuable collection of
facts in historical evidence, showing that there was a regular course
of trade between the two countries at this time and for centuries
before and after it.
Zimmer applies his theory to the explanation of certain remarkable
facts. In the first place, he explains by it the pre-eminence in the
knowledge of Latin and Greek that belonged in the following age to
Irishmen and the pupils of Irishmen. Secondly, he explains by it the
reference made by St. Patrick in his Confession to certain critics who
despised his rusticity, _i.e._, his want of a classical grounding in
Latin. St. Patrick calls these critics "rhetoricians," a term which
certainly seems to imply that they belonged to a professional academic
set. Zimmer thinks that these "rhetoricians" were some of the learned
refugees from Western Gaul. A third fact which Zimmer explains by his
migration theory is the fondness of the early Irish poets and
grammarians for certain artificial super-refinements of language and
grammar, and in particular for the production of a learned jargon in
Irish by making deliberate changes in the form of words, substituting
one letter for another, and adding, transforming or removing letters
or syllables. This trait, he argues, was adopted from a certain
learned school of Aquitaine, who played similar tricks with Latin, and
produced by such means not one but a dozen Latin jargons; and Zimmer
goes so far as to insist that the supposed Irish poet-grammarian who
is named "Fercertne the Poet" was actually and personally identical
with one of the chief exponents of this artificial Latinity, Virgilius
Grammaticus.
The difficulties I find in accepting this theory of Zimmer are chiefly
two. The first is that Zimmer, when he set out to establish a novel
theory, was quite as ingenious in weaving an argument as Virgilius
Grammaticus could be in concocting a Latin jargon. My second
difficulty is that, if such a school of foreign Latinists existed in
Ireland in St. Patrick's time, I cannot understand why neither the
school itself nor any individual belonging to it is mentioned in any
Irish document. St. Patrick does not say that his critics lived in
Ireland.
On the other hand, in a passage which Zimmer has not noted, there is
reference to a high degree of Christian learning in Ireland possibly
as early as St. Patrick's time. It is in a letter on the Paschal
controversy written by St. Columbanus of Bobbio within the years 595
to 600. It may be remarked that St. Columbanus writes in a remarkably
pure Latin style, founded on good sound Latin teaching, and in no way
reflecting the ingenuities and puerilities of the Aquitanian school.
He is speaking expressly in this letter about the chronological system
devised by Victorius of Aquitaine, who flourished in the middle of the
fifth century. "Victorius," he writes, "was regarded with indulgence,
not to say contempt, by our masters and by the ancient Irish
philosophers." Here, in the last years of the sixth century, we find
an Irishman placing a higher value on the Christian learning of
"ancient Irish philosophers" than on that of a noted Aquitanian
scholar.
I do not propose here to deal with the life and work of St. Patrick.
Let me escape with the apology made by the writer of the Irish
Nennius: "It would be carrying water to a lake, to relate the wonders
of Patrick to the Men of Ireland."
Let the beginnings of letters and literature in Ireland now occupy our
attention. Cæsar's testimony will be remembered in regard of the Celts
in Gaul: "They make use of Greek letters in almost all their affairs,
both public and private." This use of the Greek alphabet is
corroborated by the fact that the oldest Celtic inscriptions in Gaul
are in Greek characters. The accompanying sculptures also demonstrate
Greek influence. This influence radiated, no doubt, from the early
Greek colony of Massilia or Massalia (Marseille) and its daughter
colonies along the Mediterranean coast. It extended as far as to the
Helvetii in the modern Switzerland, among whose spoils Cæsar captured
a census of the entire people written out in Greek characters. On the
other hand, the Cisalpine Gauls in Northern Italy used the Etruscan
alphabet, from which the Roman alphabet was also in part derived, and
a number of their inscriptions in the Etruscan characters have been
discovered.
We can trace no such early use of the alphabet in Britain or Ireland.
The earliest known use of letters in Britain appears to be in the
coinage of the sons of Commius.
Tacitus has told us that the states of Britain were governed, not by
kings, but by nobles and factions--just as Rome was governed in the
later centuries of the Republic. In Gaul also there were no kings. It
is interesting to examine how, in the period between the temporary
invasions of Britain by Julius Cæsar and the permanent Roman conquest
of southern Britain about a century later, a people of the southern
seaboard happen to have kings, and these kings happen to have a
coinage inscribed after the Roman fashion.
One of the Belgic States that had an offshoot in Britain was that of
the Atrebates close to the Straits of Dover. The town of Arras
preserves their name. In Britain, they were settled in the valley of
the Thames and their chief place was Calleva, now Silchester in the
north of Hampshire. Cæsar took a special interest in the Atrebates,
perhaps for the two reasons, that their territory was so near to
Britain and that a part of their people were settled in Britain. In
the early and insecure stages of his conquest of Gaul, he did not find
it practicable to establish at once the Roman form of government.
Instead he adopted a device which had already succeeded in the case of
the Galatian republic in Asia. The Romans changed Galatia into a
monarchy under a Galatian king Deiotaros, believing that they would
secure their own authority more effectually by making one of the
Galatians, so to speak, their chief policeman. A son and grandson of
Deiotaros succeeded him as kings, and after these Augustus abolished
this appearance of autonomy and made Galatia a Roman province under
Roman governors. Cæsar, having overcome the resistance of the
Atrebates on the Continent, appointed one of themselves, Commius, a
noble of great influence, to be their king. Commius, he tells us, was
a man both courageous and politic, and he considered him loyal. He
afterwards used Commius as his intermediary in treating with the
Britons, and through him received the submission of Cassivellaunus,
whom the Britons had chosen to command their forces. After this
service, Cæsar freed Commius from tribute, restored the rights and
laws of his people and gave him sovereignty also over the Morini, a
neighbouring state on the Belgic seaboard. In the sixth year of
Cæsar's command, B.C. 53, a wide revolt of the Gallic states took
place, and this time Commius took the side of his fellow-countrymen
and was one of the four chiefs to whom they committed the principal
charge of the war. In the suppression of the revolt, Commius was one
of the last to hold out. He called in the help of the Germans, and
when all failed, he took refuge among the Germans. Hirtius, the
continuator of Cæsar's narrative, relates how Labienus, one of Cæsar's
generals, considered that, in view of the disloyalty of Commius and
his entering into conspiracy to revolt, it would be no perfidy to have
him done away. Accordingly he sent one Volusenus to him in the guise
of an envoy but with private instructions to have Commius murdered.
The plot failed, and Commius declared that he would never again
consent to speak to any Roman. He continued the war, and had the
satisfaction of once meeting and wounding the treacherous envoy
Volusenus in single combat. At last he was forced to submit upon terms
and to give hostages, but even in his submission he made it a
condition that he would not be required to hold direct intercourse
with any Roman. He seems to have taken refuge finally in Britain.
Under the rule of Commius over the Atrebates, coins were struck
bearing his name in its Celtic spelling Commios, but in Roman
lettering, probably about the earliest examples of the use of the
Roman alphabet in northern Gaul. Three of his sons appear to have
reigned as kings in southern Britain, where, as already said, a colony
of their people the Atrebates was settled. Their names, Tincius (or
Tincommius), Eppillus, and Verica or Virica, are on numerous coins
found in the south-east and middle south of England. One of these
coins bears the name of Calleva, chief place of the Atrebates in
Britain, now Silchester. The coins are inscribed with Roman letters,
the name of Eppillus has already exchanged a Celtic for a Latin ending
in the nominative, and the letters R and F, abbreviations for the
Latin _rex_ and _filius_, appear on most of the coins. In this way the
Latin alphabet found a foothold in Britain about the beginning of the
Christian era.
No use of letters nearly so early can be traced in Ireland. When Irish
traditions began to be written, the Ogham alphabet was thought to be
of remote antiquity, its invention being ascribed to the eponymous god
Ogma. This god is apparently identical with the Gaulish Ogmios, a god
of eloquence, about whom there is a remarkable passage in the Greek
writer Lucian. In the story of Táin Bó Cuailngi, Cú Chulainn cuts a
message in Ogham on a branch and sets it up in the middle of a ford
for his approaching enemies to read. Nevertheless, I think that the
use of Ogham characters cannot be quite as old as the Cú Chulainn
period. I see two reasons for thinking so. The first is that the Ogham
alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet. The second is that, if the
Irish god Ogma mac Eladan ("son of science") is to be identified in
any way with the Gaulish Ogmios, god of eloquence,--and it seems
impossible to dissociate them--then the name of the god must have come
into the Irish language at a very late date before the use of writing.
Philologists tell us that, when _g_ was followed by _m_ in the early
unrecorded stage of the Irish language, _g_ disappeared, and the
preceding vowel, if short, was lengthened "by compensation," as it is
called. Accordingly, an ancient name _Ogmios_ would be represented in
early MS. Irish by _Óme_ not _Ogme_, and in later Irish by _Uama_ or
_Uaime_ not _Oghma_.
At first sight, it may appear too much to say that the Ogham alphabet
was founded on the Latin alphabet. Why, let us ask, might it not have
been a quite independent invention? A little reflection will convince
us that it could not have been an independent invention. There is no
limit, practically, to the possible varieties of alphabet, _i.e._, of
graved or written symbols used to represent words. There are pictorial
systems, and derived from these the so-called hieroglyphics, systems
in which every word has a distinct syllable, systems in which each
character stands for a symbol, systems in which no vowels are written,
and systems which have distinct symbols for vowels and consonants. To
the last class belong the Greek and Latin alphabets. There are systems
in which the long and short vowels are distinguished, for example, in
Pitman's shorthand alphabet; and this is partly the case in the Greek
alphabet. The Ogham alphabet belongs to the class in which there are
distinct symbols for vowels and consonants. All its consonants but one
are found in the Latin alphabet. Except for this one, representing the
sound of _ng_ in _song_ or _sing_, it is content with the Latin
consonants, though each of them has to express two very distinct
sounds in Irish, the mute or stop sound and the spirant or "aspirate"
as it is popularly called. Lastly, it has the five Latin vowels,
without distinction of long or short. Hence its Latin origin is hardly
open to question. Until Cæsar's time, the Greek, not the Latin,
alphabet was in use among the Gauls, the nearest people to Ireland by
whom writing was then used. The Ogham alphabet and the Latin alphabet
differ, generally speaking, in the same respects from the Greek
alphabet. The latter therefore cannot have furnished the Irish model.
The conclusion is that the Ogham alphabet, based on the Latin, was
devised at some time later than the introduction of the Latin alphabet
into neighbouring countries, that is to say, about the beginning of
the Christian era or some what later. It was suitable only to the
purposes for which it is known or related to have been used, _i.e._,
for brief inscriptions or brief messages or statements. It was not
suitable for the ordinary expression of written thought, for
literature in the wide sense.
The range of the use of Ogham in inscriptions outside of Ireland
corresponds to the range of Irish settlements and of Irish influence,
at the time of the collapse of the Western Empire. In general the
range is that of the Irish language at the time, but a number of Ogham
inscriptions are also found in parts of Scotland which at that time
were inhabited and ruled by the Picts. Apart from the Pictish
instances, the farthest outlying Ogham that has been discovered is
curiously enough found at Silchester, the ancient Calleva, the capital
of the Atrebates in Britain, and the place in which the coins of the
sons of Commius were struck, the coins that exhibit the earliest known
use of the Roman alphabet or of any alphabet in Britain.
The dating of the extant Ogham inscriptions is a matter of very great
difficulty, and the more closely I have attempted to examine them, the
greater the difficulty has become. I shall only say that the latest
forms of Irish names that they contain appear to be about identical in
their stage of phonetic change with the earliest forms found in Irish
writers, for example in the Life of St. Columba by Adamnanus who
quotes from older documents--probably forms of the latter part of the
sixth century. The weight of evidence, in my opinion, goes to show
that the cult of the Ogham inscriptions was mainly associated with
Paganism.
The manuscript literature of Irish does not come in a line of
continuity from the Ogham writing. The system of spelling in the
oldest specimens of MS. Irish has its basis in a British pronunciation
of Latin--that is, in Latin modified and changed as a spoken language
among the Britons during the centuries of the Roman occupation. One of
the tasks incidental to the work of St. Patrick and his helpers in
missionary work in Ireland was to give lessons in Latin to those who
were to be the future clergy of the country. Thus we read again and
again that St. Patrick wrote an alphabet for this and that
convert--alphabet in this case meaning a primer or possibly a book of
psalms--at all events a set of lessons in Latin. It is easy to show
that a similar pronunciation of Latin prevailed in the early Christian
schools of Ireland and in Britain at the same time; that this
pronunciation differed systematically from the Italian pronunciation;
that the differences represent changes which had taken place also in
the British language, though not in Irish; and that the orthography of
Old and Middle Welsh and also of Old and Middle Irish was moulded by
this modified British pronunciation of Latin. The peculiarities of
spelling produced in this way do not appear at all in the Ogham
inscriptions; and on the other hand, there are peculiarities in the
orthographic system of the Ogham inscriptions which leave no trace in
Irish MS. writing. The oldest Irish grammarians speak of the Ogham
method of writing as the Irish method and of the MS. method as the
Latin method; and they report current sayings which show that among
the early Irish Christians the use of the Irish method was regarded as
profane and even tainted with impiety--meaning, beyond doubt, that it
was closely associated in their minds with heathenism. On the other
hand the earliest specimens of written Irish are distinctively
Christian. The oldest known piece of Irish MS. writing is, or was
until recently, preserved in Cambrai and is ascribed to the seventh
century--but pieces as old or older exist in various transcripts.
In a paper on the Annals of Tigernach, I have shown that a chronicle
of the world, written in continuation of the Chronicle of Eusebius,
Jerome, and Prosper, and embodying a skeleton of Irish history, was
brought to conclusion in Ireland in the year 609. From certain
indications this chronicle would appear to have been commenced in the
closing years of the sixth century--say between 590 and 600. Part of
this chronicle is embodied in the Annals of Tigernach and in the
Annals of Ulster, and extracts from it in the Annals of Innisfallen.
What survives of it with relation to Ireland is the oldest known
history of Ireland. From its manner of dealing with Irish affairs, I
think we must conclude that even before its time, a certain body of
Irish heroic literature existed in MS. and consequently that the
writing of this literature had already begun in the course of the
sixth century. There are other evidences that during the sixth century
a blending of the old heathen lore and learned tradition with the new
Christian learning was taking place--the native schools of poets,
originally druids, becoming Christian and adopting the apparatus of
Christian learning. St. Columba, we are told, had a poet named Gemmán
for tutor, and we may be quite certain that the friendship which
Columba is said to have shown to the poets as a body in the Assembly
of Druim Ceata in 575 was not extended to a class which he associated
with heathenism.
Nevertheless, a good deal of specifically heathen practice and
teaching was preserved, more or less covertly, among the secular poets
of Ireland for centuries after St. Columba's time.
In the seventh century, writing in Irish appears to become very
common, but Adamnanus, about the beginning of the eighth century,
writing from the standpoint of Latin and Christian learning, still
speaks of his native tongue in depreciation. This sentiment did not
extend to the Irish secular school of _literati_. An old grammar of
Irish, dating in part from the seventh century, speaks of Irish as a
"choice language," and proclaims its superiority over other languages.
In the seventh century, too, new metrical forms in Irish poetry, based
on Latin hymns, make their appearance, and afterwards develop into a
varied and elaborate system of metric.
Let us now return to the political side of Irish history. I have
endeavoured to trace the stages by which the Pentarchy of the old
heroic tales became broken up and transformed into a quite different
state of things when the early Christian period is reached. The chief
agencies in this transformation were the extension of the power of the
Connacht dynasty and its branches over northern Ireland, and the rise
of the Eoghanacht dynasty in southern Ireland, with its seat at
Cashel. The growth in power of the two ascendant dynasties, those of
Tara and Cashel, is marked by a sort of colonising process. Offshoots
from each dynasty are planted in authority over petty kingdoms,
displacing or rather depressing the rulers previously in possession.
Something similar took place in later times under the Feudal system.
In virtue of the supposed Donation of Constantine, now long recognised
to have been fabulous, but accepted as genuine in the Middle Ages, the
Popes claimed temporal dominion over all the islands of the ocean. In
exercise of this temporal claim, Adrian IV conferred the lordship of
Ireland on Henry of Anjou. But in virtue of the same supposed right,
Adrian had already an immediate feudatory for Ireland in the person of
the king of Ireland--Ruaidhri. Henry thus took the place of a "mean
lord" or intermediate feudatory between the existing lord and the
overlord. Henry himself repeated this process. He granted the lordship
of Ireland to his son John, and this grant was confirmed by the Pope
then reigning, Alexander III. Sir John Gilbert has pointed out that,
had the issue of John's elder brothers survived, John would not have
become king, and the lordship of Ireland would have been separate from
and independent of the Crown of England, and subject only to the
feudal overlordship of the Pope while it lasted. The result of
granting the lordship of Ireland to Henry II was that the existing
possessor was depressed in rank, not dispossessed--this apart from the
cession of rights which Ruaidhri made to Henry by the short-lived
Treaty of Windsor.
An almost identical process was a staple part of the policy of Irish
kings from the beginning of the fourth century until the middle of the
sixteenth. Such lordships can be shown to have been created either by
Shane O'Neill or his father Conn, acting as king of Ulster. During the
whole intervening period, we can trace the same process, the creation
of mean lords, in every part of Ireland under Irish kings. In most
cases the new lord was a member of the king's family, a brother, a
son, or other near relative. A number of very clear and noteworthy
instances of this exercise of royal dominion by Irish kings took place
in consequence of the Norman conquest.
Events of this kind are not recorded in the Irish annals, except in a
few instances when the exercise of power was somewhat abnormal. Since
we have now reached a point at which the annals begin to figure as
chief witnesses, some notice of the general character of the annals
will be in place. At first sight, the pages of our native chronicles
appear as a sort of trackless morass to the inquirer after Irish
history. The reason is this--the chroniclers hardly ever tell us
anything that an Irish reader of their times could be expected to know
as a matter of course. They say almost nothing about institutions or
about anything that is normal. Just as they record earthquakes,
comets, eclipses, excessive frosts or floods or droughts, but say
nothing about the normal course of the stars or the seasons, so, in
regard of human affairs, they are silent about all that is regular or
institutional, about matters of common knowledge in their time, and
they are silent also, as a rule, about the institutional aspect, so to
speak, of events which they relate. We are told, for example, that a
certain king puts a prince of his own house to death--and that is all.
From some subsidiary document we may learn that the act was a judicial
act, done after trial and sentence. Or we are told that a certain king
leads his forces against another king and how the battle went--but we
have to consult some other source to find that the action was taken in
consequence of the refusal to pay tribute according to ancient claim
and precedent.
Among the subsidiary material which helps to explain the annals, and
to give their events a place in historical sequence, the genealogies
have the highest importance. In particular, they throw a great deal of
light on the process above-mentioned, the extension of the power of
dynastic families by the creation of lordships over the head of
existing feudatories--to use a borrowed term.
An early instance of the process in question is found in an account
quoted by O'Donovan from a MS. life of St. Greallán. Maine, he tells
us, from whom the sept of Ui Maine took its name and descent, was
settled in the territory of Ui Maine by a king of Connacht in the
fifth century, dispossessing the "Firbolg" king of that district.
(This instance, by the way, further exemplifies the unity still
subsisting at that time between the different branches of the Connacht
dynasty. Maine, to whom a kingdom in Connacht was thus granted by the
king of Connacht, belonged to the Oriel branch of the royal house, a
branch which had settled in Ulster early in the preceding century.)
When O'Donovan, or the narrative which he quotes, says that the
dispossessed king was of the Fir Bolg stock, he uses the term Fir Bolg
in its late and wide application. The older possessors of the
territory were Picts. Moreover, they were depressed rather than
dispossessed, for the descendants of the ancient rulers continued to
dwell as subordinate chiefs in their old territory. The family of Ó
Mainnín, called Manning in English, is one of those descended from the
ancient Pictish rulers of this district, which comprised the southern
part of County Roscommon and the south-eastern part of County Galway.
Still earlier appropriations of this kind can be traced to the time of
Niall of the Nine Hostages, his brothers and sons. The old territory
of the Fir Domhnann in northern Connacht became Tír Fiachrach,
"Fiachra's Land," being appropriated to Fiachra, brother of Niall, and
his descendants. Another branch of Fiachra's sept become possessors of
the kingdom of Aidhne, lying between Galway Bay and the old Pictish
territory before-mentioned. From Brión or Brian, another brother of
Niall, is named Tír Briúin or Brión's Land, extending over parts of
the counties Roscommon, Leitrim and Cavan. Brion's sept, the Ui Briúin
also obtained a territory in the district of Tuam and another
territory called Umhall, around Clew Bay. From a third brother of
Niall named Ailill is named Tír Ailello, "Ailill's Land," represented
by the barony of Tirerrill in Co. Sligo. In like manner, various
territories were appropriated to sons of Niall of the Nine Hostages.
The western part of Ulster, which was not brought under conquest by
the settlement of the Airghialla, and which is now represented by
Donegal county, was partitioned among three sons of Niall, Conall,
Énda, and Eoghan, and bore afterwards their names Tír Conaill,
"Conall's Land"; Tír Énda, "Enda's Land"; and Tír Eoghain, "Eoghan's
Land." It should be noted that the original Tír Eoghain was the
peninsula now called Inis Eoghain. The country now called Tyrone was
then a part of Oriel. This settlement of the sons of Niall in western
Ulster was, however, rather by way of conquest than of grant. No
element of conquest enters into the settlements of the other sons of
Niall or of the septs descended from them.
Cairbre, or his sept, for we have no record by which the grant can be
dated, obtained that territory in the north-eastern corner of
Connacht, bordering on Ulster, which still retains his name in that of
the barony of Carbury in Co. Sligo. A second territory appropriated to
Cairbre or his sept was around Granard in Co. Longford. A third was on
the Leinster border, and it still preserves the name in that of the
barony of Carbury in the north of Co. Kildare.
Loeguire, son of Niall, who became king of Ireland, obtained, or his
near descendants obtained, a territory on the Connacht side of Loch
Erne, another in Westmeath, another in East Meath or Bregia. Maine,
son of Niall, obtained a territory on the east side of the Shannon;
Fiachu, son of Niall, a territory in Westmeath; Ardgal, a grandson of
Niall, a territory in East Meath.
It seems quite clear that no appropriations of this kind took place
before the time of Niall, the close of the fourth century. Had there
been earlier appropriations in Connacht or Meath, then there must have
been royal septs, offshoots of the Connacht-Meath dynasty, in
possession of the appropriated territories and claiming descent from
earlier kings of Connacht or Meath. Nor was this claim of descent
likely to be forgotten, for, as the Book of Rights shows, in each of
the principal group-kingdoms, the kings whose kinship to the principal
dynasty was acknowledged, were free of tribute to the principal king.
The Book of Rights shows that, except the descendants of Niall and of
his brothers, all the petty kingdoms of Connacht and Meath were
tributary to the over-kings; and the genealogies show that the ruling
families of the tributary kingdoms were as a rule of quite distinct
lineage from that of the over-kings. The natural inference from these
facts is that this process of superimposing new lords of the dominant
dynastic blood over old rulers of a different lineage begins in the
time of Niall of the Nine Hostages, about A.D. 400.
Some of the petty dynasties thus created were themselves in later
times subjected to the same process and reduced to a lower degree.
Thus when the O'Conor family, which was itself a branch of the sept of
Brión above-mentioned, acquired exclusive succession to the kingdom of
Connacht, one of its branches, bearing the distinctive name of
O'Conchubhair Ruadh, obtained the lordship of Cairbre in north-eastern
Connacht, over the heads of the ancient lords descended from Cairbre
son of Niall. In like manner, Ailill's land, Tirerrill, after having
been ruled for centuries by his descendants, passed under the lordship
of the families of MacDonnchadha and MacDiarmada, descendants of his
brother Brión, whose line held the kingship of all Connacht. The sept
of Ailill, reduced in degree, gradually passes into obscurity. About
the thirteenth century, even the genealogists cease to be interested
in them; and in the seventeenth century, the last genealogist of the
old school, Dubhaltach Mac Fir-Bhisigh, says that those who then
remained of Ailill's race are no longer reckoned among the nobles of
the territory. Let me repeat that, with the help of the genealogies,
it is possible to trace this process at work in various parts of
Ireland from the fifth century until the abolition of Irish law in the
sixteenth century. I shall have to recur to these facts when I come to
deal with the so-called "clan-system" or "tribal system," convenient
terms with which some modern writers contrive to fill up the vacuum
of their knowledge in regard to the general political condition of
ancient and medieval Ireland.
Breifne, under the rule of Brión's sept, was regarded as permanently
annexed to Connacht. In its early extent Breifne comprised about the
northern half of Co. Leitrim and the western half of Co. Cavan; these
territories having been annexed from the ancient Ulster. In later
times, when the O'Ruairc and O'Raghallaigh chiefs extended their
power, Breifne comprised the whole of the present counties of Leitrim
and Cavan.
The territories of the sons of Niall were separated by Breifne and
Oriel into two groups, a north-western group and a Meath group. The
north-western group of Niall's descendants are called the Northern Ui
Néill, the Meath group the Southern Ui Néill. One frequently meets
with the error of supposing Ui Néill to mean the Ó'Néills--I find it
in a paper of Zimmer's published after his death. It is true that Ui
Néill, as a matter of grammar, is the plural of Ó'Néill, but it is not
the plural of the surname Ó'Néill in Irish usage. The sept-names with
Ui prefixed belong to an earlier age than surnames like O'Neill. The
surname O'Neill belongs to the descendants of Niall Glúndubh, king of
Ireland, who was reigning a thousand years ago. The sept-name Ui Néill
includes all the descendants in the male line of Niall of the Nine
Hostages who reigned 500 years earlier.
The chief king of the Northern Ui Néill was called king of Aileach,
from the prehistoric stone fortress of Aileach near Derry, which was
occupied by kings of that line as late as the tenth century. They are
sometimes called kings of the Fochla, _fochla_ being an old Irish word
meaning the North. Their territory in the fifth century comprised the
county of Donegal and possibly also Cairbre's country, the northern
limb of Co. Sligo.
The eastern side of Ulster nominally constituted another chief
kingdom, which was regarded as the remnant of the ancient Ulster, and
so is sometimes called by chroniclers "the Fifth" or "Conchubhar's
Fifth." It seems, however, to have consisted of four practically
independent kingdoms, no one of which held any permanent authority
over the others. These were Dál Riada in the North-East, on the Antrim
seaboard; Ulaidh, on the Down seaboard--retaining the name of the
ancient dominant people of Ulster; Dál Araidhe, at the head of a
Pictish people, occupying the inland parts of Down and Antrim and also
the Derry side of the Bann valley from Loch Neagh northward to the
sea; and Conaille, likewise a Pictish kingdom, in the north of Co.
Louth.
The remainder of Ulster, excluding Breifne, the kingdom of Aileach,
and the eastern group, formed the kingdom of Airghialla or "Oriel." It
should be borne in mind that this ancient Oriel of the fifth century
extended northward to the mouth of Loch Foyle, and included the
present Tyrone and most of Co. Derry, which were afterwards annexed to
the kingdom of Aileach.
The territories of the Southern Ui Néill lay in the counties of
Meath, Westmeath, Longford, King's County, and Kildare; they were not
continuous, being merely appropriated portions of the kingdom of Tara.
Connacht extended eastward to the Erne and its lakes and to Loch Ramor
in Co. Cavan.
Munster comprised its present extent and also the two southern
baronies of King's County.
The northern boundary of Leinster ran by the Liffey, its tributary the
Rye, south of the barony of Carbury in Co. Kildare, and included part
of King's County bordering on Queen's County and Kildare.
There were then seven chief kingdoms in Ireland, each of them
containing a number of minor kingdoms. The seven chief kingdoms were
(1) the kingdom of Tara, the midlands east of the Shannon; (2) the
kingdom of Leinster; (3) the kingdom of Cashel or of Munster; (4) the
kingdom of Cruachain or of Connacht; (5) the kingdom of Aileach, the
Fochla, or the Northern Ui Néill; (6) the kingdom of Ulaidh or the
lesser Ulster; (7) the kingdom of Oriel.
In Munster, a sort of partitioning or appropriation was effected by
the ruling Eoghanacht dynasty, similar to what has been described as
taking place in Connacht and Meath. At the head of all was the
Eoghanacht of Cashel. Cashel was surrounded by a zone of tributary
States, whose rulers were not of the Eoghanacht lineage. Westward of
these was a belt of Eoghanacht States extending across Munster from
the Shannon to the southern coast. These comprised the Ui Fidhgheinte
in County Limerick, the Eoghanacht of Aine, in the middle, and the Ui
Liatháin to the south in parts of Cork and Waterford counties. There
was another Eoghanacht kingdom in the region of Bandon. Finally there
was the Eoghanacht of Loch Léin in the region of Killarney, called
also the Eoghanacht of West Munster. I have already shown reason to
think that the Eoghanachta represented a relatively late immigration
from Gaul; that their original settlement was probably in the west of
County Waterford; and that their conquest of south-western Leinster
and occupation of Cashel may have taken place about the beginning of
the fifth century. I have no means of fixing the date of their
occupation of other parts of Munster, but these settlements are not
likely to have been later than the fifth century.
In like manner, we find located in various parts of Leinster the septs
that branch out from the royal line. I shall not cumber your attention
with the details, which can be found in O'Donovan's notes to the Book
of Rights. A much larger proportion of Leinster was appropriated in
this way than of any of the other chief kingdoms, except Oriel. Oriel,
being the main part of Ulster conquered by the Connacht-Meath princes
in the fourth century, was treated entirely as a land of conquest, no
portion of it remaining under the rule of its earlier dynasts.
In the case of Leinster, the relative lateness of these appropriations
is proved by one fact. The septs that became possessed of territories
in this way all belonged to the old ruling house of South Leinster,
but the territories appropriated to them are very largely situate
within the bounds of the old kingdom of North Leinster. Hence the
resettlement of these territories took place after the extinction of
the North Leinster kingdom and the unification of what remained under
the South Leinster dynasty. This shows that the process belongs to the
same period in Leinster as in Connacht, and Meath, and Munster.
Though the annexation of Tara and Bregia was a fully accomplished fact
long before St. Patrick's time, and though in his time the monarchy of
Connacht origin was securely seated in Tara, the annals, whose details
of history begin with St. Patrick, show that the claim to their
northern territories was not yet relinquished by the Leinstermen. Time
after time they invaded the lost land, and battle after battle was
fought by them on its borders and even far within its borders. This
continued struggle to recover possession is perhaps most clearly seen
in a list of the battles from the year 432 onward--before that year we
have no details.
A.D. 452. A great slaughter of the Leinstermen.
A.D. 453. The Leinstermen defeated in battle by Loeguire
son of Niall [_i.e._ by the King of Tara].
A.D. 458. The battle of Áth Dara. Loeguire, king of Tara,
is defeated by the Leinstermen and taken prisoner.
A.D. 464. Leinstermen win the battle of Ard Corann.
A.D. 473. Ailill Molt defeats the Leinstermen at Brí Éile.
Ailill was king of Tara at this time. Brí Éile was in the
kingdom of Meath.
A.D. 474. The Leinstermen defeat Ailill Molt at Dumha
Aichir.
A.D. 486. Battle of Granard. Finchath, a Leinster king,
was defeated and slain. The sept of Cairbre, son of
Niall of the Nine Hostages, was victorious. This sept
held territory around Granard, and they were therefore
resisting invasion by the Leinster king.
A.D. 487. Battle of Gráine in Kildare. Muirchertach, king of
the Northern Ui Néill, defeats the Leinstermen.
A.D. 494. Battle of Tailltiu (=Teltown, near Navan). The
Leinstermen are defeated by the sept of Cairbre, son of
Niall.
A.D. 498. Battle of Inne Mór in Kildare. Leinstermen defeated
by Muirchertach, king of the Northern Ui Néill.
A.D. 499. Battle of Slemain, in Westmeath. Leinstermen
defeated by the sept of Cairbre, son of Niall.
A.D. 501. Battle of Cenn Ailbe in Kildare. Leinstermen
defeated by the sept of Cairbre.
A.D. 503. Battle of Druim Lochmhuidhe. The Ui Néill
defeated by the Leinstermen.
A.D. 510. Battle of Fremu, in Westmeath. The Leinstermen
are victorious over the sept of Fiacha, son of Niall.
A.D. 517. Battle of Druim Derge. The Leinstermen are
defeated by the sept of Fiacha. This was regarded
as the final and decisive battle, which forced the Leinstermen
to relinquish their attempts to recover the lost
territory in Meath. "By it the plain of Meath was lost
and won," says the poet-historian Cenn Faelad in the
following century.
Thus we see that the Leinstermen maintained a prolonged struggle to
recover possession of the midland country that belonged to them under
the Pentarchy when a Leinster king reigned in Tara. There are no
recorded particulars of this struggle before the year 452, but from
that date onward, during two-thirds of a century, fourteen battles
were fought on one side or other of the border. In four of these
battles, the Leinstermen were victorious. The septs of Cairbre and
Fiacha, which appear so prominently in the defence of the conquered
territory, were among those descendants of Niall who were settled in
the lordship of lands in Meath. One Leinster dynastic sept continued
to hold its territory in Meath, in submission to the new rulers. It is
known by the name of Fir Tulach, "Men of the Mounds," and the name is
perpetuated in that of the barony of Fartullagh in Westmeath.
While this struggle was going on, another event took place, which is
marked as an epoch in Irish history by the ancient annals. The event
is thus related:
A.D. 483. The battle of Ocha, in which Ailill Molt fell, was won
by Luguid son of Loeguire and Muirchertach MacErca. From
Conchobhar MacNessa to Cormac son of Art, 308 years. From Cormac
to this battle, 206 years.
This summing of years in the old chronicle is in direct imitation of
the Chronicle of Eusebius, upon which the Irish chronicle was founded.
In Eusebius, or at all events in St. Jerome's Latin translation--for
the original Greek chronicle now exists only in fragments--it is
customary to divide the course of history by epochs connected with
great events. As each of these epochs is reached, a summary of the
years between all the preceding epochs is set out. Hence we see that
the chronicler from whom this entry is taken--his name is Cuanu--had
in his mind three principal epochs of Irish history. The first was the
reign of Conchobhar MacNessa, the celebrated king of Ulster. The
second was the reign of Cormac. The third was the battle of Ocha.
The epoch of Conchobhar MacNessa in the chronicle is interesting as a
further proof of the primacy, so to speak, which the Ulster hero-tales
acquired in the earliest age of our written literature.
The reign of Cormac is an epoch, because, as I have shown in the
fourth lecture, it is associated with the dissolution of the
Pentarchy, the annexation of Tara to the realm of Connacht and
Uisneach, and the definite beginnings of the Monarchy.
What then is the epochal significance of the battle of Ocha, in which
Ailill Molt, king of Ireland, is defeated and slain, and Luguid son of
Loeguire and his cousin MacErca, king of the Northern Ui Néill, are
the victors?
Ailill Molt was son of Nath-Í, that king of Ireland who died somewhere
on the Continent, whither he had led an expedition in 429, and whose
body was brought back to Ireland by his men and buried at Cruachain in
the ancient cemetery of the kings of Connacht. Nath-Í, who succeeded
Niall of the Nine Hostages, was the son of Niall's brother Fiachra,
whose descendants were settled in Fiachra's Lands in the north-west
and south-west of Connacht. The line of Fiachra was closely associated
with Connacht and had no settlement elsewhere. At this period, the
line of Fiachra alternated with the line of his brother Brión in the
succession to the kingship of Connacht, until, by the operation of a
law of succession which I shall have to describe in a later lecture,
the descendants of Brión obtained exclusive possession of the
kingship. Thus, Ailill Molt, who was cut off in the battle of Ocha, in
483, may be described as a king of Ireland from Connacht.
Who were the victors in the Battle of Ocha? They were Luguid, son of
Loeguire, son of Niall, and Muirchertach, grandson of Eoghan, son of
Niall. Luguid, son of Loeguire, thereupon became king of Ireland. His
ally in the battle, Muirchertach, appears from this time forth at the
head of the Northern Ui Néill, he is king of Aileach. Luguid, since he
succeeded to the monarchy, must have been at the time recognised head
of the Southern Ui Néill, his patrimony being in Meath. Consequently,
this battle is the outcome of a combination of the Ui Néill, north and
south, whose lands are outside of Connacht, against their kinsfolk,
whose lands are in Connacht. From this date, 483, until the eleventh
century, no king from Connacht became monarch of Ireland, and the
monarchy remained in the exclusive possession of the Northern and
Southern Ui Néill. That is why the battle of Ocha is marked as an
epoch by the ancient chronicler.
The line of Niall in like manner is excluded from the kingship of
Connacht, which had been held by Niall himself and by his son
Loeguire, before they became kings of Tara. Henceforth there is no
longer a joint dynasty of Connacht and Meath.
The clue to the main path of Irish history during the partly obscure
period of the first five centuries of the Christian era is the gradual
expansion of the power of the Connacht dynasty over northern Ireland
from the occupation of Uisneach until this year 483, when expansion
reached the point of rupture. To trace this process and the concurrent
or partly concurrent growth of the Eoghanacht power in Munster, has
been the matter of my fourth, fifth, and sixth lectures. It is evident
that the chronicler Cuanu, who wrote early in the eighth century, had
some such general view before his mind of the history of this period
based on the traditions and records known to him. His three epochs
stand good as bearings for our guidance--first, the Pentarchy at the
height of its traditional celebrity; second, the extension of the
Connacht power to Tara, and the rise of the monarchy; and third, the
disconnection of Connacht from Tara and the monarchy, and the dominant
position acquired by the line of Niall. The old chronicler, with his
three epochs, saw something more in the dim morning twilight of those
centuries than a procession of names and dates and disconnected
anecdotes. He saw something of a story with its sequence, a drama in
three acts; and we are entitled to share in his satisfaction.
GENEALOGY OF MONARCHY (5th CENTURY).
Eochu, K.I.
|
+-----------+--------------+
Fiachra Niall, K.I.
| +--------------------+
Nath-Í, K.I. Loiguire, K.I. Eogan
| | |
Ailill K.I. Luguid, K.I. Muiredach
|
Muirchertach, K.I.
Niall
|
+--------------+--------+------+----------------+
Loiguire, K. Eogan Coirpre Conall Cremthainni
| | | |
Luguid, K. Muiredach Cormac Fergus Cerrbel
| | |
Muirchertach, K. Tuathal, K. Diarmait, K.