The Book of Rights divides Ireland into a little more than a hundred
petty states (owing to certain peculiarities of treatment, the number
cannot be stated definitely.) These are arranged in seven groups, with
an over-king at the head of each group. The principal matter of the
book is to define certain relations between the over-king of each
group and the petty kings under him. All this is told in verse. The
plan of the book is to allot two poems to each of the over-kingdoms or
groups of states. One of the two poems relates the tributes payable by
the petty states to the over-king at the head of the group. The other
poem relates the customary gifts given by the over-king to the petty
kings. Great importance was attached to this giving and receiving of
gifts, and the significance of the gifts is clearly expressed in their
Irish name, _tuarastal_. The meaning of this word, which is still in
familiar use, is wages. The gifts then were not favours. The
acceptance of them was an act of homage. The king who accepted
_tuarastal_ from another king acknowledged himself to be that other
king's man, to be, so to speak, in his pay--if only in a figurative or
ceremonial sense.
Not all the petty states were subject to tribute. When the dynasty of
a petty state was a branch of the over-king's dynasty, no tribute was
due. In Munster, for example, there were various petty states whose
rulers were of the Eoghanacht lineage. These paid no tribute to the
king of Cashel, who was also of Eoghanacht lineage. The other states
were tributary. This exemption from tribute and liability to tribute
goes back to an ancient state of conquest, but of conquest during the
Celtic period. The citizens of the tributary states were freemen,
whereas the people of the older communities of pre-Celtic origin were,
at least in theory, unfree. This does not mean that they were slaves.
The status of the unfree communities, roundly speaking, was similar to
that of the natives of British India at present; and the status of a
tributary state would be comparable to that of a country possessing
self-government but subject to what is called an imperial
contribution. The non-tributary states might be compared to the
existing autonomous dominions of the British Empire. There were
distinct names for each class. Non-tributary states were called
_saor-thuatha_, "free states"; tributary states were called
_fortuatha_, which means "alien states"; unfree communities were
called _daor-thuatha_, which we might translate "vassal-states"--and
they were also called _aithech-thuatha_, "rent paying states." Each
free or tributary state had a distinct territory, but the unfree
communities were not bounded by the territorial bounds of the others.
They might overlap the bounds of two or more States, and some of them
were broken into separate groups distributed here and there over a
very wide area.
The compilation of the Book of Rights is ascribed to two writers,
Selbach and Oengus, acting under the authority of Cormac mac
Cuilennáin, king of Munster. Cormac reigned from 901 to 908. As
O'Donovan has shown, the Book received certain amplifications under a
king of Munster who claimed to be, or aimed to make himself, king of
Ireland; and O'Donovan properly argues that this king could only be
Brian Bóramha. Moreover I think that there are fairly clear
indications of the year 1000 or 1001 as the date of these
amplifications.
The Book of Rights was edited by O'Donovan and published in 1847 by
the Celtic Society. The Council and officers of this society, whose
names follow the title page, form a list which shows a greater
interest in Irish historical studies at that time than in our time
among Irishmen of high standing in learning and politics. The names
include those of Sir Aubrey de Vere, Sir Robert Kane, William Monsell,
William Smith O'Brien, Daniel O'Connell, Dr. Renehan, president of
Maynooth College, Thomas Hutton, Sir Colman O'Loghlen, Michael Joseph
Barry, Dr. Crolly, Charles Gavan Duffy, Samuel Ferguson, Dr. Graves,
James Hardiman, William Elliott Hudson, Dr. Matthew Kelly, Joseph
Sheridan Le Fanu, William Torrens McCullagh, John Mitchel, Thomas
O'Hagan, John Edward Pigot, Sir William Wilde, Dr. Madden, and Thomas
Francis Meagher. The edition belongs to O'Donovan's early work. A new
edition is very much to be desired, with a critical treatment of the
text and more accurate notes, taking advantage of the great increase
of philological, historical and topographical knowledge accumulated
during the seventy years that have passed since this first and only
edition was brought out.
I think it likely that only the section relating to Munster was drawn
up in Cashel; that this section was circulated as a model; and that
each of the other sections was drawn up on this model by writers on
behalf of the other principal kings. For example, in the Connacht
section, the tributes are said to be brought "hither," a fairly
definite indication that the writer belonged to the personal
surrounding of the king of Connacht.
The over-kings in the Book of Rights are the kings of (1) Cashel, (2)
Cruachain, (3) Ailech, (4) Oriel, (5) Ulaidh, (6) Tara, (7) Leinster.
In the section for Oriel, the statement of tributes is wanting. Its
absence is probably not accidental. The kings of Ailech from the fifth
century onward kept steadily extending their power eastward and
southward, encroaching on the domain of the kings of Oriel. Armagh,
the ecclesiastical capital, was in Oriel, and one can clearly trace
throughout a long period of time a definite policy, on the part of the
Ailech dynasty, of bringing and keeping Armagh within their sphere of
influence. The natural resistance of the kings of Oriel appears to
have been broken down by their defeat in 827, in the battle of Leth
Camm, at the hands of Niall Caille, king of Ailech and afterwards king
of Ireland. According to an old tract, from this time forward, the
kings of Oriel became tributary to Ailech. This would explain the
omission from the Book of Rights, drawn up about eighty years later,
of a list of tributes payable to the over-kings of Oriel.
In the tenth century we find the kings of Ailech still inhabiting
Ailech. In the eleventh century, the name of their domestic territory,
Tír Eoghain, has been transferred from the district of Ailech to that
which now bears the name, "Tyrone," which was formerly the central
part of the kingdom of Oriel. I have not been able to determine how or
at what time the old Tír Eoghain, now called Inis Eoghain, containing
the fortress of Ailech, passed into the dominion of the kings of Tír
Conaill. With regard to Oriel, there is one point to be carefully
noted. In the early documents of the Anglo-Norman regime, we find the
name Oriel used to comprise the present county of Louth, which is
called the English Oriel, being occupied by feudal grantees. Only a
very small fraction of the county belonged to the Irish kingdom of
Oriel; but a few years before Strong-bow's invasion, Donnchadh
O'Cearbhaill, king of Oriel, extended his dominion southward to the
Boyne. It was he who, in exercise of this extended dominion, granted
the lands of Mellifont to the Cistercians. This recent occupation
caused the feudal newcomers to extend the name Oriel to the whole
region between Oriel and the Boyne. This nomenclature may well hold
good for documents of the feudal regime--but we find it used to import
error and confusion into quite a different class of documents. For
example, the editor of the Annals of Ulster, in his index, says that
Oirghialla comprises the county of Louth, though the name is not used
in that sense before the fifteenth century; and he omits to say that
in the early annals Oriel comprises Tyrone and the larger part of
County Derry.
This method of treatment is unfortunately typical of the manner in
which the sources of Irish history have been presented in publication.
It is not mere anachronism. The underlying principle is that what is
true of one period is true of the whole range of time covered by Irish
records. When we find sympathetic editors of these records obsessed by
such a view, we are still more inclined, in the case of antipathetic
writers, to content ourselves with the judgment recorded by
Columbanus--to deem them worthy of indulgence rather than of ridicule.
The tenth and eleventh centuries produced a school of Irish historians
whose chief work was to reduce the old miscellaneous matter of
tradition to unity and sequence. It would have been well if they had
been satisfied with so much, but they went farther. In dealing with
the pre-Christian period, they tampered with tradition in two ways.
Where they found definite elements of heathenism, they either cut
these out or furbished them in a guise which they considered consonant
with Christian belief; and this can be shown to have been done
consciously and deliberately. They also took a free hand in devising a
system of chronology for events that had no chronology. On this point,
they did not all act together, and so, for such epochs as the Gaelic
invasion, we have six or seven different dates varying from the
fourth to the eighteenth century B.C. Not withstanding these defects
in their work, the historians of this period acquired in later times a
degree of authority that stood up as a barrier in front of the past.
Their highly artificial treatment was vested with all the sanctity of
veritable tradition. The main work that has now to be done by students
of Irish antiquity is to get behind this barrier and bring into the
light the abundant remains of older tradition that are extant.
I have said that, in the minds of the scattered Norse community, the
battle of Clontarf broke the victorious prestige of their race. It
happened at a critical moment, for in the year before it, in 1013, the
Danish conquest of England had been completed, and all England had
submitted to the rule of Sveinn, king of Denmark. Nearly a century
later, king Magnus of Norway endeavoured to restore the empire of the
Norsemen. He succeeded in bringing under his authority all the
Scottish islands, Caithness, part of Argyle, and the Isle of Man. Once
more, Ireland shaped the course of history. In 1102, Magnus, then in
the Isle of Man, sent an embassy to Ireland threatening war, and no
doubt demanding tribute. Muirchertach O'Briain, then king of Ireland,
obtained a year's truce. About the same time, Muirchertach made peace
for a year with Domhnall MacLochlainn, king of Tyrone, who opposed his
claim to the high-kingship. Next year, 1103, Muirchertach marched
against Domhnall, but was defeated in the neighbourhood of Banbridge.
About the same time, and probably taking advantage of this internal
conflict, Magnus made a landing on the Ulster coast, but was cut off
and fell in the fight. With his fall, the prospect of a Norse empire
came to an end.
The weakening of the Norse power at Clontarf restored in some measure
the freedom of the seas. During the Norse wars, the old missionary
movement from Ireland to the Continent became a refugee movement.
Afterwards we see abundant evidence of a freer intercourse. For
example, the annals record frequent pilgrimages of Irish kings to
Rome, beginning with the pilgrimage of Flaithbertach O'Neill in 1028.
During the Norse wars, the condition of the Church in Ireland had not
improved. We read strange things in newspapers, and no doubt
Providence works in strange ways, but the fact remains that war in
itself is the negation of moral and spiritual force. St. Bernard tells
us something about the condition of part of Ireland, as described to
him by St. Malachy and his companions who visited him at Clairvaux in
1139. The description refers to my native district, the diocese of
Connor, the time 1124, when St. Malachy was sent there as bishop. "He
discovered," says St. Bernard, "that it was not to men but to beasts
he had been sent; in all the barbarism which he had yet encountered,
he had never met such a people, so profligate in their morals, so
uncouth in their ceremonies, so impious in faith, so barbarous in
laws, so rebellious to discipline, so filthy in their life, Christians
in name but Pagans in reality. They neither paid first fruits nor
tithes, nor contracted marriage legitimately, nor made their
confessions." There were few clergy and those few but little
employed. In the churches neither preaching nor chanting was heard.
All this is the language of pious reprobation. In that age, adherence
to local custom as against the general practice of the Church was
often denounced as impious. And we are told that within eight years,
before St. Malachy was transferred from Connor to Armagh, "their
obduracy yielded, their barbarism was softened, and the exasperating
family began to be more tractable, to receive correction by degrees,
and to embrace discipline. Barbarous laws were abrogated, the Roman
laws (_i.e._ of the Church) were introduced, the customs of the Church
were everywhere admitted and contrary customs abolished. Churches were
rebuilt and supplied with priests. The rites of the sacraments were
duly administered, confession was practised, the people attended the
church, and concubinage was suppressed by the solemnisation of
marriage. In a word, so completely were all things changed for the
better that you can apply to that people now what the Lord said by his
prophet--'They who were not my people are now my people.'"
The writer of these words, Bernard of Clairvaux, was the most
outstanding figure in Christendom at that time. Popes and emperors,
kings and peoples, waited upon his word. His abbey of Clairvaux became
in his time alone the parent of a hundred and sixty Cistercian
foundations in many lands, among the rest in Ireland. Bernard gloried
in the acquaintance and friendship of the Irishman Malachy. "To me
also in this life," he writes, "it was given to see this man. In his
look and word I was refreshed, and I rejoiced as in all manner of
riches." After some years, Malachy once more visited Bernard at
Clairvaux and died there peacefully in the presence of Bernard on All
Souls' Day, 1148. St. Bernard wrote afterwards a life of his Irish
friend, partly from what he learned from him and his companions and
partly from an account sent to him from Ireland by the abbot Comgan.
This life is extant, as also are two discourses by St. Bernard, one
delivered at St. Malachy's funeral, the other at a later anniversary
celebration. There are also extant two letters written by St. Bernard
to St. Malachy regarding the foundation of Mellifont, in which both
had part, and a letter from St. Bernard to the Cistercians of
Mellifont giving them an account of St. Malachy's death. I mention
these details to exemplify the close and frequent intercourse between
Ireland and the Continent in the period preceding the Norman invasion
of Ireland. Many other evidences could be cited to the same effect.
From this intercourse, there arose a strong desire to bring about a
closer conformity between the Church in Ireland and on the Continent
and to reform the abuses in morality and discipline that resulted from
a long period of warfare and partial isolation. This movement for
reform, it should be noted, came mainly from within, and the leading
part in it was taken by Irishmen. One reforming synod succeeded
another. The details may be found in works on Irish ecclesiastical
history. Besides St. Malachy, may be noted the names of Cellach or
Celsus, who came before him, and Gilla Maic Liac or Gelasius who came
after him in the primacy; of Gillebert, bishop of Limerick, whose
work, "De Statu Ecclesiae," was written in the cause of ecclesiastical
reform; of Flaithbertach O'Brolcháin, abbot of Derry; and Lorcán, St.
Laurence, archbishop of Dublin.
Following the introduction of the Cistercian Order by St. Malachy, the
Synod of Bri Maic Thaidg in 1158 undertook to reorganise the old
Columban monasteries, uniting them in a single order, over which
O'Brolcháin, abbot of Derry, was appointed abbot-general. This abbot
was a great builder. In rebuilding his monastery in Derry, he removed
eighty houses--from this and from various items regarding Armagh,
Kildare, etc., in the annals, we gather that these monastic and
scholastic towns had a considerable population. The new buildings were
of stone, for the abbot had an immense lime-kiln built, eighty feet
square, to provide lime for their construction.
In the year 1164, Sumarlidi, king of Argyle and the Hebrides, and the
community of Iona sent an embassy to Derry to offer the abbacy of Iona
to O'Brolcháin, but the king of Ireland, O'Lochlainn, and his nobles,
would not consent to his leaving Derry. The Norman invasion made an
end of the attempt to organise the Columban monasteries.
The Synod of Clane in 1162 ordered that in future only pupils, or as
we should now say, graduates of Armagh, were to obtain the position of
_fer léiginn_ or chief professor in a school attached to any church in
Ireland. This decree then was equivalent to a recognition of the
school of Armagh as a national university for all Ireland. I recommend
the fact to the notice of those writers who cherish the delusion that
Irishmen in that age had no conception of nationality. In 1169, the
year of the Norman invasion, the king of Ireland, Ruaidhrí
O'Conchubhair, who lived in Connacht, established and endowed in
Armagh a new professorship for the benefit of students from Ireland
and Scotland.
The position of _fer léiginn_ is first noticed in the annals in the
tenth century. This points to a new development in the schools of
Ireland at that time. Four men holding this position are named in that
century by the Annals of Ulster, and three of the four are in the
school of Armagh. The fourth is in Slane. In the eleventh century,
Kells and Monasterboice have their _fer léiginn_. In Monasterboice
that position was held by the poet-historian Flann, who belonged to
the ruling family in that region, the Cianachta. In the twelfth
century, there are notices of the _fer léiginn_ in Kildare, Derry,
Clonmacnois, Killaloe, Emly and Iona. The Norman Invasion brought ruin
to all these schools. The last notice of the school or rather
university of Armagh is in 1188. Three years before this, Philip of
Worcester, king Henry's Justiciary, at the head of a great army,
occupied Armagh for a week and plundered the clergy; and Giraldus, who
denounces this exploit, says with a jibe, "he returned to Dublin
without loss."
We have seen how St. Bernard reports the strong terms used by the
Irish reformers themselves in condemnation of the abuses they
laboured to remove. It was this very language of pious reprobation
that Henry II seized upon as furnishing the pretext for the commission
he sought and obtained from his friend Pope Adrian to reform the Irish
Church and people. I take it that the _Laudabiliter_ is genuine.
Without discussing all the arguments against its authenticity, but
admitting that the heads of those arguments are made good, in my
opinion neither any one of them nor all of them together suffice at
all to discredit the document. In it, the Pope replies to _a proposal
made by Henry_ and states that proposal in these terms: "Laudably and
profitably hath your magnificence conceived the design ... you are
intent on enlarging the borders of the Church, teaching the truth of
the Christian faith to the ignorant and rude, exterminating the roots
of vice from the field of the Lord, and, for the more convenient
execution of this purpose, requiring the counsel and favour of the
Apostolic See.... You then, most dear son in Christ, have signified to
us your desire, in order to reduce the people to obedience unto laws,
and to extirpate the plants of vice ..." and so forth. The terms in
which these good purposes are stated are merely an echo in brief of
such words as those in which St. Bernard describes the reforms already
effected by St. Malachy.
Now let us compare what may be called the "war aims" of Henry, thus
stated by him to Pope Adrian and approved by the Pope, with the actual
measures adopted. The Synod of Cashel was convened at Henry's instance
by Gilla Críst, bishop of Lismore and papal legate, and attended by
most of the Irish prelates. Henry was represented by several high
ecclesiastics whom he brought to Ireland. The decrees of the Synod
_were confirmed by Henry_. They are therefore of the highest
importance as determining what had to be done to "enlarge the bounds
of the Church, to teach the truth of Christian faith to the ignorant
and rude, and to extirpate the roots of vice from the field of the
Lord." The provisions of the Synod number eight as related by Giraldus
Cambrensis:
The first decree forbids marriage within the degrees of kindred fixed
by the law of the Church. The second requires children to receive
catechetical instruction outside of churches and to be baptised at
fonts duly provided in the churches. The third commands all to pay
tithes to their own parish churches. The fourth exempts Church
property from temporal exactions. The fifth exempts the clergy from
paying a share in the compensation for homicide, though of kindred to
the guilty person. The sixth regulates the making of wills. The
seventh prescribes the religious rites to be performed for those who
die in peace with God. The eighth orders that the Church ritual in
Ireland shall be the same as in England.
That is all. Giraldus adds: "Indeed both the realm and Church of
Ireland are indebted to this mighty king for whatever they enjoy of
the blessings of peace and the growth of religion; as before his
coming to Ireland all sorts of wickedness had prevailed among this
people for a long series of years, which now, by his authority and
care of administration, are abolished." No wonder indeed that our
historian Keating names Giraldus the _tarbh tána_, the leading bull of
the herd, of the long-stretched herd of historians, journalists, and
zealous reformers of "all sorts of wickedness." Giraldus, however, was
not entirely a partisan of false pretences. Years afterwards, when
Henry was dead, he addresses his successor John, reminding him of his
father's pledge to Pope Adrian, then also dead--the first pledge made
by an English ruler in regard of Ireland, whereby, he says, Henry
"secured the sanction of the highest earthly authority to an
enterprise of such magnitude, involving the shedding of Christian
blood." This pledge, he says, has not been kept. On the contrary, "the
poor clergy in the island are reduced to beggary; the cathedral
churches, which were richly endowed with broad lands by the piety of
the faithful in the olden times," and which, we may add, supported on
these endowments the schools already mentioned, "now echo with
lamentations for the loss of their possessions, of which they have
been robbed by these men and others who came over with them or after
them; so that to uphold the Church is turned into spoiling and robbing
it." Even the revenue, the Peter's Pence, promised by Henry to the
Pope was not paid, and Giraldus pleads that it should be paid in
future, "in order that some acknowledgment and propitiation may be
made to God for this bloody conquest _and the profits of it_."
And now, before considering further the character and effects of the
Feudal conquests in Ireland, let us take a general view of the
domestic polity of Ireland.
In recent times, and only, I think, in recent times we find the whole
of this domestic polity, or nearly the whole of it, summed up in one
convenient phrase--the Clan System. This phrase is used by the
ultra-patriotic just as freely and confidently as by those on the
opposite edge--whatever we are to call them--those people who perform
for Irish history the not unfruitful function of devil's advocate. The
word system imparts a notion of something arranged in a definite and
perceptible order, and those who speak or write about the Clan System
indicate thereby that they have some perception of this detailed and
co-ordinated arrangement. But I do not know where any one of them has
successfully undertaken to reduce his mental view of the system to
plain words. I think, however, most of us have gathered in a vague way
the underlying notions. They amount to this:
The Irish population was divided into a large number of groups, each
of which was a "clan." At the head of each clan was a chief. The clan
and the chief considered themselves to be of one blood, a great
family. Each clan occupied a definite stretch of country and was in
fact the population of its territory. The clan was a miniature nation.
That, I think, is a fair summary of the prevailing notions as to the
basis of what is called the clan system.
Some writers prefer to say "tribal system." I have been reproached
with avoiding the word "tribe." I have avoided it, and for two
reasons; first, because some have used it in so loose a sense as to
make it meaningless; and second, because others have used it with the
deliberate intent to create the impression that the structure of
society in Ireland down to the twelfth century, and in parts of
Ireland down to the seventeenth century, finds its modern parallel
among the Australian or Central African aborigines. Already, in
reference to the law of succession, I have mentioned the _deirbfine_,
the Irish legal family of four generations, a man, his sons,
grandsons, and great grandsons. O'Donovan calls this family a tribe. I
told how, in the battle of Caiméirghe in 1241, Brian O'Néill secured
the kingship of Tyrone for himself and his line by cutting off his
rival MagLochlainn and ten men of MagLochlainn's _deirbfine_. Here the
word _deirbfine_ has a very special and technical importance; but the
student who has to rely on the official editorial translation misses
the whole significance of the Irish term. The translator of the Annals
of Ulster renders the passage thus: "The battle of Caiméirghe was
given by Brian O'Neill and Mael-Sechlainn O'Domnaill, king of Cenel
Conaill, to Domnall MagLochlainn, to the king of Tir-Eogain, so that
Domnall MagLochlainn was killed therein and ten of his own tribe
around him; and all the chiefs of Cenel-Eogain and many other good
persons likewise. And the kingship was taken by Brian O'Neill after
him."
It is certain that in the beginnings of Irish history we find the
tradition of the tribal group, just as we find it in the history of
the Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Germans, and their offshoots
the Anglo-Saxons. It is also certain that Ireland, not having been
overrun and shaken up by any of the great migrations after the
migration of the Celts, and not having been steam-rolled by the
levelling weight of Roman imperialism, preserved a great deal of the
old tradition. Our old books are full of it. My third lecture dealt
very much with the evidences of ancient tribal communities which
survived in some shape into historical time. It is, however, perfectly
clear to any student of the materials that already in early Christian
Ireland the old tribal distinctions are waning and disappearing under
various influences. All Irish people, Ebudeans, Ivernians, Picts, Fir
Bolg, Galians, are known to each other by the common name of Gaedhil,
itself once the name of the dominant Celtic element; to others they
are all known as Scotti. So complete is the fusion that, when by
ancient custom this or that portion of the community remains liable to
pay tributes or taxes in virtue of their being the successor of some
old conquered tribe, our old historians or archivists are careful
again and again to say that the people themselves are free and that
these imposts are attached only to the lands on which they dwell.
I think that the popular notion of a Gaelic clan is derived from
Scottish writers like Thomas Campbell and Sir Walter Scott. "False
wizard, avaunt! I have marshalled my clan. Their swords are a
thousand, their bosoms are one." Here we have the picture of the men
of Lochiel's country, Camerons to a man, headed by their Cameron
chief. I do not know how far such pen-pictures are true of Scotland
and the time to which they relate. I do know that you will find
nothing of the kind in historical Ireland. Ask for a similar instance
of an Irish clan. I suppose the O'Neills of Tyrone will do. The
O'Neills were never more than a small fraction of the people of Tyrone
or of any part of Tyrone. Take the period preceding the confiscation
of Tyrone. Shane O'Neill, in order to convince certain persons of the
futility of trying to poison him, said that if the hundred best men of
the name of O'Neill were cut off, there would still be O'Neills to
succeed him. That seems to justify Mr. Bigger when he says that there
are as many O'Neills in Tyrone to-day as there were then. The fullest
lists of the followers of Irish chiefs are to be found in the
Elizabethan fiants; and these documents effectually dispel the
illusion of an O'Neill at the head of a thousand O'Neills or an
O'Brien leading a host of O'Briens. It is quite true, as I have shown
in a previous lecture, that by the process of creating mean lords and
in other ways, the ruling families provided for their own kinsfolk at
the expense of their other subjects, and thus acquired a
disproportionate increase. The extension of great families in this
manner is the one fact that comes nearest to substantiating the
illusion of a clan system.
From the popular I pass on to the learned view. Ireland in the twelfth
century, says Mr. Orpen, was still in the tribal state. This is
written to justify the Norman invasion. The Normans were not in the
tribal state. Mr. Orpen relies strongly on Giraldus as a witness in
other matters. Giraldus omitted nothing that occurred to him to say
that could justify the invasion, in which his friends and kinsfolk
took a prominent part. From first to last it did not occur to Giraldus
to say that the Irish were in a tribal state. He knew the facts. If
there were outstanding clans in Ireland, _i.e._, noble kindreds, so
were there among the invaders. Giraldus himself belonged to the same
clan as Milo de Cogan, Gerald FitzGerald, Raymond le Gros, and others
of those bold adventurers. He is not ashamed of it, and being half a
Welshman, he is under no delusions about the social structure of the
Irish nation.
When we read on to learn what is Mr. Orpen's idea of an Irish tribe,
we are gradually enlightened. We find that the tribe of king Diarmaid
is the Ui Ceinnsealaigh. Here is the main authentic basis of the
illusion. It is a peculiarity of Irish nomenclature that a territory
is called by the name of its ruling family. Ui Ceinnsealaigh thus has
two meanings. It means the descendants of Ceinnsealach and it also
means the territory over which the chiefs of that lineage ruled as
kings, namely the diocese of Ferns. But the Ui Ceinnsealaigh were
never at any time more than a tiny fraction of the population of that
territory. Énna Ceinnsealach, their ancestor, lived in the fifth
century; and however well his posterity may have looked after
themselves, they certainly did not displace from the region that got
their name any large proportion of its inhabitants descended from
other ancestors. The territory called Clann Aodha Buidhe covered a
large part of the present counties of Down and Antrim. The tribe
named Clann Aodha Buidhe were the descendants of Aodh Buidhe O'Neill,
who died in the year 1280. They never at any time amounted to a
territorial population. There were clans of Norman origin in Ireland,
too, and territories named from them. There were the De Burghs of
Clann Ricaird in Connacht, and their country named from them; the De
Burghs of Clann William in Munster, and their country still so named;
FitzGeralds of Clann Mhuiris in Munster and in Connacht, and the
districts still keep their name; there are Power's country, and
Roche's country, and Joyce's country, and Condon's, and Barrymore, and
Clann Ghiobúin, the Fitzgibbons--family and country bearing the same
name after the Irish manner. Every one of these great families was
precisely as much and as little a tribe as any Irish tribe that Mr.
Orpen has in contemplation; as much and as little a tribe as the
Plantagenets or the Bourbons or the Hapsburgs or the Hohenzollerns.
Undoubtedly in these great families there was a good deal of what we
call clannishness--of devotion to their particular interest to the
detriment of the public or the national interest. On the other hand,
it is quite a mistake to suppose that the hostility of clan to clan,
as is often said, was the principal element of harm to peace. The
Irish chronicles show clearly that domestic wars arose far more
frequently from disputes and rivalries between members of a ruling
family. It was the same among the Welsh, and a recent Welsh historian
has justly traced this evil to the law of succession which was
similar in the two countries--the choice of successor to king or lord
being open between a number of claimants. A doubtful succession was
the fruitful source of disorder in other countries also. Readers of
history will remember its effects in the Roman empire, the wars of the
Scottish succession before Bannockburn, the Wars of the Roses in
England, the war of the Spanish succession. The feudal law of
primogeniture tended to minimise this danger.
Here we find another instance of the ignoring of time and change in
books on Irish history. I think I am right in saying that most readers
gather from these books the impression that the Irish institution of
Tanistry dates from time immemorial. There is no mention of a tanist
in the Annals until the thirteenth century, after feudal institutions
had been established in many parts of Ireland; and we can trace the
gradual spread of the custom in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. It seems right then to infer that those who lived under
Irish law were impressed by the greater stability afforded by Feudal
law in this matter of succession, perhaps also by the aggravation of
their own plight owing to the opportunities that a disputed succession
gave for the interference of the enemy in their midst; and that they
sought to remove this evil and danger by determining the succession
beforehand, choosing in the ruler's lifetime the man who was to
succeed him, the tanist.
Another notion which has accompanied the modern illusion of the "clan
system," is that of the communal holding of land by the tribe or clan.
This view, like that of the "clan system," has had its enthusiastic
eulogists and its self-complacent censors. On one side we are asked to
admire our forefathers for anticipating Sir Horace Plunkett. On the
other side we are told that progress and even temporary well-doing in
agriculture were rendered impossible by a system under which all the
land belonged to everybody at once and to nobody for long. Once more
we are faced with that canon of Irish history, "Credo quia
impossibile." We are seriously asked to believe that the lands of a
tribe, meaning the population under a territorial chief or even under
a king, was held in common by all; and more than that, was
periodically thrown into hotch-potch, taken from everybody and
redistributed among all. Now we can imagine what an event that would
be, taking place all over a district as large as the diocese of Ferns;
or even as large as the barony of Forth; what a feature it would have
been in the simple life of a large countryside. Strange, is it not?
that no account of any such resettlement of a district appears in any
Irish writing, even in the form of an incidental allusion. The fact is
that no such communal system existed on any scale approaching to the
territorial. I have described the constitution of the _deirbfine_, the
legal unit of succession. There were larger family groups, based on
the kinship of five, six and seven generations. It was among such
groups that property was held in common, when it was property of a
kind that did not lend itself to subdivision in accurate
proportions--just as succession to the kingship, being indivisible,
was common to a family group until its determination became
necessary. But as new generations came forward, existing family groups
were of necessity dissolved and reconstituted. When this happened, a
redistribution of the family property was necessitated. Moreover,
there were certain kinds of land--mountain, bog, forest, and marsh,
which were not divided by fences or mearings into individual or family
holdings--and these were held in common both in ancient and in modern
times. And that, I think, is the foundation of prevalent notions about
communal land tenure in ancient Ireland.
Those who desire a studied account of ancient land tenures in Ireland--in
preference to their own or other people's imaginings--should read the
little book on Irish Land Tenures by Dr. Sigerson.
Connected again with the notion of communal ownership is the denial of
proprietary rights of kings and lords. It must not be a question
whether the _altum dominium_, the extreme form of proprietorship in
land, was a good thing or a bad thing. We want to know the facts
first, before we pass a valuation on them. Mr. Orpen is obsessed with
the notion that the Irish order and the Feudal order were as the poles
apart. Accordingly he says that the Irish political structure nowise
depended on grants of land. I do not know and I do not inquire what
may be the peculiar virtue of a polity depending upon grants of land;
but I do know that the structure of Irish political society in the
twelfth century was mainly based on that foundation. Documentary
proofs, referring to various dates from the travels of St. Patrick
down to the eve of the Norman invasion, show that every lord in his
degree, from the local chief of a small territory up to the king of
Ireland held and exercised the power of granting ownership in land
over the heads of all occupiers. If the king of Tyrone was also king
of Ireland his power of making grants was not confined to his domestic
territory of Tyrone. So the Annals tell us that Muirchertach
O'Lochlainn, king of Tyrone and monarch of Ireland, granted a
town-land at Drogheda to the Cistercians of Mellifont, and a charter
of the same king is extant granting lands at Newry to another
religious house. Diarmait MacMurchadha was king of Leinster, his
domestic realm, or as Mr. Orpen would say his tribal territory, being
Ui Ceinnsealaigh. He was also recognised over-king of the Norse
kingdom of Dublin, which included a stretch of country northward from
Dublin and outside of the kingdom of Leinster. In virtue of this
extended kingship, Diarmait granted lands at Baldoyle to a religious
community, and the charter of his grant is still extant. In truth, the
granting and regranting of lordship over lands is the keynote of the
Irish dynastic polity from the fifth to the sixteenth century.
What then of the objections that were raised to the introduction of
feudal law under Henry VIII. and afterwards? Was it not contended on
the Irish side that the chief or king had no more than a life-tenure
of the territory he ruled, and that in accepting feudal tenure he was
disposing of what did not belong to him? That is so. In accepting
feudal tenure, he disposed of the succession, which he had no legal
power to determine: the determination of which, within limits fixed by
law, belonged to his people. It was theirs, not by virtue of communal
ownership of the land, but by virtue of the right of election to the
principality. Of this right they were deprived by the introduction of
feudal law. The law of tanistry was a reasonable provision which
preserved the right of election and yet determined the succession in
advance.