THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
OTHER BOOKS BY SEUMAS MacMANUS
THE ROCKY ROAD TO DUBLIN YOURSELF AND THE NEIGHBOURS A LAD OF THE O'FRIELS WELL O' THE WORLD'S END
THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
A Popular History of Ireland
BY SEUMAS MacMANUS
Assisted by Several Irish Scholars
O wind-drifted Branch, lift your head to the sun, For the sap of new life in your veins hath begun. And a little young bud of the tenderest green Mine eyes through the snow and the sorrow have seen!
O little green bud, break and blow into flower,
Break and blow through the welcome of sunshine and shower;
*Twas a long night and dreary you hid there forlorn,
But now the cold hills wear the radiance of morn !
— Ethna Carbery.
REVISED EDITION
THE DEVIN-ADAIR COMPANY New York
73^ B ^ ■ ^CxS- «^
Copyright, mcmxxi, by Sbumas MacManus All rights reserved Twenty-seventh Printing, August, 1977
This Book is Inscribed
TO THE HALOED MEMORY OF ONE WHO, PONDER- ING THE HEROIC RECORDS OF HER RACE, DEDI- CATED HER LIFE TO IRELAND'S HOLY CAUSE, AND IN UNDYING STRAINS SANG THE GLORIES THE SORROWS AND RADIANT HOPES OF HER LAND BELOVED
Eire's Queen of Song, ETHNA CARBERY.
CONTENTS
CHAPTHl p^Q^
I. Early Colonisations 1
II. The Tuatha De Danann 5
III. The Milesians 7
IV. Some Notable Milesian Royalties 15
V. Ireland in the Lore of the Ancients .... 19
VI. Conor MacNessa 23
VII. CUCHULLAIN 28
VIII. Two First Century Leaders 36
IX. Conn of the Hundred Battles 40
X. CoRMAC MacArt 45
XL Tara 54
XII. The Fairs 58
XIII. Fionn and the Fian 64
XIV. The Break of Ulster 74
XV. NiALL OF THE NiNE HoSTAGES 77
XVI. Irish Invasions of Britain 84
XVI I. General Review of Pagan Ireland ..... 90
XVIII. Irish Christianity Before St. Patrick .... 103
XIX. St. Patrick 109
XX. The Brehon Laws 129
XXI. St. Bridget 142
XXII. Women in Ancient Ireland 151
XXIII. COLM CiLLE 160
XXIV. The Poets 176
XXV. The Irish Kingdom of Scotland 192
XXVI. The Centuries of the Saints 196
XXVII. Learning in Ancient Ireland 212
XXVIII. The Irish Missionaries Abroad 232
XXIX. Irish Scholars Abroad . . . >. , . . . 256
XXX. The Vikings in Ireland 267
XXXI. Hospitality in Ancient Ireland 287
XXXII. The Tribe 293
XXXIII. Manner of Living in Ancient Ireland . . . 296
XXXIV. Structural Antiquities 301
XXXV. Various Arts of Ancient Ireland 307
XXXVI. The English Invasion 319
XXXVII. Norman and Gael 331
XXXVIII. Trade in Medieval Ireland ....... 340
XXXIX. Learning in Medi.«val Ireland 346
XL. The Geraldines 353
XLI. Henry VIIFs Policies 362
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PACE
XLII. Shane the Proud 368
XLIII. Elizabeth Continues the Conquest .... 373
XLIV. Red Hugh 379
XLV. The Nine Years' War 385
XLVI. Suppressing the Race 399
XLVII. The Ulster Plantation 405
XLVIII. The Rising of 1641 408
XLIX. The War of the Forties 415
L. Cromwell 422
LI. The Cromwellian Settlement 428
LII. The Williamite Wars 436
LIII. The Later Penal Laws 454
LIV. "The Wild Geese" 470
LV. The Suppression of Irish Trade . . . . . 483
LVI. The Volunteers 493
LVII. Theobald Wolfe Tone 499
LVIII. The United Irishmen 505
LIX. The Rising of 1798 515
LX. The Union 526
LXI. Robert Emmet 532
LXII. Daniel O'Connell 538
LXIIL O'Connell the Idol 545
LXIV. Catholic Emancipation 551
LXV. O'Connell's Power and Popularity .... 560
LXVI. Through the Thirties 567
LXVII. The Great Repeal Fight 574
LXVIII. The End of O'Connell 584
LXIX. Young Ireland 590
LXX. The Great Famine 602
LXXI. The Fenians 611
LXXII. Charles Stewart Parnell 621
LXXIII. The Land Struggle Begins 631
LXXIV. The Land League 636
LXXV. The Ladies' Land League . 644
LXXVI. Fall of Parnell and of Parliamentarianism . . 659
LXXVII. The Modern Literature of Ireland .... 669
LXXVIII. Sinn Fein 684
LXXIX. Easter Rising 691
LXXX. The Last War? 706
LXXXL After the Treaty 712
LXXXIl, The Dawning 723
Index 725
THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
FOREWORD
This is an attempt to sketch a rough and ready picture of the more prominent peaks that rise out of Ireland's past — the high spots in the story of our race.
The story is developed with the object of interesting and in- forming the man who can not, or will not, afford the time to read studiously. Yet it is earnestly hoped that it may whet the appetites of many, and stimulate them to go browsing in broader and richer pastures — in anticipation of which there are set down, at ends of chapters or periods, titles of some of the more important books dealing with the subject just treated of.
The writer was impelled to the compilation of this story of our race by the woeful lack of knowledge on the subject which he found in the four corners of America, among all classes of people, alike the intelligent and the ordinary. With the vast majority of Amer- ica's intellectual ones he found Ireland's past as obscure as the past of Borneo. On three occasions he was asked by educated women who were pilkrs in their Societies, Has Ireland got a history?
To a large extent the blame for American ignorance of Ire- land's story rests upon the ignorance of our own exiles, and the children of those exiles. Were these possessed of a general knowl- edge of Ireland's past, and the proper pride that must come of that knowledge, the good Americans around them would catch in- formation by contagion. The writer hopes that even this crude compendium may put some of the necessary knowledge and pride in the minds and hearts of his people — and also the incentive to seek out and study the history of the country that endowed them with the rare riches, spiritual and mental, that characterises the far-wand- ered children, and children's children, of the Gael.
Also it is to be hoped that many of the general American public, ever sympathetic toward Ireland, may, through the aid of this rough record, graduate from a state of instinctive sympathy and love to the beginning of an intelligent one.
In making this compilation, the political narrative common to all Irish histories is given briefly. But, non-political phases of our race's history — often far more important than the political, and
FOREWORD
usually omitted or only hinted at — ^are gone into more largely : such as the ancient customs, laws, learning, literature, scholars, teachers, saints, missionaries — and in more modern times the spiritual strug- gles and sufferings of our people.
In spelling the ancient Irish proper names the Gaelic form is usually employed — except in cases where a modern form has been popularised. For sake of readers who know nothing of Irish pro- nunciation, the confusing aspirate has been, in most cases, omitted — except with g or c where the aspirate is, to English speakers, a help rather than a hindrance. The Gaelic reader will know where to supply the missing aspirates.
For the inquiring reader's benefit it may be useful to quote here a passage from an article on The Ancient Language, History and Literature of Ireland, which Dr. Douglas Hyde kindly contributed for this volume — ^but which was unfortunately received too late for inclusion.
Says Dr. Hyde : "The numerous Irish annals in which the skele- ton of Irish history is contained, are valuable and ancient. We have of course no outside testimony by which we can verify their statements, but there is abundance of internal testimony to show the accuracy with which they have been handed down. The Annals of Ulster, to take one of several compilations of a like character, treat of Ireland from about the year 444, and record numerous natural phenomena as they occurred. If it could be proved that these phe- nomena actually took place upon the very date ascribed to them in the annals, we should be able to conclude with something like cer- tainty that they were actually written down at the time and recorded by eye-witnesses. The illustrious Bede in recording the great eclipse of the sun which took place only eleven years before his own birth is two days astray in his date, while the Irish annals give cor- rectly not only the day but the hour. This proves that their com- piler had access either to the original record of an eye-witness, or to a copy of such a document. These annals contain, between the end of the fifth century and the year 884, as many as eighteen records of eclipses, comets, and such natural phenomena — and modern science by calculating backwards shows that all these rec- ords are absolutely correct, both as to the day and hour. From this we can deduce without hesitation that from the fourth or fifth century the Irish annals can be absolutely trusted."
The compiler expresses his earnest thanks to the Irish scholars and writers who generously aided his work.
FOREWORD
The fine chapter on the Danish period ^ Is contributed by one eminently well versed on the subject, Dr. Joseph Dunn, translator of the Tain bo Chuailgne, and Professor of Celtic and Lecturer on Romance Philology at the Catholic University of America.
The noted worker In Irish history, biography, archaeology, and literature, "Sean-Ghall" — whom Arthur Griffith characterised as "the greatest living authority on Irish history" — gives us the fruit of years of research In the picture which he contributes of the ob- scure period from after the advent of Shane Buide to the eve of Shane O'Neill.^
Miss L. MacManus, the admired author of "The Silk of the KIne" and other fine Irish historical novels, and an authority upon the periods of which she has here treated, supplies the chronicle of Ireland during the Wars of Elizabeth, and during those of William of Orange.^
The bright chapter on the Wild Geese,* and the record of those momentous decades of Irish militancy 1782- 1803 ^ have been treated by another of the distinctive Irish writers, Helena O'Concannon (Mrs. Thomas O^Concannon), author of "The Book of Irish Wo- manhood," and several other valuable works.
Rev. Tomas O'Kelly of the National University (Galway), whose writing both In Irish and in English Is not yet as well known as it ought to be, tells the story of the Parnell period.®
Another of the new generation, one who Is making a name in fiction, essay, and poetry (Gaelic and English) Aod de Blacam, author of "Holy Romans," and "Towards the Republic" con- tributes the informing chapters on Gaelic literature, and those on the Sinn Fein period.^
For the Gaelic design on the cover of the book earnest thanks are due to a worthy Irish-American artist who Is admirably striving to make Gaelic art live again here, in stained-glass work, Thomas Augustus O'Shaughnessy of Chicago.
^^^.Jh^
1 Chap. XXX. ' Chaps. LVI-LIX and Chap LXI.
2 Chaps. XXXVII-XLI. « Chaps. LXXII-LXXVI.
3 Chaps. XLII-XLV and Chap. UI. ^ Chaps. LXXVII-LXXIX. ♦Chap. LI V.
THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
CHAPTER I
EARLY COLONISATIONS
The Irish Race of to-day is popularly known as the Milesian Race, because the genuine Irish (Celtic) people were supposed to be descended from Milesius of Spain, whose sons, say the legendary accounts, invaded and possessed themselves of Ireland a thousand years before Christ.^
But it is nearly as inaccurate to style the Irish people pure Milesian because the land was conquered and settled by the Mile- sians, as it would be to call them Anglo-Norman because it was conquered and settled by the twelfth century English.
The Races that occupied the land when the so-called Milesians came, chiefly the Firbolg and the Tuatha De Danann,^ were cer- tainly not exterminated by the conquering Milesians. Those two peoples formed the basis of the future population, which was domi- nated and guided, and had its characteristics moulded, by the far less numerous but more powerful Milesian aristocracy and soldiery.
All three of these races, however, were different tribes of the great Celtic family, who, long ages before, had separated from the main stem, and in course of later centuries blended again into one tribe of Gaels — three derivatives of one stream, which, after winding their several ways across Europe from the East, in Ireland turbulently met, and after eddying, and surging tumultuously, finally blended in amity, and flowed onward in one great Gaelic stream.
1 Many scientific historians deny this in toto. See Qiapter III.
2 De Jubainville denies a De Danann race to Ireland. He asserts they were m3rthological. MacNeill agrees with him. But many students of the question dis- agree with both of these able men. The fact that myths grow around great people must not lead us to conclude that the people were mythical. Fortunately Fionn and his Fian fell within historical time when actual facts, countering the myths that have gathered around them, were set down ; otherwise, by the same process of rea- soning, they might have been classed with the De Danann as an entirely imaginary people.
1
2 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
Of these three certain colonisations of Ireland, the Firbolg was the first. Legend says they came from Greece, where they had been long enslaved, and whence they escaped in the captured ships of their masters.
In their possession of Ireland the Firbolgs were disturbed by the descents and depredations of African sea-rovers, the Fomorians, who had a main stronghold on Tory Island, off the Northwest Coast.
But the possession of the country was wrested from the Firbolgs, and they were forced into partial serfdom by the Tuatha De Danann (people of the goddess Dana), who arrived later.
Totally unlike the uncultured Firbolgs, the Tuatha De Danann were a capable and cultured, highly civilized people, so skilled in the crafts, if not the arts, that the Firbolgs named them necroman- cers ; and in course of time both the Firbolgs and the later-coming Milesians created a mythology around these.
The great Irish historiographer, Eugene 0*Curry, says: "The De Danann were a people remarkable for their knowledge of the domestic, if not the higher, arts of civilized life" — and he further- more adds that they were apparently more highly civilized than even their conquerors, the Milesians.
In a famed battle at Southern Moytura (on the Mayo-Galway border) it was that the Tuatha De Danann met and overthrew the Firbolgs. There has been handed down a poetical account of this great battle — a story that O' Curry says can hardly be less than fourteen hundred years old — which is very interesting, and wherein we get some quaint glimpses of ancient Irish ethics of war (for even in the most highly imaginative tale, the poets and seanachies of all times, unconsciously reflect the manners of their own age, or of ages just passed) . The Firbolgs, only too conscious of the supe- riority of the newcomers, used every endeavour to defer the fatal encounter. When the armies were drawn up in seeming readiness, the Firbolgs refused to begin battle. And they coolly replied to the impatient enemy that they could not say when they would be ready to begin. They must have time to sharpen their swords, and time to put their spears in order, to furbish their armour, and brighten their helmets. The Tuatha De Danann had better restrain their impetuosity. Tremendous things hung upon the out- come of this fight, and they, wisely, were not going to be rushed into it until the last rod in the last (wicker work) shield was perfect.
Moreover, they observed that their opponents had a superior kind of light spear : so time must be given them to get like weapons
EARLY COLONISATIONS 3
made. And they magnanimously pointed out to the Tuatha De Danann that, on the other hand, as they, the Firbolgs, had the advantage of possessing craisechs, heavy spears that could work great destruction, the De Danann needed to provide themselves with craisechs. Anything and everything to stave off the dread matching of courage and skill. Altogether they most skilfully managed to keep the enemy fretting and fuming with impatience for a hundred days and five before the great clash resounded to the heavens.
But the De Danann gained an important point also. For, as the Firbolgs were possessed of overwhelming numbers, the strangers demanded that they eliminate their majority and fight on equal terms, man for man — which the laws of battle-justice unfor- tunately compelled the reluctant Firbolgs to agree to.
The battle raged for four days. Then the Firbolgs, finding themselves beaten, but pretending not to know this, proposed that the doubtful struggle be ended by halting the great hosts and pit- ting against each other a body of 300 men from each side. So bravely had the losing ones fought, and so sorely exhausted the De Danann, that the latter, to end the struggle, were glad to leave to the Firbolgs that quarter of the Island wherein they fought, the province now called Connaught. And the bloody contest was over.
The Firbolgs' noted King, Eochaid, was slain in this great bat- tle. But the greatest of their warriors, Sreng, had maimed the De Danann King, Nuada, cutting off his hand — and by that stroke deposed him from the kingship. Because, under the De Danann law (and ever after in Eirinn) no king could rule who suffered from a personal blemish.
The great warrior champion of the De Danann, Breas (whose father was a Fomorian chief) filled the throne while Nuada went into retirement, and had made for him a silver hand, by their chief artificer, Creidne.
Breas, says the legend, ruled for seven years. He mcensed his people by indulging his kin, the Fomorians, in their depredations. And he was finally deposed for this and for another cause that throws light upon one of the most noted characteristics of the people of Eire, ancient and modern. Breas proved himself that meanest of all men, a king ungenerous and inhospitable— lackmg open heart and open hand— "The knives of his people" it was com- plained, "were not greased at his table, nor did their breath smell of ale, at the banquet. Neither their poets, nor their bards, nor their satirists, nor their harpers, nor their pipers, nor their trum-
4 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
peters, nor their jugglers, nor their buffoons, were ever seen en- gaged in amusing them in the assembly at his court." So there was mighty grumbling in the land, for that it should be disgraced by so unkingly a king. And the grumbling swelled to a roar, when, in the extreme of his niggardliness, he committed the sin, unpar- donable in ancient Ireland, of insulting a poet. Cairbre, the great poet of the time, having come to visit him, was sent to a little bare, cold apartment, where a few, mean, dry cakes upon a platter were put before him as substitute for the lavish royal banquet owed to a poet. In hot indignation he quitted the abode of Breas, and upon the boorish king composed a withering satire, which should blight him and his seed forever. Lashed to wrath, then, by the outrage on a poet's sacred person the frenzied people arose, drove the boor from the throne, and from the Island — and Nuada Airgead Lam (of the Silver Hand) again reigned over his people.
Breas fled to the Hebrides, to his father, Elatha, the chief of the Fomorians, where, collecting a mighty host of their sea-rob- bers, in as many ships as filled the sea from the Hebrides to Jreland, they swarmed into Eirinn — and gave battle to the De Danaan at Northern Moytura, in Sligo. In this, their second great battle, the De Danann were again victorious. They routed their enemy with fearful slaughter, and overthrew the Fomorian tyranny in the island forever. The famous Fomorian chief, Balor of the Evil Eye, whose headquarters was on Tory Island, off the Northwest coast, was slain, by a stone from the sling of his own grandson, the great De Danann hero, Lugh. But Balor had slain King Nuada before he was himself dispatched.
This famous life and death struggle of two races is commemo- rated by a multitude of cairns and pillars which strew the great battle plain in Sligo — a plain which bears the name (in Irish) of "the Plain of the Towers of the Fomorians."
The De Danann were now the undisputed masters of the land.
So goes the honored legend.
CHAPTER II
THE TUATHA DE DANANN
Over the island, which was now indisputably De Danann, reigned the hero, Lugh, famous in mythology. And after Lugh, the still greater Dagda — whose three grand-sons, succeeding him in the sovereignty, were reigning, says the story, when the Milesians came.
Such a great people were the De Danann, and so uncommonly skilled in the few arts of the time, that they dazzled even their conquerors and successors, the Milesians, into regarding them as mighty magicians. Later generations of the Milesians to whom were handed down the wonderful traditions of the wonderful people they had conquered, lifted them into a mystic realm, theii greatest ones becoming gods and goddesses, who supplied tc their successors a beautiful mythology.
Most conquerors come to despise the conquered, but here they came to honor, almost to worship those whom they had subdued Which proves not only greatness in the conquered, but also bigness of mind and distinctiveness of character in the conquerors.
The De Danann skill in the arts and crafts in course of time immortalised itself in beautiful legends among the Milesians. Lugb was not only the son of a god (of Manannan MacLir, the sea-god), and the greatest of heroes, but tradition gave him all the many mortal powers of his people, so that he was called Sab Ildanach.. meaning Stem of all the Arts. When the De Danann had first ar rived in Ireland Lugh went to the court of Eochaid, the Firbolg king at Tara, and sought an office. But no one was admitted a member of this court unless he was master of some art or craft not already represented there. The doorkeeper barring Lugh's way demanded on what ground he sought to be admitted. Lugh answered that he was a saer (carpenter). No, they had a good saeT in the court already. Then he said he was a good smith. They had an able smith, also. Well, he was a champion. They already had a champion. Next, he was a harper. They had a wonderful harper, too. Then a poet and antiquarian. They had such — and of the most eminent. But he was a magician. They
5
6 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
had many Druids, adepts in the occult. He was a physician. They had the famous physician, Diancecht. He was a cupbearer. They had nine. Then, a goldsmith. They had the famous Creidne.^ *'Then," said Lugh, "go to your king, and ask him if he has in his court any man who is at once master of all these arts and profes- sions. If he has, I shall not ask admittance to Tara.'*
Eochaid, the King, was overjoyed. He led in the wonderful Lugh, and put him in the chair of the ard-oUam, the chief professor of the arts and sciences.
The Dagda, who reigned just before the coming of the Mile- sians, was the greatest of the De Danann. He was styled Lord of Knowledge and Sun of all the Sciences. His daughter, Brigit, was a woman of wisdom, and goddess of poetry. The Dagda was a great and beneficent ruler for eighty years.
^The old traditional tales say that the Creidne mentioned was a very famous worker in the precious metals. The basic truth of these traditions seems evidenced by the reference in very ancient manuscripts to Bretha Creidne, "The Judgments of Creidne," a body of laws dealing with fine scales, weights and measures, and the precious metals. There is still preserved part of a very old poem, which says that Creidne was drowned, returning from Spain with golden ore.
CHAPTER III
THE MILESIANS
The sixteenth-century scholar, O' Flaherty, fixes the Milesian in- vasion of Ireland at about looo B. C. — the time of Solomon. Some modern writers, including MacNeill, say that they even came at a much later date. There are, however, philologists and other scien- tific inquirers, who to some extent corroborate O' Flaherty's esti* mate.
It is proven that the Celts whencesoever they came, had, before the dawn of history, subjugated the German people and estab- lished themselves in Central Europe. At about the date we have mentioned, a great Celtic wave, breaking westward over the Rhine, penetrated into England, Scotland, and Ireland, Subsequently a wave swept over the Pyrenees into the Spanish Peninsula. Other waves came westward still later.
The studies of European scholars have shown that these Celts were an eminently warlike people, rich in the arts of civilized life, who subdued^ and dominated the ruder races, wherever they went on the Continent. They were possessed of "a high degree of po- litical unity, had a single king, and a wise and consistent external policy." Mostly, however, they seem to have been a federation of patrician republics. At various times they had allied them- selves with the Greeks to fight common enemies. They gave valu- able service to, and were highly esteemed by Philip, and by his son, the great Alexander. In an alliance which they made with Alex- ander, before he left on his Asiatic expedition, it was by the ele- ments they swore their fealty to the pact — just as we know they continued to swear in Ireland, down to the coming of Christianity in the fifth century.
They piqued Alexander's pride by frankly telling him that they did not fear him — only feared Heaven. They held sway in Cen- tral Europe through long centuries. A Celtic cemetery discov- ered at Hallstatt in upper Austria proves them to have been skilled in art and industries as far back as 900 B. C. — shows them as miners and agriculturists, and blessed with the use of iron instru- ments. They invaded Italy twice, in the seventh and in the fourth
7
8 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
centuries before Christ. In the latter time they were at the climax of their power. They stormed Rome itself, 300 B. C.
The rising up of the oppressed Germans against them, nearly three centuries before Christ, was the beginning of the end of the Continental power of the Celt. After that they were beaten and buffeted by Greek and by Roman, and even by despised races — broken, and blown like the surf in all directions. North and South, and East and West. A fugitive colony of these people, that had settkd in Asia Minor, in the territory which from them (the Gaels) was called Galatia, and among whom Paul worked, was found to be still speaking a Celtic language in the days of St. Jerome, five or six hundred years later. Eoin MacNeill and other scientific en- quirers hold that it was only in the fifth century before Christ that they reached Spain — and that it was not via Spain but via north- western France and Britain that they, crushed out from Germany, eventually reached Ireland. In Caesar's day the Celts (Gauls) who dominated France used Greek writing in almost all their busi- ness, public or private.
The legendary account of the origin of the Gaels and their coming to Ireland is as follows :
They came first out of that vast undefined tract, called Scythia — a region which probably included all of Southwest Europe and adjoining portions of Asia. They came to Ireland through Egypt, Crete, and Spain. They were called Gaedhal (Gael) because their remote ancestor, in the days of Moses, was Gaodhal Glas. When a child, Moses is said to have cured him of the bite of a serpent — and to have promised, then, that no serpent or other poisonous thing should infest the happy western island that his far posterity would one day inhabit. Niul, a grand-son of Gaodhal, who had been invited as an instructor into Egypt by one of the Pharaohs, married Pharaoh's daughter Scota — after whom Ireland was, in later ages, called Scotia. And the Irish Scoti or Scots are the descendants of Niul and Scota. In Egypt Niul and his people grew rich and powerful, resented the injustice of a later Pharaoh, were driven from the land, and after long and varied wanderings, dur- ing succeeding ages, reached Spain. When, after they had long sojourned in Spain, they heard of Ireland (perhaps from Phoeni- cian traders) and took it to be the Isle of Destiny, foretold for them by Moses, their leader was Miled or Milesius, whose wife also was a Pharaoh's daughter, and named Scota. Miled's uncle, Ith, was first sent into Ireland, to bring them report upon it. But the Tuatha De Danann, suspecting the purpose of his mission, killed Ith.
THE MILESIANS 9
Miled having died in Spain, his eight sons, with their mother, Scota, their families and followers, at length set out on their ven^ turous voyage to their Isle of Destiny/
In a dreadful storm that the supposedly wizard De Danann raised up against them, when they attempted to land in Ireland, five of the sons of Milesius, with great numbers of their followers, were lost, their fleet was dispersed and it seemed for a time as if none of them would ever enjoy the Isle of Destiny.
Ancient manuscripts preserve the prayer that, it is said, their poet, Amergin, now prayed for them —
"I pray that they reach the land of Eirinn, those who are riding upon the great, productive, vast sea :
"That they be distributed upon her plains, her mountains, and her valleys; upon her forests that shed showers of nuts and all fruits;
1 Inisfail, one of many ancient names for Ireland, signifies Isle of Destiny. Of "The Coming of the Milesians," Moore sang :
They came from a land beyond the sea,
And now o'er the western main Set sail in their good ships, gallantly.
From the sunny lands of Spain. "Oh, where's the isle we've seen in dreams.
Our destin'd home or grave?" Thus sang they, as by the morning beams,
They swept the Atlantic wave.
And lo, where afar o'er ocean shines
A sparkle of radiant green, ^ As though in that deep lay emerald mines
Whose light through the wave was seen, *Tis Inisfail— 'tis Inisfail!
Rings o'er the echoing sea ; While, bending to heaven, the warriors hail
That home of the brave and free.
Then turned they unto the Eastern wave
Where now their Day-God's eye A look of such sunny omen gave
As lighted up sea and sky. No frown was seen through sky or sea.
Nor tear o'er leaf or sod, When first on their Isle of Destiny
Our great forefathers trod.
Here let us understand that the ancient historical legends of Ireland arc, generally speaking, far from being baseless myths The Irish people are a people who eminently cling to tradition. Not only were the great happenmgs that marked great epochs enshrined in their memory forever, but even little events that trivially affected the history of their race, were, and are, seldom forgotten. We know that away back to the remotest antiquity, the seanachte (shanachy, the historian) and the poet were honored next to the king, because of the. tremendous value which the people set upon the recording and preserving of their history The poet and the sZtachieioLmng the fashion of the time, took advantage of their artist pnv- lege to color their narrative to an extent that to the modern mind wou d seem fantastic But it was with the details of the story that they were fronted this iLrty The big, essential facts had to remain unaltered. The things of impor ance no ooet of repute, however highly he might color, could or would dare to falsify.
lo THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
upon her rivers and her cataracts; upon her lakes and her great waters ; upon her spring-abounding hills :
"That they may hold their fairs and equestrian sports upon her territories :
"That there may be a king from them in Tara; and that Tara be the territory of their many kings:
"That noble Eirinn be the home of the ships and boats of the sons of Milesius:
"Eirinn which is now in darkness, it is for her that this oration is pronounced :
"Let the learned wives of Breas and Buaigne pray that we may reach the noble woman^ great Eirinn.
"Let Eremon pray, and let Ir and Eber implore, that we may reach Eirinn."
Eventually they made land — Eber with the survivors of his following landing at Inver Sceni, in Bantry Bay; and afterwards defeating a De Danann host under Queen Eire but losing their own Queen Scota in the fray — and Eremon with his people at Inver Colpa (mouth of the Boyne).
When they had joined their forces, in Meath, they went against the De Danann in general battle at Taillte, and routed the latter with great slaughter. The three kings and the three queens of the De Danann were slain, many of them killed, and the remainder dispersed.
The survivors fled into the remote hills and into the caves. Possibly the glimpses of some of these fugitive hill-dwellers and cave-dwellers, caught in twilight and in moonlight, by succeeding generations of Milesians, coupled with the seemingly magical skill which they exercised, gave foundation for the later stories of en- chanted folk, fairies, living under the Irish hills.
Though, a quaint tale preserved in the ancient Book of Leinster says that after Taillte it was left to Amergin, the Milesian poet and judge, to divide Eirinn between the two races, and that he shrewdly did so with technical justice — giving all above ground to his own people, and all underground to the De Danann!
Another pleasant old belief is that the De Danann, being over- thrown, were assembled by their great immortal Mannanan at Brugh of the Boyne, where, after counselling together, it was de- cided that, taking Bodb Derg, son of the Dagda, as their king, and receiving immortality from Mannanan, they should distribute them- selves in their spirit land under the happy hills of Ireland — ^where they have, ever since, enjoyed never-ending bliss.*
*Here is the ancient story-teller's description (from the Tarn Bo Cuailgne) of the cavalcade of Bodb Derg, in after ages, coming from his palace under Sliab-
THE MILESIANS ii
Of the Milesians, Eber and Eremon divided the land between them — Eremon getting the Northern half of the Island, and Eber the Southern. The Northeastern corner was accorded to the chil- dren of their lost brother, Ir, and the Southwestern corner to their cousin Lughaid, the son of Ith.
An oft-told story says that when Eber and Eremon had divided their followers, each taking an equal number of soldiers and an equal number of the men of every craft, there remained a harper and a poet. Drawing lots for these, the harper fell to Eremon and the poet to Eber — ^which explains why, ever since, the North of Ireland has been celebrated for music, and the South for song.
The peace that fell upon the land then, and the happiness of the Milesians, was only broken, when, after a year, Eber's wife discovered that she must be possessed of the three pleasantest hills in Eirinn, else she could not remain one other night in the Island. Now the pleasantest of all the Irish hills was Tara, which lay in Eremon's half. And Eremon's wife would not have the covetous-> ness of the other woman satisfied at her expense. So, because of the quarrel of the women, the beautiful peace of the Island was broken by battle. Eber was beaten, and the high sovereignty set- tled upon Eremon.
It was in his reign, continues the legend, that the Cruitnigh or Picts arrived from the Continent. They landed in the south- west, at the mouth of the River Slaney (Inver Slaigne). A tribe of Britons who fought with poisoned arrows were at the time ravag- ing that corner of the Island. The Picts helped to drive out the marauders, and in reward were granted a settlement there, from Crimthann, the chief of that quarter. Afterwards they had an outfall with Crimthann — and it was decided that they should be
na-mban to pay a visit to the De Danann chief, Ochail Oichne, who resided under Cruachan (in Roscommon) — "Seven score chariots and seven score horsemen was their number. And of the same colour were all their steeds; they were speckled; they had silver bridles. There was no person among them who was not the son of a king and a queen. They all wore green cloaks with four crimson pendants to each cloak ; and silver cloak-brooches in all their cloaks ; and they wore kilts with red interweavings, and borders or fringes of gold thread upon them, and pendants of white bronze thread upon their leggings or greaves, and shoes with clasps of red bronze in them. Their helmets were ornamented with crystal and white bronze; each of them had a collar of radiant gold around his neck, with a gem worth a newly calved cow set in it. Each wore a twisted ring of gold around him, worth thirty ounces of gold. All had white-faced shields, with ornamenta- tions of gold and of silver. They carried flesh-seeking spears, with ribs of gold and silver and red bronze in their sides; and with collars (or rings) of silver upon the necks of the spears. They had gold-hilted swords with the forms of serpents of gold and carbuncles set in them. They astonished the whole assembly by this display."
12 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
passed into Alba (Scotland).* The three Pictish chiefs were given Irish wives to take to Alba with them, on condition that hence- forth their royal line should descend according to the female suc- cession— which, it is said, was henceforth the law among the Alban Picts.
Eremon's victory over Eber had slight effect in fixing on his lineage the succession to the overlordship : for, through many hun- dreds of years afterward, the battle had to be refought, and the question settled once more — sometimes to the advantage of the Eremonians, sometimes to that of the Eberians. A warlike people must have war. Occasionally, during the reigns of the early Mile- sian kings, this want was filled for them by the Fomorians, who, though disastrously defeated by the De Danann at Northern Moy- tura, were far from being destroyed. Irial, the prophet, the grand- son of Eremon, and third Milesian king of Ireland, had to fight them again. And at many other times the Island suffered from their depredations.
Names of a long list of kings, from Eremon downward, and important particulars regarding many of them, were preserved by the historical traditions — traditions that were as valuable, and as zealously guarded, as are the written State Records of modern days.* The carefully trained file, who was poet, historian, and philosopher, was consecrated to the work — and, ever inspired with the sacredness of his trust, he was seldom known to deviate from the truth in anything of importance — however much he confessedly gave his imagination play in the unimportant details. And, much as the people reverenced him, they reverenced the truth of history more; and it was the law that a file, discovered falsifying, should be degraded and disgraced.
The Scottish historian Pinkerton, who was hardly sympathetic, admits : "Foreigners may imagine that it is granting too much to the Irish to allow them lists of kings more ancient than those of any other country of modern Europe. But the singularly compact and remote situation of that Island, and the freedom from Roman conquest, and from the concussion of the Fall of the Roman Em- pire, may infer this allowance not too much."
And the British Camden, another authority not partial to Ire-
3 MacNeill holds that the Picts came to Ireland ahead of the Gael : and that, as distinct tribes, portions of them inhabited many parts of it, down till historic times. They also occupied large part of Scotland.
- Many notable scholars deny the complete authenticity of this list. But un- doubtedly the greater part of the names are the real names of real kings who held sway over the Northern or the Southern half, if not o^"?r all, of Ireland.
THE MILESIANS 13
land, but sometimes hostile, says: "They deduced their history from memorials derived from the most profound depths of re- mote antiquity, so that compared with that of Ireland, the antiquities of all other nations is but novelty, and their history is but a kind of infancy."
Standish O'Grady in his **Early Bardic History of Ireland'* says: *'I must confess that the blaze of Bardic light which illumi- nates those centuries at first dazzles the eye and disturbs the judg- ment . . . (but) that the Irish kings and heroes should succeed one another, surrounded by a blaze of Bardic light, in which both themselves and all those who were contemporaneous with them are seen clearly and distinctly, was natural in a country where in each little realm or sub-kingdom the ard-ollam was equal in dignity to the King, as is proved by the equivalence of their eric. The dawn of English history is in the seventh century — a late dawn, dark and sombre, without a ray of cheerful sunshine; that of Ire- land dates reliably from a point before the commencing of the Christian Era — illumined with that light which never was on sea or land — thronging with heroic forms of men and women — ter- rible with the presence of the supernatural and its over-reaching power." ^
^D'Arcy McGee sang of
THE CELTS
Long, long ago beyond the misty space
Of twice a thousand years, In Erin old there dwelt a mighty race,
Taller than Roman spears ; Like oaks and towers they had a giant grace,
Were fleet as deers With winds and waves they made their 'biding place,
These western shepherd seers.
Their ocean-god was Mannanan MacLir,
Whose angry lips, In their white foam, full often would inter
Whole fleets of ships ; Crom was their day-god, and their thunderer.
Made morning and eclipse ; Bride was their queen of song, and unto her
They prayed with fire-touched lips.
Great were their deeds, their passions, and their sports ;
With clay and stone .
They piled on strath and shore those mystic forts,
Not yet o'erthrown ;
On cairn-crowned hills they held their council-courts;
While youths alone, With giant dogs, explored the elks resorts.
And brought them down.
14 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
Of these was Fin, the father of the Bard,
Whose ancient song Over the clamor of all change is heard,
Sweet-voiced and strong. Fin once o'ertook Grania, the golden-haired,
The fleet and young; From her the lovely, and from him the feared,
The primal poet sprung.
Ossian ! two thousand years of mist and change ' Surround thy name —
Thy Finian heroes now no longer range
The hills of fame. The very name of Fin and GoU sound strange —
Yet thine the same — By miscalled lake and desecrated grange —
Remains, and shall remain!
The Druid's altar and the Druid's creed
We scarce can trace, rhere is not left an undisputed deed
Of all your race. Save your majestic song, which hath their speed.
And strength, and grace; In that sole song, they live and love and bleed —
It bears them on thro' space.
Oh, inspired giant I shall we e'er behold,
In our own time, One fit to speak your spirit on the wold,
Or seize your rhyme? One pupil of the past, as mighty souled
As in the prime, Were the fond, fair, and beautifulj and bold-=
They, of your song sublime I
CHAPTER IV
SOME NOTABLE MILESIAN ROYALTIES
The popular traditions give details regarding many notable Mile* sian royalties in the decade of centuries before the Christian Era.
Within the first century after Eremon, is said to have reigned the distinguished Tighernmas (seventh of the Milesian line) who, they say, first smelted gold, and introduced gold ornaments, and gold fringes on dress. He also introduced various colours into dresses. Sometimes to him, sometimes to his successor, Eochaid, is credited the ancient ordinance which distinguished the various classes and professions by the colours in their dress. A King or Queen might wear seven colours; a poet or OUam six; a chieftain five; an army leader four; a land-owner three; a rent-payer two; a serf one colour only.
Tighernmas and two-thirds of his people were wiped out when they were assembled in the plain of Magh Slecht in Brefni, at wor- ship of Crom Cruach — a great idol which St. Patrick in his day destroyed.
All the stories say that the greatest king of those faraway times was the twenty-first Milesian king, known to fame as 011am Fodla (Ollav Fola) who blessed Ireland in a reign of forty years, some seven or eight centuries before the Christian Era. His title, Ollam Fodla, Doctor of Wisdom, has preserved his memory down the ages. The legends indicate that he was a true father to his people, and an able statesman. He organised the nation for efficiency — divided it into cantreds, appointed a chief over every cantred, a brugaid (magistrate) over every territory, and a steward over every townland. Some traditions say that he established a School of Learning. And as crowning glory he established the celebrated Feis of Tara, the great triennial Parliament of the chiefs, the nobles, and the scholars of the nation, which assembled on Tara Hill once every three years to settle the nation's affairs. This great deliberative assembly, almost unique among the nations in those early ages, and down into Christian times, reflected not n little glory upon ancient Ireland.
i6 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
One queen, famous and capable, whom early Ireland boasted was Macha Mong Ruad (the Red-haired), who reigned over the land about three hundred years before Christ. Her father, Aod Ruad was one of a triumvirate — the others being Dithorba and Cimbaoth — who by mutual agreement took seven-year turns in reigning. Aod Ruad was drowned at Eas-Aod-Ruad (Assaroe), now Ballyshanny. And when came round again the seven-year period which would have been his had he lived, his daughter, Macha, claimed the crown. But for it she had to fight her father^s two partners — which she did, killing Dithorba ; and first defeating, And afterwards marrying, Cimbaoth — and making him king.
For many, the reign of Cimbaoth — which synchronises with that of Alexander the Great — marks the beginning of certainty in Irish history — because of the famed remark of the trusted eleventh century historian, Tighernach, that the Irish records before Cim- baoth were uncertain.
When Cimbaoth died this able woman took up the reins of government herself, becoming the first Milesian queen of Ireland. But the record above all others by which this distinguished woman lives to fame, is her founding of the ancient and much-storied stronghold — named after her — of Emain Macha, which hence- forth, for six hundred years, was to play a most important part in the fortunes of Uladh (Ulster) and of Ireland.
Macha's foster-son, Ugani Mor (the Great), who succeeded her, led his armies into Britain, and had his power acknowledged there. After bringing a great part of Britain to obedience, some traditions say that his ambition led him on the Continent, where he met with many successes also, giving basis for the ancient seanachies styling him, *'King of Ireland and of the whole of Western Europe as far as the Muir Torrian" (Mediterranean Sea).
All the leading families of Ulster, Leinster and Connaught trace their descent from Ugani Mor — the common father of the royalties of the three provinces. The origin of the name of Lein- ster is ascribed to the activities of Ugani Mor's great grandson, Labraid Loingsech. Labraid's grandfather (Ugani Mor's son), Laegaire Lore, was killed for sake of his throne, by his brother, Cobtach. His son was killed at the same time : and the grandson, Labraid Loingsech, only spared because he was dumb, and conse- quently could not rule. Labraid Loingsech was reared up in secret, under the joint fosterage and tutorship of a celebrated harper, Craftine, and a celebrated poet and philosopher, Feirceirtne, Get- ting a blow of a caman once, when playing caman (hurley) with
NOTABLE MILESIAN ROYALTIES 17
other boys, he suddenly found the use of speech. When he grew up and Cobtach discovered that he no longer had the disabling blemish, and was moreover held in high esteem, he drove him out. The young man was received with honor at the King's court in Gaul — whence after some time he returned, with an army of over two thousand Gauls, armed with broad spears to which the Irish gave the name of Laighen. On his arrival in Ireland, he learnt that Cobtach, with thirty princes, was holding an assembly in Dinn Righ. There Labraid marched, and destroyed them all. He at- tacked and burned the Dinn and its guests — and won his grand- father's throne — and incidentally supplied the plot for one of the most famous of old Irish tales, "The Burning of Dinn Righ." From the Laighen of the Gauls, whom he settled in this southeastern part, Leinster, it is said took its name.^
The story of Cobtach and Labraid is to some extent curiously paralleled in that of the next Irish monarch of much note, Conaire Mor, who reigned within the century before, or at the time of, Christ: and who, in establishing his strong rule over Ireland, put- ting down lawlessness and making himself and his rule respected and feared, drove out his own foster-brothers, the four sons of a chieftain of Leinster. These returned after a time with a great body of Britons, under Ingcel, son of a British king. They de- stroyed and burned Meath, and then attacked Conaire Mor and his retinue in the Bruighean of DaDerga (one of the six public houses of hospitality that Ireland then boasted) destroyed it, and
1 About this Labraid Loingsech grew the myth (closely paralleled in the Greek) of his being cursed with the ears of a horse.
He always wore a golden helmet, says the legend, to conceal his horrible secret. Because the barber who cut his hair was ever chosen by lot, and put to death immediately after he had performed his task, a dread fear was on the whole nation, of some awful mystery that their king concealed from them.
Once the barber's lot fell upon the son of a poor widow. The woman's broken- hearted supplications so moved Labraid that he promised to spare her son's life, on his taking a solemn oath of secrecy. His terrible discovery, which he must now carry forever, a festering secret in his mind, so preyed upon the young man that he lost his sleep, lost his health, and was on the verge of losing his reason. He consulted a wise Druid, asking what he should do to save himself. The Druid's advice was that he must travel to a place where four roads met, and then tell to the nearest growing tree the dread secret which he must not give to any living being. He did this, and was instantly relieved, and grew hale, with a mind at ease, once more.
Now it was a willow tree to which he told the secret. In course of years tfhit tree was cut down, and a harp made of it for Craftine, the king's harper. And lo, when Craftine touched the strings of his new harp, in the hall of the king, the instrument sang: "The ears of a horse has Labraid Loingsech! The ears of a horse has Labraid Loingsech 1" Over and over again, "The cars of a horse has Labraid Loingsech!"
The court was horror-stricken, the king dumbfounded. Filled with remorse, and humiliated, but brave as a king should be, he bowed his head, and before the whole court, removed his golden helmet — thus ending the dreadful mystery forever.
i8 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
killed Conaire and his retinue. This tragic incident gave us the equally famous and remarkably beautiful tale, The Bruighean DaDerga.
Some of the historians say that it was Conaire Mor who reigned in Ireland when Christ was born. But others make the reigning monarch then Crimthann Niad Nair (Abashed Hero) — a king famous in ancient story for his foreign expeditions — from one of which we are told he brought back, among the booty, a gilt chariot, a golden chess-board inlaid ^ith 300 transparent gems, a sword entwined with serpents of gold, a silver embossed shield, and two hounds leashed with a silver chain.
During Crimthann's reign occurred a notable return of Fir- bolgs from the Western Islands of Alba (Scotland) whereto their forefathers had been driven, long ages before. Now a colony of them, led by the four sons of the chief, Umor, with the eldest son, Angus, at their head, took refuge in Ireland from the persecution of the Picts, and by the high king were granted lands in Meath. They soon however found him as oppressive as the Picts had been coercive. And on a night they fled Westward from their Meath possessions. They crossed the Shannon into Connaught, which was still largely inhabited and dominated by their Firbolg kin. There, the celebrated Queen, Maeve, and her husband, Ailill, gave them lands in South Connaught, where they settled once more.
But they were pursued by the two great Ulster warriors and heroes of the Red Branch, Cuchullin and Conal Cearnach, who had gone security to the high king for their good behaviour — who here fought them a battle wherein great numbers of the Umorians were slain, including Angus' three brothers, and his son, Conal the Slen- der. A great cairn, known to this day as Cairn Chonaill, was erected on the battlefield to commemorate him and them. Angus with his own people then settled in the islands of Aran, in Galway Bay, where he built the wonderful fortress still standing there and known as Dun Angus.
At the time of Christ, the celebrated Conor (Conchobar) Mac- Nessa reigned over Ulster.
CHAPTER V
IRELAND IN THE LORE OF THE ANCIENTS
Scotia (a name transferred to Alba about ten centuries after Christ) was one of the earliest names of Ireland — so named, it was said, from Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh, one of the an- cient female ancestors of the Milesians — and the people were com- monly called Scotti or Scots^ — both terms being frequently used by early Latin historians and poets.
Ireland was often referred to — by various names — by ancient writers both Latin and Greek. Plutarch testifies to the nation's antiquity by calling it Ogygia, meaning the most ancient.
One of its ancient titles was Hibernia (used by Caesar) — which some trace from Ivernia, the name, it is said, of a people located in the south of the Island; but most trace it from Eber or Heber, the first Milesian king of the southern half; just as the much later name, Ireland, is by some traced from Ir, whose family were in the northeastern corner of the Island. Though it seems much more likely that this latter name was derived from the most common title given to the Island by its own inhabitants, Eire — hence Eire-land, Ireland. It was first the Northmen and then the Saxons, who, in the ninth and tenth century began calling it Ir-land or Ir-landa — Ireland.
In the oldest-known foreign reference to Ireland, it was called lerna. This was the title used by the poet Orpheus in the time of Cyrus of Persia, in the sixth century before Christ. Aristotle, in his Book of the World, also called it lerna. In the first half of the first century Pomponius Mela refers to it as luvernia.
It was usually called either Hibernia or Scotia by the Latin writers. Tacitus, Caesar, and Pliny call it Hibernia. Egesippus calls it Scotia — and several later Latin writers did likewise. A Roman, Rufus Festus Avienus, who wrote about the beginning of the fourth century of this era called it "Insula Sacra" — which leads us to suppose that in the very early ages, it was, by the pagans,
1 MacNeill thinks the term Scot (and then Scotia) was derived from an old Irish word which signified a raider. He thinks they earned the title from their frequent raiding in Alba and in Britain in pre-Christian times. The conjecture is to the present writer unconvincing.
19
20 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
esteemed a holy isle. In a noted geographical poem of his occur the lines
"This Isle is Sacred named by all the ancients,
From times remotest in the womb of Chronos,
This Isle which rises o'er the waves of ocean,
Is covered with a sod of rich luxuriance.
And peopled far and wide by the Hiberni."
And the fourth century Istrian philosopher Ethicus in his cos- mography tells how in his travels for knowledge he visited "Hiber- nia" and spent some time there examining the volumes of that country — ^which, by the way, this scholarly gentleman considered crude.
That travellers' tales were about as credible In those far-away days as they are in days more recent, is evident from some of the curious things related about this Island by the early Latin writers — oftentimes grotesque blends of fable and fact. The Latin writer, Pomponius Mela (who was a Spaniard and flourished near the middle of the first century of the Christian Era), says in his cos- mography books: "Beyond Britain lies luvernia, an island of nearly equal size, but oblong, and a coast on each side of equal extent, having a climate unfavourable for ripening grain, but so luxuriant In grasses, not merely palatable but even sweet, that the cattle in very short time take sufficient food for the whole day — and If fed too long, would burst. Its Inhabitants are wanting in every virtue, totally destitute of piety."
The latter sentence is quite characteristic of the Latin writers of that day, to whom the world was always divided Into two parts, the Roman Empire with which exactly coincided Civilisation and the realm of all the Virtues, and the outer world which lay under the black cloud of barbarism.
But Strabo, who wrote in the first century of this era, does even better than Pomponius Mela. Quoting Poseidonios (who flour- ished still two centuries earlier) , he Informs us that the inhabitants of lerne were wild cannibals who considered it honourable to eat the bodies of their dead parents! But he blends sensational pic- turesqueness with caution; for he adds: "But the things we thus relate are destitute of witnesses worthy of credit In such affairs." He suspected he was setting down wild fiction, but evidently could not resist the temptation to spice his narrative for the sensating of his readers.^
2 An English clergyman with the Cromwelh'an troops in Ireland vouched for the fact that every man in a garrison which they captured was found to have a tail six inches long. Some of the English still believe it.
IRELAND IN THE LORE OF THE ANCIENTS 21
Solinus (about 200 A. D.), as naive as any of his fellows, has the inhabitants of Juverna (as he names the Island) ^'inhuman beings who drink the blood of their enemies, and besmear their faces with it. At its birth the male child's foot is placed upon its father's sword, and from the point of the sword it receives its first nourishment!" He, however, also heard of, and records, the ac- count of Juverna's luxuriant grasses, which he says injure cattle. And the true statement that there is no snake in the Island he coun- terbalances by the misstatements that there are few birds in it, and that the inhabitants are inhospitable !
Seemingly forgetful of the fact that even the early Chris- tians were accused of eating human flesh, St. Jerome accused the Irish of cannibalism. And a reason suggested for his mak- ing the wild accusation was because he smarted under the scath- ing criticism of the Irish Celestius — "an Alban dog," as the good sharp-tongued Father calls him, "stuffed with Irish por- ridge."
The careful Ptolemy, in the second century, gives a map of Ireland which (from a foreigner in that age of the world) is re- markable for the general correctness of the outline, and more note- worthy features. He names sixteen "peoples" (tribes) inhabiting it (the names of half of them being now recognised), and he men- tions several "cities" — probably royal residences.
With the exception of Ptolemy who, in all likelihood, derived his knowledge from the trading Phoenicians, the early Greek and Latin writers only knew of Ireland that it was an island sitting in the Western ocean, and remarkable for its verdure. Yet the Phoe- nicians were probably well acquainted with its ports. Tacitus says, "The Irish ports in the first century were well known to commerce and merchants."
The great antiquity of Ireland, incidentally acknowledged by foreign writers of olden time, is, as might be expected, sometimes fantastically exaggerated by ancient native writers.
We have the legend set down by several early Irish writers that a Greek, Partholan, with his people came here a few hun- dred years after the flood. The Island of Inis Saimer, in the mouth of the River Erne, at Ballyshanny, is named after Par- tholan's favourite hound. A plague exterminated the Parthola- nians.
But, not to be outdone in antiquity, by any European nation, some very ancient Irish poets people their country even before the flood — when, they say, in a well-known legend, that the Lady Cesair came with her father Bith, a grandson of Noah, and their
22 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
following to Ireland, hoping to escape the flood — but in vain.^
sYet another legend, of much later origin, tells that one of the Lady Cesair*s party did escape, namely, Finntann, a grandson of Bith, who kept afloat during the deluge — and lived afterwards, seemingly immortal, at Dun Tulcha in southwestern Kerry. Finntann reappeared in Irish history, on a notable occasion some thou- sands of years later, when, in the reign of Diarmuid MacCarroll, in the sixth cen- tury of our Era, this veteran, turned up at Tara to settle, by testimony taken from his long memory, a dispute about the limits of the Royal Demesne. Great was the awed wonder at the King's palace, when the old man arrived, preceded by nine companies of his own descendants, and followed by another nine. To prove the fitness of his memory, for testifying what had or had not been from the found- ing of Tara downward, he gave the wondering king and people some little idea of his age, by telling them the following story: "I passed one day through a wood in West Munster: I brought home with me a red berry of the yew tree, which I planted in the garden of my mansion, and it grew there until it was as tall aj man. ^ I then took it out of the garden, and planted it in the green lawja^ef my mansion ; and it grew in the centre of that lawn until an hundred champions could fit under the foliage, and find shelter there from wind, and rain, and cold, and heat. I remained so, and my yew remained so, spending our time alike, until at last it ceased to put forth leaves, from old age. When, afterwards, 1 thought of turning it to some profit, I cut it from its stem, and made from it seven vats, seven keeves, seven stans, seven churns, seven pitchers, seven milans and seven medars, with hoops for all. I remained still with my yew-vessels, until their hoops all fell off from decay and old age. After this I re-made them, but could only get a keeve out of the vat, and a stan out of the keeve, a mug out of the stan, a cilorn out of the mug, a milan out of the cilorn, and a medar out of the milan — and I leave it to Almighty God that I do not know where their dust is now, after their dissolution with me, from decay."
CHAPTER VI
CONOR MAC NESSA
At the time of Christ, as said, there reigned over Ulster — residing at Emain Macha (Emania) — a king noted in ancient song and story, Conor MacNessa.
He was a great grandson of Rory Mor, a powerful Ulster ruler who had become monarch of Ireland, and who was the founder of the Rudrician line of Ulster kings.
The memory of Conor MacNessa is imperishably preserved in the tale of The Sons of Usnach and in the greater tale of The Tain Bo Cuailgne (Coolney) — ^not by any means with honour, in the former.
Emain Macha was the headquarters of the famed Knights of the Royal Branch — now more commonly known as the Knights of the Red Branch. And it was in the days of Conor, and at his court, that these warrior champions reached the climax of their fame. For he was himself a doughty champion, an .able leader, and a great man — inspiration sufficient for such band of chivalrous war- riors as now rallied around him. In one of the tales of The Tain there is given by the herald MacRoth, a poetic description of this king, which at least tallies with what we would wish to think such royal king must be. Detailing to Queen Medb (Maeve) of Con- naught and her courtiers, a description of what he saw at the enemy Ulster camp, MacRoth says: "A tall graceful champion of noble, polished, and proud mien, stood at the head of the party. This most beautiful of the kings of the world stood among his troops with all the signs of obedience, superiority, and command. He wore a mass of yellow, curling, drooping hair. He had a pleasing, ruddy countenance. He had a deep, blue, sparkling, piercing eye in his head and a two-branching beard, yellow, and curling upon his chin. He wore a crimson, deep-bordered, five- folding tunic; a gold pin in the tunic over his bosom; and a brilliant white shirt, interwoven with thread of red gold, next his white skin."
The deeds of the Red Branch Knights in Conor's day, over and over again chronicled by succeeding generations of poets and chron-
23
24 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
iclers, have not been, and never will be, forgotten. And Conor MacNessa was part of it all.
His first wife was the Amazonian Medb (Maeve) just men- tioned, a daughter of Eocaid, the Ard-Righ (High King) of Ire- land. Afterwards, as queen of Connaught and the instigator of the great Connaught-Ulster war (commemorated in The Tain Bo Cuailgne) she, too, was destined to become immortal. From her — who needed a husband to whom she could be both master ami mis- tress— Conor had to separate. He found his happiness^ith her sister, Ethne, whom he took to wife then, and who pzx)ved to be all that was indicated by her name — Ethne, that is %weet kernel of a nut." /
Conor was not only a warrior and a patron of warriors, but a patron of scholars and poets, also. His Ard-file (chief poet) was the great Ferceirtne — to whom some writers of a thousand years ago were wont to ascribe a rude grammar of the Gaelic language, one of four books of ancient grammar, preserved in the Book of Leinster. "The place of writing this book," says the prefatory note to the grammar, "was Emania; the time was the time of Conor MacNessa, the author was Ferceirtne, the poet: and the cause of composing it was to bring the ignorant and barbarous to true knowledge."
Conor, patron of poetry and the arts, was a practical man who is said to have struck from learning the oppressive shackles of tradition that hitherto had cramped and bound it. Till his day the learned professions, both for sake of monopoly and of effect upon the multitude, used an archaic language that only the initiated un- derstood, and that awed the mass of the people. Once, however, the young poet, Neide, son of Ferceirtne's predecessor at Conor's court, having just won his poetic laurels, came to the court of Conor, where finding the poet's mani-colored tui^in (mantle) — made of the skins and wings of birds — lying on the poet's chair, he assumed the mantle, and took the poet's seat. When Fer- ceirtne discovered this, he, highly indignant, rebuked Neide, com- manding him to resign both the chair and the tuigin. King Conor, to whom the matter was referred, commanded that it should be decided by a learned controversy between the two poets. The occa- sion of the controversy, in the presence of the king, the court, and the general public, was a great one. But to every one's disappoint- ment, though the two scholars disputed long, and no doubt learn- edly, no one there — with the possible exception of the two prin- cipals— was any wiser at the end than at the beginning. For they had used the obsolete language of the scholars.
CONOR MAC NESSA 25
Conor, provoked and disgusted, at once ordered that the pro- fessions should not henceforth remain in the hereditary possession of the ancient learned families — but should be thrown open to all, irrespective of family or rank.
Yet Conor's reverence for poets was such that he saved them from expulsion, when, once they were threatened with death or exile, because, having grown so vast numbers, and got to be lazy, covetous, tyrannous, they had become an almost unbearable bur- den upon the multitude. O' Curry, indeed, says that in Conor's time so far had the taste for learning of all kinds, in poetry, music, Druidism in particular, seized on the mind of the nation, that more than one-third of the men of Eirinn had then given themselves up to the unproductive sciences. Conor gathered twelve hundred poets, it is said, into his dominion, and protected them there for seven years, till the anger of the people had abated, and they could scatter themselves over Ireland once more.
The famous story of Deirdre and the Sons of Usnach, how- ever— though it be a legend splendidly elaborated by the poet, but yet, we may well suppose, based upon facts — would show that King Conor, for all his kingliness, was sometimes no better than kings are supposed to be. According to it, he betrayed the immortal Naoisi and his brothers, and drove the beautiful Deirdre to her death. The sorrows of Deirdre as told in the story of The Sons of Usnach is one of the Three Sorrows of Irish story-telling.^
1 Deirdre was the daughter of Conor's story-teller, Feidlimid, and was born on a night when Conor was at the house of Feidlimid. Conor's Druid there and then foretold that this babe would be the cause of misfortunes untold coming upon Ulster.
To prevent this, Conor took charge of the babe. Had her confined in a fort where she should be reared up, without seeing any one except a nurse and a tutor, and Conor's spokeswoman — and when she should reach maturity, he would make her his wife.
As a young maiden, however, she managed to see Naisi, eldest of the three sons of Usnach, and immediately fell in love with him, and asked him to elope with her. Accompanied by Naisi's two brothers, Andli and Ardan, they fled to Alba. After a time they had to leave Alba, because the king had seen the rare beauty of Deirdre and coveted her. So they went off upon one of the islands.
Conor's nobles, pitying the distress and sufferings of the wandering lovers, pleaded for their forgiving and recall. Conor appeared to consent to all this. Deirdre and the three sons of Usnach returned joyfully to Emania. On the green of Emania a body of Conor's friends, led by Eogan, fell upon the three sons of Usnach and slew them, and Conor then took the broken-hearted Deirdre to himself.
For his treachery Fergus MacRigh whose honor Conor had pledged for the safety of the sons of Usnach, led a fierce assault upon Emania, in which Conor s son was slain, and 300 of his people, Emain itself pillaged and burned.
Deirdre was with Conor for a year, during which time she was never once seen to raise up her head, or smile. No amusement or kindness had any effect upon her, neither wit nor mirth could move the lowness of her spirit.
Incensed at her attitude, Conor at the end of the year, gave her to Eogan,
26 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
It is recorded that the Danes made descent upon Ireland in King Conor's day. They are said to have besieged, about this time, a stronghold on the site where now stands Dublin. The an- cient seanachies tell in particular of one battle, fought at Emain Macha against the Danes, under their commander, Daball, the son of the King of Lochlinn (Denmark) — whereat Conor) having only youths to put in the field.against the invaders, had the youth's faces dressed with wool, so that their enemies, instead of being heart- ened to victory by knowing that an army of youngsters was coming against them, were instead disheartened by the idea that^hey were meeting battle-tried veterans.
Conor died by a brain-ball that sunk into his skull — fired by the hand of Cet MacMagach, the Connaught champion, whom he had pursued after a Connaught cattle raid.
The legend attached to Conor's death is curious. The .brain- ball fired by Cet did not directly kill him. It sank into his skull — and his doctor. Faith Liag, would not remove it, because that would cause instant death. With care, Conor might live long, carrying the brain-ball. Henceforth, however, he must be moderate in all things, avoid all passion, all violent emotion and lead such a life of calm as kings in those days rarely knew.
Under Faith Liag's wise care Conor contrived to live and en- joy life for seven years. But, one time, his court was thrown into consternation by finding broad day suddenly turned into blackest night, the heavens rent by lightning, and the world rocked by thun- der, portending some dread cataclysm. Conor asked his Druids and wise men for explanation of the fearful happening. The Druid Bachrach, a noted seer, told him that there had been in the East, in one of the many countries under the dominion of Rome, a singu- lar man, more noble of character, more lofty of mind, and more beautiful of soul, than the world had ever before known, or ever again would know — a divine man, a God-man, who spent his life lifting up the lowly, and leading the ignorant to the light, and giv- ing new hope to a hopeless world — one, too, who loved all man- kind with a love that surpassed understanding — one, the touch of whose gentle hand gave speech to the dumb, sight to the blind, life
the chief of Fernmach, the man who for him had done the base deed to the sons of Usnach.
As they took her away from Conor's residence to the residence of Eogan, she wildly leaped from the chariot, her head struck a sharp rock, and she was killed.
Fergus MacRigh and his companions with 3,000 followers quitted Ulster after Conor's treachery, and went into Connaught where they took service in the army of l^edb.
CONOR MAC NESSA 27
to the dead. He was the noblest, greatest, most beautiful, most loving of men. And now the heavens and the earth were thrown into agony because on this day the tyrant Roman, jealous of his power over the people, had nailed him high upon a cross, and be- tween two crucified thieves, had left the divine man to die a fearful death.
Fired to rage by the thought of the terrible injustice meted out to such a noble one, Conor MacNessa, snatching down the sword that had not been unsheathed for seven years, and crying, *'Show me the accursed wretches who did this base deed!" burst through the restraining ring of courtiers, leapt into the storm, dashed through a grove of trees, fiercely hewing down their bend- ing branches and shouting, "Thus would I treat the slayers of that noble Man, could I but reach them."
Under the strain of the fierce passion that held him the brain- ball burst from King Conor's head — and he fell dead.^
2 Some say that it was a Roman Consul, Altus, who informed Conor of the death of Christ. Still others say it was the Royal Branch champion, Conal Cear- nach — ^who had been a prisoner with the Romans, and who had been taken by them to the limits of their Empire, in the course of which expedition, he was in Jerusalem on the day of days, and witnessed the Crucifixion. "A representative of every race of mankind," says the legend, "was on the Hill of Calvary at the dreadful hour." Conal Cearnach represented the Gael. The beautiful story of Conal Cearnach at the Crucifixion is related by Ethna Carbery in her book "From the Celtic Past"
CHAPTER VII
CUCHULLAIN
Those days when Conor MacNessa sat on the throne of Ulster were brilliant days in Ireland's history. Then was the sun of glory in the zenith of Eire's Heroic period — the period of chivalry, chiefly created by the famous Royal or Red Branch Knights of Emania. Though, two other famous bands of Irish warriors gave added lustre to the period — the Gamanraide of the West (who were Firbolgs), and the Clanna Deaghaid of Munster led by Curoi MacDaire.
All three warrior bands had their poets and their seanachies, who chanted their deeds in imperishable song and story which, down the dim ages, have since held spell-bound the clan of the Gael.
But the greatest, the most belauded, and the most dazzling of all the heroes of that heroic age was undoubtedly CuchuUain, of whose life and wondrous deeds, real and imaginary, hundreds of stories still exist.^
No cycle of Irish story with the one possible exception of the Finian cycle (whose time is a couple of centuries later) can at all compare with the wondrously rich, and extensive, CuchuUain cycle. And in the legendary literature of the whole world, by few other cycles is it surpassed.
CuchuUain was a foster-son of King Conor. "I am little Se- tanta, son to Sualtim, and Dectaire your sister," he told the ques- tioning king, when, as a boy, in whose breast the fame of the Red Branch warriors had awaked the thirst for glory, he came up to the court of Emania. When he arrived there the youths in train- ing were playing caman upon the green. And having taken with him from home his red bronze hurl and his silver ball, the little stranger, going in among them, so outplayed all the others, that the attention of the court was drawn to him. And it was then that
1 The name of Cu-chullain, Cnllan's hound, he took because once, as a little lad, when he approached the house of Cullan and was ferociously attacked by the smith's great watch-hound, Setanta tore the hound asunder — and then pitying the bereaved Cullan said, "I shall henceforth be your hound, O Cullan."
28
CUCHULLAIN
29
the little stranger gave the above reply to the question of the ad' miring King.
The eager attention of the warriors of the Red Branch was drawn to this bright lad, and they foresaw great things for him, when they heard him express himself nobly and wonderfully, on the day that, in Emania, in the Hall of Heroes, he took arms.
When a youth had decided to take up the profession of arms, a certain day was appointed for the solemn ceremony that dedi- cated him thereto. The day of dedication chosen by Cuchullain was disapproved of by the Druids, who having read the omens, pronounced that the youth who took arms on this day would be short-lived, though he should win great fame, so his friends would dissuade the eager youth from taking arms to-day. In answer to them, the youth, standing up in the Hall of Heroes, with spear in one hand, and shield in the other, exclaimed: *'I care not whether I die to-morrow or next year, if only my deeds live after me."
And in his after career he amply fulfilled the rich promise that lay in his words. He was to become his country's immortal hero.
And the memory of this hero has run the gauntlet of strange vicissitudes in Ireland — the greatness of the man excessively stimu- lating the imagination of the poet, in the course of centuries, caus- ing his reality to be lost in legend; and in the course of further centuries, the greatness of the legendary Cuchullain creating for him a new reality in the minds of the Irish people.
His legendary history is recounted in many stories in the great- est of Irish epics, "The Tain Bo Cuailgne" — the Cattle-raid of Cuailgne. The plan of the very great, very ajncient, epic of The Tain Bo Cuailgne is roughly this: Queen Medb (Maeve) of Con- naught, who was daughter of the Ard-Righ of Ireland, Eochaid Feidlech, and was first the wife of Conor MacNessa, King of Ulster, secured for herself the kingdom of Connaught, through a second marriage. And by a third marriage she had Ailill, of Lein- ster, as her consort and understudy. Once this queen Maeve and her King Ailill got counting and matching their worldly possessions. Throughout long and detailed reckoning of these possessions, it was found that neither one had any advantage over the other in worldly wealth — until, at length, it was discovered that Ailill, in his herds, had one precious bull which Maeve in her herds could not equal. Furthermore, in all Ireland, there was no bull to equal him, with the single exception of the celebrated brown bull of Cuailgne (in the present County of Louth). To the chief of Cuailgne Maeve sent a courier, to request the loan of his valuable animal, so that her herd might surpass Ailill's. And since it was
30 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
natural that he might not wish to let out of his sight this precious bull, the chief was invited to come with the bull to the Connaught court, and there be royally entertained as long as the bull remained on loan.
The request was readily granted; but unfortunately Maeve's courier in his cups that night had vaunted that if the bull had been denied to Maeve, she and her forces would have come and taken it anyhow. The account of the boasting was carried to the Cuailgne chief, who immediately ordered Maeve's courier back to Con- naught — without the bull.
Then Maeve, enraged and determined, mobilised a great army for the invasion of Ulster (which was enemy-ground, anyhow) and for the forcible carrying off of the brown bull of Cuailgne. She had all the Connaught forces, chief among them the Fir Dom- nainn Knights, under their leader, Ferdiad; and she had a splendid body of ulster malcontents, under Fergus MacRigh (cousin to King Conor MacNessa), who were eager to revenge themselves upon Conor and their native province. And she had also the armies of her allies, from the other three-fifths of Ireland.
With this mighty army she marched upon Ulster — in the gap of which province they were met by the redoubtable CuchuUain — who standing in the gap of Ulster, and defending it against Maeve, and the four-fifths of Ireland, is henceforth the hero and the great central figure in the Tain.
Not only are his wonderful deeds in this wonderful fight here recorded, but frequently the palpitating narrative is suspended, to give the seanachie time to recite some deed, relate some incident, or give us 'some glimpse, of the great hero's earlier career.
The greatest, most exciting, portion of this great and exciting epic is the account of our hero's fight with his friend, Ferdiad, at the ford, where, single-handed, he is holding at bay the forces of Connaught. Ferdiad is the great Connaught champion, chief, as said, of the Connaught Knights of the Sword, the Fir Domniann and a dear friend and comrade of CuchuUain, since, in their youth, they were training for the profession of arms. And it is now sore for CuchuUain to fight the soul-friend whom the Connaught host has pitted against them. He would dissuade Ferdiad from fight- ing, by reminding him of their comradeship, when they were to- gether learning the art of war from the female champion, Scathach, In Alba.
"We were heart companions,
We were companions in the woods We were fellows of the same bed,
CUCHULLAIN 31
Where we used to sleep the balmy sleep. After mortal battles abroad, In countries many and far distant, Together we used to practise, and go Through each forest, learning with Scathach."*
But Ferdiad had not the tenderness of CuchuUaln, and would not let fond memories turn him from his purpose. Indeed lest he might yield to the weakness of temptation, he forced himself to answer Cuchullain's tenderness with taunts, so as to provoke the combat. And fight they finally did.
"Each of them began to cast spears at the other, from the full middle of the day till the close of the evening ; and though the ward- ing ofi was of the best, still the throwing was so superior, that each of them bled, reddened, and wounded the other, in that time. *Let us desist from this, now O Cuchullain,* said Ferdiad. 'Let us de- sist,' said Cuchullain.
"They ceased. They threw away their arms from them into the hands of their charioteers. Each of them approached the other forth- with, and each put his hands around the other's neck, and gave him three kisses. Their horses were in the same paddock that night, and their charioteers at the same fire; and their charioteers spread beds of green rushes for them, fitted with wounded men's pillows. The professors of healing and curing came to heal and cure them, and they applied herbs and plants of healing and curing to their stabs and their cuts and their gashes, and to all their wounds. Of every herb and of every healing and curing plant that was put to the stabs and cuts and gashes and to all the wounds of Cuchullain, he would send an equal portion from him westward over the ford to Ferdiad, so that the men of Eirinn might not be able to say, should Ferdiad fall by him, that it was by better means of cure that he was en- abled (to kill him).
"Of each kind of food, and of palatable, pleasant, intoxicating drink that was sent by the men of Eirinn to Ferdiad, he would send a fair moiety over the ford northwards to Cuchullain because the purveyors of Ferdiad were more numerous than the purveyors of Cuchullain."
On the evening of the second day, after a terribly fierce combat —
"They threw their arms from them into the hands of their charioteers. Each of them came towards the other. Each of them put his hands round the neck of the other, and bestowed three kisses
2 This, and following excerpts, descriptive of the fight, are from 0*Curry*8 translation.
32 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
on him. Their horses were in the same enclosure, and their chario- teers at the same fire."
When the fight reaches its third day the worn and wounded Ferdiad, by his irritable temper, and testy, taunting words, shows that he is getting the worst of it. On their meeting, Cuchullain notices the sad change that has come over Ferdiad's darkened coun- tenance: "It is not from fear or terror of thee that I am so dis- dained," said Ferdiad, *'for there is not in Eirinn this day a cham- pion that I could not subdue." And again he says vauntingly of himself: *'0f none more valiant have I heard, or to this day did I ever meet."
Cuchullain replies to his boasting:
"Not one has yet put food unto his lips, Nor has there yet been born, Of king or queen, without disgrace, One for whom I would do thee evil."
Cuchullain's persistent tenderness backs up the tide of Ferdiad's bad humour, and gives outlet for a time to his better nature. He replies :
"O Cuchullain of the battle triumph,
It was not thee, but Medb that betrayed me. Take thou victory and fame, Thine is not the fault."
Cuchullain' s reply:
"My faithful heart is a clot of blood,
From me my soul hath nearly parted, I have not strength for feats of valour To fight with thee, O Ferdiad."
But the weariness of the long, long struggle had so sorely told upon both of them that there is bitterness in their fight to-day as well as fierceness, till the hour of even's close.
" 'Let us desist now from this, O Cuchullain,* said Ferdiad.
" 'Let us desist, now, indeed, if the time hath come,* said Cuchul- lain. They ceased.
"They cast their arms from them into the hands of their chario- teers. Though it was the meeting — pleasant, happy, griefless, and spirited of two (men), it was the separation — mournful, sorrowful, dispirited, of two (men) that night.
"Their horses were not in the same enclosure that night. Their charioteers were not at the same fire **
CUCHULLAIN 33
As will have been noticed from the references, the Red Branch Knights and other famous knights of their day used chariots and frequently fought from them.
CuchuUain's charioteer, Laeg, is, too, clothed in immortality, because of the frequent references to him in The Tain. Laeg's usefulness to CuchuUain did not end with his superb ability as a charioteer: he was worth gold, for abusing and taunting his master into hotter ire and fiercer effort, whenever in the course of a fight his master relaxed, or weakened, or was being worsted.
For instance, on one day of the fight, Ferdiad v/ho evidently knew a little psychology and profited by his knowledge, took occa- sion, before the fight began, and within sight of CuchuUain, to practise himself in some of his most startUng sword feats. The display had its desired effect.
"I perceive, my friend, Laeg" (said CuchuUain), "the noble, va- ried, wonderful, numerous feats which Ferdiad displays on high, and all these feats will be tried on me in succession, and therefore it is that if it be I that shall begin to yield this day, thou art to excite, reproach, and speak evil to me, so that the ire of my rage and anger shall grow the more on me. If it be I that prevail, then shalt thou laud me, and praise me, and speak good words to me, that my cour- age may be the greater."
"It shall so be done, indeed, O CuchuUain," said Laeg.
And it was so done, indeed. When CuchuUain was getting the worst of it that day, the fourth and last, the faithful Laeg came to his rescue.
"Alas, indeed," said Laeg, "the warrior who is against thee casts thee away as a lewd woman would cast her child. He throws thee as foam is thrown by the river. He grinds thee as a mill would grind fresh malt. He pierces thee as the felling axe would pierce the oak. He binds thee as the v^oodbine binds the tree. He darts on thee as the hawk darts on small birds, so that henceforth thou hast not call, or right, or claim to valour or bravery to the end of time and life, thou little fairy phantom."
Laeg's abusive efforts are fruitful. CuchuUain rallies to the fight more fiercely, more terribly, more overpoweringly than ever, and at length gives to his friend, Ferdiad, the coup de grace,
" *That IS enough now, indeed,' said Ferdiad. 'I fall of that. But I may say, indeed, that I am sickly now after thee. And it did not behove thee that I should fall by thy hand.'
34 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
"Cuchullain ran toward him after that and clasped his two arms about him, and lifted him with his arms and his armour.
"CuchuUain laid Ferdiad down then; and a trance, and a faint, and a weakness fell on CuchuUain over Ferdiad there."
Laeg called upon CuchuUain to arise, because the Connaught host would be so frenzied by the fall of their champion that for- getting the ethics of combat, they would throw themselves upon CuchuUain.
"'What availeth me to arise, O servant,* said CuchuUain, 'after him that hath fallen by me.' "
CuchuUain deplores what he calls the treachery and abandon- ment played upon Ferdiad by the men of Connaught, in pitting Ferdiad against himself who is invincible. And he sang this lay :
"O Ferdiad, treachery has defeated thee. Unhappy was thy last fate, Thou to die, I to remain, Sorrowful for ever is our perpetual separation.
"When we were far away, in Alba
With Scathach, the gifted Buanand,
We then resolved that till the end of time
We should not be hostile to each other.
"Dear to me was thy beautiful ruddiness. Dear to me thy comely, perfect foiun. Dear to me thy grey clear-blue eye, Dear to me thy wisdom and thy eloquence.
"There hath not come to the body-cutting combat, There hath not been aroused by manly exertion, There hath not held up shield on the field of spears, Thine equal, O ruddy son of Daman.
"Never until now have I met, Since I slew Aife's only son, Thy like in deeds of battle — Never have I found, O Ferdiad. • •••••••
"There has not come to the gory battle.
Nor has Banba nursed upon her breast.
There has not come off sea, or land.
Of the sons of Kings, one of better fame."
CUCHULLAIN 35
After long wars and doughty deeds done on both sides, Medb gets the coveted brown bull, and fights her way back to Connaught with the rare prize. Yet, does he make Connaught, in its very short possession of him, sorely rue his carrying away.
As the account of Cuchullain's fighting gives us an idea of the remarkable chivalry of the fighters in ancient Eire — at least the chivalry of that very ancient time in which the poet wrote, if not of that time in which the hero fought — so the account of his court- ship gives us some impression of the quality and character of the women of Eire in the faraway time, and the loftiness of men's ideals regarding them.
When Cuchullain, chariot-driven by his faithful Laeg, went upon his famous courting journey, to woo the Lady Emer, the beautiful daughter of Forgaill the Brugaid (Hospitaller) of Lusc, the spec- tacle was impressive to all the wondering ones who beheld it. When he arrived at her father's Bruighean, the honoured Lady, modest as she was beautiful, was on the Faithe (lawn) sewing, and teaching sewing among a group of maidens, daughters of the neighbouring farmers. The hero was not only smitten by her beauty and her modesty, but captivated by her womanly accomplishments.
For Emer was possessed of the six womanly gifts, namely, "the gift of beauty of person, the gift of voice, the gift of music, the gift of embroidering and needlework, the gift of wisdom, and the gift of virtuous chastity."
When, to her maidenly confusion, she learns the purpose of Cuchullain's visit, she, with magnificent modesty, and as noble- hearted generosity, urges upon her wooer the prior and superior claims of her elder sister, thereby involuntarily making herself doubly desirable. Beyond all doubt she is and must be the one woman in all the Island suited to mate with and make happy, Eire's champion most renowned. And eventually she did make him happy.
Cuchullain died as a hero should — on a battlefield, with his back to a rock and his face to the foe, buckler on arm, and spear in hand.
He died standing, and in that defiant attitude (supported by the rock) was many days dead ere the enemy dared venture near enough to reassure themselves of his exit — which they only did when they saw the vultures alight upon him, and, undisturbed, peck at his flesh.
CHAPTER VIII
TWO FIRST CENTURY LEADERS
The first century of the Christian Era saw two remarkable move- ments in Ireland — wherein the whole national structure was forcibly turned upside down by one remarkable man — and then as forcibly re-adjusted by another man even still more remarkable.
These two great leaders were the usurper, Carbri Cinn Cait, and the monarch, Tuathal the Desired.
It was early in the first century that occurred the great Aithech Tuatha revolution. The Aithech Tuatha meant the rent-paying peoples. They were probably the Firbolgs and other* conquered peoples — who had been in bondage and serfdom to the Milesians for hundreds of years.
Among these serfs arose an able leader, chief of one of their tribes in Leinster, named Carbri Cinn Cait — which some translate "cat-head," a term of derision applied to him by the Milesians — but which Sullivan (introduction to O' Curry) more reasonably in- terprets "head of the unfree ones.''
Amongst these people who by the Milesian law were excluded from every profession, art and craft that carried honour, and ground down by rents and compulsory toil, this remarkable man succeeded in spreading a great, silent conspiracy. When they were ripened for revolution, the Aithech Tuatha invited all the royalties and all the nobility of the Milesians to a great feast, on a plain in the County Galway, which is now called Magh Cro, or the bloody plain, and there treacherously falling upon their guests, slew them. After which, the rent-payers, for five years, governed the land with Cinn Cait as their monarch. The Four Masters say of Carbri's reign, "Evil was the state of Ireland : fruitless her corn, for there used to be only one grain on the stock; fruitless her rivers; milk- less her cattle; plentiless her fruit, for there used to be but one acorn on the stalk."
On the death of Carbri, his son Morann, who had become noted as a lawgiver and who was surnamed "the Just," refused the crown, and said that it should be given to the rightful one. Now Baine,
36
TWO FIRST CENTURY LEADERS 37
wife of the slain King of Connaught, and daughter of the King of the Picts, who was pregnant, and visiting her father in Alba at the time of the great massacre, had borne a son, Feradach. And Fera- dach Finn-feactnach, the Fair Righteous One, now recalled from Pict-land, became King of Ireland.
But his reign was a troubled, unhappy one. For the unruly elements were reluctant to settle down, after having tasted revolu- tion and rapine. Even the so-called legitimate chiefs who had come to their own again were restless and rebellious. In the reign of Fiacha of the White Cows, occurred another revolution — in which the provincial Milesian kings and the Aithech Tuatha seem to have been banded together. They overturned the reigning house, slew Fiacha, and placed on the throne Elim of Ulster — who, by re- pressing the Legitimists, and holding the favour of the Aithech Tuatha, managed to hold to his insecure position during a stormy reign of 20 years.
But the favour shown the Aithech Tuatha, and the power they were permitted to exercise, so angered and aroused the Milesian classes that they recalled from his exile (in Britain) Tuathal Feachtmar — that is to say, Tuathal the Desired — the son of Fiacha (and sixth in descent from Eochaid Feidlech, the father of Medb). A great portion of the nation joyfully hailed the Desired and rallied to his standard. And at the Hill of Scire in Meath he overthrew Elim, who was killed in the battle. But before he felt secure upon the throne of Ireland, Tuathal had to fight 133 battles!
Tuathal broke up the tribes of the Aithech Tuatha and scat- tered and redistributed them over the land in such way that they could not easily combine and conspire again.
This was a man of strong character, marked ability, and great moral power, whose reign influenced the future of Ireland. He established order in a land that had been for half a century in chaos. He fostered trade, and instituted laws for its protection and propagation. He made a new and important fifth province of Meath — which became fixed henceforward as the Ard-Righ's (High-King's) province. Before his day the other provinces met at the hill of Uisnech in that part of Ireland which is now called West Meath. From each of these he cut ofif a portion, which, at- tached to the former small domain of Meath made an important, rich, and royal Meath — enlarged from its former one tiiath to eighteen tuatha. From a little district Meath then became an im- portant province — the province of the Ard-Righ or High King of all Ireland. In each of the four cut of? portions, moreover, he erected a royal residence — at the famous location where the four
38 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
great provincial fairs were held, namely, at Tlachtga in Leinster; at Uisnech in Munster; Cruachan in Connacht; and Taillte in Ul- ster. Tuathal also re-organised the great National Fairs of Ire- land, and re-established the interrupted Feis or Parliament of Tara. And thus did the country and the Milesian dynasty recover, un- der this strong man .from the staggering revolution of the Aithech Tuatha.
One other most notable happening in this king's reign was the laying upon Leinster of the famous Boru tribute — a crime which, for long centuries, was to be the cause of bloody wars that should shake the Island.
This was the origin of the Boru tribute: Of TuathaPs two beautiful daughters, Dairine and Fithir, the former wedded King Eochaid of Leinster. After some time, however, either tiring of her or coveting the beauty of her younger sister, Eochaid put Dairine away, and confined her in a tower. Giving out that she was dead, he went in mourning to the court of Tara, to seek con- solation. Tuathal gave him that, by presenting to him Fithir for wife. Eochaid took Fithir with him to the court of Leinster, where, after a time, and through an accident, the two sisters met face to face, thus discovering a hidden, horrible truth. The shock- ing discovery of the double shame he had put upon them over- whelmed with mortification and grief the two sisters; and they died, broken-hearted.
When their father, the High King, learnt how that Eochaid had brought about his daughters* dishonour and death, he rallied auxiliaries to his aid, and marched into Leinster, ravaging it as he went. The province and its king were saved only by Eochaid's humiliated submission, and his binding the province to pay to the High King at Tara, every alternate year for an indefinite period, the tremendous tribute which came to be known as the Boru or cow-tribute — five thousand cows, five thousand hogs, five thousand cloaks, five thousand vessels of brass and bronze, and five thou- ^ ounces L silver.
This crushing tribute was henceforth laid upon Leinster, by the High King of Tara from the time of Tuathal forward till the reign of Fionnachta, a period of five hundred years — but in most cases having to be lifted with steel hands. It caused more bloody history than did almost any other festering sore with which Ireland was ever afflicted. During these five centuries hardly a High King sat upon the throne of Tara, who did not have to carry the bloody sword into Leinster again and again, forcibly to hack his pound of flesh from off that province's palpitating body. And only some-
TWO FIRST CENTURY LEADERS 39
times was the fight fought between Meath and Leinster alone. Often, through alliances, mutual sympathies, antagonisms, hopes, or dangers, half of Ireland, and sometimes all of Ireland was em- broiled. So, together with much that was good Tuathal left to his country a bloody legacy.^
1 Tuathal's son, who succeeded him, Feidlimid Rechtmar, the Lawgiver, suc- cessfully pursued his father's policy of making the laws respected, — and the better to achieve the noble purpose, devoted himself first to making them just — according to his lights. He established the Lex Talionis — the law of an eye for an eye — a rude and severe justice, which held thereafter in Ireland until the coming of Pat- rick. With the more lenient spirit of Christ, which he introduced, Patrick ended the reign of Feidlimid's Lex Talionis.
For still one other thing Feidlimid's name is somewhat memorable. The old seanachies quaintly record of him that "he died on his pillow," a phrase which indirectly throws a flood of light upon the abrupt manner in which the kings (of all countries) in those days usually made their exit from the world.
CHAPTER IX
CONN OF THE HUNDRED BATTLES
The celebrated Conn of the Hundred Battles was a son of Feid- limid, the son of Tuathal — though he did not immediately succeed Feidlimid. Between them reigned Cathair Mor, who was the father of thirty sons, among whom and their posterity he attempted to divide Ireland, and from whom are descended the chief Leinster families.
And we may pause to note that Cathair Mor is immortalised in Irish history by reason of a famous ancient will ascribed to him — a will that is of value because of the light it sheds upon many things of prime historical interest in early days. In this will we read, for instance, that he left to Breasal, his son, five ships of bur- den; fifty embossed bucklers, ornamented with border of gold and silver; five swords with golden handles; and five chariots. To Fiacha-Baiceade, another son, he left fifty drinking cups; fifty bar- rels made of yew-tree; and fifty piebald horses, the bits of the bridles made of brass. He left to Tuathal-Tigech, son of Maine, his brother, ten chariots; five play tables; five chess-boards; thirty bucklers, bordered with gold and silver; and fifty polished swords. To Daire Barach, another of his sons, he left one hundred and fifty pikes, the wood of which was covered with plates of silver; fifty swords of exquisite workmanship; five rings of pure gold; one hundred and fifty billiard-balls of brass, with pools and cues of the same material; ten ornaments ui exquisite worKmanship ; twelve chess-boards with chess men. To Mogcorf, son of Laogare Birn- buadach, he left a hundred cows spotted with white, with their calves, coupled together with yokes of brass; a hundred bucklers; a hundred red javelins; a hundred brilliant lances; fifty saffron-col- oured great-coats; a hundred different coloured horses; a hundred drinking cups curiously wrought; a hundred barrels made of yew- tree; fifty chariots of exquisite workmanship; fifty chess-boards; fifty tables used by wrestlers; fifty trumpets; fifty large copper boilers, and fifty standards; with the right of being a member of
40
CONN OF THE HUNDRED BATTLES 41
the council of state of the king of Leinster. Lastly, he bequeathed to the king of Leix, a hundred cows; a hundred bucklers; a hun- dred swords; a hundred pikes, and seven standards."
Cathair Mor was succeeded by Conn who overthrew him in a great battle in Meath. As Conn's title suggests, his reign was filled with battling. Conn's strenuous militancy and the suggestive title that it won for him, made him famed beyond worthier men — famed through the generations and the centuries — so that it was the greatest pride of some of the noblest famiUes of the land a thousand years and more after his time to trace back their descent to him of the Hundred Battles.
But against Mogh Nuadat of Munster many of his most notable battles were fought And in Mogh, Conn had an opponent worthy of his mettle.
The Southwestern province, Munster, used to be reigned over, says Keating, alternately by the two races that inhabited it, the Ithians, descendants of Milesius' uncle, Ith, who occupied the ex- treme Southwestern angle, comprising the remote corners of the modern counties of Cork and Kerry — and the Eberians, descen- dants of Milesius through Eber, who occupied the remainder of the province. There was an amicable arrangement between these two races that each in turn should rule Munster. And when one race supplied the king, the other supplied the chief judge, and vice versa.
This arrangement lasted till about half a century before the Christian Era, when there came South a portion of the Northern warlike Earnaan, from their late territory along Loch Erne, whence they had been forced out by the jealous Rudricians, the royal race of Rory, who ruled Ulster. By King Duach, who then ruled in Munster, the Earnaan were granted a settlement in Kerry. But, lustful of power, dominant and aggressive, they imposed them- selves as rulers upon Munster, when King Duach died. Their great leader, Deagad (from whom that portion of the Earnaan were afterwards called Deagades) , became king of Munster. And for more than 200 years after, these Northern intruders held the Munster kingship in their tribe — to the complete exclusion and subjection of both Ithians and Eberians.
It was in the time that Conn reigned in Meath as Ard-Righ, that Mogh Nuadat, an Eberian, roused his fellow Munstermen to battle for freedom from the tyrannical Earnaan. The monarch, Conn, jealous of the Munstermen, and sympathetic toward his fellow Northerners, the Earnaan, gave his aid to the latter. Nevertheless, the power of the Earnaan in Munster was over-
42 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
thrown, and Mogh Nuadat took the sovereignty of the province.
Mogh Nuadat then, confident of his might, went against Conn himself. But the tide of success, that had been with him, at last turned; and Mogh had to flee the country. To Spain he went, re- mained there nine years, and wedded Beara, daughter of Heber Mor, king of Castile. Then his father-in-law, the Spanish King, gave him 2,000 troops under command of his own son, wherewith to return and battle for the monarchy of Ireland. Returning with these Spaniards, he rallied to his standard his former subjects, and once again boldly invaded Conn's territory.
Conn, with his allies, the Degades, was defeated in ten battles — till at length, for peace sake, he had to grant to Mogh one-half of Ireland — the southern half, henceforth to be known as Leth Mogha, Mogh's half — dominion over which was claimed by Mogh's successors, through almost ten centuries following. The northern half, which he retained under his own rule is since known as Leth Cuinn, Conn's half.
Unfortunately, the brave Mogh soon repented making peace for the reward of only one-half of Ireland, when, as he felt, he was powerful enough to have had the whole. The Spanish ad- venturers with him, having found peace unwelcome to their roving, warring nature prodded his ambition — till he declared war against Conn once more.
Mogh Nuadat marched to Moylena in the midlands, where he pitched his camp, challenging Conn. Conn went against him with a great army of the North, and the Fian of Connaught, under the command of their hero chieftain, Goll MacMorna. Conn and the leaders of his army planned to attack Mogh Nuadat in the night — and did so — all except Goll and his Fian. For Goll had vowed that he would never attack an enemy in the night, or by surprise, or take him at any disadvantage. He had never broken his vow, and would not do so now.
Such a capable leader was Mogh and so brave his men, that, despite the night surprise, they were not only not overcome but, after long fighting in the darkness, were wearing down and re- pulsing the army of the North. Fortunately for Conn he was able to hold out till day dawned. Then the chivalrous Goll, going to his assistance, gave a new spirit to Conn's army. Goll himself slew Mogh Nuadat, and Fraech, the son of the King of Spain. And following that, the Southern army wavered, were routed, and de- stroyed.
When Mogh Nuadat was slain, the Northerners took up his
CONN OF THE HUNDRED BATTLES 43
body upon a stretcher and triumphantly bore it up and down in view of both armies — till Goll MacMorna, seeing this, rebuked them, saying: "Lay him down. He died as a hero should."
Conn, in his triumph, displayed both discretion and marked ability by the adroitness with which he converted enemies into friends. For while he gave to his ally, Mogh Lama, leader of the Deagades, his daughter Saraid in marriage (the son of which pair, Conaire, was to succeed Conn in the kingship), he married his second daughter, Sabia (who was then widow of MacNiad, late chief of the Ithians), upon Oilill Olum, the only son and heir of the slain chieftain, Mogh Nuadat. He thus drew together, by family tie, the Ithians, the Eberians, the Deagades, and his own people, the Eremonians.
Moreover, because Mogh Nuadat was unfairly slain. Conn, accepting the arbitration of the judges upon the crime, paid eric (fine) for it — his own ring of gold, his own precious carved brooch, his sword and shield, 200 driving steeds, and 200 chariots, 200 ships, 200 spears, 200 swords, 200 cows, 200 slaves, and his daugh- ter Sadb in marriage. So says the old "Book of Munster."
Oilill Olum then became king of all Munster, both of the Eberian and of the Ithian sections — the first king of all that prov- ince. And thereafter (except in the one instance of OililPs suc- cessor, the Ithian MacNiad) the kingship of Munster was re- served to the Eberians alone, and handed down In Oilill Olum's family. He willed — and his will was observed for long centuries — that the crown of Munster should henceforth alternate between the descendants of his two eldest sons, Eogan Mor and Cormac Cas — from the former of whom is the race of the MacCarthys, and from the latter, the race of the O'Briens.
Conn's reign and life were ended by his assassination at Tara. Fifty robbers hired by the King of Ulster, came to Tara, dressed as women, and treacherously despatched the Monarch.
Conn's son-in-law, Conaire II, who succeeded him as monarch — for his son Art was then but a child — Is famed as father of the three Carbrls, namely Carbri Muse, from whom was named the territory of Muskerry, Carbri Balscin, whose descendants peoplea Corca-Baiscin in Western Clare, and, most notable of them, Carbri Riada, who, when there was a famine In the South, led his people to the extreme Northeast of Ireland, and some of them across to the nearest part of Scotland, where they settled, forming the first important colony of Scots (Irish) in Alba, and driving there the edge of the Irish wedge which was eventually to make the whole
44 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
country known as the land of the Scots (Irish). The Irish terri- tory which Carbri Riada's people settled, the Northeast of Antrim, and the territory opposite to it in Alba, into which his people over- flowed, became known as the two Dal Riada. And though divided by sea, these two territories were, for many centuries, to be as one Irish territory, administered and ruled over by the one Irish prince.
CHAPTER X
CORMAC MAC ART
Of all the ancient kings of Ireland, Cormac, who reigned in the third century, is unquestionably considered greatest by the poets, the seanachies, and the chroniclers. His father Art was the son of Conn of the Hundred Battles, and was known as Art the Lonely, because, the story goes, that from the time he lost his brothers, Connla and Crionna — both slain by their uncles (though another famous story has it that Connla sailed away to Fairyland and never returned), he was pitifully solitary, and silent ever after till life's end ^ — the day of Moy Mocruime (in Galway) at which great battle he was killed, fighting the foreign forces which his exiled nephew Lugaid MacCon had brought back with him from his exile among the Picts, and the Britons. Lugaid, having won at Moy Mocruime, established himself as Ard-Righ of Eirinn. A rude, ill- tempered, domineering man was this Lugaid, who won little heart- loyalty from the people, and was but little mourned when he died. He was stabbed to death by a Druid, at Gort-an-Oir, as he was bestowing golden gifts on the poets.
It was at the court of this Lugaid at Tara, that Cormac first distinguished himself, and gave token of the ability and wisdom, which were, afterwards, to mark him the most distinguished of Eirinn's monarchs.
1 ART THE LONELY
The berried quicken-branches lament in lonely sighs, Through open doorways of the dun a lonely wet wind cries ; And lonely in the hall he sits, with feasting warriors round, The harp that lauds his fame in fights hath a lonely sound.
The speckled salmon, too, darts lonely in the pool. The swan floats lonely with her brood in shallows cool. His steeds — the swift and gentle — are lonely in their stall, The sorrow of his loneliness weighs heavy over all.
For in the house of Tara three shadows share the feast, Conn sits within the High-King's place, against the East, And Crionna whispers to his hound some memory of the chase. While Connla to the harping turns a joyous listening face.
— Ethna Carbery in "The Four Winds of Eirinn." 45
46 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
From his exile in Connaught, Cormac, a green youth, had re- turned to Tara, where, unrecognised, he was engaged herding sheep for a poor widow. Now one of the sheep broke into the queen's garden, and ate the queen's vegetables. And King Lugaid, equally angry as his queen, after he heard the case, ordered that for penalty on the widow, her sheep should be forfeit to the queen.
To the amazement of Lugaid's court, the herd-boy who had been watching the proceedings with anxiety, arose, and, facing the king, said, "Unjust is thy award, O king, for, because thy queen hath lost a few vegetables, thou wouldst deprive the poor widow of her livelihood?"
When the king recovered from his astoundment, he looked contemptuously at the lad, asking scathingly: "And what, O wise herd-boy, would be thy just award?"
Ihe herd-boy, not one little bit disconcerted, answered him: "My award would be that the wool of the sheep should pay for the vegetables the sheep has eaten — because both the wool and the green things will grow again, and both parties have forgotten their hurt."
And the wonderful wisdom of the judgment drew the applause of the astounded court.
But Lugaid exclaimed In alarm: "It is the judgment of a King."
And, the lad's great mind having betrayed' him, he had to flee.
He returned and claimed the throne when Lugaid was killed, but at a feast which he gave to the princes whose support he wanted, Fergus Black-Tooth of Ulster, who coveted the *Ard- Righship, managed, it is said, to singe the hair of Cormac — creat- ing a blemish that debarred the young man temporarily from the throne. And he fled again from Tara, fearing designs upon his life.
Fergus became Ard-RIgh for a year — at the end of which time Cormac returned with an army, and, supported by Talg, the son of Ciann, and grandson of the great Oilill Olum of Munster, com- pletely overthrew the usurper in the great battle of Crionna (on the Boyne) where Fergus and his two brothers were slain — and Cormac won undisputed possession of the monarchy.
Talg was granted a large territory between Damlaig (Duleek) and the River LIffi, since then called the Ciannachta. He became the ancestor of the O'Hara's, O'Gara's, O'Carroll's, and other now Northern families.
"A noble, illustrious king," says a tract preserved In the Book
CORMAC MAC ART 47
of Ballymote, *'now took sovereignty and rule over Elrinn, namely, Cormac, the grandson of Conn. The world was replete with all that was good in his time : the food and the fat of the land, and the gifts of the sea were in abundance in this king's reign. There were neither woundings nor robberies in his time, but every one enjoyed his own, in peace."
And another ancient account says: "A great king, of great judgment now assumed the sovereignty of Eirinn, i.e., Cormtc, the son of Art, the son of Conn of the Hundred Battles. Eirinn was prosperous during his time, and just judgments were distrib- uted throughout by him, so that no one durst attempt to wound a man in Ireland, during the short jubilee of seven years."
Cormac rebuilt the palace of Tara, with much magnificence. He built the Teach Mi Chuarta, the great banqueting hall, that was 760 feet by 46 feet, and 45 feet high. Until quite recently, the outline of the foundations of this great hall with the traces of its fourteen doorways, were still to be observed on Tara Hill. He also built a grianan (sun-house) for the women — and the House of the Hostages, and the House of a Thousand Soldiers. He gave to the office of Ard-Righ a magnificence that it had not known before.
Amergin MacAmlaid, the scholar-bard of King Diarmaid Mac- Carroll, in the seventh century, gives a poetic account of Cormac's princely household, in which he says his hall had a flaming lamp, and 150 beds; and 150 warriors stood in the king's presence when he sat down at the banquet; there were 150 cup-bearers; 150 jew- elled cups of silver and gold; and 50 over 1000 was the number of the entire household.
In the Book of Leinster is related, ''Three thousand persons each day is what Cormac used to maintain in pay; besides poets and satirists, and all the strangers who sought the king; Galls, and Romans, and Franks, and Frisians, and Longbards, and Al- banians (Caledonians), and Saxons, and Cruithnians (Picts), for all these used to seek him, and it was with gold and with silver, with steeds and with chariots, that he presented them. They used all to come to Cormac, because there was not in his time, nor be- fore him, any more celebrated in honour, and in dignity, and in wisdom, except only Solomon, the son of David."
And to the Feis of Tara he gave a new dignity and importance that helped to make its decisions and decrees respected in every corner of the land.
From the Book of Ballymote is taken this interesting descrip- tion of Cormac at that Feis ;
48 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
"His hair was slightly curled, and of golden colour; he had a scarlet shield with engraved devices, and golden hooks and clasps of silver; a wide-flowing purple cloak on him, with a gem-set gold brooch over his breast ; a gold torque around his neck ; a white-collared shirt, embroidered with gold, upon him, a girdle with golden buckles, and studded with precious stones, around him; two golden net-work sandals with golden buckles upon his feet; two spears with golden sockets, and many red bronze rivets, in his hand; while he stood in the full glow of beauty, without defect or blemish. Yau would think it was a shower of pearls that were set in his mouth ; his lips were rubies; his symmetrical body was as white as snow; his cheek was like the mountain ash-berry; his eyes were like the sloe; his brows and eye-lashes were like the sheen of a blue-black lance."
The noted 17th century Irish scholar and historian, O'Flaherty, says : "Cormac exceeded all his predecessors in magnificence, munif- icence, wisdom, and learning, as also in military achievements. His palace was most superbly adorned and richly furnished, and his numerous family proclaim his majesty and munificence; the books he published, and the schools he endowed at Temair (Tara) bear unquestionable testimony of his learning. There were three schools instituted,^ in the first the most eminent professors of the art of war were engaged, in the second, history was taught, and in the third, jurisprudence was professed."
He sought not to confine the benefits of his rule to Eirinn, but wanted to extend them to Alba also. The Four Masters record under the year 240, that the fleet of Cormac sailed across Magh Rian, the Plain of the Sea, and obtained for him the sovereignty of Alba.
Cormac, for all his greatness, was not invariably just. He car- ried an unjust war into Munster — and was punished therefor. Once Tara ran short of provisions — which to befall king or com- moner in ancient Ireland, at whose residence guests might any moment arrive, was almost the unpardonable sin. On this occa- sion, Cormac's high steward advised him that the great province of Munster which, by its size and wealth, ought to pay two-fifths of the tribute of Ireland to the high-king, only paid one-fifth, and should now be called on to provision Tara. Cormac, impressed by the argument, made demand upon Munster — ^which Fiacha, the son of Eogan Mor, the son of Oilill Olum, promptly refused. Cormac immediately marched into that kingdom, at the head of his army, to collect what he considered his due. Fiacha, with the
2 O'Curry says he can find no authority for this statement.
CORMAC MAC ART 49
Munstermen met him at the place which is now called Knocklong, in Limerick, gave brave battle to, and completely routed, the High- King's army, pursued them into Ossory, and humiliatingly com- pelled Cormac to give him securities and pledges, and to promise to send him hostages from Tara.
O'Halloran says that there was at Tara in Cormac's time, a house of virgins who kept constantly alive the fires of Bel or the sun, and of Samain, the moon. It became historic from the fact that Dunlaing MacEnda, King of Leinster, once broke into this retreat, and put the virgins to the sword — for which Cormac de- creed death to the scoundrel ; and compelled his successors to send to Tara, every year, 30 white cows with calves of the same colour, 30 brass collars for the cows, and 30 chains to hold them while milking.
Historians record that the first watermill was introduced into Eirinn by Cormac. It was to spare toil to his concubine, Ciarnat, the daughter of the king of the Picts, that he did it. She was said to have surpassed all women in beauty. The men of Ulster had carried her off from Alba. From them Cormac obtained her; and his wife Ethni, jealous of her, made Ciarnat her slave, compelling the woman to grind by the quern every day nine pecks of corn. Cormac, it is said, brought craftsmen from Alba — where water- mills had been introduced from the Romans — to construct the mill — for sparing of Ciarnat.
A new classification of the people is said to have been made by the assembled nobles and scholars, at the Feis of Tara, in Cor- mac's time — ^being ranked according to their mental and material qualifications.
When Cormac found himself advanced in years, he resigned the throne and its cares. Some say he had to resign, because he lost an eye — lost it in his own hall, one time that his son, Cellach, who had insulted a woman of the Desi was thereinto pursued by the avenger of the Deisi, the chieftain, Aengus, who killed Cellach in his father's presence, and in the scuffle, put out the eye of the monarch also.
Aengus, it is worth noting here, was not summarily slain by Cormac's order. This philosophic and just king called him to answer before a court of justice. And, for his double crime, Aengus and his clan were exiled from Meath, where they (of the Southern Ciannachta) had their patrimony. They sojourned for a while in Leinster, and afterwards went onward to Munster, of their own kindred. There they helped the Munster King (Aengus of Cashel) to wrest from Leinster large territory in Tipperary and Water-
50 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
ford — and in reward there was settled on them part of the new territory — in Waterford, where their country is to this day known as the Deisi.
Cormac, as said, resigned the High-Kingship, thus ending one of the most fruitful as well as illustrious reigns that ever blessed the Island. "He was the greatest king," says one of the old his- torians, *'that Ireland ever knew. In power and eloquence, in the vigour and splendour of his reign, he had not his like before or since. In his reign no one needed to bolt the door, no one needed to guard the flock, nor was any one in all Ireland distressed for want of food or clothing. For of all Ireland this wise and just king made a beautiful land of promise."
He retired to Cleite Acaill, on the Boyne, where he gave him- self to study and good works.
Three great literary works are, by various ancient authorities, ascribed to him in his retirement — namely, Teagasc an Riogh (In- structions of a King), The Book of Acaill, and The Psaltair of Tara. Teagasc an Riogh taking the form of a dialogue between Cormac and his son Cairbre whom he is instructing for the duties of his position as Ard-Righ, is one of the works that some old writers claim to have originated with him — though it is more likely to be a literary product of several centuries later.^
3 Of whatever ancient age they are, these Precepts form a rather remarkable, very wise, code of ethics — of which some samples are here pieced together — (chiefly from Kuno Meyer's version).
"O grandson of Conn, O Cormac," said Cairbre, "what is best for a king?"
"Not hard to tell," said Cormac. "Best for him — firmness without anger, pa- tience without strife, affability without haughtiness, guarding of ancient lore, giv- ing justice, truth, peace, giving many alms, honoring poets, worshipping the great God.
"... Let him attend to the sick, benefit the strong, possess truth, chide false- hood, love righteousness, curb fear, crush criminals, judge truly, foster science, improve his soul, utter every truth. For it is through the truth of a ruler that God gives all.
"Let him restrain the great, slay evil-doers, exalt the good, consolidate peace, check unlawfulness, protect the just, confine the unjust.
"He should question the wise, follow ancient lore, fulfil the law, be honest with friends, be manly with foes, learn every art, know every language, hearken to elders, be deaf to the rabble.
"Let him be gentle, let him be hard-, let him be loving, let him be merciful, let him be righteous, let him be patient, let him be persevering, let him hate false- hood, let him love truth, let him be forgetful of wrong, let him be mindful of good, let him be attended by a host in gatherings, and by few in secret councils, let his covenants be firm, let his levies be lenient, let his judgments and decisions be sharp and light. . . . For it is by these qualities, kings and lords are judged."
"O grand-son of Conn, O Cormac," said Cairbre. "What were your habits when you were a lad?"
"Not hard to tell," said Cormac.
"I was a listener in woods, I was a gazer at stars, I was unseeing am.ong secrets,
CORMAC MAC ART 51
A second book attributed to Cormac is the Book of Acaill so named from his place of retirement. It is a book of the principles of Criminal Law, which is supposed to have been developed and enriched by later lawgivers and commentators — in particular by the eminent lawgiver, Ceann Falad, who died in 677. The Book of Acaill is found annexed to a law treatise of Ceann Falad's. Both are preserved and form a part of the Irish Brehon Laws. The prolegomenon of the Book of Acaill says : "The place of this book is Acaill close to Teamair (Tara), and its time is the time of Cairbre Lifechair, the son of Cormac, and its author, Cormac, and the cause of its having been composed was the blinding of an eye of Cormac by Aengus Gabuidech, after the abduction of a daughter of Sorcer, the son of Art Corb, by Cellach, the son of Cormac.'*
The scholars differ regarding the authenticity — but several of
I was silent in a wilderness,
I was conversational among many,
I was mild in the mead-hall,
I was fierce in the battlefield,
I was gentle in friendship,
I was a nurse to the sick,
I was weak toward the strengthless,
I was strong toward the powerful,
I was not arrogant though I was wise, I was not a promiser though I was rich, I was not boastful though I was skilled, I would not speak ill of the absent, I would not reproach, but I would praise, I would not ask, but I would give —
For it is through these habits that the young become old and kingly warriors." "O grandson of Conn, O Cormac," said Cairbre, "what is good for me?*' "Not hard to tell," said Cormac, "if you listen to my teaching—
"Do not deride the old, though you are young; Nor the poor, though you are wealthy; Nor the lame, though you are swift; Nor the blind, though you are given sight; Nor the sick, though you are strong; Nor the dull, though you are clever ; Nor the foolish, though you are wise.
Be not too wise, be not too foolish ;
Be not too conceited, be not too diffident;
Be not too haughty, be not too humble ;
Be not too talkative, be not too silent ;
Be not too harsh, be not too feeble.
If you be too wise, they will expect (too much) of you;
If you be too foolish, you will be deceived ;
If you be too conceited, you will be thought vexatious;
If you be too humble, you will be without honor;
If you be too talkative, you will not be heeded ;
If vou be too silent, you will not be regarded;
If you be too harsh, you will be broken; ^^
If you be too feeble, you will be crushed.
52 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
them conclude that the foundations of it at least are Cormac's. All of them agree that it is a noteworthy product of a very ancient lawgiver. Archbishop Healy, however, says its authenticity "is proven beyond doubt."
The third great work attributed to Cormac is the Psaltair na Tara. This is no longer in existence, and is known only by the frequent references to it of ancient chronologists, genealogists, seanachies, and poets — which references prove that it was a rich mine of very ancient historic and genealogic information, and that it was regarded as the greatest and most reliable authority of the very early days. The Book of Ballymote records that it contained "the synchronisms and genealogies as well as succession of the kings, the battles, etc., of antiquity, and this is the Psaltair of Tara, which is the origin and the fountain of the historians of Eirinn from that period, down to the present time."
The learned O' Curry thinks the Psaltair was in existence a long time before Cormac, and that Cormac altered and enlarged it to bring it up to his time. He further says : "We have reason to believe that the age of writing existed here, long before Cor- mac's reign." And Healy in talking about that remarkable monu- ment of ancient lore says: "It proves to a certainty that in the third century of the Christian Era, there was a considerable amount of literary culture in Ireland."
O'Flaherty says of Cormac, "His literarv productions, still ex- tant, show him a wonderful legislator and antiquarian."
This remarkable king died in the year 267 — more than a cen- tury and a half before the coming of St. Patrick. By reason of his extraordinary wisdom, the righteousness of his deeds, judg- ments and laws, he is said to have been blest with the light of the Christian faith seven years before his death. There is an ancient tract called Releg na Riogh preserved in the Book of the Dun Cow, which records — "For Cormac had the faith of the one true God, according to the law; for he said he would not adore stones, or trees, but that he would adore Him who made them, and who had power over all the elements, i.e., the one powerful God, who created the elements : in Him he would believe. And he was the third person who had believed in Erin, before the arrival of St. Patrick. Concobar MacNessa to whom Altus had told concerning the Crucifixion of Christ, was the first; Morann, son of Cairbri Cinncait (who was surnamed MacMaein), was the second per- son; and Cormac was the third; and it is possible that others fol- lowed on their track, in this belief."
O' Curry, however, records a fourth pagan who was said to
CORMAC MAC ART 53
have got the faith by inspiration — ^Art, the father of Cormac, and son of Conn of the Hundred Battles, who, tradition says, believed on the eve of the battle of Magh Mocruime — the great battle in which he was to be overthrown and slain by Lugaid MacCon.
The traditions about Cormac also state that having been in- spired by the faith he made dying request that he should be buried, not with the other pagan kings at their famous burying ground, Brugh-na-Boinne, but at Ros na Riogh looking toward the East, whence would dawn the holy light that should make Eirinn radiant. Disregarding his dying wish, the Druids ordered that he should be interred with his ancestors at Brugh of Boyne. But when, in pur- suance of this, the bearers were bearing his body across the river, a great wave swept it from their shoulders, down the stream, and cast it up at Ros na Riogh, where, according to his wish, he was then buried.
CHAPTER XI
TARA
Tara, which attained the climax of Its fame under Cormac, Is bald to have been founded by the Flrbolgs, and been the seat of kings thenceforth. OUam Fodla first gave It historic fame by founding the Fels or triennial Parliament, there, seven or eight centuries before Christ. O' Curry says It was under, or after, Eremon, the first Milesian high-king that It, one of the three pleasantest hills in Ireland, came to be named Tara — a corruption of the genitive form of the compound word, Tea-Mur — meaning "the burial place of Tea," the wife of Eremon^ and daughter of a King of Spain.
In Its heyday Tara must have been Impressive. The great, beautiful hill was dotted with seven duns, and In every dun were many buildings — all of them, of course, of wood, in those days — or of wood and metal.
The greatest structure there was the Ml-Cuarta, the great banqueting hall, which was on the Ard-RIgh's own dun. There was also the House of a Thousand Soldiers, the ancient poets tell us. Each of the provincial kings had, on Tara, a house that was set aside for him when he came up to attend the great Parliament. There was a Grianan (sun-house) for the provincial queens, and their attendants. The Stronghold of the Hostages was one of the structures. Another was the Star of the Bards — a meeting-house for the poets and the historians, the doctors and judges. This latter was built by Cormac. He also rebuilt the great banqueting hall, the Ml-Cuarta, wherein at the great triennial Fels, all the kings, and chiefs and nobles, the Ollams or doctors, the Brehons or judges, the Files or poets, and the Seanachles or historians, were seated according to rank.
There every warrior sat under his own shield, which hung upon the wall above the place reserved for Its owner. The upper end of the hall was reserved for the Ollams, the Brehons, the Files, the Seanachles, the Musicians, and other professors of learned arts and sciences. The lords of territories occupied one side of the hall, and the captains of armies, the other side.
54
TARA
55
When a banquet was spread in the Hall of Ml-Cuarta or when a session of the Feis was to begin, the following was the form gone through. — The Hall was first cleared of all but three, a genealogist, a marshal, a trumpeter. Then, at a word from the marshal, the trumpeter sounded his horn, in response to which came the shield- bearers of the chiefs and nobles, gathering at an open door. The marshal took the shield of each, and under the direction of the genealogist, hung it in its proper place, above the seat that was thereby reserved for its owner. A second time the trumpeter sounded his horn — which now brought to the door the shield- bearers of the captains. Then the marshal, under the direction of the genealogist, hung the warriors' shields in order. Again the trumpeter blew a blast. And to this third blast answered the nobles and the warriors, who filed in, and took each his place beneath his own shield — "so that there was neither confusion nor contention for places among them.''
The great Feis was held at Samain (Hallowday). It lasted for three days before Samain and three days after. But the Aonach or great fair, the assembly of the people in general, which was a most important accompaniment of the Feis, seems to have begun much earlier.
At the gathering in the Mi-Cuarta, the Ard-Righ of Eirinn sat mid-way of the hall, facing West, the King of Ulster sat at his right hand, the King of Munster at his left, the King of Leinster faced him, and the King of Connaught sat behind him. Naturally, at such state assemblies the participants arrayed themselves in such splendour as those ages sanctioned. Cormac MacArt's appearance at the Feis of Tara is thus colourfully described by one of the an- cient poets :
"Splendidly does Cormac come into this great assembly; for the equal of his form has not appeared, excepting Conaire Mor, son of Eidersgeal; or Concobar, the son of Cathbad; or Aengus, the son of the Daghda.
"Beautiful was the appearance of Cormac in that assembly. Flowing, slightly curling, golden hair, upon him. A red buckler, with stars and animals of gold and fastenings of silver, upon him. A crimson cloak in wide descending folds upon him, fastened at his breast by a golden brooch set with precious stones. A neck-tore of gold around his neck.^ A white shirt, with a full collar, and inter-
^That the wonderful, remarkable description of Tara's ancient greatness, glory, and luxury is not any figment of the fancy of the hundreds of ancient poets who sang its praises, is evidenced in many ways, not the least noteworthy of which is the silent testimony of the valuable and rarely beautiful ornaments which in re- cent times have been dug up there — amongst others, two splendid gold tores
S6 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
twined with red gold thread, upon him. A girdle of gold inlaid with precious stones around him. Two wonderful shoes of gold, with runnings of gold, upon him. Two spears with golden sockets in his hand, and with many rivets of red bronze. And he was, be- sides, himself symmetrical and beautiful of form, without blemish or reproach."
At this Feis the ancient laws were recited and confirmed, new laws were enacted, disputes were settled, grievances adjusted, wrongs righted. And in accordance with the usual form at all such assemblies, the ancient history of the land was recited, probably by the high-king's seanachie, who had the many other critical seana- chies attending to his every word, and who, accordingly, dare not seriously distort or prevaricate. This constant and continual repetition, down through the ages, of the ever lengthening history — repeated, too, almost always in the presence of many critics — fixed the facts of the past story, and familiarised them to all the people. And while plenty of poetic colouring and artistic exag- geration was undoubtedly permitted to the poet-historian, the basic truths, ever had to be, preserved inviolate. This highly efficient method of recording and transmitting the country's history, in verse, too, which was practised for a thousand years before the introduction of writing, and the introduction of Christianity — and which continued to be practised for long centuries after these events — was a highly practical method, which effectively preserved for us the large facts of our country's history throughout a thousand of the years of dim antiquity — when the history of most other countries Is a dreary blank.
Every prince had his own seanachie, a man who, having studied twelve years under masters, was well versed In the history of Ireland In general and In the history of his own principality. In particular. For more easy memorising and thus familiarising the multitude with the facts and the more surely to guard against In- correct repetition, all Irish histories and chronicles were, In these early ages, cast In verse. For the seanachie had to make the studies of a poet as well as of an historian, and to have intimate acquaint- ance with the hundreds of kinds of Irish verse.
And since, at all minor assemblies, and even at small gather- ings, the seanachie was constantly requisitioned for the purpose of reciting passages of history, all of the people down to the humblest
(bands of twisted gold worn around the neck), one of them being five feet seven inches in length, weighing twenty-seven ounces, and the other of large size also, and weighing twelve ounces. Both of them sire beautifully wrought.
TARA 57
had that pride of race, of clan, and of family, which results from familiarity with their great achievements. Their marvellously or- ganised methods of recording and transmitting history signalises the Gael among the peoples of ancient time — just as their ancient Parliament signalised them.
As from the great heart and centre of the Irish kingdom, five great arteries or roads radiated from Tara to the various parts of the country — the Slighe Cualann, which ran toward the present County Wicklow; the Slighe Mor, the great Western road, which ran via Dublin to Galway; the Slighe Asail which ran near the present Mullingar; the Slighe Dala which ran Southwest; and the Slighe Midluachra, the Northern road.
Great, noble and beautiful truly was our Tara of the Kings.*
2 Another much storied, very ancient royal residence was Ailech in Inishowen, said to have been founded by the Dagda, and where, long afterwards, but still in very ancient times, a wonderful, beautiful residence was said to have been erected by a famous builder, Frigrind, who had eloped with Ailech, the daughter of the King of Alba. It was for her that he built within the great stone fort of Ailech (which fort still stands a monument to the pre-historic builders) this beautiful house which a poet of the far-off days says was of red hue, carved and em- blazoned with gold and bronze, and so thick-set with shining gems that day and night were equally bright within it. It was in the beginning of the fourth century the legend days, that Frigrind erected this notable structure. Two centuries earlier Ptolemy, the Egyptian geographer, had properly located this royal residence upon his map of Ireland.
At the famous Western royal residence of Rath-Cruachain, the house of Medb and Ailill is poetically pictured by another of the ancients, in the very old tale of the Tain Bo Fraich :~ "The manner of that house was this: There were seven companies in it ; seven compartments from the fire to the wall, all round the house. Every compartment had a front of bronze. The whole was composed of beau- tifully carved red yew. Three strips of bronze were in the front of each com- partment. Seven strips of bronze from the foundation of the house to the ridge. The house from this out was built of pine. A covering of oak shingles was what was upon it on the outside. Sixteen windows was the number that were in it, for the purpose of looking out of it and for admitting light into it. A shutter of bronze to each window. A bar of bronze across each shutter; four times seven ungas of bronze was what each bar contained. Ailill and Medb's compartment was made altogether of bronze; and it was situated in the middle of the house, with a front of silver and gold around it. There was a silver band at one side of it, which rose to the ridge of Ihe house, and reached all round it from the one door to the other. The arms of the guests were hung up above the arms of all other persons in that house; and they sat themselves down, and were bade wel- come."
This Rath was a circular stone fort of dry masonry, with wall thirteen feet thick at the base, and surrounded by five concentric ramparts, traces of three of which are still to be seen.
CHAPTER XII
THE FAIRS
The holding of the Feis of Tara was the occasion also for holding a great Aonach or fair. Almost all the great periodic assemblages of ancient Ireland had fairs in their train.
After that of Tara the most famous of these periodic assem- blies were those held at Tlachtga, Uisnech, Cruachan and Taillte — the three royal residences in those three portions of the royal domain of Meath, which had been annexed from Leinster, Munster, Connaught and Ulster, respectively. Also the Fair of Emain Macha (in the present county of Armagh), the Fair of Colmain on the Curragh of Kildare, and the famous Fair of Carman (Wex- ford).
As mentioned, some of the fairs originated as accompaniment to serious state or provincial representative assemblages. Many fairs, however, had their beginning in commemorative funeral games, at the grave of some notable — as the Fair of Emain Macha was instituted in memory of the great Ulster queen.
In the case of a fair which was not instituted as the accompani- ment of a Feis, a Feis usually developed as an accompaniment of the fair.
For at all such fairs the chiefs, the judges, the scholars, and other leading ones held deliberative assemblies, on a certain day or days, during the fair's progress. Also it was an invariable part of the pleasure and the profit of the fair gathering, that the best seanachies, poets, and genealogists in attendance should gather the crowds, and recite to them portions of the history of the coun- try, province, or tuath (district) ; the deeds of the great ones gone before; the praises of the great ones who still walked the land; the legends and traditions; and the genealogies of the principal families.
There were certain two of these gatherings, those of Emain Macha and Cruachan, whereat an important concern was the selec- tion and examination of candidates for the various crafts, and the certificating the successful ones. As described by Keating, the candidates presented themselves before a board constituted of the King, the Ollams, chiefs and nobles, who examined and passed
58
THE FAIRS 59
upon each, giving him the right to practise the craft or trade that he ambitioned.
At Emain and Cruachan, as well as at Tara, the assemblages were primarily political. They were conventions of representa- tives from all parts, for the purpose of discussing national affairs — and were presided over by the king.
The yearly Fair of Taillte (now Telltown) in Meath, was mainly for athletic contests — and for this was long famous throughout Eirinn, Alba, and Britain. In the course of time, too, Taillte acquired new fame as a marriage mart. Boys and girls, in thousands, were brought there by their parents, who matched them, and bargained about their tinnscra (dowry) — in a place set apart for the purpose, whose Gaelic name, signifying marriage- hollow, still commemorates its purpose. The games of Taillte were Ireland's Olympics, and, we may be sure, caused as keen com- petition and high excitement as ever did the Grecian. These Taill- tin games took place during the first week of August — and the first of August, to this day, is commonly called Lugnasad — the games of the De Danann Lugh, who first instituted this gathering in memory of his foster-mother, Taillte. Another great assemblage for games and sports was held by the Ulstermen during the three days of Samain — on the plain of Muiremne (in Louth).
The last Fair of Taillte was celebrated in the year in which the first English invaders came into Ireland — in 1169. It was held by order of the High-King, Roderic O'Connor — and is recorded by The Four Masters, who state that the horses and chariots, alone, carrying people to this Fair, extended from Taillte to near Kells, a distance of six miles.
The great fairs and Feisanna were regarded as of such over- whelming national importance that special and exceptional laws and ordinances were instituted to insure their proper carrying out. For such occasion the king's peace was proclaimed for all. Dur- ing its continuance all fugitives from justice walked free men amongst free men. At the fair, going to it, and returning from it, no oppressed debtor could be molested, arrested, or distrained for his debt. On the eve of a feis or fair all personal ornaments, rings, bracelets, or brooches, that had been pawned to relieve financial distress, or impounded for debts overdue, must, for the time of the assemblage, be released to their owners. The creditor who re- fused to release them was heavily fined for the mental suffering caused those who were forced to the disgrace of appearing without adornment at the great festive gatherings, whereat all the nation appeared in its richest, most beautiful, and best.
6o THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
Another wise law provided for the peace of gatherings where mingled friend and foe, where heads and hearts were light, and where blood ran high. Any man royal or simple, who broke the king's peace, was to be punished with death. In the days of Colm Cille, even the saint's privilege of sanctuary failed to save a king's son who had disturbed the peace of the Fair. The law of the Fair was inflexible. Says an ancient writer, "They were carried out without breach of law, without crime, without violence, without dishonour. There was one universal Fair truce."
Surely, highly commendable was the spirit, and highly credit- able the prudence, of the ancient lawmakers, which hedged with wise precautions these beautiful days of jubilee provided for a highly sociable and gregarious, but clannish and quick-tempered people, who equally loved sporting and battling, the matching of power in games, civil or warHke.
Joyce points out that there were three objects fulfilled by these great gatherings. Here the people learnt their laws, their rights, the past history of their country, the warlike deeds of their ances- tors. Here also they got their relaxation and enjoyment, in the music, the poetry, the fun, the games, and the sports, provided for them. And here, likewise, were their markets^ for buying, selling and exchanging. It should be added that a fourth most import- ant function of the fairs was the opportunity they provided for mating and marrying the young, and thereby drawing closer the relationship of families and clans who had been distant, or at enmity.
Studying the account of ''the fun at the fair" In those faraway days one is struck by the slightness of the change which the lapse of a couple of thousand years has effected. Besides athletic feats and racing of horses and chariots they had there — ^we quote from the poem on the Fair of Carman :
''Trumpets, harps, wide-mouthed horns; Cruisechs, timpanists, without fail, Poets, ballad singers and groups of agile jugglers, Pipers, fiddlers, banded men. Bow-men and flute players, The host of chattering bird-like fliers, Shouters and loud bellowers, These all exert themselves to the utmost."
1 They had three different markets there —
"A market for food, a market for live cattle, The great market of the foreign Greeks In which are gold and noble raiment."
THE FAIRS 6i
The fame of the great fair of Carman is perpetuated by an ancient poem, preserved in the Book of Ballymote and in the Book of Leinster. The description of the Carman fair given in this poem may well convey to us a general picture of all those ancient Irish fairs. Here are set down some excerpts from the version given in the Appendix to O'Curry:
"Listen, O Lagenians of the monuments! Ye truth-upholding hosts! Until you get from me, from every source, The pleasant history of far famed Carman.
"Carman, the field of a splendid fair,
With a widespread unobstructed green The hosts who came to celebrate it. On it they contested their noble races.
"The renowned field is the cemetery of kings, The dearly loved of noble grades ; There are many meeting mounds, For their ever-loved ancestral hosts.
"To mourn for queens and for kings,
To denounce aggression and tyranny, Often were the fair hosts in autumn Upon the smooth brow of noble old Carman.
"Heaven, earth, sun, moon, and sea, Fruits, fire, and riches. Mouths, ears, alluring eyes, Feet, hands, noses, and teeth —
"Steeds, swords, beautiful chariots, Spears, shields, human faces. Dew, fruits, blossoms, and foliage, Day and night, a heavy flooded shore —
"These in fulness all were there,
The tribes of Banba without lasting grief, — To be under the protection of the fair. Every third year, without prohibition.
"The gentiles of the Gaedhil did celebrate.
In Carman, to be highly boasted of, ^
A fair without (breach of) law, without crime. Without a deed of violence, without dishonor.
62 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
"On the Kalends of August without fail, They repaired thither every third year; There aloud with boldness they proclaimed The rights of every law, and the restraints."
The forbidden things are enumerated:
"To sue, to levy, to controvert debts, — The abuse of steeds in their career, Is not allowed to contending racers, — Elopements, arrests, distraints —
"That no man goes into the women's Airecht,
That no women go into the Airecht of fair clean men ;
That no abduction is heard of,
Nor repudiation of husbands or of wives —
"Whoever transgresses the law of the assembly —
Which Benen with accuracy indelibly wrote, — Cannot be spared upon family composition, But he must die for his transgression."
The music at the fair :
"There are its many great privileges; —
Trumpets, Cruits, wide-mouthed horns, Cuisigs, Timpanists without weariness. Poets and petty rhymesters."
The literary entertainment provided consisted of stories, philos- ophy, history, and so forth.
"Fenian tales of Find, — an untiring entertainment, — Destructions, Cattle-preys, Courtships, Inscribed tablets, and books of trees. Satires, and sharp edged runes;
"Proverbs, maxims, royal precepts,
And the truthful instructions of Fithal, Occult poetry, topographical etymologies, The precepts of Cairbri and of Cormac;
"The Feasts, with the great Feast of Teamar, Fairs, with the fair of Emania; Annals there are verified. Every division into which Erin was divided ;
THE FAIRS 63
"The history of the household of Teamar — not insignificant — The knowledge of every territory in Erin, The history of the women of illustrious families, Of Courts, Prohibitions, Conquests;
"The noble Testament of Cathair the Great
To his descendants, to direct the steps of royal rule
Each one sits in his lawful place.
So that all attend to them to listen, listen.
"Pipes, fiddles, chainmen.
Bow-men, and tube-players,
A crowd of babbling painted masks,
Roarers and loud bellowers.
"They all exert their utmost powers
For the magnanimous king of the Barrow; Until the noble king in proper measure bestows Upon each art its rightful meed.
"Elopements, slaughters, musical choruses.
The accurate synchronisms of noble races. The succession of the sovereign kings of Bregia, Their battles, and their stern valour.
"Such is the arrangement of the fair, By the lively ever happy host ; — May they receive from the Lord A land with choicest fruits."
CHAPTER XIII
FIONN AND THE FIAN
It is only recently that we have realised the alWrnportant part played by legendary lore In forming and stamping a nation's char- acter. A people's character and a people's heritage of tradition act and react upon each other, down the ages, the outstanding qual- ities of both getting ever more and more alike — so long as their racial traditions are cherished as an intimate part of their life. But the people's character gets a new direction on the day that there comes into their life any influence which lessens their loving regard for the past.
Than the Gaelic, the world has known but few races that were enriched with a richer heritage of legend — ^poetic, romantic, heroic, idealistic, wondrous, humorous — which in ancient ages sprang from the souls of the nation's noblest, and through all subsequent days nurtured the minds and souls of the multitude. In these wonder- ful traditions every ancient great poet and teacher lives, and leads his listening people, for all time.
Of all the great bodies of ancient Irish legendary lore, none other, with the possible exception of the Red Branch cycle, has had such developing, uplifting, and educational effect upon the Irish people, through the ages, as the wonderful body of Fenian tales— in both prose and verse, rich in quality and rich in quantity.
Fionn MacCumail (Finn MacCool), leader of the Fian (Fen- ians) , in the time of Cormac MacArt, is the great central figure of these tales. Fionn and the Fian were not figments of the ancient poets' fancy — as think some who know of this lore only by hear- say. The man Fionn lived and died in the third century of the Christian Era. The Four Masters chronicle his death on the Boyne, under A. D. 283 — though he must have died. some years earlier. Fionn's father Cumal, was chief of the Fian, in his day; and his grandfather, Treun-Mor, chief before that. In contrast to the Red Branch which was of Ulster, the Fian was of Munster and Leinster origin.^ Connaught with its Clan na Morna con- tributed largely to the body, later.
^ Fionn's clan, Qan na Baoiscne (which was the heart of the Fian) belonged in North Munster.
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FIONN AND THE FIAN 65
It was in the reign of Conn, at the very end of the second, or beginning of the third century that was founded the Fian — a great standing army of picked and specially trained, daring warriors, whose duty was to carry out the mandates of the high-king — *'To uphold justice and put down injustice, on the part of the kings and lords of Ireland — and to guard the harbors from foreign invaders." From this latter we might conjecture that an expected Roman in- vasion first called the Fian into existence.
They were soldiers in time of war, and a national police in time of peace. We are informed that they prevented robberies, exacted fines and tributes, put down public enemies and every kind of evil that might afflict the country. Moreover they moved about from place to place, all over the island. During the summer and harvest, from Beltinne to Samain — May first till November first — they camped in the open, and lived by the chase. During the win- ter half-year they were quartered upon the people.
But Fionn, being a chieftain himself in his own right, had a residence on the hill of Allen (Almuin) in Kildare. An old poem (quoted by O'Mahony) pictures it as a very palatial residence, in- deed:
"I feasted in the hall of Fionn, And at each banquet there I saw A thousand rich cups on his board, Whose rims were bound with purest gold.
"And twelve great buildings once stood there, The dwellings of those mighty hosts, Ruled by Tadg's daughter's warlike son. At Alma of the noble Fian.
"And constantly there burned twelve fires. Within each princely house of these, And round each flaming hearth there sat A hundred warriors of the Fian."
The Fianna' recruited at the great fairs, especially at Tara, Uisnech, and Taillte. The greatest discrimination was used in choosing the eligible ones from amongst the candidate throng — which throng included in plenty sons of chieftains and princes.
But no candidate would be considered unless he, his family, and clan, were prepared philosophically to accept for him life or
2 Fianna, meaning bodies of the Fian. is the plural of the collective noun, Fian.
ee THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
death, all the daily hazards of a hazardous career — and that his family and his clan should, from the day he joined the f ian, re- nounce all claims to satisfaction or vengeance for his injuring or ending. His comrades must henceforth be his moral heirs and executors, who would seek and get the satisfaction due if he were wounded or killed by any means that violated the code of honor and justice. And, it should here be remarked that the high ethical code of the Red Branch Knights in the days of Christ was not any more admirable than the code of justice and of honor observed now, two centuries after, by the Fian.
Many and hard were the tests for him who sought to be of the noble body.
One of the first tests was literary: for no candidate was pos- sible who had not mastered the twelve books of poetry. With this condition in mind one will no longer wonder that the Fian bequeathed to posterity ten thousand fragrant tales.
In a trench, the depth of the knee, the candidate, with a shield and hazel staff only, must protect himself from nine warriors, cast- ing javelins at him from nine ridges away.
Given the start of a single tree, in a thick wood, he has to escape unwounded from fleet pursuers.
So skilful must he be in wood-running, and so agile, that in the flight no single braid of his hair is loosed by a hanging branch.
His step must be so light that underfoot he breaks no withered branch.
In his course he must bound over branches the height of his forehead, and stoop under others the height of his knee, without delaying, or leaving a trembling branch behind.
Without pausing in his flight he must pick from his foot the thorn that it has taken up.
In facing the greatest odds the weapon must not shake in his hand.
When a candidate had passed the tests, and was approved as fit for this heroic band, there were four geasa (vows of chivalry) laid upon him, as the final condition of his admission :
1. He shall marry his wife without portion — choosing her for her manners and her virtues.
2. He shall be gentle with all women.
3. He shall never reserve to himself anything which another person stands in need of.
4. He shall stand fight to all odds, as far as nine to one. Hard, then, was the task of him who entered the ranks of the
FIONN AND THE FIAN 67
noble Fian. But In the ensuing life of beauteous adventure, the fortunate one was recompensed an hundred-fold.
Roaming and roving from end to end of the Island, hunting and fighting, feasting and love-making, the Fian made legend every day of their lives. New romance dawned for them with the dawn- ing of each new day. Adventure and poetry marched with them, on either hand. They lived exciting history; they breakfasted with song, supped with entrancing story, and, on their three beds of branches, rushes and moss, bedded with rare dreams of yesterday's pleasuring and the morrow's daring. Their own warrior-poets chanted for them their own heroic deeds; their own musicians' carolled, and their own sgeuladoirs (story-tellers) charmed their .leisure hour with blithesome tale. They left lasting impression on every hill, and vale, and stream from North to South, from East to West, of the Island. They hung rare tales of themselves on every rowan-tree, and ten thousand great grey rocks that stud the Island's face, are monuments immortal, proclaiming to the wondering gen- erations, "Here passed Fionn and his Fian."^
There were three cathas (battalions) of the Fian — three thou- sand in each catha. This, in time of peace. In time of war, the quota was seven cathas. And twenty-one thousand such men, trained in agility and in strength, and in marvellous feats of arms, by their mode of life hardened against all hardships, accustomed to reckless daring, and familiar with death, must have been a for- midable weapon in the hands of the High King, and insured re- spect for him, for his laws and his commands, in the hearts of all men in the remotest corners of the country.
Keating says they ate only one meal a day, the evening meal. When the chase was ended at the day's end, they encamped in a pleasant place, and dug their dinner-pits, at the bottom of which
3 The sceptic who is eager to discount the singular pre-eminence, physical, spir- itual, and intellectual, of the ancient Gael says : "Ah, but all those fine things are the fictions of far-away poets !" Even if we gratuitously discard the compelling pile of contrary evidence, supplied by the poems and the histories, by the ancient legends and the ancient laws, and thoughtlessly assume with him that the fineness of an- cient Gaelic character is a fiction of the old-time poets,— then such beautiful fic- tions of such beautiful ideals, by themselves presume and prove a beautiful-souled people, capable of appreciating lofty ideals. The greatest poet is never more than a hand's breadth higher than his people. And if the song he sings lives after him forever, that is proof conclusive that the people who cherished it, and passed it on to future ages, could see his visions, speak his language, and hear with him the music of the spheres. In any age, and of any race, the visions (fictions) of the poet, are only the reflections from the mirror of heaven s dome of the souls of his people. So for the purpose of constructing for us of to-day a true picture of our forefathers, their thoughts, their deeds, their character, their height, their depth, and limitations, every merest myth and legend is a fact four-square, ready for the building.
68 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
they built fires that made the dinner-stones red hot. On the stones they laid the meat, wrapped in green rushes, and buried it while it broiled. They repaired to the nearby stream to bathe — then combed and plaited their hair — after which they were eager for their great meal. When they had eaten, they seated themselves on the ground, in circle around a big log-fire, while one or other of their myriad gifted bards and story-tellers entertained them with poem, with story, with history and with legend, till sleep stole over their tired limbs, and they couched them beneath fragrant branches — on "the three beddings of the Fian" — first green boughs, over that green moss, and finally green rushes.
Although the Fianna were supposed to uphold the power of the Ard-Righ, their oath of fealty was not to him, but to their own chief.
And in course of time, in the reign of Cairbre Lifeachar, son of Cormac, they revolted against the Ard-Righ — Fionn and his Fian joining Breasil, king of Leinster, in resisting Cairbre's levy- ing of the Boru tribute. Cairbre met with overwhelming defeat at the battle of Cnamros — ^where he is said to have left nine thou- sand dead upon the field.
One reason for their revolt was because Cairbre had favoured the Clan na Morna, the Connaught branch of the Fian, from whom Fionn had formerly usurped power and favour for his own branch, the Clan na Baoscni. Cairbre had put away the latter, and made the former, under their leader Aedh the Comely, his huannacht (paid soldiers).
Also, from enjoying too much power too long, the Clan na Baoscni had got arrogant. Amongst other privileges which they came to claim as their right was that no maiden in the land, of any rank, should marry outside the Fian unless she was first offered in marriage to the eligible in their ranks. And when at length they demanded gold tribute from Cairbre himself, because, with- out asking their approval, he chose to marry his beautiful daugh- ter, Sgeimsolas (Light of Beauty) to a chief of the Deisi, the final break befell. They allied themselves with the King of Munster, Mogh Corb, whose mother, Samair, was a daughter of Fionn, and whose father, Cormac Cas, was son to the great OIIIU Olum, son of Mogh Nuadat. Since It was Goll MacMorna who had slain Mogh Nuadat on the field of Moylena, the Munstermen had double reason for allying with the Clan na Baoscni against the Clan na Morna and their master, Cairbre.
In the year 280 A. D., both sides met In death grapple at the battle of Gabra — one of the fiercest fights of ancient times. Oisin,
FIONN AND THE FIAN 69
the son of Fionn (who was now dead), led the Fian. Oisln's son, Oscar, the most powerful fighter of the Fian, was killed in single combat by Cairbre. And the Fianna, who had so long filled such a shining part in Ireland's history, were annihilated.* Though Cairbre's army and the Clan na Morna under Aedh, won, they had but little to boast of — and not a large number of them were left to boast. Cairbre carried himself out of the battle, but, as he returned to Tara, was killed by one of his own kin. Aedh the Comely survived; and Mogh Corb escaped. These two leaders afterwards renewed the fight in Muskerry, where Aedh killed Mogh.
But the Fian na h-Eireann were gone forever.
Yet, though dead, they live. The lays of Oisin, the Dialogue of the Ancients, and innumerable other Finian poems and tales have kept, and will keep, their name and their fame imperishable.* Not only is the Fian in general immortalised, but the names, the qualities, and the characteristics of every one of Fionn's trusted lieutenants — Oscar who never wronged bard or woman, Gol the mighty, Caoilte the sweet-tongued, Diarmuid Donn the beautiful, the bitter-tongued Conan, and the rest of them, have lived and will live. Even their hounds are with us, immortal. Bran, Sgeo- lan, and their famed fellows still follow the stag over the wooded hills of Eirinn, and wake the echoes of our mountain glens, by their bay melodious.
"The two hounds which belonged to Fionn,
When they were let loose through Glen Rath ; Were sweeter than musical instruments, * And their face outwards from the Suir."
In every corner of Ireland to the remotest headland, the stories of the Fian awake the admiration, and excite the emulation of our people. Round every hearth, in every cottage, on every hillside in Eirinn, the Fian is the enchanted word with which the seanachic awakes the instant interest and for as long as he likes holds the spellbound attention of man and child, of learned and simple, rich and poor, old and young.
The best of the stories of the Fian are preserved to us In the poems of Oisin, the son of Fionn, the chief bard of the Fian, in the
* One old tale has it that Oisin and Caoilte were the only ones of the Fian who escaped with their lives from the battle. ^ .
5 Legend says they had four leading poets— Fionn, his two sons, Oisin and Fergus Finnbeoil, and Caoilte.
70 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
Agallamh na Seanorach, and many other fine poems of olden time.
The Agallam na Seanorach (the Colloquy of the Ancients), by far the finest collection of Fenian tales, is supposed to be an account of the Fian's great doings, given in to Patrick by Oisin and Caoilte — more than 150 years after.
After the overthrow of the Fian, Caoilte is supposed to have lived with the Tuatha De Danann, under the hills — until the com- ing of St. Patrick. Oisin had been carried away to the Land of Youth, under the western ocean. Both of them return to their mortal existence, and to Ireland, when Patrick is in the land, win- ning it from Crom Cruach to Christ. Patrick meets and converts each of them. They attach themselves to his company, and travel Ireland with him. When the Saint is wearied from much travelling and work, or, as often happens, from the perversity of , the people he has to deal with, Oisin or Caoilte refresh and beguile him with many a sweet tale of the Fian — all of which, says the tradition, the pleased Patrick had his scribe Breogan write down and preserve for posterity. These tales make the Agallam na Seanorach.
The tired Patrick would say :
"Oisin, sweet to me is thy voice!
A blessing on the soul of Fionn — And relate to us the great deer-hunf That day in Sliab-nam-Ban-Fionn."
Often however Oisin, old, blind, and bitterly remembering the happy long-gone days, was far from sweet in tongue or temper.
"Oh, Patrick, sad is the tale,
To be after the heroes, thus feeble ;
Listening to clerics and to bells.
Whilst I am a poor, blind, and old man.
"If Fionn and the Fenians lived,
I would abandon the clerics and the bells; I would follow the deer from the glen. And would fain lay hold of his foot."
He was ever longing for by-gone joys —
"The warbling of the blackbird of Litir Lee, The wave of Rughraidhe lashing the shore ; The bellowing of the ox of Magh-maoin, And the lowing of the calf of Gleann-da-maoil.
FIONN AND THE FIAN 71
**The resounding of the chase on Sliab g-Crot, The noise of the fawns around Sliab Cua; The sea-gulls scream on Lorrus, yonder, Or the screech of the ravens over the battlefield.
"The tossing of the hulls of the barks by the wave, The yell of the hounds at Drumlish; The cry of Bran at Cnoc-an-air, Or the murmur of the streams about Sliab Mis.
"Oh, delight to Fionn and the heroes
Was the cry of his hounds afar on the mountain;
The w^olves starting from their dens.
The exultation of his hosts, that was his delight.
And Oisin could never comprehend why Fionn and the Fian should, or could, now be in Hell —
"What did Fionn do to God,
Except to attend on hosts and schools;
A great while bestowing gold,
And another while delighting in his hounds.
"Were the Clanna Morna within [in Hell] Or the Clanna Baoiscne, the mighty men; They would take Fionn out, Or would have the house to themselves.
"If Faolan and Goll lived,
Diarmuid the brown haired and Oscar the noble; In any house that demon or God ever formed, Fionn and the Fenians could not be in bondage.
"Were there a place, above or below, Better than Heaven; 'Tis there Fionn would go, At the head of his Fianna."
Sometimes his boasting and his perversity provoked to ire the quick-tempered Patrick —
"Misery attend thee, old man.
Who speakest the words of madness; God is better for one hour, Than all the Fians of Eire."
72 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
This would elicit retort in kind from Oisin —
"O Patrick of the crooked crozier,
Who make me that impertinent answer; Thy crozier would be in atoms, Were Oscar present.
"Were my son Oscar and God
Hand to hand on Cnoc-na-Fiann
If I saw my son down,
I would then say God was a stronger man."
But the ardent Patrick would insist on impressing this old heathen that in power, might, and all good qualities, God was in- finitely beyond all mortals. This was very hard for Oisin to com- prehend or admit —
"Hadst thou seen, O chaste cleric,
The Fenians one day on yonder Southern strand ;
Or at Naas of Lcinster of the gentle streams,
Then the Fenians thou wouldst greatly have esteemed.
"Patrick, enquire of God,
Whether he recollects when the Fenians were alive ; Or hath he seen East or West, Men their equal, in the time of fight.
"Or, hath he seen in his own country. Though high it be above our heads; In conflict, in battle, or in might, A man who was equal to Fionn."
Moreover, these old comrades of his, from whose example, and from the admiring of whom, Patrick strove to turn him — possessed those very virtues which, according to Patrick's preach- ing, should have won them Heaven —
"We (the Fenians) never used to tell untruth. Falsehood was never attributed to us; By truth and the might of our hands, We came safe out of every conflict.
"There never sat a cleric in a church.
Though melodiously ye think they chant psalms, More true to his word than the Fian, Men who never shrank from fierce conflicts.
FIONN AND THE FIAN 73
"A cleric never sat in a church,
O Patrick mild of the sweet voice !
More hospitable than Fionn himself;
A man who was not niggardly in bestowing gold.
"Fionn never suffered in his day
Any one to be in pain or difficulty ; Without redeeming him, by silver or gold. By battle or fight, till he got the victory.
"All that thou and thy clerics tell.
According to the laws of Heaven's king;
These (qualities) were possessed by the Fian of Fionn,
And they are more powerful in God's kingdom.
"Great would be the shame for God,
Not to release Fionn, from the shackles of pain; For if God himself were in bonds, The chief would fight on his behalf."
But desire for Oisin's delightful tales of these brave Pagans would overcome in Patrick the zest for theological controversy —
"Oisin, sweet to me is thy voice,
And a blessing, furthermore, on the soul of Fionn !
Relate to us how many deer
Were slain at Sliabh-nam-Ban-Fionn."
And, Olsin, mollified, forgiving and forgetting Patrick's stric- tures on his Fian fellows, would forthwith launch into another of his rare tales>
CHAPTER XIV
THE BREAK OF ULSTER
Of the line of Ir, son of Milesius, to whom Ulster had been ap- portioned, that Branch called the Clan na Rory (after its great founder, Rory, who had been King of Ulster, and also High-King of Ireland) now had ruled the province for nearly 700 years, namely, for more than 300 years before the Christian Era, and more than 300 years after. And their capital city and the King's seat had been at Emain Macha. During practically all of this time, from that fort's first founding by Queen Macha, the Royal Court of Ulster had been a court of splendour, and ever noted as a centre of chivalry and the home of poetry.
And the power, and might, and courage of Ulster had ever acted as a brake on the ambitions of their neighbouring royal depre- dators, and especially the royal aggressors of Connaught, who were made to fear Ulster's name.
But in the beginning of the fourth century, Ulster's power was irrevocably broken, and by far the greater portion of her territory wrested from her — her people driven into miserably narrow bounds from which, ever after, they can hardly be said to have emerged.
It was when Muiredeach Tireach, grandson of Carbri of the Liffey, was High-King of Ireland, that Ulster was despoiled and broken by his nephews, the three CoUas, who, on the ruins of the old kingdom of Uladh, founded a new kingdom— of Oirgialla (Oriel) — ^which was henceforth for nearly a thousand years to play an important part in the history of Northern Ireland.
Muiredeach's father, Fiacha (son of Carbri), was reigning High-King at Tara in the beginning of the fourth century. Muire- deach, a young man of exceeding ability, was made King of Con- naught (for during some centuries now the Ard-Righship was in possession of the Connaught royal family) and the throne of Con- naught was usually the stepping-stone to the high throne at Tara. Yet because of the general Irish custom which alternated the head- ship of a kingdom or a chieftainry between two collateral branches
74
THE BREAK OF ULSTER 75
of a paramount family, King Fiacha's nephew, Colla Uais (the No- ble), ambitioned the Ard-Righship in succession to Fiacha.
Now, at a time when Muiredeach was in Munster, fighting his father's battles with great success and bright renown Colla Uais saw himself eclipsed, and popular feeling leaning to the victorious Muiredeach as the proper successor to his father, Fiacha. So Colla Uais, and his two brothers, Colla Da-Crioch and Colla Maen, gathered an army of their own adherents, formidably augmented it by seducing from their allegiance a large portion of Ard-Righ Fiacha's army, and giving battle to Fiacha, at Taillten in Meath, overthrew and slew him.
They seized the throne for Colla Uais who reigned Ard-Righ for four years. At the end of that time he, in turn, was over- thrown by Muiredeach, and fled with his two brothers and their followers, to Alba, to the King of the Picts, who was his mother's father.
Then Muiredeach became Ard-Righ of Ireland, and reigned for 27 years.
But in the third year of Muiredeach's reign the three Collas returned. The story says, a Druid at the court of the king of the Picts divined that should they return to Ireland, and Muiredeach take the life of one of them, the Irish crown should fall to the sur- vivors. And on the Druid's disclosure, they, keenly covetous of the Ard-Righship, promptly acted.
They sailed for Ireland, went to Tara, and into the presence of the King. Muiredeach was naturally surprised to find his father's slayers audaciously present themselves before him; but, being a man of superior qualities, he surprised them by his kindly greeting. Then he asked what news they brought. They, determined to provoke this good man, replied, tauntingly: "We killed your father."
"That," said Muiredeach calmly, "is not news to me."
"Then," they said, with bravado, "you want your revenge — and may have it."
"Yes," said the great man, "I want my revenge — so, you arc all three forgiven your crime."
The three Collas were at first dumbfounded by a great-minded- ness incomprehensible to them. But they were not to be turned from their object. This dull man must be baited to vengeance. They said, "You take the way of a coward."
And the great Muiredeach, far from resenting the insolent taunt again surprised and dumbfounded them by a noble, gentle reply — which completely won their hearts to him, and filched from
76 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
their minds the foul ambition. They thereupon professed their profound sorrow, and swore fealty to him.
But the keen-minded Muiredeach knew that these bold youths were not meant to loll at court, and that if he did not find fitting trouble for them, they would, themselves, in all certainty find trouble which might be in no way welcome to him. So he directed them to face North and win swordland for themselves from the Ultach (Ulstermen) — on which direction they promptly acted.
The ostensible cause of their attack upon Ulster was the an- cient grudge borne that province because many generations before, the Ulster king, Tiobraide, had sent to Tara fifty robbers disguised as women, who had slain Conn of the Hundred Battles — and be- cause, a generation later, the Ulster prince, Fergus Blacktooth, had, by setting fire to his hair at a feast, put a blemish upon Cormac MacArt, which, for a time, debarred him from the throne which Fergus then usurped.
But the CoUas first went to their kin in Connaught and there gathered a great army for the invasion of Ulster. On the plain of Farney in Monaghan they met the Ulstermen under their king, Fergus, and on seven successive days broke battle upon them, finally slaying Fergus and putting the Ultach to complete rout. Then they ravaged and destroyed famed and ancient Emain Macha, and drove the Ultach east of the Uri River and Loch Neagh — from the great expanse of their olden kingdom, hemming them into the straitened limits of the new kingdom, which comprised only parts of the present two counties of Antrim and Down. Of the conquered portion of Ulster, from Louth in the south to Derry in the north, and from Loch Neagh to Loch Erne, the CoUas made themselves the new kingdom of Oirgialla (Oriel), which was pos- sessed, afterwards, by their descendants, the MacMahons, O'Han- lons, O'CarroUs, and MacGuires.
CHAPTER XV
NIALL OF THE NINE HOSTAGES
NiALL of the Nine Hostages was the greatest king that Ireland knew between the time of Cormac MacArt and the coming of Patrick. His reign was epochal. He not only ruled Ireland greatly and strongly, but carried the name and the fame, and the power and the fear, of Ireland into all neighbouring nations. He was, moreover, founder of the longest, most important, and most power- ful Irish dynasty. Almost without interruption his descendants were Ard-Righs of Ireland for 600 years. Under him the spirit of pagan Ireland upleaped in its last great red flame of military glory, a flame that, in another generation, was to be superseded by a great white flame, far less fierce but far more powerful — and one which, unlike this one, was to shed its light far, far beyond the bounds of neighbouring nations — to the uttermost bounds of Europe. That is the great flame that Patrick was to kindle, and which was to expand and grow, ever mounting higher and spread- ing farther, year by year, for three hundred years.
And Niall's career was full of drama — romantic and tragic.
Niall was a grandson of Muiredeach Tireach. His father, Eochaid Muigh-medon, son of Muiredeach, became Ard-Righ mid- way of the fourth century. By his wife, Carthann, daughter of a British king, Eochaid had the son Niall. By another wife, Mong- Fionn, daughter of the King of Munster, Eochaid had four sons, Brian, Fiachra, Ailill, and Fergus. Mong-Fionn was a bitter, jealous and ambitious woman, who set her heart upon having her son, Brian, succeed his father as Ard-Righ. As Niall was his father's favourite, Mong-Fionn did not rest until she had outcast him and his mother, Carthann, and made Carthann her menial, carrying water to the court. The child was rescued by a great poet of that time, Torna,^ who reared and educated him.
When he had reached budding maphood, Torna brought him
1 Torna was also fosterer of Core, king of Cashel — one of the three Kings who is said to have been on the board with St. Patrick, at the revision of the laws.
n
78 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
back to court to take his rightful place — much to his father's joy. Then Niall, showing strength of character, even in his early youth, took his mother from her menial task, and restored her to her place.
Of Niall's youth there are many legends, but two in particular show the working of his destiny.
One of these legends tells how, on a day, the five brothers being in the smith's forge when it took fire, they were commanded to run and save what they could. Their father, who was looking on (and who, say some, designedly caused the fire, to test his sons), observed with interest Niall's distinctiveness of character, his good sense and good judgment. While Brian saved the chariots from the fire, AiHll a shield and a sword, Fiachra the old forge trough, and Fergus only a bundle of firewood, Niall carried out the bel- lows, the sledges, the anvil, and anvil-block — saved the soul of the forge, and saved the smith from ruin.
Then his father said: "It is Niall who should succeed me as Ard-Righ of Eirinn."
The other legend tells how, on a day when the five brothers were hunting, and all of them sorely thirsted, they at length dis- covered a well, in the woods, which, however, was guarded by a withered and ugly, repulsive, old hag, who granted a drink only to such as should first kiss her. Thirsty as they were, neither one of Niall's four brothers could muster enough resolve to pay the price. But Niall unhesitatingly went forward and kissed the ugly old hag — from whom the rags Immediately dropped, and the age and witheredness also, disclosing a radiantly beautiful maiden, who was in reality the symbol of sovereignty. Then, before Brian, Fiachra, Allill, and Fergus were permitted to quench their raging thirst all four of them had to yield to Niall their chances for the kingship — and to swear loyalty to him.
But Mong-FIonn schemed so well that, when Eochald died at Tara, she had her brother, Crimthann, take the crown, to the ex- clusion of Niall — with the intention that Crimthann should wear It until her son, Brian, came of age. To her bitter wrath, how- ever, Crimthann, Instead of acting as a roi faineant, merely filling a gap, threw over Mong-FIonn's control, and made himself a real king, and a powerful, not only ruling Ireland but making suc- cessful expeditions abroad against the PIcts In Alba, and against the Britons and Romans both In Britain and In Gaul, meeting great success. Inspiring respect for his might, and from his foreign cam- paigns bringing back to Eirinn great booty.
NIALL OF THE NINE HOSTAGES 79
During his almost twenty years' reign the evil and designing, covetous Mong-Fionn never ceased planning for her son Brian's enthroning through the downfall of Crimthann. In her main ob- ject she failed. She, however, succeeded in killing Crimthann by poison, but at the cost of her own life; for, to induce him to be- lieve the poison cup harmless — she herself had to drink from it first. To attain her ambition she gave her life — in vain.*
Niall's first foreign expedition was to Alba, to subdue the PIcts. The little Irish (Scotic) colony in that part of Alba just opposite to Antrim had gradually been growing in numbers, strength, and prestige — until they excited the jealousy and enmity of the Picts, who -tried to crush them. Niall fitted out a large fleet and sailed to the assistance of his people. Joined then by the Irish in Alba, he marched against the Picts, overcame them, took hostages from them and had Argyle and Cantire settled upon the Albanach Irish.
After obtaining obedience from the Picts, his next foreign raid was into Britain. When Maximus and his Roman legions were, in consequence of the barbarian pressure upon the Continental Roman Empire, withdrawing from Britain, Niall, with his Irish hosts and Pictish allies, treaded upon their hurrying heels. Yet did the Romans claim victory over Niall. For it is said his was the host referred to by the Roman poet, Claudian, when in prais- ing the Roman general, Stilicho, he says Britain was protected by this bold general.
"When Scots came thundering from the Irish shores, And ocean trembled struck by hostile oars."
Such rare booty was to be got from the retreating Romans that Niall who had had a fleet with him, and had it coast around Britain, crossed the English Channel, and pursued the Romans into Gaul. He had laid Britain helpless, and in the maritime parts of Armori- can Gaul must have worked wide devastation.
Gildas, the ancient British (Welsh) historian, records three great devastations of Britain by the Scots (Irish) and Picts, of which this invasion led by Niall was probably the first.
Niall must have made many incursions into Britain and prob- ably several into Gaul. He carried back hostages, many captives, and great booty from these expeditions. Yet how often out of
2 Not only did the Ard-Righship of Eirinn pass from Brian, but the kingship of Connaught, also. This latter fell to Fiachra and his posterity, who, for 700 years after, held it^ to the exclusion of Brian and his posterity. The Ard-Righship fell to the more worthy Niall. That was in the last quarter of the fourth centuiy.
8o THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
evil Cometh good. It was In one of these Gallic expeditions that the lad Succat, destined under his later name of Patrick to be the greatest and noblest figure Ireland ever knew, was taken in a sweep of captives, carried to Ireland and to Antrim,^ there to herd the swine of the chieftain, Milcho. Many and many a time, in Alba, in Britain, and in Gaul, must Niall have measured his leadership against the best leadership of Rome, and pitted the courage and wild daring of his Scotic hosts against the skill of the Imperial legions. Yet his fall in a foreign land was to be compassed, not by the strategy or might of the foreign enemy, but by the treachery of one of his own.
He fell on the banks of the River Loire, in France, by the hand of Eochaid, the son of Enna Ceannselaigh, King of Leinster, who, from ambush, with an arrow, shot dead the great king.
Eochaid, coming In the train of Gabran, king of the Alban Dal- Riada, had probably come purposely to France for this chance. The old sore of the Boru Tribute imposed by the Ard-Righ of Tara upon the King of Leinster was, of course, aback of this tragedy. The evils begotten of that deep sore were the Immediate cause. Enna Ceannselaigh, King of Leinster, had several times put defeat upon Ard-Righ Eochaid, the father of Niall. Niall himself, since he had become Ard-Righ, had had trouble with the Leinster royal family. And, once, this Eochaid, son of King Enna, taking advan- tage of Niall's absence on a British expedition, had actually at- tempted to seize Tara. On Niall's return he punished Leinster for the bold outrage, took Eochaid, and held him at Tara as a hostage. But Eochaid, in the course of time, escaped, and fled for his father's realm. On his way home, near the Liffey, he came to the residence of Laidcenn who was a poet at the court of Niall. Here he wreaked his Ire upon the poet's son, killing him. For this unholy violation of the sanctity of a poet's house, even his royal father with all the forces of Leinster would not be able to save him from vengeance sure and swift — which must fall. If he remained In Ireland. Eochaid fled from Ireland, and sheltered him at the court of Gabran, king of the Scottish Dal RIada.
The sorrowing poet-father took his own revenge upon Lein- ster. For a full year. It is said, he satirised that country, and Its king and Its people, till. In accordance with the ancient belief In the fearful power of a poet's satire "neither corn nor grass, nor other green things, grew there."
When Niall was about to set out upon his final expedition into
8 Probus* life of Patrick sets him down in Mayo by Croagh Patrick.
NIALL OF THE NINE HOSTAGES 8i
Britain and Gaul, he had sent command to Gabran to join him with his forces — which gave Eochaid the opportunity of dogging Niall's footsteps abroad, and taking his revenge. Eochaid hid himself in a grove on the banks of the Loire just opposite Niall's camp — and at favourable opportunity speeding an arrow to the great man's heart, ended a notable career.
The victorious host of the Irish, now a sorrowing multitude, had to turn their backs upon victory and Gaul, and bearing the body of their worshipped chief, return to their island, crying loud their lamentations instead of chanting long anticipated pieans of
The slain warrior was laid to rest at Ochain — the honoured place, getting its name, says an old historian, from the mighty sigh^ ing and lamentations made by the men of Eirinn at the hiding in earth of their greatest and best.
Niall's reign and life ended in the year 404 A. D.
By two wives Niall is said to have had fourteen sons— eight of whom founding families, and it may be said founding principal- ities and dynasties, lived to history.
*'He was a man," says Gratianus Lucius, "very valiant, most skilled in war. He overcame in several engagements the Albanians, Picts and Gauls, and carried off great numbers of prisoners and of cattle."
Four of these sons, namely, Fiacaid the ancestor of the Mac- Geoghegans and O'Molloys, Laegaire the ancestor of the O'Quin- lans, Conal Crimthanni ancestor of the O'Melaghlains, and Mani ancestor of the MacCatharnys, settled in Meath and adjoining parts, and are since known to history as the Southern Ui Neill (or y Neill). His son, Conal Gulban — against the will and command of his father — led his brothers, Eogan, Carbri, and Enna Fionn to found kingdoms in the northwest of the Island. The instiga- tion of Conal Gulban's disobedient march of conquest was the slay- ing of his tutor by the Connaughtmen. From Connaught he then conquered the northwest of the Island — the present counties of Donegal and Tyrone, and parts of Derry, Fermanagh, Leitrim, and Sligo. Tir Conal (Donegal) Conal Gulban reserved for him- self. Tir Eogan (Tyrone) became the domain of Eogan. The northeast of Sligo and North Leitrim went to Carbri. And Enna Fionn was settled in the southern shoulder of Tir Conal.
Eogan became ancestor of the royal house of O'Neill of Ty- rone, and Conal Gulban of the royal house of O'Donnell, of Done- gal. Although in later centuries the Kinel Conal and the Kind Eogan developed a fierce rivalry, so great was the affection be-
82 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
tween the brother founders of the two families that when Conal Gulban was killed in 464 by a clan of the Firbolgs, on the Plain of Magh Slecht, in the present county of Cavan, his brother, Eogan, within a year after, died of grief.
As was mentioned before, even the kingship of Connaught did not fall to Niall's half-brother, Brian,* the favourite of Mong- Fionn. That overlordship went to Fiachra, and was continued to his posterity thenceforward to the 12th century.
Now on the death of Niall, his brother Fiachra's son, Dathi, became Ard-Righ — and followed in NialPs footsteps, leading his armies abroad for foreign conquest, and for the bringing home of foreign spoils. He set out on his career of conquest at the age of seventeen — after a Druid at Tara had told him that he would be conqueror of Alba and impress his power on other foreign lands. He first brought Alba to submission — fighting and overcoming Fere- dach Finn, King of the Picts. (Conal Gulban, son of Niall, seized hold of that king and killed him against a pillar stone.) Then, as Niall had followed upon the heels of Maximus in his evacuation of Britain, Dathi followed up and hastened the later retreat of Constantine with his Roman legions from that kingdom. He fol- lowed them into Gaul — ^where he was killed by lightning. If it be true, as recorded by the ancient historian, that it was at the foot of the Alps he met his death, we must conclude that Dathi was both a bold and powerful prince.*
Dathi's body, too, was borne home over land and sea and was buried in the great cemetery of the Connaught kings, at Cruachan.
From Niall's day onward to the nth century, this Dathi and his son, Ailill Molt, were the only Ard-Righs that Connaught gave to Tara and Ireland. All the other kings of Tara, for the space of 600 years, were of the family of Niall — usually taken alternately from the Northern Ui Neill and the Southern Ui Neill.
The final cancelling of Connaught's claim to the throne of Tara came in the last quarter of the 5th century in about the 20th year of the reign of the aforesaid Ailill Molt — when Lugaid, the son of Laegaire and grandson of Niall, aided by Murchertach Mac-
* Brian is ancestor of the Connaught O'Conors, the O'Reillys, O'Rorkes, O'Flahertys, MacDermotts, and MacDonoughs. Fiachra is the ancestor of the O'Dowds, O'Kevans, O'Hynes, O'Shaughnessys, O'Qerys.
5 The Abbe MacGeoghegan, chaplain to the Irish brigade in the service of France, and noted Irish historian, says that in his day there still existed in Pied- mont a tradition of the invading Irish king being there, and of his having spent a night at the castle of Sales— which latter fact, the Abbe says, was recorded in an ancient registry in the archives of the House of Sales.
NIALL OF THE NINE HOSTAGES 83
Erca of the Northern Ui Neill, and by the King of Ulad and the King of Leinster, completely overthrew Ailill Molt and the Con- naught forces, at the great battle of Ocha. And henceforth, for long centuries the paramount lords of the land were of the family of the great Niali of the Nine Hostages.
CHAPTER XVI
IRISH INVASIONS OF BRITAIN
In Spite of their apparently isolated position the Irish, from the earliest times^ seem to have kept up a fair intercourse with for- eign countries — being intimate with Alba (Scotland) and Britain, and somewhat less intimate with France, and with other Conti- nental countries. The ancient traditions of all lands naturally re- flect the true manners and customs of those countries, and echo truly the old-time happenings. The ancient Irish tales bristle with references to the aforementioned intercourse, and with evidence that foreigners of diverse races were frequently entertained in Irish courts, foreign mercenaries sometimes employed in Irish wars, and foreign matrimonial alliances occasionally contracted by Irish royal families.
Labraid Loingseach in very distant, pre-Christian days, was said to have brought back from his exile in France two thousand Gallish soldiers, by whom he avenged his grandfather^s murder, and put himself upon the throne. The very ancient poetical ac- count of the Battle of Ross-na-ri says that Conor MacNessa (who reigned in Ulster at the beginning of the Christian Era) sent an embassy to some foreign country, and that Cano, a foreigner, went as pilot, to teach them their way over the surface of the sea. The Tain tells us that Queen Maeve (Conor's contemporary) had a number of Gallish mercenaries in her army when she went against Ulster.
British and Pictish visitors are frequent in the old tales — and even the Northmen — these latter almost always as enemies. Saxo Grammatlcus says that the Northmen besieged Dublin — or some great fort that stood there — in the first century. Cuchullain, in the old tale, is made to fight a Scandinavian, Swaran, the son of Starno. And the Fianna in the legends had many an encounter with the Northmen. At the battle of Magh Mochruime (in the final years of the second century), we are told that MacCon had in the army which he led against Art the Lonely many foreigners whom he had gathered with him on his travels — Franks, Saxons,
84
IRISH INVASIONS OF BRITAIN 85
Britons, and Albans. That great old tale, the Bruidean da Dearga, shows Saxons at the court of Conari Mor (in the century before Christ).
Although the Irish were not a sea-going people — in this respect bearing not the remotest comparison with the Northmen — and probably because, unlike the Northmen, their country was so rich and fruitful as not to make sea-going a necessity — yet they seem to have been moderately well equipped for sea-travel and moder- ately expert in the art. They certainly sailed as far as France, and several of the stories would indicate that they sailed to Spain. But this is highly doubtful. Yet the Book of Rights (said «-o have been first compiled in the early third century, under direction of Cormac MacArt) informs us that ten ships with beds was part of the yearly tribute paid from the king of Cashel to the Ard-Righ. Part of the Book of Acaill (also said to have been compiled by Cormac MacArt) contains Muir-Brethra, Sea-laws, and defines the rights and duties of foreign trading vessels.
The Annals of Tighernach tell us that in the year 222 Cormac's fleet sailed over the sea for three years. We are told that Niall took his fleet with him when he invaded Britain; that he had it sail around the British Coast, and then convey his army to France. And Cormac's Glossary says that Breccan, grandson of Niall, had a trade fleet of 50 currachs sailing between Ireland and Scotland — which were swallowed up by the whirlpool off Rathlin Island — ever since called Coire-Breccain after him who met disaster there.
There is a tale of how Conal Cearnach, once, at the instigation of Fraech, went over the sea eastward into Britain, over the Muir Nicht to the Continent, over Saxony to the North of Lombardy till he reached the Alps — to recover plunder.*
In Patrick's time we find the slave-boy, quitting his slavery, ar- rive at the sea just in time to catch a ship about to sail for foreign lands. And a little later still, when that troublesome Irish agitator and denouncer of royal vice, Columbanus, is ordered to be de- ported from France to his own country, they readily find a ship at Nantes, just about to sail for Ireland. These historic happen- ings imply that there must then have been fairly intimate inter- course between Ireland and other lands.
Of course in the pre-Christian days practically all Irish foreign military expeditions were into Alba and Britain.
The Romans, though they valued and held Britain a long time,
1 It is scarcely necessary to repeat that the evidential points taken from tales afc not set down as facts— but as the probable or possible echoes of facts.
86 THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE
and even penetrated deep into Alba, never once ventured into Ire- land— though it is recorded that at one time they were collecting their forces in the Northeast of Britain, to attempt the Irish con- quest. And the Roman general, Agricola, who, in the year 80 A. D. finished the conquest of Britain, evidently considered the con- quering of Ireland. His historian son-in-law, Tacitus, mentions how he frequently talked with Agricola on that subject; that Agric- ola had had an Irish prince (an exile, or a prisoner) from whose talk he concluded that the conquest of Ireland might be accom- plished by one Roman legion, and a small number of auxiliary troops. Undoubtedly he formed this conclusion from learning that Ireland (as an ancient Latin historian puts it) contained "six- teen different nations" — by which he meant different tribes. Hav- ing successfully won the rule of Britain, by assaulting separately the many tribes of that country, it was a natural conclusion that tribal Ireland should as easily fall into the Roman net. And his conjecture was probably correct. The want of a strong and per- manent autocratic central authority in Ireland, commanding the respect and obedience of the various sub-kingdoms and unifying Ireland's power, always left the nation open to the great danger of foreign conquest. Tacitus says that two tribes of the Britons could rarely be got together against the foreign foe. The self- same was always the weakness of Ireland and of all tribal nations. Yet the Romans never launched their attack against Ireland's independence; though oftentimes they must have been sorely pro- voked so to do, because of the frequent harassing attacks of the Irish upon their territories in Britain. Their discovery of the fierceness of Irish fighters may have played a part in dissuading them from the Irish venture. The recklessness and persistency of Irish fighting taught them to respect Irish fighters, and Irish com- manders. Continental records show that the Romans recruited, anyhow one, and possibly many, Irish regiments, for Continental service. Latin inscriptions have been found on the Rhine front showing that the "Primi Scotti" (First Scots) regiments safe- guarded the Roman Empire there. The Emperor Diocletian ap- pointed as Commander in Gaul an Irishman of distinguished abil- ity. This was Carausius, who had charge of the defence of the maritime parts. Eventually they broke with him — and broke him — because, they say, of his greed of gold. However, considering himself as good as his masters, he went into Britain, and set up opposition to them there. He assumed the kingship of the Britons, and as he was an able statesman as well as fine fighter, ruled Brit- ain well for the space of seven years. Carausius was native of an
IRISH INVASIONS OF BRITAIN 87
Irish city which the Roman historian calls "Menapia^ in Ireland." It was in the reign of Carbri Lifeachar over Ireland that this, his brother Irishman, was ruling over Britain.
Of course various kings of Ireland were, at various times, styled kings of Britain also. And parts of Britain, if not all of it, paid tribute to these Irish overlords. Cormac's Glossary tells that the first lap-dog was brought into Ireland by Irish envoys who were collecting the Irish tribute from southwestern England. "For at that time," says the Glossary, "the sway of the Gaels was great over the Britons. They divided Alba between them, and each one knew the habitation of his friends." (Which is to say that the various resident Irish lords or deputies in Britain, were thickly located, in touch one with another.) "And," it continues, "the Gaels did not carry on less agriculture at the east of the seas, than at home in Scotia. And they erected habitations and regal forts there."
Roman coins, some probably taken in tribute, some in war booty, and some in trade, have been found in various parts of Ire- land. Gold coins of