CHAPTER IV
The Religion of Ancient Ireland—Many Writers say it was Worship of the Sun, Moon, and Elements
WE have mentioned that sun-worship was one of the forms of ancient Irish paganism. There is much difference of opinion on this point, and the late learned Gaelic expert, Professor Eugene O’Curry, holds that there is no reliable proof of either sun-worship or fire-worship in antique Irish annals. On the other hand, we have the excellent historian, Abbé McGeoghegan, chaplain of the famous Franco-Irish Brigade of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, supported by other authorities, instancing the sun as, at least, one of the objects of Irish pagan adoration. Other writers, including the painstaking McGee, seem to accept the startling assertion that human victims were occasionally sacrificed on the pagan altars. This, however, is open to doubt, as the Irish people, however intense in their religious convictions, have never been deliberately cruel or murderously fanatical. We quote on these sensitive subjects—particularly sensitive where churchmen are concerned—from McGeoghegan and McGee, both strong, yet liberal, Catholic historians. On page 63 of his elaborate and admirable “History of Ireland,” McGeoghegan remarks: “Great honors were paid to the Druids and Bards among the Milesians, as well as to those among the Britons and Gauls. The first, called Draoi in their language, performed the duties of priest, philosopher, legislator, and judge. Cæsar has given, in his Commentaries, a well-detailed account of the order, office, jurisdiction, and doctrine of the Druids among the Gauls. As priests, they regulated religion and its worship; according to their will, the objects of it were determined, and the ‘divinity’ often changed; to them, likewise, the education of youth was intrusted. Guided by the Druids, the Milesians generally adored Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Apollo, the sun, moon, and wind; they had also their mountain, forest, and river gods. These divinities were common to them and to other nations of the world.... According to the Annals of Ulster, cited by Ware, the antiquarian, the usual oath of Laegore (Leary) II, King of Ireland, in the time of St. Patrick, was by the sun and wind.”
McGee, writing of the same subject, on pages 5 and 9 of his “Popular History of Ireland,” says: “The chief officers about the kings, in the first ages, were all filled by the Druids or pagan priests; the Brehons, or judges, were usually Druids, as were also the Bards, the historians of their patrons. Then came the Physicians, the Chiefs who paid tribute to or received annual gifts from the sovereign, the royal Stewards, and the military leaders, or Champions.... Their religion in pagan times was what the moderns call Druidism, but what they called it themselves we now know not. It was probably the same religion anciently professed by Tyre and Sidon, by Carthage and her colonies in Spain; the same religion which the Romans have described as existing in great part of Gaul, and, by their accounts, we learn the awful fact that it sanctioned, nay, demanded, human sacrifices. From the few traces of its doctrines which Christian zeal has permitted to survive in the old Irish language, we see that Belus or Crom, the god of fire, typified by the sun, was its chief divinity—that two great festivals were held in his honor on days answering to the first of May and last of October. There were also particular gods of poets, champions, artificers, and mariners, just as among the Romans and Greeks. Sacred groves were dedicated to these gods; priests and priestesses devoted their lives to their service; the arms of the champion and the person of the king were charmed by them; neither peace nor war was made without their sanction; their own persons and their pupils were held sacred; the high place at the king’s right hand and the best fruits of the earth and the water were theirs. Old age revered them, women worshiped them, warriors paid court to them, youth trembled before them, princes and chiefs regarded them as elder brethren. So numerous were they in Erin, and so celebrated, that the altars of Britain and Western Gaul, left desolate by the Roman legions, were often served by hierophants from Ireland, which, even in those pagan days, was known to all the Druidic countries as the Sacred Island.”
The two greatest battles fought in Ireland during the early Milesian period were that near Tralee, in Kerry, where the Milesian queen-mother, Scota, perished, and the conflict at Taltean, in Meath, where the three Danaan kings, with their wives and warriors, were slain. After these events, Heber and Heremon divided Ireland between them, but eventually quarreled. A battle ensued, in which Heber fell, and Heremon was thereafter, for many years, undisputed monarch of all Ireland. A large majority of the Celtic families of the island are descended from the two royal brothers and bitter rivals. Their most famous Milesian successors in pagan times were Tuathal (Too-hal), the Legitimate, who formed the royal province of Meath, which existed for many ages, and is now represented, but on a much smaller scale, by the modern counties of Meath and Westmeath. The province itself was dismembered centuries ago, and, since then, Ireland has had but four provincial divisions instead of five. Tuathal is also credited with having originated the Borumah (Boru) or “Cow Tribute,” which he imposed on Leinster as a penalty for a crime committed against two of his daughters by the king of that province. This tribute was foredoomed to be a curse to the Irish nation at large, and its forceful imposition by successive Ard-Righs caused torrents of blood to be shed. It was abolished toward the end of the seventh century by the Christian king of all Ireland, Finacta II, surnamed the Hospitable. “Conn of the Hundred Battles” made a record as a ruler and a warrior. Cormac MacArt, because of his great wisdom, was called the Lycurgus of Ireland. Niall of the Nine Hostages—ancestor of the O’Neills—was a formidable monarch, who carried the terror of his arms far beyond the seas of Ireland. His nephew, King Dathi (Dahy) was also a royal rover, and, while making war in northern Italy, was killed by a thunderbolt in an alpine pass. Dathi was the last king of pagan Ireland, but not the last pagan king. His successor, Leary, son of the great Niall, received and protected St. Patrick, but never became a Christian. After Leary’s death, no pagan monarch sat on the Irish throne.
Ancient Ireland was known by several names. The Greeks called it Iernis and Ierni; said to have meant “Sacred Isle”; the Romans Hibernia, the derivation and meaning of which are involved in doubt, and the Milesians Innisfail, said to mean “the Island of Destiny,” and Eire, or Erinn, now generally spelled Erin, said to signify “the Land of the West.” Many learned writers dispute these translations, while others support them. Within the last six centuries, the island has been known as Ireland, said to signify West, or Western, land, but, as the savants differ about this translation also, we will refrain from positive assertion.
The Roman legions never trod on Irish soil, although they conquered and occupied the neighboring island of Britain, except on the extreme north, during four hundred years. Why the Romans did not attempt the conquest of the island is a mystery. That they were able to conquer it can hardly be doubted. Strange as the statement may seem to some, it was unfortunate for Ireland that the Romans did not invade and subdue it. Had they landed and prevailed, their great governing and organizing genius would have destroyed the disintegrating Gaelic tribal system, which ultimately proved the curse and bane of the Irish people. They would also have trained a nation naturally warlike in the art of arms, in which the Romans had no superiors and few peers. With Roman training in war and government, the Irish would have become invincible on their own soil, after the inevitable withdrawal of the Legions from the island, and the Anglo-Normans, centuries afterward, could not have achieved even their partial subjection.