The Irish Race in the Past and the Present

by Augustus J. Thébaud

"In the annals of the atrocious legislation, directed by the English against the Irish people, as well before as after the Reformation, special penalties against the minstrels, bards, and rhymers, who sustained the lords and gentlemen, . . . are to be met with at every step.

"Nevertheless, the harp has remained the emblem of Ireland, even in the official arms of the British Empire, and during all last century, the travelling harper, last and pitiful successor of the bards, protected by Columba, was always to be found at the side of the priest, to celebrate the holy mysteries of the proscribed worship. He never ceased to be received with tender respect under the thatched roof of the poor Irish peasant, whom he consoled in his misery and oppression by the plaintive tenderness and solemn sweetness of the music of his fathers."

Could any expression of ours set forth in stronger light the Celtic mind and heart as portrayed in those native elements of music and literature? Could any thing more forcibly depict the real character of the race, materialized, as it were, in its exterior institutions? We were right in saying that among no other race was what is generally a mere adornment to a nation, raised to the dignity of a social and political instrument as it was among the Celts. Hence it was impossible for persecution and oppression to destroy it, and the Celtic nature to-day is still traditional, full of faith, and at the same time poetical and impulsive as when those great features of the race held full sway.

Besides music, several other branches of art, particularly architecture, design, and calligraphy, are worthy our attention, presenting, as they do, features unseen anywhere else; and would enable us still better to understand the character of the Celtic race. But our limits require us to refrain from what might be thought redundant and unnecessary.

We hasten, therefore, to consider another branch of our investigation, one which might be esteemed paramount to all others, and by the consideration of which we might have begun this chapter, only that its importance will be better understood after what has been already said. It is a chief characteristic which grew so perfectly out of the Celtic mind and aptitudes, that long centuries of most adverse circumstances, we may say, a whole host of contrary influences were unable to make the Celts entirely abandon it. We mean the clan system, which, as a system, indeed, has disappeared these three centuries ago, but which may be said to subsist still in the clan spirit, as ardent almost among them as ever.

It is beyond doubt that the patriarchal government was the first established among men. The father ruled the family. As long as he lived he was lawgiver, priest, master; his power was acknowledged as absolute. Hiis children, even after their marriage, remained to a certain extent subject to him. Yet each became in turn the head of a small state, ruled with the primitive simplicity of the first family.

In the East, history shows us that the patriarchal government was succeeded immediately by an extensive and complete despotism. Millions of men soon became the abject slaves of an irresponsible monarch. Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, appear at once in history as powerful states at the mercy of a despot whose will was law.

But in other more favored lands the family was succeeded by the tribe, a simple development of the former, an agglomeration of men of the same blood, who could all trace their pedigree to the acknowledged head; possessing, consequently, a chief of the same race, either hereditary or elective, according to variable rules always based on tradition. This was the case among the Jews, among the Arabs, with whom the system yet prevails; even it seems primitively in Hindostan, where modern research has brought to light modes of holding property which suppose the same system.

But especially was this the case among the Celts, where the system having subsisted up to recently, it can be better known in all its details. Indeed, their adherence to it, in spite of every obstacle that could oppose it, shows that it was natural to them, congenial to all their inclinations, the only system that could satisfy and make them happy; consequently, a characteristic of the race.

There was a time when the system we speak of ruled many a land, from the Western Irish Sea to the foot of the Caucasus. Everywhere within those limits it presented the same general features; in Ireland alone has it been preserved in all its vigor until the beginning of the seventeenth century, so rooted was it in the Irish blood. Consequently, it can be studied better there. What we say, therefore, will be chiefly derived from the study of Irish customs, although other Gaelic tribes will also furnish us with data for our observations.