Phases of Irish History

by Eoin Mac Neill

The Late Stone Age was followed by the Bronze Age, but between the two came a transitional period now generally recognised, in which copper replaced stone as the most durable material of manufacture. This Copper Period is well exemplified in Ireland. Bronze, the distinctive material of the Bronze Age, was made by adding a small proportion of tin to copper, producing a metal very much superior to pure copper for the manufacture of tools and weapons. So far as I have been able to learn, the presence of tin in quantities that could be worked is unknown in Ireland. There seems to have been no scarcity of bronze, and from this I conclude that during the Bronze Age, Ireland had an import trade in tin, and probably therefore an export trade in copper or some other product. This is the earliest evidence of Irish commerce. Bronze cannot have been the material of ordinary industry, nor, unless the inhabitants were very unwarlike, can bronze have been the material of ordinary weapons of war. It is a very durable material, almost unaffected by the action of the elements during centuries. Numerous as the finds of bronze tools and weapons have been in Ireland, they should have been immeasurably more numerous if tools and weapons of bronze had been in every man's hands throughout the Bronze Age, which, according to Coffey, lasted from about 1800 B.C. to about 350 B.C. In fact, Sir Robert Kane, in his work on "The Industrial Resources of Ireland," in a footnote regarding the once extensive copper mines of the Danes' Island on the Waterford coast, supplies an interesting proof of what otherwise we should reasonably expect to be true, that the ordinary working population of the Bronze Age continued to use the implements of the preceding Stone Age.[3] Weapons and tools of bronze must therefore have been in the hands chiefly of a more opulent class than the general population. Gold was also used for ornaments, and Ireland is noted for the abundance of its gold ornaments dating from the Bronze Age. Native Irish gold was worked from very remote times, but it is also certain that in the early Christian period gold was brought to Ireland by Oriental merchants in exchange for other products of the country. Sickles of bronze bear witness to the tillage of the soil for corn during this period. It will be seen that there was a mixture of various peoples in Ireland at the time. From this we might expect that there were various degrees of civilisation, and so the remains of Bronze Age sepulchres indicate. The simpler and ruder forms of these are found all over the country. The highly elaborate sepulchres of the region of the lower Boyne, its tributary the Blackwater, and the lower Liffey, are indicative of a relatively high civilisation in those parts, the ancient territory of Bregia. Along with these we may take into account an old Gaelic tradition. It tells that when the Gaels came to Ireland many of the fertile plains had still to be cleared of forest, but there was one plain, Magh n-Ealta, stretching northward from Dublin, which was called the Ancient Plain and was already clear of forest before they arrived. Its name is interpreted as meaning "the plain of the flocks of birds," by which we may understand that it was frequented by the various kinds of gregarious birds which we see in our own time hovering around the plough, rooks, jackdaws, starlings and seagulls. It is worth noting that towards the opposite border of the same region of Bregia there is another plain of the same name, still represented in the name of Moynalty village, about four miles north of Kells and on the Moynalty river, which is a tributary of the Meath Blackwater.

[3] "In the abandoned workings, antique tools have been found, stone hammers and chisels and wooden shovels."

I shall here mention an additional indication that the Gaels were not in occupation of Ireland during the Bronze Age. In ancient Gaelic tradition, the great chambered tumuli of the Boyne are taken to be the tombs or the dwellings of an earlier race.

We pass on now to consider some of the evidence supplied by our ancient literature regarding the population which inhabited Ireland before the coming of the Gaels, that is, according to the conclusions I have already drawn, before the Iron Age. The Gaels occupied Ireland as a conquering and dominant people. During the early centuries of their occupation, whatever language or languages had been spoken in Ireland before them completely disappeared as languages, leaving no doubt some traces behind in the names of places, etc., and probably also influencing to some degree the Gaelic language itself. But for a long time there was nothing like a complete fusion of the old and the new population. The older population remained, not as a mere promiscuous swarm of subject folk, but preserving in a large measure its ancient organisation and sub-divisions. This state of things continued during the early centuries of Christianity in Ireland.

Most of the manuscript evidence concerning these ancient communities is still awaiting collection, publication, and study. Some of it is to be found here and there in the old genealogical tracts, which are still unpublished, and some in the annals. There is a good deal of very ancient material on the subject quoted in the introductory part of the great Book of Genealogies by Dubhaltach Mac Fir-Bhisigh. There is one particular tract dealing specially with the names and topography of these ancient subject communities. It exists in a number of MSS., and has been printed by Craigie in the Revue Celtique from a single MS. of the Edinburgh collection. From internal evidence I think that this tract is of not later date than the eighth century. I mention these facts to show how much has still to be done before we can claim a near approach to full and accurate knowledge of the existing evidence.

There are, however, some larger divisions of the ancient population, spread over wide areas and comprising in each instance several of the smaller named groups; and about these larger divisions there is sufficient information to warrant the essaying of some account of them. Chief among these may be reckoned the Picts. The tract just mentioned shows that there were subject communities of the Picts around Cruachain, the seat of the Connacht kings, and all over Mid-Ulster, from Meath to Loch Foyle.

Along the lower part of the Shannon, in the counties of Galway, Tipperary and Limerick, there was an ancient population known as Fir Iboth, or by the adjectival name Ibdaig. These names contain the Irish equivalent of the name by which the western islands of Scotland were known to Greek and Latin writers of the first and second centuries of the Christian era, i.e., Ebudae. The modern name Hebrides originated in a mistaken writing of this name, and it is curious that the most celebrated island of the group got its English name, "Iona," in the same way. Ptolemy makes these islands belong to Ireland not to Britain. Solinus says the inhabitants in his time grow no crops and live on fish and milk. It is possible that an ancient branch of this population preserved their identity by forming, so to speak, a fisherman caste on the banks of the Shannon. There is evidence that something like the Hindu caste system, in so far as it is linked with the occupations of the people, existed among the descendants of the Pre-Celtic population in Ireland. One of these subject communities is known by the variant names Tuath Semon, Semonrige, Semrige, and Semaine. Each of these names contains the Irish word seim, meaning a rivet, and may be translated the Rivet-folk. This people dwelt in the Desi territory of Munster, where those copper-mines are found which were worked in the Bronze Age by miners using tools of stone and wood. Taking the facts together, it seems reasonable to infer that the Semonrige tribe were the descendants of the ancient copper-smiths of the district, and that they obtained their name from the commodity in which they paid their tribute to the dominant Celts, for the name is Celtic. It should be well noted here that these Irish metal-workers are presented to us in early Irish records as descendants of the pre-Gaelic population; whereas, as we have seen, the current theory in British archæology assumes that the occupation of working bronze was distinctive of the Gaels themselves and was introduced by them.

Another copper-producing district is that of Béarra in West Munster, bordering on Berehaven. Here in ancient times dwelt another "rent-paying" community bearing the significant name of Ceardraighe, "the Smith Folk." There was also either a branch of this folk or another community of the same name situate around the ancient seat of the Munster kings, Teamhair Luachra, a suitable locality in which to find constant employment for a caste of workers in bronze.

According to the tract on the Rent-paying Communities, all over the parts of Munster which, in historical time, were regarded as being specifically Ivernian, including large districts in the present counties of Tipperary, Limerick, Cork and Kerry, there was distributed one of these subject communities which bore the name Tuath Cathbarr, i.e., "the people of helmets." Since there is no record and no likelihood that this subject people were a fighting caste, as undoubtedly some of the subject-communities were in other parts of Ireland, we may infer that they got their name from being employed in the manufacture of battle-gear.