Phases of Irish History

by Eoin Mac Neill

Other possible instances of occupation-castes are found in the names Céchtraighe "plough-folk," Corbraighe and Corbetrighe "chariot-folk" (Carbantorigion, the name of a town of the Selgovae in southern Scotland), Gruthraighe "curd-folk," Lusraighe "herb-folk," Medraighe "weight or balance-folk," Rosraighe "linseed-folk," Rothraighe "wheel-folk," Sciathraighe "shield-folk."

The tinker clans of recent times in Ireland and Scotland may well be survivals of some of these ancient industrial communities.

It is certain that ancient tribes remained in every part of Ireland after their conquest by the Gaels, and retained in some measure during the early Christian period in Ireland their ancient organisation, often under their own ancient lines of chiefs. This is matter of strictly historical record, and if any similar records had existed and were still extant in Britain, we should hear less of the cheap and easy history of successive populations, each of them completely exterminating those that inhabited the land before them. Writers on history would not find themselves flatly contradicting ethnologists on the strength of their own gratuitous assumptions, when ethnologists say that the modern English race is largely composed of descendants of the primitive inhabitants.

On this subject of primitive races, there is one point which, in passing, I desire to bring out. One of the founders of the modern study of ethnology, Quatrefages, has given a good illustration of a sort of scientific method akin to some that we have had already under consideration. A glance at the map showed him that Ireland represented a north-western limit of the likely spread of the human race in remote times. The migratory movements of antiquity were thought to have, generally speaking, a western trend in Europe. Ireland besides was an island, which in the distant past must have been reached through Britain. Conclusion: Ireland was the place in which to look for primitive European types, and in Ireland the surest place to find the primitive types must be the extreme north-western part. Accordingly, M. Quatrefages packed his portmanteau in Paris and labelled it for Belmullet. This kind of scientific quest is usually successful. It succeeds after the manner of the schoolboy who, before entering into the intricacies of a question in algebra, takes the precaution of providing himself with the answer from the end of the book. M. Quatrefages found the Mayo seaboard swarming with a primitive race of men. I do not propose to examine his discoveries in detail. Anyone who is curious about them is referred to the late Dr. Hogan's little book on "The Irish People," which is the source of my information. In a paper contributed by me to the Royal Irish Academy's "Clare Island Survey," on the Place-names and Family-names of Clare Island, I showed that nearly half of the families now living there could be traced to an earlier home in distant parts of Ireland. I pointed out that in remote ages, the parts of the sea that adjoin the land and the parts of the land that adjoin the sea must have afforded the freest highway for movements of population. It must have been so in the glacial period and during its decline, when the scanty population must have lived a life like that of the modern Eskimos who travel long journeys in their canoes and change their habitation at will. It must have been so in the barren period that succeeded the age of ice, when animal and vegetable food was much more abundant on the sea-shore than inland. And it must have been so in the succeeding forest period, when the inland regions became difficult to traverse. In fact, until men became tillers of the ground and road-makers, the sea-edge was their grand highway. Hence it is that the population of the seaboard is always the most mixed and variable. The place to look for the least movement and least variation is inland, especially in deeply wooded, swampy or mountain areas, which offer the least attraction to newcomers and from which an older population is hardest to dislodge. And this, I think, is also the lesson of ethnological research conducted without foregone conclusions. In all western Europe, there is no region that contains a larger proportion of a late-coming population than the Orkneys, Shetlands and Hebrides and distant Iceland, the uttermost extremes of the north-west.

The ancient legends of Ireland tell of certain peoples which are not represented by territorial groups in the historical record. Most conspicuous among these are the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fomori ("Fomorians"). The late D'Arbois de Jubainville showed very clearly that these two peoples belonged to pagan mythology. His work on the subject can be read in the English translation by Mr. Best, "The Irish Mythological Cycle." I cannot now attempt to go over the ground it covers, even in summary, but shall content myself by adding a few cogent proofs to those which it supplies. About the year 1000 the poet Eochaidh O'Flainn wrote a poem on the Tuatha de Danann. He began by setting himself the question, were these folks human or were they demons. He answers that they were mortal men of Adam's race, and we are even told by what deaths they died. The very fact that the question had to be asked is conclusive as to the popular belief. But the poet was not satisfied with having brushed this popular belief, a survival of paganism, to one side. In his concluding verses he protests "I do not worship them, I worship the one true God." So that as late as the year 1000 people in Ireland still spoke of the Tuatha De Danann as objects of heathen worship.

An older writer, quoted in the Book of Lecan, tells a plainer tale. He does not admit the truth of the ancient mythology, and says that the Tuatha De Danann were a remnant of the fallen angels. They assume, he says, bodies of airy substance so as to become visible to men, the better to tempt them. They come at the call of sorcerers and those who practise malevolent incantations by walking in circles lefthandwise. They used to be worshipped, and it was they who invented the spells sung by smiths and druids and wise-women and pilots and cupbearers. From them druidism came in Ireland.

The poet-historians did not succeed in killing off the Tuatha De Danann. In 1088 the annalist Tigernach died, and in 1084, four years before his death, his chronicle contains an account of a pestilence which visited Ireland at that time. The cause of this pestilence, says the chronicler, was revealed in that year to a certain man, Gilla Lugán, who was in the habit of frequenting a fairy mound at Hallowtide, the old heathen festival of Samhain. There in the year 1084, Oengus appeared to him and told him that the plague was brought to Ireland by legions of evil spirits from the islands of the northern ocean, who spread it over the country with their fiery breath. And Gilla Lugán himself, says the chronicler, afterwards saw one of these demon legions on the rath of Mullaghmast, and in whatsoever direction their fiery breath came on the land, there the plague broke out among the people.

In Agallamh na Seanorach, the rulers of the Tuatha Dé Danann are still alive in St. Patrick's time, and inhabit the hills associated with their memory. One of them has recently come to life once more in Dublin, Finnbheara of Cnoc Meadha. From the hills at Tourmakeady you can see Cnoc Meadha, a low round hill, on the eastern horizon. It was pointed out to me by a man who knew all about it. That is where Finn Bheara lives, he said. He is the king of the Good People. He is not always there. When Finn Bheara is living in Cnoc Meadha, it is a good year for the country. When he goes away, it is a bad year.

A poem in Duanaire Finn tells how Oengus aided the Fiana in their hostilities with king Cormac, and, like the gods in the Homeric poems, remained invisible while he fought on their behalf.