Phases of Irish History

by Eoin Mac Neill

The desertion of Tara does not stand alone, and can be explained without resort to imaginative tales of a later age. Cruachain, the ancient seat of the Connacht kings, and Ailinn, the ancient seat of the Leinster kings, were also abandoned during this period. It was military kings who ruled from these strongholds, surrounded by strong permanent military forces. My first visit to Tara convinced me that what we see there is the remains of a great military encampment. So it appeared or was known to the tenth-century poet Cinaed Ua h-Artacáin, whose poem on Tara begins with the words Temair Breg, baile na fian, "Tara of Bregia, home of the warrior-bands." When the booty and captives of Britain and Gaul ceased to tempt and recompense a professional soldiery, and when the old fighting castes became gradually merged in the general population, military organisation died out in Ireland, not to reappear until the introduction of the Galloglasses in the thirteenth century. That is one reason why Tara was deserted.

There is another and perhaps more cogent reason. Diarmait left his son, Colmán the Little, king over Midhe proper, i.e. Westmeath and most of King's County and County Longford; and another son, Aedh Sláne, before mentioned, king over Bregia, i.e. County Meath and parts of Louth and Dublin counties. This is a further instance of that process, described in a former lecture, of creating mean lords. From these two kings sprang two distinct dynasties. Colmán's line, Clann Cholmáin, dominated the western territory; Aed Sláne's line, Síol Aeda Sláne, the eastern territory. The process of appropriation was continued in detail by their descendants. "Clann Cholmáin," says an ancient genealogist, "were distributed throughout Midhe so as to possess the lordship of every tuath and perpetual sovereignty over them." In like manner, an old genealogical poem relates the distribution of Aedh Sláne's descendants in lordship over various territories of Bregia.

The annals show that, between these two families so closely related, a fierce and bloody feud broke out, with continual reprisals, lasting for many years. Tara was in the possession of Aed Sláne's line. After the year 734, the kings of this line were excluded from the high-kingship, but nevertheless continued to hold undisputed authority over all Bregia, including Tara, until the close of the tenth century, when their dynasty was suppressed by the high-king Mael Sechnaill, who was also the chief of Clann Cholmáin. These facts quite sufficiently explain why, after 734, no king of Ireland could occupy Tara without an army.

The political affairs of southern Ireland during this period are remarkably tranquil and undiversified. In Munster, there was probably more abiding peace than in any equal extent of country in western Europe. The kings of Cashel appear to have steadily consolidated their authority and to have been content to do so without seeking to extend it beyond the bounds fixed in the fifth century. In the Book of Rights, the tributes payable to the king of Cashel far exceed those to which any of the other six principal kings in Ireland laid claim. There is an allegory related in the genealogies which indicates that at one time the supremacy of Cashel was challenged by the Eoghanacht kings of West Munster. This may have particular reference to one of these, Aedh Bennán, who died in 619, and who seems to have grouped under his own authority the western states in opposition to the king of Cashel. It is doubtful whether this ambition outlived him. His daughter, Mór Mhumhan ("Mór of Munster," as she is called), figures in ancient story. She became the wife of Fínghen, king of Cashel, and the ancestress of the most numerous family in Ireland, the O'Sullivans.

The most powerful of the kings of Cashel during this period was Cathal, who died in 742. The annals indicate that he held virtually equal authority with the contemporary high-kings. One of the prerogatives of the high-king was to preside over the Assembly of Taillte ("Teltown," near Navan). In 733, Cathal seems to have attempted to preside over this assembly, in the absence of the high-king Flaithbertach, who was engaged at the time in a losing struggle to preserve his own authority in the north-west. Cathal's attempt to preside over the high-king's assembly was forcibly prevented by Domhnall, king of Midhe. In 734, Cathal appears to have secured the adherence or submission of the king of Ossory in an effort to extend his power over Leinster; and a fierce battle ensued, in which the king of Ossory was killed and the king of Cashel escaped alive. In 737, a convention was held between Cathal and the high-king, Aedh Allán, at Terryglass in Ormond, and apparently an agreement was made between them securing the claim of the church of Armagh to revenue from all Ireland. In 738, Cathal again invaded Leinster and exacted hostages and a heavy contribution from the king of Naas. In view of all this, the name of Cathal was afterwards included by some southern writers in the list of monarchs of Ireland.

In Leinster, a factor against peace was the ancient claim of the high-kings to tribute from the Leinster kings. The origin of this tribute, called the Bóramha or "kine-counting," is explained by two different stories. Possibly it originated in the conquest of northern Leinster. The tribute was seldom conceded but to main force. To exact it at least once in a reign was a point of honour, a test of the monarch's authority; and an invasion of Leinster for that purpose is an almost regular item in the annals under the first or second year of each high-king.

The irregular succession to the monarchy ends in the year 734. In that year the high-king Flaithbertach, who was king of Tír Conaill, was compelled to abdicate by Aedh Allán, king of Cenél Eogain, who then became high-king. Flaithbertach retired into religious life at Armagh where he died thirty-one years later. From the year 734 until 1022, except for two interruptions, the succession to the high kingship was reserved to two dynasties, one at the head of the Northern Ui Néill, the other at the head of the Southern Ui Néill, to the kings of Ailech and Midhe; and these succeeded each other in the monarchy in regular alternation. There is no record of any express constitutional pact to secure the succession in this manner, but the alternation was a well recognised fact; and on this fact the medieval reconstructors of Irish history for the prehistoric period modelled part of their work—so that we read of an alternate sovereignty over Munster in remote antiquity, and of another alternate sovereignty, in which the Eoghanacht and the Dalcassians were the partners, at a later period; and the history of the monarchy is projected back to the first arrival of the Gaels in Ireland, by a device already alluded to, that is, by selecting names in turn out of the pedigrees of the principal dynasties.

It is not my purpose in these lectures to give a complete scheme of Irish history, allotting to each set of facts its due proportion of the discourse. My aim is rather to supplement what appears defective and correct what appears misleading in the treatment of early Irish history as the public has been accustomed to it. In regard of the great activity of religion and learning during the period between St. Patrick and the Norsemen, I shall not attempt to give even in summary what has been so eloquently described in detail by others, for example, by Archbishop Healy in his valuable work on "Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars," and, in the continental and missionary aspect, by Margaret Stokes. We have noted that the Irish civilisation of this period stands out so brightly from what are called the Dark Ages that it has commanded the special attention of an eminent historian of the Roman Empire, and evoked the resources of German scholarship. When I see the eulogist of Anglo-Norman feudalism in Ireland sitting in judgment upon the political institutions of a people which he has never studied and does not at all understand, I call to mind the estimate formed by "the ancient philosophers of Ireland" about Victorius of Aquitaine—that he was deserving of compassion rather than of ridicule. A barbarous people in "the tribal stage"—every item culled out that might suggest comparison with the head-hunters of New Guinea and the Hottentot—and beside this and in the midst of it schools everywhere, not schools but universities—books everywhere, "the countless multitude of the books of Éire,"—yes, we can still use the scrapings of our Irish vellum as a cure for the foreign snake-bite—and on the other hand, the pomp and circumstance of Feudalism, with its archiepiscopal viceroys, its incastellations and its subinfeudations, its charters and its statutes, its registers and its inquisitions, but during four centuries not one school of note, not even one, and one abortive university, no literature except the melancholy records of anti-national statecraft, and whatever learning there was for the most part suborned to the purposes of a dominating officialdom, just as in our own day we have seen the highest achievements of science and invention suborned to the service of the war departments.

As regards the actual scope of Irish learning, at that period, our data are not sufficient to determine it. I do not know whether anyone has yet attempted to draw up a complete conspectus of the Latin literature that has been preserved in MSS. copied by Irish scribes, and of Latin authors quoted in ancient Irish books. In my opinion, the formation of a sane estimate of the Latin learning of that age, in the case of Ireland as of other countries, has been hindered by what I will call the intellectual snobbery of the Renaissance—an attitude of mind in which scholars think to dignify themselves by despising everything in Latin that was not written in the time of the first twelve Caesars. It should not be ignored that for centuries after the fall of the Western Empire, though Latin existed among the common people only in the form of broken and breaking dialects, the Latin of the grammarians continued to be the language of thought and of education throughout the western half of Europe, and remained for the educated a truly living language. If it did not retain its classical elegance, it still had an unbroken vital tradition. Above all, the later Latin writings contain the contemporary record of the most progressive section of the human race in those times. I have often thought that I should like to see our universities break away from that sentiment of intellectual snobbery and open up opportunities for their students to become familiar with the late Latin literature. There can be no doubt that it was this late Latin literature that was chiefly read in the ancient Christian schools of Ireland, and properly so, for its content was of more vital interest to their teachers and scholars than the matter of producing elegant yet artificial imitations of the Latin classics. In that later Latin and through its medium, Western Christendom was joined in an international common-wealth of mind. The Irish schools were familiar with works written in Spain like those of Orosius and St. Isidore, or in Gaul like those of St. Jerome and Victorius. Perhaps the intimacy and frequency of this intellectual intercourse is best illustrated in a letter written by the celebrated Alcuin no doubt from the palace school of Charlemagne, to Colgu, a professor in Clonmacnois, just before the ravages of the Norsemen began. "The writer complains that for some time past he was not deemed worthy to receive any of those letters 'so precious in my sight from your fatherhood,' but he daily feels the benefit of his absent father's prayers." Here we have clear testimony that, for personal correspondence, there existed a way of sending letters from Ireland to the Rhineland and receiving replies, approaching as near to a regular postal service as we could expect to find in that age. The sequence of the letter shows that the medium of this correspondence was merchant shipping engaged in trade between the two countries. Alcuin adds "that he sends by the same messenger an alms of fifty sicles of silver from the bounty of King Charles (i.e. Charlemagne) and fifty more from his own resources for the brotherhood. He also sends a quantity of olive oil ... and asks that it may be distributed amongst the Bishops in God's honour for sacramental purposes."

And what about Greek? Much has been written about the singular knowledge of Greek possessed by Irish scholars and their pupils of other nationalities in the time of Charlemagne and thereabouts. Zimmer in particular has laid great stress on this proposition. Some years ago, I went one day to look for help from Professor Corcoran in something I was trying to work out. I found him in his room, busy with his students. I retreated, but he called me back. "We are discussing," he said, "the question of the knowledge of Greek in the ancient Irish schools. You have come in a good time to let us know your view about it." "Well," I said, "I cannot claim to have examined the matter at all. I know that some remarkable things have been said about it. I can only claim to have formed a general impression from what I have observed." "Will you let us know what impression you have formed?" "Certainly," I said. "My impression is that such evidences of a knowledge of Greek as have been found are well enough explained as the outcome of the teaching of Greek in Canterbury by Archbishop Theodore." Since that time, Mr. Mario Esposito has discussed the matter at length in "Studies," and his conclusion is that the knowledge of Greek in those Irish schools was very meagre indeed and mainly or wholly based on mere vocabularies. Kuno Meyer, I think, disagreed with this conclusion. I can remember that Mr. Esposito's treatment of the question jarred on me to some extent—I thought his argument was too sharp in some places and too flat in others. Nevertheless, I think he was in the right on the main point. Knowledge of a language means either conversational knowledge or textual knowledge or both together. I certainly could not name a single Greek author who was textually known in the Irish schools—on the evidence; and I know no evidence of the conversational use of Greek in those schools. It may have been in them for a time. Bede, a contemporary, says that Theodore's pupils learned to speak Greek with fluency. Theodore was in Canterbury from 664 till 690, and it is very likely that Irishmen would go there to learn from him. But notwithstanding Bede's testimony, it does not appear that Theodore's teaching had the effect of establishing the study of Greek on any permanent basis in England, not to say in Ireland.