The Irish Monarchy or Pentarchy.
There was a monarch of all Ireland, who had Meath—the Middle—as his official appanage, and who reigned originally at Tara. There were provincial kings of Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connaught. A primacy was given to the race of Niall, who lived presumably in the fourth and fifth centuries, and from whom the O’Neills, O’Donnells, and others trace their descent. The theory is thought to have been pretty closely adhered to until the desertion of Tara in the sixth century of our era. After that the over-king lived in his own territory; but his authority was often disputed, especially by Munster, the revolt of which province finally broke up the old order.[2]
Weakness of the Brehon law.
Wars were frequent, and Irish Brehons, who were rather legal experts than judges, exerted themselves to define rights and liabilities, and to establish a peaceful polity. Perhaps in laying down the law they sometimes rather stated their own conception of what it ought to be than described the actual state of things; much as Brahminical writers propounded a theory of caste which cannot be reconciled with historical truth. Neither the Church nor the Law had always original power sufficient to enforce steady obedience. The Law might be clear enough, but the central government was often too weak to secure respect for the opinion of experts. Portia might have argued like a very Daniel, but she could have done nothing without the Duke behind her. In the absence of such an overpowering authority, the decisions of the Brehons were little more than arbitrations which might be, and probably often were, accepted as final, but on which neither party could be compelled to act.[3]
Ireland was outside the imperial system.
In the treatise called the ‘Senchus Mór’ there is a passage which may be as old as the fourteenth century, in which it is allowed that the nature of Irish royalty varied considerably from time to time. ‘The King of Erin without opposition,’ says the writer or interpolator, ‘received stock from the King of the Romans; or it was by the successor of Patrick the stock is given to the King of Erin, that is, when the seaports of Dublin, and Waterford, and Limerick, and the seaports in general, are subject to him.’ There is here an attempt at once to bring Ireland within the pale of the Empire, and to show that the Irish Church was independent. It was natural that the Brehons should seek to introduce their country into the circle of nations, but we know as a matter of fact that the Empire never had anything to do with Ireland. The passage quoted may have been inspired by a wish to deny English supremacy by attorning, as it were, to the superior lord. It is a tribute to the greatness of the Empire more than anything else, and it was not thought of until the Brehon law schools had fallen from their high estate.
The tribal system. The chief.
It was by giving stock that an Irish chief showed his power and added to his wealth. There were lands attached to his office, but his capital consisted of kine, and he extracted a sort of rent by obliging his inferiors to give them pasture. The number of cattle which he ‘grazed without loss’ upon other people’s ground was the measure of his power and popularity. There were free tribesmen the amount of whose obligation to their chief was strictly laid down, though a greater quantity of stock might be voluntarily taken under certain restrictions. But there were also servile or semi-servile classes whose comparatively unprotected condition placed them more or less in the power of the chief to whose sept they were attached. An ambitious chief would always have opportunities of aggrandisement, and his wealth enabled him to support a mercenary force, and to grow strong at the expense of his own and other tribes. Broken men who had lost their own tribal position would always flock to an ambitious chief, and the disturbing influence of such retainers was often too strong for Brehons or priests. But the growth of power by means of mercenaries was not peculiar to Ireland, and was perhaps less frequent than is commonly supposed.[4]