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 Cornell University Library 
 DA 930.C62 
 
 History of Ireland to the coming of Henr 
 
 3 1924 028 071 714 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924028071714 
 
HISTORY OF IRELAND 
 
 TO THE COMING OF HENRY II. 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR UA CLERIGH, M.A, K.C. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN 
 
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PREFACE. 
 
 This volume is the fruit of many years' labour. I have 
 to the best of my ability made every point the subject 
 of independent inquiry and written it in great part ex 
 messihus meis. I have not worked in the expectation 
 of literary fame or pecuniary profit, but because I had 
 been convinced from early manhood that no greater 
 service could be done to the Irish race at home and 
 abroad than to tell them the naked truth as far as it 
 can be ascertained about their early history. This will, 
 no doubt, dispel many illusions which they will be 
 loath to part with ; but on the other hand, unless I 
 greatly deceive myself, it will convey lessons of high 
 political import which they may take hopefully to 
 heart. The early history of Ireland is a story of 
 arrested evolution. 
 
 ARTHUR UA CLERIGH. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chap.' Page 
 
 I. — Before the Coming of the Gael ... ... i 
 
 II. — What Our Texts Say ... ... ... 14 
 
 III.— The Coming of the Gael ... ... ... 39 
 
 IV. — The Gael ... ... ... ... ... 49 
 
 V. — D:felRDRE ... ... ... ... ... 61 
 
 VI. — Cuchulainn ... ... ... ... 72 
 
 VII.— ^INN MAC CUMHAIL ... ... ... ... 87 
 
 VIII. — Glastonbury of the Gael ... ... ... 107 
 
 IX. — The Coming of St. Patrick — I. ... ... 131 
 
 X. — The Coming of St. Patrick — II. ... ... 148 
 
 XI. — The Patrician Documents ... ... ... 164 
 
 XII. — The Religion of the Gael Before St. 
 
 Patrick — I. ... ... ... ... 185 
 
 XIII. — The Religion of the Gael Before St. 
 
 Patrick — II. ... ... ... ... 200 
 
 XIV. — The Senchus Mor and the Tribal System ... 212 
 
 XV. — The Tribal Occupier and Sir John Davis ... 236 
 
 XVI. — The Lia Fail — The Stone of Destiny ... 246 
 
 XVII. — Cuildreimhne and the Desertion of Tara ... 257 
 
 XVIII. — The Northmen ... ... ... ... 267 
 
 XIX.— A Winter Circuit ... ... ... ... 279 
 
 XX. — -Brian Boru ... ... ... ... 290 
 
 XXI. — Clontarf ... ... ... ... ... 303 
 
 XXII. — The Organisation of the Church ... ... 314 
 
 XXIII.— The Monks ... ... ... 330 
 
 XXIV. — The Teaching of the Nations ... ... 345 
 
 XXV. — The Sect of the Scots ... ... ... 363 
 
 XXVI. — The Emerald Ring ... ... ... 380 
 
 XXVII. — The Cymro-Frankish Adventurers ... ... 395 
 
THE PRONUNCIATION OF GAELIC. 
 
 In the Gaelic alphabet there are i8 letters. 
 
 5 Vowels — a, o, u, broad, e, i, slender. 
 
 Each vowel may be long or short : long as in Half pay he 
 thought so poor ; short as in That bell is n6t miich g66d. 
 
 Vowel Groups. Ae and ao = ae ; e6 long = yo ; eo short = yQ ; 
 iu long = ew ; iu short = yu. 
 
 &\, 61, 61, ^e, GA, eA, \A. The sound of the long vowel is 
 given to the whole digraph. 
 
 The addition of 1, e.g., &\, does not change the vowel sound. 
 
 Short Digraphs. A\ and ba short = a in bat. ei or 01 = e in 
 let. I0 and ui = i in hit. 
 
 The consonants are 12 ; liquids, 4, t, n, ji (r), f (s); mutes, 9, 
 b, c, -o, j:, 5, m, p, c, and li. 
 
 Aspiration or infection is a softening of a consonant, and is 
 indicated by a punctum over the Gaelic letter or by the 
 addition of the letter li. 
 
 ft or tjh = V ; (i or on in the middle or end of words sometimes 
 = h ; *, "Oh and rh, tnh alike = before a broad vowel, [a, o, u], an 
 indescribable sound like a guttural y and equal, before a slender 
 vowel, [e, i], y exactly. In the middle and end of words they are 
 silent, but lengthen the preceding vowel, e.g., CigepnA, Tigherna 
 = Teerna. itl, mti = v in the south and w in the north ; Aft and 
 Aril = ou ; A* = ei in the middle of a word ; ^, pti = f ; f , f I1 = h ; 
 
 t. en = h. 
 
 Eclipsis (&eXu/'ic, pushing away). A softer consonant is 
 substituted for a harder at the beginning of a word only. Both 
 are written, but only the first, that is, the substituted one, 
 pronounced, e.g., m-bo, the ft in bo, a cow, is pushed away and 
 replaced by m, and tn-bo is pronounced mo. And so with 
 others, n eclipses -o and 5 ; bh, ^r ; b, p ; 5, c ; x), c ; c, f . 
 
 The above short sketch is, of course, very imperfect, and only 
 intended to assist readers who are unacquainted with Gaelic. 
 
EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BEFORE THE COMING OF THE GAEL. 
 
 THE name Erin^ comes from a root which signifies fat, 
 fruitful, with special reference, it may be supposed, to the 
 fertility of its pastures. . Pomponius Mela ^ (fl. 40 a.d.) says : — 
 " The climate is unfavourable for ripening cereals, but the land 
 is so exuberant in the production of pasture, not only luxuriant 
 but also sweet, that cattle can fill themselves in a short part of a 
 day, and unless they are stopped from grazing will feed too 
 long and burst." So Solinus* (230 A.D.) says: — "It is so 
 rich in grass that the cattle would be in danger from over- 
 eating unless they were kept at times from the pasture." 
 " Ireland," says Bede * (673-735), " is situated to the west of 
 Britain, and as it is shorter towards the north, so it extends 
 far beyond its borders to the south. . , . The latitude of 
 its position and the wholesomeness and mildness of the air are 
 much better than Britain's, so that snow rarely remains there 
 for more than three days, and no one mows hay there in 
 summer for winter use, or makes houses for the cattle. No 
 reptile is seen there, no reptile can live there. . . . The 
 island is rich in milk and honey, and is not without vines. It 
 
 ^ According to Windisoh the name Erin gen Erenn dat Erin Aco Erenn ootnes 
 from a root which is found in 7ri[F](ui', feminine TriEipa, signifying fat, fruitful, 
 and the Indo-germanio nominal sufSx — ien. The initial " p " was not retained 
 by the early Celtic nations before a vowel, and the vriaos irmpa of the Greeks 
 would be represented by Erenn or Erin. The Greek name for the island, how- 
 ever, If. Upvt), lovipvri, was taken from the Gaelic Erenn, and gave rise in its 
 turn to the Latin Juberna and Hibernia. See Holder Sprach-ic/iatz. Iverio. 
 
 2 Pomponius Mela, 3, 6, 53. 
 
 'Solinus, 22,2. 
 
 * Hibernia autem et latitudine sui status et salubritate at serenitate aerum 
 multum Brittaniae praestat. Bede, H.E. 1. Latitudo is always, so far as I 
 have seen, translated " breadth " here erroneously. Erin is not broader. It 
 means breadth from the equator. The Anglo-Saxon translator of Bede has 
 braedo haes stealles where braedo is equal to the German " Breite," i.e., 
 latitude. Caesar, Tacitus, and all the mediaeval writers following them, down 
 to and including Keating, held that Ireland lay between Britain and Spain. 
 Ptolemy, getting his information from a Phoenician source, placed it nearly in 
 its true position. 
 
5 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 is famous for sport, fish, and fowl, and also goats and deer. It 
 is the own country of the Scots." It is a mistake to suppose 
 that Ireland is not also admirably fitted for the production of 
 corn, a mistake into which modern writers, such as Kiepert, 
 have also fallen. Taking wheat, oats, and barley, the average 
 number of bushels to the acre is at least as high as in England, 
 and the losg from bad seasons over a period of 25 years is not 
 greater than in Russia or America.* 
 
 Something must be said, though very little is known, about 
 the ancient inhabitants of Erin before the coming of the Gael 
 (1700 B.C.) Though the men of the old stone age (paleolithic) 
 made their way into England, there is no evidence that they 
 ever reached Erin. This is the more remarkable, as in those 
 days England was joined to the Continent, and Ireland to 
 England, by what we may shortly describe as land bridges. 
 A shallow bank now runs from Denmark to the Bay of Biscay, 
 and to a point about five miles westward of Ireland within 
 what is known as the 100 fathom limit. The elevation of this 
 bank made these bridges. Many of the pleistocene animals 
 passed over the bridge from the Continent into England, in- 
 cluding paleolithic man, whose implements are found abund- 
 antly as far west as STorth and South Wales. A human 
 paleolithic molar tooth has been discovered at Port Newydd, 
 near St. Asaph. These paleolithic animals, with the exception 
 of the hyena, and the great sabre-toothed bear, passed over 
 from England into Ireland. Paleolithic man did not reach 
 Erin. The depth of the Irish Sea is somewhat greater than 
 the depth of the German Ocean, and it may have happened 
 that the English bridge remained above water after the Irish 
 bridge had descended and become a sea bottom. Many great 
 animals, however, passed over. Amongst others the mammoth, 
 the hippopotamus (probably), the grizzly bear, the brown bear, 
 the reindeer, the great Irish deer, the red deer, the wild boar, 
 the wolf, the horse, the fox, and the badger. These have left 
 their bones in caves or under peat bogs to record their presence 
 in prehistoric times. 
 
 * Documents in connection with the shipment of corn from Ireland to Prance 
 in the years 1297-8 a.d. may be seen in fao-simile MS. Plate 8,'i, Gilbert, Sir J. 
 The valjne of the corn exported from Ireland in ten years, 1785-1795, when 
 separate accounts were kept of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland, was 
 ^4,256,360. " A country which now begins to supply Britain with near on« 
 million barrels of grain annually." Newenham, p. 216 (1809). 
 
BEFORE THE C0M1K6 Ot THE GfAEt. S 
 
 To the men of the old stone age succeeded the men of the 
 new stone age (neolithic) whether immediately or after an 
 interval, or at what time or times cannot be stated with 
 certainty, but the opinion generally received now is that there 
 was no break, but continuous evolution. From these came the 
 first inhabitants of Erin. It is therefore of high importance 
 to know what were the physical characteristics of the inhabi- 
 tants of Western Continental Europe in neolithic times, and 
 particularly to ascertain whether they were long-skulled or 
 broad-skulled, dark or fair ; these being now generally recog- 
 nized as the most permanent characteristics, and the best test 
 of race. The North of Western Europe was inhabited by men 
 with long heads, light or blue eyes, and fair or reddish hair. 
 From this stock came the Gael, as we shall show later on. 
 The South was inhabited by men short in stature, with long 
 heads, dark hair, and dark eyes. These are divided by M. 
 D'Arbois into a pre-Ayran (Iberian) and an Ayran (Ligurian) 
 race. The centre of France and westward through Brittany 
 to the sea, was inhabited by an intrusive belt of men from the 
 east, short in stature, with broad skulls, dark hair, and dark 
 eyes, whom Csesar refers to as Celts, and who are sometimes 
 called the Black Celts. It may be affirmed unhesitatingly 
 that no off-shoot from this stock ever came to Erin. There 
 are no men of this type except ethnic strays to be found 
 amongst the population of Ireland in our times. Nor is it 
 difficult to understand how this came about. A glance at a 
 map of Europe will show that the men of this central belt in 
 France were likely to cross the channel into England, and, 
 no doubt, they did so ; and are in all likelihood the men who, 
 whether pure or blended with long heads, have left their 
 broad skulls in the round barrows of England. An island is 
 colonized, as a rule, from Continental parts directly opposite 
 to it. But where one island lies behind another it is more 
 reasonable to suppose that migratory tribes would pass round 
 the nearer island from Continental parts above and below the 
 nearer island to reach that which was more remote. The first 
 inhabitants of Erin came from one or both of the dark long- 
 headed southern races. These passed round the south of 
 England, and are now represented by the southern Welsh and 
 the short dark population in the west and south-west of 
 
* EARLY IRISH BISTORT. 
 
 Ireland. In England they combined probably with the long 
 heads of the long barrows. From these two races the main 
 bulk of the population of Erin was derived before the coming 
 of the Gael. They correspond with the first four " occupations/'' 
 or " settlements," g^ttAtA, of our texts. 
 
 The fifth " occupation " was by the Gael or Milesians. They 
 were tall men, with long skulls and red, golden-yellow, or 
 flaxen hair. They came from the Netherlands, the Elbe, 
 Sleswick and Holstein, and the recesses of the Baltic coast. 
 Our texts agree in stating that the Gael as well as the previous 
 occupants all spoke the Celtic tongue, and they are supported 
 in this by the circumstance that no place names of a different 
 language have been detected. It is for this reason that the 
 Irish came to be commonly referred to as Celts. But language 
 is no test of race, though linguistic evidence is of high import- 
 ance when soberly used for historic purposes. In the time of 
 Caesar, the inhabitants of central France and the Belgic dis- 
 trict of Celtic Gaul spoke a Celtic tongue, and the Celtic 
 tongue at one time extended far east beyond the Rhine. 
 Possibly the intrusive Celts, as the result of conquest and 
 commerce, gradually communicated their language to their 
 neighbours on the north and the south, and in this way the 
 Iberi and the Ligures came to adopt the Celtic language. 
 Csesar tells us the Gauls brought their names to Britain :— 
 The Belgse in the south-east, the Parisii on the Humber, the 
 Atrebates in Berks. With the immigrants from the northern 
 race the same thing occurred. In the second chapter of his 
 Geography, in which he deals with the British Isles, Ptolemy 
 (140 A.D.) mentions the Brigantes in the south of lerne, and 
 the Chauci, the Menapii and the Eblani on the coast.* 
 
 Evidence of a similar kind is not wanting for an earlier 
 period. The most important of the pre-Gaelic " occupations " 
 (gxibAtA) was the immigration of the Fir-Volcae, commonly 
 called Fir-bolgs, a sub-denomination of which was the irreat 
 iribe of the Cat or Cathraige, of which Cairbro Cinnceat 
 became the head, as we shall see later on. The word Bolg 
 
 ' Dublin does not, as some have thought, represent the Eblani or their 
 capital. The words do not equate phoueticSly. Dublin was founded by the 
 Danes near the black pool of the Liffey ("Oub tmn), from which it derives its 
 name. The Eblani were probably the Elbani immigrants from the river Albi« 
 or Elbe, 
 
BEFORE THE COMING OF THE. GAEL. 5 
 
 equates phonetically with Vole, Latinised Volcse. These 
 Volcse were a powerful people in the South of France in 
 Caesar's time, occupying the country comprised between the 
 Rhone, the Cevennes and the Garonne. An outlying remnant 
 of the race then dwelt at the source of the Danube, on the 
 borders of the Hercynian Forest. At an earlier period, it is 
 supposed, they occupied a large part of Central Europe, and 
 thus the two cities of " Lug " Lyons (Lug. dunum) and 
 Leyden (Lug. dunum Batavorum) belonged to them. They 
 were cut in two and displaced by the intrusive wedge of the 
 ethnic Celts we have referred to. There was also another Lug- 
 dunum (Convenarum), now St. Bertrand de Comminges (Haute 
 Garonne), Lug-dunum Remorum (Laon) and others. Now in 
 modern Irish " Lugnasad " means the month of August. In 
 that month was celebrated the commemoration (nasad) or 
 anniversary of Lug at Tailtinn, now Teltown, in Meath. 
 According to our texts Lug was the foster son of Tailtin, the 
 wife of the Firbolg King Eocaid, the son of Ere. He appears 
 in the legend as Lug of the long hand, and is said to have 
 instituted this celebration in honour of Tailtiu, from whom 
 Tailtinn is named. The " nasad " or commemoration, however, 
 was .not of Tailtiu, but of Lug '' himself, and M. D'Arbois is of 
 opinion that there was a similar " nasad " of Lug at Lyons, 
 which preceded the establishment of the Feast of Augustus. 
 The latter was celebrated on the 1st of August, and was, M. 
 D'Arbois * thinks, substituted for the Feast of Lug. The fair 
 of Tailtinn, altered from time to time in its character, 
 continued to be held on the 1st of August in every year until 
 the commencement of the last century. As regards the 
 Cathraige, in the time of Caesar they dwelt in the valleys of 
 the Durance and Isere, near Embrun, and Chorges, in which 
 latter the old name " Caturiges " is preserved. The terminals 
 rix, raighe, mean simply " tribesman '' not " king." 
 
 In the " Coir Anmam " traighe is glossed cineal, i.e. tribes. 
 Cath, or " cat," means " battle," and there are at Chorges two 
 inscriptions, " Cat " and " Cathreg," still retaining vestiges of 
 
 'Asaemblees Pabliquea d'Irlande. 
 
 *M. D'Arbois compares the statement of Caesar as regards Mercury, the 
 Roman equivalent of Lug : — Hunc (i.e.. Mercury or Lug.) omnium inventorum 
 artium ferunt, with the Samh-il-danaoh — miiiro\irc-)(vof; " Master of all arts." 
 Lugus was the god of light, the Sun god. 
 
6 EARLT IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 the old name. In Erin the " Cath " tribes are found from the 
 barony of Gary (Cathraige), in Antrim, to Iniscathy (Inis 
 Scattery), in the estuary of the Shannon. McFirbis reckons 
 them amongst the Firbolgs. He mentions ths Cathraige of 
 the Cruithne, from whom Cairbre Cinnceat was descended, and 
 the Cathraige of the Suck amongst others. The " Ait n& 
 mipeAtin " (the Stone of Division), which was regarded as the 
 centre of Ireland, and is, in fact, only a few miles distant 
 from it, was also called the Carraig Coitrighe in the Book of 
 Armagh. 
 
 In Scotland there was from the earliest times a powerful 
 people who occupied Caithness, in which the name is, probably, 
 preserved, and Sutherland and the Western islands, which 
 were called infi cac. They were called " Cait," and described 
 in the legend as descended from Cait, one of the sons of 
 Cruithne. They are, probably the Attacoti, i.e., Tuatha Cat 
 mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus three or four times in 
 connection with the Scoti, but distinct from them. Thus he 
 says (27.8.5) : "The Picts, the Saxons, the Scoti, and Attacoti, 
 harrassed the Britons with perpetual harryings." 
 
 And again : — " The Picts, divided into two tribes (gentes) 
 the Dicalydones and Vertureones, also the Attacoti, a warlike 
 tribe of men {bellicosa hominum natio) and the Scoti, 
 wandered far and wide (i.e., through Britain), and laid waste 
 many parts." These are, no doubt, also the Attacoti referred 
 to by St. Jerome (342-420) in the famous passage we are about 
 to cite. He refers to a sojourn he made at Treves, in Gaul. 
 Treves, where the Emperor Valentinian I. was then residing, 
 is placed by Ausonius as fourth in his list of noble cities. It 
 was on the right bank of the Moselle, the capital of that divi- 
 sion of Gaul, and the regular imperial residence : " When I 
 was a young man," he writes, " I saw the Atticoti, a British 
 tribe [who were said to] eat human flesh, and though they 
 would find in the woods herds of swine and cattle, to be used, 
 to cut off the buttocks of men and the buttocks and paps of 
 women, and to consider these the only tit bits." ^ 
 
 » Cum ipse adolescentulua viderira Atticottos, gentem Britanuicam [qui 
 dioebantur] humania veeoi oarnibus ; et ouin per silvas porcorum greges et 
 armeiitorum pecudumque reperiant, pastotum nates et feminarum et papiUas 
 solore absoindere et has solas oiborum dolicias arbitrari. Hieronvmus v 
 viuviuiaauiu (2.7.) -' ' ^ uo y. 
 
BEFORE TEE COMING OF THE GAEL. 7 
 
 The words in brackets " who were said to— qui cUoebantur " 
 do not appear in any MS. It may have been the omission of 
 the writer himself or of a scribe to whom he dictated. Jerome 
 refers to the time he was at Treves, where some Attacoti in 
 the Eoman Army were stationed. That he meant to say he 
 saw them slicing men and women in the way he mentions 
 openly in the woods near Treves is not to be thought of 
 Besides, " viderim solere abscindere " is neither sense nor 
 Latin. The context of the rest of the passage, too long to be 
 given here, shows that he was dealing with matters of hearsay. 
 And this was, no doubt, one of the stories circulated by the 
 poUshed provincials of Augusta Trevirorum about the habits 
 and practices of the wild barbarians from Caledonia when on 
 their native heath. In the alternative we should conclude 
 that the statement was a hallucination of the desert. 
 
 It is not possible to assign a date to the commencement of 
 the neolithic or polished stone age. Lyall thinks it may have 
 lasted 10,000 years. It was succeeded in some places by a 
 copper age for a brief period, and then by the bronze age, the 
 commencement of which is fixed by Montelius for Scandinavia 
 at 1450 B.C. If we suppose it arrived somewhat earlier in 
 Erin it will bring us to 1700 B.C., the date assigned by the 
 Four Masters for the coming of Golamh (the soldier) and the 
 Gael. It was during the neolithic time that the " Dolmens " 
 were built in Erin. The word " Dolmen" is derived from the 
 Breton " dol " (supposed to be a loan word from the Latin 
 " tabula," a table), and " maen," a stone. In its inception it 
 was a deadhouse of peculiar construction, built overground, 
 an imitation of a cave. Neolithic man in early times, living 
 in a cave himself, provided a similar abode for the departed. 
 In the case of paleolithic man a few traces only of burial by 
 inhumation have yet been discovered. In the neolithic age 
 we may suppose a time when the bones of the dead were 
 collected after the flesh had been removed by beasts or birds, 
 or the action of the weather. We find a survival of this prac- 
 tice at the present day in the custom of the Parsees. Their 
 sacred book, the Ahura Masdi, however, allowed them the 
 option of either inhuming or exposing the dead, and a few of 
 the Parsees in Bombay exercise this option of inhuming at the 
 present day. Inhumation, decamation, mummification, burial 
 
8 EARLY IKISH HISTORY. 
 
 in various postures, &c., were practised in various places, and 
 finally, incineration. Many of these modes were practised in 
 Erin. We need only refer particularly to incineration. It is 
 supposed to have come with the Ethnic Celts from the East. 
 Pothier^" has given maps showing the route from the Pamirs 
 to Brittany. From the mountains of Central France these 
 Celts sent ofTshoots to the Pyrenees on the south and Danemark 
 on the north. Burials by incineration are placed over the 
 earlier forms or found cotemporaneous in the same tomb in 
 France and elsewhere. 
 
 And the same probably occurred in the case of Erin, where 
 incineration was extensively practised cotemporaneously with 
 other modes of burial. In the Carrowmore group, near Sligo, 
 the most remarkable in Erin, where possibly the victors at 
 the second Moytura battle and their descendants found a resting 
 place, the graves reveal, in most cases where any remains are 
 found, the presence of calcined bones or urns, or other proofs 
 of burial by incineration. There are no round barrows indi- 
 cating the presence of round heads in Erin. It is certain that 
 these round heads occupied the valleys of the Loire and the 
 Seine until they were driven back into the mountain lands by 
 the invasion of the fair-haired, blue-eyed long heads from the 
 North, of which stock were the Gael, who practised inhuma- 
 tion. It has been observed that incineration brought with it 
 a more spiritual conception regarding the future life. Instead 
 of the ghoul-like existence" which the departed were supposed 
 to lead,, enduring a shadow life as strengthless skulls in the 
 deadhouse of the dolmen builder, the spirit was supposed to 
 pass from the prison-house of earthly corruption, purified by 
 fire, into the fairy land within the elfmound (sidh), or the 
 mountain, into spacious palaces glittering with gold and gems. 
 And this is the existence into which the tribes of the Dedanann 
 passed according to our legends after their defeat and destruc- 
 tion by the Gael. 
 
 The construction of the dolmens showed much variety and 
 development, the details of which will be found in Mr. Borlase's 
 monumental work. The earliest form appears to have been 
 what was known as a cromlech — one large unhewn stone placed 
 
 1" PptUt^r @, Lc? ropulatius primitiyes, 1897. 
 
BEFOKE THE COMING OF THE GAEL. 9 
 
 on two or more unhewn upright stones forming a sort of cave 
 with a narrow entrance. This covering stone was often of 
 immense size. The covering stone of the dolmen or cromlech 
 at Mount Brown (Carlow) weighs by estimation 100 tons, that 
 at Carriglass (Sligo) 73 tons, and the stone at Howth (Dublin) 
 70 tons. Men are puzzled to account for how with primitive 
 appliances such cap-stones could be moved into position. 
 Mortillet divides this form into two parts ; the cave portion he 
 calls an " allee couverte," the entrance portion a " vestibule." 
 The entrance in the next form appears elongated, and several 
 roofing stones were used with a slope upwards over the cave 
 proper. This was the form of Dolmen, commonly called the 
 " Giant's Grave." In France Mortillet terms them " caveaux " ^^ 
 (vaults or cells) with long entrance passages (couloirs d'acc^s). 
 The entrance and passages to both these classes were open or 
 capable of being opened, though sometimes only two or three 
 feet high, and the cave could be reached through them. There 
 was a third form that had no entrance or passage into it — the 
 Cist. It was a large rectangular space lined with unhewn 
 upright stones and roofed with several unhewn stones flagwise, 
 placed within a mound or cairn of stones. Mortillet calls these 
 " caisses." 
 
 For the student of the early developments of dolmen 
 building and the accompanying cultus of the dead there is 
 no country so rich in interest as France. Mortillet adduces 
 ovidence " that no fewer than twenty-four natural caves have 
 been discovered in France which had served the purpose of 
 sepulchral vaults to a population living in the neolithic age." 
 He adds that " the accompaniments of the dead as well as 
 ."iertain indications bearing on the nature of the rites performed 
 at the sepulchre were identical with what was found in connec- 
 tion with the dolmens, so that the latter may be supposed 
 to have taken the place of the natural caves." France has the 
 highest claims to be considered the place of origin of the 
 dolmen, at least for Western Europe. The three types are 
 well represented, the first in Central France, the valley of the 
 Loire and Seine, the second in Brittany, the third in Logere, 
 Aveyron, Ardeche, and Lozere. Dolmens are rare in the East 
 and North of France. All three types are represented in 
 " See Borlase, " The Dolmens of Ireland," U., p. 567, 1897, 
 
10 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Ireland ; the first in long, large dolmens like that at Lahbacallee 
 in Cork, the second by the great tumulus at New Grange, 
 in Meath, in which is to be found an architectural ampli- 
 fication as regards the roof not present in Brittany ; the 
 " caisses '' of the third type are comparable to the dolmens in 
 Clare. In Ireland there is also another type — the dolmen cairn 
 or dolmen circle to be seen at Carrowmore and elsewhere, and 
 also on the coast of Cornwall where the dolmens are identical 
 in type with those of Ireland. Dolmens of these types are 
 widely spread over the globe, but are not to be found 
 everywhere, as is sometimes supposed. Their distribution is 
 curious. From France they pass into Spain, Morocco, Algiers, 
 Tunis, the Caucasus, Palestine, the North of Persia, and India. 
 They are not found on the Mediterranean east of Corsica, 
 nor in Tripoli, Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, or the valley 
 of the Danube. Borlase ^^ reckons a total of 780 dolmens for 
 Ireland, the distribution of which is very remarkable. On 
 the East coast there are only 77, of which Wexford counts for 
 2, Wicklow 9, Dublin 14, Louth 4, Down 19, and Antrim 29. 
 On the West coast there are 436, of which Kerry counts for 
 22, Clare for 94, Galway for 30, Mayo 45, Sligo 163, and Donegal 
 for 82, showing thus a remarkable preponderance of dolmens 
 on the West coast. Besides the dolmens Borlase reckons 50 
 chambered tumuli differing from the dolmens constructively 
 in the circumstance that the roof is not formed by a single 
 slab but by successive layers of slabs approaching each othei? 
 as they rise — what is commonly known as the beehive con- 
 struction. Thirty of these chambers are found in Meath, such 
 as New Grange and Dowth. Their structural details prove 
 them to be connected with the dolmens proper, presumably in 
 relation to an identical cultus of the dead. 
 
 Borlase further observes that " the occurrence of dolmens in 
 Cornwall and the West of Wales, coupled with the fact of their 
 absence in North England, and their great scarcity in Scotland, 
 whilst the coasts of Ireland possess them in plenty, all tend to 
 give plausibility to a theory that the route by which those who 
 erected them arrived was from the South, either down the 
 English Channel or up the western coast of Europe, and so 
 
 i^Botlase Dolmens, ii., 418, 567. 
 
BEFORE THE COMING OF THE GAEL. 11 
 
 round the Land's End, and up St. George's Channel, and 
 around the entire coast of Ireland, which island they specially 
 made their own." 
 
 There are cup-markings and sculpturings on the stones of 
 many of these dolmens, all the world over, which probably had 
 some religious motives underlying them. In Ireland the prin- 
 cipal sculpturings are found at the cairns and tumuli which 
 extend along the hills of Slieve na Caillighe, for some three 
 miles from East to West north of Loughcrewin Meath. Sculp- 
 tured stones are also found at Clover Hill, near Carrowmore, 
 in Sligo, at New Grange, Rathkenny, Castle Archdale, 
 etc. The general character of the sculpturings or markings 
 are cup-shaped hollows, and irregularly, circular, spiral, zigzag 
 and wavy lines, and these lines are far more elaborate and 
 complicated at Loughcrew and New grange than elsewhere. 
 Art travelled from the coast to the centre of the island, making 
 progress on the way from Carrowmore to Slieve na Caillighe. 
 The position of the latter is central. From it (904 ft.) can be 
 seen the hills of Cuailgne, near Carlingford Lough, on the east 
 coast, alnd the hills near Sligo on the west. M. Emile Soldi in 
 " La Langue Sacr^e le Myst6re de la Creation," has attempted 
 to solve the mysteries that lie behind these cryptic symbols 
 which are more widely spread over the world than even the 
 dolmens. His book is very interesting and attractive, but it 
 is for others better equipped than the author of this work to 
 sit in judgment on it. To him it appears rather suggestive 
 than persuasive. The Sun, according to the Sacred Language, 
 is the principal manifestation of the soul of the world — Fire 
 the creator. It consists of a soul or essence-fire from which 
 proceed all fires, all essences, and all souls ; and also of a body 
 or envelope, the luminous ether, from which proceed all bodies 
 and all lights. Every created thing is in like manner com- 
 posed of a soul or essence and of a body or envelope. 
 
 The circle, with the central point representing the solar 
 disc ; the circle in relief, or cup-shaped ; the spiral, the zig-zag, 
 the wavy forms [representing the germs of life emanating 
 from the sun] M. Soldi regards as cosmic signs representing 
 the movements of the ether and its different manifestations, 
 expressing ideas as to the creation of all things, as to life, 
 death, and resurrection, and other mysteries. These signs or 
 
12 EARLY IRISH IIIRTORT. 
 
 figurations (cosmoglyphic) were the first writing of Egypt, and 
 were superseded by the phonetic system. They " are to be 
 found everywhere, with the same significations amongst all 
 peoples, rendered by the same images with forms so special, 
 singular, and conventional that no one can object that they 
 are due to chance or the natural sameness of the expressions 
 of the human brain." ^^ If M. Soldi was called on to explain 
 the sculpturings or scorings at Cloverhill, Sligo, near Carrow- 
 more, he would probably say that the large circle with the 
 central point represented the sun, the two smaller circles 
 emanations, points of fire and life from the sun, the horizontal 
 lines the direction of the movement, and the goat or ram's 
 horns the conducting energies which were to convey the vital 
 sparks to the dead and clothe the bones with flesh and life. 
 The whole was, in substance, a prayer for resurrection written 
 in " cosmoglyphic " language." 
 
 Without taking into consideration the chambered tumuli, 
 formed with courses of masonry overlapping inwards in bee- 
 hive fashion, which stand on debatable ground and seem to 
 be the product of neolithic construction, the evidence of the 
 dolmens and the sculpturings is persuasive to prove that in 
 neolithic times Ireland was not an unknown and isolated 
 island, but was in the full current of the progress of the time 
 and in advance of any part of Europe standing within the 
 same parallels of latitude. The men who built the dolmens 
 in Sligo, and probably many more that have perished without 
 leaving any trace behind, must have been a numerous, wealthy 
 tribe, with religion and laws and social order in process of 
 evolution. This, we venture to submit, was mainly due to the 
 fact that there was direct intercourse between the south-west 
 of France oversea with Ireland, along the route of the Dolmen 
 builders. Erin was not isolated or wholly divided from the 
 rest of the world in neolithic times. The dolmens and the 
 sculpturings alone are sufficient to prove that the island was 
 well in touch with such progress as had then been made, and 
 
 ^ Soldi Euiile, " La Langue Saorfie le Myst^re de la Creation.'" Paris, 1897, 
 p. 88, et seq. 
 
 " These sculpturings are reproduced from drawings by Mr. Wakenian in 
 " Tlie Dolmens," vol. i., p. 141, and are simpler than those at Loughcrew. 
 According to M, Soldi, the " casmoglyphia " language may be expressed also 
 b^' the arranger leat of precious stones, arms, etc., iij the tombs. 
 
BEFORE THE COMING OF THE GAEL. 1 
 
 rt 
 
 was, in fact, ahead of any region situated on the same parallel 
 of latitude in Western Europe. The population must have of 
 necessity been small, judged by a later standard. 
 
 The land was covered with forests. Erin was called the 
 " island of woods." But this was also the case with Britain 
 and Central Europe. A vast forest extended in Caesar's time 
 from the source of the Danube to the Carpathian mountains, 
 and great forests, the remains of greater forests, extended 
 from the Khine to the Atlantic ocean. 
 
[ 14 ] 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 What Our Texts Sat. 
 
 •« A MIXTURE of a lie" (saith Bacon), "dotli ever add 
 il pleasure." A popular historian should make his story 
 as pleasant reading as fiction. Let us be gentle, therefore, in 
 our criticism of the " File," whose duty it was " to put a thread 
 of poetry " around the tales and traditions that came down 
 from a remote past. The first persons who landed in Erin 
 were three fishermen from Spain, who were driven by adverse 
 winds into the mouth of the river Moy, near what is now the 
 town of Ballina. They were drowned in the universal deluge. 
 
 Forty days before the deluge, Ceasair, the daughter of 
 Bith, and grand-daughter of Noah, landed at Dun-na-mBarc, 
 in Kerry, on Saturday, the 15th day of the moon. 
 
 This is what brought her to Erin. Bith, her father, sent 
 a messenger to Noah, to ask whether he himself and his 
 daughter, Ceasair, would get a place in the Ark, to save them 
 from the flood. Noah said that they would not get it. Fintan 
 asked the same, and Noah said he would not get a place. 
 Bith, Fintan, Ladhra, and the maiden Ceasair, go into 
 council afterwards. " Let my advice be done by you," said 
 Ceasair. " It shall be done," say they. " Well, then," said 
 she, "take a hand-made god, i.e., an idol, and make adoration 
 to him, and abandon this God of Noah." After that they 
 brought with them a hand-made god, and he said to them to 
 make a ship, and go on the sea ; however, it was not known 
 to him what time would come the flood. A ship was made by 
 them afterwards, and they went on the sea. It is the number 
 that went with them — three men : namely, Bith, Fintan, and 
 Ladhra ; also three women, Ceasair and two others, and fifty 
 maidens with them.^ 
 
 This Fintan was afterwards a celebrated personage, 
 Fintan, "the salmon of knowledge." He was turned into a 
 
 ^ See introduction to " Book of Leinster," and the following texts and 
 translations, "Fintan's Poem : " Oss. Soo., v. 244, OioUa Caomghin's Annalad 
 Anall uile ; Trip. Life, 530, Erin Ard, Inis na rig ; Todd Leo. Ill , 142 ; Ogygia 
 III.. 2. 
 
WHAT OUR TEXTS SAY. 15 
 
 salmon when the flood came, and some said he was resuscitated 
 after the flood and lived to the time of St. Patrick. It was a 
 common saying amongst the people to a late period, " If I had 
 lived Fintan's years I could say much." What occurred 
 before the flood, in which all perished who were not in the 
 Ark, might have been written on a stone, or communicated by 
 Fintan. The view, however, that was most strongly held, and 
 which found favour with Keating, was that the facts were in 
 after-time revealed to a favoured mortal by his Fairy Lover 
 (teniinfn!)e). 
 
 One hundred and twenty years after the flood Adhna 
 came to Erin and took from it with him the fuU of his hand 
 of the grass. His occupation was not considered effective by 
 Senachies, and is not counted a " gAOxitcuf ." Two and 
 seventy-eight years after the flood (2680 B.C.) Partholan, 
 fleeing for the murder of his father and his mother,^ landed 
 at Inver Sceine (Kenmare Bay), pushed up the west coast to 
 Inis Saimer (Fish Island) near the mouth of the Erne, and 
 finally settled at Magh Elta, the plain from Howth to 
 Tallaght, three miles south of Dublin. According to the 
 Psalter of Cashel, as Keating tells us, Partholan started from 
 Greig Mheadhonaegh, which seems to be Maeonia. It is the 
 way he went through the Toirrian Sea to Sicily with the 
 right hand to Spain and thence to Erin. The context shows 
 that the Toirrian Sea cannot be the Tyrrhene Sea. It may 
 be intended to indicate the sea west of Tyre. With Partholan 
 came his wife Dealgnaid, their three sons, and 1,000 followers. 
 They defeated the Fomorians, 800 in number, in a battle near 
 Lough Swilly. The Fomorians were all killed. This was the 
 first battle that was fought in Erin. After the Muintir 
 Partholain (Partholan's people) had passed 300 years in Erin 
 they were all carried off by the plague in one week — 5,000 
 men and 4,000 women. This plague stroke (c^ittifLe^Cc) is 
 commemorated in the name Tallaght at the present day." ^ 
 
 The first jealousy, as it is called, of Erin also occurred in 
 Partholan's time, and must not be passed over. We shall give 
 
 ^ li ia remarkable that Partholan, first King of Ireland, and Brutus, first 
 King of Britain, are both abhorred for having killed both father and mother.-^ 
 Todd. 
 
 ' Tallaght is howeTer usually derived from CAiii, plague, and te4icc, grave. 
 
16 EARLY IRISH HISTOEIT. 
 
 it abbreviated in the words of Keating. During the absence 
 of Partholan, Dealgnaid received the attentions of her groom 
 of the chamber, Todga (^e rtA giotU ffein), and when Partholan 
 reproached her, it was not an apology she made, but she said 
 that it was more just the blame of that ill deed to be on him- 
 self than on herself, and she spoke the verse — 
 
 Honey with a woman leave, new milk with a child, 
 Food with a generous man, flesh with a cat ; 
 A workman and his tools together ; 
 One with the other it is great danger. 
 
 Erin was then waste for thirty years after the plague stroke 
 (UAiriifteACc) of Parth&lan's folk till Nemed came to inhabit 
 it. The track which he journeyed in coming to Erin from 
 Scythia was on the narrow sea which is coming from the ocean 
 that is called Mare Euxinum. He gave his right hand to the 
 Riifacan mountains till he came into the Northern Ocean, and 
 his left hand to Europe till he came into Erin.* Thirty-four 
 ships was the number of his fleet and thirty persons in each 
 ship of them. The occupation of the race of Nemed lasted 
 for 217 years, until the arrival of the Fir-mbolgs (Firvolce). 
 From the very first, however, the possession of Nemed was 
 contested by the Fomorians, who were also, as we have seen, 
 adversaries of the first race. Nemed was at first victorious ; 
 he won three battles. The third appears to have been a 
 Pyrrhic victory. In it was made a " red slaughter " of the 
 men of Erin under Arthur,^ the son of Nemed, and Jobcan, the 
 son of Starn, his grandson, as the old poem certifies — 
 
 " The Battle of Cnamhross, which was tremendous, 
 It is greatly in it fle.sh was hacked, 
 Arthur and Jobcan fell in it, 
 Although in it Ganu (i.e., the Fomorian) was defeated." 
 
 After this Nemed died of the plague, with 2,000 of his 
 folk, in Oilean Arda Neimed (the Island of Nemed's Height) 
 
 * There were two routes from the East in primitive times — one north of th« 
 Caspian, the other more southerly, over the Crimean Boaphorua between the 
 Euxine and the Sea of Azof, which is the route here indicated. This route 
 then passed up the valley of the Danube, with the Carpathian — i.e., the Riffaoan 
 mountains (semble) on the right hand. 
 
 ' This is the first time the name Arthur occurs in story. The Cornish 
 prince was probably a Gael. The name occurs often in the Scotch Gaelic 
 pedigrees. This reference has escaped Zimmer who does not mention this text in 
 hia article on the name Arthur. He has collected the earliest example* 
 known to him in his article on Nennius, p. 26i. 
 
WHAT OUE TEXTS SAT. 17 
 
 now the Great Island, in Cork Harbour. After this disaster 
 the Nemedians were unable to cope with their foes. These 
 Fomorians, we are told, were sea rovers, robbers on the high 
 seas (po-rhuitMtt), and came from Africa. They seized what is 
 now Tory Island, off the N.W. coast of Donegal, on which they 
 built a stronghold known as Conaing's Cop, hence the name 
 Tor-inis. From this they enforced tribute from the race of 
 Nemed. The amount of the tribute was two-thirds of the 
 children, of the corn, and of the milk of the men of Erin to be 
 given to them every year on the eve of SAttixMn (Hallowe'en) 
 to Magh-g-Ceidne, between the Drobhaois and the Erne. 
 Eage and anger seized the men of Erin, and they rose up and 
 mustered their forces to attack their oppressors. The island, 
 which is nearly three miles long and very narrow, is about 
 eight miles from the shore. The men of Erin effected a land- 
 ing, laid siege to the Tor,^ and demolished it. Conan himself 
 and his sons fell in the combat. More (another Fomorian 
 leader) arrived soon after with the crews of three score ships 
 from Africa. A furious battle ensued. The combatants did 
 not perceive the sea coming in under them, with the obstinacy 
 of the fighting. They fell mutually ; aU who were not killed 
 were drowned, with the exception of the crew of one bark, 
 thirty strong men under three chiefs — Simeon Breac, lobath, 
 and Britan Maol. Borlase, who visited the island, thought 
 from its configuration and elevation " that it did not afford a 
 spot fitted to have been the site of the tide coming in on the 
 fighters." ^ Caesar Otway, however, writes as follows : — " In 
 the month of August last (1826) a strong and unforeseen 
 storm set in from the north-west, which drove the sea in 
 immense waves over the whole flat part of (Tory) island. The 
 waves beat over the highest cUffe. All the corn was destroyed, 
 the potatoes were washed out of the ground, and the springs 
 of fresh water filled up." * 
 
 After this combat the Nemedians in Erin took counsel, and 
 resolved te fly from the tyranny of the Fomorians, and after 
 preparing for seven years set sail for various parts in 1,130 ! 
 vessels — between ship, bark, skiff, and small boat. Ten heroes 
 
 " Tor, root " Tver," to hold, enclose, a " fenced town or buttery." These 
 •frongholds were usually on hills, '■ Tors." 
 'Dolmens ill., 1081. 
 'Sketches in Ireland, 1827. p. 13, note. 
 
18 EARLY IRISH HISTOET, 
 
 remained behind in command of the remnant, who continued 
 under the slavery of the Fomorians inhabitng Erin, until the 
 coming of the Fir-mbolgs. The Four Masters say " 216 years 
 Nemed and his race remained in Erin, after that Erin was a 
 wilderness for 200 years." 
 
 The Leabhar Gabhala does not represent the Fomorians as 
 having made an "occupation" (gAtSAtcAi') of Erin. They 
 were invaders, raiders, but not occupiers. Partholan and 
 Nemed were occupiers but not invaders. The term invasions 
 is not applicable to the taking possession of unowned and un- 
 inhabited land, and is not used by McGeoghegan, who uses 
 the word " inhabitancy." We have already indicated our view 
 that Phcenician traders made their way to Erin at a very early 
 period, and in those early days and to a much later time, not 
 very far removed from our own, there was a very thin partition 
 dividing the trader from the pirate. In the usual course trade 
 led on to tribute, tribute to revolt, revolt to extermination or 
 slavery. This Fomorian tradition appears to us to approximate 
 very closely in its broad outlines to true history.® There were 
 two tributary poisons by which the pure stream of tradition 
 was fouled on its way to us. We may refer to them as the 
 poison of the synchronists and the poison of the etymologists. 
 The synchronists, beginning with creation, must have felt 
 considerably relieved when they came to the flood, from which 
 they could take a new departure. Keating tells us that " all 
 the colonists who took Erin after the flood descended from 
 Magog, the son of Japhet. At Sen, the son of Esru Partholan 
 and the children of Nemed separate from each other, and At 
 Seara the Fir m-bolgs and the Tuatha Dedannan and the sons 
 of Miled also separate. And it is the Scotic language all these 
 tribes spoke."^" This was the accepted view, and to sustain it 
 some ingenious devices were resorted to. Nemed's grandson, 
 for instance, Simeon Breac, went into Greece, it was said, to 
 escape the oppression of the Fomorians. His race multiplied 
 there, and came back as Fir m-bolgs, so called from the sacks 
 (bolg) in which they used to carry earth for their task 
 masters ! ! ! The synchronists met with difficulties from the 
 outset. Chronologists were hopelessly at variance as to the 
 length of time that had elapsed from the Creation to the 
 ' SAfi-Aim :: capio, and <»§ g&biiL = occupaiio, a taking possession. '■" Cap. vii. 
 
WHAT OUR TEXTS SAT. 19 
 
 Birth of Christ. Keating in his preface, as an evidence of 
 such disagreement amongst the best writers, gives the compu- 
 tations of the widely divergent authorities. The usual com- 
 putation of the " Irish Domestic Annals," as O'Flaherty terms 
 it, agrees closely with the computation of Scaliger. There 
 were, however, other computations in the Irish Annals. The 
 Four Masters, following the Septuagint, and Eusebius, and 
 reckoning 5,199 years from the Creation to the Birth of Christ, 
 were following also an old Irish rythm. O'Flaherty, whose 
 figures we quote below, relies mainly on a poem by Gilla 
 Caemhain (tl072), while Eocaid Ua Floinn (tl056) cited in 
 the margin of Ogygia.^^ appears to have calculated 5,199 from 
 the creation to the birth of Christ. In addition to these 
 elements of confusion, the copies of the old texts differed from 
 each other, and from the originals, through the inaccuracy 
 and inattention of the transcribers. The synchronist, begin- 
 ning with Partholan, 22 years before the birth of Abraham, 
 had to produce a king or a colonist, or account for his absence 
 from that time until the birth of Christ, or as O'Flaherty 
 describes it, " a synchronism in which the epoch and genera- 
 tions of the Irish are accurately collated with foreign ones." 
 The chief of these synchronisms was arranged by Flann of the 
 Monastery. He was a lay professor (Fir leighinn) at the 
 Cistercian Abbey of Monasterboice, in Louth. He synchronized 
 the Kings of the Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Greeks, and the 
 Roman emperors with the kings of Erin, in parallel columns, 
 century by century. He died in 1066, and his learning, which 
 was very great, can of course throw very little light on our 
 early history. An examination of the subjoined table will 
 show that there is very little difference between the various 
 computations from the time of David, which may be approxi- 
 mately fixed at about 1000 B-C.^^ Michael ua Clerigh, the 
 Chief of the Four Masters, in his preface to the " Book of 
 Occupations," states that it appeared to him " whose inheri- 
 tance it was from his ancestors, to be a chronicler," that it 
 would be a charity for some one of the men of Erin to purify, 
 compile, and rewrite the ancient honoured Chronicle which is 
 called the " Book of Occupations."^' 
 
 u Ogygia (1685), p. 3 and 8. The marginal note referred to is omitted in 
 Hely's (1793) translation, p. xxvii. 
 
 "^Ogygia, Part II. " O'Curry (MSS.). p. 172. 
 
20 EAELY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 " We give (he writes) the computation of the Septuagint 
 for the first four ages with the computation which the intelli- 
 gent and learned men who followed them applied to the ages 
 of the world from the creation to the birth of Christ, which 
 they divided into four parts. Among these are Eiisebias, who 
 in his Chronicle computes from the creation to the birth of 
 Christ, to be 5,199 years. Orosius says that there are from 
 Adam to Abraham 3,184 years ; and from Abraham to the 
 birth of Christ 2,015 years, which makes the same number. 
 St. Jerome says in his Epistle to Titus that 6,000 years had 
 not then been completed. St. Augustine, in the City of God, 
 counts it at 6,000 years. The reason we have followed the 
 writers who follow the Septuagint is because they have added 
 a fifth to their ages, and so make out the period of 5,199 years 
 from the creation to the birth of Christ. So also the Roman 
 Martyrology." ^* A tabular view of the chronology of our 
 texts and of sacred chronology will be found in the following 
 
 table : — 
 
 Chronology op Our Texts. 
 
 
 
 
 Pour 
 
 
 
 Scaliger. 
 
 Domestic. 
 
 Masters. Keating. 
 
 From the Creation to the 
 
 
 
 
 
 Deluge 
 
 1656-1583 
 
 1656 
 
 2242 
 
 1656 
 
 Thence to ceasing of the 
 
 
 
 
 
 Flood 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 • — ■ 
 
 — 
 
 Thence to birth of Abraham 
 
 292 
 
 292 
 
 942 
 
 344 
 
 Thence to David 
 
 940 
 
 942 
 
 940 
 
 — 
 
 Thence to Captivity 
 
 471 
 
 473 
 
 485 
 
 ■ — 
 
 Thence to Birth of Christ 
 
 589 
 
 589 
 
 590 
 
 — 
 
 Creation to Chiist 
 
 3949 
 
 3952 
 
 5199 
 
 4052 
 
 SACRED CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 
 
 The variations are endless on this 
 
 subject. 
 
 De 
 
 Vignolles 
 
 reckons 200 different computations. 
 
 The following 
 
 is offered 
 
 as a popular, but disputed view : — 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hebrew. 
 
 Samaritan. SeptuaginU 
 
 Adam to Noah 
 
 lt)56 
 
 1307 
 
 
 2242 
 
 Noah to Abraham . . . 
 
 292 
 
 942 
 
 
 U-2 
 
 Abraham to Christ 
 
 2044 
 
 2044 
 
 
 2044 
 
 3992 4293 5228 
 
 The reign of David may be assigned to 1,000 B.C 
 The fall of Jerusalem „ 586 , 
 
 »* OCurry MS,, 170, 172, condensed. 
 
WHAT OUR TEXTS SAT. 21 
 
 We may deal more briefly with the etymological poison. 
 It may be safely stated as a general rule that whenever any- 
 thing is stated to be a fact in connection with an etymology 
 in nine cases out of ten it is sure to be pure fiction.'^^ The 
 Dindsenchus, a mytho-heroic topography, the Coir Anmann, 
 a mytho-heroic biography, and Keating, are filled with these 
 absurdities. It is only fair to add that absurdities almost as 
 great continued in Classical literature well into the middle of 
 the nineteenth century, when their place was taken by the 
 absurdities of the solar myth. Much, if not all, the synchron- 
 isms and legends connected with pre-Gaelic Erin must un- 
 hesitatingly be set down to the influence of Christianity and 
 the invention of early Christian bards, who felt a desire to 
 trace their kings back to Japhet. The native unchristianised 
 genealogies all converge to the sons and nephews of Golamh 
 (Milesius.) The legends of their exploits and those of their 
 successors are the real race heritage of the Gael " unmixed 
 with the fanciful Christian allusions and Hebraic adulterations 
 of the pre-Milesian story which was the last to be invented."^* 
 The third " occupation " of Erin was by a people whom 
 recent writers call Firbolgs ; but whom the Gaels called Fir- 
 miolgs or Firhholgs, and whom MacGeoghegan very properly 
 denominates Eirvolce in his translation of the Annals of Clon- 
 macnoise. The Eirvolce held possession of Erin for thirty-seven 
 years from 1934 to 1897, during which there were eight kings ! 
 We shall see that next to the Gael they were the most important 
 people that occupied Erin, and had many sub-denominations. 
 They were, our texts say, the descendants of Simeon Breac, 
 the son of Stam, the son of Nemed. The fourth occupants 
 were the Tuatha Dedanann, descended from Jobath, the great 
 grandson of Nemed, who held possession for 197 years (1897- 
 1701 B.C.) The second, third' and fourth " Occupants " were 
 thus Nemedians, of one stock, speaking one language, and 
 held possession at the coming of the Gael. There were three 
 sub-divisions of the Eirvolce, the Eir Domhnann and the Eir- 
 GaiMoin, all, however, in common were called Eirvolce, though 
 sometimes accounted distinct and separate occupants.^'' 
 
 " Isidore of Seville 636 a.d., called his encyclopaedia work de omni scibili. 
 " Books of Etymologies " — (Libri Etymologiaium, ix.) 
 
 "Hyde " Literary History," 46. For ethnology of Firvolce see Cap. I. 
 " 5i-6eA-6 joiiiteoti piji-bliots 50 coic6iotit) ■ooib Mite. — Keating, c. ix. 
 
22 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 The five sons of Deala, who was ninth in descent from 
 Starn, the son of Nemed, commanded the expedition of the 
 Firvolce, which consisted of 5,000 in 1,130 ships, counting 
 ship, bark, skiff, and small boat. They sailed from Greece, 
 over the Torrian Sea to Spain, and thence to Erin, which they 
 divided into five provinces — Ulster, Connact, Leinster, and 
 South and North Munster. They established a pentarchy with 
 an Ardrigh, and were governed by eight kings in succession 
 during the thirty-seven years they held possession. In after 
 times the Fir-Gail6oin were associated with Leinster, and the 
 Fir Domhnann with North-West Connact — the latter having 
 originally landed, it was said, at Blacksod Bay. The ninth 
 and last high king was Eocaid MacErc, who had to wife Tailtin, 
 daughter of Maghmor, King of Spain, the foster-mother of 
 Lug. According to the Poem of Columba, it was she that 
 founded the fair of Tailtin. She founded the Fair as the 
 Nasad of Lug, the Sungod (not god of the son), and it was 
 Qot, as more frequently stated, Lug that founded the Fair in 
 commemoration of Tailtin. The mortal name of Lug in Gaelic 
 tales is Lugaid Lam-fada.^* 
 
 There was no rain or tempestuous weather in Eocaid's time, 
 nor a year without great produce and fruit. All injustice and 
 unlawfulness were suppressed, and sure and excellent laws 
 were ordained in it. He ruled the land from Royal Tara for 
 ten prosperous years. When Nuada landed with the Tribes of 
 Dedannan (CuaCa "oe 'O.^nAtin), and demanded a settlement 
 in the country, Eocaid refused his kinsman's request, and 
 said — " Leave the land, remain as slaves, or fight to the death." 
 A fierce battle was then fought at Moytura, in Mayo, at the 
 neck of land which joins Lough Mask with Lough Corrib, 
 sometimes called Moytura Conga. 
 
 The field on which the battle of South Moytura is said to 
 have been fought extends from five to six miles north to south. 
 Near the centre of this space, and nearly opposite to Cong, is 
 a group of five stone circles. On other parts of the field are 
 six or seven large cairns of stone, amongst which is the 
 
 '* If msen rriAsmom ni niX ■ooit ben ecliAfe mic 'Ouac 
 
 gofiAb CAitcin bfioititie oenAig ait> mtiime togA IDic ScAil. 
 
 It is the daughter of Maghmor, the family is not obscure, the wife ol 
 Eocaid, bou of Duach, that was the founder of the Fair of Tailtin, and the 
 foster-mother of Lug, the son of Seal. L.L., p. 8, col. I. 
 
WHAT OUB TEXTS SAT. 23 
 
 celebrated one-man cairn (Carn an aoin Fir), a name handed 
 down by tradition. The story that has reached us in writing 
 states that on the morning of the fourth day of the battle, Eocaid, 
 the Ardrigh, while bathing at a well near the cairn, was sud- 
 denly attacked by three of the foe. His gioUa fought the 
 three single-handed and slew them, but died of his wounds, 
 and was buried with honour in a cairn close by. Sir W. Wilde, 
 book in hand identified the well, as he tells us, and caused the 
 cairn to be opened, and found it contained an urn.^* 
 
 The " red slaughter " was preceded by a combat between 
 three " nines " at each side in a game of " hurley," which took 
 place in the " Valley of the Athletes " (Glean-mo-Ailleam). 
 The twenty-seven Dedananns were defeated and died, and " the 
 heap of the game " (Cam an Cluithe), which may be seen to 
 this day, was erected over them. " How like in its way," says 
 a recent historian, " to the erection on the plain of Marathon, 
 pointing out where the Athenians fell ! " The great fight 
 lasted four days. Fathach, the bard, chanted the battle song 
 (Rosg Catha) of the Firvolce to hearten them for the fight ; 
 Edana, the poetess, led the chant on the side of the Dedanann. 
 The High King and Sreng led the Firvolce, and performed 
 the usual prodigies of valour ; Nuada, the Dagda, and Ogma 
 commanded the Dedanann. Sreng engaged Nuada in single 
 combat, and cut off his right arm at the shoulder with a sword 
 cut, but Nuada survived. On both sides healing baths of hot 
 milk and herbs had been prepared for the cure of the 
 wounded. " It is from Lusmag, in the King's County, 
 Diancecht brought every herb and grated them at the well of 
 Glainge in Achad Abla before the battle of Magh Tuiradh, 
 when the great battle was fought between the Tuatha Dea 
 and the Fomori," ^o 
 
 Nuada's wound was in time healed by the skill of 
 Diancecht, the King's physician, and Credne, the craftsman 
 (Ceard) made a silver arm for him, and the king was ever 
 after known as Nuada of the Silver Hand (Nuada Airgid-lamh). 
 On the fourth day the Firvolce were completely routed, and 
 Eocaid, the Ard Righ, was slain. A cairn was erected over 
 him at the Hill of Killower, distant about a mile from Lough 
 
 " Sir W. Wilde's address to Boyal Irish Academy. 
 ^Res. Coll., xvi., 59. Dinnseanchus. Lusmag. 
 
24 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Mask. It is called Carn Eocaid, and is the most extensive 
 and remarkable in the west of Ireland. A few miles to the 
 east of the battlefield is the Hill of Knockma, five miles south- 
 west of Tuam, on the top of which is the mound of Cesair, 
 who invaded ! Erin with fifty maidens and three men before 
 the Flood, and is known now probably as Finnbheara, queen 
 of the fairies of Connact.^^ The origin, names, and use of 
 many of the monuments on the plain are to be found in a 
 Saga descriptive ^^ of the battle. The annals of Clonmacnoise 
 say, "100,000 men were slain in the fight, which was the 
 greatest slaughter that ever was heard of in Erin at one time." 
 According to the Saga, the Firvolce afterwards obtained from 
 the Dedanann the province of Connact, which was known, 
 amongst other names, as Sreng's " fifth," up to the time of 
 Conn of the Hundred Battles. Keating, however, says that 
 the Firvolce fled to the islands of Arran, Islay, Rathlin, and 
 the Hebrides, which they held possession of until driven out 
 by the Picts. They then fled to Leinster, and finally returned 
 to Connact in Queen Meve's time. Many pedigrees were sub- 
 sequently traced to this stock, which produced distinguished 
 soldiers. O'Flaherty, whose opinion on this point is of special 
 weight, tells us that in the time of the Gaels " whom very 
 probably they assisted in dispossessing and expelling the 
 Dananns, they were restored to their landed properties and 
 dignities. For Crimthan Skaithbell, one of them, was consti- 
 tuted governor of Leinster by King Heremon, which was 
 afterwards denominated the province of the Gallinians. The 
 Erneans and Martineans, of whom there is frequent mention 
 in subsequent accounts, were the descendants of the Firbolgs. 
 The Damnonians were the most ancient princes of Connact to 
 the time of King Cormac. ... Of these were three particular 
 families — the Gamanradians, the Fircraibians, and the Tira-tha 
 Thaiden, by whom Connact was divided into three Connacts, 
 and the people were denominated also the Firolnegemacht."^ 
 
 sa Dolmens III., 799. 
 
 2!0'CurryMS., 247. 
 
 ^ O'Flaherty, Ogygia III., o. xi., p. 1 75. Tigernaoh, A.D., 35, calls it Coice-o 
 ti-0ttiecmA6c. OLnesmacc -was supposed to be the daughter of a Firvq^oe 
 chief, Book of Iieoan, fol. 221. After the race of Conn of the Hundred Battle* 
 ■ — namely, the sons of Eocaid Muigmeadon (Brian and Fiaohra) took possession 
 of Connact it became known aa Cuinn-ioota, i.e.. Conn's race, and the Hy Briuia 
 and the Hy Fiachra became the dominant power in Connact. 
 
WHAT OUE TEXTS SAT. 25 
 
 The Dedananns appear to have been assisted in this battle 
 by Fomorians. These, however, were not the African sea 
 rovers who fought on Tory Island, but warriors from the 
 northern seas. Nuada, suifering from a personal blemish, 
 could not reign until " his hand had been welded with a piece 
 of refined silver." Breas was made High King in the interim, 
 and ruled for seven years. He was the son of a Fomorian 
 chief, Elatha. His mother was a Dedanann. Another inter- 
 marriage of importance, as we shall see, is also mentioned. 
 Cian, the son of Diancecht the physician, married Eithlenn, or 
 Ethnea, the daughter of Balor of the " Stiff Blows," and 
 Kethleen his wife, and had issue the celebrated Lugaid Lamh- 
 fadha. This, however, was only his mortal parentage. His 
 real father was the Sun-God Lug. Breas proved to be a 
 niggardly tyrant. " The chiefs of the Dedananns were dis- 
 satisfied, for Breas did not grease their knives ; in vain came 
 they to Breas, their breath did not smell of ale. Neither their 
 poets, nor bards, nor druids, nor harpers, nor flute-players, nor 
 musicians, nor jugglers, nor fools, appeared before them nor 
 came into the palace to amuse them." He had reduced many of 
 the bravest of the chiefs to a state of vassalage and servitude. 
 Cairbre the satirist, son of Etana the poetess, was shown " into 
 a little house — small, narrow, black, dark — where was neither 
 fire, furniture, nor bed. He was given three little dry loaves, 
 on a little plate. When he rose in the morning he was not 
 thankful." The indignant poet thereupon wrote the first 
 satire that was written in Erin. 
 
 Breas was forced to resign soon after. He then went to 
 his father, Elatha, the Fomorian chief, and having secured 
 the aid of Balor of the " Mighty Blows " and the " Evil Eye," 
 and of Indech, the son of De-Domnand, two powerful chiefs, 
 he invaded Erin. From Tara to Tory Island, from Staffa to 
 the Giant's Causeway, the sea was spanned, as it were, by a 
 bridge of ships of every description. A great battle ensued. 
 It was fought on the plain of Moytura, about fifty miles north 
 of the former battle, near Lough Arrow, at Kilmactraney, in 
 Sligo. Nuada, the Dagda, Lugaid Lamh-fadha, Ogma, and 
 Delbart were the leaders of the Dedananns. Breas, 
 Elatha, Balor, Tethra, and Indech were the leaders of 
 the Fomorians. Two ladies graced the combat by 
 
26 EABLY miSH HISTORY. 
 
 their valour. Macha fought for Nuada, and Kethleen, 
 the wife of Balor and grandmother of Lug, carried 
 sword and spear in the ranks of the Fomorians. The arms 
 carried by the Fomorian chiefs and their costume are 
 described by the authors of the tract on the second battle of 
 Moytura. Elatha the king "had golden hair down to his 
 shoulders. He wore a cloak braided with golden thread, a 
 tunic interwoven with threads of gold, and a brooch of gold at 
 his breast emblazed with precious stones. He carried two 
 bright spears with fine bronze handles in his hand, a shield of 
 gold over his shoulder, and a gold-hilted sword with veins of 
 silver and paps of gold." He had, in addition, a breastplate 
 and a helmet. A fierce fight ensued. Balor of the " Mighty 
 Blows " cut down Nuada with his sword, and Macha, running 
 bravely to aid the king, fell to his spear. Kethleen hurled 
 her lance at the Dagda, and inflicted a wound from which he 
 died one hundred and twenty years afterwards. Ogma was 
 slain by Indech. The victory of the Fomorians seemed assured, 
 but Lug then rushed to the rescue. From his staff-sling 
 (ctiAfin CAttAtt)he whirled a mighty stone at Balor. It entered 
 the " evil eye," pierced the brain, and passed out through the 
 back of the skull. The mighty Balor fell, to rise no more. 
 The Mot Riga then arrived to help the Dedanann, and the 
 battle " was broke " on the Fomorians, and the plain was ever 
 after known as Magh Tuired na bh-Fomoruch (Moytura of the 
 Fomorians)." ^ 
 
 " Recent scholarly attempts," says Borlase, " to master the 
 details of this battle legend, have tended rather to counten- 
 ance the view that the two stories relate to one and the same 
 event," the battle in the Northern Moytura.^^ M. d'Arbois 
 lends the great weight of his authority to this view, which 
 seems to be helped by the fact stated by Douglas Hyde, that 
 in the oldest current list of Irish sagas, drawn up probably in 
 the 7th century, only one battle of Magh Tuired is mentioned, 
 i.e., what is now known as the second or Northern Battle.^* 
 
 " O'Curry MS., 248. The tract which contains this Saga, which has a 
 Viking flavour, is referred to hy Cormac MaoCuilenain in illustration of the word 
 " Nis," and is undoubtedly old, but still written as a Saga 2,000 years after the 
 battle. 
 
 Annals Clonmacnoise. Murphy, S./., Ed., 1-18, "of whom Inniskilhean 
 took the name." 
 
 2» Dolmens III., 803. 
 
 '^ Ir. Literature, 283. 
 
WHAT OUR TEXTS SAY. 27 
 
 Against this view must be weighed the very old local tradi- 
 tions at Cong, and in the introduction to the Senchus Mor, a 
 later text, both battles are referred to. Our view strongly 
 inclines to side with M. d'Arbois, but the question does not 
 admit of a peremptory decision. The meaning of the words 
 Tuatha De Danann, or Tuatha Dedannan, is still a vexed 
 question. If De means gods, then the natural meaning of 
 Tuatha De is tribes of gods, and the De Danann would become 
 mythological beings. " The mythological beings," writes 
 Borlase, " who constitute the Tuatha De Danann took their 
 name from Dana, the daughter of Dealbeath." An alternative 
 translation, suggested by M. d'Arbois, is "tribes of the 
 goddess Dana," i.e., who worshipped Dana. On linguistic 
 grounds, Hyde considers this version venturesome, which is a 
 polite way of saying that it cannot be sustained.^^ The old 
 Irish did not attach this meaning to it, nor is there any trace 
 of a worship or cult of a goddess Dana by special tribes in 
 Erin. They explained it as " men of science who were as 
 gods." This is still more venturesome, in our opinion. It 
 was probably suggested by the supernatural feats of Lug and 
 Balor. We prefer to consider De Danann to be a tribal name- 
 word of the same class as De Domhnan, the father of Indech, 
 already mentioned. There were no anthropomorphic gods or 
 goddesses in Erin at this time. We have not overlooked a 
 primitive Aryan Dev-os, or the Sanskrit Dyaus, which probably 
 meant originally, not a god, but the bright Firmament, a 
 conception which was not likely to survive under the ever- 
 weeping skies of Erin. The Sun, the Moon, the Wind, etc., 
 were the objects of their worship. We consider, therefore, 
 that Dia, gen. De, was a loan word from the Latin Beus, as 
 Dia day, was a loan word from the Latin dies. We, therefore, 
 claim for humanity the redoubtable tribes of Dedanann. 
 
 An examination of the various views and theories that 
 have been broached in reference to the Dedanann would 
 require a volume. The plan of this work, and the space at 
 our disposal, compel us to forego the pleasures of controversy. 
 We must, therefore, be content with stating in a summary 
 way the conclusions at which we have arrived. They are the 
 cumulative result of many considerations, which do not lend 
 
 '" li. literature, 286. 
 
28 EAELY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 themselves to precise and detailed statements. We present 
 them merely as a tentative and conjectural attempt to solve a 
 problem which is, perhaps, insoluble. 
 
 There was, we think, but one battle of Moytura, which was 
 fought on the plain now called Moyterra, near Lough Arrow, in 
 Sligo. The Dedanann, aided by Northern Fomorians, after a 
 hard fought field, routed the Firvolce, and slew their High 
 King Eocaid. They then took possession of Tara, and most of 
 what was afterwards known as the " Fifth " of Meath, extend- 
 ing from the Boyne to the Liffey, and southwards and west- 
 wards to the Shannon. They ousted, or reduced to slavery, 
 the inhabitant Firvolce, most of whom fled to Scotland and 
 the Western Isles. ^ The Fir Domhnan branch of the Firvolce 
 were, however, allowed to remain in Connact, paying tribute. 
 The Fir Gaill6oin branch, too, were allowed to remain in 
 Leinster, as tributaries. The Dedanann then, occupying the 
 rich pastures of Meath, with wealth of slaves and tribute, soon 
 became very powerful, made great progress in civilization, 
 and were the builders of the sepulchral monuments near the 
 Boyne — which may be called " the pyramids of Erin." ^^ They 
 were, however, a military aristocracy, and had no roots in the 
 soil, and when defeated by the Gael with the aid of the 
 Firvolce, they were slain in battle or expelled from their 
 territories in Meath. They then disappeared completely from 
 history and passed into fairyland and romance. No genuine 
 legend or tradition concerning them reached our annalists. 
 Such traditions were preserved in families, and there were no 
 Dedanann families left to preserve them. The families of the 
 Firvolce, on the other hand, remained. In them the father 
 passed the tradition on to his son, as the tradition of the 
 Exodus was preserved and passed on by the Hebrews. If we 
 were to suppose that no book was written or printed, the story 
 of the Exodus would reach us substantially as we find it. The 
 bitter herbs and the Paschal Lamb, and the Cup, and the 
 question why does this night differ from other nights at the 
 Passover every year, would secure its preservation. And so 
 
 ^ These fugitives were possibly the C« aca-Cac, or Attaooti, of after-time. 
 
 29 " The Cloghaun or beehive hut, as it existed in the Firvolce period, was 
 developed hj the Dedanann into theii magnificent structures, not inferior to the 
 Treasury of Atreus," and " it is noteworthy that sepulchral monuments with 
 these beehive roofs are unknown in the Scandinavian archaeological area." 
 
WHAT OUR TEXTS SAY. 29 
 
 the traditions of the Firvolce, and afterwards of the Gael, were 
 handed down from father to son. They are genuine in sub- 
 stance, but often over-laid, contorted, and metamorphosed in 
 the social and religious changes that supervened. 
 
 There remains for consideration in this chapter an isolated 
 and exceptional religious cult, which in its general character 
 must be described as Semitic, while its special details appear 
 to correspond closely with the Phoenician, or Carthagenian, 
 ritual in the worship of Melkarth or Moloch. The matter is 
 one of high importance, as we shall see when we come to 
 consider the cult of the Gaels at the coming of St. Patrick. 
 On it has been mainly based the contention that the Gael were 
 anthropomorphic idolaters. 
 
 In the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick we read that he went 
 over the water to Magh Slecht, a place in which was the chief 
 idol of Ireland — namely, Cean Cruaich — covered with gold 
 and silver, and twelve other idols covered with brass, about 
 him. These idols were probably of wood, and covered with 
 gold or brass plates. *" Here the idol is called " Cenn 
 Cruaich" (i.e., bloody head); but the common name for it 
 was Crom Cruaich, or Crom Dubh, that is " bloody stoop " or 
 " black stoop " — which indicates that the idol was stooping 
 forward. ^^ These names were evidently not the names given 
 to the idol by votaries ; what it was called by them we do not 
 know. 
 
 Magh Slecht was situated either in Cavan or in Leitrim. 
 O'Donovan thought at one time that it was in Cavan, near 
 Ballymagauran, but afterwards wavered in this view, as 
 Douglas Hyde tells us. '^ Canon O'Hanlon, ^^ in his life of St. 
 Patrick, contends that Magh Slecht was in the plains of 
 Leitrim, not far from Ballinamore, near Feenagh. This view 
 has much to recommend it, and may be provisionally accepted. 
 The district is noticed by Borlase, who refers to a group of 
 monuments within a mile and a half north of Lough Saloch. ^* 
 
 ^ These idols were the only anthropomorphic idols found by St. Patrick in 
 Erin. Jocelyn's story of the twelve idols at Cashel is merely a variant of 
 Magh Slecht. We shall refer to it and the story of Tigernmas later on. 
 
 ^' Tripartite Life — Stokes, p. 91. 
 
 '^ Literature of L-eland, p. 86. 
 
 ^^ O'Hanlon's "Lives of Irish Saints,'' vol. iii., p. 581. 
 
 ** Dolmen's, vol. i., p. 194, 
 
30 EAELY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Some of the graves there were opened, and no human bones 
 were discovered. The bones of cows, sheep, and horses, were 
 found in them in abundance. O'Donovan asks did men ever 
 erect graves over cows and horses ? We can answer, that in 
 France ancient tombs have been found without human bones. 
 These are supposed to have been for the accommodation of 
 the souls of men who died in war, and whose bodies could not 
 be recovered. Borlase also says, " there must have been 
 several dolmens among this group of monuments." ** 
 
 The account of this idol in the Dinnsenchus, which con- 
 tains stories and legends about the hills and famous places in 
 Erin, is as follows : — " Magh Slecht : 'Tis there was the king 
 idol of Erin — namely, Crom Cruaich, and around him twelve 
 idols made of stones, but he was of gold. Until Patrick's 
 advent he was the god of every folk that colonised Ireland. 
 To him they used to offer the firstlings of every issue and the 
 chief scions of every clan." ^s 
 
 In the Book of Leinster there is a poem on this subject, 
 which is, no doubt, earlier than the prose Dinnsenchus, which 
 has been translated by Kuno Meyer.^^ We quote the following 
 verses from it : — 
 
 Here used to be 
 
 A high idol with many fights, 
 
 Which was named the Cromm Cruaich. 
 
 It made every tribe to be without peace. 
 
 In their ranks stood 
 
 Four times three stone idols 
 
 To bitterly beguile the hosts. 
 
 The figure of this Cromm was made of gold. 
 
 To him without glory 
 
 They would kill their piteous, wretched ofiFspring ^ 
 
 With much wailing and peril 1 [soit 7 jai-o] 
 
 To pour their blood around Cromm Cruaich. 
 
 We shall now refer to the Semitic or Phoenician cult. 
 
 Though there is sporadic or inferential evidence of child 
 sacrifice in many parts of the world, the Phoenicians and their 
 colonists, especially the Carthagenians, are the one civiUzed 
 
 ^'' Might tombs have been made for the holooausted ? 
 
 2° The Bennea DindaenohuB, Rev. Cell., vol. xvi., p. 35. 
 
 "'The Voyage of Bran," vol. ii., p. 304. 
 
 "* The children used to be slaughtered in Israel and Phoenicia before being 
 burneJ' 
 
WHAT OUE TEXTS SAY. 31 
 
 people of antiquity of whom we know that the sacrifice of 
 their own children was practised, not as an occasional recru- 
 descence of savage superstition, not in the hole-and-corner 
 rites of some abominable mystery, but as an established and 
 prominent part of the public religion. 
 
 Such sacrifices took place either annually on an appointed 
 day or before great enterprises, or on the occasion of public 
 calamities to appease the wrath of the god, i.e., Moloch, the 
 Fire God.^* 
 
 From Phcenicia it is supposed that this cult was introduced 
 into Judah. The offering of children by fire in the Tophet in 
 the Valley of Hinnom, near the Temple itself, is frequently 
 referred to and denounced in the Old Testament. Jeremiah 
 protests repeatedly that Yahw^ had not enjoined these sacri- 
 fices. The people of Judah built the Tophet sanctuary in the 
 Valley of Ben-Hinnom " to burn their sons and daughters with 
 fire, a thing which I commanded them not, nor did it enter 
 into my mind." 
 
 Compare now the ritual in Carthage as described by 
 Diodorus Siculus with what we may reasonably infer was the 
 ritual at Magh Slecht, bearing in mind that the custom was to 
 slaughter the victims before burning them and probably to 
 pour the blood either on the statue or round it or on the altar. 
 The blood was, no doubt, the most precious part of the sacrifice. 
 
 " In 310," writes Diodorus, "when Agathodes had reduced 
 " Carthage to the last extremities, seeing the enemy encamped 
 "before the city, they (i.e., the Carthaginians) were struck 
 " with fear of the gods for having neglected their worship, 
 " and, hastening to correct their mistakes, they selected 200 
 
 " of their most distinguished boys (ruv iirnpaviararuiv TraiSuj-) and 
 " sacrificed them as public victims. JVoiv they had a brazen 
 " statue of Cronos (i.e., Malkorih or Moloch) ttretching out the hands 
 " upturned, and bending towards the earth so that the boy placed upon 
 " them would roll of and fall info a pit of fire." 
 
 Hy 0£ Trap' avToli arBpiUs Kpovov \a\Koui, E/crtraciic rag veTpas virTiw 
 iyKiKXifiivag eiri riji' yijv, Siart top iiriridivTa twv iraiSdv airoKvKicaOui 
 t!ai iriirreiv £tt n ■)^aiT/ia irXfiptQ itvpos."" 
 
 ^See Moloch. "Encyclopaedia Biblioa Cheyne," and Hastings' "Diet o£ 
 Bible." DoUinger Jud«itham und Haedenthum, 427. 
 
 «Deouoru8 Siculus xx., 14-5. — Dindorf, 1867, Ed., vol. iv., p. 163. 
 
32 EAELT IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 If the idol at Magh Slecht was black, with a bloody head 
 stooped forward, it is difficult to resist the inference that it 
 was an idol of the same character and for the purposes of the 
 same cult as that practised at Carthage. Nor is there any 
 difficulty in supposing that the Phoenicians had intercourse 
 with Ireland. At an early period, so far as is known, they had 
 their first home in the Persian Gulf. They then settled in 
 South Arabia and Somaliland, and passed up the Red Sea into 
 Egypt, thence into Philistia and Phcenicia, and then pushed 
 westward across the Mediterranean, following the lines of 
 water communication by sea or river. Phcenician Kings ruled 
 in Egypt during the fifteenth dynasty (1928-1738) and during 
 the sixteenth dynasty (1587-1327). In the Greek traditions it 
 is not easy to separate the Phoenicians from the Egyptians, 
 and the Irish texts speak of an Egyptian but not of a 
 Phoenician connection. Whatever truth may be contained in 
 these texts must be explained by Phcenician relations with 
 Ireland. 
 
 The Phoenicians, according to Mouers, founded Cadiz as 
 early as the fifteenth or sixteenth century B.C. Others place 
 the date some centuries later. We think Mouers is likely to 
 be right. The tendency of the evidence derived from recent 
 excavations and researches is to throw back those dates. We 
 may be certain that the Phoenicians had passed through the 
 Pillars long before they founded the colony.*' There can be 
 no question that they sailed into the North Sea, trading pre- 
 sumably, amongst other things, for amber. ^^ A Phoenician 
 merchant won the favour of the nurse of Eumaeus by the 
 present of a chain hung with amber beads.** 
 
 XpvTtov opfiov t'x'^i' fxtTo. &' lyXficrpotiTti' eejito. — (Odyssey, 15, 460.) 
 
 This amber was found not only in the Baltic, as was 
 formerly supposed, but also on the shores of Friesland and the 
 neighbouring islands between the mouths of the Rhine and 
 the Elbe, and on the west coast of Denmark. Beads said to 
 be of this peculiar amber were found at Mycenae, and in the 
 tombs of the early dynasties in Egypt. Maspero asks how 
 
 " Phoeaisohos Alterthura," vol. ii., 2nd part, p. 625. 
 
 •'^ Rawlinson's " Phoenicea," p. 302. 
 
 ""Amber. All about it." J. C. Haddon, 1832, 
 
WHAT OUR TEXTS SAY. 33 
 
 many hands they passed through.** If they were sea-borne 
 by the Phoenicians the answer is not diflBcult. It cannot be 
 proved from the classical texts that the Phoenicians passed 
 through the Cattegat into the Baltic,*^ and as there was plenty 
 of amber in the North Sea they would have no object in estab- 
 lishing a perilous trade route into it. The Baltic traffic would 
 thus pass, as we know the fact was, by overland routes, by the 
 Vistula, the Danube and the Rhine. 
 
 " Without the trade in amber," says M. Oppert,*^ " the 
 ancient navigators, especially the Phcenicians, would never 
 have heard tell of the Western seas." 
 
 The Phoenicians were great miners and metallurgists. Mr. 
 Borlase, now resident manager of several tin reservations in 
 N.W. Spain, says : — " I once believed the Scilly Islands and 
 " the Land's End district were in truth the islands {i.e., the 
 " Cassiterides), being unaware that tin had been raised in any 
 " appreciable quantity in Gallicia. A study of the mineralogical 
 " features of North Western Spain has completely altered my 
 " views. The ancient tin workings of Gallicia prove to be of 
 " enormous extent ; that it was from the bays and estuaries of 
 " Ferrol, Vigo, etc., and the islands of Cycas, Cies, or Boyona 
 " that tin first found its way to the Mediterranean for the pur- 
 " poses of bronze through the agency of Phoenician merchants, 
 " I feel no doubt ; that the vague district over the sea, namely, 
 " Cornwall, was soon recognised as an important field of pro- 
 " duction may be taken for granted also." *^ 
 
 Borlase pronounces the Spanish tin to be abundant and of 
 superior quality to that now produced in Cornwall. So it does 
 not seem clear why the Phoenician, having plenty of a superior 
 metal in Spain, should have recourse to Cornwall. Nor is it 
 clear why, having an abundance of the finest copper ore to 
 hand in Spain, they should not manufacture bronze, which is 
 an alloy of copper and tin, on the spot. We venture to suggest 
 that bronze was first manufactured in Spain by the Phoenicians ; 
 there is no other place in Europe where copper and tin are 
 found together. A large number of copper celts have been 
 
 "Maspero's " Dawn of CiTilization " (1897), p. 393. The beads found in 
 the tombs by him still possessed electrical properties. 
 *5 MuUenhof " Deutsche Altherthumkunde," I., 215. 
 *^Oppert, Jules, " L'Ambre Jaune ohez les Assyrias," Paris, 1880. 
 *' Borlase, Dolmens, vol iii., p. 1,233 (N.B. in Appendix after Index). 
 
 D 
 
34 EARLY lEISH HISTORY. 
 
 found in Ireland as well as in Spain and the Cevennes, indi- 
 cating a transition period between the stone and the bronze 
 age. 
 
 The Phoenicians were great explorers. Under Necho, 
 Pharaoh of Egypt (611-595 B.C.), they circumnavigated Africa. 
 They set out from the Red Sea, doubled the Cape of Good 
 Hope, having, they alleged, the eun on their right hand, and 
 returned through the Pillars of Hercules after an absence of 
 three years. This reference to the sun being on the right 
 hand has been regarded by some as conclusive evidence of the 
 truth of the story. Herodotus says the thing was to him 
 incredible, though he believed in the fact of the circum- 
 navigation. It is, in reality, neutral and proves nothing. 
 The Phoenicians knew perfectly well that if they sailed from 
 East to West so far South, they should have the sun on their 
 right hand. They had pushed their trade East and South, 
 and an inscription in the Phoenician tongue has been found in 
 Borneo. The marvel is how Herodotus, if he went as far south 
 as Syene, where the sun is vertical at the summer solstice, 
 could have found any difficulty in believing the statement. 
 This is some corroboration of Mr. Sayce's view that he never 
 went so far south. 
 
 Sometime in the sixth century, two expeditions, which 
 appear to be in a measure supplementary to the former, started 
 from Carthage. The first was commanded by Hanno. This 
 Periplus, which has come down to us in a Greek translation, 
 states "It was decreed by the Carthagenians that Hanno 
 should undertake a voyage beyond the Pillars of Hercules, 
 and there found Lybo-Phoenician cities." He sailed accord- 
 ingly with sixty ships of fifty oars each, and a body of men 
 and women to the number of 30,000 ! and provisions and other 
 necessaries. The Penteconlers were a convoy ; the men and 
 women were in merchant ships, oXnaSec. The number appears 
 to be excessive. Possibly it should be 3,000. Hanno 
 founded the colonies, no trace of which remain, and on 
 his return inscribed the particulars of his voyage on a 
 tablet, which he dedicated in the temple of Melkarth at 
 Carthage. 
 
 The second expedition was commanded by Hamilco, and 
 sailed, according to Pliny, at the same time as that of Hanno. 
 
WHAT OUR TEXTS SAT. 35 
 
 "While the power of Carthage was at its height,*^ Hanno 
 " made the passage round from Gades to the borders of Arabia, 
 " and left a written account of his voyage, as did also Hamilco, 
 " who was sent out at the same time to explore the outer coasts 
 " of Europe." The account of the voyage is found in Avienus, 
 who was pro-consul in Africa in 866 A.D., and who states that 
 he took it from the archives at Carthage.*® 
 
 Hamilco passed through the Pillars, and sailed to the 
 " jEstrymnides rich in tin," which we assume were the Cas- 
 siterides Islands, off Spain, already mentioned. Hence he 
 laid his course north, and in two auns^ which means probably 
 2 days and 3 nights, 60 hours, made the coast of Erin, the 
 distance being about 540 nautical miles, from the North of 
 Spain to the South of Ireland.^* 
 
 The account in Avienus we give in a translation : " But 
 hence (that is, from the ^strymnides) in two suns the ship's 
 course was to the Sacred Island, for so it was named of old. 
 This, amidst the waves, spreads wide its soil ; the race of the 
 Hiberni cultivate it widely. Near it again the island of the 
 Albioni is spread." ^^ 
 
 " Sacra," sacred, is in Greek hph, which comes near 
 ir(£ipa^apoi;,oa) and hpvv, the Greek name for Erin. The poetic 
 licence is not great. 
 
 Avienus adds that the Carthaginian colonista and seamen 
 generally passed through the Pillars inio the seas, which 
 Himilco reported that he himself had found by experience 
 could not be crossed in less than four months owing to calms, 
 the sluggishness of the waters, and the vast quantity of sea- 
 weed. The sea was shallow, and wild animals and sea 
 monsters abounded as the ships crept along. This appears to 
 
 ^ Pliny, N. H. II., 67. Et Hanno Carthaginis potentia fiorente eiroum- 
 veotua a, Gadibu3 ad finem Arabiae navigationem earn prodidit scripto, sicut ad 
 extera Eurojpse nosoenda missus eodem tempore Himilco. 
 «8 Ora Maritima, 108-112. 
 
 "o Philip O' Sullivan Bearesays in 1619, the voyage from Erin to iVance took 
 scarcely more than two days, and the voyage to Spain three days. The 
 voyage from Kinsale to Corunna in Spain was frequently made in the time of 
 his" uncle, the hero of Duuboy. — Decas Patritiana, 1619, p. 21. 
 " Ast hiue duabus in sacram (sio insulam 
 Dixere prisci) solilus cursus rati est 
 Ha;c inter undas multa ceapitem jaoet 
 Eamque late gene Hibernorum oolit 
 Propinqua rursus insula Albionum patet. 
 
 — Ora Maritima, v., 108-112. 
 
36 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 indicate pretty clearly the Sargasso Sea in the centre of the 
 North Atlantic, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion 
 arrived at by Vossius that America would have been reached 
 only for " the enormous floating banks of gulfweed, on which 
 a large number of pecular animals live," to borrow a modern 
 description of the Sargasso Sea.^^. 
 
 However this may be, in fact we present the view merely 
 as a probable conjecture. It does not possess the quantity or 
 quality of probability that we call historical truth. The 
 Phoenician traders had, undoubtedly, a complete know- 
 ledge of the coast round Erin, and it is from them that 
 Ptolemy and Marianus, of Tyre, derived their information.^^ 
 
 We have devoted, perhaps, a disproportionate space to this 
 part of our subject in order to prepare our readers for the 
 intelligent appreciation of our next chapter. In the penumbra 
 of legend and tradition the reader will be able to see his way 
 more clearly when he has purged his mind from the error of 
 believing that the men of Erin lived in a state of isolated 
 savagery, practising cannibalism, and sacrificing their children 
 
 to a bloodthirsty god. 
 
 Note — 
 The ref erenee to Ireland in the Agricola may be conveniently given 
 here. Tacitus tells us that his father-in-law, Agricola, in the fifth 
 year of his campaign, A.D. 82, " crossed the Frith of Clyde in the first 
 " ship (probably when navigation commenced). He reduced peoples 
 "hitherto unknown in battles at once frequent and successful, and, 
 " equipped with troops the parts of Britain which look towards Ireland 
 " (probably Galloway) not that he feared an attack, but rather hoped 
 " (to invade that country) ; since Ireland placed in the middle between 
 " Britain and Spain, and convenient also for the Gallic Sea would unite 
 " the soundest parts of the Empire {i.e., Britain and Spain, etc.), to 
 " their mutual advantage. Its size is rather small compared to Britain, 
 
 "^ Aa to communioation with Amerioa by the Pacific route from India, via 
 Malaysia at a very remote period, see Professor O. T. Masson's Migration and 
 the Food Question ; a study in the peopling of Amerioa." VTashington, 1804, 
 and L. C. Johnston — " Did the Phoenicians discover America ? " He says yea, 
 and that they laid the foundations of the Aztio civilization. Geog. See. 
 California, 1892. 
 
 ^ Brehmer, in his " Entdeokungen," 1822, first insisted stronprly on this 
 point. He was opposed by Heeren, in an essay read before the Royal Society 
 of Gottingen (1821). Letronne and Askert took the same view. Latham, in 
 his article, " Brittanioae Insulae," without referring to Brehmer, observed that 
 Ireland was a country which, so far as it was known at all, was known 
 through the Greeks, the Iberians, and Phoenicians. Finally, Nordskiold, a high 
 authority, in his Fao Simile Atlas (1889), p. 31, col. b), adopts Brehmer's view 
 — " Trotz det stora anseende som Heeren med ratta atujuter som forskart i den 
 grektska, Kulturdestorien tvekar jag ejatti denna fraga i Yiss man stalla mig 
 pa Brehmers stiindpunkt." 
 
WHAT OUR TEXTS SAY. 37 
 
 " but is greater than that of the islands in our sea (i «., the Mediter- 
 " ranean.) The soil climate " intellectuals " (ingenia) and habits of the 
 " people do not differ much from Britain ; the landing places and 
 " harbours (differ) for the better, and are well known through traders 
 and dealers." Agrieola had sheltered one of their chieftains who had 
 been exiled in consequence of their civil strife, and under the guise of 
 friendship kept him to use him when wanted (in occasionem). 
 
 I have often heard him, i.e., Agrieola, say that " with one legion and 
 a few auxiliaries Ireland could be put down and held, and that it would 
 be an advantage against Britain, too, if the Roman arms should be on 
 all sides, and liberty put away out of sight. — Agrieola, c. 24. 
 
 The passage we have translated in italics stands as follows in two 
 Vatican MSS., and in the Codex Toletanus (of Toledo) which has been 
 recently collated by Dr. O. Lenze of Tubingen. (See Philologus, vol. 
 8, p. 549). " Solum, coelumque et ingenia cultusque hominum baud 
 multum a Britannia differunt; in melius aditus, portusque per com- 
 mercia et negotiatores cogniti." This text presents no difficulty, if (a) 
 differunt can be supplied according to the usage of Tacitus from the 
 preceding clause, and (6) if " differunt in melius " can be translated 
 " differ for the better." Tacitus has in melius referre and " in melius 
 m,utatue," and we have found in the De Civitate Dei the following : — 
 " Quod si ita est ecce Platonicus in melius a Platone dissentit (i.e., 
 differs in opinion from Plato for the better). Ecce videt quod ille (i.e., 
 Plato) non vidit."— De Civitate Dei, Book 10, c. 30. 
 
 Halm's suggestion that the words interiora parum have dropped 
 out of the text — that is, " the interior of the country is little known, 
 the landing places and harbours are better known," has nothing to 
 recommend it, if true, the learned Professor will have succeeded in 
 placing in the text of Tacitus the only platitude to be found there. 
 
 The superiority of Ireland in the matter of harbours was greatly 
 relied on in the evidence given before the Committee of the British 
 Privy Council when the commercial relations between the two countries 
 were, at the end of the eighteenth century, under consideration. 
 English manufacturers were to be ruined, etc., it was contended, if 
 equal advantages were conceded to the Irish. — See Newenham's " View 
 of Ireland," 180?, p. 14. 
 
 A note of a technical character may find a place here to state and 
 answer an objection that may be fairly made. The objection is : If 
 the Phoenicians had the full knowledge you suggest of the British Isles, 
 how came it to pass that Ptolemy, who had that knowledge communi- 
 cated to him, has so misdescribed the northern part of Britain ! The 
 answer is : Ptolemy was primarily an astronomer, as a perusal of his 
 first chapter and his Almagest will plainly show. On astronomical 
 grounds, principally on inferences from the length of the longest day 
 which he gives for Big and Little Britain in the Almagest, he placed 
 the British Isles about 5 degrees — say 300 miles — too far north. The 
 northern limit of the oiKov/tsvii was also a fixed line for his calculations, 
 the details about which cannot be given here. When he approached 
 this line in preparing the tables given in his second chapter (which we 
 shall call his map, though no map is known to have been made in his 
 time), and compared the space left with the distances in the itineraries 
 
38 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 of the Phoenicians, he found that these distances would not fit in north- 
 wards. So he crumpled, contorted, and turned eastwards the configur- 
 ation of the land on his map to make it fit in. Now the proposition 
 for which we contend is the result of a careful and minute examination 
 of that configuration, and the place-names given by Ptolemy, and a 
 comparison of both with present conditions. It is this on which we 
 invite the judgment of men better equipped for the task than we are — 
 viz., that if these crumplings, contortions, and twistings, were shaken out 
 and rectified, it would be reasonable to infer that the tables or itiner- 
 aries of the Phoenicians were as accurate for North Britain as they 
 were for South Britain nnd lerne. It is important also to note here 
 that he attaches the " Ebudce " (Hebrides), which were no doubt the 
 " glacialis lerne " of Claudian to the Map of lerne. 
 
[ 39 ] 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Coming of the Gael. 
 
 IN Spain there were born to Breogan two sons, Bile and Ith. 
 Bile was the father of Golamh (the soldier), who was 
 
 afterwards known as Milesius, or Miled, of Spain. When 
 Golamh (Gollav) grew up he went on his wanderings : first to 
 Scythia, where he married Sreng, the daughter of the king ; 
 and afterwards to Egypt, where he married Scota, the 
 daughter of the Pharaoh Nectonibus. The descendants of 
 Breogan prospered in Spain, and multiplied ; but hard times 
 came, and there was a great drought for twenty-five years, 
 and a famine, and their strength was wasted in conflicts with 
 other tribes for the sovereignty of Spain. So they held a 
 council at Breogan's Tower, near Corunna, to determine what 
 country they should invade. It was resolved to send Ith to 
 reconnoitre the island of Erin ; not, as some assert, because he 
 had seen it like a white cloud on a winter's night from the top 
 of Breogan's Tower. The position of the island was well 
 known to the inhabitants of Spain; and there was trading 
 between the two countries. Ith then sailed to Erin with 150 
 men, and landed in the north, where some of the country-folk 
 came to meet him — and accosted him in the Soot-bearla, or 
 Gaelic. He answered them in the same tongue. They told 
 him that the three sons of Kermad Milbeol (of the honey 
 tongue), the son of the Dagda, ruled the land year about in 
 turn, and kept court at Aileach. 
 
 Thither went Ith thereupon, and was received by the 
 kings with the " thousand welcomes." He was loud in his 
 praises of the great fertility of the soil : abounding in honey, 
 and in fruit, and in fish, and in milk, and in vegetables, and 
 in corn, whilst the air was of so pleasant a temperature — 
 between heat and cold. This aroused the suspicions of the 
 kings. They feared that if he was allowed to depart in safety 
 he would come back with a large army. On his way to the 
 shore he was waylaid and attacked, and borne to his ship 
 mortally wounded. He died at sea, on his voyage back to 
 
40 EAELT IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Spain. To avenge his death, and seize Erin, the sons of 
 Golamh mustered a fleet of thirty ships, in each of which 
 there were thirty men, and sailed for Erin. On making land 
 at Inver Slainge (Wexford) the Dedananns threw a magic 
 mist around them, and with spells drove them away from the 
 shore. They then sailed along the south of the island, and 
 landed at Inver Sceine (Kenmare Bay), whence they marched 
 to Slieve Mish, in Kerry. Here they were met by one of the 
 three queens. Amergin, asked her name. "Banba is my 
 name," replied she, " and from me the island is called Banba." 
 They then marched to Slieve Eiblinn (Phelim) in Limerick, 
 and met Fodhla, another queen. Amergin asked her her 
 name. " My nanje is Eodhla," replied she, " and from me the 
 island is called Fodhla." They then marched to Uisneach, 
 and met Eri. Amergin asked her her name. " My name is 
 Eri," replied she, " and from me the island is called Eri ; the 
 queen of the king for the year gives her name to the king- 
 dom." They then marched to Tara, where they met the three 
 kings, and demanded battle or the kingdom. The kings 
 objected, but agreed to leave the matter to the decision of 
 Amergin, the son of Golamh, adding, that if he pronounced 
 an unjust judgment they would kill him with magic. He 
 decided that the Gael should retire to the coast, and set out 
 nine waves to sea ; and then, if they could effect a landing 
 in spite of the Dedananns, they should possess the land. The 
 Gael then retired, and went out beyond the tenth wave, 
 when the foe raised a tempest by magic and dispersed 
 their fleet. There were eight sons of Golamh on board 
 these ships. All but three, Eber, Eremon, and Amergin, 
 perished. 
 
 Five of these sons were sunk in the wave, 
 Five of the stalwarth sons of Golamh, 
 In song loving Eri's spacious bays, 
 Thro' Danann wiles and Druidic spells. 
 
 Eber landed with the crews of his ships in Kerry, and 
 fought a battle at Slieve Mis, near Tralee, and routed the 
 enemy. Scota, the wife of Golamh, was amongst the slain. 
 She was buried in the valley of Glen Scoithen, near the scene 
 of the battle, where her tomb is still pointed out. A second 
 
THE COMING OF THE GAEL. 41 
 
 and decisive battle was shortly afterwards fought at Tailtin in 
 Meath, in which Banba, Fodhla, and Eri, with their husbands, 
 were slain, and the Dananns almost annihilated. 
 
 Fodhla was slain by the boastful Etan, 
 
 Banba was slain by the victor, Caicher, 
 
 Eri, the bounteous, fell by Surghi, 
 
 Of these famed heroines such was the dire doom. 
 
 Eber and Eremon then assumed the joint sovereignty of 
 the island, and divided it between them, Eremon taking the 
 northern half. Next year they quarrelled and fought a battle 
 near Geashill, in the King's County, in which Eber was 
 defeated and slain. Eremon then became sole king, and 
 reigned fourteen years. This was the taking of Erin by the 
 Gael.i 
 
 The pedigrees of the Gael are all traced up to one or other 
 of the three sons of Golamh, i.e., Eber, Eremon, and Ir, or to 
 Lugaid, the son of Ith, his nephew ; or to vary the statement, 
 so as to bring it nearer to the probable, under these eponymi 
 were arranged all the several tribes and families who, in the 
 opinion of the annalist, constituted the Gael of Erin. As 
 regards the previous history of the Gael, the synchronists and 
 the etymologists revel in supplying us with facts. Finius 
 Farsa, fourth in descent from Japhet, was king of Syria, and 
 kept a great school for teaching languages, as did his son 
 Niall, the father of Gaedal Glas, from whom the Gael are 
 named. Nial and Gaedal Glas met Aaron and Moses in Egypt. 
 Moses healed Gaedal from the bite of a serpent. Eber Scot 
 was the great grandson of Gaedal Glas, and the opinion of 
 antiquaries was divided as to whether the Gael were called 
 Scots from him, or because they came from Scythia. The 
 etymologists could not, of course, resist the temptation of 
 
 • I I Bre ogan 
 
 Bili I 
 
 I Ith 
 
 Golamh — Soota | 
 
 I Lugaid 
 
 i 1 \ 1 
 
 I 2 3 4 
 
 Eber Finn Eremon Amergin Ir (drowned) 
 
 (the Fair) 
 Breogan 23rd in descent from Japhet I 
 
 Eeber 
 
42 
 
 EAELT IRISH HISTORY, 
 
 alleging that the Gael were called the "Cinead Scuit" 
 (Scots) because they came from Scit-ena (Scythia).^ 
 
 What race of men were the Gael ? Anthropologists say 
 that hereditary types constitute a race, and that traits are 
 associated to form these types. Ripley, following the majority 
 of anthropologists, makes a three-fold division of the races of 
 Europe into Teutonic, Alpine or Celtic, and Mediterranean. 
 Deniker differs from all others in combining his three separate 
 physical traits into six principal races and four or more sub- 
 races. This, however, is a difference of method of classification 
 rather than one of substance, and the three-fold classification, 
 as set forth in the subjoined table, is convenient and adequate 
 for our purpose.' 
 
 EuEOPEAN Racial Types.* 
 
 
 Head. 
 
 Face. 
 
 Hair. 
 
 Eyes. 
 
 Stature. 
 
 Nose. 
 
 1. Kordic or 
 Teutonic. 
 
 Long 
 
 Long 
 
 Very light 
 
 Blue 
 
 TaU 
 
 Aquiline 
 
 2. Alpine or 
 Celtic. 
 
 Bound 
 
 Broad 
 
 Light 
 chestnut 
 
 Hazel 
 grey 
 
 Modinm, 
 Stocky 
 
 Variable, 
 rather 
 broad, 
 heavy 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3. Mediterranean 
 
 Long 
 
 Long 
 
 Dark brown 
 or black 
 
 Dark 
 
 Medium, 
 Slender 
 
 Bather 
 broad 
 
 This table shows the combination of traits into racial types. 
 It speaks for itself. 
 
 The Gael were not Celts. " Whatever be," says Ripley, 
 " the state of opinion among students of other cognate sciences, 
 there is practically to-day a complete unanimity of opinion 
 among physical anthropologists that the term Celt, if used at 
 all, belongs to the second of our three races, viz. — the broad- 
 headed (brachycephalic), darkish population of the Alpine 
 Highlands. Such is the view of Broca, Bertrand, Topinard, 
 ColHgnon, and all the French authorities. It is accepted by 
 
 " In the Gaelic tongue g^et meant kindred. The Cymri (oombrox) meant 
 compatriots. May JAfoet and gAeL be connected ? The obTious is some- 
 time unseen by the eye that is searching for the obscure. 
 
 ' Bipley, Appendix, D., p. 507. 
 
 * See Ripley, W. " The Races of Europe," p. 121. Nordic is the term used 
 by Deniker. The Alpine race includes the Celtic wedge which split the Volcae 
 into two divisions and passed westwards to the Channel between the quadrila- 
 teral of Lug, as described in the first chapter. 
 
THE COMING OF THE GAEL. 43 
 
 the Germans, Virchow, Kollmann and Ranke, as well ; by the 
 English (foremost among them by Dr. Beddoe), and by the 
 most competent Italians." * Prior to 1860, the leading ethno- 
 logists agreed, in deference to classical texts, in affiliating the 
 Celts of early history with the tall, blonde peoples of Northern 
 Europe — the Nordic race of Deniker. Subsequent investiga- 
 tions have shown the fallacy of this, but the terms " Celtic 
 race " still linger around the Gael, who were most indubitably 
 part and parcel of the tall, blonde, long-headed Nordic race. 
 Tacitus, who is, no doubt, recording the observation and in- 
 ferences of his father-in-law, Agricola, tells us that when 
 Agricola came as Governor to Britain in A.D. 78, the Brigantes, 
 who had been in a great measure reduced to subjection, occu- 
 pied the territory between the Humber and the Clyde. We 
 have seen that a tribe bearing the same name is mentioned 
 by Ptolemy as located in the south-east of lerne, and the 
 fugitive chief entertained by Agricola, as we have already 
 mentioned, may have belonged to that tribe and taken refuge 
 with his namesakes in North Britain. Agricola had also con- 
 ducted a campaign against the Silures in Wales, and had 
 previously seen much active service in Britain in subordinate 
 commands. The statements of Tacitus are, therefore, entitled 
 to great weight. He says : — " For instance, the ruddy hair 
 and large limbs of the inhabitants of Caledonia demonstrate 
 their German origin. The dark faces of the Silures (in South 
 Wales and Monmouthshire), their generally curly hair, and 
 the fact that Spain lies opposite to them, make one believe that 
 the Spaniards of old times passed over and occupied these 
 parts. The Britons, who are nearest to the Gauls, are also 
 like them." 6 
 
 Boadicea or Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni (Norfolk and 
 Suffolk), bears a Latin name that comes very close in sound to 
 Boadach or Buadach, often found as an epithet of Gaelic 
 warriors, and meaning victorious. Dion Casseus describes her 
 as follows : — " She was of large size, terrible of aspect, savage 
 of countenance, harsh of voice, with a profusion of flowing 
 
 " Eipley, 126. 
 
 ' Namque rutilas Caledoniam habitantium comae, magni artus Germanioam 
 originem adseverant. Silurum colorati vultus, torti plerumque crines. Agricola, 
 c. Il> 
 
44 EAELY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 yellow hair, which fell down to her hips , a large golden collar 
 on her neck, a variegated flowing vest drawn close about her 
 bosom, and a thick mantle fastened by a clasp or brooch, and 
 a spear in her hand." '' 
 
 A companion picture is to be found in Queen Meve of 
 Connact, her predecessor in time by, perhaps, a century. She 
 is thus described in the Tain : — " A beautiful pale, long-faced 
 woman, with long flowing golden yellow hair, upon her a 
 crimson cloak, fastened with a brooch of gold over her breast, 
 a straight ridged slegk or light spear blazing red in her hand." 
 
 This was the ideal as well as the real type of beauty with 
 the fil^ who composed the sagas. Edain, daughter of Etar, a 
 Dedanann chief, " had two golden yellow tresses on her head, 
 each of them plaited with four locks or strands, and a ball of 
 gold on the point of each tress. The colour of that hair was 
 like the flowers of the bog firs in summer, or like red gold 
 immediately after receiving its coining." Cuculainn had yellow 
 hair and blue eyes. In the description of the Gaelic chieftains 
 by MacRoth in the Tdin, nearly all are described as having 
 yellow hair, and the men of Muirtheimne 3,000 blood red 
 furious warriors, had " long, fair, yellow hair, and splendid 
 bright countenances ! " Some of the chieftains, however, are 
 described as having black hair, which was not then held in 
 dis-esteem as MacFirbis represents in later times. 
 
 "On the authority of old sayings of people learned in 
 history," MacFirbis writes : — " The dark, the loud voiced, the 
 contumelious, the talkative, the vociferous, the fierce, the 
 unteachable, the slave, the liar, the churlish, and all who 
 listen not to music or melody, the violators of covenants and 
 laws, and the accusers of all are the descendants of the 
 Firvolg, the Gaillians, the Liogmuine, and the Fir-Domnan ; 
 but mostly of the Firvolg ut dictum." If MacFirbis had 
 weighed the evidence contained in our texts instead of listen- 
 ing to the "old sayings" of other folk, he would have 
 corrected the ignorance of those old people. 
 
 Some of the bravest soldiers came from the stock of the 
 Firvolce. Ferdiad was a Roland if Cuchulain was an Oliver. 
 
 ' buATO, victory, = toutji boAtjAd or boAXJAg = victorious. MaellenhoS has 
 trrced the presence of the Celtic tongue east of the Weser, and the Iceni, 
 immigrating from the continent opposite, probably spoke Celtic of the Gaelio 
 type. Deutsche Alterthumskunde, vol. II., map. Table I. 
 
THE COMING OF THE GAEL, 45 
 
 The Clanna Morna were as brave as the Clanna Baoiscne, 
 better known as the Fianna of Finn, the son of Cumhal (Cool) 
 and the grandson of Baoiscne (Bweesh-cne). Nor were black 
 hair and blue eyes an obstacle to success in other fields of 
 rivalry. Naoise (Neesh-e) was seen and loved by the cloistered 
 D^irdre, and Diarmaid O'Duibhne carried off King Cormac's 
 daughter from the betrothal feast of the implacable Finn 
 himself. 
 
 Conaire Mor (100 B.C.) had curly yellow locks, and black 
 pupils in blue eyes. Nial of the Nine Hostages mounted the 
 enchanted stone at Tara in the year 370 A.D. 
 
 " Yellow as the Sobarche (St. John's Wort) was the yellow 
 hair which was on the head of the son of Cairen," a Saxon 
 aditionelle of the Ard Righ ; his " one wife " being Mongfinn,^ 
 also a fair-haired lady, as the name indicates. From this time, 
 it may be safely asserted that there was not a single Gaelic 
 family without " ruadh," or red hair figuring constantly in its 
 pedigree. The " dubh," or black-haired, were also conspicuous 
 owing to the intermarriages between the Gael and the 
 Firvolce. There were many "ingeAiiA Tiuibe" besides the 
 Scotch lassie (ineen duv) who was wedded to Red Hugh 
 O'Donnell. 
 
 Giraldus Cambrensis, who visited Ireland at the close of 
 the 12th century, and spent two years there, says : " The men 
 were majestic, but the other animals were small. The men 
 were very tall and handsome of body, With ruddy com- 
 plexions." * 
 
 The type is well exemplified in the portrait of Eoghan 
 Ruadh O'Neill by the celebrated Dutch artist, Brugens. The 
 colour of the hair is not decidedly red in the picture but 
 approaching to it. It was painted whilst he was serving in 
 Flanders, probably about the time he defended Arras, 1640, in 
 command of an Irish regiment in the Spanish service, where 
 he showed the characteristics attributed by Spenser to his 
 fellow-countrymen : " Circumspect in their enterprises, very 
 present in perils, great scoruers of death." 'These be the 
 
 ' motis, hair, and pinti, fair. 
 
 ' " Soli3 hominibuB suam retenentibus majestatem — puloherrimis et proceris 
 corpoiibus coloiatissimis Tultibus." An engraviog of it icill be found in the 
 Ulster Journal of Aiohieology, vol. iv. 
 
46 EARLY IRISH HISTORT. 
 
 men,' writes St. Leger to Henry VIII., 'that don't lightly 
 abandon the field, but bide the brunt to the death.' " 
 
 Fynes Moryson says the cattle in Ireland were very little, 
 " and only the men and the greyhounds of any great stature." 
 Dymoke says, at the end of the 16th century, " Of complexion 
 the Irish are clear and well favoured, both men and women 
 tall and corpulent (i.e., with large frames) bodies." O'Donovan 
 collected many accounts of Irish giants. Amongst them 
 were, I may mention, Morgan Kavanagh, Governor of 
 Prague, in 1766, said to "be the tallest man in Europe. 
 His relatives were described by Professor Neimann, of 
 Vienna, in 1844, as the tallest men in Germany. The 
 O'Dowdas of Hy Fiachra " counted 24 castles on their exten- 
 sive estate, many of which are still in existence, and they 
 have a burial place appropriated to them in the Abbey of 
 Moyne, where may be seen the gigantic bones of some of them, 
 who have been remarkable for their great stature, one of them 
 having exceeded seven feet in height. One of the family, 
 William O'DriscoU, who died in 1851, is described as being in 
 pitch of body like a giant. O'Donovan refers also to Big 
 Magrath, whose skeleton is now in Trinity College, Dublin ; 
 to Florence Macarthy," taller by a head and shoulders than his 
 fellows.!" 
 
 We must not omit here a story from Holinshed. The 
 Irishmen would never give quarter, and therefore whenever 
 the Frenchmen took any of them they gelded them, and other- 
 wise tormented them. After the surrender of BuUoign 
 [Boulogne) (1544 A.D.), a large Frenchman on the other side of 
 the haven braved and defied the English army, whereupon 
 one Nicholfis (Irish) did swim over the river and cut off the 
 Frenchman's head, and brought it back over the river in his 
 mouth, for which bold action he was bountifully rewarded." 
 
 As to light hair and light eyes, the proportions per cent., as 
 jiven by the Anthropometric Committee for 1892-3, are 
 ' Ireland, 47.4; Scotland, 46.3 ; England, 40.1 ; Wales, 34.60." 
 The figures for Ireland, of course, take in the whole popula- 
 ;ion, comprising many ethnic elements besides the Gaelic, e.g., 
 
 w O'Donovan, Phyaioal Characteristics of the Ancient Irish. — Ulst. Jour, 
 irchae., vol. vi., p. 101. 
 
 " Holinshed's Chronicle., I. 103. Cox Hist. Anglie, p. 277. 
 
THE COMING OP THE GAEL. 47 
 
 the Firvolce " and the dark-haired admixture from England, 
 with concave noses in many cases." ^^ 
 
 A distinctive feature of the Teutonic or Nordic race is its 
 pronainent or narrow nose. The association of tall stature 
 with a narrow nose is so close as to point to a law. From the 
 north of Europe, as we go south, the nose becomes flatter and 
 more open at the wings. As regards the Irish, Beddoe writes : 
 " The concave noses are far from being as common as is sup- 
 posed. The really predominant form is the long, sinuous, and 
 prominent, especially at the point. In Ireland, and in East 
 and North England, the concave nose is only 18 per cent., 
 while in Gloucestershire and in Denmark it is 20, and in 
 Sweden, 26 per cent." ^^ 
 
 Deniker says — The mean height of the races of Europe is 
 never low ; on the other hand the races of great stature are 
 numerous. In some districts, especially in Bosnia, in Scot- 
 land, and in Ireland, it reaches m. 172, or even the incredible 
 figure of m. 176, m. 178 in the counties of Perth and Berwick ; 
 and in Galloway the maximum of humanity." Galloway is 
 an extensive district in the south-west of Scotland, 70 miles 
 long by 40 broad, comprised mainly in Wigtonshire. It owes 
 its name to the fact that the inhabitants were called GoU-Gael 
 or foreign Gael, a name equivalent to our " Sea-divided Gael," 
 and applicable to the Gaelic Septs in Alba and the Hebrides. 
 
 Of the physical traits which betoken race, the head form 
 is the most permanent. Pigmentation and stature are less 
 reliable. The head form is ascertained by expressing the 
 breadth in per-centage of the length from front to back. This 
 is called the Cephalic index.^* In Deniker' s list of Cephalic 
 
 12 See " The Irish People, their Height, Form, and Strength." E. Hogan, 
 S.J., 1897. 
 
 " Beddoe " Races of Britain," 236. Mem. Anthrop. Soo., vol. iii., 238. 
 
 " Deniker" L'Anthropologie," 1898, vol. ix., 122, "Les Races de I'Europe,'' 
 Note preliminaire. 
 
 " The general form of the skull or brain case is oval, but may be 
 modified so as to become round and broad, or elongated and elliptical. These 
 changes of form are indicated by the Cephalic or cranial index. The Cephalio 
 index is ascertained by multiplying the breadth by 100 and dividing by the 
 length, and two units are allowed for the difference between a bare skull and 
 one" with flesh and muscle. Retzius divided these skulls into long heads and 
 broad heads. The former (dolichocephalic) virhere the index figure reached 79 
 inclusive, and all above that figure were classed as broadheads (brachycephalio). 
 There are also sub-divisions or modifications of this system which do not require 
 notice here. 
 
48 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 indices, the Scotch Gael (Highlanders) head the list of long- 
 heads at 76-3. The Irish, however, run them very close at 
 77'3, which figure an average taken from a greater number of 
 the population would probably modify. The Gael thus fulfil 
 all the conditions he lays down for membership of the great 
 Nordic race, of which the following is an abridged summary i 
 
 The Nordic race is blonde, long-iieaded, of great height. We may 
 call it the Nordic, because its representatives are grouped almost ex- 
 clusively in the north of Europe. Its permanent traits or characteristics 
 are the following : — ^It is very tall (average m. 1 -73). The hair is blonde 
 or often reddish (roussitres), the eyes clear, mostly blue, the head long, 
 dolichocephalic (index on living from 76 to 79), the skin white-rosy, the 
 face long, with nose prominent and straight. 
 
 In this division he includes the Irish, except the inhabi- 
 tants of the north-west of the island. It must be always borne 
 in mind that in applying the results yielded by the statistical 
 inquiries of anthropologists at the present day to the past, 
 account must be taken of historical considerations. Fortune 
 has dealt hard measure to the Gael. The greatness of the race 
 is now attested by its ruins.^* 
 
 i« Deniker, -ubi, supra, 128. 
 
[ 49 ] 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Gael. 
 
 IN prehistoric as well as in historic times there have been 
 periods of overflow from the Nordic populations to the 
 South. This is traced in Germany in the Row Graves 
 (Reihengraber) where the Nordic longheads are found buried 
 side by side with their heads facing the rising sun. It is also 
 traced far into France, where the older races are to be found 
 in isolated areas of disfavour, mountainous, unfertile, or other- 
 wise undesirable. Moreover, it was not by land only that this 
 overflow took place. The emigrants went also by sea to found 
 new homes in distant parts, and have left traces along the 
 coast of France and around the mouths of the Loire. Notable 
 amongst these were the Veneti whose confederation occupied 
 the country around Vannes, the capital of Morbihan, on the 
 south coast of Brittany. Csesar wrote that he exterminated 
 them, put the whole senate to death, and sold the rest into 
 slavery. This, however, was not the case. Their race charac- 
 teristics still remain to prove that it is easier to conquer than 
 to exterminate. Morbihan is one of the " blondest " depart- 
 ments in France. Not much further south across the Bay of 
 Biscay lay Brigantium, near Corunna, on an island adjacent to 
 which was a great light-house mentioned by Orosius, fabled in 
 aftertime to have been Breogan's Tower. Th^re was also 
 Brigantium (Briangon) in the Hautes Alpes and Brigantium 
 (Bregenz), near Lake Constance. And we have seen that the 
 Brigantes held the country between the Humber and the 
 Clyde, and were planted in the South-east of Ireland. There 
 is, therefore, no inherent improbability in the statement in our 
 texts that the first coming of the Gael was from the North of 
 Spain. They came as the allies, probably at the invitation, of 
 the Firvolce to aid them to shake off the yoke of the 
 Dedananns. It was in substance a rehearsal of the drama 
 played 2,000 years afterwards by another section of the Nordic 
 race—the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles. 
 
50 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 The expansion of the Nordic race on the Continent was 
 9I0W. It proceeded step by step — by infiltration, pressure and 
 fighting. We do not propose to give details here, nor to open 
 up the Celtic question which is enshrined in a voluminous 
 literature. We shall confine ourselves to stating that the Celts 
 were a powerful, valiant, and imperial race, and during the 
 Hallstadt period stood in the forefront of civilisation and 
 progress. Now Hallstadt was a great Celtic capital and em- 
 porium of trade in Upper Austria. In the tombs, over 1,000 
 in number, were found the most beautiful specimens of the 
 industrial art of the period. This civilisation is characterised 
 by the presence of iron employed largely in the manufacture 
 of weapons. Bronze, however, was still predominant at first, 
 and Was gradually superseded by iron. Vases in bronze of a 
 beautiful type, brooches, necklets, bracelets, and trinkets in 
 gold abound. Ivory from Africa was used for the pommels of 
 swords ; glass was used to make small vases. A large trade 
 was done in amber from the Baltic for which the rich 
 products of the Mediterranean cities were given in exchange. 
 There was no silver or coined money found in the tombs. 
 
 Montelius, according to his latest views, places the age of 
 bronze in France and other Celtic nations between 2,000 and 
 850 B.C., and the Hallstadt period between 850 and 600 B.C.' 
 
 The advance of the Celts was triumphant. It is written in 
 history, and cannot be reasonably doubted that they seized 
 Galatia ; spared Delphi ; held Rome to ransom, and took 
 possession of the fairest regions of Europe— the valleys of the 
 Po, the Danube, the Loire, the Marne, and the Seine. They 
 stopped at the Channel. The charms of Britain could not 
 entice them to cross the narrow strait, and Erin had little to 
 attract and much to terrify a people who, unlike the Nordic 
 race, had never faced the perils of the sea, except whilst they 
 were crossing the Crimean Bosphorus. The immigration of 
 the Firvolce from the South was, as we have seen, by relays 
 under various sub-denominations, The Nordic immigration 
 was also gradual by relays of immigrants of the same stock. 
 If we go forward 1000 years to the time of Cimbaeth— from 
 1700 to 750 B.C.— how do we find the Eponymi placed on the 
 land 1 The clan of Lugaid, the son of Ith, who was the first 
 
 ' L'antbopologie, xii., 620. 
 
THB OAKL. 61 
 
 leader of the immigration to land in Erin, was located on the 
 verge of the Southern Ocean, in Corca Luighe, a small 
 territory lying between Kinsale and Bantry Bay. North of 
 this lay the territory of the clan of Eber the Fair, the elder 
 brother of Eremon. Next came Eremon. And finally, in the 
 north-east, we find a nephew — Heber, the son of Ir. Leinster 
 was occupied by the Gailleoin, a tribe of the Firvolce. 
 Connacht was also occupied by other sub-denominations of 
 Firvolce, notably by Firdomhnann and the Cathraige. Our 
 texts contain no record of any struggle in which the clan of 
 Ith was driven into an area of isolation and disfavour by a 
 body of immigrants advancing from the North, as the 
 O'SuUivans in after times were driven from the Golden Vein 
 of Tipperary into the same region. The fate of the clan ol 
 Eber the Fair was decided at the battle of Geashill, near the 
 Esker Riada, in the King's County. This is a long ridge of 
 gravel hills, probably the moraine of a confluent glacier, 
 which stretches from Dublin to Clarin Bridge, on Galway Bay, 
 and is referred to frequently in our texts, as the dividing line 
 between North and South, Conn's Half (te^t Cuinn), and 
 Eogan's Half (VeAt tilogA). From this time the clan of Ir and 
 the clan of Eremon stand face to face in fierce antagonism, 
 fighting for the hegemony. The struggle lasted for 800 years, 
 and ended in 332 A.D., with the victory of the three CoUas 
 and the destruction of Emania, leaving the clan of Eremon 
 not, indeed, absolute masters, but unquestionably the 
 predominant power in Erin, and destined, apparently, in due 
 process of social and political evolution to fuse into a nation 
 the various ethnic elements under their sway, who now spoke 
 the same language, shared in the same superstitions, and were 
 known by a common name— the Gael. 
 
 Before presenting our readers with some figures relating to 
 the period between 1700 and 750 B.C., we may state that we 
 follow the chronology and figures found in the " Annals of the 
 Kingdom of Erin " by the Four Masters, which were written 
 between January, 1632, and August, 1636. These Annals are 
 sometimes referred to as a compilation which at the present 
 day is generally understood to mean " scissors and paste " 
 work. Their task, however, was of a different character. 
 " Eminent masters in antiquarian lore," as Colgan describes 
 
52 EAKLY IRISH HISTOKT. 
 
 them, they collected, as best they could, all the texts that 
 could be procured in their time. They then examined them, 
 compared them, criticised them, weighed the evidence, and 
 delivered their judgments in the most valuable work which 
 has come down to us in the Gaelic tongue. The Four 
 Masters, following the Septuagint, present, on the whole, a 
 more coherent and intelligible view than the annalists who 
 adopt other systems. The distribution of time — the dates 
 assigned to particular events — is largely regulated by the 
 system of chronology adopted, and nothing but confusion can 
 arise if the historian passes from one system to another. 
 Moreover, we do not present the dates we now offer as reliable, 
 and it is only by a very liberal construction of the terms that 
 the dates B.C. may, perhaps, be called rough approximations. 
 The struggle between the tribes of Eremon, Eber the Fair, 
 and Heber, the son of Ir, was long and obstinately fought. 
 Though the race of Eber the Fair lost the battle of Geashill, 
 they continued strong and powerful. According to the Four 
 Masters, 53 kings reigned at Tara, counting joint reigns as 
 one, from the coming of the Gael (1700 B.C.), to the alternate 
 reigns of Aed Ruad, Dithorba, and Cimbaeth (730 B.C.), a 
 period of 970 years. This period is distributable approximately 
 as follows : — 
 
 PERIOD I. 
 
 1700 B.C. TO 970 B.C. 
 
 Kings. 
 
 Line of. 
 
 
 Years of Reign. 
 
 17 
 
 Eremon 
 
 
 438* 
 
 21 
 
 Eber the Fair 
 
 
 236 
 
 13 
 
 Ir 
 
 
 267 
 
 2 
 
 Ith 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 (Interregnum of 7 years 
 
 and 
 
 
 
 broken years) 
 
 
 23 
 
 Total, 53 — Total, 970 
 
 We add, for comparison, Periods II. and III. 
 
 PERIOD II. 
 
 From the accession of Aed Ruad (730 B.C.) to A.D. 1, there 
 were 37 High-Kings. 
 
 * In this figure ia reckoned the reign of Siorna Saoglaoh (the long-lived) for 
 ISO years. Suggestions to account for tliis need not detain us here. 
 
TEE GAEL. 53 
 
 Kings. Line of. Years of Reign. 
 
 23 Eremon 459 
 
 8 Eber the Fair 82 
 
 5 & Maoha (Queen) Ir 189 
 
 Ith 
 
 Total, 36 Total, 730 
 
 PERIOD III. 
 
 Prom A.D. 1, to the coming of Sb. Patrick (432) there were 27 
 High-Kings. 
 
 Kings. Line of. Years of Reigo. 
 
 20 Eremon 248 
 
 1 Eber the Fair 13 
 3 Ir 25 
 
 2 Ith 31 
 1 Cairbre Cinnceat 5 
 
 Total, 27 Total, 322 
 
 PERIOD IV. 
 
 From St. Patrick to Brian Boru (1002, A.D.) all were of the line 
 of Eremon, with one or possibly two exceptions. 
 
 Tiie " Annals of the Four Masters " during our first and 
 second periods, are in the main confined to giving the name of 
 each of the High Kings, the date of his accession, the length 
 of his reign, and the manner of his death. A list containing 
 the name, line and date of accession of each Ardrigh will 
 be found in the Appendix. The bursting out of lakes, and 
 the cutting down of woods, are also noticed in great detail. 
 So also the innumerable battles which recur with the periodi- 
 city of astronomical events. More interesting events are also 
 but very rarely noticed at some length. We shall give a few 
 examples generally, in the words of the authors as translated 
 by O'Donovan in his invaluable work, slightly abridged : 
 
 A.M. 3502 (1698, B.C.), Tea, the daughter of Lugaid, the son of 
 Ith, whom Eremon brought home (i.e., married) in Spain over the 
 head of Odba. requested of Eremon as her bride gift (zwj'cfA) a 
 choice hill as she might select to be buried there. She selected 
 Drum-Caoin, and from her it was called Tara.s 
 
 2 Thi.9 is one of the usual etymologies. It is more likely, we think, that it 
 was called "Otmim C15 nioiii after the King's " great house " was built. After 
 a time these words would be treated as one word, CemAiti, and the last 
 syllable shortened and elided with the genitive Ce>vi(4i)}iAC. 
 
54 EAELT IHISH HISTORY. 
 
 There were other Taras in Erin, all, we believe, residential, 
 and occupied by chieftains. The houses were, no doubt, built 
 in imitation of the King's "great house," — like Bricrin's 
 Mansion in Dun Rudraighe, near Lough-Brickland, in Down. 
 " It must be remembered," writes Joyce, " that a Teamhair 
 was a residence, and that all the Teamhairs had originally 
 one or more forts, which, in case of many of them, remain to 
 this day." * 
 
 A.M. 3580 (1620 B.C.) This was the seventeenth year above three 
 score, of Tighernmas, as King over Erin. It was by him the following 
 battles were gained over the race of Eber — the battle of Ele (Antrim), 
 the battle of Lochmagh, the battle of Cuilard, in Magh Innis (Down) ; 
 the battle of Cuil Fraeohen, the battle of Magh Fecht, the battle of 
 Commar, the battle of Cul-athguirt, in Seimhne, (Island Magee) ; the 
 battle of Ard Neadh (Connacht) ; the battle of Carn Feradagh 
 (Limerick) ; the battle of Cnamh Choill (Connacht) ; the battle of 
 Cuil Feadha, the battle of Reabh, the battle of Congnaidhe, in Tiiath 
 Eabha (Sligo) ; the battle of Cluan Cuas in Teathbha (Teffia) ; the 
 battle of Cluan Muirsge (Breffhy) ; the two battles of Cuil, in Arget 
 Ross (Kilkenny) ; the battle of Ele, the battle of Berra (Cork) ; seven 
 battles at Lough Lughdhach (Lough Carrane, Kerry) ; two other 
 battles at Arget Ross (Kilkenny) ; three battles against the Firvoloe 
 and the battle of Cuil Fobhair, against the Ernai (in Tyrone). 
 
 We give the foregoing details, not to enumerate the vic- 
 tories of Tighernmas, but as a specimen of the class of entries 
 in the Annals which are very numerous, to show the tradition 
 as to the social state of Erin in those days. We have no clue 
 to the casus belli in any case or to the results which followed 
 from these victories. If it be founded on fact, the record 
 reveals to us the picture of a very active monarch, continually 
 at war, striking blows with effect, north, south, east, and west, 
 which, however, bore no permanent results. 
 
 The conclusion of this entry is more interesting. 
 
 " It was by Tighernmas that gold was first smelted in Erin, ia 
 Foithre Airthir LifFe (east of the Liffey). It was by an artificer of the 
 Fera-Cualann (Wicklow). It was by Tighernmas that goblets and 
 brooches were first covered with gold and silver in Erin. It was by 
 him that clothes were dyed purple, blue, and green. It was in his 
 reign that the three black rivers of Erin burst forth. At the end of 
 this year he died, with three quarters of the men of Erin about him, at 
 the meeting of Magh Slecht, in Breifne, at the worshipping of Crom 
 Cruach, which was the chief idol of adoration in Erin. This happened 
 on the eve of Samhain (Hallow Eve) precisely. It was from the 
 genuflections that the men of Erin made about Tighernmas that the 
 plain was named." 
 
 ' Joyce's Irish Place Names, First Series, 2S3. 
 
THE GAEL. 65 
 
 The statement in the Annals is, probably, taken from the 
 versified Dindshenchus, of Magh Slecht, in the Book of Leinster, 
 of which we give a few staves, translated by Kuno Meyer as 
 follows : — 
 
 There came 
 
 Tighernmas, the Prince of Tara, yonder 
 
 On Hallowe'en with many hosts 
 
 A cause of grief to them was the deed. 
 
 They did evil ; 
 
 They beat their palms ; they pounded their bodies, 
 
 Wafling to the demon who enslaved them. 
 
 They shed falling showers of tears 
 
 Around Grom Cruach ; 
 
 There the hosts would prostrate themselves, 
 
 Though he put them under deadly disgrace, 
 
 Their name clings to the noble plain. 
 
 Except one-fourth of the keen Gaels 
 
 Not a man alive . . . 
 
 Escaped without death in his mouth. 
 
 The prose Dindshenchus being more modern than the verse, 
 has, as usual, further particulars. We quote from Stokes' 
 translation in the Revue Geltique of the Rennes text : 
 
 "And they all prostrated before him (i.e., Crom Chroic), so 
 that the tops of their foreheads and the gristle of their noses 
 and the caps Oi their knees and the ends of their elbows broke, 
 and three-quarters of the men of Erin perished at these 
 prostrations. Whence Magslecht, ' Plain of Prostration.' " * 
 It is more likely, we think, that the plain was named from the 
 Cdirh f lechc or plague stroke. Slecht,® in the sense of genu- 
 flection, or prostration, is connected, probably, with " flecto," 
 and is post-Christian. Its older sense was to cut down, and 
 the cutting off of a large part of the population was more 
 likely to give a name to the plain than the supposed genuflec- 
 tions or prostrations. There is no mention of child sacrifice in 
 either the versified or prose Dindshenchus on this occasion. 
 But we may feel sure that Tighernmas and the men of Erin, 
 if they approached Crom Cruach as suppliants for help, brought 
 with them as the usage was, gifts more appetising and accept- 
 able than prostrations, tears, and genuflections. 
 
 The nucleus of this legend must be sought in the genuine 
 tradition that the African Fomorians exacted, as we have 
 
 * Revue Celtique, xvi., 53. 'slisim— Windisoh Worierbuch. 
 
56 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 already stated, a tribute of children from the Firvolce, to be 
 delivered every Hallowe'en between the rivers Drobhaois and 
 Erne. This tithe or fixed proportion of all kinds of produce 
 was a Phoenician usage, and was paid annually by Carthage to 
 the mother city in Asia, and there can be very little doubt 
 that some of these little children were sacrificed to Melkarth 
 according to the Carthaginian ritual. The district of Magh 
 Slecht was not occupied by the Gael. The Four Masters state 
 expressly that it was in the possession of the " Sen Tuatha " — 
 the old tribes — who may have been a colony of these 
 Fomorians dwelling in an area of isolation. It was by them 
 the Masraidhe that Conall Gulban was killed in A.D. 464 
 Moreover, this statement of the prostration of the men of Erin 
 around Tighernmas may well be doubted. Giolla Coeman, 
 + 1070, in " Erin Ard," refers to the death of Tighernmas and 
 a slaughter of thousands by the plague, and says nothing 
 about Magh Slecht or Crom Cruach, and Cormac MacCuilenain 
 ( + 908) says nothing about it where we should expect to find 
 a reference to it. We find the following in the glossary : — 
 " Teamleuchta, i.e., Tamshleacta, i.e., a plague that cut off the 
 people in that place, i.e., in a great mortality, during which 
 the people used to go into the plains that they might be in 
 one place before death, because of their burial by those whom 
 the mortality did not carry off; and Teamleachta (plague- 
 grave) nencupatur." The story in the Book of Leinster is, 
 we think, a subsequent addition, afterwards, as is usually the 
 case, equipped with copious and minute details in the prose 
 Dindshenchus. If, however, we were to admit the truth of 
 the story told about the prostration of Tighernmas, there is 
 no reason for holding that Crom Cruach became the chief idol 
 of Erin. If he became the national god he would not have 
 been called persistently Crom Cruach (Bloody Crom), and he 
 would have been installed, with a well-endowed priesthood, 
 at Tara, and Tlachtga, Tailtin and Usnach. This was not so. 
 The god elements proved decisively by the terrible mortality 
 that they were mightier than Crom, that their power was 
 greater, their protection more valuable, and, above all, that 
 their anger was more to be feared. 
 
 A.M. 3664. This was the first year of Eooaid Edghadhaoh as king 
 over Erin. He was called Eocaid Edghadhach because it was by hia 
 
THE GAEL. 57 
 
 that variety of colour was first put on clothes in Erin to distinguish the 
 honour of each by his raiment, from the lowes.fc to the highest. Thus 
 was the distinction made between them — one colour in the clothes of 
 slaves, two in the clothes of soldiers, three in the clothes of goodly 
 heroes or young lords of territories (lords' sons ?), [four in the clothes 
 of hospitallers, five in the clothes of lords] of territories, six in the 
 clothes of ollavs, seven in the clothes of kings and queens." 
 
 A.M. 3922. Ollamh Fodhla (OUav Fola). Eocaid was his first 
 name, and he was called Ollamh Fodhla because he was first a learned 
 Ollamh, and afterwards King of Fodhla, i.e., Erin. 
 
 Gilla Caomain calls him "King of the Learned" in 
 " Yellow-haired " Erin. The Annals of Clonmacnoise, which 
 have reached us only in Mageoghan's trasnlation, state : — 
 
 He was the first king of the land that ever kept the great feast at 
 Tara, called Feis Tarach, which feast was kept once a year, whereunto 
 all the king's friends and dutiful subjects came yearly, and such as 
 came not were taken for the king's enemies and to be prosecuted by 
 the law and the sword as undutiful to the State. This king was so 
 well learned and so much given to the favour of learning that he 
 builded a fair palace at Tara only for the learned sort of the realm to 
 dwell in, at his own peculiar cost and charges, of whom he was so much 
 again beloved and reverenced that ever after his house, stock, and 
 family were by them in their rhymes and poems preferred before any 
 others of their equals of the Irish nation. Six of his children succeeded 
 him, one after another, as kings of this land, without any other coming 
 betwixt them, which good never happened to no other before him. He 
 died at Tara a famous king — rich, learned, wise, and genei;ally well- 
 beloved of all men, and reigned forty years.' 
 
 Ollamh Fodhla was of the line of Ir, and he was succeeded, 
 as stated, by six of that race in succession. 
 
 A.M. 4030, B.C. 1180. This was the first year of Sirna, son of 
 Dian. It was he wrested the government of Tara from the Ulta, i.e., 
 the race of Ir. An attack was made by him on the Fomorians in the 
 territory of MSath. It was by him, moreover, was fought the battle of 
 Moin Troghaidhe, in Ciannachta (in Meath ?). When Lugair, the son 
 of Lugaidh, of the race of Eber, brought in a force of Fomorians into 
 Erin with their king, Ceasarn by name, Sirna drew the men of Erin to 
 make battle against them at Moin Troghaidhe. As they were fighting 
 a plague was sent upon them, of which Lugair and Ceasarn perished, 
 with their people, and a countless number of the men of Erin with 
 them. Sirna Saoghlaoh (the long-lived) reigned 150 years. 
 
 " The law was known as the " lU-breota." It will be observed that there 
 ia no mention here of Druids or pagan priests. The words in brackets are from 
 the Gaelic text. They are omitted by inadvertence from 0' Donovan's translation. 
 
 ' Murphy, S.J., Ann. Clon. (Mageoghan) 34. 
 
58 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 This patriarckal figure is, probably, an effort of chronology, 
 to bring the system of the Four Masters into harmony with 
 the Domestic Annals from which the lists of the High-Kincs 
 were taken. Gilla Caomain, who followed the Hebrew reckon- 
 ing, says : — " Sirna held the reigns of power for thrice seven 
 noble years." 
 
 A study of the figures given above in our first and second 
 periods will reveal the steady progress of the line of Eremon. 
 At the commencement of the second period the race of Eber 
 was beaten. The contest thenceforth lay between the Irians 
 (Clanna Rury) and the Eremonians. Emhain (Emania) was 
 the capital of the Irians. It is now known as Navan Fort, and 
 is situated about two miles Vest of Armagh. The area of it 
 was about twelve acres. It was elliptical in shape, and sur- 
 rounded by a fosse twenty or thirty feet deep, and a high 
 embankment. Within this space is an elevated spot, somewhat 
 removed from the centre, on which the central dun, a duii 
 within a dun, is supposed to have stood. The foundation of 
 Emania is assigned by the Four Masters to Macha of the Eed- 
 hair during the period between 660 and 653 B.C. Tighernach, 
 who followed the Hebrew reckoning, assigned it to the year 
 307 B.C. M. D'Arbois visited the place in 1881, and has given 
 an admirable description and plan of it in the Revue Geltique 
 (xiv., p. 1). He observes that " Some persons will think the 
 dimensions of Navan Fort modest, but the great banquetting 
 hall, called the ' Craobh Ruadh ' appears to have been situated 
 outside the fortress. The name is preserved in the townland 
 of Greeve Roe, and on an adjoining farm is a moat known as 
 the King's Stables." Emania continued to be the house of the 
 Kings of Ulster for 1,000 years, until A.D. 332, when it was 
 razed to the ground by the three CoUas.* 
 
 We may pause here to refer to an oft-quoted entry in the 
 Annals of Tighernach, who was Abbot of Clonmacnoise, and 
 died A.D. 1088. He is usually referred to as the most reliable 
 of our chroniclers, a reputation to which his title as regards 
 pre-Christian times is very questionable, and which he owes 
 in a large degree to the meaning that has been attached to an 
 entry in his Annals, which is as follows : — 
 
 ' The Annals of Clonmacnoise, Murphy, S.J., p. 41, assign the foundation 
 to 450 B.C., and state that the Kings of Ulster had their palace there for 855 
 years thereafter. 
 
THK GAEL. 59 
 
 In the 18th year of Ptolemy (i.e., B.C., 307) commenced to reign in 
 Emania, Cimbaid, the son of Fintan, who reigaed 28 years. At that 
 time Echu the Victorious, the father of Ugaine, is said by others to 
 have reigned in Tara, although we have written before, that Ugaine 
 reigned [then]. All the monumenta, i.e., records of the Scoti were 
 " iacerta " before Cimbaith." 
 
 The meaning usually attached to incerta here is " uncer- 
 tain," " unreliable." O'Donovan says :— 
 
 We may safely infer from the words of Tighernach that the ancient 
 historical documents (monumenta) existing in his time were all regarded 
 by him as uncertain iDefore the time of Cimbaith, whose reign he fixes 
 to the year B.C. 305 (recte 307). His significant words, " omnia 
 monumenta Scotorum usque Cimbaith incerta erant," inspire a feeling 
 of confidence in this compiler which commands respect for those facts 
 he has transmitted to us, even wheu they relate to the period anteco- 
 dent to the Christian era."" 
 
 So Todd : 
 
 I believe the writer only meant to say that the historical records 
 relating to the period before Cimbaith are not absolutely to be relied 
 on." 
 
 So, too, Hyde says :— 
 
 He means that from that time forwards, he at least considered that 
 the substance of Irish history, as handed down to us, might, to say the 
 least of it, be more or less relied on.^ 
 
 The name of Echu, the father of Ugaine, does not appear 
 in any known series of the Kings of Tara, or the Provincial 
 Kings. We think Tighernach meant nothing more by incerta 
 than " unsettled," a meaning which the word frequently bears, 
 and which the context indicates to be the meaning intended 
 here. Tighernach was not considering the credibility of early 
 Irish history, but simply the question whether Ugaine or his 
 father was at the particular epoch (307 B.C.) the ruling 
 monarch at Tara, or, perhaps, to narrow the question still more, 
 whether Echu had died before that year or not. This was the 
 chronological uncertainty to which he referred.^* It was not 
 
 » stokes' Revue Critique, xiv., 194. 
 " Four Masters, xlv. 
 " O'Curry MS., 518. 
 « Lit. Hist., 24. 
 
 " Codex Palatinns. Todd Leo- Ter., iii., 254, where a valuable and learned 
 study on Irish Chronology will be found. 
 
60 EARLY miSH HISTORY. 
 
 the happening of the events recorded that was uncertain, but 
 the precise time and sequence in which they happened." We 
 may be perfectly certain that Tighernach believed with unques- 
 tioning faith in Partholan and Nemed, in Balor of the Blows 
 and Lugh Lamhfodha,in the spells and charms of wizards, 
 and the revelations of fairy lovers, and in many other soft and 
 fond amenities that live no longer in the unfaith of reason. 
 The Higher Criticism was not rocked in its cradle by the 
 placid Shannon in the lonely cloisters of Clonmacnoise. 
 
 " Tighernach had no doubt before hira, and was referring to Booaid Ua 
 Floinn's Chronological Poems, in which the Kings of Emania are given in 
 "settled " chronological order from Cimbaitb to Fergus Fogha, who was over- 
 thiowa by the Collas. 
 
L tii J 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Deirdee. 
 
 AEDH RUADH Dithorba and Cimbaeth were first cousins. 
 They made an agreement that each of them was to rule 
 seven years alternately in succession. Three times seven 
 sureties were pledged between them, seven wizards to revile 
 them for ever ; or seven poets to lampoon and satirize and 
 upbraid them ; or seven chiefs to wound them and burn them 
 unless each man gave up his reign at the end of seven years, 
 having preserved true government. Each of them reigned 
 three times in his turn during sixty-six years. Aed the Red 
 was the first of them to die. He was drowned in Eas aedha 
 Ruaidh, and his body was carried into the Sidh there, whence 
 were named Sidh Aeda and Eas Ruaidh. He left no children 
 except one daughter, whose name was Macha, the Red-haired. 
 She demanded the Kingdom in due time, when her turn 
 came. Cimbaeth and Dithorba said they would not give King- 
 ship to a woman. A battle was fought between them. Macha 
 routed them.^ Her claim was probably well founded. Tacitus 
 tells us of Boudicea that the Iceni chese her as their generalis- 
 simo. " With Boudicea as leader, for the Iceni make no 
 distinction between the sexes in their rulers, all took up arms.^ 
 Macha was sovereign for seven years. Meanwhile Dithorba 
 had fallen. He left five sons, who demanded the Kingship 
 when Macha's term was ended. Macha said she would not 
 give it to them, " for not by favour did I obtain it," said she, 
 "but by force on the battlefield." A battle was fought 
 between them. Macha routed the sons of Dithorba, who " left 
 a slaughter of heads " before her, and went into exile into the 
 wilds of Connacht. Macha then took Cimbaeth as her husband 
 and leader of her troops. She pursued the sons of Dithorba to 
 Connacht, made prisoners of them, and brought them all in 
 
 * From " The Wooing of Emer,"' Kuno Meyer. Archeol. Rev. I., 151. 
 
 ^ Boudicea generis regii femina duoe (Neque enjm aexum in imperils descer- 
 nunt), sumpsere universi bellum. Agricola. C. 16. There was also a queen of 
 the BriganteSj Cartismandua. 
 
62 EARLY lEISH HISTORY. 
 
 one chain to Ulster. The men of Ulster wanted to kill them. 
 " No," said she, " for that would be the ruin of my true govern- 
 ment. But they shall be thralls, and shall dig a rath round 
 me, and that shall be the eternal seat of Ulster for ever ! " 
 Then she marked out the dun for them with her brooch, viz., 
 the golden pin on her neck ; i.e., ImmA mum VnAcnA : a brooch 
 on the neck of Macha ; hence the name Emain Macha. Such 
 is the legend. 
 
 Macha was slain by Reachtaidh Righdhearg (of the red 
 forearm), of the line of Eber, who, after a reign of two years, 
 was slain by Ugaine Mor, of the line of Eremon, in revenge 
 for his foster mother, Macha Mongruadh. Ugaine was the 
 son of Eocaid Buadach (the victorious), and is represented 
 by our texts to have had 25 children, 23 sons and two 
 daughters, amongst whom he divided Erin into 25 shares. 
 This arrangement lasted for three hundred years to the time 
 of Eocaid Feidleach, the father of Meve. It is also stated that 
 he extended his empire to the Toirrian, i.e., the Mediterranean 
 Sea. The last of these statements is certainly not true, and 
 the first must refer to some apportionment of food rents and 
 dues from local chieftains, if it has any foundation in fact. 
 
 The political divisions of Erin have been various according 
 to the will of the monarchs. However, they never totally 
 abrogated the five-fold division. During the time of the Gael 
 there were five partitions — (1) between Eremon and Eber, 
 (2) between Cearnma and Sobhairee, (3) by Ugaine Mor into 
 25 districts, (4) the re-establishment of the fifths by Eocaid 
 Feidleach, (5) between Conn of the Hundred Battles, and 
 Eogan Mor, King of Munster. 
 
 Of the children of Ugaine only two left issue surviving— 
 Laegaire Lore and Cobhthac Gael Breagh. From these are 
 descended, according to O'Donovan, all that survive of the 
 race of Eremon, the families of Leinster, from Laegaire Lore, 
 the families of Ulster and Connacht, from Cobhthac Gael 
 Breagh. This Ugaine was he who exacted oaths by all the 
 elements visible and invisible, from the men of Erin in general, 
 that they would never contend for the sovereignty of Erin, 
 with his children or his race. After a reign of forty years he 
 was slain by his half-brother, Badhbhchadh, who was slain a 
 day and-a-half after by Laogaire Lore. Laogaire Lore, after a 
 
DEIBDBE. 6S 
 
 reign of two years, fell by Cobhthach Gael Breagh, at Carman, 
 (Wexford), and Cobhthach, after a reign of three years, fell 
 by Labhraidh the mariner, great grandson of Ugaine, at Dinn 
 Righ on the Barrow with thirty kings about him. A large 
 body of Saga, much of which is now lost, was collected about 
 Ugaine, and his sons and great grandsons.* 
 
 In 288 B.C., Rury the Great, of the line of Ir, became High 
 King. He was -ninth in descent from Ollamh Fodhla, and hav- 
 ing reigned for seventy years, died at Airgeat-gleann in 
 Monaghan (218 B.C.). His descendants were known as the 
 Clanna Rury. His son, Breasal, reigned for eleven years 
 (209-198) ; his son, Congal Claroineach, reigned fifteen years 
 (183-168)"; his grandson, Fachtna Fathac, reigned sixteen 
 years (158-142 B.C.). His great grandson, Concobar, the son 
 of Fachtna, ruled in Emania for sixty years, according to 
 Tighernach, but did not attain to the High Kingship. Con- 
 cobar's mother was Ness or Nessa, a daughter of Eocaid 
 Salbuide (of the yellow heel) of Connact. From the year 
 142 B.C. to 332 A.D. the Clanna Rudhraidhe gave only three 
 kings to Tara, who ruled altogether only twenty-five years. 
 Fachtna Fathac (the wise) was overthrown by Eocaidh Feid- 
 leach, sixth in descent from Labhraid Lore of the line of 
 Eremon. Fergus, the son of Leide, then became King of 
 Ulster, and on his death, Fergus Mac Roigh (Roy) the son of 
 Fachtna, uncle to Concobar, became King in his stead. Fergus 
 then married Nessa, the widow of his brother, Fachtna, and 
 was, our texts say, by her contrivance, displaced in favour of 
 Concobar, her son by Fachtnat, for whom possibly he may have 
 been ruling merely as g-uasi-regent. Eocaidh Feidleach ruled 
 at Tara for twelve years, and died there in the year 130 B.C. 
 He had issue three sons known as the " Three Finns," and, as 
 some relate, six daughters, of whom Medhbh (M6ve) was the 
 most celebrated. He abolished the arrangement made by 
 Ugaine Mor, which we have mentioned, and restored the 
 pentarchy. Fergus the son of Leide, became King of Ulster 
 
 " All Leinater families of the race of Eremon ' ore descended from Labraidh, 
 the mariner, with the single exception of O'Nolan, which is descended from 
 Cobhthach. The following are the principal family names, viz. ; — O'Connor 
 Failghi, O'Cavanagh, O'Toohill, O'Byrne, MaoGilla Patrick or Fitzpatrick, 
 O'Dunn, O'Dimasaigh or Dempsey, O'JJwyer, O'Byan, and all the septs that 
 trace their origin to any of these names. The chief part of the I^einster clans 
 are descended from Cathair Mor. — Keating O'Mahony, p. 255. 
 
64 EARLY IKISH HISTORY. 
 
 on the death of Fachtna. The two Munsters were ruled by 
 Deaghaidh, the son of Sen, and his relative Tighernach 
 Tedhbannach, and Leinster by Eossa Ruadh, the son of Fergus. 
 Connact, he apportioned, says Keating, into three parts, 
 between three chieftains — Fidach, Eocaidh Alat, and Tinni, 
 all three of the race of the Firvolce. Some time after Eocaidh 
 went into Connact, and the three Kings came to meet him. 
 He asked them for a site to build a King's house * in Connact. 
 Eocaidh Alat and Fidach answered " that they would give 
 him no such site, but that they would send him his rent to 
 Tara." Tinni, on the contrary, agreed to give a site. Eocaidh 
 then gave his daughter M6ve as wife to Tinni, and a King's 
 house was built within the rath at Cruachan,^ in Roscommon, 
 On the death of Tinni, who was slain at Tara by Monuder, also 
 calledMacCeact, M6ve then ruling over all Connact, took to her 
 as second husband, OilioU, the son of Ross Ruadh of Leinster. 
 Synchronists tell us M6ve was contemporary with Cleopatra, 
 and some say she was the original of Spenser's Queen Mab. It 
 was whilst M6ve and OilioU reigned at Cruachan, and Concobar 
 was King at Emania, that the hegemony passed decisively 
 from the line of Ir, and the race Eremon marched forward to 
 the position which they occupied from the time of Niall of the 
 Nine Hostages onward. The contest is the subject of the 
 celebrated Saga or epopee of the " Cows of Cuailgne."— Ciiti 
 tio CuAiltije, which we shall refer to as the T£in. The osten- 
 sible pretext or cause of this war was, as usually happens, a 
 very insignificant part of the motives which brought about 
 the invasion of Ulster. The origin is usually referred to the 
 murder of the sons of Usnach, to explain which we must return 
 to King Cormac and Emania. We find in our texts a very 
 full and very reliable description of the buildings. In the 
 King's house there were three times fifty rooms and the 
 walls were made of red yew, and there were nine partitions 
 from the fire in the centre of the house to the wall, and 
 thirty feet the height of each partition. The King's room 
 was in the front of the house, and was large enough 
 for thirty warriors. It was ornamented with silver and 
 bronze and carbuncles and precious stones, so that day and 
 
 * King's house. — This meant a dunoi fort, a place of arms in their country. 
 ' RathcToghan, in Roscommon, is eight miles from Caatlerea station. 
 
DEIRDRE. 65 
 
 night were equally light therein. A gong of silver hung 
 behind the King suspended from the roof-tree, and when he 
 struck it with his silver wand with three golden apples all the 
 men of Ulster were silent. All the valiant warriors found 
 space in the King's house, and no man pressed on another. 
 In it were held great and numerous gatherings of every kind, 
 and wonderful pastimes, games, heroes performing their feats, 
 poets chanting their lays, and harp and timpans giving forth 
 melodious strains to the touch of skilled musicians. These 
 warriors were the famous Red Branch Knights. "There 
 were," says Keating, " three orders of champions then 
 co-existent in Erin, and neither before them nor since their 
 time were there found any of the children of Golamh, who 
 were taller, more powerful, hardier, braver, or more expert in 
 feats of valour and chivalry than they, for the Fianna of 
 Leinster were not to be compared with them. The first order 
 of these was composed of the heroes and Knights of the Red 
 Branch under Concobar. [Irians except Cuchulain.] The 
 second was formed of the Gamhanraidhe (Gowanree) of Irrus 
 Domnonn, under OilioU Finn (Firvoloe) ; and the third was 
 composed of the Clanna Degaidh or Ernaeans in West 
 Munster, under Curoi MacDare (Eremonians)." Among the 
 most celebrated of the Red Branch we may name Cuchulain, 
 Fergus MacRoigh (Roy), Conall Cearneach, Leagaire, Buadach, 
 Celtchar the son of Uithecair Dubhtach Dael Uladh, and 
 Naoise (Neeshe), Ainle, and Ardan, the three sons of Usnach.* 
 Concobar had three houses— the Craobh Ruadh (Royal or 
 Red Branch), Teite Brec (Speckled or " Bracced " Court) and 
 the Craobh Derg (Crimson Branch). In the Red Court were 
 kept the spoils of the enemy. In the Royal Court sat the 
 Kings. In the Speckled Court were kept the spears, the 
 shields, and the swords. The reason they put their arms 
 away from them in one house was that at everything harsh 
 they heard in the banqueting-haU, if not arranged on the 
 spot, each man arose against the other, and hence their arms 
 were taken from them into the Teite Brec. This is the 
 account in the Book of Leinster.^ Keating makes a very 
 
 ' Ferdiad, described as a pillar of the Gael in the Tain, was of the Firvolce 
 of Irrus Domnann and Daniel O'Connell was of the Degadean or Erneau tribe, 
 of the line of Eremon, who had migrated from Ulster into Kerry. 
 
 ' O'Curry, M.C.." I., 333. 
 
66 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 necessary addition—a fourth house for the wounded the 
 
 Broin-bherg, House of Sorrow (p. 271)8 
 
 "Thk Story of Deirdre and the Murder op the Sons 
 OF Usnach Down Here." 
 
 The most pathetic of the three sorrows of story-tellin"' 
 
 Once upon a time, after Concobar became King, Felimid 
 the King's tale-teller, made a feast at Emania for the Kin» 
 and many Knights of the Red Branch.* Felimid's wife was 
 present attending to her guests and enjoying "the gentle 
 music of the musicians, the songs of the bards, and the tales 
 of the learned, who read the things written on flags and 
 books." She was then enceinte, and nearing her confinement, 
 and it chanced as she was retiring, when the revelry was at 
 its height, that the unborn child shrieked from her womb. 
 This was an ominous event of high import, portending either 
 good or evil to the men of Ulad. Cathbad, the King's wizard, 
 who was present at the feast, was at once consulted, and went 
 out to the borders of the rath to observe and scrutinize the 
 clouds, and the position of the stars, and the age of the moon. 
 On his return he announced that misfortunes and woes would 
 come to the men of Ulad on account of the yellow-haired girl 
 that had just been born. The heroes of the Red Branch bade 
 him slay her without delay, " Let it not be so done," said the 
 King, " agreeable is the appearance and the laugh of the 
 infant. It were a pity to quench her life. I do not praise the 
 committing of a base deed in the hope of appeasing the anger 
 
 ^ When the Bed Branch Knights came to the Palace every summer to be 
 exercised in feats of arms they were lodged in a great bouse near Emain, called 
 the Craobh Ruadh, commonly Englished the Bed Branch, from which the whole 
 body took their name. But, according to an old glossary, Buadh means here 
 not " red," but " royal." But, the designation " Red Branch," which is the 
 usual sense, is too well established to be displaced. The name of this house ii 
 also preserved, for " Creeveroe " is still the name of a townland near Navan 
 Fort. So far as we can judge from old tales, the Craobh Buadh appears to have 
 been built of wood, with no earthen rampart around it, which explains why the 
 present townland of Creeveroe contains no large fort like that of Emain. Joyce 
 Soc. Hist. II., 90. 
 
 ° There are many versions of this famous tale. The more ancient are 
 brief, and were undoubtedly intended, as Hyde points out, to be supplement«d 
 and filled out by the reciter. We have followea his version in the literature, 
 which if. given more completely in Zeitscrift fiir Celt Pbilol. II., 138. 
 
DEIEDRE. 67 
 
 of the power of the elements. I take her under my protection 
 now, and shall make her my one wife and gentle Consort. I 
 give the men of Erin the sureties of the sun and the moon, 
 that any one destroying her now or again, shall not live nor 
 last if I survive." Then Fergus MacRoy, Conall Cearnach, 
 and the heroes rose up and said, "King, right is thy judgment. 
 Let it be thy will that is done." Cathbad named the child, 
 " D6irdre," which is taken to mean " alarm," and until she was 
 seven years old, she was brought up with the other children 
 of Emania, amongst whom were the three sons of Usnach, the 
 King's first cousins. She was then placed in a dwelling apart 
 with the windows opening out at the back on a fair orchard 
 and garden, with a stream of pure water purling softly through 
 it. The vrindows on the front were closed up, and she no 
 longer saw the grassy lawn, and the champions' field, and the 
 heroes at their feats of activity. Laverc^n, the gossiper (ban- 
 cainte), her tutor, and her nurse were the only persons allowed 
 to see D^irdre. " Daughter," said LavercS,n, " you have not 
 seen the boys on the green of Emania since you were seven 
 years old, and that is now seven years ago." " Seven bitter 
 years," said Deirdre, " since I beheld the delight of the green 
 and the playing of the boys, and surely, too, Naoisi [Neeshe] 
 surpassed all the youth of Emania." "Naoisi, the son of 
 Usnach," said LavercAn, " Naoisi, is his name, as he told me," 
 said Deirdre, " but I did not ask whose son he was." "As he 
 told you ? " said Laverc&n. " As he told me," said D6irdre, 
 " when he made a throw of a ball by a mis-cast backward, 
 transversely over the heads of the band of maidens that were 
 standing on the edge of the green, and I rose from amongst 
 them all, till I lifted the ball and delivered it to him, and he 
 pressed my hand joyously." " He pressed your hand, girl ? " 
 asked LavercSn. '' He pressed it lovingly, and said that he 
 would see me again, but it was difficult for him, and I did not 
 see him since until yesterday, and, oh ! gentle nurse, if you 
 wish me, if you wish me to be alive, take a message from me 
 to him, and tell him to come and visit me, and talk to me to- 
 night secretly." As became a true Knight of the Red Branch, 
 Naoisi, with the brown-black hair and the skin as white as 
 snow, did not fail to appear at the trysting hour. Accompanied 
 by his brothers, Ainle and Ard^n, and 150 champions, he 
 
68 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 eloped with D^irdr© to Alba, where they were hospitably 
 received by the King. Cormac was filled with fury and what 
 the bards call jealousy, and meditated revenge. He induced 
 Naoisi and his brothers to return to Emania on the guarantee 
 of Fergus MacRoy, Cormac Conlingeas, his own son, and 
 Dubthac Dael Ulad, who pledged themselves that no harto 
 should befall them. D6irdre warned them, but in vain, not 
 to return, and not to trust the king. On their arrival the 
 three sons of Usnach were treacherously slain by Cormac's 
 order. At their burial Ddirdre went to the tomb and dis- 
 hevelled her hair, and sang the lays of lamentation— 
 
 That I should live after Naosi 
 
 Let no man on earth imagine. 
 
 Oh, man that diggest the tomb, 
 
 And that puUest my darling from me. 
 
 Make not the grave too narrow, 
 
 I shall be beside the noble ones. 
 
 The most pathetic of the lays, and the most beautiful lyric 
 in Gaelic, perhaps in any language, is her farewell to Alba. 
 In unstudied tenderness and delicacy it cannot be surpassed. 
 D6irdre's pity for the sorrow of the other love, the Jarl's 
 daughter, touches a very deep chord in the human heart, and 
 is, so far as we know, unique in literature. 
 
 DEIRDRE'S FAREWELL TO ALBA. 
 
 S6f Ai"6 f oii\ 50 tiALbAin UAim, 
 TTlAit itA^AfC A cuAti '<(■& gLenn ; 
 
 tTlutv nit)io"6 mic Uiftiig ^5 r^^5 
 Aeit)inn f uit)e Of tetjig & benn. 
 
 II. 
 
 \.& X)& f A16 mxiite AlbAti &s <5t, 
 1f mic Ufnig "o^p COiji cin, 
 
 "O'lnjin l^tAtA "OuriA CfeOin 
 X)o tuc tlAeife peg gAti p^. 
 
 ni. 
 X)o Cuin Cuice eitm ft^et 
 A5 AttAit), If lAeg f e & coif ; 
 
 If T)0 gAtt r6 Cuice Aip CUAIJIC, 
 
 -A5 pllA* ftuAg Inttep tloif. 
 
DEIEDEE. 69 
 
 IV. 
 
 HYlAin "DO (iuAtATi mife fin 
 titiAf mo Citin t^n "oon 6X3, 
 
 Cuifioi' mo CupC^ti Aiji cuinn, 
 'S X)A cumA tiom biif nO 65. 
 
 l,enA"OA]\ mife Aif a cfti^rh 
 
 Ainnte if A|voiiti nit^' i^n bjiSg, 
 
 "Oo i;iUet)Ai\ m6 a fceA6 
 
 "Oif "00 CuifpAt) CAt A^f^ Ceut). 
 
 VI. 
 
 "Oo tuc llAeife bui/iiUxMH fiji 
 
 'S -00 tuig fo tj\i 1 fpiAt)nuif 4fni 
 
 tlxiC ccuifif At) ofmfA 5fUAim 
 
 50 cceig uxJim /Mjt ftuAg riA m^iptt. 
 
 VII. 
 
 tl6! "o^ cctuineA* fifi ahoCc 
 tl^eife lieit f ai ©jvac a ccf6, 
 
 "Oo gtiiLpeATi f i 50 beAtc, 
 'S vo guitfititi-fA fo fe6c 16. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Ca ti-iri5iiAtti Cm A^Avn ffiin 
 Aifi CfiiC AlDAn fo n6it) f Ot) ; 
 
 tDA ft^n mo Cfeite 'ha mefg, 
 Pa Liom fein a ti-eiC 'x-a h-Ot^.^' 
 
 Farewell eastward to Alba from me, 
 Goodly the sight of her havens and glens, 
 When the sons of Usnach used to be hunting. 
 Delightful to sit on the slopes of her hills. 
 
 II. 
 
 One day when Alba's chiefs were feasting, 
 And Usnach's sons to whom love was fitting, 
 To the daughter of the Jarl of Dun Trene, 
 Naoise gave a kiss " unknownst." 
 
 " This text la from Iriaohe Texte, 2nd Series, p. 116 (Stokes). Ocr 
 translation is based on the translation there, but we have made some changes 
 for which that eminent scholar is not responsible. 
 
70 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 III. 
 
 He sent her a frisking doe, 
 
 A hind with a fawn at her feet, 
 
 And he went to her on a visit, 
 
 Coming back from the hosting at Inverness. 
 
 IV. 
 
 When I heard that myrelf 
 
 My head filled full of jealousy ; 
 
 I shoved my little boat out on the waves. 
 
 All equal to me was death (from grief) or drowning. 
 
 They followed me out swimming, 
 Ainle and Ardan, who never lied, 
 
 [They spoke comfortable words about Naoiee, and pacified her.] 
 
 They turned me homewards. 
 
 The twain that would fight a hundred. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Naoise pledged a true word. 
 
 Thrice he swore before sword and spear (A^m) 
 
 That he would never cause me grief 
 
 Until he went from me on the hosting of the dead. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Ochone ! if she heard to-night 
 
 That Naoise was in his shroud in the clay 
 
 She would weep unceasingly, 
 
 And I should weep sevenfold with her. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 What wonder if there is love within me, 
 
 For the land of Alba where the way (of life) is smooth. 
 
 Safe was my husband within it. 
 
 Its steeds and its gold were mine. 
 
 D^irdre, according to our text, after singing the lays of 
 lamentation, leaped into the grave on Naoise's neck and died 
 forthwith. And she was buried with the sons of Usnach, 
 and their flagstone was raised over their grave, and their 
 names were written in Ogham, and their lamentation rites 
 were celebrated. Thus far the tragic tale of the sons of 
 Usnach. 
 
DEIEDRE. 71 
 
 The greatest insult that could be offered to a Gaelic cham- 
 pion was to violate his guarantee. Fergus and Cormac 
 Conlingeas, with their followers, rose up against the King and 
 burned Emania. They were, however, afterwards defeated 
 and compelled to fly to Connact, where they were welcomed 
 by M6ve and OilioU." 
 
 Then commenced the long war between Concobar of Ulster 
 and Meve of Connact, in which she was aided by chieftains 
 and champions from all the provinces of Erin. The events of 
 this war form the subject matter of a cycle of Sagas, commonly 
 known as the Red Branch Cycle, in which we follow the 
 fortunes of the bravest of the Gael, Cuchulainn. 
 
 Setna killed Bolecthaid at Eathcruachain whilst he was under the guaran< 
 tee of Feacha. 
 
 Four years were reigned by Setna the Tall, 
 
 Fell the King by his great son [Feaoha], 
 
 Forgave not the son the dreadful deed 
 
 To his father his being outraged. — G. Coemain Erin Ard. 
 
 ^ Fergus sings in the Tain : 
 
 If me cuittsLAiin ti4 fl-uASu fAif, 
 tn<S5 <iio fdtiAijce •D'Utcdib. 
 It is I that gathered the forces eastward 
 In revenge for my dishonour by the Ultoniana, 
 
I 72 ] 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 CUCHULAINN* 
 
 *"T^HE death of Cuchulainn, the bravest hero of the Gael. . . 
 1 Seven years was his age when he received arms ; seven- 
 teen years his age when he was behind the Cows of Cuailgne ; 
 twenty-seven years his age when he died." ^ Such is the entry 
 in Tighernach, at the date A.D. 1, apparently. The bravest of 
 the brave (Setanta was his first name), was the son of Sualtam, 
 of the line of Eremon, who was chieftain of Muirtheimne. 
 This was the level land of Louth, through which flows the 
 river Dee, on which now stands the town of Ardee. Sualtam 
 was married to Dechtire, Concobar's sister, and had his dun 
 and great house and pillar (" Temair and Coirthech ") on a 
 hill about one mile from Dundalk. The mound, which is now 
 all that remains of it, is still forty feet in perpendicular height 
 is circular, and has an area on top of half an acre. The central 
 dun was enclosed by an outer rampart, which is still, in some 
 parts which remain, thirty feet high. The area within the 
 rampart is over two acres, and the dun, subsequently named 
 Dun Dealgan, is now known as the Moat of Castletown. Louth 
 was at this time included in Ulster, and Dun Dealgan, (Dun- 
 dalk) was a frontier fort of the first importance. It commanded 
 the entrance to the Moyry Pass, four miles away to the north 
 — the only passage to Armagh on the north, except round the 
 Carlingford coast. The road to Armagh (Slighe Midluachra) 
 from Tara ran through this pass, as the railway to Belfast does 
 at the present time, passing through the wooded district 
 known as the Fews (Feadha). On the left of this highway 
 rises Sliev GuUion (Sliabh Cuilinn) [1,893 feet], on the top of 
 which is a cairn, which legend says was piled up over the 
 grave of Cualgni, the son of Breogan. By this cairn a watch 
 was kept in the time of Concobar, as a defensive precaution 
 for the protection of Armagh, and near it are still traceable 
 
 ' Mora Oonchulaind fortiEsimi herois Scotorum. . . VII. mbliadna a aes 
 intan rogab gaiseed, XVII. mbliadna a aea intan mboi indef;aid Tana bo 
 Cuailgne, XXVII. mbliadna immorra a aes intan athbath. — Bev. Celt., zyi.. 407. 
 
CUCHULAINN. 73 
 
 the remains of an enclosure which may have been a bo-dun, 
 or possibly the clithar bo Ulad, the shelter for the cows of Ulad. 
 The Carlingford mountains (Sliabh Cuilgne), occupying 
 the headland between Dundalk Bay and Carlingford Lough, 
 were also a natural fastness of great strength, into which the 
 cows of the fertile pastures of Murtheimne might be driven 
 on the approach of a raiding force. Behind those cattle, as 
 they were driven into these strongholds, the champions of 
 Murtheimne would muster in their strength, and foremost 
 amongst them Setanta, the " Wolf-dog " of the Border, the 
 watch-dog of Cuilinn and Cuailgne, to be known ever after as 
 Cuchulainn.^ 
 
 " The least that is expected of one that wards the marches," 
 Cuchulainn says in the Tdin, " is to raise the cry, to give 
 prompt warning, to be able to say who it is that comes the 
 way." And Sualtam, when they were at the pillar of stone 
 of Ard Cuillin, bids him " Take warning to the men of Ulad 
 (of the approach of M6ve's army) — bid them that they be not 
 in the great open plains, but betake them to the woods and 
 glens of the province if so they may evade the men of Erin." 
 One of the most formidable of Setanta's foes, a chieftain of 
 the Firvolce, Ceat Mac Magach, is described in our texts as a 
 mighty warrior of Connact and a fierce " Wolf of Evil " to the 
 men of Ulster (oncu n'uilc ar Ultacaibh). The wolf was soon 
 to come prowling in quest of prey from Connact in the host of 
 M6ve and test the fighting qualities of the watch-dog of Ulad. 
 " This Ceat was a man of prowess," says Keating. " He con- 
 tinued during his life to be the untiring plunderer of the men 
 of Ulster, and in these raids he was aided by Fergus Mac Roigh 
 and his band of exiles. It was during this time, which ex- 
 tended over seven years before the great invasion by Meve, 
 that Setanta performed those feats of valour which the most 
 famous of the Gaelic poems was composed to celebrate." * 
 
 * There were very many Gaelic names into which Cu, the famous wolf-dog, 
 entered, e.g., Cu Ulad, Cu Connact, Cu Muman, etc., etc. There were also 
 many places near Dundealgan called Cuillin — SHab Cuillin, Cerd Cuillin, Slige 
 Cuillin, and a river called Cuillin. It is, we think, probable that a large 
 district in the plain of Louth was at one time called Cuillin, or by some name 
 which Culainn now represents in Cuchulainn. The story of the smith's dog is 
 an etymological " Wahres curiosum," as the Germans have it. 
 
 ' Ceat was the brother of OilioU ?inn, chief of the fierce Gamanraide of Irrus 
 Domnann, from whom descended the Clanna 'iiloTaa,.-^0' Mahony, 271, 274. 
 
74 EAELY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 The TAin may be divided into three sections — (1) The 
 Feats which we have just referred to, which may be called 
 the apiariia of Cuchulainn ; (2) his Boyish Exploits, an episode 
 which occupies nearly a sixth of the poem ; and (3) the Legend 
 of the Two Mytho-heroic Bulls, which were, according to 
 a popular account, the re-births of two swineherds who hated 
 and fought with each other in their lifetime, and had passed 
 into the shapes of various animals before becoming bulls. 
 Many suppose that this old legendary feud has lasted into our 
 own times under the protection of the shillelaghs of the 
 " Three-year-old " and " Four-year-old " factions, which is said 
 to have originated about the age of a bull. These bulls, named 
 the Dun or Brown of Cuailgne and Finbheannach (Fin-van- 
 ach) or White Horn, were endowed with intelligence.* The 
 great Queen Mor-Rigu speaks to them. Neither the Bocanach 
 (male goblins), nor the Bananach (female goblins), nor the 
 geniti glinni ® (Sprites of the Valley), could come into one 
 cantred with them. 
 
 Their appearance in the T^in is an excrescence of the 
 decadence, in which time, in our judgment, the prose part of 
 the Tiin, in the Book of Leinster, was composed or redacted.* 
 
 * Cophur in Da Muceeda (the Generation of the two Swineherds). — Ir. 
 Texte, 2nd Series, 230. 
 
 ' Genita glinni, female Rprites (sing, genit) of the valley. Bocanachs, 
 male Bananachs, female, goblins. Joyce, Soc, Hist. I., 269. 
 
 ' The text of the Tain is found partly in the teAtbAji n* hUrohtie, and the 
 part missing from that is found in the " Yellow Book of Lecan V (1400 c). The 
 fatter includes the Ferdiad portion in a brief text with old linguistic forms, 
 which, however, is very brief, and was, as we have mentioned, in the case of 
 the murder of the Sons of Usnach, intended to be expanded and embellished by 
 the Ss^Atdi'oe, a privilege, the abuse of which introduced the decadence. The 
 metrical part of version in the Book of Leinster i;, we think, the oldest version 
 of the " Ferdiad," and the oldest part of the Tain. 
 
 Windisch has recently published a splendid edition of the Tun from 
 the text in the Book of Leinster. The great scholar who has thus added to the 
 huge debt the Gael owe him justly observes that they are entitled to be proud 
 of their old Hero-Saga — " Irland darf-stolz sein auf seine alte Helden Saga. — 
 Tain bo Cualgue nacn Dem Buch von Leinster Leipzig (1905)." 
 
 Tain bo seems to us to be = ha, cows, and to be used for euphony, and 
 because " ba " has divers meanings, tSoCAince means cattle herds, and if 
 Cain=T)o-&54)m (drive), which we leave to experts to decide, it can receive » 
 full meaning in " drove," The primary sense of Cim bo would thus be a 
 herd or drove of cows. In a secondary use it would mean a ballad or story of 
 a. raid for lifting or hosting for the rescue of cattle, with episodes and embellish- 
 ments. CAtn bo would thus be wholly inappropriate as a title for a ballad or 
 story describing a foray for a magic bull. In this way bfiuot'oen, a hostel, has 
 a secondary meaning, i.e., a brava at a hostel, e.g., b)ioi-6en CeK ^a hAttnAitie 
 •• the little brawl at Almhain." The observations of S. H. (VGrady on this 
 point seem entitled to carry his views, Silva Qadelica II., zvi. 
 
CUCHULAINN. 75 
 
 The story of the " Boyish Feats " was told to Mdve during 
 the march to Ulster by Fergus and Cprmac Conlingeas and by 
 Fiacha. We shall only refer to it for the purpose of introduc- 
 ing our readers to the following legend. 
 
 According to the story in the "Boyish Feats of Cu" 
 Setanta got the name in this way. At a feast given by Culainn 
 the Smith, who lived near Sliabh Cuilinn, Setanta being then 
 six years, killed a fierce dog (cu) belonging to the Smith. 
 " Little boy," said the Smith, " that was a good member of my 
 family you took from me, a safeguard of raiment, of flocks and 
 of herds." " Be not angered thereat," said the boy, " for in 
 this matter myself will pronounce an equitable award. If in 
 all Erin there be a whelp of that dog's breed by me shall he 
 be nurtured till he be as fit for action as his sire (that I have 
 killed). In the meantime myself will do thee a ban-dog's 
 office in guarding of thy cattle and substance and strong 
 place." " Well hast thou made the award," said Concobar, 
 and Cathbad the Wizard, chiming in, declared that he could 
 not have done it better, and that thenceforth the boy should 
 bear the name Cu-Chulainn or Culainn's Hound. " I like my 
 own name better," said the boy. " Setanta Mac Sualtaim." 
 " Never say it," remonstrated Cathbad, " for all men in the 
 world shall have their mouths full of that name." " 
 
 When the invasion of Ulster was resolved on, M6ve sent 
 word to the seven Manies, her sons by OilioU, to come to 
 Cruachan and mobilize her army. The first corps had on them 
 black heads of hair and green mantles, held with silver 
 brooches, and, next to their skins, shirts of gold thread, having 
 round patterns of red gold. The second corps was composed 
 of the Firvolce from Irrus Domnann, under the leadership of 
 Ceat Mac Magach and his six brothers. They had new cut hair, 
 and the colour is consequently not stated, as it could not be 
 seen under their caps or helmets. They had grey mantles 
 and pure white shirts. This corps consisted of 3,000 warriors. 
 
 The third corps was formed of the Ulster Exiles, under 
 Fergus MacRoigh and Cormac Conlingeas. They had flowing, 
 fair, yellow hair, with sheen of gold all cast loose. Fine wrought 
 crimson mantles with cunning devices of ornaments enwrapped 
 them, and at their breast they had golden jewelled brooches, 
 
 ' The Cuohullin Saga. E. Hull, 141. 
 
76 EAELY IKISH fliSTORT. 
 
 and silken ahirts, fine textured, touched the middle of their 
 insteps. In unison they both lifted their feet and put them 
 down. They numbered 3,000. This force -was joined by 
 contingents from the other provinces. The army marched by 
 Athlone to Kells. M6ve went with them in her chariot, 
 accompanied by her daughter, Finnabhair (" bright beam," or 
 of the " fair eyebrows "). When they halted for the night she 
 inspected the troops. The Gailleoin of Leinster, a Firvolce 
 tribe, won her admiration and excited her fears. " What 
 excellence performed they that they should be praised before 
 all others ? " said her husband, OilioU. 
 
 " They give cause for praise," said M6ve, " for whilst others 
 were choosing their camping-ground they had made their 
 booths and shelters; and while others were making their 
 booths and shelters they had their feast of meat and ale laid 
 out ; and while others were laying out their feasts of bread and 
 ale these had finished their food and fare, and while others 
 were finishing their food and fare these were asleep. Even as 
 their slaves and servants have excelled the slaves and servants 
 of the men of Erin so will their good heroes and youths excel 
 the good heroes and youths of the men of Erin in this 
 hosting." 
 
 OilioU said it was all the better since they were fighting on 
 their side. But M6ve protested that she would like to have 
 them killed and slaughtered as she considered that they were 
 a danger in the host. OilioU and Fergus dissented from this 
 and remonstrated with her, and it was finally settled that they 
 were to be distributed among the men of Erin so that not 
 more than five of them should remain together. This was a 
 surious incident, and may, perhaps, be regarded as a pre- 
 monition of the revolt of the Atheach Tuatha under 
 Cairbre Cennceat which occurred at the commencement of 
 our era. 
 
 Kells is on the borders of Ulster, and the apitrriia of 
 Cuchulainn commences from this point. His feats consisted in 
 & series of single combats with champions from Move's array 
 whilst the men of Ulad were suffering from a malady which 
 was called the noinden Ulad. According to the tale in the 
 Book of Leinster (125, p. 40) this illness was to last for foui 
 days and five nights = nine, and for nine generations. This 
 
CUCHULA.INN. 77 
 
 malady was a lethargy (in gala ndian) and so Noinden would 
 appear to mean a lethargy for nine days.^ 
 
 The transformation of the ces noinden, the nine whiles 
 malady, into the ces noiden (childbirth debility) must be an 
 attempt to connect the debility with the legend of Macha and 
 the twins. It has led the venturesome still farther afield— all 
 the way to the Couvade. This curious custom, which is said 
 to survive in some remote parts of the world, imposed on the 
 husband the duty of taking the new-born infant to bed with 
 him and nursing it whilst the mother attended to household 
 affairs. There is no trace of its ever having existed in Erin, 
 nor could domestic incidents of this kind occur simultaneously 
 in any large number of the households of the Red Branch 
 Knights. There was, however, a form of the sleeping sickness 
 known in Erin in the Middle Ages, which lasted for four or 
 five days, and during that time incapacitated the patient from 
 doing soldier's work. The malady, epidemic in its nature, may 
 have existed at the time of the Tain, and would very naturally 
 be utilized by the pte who created or reconstructed the Tim to 
 account for the absence of the Red Branch warriors and so give 
 Cuchulainn his opportunity and his victories in single combat. 
 The legend of Macha is shortly as follows : — Macha, the 
 wife of Crunchu, is said to have been compelled to run in a 
 
 'Windisoh observes in hia introduction to the text and translation of the 
 Noinden Ulad — " In the Book of Leinster version Noinden stands unmis- 
 takeably in relation with the number 9. Thp den of Noinden may belong to 
 the old Ir. 'danus' whiles, and to the SKE dinn-doy, although it is not a 
 question of nine days but five days and four nights or five nights and four days." 
 Another meaning noinden = Tinol = a gathering, he refers to, quoting 
 O'Donovan, and continues — "The full expression for the matter imder con- 
 sideration is cess Noinden Ulad, for which cess and Noinden singly are used as 
 abbreviations. The fiUl expression means either the 'weakness ' of the men of 
 Ulster for nine " whiles,' or the ' weakness ' of the men of Ulster orginating in 
 a festival meeting. In the Book of Fermoy, according to Todd, are found ces 
 naoidhen (infant or child-birth suffering) from O. Ir noidin gen. noiden, a 
 child. But since this word is usual in the spoken language the abbreviation 
 noiden Ulad for cess noiden Ulad is inconceivable." 
 
 The reference to Todd in the Book of Fermoy, which states the ces 
 afiaicted the Ulstermen for nine generations, — Proc. Ey, Ir. Acad. MS. series, 
 vol. I, p. 17. . „ , , 
 
 We do not understand Todd to say it is called ces noiden m the Book of 
 Fermoy, but infer the contrary. He says " it is called also ces naoidhean, infant 
 or child-birth suffering."— WiwdiscA — Noinden Ulad, Koniglech Siichsisohe 
 Gesellsohaft, Phil, and His. Classe, 1884, 337. In the Yellow Book of Lecan 
 it is called ceas nagen, which Atkinson equates with "ces noiden "(211, line 40). 
 This affected the men of Ulad for the reign of nine kings. O'Carry gives ceas 
 naidhean, child debility, in MSS. 37, and enchanted sleep, M. and CS., II., 319. 
 Nine was a magic number. See the catalogue of " Nines" in L'epopeft Celtiqne 
 CD'Arbois) p. 527. 
 
78 EARtT IRISH HISTORY 
 
 chariot race at Armagh against the king's horses to save 
 Crunchu's life. She pleaded for delay as she was ahout to be 
 confined. It was refused. She outran the king's horses and 
 gave birth to twins, and laid her curse on the Ultonians, the 
 noinden Ulad. Hence the place was called Emain Macha 
 the twins of Macha. By the Ultonians she meant the Clanna 
 Rury.the descendants of Ir, so Cuchulainn, being an Eremonian, 
 did not come under this legendary malediction. It has been 
 observed that no pedigrees are traced to him. This may, 
 perhaps, be the explantation. The Eremonians would not trace 
 to him as he took sides against them in the great war. The 
 Clanna Rury would not trace to him because he was not of the 
 line of Ir. * 
 
 According to the account given in "The Proceedings of 
 the Great Bardic Association," when Senchan Torpeist was 
 chosen Ard OUamh about 600 A.D., he assembled the pte 
 and asked if any of them remembered the whole of the Tiin. 
 All the pte said they remembered only fragments of it. The 
 Book in which it was written had been taken to the east by a 
 certain aaoi, as well as the great Skin Book called the 
 Cuilmenn. Afterwards, when the Bardic Association had 
 overstayed their welcome with the hospitable Guaire at 
 Durlus on the Moy, Morvan the hermit, brother of Guaire, put 
 them under prohibition (ge^f ^) not to stay two nights in any 
 house until they found the T£in. So they had to leave 
 Durlus, and then searched Alba and many places in vain for 
 the T&in, and finally returned to Durlus.^" 
 
 Guaire gave a kiss to St. Caillin of Feenagh and to Senchan, 
 and a general welcome to the Bardic Body. Morvan the 
 hermit was sent for. He told them there was not living in 
 
 ' In the prose of the Tain this " noindea" (nine whiles) is lost sight of. 
 It is stated that Cucbalainn was waiting for the men of Ulster from November to 
 February. " From Monday before Samhain, November 1st to the Wednesday 
 next after St. Bridget's Day (or Imbulc LL.), the 1st of Ferbuary, saving only 
 a brief snatch at midday, he nevoi slept, and even that was taken as he leaned 
 on his spear." And Cuchulainn tells Sualtam after the fight with Ferdiad 
 when he was covered with hurts and wounds, " Get thee to Emiuila. Tell 
 Ulster that for the future they must come themselves and follow up their Tain 
 (i.e., their cows), seeing that I am no more able to defend and rescue them, 
 because from the Monday before Samhain, etc., in the gaps and passes of 
 Conaille Murtheimne I have stood against the four great provinces of Erin." 
 Hull, 171. 
 
 "> Joyce, Soo. It., 11. aays Durlus was near Kinvaro on Gal way Bay, it 
 was where Guaire held his court alternately with Gort in Galway. O'Curry 
 says Durlus Maoidhe, on the Moy M. C, 11., 87- 
 
CUCHULAINN. 79 
 
 Erin, nor among the dead, anybody who could repeat the 
 T&in, but one person only — Fergus MacRoy. " Ho\7 are we to 
 act ? " said they. Morvan said, " Send invitations to the saints 
 of Erin, and bring them to the tomb of Fergus, and fast three 
 days and three nights to the Lord, to send Fergus to repeat 
 the Tain to you." This was done, and Fergus came forth 
 from the tomb, which was at the brink of Lough En, in Ros- 
 common, and he was about repeating the Tain, standing up, 
 but they would hear none of it until he was seated.^^ Kieran 
 of Clonmacnoise was he who wrote for him, and the place on 
 which he wrote it was on the hide of the Dun Cow. The 
 Book was then known as Lebar na huidhre.^^ When the Tain 
 was finished, Fergus returned to the tomb. The saints and 
 the Bards proceeded to Durlus, and feasted with Guaire for 
 three days and three nights.^^ 
 
 The recension of the Tdin that has reached us in the texts 
 we have mentioned is remarkable for the way in which it 
 deals with Fergus MacRoy. It represents him from the outset 
 of the expedition as acting treacherously towards M^ve and 
 her allies ; leading the army astray ; entering into a compact 
 with Cuchulainn, that if the latter pretended to be afraid of 
 him and ran away he would do as much for him on a future 
 occasion. " Loth am I," said Cuchulainn, " to fly before any 
 warrior of the T^in." " No need for such repugnance," quoth 
 Fergus, " for in my turn, what time in the great final battle 
 of the Tdin you shall be full of wounds and drenched with 
 blood, before thee I will fly." This he did accordingly.^* 
 
 This treachery appears to be most improbable, and is quite 
 out of keeping with the chivalry of a Red Branch Knight. It 
 may have been introduced as a salve to the wounded feelings 
 of defeated Connact. 
 
 Senchan Torpeist made his redaction about 600 A.D. He 
 was a Connactman, and when he went from the house of 
 Guaire, " the hospitable," to the tomb of Fergus, and brought 
 him up from the other world, we may be sure that Fergus did 
 not reveal this villainy on his own part. 
 
 On the other hand, the Firvolce obtain a very prominent 
 position, and much praise from the redactor, and we suggest 
 
 " O'Curry, M.C., ii., 89. ^ Ox>i.n gen. Oititte, dark grey. 
 
 " Oss. Soc, V. 125, ImieAiz ti« CtiotrroAime. " HuU, 1811. 
 
80 EARLY IKISH HISTORY. 
 
 that this Connact version of Tkin did not emanate from the 
 tomb, but is racy of the soil of that province. We may be 
 certain it was never presented in that way in the King's House 
 at Emain Macha. ^^ 
 
 There were, no doubt, many versions of the Tain, and none 
 could be called in any way authorised or authentic. There 
 were ample grounds for the note appended by the scribe to 
 the version in the Book of Leinster : — " A blessing on each one 
 who shall faithfully memorize the Tain in this form, and shall 
 not put another form upon it-" He adds the caution of 
 a sound critic — " But I who have transcribed this history, or, 
 more truly, legend (fabulum), do not put faith in some things 
 in this history or legend. For some things are the tricks 
 (praestigia) of the devil ; some things the figments of poets ; 
 some things are like the truth, and some are not ; and some 
 things are for the amusement of fools." 
 
 The fight with Ferdiad is the most famous, and the finest 
 episode in the Tain. Ferdiad was Cuchulainn's most formi- 
 dable antagonist, and his victory over him was his greatest 
 triumph. " Every other fight," he said, " and every other 
 combat that ever I have made, was to me but a game and a 
 sport, compared to the combat and fight with Ferdiad." The 
 fight took place at a ford of the little river Dee, which flows 
 from west to east through the plain of Muirtheimne. Ferdiad 
 advanced from the south, where Move's army was encamped, 
 and Cuchulainn stood behind the Tkin on the north bank, 
 protecting them in their retreat. Several single combats had 
 taken place at this river with the champions of Move's forces, 
 who are styled the men of Erin, and then it was discussed by 
 the men of Erin who should go to the battle with Cuchulainn 
 on the morrow. What they all said was, that it was Ferdiad, 
 the valiant champion of the men of Domnann. For their 
 mode of combat was equal and alike ; they had been taught 
 the science of arms by the same tutors— by Scathach, Uathach 
 and Aife, and neither of them had any advantage over the 
 other, except that Cuchulainn had the feat of the Gae Bolga. 
 Messengers were sent for Ferdiad, but he refused to come, as 
 
 ^' Senohan was by birth a native of Connact, and we have a shrewd 
 luspicion that Fergus MacBoy's Ghost was also a Connactman, with a liberal 
 lash of Fiivolcio blood in his Teio0 — O'Curry, M.C., iv., 83, 
 
CXJCHX7LAINN. 81 
 
 he knew what they wanted — that he should fight his own 
 friend, and companion, and fellow-pupil, Cuchulainn. At 
 length, being threatened with wizardry and blemishing 
 satires, he came to M6ve, who made him tempting offers — 
 " the beautiful Finnabhair, the princess of western Elga (Erin) 
 on the killing of Cu of the Feats," with a great reward in rings 
 and his share of plain and woodland. He shall get all that he 
 desires. Ferdiad demands guarantees. 
 
 I will not go without securities 
 
 To the Feats of the ford ; 
 
 It will live unto the judgment day 
 
 In full vigour and force ; 
 
 I will not accept though I die, 
 
 Though thou excitest me in language, 
 
 Without the sun and the moon, 
 
 Together with the sea and the landP 
 
 All the securities he requires are given. Fergus MacRoigh 
 i/hen visits Cuchulainn, and tells him to be cautious and pre- 
 pared, that " his own friend and companion and fellow-pupil 
 will come to fight him next morning." " We give our word," 
 said Cuchulainn, " it is not to fight ourselves we wish our 
 friend to come." I am here detaining and delaying the four 
 entire provinces of Erin, from Samhain to Imbulc (Spring) 
 and I have not yielded one foot in retreat before any one man 
 during that time, neither will I, I trust, yield before him." 
 Fergus tells him again to beware, and says :— 
 
 It is I have gathered the hosts eastwards 
 In requital for my dishonour by the Ultonians j" 
 With me they have come from their lands, 
 Their champions and their fighting men. 
 
 The folk in Ferdiad's tent were not cheerful, happy, or 
 unsorrowful that night, because they knew whenever the 
 two companions met one or both of them should fall, and if 
 only one that their master would be the vanquished. In the 
 
 " This ia the old Gaelic pagan oath. In the L. U. we have the transition 
 oath, I swear the oath that my people swear, and Lugaid Mao Nois, King of 
 Munster, swears by God ! 
 
 " O'Curry, M.C., III., 410. Text and Translation (by Sullivan). 
 
 18 Fergus had evidently never heard ol the Two Bulle baing the casus belli 
 
 G 
 
82 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 morning his charioteer endeavours to dissuade him from going 
 to the ford, and said — 
 
 It is better for thee to stay, 
 
 It is a meeting of which grief will coma 
 
 Long will it be remembered, 
 
 Woe is he that goeth that journey. 
 
 Ferdiad answers — 
 
 A brave champion should not refuse 
 Courage is better than fear, 
 
 Ferdiad then goes to the Ford,^' and the charioteer hears 
 the noise of Cuchulainn's chariot. • 
 
 I hear the creaking of a chariot, 
 
 He is a heroic wolf dog who is in it, 
 
 The wolf dog of Emain Macha, 
 
 The watch dog of the territory, the hound of battle, 
 
 I hear, I have heard. 
 
 And now as a sample of the prose style of the decadence 
 we proceed : " Ferdiad's charioteer was not long there until he 
 saw something, the beautiful flesh-seeking four peaked chariot 
 with speed, with velocity, with full running, with a green 
 pavilion, with a thin-bodied, dry-bodied high-weaponed long- 
 speared, war-like croit (i.e., body), of the chariot, upon 
 two fleet-bounding, large-eared, fierce-prancing, whale- 
 bellied, broad-chested, lively-hearted, high-flanked, wide- 
 hoofed, slender-legged, broad-rumped, resolute horses under 
 it."2o 
 
 Ferdiad bade welcome to Cuchulainn. " I am happy at thy 
 coming," said Ferdiad. " The welcome would have been 
 acceptable to me until this time," said Cuchulainn. " It were 
 fitter that I bade thee welcome, for you have come into my 
 province, and my women and children and youths and horses 
 and steeds and flocks and herds and cattle are out before thee." 
 And then they uttered sharp, unfriendly invectives against 
 each other, and then a softer feeling came into the heart of 
 Cu:— 
 
 " Now JFerdiad's Ford. Ardee, Ai ■fep'oiAT). *■ See o, 20 infra. 
 
CUCHULAINN. 83 
 
 When we were with Scathach 
 
 Together we used to practice, 
 
 Together we went to every battle, 
 
 Thou wert my heart companion. 
 
 Thou wert my tribe, thou wert my family. 
 
 One dearer found I never ; 
 
 Woeful would be thy destruction, 
 
 Art thou not bought with divers arms, 
 
 A purple girdle and skin-protecting armour ; 
 
 The maiden for whom thou makest battle 
 
 Shall not be thine, O son of Deman ; 
 
 Finnabhair the daughter of Meve, 
 
 Though it be for the comeliness of her figure ; 
 
 The maiden though fair her form. 
 
 Shall not be given to thee first to enjoy ; 
 
 Finnabhair the daughter of the King 
 
 The reward which has been proflfered to thee 
 
 To numbers before thee has been falsely promised. 
 
 And many like thee has she brought to ruin. 
 
 " Too long have we remained this way now," said Ferdiad, 
 " and what arms shall we resort to to-day ? " 
 
 "Thine is the choice of arms to-day," said Cuchulainn, 
 " for thou was first at the ford." 
 
 They fought with massive weapons till mid-day. The 
 shooting was excellent, but so good was the defence that 
 neither reddened the other. From noon to eve-tide they 
 fought with straight, hardened spears, with flaxen strings to 
 them, and each of them wounded the other in that time. 
 They ceased, they put away their arms, and each of them 
 approached the other put his hands around his antagonist's 
 neck and kissed him thrice. Their horses were in the same 
 paddock that night and their charioteers at the same fire. 
 Of every healing herb that was put to the wounds of Cu 
 he would send an equal portion over the ford westward to 
 Ferdiad. Of each kind of palatable and pleasant intoxicat- 
 ing drink that was sent by the men of Erin to Ferdiad 
 he would send a fair moiety over the ford northward to 
 Cuchulainn. 
 
 Next day Cuchulainn was first at the ford, and had the 
 choice of weapons. " Let us fight from our chariots to-day," 
 said Ferdiad. The wounds inflicted were so severe that the 
 
8* EARLY IRISH HISTORY 
 
 leeches could only apply wizardry and incantations and 
 charms to staunch the bleeding. The combatants embraced 
 and kissed each other thrice, as before, and their horses 
 were in the same paddock, and their charioteers at the 
 same fire that night. The third day they fought with 
 swords. At eventide the separation was mournful. They 
 did not embrace each other. Their horses were not in 
 the same paddock, nor their charioteers at the same fire that 
 night. 
 
 On the morning of the fourth day each knew that one or 
 both of them should fall. Cuchulainn spoke to Laeg, his 
 charioteer, and said, " Laeg. if it be that I shall begin to yield 
 this day, thou art to excite and reproach me so that the ire of 
 my rage shall grow more upon me. If it be that I prevail 
 then praise me that my courage may be the greater." " It 
 shall be done, indeed," said Laeg. Cuchulainn chose the 
 Ford Feat, in which he was used to destroy every champion 
 that came against him. Great were the deeds done this day by 
 " the two beloved pillars of the valour of the Gael." ^ After 
 the fight had raged furiously for several hours Cuchulainn 
 began to flag. Then Laeg interposed with taunts and insult- 
 ing words, but, nevertheless, Ferdiad, in an unguarded 
 moment, got in a home-thrust with his straight-edged sword. 
 Cuchulainn then shouted to Laeg for the Gae Bolga. " The 
 manner of that was this : it used to be set down the stream 
 and cast from between the toes. It made the wound of one 
 spear on entering the body, but it had thirty barbs to open 
 inside." Cuchulainn caught this weapon as it floated down 
 the stream between his toes, and made an unerring cast of it 
 at Ferdiad. " That is enough, now, indeed," said Ferdiad. 
 " I fall of that." Cuchulainn ran towards him, and 
 clasped him in his arms, and carried him to the north 
 side of the ford ; and he laid him down there, and 
 a faintness came over him. "Arise," said Laeg, "the 
 men of Erin are approaching." " What availeth me to 
 arise now," said Cuchulainn, "since Ferdiad has fallen by 
 me?" 
 
 Up to this point, treating the expedition purely as an 
 
 21 Ferdiad and Cuchulainn are styled Gael (X)* AticAitt ^o^\, jAfcit) gABTiAt). 
 two beloved jrillars of the valour of the Gael 
 
OXTCHULAINN. 85 
 
 invasion, it was one of the usual raiding cow-lifting forays which 
 would come under the denomination of a Tdin-bo. Upon this 
 was in after time engrafted the absurd legend of a bull-lifting 
 expedition and a battle between the "Brown" of Cuailgne and 
 the " Whitehorn " of Connacht. The men of Erin carry off 
 the " Brown," but are overtaken by the men of Ulster, near 
 Clara, in Westmeath, and a battle is fought at Gairich and 
 llgdirich, in which the men of Erin are defeated, but 
 succeed in carrying off the "Brown" to Cruaohan, A 
 battle then ensues between the Bulls, and the "Bfown" 
 is victorious and returns to Cuailgne, where his heart 
 bursts with the bellowings he thunders forth to announce 
 and celebrate his triumph ! — an anti-climax, truly, as Hyde 
 observes. 
 
 A few years later came the revanche. M6ve again invaded 
 Ulster, and a great battle was fought on the plains of Murth- 
 eimne. Cuchulainn fell mortally wounded. When he found 
 that his death was nigh he bound himself with his breast- 
 girdle to a pillar-stone that he might not die seated or lying 
 down. And thus standing up, fully armed, and facing the foe 
 in the bloom of early manhood, passed away the bravest hero 
 of the Gael. Some will have it that he was not of the Gael at 
 all but a mythological person — a solar hero. Nutt, in his very 
 interesting and popular story on mythology, entitled " Cuchu- 
 lainn the Irish Achilles," says " Miss Hull has summarised so 
 admirably the argument for the mythical nature of Cuchulainn 
 that I need not apologise for borrowing her words." The sum- 
 mary is too long to be inserted here. It consists in the 
 enumeration of feats which no human being could have per- 
 formed, because they were impossible. Nutt adds " racial and 
 historical elements have been added to the myth." We think 
 on the contrary that mythical elements have been added to 
 historical ones in this as in many other cases for poetical 
 adornment, or if you prefer it for the amusement of the 
 uncritical in a credulous age. Nor has Meve herself escaped 
 the searchlight of the solar critics. Our texts persistently 
 assert that she was very ambitious, as she was very compre- 
 hensive, in her views as to her rights in the matter of what is 
 called "her allowance of husbands." (frettduictAe-o met)t)4). 
 We were, therefore, not a little curious to ascertain what 
 
86 EARLY ISISH HISTORY. 
 
 place could be assigned to her in the solar mythology, 
 and we felt considerably relieved when the " mythologists," 
 professing a confidence which we do not share, announced 
 to the world the startling discovery that she was a Dawn 
 Maiden ! 22 
 
 ^ The Four Masters do not give any account of the Tain. Probably they 
 regarded it as a provincial war between Connact and Ulster, and not properly within 
 the scope of the Annals of the Kingdom, i.e., of the High Kingship. It is some- 
 times stated that they do not even mention Cuchulainn. This is not so. Under a.d. 
 1197, recording the death of Flaherty O'Muldory, lord of Cinel Conall, Owen and 
 Oriel, they say " he was a Conall in heroism, a Cuchulainn in valour, and a Gualre in 
 hospitality." 
 
[ 87 ] 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Finn mac Cumhail. 
 
 THE most celebrated event after the Tain, before the birth 
 of Christ, was the Togail, or destruction of the Hostel of 
 Da Derga and the murder of Conaire the Great. In the 
 time of the Red Branch Knights there were six principal 
 hostels in Erin, each situated at the meeting of four roads, 
 and comfortably endowed with lands sufficient to enable them 
 to extend gratuitous entertainment to the King, his officers, 
 and other wayfarers. Da Derga's Hostel was situated at 
 Donnybrook, where Bohernabruidne, the road from the 
 thrushes' glen (Glennasmoil), runs by the Dodder to the 
 mouth of the Liffey, and crosses the Slighe Cualan, which ran 
 from Dublin to Bray. A mound was levelled here in 1879, in 
 which were found large quantities of human bones flung in 
 heaps, as might be expected in the case of a hurried inter- 
 ment after a battle or massacre. This is supposed by 
 Ferguson^ and Joyce^ to represent the site of the hostel. 
 Conaire had reigned for twenty years at the time of his 
 murder (40 b.c.) during which time there were great bounties, 
 to wit : " Seven ships in every June arriving at Inver Colpa 
 and oak mast up to the knees in every autumn, and plenty of 
 fish in the Bush and the Boyne every June, and such abund- 
 ance of good will that no one slew another in Erin during his 
 reign. And to every one in Erin his fellow's voice seemed as 
 sweet as the strings of a lute. From mid-spring to mid- 
 autumn no wind disturbed a cow's tail. His reign was 
 neither thunderous nor stormy." We take the extract from a 
 very old Gaelic tale, the Bruden da Derga^ of great pathos 
 and beauty, which has been translated by Whitley Stokes, our 
 greatest Gaelic scholar, with his usual admirable feUcity. The 
 reavers who killed the King were a band of outlaws, led by his 
 
 • Ferguson has treated the subject in a spirited poem, Conary, which is 
 greatly admired by such a competent judge as Yates, " The best Irish poem of 
 any kind." 
 
 2 Joyce, Soc. Jr. II., 172. 
 
 ' Bruden da Derga (Stokes) Eer. Celt., xxii,, 18. 
 
88 EARLt IRISH HISTOfer. 
 
 foster brothers, the great grandsons of Donn Desa.the champion. 
 The King, though they were ''his brethren by the tie 
 of fosterage, for crimes that justly had demanded death, by 
 judgment mild sent them into banishment." After their 
 banishment they made league with Ingcel, son of the King of 
 Man, an outlaw like themselves, and in a marauding expedi- 
 tion for plunder in Bregia came upon the track of the King, 
 and followed him to the Hostel of Da Derga, which they 
 stormed, and there killed him. 
 
 It was probably the golden age we have described that 
 induced some writers to place the birth of Christ in the reign 
 of Conaire Mor. Others go further back, to the reign of 
 Fachtna Fathac. Keating places it in the twelfth year, and 
 the Four Masters in the eighth year of the reign of Chrim- 
 thann Nia Nair (a.m. 5,200). So we look in vain for the 
 certainty Tighernach is supposed to have found after the 
 time of Cimbaeth. Crimthann went on a famous expedition, 
 and wrote, as the legend goes, a poem of seventy-two lines 
 about it. It commences : " It was a good thing that I went 
 on that delightful adventure."* He was accompanied by his 
 fairy lover (tenneilti fi'oe) named Nair, whence he was 
 called Nair's hero (Hiat)). He brought back to his dun, on 
 the Hill of Howth, many things rare and valuable. We can 
 only mention a gilt chariot, a golden chessboard, inlaid with 
 a hundred transparent gems, the Cedach Crimthain, a beautiful 
 cloak, embroidered with gold, and two hounds, with a silver 
 chain between them which was worth a hundred cumhals. 
 
 The war of the Tain was followed by the rising of the 
 Firvolce. This revolt should rather, perhaps, be considered 
 as part of the struggle. The accounts that have reached us 
 are confused. The Four Masters speak of two risings, owing 
 probably, as frequently occurs, to the existence of two accounts 
 of the same series of events.^ We shall assume that there was 
 only one rising, followed by an intermittent struggle — a rising 
 of the Firvolce, aided certainly by the Clanna Rury, and not 
 improbably by other foes of the Eremonians. 
 
 The leader of the revolution was Cairbre Cinnceat.® He was, 
 
 * IDA 130 COT) A eAccjiA Ti-Ati. — ^Fortunate I went on that journey. 
 
 " Tighernach has only one entry — " Cairpri CSndcait, 5 years till he died." 
 
 * CAitipt>e Cinn ceAC, CAitiptte cenn Cac \^M^$e aji if dAc \io Ait e T bA 
 cetiti fonim e. — Irische Text, Vol. Ill, 386. 
 
FINN MAC CUMHAIL. 89 
 
 the Coir anmann tells us, "called CinnCeat, that is head of t?io 
 
 Gat-raige, since it was they reared him, and he was head over 
 
 them." Others say that he was of the Luaigni of Tara, and 
 
 that his genealogical origin was of the Firvolce, whereof the 
 
 Poet said : 
 
 Cairbre of the Firvolce without treachery, 
 The warrior of the Luaigni of Tara, 
 The name of his mastership without doubt 
 He got from the Cathraigi of Connact. 
 
 Another account was that the shape of a cat was on his shield, 
 and Eocaid Ua Floinn said he was with two cats' ears, and a 
 cat's fur between them. There were no cats, tame or wild, in 
 Erin at the time of this Revolution,^ and the men of Erin 
 nowadays, whether friends or foes, would not be likely to call 
 a popular leader a kangaroo. 
 
 There is a legend written in the Book of Leinster, in very 
 old Gaelic, commencing : 
 
 " Who were the three persons who spake immediately after their 
 birth, and what did they say 1 Morann was the son of Cairpri Cind- 
 cait. It was from this he was called it, because by this Cairpri were 
 killed the ' soerclann that were in Erin, for he was of the Aiteach Tuatha 
 of Erin, and he took the Kingship of Erin by force, and 'twas bad in 
 his reign, for there used to be only one grain on every ear, and one 
 berry on the head of every stalk, and one acorn on the top of the oak 
 in his time."8 
 
 This, we think, must mean that he was called the head of the 
 XLMAtA CAc, because he was the successful leader of the re- 
 bellion of the Firvolce. The " Cath," or Cathraige were, as we 
 have mentioned in our first chapter, a numerous people extend- 
 ing from Inis-Scattery (Imr CAcjwise),* in the mouth of the 
 
 ' HamUton, B. The Wild Cat of Europe, 76 (1896). 
 
 'moiiAnt), immoiio, mAC CAiftpue cetro caic iji tje x^o tAbt^AfCAft [feTje .i. 
 t<o mA)ibcA teif in] CofPlie hy\im ceo x°^^ cLathto fio boi in h-efin, aji ba ■oi 
 AceccuACAib b-eiienn -oo, ocuf 110 gAb -pise tia b-efienn Afi eceti oc«r l^op o^-c 
 A tiige Afi ni biT) Acc oen 5|iAitine 1 cin-o cecA 'oefi T oen Tjificu a ccint) nA 
 cuften-De "j oen -oiiicvi im mtittAc nA •oaiiac in A t<e. — Ii.L., p. 126b. 
 
 Jf.B. — The words in brackets are omitted through inadvertence in the 
 lithograph facsimile of the Book of Leinster, which makes the passage there 
 unintelligible. 
 
 9 Soattery Inis is always written 1nif Cacaij ; but in the spoken lan- 
 guage was, no doubt, called innif CACtiAige, ex quo, Scattery. "The 
 Western Isles, were variously called Eileanna Bride, Hebrid, etc., and anciently 
 ' Iniscead,' ' innis Cat,' Isle of the Cat, Isle of the Catey. Probably the Catey 
 were the people who gave the name ' cataibh,' oat county, to Sutherland, and 
 Cat-inis, Cat-Ness, Caithness," — A. Carmichael, Carmena Gaedelica, Vol. I., 
 Introduction, p. I. 
 
90 EARLY lElSH HISTOEY. 
 
 Shannon to the Hebrides, Intir/ cac, and thence northwards 
 to Caithness. The word Cathraige is not in any way connected 
 with Aitheach Tuatha, as is sometimes assumed. The word 
 " athi " is glossed " usura," and is defined by Atkinson in his 
 valuable glossary to the Brehon Law Tracts, to mean " a return 
 for anything, retribution." So in the common phrase, d'aithea 
 indligid air," to avenge his illegality on him.^" We suggest 
 that the Aitheach Tuatha were the tribes who, after their defeat^ 
 were made subject to a punitive rent, or tribute, and thus dis- 
 tinguished from " Saor Clanna," who were free from it. 
 
 The rising began with a massacre, it is said, which was 
 treacherously planned and carried out at a banquet. Accord- 
 ing to some accounts an arrangement was come to by which an 
 Eremonian became High King, and Morann, the son of Cairbre, 
 Chief Justice. This was at the instance of the " very intelli- 
 gent " Morann, who sent to Alba the celebrated Udhact or 
 Will, for that purpose. He had a sin, or chain, called idh 
 Morainn which was a most useful adjunct in the administra- 
 tion of justice, the loss of which is to be deeply regretted. 
 When placed round the neck of a judge it almost choked 
 him if he was about to deliver a wrong judgment. It was 
 equally efiicient when placed around the neck of a witness who 
 was about to give false evidence. 
 
 Finally Elim, of the Clanna Rury, became High King, and 
 reigned for 20 years at Tara. In the meantime the legend 
 tells us three of the nobles had escaped from the first massacre 
 at Magh Cro, near Knockma, in Galway, all being then infants 
 in their mother's womb, to wit — Feradach, from whom des- 
 cended the race of Conn of the Hundred Battles ; Tibraide 
 Tirech, from whom descended the Dal-araide, and Corb Olum, 
 from whom descended the kings of the Eoghanacht in Munster ; 
 and from a second supposed massacre at Magh Bolg, in Cavan ; 
 escaped also Tuathal, in the womb of Eithne, daughter of the 
 king of Alba. In a.d. 76 Tuathal, called Teachtmar, or the 
 legitimate, having arrived at man's estate, returned and fought 
 for Tara a battle at Aicill, in which Elim was defeated and 
 
 1" Feredach proceeded to extirpate the Aitheach Tuatha, or to put thera 
 under great rent and servitude, to revenge upon them the evil deed they had 
 done in murdering the nobility of Eren." — O Clorigh, Leabhar Gabhala, p. 130, 
 quoted by O'Eonovan, F.M., L, 96. 
 
FINN MAC CUMHAIL. 91 
 
 slain. The Four Masters state that during the time of Elim 
 " God took vengeance on the Aitheach Tuatha for their evil 
 deed. Erin was without corn, without fruit, without fish, 
 without everything that was good." Tuathal took possession 
 of Tara and became High King and reigned for thirty years. 
 He exacted from the chiefs of the Gael the same oath they had 
 taken to Ugaine Mor. They swore by the sun and the moon, 
 and the elements visible and invisible, that as long as the sea 
 surrounded Erin they would never contest the sovereignty 
 with him or his descendants. He fought many battles, some 
 say 138, against the Aitheach Tuatha, and re-established and 
 enlarged the boundaries of the " boardland " attached to Tara. 
 Roughly speaking, it extended from Birr to L. Boderg, on the 
 Shannon, to the north, and then eastwards from these points 
 to the sea.^^ On Leinster he imposed the tribute known as 
 the boroma (or cow-tax). The particulars of this tax are 
 variously stated, but all accounts agree in representing it as 
 oppressive. The most moderate is to be found in the 
 "duan," attributed to Adamnan, when the tax was re- 
 mitted at the prayer of St. Moling, by Finnachta Fleadhach 
 {673-693). 
 
 " Finachta, Donncadh's son, remitted at Moling's prayer 
 a mighty tribute. Thrice fifty hundred kine, with spancels, 
 and with each cow her calf was given." ^^ The amount appears 
 quite incredible when we consider that Leinster did not then 
 include East Meath, Westmeath, Louth, or Longford, and only 
 the southern parts of Dublin and the King's County. Not- 
 withstanding this remission it was afterwards claimed, and 
 Brian, who fell at Glontarf (1014 a.d.), has left a name con- 
 nected with the levying of this odious impost. Innumerable 
 battles were fought on the head of the boroma for nearly 
 1,000 years, and it is stated that the High King shared the 
 proceeds of the tax with Connact, Munster, and Oirghiall, 
 possibly only when they joined in the hosting to lift the 
 boroma. 
 
 The rest of Erin was as it were in league against unfortunate 
 
 '^ For an interesting examination in detail of the names and particulars of 
 Meath and the boardland, as given by Keating, see " 'OefiAticeAct) tia tTlfoe." — 
 Gaelic Journal, Nov. 1900. 
 
 ^^ Keating (O'Mahony), p. 481. — The Ard Righ, however, had no power to 
 remit a cow rent, so as to bind his successors. He had only a life estate. 
 
92 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Leinster, which was, consequently, driven to make alliance 
 with the invader. A Leinster poet sings — 
 
 •* It is beyond the testimony of the Creator, 
 Beyond the word of supplicating Christ, 
 All the Kings of the Gael 
 That make attack on the Leinster men." 
 
 A silly story as to the origin of this tax is found in a mediae- 
 val romance known as the Boroma}^ Tuathal, so the story 
 runs, had two daughters, Fithir, the elder and Darina, the 
 younger. Eocaidh, the son of Eocaidh Doimhlen, King of 
 Leinster, who then resided near Lugnaquilla, in Wicklow, 
 visited Tara, and asked the elder sister in marriage, it not 
 being the custom to wed the younger before the elder in Erin 
 at that time. When he took home his bride, the Leinster men 
 told him the younger sister was better. So, after some time 
 he went back to Tara, a day's journey only from Lugnaquilla, 
 and said that his wife had died, and asked, and got in mar- 
 riage, the younger sister, Darina. After Eocaidh took her 
 home, the two sisters met, and the elder died of shame and 
 the younger of grief. For this war was declared, and the 
 tax imposed, and levied as an eric and a punishment. This 
 is a type of many absurd stories to be found in Keating, the 
 Dindsenchus, and the Coir Anmann. It is, of course, the old 
 story of Procne and Philomela. Pandion, King of Athens, their 
 father, gave Procne in marriage to Tereus, King of Daulis in 
 Thrace, in return for aid rendered him in war. Tereus, how- 
 ever, being enamoured of Philomela, feigned that Procne was 
 dead, and induced Philomela to take her place. When the 
 latter discovered the truth, he cut out her tongue to prevent 
 her from revealing it, but she depicted her sad story on a robe 
 which she sent to Procne, and both took a terrible revenge on 
 Tereus. Procne was changed by the pitying gods into a 
 swallow, and Philomela into a nightingale, and Pandion died 
 of grief. 
 
 One incident of this war of Hate connected with the Boroma 
 may be mentioned here. In A.D. 246 (F.M.), Dunlang, son of 
 
 13 " Boroma," T. O. Russell, preface. Boroma is translated into moderA 
 Gaelic by T. O'Eussell, and into English by W. Stokes, Eev. Celtique, vol. 
 xiii.<23. 
 
FINN MAC CtTMHAIL. 9S 
 
 Enna Niadh, King of Leinster, made a raid on Tara. Then 
 ensued the massacre of the maidens at the Cluainfearta (the 
 western slope of) Tara. Thirty Royal maidens was the 
 number, andahundred maids with each of them. Twelve princes 
 of the Leinster men did Cormac (MacArt) put to death to- 
 gether in revenge of that massacre, together with an exaction 
 of the Boroma, with an increase after Tuathal (F.M.) ^* 
 
 After a reign of 36 years, Tuathal was slain in the battle of 
 Moin an Catha in Dal-Araidhe, by Mai, of the Clanna Rury, 
 King of Ulster, who, thereupon, took possession of Tara, and 
 became High King, and reigned four years. He was suc- 
 ceeded by Feidlimid Reachtmhar, the son of Tuathal, and on 
 his death Cathaoir Mor, of Leinster, became High King. 
 Cathaoir was of the line of Eremon, and was descended from 
 Ugaine Mor, through Laoghaire Lore, in the thirtieth genera- 
 tion. The succession was, however, contested by Conn of the 
 Hundred Battles, son of Feidlimid Reachtmhar, who was also 
 descended from Ugaine Mor, through Cobthach Gail Breagh, 
 the elder brother of Laoghaire Lore. 
 
 A battle was fought between the rival claimants at Magh 
 Agha, or Tailtin, in which Cathaoir Mor was defeated and 
 slain, and Conn became High King. On the day of his birth, 
 say our texts, five roads were " discovered " leading from Tara. 
 The Slighe Midluachra, to the north, probably towards the 
 Moyry Pass ; the Slighe Cualann, to the south-east, towards 
 Dublin and Bray ; the Slighe Dala, to the south-west, towards 
 Ossory ; the Slighe Assail, to the west towards Mullingar ; and 
 the Slighe Mor, westwards, also by the Eiscir Riada, to Gal- 
 way. Conn was thus provided with highways to advance on 
 every side within striking distance of the foe. 
 
 One hundred fights in Mumha wide. 
 Conn Cead Catha, the just, had fought 
 One hundred 'gainst the Ulla brave, 
 And sixty fights 'gainst Laighen's sons. 
 
 At the accession of Conn (A.D. 123) there were three divi- 
 sions of the Gael in Munster — the Eberians (Dergthine), repre- 
 sented by Mogh Niad, the ruling king, who was the father of 
 
 " One is reminded of the massacre of the school children in Boeotia during 
 the Peloponesian war recorded by Thuoydides, which filled all Greece with 
 horror and indignation. 
 
94 EAELY lEISH HISTORY. 
 
 Eogan Mor the first, also called Mogb Nuadat ; the Ithians 
 (Darini), represented by Mac Niad, the father of Lugaid mac 
 Conn ; and the Erneans, an Eremonian ofifshoot from Ulster, 
 represented by Mogh Lamha and his son Conaire. Between 
 these divisions there was sometimes peace, but more fre- 
 quently war. An arrangement come to there between the 
 Eberians and the Ithians at one time deserves notice. When 
 the kingship was with one division then the Brehonship and 
 the Tanistship was with the other in alternate succession, so 
 that on the death of Mogh Niad, the Eberian king, the Ithian 
 Lugaid mac Conn, the son of Mac Niad,, would be entitled to 
 succeed him as king of Munster.^* 
 
 When the sovereignty was divided the Eberians held South 
 Munster, the Begadians North Munster. Curigh mac Dara 
 was king of the Degadians or Erneans. Mogh Lamha and Con- 
 aire, Conn's son-in-law, afterwards succeeded to Curigh. The 
 Darini were of the line of Lugaid, the son of Ith. 
 
 Eogan Mor had been fostered by Dari Barrach, the son of 
 Cathaoir Mor, and with his aid he engaged in a struggle with 
 Conn, which lasted many years, and having worsted him in 
 ten battles, they agreed to divide Erin between them, as we 
 have already stated, and though Eogan was routed and slain 
 at Magh Leana the Eberians from that time forth obtained the 
 dominant power in Munster.^'' Eogan Mor left one son, OlioU 
 Olum. 
 
 Conn had three sons, and also three daughters,'each of whom 
 became the wife or the mother of a H igh King. The eldest Main 
 was married to Fiacaid of Ulster. Her son Fergus Dubh- 
 dedach became Ard Kigh. Conn's second daughter Saraid mar- 
 ried Conaire. He became High King. His third daughter Sadb 
 (Sive) married, first, Mac Niad the Ithian, and her son Lugaid 
 
 "The Eberian line at this time ran thuar (1) Dergthine ; (2) Derg ; 
 (3) Mogh Niad ; (4) Eogan Mor I. or Mogh Nuadath ; (5) OlioU 01am ■ 
 (G] Eogan Mor II. Fiaoha Fermaraof the line of Eremon, sou of Aengus Tuir- 
 meoh (Ard Bigh, 384 B.C.> had a eon Olild Erann. His descendants were called 
 Erneans, though quite distinct from the Firvolcio tribe of that name. These 
 afterwards took the name of Dal Fiatach in Ulster, and a branch of thorn that 
 settled in Munster took the name of Clanna Degaid. The latter had been 
 driven from Ulster by the Clanna Rury when Duach was Ard Righ. Duach, of 
 the line of Eber, was the foster son of Degaid (the grandson of Olild Erann), 
 who was the chief of the Dal Fiatach. When they were expelled Duach gave 
 them lands in Munster and Degaid became king of Munster on Duach's death 
 and his clan were thenceforth called the Clanna Degaid. 
 
 "An. Clonmac. Murphy, S.J.. C8. 
 
FINN MAC CUMHAIL. 95 
 
 mac Conn became High King. On Mac Niad's death Sadb mar- 
 ried OlioU Olum. She bore him nine sons, of whom we need 
 only mention three — Eogan Mor, Cormac Cas, and Cian, The 
 position of the Eberians in Munster was strengthened and 
 secured by the marriage of OlioU with Conn's daughter, '' by 
 which means they {i.e., the Eberians in Munster) have gotten 
 themselves that selected and choice name much used by the 
 Irish poets at the time of their commendations and praises, 
 SaSAi-ott, which is as much in English as the issue of Sadb,'' 
 After the battle of Magh Leana, Conn, having slain or van= 
 quished his enemies, reigned peaceably and quietly, with great 
 increase and plenty of all good things amongst his subjects 
 throughout the kingdom, so that all in general had no wants 
 until the king's brothers sent privy message to Tibraide 
 Tireach, son of Mai, who was slain by Conn's father, whereupon 
 Tibraide, with a willing heart, came up to Tara accompanied 
 with certain other malefactors, assaulted the king unawares, 
 and wilfully killed him in the hundredth year of his age as 
 he was making preparations towards the great feast of Tara 
 (A.D. 173). He was succeeded by his son-in-law Conaire, who, 
 after reigning eight years, was slain by Neimid, king of the 
 Erneans of Munster. Saraid had borne Conaire three sons,, the 
 three Cairbres — Cairbre Muse. Cairbre Baoiscaein, and Cairbre 
 Riada. 
 
 Conn, 
 I ' 
 Alt, Conn la, Crina, three sons 
 and 
 Main = Kacaid, Saraid = Conaire, Sadb = (1st) Mao Niad, three daughterfl 
 I I 
 
 I I '~ I 
 
 Cairbre Muse, Lugaid mac Conn, 
 
 Cairbre Baoiaeaein, Sadb = (2nd) OlioU Olum 
 
 Cairbre Kiada I 
 
 Eogan Mor, Cormao Cas, Cian, 
 
 I I i 
 
 Fiacaid Maoil-lethan 1 Tadg, ex qao 
 
 Dal Ca». O'CarroUs of Ely. 
 
 O'Meaghers of Ikerron, 
 O'Cathasaigb of Magh 
 
 Breagh. 
 O'Connors of Glengiven, 
 Barony of Keeuaght, 
 
 Olioll Olum left the kingship of Munster to Cormac Cas, 
 and on his death to Fiacha Maoil-lethan, and then to their 
 descendants in alternate rule. The Dalriada of North Antrim 
 
96 EARLT IRISH HISTORY 
 
 and of Scotland, descended from Cairbre Riada, i.e., Tlicg |:at)A, 
 of the long forearm. Bede says ; — " The Scot or Gael under 
 the leadership of Beuda, proceeding from Hibernia, by the 
 sword or amicably, won for themselves a settlement amongst 
 the Picts." A second settlement of the DaMada was made 
 under the sons of Ere three hundred years afterwards. Argyle 
 is = Airer Gaeidheal — the district of the Gael, or Airthear 
 Gaedhil, the Eastern Gael, which we prefer. 
 
 A place may be found here for saying something about the 
 genealogy of the Gael, on which Hyde has a valuable and in- 
 teresting chapter in the " Literature " These pedigrees of the 
 Gael go back to one or other of the four sponymi — the uncle, 
 the two brothers, or the nephew. 
 
 Ths pedigrees of the Ithians seem to meet in Lugaid mac 
 Conn, the grandson of Conn, his mother being Sadb. 
 
 The Eberians converge on Oholl Olum and spring from 
 Eogan Mor, Cormac Cas, and Cian, the grandsons also of Conn, 
 their mother being Sadb. 
 
 In the line of Eremon are found pedigrees which meet con- 
 siderably before the Birth of Christ. The Dalriada of Alba 
 join the O'Neills as much as 430 years B.C., and the O'Cave- 
 naghs in a more remote period in the reign of Ugaine Mor 
 (630 B.C.). The main points of convergence, however, are in 
 Cairbre of the Liffey (258 A.D.) the great grandson of Conn, 
 and Niall of the Nine Hostages (379 A.D.) seventh in descent 
 from Conn. 
 
 The Irians converge on Conall Cearnach and Fergus Mac 
 Roigh, the heroes of the Red Branch, and were generally 
 called the Clanna Rury, from Ruidhraighe, who was Ard 
 Righ 288 B.C. Subject to reservations for interpolations and 
 such like infirmities in individual cases these pedigrees may 
 be taken as fairly authentic from the points of convergence 
 Indicated." 
 
 The truth or falsehood of these pedigrees is, however, of 
 little importance in comparison to the evil they did in con- 
 junction with other causes in keeping the people divided into 
 four clans or factions, attached to each of which were numerous 
 sub-divisions. The Gael remained a clansman when he ought 
 to have been a patriot, and Erin continued to be a " trembling 
 " See Hyde, " Literature," p. 60. 
 
^ FINN MAC CUMHAIL. 97 
 
 sod" when it ought to have become a homogeneous and har- 
 monious nation. 
 
 Of the three sons of Conn, Connld and Crinna were murdered 
 by their uncles, Eocaid Finn and Fiacaid Luighde ; and Art, 
 known as Aenfer [the Single One (left)], succeeded his father as 
 High King. In the twenty-first year of his reign (186) a great 
 battle was fought at Ceannfeabhrat, near Kilmallock, in Lime- 
 rick, between the Eremonians of Munster on the one side, and 
 the Darini (Ithian) and the Erneans on the other. The three 
 Cairbres and the sons of OlioU Olum led the former against 
 Neimid, son of Srobceann, King of the Erneans, and Lugaid 
 mac Conn, chief, and Dadera, wizard, of the Darini.^^ The 
 Eremonians were victorious. Eogan, the son of OlioU, slew 
 Dadera the wizard. Cairbre Riogfada slew Neimid in revenge 
 for his father, and Cairbre Muse wounded Lugaid mac Conn in 
 the thigh, so that he was lame ever afterwards. Lugaid fled 
 with his friends to Britain, and aided by the King of Britain 
 in the year 195 a.d. returned to Erin to claim the High 
 Kingship. He landed in Galway, and a fierce battle was fought 
 at Magh Mucrirmhe, near Athenry, about twelve miles east of 
 Galway. Victory declared for Lugaid. Art Aenfer was slain 
 by Lugaid Laga, and seven of the sons of OlioU Olum fell 
 fighting. Lugaid then marched to Tara and took possession 
 of the High Kingship, which he held for thirty years, when 
 he fell by the spear of an assassin. 
 
 Towards the close of his reign Cormac mac Art, the grand- 
 son of Conn, disputed his right and drove him from Tara. On 
 the death of Lugaid mac Conn, he was succeeded by Fergus " of 
 the Black Teeth" (226). Cormac then fought a decisive 
 battle at Crinna, near Stackallen Bridge, on the Boyne. Fer- 
 gus and his two brothers, Fergus the Long-haired and Fergus 
 the Fiery of the Crooked Teeth, fell by the hand of the re- 
 nowned champion Lugaid Laga, the brother of OlioU Olum. 
 Cormac was also assisted by the forces of Tadg, the son of Cian, 
 the son of OHoU Olum, who then ruled in Ely. 
 
 Cormac rewarded the followers of Tadg (the Cianachta) with 
 the fertile lands lying between the Liffey and Dromiskin in 
 Louth. He reigned for forty years and fought as many battles 
 
 1' The Four Masters have ■o\ia\ "DAjiine, the druid or wizard of the Darini. 
 Tighernach has ■o|ioc1i TJAi^ne, Darini's buffoon. Stokes, Eev. Celt., xvii. i. 
 
 H 
 
98 EARLY lEISH HISTOEY. 
 
 as his grandfather Conn, in Ulster, Connacht, Munster, and 
 Leinster. Tighernach mentions " the great fleet of Cormac, 
 son of Art, over the sea plain for the space of three years." 
 So we may infer that his warlike operations were not confined 
 to his own country. ^^ A celebrated event of this time was the 
 blinding of Cormac by Aengus Gaibuaibteach. The oldest 
 version of the story is to be read in the introduction to the 
 Book of Aicill. Cellach, the king's son, had abducted the 
 daughter of Sorar, who was a kinsman of Aengus. Aengus 
 went afterwards as champion of his territory to avenge a tribal 
 wrong into Luighne, Sligo. He entered a woman's house 
 there and drank the milk in spite of her. " 'Twould be fitter 
 for you," said she, " to avenge the daughter of Sorar your kins- 
 man on Cellach than to take my victuals by force." No book 
 mentions that he did any harm to the woman, but he fared 
 forth to Tara, which he reached after sunset. Now it was a 
 " geis " to bring a warrior's arms into Tara after sunset in 
 addition to the arms in it. So Aengus took the ornamental 
 spear of Cormac down from the rack and made a stroke of it 
 at Cellach and killed him. And the edge of it grazed one of 
 Cormac's eyes and destroyed it. Now it was a " geis " for a 
 king with a blemish to be at Tara, so Cormac was sent to 
 Aicill, hard by, to be cured, and the kingship was given to his 
 son Cairbre-Liffechair, and in every difficult case he used to go 
 to consult Cormac, and Cormac used to say, " My son, that thou 
 mayest know," and explain the exemptions. In this way, it 
 is said, the Book of Aicill on crimes and torts was mainly com- 
 posed, to which we shall refer hereafter, as well as to his court 
 at Tara. Legend also says that he composed for the instruc- 
 tion of Cairbre the " Teaching of a King " (CeAgArs Uioj), 
 " which book contains as goodly precepts and moral documents 
 IS Aristotle and Cato did ever write." The instruction is by 
 way of question and answer. For instance, Cairbre asks him, 
 " grandson of Conn, how shall I distinguish the character 
 
 ^' The migrations and out settlements of the Gael in Erin in Christian times 
 are very remarkable. The descendants of Cian, the third son of OlioU Olum, 
 for instance, ooonpied Ely (South King's County and North Tipperary); 
 Ciannaohta Breagh, above-mentioned ; the tribeland of the O'Conor's at Glen- 
 given in Londonderry ; the two Galengas in Meath and Connacht ; and the two 
 Luighues— Lune in Meath and Layny in Sligo. 
 
FINN MAC CTTMHAIL. 99 
 
 of women ? " * "I know them," answers Cormac, " But I cannot 
 describe them. Their counsel is foolish, they are forgetful 
 of love, most headstrong in their desires, fond of folly, prone 
 to enter rashly into engagements, given to swearing, proud to 
 be asked in marriage, tenacious of enmity, cheerless at the 
 banquet, rejectors of reconciliation, prone to strife, of much 
 garrulity. Until evil be good, until hell be heaven, until the 
 sun hides its light, until the stars of heaven fall, women will 
 remain as we have stated. Woe to him, my son, who desires 
 or serves a bad woman. Woe to everyone who has got a bad 
 wife." ^^ Cormac also collected, the legend says, the chroniclers 
 of Erin at Tara, and ordered them to write the Chronicles of 
 Erin in one book, which was called the Psaltair of Tara. In 
 that book were written the general exploits of the kings of 
 Erin and of the synchronous kings and emperors of the world, 
 and of the kings of the provinces, etc. There is a Psaltair of 
 Tara, which is referred to by Cuan O Lochain ( + 1024) and has 
 perished injuria temporis, but it was not compiled in Cormac's 
 time, as OghaTn, was the only writing then known and used. 
 The year after he was wounded he died at Cleiteach, near 
 AiciU, on the Boyne. " The bone of a salmon stuck in his 
 throat ; or it was the elves that destroyed him after he was 
 betrayed by Moelceann, the wizard, since Cormac did not be- 
 lieve in him." ^ 
 
 In the time of Cormac flourished Finn MacCumhall,^ 
 (MacCool) the most renowned of the Gael in legend and 
 romance with the exception of Cuchulainn. The story of 
 Finn's parentage is told in a tale entitled " The Cause of the 
 Battle of Cnucha." In order to give our readers an idea of 
 the austere simplicity of its style, as well as for the interesting 
 
 a> Ann. Law. III. 82. 
 
 21 Our fair readers will readily perceive that this acrid etfusion proceeded 
 from one who had no real knowledge of the " ministering augel," and could not 
 haye been the teaching of a wise and experienced monarch like Cormac. We 
 should attribute it to some sour old monk who had disappointments in early life, 
 and was run down in condition towards the end of Lent. 
 
 ^Tighernaoh, Rev. Celt., XTii.-20. 
 
 ^■piAiin, genitive, peine, a noun of multitude. Fianna were bands of 
 Eulitis. Fennidhe was the individual Fenian, and is not connected with Finn. 
 
100 EABLT IBISH HISTOKT. 
 
 views of society it presents, we shall give it slightly 
 abridged in a literal translation of the original : — 
 
 When Cathaoir Mor was in the kingship of Tara, and Conn Ced 
 Cathaoh, in Kells, in the rigdamna's land," he had a celebrated wizard, 
 Nuada, of the Tuatha Dathi, in Bregia. The wisard was soliciting 
 land at Leinster, from Cathaoir, for he knew that it was in Leinster 
 his successorship would be. Cathaoir gave him his choice of land. 
 The land the wizard chose was Almu (the Hill of Allen in KUdare). 
 She that was wife to Nuada was Almu, daughter of Becan. Nuada 
 had a distinguished son, to wit, Tadg. Rairin, daughter of Dond- 
 duma, was his wife. A celebrated wizard also was Tadg. Death 
 came to Nuada ; and he left his dun as it was to his son, and it is 
 Tadg that was wizard to Cathaoir in the place of his father. Rairin 
 bore a daughter to Tadg, i.e., Murni Muncaim (of the fair neck) her 
 name. The maiden grew up in great beauty, so that the sons of the 
 kings and mighty lords of Erin were wont to be courting her. Cumal, 
 son of Treimior, commander of the Fianna of Erin, was Conn's 
 righthand man. He was also, like everyone else, asking for the 
 maiden. [Tadg, the son of] Nuada, gave him a refusal, for he knew 
 that it was on accoimt of him (Cumal) that he would have to leave 
 Almu. The same woman was mother to Cumal and to Conn's father, 
 to wit, Feidlimid Rechtaide. 
 
 Cumal comes, however, and takes Murni in spite of him, in elope- 
 ment with him, since she was not given to him before. Tadg comes to 
 Conn, and tells him how he has been outraged by Cumal, and began to 
 stir him up, and to reproach him. Conn sends word to Cumal, and 
 tells him to quit Erin or give the girl back to Tadg. Cumal said that 
 he would not give her ; that he would give anything if it was not the 
 woman. Conn sent his soldiers, and Uigrend, the King of Ludigni, 
 and Daire Dero, and his son Aed, who was afterwards called GoU, to 
 attack Cumal. Cumal musters his forces against them, and the battle 
 of Cnucha is fought between them, and Cumal is slain in it, and his 
 people are slaughtered. Cumal fell by Goll, the son of Morna. 
 Luchet wounded Goll in the eye, so that he destroyed his eye, and 
 hence it is that " Goll " (blind of one eye) attached to him. Goll 
 killed Luchet. It is for that reason, moreover, that the blood feud 
 (fich bunaid) was between the sons of Morna and Finn. Daire (Derc) 
 had two names, Daire and Morna. Murni went after that to Conn, 
 since her father rejected her, and did not let her come to him because 
 she was pregnant ; and he said to his people to burn her, and yet he 
 dare not destroy her for fear of Conn.^. The girl was asking Conn 
 
 ^ Rigdamna means royal material, the persons eligible for kingship. Here 
 it probably means Tanist, who had a separate establishment at Kells. 
 
 ^"Hennessy cites from L.L. : — " Ba bes itossaig nach ingen dognid bals dar 
 cenna umaidm do breothad." It was the custom at first to burn any woman 
 who did lust in violation of her compact. This was the law with the Teutons 
 also. 
 
 Kurni's father, in his anger, evidently thought that she was a consenting 
 party to the abduction. 
 
FIKK MAC CtTMHAIt. 101 
 
 what she would do. Said Conn, " Go to Fiacal, the son of Concend, to 
 Temair Marci, and let thy delivery be there (for Cumal's sister was 
 Piaoal's wife)." Connla, Conn's gillie, went with her to protect her 
 until they came to Fiaoal's house. Welcome was given to her there, 
 and 'twas a good thing she came. She was brought to bed there, and 
 bore a son, and Demni was given as a name to him. The boy was 
 reared by them after, until he was able to spoil everyone that was a 
 foe to him. He then proclaimed battle or single combat against 
 Tadg, or that full eric for his father be given to him. Tadg said he 
 woiild give him an award (of judges). The award was given, and this 
 is the award that was given to him, to wit, that Almu should be ceded 
 to him, for ever, and Tadg to leave it. It was done so. Finn went 
 afterwards to Almu, and lived there, and the dun was his home (arus 
 bunaid) while he lived.^. 
 
 Finn had another " dun " at Magh Ella (Moyelly), in the 
 King's County.^ 
 
 After the Gail^dm of Leinster had been placed under tribute 
 by Tuathal, as we have stated, the Eremonians became masters 
 of the province. The chief families of Leinster — O'Connor 
 Falghi, O'Cavanagh, 0' Toole, O'Byrne, Mac Gilla Patrick, 
 O'Dun, O'Dempsey, O'Dwyer, O'Ryan, and all the septs that 
 trace their origin to them — were descended from Labraid 
 Loingseach. The O'Nolans were descended from his brother 
 Cobthach. All these Eremonians could not have been intro- 
 duced without displacing and ousting the old occupiers out of 
 most, if not all, of their territory, and this could not have been 
 accomplished without a numerous and well organised militia. 
 
 ^ Fotha Catha Cnuoha, Castleknook, near Dublin (tebAfi ha liui-oiie, p. 47) 
 Rsvue Cettique II., 86, and translation by Hennessy, which we have generally 
 followed. 
 
 ^ There are two hills in Kildare with similar names. One is Knoekaillinn 
 (Ctioc Aill/eAfin), so called, it is supposed, from the ail or stone, which was 
 placed on the mound of the rath. It is five or six miles south of Newbridge, in 
 Kildare ; is 600 feet high, and on its summit is the largest of the Irish raths. 
 The top of the hill is surrounded by a mighty rampart of earth, 400 yards in 
 diameter, that encloses over twenty acres. Some think it was on this hUl that 
 Finn's dun was situated. About eight or nine miles north of this, and five miles 
 north of Kildare, is another hill — the Hill of Allen (Cnoc AtmAme, nom. case, 
 Atriiu or Atriid. On this hill there are no traces of any dun or rampart, and 
 the top is only half an acre in extent. Both occur in a line quoted by Four 
 Masters, A D., 904. tiAc tiomfA Ctioc AtmAine Aguf AitteAnn cen occa — 
 Sorrowful to me the hills of Almhuin (Allen) and AiUeann without soldiers. 
 Russell, in his interesting article on Knock AilUnn, suggests that the two hills, 
 AiUinn and Almhuin, got confounded at an early period. — Finn's " Dun " was 
 known from far back times as Almhuin Riogha, lethan, mor Laighean — The 
 kingly, great, broad Allen of Leinster. — Russell, T. O. " Beauties and Antiquities 
 of Ireland."— p. 116, 
 
10^ EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 It was probably accomplished gradually and on the same con- 
 ditions as the plantation of the Eremonians in Connacht was 
 effected. The new settlers in Connacht, we are told in the 
 Book of Eights, went under the same rent or tribute that was 
 payable by their predecessors in occupation, and we have seen 
 that Cormac, after the massacre of the maidens at Tara, exacted 
 the " boroma " with an increase.^ 
 
 This militia was called Fiann or Fianna, and it was pro- 
 bably by their aid that Cathaoir Mor took possession of Tara and 
 the High Kingship. In 122 B.C. Cathaoir was slain by Conn^ 
 and Crimthann, the son of Niadcort, was placed by him in the 
 chieftaincy of Leinster to the exclusion of the line of Cathaoir, 
 to which Baoisgne, who then commanded the Fianna, belonged. 
 They were called the Clanna Baoisgne. Cumhal, the grandson 
 of Baoisgne, determined, at the head of the Fianna, to restore 
 the race of Cathaoir to power. He formed an alliance with the 
 men of Munster and gave battle to Conn at Cnucha, where 
 he was slain by GoU mac Morna, commander of Fianna of 
 Connacht — the Clanna Morna — and his army utterly routed, as 
 the tale relates. When Finn grew up, he also, like Baoisgne 
 and Cumhal, became commander of the Clanna Baoisgne, and 
 '' there was strife and variance between him and Cormac." 
 They made up their quarrel, apparently, and Cormac gave 
 Finn his daughter Grainne in marriage, and the first part of 
 his nuptial reign was peaceful. War, however, soon broke out 
 between Finn and Grainne. According to the story told in 
 an old text, " When Finn went to woo Grainne she told him 
 she would take no bride-price from him but a pair of every wild 
 animal in Erin, to be given to her in one drive until they were 
 at the north of Tara." Caoilte of the Swift Foot accomplished 
 this. Grainne then married Finn, but retained her hatred of 
 him. 
 
 She had, however, already fixed her love on Diarmuid 
 O'Duibhne, of the curly, dusky black hair, with the love spot 
 (OAtt reit^Ce) that no heart could resist. In the gloss on the 
 
 ^ Book of Rights. — "The Hy Maine were permitted by Duaoh, King of 
 Connacht, to subdue the Firvoloe, who paid the tribute of an enslaved people. 
 The former, therefore, were obliged to pay the same tribute, though they were 
 considered noble as being of the race of Conn of the Hundred Battles." — O'D. 
 Maini, chief of the new Plantation, was the fourth in descent from CoUa da Crioch. 
 teAbAi<nA ^Ce^^z.—O' Donovan, p. 106. 
 
FINN MAC CtJMHAlL. 103 
 
 Amra Columcille Grainne is quoted as saying, referring, no 
 doubt, to Diarmuid : — 
 
 There is a man 
 For a long look from whom I would be thankful, 
 For whom I would give the whole world, 
 The whole, the whole, though it be deception.™ 
 
 Sh« eloped with Diarmuid, and the pursuit of Diarmuid 
 and Grainne by Finn, is the most famous and popular romance 
 in the Ossianic cycle of our literature. 
 
 The statements contained in Keating as to the organization 
 of the Fianna of Erin are unsupported by trustworthy evidence, 
 and are in a large part incredible. They were presumably 
 derived from romance writers of the Ossianic cycle or from 
 traditions which were probably derived from the same source. 
 We find in the Egerton MS., a volume of the fifteenth century 
 in the British museum, edited and translated by S. H. O'Grady 
 in the " Silva," an enumeration and description of Finn's people. 
 "Their strength was 130 warriors, each having 27 warriors, every 
 one bound, as was the way with Cuchulainn, to conditions 
 which were that they should not accept damages for an insult, 
 should not refuse anyone money or food, and one man should 
 not fly from nine foes." 
 
 No eric was to be given or taken where a Fennidhe was 
 concerned. No man was to be taken until he was a prime poet, 
 vMsed in the twelve books of poetry 1 No man was taken 
 
 "" ocuf SHAtitie cecitiic.'' 
 pit T>«itie 
 
 ■pt^r mAX) bui'oe temtn ■oiu'oenc 
 A-jiA cibtiitiTJ iti mbic ti'huiLe, 
 n'liiJite, fi'hmte cfo ■oiubettc 
 The text edited by Dr. Stokes gives tlie last line thus : — 
 
 " A meic iDAine, cit) ■oiubetic," which he renders ; 
 " O, Son of Mary, though it be a privation." 
 We think the " Son of Mary," is the exclamation of a horrified monk, 
 which crept from the margin into the text. Grainne had not heard of the " Son 
 of Mary.'^ 
 
 Dr. Stokes renders ■ombefic, privation. It may mean also deception or 
 fraad. See Windisch, sub-voce. Some of the texts, e.g., that given by Kuuo 
 Meyer, have -uc -oicic gtiAinne pt"' 'Piotiti, instead of cecitiic. This must mean, 
 we think, not said to Fionn as he renders it, but against Fionn. This is the 
 oldest reference to Diarmuid and Grainne in our texts. The oldest text of the 
 tale, according to M. D'Arbois, is of the date 1736. The redaction of S. H. 
 O'Grady is partly from a text of 1780 and partly from one of 1842-3. 
 
 " Amra Choluimbchille," ed. W. Stokes, Rev. Celt., 20 p, 156. 
 
104 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 until in the ground a large hole was made, and he was put 
 into it with a shield and a forearm length of a hazel stick. 
 Then nine men at nine furrows distance were to hurl at the 
 same time two spears at him. If he was wounded he was 
 rejected and so forth ! The man who had the Fianna with 
 him was the seventh King of Erin. The privileges of Finn 
 are described in another tract (cited in Oss. Soc. Trans, vol. 1, 
 p. 43). He was entitled to a cantred in every province, a town- 
 land in every cantred, and a house in every townland, and to 
 have a hound reared in any house. He was entitled to quar- 
 ter the seven battalions on the country, from Samhaim to 
 Bealtaine (November to May), and they were to enjoy hunt- 
 ing and fishing, and to use all ripe and edible fruits from 
 Bealtaine to Samhain. No one was to dare to give his daughter 
 in marriage without asking three times if there was a Fennidhe 
 ready to marry her, and if there was to him should she be given. 
 No person could take a salmon, a fawn, or any smaller game, 
 even if he found them dead, unless one of the Fianna.*" These 
 are, as Nutt observes, " fancy pictures traced by bards whose 
 vision of the distant past was undisturbed by any real know- 
 ledge." ^1 Keating gives the following interesting particulars, 
 handed down by tradition to his time (c. 1644) : — " During the 
 whole day, that is from morning till night, they ate but one 
 meal, of which they were wont to partake towards evening. 
 About noon it was their custom to send whatever game they 
 had killed in the morning by their attendants to some ap- 
 pointed hill where there should be a convenience of wood and 
 moorland. There they used to light immense fires, into which 
 they put a large quantity of round sandstones. They next 
 dug two pits in the yellow clay of the moor, and, having set 
 part of the venison upon the spits to be roasted before the fire, 
 they bound up the remainder with sw^ciTi-s in bundles of sedge, 
 which they placed to be cooked in one of the pits they had 
 previously dug. There they set round them the stones 
 that had been heated in the fire, and kept heaping them on 
 the bundles of meat until they had made them seethe freely, 
 and the meat had been thoroughly cooked." In the evening 
 the Fianna used to gather round the second of the pits, " and 
 
 '" Coift'SeAcr SATJb ifisean eogAm Oaij. — Oss. Soo., vol. i., p. 41. 
 '^ Ossian and the Oesianic literature, p. 35. 
 
FINN MAC CUMHAIL. 105 
 
 there every man stripped himself to his skin, tied his tunic 
 round his waist, and then set to dressing his hair and cleansing 
 his limbs. They then began to supple their thews and muscles 
 by gentle exercise, loosening them by friction until they had 
 relieved themselves from all sense of stiifness and fatigue. 
 When they had accomplished this they sat down and ate their 
 meal." Their beds were of brushwood, laid next to the ground, 
 over this was laid moss, and fresh rushes were spread on top. 
 These were the Three beddings of the Fiann, " Tri Cuillcedha 
 na Fiann." Every Fennidhe took a military oath on his arms 
 of valour to the ri-Feinnedh, or commander, before whom was 
 borne to battle the standard known as " Gal greine," or sun- 
 burst. ^^ 
 
 Finn was assassinated by Aichleach and the sons of Uir- 
 greann, of the Luigni of Tara, at Ath Brea, on the Boyne where 
 he had retired in his old age to pass the remainder of his life in 
 tranquility. It was by the aid of the Luigni, of Tara, that Conn 
 defeated Cathaoir Mor, who was supported by the Clanna 
 Baoisgne, and the murder of Finn was, doubtless, an incident 
 in the blood feud which revived in all its bitterness when 
 Cormac's daughter dishonoured and betrayed the King of the 
 Fianna. Finn left amongst other children a daughter Sam- 
 hair, married to Cormac Cas, King of Munster, to whom she 
 bore Mogh Corb, his successor. This union cemented an old 
 alliance between the Clanna Baoisgne and the men of Munster. 
 Finn left also a son, Oisin, who succeeded him in the leader- 
 ship of the Fianna of Leinster. They were in favour of the 
 claims of the lineal descendants of Cathaoir Mor and opposed 
 to the dynasty reigning in that province. Cairbre Liffechair 
 becameArd Righ in A.D. 268, and supported the reigning King. 
 In 271 he fought three battles against the men of Munster in 
 defence of the rights of Leinster ; in 272 he fought four battles 
 against the men of Munster in defence of the rights of Leinster. 
 Cairbre was defending the rights of the monarch in opposition 
 to the rival claims of the line of Cathaoir Mor, aided by the 
 men of Munster. 
 
 In the year after the death of Finn (284 A.D.) the decisive 
 battle was fought at Gabra (Gowra), near the hiU of Skreen, 
 
 32 Keating (OTMahony), p. 346, and Oss. Soo. vols., p. 41. 
 
106 EAKLT IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 which is close to Tara. Oisin commanded the Clanna Baoisgne, 
 and the Munster men fought under their King, Mogh Corb. 
 The allied forces took the offensive boldly. The attack was, 
 no doubt, sudden. It was an effort to succeed by surprise, a 
 counter-stroke in defensive warfare, which, if successful, would 
 have made them masters of Tara and of the High Kingship. 
 The men of Erin were led by Cairbre. It was the duty of 
 the High King of the Gael not only to command in person, 
 but to fight in the forefront of the battle, which, no doubt, ex- 
 plains why so many Kings perished by the sword. He was 
 aided by the Clanna Morna, who were commanded by Aed 
 Caem, the son oi Garaidh Glunduff, the son of GoU Mac Morna, 
 and the last Firvolcic King of Connact. According to one 
 account, Cairbre and Oscar, the son of Oisin, met in single 
 combat, fighting on horseback, and Oscar fell to the spear ol 
 Cairbre, who, in turn, received from Oscar a mortal wound 
 from which he soon expired. Another version is that, return- 
 ing victorious and wounded after the fight with Oscar, he was 
 set on by Simeon, one of the Fotharthaigh, who had been 
 expelled into Leinster, and despatched with a single blow. 
 The carnage on both sides was terrible. Before the monarch 
 fell, a poem in the Book of Leinster says, the dead were more 
 numerous than the living on the field ; and in after times. 
 poetic tradition had it that Oisin and Caoilte alone survived 
 of the famous Fianna of Leinster, and lived until the coming 
 of St. Patrick. He met them in their old age, and his conver- 
 sation with them, the Agallamh na Senorach [The Talk with 
 the Old Men] is the longest and most interesting tale in 
 the Ossianic Cycle.^ 
 
 " Irische Texte, III, 141, and Silva Gaedelioa. 
 
[ 107 J 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 GLASTONBURY OF THE GAEL. 
 
 AFTER the battle of Gabhra (284), the most important event 
 was the invasion of Ulster by the three Collas. Three 
 hundred years had now elapsed since the T^in, and during 
 that time the power of the Clanna Rury had been declining, 
 and the hour was now approaching when they would be obliged 
 to fight, not for conquest, but for defending their capital. 
 
 Cairbre Liffechair had two sons, Fiacha Sraibtaine and 
 Eocaid Doimhlen. Fiacha succeeded him, but whether he 
 was the elder son or not we cannot say. Eocaid Doimhlen 
 left three sons, CoUa Uais the Noble, Colla Meann the Stam- 
 merer, and Colla da Crioch. After Fiacha had held the 
 sovereignty for thirty-seven years, the Collas rose in rebellion 
 igainst him, and slew him at the battle of Dubhcomar, near 
 the confluence of the Boyne and the Blackwater (322 A.D.) 
 Colla Uais then became High King, and reigned four years, 
 when he was dethroned and expelled from the Kingdom into 
 Alba, by Tireach, the son of Fiacha Sraibtaine, who then as- 
 cended the throne ; shortly afterwards Muiredach and his 
 cousins made up their quarrel, and the Collas returned from Alba. 
 A large army was mustered for the invasion of Ulster, com- 
 posed of the forces of the High King, of the King of Connacht, 
 and of a body of soldiers from Alba. A fierce battle was fought 
 (332 A.D.) at Carn-acha-leath-dheirg, near Carrickmacross, in 
 Famey, and the three Collas, having routed the men of Ulster, 
 " seized Emania and burned it, and the Ulstermen did not 
 dwell there since." Fergus Fogha, the King, was slain, and 
 the Clanna Rury driven eastward into little Ulster — Ulidia^ 
 the present counties of Down and Antrim. The western 
 boundary of Little Ulster was the course of the Lower Bann, 
 Lough Neagh, and Gleann Righe, now the valley of the Newry 
 River. Through this valley the Ulidians constructed a great 
 rampart, now commonly called the " Dane's Cast." It extends 
 from Lisgoole, near Scarva, in Down, to near Meigh and Slieve 
 
108 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Gullion, in Armagh, a distance, as the " Cast " runs, of over 
 twenty miles. This earthwork, which consisted of a fosse or 
 ditch, and a rampart on either side, was not in one continuous 
 line, but in separate sections, that stretched from 
 one sheet of water, or one morass, to another, and may be 
 roughly described as running parallel to the Newry Canal 
 and the Great Northern Eailway in that place. The line 
 of the fosse and rampart can still be traced at various points 
 for the whole distance. " At one point the fosse is still eight 
 feet deep, the width from top to top of the ramparts is forty 
 feet, and the height of the rampart, above the level of the 
 field, is four feet, and the width from out to out of the ram- 
 parts is fifty-four feet." It was supported by numerous forts 
 or raths on the east side. At the southern end the rampart 
 trended to the east. Here, at Fathom, there was a strong 
 rath or fort, which, with the earthwork, commanded the passes 
 from the South, the pass at Forkhill, and the famous Moyry 
 Pass. These are the passes which in olden times were defended 
 by Cuchulainn. The northern end was defended by an equally 
 strong fort at Lisnagoole.^ 
 
 The territory of the CoUas is said to have once extended 
 in the northern part of Ulster, from the Bann to Donegal, but 
 the portion efi'ectively occupied was comprised in Armagh, 
 Monaghan, and Louth, and was afterwards known as Oriel 
 (OipsiaUa). 
 
 This wall appears to have been a very effective defensive 
 work. Muiredach did not attempt to force the southern passes. 
 He fell in battle, fighting against the Ulidians, at Port Righe, 
 which was, probably, the ancient name of Benburb, on the 
 Blackwater. He was killed, says Tighernach, by Caelbhadh, 
 King of Ulad, chief of the Clanna Rury. Some say Caelbhadh 
 marched to Tara after his victory, and was saluted as King. 
 Tighernach, however, does not acknowledge him, or others who 
 are supposed to have enjoyed short reigns, to have been High 
 King at all. But his having been partially acknowledged 
 as such has its meaning in our history. It tells of a vigorous 
 effort made by the Irians to recover the territory from which 
 
 1 A detailed account of the " Great Wall of Ulidia," or " Dane's Cast," with S 
 Map, is given in the Ulster Journal of Aichajology, vol. III., pp. 29 and 66. 
 
GLASTONBURY OF THE GAEL. 109 
 
 by Muiredacli's aid they had recently been expelled by the 
 three CoUas. The year after his victory at Port Righe, 
 Caelbhadh was slain by Eocaid Muighmheadhon (Mweevaon), 
 the son of Muiredach. Eocaid was King of Connacht at that 
 time, and then reigned at Tara for eight years. He married 
 Mong Finn (of the fair hair), daughter of Fidach, as his " one 
 wife." She was sixth in descent from OilioU Olum, King of 
 Munster, and bore him four sons, who introduce us as it were 
 into modern history. They obtained the sovereignty of Con- 
 nacht, and from them the Kings and chiefs of that province 
 descended. Brian, the eldest, who is said to have left twenty- 
 four sons, was the ancestor of Hy Briuin, of Connacht, who are 
 not to be confounded with the O'Briens of Thomond, who 
 were Eberians of the family of Brian Boru, the son of Kennedy. 
 The Hy Briuin included the O'Connors of Connacht ; the 
 O'Rourkes of Breffney ; the O'Reillys of Cavan ; The MacDer- 
 mots, MacDonoughs, and O'Flaherties. 
 
 The second son was Fiachra, who occupied one territory in 
 the north of Connacht by the River Moy, now known as Tir- 
 reragh (Cit\ 'p^Acr\\\A), and another territory in the south of 
 Connacht, comprised within the present diocese of Kilmac- 
 duagh. It was known as Hy Fiachrach Aidhne. The 
 Northern branch included the powerful Clan of the O'Dowdas. 
 The Southern branch included the Ui Clerigh and the Ui Edhin 
 (O'Heine) descended from OiereacA^, Chieftain of the Ui Fiach- 
 rach of Aidhne, who was seventh in descent from Guairi Aidhne, 
 King of Connacht ; the Kilkellies ; and it included also the 
 O'Shaughnessys. The third son was Fergus, about whom we 
 do not find anything to mention. The fourth son was OilioU 
 from whom Tirerill in Sligo is named. In this way the occu- 
 pation of Connacht by the line of Eremon, supplemented as it 
 was somewhat later on, as we have mentioned, by the intro- 
 duction of the descendants of CoUa da Crioch into Hy Many, 
 was completely effected. The most famous of the sons of Eocaid 
 was not born in lawful wedlock. Niall of the Nine Hostages, 
 Eocaid's fifth son, was born to him from Carinna, a 
 
 2 Clereach had two sons, Maolfabhail, chieftain of Aidhne, c. 887, the elder 
 from whom are the «i Cte^nj, and Edhin, the second son, from whom the U\ 
 Edhin descend. Edhin's daughter, Mor, was the first wife of Brian Boru, to whom 
 she bore Murchadd, Concobar, and Flan, who were slain at Clontarf, — O'Donovan, 
 " Hy Fiachrach," 392, 398. 
 
110 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Saxon, during the lifetime of Mong Finn, his "one wife." 
 She was probably a captive, the aditionelle, of the Ard Righ, as 
 we have already stated, and may have been of noble birth, 
 like the ancilla of Xanthias the Phocean. Polygamy was not 
 known to the GaeL We are unable to accept the views of Dr. 
 Stokes,* who says : " But polygamy existed, and hence, Patrick, 
 like St. Paul, requires for the bishopric of Leinster a husband 
 of one wife (fir oen setche)." This, of course, refers not to two 
 wives at the same time, but to a man taking a second wife 
 after the death of his first wife. Such a man was ineligible 
 for episcopal orders. The injunction that the "twain" shall 
 be one flesh was rigorously applied in the case of orders, and 
 a man contracting a second marriage was regarded as carry- 
 ing part of the flesh of his first wife into the second nuptials, 
 and was classed as a " bigamist." It was for this reason that in 
 our statute a man " that hath married two wives or one widow " 
 was excluded from the benefit of the clergy, as this privilege 
 was originally confined to persons who being in the minor 
 might proceed to the higher orders of deacon, priest and 
 bishop. 
 
 It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that such a 
 connection as Carinna's was regarded as mere concubinage, ex- 
 cept by the lawful wife.* There was no distinction made 
 between the children whom we should classify as illegitimate 
 and the legitimate children as regards inheritance and suc- 
 cession, and Niall became in fact Ard Righ at Tara, and the 
 ancestor of nearly all the High Kings of Erin down to the 
 time of Brian Boru. Some thought that Carinna should be 
 called a Briton rather than a Saxon. O'Flaherty refers to 
 this, and says : — 
 
 Those who considered that the Saxons had not then come to Britain 
 think Carinna should be called a Briton instead of a Saxon in the 
 old muniments, relying on the hypothesis that she was sprung from 
 Britain, which the Saxons afterwards settled in. But there is ample 
 testimony that the Saxons about this very time, in conjunction with 
 the Picts and the Scots, made many raids into Britain long before they 
 had established fixed settlements there. 
 
 • Trip. Life, clxviii. 
 
 * Stephen, Criminal Law, I. 461 — Sir FitzJames Stephen calls it a strange rule. 
 He was eTidently not aware that bigamists as above defined, were ineligible for holy 
 orders. 
 
GLASTONBURY OF THE GAEL. Ill 
 
 He refers to Ammianus Marcellinus, and quotes lines from 
 Claudian contained in the following passage, whicli refers to 
 Theodosius the elder, the grandfather of the Emperor Honorius. 
 In 367 A.D. Theodosius the elder had repelled an invasion or 
 inroad of the Picts and Scots, who had penetrated as far as 
 the city, "which was anciently called London, but is now 
 known as Augusta." The passage is contained in the pane- 
 gyric on the 4th Consulship of Honorius, written in a.d. 
 398:— 
 
 Ille {i.e., Theodosius) Caledoniis posuit qui castra pruinis 
 Qui medios Libyse sub casside pertulit sestus 
 Terribilis Mauro, debellatorque Britanni 
 Litoris, ac pariter Borese vastator et Austri. 
 Quid rigor aeternus coeli, quid sidera prosunt 
 Ignotumque f return ? Maduerunt Saxone fuso 
 Orcades ; incaluit Pictorum sanguine Thule 
 Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis lerna.' 
 
 — De Quart Consul Honor 26-33. 
 
 As there is a conflict of modern opinion about Carinna, and 
 as the details we are about to give are useful in other ways, 
 we shall examine this point more fully. We have not found 
 it stated in any text before Keating that Carinna Cas-dubh 
 was a daughter of the King of Britain. O'Curry says she was 
 a Scottish Princess (M. & C. ii., 147), and Atkinson, in the 
 preface to the Book of Leinster, refers to her as a " Captive 
 Scottish Princess." The evidence before Keating, on the other 
 
 ' " He (i.e., Theodosms) pitched his camp amid CaledoniaD hoar frosts, and, 
 wearing the helmet, endured the heats of Central Africa. A terror to the Maori, 
 he crushed the foe on the British shore, and spread devastation north and south 
 alike. What unchanging extremes of climate, what season of the year was of use ? 
 What proiited seas miknown ? The Saxons were routed, and the Orkneys were 
 dripping [with gore]. Thule [prohably here the Shetlands] was warm with the 
 blood of the Picts. Icy Erin wept for the heaps (of slain)." 
 
 Glacialis lerne, icy Erne should probably be understood, as the context 
 suggests, as the Hebrides, of which Ptolemy specifies two, which he attaches to 
 Erin in his 2nd chapter. Claudian, a native of Egypt, probably of Alexandria, who 
 had received the education of a Greek, as Gibbon tells us, no doubt took his 
 geography from Ptolemy, and balanced the heat of Central Africa with the glacial 
 rigours of the north. 
 
 This view is, we think, sustained by the following lines in the same passage: — 
 
 " Scotumqne vago mucrone sequutus 
 Fregit hyperboreas remis audacibns undas." 
 
 " And pursuing the Scot with the Sword everywhere (vago) with daring oars he 
 broke through the Hyperborean waves." " Vago " must mean, we fancy, chasing 
 them through the islands. 
 
 De Tert Consul Honorii 55. Ogygia, p. 377. 
 
112 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 hand, is very persuasive, Tighernach not only declares his 
 own view that she was of Saxon origin, but vouches in proof 
 an old duan : — 
 
 Nial Mor, the son of the Saxon, 
 Cairne her name as I have collected, 
 Five sons of Eocaid Muigmeadhoin, 
 Not trifling is what I have certified.' 
 
 In the Book of Ballymote (365a) and in the Yellow Book 
 of Lecan (188a) and in Kawlinson (502b) it is expressly stated 
 that Carinna was a Saxon.' The last mentioned text states — 
 " Carinna Cas-dubh, daughter of Sachal Bolb of the Saxons, 
 was the mother of Niall." Later references to texts contain- 
 ing a similar statement will be found in S. H. O'Grady's " Silva 
 Gaedelica," in the tale "Echtra MacEchac Muigmedoin," 
 and in ii. 493. 
 
 It is permissible to suggest that there may be some con- 
 founding of Carinna with Ciarnait, the daughter of the Pictish 
 chieftain, who was brought against her will by three Ulster 
 men into captivity. She was the loveliest of women, and 
 Cormac Mac Art sent to demand her, and she was taken to 
 his house. She was with him in amorous fellowship, and the 
 measure of his love for her was great. Then Ethne OUamda, 
 the daughter of Cathaoir Mor, his " one wife," heard of her 
 being with him. She said they could not be with him to- 
 gether. Cormac was obliged to give Ciarnait into the power 
 of Ethne, who put a slave's task upon her, putting her to 
 grind corn, to wit, to grind nine or ten bushels of corn with 
 a quern every day. Cormac sent for a millwright across the 
 sea, and had a mill made to save Ciarnait.^ So in the " Echtra '' 
 it is stated that Carinna was an object of spite to the queen 
 (Mongfinn) and treated with great harshness by her, and this 
 was the harshness — that she should puU up from the well 
 half the water for Tara, and afterwards, when she became 
 enceinte, the whole of it. Her position was that of a bond- 
 maid. These stories, if true, go a long way to prove, in the 
 
 8 Rm. Celt., xvii, 32. The next entry in Tighernach is " Patricius captivus in 
 Hibemiam ductus est." 
 ' Otia Mersiana ii., 84. 
 8 Egerton 1782, edited and translated by Euno Meyer, Otia Mersiana U., 75. 
 
GLASTONBURY OP THE GAEL. 118 
 
 absence of direct evidence to the contrary, that there was no 
 recognized legal polygamy in pre-Christian Erin.^ 
 
 After a reign of eight years, Eocaid died a natural death 
 at Tara. He was succeeded by Mong Finn's brother, Crimthann, 
 the son of Fidach, of the line of Eber, sixth in descent from 
 OlioU Olum. No information has reached us as to how or 
 why he came to be High King. The only suggestion we can 
 offer is that the sons of Eocaid were too young, and that he 
 was chosen as a regent under the title of King. He was not 
 King or Tanist of both or either of the Munsters, nor did he 
 come in by force of arms. Certain it is that no one of the line 
 of Eber became High King from his reign till the year 1002 
 (Brian Boru) ; and no one of the line of Eber had been High 
 King for 32 reigns before, since the time of Duach Dalta Degaid 
 (162 B.C.). It is also highly probable that Crimthann shared 
 in the expeditions which took place before his accession in 
 A.D. 366. These expeditions, as well as those of Niall and 
 Dathi, form so important and interesting part of our story, that 
 we deem it necessary to deal with the subject at some 
 length. 
 
 In the first half of the fourth century, after the abdication 
 of Diocletian, the Eoman Empire was rent by civil dissensions. 
 Candidates for the imperial purple sprang up in every quarter, 
 and in the course of these contests Britain was denuded of 
 imperial troops. This was the opportunity of the Picts, the 
 Scots, the Attacotti, and the Saxons. Ammianus Marcellinus, 
 "an old soldier and a Greek," as he tells us, "who never 
 deceived by silence or misrepresentation," wrote his history 
 probably between the years 380 and 390. He was, therefore, 
 the contemporary of Crimthann. He writes : 
 
 A.D. 360. — The affairs of Britain became troubled in consequence 
 of the incursions of the Picts and Scots, who, breaking the peace i" to 
 which they had agreed, were plundering the districts on their borders, 
 and keeping in constant alarm the provinces {i.e., of Britain), exhausted 
 
 * It is a curious circumstance that Cariuna, the mother of Niall, from whom 
 descended a long line of Kings of Erin should he a Saxon, whilst Arietta, the 
 mother of William the Conqueror, from whom descended a long line of English 
 Kings, was, in all prohability, an Ethnic Celt of Brittany or Normandy. 
 
 10 " Kupta quiete condicta." This implies previous hostilities. — Amm. Marcel. 
 XX. cap. i. ^ 
 
114 EAELT IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 by former disasters. Csesar (i.e., Julian the Apostate), -who was winter- 
 ing at Paris, having his mind divided by various cares, feared to go to 
 the aid of his subjects across the Channel (as we have related Constans 
 to have done) least he should leave the Gauls without a governor," while 
 the Allmanni were still full of fierce warlike inclinations. 
 
 A.D. 364. — The Picts, Scots, Saxons, and Attaootti harassed the 
 Britains with incessant invasions. 
 
 A.D. 368. — Valentinian (the Emperor) having left Amiens, and being 
 on his way to Treves, then the capital of the Western Prefecture, re- 
 ceived the disastrous intelligence that Britain was reduced by the 
 ravages of the united barbarians to the lowest extremity of distress, 
 that Nectarides, the Count of the sea coast, had been slain in battle, and 
 that the Duke FuUofandes had been taken prisoner by the enemy in 
 an ambuscade. Jovinus applied for the aid of a powerful army. Last 
 of all, on account of the many formidable reports, Theodosius (the Elder) 
 was appointed to proceed to Britain, and ordered to make great haste. 
 At that time the Picts, the Attaootti, a very warlike people, and the 
 Scots were all roving over different parts of the country, and commit 
 ting great ravages. 
 
 We shall return to this subject when we have carried our 
 narrative down to the coining of St. Patrick. 
 
 It is said that Crimthann was poisoned by his sister Mong 
 Finn. The story is told in the Leabhar Breac. Crimthann 
 went to Scotland. In his absence his nephews and Niall 
 rose in rebellion and seized the sovereignty. He returned 
 with a large forBe of Scots, and pitched his camp near the 
 river Moy, in Tirawley. Mong Finn pretended to be a peace- 
 maker, and invited Crimthann to a feast to meet her sons at 
 a place near the Moy. 
 
 When they had made an end of the entertainment, Mong Finn pnt 
 into her brother's hand a poisoned cup. " I will not drink," he said, 
 " until thou first shall have drunk." She drank, and Crimthann after 
 her. Subsequently she died on Samhain's very eve (the eve of the 
 
 banquet) Now came Crimthann from the northward, 
 
 progressing towards his own natural country (that of the men of Muns- 
 ter) \mtil he gained Sliahh Suide in Righ, or the Mountain of the King's 
 Sitting, and there he died. Fidach, his father, his mother, and his nurse, 
 came to the spot where he perished. There they gave way to piteous 
 grief, and all three died on the very spot. 
 
 If the case was no stronger than this against her, Mong 
 Finn is entitled to our verdict of acquittal, and we shall have 
 the less hesitation in giving it, as the use of poison is unknown 
 
 " Julian was proclaimed Emperor at Paris in the year 360 A.». He died on 
 the 26th June, 363. 
 
GLASTONBTJET OF THE GAEL. 115 
 
 in Irish history until the coming of the Angevin. It is more 
 reasonable, we think, to suppose that the High Kingship of 
 Crimthann did not displace the hegemony of the Eremonians, 
 and that he was originally chosen by them owing to his per- 
 sonal fitness, and through the influence of Mong Finn, to hold 
 the Kingship until one of the sons of Eocaid Muigmedoin 
 should be fit to take it. The rebellion, if it can be called such, 
 occurred thirteen years after the death of Eocaid, when Niall 
 was of age and fit to rule, and was headed by him, and he 
 became High King with the assent of his half-brothers, whom 
 he befriended.^* 
 
 The tradition that has reached us respecting the death of 
 Niall, is that he was slain by Eocaid, the son of Enna 
 Censelach, King of Leinster, on the banks of the Loire, near 
 the Muir n'Icht. The accounts given in the Yellow Book of 
 Lecan, the Book of Ballymote, and in the Rawlinson M.S., are 
 substantially the same. The latter is edited and translated by 
 Kuno Meyer. Niall was, doubtless, regarded as the High King, 
 not only of the Gael in Erin, but also of the " sea divided " 
 Gael wherever situate, and in claiming for him the lordship of 
 the western world (Ri-iarthar domhain) they had, no doubt, in 
 view the Gaelic settlements in Wales, in Cornwall, and in 
 Armorica. The Gaelic conception of monarchy was tribal, not 
 territorial. On his visit to Armagh, Brian Boru was described 
 in the entry then made in the book of Armagh as " Imperator 
 Scotorum " ; and it was not unnatural that the expedition into 
 foreign parts from which captives and booty were brought back 
 in large quantities should be magnified into conquests. One of 
 these captives, as we shall see in our next chapter, may have 
 been the Apostleof Erin, in after time to be associated with saints 
 of Gaelic birth, St. Columba and St. Bridget, as the three 
 patron saints of Ireland. Eocaid, the son of Censelach, had 
 been driven into exile by Niall. The tale in Rawlinson is 
 headed " The Slaying of Niall of the Nine Hostages, son of 
 Echu Mugmedon, by the hand of Echu, son of Enna Censelach, 
 who sent au arrow at him out of a Saxon camjp among the 
 bards of the Pict folk at Cam FielL" 
 
 I'Book of Balljmote 263, c. 21, Silva Gaedelica, Vol. I. 330, Vol. 11. 
 373. 
 
116 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 After stating the cause of the quarrel between Niall and 
 Echu, the tale proceeds : — 
 
 Niall, however, went to obtain, kingship as far as Letha {i.e., Brit- 
 tany or Latium) and Italy, and he was called " of the Nine Hostages " 
 because he had five hostages of Erin, and one hostage each from Scot- 
 land and from the Saxons, the Briton's and the Franks. Now when 
 they came to the Alps there was a great river before them, to wit the 
 Loire of the Alps (i.e., the Massif Central). Eehu was then with Ere, 
 the son of the King of Alba, an ally of Niall's, and Ere said he would 
 go to the assembly where Niall was. " I shall go with you," said Eehu. 
 When they had arrived Ere said, " That is he yonder." There was a glen 
 between them. Without the knowledge of Ere, Echu shot an arrow 
 from the bow and Niall fell dead from that single shot. Thereupon 
 the Franks attacked the Gael, and the men of Alba stood by the latter 
 for the sake of their kinship (ar connalbus). So they came to Erin 
 carrying the body of their king with them, and seven battles were broken 
 before the face of the dead king. It was Torna, the poet of the Ciar- 
 raighe Luaehra, who had fostered Niall. Now, when he heard the 
 report that his foster-father had been slain, 'tis then Niall's foster- 
 brother, Tuirm,'* said : — 
 
 " When " we used to go to the gathering with the son of Echu 
 Mugmedon, yellow as the bright primrose was the hair on the head of 
 Cairenn's son. 
 
 Torna. 
 
 •• His white teeth, his red lips that never reprimanded in anger." 
 
 TuiRM. 
 
 " Saxons will seek out here in the east noble men of Erin and Alba 
 after the death of Niall, Echu's noble son- It is a bitter cause of 
 reproach." 
 
 Torna. 
 
 " Saxons with flooding war cries, with bands of Lombards from 
 Letha. From the hour the king fell the Gael and the Picts were in 
 evil pUght."" 
 
 Torna says nothing of assassination. The Cairenn above 
 mentioned as the mother of Niall is stated in Kavlinson to be 
 
 1' The accounts vary very much. Torna's dirge, which is ascribed by Kuno 
 Meyer to 800 A.D., says nothing about assassination. Ere, above mentioned, died 
 in A.D. 474, nearly seventy years after the death of Niall. If there was assassination 
 we should expect to find that the assassin was cut down on the spot. Cinaed 
 O'Hartigan ( + 975) says Echu drove his spear through him before the hosts. 
 
 " Pischrift Whitley Stokes, — Toltemklage urn Konig Niall (Kuno Meyer), 
 p. 3 (1890). 
 
GLASTONBURY OF THE GAEL. 11? 
 
 "the daughter of Scael Dubh of the Saxons," as already 
 stated. 
 
 Niall was succeeded by Dathi, the son of his half brother, 
 Fiacra. According to the Book of Lecan, Dathi was the fifth 
 and youngest son, and was at the time king of Connacht, and 
 the last Pagan king of that province. After fighting many 
 battles in Erin and Alba " Dathi afterwards went with the 
 men of Erin to Leatha (i.e., Letavia or Brittany) until he 
 reached the Alps, to revenge the death of Niall." 
 
 There was a tower on the Alps build by Formenius (unknown 
 to history), king of Thrace, in which he was making his soul 
 at the end of his days. "It was a round tower made of sods and 
 stones, sixty feet high. The men of Erin demolished the 
 tower, and at the prayer of the recluse a flash of lightning came 
 from Heaven and killed the Pagan monarch. His body was 
 brought to Cruachan, in Roscommon, six miles from Carrick- 
 on-Shannon, and buried in the Relig na Riogh (cemetery of 
 the kings), where to this day a red pillar-stone remains as a 
 monument over his grave. His reign lasted twenty-three 
 years, and he was succeeded in A.D. 428 by Laeghaire, the son 
 of Niall, in the fourth year of whose reign St. Patrick came to 
 Erin to preach the Gospel. 
 
 We shall now return to the subject of the Gaelic settlements 
 in South-west Britain, reserving for a future page their settle- 
 ments in North Britain, and directing our attention for the 
 present particularly to Arthur and Glastonbury of the Gael 
 We have already given the duan in which the bard with 
 poetic exaggeration describes the conquests of Crimthann. 
 
 " Moreover," says Ammianus, " the Franks and the Saxons were com- 
 mitting outrages on the districts which meared with themselves where- 
 ever they could break in by sea or land, plundering cruelly, and burning 
 and killing their captives. Theodosius marched from Augusta, which 
 was formerly called Lundinium,'^ attacked the bands of plunderers and 
 ro-'jted them, whilst driving prisoners in chains (vincti) and cattle before 
 them, and he entirely restored the cities and the fortresses, which, 
 through the manifold, disasters of the time, had been injured and des- 
 troyed, having been originally founded to secure the tranquillity of the 
 country. He established stations and out-posts on the frontiers, and he 
 
 " Ab Augusta profectus qxmin T^eteres appellayere Lundium — Ammianus, 
 xviii, p. 3. 
 
118 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 SO completely recovered the province which had yielded subjection to the 
 enemy that it was again brought under its legitimate rule, and by de- 
 sire of the Emperor called Valentia." ^ 
 
 The province here referred to must be understood to mean 
 the province up to Hadrian's wall. The wall between the Forth 
 and the Clyde, made by Antoninus Pius, was abandoned or 
 lost before the end of the 2nd century. The poetic and courtly 
 exaggerations of Claudian, excusable perhaps in a panegyric, 
 must not be taken too seriously. They are equalled, in fact 
 surpassed, by what we find in the Gaelic Bards. " It was 
 this Crimthann," says Keating, " gained victories, and ex- 
 tended his sway over Alba, Britain and Gaul, as the Shanachie 
 tells us in the following rann :— 
 
 Crimthann, son of Fidach, ruled, 
 The Alban and the Irish lands, 
 Beyond the clear blue seas he quelled, 
 The British and the Gallic might." 
 
 To the like purport and effect is the entry in Cormac's 
 Glossary : — 
 
 " Mug Eime — that is the name of the first lap-dog that was in Erin. 
 Cairbre Muse, the son of Conaire, brought it from the east from Britain ; 
 for when great was the power of the Gael in Britain, they divided Alba 
 between them into districts, and each knew the residence of his friend, 
 and not less did the Gael dwell on the east side of the sea than in Scotia 
 {i.e. Erin), and their habitations and royal forts were built there. There is 
 (a fort) called Dun Tradui, i.e., Triple fossed fort of Crimthann, the 
 great son of Fidach, King of Erin and Alba, to the Ichtian Sea, and 
 there is Glastonbury of the Gael, t.e. , a church on the border of the 
 Ichtian Sea, and it is on that part is Dinn map Laethain, in the lands 
 of the Cornish Britons, i.e., the Fort of MacLentham, for mac is the 
 same as map in the British. Thus every tribe divided on that side, for 
 its property on the east wis equal to that on the west, and they con- 
 tinued in this province till long after the coming of Patrick." 
 
 " Picti in duas gentes divlBi Dicalydonas et Verturiones, itidemque Attacottl 
 bellicoEa hominum natio et Scotti per diversa vagastes multa popolabantnr, Galli- 
 eanos [vero] tractus f rancl & Saxones idem connnes quoqulsque enunpere potait 
 terra vel marl prsediis asoerbis incendiisque et captivorum funeribus hominum 
 violabant. — Amm. Marcel., xxvii,, cap. 8, xxviii., cap. 3 and 8. 
 
 The Attacotti here mentioned were, as already referred to (C. I.) no doubt 
 tribesmen of those seen by St. Jerome, in Treves, during the residence of Valen- 
 tinian. The Notilia Imperii mentions four bodies of Attacotti stationed in Gaul. 
 St. Jerome's visit and residence in Treves are commonly assigned to the time of 
 Valentinian, and the Attacotti may have enlisted under the Imperial Eagles after 
 the victories of Theodosius the elder. 
 
GLASlPONBtrRY OF tHE 6AEL. 119 
 
 Hence Cairbre Muse was visiting in the East his family and 
 friends.^^ " Alba " here applies to Southern, though more fre- 
 quently applied to Northern Britain. Both are called, as we 
 have seen, the land of the " Albiones " by Avienus.^* The 
 Ichtian sea, as understood at the time we speak of, was the 
 sea between France and England, and more particularly the 
 parts near the Loire and the south coast of England and Erin, 
 which, i.e., Erin, was supposed to lie to the S.S. West of Britain, 
 towards Spain and France, and the position of Spain was shifted 
 correspondingly. There was an island, Ictis, off the coast of 
 Britain, from which tin was brought in ingots on waggons 
 when the tide was out, as Diodorus Siculus tells us (V. 229 2). 
 
 etc Tiva vrjaov TrpoKeifiivtjv Trjs nperTaviK^c ovo/iaXo/JiCvtiv Se 'iiCTiv — 
 Diodor, V. 22, 2. 
 
 This island is reasonably supposed to be Mount St. Michael, 
 off Cornwall.^® There was another Ictis to which vessels bound 
 inward brought cargoes of tin from Britain, in wicker boats 
 covered with hides, in a voyage of six days. This Ictis, we 
 are of opinion, was situated in the estuary of the Loire, and the 
 tin was then carried on pack-horses, a journey of thirty days, 
 not to the confluence of the Saone and Loire, as Mr. Elton 
 supposed, but to the outfaU of the Rhone, i.e. Marseilles at the 
 Bouches de Rhone.^" 
 
 [Trpdc rf)v EKJ3o^rl« row poSavoii 7rora/io5 ] 
 
 This is accounted for by what Strabo tells us — that the 
 Rhone was not navigable up-stream owing to the force and 
 velocity of the current, so that the traffic went by land and not 
 by the river. Thus the pack-horses or mules were not unloaded 
 at the Rhone and the tin put on board a boat, but the animals 
 went on to Marseilles to have a load going back. The island 
 in the estuary of the Loire can no longer be identified, but the 
 coast here has undergone remarkable changes, and, assuming 
 we are right in our conjecture that it once existed, there is no 
 
 " Sanas Cormae and translation, Stokes, sub voce. 
 
 " Holder, Sprachschatz, sub voce, Albion. 
 
 ^' St. Michael's Mount is a granite hill, 230 feet high, and about one mile in 
 circuit at its base, 2 miles distant from Penzance by water. It is an island for 
 eight hours out of the twenty four, and at spring tides for much longer ; and in 
 rough weather the rough causeway which now connects it with the shore is under 
 water for days together. 
 
 2» Origins of English History, 35, 
 
120 EAELT IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 diflSculty in believing that it is now well inland as part of the 
 adjoining continent. The voyage between the islands was 
 through the Ichtian sea called in Gaelic the Muir n'Icht. — 
 Roughly speaking, the channel of the sea, at the south of 
 England and the south of Ireland were, from the time of Caesar 
 and Tacitus and Pliny, conceived of as one continuous channel 
 bearing S.S.W. to Spain. 21 
 
 There was another island, from which amber was brought, 
 in the German Ocean — Oser icta, which seems to suggest that 
 icta or ictis or mictis was a word applicable to islands of a par- 
 ticular character, possibly like St. Michael's Mount. The mean- 
 ing of the word ictis, however, has not hitherto been traced or 
 ascertained. We suggest the Gaelic iuchd or iuc as a probable 
 root. Carmichael tells us it means a nook, angle, or recess. 
 " There is a Rock in Benderloch," he writes, " called Greag 
 neueht, evidently a corruption of ' Creag an iucbt ' — ' the 
 Rock of Knaugh or recess.' " So inis an iuchd would mean 
 the island of the recess, and Muir n'Icht the sea of the recess 
 or channel, as opposed to what is called the great plain of the 
 Sea (niAs tlein).22 
 
 The statements contained in Cormac's glossary are, to a 
 large extent, confirmed by what is known of the Gaelic occu- 
 pation of Wales. This subject has been exhaustively examined 
 in a treatise by Bishop Basil Jones. He claims, and we think 
 on sufficient grounds, that the Gael were in occupation of 
 Anglesey, Carnarvon, Monmouth and Cardiganshire, with a 
 portion at least of Denbigh, Montgomery and Radnor, and 
 with minor settlements in South Wales, until the accession of 
 Caswallawn Low Her (443, 517). In various parts of Wales 
 the word Gwyddel (Gael) enters into the composition of local 
 names. He enumerates 25 instances ; and there are numerous 
 references to the Gael in the traditions of the Cymri who 
 claimed to be the earliest inhabitant of Wales. They complain 
 
 ^ Timaeus historicas a Britannia introrsum sex dierum navigatio abesse dicit, 
 insulam Mictim (i.e., Iclim) in qua candidum plumbum proveniat ; ad earn Britauuos 
 ritilibus navigiis corio circumsutis navigai'e. — Phny N. H., 4, 104. This is our view 
 of this vexata questio, the position of Ictis, and the Ichtian Sea, which is of impor- 
 tance with reference to the death of Niall and otherwise. 
 
 Desjardins " Geographic Historique de Gaule Romaine." 
 
 «2 Pliny " Nat. Hiet." xxxviii. c. 2. Carmina Gaedelioa, II. 294. 
 
GLASTONBURY OF THE GAEL. 121 
 
 of invasions of their territory time and again by the Gael from 
 Erin.23 
 
 " What is true is that a certain Irish clan did invade and occupy 
 Brecknoo and Carmarthen, as well as Pembrokeshire and that about 530 
 they were driven out of the two first counties, and that they then in- 
 vaded and occupied North East Cornwall from Padslow Plarbour and 
 the North of Devon as far as Exmoor. This was not by any means a 
 first descent. The whole coast had been a prey to invasions from 
 Ireland for two centuries. So early as 461 the British settlers at the 
 mouth of the Loire were numerous enough to have a Bishop of their 
 own who attended the Council of Tours, and in 468 they sent 12,000 
 men under their King Riothemus to the assistance of the Romans 
 against th« Visigoths." ^ 
 
 " Glastonbury of the Gael, on the border of the Ichtian sea." 
 What foundatian is there for this statement ? We have 
 given much attention to this question, and shall now place 
 before our readers as briefly as may be the fruits of our labour. 
 The site of the famous Abbey is situated in Mid Somerset 
 about six miles south of Wells. In early times the moorlands 
 in Mid Somerset, and particularly those surrounding Glaston- 
 bury, -were covered by large tracts of shallow water and exten- 
 sive areas of marsh. The more elevated parts appeared like 
 islands, of which the site of the Abbey was the principal. A 
 river flowed westwards through this area round the island 
 " surrounded on both sides by what was in early times an im- 
 passable morass or rather lagoon. Overflowed by the sea at 
 every high tide, it was connected on the east side by an 
 isthmus, of but slight elevation above the surrounding moor, 
 with the higher ground, and presented the appearance of a 
 peninsula." ^ One mile to the north a cranoge or village 
 habitation was discovered in 1892, covering three acres, the 
 site of which, though 15 miles from the sea, is only 18 feet 
 above the sea level. 
 
 At the point where the isthmus reaches the elevated land, 
 the remains of earthworks are found indicating that a great 
 
 28 Vestiges of the Gael in Gwynnedd (North Wales), 1851,— p. 88, 30. 
 
 '■'* Gould, S. Baring, 1899, aided amongst others, by Mr. J. D. Enys whose 
 knowledge of things Cornish is encyclopaedic. See also " Devon, 1899 " by the 
 same author.— Book of the West, Cornwall, p. 4, 7. 
 
 ^ Proc. Somerset Archl. Soc. Vol. VIII. (1859), p. 140, an interesting paper, 
 " British Cattle Stations," by the Rev F. Warre, whose local knowledge places 
 these facts beyond dispute. 
 
122 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 dun or vallum was made there to defend the pass to what, it 
 is suggested, was a " cattle station," or as the Gael would call 
 it a " Clithar Bo " on the island. 
 
 Rhys refers to Glastonbury as an unidentified fort of the 
 Cornish Britons, or as he calls them Brythons. " The name," 
 he says, " so far as we know, is completely lost in the dialects 
 of the Brythons, and it is probable that they were not the 
 races that gave it to the island ; it is more likely that they 
 learned it from the Gael whom they found in possession. It 
 need hardly be added that its meaning is utterly unknown, in 
 spite of guesses both new and old ; probably the word is not 
 Celtic." ^ We venture to think that there is not much diffi- 
 culty in finding a Gaelic origin for the name. 
 
 The Latin form of the name is Glastonia — with a variant 
 Glasconia. The Anglo Saxon, coming a fterwards, is Glastingia, 
 or, more frequently, Glastingabyrg. The Abbey was usually 
 called in later English Glaston Abbey. We suggest that 
 Glastonia is the Gaelic glas donn, that is brown river, or from 
 inis glais duinn — island of the brown river, which, no doubt, 
 represented correctly enough the water of the sluggish or 
 stagnant Brue. The Anglo Saxon Glastingbyrg or Glas- 
 tingabyrg refers to the town, and is easily accounted for by 
 the introduction into glais duinn of the familiar " ing," as 
 Huntandun became Huntingdon, Aebbandan became Abing- 
 don, etc. The Cymric name, " Ynysvitrin," is clearly inis 
 vitria (the " glass " island) by a false etymology. ^^ 
 
 On this island of the brown river at an early period was 
 built a small walled church, sixty feet long and twenty-six 
 feet broad, with a window in the east front and three windows 
 at each side, and roofed with thatch. When we come to the 
 time of Ina it was known as the old church — the Ecclesia 
 Vetusta — in fact, the oldest in Britain. It was held in great 
 
 ^ Early Britain, 202. 
 
 ^ Glaise, or glais, or glas, signifying a small stream or riralet, is very often 
 used to give names to streams and thence to townlands, e.g., Finnglas, fair stream ; 
 Glasawhee (KtAr bwoe), yellow stream, and Dub glas, black stream. — AngUce, 
 Donglas.— /03/ce, "Names of Places," 2nd Ed., 440. Glas, water.— "The word Is 
 now rare in its simple form, but is common in compounds, as Douglas, and Glasdrum, 
 from glas and druim, aridge, etc. — Carmlchael, Carm. Gael, li., 287. In the Char- 
 ters of Ine the name is variously given. Glastingabniga (56), Glastingaea (58), 
 Glasteie and Glastingae (80), Glastlngburi (89). Kem|bie, " Codex Diplom," Vol. 
 II. The pure Latin is always Glastonia and Glastoniensis. Warner's well-known 
 work is entitled the " History of the AljLey of Glaston and of the town of 
 Glastonbury (1826)." 
 
GLASTONBURY OF THE GAEL. 128 
 
 veneration, and legends were put in circulation, in Benedictine 
 times, about its origin. It was said that it was founded by 
 Joseph of Arimathea, who had buried the Lord. There is 
 no doubt that there was an Eaclesia in existence in the time 
 of Paulinus, Archbishop of York (625-644), and that he had it 
 "cased with boards and covered with lead from top to 
 bottom." 
 
 We have now nearly reached a period when we can refer to 
 the evidence of charters, the authenticity of which is generally 
 accepted. Some writings of an earlier date, including a letter 
 from St. Patrick, are now universally rejected as forgeries. 
 
 We refer only to the charters which are printed in 
 Kemble's " Codex Diplomaticus," the authenticity of which 
 is not now questioned by any competent critic, commencing 
 from the time of Ine or Ina, King of the West Saxons ( + .728), 
 who built a great church east of the venerated old church in 
 710 A.D., and generously endowed the monastery, by the advice 
 of Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, in Dorset. Ina was of the 
 race of Cedric, the first King of the West Saxons, and it was 
 in the struggle against these invaders that Arthur was chosen 
 the champion of the Britons. 
 
 The year 516 A.D. is the date generally received as that 
 on which he was chosen " over many men nobler than himself, 
 as commander of the army of defence." He was chieftain 
 probably of the people called Domnonia, or Devoneans, who 
 were then the predomniant race in what are now Somerset, 
 Devon, and Cornwall. His famous authentic victory of Mona 
 Badonicus may probably be placed at Badbury, in Dorset, and 
 assigned to about the year 520. His opponent was Cedric, 
 who had landed at the mouth of the Itchen, in 496, and 
 defeated Natanleod near Netley in 508. The advance of the 
 Saxons was stopped for a time by the victory at Badbury. 
 It was not until Cawlin (593) that they reached the Axe, 
 nor until Ceanwealh (672), that they reached the Parret in 
 Somerset.^ 
 
 Domnonia, which is the Latinised form of the name of the 
 then inhabitants of Devonshire, represents the Gaelic Domnann 
 who were, as we have seen, a Firvolc race, remnants of which 
 
 2* These dates nmst be received with reserve. — See St«vensom's Eng, Hist 
 Rev. (1902, 625). 
 
124 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 were found in Irras Domnann, in Mayo, and Inver Domnann, 
 now Malahide Bay.^" The Domnonii were a terrible " tribe; 
 scomers of death, and formidable to the foemen, like the 
 Clauna Morna in Erin." 5" Civil dissension having broken out 
 amongst them, " as if there was no foe at their gates," says 
 Gildas, Arthur's nephew, Mordred, rose up against him, and a 
 fierce battle was fought at Camion, which was probably in 
 Cornwall, in which Arthur was slain, or, according to some 
 authors, only mortally wounded. He was taken to Glaston 
 Abbey, of which he had been a liberal benefactor, and his 
 body was interred there, where it was discovered with the 
 body of his wife in after years, as we shall relate. It was fit- 
 ting that Arthur, whom we claim as a Gael, should have his 
 place of resurrection, to use the usual Gaelic phrase, in Glaston- 
 bury of the Gael.^^ That the vetusta ecclesia there was the 
 Church of St. Patrick, is proved indisputably by two charters. 
 — " I, King Ina," one (704 A.D. ?) states, " bestow this freedom 
 on the monks who, in the Church of the Blessed Virgin and 
 Blessed Patrick, serve Almighty God under Abbot Hemgislus, 
 in the ancient town called Glastingaea, and place this worth 
 and privilege on the altar." Details of the freedom and 
 privilege are then set forth. This charter is subscribed by 
 Aldhelm. 
 
 In 681, Baldred, King of Mercia, with the consent of his 
 bishop, Heddo, granted to Hemgislus, abbot (of Glaston), as 
 
 ^ The pronunciation of Dom-nann in Gaelic would be Dhnv-o-nann, i.e., the 
 aspinited ■' rii " mif;ht be pronounced like " v " and a short vowel introduced be- 
 tween tlie " m " and the "ti " for euphony, according to the usual rule. Dom- 
 nnnii would thus be nearly equivaleut to Dev-o-non, from which the transition to 
 Devon is easy. In this way Uaiminnis (the Ox's Isle) became Deviuish, and many 
 other instiinces might be cited. 
 
 ™|AlJhelm (t. 709) wrote i— 
 
 Sicut pridera pepigerem 
 Qnando profectus fueram 
 Usque diram Domnonian 
 Per carentem Carnubiam 
 Floruleutis cespitibus 
 Et fecundis graminibus. 
 
 — Jaffe Monum, Mopmtiae, 38. 
 
 Cornwall was in the old diocese of Dumnonia, now merged in Exeter. 
 
 5' There are multitudinous views about everything connected with Arthur — 
 His very existence is doubted. We have stated what we believe to be probable, 
 and, in the words of Caxton, " But for to give faith to all that be herein, ye be at 
 your own liberty." — Preface to Sir T Malory. 
 
GLASTONBURY OF THE GAEL. 125 
 
 an addition for the honoured Church of the Blessed Virgin and 
 St. Patrick (ecclesiae beatse Marise et Sancti Patricii), the 
 lands of Somerset. ^^ 
 
 In both the charters the old church is recognized as being 
 dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and under the patronage of 
 and belonging to St. Patrick, the only difference between them 
 being that in the first he is styled a Saint, in the second only 
 blessed. After this the rule of St. Benedict appears to have 
 been at least partially established, and the advisers of the 
 Saxon Kings were Benedictines. In the charter of 725, Ina 
 bestowed on the monastery the " worth of privilege that the 
 brothers shall have the power of electing and appointing a 
 rector, according to the rule of St. Benedict." The condum 
 neum was established, and followed of course in due time by 
 the ouster of the Gael.^ 
 
 In this great charter Ina grants various denominations of 
 lands, and confirms the donation made by his predecessors to the 
 old church consecrated to God and the Blessed Virgin. The name 
 of St. Patrick is wholly omitted. It states — " The old church 
 nostri Jesu Ghristi et perpetuae Virginia Marice, as it is the 
 first in Britain and fountain and source of all religion, should 
 receive a pre-eminent worth of privilege, &c., and should hold 
 its lands free from the exactions of Kings and the promul- 
 gations and perturbations of archbishops and bishops." ^* The 
 lands granted and confirmed by Ina include a parcel called 
 "Boek Ereie," which is frequently mentioned afterwards, in 
 grants or otherwise, with the addition little Hibernia (i.e., 
 parva Hibernia). Boek Ereie is, of course, toeg e^iu, little 
 Erin, and there was a famous islet of that name in Wexford 
 Harbour, over which St. Ibhar was abbot in the time of St. 
 Patrick. It is still known as Begery. 
 
 Joannes Glastoniensis (flor. 1400), who wrote the history 
 of Glastonbury, tells that there was, down to his time, an 
 
 ^Ego Ini Bex. . . . hanc llbertatem monacUs qui in ecclesia beatse del 
 genetricis, Marias et beati Patricii omnipotenti deo, sub abbati Hemgislo famulau- 
 tnr in pristina nrbe quse dicitur Glastingaea, impendo et hanc privilegii, dignitatem 
 snper altare pono ut, &c.— Kemble, Codex Diplom., I., 58., and L, 25. 
 
 ^ Hanc privilegii dignitatem concessit ut habeant fratres, ejusdem loci potes- 
 
 tatem elegendi et constituendi sibi rectorem juxta regulam Sancti Benedicti. 
 
 " Cod. Dip." I., 86. All these charters escaped the notice of Abbott Gasquet in 
 his " Last Abbott of Glastonbury." 
 
 »* "Cgdex Diplom.," I., 87, 
 
126 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 ancient chapel in honour of St. Brigid on the island of beag 
 Erin. He also mentions the ornamentation on the tomb of 
 St. Patrick. The tradition of the displacement of the Gaelic 
 monks is thus referred to by Camden, and other authors say 
 that St. Dunstan actually brought monks from Italy in their 
 stead.^ 
 
 " In these early ages men of exemplary piety devoted themselves 
 here to God, especially the Irish, who were maintained at the king's 
 expense, and instructed youth in religion and the liberal sciences. 
 They had embraced solitude to apply themselves with more leisure to 
 the study of the Scriptures, and by a severe course of life accustom 
 themselves to bear the cross. At length, Dunstan, a man of domineer- 
 ing (subactus ?) and crafty temperament, by underhand acts and 
 flatteries wormed himself into an intimacy with the Kings, and intro- 
 duced in their stead the monks of a newer order, namely, of St. 
 Benedict.""" 
 
 We are not concerned here to discuss ■who the saint or 
 blessed Patrick referred to was, whether he was our apostle as 
 the tradition there had it, or another saint known as Sen 
 Patrick, as our texts state. Our object is to show that the 
 monastery was Gaelic. St. Patrick's " muinter " would, un- 
 doubtedly, have considered him their first abbot wherever 
 their habitation might be placed, and, at Glaston, 
 Benignus was regarded as the second abbot. This, however, 
 would not exclude the view that there was a Sen Patrick, who 
 was abbot in loco there, who was buried there, and whose tomb 
 was lavishly ornamented and greatly venerated in after time. 
 John of Glastonbury maintained that our apostle was buried 
 there, and that it was the " other " St. Patrick that was buried 
 
 " Sed JBm capella ejnsdem insula constat In honore Sanctae Brigidse prae- 
 dlctse in cujuB parte australi foramen habetur per quod qui transierit juxta Tulgi 
 opinionem omnium peccatorum suorum veniam obtinebit. — P. 69. 
 
 Corpus suum (i.e., Fatricii) in pyramids saxea fnit coUocatum juxta altare 
 versus austrum quam pro veneratione ejusdem Sancti postea auro et ai-gento vesti- 
 Tit nobiliter domesticorum diligentio* — Joannes Glaston, p. 67. 
 
 86 Primis his temporibus viri sanctissimi hie Deo invigllaiunt et prsecipue Hiber- 
 nlci qui stipendiis regiis alebantur et adolescentes pietate, aitibusque ingenuis in- 
 struebant Solitariam enim vitam amplexi sunt ut majore, cum tranquillitate sacris 
 literis yacarent et severo vitae genere ad crucem perfereudam se exercerent. Sed 
 tandem Dunstanus, subacto* et versuto ingcnio homo quum, malis artibus et blan- 
 ditiis in principum cousuetudinem se penitus immersisset, pro his recentioris insti- 
 tuti Monachos scilicet Benedlctinos induxit. 
 
 * Subactus, as an adjective, we have not met elsewhere. Du Cange has Sahac- 
 tus (noun) = Dominium. Perhaps the word should be " Subacuto " — sly or subtle. 
 Camden, Britannia, p. 1S8. 
 
GLASTONBURY OF THE GAEL. 127 
 
 in Downpatrick. Our texts state or imply exactly the 
 reverse. 
 
 The finding of the body of Arthur may now claim our 
 attention. The best account of this is to be found in Leland's 
 Assertio Arturii. He visited Glaston Abbey in the time of 
 the last abbot, Whiting (1525-1539), who was " perfect for him," 
 and whom he styles the whitest of the white, and his proven 
 friend {homo sane candidissimus et amicus meus singularis)?'' 
 He singles out two authorities as of primary importance — an 
 anonymous monk of Glaston Abbey, whose name was unknown 
 to him, the other Cambrensis Giraldus. Both say that Henry II., 
 who kept the Abbey in his own hands after the death of Henry 
 de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, having heard the tradition 
 that Arthur was buried between two pyramids near the old 
 church, ordered the remains to be exhumed, and placed in 
 the new church before the high altar. Those pyramids were 
 26 and 18 feet high respectively. The taller had five courses 
 or stories (tabulatus), on the topmost of which was a figure 
 like a bishop [imago pontificali schemate] ; in the second a 
 figure conducting a royal procession, and the words, Hex Sexi. 
 Bliswerth. In the third course were the words, Wimcreste, Ban- 
 tomp, Wenewegn. The other pyramid had four courses. There 
 were words on those and the remaining courses of the taller 
 pyramids such as those we have mentioned. No mention was 
 made of Arthur or Guinevere in these inscriptions, but the tradi- 
 tion was that the pyramids were erected in his memory, or, as 
 we venture to suggest, one for the king and the other for the 
 queen, but that no mention was made of them in the inscrip- 
 tions, as it was desired to keep the place of his burial secret : 
 " He was buried deep down for fear of the Saxons," wrote the 
 monk. The words may have been cryptic, or put on the 
 pyramids with the object of misleading. On digging down 
 between the pyramids the searchers came on a broad stone 
 
 ^ Leland's Collectanea, v. 50. 
 
 Whiting refused to surrender Glaston Attey and its possessions to Henry 
 VIII. In 1539, the " remembrance " of Cromwell directed " the Abbot of Glaston 
 to be tried at Glaston, and executed there with his eomplycys." We are not con- 
 cerned here with the judicial forms used to cover the " taking off of heads " at this 
 time. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered on Tor Hill, of the Abbey, on Priday, 
 November 14, 1589. The Blessed Richard Whiting was beatified in 1896. The 
 value of the possessions of the Abbey is variously estimated, but, probably, amounted 
 to ;^100,000 a year of our money. 
 
128 EARLY rRISH HISTORY. 
 
 slab, on the under side of -which was fastened, face downwards, 
 a leaden plate in the shape of a cross, with the words inscribed 
 on the face : — " Hie jacet sepultus inclytus rex Arthurus in 
 insula Avelonia." (Here lies buried the famous King Arthur 
 in the Avelonian island.) Nine feet below this the searchers 
 came upon a hollowed oak tree, in which were found the 
 bones, as we assume, of Arthur occupying two-thirds of the 
 space, and the bones of Guinevere occupying the remaining 
 third. Her hair "yellow and beautiful, and braided with 
 exquisite art " (flavam, formosam, et miro artificio consertam) 
 crumbled into dust when they touched it. The remains of 
 both were reverently removed and placed in a magnificent 
 tomb before the high altar. Giraldus did not witness the 
 exhumation, nor does Camden say he did. He was shown the 
 cross with the inscription by Henry, who was made abbot on 
 the death of Henry II., 1189, and became Bishop of Worcester 
 1191, whilst Leland was also shown the cross by Whiting, and 
 gazed on it with the loving curiosity of an antiquary. The 
 cross has been lost or mislaid, but Camden took a copy from a 
 "prototype," which has been engraved and published.^ 
 Giraldus was also shown the bones of Arthur, which were 
 of enormous size. The shin bone was placed on the ground 
 beside the leg of the tallest man then present, and was three 
 finger-breadths above his knee. The skull was very large, 
 and had the marks of ten wounds upon it, nine of which had 
 formed into a firm cicatrix. The tenth was a wide, gaping 
 gash, and was, seemingly, the cause of death. These 
 bones, coupled with the name Arthur, and the proofs we have 
 given of Gaelic immigrations into the South West of Britain 
 indicate that this man of gigantic stature, comparable to the 
 Gaelic giants we have already mentioned, of which there is 
 no example amongst the pure Cymri, are persuasive proof 
 that Arthur was a Gael ; and the colour of Guinevere's (Fin- 
 nabhair ?) hair is some evidence that she too was of Nordic 
 stock.'* In 1276 Edward I. and Eleanor visited Glaston Abbey. 
 The King caused Arthur's tomb to be opened, when he " found 
 the bones of wonderful thickness and largeness." Next day 
 
 " Quam ego curiossimus contemplatus sum ocolia et solicitis contrectaTi arti- 
 calis motus antiquitate rel et dignitate. 
 
 *» JT Gaelic = Cymric go ; e.g., pin, wine, and 510111, wine, 63 and 64. 
 
GLASTONBURY OF THE GAEL. 129 
 
 the King folded up Arthur's bones and the Queen Guinevere's 
 bones in separate wrappers, with precious preservatives, and 
 fixed their seals thereon. The skulls of both, however, were 
 not placed in the tomb, but retained as relics " by reason of 
 the zeal of the people." 
 
 Two epitaphs had been already placed on the tomb — one 
 for Arthur : 
 
 Hie jaoet Authurus flos regum gloria regni 
 Quern mores, probitas commandant laudi perenni 
 
 Here lies Arthur, flower of Kings, glory of the realm, 
 For whom a pure and upright life has won eternal fame. 
 
 And one for Guinevere : 
 
 Hie jacet Arturi conjux tumulata secunda,* 
 Quae meruit caelos virtutum prole fecunda. 
 
 Here lies entombed Arthur's wife, secondly (1) 
 
 The fruitful mother of virtues that have won her heaven. 
 
 The story we have just placed before our readers is some- 
 times treated as a monkish forgery and fable. In a recent 
 work, for example, by distinguished authors, we find the 
 following : — 
 
 " So real was this expectation {i.e., the return of Arthur, hale and 
 strong, to lead his people), that it is supposed to have counted with 
 the English King as one of the forces he had to quell in order to obtain 
 quiet from the Welsh. So the monks of Glastonbury proceeded to dis- 
 cover there the coffin of Arthur, his wife, and her son ! This was to 
 convince the Welsh of the unreasonableness of their reckoning on the 
 return of Arthur, who had been dead for some 600 years."" 
 
 We consider this way of writing history to be deplorable. 
 The dead are entitled to fair play as well as the living ; and 
 t is elementary justice that if a grave charge is to be made it 
 should be made in clear and precise language, and not by way 
 of insinuation. 
 
 *" Sectmda. — There is no suggestion in any text that Arthur was twice 
 married, and we conjecture the "'stridulous " poet, as Lelaud calls him, wrote both 
 epitaphs, and used " seeunda " to make his rhyme, in the above sense, with the 
 second Hie jacet. 
 
 41 " The Welsh People " (1902) KhyS & Jones, p. 593. The son ii imaginary. 
 
 K 
 
130 EAEI-V IRISH HTSTORV 
 
 The authors here must be held to mean, and, we humbly 
 think, ought to have said that Henry II., and the monks and 
 divers persons, known or unknown, conspired to palm off on 
 the Cymri and the general public " bogus " remains of Arthur 
 as genuine for a political purpose. 
 
 We venture to think that they greatly underestimated the 
 intelligence of the Cymri, the sagacity of the monarch, and, 
 we will add, the honesty of the monks. 
 
 Henry was not likely to lend himself to an open daylight 
 fraud that was certain to be exposed and make him ridiculous, 
 and the Cymri never asserted that it was a fraud, which they 
 would certainly have done if there were any grounds for such 
 an allegation. The Cymri had better reasons for defending 
 their liberty than the expectation of Arthur's return, and the 
 monarch had surer means to enforce their obedience than the 
 production of his bones. 
 
[ 131 3 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK.* 
 
 tDos fAotAin ocuf pogriAmA "oo CtAifC 
 A slave, laborious and serviceable to Christ. — Trip. Life. 
 
 DURING the reigns of Crimthann, Niall, and Dathi, the 
 Roman Empire was sinking. Torn by civil strife; 
 distracted by religious controversy, and assailed on every 
 frontier, it appeared to be approaching its last agonies. The 
 year before the accession of Niall (378 A.D.), the flower of the 
 Imperial army fell on the disastrous day of Adrianople 
 " Though the Romans," writes Ammianus, " have often had 
 experience of the fickleness of fortune, their annals contain 
 no record of so destructive a defeat since the battle of Cannae." 
 In 383 A.D., Maximus revolted, and crossed over into Gaul 
 with the greater part of the Roman troops then stationed in 
 Britain. In 400 A.D., Alaric entered Italy, and the troops at 
 the extremities were summoned to defend the heart of the 
 Empire. " From furthest Britain," says Claudian, came the 
 guarding legion that bridled the fierce Scot, and wiping off the 
 blood, examined closely the figures, pictured by puncture 
 on the dying Pict."^ The terrified Romans set vigorously to work 
 to rebuild the walls of the city. — How were the mighty fallen ? 
 Rome was now to experience the truth of the old, old saying, 
 so much admired by Polybius, " that fortune only lends her 
 favours to nations." 
 
 On the last day of the year 406 occurred the irruption of 
 the barbarians across the frozen Rhine into Gaul. " Innumer- 
 able and cruel nations," writes St. Jerome (342-426), in a 
 
 ^ The Patrician Dates we suggest are the following: — Birth, 392-393; Cap- 
 tivity, 407-408 : Apostolic Mission, 432 ; Death, 492-493. 
 s Venit et extremis legio praetenta Britannis 
 
 Quae Scoto dat frena truci ferroque notatas 
 Feilegit exsangues Picto moiienti figuras. 
 
 —-De Beilo Getico," 416-18. 
 Exaangues= clearing away the blood (?) 
 
132 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 letter to Ageruchium, exhorting her against a second marriage, 
 " have inundated Gaul. All that lies between the ocean and 
 the Rhine, and between the Alps and the Pyrenees, has been 
 devastated by the Quadi, the Vandals, the Sarmatians, the 
 Alani, the Herulians, the Burgundians, and, oh ! unhappy 
 republic, by the Pannonians. Mainz, which was formerly an 
 important town, has been taken and sacked, and thousands 
 have been slaughtered in the church. After a long siege. 
 Worms has been destroyed, and Rheims, a town of old so 
 strong ; Amiens, Arras, the Morini, who dwell at the extremity 
 of the earth ; Tournai, Spires, Strasburg, have been carried off 
 into Germany (translatse sunt in Germaniam). Answer me, 
 my daughter, is this a proper time to think of marrying ? " * 
 " A cloud of Saxons, Burgundians, &c., followed in the wake 
 of the invading host, with a view to pillage and plunder. 
 They carried off so many Gauls into captivity that, according 
 to the expression of a contemporary, the Belgic cities were 
 transported into Germany."* 
 
 The Morini at the end of the earth was a reminiscence of 
 Virgil. In the 8th book of the " .^neid," he describes the 
 wonderful shield given by Venus to iEneas, on which, in one 
 scene, Augustus is pourtrayed receiving the gifts of the nations. 
 He is seated at the portals of the Temple of Apollo. In long 
 array before him, file envoys from the conquered peoples from 
 the Euphrates in the East to the Morini, furthest of men, and 
 the " two-horned Rhine," on the West. But now, " Who will 
 believe it ? " Jerome asks. " What fitting language can ever 
 be found to express it, that Rome has to fight at the heart of 
 the Empire, not for glory but for life.^ 
 
 Extremique hondnum Morini Bhenusque bicornia. 
 
 The Morini were a powerful people, contiguous to the sea, as 
 the name implies, in the north-west of Gaul. Their territory 
 was comprised in the ancient diocese of Therouanne, which is 
 now sub-divided into three — Boulogne, St. Omer, and Ypres. 
 Under the organisation of Augustus the Morini were a " civitas," 
 
 * Epist ad Ageruchium Do Monogamia, 16-18, Migne, vol. 22, col. 1,057. 
 
 * Martin's " Hist, of France,' vol. I., 336. 
 
 " Quia hoc credet ? Quae digno sermone hiatoria comprehendet ? Bomam 
 in gremio, suo non pro gloria sed pro salute pugnare, — lb. 2d, col. 1,058. 
 
THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 133 
 
 an administrative centre, a city state. This was more than a 
 town and its suburbs. It was a territory whicb included several 
 small towns as weE as the chief city, some villages as 
 well as a vast number of small properties. The rural districts 
 (pagi) and the villages (vici) were part of the civitas and the 
 most important proprietors generally held the magistracies in 
 the chief city, and formed the bulk of the curia or city senate, 
 and were styled decuriones.^ Taruanna was the chief city of 
 the Morini. It was situated at the head waters of the Letia 
 (now Lys), an important river which flows from the Pas de 
 Calais and joins the Scheldt at Ghent, after a course of 150 
 miles. This was the trade route from the Rhine to Britain. It 
 was one of the four boutes from Gaul mentioned by Strabo, 
 the others being from the Garonne, the Loire, and the Seine. 
 " For such as set sail from the parts about the Rhine," he says, 
 " the passage is not exactly from the mouths of the Rhine but 
 from the Morini, who border the Menapii, among whom is also 
 situated, I learn, Itium (Boulogne), which the deified Caesar 
 used as a naval station."' Taruanna was thus a very important 
 commercial and military position. The name seems to be 
 derived from two Celtic words signifying the Thor of the River.^ 
 
 Let us now examine what St. Patrick says in bis Confessions 
 about his birthplace* : — 
 
 I had for my father Calpornus, a deacon [decurion ?] (the son of 
 Potitus, a priest, the son of Odissus), who lived in the Vicus Bannauem 
 of Tabernia. For he had a small property hard by where I was taken 
 prisoner, when I was nearly sixteen years of age. / knew not God 
 trull/, and I was brought captive to Ireland with so many thousands, as 
 we deserved, for we had fallen away from God and not kept his 
 commandments, and were not obedient to our priests, who admonished 
 us for our salvation. 
 
 • Fasiel de Coulatiges. InstelPolet, toI. I., 228. [Ed. 1901.] 
 
 ' Strabo, iv., 51-3. 
 
 8 " Tercmanne et Acqs en Provence etaientles deux oreillerssur lesquela le 
 roi de France pouvait dormir en paix." Paroles de Francis I. Tor, as we 
 have already stated, meant a fenced town or buttery, from the root " tver," to 
 hold or enclose. We invite our readers to keep it well in mind, as it appears 
 in various forms, particularly in " nem thor," to be mentioned hereafter. 
 
 " Uanna," the second moiety of Taruanna, is from abba gen. abhann, a 
 river, so we suggest that, Taruanna meant fenced town or buttery of the river 
 [Lys]. Abann is pronounced " Ouann,'' and Thor-ouann is not very different 
 in pronounciation from the modem word Therouanne. 
 
 Gregory of Tours styles the inhabitants Tar-abennenses. — Hist, iv., 19. 
 
 ' Too much stress has, we think, been laid on the rudeness of onr Saint's 
 Latin. He was conscious of this himself, and refers to it, which is evidence 
 that there wa« a period of his life when he could have done better. 4s it is, his 
 
134 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Let US for a moment assume that the Vicus Bannauem 
 Taberniae means a village (or village district) in the city state 
 of Taruanna. We know as historical facts that there were 
 very many thousand persons taken prisoners, and, presumably, 
 sold as slaves, about the year 407 or 408 A.D., from the civitas 
 of Taruanna and the adjoining territories, and that there were 
 many priests ministering in these regions at that time. No 
 other place has been suggested as the birthplace of our saint 
 of which the same can be said, as we shall show when dealing 
 with the claims of Alclyde or Dumbarton to that distinction. 
 Again, in the epistle to Coroticus, which, if not genuine in this 
 part, was certainly composed by one who had the genuine 
 confession before him, it is stated that Calpornius was a decurio 
 In the confession, deacon should probably be decurio, as it 
 appears to explain why he was a decurio by adding for he had 
 a small estate (the usual qualification for a decurio), hard by. 
 There is not a shred of evidence above ground or under ground, 
 by written record, monumental inscription or even by unreason- 
 able conjecture that there ever was a curia or a decurio'nP at 
 Alclyde or anywhere north of the city of York during the whole 
 Roman occupation of Britain. In the early centuries of our 
 era as well as in later times the villa meant a very large estate. 
 
 genders, cases, optatives, and subjunctives, and the " other torments " of our 
 youth, seem to be right enough. Having turned our twelfth lustrum, however, 
 we speak subject to correction. His principal deficiency appears to us to be 
 scantiness of his vocabulary and a tendency to transfer the Gaelic idiom into his 
 style, e.g., " dedi capturam " is probably C15AH fuAf, "gave himself up," 
 rather than was captured." On the whole, we doubt if an Oxford prizeman 
 went as a missionary to Tanganyika, and having spoken the local vernacular for 
 sixty years, wrote an apologia after turning ninety years of age — we doubt, we 
 say, if he would do much better. St. Patrick was, no doubt, taught Greek and 
 Latin until he was nearly sixteen years of age. Bilingual instruction was the 
 ordinary course in the schools, not only in the Province, but also in the three 
 Gauls, and both languages were in common use in Marseilles and the South of 
 France, where he made his studies afterwards. 
 
 Deumverumi^norabam. — This is usually translated I did not know the 
 true God ; but the context proves that this is not correct. For how could he 
 fall away from the true God if he did not know him. He was, of course, in- 
 structed in at least the elementary doctrines of the Christian religion by the 
 priests he refers to. We may state here that our chapters about St. Patrick were 
 written and printed in the New Iteland Review before we saw the Latin Writings 
 of St. Patrick by Dr. White, D.D. We have read his valuable contribution 
 with great care, but find nothing to alter in our views or in our translations, 
 which differ materially from his. See Proe. Ey. Ir. Acad., vol. 25, p. 201. 
 
 i" Bury refers to , Kiibler's article Decurio to prove the existence of 
 Decurions in smaller toT^s. But Kubler mentions no case in Britain. Life of 
 St. Patrick, p. 290. 
 
THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 135 
 
 Tacitus speaks of" villarum infinlta spatia " villas, i.e., domains 
 of interminable extent. The diminutive " villula " was the 
 moderate sized estate, also styled " curialis." The owner stood 
 between the great proprietors (potentiores possessores) and the 
 peasant proprietors (possessores minores)." The order of 
 decurions was composed almost exclusively of such owners. 
 There is an Idyll of Ausonius entitled Ausonii Villulam, 
 written about this time, i.e., " the little estate of Ausonius." 
 " It is small, I confess," he says, " but no estate is small for a 
 well-balanced mind."^^ The Villula was situated near 
 Bordeaux, and consisted of 200 jugera (each ^g acre) of tilth, 
 lOOjugera of vineyard, 50 jugera of meadow, and 700 jugera of 
 wood, in all 1,050 jugera ; say 650 acres. The villula referred 
 to in the confession may have been quite as large. Its extent 
 is not of material importance here. It was, at any rate, 
 sufficient to qualify for the burdensome office of a decurio, i.e., 
 over 25 jugera. 
 
 Again, the place referred to as Tabernia must have been a 
 well-known place. The confession does not state where it was 
 situated. The writer evidently thought it was unnecessary 
 to do so. No one nowadays would think of stating that 
 Boulogne was in France. Taruanna was just as famous then 
 as Boulogne is now. Could this be affirmed of any other place 
 claiming to be the Saint's birthplace ? 
 
 The words "in vico Bannauem Tabernise " next claim 
 our attention. " Vicus " had many meanings. In the time 
 we write of it meant (1) a street. There was a vicus Patricus 
 in olden Rome. It meant (2) an urban district, say a parish. 
 It also meant (3) a village or rural district. Joubert says 
 " there were 10,000 vici, 400 pagi, and about 100 nations in 
 Gaul in Caesar's time, and the vici correspond to the modern 
 communes."^ A passage of Ulpian places our contention 
 beyond doubt. It provides " that a person born in a vicus is 
 deemed in law to be a citizen by birth of the city state to 
 
 " This distinction is found in the Tbeodosian Code (385 A.D.) xi. 7. 12. 
 
 ^ Parrnm herediolum, fateor, sed nulla fuit rea. 
 
 Parva unquam aequanimis. — Idyll III. 
 
 Ausonius was afterwards tutor to Gratian, the son of the Emperor Valen- 
 tinian, and Consul, A.D. 379. — " De rhetore Consul." 
 
 " Joubert "La Gaule," 134. 
 
136 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 which that vicus appertained (qui ex vico ortus est earn 
 patriam intelligitur habere respublicae cui vicus ille respondet. 
 — Digest L. 30). We suggest that the vicus Bannauem 
 appertained to the city state Taruanna. The omission of 
 inflection, i.e., Bannauem instead of Bannauensi makes no 
 difficulty. It was usual at this period in the case of such 
 names. 
 
 The real question is, does " Tabernise " stand in the text 
 of the confession for " Taruannse." If Taber-niae be divided 
 into its component parts, and if the " b " inTaber be aspirated 
 then the pronounciation would be " thour " which would be 
 nearly the same as " tdr," pronounced " thaur." The second 
 part " uannse " would then be represented by " niae," the 
 intervening vowels " ua " being omitted. The Irish ortho- 
 graphy of Latin words had several peculiarities, many of 
 which are conveniently enumerated by Gilbert in the intro- 
 duction to h"s Facsimile M.S. It will suflSce for us to mention 
 the following—" Ch " for " h," e.g. Abracham, " 1 " omitted, 
 "audens" for "audiens," "i " inserted, "e" for " se," "q" 
 for "c," qu for " c," "t"for " d." In this way Taber-[i]-ni£e, 
 pronounced Thor-i-nise comes very close to the modern name 
 Therouanne. The view we are suggesting will appear more 
 clearly from the words of Muirchu, which are copied) we may 
 assume, by Probus. Muirchu wrote his notes about the life of 
 our saint under the direction and supervision of Aedh, Bishop 
 of Sleibhte (in the Queen's Co., near Carlow), who died in the 
 year 698 A.D.i* 
 
 Muirchu's words, which we take from the Bocumenta 
 Patriciana are (abridged) as follows : — 
 
 " Patricius, qui et Socket vocabatur, Brito nations in 
 Britannis natus. Caulfarni diaconi ortus filio ut ipse ait 
 Potiti presbyteri qui fuit (de) Vico Ban navem thaburindecha 
 ut procul a mari nostro." We pause to suggest that the words 
 should be divided, spaced, and written as follows: — "de vico 
 Banna vem Thabher inde (thaur-inne) chaut (i.e. hand) procul a 
 mari nostro." The Life by Probus follows Muirchu closely, and 
 he had, no doubt, before him the first leaf of the notes by 
 
 " Muirchu diotante Aeduo Slebtiensis oivitatis episcopo consoripsjt. Dictare 
 operam signifioare videtur prasesse operariis eisque normam tradere atque 
 oidiaem stiuctionis, — Do Cange. 
 
THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 137 
 
 Muirchu, which is now missing from the book of Armagh. 
 Father Hogan's text is taken from a MS. in the Royal Library 
 at Brussels. Probus is identified by Colgan with Coenechair, 
 a professor or head master in the School of Slane, on the 
 Boyne, who died about the year 950. His words are : — " Sanctus 
 Patricius qui et Socket vocabatur Brito fuit natione . . • Hie 
 in Britaniis natus est a patre Calpurnio diacono qui fuit filius 
 Potiti presbyteri . . . de vioo Bannaue Tibumiae regionie 
 haud procul a mari occidentali." 
 
 Muirchu continued : — Quern vicum constanter indubitan- 
 terque comperimus esse ventre (priua venitre ?), which " vicus " 
 we have found without any doubt or difference of opinion to be 
 of ventra or venitra. Probus has " quern vicum indubitanter 
 comperimus esse Nentreae or Neutreae (Todd), provinciae qua 
 olim gigantes* habitasse dicuntur," which vicus we hold to be 
 without doubt of the province of Nentria or Neutria, in which 
 the giants are said to have dwelt formerly. There can be no 
 doubt, ws think, that "Nentriae" or "Neutriae" in Probus 
 represents the word ventre [i.e. ventrae] or venitrae in the 
 Brussels text of Muirchu.^^ It was understood so by Lanigan, 
 and must mean Neustria, which was also called Neptria and 
 Nevtria. It comprised at this time the territory between the 
 Meuse and the Loire.^® 
 
 Afler his capture our Saint was sold " with many thou- 
 sands " into Erin. Slaves were a drug in the market at that 
 time. Two years previously, A.D. 405, Stilicho had forced the 
 army of Radagaisus to surrender in the Tuscan hills to the 
 number, some say, of 200,000 ! ^^ They were sold as slaves, and 
 
 *Gisar>tes. — This has do meaning here. There is no record or myth ahont 
 giants dwelling in North Western Gaul. We conjecture Brigantes, which, after 
 the fashion of his age. Probus connected etymologically and genealogically with 
 'BiiteLnia,, Bregh-an, andBrith-an being similar in sound in Gaelic pronunciation. 
 
 Socket, afterwards Saja^c, was probably the first Gaelic attempt at 
 Sacerdos — which meant bishop as well as priest. 
 
 ^ Hogan E., S.J., Documenta de S. Patricio Analeota BoUondiana, vol. 1„ 
 p. 549; Todd, p. 357; Colgan, Acta, SS. ii. 51. 
 
 " Partem ad ocoasum solis vergentem quae inter Mosam et Ligerem inter- 
 jacet Neustriam vel Neustrasiam et nonunquam Neptrioam vel Nepiriam voca- 
 Terunt. — Valesins NoHtia Gallearum{l615), p. 372. 
 
 " Orosius — Tanta vero mnltitudo oaptivorum Gothorum fuisse fertur, ut 
 vilissimorura peoudum modo singulis aureis passim greges hominnm vende- 
 reistur.— Tii., 36. Migne 31, U61. 
 
138 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 fetched only the price of cattle, an aureus (12s.) apiece. This 
 may account for the vast importation mentioned in the Con- 
 fession, to which we now return. 
 
 He became the slave of Milchu, the King of North Dala- 
 radia, who lived in the valley of the Braid, near the hill of 
 Slemish, about five miles from Ballymena, in the county of 
 Antrim. The Confession proceeds : — 
 
 But after I had come to Ireland I daily used to herd cattle, and I 
 prayed frequently, and in the one day I said about one hundred 
 prayers, and as many in the night. And one night in my sleep I heard 
 a -voice saying to me " Thou fastest well ; thou shalt soon go to thy 
 fatherland," and again after a short time I heard an answer saying to me 
 " Behold thy ship is ready." And it was not near, but perhaps 200 
 (Roman) miles away (184 statute miles). After this I took flight and 
 left the man with whom I had been for six years. And I feared 
 nothing until I had arrived at that ship, and on the day I arrived the 
 ship moved out of its place ({.e., from the beach), and I told them I 
 was away from the wherewithal (to give) that I might sail with 
 them." And it displeased the captain, and he answered sharply with in- 
 dignation, " By no means seek to go with us." And 1 separated myself 
 from them and was going on my way, when one of them called out, 
 " Come quickly, the men are calling you." I returned and they 
 said, " Come, we take you on credit and help us (lit. do friendship with 
 us) as you please." That day, however, I refused to eat their food, 
 through the fear of God, and after (a voyage of) three days we reached 
 land. 
 
 We suggest that the first part of this journey was from 
 Slemish to Sligo, or more probably to Killala, near which was 
 the wood of Foclat, where he took ship for the mouth of the 
 Loire.^*. The cargo consisted chiefly of dogs, which the owner 
 
 '' Et ilia die qua perveni profeota est navis, de loco suo et looutus sum ut 
 dbirent unde naTigarem cum ilfis. The Armagh text has abirem. The Cotton 
 MS. has hdberem. We suggest aberam, the meaning being that he had not 
 the money to pay his fare at that time, but would pay at Marseilles where he 
 had friends. This corresponds to the following " ex fide " on credit [Veni 
 quia ex fide recipimus te]. Sugere mamraillas, suck their paps,means eat their 
 food. Our Saint scrupled to do so lest it might be an idol ofiering. White 
 quotes with approval Bury : — " Professor Bury has kindly communicated to me 
 after the Latin text was printed the following note — ' I take Sugere mamellas 
 to be an interesting piece of evidence for a ceremony or primitive adoption ! ' " 
 — Proc. Ey, Ir. Acad., vol. 26, p. 321. 
 
 1' The land journey was, we think, from Slemish to the Cutts at the Bann, 
 near Colerainp, thence to Derry, thence by the Gap of Bamesmore to Donegal, 
 thence to Ballyshannon, thence to Sligo, thenoe to Ballina, thence to Killala. 
 We are unable to state exact figures for these distances, but conjecture from 
 map measurements that going by the ordinary routes it could not have been less 
 than 150 miles, and a runaway slave would" not be likely to keep to the high- 
 ways, and stating a round number from recollection would not be far astray 
 in mentioning 20O Boman or 184 English miles as the length of his journey. 
 
THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 139 
 
 was takinsT to Marseilles. The voyage over the sea could be 
 accomplished in 3 days. Philip O'Sullivan Beare in his Decas 
 Patritiana, says, as already stated, it was scarcely more than 
 a two days' voyage from Ireland to France, or than a three 
 days' voyage from Ireland to Spain, i.e., from Kinsale to 
 Corunna.^" 
 
 The Gaelic and Celtic hounds were greatly prized by the 
 Italians and Provengal villa proprietors, who usually kept packs 
 of hounds for hunting game, a sport in which they greatly de- 
 lighted. These dogs were also used for games and exhibitions 
 in the circus. Symachus, consul A.D, 391, thanks his brother 
 Flavianus for Sending seven Gaelic dogs (canum Scoticorum 
 oblatio) which the Romans received with such astonishment 
 on the day of the games that they thought they must 
 have been brought in iron cages [as if they were lions or 
 tigers. ]^^ 
 
 In Claudian the dogs are represented as follow- 
 ing the huntress Diana and her five lieutenants in their 
 quest for wild beasts to win plaudits for the consul 
 (Stilicho). Amongst other dogs he mentions the BritannsB, 
 i.e., the Scotic dogs, dogs that will break the necks 
 of mighty bulls. (Magnaque taurarum fracturae coUa 
 Britannae.)^^ 
 
 The Confession does not mention what the party 
 die", when they arrived in France, nor does the saint 
 say afterwards what he did when the Lord delivered 
 him from their hands. From the time he went on 
 board ship until his liberation he tells us sixty days 
 elapsed, of which twenty-eight were spent in the desert, 
 two resting, and ten finishing the journey, making in all 
 forty days. Of the balance of twenty days, three were spent on 
 the voyage, and the remaining seventeen days, about which 
 nothing is said, were probably spent in landing, making pre- 
 parations for the journey, and going forward as far as the 
 
 ^ Euronotum versus Galliam (Scotia) habet vix plus duorum dierum marino 
 itinere remotam. Hispanias tridui normali oursu dissitas a Libonoto sive 
 Africo in aquilouem ventum ooourrentes speotat, — Decas p. 2 (1619). 
 
 =• gee " The Irish Wolf Dog." E. Hogan, S.J., passim. 
 
 82 In II. Cons. Stilich. Lib., 361. 
 
140 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 desert. The reference to this journey in Fiacc's Hymn is as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Said Victor to Milchu's bondsman that he should go over 
 
 the waves, 
 He [i.e. Victor] set his foot on the flag stone ; its trace 
 
 remains, it wears not away. 
 He sent him over all the Alps [tar Elpa huile], Great God 
 
 it was a marvel of a course, 
 So that he left him with Gennanus in the South, in the 
 
 southern part of Letha. 
 In the isles of the Southern Sea he fasted ; therein he 
 
 meditates. 
 He read the Canon with Germanus ; this is what the written 
 
 lines declare." 
 
 After landing at the mouth of the Loire, we suggest, the 
 party proceeded towards Orleans, probably keeping near the 
 river. This occupied the better part of seventeen days. East of 
 Orleans, a great forest then covered the upland between the 
 Loire and the Seine. Until recent times this region was so 
 thinly populated that it was known as the Gatinais, or wilder- 
 ness — Gatine was old French for desert. This was part of the 
 desert referred to in the Confession. If the party then followed 
 the course of the Loire — " the Loire of the Alps," as it is 
 called in the text already mentioned — they would reach the 
 Morvan, which is a promontory jetting out from the Massif 
 Central (Cevennes), twenty miles broad and forty miles long. 
 The Loire, which rises in the Massif Central at an elevation 
 of 4,511 feet above the level of the sea, and has a course of 620 
 miles, passes alongside of the Morvan as it flows north-west to 
 Orleans. After crossing the Morvan the party would descend 
 into the narrow valley of the Rhone, which separates the 
 Massif Central from the Alps, of which it is geologically an out- 
 post. South of this lay the Provincia, which was not part of 
 the " Three Gauls," and which, as Pliny wrote, was more truly 
 Italia than a " Provincia." The Alps crossed by our 
 Saint was some spur of the Massif Central and the Italy 
 into which he descended, was the Provincia,^ and the 
 islands south of Italy were the islands in the Mediter- 
 ranean south of this Italy. This view explains the 
 
 ** Breviterque Italia TCrius quam Provincia.— Pliny N.H., iii., 4. 
 
THE COMING OF ST. PATUICK. 14-1 
 
 Dictum Patricii. " I had the fear of God to guide me on 
 my journey through the Gauls and Italy in(to) the islands in 
 the Tyrrhene Sea.^* 
 
 The word Italia had at this time, after the territorial changes 
 introduced by Diocletian, many significations. The one 
 thing it did not mean in the official language was Italy as a 
 geographical unit by itself. For instance — 1st., the Prefecture 
 of Italy included the dioceses of Italy, Illyricum, and Africa ; 
 2nd., the Diocese of Italy included Italy, Tyrol, Grisons, and 
 South Bavaria. Kuffi, the historian of Marseilles, writes of 
 going from the Province into Gaul. It need not surprise us, 
 therefore, to find the " furthest of men " at this time regarding 
 a province which was not a part of the " three Gauls "as part 
 and parcel of Italy itself. So in the Tripartite Life (239) 
 Burdigala (Bordeaux) is referred to as being in Letavia (Italy). 
 " He left Sechnall in the bishopric with the men of Erin until 
 the ship should come from Burdigala of Letavia to carry him. 
 Patrick went in this and came to Rome." 
 
 Our readers may ask. Why did the party proceed through 
 the forests ? Was there not a highway from Marseilles to Lyons 
 by the left bank of the Rhone, and from Lyons to Orleans and 
 Tours on the Loire ? The answer is, there was ; but the bye-ways 
 were then safer than the highways. The country had been 
 laid waste by the barbarians, and, in all probability, neither 
 food nor lodging for man or beast could be obtained along the 
 great Roman road. Writing in 416 or 417 a.d., a poet, 
 supposed by some to be Prosper of Aquitaine, says : — " For 
 ten years we have been cut down by the swordsof the Vandals 
 and the Goths ; if the whole ocean was poured into Gaul 
 more would be left above the waters. So many cities have 
 perished, what crimes did the citizens commit ? So many 
 blameless youths, so many maidens. How had they 
 offended ? "^ 
 
 "* Tiuiorem Dei habui ducein itineris mei per Gallias atque Italiam etiam 
 ia insuUs quae sunt in mari Terreno. 
 
 *• Carmen de Providentia 
 
 Si totus gallos se3e efiudisset in agios 
 Oceanus, vaatis plus superesset aquis 
 
 Heu coede decenni. 
 Vandalicis gladiis sternimur et Geticis 
 Quo sceleri admisso pariter periere tot urbes 7 
 Quid pueri insontes. Quid commisere puellae ? 
 
 Migne, vol. .51, col. 617. 
 
142 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 The Confession continues : — 
 
 And we journeyed for 28 days through a desert, and food failed 
 them and hunger prevailed over them, and one day the gubernator said 
 to me : " How is it. Christian, you say your God is all powerful ? Why 
 therefore canst thou not pray for us since we are like to die of hunger, 
 and 'tis hard if ever we see the face of man again 1 " Now I said 
 plainly to them, " turn ye with faith to the Lord, my God, to whom 
 nothing is impossible, that he may send you food on your way until you 
 have enough, because everywhere there is abundance with Him ? " And 
 lo ! a herd of swine appeared on the way before our eyes and they 
 killed many of them, and they remained there two nights, and they 
 were well recruited and their dogs were filled. After this they gave 
 the greatest thanks to God. They found, moreover, wild honey, and 
 offered me some, and one of them said " it is an idol offering " (immo- 
 laticum). Thank God after that I tasted none of it. And that same 
 night Satan tempted me greatly in a way that I shall remember as 
 long as I am in this body. AJid he fell upon me like a huge rock and 
 I had no power on my limbs save that it came home into my mind that 
 I should call out Helias {'E\iei(rov ?) ^ and in that moment I saw 
 the sun rise in the heavens, and while I was calling out Helias 
 {'EXiuaov) with all my might, behold, the splendour of the sun fell 
 upon me and at once removed the weight from me and I believe that 
 1 was aided by Christ, my Lord, and His spirit was then crying out for 
 me, and I hope it will be thus in the day of trial (die pressurae). And 
 further, I was seized by many (spirits). On that first night, then, 
 that I remained with them I heard the divine voice, " You 
 will be with them for two months." And so it was. On 
 the 60 night the Lord delivered me from their hands. On our route 
 too He provided for us food and fire and dry weather every day until 
 on the tenth day we all arrived. As I stated before, we had made a 
 journey of 28 days through the desert ; and on the night we arrived 
 we had indeed no food left. 
 
 ^ Heliam vooarem. We suggest " EKcuaov " — Have mercy. This 13 in- 
 dicated by the context and by the following deotum Patiicii. 
 
 Ecclesia Scotorum immo Romanorum ; ut Ghristeani ita ut 
 Romani sitis ut decantabitur vobiscum oportet omni hora orationis vox 
 ilia laudabilis " Curie lession Christe lession." ' Omnis Ecclesia quae 
 sequitur mecantet 'Curie lession Christe lession, Deo gratias.' 
 
 The Church of the Scots now is the Church of the Romans ; as you 
 are Christian that you may be likewise Roman, it is needful that you 
 should sing at every hour of prayer that laudable chaat Kvpu iXhiaov 
 Xpiore iXieiaov- Every Church that follows me will sing Kvpis kXUiaov 
 XptoTi eXiriuov, Thanks to God, ordinary pronunciation now is Kvpu Xctooi' 
 or KvptE XijETov. The Gaelic pronunciation of " lession " is "lessin." 
 
 We are unable to accept Bury's version " Church of the Soots now of the 
 Romans in order that you may be Christians as well as Romans it behoves that 
 there should be chanted in your ohurohes, etc." The plural " satis " excludes 
 this. St. Patrick, p. 229, and see Academy, Aug., 1888, p. 89. 
 
 Dicta Patricii.—AnaXeota Bollandiana I. 685.— Bolls scr. IV. 301. 
 
 Multos adhuo oapturam dedi. 
 
 We think multis animis = daemonibus is the only reading that will make sense. 
 Ferguson says the confession here refers to " a continuing spiritual captivity. " 
 
THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 143 
 
 When St. Patrick arrived at Marseilles, Cassian was build- 
 ing, or had just built, the Monastery of St. Victor, which was 
 destined to be afterwards one of the wealthiest and most 
 celebrated in France. It was built over the " Confession " or 
 tomb of the Soldier Martyr, St. Victor, who had suffered for the 
 faith during the Diocletian persecution on the 22nd of July 
 303, on which day the feast of St. Mary Magdalen is now 
 celebrated therein. He was a native of Marseilles. His body 
 was dismembered, and with the bodies of others who suffered 
 at the same time, thrown by the executioners into the sea. 
 His townsmen gathered the remains from the beach and 
 placed them in the crypts, over which the monastery was built, 
 near the cubiculum, or cell of Mary Magdalen. Lazarus and 
 Mary and Martha were, according to the tradition of the 
 church in Provence, driven from Palestine after the Ascension 
 of our Lord and fled to Marseilles, and were the pioneers of 
 Christianity there. These crypts were originally natural caves 
 and passages in a limestone hill near the harbour. When 
 Csesar besieged the town in 49 B.C., on this hill it was that 
 the celebrated Druid's grove was situated, which struck such 
 awe into his soldiers that to dissipate their terror he took up 
 an axe and dealt the first blows to a venerable oak.^' 
 
 The truth of the tradition was assailed by Launay and his 
 school in the I7th century. It has been ably defended by 
 many writers, amongst others by the Bishop of Angers, then 
 professor at the Sorbonne, who, in the course of his lecture on 
 "The First Apostles of Gaul," made the following admirable 
 observations, which we have endeavoured to apply to our own 
 traditions, and deem it not superfluous to quote in this place : 
 
 They have violated the rules of sound criticism. If they had 
 confined themselves to saying that amongst the legends of the first 
 apostles of Gaul, composed after the lapse of many centuries and 
 grounded on popular tradition, there were some which mixed up with 
 
 ^ Gregory of Tours, Mvltis miraculis celeberimum. De gloria Mariyrum, 
 Lib. I. 
 
 Euinart Ada Martyrum (Ed. 1853) p. 333. 
 
 Notice sur les Crypts de VAbbaye Saint Victor pres. Marseilles, 1864. 
 A very interesting notice by an anonymous writer, with a plan of the Crypts ; 
 only 40 copies printed. 
 
 Faillon M., Monuments inedits sur Vapostolat de Sainte Marie Madeleine 
 en Provence. 
 
144 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 an incontestable body of facts, inexact details and apocryphal traits 
 added thereto by the popular imagination and the simplicity of writers, 
 they would have kept within the bounds of calm and impartial 
 discussion. If this principle had been accepted the way would have 
 been clearly marked out for a methodical search for truth. To study 
 those old legends without bias towards praise or censure, as so much 
 primitive tradition, often enlarged and embellished with a view to 
 edification, to examine with care their origin or their value, to extract 
 the historical element which is often shut up in them under the veil of 
 poetry, to strip the principal fact of accessory circumstances subse- 
 quently worked in, such is the task a sound criticism has to perform. 
 But there is rashness, to say the least of it, in refusing all belief to 
 these legendary narratives, in rejecting absolutely the " ensemble " as 
 well as the details, the body of facts as well as the foreign additions. 
 It carries no small authority, what a church by unbroken tradition 
 testifies as to the name, the life, and the works of its founder.* 
 
 The truth of this tradition and, what concerns us more 
 nearly, the great evangelizing work done by the Monastery of 
 St. Victor, are attested by the Bull or Privilegium of Pope 
 Benedict IX. After being completely destroyed by the 
 Saracens in the 9th century, the structure was rebuilt and re- 
 dedicated in 1040. " The rededication," says Ruffi, " was one of 
 the most illustrious that history records." The Pope performed 
 the ceremony of rededicating the two churches, the uppei 
 church dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, and the lower church, 
 in which were the confession of St. Victor and the relics of the 
 martyrs, and many religious treasures. The Counts of Provence, 
 the Viscounts of Marseilles, the Archbishops of Aries, Valence, 
 Aix, and Embrun, and some twenty sufifragan bishops took 
 part in the function. Numerous abbots and religious, in aU 
 nearly ten thousand persons, were assembled, It was on this 
 occasion that the Privilegium or Bull was issued, from which 
 we take the following abridged extract : — 
 
 With the same care we determined to confirm this monastery, 
 founded near Marseilles in the time of Antoninus Pius, and afterwards 
 built by the blessed abbot Cassian and consecrated at his request by 
 the most blessed Leo, Bishop of Rome * ♦ * which was augmented 
 with many honours and charters by emperors and kings, and enriched 
 with the relics of the holy martyrs Victor and his companions and of 
 
 ^ Freppel C. E., Bi8liOp of Angers : Irenee et Viloquence Chretienne dans 
 la Gaule pendant Us deux premiers siecles. Cours d' eloquence saoree fait 4, la 
 Sorbonne pendant I'ann^e 1800-1861, p. 46. 
 
THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 145 
 
 Lazarus raised from tho dead, and of the innumerable martyrs, con- 
 fessors, and virgins, as is testified in many volumes of sacred litera- 
 ture.^ 
 
 It was from this tnonastery that Cassian first shone forth to pro- 
 mulgate everywhere in Western pArts the monastic rule for the perfect 
 and regular way of monastic life ; and this monastery in, the love of 
 Christ its spouse was so persevering in its mission that its voice went 
 forth into every land and its teaching like a bright lamp, spread the 
 light to the ends of the earth." '" 
 
 Cassian was probably born in Lesser Scythia, in some 
 trading station of the Marsellaise in that territory, near the 
 mouths of the Danube. He was educated at Bethlehem, and 
 afterwards went to Egypt, where he spent seven years visiting 
 anchorites and cenobites, from the mouth of the Nile to the 
 first cataract. He received deacon's orders from St. John 
 Chrysostom, and was ordained priest by Pope Innocent I. 
 Leaving Rome, he arrived in Marseilles about the year 410, the 
 year in which St. Honoratus founded the celebrated monastery 
 at Lerins, and built his monastery, which shortly reckoned 
 5,000 monks attached to the parent house and its dependencies. 
 It was called the " gate of paradise," ^^ and is perhaps referred 
 to in the dictum of our Saint, who may have been inwardly 
 contrasting its peaceful life there with his strenuous militancy. 
 "From the world" says the Dictum, "you have retired into 
 Paradise." (De Saeculo requisisstis ad paradissum).^^ 
 
 There were two classes of monks, of which RuflS gives an 
 interesting description. The first were the Cenobites. These 
 led a life in common under the Abbot, or Prior. Amongst these 
 were monarchi ctd succurendum, persons of the first quality, 
 struck with a dangerous illness, who put on the sackcloth of 
 penitence to gain the spiritual aid of the monks, by becomino- 
 members of the " Corps " of the Monastery. If they recovered. 
 
 29 Rufia, Histoire de Marseille, vol. II,, 25. 
 
 30 Nam et in occiJuis partibus ad monaohorum profectum et regularem 
 tramitem Cassianus hino primus emiouit, ad promulgandum oiroumquaque 
 Monaohorum legem, quodque monasterium ita in amoro Christi sponsi ambiens 
 perduravit ut in omnem terram sonus ejus exiret, et in fines orbis terrae ejus 
 dootrina et luoerna fulgens luceret. 
 
 Privil. Bened., vs.. ann. MXL., printed by 
 
 Faillon, M. Abbe, Monuments inedits sur I'apostolat de Sainte Marie 
 Madeleine en Provence et sur les autres apotres, etc., 1848, Vol. II., p. 635. 
 
 '1 Ba£S, " Ce monast^re 6tait appele la parte de Paradis," Vol. II., p. 114. 
 ^ Trip. Life R.S., 103. Requissistis=recessistis, qu being often used fore. 
 
 L 
 
446 EABLT IRISH BISTORT. 
 
 they "were obliged to wear the habit and live according to 
 monastic discipline. The second class were the Anchorites ; 
 these shut themselves up in cells, huts, caunes or recluseries, 
 which the Abbot of St. Victor had got built in the neighbour- 
 hood. They did not make much difference between the cells 
 and the huts, both being hermitages, composed of several 
 (cellules) small cells. The monks who wished to live in strict 
 solitude retired to the cells. Those who Uved in the huts had 
 a superior over them, and met together every Saturday and 
 Sunday for the " office " in the church of the Hermitage. The 
 Reclusi (inclusi) lived more retired, for they took a vow never 
 to leave their cells, where they had a little garden and a little 
 oratory to celebrate Mass. They could only communicate 
 with seculars through a window, through which they heard 
 confessions — even those of women. After they were enclosed, 
 the seal of the Abbot was placed on the door of the cell, which 
 was opened only in case of dangerous illness. Even then the 
 incluse was not allowed to leave the cell.^^ The latter form of 
 life was much encouraged by Cassian. Addressing certain holy 
 brothers in a.d. 428, he writes : " You, by your instructions, 
 have stirred up monks, not only before all, to seek the common 
 life of the ccenobia, but even to thirst eagerly for the sublime 
 life of the anchorite." The conferences were arranged with 
 such care " that they are suited to both modes of life, whereby 
 you have made not only the countries of the West, but even 
 the islands, to flourish with great crowds of brethren."** 
 
 It was these islands, no doubt the Stoechades and others, 
 that our saint visited in the Tyrrhene Sea. St. Honoratus, 
 too, the friend of Cassian, " honoured," as he says in the pre- 
 face to the 18th conference, "in his name and in his works," 
 received him, doubtless, with open arms. All flocked to 
 Honoratus, says his biographer, S. Hilarius, " for what country, 
 what nation is there that has not citizens in his monastery ? " ^ 
 It was a school of Theology and Christian Philosophy, as well 
 as an asylum for literature and art. Cassian advised his monks 
 
 « Ruffi, vol. 2, p. 135. 
 
 °* Cassian, Preface to iSth Conference. 
 
 " Omnes undique ad ilium, confluebant. Etenim quae adhuo terfa quje 
 ratio in Monastereo illius Gives non habet ?— S. Hilar. Vita S. Honor. C. 175, 
 S. Honoratus died in 428. 
 
THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 147 
 
 to avoid bishops — that is, to remain laymen. The Monastery of 
 St. "Victor did not make any provision for studies preparatory 
 to the priesthood. 
 
 There can be little doubt that our apostle made his 
 theological studies " in the nursery of bishops and saints." 
 St. Honoratus became the metropolitan of Aries (Arelatensis) 
 and died a.d. 428. The island is still called after him — L'Isle 
 de S. Honorat. This was the tradition of the Irish Church. 
 Tirechan says " He was in one of the islands, which is called 
 Aralanensis {i.e., Sancti Honorati Arelatensis), 30 years, as 
 Bishop Ultan testified to me." St. Lupos, a disciple of St. 
 Germanus, was at this time a student at Lerins. He was soon 
 after chosen by Troyes for its bishop, and accompanied St. 
 Germanus to Britain in 429. St. Germanus became Bishop of 
 Auxerre in 418, and immediately founded there an establish- 
 ment, which became one of the most celebrated abbeys in 
 France of the Middle Ages.'^ 
 
 ^ Erat hautem in una ex insulis quae dioitur aralanensis, annis XXX, , mihi 
 testante Ultano episcopo. The letter numerals are of course, as frequently 
 happens, erroneous. Trip, Life, B.S., 302. The Scholiast on Fiacc refers to 
 the island of ,i4;anensis as the place where St. Patriot got the staff of Jesus. 
 Se% Tfip. Life, 420. 
 
148 3 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE COMINa OF ST. PATKICK. — II. 
 
 THE tradition of the Irish Church is that our Saint studied 
 under Germanus. This is corroborated by the testimony 
 of Hericus (834-883), who was a monk in his monastery. 
 Referring to the disciples of St. Germanus, he says : — 
 
 Since the glory of the father shines in the training of the children, 
 of the many sons in Christ whom St. Germaniis is believed to have had 
 as disciples in religion, let it suffice to make mention here, very briefly, 
 of one most famous — Patrick, the Apostle all by himself {pecuUaris), of 
 the Hibernian region, as the record of his work proves. Subject to 
 that most holy discipleship for eighteen years, he drank in no little 
 knowledge in Holy Scripture from the stream of so great a well-spring. 
 Germanus sent him by Segetius, his priest, to Celestine, Pope of Rome, 
 approved) of by whose judgment, supported by whose authority, and 
 strengthened by whose blessing, he went on his way to Ireland.' 
 
 The Scholiast on Fiacc says : — " Germanus, abbot of the 
 city called Altiodorus (i.e., Autissiodorum, Auxerre). It is with 
 him that Patrick read, and Burgundy is the name of the 
 province in which that city stands. In the south in Italy that 
 province used to be. but it is more correct to say it is in the 
 Gauls." 2 
 
 The geography of Burgundy is complex. There was at 
 one time a Cisjuran Burgundy, the capital of which was Aries, 
 "in Italy in the South." There was a Transjuran Burgundy 
 
 ' Et quoniam gloria patris in suorum clarescit moderamine filiornm, multos 
 quos in Chiisto fllios in religione creditur habuisse discipulos, unius tantum 
 ejusdemque famossisaimi castigata brevilate suffioiet inaeri mentionem, Patriciua 
 ut geatorum ejus series prodit HiberniccB peouliaris apostolus regionis eanctis- 
 simo ei disoipulatui octodecim addictus annis non mediocrem e tanti vena fontia 
 in Soripturia ooeleatibua hausit eruditionem ... ad Sanctum Coeleatinum urbia 
 Romse papain per Segetium presbyterum suum eum direxit . . . Cujua Jadioio 
 approbatua auotoritate fultus, benediotione deniqne roboratua Hibernise partes 
 expetiit.—^ c<a SS. Boll, vol. 34, p. 270, ed. 1868, July Slat. 
 
 It is right to atate that in an earlier life by Constantiua about A.C 488 no 
 mention is made of St. Patrick, but this negative evidence is not of much 
 weight. 
 
 Eighteen (Ootodeoim) years is a mistake ; probably scribal. 
 
 ^ See Irish Tract also, which is given with translation in " Horan's Essays," 
 p. 248. 
 
THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 149 
 
 north of this. And later there was the province of Burgundy 
 in the Kingdom of France, in the north of which was situated 
 Auxerre, 107 miles S.E. of Paris. The Scholiast has also a 
 Scholium on " La German andes in descairt Letha (with 
 Germanus in the south, in the southern part of Letha), which is 
 important: — "Letha, i.e., Latium, which is also called Italy. 
 Howbeit Germanus was in the Gauls, as Beda says ; Lethaig, 
 (Letevians) that is in latitudine, in the South of Gaul, by 
 the Tyrrhene Sea."^ This seems to imply that the Lethaig, 
 or Letavia and Italia, were each south of the Gauls by the 
 Tyrrhene Sea, in his view. 
 
 The Cymri, in their dialect called Brittany Llydaw, which 
 Geoffrey of Monmouth rendered in Latin, Letavia. It means 
 " litorale " (coast-land), and it may be connected with " litus." 
 It was, no doubt, originally co-extensive with Armorica, 
 though, at a later period, after the immigration of the Britons 
 the name was usually applied in a restricted sense. It is to 
 be further observed that the name of the river Lys, on which 
 Taruanna stood, was Letia, which is nearer in sound to Letha 
 than either Latium or Letavia. 
 
 The author of the first part of Fiacc's Hymn in the eighth 
 century intends to follow the Confession, and, no doubt, was 
 icquainted with the Life by Muirchu. He says : — " Gennair 
 Patraice innemthur, ised adfet hiscelaib," (Patrick was born in 
 Nemthur, 'tis this he tells us in his books). These books were 
 the Confession and the Epistle, to Coroticus, which are styled 
 the Libri Patricii in our texts. Adfet used to be translated 
 " as is told," but the true meaning is " as he says," which 
 corresponds to Muirchu's " ut ipse ait." 
 
 This Nemthur appears in most if not in all the subsequent 
 lives. We suggest that " genair in Nemthur " = natus est ad 
 Taberniam. Thur or Tor would thus represent Taher, and 
 Nem would represent niam, the word being arranged Nemthur 
 to meet the exigencies of the metre. We are not, however, 
 dependent on linguistic considerations such as these alone to 
 prove that " Tabernia" represents Taruanna. No higher 
 authority on this point could be cited than M. Desjardins, the 
 
 3 Trip. Life, p. 418. 
 
 Kellesch, Sprachen Ersch., S. 143. 
 
 Indogermanische Forschungen, iv., 86 (Thurnespen). 
 
150 EAELT IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 author of the " Geography of Koman Gaul," and the 
 " Geography of Gaul after the Table of Peutinger," a magnifi- 
 cent edition of which he edited (1874). In the last-mentioned 
 work he gives (1) a summary or abstract of the names that 
 appear in the Table of Peutinger, and (2) an abstract of the 
 transformations or variants these names underwent during the 
 Middle Ages, as he found them written " in ancient authors 
 and inscriptions and on medals." — (p. xvii.) 
 
 In the Geography of Roman Gaul he tells us (ii. 489) 
 " The Morini, rendered less barbarous, no doubt, by the inter- 
 course the Portus Iccius (Boulogne) procured them, must have 
 had at a remote epoch ' a centre ' at Tarvanna (Therouanne) 
 which became their ' chef lieu de cit6 under the Eomans.' 
 In the Historical Introduction and the Geography, according 
 to the Table of Peutinger (86), he gives the transformations 
 or variants of the name Tarvanna, i.e., Therouanne on the 
 Lys. The variants of the name he states thus, Teruenna, 
 Taverna, Teruentia." Now Taverna = Taberna or Tabernia, 
 the word we find in the text of the Confession. It is also = 
 Tauerna, which we have suggested was the Gaelic pronuncia- 
 tion of Tabernia. And this brings us back to the linguistic 
 point from which we started — to cop At»<)itin, the fenced town or 
 buttery of the river Lys. 
 
 The Scholiast on Fiacc finds it necessary to tell his readers 
 where Nemthur is situate, " In Nemthor, that is a city which is 
 in North Britain — namely. Ail Cluade(Rock of Clyde)." There 
 is no evidence whatever that Ail Cluade, now Dumbarton, was 
 ever known as Nem-Thor. It was known as "Oun-DincAin, i.e., 
 the Fort of the Britons of Strathclyde. There were neither 
 decurions. Christians in thousands, or priests there at the end 
 of the fourth century. The following extract from the Edin- 
 burgh Review accurately represents the latest and best opinion 
 on the Roman occupation of Scotland : — 
 
 In 124 Hadrian, who loved strong frontiers, fortified the isthmus 
 between the Tyne and Solway, and declared the Roman advance to be 
 ended. Twenty years later Antoninus Pius built a second wall across 
 the isthmus between the Forth and the Clyde,* still surviving in broken 
 fragments. But the Roman occupation of Scotland was limited, it was 
 
 * Ail Cluade is at this noithem wall, which runs noith of, and near to, the 
 liver Clyde, ^ee Haverfield's map, Britannia (1900). 
 
THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 151 
 
 purely military. It hardly lasted forty years. Recent investigations 
 into the inscriptions, coins, and other remains of Roman origin found 
 in Scotland show that all the land north of the Cheviots was lost to 
 Rome before the end of the second century. From henceforward the 
 Roman frontier was Hadrian's Wall, with outlying forts at one or two 
 places like Birens and Rochester, commanding the easiest passes into 
 Caledonia. 
 
 The land immediately south of the wall as far as the hills extend 
 was a purely military district. Throughout Cumberland, Westmore 
 land and Lancashire, on the west coast, and the North and West 
 Ridings on the east coa?t, we meet no traces of orderly civil life, of 
 towns or villas, of trade or commerce, in Roman days. The Italian city 
 system did not spread in Britain. Its characteristic was a self-govern- 
 ing municipality. There was a senate, elected magistrature, and a 
 body of electing towns-people, ^who all enjoyed the rights of Roman 
 citizens ; there was besides a dependent territory, which might be fifty 
 miles across. Towns of this kind bore the title of Colonia or Muni- 
 cipium, and were freely planted at various epochs in the western 
 provinces of the empire. They appear in every province where the 
 higher civilisations of Rome found. entrance. They mark its advent, 
 they assist in its expansion. Britain could boast of only five — 
 Verulamium, just outside St. Albans ; Camulodunum, now Colchester ; 
 Lincoln, York, and Glesum, now Gloucester.* 
 
 We have now exhausted the space at our disposal for this 
 part of our subject, and we fear that in addition we have 
 exhausted the patience of our readers. We regret that we can- 
 not notice in detail the views of Cardinal Moran, Lanigan, 
 Stokes, Todd, Cashel Hoey, Malone, Olden, Barry, Morris, 
 Bury, Archbishop Healy, and many others ; but we are con- 
 strained to abstain from controversy. 
 
 There are three tests our readers can apply to each sug- 
 gested birthplace: (1) Were there several thousand adult 
 Christians with many priests there ? (2) Were there decurions 
 there ? (3) Would an ordinary voyage from Erin to it take 
 three days ? 
 
 St. Patrick does not tell us how long he was in the islands 
 of the Tyrrhene Sea. 
 
 After a few years (he says) I was again amongst the Britons with 
 my relatives, who received me as a son, and in all sincerity entreated 
 me that even now, after such great sufiierings as I had endured, I would 
 
 » " Roman Britain," Edinburgh Review, vol. 189 (1899), p, 369. See 
 also Mr. Haverfield's map, and succinct account of Roman Britain in Poole's 
 " Historical Atlas," plate xv. (1896, etc). The views in both are in substantial 
 agreement. 
 
152 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 never leave them, and there even in the very bosom of the i^Ight I saw 
 a man named Victorious coming as it were from Hibernia with 
 innumerable letters, and he gave me one of them. And I read the 
 beginning of the letter containing " The voice of the Irish," and while 
 I was reading aloud the beginning of the letter, I myself thought, 
 indeed, in my mind that I heard the voice of those who were near the 
 wood of Foclat, which is close by the Western Sea. And they cried 
 out : " We entreat thee, holy youth, that thou come and walk still 
 {adhuc) amongst us." And I was deeply moved in heart, and could 
 read no further, and so I awoke. 
 
 The words in the text are ad hue amhulas inter nos. The 
 meaning attached to ad hue here is important. It repre- 
 sents continuing action in a context like the present, and 
 means " still." We suggest that our saint knew the voice of 
 the children by the wood of Foclat because he heard it before 
 near Killala in Mayo, where he took ship for France. This 
 supports the view we have already presented. Victorious, the 
 name of the man who came with the letters, was also, as we 
 have seen, the name of the apostle of the Morini who suffered 
 at Amiens in A.D. 303, and now announced his name to St. 
 Patrick to support the petition of the children. In the Con- 
 fession the Saint speaks only of Victorious once, viz., at this 
 place. He does not mention Victor at all. In the Armagh 
 text of Muirchu, Victor is the name given to the angel who 
 frequently visited the saint. The Brussels text, however, has 
 both Victorious and Victor. Victor and Victorious came to be 
 regarded as one angel, and from the time of Tirechan Victor 
 was, according to the tradition of the Church, the Guardian 
 Angel of our apostle. The Scholiast to Fiacc goes further and 
 says, what we do not find stated elsewhere, that St. Victor 
 " was the common angel of the Scottic race. As Michael was 
 the angel of the race of the Hebrews,* so Victor was of the 
 Scots. Hence he took care of them through Patrick." 
 
 A more difficult question to answer is who and where were 
 the Britons amongst whom were the relatives of the saint. 
 Loth fixes the coTnTnencement of the emigration of the Britons 
 into Brittany between 430 and 440 a.d."^ Le Moyne de la 
 Broderie fixes the date of the establishment of the immigrants 
 
 • Trip. Life, 415, refers to Daniel, x. 21, xii., 1, also p. 425. 
 » Rev. Celt. xxu. (1901) 84. 
 
THE COMING OF ST. PATBICK. 153 
 
 at 460 A.D.,8 which corresponds with the date assigned by 
 Lobinau, 458 A.D.' These immigrants cannot be the Britons 
 referred to. There were, however, Britons further north, a 
 remnant, probably, of the Britanni who passed into Britain, 
 and have left traces on the Continent from the Elbe to the 
 Channel. In the time of Pliny they were mentioned as a tribe 
 of, or at least, as adjacent to, the Morini, and there is still a 
 hamlet near Etaples called Bretagne." 
 
 The editors of the Delphin edition of Pliny say in a note : 
 " The Britons certainly occupied the territory in which are now 
 the towns of Etaples, Montreuil, Hesdin, and Ponthieu, to the 
 river Somme ; and if credit is to be given to the author of 
 the "Libellua Provinciarum Romanarum " were part of the 
 Morini." ^^ They were thus placed very close to the Letia (Lys) 
 the great trade route on which Taruanna was situated. The 
 scholiast on Fiacc represents the saint as going from Ail Cluade 
 with his father " on a journey to the Britons of Armuire 
 Letha," i.e., " co Bretnaib Ledach," for there were relatives 
 of theirs there at that time. The Letia would be adequately 
 represented in Gaelic by " Letha." Letavia as a name for 
 Brittany did not then exist, and there seems to be no reason 
 why the word should not be applied to the Britons near the 
 river Letia.^^ The scholiast, after stating that the saint was 
 born at Ail Cluade, says that he was captured whilst with his 
 relatives in Armuire Letha, in France.^* Our view is that he 
 was born in this territory. The old Roman Breviary describes 
 him as " genere Brito." The Breviary of Rheims, " In maritime 
 Britannise territorio." The Breviary of Rouen, " In Britannia 
 Gallicana." Now, the only Britannia Gallicana that existed 
 at the time of his birth was that above mentioned. 
 
 The beginning of the fifth century witnessed the birth 
 of a formidable heresy, all the more dangerous because 
 
 • Histoire de Bretagne (1896), t. I. 24S. 
 
 • Histoire de Bretagne, t. I.-l. I. 1. (1707). 
 
 1° Eoget de Belloquet, Ethnogenie Celtique, types Gaulois, p. 79 note (1861). 
 
 " Pliny, " Deinde Menapii, Morini (Therouauue), Oromansaci, junoti pago 
 4ui GesBoriaous (Boulogne), vooatnr, Britanni, Ambiani (Amiens), Bellovasci " 
 (Beauvais), N.H. IV. c. 31. The Britanni oooupy, seemingly, a central position 
 between Therouanne, Boulogne, Amiens and Beauvais. 
 
 12 For Letia see Valesius Notitia GaUiarum sub voce 
 »8 Trip. Life, 413. 
 
154 EABLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 it was intellectual, having its origin in a perplexed and 
 obscure philosophy. Pelagius, the founder of it, was, 
 probably, born in Britain, of Scottic parents. St. Augustine, 
 Orosius, and Prosper call him a " Briton." St. Jerome, without 
 directly naming him, refers to him as most stupid, weighed 
 down with Scottic porridge." And, again, as follows : — 
 "And Grunnius (i.e., Ruflnus) himself being mute, he barks by 
 the dog Albinus {i.e., Pelagius), tall and big-boned, whose kick 
 is worse than his bite, for he has parentage from the Scottic 
 race from the neighbourhood of the Britons. Like (another) 
 Cerberus, according to the fables of the poets, he must be struck 
 down with a spiritual club that he may be silent with an 
 eternal silence, like his master Pluto (i.e., Rufinus, who was 
 then dead)." ^^ It is not easy to find out here where the rhetoric 
 ends and the facts begin. It was fortunate for the Church that 
 all our saints had not the same command of language as that 
 illustrious scholar. St. Augustine, who knew Pelagius per- 
 sonally, presents a different estimate, and writes — " Pelagius 
 whilst staying at Rome was held in great honour, and was 
 loved by Paulinus of Nola as a servant of God, and I not only 
 did love him but do love him, though now with a desire that 
 he may be delivered from sentiments adverse to the grace of 
 God." The principal errors of the Pelagians were the denial 
 of the necessity for grace and the denial of the transmission of 
 sin from the Fall of Adam. It was to refute these views that 
 
 " StolidissimuB et Soottorum pultibus prsegraTatus, 
 
 " Ipseque mutua latrat per Albinum canem, grendem et oorpulentum, et qui 
 calcibus ma<;ia posait sasvire quam dentibua ; habet enim progeniem Sootioas 
 gentia de Britannorum vioinia ; qui juxta fabulaa poetarum, inatar Cerberi 
 spirituali peicutiendua eat clava, ut seterno cum suo magiatio Plutone silentio 
 oontioeaoat. Verum hoc aliaa. — Migne 24, 758. 
 
 Orosius says be waa a man " largia humeris, crasso collo, et praegrandi 
 Tultu.' ; 
 
 Todd misses the vis consiqaentiae here. Life St. Patrick 190. It is 
 to be found in the allusion to " hoofs " 1 (Calcibua) 1 The vis comica is 
 ambushed with Attic sparkle in " hoofs." 
 
 Its proper pow'r to hurt each creature feals, 
 Bulls aim their horns, and Asses lift their heels. 
 'Tis a boar's talent not to kick but hug, 
 And no man -wonders he's not ^tung by Pug. 
 
THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 155 
 
 St. Augustine wrote many works, commencing with one on 
 " Forgiveness of Sins and Baptism," in 412 — an important date, 
 as we shall see hereafter. 
 
 This controversy led up a few years later to semi- 
 Pelagianism, in which Cassian became, or was supposed to be, 
 involved, owing to some expressions in his 13th Conference, 
 which are somewhat ambiguous, and may, at the worst, have 
 represented a passing phase of thought. He was certainly 
 regarded as orthodox in 430, as in that year, on an appeal from 
 Kome, he wrote the De Incarnatione to refute the Nestorians, 
 and would in all probability have found no difficulty in accept- 
 ing the doctrine settled at the Council of Orange in 529, which 
 condemned semi-Pelagianism, whilst declaring that predesti- 
 nation to evil was not to be taught. 
 
 The semi-Pelagians believed in the doctrine of the fall of 
 man and acknowledged the necessity of real grace to man's 
 restoration. They even admitted that this grace must be 
 " prevenient " to such acts of will as resulted in Christian 
 good works. But some of them thought — and herein consisted 
 the error called semi-Pelagian — that nature unaided could take 
 the first step towards its recovery by desiring to be healed 
 through faith in Christ. The denial of the necessity of 
 initial grace opened a door to Pelagianism, and endangered 
 the doctrine of the Redemption which lay at the very root of 
 Christianity. This explanation is necessary to enable our 
 readers to understand the views we shall present as to the 
 Confession of St. Patrick, who must have been familiar with 
 the details of this controversy. 
 
 In the third decade of the fifth century the Pelagian move- 
 menthad spread widely, had developed aparticularfy dangerous 
 energy in Wales, and threatened to move Westwards to taint 
 the beginnings of the faith in Ireland, where the Church was 
 still in its infancy. The situation was grave, and manifestly 
 called for energetic action on the part of the ecclesiastical 
 authorities at Rome. Celestine was then Pope (422-432). Leo 
 the Great was then Archdeacon. Palladius was then a deacon. 
 
 Prosper has the following entry in his Chronicle : — 
 
 429 A.D. — Agricola, a Pelagian, the son of Severianus, a Pelagian 
 bishop, corrupted the British Church by the publication ol his dogmas ; 
 but on the action of the deacon Palladius, Pope Coelestine sent 
 
156 EARLY IRISH mSTOET. 
 
 Germauus, the bishop of Auxerre, as his representative ; and, dislodg- 
 ing the heretics, put the Britons on the straight path of the Cat hollo 
 Faitb.w 
 
 Prosper went on a mission to Pope Celestine in 431, and 
 was afterwards secretary to Leo the Great. The last entry in 
 his Chronicle is under the date 455. The deacon Palladius, 
 he tells us further, " was sent to the Scots believing in 
 Christ,^^ the first bishop (who was sent)." This entry is under 
 date 431, the year in which the (Ecumenical Council was held 
 at Ephesus. We see from these entries that Rome was very 
 attentive, at that time, to what was passing in the Western 
 end of the world. According to Constantius, a monk of 
 Lyons, who wrote a life of Germ anus within about 40 years 
 after his death, Germanus and Lupus were selected at a 
 synod of the bishops of Gaul, which is not inconsistent with 
 the statement of Prosper. Constantius adds that the Britons 
 came in crowds every day to hear the apostolic bishops, and 
 the divine word was spread abroad, not only in the churches, 
 but in the streets, in the fields, and in the bye- ways, so that 
 the Catholics were everywhere confirmed in the faith, and 
 having been led astray recognised the way of amendment.^* 
 From this some writers have very reasonably inferred that 
 Germanus and Lupus addressed the people in a vernacular 
 
 " Agrioola Pelagianus Severiani episoopi Pelagianl filius, ecolesias Brittaniae 
 dogmatis sui insinnatione (publication) corrumpit, sed ad insinuationem ? 
 [actionem] Palladii diaconi papa Cielestinus Germanum Autissiodorenaem epis- 
 copum vice sua mittit et deturbatis hereticis Britannos ad Catholieam fidem 
 diiigiti 
 
 Insinuatio, then, meant putting on the register and publishing. 
 Mommsen T. Chron. Min. Mon. Germ torn, ix. page 472. 
 
 Wilhelm Levison has written an interesting article on " Bischof Germanus 
 von Auxere," in the 29th vol. of the Neues Arohiv der Gesellsohaft fur altere 
 deutsche Geschichtskunde — (1903). Referring to Zimmer he observes " Desen 
 ausfuhrungen bei allem scharfsinu bisweilen durch ein ubarmass von hypothesen 
 beeintraohtigt sind." And of Pflug Harting, irho wrote against the authenticity 
 of the Confession [Neue Heidelberger Jarnbusher lii. 71] he says : " Was Pflng 
 Hartung gegen die Echteit der ConfesBio und Epistola vorgebracht hat soheiut 
 mir niont genugend zu deren Verwerfung." 
 
 " Ad Scotos in Christum credentps ordinatus a papa Celeetino Palladium 
 primus episcopus mittitur. — Mommsen, Chron, Min. i. 473. 
 
 '8 Kt cum quotidie irruente ftequentia stiparentur divinus sermo non solum 
 in ecclesiis verum etiam per trivia, per rura, per devia difiundebatur ut passim 
 et lide CathoUci firmarcntur et depravati viam correotionis agnosceient. — 
 Vita, 19, 23 Stubbs' Concih, p 17. 
 
THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 157 
 
 tongue. This conclusion is warranted, if the testimony of 
 Constantius on this point can be relied on. 
 
 The words of Prosper deserve close examination. Palladius 
 was sent " to the believers '' after the Council at Ephesus had 
 condemned Pelagius. He was the first bishop sent to them. 
 Does this mean that he was to be bishop of the Irish, that he 
 was sent " as their bishop ? " Prosper does not say so, and 
 we venture to think that this was not likely. That Palladius 
 should have been sent, not only to the Scots, but to the western 
 regions infected with the Pelagian heresy, to declare authori- 
 tatively " a latere," what was decided at the Council and what 
 were the final views of Rome, is what we should have ex- 
 pected. His mission, we should say, was primarily to the 
 clergy. Would Rome have sent him to the unbelieving Scots to 
 convert them ? Would it have sent a missionary to talk to 
 them in Latin when it had ready to its hand a tried and trusted 
 man who could talk to the Gaels in Gaelic ? 
 
 WeshaU nowlaybefore our readers the substance ofthestate- 
 ments made by Malbrancq, in his history of the Morini, on this 
 point. The Rev. James Malbrancq was born at St. Omer in 1579, 
 was received into the Society of Jesus in 1599, and died at Tour- 
 nay in 1653. " Malbrancq," says M. Denoyers, a high authority 
 on ecclesiastical antiquities, in an article on the ancient diocese 
 of Therouanne, " devoted his life to the study of the Morini, 
 visited the ecclesiastical establishments in the province, and 
 never fails to indicate the authority of the sources to be con- 
 sulted." ^* There existed in his time an ancient muniment 
 which has since been lost — the Ghronicon Morinense — which 
 contained an abridged narrative of the ecclesiastical events and 
 the lives of the bishops of the diocese of Therouanne, taken 
 from the original documents preserved in the archives. It was 
 kept in the chapter-house of the bishopric of Ypres, to which 
 it had been carried by the canons of Therouanne, who took 
 refuo'e in that town after the destruction of the capital of the 
 Morini in 1553 by the Emperor Charles the Fifth. Malbrancq 
 had before him the Life by Probus, and asserts in the 26th 
 chapter of the De Morinis, that St. Patrick belonged for some 
 years to the diocese of Therouanne, as "the MSS., and the 
 
 " Societe d'Histoire de France. Annuaire for 1863, p. 627. 
 
158 EABLY lEISH HISTORY. 
 
 Catalogues of the Bishops of this diocese, and the Life of St. 
 Arnulph, of Soissons, testify." ^ 
 
 In the Catalogue of the Bishops — and this is the all- 
 important fact — he found the name of St. Patrick not included 
 in the direct line, but inserted at the side in the Catalogue." 
 He was an adlatus, or assistant bishop, and so properly placed 
 at the side (adlatus), and not in the direct line of the bishops. 
 " He was not wedded to the Church (of the Morini)," adds 
 Malbrancq, " since he was already betrothed to the Church 
 over the Sea (of Erin)." ^i 
 
 He was placed by Germanus amongst the Morini, because 
 his assistance was required there at the time, and he could 
 easily pass over thence to the Irish, when the time was ripe 
 for missionary action there. A recent writer of great 
 authority on the Registers of Therouanne, observes — " On the 
 authority of the Catalogue, the most ancient and authentic, 
 of the bishops of the Morini, it must be admitted that there 
 was no duly constituted bishop (titulaire, a technical word) 
 before Antimond (501 A.D.?) and we cannot regard as sufiragans 
 (a technical word) the holy bishops missionary and regionary 
 from the third to the sixth century, who evangelized large parts 
 of this vast country of the Morini. St. Lieven, for instance, landed 
 there from Ireland, and suffered martyrdom in 647, on his way 
 to Flanders and Brabant. As to St. Patrick, consecratedbishop 
 by Pope Celestine a short time before his mission to Ireland in 
 432, he may have traversed the Morini, and evangelized it on 
 his way, but it was not with the titulus (title) of suffragan 
 bishop. See the Dissertation of Malbrancq, De Morinis, I., 
 622-624.22 
 
 This we have already referred to. The learned Abb6 thus 
 adopts and corroborates, with some necessary technical 
 qualifications, the statements of Malbrancq. 
 
 ^ Patrkium qnem etsi ut suum suspioiat et vindicet Hibemia, Morinos 
 tamen etiam aliquot annis posse amplecti, et MSS. et Epiacoporam hujus 
 Dioecsseos Catalog!, et S. Amulphi Suessioaensis vita abunde testantur. — 
 Malbranoq Z)e Monreis torn. 1., c. 26, pp. 168-171. Tornaei Nerviorum, 1639. 
 
 ^ Patricias ad Morinos quidem aocessit episcopus sednoaeam sibi despoa- 
 savit eoolesiam, cum traasmarina addicta esset in sponsam ; idcirco Catalog! 
 Episcoporum Moriuenslum non eum recta incladunt serieee d ad latus adseiscunt 
 epiacopum. — ibid . 
 
 ^ Died 0., Abb6. — Registeres des ev^aues de Therouanne p. 7, v. 35. (1902). 
 
THE OOMIXG OF ST. PATRICK. 159 
 
 It is to this period, tht exact length of which cannot be 
 stated, perhaps a year or two only, that, in our opinion 
 the part of the epistle to Coroticus which is genuine must 
 be assigned. Coroticus was probably a robber chief over 
 a predatory people on the border of the Morini who were at 
 least nominally Christians, and the fellow-citizens (Roman) of 
 our saint. In one of his forays at Easter time, when the 
 baptisms took place at that period, he carried off numbers of 
 the newly-baptised, and our saint appealed, not so much to him, 
 as to such faith as existed in his lawless fellow-citizens. Most 
 of the present text of the epistle is, in our opinion, a later 
 addition. We cannot, however.'pursue the matter further here.^ 
 
 When Germanus arrived at Boulogne with Lupus in 429 
 his first thought was to take our apostle with them. But on 
 considering the matter with Lupus, they decided that he 
 should remain there for some time longer until the Pelagian 
 troubles had been disposed of. This is Malbrancq's view which 
 appears to be very reasonable. We cannot conceive it possible 
 that the priests at Therouanne would falsify their records by 
 inserting the name of St. Patrick. The statement in the life 
 of St. Arnulph, though entitled to some weight, is of secondary 
 importance, as it probably represents only a tradition. 
 Malbrancq has it that St. Patrick was consecrated by Pope 
 Celestine bishop for the Irish, and that his ordination and 
 mission, in conjunction with the work of Germanus in Britain, 
 was part of the campaign against Pelagianism in the West. If 
 his view be right, Palladius was not appointed bishop for the 
 Irish. There could not be two co-ordinate bishops for one 
 diocese, and at that time, if we remember rightly, a bishop 
 could not desert his espoused church, even to become bishop 
 of Borne itself. Muirchu says Palladius did not wish " to 
 spend time in a land which was not his own." This, we make 
 no doubt is quite true. Muirchu says he was sent to convert 
 the Irish, but being wild and rough they did not easily receive 
 his teaching, so he crossed the first sea on his way home and 
 died among the Britons.^* 
 
 ^ The Patrician Documents will be the subject of the next chapter. 
 
 " NequB et ipse voluit transigere tempus in terra non sua, sed reverses ad 
 eum qui misit ilium. Bevertente vero eo hino et prime mari transito ooeptoque 
 terrarum itinere in Britonum finibus vita functus — Muirchu. Analeo. Boll., I. 553. 
 
 Insulam sub Crumali rigore positam. — Trip. Life, R.S., 272. 
 
160 KAELY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 There can be very little doubt, if his life had been spared, 
 he would have used his best endeavours to compose matters 
 there, and the Pelagian trouble might not have broken out 
 afresh, requiring a second visit from Germanus thirteen years 
 later. 
 
 Malbrancq's views found no acceptance with the BoUandist 
 editor, Papebroche. He had constructed a wonderful chrono- 
 taxis — an arrangement of the life by years, giving time and 
 place for everything. Malbrancq's views did not agree with 
 that chronotaxia, consequently his views were wrong. The 
 Catalogue of the bishops was, it was suggested, suppositious ; 
 and the life of Arnulph, according to the copy in his posses- 
 sion, said nothing about St. Patrick. But there was a life a 
 few miles off at Ypres that did so refer to St. Patrick, and the 
 Catalogue of the bishops was there for all men to see ; and 
 Malbrancq, who published the De Morinis in 1629, was alive, 
 at Tournay, within easy reach of Antwerp, where the publica- 
 tion of the'.4cia Sanctorum commenced in 1643, and he lived 
 for ten years longer. Papebroche playfully suggests that in 
 his anxiety to exalt the name of his native land he disregarded 
 the lawful claims of his neighbours. Surely then was the 
 time to bring him to trial and compel him to prove his inno- 
 cence. Papebroche forebore from doing so. He adds, how- 
 ever, in mitigation of Malbrancq's lapse from virtue : " If 
 Malbrancq had read my chronotaxis he would have omitted 
 his twenty-sixth chapter."^ We are of opinion that the 
 perusal of that Wahres Curiosum would have had no such 
 result. 
 
 Further, we submit that St. Patrick is the unnamed bishop 
 referred to in the following extract from Prosper, which is 
 found in the " Contra CoUatorem," a treatise written by 
 Prosper against the semi-Pelagianism imputed to Cassian. 
 
 Wherefore also the PontiflF Celestine ( + Ap. 28th, 432), of vener- 
 able memory, commanded Celestius (a disciple of Pelagius)to be driven 
 from the borders of all Italy . . . and with no less zealous care 
 he delivered the Brittanias from the same disease, when he drove from 
 that secluded place on the Ocean some enemies of grace who were settling 
 
 » Acta SS. viii., 526 (Ed. 1865). 
 
THE COMING OF ST. PATHICK. 161 
 
 in the soil of their origin, and by ordaining a bishop for the Scots, 
 whilst he laboured to keep the Roman Island Catholic, made also the 
 barbarous island Christian.* 
 
 This work consists of an examination of the 13th Collation 
 of Cassian, a discourse of the Abbot Chaeremon on the Protec- 
 tion of God. At the conclusion Prosper expresses a hope that 
 the doctrines therein may be condemned by Pope Sixtus (432- 
 440) as they had been condemned by Celestine, his predecessor. 
 
 From this it is clear that it was written after the death of 
 Pope Celestine and during the Pontificate of Sixtus, i.e., 
 between 482 and 440, and there is nothing except conjecture 
 to fix on any particular year within these limits. 
 
 Prosper says it is twenty years and more (et amplius) since 
 the fight began, that is since 412, when St. Augustine 
 published the " De Peccatorum Meritis " his first anti-Pelagian 
 treatise. On this ground Holder, Egger, and Hacuck suggest 
 433 or 434 as the date of publication of Prosper's Contra Gol- 
 latorem, ^ whilst Zimmer says 437. If the bishop ordained was 
 Palladius, Prosper would have named him as he did on two 
 other occasions in his Chronicon. If Palladius was sent to 
 convert the unbelieving Irish, he failed, and Prosper would not 
 have ventured to make a statement notoriouely contrary to the 
 facts, which was certain to be challenged at once by vigilant 
 adversaries. The statement, moreover, it should be added, is 
 found in the 21st chapter, inserted apparently at the last 
 moment, as the work is summarised, and virtually concluded, 
 in the 19th.^ Before this the news of the conversion of 
 Laeghaire had reached Prosper. 
 
 The bishop then who was sent " to the Scots " (ad Scotos) is 
 different from the bishop sent " for the Scots " (Scotis)and the 
 
 * Unde et venerabilis memorise Poutifex Celestinus Coelestiam totius 
 ItaKse finibus jussit extrudi neo vero segniori oura ab hoc eodem morbo Brit- 
 tauias libera vit, qnando quosdam inimicos gratiae, solum su£e originis oooupantes, 
 etiam ab illo seoreto excluait Oceani ; et ordinate Scotis episoopo, dum 
 Itomanam infsulam stndet aervare Catholicam fecit etiam barbaram Christianam. 
 — Prosper Tiro. " Contra Collatorem." — Migne, Tom. 51, p. 271. 
 
 ^ The Ciollatio was a conference or discourse on spiritual matters amone;st 
 religious by way of question and answer, " by which method doubts were 
 dispelled and truth made clear."— Migne 51, p. 573. 
 
 ** Neucs Archiv. (Egger). Real. Encyclopedie ^Hacuck). 
 
 Celtic Church (Zimmer). 
 
 M 
 
162 KARLY IRtSH HISTORY. 
 
 latter was none other than St. Patrick. Palladius was sent to 
 the "believers," St. Patrick mainly for the " unbelievers." 
 
 Some writers have considered that the effect of the evi- 
 dence we have adduced as to the Roman Mission is greatly 
 weakened if not outweighed by the fact that no mention is 
 made of it in the Confession. This arises, in our judgment, 
 from an incomplete understanding of its object and scope. It 
 is not and does not profess to be a biography. The continued 
 thread of the narrative is not in externals. These are dis- 
 jointed, unconnected, and incomplete, suggesting throughout 
 that something must have been lost or omitted. And so we are 
 not surprised to find, as we shall see in our next chapter, that 
 attempts were made at an early period to supply in some 
 measure these supposed omissions, and additions were made 
 to the original text which is to be found, we think, in the 
 Book of Armagh and nowhere else. The Confession is in 
 truth a profession and a testimony — a profession of faith in 
 the necessity for grace from the very beginning to the very 
 end of life ; and a testimony borne after a long and chequered 
 career to its supernatural efiBcacy. It is primarily a record of 
 inward experiences, and, for its length, the most profoundly 
 spiritual writing in the literature of the Church after the time 
 of St. Paul. External events, giving time and place, are used 
 merely as a framework in which are set the inward occurrences 
 " The Lord," he says, " took care of me, before I knew Him 
 and before I had wisdom. Wherefore I cannot, and it is not 
 expedient that I should, keep silent as to the favours which 
 were so many and the grace which was so great (tanta beneficia 
 et tantam gratiam), which He vouchsafed to bestow on me in 
 the land of my captivity." And then he had the vision in the 
 night time and took flight and left the man with whom he 
 had been for six years, and " he went in the strength of the 
 Lord, who directed his way for good." And so when men 
 and dogs were starving in the wilderness he lifted up his voice 
 in prayer, and his prayer was heard by the God of love, who 
 fed His prophet from the mouths of the ravens, and con- 
 veyed unseen supplies to the widow's cruse. And, again, iij 
 the night time he was seized by evil spirits, and he cried for 
 mercy to the God of Pity, and the sun burst forth, and the evil 
 spirits wert^ chased back into the darkness. So after many 
 
THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 163 
 
 yoars he went again among his own people, and he wavered, 
 perhaps, between a life of contemplative and easy piety on 
 the one hand, and the ' strenuous and perilous life of " a 
 servant laborious and serviceable to Christ " on the other. 
 Victorious then came to him with the letter beginning " The 
 voice of the Irish," and he thought he heard voices which ha 
 recognised from the "Wood of Foclat appealing to him to walk 
 still amongst them. He did not accept this vision as a com- 
 mand, but as a grace — as a call to sacrifice, but as a sure sign 
 and token of God's benediction upon him ; and he concludes 
 with the ever memorable words, " I beg that no one may 
 ever say if I have ever done or proved the truth of anything 
 successfully [secundum ? ] however little, that I, ignorant as I 
 am, have done it. But judge ye, and let it be believed most 
 truly, that it was the grace of God. And this is my confession 
 before I die. "29 
 
 The interest in this text is mainly spiritual. The canvas 
 is otherwise tame enough. There is little light and shade. 
 It lacks tho deceptive charm of contrasted colours. The 
 world loves the story of the prodigal son, and is anxious in 
 particular to have a minute and detailed account of his doings 
 while he was prodigal. This interest is happily absent from 
 the life of our apostle. Pornographic perfumes have at all 
 times a sickening odour, even when employed for pious uses. 
 Saints with a past are manifestations of God's mercy ; saints 
 without a past are manifestations of His grace. Our apostle 
 was a child of grace, and his confession is inspired throughout 
 with its holy influence. He did not, it is true, formulate prin- 
 ciples or define and lay down doctrines. His was the practical 
 wisdom to know when mysteries should be left mysterious. 
 He did not regard grace as an unseen force to be distributed 
 in volts or measured by foot-pounds. Grace was to him as a 
 whispering wind, blowing softly on the withered foliage of the 
 soul, and filling the leaves again with the freshness and the 
 beauty of the spring time. 
 
 ® Precor . . ut nemo Tinquam dicat quod mea ignorentia Bi aliqnid pnsil- 
 lum egi vol demonBtaverim secundum ; sed arbitramini et verissime firedatui 
 quod donum Dei fuisset. Et bsc eat confessio mea autequam morior. 
 
[ 1G4 ] 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. 
 
 THE Confession deals very briefly with what happened after 
 the arrival of our Apostle in Erin. Our readers will be 
 glad to have the narrative as nearly in his own words as 
 our translation can make it. We also give the Latin text, as the 
 ipsissima verba of the Saint are of the highest importance : — 
 
 [Translation.] 
 
 But it would be long (he says) to relate all my labour in details, or 
 even in part. Briefly, I may say, that the most pitiful (piissimus) 
 God often rescued me from being enslaved, and from twelve perils by 
 which my life was endangered, besides many snares, and things that I 
 cannot find words to express ; nor will I try the patience of my readers. 
 But God is my Creator, who knows all things before they come to pass. 
 For I am greatly indebted to God, who has given me such grace that 
 many peoples (ruAta) should be born again to God through me, and 
 that everywhere clergy should be ordained for people newly coming to 
 the faith, whom the Lord took to himself (sumpsit) from the en^ of 
 the earth, as He had promised by His prophets — " To thee the heathen 
 will come and say, our fathers made false idols, and there is no profit 
 in them." . . . 
 
 Whence, then, has it come to pass that in Ireland they who never 
 had any knowledge of God, but always hitherto worshipped idols ' and 
 unclean things have lately become a people of the Lord and are called 
 Sons of God. The sons and daughters of the Scottic chieftains are seen 
 to be monks and virgins of Christ (Filii Scotorum et filiee regulorum 
 monachi et virgines Christi videntur) 
 
 I call God to witness, on my soul, that I do not lie, neither [do I 
 write] that there may be an importunity (occasio) on you, nor do I 
 hope for honour from any man, for honour that is not yet seen but that 
 the heart believes in sufficeth ; but I see now that I am exalted by 
 the Lord above measure in this world, and I am not worthy nor such 
 that He should bestow this upon me, for I know that poverty and 
 sufiering are more becoming than riches and luxury. For Christ the 
 Lord was poor for us. Now I, poor and miserable, even though I should 
 wish for riches, have them not, neither do I judge myself in that I daily 
 anticipate being murdered or trapped or reduced to slavery, or some 
 misfortune overtaking me. 
 
 * The idols here cefened to were not anthropomorphic, but representations 
 of the sun and moon, etc., as we shall show in the next chapter. 
 
THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. 165 
 
 Now I beg of those who believe and fear God, whosoever shall 
 deign to look into and receive this writing which Patrick the sinner 
 and unlearned truly has written in Ireland that no one may ever say 
 if I have done or proved the truth of anything successfully 
 (secundum )3 however little that I, ignorant as I am, have done it. But 
 judge ye and let it be believed most truly that it was the grace of God 
 (donum Dei). And this is my Confession before I die. 
 
 [Colophon.] 
 
 Thus far the book that Patrick wrote with his own hand. 
 
 On the I7th day of March Patrick was translated to heaven. 
 
 Longum est hautem totum per singula enarrare laborem meum vel 
 per partes. Breviter dicam qualiter piisimus Deus de servitute saepe 
 (me) liberavit et de periculis duodecim quibus periclitata est anima mea 
 praeter insidias multas et quae verbis exprimere non valeo, nee injuriam, 
 legentibus, faciam. Sed Deum auctorem (habeo) qui novit omnia 
 etiam antequam fiant quia valde debitor sum Deo qui mihi tantam 
 gratiam donavit ut populi multi per me in Deum renascerentur et ut 
 clerici ubique illis ordinarentur ad plebem nuper venientem ad 
 credulitatem quam sumpsit Dominus ab extremis terrce sicut dim 
 promiserat per prophetas suos " Ad te gentes venient et dicent falsa 
 comparaverunt patres nostri idola et non est in eis utilitas. 
 
 Unde autem Hiberione qui nunquam notitiam Dei habuerunt nisi 
 idola et immunda usque semper coluerunt quo modo nuper facta est 
 plebs Domini et filii Dei nuncupantur. Filii Scotorum et filise regu- 
 lorum monachi et virgines Christi esse videntur. . . . 
 
 Ecce testem Deum invoco in animam meam quia non mentior, 
 neque ut sit occasio vobis neque ut honorem spero ab aliquo viru. 
 Safficit enim honor qui nondum videtur sed corde creditur. Sed video 
 jam in praBsenti sseculo me supra modum, exaltatum a ])omino. Et non 
 eram dignus neque talis ut hoc mihi preestaret ; dum scio melius 
 convenit paupertas et calamitas quam divitise et delicise. Sed et 
 Christus Dominus pauper fuit pro nobis. Ego vero miser et infelix 
 etsi opes voluero jam non habeo neque me ipsum judico quia quotidie 
 spero aut internecionem aut circumveniri aut redigi In servitutem sive 
 occasio cujuslibet (fieri). 
 
 Sed precor credentibus et timentibus Deum quicunque dignatus 
 fuerit inspicere vel recipere banc scrlpturam quam Patricius peccator 
 indoctus scilicet Hiberione conscripsit ut nemo unquam dicat quod mea 
 ignorantia si aliquid pusillum egi vel demonstraverim secundum, sed 
 arbitramini et piissime credatur quod donum Dei fuisset. Et hsec est 
 confessio mea antequam morior.' 
 
 [The Colophon follows.] 
 
 Hucusque volumen quod Patricius manu conscripsit sua. Septima 
 decima Martii die translatus est Patricius ad ccelos. 
 
 " Secundum is used adverbially. Whilo his " om Dei placitum A with z in 
 margin." The Armagh text in the facsimile MS. and the Bolls series does not 
 contain Deiplacitum. 
 
 ' A facsimile of the Armagh text is given by Gilbert, Part It. Appendix 
 III,, which it is useful to refer to. 
 
166 EAELY IRISH HISTOEY, 
 
 The Colophon is in the same handwriting as the rest of 
 the text and as the heading, which was written, as we shall 
 see, by Ferdomnach, and is continuous with it. It is 
 difficult to say whether it originated with him or whether 
 he found it in a text from which he copied it. The heading, 
 which is in these words, "Incipiunt Libri Sancti Patricii 
 Episcopi " [Here begin the Books of St. Patrick, bishop], seems 
 to indicate that there were two Books before him in one 
 " binding," not using the word binding in the modern sense. 
 The word Liber, as the word Book in mediaeval times, was 
 applied to what we should now term a tract or a pamphlet as 
 well as to a " volume." The " Books " here mentioned were, 
 no doubt, those mentioned in the Tripartite Life and elsewhere 
 —the Confession and the Epistle now usually called the Epistle 
 to Coroticus. In the Cotton and Fell (2) MSS. the Epistle is 
 introduced merely with the words "Explicit Liber primus 
 incipit secundus." [The first Book ends {i e., the Confessio), 
 the second Book begins (i-e., the Epistle to Coroticus). ] Now 
 the Epistle to Coroticus is not copied into the Book of Armagh, 
 but it would be straining the effect and import of the Colophon 
 too far to assume that it was omitted because it was not in 
 the handwriting of the saint. Why, then, was it omitted V 
 Ferdomnach's work, as we shall see, was done under the 
 supervision and direction of Torbach, the successor of the 
 saint in the See of Armagh. Its omission was thus the 
 deliberate act of the Irish Church as represented by its 
 head, and not merely the individual choice of the learned 
 scribe. We think it was omitted because the text before them 
 was not, in their opinion, genuine. We cannot for one mooient 
 believe that the text of the Epistle was not before them, or 
 that, having it before them, and believing it to be the genuine 
 script of the saint, or a genuine copy thereof, they would have 
 omitted or neglected to have it inscribed. The BoUandists 
 took their copy from a codex in the Monastery of St. Vedast, 
 at Noialle, near Arras. They state that it was joined 
 on to the Confession in the Cordei without any distinc- 
 tive title. This want they supplied, and placed at the head 
 of the Epistle the title, "Epistle of St. Patrick to the 
 Christian subjects of Coroticus." They observe that this 
 Epistle was not written to Coroticus himself, but refers, to 
 
THE PATRIOIAN DOCUMENTS 167 
 
 another letter written and sent to be delivered to him, which 
 was lost.* 
 
 The following passage in the Epistle to Coroticus appears 
 to be an extract from that letter : — 
 
 It is the custom of the Roman and Gallic Christians to send holy 
 and suitable men to the Pranks and to the other nations with so many 
 thousands of solidi (say 8/- each) to redeem baptised captives ; you 
 (i.e., Coroticus) so often slay them, and sell them to a foreign nation 
 that knows not God. You deliver members of Christ as it were into a 
 brothel (quasi in Iwpanar trad{$ memhra Ghristi). What hope have 
 you in God, or he who is of one mind with you, or becomes a partner 
 with you by words of courtly approbation ? (Qui te communicat verbis 
 adulationis.) 
 
 This, it will be observed, is addressed directly to Coroticus. 
 The genuine letter, which we call letter to distinguish it 
 from the Epistle, as the BoUandists state, is lost. 
 
 We pause here to ask : is this language applicable to the 
 supposed Coroticus, of Alclyde, or to Kerdigan, the son of 
 Cynedda ? Stokes observes on this : — 
 
 The passage proves that it (i.e., the letter) must have been written 
 while the Franks were Pagans, i.e., before A.D. 496, and before they 
 had crossed the Rhine and settled in Gaul, i.e., before 428 A.D." 
 
 If the latter date could be approximately fixed, say, before 
 432, with certainty, it would be most important ; but we have 
 made no independent investigation on this point. 
 
 The Epistle states, apparently in reference to the genuine 
 letter and an extract from it : — 
 
 With my own hand I (i.e., the saint), have written and composed 
 these words and handed them to the soldiers (militibus the Roman 
 soldiers) to be sent for the fellow-citizens of Coroticus. I will not say 
 my fellow-citizens and the fellow-citizens of the Roman saints, but of 
 demons, on account of their evil deeds . . . allies of the Scots and 
 apostate Picts, who are bloody (sanguilentos sanguinare !) with the 
 
 * Boll. Acta SS, 17th March, vol. XI.. 534 (Ed. 1S68). We are not aware 
 whether there ate an Explicit and Incipit in the Vedast M.S. If so, they are not 
 given. 
 
 Professor Bury thinks " the scribe was hurried, and that in writing the 
 Confession he ' eoamped ' his work for the same reason which impelleU him 
 to omit copying the Letter." — " Life of Patrick ! " p. 227. 
 
 ' Trip. Life, Introdnotion p. 1, c. 1, referring to Ferguson Patrician Docu- 
 ments 101. 
 
168 EA.ELY IRISH HISTORTr. 
 
 blood of the innocent Christians whom I have begotten innumerably to 
 God, and confirmed in Christ' (i.e., gave them the Holy Eucharist). 
 
 The Epistle continues : — 
 
 On the day after they were anointed neophytes while (the chrism) 
 was shining on their foreheads they were cruelly slain by the above- 
 mentioned, and I sent a letter by a holy priest whom I had taught 
 from infancy, with clerics, asking as a favour that they might grant us 
 some of the plunder, or of the baptized captives they have taken, but 
 they laughed at them. 
 
 The neophytes at that time were usually baptized together 
 in numbers at Easter, anointed with chrism on the forehead, 
 and clothed with white garments. This letter, as well as the 
 letter to Coroticus, has been lost. We now come to the appeal 
 to the Christian fellow-citizens ol Coroticus. The Epistle 
 says : — 
 
 I, therefore, earnestly beseech (you), who are holy and humble in 
 heart, not to court the favour of (adulari), such persons (i.e., the raiders), 
 nor to take food or drink with them, nor to take their alms, until they 
 rigorously do penance with tears. I earnestly entreat every servant of 
 God as he has been eager in the past to be now the bearer of this 
 letter, and that it be not withheld from anyone, but rather read before 
 aU the people, even in the presence of Coroticus.' 
 
 This clearly implies that the letter was to be read before 
 people who understood Latin — who were the Roman fellow- 
 citizens of the robbers, under the command of the robber chieJ^ 
 Coroticus. Would the people at Alclyde understand it ? 
 
 Outside the Epistle, Coroticus is an "etymological" per- 
 sonage. There is a fable of a conflict of St. Patrick with a 
 
 ° Mauu mea Bcripsi atque condidi verba ista danda et tra^leiida militibus 
 mittenda Corotoci non dice civibus meis atque civibus sanctorum Boinanorum 
 sed civibus demouiorum ob mala opera ipsorum {riiu hostiti in morte vivuni f) 
 Socii Scotorum et Pictorum apostatarum. 
 
 White gives r.eque instead of atque, atque is, we bold, the true reading. 
 
 We understand "civil " here to mean fellow-citizeDS. "The robbers by 
 order of Coroticus" are nowhere called subjects (snbditi) nor is he called King 
 or Prince. The words " invidet inimicus per tirannidem Coroticus " mean by 
 the tyranny or cruelty of Coroticus, and do not imply that be was a tyrannus 
 or luler. 
 
 Innumerum, innumerably. The adjective is used adverbially like " verum " 
 and "secundum." The text is corrupt here ; we have not attempted to trans- 
 late it. Confirmed is technical, and means here gave them the Holy Eucharist. 
 
 ' Q u!£so plurimum ut quicunque famulus Dei at promptus fuerit nt sit gem lus 
 litterarum faarum ut nequa^uam subtrahatur sed magis potiua legatur coram 
 ouQctis plebibus et presente ipso Corotico. 
 
THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. 169 
 
 certain Coirthech (supposed by some to be CoroticusX King of 
 Aloo, supposed to be Alclyde. It is found in the Brussels 
 Codex, but not in the book of Armagh. The saint, for grave 
 reasons, and under circumstances we cannot detail here, turned 
 this monarch into a little fox (vulpecula.) ! * 
 
 The alternative Coroticus is Kerdigan, the son of Cynedda, 
 the eponymus of Cardiganshire. It would require the genius 
 of Moliere to describe adequately the linguistic transformation 
 by which Kerdigan became Coroticus. 
 
 As regards St. Patrick, there is a certain parallelism 
 between the Epistle and the Confession. The compiler of the 
 patchwork epistle had the text of the Confession before him, 
 and we judge that the parallelism is due to imitation on the 
 part of a compiler and copyist. The language which he puts 
 into the mouth of the saint is partly untrue, partly incredible, 
 md generally out of keeping with his character. For instance, 
 the saint is made to say — " To them it is a disgrace that 
 we have been born in Ireland." The idea belongs to a later 
 century, when the Sect of the Scots was " Eliminated," and 
 the explanation offered for this untruth — viz., that he 
 identifies himself with his converts, is not satisfactory. The 
 saint would never have said that he was horn in Erin. Again, 
 " I was free born. According to the flesh, I was born to a 
 father who was a decurio.* For I sold my nobility for the 
 good of others (I do not blush for that, or regret it.) In fine, 
 I am a servant in Christ (given over) to a foreign nation, etc., 
 etc. . . And if my own friends do not acknowledge me, a 
 prophet hath no honour in his own country." But his friends 
 pressed him to stay with them, as he tells us in the Confession ; 
 and he would not describe the office of decurio, which men 
 fled to escape from, as " nobility," nor speak of selling or 
 bartering it. His conception of his mission was spiritual, and 
 not contractual, and very far removed indeed from the juristic 
 formala of Do ut Bes. 
 
 • The fable is to be found conveniently in Trip. Life, 498. 
 
 The Brussels MS. has " vel fecule," Probus viiipeoiila, Stokes. Trip. Life 
 (248) says iji^tcc pntiAic. 
 
 9 Deourione patre nascor. " DiaoonuB " is the word in the Confession 
 instead of "Decurio." With contraction both^ words would be nearly alike. 
 Whether contracted or not the word would probably be faded and partly 
 illegible by the time of Ferdomnach. The context in the Confession shows 
 clearly that Decurio is right. 
 
170 KARLT IRISH HISTOEY. 
 
 We cannot, however, pursue this matter further, and must 
 refer our readers to the Epistle itself. We have already said 
 that there was probably a Letter to Coroticus, written while 
 the saint was assistant-bishop among the Morini, and we see 
 no reason to dissent from the judgment of the early Church in 
 excluding the existing script from their Canon of Patrician 
 documents. 
 
 We do not propose here to give details as to the missionary 
 labours of our apostle. Our readers will find an exhaustive 
 account of the legends and traditions respecting them in the 
 recently published work of Archbishop Healy. The reliable 
 traditions of the Church concerning them will be found in the 
 " Selections " of Muirchu, cautiously supplemented from the 
 Tirechan text, the Liber Angueli and the " Additamenta " (a 
 further " selection " which we may assign to Ferdomnach.) ^" 
 These, With the Confession and Dicta Patricii, constitute the 
 Documenta Patriciana in the Book of Armagh. This is a 
 small vellum quarto, now in Trinity college, Dublin, 7| inches 
 in height, 5f in breadth, 2^ in thickness. It now contains 221 
 leaves. The first leaf of the Book is missing, but is supplied 
 from a MS. that was formerly in the " Scots Cloister " in 
 Wurzburg-on-the-Main, in Bavaria, where there is a cathedral 
 dedicated to St. Killian, and which MS. is now in the Royal 
 Library at Brussels. The writing is generally in double 
 columns (rarely in three), and all appears to be in the hand of 
 the same scribe, Ferdomnach, who invites the reader to pray 
 for him. Pro Ferdomnacho ores, a request which his invalu- 
 able labour entitles him to have duteously performed by his 
 countrymen. The Rev. Charles Graves, afterwards Bishop of 
 Limerick, " by a most recondite and elegant demonstration," 
 established that the writer's name was Ferdomnach, who 
 finished the Gospel, according to St. Matthew, on the 20th of 
 September, as a note at folio 36 testifies. Another note at 
 folio 52 states that Ferdomnach wrote the book, " dictante " 
 Torbach, the Co-arb of St. Patrick. Torbach died in 807, 
 having held the See of Armagh for only one year. Ferdom- 
 nach died in 845. 
 
 The plan of our work does not allow us to enter into 
 
 w See Hogan, b. 2,' " Ann. Boll ," Vol. ii., 213. 
 
THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. 171 
 
 particulars in matters of this kind ; but the service rendered by 
 Bishop Graves, in fixing the date of the Book of Armagh, is 
 so valuable that we must make an exception. We owe it to him 
 to give, and we are sure our readers will receive with grateful 
 pleasure, a brief exposition of some details. According to 
 Gaelic usage, the name of the scribe was written in the Book 
 of Armagh in not less than eight places— viz., at the end of 
 the Confession, of Matthew, Mark, Luke, the Apocalypse, 
 Acts, Life of St. Martin, and Epistles of Sulpicius Severus to 
 Eusebius. These entries, however, except that at the end of 
 St. Martin, had been erased and were undecipherable. The 
 entry at the end of St. Martin's Life was, with great difficulty, 
 ascertained to be Pro Ferdomnacho ores. No motive, as far 
 as we can discover, can be assigned for these erasures, unless 
 they were made to make it appear from the Colophon at the 
 end of the Confession, " Thus far, the Book which Patrick 
 wrote with his own hand," that the codex (or most of it) was 
 written by the Saint himself, which Edward Lluydd states, was 
 the commonly received belief in his time. Now there were 
 two Ferdomnachs, both scribes. One died in 727, the other in 
 845. The latter is described by the Four Masters as a man of 
 knowledge and a choice scribe of Ardmacha (844 A.D. 
 'FeAfxioriiiiAfi CAgnAit) t fCniDnit) cogAitie S^yoA ITIaCa x>&te). 
 
 The penmanship of the Book of Armagh is of the most consummate 
 excellence. The whole of the writing is remarkable for its distinctness 
 and uniformity. All the letters are elegantly shaped, and many of the 
 initials are executed with great artistic skill. The last verses of St. 
 John's Gospel (fol. 103a) may be especially referred to, as exhibiting 
 a specimen of penmanship which no scrivener of the present day could 
 attempt to rival." 
 
 The erasure at the end of St. Matthew (fol. 52b) enabled 
 the learned bishop to decide that the second Ferdomnach was 
 the scribe whose name appeared in the Book, It consisted of 
 four short lines in a semi-Greek character, the writing in 
 which was partly revived by the use of a weak solution of 
 gallic acid in spirits of wine. It read as follows :— 
 
 ♦ * * ach huno 
 
 * ♦ * m***e dictante 
 
 * * * ach herede Pat 
 ricii scripsit. 
 
 " Bishop Gravea, Proc.Ry. Ir. Ao., iii., 32-t, Paper read Nov. 9th, 1846, 
 
172 EARLY IRISH flISTORV. 
 
 Dr. Graves found that the bishop referred to was Torbacb, 
 who sat for one year, according to the Catalogues of the Psalter 
 of Cashel, given by Colgan, and the Leabhar Breac, and who 
 died on the 16th of July, 807. He restored the text thus : — 
 
 TEXT RESTORED. TRANSLATED. 
 
 F domnach hunc Lib Ferdomnaoh this Book 
 
 E rum ***e dictante . . . e dictating 
 
 R Torbach herede Pat Torbach, successor of 
 
 rioii scripsit '* Patrick, wrote 
 
 He did not restore the three letters before the " E." We 
 suggest that " ipse " was the word, and translate : " Ferdom- 
 naoh this book himself, Torbach, co-arb of Patrick directing, 
 wrote." Ferdomnach ipse scripsit is a Gaelicism we have 
 noted elsewhere=peAi\T)oriinAC if ept)e no fciMob. It must be 
 remembered that the documents copied into the Book, at least 
 the Patrician documents, were ancient texts, partly illegible 
 from age at the date of the Book. 
 
 The date of the Book of Armagh turns on the meaning to 
 be attached to the word " dictante." If it means " at the 
 dictation of" Torbach, as some will have it, the Book must 
 have been written in the lifetime of that bishop, not later than 
 807. If dictante means " by the order of " Torbach, as others 
 construe it, then the Book may have been written at any time 
 during the life of Ferdomnach, who died in 845. We think 
 that the true meaning of " dictante "here and in similarcontexts 
 is " planning and superintending the work," and that the first 
 part of the Book, at any rate, in which the " Patrician Docu- 
 ments " are found, was written during the lifetime of Bishop 
 Torbach, who was himself an eminent scribe.^^ About that 
 time the co-arbs of Armagh caused a diligent search to be made 
 for everything that could be ascertained about the saint. 
 " Here begin," says Ferdomnach in the Additamenta, " a few 
 things in addition to be narrated in their proper places which 
 
 '2 Co-arb (CAiiiA^ibA) = Coheres, i.e , joint heir with Patrick. The Roman 
 jurists had not reached the legal conception of a corporation Sole, and the 
 Donations to the Church of Rome were always to St. Peter, the reigning Pope, 
 and his successor, who were co-heirs with St. Peter. This mav be the origin of 
 it. ' 
 
 " Dictate operam aigniiioare videtur praosse operariis, iisque normam 
 traicre, atque oraiueiu structionis. Ducange, sub voce. 
 
THE fatricmn documents. 173 
 
 have been discovered in later times by the research (curiosi- 
 tate) and zeal of holiness [diligentia sanctitatis] of the coarbs, 
 ■which are collected, etc., to the honour and praise of the Lord, 
 and in loving naemory of Patrick, even to the present day."" 
 
 The importance of this statement cannot be overrated. It 
 proves what, indeed, there is sufficient evidence to establish 
 independently, that the documents inserted in the Book of 
 Armagh were carefully selected after a diligent search by the 
 early church. And, in our judgment, nothing not found in 
 the Book of Armagh should be allowed "canonicity" in rela- 
 tion to his life. 
 
 The Patrician Documents were contained in the codex 
 [folios 1-24, b. 1] in the following order: — (1) Muirchu's 
 Selections ; (2) Dicta Patricii ; (3) Tirechan's Text ; (4) Ad- 
 ditamenta, i.e. Selections in the hand of Ferdomnach, and 
 probably made by him ; (5) The Index Hibernicus, in Fer- 
 domnach's smallest hand, which contains notes or catchwords, 
 which represent to some extent (Stokes says in the main) 
 " that portion of the Tripartite Life, which is not embraced in 
 Muirchu's memoir, and Tirechan's notes " ; ^' (6) Muirchu's 
 Preface and the Table of Contents [out of place] of Part I. of 
 his Selections ; (7) The Liber Angueli ; (8) The Confession. 
 
 The correspondence between the Index Hibernicus and the 
 Tripartite, which Stokes points out, is very important. It 
 brings such parts of the latter as are clearly referred to — very 
 close to, if not within — the canon of tradition, which the church 
 thought worthy of preserving after a selective process of 
 criticism. This canon of tradition should be received with 
 great respect, but yet not as an inspired word. It must be 
 subjected to the tests usually applied to evidence of this class, 
 and patiently sifted to ascertain, as far as possible, the elements 
 of historical truth it contains. 
 
 Muirchu wrote under the superintendence and direction of 
 Aedh, bishop of Sletty.^* His preface indicates the nature of 
 
 " [Additamenta ad Collectanea TireohaniJ, Inoipiiint alia pauoa seroitinis 
 temporibus inventa suisque loois narranda ouriositate heredutn diligentiaque 
 sanctitatis, quae in honorem et laudem Domini atque in amabilem Patricii 
 memoi'iam usque in hodiemum diem congiegantur. 
 
 " These additions seem gathered by Ferdomnach, the scribe of ' The Book 
 of Armagh,' from other ancient Lives of St. Patrick." — Trip. Life, 334. Stokes. 
 
 " Trip. Life- 318. 
 
 >' Dictante Aeduo Slebtien sis civitatis episcopo. ( + 698). 
 
174 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 the work he performed. We give the text in part and a 
 translation of it tfo which we invite particular attention, as 
 much turns on its correctness. It differs altogether, as will he 
 perceived, from that usually accepted. 
 
 Since many, my lord Aldus, have essayed to arrange a narrative and 
 that (utique istam, a Gselicisra) according to what their fathers and 
 those who were Ministers of the Word from the beginning related to 
 them, but owing to the great difiGiculty of the task of arranging a 
 narrative and divergent opinions and very various views of very many 
 persons, have never reached one sure tract of history. 
 
 Quoniam quidem, mi domine Aido, multi conati sunt ordinare 
 narrationem utique istam secundum quod patres eorum et qui ministri 
 initio fuerunt sermonis tradiderunt illis, sed propter difficillimum nar 
 rationis opus, diversasque opiniones et plurimorum plurimas suspiciones 
 nunquam ad unum certumque historise tramitem pervenerunt. 
 
 But not to appear to make a small matter into a big affair, in 
 obedience to the command ef Your Holiness and episcopal authority, I 
 too, shall undertake to tell, piece by piece, selectively {carptim) and with 
 difficulty, a few of the many incidents in the life of St. Patrick which 
 have been set forth toith little skill from texts of uncertain authorship, 
 with frail recollection and obscure meaning, hut with the most dutiful 
 affection of love. 
 
 Sed ne magnum de parvo videar fingere pauca hsec de multis 
 Sancti Fatricii gestis parva peritia incertis auctoribus, memoria labili, 
 attrito sensu, vili sermone, sed aSectu piissimo caritatis, etiam sancti- 
 tatis tus et auctoritatis imperio obediens carptim gravatimque ezplicare 
 aggrediar. 
 
 The part in italics is thus translated by Todd : — 
 
 But lest I should seem to make a small matter great with little 
 skill from uncertain authors with frail memory, with obliterated 
 meaning, and barbarous language, but with a most pious intention, 
 obeying the command of thy belovedness and sanctity and authority, I 
 will now attempt, out of many acts of St. Patrick, to explain these 
 gathered here and there with difficulty. 
 
 Barry translates thus : — 
 
 But lest 1 should seem to make much of little I shall undertake to 
 tell briefly and gravely these few from among the many deeds of St. 
 Patrick, with slender skill, doubtful authors, forgetful memory, obscure 
 text and mean speech, but with most loving affection in obedience to 
 the behest of yoiir Holiness and authority." 
 
 " Barry, Prologue by Muircho, xv. 
 
 Bury has aa interesting article in Hermathena (xxviii., 172) on the tradi- 
 tion of Muirohu's text. He says (p. 206), as regards the place where PalUdius 
 died. " We may, therefoje, I think, oonjeeture with much probability that 
 Muirchu wrote Britonum (i.e., in finibus Britonum). This is the word in the 
 
THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. 175 
 
 Certainly if all this refers to Miiirchu, the Bishop of Sletty 
 and the Irish Church were most unfortunate in their selectioa 
 of an eminent scribe. We are clearly of opinion that Muirchu 
 refers not to himself, but to other writers who had previously 
 dealt with the subject. 
 
 The Tirechan text merits and requires very careful con- 
 sideration. It is a piece of literary joinery fortunately so 
 clumsily put together that it can be taken to pieces without 
 much difficulty. This task has been performed by Professor 
 Bury in a valuable article, to which we acknowledge our in- 
 debtedness, though we do not entirely concur in his views. 
 The work has no title.^* The opening sentence : — " Tirechan, 
 bishop, wrote these from the lips and from the Book of Ultan, 
 bishop, whose alumnus and disciple he was," is merely a 
 heading by a scribe.*' In any case it is proved to be inaccu- 
 rate by the subsequent narratives. The residue of the script 
 is divisible into two parts. The first consists of two books 
 stated to have been put together (peractus) in the regions of 
 Meath, Connact, and Ulster, which deal mainly with the con- 
 ferring of Holy Orders, the foundation of churches, and the 
 circumstances connected with such foundations. There is 
 also mention of a visit to Leinster, and the last event recorded 
 is the baptism of the sons of Natfraich in Munster on the rock 
 of Patrick in Cashel [et baptizavit filios Nioth Frmoh,[i.e., 
 Aengus and his brother] i tir Mv/mae super petram Coithrigi 
 hi Caisaiul.} The object of this visitation by Tirechan, of 
 whom nothing is known, save that he was the disciple of Ultan 
 (t656), is revealed in the following passage at the commence- 
 ment of Book II., which we present to our readers, reserving 
 
 Armagh Text. The other reading U " in finibus Piotorum.;;? He returns to ~ 
 Muirchu in the English Historical Review (903 p. xix., 493), and refers to 
 " Misit Germanus seniorem cum illo, hoc est Segetium prespiterum ut teatem 
 comitem, haberet quia nee adhuc a sancto domino Germane in Fontilicali gradu 
 ordinatus est" (J' rip. Life, 272), as implying that the Saint was subsequently 
 consecrated by Germanus. We think the implication should be that not having 
 been already consecrated he went to Borne for consecration. 
 
 " Etiam sanctitatis " so Stokes and Todd. Hogan omits " etiam." 
 observing " Codex habet ' et sanctitatis,' sed particula ' et ' deleta puncto supra 
 posito." — Ann. Boll., li., 646. 
 
 The punctam, perhaps, shonld have been the mark of a contraction. The 
 text appears to require " etiam ; " it is certainly better for it. 
 
 ^ E. H. Rev., xix., 235, 700, see also Proc, Ry., Ir. Ac. xxiv., 163. 
 
 " Muirchu might have selected the collection ascribed to Bishop Tirechan as 
 an illustration of the texts described in his preface. If so, he was well advised. 
 
176 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 observations upon it till we come to consider the organisation 
 of the early Irish church : — 
 
 All that I have written, from the beginning of this book (you 
 know, because they were done in your parts) I heard from many elders 
 and from Ultan, Bishop of the Dal Conchubar (a tribe of the O'Connors 
 in Meath), who brought me all except a few facts which I discovered a« 
 the profit of my own exertion. 
 
 But my heart within me thinks of the love of Patrick, because I 
 see that deserters and arrant graspers and soldiers of Hibernia hate the 
 paruchia of Patrick, because they have robbed him of what was his 
 own, since, if the successor of Patrick were to seek what belongs to his 
 paruchia, he could restore to it almost the whole island, because God 
 gave to him the whole island and its inhabitants through the Angel of 
 the Lord, . . and it is not lawful for a spear [lignum ?] to be sent 
 against him, because he is everything appertaining to the primacy of 
 the Irish Church, and every oath that is taken is taken by him [i.e., on 
 the Canoin Padraie or the Baohall Jesn].®" 
 
 The statement about the angel clearly refers to the story 
 in the Liber Angueli that an angel appeared to Patrick to 
 tell him that the Lord had given him the primacy, and defining 
 the boundaries of the See of Armagh ; and it was, probably, to 
 these muniments of title that Mael Suthain refers in the entry- 
 made by him at the foot of Fol. 16 between the Tirechan text 
 and the Liber Angueli.^ 
 
 Saint Patrick, going up to Heaven, bequeathed the fruit of his 
 labours, the fruit of baptisms, suits, and alms to be yielded to the 
 apostolic city, which in Gaelic is called Ard Macha. So I have found 
 
 ^ Omnia quae scripsi a principio tibri hujus {i.e., Libei ii.) scitis quia in 
 vestris legionibus gesta aunt nisi de eis pauca quae inveni in utilitatem laboris 
 mei a senioribbs multia ao ab illo Ultano epiacopo Conohuburuensi qui nutrivit 
 me retulit sermo. Cor autem meum cogitat in me de Patricii dilectione quia 
 video desseitores et archiolocos et milites Hiberniie quod odio habent paruchiam 
 Patricii quia substraxerunt ab eo quod ipsius erat timentque quoniam si quaereret 
 heres Patricii paruchiam illius potest pene totam insulam sibi reddere in 
 parocbiam quia Deus dedit illi totam insolam, cum hominibus per Auguelum 
 Domini (* * *) et non lignum licet contra eum mitti quia ipsius sunt omnia 
 primitivie ecclesise Hibernics sed juratur a se omne quod juratur. Ann. Boll. II., 
 45 ; Trip. Life, 312. This text is obscure, but very important, 
 
 Archiolocos, Windiaoh suggests apxiK\<3»j£C the " p " being changed to "I," 
 which found favour with Stokes, and at first with Bury. On second thoughts 
 Bury says : " Reflection has convinced me that this assumption of the change 
 from " p " to "1 " in the case of a very rare, if not unique loan word such as 
 this would be, cannot be maintained. The true solution is much simpler. The 
 •eoond " c " in the word is either redundant, or is a mistake for " 1," and what 
 Tirechan wrote was Archilocos or Archillocos ; that is Arohilooos, meaning 
 malignant poets or satirists, E. H. Rev., 17,704, 257. We confess we do not 
 find the solution simple. We suggest a composite word from " Arohi," arrant, 
 and gtACAim I grasp, the " arrant graspers," euphemistic for plundirers, or 
 grabbers. 
 
 ^ Trip. Lif9, 336 — " It is in an eleventh century hand " 
 
THE PATEICIAN DOCUMENTS. 177 
 
 in the great book (Bibliothecis) of the Scots. I, Calvus Peennis (i.e., 
 Mael-Suthain) have written this in the presence of Brian, Emperor of 
 the Scots, and what I have written he has fixed (finivit) for all the 
 kings of Cashel. 
 
 Mael-Suthain was the anamchara of Brian, '' Imperator Scotorum " 
 
 The residue of the text is important from another point of 
 view and is clearly not the work of Tirechan. It concludes 
 with a " Breviarium " or short summary of contents. 
 
 Here ends the Breviarium of the race, name, genealogy, boyhood, 
 seizures (captivitatum), virtues, Christian ministry, writing (documen- 
 tum), industry, curses of sinners, blessings of the pious, age at death. AU 
 which done in the Lord have been brought together and collected by old 
 men of great knowledge and skill (antiquis peritissimis). 
 
 The previous text, however, does not contain any notice of 
 St. Patrick's race (gens.), or genealogy, or two seizures. The 
 Breviarium belonged, we think, to a work of which only part 
 is given in our text. Professor Bury is of opinion that the 
 Breviarium is an index to Muirchu as well as to Tirechan. 
 We cannot accept this view. It would be an inadequate index 
 for Muirchu and he has been already provided with an elabo- 
 rate table of contents, and nobody would think of looking to 
 the end of Tirechan to find out what was contained in Muirchu. 
 We suggest it was an index to the " documentum " named in 
 the text, namely the "Commemoratio laborum," — the " Scriptio 
 sua," and it is probable that the account of the gens., gene- 
 alogy, and two seizures was omitted from the Tirechan text 
 because it was to be found a few folios back in the text of 
 Muirchu. What is given in the text is either an addition to 
 Muirchu or diifers from him and from the Confession. It 
 begins as follows :— 
 
 " I have found," the writer says, " four names ascribed to Patrick 
 in the Book with Ultan bishop of the Dal Conchubar (Ardbraccan) — 
 1 Saint Magonius j which is bright (clarus), 2 Succetus ; 3 Patricius ; 
 4 Cothirthiacus who served four households of Magi (draoi). And one 
 of them named Miliuc bought him and he served him seven years in 
 service of all kinds with double (time of) labour and he placed him as 
 a swineherd. in mountain valleys. 
 
 " In the 17 th year of his age he was taken captive, carried to 
 Hibernia, and sold there. In the 22nd year of his age he was able to 
 leave the wizard. Seven years more he walked, or sailed over seas, or 
 lived in fields or mountain valleys, through the Gauls, and all Italy, 
 and on the islands which are in the Tyrrhene Sea, as he tells himself in 
 
178 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 the commemoration of his labours; and he was in one of the islands, 
 called Aralanensis [Arelatensis], 30 years, as Ultan, the bishop, testified 
 to me, and all things that happened to him you will find plainly set 
 forth in his narrative. These are the ' mirabilia ' happily performed 
 by him in the fifth year of the reign of Laoghaire MaoNeill.^ From 
 the passion to the death of St. Patrick are reckoned 436 years, and 
 Laoghaire reigned for five years after the death of St. Patrick." The 
 length of his reign was 35 years, as we think ^ 
 
 The text further states :— 
 
 St. Patrick landed at Inis Patrick with a multitude of holy 
 bishops and presbyters. He consecrated 450 bishops ! 
 
 Near the end of the text we find : 
 
 The age of Patrick, as has been handed down to us, is reckoned as 
 follows : — In his seventh year he was baptised ; in his tenth he was 
 captured ; for seven years he was a slave ; for thirty years he read ; 
 for seventy-two years he taught. The sum total of his age was 120 
 years, like Moses. In four things Patrick was like Moses. 1. He 
 heard an angel from a bush. 2. He fasted forty days and forty nights. 
 3. He lived 120 years. 4. Where his bones are no one knew. Two 
 hosts fought for the body for twelve days and twelve nights, and for 
 that (space of time) they saw no night, but daylight always. On the 
 twelfth day they came to fight (still) and each of the two hosts (by 
 miracle) saw the body on its portable bier amongst themselves, and 
 they did not fight. Columcille, inspired by the Holy Spirit, pointed 
 out the sepulchre of Patrick." 
 
 ^ Acooiding to the Four Masters Laoghaire died 458 A.D., after reigning 
 for 30 years. 
 
 ^ In XVII. setatis Buse anno oaptus, ductus venditus est in Hibemiam ; in 
 XXII. anno laboris magis (read magni) relinquere potuit; VII. aliia annia 
 ambulavlt et navigavit in fluotibus, in campeatribus loois, et .„ convalUbus 
 montanis per Gallias et Italiam totam atque in insnlis quie sunt in mari 
 Terreno ut ipse dixit in commeraoratione laborum. Erat hautem in una ex 
 insults qu!E dioitur Aralanensis atinis XXX. mihi testante Ultano episoopo. 
 Omnia hautem quae evenerunt (ei) invenietis in plana iiistoria illius soripta. — 
 Trip. Life, p. 302. 
 
 Aralanensis is, we think, Lerins, the island Sanoti Honorati Arelatensis, 
 i.e., of Saint Honoratus, bishop of Aries. It is now called Saint Honorat. 
 
 Bory thinks the Commemoraiio Laborum in the text means the Confession, 
 tliough tlie writer ilid not, in fact, consult the Confession. 
 
 " The only written sources," he writes, " to which Tirechan refers, are a book 
 which belonged to Bishop Ultan, and the Confession of St. Patrick, It is tolerably 
 clear that he had before him only this book of Acta, and did not consult the Con- 
 fession, though he refere to it as the saint's own Comr^iemoratio Laborum. Wa 
 think the Commemoratio Laborum was erroneously reputed to be " scripHo sua," 
 
THE PATRICIAN DOOUMEN'TS. 179 
 
 The hosts that fought, and their children, must have for- 
 gotten the saint very soon, -which is incredible, and did not 
 deserve the assistance of the Holy Spirit. St. Patrick died in 
 493, and Columba went to lona in 563. A similar story is told 
 of Columba and St. Martin of Tours. On visiting Tours, 
 Columba was asked to point out the grave of St. Martin, 
 which he agreed to do on condition that he should receive 
 everything that should be found in the grave, except the 
 bones. The Annals of Ulster state that in 554 (sixty-one years 
 after the saint's death) our saint's relics were enshrined by 
 Columba. Three precious reliquaries were then found in the 
 tomb — the cup, the angel's gospel, and the Bell of the Will. 
 There is no mention of a miracle ; nor has Adamnan heard 
 of it. 
 
 In another place the writer quotes St. Patrick's alleged 
 statement that he gave money presents to tribal chiefs to 
 secure a safe passage in the districts which he was in the 
 habit of visiting. The passage referred to is not found in the 
 Armagh text of the Confession, but appears in the Cotton and 
 FellMSS. of the 11th century, and in the Vedast MS., probably 
 of the same period. 
 
 It is as follows : 
 
 At the same time I gave presents to the Kings besides the cost of 
 keeping their sons who walked with me, in order that they (i.e., the 
 Kings) should not seize me with my companions. . . . 
 
 But you know how much I expended on those who were judges 
 throughout all the districts which I used more frequently to visit. And 
 I think I paid them the price of not less than fifteen men, so 
 that you might enjoy me, and I might enjoy you in the Lord. I do not 
 repent of it, yea, it is not enough for me. I still spend and will spend 
 more.^ 
 
 This extraordinary fantasy about the saint's bribing kings 
 and judges may be compared with the prayer in the Tripartita 
 Life when he got the staff of Jesus from the Lord, "and 
 
 ^ Patricius etiam pretium xii. animarum hominum ut in scriptione sua 
 affirmat de argento et Ere ut nuUus malorum hominum impediret eos m via 
 recta transeuntes totam Hibernian. — Tirschan, Trip. Lfie. 310, line 5. 
 
 Censeo enim non minus quani pretium quindecim hominum distribui illig 
 —Trip. Life, 372, from Cotton MSS. 
 
ISO EARLK IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Patrick asked three favours from him — namely, (1) to be on 
 His right hand in the Kingdom of Heaven ; (2) that he might 
 be judge of the Gael on doomsday; and (3) as much gold and 
 silver as his nine companions could carry, to be given to the 
 Gael for believing." Again, "He took gold to Miliuc to 
 imnress belief upon him, for he knew that Mil^uc was greedy 
 for gold." 
 
 The Apostle was not a company promoter, nor a millionaire, 
 nor <t "souper." He did not march forward as a soldier of 
 Christ with sword, or money bag, or soup kitchen. He carried 
 nothing with him but the Gospel and the Cross. In hoc aigno 
 
 vicit. 
 
 In the Tirechan text we read : " And they " (St. Patrick 
 and his companions) " began to travel to Mount Egli, and 
 Patrick paid to them the price of fifteen lives of men, as he 
 affirms in his writing, in silver and gold, that no evil-minded 
 person should hinder them going on the straight road across 
 Hibernia." ^ The writing (scriptio sua) referred to here must 
 be the documentuTn, the CoTnmemoratio Lahorum, and it 
 seems not unlikely that the writer of the addition to the 
 Armagh Confession, in other texts, found that the statement 
 and many more equally incredible in the Commemoratio 
 Lahorum, which we feel confident our saint would never have 
 written. For instance, let us take the first paragraph of the 
 matter added to the Armagh text from the Cotton MS. 
 
 •o' 
 
 And when I was assailed by some of my seniors who opposed (my 
 consecration) to the laborious episcopate on account of my sins I was 
 indeed strongly impelled on that day to fall then and for ever. But 
 the Lord spared a proselyte and a pilgrim for His name's sake. He 
 graciously and powerfully aided me in this attempt to trample on me 
 because I had not evilly proceeded to wickedness and shame. I pray 
 God that the circumstance be not reckoned to them as sin, for after 
 thirty years they found me out and urged against (me) a word which I 
 had confessed before I was a deacon. Through pain of mind I told a 
 most intimate friend what I had done in one day in my boyhood, nay, 
 in one hour because I had not strength as yet. I know not, God 
 knows, if I was then fifteen years old. For I did not believe in one 
 God, not from my infancy, but I remained in doubt and unbelief until 
 I was severely chastened. 
 
 " See preceoing note. 
 
THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. 181 
 
 The -writer of this had a nucleus for the romance in the 
 statement at the opening of the Confession that the saint did 
 not know God truly then (verum Deum). This the writer, not 
 understanding its true import, changes to " one " (" verum " to 
 " unum ") God, and makes our Saint out an unbeliever and a 
 pagan. The terrible sin is not mentioned. Zimmer, however, 
 has found it out. "Young Sucat," he says "gave himself up 
 to worldly pleasures, and himself owns to having sinned against 
 the sixth commandment {i.e., committed adultery) when in 
 his fifteenth year." ^^ When will those additions and men- 
 dacities come to an end ? 
 
 Surely it is high time that the men of Erin at least should 
 take their stand on what is written in the Book of Armagh 
 under the authority of the Co-arbs of the Apostle in the 
 primacy of the fatherland.^' 
 
 Another crime laid to the charge of our Saint furnishes a 
 good example of how a harmless legend becomes metamor- 
 phosed. We refer to the theft of the relics. 
 
 In the Trip. Life itself there are evidently two stories mixed 
 up. In the first, the angel appears to the saint and tells how 
 the relics are to be divided to-day (indiu) in Rome for the 
 four quarters of the world, and says, " I will carry you, &o. 
 
 And the angel carried Patrick into the air." 
 
 This was clearly for the purpose of taking him off to Rome in 
 time for the distribution, and we expect to find him present on 
 that day in Rome and getting his share. Not so, however, 
 runs the text. He goes to Waterford, thence by ship to 
 
 *5 Zimmer, Celtic Church, 43. 
 
 * The colleotioas in the Book of Armagh, written in the seventh century, 
 must be taken as authorities in preference to all of later date, which are 
 evidently but systematized amplifications of them. Yet it will be seen that 
 even in these documents the statements are so vague and contradictory that 
 nothing very conclusive can be gleaned from them. The first in a ruder style is 
 the same in substance as that by Probus. — Petrie, Tara, 83. 
 
 Facile constat inter erudites post Confessionem Patricii, utrumque monu- 
 mentum Libri Armaohani antiquissimura esse omnium quas de sanoti apostoli 
 historia ad nos peruenerit. Immo non dubitat Petrie omnes vitas Patricii quas 
 edidit Colganus ex hoc solo fonte prodesse. Quod omnmo certum est de vita 
 quae Probi nomine inscribltur ; hajo enim ita insiatit vestigiis Muirchu Maecu- 
 mustheni (nisi quod de missione Romana Patricii qu ffidam hausit de Tireohano) 
 nt manifesta habenda sit illius magis latior et elegantlor recensio. — Hogan, S.J., 
 Ann. Boll, I. 243. 
 
182 EAEIiY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Bordeaux, thence to Rome, " and sleep," the text proceeds, 
 '■ came over the inhabitans of Rome, so that Patrick brought 
 away as much as he wanted, i.e., 365 relics, together with the 
 relics of Paul, Peter, Laurence, Stephen, and many others. 
 Patrick left that collection at Armagh." 
 
 In Colgan it appears amplified again— uires acquisivit 
 eundo. 
 
 By a pious stratagem or theft, whilst the custodians of the sacred 
 places were asleep and knowing nothing, but, as is believed, with the 
 connivance of the Pope, he, Patrick, took a multitude of relics and carrieJ 
 them a.\ay to Hibernia.^ 
 
 There is no reference, we need hardly say, to these felonious 
 proceedings in the Book of Armagh. The writer came to the 
 conclusion that though there was flat robbery there was no 
 sacrilege, and waxes into enthusiasm over this obscure and 
 puzzling discovery. 
 
 " Oh, wonderous deed," he exclaims, " seldom equalled — the theft of 
 a vast treasure of holy things carried oiF from the most holy place in 
 the world without committing sacrilege." ! ! ^ 
 
 Many more illustrations of this falsification of traditions 
 might be adduced. We shall only give two. The Tripartite 
 Life ('p. 194^ states, referring to the saint's visit to Cashel : — 
 " When Oengus, the son of Natfraich, arose in the morning all 
 the images were ' innaligib ' — batur irriarachta huili innaligib 
 — and Patrick and his people found him beside the fort." The 
 Life continues :— " He (Oengus) gives them welcome and brings 
 them into the fort." Now " innaligib " means literally " in 
 their beds or in their graves," and probably was meant to 
 convey that they had been put away by Oengus. They were 
 probably representations of the sun and the moon, etc, as we 
 have already explained, and if there was anything miraculous 
 to relate about them the writer of the Tripartite would 
 undoubtedly not have omitted it. He was, however, satisfied 
 
 *Pio astu furtove sacrorum locorum custoilibus nescientibus et dorm en- 
 tibus et summo ut creditur connivente Pontifice, accepit ingentem sacrarum 
 rellqniarum multitudinem quas secuin in Hiborulam, asportavit. — Acta SS., 
 vol. II., p. 264. 
 
 ^ O mirum f acinus rarumque, ingen tis thesauri ex loco muudi sacratissimo 
 rapti sacrarumque rerum furtum sine saciilegio commissum. — Colgan, Acta, SS., 
 II., 164. 
 
THE PATRICIAN DOCtTMENTS. 183 
 
 with the bare statement of fact. Not so, however, Jocelyn. 
 He was a French Cistercian monk from Furness, in Lancashire, 
 and came to Erin as a friend and supporter of the Angevins, 
 and in particular of De Courcy, " the plunderer of churches 
 and territories " (pin). He wrote his " Life " — the Vita Quinta 
 of Colgan— between 1183 and 1186. 
 
 " Many fools (he writes, in his preface) have written the life of St. 
 Patrick with a pious intent but in an unhandsome style, by which 
 disgust is often excited and sometimes tardiness of belief. I will season 
 the life of the saint, if not with all the excellence of our tongue, at least 
 with some of its elegance." 
 
 He tells us that the saint journeyed into Munster — 
 
 And the king thereof, Oengus, met the holy prelate rejoicing and giv- 
 ing thanks in the exultation of his heart, as on that day occasion was 
 minstered to him of joy and of belief for that in the morning when he 
 entered the temple to adore his idols he beheld them all prostrate on 
 the ground. And so often as he raised them, so often by the Divine 
 power, were they cast down, nor could they stand upright, but continu- 
 ally were overthrown. And as Dagon could not stand at the approach 
 of the Ark of the Testament, so neither could the idols stand the 
 approach of St. Patrick.*" 
 
 His account of the saint's mother is novel and interesting, 
 Muirchu knew nothing of it : — 
 
 Calphurnius married a French damsel named Concessa, a niece of 
 the Blessed Martin, Archbishop of Tours, and the damsel was elegant 
 in her form and in her manners ; for, having been brought from France 
 with her elder sister into the northern parts of Britain and there sold 
 at the command of her father, Calphurnius, being pleased with her 
 manners, charmed with her attentions, and attracted by her beauty, 
 very much loved her, and from the state of a serving maid in his house- 
 hold raised her to be his companion in wedlock. 
 
 Our concluding illustration shall be Jocelyn's masterpiece, 
 "The Miracle of the Love-sick Nun." The lady was Ercnat, 
 Daire's daughter. Muirchu tells us : — 
 
 There was a rich man of rank in the Eastern part (of Oirghialla). 
 named Daire, and Patrick asked him for a site for religious worship. 
 " What place do you want 1 " asked Daire. " That height called 
 Willow Hill (Druim Sailech)," said the saint. Daire refused to give 
 that site then, but after some incidents not necessary to be mentioned 
 here he gave it, and St. Patrick and Daire went to consider the miracle 
 
 »" Vita, c. 74, Swif te. 
 
184 EABLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 of the offering and to view the well-pleasing donation, and they 
 ascended the height, and they found in the place a doe with its little 
 fawn Ij'ing whei'e the altar of the church at the left now is at Ard 
 Macha. And the companions of Patrick wished to take and kill the 
 fawn, but the saint would not permit it. Nay, he took up the fawn 
 himself and carried it on his shoulders, and the doe followed him like 
 a pet sheep until he lay down the fawn in another field at the North 
 side of Ard Macha, where, as knowledgeable men say, there are marks 
 remaining to this day of his pious act (signa virtutis ejus)." 
 
 Muirchu knows nothing or says nothing, about the follow- 
 ing addition to this charming little episode, which is found in 
 the Tripartite Life (233) :— 
 
 Daire's daughter loved Benen. Sweet to her seemed his voice at 
 the chanting. An illness came upon her, and thereof she died. Benen 
 took creta (cretra = con sec rata ?) to her from Patrick, and straightway 
 that holy virgin rose up alive, and afterwards she loved him, spiritually. 
 She is Ercnat, Daire's daughter, who is (buried) in Tamlacta Bo.*^ 
 
 Jocelyn presents the story " with the excellence and the 
 elegance of the tongue," but we doubt if these qualities of 
 style have entirely removed our " tardiness of belief." 
 
 " The venerable Benignus," he writes, " excelled in the song of a 
 sweet voice, so that he penetrated the hearts and ears of all who heard 
 him. So out of the melody of his voice did the tempter minster the 
 occasion of sin. ^ov a nun, whilst she was delighted with the sweet 
 singing of Benignus, entertained, at length, a more earnest desire 
 towards the man of God, who knew nothing of this unhallowed flame 
 which hardly could she contain in her bosom. Taught by a woman's 
 cunning, she feigned extreme illness, and withdrew as into her sick bed, 
 and besought that from Benignus she might receive spiritual couusel 
 and the Holy Communion. But St. Patrick, at the revelation of the 
 Spirit, was not ignorant of what distemper did the nun labour under. 
 He sent Benignus. Wonderful was the event. The damsel, raising 
 her eyes at his entrance, beheld Benignus very terrible in his stature, 
 and his face as breathing forth flames, and she beheld herself blazing 
 within and without, and St. Patrick standing nigh, covering his face 
 with his hands.^ 
 
 Great saints are not exempt from some of the perils that 
 attend other forms of greatness. The biographer lies in wait 
 for them. 
 
 81 Muirchu, c. 24, Trip. Life, 290. 
 
 '^ In the Mnrtyrology of Donegal It is stated that Benignus, afterwards St. 
 Patrick's co-arb in Armagh, " was then a psalm singer with his master Patrick," 
 and that after recovering Ercnat offered her virginity to God, so that she went to 
 hetiven. The " creta " was probably " uisce consecrata," holy water. — Martyr 
 Doneg. 30. 
 
 "^ Jocelyn, c. 97, abridged. 
 
[ 185 ] 
 
 CHAPTER XII, 
 
 THE EELIGION OF THE GAEL BEFORE SAINT PATRICK. 
 
 THE religion of the Gael before the advent of Christianity 
 can, in its general outlines, be ascertained with a reasonable 
 degree of certainty. The evolution of their religious con- 
 ceptions followed a normal course, and by comparing what we 
 know of them with our knowledge of other branches of the 
 Aryan family, we can fix, with precision, the stage at which it 
 had arrived. The religion of the Celestial Fire, or light, pre- 
 dominated ; the sun and the moon were the principal objects 
 of worship. But beside and below this cultus were survivals 
 from the animistic period ; sometimes referred to as poly- 
 demonism. This consisted in a belief in the existence of 
 spirits, or demons, animating, or watching over everything, 
 and that everything could be controlled or influenced by 
 verbal formulas, incantations, or magical practices known only 
 to the wizards. These wizards became fortune-tellers, obtaining 
 information from the demons they controlled; and, being observers 
 of the heavens, and having power over the elements — wind, 
 rain, and mist — they became in due course astrologers. It was 
 the superstitions connected with polydemonism that the 
 Church found everywhere the most difficult to eradicate. 
 The Church admitted the existence of evil spirits, their 
 intelligence, activity, and implacable hatred of mankind. 
 Speaking of the cultus of stones, in the valley of Lebroust, in 
 the centre of the Pyrenees, a writer, quoted by Bertrand, stated, 
 in 1877 :— 
 
 These enchanted (sacrees) stones are most frequently found near 
 springs, and are boulders or blocks of unhewn granite ... In vain 
 do the priests fight against them in the pulpit. They have not suc- 
 ceeded in extirpating them from all hearts. In vain do they get these 
 (restiges of persistent paganism secretly destroyed, particularly those 
 near which young men and girls keep tryst. When the inhabitants 
 catch the destroyers at work, they assemble, and prevent them. If the 
 work has been accomplished unknown to them, they gather up 
 the broken pieces and replace them, and continue the cultus. It is 
 
186 EAELY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 necessary to remove the pieces to a, distance, and scatter them. 
 Sometimes a cross is placed on the spot to appropriate to religion the 
 respect in which it was held.^ 
 
 Was the Lia Fail sent away for this reason ? We shall see. 
 The Gael were approaching polytheism, or, possibly, even 
 monotheism, but had not reached either. There were no 
 temples or man-shaped idols among them such as are found in 
 abundance everywhere else in Europe. None have been found 
 above ground or underground at Usnach, Tara, Tlachtga, 
 Tailltin, Cruachan, or elsewhere in Erin, except at Magh Slecht. 
 
 St. Patrick tells us in the Confession, as we have seen, that 
 the Irish had no knowledge of God, but worshipped idols and 
 unclean things (idula et immunda). What were these idula ? 
 Were they man-shaped ? We submit they were not. There 
 are two entries in Cormac's glossary which throw much light 
 on this point. We quote them here in full : 
 
 Idol, i.e., ab idolo, «So£ in the Greek, forma in the Latin, unde dicitur 
 idolum, that is the forms and representations of the idols or the dements 
 {nandulay which the heathen used to make formerly, 
 
 Indelba, i.e., the names of the altars of these idols, because they 
 were wont to make {dofornetesf on them the figures (delba) of every- 
 thing (or of the elements)* they adored, verbi gratia figura solis 
 (figure of the sun). 
 
 This is further illustrated by the following story told by 
 Keating : — 
 
 There was a priest in Tir Conell in the time of Colum Cille who 
 built or erected a church of splendid stone and erected an altar with 
 glass in it, and put shapes of the sun and moon in it, in that church ; ^ 
 and shortly after that came a weakness and a swoon upon that priest, 
 and a demon came to him after that and took him with him in the air, 
 and after a while they came near Colum Cille, overhead him. He 
 caught sight (of them) and stretched out the sign of the holy cross over- 
 head in the air. So with that the priest fell down from above. And 
 accordingly the priest dedicated the church to Colum Cille for his help 
 Prom the hands of the demon, and became a monk himself and spent a 
 good life from that out" 
 
 ' Bertrand, La Religion des Gaulois, p. 46. 
 ' Nandula — creatures. Stokes. 
 
 * Dofornetes — carve. Stokes. 
 
 * Cormac's glossary. Stokes 94, 95, compiled 890, A.D. (o). 
 ' Delba in uile no adratis (no nandula odortaes). 
 
 The uile not translated by Stokes is important, as it would include the sun and 
 moon which, however, the Gael would then classify as " dula." 
 
 •Stokes gives text and translation, Rev. Celt., xx., 428. 
 
 ■Do Bi SAjAt"^ '^t' Cili Conett An Aimfi)i Cottitm CiLte t)0 fiim-OAij no tio 
 cojAib BAjler •00 ctocAib UAifte t ■do tojaib Atcoitt jtoine ince, t no iuiji 
 •peAlb '5neine T eA^iCA x>o -oeAtb fAn eAjter rm T 50 stio-o t)a eir f" 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE GAEL BEFOEB SAINT PATRICK. 187 
 
 Keating found the story doubtless in the Egerton MS. or 
 some copy of it, •which states : 
 
 There was a wealthy priest who adorned his church with precions 
 stones, i.e., a church that was in his cell (a church in which his cell 
 was ?), and made an altar of crystal and wrought (thereon) the shape of 
 the sun and the moon.^ 
 
 O'Mahony* understood Keating to refer to a heathen priest 
 but he could not have called a heathen priest a f a5A]\c. We 
 deemed it right, therefore, to give the Gaelic text, not hitherto 
 printed, in full. It seems that the good priest had more zeal 
 than discretion. The altar was not, of course, of crystal. It 
 was probably of wood with panes of glass in it shaped like the 
 sun and moon and lighted from behind. There were then no 
 heathen priests nor heathen temples in Erin. 
 
 The heathen practices connected with polydemonism were 
 condemned by several councils — by St. Augustine in Africa ; 
 by St. Oaesarius of Aries, in the south of France ; and by St. 
 Eligius in the North. St. Eloi (Eligius, 588-659) was born 
 near Limoges, in the " suburbium "*of which, as his deed of grant 
 states, he founded and endowed with lands the great Abbey of 
 Solignac, which is eight miles south of the city. The charter 
 or deed of grant from him to the abbot Remadus expressly 
 states that it is given on condition "that you and your successors 
 follow the way of religion of the most holy men of the monas- 
 tery of Luxeuil, and firmly keep the rule of PP. Benedict and 
 Columbanus.^" ' Thus side by side in the- same religious house 
 we find the rule of St. Colum was observed with that of St. 
 Benedict, until the greater practical sense of the latter code 
 superseded the more rigid legislation of the former. Whilst 
 not in any way lax, the Benedictine rule did not prescribe an 
 
 CA^ AtibfAiti 1 tuoti Aip An r-^jAiic T"! 1 CAitii5 -oeAmAn cuije lAti pn tjo 
 1i«5 teic r^Ati Aieofi e, ■] Ati ctiAC cAtigATOoti AngAtt -oo Cotum Citte or A cioti, 
 fMA\\ AriiAtic 1 •oo fme coiriAii'OA riA ctiotce TiAeoriiCA or A cioti f Ati Aieoift jufi 
 tuic AH rAjAf.c teiffin ec -oo 6ieiti ■oo lobAi^i ah rAjAtic An eAgtef r>o 
 Colum Citle ctie tiA poitiicm A tAtiiAiB An ■oeAmuih -[ vo cuai-d f6in An oiixi 
 mAnAC gtin CA1C a Aimreti 50 mAic o fin AmAc. — MS, 'Velluin, by Dermot 
 O'Connor, written in 1730, Brit. Mus. add. 18, 745, p. 144. 
 
 '■Oonigne Atcoiri sltimi'oe ■) ■ootusne ■oelb jiiene t enco. 
 
 3 Mahony, p. 463. , , , 
 
 ' So the Vicua Bonavem was m the suburbium of Taruanna. 
 
 1" Et tamen oonditione inteiposita ut vos et sucoesaores vestri tramitem 
 religionis sanotisaimorum virorum Luxoviensis monasterii oonsequamini et regu- 
 1am beatissimorum PP. Benedioti et Columbani firmiter teneatis. Migne, vol. 
 87-ool. 659. 
 
]88 EARLY lEISH HISTORY, 
 
 asceticism which could be practised only by the few, and the 
 most ample powers were given to the superior to adapt 
 the regulations to all circumstances of times and places. The 
 Columban rule, on the other hand, was one of great rigour, and 
 would, if carried 6ut in its entirety, have made the Celtic 
 monks almost, if not quite, the most austere of men." ^^ 
 
 The Monastery of St. Eloi was remarkable for having a 
 number of artistic handicraftsmen, skilful particularly in 
 goldsmiths' work, in which St. Eloi himself excelled, and 
 Limoges became celebrated in the Middle Ages for ecclesiastical 
 gold work. We incline to believe that the foundation was 
 largely recruited from the countrymen of Oolumbanus. 
 
 The heathenish practices to which we have referred are 
 nowhere more exhaustively enumerated than in a sermon by 
 St. Eloi, which is preserved in his Life by his contemporary 
 and biographer, St. Ouen, Bishop of Rouen (A.D. 640). We 
 shall give here, in abridged form, such parts as are applicable 
 to polydemonism in Erin, and which show forth briefly and 
 authoritatively what this cult of polydemonism was in practice. 
 Eligius became Bishop of Noyon in A.D. 640. It was then 
 one of the most important cathedral cities in France. 
 Charlemagne was crowned there in A.D. 768 : — 
 
 Above all, I warn and adjure you (the Bishop said). Let no man 
 observe the sacrilegious practices of the pagans or dare to consult 
 persons who make charms, or practise fortune-telling, or sorcery, or 
 magic on account of sickness, or for any other reason. Observe not 
 auguries, or sneezing, nor, when on a journey, attend to the singing of 
 birds. Let no Christian take note of the day on which he leaves home, 
 nor the day on which he returns, nor of the day of the month, nor 
 of the moon, before commencing any work. 
 
 Let no one on the Feast of St. John take part in the " Solstitia," 
 or jumping, or dancing, or caroUint;, or devilish songs, or call on the 
 name of Neptune, Diana, Orcus, Minerva, or the Genii, or believe in 
 nonsense of that sort. Let no Christian light luminaria (fires or 
 " cleares "), and make vows or prayers at shrines, or stones, or springs, 
 or trees, or "cellas" (spots struck by lightning, collicellas ?), or cross 
 roads. Let no one tie charms around the neck of man or beast. Let 
 no one make sprinklings, or incantations on herbs, or dare to make the 
 
 " Abbot Gasquet, English Monastic Life, p. 214 and 11, citing Round Celtic 
 Church of Walen ,p. 1 66. St. Eloi wanted his monks to be " the most austere of men." 
 
 By the Canons of the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle (which was held in 817, under 
 Louis le Debonaire in domo Aquiigrani palatii qtios ab Lateranis dicitur, at the in- 
 stance of St. Benedict of Aniane, near Montpellier, one of the reformers of the 
 Benedictines, it was ordained, that all the monks in the empire should follow the 
 reformed Benedictine rule and liturgy. This order was euforeed by the secnl*' 
 arm.— Hefele (Tr. Delaro), V. 218. 
 
THE BELIGION OF THE GAEL BEFORE SAINT PATRICK. 189 
 
 cattle pass through the hollow of a tree or through a hole in the 
 earth, because by this he openly consecrates them to the devil. 
 
 Let no woman hang amber from her neck. 
 
 Let no one shout at an eclipse of the moon. 
 
 Let no one call the sun and the moon lords (dominos), nor swear by 
 them.^^ 
 
 The Abb6 Arbellot, in his interesting Life of St. Eloi (1898). 
 tells us that the custom relating to cattle, above mentioned, 
 still exists in some parts of Limousin.^* 
 
 The oldest form of the Gaelic oath we are acquainted with 
 consisted in giving and taking as sureties or securities the 
 elements. Ferdiad tells Meve, in the Tain, that he will not 
 fight Cuchulain without this oath : — 
 
 I will not go without securities 
 ***** 
 
 Without the sun and moon 
 Together with the sea and land. 
 
 * * * « 
 
 La muij> ocAf cifi. 
 
 This was the substance of the solemn Gaelic oath till 
 Christianity took root. It was the oath taken by Laoghaire 
 not long before his death, " He gave the securities of the sun 
 and of the wind, and of the elements to the men of Leinster,'' 
 He broke this pledge, and next year (458 A.D.), " the sun and 
 the wind killed him because he had outraged them" (^p ^o^a]\- 
 
 The violation of a guarantee or security, whether in the 
 case of a god-element or of a man, was a heinous outrage 
 in the estimation of the Gael. We have seen the effects 
 in the case of Fergus MacRoigh, A case is recorded where 
 a son killed his own father for the violation of an oath in which 
 the son was given as security. It will be observed that there 
 is no mention in the formula quoted of any god of the sun or 
 the moon or the earth, where we should expect to find them if 
 they were objects of worship. The Church was, of course, 
 opposed to this oath, and a transition formula appears to 
 have been adopted. The words sun, moon, sea, and land, 
 given as securities were excluded, and the substituted formula 
 ran: "I swear by the oath of my people" (long a coing mo tUAt) 
 
 12 Migne, toI. 87, ool. 528. 
 " Viv de St. Eloi, p. 35. 
 
190 EARLY IBISH HISTORY. 
 
 M. d'Arbois has given a very interesting comparison of the 
 " Celtic " with the Homeric oath, the latter of which names 
 gods and elements together." There was, also, the soldiers' 
 oath. He swore by his arms, his comrades in battle. Ho 
 looked for help to the power within the bronze or the iron. 
 The Homeric Avrbe t^AKcraj &vSpa ailtipo^ — the iron itself 
 draws the man on to it — was, probably, used originally m 
 this sense. This form of oath was also customary with the 
 Germans, as Grimm tells us.^^ 
 Spenser says : — 
 
 So do the Irish at this day when they go to battle say certain 
 prayers or charms to their swords, making a cross therewith upon the 
 earth, and thrusting the points of the blades into the ground, thinking 
 thereby to have the better success in fight. Also, they used commonly 
 to swear by their swords. 
 
 Caesarius (476-544), " Dragged from the monastery of Lerins, 
 to be Archbishop of Aries," warns his flock to cut down and 
 destroy any trees or altars or such like things on their lands 
 to which the people resorted for vows. He states that when a 
 sacred tree fell the people would not use any part of it 
 for fuel,^* 
 
 O'Donovan tells ua in his Supplement to O'Reilly (1864) : — 
 
 There is an ancient tree growing in Borrisokane, Tipperary, 22 feet 
 in diameter. It is held in peculiar veneration by the peasantry, who 
 would not cut off any part of it for fuel, because they believe that the 
 house in which any part of it should be burnt would soon meet the 
 same fate.'^ 
 
 The cultus of trees, stones, wells, etc., need not detain us. 
 There is one particular cult, however, which deserves notice — 
 that is, the custom, which continues to our time, of making 
 rounds at holy wells.- How did this originate, and why ? An 
 explanation occurs to is, which we deem it right to offer foi 
 consideration. It was, we surmise, the adaptation of a primitive 
 well-cult to the ritual of sun-worship. The votary faced 
 the east, and turned to the right hand, " desiul " with the 
 course of the sun. The two cults were thus combined after the 
 sun had become the paramount object of worship. The Church 
 
 " Rev, Archiologique, Aug. 1892, p. 25!- 
 " Deutsches Aiterthum, SS)ti. 
 " Migne, vol. 33, col. 2207. 
 " 0. U. Suppl. Bile. 
 
THE EELIGION OF THE GAEL BEFORE SAINT PATRICK. 191 
 
 was not able to extirpate these practices completely, but suc- 
 ceeded to a large extent in modifying them, and in associating 
 them, when purged of paganism, with Christian beliefs. " The 
 Church," writes Bossuet, "resigned herself to taking part in 
 them (St. John's Fires), in order to banish heathenism (super- 
 stitions) from them." ^^ 
 
 In connection with the cult of the Celestial Fire, there was 
 no function more important than its reproduction annually in 
 perfect purity. Fire may have been originally discovered by 
 observing it produced by one branch of a tree rubbing against 
 another, or by the rubbing of stalks of corn against each other 
 in a gentle wind, as sometimes happens now in the West Indies. 
 The Greeks believed that Prometheus stole it in a reed from 
 heaven. 
 
 The primitive way of producing fire was by rubbing two 
 sticks one against the other, in the form either of the fire drill 
 or of the stick and groove. The fire thus produced is called in 
 Gaelic tene eigin, or, " forced fire." There is no reference to 
 the mode of producing this fire, nor is it, so far as we are 
 aware, even named in our texts. The magical production of 
 fire is mentioned, and one wizard was called Lugaid Delbaith 
 —the fire-producer — who built a large fire-pile which he 
 ignited by Druidic power.^* 
 
 In Cormac's glossary we find the following : — 
 
 Belltaine, Mayday, i.e., bil-tS,ne — fire for luck, lucky fire, which 
 Druids used to make with great incantations, and they used to bring 
 the cattle (as a safeguard) against the diseases of each year to those 
 fires. (In the margin is added) they used to drive the cattle between 
 these fires.^* 
 
 The Gaelic words -do gnicif ma 'oiiAi'de con cencectAitS mojiAitJ 
 imply, we think, that the wizards not merely ignited, but 
 made the fire. AiinAt) was the kindling of the fire. 
 
 Carmichael, in the Carmina Qadelica (1901) gives a most 
 interesting account of how thi8"neid" fire was produced in 
 the Hebrides (1nnir Cac), and the attendant ceremonies. In 
 North Uist the neid fire was produced by rapidly boring with 
 an auger, i.e., the fire-drill. This was accomplished by the 
 exertions of the " naoi naomear cind ginealach Mac" — the nine 
 
 18 Catechisme de Meaux, p. 267. 
 
 19 O'Cuxry MS. II., 220. 
 
 2» Corm,a(^i Oloi». 19. Stokes. 
 
192 EARLY IBISH HISTORY. 
 
 Dines of first-begotten sons. Sail Dairach (oak log) obtained 
 its name from the log of oak for the neid fire being there. A 
 fragment riddled with auger holes still remains. Mr. Alexander 
 Mackay, of Reay, Sutherland, says : — 
 
 My father was the skipper of a fishing crew. Before beginning 
 operations for the season the crews met at night at our house . . . 
 After settUng accounts they put out the fire on the hearth. They 
 then rubbed two pieces of wood one against the other so rapidly, as to 
 produce fire, the men joining in one after the other, and working with 
 the utmost energy, never allowing the friction to relax. From this 
 friction-fire they then re-kindled the fire on the hearth, from which all 
 the men present carried away a kindling to their own houses. 
 
 The neid fire was resorted to in imminent or actual 
 calamity, upon the first day of the quarter, and to ensure 
 success in great or important events. A woman in Arran 
 paid her father and the other men of the townland used to 
 make the neid fire on the knoll on the " La buidhe Bealtain " 
 — " Yellow day of Beltane." The fire of purification was 
 kindled from the neid fire, while the domestic fire was re-kindled 
 from the fire of purification. This was divided into two fires, 
 between which the people and cattle rushed australly for 
 purposes of purification. The neid fire was made down to a 
 comparatively recent period ; in North Uist about the year 
 1829 ; in Arran, about 1820 ; in Reay, about ISSO.^i 
 
 The production of the neid fire in Erin would not have 
 been prevented by the dampness of the climate. It was 
 practised in Tyrone at the commencement of the last century, 
 probably by some of the Scotch, who settled in tliat county 
 after the confiscations in Ulster. This appears from the 
 following narrative which we have condensed from the Journal 
 of the Kilkenny Archceological Society : — 
 
 Bernard Bannon of Cavancarragh, near Enniskillen, states that 
 when " Big Head " appeared amongst the cattle the men of the townland 
 assembled on the farm to make " neid fire," and covered it with 
 " Bcraws," and used the smoke as a cure by forcing the cattle, with open 
 mouths, to hold their heads over it. Having got two pieces of dry 
 wood two men commenced to rub them violently together till friction 
 produced fire. He heard his father say he himself had helped to kindle 
 a neid fire and that it was very hard work ; each pair of men rubbed 
 in turn. Before the neid fire was made every fire in the townland was 
 extinguished. After the cure every extinguished fire got a burning 
 coal from the neid fire to rekindle it. He remembered when at school, 
 
 ^ Carmichael A., Carmina Qadelica, vol. 11., p. 340 (oondensed). 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE GAEL BEFOKE SAINT PATRICK. 193 
 
 being then about 7 years old, the scholars telling that the men in the 
 townland of Ratoran were all engaged at kindling a neid fire. Some of 
 the little boys said they got no school bread that day, as all the fires 
 had been put out. The school was at Pubble, near Ratoran, in 
 Tyrone.^ 
 
 Keating tells us that " the festival of the fire of Tlachtga was 
 held on the eve of Samhain (Hallow E'en)," and it was made 
 obligatory, under pain of punishment, to extinguish all the 
 fires of Erin on that eve, and the men of Erin were allowed to 
 kindle no other fire but that one, and all the other fires were to 
 be lighted from it. Keating further says that the meeting was 
 held " to make a sacrifice to all the gods which was burnt in 
 that fire." Cormac says nothing of any such sacrifice. The 
 wizards, no doubt, as part of their incantations, threw charms, 
 etc., into the fire, but there were no sacrifices of animals 
 or offerings of milk or bread or fruits, and there were no gods 
 then worshipped but the elements. 
 
 Keating further says it was their usage also to light two 
 fires to Bel in every district in Erin at this season, and to drive 
 a pair of each kind of cattle that the district contained 
 between those two fires, as a preservative to guard them 
 against all the diseases of the year. "It is from that fire, made 
 in honour of Bel, that the 1st of May is called Biltaini or 
 Bealtaine ; for Beltainni is the same as Beil-teine, i.e., teine 
 Bheil or Bel's fire." Bel is certainly the same as " bil," the good, 
 new, and pure fire. 
 
 There is no such celebration now on the 1st of May, but on 
 St. John's Eve (22nd of June), it is still the custom to light fires 
 and to go about amongst the cattle and strike them, especially 
 the cows and bulls, with lighted sheaves of wheaten straw 
 called " clears " (luminaria) to make them vigorous and 
 prolific. 
 
 It is generally supposed that the Church caused the fires of 
 Belteinne in Erin to be transferred from the 1st of May to the 
 eve of Midsummer, St. John's day, or June 23rd. We are 
 inclined to think that a ceremony of the kind was from old time 
 attached to the Summer Solstice.^^ This by no means 
 
 " KlUcenny ATchaeol. Soc, 4th series vol. 6, p. 64. 
 
 ^ The bulls were of old, as now, admitted to the herds at, or shortly before, 
 the Summer Solstice, with the view of having the calves bom in the following 
 April when the grass is becoming plentiful. 
 
194 EAKLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 precludes us from assuming that there was a somewhat similar 
 function on the Ist of May. An old pastoral celebration of an 
 analogous kind was held on the foundation day of Rome, the 
 21st April, called the Palilia or Parilia, This was an external 
 manifestation of the old fire-cult. Fire was the principal god 
 of the Aryans — the religion of the heavenly light which 
 developed into Sun-worship. 
 
 Ovid tells us how, when a boy, he jumped over the three 
 fires at this feast and gives the prayer which was to be repeated 
 four times by the shepherd while turning towards the rising 
 sun, and asking pardon for his innocent sins. "If I have 
 pastured my sheep on holy ground, or sat beneath a holy tree, 
 or if a sheep of mine has nibbled the grass from graves, or if I 
 have entered a forbidden grove I ask pardon." He then 
 prayed for the health of himself and his flock : — 
 
 Valeant hominesque gregesque, 
 Sitque salix aries, couceptaque semina conjux 
 Beddat ; et in stabulo multa sit agna meo. 
 
 The poet adds, " then across the blazing heaps of crackling 
 stalks throw with agile foot thy active frame." ^ 
 
 The primitive house in which the fire was kept was pro- 
 bably a round hut made of wattled osiers daubed with mud. 
 The round form appears to have been preserved in the Greek 
 Prytaneum, and the Aedes Vestse in Rome. Fire was con- 
 sidered the purest of the Elements and Vesta the purest of 
 the gods, 2' 
 
 In Pagan Rome " new fire " was kindled at the commence- 
 ment of the Pagan year.^'' Ovid tells us :— 
 
 Adda quod arcana fieri nevus ignis in aede 
 Dicitur et vires flamma refecta capit. 
 
 And that " new fire " is said to be made in the inmost shrine 
 and the flame re-made is strengthened.^' 
 
 The primitive way of producing this " new fire " was by the 
 
 J" Vesta, from whose altar the suffimen of purification for the Feast was taken, 
 had no idol image. She was the Sacred fire itself of the hearth (|ffr/n), which was 
 also an altar. 
 
 Tj) h aypoTartf t&v Oidv to KadapraTov r&v OyijTSiv in\oy. 
 
 Dio Halioar. 
 
 2° This was at the oommenoement of the old year, he thinks ; 
 
 Neo mihi parva fides annos hino esse priores.— Fos*. III., 137, 145 152 
 =" G. F. Frazer, Jour. Phil., XIV., 145.— Plutarch Numa. ■ • ■ • 
 
THS RELIGION OF THE GAEL BEFORE SATXT PATRICK. 195 
 
 fire drill or stick and groove. Festus tells us that when the 
 fire of Vesta went out the use was to drill a piece oi " lucky 
 wood '' until the fire was produced, which was then carried into 
 the shrine by a vestal in a brazen sieve.^ The drilling evi- 
 dently took place outside in the full blaze of the sunshine ; the 
 fire was from the sun. 
 
 In the time of Plutarch another mode was sometimes or 
 perhaps usually adopted. " A new fire," he says, " must be 
 made (when the fire of Vesta went out) lighted from a pure and 
 undefiled ray from the sun, not from another fire. They 
 usually lighted it with basins, which they prepare hollowed with 
 the isosceles sides of a right-angled triangle, which bends the 
 rays to one point." The rays of light may be concentrated 
 either by refraction or reflection. In the former case they 
 must fall through a transparent refracting substance, as glass 
 formed into a proper shape ; in the latter they fall on a 
 concave polished substance of silvered glass or bright metal.^ 
 Plutarch refers to the latter mode. For the former mode 
 a convex lens of crystal and the speculum ustorium and other 
 means were used. 
 
 After the reception of the Faith, pure elemental fire was 
 thought to possess a special sanctity. And it was not thought 
 amiss to appropriate the religious feelings connected with it, 
 when purified from superstition, to the uses of Christianity. 
 
 On some day in holy week — the usage varied — the lamps 
 in the churches were in many places extinguished and the 
 Paschal candlestick was lighted from the " new fire." From 
 this source the other lights in the church were kindled, and 
 the various households in the parish took a flame to relight 
 their fires and lamps which had been carefully extinguished 
 beforehand.^ 
 
 The famous fire of St. Bridget at Kildare is probably an 
 adaption to Christian uses of an old usage connected with 
 the prechristian Cult. There were two claen fertas (sloping 
 enclosures ?) *^ at Tara, west of Rath Grainne, which lies 
 
 ^Morem fuisse si quando ignis Yestse extinctua e3set tabulam felicis 
 materiae tarn diu terebrare quousque exceptum ignem crebro ceueo rirgo in ledem 
 ferret. 
 
 i»Numa, C. IX. 
 
 " Marlene, H., Antiq. (IV., 23), gives full and interesting details. 
 
 " CtABti pettcA a nsAetof Aifiotie. 
 CtACo peticA VA ct-aen-CAitistie. 
 
196 EAELY lEISH HISTOEY. 
 
 on the summit of the western face of the hill and on its 
 abrupt slope. One of these fertas was in aftertime gener- 
 ally referred to as the place where the maidens were slain, 
 the other as the place where the erroneous judgment of Lugaid 
 Mac Con about the measure of damages for the trespass of 
 sheep was delivered. "In the documenta Patriciana," Father 
 Hogan, S.J., says : — " We have the nom. fern. sing. FertsB, 
 gen. Fertse, dat. Ferti, ace. sing. Ferti. We get its form from 
 the words fossam rotundam in similitudinom fertae (p. 73) ; 
 and its gender from ad Ferte quam foderunt viri (p. 327).'^ 
 The old word is not found in Windisch Zeuss or Stokes's 
 " Glossarial Index to the Feilire." Its meaning may be probably 
 followed thus : (1) a trench or dike with a bank or ditch on the 
 edge of it, on which a hedge might be planted, like an ordinary 
 farm fence ; (2) an enclosed area ; (3) when there was a 
 burial mound within it, a tomb ; (4) a Fearta Martar, where 
 the bones of Saints were laid ; (5) A miracle. The Ferta is 
 thus described in the Trip. Life (237) :— " It is thus Patrick 
 measured the Ferta, namely, seven score feet in the inclosure 
 (is indies), and seven and twenty feet in the great house 
 (is intig mor) and seventeen feet, in the kitchen, and seven 
 feet in the oratory, and in that wise it was he used to found 
 the church buildings (na Gongabala) always." 
 
 The diameter of the Ferta alone is given, from which 
 Stokes rightly infers that the Ferta was circular. It seems 
 probable, we think, that Clonfert, Ardfert, etc., were named 
 from Gongabala of this kind, made like the Ferta of the Saint. 
 
 So in describing the tomb of Laoghaire's daughters, near 
 the Well of Clebach, it is stated, " They made a round trench 
 (fossam) in likeness to a Ferta, for the Gael and the heathens 
 used to do so. But by us it is called, relic, i.e., reliquiae and 
 feart. And the (Ferta) was consecrated to God and Patrick, 
 with the bones of Saints, and to his successors, for ever. And 
 he made a church of earth in that place (et ecclesiam terrenam 
 fecit in loco)."** 
 
 This means, probably as we understand it, that he made 
 within the Ferta a little seven-foot oratory, as above mentioned. 
 
 " Ir. Ecd. Rev. Liber Angueli, vol. yii., 3rd series (1886), 852. 
 In the Urkeltischer SprachacAatz (Fick), vol. ii., 271, Fert is referred to tha 
 root, ver., verto, meaning to enclose or eover. 
 «• Doo. Patrie, 73, Trip. Life, 317. 
 See also Reeves' Churches of Armagh, 49. 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE GAEL BEFORE SAINT PATRICK. 197 
 
 It is, perhaps, permissible to suggest that St. Bridget's fire 
 was kept in a Ferta of this kind, and that the Ferta on the 
 slope of Tara, where the maidens were slain, was used in con- 
 nection with the cultus of fire.'* 
 
 " The fire," says Giraldus, " is surrounded by a hedge of thorn, or 
 some kind of brushwood (virgeo quodam saepe), forming a circle within 
 which no male can enter ; and if any one should presume to enter, which 
 has been sometimes attempted by rash men, he will not escape the 
 divine vengeance. Moreover, it is lawful for women in blowing the fire 
 to use only a bellows or a fan, but not their mouths. In the time of St. 
 Brigid there were twenty nuns, she herself being one. After her death 
 nineteen have always formed the community, the number having never 
 been increased. Each of them has the care of the fire for a single night 
 in turn, and on the evening before the twentieth night, the last nun, 
 having heaped wood upon the fire, says : — ' Brigid, mind your fire. This 
 is your night,' and so she leaves the fire, and in the morning the usual 
 quantity of wood having been consumed, the fire is found still burn- 
 ing." ^* It was an ashless fire. It was, we suppose, in a cell or oratory, 
 and not in the open air, though Giraldus makes no mentiom of any 
 building within the enclosure. 
 
 This fire was kept continually lighting from the time of St. Brigid, 
 until it was extinguished by the order of Henry of London, in 1220, " to 
 take away all occasion of superstition.'' It was, however, rekindled and 
 kept lighting till the time of Henry VIII. There is no statement that 
 it was ever kindled from the teine-eigin, or ever put out and rekindled 
 It was, however, in the precinct of the monastery in a sacred enclosure, 
 surrounded by a hedge, which no male might enter. It was customary 
 in pagan times to surround places struck with lightning with a hedge, 
 and Apuleius speaks of such a place as " locus ssepimine consecratus," 
 a place consecrated with a hedge. It was near the famous oak that gave 
 a name to the spot — cill-dara, the church of the oak. The author of 
 the 4th Life of St. Brigid tells us : " For there was there a very tall 
 oak tree, which St. Brigid greatly cherished, and she blessed it. The 
 trunk (stipes) of it remains there still, and no one will dare to cut a bit 
 from it with knife or hatchet (f erro). But if anyone can break a bit off 
 with his hand, he counts it a treasure." '* 
 
 Giraldus often visited Kildare, where he saw the " marvellous Book of 
 Kildare," since lost, " containing the Four Gospels, according to St. 
 Jerome, every page illustrated by drawings, illuminated with a variety 
 of brilliant colours. . . The more often and closely I scrutinize them, 
 
 "* The Four Masters mention a fe\CcA cao]\ac. Was this an enclosure for 
 folding sheep or, as O'Donovan suggests, a place in which there was a gre.-it 
 mortality and a grave of sheep ? Tigcinach has Cerhan escop o Ferta Cerbain 
 mortuus est. Was this the grave of Cerban, or a ferta after the manner of St. 
 Tatrick, founded by him t—Rev. Celt, xvii.,125. 
 
 •' Brigida custodi ignem tuum. Te enim nox ista oontingib. 
 
 ^ Quercus enim altissiraa ibi erat quam multum S. Brigida diligebat et bene- 
 dixit earn, oujus stipes adhuo manet et nemo ferro absoindere audet et pro magno 
 munere habet, si qui potest frangere manibus aliquid inde.— Colgan, SS.. Vol. ll., 
 p. 560. 
 
108 BAELY lElSH HISTORY. 
 
 the more I am surprised, and find them always new, discovering fresh 
 causes for increased admiration." '^ 
 
 In the worship of Mithra and the Avesta-liturgy, there 
 were psalmodic prayers before the altar of fire. The 
 worshipper held a bundle of sacred twigs (boresman), in his 
 hand, offerings of milk, oil and honey were made, and strict 
 precautions taken lest the breath of the ofBciating priest 
 should contaminate the divine flame.^ 
 
 The Galtchas of Ferghana, according to M. de Uffalvy, are 
 80 reverential that they would not blow out a light lest they 
 should render the flame impure with their breath; so the 
 inhabitants of Badakshon and Bokhara. 
 
 The BoUandists, after citing Giraldus textually, add :— 
 
 As to the religiooB motive for which the nuns kept the fire of 
 St. Brigid, as has been stated, we have often read in the lives of the 
 Irish Saints, that the fire consecrated specially by the bishop on the 
 night of Easter, used to be carefully kept for the whole year as we shall 
 tell in the life of St. Kieran (March 5) — Or the fire was elicited from 
 heaven by the prayer of some Saint, as may be seen in the life of St. 
 Kevin. From one or other of these causes the ritual usages (ritus) of 
 the nuns at Kildare appear to have been derived.*' 
 
 At Seir the fire consecrated by the Saint at Easter, from 
 which all the fires in the place were lighted every day, was 
 once wantonly put out by the boy Cichridug. St. Kieran said 
 there should be no fire again until the following Easter unless 
 it were sent from heaven. The monks and their guests were 
 shivering with the cold. Then the saint, by prayer, got a 
 ball of fire from heaven by miracle. 
 
 This fire was probably obtained by the use of the ustorium 
 speculum (burning glass). 
 
 Flint and steel with tinder were used for striking and 
 kindling fire. Brendan struck fire from flint (silice ferro per- 
 cusso) to cook his fish. This apparatus was called CentAC 
 Ueinet), and was carried in the " girdle pocket." Hence Ueine- 
 C^ieAfA, girdle fire. Tinder was called "sponc," and was made 
 from dried leaves of coltsfoot, and later of coarse brown paper 
 steeped in a solution of nitre and dried. Pope Zacharias, 
 writing to St. Boniface, says " The Irish kindled great fires at 
 nightfall on Easter Eve from flints.' 
 
 " Top. Hib. Dis. IT., c. 38. 
 
 ^ The Mysteriei of Mithra, 23, by Cumont, F. 
 
 »» Boll., Ada, 8S. (1867), Vol. i, p. Hi, Vol. 7, p. 393. 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE GAEL BEFORE SAINT PATRICK. 199 
 
 We have very little doubt that the Aryan fire-cult bad a 
 place side by side with the worship of the sun and the other 
 elements in Erin, and that our texts were carefully " cleaned " 
 from any reference to it. The fire was probably kept at first in 
 the King's great house, in the women's quarters, and attended to 
 by the maidens of the King's household. There was, no 
 doubt, an altar with representations or " idols " of the sun 
 (Ktii An) there, whence it came to be known as the "grianan."*" 
 The fire was afterwards kept in the maidens' ferta. on the 
 slope, in a shrine within it, or if not kept there constantly, was 
 placed there for great celebrations. The most important of 
 these would be the making of the " new fire '' from the sun 
 itself, and we may presume that it was on such an occasion the 
 maidens were assembled who were slain by the raiders from 
 Leinster,*! 
 
 *> In some parts of tte Highlands almost up to the present day an enclosure 
 or paddock was called a grianan. Bannock's Irish Druids, 192, and infra, o. 16, 
 the " grianan " of Aileach, in the Circuit of Muiroherlad of the Leather Cloaks. 
 
 *i "Lynch," says Petrie, who does not dissent, "was of opinion that the 
 maidens were Vestals." We are unable to go that length. 
 
E 200 ] 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE GAEL BEFOKE ST. FATEICK. — II. 
 
 THE Druids now claim our attention. The word Druid 
 (drai, gen., druad) is, probably, connected with the root 
 "dru," a tree, which in " Spvg " afterwards came to signify 
 an oak in Greek. The earliest oracle in Greece was in 
 Dodona, in Epirus, where there was an oracular oak tree 
 which Odysseus went to consult. 
 
 'Ek ?pvoc vt^tKojuoio Aioc BovX^i' iTTOKOVtrat. 
 
 " From the tree with lofty leafage Zeus's will to hear." — 
 
 Od. XIV., 327. 
 
 The tree was the ^ijyoc, an oak tree, bearing an esculent 
 acorn, and the rustling of the leaves was believed to be the 
 whispering of the tree god, who was subsequently absorbed 
 into the anthropomorphic Zeus. Pausanias says it was the 
 sldest tree in Hellas, except the \vyog, within the sanctuary of 
 Hera, at Samos.^ The olive on the Acropolis, the olive at 
 Delos, the laurel of the Syrians, and the plane tree of Menelaus, 
 in Arcadia, came next in order. In Erin the trees of enchant- 
 ment were the rowan, quicken, or mountain ash, the hazel, 
 the yew, and the blackthorn. The oak, as a magic wood is, we 
 believe, not mentioned in our texts. There was no cutting 
 of the mistletoe by moonlight, as in Gaul. Draoidheacht 
 (Druidism) now means enchantment. It meant originally 
 " wizardry" in all its forms. Before the coming of St. Patrick 
 we find, within or beside the class of Druids, the file, the bard, 
 and the brehon. The brehon was a judge ; the file was a poet- 
 philosopher ; and the bards occupied a subordinate position, 
 and were in the main roving minstrels and reciters of the lays 
 of love and war. They congregated in troops, and in the 
 course of time became a public nuisance. 
 
 * Pans. viii. 23. Frazer, I., 401. 
 
THE RELIGION OP THE GAEL BEFORE SAINT PATRICK. — II. 201 
 
 As the brehon, the file, and the bard emerged from the 
 Druids the latter became in the main soothsayers and charm 
 workers. They used to be consulted as to the success of 
 expeditions, as by Cormac MacArt, Dathi and others, as far 
 back as the Tain. Then they took auguries, caused mists and 
 winds, etc., by magic, and observed the flight of birds, the 
 passage of clouds, and the movements of the stars. 
 
 In the Be Divinatione, Cicero, addressing his brother 
 Quintus, says: — 
 
 The barbarous nations even do not neglect this art of divination. 
 Take for instance the Druids in Gaul, with one of whom Divitiacus, 
 the Aeduan, your host and admirer, I was acquainted. He professed to 
 have a knowledge of natural science, which the Greeks call physiology, 
 and partly by auguries, and partly by soothsaying (conjectura) used to 
 predict what was going to happen. "^ 
 
 An earlier account by Timagenes is preserved for us by 
 Ammianus Marcellinus, who tells us that Timagenes was a 
 Greek by language and erudition (diiigentia), and had collected 
 from many books facts which had remained unknown for a 
 long time. 
 
 " Throughout the provinces of Gaul," Ammianus con- 
 tinues : — 
 
 The people gradually becoming civilized, the study of liberal 
 accomplishments flourished, having been first introduced by the bards, 
 the euhages, and the Druids. The bards used to sing in heroic verse 
 to the sweet sounds of the harp (lyra) the brave deeds of famous men ; 
 the euhages searched closely into the forces and powers of nature, and 
 attempted to expound them. Amongst them the Druids, men with 
 loftier minds, and bound together in associations of fellowship 
 according to the teaching of Pythagoras, ascended to speculation on 
 things high and hidden, and looking down on what was temporal, pra 
 claimed that the soul was immortal.^ 
 
 There is an undertone of the rhetorician Timagenes in this, 
 especially at the conclusion, but it presents to us a picture sub- 
 
 ' Siquidem et in Gallia Druidae sunt e quibus ipse Divitiaciim ^duum cognovi, 
 qui et Haturse rationem quam divaioKoyiav Grseci appellant, notam esse sibi profite. 
 batur, et partim auguriis partim conjectura, quae easenc futura dioebat. — 
 De Div. I. 41. 
 
 ' Et bardi quidem fortia virorum illustrium facta heroicis oomposita versibus, 
 cum duloibus lyraB modulis cantitarunt, euhages vero sorutantea serio vim 
 et sublimia naturse pandere conabantur ; intereos druidae ingeniis celsiores ut 
 auctoritas Pythagorae decrevit, sodalioiis adstrioti consortiis, questionibus ocoul- 
 tarum reruni altarumque erecti sunt, et despeotantes humana pronuntiaruut 
 aaimas immortales 
 
 Eahages = vates, soothsayers (?), Ammian. Marcel, XV., g. 2. Ed. Eisacnhardt. 
 
202 EARLY lEISH HISTORY. 
 
 stantially the same as our texts present. The Druid is still a 
 wizard. When we meet him in the text of Csesar, which we 
 shall quote, we shall find that he has changed his character and 
 status completely. He has become a sacrificing priest and a 
 person of the highest political importance, and has acquired a 
 status and a position which he never attained in Erin. Amongst 
 the Aedui, for instance, according to usage (ex more), the 
 Druids elected Convictolitavis, chieftain, in the case of a dis- 
 puted succession — a choice which Caesar found it prudent to 
 ratify, * 
 
 M. Bertrand is not quite satisfied with the account Csesar 
 gives of Druidism in Gaul, and says his statements require to 
 be taken with some reserve. This may be so, but the main 
 outlines of his description, which is all that we are concerned 
 with, are undoubtedly true, and we have no other evidence 
 equally trustworthy to rely on. There is no mention of lerne 
 or Hibernia in any classical text in connection with Druidism. 
 Csesar says it was supposed that the system (disciplina) came 
 originally from Britain, and that many still went there (be 
 does not name any place in Britain) to study the teaching more 
 carefully. Tacitus refers very briefly to the Druids of Mona 
 (Anglesea) in describing the attack on that place in A. D. 61. 
 " On the shore of Mona stood the opposing army with its dense 
 array of armed warriors, while between the ranks dashed women 
 in black attire like the Furies, with hair dishevelled, waving 
 lighted torches. All around the Druids, lifting up their hands 
 to heaven and pouring forth dreadful imprecations, scared our 
 soldiers, . . . Their groves, devoted to cruel superstitions, 
 were cut down. For they thought it rightful to cover their 
 altars with the blood of captives and to consult their gods 
 through the entrails of men." ^ 
 
 This statement is highly coloured, and must be received 
 with great reserve. The information did not reach Tacitus 
 from Agricola, who had left Britain long before. 
 
 We shall now give somewhat fully (in translation) the 
 statement contained in the 6th Book of the Gallic War. 
 
 In all Gaul (writes CsDsar) there are two classes of persons only 
 who are held in any consideration or honour — for the common folk 
 are reckoned almost as slaves. The Druids are one class, the knightii 
 
 « B. G . , VII. , 33. 'A nn., XIV., 39. 
 
 i 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE GAEL BEFORE SAIMT PATRICK — II. 203 
 
 (warriors) the other. The former attend to religious matters, provide for 
 sacrifices, public and private, and expound questions touching religious 
 obligations and rites. All the Druids have one president, who has the 
 greatest authority among them. On his death, if one is pre-eminent in 
 worth he succeeds ; if several are equal they contend for the presidency 
 by the vote of the Druids, and sometimes even by fighting. The 
 Druids abstain from war and pay no taxes. The main belief they wish 
 to inculcate is that souls do not perish, but pass after death from one 
 body to another, and they think this the greatest incentive to valour, 
 as it leads man to despise death. They discourse much also concerning 
 the heavenly bodies and their movements, the size of the earth and 
 the universBj and the attributes and power of the immortal gods, and 
 impart their lore to the young. The whole nation is addicted to super- 
 stition, and for that reason, those who are afflicted with severe illness, or 
 who are engaged in war, or exposed to danger, either sacrifice human 
 beings as victims, or vow that they will do so, and employ the Druids to 
 carry out these sacrifices. For they think that unless the life of man 
 be rendered, the mind (numen) of the immortal gods cannot be appeased. 
 They have also sacrifices of the same sort as public institutions. A little 
 before our own time, slaves and retainers, of whom the deceased 
 were known to have been fond used to be burned along with them 
 when a funeral was held with full rites. It is the god Mercury they 
 chiefly worship; of him there are most images. Next to him they 
 worship Apollo, Mars, Jupiter and Minerva. 
 
 The Germans differ greatly from these habits. For they have no 
 Druids to preside at divine worship, nor do they practise {sivdent) sacri- 
 fices. They recognize as gods only those whom they see and hy whose aid 
 they are manifestly assisted, namely, the Sun, Fire ( Vulcanum), and the 
 Moon ; the rest they have not even heard of.^ 
 
 What Caesar says of the Germans was true of the Gael ; 
 the religious customs or superstitions of both were Nordic. 
 There is a silly story to be found in our texts of a young girl 
 being fed on human flesh to make her ripe for marriage at an 
 earlier age, a dietary which had the desired result ! It is the 
 only mention made of such a practice, and Keating acutely 
 enough observes, that if there were any others they would not 
 have been concealed. There is, in like manner, only a single 
 instance recorded of what is supposed to be human sacrifice, if 
 we except the Semitic Cult already dealt with. 
 
 A poem in the " Dindsenchus '' says that St. Patrick, in the 
 Fair of Tailtin, preached against the three bloods : — 
 
 Yoke oxen and slaying milch cows, 
 
 And also by him the burning of the first born (primect). 
 
 It lias been suggested that " primect " applies to human 
 8 E.G. VI. 13 to 22. 
 
204 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 beings. We cannot think so. The poet would not have placed 
 them after cows and oxen. It clearly means calves and first 
 fruits (primitise). Moreover, if the poet, writing several centuries 
 afterwards, supposed that children were sacrificed in Erin in 
 the time of St. Patrick, it would show his ignorance but not 
 prove the facts.' 
 
 The burial alive of 50 hostages round the tomb of Fiachra, 
 the son of Eocaid Muigmeadoin, is recorded in the Book of 
 Leinster, and the Book of Ballymote : — Fiachra, and Aillil 
 his brother, went into Munster to lift pledges, and went with a 
 large army. A battle was fought, in which they were victo- 
 rious, but Fiachra was wounded. On his way back to Tara 
 with 50 hostages and large booty, he died of his wounds at 
 Forrach, in Westmeath. His grave was dug, his lamentation 
 rites performed, and his name written in Ogham. " After which 
 in order that it might be perpetually for a reproach to Munster, 
 and a fitting matter with which to taunt them, round about 
 Fiachra's grave the pledges whom they had brought out of the 
 south were buried and they alive." — B. B. The Book of Leinster 
 records that — " Fifty pledges that Eocaid's sons brought back 
 out of the west, it was at a month's end after the battle that 
 Fiachra was dead, and it was around the king's grave that the 
 pledges were buried alive."* 
 
 The Book of Lecan presents the matter in a different way, 
 and states that the hostages fell on Fiachra unawares, and 
 buried him alive {i.e., attempted to do so, we suppose). In any 
 case it was not a sacrifice. It was punishment for attempting 
 to kill Fiachra and escape ; or revenge for his death from the 
 wounds he had received fighting against Munster; or revenge 
 accompanied with insult.* In several parts of Gaul, and some 
 parts of Germany, before the Roman Conquest, human sacri- 
 fices were very popular, and commonly practised. These were 
 sacrifices proper — religious functions publicly conducted accord- 
 ing to a fixed ritual, by priests. There is no pretence for 
 saying that there was ever anything of the kind in Erin, except 
 
 ' Sullivan, M. and C, Vol. I., DCXLI. 
 
 8 Silva Gaedelioa, Vol. 2, p. 377 and 543. UoclAiTjeT) a leclic -j fioLAege-D 4 
 j?eApc T iioliAT)nA-oh ACluiche IcAeinlech ■] no-Sc]\\hAvih a Aitim OjAim. O'Uiady 
 does not follow this text, which appears to bo corrupt, Vol. 1., 334. Professor 
 Wullivan translates — Ilia Lcacht was made, and his Ferfc was raised, aud his 
 Cluiobe Caeuleuh was ignited. — M. and C, Vol. I., p. 320. 
 ' O'Donovan, Hy Fiaoraoh, 345. 
 
THE EELIQION OF THE GAEL BEVORE SAINT PATRICK. — II. 20.J 
 
 the Semitic use, as we already stated (c. 2), neither Druids nor 
 priests are named in the III Brechta, or Law of Colours. 
 
 There is no evidence to support the view that Druidism 
 passed originally from Britain into Gaul. Druidism as a system 
 of wizardry is a phase in the evolution of thought and cult, and 
 we find nothing to support the view that in Caesar's time it had 
 got beyond that phase in Britain ; and if students went to 
 Britain, we suspect it was to perfect themselves in charm- 
 working and fortune-telling. It may be confidently asserted 
 that there never existed in Britain an organization such as we 
 find described in the Gommentaries. If it existed, it would 
 have been specifically mentioned by Caesar or by Tacitus. Its 
 political importance would have arrested the attention of the 
 former; the latter would have been curious to ascertain what 
 views they held about the immortality of the souls of great men — 
 the " magnae animae " of Agricola. And even if the statements 
 as to the practices in Mona were well founded, which we do 
 not admit, no inference could be safely drawn from what was 
 done in an isolated locality, and probably by a racial remnant, 
 as to the religion or religions of Britain in general, which was 
 even then, we believe, largely occupied by men of the Nordic 
 stock — e.g., the Belgse and others — and in particular by the 
 powerful nation of the Brigantes, who were the people whom 
 Agricola found to resemble the Gael so closely in national 
 customs and intellectual characteristics. 
 
 We find in the Leabar na h-uidhre, an old text.i" the " Senchus 
 na relec," from which it may be inferred that the conception of 
 Monotheism, if not of Christianity, had reached Erin some 
 centuries before the coming of St. Patrick. Our translation is 
 founded on that of Petrie : — 
 
 " A groat king of great judgment assumed the sovereignity of Erin 
 i. e., Cormac, son of Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles, Erin 
 waa prosperous in his time, because just judgments were distributed 
 throughout by him ; so that no one durst attempt to wound a man in 
 Erin during the short jubilee of seven years, for Cormao had the faith 
 of the one True God according to the law ; for he said that he would 
 not adore stones or trees, but that he would adore Him who had made 
 them and who was a power behind all the elemental^ (ro po comsid 
 ar cul na oil dula), the one strong, powerful God who formed the 
 
 I" Facsimile, p. 50. 
 
 " Petrie has " had power over all the elements." This, we think, misses ihe 
 point, namely, that the power was armd behind the elements. 
 
20t) EARLY lEISH HISTOUY. 
 
 elements, it is on Him he would believe. And he was the third person 
 who had believed in Erin before the arrival of Patrick. Concobar 
 Mao Nessa, to whom Altus had told concerning the passion of Christ ; 
 Moran, the son of Cairbre Cinnceat (i. e., Mac Main), the second man ; 
 Cormac the third ; and it is probable that others went on their road as 
 to this belief. And his eye was destroyed by Oengus Gaibhuaiphnech, 
 and he resided afterwards at the house at Cleteoh (on the Boyne^, for it 
 was not lawful for a king with a personal blemish to reside at Tara. In 
 the second year after the injuring of his eye lie came by his death at 
 Cletech, the bone of a salmon having stuck in his throat.^* And he 
 told his people not to bury him at Brugh, as it was a cemetery of 
 idolaters, but to bury him at Ros na Righ with his face to the east. 
 He afterwards died, and his servants of trust held a council and 
 resolved to bury him at Brugh, the place where the kings of Tara, his 
 predecessors, were buried. ** The body of the king was afterwards lifted 
 up to be carried to Brugh and the Boyne (was) on the bank (i tleacht) 
 high up so that they could not come. So they took heed that it was 
 unjust to override the decision of the prince, to override the last will of 
 a king.»i* 
 
 The Four Masters state the circumstances attending Cormao's 
 death as follows : 
 
 " A. D., 266, the bone of a salmon sticking in his throat on account 
 of the tiahhradh (genii), whom Maeilghean, the Druid, incited at him 
 after Cormac had turned against them on account of his adoration of 
 the True God in preference to them. Wherefore a devil attacked him 
 at the instigation of the Druids, and gave him a painful death." 
 
 The expre.ssion " according to the law " (do reir rechta), 
 seems to indicate that Cormac was a monotheist awaiting the 
 coming of Christianity. Recht is Faithae are the usual words 
 for the Law and the Prophets, and if the tradition was that 
 Cormac had received baptism it would have been clearly 
 stated. In the evolution of Aryan thought a time was sure to 
 3ome when the " power behind the elements " would be dis- 
 aovered and a system of either polytheism or monotheism 
 would be introduced. It is not unreasonable to suppose that 
 some knowledge of the teaching of Christ, derived from captives 
 
 " H. 3, 17, Trin. Coll., has " in addition." or it was the Siabhra that killed 
 him, i.e., the Tuatha De Dananns, for they were called Siabhras. 
 
 " Petrie, Round Towers, p. 99. 
 
 '* About two miles below Slane the Boyne becomes fordable, and there are 
 seve< al islets. On the south bank is Boss-na-Righ — ^the Headland of the King ; 
 on the northern bank, in the curve of the river, southwards, where stand Knowth, 
 Dowth and New Grange, was the Brugh-na-Boine, according to the generally 
 received opinion. A mound recently levelled wa s pointed out as the grave of 
 Cormac, " adjoining a pagan burial place, where human bones ape found scattered 
 about and bonea of great size have been dug up." — E. Hogan, S.J., Cath Ruis-na- 
 Rig for Boinn, p. vi. 
 
THE BKLIGION OF THE GAEL BEFORE SAINT PATEICK. — II. 207 
 
 and from traders and dealers, would have given the movement 
 we have indicated a monotheistic impulse, preparing the way 
 for the Gospel message. 
 
 We have already seen that there were Christians in Erin 
 hefore the mission of our Apostle. Palladiua was sent to 
 " believers," and the Confession states that many (" so many ") 
 thousand captives, who were not obedient to their priests, were 
 sold into Erin like the Saint himself. It is only reasonable to 
 suppose that the example and teaching of these missionaries 
 scattered through the land must have borne fruit. There is 
 further a very striking piece of evidence which has hitherto, 
 strangely enough, remained unnoticed, and which we regard as 
 worthy of very attentive consideration. In the Tirechan text 
 we find an account of the Saint's second visit to Laoghaire, at 
 Tara, as follows : — 
 
 And St. Patrick ■went again to the city of Tara to Loaghaire, the 
 son of Neill, because he had made a compact with him that he should 
 not be killed in his kingdom ; but he could not believe, saying — " My 
 father Niall did not permit me to believe, but (wished) that I should 
 be buried on the ramparts of Tara, as if antagonists (viris) were halting 
 ia battle. The son of Niall (on the ramparts of Tara) and the son of 
 Dunlang in Maiston (Mullaghmast) in the Plain of Liffey, for the lasting 
 of hate as it is. For the heathen used to be buried in their sepulchres 
 arsded, with weapons ready, face to face (with the foe) until the day of 
 Erdathe, " as the Magi call it, that is the day of judgment of the 
 Lord." 15 
 
 The writer evidently means the day of resurrection ; the 
 grave is frequently referred to in our texts as the place of 
 resurrection. " The body of Laoghaire was, according to an 
 account in the Leabar na h-uidhre i* brought from the south 
 and interred, with his armour of valour, on the south-west of 
 
 " Perrexitque ad civifcatim Temro ad Loigarium filium Neil iterum, quia 
 apud ilium f cedus pepigit ut non oooideretur in regno illiua ; Bed non potuit credere, 
 dicena. " Nam Ned paler mens non sinivit mihi credere, led ut sepeliar in cacmninibui 
 Temro, quasi viris consistentibua in hello," quia utuntur Gentiles in aepulchris arniati 
 promptia armis facie ad faoiem usque ad diem Erdathe apud magoa id est judicii 
 diem Domini ' ' Ego fZius Neil (ineacuminibus Temro) etfiliua Dualinge im Maistim in 
 campo Liphipro duritate odii ut est hoc." Ut eat hoc is a Gaelicism, ino|t az& f e, as it is. 
 We think it right aa the text ia very important to give an alternative translation 
 by Todd. " For Niall, my father, did not permit me to believe, but (commanded) 
 that I should be buried in the ramparts of Tara (in caouminibua Temro) as men 
 stand up in battle for the Gentiles are wont, etc. . . I the aon of Nial (must be 
 buried after this faahion as the son of Dunlaing (waa buried) at Msestin in the 
 Plain of Liffey, because of the endurance of our hatred. "—Todd, p. 438, 34o. 
 
 Eogain Bell, a Christian King of Connacht, ordered that'he should be buried in 
 his armour, which order was carried out after hia death in A.D. 521. 0'Donov»«i 
 Hy. Fiaoh, 472. 
 
208 EAftLT IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 the outer rampart of the Royal Rath of Laoghaire at Tara, 
 with his face turned southwards on the men of Leinster as 
 fighting with them, for he was the enemy of the Leinster men 
 in his lifetime." He was killed by the sun and the wind, etc., 
 after a reign of thirty years, in A.D. 458. 
 
 The passage is important for two reasons. In the first 
 place it suggests that in the lifetime of Niall (+ 406) 
 Christianity had not only reached Erin, but had made a lodg- 
 ment within the precincts of Tara. Who was inducing 
 Laoghaire to " believe" ? Was it some captive Bertha, or Clotilde 
 about whom our texts are silent ? In the next place it pre- 
 pares us for the statement of Muirchu, who tells us that 
 Laoghaire, having reconsidered the matter announced that he 
 had come to the conclusion that it was " better to believe than 
 perish," and accepted the Faith. This news we may remark 
 would quickly reach Rome and Prosper of Acquitaine. It is 
 suggested that his implacable hate prevented his conversion. 
 We do not think the objection valid. If St. Patrick insisted on 
 every Gael giving up ex corde his tribal antipathies before 
 admitting him to the laver of baptism we suspect he would 
 have had a very small congregation. Even nowadays there 
 are very many sound haters who think themselves, and are 
 generally considered, to be tolerably perfect Christians. Nor need 
 the fact of his taking the pagan oath two years and a half 
 before his death under stress of circumstances in order that he 
 might be released from captivity, make any difficulty. The 
 weight to be attached to the taking of the pagan oath is greatly 
 overbalanced in our judgment by the fact that he broke it very 
 soon afterwards, not having before his eyes the fear of the sun 
 and the moon and the wind. 
 
 We may not omit to mention here a curious old prophecy 
 referred to by Muirchu, and given in a Latin version and also in 
 a Gaelic version, which latter, however, was inadvertently 
 omitted by the scribe in the text which has reached us. It 
 shows the alarm of the wizards before the coming of the Saint, 
 which was, no doubt, caused by the success of the humble 
 efforts which preceded his apostolate. Laoghaire had prophets 
 and soothsayers who were able to foretell the future by their 
 
 " Leabar na h-uidhre, text printed in Petrie, Tara, 146. 
 " Til cue iitimot<o A HACA T)i ofo — Ibidem. 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE GAEL BEFOBE SAINT PATRICK. — II. 209 
 
 evil arts. Two of those wizards often declared that a foreign 
 worship, destined to exercise great power, together with a 
 certain hurtful teaching, would be introduced from over sea 
 from afar ; a religion which would be taught by few, received 
 by many, and honoured by all, and would overthrow king- 
 doms. They pointed out the bringer of this teaching in a sort 
 of verse, often repeated by them, especially two or three years 
 before the coming of the Saint, which can be expressed more 
 clearly in Gaelic than in Latin :— 
 
 CiepA CAitcVienti rAjt tnuiii meijicetin, 
 A bjiArh cotchenn, a ch|iAnn ctiomchentl, 
 A miAf in Aitichiuft a cige 
 ■pfTS^f'*^ A muinceti «iLe 
 
 Amen, Amem 
 
 Axehead will come over a furious (?) sea, 
 
 His mantle (chasuble) head-holed, his staff crook-headed, 
 
 His paten (altar) in the east of the house, 
 
 All his people shall answer 
 
 Amen. Amen, 
 
 When these things come to pass, our Kingdom, which is heathen, 
 will not stand.i* 
 
 " Axehead," refers to the form of the tonsure which, we may 
 observe, cannot have been the Druidical tonsure, if there was 
 such, as in that case it would not have been distinctive. To 
 describe it roughly, the Gaelic tonsure was half a circle, 
 extending from a line drawn from ear to ear at the back, but 
 confined to the top of the head, the circular part lying front- 
 wise, having a fringe of hair all around it. 
 
 A good deal has been written on the form of the 
 Celtic, or, as we prefer to call it, Gaelic tonsure. In our 
 judgment, Bishop Dowden is perfectly right in his conten- 
 tion that the front part of the head was not completely 
 shaved, as some urge, but that there was a fringe of hair 
 left to mark the outline of the semi-circle. "It is plain," 
 he observes, " that if the whole of the hair on the front of the 
 head was shaved off there would be nothing resembling a 
 
 '' Muirohu gives Asdpat as the Latin equivalent for tailohcnn, and this is 
 usually translated adzehead ; we suggeat that axehead is the better meaning, 
 having regard to the form of the tonsure, which, assuming that there was a frontal 
 fringe, would oorreapond fairly enough with the shape of an axe, but would not 
 correspond at all with the shape of an adze. Asoia, an axe for hewing wood ; a 
 carpenter's axe. — Lewis and Short, aub voc*. Trip. Life, 274. 
 
210 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 corona of hair." ^^ We add further, that in that case their would 
 be nothing resembling an axehead, whereas with the fringe 
 the resemblance of the shorn crown to an axehead is striking. 
 The bishop adds : — 
 
 " The passage in Abbot Ceolfrid's letter to Naiton, King of the Picts 
 (A.D. 710), preserved by Bede, seems very distinctly to say that viewed 
 in front there seemed to be a crown, but that when you looked at the 
 back of the head you discovered that what you thought you saw was 
 out short, was not a real and complete crown." 
 
 The words in Bede we translate : — 
 
 " Which (tonsure) to look at on the surface of the forehead is seen to 
 present the appearance of a crown, but when you arrrive at the back 
 of the neck examining it you will find what you thought was a crown 
 is cut short." ^^ 
 
 We understand this to mean that the circle is not com- 
 pleted ; it is roughly a semi-circle instead of a whole circle. 
 Ceolfrid says the complete circle was necessary to represent 
 the crown. But this is not so. The Crown of Thorns, which 
 the tonsure symbolized, is represented by Correggio, in the 
 " Ecce Homo," as an incomplete circle, and is not widely 
 difl'erent from the Gaelic tonsure. 
 
 Another passage in the same letter is even more decisive. 
 Ceolfrid tells us that when Adamnan visited him he said to 
 him : — " I beseech you, holy brother, who believest that thou 
 art going to the crown of a life that has no end why, in a 
 fashion contrary to your belief, you bear tiie form of a crown 
 that has an end." ^^ This can only mean that the coronal circle 
 did not go round, but was ended before the circle was complete. 
 So much for the form of the Gaelic tonsure. Another aspect 
 of the question will engage our attention later on. 
 
 We do not propose to enter here into the " Pelagian contro- 
 versey " raised by Zimmer. All scholars are now of one mind 
 that his assumptions are bold to the verge of rashness, and his 
 inferences hasty and ill-considered. In addition to what we 
 have already written we shall confine ourselves to quoting the 
 
 " Celtic Church in Scotland. Dowden, J., Bishop of Edinburgh, p. 242. 
 
 '"'"Quae (tonsura) aspeetu in frontis quidera superfiuie ooronae videtur 
 speciem praeferre ; sed ubi ad oervioem oonsiderando perveneris deourtatem earn 
 quam te videre putebus invenies ooronam." — Bede, V. 21. 
 
 ^ Obseoro, sancte frater qui ad ooronam te vitae quae terminum nesoiat 
 tendero oredis, quid contrario tuae fidei habitu tei'minatam in uapite ooronao 
 maginem portas ? 
 
THE EELIGION OF THE QAEL BEFORE SAINT PATRICK. — II. 211 
 
 following passage from Professor Bury. Referring to " The 
 Celtic Church in Great Britain and Ireland," he observes : — 
 
 " The most striking part of the sketch is the new theory of Patrick, 
 whose Confession, once waived aside by the author as spurious, is, aloni; 
 with the missive to Coroticus, emphatically admitted as authentic. It 
 is impossible here to criticise the theory which is worked out with seduc- 
 tive ingenuity, or I should have to raise the whole Patrician question ; 
 but I may just say that Professor Zimmer's theory seems to me to have 
 two radical defects. It does not account for the facts, and it is not 
 based on an adequate study of the sources." ^ 
 
 The Church had not as yet defined its teachings on the points 
 involved, and there were many phases of Pelagianism before it 
 crystallised into the formal heresy we have already given in out- 
 line. It is possible, nay, probable, that some of the views held 
 by Pelagius, or which were attributed to him by adversaries 
 with a keen _^air for heresy, or by followers who were, so to say, 
 more royal than the king, had reached and were disturbing 
 the little Church in Erin. The fact that Palladius was sent 
 to the believers indicates that Rome thought there was at 
 least a case for inquiry, possibly danger ahead against which it 
 would be prudent to take precautions. And further, consider- 
 ations of this kind may have entered into the motives which 
 induced our Apostle in his old age to write his profession and 
 testimony. We shall not, however, pursue the matter further. 
 An essay on the aberrations of a great scholar in a field of 
 knowledge which he had not made adequately his own would 
 be distasteful writing and unprofitable reading. 
 
 22Eng Hist Rev XlX. (1893), 534, and Bee Articles by Dr. M'Carthy, 
 Sco. Rec. XIV., and Malone Eccl. Reo. XIL 
 
C 212 ] 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE SENCHUS MOB AND THE TRIBAL SYSTEM. 
 
 IN olden time, before the rise of Chancery and Equity, the 
 laws of England were divided into two branches — the Com- 
 mon Law and the Statute Law. The Common Law was the 
 common custom of the realm, handed down by tradition from 
 immemorial time, and reposing secui:ely in the breasts 
 of the judges. In the same way the tribal customs in 
 Erin were the common law for each tribe, and remained un- 
 written until after the reception of the faith. Afterwards some 
 parts of this customary law were reduced to writing — those 
 parts, as it appears to us, which from their great detail and 
 enumeration of minute particulars, could not be entrusted 
 safely to the keeping of the most tenacious memory. This, 
 however, was not done officially. There was no codification of 
 the customs, no digest, no work — official or non-official — giving 
 a completed view, even in outline, of the civil and criminal 
 jurisprudence of the country. 
 
 Spenser, in his View of the State of Ireland (1595), describes 
 the Brehon Laws as " a rule of right, unwritten, but delivered 
 by tradition from one to another, in which oftentimes there 
 appeareth a great share of equity in determining the right between 
 party and party ; but in many things repugning both to God 
 and man — e.g., compensation for murder — the eric fine, b}' 
 which vile law many murders amongst them are made up and 
 smothered." * 
 
 " The original Brehon Text," observes Richey, one of the 
 editors, " consists altogether of curt and proverbial expressions 
 which rarely attempt the completeness of a sentence, and are 
 strung together without any attempt at logical or grammatical 
 connexion. The words are written without stop or accent, 
 continuously, without break. A Brehon judge, reading a pas- 
 
 ' The Brehons delivered judgment from commentaries and maximt (iio|-c4n3ib 
 "J pArAisib) Stokes' Corm. Gloss. Fasach, 76. 
 
THE SENCHUS MOB AND THE TRIBAL SYSTEM. 213 
 
 sage for the first time, would find it difficult to understand it. 
 The customary rules, to be found in the text, rarely afford re- 
 liable information. They are intended to serve as catchwords, 
 to assist the memory, to recall what had been previously com- 
 municated, generally in a rhythmical form, always in language 
 condensed and antiquated. They assume the character of 
 abrupt and sententious proverbs, the drift of which can only 
 be vaguely guessed at. Collections of such sayings are to be 
 found scattered through the Brehon Law Tracts." * 
 
 There is no treatise on any part of the customary law pur- 
 porting on the face of it to be written by a Brehon, stating, 
 as was usual in such case, the name of the author and the place 
 and cause of writing. 
 
 There ia a legend that all those customs were submitted to 
 St. Patrick, and that they were then purified and reduced to 
 writing. No such body of laws has reached us, and there is 
 no sound reason for believing that any such ever came into 
 existence. The texts which have reached us are known as the 
 Brehon Law Tracts, and all the important ones have, we 
 believe, been published in the five volumes of the Ancient 
 Laws of Ireland, issued in the EoUs Series. These tracts 
 may be divided into two parts. The first part ia contained 
 in vols, i., ii., iii. (1-79) of the Rolls Series, and comprises 
 (1) The Law of Distress ; (2) Hostage, Sureties ; (3) 
 Fosterage ; (4) Saer Stock ; (5) Daer Stock ; (6) Social Con- 
 nexions ; and (7) The Corns Bescna. 
 
 These constitute the Senchus Mor (Shanahus More) or great 
 old tradition, and are preceded by some marvellous prefaces in 
 which we are told by one editor that Cormac MacNessa was 
 Ard Righ of Erin, and by another that in the reign of Cormac 
 MacCuelennain " there was an opportunity for establishing 
 legislative authority, or the enactment of laws." 
 
 Distress is a legal term with which we are familiar 
 in the law of landlord and tenant. It means the 
 seizure and detention of goods and chattels. Procedure 
 to enforce a demand commenced, according to Gaelic 
 custom, with the seizure and detention of the defendant's 
 goods. The object of this was to compel him to satisfy 
 the claim, or else to go voluntarily before the brehon to 
 
 ^Ancient Laws, Vol. iv., p. x. — and see L'histoire traditionille de xii-- *»blea 
 MAlanges, Chaopleton, 1903, par E. Lambert. 
 
214 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 have the matter in dispute decided according to the tribal 
 custom. Public opinion, and, probably, if necessary, the "strong 
 hand " ' compelled the defendant to abide by and perform the 
 award of the brehon, but there was no recognized machinery 
 for legally enforcing it. There was no sheriff nor sheriff's 
 bailiff to execute the decree. In the case of a person belonging 
 to the inferior grades the text of the law provided that notice 
 should precede every distress. When a claim was made against 
 a chieftain or a bishop, " fasting on " the chieftain or bishop 
 was the first step in the procedure. 
 
 If the chieftain refused to cede to fasting he was to pay 
 double the thing for which he was " fasted upon." He might, 
 however, " give a pledge to fasting," and have the case tried. 
 If a pledge was offered, and the fasting continued notwith- 
 standing, the claim was lost altogether. 
 
 This custom of fasting on a debtor existed in recent times, 
 and probably still exists, in the Native States in India. In 
 Hindu Law it is called " Sitting Dharna." " Dharna," observes 
 Maine, " according to the better opinion, is equivalent to the 
 Roman * Capio,' i.e., seizing or distraining." It would thus be 
 equivalent to the Gaelic At-gAtt-Ait (Distress) gAb-im, being 
 equivalent to cap-io, and fasting would, in reality, be a form of 
 distraining.* 
 
 It is erroneously stated in the Preface (vol. ii., p. xl.) that 
 in the case of a debtor who had no property, if he was of the 
 chieftain grade, he could, after one day's notice, be arrested, 
 unless he could get a native to become surety for his remaining 
 in the territory until the case was tried. In the case of an 
 absconding debtor, the " fine " was liable after notice. Kings 
 could not be distrained in person out of regard for the dignity 
 of their oiRce, but their stewards might be distrained in their 
 stead. 
 
 Fosterage — the giving and taking of children for nurture — 
 was a custom widely diffused amongst Aryan communities, and 
 occupied a position of great importance in the tribal system 
 of Erin. It was a social tie of the most binding character, 
 uniting tribesmen of different grades, and men of different 
 tribes and septs in the warmest and -most enduring affection. 
 It was of two kinds — fosterage for affection and fosterage for 
 
 " ' II serait lynohe," D'Arbois. 
 * Maine. Early Hist. ?-D8. 
 
THE SENCHUS MOR AND THE TRIBAL SYSTEM. 21.5 
 
 reward. The tract contains minute regulations regarding the 
 duties, liabilities, and rights, attaching to both kinds. 
 
 We shall re£er only to the provisions regarding education. 
 The sons of an ogaire, the lower grade of a fiaith, or noble, 
 were taught the herding and care of lambs, calves, kids, and 
 young pigs ; kiln-drying, and the combing of wool, and wood- 
 cutting. The daughters were taught the use of the quern, the 
 sieve, and the kneading-trough. The sons of an aire-desa, a 
 noble of high rank, were taught swimming, shooting, horse- 
 manship, chess-playing, and horn playing — their music. The 
 daughters were taught needle-work, cutting-out, and embroi- 
 dering. 
 
 " A king's Sons shall have horses in times of races." A 
 horse was to be supplied from the time the child attained 
 seven years, and horsemanship taught. It was not taught to 
 the Feine-grades, which mean here the grades under the grade 
 of Fiaith. 
 
 The Fosterage continued till the " age of selection," i.e., 
 marriageable age, which was thirteen for girls and seventeen 
 for boys. 
 
 We shall refer to the tracts dealing with saer stock and 
 daer stock in our next chapter. 
 
 The second division of the Tracts comprises : — (1) The 
 Book of Aicill ; (2) The Taking of Lawful Possession ; (3) 
 Judgments of Co-tenancy ; (4) Bee Judgments ; (5) Right of 
 Water; (6) Precincts; (7) Of the Judgment of every Crime ; 
 (8) The Land is Forfeited for Crimes ; (9) Divisions of Land ; 
 (10) Divisions of the Tribe; (11) Crith Gablac; (12) Sequel 
 to Crith Gablac ; (13) Of Successions ; (14) Small Primer ; 
 (15) Heptads ; (16) Judgments on Pledge Interests ; (17) Con- 
 firmation of Right and Law ; (18) Of the Removal of Covenants. 
 
 Of these Tracts, the most important for our purpose would 
 be the Crith Gablac and Sequel, which purport to deal with 
 the grades of society, if they were at all reliable. This is, 
 unfortunately, not so. The grades of society, says the author 
 of the Tracts, are seven in number, like the seven ecclesiastical 
 orders, " for it is proper that for every order in the church 
 there should be a corresponding order among the people." 
 We adopt in regard to it the views of Richey, who says : — 
 
 The Crith Gablac may be fairly characterised as the fantastic 
 production of an antiquarian lawyer of a strong ecclesiastical bias, 
 
216 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 composed at a date at which the tribe system was breaking up, and the 
 condition of the people, moral and material, had much deteriorated. 
 The work is of the highest value as an antiquarian treatise rather on 
 account of the general principles which it assumes, and the incidental 
 statements it contains than from the accuracy of its classifications or the 
 truth of its minute details, and any deductions founded upon a belief in 
 its historical value must lead to conclusions involving the too common 
 error of substituting an imaginary for the actual condition of the 
 people. * 
 
 Of the other texts we have enumerated we shall only refer 
 to the Book of Aicill, which occupies the whole of Vol. III. of 
 the Brehon Law Tracts, except 79 pages, and is the most 
 important of them. It commences : — " The place of this book 
 is Aicill, near Tara, and the time is the time of Cairbre 
 Liffechair, son of Cormac, and the cause of its having been 
 composed is the blinding of Cormac " (details as to which we 
 have already given). " And Cairbre used to go to Cormac to 
 Aicill about every difficult case, and Cormac used to say, ' My 
 son, that thou mayst know, and explain the exemptions." " It 
 is a treatise on the criminal law and on the law of Torts. It 
 contains such provisions as that every judge was punishable 
 for neglect, and that the " cat was exempt for eating the food 
 in the kitchen if it was negligently kept, but not exempt if the 
 food was taken from the security of a house or vessel."^ 
 
 Strangely enough, though it was composed in part at least 
 by Cormac (227-266), and added to by Cenfaelad, who was 
 wounded at the battle of Magh Rath (64!2), it is not included 
 in the Senchus Mor. To this we must now return, and place 
 before our readers the legend concerning it, which is duly 
 chronicled in the first volume of the Brehon Law Tracts. 
 
 According to this legend Nuada Derg, the brother of King 
 Laoghaire, at his instigation, killed one of St. Patrick's people, 
 " that he might discover whether the saint would grant for- 
 giveness for it." Then the saint was angered and raised up 
 his hands towards the Lord and remained in the attitude of 
 prayer with his hands crossed. And there came a great 
 shaking and an earthquake at the place, and darkness came 
 upon the sun and there was an eclipse, and they say that the 
 gate of hell was then opened and that Tara was being over, 
 turned, and then it was that Tara became inclined. And the 
 
 • Rlohey, Anc. Laws, III., ocvif 
 
THE SENCHUS MOB AND THE TRIBAL SYSTEM. 217 
 
 Lord ordered him to lower his hands and to obtain judg« 
 ment for his servant that had been killed, and told him that 
 he would get his choice of the Brehons in Erin ; and he consented 
 to do this as God had ordered him. 
 
 He chose Dubthac Mac Ua Lugair, and this was grievous to 
 Dubthac, and he said : " It is irksome to me to be in this cause 
 between God and man, for if I say that this crime is not to be 
 atoned for by eric fine it will be bad for thy erio {i.e., the 
 honour price that he would be entitled to, as we shall see, 
 for the killing of his servant), and thou wilt not deem it 
 good.'' 
 
 " If I say that eric fine is to be paid and that (if it is not 
 paid ?) it is to be avenged, it would not be good in the sight of 
 God. For what thou hast brought with thee into Erin is the 
 judgment of the Gospel, and what it contains is perfect forgive, 
 ness of every evil by each neighbour to the other. What was 
 in Erin before then was the judgment of the law, i.e., retalia- 
 tion ; a foot for a foot, an eye for an eye, life for life " (when 
 the eric fine was not paid). 
 
 Dubthac afterwards delivered a metrical judgment, in which 
 he said : — 
 
 Yea, every living person that inflicts death (maliciously) 
 
 Whose misdeeds are judged shall suffer death. 
 
 He who lets a criminal escape is himself a culprit. 
 
 It is evil to kill by a foul deed. 
 
 I pronounce the judgment of death. 
 
 Nuada is adjudged to Heaven {i.e., his soul]. 
 
 The commentator adds — It was thus the two laws were 
 fulfilled. The culprit was put to death for his crime, and his 
 soul was pardoned (i.e., on his baptism). 
 
 After this sentence the saint requested the men of Erin to 
 come to one place to hold a conference with him, and the 
 Gospel was preached to them. " And they bowed down in utter 
 obedience to the will of God and Patrick. Then Laoghaire 
 said, ' It is necessary for you, men of Erin, that every other 
 
 ' We have translated the text according to our view of the law. As it stands 
 translated in Vol. L we are unable to understand it. When the erio fine was not 
 paid, the taZU), which was suspended only on condition of the fine being paid, 
 revived. The Church elsewhere fought against this, took the culprit into 
 sanctuary, arranged the fine or weregild, and in the last resort delivered him into 
 slavery on condition that his life should be spared. It is a highly important text 
 when properly understood. 
 
218 EAELY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 law should be settled and arranged by us as well as this.' ' It 
 is better to do so,' said Patrick. It was then that all the 
 professors of the sciences in Erin were assembled, and each of 
 them exhibited his art before Patrick, in the presence of every 
 chief in Erin. It was then that Dubthach was ordered to 
 exhibit the judgments and all the poetry of Erin, and every 
 law which prevailed among the men of Erin, through the law 
 of nature, and the law of the prophets (or seers), and in the 
 judgments of the island of Erin, and in the poets." What did 
 not clash with the Word of God in the written law and in the 
 New Testament, and with the consciences of the believers, was 
 confirmed in the laws of the Brehons by Patrick and by the 
 ecclesiastics, and by the chieftains of Erin, for the law of nature 
 had been quite right, except the faith and its obligations, and 
 the harmony of the Church and the people. And this is the 
 Senchus Mor. The entry in the Four Masters referring to 
 these events is A.D. 438. " The tenth year of Laoghaire : The 
 Senchus and Feinechus of Erin were purified and written," 
 
 The commentary states that the Senchus was completed in 
 the ninth year after the coming of Patrick (432 A.D.) The 
 authors were, according to the legend, and as stated in Cormac's 
 Glossary : — Laoghaire, Core, Daire the Firm, three Kings , 
 Patrick, Benin, and Cairnech the Just, three saints; Rossa, 
 Dubthach, and Fergus with goodness, three sages of poetry, 
 of literature, and of the language of the Feini. They were the 
 nine props of the Senchus Mor.^ Such is the Legend. 
 
 This was, we are told, the Cain Patrick, and no human Brehon 
 of the Gael is able to abrogate anything that is found in the 
 Senchus Mor. The text states it contained four laws: (1) 
 Fosterage (2) Saer stock (3) Daer stock (4) Social relationship, 
 and also the binding of all by verbal contract, for the world 
 would be in a state of confusion if verbal contracts were not 
 binding. There are, it states, three periods at which the world 
 dies: the period of a plague, of a general war, and of the 
 dissolution of verbal contracts. There are three things which 
 are paid, viz. : Tenths, first-fruits, and alms, which prevent 
 the period of a plague, and the suspension of amity between a 
 king and the country, and the occurrence of a general war. 
 These tenths and first fruits are more specifically dealt with in 
 the tract called Corus Bescna, which appears to have been 
 ' Cor. Gloss., Noes, p. 122. 
 
THE SENCHUS MOK AND THE TRIBAL SYSTEM. 219 
 
 written by the author of the legend, or to have been in part 
 copied from it. The right of a church from its people, it 
 states, are tithes, first fruits, and firstlings. What are firstlings ? 
 Every first birth of every human couple, every male child of 
 the first lawful wife, and every male animal of small or 
 lactiferous animals. First fruits are the first of the gathering 
 of any new produce, whether small or great, and every first 
 calf, and every first lamb that is brought forth in the year — 
 every tenth afterwards, with a lot between seven (i.e., to set 
 aside the three worst of the ten, and cast lots between the remain- 
 ing seven, according to the commentary), with her lawful share 
 of each family inheritance to the Church, and every tenth plant 
 of the plants 6f the earth, and of cattle every year. All this 
 is part of the Senchus Mor. We are asked to believe that all 
 this was ordained by the chieftains of Erin within six years 
 after the arrival of the saint. We refuse to believe it, though 
 we admit that it would be very desirable that so extensive a 
 claim should, if rightfully established, be placed under the aegis 
 of our apostle and the kings and chieftains of the country. We 
 refrain from saying anything about Dubthac's judgment. If 
 there is anyone so constituted mentally as to believe that King 
 Laoghaire allowed his brother to be executed for killing the 
 charioteer of a foreign missionary at his request, no argument 
 of ours would be likely to change his opinion. The legend, as 
 we have seen, says nothing about the law of distress, which is 
 now the largest part of the text of the Senchus Mor, nor of the 
 Book of Aicill, which is the most important, and, seemingly, 
 the oldest of these Law Tracts. The oldest text of the Senchus 
 Mor is a fragment which may be fixed at 1350 A.D. The 
 residue of the text is one or two centuries later than Cormac's 
 Glossary, which is ascribed by Stokes to the 10th century. The 
 legend is not mentioned in the Patrician documents — neither 
 in the Book of Armagh, nor in the Tripartite Life. There is 
 no doubt, however, that the Senchus and the othef texts contain 
 much that was old, very old, when they were written, and, 
 taking the indications to be found in them, scattered, confused, 
 and often contradictory, as they are, and supplementing them 
 from other sources of information, we feel justified in presenting 
 the following views to our readers : — 
 
 It is not our purpose to open up here the question of the 
 origin of property in land, or to go very deeply into the question 
 
220 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 of Tribal Customs, It is, however, necessary to say something 
 about the latter. Seebohm has made a special study of Tribal 
 Custom. He has examined the Burgundian and Visigothic 
 laws, the laws of the Salic and Bipuarian Franks:, the earliest 
 Norse and Scandinavian laws, and the laws of Scotland. In 
 particular, he has made a close and minute examination of the 
 tribal system in Wales, recognising, as he tells us, " the value 
 of a substantial knowledge of one tribal system as a key to 
 unlock the riddles of others." ^ 
 
 In Cymru (Wales) the social unit was a group of kindred 
 called a " gwele," which word is represented in the Extents by 
 " lectus," and which Seebohm understands to mean a " bed." 
 The child was received into the " gwele " on the oath of the 
 mother in the church where the burial-place of her people was. 
 She placed her right hand on the altar, and her left hand on 
 the head of her child. The child was then formally received 
 as of kin. Until the age of fourteen the youthful Cymro was 
 to be at his father's platter, who up to that time was to be 
 responsible for him in everything. The father then took the 
 boy to the lord or chief to commend him to his charge, and 
 then the youth became his man, and he was to answer every 
 claim himself thenceforth, and to receive from the chief his 
 da, i.e., an allotment of cattle, with the right of joining in the 
 co-ploughing of the waste lands. He became a full tribesman 
 in his own right by " kin and descent." The gift of cattle was 
 apparently a binding of the relation between the youth and his 
 chief. 
 
 It is, perhaps, permissible to suggest that the giving of 
 cows, which we shall meet with presently, in the Gaelic 
 system, may have had its origin in a similar usage. The 
 gwele into which the young tribesman entered in due course 
 was a family group of four generations, the landed rights of 
 which were vested in the great grandfather as its chief of 
 kindred (penceneadh).'" 
 
 During the lifetime of the chief of the " gwele," the shares of 
 his sons, i.e., the shares of maintenance which they were 
 entitled by custom to get out of the undivided land, stock, etc., 
 were called, Seebohm thinks, " gavells." They are described as 
 
 ° Tribal Custom in Wales, vol. i. (1S95). Tribal Custom t'n Atiglo-Saxon Law 
 1902. 
 
 " Seebohm Wales, 64. Anglo-Saxon Law, 22. 
 
THE SENCHU3 MOB AND THE TRIBAL SYSTEM. 221 
 
 'gavell" (apparently /arm) in the Extents. On the chief's death 
 the sons became chiefs of these gavells or sub-gavells, but the 
 " gwele " did not then break up. When the two brothers (if only 
 sons) died, their sons would be entitled to take equally, per 
 capita, undivided shares, i.e., if one brother left three sons and 
 the other six, each would take one-ninth. When these nine 
 were all dead, their sons (second cousins) would be entitled to 
 take, in the same way, per capita, divided shares,^^ and the 
 " gwele" was then broken up. Females were entitled to portions, 
 which they took out of the " gwele " on marriage, and at the 
 time of the Cymric Codes, the date of which is disputed 
 (probably of the 12th or 13th century, embodying archaic 
 usage), the orphaned sons of a deceased member were 
 allowed to take the place of their father in the arrange- 
 ment we have described. A family group, somewhat wider, 
 of seven, or in some cases nine, generations was collec- 
 tively responsible in the case of homicide — a crime likely 
 to cause a blood feud between kindreds. The members 
 of the contributory group paid the death fine (galanas) in 
 unequal proportions, and, in turn, when one of their group 
 was killed, the death fine was divided amongst them in 
 the same proportions.^^ Within the kindred there was no 
 death tine for homicide. The murderer, if it was a case of 
 murder, was too near in blood to be slain. He was driven out, 
 became a "kin-wrecked " man, and fled like an outlaw to find 
 shelter where he could. The payment of the death fine was 
 thus a matter, not between individuals, but between the two 
 Kindreds. This outline will make the Gaelic system more 
 intelligible. It is unnecessary, however, to go into further detail. 
 What we have given has been taken from Seebohm's authorita- 
 tive works. 
 
 At the reception of the Faith in Erin, society was in the 
 tribal stage of evolution. As under the Cymric custom, the 
 tribal unit appears to have been, not the individual, nor 
 yet the immediate family, but a group of kindred. Within 
 this group there was social solidarity, and, with some excep- 
 tions, the members of it were connected by ties of blood. This 
 group was called a, fine, a word which was also used sometimes 
 
 " Wales, 83. 
 
 " Anglo-Saxon Law, ?9, 
 
222 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 for the immediate family. It was divided into four hearths or 
 grades of kindred : — 
 
 1. Geil Fine — Father, son, grandson, brother ... 4 
 
 2. Berb Fine — Grandfather, paternal uncle, 
 
 nephew, first cousin ... ... ... 4 
 
 3. Gar Fine — Great-grandfather, great-uncle, 
 
 great-nephew, second cousin ... ... 4 
 
 4:. Ind Fine — Great-great-grandfather, great- 
 great-uncle, great-great-nephew, third 
 cousin ... ... ... ... 4 
 
 Chieftain (probably) ... ... ... 1 
 
 Total ... ... 17 
 
 The subject of the Four Hearths is obscure, but the fore- 
 going is the explanation given by M. D'Arboia, and Seebohm 
 observes that " viewed in the light of other tribal systems, it 
 seems to be nearer to the mark than the various other attempts 
 to make intelligible what, after all, are very obscure passages 
 in the Brehon Law Tracts. The sixteen persons making up 
 the four divisions of the fine or kindred must be taken, I 
 think, as representing classes of relations and not individuals, 
 e.g., under the head ' first cousin ' must be included all first 
 cousins, and so on throughout." In the Brehon Tracts the 
 number of this group is stated to be seventeen persons, and 
 Seebohm adds : " He himself (the chieftain) would form tho 
 seventeenth person on the list." 
 
 The Four Hearths, comprising in this way the sixteen grades 
 nearest of kin to the criminal, were liable to the four hearths 
 of the man killed in the cases where eric was payable, and 
 the fine received in the same proportionas it paid. The shares 
 Df the various grades were unequal, but fixed in definite pro- 
 portions whether eric was received or paid by them. This 
 was as between one fine and another. As between the culprit 
 and the other members of his fine, in the case of homicide of 
 non-necessity, i.e., " where the death was intentional and not 
 deserved by the injured party." — (III., 697.) — the murderer 
 and his property were given up for it in the first instance, but 
 the liability of the fine remained if this proved insufficient. 
 
 In cases of necessary homicide, i.e., by misadventure, and 
 so excusable, all the fine contributed proportionally, the 
 
THE SENCHUS MOB AND THE TRIBAL SYSTEM. 223 
 
 culprit not more than his defined quota. In cases other than 
 homicide, the culprit paid all in the first instance, and the person 
 injured received all the compensation. 
 The eric fine was composed of two elements : — 
 
 I. — Corp dire or Body fine proper, which was the same for all classes — 
 seven cumhals or twenty-one cows, to which was added one 
 cumhal for compensation (aithgen). 
 
 Total = Seven cumhals. 
 
 II. — Eneelann (face price), usually called honour price, i.e., payment for 
 insult, which was not confined to homicide and varied according 
 to rank. 
 
 These two, with some exceptional additions, made up the 
 eric. 
 
 Enech-lann varied according to rank, and was a most 
 important element in tribal custom. Besides entering into the 
 eric fine, it regulated the value of the tribesman's oath, his 
 guarantee, his pledge and his evidence. It was the honour 
 price of the person injured or slain that had to be paid. Seebohm 
 states '* that in the case of homicide it was the honour price 
 of the slayer, not " the honour price of the slain that was to 
 be paid, i.e., the higher the rank of the slayer the greater the 
 payment to the kindred of the person slain." He founds this 
 view very naturally on the following passage, which he quotes 
 from the translation of the Book of Aicill, p. 99 : — " The double 
 of his own honour price is due of each . . . for secret 
 murder." On referring to the Gaelic text, however, it appears 
 to be faulty at this point. The word eneelann does not occur. 
 The words are "oibLAt) & \.A\r\ butjein. The words should pro- 
 bably be 'oibtA'O tAin eneclAinm, i.e., the double of the full 
 honour price of the person slain. That this is so is shown in 
 the Book of Aicill (p. 497). In the case of a chieftain or saer 
 tribesman refusing to attend, or going away from a hosting, he 
 incurred both a smaet fine and honour price fine. And it is 
 provided "that whenever it is a smaet fine that is paid, it 
 shall be paid according to the rank of the person who pays it. 
 And whenever honour price is paid, it shall be paid accord- 
 ing to the rank of the person to whom it is paid." ^* 
 
 1* Trib. Oust, in A.S. Law, u. IV. and p. 81. 
 iMmc, Laxo. Ill, 99. 
 
224 EARLT IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Homicide, undoubtedly, was not an exception to this 
 rule. If a king or a bishop was killed by a daer tribesman 
 (ceile), would the honour price of the latter be accepted by the 
 fin& of the former ? Surely not. If the tribesman was satirized 
 or insulted, if his protection was violated, if he was robbed, or 
 his wife or daughter was abducted, his honour price was the 
 measure of the damages he was entitled to. So the honour 
 price of the man slain was, we make no doubt, the measure 
 of the damages to which the fine were entitled. 
 
 The system of eric fine found no favour with the Angevin, 
 or English lawyers, who came to Erin. There were no hangings 
 and quarterings, and above all no forfeitures. Spenser thought, 
 as we have seen, that the system led to the commission and 
 screening of murder. 
 
 This, however, may well be doubted. The fine who had 
 to pay the eric were, no doubt, a very vigilant police to 
 prevent such outrages, and punish the culprit when 
 they deemed it fit to do so. The eric was only a settlement 
 of the quarrel between fine and fine ; it did not apply to inter- 
 tribal homicide, and our texts are singularly free from records 
 of assassinations, poisoning, and other malicious homicides. 
 The talio is found in nearly every civilization at a particular 
 stage. It was, no doubt, a step in advance. It involved an 
 inquiry before a judge in most cases. It ordered men to put 
 some curb on their passions, and observe some proportion 
 between the injury and the punishment. 
 
 An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was better than 
 that human life should be taken, often on suspicion, for every 
 trifling insult. By it, however, the tribes were led into 
 keeping a sort of debtor and creditor account of acts of violence, 
 and when this went on for a few generations, the blood feud 
 (fich bunaed) was firmly established, and revenge became a 
 pious and a public duty. In putting an end to this, the system 
 of eric fines was in its turn useful, and found a place in due 
 time in every system where the talio once prevailed. We do 
 not, of course, suggest that it was as good as the system of 
 criminal jurisprudence which exists to-day amongst civilised 
 nations. But we venture to think if the choice were offered to 
 an enlightened jurist to-day to decide between the eric system 
 and the barbarous system of death penalties for petty theft, 
 which was the Draconian Law of England in Spenser's time and 
 
THE SENCHUS MOB AND THE TBIBAL SYSTEM. 225 
 
 until the beginning of the last century, he would, for a 
 community circumstanced as the Gael then were, give his 
 preference to the eric system. 
 
 After explaining the meaning of the terms used to indicate 
 the honour price, we shall now give a list of " honour prices " 
 of the various ranks in the community, compiled with great 
 industry and care by Seebohm, from the Brehon Law Tracts, 
 as accurately as the confused and often contradictory nature of 
 the material permitted. 
 
 The cumhal. or bondmaid, was the highest barter unit in 
 Erin. How this came to be so we cannot say. Ridgeway 
 says, " in Homer the cow is the principal barter unit, but the 
 slave is occasionally employed as a higher unit."^^ It is 
 tempting to suggest that there was a foreign trade in slaves, 
 to account for it, but we distrust tempting suggestions, 
 especially those which we make ourselves, and prefer to wait 
 for better knowledge on this point. At the time we speak of, 
 the cumhal was used merely as a unit of account, and was 
 reckoned at three great milch cows or plough-oxen, which are 
 said to have been valued at twenty-four screpalls. The 
 screpall, again, was equal to three silver pennies, each of which 
 weighed eight grains of wheat, so that the pinginn was nearly 
 equal to the silver penny of Elizabeth's time. 
 Honour Price List.^'^ 
 Flaith (Cow Sent Receivers). Cumhals. 
 
 RiTu»ith ... ... ... ... 7 
 
 AireForgaill, 15Seds,]30Seds, or ... ... 6 
 
 „ Tuisi, 20 „ „ ... ... 4 
 
 „ Ard, 15 „ „ ... ... 3 
 
 „ Desa, 10 „ „ ... ... 2 
 
 Cow Bent Payers. 
 Bo Aire, 5 Seds or ... ... 1 
 
 Og Aire, 3 Seda of Cow Kind „ ... ... 1 
 
 Medboth Man, Adairt Heifer „ ... Colpach Heifer. 
 
 (The lowest grade (two years' old) „ ... (three years' oldg. 
 in the free community). 
 
 In our next chapter we shall consider the status of the 
 tribal occupier, and the way in which his rights were dealt 
 with at the time of the eonfiscations and evictions in the 
 six counties of Ulster. 
 
 "Eidgeway'a Metallic Currency, 30, 33. 
 
 " The Sed here may be taken to be a Ri eed, and equal to a milch cow or 
 plough-ox. All the estimates and statements should be received with great reserve. 
 — Seebohm, Cust. in A. S. Law, p. 91. By cow rent we mean rent paid for cows 
 like the rent of the modem " dairyman " in Ireland. 
 
 Q 
 
[ 226 ] 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE TRIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIB JOHN DAVIS. 
 
 THE tribal district was at first, as a matter of fact, and after- 
 wards in theory, considered to be the property of the 
 tribe, and the enjoyment of it by the tribal units was in early 
 times of a simple and easily intelligible character. Specific 
 portions of it were marked off for each fine or family group 
 for a dwelling and curtilage, and some " board-land " was set 
 apart for the chieftain for his life. The remainder consisted 
 of arable, pasture, and waste land. The pasture and waste 
 were used in common, each group being allowed to place so 
 many cows, horses, sheep, etc., upon it. 
 
 We suggest that the arable land was farmed, as in mediseval 
 times, by a system of fallows in this way : Let us suppose a 
 fallow in alternate years. A field of, say, one hundred acres, 
 was tilled by a certain number of groups one year. Their 
 shares in the field were measured, and were then assigned to 
 each group by drawing lots, as is still the custom in the country 
 when a field of old pasture is turned up and let out in half 
 acres for potato planting. The next year that field remained in 
 fallow. In the third year the groups did not go back to their 
 old portions, but drew lots again for their plots in the field. In 
 the interests of good husbandry this system was better than a 
 mere tenancy at will. Every tribesman joined in the field of one 
 hundred acres was interested in having every plot in it properly 
 tilled, as it might fall to his own lot on the next division. More- 
 over, there could be no " jerrymandering " ; everything was fair, 
 open, and above board. Caesar says of the Germans — " They 
 do not apply themselves much to agriculture, and their diet 
 consists principally of milk, cheese, and flesh meat. Nor has 
 anyone a fixed measure of tillage land (agri) and boundary 
 marks for himself, but the magistrates and chieftains assign 
 )o the fatnily groups related in blood who have come together, 
 the amount of tillage land they think proper, where they think 
 
THE TRIBAL pCCUPlER AND SIR JOHN DAVIS. 227 
 
 proper, and compel them to change to another (place or plot) the 
 ensuing year. They give many reasons for this. (1) That 
 they may not be tempted by uninterrupted use to exchange 
 the pursuit of war for agriculture. (2) That they may not be 
 eager to acquire large estates, and the weaker (tribesmen) be 
 turned out of their holdings by the more powerful. (3) That 
 they may not build houses carefully constructed to avoid heat 
 and cold. (4) That there may be no greed for wealth which 
 gives birth to faction and discord. (5) That they may keep the 
 mass of the people contented when each man sees that his 
 property is as large as that of the most powerful." Again, of 
 the Suevi, he says more briefly — " There is no tilled field amongst 
 them in private or separate ownership, nor do they continue in 
 one plot (loco) more than one year tilling it." * 
 
 So Horace says of the Getae : — " Nee cultura (tillage) placet 
 longior annua," Od. iii., 24, and Tacitus : " Arva per annos 
 mutant." — Germ. 26. 
 
 Caesar says, as regards the Suevi : — " Men of huge frames " 
 (immani corporis magnitudine, like the Gael), that they 
 changed from place to place every year for dwellings (incolendi 
 causa) as well as for fallows, as we suggest. 
 
 The mensal lands were at first attached to the chieftainship, 
 and passed in succession from chief to chief. But after a time, 
 whether by appropriation of these mensal lands or othewise, 
 the chiefs and more powerful amongst them encroached on the 
 public ownership, and class distinctions were developed in the 
 way CsBsar (writing the views of a Roman Democrat about 
 latifundia) points out. As regards Ireland, this matter is 
 exceedingly obscure, and we find no intelligible and reliable 
 information in our texts enabling us to speak with confidence 
 until we reach the period of the confiscations in Ulster. For 
 this reason we shall not attempt to follow conjecturally the 
 various stages of the growth and development of the organisa- 
 
 ' Agriculturse non student, majorque pars eorum victus in laote, oaseo 
 came consistit. Neque quisquam agri modum certum aut fines habet proprios, 
 sed magistratus et principes in annos singnlos gentibua cognationibusque hominum 
 qui turn una ooierunt quantum, et quo loco visum est agri attribuunt atque anno 
 post alio transire cogunt. Ejus rei multas afiEerunt causas ; ne assidua consuetudine 
 capti Btudium belli gerendi agriculturEe commutent, ne latos fines parare studeant 
 potentioresque hmuiliores possessionibus expellant ; ne accuratius ad frigora 
 atque aestus vitandos sedificent, ne qua oriatur pecuniae cupiditas qua ex re 
 factiones dissensionesque nascuntur, ut animi squitate plebem contineant cum suas 
 qnisque opes cum potentissimis eequari vident. — Bell. OaU. vi., 22. Tbe similamty 
 between the- Gael and Nordic Germans in reli^on, social customs, and skulls, is 
 striking and suggestive. 
 
228 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 tion of society, and shall doal very briefly with the intermediate 
 period. 
 
 The Gael, like the Germans, did not apply themselves much 
 to agriculture. The principal wealth of the tribe consisted in 
 herds and flocks — in cows, pigs, sheep andhorses. The tribal units 
 had a right to pasture a certain number of horses, cows and sheep 
 on the common pasture lands, and to place a certain number of 
 swine in the common woods ; having regard to the number of the 
 population there was enough and to spare for everybody. The 
 only pasture land, held in severalty, was certain " board land " 
 assigned to the chief. Long before the time of the Brehon 
 law tracts, many changes had taken place. Society had become 
 divided sharply into free and unfree classes. To begin at the 
 bottom, there was a large body of slaves, tho probable number 
 of whom there is no means of estimating. Next in order 
 probably came a class of persons called fuidirs. They are 
 supposed by some to have been non-tribesmen — strangers from 
 another tribe, or foreigners who came to reside on a chieftain's 
 land. After three or four generations, like the Cymric Attiids, 
 they probably became recognised as freemen. In the fourth 
 generation, it is said, they perhaps became doer botach, half 
 free, and in the fifch, sencleithe. This is what might be ex- 
 pected from the analogy of other systems ; but we are not in a 
 position to speak with any certainty on details, as the accounts 
 we have, and the meanings assigned to the terms midbod 
 fuidir, doer botach and sencleithe are not uniform. 
 
 Next in the ascending scale came the cow-rent payers. These 
 stood below theFlaiths. In the Senchus Mor there is,as we have 
 seen, a treatise on saer stock and on daer stock. This mode of 
 occupation is referred to in the translation as " saer stock tenure 
 and daer stock tenure." The texts, however, refer to the letting 
 and hiring of stock exclusively, and are silent as to the letting 
 of land. In the case of " saer stock," the letting was without 
 security, and so it was called " saer," i.e., a free letting. In 
 the case of " daer stock," the letting was with security, and 
 the hirers were called " daer," i.e., unfree hirers, or giallna. 
 The chief could compel the tribesmen to take a certain 
 quantity of stock without security (f Aeii-tiAc). On the receipt 
 of saer stock the tribesman was bound to yield homage, and at 
 the end of three years to give a Bed, %.«., a cow, in addition, or 
 to pay an equivalent in food, rent, etc., and also to do some 
 
THE TEIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIB JOHN DAVIS. 229 
 
 labour at the erection of the dun (fort) and the reaping of the 
 harvest ; he was bound also to go on military service. 
 
 No one was bound to take daer-stock even from his own 
 chief tain, or king. It was a matter of contract. The saer-tenant 
 could not separate from his chieftain, unless the latter was 
 indigent and so required his stock back. Nor could the chieftain 
 require his stock back unless the tribesman became indigent 
 and the security of the stock was placed in danger. 
 
 The food rent was free to the successor of the chief (flaith) for the 
 chief is not competent to forgive the food rent so as to bind his 
 successor (113). 
 
 Saer stock or daer stock from an external chief might be 
 returned or claimed back at any time. As regards daer stock 
 it could not be received without the consent of the tribe, which 
 shows that the ownership of the tribe land was in the tribe 
 and not in the ri, flaith or bo-aire individually. 
 
 The stock is received either with or without the knowledge of the 
 fine by the tribesman (ceite) ; for if it was unknown to them [that he 
 did so], they could impugn his contracts ; but if it was with their know- 
 ledge though the stock be ever so great it is fastened upon them, 
 (page 222). 
 
 From the ri-tuaith to the Bo-aire and ogaire the various 
 grades of society were bound together by the nexus of stock- 
 taking. At each step the inferior takes stock from, and pays 
 food-rents to, the higher. When the Brehons came to the 
 Ard-ri they were puzzled. Honour-price was fixed, as we 
 have seen, by rank, and rank was estimated and delimitated 
 by stock-taking. From whom did the Ard-ri take stock? 
 
 Four times seven cumbals to the King of Erin without opposition, 
 for which (being without opposition) he received stock from the King 
 of the Romans, or it was by the co-arb of Patrick the stock was given 
 to the King of Erin ; but whichever of them is supposed to give stock 
 to the King of Erin, it is not to show giallna hiring in him, but to show 
 honour price. (225). 
 
 The sketch we have just given shows that the tribe and 
 every member of it had definite rights in the tribal land, that 
 the land belonged to the tribe, and that nothing could be 
 further from the real facts of the case than the pretence that 
 the chieftain or rigli was a kind of owner in fee-simple or 
 
230 EARLY IHISH HISTORY. 
 
 allodial owner, of the tribal lands, and that the tribesmen were 
 tenants at will on his estate and liable to be evicted by him or 
 by anyone, the Crown not excepted, claiming through him. 
 We shall now consider how the tribal occupier's rights were 
 dealt with at the time of the confiscations and evictions in the 
 six counties of Ulster. 
 
 On the accession of James I. in 1603 the Irish policy 
 adopted by the Government in the first instance was to " settle " 
 the various " countries," and establish freeholders. This was in 
 efiect a return to the enlightened policy of Henry VIII., who 
 bad stood out tenaciously against the project of confiscation 
 and plantation, which his hungry courtiers, demoralized by 
 the plunder of the churches and monasteries in England, urged 
 persistently upon him. This wise policy was not, however, 
 maintained. If the English courtiers had sharp appetites, the 
 Scottish crew who followed in the wake of the Stuart were 
 famished. And the monarch then, or a little later on, was 
 borrowing money at ten per cent, for the public service. The 
 Exchequer being empty, the courtiers should look elsewhere 
 to gratify their cravings. 
 
 Appointed Solicitor-General in 1603, and Attorney-General 
 in 1606, Sir John Davis held office until 1619, and it was 
 during his time, and, to a large extent, by his actions and 
 instrumentality, that the policy of forfeiture, confiscation, and 
 eviction was substituted for the policy of conciliation and 
 the conversion of the tribal occupiers into freeholders. The 
 various phases of the policy appear in the correspondence 
 between Davis and Salisbury, from which we make extracts. 
 The italics are ouis. 
 
 In April, 1604, Davis wrote to Salisbury :— 
 
 He (i.e., the Earl of Tyrone), seeks to secure that, by an order from 
 the State, all the tenants who formerly dwelt in his country, but are 
 now fled into the Pale and other places to avoid his extreme catting 
 and extortion, should be returned unto him by compulsion ; albeit 
 these tenants had rather be strangled than returned unto him. 1 
 hope to see in the next Parliament an Act passed in this land that 
 shall enjoin every great lord to make such certain and durable estates 
 to his tenants as would be good for themselves, good for their tenants, 
 and good for the Commonwealth. 
 
 It does not stand with reason of State or policy that Tyrone should 
 have such interest in the bodies of the King's subjects ; for it was this 
 usurpation upon the bodies and persons of men that made him able to 
 make war upon the State of England, and make his barbarous followers 
 
THE TRIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIR JOHN DAVIS. 231 
 
 think they had no other king, because their lives and their goods 
 depended upon his will. In England, " Tenants at will " enabled 
 Warwick and the great lords in the Barons' wars to raise so great a 
 multitude of men. Whereas, at this day (tenancies at will being 
 replaced by fixed estates), if any of these great lords of England should 
 have a mind to stand upon their guard — well, they may have some of 
 their household servants or retainers, or some few Ught-brained, 
 factious gentlemen to follow them. But as for their tenants — these 
 fellows will not hazard the losing of their sheep, their oxen, and their 
 com, and the undoing of themselves, their wives, and their children, for 
 the love of the best landlord that is in England.' 
 
 Chichester was appointed Deputy, and, in the phrase of the 
 period, "came to the sword," in Dublin, on February 3rd, 
 1605. He was, it would appear, instructed to pursue the 
 policy recommended by Davis. Soon after his appointment, 
 he issued a proclamation which had been prepared beforehand, 
 and which bears date March 11th, 1604. This highly important 
 proclamation states that the Deputy had received Letters 
 Patent from the King, in which, after signifying his desire to 
 establish the commonwealth and the realm (of Ireland), he took 
 particular notice of two mischiefs there. The first was the 
 renewing of claims and challenges concerning private injuries 
 and public offences during the late rebellion. This he reme- 
 died by granting a full amnesty up to the 20th March in the 
 first year of his reign. The second mischief, which concerns us 
 more nearly here, was " the continuance of such oppressions 
 and exactions as had been usurped by divers chief lords of 
 countries, on the bodj^s, lands, and goods of the tenants and 
 freeholders of the same, whereby the said tenants and inhabitants 
 were enforced wholly to depend on the will of their said lords, 
 being deprived by reason of their ignorance and the remote 
 places wherein they dwelt, of that benefit of the Common Laws 
 and royal protection which his other subjects enjoyed to their 
 unspeakable comfort." The Lords and gentlemen of countries 
 were, in remedy of this, forbidden to imprison for debt, trespass, 
 or private displeasure, or to levy any fine without lawful 
 warrant of the ordinary Minister of Justice. 
 
 As regards the lands situate in these countriee, the proclama- 
 tion states that the lords who had received Letters Patent of 
 territories from the Crown, under colour of the general words in 
 the Patents, " claim and challenge to themselves the interest 
 
 * Ir, Oal., J. SO and 100, condensed. 
 
232 £AKl.Y IRISH BISTOEY. 
 
 and possession of such lands as divers ancient freeholders and 
 their ancestors had been lawfully seized of, within the said terri- 
 tories, by course of inheritance, beyond the time of memory ; the 
 said lords and gentlemen alleging sometimes that the said free- 
 holders were but tenants-at-will ; and sometimes that they 
 have forfeited all the said lands by the late rebellion, whereas, 
 in truth, the most part of the said freeholders were driven into 
 rebellion by the said lords and gentlemen themselves, and yet 
 were never attainted for the same ; but having received his 
 Majesty's gracious pardon for their said defection, so as then 
 they stood as clear and upright in the law as any other loyal 
 subjects." The mischief was remedied by declaring that 
 according to the true intent and meaning of the Patents, the 
 general words did not affect the interests of the freeholders, and 
 the lords were strictly enjoined to allow them to enjoy the 
 same without extorting cuttings or exactions. 
 
 There were also, the proclamation states, on divers scopes 
 and extents of land, persons who had no certain estate nor 
 place of habitation, and the lords were enjoined so to dispose 
 of their lands, as to receive certain rents and duties, and 
 forbear from the use and usurpation of cuttings and cosherings.* 
 
 It is not at all likely that the condition of the general body 
 of tribal occupiers was at all benefited by this proclamation. 
 
 In the summer of 1616, Davis accompanied the Lord 
 Deputy (Chichester), the Chancellor and others, in a visitation 
 they made in the counties of Monaghan, Fermanagh and 
 Cavan, with the view of settling these countries, and making 
 freeholders. In a letter to Salisbury he gives a very full 
 account of the state of Fermanagh (Maguire's country), which 
 shows that the tribal arrangements we have described, though 
 impaired by the usurpations of the chieftains, were still in the 
 main preserved. 
 
 "We found Fermanagh," he wrote, "to be divided into seven 
 baronies, containing each 7J ballybetaghs of land, in all 51J bally, 
 betaghs of land, chargeable with Maguire's rent and other contributions 
 of the country. In addition there were free lands, (1) Termon or 
 church lands, (2) Menaal lands of Maguire, (3) Privileged lands of 
 Chroniclers, Rhymers and Gallowglasses. This amounted to about two 
 ballybetaghs. 
 
 " The contention was that the attainder included the inferior tenants, whilst 
 the new Patents did not expressly mention their interests, and that consequently 
 their interests were not resuscitated, and that the new patentees took the land dis- 
 charged from them. 
 
THE TRIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIR JOHN DAVIS. 233 
 
 " Maguire's mensal lands lay in several baronies, and did not ex- 
 ceed four ballybetaghs. They were free from charges of the country, 
 because they yielded a large proportion of butter and meal and other 
 provisions for Maguire's table. Besides these food rents (from the 
 Mensal lands), Maguire had about 240 beeves yearly paid unto him 
 out of the seven baronies, and about his castle at Enniskillen he had 
 about a half ballybetagh, which he manured (tilled) with his own 
 churls. . . . There are many gentlemen who claim estate of free- 
 hold in that country by a more ancient title than Maguire himself doth 
 to the chief rie." ^ 
 
 The area of Fermanagh is 289,228 statute acres, of which 
 at least 115,000 are arable. 
 
 Joyce gives the usual acreage of the ballybetagh in tabular 
 form : — 
 
 1 Tricha, ced, or luath equal 30 Ballybetaghs. 
 
 1 Ballybetagh „ 12 Sesrachs (or plough lands). 
 
 1 Sesrach „ 120 Ir. acres.* 
 
 A ballybetagh or townland was sufficient to maintain " 300 
 cows without one touching another ;" it contained 3,500 statute 
 acres. 
 
 We may supplement this description by a reference to Sir 
 Toby Caulfield's account of the Earl of Tyrone's estate, over 
 which he was appointed receiver after the flight of the Earl. 
 This valuable document shows (1") That no certain portion of 
 land was let by the Earl to any of his tenants, as they are 
 called ; (2°iJ that the rents received by the Earl were received 
 partly in money, partly in victuals, oats, butter, pigs, sheep, 
 etc. ; (8°) that the money-rents were chargeable on the cows 
 that were milch or in calf that grazed on his lands, at the 
 rate of twelve pence the quarter the year; the cows to be 
 numbered at May and Hallowtide. 
 
 The amounts of the rent for the years ending Hallow- 
 tide, 1608, 1609, 1610, were £2,102, £2,862, and £2,847 
 respectively. We understand these to be rents from the 
 demesne lands of the Earl, stated to be in the counties of 
 
 'Fermanagh, at the close of the sixteenth century, consisted of a, certain 
 number of ballybetaghs, each of which contained four quarters, and each quarter 
 four tates (a name peculiar to Cavan and Monaghan). Thus each ballybetagh 
 contained sixteen tates, each tote being estimated at 60 -^ Irish acres. The tate 
 continuing in local use was stereotyped there as a townland containing on the 
 average 184 statute acres. The ballybetagh, according to this, was = 184 x 16 = 
 2,944 statute acres. — Reeves' Proc. My. Ir. Ac, vii., 477. In the survey made for 
 the Plantation, according to Hill (107) these tales are set down as thirty acres 
 Irish or thereabouts, and the undertakers got them at this estimate. 
 
 *Soc. Ir , I. 40, II. 372. 
 
234 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Tyrone, Armagh, and Coleraine. Sir Toby was appointed to 
 take charge of such lands and territories as belonged to the 
 traitor in Tyrone, Coleraine, and Armagh. Allowing the then 
 value of money to have been over fifteen times as much as at 
 present, the rental was moderate for his demesne lands alone.' 
 
 The food rents of Maguire's mensal lands were contained in a 
 parchment roll in the possession of O'Brislan, a chronicler and 
 principal brehon of that country. O'Brislan was summoned ; 
 he said the roll had been destroyed by the English, but the 
 Lord Chancellor " did minister an oath unto him. The old 
 man, fetching a deep sigh, confessed that he knew where the 
 roll was, but said that it was dearer to him than his life, and 
 that he would never produce it unless the Lord Chancellor 
 would take a like oath to return it. The Lord Chancellor, 
 smiling, gave his hand and word, and thereupon the old brehon 
 drew the roll out of his bosom. " When it was translated, we 
 perceived how many porks, how many vessels of butter, and 
 how many measures of meal and other such gross duties did 
 arise unto Maguire out of his mensal lands. In time of 
 peace he did exact no more ; marry, in time of war he made 
 himself owner of all, cutting, i.e., exacting, what he listed, and 
 imposing as many bonaghts or hired soldiers upon them as he 
 had occasion to use. Id the late war he hired them out of 
 Connact and Breifne O'Reilly, as his own people were inclined to 
 be scholars and husbandmen rather than kerne." 
 
 " We called unto us the inhabitants of every barony severally, 
 and had present several of the clerks or scholars of the 
 country, who knew all the septs and families, and all their 
 branches, and the dignity of one sept above another, and what 
 families or persons were the chiefs of every sept, and who next, 
 and who were of the third rank and so forth till they descended 
 to the most inferior man of all the baronies. Moreover, they 
 took upon them to tell what quantity of land every man ought 
 to have by the custom of their country, which is of the nature 
 of gavel kind, whereby as their septs or families did multiply 
 their possessions have been from time to time sub-divided and 
 broken into many such parcels as almost every acre of land 
 hath a several owner, which termeth himself a lord and his 
 portion of land his country, notwithstanding that Maguire him- 
 self bad a chiefry over all the country and some demesnes 
 
 • Ir. Col., III., 332, 
 
THE TRIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIB JOHN DAVIS. 235 
 
 that did pass to him only, that carried that title. So was there 
 a chief of every sept, who had certain services, duties or 
 demesnes that ever passed to the tanist of that sept, and never 
 was subject to division." All these details they took down, 
 descending to such as possessed two tuaths. There they 
 stayed, as they knew that " the purpose was to establish free- 
 holders Jit to serve on juries, and less than two tuaths would 
 not make a 40s. freehold per annum ultra reprisalim, and, 
 therefore, were not of competent ability for that service, yet 
 the number of freeholders named in this country was above 
 WO." 
 
 This report, made out in this way, was handed to the 
 Deputy, who called the principal inhabitants into the camp, 
 and told them that he came on purpose to understand the 
 state of every particular man in that country, to the end that 
 he might establish and settle the same. His lordship's speech 
 and good demonstration to the people gave them great con- 
 tentment. " Touching the inferior gentlemen and inhabitants 
 it was not certainly known to the State in Dublin whether 
 they were only tenants at will to the chief lords (whereof the 
 uncertain cuttings which the lords used upon them might be 
 an argument), or whether they were freeholders yielding of 
 right to their chief lord certain rents and services, as many of 
 them do allege, affirming that Irish cutting was an usurpation 
 and a wrong." 
 
[ 236 ] 
 
 CHAPTER XV.— (Continued.) 
 
 THE TRIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIB JOHN DAVIS. 
 
 DAVIS was thus at first fully in agreement with, and an 
 energetic advocate of, the policy we have indicated, and 
 his views were, no doubt, fully shared by the Deputy Chichester. 
 It was probably with the view of bringing more prominently 
 into relief the precarious character of the possession of the 
 inferior occupier of the soil that the Deputy obtained from the 
 judges the following Resolution ^ as to the legal character of 
 what was called the Irish custom of gavelkind : — 
 
 First it is to be known, reports Davis,* that in every Irish territory 
 there was a lord and chieftain and a tanist, who was his Buccessor 
 apparent. And of every Irish sept or lineage there was also a chief 
 who was called a Cennflnny or Caput Gognationis. All the possession 
 within the Irish territories (jbefore the common law of England was 
 established in this realm as it now is) ran always either in course of 
 tanistry or in course of gavelkind. Every seigniory or chiefry, with the 
 portion of land which passed with it, went without partition to the 
 tanist, who always came in by election or the strong hand, and not 
 by descent, but all the inferior tenancies were partible between the 
 males in gavelkind. Yet the estate which the lord had in the chiefry 
 or which the inferior tenants had in gavelkind was not an estate of 
 inheritance but a temporary or transitory possession ; for as the next 
 heir of the lord or chieftain was not to inherit the chiefry, but the 
 oldest and worthiest of the sept, as is shown before (F. 78) in the case 
 of tanistry, who was often removed and expelled by another who was 
 more active and strong than he, so the lands of the nature of gavelkind 
 were not partible amongst the next heirs male of him who died seized, 
 but amongst all the males of his sept in this manner. The Gennfinny, 
 or chief of the sept (who was commonly the most ancient of the sept), 
 made all the partitions at his discretion, and after the death of any 
 tenant who had a competent portion of land, assembled all the sept, and 
 having thrown all their possessions into hotchpot made a new partition 
 of all, in which partition he did not assign to the son of him who died 
 the portion which his father had, but he allotted to each of the sept, 
 according to his seniority, the better or greater portion. . . Also, 
 by this custom, bastards hawi their portion with the legitimates, wives 
 
 ' It is reported by Davis himself in Law French, Wb give it tranglated and 
 abridged. 
 
 > UM 3, Jacobi, 1606. 
 
THE TRIBAL OCCUPIKB AND SIB JOHN DAVIS. 237 
 
 were excluded of dower, and daughters were not inheritable although 
 their fathers had died without male issue. By the custom of Kent the 
 lands were partible among the male heirs, bastards were not admitted, 
 wives were entitled to dower, females in default of males inherited. 
 The Irish custom was agreeable in several of these points to the custom 
 of gavelkind, which was in use in N. Wales, which was reproved and 
 reformed by the Statute of Rutland made 1 2 E. I., and utterly abolished 
 by the Statute 34 H. VIII., c. 28. For these reasons, and because all 
 the Irish countries and the inhabitants were from thenceforward to be 
 governed by the rules of the common law of England, it was resolved and 
 determined by all the judges that the Irish custom of gavelkind was void 
 in law, not only for the inconvenience and unreasonableness of it, but 
 because it was a mere personal custom and could not alter the descent 
 of inheritance. And all the lands of these Irish countries were adjudged 
 to descend according to the course of the common law. 
 
 This resolution was not, our readers will understand, a 
 decision or judgment of a court in a case pending before it, 
 but rather an opinion of the judges, which was registered 
 amongst the Acts of CounciL' The proviso was added that if 
 any of the mere Irish possessed and enjoyed any portion of 
 land by the custom of gavelkind up to the commencement of 
 the king's reign such person should not be disturbed in his 
 possessions, but should be continued and established in it, but 
 that afterwards all lands should be adjudged to descend 
 according to the Common Law.* 
 
 The word gavelkind does not occur in the Brehon Law 
 tracts, nor any word like it, nor is there any trace to be found 
 in them of the " hotchpot custom " mentioned in the resolu- 
 tion; nor is there any evidence to be found outside the 
 resolution to support the statements as to it therein contained. 
 Hallam, Gardiner, and other careful and reliable historians 
 were naturally misled by this report of Davis. The resolution, 
 which was, probably, satisfactory to the Deputy, was based, so 
 far as it had any basis, on the knowledge which the English 
 lawyers and judges had of the custom of Kent, and, more 
 particularly, of the custom in N. Wales, which is referred to in 
 the resolution. Hallam refers to the " exact similarity " of the 
 
 ' The Council Book is not known to exist at the present time. 
 
 * Oavdkind. The name implies that it was originally a tennre, by " gavel," 
 {.«., the payment of rent or other fixed services other than military. This agrees 
 with the identification of it with Socage, hind= gecyad, kind or species. The 
 application of the Kentish word to the Welsh and Irish system of succession led 
 to the notion that the word was of Celtio origin, an alleged Irish gabkail-eint 
 from gdbhail taking, and dne tribe or sept, appears with the rendering gavelkind 
 in O'Reilly's Dictionary. (Murray's Die, mb. voce.) 
 
238 EARLT IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 custom of Irish gavelkind " to the rule of succession kid down 
 in the ancient laws of Wales," and adds, " It seems impossible 
 to conceive that these partitions were renewed on every death 
 of one of the sept. But they are asserted to have taken place so 
 frequently as to produce a continued change of possession." 
 
 In after times the custom of gavelkind was not only legalised 
 but made compulsory in the case of the estates of Catholics by 
 the statute 2 Anne, unless the eldest son conformed to Pro- 
 testantism within a limited time after the death, in which case 
 the estate went to him in course of primogeniture. 
 
 Another case, known as "the case of Tanistry," came before 
 the Dublin court afterwards and is reported by Davis. It 
 may be conveniently referred to here. The lawyers of that 
 day misunderstood by tanist, the chieftain or lord of a country. 
 The true meaning in Gaelic is second, i.e., next to succeed. 
 The case was an ejectment on the title to recover O'Callaghan's 
 country in Cork. The general issue was pleaded and a special 
 verdict found. The plaintiff claimed through a tanist, i.e., 
 chieftain, who was elected according to the Irish custom, which 
 was found in the special verdict, to be as follows : — " That when 
 any person died seized of the lands claimed then such lands 
 ought to descend, and have time out of mind descended to 
 the oldest and most worthy of the blood and name (seniori et 
 dignissimo viro sanguinis et cognominis), of the person so dying 
 seized, and that the daughters of such person were not inherit- 
 able." The judges held (1) That this custom was unreasonable 
 and void, ab initio ; (2) That it was void for uncertainty ; it 
 could not be reduced to certainty by any trial or proof, for the 
 dignity (i.e., worth) of a man lieth in the opinion of the multi- 
 tude, which is the most uncertain thing in the world. Again, 
 " the estate was uncertain. The Taniat hath not an estate of 
 inheritance in his natural capacity, because the oldest and most 
 worthy doth not take as heir, for the most worthy comes in by 
 election, and not as heir, and the tanist hath not an inheritance 
 by succession in a politic capacity because he is not incorporate 
 by the common law as a person, etc., and if he hath only an 
 3state for life it cannot descend, and so he hath no estate 
 whereof the law can take notice." 
 
 This decision is not in conflict with the view we have pre- 
 sented that the ownership of the Tribal land was in the tribe who 
 gave an estate for life only to the chieftain in the mensal lands. 
 
THK TRIBAL OCCUPIEE AND SiR JOHN DAVIS. 236 
 
 Legally, it stands on a different footing from the resolution in 
 the case of gavelkind. Here the court had seisin of a duly 
 constituted cause, and declared a judgment which bound not 
 only in the particular case, but was entitled to be followed in 
 the administration of the law in every subsequent case of the 
 same kind until it was reversed. The Resolution, on the 
 contrary, lacking all these essentials, was nothing more than 
 the private opinion of jurists formed without argument of 
 counsel, and possibly with a view to political requirements 
 without taking evidence, and probably on assumptions derived 
 from the custom of Kent and the Cymric Codes — in fact, on 
 those views which Davis says, as we shall see presently, that 
 both he and the Chief Justice found on exact inquiry to be 
 wholly erroneous. 
 
 In the summer of 1606 the judges went on circuit in 
 Qlster, and afterwards Davis, who was then serjeant-at-law, 
 went with the Chief Justice, Sir James Ley, to Waterford, 
 Wexford, and Wicklow.^ On his return he wrote to Salisbury 
 (November 11th):— 
 
 On our return we understood that not many days before the Earl 
 of Tyrone had, in a violent manner, taken a great distress of cattle 
 from O'Cahan jiwho hath married his bastard daughter), and pretended 
 to be lord of all that country that beareth the name of Colraine (Derry). I 
 mention this to you, not in respect of the riot, but to make an overture 
 to you of good advantage toJiich I confess I understood not before I made 
 my last journey into Ulster. I thought without question, and so it was 
 generally conceived by us all, that the Earl of Tyrone had been entirely 
 seized in "possession and demesne of all the country of Tirone, being in 
 length sixty miles and in breadth nearly thirty, and that no man had one 
 foot of freehold in that country but himself, 'except the bishop and farmers 
 of the M)ey lands. . . But now on our last northern journey we 
 made so exact an inquiry of the estates and possessions of the Irishery 
 that it appeared unto us (i.e., the Chief Justice and himself) that the 
 chief lords of every country had a seigniory consisting of certain rents 
 and duties, and had, withal, some special demesne, and that the 
 tenants or inferior inhabitants were not lenants-at-wiU, as the lords 
 pretended, but freeholders, and had as good and large an estate in 
 their tenancies as the lords in their seigniories, and that the uncertain 
 cuttings and exactions were a mere usurpation and a wrong, and were 
 taken de facto and not de jure when the lords made war one upon the 
 other, or joined together in rebellion against the Crown. This we found 
 to be universally and infallibly true in all the Irish countries in which 
 we hdd assizes this last summer : — namely, in the several countries of 
 McMahon, Magyre, O'Reilly in Ulster, and in the countries of the 
 
 ^Ir.Oal. 11., 19. 
 
240 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. ■ 
 
 Birnes (CBimes) and Cavanagh in Leinster, The suggestion is that 
 these inferior freeholds were vested in the Crown by the Act of Attainder 
 of Shane O'Neil {II. Eliz), and not regranted in the Queen's subsequent 
 Patent to the Earl, and that I should be directed to prefer informations 
 of intrusion against the occupiers of these lands with a view to a Plan- 
 tation. 
 
 The villainy of this overture is appalling. Even if Davis 
 was right in point of law, which we have no doubt he was not, 
 a more dishonourable suggestion, considering the pardon and 
 proclamation' and public declarations of the Deputy already 
 mentioned, was never made by a law officer to a monarch. 
 This was before the flight of the Earls, which took place on the 
 14th September, 1607J 
 
 Ministers in London did not fall in with the overture of 
 Davis ; but no evidence is now forthcoming as to what reply 
 was made to him. Possibly the matter was under consideration 
 when the situation was completely changed by the flight of the 
 Earls. We shall see presently how Davis changed his plans 
 and fashioned his legal opinions to suit altered circumstances. 
 The Earls fled on the 14th September, 1607, and about ten 
 
 ' See the words of the Froolamation, ante. 
 
 "> By the lltb Eliz., C. li. S. 1. (the attainder of Shane O'Neill), it was enacted that 
 Shane O'Neill should forfeit to her Majesty his lauds and goods, and that his blood 
 shonld be corrupt and disabled for ever. S. 2, made the use of the name O'Neill 
 treason. S. i provided that whereas divers of the lords and captains of Ulster, 
 as the septs of tne O'Neills of Olandeboy, etc., the O'Hanlons, MacMahons, MacGuin- 
 nesses, etc., had been at the commandment of Shane O'Neill in his traitorous war, 
 it was enacted that her Majesty should hold and possess, in the right of the Crown, 
 the County of Tyrone, of Clandeboy, etc., and all the lands and tenements belong- 
 ing or appertaining to any of the persons aforesaid, or to their kinsmen or adherents, 
 in any of the countries, or territories, before specified. It is reasonably plain here 
 that the only persons whose lands were escheated were Shane O'Neill's and the other 
 persons named and their kinsmen and adherents, whatever construction might be put 
 upon the words " kinsmen and adherents." Possibly in a penal statute they would 
 be held void for uncertainty. After the Pardon, new Letters Patent were granted 
 to the Lords of Countries, and Davis' proposition was to evict the under-tenants, 
 and vest their interest od freeholders in the Crown, and then transfer these free- 
 holds to Scotch and English planters, until which transfer the Crown would be 
 under-tenant apparently to the Lords of Countries. Nowadays, we have no doubt 
 the pardon, proclamation, and new Letters Patent would be held to re-eatablish all 
 the interests. But we are far from saying that Davis did not take a sound working 
 view of the question, as things stood in his time. The judges were then " remov- 
 ables." And Irish judges holding oiSce during the King's pleasure would be slow 
 to incur the displeasure of the King's Attorney-Oeneral for Ireland. 
 
 By the 12th Eliz., C. IV., S.L, it was provided that upon the offer of any " the 
 pretended lords, gentlemen, or freeholders of the Irishrie, or degenerated men 
 of English name holding their lands by Irish custom, and not by tenure, according 
 to her Majest/s laws," the Lord Deputy might accept a surrender of their lands, 
 and grant their lands to them by Letters Patent to hold of the Queen. By 
 the 2nd Sec. — The rights of all peraons in the surrendered lands are saved in the 
 fullest and most ezpUcit manaer. 
 
THE TRIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIR JOHN DAVIS. 241 
 
 days before Christmas he went to LifEbrd to prosecute the Earls 
 and their adherents on charges of high treason, 
 
 "The jury," he wrote, "were twenty-three gentlemen of the 
 best quality and distinction in the county (Donegal), Sir 
 Cahir O'Dogherty, who, next to the Earl of Tyrconnell, has the 
 largest territory there, being foreman. Of the twenty-three 
 jurors, thirteen were of the Irish nation and only ten English, 
 in order that there might be no exception of partiality in com- 
 pounding the jury. The Bills were read publicly in English 
 and Irish, though that were needless and not usual in taking 
 of indictments. It was explained that an indictment was an 
 accusation and not a conviction." * 
 
 The flight of the Earls, if not explained, was persuasive 
 prima facie evidence, and was, no doubt, pressed home forcibly 
 by Davis. The King's Proclamation (November 15th, 1607) 
 states : " We do profess that the only ground and motive of their 
 high contempt in these men's departure hath been the private 
 knowledge and terror of their own guiltiness " (p. 68). There 
 were, however, other reasons for the flight. The earls fled, not 
 because they meditated rebellion, which, under the circum- 
 stances, would have been sheer madness, but because neither 
 
 ' A copy of the indictment subscribed " a true bill," with the names of the 
 grand jurors attached, was sent by Davis to Salisbury (/r. Col. II., 556). Amongst 
 the thirteen Irish we £nd, besides Sir Cahir O'Doherty, the names of Donal 
 M'Sweany, of Fanad, and Donough M'Sweeny, of Banagh ; John ua Clerigh (Kil- 
 barron Castle), and Lowry (Lugaid ?) ua Clerigb, (of Ballyclerigh). Of the two latter, 
 to whose kindred the writer belongs, we are in a position to say that they were 
 treated as mere tenants-at-will, squatters, " having no English name or surname," 
 and expelled from Donegal. 
 
 The project of Plantation of the six counties of Ulster provided that " the 
 swordsmen were to be transplanted into such other parts of the kingdom as by 
 means of the waste lands therein were fittest for to receive them — namely, into 
 Connocht and some parts of Munster, where they are to be dispersed and not 
 planted together in one place ; and such swordsmen as have not followers or cattle 
 of their own to be disposed of in his Majesty's service." — Q. Hill, Plant, of Ulster, 
 96. All the " kindred' ' Clerigh who answered the description of swordsmen — we give 
 this as a single instance to illustrate the procedure — were with their families 
 evicted. They were allowed to take their cattle with them and went, driving 
 them before them, to the borders of Limerick. There is, at the present day, in the 
 barony of Kilnamanagh, a district called Foily Cleary (Glory's Rock), and we have 
 no doubt they were transplanted into this district, which was then a mountainous 
 waste. The " scholars " remained behind in their beloved Donegal, and took refuge 
 in the mountains. The Chief of the Four Masters was known before joining one 
 or both the Orders (first and third) of St. Francis (without, however, taking Orders) 
 as Tadg an t-Sleibe (Tadg of the Mountains). 
 
 The author cannot speak here from immediate family traditions, as his father 
 died when he was an infant. But when he was a boy, nearly fifty years ago, he 
 heard these particulars from a worthy priest of his name and kindred, who said he 
 had them from his grandfather. The final " g " of Clerig is aspirated, as in 
 the North. In Munster the final " g " is not aspirated, but Dronounced hard. 
 
 R 
 
242 EAELY IRISH HISTOEY. 
 
 their liberty nor their lives were safe in Ireland. Even after 
 their flight they were not safe from the poison or the dagger 
 of the hired assassin. The evidence of this has recently come 
 to light from the archives of Venice, and is to he found in the 
 Calender of State Papers. 
 
 On May the 25th, Sir Henry Wotton, the English Ambassa- 
 dor in Venice, wrote to the Cabinet. After referring to the 
 assassination of Henry IV. (May 14th, 1610), he observed : — 
 
 I recollect that among the other ofiScers whom her majesty sent to 
 Ireland was Colonel N orris, a very brave gentleman. He desired to 
 end the business as soon as possible, and, as it was impossible to come 
 to a pitched battle with the Irish, whose habit is to strike and then fly 
 into the dense forests, where they are safe, he thought the only way to 
 finish up the matter quickly was to find some Irish and to offer them a 
 reward if they would kill Tyrone, and so end the business. This was 
 a good, just and laudable plan to secure the slaying of so great a rebel. 
 But it was a notable fact that for all that he offered the greatest 
 rewards he never could find a man who would slay the Earl. . . . 
 There is not the smallest doubt that if the Colonel who promised ten 
 thousand pounds sterling, and even more, to the man who should kill 
 the Earl and escape had had authority to promise paradise on death 
 the Earl would most assuredly not escape.^ 
 
 It would be difficult, if not impossible, for the assassin to 
 escape unless he used poison. 
 
 At the time of the flight of the Earls Sir Henry Wotton 
 ivas the English ambassador at Venice. The fugitives pro- 
 ceeded through Flanders, Lorraine and Switzerland, by the St. 
 Gothard pass to Milan. Wotton promptly conveyed the 
 intelligence to King James, and soon after, under the signature 
 Ottamo Baldi, wrote the letter of the 24th April, 1608«>. In 
 this he informs the King that an Italian, a Lombard, of middle 
 age, well clothed and well fashioned, came to him four days 
 previously and delivered to him a credential ticket which he 
 encloses, and proposed on behalf of an unnamed person of 
 spirit and understanding for such a business, to assassinate 
 O'Neill. No names were to be asked until the proposal was 
 accepted, which made Wotton "troubled and cautious." 
 However he writes : — 
 
 Next I told him that though the thing he proposed might, no doubt, 
 be done very justly (the parties standing in actual proclaimed rebellion), 
 yet it was somewhat questionable whether it might be done honourably, 
 
 ' Calendar of State Papers from Archive) of Venice. Vol. XI,— 193, 68 (1904), 
 w Jriih Calendar, Vol. II.-657 (1608-1610), (1904), 
 
THE TRIBAL OCCUPIEE AND StB JOHN DAVIS. 213 
 
 your majesty having not hitherto (for anght come to knowledge,) 
 proceeded to the open proscription of them to destruction abroad, 
 neither was it a course so familiar and frequent with us as in other 
 states. I was ready to speak forward when he interrupted me, 
 methought somewhat eagerly, saying that the gentleman who had sent 
 him knew not tante distintioni. The sum and substance was this that 
 if he might but be assured it would be well taken by your Majesty the 
 thing should be done. And then for his conscience that would do it 
 let his Majesty leave it to him (Sua Maj. lasci far a lui), just in the 
 style, as I must confess, of a fellow that were fit for the purpose. I 
 replied that since the point which he only or most required to know 
 was how acceptable it would be, I would take the liberty to tell him 
 mine own conceit that services of this kind unto princes were commonly 
 most obligatory ft.e. obliging), when done without their knowledge, I 
 understand you (Intendo vos, signoria) said he smilingly. I answered 
 that he might peradventure understand me so (too ?) far, and therefore 
 with his leave I would explain that what I had said I meant not 
 directly of your Majesty but of the general rules and affection of other 
 princes in like cases. 
 
 The stranger refused to give his name, but left a note which 
 Wotton received. It indicated : — 
 
 How he might hear from me addressing my letters to one in Mantua, 
 his friend, without any superscription. As for my part, 1 have left 
 him to the motions of his own will, and as your Majesty shall be 
 further pleased to command me I will proceed in it, 
 
 Venice, 24th of April, 1608. 
 
 Nothing further is known at present about this nefarious 
 business. No person was ever brought to trial for the alleged high 
 treason. The whole proceeding was, in fact, a lever de rideau for 
 the confiscation of the estates of the inhabitants in the various 
 countries of the six counties," and elsewhere, and for the pretence 
 that the inferior tenants had no estate at all in their holdings, 
 but were mere tenants-at-will or squatters. If they were free- 
 holders their freeholds would not be destroyed by the treason 
 of the lords of the countries. After the finding of the Bill the 
 plan of confiscation, eviction, and plantation was considered 
 and settled in all its parts, the king himself giving his gracious 
 attention to the distribution of the plunder in equitable pro- 
 portions between his Scotch and English subjects. The Deputy 
 and the Attorney-General were to receive large grants as a 
 matter of course. Davis got 5,500 acres, and Chichester the 
 whole barony of Inishowen, the town of Dungannon, and a 
 
 " The Six Counties were Armagh, Tyrone, Derry, Donegal, Fermanagh and 
 Cavao. 
 
244 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 vast tract of land near Belfast, the last-mentioned, though not 
 within the six counties, being, no doubt, confiscated land 
 They were duly appointed, with others, Commissioners of Plan- 
 tation for Ulster, Davis gives an account of their proceedings 
 in a letter dated Sept. 24th, 1610, which should be read in 
 conjunction with his letter printed above in italics to under- 
 stand rightly the iniquity of his proceedings : — 
 
 We began atCavan, where (as itfalleth out on all matters of import- 
 ance) we found the first access and entry into the business the most 
 difficult, for the inhabitants of this county bordering upon Meath, and 
 having many acquaintances and alliances with the gentlemen of the 
 English Pale, coiled themselves freeholders and pretended that they had 
 estates of inheritance in their lands, which their chief lords could not 
 forfeit by their attainder, whereas, in truth, they nerer had any estates 
 according to the rules of the common lau, hut only a scramhling and 
 transitory possession, as all other Irish natives within the kingdom. 
 When the proclamation was published touching their removal (which 
 was done in the Public Session House, the Lord Deputy and the Com- 
 missioners being present), a lawyer of the Pale, retained by the 
 inhabitants, endeavoured to maintain that they had estates of inherit- 
 tance, and in their name desired two things — first, that they might be 
 admitted to traverse the offices that had been found of those lords ; 
 secondly, that they might have the benefit of a proclamation made 
 about five years since whereby their persons, lands, and goods were 
 received into his Majesty's protection. To this, by my Lord Deputy's 
 commandment, I made answer that it was manifest that they had no 
 estate of inheritance, either in their chiefries or in their tenancies, for 
 the chiefry never descended to the eldest son of the chieftain, but thd 
 strongest of the sept ever entered into it ; neither had they any certain 
 estates in their tenancies, though they seemed to run in a course of 
 gavelkind, for the chief of the sept, once in two or three years, shuffled 
 and changed their possessions by making a new partition amongst them, 
 wherein the bastards had always their portions as well as the legitimate, 
 and therefore the custom hath been adjudged void inlaw by the opinion 
 of all the judges in the kingdom. Hereunto two other arguments were 
 added to prove that they had no estates of inheritance. One, that they 
 never esteemed lawful matrimony to the end that they might have 
 lawful heirs ; the other, that they never built any houses or planted 
 any orchards or gardens or took any care of their posterities, as they 
 would have done if they had had estates descendible to lawful heirs. 
 These reasons answered both their petitions, for if they had no estate 
 in law they could show no title, and without showing a title no man 
 may be admitted to traverse an office ; and, again, if they had no estate 
 in the land which they possessed, the proclamation which received 
 their lands into his -Majesty's protection does not give them any better 
 estate than they had before. Other arguments were used to show that 
 his Majesty might justly dispose of those lands, as he has now done, in 
 law, in conscience, and in honour, wherewith they seemed not unsatisfied 
 in reason though in passion they remained ill-contented, being grieved 
 
THE TEIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIB, JOHN DAVIS. 845 
 
 to leave their possessions to strangers which their septs had so long 
 after the Irish manner enjoyed. Howbeit, the Lord Deputy mixed 
 threats with entreaty, precibusque minas regaliter addit, and they 
 promised to give way to the undertakers. 
 
 Untruths, it is said, are serviceable and highly prized — 
 dans la haute politique^ On a lower plane, within the sphere 
 of domestic politics, we disbelieve utterly in the utility of the 
 mensonge utile. Official lying is at all times detestable, and 
 is at best but a sorry substitute for intelligent and capable 
 statesmanship. A day of reckoning comes sooner or later, 
 followed in inexorable sequence by stern retribution. And 
 surely fraud never comes in a more maddening guise than 
 when the forms of justice are prostituted by its ministers to 
 further unworthy policy and secure for themselves dishonour- 
 able gains. The delirium and deplorable massacre of 1641 was 
 the outcome of this deplorable chicanery.^ 
 
 " " If honesty will do, let us be honest ; if duplicity is necessary, let us be 
 rogues." — Frederic!: the Great. 
 
 " It would be a safe conjecture that the number of those slain in cold blood at 
 the beginning of the rebellion could hardly have much exceeded four or five 
 thousand, while about twice that number may have perished from ill-treatment. 
 Gairdner, Vol. X, '69. Leoky, VoL 11, 153. 
 
[ 246 3 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE LIA FAIL— THE STONE OF DESTINY. 
 
 AT the reception of the Faith the social organisation of Erin 
 was, as we have seen, in the trihal stage of evolution. The 
 line of Eremon had emerged from being primus inter pares, 
 and was then predominant. It held Tara and Ailech, ruled in 
 Connacht and in Leinster, and made alliance by marriage with 
 Munster and Little Ulster. Everything seemed to point to the 
 speedy fusion of the clans into a nation and the rise of a monarch 
 or an imperator. A statesman like Louis XL, or Bismarck, 
 would, undoubtedly, have effected the transformation. The 
 physical conditions were eminently favourable for the establish- 
 ment of a strong central government. The country was not 
 divided by mountain ranges or other natural barriers into 
 cantons, like Greece or Switzerland. Rivers, flowing south, 
 north, east, and west, diverged, as it were, from a central 
 point, and, unlike rivers, such as the Loire and the Rhone, 
 flowed with an easy current, in a full channel. This was the 
 result partly of the moderate elevation of the central plain (the 
 area between Dublin and Galway not exceeding a height of 250 
 feet above the level of the sea), and partly of the existence of 
 large areas of peat bogs and forests. These bogs acted as sponges, 
 retaining the rainfall and distributing it gradually into the 
 river beds, and prevented the excessive and disastrous floodings 
 to which other river basins, such as that of the Loire, were 
 subject. Nature had thus prepared safe and commodious high, 
 ways for internal communication. The coast was provided 
 with excellent harbours and landing places, which were, as we 
 have seen, frequented by traders and dealers from foreign 
 parts. During the first millennium of our era, according to 
 the best guess we can make, the population never exceeded 
 860,000, which we would distribute roughly, thus— 200,000 to 
 Munster, i.e., the two Munsters, 200,000 to Ulster, i.e., the two 
 Ulsters, and 150,000 each to Leinster, Meath, and Connacht.^ 
 
 ' The peat bogs occupy 1,772,460 acres, nearly one-ninth of the entire area of 
 the country. They are antiseptic, and, imlike the fens and morasses in other 
 landa, are not iDJurious to health, but rather the reverse, No malaria is found in 
 
THE LIA FAtL— THE STONE OF DESTINY. 247 
 
 Within this central plain stood two famous hills— Uisneach 
 and Tara. Uisneach was near the true centre of Erin, about 
 nine miles west of MuUingar. It was, according to the legends, 
 the oldest capital, if we may so call it. Afterwards Tara was 
 preferred, and was selected by the Gael for the residence of 
 the Ard-Bigh. 
 
 Tara stood on the summit of a grassy slope, 500 feet over 
 the sea level, 200 above the surrounding plain, 26 miles N.W. 
 of Dublin, and 5J miles S.E. of Navan, which is situated at the 
 confluence of the Blackwater and the Boyne. It was on this 
 hill that the high kings were inaugurated. In all the tribal 
 elections of importance in Erin an inauguration stone was in 
 common use. In other respects the ceremony varied in 
 details.* This custom prevailed commonly among the Nordic 
 nations. The kings of Sweden were inaugurated on the 
 "great stone," still seen on the grave of Odin, near Upsala. 
 " Seven stone seats for the emperor and his electors mark the 
 spot where the Lahn joins the Rhine at Lahnstein." The 
 Anglo-Saxon kings were crowned on the " King's Stone," near 
 the Thames. The Lord of the Isles was inaugurated on such 
 a stone. In Spenser's View of Ireland we find (p. 11) — 
 
 Eudox — Do they not use any ceremony at the election ? 
 
 Iren — They used to place him that shall be their captaine upon a 
 stone always reserved for that purpose, and placed commonly upon a hill, 
 on some of which I have seen formed and engraven a foot, which they say 
 was the measure of their first captaine's foot, whereon he, standing, 
 
 eonnectioD with them. As fuel they may become at some future time a valuable 
 national aaset. Beckoning them, however, for the present as wa»te lands, the 
 total of such in Ireland is less in proportion than the waste lands of Great Britain. 
 There is no reason to believe that at the time we speak of the forests prevented 
 intercommunication. Large clearances are described in our texts from the remotest 
 period. Fynes Moryson, who was Secretary to the Lord Deputy Mountjoy 
 (1599-1603) says in his description of Ireland : — " In time of peace the Irish 
 transport (export) good quantity of corn ; yet they may not transport it without 
 license lest upon any sudden rebellion the King's forces and his good subjects 
 should want corn. Ulster and the western parts of Muuster yield vast woods. 
 But I confess myself to have been deceived in the common fame that all Ireland is 
 woody, having found in ray long journey from Armagh to Kinsale few or no woods 
 by the way, excepting the great woods of OfFaly, and some low, shrubby places 
 which they call gleru. — History II., 370. 
 
 ' At the inauguration of the O'Dowda. — The privilege of first drinking at the 
 banquet was given by O'Dowda to O'Caemhain, and he was not to drink until he 
 first presented it to the/ie, i.e , MaoFirbis. The weapons, battle dress, and steed 
 of O'Dowda after his nomination were given to O'Caemhain, and the weapons and 
 battle dress of O'Caemhain to Mao Firbis. It was not lawful ever to nominate — 
 that is, proclaim — O'Dowda until O'Caemhain and Mao Firbis pronounced the 
 name and until Mao Firbis held the wand over the head of O'Dowda. After 
 O'Caemhain and Mac Firbis every cleric and coarb and every chief of a district 
 pronounced the name— O'Dowcfa. Hy Fiathra, 440. 
 
248 EAELY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 takes an oath to preserve all the anoint former customs of the country 
 inviolable and to deliver up the possession peaceably to his Tanist, 
 and then hath a wand delivered to him by some whose proper office 
 that is ; after which, descending from the stone, he tnrneth himself 
 round thrice forward and thrice backward.^ 
 
 The legendary foundation of the High Kingship is traced 
 back to the Firvolce. Slainge, the eldest brother, who took 
 possession of the country from the Boyne to the meeting of the 
 three rivers near Waterford, " was elected king over them by his 
 four brothers and the Firvolce in general." * It was this entry, 
 probably, that led Thierry to state that " there was in Erin a king 
 superior to all the rest, who was called the great king, or the 
 king of the country, and who was chosen by a general assembly 
 of the chiefs of the different provinces, but this elective president 
 of the national confederation swore to the whole nation the 
 same oath which the chiefs of the tribes swore to their respec- 
 tive tribes, that of inviolably observing the ancient laws and 
 hereditary customs." * 
 
 The statement that the Ard High was chosen by popular 
 election of some sort by the provincial kings and under-kings 
 and by the "estates of the realm" is found also in other 
 writers. Within the historic period, unfortunately, no such 
 mode of election is recorded in our texts. 
 
 From Laeghaire to Maelseachlann (429-1022) there were 
 thirty-nine high kings, all of whom, except Brian Boru, were 
 of the line of Eremon, and all, except OlioU Moll (a nephew) 
 were descendants of Niall of the Nine Hostages. Niall's son, 
 Crimthan, and his descendants number 16, Eogan and his 
 descendants 13, Conal and his descendants 7, Laeghaire 1, and 
 Cairbre 1 ® — total 38. How were these High Kings chosen ? 
 
 The succession to the High Kingship in Erin was not 
 hereditary, but selective. The Ard Bigh was chosen from the 
 royal stock, and the eligible candidates were styled rig-domna, 
 i.e., royal material. A successor was sometimes chosen in the life- 
 time of the reigning monarch. He was styled a Tanist (CAiiAirce) 
 = second, i.e.; next to succeed. The following genealogical 
 table, which we have compiled partly from one carefully pre- 
 pared with dates by M. D'Arbois, and partly from Beeves' 
 
 ' And see O'Donovan's Hy Fiackra, 458, for interesting details, and Beeves 
 Adamnan, 198. 
 
 * F. M., 3266 A.M. 
 
 * Norman Conquest, II., 123. 
 
 * A list of the High Kings, with dates, will be found in the Appendix. 
 
THE LIA FAIL— THE STONE OF DESTINY. 
 
 249 
 
 Adamnan, will be found useful in examining the course of 
 selective succession of the kings for two centuries, and also for 
 the pedigree and relationships of Saint Columba.' 
 
 in 
 
 a 
 "o 
 
 rj eo 
 
 2s2H 
 
 tt 'S 
 
 o § 
 o 
 
 o ja 
 
 CS ^ 
 
 _0 m 
 
 P4 
 
 3 
 
 § -I 
 
 s 5 " 
 
 o E-l <1 
 ft t3 
 
 H 
 
 g 3" S OS 
 
 fct ID 
 
 — Q— O- 
 
 o a> 
 
 .§'5 
 
 0) &0 
 
 2 o 
 
 eg >a 
 
 ^5! 
 
 is 
 
 -ao- 
 o 
 
 I 5."' =• 
 
 b3 OO 
 
 § CO 
 
 &2 
 
 -I a 
 
 gas 
 
 CQ ^ p 
 
 P=< ^ 00 
 
 O 2 s 
 
 o 
 
 O 
 P4 
 
 
 -5 S 'O 
 
 CQ ;^ O 
 
 a 
 
 5'5 
 H 
 
 An examination of this table of High Kings proves that 
 the succession was not hereditary, but selective from the royal 
 stock, and establishes, in our judgment, that where the 
 ' Eev. Celt. XXII., p. 364, and Reeves' Adamnan, 251. 
 
250 EAELX IBIsa HISTORY. 
 
 succession was peaceable, after the time of Niall of the Nine 
 Hostages, the selection was made by the tribesmen, who are 
 commonly referred to as the Ui Neill. There is no trace of 
 federal election. The man who became chieftain of the 
 Ui Neill took possession of Tara and the hostages, and the 
 provincial kings had to submit to his authority. This was 
 when the succession was peaceable. When there were rival 
 candidates in the field the provincial kings had a very effective 
 voice in the selection by joining forces with one or other of the 
 rivals. But, as we have seen, up till the time of Brian Boru, 
 no man outside the royal stock of the Ui Neill succeeded 
 in reaching the High Kingship. " Maelseachlan ( + 1022) was the 
 last King of Ireland of Irish blood that had a crown ; yet there 
 were seven kings after without crown before the coming in of 
 the English." These were Righ-go-fresabhraidh, i.e., kings with 
 opposition, or, rather, under protest. " They were reputed to be 
 absolute monarchies in this manner : If he were of Leah Cuin, 
 or Con's half e in Deale (i.e., in quantity, or extent), and had one 
 province of Leahmoye, or Moah's halfe in Deale at his com- 
 mand, he was counted to be of sufficient power to be King of 
 Taragh, or Ireland ; but if the party were of Leahmoye, if he 
 could not command all Leahmoye and Taragh with the loppe 
 (i.e., the belt of country) hereunto belonging, and the province 
 of Ulster or Connaught (if not both) he would not be sufficient 
 to be king of all. Dermot McMoylenemoe could command, 
 Leahmoye, Meath, and Connaught and Ulster, therefore by the 
 judgment of all he was reputed sufficient monarch of the 
 whole."* These are the observations, in all probability, of 
 MacGeoghan himself, and not of the annalist, and must 
 be understood to apply only to the period of the High Kings 
 " with opposition," out of which, under favourable circum- 
 stances, a central hereditary monarchy would, probably, have 
 finally emerged. 
 
 We shall now examine the table of kings in some 
 detail. Eocaid Muighmedoin left eight sons, who had issue, 
 who became divided into the Northern Ui Neill (Eogan, Conall 
 Cairbre, and Enda Find) ; and the Southern Ui Neill (Laeghaire, 
 Crimthann, Fiachra, and Maine).* On the death of Crimthann, 
 
 ' Murphy, S. J., Annals of Clonmacnoite, 176 and 171. 
 
 • Eooaid waa, as already stated, suooeeded by his brother-in-la'W, Crimthann, 
 son of Fidaob, of the royal family of Munster. 
 
 \ 
 
THE LIA FAIL— tHE STONE OF DESTINY. 251 
 
 Niall, though the youngest son of Eocaid, and not born of the 
 "one wife," but of a Saxon woman, succeeded peaceably. 
 There is no mention of a feis or convention of provincial kings 
 at the time, and it may, we think, be assumed that the election 
 was by the Clanna Neill alonOi He was succeeded peaceably 
 by Dathi, son of his uncle, Fiachra. Again, there is no mention 
 of any feia or convention. He was succeeded peaceably by 
 Laeghaire. There was no feis or convention then, but in the 2&th 
 year of his reign Laeghaire celebrated the feis at Tara. He 
 was succeeded peaceably by OlioU Moll, a son of Dathi. There 
 was no feis or convention then, but OlioU held afterwards one, 
 or, some say two, celebrations of the feis at Tara. After he 
 had reigned twenty years Lugaid, the son of Laeghaire, claimed 
 the throne, and formed a league with Fergus Cearbheal, son of 
 Conal Crimthann, of the Northern Ui Neill, Muirchertach Mor 
 Mac Erca, son of Muiredach, son of Eogan, of the Northern 
 Ui Neill, and with Fiachra, son of the king of Dal-Aradia.^" 
 
 A fierce battle was fought (478 A.D.) at Ocha, in Meath. 
 OlioU was defeated and slain, and the supremacy of the Ui 
 Neill was firmly established.^^ The King of Dal-Aradia was 
 rewarded with territories on the east and the west of the River 
 Bann. Lugaid then mounted the throne, and, after a reign of 
 twenty -five years, was killed by lightning. He was succeeded 
 peaceably by Muirchertach Mor Mac Erca, the grandson of 
 Eogan. After a reign of twenty-four years Muirchertach was 
 assassinated by Sen, daughter of Sighe, in revenge for her 
 father, whom he had slain. 
 
 He was succeeded peaceably by Tuathal Maelgarbh, grandson 
 of Cairbre, son of Niall. In his reign was fought the battle of 
 Sligo (537) by Fergus and Domhnall, the sons of Muirchertach, 
 and by Ainmire, the son of Sedna, and Anmidh, the son of 
 Duaoh, and the Northern Ui Neill, against the Hy Fiachrach, 
 in which the latter were routed, and Eogan Bel, who had been 
 
 "• Ann. Ulst., F.M., A.D, 478, who add that Crimthann, King of Leinster, 
 joined the League. 
 
 " The battle of Eiblin gained by Muirchertach, son of Ere, the battle of 
 Magh Ailbe (Kildare) gained over Leinster, and the battle of Aidne over Connact, 
 and the battles of Alinhain and Cenneaoh over Leinster, and the plundering of 
 Clia (Idrone Carlow) Tigernach. 
 
 bo be^ic siAttA UA tleitt tA jiiittA tnoije momAti CeAtiti eActA'o. 
 
 He bore away the hostages of the Hy Neill and the hostages of the Plains of 
 Monster. 
 
252 EAELY IRISH HISTOBX. 
 
 King of Connact for thirty-five years, was slain.^^ fpjjg victors 
 in this battle were the warriors whom St. Columba is said by 
 some, erroneously, as we hope to show, to have incited to fight the 
 battle of Cul Dreimhne, a few miles north of Sligo, in 555. 
 Fergus and Domhnall succeeded to the throne in 558 A,D. The 
 battles of Ocha and Sligo were disastrous events, from a 
 political point of view — victories gained by the Ui Neill over 
 their near kinsmen of Connact, cutting off vigorous and 
 spreading branches from the parent stock, dividing the race 
 of Eremon into hostile camps and placing grave if not insur- 
 mountable difficulties in the way of fusing the Gael into a 
 nation. 
 
 In addition to the tribal vote there was, in Pagan times, an 
 electoral voice of decisive weight heard at the inauguration of 
 the new king. We refer, of course, to the famous Lia Fail or 
 Stone of Destiny. 
 
 According to the legend the Dedannans brought with them to 
 Erin the sword and spear of Lug, the cauldron of the Dagda, 
 and — most precious of all the treasures — the Enchanted Stone of 
 the Sun, the Lia Fail}^ Hence the island was in after times 
 called Innis Fail. The stone used to shout under the King of 
 Erin, saith the old duan quoted by Keating, i.e., if he was the 
 rightful king. It was prophesied that the Scots should hold 
 sway wherever the stone should be found : 
 
 Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocumque locorum 
 Invenient lapidem regnare tenentur ibidem. 
 
 What has become of the Stone of Destiny ? One tradition is 
 that it was taken to Scotland, that the Gaelic King there might 
 be inaugurated upon it. The time of its removal cannot be 
 exactly fixed. It was certainly after the death of Diarmaid 
 mac Cerbhael, who died in 565 A.D. The view in the Ogygia, 
 (p. 45), therefore seems plausible — that it was sent by Aedh 
 Finliath, Ard-righ (861 to 877), to his father-in-law, Kenneth 
 mac Alpin, when he defeated the Ficts, A.D. 844.^^ He was 
 
 " Tuathal was assassinated (538) and peaceably succeeded by Diarmaid, son 
 of Cerrbeoil, son of Crimthann, son of Niall. The assassin, Maelmor, was the son 
 of the mother of Diarmaid. (Tigernach.) 
 
 " Ddmeru III., 1 160 — " There can be no doubt Fal was a sun-god." 
 
 " Flann of the monastery, if e cec ^115 •po^'!'^ J"5e 5coiiiT)e T)e SAetjettft. 
 
 In the seventh year of his reign Kenneth is said in the Scottish chronide to 
 have transferred relics of St. Columba to a church he had built near Scone. This 
 was probably the final canning out of the arrangement by which the supremacy of 
 lona was transferred in Erin to Kells, and in Scotland to Dunkeld. — Skene, I., 310. 
 
THE LIA FAIL— THE STONE OF DESTINY. 253 
 
 the King of the Dal-riada of Alba, and after his victory united 
 the territory of the Picts to his own, and marching to Scone, 
 near Perth, was inaugurated there as the King " who possessed 
 the kingdom of Scone of the Gael.'' 
 
 There is at this day (O'FIaherty writes) in the royal throne at 
 Westminster a stone called Jacob's Stone. On this the kings of Ireland 
 formerly took the omens of their investiture. There is an old tradition 
 that it was called " fatal," because the princes used to try their fate on 
 it. If it would make a noise under the king who sat on it, it was an 
 infallible sign of his accession ; if it was silent, it excluded him from any 
 hope. Since the Incarnation of our blessed Lord it has produced no 
 such oracle ; and you can see in Eusebius' Book the delusive oracles that 
 were silenced. The time that it came to the Soots of Britain from Erin 
 cannot be ascertained ; but if I may be allowed to conjecture, it was in 
 the time of Kenneth, who conquered and subjected to the empire of the 
 Scots the Fictish nation, and deposited that stone in the abbey at Scone, 
 in the country of the Picts, when he transferred his palace, and it very 
 probably was transmitted by Aed Finliath, the son-in-law of Kenneth, 
 who was afterwards King of Ireland, as an auspicious omen.'^ 
 
 There is no reason to think that any of the northern Ui 
 Neill went to Tara to be inaugurated after the time of Diar- 
 maid, nor is there any evidence, so far as we are aware, that 
 the stone was ever taken to Aileach for the coronation, and it 
 would, we think, have been good policy on the part of the 
 northern branch to disfranchise this supposititious elector 
 altogether by sending him to reside permanently at Scone. 
 Many, however, including Petrie, thought that the Stone of 
 Destiny remained in Ireland, and was still in Tara of the Kings. 
 He thought the pillar stone known as the Bod Ferguia was 
 the Lia Fail. 18 
 
 He relied mainly as his strongest proof on a poem by Kinetb 
 O'Hartigan, 985 A.D., who says : — 
 
 The stone on which are my two heels 
 From it is called Inis Fail. 
 
 It was at the side of the Mound of the Hostages that the celebrated 
 
 » Ogygia (Hely), 67. 
 
 " The following passage, an "inaet" is found in the Irish Abridgment of the 
 " Expugnatio Hibernlse," translated from a fragment of a fifteenth century vellum 
 by Whitley Stokes. Eng. Hist. Rev., vol. xx., par. 571. 
 
 The King (H.II.), left Ireland and went to the city of St. David, and there 
 happened to be on the north side of the church a stone, called the speaking stone, 
 like unto the Lia Pail which is in Tara, 10 feet in length, 7 in breadth, and 1 foot 
 in thickness. A dead body was brought to the stone and it spoke thereunder, and 
 then it clove asunder, and that cleft is to be seen there still. Merlin prophesied 
 that it should speak under him who should be king of Ireland. The king went to 
 (t, bat it did not speak under him, and he was displeased, and was accusingf 
 Merlin. 
 
254 EAELX IRISH HISTOBt. 
 
 coronation stone called the Lia Fail was located at the time of the 
 writers already referred to, and it remained in the same situation till 
 some years after 1798, when it was removed to its present position in 
 the rath called Forradh to mark the grave of the rebels slain at Tara 
 in that year. The Lia Fail is spoken of not only by those authoiities 
 but by all the ancient Irish writers, in such a manner as to leave no 
 doubt that it remained in its original situation at the time that they 
 wrote. 
 
 But other texts which are decisive the other way have since 
 been found, e.g., " It was the Tuatha Di Danan brought with 
 them the great p^t, that is the Stone of Knowledge that was 
 (in tiA pu bA pii) jrif 1 CionfAig, from which Magh Fal is, {i.e., 
 called) on Erin." Book of Leinster, page 9, col. a, line 13. 
 
 And, again, in the " Talk with the Old Men." " This, then, 
 and the t,iA ^aiI, that was there were the two Wonders of Tara. 
 And Diarmait Mac Cerbheoil asks who was it that lifted that 
 flag, or carried it away out of Erin ? " Answer, " It was a 
 young hero of great spirit who ruled over " — What followed is, 
 unfortunately, wanting in all the MS." 
 
 T. 0. Russell has some pertinent and very judicious remarks 
 on Petrie's views in his interesting notice of Tara : — 
 
 Another strong objection against the pillar-stone in Tara being the 
 Lda Fail is its shape. The real Lia Fail was intended to be stood upon 
 by the chief King at his inauguration ; but the most flat-footed monarch 
 that ever ruled Ireland would have considerable difficulty in standing 
 steadily on the Coirthe in Tara, even if it were prostrate, for it is round 
 and not flat. Judging from its height above the ground it cannot be 
 much less than eight feet in length. Lia is always applied to a flag- 
 stone, both in ancient and modern Gaelic. The stone under the coro- 
 nation seat at Westminster is a real lia or flag-stone ; the stone in Tara 
 is a Coirthe or pillar-stone.'* 
 
 The Lia Fail enclosed in the Coronation Chair at West- 
 minster is of an oblong form, but irregular, measuring twenty- 
 eix inches in length, six three-quarter inches in breadth, and 
 ten and a half inches in thickness.^* 
 
 The ancient distich : 
 
 Ni fallat fatum Scoti quoquncque locorum 
 Invenient lapidem regnare tenentur ibidem, 
 
 is said to have been cut or engraven on the stone by command of 
 Kenneth MacAlpin, but no trace of an inscription can be 
 
 " Iriihe Texte, vol. 4, p. xiii, nnd p. 224 (Stokes' Aoadamh na Senorach) 
 Silva Oaedelica, S. H. O' Grady, vol. ii., p. 264. 
 " Antiquities of Ireland. 
 » We take these partioulara from Neale's Watmimter Alley, p. 79. 
 
THE LIA FAIL— THE STONE OF DESTINY. 255 
 
 found. If the verses were really engraved by King Kenneth's 
 order, it is most likely to have been done either on the wooden 
 chair, wherein he originally had the stone enclosed (but not any 
 remains of which are known to be preserved), or, as is more 
 probable, on a metal plate fastened to the upper surface of the 
 stone ; in which there is a rectangular groove or indent, mea- 
 suring fourteen inches by nine inches, and from one-eighth to 
 one-fourth of an inch in depth, as if purposely cut or roughly 
 chiselled out for the fixing of the edge of such plate, either 
 with cement or melted lead. There is likewise at one corner 
 a small cross + slightly cut. It has at each end a circular iron 
 handle affixed to the stone itself, so that it may be lifted up. 
 
 The Coronation Stone was examined in 1865 by Professor 
 Ramsey, Director of the Geological Survey of England, and a 
 small portion of it chemically tested at his request. His report 
 will be found in the second edition (1868) of Stanley's Memo- 
 rials of Westminster Abbey, p. 564. The efieot of his report, 
 which is too long to be given here, is that it came from some 
 old red sandstone formation, such as is to be found at Scone 
 and at DunstafFnage, " but," he adds, " as there are plenty of 
 red sand stones in Ireland (from which it is said to have been 
 brought), it may be possible to prove precisely its origin," We 
 think the fact of the local stone being old red stone is against 
 the claim of Scone and Dunstaffnage. The maxim " ignotum 
 pro mirifico," applies to stone as well as to other things. 
 
 A prophetic sandstone setting up to be able to discriminate 
 between a true and a false king would have no honour in a 
 country of such stones. The local stone at Tara is limestone, 
 and an enchanted stone, coming from a far-away land, as the 
 tradition ran, was bound to be something quite difi'erent. 
 
 Red sandstone is found in many regions ; it is plentiful in 
 the north of Spain, for instance, and if the Lia Fail had 
 acquired a reputation there before the sons of the Soldier 
 Golam left for Erin, they most likely carried it with them,** 
 
 ^ Robertson, J., wrote a letter to Dean Stanley on the subject of the Corona- 
 tion Stone, which is printed in the second edition of his Memorials, p. 667. The 
 Dean refers to it as an " additional proof of the extraordinary fulness and 
 accuracy with which he metevery question relating to Scottish history." Robertson 
 points out, as against the view that the lAa Fail was brought to Alba by Fergus 
 Mao Ere about 500 A.D., (1) that in the account of the inauguration of his successor 
 Aidan (A.D. 57i) the stone does not appear. The coronation was by Columba at 
 lona, and the aoeomit by his successor Cummin the Fair ; (2) that Adamnan 
 (Abbot, 679-704) gives an account of another coronation in which the atone is not 
 mentioned (Reeves, p. 233). He suggests that the Coronation Stone was the pillow 
 
256 EARLY IRISH HISTOBX. 
 
 There is no suggestion in Gaelic tradition that the enchanted 
 stone disappeared in any other way, and there is no suggestion 
 in the traditions of Alba that the stone was acquired in any 
 other way. The tradition running with the custody of the 
 stone in Alba, varying and inconsistent in detail, as is the way 
 with such evidence, is uniform in this, that the stone was 
 brought by the Gael from Erin to Alba and was finally placed 
 at Scone by Kenneth MacAlpin. Baldred Bisset (1301, the 
 earliest notice), Fordun, the Chronicon Kythmicum, Wyntoun, 
 Scotiohronicon, Blaud, Harvey, Bocce, all agree in this, and 
 Skene, who mad.e the Coronation Stone the subject of a special 
 treatise, does not quote a single statement from any writer to 
 the eflFect that the stone came from any other place. He 
 relies on the discrepancies in detail, on the mythical character 
 of the " early wanderings " of the stone with the Gael, and on 
 the silence of some authors about it. For instance, he says 
 neither Cummin the White nor Adamnan say anything about 
 it when Columba " ordained " Aidan ; throughout the whole 
 description of the ordination there is not a single word about 
 the Lia Fail. But why should there be ? The ordination by 
 Columba was not an " inauguration but a spiritual act." " In 
 the words of ordination," writes Adamnan, " he prophesied the 
 future for sons, grandsons, and great grandsons, and placing 
 his (i.e., Columba's) hand on his head, ordaining, blessed him."^ 
 
 of St, Columba, A flagstone would not be suited for even a penitential pillow. 
 VS^e may be sure Columba's pillow was round, like the wooden pillows com monly 
 used up till Tudor times. 
 
 " Martene thought — we may humbly add our view (though Bishop Beeves 
 thought otherwise) that Martene thought rightly — that the mode of ordination was 
 prescribed in the " liber vitreus " presented to Columba by the angel. — Reeves' 
 Adamnan, 198. 
 
 The earliest notice we have, writes Bishop Reeves, of ecclesiastical interference 
 in the confirmation of royalty in Ireland is found in the Annals of Ulster, A.D. 
 992, where it is recorded that the ooarb of St. Patrick, 110 eftet sttA* mj po^i Ao-o 
 rriAC "OothtiAitt 1 pi aonice SAitiCA Pac|14ic (conferred the order of kingship on 
 Aedh, the son of Domnall, in presence of the congregation of Patrick). 'This, 
 however, was only the case of a provincial kingdom, probably the commencement 
 of the practice. — Adamnan, 199. 
 
 Martene adds — " Sed in ^dani benediotione illud singulare ocourrit quod 
 non ab episcopo sed ab abbate fuerit ordinatus," — De Antiq, Eccles. II. 10. 
 
[ 257 3 
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 CTJILDBEIMHNE AND THE DESERTION OF TABA. 
 
 T^HE Northern Ui Neill having succeeded in vanquishing 
 ■*■ their Connact kinsmen at the battle of Ocha (487), soon 
 after entered upon a struggle with the Southern branch. 
 A brief account of the conflicts during this period is necessary 
 in order to explain the true cause of the desertion of Tara, and, 
 incidentally, the true cause of the battle of Cuildreimhne. 
 
 In 504 A.D. (499 F.M.) Muirohertach Mac Erca and the Northern 
 Ui Neill defeated Duach Teangumha, King of Connact, at the battle of 
 the Curlieu Hills. Duach had taken his brother Eocaid Tirmcharna 
 prisoner against the guarantee and protection of Muirchertaoh, and this 
 was the cause of this battle and two others against the Connact men. 
 A certain woman caused it — Duiseach, the daughter of Duach, and wife 
 of Muirohertach. She incited her husband to fight her father, because 
 ho had made a prisoner of her foster-father Eocaid against her husband's 
 guarantee. 
 
 In 567 Baedan was slain in the battle of Leim-an-eich by Comain, 
 the son of Coleman Beg, the son of Diarmaid, and Comain his cousin. 
 At the instance of Coleman Beg they did the deed. 
 
 In 572 Aedh, son of Ainmire, fought the battle of Bealach-Feadha, 
 in which fell Coleman Beg. 
 
 In 579 he fought the battle of Druim Mic Earca against the Cinel- 
 Eogan, in which fell Colga, son of Domnall, the Ard Righ. 
 
 Aedh Slaine, son of Diarmaid, in 596 killed his nephew, Suibhne, 
 the son of Coleman Beg, though forewarned by Columba not to be 
 guilty of the "parracida." Aedh was slain by Suibhne, son of Conall, 
 in A.D. 600. 
 
 In 597 Coleman Rimedh, joint king with Aedh Slaine, defeated 
 Conall Cu, the son of Aedh, son of Ainmire, at Sleamhain in Meath.^ 
 
 The battle of Sligo (543) was fought and won by the Northern Ui 
 Neill and their allies over the men of Connact, and Eogau Bel was 
 slain. 
 
 In 559 Fergus and Domnall, the sons of Muirohertach, and the 
 Cinel-Eogain slew his successor, Olioll ludbanu, at the battle of Cuil 
 Conaire in Mayo. 
 
 In 561 was fought the celebrated battle of Cuildreimhne (Cool- 
 drevna), a few miles north of Sligo, in which the Northern Ui NeUl 
 routed the Southern Ui Neill. 
 
 A perusal of this formidable list ia sufficient to prove that 
 it is not necessary to look outside the perpetual hostility that 
 raged between the Northern and Southern Ui NeiU for the 
 
 • Adamnan, p. 14. — Reeves, 
 
 S 
 
253 £ABLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 causes of the battle of Cuildreimhne. However, it so happened 
 that about this time St. Columba set out for the evange- 
 lization of thePicts, and a popular legend has connected his name 
 with the battle, and assigned his share in bringing it about as 
 the cause of his leaving Erin. The Four Masters have the 
 following entry at 555. The true date is 561 A.D. : — 
 
 The battle of Cuildreimhne was gained against Diarmaid, son of 
 Cearball (Southern Ui Neill), by Fergus and Domnall, the two sons of 
 Muirchertaeh, son of Eroa,' by Ainmire, the son of Sedna, and by 
 Ninnidh, the son of Duach, and by Aedh, the son of Eocaid Tirm- 
 chama, King of Connact. It was in revenge for the killing of Cuman, 
 son of Aedh, son of Tirmcharna, while under the protection of Colum- 
 cille, that the Clanna-Neill of the North and the Connact men gave this 
 battle of Cuildreimhne to King Diarmaid ; and also on account of the 
 sentence which Diarmaid passed against Colum-cille about a book of 
 Finnen, when they left it to the award of Diarmaid, who pronounced 
 the celebrated decision — " To every cow belongs its calf," etc. 
 
 Columba was also in after times accused of having caused 
 two other battles, the battle of Culrathain, by his contention 
 with Comgall for a church near Boss Torathair, and the battle 
 of Cuil Feadha against Colman, the son of King Diarmaid, in 
 revenge for his having been outraged in the case of Baedan, 
 the son of Ninnidh, King of Erin, who was killed by Colman at 
 Leim-an-eich, in violation of the protection (coimeipge) of 
 Columcille.' A legend was put in circulation in after time 
 that it was as a penance for these misdeeds, either voluntary, or 
 imposed by St. Molaise, of Devenish, that St. Columba went 
 into exile to lona, and carried the Gospel to the Picts, " to win," 
 said St. Molaise, " as many souls for Christ as had been lost in 
 these battles." As regards the two last mentioned battles. Bishop 
 Reeves has proved that they took place after his departure for 
 [ona — one as long as twenty-four years afterwards. He 
 suggests, it is true, a possible transposition of dates ; but this 
 appears to us too conjectural. We shall therefore confine our 
 attention to Cuildreimhne. The Annals of Ulster and Tiger- 
 nach, giving no details, state that the battle was won through 
 the prayer of Columba — per orationem Columcille. The so- 
 called prayer (the Four Masters do not call it a prayer) is given 
 by them and by Tigernach. It represents Columba as being 
 seemingly an on-looker at the battle, and saying or praying :— 
 
 ^ See genealogical table at p. 169. 
 
 ' See Beeves' Adamnan, 247, for full details. 
 
CUILDBEIMHNE AND THE DESERTION OF TARA. 259 
 
 " O God, why keepest Thou not the mist off from us, if per- 
 chance we may reckon the number of the host, (the mist) that 
 deprives us of judgment. The host that marches round a cairn. 
 'Tis a son of the storm that betrays them (i.e., the Southern Ui 
 Neill.) He is my Druid who denies me not. The Son of God 
 It is who will work with me. Beautiful it makes the onset, 
 Baetan's^ steed before the host, it seems good to Baetan of the 
 yellow hair ; it will bear its burden upon it." 
 
 There is not much devotional fervour in this so-called 
 prayer, and if it was the only help Columba gave, he got credit 
 for the victory very easily. This is the poetry of the battle. 
 The prose, which we now proceed to give from Tigernach, is 
 more reliable. " FraechS,n, the son of Teniusan, 'tis he that 
 made the ' Druid's fence ' for Diarmaid. Tuat^n, the son of 
 Dimman, son of Sarkn, son of Cormac, son of Eogan, 'tis he that 
 overturned the 'Druid's fence.' Maglamde went across it, 
 and he alone was slain." So far Tigernach. The Four Masters 
 add : — " Three thousand was the number that fell of Diarmaid's 
 people. One man only fell on the other side, Maglaim was his 
 name, for it was he that passed beyond the Druid's fence (Gjibe 
 n-'DptiAt))." * We suppose this means that he went across the 
 Druid's fence into the mist, and was slain. The honours of the 
 day clearly rested with the wizard, Tuatan, the son of Dimman. 
 
 Another cause assigned for Columba's rousing his kinsmen 
 to fight at Cuildreimhne was that his protection had been 
 violated by King Diarmaid. Curnan, son of Aedh, King of 
 Connact, attended the Feis of Tara in 560, and was guilty of 
 homicide within the precinct. He fled. Keating, following the 
 account in the " Aedpd Diarmata," says he fled to the protection 
 of the sons of Muirchertach MacErca, i.e., Domhnall and Fergus, 
 and to the protection of Columba. Tigernach says nothing of 
 the protection of Fergus and Domhnall, but simply records 
 
 * Baetan was the third son of Muirchertach Mor mac Eroa, and afterwards 
 became Ard Bigh. And the above appears to us to be an extiaot from a praise 
 poem on him after he became, and whilst he was, Ard Righ. Columba is supposed 
 to be looking on, and says the son of the wind betrays them by blowing away 
 the mist, betraying the men who go round the cairn. The words in brackets are 
 ours. . The words " the host " in the third line should, we suggest, be " the mist." 
 We offer this view, of course, with great diffidence. For praise poem see 
 Annali »f Vlater, A.D. 562. , ^^ 
 
 'Tigemaah, Bev. Cdt.xvu.,144:. O'Donovan, and also Hennessy and Todd, miss 
 the correct translation of CuAtATi A fe iio tA in-o einbe n-unoA* xiA-p A ceiiTj. It 
 means overturned. So Stokes and Windisoh sub TOM. O'Donovan has " plaeed the 
 Erbe Druadh over his (i.e., Diarmaid's) head." Hennessy is equally at fault. He 
 translates, "Tuathau it waa th it threw overhead th« Druid's Erbe."— 4»»n. UUt. 
 
260 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 the " death of Curnan, son of Aedh, son of Tirmcharna, by 
 Diarmait, son of Cerball, while under Colm-Cille's protection 
 Afi CotriAince) ; and this is one of the causes of the battle of 
 Cuildreimhne."* The Four Masters say Carnan was put to 
 death in violation of the guarantee and protection of Columba 
 (Uaji flAtiAiti T cottiAipse Cotuim CiUe.) The words " violation 
 of protection " appear to be used in two senses. Firstly, they 
 mean the violation of an express guarantee, e.g., when Fergus 
 MacRoigh gave a guarantee to Naoise that Concobar would 
 keep his promise not to injure him, etc. And, secondly, they 
 appear to be used to mean the violation of a right of sanctuary 
 where there has been no agreement express or implied. 
 Tigernach appears to refer to this right of sanctuary, but the 
 Four Masters, seeing, perhaps, the diflSculty of sustaining an 
 ambulatory right of sanctuary — a right not attached to a par- 
 ticular place, but to the person of the protector — add that 
 Columba had given a guarantee of safe conduct to Curnan. 
 Why I We are not aware of any ecclesiastical authority to 
 sustain the existence of an ambulatory right of sanctuary. So 
 far as we know the right of asylum in pagan times and the 
 right of sanctuary in Christian times was always attached 
 to some church, shrine, enclosure, or place. 
 
 The innocence of Columba, it is further stated, was attested 
 by a miracle. This, as - Adamnan tells us, occurred at a synod 
 which was held at Tailtin — in the year after the battle 
 according to the generally received view. 
 
 For, after the lapse of many seasons, when St. Columba was 
 excommunicated by a certain synod for some venial, and so far ex- 
 cusable matters, not rightly, as afterwards became clear, at the last he 
 came to the same assembly that had been gathered against himself. 
 And when St. Brendan, of Birr, saw him approaching he quickly rose 
 and, with face bowed down, reverently kissed him. The seniors 
 remonstrated, and asked why he did not decline to rise before, and 
 kiss an excommunicated person. " I have seen," said Brendan, " a very 
 luminous column of fiery hair going before the man of God whom ye 
 despise, and also holy angels the companions of his walk through the 
 field. Therefore I dare not slight this man, whom I see to be fore- 
 ordained by God to be the leader of the people unto life." When he 
 had thus spoken, not only did they desist, but they even honoured him 
 with great veneration, This thing was done at Tailte (Tailtin).^ 
 
 • Keating, Text and Translation, Beeves' Adavman, 248. Sev. Celt, 17, 141. 
 '> Adamnan, III. c. 3., abridged. 
 
CUILDHEIMHNE AND THE DESERTION OF TAHA. 261 
 
 There was thus, in fact, no sentence of excommunication 
 fulminated at all. Assuming that at first the synod held 
 Columba guilty of bellicose irregularities, which Adamnan and 
 every cleric of his time would consider venial enough, at the 
 same sitting, on further reconsideration, they returned a verdict 
 of acquittal, which we see no reason for disturbing. The 
 action of the synod, based, as no doubt it was, on the personal 
 protestation of St. Columba, ought to have set the matter at 
 rest for ever, especially as the Northern Ui Neill did not, 
 either before or afterwards, require any ecclesiastical stimulus 
 to set them moving on the war-path against their southern 
 kinsmen. This view is supported by Columba's action at the 
 celebrated Convention of Drumceat, as to which there is no 
 dispute. It took place in 675. The precise spot where the 
 assembly was held is the long mound in Roe Park, near 
 Limavady, called the Mullagh and sometimes Daisy Hill. It 
 was held there, partly for the convenience of King Aedh, but 
 more especially because it was the patrimonial territory of his 
 family.* Sedna, the grandfather of Aedh, and Feidilim, were 
 brothers, being sons of Conall Gulban, so Columba came there 
 as a peace-maker, not to provoke but to prevent fratricidal 
 war between the Gael of Erin and their brethren and kinsmen 
 in Alba. As early as the third century, according to our texts, 
 there was a settlement of the Gael in Alba under Cairbre 
 Riada, son of Conaire, son of Mogh Lamha of Munster. A 
 great famine came upon Munster, and Cairbre led a party of 
 his tribe to the north of Antrim and another to Alba, where, 
 Bede tells us, by agreement or force of arms they obtained a 
 settlement amongst the Picts, and were called, from their 
 leader, Dalriadini, i.e., Dalriada. Three centuries afterwards 
 this colony was reinforced or absorbed by a fresh immigration 
 of the Gael under the sons of Ere — Fergus, /Engus, and Loarn — 
 who took possession of a large territory there. Fergus Mac Ere 
 became their chieftain. From this Fergus, antiquaries assure 
 us, descended the royal line of Scotland and the English 
 monarchs from the time of James the First. In 574 Aidan, 
 the son of Gabhran, succeeded to the lordship (coi\edC) of the 
 Gael of Alba, or, as it came to be styled. Little Scotia, and, as 
 we have stated, was " ordained " by Columba when he took 
 
 ' fieeves' Adamnan, 37. 
 
262 EABLY IRISH HISTOET. 
 
 the title of king. At this ceremony Columba admonished him 
 by " prophecy " never unrighteously to go against the kindred 
 in Erin.9 
 
 Aidan, instead of remaining the chieftain of a dependent 
 colony, now claimed to be an independent sovereign, while 
 the High King of Erin appears to have demanded tribute, and 
 possibly hostages, from him. This was the principal cause 
 which induced Columba to go to the Convention at Drumceat 
 
 That Congress had three aims in view, 
 His crown from Scanlan Mor to wrest^ 
 On Riada's tribes a rent to place 
 From Erin's land her bards to drive. 
 
 The bards were in danger, it is said, of expulsion from Erin 
 on three occasions. Their " pot of covetousness " (coiiie r^tici) 
 had made them odious to the people. Their demands were exor- 
 bitant, and their numbers excessive. On two previous occasions 
 they had escaped through the favour and support of the Northern 
 Qi Neill, and, on this occasion, they found an advocate in 
 Columba the Peacemaker, and were " reformed." Their num- 
 bers were reduced, and certain lands were assigned to them in 
 various quarters, in return for which they were required to 
 open schools, and teach gratuitously. The particulars of this 
 reform are given in detail by Keating, and in the introduction to 
 the Amhra of Columcille. The bardic schools then established 
 ilourished, with scarcely a break, down to the 17th century. 
 
 The Scanlan referred to was lord of Ossory, and was held in 
 bonds by Aedh for refusing to pay the customary tribute (there 
 are, as usual, variants of the story). He was released through 
 the interference of Columba. The territory of Ossory was co- 
 extensive with the present diocese ;" it stretched from Sliere- 
 bloom to the meeting of the three waters, near Waterford, 
 According to the Book of Rights, the chieftain of Ossory was 
 entitled to receive from the Ard-Righ a gift (cuApAf CAit) of 
 thirty steeds, thirty coats of mail, and forty swords. This free 
 gift, we assume, was in the nature of a " retainer," and repre- 
 
 ' " The service rendered by Columba on thia oooasion was productive of 
 reciprocal advantage, for while it conferred the sanction of religion on the question- 
 able title of Aidan it secured to the Abbot of Hy a prescriptive supremaoy in the 
 politioo-religiouB administration of Dalriada."— Keevea' Adamnan, 198. 
 
CUILDBEIMHNE AND THE DESERTION OF TAEA. 263 
 
 sented the primitive gift of cows, which formed the bond between 
 over and under lordships. The Book of Rights states that 
 when the King of Cashel was not Ard-Righ no tribute was due 
 to him from Ossory. When the King of Cashel was Ard-Righ 
 it states, he was entitled (1) to rents (c^t»4) or tributes from 
 specified territories in Tipperary, Kerry, Clare, and Waterford. 
 Ossory is not included. The amount of this tribute is given in 
 great detail for the specified territories, ranging from a thousand 
 cows, oxen, rams, and mantles from Burren, to two thousand 
 hogs and a thousand cows from the Deisi of Waterford. He was 
 also entitled (2) to visitation and refection [a 6uxiinc t a be^tA 
 pojijiA] from the King of Cruachan (CoiitiaCc) for two quarters 
 of a year, and to accompany him to Tir-Conaill, in return for a 
 free gift of one hundred drinking horns, one hundred swords, 
 one hundred steeds, and one hundred tunics. And so with the 
 Kings of Tir Conall, Tir Eogain, the Lord of TuUahogue, and 
 the Kings of Oirghialla, Ulidia, Tara and Ath Cliath. We 
 do not attach very great importance to the Book of Rights. It 
 was evidently composed or thoroughly recast about the time 
 of Cormac mac Cuilenainn, and is intended to magnify and exalt 
 Cashel in a secular and religious point of view. Whatever 
 value the book may have as regards the provincial kings, as 
 regards the Ard-Righ it seems to indicate that, at any rate in 
 times of peace, he had no rights except the right of Visitation 
 and Refection. But the frequent raids made by the Ard-Righ 
 not only to lift the boporhA but to enforce tribute from every 
 part of Erin, plainly show that, whatever his rights may have 
 been, his claims were much more extensive. 
 
 The most important question at the Convention, however, 
 was the uojiorhA on Alba. After Columba came to the Congress, 
 and the matter was debated, he was requested to decide 
 between the men of Erin and the men of Alba. " It is not I 
 who will decide," said he, "but yonder youth," pointing to 
 Coleman. Coleman then gave judgment, and the decision he 
 gave was, " Their expeditions and hostings to be with the men 
 of Erin always, for hostings always belong to the parent stock. 
 Their tributes and games and shipping to be with the men of 
 Alba." 
 
 Colgan tells us that, in memory of the friendly settlement 
 between the two kindreds, and the blessing of peace which it 
 secured, an annual celebration and public procession of thanks. 
 
264 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 giving was held every year at Drumceafc down to his time 
 (1646).i'> 
 
 A good story, with a spice of legal trickery or sharp practice 
 in it, was evidently greatly relished in the Scriptorium and the 
 cloisters. As such stories are frequently quoted as evidence of 
 historical events, our readers may appraise their value from the 
 following samples, which we give in the order of time : When 
 Lugaid MacCon was King of Tara, his wife had a plot olglaishin 
 as part of her separate estate. This glaishin was a blue dying 
 stuff or woad. It was a valuable crop, requiring great care 
 and watching during growth. A neighbour's sheep trespassed 
 and ate up the queen's glaishin. The queen sued the tres- 
 passer before the king, who awarded the sheep for the damage. 
 " No," protested the youthful Cormac MacArt, who was the 
 rightful king, and present in disguise, " the fleece is enough ; 
 the wool for the woad, for both will grow again." " A true 
 judgment," exclaimed the bystanders. " He is surely the son 
 of a king." Cormac regained his throne by his bad law-point. 
 The second story is the cow-book and the calf-book judgment, 
 which is equally meritorious : — St. Finnen, of Moville, objected 
 [why ?] to a copy being made of his Psalter or Gospel. Columba 
 borrowed the book and copied it furtively, in his church, with 
 the aid of miraculous light, in the night-time. Finnen claimed 
 the copy. It was left to the award of King Diarmaid. He 
 
 fave judgment against Columba, saying : — " Le gach boin a 
 oinin, acus le gach leabhar a leabhran — To every cow her calf, 
 to every (cow) book the (calf) book (belongeth)." ^^ And this was 
 one of the causes of the battle of Cuildreimhne ! ! The third 
 story relates to the ruse by which St. Moling is stated, in a 
 historical romance called the " Boromha Laigen," to have 
 obtained the remission of this odious tax from Finnachta 
 Fleadach. The word " Luan " in Gaelic means Monday, and 
 also the Day of Judgment. The sequel may be easily guessed. 
 The Saint induced Finnachta to remit the tax till Luan, which 
 he then successfully maintained meant the day of Judgment, 
 though the monarch intended the words to mean till Monday. 
 " It would be better," said an unconscious humourist, in the 
 Dublin University Magazine, " for the people of Leinster to 
 have continued to pay the Boromha tribute to this day than 
 
 '" The story of the penance was, of course, not forgotten. Columba was bound 
 never to see Erin again. How was this to be got over ? He came, we are asked 
 to believe, to Erin with a bandage over his eyes ; went bandaged to the conven- 
 tion, and never removed it until he got baok to lona ! ! ! — Reeves' Adamnan, 92. 
 
 " Legend says the fragment of the psalter preserved in an antique metil 
 casket, known as the Cathach or Battler, is the actual copy, and that, notwith- 
 standing the judgment of the king, it remained wiUi Columba.— See Gilbert 
 facsimile MSS., viii., and plates iii. and iv. 
 
CUILDEEIMHNE AND THE DESERTION OF TABA. 265 
 
 that this St. Moling should have set an example of clerical 
 
 special pleading and mental reservation in the equivocation by 
 
 ■which he is represented to have procured the release from that 
 impost."i2 
 
 The battle of Cuildreimhne would have been fought if 
 Columba had never existed, and the desertion of Tara can 
 be accounted for without praying in aid the bells and curses of 
 St. Kuadhan. Tara occupied a central position in the province 
 of Meath. This district was in the exclusive occupation of the 
 Southern Ui Neill. When Diarmaid was assassinated, Fergus 
 and Domnhall, his successors, were residing at Aileach, near 
 Perry. Is it likely that they would come with their house- 
 holds, and reside at Tara, in the midst of their rivals and 
 enemies ? Certainly not. They would not have been safe 
 without or within the ramparts of Tara itself. On the other 
 hand, the occupation of Tara carried with it, in the minds of 
 the Gael, historic and superstitious associations. The chieftain 
 residing there would appear to be in visible ownership of the 
 supreme power. Consequently, when Fergus and Domnhall 
 decided to remain at Aileach, they determined not to allow 
 the Southern Ui Neill to occupy it, and it was plainly for that 
 reason that Tara was dismantled and abandoned, and the Lia 
 Fail sent out of Erin. If these weighty reasons did not exist 
 we may be certain that the Northern (Ji Neill would not be 
 terrified or influenced by the belligerent curses and bells of a 
 cleric belonging to the race of Olioll Olum." A cleric of 
 the Northern branch would promptly and effectually, by 
 suitable prayer of reconciliation and purification, have 
 cleansed the precincts of the venerated Hill. The legend 
 of St. Rhuadan is not found in the Annals of Ulster, Tigernach, 
 or the Four Masters. It is embodied very fully as an " inset " 
 taken from some ursgeul in our opinion, in MacGeoghan'a 
 Translation of the Annals of Clonmacnoise,^^ from which we 
 quote. It is found substantially the same in the Book of 
 Lismore and in an Irish MS. in Trinity College, in a fifteenth 
 century vellum in the British Museum, which professes to 
 copy from the Book ofSligo, &c., &c. The nature of this ursgeul, 
 
 " See O'Donovan's Note, F. M. and C Mahony, 306. The Ard Righ could not 
 according to the Brehon Law Tracts, as we have shown, ante cxiv. , remit food 
 rents or, we assume, the cow rent, boroma, so as to bind his successors who made 
 frequent hostings to lift it. 
 
 12 " The cause of the extinction of the regality of Tara was the fasting of 
 Patrick and his muinter against Laoghaire, the son of Niall, and the fasting of 
 Buadhan of Lorrha, the son of Aengus, with the saints of Erin, against Diarmaid, 
 the son of Cearbhall, and against the four tribes of Tara ; and these saints 
 promised (i.e., predicted) that there should not be a (royal) house at Tara, of the 
 race of Laoghaire, or of the seed of Niall, (but) that there should be of the race of 
 Olioll Glum." O'Donovan adds in a note—" There is no authority for this promise 
 or prediction of the saints in any of the lives of St. Patrick, or even in that of 
 Rouanua, who was himself of the race of Olioll Olum." — teAtbAti tiA gCe^ijic, 53, 
 
 " Murphy, S.J., Annals of Clanmacnoise, p. 85 (condensed). 
 
266 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 which is too long to be given here, may be gathered from the 
 opening sentences.^* 
 
 King Dermott, to make manifest unto his subjects his magaificence, 
 appointed a sergeant named Buokleare, with a speare, to travel through 
 the kingdom with power to break such doors of the nobilities as he 
 should find narrow in such a manner as the speare could not enter into 
 the house thwartwayes or in the breadth of the doors. Buckleare 
 made his way. speare in hand, to the house of Aedh Guaire of Killfechan 
 in Connact. Guaire gave a stroke of his sword to the spearman and 
 took his head off him. This Guaire was half-brother to St. Ruadhan 
 of Lothra in Upper Ormond, Tipperary, to whom he fled for protection 
 after beheading the king's sergeant. The saint made a hole in the floor 
 of his hut and put Guaire into it. When Diarmaid arrived, Ruadhan 
 being enquired of the place where Guaire was would not Ke but tell the 
 truth, as was his custom. The king saluted him with bitter and 
 pinching words, saying that it did not belong to one of his coat to 
 shelter and keep in his house a man who had killed the king's sergeant, 
 who was employed in the execution of his instructions, and prayed 
 that there might be no abbot or monk to succeed him in his place at 
 Lothra. " By God's grace," said Roadanus, " there shall be abbots 
 and monks for ever, and there shall be no king dwelling in Tara from 
 henceforward." The king asked where Guaire was. " I know not," 
 said Roadanus, " unless if he be not where you stand ; " for so he was 
 indeed right under the king's feet. The king afterwards had suspicions, 
 searched, found Guaire, and took him prisoner to Tara. Roadanus 
 followed him, and on his refusing to release Guaire Roadanus and a 
 bishop that was with him took their bells, which they rung hardly, and 
 cursed the king and place, and prayed God that no king or queen ever 
 after would or could dwell in Tara, and that it should be waste forever, 
 without court or palace, as it fell out accordingly. The conclusion is 
 curious and deserves attention: — "Roadanus being refused, tendered a 
 ransom of thirty horses, which the king was contented to accept, and 
 BO granted him Aedh Guaire." 
 
 Thus the quarrel ended. The curses were, no doubt, 
 revoked, the bells silenced, and peace made on the basis of the 
 status quo ante bellum.^^ 
 
 " Numerous entries in our annals show that curses and bells had very little 
 influence in preventing outrages on ecclesiastical privileges and sanctuaries. For 
 instance, St. Carthach was expelled from Rahan, near TuUamore, in 636 by the 
 Southern Ui Neill, the only offence of the venerable abbot apparently being 
 that he did not belong to their own elan. And one Muinter sometimes fought 
 against another ; while priests, even after they were released from compulsory 
 attendance in hostings, still occasionally joined in the fray. 
 
 " The issue of disputes of this kind was not always so satisfactory. Witness 
 the following (Four Masters, 1043) : — " The fasting of the clergy of Ciaran at 
 Tealach-Garbha (TuUangarvey) against Aedh Ua Comfeaela, lord of Teffia, and 
 Bearnain Ciaran (Ciaran's gapped bell) was rung with the end of the Bachall Isa 
 against him ; and in the place where Aedh turned his back on the clergy, in that 
 very place he was beheaded before the end of the month by Muirohertaoh X^a 
 Maelseaohlainn." 
 
C 267 ] 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE NORTHMEN. 
 
 THE expulsion of St. Carthach ^ from Rahan took place in the 
 reign of Domhnall, son of Aedh, son of Ainmire, by whom 
 was fought (637) a famous battle at a place called Magh 
 Rath in the county of Down, which, if not the place now 
 called Moira in the north-east of the county, was somewhere in 
 the vicinity of Newry. Suibhne Meann, Domhnall's prede- 
 cessor and kinsman, had been slain by Gongal, and Domhnall, 
 shortly after his accession, attacked Congal, defeated him, and 
 compelled him to take refuge with his uncle in Alba.^ After 
 the lapse of seven years Congal returned with an army of 
 Britons, Saxons, Gail-Gael, and Picts from Scotland and landed 
 in Down to fight for Little Ulster and, if fortune favoured him, 
 for Greater Ulster also, for he was descended from Conal 
 Cearnach, the renowned champion of the Red Branch Knights, 
 and claimed to be entitled to the whole territory ruled over by 
 Conchobar Mac Nesaa. In the poem which begins with the 
 lines " How bravely Congal's host comes on," and which is 
 given in full in a historical romance on the battle and quoted 
 by Keating, we are told : — 
 
 A yellow lion upon green satin, 
 
 The standard of the Red Branch Knights, 
 
 As borne by the noble Conchobar, 
 
 la now by Congal borne aloft.* 
 
 This was the ancient flag of Ulster and of Erin when the 
 Clanna Rury were predominant and ruled at Tara. It has 
 been superseded in modern times by the harp. The lion is 
 now claimed by England, but the animals depicted in the 
 English escutcheon are said by many to be leopards. The 
 
 ' The original name is said to have been " Cuda," and " Mo " was prefixed 
 for reepect, hence Mochuda. He was, it is said, called Carthach after his master. 
 ' Reeves' Adamnati, 200. 
 » " Cath Jluighe Bath," 329. 
 
268 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 lion would appear, in any case, to belong by priority of use to 
 the men of Erin. The fortune of war, however, went against 
 Congal. After an obstinate struggle, which the bardic accounts 
 say lasted six days, Congal and his allies were routed with red 
 slaughter, and Congal himself fell in the " counter-blow of the 
 fight." 
 
 In the interval which elapsed between the battle of Magh 
 Rath (637) and 795, when the Norsemen first appeared, there 
 were the usual wars between chieftains and kings, which 
 occurred in every community where there was no strong central 
 authority. We shall not weary our readers with an enumera- 
 tion of them. Their monotonous futility has little interest" 
 for the historian. 
 
 The Scandinavian invasion, if it can be properly so called, 
 may be conveniently divided into two periods — (1) from 795 
 to the coming of the Dubh- Gaill and of Olaf the White in 845, 
 and (2) from 845 to the battle of Clontarf in 1014. During 
 the first period, as in France and Britain, the invasion took 
 the form of raids for plunder by separate bands, and often 
 simultaneously at distant points. These raids seldom went 
 far inland, and did not interfere mat erially with the internal 
 warfare, which proceeded with much vigour, as usual, between 
 the native chieftains. In order to show more clearly the true 
 nature of the invasion of the Northmen we deem it necessary 
 to summarise in considerable detail the account of their raids 
 as we find them recorded in our Annals. Our readers may, 
 perhaps, find these particulars wearisome, but there is no royal 
 road to truth in the matter. 
 
 In 795 Rathlin or Lambay was raided ; in 798 Innis Patrick, 
 i.e., Holm Peel, Isle of Man ; in 807 Innishmurray, ofi" Sligo, 
 and part of Roscommon ; in 803 and 806 lona, when twenty-six 
 monks were slain ; in 812 Connemara, when the Northmen 
 were defeated in Mayo ; in 813 Mayo, when they defeated 
 the men of Mayo ; in 819 Howth, and the islands at the 
 mouth of Wexford Harbour ; in 820 Cork and Cape Clear ; in 
 821 Bangor ; in 822 Downpatrick, the invaders defeated the 
 " Osraige," but were defeated by the Ulidians in the same ye&v ; 
 in 823 the hermit, Etgal, was carried off from Skelig Michil, 
 and died from hunger and thirst ; in 824 Lusk and Meath ; in 
 825 Dun Lagen, near Glendalough ; in 826 Wexford ; in 828 
 Dunleer and Clonraore in Louth; in 831 Muirtheimne, in 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 20'9 
 
 Louth, and Maelbrighte, the King, taken captive with his 
 brother, and carried off to the ships. A battle was gained over 
 the " Muintir " of Armagh, and a great number of them taken 
 captive. In 831 took place the first plundering of Armagh, 
 thrice in one month. The Ui-Meith Macha, Mucknoe, Donagh. 
 moyne, and other churches in Monaghan and Louth, Maghera 
 in Derry, and Connor in Antrim, were raided. In 832, the 
 first year of Niall Caille, a great slaughter was made of the 
 foreigners at Derry ; Clondalkin was plundered by the foreigners 
 Lismore was burned, Dromeskin (Louth), Loughbrickland 
 (Down) were raided. Separate bands of raiders must have been 
 at work.* 
 
 In 833 the foreigners were defeated in Coshma (Limerick) 
 by the Ui Fidhgeinte. Glendaloeh, Slane, and Fennor were 
 raided, and the greater part of Clonmacnoise was burned. In 
 844 Ferns and Clonmore were raided. Mungret, near Limerick, 
 and other churches, were burned. In 835, Kildare, Louthi 
 Bregia (N. Dublin) and Durrow were plundered. In 836 there 
 was most cruel devastation of Connact, and a battle-slaughter 
 of the Deisi. In 837 there were sixty ships on the Boyne, 
 sixty on the Liffey, and these fleets plundered and spoiled the 
 plain of the Liffey and East Meath, " both churches and habi- 
 tations of men, and goodly tribes of flocks and herds." A battle 
 was gained at Inver-na-mbarc, near Bray, over the Southern 
 Ui Neill from the Shannon to the sea, " where such slaughter 
 was made as never was heard of." However, the kings and 
 chieftains escaped. The churches of L. Erne, Clones, Devenish, 
 Freshford, Kilkenny, Inis Caltra, Ballylongford (Kerry), and 
 Bealach Abhra (Cork) were destroyed. A slaughter was made 
 of the foreigners at Eas Ruadh, at Cam Feradaigh (Limerick)^ 
 and at Fearta Fear Feig, on the Boyne. In this year 
 was the first taking of Ath Cliath by the foreigners. A 
 battle was gained over the Connacht men. 838 — A fleet 
 on L. Neagh, The territories and churches of the North of 
 Ireland were plundered, and Cork and Ferns burned. 839 — The 
 burning of Armagh, with its oratories and cathedral. The 
 plundering of Louth by the foreigners of Lough Neagh; 
 
 4 832 — A great number of the "muintir" of Clonmacnoise were slain by 
 Foidlimid, King of Cashel, and all their termon burned to the doors of the church. 
 In like manner the " muintir " of Durrow also to the doors of the church. — P.M. 
 A battle gained over the "muintir" of Kildare In their church by Cellach, King 
 of Leinster, when many were slain — Ann. Uht. 
 
270 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 and they made prisoners of many bishops, and wise and 
 learned men, and carried tliem to their fortress, after having, 
 moreover, slain many others. 840 — A fortress was made by 
 the foreigners at Linn Duachaill, out of which the territories 
 and churches of Teffia were preyed. Another fortress was made 
 by them at Dublin, out of which they plundered Leinster and the 
 Ui Neill (South) as far as Slieve Bloom. 841 — The killing and 
 burning of the Abbot of Linn Duachaill.* A fleet of Norsemen 
 on the Boyne at Rosnaree, another on Lough Swilly, and a 
 third at Magheralin. Clonmacnoise, Castledermot, Birr and 
 Seirkieran were plundered. 842 — Clonfert was burned. 843 — 
 Cluana-an-dobhair, near Killeigh, in the King's County, and 
 Dunmask were plundered. Nuadhat and the Abbot of Tir-da- 
 Glas were martyred, and Forannan, the Primate of Armagh, was 
 captured, with his relics and Muintir, and taken to Limerick 
 to their ships. He7-e comes the first mention of Turgesius in 
 the Annals (843 F.M., recte 845). An expedition by Turgeis, 
 lord of the foreigners, upon Lough Ribh, so that they plun- 
 dered Connact and Meath, and burned Cluain-mic-Nois, with 
 its oratories, Cluain Fearta Brennain, and Tir.da-Glas, Lothra 
 and many others in like manner. A battle was gained over 
 the foreigners by King Niall, the son of ^dh, in Magh Itha, 
 and a countless number fell. Turgeis was taken prisoner by 
 Maelseachlainn " and his drowning afterwards in L. Uair 
 (L. Owel), through the miracles of God, and Kiaran, and the 
 saints in general."^ St. Kiaran's special anger is accounted 
 for by the fact that Ota, the wife of Turgesius, took her seat, 
 we are told, on the high altar in the church at Clonmacnoise, 
 and gave audience and answer from it. 
 
 We think that the inference to be drawn from the entries we 
 have given (perhaps at too great length) is that up to 845 A.D., 
 the period we are now dealing with, no Scandinavian kingdom 
 was established in Erin, and that the supposed sovereignty of 
 Turgesius over the Gael for thirty years, as Giraldus states, or 
 for fifteen years, as Todd and O'Mahony suggest, or for seven 
 
 ° Linn Duachail, at the tidal opening of the Rivers Glyde and Dee, in Louth, 
 S.E. of Castle Bellingham.— Todd, IVara of the Gad and Gall, Izii. 
 
 ° The Annals of Ulster and the Four Masters do not state that Turgeis 
 was drowned by Maelseachlainn, which was the form generally used by them 
 when the drowning was punitive or criminal. The words seem to point 
 rather to a drowning by the miracles of the saints. Maogeoghan states that 
 Turgeis was drowned by Maelseachlainn. 
 
THE NOETHMEK. 271 
 
 years as Berchan prophesied, is unsupported by trustworthy 
 evidence, and is part of the historical romance connected with 
 the tyrant Turgesius. 
 
 Todd was greatly influenced in the view he took of the 
 reign of Turgesius by the statement in the War of the Gael 
 with the Gaill. The author of that work states that Turgesius 
 came with a great royal fleet into the North of Ireland, and 
 assumed the sovereignty of the foreigners, and occupied the 
 whole of Leath Chuinn, and " usurped the Abbacy of Armagh, 
 and was in the sovereignty of the North of Ireland." Todd 
 fixes the date at 831 or 832, and infers that the duration of 
 the tyranny of Turgesius cannot have been more than about 
 thirteen years. He observes, " for nine years after his coming 
 he seems to have been content with his secular possession of 
 the country, or unable to overthrow the power of the ecclesi- 
 astical authorities. It was not until 841 that he succeeded in 
 banishing the bishop and clergy, and usurped the abbacy, that 
 is to say, the full authority and jurisdiction in Armagh and 
 the North of Ireland." Even if this account was reliable it 
 would fall very far short of proving that Turgesius was Ard 
 Righ over all Erin, or had reduced it to subjection. The only 
 evidence we can find supporting such a view before Giraldus 
 are the prophecies. 
 
 Berchan, the chief prophet of heaven and earth, said : — 
 
 Seven years shall they be — not weak their power 
 
 In the High Kingship of Erin, 
 
 In the abbacy of every church. 
 
 The Heathen of the Port of Dublin, 
 
 There shall be an abbot of them over this my Church ; 
 
 He shall not attend to Matins, 
 
 Without Pater, without Credo, 
 
 Without Gaelic ; only a foreign tongue. 
 
 And Beg Mac De : — 
 
 When the bell was rung at Warm Tailten, 
 Ciaran, the rich old man of Saighir, 
 Promised to Erin three times 
 Parties of Danes of the black ships (ovib tonsrO^- 
 
 These prophecies and the legends connected with them pro- 
 bably reached the ears of Giraldus, who is the first prose writer 
 who speaks of the conquest and subjugation of the whole country. 
 
 » Todd, War$ of the Gael, 10 and 225. 
 
272 EABLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 He tella ua that in the time of Feidlimidh, the Norwegians 
 came to Erin with a great fleet, took possession with the 
 strong hand and destroyed the churches, and that Turgesius, 
 their leader, having subdued the country in a short time, and 
 making a circuit through it, " incastellated " it in suitable 
 places in every direction. " So you may see," he continues, 
 " in every direction, earth works with deep ditches, very lofty 
 and circular, and often triple. There are also walled castles 
 still perfect, but ancient and deserted, remaining from these 
 ancient times, to be seen to the present day. The Irish do not 
 care about castles. The wood is their castle and the marsh 
 their ditch. Turgesius then ruled Ireland peaceably for a time 
 (thirty years) until he fell by their stratagem of the maidens."^ 
 The maidens' stratagem is evidently, as Todd points out, an 
 imitation of Hengist's treacherous banquet to Vortigern, as 
 described by Nennius [c. 47). It runs thus : — 
 
 Turgesius was a successful suitor for the hand of Maelseachlainn's 
 daughter, and went to take home his bride, accompanied by fifteen 
 youths. She went to meet her lord, accompanied also by fifteen youths 
 disguised as maidens and armed with daggers, who fell upon and slew 
 Turgesius and his companions,^ 
 
 Giraldus was manifestly referring to the Danish forts, as 
 the peasantry call them, and Staigue Fort and the great 
 mounds and work at Brugh na Boinne. It is on the popular 
 legends about these and the story in Nennius that he built his 
 narrative. 
 
 Keating follows Giraldus, and tells ua :■ — 
 
 Turgesius, the Norse tyrant, with his armies of the men of Finn- 
 Lochlainn,held supreme power in Erin for thirteen years after he had been 
 previously the scourge of that country for seventeen years, for during 
 that length of time he had been exercising violence and rapine on the 
 inhabitants. But when the nobles of Erin saw that Turgesius had 
 brought confusion on their country, and that he was assuming supreme 
 authority, and reducing them to thraldom and vassalage, they became 
 inspired with a loftiness of mind and fortitude of spirit and a hardness 
 and firmness of purpose that urged them to work on right earnestly and to 
 toil zealously against him and his plundering hordes. But though numerous 
 were the battles the Gael fought against Turgesius he at length suc- 
 ceeded in vanquishing the Gaelic nation, and reduced it to bondage and 
 serfdom to himself and to his almuraigh (foreigners).^** 
 
 » Giraldus, Soil Series, v. 182. 
 • Tiidd, War$ of the Oael, xliv. 
 " Keating, O'Mahony, 605. 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 273 
 
 At the commencement of the second period (845-1014) the 
 entries in our Annals relating to the coming of the Black 
 foreigners (Dubh-Gaill) may be summarised as follows : — 
 
 In 847 a fleet of seven score ships of the king of the 
 foreigners came to contend with the foreigners in Erin 
 before them. The new foreigners were henceforth commonly 
 called the Dubh-Gaill, or black foreigners, and the old foreigners 
 were called Finn-GaiU, or fair foreigners. In 849 the Dubh-Gaill 
 arrived at Athcliath, and made a great slaughter of the Finn-GaiU, who 
 had settled there. They made another attack on the Finn-GaiU at Linn 
 Duachaill, and made a great slaughter of them there. In 851 a fleet of 
 eight score ships of Finn-GaiU arrived at Snam-Eidhneach (i.e., Carling- 
 ford Lough) to give battle to the Dubh-Gaill, and they fought with 
 each other for three days and three nights, and the Dubh-Gaill were 
 victorious. The Finn-GaiU left their ships to them. In 852 came Olaf, son 
 of the King of Loohlann, and all the foreign tribes in Erin submitted to 
 him, and a rent (ciof) was given to him by the Gael.i^ 
 
 Now, who were the New Foreigners ? Where was Lochlann ? 
 Dubhgaill, black foreigners, cannot mean people of the dark or 
 brunette type. Whether they came from Scandinavia or Den- 
 mark, the overwhelming mass of the raiders must have been 
 blonde or fair. " At the northern limit (which includes Scan- 
 dinavia and Denmark)," writes Ripley, " we find that about one- 
 third of the people are pure blondes, characterised by light hair 
 and blue eyes, about one-tenth are pure brunettes, the re- 
 mainder, over one half, being mixed, with a tendency to blond- 
 ness. There is no appreciable difference between Scandinavia 
 and Denmark as regards pigmentation, and dark types do not 
 change to blonde. 
 
 We can scarcely distinguish a Swede from a Dane to-day, or either 
 from a native of Schleswig Holstein or Friesland. They are all 
 
 " In the Landnamaboo, or Book of Settlements in Iceland, we ftnd the tbUow- 
 ing statement about Olaf, the White, who was, undoubtedly, the Oalf who oame 
 to Erin in 853, ten|years before the death of Maelseaohlainn : — " Anlaff, the White 
 (Oleif !) was the name of a hoat-king. He was the son of King Ingiald ,the son of 
 Helgi, the son of Helge, the son of Anlaf (Oleif 's Sonar), the sou of Godfred, the 
 son of Halfdan, Whiteleg, the King of the Upland (E. Norway) folk. Anlaff, the 
 White, harried in the West in wrecking cruises, and won Dyflin (Dublin) and 
 
 Dublin shire (Dyflin shire) — and made himself king over it. He took to wife Aud, 
 
 or Ead, the Deep Wealthy, the daughter of Cetilflatneh, the son of Beorn Buna, 
 lord of Norway. Thor-slan, the Red, was the name of their son. Anlaff fell in 
 Ireland (fell a Irlande) in battle, but Aud and Thor-slan went to the Southreys 
 
 (Hebrides). Vegfusson, Originea Ulandicce, Landnainbok, 11-14, Vol. I., 76, 
 
 .'1905.) 
 
 T 
 
874 EARLY IRISH 'HISTOHT. 
 
 described to us by chroniclers, and our modern research corroborates 
 the testimony; as tawny-haired, fiercely blue-eyed barbarians." i' 
 
 It seems probable, we think, that they were different tribes, 
 nominally at least subject to the King of Lochlann. We can 
 thus more easily understand their ready submission to Olaf 
 Beg MacDe says, as we have seen, that they had black ships.^* 
 " One of the captains was a red-haired maiden." Saxo-gram- 
 maticus tells us they used black tents for concealment.^* And 
 they probably wore black armour of some kind. Glun-iarrainn, 
 iron-knee, and Glun-dubh, black-knee, seem to refer to some 
 black iron defensive armour, and so, probably, were called the 
 " Black Foreigners.'' 
 
 This shire land, over which Olaf made himself king, was, 
 no doubt, in part at least, what in after time came to be 
 known as Fingal. It extended as far north as the Delvin 
 rivulet, a little south of the Nannie water, and inland, in theory 
 at least, as far as the salmon swam up, in accordance with 
 Norse law — i.e., to the Salmon Leap, Lixlot, now Leixlip. The 
 rent of this portion Olaf no doubt received, and this is probably 
 what is meant by our annalists. He most assuredly did not get 
 rent from the High King, or the provincial Kings of Erin. 
 There never was a conquest and occupation of a large part of Erin 
 like the Danish occupation of England. Besides Dublin and 
 Dublin-shire, they built and held forts, with some territory 
 adjoining, at Limerick, Cork, and Waterford, and occupied some 
 places along the coast. Elsewhere there was no permanent 
 occupation. 
 
 The Gaelic name of the place where now is Dublin was Ath 
 Cliath — the Ford with the Hurdle Bridge. The Scandinavians 
 called it " Dyflin," a corruption of the Gaelic name for that 
 inlet at the confluence of the Poddle and the Liffey which 
 formed a harbour where ships were moored, and which the Gael 
 called " Dubhlinn," or black pool, from the dark colour given 
 to the water by the bog which extends under the river. ^^ 
 
 12 Ripley, W., Races of Europe I., 68 and 314. 
 
 Looh in Gaelic frequently means fiords, or arms of the sea, e.g., Foyle, 
 S willy, Belfast, Carmen, (Wexford), Lurgan (Gal way). Whatever may be the 
 true meaning of Viking, it is highly probable the Gael understood it to mean the 
 men of the Fiords — Lochlannach. 
 
 " War of the Gael, p. 225 and 41. 
 
 " For the tents were dusky in colour and muffled in a sort of pitchy covering 
 that they might not catch the eye of anyone who cams near. Saxorammatious, 
 V. 167. The captain was the famous Injen nu a-6. 
 
 " Haliday, — The Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin, 23. 
 
THE NOETHMEN. 275 
 
 The termination of the namesof three of theprovinces isNorse, 
 theNorse, "ster" ( =stadr, place) being added to theGaelic namei 
 as Mumhan-ster, Munster; Ulad-ster, Ulster; Leighin-ster, 
 Leinster ; Connact-ster (Kunnakster, Connact) was not retained 
 by the Anglo-Normans, or Angevins. But these names were 
 never used by the Gael when speaking their own tongue, and 
 it must not be supposed that they indicate conquest or occupa- 
 tion of these provinces by the Northmen. 
 
 Feordr is a frith or bay, while a small crescent-formed 
 inlet is called a vik. There were five Norse fiord names 
 in Erin — Wexford, (L. Carmen) Waterford, (L. Dacaich, or Port 
 Lairge), Carlingford (Snamh Eidhneach), Strangford (L. Cuan), 
 and Ulrick's fiord (L. Lame). " There are," writes Joyce, " little 
 more than a dozen places in Ireland at the present day bearing 
 Danish names, and these are nearly all on or near the East coast 
 Worsae (p. 71) gives a table of 1,373 Danish and Norwegian 
 names in the middle and northern counties of England." He 
 adds, '' This appears to me to afford a complete answer to the 
 statement that we sometimes see made — that the Danes 
 conquered the country, and that their chiefs ruled over it as 
 sovereigns." 
 
 After the coming of Olaf, from 853 to 875, there were the 
 usual periodical raids and plunderings such as we have 
 described. After this came what are known as the forty years' 
 rest, during which time there came no fresh reinforcements 
 from the north. The Norsemen in Erin during this time raided 
 and made hostings like the native chieftains, won and lost 
 battles, but made no additions to their territory. They appear 
 to have been gradually taking their place among the tribes of 
 the Gael, and there were alliances and intermarriages from time 
 to time between them. During all this time the High King 
 exercised his sovereign rights as usual — enforced the payments 
 of rent or tribute and exacted the delivery of hostages, as the 
 following summary will clearly show : — 
 
 In 802 Aodh Oirnidhe, Ard-Righ, went with a large army 
 into Meath and divided it into two parts between the sons of 
 Domhnall, viz., Conchobar and Ailill. They were the sons of 
 the last Ard-Righ. Ailill was slain in battle by Conchobar the 
 following year. 
 
 In 805 he divided Leinster between the two Muiredachs. 
 
 839 — The plundering of Feara Ceal and Dealbhna-Eathra (a 
 
276 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 large part of the King's County) by Kiall Caille, the High 
 King. Feidlimidh, King of Munster, plundered Meath and 
 Ereagh, and he rested at Tara after having in one day taken 
 the hostages of Connact. 
 
 840 — An army was led by Feidlimidh to Carman (Wex- 
 ford) and by Niall Caille to Maghochtar (N. Kildare) to meet 
 him. A battle ensued, and Niall " bore away the crozier of 
 the devout Feidlimidh by the battle of swords." Feidlimidh 
 was abbot or bishop of Cashel according to O'Donovan. The 
 same year a battle was gained by Maelruanaedh, the father of 
 King Maelseachlainn, over Diarmaid, son of Conchobar, and 
 Diarmaid was slain. 
 
 844 — The plundering of Donnchadh, son of FoUamhan, and 
 of Flann, son of Maelruanaedh, by Maelseachlainn, son of 
 Maelruanaidh. The plundering of the Termon of Ciaran (i.e., 
 Clonmacnoise) by Feidlimidh, King of Munster ; but Ciaran 
 pursued him, as he thought, and gave him a thrust of his 
 crozier, and he received an internal wound, so that he was not 
 well until his death. He died in 845. The annalists {F. M. 
 and Ulat.) add, to our amazement, that he was the best scribe 
 and anchorite of his time. Does the word " anchorite," taken 
 in connection with his crozier, imply that the devout Feid- 
 limidh was a bishop in Orders, as distinguished from a 
 secular bishop (if we may use the phrase), claiming to be bishop 
 or abbot in right of his crown of Munster without ecclesiastical 
 status ? i« 
 
 852 — Maelseachlainn proceeded to Munster as far as Ineoin 
 na n-deisi (near Clonmel), and enforced hostages and submis- 
 sion from them, for they had given him opposition at the 
 instigation of the foreigners. 
 
 854 — He went again to Cashel and carried oflF the hostages 
 of Munster. 
 
 857 — He went into Munster and stayed ten nights at Neim 
 (the Black water) and plundered it southwards to the sea after 
 defeating their kings at Cam Lugh-dach. He carried off 
 their hostages from Gowra Eoad to the Bull of Dursey Island 
 and from the Old Head of Kinsale to East Arra of the Arran 
 Isles. 
 
 " P. M. 840 A.D. — " The reader mu8t bear in mind that Feidlimidh was 
 ahbot or bishop of Cashel ia right of his crown of Manater." We doubt this. 
 Maogeoghan writes of " hie great irregularity and great desire of spoyle." 
 
THE NORTHMEN. 277 
 
 858 — He led a hosting of Munster, Leinster, and Connact 
 and the Southern Ui Neill, into the North, Aedh Finnliath 
 attacked his camp at night, and destroyed many in the middle 
 of the camp, but was finally defeated, with great loss, for 
 Maelseachlainn and his army manfully defended the camp 
 against the people of the North. Aedh then formed a league 
 with the foreigners. This was not, however, the first occasion 
 on which the Gael made alliance with them. As far back 
 as 84)9 Cinaedh, King of Cianachta Ereagh, turned against 
 Maelseachlainn at the instigation of the foreigners, so that he 
 wasted the Ui Neill, both churches and districts, from the 
 Shannon to the sea. The following year he was drowned in 
 the Nanny, which flows through Ceannacta Breagh, by Mael- 
 seachlainn and Tighernach, with the approval of the good 
 men of Erin, and of the coarb of St. Patrick especially. Aedh 
 Finnliath then rose out against Maelseachlainn at the instiga- 
 tion of Cinaedh's brother and successor in the chieftainry. 
 
 859 — There was a great hosting by Olaf and Ivar and 
 Cerbhall, King of Ossory, who was then in alliance with them 
 into Meath. Maelseachlainn then held a royal meeting at 
 Rahugh, in Westmeath, and the coarbs of Patrick and Finnian 
 used their influence to establish peace and concord between 
 the men of Erin. Cearbhall joined Leth Chuinn, and MaeU 
 gualach tendered his allegiance and was stoned to death by 
 the foreigners. 
 
 860 — Aedh Finnliath and Flann, son of Conang and Olaf 
 and the foreigners, raided Meath, and Cearbhall, King of 
 Ossory, came to the aid of the High King. 
 
 In the following year, 861, when, he had become High King, the 
 foreigners, rifled New Grange, Knowth, Dowth, and the Great Mound 
 at Drogheda. Lorcan, King of Meath, was with them thereat, and was 
 blinded by Aedh the following year.^'' 
 
 The reign of this Cearbhall, as King of the Norsemen of 
 Athcliath, is not mentioned in our annals, but Todd and 
 Haliday are of opinion that the reconciliation we mentioned 
 was only temporary, and that there is good evidence that 
 either in alliance with, or elected by, the Norse of Dublin, he 
 became King there about 872, and reigned until 888. His 
 death in that year seems to have inspired the Gael with the 
 
 " Thret Frag, 161. 
 
278 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 hope of obtaining possession of Ath Cliath by the expulsion of 
 the Northmen. Flann, the High King, joining his forces to 
 those of the King of Connact and aided by the ecclesiastical 
 authorities, attacked them, but was routed in a battle in which 
 fell the King of Connact, the bishop of Kildare, the abbot of 
 Killdalkey, and many others." 
 
 " Many of the learned in Erin oomposed praise poems on Cearbhall, the King 
 of Ossory, in which they commemorated every victory he had won, and Aengus, 
 the high, wise abbot, the Coarb of Clonfert Molua (Kyle), at the foot of Sueve 
 Bloom, most of, all. O'Donovan observes that it is highly probable that the 
 accounts which were so laudatory of the King of Ossory were based on these 
 poems, which were preserved in the monastery there. 
 
 In the Landnama-boc we find the following reference to Cearbhall (Carroll) : 
 
 " Afterwards Eg- wind (Eg-wind-e) took to wife in Ireland Baforta ( ), the 
 
 daughter of Cear-ral. She gave birth to a boy in the Southreys (Hebrides, Sodor), 
 and put him to fosterage there. Two winters later they went back to the island 
 (Sodor) to see the boy, and saw a boy there with fair eyes, but there was no flesh 
 on him, for he was starved, and so they called the boy Helge, the Lean. He was 
 afterwards put into fosterage in Ireland, Eg-wind was called the Ostman, or 
 Eastman, because he came west over the sea out of Sweden in thi east. Helge 
 was brought up in Ireland." And also, " at the time Iceland was settled from 
 Norway, Adrianus was Pope of Rome . . . Cearrall (Cearbhall) King at 
 Dublin." " Before Iceland was settled by the Northmen, there were there those 
 people whom the Northmen called Papas. They were Christian men, and people 
 think that they must have been from the West of the Sea because there were 
 found after them Irish books and bells and croziers (baglar), and yet more things 
 by which it might be perceived that they were West men." — Are's (t 1148), 
 I^ndnama boo, 'V^gfusson, uit. iujfi., 13, 14 and 145. 
 
t 279 ] 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 A WINTER CIRCUIT. 
 
 BEFORE we reach the period of the forty years' rest (876- 
 915), we find entries in our annals relating to the Gaill- 
 Gael, who are sometimes referred to as the apostate Irish who 
 had renounced their baptism. The word usually means the 
 Gael over sea, — the " sea-divided Gael," the inhabitants of 
 Argyle (Airer-gaedela) of Galloway (Gall-gaedhela), the Hebrides, 
 Cantire, and other places. The Gaill-Gael, however, we now 
 speak of were different; they were resident in Erin. They are 
 referred to in the Annals of Ulster and of the Four Masters, 
 but it is nowhere stated that they had lapsed into paganism. 
 Aedh Finnliath gained a great victory over Gaill-Gael at Glenn 
 Foichle (Glenelly, near Strabane), ia855. Bishop Reeves was 
 of opinion — and we think rightly — that these were foreign 
 mercenaries.^ It is clear, however, from the Three Fragmenti 
 of Annals that the Gaill-Gael were located in Munster and 
 other parts of Erin. The first of these Fragments, which 
 relates chiefly to the Ui Neill, was composed in the North ; the 
 other two " evidently belong to Ossory or Leix, and were 
 compiled in some monastery there ; but nothing is known of 
 the age or nature of the MSS. from which Dubhthach Mac 
 Firbisigh copied these Fragments.'' The author of the Third 
 Fragment states that Maelseachlainn [858] made a great host- 
 ing against the Munster men, and against Cearbhall, King oi 
 Ossory, his brother-in-law, and defeated them in a pitched 
 battle at Cam Lughdhach, near Gowran, in Kilkenny.^ He 
 continues : — " Though Maelseachlainn had not come on this 
 expedition to take the kingdom of Munster for himself, he 
 ought to have come to kill all the Gaill-Gael who were killed 
 
 ' FawrMaaterg, 1154. The Cinel Eogain and Muiroherfach Ua Neill sent per 
 sons over sea to hire, and they did hire the ships of GaiU-Gael of Ara- (Arran, 
 Ceantire, the Isle of Man. and the borders of Alba in general. 
 
 ' O'Donovan, Three Fragments, 2 and 139. This hosting, and the battle of Cam 
 Lughdhach, are mentioned in the AnncUs of Ulster and the Pour Masters. 
 
280 EAELt IBtSH HISTORY. 
 
 there, for they were a people who had renounced their baptism, 
 and they were usually called Northmen, for they had the 
 customs of the Northmen, and had been fostered by them ; and 
 though the original Northmen were bad to the churches, they 
 were by far worse in whatever part of Erin they used to be." 
 In the same year (858) a victory was gained by Cearbhall over 
 theGaill-Gael of Aradh Tire (Barony of Arra, Tipperary."*) He 
 gives an instance of their sacrilegious spoliations under the date 
 of 854f : — " In this year many forsook their Christian baptism,and 
 joined the Lochlanns, and they plundered Armagh, and carried 
 away all its valuables ; but some of them did penance, and came 
 to make restitution (venerunt ad satisfactionem)."* Forsook 
 their baptism may mean here merely that they were recreant 
 and untrue to it, especially in jiot going afterwards and making 
 restitution. 
 
 There were, no doubt, many Gael taken captives, and, when 
 young, brouglit up as pagans, and there may have been indi- 
 vidual cases of persons renouncing the Faith, and there were, 
 also, no doubt, mercenaries who had been brought up as 
 pagans ; but in the absence of all mention of a class of apostate 
 native-born Gael in Erin by our Annalists it is safe to assume 
 that no such class ever came into existence. 
 
 The forty years' rest corresponds very nearly with the reign 
 of Flann Sinna, the son of Maelseachlainn (877-915), For this 
 period we shall give only a few illustrative details. In 883 the 
 Northmen raided Kildare, and carried off fourteen score cap- 
 tives to their ships. In 890, led by Gluniarn, they raided 
 Armagh, and carried off 710 persons into captivity. In 895 
 (F.M.) they were on L. Neagh, and carried off the " Etach 
 Padraig," i.e., Patrick's raiment (or crozier ? ) * 
 
 In 895 they were defeated by the men of Louth and Ulidia, 
 with the loss of 800 men. In this battle fell Olaf, the son of 
 Ivar, and Gluntradna, the son of Gluniarn. In 901 the North 
 men were expelled from Ath Cliath, by Cearbhall, the son of 
 Murigen, and the Leinster men and the men of Bregia, and 
 
 ' A victory was gained by Cearbhall, Lord of Ossory, and by lyar in the terri- 
 tory of Aradh Tire over the Cinel-Fiaohaoh (barony of Moycashel, Weatmeath), 
 and the Gaill-Qael of Leath Ghuinu. — Fovr Masters, 856 A.D. 
 
 * Three Fragments, 127. 
 ' O'Douovan says it was, probably, a garment preserved in some old chapel 
 near L. Neagh. We suggest that it was a orozier like the " Etaoh Moohaoi," 
 which was a pastoral statf, and called eicedcb (winged) from a legend that it flew 
 from heaven. Reeve's Adamnan, 150. 
 
A WINTEE CIRCTTIT. 281 
 
 leaving great numbers of their ships behind them they fled half 
 dead to Ireland's Eye, where they were besieged. During 
 these years Flann, too, was busy. In the. first year of his reign 
 (877) he plundered Munster from Killaloe to Cork, and in 880 
 made another raid, and carried ofi" their hostages. In 906, 
 joined by Cearbhall, he plundered from Gowran to Limerick. 
 The celebrated Cormac MacCuilenain was King of Munster 
 at this time, and his principal adviser was a fiery abbot, 
 Flaithbhertach, of Inis Scattery.^ They led a strong force in 
 the following year (907) into Meath, and defeated the army of 
 Leath Ohuinn, on the historic battle-field of Magh Lena, near 
 Tullamore, and they subsequently defeated the Southern 
 TJi Niall and the men of Connact, and carried ofi the hostages 
 of Connact in their great fieets on the Shannon. 
 
 Cormac was bishop of Cashel as well as King of Munster. 
 Some say that he had married the daughter of Flann Sinna — 
 Gormlaith, the blue-eyed princess, and had repudiated her. 
 Others say, with more probability, that there was only a 
 betrothal between them, and that the engagement was broken 
 off". In either case Gormlaith was not likely to be a peace- 
 maker. At this time she was the wife of Cearbhall, the son of 
 Murigen, the King of Leinster who must not be confounded 
 with Cearbhall, the King of Ossory, and subsequently became 
 the wife of Niall Glandubh, An ecclesiastical element was 
 also added to the seething cauldron.* There was at this time 
 a famous monastery at Monasterevan which had been founded 
 by Evin, of the line of Eogan Mor, and the monks in the 
 abbey were all Munster men, and it was called M uiTnneach 
 i.e., of the Munster men. Cearbhall, King of Leinster, took 
 forcible possession of it and expelled the monks, who promptly 
 laid their grievances before Cormac and the fiery abbot, who 
 was himself of the line of Eogan Mor. It is also stated that 
 
 • Flaithbhertach afterwarda became king of Cashel, i.e., Munster. He resigned 
 the kingship, and went on his pilgrimage in 920 (F.M.), and was suooeeded by 
 Lorcan, the grandfather of Brian Boru. 
 
 ' Even if there was a contract per verba de presenti, as sometimes happened 
 in those days between persons of tender years, it would be nullified by Cormao 
 becoming a professed religious, if the marriage was not consummated, and we 
 think it likety that Cormao was a " religious," like hia aucoessor, Flaithbertach, 
 the abbot of Inis Scattery. 
 
 Se quts dixerit matrimonium ratum non consummatum pei^ solemnem 
 religionis professionem alterius conjugum non dirimi anathema sit. 
 
 Clone. Trident, sess. xxiv., can. 6. 
 
 • Gf, O'Halloran, History of Ireland, 185. 
 
282 EAELY IRISH HISTOKY. 
 
 Cormao demanded the boroma from Leinster. However this 
 may be, the result of these complications, which we shall not 
 attempt to unravel, was that a pitched battle was fought (908) at 
 Bealach Mughna (Ballaghmoon), in Kildare, about two and a half 
 miles north of Carlow. 
 
 Woeful indeed was the tumult and clamour of that battle, for there 
 rose the death-cry of the Muaster men as they fell, and the shouting 
 of the Leinster men, exulting in the slaughter of their foes. There 
 were two causes why the fight went so suddenly against the men of 
 Munster. The first was because Keilcher, a relative of Finguime 
 (Oormac's predecessor) jumped hastily upon his steed and cried out, 
 " Flee, Free Clans of Munster ; flee from this terrific conflict, and 
 let the clerics fight it out themselves, since they would accept of no 
 other conditions but that of battle from the men of Leinster." He 
 then clapped spurs to his horse and quitted the field with his followers. 
 The second cause was that Ceallach, the son of the King of Ossory, who 
 was on Cormac's side, also rode off the field with the men of Ossory. 
 A general rout followed. Neither boy, man, or cleric found quarter ; 
 all were slaughtered indiscriminately. Cormac rushed towards the 
 van of his division. His horse fell on the slippery blood-stained field 
 His neck was broken in the fall, and he died saying, " Into Thy hands 
 O Lord, I commend my spirit." And then some wicked folk came up 
 and pierced the body with their spears and out off his head.' 
 
 His loss was mournful, for he was a King, a bishop, an anchorite, 
 a scribe, and profoundly learned in the Gaelic tongue. He was the 
 author of " Cormac's Glossary," by far the oldest attempt at a com- 
 parative vernacular dictionary made in any language in modern Europe, 
 which has fortunately come down to us. " The Psalter of Cashel," now 
 lost, was compiled by him, or under his direction. He appears to have 
 known Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Danish, and to have been one of the 
 finest old GaeUc scholars of his day, and withal, an accomplished poet. 
 His verses are now lost.^* 
 
 The forty years' rest ended in 915 A.D. The year before a 
 new fleet of Norsemen arrived at Waterford, and were soon 
 followed by strong reinforcements. Munster was raided, and 
 the Gael roused for once to something like united action. 
 Flann Sinna died at Tailtin in 916, and was succeeded by Niall 
 Glundubh, the son of Aedh Finnliath. Niall at once sum- 
 moned all his forces to meet the new invasion. He led the 
 Northern and Southern Ui Neill to the aid of the men of 
 Munster and Leinster. The campaign, however, resulted 
 favourably for the Norsemen. The men of Leinster were 
 defeated at Cennfuait, Kildare was raided, and Dublin 
 reoccupied. Next year (917) Niall reassembled hia forces 
 
 • Keating (O'Mahony) 529. 
 
 " Four Musters, 003 {redt, 908), A.D. Hyde, LitercUure, 420. 
 
A WINTER cmctriTi 283 
 
 and advanced on Dublin. A decisive battle was fought on the 
 19th of October at Eilmashogue, near Rathfarnham, about five 
 miles south of the present city. The army of the High King 
 included the Southern and Northern Ui Neill, the men of 
 Little Ulster, and the men of Oirghialla. The men of Leinster, 
 Munster, and probably the men of Connacht, were engaged 
 defending their own territories. The Gael were routed with 
 red slaughter : Niall was slain with, some say, twelve kings or 
 chieftains around him. The Four Masters mention Conchobar, 
 Ua Maelseachlainn, regdamna of the Southern Ui Neill ; the 
 King of Little Ulster, the Lord of Oirghialla, and many others. 
 
 " Sorrowful that day was holy Erin 
 To view Magh-Neill (i.e., Erin) without Niall." 
 
 This defeat was, however, avenged in the following year by 
 Niall'st successor, Donnchadh, the son of Flann Sinna, who 
 gained a signal victory over the Norsemen in North Dublin. 
 There fell as many of the nobles and rank and file of the North- 
 men as had fallen of the Gael in the battle of Kilmashogue. 
 Notwithstanding this victory, we find Godfrey in possession of 
 Dublin in 926, from which he plundered Armagh, but spared 
 the " oratories," the Ceile De, and the sick. Ths Northmen 
 then sent divisions north and east and west. The force that went 
 aorth was encountered and defeated by Muirchertach of the 
 Leather Cloaks, as he came to be called, the son of Niall 
 Glundubh, and from this time until his death (943) he was the 
 mainstay of the Gael in the north. He was then King of 
 Aileach, and, if he had survived, would undoubtedly have been 
 the next Ard Kigh in succession to Donnchadh. He married, 
 first, Flanna, the daughter of Donnchadh, the Ard Righ, and, 
 secondly, in 940, Dubdara, the daughter of Ceallach, King of 
 Ossory. The entries in our Annals respecting him are most 
 interesting, and present a view of the social state of Erin, 
 which is almost incomprehensible. 
 
 926 — Two victories by Muirchertach over the Northmen. 
 The second at Cluain na g-cruimthir, where 800 were killed. 
 
 927 — War with Duach, the chieftain of Glenn Given 
 (Derry), during which the chieftain was slain. 
 
 In the same year Donnchadh, the Ard Righ, was prevented 
 from holding the fair of Tailtin by Muirchertach inconsequence 
 of a challenge of battle between them, but God separated them 
 without slaughter. 
 
284 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 929 — Donnchadh led an army to Leifcrim against Muircher- 
 tach, but they separated without bloodshed. 
 
 932 — Torolbh, the jarl, commanding a fleet of Norsemen on 
 Lough Neagh, was slain by Muirchertach. 
 
 933 — Muirchertach was defeated by Gaelic chieftains in 
 Meath. 
 
 938 — A challenge of battle between Donnchadh and Muir- 
 chertach until they made peace, united their forces, marched to 
 lay siege to Dublin, and spoiled the country of the foreigners 
 from Ath Cliath to Ath Truistin, near Athy. 
 
 939 — The Northmen plundered Aileach and took Muircher- 
 tach prisoner to their ships on Lough Swilly, but he made his 
 escape from them soon after, to the great joy of the GaeL 
 
 940: — A hosting by Donnchadh, Ard Righ, and Muirchertach 
 into Leinster and Munster until they took hostages from them. 
 
 941 — Muirchertach raided Ossory and the Desies ; made a 
 royal expedition to the Hebrides, from which he brought back 
 much plunder and booty, and hearing that Callaghan of Cashel 
 had made a slaughter of the Desies for submitting to him the 
 year before, he set out in mid-winter of the same year on his 
 famous circuit of Erin with one thousand picked warriors. 
 This expedition is celebrated in a famous poem by Cormacan 
 Eigeas {the Poet), who died in 948. He was the chief poet of 
 the Northern Ui Neill and the friend and follower of Muircher- 
 tach, and seemingly accompanied him. The poem is very 
 interesting, as it illustrates the manners of the time, social and 
 political, and deserves, consequentljr, a somewhat detailed 
 notice. It commences : — • 
 
 Muirchertach, son of the valiant Niall (Glundubh), 
 
 Thou hast taken the hostages of Inis Fail, 
 
 Thou hast brought them all unto Aileach, 
 
 Into the grianan of the splendid steeds. 
 
 Thou didst go forth from us with a thousand heroes 
 
 Of the race of Eogan of the red weapons 
 
 To make the great circuit of all Erin. 
 
 O, Muirchertach of the yellow hair, 
 
 The day that thou didst set out from us eastwards 
 
 Into the fair province of Oonchobar (Mac Nessa) 
 
 Many were the tears down beauteous cheeks 
 
 Among the fair-haired women of Aileach. 
 
 They spent a night at Oenach Cros in Antrim — " Not moife 
 pleasant to be in Paradise " — and brought Loingseach of Linne 
 as a hostage ; a night at Dun Eachach on the Ravel Water, 
 
A WINTER CIRCUIT. 285 
 
 and brought the King of Ulidia with them ; a night at Magh 
 
 Rath (Moira) ; a night at Glenn Righe (the vale of the Newry 
 
 river) ; a night at Casan Linne in Down ; and a night at Ath 
 
 Gabla on the Bojme. 
 
 We were a night at Ath Cliath ; 
 It was not pleasing to the foreigaers. 
 There was a damsel in the fort 
 Whose soul the son of Niall was. ^' 
 She came forth until she was outside the walls, 
 Although the night was bad throughout. 
 
 Bacon and fine good wheat and joints of meat and fine 
 cheese were given by the beautiful queen, and a coloured 
 mantle for each chieftain. 
 
 We carried off Sitric of the treasures ; 
 To me was assigned the duty of keeping him, 
 And there was not put upon him a handcuff. 
 Nor a polished tighb fetter. 
 
 They were a night at Dunlavin ; a night at cold KilcuUen. 
 The snow came from the north-east. 
 
 Our only houses, without distinction of rank. 
 Were our strong (sheep ?) skin cloaks.'^ 
 
 They brought off Lorcan, King of Leinster, with a rough, 
 
 bright fetter on him. They spent a night at Ballaghmoon, 
 
 near Carlow, and passing into Ossory, received food, and ale, 
 
 and hogs from its hospitable chiefs. "Not a man of them 
 
 returned to his house without a beautiful present of dress." 
 
 They received coigne and tribute from the Desies, and marched 
 
 to Cashel.^* The men of Munster were disposed to fight, but 
 
 Callaghan of Cashel said : — 
 
 O men of Munster, men of renown, 
 
 Oppose not the race of Eogan ; 
 
 Better that I go with them as a hostage. 
 
 We took with us, therefore, Callaghan the Just, 
 
 Who received his due honour ; 
 
 A ring (of gold ?) of fifteen ounces on his hand, 
 
 And a chain of iron on his stout legs. 
 
 They spent a night in Hy Gairbre (Coshma, Limerick) ; a 
 night at Killaloe, and then turned homewards. At Headford 
 
 " Haliday suggests that bhe damsel was Donnflaith. the daughter of Muir- 
 chertaeh and the wife of Olaf. She was the mother of Glunearan. 
 
 '2 A-H scoCAit cotifiA cftoicititi. This is generally rendererd " leather cloaks." 
 They were, we think, dressed sheep-skins, untanned and unshorn. 
 
 ^ Dubdara, wife of Muirchertach, was, as we have stated, the daughter of the 
 chieftain of Ossory. 
 
286 EARLY lEISH HISTORY. 
 
 they found the Kings of Connact awaiting them, and Concbobar, 
 the son of Tadg the Bull-like. 
 
 The ard-righ of valiaat Connact 
 Came with us, without a bright fetter, 
 Into the green grianan of Aileach. 
 
 Nearing home, 
 
 A giolla was despatched to Aileach 
 
 To tell Dubhdara of the black hair, 
 
 To send women to out rushes. 
 " Bestir thee, Dubdara " (spoke the giolla)^ 
 " Here is company coming to thy house. 
 
 Attend each man of them 
 
 As a king should be attended." 
 
 The noble kings were attended " as if they had been clerics," 
 
 " ten score hogs ; tea score cows ; 200 oxen ; three score vats 
 
 of curds, which banished the hungry look of the army," twelve 
 
 vats of choice mead ; and all this was the gift of the queen, 
 
 from her separate property, which was repaid to her by Muir- 
 
 chertach, " twenty hogs for every hog, a good return." At 
 
 the end of four months, Muirchertach offered the " noble kings 
 
 to Donnchad, the ard righ, who courteously declined to accept 
 
 them from his son-in-law, and said :— 
 
 Receive my blessing nobly, 
 
 May Tara be possessed by thee. 
 
 May the hostages of the Gael be in thy house, 
 
 O good son, O Muirchertach." 
 
 Muirchertach was slain (943) in a battle fought near Ardee, 
 
 by Blocar, the son of Godfrey, and the foreigners, who marched 
 
 to Armagh after their victory, and plundered it. The hostages 
 
 taken to secure Muirchertach's succession were then liberated, 
 
 '• The word grianan ooours twios in the poem. 
 
 (1). Into the ffrianan of the splendid steeds (line i), 
 
 T '" SlieAnAti JALt sfioi-oeAd. 
 
 This O'Donovan renders : — 
 
 Into the stone-built grianan (palaoe) of steeds. 
 
 (2). Into the green grianan of Aileaoh (line 150)i 
 
 1 n-st'eAtiAti UAine Oitij. 
 
 This O'Donovan renders : — 
 
 Into the green Palace of Aileach. 
 
 The ISlst line is :— 
 
 A-6415 ' Tloij Ai UAine. 
 A night on green M»gh Ai (a celebrated plain in Roscommon). 
 
 We think that the meaning of grianan here is not a palace, but an emilosure, 
 or paddook ; a meaning which it bore until recently, as we have already 
 stated (o. ziv.), in the Highlands. "Enclosures in the Highlands were called 
 grianans" — Bonwiok, Druids, 192. The troop of hostages, with their attendants, 
 were, we think, accommodated in tents, or "wattle and dab" buildings, within 
 the " horse paddock," at Aileaoh. The epithet " green " is then as applicable in 
 line ISO as in line ISl, but we confess we do not understand what is meant by a 
 gretn, stone-built, palace. Muirchertach is referred to in line 16 as "of the great 
 steeds" (ttloti-5t'0''D'S^' 
 
A, WINTEB CIRCUIT. 287 
 
 and on the death of Donnchadh (944), the rule of alternate 
 succession was disregarded, and Congalach, of the southern 
 branch, became Ardrigh. A rival claimant then appeared, 
 of the line of Conal Gulban, Ruadhri Ua Cannannain, from 
 Tir-Conaill. He defeated Congalach, who was supported by 
 Olaf Cuaran. in a pitched battle near Slane, in Meath (947). 
 In 948 he defeated Congalach again and plundered Bregia. 
 He encamped at Mmne Brocain, and there assumed the 
 name and authority of High King of Erin, and the " dues 
 of the King of Erin were sent to him from every quarter " 
 (Four Masters). In this position he was attacked by the 
 foreigners and after a desperate struggle in which six 
 thousand of the foreigners fell, Ruadhri was slain in the 
 " counterblow " of the fight, but the victory finally remained 
 with his army. Congalach then held the sovereignty without 
 further opposition, and led a hosting into Munster, raided and 
 plundered' West Munster, and killed the two sons of Kennedy, 
 the son of Lorcan, Echtighern and Donnchuan. In the follow- 
 ing year (951), he made a hosting with a great fleet on Lough 
 Derg, and took the hostages of the Manster men, over whom 
 he obtained sway after some opposition. 
 
 In the same year, probably whilst Congalach was away 
 harrying the men of Munster, the foreigners, under Godfrey^ 
 the son of Sitric, raided Meath, and " carried upwards of three 
 thousand persons with them into captivity, besides gold, silver, 
 raiment, and various wealth and goods of every description." 
 
 During the reign of Congalach an event occurred (950), 
 which deserves particular notice, as showing the use to which 
 a Round Tower was put in time of danger. The cloictech of 
 Slane in Meath was burned by the Northmen, " with its full of 
 relics and distinguished persons, and the crozier of the patron 
 saint, and the bell, which was the best of bells." The following 
 items are also of interest : — . 
 
 951 — Clonfert plundered by Callaghan of Cashelvtod the 
 Munster men. 
 
 953 — Clonmacnoise plundered by the foreigners of Limerick, 
 and the Munster men along with them. 
 
 954 — Inis Uladh, near Donard (Wicklow), plundered by 
 Olaf Cuaran and Tuathal, son of Ugaire. 
 
 954 — Saighir Ciaraan plundered by the Munster men. 
 
 Congalach raided Leinster in 956. The Leinster men sent 
 
288 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 word to Olaf Cuaran, and the foreigners of Ath Cliath, who 
 laid a battle ambush for him, and he was slain with many 
 chieftains near the Liffey, not far from Dublin. He was suc- 
 ceeded by Domhnall, son of Muirchertach, of the northern Ui 
 Neill. Many years afterwards Domhnall, the son of Congalach, 
 made alliance with Olaf, and fought a pitched battle against 
 the High King at Kilmoon, near Dunshaughlin in Meath, in 
 which he was victorious, but failed to oust King Domhnall, who 
 continued to reign until he died (978) at Armagh. He was 
 afterwards called Domhnall of Armagh, because he resided there 
 ai long time to do penance. He was succeeded by Maelseachlainn 
 II., Maelseachlainn the Great, who was the last Ardrigh of the 
 Gael who ruled without opposition. 
 
 During the sixty years that elapsed from the battle of 
 Kilmashogue (919), the Northmen of Ath-cliath had made no 
 addition to their territory near Dublin. As in the previous 
 period, they were seemingly settling down into the position of 
 Gaelic chieftains. There were frequent intermarriages and 
 shifting alliances between them and the older settlers, now 
 with one chieftain, now with another, for war or plunder. 
 Many of them had probably been by this time converted to 
 Christianity. 
 
 There were also raiding expeditions conducted by them- 
 selves independently. Territories were harried, termons 
 violated, and monasteries rifled, but these regrettable incidents 
 occurred also amongst the Gael themselves. The fusion of the 
 two branches of the Nordic race, if yet distant, seemed to be 
 approaching. From the accounts given in the historical 
 romances, and particularly in the " War of the Gael with the 
 Oaill," to which we shall refer later on, the notion is widely 
 diffused that the country was at this time, and thence onwards 
 to the battle of Clontarf (1014), reduced by the tyranny of the 
 Northmen to a state of absolute barbarism and savagery. 
 This, however, was not the case. The raiding meant little 
 more than cattle-lifting. The number of men slain in the 
 numerous combats was not great, and is no doubt, as is usual 
 in such cases, greatly exaggerated by the annalists and bardic 
 narrators. It is probable, we think, that more Irishmen in 
 proportion to population fell in battle or died from wounds 
 and disease in the wars of the nineteenth than in the wars of the 
 tenth century. Nor could the rifling of the monasteries have 
 
A WINTEB CIRCUIT. 289 
 
 been fruitful of much spoil after the earlier attacks. There were 
 no treasures hoarded or deposited in them, and their modest 
 equipment of valuables, consisting, apart from the cattle, 
 principally of relics, shrines, chalices, and other altar requisites, 
 could be easily hidden away if the cloicteach was not available 
 or was considered insecure. And the burning of the " wattle 
 and dab " buildings could not be much more than a temporary 
 inconvenience. It has been said that it was harder to burn 
 than to build them. We make these observations, not to 
 extenuate the outrages, but to call attention to exaggerations. 
 The most serious part of these raidings by the Northmen was 
 the taking of captives. In several instances recorded in our 
 annals the captives were carried off to the ships and were, no 
 doubt, either ransomed or reduced to slavery. With the Gael 
 we hear very little of prisoners or captives. In battle, apparently 
 quarter was seldom if ever given. Later on we shall meet with 
 an instance where the defeated Northmen were put to death or 
 sold as slaves at Singland near Limerick. We are, therefore, 
 on the whole prepared to find that notwithstanding much that 
 needed reformation in the social state, learning and literature 
 flourished during the ninth and tenth centuries. The most 
 celebrated names besides Cormac Mac Cuilenain, already men- 
 tioned, were Flann Mac Lonain, " the Virgil of the Gael," a 
 contemporary of Gormac's ; Cinnaeth Ua hArtacain §+973), 
 Eocaid O'Flynn (+984 c), Cormac an Eigeas, Maelmarra of 
 Fahon, MacLiag, and others. Nor was the gentler sex unrepre- 
 sented. Gormlaith, the wife of Niall Glundubh, was a poetess 
 of considerable merit. Many of her poems express her sorrow 
 for his loss. We give the following graceful lines as a sample : 
 
 Monk, remove thy foot, 
 
 Lift it off the grave of Niall ; 
 
 Too long dost thou heap the earth 
 
 On him with whom I fain would lie. 
 
 Too long dost thou. Monk, there 
 
 Heap the earth on noble Niall ; 
 
 Thou brown-haired friend, though gentle, 
 
 Press not with thy shoe the earth, 
 
 Do not firmly close the grave, 
 
 O Priest, whose office is so sad, 
 
 Lift off the bright-hair'd Niall Glundubh ; 
 
 Monk, remove thy foot.i* 
 
 " Dean of Qsmore's Book, 75 Gaelic, 101 English. 
 
 
 
r. 290 i 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 BBIAN BOBU. 
 
 WE must now follow the fortunes of the Northmen in the 
 South, after the forty years' rest. They arrived in large 
 numbers at Waterford, and after the battle of Kilmashogue 
 (918) sailed up the Shannon with a great fleet, under the 
 command of Gormo, the son of Elgi, called Tomar by the Gael. 
 They took possession of Inis Sibhtonn, now King's Island at 
 Limerick ; went up the river to L. Ree ; plundered the islands 
 there, and burned Clonmacnoise. In 924, Colla, the son of 
 Barill, the lord of Limerick, went again on L. Ree, raided 
 Brawney in Westmeath, and killed the chieftain Echtigern. 
 In 929 they invaded Connact, and went on L. Corrib ; but in 
 the following year a great slaughter was made of them by the 
 men of that province. They next made a hosting into Ossory, 
 under Ivar, the grandson of Ivar, and encamped on the famous 
 plain of Magh Roighne, where they were attacked in the 
 following year by the Northmen of Dublin, under Godfrey, 
 who was probably in alliance with the men of Ossory. He had 
 previously (923 or 924 A.D.) attacked them at Limerick, and 
 had been defeated by Tomar, the son of Elgi. On this occasion 
 he was successful, and expelled the invaders. Ivar soon after 
 made alliance with Ceallachan of Gaahel, King of Munster, and 
 they plundered the monasteries, Cluain Eidneach and Cilla- 
 chaedh, and the territory of Meath (939). Clonmacnoise was 
 again plundered by the Munster men and the Northmen of 
 Limerick; and St. Mullins, on the Barrow in Carlow, was 
 raided from the sea by Larac, after whom, probably, Waterford 
 was named Port Lairge. In 959 Clonmacnoise was again plun- 
 dered by Mahon, the eldest brother of Brian Boru, and the 
 Munster men. In 960 it was plundered again by the men of 
 
BRIAN BORtr. 291 
 
 Ossory, and the men of Munster raided " the tetmon of Ciaran 
 eastwards from the Shannon.*' On the death of Fergraidh, in 
 960, Mahon became King of Munster,^ and in the same year a 
 fleet of the son of Olaf and the Ladgmans came to Erin, and 
 plundered Louth and Howth, and the Ladgmans afterwards 
 sailed to Munster, and raided Ui Leathain, and plundered Lis- 
 more and Cork. They went after that into Ui Leathain 
 (S.E. Cork), where they were overtaken by Mael-Cluithe Ua 
 Maeleitinn, who made a great slaughter of them, killing 365, 
 so that there escaped not one of them, only the crews of three 
 ships. A prey by Sitric Cam, from the sea to Ui Colgain ; ^ 
 but he was overtaken by Olaf with the foreigners of Ath 
 Cliath and the Leinster men. Olaf was victorious, and wounded 
 Sitric with an arrow in his thigh, who escaped to his ships 
 after the slaughter of his people. 
 
 In 960, (F.M.), the Ui Neill led an army into Munster, 
 and committed great plunders there. In 961, Feargal Ua 
 Ruairc, King of Connact, made a slaughter of Mahon's men. 
 Three score were killed, including three grandsons of Lorcan. 
 In 962 Kildare was raided by the Northmen, and a great 
 number of seniors and ecclesiastics were taken prisoners, who 
 were afterwards ransomed. The full of St. Brigid's great house, 
 and the full of the oratory of them, is what Niall Ua 
 h-Eruilbh purchased with his own money. A victory by the men 
 of Ossory over Olaf, the son of Sitric, was won in the same year 
 at Inistiogue on the Nore.* 
 
 The Four Masters state that in 965 Mahon plundered 
 Limerick and burned it. But we are anticipating. Up till this 
 time the Norsemen of the South appear to have occupied 
 nearly the same position as the Northmen in Ath Cliath. 
 They held the fort and town of Waterford (Vedra Feordr, 
 Weacher Haven), and some territory near it — probably what is 
 now known as the barony Gaultier (Gall tire), and the fort and 
 town of Limerick, and some territory near it — probably what 
 
 ' The suooession of the Kings of Munster, according to the Book of Leinster, 
 was as follows: — (1) Cormao mao Cuileuainn; (2) Tlabhertach, Abbot of Inis 
 Scattery ; (3) Lorcan ; (4) Ceallaohan of Caahel ; (5) Mael Fithortagh ; (6) 
 Dubhdabairind ; (7) Fergradh ; (8) Mathgamhain or Mahon ; (9) MoUoy, the son of 
 Bran ; (10) Brian Boru, " killed in the battle of the weir of Cluain Taerbh (Clontarf) 
 by the Leinster men and the foreigners." — Todd, War of the Gael, 239. 
 
 ' Ui Colgain was in the territory of Offaly, and oo-extensive with the barony 
 of Philipstown, in the King's County. 
 
 » Petrie^oancJ Towers, 227. 
 
292 EAKLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 was afterwards known as the Ostman's Cantred — and they 
 made alliances, intermarriages, and raidings like their kins- 
 men ; and, to crown all, they fought with one another just like 
 the native chieftains. There was no attempt to form a com- 
 bination of the Gael against them; no Gaelic chieftain un- 
 furled a national fiag, and summoned his countrymen to a war 
 of liberation. The bardic account of their position and doing, 
 in Munster is, however, very different. The author of the 
 " War of the Gael with the Gaill " approaches the subject from 
 the tribal standpoint. He is a panegyrist of the Dal Cais, to 
 which tribe he belonged, and by whose bounty he was, no 
 doubt, rewarded. He tells us that " they excelled all other 
 tribes in Erin as a bright watch-tower, shining above all the 
 light of the earth, as the bright sun outshines the noblest stars 
 of the sky." And in order to show how much the men of Erin 
 owed to their deliverers from bondage, he extols the bravery, 
 the superior discipline, and the armaments of the Norsemen, 
 while he paints a dark picture of their cruelty and oppression :— 
 
 There was a king of them in every territory and an abbot in every 
 church (!) and a steward in every village, and a soldier in every house: 
 so that none of the men of Erin had power even to give the milk of his 
 cow, nor as much as the clutch of eggs of his hen, in succour or kind- 
 ness to an aged man or to a friend, but was obliged to preserve them 
 for the foreign steward, or bailiff, or soldier. And though there might 
 be but one milk-giving cow in the house, she durst not be milked for an 
 infant of one night, etc. And an ounce of silver for every nose, besides 
 the royal tribute afterwards every year ; and he who had not the means 
 of paying it had himself to go into slavery for it. In a word, though 
 there were a hundred hard steeled iron heads on one neck, and a 
 hundred sharp, ready cool, never-resting brazen tongues in each head, 
 and a hundred garrulous, loud, unceasing voices from each tongue, they 
 could not recount, nor narrate, nor enumerate, nor tell what all the Gael 
 suffered in common from this valiant, wrathful, foreign, fiercely pagan 
 people. None of the victorious clans of many-familied Erin could give 
 relief against the oppression because of the excellence of their " polished, 
 ample, heavy, trusty, glittering" corselets, and their hard, strong, 
 valiant swords, and their well-rivetted long spears, etc., and because of 
 their thirst and hunger for the sweet grassy land of Erin. There was, 
 however, a certain, gracious, noble, high-born, beautiful tribe in Erin 
 who never submitted to oppression. These were the deliverers, the 
 famous Dal-Cais. 
 
 The style and character of " the War of the Gael with the 
 Gaill " may be judged from the foregoing extract. It is marked 
 with the malady of the decadence. There is the accumulation 
 of epithets, and the exaggeration we have already noticed in 
 
BRIAN BOETJ. 593 
 
 the modern prose additions to the Tain. This disease, how- 
 ever, is not peculiar to Gaelic writers. It appears in the 
 Orphic literature of Greece and is found in an acute form in 
 the Hymn to Ares, which is Orphic, though usually classed as 
 one of the Homeric Hymns. We have observed it also in 
 Hindustani, where it takes the milder form of the duplication 
 of verbs of similar meaning, emasculating the force of that 
 smooth and interesting language. In our bardic narratives^ 
 sense and thought are thus often diluted until their presence 
 can, with difficulty, be detected in the flow of words that supplies 
 the sonorous vocalization of the reciter. This rhetorical or 
 recitative verbosity is, as Huxley has justly remarked, " the 
 most deadly of literary sins." What O'Donovan has said of 
 the " Three Fragments " is equally true of the " War of the 
 GaeL" "The more lengthened stories and details of battles are 
 curious specimens of Irish composition. Some of them have 
 evidently been abstracted from long bardic descriptions, and 
 are interspersed with the wonderful, the wild, the supernatural, 
 and the incredible." * 
 
 On the other hand, judging from the Homilies which have 
 reached us, the preaching of the Word was singularly free 
 from the vicious methods of the bardic reciters. The sermons 
 are masculine in thought and treatment, level with the subject 
 and the occasion, marked by simplicity and sincerity, and free 
 from vapid banalities and frigid ecstasy. 
 
 After the Northmen built their fort on King's Island, at 
 Limerick, and placed their ships on the Upper Shannon, they 
 harried the country in every direction. The brunt of the 
 attack, however, fell on the Dal Cais in Thomond. The Norse 
 occupied a good strategic position at Tradry (Bunnratty), on 
 the Shannon, in Glare, about six miles from Limerick, where 
 they built a strong fort. Mahon, and his brother, Brian, 
 retired into the woods and fastnesses of North Clare and 
 South Galway, from which they carried on a guerilla war- 
 fare for some years. Mahon, wearied out at length, made a 
 truce with the Northmen, but Brian persisted in continuing 
 hostilities. He was at length reduced to the greatest straits. 
 Mahon then came to his aid, and they called a meeting of 
 the Dal Cais, and put the question of peace or war to the 
 
 • Three Fraaraents, PreUoe. 
 
294 EAKLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 assembled tribesmen. Every voice was for war. A hosting was 
 then made into Kerry, where the Eoganachts, and the men 
 of Muskerry in Cork, joined them, and the Northmen in those 
 parts were driven out. Mahon then marched to Cashel, and 
 took possession, and became King of Munster. This was 
 probably in 964. Sitric of Limerick then summoned a great 
 muster of his supporters. These included Gael as well as 
 Norsemen, " for there were many Gael who stood by him, not 
 so much through love of him, as through hatred of the 
 Dal Cais."* Foremost among these were Donovan, lord of the 
 Ui Fidhgeinate, and Maelmuadh (Molloy), the son of Bran, 
 lord of Desmond. Ivar marched with his forces towards Cashel 
 to crush the Dal Cais. When Mahon heard of this he sum- 
 moned his tribesmen to a council of war, and they determined 
 to march to Cnamhcoill, near Tipperary. At this moment an 
 outlying branch of the Dal Cais — the Dealbhna from Delvin in 
 Westmeath— arrived in the nick of time to aid their clansmen 
 — one hundred well-armed men, under Cathal, the son of 
 Feredach, " the king soldier and champion of Erin." This 
 was welcomed as an omen of victory. The decisive battle was 
 then fought [968) at Sulchoit, about 2^ miles north-west of Tip- 
 perary. It lasted from sunrise to mid-day, and ended in the 
 complete rout of the Norsemen and their allies. The fort and 
 town of Limerick, with their rich spoils, fell into the hands of 
 the victors. The prisoners were then collected on the hill of 
 Saingel (Singland), near Limerick, and " every one that was fit 
 for war was put to death, and every one that was fit for a slave 
 was enslaved." Mahon followed up this victory, and defeated 
 the enemy in subsequent engagements, and took the hostages 
 of Munster, in particular those of Donovan and Molloy. Ivar 
 escaped with Olaf, the son of Olaf, to the East — i.e., Wales, 
 where, however, he did not succeed in making good his 
 footing. He returned in a year's time with a great fleet, 
 entered the western harbour of Limerick, took possession of the 
 larger islands of the Shannon, and fixed his headquarters at 
 Inis Scattery. Shortly afterwards the conspiracy was hatched 
 between hini, Donovan, and Molloy (who represented the 
 claims and hatreds of the line of Eogan Mor), which ended in 
 the assassination of Mahon. The details as to thQ murder 
 
 • Todd War of the Gael, oxvi. 
 
BRIAN BOBU. 295 
 
 given in the " War of the Gael " are confused and contradic 
 tory and we shall not reproduce them here. Todd observes 
 that the narrative in the " War of the Gael " bears internal 
 evidence both of interpolation and mutilation. 
 
 A probable version, in our view, is, that Mahon went from 
 Bruree to meet MoUoy in Desmond, and that MoUoy sent 
 forward an escort to meet him to the border of the county 
 of Cork. The escort lay in wait for Mahon. The road 
 from Bruree to Mallow and South Munster passed through 
 Kilmallock, and across Sliabh Caein, through a pass known 
 as the Red Gap (Bearna Dhearg). According to tradition, 
 it was in this pass that Mahon was assassinated by the 
 escort. Mahon was probably proceeding on a peaceful mission, 
 and had the guarantee and protection of the Bishop of Cork, 
 who promptly excommunicated all persons who were concerned 
 in the murder. We would infer that the motive for the 
 murder was revenge, not policy. The conspirators gained 
 nothing by the crime. Brian, who took the place of Mahon, 
 " was not an egg in the place of a stone nor a wisp of hay in 
 the place of a shillelagh." He forthwith demanded that Molloy 
 should be given up, and announced that no cumhal or eric 
 would be taken. It was an intertribal homicide, and, as we 
 have seen, he was not bound to take an eric, but might insist 
 on life for life. The Dal Cais marched against Molloy, and*a 
 pitched battle was fought at Bealach Leachta, somewhere 
 between Ardpatrick, in Limerick, and Glanworth, in Cork, in 
 which Molloy was slain and his army routed.^ Brian next 
 attacked Donovan, whose daughter was married to Ivar of 
 Waterford, and who was in alliance with, and sustained by the 
 Norsemen. Donovan was defeated and slain, and Brian be- 
 came the undisputed King of all Munster — in 978, two years 
 before the accession of Maelseachlainn II. 
 
 The facts recorded in our annals, about which there is no 
 controversy, prove, conclusively that the Northmen were never 
 conquerors of Munster, nor present there in overwhelming 
 
 ' In this bloody engagement (Bealach Leachta), Murrough, the eldest son of 
 Brian, by Mor, daughter of O'Hine (Ua h'Eidhiu) Prince of Hy Fiaohre-Aedhne, 
 in Connaot, made his first campaign, and although but thirteen years old, engaged 
 hand to hand with Maelmuidh, and slew this murderer of hia uncle. — O'Halloran, 
 History II., 236. 
 
 Brian had probably married Mor during the time of his early struggles in 
 North CUre and South Connact. 
 
296 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 numbers. The capture of King's Island, which, without a 
 fleet of boats, could only be attacked by a ford across the 
 Shannon, and the defeat of the Norsemen at Sulchoit, though 
 they were aided by two powerful chieftains like MoUoy and 
 Donovan, is sufficient to disprove the legend we have quoted 
 from " The War of the Gael." The raids of the Norsemen in 
 Munster were of the same character as their raids elsewhere, 
 and there was no effective occupation of any territory in 
 Munster except in the immediate vicinity of Waterford and 
 Limerick, which places were, no doubt, used to some extent 
 as trading stations. We must therefore reject the bombastic 
 description in the bardic narratives, which were manifestly 
 fabricated to magnify the services of the Dal Cais and to 
 glorify the hero, Brian Boru. 
 
 Maelseachlainn II. became ard rigb, as we have stated in 
 980. His accession was peaceable. The two rig damna repre- 
 senting the Northern and Southern branches of the Ui Neill, 
 who had prior claims, had been slain in battle in 977 by Olaf, 
 the son of Sitric. Maelseachlainn began his reign with a great 
 victory over the Northmen at Tara (980), and afterwards 
 defeated the foreigners of Ath Cliath and the Western Isles 
 with great slaughter, killing Ragnall, the son of Olaf, the 
 rig damna of Dublin. Olaf then went over sea to lona, where 
 he died, " after penance and a good life." Maelseachlainn soon 
 after made a great hosting with the King of Ulidia against the 
 foreigners of Ath Cliath. They beleagured them for three 
 days and three nights, and brought thence the hostages of 
 Erin, including Domhnal Claen,^ King of Leinster, and the 
 guarantees (ecifib) of the Ui Neill, besides. And they got 
 their full demand from the foreigners, to wit, two thousand 
 kine, with jewels and treasures, and, moreover, with the full 
 freedom of the Ui Neill from tribute, from the Shannon to 
 the sea. 'Tis then that Maelseachlainn proclaimed the famous 
 rising (efeiiigi),® when he said, " Let every one of the Gael who 
 is in the foreigners' territory come forth to his own country 
 
 ' O'Donovan says that this ia the first mention of a Christian Norseman in our 
 annals. Ware thought the Norse of Dublin entered Christianity about 930, A.D. 
 The movement towards the Faith began, no doubt, as early as the intermarriages. 
 The first Ostman bishop was oonseorated in 1054 at Canterbury, to the archbishop 
 of which see the succeeding Ostman bishops owed obedience. 
 
 ' ereitigi. The Four Masters have fo\i uAccApc-eArjAitie, i.e., published a 
 proclamation, so eAfjAiiie is probably the correct word. 
 
BRIAN BOKU. 297 
 
 for peace and comfort. That captivity was the Babylonian 
 captivity of Erin. 'Twas next to the captivity of hell."^ 
 
 In 982 Maelseaohlainn, in conjunction with Gluniarn, the 
 son of Olaf, King of Afh Cliath, raided Leinster. The presence 
 of Gluiniarn may have been voluntary. He was closely related 
 to Maelseachlainn ; and though these relationships did not count 
 for much in Erin, the connection would probably have been 
 sufficient to set him moving against Leinster.^" The inter- 
 marriages between the royal families of the Gael and the 
 Northmen at this point are inextricably confused, and it must 
 suffice here to say that Donnflaith, the daughter, or grand- 
 daughter, of Muirchertach of the leather cloaks, was wedded first 
 to Domhnall, son of Donncadh, ard righ, to whom she bore 
 Maelseachlainn II., and secondly to Olaf Cuaran, to whom she 
 bore Gluniarn. Domhnall, the King of Leinster, was also on 
 his side supported by a contingent of Norsemen from Water- 
 ford, under the command seemingly of Gilla Patrick, the son 
 of Ivar. The Leinstermen were routed and Gilla Patrick slain, 
 and many perished, " both by drowning and killing." 
 
 In 984 Maelseachlainn raided Connact, destroyed the islands 
 (i.e., Crannogs) and reduced Magh Ai to ashes. 
 
 In 990 Maelseachlainn was victorious over the men. of 
 Thomond, killing six hundred, defeated the united forces 
 of Leinster, Munster and a Norse contingent, and took Domhnal, 
 King of Leinster, prisoner. 
 
 In 992 he raided Connact again and took from it " the 
 greatest boroma that a king had ever brought." Brian advanced 
 with the men of Munster and Connact to L. Ennel, near Mul- 
 lingar, " but he did not take a cow or a prisoner, but escaped by 
 secret flight " on the approach of the Ard Righ. 
 
 In 996 Maelseachlainn burned Aenach Tete (Nenagh), 
 plundered Urmumhan (E. Munster)" and routed Brian and 
 the men of Munster in general. In this year too he carried 
 
 * Tigemaoh, Rev. Celt, xvii., 142. (Stokes). 
 
 '" Todd, War of the Gael, oxlviii. 
 
 •'Thomond was origma.Uy confined to North Tipperary and North-East 
 Limerick, and Urmumhan or East Munster lay to the east of this, and is not to be 
 confounded with the baronies of Upper and Lower Ormond, to which the name was 
 ignorantly transferred in the usual way. Clare was afterwards added to Thomond 
 by the Daloais as Sword-land. Finally, according to Keating, Thomond extended 
 from Leim Chonchulainn (Loop Head) to Bealach Mor (Ballaghmore, Upper Ossory), 
 and from Sliabh Echtghe (Slieve Aughty) to Sliabb Ecbhlinne.now Sleibhte Feidb* 
 limidh, in Tipperary, teABAfi n* sceptic, 261. 
 
2^8 EARL'S IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 off from the foreigners of Ath-Cliath by force the ring of Tomar 
 and the sword of Carlus.'^ 
 
 We have traced thus far an outline of the doings of 
 Maelseachlainn during the first 14 years of his reign and shall 
 now turn our attention to Brian. After he became King of 
 Munster on the death of Mahon (976) he commenced by the 
 subjugation of the Decies and took the hostages of Munster 
 " and of the churches lest they should receive rebels or thieves 
 into sanctuary." Ossory was next subdued and Gilla Patrick, 
 the king, taken prisoner and forced to give hostages. Brian then 
 marched into Leinster and took hostages from the two kings, 
 Domhnall Claen, King of the Eastern, and Tuathal, King of 
 the Western plain of the Liffey. This was in 984, eight years 
 after the murder of Mahon, and he thus became King, not of 
 Munster alone, but of all Leath Mogha. According to our 
 annals Connact next engaged his attention. He assembled a 
 great fleet of 300 boats on Lough Derg, rowed up the Shannon 
 to Lough Ree, raided Meath to Uisneach, plundered Brefni 
 (Leitrimand Cavan), and finally " did great evil" in Connacht, 
 killing Murghes, the rig damna. It is noticeable that a con- 
 tingent from the foreigners of Waterford was aiding him in this 
 foray. 
 
 Maelseachlain and Brian were now face to face, and a conflict 
 appeared to be inevitable and imminent between them. This, 
 however, was for the time avoided, and a treaty of peace and 
 alliance was made between them (999) at Plein Pattoigi, on the 
 shore of Lough Ree. All hostages in the custody of Maelseach- 
 lainn, whether of Munster or Leinster, Ui Feachrach Aidhne 
 or Ui Maine, or of the foreigners (of the South ?), were to be 
 surrendered to Brian, and Maelseachlainn was to be recognised 
 as sovereign of Leath Chuinlu " without war or tresspass of 
 Brian." 
 
 According to the Annals of Ulster and the Four Masters, 
 Maelseachlainn and Brian then joined their forces and marched 
 
 " We extract the following particulars from Haliday : — The Godar were 
 princes, judges and priests. The emblem of the military jurisdiction was the 
 sword, of the sacerdotal dignity a massive ring, usually kept in the temple of Thor, 
 but sometimes attached by a smaller ring to the armilla of the Godi. Witnesses 
 were sworn on the " holy " ring. There is a splendid specimen of a large ring 
 with a small rinj; attached to it now in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy. 
 It was found in Clare. The last notice of the sword of Oarlus is that it was taken 
 by Mael na-mbo in 1088. The ring was the famous " collar of gold won from the 
 proud invader," of Moore. — ^Haliday, Scantfo King, 127. 
 
BRIAN BOEU. 299 
 
 against the foreigners of Ath Cliath (998), " and carried off the 
 hostages and the best part of their valuables from them." 
 They do not mention the Treaty of Plein Pattoigi, the par- 
 ticulars as to which we have taken from The Wars of the Gael. 
 Whether these particulars are accurate or not, it is evident that 
 some such arrangement preceded the attack on Ath Cliath. 
 The Northmen now joined the men of Leinster and both deter- 
 mined to fight for freedom. Brian then marched into Leinster, 
 where he was joined by Maelseachlainn and advanced to Glen- 
 mama, near Dunlavin, in Wicklow, on his road to Dublin, A 
 fierce battle was fought there. The Norsemen and the 
 Leinster men were routed with red slaughter, and the allied 
 forces entered Dublin, and, we are surprised to hear, found 
 there " gold, silver, and captives " — ^prizes of war — which they 
 carried off. They burned the fort and expelled the King — 
 Sitric, the son of Olaf. In the following year, however, Brian, 
 in whose " half '' the fort was situated, granted them terms of 
 peace and took their hostages. Brian had evidently for a long 
 time aspired to, and determined to secure, the overlordship of 
 Erin. In furtherance of this ambition he now cemented his 
 alliance with the Northmen by matrimonial ties. He gave his 
 daughter in marriage to Sitric, and, according to some accounts, 
 himself married Gormlaith, the mother of Sitric, The improba- 
 bilities of this story are, however, so great that we think it may 
 be safely rejected as a bardic invention in connection with a 
 romance or ursgeul, dealing with the cause of the Battle of 
 Clontarf. Gormlaith was the daughter of Marchadh, the son 
 of Finn, chieftain of Offaly, and the sister of Maelmordha. who 
 became King of Leinster. She was married first to Olaf 
 Cuaran, to whom she bore Sitric, and secondly to Maelseach- 
 lainn II., to whom she bore Conchobar. As her second husband 
 was then alive she could not contract a civil or a religious 
 marriage with Brian or anybody else. Moreover, Brian's second 
 " one wife," Dubhcobhtaigh, the daughter of Cathal O'Connor, 
 King of Connact, was then alive. Her death is recorded by the 
 Four Masters at 1009, and Brian had wars enough on hands 
 without bringing an old campaigner to Kincora to fight for the 
 overlordship of it with his lawful wife, who, seemingly, remained 
 with him until her death. Moreover, such an outrage would 
 have alienated the powerful clans of the Sil Muireadhaigh, the 
 clansmen of the " one wife," and probably provoked immediate 
 
300 EARLY IRISH HISTORY 
 
 hostilities. The Four Masters, however, state that she was the 
 mother of Sitric, of Donncadh, the son of Brian, and of 
 Conchobar, the son of Maelseachlainn, and add : It was this 
 Gormlaith that^' took the three leaps of which it was said: — 
 
 Gormlaith took three leaps. 
 
 Which no woman shall take to the day of judgment. 
 A leap at Ath Cliath (Olaf). A leap at Tara (Maelseachlainn), 
 A leap at Cashel off the goblets higher than both (of CaC) 
 (Four Masters, A.D. 1030). 
 
 Brian's son Donncadh had, as we shall see, an important 
 command in 1014, and before the Battle of Clontarf was de- 
 tached to plunder Leinster. If he was the son of Gormlaith he 
 could have been then, at the most, only 13 years old. There is 
 no evidence to which any importance can be attached that 
 the Gaelic chieftains could put away or repudiate their wives, 
 and marry again with religious solemnities. It is highly 
 probable that there were in Erin, as elsewhere, marriages 
 within the forbidden degrees, as the discipline of the Church 
 was unsettled in the matter until the fourth Council of 
 Lateran (1215.) There may have been more serious irregu- 
 larities than the marriage of cousins amongst the foreigners 
 in Dublin, Waterford and Limerick ; but that the early Church 
 ever sanctioned divorces a vinculo, or that there ever was any 
 civil recognition of such divorces we utterly disbelieve. 
 
 Having secured the submission and alliance of the North men, 
 Brian assembled a great force, with contingents from South 
 Connact, Ossory, Leinster, and the Norsemen of Dublin and 
 marched towards Tara. This was an invasion of " Conn's 
 Half," and is described by our annalists as the " first turning of 
 Brian and the men of Connact against Maelseachlainn." The 
 main advance was preceded by a force of Norse cavalry, which 
 was met by Maelseachlainn and cut to pieces. Brian then re- 
 treated without fighting, plundering, or burning. He then 
 formed an alliance with the foreigners o£ Waterford, and 
 organised the forces of Leath Mogha and South Connact. 
 Against this combination and organisation, the Southern 
 Ui Neill, unaided, were powerless ; unless they were supported 
 
 " The ursgeul is too long to be given here. It represents Gormlaith as then 
 installed as Queen at Kincoia and inciting her brother Maelmordha to make war 
 on Brian. It will be found in Keating (Mahony) 399. We do not think there is 
 any suggestion of impropriety, as Todd conjectured in the use of the word 
 " leap " here. 
 
BRIAN BOEU. 301 
 
 by the Northern Branch submission to Brian was inevitable^ 
 Maelseachlainn sent Gilla Comgall Ua Sleibhin, the Chief Bard 
 of Ulster, to his kinsmen to appeal for help. A metrical 
 account of his mission is given by the author of the " War of 
 the Gael." It contains a fervid exhortation to Aedh Ua 
 Neill, King of Aileach, and Eocaid, King of Ulidia, and Cathal, 
 King of Connact, to rescue Tara from the grasp of Brian, and to 
 unite the race of Eremon against the usurpation of the line of 
 Heber. Aedh Ua Neill refused to help, and said that when 
 the Chieftains of the North were Kings of Tara they were able 
 to defend it without applying for external aid, and that he 
 would not risk the lives of his clansmen for the sake of securing 
 the sovereignty of Erin for another man. On receiving this 
 reply, Maelseachlainn went in person to Aedh and offered to 
 abdicate in his favour, and give him hostages. Aedh received 
 this proposal favourably, but said it was necessary to consult 
 his clansmen. He then summoned the Cinel Eogain to consider 
 the proposal. The tribesmen voted unanimously against fight- 
 ing the Dal Cais. Aedh then requested that the question of 
 peace or war should be considered in secret session. It was 
 then resolved not to accede to Maelseachlainn's request unless 
 he would agree to cede to the Cinel-Eogain. " One half of the 
 men of Meath, one half of the territory of Tara," i.e. half of the 
 possessions of the Southern Branch. On hearing this, 
 Maelseachlainn left in great wrath, summoned a meeting of his 
 tribesmen, and placed the matter before them. They resolved 
 not to cede half their territory, but to submit to Brian without 
 fighting. Maelseachlainn then " went to the house '' of Brian, 
 made submission, and offered to give him hostages. The effect 
 of all this was that the status of Maelseachlainn was reduced to 
 that of a provincial King, and in the brief words of Tigernach, 
 " Brian reigned " in his stead." 
 
 A great deal of warmth has been introduced into this part 
 of our story. Some represent Maelseachlainn and some Brian as 
 the true patriot, who deserves our admiration and sympathy, and 
 Brian is charged with treachery. In our view neither of them 
 did anything which the other would not have done in his place, 
 nor did either of them do anything which modern statecraft, 
 as practised amongst the most civilised nations, could afford to 
 
 " 1001 A.D. Brian Boroma regnat. The Four Masters regard the reign 
 as commencing in 1002 A.D. i 
 
302 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 criticise very severely. The one thing needful at the time was 
 to proclaim the extirpation of tribalism, and to establish the 
 brotherhood and equality of all the men of Erin. Unfortunately 
 for Erin the chieftains were warriors rather than Statesmen, 
 and fighting amongst themselves, they left to the future historian 
 the melancholy duty of recording how a nation of brave men 
 surrendered their liberty without ever fighting with their 
 whole strength one pitched battle in its defence For this, as 
 we shall see from this point onward, the tribalism and political 
 incapacity of the chieftains must be held responsible. There 
 were, however, extenuating circumstances. 
 
[ 303 ] 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 CLONTAKP. 
 
 AFTER the submission of the Southern Ui Neill, Brian pre. 
 pared for the struggle with the North. He first proceeded 
 to Connact with the forces of Leath Mogha and the 
 usual contingent of foreigners and obtained hostages without 
 opposition. He then marched to Dundalk, reinforced by the 
 men of Connact, intending to penetrate Ulster through the 
 eastern passes. But the men of Ulster stood on guard and 
 would not permit him to pass onwards, and he retired " without 
 booty, spoil, or pledges." The North, however, did not remain 
 united. Shortly afterwards a fierce contest arose between 
 Aedh, King of Aileach, and Eocaid, King of Ulidia, and a 
 battle was fought at Craibh Talcha in the north of Down, in 
 which the Ulidians were routed. Eocaid, his brother, and hi? 
 two sons were amongst the slain. Aedh was also amongst the 
 slain. Brian now advanced again against Ulster as far as 
 Ballysodare in Siigo, intending to make a royal circuit of Erin, 
 but he was again stopped by the Ui Neill of the North, mainly 
 by the Cinel-Conaill. H'' then marched to Armagh, where he 
 stayed a week and left ^0 oz of gold on the altar, and caused 
 to be entered in the Great Book (Bibliotheca) his recognition 
 of the claims formulated in the Liber Angueli. He obtained 
 the hostages of Ulidia, and probably of all the North, except 
 the Cinel-Conaill, but failed to make the circuit of Erin. This 
 he accomplished in 1006, crossing the Erne at Eas Rundh, and 
 marching through Tir-Conaill and Tir-Eogain, and crossing the 
 BannatFeartas Camsa (the Cutts) below Coleraine into Dalradia 
 and Dalaradia reached Castlekieran, near Kells, about 
 Lammas-tide. He did not, however, according to the Four 
 Masters, succeed in obtaining the hostages of the Cinel-Conaill 
 or Cinel-Eogain, His army then separated, " the foreigners 
 going by sea round to their fortress." In 1011, leading the men 
 of Munster, Leinster, and the Ui Neill of the South, and joined 
 by the Cinel-Eogain, Brian invaded Tir-Conaill and carried off 
 three hundred captives and a great prey of cattle as well as the 
 chieftain Maelruanaidh ua Maeldoraidh in submission as a 
 
304 EARLV IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 hostage to Cenn-Coracdh. It was only after this that Brian 
 could be regarded as an Ard Righ without opposition. But in 
 reality his title was never admitted by the North, and they did 
 not obey his summons to the field at Clontarf. This seems to 
 indicate that he did not then hold their hostages. Now it must 
 not be supposed that all the warlike energy of the time was 
 consumed in these operations. On the contrary, there were 
 countless raids and combats between inferior chieftains in all 
 parts, the particulars whereof will be found in our annals. 
 Brian now began to build numerous forts, and lifted the boroma 
 "with great severity." The Leinster men, joined by the 
 foreigners, rose against him. Brian then led the men of 
 Munster to Sliabh Mairge, near Carlow, and plundered 
 Leinster to the suburbs of Dublin, to which he laid siege. He 
 remained before it until Christmas (1013), when he was forced 
 to retire from want of provisions, intending to return in the 
 spring. Both sides then prepared for the decisive struggle, 
 which took place on Good Friday (1014) at Clontarf, within 
 view of the ramparts of Ath Cliath. It was by no means a 
 conflict between the Gael and the Northmen. The Gael were 
 divided. The men of Ulster, Ulidia, and North Connact stood 
 aloof. The men of Leinster and Ossory fought shoulder to 
 shoulder with the Norsemen. So Brian had only the Dal Cais, 
 the men of South Munster and South Connact, and, we will add, 
 the men of Meath under Maelseachlainn, though some writers 
 say that they stood aloof on the day of battle. The Northmen 
 had, in addition to their Gaelic allies, large contingents from 
 their kinsmen over sea. " The foreigners of the west of 
 Europe," say the Four Masters, " assembled against Brian and 
 Maelseachlainn and brought with them ten hundred men with 
 3oats of mail." Numbers even approximately exact cannot be 
 given, but we conjecture that there were on each side from six 
 to eight thousand fighting men. The fort of the Northmen 
 stood on the south side of the LifFey, which flows from west to 
 east, on the spot where now stands the Castle of Dublin. It 
 communicated with the Fine Gall on the north side of the 
 river by means of the " hurdle ford " and a bridge which was 
 afterwards known as Dubhgall's Bridge. On the south side of 
 the river the tide came up over College Green almost to the 
 precincts of the fort. On the north side, about two miles north 
 of the Liffey, was the little river Tolka. It now flows, roughly 
 
CLONTAEF, 303 
 
 speaking, from west to east under Ballybough and Newcomen 
 Bridges into Dublin Bay. About four miles north of the Tolka, 
 within the Fine Gall, are the Hill and Harbour of Howth, 
 where, we suggest, the foreigners landed before advancing to 
 attack Brian. There are no reliable materials available for 
 giving a detailed account of the battle. We shall state briefly 
 the conclusions, few in number, which we have drawn with 
 much diffidence from the annals and the bardic narratives- 
 The scene of the fighting lay between the Lifiey and the Tolka, 
 behind which the forces of Brian were marshalled, The Dal 
 Cais and the men of South Connact held the line of the little 
 river. The men of South Munster were next, while the men 
 of Meath, under Maelseachlainn, lay away to the south towards 
 Kilmainham. We are unable to accept the view that the 
 Norsemen landed from their ships on the strand of Dublin 
 Bay under the beard of Brian. Nor are we impressed with the 
 importance of the fact that the full tide on Good Friday, the 
 24th of April, 1014 (a neap tide), coincided nearly with sunrise 
 along the Olontarf shore and was full about 5.30 a.m., and the 
 evening tide full at 5.55 p.m. The ships of the Norsemen 
 carried from 50 to 100 men, say an average of 80 each, and 
 were propelled by oars or used sails under favourable wind 
 conditions. Thus 100 ships would carry 8,000 men, who would 
 be all available for fighting if the ships were beached,' Now 
 the foreshore between the Tolka and the Liffey is accurately 
 described by Dalton as " an area which is at the pleasure of 
 the tide, alternately a pool of muddy brine and a surface of 
 oozy strand," ^ and it does not require very deep military 
 knowledge to understand that landing 8,000 men -from 100 
 ships in the presence of an active and vigilant foe on such a fore- 
 shore would be a very hazardous operation, if it were at all prac- 
 ticable. We have very little doubt, therefore, that the Northmen 
 made Howth their base, and advancing in suitable formation 
 deployed on the Tolka at sunrise.* They attacked at once, pro- 
 
 ^ See, however, the interesting Report of Todd and Haughton, Royal Irish 
 Academy's Proceedings (1857), 485, 
 
 ^ Dalton, History of Dublin. 
 
 * The Book of Leinster in the List of Kings states that Brian " was killed in 
 the Battle of the Weir of Clontarf by the Leinstermen and the foreigners." This 
 weir was on the Tolka, probably at Ballybough Bridge, and the battle was 
 commonly called " Oath Coradh Cluana Tarbh, — The Battle of the Weir of 
 Clontarf." Tarlough, the grandson of Brian, is said to have been drowned at this 
 weir, holding in his grasp two, or some said three Norsemen, who were also 
 drowned there. Todd, War of the Gcid, 23S, p. clxxxiv. 
 
 • X 
 
306 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 bably finding the enemy not quite prepared.* The Dal Cais and 
 the men of South Connact (the Ui Fiachach Aidhe and the Ui 
 Maine) were routed, with great slaughter. The men of South 
 Munster were overthrown, and both were pursued to their 
 respective camps, which some of the Norsemen commenced to 
 plunder. At this juncture, whilst the Norsemen were scattered 
 in pursuit of the beaten foe, Maelseachlainn came up with the 
 men of Meath, from Kilmainham, and delivered his attack, 
 probably on the flank of the disordered Northmen. It was 
 completely successful. The Northmen were overthrown, and 
 driven with red slaughter to their ships, in which the remnant, 
 we may presume, escaped, as no mention is anywhere made of 
 the ships of the Northmen having been captured by Mael- 
 seachlainn. The following is the account of the battle in the 
 Four Masters, A.D. 1014 :— 
 
 A spirited, fierce, vengeful, and furious battle was fought between 
 them — the like of which was not to be found in that time — at Clontarf, 
 ou the Friday before Easter (April 23rd, 1014,) precisely. In that 
 battle were slain Brian, monarch of Erin, who was the Augustus of 
 the West of Europe, in the 88th year of his age ; Murchadh, son of 
 Brian, rig damna, In his 63rd year ; Oonaing, son of Donncuan, Brian's 
 brother, and Turlough, son of Murchadh, his grandson. His three 
 companions, whom they name, were slain, and Tadg O'Kelly, lord of the 
 Ui Maine, and Maelraonaidh Ua hEidhin (probably the brother of 
 Brian's first wife), chieftain of Fiachrach Aidhne ; the chieftains of 
 Fermoy and Cearraighe Luachra, and the sons of the chieftain of 
 Corca Bhaiscin, of the chieftain of the Eoganacht of Killarney, and 
 of the chieftain of Mar, in Scotland. The forces of the Northmen 
 were afterwards routed by dint of battling, bravery, and striking by 
 Mealseachlainn, from the Tolka to Ath Cliath. It was Brodar, King 
 of the Danes of Denmark, who slew Brian. The ten hundred in 
 armour were cut to pieces, and at least three thousand of the foreigners 
 were slain. 
 
 The Annals of Innisfallen say that Brian, with his son 
 Murchadh, went round the army, before the battle began, with 
 a crucifix in his left hand and a sword with a golden scabbard 
 in his right hand, to show them that he would die along with 
 them in fighting for them, The attack was then delivered, and 
 Brian was killed by Brodar before he went from the battle * 
 (ir fo he sin, i.e., Bruadar do mart Brian rea teithe as an ccath). 
 
 ' If Brian had anticipated an attack on that day he would undoubtedly have 
 recalled an important detachment of his forces that was away foraging in Leinster, 
 under his son Donnoodh. 
 
 * O'Connor, Rerum. Sib., II. 671. 
 
CliONTARP. 307 
 
 There fell of the Northmen, 3,012, and of the Leinstermen, 
 3,000.6 
 
 Maelseachlainn is charged with treachery on this occasion 
 by the writers of the South. Some merely state that he with- 
 drew his forces on the eve of the battle, while others go further 
 and assert that he had a secret understanding with the North- 
 men. The mildest form of the accusation is that he abstained 
 from giving timely help. The common-sense of mankind 
 allows to a beaten army the privilege of grumbling and framing 
 excuses of this kind, without, however, attaching to them 
 any evidential value. We make no doubt the deposed ard 
 righ would be very glad to have the chance of clearing off old 
 scores with Brian, if he could do so with safety. A Gaelic 
 proverb, quoted by Keating, says, " Never trust a reconciled 
 enemy." The chance, however, did not then come to Mael- 
 seachlainn. If he had an understanding with the Norsemen, 
 his attacking them during the fight, whilst they were victorious 
 would be inexplicable, or, at least, highly improbable. If he 
 had no understanding, his allowing Brian's army to be crushed 
 
 ' From the Annals of Tigemach, who died 74 years (1088) after the battle, 
 the leaf containing the entries from 1003 to 1017 is missing {Hev. Cel., xvii., 354). 
 The Four Masters refer to the Book of Clonmacnoise, which, no doubt, contained 
 the entry which they reproduce, and which accords in substance with the entry 
 in the Annals of Ulster. MaoGeoghegan's account, one of the many " insets," as 
 we think, in his transUition, follows a panegyric on Brian, based on the bardic 
 eulogies. Tigemach's account was probably in the Book of Clonmacnoise; it 
 certainly did not escape the notice of Tadg of the Mountain, the chief annalist, 
 who spent 15 years, as Colgan tells us, labouring indefatigably in searching our 
 muniments. 
 
 The text of the Annals of Ulster runs ; " ^tiiciti cac choida ezo^x^A, tjo tia 
 Ftiic intiCfAmAil,. ITIait)!^ tAtiom poti gAttu -\ poti tAiJTim (i cofAis) co ti«r 
 ■oiteJAic uite 100 tei|i." We suggest that "icofAis" should be placed in the 
 previous sentence, so the translation would accord with the Four Masters, and 
 read : — " A fierce battle was fought between them, the like of which was not to be 
 found, at first — Afterwards the foreigners and Leinstermen were routed, so that 
 they were all destroyed entirely." Hennessy does not translate iA|i6m, which 
 is the really importaiit word, as opposed to i cof A15, at first. 
 
 With the view we present, too, accords the story told of Sitrio and his wife, 
 Brian's daughter. They stood on the ramparts of the fort, surveying the fight. 
 " Well do the Norsemen reap the field," said he. " Many a sheaf do they oast 
 from them." " The result," she answered, " will be seen at the end o.f the day." 
 And at the close of the fight she retorted, "The foreigners," said she, " appear to 
 me to have taken possession of their native land ("Oucuti)." " How so ? " said he. 
 " They are going into the sea, as is natural for them," she replied. 
 
 An admirable bardic account, spirited and highly imaginative, of the battle 
 will be found in Dalton's History of Dublin, p. 71. It was prepared by O'Donovan, 
 from the " Cath Cluanna Tarbh " chiefly, but corrected from other accounts. 
 Brian is represented as praying in his tent during the fight, but the annals say 
 nothing of this, and the Annals of Ulster state that it was in the " counterblow " 
 of the battle he fell, which we think more likely, and more in keeping with the 
 character of the brave old warrior. Other bardic accounts will be found in the 
 Wars of the Oael, and the Leabhar Oiris, recently printed in Erin. There is also 
 aa account in the Gaelic Journal, Vol. V. 
 
308 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 would expose himself to be attacked by the whole force of the 
 victorious Norsemen, who would give no quarter to a foe who 
 had so often worsted them. If, on the other hand, he sulked 
 in his tent while Brian was fighting, and Brian came off 
 victorious, he could not doubt but that hot chastisement would 
 await him. At the bar of history Maelseachlainn therefore 
 stands acquitted. 
 
 Brian had made a will before the battle, in which he 
 directed that if he fell he should be buried in Armagh, thinking, 
 no doubt, that the seat of the primacy was the proper resting 
 place for the ard righ and Imperator Sootorum. So Maelmuire, 
 the co-arb of St. Patrick, went with his clergy to Swoids to 
 meet the body, which, as well as the remains of Murchadh and 
 Turlough, were conveyed to Armagh, and after being waked 
 for twelve nights, with due solemnities, were laid in a new 
 tomb in the cathedral. The other chieftains and men of rank, 
 to the number of thirty, were conveyed to their territorial 
 churches and interred there. 
 
 The character of Brian has been variously estimated. Some 
 say he was a patriot statesman, others that he was an ambitious 
 usurper. In our judgment he was neither; he was a tribal 
 chieftain, fighting for tribal ascendancy, nothing more or less. 
 This was the weakness of his position and the cause of his 
 failure. 
 
 There is no reason to think that he ever formed the notion 
 of founding an hereditary dynasty ruling in the order of primo- 
 geniture. Nor is it likely that the Dal Cais would have 
 tolerated any such innovation. He might, no doubt, have had his 
 eldest son made tanist in his lifetime. He, however, abstained 
 from doing so. Probably he saw no necessity for doing so, as 
 Murchadh would, undoubtedly, have succeeded him if he had 
 survived. If Brian stood forth as the champion of a united 
 Erin his first duty was to consolidate his power in Leath Mogha, 
 and conciliate the good-will and loyalty of the South, Instead 
 of doing this he re-imposed or certainly continued the exaction 
 of the odious " boroma,"'' and made the men of Leinster his 
 deadly enemies. He was a bravo warrior and a good soldier — 
 
 ' Boroma. — Aooording to the Brehon Law Tracts, as we have seen, the Ard 
 Righ had uo right to remit food rents, except for his own lifetime. This would, we 
 assume, apply to a oow-reat like the boroma,. And, in fact, Fineachta's successors 
 enforced the payment of it frequently. Brian was thus, probibly, claiming what 
 was lawful, but not expedient. 
 
CLONTARF. 309 
 
 good in organization, in strategy, and in tactics. Starting 
 from small beginnings, he achieved, from a military point of 
 view, success of the highest order against a rival (Maelseachlainn) 
 who was also a singularly active and capable commander. It 
 is fantastic to represent him as a crusader fighting for the 
 cause of religion against the pagan Norseman. The Norsemen 
 in Erin were his allies, when it suited him. They were largely 
 Christian, and Brian's daughter was, as we have stated, married 
 to Sitric. The Northmen from over sea were also to some extent 
 Christian, and certainly came to Clontarf for hire and plunder, 
 and not to wreak vengeance or extirpate Christianity. The 
 works of peace attributed to Brian by the Southern panegyrists 
 — the advancement of religion and learning, the building of 
 churches, bridges, etc., throughout Erin, had no existence in 
 fact. With the best intentions he could have done nothing 
 outside Thomond, and even there he was too busy with fighting 
 andthe preparations for fighting to have much time to spare for 
 peaceful labours. It would, however, be unfair to brand Brian 
 as an usurper. The ardrighship did not go by hereditary descent, 
 nor was it until the time of Niall of the Nine Hostages that it 
 became the appanage of a single tribe, and the monopoly of it 
 by the Ui Neill might in the same sense be regarded as an 
 usurpation with equal justice. Moreover, Brian was compelled 
 to go forward in self-defence. His territory was plundered 
 again and again, and insult was added to outrage when the 
 venerated inauguration tree at Magh Adhair was cut down. 
 He had no option, therefore, but to submit or fight, and in 
 fighting for safety he was irresistibly led to fight for 
 supremacy. 
 
 After the battle the Munster clans assembled on the green of 
 Ath Cliath, and Donchadh, the son of Brian and his successor, 
 who had been away foraging in Leinster, came in with a prey 
 of twenty oxen (!) and took command. Sitric was not further 
 molested, and the clans departed homewards. At MuUaghmast, 
 in the south of Kildare, the Eoganachts claimed the sovereignty 
 of Munster by alternate right, under the will of Olioll Olum, 
 Donchadh refused, and said that Brian and Mahon had got 
 the sovereignty by force of arms, and not by succession. A 
 battle was imminent when the Eoganachts quarrelled amongst 
 themselves. Cian, the son of MuUoy, claimed the whole of 
 Munster. Domhnall, the son of Duibhdabhoirann, asked 
 
310 EARLY lEISH HISTORY. 
 
 " Why should we fight the battle ; what profit do we seek from 
 it?" '-What profit dost thou seek," said Mulloy, "but to 
 cast off the Dal-Cais ? " " Wilt thou then give me an equal 
 share of as much of Munster as we shall conquer?" said 
 Domhnall, " That I will not give," said Cian. " On my 
 word, then," replied Domhnall, " I will not go with thee to fight 
 the Dal-Cais." Domhnall subsequently (1015) led an army to 
 Limerick to attack the Dal-Cais, and was defeated by Donchadh 
 and Tadg, who appear to have made up their quarrel. Tadg 
 was afterwards killed treacherously by the men of Ely, Tigernach 
 says, at the instigation of his brother, Donchadh. 
 
 The defeat of the Northmen at Clontarf hadno political result 
 of immediate importance, except the displacement of the Dal- 
 Cais, and the restoration of Maelseachlainn. It is a mistake to 
 suppose that it was followed by the expulsion of the Northmen. 
 A careful examination of Tigernach, the Annals of Ulster, and 
 the Four Masters shows that things quickly resumed their usual 
 course. Maelseachlainn made royal hostings, and took hostages* 
 and the inferior chieftains waged petty wars a few months after 
 the battle, as if it was one of the ordinary incidents in an ordi- 
 nary year. We shall not try the patience of our readers by 
 giving details of these tribal quarrels. The names would be 
 different, but the story would be the same as that so often told 
 already. The position of the Northmen, however, cannot be 
 satisfactorily explained without some illustrative extracts from 
 our annals to correct the false impressions that have been put 
 in circulation by the historical romances. 
 
 1015. Maelseachlainn set fire to Ath Cliath, and burned the houses 
 outside it. He then plundered Ui Ceinselagh. 
 
 1018. Slaughter of foreigners at Odbha, near Navan. 
 
 1019. Kells plundered by Sitric, who carried off innumerable spoils 
 and prisoners. 
 
 1020. Sitric routed at Delgany with red slaughter. The foreigners 
 routed at Tlachtga by Maelseachlainn. 
 
 1022. Foreigners routed at sea by Ulidiana. 
 
 1023. Raid by foreigners to South Bregia. 
 
 1025. Flaithbheartach TJa Neill, from Aileoh, made a hosting into 
 Magh Breagh, and carried off the hostages of the Gael from the 
 foreigners. The men of Ossory marched to the Tolka and took hostages 
 from the foreigners. 
 
 1027. A hosting by the foreigners and the lord of Breagh to Slieve- 
 bloom, where they were defeated. 
 
 1072. (Tigernach) Diarmaid, son of Mael na-mbo (he was king at 
 Ath CUatb) king of the Bretons, and the Hebrides, and Ath Cliath, and 
 
CLOKTAEF. 311 
 
 Mogli Nuadhat's half, was killed by Concobar, son of Maelseachlainn 
 in the battle of Odhba, and an innumerable slaughter of foreigners and 
 Leinster men around him. Godfrey, the grandson of Ragnall, then 
 became king, and was afterwards expelled from Ath Cliath by Murchadh 
 O'Brien. 
 
 1084. Donnchadh, son of the Cailleach O'Rourke, fought Muir- 
 chertach O'Brien and the foreigners near Leixlip. 4,000 were slain, 
 and the head of O'Ruarc taken to Louth. 
 
 1100. Muirchertach O'Brien brought a great fleet of the foreigners 
 to Derry. They were cut off by killing and drowning. 
 
 1102 Inis Scattry was plundered by the foreigners. 
 
 1103. A hosting by the men of Erin to Ath Cliath to oppose 
 Maghnus and the foreigners ; but peace was made, and Muirchertach 
 O'Brien gave his daughter to Siohraidh, the son of Maghnus, and many 
 valuables and gifts. 
 
 1116. Defeat of Leinstermen by Domhnall O'Brien and the 
 foreigners. 
 
 1119. Turlough O'Conor took the hostages of Ath Cliath, and took 
 away the son of the King of Tara who had been in captivity there. 
 
 1127. Turlough made his son Conohobar King of Ath Cliath. He 
 was dethroned the next year by the men of Leinster and the foreigners. 
 He then placed another king over them, viz., Domhnall, son of Mao 
 Paelain. 
 
 1137. The siege of Waterford by Diarmaid Mac Murrough, King 
 of Leinster; and Conchobar O'Brien, King of the Dal-Cais, and the 
 foreigners of Ath Cliath and L. Garman (Wexford), who had two 
 hundred ships on the sea. They carried off with them the hostages of 
 the Deesi and of the foreigners of Waterford. 
 
 1154. Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn went to Ath Cliath, and the 
 foreigners submitted to him, and ha gave them 1,200 cows as a 
 " retainer " (,« a cuAtiArcAt). 
 
 About this time (1154) we reach the threshold of the 
 Angevin epoch, and events occurred of far-reaching importance 
 to the Gael. 1152 was a memorable year. A synod was held 
 at KeUs, and probably a second at Mellifont. Eleanor of 
 Acquitaine was divorced from her husband, Louis VII. of 
 France, on the I8th of March, 1152, on the ground of con- 
 sanguinity in the fourth degree. She had lived with him 
 since their marriage in 1137, borne him two daughters, and 
 brought him, as a marriage portion, the duchy of Acquitaine. 
 After fourteen years, however, it was discovered that they were 
 within the forbidden degrees. Louis was sixth in descent 
 from Thibaut, Duke of Acquitaine, through Adelaide, his 
 daughter, who was married to Hugh Capet (987-996), and 
 Eleanor was sixth in descent from the said Thibaut through 
 his son William fier a brasJ Two months after the divorce, 
 
 '' Revue deaQvaitions BistoriqiKS, 1890, p. 407, for Pedigrees. Martin, Hist. 
 France, II., 461. 
 
312 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Eleanor gave her hand and brought her duchy to Henry 
 Plantagenet, who was crowned King of England at West- 
 minster in December, 1154. In the following year, according 
 to the best authorities, he received from Pope Adrian IV. the 
 famous "Privilege," which is commonly, but inaccurately, 
 referred to as the Bull Laudabiliter. This will engage our 
 attention in a future page. For the present wo shall confine our- 
 selves to another famous event which happened in 1152 — the 
 capture,abduction,or elopement of Dearbhforgaill(Deravorgaill), 
 the wife of Tighernan Ua Ruairc. She was the daughter of Mur- 
 chadh Maelseachlainn, King of Meath ; and being 44 years of 
 age in 1152 was probably married for over twenty years to 
 Tighernan, who was chieftain of a territory comprising, but 
 more extensive than, the present counties of Cavan and Leitrim. 
 In that year there was a meeting between Turlough O'Conor 
 and Ua Lochlainn, King of Aileach, at Magh Erne, between 
 the Erne and the Droweis, where they made friendship " upon 
 the Staff of Jesus and the relics of St. Columba." 
 
 Turlough then proceeded into Munster, which he divided 
 into two parts between the MacCarthys and the O'Briens. He 
 then went into Meath, where he was joined by Ua Lochlainn 
 and Diarmaid MacMurrough, King of Leinster. They then 
 divided Meath into two parts, and gave Westmeath to Murchadh 
 Ua Maelseachlainn, and East Meath to his son Maelseachlainn, 
 the brother of Dearbhforgaill. They then attacked and 
 defeated Tighernan Ua Ruarc, and took Conmhaiene, i.e., 
 Longford, and the southern part of Leitrim from him, and 
 made Gillabraide Ua Ruarc chieftain of it, leaving Tighernan, 
 we assume, the rest of the territory. All this indicates a policy 
 of breaking up and weakening the chieftainries. It was on this 
 occasion that the romantic elopement of O'Ruarc's wife is 
 fabled to have taken place. A careful sifting of the evidence 
 proves that there was no elopement and no romance. The 
 entries in the Annals of Ulster from 1131 to 1155 are wanting, 
 but the taking away of Dearbhforgaill is referred to by the 
 continuator of Tigernach from 1088 to 1179. This is, no doubt, 
 the earliest account that has reached us. We give it textually 
 from the translation of Stokes.^ 
 
 1154. Tlie daughter of Murchadh came again by flight [4n'eto-6] from 
 Leinster. 
 
 ' Sev. Gelt, xvi., 171. 
 
CLONTARF. 313 
 
 The annalist says nothing about an elopement, and con- 
 siders that she was detained by Diarmaid. Diarmaid was in 
 his 64th year when he carried ofif Dearbhforgaill. 
 
 The account in the Four Masters runs thus, and explains 
 why she was carried off: — 
 
 Dearbforgaill daugliter of Murohadh Ua Maelseachlainn, the wife 
 of Tighernan Ua Ruarc, was brought away by the King of Leinster, i.e., 
 by Diarmaid, with her cattle and furniture, and he took (sent 1 f o F'Aoi) 
 them with her according to the advice of her brother, Maelseachlainn. 
 There arose then a war between the Ui Bruain (the O'Bourkes and the 
 O'Reillys of Cavan and Leitrim), and the men of Meath. 
 
 Dearbhforgaill appears to have been possessed of consider- 
 able property as her separate estate. In 1158 she gave 60oz. of 
 gold to the clergy at the consecration of the church at Mellifont. 
 This was a very large sum in those days. Brian Boru, as we 
 have stated, only gave 20oz. when he visited Armagh. The 
 cattle and furniture were probably removed for safe keeping, as 
 hostilities were imminent, and were restored to her after she 
 returned. The Four Masters tell us (1153) " Dearbhforgaill came 
 from the King of Leinster to Tighernan Ua Ruarc again. An 
 army was led by Turlogh O'Connor tb meet (Accointie) Mac 
 Murohadh, King of Leinster, to Doire Gabhlain, and he took 
 away the daughter of Ua Maelseachlainn and her cattle from him, 
 so that she was in the power (or protection) of the men of Meath. 
 On this occasion Tighernan Ua Ruarc came into his house and 
 gave him hostages." 
 
 The efiect of all the entries is, in our judgment, that 
 Dearbhforgaill was taken away for safety, and as a hostage, 
 with the consent of her family, and that she was restored to 
 Tighernan when he made his submission to Turlough. She 
 died at Mellifont in 1193 in the 85th year of her age. Our 
 annalists do not say "after a good penance." And let us 
 charitably assume that she had nothing very serious to 
 repent of.* 
 
 ' MaoGeoghegan's aooount is an "inset." He makes it a case of misoonduot 
 and elopement. O'Donovan in his note does not refer to the entry from the oon- 
 tinuator of Tigemaoh. Ladies were sometimes taken and ransomed. 
 
[ 314 3 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 IN beginning an inquiry into the organisation of the Early 
 Church we are met at the threshold by a curious and 
 famous script, known as the " the Catalogue of the Saints." 
 Apart from this our progress would be easy and rapid. In the 
 South of what is now France, where St. Patrick made his 
 ecclesiastical studies and received his pastoral training, there 
 was, as we have seen, an episcopal church, monasteries, and a 
 body of solitaries, whom we may call hermits or anchorites, 
 who were considered to excel the others in spiritual perfection. 
 The Episcopal Church was divided into territorial dioceses, 
 each under its own bishop ; and the diocese was sub-divided 
 into territorial parishes, each under its own pastor and his 
 assistant priests. We should therefore naturally expect that 
 our apostle would introduce into Ireland the system which he 
 found established there. And this is, in our judgment, what 
 actually took place. And first, as to the dioceses : They were 
 certainly in most cases, and probably in nearly all, co-extensive 
 with the several tribal territories. St. Patrick addressed him- 
 self in the first instance to the chieftains. The conversion of 
 the king was promptly followed by the conformity of the clan. 
 The High King of Tara, Dichu in Dalaradia ; the chieftain of 
 Tirawley, in Connact, King Aengus, at Cashel, and Daire, at 
 Armagh, are instances, and there were, no doubt, others. We 
 may add that this was the method which St. Columba followed 
 with the Picts ; King Brade was his first important convert. 
 When the chieftain was secured, the Church was organised in 
 his territory under a bishop ; churches were built throughout 
 it, and districts attached to them for pastoral duty. The church 
 buildings were called in Gaelic, congabala, and sometimes, we 
 think, also ferta. The church itself was often called teach, or 
 teach mor — the great house, and when it assumed larger propor- 
 tions, teampuU. We have already quoted a passage on this 
 point from the Tripartite, which, for convenience, we repeat 
 
THE ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. S15 
 
 here : — " In this wise, then, Patrick measured the/erte, namely, 
 seven score ft. in the enclosure, and seven and twenty in the 
 great house (cig mop), and seventeen ft. in the chule (kitchen), 
 and seven ft. in the aregal, and in that wise it was he used 
 to found the congabala always." Todd thinks the tig mor 
 was the residence of the priests. In our opinion it was the 
 church. It was circular, we assume ; 27 ft, in diameter, and 
 not much inferior in area to the oblong churches which were 
 afterwards erected. The Teampull na bFear, in Inismurray, 
 is only 25 ft, 6 in. in length, by 12 ft. in breadth.^ The chule, 
 17 ft, in diameter, was, we think, " room and kitchen " in one, 
 the residence which sufficed for the simple wants of the pioneers 
 of the Faith. The aregal was, we suggest, the embryo round 
 tower. It was a circular building 7 feet in diameter, made, 
 possibly, in imitation of the fire-house which, we assume, existed 
 in the ferta on the slope of Tara. It was probably built solidly 
 of stone in most places, and used as a storehouse and a strong- 
 hold, and was also possibly a " fire-house." 
 
 There was a teach na teinidk, or fire-house, in Inismurray, 
 the existing remains of which are described by Wakeman : — 
 " The fire-place consists of seven stones, four of which are 
 placed on edge and set deeply in the ground, in the manner of 
 a pagan cist. The sides face as nearly as possible the cardinal 
 points, and are therefore not in a position coincident with the 
 surrounding walls of the teach. The present walls are the 
 most modern structure within the cashel. The area enclosed 
 by them is oblong, 17 ft. 4 in. by 11 ft. 4 in. There is no 
 doubt, we think, that the original walls were circular. The 
 clachan near it, called the ' school-house,' is nearly circular, 
 bee-hive in structure. The stones are unhammered, without 
 cement or mortar. This fire-place was covered with a slab, 
 called the leac an teinidh, which the natives say was broken 
 up by the workmen employed under the Act for the Preserva- 
 tion of Ancient Monuments, and used in repairing the old 
 walls. The natives all aver that here of old burnt a perpetual 
 fire, from which all the hearths on the island which had from 
 any cause become extinguished, were rekindled. Some say 
 that it was only necessary to place a sod of turf on the leac 
 when combustion ensued."^ 
 
 * Dunraven, Ir. Architecture, 94. 
 
 • Wakeman, Antiquities on Inismurry (1892), p. 54. 
 
316 EARLY IRISH HISTORY, 
 
 The fire was, we infer, kept "smoored" or "raked" under 
 the stone, and the fire tended from the side, for which purpose 
 three of the seven stones were not fixed in the ground, but 
 left loose. The aregal may have had such a fire-place, and 
 there was probably some such teampull na teinidh in the 
 ferta at Kildare and Tara. 
 
 The internal diameter of theRound Towers is, on the average, 
 9 ft.; generally something less. The internal diameter of 
 the tower at Clondalkin, for instance, is 7 ft. 4 in. at the 
 base and 6 ft. 6 in. at the top. The height of the aregal 
 would not, we may assume, be great. The Round Towers were 
 from 50 to perhaps considerably over 100 ft. in height, all built 
 from the inside without scaffolding in storeys, and at different 
 periods. The earlier towers are of rude " spawled " masonry ; 
 the later ones are of ashlar or hammered stone. The erection 
 of a tower by Cormac ua Cillin at Tomgraney, in Clare, is 
 mentioned in the Ghronicon Scotorum at A.D. 964. This is 
 the earliest notice of the building of a tower in our texts. 
 Since Petrie, our best antiquaries are agreed that the uses of 
 these towers were ecclesiastical in connection with the churches 
 rear which they were built, primarily — we should say — like the 
 aregal, or strong-houses, as a protection for men and valuables 
 against marauders. They were used also, when the elevation 
 increased, as belfries and as watch-towers. And we may 
 remark that the necessity for such strongholds existed long 
 before the coming of the Norsemen. Churches were plundered 
 and termons violated by the Gael themselves long before that 
 period. Petrie fixed the date of a few of the existing towers 
 iu the fifth century. Though it should prove that none of the 
 existing towers (about eighty in number) were older than 800 
 A.D. we have very little doubt that the aregal in some stage 
 of development continued in ecclesiastical use from the earliest 
 times. 
 
 To educate the priests who were to man these ramparts of 
 the Faith, monasteries like Marmoutier, or collegiate commu- 
 nities, if St. Germanus's establishment may be called such, 
 were manifestly necessary, and we accordingly find, in due 
 course, schools established from time to time at Armagh, 
 Moville, Clonard, Derry, Durrow, Clonmacnoise, Glasnevin, 
 etc. But the pastoral work of the congabala could not 
 have been done from these monastic centres, nor could the 
 
THE ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 317 
 
 pariah priests and their assistants, whether they had taken vows 
 or not, be properly regarded as cenobite monks. To illustrate 
 these views let us take a particular instance. The present Co. 
 Clare was occupied by three tribes, with distinct tribal lands 
 belonp;ing to each. Each of these was formed into a diocese. 
 In the south-west of Clare the See Inis Scattery (Innes Cath- 
 raighe) was co-extensive with the Corca Baiscin (Eremonian). 
 In the North the See of Kilfenora was co-extensive with the 
 tribe-land of the Corca Modruaidh (Clanna Rury). In the 
 centre the See of Killaloe represented roughly the tribe-land 
 of the Dal-Cais. But the diocesan arrangement was strictly 
 territorial, not tribal. The bishop had no jurisdiction over 
 tribesmen outside the diocesan tribe-land. The diocese of Kil- 
 macduagh was co-extensive with the tribe-land of the Ui 
 Fiachra Aidhne, but the bishop had no jurisdiction over the 
 Ui Fiachra of the Moy, men of the same tribe further north in 
 Connact. In the same way, Annaghdown was co-extensive with 
 lar Connact. The tribe-land of Corca-Laidhe corresponded 
 with the diocese of Ros Ailithre, or Ross, in the south-west of 
 Cork. Ossory very nearly represents the tribe-land of the 
 Ui Oaraighe, and Dromore the tribe-land of the Ui Ecac-Iveagh. 
 Others might be mentioned, and we find it stated in our texts, 
 what the circumstances of the case suggest, that our Apostle 
 founded a bishopric in every important tribe-land. 
 
 Three bishops for the county of Clare would appear 
 now-a-days to be too many, and the excessive number of 
 bishops was, at the period our history has now reached, 
 mentioned amongst the sins of the Irish Church by foreign 
 ecclesiastics. But it was a necessity. None of the three tribal 
 chiefs in Clare would allow the priests in his territory to be 
 subject to the control of the neighbouring chieftain's bishop, 
 and would have insisted, if need were, on having a bishop of 
 his own. Moreover, the conditions under which episcopal 
 duties had to be performed then were very different from what 
 they are now. There were no roads, no bridges, no railways, 
 cycles or motor cars. The bishop made his visitations on foot, 
 and had probably to undergo more hardship in discharging the 
 duties of his office than a bishop would have to undergo now 
 who was burthened with the spiritual care of the whole county. 
 
 Authorities are agreed that the number of dioceses in the 
 <:arly church was too great, but the figures they conjecture, vary 
 
318 EARLY IRISH BISTORT. 
 
 considerably. The lowest estimate is found in an old duoen 
 quoted by Keating, and is probably nearest the truth : — 
 
 Five and fifty learned bishops 
 
 The holy man ordained, 
 
 And three hundred approved praying men 
 
 On whom he conferred orders.^ 
 
 If we take this to mean the number of bishoprics estab- 
 lished, it seems to us to be a reasonable estimate. The names 
 of 42 bishops are given in the Tirechan text, and the writer adds 
 "and many more" (et alii quam plurimi). And the Four 
 Masters state ^1111 A.D.) that the Synod of Fiadh Mac Aengus 
 was attended by Kellach, the coarb of St. Patrick, and 
 Maelmure-ua-Dunain, noble Senior of Ireland (Keating calls 
 him Archbishop of Cashel) and 50 bishops. 
 
 There was, no doubt, a full attendance of bishops at the 
 Synod on this occasion. At the Synod of Rathbrasail the 
 existing dioceses were reduced in number to 12 bishops, and 
 the Primate for Leatt Chuinn, and 12 bishops, and the archbishop 
 of Cashel for Leath Mogha — 26 in all. To this number is 
 to be added the Bishop of Dublin, whom Keating does not 
 include, as at that time he received consecration from, and 
 owed obedience to, Canterbury. It is to be remarked that in 
 1096, Anselm, then Archbishop of Canterbury, erected a new 
 diocese by creating and consecrating a bishop for Waterford, 
 which was only 13 miles by 9 in extent, and was left untouched 
 in the new arrangement. This may be contrasted with the 
 extensive diocese of Connor, over which and Down St. Malachy 
 presided, visiting all the towns and districts of his spiritual king- 
 dom on foot, as St. Bernard tells us. In our judgment there was 
 no substantial alteration in the number or area of the dioceses 
 from the time they were first fully constituted. 
 
 According to the view we present it is not necessary to 
 open the question of chorepiscopi, or country bishops here. There 
 is no trace in our texts of the existence or suppression of the 
 order, as we may style them, if they ever existed in Erin. 
 There is no word in Gaelic distinctly applicable to them, as in 
 
 •a CU15 te CA05A rt'^ic eAfpos 
 
 Um cjn ce'ouib cfitit At<iiHi'6 
 pojdA c-cotim«is St''*™- 
 
 ^Beeves' Down and Connor, 125. 
 
THE ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH, 319 
 
 the case of under kings (uiAfiAt) nor is there a special honour 
 price for them referred to.* 
 
 This brings us to the catalogue of the orders of the saints in 
 Ireland, or as Ussher has it, " the Catalogue of the Saints." 
 Ussher, who was the first to publish a text of it, makes it the 
 foundation of the latter part of his " Antiquities of the British 
 Churches." He had two texts before him, one of which may 
 date from before the time of Jocelyn. His second text must be 
 later than that time, as it refers to the vision of St. Patrick, des- 
 cribed by Jocelyn in c. 175. The paragraphs 1, 2, relating to the 
 first and second order were printed from Ussher by Colgan 
 (II. 276). There are two other texts, one is published by 
 Fleming in his Collectanea, and another, which follows 
 Fleming's text very closely, is found in the Codex Salmanticensis. 
 Both these texts refer to the vision described by Jocelyn, and 
 must therefore be of subsequent date. Ussher's text, with the 
 variants of Fleming, is published in Haddon and Stubbs, II. 
 292. For these and other reasons we shall give the text from 
 the Cordex Salmanticensis with our translation. Great weight 
 has been attached to this catalogue from the time of Ussher to 
 our own day. Reeves calls it a most ancient and valuable 
 authority. Lanigan, Todd, Olden, and last but not least, Arch- 
 bishop Healy, were impressed with its palmary importance. 
 We do not share these views; to speak our whole thought, we 
 do not consider it of any evidential value, and must there- 
 fore, to explain our views, examine it in some detail, after we 
 have given the translation and text. We shall give verbatim 
 the recension of the BoUandist Editors, who have recently 
 published a beautiful edition of the Codex at the request and 
 at the expense of the late Marquis of Bute.^ 
 
 The Codex from which the BoUandist text was taken 
 was sent from Salamanca by Thomas Bryan, the Jesuit 
 Father who was the rector of the Irish College there about the 
 year 1620 or 1625, to a Jesuit Father who presented it to 
 Rosweyd, who first conceived the idea of publishing the Acta 
 
 * " Benterim tries to show that these rural bishops were real bishops. Airgusti 
 is of the same opinion. Thomassin makes two classes of ohorepisoopi, of whom 
 one were real bishops and the other only had the title without consecration. As 
 late as the 5th century we meet with very many real ohorepisoopi in the towns 
 and villages of Africa."— Hefele ii. 322. 
 
 " Acta Sanctoram HiburmcB ex codice Salmanticensi nunc primum integre edita 
 cpcra Caroli de Smedt et Jo.-ephi de Backer, S.J., ISi-ii. 
 
820 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Sanctorum, and was then collecting documents for the cele. 
 brated BoUandist JBibliotheca. It is written in a hand of the 
 14th century, neatly but very inaccurately. There is nothing 
 in the Codex, nor do the learned editors in the preface, from 
 which we have taken the few facts above mentioned, state any. 
 thing, about the authorship of the Catalogue. 
 
 The Codex contains the lives of about forty Irish Saints, 
 including the life of St. Malachy by St. Bernard. It also 
 includes the miracles of St. Laurence O'Toole, and a life of St. 
 Catherine of Alexandria. It was placed at the disposal of 
 Colgan by the BoUandists and used by him when writing his 
 Acta SS. Eibernice. 
 
 CATALOGUE OF THE ORDERS OP THE SAINTS. 
 
 " Here begins the catalogue of the Orders of the Saints 
 in Hibernia according to different periods : — 
 
 "[432—643] 
 
 " (1) The first Order of the Saints was in the time of Patrick, 
 and then all the bishops, 350 in number, were famous and holy 
 and full of the Holy Spirit. They were founders of churches, 
 worshipped one head, Christ, and followed one leader, Patrick. 
 They had one tonsure, one celebration of Mass, and celebrated 
 one Easter, namely, after the vernal equinox. And what 
 was excommunicated by one church all excommunicated. They 
 did not object to having women as house-keepers and com- 
 panions (mulierum administrationem et consortia non 
 respuebant), because founded on the rock, Christ, they did not 
 fear the wind of temptation. This Order of Saints lasted 
 through four reigns ; to wit, from the time of Laoghaire, the 
 son of Niall, who reigned thirty-seven years ; and Olioll, 
 styled Moll, who reigned thirty years ; and Lughaidh, who 
 reigned seven years ; and this Order of Saints lasted to the 
 very end of Tuathal Maelgarbh, and all remained throughout 
 holy bishops, and these were, for the most pari, Franlcs and 
 Romans and Britons and Scots by birth.^ 
 
 " [543—599.] 
 
 "(2) The second Order of Saints was like this. In this 
 second Order now there were few bishops and many priests, 
 
 ' Ussher hag " Catholic " before Saints, and the length of the reigns is not 
 given. Fleming omits " Catholic," and has the regnant years, and gives the 
 number as 430. The words italicised are in Ussher, but are omitted in Fleming. 
 
THE ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 321 
 
 300 in number. They worshipped one head, God, and had 
 different rituals (ritus) of celebration and different rules of 
 living, and celebrated one Easter ; to wit, the 14th of the moon. 
 And they made a uniform tonsure from ear to ear. They 
 shunned having women as companions and house-keepers 
 (consortia et administrationes fugiebant), and excluded them 
 from the monasteries. This Order lasted for four reigns also 
 (ad hue 1) ; to wit, from the end of Tuathal Maelgarbh and 
 through the thirty years in which Diarmaid Mac Cearbhael 
 reigned ; and through the time of the two grandsons of Mure- 
 dach, who reigned seven years ; and during the time of Aedh, 
 the son of Ainmire, who reigned thirty years. Those (saints) 
 received the ritual of celebrating Mass from holy men of 
 Britain ; to wit, from Saint David and Saint Gildas and Saint 
 (Ca) doc. And their names are these ; to wit, Finnian, Endeus, 
 Colman, Congal, Aedh, Kiaran, Columba, Brendan, Brechen, 
 Cainech, Caemgin, Laisrean, Laisre, Lugeus, Barrideus, and 
 many others, who were in the second grade of the saints.'' 
 
 "[599—666.] 
 " (3) The third Order of Saints was like this. Now they 
 were holy priests and few bishops, 100 in number, who used to 
 dwell in desert places. They lived on vegetables and water 
 and on the alms of the faithful, and held all earthly things of 
 no account, and wholly shunned back-biting and slander. 
 These had different rules (of living) and different rituals of 
 celebration, and also different tonsures, for some had the 
 coronal tonsure and some the hair. And they had a different 
 Paschal solemnization, for some celebrated on the 14th and 
 others on the 13th moon. This Order lasted through four 
 reigns ; that is, through the time of Aedh Alair, (recte Slaine), 
 who reigned only three years ; and through the time of Domh- 
 nall, who reigned thirty years ; and through the times of the 
 sons of Maelcoba and (recte the sons of) Aedh Slaine. And the 
 Order lasted up till that great mortality (A.D. 666). And their 
 names are — Petran, bishop ; Ultan, bishop ; Colman, bishop ; 
 Edan, bishop ; Lomnan, bishop ; Senach, bishop. These were 
 all bishops, and many more. And these now were the priests — 
 Fechan, priest; Airendan, Failan, Commian, Ernan, Cronan, 
 and many other priests. 
 
 "> The names are quite different iu the three rescezisiona. 
 
322 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 " (4) Note that the first Order was holiest, the second very 
 holy, the third holy. The first glows, like the sun, with the 
 heat of charity ; the second, like the moon, sheds a pallid 
 light ; the third shines with the bright hues of the dawn. 
 
 " Taught by a revelation from on high, Patrick understood 
 that those three Orders (were signified) when he beheld in 
 that prophetic vision all Ireland filled with a fiery flame, then 
 the mountains alone aglow, and afterwards lamps gleaming in 
 the valleys. This is extracted from an old life of Patrick.* 
 
 " (5) Note these are the names of the disciples of St. Finnian 
 of Clonard ; to wit, two Kierans (Kieran the son of the 
 artificer and Kieran of Saighir) ; Colomba, the son of Crimthan 
 and Columkille ; two Erendans, that is Brendan the son of 
 Finlog and Brendan of Birr ; Mobhi Claireneach ; Lasrian, the 
 son of Nadf raech ; Sinell, the son of Maenach ; Cainnecb, the 
 son of the grandson of Dalann and Buadhan of Lorrha ; and 
 Nimidh (?) of the Red Hand ; Mugenoe of Cillcimel (?) ; and 
 Bishop Sinach."» 
 
 Incipit catalogus ordinnm Sanctorum in Hjbernia Becundum 
 diversa tempera : — 
 
 (1) Primus ordo sanctorum erat in tempore Patricii. Et tunc erant 
 episcopi omnes clari et saucti et spiritu sancto pleni, cccl numero, 
 ecclesiarum fundatores, unum caput Christum colentea et unum ducem 
 Fatricium sequentes unam tonsuram babentes, et unam celebrationem 
 missae, et unum pascha scilicet, post equinoctium vernale celebrabant, 
 et quod excommunicatum esset ab una ecclesia omnes excommunicabant. 
 Mulierum administrationem et consortia non respuebant, quia super 
 petram Christi fundati yentum temptationis non timebant. Hie ordo, 
 sanctorum per quatuor duravit regna hoc est a tempore Leodbgarii filii. 
 Neyl qui regnavit xxx*" vu. annis et Ayllelli cognomentoMolt qui 
 xxx** annis regnavit, et Lugdecb qui vii annos regnavit. Et hie ordo 
 sanctorum usque ad tempora extrema Tuathal Meylgarb duravit. 
 Suncti episcopi omnes permanserent et hi pro magna parte erant 
 Franci et Bomani et Britoues et Scoti genere. 
 
 (2) 2us vero ordo sanctorum talis erat. In boo enim seoundo ordine 
 pauci erant episcopi et multi presbiteri numero ccc*. Unum caput 
 
 8 One Ussherian text, instead of paragraph i, has simply — " The first (Order) 
 glowed like the sun, the second like the moou, the third like the stars. Primus 
 sicut Bol ardesuit, secundus aicut luna, tertius sicut stellae." 
 
 ^ The statement that the 2nd order had different masses, etc. , and introduced 
 a litual from the British Church, we do not accept as probable or proven. The 
 history of the Paschal controversy and the tonsure shows, as we shall see in a 
 future chapter, that the G-ael were obstinately conservative in such matters. The 
 liturgical aspect of the question, which is very important, we must leave to better 
 equipped critics to deal with. A very interesting tract on the various liturgies 
 will be found in Cardinal Moran'e Essays, p. 242. See Healy's Insula Sanctorum 
 el doclorum, p, 201. 
 
THE ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 323 
 
 Deum colentes diversos celebrandi ritua habebant et diversas regulas 
 Vivendi, et unum Pasoha, scilicet xiiii' luna celebrabant. Et hi 
 unifortnem tonsuram, scilicet ab aure usque ad aurem, faciebant. 
 Mulierum quoque consortia ao administrationes fugiebant atque a 
 monasteriis suis eas excludebant. Hie ordo per quaterna adhuc regna 
 duravit, scilicet ab extremis Tuathal Maylgairb temporibus et per 
 triginta annos quibus Derinicius Mao Keirbaill regnavit et per tempus 
 quo duo nepotesMureadaytur qui vii anuis regiiaverunt et per 
 tempus quo Aed Mao Aynmerach qui xxx** annis regnavit. Hi ritum 
 celebrandi missam acceperunt a Sanctis viris de Britannia, scilicet a 
 sancto David et sancto Gilda et a saneto Doco. Et horum nomina sunt 
 hec scilicet Finnianus, Endeus, Colmanus, Congallus, Aedeus 
 Queranus, Columba, Brandanus, Brichinus, Caynecus, Caymginus, 
 Laysrianns, Laysrius, Lugeus, Earrideus, et alii multi qui eraut de 
 secundo gradu sanctorum. 
 
 (3) 3us ordo sanctoram ei'at talis. Eraut enim illi presbiteri sancti 
 et pauci episcopi numero c, qui in locis disertis habitabant. Hi 
 oleribus et aqua et eleemosinis fidelium vivebant et omnia terrena 
 contempnebant et omnem susurrationem et detractionem penitus 
 evitabant. Hi diversas regulas et varios celebrandi ritus habebant et 
 diversam etiam tonsuram ; aliqui enim habebunt coronam, aliqui 
 cesariem. Et hii diversam solempnitatem Faschalem habebunt ; 
 alii enim xiiii" a luna alii xiii'* celebrabant. Hie ordo per quatuar 
 regua duravit hoc est per tempus Edaallain, qui tribus annis tantum 
 regnavit et per tempus Domhnalli qui triginta annis regnavit et per 
 tempora filiorumu Moylcoba et per tempus Eda Slane et hie ordo usque 
 ad mortalitatem illam mag^am perduravit. Quorum nomina sunt hec 
 Pertranus episcopus, Ultanus episcopus, Colmanus episcopus, Edanus 
 spiscopus, Lompnanus episcopus, Senachus episcopus, Hii episcopi 
 smnes et alii plures. Hii vero presbiteri : Fechinus, presbiter, 
 Ayrendanus, Faylanus, Commenianus, Colmanus, Ernanus, Cronanus 
 at alii presbiteri plures. 
 
 (4) Nota quod primus ordo erat sanctissimus, secundus aanctior, 
 tertius sanctus. Primus sicut sol in fervore caritatis calescit, 2ua sicut 
 luna pallescit, 3us sicut aurora splendescit. Hos tres ordines beatus 
 Patricius superno oraculo edootus intellexit cum in visione ilia 
 prophetica vidit totam Hyberniam flamma ignis repletam deinde montes 
 tantum ardere, postea lucernas ardere in vallibus conspexit. Haec 
 extracta sunt de antiqua vita Patricii. 
 
 (5). Nota Hec sunt nomina discipulorum sancti Pinneani Cluana 
 Hyrard videlicet duo Kyerani, Kyranus filius artificis et Kyeranus 
 Saigre, Columba filius Crimthainn et Columkyille, duo Brendani id est, 
 Brendanus filius Finloga, et Brendanus Birra, Mobhi Clarinetur, et 
 Lasrianus filius Naturfrec, et Synell filius Maenaci et Cainnecus 
 filius Nepotis Dalann, et :p,udan Lothra, et Nannyd Lamderc, et 
 Mugenocur Killi Cumiliet episcopus Senach.^* 
 
 The codex from which the foregoing was printed was 
 endorsed by the Boilandist editors 
 
 " Acta SS. Eib. ex. cod. Salm., p. 161. 
 
324 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 " MS. SALMANTICENSE DE SS. HIBERNI/E. "" 
 
 A general view of the catalogue reveals some startling 
 statements. In the first paragraph we are asked to believe 
 that in the time of St. Patrick there were 350 or 450 bishops 
 and that all these bishops were saintB. That there ever vi^ere 
 at any time in any country during the life of one man 350 
 bishops all saints, the clergy themselves would, we fancy, be the 
 last to credit. We do not lay much stress on the exaggerated 
 figure as to bishops, we regard it as merely a monastic way of 
 saying that the number was excessively large. A recent writer 
 (Sir J. Ramsey), suggests that all monastic estimates should be 
 divided by ten. The excessive multiplication of saints, however, 
 not only in this text but in many others, is more serious. It has 
 prejudiced the claims of the many real saints to official recog- 
 nition in Rome. Only two Gaelic Saints were ever canonized — 
 St. Malachy and St. Laurence O'Toole. A very limited number 
 in addition, principally the patron saints of dioceses, were 
 accorded a defined ecclesiastical position towards the end of 
 the last century. The principal reason for the omission was 
 the magnitude of the number and the looseness of the 
 evidence.'^^ 
 
 *' Fleming has some valuable and interesting pages on this catalogue. He 
 states that about the year 1626, the Rev. Francis Matthew, the Warden of their 
 college and lately Provincial, had got copies made of the lives of very many of the 
 Irish Saints from two MS. parchment volumes, one belonging to Armagh or 
 Dublin, and then in the library of Ussher, and the other belonging to the Island 
 of all the Saints (in L. Ree). As we understand him, Fleming found in the copy 
 codex eeveral Lives, one of St. Patrick by " an old and trusty " writer, from which he 
 quotes verbatim a Catalogue of the Orders of the Saints, corresponding substan- 
 tially to paragraphs 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the Codex Salmanticencis. He does not give 
 or suggest the name of the "old and trusty" writer. He adds afterwards (432, 
 col. 2), a paragraph which corresponds substantially with the vision paragraph (6) 
 of the Codex ScUmanticencia. There is no authority for the statement made by Dr. 
 O'Connor that the catalogue was composed by Tirechan. There are no precise 
 data to fix an approximate date for its composition. If the " copy Codex " re- 
 ferred to by Fleming is in the archives of the Franciscan Convent in Dublin further 
 light may be thrown on the subject. The fact that the catalogue stops at 666 A.D. 
 is not of much weight, as the Collection of Lives in which it appeared may have 
 stopped at that time, and the writer certainly lived some centuries later, on the 
 most favourable view, and did not bring the precis up to his own time. Flemingius 
 P. Collectanea, 430. The catalogue is probably an expression of Jocelyn's vision. 
 
 " Francis Harold wrote a life of his uncle, Luke Wadding (1588-1667). It 
 is very interesting, written in good style and excellent Latin, worthy to rank with 
 the conferences of Cassian. He mentions that Wadding, then a man of powerful 
 influence at Rome, used it successfully, apparently with some difficulty, to obtain 
 permission for a special Antiphon verse and prayer for the Universal church in 
 honor of St. Patrick on his feast at the Irish foundations in Rome and near it. 
 He then endeavoured to obtain a like privilege for the other two patrons of 
 Ireland, St. Columba and St. Bridget, but died before he had succeeded, and it 
 was not granted at that time. Vita Annates Minorum (ed. 1731), Vol. I., cxxii. 
 
THE ORGANISATION OF THE CHUBCH. 325 
 
 At the end of the Life of Giraldus of Mayo, the BoUandists 
 after quoting from the Litany of Aengus, " The 330 saints, 
 with Gerald, bishop, and the 50 saints of Leyney, in Connact, 
 who dwelt in the monastery of Mayo, I invoke, through Christ, 
 &c.," add : — " The Irish would not have been so liberal in 
 canonising in troops their dead, who had shown more than 
 ordinary virtue, if they had observed the practice of the 
 Universal Church, which conferred the honour only on martyrs. 
 But as to those who had not been known to have won the prize 
 of martyrdom, their lives were examined singly : their early, 
 middle, and closing years, and the miracles that accompanied 
 or followed ; and severally and singly, were added to the number 
 of those who may be ritually invoked, either by Pontifical 
 decree or by the common voice of a Christian people, induced 
 by evident and frequent miracles, to form a sure belief in the 
 • saintship ' of the individual." ^* This rule the Irish in their 
 ' pious simplicity ' did not observe, and the word ' saint ' 
 in their authors should be held to be equivalent to ' of pious 
 memory,' of ' happy recollection,' or ' servant of God.' 
 
 This question of the Irish saints is so important that we 
 must pursue it further. We venture to suggest that the 
 inferences that have been drawn from the Litany of Aengus 
 should be reconsidered and modified. An examination of it in 
 connection with the Epilogue to the Feilire, the liitany of the 
 Blessed Virgin and the Scuap Chrabhaegh (Broom of Piety) 
 of Colcu, reveals, we think, that reference was made to these 
 troops for a special purpose, without any intention of claiming 
 for all the members of the troop the rank and veneration duo 
 to saints of the Catholic Church. Colcu was Ferleighen, 
 probably professor of theology, at Clonmacnoise, the tutor and 
 friend of Alcuin, and died in 792 A.D. His litany or prayer is 
 divided inta two parts. " The first consists of 28 petitions or 
 paragraphs, each beseeching the forgiveness and mercy of 
 Jesus, through the intercession of some class of the holy men 
 of the Old or New Testament." i* 
 
 Again Aengus, in the Epilogue to the Feilire, states that he 
 laid under contribution for the Feilire, " the vast tome of 
 Ambrose Hilary's pious sensus, Jerome's Antigraph, Euse- 
 
 " Boll, Acta, SS., xi., 288 (March 13). 
 
 " Colgan says of the Scuap : " Est fasciculus ardentissimarum preoum per 
 modum quodaiiomodo Litaniarum." 
 
326 EARLY IRISH HISTORV. 
 
 bius' martyrology, and Erin's host of books." ^^ " Lest, how- 
 ever," writes Archbishop Healy, " any might be jealous for 
 being omitted, he invokes them in the third part (the epilogue) 
 under certain general heads, patriarchs, prophets, virgins, 
 martyrs, etc., so that not a single one of the heavenly orders, 
 at home or abroad, can complain of the want of some reference 
 to his or her memory." i* As regards the saints of the Old 
 Testament, it was a prominent teaching found, for instance, in 
 Callia, that the Lord, after the Passion, took up to heaven 
 a multitude of saints, who had been waiting for the redemp- 
 tion. 
 
 The script known as the Litany of Aengus has reached us, 
 in the Book of Leinster (1150 c), and in the Leabhar Breac. 
 It is imperfect in the latter and, as we think, also in the former. 
 It is contained in the " Isidore Leaves," which formed part of the 
 Book of Leinster, were missing from it, found in St. Isidore's, 
 Rome, and are now in the Franciscan Convent in Dublin. 
 They are printed in the facsimile pp. 355 of the Book of 
 Leinster}'' 
 
 On examining the text of the Litany in the Book of Leinster 
 we find that it consists of groups of bishops, priests, pilgrims, 
 anchorites, monks, martyrs, innocent youths, Romans, Gauls, 
 Saxons, and Egyptians ; disciples with Mane ban ; the twelve 
 men who went beyond the sea with Rive ; the descendants of 
 Corra, with their seven companions; the persons who went 
 with St. Patrick to Mount Armoin (?), etc., etc. ; and finally 
 the text ends with 141 groups of seven bishops each, each group 
 having a "place-name" {e.g., of Ardpatrick) attached to it, 
 meaning who were buried there. In the Ecclesiastical Record 
 text the writer places after the first and succeeding groups the 
 words of invocation. All these I invoke unto my aid through 
 Jesus Christ. The writer states he collated the text in the 
 Isidore Leaves, i.e., in the Book of Leinster, with the text in 
 the Leahhar Breac, and heads his translation, " From the 
 
 " Stokes, Feilire, cxcii. 
 
 ^^ Insula Sanctorum, i\\. The author gives his preference to tlie date 801 
 A.D, for Feilire. Stokes would have it a century or more later. But this view 
 rests mainly on linguistic forms, an insecure foundation, in our judgment, in a 
 period of transition from the Old to the Middle Gaelic. 
 
 " On the intricate and obscure subject of the texts, see Atkinson, Pref. to 
 the Booi of Leinster. 
 
 The Leabhar Breac wants at the beginning ten or twelve groups of Saints. 
 
 A text is ^iven in the 3rd vol. (1867) of the Eccl. Record Ir., pp. 383, 468, 
 with a translation, to which we shall refer. 
 
THE ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 327 
 
 Book of Leinster." '* This is inaccurate, and a very serious 
 inaccuracy. It is only at the ninth or tenth group in the 
 Book of Leinster that we find words of invocation or rather 
 letters representing words, viz., All these whose names are 
 written in Heaven ^° I invoice to my aid (hos omnes quorum 
 nomina scripta sunt in C3lis invoco ad auxilium meum). This 
 was, we suggest, a short form for a longer form in the first part 
 of the Litany, ■which is now wanting, in which it was made 
 clear somehow, aa by the words " per Christum " that it was 
 their intercession that was asked for. If the Litany originally 
 commenced with the first group in the present text, we should 
 expect to find the full invocation there. And, further, in the 
 Book of Leinster we find the first nine or ten groups followed 
 by another series of groups, and these followed by the words 
 or letters per Jesum only, which clearly refer to a complete 
 invocation not now found in the existing text. It is also very 
 persuasive proof that the text is imperfect in the Book of 
 Leinster, as well as in the Leabhar Breac, that no appeal is 
 made to the three patron saints of Erin, nor to the Finnians, 
 Brendans, Congall, Ciaran, Columbanus, etc. It seems to us 
 incredible that all these great national saints should have been 
 omitted from such a Litany. We suggest that the groups 
 were preceded by an enumeration of the great saints singly, 
 and that the groups were added ex majori cautela, as they 
 Mere in the Feilire, lest there should be any saints "whose 
 names were written in the Heavens " left unnoticed. It is 
 quite possible that Ward found something of the sort in the 
 texts before him. His observations point, we think, to an 
 enumeration of names singly. An invocation after each group 
 without names would not assist him in making a list of saints 
 of the same name and surname., which was the object he had it3 
 view. He writes : — 
 
 When I had almost finished making a list of the saints of the same 
 name and surname . . . there came from the brethren in the 
 Convent in Donegal injreland a manuscript copy of a codex, the parch- 
 ment and writing of which were so eaten away (and obliterated) by 
 time that in places it could not be read, and betokened an age of at 
 
 " The heading of the Gaelic text on the opposite page is, we are surprised to 
 find, "SleohtLeabliar AedhaMoic Crimthain inso sis — An extract from the iJooA 
 ofAedh Mac Crimthain down' here," which explains a good deal. This is not the 
 Booi of Leinster text. Ecc. Rec., 1869, p. 390. 
 
 " This would exclude tho members of the group whose names were not written 
 ill Heaven. 
 
328 EAELT IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 least 700 years, ■which was confirmed by the fact that the author 
 omitted the saints of that age, though they would hare answered his 
 purpose as well as those more ancient whom he enumerates as often, 
 repeating these words in Latin — quorum nomina scripta in ccelis hos 
 omnes invoco adauxiliummeum, i.e., " whose names have been written in 
 Heaven, all those I invoke to aid me," '" 
 
 Regarding the Consortia Mulieruvn, the Rev. Mr. Olden 
 takes a very different view of the meaning of this sentence 
 from ours. Consortium,, he thinks, is not equivalent to societas, 
 but has a technical meaning " signifying the association of a 
 woman vowed to perpetual chastity with an ecclesiastic, both 
 occupying the same house and living together as brother and 
 sister." In the Eastern church, he says : " Such unions were 
 known as avrdaaKrai ayairriTai and a5«\<;^at in the West as consortes 
 (hence consortium) mulieres subintroductae and perhaps 
 more generally as sororea. . . The Council of Nicaea passed 
 a canon against consortium."^^ 
 
 The 3rd canon of the Council of Nicaea (325) forbade any 
 bishop or other cleric to have in his house a awutraKToe 
 (subintroducta) that is any woman living in the house with 
 him, unless his mother, sister, aunt, or such other person as was 
 free from all suspicion. Hefele observes on this canon "In 
 the first ages of the church some Christians, clergymen and 
 laymen, contracted a sort of spiritual marriage with unmarried 
 persons so that they lived together, but there was not a sexual 
 but a spiritual connection between them for their mutual 
 spiritual advancement. They were known by the name of 
 ovveiaaKToi ayairriTat and sorores. That which began in the 
 spirit, however, in many cases ended in the flesh, on 
 which account the church very stringently forbade such unions, 
 even with penalties more severe than those with which she 
 punished concubinage, for it happened that Christians who 
 would have recoiled from concubinage, formed one of those 
 
 ™ As Ward's book is very rare, we quote a short extract : — Dum in obstu- 
 penda hac multitudine sanctorum ejusdem nominis oognoniinis etc., coUigendi ver- 
 saror pene aotvim, agere videbar ubi exemplar oujusdam MS. Codicis a DuDgallensis 
 Moiiastarii f ratribuu in Hibernia suporveuit vetustate ita coroaa etiam cum charac- 
 teribuB membranea ut alioubi legi nequiverit, et aeptem saltern Baeoulorum aiiti- 
 quitatem praeferat si praesertim consideremus authorem omisisse sanctos hujua 
 setatis quanquam ad institutum ejus aeque facerent atque antiquiores quos reoensuit 
 et totias repetUis his verbis Latinia "quorum nomina scripta sunt in coelia hoa 
 umnea invooo ad auxilium meum." H. Ward (Vardeiis) ilcto 5. HumhMi, 20i. 
 Colgan refers to the Litany, Acta SS. I,. 581. 
 
 =iProo. Ry. Ir. Acad. (]893) vol. III. 3* Ssr. p. 415 on the CuiuoHia 
 Ut Order of the Irish Saints. 
 
THE ORGANISATION OF THE CHUECH. 329 
 
 spiritual unions, and in doing so, fell,"^^ We are not aware of 
 any text in which consors simply, i.e., without a context, is 
 used as equivalent to soror or consortia simply used to 
 designate these spiritual unions. 
 
 The case of bishop Mel of Ardagh which he cites, appears to 
 us to be decisive against the Rev. Mr. Olden's views. The 
 bishop and his {siur) his kinswoman, or, as Mr. Olden suggests, 
 his spiritual sister, " used to be in one habitation praying 
 to the Lord." Scandal was given by this, which rumour carried 
 to the ears of Saint Patrick. He went, forthwith, to Ardagh, 
 and inquired into the matter. " Then Patrick knew that there 
 was no sin between them, but said : ' Let men and women be 
 apart so that we may be found not to give opportunity to the 
 weak, and so that by us the Lord's name be not blasphemed, 
 which be far from us.' And thus he left them with Brith Leith 
 between them ; she in Druim Chea to the west of Bri Leith 
 and he to the east of it in Ard Acha (Ardagh).^^" We do not 
 think a spiritual union is referred to here, but if the relation 
 was such, it was promptly stamped out by the Saint. Surely 
 it is not conceivable that 350 saints, or any number of them, 
 should be living openly in contumacious defiance of the canons 
 and anathemas of an CE ecumenical council. 
 
 2' Hefele Ccmndh (Clark) voL 1. 380. 
 
[ 330 ] 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE M0NKS.1 
 
 Jljf'ONACHUS, SoUtarius, Monk, signified originally a 
 man who lived by himself, alone, solitary, retired from 
 the world (d^axwp^Djc), a dweller in the desert, a hermit 
 (Lprifilriji). When the monks or solitaries, of whom the most 
 celebrated was Paulus in Egypt, were trained in the ways of a 
 common life, under an abbot, by St. Antony (264-356), the 
 essential principles of monasticism, as it afterwards came to be 
 known in the "West, were solidly established. Sexual solitari- 
 ness was secured by the vow of chastity, which, as understood, 
 excluded the marriage tie. Living under the rule of an abbot 
 implied the vow of obedience, which involved the renunciation 
 of the individual will in all things not contrary to God's law. 
 One would have expected when the monasteries multiplied 
 and the monks came to be reckoned by thousands in Egypt, 
 that a rule would be drawn up, not only for ordering the 
 internal discipline in each monastery, but also for the common 
 government and control of all collectively. But St. Antony 
 refused to write a rule for his disciples ; he said that the 
 precepts of the Gospel were sufficient. Macarius (394) how- 
 ever is regarded by some as the author of the rule which bears 
 his name. When he went into the Nitrian region, the mountain 
 on its western extremity was tilled with solitaries, and grouped 
 
 * This chapter deals only with oenobifce monks and with the recognised rules 
 and "use" of community life. The special austerities of individuals, whether 
 recluses, incluses (we believe there were none in Erin), or oenobites, do not come 
 within the scope of this chapter. Compared with what we may call hermit life in 
 France and Italy, they present no feature of exceptional severity. We give a few 
 dates here for the founding of the following monasteries, which are at le:)st approxi- 
 mately correct : — 
 
 A.D. 270, The Thebaid, St. Anthony ... 260-356 
 
 „ 320, Tabenisi (Tabenna), St. Paohomius, 285-345 
 „ 363, Metaza Pontus, St. Basil, 329 ... 329-379 
 
 „ 374, Marmoutier, near Tours, St. Martin, 316-3.17 
 „ 410, Lerins (S. Honorat), St. Honoratus, -I- 429 
 ,, 410(c.), St. Victor, near Marseilles, Cassian, 860-456 
 „ 490, Aries Monastery at, St. CaesariuGS ... 468-542 
 „ 529, Monte Cassino, St. Benedict .. 480-543 
 
 „ ^63, lona, St. Columba, ... .. 524-597 
 
 „ 596, Luzcuii, St. Columbanus ,. 540-613 
 
THE MONKS. 331 
 
 around him in the eastern part of the disti-ict of the Natron 
 lakes (in which was in after time the famous city of Scete, 
 about 43 miles west of Cairo), arose thousands of cells of 
 solitaries whose lives were devoted to labour and prayer and 
 fasting and vigils. They slept, ate, and worked alone, but met 
 at stated times for prayer. They fasted not only from food, 
 but what was still more trying, from sleep. Herbs and roots, 
 salt and water, supplied the necessaries of life. A little bread 
 constituted a feast. Their labour was well organised and 
 almost incessant. They wove mats from the reeds which grew 
 in the district, and procured by the sale of them all that they 
 required. They were not bound to this common life, if it can 
 be called such, and they frequently passed into the hermit life, 
 which was considered holier. Up to this time there were 
 collections of so-called rules,* which contained valuable precepts, 
 but there was no body of rules purporting to be a code or 
 constitution for monastic government. It was not till the 
 time of Pachomius (292-348) that community life proper — 
 what is now known as monastic life— began. Pachomius was 
 at first a soldier in the Roman army. After his conversion he 
 oflFered himself as a disciple to Palemon, who had been a disciple 
 of St. Antony. Palemon at first refused to receive him. " My 
 food," said he, " is bread and salt ; I abstain from wine alto- 
 gether ; I watch half, sometimes the whole night, praying and 
 reading the Divine Word." Pachomius said he was prepared 
 for this, and Palemon then consecrated him to God, with the 
 monk's habit (haibitu monaohi eum consecravit), and laid upon 
 him the injunction " to labour and to watch " (labora et vigila). 
 Later on Pachomius founded the celebrated monastery of 
 Tabenna, or Tabenisi (the Palms of Isis),* on an island in the 
 Nile. His rule, known as the Angel's rule,* is given in the 
 22 ad chapter of the Life of Pachomius, by an unknown author, 
 
 ' Collected ia Migne, vol. 100. 
 
 ' Tabenna is an island near Keneh and Denderah, 414 miles by river, south of 
 Cairo, and 40 north of Luxor, or Thebea. The territory of Thebes, the ThebaiJ, 
 normally extended from Hermopolis Magna, 180 miles south of Cairo, to Syena 
 (Assouam), 590 miles from Cairo. This Thebais Palladius divides into Upper 
 Thebais, from Syene (Assouam) to Lyoopolis (Assiont) and Lower Thebais, from 
 Assiont to Cairo. Later writers commonly adopt this division. Lower Egypt 
 extended, according to this division, from Cairo (the Pyramids) to the sea. From 
 Syene to the sea is 620 miles. 
 
 * Legend said that an angel first brought it, written on bronze tablets. This 
 must be taken as an oriental way of saying that it was divinely inspired. Migne, 
 voL 28, p. 59. 
 
332 EARLY lEISH HISTORY. 
 
 supposed to be a contemporary, and was translated into Latin 
 by Dionysius Exiguus. It runs (in part) as follows : — 
 
 You shall permit each to eat and drink according to his strength, 
 and compel him to labour in proportion to what he eats, and shall not 
 prevent any from eating in moderation or from fasting (i.e., at his 
 choice). You shall impose heavier work on the strongest and those 
 that eat; lighter on those that are weaker and fast. Lot each be 
 clothed at night with a linen tunic, girdled. You shall make separate 
 cells and ordain that three shall remain in each cell. Let each have a 
 melotes (i.e., a white dressed goat-skin), without which let him neither 
 eat nor sleep. However, when approaching the Sacraments of Christ, 
 let him undo his girdle and lay aside his melotes, and wear only his 
 cowl (cucuUa), 
 
 Then came a command as to distributing the monks. He 
 divided the brethren into regiments, numbered with the letters 
 of the alphabet, " i," the simplest, representing the untrained, 
 and " i," the most complicated, representing the most forward 
 and disciplined. 
 
 They should remain permanently (jugiter) in the monastery 
 and labour with their hands for three years before entering on 
 more sacred studies. Each when eating should cover his 
 head, hot look at his neighbours, and keep silence. He was to 
 say twelve prayers in the day, twelve in the evening, and 
 twelve at night. Additional prayers might be said in the cells 
 by the more perfect. This rule, as it was afterwards completed 
 by Theodorua and Orsisius, St, Jerome translated into Latin from 
 a Greek version, in 401 A.D., prefixing a short but very interest- 
 ing preface. There were then numerous monasteries in the 
 deserts of the Thebaid. Each monastery consisted of thirty or 
 forty houses (domus) under an overseer (prae^osif its); each 
 house consisted of thirty or forty brethren, and three hundred 
 and four houses made a tribe (tribus). The brethren of the same 
 craft occupied the same house. Thus, the linen-weavers, the 
 mat- weavers, the tailors, carpenters, fullers, sandal-makers, were 
 governed separately, each by an overseer. Accounts of the work 
 done were rendered weekly to the " Father " of the monastery. 
 These accounts and the accounts of the sales of the articles 
 made in each monastery were submitted for audit to the high 
 steward (oeconovius) of all the monasteries once a year. 
 
 Two general assemblies were held every year in August and 
 at Easter, at which all the brethren not absolutely required at 
 the monasteries attended — to the number, St. Jerome says, of 
 
THE MONKS. 333 
 
 50,000. This seems almost incredible. After Pachomius removed 
 his residence from Tabenisi to the more central monastery at 
 Peboou, the meetings took place there. He remained superior- 
 general of all the monasteries till his death, before which he 
 designated his successor, who designated his successor in like 
 manner.* And so Schnoodi in the following century designated 
 or appointed Visa to succeed him. The superior-general 
 appointed the heads of the daughter houses, and changed them 
 about at his discretion ; was in fact a spiritual autocrat. To 
 anticipate a little, we may mention here that Columba 
 named or designated Baethin as his successor, and the 
 superiors of the affiliated monasteries received their charge 
 from him. The succeeding abbots of lona — ^it is not clear 
 whether they were designated or elected — were confined to 
 St. Columba's kindred until the 11th abbot.* 
 
 Cassian bears the following testimony as to the discipline 
 be observed at Tabenna : — " The monastery of the monks of 
 Tabenna in the Thebaid is better fitted as regards numbers, as 
 it is more strict in the rigour of its system than all others, 
 for there are in it more than 5,000 brethren under the rule of 
 one abbot ; and the obedience with which the whole number 
 of monks is at all times subject to one elder, is what no one 
 among us would render to another even for a short Lime or 
 demand from him."^ 
 
 Before leaving the Egyptian monasteries a further remark 
 may be appropriate. There are those who regard their 
 strenuous asceticism and that of the kindred Gaelic institutions 
 as useless or bordering on insanity. They do not reflect that, 
 as in the case of bodily infirmities, the physic that cures one 
 generation will not in many cases cure the next, and will be 
 displaced by a drug suited to altered conditions of life, so in 
 the spiritual order spiritual remedies must be varied from age 
 to age. We deem it fitting to quote, for the enlightenment of 
 these critics, the following testimony of Sozomen, a Greek 
 lawyer who wrote in the first half of the 5th century : — 
 
 " The monasteriea of Egypt were governed by several individuals of 
 
 " Migne, vol. 23, p. 64. The above is the view of Amilineau E., who has studied 
 the Greek, Latin, and Coptic writers on this subject. There is praotioally no 
 difference of opinions among them.-^i)e Historia Lauaiaea, p. 14. 
 
 P. Ladenze, Lt Oenobitiame Fahhomitn, 286. 
 
 • Afterwards the abbot is said to have been elected of the men " of Alba and 
 Erin " when Hy lost its supremacy. This is very vague.— Reeves' Adamnan, p. 364. 
 
 "> InttUutiaaes, IV., O. I. 
 
334 EAELY IRISH HISTORV. 
 
 aminent sanctity, who were strenuously opposed to the heresy of Arias, 
 The people who were neither willing nor competent to enter into the 
 doctrinal questions, received their opinions from them, and thought 
 with them, for they were persuaded that men whose virtue was 
 manifested by their deeds were in possession of the truth." * 
 
 The monasticism of the Gael played such an important 
 part, not only in the history of Erin but in the evangelisation 
 and secular civilisation of Europe that, we think, a somewhat 
 lengthy examination of its constitution and scope -will not be 
 out of place here, in what is primarily a secular history. And 
 in the first place let us say something about monastic rules 
 before comparing them with the Gaelic usages. 
 
 To regulate the lives of the thousands who embraced the 
 cenobitical life in Egypt there must have been a very efficient 
 organization. The government of 6,000 monks in a single 
 monastery must have been a very difficult matter, and it was 
 probably a still more difficult task to enforce due subordination 
 and obedience in daughter houses. Tet we hear nothing of 
 mutiny or revolt. The rules and regulations by which this end 
 was attained, if they were reduced to writing before the time 
 of Pachomius, have not reached us. 
 
 The customs of Cluny were in use for a long time before 
 they were reduced to a kind of code, about 1009. by the 
 " religious " in Farfa. The monks at ClUny, practising them 
 day by day, felt no need to form them into a supplementary 
 written rule, and they were preserved solely by tradition. No 
 complete or authoritative redaction of the customs is of earlier 
 date than 1085, when Udalric wrote the Antiquiores Conaue- 
 tudines Cluniacensea for the Monastery of Hirschau in Wur- 
 temburg, printed in Achery's Spicilegium I. 641, Conatitvr 
 tionea MonasticcB. 
 
 In an adequate and comprehensive rule we should expect to 
 find regulations dealing (1) with internal or spiritual discip- 
 line ; (2) with external conduct ; (3) providing a constitution 
 for the government of each monastery separately; and (4) 
 providing for the government of a large number of houses in 
 obedience to the same rule in their relation to a chief monastery 
 and to each other. 
 
 The first requirement was in early times the most important. 
 A chapter of the rule was read in chapter every morning. This 
 
 *Eea. Hilt. VI, 20, vol. ii., p. 357, Libr. Nioene Father*. 
 
THE MONKS. 33S 
 
 would supplement the merits or supply, in some measure, the 
 deficiencies of the abbot. There was not, however, we may 
 observe, much danger that without written matter there would 
 be any shortcomings in homiletic exposition amongst the per- 
 fervid Gael. St. Basil's rule® was, in this view, the earliest, and 
 it remains still unrivalled foi- richness, variety, and culture. 
 The son of an advocate and rhetor, Basil made his higher studies 
 iu philosophy, law, and literature at Athens, where he had 
 as school-fellows Gregory Nazianzen and Julian the Apostate. 
 After practising as advocate for some time at Csesarea he turned 
 his thoughts to monasticism at the instance of his sister 
 Macrina, who had devoted herself to the religious life. He 
 repaired to Egypt and studied the ascetic life there as well as 
 in Palestine and elsewhere, and returning to Csesarea, retired 
 to a solitude in Pontus on the river Iris, where his father had 
 au estate. Here he established in due course a monastery, 
 and afterwards (370) became Bishop of Csesarea. It is to his 
 many-sided training and experience that the excellence of his 
 rule in the respect we have mentioned must be mainly attri. 
 buted. The rule is written in good Greek, and has reached us 
 in a long and a short form."* It is by way of question and 
 answer, the answer being generally a short lecture or discourse 
 on various topics of spiritual interest admirably suited for 
 reading in chapter. It formed, as it were, a little code of 
 spiritual discipline. We find nothing to correspond to this in 
 the Gaelic Church. What is called the rule of St. Columba 
 does not purport, on the face of it, to be a rule or to be by St. 
 Columba. It consists merely of a few short maxims intended 
 apparently for a hermit, and described by Colgan as Begula 
 Eremitica. It is most unfair to describe, as is sometimes 
 done, this little collection as the rule of St. Columba or (as is 
 
 ' Ths amra (eulogy) of Columba, 690 A.D. (o.) has the following : — 
 He used Basil's judgments. 
 Aftbettc t)Af fit bttAru. 
 He made known books of law as Cassian loved. 
 
 stoiDTirivir ^615 tebttu tibuitt «c cAti CArr''^i' 
 
 —Rev. Celt. xx. 181, 256. 
 
 The amra is a complete piece of artificial alliterative prose. It consists of a 
 prefatory prayer to God and forty paragraphs divided into ten chapters. It deala 
 (1) with the sorrow of the Gael for his death ; (2) his aseent to heaven ; (3) his 
 place in heaven ; (4) his sufferings, and the devil's hatred of him ; >5) his wisdom 
 and gentleness ; (6) his charity and abstinence ; (7) his knowledge and foresight ; 
 (8) King Aed's commission to the author ; (9) the special grief oi the Ui neil (his 
 clansmen) ; (10) the virtues of the ^mfiA Cotoimb Citte. — Stokes, Rev. Celt. xz. 12. 
 
 " Migne, Series Graeca. xxxi. 306. 
 
336 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 more frequently done without describing it accurately), com- 
 pare it with the rule of St. Basil or St. Benedict, and then 
 point out triumphantly how inferior was the rule of St. 
 Columba. The following are samples from it : — 
 
 Be alone in a separate place near a chief city if thy conscience is 
 not prepared to live in common with the crowd, i.e, community. 
 
 Let a fast place with one door enclose thee. 
 
 A mind prepared for red martyrdom. 
 
 A mind fortified and steadfast for white martyrdom, i.e., mortificar 
 tiou. 
 
 Take not of food till thou art hungry. 
 
 Sleep not till thou feelest desire. 
 
 Three labours in the day — prayer, work, and reading. 
 
 The measure of prayer shall be until tears come, and the measure of 
 thy work till tears come or until the perspiration come if thy tears are 
 not free. 
 
 It is absurd to call this a rule of St. Columba, with Adam- 
 nan's Life before us.** 
 
 As regards the external conduct of the monks there are in 
 the rules of St. Basil many excellent directions and maxims of 
 spiritual prudence, but the arrangement is unmethodical. 
 From this point of view St. Benedict's rule is better arranged, 
 and more practical, but its directive and coercive power is 
 dangerously weakened by leaving so many important points 
 subject to unlimited variation at the discretion and dispensation 
 of the abbot. Both rules alike are animated with the same 
 spirit of fatherly care and tenderness for the monks. On one 
 point, however, there is a very remarkable difference between 
 them, all the more remarkable in that St. Benedict was well 
 acquainted with and admired the rule of St. Basil. 
 
 The rule of St. Basil prescribes a period of searching proba- 
 tion, the length of which is not mentioned. It was to vary 
 according to the circumstances of each particular case, and the 
 admission of the postulant was to be discretionary. On profes- 
 sion he made, as we understand the rule, a written declaration 
 of vows. This seems implied in certain words in relation to a 
 person who has rescinded his profession : " He should be 
 
 " For rule, Gaelic and Eng., see Reeves' Acts of CoUon, Arcb. lOp. The 
 entire rule, Gaelic and Eng., occupies only two and a half pages. 
 
 A Life of St. Kieran, quoted by Colgan, recites the names of several compilers 
 of rules in these words : — Numerantur ooto inter prsecipuos Regularum conditores, 
 quibus monasteria prope innumera Begni Eiberniss regebantur prima enim regula 
 fuit S. Patricil; secunda, S. Brigidse; tertia, S. Brendani; quarta, S. Kierani; 
 
 ?uinta, S, Columba ; BSKta, 8. Comgalli : septima, Molassii ; ootava, S. Adamnani 
 Tria$. Th. 471.) 
 
THE MONKS. 337 
 
 regarded as an offender against God, before whom and with 
 whom he has deposited the profession of his promises."^' 
 This, we make no doubt, contained vows of obedience, stability, 
 chastity, and individual poverty. 
 
 As regards children St. Basil {andKpims) answers that 
 they are to be received from the earliest years, if they are 
 orphans, at the pleasure of the brotherhood; if the parents 
 are alive, when brought by the parents the children were to be 
 received in the presence of several witnesses, so as to afford no 
 pretext for calumny. They were not, however, then to be 
 received in the body of the brotherhood, or reckoned as of them 
 lest from their falling away (oTron/xiac) disgrace should be 
 brought on the religious life. They were to be brought up in 
 all piety as the common children of the brotherhood, 
 whether male or female, with separate board and in separate 
 houses, apart from the community except at prayer, under the 
 control of an aged brother, who was to rule with mildness and 
 paternal tenderness. Their education was to be attended to, 
 " and when the reasoning faculty is developed and the judgment, 
 it is fitting to administer the vow (opoXoyiay) of virginity now 
 secure and the result of their own judgment and discretion, 
 with the full development of the reason in the presence of the 
 prefects of the church. In this way no imputation will be cast 
 on the brotherhood for too great haste ; and if after making 
 vow to God any should be eager to cast it off, no loop-hole will 
 be left to him for lying." 
 
 " And any one who does not wish to take the vow of 
 virginity as not being able to have a care for the things of the 
 Lord, in the presence of the same witnesses let him be let free. 
 But when one after much searching of heart and deliberation, 
 which he ought to be permitted to make privately for the space 
 of very many days, lest anything should appear to be done by a 
 snatch, has made hia vow, let him be received and enrolled 
 amongst thy brethren." 
 
 The rule and usage of St. Benedict provided in the case of 
 adults that after a novitiate of a year or so, when the novice 
 desired to be fully received into the brotherhood, he should, 
 amongst other things, prepare a written promise {petitionem) 
 
 '^ E0 6v Kcu iie ov Ttjv opoXoyiav tZv awOriKiov Kairedcro coram quo etin 
 quo paotorum eonfesaionem deposuit. Interrogatio 14, Migne vol. 31, p. 950 
 Striea Oraeca. 
 
838 EARLY IRISH HISTORr. 
 
 to wit : " I promise to God and His saints, stability (i.e., 
 perseverance), conversion of life and obedience," and should 
 lay this promise on the altar before the clothing of his head. 
 In the case of an infant (i.e. under 14) the father if alive, 
 or the mother, prepared and signed the petition, to wit : " I 
 promise for my son before God and His saints, stability, conver- 
 sion of life and obedience." Then on the appointed day after 
 the gospel of the mass and before the offertory, he placed in 
 the right hand of the child or boy, an unconsecrated host in a 
 cloth (oblatum cum mappula), and a cruet of wine in his left 
 hand, and then holding the boy before him folded his hand in 
 the oloth.'3 Then he held the hand of the boy folded in the 
 cloth in his own hand and also the written promise, by which 
 he fixed him firmly in the monastery. Witnesses were present. 
 Then the abbot asked : " What seek you, brother ? " The father 
 answered, "I wish to deliver my son to Almighty God to serve 
 Him in this monastery, for so iu the law the Lord commanded 
 the children of Israel that they should make offering of their 
 sons to God, and therefore I wish in like manner to make 
 offering of my son." Then the abbot asked the witnesses : " Do 
 you see, brothers, and hear what he says ? " They answered. 
 " We see and hear." Then the father led the boy to the place 
 where men are used to present their offerings, and the priest 
 took the host and the wine from the hand of the boy held in 
 the hand of the father, and the abbot took delivery of the boy 
 and the promise, and then handed the promise back to the 
 father, who placed it on the altar. And, if possible, it was 
 desirable that the abbot should then celebrate the Mass and 
 receive the host and wine himself when consecrated.'4 
 
 This interesting ceremony bound the boy for life as much as 
 if he had been an adult. He was a professed monk by dedica- 
 tion, and the exercise of the formidable " patria protestas "iS of 
 the Roman law. There was no such practice known to Irish 
 monasticism, which appears, so far as we can judge, to have 
 conformed to the usage of St. Basil. 
 
 '^ The cloth (paZla altaris) waa probably a cloth not actually a corporal conse- 
 crated, but a cloth faahioned like a corporal. It was possibly used for the first 
 time after the oblation. 
 
 " Promitto ego ille (sic) coram Deo et Sanctis ejus pro filio meo de stabilitate 
 sua et converaione morum snorum atque obedientiam habendam, 
 
 Hildemarus Monaohus O. S. B. Tractatus in regulam S. Benedicti. — Ed, 
 Mittermueller O. S. B. 1880, p. .'548. 
 
 " See Menardus Concordia Begidarum. 
 
THE MONKS. 339 
 
 Both St. Basil and St. Benedict inculcate the necessity for 
 manual labour, and St. Basil takes great pains to point out 
 that prayer is not to be made a pretext for avoiding it. St. 
 Benedict allots, it has been calculated, an average of seven 
 hours daily for it. St. Basil mentions many trades, such as 
 weaving, carpentry, etc., but gives his preference to agriculture. 
 It is noteworthy that there is no vow of celibacy (which was 
 included in the vow of castitas) expressly mentioned in 
 either, though it was, no doubt, understood to be impliedly 
 contained in both. In af tertime, on making petition to receive 
 the lay habit in the Order of St. Benedict, the converaus 
 promised castitas and staiilitas. But the old form was still re- 
 tained for the monks themselves, limiting the vow to stability, 
 conversion of life, and obedience. We do not find any lay 
 brothers, i.e., conversi, associated with the Gaelic monks, nor 
 were they seemingly contemplated by the rule of St. Bene- 
 dict.^* The reason of the omission of the vow of castitas and 
 of regulations concerning the government of subordinate or 
 daughter-houses in the rules of St. Basil and St. Benedict may 
 probably be looked for in legal difficulties. A body of laymen, 
 united under articles of association binding them to celibacy, 
 would undoubtedly be contrary to the policy of the Roman 
 State after the passing of the Julian laws. And though the 
 severity of this legislation was relaxed by Constantine, such 
 an association would, we fancy, still be illegal; and the 
 Arian emperors who succeeded him, and found their stoutest 
 and most formidable adversaries in the monks, would pro- 
 bably have fulminated edicts against such associations. In 
 like manner a network of religious houses spread through 
 the empire, or any considerable portion of it, controlled from 
 a central authority — an imperium within an empire — would 
 certainly not have been tolerated by the Imperial govern- 
 ment, whichitself made regulations concerning the monasteries. 
 In 635 Justinian enacted that when a vacancy occurred in an 
 abbey, the bishop of the place should select from amongst the 
 monks the person he thought fittest, and appoint him abbot. 
 This law was soon repealed. In 546 he enacted that the abbot 
 
 " We find the lav brothers' vow to run : — " I byhote stedvestnesae and chaste 
 lyf tofore God, and alle Hies kalewen and that ioh sohel ben buhsam (i.e., obedient) 
 and leven withoute propertie al mi lif time." — Conauetudinea Mons. 8. August. 
 CaniuoT, p. 266 and 278. The MS. is probably of the date of the 13th century. 
 The monk's vow is only given in Latin and French. 
 
340 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 should be elected by all the monks or by those of the " fairest 
 repute or judgment " (KaWjoyoc viroXj/i/zcuc, translated melioris 
 opinionis), who should previously make oath before the Holy 
 Gospels to vote for the best man without favour and not through 
 friendship.^' The alternative in this law is very curious. Who 
 was to decide if the minority was of fairer repute or sounder 
 judgment than the majority ? Was it the emperor ? It does 
 not mean, in its plain sense, that the general body of the 
 monks should elect a committee of selection, as was sometimes 
 done in after time. The rule of St. Benedict (516 c), which may 
 have been modified to comply with this law, provides that 
 he be made abbot whom all the brethren unanimously in the 
 fear of God, or even a part, however small, of the brethren of 
 sounder judgment shall elect.^* We have seen how the monks 
 at Glastonbury obtained permission to elect their abbot under 
 this rule. Previously, we presume, the Gaelic use prevailed, 
 and the abbot was selected by the abbot of the parent house. 
 
 By a synodical decree made at the Lateran under Gregory the 
 Great in 601 it was provided that on the death of an abbot 
 no stranger should be elected if a fitting person was to be 
 found amongst the brethren. There appears to be something 
 wanting in the text, which runs : — " Whom if by their own 
 
 free will the unanimous society of the brethren — ■ and who 
 
 shall have been elected without fraud or bribery, let him be 
 ' ordained ' (i.e., as abbot)." It is probably the " alternative " 
 clause in the Imperial Edict that is wanting.'* Monasticism had 
 enemies at a very early period, and when Arianism was powerful 
 and in the ascendant this hostility led to persecution. Valens in 
 373 issued an edict directing that the monks should be dragged 
 from their retreats and compelled to do their duties as citizens 
 and soldiers.'"' St. Chrysostom (317-407) gives details as to 
 
 " Novell, 0. 9. Ed. Schoell, p. 34 (A.D. 535). Novell, CXIII. o. 34 Ed. Schoell, 
 p. 618 {A.D. 546). 
 
 '^ In abbatis ordinatione ilia semper oonaideratur ratio ut hio oonstituatur 
 quern sibi omnis oonoora oongregatio secundum timorem Dei, sive etiam par* 
 quamvis parva congregationis saniori conailio elegerit, o. 64. 
 
 " Uef unoto autom abbate oujusque oongregationis non estraneus ellgatur nisi 
 de eadem congregatione quern si propria voluntate concors fratrum societas, et 
 qui electus fuerit sine dolo neo venalitate aliqua ordiuatur. — Mansi, X. 487. 
 
 ^ Tlie edict runs : — " Since many, througli lives of idleness, shirk their public 
 duties and betake themselves to solitary and secret places, and under pretext of 
 religion attach themselves to communities of monks ; these, and such like, found 
 in Egypt, we command, by formal edict from our Court of the East, to drag 
 from their hiding places and recall to the discharge of public duties, or, according 
 to the tenor of our decree, deprive them of the enjoyment of their property, which 
 
THE MONKS. S4il 
 
 this persecution, and denounces the men " who make war " on 
 those who adopt the monastic life. He was only eighteen 
 years younger than Basil the Great, and had been a monk 
 for six years himself. There was no persecution of the monks 
 in Erin. 
 
 As regards food, St. Basil prescribes great moderation, the 
 use only of what was necessary to sustain life. " The common 
 cheap food of the country with a little oil." " When they have 
 finished their daily work," said St, Chrysostom, "they seat 
 themselves at table, and truly they have not many dishes. 
 Some only eat bread and salt, others take oil besides. The 
 weaker add herbs and vegetables. Having closed their meal 
 with hymns, they lay themselves down on straw."^^ 
 
 The Eule of St. Benedict, which is too well known to require 
 a detailed examination here, was a little more liberal. Though 
 it forbade the use of the flesh of quadrupeds it allowed the 
 use of a reasonable quantity of wine, and seemingly of the 
 flesh of poultry, which is not, at any rate, expressly prohibited. 
 Milk probably would cost more than common wine, and not be 
 at all times procurable. 
 
 St. Csesarius of Aries, born in 476, made his studies at 
 Lerins — " the nursery of bishops." From it went bishops to 
 Armagh and Belgium, to Aries, Lyons, Vienna, Avignon, Venice, 
 Troyes,and other places. From it also came Vincentius, Sal vianus, 
 Faustus, and Eucherius. After filling the ofiice of cellarer or 
 steward at Lerins, Csesarius became the abbot or prior of a 
 suburban monastery near Aries, which he reformed, under a 
 code of rules drawn up by himself. These, no doubt, were the 
 " uses " of Lerins ; the same in substance as those which were 
 brought to Erin in the time of our apostle. His biographer 
 and soul-friend, Cyprianus, tells us he never changed from the 
 rules of Lerins — Nunquam, Lerinenaium fratrvMi instituta 
 reliquit. The rule was written or dictated by him to his 
 nephew, Tetradius, as well as a rule for nuns, believed to be 
 the oldest,^^ during his abbacy, which he held for three years 
 
 we have adjudged should be claimed by those who were liable for the discharge 
 of pubUo duties." As the monks had no individual property, the law appears to 
 have been interpreted so as to capture all, and they were forced into the Imperial 
 wrmieB.— Coei. Theodos. LXII. Tit. I. reg. 63. 
 
 '1 Ifom. on Ep. I. to Timothy. 
 
 " Rule 12 for Nuns. — ^Let every nun learn to read, and at all times have free- 
 dom for reading for two hours, from morning till the 2nd hour, i,e., 8 o'clock— 
 Migne, vol. 67, p. 1,106. 
 
342 EAELt IRISH HISTORT. 
 
 before he became bishop of Aries in 502. Besides poverty and 
 obedience, the rule prescribes stability, i.e., perseverance till 
 death, and that the monk shall at all times read till the 3rd 
 hour, i.e., 9 o'clock, and then do the other work he was ordered 
 to do. Wednesdays and Fridays were to be fast days in ordinary 
 weeks, and the other times of fasting the same as in Erin. No 
 fowl or flesh was to be eaten except by the sick. The rule 
 contains only 26 paragraphs. 
 
 In Erin there was no undue austerity as regards food, as we 
 shall now proceed to show. The so-called rule of St. Columba 
 says nothing on the subject, but we have authentic informa- 
 tion in Adamnan. 
 
 The ascetical writings of Columbanus are : — 
 
 1. The Regvla Monastioa, which is found in MS3. of Bobbio and 
 St. Gall. 
 
 2. Regvla Cenobialis, which is not found in these codices, but in a 
 codex of Augsburg and another of Ochenhausen. 
 
 3. The Penitential : De penetentiarum mensura taxanda liber. 
 
 4. Sermons — Instructions, short homilies, 17 in number, admirably 
 suited for reading in Chapter, as part of the spiritual discipline. 
 
 The authorship of the Penitentiala is disputed. They deal 
 largely with tho number of percussiones to be administered, 
 which may mean anything from a soft slap to a stroke with a 
 cat-o' -nine-tails. Some such discipline was necessary for boy 
 monks, according to the ideas of the time, and though a 
 number is mentioned, this was, no doubt, reducible at the 
 discretion of the abbot or prior. At lona the penance was, we 
 infer, in the discretion of Columba. Adamnan makes no men- 
 tion of percussiones, but there was a penitentiary in Tiree, to 
 which grave offenders were sentenced for seven or twelve years.^* 
 
 The authorship of the Regula Monastioa and the Instruc- 
 tiones is generally admitted. St. Columbanus warns his 
 children not to attach too much importance to excessive fasting. 
 " Don't," he says, " suppose that it suffices for us to fatigue 
 the body by fasts and vigils if we do not also mortify and reform 
 our moral being " (mores). 
 
 The so-called rule of Columbanus consists of nine short 
 chapters, on obedience, silence, eating, drinking, vanity, 
 
 ^ Seebasa has collected the authorities in hia Columba von Luxeuils Klotterrega, 
 1888. 
 
 Beeres' Adamnan, 360. 
 
THE MONKS. 343 
 
 chastity, discretion, mortification ; on the perfection of the 
 monk ; on the diversity of faults. It is manifestly a fragment, 
 and its attribution to Columbanus is disputed by some. 
 As regards food he says : — 
 
 Let the food be cheap, and taken in the evening by the monks, 
 ■who are to avoid eating to satiety or drinking to ebriety, so that (th« 
 meal) may sustain and not hurt. Vegetables, beans, and such like 
 {olera et legumina), flour and water (white sauce ?), and small fragments 
 of bread, so that the stomach may not be loaded and the mind stupefied. 
 For regard must be had to what is wholesome and nutritious (only) by 
 those who desire the rewards that are eternal, and therefore the use of 
 food must be regulated like the performance of labour. For this is 
 true discretion, to secure the capacity for spiritual progress by absti- 
 nence, which keeps the flesh in subjection (lit. lean). For if abstinence 
 exceeds moderation it is a fault and not a virtue. Now, virtue consists 
 of many things that are good and keeps them active. Therefore (the 
 monk) must fast as he must pray and labour and read {i.e., learn) every 
 day,2* 
 
 To see regulations of this kind in their true perspective it is 
 necessary to view them in relation to contemporary modes of 
 life and standards of comfort and not in comparison with the 
 luxurious asceticism of monks who wandered far away from 
 primitive rule and usage. The stone pillow of St. Columba to 
 a modern ear sounds a more painful austerity than a plank 
 bed ; but we forget that at that period and down to Tudor 
 times the pillow in ordinary use was made of wood.^° And 
 the Englishman who eats three or four square meals a day, not 
 including his afternoon tea, stands aghast at the folly and 
 superstition of men who ate only one meal at sundown. Yet 
 this was the custom in secular life. Captain Cuellar, of the 
 Spanish Armada, whose ship was wrecked in Donegal Bay, 
 wrote an account of his misadventures in Ireland to King 
 
 "* Regvla Monastiea, o. iii. CibuB sit vilis et vespertinug monachorum satie- 
 tatem fugiens, et potus ebrietatem ; ut et austmeat et non noceat, olera legumina, 
 farina aqua mixta, cum parvo panis paximatione ne venter oneretur et mens suSb- 
 setur. Etenim utilitati et usui tantum consulendum est setema desiderantibus 
 prsemia et ideo temperandus est ita usus sicut temperaudus est labor ; quia haeo 
 est vera discretio ut possibilitas spiritalis profectus cum abstinentia carnem macer- 
 ante retentetur, si euim modum abstinentia ezcesserit vitium non virtus erit ; 
 virtus enim multa tustinet bona et continet ergo quotidie jejunandum est, sicut 
 quotidie orandum est ; quotidie laborandum, quotidie est legendum. — Migne, vol. 
 80, p. 210. The paximentum appears to have been a hard-baked cake or biscuit, 
 and to have varied in size. Cassian says in one place that two hardly made a pound 
 weight. It was, whatever the weight, exclusive of fruit and vegetables, and there 
 was plenty of milk. See Fleming's note. There is a striking similarity between 
 our text and the passages in Cassian's Coll. 2, c. 19 and c. 22. — Migne, vol. 80, p. 210. 
 
 ^ Adamnan says his bed was a hard stone. The Vita Seeunda says a skin, 
 possibly a sheep's skin, was over it. This was exceptional. Each monk had a 
 separate bed, with a mattrass, probably of straw, and a pillow. 
 
344 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Philip TI. of Spain, dated October 4th, 1589, from which we 
 take the following extract : — 
 
 They (i.e., the Irish) live in huts made (? covered) with straw. The men 
 have big bodies, their features and limbs are well made, and they are as 
 agile as deer. They eat but one meal a day, and that at night, and 
 their ordinary food is oaten bread and butter. They drink sour milk, 
 ai they have no other beverage, but no water, although it is the best 
 in the world. On holidays they eat meat half cooked, without bread 
 or salt. They dress in tight breeches and goat-skin jackets cut short, 
 but very big, and over all a blanket, and wear their hair down to the 
 eyes. They are good walkers and have great endurance. They sleep 
 upon the ground on rushes freshly cut and full of watsr, or else frozen 
 stiff. Most of the women are very pretty, but badly dressed. They are 
 hard workers and good housewives, after their fashion. These savages 
 liked us very much. Their domain extends forty leagues each way.'* 
 
 In the Life of Columbanus, by Jonas, we read of the saint 
 and his monks reaping a field of wheat. Beer made from 
 barley, fish, and birds were used. " He commenced to 
 thresh out the corn, and the monks were seated and the tables 
 were prepared, and he ordered that they might be strengthened 
 by a joyful banquet." 
 
 At iona the days of the year were divided into Sundays 
 and saints' days (dies solemnes) and ordinary days. On ordinary 
 days every Wednesday and Friday, except during the interval 
 between Easter and Whitsuntide, was a fast day. The fast 
 was relaxed, except on great fast days, in the exercise of 
 hospitality when a stranger arrived. On ordinary fast days 
 one meal was taken consisting of a moderate share of bread, a 
 hen egg, and milk mixed with water. During Lent and 
 Advent all ordinary days were fast days."' On ordinary days, 
 which were not fast days, the food was simple bread, sometimes 
 made of barley, milk, fish, eggs, and probably seal's flesh, and 
 on Sundays and saints' days and on the arrival of guests there 
 was an improvement of diet, which consisted in an addition to 
 the principal meal, on which occasion it is probable that 
 mutton, and even beef, were served up. Ratramnus of Corbie 
 states it was the general practice of the Scots to have one meal 
 only at nones (three o'clock), except on Sundays and feast days. 
 
 Among the Gael there was no blood-letting or scourging 
 for the mortification of the body. Hard work and plain living, 
 accompanied, we are proud to say, in very many cases, witft 
 high thinking, enabled them to dispense with these heroic 
 precautions. 
 
 ^ This waa the territory of the Mao Clancys (" Dartree Mic Clancy), coexten* 
 sive with the preeent barony of Boss Clogher. The Castle of Eoss Clogher, on 
 the southern shore of L. Melvin, was the residence of the chief tain .—^e^Cer of 
 Captain Oaellar, H. Sedgwick, p. 69 (condensed) ; and AUingham, H., CveUar'a 
 Adventures, p. 15. 
 
 '" Reeves' Adamncm, 341-35d. 
 
[ 345 ] 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE TEACHING OF THE NATIONS. 
 
 Pro Christo peregrinari volms enavigavit 
 Deciding to go abroad for Christ, he sailed away. 
 
 IT was not the pinch of famine nor the fear of poison, the 
 pitch cap or the triangle, still less the prickings of an 
 uneasy conscience, that led the Gaelic monks to leave a 
 land which they loved. It was in obedience to the precepts 
 of the Gospel, and following the example of our apostle, that 
 they went forth to teach the heathen. Many a home-sick 
 heart they carried with them. 
 
 Wanderers ever, without pause or rest, 
 
 They longed for their country and cradle land.* 
 
 "OeojiAiT) r'oi^ 5^n rs^* 5^" V°T 
 mUriAiT) & "o-cin 'f <x ri-'oflccof. 
 
 No murmur of regret, however, ever passed the lips of these 
 brave men. " My country," said Mochonna, one of Columba's 
 disciples, " is where I can gather the largest harvest for Christ." 
 There was no desire to turn back ; no craven fear of martyrdom. 
 They were ever ready to stand and fall in the fighting line, 
 aa became the sons of the soldier. 
 
 The first and, perhaps, the greatest of these apostles was 
 Columba, the Gaelic patron of the Gael. But before we follow 
 him to the scene of his labours, we must say a word as to the 
 educational preparation at home that ensured the success 
 under Providence of the efforts of the missionaries abroad. 
 
 At the reception of the faith such education as existed in 
 Erin may be roughly described as technical, such as we have 
 seen outlined in the Brehon Law Tracts. There was no 
 literary training. There was, it is true, an alphabet of a 
 primitive kind. The letters called Oghams, 24 in number, 
 
 ' The Trittia in Gaelic, attributed to Columba, are not genuine. 
 
346 EAKLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 consisted of groups of parallel lines or scores, to the right, left, 
 or across a vertical stem-line. The groups of parallel lines or 
 scores vary in number, from one to five, and are placed horizon, 
 tally or obliquely as regards the vertical stem-line, which is 
 usually the edge of an upright stone. The vowels, however, 
 are sometimes represtfiated by short lines or points. The lines 
 or scores, according to the Gaelic practice, commenced below, 
 and the arris is to be read upwards. Ou the second edge the 
 arris is to be read downwards generally, but sometimes 
 upwards, like the first arris. Turning the page, so as to 
 represent an upright pillar, the groups with their values 
 
 are:- 
 
 hdtequ ^^_ 
 
 aou e i i ii iiiiiii iiiii mgiigstr 
 
 i 
 
 bl £ s n 
 
 1 
 
 Opinions vary as to the origin of this alphabet. Bishop 
 Graves and Professor Rhys are in favour of the Latin alphabet. 
 Isaac Taylor, on the other hand, a weighty authority, and for 
 weighty reasons, connects it with the Scandinavian runes. He 
 says, " That the Oghams were derived from the runes is in- 
 dicated by the fact that they are found exclusively in regions 
 where Scandinavian settlements were established, and also by 
 the fact that the names of the Oghams agree curiously with 
 the names of the runes of corresponding value. * The primi. 
 tive forms of the Ogham symbols would seem to have been 
 directly suggested by the " tree runes," which are occasionally 
 found side by side with the ordinary runes. In the Book of 
 Ballymote they are referred to the Tuatha De Danaan, who 
 represent, in all probability, an earlier Scandinavian immigra- 
 tion." 
 
 There have been found in Ireland 155 Ogham inscriptions, 
 of which 148 are in Cork, Kerry, Waterford, or Kilkenny. 
 There are twenty Welsh Ogham inscriptions ; seventeen being 
 in South Wales, two in Devon, one in Cornwall, and some in 
 
 ^ Older values are proposed for some of these symbols by Rhys. 
 ■ Greeks and Goth*, 180. The Alphabet (1899), II. 225. 
 
THE TEACHING OP THE NATIONS. 347 
 
 the Isle of Man and Scotland. It may be safely affirmed that 
 where the Northmen never came. Ogham inscriptions are never 
 found.* These inscriptions are all of an obituary or mortuary 
 character, connected probably with religious motives. No 
 list of names of kings or chieftains, or fact of historical value, 
 is found in them. Assuming then, and in our humble judg- 
 ment the assumption is warranted, that Ogham writing was 
 used long before the reception of the Faith ; it was not better 
 suited for literary uses than the cuneiform syllabary, and there 
 were no clay tablets to facilitate its employment. 
 
 Literary culture, therefore, had its beginning with the 
 coming of our apostle, who is represented in our texts as read- 
 ing and writing for his converts " alphabetslTn J rudiments of 
 the Faith." It is interesting to know that he brought his 
 script, or mode of writing, from Southern Gaul, and in the 
 sixth century Ireland became the chief school of Western 
 caligraphy, and the Irish Uncial blazed forth in full splendour 
 as the most magnificent of all mediaeval scripts. Some time 
 in the fifth century a fully formed book-hand must have been 
 introduced from Gaul by the saint. The cursive writing of 
 Southern Gaul supplies unmistakable prototypes for the ten 
 Irish test forms which could not be obtained by any process of 
 palseographical evolution from the contemporary Roman 
 uncials. The Roman uncials are rounded capitals : the Irish 
 uncials are uncialized cursives.® Since the publication of 
 Isaac Taylor's work on the alphabet (1899) the second part of 
 Macalister's Irish Epigraphy has appeared (1902). This 
 contains an account of Ogham tablets found at Bure in Saxony, 
 about eleven miles south of Magdeburg. About 1,200 stones 
 were found, pieces of limestone, big and very little, bearing 
 scores and figures made with a very sharp tool. The figures 
 inscribed represent hammers, axes, a shield, two swords crossed, 
 a tent, a javelin, a spear-head, a sling, a bow, and a bird and 
 an arrow. Under these figures are written Ogham characters, 
 that is, parallel lines and a stem line. Mr. Macalister, giving 
 the Gaelic values to the scripts in six cases, could not discover 
 the meaning of the words, or even the language. Some of the 
 other inscriptions looked like Runic letters, but tested by the 
 known forms of the Runic alphabet were unintelligible. He 
 
 * Taylor, Greeks and Goths (1879), III. 
 
 ' This is condensed from Taylor's Alphabet II.,6.3-178. 
 
348 EAELY IRISH HISTCmT. 
 
 observed that there are several details on these tablets which 
 suggest that when fuller knowledge is brought to us by future 
 discoveries the much-derided author of the tract on Oghams in 
 the Book of Ballymote may yet be acquitted of the charge of 
 mere childish futility. He thinks that some of the scribings 
 may be Oghamic shorthand, and that thus works of any length 
 would not require the cartload of timber postulated by Bishop 
 Graves for a poem of moderate length in Oghams. We think 
 this very improbable, but the discovery seems to take us back 
 towards the Oghamic-like scribings of the Dolmen period 
 already referred to. Mr. Macalister thinks they were "pro- 
 bably magical." * 
 
 After St. Patrick had founded his habitations (congabala) 
 in the territories conquered for the Faith, one of the most 
 urgent needs of the Church was to make provision for the 
 education of the clergy. And we may be sure that he brought 
 with him alumni of Lerins and Auxerre well qualified to 
 undertake the task and become the teachers, not only of the 
 clergy, but also of the laity. The study of Latin, and what is 
 more remarkable, of Greek and even Hebrew, flourished side by 
 side with the study of theology, and many of the ministers of 
 religion were at once sound theologians and accomplished 
 scholars. " The classic tradition," says Mr. Darmesteter, " to 
 all appearance dead in Europe, burst out into full bloom in the 
 Isle of the Saints, and the Renaissance began in Ireland seven 
 hundred years before it was known in Italy. During three 
 centuries Ireland was the asylum of the Higher Learning, 
 which took sanctuary from the uncultured States of Europe. 
 At one time Armagh, the religious capital of Christian Ireland, 
 was the metropolis of civilization." ^ The Higher Learning 
 took sanctuary in the monasteries; the lamp of knowledge 
 burned before the altar. 
 
 " Deciding to go abroad for Christ he sailed away."* So 
 wrote Adamnan, who also tells us that St. Brendan stated at 
 the Synod of Tailltin that he " saw that St. Columba was 
 
 • Macalister, Irish Epigraphy, Part II. (1902), 138. 
 ' Hyde, 218. 
 
 * Hie anno secundo post Culedrebine bellum statis vero ause XLIII. de Scotia 
 in Britanniam, pro Christo, peregrinari volens enavigavit, Qui a puero 
 Christiano deditua tirooinio et sapientiae studiis iategritatem corporis «t 
 animJB puritatem, Deo Donants ouBtodiens quamvis in terra positug ooelestibus 
 •eraptum moribus ostendebat. Adamnan, Proifatid. 
 
THE TEACHING OF THE NATIONS. 349 
 
 foreordained by God to be a leader of peoples to life."* 
 Columbia was then 42 years of age, 563. He was born in 521. 
 and died in 597. It is quite a mistake to represent this mis- 
 sion as a penance and an exile. It was neither. lona waf 
 regarded by Ptolemy and Bede as part of Erin. 
 
 In going to lona he was going to his own people. Erca, the 
 granddaughter of Loarn Mor, the renowned chieftain of Argyl, 
 was his grandmother.^" Since the settlement in Alba inter- 
 mittent war with varying fortunes raged between the Gael 
 there and the Picts. Three years before, the Gael had sustained 
 a severe defeat, and Domhangart, their chief tain, who was a first 
 cousin to Erca, was slain. To end this strife Columba resolved 
 to convert to Christianity the Picts, who were still heathen, 
 hoping that in the unity of the Faith they would be drawn 
 together in the bonds of peace. " The conversion of this strong 
 race," writes the Very Rev. Dr. Macgregor, " was an enterprise 
 worthy of a great missionary. If successful it would be a patriotic 
 as well as a Christian act ; for binding them to his kinsmen by a 
 common faith, he would help to prevent the recurrence of war 
 between them.'' 
 
 His efforts were successful under difficulties which the 
 
 following extract will enable our readers to understand : — 
 
 ilven imagination can help us but a little way in picturing to our- 
 selves the Scotland of the time, and those lonely journeys on foot of 
 the master and his disciples across its rugged mountains and through 
 its dense forests and among its bleak bogs and morasses, or those still 
 more dangerous voyages when in frail skiffs they boldly faced the seas 
 that raged round the Hebrides and the Orkneys. From more sources 
 than one we can picture to ourselves what Columba and his disciples 
 were like. We can see them as they journey on foot from one end of 
 Scotland to the other, as poor and as barely provided for as were 
 Christ's Apostles, with neither silver nor gold nor brass in their 
 purses, and over a much wilder country, and among wilder people. I 
 think of these pure Celts (recte Gael) as they were, as probably in 
 physical appearance not unlike the Scottish Highlanders of the present 
 day — a noble race among whom you will find, and not uncommon, as 
 fine a type of manly beauty as the earth can show, men of commanding 
 presence, as we certainly know Columba and Columbanus were. They 
 come before us as men with few wants, living on humblest fare, leading an 
 
 ' Huno itaque spemare non audeo quem populorum duoeiu ad vitam a Deo 
 pro ordinatum video. St. Brendan of Birr died in 573, and St. Columba instituted 
 a, festival at lona in commemoration. Adamnan, III. 4. 
 
 '" Fergus, the son of Conal Gulban, married Erca, the daughter of Loam Mor 
 to whom she bore Feidlimidh, the father of Columba, whose mother was Eithne, 
 loth in descent from Cathair IMor, Ard Righ, 120 A.D. 
 
350 EAELT IRISH HlSTORy, 
 
 outdoor life, men of powerful physique, capable of great endurance, inured 
 to hardship and fatigue from their earliest days. We see them as they 
 march forth from lona in little bands, clad in a simple white tunic, over 
 which was the usual monkish dress of undyed wool, coarse, but strong 
 and good, comfortable and most picturesque, bound round the waist 
 with a strong cord, covering them from head to foot, and serving them 
 for clothes by day and blanket by night. All their worldly goods they 
 carry with them on their back in a wallet; over their shoulder a 
 leathern water bottle; in their hand a staff. Thus they trudge 
 sturdily along. It was men like that, and in a way like that, who con- 
 verted Scotland and England and Northern Europe to God.^* 
 
 Reeves gives a list.by no means exhaustive, of 21 of Columba's 
 foundations among the Picts, and 32 among the Scots of Alba. 
 
 " The primitive history of the Church of Scotland," he says, " is 
 essentially Irish. Situate in the West, Columba's great monastery of 
 Hy exercised a religious influence which was felt in every quarter of 
 •Scotland. In the extreme North, the Orkneys were rendered safe to 
 the devout pilgrim by St. Columba ; in the far South, Melrose attained 
 its greatest celebrity under Eata, one of St. Aidan's twelve disciples ; 
 and in the Eastern extremity of Fictland, Drostan, son of Cosgrog, 
 accompanied the indefatigable Columba, when he founded the churches 
 of Aberdour and Aberlour. Even the nunnery of Colubi or Coldingham 
 is introduced to notice by the father of English history, to illustrate 
 his narrative of one Adamnan, a Scot of Ireland. There were, it is 
 true, two ecclesiastical establishments in the South-west which were not 
 of Columban origin. Rosnat, the Whithorn of the Saxon, and the 
 Candida Casa of Latin history, was founded by Ninian prior to St. 
 Columba's date, while the Episcopal See of Glasgow owes its origin to 
 St. Kentigern (or Munghu), a Strathcljde Briton." ^^ 
 
 It is outside the scope of this work to trace the history of 
 the Columban missionaries in their perilous warfare for Christ, 
 from Iceland to Tarentum, from Skelig Michael to Vienna. 
 Their labours in Germany are summarised by a German priest 
 with becoming gratitude, in his History of the Diocese of 
 Cologne : — 
 
 Mabillon remarks that the Scoti conferred four benefits on the German 
 people : (1) the Faith; (2) the erection of bishoprics; (3) the intro- 
 duction of arts and letters ; (4) the knowledge of agriculture. Those 
 who wish to realise the full extent to which we are indebted to the 
 Scoti for these blessings have only to read the work of the. learned 
 Spittler,!' -which is worthy of the closest attention. 
 
 These missionaries {i.e., the Irish,) feared neither the dangers of the 
 sea nor of the land. Armed with the cross, they preached Christ 
 crucified to kings and peoples. They gave their lives for the salvation 
 
 " The Very Rev. Dr. MaoGregor ; Commemoration Sermon at lona June 9th 
 1897. 
 
 '■■' Reevea, Cvldees, j:6. 
 
 '* Orwndriaa der Ouchichte der Christlichen Kirche. 
 
THE TEACHING OP THE NATIONS. 351 
 
 Faith, but all the civilising institutions of the Christian religion — of our 
 forefathers. . . . They not only brought the treasure of the schools, 
 but hospitals, asylums, shelters for the poor, and all similar retreats. 
 In the year 844, several of these institutions having been allowed to 
 fall into disrepair, whether through the negligence of bishops or the 
 vicissitudes of the times, a decree was passed at the Council of Meaux. 
 held in that year, ordering hospitals and such foundations to be 
 restored ' such as they had been instituted by the Scots of old.' Every 
 province of Germany proclaims this race as its benefactor. Austria 
 celebrates St. Coleman, St. Virgilius, St. Modestus, and others. To whom 
 but to the Soots was due the famous " Sohottenkloster " of Vienna ? 
 Salsburg Eatisbon, and all Bavaria, honour St. Virgilius as their apostle. 
 Similar, honour is paid in different regions to SS. Alto, Marianus, and 
 Macarius. To whom but to these same monks was due the famous monas- 
 tery of St. James at Katisbon ! Burgundy, Alsace, Helvetia. Suevia, 
 with one voice proclaim the glory of Columbanus, Gall, Fridolin, 
 Arbogast, Florentius, and Trudpert, who first preached the true religion 
 amongst them. Who were the founders of the monasteries of St. 
 Thomas at Strasburg and of St. Nicholas at Memmingen but these same 
 Scots ? Franconia and the Buchonian forest honour as their apostles 
 St. Killian and St. Firmin. And the Scottish monasteries of St. 
 Aegidius and St. James, which in old times flourished at Nuremberg 
 and Wurzburg, to whom are they to be ascribed but to the holy monks of 
 ancient Scotia ? The land between the Rhine and the Moselle rejoiced in 
 the labours of Wendelin and Disibod. The old and famous monastery 
 of St. James at Mainz was founded, according to the best authorities, 
 by these same Scots. The Saxons and the tribes of Northern Germany 
 are indebted to them to an extent which may be judged by the fact 
 that the first ten bishops who occupied the See of Verdun belonged to 
 that race.^* 
 
 There is, however, one mission within the British Isles to 
 which, for many reasons, we must give special and detailed 
 attention after we have referred briefly to a peculiarity in the 
 constitution of the Scotch mission, which is mentioned by 
 Bede. " The island," he wrote, " is wont to have always 
 an abbot who is a priest, for its ruler, to whose jurisdiction 
 both all the provincia and the bishops also themselves, after 
 an unusual order, are bound to be subject, according to the 
 example of him who was their first teacher {i.e., Columba), 
 who was not a bishop but a priest and monk." ^^ The episcopal 
 office is regarded by good authorities as twofold, one branch 
 exercising spiritual authority, potestfis ordinis; the other 
 
 " Antiquitates Monasterii Sancti Martini Majorii Coloniensis, I. H. Ressel, 
 presbyter, Coloniensis, 1863, Hogan, J. F., Irish Monasteries in Germany, Ir. Ecd. 
 Rec, 1898, 533. Wehave oondensea the above from the Rev. Fr. Hogan. His article 
 i,n Cologne is one ot a very interesting series on the Irish Monasteries in Oermany, 
 which we hope he will find leisure to recast and publish in a connected history. 
 
 » M. E. III. 5. 
 
S.'iS EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 temporal authority, potestas jurisdictionis. In Erin, as we 
 have seen, where, as elsewhere, and nowhere more than in 
 Italy, the temporalities of the Church were invaded by lay 
 intruders,'^ the intruders some times called themselves bishops, 
 not claiming, however, the potestas ordinis, but only the 
 potestas jurisdictionis. St. Columba, as a priest, had no 
 episcopal potestas ordinis, but exercised the potestas juris, 
 dictionis in the general management and control of the 
 temporalities of the mission. In addition, when the bishop, 
 as was always the case with Columba, was also a monk, he 
 owed the saint monastic obedience as abbot. The episcopal 
 and monastic systems there and in Erin were in reality not 
 two systems but parts of one and the same system. Thus, as 
 regards Lindisfarne, Bede tells us that 
 
 Aidan, who was the first bishop, was a monk, and led a monastic 
 life along with his people. Hence, after him all the bishops of that 
 place until this day exercise the episcopal office in such sort that while 
 the abbot, who is chosen by the bishop with the consent of the brethren, 
 governs the monastery, all the priests, deacons, chanters, readers, and 
 other ecclesiastical Orders, observe in all things the monastic rule 
 along with the bishop himself'^. 
 
 There was no rivalry, no conflict, no recriminations between 
 abbot and bishop. There were no "perturbations and pro- 
 mulgations," and no privilegia exempting monasteries from - 
 episcopal visitation and jurisdiction. If the bishop was a 
 provincial king like Cormac, or a rigdamna like the fiery 
 abbot of Inis Scattery, he had to fight the battles of his tribe. 
 So the German bishops, as temporal princes under the feudal 
 system, donned their coats of mail and mounted their war- 
 horses and accompanied the Emperor on his march to Rome 
 And if the muintir of one abbey, which comprised not only 
 the monks but the folk on the termon lands, with their 
 friends and supporters, fought against the muintir of another 
 abbey, the abbot of Farfa rode with the Emperor, while the 
 abbot of Monte Casino stood firm for the Pope. With the 
 exception of these rare quarrels, which were local and probably 
 arose out of a dispute about a right of way or a turf-bank, the 
 peace of the Church was a reality in Erin so far as ecclesiastics 
 were concerned. 
 
 " In Erin, as we have seen, these intruding robbers are called archidoci — 
 arrant grabbers in the Tireohan text, Tnp. Life,, 312. 
 " Bede, Ftto Cuthh., c. 16. 
 
THE TEACHING OF THE STATIONS. 353 
 
 St. Augustine landed in Kent some three or four weeks 
 before the death of St. Columba (July 9th, 597). Kent was 
 the county of the Jutes, and Ethelbert, their king or chieftain, 
 was Bretwalda, a sort of ard-righ, exercising some authority 
 or influence as overlord in the East of England, as far north 
 as the Humber. He had married, many years before, Bertha, 
 the daughter of Charibert, King of Paris, and the great grand- 
 daughter of Clotilde, the wife of Clovis. She was a Christian, 
 and brought with her to Canterbury, as her soul-friend, Bishop 
 Luidhard. We cannot doubt that both were anxious for the 
 conversion of the heathen, and by example at least, if not by 
 an active propaganda, exercised a salutary influence. They 
 received, however, no assistance from the Prankish bishops. 
 Of this the Pope complains : " We are informed," he wrote, 
 " that they longingly wish to be converted, but the bishops 
 and priests of the neighbouring region (France) neglect them." 
 
 Whatever preparation may have been made, the honour of 
 converting the first tribe of the English nation — the Jutes — 
 belongs to St. Augustine. Ethelbert's nephew, the King of 
 Essex, which included London, and Essex, too, was for the 
 time converted, and Millitus was placed in the See of London, 
 and Justus at Rochester. St. Augustine remained at Canter- 
 bury until his death (604 or 605). 
 
 On Ethelbert's death (616) Essex relapsed into heathenism, 
 and bis son and successor for a time returned to idol worship, 
 because he would not be allowed to marry his stepmother. 
 The only solid and permanent result of St. Augustine's work 
 was the conversion of Kent. Millitus and Justus fled to Gaul, 
 but Laurentius, the successor of Augustine, was providentially 
 prevented from joining them. 
 
 Kent, an insignificant portion of England, so far as 
 regarded area (a great portion" of it was a vast forest) and 
 population, having thus received the Faith, there remained 
 the powerful tribes of the Saxons in the South and East, and 
 the Angles in the North and Midlands. The Angles occupied 
 Northumbria, comprising the Kingdom of Bemicia on the North, 
 and Deira on the South, and extending from the Forth to 
 Lincolnshire. The Mercians, too, to the South, were Angles. 
 It was with the Angles of Northumbria that the Columban 
 missionaries came first in contact. In 625 Edwin, King of 
 Northumbria, then a heathen, took to wife Ethelburga, the 
 
 2 A 
 
354 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 daughter of Ethelbert of Kent. She was attended to York by 
 Bishop Paulinus and James the Deacon. After a time Edwin 
 was baptized with many of his chief men on Easter Day, 627. 
 Edwin was defeated and slain in the Battle of Heathfield (633) 
 by the heathen King of Mercia and his Christian ally, Ceadwalla, 
 who overran Northumbria and laid all waste with fire and 
 sword. The Christian King, as Bede tells us, was more cruel 
 than the heathen, Paulinus, then fled with Ethelburga by sea to 
 Kent, and though James the Deacon remained and did what 
 he could around Catterick, where he resided, the Faith was, 
 according to the soundest views, virtually extirpated in 
 Northumbria. As, however, some writers indulge in vague 
 generalities, stating or suggesting that Northumbria was 
 largely converted by Paulinus, and that his work was largely 
 preserved by James the Deacon, and that the conversion of 
 Northumbria may be fairly claimed for the Augustine Mission, 
 we shall give a few particulars. 
 
 Paulinus brought no priests with him, was joined by no 
 priests there, ordained no priests there, and when he fled there 
 was not a single priest between the Forth and the Humber. 
 Paulinus went into the North of Northumbria with the 
 King and Queen to a royal residence, Glendale, and stayed 
 there thirty days, catechising and baptizing people who 
 came from the surrounding villages and localities. But this 
 could not be solid and permanent conversion. Bede tells us 
 that when the Columban monks arrived " in Bemicia {i.e., in 
 Durham, Northumberland, and northwards to Edinburgh) 
 ao sign, so far as we can discover, of the Christian faith 
 existed, no church or altar was erected.'' (III., c. 2.) In 
 Deira {i.e., Yorkshire) at a place where he was often wont 
 to stay with the King, he baptized in the river Swale which 
 flows by Catterick, near Bichmond, for no oratories or fonts 
 could yet be made in those parts. He built one wooden church 
 at Campodunum which was afterwards burnt by the Pagans, 
 but the altar, which was of stone, escaped, and was preserved 
 in the monastery in Elmete Wood. This and the church at 
 York were the only churches ever built by Paulinus. Edwin 
 was succeeded in Bemicia by Eanfried, and in Deira by Osric. 
 Both apostatized, and were slain by Ceadwalla within the 
 year, and with the exception of James, the Deacon, and his 
 friends and following near Catterick— who cannot have been 
 
THK TEACHING OF THE NATIONS. 355 
 
 of much account — the light of the Faith wa8 extinguished in 
 Northumbria, and the task before the Cohimban mission was 
 more difficult than if it had never been lighted, for it is easier 
 to convert a heathen than to reconvert an apostate. 
 Ceadwalla, however, did not long enjoy his victory. Oswald 
 the brother of Eanfried, who had been an exile with the 
 Picts and Scots, and had received the faith from the Columban 
 monks at lona, advanced with a small army against him to a 
 place near Hexham, not far from the Roman Wall. The 
 battlefield was known in after times as Heavenfield. The day 
 before the battle, Columba appeared to Oswald as he slept in 
 his tent, and his lofty stature seemed to touch the clouds. 
 " Be of good cheer," said the Saint, " and play the man. 
 Behold, I will be with you. Advance from the camp to-night to 
 battle, for the Lord has granted to me that this time the foe 
 shall be put to flight and your enemy, Ceadwalla, delivered into 
 your hands, and you shall return victorious after the fight, and 
 reign happily." Oswald then got up and told this vision to his 
 Council, and the whole army, who were Pagans, except Oswald 
 and twelve more who had been baptized by the monks of lona, 
 promised to receive the faith and be baptized if they were 
 victorious. Oswald attacked the following night, and 
 Ceadwalla was routed and slain. " This story my predecessor, 
 Failbhe, our abbot, told to me, Adamnan. He stated that he 
 had heard it from the mouth of Oswald himself when he nar- 
 rated the particulars of his vision to Abbot Seghine (5th Abbot, 
 623-662.)"'* Oswald, before the fight commenced, set up a cross, 
 which was standing in Bede's time. Oswald then became King 
 of both Bernicia and Deira, and the supremacy of Northumbria 
 was assured as soon as the tie which bound them together 
 was firmly knit by a solid and permanent conversion to the 
 Faith. 
 
 As soon as Oswald ascended the throne, being desirous 
 that all his nation should receive the Christian Faith, whereof 
 he had had happy experience in vanquishing the barbarians, 
 he sent to the Elders of the Scots, among whom himself and 
 his followers in exile had received the sacrament of Baptism, 
 requesting that they would send him a bishop, by whose 
 instruction and ministry the English nation, which he governed, 
 
 " Adamnan, e. i., and Graen, Making 0/ England, XI,, 28. 
 
356 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 might be taught the advantages and receive the sacraments 
 of the Christian Faith. Nor were they slow in granting his 
 request, but sent him Bishop Aidan, a man of singular meekness, 
 piety, and moderation, zealous in the cause of God, though not 
 altogether according to knowledge ; for he was wont to keep 
 Easter according to the custom of his country, which we have 
 before so often mentioned, from the 14th to the 20th Moon. 
 But the Scots of the South had long since (jamdudvm), by 
 the admonition of the Bishop of the Apostolic See, learned tc 
 observe Easter according to the canonical custom.^' The King 
 appointed him as his Episcopal Seat the Isle of Lindisfarne, 
 which lay off the coast of Bernicia, near Bamborough, which 
 was the royal seat. When Aidan, who was not skilful in the 
 English tongue, preached the Gospel, it was delightful to hear 
 the King himself interpreting the word of God to his captains 
 and ministers (duoibus et ministris), for he had perfectly 
 learned the language of the Scots during his long exile. From 
 that time many of the Scots came from their parts {i.«., lona) 
 daily into Britain, and with great devotion preached the Word 
 to those provinces of the English over which the King reigned, 
 and those among them that had received priest's orders 
 administered to them the grace of Baptism. Churches were 
 built in several places, the people joyfully flocked together to 
 hear the Word. Money and lands were given of the King's 
 bounty to build monasteries, the English, great and small, 
 were by their Scottish teachers instructed in the rules of 
 monastic discipline, as well as the higher branches of education 
 {cum Tnajoribus studiis), for most of them that came to preach 
 were monks.^ 
 
 From the English youth Aidan selected twelve " to be 
 specially instructed in the knowledge of Christ." Among 
 these was Eata, who was afterwards Bishop of Lindisfarne. 
 
 If our readers will compare these methods and this 
 organisation with the action of Paulinus they will readily 
 comprehend the superficial and sporadic character of the work 
 
 ^^Jamdudum — ^long since. This appears a strong word here. The Synod 
 in which the "canonical Easter" was adopted was held in 632 or 633, only two 
 or three years before. 
 
 ™ Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, on the coast of Northumberland, near Bamborough 
 Castle, is 13 miles S.E. of Berwick-on-Tweed. It is 3 miles by 1^ miles, neady 
 the same size as lona, and half of it is cultivated. The passage from the mainland 
 is dry sand at low water, about 1 j miles in length. 
 
THE TEAOHINQ OF THE NATIONS. .357 
 
 of the latter, who, however, it must be said, did not set before 
 himself the task of evangelizing the Angles. To complete 
 Bede's description, which comes after the expulsion of Coleman, 
 to be presently related, and which he gives with evident relish 
 as a severe rebuke to the spiritual decadence of his own time, 
 we add further from him : — 
 
 Aidan was wont to go about to all places in town and country on 
 foot unless any urgent necessity compelled him. Moreover, Aidan's 
 course of life was so different from the slothfulness of ours that all who 
 walked with him, whether tonsured or laics, were employed in study, 
 that is, either in reading the Scriptures or in learning the Psalms. 
 !Never through fear or respect did he fail to reprove the rich if they 
 had gone wrong in aught, but corrected them, with a severe rebuke. 
 He was never wont to give money to the powerful of the world, but 
 what he got from them he gave to the poor, i.e., dispensed in ransoming 
 those who had been unjustly sold. The whole thought of Aidan and 
 his successors and all the missionaries was to serve God, and not the 
 world ; their whole care to nourish the soul not the belly. Whence 
 also the religious habit was held at that time in great veneration, so 
 that wherever a priest or monk came he was received as the servant of 
 God ; and if they chanced to meet him on the way they ran to him 
 and, bowing, were glad to be signed with his hand or blessed with his 
 mouth. Also they gave heed diUgently to his words of exhortation. 
 On Sundays they flocked eagerly to the church or the monasteries, not 
 to feed their bodies but to hear the word of God. Stirred up by 
 Aidan's example, men and women who were " religious " adopted the 
 custom of fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays till the ninth hour (three 
 o'clock) throughout the year, except during the fifty days after Easter. 
 They were so free from worldly avarice that none of them received 
 lands and possessions for building monasteries unless they were com- 
 pelled to do so by " the powers that be," which custom was for 
 some little time after (664) observed in all the Churches of Northumbria. 
 
 Bede almost forgave Aidan for keeping Easter on the 14th 
 moon. 
 
 He kept it not, as some falsely suppose, on the 14th moon on any 
 day of the week with the Jews, but on the Lord's Day, from the 14th 
 moon to the 20th, on account of his belief in the Lord's Resurrection 
 on that day. In the celebration of his Easter he kept in heart, 
 venerated, and preached nothing but what we do, that is the redemption 
 of the human race through the Passion and Resurrection into Heaven 
 of the Mediator between God and men, of the Man Jesus Christ.^i 
 And Aidan's teaching was chiefly commended to all by the circumstance 
 that he himself taught no otherwise than as he and his followers lived. 
 
 '' Aidan died in 651 and was succeeded by Pinan, who was succeeded in 661 
 by Coleman, another monk from lona. All three had episcopal charge of all North- 
 umbria. It was in Coleman's time that the great conflict, as Bede calls it, took 
 place on the Easter question at Whitby. The dispute ended in the rout of the 
 Columban, and the triumphant entry of the Benedictine, mouks. 
 
358 EARL7 IRISH HISTOKY, 
 
 We may add here, with Bede, " But enough has now been 
 said on this subject." "^ 
 
 It is needless to say that we do not intend to open here 
 the question of the Easter controversy. We shall only offer 
 some observations to enable our readers to understand the 
 precise issue, to use a legal phrase, which was raised at Whitby. 
 The Jewish year was lunar, each month consisting of 28 days, 
 and commencing with the new moon. The first month of the 
 year was called Nisan. The full moon was on the 14th, and 
 to bring the lunar year into correspondence with the solar an 
 intercalary month was introduced, so that the 14th of Nisan 
 fell on the 14th of the first month after the vernal equinox, as 
 a general rule. The 14th day of the visible moon in Nisan is 
 held to have determined the Jewish Passover. " In the 14th 
 day at even is the Lord's Passover." And again : " In the 
 first month, on the 14th day of the month, at even, ye shall 
 eat unleavened bread until the one and twentieth day of the 
 month at even." All parties agreed that the Passion of our 
 Lord occurred on the 14th Nisan, and that, counting inclusively, 
 the Resurrection occurred on the third day following. If the 
 14th Nisan fell on a Friday all parties agreed in celebrating 
 the Passion on that Friday and the Besurrection on the 
 following Sunday. 
 
 When, however, the 14th Nisan did not fall on a Friday, 
 but, say, on a Monday, a divergence began. The Quarto- 
 decimans, i.e., the fourteenth-day men, as they were called, 
 celebrated the Passion on the Monday, regulating the time of the 
 celebration solely by the day of the month ; while the Orthodox, 
 as we may call them in that case, waited until the following 
 Friday to celebrate the Passion and for the following Sun- 
 day to celebrate the Besurrection. Again, of the Quarto- 
 decimane, there were two kinds, i.e. (1) One, the heretical 
 Ebionites " who held, with the continuance of the obligation 
 of ancient (Jewish) law in general, the validity of the old legal 
 Passover. Their festival, then, properly speaking, was not 
 Christian ; it was rather Jewish (293)." ■'* (2) There was a second 
 kind of Quartodecimana, who believed in the abrogation of 
 
 ^ What we have written is condensed from H. E. III., c. 5, and 26. Bede's 
 
 Iangu«se has been retained aa far as pusdible. 
 
 2» Hefde I. (Clark), I. 293.— The nuraerale tn brackets refer to the pages of 
 this volume. 
 
THE TEACHING OF THE NATIONS. 359 
 
 the Old Law, and celebrated Easter on the 14th Nisan, as a 
 Christian celebration, irrespective of the day of the week. It 
 was these latter, we think, that the Council of Nicsea had 
 principally in view. None of the Canons of the Council of 
 Nicsea, not even those of doubtful authenticity, treat of the 
 celebration of the Easter festival (327). Perhaps the Council 
 wished to conciliate those who were not ready to give up 
 immediately the customs of the (Orthodox) Quartodecimans. 
 It 'refused to anathematise a practice which had been handed 
 down from apostolic times in several Orthodox Churches (328). 
 There were, besides the Canons, (1) an Encyclical Letter of the 
 Council, which states, "All the brethren in the East, who 
 formerly celebrated Easter with the Jews, will henceforth keep 
 it with the Romans ; " and (2) the circular letter of the 
 Emperor Constantino, which is more specific : — 
 
 In rejecting their (i.e., the Jewish) custom, we shall transmit to our 
 descendants the legitimate mode of celebrating Easter, which we have 
 observed from the time of the Saviour's Passion to the present day 
 {according to the days of the week).'^ We ought not, therefore, to have 
 anything in common with the Jews, for the Saviour has shown us 
 another way ; our worship follows a more legitimate and more con- 
 venient course (the order of the days of the week). Unanimously adopting 
 this, we desire, dearest brethren, to separate ourselves from the detest- 
 able company of the Jews (322)." 
 
 The Gaelic use conformed strictly to this. The Passion was 
 celebrated on Friday, and the Resurrection on Sunday. And 
 further, when the 14th Nisan fell on Sunday they celebrated 
 Easter on that day, as was, of course, done always by the 
 orthodox Quartodecimans ; and they always asserted, as the 
 fact was, that in doing so they followed the use of the party 
 calling themselves Johamnites, rejecting, however, that portion 
 of their use which allowed the celebration on week days of 
 Easter, thus conforming to the circular letter of the Emperor. 
 When the 14th Nisan fell on Sunday the Roman use was to 
 wait for the next Sunday, so that the Roman Palm Sunday was 
 the Easterday of the Gael. When the 14th Nisan did not fall 
 on Sunday there was no difference between them. 
 
 And how often would the 14th Nisan fall on Sunday? 
 Easter is not regulated according to the visible moon or the 
 mean astronomical moon, nor by the true calculated time of the 
 new moon. 
 
 2*N.B.— The words in brackets are Hefele's, indicating his view, to which we 
 a.tta«h the highest importance. 
 
360 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Easter is regulated according to the age of the Calendar 
 or Ecclesiastical moon. All the day on which the new moon 
 is supposed to occur (i.e. the calendar moon) though it be 
 only a minute before midnight, is reckoned the first day of the 
 moon. Easter day is the Sunday following that fourteenth day 
 of the Calendar moon, which 14th day happens upon or next 
 after the 21st day of March. So that if the said 14th day be a 
 Sunday, Easter day is not that Sunday, but the next. The 
 earliest possible Easter is thus the 22nd March, the latest the 
 26th April. If the 14th moon falls on 20th day of March it is 
 necessary to wait for the 14th day of the next moon, which will 
 fall on the 18th of April, and if this day is Sunday, Easter 
 day will be the following Sunday, April 25th. Wo are unable 
 to say how often the 14th moon fell on the 21st day of March ; 
 but we find it stated that Easter occurred only four times on the 
 22Dd day of March since the new style was introduced (1582). 
 In 1761 and 1818 Easter day fell on 22nd of March, but neither 
 in the present nor in the following century will this be the 
 case again, and we fancy the 14th moon did not fall oftener on 
 the 2 1st of March. The latest Easter occurs, in the 19th and 
 20th centuries, in 1886 and 1943 only. So that the 14th moon 
 appears, as we infer, to occur only on these occasions, on the 
 20th of March, as we have explained. 
 
 This question of the celebration of Easter on the 14th moon 
 being Sunday, which we shall call the Gaelic use, must be kept 
 distinct from the question of the methods of computing the 
 various cycles?^ 
 
 ^ The Easter question is discussed by A. De Morgan in the Companion to 
 the British Almanack, 1845. In this year the full moon that came first after the 
 2iBt of March — i.e., the moon of the heavens — was Easter Sunday, which was 
 regulated by the Calendar. 
 
 To illustrate our view let us explain. A new calendar moon (epact) on the 
 8th March becomes " the 14th moon" on the 21st. Therefore, to have a 14th 
 moon on the 21st we must have a new moon on the 8th March. Now, referring 
 to the "Extended Table of Epacte," i.e., new moons, in Encyclopoedia Britannica 
 (vol. iv., 673) the line B represents the line of epaots for three centuries, from 
 900 to 1200. The epaot for the 8th of March during this period is 23, which 
 does not ooeur among the epaots on line B, so that for these three centuries there 
 will be no new calendar moon on the 8th March, and no 14th moon on the 21st 
 March, and no Easter Sunday on the 22nd. The epact 23 occurs in other lines 
 of epacta generally once in the oyolc of 19 years, never more, in the Table 
 mentioned, so that if the new moon fell on the 8th, as the 14th might fall on any 
 day of the week, it is against probability that it would occur more than once in a 
 century. The writer of the article on Easter (in the Diet, of Christ. Antiq., vol. I., 
 p. 673) says that the 14th moon fell ou Sunday (the 2l8t of March as we understand 
 him) in 645, 647, 648, 651. This means tliat the new moon fell on the 8th of 
 March in each of these years, and that the 14th fell always ou the Sunday. There 
 must be some mistake here, Bede refers to one ocoasioa only. 
 
THE TEACHING OF THE NATIONS. 361 
 
 We cannot open the question of the formation of the cycles 
 here. The difficulties of arranging one which should give a 
 true equinox, a true new moon, with fixed days of the month 
 and week, were practically insuperable. The age of the moon, 
 for one thing, varied with longitude. The moon at Dublin 
 might rise at 10 minutes after 12 o'clock at midnight on the 
 20th of March, and Easter would come on that moon. At 
 Greenwich it would rise 10 minutes before midnight on the 20th 
 of March, and it would be necessary to wait for the next moon. 
 There were numerous cycles. We need only mention Hippolytus, 
 a cycle of 16 years (A.D. 225c) ; Theophilus of Alexandria, A.D. 
 380, with a cycle of 437 years ; Cyril of Alexandria, A.D. 412, 
 with one of 95 years, which was very celebrated ; Victorinus, 
 of Acquitaine, said to be the real author of the Dionysian 
 oycle of 532 years, which is assigned to A.D. 530c, and which 
 was arranged by Dionysiua Exiguus, an abbot at Kome. The 
 divergences between these cycles were very great, and Easter 
 was celebrated by the orthodox at widely difterent times. 
 
 In 387, as we learn from a letter of St. Ambrose (Ep. 23), 
 the churches of Gaul kept Easter on the 2l8t of March, the 
 churches of Italy on April the 18th, and the churches of Egypt 
 on April the 25th. But the Gaelic use had nothing to say to 
 this, and this divergence would have existed just the same if 
 the Gael kept the Roman Easter as defined by Bede, i.e., from 
 the 15th to the 2l8t moon. The only difference that could 
 have arisen from the Gaelic use was that the Roman Palm 
 Sunday might possibly be the Gaelic Easter day once or twice 
 in a century. There remained, however, in the Gaelic use 
 what the old lawyers would call a scintilla of heresy, just 
 enough to enable an adroit adversary to brand them as 
 Quartodecimans, and as some Quartodecimans were heretics, 
 an undetected flaw in the logic would carry him through 
 in proving that the Scots were heretics and should be 
 " eliminated " by the secular arm. Aldhelm charges the 
 Cornish with being Quartodecimans and heretics.^* Sigebert, 
 a Benedictine monk of Gembloux, near Namur (1103-1112), 
 states boldly that " Columba, in his rustic simplicity, neither 
 learned nor taught the celebration of Easter on the Sunday ,"2' 
 
 'Bff.t'kS. Ill, 271. 
 
 ^ Columba rusticas iniplioitate pascha dominica die oelebraii neque didicit 
 neque docuit. Man,. Germ. VIL 330, ad. an". 598, 
 
362 EARLY IRISH BISTORT. 
 
 i.e., that he kept Easter on week-days like the heretical 
 Quartodecimans. The letter from Rome in 640 during the 
 vacancy of the chair, equivalent to a Papal Rescript, which is 
 given by Bede, refers to the Gaelic use, as a renovation of the 
 QuartodectTnan heresy, " endeavouring against the true Faith 
 to revive a new heresy from an old one and striving to celebrate 
 Easter on the 14th moon with the Jews.^ Finally, " it was 
 revealed by the Holy Spirit" to a Benedictine nun, as she 
 tells us, in 1170, and published under authority to the world 
 in her Life of St. Deaihod (+674), that when he was bishop 
 of some unnamed See in Ireland (probably not long before the 
 Synod at Whitby), which he held, she says, for ten years, the 
 people rejecting the Old and New Testament and, rejecting 
 Christ, followed the sect of the JewsP It was undoubtedly on 
 the charge of heresy, as we shall see, that the Columban 
 monks were, in Bede's words, " exposed and eliminated " — 
 literally turned out of house and home ; in one hateful word, 
 evicted.^ 
 
 " Novam ex veteri hteresi retiovare oonantes . . . pasoha nostrum refutantes et 
 xiiii., luna oum Hebrseis oelebiare nitentes. — H. E. ii. c. 19. 
 
 '*' Aliis quidam Veteri et Novo Testamento reaistentibus Chriatumque abne- 
 gantibuB aliis aectam Judseorum apprehendentibns. — Vita Ditibodi, Migne, torn. 
 97, p- 1,100. " Est bistoria divinitus revelata sed (sic) propter anthoris siagularam 
 sanctitatem et authoritatem minime oontemnenda ! " — Swriua Vita, July 8. 
 
 *' Deteota et eliminata ut supra docuimus Scotorum seota — H. E., v. 19. 
 " The nanie ' Quartodecimans ' was always a handy stick with which to beat the 
 Celtic dog." — Pluramer, H. E., ii. 114. Surely it is a cruel and cowardly policy to 
 cudgel the watoh-dog to placate the highwayman. 
 
t 363 J 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE SECT OF THE SCOTS. 
 
 P OME waa not consulted and knew nothing about the pro. 
 ceedings that led up to the elimination of the " Sect of the 
 Scots." Deusdedit was then Archbishop of Canterbury. He 
 had neither art nor part in them. This will, of course, carry 
 no weight with men who still maintain that the Scottish 
 church was independent, and not in communion with Rome. 
 We shall not pause here to argue this point. The statement 
 of our apostle, which we have already given, suffices for us, and 
 if any of our readers desires corroboration he will find abun- 
 dant evidence in the Essays of Cardinal Moran. There is, 
 however, another view which is more insidious and equally 
 untenable. It is indicated by the heading of the chapter in 
 which Montalembert introduces the career of Wilfrid : St. 
 Wilfrid establishes Roman Unity and the Benedictine Order. 
 And again — The end of the Celtic Heresy.^ 
 
 This view when developed reaches the proposition that the 
 Gaelic Church, while admitting and submitting to the supreme 
 authority and jurisdiction of the Holy See in matters of 
 doctrine, was disobedient, recalcitrant, schismatical, and, 
 possibly, heretical in matters of discipline, in which it main- 
 tained an independent attitude. The letters of Columbanus to 
 the Holy See prove conclusively that he was not only ready 
 to accept, but eager to receive, the "Cathedral Judgment" of the 
 Pope on the Paschal question. 
 
 There are some expressions in these letters for which he 
 himself claims a very necessary indulgence. It was, however, no 
 unusual thing in mediaeval times for the Pope to receive a 
 little lecture from some male or female saint, generally veiled 
 under the form of exhortation. These, Gregory, being a monk 
 himself, and thus knowing the ways of monks, would read 
 
 1 Book XII ., c. 3. 
 
ft64! EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 with a smiie. Autres temps, autres moeura. " The native 
 liberty of my race," writes Columbanus, " has given me that 
 boldness. "With us it is not the person but reason that counts." 
 (TVoTO enim apvd nos persona sed ratio valet.) " We are bound 
 to the chair of Peter. There has never been either a heretic, 
 a Jew, or a schismatic amongst us. We receive nothing more 
 than the apostolical and evangelical doctrine. Rome is the head 
 of the Churches of the world, saving only the special preroga- 
 tive of the place of the Lord's resurrection,"^ Columbanus 
 evidently refers to the 7th Nicsean Canon, which has puzzled 
 many, but was evidently intended to preserve some honorary 
 privilege to the Church of Jerusalem as being the oldest. A 
 courtier priest would not have mentioned it here ; but then 
 courtier priests are seldom saints. 
 
 The letters of Columbanus to Gregory and to Boniface 
 not only show clearly that he recognized the authority of the 
 Holy See in matters of discipline but intimate plainly that he 
 was prepared to abide by the Pope's decision on the Paschal 
 question. In the first letter to Gregory he seeks his 
 guidance (1) on the Paschal question (2) on holding communion 
 with simoniacal bishops, of whom there were many in the 
 province (i.e., Gaul), and (3) about clerics who had been pro- 
 moted to the rank of bishops after violating the rules as to 
 celibacy' whilst deacons. And in the letter to Pope Boniface 
 he says — " We pour forth our prayers to thee that if it be not 
 contrary to faith you will give us, struggling pilgrims, the 
 comfort of your pitiful decision, by which you will support the 
 tradition of our elders, by which it will be in our power, by 
 your judgment, during our pilgrimage (in this life) to keep 
 Easter according to the use we have received from our fathers."* 
 If the Holy See had then adjudged that the keeping of Easter 
 on the 14th moon, being Sunday, was contrary to the faith, or 
 enjoined the use of a particular cycle, it is plain that Columbanus 
 and his muintir would, though perhaps grudgingly, and with 
 ill grace, have acquiesced. The Holy See did neither. 
 
 ' Roma orbia terranim caput eat ecolesiarum salva loci DominiccB resurrectionis 
 singulari prierogativa. — 7tli Canon. 
 
 ' Columbanus calls it adiUterium cum clientelis, trhich probably meant 
 simple concubinage. 
 
 * Preces fundimus ut nobis peregrinis laborantibus tuae piae aentontias 
 prs3ste3 solatium quo ei non contra fldem est, nostrorum traditionera roboree 
 seniorum quo ritum Paaohsa eiout acoepimas a majoribus obaervare per tuuin 
 poBsiraus judicium in nostra peregrinatioue. — Migne, vol. 80, p. 269. 
 
THE SECT OF THE SCOTS. 865 
 
 The contents of Columtanus's letters to Gregory, we may 
 assume, became known to the bishops. The letters were inter- 
 cepted, and never reached the Pope. And the bishops in turn 
 retaliated on Columbanus for his opposition to popular vices. 
 They denounced him as a Quartodeciman. " We ought not," 
 they proclaimed (as Columbanus states in one of his letters to 
 Pope Gregory) " celebrate Easter with the Jews : Cum Judosis 
 Fascha facere non debemus." A reformer is bound to make 
 bitter enemies, and Columbanus could not expect to fare better 
 than St. Martin.* On his arrival in France the moral condition 
 of the whole nation was deplorable. 
 
 The Merovingian kings practised polygamy and simony, 
 and concubinage prevailed amongst the clergy. Nor were the 
 nunneries free from scandals. A short time before his arrival 
 a mutiny took place in the great convent of St. Croix at 
 Poictiers. It was headed by a princess of the reigning house. 
 The mutineers broke out of the convent. Grave scandals 
 followed. The princess assembled an army of desperadoes, 
 stormed the convent, and threatened to throw the abbess over 
 the battlements. Under the circumstances, Columbanus, 
 even if hia ways were gentle, tactful, and conciliatory — which 
 we must admit they were not — could not avoid making 
 enemies. He was expelled by Brunehault, but his mission 
 had done, and continued still to do, good work and prosper. 
 Luxeuil became the recognised monastic capital of all the 
 countries under Frankish government — a nursery of bishops 
 and abbots, of preachers and reformers. From the banks of 
 the Lake of Geneva to the North Sea every year saw the rise 
 of some daughter house. "It would be a hard task," says 
 Montalembert, " to trace that monastic colonization of Gaul, 
 which had during the whole of the 7th century its centre in 
 Luxeuil." We may mention Lure, Remain Moutier in a pass 
 on the southern side of the Jura, Beze, St. Ursanne, at the 
 head waters of the Doubs, Moustier-Grandval, Corbie eight 
 
 ' Martin after returning to his diocese (after saving the lives of the 
 PrisoilUanists (-whom the bishops desired that Maximus should have executed for 
 heresy) had also to undergo the scandalous envy and enmity of many bishops and 
 of those priests of Gaul who had been so soon tainted by Roman luxury, etc. — 
 Montalembert, I. 344. 
 
 After St. Jerome ( + 420) St. Augustin ( + 430) after the fathers of Ijerins 
 whose splendour faded towards 450, there was a kind of eclipse, and the monastic 
 institution seemed to have fallen into the sterility and torpor of the East. — 
 Montalembat, I. 384. 
 
366 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 miles east of Amiena, from which went St. Ausgar, the apostle, 
 of Sweden aud the Danes, St. Bertin at St. Omer, St. Biquier, 
 near the Somme, Fontenelle and Jumieges, in the diocese of 
 Rouen, near the Seine, Benil and Rehais, near the Marne, 
 Lagny-sur-Marne, where St. Fursey died, Moutier la Celle, near 
 Troyes, and further east Haufcvilliers and Moutier-en-Der, St. 
 Sallherga, near Laon, Solognac, near Poicfciers, St. Gall, 
 near the spot where the Rhone enters Lake Constance, 
 Dissentis at the head waters of the Rhine, Bobbio 
 near the classic Trebbia, 25m. S.E. of Pavia where the great 
 apostle died in 615 A.D. and, last but not least, the foundations, 
 more celebrated as convents for ladies than as monasteries, 
 Jonarre near Meauz, the diocese of Bossuet, Faremoutier in 
 Champagne, and Remiremont,^ in the Vosges Mountains 
 15m. S.E. of Epinal. From the death of Columbanus (616) 
 whea his muintir seemed to be solidly established in France, 
 a movement commenced to get rid of the Columban system 
 and replace it by the Benedictine. This was supported by the 
 whole weight of the Papacy from Gregory onwards. The 
 Benedictines were then all-powerful, 
 
 A condominium was the first step. The two rules were 
 placed side by side in the Columban house, and as the 
 Benedictine yoke was lighter and the reins more loosely held, 
 it gradually prevailed. It was only natural that the monks 
 should choose the easiest road to Heaven, though in the result 
 it might prove somewhat longer than they expected, In the 
 words of Montalembert : " Columbanus sowed and Benedict 
 reaped." ' Finally things came to such a pass that the rule of 
 the condominium had to be reformed, and the reformed rule, at 
 the instance of St. Benedict of Aniane, was made compulsory 
 and enforced, as we have already mentioned, by the secular 
 arm on all monasteries within the empire. Even as early as 
 670, at a Council at Autun of 54 bishops, held by St. Leger, 
 the observance of the rule of St. Benedict was enjoined on all 
 " regulars '' i.e., monks. This was only six years after 
 
 * The nuns were afterwards changed to Canonessea. The Abbeaa alone took 
 perpetual vows. Proofs of nobility were requi^d as at Epinal and Porresey. In 
 the last mentioned, which was the lowest in rank, eight paternal and eight 
 maternal quarterings were required. The Canonesses were called the ladiea of 
 Bemlremont, the chambermaids of Epinal and the Icmndrisus of Porreaey. This 
 was of course after the " elimination " of the Columban monks, when the Abbew 
 ranked as a princess of the Holy Roman Empire. — Montalembert II., 3S1. 
 
 I Hefele (Clark) VoL C. 
 
THE SECT OF THE SOOTS. 367 
 
 the Synod of Whitby, to which we must now direct our 
 narrative.^ 
 
 The protagonist, perhaps we should say the persecutor, in 
 the controversy was Wilfrid, then thirty years of age, who had 
 recently received priest's orders. His life has been written by 
 Eddi, or Eddius, a Benedictine monk, who published it with the 
 approval of his superiors. It may, therefore, be fairly regarded as 
 an official record of Wilfrid's life from the Benedictine standpoint. 
 What Bede has said about him rests almost entirely on the 
 narrative of Eddius, except the account he gives of the Synod 
 of Whitby, and here he is fuller, more learned and less reliable. 
 We shall follow Eddius. From him we learn that Wilfrid 
 came of a good Northumbrian family. In his 14th year he 
 entered Lindisfarne, where, as we have seen, the Columban 
 monks kept a school for gentle and simple. 
 
 It is said he did not agree with his stepmother, which, 
 judging from after events, does not at all imply that the fault 
 was entirely on her side. Eddius tells us that his father 
 provided him with a suitable princely outfit, arras and horses, 
 lor himself and his attendants (pueris), and, giving him bis 
 blessing, sent him to the King's Court at Bamborough. Here 
 he was well received by the men whom he waited on at his 
 father's table. He was presented to the queen. His good 
 looks and ready wit made a favourable impression, and she 
 promised to befriend him. " He had left the broad acres of his 
 father to seek a celestial kingdom," Eddius assures us. The 
 princely equipment, however, would be more easily understood 
 by us if he had earthly ambitions in view. At any rate he 
 went to Lindisfarne, but though he remained there " a circle of 
 years," probably four or five, he did not receive the tonsure. 
 Then, being still a layman, " this wise-minded youth perceived 
 by degrees that the way of virtue delivered by the Scots was 
 very defective" and expressed a wish to visit Borne. The 
 abbot at Lindisfarne at once assented to his dear son receiving 
 tlie greatest of all earthly blessings, i.e., the privilege of visiting 
 the tombs of the apostles.* This does not look as if the 
 
 " The rule of Colnmbanus was gradually eclipsed, and the rule of Benedict 
 was introduced and triumphed everywhere, whilst still we cannot instance a single 
 man above the ordinary mark, a single celebrated saint who could have contributed 
 to that surprising victory by his personal influence. — ^Montalembert II,, 367. 
 
 •Hunc autem sensum domino suo enotuit, qui statim, ut erat sapiens, sug- 
 gestum a Deo esse cognoscens conaenaum dedit filio suo cariasimo omnia boni 
 caput aceipere. — Edd. o. 3. 
 
368 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Columbans were at variance with Rome, or had any great wish 
 to retain Wilfrid in the monastery. The Queen Eanfleda, by 
 the advice of his father, then sent him in honourable manner 
 to her cousin, Erconbert, King of Kent. During his stay in 
 Kent an incident occurred which ought to have taught him a 
 lesson in toleration. At Lindisfarne he had learned the revised 
 translation of the Psalter which Jerome made from the 
 Septuagint. A less correct version, of an earlier date, a cursory 
 revision of the old Itala, was in use in Kent. Nobody thought 
 of persecuting the monks at Canterbury because they did not 
 use the better recension. Wilfred learned their Psalter without 
 demur, and was none the worse for it. After a year he set out 
 with Benedict Biscop for Rome. They parted company at 
 Lyons. Benedict went on to Rome and Wilfrid remained. 
 Delfinus (recte, it is said, Annenundus) the archbishop, thought 
 seemingly that Wilfrid was better suited for secular life, and 
 offered to provide him with a wife in the person of his niece, 
 saying, " If you remain with me I will give you faithfully a 
 good part of the Gauls to govern as a secular (in saeculaTn) 
 and the virgin daughter of my brother to wife, and will myself 
 adopt you as a son." ^^ Wilfrid answered, " that he had made a 
 vow to the Lord that he would visit the Apostolic See to learn 
 the rules of Ecclesiastical discipline, but if he lived he would 
 see his face on his way back." To Rome then he went, and 
 after a stay of six months returned to Lyons, where he remained 
 three years. The archbishop then gave him the Roman tonsure 
 and the order of subdeacon, probably intending to make him 
 his successor {heredem), but he was unfortunately murdered in 
 657 or 658, on some political charge, by the order of Ebroin, 
 the Mayor of the Palace. Wilfrid then returned to England. 
 We can only surmise what would have happened but for the 
 murder of the archbishop. Oswy's son, Alchfrid, was then 
 sub-king overDeira, and all was well up to this time between 
 him and the Columbans. Some three years before Alchfrid had 
 invited Columban monks from Melrose and given them lands at 
 
 "Si manaeria meoum fiduoialiter dabo tibi bonam partem galliarum ad regendam 
 in seculum, virginemque filiam fratris met in uxorem, et teipaum adoptivum filium 
 babebo et tu me patrem in omnibus fideliter adjuvantem. — £dd. Vita, c. 6. 
 
 We think the context supports the view we present that the offer was that 
 Wilfrid should marry the nieoe and then take orders as a secular. It is very 
 unlikely that the archbishop could have power to appoint a foreigner as civil 
 governor over an important district. We cannot accept Major and Lumby's 
 translation, "a good part of Gaul to rule /or ever" (Bedae Hist., p. 271. We 
 think >» laecvium means here as a secular priest. 
 
THE SECT OF THE SCOTS. 36*9 
 
 Ripon to build a monastery, which was in due time consecrated, 
 and Eata became the first abbot. He was not destined 
 to hold the abbey lands, the abbey, or the abbacy long. 
 Wilfrid came upon the scene. He had evidently brought 
 with him from the south of France the hostile feelings 
 of the southern bishops against the Columban monks, and 
 the old battlecry, " We ought not to celebrate Easter with 
 the Jews." He had also brought with him, no doubt, the latest 
 novelty in Paschal Tables — the Cycle of Dionysius the Little. 
 Dionysius, a Scythian and a monk in a Roman monastery, in 
 526 drew up five nineteen-year cycles, from 632 to 626, and 
 prefixed to his Table two explanatory letters. "The first 
 letter contains one of the most audacious falsehoods on record. 
 In elucidating the Easter method, he follows, he states, in all 
 things the decree of the 318 Nicene Pontiifs, who composed a 
 decemnovenal cycle of Paschal 14th moons to last for ever, a 
 rule sanctioned by them not so much owing to secular know- 
 ledge as to illumination of the Holy Spirit.^^ This is taken 
 from the Proterian letter, with 318 Nicene Pontiffs 
 substituted for our most blessed (Alexandrine) fathers in 
 the original ! ! " There was, as we have already stated, no 
 such canon made at the Council of Nicaea ; but if there had 
 been one in the usual form, with an anathema against any one 
 offending wilfully against it, he would have been outside 
 the pale of the Church. Wilfrid, who is found at the 
 court of Alchfrid as his adviser, soon after his arrival in 
 Britain opened the campaign with an attack on Eata and the 
 monks at Ripon. " Conform or clear out " was his ultimatum. 
 The secular arm did the rest. Bede tells us in his Life of 
 Cuthbert, " When some years after it pleased King Alchfrid, 
 for the redemption of his soul, to give to the Abbot Eata a 
 certain domain in his kingdom called Ripon, there to con- 
 struct a monastery, the same Abbot took some of the brethren 
 along with him, among whom Cuthbert was one. He founded 
 the required monastery, and in it instituted the same 
 discipline which he had previously established at Melrose." 
 "Here Cuthbert was appointed as guest-master, and 
 going out one day from the inner buildings of the 
 
 " Dr. MacCarthy in his note gives the parallel passages from the Proterian 
 letter and Dionysius showing the talsifioatiou, and cites Duciiesne {Lib. Fontif. 
 (18S6) p. Ixiv, — " Oette decision n'a jiniais exists,") 4»«. Uist, I.V. Ivii. 
 
 2 B 
 
870 EARLY IRISH HISTORr, 
 
 monastery to the guest-chamber he found a young man 
 there etc." — CVIL "Meanwhile, since the whole con- 
 dition of this world is fragile and unsteady as the sea 
 when a sudden tornado arises, the above-named abbot Eata, 
 with Cuthbert and the rest of the brethren whom he had 
 brought with him, were driven back home (repulaus domum) 
 and all the monastery which he had founded, with the lands, 
 was given to other monks to occupy." — GVIII. The Columbans, 
 like many a Gael in after time, refused to conform, and were 
 evicted, and their lands and buildings were taken over by 
 Wilfrid, who had, moreover, previously obtained from Alchfrid 
 a large grant of land at Stamford Bridge. " Further," writes 
 Bede, " Alchfrid having for his instructor in Christian learning 
 Wilfrid, a most learned man (for he had gone to Rome 
 previously for the sake of ecclesiastical doctrine, and had spent 
 a long time with Delfinus, Archbishop of Lyons, from whom 
 also he had received the crown of the ecclesiastical tonsure) 
 knew that his teaching was to be justly preferred to all the 
 traditions of the Scots. Wherefore he had also given him a 
 monastery of forty families in a place called Ripon, which 
 place, to wit, he had granted some short time previously to 
 those who followed the Scots as the possessors of a monastery. 
 But because afterwards when the option was given them they 
 were willing rather to quit the place than to change their use, 
 he gave it to him {i.e., Wilfrid) whose teaching and life were 
 worthy of the place. — H.E. III., c. 25. This iniquitous confisca- 
 tion took place in 661 or, at latest, in 662 ; two or three years 
 before the Synod at Whitby. The Columbans were evicted 
 before trial, because their doctrine, not their computation on 
 the Paschal question, was deemed not worthy of the place. 
 Some time after this Wilfrid received the order of priesthood. 
 Being in the diocese of Coleman, whom Eddius styles 
 metropolitan bishop of York, Coleman was the proper persoa to 
 ordain him, and no other prelate could, according to the well- 
 established Canon, ordain a priest in his diocese without 
 formal leave obtained from him. Wilfrid, however, disregarded 
 the rule. Probably he did not consider Coleman a bishop at 
 all, though Eddius inaccurately describes him as a metro- 
 politan. There was at the time a bishop named Agilbert 
 staying in Deira on his way to France. He was a Gaul by 
 birth, but had lived many years in (the South of) Ireland 
 
THE SECT OP THE SCOTS. 871 
 
 for the purpose of studying the Scriptures. Having been 
 consecrated bishop he went into Wessex, where King Coinwalch 
 appointed him bishop of his territory. He was probably 
 consecrated in Ireland, as, if he had been consecrated in 
 France, Bede would not have omitted to say so. After a time 
 Coinwalch, tired of his barbarous dialect, divided the diocese 
 and gave Wini an episcopal See in the southern half, at 
 Winchester. Wini, we may add, was expelled a few years 
 later, and then bought for money the episcopal See of London 
 Agilbert took umbrage at the division of his diocese made 
 without his consent. He was not content with the northern 
 half, i.e., with the See of Dorchester, and he resolved to leave 
 Wessex and return to Gaul. He was, we may conjecture, on a 
 visit to Deira before starting, when both he and Wilfrid set 
 the Canon Law at defiance. When St. Falco of Tongres crossed 
 the border of the diocese of St. Remigius and ordained priests 
 at Mouzon, the latter wrote him a sharp letter, which has 
 reached us. It runs : " I think it right to inform you that I 
 have removed (i.e., suspended?) those Levites and priests from 
 their orders whom you have made against all order. It did 
 not become me to acknowledge those whom it did not 
 become you to ordain." 
 
 Having dislodged the enemy from Ripon, Wilfrid, now 
 priest and abbot, advanced to the attack of Lindisfarne. 
 Coleman " kept Easter with the Jews," therefore he was to be 
 " eliminated." Well, if there was anything uncanonical in 
 Coleman's position, the proper person to investigate this 
 was the Archbishop Deusdedit, who had then metropolitan 
 jurisdiction over all English Britain. He was not even con- 
 sulted in the matter, Wilfrid, having Alchfrid to back him up, 
 put King Oswy iu motion, and what is called a Synod was 
 assembled at Whitby in 664. Deusdedit was not, of course, 
 present. " His absence is accounted for easily by the fact 
 that the whole scheme was got up by Wilfrid's zeal, taking 
 advantage of his friend Agilbert's visit to King Alchfrid, and 
 to himself at Ripon, and was managed accordingly on the 
 anti-Scottish side wholly by Agilbert and Wilfrid." ^^ 
 
 Two accounts deserving notice have reached us concerning 
 what occurred at the Synod of Whitby. The first is by Eddius 
 or Eddi. He was a chanter at Canterbury, and was brought 
 
 " Haddon and Stubbs' Council, III., 106. 
 
372 EAKLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 by Wilfrid to the north. He lived on the most intimate terms 
 with him, and accompanied him to Rome on his second appeal 
 after his second expulsion from his diocese in 704. After 
 Wilfrid's death he was requested by Acca, Bishop of Hexham, 
 and Tathbert, Abbot of Ripon, a kinsman of Wilfrid, to write 
 his life. His MS. was, of course, submitted to them, and 
 underwent the usual examination and censiira of his monastic 
 superiors. It must, therefore, be regarded as a contemporary 
 official record of the Benedictine Order. It is brief and to the 
 point. Bede's account, years later, is much longer and less 
 reliable. Bede had himself written on the Paschal question,^' 
 and where he differs from Eddius the additions are, we think, 
 his own views. And though his feelings towards the Scots 
 are compassionate, appreciative, and sympathetic, still he, too, 
 was writing under the censura, and a few of his sentences are 
 so harsh that they seem to have been introduced to meet the 
 views of his superiors, and, as it were, balance the softer 
 judgments of Bede's kindly disposition. And this again leads 
 him to soften and tone down the harsher and more masterful 
 traits of Wilfrid's character, with which tendency the Benedic- 
 tine censors did not quarrel We shall therefore follow Eddius 
 as a general rule, condensing his narrative. He writes : — 
 
 One time, in the days when Coleman was Metropolitan Bishop of 
 York, in the reign of Oswy and his son AlchfriJ, abbots and priests 
 and ecclesiastics of every degree assembled in the monastery which is 
 called Whitby (Streaneshalgh) iu the presence of the pious Hilda, 
 Mother Abbess, and of the kings, and two bishops, Colemaa and Agil- 
 bert, to try which was the true method of keeping Easter — whether 
 according to the use of the Britons and Scots and all the northern region, 
 from the 11th moon coming the Lord's Day to the 20th,i*, or whnther 
 it was more correct to celebrate Easter Sunday from the 15th muon to 
 the 21bt. 
 
 This was the only issue to be tried, which may be re-stated 
 shortly thus : — Was Coleman justified in celebrating Easter on 
 the I'lth moon when it fell on Sunday 1 
 
 In Ceolfrid's letter to Naiton, which was, it is now 
 generally thought, composed by Bede, the charge formulated 
 by Eddius is repeated, " that they (the Gauls) kept the paschal 
 feast from the 14th to the 20th day of the moon." It was not 
 
 " De Temp. Ration. Bede arranged a Paschal Table from A.D. 532 to 1063 
 (o. 63). Ceotfrid'a letter to Nait m ia gonorally admitted tu be Beile's. 
 
 '■* The text is confused or imperfect, but thors is no doubt the llth moon to 
 the 20th is correct. 
 
THE SECT OF THE SCOTS. 373 
 
 a question of cycles, except in so far as this use was disregarded. 
 " I forebore," he adds, " to send you those cycles of times to 
 come, because you asked only to be instructed concerning the 
 principle or method (ratio) of the paschal season, and declared 
 that you had abundance of those Catholic, cycles for finding 
 Easter." We may add that Naiton followed the Wilfrid 
 precedent and expelled the Columban monks from his kingdom.i^ 
 There was no question as to a 19 years cycle or an 84 years 
 cycle, or any modification of them ; and there was no question 
 as to the form and shape of the correct tonsure. Wilfrid knew 
 perfectly well that a bishop could not be deposed or "eliminated" 
 on either question. St. Chrysostom had declared that no one 
 was ever punished or called to account for not keeping Easter 
 in this or that month. " Celebrating Easter with the Jews," 
 as an unorthodox Quartodeciman, was, of course, a very 
 different matter.^^ 
 
 The king presided seemingly over this august tribunal, and 
 called on his bishop to defend his use. Coleman said, with 
 undaunted courage, {intrepida Tnente) : — 
 
 Our fathers and those wlio went before them, inspired by the Holy 
 Spirit, as was Columba, ordained (sanxerunt) the celebration of Easter 
 on the 14th moon, (being) the Lord's Day, following the example of 
 John the Apostle and Evangelist, who reclined in the bosom of the 
 Lord, and was called the lover of the Lord. He celebrated Easter on 
 the 14th moon, and we, as his disciples, Polycarp and others, on this trust, 
 celebrate. Nor can we dare, nor do we wish, having regard for our 
 fathers, to change. 
 
 Coleman was quite right in saying that what was known 
 as the Johannine use was to celebrate on the 14 th moon, 
 being Sunday, as well as on week-days, as we have already 
 stated. 
 
 Agilbert, a bishop from over sea, then directed Wilfrid — 
 
 '' A.D. 717. — Expulsio familiae le (lona) trans dorsum Britanniae a Nectone rege 
 Tigemaoh. Bede V., c. 25. 
 
 '^It is said that the cycle then in use amongst the Soots was an 84 years cycle 
 or an 84 years (12) cycle, while the Dionysian cycle was a modification of the 
 Metonic 19 years cycle. Our readers, if curious, will find the matter discussed by 
 no means clearly by Dr. Maoarthy in the Introduction to the 4th vol. of the 
 Annali of Ulster. He gives a list (i.e. 21) of Easters according to both cycles for 
 21 years before 664. In this period on no occasion did Easterday fall on Sunday, 
 the 21st of March. He makes out that in the 21 years the King's Easter was 13 
 times earlier, and twice three weeks later, than the Queen's. Eddius does not 
 refer to this, which makes us doubt its accuracy, and Bede merely says. " It is 
 said to have happened in those times that Easter was kept twice in one year, and 
 that when the King, having ended his time of fasting, kept his Easter, the Queen 
 and her followers were still fasting and keeping Falm Sunday " (III. 26). 
 
374 EARLY IRISH HISTORt. 
 
 " a smooth-tongued and eloquent speaker " — to state in his own 
 language the Roman use. He said with humility : — 
 
 This matter was formerly wondrously iavestigated by our fathers 
 assembled ia Nicsea, 318 in number, very holy and wise men, and they 
 decreed, amongst other judgments, a lunar cycle coming round again ia 
 19 years. And they never showed that Easter was to be kept on the 
 14th moon. This is the use (ratio) of the Apostolical See and of almost 
 the whole world. And thus have our fathers adjudged after many 
 decrees : " Whosoever shall reject (condemnaverit) any of these let him be 
 anathema." 
 
 This was plainly a charge that Coleman had brought himself 
 within the anathema. And there can be no reasonable doubt 
 that it was on this ground he was compelled to leave the country 
 with his supporters. There was, as we have stated, no such 
 decision given at the Council of Nicsea. The language of the 
 late Dr. Macarthy in his preface to the fou rth volume of the 
 Annals of Ulster^'^ is scarcely too strong : " In the light of the 
 history of the Paschal question Wilfrid's farrago of fictitious 
 tradition and fabricated testimony (i.e., the epistle already 
 mentioned) can hardly fail to excite a smile. But it proved a 
 grim reality for the vanquished. How all the Irish were got 
 rid of on this pretext is beside the present question." The 
 eminent theologian, King Oswy, then put a conundrum to the 
 judicial and canonical tribunal. Smiling on Wilfrid, he put 
 the question to all (subridens presbytero interrogavit omnes 
 dicens) : " Tell me which is the greater, Columba or Peter the 
 Apostle, in the Kingdom of Heaven ? " All replied, " The 
 Lord decided this, who said, ' Thou art Peter, etc., and I give 
 you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, etc' " (the well-known 
 text). Again, the King said, tersely, " (As) he is the door-keeper 
 and the key-keeper I will not enter the lists of controversy 
 against him, nor assent to others doing so, and I will not in my 
 lifetime contradict his decisions." This notable and comical 
 judgment was, as Dr. Macarthy says, a grim reality for the Gael. 
 After the expulsion of Coleman, Wilfrid, according to Eddius, 
 was elected Bishop of Northumbria, i.e., of Bernicia and Deira. 
 Bede, however, says that Tuda, a correct Southern Irish bishop, 
 was appointed, and it seems probable that he was only in 
 temporary charge, or as is suggested by Plummer, that 
 the arrangement at first was that Tuda was to be Bishop 
 
 »' Ann, Ulst., Vol. IV., c. 67. 
 
THK SECT OF THE SOOTS. 375 
 
 of Bernicia and Wilfrid Bishop of Alchfrid's sub-kingdom, 
 Deira. Tuda died of the plague soon after, in 664, and 
 Wilfrid then became bishop of the whole kingdom from the 
 Humber to the Clyde. Eddius tells us that after his elec 
 tion he at once requested to be allowed to go to Gaul to be 
 consecrated, objecting to receive consecration from the British 
 bishops, " none of whom it is for me to accuse, though I know 
 truly that they are Quartodecimans, like the Britons and the 
 Scots, and were consecrated by those whom the Apostolic See 
 receives not into communion, nor those who share their opinions." 
 There was, he thus states most incorrectly, no bishop from 
 whom it would be safe to receive orders. But Deusdedit, the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, was then a living man, so too, was 
 Boniface — both unobjectionable. He had another motive. 
 The King granted Wilfrid's request, got ready a ship, gave him 
 an escort, and a " multitude of money, and sent him forward in 
 honourable state." He was received in France with triumphal 
 honours. No less than twelve bishops, one of whom was Agil- 
 bert, assembled for his consecration at Compiegne. At the 
 ceremony he was lifted aloft on a golden chair by the twelve 
 bishops and carried into the oratorium, while they chanted 
 hymns and canticles. This ceremony took place probably in 
 664 or the beginning of 635, In the spring of 666 he sailed for 
 England with 120 attendants. He was driven by contrary 
 winds on the shore of the little kingdom of Sussex, where he and 
 his party were assailed by the natives, who were still heathens. 
 He had a narrow escape with his life, and he lost six of his 
 companions. Thirteen years later he returned to this people 
 and preached the gospel to them. "Some were baptised 
 voluntarily, and some coerced by command of the King."'^ 
 Wilfrid liked strong measures. No compulsion was ever used 
 by the Gael.w 
 
 A story is told by Eddius which illustrates Wilfrid's 
 overbearing character and high-handed methods. After he 
 had been reinstated in the See of York, in the place of Chad, 
 he, on one occasion, having restored an infant miraculously to 
 
 -' Paganorum utriusque sexus, quidam voluntarie alii vero coaoti regis 
 imperio idolatriam deaerentes. — Eddius o. 41. 
 
 ^ Ah uunc proh pndor ! divinam fidem sufiragia terrena commendant, 
 idopsque virtntis suae Christus, dum ambitio nomine buo conciliatur, arguitur. 
 
 Deus non requirit coactam confeesionem. Simplicitate quserendus est 
 voluntatis probitate retiiiendus. Hilary Contr. Auxent. II , 4. 
 
876 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 life and baptized it, enjoined upon the mother to bring the 
 child when seven years old to him for the service of God, i.e., 
 to be a monk. This the mother promised to do. But at the 
 instance of her wicked husband, who saw that the boy was 
 comely and was unwilling to part with him, she disregarcied 
 her promise and fled. Thereupon the sergeant (Praefectus) of 
 the Bishop made search for the boy, found him in hiding 
 among the Britons, forcibly carried him off and brought him 
 to the Bishop. The boy, who was called the " son of the 
 Bishop,'' lived as a monk at Ripon, where ho died of the 
 plague.™ 
 
 Wilfrid's prolonged absence from his extensive diocese 
 seemed unaccountable to the Northumbrians, They prevailed 
 on Oswy to nominate Chad, Abbot of Lastingham, to be 
 Bishop. He was one of the twelve boys selected by Aidan, of 
 whom we have already made mention, and was afterwards brought 
 up in Ireland under monastic discipline. " A man of prayer, 
 study, humility, purity and voluntary poverty," he was 
 consecrated by Wini, Bishop of Winchester, with the 
 assistance of two British bishops, and then took possession of 
 his See, which comprised all Northumbria. Wilfrid, on arriving in 
 the north, acquiesced for some time, and retired to his 
 monastery at Ripon. Theodore made his entry as Archbishop 
 into Canterbury on May 27th, 669, and soon after made a 
 visitation of the north. During this he inquired into the 
 validity of Chad's election. " If you are pursuaded," said 
 Chad, " that I received the episcopate in an irregular manner, 
 I willingly retire from the office, for I never thought myself 
 worthy of it." He submitted at once to the jurisdiction and 
 judgment of Canterbury, as Coleman would have done 
 undoubtedly had that jurisdiction been appealed to. Wilfrid 
 then took possession of Northumbria, and soon afterwards 
 Theodore procured for Chad the bishopric of the Mercians. 
 Eddius tells us that Chad saw and admitted the error of his 
 ordination by the Quartodecimans to the bishopric of 
 another, and that the bishops " then ordained him fully 
 through all the ecclesiastical orders," ^^ to the Mercian 
 
 «» EddiuB c. 18. 
 
 "' Per omnes gradus ecoleaiasticos ad sedem prediotam (i.e., Lioitfelda, 
 Lichfield) plene eum ordinaverunt. — Kdd. c. xv. Theodore's Penitential enjoins 
 that " one who has been ordained by heretics shall be ordained over again if 
 blimelesB." 
 
THE SECT OF THE SCOTS. 377 
 
 bishopric of Lichfield (669). This leaves no room for doubt 
 that Eddius, Wilfrid, and the monks of Ripon regarded the 
 orders of Chad as invalid. 
 
 Wilfrid ruled the diocese of Northumbria from 669 to 678. 
 In the latter year Theodore divided this diocese and consecrated 
 three new bishops for the new dioceses. Wilfrid resisted and 
 appealed to Rome. The king, Egfrid, who had suceeded Oswy in 
 672, and — more important still — the reining queen, Ermemburga, 
 his second wife, were bitterly hostile to him. Etheldreda, Egfrid's 
 first wife, was the daughter of Anna, King of East Anglia, and 
 had been married first to Tonbert, a chieftain in Cambridge- 
 shire, who had died three years after the marriage. She was 
 then married to Egfrid, in whose house she lived for twelve 
 years. At the end of this period she expressed a great desire 
 to become a nun, and alleged that she had preserved her 
 virginity in both wedlocks. At her marriage with Egfrid, he 
 gave her as a wedding gift a territory at Hexham, twelve miles 
 long and six miles broad, good land, well situated,'^ and 
 Wilfrid stated to Bade that Egfrid ofiered him large sums if he 
 would induce her to live with him as a real, not a nominal, 
 wife. Wilfrid, however, took sides with the lady. She 
 received the veil from him, and he received from her the 
 territory at Hexham. Egfrid then, during her lifetime, 
 married Ermemburga, the sister-in-law of Centwine, King of 
 Essex. 
 
 " At the instigation of the devil, who armed himself, as 
 usual, with the fragile sex," Eddius tells us, " like another 
 Jezabel, she (Ermemburga) poisoned the king's mind against 
 Wilfrid, dilating on his secular glory, his wealth, the multitude 
 of his monasteries, the magnitude of his edifices, the innumer- 
 able army of his retainers, equipped with regal arms and 
 attire. ' Your whole kingdom is his bishopric,' she added, 
 and both induced Theodore, by gifts, to join them in robbing 
 Wilfrid of his property like footpads, and deprived him of his 
 bishopric." So far Eddius. 
 
 Allowing for the exaggerations of an angry woman, it is 
 still difficult to reconcile Wilfrid's position with the Benedictine 
 
 ^ Forty years after Heavenfield (635), Etheldreda gave the land near Hexham, 
 twelve miles long and nearly six in breadth, to Wilfrid. It belonged to the queen, 
 as part of her dbwer, as it was part of the private property of the royal family of 
 Northumbria. — Raine, Priory of Htxham, I., 14. 
 
278 EARLY IRISH HISTORT. 
 
 VOW of individual poverty— if he ever took it, or was net 
 relieved of it, which is not stated. 
 
 This was Wilfrid's first expulsion. A second followed in 
 aftertime. On both occasions Church and State in Britain 
 were united against him, but in Rome his appeals were, on the 
 whole, successful. 
 
 He was not, however, able to secure at home the fruits of 
 his triumph, and after a term of imprisonment and many vicis- 
 situdes, he was finally, at the Synod on the Widd, near Ripon 
 (705), allowed to hold the small see of Hexham and the abbey 
 of Ripon. Four years later he was seized with a severe illness, 
 and consternation fell on the Benedictine monks lest he should 
 die before he had disposed of his monasteries and of his worldly 
 goods. They assembled in hot haste, and much prayer was 
 offered, that he should be spared " until he had arranged for 
 their future ; under abbots to be selected by himself (sub 
 praBpositis a se selectis)." He recovered, and this was done, and 
 he made his will. He designated his relative, Tathbert, to be 
 abbot of Ripon. He invited two abbots and eight brethren to 
 be present, and then ordered the custodian of his treasury 
 (gazophylacem) to open his treasure-chest, and to bring forth 
 all the gold and silver and precious stones and place them in 
 view of all. He divided them into four parts. One, the best, 
 he gave to the churches of St. Mary and St. Paul at Rome ; 
 the second to the poor ; the third he divided between the abbots 
 of Ripon and Hexham, that by gifts they might secure (im- 
 petrare 1) the friendship of kings and bishops ; and the fourth 
 he gave to those friends who had suffered in exile with him, 
 and to whom he had not already given estates (terras prsadiorum}. 
 He died in 709 A.D., and was buried in the church of St. Peter 
 at Ripon. His epitaph records amongst his merits that, " he 
 corrected the celebration time of the Paschal festival according 
 to the correct dogma of the Catholic canon which the Fathers 
 ordained."''* This clearly refers to the supposed canon of 
 Nicsea which Wilfrid relied on at Whitby. It is noteworthy 
 that Bede does not mention this canon in the letter of Ceolfrid 
 to Naiton, though he was well acquainted with the works of 
 Dionysius Exiguus. He does represent Wilfrid at Whitby as 
 
 ™ Paachalis qui etiam sollemnia tempora curaus Catholioi ad juatura eorrexit 
 flogma canonis quern statuei-e patros i.e. the Niosean Fathers. — H. B., V., o. 19. 
 
THE SECT OF THE SCOTS. 379 
 
 referring to " decrees of the Apostolic See and of the Universal 
 Church," in a vague manner. (II., c. 25). 
 
 The evils following from this state of religious anarchy were 
 such as might be expected. As we pass from the pure and 
 bracing spirituality of the Columban monks we quickly perceive 
 that we are in an atmosphere laden with the languorous odours 
 of wealth and worldliness, of ambitious rivalries and moral 
 disorder. Bede's letter to Egbert, Archbishop of York, written 
 towards the close of his life (734), presents a dark picture of 
 degeneracy. He writes : — 
 
 It is commonly reported that certain bishop? seek those who are 
 given up to revelling, etc., drunkenness, etc., and the allurements of 
 loose living. There are many villages and cells situated in accessible 
 mountains never visited by the bishops to whom they pay tribute, and 
 without any teacher whatsoever. When a bishop, stimulated by the 
 love of money, has taken upon himself the prelacy over a greater 
 number of people than he can visit in a year, he has the title, but not 
 the functions, of a bishop. More bishops are necessary. To maintain 
 such, let the numberless places which have the name of monasteries, 
 but nothing of the monastic mode of life, be transferred from the 
 purposes of luxury to those of chastity, from vanity to temperance, from 
 excess and gluttony to continence and piety of heart. Again, laics 
 found monasteries and fill the cells with expelled monks, and found 
 nunneries and place their wives over them, and get laymen tonsured 
 and made abbots, and in both these the greatest disorder prevails. So 
 many have got into their power places of this kind under the name of 
 monasteries that there is no place for the sons of the nobility or veteran 
 soldiers to occupy, and accordingly, when they arrive at the years of 
 puberty they live in idleness and unmarried, without any purpose of 
 continence, and give themselves up to luxury and fornication, and do 
 not even abstain from the virgins consecrated to God. 
 
 Quid plura f 
 
 Coleman was happily spared the anguish of witnessing the 
 blight which had fallen on the vineyard in which during thirty 
 years the sons of Columba had been gathering a rich vintage 
 for the Lord. From Whitby he went to Holy Isle and 
 collected his treasures to take back with him to the Mother 
 Church at Zona. These consisted of the bones of his predecessor, 
 the sainted Aidan. Part he left with the brethren there at 
 their earnest entreaty, part he put in his wallet, and with his 
 bundle on his shoulder, like many an evicted Gael since his day, 
 he tramped across Alba with a sore heart, not, however, bewail- 
 ing his own fate, but grieving that the flock which he had loved, 
 and for which he would gladly have laid down his life, was 
 now left without its shepherd, and that the fold was left 
 unguarded for the intruder to leap into it. 
 
[ 380 ] 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE EMERALD RING. 
 
 AT the beginning of the eleventh century two "world policies" 
 met in conflict which, with some exaggeration of the 
 outlines to make the objects clearer, may be roughly described 
 as follows : — The first was an attempt on the part of the 
 Emperor, in addition to his temporal power as head of the 
 Holy Roman Empire, to control the exercise of the spiritual 
 power and make the Pope an adjunct of the German Chancery, 
 whose principal function was to be the excommunication of 
 the Emperor's foreign and domestic enemies. The second 
 was a claim on the part of the Pope, in addition to his spiritual 
 power, to be the temporal owner of the Western Empire from 
 the Adriatic to St. George's Channel, by virtue of a donation 
 from Constantino the Great to Pope Sylvester. This donation 
 is now universally admitted to be a forgery attributable to the 
 first half of the eighth century, but was universally 
 accepted by the orthodox, even by jurists, as genuine, until il 
 was proved to be spurious by the criticism of Laurentius Valla 
 and others in the fifteenth century. Ic is a long, rambling 
 document. It recites that Constantino was afflicted with 
 leprosy, and that the physicians having failed to cure him, the 
 priests of the Capitol came to him, saying, " That a font should 
 be made on the Capitol and that he should fill it with the 
 blood of innocent infants, and that if he bathed in it while it 
 was warm he might be cleansed ; that when very many innocent 
 children had been brought together, and the priests wished 
 them to be slaughtered, he, perceiving the tears of the mothers, 
 abhorred the deed and restored the children to their mothers, 
 with gifts." The following night the Apostles, St. Peter and 
 St. Paul, appeared to him and told him to go and receive the 
 teaching of Pope Sylvester, and that in the waters of baptism 
 he would be cleansed of his leprosy. This he did and was 
 cleansed, and then perceiving, " that where the supremacy 
 of priests and the head of the Christian religion had been 
 
THE EMERALD RING. 381 
 
 established by a Heavenly Father it was not just that there 
 an earthly ruler should have jurisdiction," he resolved to 
 transfer his empire and the seat of his power to the Eist, and 
 make Byzantium his capital. He then granted to Pope Sylvester, 
 and his successors, his palace (i.e., the Lateran), " the city of 
 Rome and all the provinces, districts, and cities of Italy, and 
 of the Western regions. And he conjured all the people in the 
 whole world then, and in all times previously, subject to his 
 rule, under pain of damnation, not to opp3se or disregard this 
 grant in any way." 
 
 In an earlier part of the donation we find the famous 
 "Islands Clause," which we give textually, omitting some 
 particulars : — 
 
 Meanwhile ; we wish all the people of all the races and nations 
 throughout the whole world to know that we have constructed within 
 our Lateran Palace to the same Saviour, our Lord God, Jesus Christ, a 
 Church, with a baptistery, from the foundations. And know that we 
 have carried on our shoulders, from its foundation, twelve baskets 
 weighted with earth, according to the number of the twelve apostles. 
 We have also constructed the churches of SS. Peter and Paul, chief of 
 the apostles. . . . And on these churches, for the providing of 
 lights, we have conferred estates (from our) possessions, and have 
 enriched them with many things, and bestowed upon them our bounty, 
 by the solemnities of our impeiial decrees, as well in the east as in the 
 west, and even in the northern and southern region, to wit, in India, 
 Greece, Asia, Thrace, Africa, and Italy, and in divers islands, on this 
 condition, that all should be administered by our most blessed father, 
 Pope Sylvester, and his succesiors.^ 
 
 It is to the "Islands Clause " that John of Salisbury mani- 
 festly refers in the extracts which we shall give, after stating 
 a few facts about him. He was born near Salisbury, made his 
 studies in France for ten or twelve years, and was present at 
 the Council held at Rheims by Eugenius III. in the spring of 
 
 ' Interea nosse volumus omnem populum universarum eentium per totam 
 orbem terrarum construxisse nos intra palatium nostrum Lateranense eidem 
 Salvatori noatro Domino Deo Jeau Chriato eoeleaiam de fundamentis, secundum 
 numerum duodeoim apostolomm cofinos terra ouustos propriia aaportasse humeria 
 .... Conatruximus etiam eooleaiaa beatorum Petri et Pauli prinoipum apoato- 
 iorum .... quibua pro concinnatione luminariorum possessionum prsedia 
 oontulimua, et rebus diverais eaa ditaviraua et per nostras jussionum imperialium 
 saeras, tam in oriente quam in oaoideate vel etiam in aejptentrionali et meridiana 
 plaga, videlicet in India, Grseoia, Asia, Thraoia, Africa, et Italia, vd diverais 
 insults, nostram largitatem eia conoeaaimua, ea prorsus ratioae ut per mauua 
 beatiasimi patria nostri Sylvestri pontifiois auccessorumque ejus omnia disponantur. 
 Oonstitutum Conatantiui. Zeuiner (Ed. 1888), p. 55. 
 
 The old home of the Laterani had passed to Fausta, the daughter of the 
 Emperor Maximian, and she brought it to Constantino on her marriage with him, 
 A.D. 307. Constantine gave it to Melohiadea, and afterwards confirmed the grant 
 to Sylveater, who resided there. Withia the preoincta Constantine and Sylvester 
 built the vast basilica known as the " Lateran," and dedicated to the Saviour. 
 
382 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 1148. It would appear that after the Council was over he 
 attended the Pope to Brescia and then went on to Rome. He 
 returned to England in 1150 and was introduced to Archbishop 
 Theobald by St, Bernard, the Hildebraud of the 12th century. 
 St. Bernard wrote a strongly- worded letter, recommending 
 him " a friend of mine and of my friends " to the Archbishop, 
 and requesting that provision should be made for him decently, 
 nay honourably and promptly, as he did not know where to 
 turn ; for he was of good report, which he had deserved by his 
 life and learning. ''This I know, not from men who use 
 words lightly, but from my own (spiritual) sons who are with 
 rae, and whose words I believe as I would my own eyes." ^ 
 The Archbishop, who, owing to the long absences of Henry II. 
 in France, had a principal share in the government of the 
 country, took him into his service and he was employed in 
 important business abroad. He tells us that between 1150 and 
 1159 he crossed the Alps ten times. He was with Eugenius 
 III. at Ferrentino from November, 1150, to J une, 1151, and again 
 in May, 1152 ; and between November, 1155, and June, 1156, 
 he spent three months with Adrian IV. at Benevento.* 
 Adrian died on September 1st, 1159, at Anagni, and the news 
 of his death reached John shortly afterwards and caused him 
 poignant grief. " Our lord, Pope Adrian, is dead," he wrote 
 in the Metalogicus — a work on which he was then engaged. 
 " His death will be wept by all good men, but by none more 
 than by myself. Omnibus ille bonis flebilis occidit, sed nuUi 
 flebilior quam mihi. He had his mother and uterine brother, 
 bat he loved me with closer affection, for he confessed in public 
 and in private that he loved me above all mortals. Such was 
 his opinion of me that when opportunity offered he used to 
 delight in laying bare to me his inmost thoughts, and after he 
 became Roman Pontiff he was glad to have me as a guest at 
 his own table, and would have me, against my wish, to drink 
 out of the same cup and eat out of the same dish. At my 
 solicitation he gave and granted Hibernia to Henry II., the 
 illustrious King of England, to hold by hereditary right, as his 
 letter which (is extant) to this day testifies. For all islands, of 
 ancient right, according to the donation of Constantine, are 
 
 » St. Bernard, Letter 381. Migne, vol. 182, p. 502. Theobald had been abbot 
 of Bao. 
 
 » Jafife II., 113, 120. 
 
THE EMERALD RING. '3cJ3 
 
 said to belong to the Roman Church, which he founded and 
 endowed (i.e., Sf. Peter's and St. Paul's). He sent also by me 
 a ring of gold, with the best of emeralds set therein, wherewith 
 the investiture might be made for his governorship of Ireland, 
 and that same ring was ordered to be, and is still, in the public 
 treasury of the king. If I were to state in detail its varied 
 excellence, this one topic would supply matter for a volume." * 
 It will be observed that he says " at my solicitation," not at 
 the request of Henry II., and that he is guarded in his reference 
 to the Donation, He uses the words : " are said to belong " 
 (dicuntur). The genuineness of the Donation was openly 
 challenged in Rome at this time by the republicans or revolu. 
 tionaries there. Wetzel wrote to the Emperor that the Donation 
 was a lie, a heretical fable, and so found out that common 
 workmen and old women " shut up even the most learned on the 
 point."* The confidence of the orthodox in the genuineness of 
 the Donation was, however, probably increased on finding it 
 assailed by men who called them heretics. But it is difficult to 
 understand how anybody could suppose that the Donation, 
 even if it was genuine, conveyed the sovereignty of any island, 
 when it deals explicitly with estates and things in the islands, 
 and not with the islands themselves ; or how, in the case of 
 Ireland, Constantino could give away what he never possessed. 
 However, Urban II., in a Bull, dated June 3rd, 1091, asserted 
 that by the Privilegium of Constantino " all the islands in 
 the West were bestowed on St. Peter and his successors in 
 proprietary right, especially those situate about Italy. "^ 
 
 * Ad preces meas illuatri Regi Anglorum Henrico Seoundo concessit et dedit 
 (i.e., Adrianus) Hiberniam jure horeditario possidendam, siout litters ipsius 
 testantur in hodiemum diem. Nam omnes insulffi de jure antiquo ex donatione 
 Conetantini qui earn fundavit ot dotavit diountur ad Romanam eoolesiam pertinere. 
 Anuulum quoque per me transmiait aureum smaragdo optimo deooratum quo 
 fieret inveatitura juris in gerenda Hibernia, idemque adhuc annulua in ouriali 
 archie publico custodiri jussus eat. — Giles, Vol. V., 205 ; Lib. IV., c. 42. Tlie 
 Mttaiogicus was completed in 1159, or in 1160 at the latest, and the passage cited 
 is found in all tho MSS. In 1159 Henry and Louis VIL were engaged in hostilities 
 and opposing each other near Toulouse, to which Henry laid claim. There is a 
 note by Pagi, which indicates that there was some estrangement between Adrian 
 and his family. Giraldus, who wrote in 1174 or 1175, says :— " The same Pope 
 (i.e., Adrian IV.) sent by him (i.e., John of Salisbury) to the King of England a 
 gold ring in symbol of investiture (inv&stiturai in signum), which was at onco 
 deposited in the treasury at Winchester."— Expug. Hib., Rolls series, vol. v., 314. 
 
 ' " Mendacium illud et f abula herotica ita detecta eat ut mercenarii et mulier- 
 culse etiam doctiasiraoa super hoc ooncludunt."— Wetzel to I'rederic Barbarossa 
 (1162) Ep. 384. Martenell. 
 
 ' " Constantini privilegio in Jus proprium beato Pctro ejusque sucoessoribus 
 ocoidontales omnes insuloe donatse sunt maxime quae circa Italiaa oram habentur." 
 — Rooohi Firri, Lipariensis Ecd. Notiiia, vol. viii. Lib. 3. 
 
S84 EARLY IRISH HISTORT. 
 
 Assuniing that the ownership of Ireland was, as, no doubt 
 he believed, in the Pope's gift, the investiture by the delivery 
 of the symbolical ring was sufficient. Under the feudal system 
 the ownership of land was transferred by the visible transfer of 
 portion of the soil (by " rod and twig,") or some symbolical 
 form of delivery. This constituted a solemn investiture which, 
 while the art of writing was rare, supplied the only evidence of 
 the transaction, and which, though written evidence was after- 
 wards required by the statute, still continued to be the essence 
 of the transfer. This was also the law in Italy at this period, 
 where the feudal system prevailed. Evidence to this effect is 
 furnished by the Gartula of the Countess Matilda of Tuscany 
 (1102) which is commonly, but quite erroneously, referred to as 
 a " will." After reciting a donation for the relief of her soul 
 and the souls of her parents, made in the Church of the Holy 
 Cross at the Lateran to the Church of Rome by the hand of 
 Gregory VII., which donation was not forthcoming, it continues : 
 " To the same Church of Rome, by the hands of Barnardus, 
 Cardinal Legate, all my possessions, which I now have, or may 
 hereafter own, on either side of the mountain (Apennines)^ I 
 give and confirm from this day (15 Kal. Deo. 1102) by this 
 Gartula, and, besides, by a small sword, a knotty rod, a glove, 
 a basket of earth, and the branch of a tree,^ and I have evicted 
 myself, absconded, and gone away from there, and left the same 
 to be held on behalf of the Church. I have lifted the parch- 
 ment and the inkhorn from off the ground, and delivered the 
 pages to the notary, Guido, and requested him to engross it." 
 The names of witnesses follow, and Guido adds : " I, after 
 deliver}-, engrossed the Gartula, and delivered it (to the 
 Cardinal Legate)." This was at Canossa, in 1102. 
 
 There were also many other forms of investiture, as by a 
 ring, a standard, a flag, a sword, etc., as may be seen in 
 Du Cange, under Investitura. John of Salisbury expressly 
 states that in the case of Henry II. the investiture was to be 
 
 ' This is an important statement. The Cartula dealt with vast possessions, 
 covering, according to some, an area as large as Ireland. The document was, 
 no douDt, destroyed during the anarchy and bloodshed that reigned, in Rome 
 ^vith periodical recurrence, during the 11th and 12th centuries. In this way also 
 the scripts relating to Ireland were, we may assume, dastroyed. Theiner found 
 in the Papal archives none earlier than tho 13th century. 
 
 ° " Insuper per cultellum, festucam nodatam, guantonem, guvassonem terrm 
 atque ramum arboris, et me exinde foras expuli, guarpivi et absontem me feci, et 
 a parte ecolesiEe habendum reliqui." — Cartula Mathildau. Monumi Dom. Fontif. 
 Cenuius II., 23S. 
 
THE EMEBAXD RlWa. 385 
 
 made by the delivery of a ring, and that the ring was accepted 
 by Henry and deposited in the public treasury. 
 
 The letter referred to by John of Salisbury was a letter of 
 investiture, and not, as is maintained by many authors, the 
 Privilegium Laudabiliter. The form used with the Normans of 
 Italy commenced thus : — " I Gregory, Pope, invest you, Duke 
 Robert, with the land," etc.* With this went the oath of fealty 
 (fidelitatem observabo), which included a promise not to 
 divulge the Pope's secrets to hia damage, and to aid and 
 defend the papacy and its temporal possessions to the utmost 
 of his power (pro posse meo) against all men. There was also 
 a promise to pay a yearly rent, which in the case of Robert was 
 fixed at 12 denarii of the money of Pavia, for every yoke of 
 oxen." 
 
 Henry's title was thus complete on the delivery and accept- 
 ance of the ring and the letter. The latter contained, no 
 doubt, a suitable reference to the Peter's pence which were to 
 be paid when Dominus Henry entered into possession. As we 
 shall see, the confirmation by Alexander III. explicitly says so. 
 
 What was the motive of Adrian's Donation ? The sugges- 
 tion that Nicholas Breakspear (Adrian IV.) made it because he 
 was an Englishman, may be dismissed at once. Though born 
 in England, he was probably a Northman by descent- He is 
 said " to have fetcht his name from Ereaspere, a place in 
 Middlesex." He was selected to be Papal Legate to Norway 
 and Sweden, and he wrote a Catechism for them in the 
 vernacular, all which points to a northern parentage, and 
 an early acquaintance with the language. But whether Anglo- 
 Saxon or Dane, he had certainly no love for the Francii, who 
 since the fatal day of Hastings had tyrannized over the 
 conquered with a cruelty and oppression far worse than was 
 known in Ireland until the confiscations of Mary, and the 
 exterminations of Elizabeth, 
 
 John of Salisbury and his friends wished, no doubt, to 
 conciliate the friendship of Henry by the Donation ; but, as we 
 shall show in the proper place, Henry was not then in a 
 position to undertake a great military expedition like the 
 invasion of Ireland, and there is no reliable evidence that he 
 solicited a license for that purpose from Pope Adrian. 
 
 » "Ego, Gregorkis, Papa, investio te, Robeirte dux, de terra," eta 
 »» Jaffe, Btr Germ. II. 426. 
 
 2C 
 
EARLY IKISH HISTORY. 
 
 The motive for the gift must be sought in the Welt politik 
 of the Roman curia. It was part of the policy of Hildebrand 
 to raise in the West of Europe a power to balance that of the 
 German Emperors ; and this, not from worldly ambition to 
 exalt the temporal greatness of the Church, but to secure its 
 spiritual independence. In furtherance of this policy he allied 
 himself with the Normans of Italy, and took William, Duke of 
 Normandy, under his patronage. He, too, received a gold ring 
 and a banner from the Pope," and claimed to have a mission 
 for reforming the Church. William and Lanfranc represented 
 the invasion of England as designed for the spiritual welfare of 
 the country.^^ 
 
 " A land," writes Freeman, " which had not lost its ancient 
 tharacter of the Isle of Saints (England) ; a land which had so 
 lately boasted of a King like Edward, and an Earl like Leof ric ; 
 a land which was still illustrated by the virtues of the holy 
 Wulf Stan ; a land whose earls and bishops, and sons of every 
 degree, pressed year after year to offer at the tombs of the 
 apostles ; a land like this was branded as a land which needed 
 to be gathered again into the true fold." i* 
 
 It is related in the Chronicles of St. Alban's that after the 
 Conquest William asked of the monks how it was that it was 
 effected so easily. They made answer that it was owing to 
 the support of the monasteries — that these all declared for him. 
 William, however, left Hildebrand in the lurch. He would 
 give nothing but the old-time contribution of Peter's Pence. 
 
 When Hubert, the Pope's Legate, came to England, and 
 demanded that William should take the oath of fealty, William 
 refused, without, however, denying the overlordship claimed 
 by the Pontiff. He affirmed that he had not promised to, and 
 would not, take the oath.^* On another occasion Hildebrand 
 
 " Un gonfannon e un and 
 Mult precios e riohe et bel. — 
 
 Roman de Rose, 11452. 
 " The victors of Civitella, Richard of Aversa and Robert Guisoard, both 
 brave, faithless, unscrupulous, blood-stained condottieri, mighty robbers, un- 
 scathed by the many denunciations of the Church, appeared before Nicholas If. at 
 Melfi, where the Pope held a Council in 1069. They received their conquests, 
 with the exception of Benevento, as fiefs of the Holy See, The rights (rf the 
 despoiled rulers, and of the people were as little regarded as the rights of the 
 German Emperor. The. Normans took the oath of vassalage : — " Fidelia ero S. R. 
 eeolesise et tibi Dom. meo Nioholae." — Qregorovius — Hist. Cit. of Some, Vol IV. 
 part ii., 121. 
 
 " Freeman III., 284. 
 
 1* Fidelitatem facere nolui nee volo, quia neo ego promisi, neo anteoessores 
 meos anteoessoribuB tuis id fecisse comperio.— £p. Lanfranc X. Freeman, IV., 433. 
 
THE EMERALD RING. 387 
 
 wrote : — " You know, most excellent son, how sincerely I loved 
 you before I reached the Papal dignity, and also how active I 
 proved myself in your business, especially with what zeal I 
 laboured that you might rise to the kingship. For which 
 I incurred grave ill repute (infamiam) from my brothers 
 (cardinals), who murmured at my exerting myself with such 
 predilection for the perpetration of such bloodshed." ^^ 
 
 According to the Chronicler, if William had lived two 
 years longer he would have conquered Ireland "without 
 weapons." ^^ Giraldus has a story that William Ruf us, looking 
 from the headland of St. David's across to Ireland, threatened 
 to assemble a great fleet and conquer it. He adds that when 
 this threat reached King Muirchertach he asked simply, " Did 
 he say, ' With the help of God' ? " " The conquest of Ireland," 
 says Goldwin Smith, " was simply the sequel of the conquest 
 of England." " 
 
 In 1219 the King of Man surrendered the island to the 
 Pope and was re-invested with it, to hold as a fief, and the 
 investiture was made with a ring sent for that purpose. It is 
 stated that claims were made by the Pope to be acknowledged 
 as over-lord of Scotland and Ireland.^* Roderick, the King of 
 Connacht, was, we are assured, offered six wives (in succession, 
 of course) if he would become the Pope's liegeman ! ^* 
 
 It has been alleged that Donncadh, the son of Brian, when, 
 after his deposition, he was an exile in Rome, transferred the 
 lordship of Ireland to the Pope by delivering to him the crown 
 and regalia of the High King. This is, of course, an absurd 
 fiction, but it may have been invented and put in circulation 
 by persons who did not know that the Ard Righ in Erin had 
 only a life estate and could not forgive food rents much less 
 transfer a kingdom. Many such serviceable fables were invented 
 
 " Ep.'Greg, VII. Bosquet, XIV., 648. Freeman, III., 319. 
 
 w Ond gif he moste ha gyt twa year libtan he haefde Yrlande mid his waer- 
 Bcipe gewunnon, ond wid-utan aelcon waepon. — Chron. Petit., 1087. "And if he 
 might have yet two years lived he had Ireland with his war ships (?) won without 
 any weapon." Stevenson translates " waerscipe" by "valour," Earle by "wary 
 negotiation." We suggest " war ships," i.e., he would only have to sail over and 
 take jiossession. — Earle, Saxon Chron., pp. 222, 355. It. Camb. II., 7 (Rolls S. 
 VI., 109). As to William Kufus, see GiraJdus Hiner Kamb II., c. 1. KoUs Series 
 Vol. 6 p. 109. 
 
 " Ireland, p. 45. 
 
 18 Eaynaldi. Annalee Eccl. for 1819, Vol. XIII., p. 297. 
 
 ^ " The Pope had offered right over Erin to himself and his seed after him for 
 ever, and six married wives, provided that he desisted from the sin of the women 
 thenceforward. But Buaidbn did not accept this." Ann. of Loch Ce, B. S. I. 315 
 (A.D. 1233). 
 
888 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 to bolster up the forged donation of Constantine. " Accus- 
 tomed," writes Gregorovius, " to harried proprietors surrender- 
 ing their free property, to take it back as a fief of the Church, 
 the Church sought to extend these legal relations, to expand 
 these domains into kingdoms, and to render them all tributary 
 to herself. These titles were innumerable and often curious. 
 Gregory VII. claimed feudal supremacy over Bohemia because 
 Alexander II. had conceded the use of a mitre to Duke Wratis- 
 law ; over Russia because the fugitive prince of Novgorod had 
 visited the tomb of St, Peter and had ofiered him his country 
 as a fief ; over Hungary because Henry III. had placed the 
 lance and crown of that conquered country as votive ofierings 
 in St. Peter's." ^o 
 
 We must now turn to the state of affairs in Erin. Mael- 
 seachlainn, who died in 1022 A.D., is justly regarded as the last 
 Ard-Righ of Erin. Subsequently, several of the provincial 
 kings were styled Ard-Righ by their partisans, but were eyled 
 by the chroniclers HI CO pfer-AbnA (fereshowra), t.e.," kings with 
 gainsaying^" The predominant power passed from province to 
 province making the circuit of Erin, and would, no doubt, in 
 the end, as in other countries, and at no distant date, have 
 become fixed in a paramount dynasty if there had been no 
 /oreign intervention. Meanwhile, there were the usual intestine 
 wars that precede and accompany the birth-throes of a nation. 
 Notwithstanding all this, Ireland, we affirm, and hope to prove, 
 was, in comparison with the rest of Europe, and particularly 
 with Italy, an oasis of purity, piety, and progress. 
 
 After Maelseachlainn there was, according to some autho- 
 rities, an interregnum, during which the principal management 
 of affairs was vested in two regents — as we may style them — 
 Cuan O'Lochain, the poet, and Corcoran, the cleric. This 
 lasted about four years, and Donncadh MacBrian, the son of 
 Brian Boru, then became overlord of all Erin, except Ulster. 
 He received the hostages of Ossory, Leinster, Meath, and 
 Connacht. He was deposed in 1064i, and his nephew, Turlough, 
 became King of Munster. This he effected through the aid of 
 Diarmuid Macbnambo, King of Leinster. Diarmuid became 
 the most powerful ruler in the island, but he fell in battle 
 against Conchobar, son of Maelseachlain, in 1072. Turlough 
 O'Brian then regained the position his uncle, Donncadh, had 
 
 * Gregorovius. Some, vol. IV., Part I., 176. See the authorities there cited. 
 
THE EMERALD RING. 3S9 
 
 held, and some claim that he obtained the submission of 
 Ulster. He died in 1086, and was succeeded by his son, 
 Muirchertach. 
 
 Three years before, in 1083, Domhnall Ua Lochlainn became 
 King of Aileach. He was of the race of Niall of the Nine 
 Hostages, descended from Domhnall, brother of that Niall who 
 was Ard-Righ, and died in 919. Between these now lay the 
 contest for the overlordship. They fought with varying for- 
 tunes. O' Lochlainn was at one time acknowledged king for a 
 few months, and O'Brian made a triumphal circuit of Erin soon 
 after. Finally O'Brian died in 1119 and O'Lochlaiun in 1121, 
 leaving the contest undecided. But the forces of the O'Brians 
 were, seemingly, exhausted. After an interval of fifteen years 
 the contest was renewed again, this time between the O'Conors 
 of Connacht and the O'Lochlainns of Aileach. Turlough 
 O'Conor leading the men of Connacht, and aided by the men of 
 Leinster, under Diarmaid MacMurcadha, crushed the Munster 
 men at Moin Mor, near Emly, in Tipperary. But being attacked 
 in the same year by Muirchertach Ua Lochlainn, he was 
 forced to give him hostages. He renewed the struggle, how- 
 ever, the following year, and maintained it with great tenacity 
 until his death, in 1056, when he was succeeded by his son, 
 Ruadhri, or Roderick. The latter was not then in a position 
 to establish his claim to the shadowy overlordship. Muirchertach 
 Ua Lochlainn stood forth as a rival claimant, and both parties 
 prepared to gather around them, by persuasion or force, the 
 minor chieftains and their fighting men. Omitting minor 
 operations O'Conor sailed down the Shannon and made a 
 partition of Munster between O'Brian and Macarthy. He 
 established a firm alhance with Tighernan O'Ruairc, who ruled 
 over Cavan, Leitrim, and Longford. On his side O'Lochlainn 
 was equally active. Immediately after the death of Turlough 
 he invaded Ulidia and took away choice hostages. He 
 then marched south and took the hostages of Leinster from 
 Diarmaid Mac Murcadha in return for giving him the whole 
 province, Diarmaid thenceforth stood firmly by him in his 
 contest with O'Conor, O'Lochlainn next marched with the 
 men of Oirghiall into Ossory, and received the submission of 
 the chieftains there. The following year he attended the 
 great ceremony at the consecration of Mellifont, when ke gave 
 ei»ht score cows and sixty ounces of gold to the Lord and to 
 
390 EAELT IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 the clergy. Magraidin, the continuator of Tigernach, states that 
 Tighernan Ua Ruairc and Dearbforgaill were both present on 
 that occasion, when the latter gave, as already stated, sixty 
 ounces of gold and other valuable presents. The Annals of 
 Ulster state that Tighernan Ua Ruairc was also present, 
 and it may, we think, be fairly assumed that he and Dearbforgaill 
 were not then living apart, though the contrary is often stated. 
 In 1159 O'Lochlainn marched into Meath, and put Donncadh 
 Ua Maelseachlainn in full kingship of it from the Shannon to 
 the sea. After this O'Conor mustered all his forces and 
 advanced to attack him. He was joined by strong battalions 
 from Munster. Tighernan Ua Ruairc brought the O'Ruaircs, 
 O'Reillys, and O'Farrels from Leitrim, Cavan, and Longford. 
 O'Conor marched to Ardee, the historic fighting ground of 
 Cuchulainn. There he was met by Ua Lochlainn at the head 
 of th« Cinel Eogain, the Cinel Conaill, the Oirghialla, and the 
 Ulidians. A battle rout was inflicted on O'Conor. The six 
 battalions of Connacht and Ua Ruairc were overthrown, and 
 , the two battalions from Munster " were dreadfully slaughtered." 
 O'Lochlainn then led his victorious army — the Cinel Eogain, 
 the Cinel Conaill, the Ulidians, and the Oirghialla — into 
 Connacht, but had to return " withouc peace and without 
 hostages." O'Conor was, however, not crushed. He continued 
 the struggle with stubborn pertinacity. The next year, 1160. 
 he made a hosting into Teffia, sailed down the Shannon, and 
 took hostages from the Dal Cais. Then he went to meet 
 O'Lochlainn at Eas Ruaidh with a view to making peace ; but 
 they could not come to an agreement. In 1161 O'Conor, with 
 Tighernan Ua Ruairc, invaded Meath, and took hostages from 
 the Ui Faclain and the Ui Failghe, but was himself obliged to 
 give hostages to O'Lochlainn. In 1165 he made a hosting 
 into Desmond, and took hostages from MacCarthy. At this 
 time, notwithstanding his having given hostages to O'Lochlainn, 
 he seems to have had a nominal suzerainty over Desmond, 
 Thomond, Meath, and Breffni. The following year brought 
 the downfall and death of his rival. O'Lochlainn had treacher- 
 ously blinded Eocaid, the son of Donnsluibhe, King of Ulidia, 
 against the guarantee of Ua Cearbhail, the King of Oirghialla, 
 and " after dishonouring the co-arb of Patrick and the staff of 
 Jesus, and the co-arb of Columba, and the Gospel of St. Martin 
 and many clergy, besides Ua Cearbhail and the Oirghialla." 
 
THE EMERALD EING. 391 
 
 The Ulidians rose against him, and O'Conor led the Connacht 
 men and TJa Ruairc's men into Tyrone. A battle was fought 
 at Leiter Luinn, near Newtown Hamilton, in Armagh, and 
 O'Lochlainn was slain, O'Conor then marched to Ath Cliath 
 with Ua Ruairc and Maelseachlainn and their forces. There 
 " he was inaugurated king as honourably as any king of the 
 Gael was ever inaugurated, and he presented their ' retainers ' 
 to the foreigners, in many cows, for he levied four thousand 
 cows on the men of Erin for them." 
 
 O'Conor then received the submission and hostages of the 
 Oirghialla and other chieftains, and gave them "retainers." 
 Next he marched against Diarmaid MacMurchada, who advanced 
 against him and gave him battle, but was defeated. 
 
 It was on this occasion, in our judgment, that Diarmuid 
 fled from the kingdom, was deposed, and his kinsman, Mur- 
 chadh, the son of Murchada, set up by O'Conor in his stead.^^ 
 There is an entry in the Book of Leinster — evidently of con- 
 temporary date — which refers to this event. It runs as follows : — 
 " Wirra, wirra (ttluijie) 'tis a great deed that has been done this 
 day, the Kalends of August, viz., Diarmuid, the son of Donn- 
 cadh MacMurchada, King of Leinster and of the foreigners, to 
 have been banished over the sea (eastwards) by the men of 
 Erin, Oh, Holy Trinity ! uch ! uch ! What shall I do ? " 
 This entry was, we suggest, made by, or at the dictation of, Aedh 
 MacCrimthainn. He had been tutor of Diarmaid, and was now 
 Ferleigkinn at Ferns. It was by him, we think, or under his 
 direction, that the BooJe of Leinster was compiled, and not, as 
 O'Curry thought, by Finn, Bishop of Kildare, who died in 
 1160 A.D. There is an interesting letter from the latter copied 
 into the Book of Leinster. It runs : — " Life and health from 
 Finn, Bishop, (i.e. of Kildare) to Aedh MacCrimthainn, 
 Ferleigkinn of the chief king of Leth Mogha, and co-arb of 
 Colum MacCrimthainn, and chief historian of Leinster in 
 wisdom, and knowledge, and cultivation of books, and science, 
 and learning. And let the conclusion of this history be written 
 for me by thee. O acute Aedh, thou possessor of the sparkling 
 intellect. . . , Let Mac Lonain's book of poems be given 
 
 ^^ The accounts in our Annala are confused by the introduction of a separate 
 invasion en revanche by O'Euairc. We follow Magraidin's account up to the 
 battle (continuation of Tigemach, Sev. Celt., 18 p. 168). The entry in the Book of 
 Leinster, to be presently mentioned, says he was banished, not by Ua Ruairc but 
 by the men of Erin, i.e., O'Conor's army. 
 
392 EARLY IBISH HISTOEY. 
 
 <!0 me that we may find out the sense of the poems that are in 
 it."2« 
 
 The grief of Aedh, if we are right in our surmise, was not 
 destined to be of long duration. Glad tidings were coming to 
 him from over sea. Diarmaid fled to the Court of Henry II., 
 who was then in Acquitaine. He was cordially received, and 
 obtained from the King Letters Patent authorising his subjects 
 in every part of his dominions to aid him in recovering his 
 kingdom. He further obtained — what was, perhaps, scarcely of 
 less importance, what is commonly known as the Bull 
 Laudabiliter. The document was, in our judgment, composed 
 or issued at this time. We shall state in full detail our 
 view respecting it in our next chapter. Here let us give, 
 with our translation, the text from the Book of Leinater, 
 hitherto unpublished, and, with one exception,^* unnoticed 
 in the voluminous works and treatises on this subject.^* 
 
 The prefatory lines are, we suggest, from Aedh MacCrim- 
 thainn, who probably survived his pupil. The date of his 
 death is not known. 
 
 PiAUDABILITER.] 
 
 Ah, men of the faith of the world how beantiful ! 
 When over the cold sea in ships Zephyrus wafts glad tidings 
 (literally preeents). 
 
 [A Bull granted to the King of the English on the collation (i.e. grant) 
 of Hibernia, in which nothing is taken away from the rights of the 
 Irish, as appears hy the words of the text-l 
 
 Adrian, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to our well-beloved 
 son in Christ, the illustrious King of the English, health and apostolical 
 benediction. Laudably and profitably enough does your magnificence 
 think of winning a glorious name on earth and heaping up the reward 
 of eternal happiness in heaven while you purpose like a prince (truly) 
 Catholic to extend the bounds of the Church, to proclaim to a rude and 
 untaught people the truth of the Christian faith, and to root out 
 nurseries of vice from the field of the Lord, and for doing this with 
 greater propriety you ask the advice and support of the Holy See. In 
 which matter we are confident your progress will be more successful: 
 with God's help, in proportion as you proceed with loftier purpose and 
 
 " LL. Fttosimile, lower margin, p. 228. Colum MacCrimth»inn was the 
 fotinder of the Abbey of Tir-da-glas in Tipperary. The entry is written under 
 the story of Tadg, the son of Cian, which is, perhaps, the story referred to. See 
 Todd, War of the Gael, X. 
 
 '" Boiohorst refers to the LL. casually in a note. 
 
 ** As regards the pagination of the Book ofLeinster it is to be noted that the 
 original book ends on page 354. From 355 to 376 inclusive there is a blank. From 
 S77 to the last page, 411, is modern — about 300 years old. Facsimile LL. Intro- 
 duction. 
 
THE EMERALD RIXO. 393 
 
 greater discretion, because those (projecte) usually have a haj^y end 
 and issue which have their beginning in ardour for the faith and love 
 of religion. Truly there is no doubt, as you freely (voluntas tua) recog- 
 nize, that Hibernia and all islands on which Christ, the Sun of justice, 
 has shone, which have received the teachings of the Christian faith, 
 belong to the "jus" of the blessed apostle Peter and the Holy Roman 
 Church. Hence we have the greater pleasure in planting in them a 
 nursery of the faith and seed pleasing to God, as conscience tells us, 
 and we see that this is strictly demanded of us. Since you intimate to 
 as, well-beloved son in Christ, that you wish to enter the island of 
 Hibernia to subject that people to laws and root out the nurseries of 
 vice from it, and are willing to pay from each house one denarius 
 annually as cess to blessed Peter, and to preserve the rights of the 
 Church of that land unimpaired and inviolate, so we, seconding your 
 pious and laudable desire with the favour it deserves, and according to 
 your request a benignant assent, are pleased and willing that to extend 
 the bounds of the Church and for preventing the re-growth of vice 
 (recursu) and for amending morals and sowing the seeds of virtue and 
 for the advancement of the Christian religion, you shall enter that 
 island and do therein what tends to the honour of God and the salvation 
 of the people. And let the people of that land receive you honourably 
 and respect you as dominus — that is, the rights of the Church remaining 
 unimpaired and inviolate and saving to blessed Peter and to the Holy 
 Roman Church from each house one denarius annually as cess. If, 
 therefore, you shall bring to completion effectively what you have 
 planned in your mind, strive to discipline that nation in good morals, 
 and act as well by yourself as by those whom you have ascertained to 
 be by their faith, their words, and their manner of life, fit for the task, 
 that the Church may be adorned there, that the religion and faith of 
 Christ may be planted and grow, and that what appertains to the 
 honour of God and the salvation of souls may be so ordered by yon 
 that you may merit to obtain from God the abundance of the eternal 
 reward and succeed in winning a glorious name on earth and in heaven. 
 
 Tkxt prom the Book of Leinstbr. 
 
 A "ouine n& cjieic "oon crAosot jgrn AtAinn. 
 Aequore cum gelido Zepherus fert. (A Fexennia) 2' (recte) xennia 
 kymlns. 
 
 [Bulla concessa regi anglorum super collationem Hybernise in qua 
 nichil derogetur juri Hybernicorum sicut in serie verborum patet.] 
 
 Adrianus episcopUs servus servorum Dei carissimo in Christo filio, 
 illustri regi Anglorum Henrico salutem et apostolicam benedictionem. 
 Laudabiliter et satis fructuose de glorioso nomine propagando in terris 
 et aeternte felicitatis praemio cumulando in cselis tua magnificentia 
 cogitat, dum ad dilatandos ecclesise terminos et ad declarandam indoctis 
 et rndibus populis Christiana fidei veritatem et vitiorum plantaria de 
 
 '» The conclusion should be, we think : — " That you may merit to obtain an 
 abundance of the eternal reward in heaven, and succeed in winning a glorious 
 name on earth." The words have been transposed. 
 
 ^ "A Fexennia "should, we suggest, be "Xennia." The proper word i» 
 " Xenia," but the writer doubles the " n " to get his dactyl in the Stb place. 
 
394 EABLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 agro Dominico exstirpanda, siout Catholicus prinoepts, intend is, efc ad 
 id conuenientius exsequendam consilium apostolicum exigis et favorem. 
 In quo facto quanto altiori consilio et majori discretions procedis tanto 
 in eo felisiorem progressum te, prseatante Domino, conMimus (hahi- 
 turum) eo quod ad bonum exitum et finem Eoleant pertingere quae de 
 ardore fidei et religionis amore principium acceperunt. Sane Hiberniam 
 et omnes insulas quibuB sol justitise Ghristus illuxit quae documenta fidei 
 perceperunt ad jus beati Petri apostoli et sacrosanctee Bomange ecclesise, 
 quod tua etiam voluntua recognoscit, non est dubium pertinere. Unde 
 (tanto) in eis libentius plantationem fidelem et germ en gratum Deo 
 inserimus (quanto) id a nobis interno examine districtius prospiscimus 
 exigendum. Significasti nobis siquidem, fili in Ghristo carissime, te 
 Hibernise insulam, ad subdendum populum ilium legibus et inde vitiorum 
 plantaria exstirpanda velle intrare et de singulis domibus annuam 
 beato Petro unum denarium solvere pensionem, et jura ecclesiee illius 
 terree illabata et integra conservare. Nos itaque pium et laudabile 
 desiderium tuum favore congrno prosoquentes, et petitioni tuae 
 benigne impendentes assensum, gratum et acceptum habemus ut pro 
 dilatandis eoolesisB terminis, pro vitiorum restringendo recursu, pro 
 corrigendis moribus et yirtutibus inserendis pro CbristiansB religionis 
 augmento, insulam illam ingrodiaris et quse ad honorem Dei et salutera 
 terree illius spectaverint exequaris, et illius terrte populus honorifice te 
 recipiat et sicut dominum veneretur, jure nimirum ecclesiarum illibato 
 et integro permanente, et salva beato Petro apostolo et sacrosancta; 
 Bomanse ecclesise de singulis domibus unum denarium annua pensione. 
 Si ergo quod animo concepisti effectu duxeri* persequente complendum, 
 studeas gentem illam bonis moribus informare et agas tam per te quam 
 per iUos quos ad hoc fide verbo et vita idoneos esse perspexeris ut 
 decoretur ibi ecclesia, plantetur et crescat fidei Christianse religio, et 
 quce ad honorem Dei et salutem pertinent animarum taliter ordinentur 
 ut a Deo sempiternse mercedis cumulum consequi merearis, et in terris 
 gloriosum nomen valeas et in codis obtinere. Vale.^'' 
 
 " We have italicised the principal variants in this text ; — 
 
 Henrico is absent in other toxta. 
 
 Voluntas. — Here and in Matthew Paris, Kolls series, I., p. 304 only. In 
 Baronius and elsewhere, nobilitas. We make no doubt voluntat is archetypal ; no 
 scribe would change nobUUas into voltintas. We are unable to eay whether the 
 codex of Matthew Paris in the Vatican, from which Baronius probably got his 
 version, has voluntas. 
 
 Recursu is elsewhere decursu. 
 
 In exits, elsewhere in acectdum, or in sciculit. Baronius has valeas in sceeulit. 
 In calls is, we think, the true text. 
 
 The context indicates, we suggest, that the final clause should run : — " Ut a 
 Deo Bompiternas morcedis cumulum consequi merearis in ccelis et gloriosum nomen 
 valeaa in terris obtinere. Vale." 
 
 BooJi of Leinnter, Facsimile, p. 342, Giraldus, Eolls series, I„ 65, III. 195, 
 Rad. de Dioeto, R.S., I. 300. Baronius, vol. 19, p. 128, A.D. 1160., this i« the 
 text of Migne, vol. 188, p. 1441, otc. 
 
L 395 J 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE CYMRO-FRANKISH ADVENTURERS.' 
 
 BEFORE considering what we shall call for brevity, the 
 Papal Documents, whether genuine or spurious, 
 relating to the alleged Donation of Ireland to Henry II, it 
 is necessary to say a few words about Diarmaid himself. 
 
 Diarmaid at the time of his banishment had been forty 
 years on the throne. The date of his birth is uncertain, our 
 texts agree that he was the son of Donnchadh Mac Murcadha, 
 and 20th in descent from Enna Ceinselach who was king of 
 Leinster in the 4th century. Donncadh was slain in 1115,2 and 
 was succeeded by Enna who reigned eight years (1117-1125). 
 Diarmaid who, according to our view, was too young to 
 reign when his father died, mounted the throne on the death 
 of Enna in 1126. We would place his birth about the year 
 T100.3 Till his flight he had shown himself an active, 
 ambitious, and withal a politic ruler. Shortly after his 
 accession when he was firmly seated on the throne of Leinstei 
 he claimed the over-lordship of Leath Mogha, that is, of 
 the whole South of Ireland. He invaded Ossory in 1134. 
 
 1 The followers of William the Conqueror, commonly called Normans, 
 called themselves Francii long after their settlement in England. The 
 adventurers to Ireland were from Wales, i.e., Cymri, or Francii. They 
 spoke either Cymric or French, or in some cases Latin. Henry II, though 
 brought up in England for four years eonld'nt speak English. 
 
 2 F. M. 1115. Donncadh Ua Maelnambo, the father of Diarmaid, and the 
 great grandson of Maelnambo, was slain in a battle in which Domhnall 
 O'Brien and the foreigners of Dublin were victorious. 
 
 ' O'Donovan gives nis genealogy {F. M. 1052 a.d.) and says he was sixty- 
 two in 1153, which would place his birth at 1090. We find it difficult to 
 accept this view, as if he was twenty-five at his father's death we should 
 expect him to have succeeded immediately ; and his vigour and activity up 
 to his death in 1171 would be very exceptional in a man of eighty. There 
 is an entry in the Book of Leinster, on the other hand, which states that he 
 reigned forty-six years and died in the sixty-first (LXI) year of his age. 
 This we cannot accept, as it would make him out to be only fifteen (61 — 46) 
 at the time of his accession. The antry should probably be LXXI and not 
 LXI. Mistakes often occur in the Roman numerals. See F, M, 1052, 1115 
 and 1153. Todd, War of the Gael zi. and LL p. 39 g. 
 
3^6 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 and though repulsed at first succeeded afterwards in 
 defeating the men of Ossory and their allies, the northmen 
 of Waterford, and laid siege to the latter town. 4 In 1149 
 he invaded Meath and in alliance with the Northmen of 
 Dublin plundered Duleek. He next made alliance with 
 O'Conor, and helped him, as we have seen, to win the battle 
 of Moin Mor over the men of Munster, and to invade 
 O'Ruairc's territory. 
 
 Afterwards when MacLochlainn became predominant he 
 attached his fortunes to him and remained true to him till 
 he fell at Leitdr Luin in 1166. 
 
 Diarmaid also took precautions to secure the support of 
 the Church. He married Mor, the sister of Saint Laurence 
 O'Toole, and was a munificent benefactor of religion. 
 Saint Laurence, after he became Archbishop of Dublin, 
 replaced the Secular Canons, at Christ Church by Canons 
 regular of the Augustinian Order of the reform of Aroasia 
 in Artois, and joined the Order himself in 11 40. Diarmaid 
 founded and endowed a Convent for Nuns of the Aroasian Order 
 at St. Mary de Hogges near the site of St. Andrew's Church in 
 the city of DubHn, and two dependent cells at Kilcleshin 
 in Kilkenny near Waterford, and at Aghade in Carlow — ^in 
 1151,5 In the same year he founded the Abbey of Baltin- 
 glass for Cistercian Monks, and in 1161 an Abbey for Austin 
 Canons at Ferns. About 1160 he confirmed a donation of 
 lands, etc., at Duisk in Kilkenny to Felix, Abbot of Ossory, 
 for the construction of a monastery in honour of St. Benedict. 
 St. Laurence was one of the witnesses to the charter. 6 
 
 Diarmaid also founded a Convent for Canons on the spot 
 where Trinity College now stands, under the title of the 
 Church, Priory, and Canpns of All-Hallows, and endowed 
 it with an extensive estate at Baldoyle. The charter of endow- 
 ment which is still extant is made to his "spiritual father 
 
 • F. M. 1132. The Siege of Waterford by Diarmaid Mao Murchadha ting 
 of Leiaster and Conohobar O'Brien, king of the Dal-Cais, and the foreigners 
 of Ath-Cliath and L. Carmen who had 200 ships on the sea. 
 
 • O'Curry prepared a pedigree of St. Laurence for O'Hanlon's Lift of iht 
 Saint, it will De found at page 12. He states that he compared the books 
 of Ballymote, Leean, and Mac Firbis with the Book of Leintter and says : 
 " Mor the daughter of Muirchertach ua Tnathail (father of Rt.Laurenoe) was 
 the wife of Diarmaid Mao Murchadha, king of Leinster and of the D(tnes." 
 St. Laurence's nephew was at this time (1167) Abbot of the powerful 
 Abbey of Glendalough. 
 
 • See facsimile MS. Gilbert LXII., where a copy of this charter ia given. 
 
THE GTMBO-FRAKKISH ADVENTURERS. 397 
 
 and Confesscff, Eden, Bishop of Louth,"? as a trustee, and 
 St. Laurence is one of the witnesses. 
 
 Against these solid facts we find a considerable quantity 
 of adverse and most frequently rhetorical criticism dating 
 from Giraldus onward. Giraldus' description of Diarmaid 
 is worth quoting textually : " In stature Diarmaid was tall 
 and his frame was very large. Among his own people he 
 was bold and combative. His voice was hoarse from the 
 frequent and prolonged battle-shouts. He had rather be 
 feared than loved by all. He puUed down the mighty and 
 lifted up the weak. Odious to his own he was hated by the 
 stranger. Every man's hand was against him and his hand 
 against every man. In his youth at the beginning of his reign he 
 was an oppressor of the nobility, and raged against the magnates 
 of his own country with a great and intolerable tyranny." 8 
 
 There are, we think, only two acts answering this descrip- 
 tion recorded of Diarmaid in om: annals. One is the blinding 
 of Niall ua Mordha of Leix, whom Diarmaid released from 
 fetters after depriving him of his sight. This abominable 
 practice of bUnding had come west from the east, and was 
 common in England from the time of the Conquest, as weU 
 as in Ireland. 
 
 A second entry in our annals states that Diarmaid " acted 
 treacherously towards the chieftains of Leinster, viz., 
 Domhnall Lord of Ui Faelain, and ua Tuathail, both of whom 
 he killed, and towards the Lord of Feara Cualann who was 
 blinded by him. This deed caused great weakness in Leinster, 
 for seventeen of the nobihty of Leinster and many others 
 with them were killed." 9 
 
 Diarmaid is further charged with having been accessory 
 to the abduction of an Abbess, »o a charge which is probably 
 
 ' The charter is given in the Regiatrum Priorat. Omn. SS. Ed. jl. Butler p. 50 
 8 « Dermod Mao Murohad expelled by Roderick O' Conor for enormous 
 crimes of a pubUc and private nature."— O'Conor of Belnagare DisaeHationa 
 262 " A beastly prince " Lanigan IV., 184-191. " Hia whole Ufe was a 
 record of violence and villainy, he was cruel, tyrannical and treacherous, 
 and was hated in his own day as much as his memory has been hated ever 
 since."— Joyce, Short History, p. 245. ^ , . . 
 
 » The Entry F. M. 1141 a.d. appears to point to a revolt of some sort which 
 Diarmaid put down with probably undue severity. The rebels were not his 
 
 >« 1135' The Abbess of Kildare was forced and taken out of her cloister 
 by Diarmaid Mao Murchadha king of Leinster, and compelled to marry one 
 of the said Diarmaid's people, at whose taking he killed 107 of the townsmen. 
 —Murphy, Ann, Clon,, p. 193, 
 
398 EARLY iniSH HISTQllY. 
 
 as ill-founded as that of his elopement with Dearbforgaill, 
 with which we have already dealt. It is not mentioned by 
 the Four Masters. 
 
 These are the only acts of cruelty recorded against 
 Diarmaid during a reign of 40 years. His record will, we think, 
 bear favourable comparison with those of contemporary 
 monarchs at home and abroad. 
 
 Assuming the tale told in the Metalogicus to be true, and 
 that the facts stated were known to some of the ecclesiastics 
 or monks in touch with Diarmaid, the course he took after 
 his flight was such as might have been reasonably expected. 
 When an under-lord or chieftain was unjustly attacked he 
 appealed for succour or protection in the last resort to the 
 High King or over-lord. But if the true over-lord of all 
 was the Pope, and Henry was his vice-gerent (and there can 
 be no doubt that this was the orthodox teaching, at the time, 
 of the regular, if not of the secular, clergy in the South of 
 Ireland), if unable to stand alone against O'Conor and his 
 allies, and if the Northern Ui Neill were not in a position to 
 help him, to whom could Diarmaid appeal for succour and 
 redress but to Henry, after his expulsion and flight ? 
 Diarmaid, therefore, determined to turn for help to Henry 
 Plantagenet. He went first to Bristol, where he found shelter 
 for a time in the Priory of St. Augustin. Thence he proceeded 
 to Normandy, and finally to Acquitaine, where he found 
 Henry. He was cordially received, but Henry was not then 
 in a position to restore him to his kingdom by force of arms. 
 After receiving his bond of allegiance and oath of fealty the 
 king gave him an open letter directed to all his subjects in 
 every part of his dominions stating : " If anyone is willing 
 to aid in restoring Diarmaid our liegeman, be it known to him 
 that he wUl have our licence and our favour." Assuming again 
 that the story in the Metalogicus is true, and that Henry was 
 aware that the Pope claimed the over-lordship of Ireland, we 
 think it unlikely that he would have given this licence without the 
 authority of the reigning Pope, Alexander III. Accepting 
 the homage of one of the Pope's under-lords and 
 authorising his own subjects to go in arms to help him with- 
 
 11 tJnde et quigquia ei (i.e., Dermetio) de amplitudinis nostrts finibus 
 tanquam bomini et fldeli nostro restUutionis auziliuiu impendere volueiit se 
 nostram ad boo tam gratiam noverit auam liceotiam obtinere. — Expug, 
 Hib. //. 
 
THE CYMRO-FRANKISH ADVKNTURERS. 399 
 
 cmt the Pope's licence would be a clear invasion of Papal 
 rights. We are, therefore, prepared to find it stated that 
 Alexander did confirm Pope Adrian's donation. The 
 authenticity of the Bull is, of course, questioned, but we 
 think that the probabilites are strongly in favour of its 
 being genuine. Henry would never have led an army into 
 Ireland without a confirmation of Adrian's Donation, 
 assuming it to be genuine. 
 
 The dates at this point cannot be exactly fixed. The 
 negotiations which probably included a reference to Rome, 
 as we have suggested, must have occupied a considerable 
 time. Diarmaid was banished in 1166, he did not return to 
 Bristol until 1168. The Pope's open letter of confirmation ran 
 thus : — 
 
 In as much as the privilegia which have been on reasonable 
 grounds granted by our predecessors deserve to be confirmed and 
 permanently sanctioned, We treading in the foot-steps of the 
 venerable Pope Adrian, and hoping for the fruit of what you 
 desire, (hereby) ratify and confirm his grant made to you of the 
 lordship of the Kingdom of Ireland, saving to the Blessed Peter 
 and the Holy Roman Church, as in England so in Ireland, an 
 annual cess of one denarius from each house, to the end that the 
 barbarous nation which is qualified with the christian name, by 
 your diligence may be clothed with loveliness of manners ; and the 
 Church of this land, hitherto in disorder, be reduced to order, and 
 that people may, in future, not only be called, but live like, pro- 
 fessing Christians. " 
 
 The coming of Henry may be properly said to have begun 
 at this point. The proceedings of the adventurers who 
 availed themselves of his licence, and were his precursors, 
 will be best understood when read in connection with subsequent 
 events. We shall, therefore, reserve details on this head 
 for the second volume of this history, and confine ourselves 
 here to stating briefly the events that occurred up to the death 
 of Diarmaid. 
 
 On leaving Acquitaine Diarmaid returned to Bristol where 
 he read the king's letter publicly, and began his quest for 
 adventurers. After some time, probably in the summer of 
 1 168, he fell in with a ruined baron whose estate had been 
 confiscated by Henry — Richard De Clare, Earl of Pembroke 
 
 1' In the De Inslr PHnc. is found what appears to be an interpolation or 
 subsequent addition by Giraldus himself, stating that some asserted, and 
 seme denied, that this letter was ever obtained, — Giraldus Bottt Seriei, 
 v.. 318. 
 
400 EARLY IBISH HISTOET. 
 
 and Strigul, commonly kno\vn as Strongbow. i3 Diarmaid 
 came to terms with him, promising him his eldest daughter in 
 marriage and the succession to his kingdom, and Strongbow, on 
 his side, promised to come to Diarmaid's aid with a military 
 force in the following spring. So far as the kingdom was 
 concerned, Diarmaid's promise was illusory ; the succession to 
 it was not Diarmaid's to bestow ; he obtained it himself 
 by election, not by primogeniture, and the clansmen would 
 surely assert their undoubted rights when the throne became 
 vacant. Moreover, there were other daughters, and there 
 was male issue, legitimate and illegitimate. Conor, the 
 Legitimate son, was delivered as a hostage to the king of 
 Connacht in 1169, and subsequently put to death by him, 
 and Domhnall Caevanagh, Mac Murchada, an illegitimate son, 
 is described by the Four Masters as "king of Leinster in 
 in 1175, when he was treacherously slain." 14 Nor is it quite 
 clear that Eva was legitimate. If so her younger sister was 
 married before her to O'Brien, which would be against the 
 invariable usage of the Gael. 
 
 Strongbow, however, was not in any hurry to fulfil his 
 engagement. Probably he could not induce his friends and re- 
 tainers to muster courage for the adventure. He also wished 
 to obtain the special licence of Henry whom he petitioned to 
 restore to him the lands he had forfeited or to allow him to 
 seek his fortune in Ireland. Henry gave him the desired per- 
 mission. Giraldus tells us it was ironical rather than serious.i5 
 
 Strongbow did not sail from Milford Haven for Waterford 
 until August 23rd, 1 170. In the meantime Diarmaid had 
 secured the help of other adventurers. On leaving Bristol, 
 he journeyed through South Wales on his way to St. David's 
 whence he intended to sail to Wexford. At this 
 time Rhys ap Griffith, the son of Griffith ap Rhys, and the 
 grandson of Rhys ap Tudor, was the prince of a considerable 
 territory in South Wales under Henry II with whose Justiciary 
 Richard De Lacy, he had some time before arranged terms 
 of peace. His aunt Nesta, the daughter of Rhys ap Tudor, 
 
 '2 The castle o£ Strigul was at or near Chepstow on the Wye. Richard's 
 father had been created Earl of Pembroke by Stephen in 1138, and his grand- 
 father, it is said, had received the grant of Cardigan from Henry I., which 
 means that he had been allowed to sieze it and dispossess Cadogan, the 
 C3nnrie chieftain, 
 
 " F. M. 1176, and O'Donovan. 
 
 *■ Accepts igitnr quasi licentia irooica magis quam vera Expug. Bib. 
 I., 0. 13. 
 
THE CYMRO-FBANKISH ADVENTURERS. 401 
 
 had been the mistress of Henry I ; from this connection came 
 the Fitzhenrys. Afterwards she became the wife of Gerald 
 of Windsor, Castellan of Pembroke ; from this union came 
 the Fitzgeralds— three sons and a daughter Angharad, who was 
 married to William de Barri, father of Giraldus the historian. 
 David the youngest son was then Bishop of St. David's. 
 Thirdly Nesta was married to Stephen, Castellan of Abertivy 
 in Cardigan to whom she bore Robert Fitzstephen.i6 
 
 When Diarmaid arrived at St. David's he was treated 
 with great kindness by the Bishop and by Gryfiith ap Rhys. 
 It so chanced that at this time Robert Fitzstephen who had 
 been kept in prison for three years by his cousin, Gryffith 
 ap Rhys, had been released on condition that he would join 
 Gryf&th in taking up arms against Henry II. It was now 
 arranged through the Bishop of St. David's and Maurice 
 Fitzgerald, his brother, with the consent of Gryfhth, that 
 Robert Fitzstephen, instead of taking up arms against 
 Henry II. should join his brother Maurice in fighting to restore 
 Diarmaid ; that they should cross with their forces in the 
 ensuing spring and that Diarmaid should grant them the 
 town of Wexford and two cantreds of land to hold in fee. 
 The town and land were, we would suggest, then in the pos- 
 session of the Northmen. Meantime Diarmaid sailed 
 for home, and entering the monastery at Ferns was hospitably 
 received by the Austin canons, and spent the winter there 
 in concealment. When the spring came round Fitzstephen 
 mustered 30 men-at-arms of his own kindred and retainers, 
 60 men in armour, and about 300 archers and foot soldiers — 
 the flower of the youth of Wales. These he embarked in three 
 ships with which he landed at Bannow in Wexford about the 
 1st May, 1169. Hervey de Mountmaurice, an uncle of 
 Strongbow, joined them as an explorator, to observe and 
 report to him the state of affairs in Ireland. Maurice de 
 Prendergast also arrived the following spring from South Wales 
 with 10 men-at-arms and a body of archers, in two ships. 
 By this time the whole auxiliary forces would probably have 
 reached about 600 ; they were joined by Diarmaid with 500 
 men, and the combined forces attacked Wexford. The first 
 
 18 We abstain from considering here, as unimportant iot ojir purpose, 
 whether Nesta was married to Fitestephen, or whether it was before or after 
 her marriage with Gerald of Windsor she became mistress of Henry II. We 
 present merely a popular view and have not investigated the matter, 
 
 2D 
 
402 EARLT IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 assault was repulsed, but on the following day two Bishops 
 who were in the town made peace, and the townsmen 
 submitted to Diarmaid their rightful sovereign and gave 
 him hostages for their fealty. Large numbers now joined 
 him, bringing the united forces up to about 3,000. 
 These forces then marched into Ossory. Ossory was part of 
 the territory formerly under Diarmaid's over-lordship, and 
 Donnchad, the chieftain, had, 11 years before, captured and 
 blinded his eldest son Enna, Rigdamna of Leinster. The 
 men of Ossory, Giraldvis teUs us, made a stout resistance, 
 availing themselves of the shelter of woods and morasses. 
 But pursuing the enemy into the open they were charged and 
 cut to pieces by the cavalry. 200 heads were cut off and laid 
 at Diarmaid's feet, " among them was the head of one he 
 mortally hated, and taking it by the ears and hair he tore 
 the nostrils and lips with his teeth." We mention this absurd 
 story as it is often quoted by English writers, who forget 
 that the credulous author of the story " saw with his own 
 eyes " embryo barnacle geese growing like limpets on the 
 rocks along the Irish Coast. The story told by Giraldus is not 
 confirmed by any other author. 
 
 The king of Ossory sued for peace and gave hostages to 
 Diarmaid. When Ruadhri O'Conor was apprised of these 
 proceedings, he mustered his forces and invaded Leinster. 
 Fitzstephen and the Leinster men did not venture to meet 
 him in the open, but retreated to a strong defensible position 
 near Ferns. Peace was, however, made without fighting, 
 and on these conditions ; Leinster was to be left to Diarmaid ; 
 Ruadhri was to be acknowledged as Ard-righ ; Diarmaid 
 was to give his son Conor as hostage to Ruadhri, who 
 promised that should peace be firmly established, he would, 
 in the course of time, give his daughter in marriage to the 
 young prince. These conditions were pubhcly proclaimed 
 and sworn to. There was also a secret agreement that 
 Diarmaid should not bring in any more foreigners, and should 
 send away those he had already called in as soon as he had 
 reduced Leinster to a state of order. We make no doubt 
 that Diarmaid honestly intended to carry out these arrange- 
 ments. It was clearly his interest to do so if he could, as the 
 life of his son was at stake. But history teaches us, by many 
 examples, that allies or mercenaries like those with Diarmaid 
 
THE CYMRO-FRANKISH ADVENTURERS. 403 
 
 begin by giving help and advice and end by issuing peremptory 
 orders. The Cymro-Frankish adventurers had come to stay, 
 and on the arrival of additional contingents under Maurice 
 Fitzgerald (lo men-at-arms, 30 mounted archers, 100 bow- 
 men on foot, in two ships) in 1169, and under Strongbow in 
 1170,17 Diarmaid became a puppet in their hands, and 
 they determined to carve out kingdoms for themselves in 
 the fairest regions of Erin. Giraldus says, that Diarmaid 
 wrote to Strongbow in a poetical strain urging him to come 
 quickly. We may be certain that it was not Diarmaid's 
 letters, if such were ever sent, which we question, but 
 the reports of Hervey de Mountmaurice and the en- 
 treaties of the other leaders that influenced his decision. He 
 landed near Waterford on the 22nd August, 1170. The city 
 was taken with great slaughter, but the captives were spared 
 through the intervention of Diarmaid. The marriage of 
 Strongbow and Eva was then celebrated, according to the 
 agreement. 
 
 Before sailing for Ireland Strongbow had sent forward 
 Raymond le Gros, son of WiUiam Fitzgerald, who was an 
 elder brother of Maurice Fitzgerald. Raymond le Gros sailed 
 with 10 men-at-arms and 70 archers, and landed at Dun- 
 donnell, a rocky promontory about 8 miles from Waterford. 
 There he threw up a slight fortification made of sods and 
 the boughs of trees. The citizens, mostly Northmen, promptly 
 advanced from the city to attack him, but though superior 
 in numbers they were repulsed with great loss. Seventy 
 were taken prisoners. "Then the victors abused their 
 great good fortune by detestable counsels and inhuman 
 cruelty." This was, Giraldus is careful to mention, at the 
 instigation of Hervey de Mountmaurice and against the 
 vehement protest of his cousin Raymond le Gros. " Of two 
 things," urged Hervey de Mountmaurice, "we must choose 
 one, we must either resolutely accomplish what we have 
 undertaken, and stifling all emotions of pity utterly subjugate 
 
 »' Robert Fitzstephen 3 ships. 390 men. 
 
 Maurice de Prendergast 2 „ 200 (?) „ 
 
 Maurice Fitzgerald 2 „ 140 „ 
 
 Raymond le Gros 1 „ '?0 „ 
 
 Strongbow I ^200 „ 
 
 Total 2,000 
 
404 EAELT IRISH HISTORy. 
 
 this rebellious nation, by the strong hand, or indulging in 
 deeds of mercy, as Raymond proposes, sail homeward." 
 He adds " Hervey's opinion was approved by his comrades 
 and the wretched captives had their hmbs broken and were 
 cast headlong into the sea." '8 
 
 Strongbow, on leaving Waterford, marched to DubUn. 
 Hasculf was the king of the Norse there. The Archbishop, 
 Saint Laurence O'Toole, obtained a truce that terms of peace 
 might be settled. " Notwithstanding this, Raymond on 
 one side of the city and Milo de Cogan on the other rushed 
 to the walls with bands of youths, and making a resolute 
 assault got possession of the place with great slaughter of the 
 citizens." Hasculf and the rest escaped to their ships, and 
 sailed to the northern islands. After spending a few days 
 in Dublin Strongbow invaded Meath and laid waste the whole 
 territory with fire and sword. O'Conor then put Diarmaid's 
 son to death. So far Giraldus. The entry in the Four 
 Masters runs : — 
 
 1170, A.D., an army was laid by Mac Murchadha, with his 
 men-at-arms (tutJitteAOAifi) into Meath and Breffni, and they 
 plundered Clonard, Kells, Tailltin, Dowth, Slane, Dulane, Kilskeery 
 and Castle Kieran, and they afterwards made a predatory incursion 
 into Tir Briuin, and carried off many persons and cows to their 
 camp. The hostages of Diarmaid were put to death by Ruadhri 
 O'Conor at Athlone, namely Conchobar the son of Diarmaid, the 
 Rigdamna of Leinster, and his grandson, i.e., the son of Domhnall 
 Caemhanach, and the son of his foster-brother, i.e., O'Caellaighe. 
 1171 A.D. Diarmaid Mac Murchadha, king of Leinster, by whom 
 a trembling sod was made of all Ireland, after bringing over the 
 Saxons, after having done extensive injury to the Gael, after 
 plundering and burning many churches as Kells, Clonard, etc., 
 died at Ferns before the end of a year, after this plundering, by an 
 insufferable and unknown disease, through the miracles of God, 
 Colomba, and Finnan, whose churches he had profaned some 
 time before, without will, without Penance, without the Body of 
 Christ as his evil deeds deserved. 
 
 If this be true, Diarmaid was very badly treated by the 
 Church to which he had been a munificent friend, but it is 
 not true. The Book of Leinster, which is a better authority, 
 states that, he died at Ferns " after the victory of Unction 
 and Penance." This, we have no doubt, is the truth. We do 
 not present Diarmaid to our readers as a hero ; but historical 
 
 »« Exfug. Bib. I.. C. XIII. 
 
THE CYMRO-FRANKISH ADVENTUEERS. 405 
 
 justice, weighing the facts dispassionately, demands that 
 he should not be made a scapegoat.19 
 
 We must now return to the illaudable Laudabiliter. An 
 examination of this script reveals at once to the trained 
 eye the practised hand of one who had completely 
 mastered the technicalities of the suppressio veri, and come 
 perilously near the assertio falsi. The object he had in view 
 was to make it appear to the Irish that there was no derogation 
 from their rights. This he accomphshed by using dominant 
 words that lend themselves to two interpretations ; the words 
 jus and Dominus. The statement in the text that all islands 
 which have received the teachings of the Christian religion 
 belong to the jus of the Blessed Peter may mean {a) belong 
 to the jus ecclesiasticum or spirituale, i.e., to the ecclesiaistical 
 or spiritual jurisdiction of the Church of Rome ; or (6) bebng 
 to the jus proprium or temporale, i.e., to the proprietary or 
 temporal jurisdiction of the Church. We have had the 
 curiosity to look into some modern translations and we find 
 that Cardinal Moran amongst others translates the passage 
 " All the islands which have received the knowledge of the 
 christian faith are subject to the authority of St. Peter and 
 of the Most Holy Roman Church " i.e., to the ecclesiastical 
 jiu-isdiction. On the other hand, Rev. William Morris and 
 many others, translate the passage " All islands which have 
 received the traditions of the Christian church belong to 
 Saint Peter and the most Holy Roman Church " i.e., the 
 proprietary jurisdiction. 20 jhe latter is the sense in 
 which it has been understood in subsequent official docu- 
 ments. 
 
 The word dominus may mean either (a) title of respect, 
 or of office like the missi dominici of Charlemagne, or (&) the 
 feudal owner of the dominium, i.e., the demesne in fee of the 
 lands. In official documents, v.£^., in many letters in Theiner, 
 England is referred to as the kingdom (regnum), and Hibernia 
 as the lands (terra) or dominium of the dominus or lord. It was 
 probably by the same draughtsman that the celebrated letter in 
 1 157 of Adrian IV. to Frederick Barbarossa and the German 
 
 ^» "ABC 1 peiinA \&f mbuAiTJ onjcA oeuf Arlitiiji-" The Book of Xeinster is 
 not mentioned in the List of Books from which the Four Masters composed the 
 Annals. 
 
 ,*» 7r. Ecd. Bee, 1872, Nov.; Burke, -Kev, T., Lsciures, 225; Morris, 
 Kbt. W., Ireland and BC.Patritk, 122. 
 
406 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 Bishops was composed. Frederick held a diet of great magnifi- 
 cence at Besan^on in that year. Hither went Cardinal Roland, 
 afterwards Alexander III., then Chancellor to Adrian IV., 
 with another envoy, to present the letter. They were received 
 in public audience. Roland read the letter which referred 
 to the beneficia conferred by the Pope on Frederick who had 
 been recently crowned ; the word had two meanings (i) 
 benefits (2) a technical meaning in feudal usage, i.e., fiefs. 
 The German Magnates understood it in the feudal sense 
 and when the Cardinal pronounced it they sprang to their 
 feet and half drew their swords, One of them, Otho, faced 
 Roland and demanded whether he meant that Frederick held 
 his empire as a fief of Adrian. Undaunted Roland answered. 
 " And of whom then does he hold it if not of our Lord 
 the Pope ? " Otho then drew his sword and weis about to 
 cut him down, when Frederick interposed. The Pope after- 
 wards explained that beneficium meant bene factum, a good 
 deed or benefit, and that it was not used in the feudal sense, 
 in the letter.^' 
 
 The three letters of Alexander III in the Liber Scacarii 
 correspond in substance with the Laudabiliter. They are 
 addressed to Henry II. the bishops, and the kings and chief- 
 tains of Ireland respectively, and are dated September 20th, 
 1172. The letter addressed to Henry congratulates him on 
 his success. It contains the notable words " the Church 
 of Rome has a different jus in the case of islands from what 
 \t has in the case of a continent." 22 
 
 Urban II, in 1091 in the grant already referred to, 
 deduced the right of Constantine to give away islands from 
 the strange principle that all islands were legally juris 
 publici, and, therefore. State domains, "and so when they 
 receive the Christian faith they would come under both rights " 
 the jus spirituale and jus proprium. He uses the words, 
 not in jus, but in jus proprium condonatae. So too, 
 Innocent III, in 1213 in his letter of acceptance, states that 
 
 '^ The words were " si majora htneiicia ezcellentia tna de manu nostra 
 suscepisset." Adrian's explanation is " Hoo enim nomen {i.e., beneficium) 
 ex hono et facto est editum, et dioitur &ene/>ctum apud uos, non ftudum sed 
 honum lactam." Migne 188, p. 1526 (1st letter), Migne 188, p. 1555 (2nd 
 letter). 
 
 a> Bomana ecclesia alind jus habet in insula quam in terra magna et 
 continua." The three letters ol Alexander III. are given in Migne 200, 
 D. 113. 
 
THE CTMRO-FRANKISH ADVENTUREES. 407 
 
 John with the consent of the English barons had given over 
 his realm to the Pope "in jus et proprietatem"— Rymer I. 
 117. 
 
 There is no reference to the Donation of Adrian in any 
 of these letters, nor should we expect to find any if we assume 
 that Adrian's Donation had been previously confirmed, as 
 we suggest it had been. 
 
 There is also a letter of Adrian IV. written about the 
 beginning of 1159 to Louis VII, of France, the language of 
 which corresponds very closely in parts with the Laudabiliter, 
 and it has been suggested that any draughtsman having that 
 letter before him might concoct the Laudabiliter. "We very 
 much doubt this, and we think that it is very much more 
 probable that it was composed by the person who wrote the 
 letter to Louis VII. and the letters of Alexander III., and 
 may have been prepared, but not issued, in the hfetime of 
 Adrian IV.23 
 
 In our judgment there is ample evidence to prove the 
 Donation of Adrian IV. putting aside altogether the 
 Laudabiliter, the confirmation of Alexander, and the three 
 letters in the Liber Scdcarii. Bishop Creighton considered 
 the statement of John of Salisbury alone sufficient and. un- 
 answerable. Henry would never have gone to the expense 
 of a military expedition to Ireland without a clear hereditary 
 title from the Pope who claimed to be over-lord of it, and 
 his title founded on the Donation is referred to in official docu- 
 ments and otherwise, century after century. 
 
 In the chronicle of Robert of Torigny ( + 1 184-1186) we find an 
 entry that at a council held at Winchester at Michaelmas 
 1 165, the question of conquering Ireland, and giving it to 
 Henry's brother, William, was considered " and because it 
 was not pleasing to the Empress his mother, the expedition 
 was put off for another time." Could there be any reasonable 
 doubt that the deliberation was connected with the receipt 
 of the emerald ring? Henry, who was then only 22, had to 
 reduce his own kingdom to subjection before thinking of 
 
 " The texts of the letter to Louis VII. and of the LaiidabUiter are compared 
 in parallel columns in the Annalecta Juris Poviificii, 1882. The names of 
 the numerous writers for and against the genuineness of the Laudabiliter 
 ■will be found in Mr. Thatcher's Studies Concerning Adrian I V., Chicago 
 Decern. Pub., Volume IV., First Series. He follows the valuable 
 article of Boichorat in Mitheilungen der Inslutnt. fur Oesterreieh, Oesehiehte, 
 1893, p. 101. He does not refer to the text in the Booh of Leinaler. 
 
i08 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 foreign conquests, and the excuse was diplomatically correct 
 and probably true. 
 
 In the year 1318 {1317 ?) Donald O'Neil " King of 
 Ulster and of all Ireland, the rightful heir by hereditary 
 right, and the kings and magnates and the whole laity " 
 sent to Pope John XXII, a letter of appeal and protest. 24 
 It is a very long document, we can only present our readers 
 extracts condensed from it. 
 
 After stating that there were 136 kings before the coming 
 of St. Patrick and 61 subsequently, who in temporals 
 acknowledged no superior, all of the same stock, without 
 any mixture of foreign blood, who richly endowed the church 
 with landed and other property of great extent and value, 
 of much of which the Church had been " damnably despoiled " 
 by the English, it proceeds, — 
 
 And after that the kings aforesaid had had for so long a time 
 by their own efforts energetically defended against the princes 
 and kings of other countries the inheritance granted them by God, 
 always preserving inviolate their native liberty, at length your 
 predecessor. Pope Adrian (an Englishman not so much by origin 
 as by his state in life and affection) in the year of Our Lord 1170 
 upon the representations false and full of iniquity of Henry, 
 King of England (under whom, and perhaps, through whom 
 %t. Thomas of Canterbury in the same year suffered death, as 
 you know, in defence of Justice and the Church), made over de 
 facto the lordship of this kingdom of ours in a specific form of words 
 to the same (king), whom rather for the crime aforesaid he ought 
 to have deprived of his own kingdom. Our rights de jure were 
 utterly disregarded ; his leaning to the English— Ah the grief of it — 
 blinding the vision of the great Pontiff, and thus taking away from 
 us our royal honour without any culpability on our part, and with- 
 out any reasonable cause he delivered us over to be lacerated by 
 teeth more cruel than those of wild beasts, and those of us who 
 have unhappily escaped half-alive with torn flesh, the teeth of these 
 crafty foxes and ravening wolves have been forced down into the 
 abyss of a lamentable servitude. For ever since that time when 
 the English, on the occasion of the grant aforesaid, and under 
 an outward appearance of holiness and religion, nefariously entered 
 the borders of our kingdom they have been striving with all their 
 might, using all the arts of perfidy to completely exterminate 
 and tear up from the roots our people ; mendaciously asserting 
 
 '* Johannes de Fordun Scotichronicon III., 908 (condensed). A brief notice 
 of this letter will be found in the Oontinuaior of Bafoniua sub anno 1317. 
 
 The Scotichronicon was commenced by John of Fordun in the Mearns 
 and completed to the death of Barid I., 1153. Before dying he gave his 
 collected materials to Walter Bower, Abbot of Inch Colum, on a little island 
 in the Forth, who continued the History to the murder of James I. in 1436. 
 
 The years in the text are probably reckoned from the Incarnation, as in the 
 Annals of Ukler. 
 
THE CYMRO-FRANKISH ADVENXUKEES. 409 
 
 in the depth of their fury that we have no right to any free 
 dwelling-place in Ireland, but that the whole country belongs of 
 right to themselves alone. More than 50,000 have perished in 
 the wars since the coming of Henry, besides those who 
 have died from hunger or in dungeons. Now Henry promised, 
 as is contained in the said Bull, that he would extend the boundaries 
 of the Church, etc. (here follow the words of the LaudaUliter). 
 This promise has been violated in every instance. Some 
 cathedral churches have been plundered of a moiety and more 
 of their land ; our bishops are seized and imprisoned, yet though 
 suffering these outrages, constantly through slavish timidity they 
 do not bring them before your HoUness. So we shall be silent about 
 them. Instead of reforming they have corrupted the Irish by 
 their bad example, and deprived them of their laws (specific 
 cases are here mentioned). KilUng an Irishman is not mui'der, 
 and some of their religious assert that it is no more sin to kill an 
 Irishman than to kill a dog or any other brute animal. And some 
 of their monks affirm that if it should happen to than to kill an 
 Irishman they would not for this refrain from the celebration of 
 Mass for a single day. Accordingly what they preach in words 
 the monks of the Cistercian Order at Granard, in the diocese of 
 Armagh, undoubtedly put shamelessly in practice in deed. 
 And likewise the monks of the same Order at Inch, in the Diocese 
 of Down. For, appearing publicly in arms they attack and slay 
 the Irish, and yet celebrate their Masses nothwithstanding. 
 They {i.e., the Anglo-Normans) affirm that it is lawful for them 
 to take from us by force of arms our lands and property of every 
 kind, not considering this anything to trouble their con- 
 sciences even at the hour of death. It is those people, who by their 
 crafty, deceitful scheming have aUenated us from the kings of 
 England, hindering us, to the great injury of the king and kingdom, 
 from holding the lands rightfully ours in capita willingly from 
 them, and sowing between ourselves and these monarchs undying 
 discord in their unbridled lust for our territories. The yearly 
 denarius from each house has not, as everyone knows, been paid. 
 We sent forward a letter describing these outrages and abomin- 
 ations aforesaid to the king of England and his Council through 
 the Bishop of Ely, and made a courteous proposal that we should 
 hold our lands immediately from the king in capiie, according to the 
 conditions in the Bull of Adrian a full transcript of which we transmit 
 herewith ; or that he should, with the consent of both parties, 
 divide our lands according to some reasonable plan between us, 
 and thus avoid wholesale bloodshed. We have however, received 
 no answer to this application. Let no man then be surprised if 
 we are determined to save our Uves and defend the privileges of 
 our independence against these cruel tyrants and usurpers of 
 our rights. We are ready to prove om- statement by the evi- 
 dence of twelve Bishops and others and have invited Edward 
 Bruce to our aid and assistance.^S 
 
 »5 John XXII. was euthroned September 5, 1316. At Avignon on April 
 Ist 1317 by authority of Letters Patent of Edward II., dated Septeniber 16, 
 1316, the King's envoys, after stating that they had paid the cess of 1,000 marka 
 
410 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 On the 30th May, 1318 the Pope wrote from Avignon, 
 a letter of paternal advice to Henry urging him to redress 
 the grievances complained of, " that so the Irish people 
 following more wholesome counsels may render you the 
 obedience due to their dominus, or if, which heaven forbid, 
 they shall be disposed to persist in their foolish rebellion they 
 may convert their cause into a matter of open injustice, 
 while you stand excused before God and man." He enclosed 
 the letter of king Donald O'Neil, and the copy of " the grant 
 which Pope Adrian is said to have made to Henry, that he 
 might be satisfactorily enlightened on the aforesaid 
 grievances and complaints." 26 
 
 By an Act of Parliament, in 1467, after reciting 
 that " as our Holy Father Adrian, Pope of Rome, was 
 possessed of all the sovereignty of Ireland in his demesne 
 as of fee, in right of his Church of Rome, and with the intent 
 that vice should be subdued, had alienated the said land 
 to the king of England for a certain rent, etc., by which grant 
 the said subjects of Ireland owe their allegiance to the king 
 of England as their sovereign lord, as by the said Bull 
 appears," it was enacted "that all Archbishops and Bishops shall 
 
 for that year, acknowledged themselves bound to pay on hig behalf twenty-four 
 years' arrears of said cess (t.e., one-fourth of 27,000 marks) by four instal- 
 ments. — Theiner, 193. Seereta, torn. II., fol. 161. In the Boll Series, p. 443, 
 it is inaccurately stated that the envoys were sent to pray the Pope to forego 
 the payment of the arrears ; it should be " to excuse the non-payment of 
 them." 
 
 On 10th April 1317 a mandate was issued to judges not named to warn 
 brethren of the Mendicant Orders, Rectors, Vicars, and Chaplains who had 
 stirred up the Irish people against the king, and unless they ceased to 
 excommunicate them puoUoly. — Theiner, 194. Papal Letters, Bdlt Seriei 
 II., 435. 
 
 >* Joannes Episcopua etc. Eduardo Begi Angliee illustri Ecce fili, quasdam 
 reoepimus letteras. , . in quorum serie vidimus inter cetera continsri 
 quod cum felicis recordationis Adrianus Papa, predecessor noster sub certis 
 mods et forma distinctis, apertius in apostolicis litteris inde factis clare 
 memorie Henrico regi Angliee progenitori tuo dominium Ybernis concessit, 
 ipse rex et successores ipsius regis Anglise usque ad haeo tempera modum et 
 formam hujusmodi non servantes, quin immo eos transgredientes, indebite 
 diris affliotionibus et gravaminibus inauditia importabilium servitutum 
 oneribua et tyrannidibua inhumanis ipsos eo miserabilius et intolerabiliua 
 quo diutius oppressernnt. 
 
 Prescriptas litteras missas Cardinalibus antediotia cum anima (sic) formam 
 litterarnm quae prsediotus Adrianus predecessor noster eidem Henrico regi 
 Anglia da terra Ybernise concessisse dicitur continente turn magnitudini 
 mittimus presentibus interclusas. Datum Avinione III., Kal. Junii, Pontl- 
 ficatua nostri anno secundo. 
 
 Cum anima should, we suggest, read cum agnina (pelle) " with a fin* 
 (lambskin) parchment." The editor of th^ SoUa Series (Ed. IL, a.d. 318) 
 trans<ate8, " in a case." 
 
 See Theiner lion. Hib., p. 201.' Rolls Series, Papal Letter* //,, 4^0. 
 
THE CTMBO-FBANKISfl ADVENTURERS. 411 
 
 excommunicate all disobedient Irish subjects, and, if they 
 neglect to do so, they shall forfeit £ioo." ^7 
 
 In 1555, by a consistorial decree followed by a Bull, 
 Paul IV. on the humble supplication of Philip and Mary 
 " erected into a kingdom the island Hibernia, of which 
 from the time that the kings of England obtained the 
 dominium of it through the Apostolic See they had merely 
 called themselves lords {domini), without prejudice to the 
 rights of the Holy Roman Church or any other person claiming 
 to have right in it or to it." 28 
 
 The Bull then confers the Royal title and attributes, 
 rhis did not displace the over-lordship of Rome, if it existed. 
 The Bull was dehvered by the English Council to Dr. Carey ; 
 and copies of it were circulated through Ireland, as the Irish 
 asserted that the Donation from Adrian was forfeited 
 by Henry VIII. and his son Edward VI., when they renoimced 
 the Pope's spiritual and temporal authority. The Donation, 
 it forfeited, was in this way restored to its pristine efficacy. 
 In 1570 the Irish, through the Archbishop of Cashel, had 
 offered or were about to offer the kingship to Philip of 
 Spain. This project was communicated to the Pope by 
 Cardinal Alciato, who wrote to the Archbishop of Cashel, 
 on July 22nd, 1570 : " His Holiness was astonished that 
 anything of this kind should be attempted without his 
 authority, since it was easy to remember that the kingdom 
 of Ireland belonged to the dominion of the Church, was held 
 as a fief under it (ad eclesiae ditionem feudi nomine pertinere), 
 and could not, therefore, unless by the Pope, be subjected 
 to any new ruler. And the Pope, that the right of the Church 
 may be preserved as it should be, says, he will not give the letters 
 you ask ior the king of Spain (Philip). But if the king were 
 himself to ask for the fief of that kingdom, in my opinion the 
 Pope would not refuse." 29 
 
 The instructions to Rinnuccini, mentioned that Ireland 
 was an ancient possession of the Holy See, and that Henry II. 
 obtained from Adrian IV., himself an Englishman, with a 
 
 *» Parliament Roll 7th E. IV. (1467). The oldest Roll now in eiistenoe is 
 one of the 5th H. VL (H26). Hardiman Stat, of £t2£enny, p. 3, prints the 
 text of this statute. 
 
 »' Bidlarium I., Part V., p. 315 ; Baronius (Oontinuator), VoL 20, p. 301 ; 
 Lingard, Vol. V., 461. 
 
 ** Speeil. Ostot,, I., 69. Ed. Moran P. (Cardinal). 
 
412 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. 
 
 liberal hand all that he coveted.3o We forbear reference 
 to documents of minor importance. 
 
 " What is extraordinary," says Edmund Burke, " is that 
 for a very long time, even quite down to the Reformation, 
 and in the most solemn acts, the people of England founded 
 their title wholly on this grant (from Adrian). They called 
 for obedience from the people of Ireland not on principles of 
 subjection, but as mesne lords between them and the 
 Pope. " 31 
 
 In conclusion there is, in our judgment, no controverted 
 matter in history on which the weight of evidence inclines more 
 decisively to one side than on this of Adrian's Donation. We 
 have assigned the Weltpolitik of Rome as the main motive 
 for this grant. We must not, however, be understood to 
 exclude motives of a spiritual order. Eugenius III., Adrian 
 IV., Alexander III., and St. Bernard were, beyond all doubt, 
 influenced by considerations of the latter kind. The three 
 letters of Alexander in the Liber Scacarii, the authenticity 
 of which is not questioned, as well as the Lauddbiliter, which 
 is written in the same spirit, prove this conclusively. But 
 when the implications contained in these scripts are imfolded, 
 and the statements evolved confronted with the actual facts, 
 it would be wholly inadequate to describe them as merely 
 gross »xaggerations. 
 
 Rome distracted with internal troubles was misinformed 
 and ill-advised, and the Gael, who deserved a better fate, 
 were delivered into the hands of ruthless and rapacious 
 adventurers. 
 
 " Embassy in Ireland, Annie Ilutton (1S73), p.- zzriiu 
 " Tracts on the Popery Laws. 
 
[ *13 ] 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 LIST OF THE HIGH KINGS OF ERIN. D-ite of 
 
 Accession, 
 B.C. 
 
 1. EkeMON AND Eber ... ... ... ... 1700 
 
 2. Er. Muighne, Luighnb and Laighne ... ... 1683 
 
 3. Eb. NuadhatNbacht ... ... ... ... 1681 
 
 4. Ee. Irial Faidh ... ... ... ... 1680 
 
 5. Er. Etheeal ... ... ... ... ... 1670 
 
 6. Eb. Conmael... ... ... ... ... 1650 
 
 7. Er. Tighernmas reigned 77 years. Interregnum of 7 
 
 years ... ... ... ... ... 1620 
 
 8. Ith. Eocaidh Eadghadhach ... ... ... LiSSS 
 
 9. Ir. Sobhaerce and Oearmna Finn ... ... 1532 
 
 10. Eb. Eocaidh Faebharghlas ... ... ... 1492 
 
 11. Ee. FiACHA Labhrainne ... ... ... 1472 
 
 12. Eb. Eocaidh Mumhno ... ... ... ... 1448 
 
 13. Er. Akngus Olmucadha ... ... ... 1427 
 
 14. Eb. EnNA AlRGTHEACH ... >... ... ... 1409 
 
 15. Er. Roitheachtaigh ... ... ... ... 1382 
 
 16. Ib. Sedna ... ... ... ... ... 1357 
 
 17. Ih. FiACHA FlNSCOTHACH ... ... ... 1352 
 
 1 8. Eb. MuiNEMHON ... ... ... ... 1332 
 
 19. Eb. Faeldeaegdoid ... ... ... ... 1327 
 
 20. Ir. Ollamh Fodhla ... ... ... ... 1317 
 
 21. Ir. Pinnachta ... ... ... ... 1277 
 
 22. Ir. Slanoll ... ... ... ... ... 1257 
 
 23. Ir. Gedhe Ollghothach ... ... ... 1240 
 
 24. Ir. Fiacha Finnailches ... ... ... 1230 
 
 25. Ir. Bearnghal ... ... ... ... 1208 
 
 26. Ie. OiLiOLL ... ... ■•• ... ... 1196 
 
 27. Er. SiRNA Saeqlach reigned 150 years ! ... ... 1180 
 
 28. Eb. Roitheachtaigh ... ... ... ... 1030 
 
 29. Eb. Elim Oilfinshneachta ... ... ... 1023 
 
 yfoiE Er. = Eremonian, Eb. = Eberean. Ir. = Irian, Ith., Ithian. Joint 
 
 reigns are reckoned as one. A.M. 3500 is deemed =«■ 1.700 b.c. 
 
414 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 30. Er. Giallchaddh 
 
 31. Eb. Art Imleach 
 
 32. Er. NUADHAT FiNNPAIL ... 
 
 33. Eb. Brbas 
 
 34. Ith. EocaedhApthach... 
 
 35. Ir. Finn 
 
 36. Eb. SednaInnarradgh... 
 
 37. Eb. Simon Breac 
 
 38. Eb. Ddach Finn 
 
 39. Er. Muiredeach Bolorach 
 
 40. Eb. Enoa DEARa 
 
 41. Eb. Luohaidh Iardonn 
 
 42. Ib. Sirlamb ... 
 
 43. Eb. EochaidhUaircheas 
 
 44. Eb. Eocaidb Feadhmuine and Conaino 
 
 45. Eb. Ldghaidh Laimhdhearg 
 
 46. Er. CoNAiNG ... 
 
 47. Eb. Art 
 
 48. Er. FlACHA TOLQBACH ... 
 
 49. Eb. OiLiou. Finn 
 60. Eb. Eochaidh ... 
 
 51. Ib. Airqeatuhar 
 
 52. Er. DuachLadhgrach... 
 
 53. Eb. LcGHAiDH Laigbdhe 
 
 54. Ib. Aedb Edadb, Ditborba, and Cinnbaetb alter- 
 
 nately 70 years ... 
 
 55. Ik. Queen Macba MoNGRUADB ... 
 66. Eb. Keacbtaidh Bigbdbearo 
 
 57. Er, UgaineMor 
 
 58. Er. Laegbaire LoRC 
 
 59. Er. Cobbtbacb Gael BiiE.vGH 
 
 60. Er. Labbraidb LoiNGSEAcn 
 
 61. Ek. MeLGBB MOLBBTBACB 
 
 62. Eb.Modbcorb 
 
 63. Er. Aengbus Ollamb ... 
 
 64. Er. Irereo 
 
 65. Eb. Fearcoeb.. 
 
 66. Eb. CoiNLA Caemb 
 
 67. Er. OiLioLL Caisfbiaclacb 
 
 68. Eb. Abamair ... 
 
 Date of 
 Accession. 
 B.C. 
 
 1022 
 1013 
 1001 
 951 
 952 
 951 
 929 
 909 
 903 
 893 
 892 
 880 
 871 
 855 
 843 
 838 
 831 
 811 
 805 
 795 
 784 
 777 
 747 
 737 
 
 730 
 660 
 653 
 633 
 593 
 591 
 541 
 522 
 505 
 498 
 480 
 473 
 462 
 442 
 417 
 
LIST OF THE HIGH KINGS OF ERIN 415 
 
 Date of 
 Aocesaion. 
 B.C. 
 
 69. Eb. EOCHAIDH AlLTLEATHAN ... ... ... 413 
 
 70. Eb. FlBAHOHOB FORTAMHAIL ... ... ... 395 
 
 71. Ee. AeNGHUS TUIEMHEACH ... ... ... 384 
 
 72. Eb. CONALL COLLAMBBACH ... ... ... 325 
 
 73. Eb. NiA Skdhamain ... ... ... ... 319 
 
 74. Eb. Enna AiQHNEACH ... ... ... .. 312 
 
 75. Ee. Cbimhthann CosGEACH ... ... ... 292 
 
 76. Ib. Rudhbaighb ... ... ... 288 
 
 77. Eb. Innatmab ... ... ... ... ... 218 
 
 78. Ib. Bbeasal Boidhiobhadh ... ... ... 209 
 
 79. Eb. Lcghaidh Luaighnb ... ... ... 198 
 
 80. Ib. Congal Claeoineach ... ... ... lg3 
 
 81. Eb. Duach Dalta Deadhadh ... ... ... 168 
 
 82. Ie. Fachtna Fathach ... ... ... ... 158 
 
 83. Ee. Eochaidh Feidhleach ... ... ... 142 
 
 84. Eb. Eochaidh AiBEAMH ... ... ... 130 
 
 85. Eb. Ederscel ... ... ... ... 115 
 
 86. Eb. Nuadha Neacht ... ... ... ... HO 
 
 87. Eb. CoNAiBE MoE ... ... ... ... 109 
 
 88. Eb. LuGHiEDH Seiabh-ndeabo ... ... ... 34 
 
 89. Ee. CoNCHOBHAB Abhbadebuadh... ... ... 8 
 
 90. Eb. Cbimhthann Niadhnaeb. Birth of Christ in the 
 
 eighth year of his reign ... ... ... 7 
 
 A.D. 
 
 91. Caibbbe Cinnceat ... ... ... ... 10 
 
 92. Ee. FEABADHACH FllfNPEACHTNACH ... ... 15 
 
 93. Eb. Fiatach Finn ... ... ... ... 37 
 
 94. Eb. Fiacha Finnfolaidh ... ... ... 40 
 
 95. Ie. Elim ... ... ... ... ... 37 
 
 96. Eb. Tuathal Teachtmhab ... ... ... 76 
 
 97. Ib. Mal ... ... ... ... ... 107 
 
 98. Ee. Fbidhlimedh Rechtmhab ... ... ... Hi 
 
 99. Ee. Cathaeib Mob ... ... ... ... 120 
 
 100. Eb. Conn of the Hundbed Battles ... ... 123 
 
 101. Eb. CONAIBE, son of Mogh-Lamha ... ... ... 158 
 
 102. Ee.Abt Aenfib ... ... ... ... 166 
 
 103. Ith. Lughaidh, i.e., MacGon ... ... ... 196 
 
 104. Ee. Feabghus Daibhdeadach ... ... ... 226 
 
 105. Ee. CoBMAC MacAet ... ... .•• ... 227 
 
 106. Eb. Eochaidh Gonnat ... ... . - ... 267 
 
416 APPENDIX. 
 
 Date of 
 
 Accession. 
 A.D. 
 
 107. Er. CaIEBRB LlPPEAOHAIB ... ... ... 268 
 
 108. Ith. FoTHAD ... ... .., ,. ... 285 
 
 109. Ee. FiACHA Skaibhtine ... ... ... ... 286 
 
 110. Eb. CollaUais ... .., ... ... 323 
 
 111. Er. Muireadhach Tieeach ,.. ... ... 327 
 
 112. Ir. Caelbhadh ... ... ... ... 357 
 
 113. Er. EoCHAIDH MUIGHMHEADHOIN . ... ... 358 
 
 114. Eb. Crimthann ... ... ... ... 366 
 
 115. Ee. NiALL OP THE Nine Hostages ... ... 379 
 
 116. Ee. Dathi ... ... ... ... ... 405 
 
 117. Ee. Laeghaire ... ... ... ... 429 
 
 118. Er. Olioll Molt ... ... .. ... 459 
 
 1 19. LuQHAiDH MacLaeghaiee ^.. ... ... 479 
 
 THE UI NEILL (Eremonian). 
 
 120. Muircheartach (Eogan) ... ... ... 504 
 
 121. TuathalMaelgaebh (Caiebre) ... ... ... 528 
 
 122. DiAEMAiD (Ceimthann) ... ... ... ... 539 
 
 123. DoMHNALL AND Feaeghus (Eogan) ... ... 559 
 
 124. Eochaidh (Eogan) AND Baedo.>j ... ... ... 562 
 
 125. AiNMiEE (Gonall) ... ... ... ... 564 
 
 126. Baedon (Conall) ... ... ... ... 567 
 
 127. Abdh (Conall) ... ... ... ... 568 
 
 128. Aedh Slaine (Ceimthann) and Colman Rimidh 
 
 (Eogan) ... ... ... ... ... 595 
 
 129. Aedh Uaieidhnach (Eogan) ... ... ... 601 
 
 130. Maelcobha (Conall) ... ... ... ... 608 
 
 131. Scibhne Meann (Eogan) ... ... ... 611 
 
 132. DoMHNALL (Conall) ... ... ... ... 624 
 
 133. Conall Gael and Ceallach (Conall) ... ... 640 
 
 134. DiAEMAiD AND Blathmao (Ceimthann) ... ... 657 
 
 135. Seachnasaoh (Ceimthann) ... ... ... 665 
 
 136. Ckannfaeladh (Crimthann) ... ... ... 670 
 
 137. FiNNACHTA Fleadaoh (Ceimthann) .. ... 674 
 
 138. Loingseach (Ceimthann) ... .. ... 694 
 
 139. CoNGAL (Conall) ... ... .-. ... 702 
 
 140. Feaegiial (Eogan) .. ... .-. ■■- 709 
 
 141. Fogaetach (Ceimthann) ... ... ... 719 
 
 142. Cinaeth (Ceimthann) ... ... ... ... 720 
 
 NoTK. — Crimthann and Cairbre represent the Southern Ui NeiU Eogan, 
 
 •nd C!onaU the Northern Ui NeiU. 
 
LIST OF THE HIGH KINGS OF EKIN. 417 
 
 Date of 
 Accession. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 143. Flaithbheartach (Conall) .... ... ... 723 
 
 144. Aedh Allan (Eogan) ... ... ... ... 730 
 
 145. DoMHNALL (1st OF Clan Coleman) (Crimthann) ... 739 
 
 146. NiALL Feosaoh (Eogan) ... ... ... 759 
 
 147. DoNNCHADH (Crimthann) .., ... ... 766 
 
 148. Aedh OiRDNiDHE (Eogan) ... ... ... 793 
 
 149. CoNCHOBAR (Crimthann) ,, .... ... 798 
 
 150. NiALL Caille (Eogan) .. ... ... ... 818 
 
 151. Maelsbachlainn I. Cri.mthann) ... ... ... 845 
 
 152. Aedh Finnliath (Eogan) ... ... .. 861 
 
 153. Flann Sinna (Crimthann) ... ... .. 877 
 
 154. NiALL Glundubh (Eogan) ... ... ,. 916 
 
 155. Donnchadh (Crimthann) ... ... ... 918 
 
 156. Conghalach (Crimthann) ... ... ... 943 
 
 157. DoMHNALL (Eog.«s) ... ... ... ... 955 
 
 158. Maelseachlainn II. (Crimthann) ..- ... 979 
 
 159. Brian Boeu (Eber) ? - . ... .-, .. 1002 
 
ADDENDA.. 
 
 Thbrouannb. — There was a very old inscription in the 
 Cathedral of Durham. It ran as follows : — " Sanctus Andomarus 
 monachus episcopus." Taveenenses. — St. Omer, Monk Bishop 
 of Tavema, i.e., Therouanne. St. Omer was a monk from 
 Luxeuil, and Bishop of Therouanne, about A.D. 637. See Rites 
 of Durham, Ed. Canon Porster, 1903, p. 130, and supra p. 150. 
 
 Round Towers. — Gregorovius writes in his Tagebiicher [Eng. 
 trans. 1907, p. UOj^fromGenazzano (13 M. S. E. Tivoli), August 
 13th, 1861 : — " Explored the mountains as far as Mentorella. 
 The little rock crests of Rocca di Cova and Capronica are verj 
 striking. Each has a ruined fortress, a solitary round tower 
 surrounded by a wall. When its defenders could hold out no 
 longer, they retired into the tower, which has no doors. Tha 
 principal window was entered by means of a ladder." 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adanman 
 
 account of the exculpation of Columba at the Synod of Tailtin, 2uO. 
 Failbhe tells him he was present when Oswald related how Columba 
 appeared to him before the battle of Heavenfield, 355. 
 
 Adrian IV. 
 
 grants Ireland to Henry II. at the solicitation of John of 
 
 Salisbury, 385. 
 grant not Lauddbiliter ; form of suggested, 385 
 motive of grant to be sought in the Weltpolitik of the Roman 
 
 Curia, 386 
 text of Laudahiliter from the " Book of Leinster," and a translation 
 
 of it, 393 
 an examination and criticism of the text, 405 
 subsequent facts referring to, and confirmatory of, the donation, 
 
 408 
 
 AITHEACH TUATHA 
 
 not the Attacotti, 96 
 AGRICOLA 
 
 description of Erin of the Gael in, 37 
 
 AID AN 
 
 his mission and preaching, 356 
 
 " his course of life different from the slothfulness of our time.'' 
 
 ALEXANDER ffl. 
 
 his letter confirmatory, and three letters in the Liber Scacarii, 
 399, 406 
 
 AMBER 
 
 found in the North Sea, 32 
 
 AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS 
 
 describes the invasion of Britain by the Picts, Attacotti, and the 
 
 Scots, 117 
 quoted. 111, 113, 131, 139 
 
 Angueli Liber 
 
 defines the boundaries of the See of Armagh Entry as to Brian 
 Boru refers to, 176 
 ARBOIS DE JUBAINVILLE 
 
 on the " Nasad " of Lug at Lyons, 5 
 View as to the Battle of Moytura, 26 
 visits and describesEmmania, 58 
 
420 INDEX. 
 
 ARLETTA 
 
 mother of William the Conqueror, probably an Ethnic Celt, 113 
 ARDRIGH 
 
 I<ist of High Kings, 413 
 
 how chosen and mode of election, 224 
 
 Table showing they were selected by the tribe within the royal 
 
 stock, 245. 
 Go Freshahhraidh (with gainsaying), 246 
 history of, after the death of Maelseachlainn II. (1022) 388 
 
 Armagh, Book of 
 
 description of, 170 
 ARCHICLOCOS, Bury's view not accepted, 176 
 ARTHUR, the name Gaelic, 16 
 
 buried at Glastonbury, the finding of his remains, the enormous 
 size of his bones, 129 
 
 ATTACOTTI 
 
 the " Tuatha Cat " of Scotland, referred to by St Jerome in a 
 famous passage, 6 
 
 AUSONIUS 
 
 describes his villula, 135 
 Avienus 
 
 account of Hamilco's expedition, 35 
 Augustine, St. 
 
 Missionary labours in England, 353 
 
 estimate of Pelagius, 154 
 
 Bards (see Druids,) 205 
 
 their "pot of covetousness." Found an advocate in Columba at 
 
 Drumceat, 262 
 Bede 
 
 description of Erin, 1 
 
 describes how the Columban monks kept Easter, 357 
 
 how they were expelled from Ripon and the place given to 
 
 Wilfrid, 370 
 his letter (724) to Egbert, Archbishop of York — a dark picture of 
 
 spiritual decadence. 
 
 Bernard, St. 
 
 writes to Archbishop Theobald, formerly Abbot of Bee, 
 recommending John of Salisbury for immmediate promotion, 282; 
 
 BORLASE 
 
 Dolmens, description of, 9 
 views iis to Battle of Moytura, 24 
 
 BORUMA 
 
 Legend of the imposition of, 9 1 
 on Alba, rejected at Drumceat, 263 
 
INDEX. 421 
 
 BREHON LAW 
 
 Not written but transmitted orally, 212 
 The contents of the Brehon Law Tracts, 213 
 Provisions regarding education, 215 
 
 Judgment as to eric in the case of St. Patrick's charioteer, 217 
 The contents of the Senchus Mor as to tithes, etc., 219 
 BRIAN BORU 
 
 Brian and his brother Mahon retire before the Norsemen into the 
 
 fastnesses of North Clare and South Gal way, 293 
 The battle of Sulchoit (908) in which the Norsemen were 
 
 routed, 294 
 King of Munster on the death of Mahon, (976), 298 
 Peace of PuUoig^, (999) between him and Maelseachlainn, and 
 
 battle of Glenmama near Dunlavin, 298 
 Brian marries, first, the granddaughter of Clereach ex quo the 
 
 the Ui Clerigh ; second Dubhcobhtaigh, daughter of Cathal 
 
 O' Conor, King of Connact ; the story of his marriage, thirdly, 
 
 with Gormlaith, rejected, 299 
 his struggle to subdue the North, and circuit through it, 303 
 his title to be Ard High not admitted by the North. They did not 
 
 obey his summons to Clontarf, 304 
 The Battle of Clontarf in which Brian fell in " the counterblow " 
 
 of the fight, 305, 306, 307 
 his burial at Armagh, and an estimate of his character, 308 
 
 Brian 
 
 the eldest son of Eocaidh Muigmeadhon, ancestor of the Ui 
 Briain of Connact, 109 
 
 BOADICCEA OR BOUDICCA 
 
 Semble, the same as the gaelic boadach or buadach, victorious, des- 
 cribed and compared with Meve, 43 
 
 Bridget, St. 
 
 Fire of at Kildare — described by Giraldus, 195, 197 
 BRIGANTES 
 
 between the Humber andj the Clyde and in the South East of 
 
 Erin, 43 
 should probably be substituted for Gigantes, 137 
 
 BURGUNDY 
 
 geography of, complex, 148 
 CAMDEN 
 
 Displacement of the Gaelic Monks from Glastonbury by Dunstan, 
 126 
 
 Gairbre Cinnceat 
 
 rising of the Fir- Voice, 91 
 CARINNA 
 
 mother of Niall of^the Nine Hostages, a Saxon, 110 
 
422 INDEX. 
 
 CASSIAN 
 
 his life and labours, 145 
 
 builds the monastery of St. Victor at Marseilles, 410 (c) 
 Bull of Benedict IX. on its re-dedioation, 145 
 Monastic system described by Ruffi, 146 
 
 CATHRAIGE 
 
 the Tuaiha Cat found from Caithness to Inis Cathraige, no-w 
 Scattery Island, 4, 5 
 
 CEARBHALL 
 
 of Ossory, probably King of the Norsemen of Dublin from 872 to 
 
 888, 277 
 referred to in the Land-nama-hoc, 278 
 
 CELTS 
 
 an intrusive wedge in the centre of France — ^language of, Semble, 
 
 spread to tribes north and south of them, 4 
 supposed to have brought the custom of incineration from the 
 
 East, 8 
 in forefront of civilization during the Hallstadt period, 50 
 took possession of the valleys of the Po, the Danube, the Loire, 
 
 the Mame, and the Seine ; never came to Erin, 51 
 characteristics of the Celtic or Alpine stock, 421 
 
 CHURCH, EARLY 
 
 organisation of, 314 
 
 The congahala (habitations) consisted of (1) a church, teach mor, 
 (2) cuile, room and kitchen in one, and (3) an aregal or embyro 
 round tower, or " fire-house," 315 
 the teach na teinidh in Innismurray, 315 
 the round towers, 316, 417 
 the pastoral work of the Congahala not done from the monastic 
 
 centres, 316 
 the dioceses, territorial not tribal, 317 
 
 amounted to about 50, and were reduced to 26 at the Synod 
 of Rathbrasail. The catalogue of the Saints, text and trans- 
 lation, 320, 322. 
 some observations on the catalogue, 324 
 the question of the non-canonization of the Irish Saints considered, 
 
 325 
 the Bollandist view as to " canonizing in groups " should be re- 
 considered, 314 
 the Irish always added, " whose names were written in Heaven," 325 
 the Rev. T. Olden's view as to the Consortia Mulierum, 328; the 
 Church obedient to Rome not only in doctrine but in discipline, 
 363 
 CHRISTIANITY 
 
 in Erin, before St. Patrick, 207 
 CBttBAETH, AEDH RUADH, AND DITHORBA 
 reigns of, 61 
 
INDEX. 423 
 
 COLEMAN, BISHOP 
 
 collects his treasures, i.e., the bones of Aidan, and tramps to lona, 279 
 COLLAS, THE THREE 
 
 invade Ulster, bum Emmania, and drive the Clanna Rury into 
 
 Ulidia, and make the " Danes Cast." 
 COLUMBA, ST. 
 
 not the cause of the battle of Cuildreimhne and two other battles 258, 
 the correct translation of ro la ind eirhe n druadh dara cend (note), 259 
 exculpated at the Synod of Tailten, as stated by Adamnan, 263 
 acts as a peacemaker at the convention of Drumceat, 575, 262 
 the story of his copying of the Psalter of St. Finnen furtively, and 
 
 the award of Diarmaid, 264 
 he sails to Alba and takes possession of lona, some details, 349 
 founds twenty-one " houses " among the Picts and thirty-two among 
 
 the Scots of Alba, 350 
 he appears to Oswald before the battle of Heavenfield and bids 
 
 him, " Be of good ch^er and play the man, you shall return 
 
 victorious," 355 
 
 COLUMBANUS-f-615 
 
 Letters to Gregory and Boniface; seeks guidance from the Pope (1) 
 on the Paschal question ; (2) on holding communion with 
 (a) Simoniacal bishops ; (6) those who had been promoted to 
 be bishops after violating the rule as to celibacy whilst deacons, 
 364 
 
 the bishops intercept his letters, and accuse him of keeping Easter 
 with the Jews, 365 
 
 enumeration of Columban foundations from Luxeuil, 365 
 
 " Columbanus sowed ; Benedict reaped," 366 
 
 The Condominium established in Columban houses, 366 
 
 COLUMBAN MONKS 
 
 the teaching of the nations by, 345 
 
 what Columba and his disciples at lona were like, their founda- 
 tions in Scotland, 349 
 their labours in Germany, summarised by a German priest, 350 
 the evangelization of England mainly due to them, 353 
 
 CONN OF THE HUNDRED BATTLES 
 
 defeats Cathaoir Mor, 123, A.D., 93 
 table of his descendants, 95 
 
 CONSTANTINE 
 
 Donation of a forgery, 380 
 
 the famous " island clause " textually, 381 
 
 CORMAC MAC ART 
 
 his " teaching of a king," 98 
 
 CORMAC MAC CUILLENAIN , ^ , ^ 
 
 bishop of Cashel and king of Munster, killed at the battle of Belach 
 Mughna, near Carlow (908), 282 
 
424 INDEX. 
 
 COROTICUS 
 
 epistle to, not genuine, excluded by the Early Church, 166, 170 
 CRIMTHANN 
 
 statement that he was poisoned by his sister, Mong Finn, dis- 
 cussed, 114 
 foreign conquests of, 119 
 CRIMTHANN NIA NAIR 
 
 his poem, 98 
 CROM CRUAICH or CROM DUBH 
 idol of at Magh Slecht, 29 
 like the idol of Moloch at Carthage, 3 1 
 CUCHULAINN 
 
 derivation of name (note), 73 
 CUELLAR 
 
 extract from letter to Philip II. of Spain (Oct., 4, 1589) describing 
 habits and mode of life of the Irish, 344 
 DA DERGA 
 
 hostel of, and the togail or destruction of, the subject of a spirited 
 poem, " Conary," by Ferguson, 87 
 DATHI 
 
 succeeds Niall, and marches to the Alps (Cevennes) to avenge his 
 death, 117 
 DAVIS, SIR J. 
 
 disposed at first to make freeholders, 230 
 
 letter to Salisbury, describing the state of Fermanagh, 1616, 232 
 
 O'Brislan's Roll of duties due to Maguire, 234 
 
 obtains resolution of judges erroneously, describing the Irish tenure 
 
 as Gavelkind, 237 
 Chichester's Proclamation of Amnesty, 1604, 231 
 Gavelkind unknown in Ireland until the Penal Laws, 236 
 Tanistry, case of considered, 238 
 letter to Salisbury, Nov., 11, 1606, " the Chief Justice and I now 
 
 find the occupiers are freeholders," 239 
 his overtures that these inferior freeholds are vested in the Crown, 
 
 and that informations of intrusion should be preferred, 240 
 letter to Salisbury, Sept., 24, 1610, 231 
 
 " I held the occupiers were not freeholders, but had only a scramb- 
 ling or transitory possession," 244 
 policy of confiscation substituted for that of making freeholders, 
 
 241 
 large grants of confiscated lands to Chichester and Davis, 243 
 massacre of 1641, the outcome of his chicanery, 243 
 DEARBHFORGAIL 
 
 44 years of age in 1152, the year of the supposed elopement, 312 
 
 the evidence as to sifted, 313 
 
 died near Mellifont in her 85th year (1193), 313 
 
IKDEX. 425 
 
 DEDANNAN 
 
 Tuatha Dedannan, not mythological beings, 27 
 
 DEIRDRE 
 
 sorrowful tale of, 66 
 her farewell to Alba, 68 
 
 DESJABDINS, M. 
 
 gives the variants of Taruanna, 150 
 
 DIODORUS SICULUS 
 
 quotation from, describing the idol worship of Moloch at Carthage, 31 
 
 DOLMENS 
 
 building of in Erin and abroad, 7, 8 
 distribution of, and Borlase's view, 10 
 
 Dowden, J., Bishop, 
 
 his view as to the form of the Gaelic tonsure, sustained, 209 
 
 DRUIDS 
 
 word connected with dru, a tree, 200 
 
 magic trees in Erin, the mountain ash, the hazel, the yew, and the 
 
 blackthorn, 200 
 draoidheaot meant wizardry ; the Gaelic druids wizards not priests 
 references to by Cicero, Timagenes and Ammianiis, 201 
 Caesar's account ; what he says of the German true of the Gael, 203 
 no human sacrifices in Erin as in Gaul, 203 
 no evidence that Drxiidism passed from Britain to Gaul, 203 
 
 DUNLANG 
 
 the massacre of the maidens at Tara, 92 
 
 EASTER 
 
 some necessary details about the Paschal controversy, 358 
 
 Easter day defined, 360 
 
 the method of computing Easter explained (note), 360 
 
 the celebration of Easter on the 14th moon, being Svmday, instead 
 
 of waiting until the following Sunday was the Gaelic use, 360 
 The only diiFerence that could arise from this was that the Gaelic 
 
 Easter might be the Roman Palm Sunday once or twice in a 
 
 century, 361 
 charged with keeping Easter with the Jews, i.e, the Quartodeciman 
 
 heresy, 361-2 
 
 EARLS, THE 
 
 causes of the flight of, 243 
 
 10,000 pounds reward to the man who should kill the Earl of 
 Tyrone and escape, 241 
 
 " Services of this kind (i.e., assassination) unto princes were 
 commonly most obligatory when done without their know- 
 ledge." Sir H. Wotton, Ambassador at Venice, 243 
 
426 INDEX. 
 
 ELOI, ST. (EUgius) 588-659, A.D. 
 
 founds Solignao invthe suburbium of Limoges — way of life at 
 Luxeuil to be followed. Rules of Colmnba and Benedict to be 
 observed, 187 
 enumeration of heathenish practices like those in Erin, 188 
 
 ERIN-ERIU 
 
 derivation of the name, 1 
 
 political divisions of, at various times, generally fivefold, 62 
 
 description of by Beds and others 
 
 situated between Britain and Spain (Tacitus) 36 
 
 Paleololithic man did not come to, 2 
 
 Neolithic inhabitants of came from Southern France, and built 
 
 the Dolmens, 3 
 The ethnic Celts of Central France never came to ; legends as to 
 
 first four " occupations " (Gabala) of, 14-38 
 The fifth occupation was by the Gael, 4-39 
 Chronology of our texts and of Sacred Annals (popular view) 
 
 tables of, 20 
 At the coming of St. Patrick the formation of a strong central 
 
 government seemed probable, 246 
 the population then conjectured to be 850,000, 246 
 
 EUROPEAN 
 
 Racial Table, 21-44 
 
 FERDOMNACH 
 
 the "Book of Armagh" in his handwriting, 170 
 
 FIACC'S HYMN 
 
 Statement as to birth place of St. Patrick, 149 
 
 Fiaehra 
 
 second son of Eooaid Muighmheadon, ancestor of the Ui Briain of 
 Connact, 109 
 
 FINN MAC CUMHAIL 
 
 the story of his parentage, 99 
 his marriage with Graine, 100 
 the Fianna of Erin, 101 
 
 FIRBIS, MAC 
 
 his observations on race characteristics, 44 
 
 FIRE, THE CELESTIAL 
 
 Production of — the tene eigen, i.e., forced fire in Erin, 191 
 the fire of St. Bridget, 195 
 
 Flann 
 
 of the monastery, his synchronisms, 16 
 Fodla Ollamh, 57 
 Freppel, C. E., bishop of Angers ; his canons of sound criticism, 143 
 
INDEX. 427 
 
 GAEL 
 
 the coming of, 39 
 
 first arrivals of, said to have come from the North of Spain, 49 
 
 pedigrees of, traced to the three sons of Golamh (the soldier) or to 
 
 his nephe-w, Ith, 41, 96 
 how placed on the land in B.C. 750, 51 
 not ethnic Celts, but belong to the Nordic race, fulfil all the 
 
 conditions laid down by Deniker, 44, 48 
 Regnal years Of the kings of the four lines, 52 
 description of their conquests in Wales, etc, 117 
 religion of, before the reception of the Faith, the religion of the 
 
 Celestial Fire, 185 
 European racial types, 42 
 Cephalic indexes and height, etc, 47, 48 
 
 Gall-Gael 
 
 The sea-divided Gael or foreigners resident in Erin, 272 
 
 GAELIC OATH 
 
 oldest forms of, 189 
 
 Gasquet, Abbot 
 
 describes the Columban rule as one of great severity, and inferior 
 in practical sense to the Benedictine, 187 
 
 Germanus 
 
 Bishop of Auxerre, 147 
 
 and Lupus, mission to Wales against Pelagians, 156 
 
 Glastonbury of the Gael, 
 
 position of described, 123 
 
 name derived from Gaelic " inis glais duinn" — ^island of the brown 
 
 river, 122 
 The vetusta ecclesia there a Church of St. Patrick, and so described in 
 
 the Charters of Ina and Baldrid, 124 
 an island called Little Erin (Beg Eriu) with a chapel of St. 
 
 Bridget on it there, 125 
 Columban monks there displaced for Benedictines — Camden's 
 
 account of, 126 
 the finding of Arthur's remains there, enormous size of his bones, 121 
 
 GUINEVERE 
 
 the wife of Arthur (? Finnabhair), finding of her remains 
 GOLL MAC MORNA 
 
 the head of the Firvolcic Fianna in Connact, 102 
 
 GRAVES, BISHOP 
 
 service, in fixing the date of the " Book of Armagh," 171 
 
 HALLSTADT 
 
 the capital of Celtic civilization during the Hallstadt period, 
 850-600 B.C., 50 
 
428 INDEX. 
 
 HALM 
 
 amendment of passage in Agricola, suggested by, 37 
 
 HAVERFIELD 
 
 succinct account by, in Poole's Historical Atlas, agrees with article 
 in Edinburgh Review as to the duration of the Roman occupa- 
 tion of Southern Scotland, 151 
 
 HERICUS 
 
 states that St. Patrick studied under Germanus, 1 48 
 
 HOGAN, E. 
 
 the Irish wolf-dog, 139 
 
 the Irish people, their height, form, and strength, 47 
 
 Honoratus, St. 
 
 founded monastery at Lerins, now St. Honorat, 410 A.D., became 
 Metropolitan of Aries and died 428 A.D., 147 
 
 ITALIA 
 
 meaning of an official language after Diocletian, 141 
 JEROME, ST. 
 
 refers to Attacotti in a famous passage, 6 
 
 describes the irruption of the barbarians into Gaul, in 406 A.D., 131 
 
 refers to Pelagius, 154 
 
 JOCELYN 
 
 a French Cistercian from Furness, his falsifications of tradition, 183 
 
 LAOGHAIRE 
 
 tells St. Patrick that Niall did not permit him to believe, 207 
 his conversion, 208 
 
 LIA FAIL 
 
 the stone of destiny, 252 
 
 removed from Tara to Scotland, and now in Westminster Abbey, 256 
 
 MAGH RATH (Moira) 
 
 battle of (637), 167 
 MAGH SLECHT 
 
 worship of Crom Cruaich, a Semitic cult there, 29 
 
 MAELSEACHLAINN U. + 1022, defeats Norsemen at Tara, (980), 296 
 
 proclamation of the famous rising, 296 
 
 his doings for the first 1 4 years of his reign, applies in vain to the 
 
 Northern TJi Neil to assist him against Brian, and then 
 
 submits, 301 
 not guilty of treachery at Clontarf, 307 
 resumes Ardrighship after Clontarf, 310 
 defeat of Norse at, had no political result of immediate importance, 
 
 extracts to prove this, 310 
 
INDEX. 429 
 
 MATILDA, Countess of Tuscany 
 
 Second Cartula of donation by act inter vivos, not a will, made at 
 
 Canossa in 1102, 384 
 her first Cartula destroyed during scenes of anarchy in Rome in 
 
 11th and 12th centuries (note), 384 
 Medbh (Meve) 
 
 queen of Oonnact, contemporary with Cleopatra the original, semble, 
 
 of Spenser's Queen Mab, 64 
 invasion of Ulster by, 75 
 
 MEYER, KUNO 
 
 his translation of the poems on Magh Slecht, 95 
 MONKS 
 
 early history of monasticism and dates of the foundations of prin- 
 cipal monasteries, 330 
 
 testimony of Cassian as to the discipline at Tabenna, 333 
 
 testimony of Sozomen, a lawyer, that it was the monks who kept the 
 people free from the Arian heresy, 334 
 
 observations on monastic rules, requisites of an adequate and com- 
 prehensive rule, 334 
 
 St. Basil's rule unrivalled for richness, variety and culture, and was 
 used by St. Columba, 335 
 
 St. Basil's rule compared with St. Benedict's, 336 
 
 the Benedictine use as to the dedication of boys under age compared 
 with the Gaelic use and that of St. Basil, 338 
 
 legal difficulties in the way of an open profession of a vow of casitas, 
 and the subjection of the monasteries to central control, 339 
 
 the imperial government made regulations concerning the monas- 
 teries, 340 
 
 the " use of Lerins " in the rule of Csesarius brought to Erin, 341 
 
 the ascetical writings of Columbanus, 342 
 
 the rule as to food prescribing only one meal at sundown the same 
 as the usage in secular life, 343 
 
 the " use " as regards food at lona according to Adamnan, 344 
 
 MOMNI—" furthest of men," 132 
 history of, by Malbrancq, 157 
 
 MUIGHMHEADON, EOCAID (Mweevaeon), 
 
 king of Connact and afterwards Ardrigh, 109 
 married Mong Finn, sixth in descent from Olioll Olum, 109 
 died at Tara and was succeeded by Mong Finn's brother, Crim- 
 thann, 113 
 
 MUIR N'ICHT 
 
 Meaning of " icht " : meant the supposed channel between Erin 
 and France, 119 
 MUIRCHERTACH of the Leather Cloaks 
 
 his circuit of Erin, described by Cormacan Eigeas ( -t- 948), 284 
 slain in a battle near Ardee, (948), 286 
 
430 INDEX. 
 
 MXJIRCU 
 
 wrote his selections under the direction of Aedh, bishop of Sletty, 
 
 173 
 the author's, and Todd's and Barry's, translations of his Preface, 174 
 his story of the saint carrying the fawn, 183 
 
 Northmen 
 
 invasion of divisible into two periods, 268 
 
 details as to first period, (795-845,) 269, 273 
 
 story as to the sovereignty of Turgesius, unsupported by evidence, 
 
 271 
 details as to second period, ,(845-1014,) 273 
 Dubhgall cannot mean people of the dark type, 273 
 nature and extent of their occupation, 274 
 Ardrigh, during time of, exercised his sovereign rights as usual, 275 
 
 NIALL GLUNDUBH 
 
 led the Northern and Southern Ui Neil to the aid of the men of 
 Leinster and Munster, but was defeated at the battle of 
 Kihnashogue, near Rathfamham (917), by the Northmen, 282 
 
 NIALL OF THE NINE HOSTAGES, 
 
 the fifth son of Eocaid Muighmheadon and Carinna, a Saxon, born 
 
 out of wedlock, 110 
 description of, 45 
 
 became Ardrigh, with the assent of his half-brothers, 115 
 the slaying of Niall in France, 116 
 
 NOINDEN ULAD 
 
 the meaning of, 77 
 
 NORTHMEN 
 
 the most serious part of the raidiags by, was the taking of captives, 
 289 
 
 learning and literature flourish during the 9th and 10th centuries. 
 289 
 
 their position in the latter half of the 10th century, 290 
 
 bardic account of in the "War of the Gael with the Gaill," con- 
 sidered, 292 
 
 O'HANLON, CANON 
 
 places Magh Slecht near Feenagh, in Leitrim, 29 
 
 O'SULLIVAN, PHILIP 
 
 says voyage from Kinsale to France took scarcely more than two 
 days, and to Spain three days, 139 
 
 oism 
 
 commands the Clanna Baoisgne at the battle of Gabhra, near the 
 Hill of Skreen (284 a.d.), Caoilte and he said to have been the 
 sole survivors on his side, 106 
 
INDEX. 431 
 
 OTWAY, C^SAR 
 
 describes how a storm drove great waves over Tory Island, 17 
 
 PALLADIUS 
 
 the first bishop sent to the Gael, Patrick the first bishop sent for 
 them, 156 
 
 PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS 
 
 in the " Book of Armagh,'" what they are, 173 
 the collections in the " Book of Armagh " to be preferred to those 
 of a later date, 181 
 
 PATRICK, St. 
 
 the coming of, 131 
 
 Patrician dates of birth, death, suggested (note), 131 
 
 (his birthplace was in a rural district (vicus), belonging to the civitas 
 
 of Taruanna, now Therouannein France). 
 Taruanna, derived from tor, dbhann (pronounced ouann), the fenced 
 
 town of the river (Lys), and equates with Nem-thor (note), 
 
 133 
 Teruenna, Taverna, Teruenta, variants of Tabernia, 150, 417 
 his capture, slavery with Milchu, and escape to Foclut — The route 
 
 taken (note), 138 
 his journey through the three Gauls into the province and the 
 
 islands, 140 
 makes his first theological studies at Lerins, now St. Honorat, 
 
 146-178 
 Studies next under St. Germanus, 148 
 his call to be the apostle of Erin, 152 
 bis sojourn with the Britons, 153 
 suggested position of the Britons, 
 ■ordained by Pope Celestiae, 148 
 Bury's view not adopted (note). 175 
 
 was the unnamed bishop referred to by Prosper of Acquitaine, 160 
 Adlatus bishop of the Morini, Malbrancq's history, 160 
 why the Confession does not refer to the Roman mission, 162 
 the saint's account of his labours in Ireland, 164 
 Legends and traditions respecting, 170 
 The Books (Libri) or Epistles of the saint, 166 
 The Epistle to Ooroticus not genuine, and its rejection by the early 
 
 Church, 168 
 Bury's view that it was omitted from the "Book of Armagh" 
 
 because the Scribe " scamped his work " not adopted, (note) 
 
 167 
 died on the 17th March, 493, 131, 165, 179, 
 absurd charge, that he stole several relics at Rome, and that he 
 
 stole them with the connivance of the Pope considered, 181 
 Zimmer's untruthful statement that the saint admitted he had 
 
 committed adultery in his 16th year exposed, 181 
 
432 INDEX 
 
 PELAGIUS 
 
 the errors of his followers, 154 
 
 Semi Pelagians, 165 
 
 Some views of, probably reached Erin, 211 
 
 POLYBIUS 
 
 quoted for old-old saying. "Fortune only lends her favours to 
 Nations," 128 
 
 PHCENICIANS 
 
 went to the North Sea for amber, but did not enter the Baltic 
 
 Sea, 33 
 took tin from the Cassiteridea, which lay to the north of Gallicia 
 
 in Spain, 33 
 Hamilco, the Carthagenian, sails to Erin ; account of by 
 
 Avienus, 35 
 from them Marianus and Ptolemy derived their knowledge of 
 
 Erin, 36 
 
 POTfflER, E. 
 
 gives the route of the ethnic Celts from the East, 8 
 
 PROSPER OF ACQUITAINE. 
 
 quotation from " De Providentia" ascribed to him, 141 
 from his chronicle, 154 
 
 from the Contra GoUatorem, the Bishop therein referred to was St. 
 Patrick, 161 
 
 Red Branch Knights 
 
 the standard of a yellow lion on a ground of green satin, 267 
 
 ROUND TOWERS 
 
 origin of from firehouse of Pagans, continued in the aregal of St 
 Patrick, 316, 417 
 
 Rudraidh the Great 
 
 ancestor of the Clanna Rury, 68 
 Salisbury, John of 
 
 strong letter from St. Bernard, recommending him for immediate- 
 promotion, to Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, formerly 
 Abbot of Bee, 382 
 
 states in the Metalogicus "at my solicitation he, i.e., Pope 
 Adrian IV., Hibernia to Henry II. granted" 382 
 
 the letter of investiture then mentioned by him not the famous 
 Laudahiliter, 285 
 
 SOLDI, M. EMILE 
 
 seeks in " La Langue Sacrfee " to solve the mystery of the cup. 
 
 markings, 7 
 these a prayer for resurrection, in the Cosmoglyphic language, 12 
 
 TACITUS 
 
 text of relating to Hibernia from the /Toletan MS., 37 
 
INDEX. 433 
 
 TAIN BO CUAILNGE 
 
 meaning of the words, 74 
 
 analysis of legends regarding, 74 
 
 Senchan Torpeist assembled the bards to recover text, and St, 
 
 Eaeran wrote it down from the lips of Fergus MacRoy, 79 
 the fight with Ferdiad, the most famous episode in the Tain, 
 
 extracts from it in translation, 80 
 
 TARA 
 
 suggested derivation of the word, 52 
 
 position of, 247 
 
 desertion of, not caused by the curse of St. Ruadhan, 265 
 
 TIGHERNMAS 
 
 reign of ; dies with three-fourths of the men of Erin of the plague, 
 
 at Magh Slecht, 55 
 The story may well be doubted, 56 
 
 TIGHERNACH 
 
 Annals of ; monumenta inncerta ; meaning of : not uncertain but 
 unsettled, 59 
 
 TIRECHAN 
 
 the text a piece of literary joinery, 176 
 
 TONSURE 
 
 Gaelic form of, 209 
 
 TRIBAL CUSTOMS 
 
 in Wales and Erin, 220 
 the Four Hearths, 221 
 the Eric fine, 223 
 the Honour Price List, 225 
 the tribal occupier and Sir J. Davis, 226 
 occupation compared with German, 227 
 the " taking of stock," indicating, tenure, 229 
 the ownership of the land was in the tribe, 229 
 policy of Henry VIII. to " settle " the land and make " fi.'ee- 
 holders," 230 
 
 Ua Cannanain Ruadhri 
 
 slain in the " counterblow " of the battle of Maine Brocain, in 
 Meath, in which he defeated the foreigners, with the loss of 
 6,000 (948), 286 
 
 UI CLERIGH 
 
 The chief of the Four Masters gives the computations of the Septua- 
 
 gint, 20 
 expulsion of, from Donegal, during the Ulster confiscations, and 
 
 settlement of at Foile Clerigh (Clery's Rock) on the borders 
 
 of Limerick (note), 
 two of the kindred on the Grand Jury who found true bills against 
 
 the Earls (note). 111 
 
434 INDEX 
 
 WILFRID, ST. 
 
 his birth and life, by Eddius, 367 
 his education at Idndisfame, 367 
 his stay at Lyons. Delphinus, then Archbishop there, oflFered him 
 
 his niece to wife, 
 returns to England after the death of Delphinus, 367 
 tlie Paschal Cycle of Dionysius and the bogus canon, 368 
 expulsion of the Columban monks from Ripon, 369 
 is ordained priest by Agilbert, a transitory bishop, against the 
 
 Canon law, 363 
 the Synod at Whitby (664) got up by Wilfrid's zeal, assisted by 
 
 Agilbert, 371 
 the accounts given by Eddius, a contemporary official record of the 
 
 Benedictine Order, adopted as trustworthy, 372 
 the strictures of Dr. M'Carthy, P.P., on Wilfrid, 374 
 after the Synod goes to France to be consecrated, and is received 
 
 with triumphal honours by the French bishops, 375 
 baptism by compulsion, and the story of the boy carried ofiF from 
 
 his parents, 375 
 Bishop Chad reordained through all the ecclesiastical orders, 376 
 rules the Diocese of Northumbria from 668 to 678, 377 
 Etheldreda, the wife of King Egfrid, receives the veil from Wilfrid, 
 
 and he receives from her lands at Hexham, 12 miles long and 6 
 
 miles broad, 377 
 after her profession as a religious, Egfrid marries again in her life- 
 time, 377 
 his quarrel with Ermenburga, Egfrid's second wife ; his expulsion 
 
 and appeal to Rome, which was in the main successful, 378 
 at the Synod on Widd near Ripon, (705) allowed to retain the 
 
 small See of Hexham and the Abbey of Ripon, 378 
 his distribution by will of his gold and his silver and his precious 
 
 stones, 378 
 his death (700), and his epitaph which refers to the bogus canon, 378 
 
 VICTOR 
 
 confused with Viotoricus, the Apostle of the Marini, 153 
 
 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 
 
 without denying the overlordship of the Pope, refuses to take the 
 feudal oath (fidelitatem), 386 
 
 WINDISCH, E. 
 
 his splendid edition of the Tain referred to (note), 74 
 
 ZIMMER 
 
 his omission in reference to the name Arthur noticed (note), 16 
 
 his extraordinary statement about St. Patrick, 181 
 
 his views hasty and ill-considered on the Pelagian question, 211