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When Agricola in the fifth year of his British campaign (A.D. 82) "manned with troops that part of the British coast which faces Hibernia, with a forward policy in view," [1] the fate of Ireland, for good or ill, hung in the balance. Wherever the Roman arms made themselves felt, wherever by conquest or colonization Imperial law, religion, ideas, extended themselves, there followed as an inevitable consequence the profound modification, if not the extinction, of the native habits of life, and mythology. Ireland for many hundreds of years fell under no such yoke as that imposed by the Roman rule in Britain and Gaul. In spite of the Roman general's belief that "with one legion and a fair contingent of irregulars Hibernia could be overpowered and held," he never set foot upon her shores; for seven centuries after Agricola's day no important attempt was made by any outside power to subdue and colonize Ireland. Set apart by the surrounding ocean from the overwhelming catastrophes that overtook Europe after the fall of Rome, Ireland was left undisturbed to work out her own destiny. In Gaul and Britain, with the dying out of the native tongue and the adoption of a debased form of Latin, the native records, oral or written, were to a great extent lost; our knowledge of the customs, traditions, and beliefs of these countries, except for a few inscriptions and monuments, is derived solely from the observations of the conquerors.

[1] Tacitus, Agricola, xxiv.

In Ireland, on the other hand, thanks to its exemption from Roman dominion and the preservation of the native tongue, a mass of traditions, which were later preserved in writing, remain. Most of them have come down to us in the form of stories connected with special districts and relating to personages some of whom appear to have had an actual existence in history, and they are so full of detail as to habits, dress, and ways of life that we can form from them a clear idea of social conditions in Ireland at a time before history proper can be said to begin. They supply the most complete record of a civilization during the pre-Christian period preserved by any European nation north of the Alps. They claim to represent the life of the first century of the Christian era and onward; and the results arrived at by archaeology serve to confirm the truth of this tradition. Some of the ornaments described in the tales, for instance, are known to have ceased to be worn elsewhere within the first century of our era; and, though this does not preclude the possibility that in a country so remote from the general current of European influences as Ireland was they may have continued to be worn until a later period, it does tend to prove that the extant descriptions date from a period when these ornaments were still familiar to the story-tellers. Such are the beautiful brooches of the La Tène period and especially the leaf-shaped fibulae found in Ireland, descriptions of which occur as part of the dress of heroes in the Cuchulain tales; in Britain and Gaul, where they were also worn, they fell into disuse before the close of the first century. Though not nearly so common as the penannular brooch, with the circle pierced by a long pin, of which the Tara brooch is the best-known example, six specimens of the fibula have been found, three having been discovered at Emain Macha or Navan Rath, the centre of the Cuchulain tales in which these descriptions occur. It is evident that the bards who recited these stories, and possibly those who first committed them to writing, must have seen such brooches actually in use, otherwise they could not have been so accurately described.

The earliest tales of Ireland are partly concerned with mythological personages who seem to have been regarded as deities, known as the Tuatha De Danann, and partly with the doings of a group of heroic men and women, of whom the hero Cuchulain is the central figure. The chief centre of the group was Emain Macha in Ulster. In this district the outlines of forts, burial-places, and chariot-paths may still be seen, and the neighbourhood still retains old names and traditions corresponding to the legends as we have them written down in manuscripts of the tenth and eleventh centuries. The same may be said of the neighbourhood of Rath Cruachan, now Croghan, in Connacht, which is the centre of a similar group of Connacht traditions. In general the tales relate to an ancient struggle for pre-eminence between Ulster and Connacht, which was then ruled by a queen named Meave (Medhbh) as formidable as the British warrior-queen Boadicea (Boudicca). She is said to have gathered to the contest the "Four Great Fifths"or provinces into which Ireland was then divided and to have invaded Ulster, primarily to regain possession of a famous bull, but actually to assert the authority of Connacht and the South over that of the North. The incidents and fights into which the war resolved itself, in which her chosen warriors fought in single combat the champion of Ulster, Cuchulain, form a long and varied story. The Táin bó Cualnge is the chief epic of early Ireland.

There has been much dispute as to how the early division into five provinces was made. According to an old tradition, the first partition was carried out in the time of the Firbolg, one of the pre-Gaelic peoples of Ireland, and was later confirmed by the Milesians (or Clann Mileadh), the last invaders of ancient Ireland. According to this division Ireland consisted of Leinster, Connacht, Ulster, and two divisions of Munster. At the date of the Cuchulain or Ulster cycle of tales the monarch of Ireland, Eochaidh Feidhlioch (pronounced Yohee Feiloch), the father of Queen Meave of Connacht, redistributed the country in exactly the same way; which was, as Keating says, "the most permanent division ever made in Ireland." [2] This was also the tradition related to Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis) when he came to Ireland with Henry II. Professor Eoin MacNeill gives prominence to the Leinster tradition, which divided Leinster, instead of Munster, into two sections, and included Tara in the northern half, but this division was probably only temporary. [3] The erection of Meath into a separate province was only accomplished, according to an old belief, in the reign of Toole the Legitimate (Tuathal Teachtmhar), who reigned for thirty years at the end of the first and beginning of the second century. The local sept were the Luighne of Tara, a branch of a family of the same name settled in the Sligo district. At the close of the Ulster cycle we find the reigning king, Cairbre Nia Fear, giving his name to the territory of Meath as "Cairbre's Fifth" or Province, and disposing of part of his inheritance by gift to Conor (Conchubhar), King of Ulster, in return for the hand of his daughter in marriage. But from the earliest times the kings of Tara would seem to have exercised some undefined superiority over the provincial princes, and the repartition of the provinces by Eochaidh while monarch of Ireland shows that this right was submitted to and recognized. But all these ancient traditions must be received with caution. It was to the interest of each province to claim for itself the glory of having given High-kings to Tara, and the local writers did their best to give expression to these provincial aspirations. From an historical point of view little reliance can be placed on them.

[2] Keating, History of Ireland, ed. P. S. Dinneen (Irish Texts Society), 1, 107, 109, 185. There is a comparatively late cycle of tales dealing with Eochaidh, which may reflect the ideas of later days about the High-kingship.

[3] Phases of Irish History. Professor MacNeill does not give references; but has argument seems to be founded on the late composite Leinster text, Cath Ruis na Ríg, ed. E. Hogan, pp. 23 seq., which has been copied by Keating.

As time went on frequent changes took place. The early Ulster stories place the centre of the Northern power in the eastern portion of the province, with Emain Macha as its chief seat of authority. The chief incidents in the stories occur in parts of the present counties of Louth, then called Murthemne or Cuchulain's country, which was included in Ulster, and in Armagh, Down, and Antrim. Western Ulster takes no part. But during the Norse period the centre of power has swung west, and we find the princes of Ulster reigning from Aileach, five miles north-west of Derry in Co. Donegal, where a great fort is still to be seen.

In Tudor times the large part of Ulster west of the Bann was in the hands of the two powerful families of the O'Neills and O'Donnells, with their underlords or "Urraghs." The O'Neills occupied Tir-Eoghan or Tyrone, which then comprised, besides the present county of this name, the whole of Derry north to Lough Swilly, while the principality of the O'Donnells occupied Tir-Connell or Donegal.

The other provinces underwent similar changes. Munster, in Norse times, was divided between the Eoghanachts with Cashel as their capital, and the Dalcais or Dalcassians under the great family of the O'Briens, who made their chief seat at Kincora, near Killaloe on the Shannon, the succession to the kingship of Munster alternating between the two families. But later the province was partitioned into North Munster or Thomond, ruled by the O'Briens, which sometimes included Tipperary, Clare, and part of Limerick, sometimes only Clare; and South Munster or Desmond, which extended over Kerry, Cork, Waterford, and the south of Limerick. Co. Clare seems by geographical position to belong naturally to Connacht, and it passed back to that province about 1579 during the viceroyalty of Sir Henry Sidney, though the Earls of Thomond resisted the change.

The chief business of each province was transacted at public assemblies, to which people from all parts of the province congregated and to which merchants, native and foreign, brought their wares for sale. At these meetings laws were promulgated, the genealogies and provincial records rectified, and decisions come to by the brehons. Games and horse-racing formed part of the recreations of the assembly, and they may have had a religious significance. At the time of the marking out of the territory of Meath several of the sites where these gatherings (aonach) were accustomed to be held were brought within the limits of the central province, and forts were built beside them for protection. The meetings seem to have been connected with the quarterly festivals, for the assembly of Tlachtgha met with sacrificial rites at the beginning of winter (samhain), and that of Usneach at the beginning of summer (bealtaine). At the assembly of Taillte, held at the beginning of August (lughnassa), the marriages of the young people were arranged by their parents for the year, the men keeping themselves apart on one side and the girls on the other, while the arrangements were talked over and contracts made. Contracts for service seem also to have been part of the business of the fairs.

Originally these festivals had been the provincial assemblies of the separate provinces of Munster, Connacht, and Ulster, but they seem to have assumed a more general character with the readjustment of the provinces to form the new province of Meath. Ossory or Southern Leinster retained its own important fair of Carmen, which was divided into three parts, "a market of food, a market of live stock, and a great market of foreign goods." It is said to have been attended by Greeks, bartering gold and splendid clothing. One slope was given up to racing, another to cooking, and a third to women employed in making embroideries. The preliminary public business of law-giving and the execution of justice being disposed of, debts having been settled, arrests and distraints composed, and horse-racing tricks reprimanded, the company gave themselves over to gaiety and buying, while jugglers, bone-men, fiddlers, pipers, and masked actors carried on their trades in one part, and storytellers related the ever-fresh Fenian tales of destructions, cattle-preys, and courtships to crowds who never wearied of hearing them. [4]

[4] O'Curry, Manners and Customs, iii, App., 523-547.

These annual or triennial festivals served the purpose of keeping all parts of a province in touch. They were meeting-places for friends from a distance, and probably, like the still existing 'pardons' of Brittany, they had a religious purpose. Each was established on the site of the burial-place of some ancient female deity, and no doubt arose out of celebrations organized in her honour, with sacrifices and ceremonies which kept alive the cult. [5]

[5] Keating, History of Ireland, ii, 245-253.

The assembly or feis of Tara was the most important of all these meetings. It met once in three years in times of peace, and was attended by representatives of all the provinces. It was a sign of unusual disturbance if it were omitted. There the laws were promulgated or recited and rectified, annals and records added to, and genealogies brought up to date. It formed the central authority for the whole country, and was the main symbol of union between the provincial kingships. Men of rank attended it from all parts of Ireland, each captain of a band of warriors being followed by a shield-bearer. The monarch of Ireland or Aird-Rí presided, and banquets of great ceremony were held, each guest having his appointed place arranged beforehand according to rank and marked by the hanging of the owner's shield behind the seat he was to occupy. The women were provided for in a separate chamber, just as they had separate portions of the ground set apart for them at the fairs. The trumpet sounded three times as the guests entered and took their seats, each under his own shield. In the time of Cormac mac Art these assemblies were solemnized with great splendour; the dress of the king and his nobles being described as magnificent. That these old descriptions are substantially correct is rendered probable by the beauty of the ornaments actually recovered, such as finely decorated brooches, torques or waist-belts, rings and collars, all of which must have been worn by persons of rank. [6] Very fine examples of inlaid or chased bronze scabbards have also been found. Sickles and reaping-hooks for cutting rushes or reaping corn show that the custom was to cut the ears of the grain, which was then frequently stored in underground granaries for safety in times of turmoil. The cultivation of wheat was so general that it is referred to as a standard of value; barley was grown for malt; and ale was drunk, as well as mead, from early times.

[6] Armstrong, Catalogue of Gold Ornaments, National Museum, Dublin; W. Ridgeway, Date of the Cuchulain Saga; Macalister, Ireland in Pre-Celtic Times (1921); G. Coffey, The Bronze Age in Ireland; and cf. article on "The Distribution of Gold Lunulae in Ireland," in Proceedings of the Royal lrish Academy, vol. xxvii, Section C.

The High-kingship of Cormac mac Art in the third century may be accepted as historical; it represents the climax of the power of the kings of Tara in pre-Christian times. His reign is the centre of a number of stories pointing to the magnificence of his Court and the extent of his influence, but so many of the legends surrounding him are clearly folktales, that the whole tradition must be treated with reserve. It, however, incorporates one certainly historical fact, that of the dispersion of the clan of the Deisi, who migrated from Meath to the south of Ireland and to South Wales about this time. It is possible that at one time Connacht occupied a similar position of eminence to that which Tara obtained in Cormac's reign, for the pre-Christian kings of Ireland were buried at Clonmacnois, where the monastery of St. Ciaran was afterward built. From early times this seems to have been a sacred spot.

Tara itself was undoubtedly a religious centre before becoming the political headquarters of the High-king, and the rites with which the king was initiated point to a religious sanction for his election, and also to the belief that in his person he represented a divine idea. Though he was possessed of special privileges his life could hardly have been a happy one, for he was encompassed with taboos (geasa) which he dare not break without forfeit of his life or good fortune, and omens accompanied his every action. His existence must have been hampered at every point by ancient regulations. All Irish kings were subject to these restrictions, but they accumulated about the person of the king of Tara, as being the superior ruler, and a semi-divine personage. [7]

[7] Book of Rights, ed. O'Donovan, xlii-xlviii, 2-25; Folklore, March 1901; R. A. S. Macalister, "Tara" in P.R.I.A. vol. xxxiv, Section C, No. 10.

How the election of a king of Tara was carried out is not clear. The choice was probably in the hands of representatives from the different provinces, but it had to be ratified by certain ancient omens, such as the crying out of the Lia Fail, or "Stone of Destiny," when he stood upon it. Such omens were probably worked, as in other primitive societies, by the priests or Druids. The election of the provincial kings was also accompanied by curious and, to us, sometimes repugnant ceremonies, which continued in the native parts of the country up to a late date. Each king had his fixed retinue of officers of the household—his bards, law-givers, story-tellers, porters, stewards, and military body-guard, who attended to the regulation of the royal precincts, and to the arming or provisioning of the household. [8]

[8] Kilkenny Archaeological Journal, vol. ii.

If any uncertainty as to the succession existed the aid of soothsayers seems to have been resorted to. These men, after incantations, proclaimed the successor in a dream or ecstasy. In such a case as the election of King Conaire, the person indicated by them was quite unexpected by the electors. In the choice of Lugaidh of the Red Stripes a Convention of the Four Provinces of Ireland was held, attended by princes from all parts of Ireland, and this may have been the ordinary procedure. [9]

[9] Dá Derga, ed. Wh. Stokes, pp. 14, 17; Hull, Cuchulain Saga, pp. 231-32.

The inauguration ceremonies varied in different parts of the country. They took place on special hills or under ancient trees of great size, consecrated by time and tradition to this use. Though Keating and other Irish historians contest the truth of the old accounts, they are undoubtedly not imaginary, for they correspond closely to those of many peoples in a similar stage of progress. Some of the rites, such as that of handing to the newly elected chief a white rod as a symbol of the justice that ought to attend his rule, are of a solemn and suggestive character. A high standard of moral rectitude was set before the king, and such precepts as the following were laid down for him by his instructors. They are an appeal to the old wisdom of the fathers. "Speak not haughtily Mock not, insult not, deride not the old. Make no demands that cannot be met...Let not prescription close on illegal possession...Let the heir be established in his lawful patrimony; let strangers be driven out by force of arms. Do not sacrifice justice to the passions of men." [10]

[10] Instructions of King Cormac mac Art, R.I.A. Todd Lect., vol. xv.

In historical times elections were made in a more regular manner. The election was by popular vote and was taken at a mound (dumha), where the electors assembled and recorded their decision by shout or proclamation. The claimant had to be of the ruling family, and he was "the best of the noble heroes in knowledge, true learning and princely honour." If the election was disputed, both claimants appeared richly attired and armed, and when the decision was made the chief nobles placed their hands in his in token of fealty and placed the royal diadem (mind-righ) round his head, giving thanks to God for sending him. They then gave hostages for fidelity to the newly made king. Such an election is recorded of Callachan, King of Cashel, in the tenth century. [11]

[11] Caithreim Callachan Caisil, ed. A. Bugge, p 61.

Disputes and consequent wars for the succession were of constant occurrence. Primogeniture was not recognized, and sons born out of wedlock were equally eligible with the legitimate sons. The claimant was seldom the son of the late chief, but usually a cousin or nephew, chosen within certain family limits [12] for his position or capability. Though this system was good in theory, as being directed to the selection of the strongest candidate, the uncertainty with which elections were attended led to perpetual family feuds, murders, and mutilations, in order to get rid of possible rivals, a mutilated man being incapable of holding the princely office. This gave rise to the system of 'tanistry' in later times, by which the incoming chief was chosen during the lifetime of the reigning king, and thus secured the recognition of the sept, with the hope of a peaceful succession. But even this did not always secure the end in view; and the question of the succession of the Irish princes was one of those crucial points on which the English and Irish differed seriously throughout the Tudor period.

[12] Eoin MacNeill, Celtic Ireland, pp. 114-143

For centuries, from the date of the battle of Ocha (483) in the reign of Laery, we find the High-kingship of Tara held by the line of the Northern and Southern Hy-Neill in regular and alternate succession; but after the death of Malaughlan II (1022) it was seized by the O'Lochlans, a branch of the same house, and held by them in contest with the O'Conors of Connacht, one of whom, Roderick O'Conor, was in power at the date of the Anglo-Norman invasion. Once before, in the reign of Dathi (d. 428), Connacht had been the superior power, but only for a short interval. Munster had never placed a king in the royal seat until Brian wrenched the sceptre from Malaughlan II and reigned till his death at Clontarf; his son was sometimes reckoned as his successor. But through centuries, Ulster held, almost undisputed, the supreme power.

The old tales and laws present us with a picture of a warlike people whose children were trained from their boyhood to the use of arms, the sons of chieftains being admitted to knighthood at the age of seven and girded with miniature weapons suited to their age. This custom was continued up to a late period, for when the four provincial kings, O'Neill of Ulster, O'Conor of Connacht, MacMorrogh of Leinster, and O'Brien of Thomond, were invited to Dublin to meet King Richard II and offered English knighthood, they replied that they had been knighted when they were seven years of age. The little spears put into the hands of the young aspirant to knighthood were not empty symbols; they were intended to test his expertness in the actual implements of warfare which he would be called upon to use in after life, war being considered as the natural activity of the vigorous man.

Instruction in horsemanship, hurley, swimming, and shooting was given at an early age even to sons of the smaller chiefs, while children of the lower ranks were taught the care and herding of lambs and calves, kids and young pigs, kiln-drying, combing wool and wood-cutting; girls learned the use of the quern for grinding corn, and also kneading, dyeing, and weaving. They afterward took a large part in the work and superintendence of the farm and agriculture. Girls of high rank were trained in sewing, cutting out, and embroideries. The fine needlework of the Irish women was famous. The 'Raven-banner' of Earl Sigurd the Stout of Orkney, carried by him at Clontarf, which spread out in the wind like a flying bird, had been wrought for him by his Irish mother, a daughter of King Carroll (Cearbhal) of Ossory; and one of the prettiest pictures from old Irish romance is that of Emer, daughter of Forgall, seated in the pleasure-ground before her father's fort at Lusk, teaching the daughters of the neighbouring farmers fine needlework and embroidery.

Children of high rank were brought up and taught by foster-parents, fosterage forming among the Irish and Scotch Gaels the most enduring and the closest tie, as it was the most perfect expression of the unity of the clan as one family. From the son of the chief downward, every child of the higher ranks was nurtured by a family of a lower class. This formed an indissoluble bond of affection and a sure foundation of mutual sympathy between members of the clan. The chieftain who had been brought up in a farmer's family and had passed the first seventeen years of his life among his children had a knowledge of the conditions of life among his own retainers and a sense of their needs such as could have been gained in no other way. On the other side, the love of the foster-parents for their foster-children exceeded the affection which they bestowed upon their own offspring, and the families who fostered the chiefs felt for them a passionate affection. It was a bond at once sane and romantic, and it was seldom broken through life. The foster-son was bound to aid or support his foster-parents in old age or poverty just as much as the fosterer was bound to train and instruct him in youth. The obligations and the affection were mutual. The laws of fosterage were rigorously laid down; the fosterling's food, his clothes, his instruction, his payments, being all regulated by law. The child went provided with suits of clothes according to his rank; satin and scarlet, with silver on the scabbards and brass rings on the hurling-sticks, and brooches of gold for the sons of kings; plain black and white or saffron woollens for the humblest grades. Each child had to bring at least two suits of clothes, one new and one worn, the children of the highest chiefs wearing two colours every day and new clothes of two colours every Sunday, embroidered with gold and silver; the richness and variety of the colours worn corresponding to the rank of the wearer. They probably wore tartans.

The food of the poor child was 'stirabout' with salt butter; the higher-born child ate the same, but it was made with new milk and wheaten meal, while the sons of kings had fresh butter and honey. Chess-playing, the chief recreation of the higher classes in Ireland from the earliest times, was taught to boys of these classes along with more solid occupations. Girls paid a larger fosterage fee than boys, as being less useful to their foster-parents, but less was expected from them by way of return. The girl was of full age at fourteen years, the boy at seventeen; but if he were a king's son he was presented with a horse at seven. It was the duty of his tutor to instruct him fully in preparation for his degree, and to chastise him without undue severity. [13]

[13] Ancient Laws of Ireland, 11, pp. 147-103, 349.

The old laws show that the position of women in early Ireland was legally high, and the position of the 'wife of equal rank' where the marriage was made with the full consent of both parties was a good one. It carried with it equal rights between the husband and wife. Each owned the property—lands and household stuff and cattle—brought in at marriage, and both retained their rights over their own share, all family decisions about the children being made by mutual consent. In cases of separation, which had to be open and public, the woman took away with her all that she had contributed to the marriage stock. In law their word was equal, the evidence of the woman being equally admissible and equally valid with that of the man. Wedding gifts were divided, one-third going to the woman and two-thirds to the man, but the man, not the woman, paid the dowry. The wife received a stipulated share of all profits on farming or industry carried on by her; and, as the care of the farm as well as of wool and cloth-weaving, dyeing, malting, and similar pursuits, seems to have been in her hands, this must have amounted to a considerable regular income in the case of large farming operations. If she had been "a great worker" during her married life she was entitled on separation to one-ninth of the increase. [14] All women might give presents to their poor neighbours out of their separate property, and the woman might entertain half the company allowed to her husband. In the absence of her husband she could make contracts or reclaim debts. If she failed to enforce a debt there was a curious provision by which the contending parties might make "a lawful combat with their distaffs and comb-bags" in the presence of their guardians. The elaborate provisions relating to separated couples show that separation was frequent. A variety of other connexions besides regular marriage between men and women are provided for, the woman who bore sons having always a superior claim to the sonless woman. "The woman of equal rank, and the first wife with sons and without sons, and the adulteress with sons, these four women may give their own 'honour-price' in excess (of the actual debt) in presence of their husbands or in their absence, in loan and in lending at interest, in bargains and contracts. The adulteress without sons shall not give, in the absence of the man, anything but a hook and a distaff and such implements; and she shall not give in his presence anything but what her partner may order." [15] The power to exact an 'honour-price' in case of injury received showed that the aggrieved person held a position of dignity recognized by the clan. The ordinary sufferer from an injury could only exact compensation for the actual injury done him; but the man or woman of position claimed, over and above this, an extra compensation equivalent to their rank, rising by stages until it reached the 'honour-price' of the chief. If the culprit failed to pay the due compensation, it fell to his relatives to pay it, or in the last resort to the chief. Fines were regulated and debts reclaimed by the laws of ' distress ' which form a very large part of the Irish 'customary law.' [16] They were paid, as a rule, in cattle, which were driven into the village pound and retained there until the debt was discharged. Only persons of the lowest class, who owned no property that could be used to repay a debt, were imprisoned. Such a man was fettered or chained about the neck and fed on the smallest possible amount of food until the chief compelled him to do his duty. [17]

[14] Ibid , p. 391.

[15] Anc. Laws, ii, 379, 387.

[16] Ibid., i, 85 seq.

[17] Ibid., i, 105-7.

The descriptions of the dress of high-born women, as well as of kings, and of their utensils are of the most elaborate kind. Eochaidh, King of Ireland, is said to have seen Etain "at the edge of a well with a bright comb of silver adorned with gold, washing in a silver basin wherein were four golden birds and little bright gems of purple carbuncle in the rims of the basin. Her mantle folded and purple, a beautiful cloak with silvery fringes and a brooch of fairest gold. Her kirtle long, hooded, of green silk with red embroidery of gold. Marvellous clasps of gold and silver in the kirtle on her breasts and shoulders. On her head two golden-yellow tresses, each plaited in four locks, with a bead at the point of each lock. The hue of her hair seemed like the flower of the iris in summer, or like red gold after the burnishing." [18]

[18] Togail Bruidne Da Derga, ed. Wh. Stokes, p. 6.

The wide cloak, reaching to the knees or the feet, was common to all classes and periods and served many purposes, but a short cape with hood and tight-fitting jerkin with kilt were also worn. The linen undergarment was loose and thickly pleated and usually dyed saffron-colour.

Weapons were the broad sword, used for a downward stroke, spears and javelins of many kinds, and large bronze, hide, or wooden shields. Warriors fought from chariots, some of which were scythed like those of the Britons. Chiefs and charioteers were experts in the management of the horses, as they became in later times in horsemanship, when riding took the place of the chariot. Irish feats of skill in springing on to running horses, riding without saddle, and executing feats of agility on horseback were recorded with wonder by many visitors to the country, and horsemanship is still a passion in Ireland. Chariots were the usual means of entering into battle up to the seventh century, and decorated bronze bits have been discovered in Co. Mayo, adorned with late Celtic designs. Battles were, in the main, a series of single combats, ending with a general engagement. The duels were frequently fought in streams on the borders of territories, and a stranger was challenged in passing from one province to another by the warrior appointed to watch the ford.

One chief cause of wars was the raid for cattle, in which, along with personal and household goods, the wealth of a tribe consisted. Position depended upon the number of herds and flocks possessed by a tribesman, and there was an elaborate system by which cattle were loaned out by the chief or by large owners to those who needed them, in return for services rendered. According to the amount obtained, the borrower took a higher or lower place in the community, and rendered heavier or lighter service. It would appear that these middlemen were the 'Brugaid' or 'Bruigfer' of whom we hear as occupying large farms, which also acted as inns or houses of hospitality for wayfarers at central points along the main roads.

From the earliest times of which we have any record the inhabitants of Ireland were a Gaelic-speaking race, though it is not to be inferred that this language was aboriginal. At least for 1500 years the Celtic tongues have been spoken only in the extreme west of Europe—in Ireland, and the west of Scotland, the Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany. They once had a wider range, but were pushed west by the spread of Roman culture and of the Latin language and by the Teutonic tribes who invaded the western half of the Empire and brought about its fall. It was probably from the mountain zone of Central Europe that the Celtic tongues spread over to the west. These people lived in pile-dwellings and were not given to movement.

Of the earliest inhabitants of the Celtic lands we know little with certainty. The latest researches in ethnology suggest the conclusion that the earliest race of which remains have been found in Ireland was a short, dark, and long-headed people, correlated with the Mediterranean European stock, who maintained intercourse with their brethren over the sea. Their blood, however, was not quite pure, and remains of individuals of alien racial character have also been found. These people are assigned to the late Stone (Neolithic) and Early Bronze Ages; they were the builders of the dolmens, or cromlechs, whose structures remain over an area extending from Japan, India, and Syria, along the north coast of Africa, and round by Spain, France, Holland, and Denmark, besides Cornwall, Wales, and Ireland. This race has given to Wales, Scotland, and Ireland the majority of their small brunette inhabitants. The wide distribution of their monuments would suggest a seafaring people, coasting along the shores, for the larger number of the dolmens are near the coast. They must have had a solemn cult of the dead; no one who has visited the great tombs of New Grange or Dowth on the banks of the Boyne, or who has seen the impressive alignments and the massive menhirs, or standing stones, at Carnac in Brittany, can fail to feel the reality of their belief in some form of worship connected with the dead.

These people were traders and workers in metal—copper, tin, and gold; and long before the arrival of the conquering race of tall, fair-haired people, who became dominant over many parts of Ireland, they were working gold in Wicklow and exporting, among other articles, the beautiful gold lunulae, or crescent-shaped neck ornaments, which have been found in Denmark, the north of France, Belgium, and Germany, in Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland, and in great numbers in Ireland itself. History has no beginning, and more than a thousand years before Christ traders may have been exchanging their wares along the Mediterranean shores, by way of Sicily, Spain, and Ireland, and so north to the Baltic.

At a period which is supposed not to be older than between 350-400 B.C. a new race came to Ireland. These were a tall race of fair-haired people, who brought with them the use of iron, and their arrival in Ireland marks there the beginning of the Iron Age. A people of Nordic origin, they came from the north of Europe. They were much like the Northmen and Normans, who in later days were to dispute with them the supremacy in Ireland, forerunners perhaps of the vikings who were to pour into Ireland in the ninth and tenth centuries. Being equipped with better weapons, they conquered [19] and assured domination over the original inhabitants, who probably differed from them, not only in race, but in religion and language; and, though there is no reason to think that the older peoples were inferior in courage and skill to their conquerors, the new-comers oppressed them as slaves and enacted laws to prevent intermarriage between the conquered and the conquerors. The old inhabitants seem to have sunk into the 'unfree communities' (daer-chlanna) or serfs; they had no rights, being despised by the ruling race as inferiors and reduced to servile ways of making a livelihood. [20]

[19] R. A. S. Macalister, Ireland in Pre-Celtic Times (1921). Cf. G. Fletcher, Ireland, pp. 82-94; H. J. E. Peake, The Bronze Age and the Celtic World;, H. J. Fleure, The Races of England and Wales; G. Coffey, Bronze Age in Ireland.

[20] For the castes in Irish society see Ancient Laws of Ireland, vol. iv.

The earlier Mediterranean people seem to have had a matriarchal form of life and government, memories of which lingered on in the tradition that the provincial assemblies, such as those of Tara and Taillte were founded in commemoration of famous women, and were held in celebration of their burial-feasts. War and learning were alike presided over by women-goddesses; there was a group of three war-goddesses, Morigan (or Neman), Macha, and Badb; another group, collectively called Brigit, presided over poetry and art. The cult of fairies and of well, stream, and forest spirits, and perhaps also the worship of animals, seems to belong to the most primitive forms of belief, and was widespread; but attempts to analyse the different strata of ancient beliefs can at present only be conjectural.

The old Irish traditions of origin, which describe the arrival in the country of a succession of peoples called the race of Partholan, the sons of Nemhed, the Firbolg, and the Milesians or children of Mileadh, are not to be regarded as having an historical basis. The actual facts of ethnology do not support these myths. But they in a general way indicate the early belief in the existence of races older than the dominant fair-haired, tall people of historic times, who were known as Milesians. The old legends describe the earlier race, called the Firbolg, as a small dark people who were despised by the conquering Milesians; they were supposed to be possessed of every evil trait of character. To the newer and superior race the Firbolg were as truly "meere Irish" as the Gaelic speaker was in later days to the speaker of English, and he was despised accordingly.

A body of people, known as the Erainn, seem to have been dominant in Munster and to have emigrated from the north of Kerry into Co. Antrim, while portions of the same communities are found in Connacht and Meath. These people have been thought to have given their name to the country, but this derivation is very doubtful. [21] They may have been scattered fragments of a population more widely spread in ancient times. Ptolemy, writing about A.D. 150, speaks of Brigantes in South-eastern Ireland similar to the inhabitants in the north of Roman Britain of the same name, and of Manapii on the coast of Wexford, whose name associates them with the Belgic people on the Continent. More important were the Cruithne or Picts, whom we meet in historical times occupying the whole of Scotland north of the Forth to the Orkneys, as well as the islands of Skye and Lewis. In Ireland they peopled the parts of Eastern Ulster, now known as Cos. Down and Antrim. Tradition gives them a much wider area; they seem to have occupied large parts of the present counties of Armagh, Tyrone, Derry, and Fermanagh. It would seem likely that they were once the dominant race in Ireland as in Scotland, although no trace of their language remains in Ireland. In Scotland there are a number of place-names which retain the word, such as Clais-nan-Cruitneachad, "Hollow of the Picts," in Sutherland; Carnan Cruitneachad, "Cairns of the Picts," in Ross; and Cruitneachan or "Pict's places" in Inverness. [22] The constant Irish tradition is that they passed over from Ireland to Scotland.

[21] Dr Pokorny suggests Ever as the true base of the name, which the Romans changed into Hibernia from the Iverni of Ptolemy.

[22] A. B. Scott, The Pictish Nation, People and Church (1918).

In early Christian days several well-known teachers from the North of Ireland went over to teach Christianity to these Pictish peoples of Scotland. St Finnbarr, Abbot of Moville, in Co. Down, St Moluag of Bangor in the same county, SS Comgall and Cainnech or Kenneth, the companions of St Columcille, were all north of Ireland Picts, who made their home among the Picts of Scotland; dedications to them are found all over Pictland. Another headquarters of Pictish missions was St. Ninian's "White House" in Galloway, then also a Pictish district. The descent of the Picts and Scots on Northern Britain in the latter part of the fourth century was probably the result of a combination of the Northern Picts of Ireland with those of Caledonia. The link of race would make the two peoples natural allies. Roman, British, and Saxon records alike confirm the accounts of the Irish chronicles as to the onslaught made upon Britain by the Picts and Scots or Irish. Ammianus Marcellinus says: "At that time the trumpet, as it were, gave signals for war throughout the Roman world...The Picts, Scots, Saxons, and Atticotti harassed the Britons with incessant invasions." Later he tells us that Theodosius had been sent to Britain to drive back the Picts from the gates of London. [23] Gildas writes that Britain groaned in amazement under the cruelty of two foreign nations, the Scots from the north-west and the Picts from the north. "The Britons abandoned their cities and the protection of the wall, dispersing in flight, and the enemy pursued them with unrelenting cruelty, butchering our countrymen like sheep." Bede tells us that they came at two intervals, being checked for a time by the return of the Roman troops at the appeal of the Britons and by the building of the second wall between the Forth and Clyde, to endeavour to push the invaders back into the mountainous parts of Britain. In this they appear to have been unsuccessful.

[23] Ammianus, xx, xxvi-xxviii; Gibbon, iii, 44-46 (Bury, 5th ed.)

The Irish annals place these events in the reigns of Crimthan (Criffan) the Great, who "gained victories and obtained sway in Alba [Scotland], Britain and France," and in that of his successor, Niall of the Nine Hostages, who reigned from 379 to 405. "The power of the Cruithne [Picts] and of the Gaels advanced into the heart of Britain and drove the inhabitants to the Tyne. Their power increased over Britain, so that it became heavier than the Roman tribute, because the aim of the northern Cruithne and Gaels was the total expulsion out of their lands." [24]

[24] The Irish Version of Nennius, ed. J. H. Todd (Irish Archaeological Society, 1848), p. 73.

It was into an almost solid Pictish population that, near the close of the fifth century, Fergus the Great, son of Erc, with his brothers, Loarn (Lome) and Angus, passed over with a body of followers from Dalriada in Ulster (now Co. Antrim) into Argyllshire, and made a settlement there. The title of Lome is still retained in the family of the Dukes of Argyll as that of their eldest sons. Their new home, then called Alba, henceforth became known as Scotia Minor, to distinguish it from Scotia Major, the name by which Ireland was commonly known at least up to the fifth century at home, and much later on the Continent. Scotia, or Scotland, was finally adopted as the general name for Alba and gradually dropped as a title for Ireland. In 563 the great-grandson of Fergus granted the island of Iona (or Hi) to St Columcille, known in Scotland as St Columba, and the saint repaid this courtesy by arranging for the release of the young colony from some of its dues to the mother-country and by officiating at the coronation of Aedan, its king. Scottish Dalriada grew in power and influence, and in the reign of Kenneth MacAlpin (d. 858) the submission of the Picts and the marriage of the King to a Pictish princess united the country under one crown. But the religious bonds which held together the monasteries under the Columban Rule in both countries, and the love of both for their great founder, kept the two Dalriadas of Antrim and Argyll closely united, and it was only the Norse descents on the coasts of Cantyre at the end of the eighth century that finally severed the connexion of Argyllshire with the old country.

Coming farther south, the study of place-names shows that there was a large infiltration of Gaelic peoples throughout the north-western portions of England, while in Anglesea, the Isle of Man, and over considerable districts in Wales they formed an important element in the population. The intermixture of the Cymric and Gaelic races probably began very early, but the distinction between the two was recognized well into historic times in Britain, and we hear much of the Gwyddel or Gael in old Welsh literature. In the Isles of Man and Anglesea a Gaelic population of Irish origin and speaking Irish inhabited the islands up to the Norse period. They were only partly driven out by the Norse from Man, and of the names occurring in the early inscriptions in that island almost half are Gaelic. The island had been Christianized by the Irishman MacCuil, originally one of the most violent adversaries to St Patrick's mission. To show his penitence he placed himself, at the saint's suggestion, in an open boat, his feet being locked together with an iron fetter, the key of which he threw into the sea. He had neither rudder nor oar, and only one small and poor garment for covering. Departing quickly "from this Irish land," he was bidden by the saint to come to shore wherever the boat might drift, there to remain obeying the commandments of God. He came to the coasts of Man (Evonia) and found there two holy bishops, with whom he worked, succeeding them on their deaths in the episcopate. [25]

[25] Muirchu, Life of St Patrick, ch. xxiii.

In Central and South Wales and in the neighbouring counties of Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall traditions of large Irish settlements are found in both Welsh and Irish literature, and these are confirmed by the existence of ogham inscriptions in a form of Irish older than that of any existing manuscript and by the large number of Gaelic place-names. An old statement in Cormac's glossary of ancient words, written probably in the tenth century, says that the Irish made great depredations in these districts, and that in the middle of the third century they built forts in Cornish Britain; "for not less was the power of the Gael in the West over the sea than it was in Ireland itself." He speaks also of forts built by Crimthan the Great a century later. Allowing for national exaggeration, we may yet accept this old account as substantially true. About the time of Cormac MacArt, in particular, very close relations seem to have existed between the Britons and the Irish kings. Armies of British came over to assist in Irish wars, and there were frequent intermarriages between princes and princesses of the British and Irish royal houses. [26] A well-substantiated story relates that in his day (254-277) a sept named the Deisi were expelled from their patrimonial lands in Meath and driven south, part of them settling in Leinster and South-eastern Munster, and another body crossing over to South Wales and making their home there. [27] The Welsh Iolo manuscripts mention three invasions of Wales by the Irish, in one of which the leader, Aflech Goronawg, took possession of Garth Madryn, but, having married the daughter of the king of the country and won the goodwill of the inhabitants, he obtained the rule of the district for himself and his descendants, who remain still intermixed with the original Welsh. [28] They were the parents of Brychan, the head of the great family of saints of that name, one of the "three saintly tribes of Britain," the other two being Cunedda and Caw. They are largely represented in North-east Cornwall, having settled down among the Irish already established there, but their original home was in Brecknock, which, with Carmarthen and Pembroke, was to a considerable extent peopled by Irish, who probably had the upper hand until the withdrawal of the nation from foreign wars after the death of Dathi early in the fifth century.

[26] Silva Gadelica, ed. S. H. O'Grady, ii, 355; Keating, History, ii, 281, and see ibid., p. 239.

[27] For this story see Y. Cymmrodor, xiv, 101-135; Anecdota from Irish Manuscripts, (1907), i, 15 seq; Ériu, iii, 135 seq.

[28] Iolo Manuscripts, p. 78.

These settlers appear to have come chiefly from two centres, Leinster and Co. Kerry. The former band belonged almost exclusively to Wexford, Waterford, and Ossory, and a number of Ossorian names are found both in Cornwall and in West Brittany on lapidary inscriptions. Of Kerry names Map Laithen, said to have been erected in Cornwall in the time of Crimthan, was probably the work of the Hy-Laithen from that county. The Maccodechet stone at Tavistock shows that a portion of the Deceti sept from Kerry settled in this neighbourhood; their name is found also in Anglesea. Of two stones at Lewannic, one bears the Kerry name Ullagnus (Olcan or Olacon) and the other the Irish word ingen, a daughter. When we come to Christian times proofs of intercommunication multiply. Christian inscriptions in Irish begin about the middle of the fifth century. Of these Wales has a hundred and thirty-five, Devon and Cornwall thirty-three, and there are others in the Isle of Man. They show that Christian teaching must have been accepted among the Irish for some time in their own country, if it had found its way at this date among the immigrants into Britain. The discovery of these Irish Christian inscriptions strongly supports the ancient and persistent tradition that the south-eastern portions of Ireland had received Christian teaching at a very early date. It is with this district that the names of the pre-Patrician saints and churches are connected, and we find episodes in the Lives of these saints which show a constant intercourse with Britain. The chief of the pre-Patrician saints are St Ailbe in Emly, Co. Tipperary; St Ibar of Bec Éire, or 'Little Ireland,' in Wexford Harbour; the pilgrims from which place gave their name to Bec Éire, now Beckery, at the sacred haunt of Glastonbury, which was constantly visited by Irish from this district; St Abban of Moyarney, on the borders of Wexford; and St Declan of Ardmore, in Co. Waterford. Some Lives add St Kieran of Saigher (Seir), in King's County, who is identified with St Piran of Cornwall, but he seems clearly to be of later date. The exact dates of all these early saints are uncertain. Whether pre-Patrician or not— and the weight of testimony certainly is on the side of a date earlier than St Patrick—these little Churches must have arisen independently of his preaching. Passages in St Declan's Life show that they prided themselves on their separate origin and organization, and difficulties arose when Patrick presented himself in the Deisi country. The controversy between the two Churches may be only a reflection of a later dispute for priority between Cashel and Armagh, thrown back into the time of the principal founders of the Churches of Northern and Southern Ireland; but it is exactly the sort of controversy that was inevitable if these Southern Churches looked back to an independent origin and an earlier date than that of the Apostle of Ireland, whose later glory had obscured their own. [29]

[29] Life of St Declan, ed. P. Power (Irish Texts Society), xvi, 34-37; Vitae Sanc. Hib., ed. C. Plummer, i, 8, 55, 217-218, and ii, 40, 45.

We may note that there was a close connexion between these early saints. Declan, Ibar, and Ailbe were friends, and St Ibar was Abban's maternal uncle as well as his teacher. He is said to have crossed from his own monastery of Bec Éire, or Beckery, in Wexford to the west of Britain, where he landed among pagans and built a church at a place called by him by the same name; this is undoubtedly the site of Glastonbury, which, like the original oratory beside which the great church of Malmesbury was afterward built, was founded by Irish hermits. Both Britain and Ireland are said to have been largely heathen in his time, and in Wexford few would listen to his teaching. Yet pilgrims, anchorites, and monks passed in large numbers both to and from Ireland. Three thousand went with Ibar. In an Irish Litany which is one of the most ancient documents of the Irish Church there is an invocation to thrice fifty clerics who went with St Abban on pilgrimage, and also to thrice fifty other pilgrims who came with him to Ireland, of the men of the Romans and Letha (Armorica or Latium?). In spite of the confusions in date in these old Lives, it seems unnecessary to reject their witness to the existence of small communities of Christians in the South of Ireland before St Patrick which are otherwise in accord with all we know from other sources. Eventually reports of the existence of these churches were carried to the Bishop of Rome, and in the year 431 Palladius was sent by Pope Celestine to preach to the Scots "believing in Christ."

Outside the borders of Ireland itself there are undoubted proofs that the country was recognized as Christian before the time of St Patrick. Already about 350 we find an Irish bishop presiding over the see of Toul, named Mansuetus, or Mansuy, of whom a twelfth-century writer says: Fuit idem venerandus Pater, sicut relatu maiorum didicimus, nobili Scotorum genere oriundus. [30] In Gaul, about 430, we find an early Irish Christian with the undoubtedly Gaelic name of Michomeri, which Professor Meyer thinks to be a corruption of Michomairle. He lived at Auxerre and died in Champagne. Heric's versified Life of Germanus says of him: Discipulus qui sanctum virum de Hibernia fuerat prosecutus, cui Michomeri vocabulum fuit. We remember also that, before 432, St Patrick found at Auxerre and brought back with him to Ireland a bishop named Iserninus, born on the borders of Carlow and Wicklow. The native name of this bishop was Fith. The intercourse with Gaul was constant, both in commercial and Church matters, and the Life of St Ailbe tells us that he had been long a pupil in the school of Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers (350-356). Jerome, who was still a young man at the time of his death, likens Hilary's Latin eloquence to the rush of the river Rhone. He was, too, the first writer of church hymns, and his hymn Hymnum dicat is found among the ancient collections used in the Irish churches. It may have set the example of the use of hymns in the Irish church offices, for the Irish hymnologies are among the oldest in Western Europe. Those used in liturgical worship were all in Latin, but there are besides a number of religious poems composed for personal ends, many of them in honour of saints or as charms to ward off danger or disease, both in Latin and Irish. The beautiful eucharistic hymn Sancti venite is purely Irish in origin.

[30] Martene and Durand, Thesaurus Novus Anecdotorum (Paris, 1717), iii, 991; Kuno Meyer, Learning in Ireland in the Fifth Century (1913), p. 23, note 17.

It is through the writings of St Jerome that we know that one of the two exponents of the Pelagian heresy, either Pelagius himself or his companion Coelestius, was of Irish birth. He tells us that he was descended from the Scots (Irish) de vicinia Britannorum, and that he was "reared on Scotch porridge." He would appear to be speaking of the author of the teaching he was combating and not, as is usually thought, of Coelestius, its principal exponent. Both travelled widely. Though the teaching of Pelagius found its most numerous adherents in Britain, he did not address himself to the Britons; he is found in Rome, in Sicily, and in Palestine. Had he not retired from Rome before the descent of Alaric with his Goths in 409-410, he would with his own eyes have witnessed the sack of the Eternal City. It may, perhaps, be permitted us to suppose that it was the stir made by his doctrines which was the immediate cause of the mission of Palladius to Ireland, as it was the cause of the mission of Germanus to Britain. Two years after the first visit of Germanus from Gaul in 429 Pope Celestine consecrated Palladius and "sent him to the Scots believing in Christ as their first bishop," so that, to borrow the words of Prosper of Aquitaine, "while he laboured to keep the Roman island [Britain] Catholic he also made the barbarous [i.e., pagan] island [Ireland] Christian." [31]

[31] Prosper, Lib. Cont. Collatorem, ch. xxi, 2 (Migne, Pat. Lat., li, 271); Bede, Eccl. Hist., Bk. I, ch. xiii.

It was during the wars of Niall of the Nine Hostages (379-405), who was himself of mixed Irish and British blood, his father Eochadh Muighmheadhon having married Cairionn of the dark ringlets, daughter of the King of Britain, [32] that Patrick was brought as a slave-boy to the land in which, in after days, his lot was to be cast. The ambition of this prince plunged his country into the wars both of Britain and of the Empire. Irish onslaughts in company with the Picts had obliged the leaders of the Britons to implore the return of the Roman legions which had been drawn off to protect the Empire from the assaults of the barbarians at their own gates. When these troops were finally withdrawn Britain, harassed by the Picts and Scots on the north as well as by Saxon pirates on the south, and abandoned by the Romans, rallied at last to attempt its own deliverance. Under Maximus and under the later Constantine, who were elected leaders of the revolt in Britain, British armies passed over to Gaul to contest the title to the Empire of the West. Both were received with acclamations, and before both the Roman and German armies retired across the Alps; in 408 Constantine became master of Gaul and Spain. In these important events, which have been much obscured by modern historians, bodies of Scots or Atticotti took part; they formed two bands or brigades, called the Honorians, and fought on the frontiers of Gaul along with mixed mercenary bodies of Moors and others who took the same name. Many of these Atticotti, whom St Jerome says he had met in Gaul, seem to have been drawn from the Irish settlers in Argyllshire and from Ireland. This accords with the Irish accounts, which say that Niall passed over to Gaul with a mixed body of troops drawn from Scottish Dalriada as well as from Ireland. He is said to have plundered in the neighbourhood of the river Loire, and there he met his death, but not by the armies against whom he was fighting. For a king of Leinster, who had been banished by Niall to Alba, accompanied the Dalriadian contingent to Gaul, and one day while Niall was resting in the shade by the river he had his revenge by casting an arrow at the King from the shelter of an oak grove on the opposite side, and so slew him. King Niall was succeeded by Dathi, a Connacht prince, who continued the wars of his predecessor in Gaul and who is said to have been killed by a flash of lightning in the Alps. Dathi's body was brought back to Ireland and buried at Cruachan, the place of interment of the Connacht kings. With his death the external wars of Ireland came to an end, and the country, freed from the distraction of foreign expeditions, had time to organize its internal affairs and to build up its system of social and religious life. The power of Niall's family did not pass away with his death. With one brief interval, when Dathi's son, Olioll Molt, was king, the race of Niall sat for five centuries without a break upon the throne of Ireland. They were elected alternately from two branches of the family, and were known as the Northern and Southern Hy-Neill.

[32] Keating, History, ii, 373. Niall's son Eoghan married the daughter of a Saxon king; see Silva Gadelica, ed. S. H. O'Grady, ii, 516.