The Irish: Our History
by
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The basic political unit in ancient Ireland was the tuath, meaning 'the people.' Originally the term meant exactly that, but later took on a territorial connotation. Irish society was essentially tribal with roots of great antiquity. It probably had its origins among the earliest Indo-European peoples, with some elements going back much further in time. Each tuath was ruled by a king, or ri, who in pagan times was believed to have been descendant from a deity. In early Christian times his genealogist had no difficulty in tracing the king's ancestry back to Adam and Eve. After the genealogist had exhausted his knowledge of the king's ancestral line, he merely added Biblical figures. In pagan days, and even well into the Chrisitian era, the king was identified with the fertility of the land, the livestock and the people themselves.
In the Old Irish literature the poets were extravagant in their praise of popular and just kings, indeed, for some their superlatives knew no restraint. One of their favorites, 'a noble, illustrious king,' was Cormac MacArt, son of Art and grandson of Conn of the Hundred Battles. The Book of Ballymore records the scene at an A.D. third century assembly of nobles at the royal seat of Tara, and presided over by Cormac. He was described by the poet as beautiful, with long flowing golden hair. He had about him a red buckler with stars and animals of gold and silver, and he wore a crimson cloak fastened at his neck with precious stones. There was a torque of gold around his neck, just as the Celtic nobles on the Continent had worn. There was a white shirt with gold threads, a girdle of gold with precious stones, golden shoes, two spears with golden sockets. And he was beautiful in form, with no blemish, because under Irish law that would have disqualified from the kingship.
In the eyes and words of the court poets, the noble women of this Gaelic Order complemented the handsome countenances of the kings and warriors. There is a description of Etain, said to have been the most beautiful girl in Ireland, which pictures her as having upper arms as white as snow, lovely cheeks as red as the foxglove of the moor, a bright blush on her countenance, a girl such as no man had ever seen. She was so beautiful that the poet thought she must be of the fairies.
The ritualistic marriage of an Irish king to a tribal goddess, without which his sovereignty would not be accepted by his people, was just one of the many strictures placed on him by society. Each king had certain taboos, or gessa as they were called,attached to his office, further suggesting that the king was sacred. Violation of the gessa threatened the prosperity of the tribe. The King of Tara was forbidden to be in bed when the sun rose, on the Monday after Beltine (May Day) he was forbidden to be in a boat on the water. The King of Leinster could not embark on a counter-clockwise tour of a certain tuath on Wednesdays, nor was he permitted to ride a dirty black horse whenever he felt like it. The King of Munster was restricted against hosting banquets at the beginning of the harvest season, and the King of Ulster was not allowed to listen to the fluttering of birds after sunset on certain evenings. . . One text, which no doubt was an exaggeration of the realities of the kingship, even prescribed the king's daily obligations: he was to drink ale on Sunday, make judgments on Monday, play chess on Tueday, hunt with his greyhounds on Wednesday, attend to his marital duties on Thursday, go to the horse races on Friday, and render judgments again on Saturday.
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About the Book
The Irish: Our History is a book for Irish-Americans who have questions about their heritage and how and why they came to America. It begins on continental Europe in the days before the rise of the Roman Empire, and tells how aristocratic Celtic warriors created an empire extending from Ireland to Asia Minor. The reader then is taken to Ireland for the story of the early inhabitants of that island. This is followed by the arrival of the conquering Celts and the emergence of the sophisticated Gaelic Order, in which the Irish lived under their own kings for hundreds of years.
St. Patrick's fifth century mission converted the Irish from paganism to Christianity, leading to a Golden Age in which their saints and scholars preserved Western learning in the face of barbarian onslaughts. Irish warriors fought against and eventually defeated Viking marauders, but lost their independence when they were conquered by an invasion force of Anglo-Norman knights.
With the English conquest the Irish endured more than 600 years of foreign rule until the Great Famine of 1845-49 killed a million persons, and sent another million fleeing to America and other lands. Here they chose to live in big cities rather than the country, forged political power to advance their causes and became part of our country's growing strength. In 1960, one of their own, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was elected president of the United States.
About the Author
John J. Leary is the retired executive editor of the Albany N. Y. Times Union. After leaving the newspaper he resumed his college studies, and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in art and Western Civilization. He has done extensive studies in ancient civilizations and the rise of Celtic culture. Since receiving his degree, his primary interest has been the history of Ireland from earliest times to the Great Famine, and the subsequent emigration of hundreds of thousands of the Irish to America. When he is not working at his computer he paints landscapes, cityscapes and seascapes of the shore at Myrtle Beach, S. C., where he and his wife, Pat, now live.