The following account of the ancient land laws of Ireland is corroborated in some of its main features by those early English writers who described the native Irish customs from personal observation. It throws much light on the Irish land question of modern times.

In theory the land belonged not to individuals, but to the tribe. The king or chief had a portion assigned to him as mensal land. The rest was occupied by the tribesmen in the several ways mentioned below. The chief, though exercising a sort of supervision over the whole of 'the territory, had no right of ownership except over his own property, if he had any, and for the time being over his mensal land. It would appear that originally - in prehistoric times - the land was all common property, and chief and people were liable to be called on to give up their portions for a new distribution. But as time went on this custom was gradually broken in upon; and the lands held by some, being never resumed, came to be looked upon as private property. As far back as our records go there was some private ownership in land, and it is plainly recognised all through the Brehon laws. [1]

1. Brehon Laws, iii. 53; iv, 69 to 159: these references given as specimens; many other passages might be referred to.

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2. All the Brehon writers seem to have a bias towards private, as distinguished from collective, property.’ ' Yet the original idea of collective ownership was never quite lost: for although men owned land, the ownership was not so absolute as at present. A man, for instance, could not alienate his land outside the tribe; and he had to comply with certain other tribal obligations in the management and divsposal of it, [1] all which restrictions were vestiges of the old tribe ownership. But within these limits, which were not very stringent, a man might dispose of his land just as he pleased.

Within historic times the following were the rules of land tenure, as set forth chiefly in the Brehon laws, and also in some important points by early English writers.

The tribe was divided into smaller groups or septs, each of which, being governed by a sub-chief under the chief of the tribe, was a sort of miniature of the whole tribe; and each was permanently settled down on a separate portion of the land, which was considered as their separate property, and which was not interfered with by any other septs of the tribe. The land was held by individuals in five different ways.

First: The chief, whether of the tribe or of the sept, had a portion as mensal land, for life or for as long as he remained chief.

Second: Another portion was held as private property by persons who had come to own the land in various ways. Most of these were flaiths [2] or nobles, of the several ranks; and some were professional men, such as physicians, judges, poets, historians, artificers, &c., who had got their lands as stipends for their professional services to the chief, and in whose families it often remained for generations. Under this second heading may be included the plot on which stood the homestead of every free member of the tribe, with the homestead itself.

Third: Persons held as tenants portions of the lands belonging to those who owned it as private property, or portions of the mensal land of the chief - much like

1. Maine, Anc. Inst. 105.
2. Brehon Laws, ii. 283; iii. 53, 55.

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tenants of the present day: these paid what was equivalent to rent - always in kind. The term was commonly seven years, and they might sublet to under-tenants.

Fourth: The rest of the arable land, which was called the Tribe land, forming by far the largest part of the territory, belonged to the people in general - the several subdivisions to the several septs - no part being private property. [1] This was occupied by the free members of the sept, who were owners for the time being, each of his own farm. Every free man had a right to his share, a right never questioned. Those who occupied the tribe land did not hold for any fixed term, for the land of the sept was liable to gavelkind (p.84 below) or redistribution from time to time - once every two or three years. [2] Yet they were not tenants at will, for they could not be disturbed till the time of gavelling; even then each man kept his crops and got compensation for unexhausted improvements; and though he gave up one farm he always got another. This common occupation of land is alluded to in the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick. [3]

Fifth: The non-arable or waste land - mountain, forest, bog, &c. - was Commons land. This was not appropriated by individuals; but every free man had a right to use it for grazing, for procuring fuel, or for the chase. There was no need of subdividing the commons by fences, for the cattle of all grazed over it without distinction. The portion of territory occupied by each sept commonly included land held in all the five ways here described.

The common was generally mountain land, usually at some distance from the lowland homesteads. After the farm crops had been put down in the spring, it was a usual custom for the whole family to migrate to the hills with their cattle. Several families commonly joined, and they built a group of huts on some convenient spot, where they lived, attending to their flocks, herding during

1. Brehon Laws, iii. 53.
2. Davies, Discoverie: Letter to Lord Salisbury, 279, ed. 1787.
3. Stokes, Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, 337, and Introd. clxxv.

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the day and milking morning and evening, changing their abode to fresh pastures if necessary during the summer. [1] A temporary settlement of this kind was called in Irish a buaile [pron. booley], and the custom was known to English writers as Booleying. At the approach of autumn the people returned home with their cattle for the winter in time to gather in the crops. English writers denounce this booleying as they did every custom differing from their own. But it seems to have very well suited the circumstances of the people at the time; and that they did not neglect the cultivation of their crops appears from many authorities - for examplle, Moryson’s description of the prosperous state of things he witnessed in Leix in 1600. [2] In many parts of Ireland there are to this day 'commons' - generally mountain land - attached to village communities, on which several families have a right to graze their cattle according to certain well-defined regulations; and there are bogs where they have a right to cut peat or turf - a right of turbary, as they call it; and if an individual sells his land, these rights go with it. All this is a remnant of the old custom.

Between common sept ownership on the one hand and private ownership by individuals on the other, there was an intermediate link; for in some cases land was owned by a family, though not by any individual member, and remained in the same family for generations. This was often the case with land granted for professional services. A very remarkable and peculiar development of family ownership was what was known as the Gelfine [gel'finna: g hard as in get] system. It is now difficult and perhaps impossible to understand this system fully, for the same reason that many other parts of the Brehon laws are obscure or unintelligible - namely, that no description of it is given in the laws, inasmuch as it was then universally familiar and well understood. But certain features are clear enough from the context.

A Gelfine organisation when complete consisted of

1 Spenser, View, ed. 1809, p.82.
2. Moryson, Hist, of Irel. i. 178. See Part IV. chap. xiii.

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seventeen men all related to each other, divided into four groups: the gelfine group - which gives name to the whole organisation - consisting of five; the derfine, the iarfine [eer], and the innfine [n.] of four each. Each of the four groups occupied in common a distinct portion of land: the four portions were presumably conterminous, so as to form one continuous tract. Probably in each sept there was only one gelfine organisation, the members of which were the family and relatives of the chief of the sept. The gelfine group was the most junior of all; and it was the most privileged, no doubt as being the immediate family of the chief, or most nearly related to him; and, generally speaking, the others were more and more senior and less and less nearly related to the gelfine group, in the order derfine, iarfine, innfine. The farther removed from the gelfine the less privileged. The five members of the gelfine group were often a father and four sons.

If any one of the groups fell short of its full number, through death or otherwise, those of the group that remained had still the whole of the property of that group. If any property was left to the organisation, it went to the gelfine solely. If any group became extinct, its property was divided among the other groups according to rules very distinctly laid down in the law. Thus if the gelfine became extinct, 12/16 its property went to their nearest relatives the derfine, 3/16 to the iarfine, and 1/16 to the innfine: if the derfine became extinct, 12/16 to the gelfine, 3/16 to the iarfine, and 1/16 to the innfine: and there are similar rules to meet the extinction of each of the other groups.

The several groups might contain less, but could not contain more, than the numbers given above. Suppose, then, that all the groups were full, and that a new member was born into the gelfine. In this case the oldest of the gelfine passed into the derfine; the oldest of the derfine into the iarfine; the oldest of the iarfine into the innfine; and the oldest of the innfine passed out of the organisation altogether, and became an ordinary unattached member of the tribe. [1]

1. Brehon Laws, iii. 331; iv. 283; and Richey in iv. Introd. xlix.

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It should be observed that the individuals and families who owned land as private property were comparativelyfew, and their possessions were not extensive: the great bulk of both people and land fell under the conditions of tenure described under the fourth and fifth headings.

The chief of a tribe was the military leader in war, the governor in peace; and he and his people lived in mutual dependence. He was bound to protect the tribesmen from violence and wrong, and they maintained him in due dignity. [n.] It was both a danger and a disgrace not to have a chief to look up to: hence the popular saying, [n.] ’spend me and defend me.’ His revenue was derived from three main sources: First his mensal land, some of which he cultivated by his own labourers, some he let to tenants: Second, subsidies of various kinds from the tribesmen: Third, payment for stock as described farther on. But in addition to this he might have land as his own personal property.

Every tribesman had to pay to his chief a certain subsidy according to his means. The usual subsidy for commons pasturage was in the proportion of one animal yearly for every seven', [n.] which was considerably less than a reasonable rent of the present day. Probably the subsidy for tillage land was in much the same proportion. Every person who held land shared the liabilities of the tribe; for instance, he was liable to military service, [n.] and he was bound to contribute to the support of old people who had no children. [n.]

This is a proper place to remark that the payments were always in kind - live animals or provisions; or in case of artificers, the articles they made - furniture, metal work, vessels, and so forth. Horned cattle formed the general standard of value, as in all societies in an early stage of advancement; and they were valued not merely for their use, but also as a medium of exchange - as money. As an article of payment a cow or heifer was called a séd [shade]. A cumal was originally a bondmaid: afterwards

1. Brehon Laws, ii. 345. 2
2. Ibid., 129; iv. 305.
3. Ibid. iv. 19, 41.
4. Ibid. ii. 283.

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the word came to denote merely the value of a bondmaid, estimated at three séds. Rents, fines, dues, payments of all kinds, were estimated in seds and cumals. But the word séd is used very loosely, and seems to have varied in value according to locality; and there were séds of smaller animals, which of course were of minor value. The cumal also varied in value. For general convenience it was laid down that where the payment was half a cumal or less, it might be legally made in one kind of goods - cows, or horses, or silver: from half a cumal to a cumal, in two kinds: above a cumal, in three. Whenever horned cattle were given in payment, one-third of them should be oxen; when horses, one-third should be mares; and silver payment should include one-third of manufactured articles. But under mutual agreement payments might be made in any way. [1]

The tribesman who placed himself under the protection of a chief, and who held land, whether it was the private property of the lessor or a part of the general tribe-land, was a Chéile [cail'eh] or tenant; also called an Aithech, i.e. a plebeian, farmer, or rent-payer. These free rent-payers were also called Féine or Feiny which has much the same signification as aithech. But a man who takes land must have stock - cows and sheep for the pasture-land, horses or oxen to carry on the work of tillage. A small proportion of the ceiles had stock of their own, but the great majority had not. Where the tenant needed stock it was the custom for the chief to give him as much as he wanted at certain rates of payment. A man might hire stock from the king or a chief, or from aithech, or from some rich bo-aire. This custom of giving and taking stock on hire was universal in Ireland; and it gave rise to a peculiar set of social relations which were regulated in great detail by the Brehon law. Stock given in this manner was a taurcrec (page 65), consequently the giving of stock was an assertion of superiority: the taking was an acknowledgment of vassalage. [2] It often happened

1. See for all these arrangements, Brehon Laws, iii. 151, 153.
2. Ibid. iv. 315.

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that an intermediate chief who gave stock to tenants took stock himself from the king of the territory.

The tenants were of two kinds, according to the manner of taking stock: Saér-ceiles, or free tenants, and Daer-chéiles, or bond tenants - the latter also called giallna [geelna: g hard] tenants. A saer [sare] tenant was one who took stock without giving security - nothing but a mere acknowledgment. [1] Stock given in this manner was saer stock, and the tenant held by saer tenure. A daer tenant was one who gave security for his stock: his stock was daer stock; and he held by daer tenure.

A king had the right to make any tenant under his rule take saer stock from him, whether needing them or not, [n.] but in all other cases the transaction was voluntary: The saer-tenants were comparatively independent, and many of them were rich, as for instance the bo-aires, who were all saer-tenants to kings, chiefs, or flaiths. The payments saer-tenants had to make were reasonable. Not so the daer-tenants: they had to pay heavily, and were generally in a state of dependence. Their position was much the same as that of needy persons of our own day, who are forced to borrow at usurious interest. More stock was given to a man in daer tenancy than in saer tenancy. It was of more advantage to the chief to give daer stock than saer stock. [n.] A man might change from saer to daer, or the reverse, by complying with certain conditions. If a saer tenant found he had not sufficient stock he might change to daer tenancy, and then he got more stock.[n.][n.] If a chief wished to take back his saer stock, the tenant might demand to be made a daer tenant; and then the chief, instead of getting back his stock, had to give him more. [n.] If he had no more to give, and still insisted on getting back his saer stock, he got only two-thirds: the remaining third was forfeited to the tenant for disturbance. [n.] A man might take saer but not daer stock from

1. Brehon Laws, ii. 195.
2. Ibid. ii, 223, 225.
3. Ibid. ii. 211, 213.
4. Ibid. ii. 207-9-11.
5. Ibid. ii. 218.
6. Ibid. ii. 207.

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an external king. [1] This might be unavoidable if his own chief had not stock enough to hire out.

When a man took daer stock he had to do so openly, without any concealment; and his Fine [finna], i.e. his family, including all his sept or kindred within certain degrees of relationship, might if they pleased veto the whole transaction. [2] From this it would appear that daer tenancy was viewed with disfavour by the community, for the reason, no doubt, that it tended to lower the status of the tribe. [3] There was a sharp distinction between the two orders of tenants, the daer tenants being very much the lower in public estimation. When the chief gave evidence in a court of law against his tenants, the saer tenants were privileged to give evidence in reply, but the daer tenants were not. [4.]

A daer or bond tenant was so called, not that he was a slave or an unfree person, but because by taking daerstock he forfeited some of his rights as a freeman, and his heavy payments always kept him down. In theory the taking of daer-stock was voluntary; [5] for although a man who had no stock was forced of necessity to take it on hire, yet he was free to take it from any one he pleased. Accordingly the law treats the transaction as a free contract, and regards the giver and taker as voluntary parties.

The ordinary subsidy owed by a saer-tenant to his chief was called Bes-tigi [bess-tee] or house tribute, varying in amount according to his means or the extent of his land: it consisted of cows, pigs, bacon, malt, corn, &c. He was also bound to give the chief either a certain number of days' work, or service in war. [6] For whatever saer stock he took he had to pay one-third of its value yearly for seven years, at the end of which time the stock became his own property without further payment. [7] This was equivalent to thirty-three per cent, per annum for

1. Brehon Laws, ii. 225. [n.] jf[n.]i[n.], n 217.
3. Maine, Ano. Inst. 163.
4. Brehon Laws, ii. 345.
5 Ibid. ii. 223.
6. Ibid. ii. 195; iii. 495.
7. Ibid. ii. 195, 197, 199, 203.

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seven years to repay a loan with its interest - a sufficiently exorbitant charge. He also had to send a man at stated times to pay full homage to the chief. The labour and the homage are designated in the laws as the worst or most irksome of the saer tenant’s obligations. [1]

A daer tenant had to give war-service and work. His chief payment, however, was a food-supply called Biatad [bee'ha] or food-rent - cows, pigs, corn, bacon, butter, honey, &c. - paid twice a year. The amount depended chiefly on the amount of daer stock he took, [2] and probably varied according to local custom. At the end of his term he had, under ordinary circumstances, to return all the stock or its equivalent. [3] But if the chief died at the end of seven years, the tenant, provided he had paid his food rent regularly, kept the stock. [4] The daer tenants were the principal purveyors of the chief, who could be sure of a supply of provisions all the year round for his household and numerous followers, by properly regulating the periods of payment of his several tenants. This custom is described by several English writers as existing in their own time, so late as the time of Elizabeth.

The daer tenants were bound to give coinmed [coiney] or refection on visitation - that is to say, the chief was entitled to go with a company to the daer tenant’s house, and remain there for a time varying from one day to a month, the tenant supplying food, drink, and sanctuary or protection from danger. [5] The number of followers and the time, with the quantity and quality of food and the extent of protection, were regulated by law according to the tenant’s amount of daer stock, [n.] and also according to the rank of the guest: the higher the rank the longer the time [6] The protection might be relinquished either wholly or partly for an increase of food and drink or vice versa. [7] Sometimes soldiers, in lieu of regular pay, were sent among the tenants, from whom they were entitled to receive buannacht or bonaght, i.e. money, food, and enter-

1; Brehon Laws, ii. 195.
2. Ibid. ii. 229.
3. lbid. ii. 223.
4. Ibid. ii. 269. [n.]
5. Ibid. ii. 20, note 2, 233; iii. 19.
6. Ibid. iii. 21. '
7. Ibid. ii. 20, note 2.
8. Ibid. ii. 21.

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tainment: an eminently evil custom. The refection and bonaght, which were by far the most oppressive of the daer tenant’s liabilities, seem to have been imposts peculiar to Ireland. The daer tenants were subject to several other duties, which came at irregular intervals; and in time of war the chief usually imposed much heavier tributes than at other times upon all the tenants.

If either the chief or the tenant fell into poverty, provision was made that he should not suffer by unjust pressure from the other party: ‘No one,’ says the law-book, ’should be oppressed in his difficulty.’ [1]

Kings, bishops, and certain classes of chiefs and professional men were also entitled to free entertainment when passing through territories, with the proper number of attendants. [2] And it appears that when certain officials met to transact public business, the tenants, both saer and daer, had to lodge and feed them. [3]

The daer tenants were by far the most numerous; and accordingly this system of the chief stocking the farms was very general. It has often been compared to the metayer system, still found in some parts of France and Italy, according to which the landlord supplies the stock and utensils and receives half the produce.

The text of the laws gives no information regarding the circumstances that led some to become saer tenants and others daer tenants; and the whole subject is involved in considerable obscurity. But a careful study of the text will enable one to gather that this is probably how matters stood. All who took land had to pay the chief certain subsidies - as we have said - independently of what they had to pay for stock. Those who chose to become saer tenants did so because they had stock of their own, either quite or nearly sufficient, and they took stock in small quantity, either to make up the amount they needed, or whether needing it or not to comply with the universal custom of taurcrec. The daer tenants on the other hand were poor men who had to take all their stock - or nearly

1. Brehon Laws, ii. 339.
2. Ibid. iv. 347, 349, 35I.
3. Ibid. iii. 21.

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all - on hire; and they had to give security because they were poor, and because they took such a large quantity. In their case the subsidies for land and the payments for stock are in the laws commonly mixed up so as to be undistinguishable.

The power and influence of a chief depended very much on the amount of stock he possessed for lending out: for besides enriching him, it gave him all the great advantage over his tenants which the lender has everywhere over the borrower. This practice was so liable to abuse that the compilers of the Brehon code attempted to protect borrowing tenants by a multitude of precise detailed rules. Sir Henry Maine considers that the payments made by the Irish tenants for stock developed in time into a rent payment in respect of land.

Seven different modes are enumerated in the Senchus Mor in which the parties might legally separate or dissolve their agreement. [n.] The regulations regarding these include very careful provisions - penalties in the shape of heavy compensation payments - to prevent either the chief or the tenant - whether in saer or daer tenancy - from terminating the agreement in an arbitrary fashion, as well as to protect each against any neglect or misconduct on the part of the other. [n.] The tenure of all was therefore secure, in whatever way they held their lands.

The law throughout shows plainly a desire to be just to all. ' In the selection of their rules [regarding land] they have exhibited an honest and equitable spirit.’ [n.] There is an evident endeavour to protect tenants from oppression by the higher classes. This is explained by the fact that it was drawn up not by chiefs or landlords, but by classes of persons - professional judges and lawyers - who had no reason to be biassed towards one side or the other, but whose sympathies would naturally be with those liable to be oppressed. They did not indeed frame the laws, they merely put the old customs into shape; but they took care to include all provisions tending to preserve the tenants' rights - as well indeed as those of the chiefs.

1. Brehon Laws, ii. 313. Ibid. ii. 313 et seq.
2. Brehon Laws, iv., Richey in Introd. cxl.

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Though the custom of visiting tenants' houses for coiney or refection was carefully safeguarded in the Brehon law, it was obviously liable to great abuse. In imitation of the Irish, the Anglo-Irish lords adopted the custom of Coyne and Livery, [1] which in several forms was known by various other names - coshering, cuddying, cutting, spending, &c. The first of them to practise it was Maurice Fitzgerald the first earl of Desmond, in 1330; and his example was followed by the earl of Ormond, the earl of Kildare, and others, as well as by the Irish chiefs. [2] It was such a crying evil that several acts of parliament were passed, making it high treason; but they were seldom carried into effect. Whenever a military leader could get no money to pay his soldiers after an expedition, he adopted the simple plan of sending them with arms in their hands among the people - most commonly the settlers - to extract payment for themselves in food and money. This was coyne and livery: and the evil custom was continued with little intermission for many generations.

But the Anglo-Irish coyne and livery was very different from the Irish coinmed. For the Irish chiefs - though apt enough to abuse their privileges - were more or less restrained by old customs and by the letter of the law; they could not claim refection from any but those who legally owed it, and the amount, however heavy, was strictly defined. [3] Even a king could not exceed his proper allowance. [n]' For excesses of any kind the law prescribed penalties. But the Anglo-Irish lords made no distinctions, and were restrained by neither old customs nor legal rules. They cared nothing for the Brehon law. They simply turned their followers loose over the whole country to do as they pleased, and the Irish chiefs, breaking through their own customs, only too often followed their example. It is from English writers we get the most vehement denunciations of the custom. Davies says that when the English had learned

1. Coyne and livery - food for man and horse. Coyne is the Irish coinmed or coiney; livery is French - food for a horse.
2. Davies, Discoverie, 195, ed. 1747.
3. Brehon Laws, ii. 233, 257, 259.
4. Brehon Laws, iv. 337, and Richey in Introd. cciv.

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coyne and livery, ‘they used it with more insolency and made it more intollerable; [1] and that the soldiers, while they were quartered on the people, committed murders, robberies, and many other crimes. [2] Several times he states that it almost destroyed the English settlements; for the settlers, ruined by constant exactions, fled the country in great numbers, while those that remained joined the Irish. [3] In one passage, seeming at a loss for words strong enough, he says - quoting from an ancient writer - that it would ruin hell itself if introduced there. [4]

The tenants hitherto spoken of - the saer and daer tenants - were all free men. Each had a house of his own, the right to a share of the tribe land and to the use of the commons. They had also some political rights; yet the daer tenants lay under some degree of serfdom. We now come to treat of the non-free classes. The term ' non-free ' does not necessarily mean servile. The nonfree people were those who had scarcely any rights - some none at all. They had no claim to any part of the tribe land or to the use of the commons; and except under very restricted conditions they could not enter into contracts. Yet some justice was done to them: for if a freeman made a forbidden contract with a non-free person, the former was punished, while the non-free man had to be compensated for any loss he incurred by the transaction. [4] Their standing varied, some being absolute slaves, some little removed from slavery, and others far above it. That slavery pure and simple existed in Ireland in early times we know from the law-books as well as from history; and that it continued to a comparatively late period is proved by the testimony of Giraldus Cambrensis, who relates that it was a common custom among the English to sell their children and other relatives to the Irish for slaves - Bristol being the great mart for the trade. Slaves in those days formed a recognised item of traffic in Ireland. They must have been very numerous in the twelfth century; for at the synod held in Armagh in 1171, the clergy came to the

1. Davies, Discoverie. p.175, ed. 1747.
2. Ibid. 190.
3. Ibid. 153, 189.
4. Ibid. 33.
5. Brehon Laws, ii. 289.

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conclusion that the Norman invasion was a curse from heaven as a punishment for the inhuman traffic in slaves; and they anathematised the whole system and decreed that all English slaves were free to return to their own country. How far this decree took effect we are not told. [1]

The non-free people were of three classes, who are distinguished in the law and called by different names: the Bothach, the Sencleithe, and the Fudir. The persons belonging to the first two were herdsmen, labourers, squatters on waste lands, horse-boys, hangers-on and jobbers of various kinds - all poor and dependent. But they enjoyed one great advantage: they were part of the tribe, and had consequently the right to live within the territory and to support themselves by their labour.

The third class - the Fudirs - were the lowest of the three. Though permitted by the chief to live within the territory, they had no right of residence, for they were not members of the tribe. A fudir was commonly a stranger, a fugitive from some other territory, who had by some misdeed, or for any other reason, broken with his tribe and fled from his own chief to another who permitted him to settle on a portion of the unappropriated commons land. But men became fudirs in other ways, as we shall see. Like the ce´iles, the fudirs were distinguished into saer and daer [2] The saer fudirs were those who were free from crime, and who, coming voluntarily, were able to get moderately favourable terms from the chief. They were permitted to take land from year to year, and they could not be disturbed till the end of their term. Allowance had to be made to them for unexhausted improvements, such as manure. As they were permitted a settlement by the grace of the chief, they were reckoned a part of the chief’s fine or family. [3] Outside these small privileges, however, they were tenants at will. It would seem indeed that the chief might demand almost anything he pleased from a fudir tenant, and if refused might turn him off.’ [n.] Any

1. Hib. Expugn. lib. i. cap. xVIII; see also Harris’s Ware, ii. chap. XX.
2. Brehon Laws, iii. 10, 11.
3. Ibid. iv. 283.}
4. Ibid. iii. 131.

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freeman might give evidence against a fudir: but the fudir could not give evidence in reply. [1]

Some of the fudir tenants however who accumulated wealth were much better circumstanced. If there were five of them under one chief, each possessing at least 100 head of cattle, they might enter into partnership so as to answer for each other’s liability. In this case they enjoyed privileges that put them almost on a level with the ceiles or tenants. They had a share in the tribe land and in the commons: they took stock from the chief, and paid biatad or food rent. They paid their part of any fines that fell on the sept from the crimes of individuals: and they took their share of any property left to the fine or sept like the ordinary tenants. [2] But these must have been the rare exceptions.

The daer fudirs were escaped criminals, captives from other districts or other countries, convicts respited from death, persons sentenced to fine and unable to pay, purchased slaves, &c. If a daer fudir took land it did not belong to him during occupation; [3] he was merely permitted to till it: he was a tenant at will, having no right whatever in his holding. He was completely at the mercy of the chief, who generally rackrented him so as to leave barely enough for subsistence. Some daer fudirs were mere slaves: and those who were not were little better: St. Patrick while in captivity at Slemish was a daer fudir. The daer fudirs belonged to the land on which they were settled, and could not leave it. The land kept by a flaith or noble in his own hands was commonly worked by daer fudirs: and none but a flaith could keep them on his estate. Yet their lot was not hopeless: the law favoured their emancipation: a daer fudir could become a saer fudir in course of time under certain conditions.

The settlement of fudirs was disliked by the community and discouraged by the Brehon law: [4] for it curtailed the commons land; and while it tended to lower the status of the tribe, it raised the power of the chief, who in cases of dispute could bring all his fudirs into the

1. Brehon Laws, iii. 131.
2. Ibid. iv. 39, 43.
3. Ibid. iii. 131.
4. Maine, Anc. Inst. 175.

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field. Any social disturbance, such as rebellion, invasion, civil war, &c., in which many were driven from their homes and beggared, tended to increase the number of the fudirs. Spenser, Davies, and other early English writers speak of the Irish tenants as in a condition worse than that of bondslaves, and as taking land only from year to year. No doubt the tenants they had in view were the fudirs, who must have been particularly numerous during the Irish wars of Elizabeth. It is evident from the Brehon law that the fudirs were a most important class on account of their numbers; for as they tended to increase in the disturbed state of the country from the ninth century down, they must ultimately have formed a very large proportion of the population.

As the number of persons who held land as private property, as well as the total extent of land so held, increased in course of time, we find that the letting and hiring by ordinar} [n.] contract, without reference to saer or daer tenure, became more prevalent. The later law tracts show that the old tenures and these newer contracts existed side by side, till the whole Irish land system was swept away in the reign of James I.

The tenants of all kinds were protected - more or less - by old customs and by the Brehon law, which also safeguarded the rights of the landlord as well as those of the tenant. The law expressly provided that the chief should not exact excessive rent or subsidy from the tenants. Nevertheless the state of things described in the last few pages obviously tended to increase the power of the chiefs and to throw the land more and more into their hands; and the movement in this direction was accelerated by the English settlement. For when the English lords and undertakers settled down on their Irish estates, they found it more convenient to adopt the native customs of receiving rent, as squaring in with the habits of the people and consequently giving less trouble. But while they carefully preserved the landlord rights, and went even further by imposing various tributes unknown to the ancient Irish, [1]

1. O’Donovan in Book of Rights, Introd, xvii. to xxii.

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they disregarded the rights of the tenants as laid down in the Brehon law: and the neighbouring Irish chiefs readily followed their example.

The ancient rights of the tenants, i.e. of the céiles or freemen, as may be gathered from the preceding part of this chapter, were chiefly three: A right to some portion of the arable or tribe land, and to the use of the commons: a right to pay no more than a fair rent, which in the absence of express agreement was adjusted by law: [1] a right to own a house and homestead, and with certain equitable exceptions, all unexhausted improvements. Unless under special contract in individual cases the fudirs had no claim to these - with this exception however, that the saer fudirs had a right to their unexhausted improvements. Among those who held the tribe land there was no such thing as eviction from house or land, so that all had what was equivalent to fixity of tenure. If a man failed to pay the subsidy to his chief, or the rent of land held in any way, or even the debt due for stock, it was recovered like any other debt, by distress, never by process of eviction. [n.]

When the authority of the Brehon law became weakened - chiefly through the influence exerted by the English settlement - the tenants lost their best support, and all their rights were gradually swept away, till land, houses, and improvements of every kind came - in the absence of express contract - to be considered as the exclusive property of the landlords; and the tenants were nearly all driven into the position of the fudirs of old. The fudirs in fact never died out, but rather increased and multiplied under the combined influences of perpetual social disturbance and force from above. The tenants at will, who were so numerous within our own memory, were fudirs under another name, with no rights worth mentioning. They were indeed altered in many ways by the modern conditions of society, but not altered at all in their helplessness and misery.

1. Brehon Laws, i. 159; ii. 317; iii. 127; iv. 97.
2. Ibid iv.. 133, 135, 137.
3. Ibid. i. 123, 157, 159, 169, 187, 215, 219, 231, 233; iv, 133, 135, 137.

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But customs that have grown up slowly among a people during more than a thousand years take long to eradicate. They subsist as living forces for generations after their formal abolition; and notwithstanding the lapse of three centuries, there has remained all along, and remains to this day - lurking deep down in the minds of the people - a sort of unconscious memory of the old right to subsistence from the soil, and a disbelief in the landlord’s absolute ownership of the land. The people never in fact quite forgot or quite relinquished their old Brehon law claims; and the cruel land war went on and became more bitter with lapse of time - the tenants ever getting the worst - till recent legislation restored to them a portion of their lost rights and privileges.

In Ireland the land descended in three different ways. First: as private property. When a man had land understood to be his own, it would naturally pass to his heirs [1] - i.e. his heirs in the sense then understood, not necessarily in our sense of the word; or he might if he wished divide it among them during his life, a thing that was sometimes done. In the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick we find cases of the sons inheriting the land of their father. [2] There appears in the Brehon law a tendency to favour descent of land by private ownership: ‘The Brehon law writers seem to me distinctly biassed in favour of the descent of property in individual families. [3] It should be remarked that those who inherited the property, inherited also the liabilities."[4]

Second: The land held by the chief as mensal estate, descended, not to his heir, but to the person who succeeded him in the chiefship. This is what is known as descent by Tanistry.

Third: By Gavelkind. When a tenant who held a part of the Tribe Land died, his farm did not go to his children: but the whole of the land belonging to the finè

1. Brehon Laws, iii. 399; iv. 45, 69,
2. Stokes’s Tripartite Life, 109, 111.
3. Maine, Anc. Inst. 193.
4. Brehon Laws, iii. 399 to 405; iv. 45.

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sept was redivided or gavelled among all the male adult members of the sept - including the dead man’s adult sons - those members of the sept who were illegitimate getting their share like the rest. [1] The domain of the chief and all land that was private property were exempt. The redistribution by gavelkind on each occasion extended to the sept - not beyond. Davies {Letter to Lord Salisbury, ed. 1787, p.280) complains with justice that this custom prevented the tenants from making permanent improvements.

Davies asserts that land went by only two modes - Tanistry and Gavelkind: but both the laws and the annals show that descent by private ownership was well recognised.

The two customs of Tanistry and Gavelkind formerly prevailed all over Europe, and continued in Russia till a very recent period; and Gavelkind, in a modified form, still exists in Kent. They were abolished and made illegal in Ireland in the reign of James I.; after which land descended to the next heir according to English law.

Fosterage. One of the leading features of Irish social life was fosterage, which prevailed from the remotest period. It was practised by persons of all classes, but more especially by those in the higher ranks. A man sent his child to be reared and educated in the home and with the family of another member of the tribe, who then became foster father, and his children the foster brothers and foster sisters of the child.

Fosterage was subject to stringent regulations, which were carefully set forth in the law. [1] A special portion of

1. Davies, Discoverie, ed. 1747, p.169; Brehon Laws, iv. 7, 9.

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the Senchus Mor - occupying twenty-four pages of the second volume - is devoted to it; in which the rights, duties, and obligations of the parties are detailed with minute particularity: and it is referred to in other parts of the law. I give here the most important of these regulations.

A child might be sent to fosterage at one year of age. Boys might be kept till seventeen and girls till fourteen, which were considered the marriageable ages: then they returned to their parents' house. There were two kinds of fosterage - for affection and for payment. In the first there was no fee: in the second the fee varied according to rank. For the son of an og-aire or lowest order of chief, it was three cows; and from that upwards to the son of a king, for which the fee was eighteen cows. For girls, as giving more trouble, requiring more care, and as being less able to help the foster parents in after life, it was something higher. The child, during fosterage, was treated in all respects like the children of the house: he worked at some appropriate employment or discharged some suitable function for the benefit of the foster father.

The foster child was to be educated by the foster parents. The education prescribed was very sensible, aiming much more directly at preparing for the future life of the child than do some of our modern educational systems. The following was the technical or non-literary part of their education. The sons of the humbler ranks were to be taught how to herd kids, calves, lambs, and young pigs; how to kiln-dry corn, to prepare malt, to comb wool, and to cut and split wood: the girls how to use the needle according to their station in life, to grind corn with a quern, to knead dough, and to use a sieve. The sons of chiefs were to be instructed in horsemanship, archery, swimming, and chess-playing, and in the use of the sword and spear; and the daughters in sewing, cutting out, and embroidery. For the neglect of any of these there was a fine of two-thirds of the fosterage fee. There were minute regulations regarding clothes, food, and means of amusement, all of which varied according to rank. How

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far the foster father was liable for injuries suffered by the foster child at the hands of others, or for his misdeeds, is set forth with great care.

Precautions were taken - in the shape of penalties - to prevent the fosterage being terminated before the time by either party without cause. At the termination of the jDeriod of fosterage the foster father gave the foster son a parting gift, the amount of which was regulated according to rank and other circumstances. If in after life the foster father fell into poverty, and had no children of his own to support him, he had a claim on his foster son for maintenance, provided he had duly discharged all the duties of fosterage, including that of the parting gift. The foster mother had a similar claim. It was usual for a chief to send his child to be fostered to one of his own sub-chiefs: but the parents often chose a chief of their own rank. Sometimes a chief had a large number of children at fosterage: in the Book of the Dan Cow we are told that at one time Achy Beg, king of Cliach, the district round Knockainy in Limerick, had forty boys in his charge, sons of the nobles of Munster. [1] In cases where children were left without parents or guardians, and required protection, the law required that they should be placed in fosterage under suitable persons. [2]

Fosterage was the closest of all ties between families. The relationship was regarded as something sacred. The foster children were often more attached to the foster parents and foster brothers than to the members of their own family: and cases have occurred where a man has voluntarily laid down his life to save the life of his foster father or foster brother. The custom of fosterage existed in Ireland - though in a modified form - even so late as the seventeenth or eighteenth century.

There was also a literary fosterage, when a boy was sent to be reared up by a professor and instructed for a degree. The foster father was ' to instruct him without reserve, to prepare him for his degree, to chastise him

1. O’Curry, Manners and Customs, i. 357.
2. Brehon Laws. ii. Introd. lvii.

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without severity, and to feed and clothe him while learning his legitimate profession.’ The amount of fee was regulated by law. All gains earned by the pupil while learning were to be paid to the tutor, and also the first fee he earned after leaving him. If the teacher fell into poverty in after life his foster pupil was bound to support him. The relationship of literary fosterage was regarded as still more close and sacred than that of ordinary fosterage. [1]

Gossipred. When a man stood sponsor for a child at baptism, he became the child’s godfather, and gossip to the parents. Gossipred was regarded as a sort of religious relationship between families, and created mutual obligations of regard and friendship.

Fosterage and gossipred were fiercely denounced by early English writers. But gossipred in a modified form exists to this day all over the empire; and the custom of fostering was formerly common among the Welsh, the Anglo-Saxons, and the Scandinavians. After the Invasion the colonists readily fell in with fosterage and gossipred; and it was quite usual for the Anglo-Irish nobles to give their children to be fostered by the Irish chiefs. The government always looked on this practice with disfavour, for their aim was to keep the races asunder; and several times laws were enacted making fosterage with the Irish high treason; but these laws were generally disregarded.

Public assemblies. In early times when means of intercommunication were very limited, it was important that the people should hold meetings to discuss divers affairs affecting the public weal, and for other business of importance. In Ireland popular assemblies and meetings of representatives were very common, and were called by various names - Fes, Dal, Mordal, Aenach, &c. They were continued to a late period. Spenser in the following accurate description notices them as frequent in his time: ‘There is a great use amongst the Irish, to make great assemblies together upon a rath or built house to parlie (as they say) about

1. For Fosterage, see Brehon Laws, ii. 147, 349; and Harris’s Ware, i. ch. xi.

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matters and wrongs between township and township, or one private person and another [n.]

The Aenach or Fair was an assembly of the people ot every class belonging to a district or province. Some fairs were annual; some triennial. According to the most ancient traditions, many of these aenachs - perhaps all - had their origin in funeral games; and we know as a fact that the most important of them were held at ancient cemeteries, where kings, or renowned herops, or other noted personages - of history or legend - were buried. One was held at the great cemetery of Croghan in Connaught round the grave and monumental pillar-stone of King Dathi. A triennial fair was held at Carman or Wexford, which lasted for a week - the first week in August. At Tlachtga, now known as the Hill of Ward near Athboy in Meath, there was a yearly fire-festival beginning on the eve of Samin (1st November). In the fire kindled here the druids burned their sacrifices; and while it lasted all other fires in Ireland were to be extinguished or covered. A fair-meeting was held in the month of May every year on the Hill of Ushnagh in Westmeath: and during this time it was the custom all through Ireland to light fires through which cattle were driven as a preservative for the coming year against disease. This old pagan custom of driving cattle through fire on May day, subsisted in some parts of the country within my own memory. The most remarkable of all those fairs was held yearly on the 1st August and the following days at Tailltenn, now Teltown on the Blackwater, midway between Navan and Kells. This was originally instituted - according to the old legend - by the Dedannan king Lugad of the Long Hand, in commemoration of his foster mother Tailltin from whom the place took its name. At all these places there are ancient cemeteries: at the three last named - Tlachtga, Ushnagh, and Tailltenn - Tuathal the Legitimate, king of Ireland in the second century, built three royal forts, selecting these sites no doubt on account of their celebrity from immemorial ages. Fairs of less importance were held in

1. View of State of Ireland, ed. 1809, p.126.

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innumerable other places all over the country; and constant references are made to them in the old literature.

Important affairs of various kinds, national or local, were transacted at these meetings. The laws were publicly promulgated or rehearsed to make the people familiar with them. There were councils or courts to consider divers local matters - questions affecting the rights, privileges, and customary usages of the people of the district or province - acts of tyranny or infringement of rights by powerful persons on their weaker neighbours - disputes about property - the levying of fines - the imposition of taxes for the construction or repair of roads - the means of defence to meet a threatened invasion, and so forth. All these functions were discharged by persons specially qualified.

Then there were sports and pastimes, to suit high and low: music and dancing, jugglery and masked plays by druith or buffoons, horse-racing and all sorts of athletic sports, and the recitation of poetry, genealogy, history, and historic tales. For excellence in the various performances, the king or chief, or some other important person, distributed prizes. Many of those sports and pastimes were also carried on at feasts and banquets, where the recitation of tales was an amusement rarely omitted. Marriages formed a special feature of the fair of Tailltenn. From all the surrounding districts the young people came with their parents, bachelors and maidens being kept apart in separate places, while the fathers and mothers made matches, arranged the details, and settled the contracts. After this the couples were married, the ceremonies being always performed at a particular spot. All this is vividly remembered in tradition to the present day; and the people of the place still point out what they call the ‘Marriage Hollow’. Meetings continued to be held annually in Teltown on the first of August till the beginning of the present century; greatly changed from what they were in the olden time, but to the last athletic sports a main feature.

In pagan times there were various druidic rites at all the aenachs: but these were superseded by Christianity;

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and after the time of St. Patrick Masses, singing of hymns, and other religious observances, constituted part of the proceedings.

The fair meeting was also a market for the sale and purchase of all kinds of commodities: Food and clothes, live stock, gold and silver articles - the traffic in these last, as we are told, attracting numbers of foreigners, who came over sea to sell their tempting wares to the natives. These markets were a great convenience in those days when there were few centres of population, and hardly any such places as shops, where people could buy what they wanted. The fairs of the present day are remnants of the aenachs; but almost the only one of the old functions retained is that of buying and selling, with a faint imitation of the sports. [1]

It is probable that the Danish raids caused the discontinuance of many of the aenachs, though some were afterwards revived. The last fair of Carman was held in 1033 by Donogh Mac Gilla Patrick, king of Leinster; and the last - i.e. the last formal celebration - at Tailltenn was held by King Roderick O’Connor in 1168.

The most celebrated of all the ancient meetings was the Fes or Convention of Tara. This, like the other great meetings, was originally connected with funeral games; for there was here a cemetery in which many illustrious persons were interred. The old tradition states that it was instituted by Ollamh Fodla [Ollav Fola]. It was originally held, or intended to be held, every third year; but within the period covered by our authentic records - since the fourth or fifth century - it was generally convened only once by each king, namely at the beginning of his reign - or if oftener it was on some special emergency.

This Fes was a convention of the leading people, not an aenach for the masses: and it represented all Ireland. The provincial kings, the minor kings and chiefs, and the most distinguished representatives of the learned professions

1. For an ancient Irish poetical description of the proceedings at aenachs or fairs, see the ‘Fair of Carman’: O’Curry, Manners and Customs, ii. 528,

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the ollaves of history, law, poetry, &c. - attended. It lasted for seven days, from the third day before Samin (1st November) to the third day after it: the formal meetings for the consideration of important matters were held in the great Banqueting Hall. The king of Ireland feasted the company every day: there was a separate compartment for the representatives of each province with their numerous attendants; and each guest had his special place assigned according to rank. We have very detailed descriptions of all these arrangements in our ancient literature: all of any value have been published with translations by Dr. Petrie in his essay on Tara. The last convention was held here by King Dermot the son of Fergus, a.d. 560.

At the Fes of Tara - as well indeed as at all other important meetings - elaborate precautions were taken to prevent quarrels or unpleasantness of any kind. Anyone who struck or wounded another, used insulting words, or stole anything, was punished with death: and all persons who attended were free for the time from prosecution and from legal proceedings of every kind.

Maigens or Sanctuaries. The plot of land around the house of a person of rank was a sort of asylum. This was called a Maigen or precinct: and within it no man should break the peace without the consent of the owner. The higher the rank the larger the maigen. The maigen of a ho-aire. the lowest rank entitled to the privilege, was the smallest: it extended the cast of a spear all round his house. That of an aire-desa extended two casts. The extent doubled for each rank upwards to the king of the tuath, whose maigen extended sixty-four casts round his residence. The maigen of a provincial king or of the king of Ireland included the whole plain on which the palace stood. There was also a maigen - varying according to rank - round the dwelling of an ecclesiastic, and also round a church: the sanctuary of a church was often called Termon land. The archbishop of Armagh had the same extent of maigen as the king of Ireland.

The right accorded to the maigen was for the protec-

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tion of the owner, not in the interest of the person protected. No act of violence was to be committed within it by an outsider. A fugitive, no matter what his crime - if he entered a maigen with the consent of the owner - was safe for the time being. But as the right of asylum belonged to the owner only, if he waived his claim the fugitive might be arrested. This formality also was necessary: the owner should guarantee that no loss should accrue to the pursuer or aggrieved party by the temporary shelter afforded to the fugitive - that the original claim should hold good - that the fugitive should not be enabled to finally escape from justice. If this guarantee was not given the pursuer was not bound to respect the sanctuary. The fugitive was in fact simply protected against immediate vengeance and secured a fair trial. A person who committed any act of violence within a maigen - provided he knew it was one, and that the necessary formalities were observed - had to pay damages to the owner, the amount depending on honour-price, on the extent of the violence, and on other circumstances.

This law of sanctuary in and around a house existed also in early times in England, and in a form almost identical with that laid down in the Brehon law. [1]

1. Brehon Laws, iii. Introd. ciii. For the whole law of Precincts see Brehon Laws, iv, 227.

[Chief authorities:- O’Curry, Manners and Customs, with Sullivan’s Introd.; Lynch, Cambrensis Eversus, chap. iv.; Bunting, Anc. Mus. of Ireland; Petrie, Anc. Mus. of Ireland; Joyce, Anc. Irish Music; G. p.Graham’s Introd. to Francis Robinson’s Melodies of Ireland.]

From very early times the Irish were celebrated for their skill in music. Our native literature abounds in references to music and to skilful musicians, who are always spoken of in terms of the utmost respect.

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In the early ages of the cliurch many of the Irish ecclesiastics took great delight in playing on the harp; and in order to indulge this innocent and refining taste, they were wont to bring with them in their missionary wanderings a small portable harp. This fact is mentioned not only in the Lives of some of the Irish saints, but also by Giraldus Cambrensis. [1] Figures of persons playing on harps are common on Irish stone crosses, and also on the shrines of ancient reliquaries. It appears from several authorities that the practice of playing on the harp as an accompaniment to the voice was common in Ireland as early as the fifth century.

During the long period when learning flourished in Ireland, Irish professors and teachers of music would seem to have been almost as much in request in foreign countries as those of literature and philosophy. In the middle of the seventh century, Gertrude, daughter of Pepin, mayor of the palace, abbess of Nivelle in France, engaged SS. Foillan and Ultan, brothers of the Irish saint Fursa of Peronne, to instruct her nuns in psalmody. [n.] In the latter half of the ninth century the cloister schools of St. Gall were conducted by an Irishman, Maengal or Marcellus, a man deeply versed in sacred and human literature, inclading music. Under his teaching the music school there attained its highest fame; and among his disciples was Notker Balbulus, one of the most celebrated musicians of the middle ages. [2]

That the cultivation of music was not materially interrupted by the Danish troubles appears from several authorities. Warton, in his ‘History of English Poetry’',[3] says: ‘There is sufficient evidence to prove that the Welsh bards were early connected with the Irish, Even so late as the eleventh century the practice continued among the Welsh bards of receiving instruction in the bardic profession [of poetry and music] from Ireland.’ The Welsh records relate that Gryffith ap Conan, king of

1. Top. Hib. iii. 12.
2. Bolland. Acta SS., 17 Mar. p.595.
3. Schubiger, Die Sängerschule St. Gallens, p.33.
4. Vol. i. Diss. i.

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Wales, whose mother was au Irishwoman, and who was himself born in Ireland, brought over to Wales - about the year 1078 - a number of skilled Irish musicians, who in conference with the native bards reformed the instrumental music of the Welsh. [1]

But the strongest evidence of all - evidence quite conclusive as regards the particular period - is that of Giraldus Cambrensis, who seldom had a good word for anything Irish. He heard the Irish harpers in 1185, and gives his experience as follows: ‘They are incomparably more skilful than any other nation I have ever seen. For their manner of playing on these instruments, unlike that of the Britons (or Welsh) to which I am accustomed, is not slow and harsh, but lively and rapid, while the melody is both sweet and sprightly. It is astonishing that in so complex and rapid a movement of the fingers the musical proportions [as to time] can be preserved; and that throughout the difficult modulations on their various instruments, the harmony is completed with such a sweet rapidity. They enter into a movement and conclude it in so delicate a manner, and tinkle the little strings so sportively under the deeper tones of the base strings - they delight so delicately and soothe with such gentleness, that the perfection of their art appears in the concealment of art.’ [2]

For centuries after the time of Giraldus music continued to be cultivated uninterruptedly, and there must have been an unbroken succession of great professional harpers. That they maintained their ancient pre-eminence down to the seventeenth century there is abundant evidence, both native and foreign, to prove. Among those who were massacred with Sir John Birmingham, in 1328, was the blind harper Mulrony Mac Carroll, ‘chief minstrel of Ireland and Scotland,’ ‘of whom it’s reported that no man in any age ever heard, or shall hereafter hear, a better timpanist (harper).’ [3]

The Scotch writer John Major, early in the sixteenth

1 Harris’s Ware, ii. 184.
2. Top. Hib. iii. 11.
3. Four Masters, A.d. 1:J28, note w.

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century, speaks of the Irish as most eminent in the musical art. Richard Stanihurst (1584) mentions in terms of rapturous praise an Irish harper of his day named Cruise; and Drayton (1613) has the following stanza in his Polyolbion:-

The Irish I admire
And still cleave to that lyre,
  As our Muse’s ruother;
And think till I expire,
  Apollo’s such another.’

The great harpers of those times are, however, mostly lost to history. It is only when we arrive at the seventeenth century that we begin to be able to identify certain composers as the authors of existing airs. The oldest harper of great eminence coming within this description is Rory Dall (blind) O’Cahan, who, although a musician from taste and choice, was really one of the chiefs of the Antrim family of O’Cahan. He was the composer of many fine airs, some of which we still possess. He visited Scotland with a retinue of gentlemen about the year 1600, where he died after a short residence.

Thomas O’Connallon was born in the county Sligo early in the seventeenth century. He seems to have been incomparably the greatest harper of his day, and composed many exquisite airs. We have still extant a short and very beautiful Irish ode in praise of his musical performances written by some unknown contemporary bard, which has been several times translated. After his death, which happened in or about 1700, his brother Laurence travelled into Scotland, where he introduced several of the great harper’s compositions.

A much better known personage was Turlogh O’Carolan or Carolan: born in Nobber, county Meath, about 1670: died in 1738. He became blind in his youth from an attack of smallpox, after which he began to learn the harp; and ultimately he became the greatest Irish musical composer of modern times. Like the bards of old he was a poet as well as a musician. Many of his Irish songs are published in Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy and elsewhere. A large part of his musical compositions are preserved,

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and may be found in various published collections of Irisb airs. Carolan belonged to a respectable familj,’ and like Rory Dall, became a professional musician from taste rather than from necessity. He always travelled about with a pair of horses, one for himself and the other for his servant who carried his harp; and he was received and welcomed everywhere by the gentry, Protestant as well as Catholic.

The harp is the earliest musical instrument mentioned in Irish literature. It was called Crot or Cruit, and was of various sizes, from the small portable hand harp to the great bardic instrument six feet high. It was commonly furnished with thirty strings, but sometimes had many more; and it was always played with the fingers or finger nails. Several harps of the old pattern are still preserved in museums in Dublin and elsewhere, the most interesting of which is the one now popularly known as Brian Boru’s harp in Trinity College, Dublin. This is the oldest harp in Ireland - probably the oldest in existence. Yet it did not belong to Brian Boru; for Dr. Petrie [1] has shown that it could not have been made before the end of the fourteenth century. It is small, being only thirty-two inches high; it had thirty strings; and the ornamentation and general workmanship are exquisitely beautiful.

The Irish had a small stringed instrument called a Timpan, which had only a few strings - from three to eight. It was played with a bow or plectrum, and the strings were probably stopped with the fingers of the left hand like those of a violin. The bagpipe was known in Ireland from very early times: the form used was that now commonly known as the Highland pipes - slung from the shoulder, the bag inflated by the mouth. The other form - resting on the lap, the bag inflated by a bellows - which is much the finer instrument, is of modern invention. The bagpipe was in very general use, but it was only the lower classes that played on it: the harp was the instrument of the higher classes, among whom harp-playing was a very usual accomplishment. Crofton Croker tells

1. In his memoir of this harp: Bunting, Anc. Mus. of Irel. 1840. p.42.

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us that in the last century almost everyone [of the better classes] played on the Irish harp. The harp, the timpan, and the bagpipe were the principal musical instruments of the ancient Irish; but several others, such as the war trumpet, bells, &c., are mentioned in our old records. Many specimens of ancient war trumpets and bells are preserved in the National Museum, Dublin.

The early history of music in Ireland is very obscure; and what makes it all the more so is the fact that music and poetry are often confounded, so that one sometimes finds it impossible to determine to which of the two the passages under notice refer. The confusion no doubt arose from the circumstance that the same man was formerly often both poet and musician. Music is indeed often specially mentioned, but always very vaguely; and the airs that tradition has handed down to us are almost the only means we have of forming an opinion of the state of musical education in those old times.

There was not in Ireland, any more than elsewhere, anything like the modern developments of music. If there was harmony - and that there was seems plainly proved by the passage in Giraldus - it was of the very simplest kind, and not brought into much prominence. There were no such sustained and elaborate compositions as operas, oratorios, or sonatas. The music of ancient Ireland consisted wholly of short airs, each with two strains or parts - seldom more. But these, though simple in comparison with modern music, were constructed with such exquisite art that of a large proportion of them it may be truly said no modern composer can produce airs of a similar kind to equal them.

The Irish musicians had three styles, the effects of which the old Irish romance writers describe with much exaggeration, as the Greeks describe the effects produced by the harp of Orpheus. Of all three we have well-marked examples descending to the present day. The Gann-tree, which incited to merriment and laughter, is represented by the lively dance tunes and other such spirited pieces. The Goll-tree expressed sorrow: repres

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ented by the keens or death tunes, many of which are still preserved. The Suan-tree produced sleep. This style is seen in our lullabies or nurse tunes, of which we have many beautiful specimens.

The Irish had also what may be called occupation tunes. The young girls accompanied their spinning with songs - both air and words made to suit the occupation. The ploughmen encouraged and soothed their horses with the peculiarly wild and plaintive plough-whistles: and while the milking girls chanted the sweet melancholy milking songs, the cows submitted all the more gently in the milking bawns. We have still a smith’s song which imitates the sound of the hammers on the anvil, like Handel’s ‘Harmonious Blacksmith.’ Like the kindred Scotch, each tribe had a war march which inspirited them when advancing to battle. Specimens of all these may be found in the collections of Bunting, Petrie, Joyce, and others.

The music of Ireland, like our ballad poetry, has a considerable tendency to sadness. The greater number of the heens, lullabies, and plough-whistles, and many of our ordinary tunes, are in the minor mode, which is essentially plaintive; and the same plaintive character is impressed on many of the major airs by a minor seventh note. This tendency to sadness was the natural outcome of the miseries endured by the people during long centuries of disastrous wars and unrelenting penal laws. But it is a mistake to suppose that the prevailing character of Irish music is sad: by far the largest proportion of the airs are either light-hearted dance tunes or song airs full of energy and spirit without a trace of sadness.

In early times they had no means of writing down music; and musical compositions were preserved in the memory and handed down by tradition from generation to generation; but in the absence of written record many were lost. While we have in our old books the Irish words of numerous early odes and lyrics, we know nothing of the music to which they were sung. It was only in the last century that people began to collect Irish airs from singers and players, and to write them down. Some few

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faint attempts were made early in the century: but later on more effectual measures were taken. Several meetings of harpers - the first in 1781 - were held at Granard in the county Longford, under the patronage and at the expense of James Dungan, a native of Granard, then living at Copenhagen. Each meeting was terminated by a ball, at which prizes were distributed to those who had been adjudged the best performers. Dungan himself was present at the last ball, when upwards of 1,000 guests, as we are told, assembled.

A few years later, a meeting to encourage the harp was organised in Belfast by a society of gentlemen under the leadership of Dr. James Mac Donnell. This meeting, which was held in Belfast in 1792, and which was attended by almost all the nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood, was followed by more practical results than those held at Granard. The harpers of the whole country had been invited to attend. But the confiscations, the penal laws, and the social disturbances of the preceding century and a half had done their work. The native gentry who loved music and patronised the harpers were scattered and ruined, and the race of harpers had almost died out. Only ten responded to the call, many of them very old and most of them blind, the decayed representatives of the great harpers of old. Edward Bunting, a local musician, was appointed to meet them, and after they had all exhibited their skill in public, and prizes had been awarded to the most distinguished, he took down the best of the airs they played.

This was the origin of Bunting’s well known collection of Irish music. He published three volumes, the first in 1790, the second in 1809, and the third in 1840. Another collection, edited by George Petrie, was published by Holden of Dublin about the year 1840. A volume of Carolan’s airs was published by his son i n 1747 and republished 101 John Lee of Dublin in 1780; but many of Carolan’s best airs are omitted from this collection. A great number of Irish airs were printed in four volumes of a Dublin periodical called The Citizen in 1840 and

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1841; and these were followed up by a special volume of airs by the editor. In 1844 was published The Music of Ireland, by Frederick W. Horncastle, of the Chapel Royal, Dublin, a number of airs with accompaniments and English words; most of these airs had been already published, but some were then printed for the first time. About the same time a collection of airs by John p.Lynch was published by 8. J. Pigott, Dublin. In 1855 a large volume of Irish music hitherto unpublished was edited, under the auspices of The Society for the Preservation and Publication of the Melodies of Ireland, by Dr. George Petrie. A volume of airs never before published was edited by me in 1873, collected by myself from singers and players in the course of many years. A second instalment of the Petrie collection was printed in 1877, edited by F. Hoffman. These are the principal original collections of Irish music extant; other collections are mostly copied from them. About 1870 Bussell of Dublin issued a large collection of Irish airs, edited by Dr. Francis Robinson, with a good Introduction on Irish Music by George Farquhar Graham: all the airs in this had been published before. Later on two volumes of the Dance Music of Ireland was edited by Mr. R. M. Levey of Dublin; some of which then appeared for the first time.

The man who did most in modern times to draw attention to Irish music was Thomas Moore. He composed his exquisite songs to old Irish airs; and songs and airs were published in successive numbers or volumes, beginning in 1807. They at once became popular, not only in the British Islands, but on the Continent and in America, and Irish music was thenceforward studied and admired wdiere it would have never been heard of but for Moore. The whole collection of songs and airs - well known as Moore’s Melodies - is now published in one small cheap volume. In the first rrhalf of the present century a great number of original songs were written by Samuel Lover, nearly all to old Irish airs. The Spirit of the Nation contains a good many old Irish airs with words from the Nation newspaper, Dublin. A volume of most characteristic Irish

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popular songs composed by Alfred Perceval Graves was published in 1882 to Irish airs already elsewhere published, the music arranged by C. Villiers Stanford.

We know the authors of many of the airs composed within the last 200 years: but these form the smallest portion of the whole body of Irish music. All the rest have come down from old times, scattered fragments of exquisite beauty, that remind us of the refined musical culture of our forefathers. To this last class belong such well known airs as “Savourneen Dheelish”, “Shule Aroon”, “Molly Asthore”, “The Boyne Water”, “Garryowen”, “Patrick’s Day”, “Eileen Aroon”, “Langolee” (Dear Harp of my Country), “The Groves of Blarney (The Last Rose of Summer)”, &c., &c. To illustrate what is here said, I may mention that of about 120 Irish airs in all Moore’s Melodies, we know the authors of less than a dozen: as to the rest, nothing is known either of the persons who composed them or of the times of their composition.

As the Scotch of the western coasts and islands of Scotland were the descendants of Irish colonists, preserving the same language and the same traditions, and as the people of the two countries kept up intimate intercourse with each other for many centuries, the national music of Scotland is, as might be expected, of much the same general character as that of Ireland. The relationship of Irish and Scotch music may be stated as follows. There is in Scotland a large body of national melodies, composed by native musicians, airs that are Scotch in every sense, and not found in Irish collections. In Ireland there is a much larger body of airs, acknowledged on all hands to be purely Irish, and not found in Scotch collections. But outside of these are great numbers of airs common to the two countries, and included in both Scotch and Irish collections. In regard to a considerable proportion of them, it is now impossible to determine whether they are originally Irish or Scotch. A few are claimed in Ireland that are certainly Scotch; but a very large number claimed by Scotland are really Irish, of which the well known air “Eileen Aroon” or “Robin Adair” is an example.

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From the earliest times it was a common practice among the Irish harpers to travel through Scotland. How close was the musical connection between the two countries is hinted at by the Four Masters, when in recording the death of Mulrony Mac Carroll they call him the ‘chief minstrel of Ireland and Scotland’: and there is abundant evidence to show that this connection was kept up till towards the end of the last century. Ireland was long the school for Scottish harpers, as it was for those of Wales: ‘Till within the memory of persons still living, the school for Highland poetry and music was Ireland; and thither professional men were sent to be accomplished in these arts.’ [1] Such facts as these sufficiently explain why so many Irish airs have become naturalised in Scotland.

It is not correct to separate and contrast the music of Ireland and that of Scotland as if they belonged to two different races. They are in reality an emanation direct from the heart of one Celtic people; and they form a body of national melody superior to that of any other nation in the world.

1. Jameson’s ed. of Letters from the North of Scotland (1818), vol. ii. p.65 note.

[Chief authorities: Early Christian Art in Ireland; and Early Christian Archit. in Ireland, both by Miss Margaret Stokes; J. 0. Westwood on the Book of Kells; Petrie’s Round Towers of Ireland.]

Penwork. In Ireland art was practised in four different branches: Ornamentation and illumination of manuscript books; metal work; sculpture; and building. Art of every kind reached its highest perfection in the period between the end of the ninth and the beginning of the twelfth century.

The special style of pen ornamentation was quite peculiar to the Celtic people of Ireland; and it was developed in the course of centuries by successive generations of artists who brought it to marvellous perfection. It was

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mainly, though not exclusively, the work of ecclesiastics, and it was executed for the most part in the monasteries. Its most marked characteristic is interlaced work formed by bands, ribbons, and cords, which are curved and twisted and interwoven in the most intricate way, something like basket work infinitely varied in pattern. These are intermingled and alternated with zigzags, waves, spirals, and lozenges; while here and there among the curves are seen the faces or forms of dragons, serpents, or other strangelooking animals, their tails or ears or tongues elongated and woven till they become merged and lost in the general design. Nothing is done at random: the designs are all symmetrical. This ornamentation was chiefly used in the capital letters, which are generally very large: one capital of the Book of Kells covers a whole page. The pattern is often so minute and complicated as to require the aid of a magnifying glass to examine it. The penwork is throughout illuminated in brilliant colours, which in several of the old books are even now very little faded after the lapse of so many centuries.

The Book of Kells, a vellum manuscript of the Four Gospels, probably written in the seventh century, is the most beautifully written Irish book in existence. Each verse begins with an ornamental capital; and upon these capitals, which are nearly all differently designed, the artist put forth his utmost efforts. Miss Stokes, who has examined the Book of Kells with great care, thus speaks of it: ' No effort hitherto made to transcribe any one page of this book has the perfection of execution and rich harmony of colour which belongs to this wonderful book. It is no exaggeration to say that, as with the microscopic works of nature, the stronger the magnifying power brought to bear upon it, the more is this perfection seen. No single false interlacement or uneven curve in the spirals, no faint trace of a trembling hand or wandering thought can be detected. This is the very passion of labour and devotion, and thus did the Irish scribe work to glorify his book.’ [1]

1. Early Christian Architecture in Ireland, p.127. See p.18 supra.

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Professor J. O. Westwood of Oxford, who has examined the best specimens of ancient penwork all over Europe, speaks even more strongly. In his little work on the Book of Kells he writes: ‘It is the most astonishing book of the Four Gospels which exists in the world’ (p.5): ‘How men could have had eyes and tools to work them [the designs] out, I am sure I, with all the skill and knowledge in such kind of work which I have been exercising for the last fifty years, cannot conceive[’] (p.10). [‘]I know pretty well all the libraries in Europe where such books as this occur, but there is no such book in any of them ... there is nothing like it in all the books which were written for Charlemagne and his immediate successors’ (p.11).

Speaking of the minute intricacy and faultless execution of another Irish book, Mr. Westwood says: ‘I have counted [with a magnifying glass] in a small space scarcely three quarters of an inch in length by less than half an inch in width, in the Book of Armagh, no less than 158 interlacements of a slender ribbon pattern formed of white lines edged with black ones.’ The Book of Durrow and the Book of Armagh, both in Trinity College, are splendidly ornamented and illuminated; and of the latter, some portions of the penwork surpass even the finest parts of the Book of Kells. [1]

Giraldus Cambrensis, when in Ireland in 1185, saw a copy of the Four Gospels in St. Brigit’s nunnery in Kildare which so astonished him that he has recorded - in a separate chapter of his book - a legend that it was written under the direction of an angel. His description would exactly apply now to the Book of Kells. ‘Almost every page is illustrated by drawings illuminated with a variety of brilliant colours. In one page you see the countenance of the Divine Majesty supernaturally pictured; in another the mystic forms of the evangelists: here is depicted the

1. Many of the most beautiful pages and letters of the Book of Kells, as well as of numerous other ancient Irish manuscripts, have been reproduced by Dr. John T. Gibbert in the Facsimile of National Manuscripts of Ireland, a most valuable work in 5 vols. which maybe seen in all the public libraries.

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eagle, there the calf: here the face of a man, there of a lion; with other figures in almost endless variety ... . You will find them [the pictures] so delicate and exquisite, so finely drawn, and the work of interlacing so elaborate, while the colours with which they are illuminated are so blended, that you will be ready to assert that all this is the work of angelic and not of human skill.’ [1]

The early Irish missionaries brought their arts of writing and illuminating wherever they went, and taught them to others; and to this day numerous exquisite specimens of their skill and taste are preserved in the libraries of England, France, Germany, and Italy.

Metal work. The pagan Irish, like the ancient Britons, practised from time immemorial - long before the introduction of Christianity - the art of working in bronze, silver, gold, and enamel. Some of the antique Irish articles of metal, believed to have been made in pagan times, show great mastery over metals, and exquisite skill in design and execution. This primitive art was continued into Christian times, and being improved and enlarged by the knowledge imported from Gaul by St. Patrick’s companion missionaries, was brought to its highest perfection in the tenth and eleventh centuries. It continued long after, but gradually declined owing to the general disorganisation of society in Ireland.

The ornamental designs of metal work were generally similar to those used in manuscripts, and the execution was distinguished by the same exquisite skill and masterly precision. The principal articles made by the artists - who were chiefly but not exclusively ecclesiastics - were crosses; croziers; chalices; bells; brooches; shrines or boxes to hold books or bells or relics; and book satchels, in which the two materials, metal and leather, were used. Specimens of all these - many of them of the most remote antiquity - may be seen in the National Museum in Dublin. The three most remarkable, as well as the most beautiful and most elaborately ornamented objects in this museum are the Cross of Cong, the Ardagh chalice, and the Tara brooch.

1. Top. Hib. ii. xxxVIII Bohn’s translation.

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The chalice, which is 7 inches high and 9½ inches in diameter, was found a few years ago buried in the ground under a stone in old lis at Ardagh, in the county Limerick. Beyond this nothing is known of its history. It is elaborately ornamented with designs in metal and enamel; and, judging from its shape and from its admirable workmanship, it was probably made some short time before the tenth century.

The Tara brooch was found in 1850 by a child on the strand near Drogheda. It is ornamented all over with amber, glass, and enamel, and with the characteristic Irish filigree or interlaced work in metal. From its style of workmanship it seems obviously contemporaneous with the Ardagh chalice. In the old Irish romances we constantly read that the mantle of both men and women was fastened at the throat by a large ornamental brooch. Many of these old brooches are preserved, but the one now under notice is by far the most perfect and beautiful of all.

The cross of Cong, which is 2 feet 6 inches high, was a processional cross, made to enshrine a piece of the true cross. It is all covered over with elaborate ornamentation of pure Celtic design, and a series of inscriptions in the Irish language along the sides give its full history. It was made by order of Turlogh O’Conor king of Connaught, for the church of Tuam, then governed by Archbishop Muredach O’DufFy. The artist, who finished his work in 1123, and who deserves to b e107 to all time, was Mailisa Mac Braddan O’Hechan.

A great variety of gold ornaments may be seen in the National Museum, many of beautiful workmanship. There are several torques, all pure gold, one of which - found at Tara - is 5 feet 7 inches in length and weighs 27½ oz. There are curious crescent-shaped ornaments of thin gold, hollow globes, and numerous specimens of ‘ring money,’ as they are called for want of a better name. The torques were worn round the neck, but of most of the other articles the uses are unknown.

Sculpture. Artistic sculpture is chiefly exhibited in the great stone crosses, of which about fortv-five still

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remain in various parts of Ireland. One peculiarity of the Celtic cross is a circular ring round the intersection, binding the arms together, and supposed to symbolise eternity. Thirty-two of the forty-five existing crosses are richly ornamented, and eight have inscriptions with names of persons who have been identified as living at various times from A.D. 904 to 1150. Miss Stokes gives the dates of the stone crosses as extending over a period from the tenth to the thirteenth century inclusive. Besides the ornamentation, most of the high crosses contain groups of figures representing various subjects of sacred history, such as the Crucifixion, the fall of man, Noah in the ark, the sacrifice of Isaac, the fight of David and Goliath, &c. The ornamentation is still of the same general Celtic character that we find in metal work and in illuminated manuscripts, and it exhibits the same masterly skill and ease both in design and execution.

[Chief authorities: Miss Stokes’s Early Christian Architecture in Ireland; Petrie, Round Towers; O’Curry, Mann, and Cust. with Sullivan’s Introduction; Keating’s History of Ireland.]

Dwellings and fortresses. Before the introduction of Christianity buildings of every kind in Ireland were almost universally round. The quadrangular shape, which was first used in the churches in the time of St. Patrick, came very slowly into use; and round-shaped structures finally disappeared only in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The dwelling-houses were almost always of wood. The wall was formed of strong posts, with the intervening spaces filled with wickerwork, plastered, and often whitened or variously coloured: the roofs of the circular houses were conical, supported by a central pillar, and thatched. Sometimes the walls were made of hewn planks instead of wickerwork. Occasionallv these timber houses

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were oblong: in this case the roof was supported by one or two rows of pillars.

Like the houses of the Anglo-Saxons, the Germans, and the Scandinavians of the same period, the Irish dwelling-house had only one large room - at least for the men - which was used for living, eating, and sleeping in. Round the walls inside were sleeping-couches, separated by boarded partitions; and seats for ordinary use. The seats for the people of the several ranks, from the chief down, were specified with much particularity; and a person of one rank dared not occupy the seat for one of another rank. The fire was placed somewhere near the middle of the floor. There were windows protected by shutters with bars. In the houses of the better classes the doorposts and other special parts of the dwelling and furniture were often made of yew, carved and ornamented with gold, silver, bronze, and gems. We know this from the old records; and still more convincing evidence is afforded by the Brehon law, which prescribes fines for scratching or otherwise disfiguring the posts or lintels of doors, the heads or posts of beds, or the ornamental parts of other furniture.

The homestead of an aire or chief consisted of a group of houses, each under a separate roof, the principal one for the dwelling, the rest outhouses for servants, cows, horses, pigs, &c. The women had often separate apartments or a separate house in the sunniest and pleasantest part of the homestead: this was called the Grianan [greenan], i.e. sunny house.

The homesteads had to be fenced in to protect them from robbers and wild animals. This was done by digging a deep circular trench, the clay from which was thrown up on the inside. Thus was formed all round, a high mound or dyke with a trench outside: one opening was left for a door or gate. Whenever water was at hand the trench was flooded as an additional security. The ancient houses of the Gauls were fenced round in a similar manner. Houses built and fortified in the manner here described continued in use till the thirteenth or fourteenth century.

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These old circular forts are found in every part of Ireland, but more in the south and west than elsewhere, many of them still very perfect - but of course the timber houses are all gone. Almost all are believed in popular superstition to be the haunts of fairies. They are known by various names, Lis, Rath, Brugh [broo], Dun, Cashel, and Caher - the cashels and cahers being usually built of stone. These are the very names found in the oldest manuscripts. Some forts are very large - 300 feet or more across - so as to give ample room for the group of timber houses, or for the cattle at night. The smaller forts were the residences of the farmers. Very often the flat middle space is raised to a higher level than the surrounding land, and sometimes there is a great mound in the centre, with a flat top, on which no doubt the strong house of the chief stood. In the very large forts there are often three or more great circumvallations. A Dun was the residence of a Ri [ree] or king: according to law it should have at least two surrounding walls with water between. Round the great forts of kings or chiefs were grouped the timber dwellings of the fudirs and other dependents who were not of the immediate household, forming a sort of village.

In most of the forts, both large and small, whether with flat areas or with raised mounds, there are underground chambers, commonly beehive shaped, which were probably used as storehouses, and in case of sudden attack as places of refuge for women and children. The Irish did not then know the use of mortar or how to build an arch any more than the ancient Greeks; and these underground chambers are of dry stone work, built with much rude skill, the dome being formed by the projection of one stone beyond another, till the top was closed in by a single flag.

Where stone was abundant the surrounding rampart was often built of dry masonry, the stones being fitted with great exactness. In some of these structures the stones are very large, and then the style of building is termed cyclopean. Many great stone fortresses still re-

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main near the coasts of Sligo, Galway, Clare, and Kerry, and a few in Antrim and Donegal: two characterstic examples are Greenan-Ely, the ancient palace of the kings of the northern Hy Neills, five miles north-west from Londonderry; and Staigue Fort near Sneem in Kerry. The most magnificent fortress of this kind in all Ireland is Dun Aengus on a perpendicular cliff right over the Atlantic Ocean on the south coast of Great Aran Island.

Beside the dun or lis there was a level space, fenced in, called a faithchue [faha] or lawn for athletic exercises and games of various kinds, into which also the cattle might be driven at night. Every chief above a certain rank was bound by the Brehon law to keep a candle and a fire always burning at night so as to be ready for the reception of visitors. He was also bound to keep a signal fire blazing on the faha on dark nights for the guidance of travellers to his house; and to have a signal of some kind - generally a blaze - beside a river as a guide to a ford, if he lived near one.

For greater security dwellings were often constructed on artificial islands made with stakes, trees, and bushes, in shallow lakes: these are called crannoges. Communication with the shore was carried on by means of a rude boat kept on the island. Crannoge dwellings were in very general use in the time of Elizabeth; and the remains of many of them are still to be seen in our lakes.

The Irish had no walled or fortified towns. There were some considerable centres of population - towns or cities they might be called - which grew up chiefly round monasteries; but they were quite open and unprotected. The Irish learned the art of fortifying towns from the Danes and English. There was not much tendency to concentrate populations: Sir John Davies states that in 1607 there was not one fixed village in all the county Fermanagh. [n.]

Churches. From the time of St. Patrick downwards, churches were built, the greater number of wood, but many of stone. The early churches built on the model of those intro-

1. Letter to Lord Salisbury, ed. 1787, p.261.

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duced by St. Patrick, were small and plain, seldom more than sixty feet long, sometimes not more than fifteen, always a simple oblong in shape, never cruciform. Some of the very small ones were oratories for private or family devotions. The primitive stone churches, erected in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, are simple oblongs, small and rude. As Christianity spread, the churches became gradually larger and more ornamental, and a chancel was often added at the east end, which was another oblong, merely a continuation of the larger building. The jambs of both doors and windows inclined so that the bottom of the opening was wider than the top: this shape of door or window is a sure mark of antiquity. The doorways were commonly constructed of very large stones, with almost always a horizontal lintel: the windows were often semicircularly arched at top, but sometimes triangular headed. The remains of little stone churches of this antique pattern, of ages from the fifth century to the tenth or eleventh, are still to be found all over Ireland.

In the beginning of the eleventh century what is called the Romanesque style of architecture, distinguished by a profusion of decoration - a style that had previously been spreading over Europe - was introduced into Ireland. Then the churches, though still small and simple in plan, began to be richly decorated. We have remaining numerous churches in this style: a beautiful example is Cormac’s chapel on the Rock of Cashel, erected in 1134 by Cormac Mac Carthy king of Munster. In early ages churches were often in groups of seven, a custom still commemorated in popular phraseology, as in ‘The Seven Churches of Glendalough.’

Round towers. In connection with many of the ancient churches there were round towers of stone from 60 to 150 feet high, and from 13 to 20 feet in external diameter at the base: the top was conical. The interior was divided into six or seven stories reached by ladders from one to another, and each story was lighted by one window: the top story had usually four windows. The door was placed 10 or more feet from the ground outside,

and was reached by a ladder: both doors and windows had sloping jambs like those of the churches. About 80 round towers still remain, of which about 20 are perfect: the rest are more or less imperfect.

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Formerly there was much speculation as to the uses of these round towers; but Dr. George Petrie, after examining the towers themselves, and - with the help of O’Donovan and O’Curry - searching through all the Irish literature within his reach for allusions to them, set the question at rest in his Essay on 'The Origin and Uses of the Round Towers.’ It is now known that they are of Christian origin, and that they were always built in connection with ecclesiastical establishments. They were erected at various times from about the ninth to the thirteenth century. They had at least a twofold use: as belfries, and as keeps to which the inmates of the monastery retired with their valuables - such as books, shrines, croziers, relics, and vestments - in case of sudden attack. They were probably used also -when occasion required - as beacons and watch-towers. These are Dr. Petrie’s conclusions, except only that he fixed the date of some few in the fifth century, which recent investigations have shown to be too early. It would appear that it was the frequency of the Danish incursions that gave rise to the erection of the round towers, which began to be built in the ninth century simultaneously all over the country. They were admirably suited to the purpose of affording refuge from the sudden murderous raids of the Norsemen: for the inmates could retire with their valuables on a few minutes' warning, with a good supply of large stones to drop on the robbers from the windows; and once they had drawn up the outside ladder and barred the door, the tower was, for a short attack, practically impregnable. Round towers are not quite peculiar to Ireland: about 22 are found elsewhere - in Bavaria, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Scotland, and other countries.

Later Churches. Until about the period of the Anglo-Norman invasion all the churches were small because the congregations were small, and this again chiefly resulted

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from the tribal organisation which had a tendency to split up all society, whether layer ecclesiastical, into small sections. But the territorial system of church organisation, which tended to large congregations, was introduced about the time of the Invasion. The Anglo-Normans were as we know great builders, and about the middle of the twelfth century the simple old Irish style of church architecture began, through their influence, to be abandoned. Towards the close of the century, when many of the great English lords had settled in Ireland, they began to indulge their taste for architectural magnificence, and the native Irish chiefs imitated and emulated them; large cruciform churches in the pointed style began to prevail; and all over the country splendid buildings of every kind sprang up. Then were erected - some by the English, some by the Irish - those stately abbeys and churches of which the ruins are still to be seen, such as those of Kilmallock and Mannisteranenagh in Limerick; Jerpoint in Kilkenny; Grey Abbey in Down; Bective and Newtown in Meath; Sligo; Quin and Corcomroe in Clare; Ballintober in Mayo; Knockmoy in Gal way; Dunbrody in Wexford; Buttevant; Cashel; and many others.

[Chief authorities: Girald. Cambr. Top. Hib,; Lynch’s Cambrensis Eversus; Harris’s Ware; Spenser’s View of the State of Irel. ed. 1809; Book of Rights, Introd.; Joyce’s Irish Names of Places; Petrie’s Tara; O’Curry’s Lect. on MS. Mat. and on Mann, and Gust.]

Arms and armour. The Irish employed two kinds of footsoldiers: Gallaglachs or Galloglasses and Kern. The galloglasses were heavy-armed infantry; the mode of equipping them appears to have been imitated from the English. They wore a coat of mail and an iron helmet: a long sword hung by the side, and in the hand was carried a broad heavy keen-edged axe. They are usually described as large-limbed, tall, and fierce-looking. The corselet was known in very early times, but seldom used.

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The use of armour was imitated in a measure from the Danes, but chiefly from the English; at the time of the Invasion the Irish wore no armour. They never took to it very generally, but preferred to fight in saffron linen tunics: which lost them many a battle. The kern were light-armed foot soldiers: they wore headpieces, and fought with a skean, i.e. a dagger or short sword, and with a javelin attached to a thong. [2]

‘It is curious that bows and arrows are very seldom mentioned in our old writings: and the passages that are supposed to refer to them are so indistinct, that if we had no other evidence it might be difficult to prove that the use of the bow was known at all to the ancient Irish. However the matter is placed beyond dispute by the fact that flint arrow-heads are found in the ground in various parts of the country.’ [3] They retained the use of bows and arrows to a late period. Spenser mentions ‘their short bowes and little quivers, with bearded arrowes. And the same sort both of bowes, quivers, and arrowes are at this day to be seen among the Northerne Irish-Scots.’ [4]

They used two kinds of shields. One made of wickerwork, often large enough to cover the whole body, convex outwards, and covered, like the old Greek shields, with layers of hardened hide. Spenser mentions ‘their long broad shields, made but with wicker roddes.’ [5] The other was a small circular shield generally made of yew wood, sometimes of bronze. Shields of both kinds were often elaborately ornamented. Specimens of the small round shield may be seen in the National Museum in Dublin.

The Irish were very dexterous in the use of the battleaxe. Giraldus Cambrensis says: ‘They make use of but one hand to the axe when they strike, and extend the thumb along the handle to guide the blow: from which

1. Girald. Top. Hib. iii. x.
2. Harris’s Ware, ii. 161.
3. See my Irish Names of Places, vol. ii. chap. xi.
4. View of the State of Ireland, p.95.
5. Ibid. 96.

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neither the crested helmet can defend the head, nor the iron folds of the armour the rest of the body. From whence it has happened, even in our times, that the whole thigh of a soldier, though cased in well-tempered armour, hath been lopped off by a single blow of the axe, the whole limb falling on one side of the horse, and the expiring body on the other.’ [1]

Ancient weapons of three different materials are found in every part of Ireland: of stone, of bronze, and of iron and steel. In the National Museum in Dublin there is a large collection of all three kinds. The stone implements are hammers and axes, and flint arrow-heads, spear-heads, and knives. Those of bronze are chiefly axes, spear-heads, and swords, all beautifully formed. The weapons of stone are in general much older than those of bronze, and belong to a period beyond the reach of history: the bronze weapons come within the domain of our ancient literature. Those of iron and steel, which are chiefly swords, daggers, and spears, belong to a comparatively late period: the axes spoken of by Giraldus were steel.

Spenser praises the Irish soldiers: ‘They are very valiaunt, and hardie, for the most part great indurers of colde, labour, hunger, and all hardnesse, very active and strong of hand, very swift of foot, very vigilant and circumspect in their enterprises, very present in perils, very great scorners of death.’ ‘I have heard some great warriours say, that in all the services which they had seen abroad in forraigne countreyes they never saw a more comely man than the Irishman nor that commeth in more bravely to his charge.’ [2] Froissart’s testimony is perhaps stronger: ‘No man at arms, be he ever so well mounted, can overtake them, they are so light of foot. Sometimes they leap from the ground behind a horseman and embrace the rider so tightly that he can no way get rid of them.’ [3] The French gentleman Castide who gave the account of the Irish to Froissart, was himself taken prisoner in this way by the Irish chief whose daughter he afterwards married.

2. Top. Hib., Dist. iii., chap. x. Bohn’s Translation.
2. Spenser, View, 116, 119.
3. Johnes’s Froissart, ii. 578.

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Cavalry were not much used in ancient Ireland: for example we do not find them mentioned in the battle of Clontarf But from the earliest times individual chiefs and other distinguished persons were in the habit of riding on horseback, and they were very particular in the choice of their horses. They rode without saddle, stirrup, or spur. After the Invasion cavalry came into general use. Each horseman had at least one footman to attend him - called a gilla or dalteen - armed only with a dart or javelin having a long thong attached. Sometimes a horse soldier had two or three dalteens.

Chariots. Our literature affords unquestionable evidence that chariots were used in Ireland from the most remote ages. In the ancient historical tales, the chiefs are constantly described as going to battle in war-chariots, each driven by an ara or charioteer: and we know from the Lives of the early saints that Patrick, Bridget, Columkille, Declan, and other Irish saints, travelled in twohorse chariots in their missionary journeys through the country. The war-chariots are sometimes described as
furnished with sharp spikes and scythe-blades like those of the old Britons: while in times of peace, kings, queens, and chiefs of high rank rode in chariots luxuriously fitted up and ornamented with gold, silver, and feathers.’

Roads. That the country was well provided with roads we know, partly from our ancient literature, and partly from the general use of chariots. There were five main roads leading from Tara through the country in different directions; and numerous minor roads - all with distinct names - are mentioned in the annals. There must have been roads everywhere in the inhabited districts: for we know that provision was made in the Brehon law for repairing them. And it was enjoined that a brugaid or public victualler should have roads leading from different directions to his house.

Boats. The ancient Irish used three kinds of boats:-- small sailing vessels; canoes hollowed out from the trunks of trees; and currachs. The currach was made of

1. See Cambr. Evers. chap. xii.

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wickerwork covered with hides: some currachs had a double hide-covering, some a triple. These boats are constantly mentioned in lay as well as in ecclesiastical literature; and they are used still round the coasts, but tarred canvas is employed instead of skins.

Dress. In ordinary life the men wore a large frieze mantle or overall which covered them down to the ankles: among the rich it was usually of fine cloth, often variegated with scarlet and other colours. Their trousers were very tight fitting: the harread or hat was cone-shaped and without a leaf. The women wore saffron-coloured tunics, with many folds and much material - sometimes more than a dozen yards. The married women wore a kerchief on the head: the unmarried girls went bareheaded.

Mills. Water mills were known from very remote ages, and were more common in ancient than in modern times. We know from the Lives of the Irish saints that several of them erected mills where they settled, shortly after the introduction of Christianity. Water mills are mentioned in the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, showing that they were in use before his time: and it appears certain that they were introduced as early as the time of Cormac Mac Art in the third century. [1] A small mill was a usual appendage to a hallyhetagh or ancient townland; it was not owned by an individual, but was held in common by a number of persons of the richer classes. Mills are often mentioned in grants and charters of the eleventh and twelfth centuries; and laws relating to them are laid down in detail in the Brehon code. In most houses there was a quern or handmill, and the use of it was part of the education of every woman of the working class. The quern continued in use until very recently both in Ireland and Scotland.

Surnames. Hereditary family names became general in Ireland about the time of Brian Boru, viz. in the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century: and some authorities assert that they were adopted in obedience to an ordinance of that monarch. The manner of

1. Petrie’s Tara, 164.

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forming the names was very simple. Each person had one proper name of his own. In addition to this all the members of a family took as a common surname the name of their father, with Mac (son) prefixed, or of their grandfather or some more remote ancestor, with ua or o (grandson or descendant) prefixed. Thus the O’Neills are so called from their ancestor Niall Glunduff[n.] king of Ireland (a.d. 916), and ‘John O’Neill’ means John the descendant of Niall: the Mac Oarthys of Desmond have their surname from a chief named Carrthach, who lived about the year 1043. The same custom was adopted in Scotland: but while in Ireland was much more general than Mac, in Scotland the was very rarely chosen, and nearly all the Scotch Gaelic family names begin with Mac.

Burial. Three modes of disposing of the dead were practised in ancient Ireland. First mode: the body was buried as at present. Second: sometimes the body of a king or warrior was placed standing up in the grave, fully accoutred and armed: King Laeghaire was buried in this manner in the rampart of his rath at Tara, with his face turned towards his foes the Leinstermen. Third: the body was burned and the ashes were deposited in the grave in an ornamented urn of baked clay. Of the first two kinds we have historical record: of the third we have none; but we know that it was in very general use in prehistoric times, for urns containing ashes and burnt bones are found in graves in every part of Ireland.

The body or urn was very often enclosed in a sort of rude stone coffin formed of flags, called a kist or kistvaen, placed underground near the surface: the bodies of those that fell in battle were often disposed of in this manner, so that kistvaens are now found in great numbers on ancient battlefields. Often that sort of stone monument now known as a crornlech was constructed, formed of one great flat stone lying on the tops of several large standing stones, thus enclosing a rude chamber in which one or more bodies or urns were placed. These cromlechs - which are sometimes wrongly called druids’ altars - remain in every part of Ireland; and skeletons, and urns contain

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ing burnt bones have been found under many of them. Sepulchral monuments of the same class are found all over Europe, and even in India.

Over the grave of any distinguished person it was usual to heap up a great mound of clay or stones containing, in or near its centre, a beehive-shaped chamber of dry masonry communicating with the exterior by a long narrow passage. The body or urn was placed in the chamber; in some chambers, rude shallow stone coffins have been found. The largest sepulchral mounds in the whole country are those of Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth, all on the Boyne, five miles above Drogheda.

A mound of stones raised over a grave is called a cairn. In old times people had a fancy to bury on the tops of hills; and the summits of very many hills in Ireland are crowned with cairns, under every one of which - in a stone coffin - reposes some chief renowned in the olden time.

At the burial of every distinguished person there were funeral games as among the ancient Greeks: cattle were sometimes slain as part of the ceremonial. Debased traces of the old funeral rites have come down to our own day in the customs at wakes and funerals.

Bards. In early ages a man who had mastered the seventh year’s course of study (p.156) and devoted himself specially to poetical composition was a bard. The words hard and file [filla] are often understood in the same sense. In later times the word had commonly a narrower and lower signification - merely a verse-maker or rhymer.

All the Celtic nations both of the Continent and of the British Isles had their bards, whom they held in great estimation. In Ireland the bards were both esteemed and dreaded; their praise was eagerly sought after and liberally rewarded. The poet Erard Mac Cosse relates that on one occasion he visited Mailroney king of Connaught (died A.D. 954), who greatly honoured him, and at parting presented him with a chessboard, a sword, fifty cows, and thirty steeds. [1] But they were a very irritable race, and could compose an aer or satire which was believed to

1. O’Curry, Mann, and Cust. i. 129.

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have some preternatural influence for mischief, so as to inflict bodily or mental injury, such as raising blotches on the face, &c.

From the earliest times the bards were very numerous; and they were so exacting in their claims that they became an intolerable burden on the people. On three several occasions it was determined to abolish the order altogether, but each time they were saved by the intervention of the king and people of Ulster. The last crisis, which came in the reign of Hugh Mac Ainmire, was the most dangerous of all; when King Hugh, provoked by their insolence, proposed, at the Convention of Drumketta in 574, that the order should be suppressed and the bards banished; but at the intercession of St. Columba a middle course was adopted. Their number was greatly reduced, and strict rules were laid down for the regulation of their conduct in the future. The ollaves, under the direction of their chief, Dalian Forgaill, were required to open schools, as described in Part II. page 155. Lands were assigned for their maintenance, and the ollaves who possessed these lands were to support the inferior bards as teachers, so as to relieve the people from their exactions. It was on that occasion that Dalian Forgaill, in gratitude, composed the Amra on St. Columkille, spoken of at page 14. By this wise measure the bards seemed to have regained the confldence of the people.

After the Anglo-Norman invasion the bards were found by the invaders a great obstacle to the conquest of the country, as they stirred up the people to resistance by their spirited lays. Many determined attempts were made to exterminate them by stringent and cruel enactments, which it would seem had not much effect; for we have still extant many of their poetical effusions, written during the periods of fiercest persecution.

Chess. I have already mentioned several of the games of the ancient Irish: I will here mention one more - chess. Chess-playing was one of the favourite amusements of the Irish kings and chiefs, who had always their own chessboards and men. In the Will of Cahirmore, king of Ireland in the second century, we are told that he bequeathed

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his chessboard and chessmen to his son Olioll Kedach; [1] and the game is constantly mentioned in the very oldest Irish tales, as for instance in the Tain-ho-Quelne. In the ancient tale called ‘The Courtship of Etain’ in the Book of the Dun Cow, Midir the fairy king of Bri-leith comes on a visit to King Achy. ‘What brought thee hither? ' said Achy. ‘To play chess with thee,’ answered Midir. ‘Art thou good at chess?’ said Achy. ‘Let us prove it,’ said Midir. ‘The queen is asleep,’ said Achy, ‘and the house in which are the chessboard and men belongs to her.’ ‘Here I have as good a set of chess,’ said Midir. That was true indeed; for it was a board of silver and pure gold; and every angle was illuminated with precious stones; and the man-bag was of woven brass wire.

One specimen of a chessman - an ivory king - may be seen in the National Museum, Dublin.

For further information the reader may consult O’Donovan’s Introduction to the Book of Rights.

1. Book of Rights, p.201.

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