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[The True Origins of Irish Society
Copyright © 2003 by Desmond Keenan
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Social and Economic Conditions in England
Social and Economic conditions
in Ireland
The Social Stratification
of Irish Society
The Structure within the
Tuath
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Situation
in
This period covers the centuries during which
Christianity and writing were brought to
It could be described as lasting from the
withdrawal of the Roman legions from
The
The decline of the
In these 400 years here was not anarchy or
reversion to a primitive social and economic life. Cities may have shrunk, but
they still existed. The Roman roads may have been ill-repaired and unsuitable
for wheeled traffic, but they still existed. It may have been advisable to
travel in groups along with some men who carried arms. A person travelling from
Semi-nomadic or nomadic peoples
outside the borders of the Empire caused the problems. The region that
stretched from the Atlantic coast to the borders of
Fighting on horseback instead of from chariots
was now the rule among the steppe-dwellers. As they had no stirrups and their
seat was not very secure on the horse’s back they used arrows and a light spear
for thrusting downwards. The general tactic was to wear down defending forces
with repeated swoops using arrows, until it was time to overwhelm the weakened
defenders with a rush. For defence and attack against them Romans, Byzantines,
and Persians used combined forces of cavalry and infantry, with increasing
emphasis on cavalry. The heavy cavalry with armour, the cataphracts
of the Byzantines and Persians, and the heavy cavalry of the Franks and Crusaders, had the advantage in a pitched
battle.
The first
of the steppe-peoples to come into contact with the
Further north, other
Teutonic-speaking tribes, still pagan, like the Franks crossed the
There are two very important dates
marking the beginning of the period. The first was the battle of
The Empire itself had become officially Christian
in the reign of
The
defence of
The diocesan system, and connections
with
Monasticism was in deep trouble almost from the
start. It was all very well when it was confined to a few communities under the
direct supervision of the Desert Fathers themselves. But anybody could become a
monk. A novice could go to one abbot and ask for instruction, then wander off
and ask for instruction from another, or not, as the case might be. Various
attempts were made to draw up a rule of life for monks before St Benedict of Nursia wrote his famous Rule or Regula Monachorum in
540 AD.
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In
The century and a half between the first reported
arrival of the Saxons and the mission of
In the nineteenth century it, in the heyday of
Darwinian Rassenkampf
or struggles between races, it was believed that hordes of Angles and Saxons
bringing all their women with them, exterminated the
local people and occupied their land. This theory was abandoned not least
because there was not the slightest evidence for it. Against it was argued that
the change of language could be explained if
There is also the possibility that the process of
change from the Roman provincial administration to local chiefdoms was identical
in both parts of Britannia, the only difference being the language spoken by
the most prominent local warrior. In each case the chiefdom would have been
about the size of a county,
Much the same can be said about the Anglo-Saxon
conquest of
The precise social organisation of the
Anglo-Saxons in
Artistic objects from
From the very north of
It may be that in the immediate post-Roman period
a common Celtic language was spoken in all this part of
In the north, three British/Welsh chiefdoms were
emerging, of which we at least know their names. By the end of the period,
records were more abundant though still not numerous. The first was Strathclyde
around
Further north, in the
Of the early part of the period in
Christianity
had come to
In
The first Saxon ruler to embrace Christianity was
Ethelbert of Kent in 597. There was little difference in time between the last
Welsh, Irish, and Scottish chiefs accepting Christianity, and the first of the
English.
Once organised, the Church in
Once they had been converted to Christianity, the
Anglo-Saxon clerics, beginning with St Boniface early in the eighth century,
began to preach to those tribes like the Friesians who were still pagans.
A great deal of nonsense has been
written about the supposed
Virtually nothing is known about the
origins of monasticism in
Social and Economic Conditions in
There was very little cultural difference
between those in the
As we would expect, the social
structure among Anglo-Saxons was virtually identical with that among the
Celtic-speakers. The chief was the elected leader of a warband.
The choice of chief was restricted to members of certain families and the
electors were similarly restricted. The earliest chiefdoms we know about were
about the size of a county, and corresponded to the ruiri in
Basically there were three grades,
the chieftain’s kin (athelings), the freemen (carls or
churls), and the slaves. Both chiefs and churls dwelt in farmsteads (hams or tuns named after the family that lived there). There were
no officials, no administration, and no public control of law and order. Every
atheling and every churl was responsible for the maintenance of public order,
and disputes could be brought before the chief who arbitrated. Then the
aggrieved party carried out the sentence, aided if necessary by forces provided
by the chief. In the early days the freemen, or churls, attended the chief’s
moot and could be called to arms by the chief for defence purposes.
The churls were the free cultivators
who might have from thirty to a hundred acres, corresponding to the boaire. With regard to the chiefs and their
athelings they were in a very weak position, and open to exploitation, as were
the boaires
.If he could not meet the demands of his local lord he had to borrow stock,
perhaps his own stock, back from him, and became a gebur
or boor, i.e. tied to the lord until the debt was discharged. This resulted
usually in a permanent dependency with hereditary tributes of services, fines,
and produce. The constant raids and wars and heavy costs of defence during the
Viking virtually eliminated the free classes (Bryant Makers 121 ff). They were not slaves however, for they owned the
produce of their lands after paying the annual tributes. But neither were they
free. They could not leave their land nor the service
of the local lord. As will be seen later, the social structure in
Social and Economic conditions in
General
Observations
Just at this time we are able, for the first time
to get information from various written sources about Irish society. Putting
Irish society in its geographical and historical context the picture is one of
a fully mature society which had been developing and changing for
millennia. It was also probably broadly
typical of similar societies in
Some of the information comes from written sources, for example the legal
documents. These written sources have to be studied in context. The same is
true of other documents like the Lives
of the saints, and the sagas. Sociology and economics did not exist at that
time so writers had other concerns. But it is possible with care to extract
much useful information from them. But they need to be carefully interpreted.
One concern of the lawyers seems to have been to preserve every custom or
judgement no matter what its source. Lawyers collected laws whether or not the
laws were contradictory. Occasionally a great ruler like Justinian might ask
his legal experts to reduce the collections to some kind of order. Often they
were no more than collections of traditional laws and judgements from various
sources, and of varying value. Secondly, because every man had a blood price or
honour price in accordance with his status it was necessary to assign some
place to him in the hierarchical order. Thirdly, as all these laws had to be
memorised, they had to be cast into a form suitable for learning by heart. The
modern student therefore becomes uneasy when he hears of seven degrees of
nobility, and seven degrees of freemen. Seven is a useful number and occurs often in the Bible. But as in the
collections of laws in the Bible itself much information about a society by
studying the collections of laws even if an artificial framework is ignored
(see Exodus 22). For information on
historical events up to the year 800 we are largely reliant on annals kept in
monasteries in the northern half of Ireland, especially Iona and Clonard. Therefore we have more information on the various
branches of the Ui Neill than we have on all the rest of
the chiefly families put together. Information about
Climatically, the Sub-Atlantic period had come to an end, and
the weather became slightly dryer. The temperature continued to rise.
Conditions for farming were better than at any time since the Middle Bronze
period. Mitchell notes that at this time the population was growing and by 800
AD all the potential agricultural land was tilled (153 ff). Potential that is
in the social and economic conditions of the time. But this at the time probably
did not amount to a tenth of the surface of the country. The great clearances
of forests and reclamation of land in
The Ordnance Survey Map of Monastic Ireland illustrates the distribution of monasteries
founded between 600 and 1100 AD. (This distribution differs very little from
that of monasteries founded between 1100 and 1500 AD) What are remarkable are
the vast areas in which there were no
monasteries. The populated areas also coincide with the areas that are known to
have been bishoprics. It also clearly shows why no boundaries were assigned to
dioceses at the synod of Rathbreasail. This does not
mean that the intervening spaces were entirely unoccupied. For one thing, each
occupied area would have had vast areas of woodland for their cattle and pigs
to be herded in. Also it is likely that obscure corners of tillable soil were
occupied by lesser or broken tribes who had been driven off the lands and who
survived partly, if not wholly by plunder. These would not have sufficient
land, or a secure enough grip on it, to endow monasteries. But the distribution
is still puzzling. While in
The population
would have been less than half a million, but increasing between 600 AD and 800
AD (O’Corrain). Population density over the whole
island would have been about 10 to the square mile. But within a tuath in an inhabited area it might be several times that
figure There were probably considerable fluctuations caused by plagues and
famines, but the overall reproduction rate was probably in any case only
slightly above the 2.4 children required nowadays to maintain the population.
This figure should be calculated as meaning the survival of that proportion of
children to an age when they had children themselves, for almost certainly
infant mortality was high. The number of pregnancies of a fertile woman would
naturally have been far higher than that, allowance being made for infertile
women, miscarriages, still-borns, and those who died
in childbirth, and infant mortality. We would expect that every fertile woman
and girl was made pregnant as soon and as often as possible. The aristocracy,
if nobody else, would have ensured that. We would expect the reproductive rate
of noble women, calculated thus to be higher than those of freewomen, which in
turn would have been higher than those of the poorer classes and slaves. A
typical household might consist of up to thirty people, half of them children,
and as many others including relatives, servants, and slaves directly dependent
on the family for shelter, food and clothing. The density of these farms would
be about 6 to the square mile that equals 640 acres (Mitchell 153 ff). But the
vast part of
A
Celtic language was everywhere
spoken and always by the upper class but the older language may have survived
in pockets among the poor people or broken tribes (de Paor,
Saint Patrick's World 23 ff). The language was however changing very
rapidly. Recognisably Gaulish names in the fourth
century like Cunagosus had become Congus
by the seventh. The velitas
(poet) had become a file.
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The Social Stratification of Irish Society
Whatever it may have been in the more peaceful
Neolithic or Bronze Ages,
The entire schematic picture given in the law
codes probably lasted a very short time. Social relations and the structure of
power were constantly and rapidly changing. It is easy however to get a simple
picture of the general outlines of society. The old Indo-European class or caste system that became
fossilised in Hinduism can clearly be discerned. These classes were (1) the
priests, scholars and learned persons, (2) the warriors and rulers (3) farmers,
and traders or merchants, (and artisans, labourers, servants and slaves).
Beneath these were those outside the system, called Untouchables in
Some schemes of social stratification were
excessively simple, for example the threefold division into aristocracy,
bourgeoisie, and workers. For each of these was subdivided into several grades.
In
It is obvious that ancient Irish society was
organised on similar rigid class or caste lines, and that the lawyers busied
themselves with providing descriptions of each, and their relative order. In
general, it is well to keep in mind the simple basic structure exemplified by
the Anglo-Saxons in Kent, nobles, free farmers, and other workers who were not
free in the technical sense that they were not free to speak in the assembly,
while remembering that each category had several grades. Women, slaves,
travellers, and foreigners had no rights within the community.
Families
were divided into two chief categories, the free and the unfree.
Free was a technical term, meaning essentially free to speak at a public
meeting. The free were divided noble (flaith) and commoner or freeman (aithech) families. There were
basically, seven orders of nobles to
which also the learned classes, lawyers, druids, etc were assigned, both
because of their honour price and their holdings of land. (These were ri ruirech, ri, aire forgaill,
aire ard, aire tuise, aire
echta, and the lowest aire desa. These divisions have no particular
significance to us nowadays.) All the nobles could have clients; the boaire and those
below him could not. The lowest of them had to have at least 10 clients, five
free and 5 unfree. Once again we see the structure of
the warband. Each lord and chief was owed tributes in
goods and services from those beneath him. One law decreed that the house of a
chief should measure 37 feet while that of a lord should measure 30 feet.
Chiefs, lords, and boaires
all had their family farms, but the chiefs and lords had additional revenues,
for example from clientship. Clients could be free or
even noble and these entered into free clientship and
this was usually to the benefit of both parties. There was however also a
so-called 'base clientship' which was heavily to the
lord's advantage. In the cases of the stronger and more aggressive clans, it is
likely that most of the wealth of the chiefs came from warfare, not only from
seizure of cattle but also from the seizure of lands. There is no other way
that the Ui Neill could have expanded except by
seizing the lands of other chiefs. It may be that they at first seized only the
lios and
farm of the local chief or ri, but as time went on,
most of the other farms in the tuath would have been seized as well. In such cases, all
those below the level of boaire
would have been left in place to do the work.
Two kinds of clients
were distinguished. Free clients were those to whom they lent property in the
form of cattle with the right to graze them within the tuath. In return he had to give one cow in three every year to his lord
for seven years, a rate of interest of 33%. Clients could be members of the
noble or free classes. They were bound to support their lord, who in turn was
bound to support them. There was also a harsher kind of clientship
called base clientship. Each year the client had to
pay one cow in twelve (8.5%), but he also had to supply food and services. The
supplying of food was particularly onerous, for the lord with his retinue could
turn up and demand to be fed. Later this became the notorious practice of coshering, or imposing soldiers on the client at free
quarters.
As the economy was primarily a pastoral one, with
wealth measured in terms of cattle, we can assume that most of these cattle
were kept in the forests and waste lands that covered at least nine tenths of
the surface of Ireland, and the rights of the chiefs and noble classes to
assign grazing rights to clients was an important source of their wealth. There
was no point in giving a man cattle unless he was also
granted grazing rights.
Beneath the nobles were seven orders of freemen, including farmers and
craftsmen, and the unfree classes. The top rank of the freemen
was that of the boaire
or independent farmer. Freedom in this context meant freedom to attend and
speak in the chief’s assembly. In any four generation extended families or fine, only the head of the family was
free in this sense. Next came those on his level,
chariot makers, carpenters, cloth figurers, leather workers, relief carvers and
harpers. Below them were wood-turners, fetter-makers, other leather workers,
wool combers, and fishermen.
Among the unfree classes
would have been cottiers or cottagers, and included herdsmen, shepherds,
collectors of shellfish, and those who practised the minor trades. If their
cases ever came to a lord’s court that was unlikely, they would have to get a
freeman to speak for them. (No provision seems to have been made for their
concerns, such as was provided by Norman manorial courts. Nor is it likely that
they could afford to approach a judge.) Then there were the labourers or
cottiers who had no political rights, the bothachs who seem to have been
herdsmen, fuidhirs
possibly from outside the tuath, sen-cleithes possibly descendants
of mercenaries or prisoners who had rights of residence but were bound to the
land of their lord and so were hereditary serfs, and at the very bottom came
the slaves who were owned by the landowners, and who had no rights whatever.
Servants and slaves usually belonged to somebody who might take an interest in
them. Among those at the very bottom were jockeys, charioteers, steersmen,
mummers, jugglers, buffoons, and clowns travelling minstrels and entertainers,
tolerated fugitives, and so on. The lowest grades had no honour price; only the
honour of those who kept them was considered (Byrne 175).
Cutting across this simple division of society
based on holding of land was another based on those esteemed for their learning
or craft. They too would have been noble or free, and would have had at least
the basic family farm. But the honour
price assigned them to particular ranks. These were divided into two
classes, the saer nemed and the
daer nemed. Among the saer nemed were scholars, churchmen, nobles
and poets, while among the daer nemed classes were members of the skilled trades. The
chief craftsmen, oaken house builders, shipwrights, and mill rights were given
an honour price equal to the lowest grade of nobility,
while chariotmakers, leather workers, stone carvers,
and harpers were give an honour price equal to that of the boaire (Byrne).
Wealth was extremely unevenly distributed. This is usual
in primitive societies. The vast bulk of
wealth was in the hands of the chiefs, their families and noble classes. As
time went on, the nobles and the chiefly families came to be much the same
thing. At the bottom of society, the unfree classes
probably had very little, and would have been the first to perish in a time of
famine. It was a fact everywhere in the ancient world that a slave was in one
respect better off than a free worker, because in times of famine he could
depend on being fed.
Relatives of the chiefs took lands. As the latter
had several wives besides other women their children were very numerous, and a
major duty of the warband was to find land for them
outside the tuath
if it could not be found inside. O’Corrain notes the
acquisition of land by the Dal Cais in east Clare between the eighth and twelfth
centuries, progressing from owning no land in the area to having 200 named
land-owning families (44f). The history of
The honour price or blood price, the amount payable to his family in
case of injury or death. The higher the rank the
higher the honour price. Persons like druids or Christian bishops could
be assigned an honour price equal to that of a lesser noble person. Lawyers
ranked people in accordance with their honour price, and divided the noble
families into seven descending ranks accordingly, and
the free man similarly. The punishment was called the eiric (erk). Payment was made in cattle. Only
the freeman could make claims in person. He had to undertake the claims for
injuries done to his sons, other members of his family, his servants and
slaves. The weight of a person’s testimony varied as his honour price. Also a
person could only give securities to the value of his honour price. A
successful complaint might mean that judgement was given to him, but he then
had to execute the sentence. This of course created difficulties for those of
lower rank trying to get redress from one of higher rank, and the law was not
intended to make it easy for him. If a man became a client of a lord, the lord
shared in the compensation, as so presumably would help to collect it. Women were regarded as chattels to be disposed of
as their father or husband wished. Divorce was easy. There was no limit on the
number of wives. The very lowest ranks had no honour price, but could be
regarded as a chattle of a lord or freeman. The whole
system made it easy for the rich to defraud the poor, and the poorer classes
became more and more oppressed.
With regard
to honour price, there is a famous saying from the twelfth century, always
misquoted by nationalist politicians, that the
Society was organised about two basic units, the
political one and the economic one. Strictly speaking the tuath was both the political and
the economic unit, and almost all the business, whether political or economic,
was accomplished within the boundaries of the tuath. But it makes sense to
describe the basic production unit, the family farm, which supported the
different grades of nobles, freemen, craftsmen, and men of learning, while
recognising that much sustenance came from the flocks and herds in the forests,
as well as from the hunting of wildlife. Other sources of goods whether from
warfare or from trade from outside the tuath passed directly through the hands of the chiefs or the
markets and fairs they permitted. Hence the eternal
desire of the greater chiefs to get control over a stretch of seashore or
navigable estuary. But not only coasts and estuaries had an economic value. A
stretch of shore of a large lake like Lough Neagh or Lough Erne could be
valuable. Hence the desire of the O’Donnells
to get a toehold on Lough Erne. For a trader would pay not only to enter
their territory also to cross it and pass out of it. A tuath which controlled both part
of Belfast Lough and Lough Neagh could milk the trade from the whole of Mid-Ulster..
The economic unit, the family farm of about 70 to 100 acres, was the basic unit of
production. (Compare with the 160 acres in Abraham Lincoln’s Homestead Act.)
This farm would correspond with the later townland which until the
nineteenth century was the basic unit of taxation. (Town was originally the enclosure surrounding the farm buildings of
the ham or home.) The family farms
largely supported the economy. Every noble, free man, important craftsman, and
learned person would have possessed a farm or townland.
The family was the extended family of four or five generations. The family farm
produced almost all the daily essentials in the line of shelter, food, and
clothing, and so could have had many kinds of servants like herdsmen or
milkmaids. Slaves seem to have been numerous, but their numbers would depend on
successful wars. Presumably much of the work was done by family labour except
in the case of the noble families. There were also numerous specialist
producers, house-builders, smiths, and so on that would have their skills in
addition to the family farms. Though
spinning and dyeing would have been done by all women, weaving that required a
loom, was probably mostly done by specialist weavers
There were smaller specialist producers,
apparently all belonging to the unfree classes, like fishermen, fowlers, or
fur trappers presumably had a cottage and a small patch of ground on which to
live. There also categories of labourers or herdsmen, employed on the farms,
who probably also had small pieces of ground and a cottage or hut, and who were
used as hired labour. The laws mention the categories of bothach, fuider,
and sen-cleithe. Bothach (bodach)
is translated as cottier. His name (from bo a cow) would
seem to imply that he was a herdsman, but presumably the fowlers, fur trappers
and such like came under these headings. Fuiders were similar, and may
originally have been mercenaries whom a lord settled on his land. Sen-cleithes seem
to have been serfs bound to the soil, perhaps originally bothachs and fuidirs who had not kept up their
payments. The ancient world was an unforgiving world. It is also possible that
many of these rented lands, perhaps and entire farm, in common on the rundale system (O’Corrain). The
advantage of the rundale
system was that the burden of the rent fell on the entire group, so that if one
member was prevented by illness or other cause from working the others would
support him.) Many of them may have lived in villages.
Bothachs (bodachs) did not own land but could be given land by the
chief to work in return for services or on the share-cropping principle and no
doubt the cows with which their name seems connected. It is likely that
associated with every farm or group of farms, there
was a village composed of miserable huts, each with a patch of land. They may
have amounted to more than half of the total population, for in a pastoral
society, the herdsmen who tended the great herds of cattle, would have been
numerically very important. Unfortunately, as these had no honour price, their
affairs were of no interest to anybody, and if they were mentioned at all it
was only as a butt of jokes, so we know almost nothing about them beyond there
existence. However, most of the cattle they herded would have belonged to
others, the clients of the lords. The name bodach came to signify oaf or
clod to the literary classes. (In the English Doomsday Book in the eleventh
century, numerous villani (villagers) bordarii
(smallholders) and cotarii
(cottagers) were mentioned. Some of the latter held up to five acres. Some of the
land was rented, the rent being paid in days of labour.) As noted earlier, the
lower the status, the less we know about them.
Though
the poorer classes were undoubtedly exploited and oppressed as they were in the
days of Amos the prophet, it does not mean that they were actually over-worked.
Most of them probably suffered more from lack of employment. Taylorism, or the management of labour in such a manner
that a man employed for eight hours actually works eight hours, is a twentieth
century invention. The forty-hour week was largely adopted because it was the
most efficient way to use labour. A man working from dawn to dusk in the
traditional manner spent much of his time not working. At certain times of the
year there would be a great rush to get work done while the weather was good,
followed by no work at all for weeks. By the fifteenth century, with an
ever-increasing noble class who did no work, and who expected to be maintained
by the workers, these classes were as exploited as the French peasants before
the Revolution. But with a much smaller
population, and much more open land for foraging, there is no need to suppose
that they were excessively exploited during this early period.
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The strong farmer, the boaire
(bo aire
cattle-minder, perhaps cattle boss) was the typical farmer, and his farm or townland was the typical farm, though the chiefs and nobles
also, of necessity, had farms. A
description of the boaire’s
farm or townland will suffice for all. As the name boaire implies,
cattle raising was the principal economic activity.
The boaire,
or strong farmer, must be distinguished from the bothach who actually herded the
cattle. But pigs, goats and sheep that also had to be herded, would also have
been kept. There would have been some tillage with cereals like oats and barley
to provide porridge and beer. It is likely that in the early part of the
period, around the time of the coming of St. Patrick, that the boaire and
his sons formed the backbone of Irish society, corresponding to the churl in
Anglo-Saxon society. It is clear that both the boaire and the churl had a much more
important place in society in the fifth century than they had in the twelfth
century when both were reduced to a status resembling villeinage. In both countries the relatives of the
chiefs, the athelings, had become
much more numerous, had taken control of the land and formed a governing class,
the so-called noble class.
The free farming family would have
had a holding of about 70 to 100 acres, a town, or townland
or bally (baile;
compare -ham and -ton; -ington corresponds to Ballymac the town of the sons of), and would have lived in
huts or houses inside circular enclosures called raths.
Later, all the townlands would have extended to meet the
boundaries of all other town lands within a tuath, to make a complete
patchwork, but presumably earlier much wasteland was intermixed with the farmed
land. At some stage the townland became the unit for
taxation and remained such until the nineteenth century long after it had
become split up into separate small farms. The farm family would also have
rights of pasture, timber and peat, in the surrounding bogs and woods. A townland has still today about a hundred acres. The family
was largely self-sufficient producing all its own needs. It is also likely that
some families specialised in particular tasks like curing leather, brewing or
weaving so that their services would have been in demand on other farms.
Each farming family owned its own farm. It was an
allodium, namely it was not held from the chief, and no services were due to
the chief because of it. This was also the system of land tenure among the
Teutonic peoples, before the development of feudalism. Rotations of ploughing
would have taken place within the bounds of each. Some form of the
infield-outfield system was probably practised. The infield was the part of the
farm nearest the rath, which was heavily manured and folded, and cultivated by rotation. The
outfield was much rougher, and was ploughed only occasionally in a fallow year,
largely to clear the weeds. In the fallow year, the land was ploughed two or
three times at intervals of a few weeks and constantly harrowed. This allowed
as many seeds as possible to sprout and be killed. Then after the fallowing the
crop was sown in the autumn. The outfield was normally very dirty, what would
be called nowadays rough grazing. The entire group of farm buildings could have
been shifted periodically round the townland. This
would have been a substitute for fallowing. Heavy manuring
would have maintained fertility but would not have prevented a build up of
weeds and pests. With the introduction of the heavy plough larger fields would
have been cultivated, with probably two fields cultivated in alternate years.
These would naturally not be manured as heavily as
the infield because of the difficulty in transporting heavy wet manure. As
often there is much speculation in this.
There was a certain amount of tillage, but this was left to the unfree
classes and slaves, who seem to have been quite numerous. Pastoral societies
detest heavy work in the fields, whether ploughing, sowing, reaping, threshing,
or grinding corn. So there is no reason to believe that the standard of
husbandry was high. It was easier to burn another piece of scrubland that to
hoe and harrow regularly. But there was another reason for depending chiefly on
animal husbandry. All crops were liable to devastating failure. The damp Irish
climate, at the limit of cereal production may have been particularly
favourable to plant diseases. Even in the nineteenth century, the germination
of root crops apart from the potato was uncertain, and it was this fact that
produced an unhealthy dependence on the single root crop. Cattle too were
occasionally subject to a murrain of cattle plague,
and this inevitably resulted in famine. How and where ploughing was carried out
is hard to determine. Small fields close to the rath
or farmstead could have been ploughed with a light plough drawn by at most two
oxen. But a larger, heavier plough would have required a larger oxteam that in turn would have required heavier fields. In
Slaves were kept for the heaviest work. The number
of slaves kept probably varied as the supply. Slaves at the time of St Patrick
would have been abundant, and also again in Viking times. A hired labourer at least in the eleventh
century was paid one cow and one cloak for a year's labour, and this may have
been the practice too at an earlier date It is unclear if this was in addition
to his daily food or not, but presumably it was. The Jewish law insisted that
the labourer hired by the day should be paid at the end of the day (Lev. 19.13). But in
With regard to techniques of farming the old theory that new techniques were
brought in by new waves of invaders, Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, etc. has long
been abandoned. Innovations could arise
anywhere and they were gradually diffused in times of war and peace. The
coulter plough, with a coulter or vertical iron blade at the front to cut the
sod reached
The boaire would have had a share in the watermill if such existed. They were becoming more common towards
the end of the period (O’Corrain.) During this period
water-driven corn grinding mills were being introduced, a horizontal watermill
being known from the seventh century. This was not a very efficient mill. The
mill wheel was horizontal with half of if projecting into a fast-running
stream. But it is simple to construct, and the shaft drives the horizontal
millstone directly. The undershot vertical wheel was known from Roman times,
but for grinding corn it requires two shafts
joined by a right-angled gear. Corn-drying kilns became equally widespread.
Damp corn quickly rots. All cereal crops were subject to great fluctuations in
yield, whether from poor sprouting lack of rain, too much rain, and numerous
diseases. (The great popularity of the potato in later times was the great
regularity of its cropping an apparent immunity to disease.)
Iron tools were introduced. Good quality iron tools were superior to those of
stone or bronze, but much of the iron available to the poorer classes was
probably of low grade. The most important tool was the plough. All the other
tools would have survived from Neolithic times. The spade was now given an iron
tip, and this was probably true of many tools. It had long been obvious that
any tool for cutting or thrusting was best shod with iron even when made
largely with wood.
Conditions on the farmstead would have been much like they were a thousand years
earlier and a thousand years later. There would have been a large hall, and
several other smaller buildings all surrounded by a circular enclosure called a
rath or lios. They were
not strongly fortified, and the boundary
was probably chiefly to keep out animals like boars or wolves or human thieves.
The guard dogs would have been let loose at night. If there are any signs of
fortification as with crannogs we can assume that a noble family occupied it.
The family would have ground its own corn, baked its own bread, salted its own
meat, cut its own turf or firewood, and brewed its own ale. Few of the raths had wells inside them indicating that the people fled
when an invasion was threatened. But even in urbanised
The
farmstead would also have had a fold for sheep, a pen for calves, a sty for
pigs, a barn, a kiln for drying the grain, all within the circular fence or rath, The extended family would have had a house thirty
feet long inside its rath. Traces of at least 30,000 raths are known to survive. The outer fence was normally
banked with earth at this period that explains why so many from this period
survive. Many of the houses were constructed of wattle covered with mud and
whitewashed which may have indicated a shortage of good timber. The houses were
thatched and the eaves would have extended a considerable way, three or four
feet, beyond the walls to protect them from the rain. There was doubtless a
large porch at one end where the men would assemble during the daytime if it
were too wet or too hot. Inside there
would have been a fireplace, not necessarily for cooking, and perhaps a few
chairs and beds. But most people would have sat down or slept on straw or
rushes. There would have been no tables for dining. By the ninth or tenth
century, some of these farmhouses may have built of stone. . There would be other buildings, some of them
lean-tos inside the rath or lios. Almost all work was done outdoors, and these works would have
included spinning, weaving, cooking, metalwork, copying manuscripts, and so on.
(Even in the stone-built Benedictine monasteries, the monks lived in the open
cloisters, summer and winter.)
[Top]
Though there was a limited amount of tillage, the
economy was essentially a cattle-rearing
one. Indeed the best parallels to Irish society were to be found among the
warlike cattle-rearing tribes of Sub-Saharan Africa like the Masai or Zulus where a society very similar to that of the
Indo-Europeans had developed. Status and wealth were measured in the number of
cattle. Herding and warfare were the duties of men; tillage was left to women,
hired men, and slaves. The real productive area would have been the vast woods,
and scrubland, and bogs, and hills outside the settled townlands.
Cattle-herding and cattle-raiding were not really distinguished.
The animals,
cattle, sheep, and pigs would of course have been grazed in the forest, and
would have required numerous cowherds, shepherds, and swineherds, all assigned
to the bothach
(cowboy or vaquero) class. It is
likely, though there is no direct evidence of this, that these were housed in
small cottages in villages, each with a small patch of land for cultivation,
and with rights to a certain amount of wood or peat for fires, and a certain
proportion of milk and meat from the cows. The easiest way to pay a cowherd was in so much milk each day. In a
cashless society, this was the way they were paid. As O’Corrain
notes the cottagers probably had a single piece of land held in common, on the rundale system and fenced with hurdles to keep out cattle
and wild animals. It is likely too, given the pastoral basis of society that
most of the effort was directed to maintaining the herds and flocks roaming in
the great forests, like the open range in the American West. As there were no
fences or boundaries, herdsmen were absolutely essential. In many places too
distant summer pastures were distinguished. Not only the herdsmen but also the
milkmaids would have to stay there with the cows. One duty of the herdsmen was
to prevent the calves from drinking the cows’ milk, as the owners required
this.
The animals were still the small Iron Age breeds,
with the sheep kept chiefly for wool. The wool could have been almost any
colour. There was less preoccupation with producing a pure
white wool or even a fine wool. Pure white or black fine wool if obtainable
would have been used by the rich. Cows
were kept principally for their milk, and an ability to survive the winter
outdoors on naturally occurring hay was an important consideration. Pigs were semi-wild, rangy beasts able to forage
for themselves. Swineherds, like shepherds and cowherds were probably numerous.
We can also assume that many of these were brought along when the chiefs went
on a cattle-raid in order to locate and drive off the stock.
Each farming family would have been allocated
the number of each kind of animal it was allowed to pasture in the woods By law
(presumably to maintain his status as a freeman with rights at the oenach and to distinguish him from a mere
cottager) the boaire had to have at least 20
cows, 2 bulls, and six oxen, presumably the standard ox-team. This was to
reflect his honour price. But we can assume that he was not allowed by the
chief to exceed this number without permission. He could always add to the
number by entering into clientship. (In the days of
the
The emphasis was on dairying and consequently on ways of preserving the milk (O’Corrain 55). There were some attempts where the terrain
was suitable to have distant summer farms where the cattle could be pastured in
the good weather. This would have kept the nearer woodlands and bogs until
later in the year, and the outfield for winter. The
animals were still unimproved, being still the old hardy stock that could
survive the winter outdoors with little fodder. Grass dries and turns naturally
to hay if it is uncut. But a lot of it may fall down and rot or be trampled on.
Also such grass is very woody and lacking in nutritional value. Haymaking
improves both quantity and quality. All farm produce was subject to diseases
and plagues, or failure to grow. Murrains were likely to strike cattle herds.
(Murrain was a generic term for diseases that killed cattle.) This in turn
would cause great mortality among the poorer classes. The rich classes would
make sure they themselves had enough to eat. Pigs were common and were tended
in herds in the forests. The annals noted the years in which mast (the fruit of
beech, oak, chestnut, and other forest trees) was abundant. Horses were kept,
chiefly for riding and military purposes it would seem. Cavalry was not however
important. They may also have been used as pack animals. They were still the
small native ponies. Oxen were used for draught and ploughing.
As far as farming was concerned, the
nobles, i.e. the relatives of the
chief or members of the ruling family, would have lived in exactly the same way
as the free land-owning farmers. But they would have had larger holdings of the
better land. Their rath
or lios would
have been better prepared for defence, and so perhaps would have had a well
within its bounds. [Top]
In many ways the craftsmen would have been like the boaire but with presumably lesser
obligations regarding stock. Many of them were freemen, and could attend the
chief’s court in person. We know almost nothing about how they fitted into the
general economy in a cashless society. Though the output of their crafts was
prized it was extremely labour-intensive. Nor often, whatever was paid for a
shield or sword, or house etc., would the recompense cover the expenses of the
smith’s household for the period, or be of any use in that direction. If a
chief gave what he had, perhaps barrels of wine, in return for a sword, the
smith would be glad to drink it. But if a farmer paid in days of labour on the
smith’s fields for sharpening his ploughshare, it was more useful. Highest of
the craftsmen were oaken house builders, shipbuilders, and millwrights whose
honour price was equal to that of the lowest grade of nobleman. We have no idea
how often they were required, or if those with skills in lesser crafts like
carpenters were usually used. Chariot makers and carpenters had an honour price
equal to that of the boaire or highest grade of freeman (Byrne
173). Accidental fires and systematic burning by raiders have left no examples
of their work. The houses of the rich
and the churches may have been built as elaborate timber structures. It is a
pity that not a single example of timberwork survives. It was probably highly
carved like metal work or stone work. But in most cases there seems to have
been little desire to develop domestic architecture. It would suffice if the
roof kept out the rain and snow.
Domestic
utensils were made almost universally of wood. Among the craftsmen were those
whose skills were less esteemed like the makers of leather, and workers in
wool, weavers and spinners, dyers of cloth, turners of wood, brewers, and
fishermen. The home brewing was probably of not a high standard Clearly too there had to be butchers, cooks, and
laundresses, and seamstresses.
How exactly this kind of work was organised is not
clear. Obviously, for some goods the nobles and landowners would have many of
the crafts carried on within the lios or rath. It would seem obvious that most of the family of a boaire, male and female, would be expected to
work. But it is not obvious how much work was expected for example from the
female members of a noble’s family. But this did not necessarily mean that the
craftsmen and craftswomen worked there full time. A brewer would not be needed
full time. Similarly, the services of a smith producing swords would not be
required all the time. A chief could only buy what he
could afford, nor does it seem that there was any great economic surplus. The
first charges on the revenue of a chief would have been the maintenance of his
household, providing them with food and clothing. All the members of his
family, especially but not exclusively the
women would demand new clothes.
Nobody knows how or where the lowest classes lived, those without connection with a lord or
freeman, but no doubt each had a small plot of land and a right to pasture a
cow or two. During the course of the
year we can imagine one of these small people taking their goods, furs, fish,
rush baskets, berries and nuts to the local farmer to be exchanged for an old
cast-off garment, or an old pair of boots. Or taking them to the chief’s annual
fair for a similar exchange. For such people a short piece of thread would be a
precious commodity. One can imagine a woman and her children gathering sheep’s
wool from the bushes to spin. As late as the nineteenth century, Daniel
O’Connell admitted that nobody had any idea how the very poorest classes
survived. They may have lived in small hamlets of wattle huts all traces of
which have long since disappeared. Many of them probably lived like the very
poorest classes in pre-Famine
The forests
were strictly controlled, and the law codes imposed restrictions on the cutting
of various trees. The chiefs and leaders of the warbands
had great interests in the forests. Grazing rights in the forests seems to have
been the basis of the client system. They were also essential for purposes of
defence. Much of the hunting was probably restricted to the chiefly families.
The felling of mature trees was probably also restricted to the noble families. On the one hand, grazing had
to be restricted, and on the other hand tree-felling
either for the purposes of getting timber and firewood or clearing for tillage
had to be prevented. There is little doubt that at a quite early date all the
good timber was cut away for quite a distance from the homesteads. Not only was
it constantly required for firewood, but also all buildings were of wood, and
one of the chief purposes of a cattle-raid was to burn the dwellings of the
farms raided. It is recounted in the Life
of St Darerca that she worked a miracle to
transport a tree for the ridgepole of a church, which could only be found in an
inaccessible spot (de Paor, St Patrick's World p294). The problem was probably a common one.
Houses were therefore made of wattle and daub. A hall 30 feet by 20 feet would
have required about thirty rafters each about 20 feet long. The ridgepole of
the roof would have been 30 feet. It is not clear why it could not have been
spliced. The ordinary people probably used poles of hazel, and built circular
huts to avoid using long, heavy timbers. The huts need not have been large, for
most of their life was passed outdoors.
Increasingly,
landowners claimed the fishing
rights on their waters, and also the waters for their mills. In the nineteenth
century, one of the greatest obstacles to improving inland navigation and
inland drainage was the fact that every piece of water was owned by somebody,
and weirs and fish traps abounded. Almost certainly salt was traded widely for
it is virtually an essential human food. It could be obtained by evaporation on
the seacoasts. One wonders how much a poor cottager inland would pay in days of
work to his richer neighbour for a small piece of salt for his family. Even in
the nineteenth century poor families on the west coast found it dear and
difficult to get salt
[Top]
With regard to roads, as always we must consider the military situation not that
of trade. A road was a path cleared through the forest. The Irish word bothar (boher), like boaire and bothach, seems to be also connected with cows, and
presumably meant local tracks within the tuath along which cattle were
driven. A provincial king would insist that roads be kept clear and maintained
within the area from which he exacted tribute, so that he could speedily reach
recalcitrant subjects. On the other hand he would insist that the roads on his
borders be kept as poor as possible and the clearings as narrow as possible so
that they could be easily blocked in time of invasion. As such attacks took
place in the summer, forests not bogs provided the
best defence. At the first signs of an enemy's advance trees and bushes were
plashed across the highways. As late as 1690 there were only one or two places
between
That is not to say that there were not long distance paths through the bogs
and forests.
The fact remains that no Irish chief
was ever able to conquer all the other chiefs and hold them subdued for long.
Only a handful of chiefs succeeded in doing so for more than a few years. Only
when the Government in
It is clear from the literature that
boats were important, as elsewhere
in
There was no coinage in
In common with the rest of
Who were the metal workers, and how did they fit into the social structure? The Cuchulain (Koohullin) story of Cullan the smith shows that the latter had a rath of his own and with it no doubt an appropriate amount
of land. Cullan would of course be the head of an
extended family of smiths. A great smith could entertain the local chief and
his retinue. (This is not to endorse the historicity of the Tain but only to point out what
contemporary listeners would have found reasonable.) But had all smiths and
metal workers their own raths and farms? And the stone carvers? Were some itinerants who proceeded from chief to chief executing work for him and
being given food and lodging while they did so? Or were they hawking previously
made goods from place to place? It seems more likely that each family of
craftsmen had their own home farm on which to support themselves. From this
they could set out at certain times of the year to sell their goods. If they
had to carve an object on site, like a stone cross at a monastery, the person
commissioning the work would no doubt have been responsible for their support
while they were accomplishing it. Like the later ‘hiring fair’ the worker would
only be paid at the end of the year.
The problem of establishing how the Irish economy
worked arises from the nature of the surviving sources. These were concerned
with the affairs of the noble classes, the affairs of the courts, warfare, and
compensations due for individual wrongs. There were no treatises on farming, on
metallurgy, on machines, on mining, on trade, or any such subjects. Unlike
those Romans who considered these subjects suitable to write about most Irish
writers agreed with the sentiment of Horace, Odi profanum vulgus
(I loath the unlettered crowd).
With regard to the size of
monasteries we can assume that the lands assigned for the support of the monks
did not exceed the size of one farm. The lands of the larger monasteries could
probably have supported a hundred persons at most including all the servants
and farm workers. The Irish monks were not bound to till the fields themselves,
though some did. So even the largest monastery would not have
had more than thirty or forty monks. Stories that thousands of scholars
flocked to the schools of
The Structure within the Tuath
How did numerous tuatha combine together before
the system of over-chiefs and provincial chiefs developed.
In particular who or what were the Laigin and the Ulaid? One was a ruling group in
The chief
of the tuath
was called ri in Gaelic, rix in the Celtic of Gaul, and rex in Latin. Despite the Celtic names
there is no indication that the political structure was imported by the Celts.
A similar organisation was to be found among the Anglo-Saxons in the early days
of their conquest of
The ri still continued to be
regarded as a sacred person and was bound about with taboos to ensure victory,
freedom from pestilence, and fertility. Success in war and the fertility of the
herds of cattle equally depended on their proper observance. Though religion
among the Celtic families was very vague the chief was bound by various taboos,
unlucky things he had to avoid and lucky things he had to do, to ensure the
success of his reign. Any defect such as the loss of a limb or an eye made it
impossible for a man to be chief. Wherefore, blinding a rival excluded him from
the succession. The chief function of foster parents was to prevent the killing
or maiming of potential claimants to the chieftainship. As de Paor (Saint Patrick's
World 27) points out, the older tradition of the king as a sacred figure
seems to have survived. It would seem that the remnants of the age-old rites of
initiation survived until at least the twelfth century AD. It would seem too in the texts that the exponents of
the sacral character of kingship in the Christian period drew heavily on the
Old Testament. (Like many superstitions they probably survived on a 'just in
case' basis.)
The chief would have had his own farm, probably a
large one and on the most fertile land. Most of his income however would have
come from the annual returns from clients. The base clients who had to supply
the chief and his retinue with food were especially liable to be exploited. The
supplementary dues from them also could be tailored to meet the needs of the
chief’s table. It is likely that the tillage on the farm of the chiefs was
devoted to the production of beer. The chief had also other rights, dues,
tributes and spoils to support his state. The division of the spoils from a war
or a raid passed through his hands. Everyone approaching the chief for any
purpose had to first present a gift. When a member of the tuath enlisted his help in
recovering an honour price, the chief got a share of it.
Yet the chiefs themselves were not wealthy except
in the sense that they got the best food, clothing, weapons, and women. A chief
would not last long if he did not win battles, or at least avoid disastrous
defeats. The plunder, gifts and tributes, mostly in kind, would have been the
source of most of a chief’s wealth. The chief himself, no matter how much was
given to him, would have been unable to accumulate personal wealth for he was
obliged to distribute it to relatives and supporters. For the chief was
expected by his followers to give with an open hand, to practice a ‘princely
generosity’. If he did not he would not remain chief for long. The standard of
the dwellings of most Irish chiefs and the poverty of their furnishings seems
to have remained at a very basic level until the end of the sixteenth century.
(The same was true in the Highlands of Scotland before the introduction of the
sheep in the eighteenth century. Only the introduction of English law,
primogeniture, and the payment of fixed cash rents in peaceful conditions
allowed the chiefs to accumulate wealth.) The relatives of the chiefs battened
on them. What they wanted was plenty of food, drink, and women, opportunities
for hunting and raiding, and the display of personal dress, ornamentation, and
weapons.
Warfare apart, the duties of a chief were light.
It was considered that he should devote two days in the week to them. Talking,
in the form of bragging and boasting, which could rapidly result in bloodshed,
seems also to have been an essential occupation. Gambling was probably very
limited because few, if any, people, had possessions of their own. For lesser
chiefs, success was measured in terms of survival. If a chief managed to hold
on to most of his families lands and succeeded in keeping a sufficient number
of his family alive to ensure the continued independence of the family, he was
considered successful. A chief of the McQuillans in
the reign of
In the early stages (at least according to the law
codes) the ri was supreme in his tuath but within limits. Essentially he was the leader of the warband. But as war had a sacred character, he was
consequently a sacred figure bound by ritual rules and obligations. His duties
were defined by the needs of a warband and dealt
largely with relations, hostile or otherwise, with other tuatha. He did not own the land,
nor could he make laws. Nor was he the official judge of disputes, nor the
enforcer of judgements. Cases were tried by the judges, and enforced by the
winning party. The judicial functions of the chief consisted in settling
disputes among his leading followers, most of whom
would have been related to him in some degree. If however it involved a point
of law, the matter had to be referred to a judge. Disputes among warriors would have been
frequent. Most laws (of the kind that were eventually written down) would have
been for the regulation of the affairs of this class.
It can be assumed that the kings and judges were
corrupt. No judgement was given without a prior gift. It can be assumed too
that no relative of the chief ever lost a lawsuit whether tried before the
chief. This practice would have facilitated the transfer of land to the
relatives of the chief. The worst case was in
The rath or lios of the ri and his great hall were
just larger versions of that of the boaire. A circular
earthen bank topped by a wooden palisade would have been sufficient to stop a
raiding party that came neither equipped for a siege nor with sufficient time for
it. The aim of a cattle raid was to seize cattle, drive them off successfully
and return home before another chief could raid the home territory. But we
really know nothing of the strategies of offence and defence. A chief would
have had more people in his household, and would have in many ways resembled
the continental villa even though the chief did not own all the land around it.
His own retainers and warriors would have shared his
hall at night and sat and slept on the rushes.
Almost certainly many of these domestic warriors or supermen
(corresponding to the housecarls) would have been
drawn from among the freemen or from among strangers, not from among the chiefs relatives, for exactly the same reason that King
David’s personal bodyguard was composed of Cretans and Philistines. (Later,
chiefs who could afford them depended on foreign mercenaries drawn especially
from
The house or hall of a chief would have been
similar to that of the boaire
only slightly larger. He would have had a large chair, or perhaps two, one for
inside the hall and one for the porch His chair, like that of a bishop, would
have been the symbol of his authority. Justice would have been administered
from his porch, though on occasions of larger gatherings it could have been
carried to the spot appointed. In
With regard to the people of the tuath
it is hard to say how many farms or townlands were in
an ordinary tuath, but it was probably not more than 50
or 60, and the total population of each would have been about 3000. There were
about 150 of them in
The tuath was a
distinct area of ground, not the name of a clan. But as the ruling family or
clan and its various septs acquired control over more
and more tuatha, the clan became more important. (Though sometimes used in
The social structure of
A man had
no rights outside his own tuath. Only his own chief could support his interests. Also
no man could act inside the tuath personally
but only through the head of his extended family of derb-fine. Everyone was assigned a
status or honour price. The value of a testimony varied as the honour price.
This meant that any of the chiefly rank could out-swear in court those below
him in rank. This naturally would be very useful in disputes over land.
Only the heads of the noble and free
families would have had the right to attend the great annual fair and speak at
it. (This state of affairs was not unusual. In
Society seems to have developed somewhat since the
Bronze Age, but not by very much. Society however was changing rapidly. Around
400 AD, it may have been that the chief of the tuath was still the most
important figure. But super-chiefs were coming in, who were superior over
several chiefs. By 800 AD, some families were establishing themselves as
provincial chiefs. By 1000 AD there were attempts being made to establish a
single chief for the whole of
Society, as far as the upper classes were
concerned, was centred on war. That
was their principal occupation. All offices, laws, contracts, education,
religious rites, the entire economy, and all trades, etc. were geared towards
producing successful outcomes in battles. The chief value of gold ornaments,
for example, was to reward successful warriors, or those whom the chief needed
if he were to succeed in war. The chief was the elected leader of the warband. This was also the case with all other peoples in
north western Europe.
At this time the economy and warfare were
closely linked. Cattle-raising was preferred to tillage; piracy to trade.
Standing crops could be burned, and normally were by an invading force. Cattle
however could be driven to more remote and more secure woods. Attempts to
search for them left the invader open to ambushes. Conversely, the great object
in warfare was to drive off as many of the opponent’s cattle as possible. The
victorious chief gave them to members of the lower orders who had then to repay
him with so many cows a year for his table. The chief got the food for his
lavish feasting and hospitality for nothing. The routes by which an invading
force would have to advance were known. These could also be altered so that the
invaders would not be able to drive off the cattle by the shortest route.
The other great object of war was to
secure new lands. This was far from easy. It seems to have been difficult to
secure the necessary preponderance of force to capture another tuath and to
occupy it and hold it safely. The
chiefly families in the defeated tuath would disappear into the woods, and re-appear in the
depths of winter to regain their lands. There was need therefore to wear down
the targeted tuath if necessary for generations.
The learned classes, religious
leaders, and the craftsmen too were bound into the warrior culture. Historians
and genealogists had to establish and prove the legitimate claims of the chief.
If genealogies had to be faked, then they were faked. Poets were employed to
glorify and entertain the chiefs. The historian must always ask Cui bonum? Who profits from this propaganda exercise?
Those who were in charge of religious rites had to ensure that the supernatural
forces worked for the chief and the war-bands, and in
Christian times provide the moral justification for his wars. Craftsmen made
the weapons of war. They also made the objects of art which could be used as
gifts to chiefs, and which the chief could use as gifts to his followers.
With regard to political organisation the basic
building block in the early historical period was still the tuath (too-a, plural tuatha too-ha). This was a tiny
territory six or seven miles square. In many cases it probably coincides fairly well with the later baronies, or
indeed in places with civil parishes (see maps in Moody, Martin, and Byrne
94-96) Though its nature is clear from the law codes,
it is not always easy to harmonise this information with other information such
as the genealogies of the principal families. One can try to compare the maps
of the distribution of the chiefly families given by O’Corrain
with those just mentioned, and the obvious difficulty emerges, namely that
families increased their territory or lost it over time. The land assigned to
the Dal Fiatach and Dal nAraide in
Antrim and Down covers several baronies. Did these own
the tuatha,
did they install their own relatives as the local ri, or did
they just exact tribute from the original tuatha? Or did they do all of
these progressively? It would seem that all these processes were involved.
Superior chiefs like the ruiri had client tuatha, in some
of which his relatives were installed as chiefs, and in others of which the
local ri
had been forced to petition for clientship. These
latter were known as fortuatha
or daertuatha
and they paid tribute. If the ri was a relative of the ruiri he paid no
tribute and his tuath
was called a saertuath.
Fortuatha, aithech tuatha, and daertuatha seem to have been much the same thing, namely a subordinate tuath (Byrne).
The urge to be the top ri in the group, and also
to install relatives on captured lands would have been overwhelming. In this
book I have always assumed that all grants of land to monasteries were made
from captured tuatha.
By the time the classical law tracts were written
down by the middle of the eighth century, three grades of chiefs were recognised. These were the ri,
the ruiri,
and the ri ruirech which
could be translated as the chief, the mesne chief,
and the over or paramount chief. (The translation 'chief is preferred, as
'king' has entirely different connotations nowadays and as in the Bible is
totally misleading. This was recognised as early as the eighth century O’Corrain) The last named was the
chief of the province, the one who could exact tribute from all the others.
Naturally he only remained chief so long as he could exact the tribute. The
same was doubtless true of the relationship between the ruiri and the ri. The chief
of a province, the ri ruirech was equated with the king of an Anglo-Saxon kingdom during the so-called heptarchy. (The MacMurrough-Cavanaghs
were using the title rex Lageniae king of
We have to remember, for example, when studying
the struggles of the Ui Neill for the kingship of
As
was customary among the Indo-Europeans the grades of chieftainship were
elective, and the person chosen from the close kin-group was the one who was
most likely to gain success in battle. When elected he could normally depend on
the support of the other chiefs in the ruling family in war, and they may even
have brought him customary gifts. Though doubtless the force of law and custom
as well as the force of arms enabled them for the most part to do this. As O’Corrain remarks, the structures of subordination were
complex and subject to change.
[Top]
Most of what is said in this chapter refers to the
families of the chiefs, for we know most about these, and what happened in
these families had the greatest social and political consequences. In view of
the fact that the population was stable or growing only slightly, we can assume
that the size of an extended family such as that of a boaire was stable over the
centuries, and that each year as many members were lost from the group as were
added to it. As to how the stability of population was achieved we can only
speculate. Fertility depends principally on the number of fertile women of
child-bearing age within the group. It can be assumed that every such woman
within the group, married or unmarried, slave, free, or dependent, willingly or
unwillingly, bore as many children as was physically possible. Breast-feeding
prevented conception until the child was weaned which might be at the age of
three or four. Exposure of infants was the usual form of population control. We
can assume that most marriages were within the tuath. We can also assume that
most marriages were between members of the same grade in society,
that men did not marry either above their rank or below it. This might mean pools of not more than
150 to 200 for each group. This conversely could mean that as few women within
the tuath
came to marriageable age each year, wives would have to be sought from all over
the tuath.
This could be done conveniently at the annual fair or aonach. But we know also, that
with regard to the nobility at least, most marriages were within the Roman
degrees of forbidden kinship. These were much wider than required by canon law
nowadays, and proved impossible to enforce in
There has been in the past considerable
misunderstanding regarding the word clan. Clan
or cloinn
simply means family, the derb fine (derb finneh). A
four-generation extended family was called a derb fine, a five-generation an iar fine and a six
generation family an
Assumptions regarding what applied to boaires or smiths
for example, cannot be made regarding the polygamous families of chiefs who had
greater sources of wealth. If in every generation there was a slight excess of
births over deaths, then with each generation some members of the chiefly
families would have to seek new family farms. As the area of tillage was
increasing slightly, and at times apparently contracting, these farms would
have to come from the existing holders of lands within the tuath or from another tuath. This we know is what happened. We know
that from the Viking period onwards, the chief princely families moved like
plagues of locusts across the face of
This early period was still the period when
property and rights were held in
common. The unit for holding these properties and rights was the extended
family, the derb fine. The family farm, or the
chieftainship, or the rights of seneschal to a monastery, or the tools of the
smith’s trade, or what ever belonged to the derb
fine. A family consisted of four generations. Those in the fifth generation
ceased to belong to a family, and were regarded as belonging to a different
family. Those who could not claim to be a great-grandson or a great grand
nephew of a former head of the family were excluded from the family. They also
forfeited their claims to the lands, chieftainship etc.
The most important result of this system was that
only those whose great grandfather was a reigning chief could claim the
chieftainship. But it is unclear how it worked in practice. When the head of a
family died, one of his derb fine was
chosen as the new head. The old chief's sons, brothers or cousins of the new
chief, still remained part of the family in virtue of their connection with the
deceased chief. The death would have involved some changes in the occupancy of
the parcels of land belonging to the family, but probably not much. Whoever
succeeded the chief would get the chief farm, along with the tributes and dues. But almost certainly, from an early
date, most of the contenders to the chieftainship had farms of their own, or
occupied one of several farms owned by the late chief. This latter option was
probably the practice at the early date, but the custom, as elsewhere in
The law codes gave seven grades of noble families, which grades however do not seem to
have been derived just from relationship to a chief. The word ‘noble’ is
another one we must watch. We must not imagine powerful figures like the Dukes
of Normandy or
A chief would have been constrained to provide
farms for his relatives. There were only two ways to get separate farms for
them, to acquire them in battle, or to take them from a boaire. The fact that any member of the noble class could over-swear any
member of the free classes was probably very useful in this. It was always
technically possible for a boaire to be promoted to the noble class. Many of the latter
were probably richer, more powerful, and more useful to the chief, than those
in the lowest grades of nobility.
Nor, as far as we can see, were chiefs sympathetic to failing members of their
families, their land being taken by more successful branches.
The selection of a chief however was confined to
members of the derb fine or extended family of the deceased
or deposed chief, both as regards candidates and voters. The tuath was not a
democracy. (This was true of the English monarchy until the time of Stephen,
when the barons exercised their right to choose, except that the number of
contenders was much more restricted.) Only male members of the derb fine of the deceased chief could vote.
Members of the ruling family, which extended out to embrace second cousins,
decided among themselves who should be the new chief. In practice, only one or
two members of the derb fine would secure enough support to be
serious contenders, and a contested election was very likely to result in an
internecine war. Also, murdering a likely opponent was considered legitimate
practice. The election of a chief was curiously like the election of the
captain of a pirate ship. The person likely to bring most plunder was chosen. At least in theory. For various factions
had vested interests in keeping the office within their own branch. The
chief interest of
Any chieftainship not only brought in a supply of
tribute, or of pillage of the recalcitrants, but also
enabled the incumbent chief to seize land from his neighbours whether within
his tuath
or in other tuatha.
Though branches that had not the chieftainship, or were subordinate chiefs,
also helped themselves to other people's land when they had the opportunity, and their overlord did not object. For example,
the McCawells of the Cenel Feradaig, and the O’Gormleys
of the Cenel Moen branches of the Ui Neill carved out their own territories
from the lands of the Oirgialla.
It is not always clear when it is recorded that certain lands were conquered
whether it was for purposes of merely exacting tribute, or whether the lands
were taken for occupation. Eventually all the lands in a given area would of
course have been distributed to relatives of the chief. Notwithstanding claims
that
Despite the image fostered by the Romantic writers
it is doubtful if it is possible to say anything good about the warriors from
the noble families. They seem to have been vain, boasting, greedy and eternally
quarrelsome. The saying could probably be applied to all of them, that they
spared no woman in their lust or man in their anger. Men of lesser rank would
have kept out of their way, or approached them only in the most obsequious
manner. Avoidance not only of poverty but also of work was their abiding
passions.
As success in war was the chief requisite it was regarded as a point in his favour if an aspirant shortened the odds by murdering his rivals. This was still the custom among the O’Neills in the 16th century AD. This led to the institution of fosterage. Leading men placed their sons with various noble dependants and reciprocally took their children into their own household. Much romantic nonsense has been written about this custom. The aim of fosterage was to ensure the children's protection (especially from their uncles), and the children received into the chief’s house were hostages to ensure there was no treachery. The morals were those of gangsters. [Top]
There was no history of
Mide lay between the
The five
regions were separated from each other by thinly-populated and easily
defensible boundaries. Within each of these there were smaller centres of population
similarly separated by naturally defensive boundaries. It is noteworthy that
when drawing up the list of dioceses in each province in the twelfth century no
definite borders were assigned to them but only points marking their limits.
There was no high king of the whole island. Inside the limits of each province,
the various chiefs sought to become overchiefs or mesne chiefs and finally the chiefs of the province. A mesne chief would
control the tuatha within a modern county. Before the
process of consolidation was completed within each province the strongest
chiefs in each province began interfering in neighbouring provinces.
It seems fairly clear in this period
there emerged in Munster and Connaught two families or groups of families,
known as the Eoganacht
in Munster and the Connacht
in Connaught who were gradually able to establish domination over their
respective provinces. We cannot say for certain, for the genealogies were
manipulated for political reasons. The meaning and origin of the names is also
obscure. In two of the other provinces there were also dominant groups, one
called the Ulaid
and the other the Laigin.
These seem to have been composed of unrelated families. Nor is it clear what
extent of their province or Fifth either controlled.
It would seem that from the Connacht, and not merely from Connaught, there
emerged an historical dynasty the Ui Neill, who were
all descended from one chief Niall Naoigiallach who
went on to establish powerful dynasties in other provinces but not their own. Though this point is doubtful.
We know nothing of the history of Meath or
At one time it was assumed that before the fifth
century the Ulaid
controlled the whole of
However, we may question what political and
military realities lay behind the mythical and mystical division of
By 800 AD we can assume in all the
provinces the bulk of the population belonged to the lesser tribute-paying tuatha. In some
places the mesne chiefs, or chiefs over counties seem
to have been the more important, in others many tiny tuatha ruled by tiny insignificant
tribes seem to have persisted. Even a provincial over-chief was himself merely
the chief of a tuath, and his financial and military
resources were essentially those of the tuath. For power in battle he had to rely on the assistance
of subordinate tuatha. Some of these at least gave their assistance
gladly and boasted of their positions in the overchief’s
hosting. As time went on the dominant families seized more and more land for
the various subdivisions of the ruling family. It would seem too that these
subordinate branches of the clan were obliged to join the chief’s hosting,
though the origin of that obligation is not clear. Self-interest and
self-preservation would ensure their adhesion. The conquered tuatha who still preserved their ruling
families would of course be forced to join a hosting besides paying tribute. But
this was not necessarily the case in the fifth century. It remains a mystery
how a family based in a barony, or tuath in north Donegal could come to dominate large parts of
The distribution of the various tuatha and
families in each province will be dealt with in the next chapter.
[Top]
The chief
was essentially the leader of the warband that was
drawn from the warrior class. At a later date the warrior class did nothing
except fight and enjoy themselves at hunting and similar recreations and that
is the picture presented in the Tain. But then the Tain like the
Iliad is essentially a war story placed in a war situation. The tales in the Tain and about
the Fianna
had much the same character as science fiction comics have today. They were
simple stories in which the heroes had special extraordinary powers. As the
Celtic warriors were originally herdsmen they may have continued to take part
in activities like the general rounding up of cattle until quite a late date.
At what date the convention arose that a member of the aristocracy could not
take part in plebeian occupation we do not know. The evenings they spent in
eating and drinking, at times listening to musicians, watching jugglers and
tumblers and other entertainers in the great hall, but probably mostly talking.
There were certainly great feasts from time to time, but on ordinary days plain
food would have been served either with a weak ale or
with whey, skimmed milk, or buttermilk to drink. Wine would be kept for the
feasts.
But unlike the small Norse warband
it would seem that a huge crowd from the tuath went
out on the raid, including many women and musicians. They would have taken some
food with them on the hoof but would rely for the most part on capturing
supplies on the way. A lowing herd would have marked the warband.
It has been remarked that the Celtic warriors had an essentially parasitic
military economy (de Paor, Peoples).
They always fought on foot. There is no
historical or archaeological evidence that chariots were ever used in
The chief weapon seems to have been
the sword as it was at Culloden. Spears were also used probably chiefly for
throwing, as edged weapons like the sword or battle-axe are handier in a melee.
Most of the Iron Age swords found in
When opposing peoples less skilled
in warfare than themselves the sudden massed onrush led to easy conquests of
much of western Europe. The armies were not large,
consisting perhaps of a hundred warriors armed with a sword and a throwing
spear, and accompanied by others carrying slings
or blowing trumpets to make a terrifying noise. The only tactic for attack
seems to have been a wild rush towards the centre of the opposing force. The
battle would usually be very short, perhaps not more than five minutes, the
courage of one side or the other suddenly failing. Those who fled had an
advantage over their pursuers, for the pursuers would need to keep themselves
in a compact body in case they met another compact body (2 Sam 2. 20). Horses were later used for the pursuit. Warfare was
incessant, an annual event. As the King David's chronicler put it, 'In the
spring of the year, the time when kings go forth to battle (2 Sam 11.1).
Pitched battles between large opposing forces seem to have been rare. A major
and equally matched battle might not occur more than once in a century, and
were used by the annalists to mark epochs. Such battles would always have been
the result of miscalculations with each side arriving on the battlefield with
stronger forces than the other had calculated. A face-to-face slogging match in
which neither side could cause the other to panic and
flee would be outside the experience of most fighters. (We can imagine
something like the much later faction fight, with the sides alternately rushing
forward and then withdrawing, and
individual warriors dropping out from time to time for a rest and refreshment,
or to procure a new weapon.)
More
popular was the less dangerous cattle-raid
or tain. Cattle-raiding could be carried out
for two reasons. The first was for sport. A raid was made into the territory of
a neighbouring tuath,
and as many of his houses burned and peasants killed as possible before the
opposing chief could gather his forces. Raids, though carried out on foot, were
probably smaller and swifter affairs than the formal battles, and carried out
solely by small bands of the warrior class accompanied by bothachs to help drive off the
cattle. (Despite its name the Tain was a full-scale invasion by an army.) Then as many of
the cattle of the peasantry were rounded up and driven off home, ambushes for
the pursuers being carefully laid. In many ways this was a sport like chess.
Before making an attack, defences had to be marshalled in other areas, to
prevent someone else attacking them. When the counter-attack was made elaborate
ploys could be made to lure the attacker into ambush in the woods. Slave-raiding into the
The other type of raid was more
serious, and occurred when a determined effort was being made by a stronger
clan to seize the lands of a weaker one. The targeted tuatha were annually and
systematically raided until they became depopulated, and the local chief too
impoverished to offer further resistance. It did not matter if the chiefs of
the targeted tuath
were related to their attackers by
blood or not. The object was to seize the land of someone unable to defend it.
Then the stronger clan just took it over. In this way the O’Neills
conquered most of
This rough sport continued on the
borders of
We
can make surmises with regard to another aspect of war which was not of
interest to the chroniclers. Almost certainly, each army was followed by
various bodies of looters and freebooters, whether local bandits or from
smaller tuatha.
These would follow the main hosts but at a respectful distance. Their aim would
have been to loot whatever they could find in the disturbance caused by the
passing of a host. If the main hosting was just marching through a territory by
arrangement with its chief they could circle around and gather up dispersed
herds of cattle. They probably caused more trouble to the ordinary farmers and
peasants than the main armies. The main army would not remain for long in a
district. But the marauders could keep stealing until the local ri
could gather his forces. It was not possible to bind up the jaws of livestock
for more than a few days at a time, to prevent them from disclosing where they
were hidden. The marauders had only
to remain hidden for a few days until it was time to give a drink to the
cattle.
[Top]
Romantic nationalists, from the poet Thomas Moore
onwards, depicted life in
There were the great festivals, when
all who could attended the chief’s assembly, all
dressed in the brightest colours. There might be a nobleman mounted on an
imported horse. Everyone, like at a race meeting, would throng around to see
the rider and the horse, and the event would be retold around the firesides
during the winter. There were weddings to celebrate, and also funerals to
enjoy. Despite the grief of those immediately bereaved, everyone else would
have the satisfaction of seeing the funeral rites observed properly in
accordance with everyone’s station in life. The can be little doubt that there
was a great feast when the harvest was safely gathered, and a still greater one
during the annual cull of cattle in late autumn when almost everyone would eat
meat. By that time too, the beer from the barley harvest would have been ready,
with plenty for those who had nothing to drink except whey or buttermilk during
the rest of the year.
People too tend to decorate their
own homes to the best of their ability if they know they have a reasonable
fixity of tenure. If they do not have this reasonable expectation they expend
as little effort as possible on their homes, and try to keep all their
valuables portable. There is little point in expending effort if you are liable
either to be evicted, or to have the house burned by raiders. Unfortunately we
have no example left to establish this point.
Quite a lot of work was done by
groups of men or women in common, and often in the ancient world there were
chants or songs to accompany each task. The most famous example in modern times
was the sea shanty of the seamen. This often consisted of an interminable
ballad, with each verse interspersed with a chorus or refrain. This same method
of singing was also used in church, and no doubt all the people could join in.
In more recent times, dancing at a crossroads was often noted. Much depends on
the character of the people. If they are a happy people, they can make sport
and merriment even in the poorest conditions.
Religion,
Knowledge and Art
In Ireland by the seventh or eighth centuries
there was not a simple druid class responsible for all concerning religion,
judgements, genealogies and rights, law, history, healing poetry, and
astronomy. The file (filleh, translated as poet) originally occupied more or
less the position of the Gaulish druids. But as with
most things in
The written law, commonly called Brehon Law, reflected the immemorial customs which had been preserved by the poets until at
last it was committed to writing from the seventh century onwards. It resembled
British Common Law in this that it was not a compilation of statutes and
decrees but of judgements preserved in the form of verses. The most famous
judgement was that supposedly given against St Columcille
who had copied a book of the Bible without the permission of its owner. The
judge awarded the copy to the owner of the book with the words, ‘To every tree its fruit; to every book its copy’. It then
became fossilised. It probably always had been semi-fossilised. Given that the warband was the basic social unit in
Traditional historical lore remained
the function of the poet historians. Their chief function in the historical
period was to justify the political claims of the warlords, with truth if
possible. If a warrior captured a tuath a genealogy was manufactured as a
matter of course to reflect if not justify this. But genealogies are not
to be regarded as altogether worthless. In the Bible for example the
genealogies are used to indicate relationships between peoples. The sons of
Noah, in a famous example, Ham, Shem, and Japheth were the fathers of the
Semitic-speakers to the east, the Hamitic-speakers in
Egypt and Africa, of the various peoples in the Aegean including the Greeks (Gen. 10). So in
The
praise poets were responsible for the sagas. They were primarily entertainers.
Among their duties were to recite stories to the chief till he fell asleep.
Some might even write genuine poetry.
Most knowledge was craft-related. Everything related to metallurgy was kept secret and passed on the families of smiths. We can assume that there was specialisation, and the workers in precious metals were different from workers in iron or bronze. Smiths may have sought out and discovered their own deposits of iron ore. Deposits of iron ore, though not large, were reasonably plentiful, and there was an abundance of charcoal for smelting.