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179 Pages
The Generations of Chaos
Ir the Cunagusos whose ogam stone was erected in Aghaliskey in east Cork had lived in the seventh century rather than (perhaps) the fourth, his name would have been Congus; were he a poet, he would have been, not a velifas, but a file; and his sister would have been, not his swesur, but his siur: three examples illustrating the fact that between the fourth and the seventh century, Irish underwent a series of drastic transformations. Of these the chief are the introduction of lenition, the dropping of final syllables, the elimination of certain internal syllables, the reduction of unstressed long vowels, and the reduction of certain consonant-groups with consequent compensatory lengthening of short vowels: a formidable list, which in effect means that the Primitive Irish of the fourth century, by the time it had evolved into the Old Irish of the seventh century, was recognisable only with difficulty.
The details and stages of these changes are matters for the philologist’s delight, and may safely be left to him; but their relevance to the transmission of historical traditions and institutions is obvious, in that institutions and traditions existing before and during these changes would necessarily have to be re-worded and re-interpreted both during them and when they were completed. Transmission of tradition was overwhelmingly oral: writing was used only for memorial (and sometimes boundary) stones, mainly in the south of the country, and only in the form of ogam, which was not well adapted for texts of any length. What sur-vived into the late sixth century survived in the form of rhythmical syllabic verse, of which the lines were linked by alliteration; and linguistic change must of necessity have entailed modifications in the verse, not necessarily in the direction of more accurate transmission of the contents,
The verse itself seems to represent a very archaic form of oral transmission, ofa kind much older than its contents. Many of the institutions of the carly Irish period are, like the verse-forms, demonstrably much older, such as the high status attached to the learned class, and the ritual fast used to compel members of certain social classes to fulfil their obligations; others, such as the elaborate system of sureties devised to enforce performance of contracts, basic to the functioning of classical Irish society, are in a large measure developed from more primitive forms. Working back from the classical period — the seventh and eighth centuries — to the obscurities of the early sixth, the fifth and the fourth centuries is therefore a process riddled with traps. The fifth has been very justly described as a ‘lost century’ ; so, a fortiori, is all that goes before it. Some few changes of the time stuck in popular memory, because they were on a large scale and enduring; but the cat’scradle of actions and reactions in which they were embedded, those which contributed to them and those which they in turn triggered off, is, even in the crudest terms, irrecoverable.
Those large-scale changes still recalled, however imprecisely, in the seventh century were the take-over by the Uf Néill of the kingship of Tara, the creation of the states of the Airgialla, the destruction of Emain Macha and overthrow of the Ulaid, the rise of the Eéganacht in Munster, and the penetration of Christianity into the country. What triggered off the political changes can only be guessed at. The possibility of population pressure cannet be ruled out, and much of the overseas expansion of this period may have been an overspill from such pressure. So Irish colonies make their appearance in Wales: an Irish dynasty established itself in south-west Wales, apparently from the end of the third century, and maintained contact with its homeland, the Déisi and Uf Liathdin in Munster, at least until the eighth century; and there is reason to believe that there were other such settlements on the other side of the Bristol Channel, in Cornwall. Other settlers are found in North Wales at the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth century: they were of the Laigin, and left their name on the Lleyn peninsula.
The archaic peoples
Dimly perceptible as a background to these events is the existence of a mosaic of peoples of whom few were later to be of any importance. Their names appear in various forms: ending in -raige (‘the people of), or as Dal (‘the share of”) or Corco (perhaps ‘seed’) plus a second element, or asa collective noun ending in -ne. Some contain animal names, such as Artraige ‘bear-people’, Osraige ‘deerpeople’, Grecraige ‘horse-people’, Dartraige ‘calf-people’, Sordraige ‘boar-people’ ; others, such as the Ciarraige, the Dubraige and Odraige, have a colour (ciar ‘black’, dub also ‘black’, odor ‘dun’) as the first element; others, such as the Cerdraige, seem to have an occupational term as the first element.
All these, when the genealogists got to work in the comparatively Christian atmosphere of the seventh century, were endowed, or endowed themselves, with ancestors whose names included the first element of their names, or had an etymological explanation provided for them, as with the Cerdraige, of whom it was alleged that every man wasa craftsman (cerd). It seems indisputable, however, that one element in these names is in fact the name or epithet of a divinity which that people had in common — ‘the god by whom my people swear’, as the law-texts put it. One such people, the Boandraige, have as the first element of their name that of the goddess Boand, who elsewhere appears as the divinised river Boyne; another, the Luigne, contains the name of the god Lug. Whether such a divinity was regarded as being also an ancestor, which would make easier their transformation by the genealogists, is not clear. For that matter, the precise form of their god may not have been too clear to some of these peoples themselves even before the genealogists set to work, if the suggestion that the Bibraige were in fact the ‘beaver-people’ be correct — since the beaver is not known in Ireland; such a name must derive from a remote continental past.
The rising dynasties who pushed these earlier peoples into the background as a rule described themselves differently :as the Connachta, descendants of Conn, Eéganachta, descendants of Eégan, and even the lesser Cianachta, descendants of Cian, though even they sometimes appear as Dél Cuinn, D4l nEégain and Dal Céin; while still later they merely took their names from an ancestor, real or supposed, in the form favoured by the Uf Néill, the Uf Bridin, the Uf Danlainge.
These later terms mean substantially one thing: ‘the descendants of X’. They may imply that a more primitive and ill-defined religious bond as a basis for mutual loyalty was being gradually discarded in favour of the more concrete and more easily verifiable ties of blood. If in fact this was the case, it would seem to have been a fairly effective basis of military organisation and recruitment. It is no accident that almost all the earlier -raige and dal peoples are commonly found listed later as aithechtuatha ‘subject, tribute-paying peoples’. The only ones to have any later importance were the Dal Fiatach, the Dal nAraide and the Dal Riata in the north, and in the south the Osraige, the Miscraige and the Ciarraige — and even these latter, largely by virtue of alliance to, and support of, the rising Eéganacht dynasty in Munster.
The rise of the Edganacht
Of the arrival of these latter on the scene in Munster and their displacement of the pre-existing Erainn dynasties, little can be said that is plausible and still less that is certain. Their own origin-legend claimed that the kingship of Cashel was founded by one Conall Corc, son of a British mother, and four or five generations removed from the Egan from whom the dynasty derived its name, who had returned from a prolonged exile in ‘Pictland’ (which perhaps meant Britain) to claim the kingship of Munster. Another such legend held that Cashel was founded as a result of a vision seen at Cashel by two swineherds, Duirdriu, swineherd to the king of Ele, and Cuirirdn, swineherd to the king of Miscraige, in which an angel recited to them as they slept for three days and three nights the reigns of the kings of Munster. Duirdriu told this to his master, Conall son of Nenta Con, who gave him the land on which he had seen the vision, and in turn Conall Core bought it from Duirdriu: ‘thus the descendants of Duirdriu are entitled to seven cumals from the king of Cashel,’ remarks the most primitive version of the tale. In the legend of Conall Corc’s exile, only the swincherd of the king of Miscraige is mentioned, and Core comes to Cashel by chance.
That the dynasty was established in Cashel by Irish colonists returning from Britain, as the legend suggests, is probable enough: the name Cashel itself (caisel) is an early borrowing of Latin castellum. What prompted the return, if return it was, may be a different story. Conall Core, if he existed, can hardly have lived earlier than the beginning of the fifth century, which is the date commonly assigned to the expulsion of the rulers of some of the Irish kingdoms established in North Wales: a suggestive coincidence.
‘The dynasty started, by its own admission, in a small way, on land within the kingdom of Ele. Such scanty and confused evidence as has survived suggests that the man who really put the Eéganacht on their feet in Cashel, and indeed in north Munster, was Oengus son of Nad Fraich, in the second half of the fifth century. Within Munster itself he made little impression on the south, and apparently made no attempt to establish any kind of stronghold there — was very probably in no position to do so, if the legend ofhis defeat in thirty battles had any basis in fact. The turn in his fortunes was attributed to his recruiting a druid, Boinda, which sorts ill with the legend of his baptism by Patrick.
The chief allies of the Eganacht in their expansion seem to have been the Corco Oche and the Déisi (which means ‘vassalry’), who are credited with having defeated the Uf Fidgenti, an Erainn people, in a number of battles, and with having expelled on behalf of the Eéganacht the Osraige from the area near Cashel and driven them as far cast as the river Lingaun, which was to form their historical boundary. Other allies in the rise of the Eéganacht seem to have been recruited from among the Erainn themselves whom the Eéganacht were in process of displacing: such were the Fir Maige, who were settled between the two great Erainn peoples of Uf Liath4in and Uf Fidgenti, making more difficult any concerted action against the Eéganacht. The Corco Baiscind also figure as allies, and were rewarded with land across the Shannon in what is now Clare; this had previously been Connachta territory and was long remembered as such. The seizure of it from the Connachta, however, seems to have been largely the work of a section of the Déisi known later as the Déis Bec (the ‘little vassalry’) and later again as the Dal gCais. The Mascraige proved even more substantial allies to the Eéganacht, and as a result acquired scattered territories in Munster from the river Brosna in north Tipperary to Loch Léin in the south-west, interwoven with Eéganacht territory ‘for the sake of mutual assistance and friendliness.’ Of all these changes, however, far-reaching as they were, the chronology is quite uncertain.
Gengus son of Nad Fraich was reputed to have clashed also with Duf larlaithe, his second cousin, who was unwilling to subordinate himself to Oengus. A patched-up truce lasted until Oengus’ death (he was slain in 490), whereupon Dui larlaithe seized the kingship of Cashel which at that time was not in practice synonymous with the kingship of Munster. To him are attributed at least two battles which no doubt marked significant stages in the expansion of Eéganacht power southwardsand westwards: such, probably, is the undated and unlocated battle of Findas, in which Fiachra son of Mac Caille, one of the ancestors of the historical Uf Liathdin, fell. Dui’s own death is attributed to a battle with the Uaithne, another Erainn people, at Ath Cluichir.
Duf Iarlaithe is counted an ancestor of the Eéganacht of Loch Léin and Irluachair, who were to supply a number of kings of Cashel. As to the three other alleged sons of Core, none of their descendants held the kingship of Cashel, with the sole exception of Fedelmid son of Tigernach towards the end of the sixth century: he claimed descent from Mac Cass, ancestor of the E6ganacht of Raithlind, The latter’s two brothers, Mac lair and Mac Broc, gave rise to no royal line.
Nothing is known of the length of Dui Iarlaithe’s reign, and in some quarters it seems to have been regarded as a usurpation. Indeed, for the first half of the sixth century nothing is known of those who ruled Cashel, save a number of names transmitted by much later regnal lists whose accuracy we have no means of checking. Among those mentioned is Eochaid son of Gengus, ancestor of the Eéganacht of Glennamain (around Glanworth), and his brother Fedelmid, ancestor of the Eéganacht of Cashel; also Crimthann Srem, son of Eochaid, and another Crimthann, son of Fedelmid.
It seems certain that throughout the period th Eéganacht were throwing out branches. The Eéganacht of west Munster seem to have been the earliest, perhaps including the Eéganacht of Aine (the area around Knockaney in Limerick). The division between the Eéganacht of Glennamain and that of Cashel itself probably came carly in the sixth century, and the emergence of the Eéganacht of Airthir Cliach, as an offshoot of the Eéganacht of Glennamain, perhaps a generation later. To Gengus son of Nad Frafch is attributed the establishment of a branch of the Eéganacht in north Clare.
The chaos of these generations in Munster hada counterpart to the north, with the emergence of the Ui Néill.
The emergence of the Ut Néill
The origins of the Uf Néill are impenetrably obscure. They derived their name from their reputed ancestor, Niall Nofgiallach (‘Niall of the nine hostages’), who lived, if at all, early in the fifth century: he was believed by later tradition to have been a son of Eochu Mugmedon (‘lord of slaves’), father of Ailill, Brién and Fiachra, ancestorfigures of the Connachta, and hence Niall’s brothers, but ~ significantly ~ by a different mother. It has been suggested that Niall’s mother was a British slave-girl, which is possible but unprovable.
‘The rise of the Ui Néill is linked with the destruction of the power of the Ulaid, the emergence of the line of states called the Airgialla ‘those who give hostages’, and the seizure of Tara from the Laigin. The end result was a line of Uf Néill kingdoms which stretched in a crude crescent from the east coast to Sligo Bay in the west and thence northwards to Inishowen. That much is clear. What is far from clear is the sequence in which these changes took place: the more intensely the evidence for them is scrutinised, the more fluid and wraithlike it becomes.
Itis eminently possible that the establishment of the Uf Néill in Tara was in some sense a thrust eastwards by the Connachta, an attempt by a younger member of the ruling dynasty, of dubious origin if conjecture about his mother be correct, to acquire sword-land for himself; it is possible that he was encouraged to do so more or less in the words put into the mouth of Muiredach Tirech to the three Collas: ‘I see that our children have begun to grow numerous, perhaps they will not be at peace with one another after us. Let each of us part from the other, and do you take in my time one of the lands.’ It is possible, if so, that the ruling dynasty of the Connachta assumed that they would be acquiring a subordinate rather than a rival, a relationship somewhat like that claimed much later by the kings of Tara vis-d-vis the Airgialla.
All this may have been so, an reconcilable with the few texts we possess; but we have no sound means of proving or disproving it, and it would not be beyond a nimble imagination to devise a different scenario. That the sovereignty both of Tara and of Cruachain was personified by the goddess Medb is probably indicative of some kind of link between the two kingships; but if one chose to dismiss it as mere coincidence, it could not be refuted.
The expansion of the Uf Néill northwards may have antedated the seizure of Tara, which there is some reason to believe was changing hands between the Laigin and the Ui Néill in the late fifth and beginning of the sixth centuries. Niall’s alleged son Cairpre left descendants, the Cenél Cairpre, in an area overlapping Longford and Sligo; another, Conall Gulban, left behind rulers of the greater part of Donegal; a third, Egan, penetrated —at least in the person of his descendants ~ as far north as Inishowen, which takes its name from him. The southern Ui Néill include the ruling dynasty of Tethba, in a strip to the cast of the Shannon and north of the river Inny, which by the late sixth century had extended southwards as far as Durrow,; it claimed descent from Maine son of Niall. The ruling dynasty of Meath claimed descent from another son, Conall Err Breg, and yet another, Loegaire, is credited with founding the minor dynasty of Cenél Léegaire, a little to the north-west of Tara.
In all, Niall is credited with fourteen sons. In a period when polygyny was acceptable there is nothing remarkable about this, and it is only when one meets such feats of fertility as the thirty-three sons credited to Cathafr Mar, allegedly ancestor (probably an ancestor-deity) of the ruling dynasty of the Laigin, that cautious scepticism may yield to incredulity. But it is worth raising the question, even if it is unanswerable, whether all these links with Niall are not perhaps fictitious; whether, indeed, although some recent writers have accepted his existence, and seen in him the first king of Tara of his line, he ever existed at all, and if he did, whether he ever ruled in Tara. If the Uf Nill were really offshoots of the Connachta ~ and this seems probable — it seems likely also that the foundation of the kingdom of Uisnech, whose focal point is the hill of that name in Westmeath, between Mullingar and Athlone, antedates the foundation of the Us Néill kingship of Tara.
The Airgialla The emergence of the Airgialla is hardly less obscure.
Their own origin-legend —a convenience which the Uf Néill lack — attributed to their ancestor figures, the three Collas, the destruction of the power of the Ulaid in seven battles, in the last of which, fought fora day and a night, the Collas unaided drove the Ulaid as far as the valley of the Newry river, which was the later western boundary of the Ulaid. Thereafter they made sword-land of the territory thenceforth occupied by the Airgialla. By definition, pushing back the Ulaid entailed the storming of Emain Macha, the capital of the Ulaid.
In the first six battles, the Collas are said to have had the support of the Connachta, the ‘descendants of Conn’: in this detail of the legend, at least, it is reasonable to see an echo of the long-standing warfare between the Ulaid and the Connachta which is the background to the Tdin, the saga of the carrying off of the Bull of Cooley, and which in all probability accounts for the line of defensive. earthworks which ran, with gaps, from Sligo to south Armagh: the traditional southern boundary of the Ulaid ran from the river Drowes in the west to the mouth of the Boyne, that is, including the region of Muirtheimne between Carlingford and the Boyne, which was commemorated in later saga as having been in dispute between the Ulaid and their neighbours to the south.
That Connachta here could mean, not exclusively those who later enjoyed that name, but also the incipient Ui Néill, for whom descent from Conn was claimed, is quite probable. But the suggestion that the three Collas should in fact be identified with three of Niall Nofgiallach’s sons, Conall, Ennae and Eégan, founders of the northern Uf Néill, raises problems. That later genealogical tracts should report that their names were Aed, Cairell and Muiredach is no insuperable objection, since fiction was no stranger to these compilations. What is implausible is that these sons should, having thrust into Ulidia and made swordland of it, thereupon abandon it, good land though much of it was, for the poor country of Inishowen and Donegal. That the Airgialla at a later date were in some ill-defined degree subordinate to the Us Néill king of Tara carries little weight: such relationships could arise in many ways.
We are left, then, with two possibilit that the Uf Néill defeated the Ulaid, but left the land to its pre-existing inhabitants, who were to crystallise into the Airgialla of historic times, with some kind of assurance against the return of the Ulaid; or secondly that the Ulaid were in fact defeated by the ancestors of the historic Airgialla, who were (at least in part) intruders from outside the territory ruled by the Ulaid. Against the first view is the fact that the origin-legend of the Airgialla, though viewing matters from an Uf Néill standpoint, making the three Collas offshoots of the Uf Néill ancestral line almost on the same level as the Connachta, and representing their conquest of the territory of the Ulaid as having been suggested by Muiredach Tirech, reputed grandfather of Niall, because the Ulaid were ‘undutiful’ towards him, does not suggest that the Uf Néill had any part in the conquest save in the persons of the three Collas themselves.
The alternative is that the Airgialla may have been in origin peoples forced against the Ulaid by pressure from the incipient Uf Néill dynasty behind them. A glance at a map* will show, in the historic period, in the north-east of the country, the Dal Fiatach, the Dél nAraide and the Dal Riata, encircled from the north coast almost completely to the east coast by a layer of Airgialla kingdoms, and the Airgialla in turn ringed by various branches of the Uf Néill, which were still, in the eighth and ninth centuries, exerting pressure on the Airgialla. Such pressure would, in part at least, have given an impulse to the spread of the D4l Riata overseas to Scotland about the end of the fifth century.
The actual date of the overthrow, as symbolised by the storming of Emain, was by later tradition very variously calculated. The origin-legend of the Airgialla would put it not later than the beginning of the fifth century. The suggestion that it must have occurred much later, after Patrick had established his missionary headquarters at Armagh, two miles to the east of Emain, depends largely on the premise that Emain was regarded as the capital of the chief, and probably most powerful, Irish kingdom in the first half of the fifth century, or he would not have established himself there. It is true that this was common missionary procedure at the time, but the argument perhaps assumes a wider and more accurate knowledge of what must have been a very fluid political situation, and indeed of Irish geography, than Patrick probably possessed. One might equally well assume that Patrick established himself near Emain because it was the seat of kingship best known to him - if only by report. In short, on the available evidence, the date of the destruction of Emain presents an insoluble problem.
Ut Néill and Laigin
The kingship of Tara itself in the fifth and sixth centuries presents similar problems. Uf Néill tradition held it to have been possessed by them to the exclusion ofall others; but the claim is contested by the tribal histories of the Laigin, who claim it for Bresal Bélach (whose death is assigned to the year 435, for what this is worth), Muiredach Snithe, of the same generation as Bresal Bélach, Méenach son of Cairthenn, perhaps the Cairthenn Muach who appears as an ancestor of the Ui Mail, and lastly one NadBuidb son of Erce Buadach of the Uf Dega. In this the tradition of the Laigin may well reflect the actual to-andfro of possession of Tara at the time.
Later tradition assigned, as was its wont, a precise chronology to the high points in the struggle between the Laigin and the Ui Néill, that is, the pitched battles. There is no reason to suppose such dates to be accurate, but the sequence of battles is in all probability correct. On this warfare was later superimposed, not carlier than the eighth century, a tradition of a tribute, the bérama, payable by the Laigin to the kings of Tara—as a rule, unwillingly. With the passage of time the tribute swelled, so that by the time the tradition reached the eleventh century the amount payable had reached fantastic proportions. The tale may in fact be securely dismissed as pure ficti devised to legitimise Ui Néill aggression against the Laigin retrospectively; it has no place in the history of the fifth and sixth centuries.
Among the earliest battles in this conflict, if we set aside the tales of battles by Bresal Bélach and Labraid and the slaying of Niall Nofgiallach by Eochaid son of Ennae, is the great slaughter of the Laigin set down under the ycar 452, and their rout in the following year by Léegaire son of Niall Nofgiallach. This was believed to have been at the beginning of his reign, since in the following year he is alleged to have held his inauguration rite, the ‘mating’ of Tara. Four years or so later, in 458/9, he was defeated by in in the battle of Ath Dara, near Maganey on the Barrow, a position which implies that Léegaite was the attacker; three years later, he died, and was buried, it was believed, at the hill of Tara, standing upright and facing the Laigin to the south.
He seems to have been followed as king of Tara by Ailill Molt, who also figures as king of Connacht. Whether in fact Ailill should be counted as his immediate successor de facto depends perhaps on whether he had physical possession of Tara at the time: it may have changed hands a number of times in this period, situated as it is within easy striking distance of the later historical boundary of the Laigin. The tradition of Laginian kings of Tara at this period certainly implics something of the kind, and the ‘feast’ of Tara, the inauguration rite of the new king, was not believed to have been held by Ailill for at least five years after the death of Léegaire, in 467. This was followed a year later, somewhat embarrassingly, by a defeat at the hands of the Laigin at Duma Aichir, somewhere in the territory of the Laigin: a defeat which was partly redeemed by a victory over them at Croghan Hill in Offaly in 475.
It seems not impossible that Ailill’s misfortunes were in part due to a less than wholehearted support by the Ui Néill. The sons and grandsons of Niall may well have resented him as an outsider, attempting to take over their hard-won territory; and in 482 Lugaid son of Léegaire and Muiredach son of Eégan corgbined to defeat Ailill in the battle of Faughan Hill, near Kells. Fergus Cerrbél, Fiachra Lond, king of the Dal nAraide, and Crimthand king of the Laigin, are also reputed to have taken part in the battle against Ailill: a remarkable combination, if true.
Ailill’s death at Faughan marks the end of intervention by the Connachta in the affairs of the Uf Néill, but not of the conflict between the Laigin and the Uf Néill. In 485 Finnchad, king of the Laigin, fell to the Uf Néill under either Cairpre son of Niall or Muirchertach Mac Erca at Granard in Longford, following a thrust northward by the Laigin.
The Laigin, with admirable persistence, carried the fight to the Uf Néill again in 494, when they were defeated at Teltown in Meath by Cairpre son of Niall, and again in 499, when they suffered defeat, again at Cairpre’s hands, by Lough Slevin in Westmeath. Following up his advantage, Cairpre struck southwards in sor and inflicted a defeat on the Laigin at Cenn Ailbe in south Kildare.
This run of good fortune for the Uf Néill lapsed in 503 with their defeat by the Laigin in the battle of Druim Léchmaige, which was repeated in 507 in the battle of Ard Corann, in which Lugaid son of Léegaire fell. In 10 Failge Berraide, who seems to have been an early ruler of what was later to be the Uf Failge, drove north into Uf Néill territory and defeated Fiacha son of Niall at Frevin Hill, to the west of Lough Owel in Westmeath. This series of humiliations ended in 516, when Fiacha defeated Failge at Druim Derg, which is unidentified, but was probably in Laginian territory. The defeat seems to have been decisive: from it later tradition, probably rightly, dated the final loss to the Laigin of the rich plains of Westmeath.
The struggle within the Ut Néill
For some years after the battle of Druim Derg, there is no record of conflict between the Laigin and the Uf Néill. ‘These latter, and probably also the former, may have been preoccupied with internal disputes: in $20 Ardgal son of Conall Cremthainne was defeated and slain in the battle of Détnae in Brega by Muirchertach Mac Erca of the northern Uf Néill, with the support of Colgu, king of the Airgiallan kingdom of Airthir. From this battle probably dates the supremacy of Muirchertach among the Us Néill; and to set the seal on his position, he inflicted in 528 two defeats on the Laigin, the first probably at Kineagh in north Kildare, and the second at Assey in Meath, countering the Laigin reaction to the first. Neither is distinguished by any eminent casualties, and both in effect were hardly more than raids. In $34 Muirchertach died: a death which became encrusted with legend, which picturesquely depicts it as being carried out by drowning (in a vat of wine), burning and piercing with a spear.
His successor was Tuathal Maelgarb, grandson of Cairpre, who met with some unexplained opposition from the Cianachta of Brega ; he defeated them in 535 at Logher, in Meath. Later tradition credits him with little else: the removal of a possible rival, Mac Erca son of Ailill Molt, was the work of the Laigin, who slew him in a battle at Tortu near Ardbraccan in $43; any possible threat from the main body of the Connachta was met by the northerr. Uf Néill under Forgus and Domnall, two sons of Muir-chertach Mac Erca, and Ainmire and Nainnid, two sons of Sétna, who in the same year clashed with, and slew, Fogan Bél, king of Connacht, at Sligo. Tuathal himself seems to have taken no part in these events, and was removed in $44 by one Méel Mér son of Airgetén, allegedly a uterine brother of Diarmait son of Fergus Cerrbél; it is very probable that Diarmait himself was the instigator of the killing, but since Méel Mér himself was killed on the spot, no proof was possible. Diarmait at least profited by it, and succeeded to the kingship of Tara, though not without some difficulty.
The Laigin in the fifth-sixth centuries
The surviving evidence, scanty though it is, suggests a period of extreme confusion among the Laigin in the sth-6th centuries, with the kingship, or at least the chief power, oscillating ftom line to line. Among those listed as kings of the Laigin are Crimthann, son of Ennae Cennselach, whose death is dated in 483 and 486; he is reputedly the ancestor of the later ruling dynasty of the Laigin. Another is Findchad, who was slain in 485, and belonged to the Ui Garrchon, later regarded as one of the Jfortuatha ‘outside peoples’ of the Laigin; his son, Fréech, also figures as king of the Laigin, and was overthrown in 493 by one Eochu son of Cairpre. These were followed by Illann and Ailill, wo sons of Déinlang, reputedly first cousin of Ennae Cennselach.
Illann’s death is dated in 527; elsewhere, however, he is accounted a contemporary of the fifth-century Léegaire son of Niall, king of Tara. The remainder of the sixth century is filled up with four descendants of Ailill in suc cession: Cormac son of Ailill, Cairpre son of Cormac, Colman Mér son of Cairpre, and Aed Cerr son of Cairpre. The last is not elsewhere accounted a descendant of Ailill, but is attached — with much greater probability — to the Uf Mail.
In effect, all this is a combination of fiction and guesswork, concocted by early historians to fill in the void in later knowledge of these decades in the history of the Laigin, It is entirely possible that some of these names are genuinely those of persons predominant among the Laigin in the period in which they were being pressed out of Meath by the Uf Néill, as may also be that of Nad Buidb son of Ercc Buadach, reputedly a grand-nephew of Ennae Cennselach, of the unimportant people of Ui Dega, accounted in some sources the last king of Tara of the Laigin. Of them all, Aed Cerr is likely to be the most genuinely historical, and his death is dated, somewhat shakily, in the last decade of the sixth century.
The Connachta
The rulers of the Connachta in these centuries are as shadowy as those of the Laigin. Later theory held them to be the stock of Eochu Mugmedon, but there is much confasion over the kinship groups to which the putative kings of the Connachta belonged. Nath f, assigned to the early fifth century, was believed to be a son of Fiachra, from whom the Uf Fiachrach claimed descent, but a certain Amalgaid, from whom Tirawley is named, is also found drifting in this obscurity, also a son of Fiachra, and with some claim to be regarded as king of the Connachta, He was succeeded, it was believed, by his nephew Ailill Molt son of Nath f, who was killed in the battle of Faughan Hill in 482. We may accept that Ailill was also king of Tara: so seventh-century Uf Néill tradition held, and on this point it is unlikely to be wrong. He was succeeded in Connacht by Duf Galach, son of Brién, eponymous ancestor of the later Uf Britin dynasty. It is possible that while Ailill Molt, and the branch of the Connachta he headed, were trying to consolidate their rule in Tara, the section headed by Dui Galach had been able to establish a basis of power in the west. The death of Ailill’s son, Mac Erca, in Ui Néill territory in 543 suggests the possibility that his branch of the Connachta still had their eye on territory cast of the Shannon.
Dui Galach’s death as king of Connacht is assigned to the year 502, His successor, E6gan Bél, belonged in all probability to the Us Fiachrach, as probably did the next king, Ailill Inbanda, who died in 550. The pattern of oscillation between these two branches of the Connachta, then, had begun by the middle of the sixth century.
The introduction of Christianity
The introduction of Christianity into the country is obscure both in chronology and channels. From an early date it seems to have been diffusing into Ireland from Britain, and the vocabulary of this new religion was borrowed either from British or from Latin pronounced in the British fashion — such terms as cdisc ‘Easter’, cruimthir ‘priest’, caille ‘veil’, fescor ‘vespers’ and sléchtad ‘prostration, bowing down’, made their way into primitive Irish no later than the fifth century, before it evolved into archaic Old Irish. British slaves captured in raids are one possible channel of entry, and contacts mediated by the Irish colonies in Britain are another. From at least the early fifth century Christians were to be found in the south of the country, and were known, at least by report, to the church in Gaul. They formed the ‘Irish believing in Christ’ to whom in 431 the deacon Palladius was sent. Of the fate of his mission nothing is known.
Of the other missionaries, who looked rather to the church in Britain than to the church in Gaul, a little more is known. The most celebrated at a later date was Patrick, whose activity is probably to be dated to the second half of the fifth century. The date of death, 493, assigned to him by later annalists may well be more or less correct. His work seems mainly to have lain in the area later occupied by the kingdoms of Airthir and the Ulaid; and he is the only one of these missionaries to have left any documentary account of his mission, in his Confession and Epistle to Coroticus — neither of them intended as historical accounts, but rather in the first case an apologia for his work, and in the second a rebuke to a king who had carried off some of Patrick’s converts. Other missionaries, whom later legend represents as subordinates of Patrick, in reality probably worked independently: Secundinus, alias Sechnaill, worked south of Patrick, in Meath, where one of his foundations, Dunshaughlin (Domnach Sechnaill), preserves his name; another, Auxilius, left a foundation at Killashee (Cell Ausaile) near Naas in Kildare.
Other missionary activity was carried on among the Osraige by Ciaran, founder of the monastery of Seirkieran, in the late fifth and early sixth century. Of approximately the same period, Ailbe seems to have been active in north Munster, and his death is attributed to the year 527. A seeming contemporary of Ailbe, Declan, was active among the Déisi of Munster. In the land bordering the Shannon another Ciarin, founder of Clonmacnois, was active during a brief life: he died, aged thirty-three, in 549; and farther north, among the Airgialla, Tigenach, founder of Clones, who died in 549/50.
British influence remained constant throughout: from Candida Casa, at Whitern on the northern shore of the Solway, founded by Ninian early in the fifth century, where Enda of Aran, Tigernach of Clones, Eégan of Ardstraw, Finnian of Moville, and Cairpre of Coleraine are reputed to have studied; from the apocalyptic Gildas, who is alleged to have visited Ireland in the seventh decade of the sixth century; and most of all, from David (589) in Menevia, who counted among his disciples such Irish churchmen as Méedéc of Ferns (626), Scuithfn of Slieve Margy near Carlow, and Modomnéc of Tibragny in Kilkenny, while others, such as Finnian of Clonard (#549), Senn of Scattery Island, Findbarr of Cork and Brendan of Clonfert (+577) were reputed to have visited him. Finnian himself was the founder of a notable monastery, largely under the influence of Cadoc, founder of Llangarvan, and of Gildas, with whom he corresponded on points of monastic discipline. In this he is characteristic: the British influence bore mainly on details of monastic organisation and discipline and the forms of the liturgy.
The later lives of these saints show them as thaumaturges much in contact with kings at various levels. In this latter point they may well be correct, since a fixed principle in classical Irish law, and doubtless in pre-classical law, was that for a kinless man (a ‘headless man’ - dicenn ~ is the Irish term) the king of the jath was responsible; equally, it was standard missionary policy to aim for the top ranks of the society being evangelised. Thus both legal custom and missionary policy may well have assisted the spread of Christianity: this, and the forceful character of the missionaries, for the paganism which it was intended to displace was notitself aggressive nor prone to seek converts. Ithad rather the tolerance of other gods characteristic of polytheism.
Not that much is known about early Irish paganism with any degree of certainty. Animals, including those hunted, figured largely in it, and divinities attached to such natural features as rivers ~ the Boyne, for example, appears as a divinity (Boand). Fertility cults seem to have been widespread, and the pagan year hinged on four festivals, Imbole (1 February), Beltaine (1 May), Lugnasad (1 August) and Samhain (1 November) of which the first and the last proved susceptible of a take-over as Christian festivals. Columeille is credited with a bid to take over the harvest-festival of Lugnasad by converting it into a ‘Feast of the Ploughmen’, not apparently with any great success.
‘The introduction of Christianity in the long run affected the structure of Irish society. The establishment of communities of men separated from their kin, perhaps also from their native twath in the ‘white martyrdom’ of which an eighth-century Irish homily speaks, posed problems; so too did the emergence of a set of ‘druids’ with a new, Latin, learning, parallel to those who had hitherto been the custodians of learning, whether historical tradition or law or poetry. The solution eventually proved to be that of assigning such dignitaries as bishops the same status as the king of the tuath, and less exalted churchmen a proportionate status; but this assimilation was not achieved before the middle of the sixth century, when Christianity had waxed too strong to be ignored, and had acquired a well-developed organisation with well-defined spheres of jurisdiction.
Instant evangelisation is of course a myth of later ec clesiastical saga: Diarmait son of Fergus Cerrbél, king of Tara in the mid-sixth century, was almost certainly a pagan — and perhaps some sort of Christian also, in the patternexemplified much later in Iceland, paying obeisance to the Christian god when life was quiet and undisturbed, but in times of stress calling on the gods of his ancestors. Similarly with his contemporary, Eogan Bél, king of the Connachta; and the case was probably very common. Equally common must have been families of mixed beliefs. Ailill, son of Diinlang, reputed king of the Laigin in the early sixth century, was believed to have had two daughters, Mugain and Fedelm, who adopted Christianity as virgins and, almost inevitably, were later numbered among the saints; so also his son Cormac had two, Ethne and Dar Cérthaind; and in tum, Cormac’s son Cairpre bestowed two daughters, Cuimne and Sodelb, on the church.
All these daughters, in fact, were later commemorated as saints; and it is probable that these later commemorations were right in so doing, insofar as Christians at the time were comparatively few in number and to break with the cult transmitted by one’s forefathers took some courage, at least moral. It is indeed possible that it was often more convenient for a pagan father at this period, if he had a surplus of daughters, to allow them to take the veil as Christians than to marry them off, with the attendant bother of ensuring that the prospective husband was of suitable rank and had an attractive bride-price to offer — against which, however, the dowry would have to be offset. Some such daughters, indeed, may have beer. of dubious origin, such as Brigit of Kildare, whose father was of noble blood, but whose mother was a slave-girl.
By the mid-sixth century, Christianity was some distance from being integrated into society. Early legislation assumes that Christians are in a minority, and should treat the surrounding society with some reserve. Disputes between Christians should be settled among themselves, rather than by recourse to the professional jurisconsults, who were presumed to be pagans, and probably, since the caste of jurists had not yet hived off from the old druidic caste, druids also. Alms offered to the church by pagans are to be refused. In contrast to the surrounding society, monogamy is enforced, even where a wife proves barren, which pagan society regarded as a disaster to be remedied by taking another wife.
Authority among these Christians was wielded, not by abbots, as later, but by bishops, each with his own defined area of jurisdiction, usually co-extensive with the tuath, He might exercise no functions in the jurisdiction of another bishop without the permission of this latter, nor might any cleric minister within a bishop’s paruchia (diocese) without permission. The clergy were of various origins, distinguishing themselves from the pagans by shaven heads and wearing tunics: some were of noble blood, some had been slaves; and they were permitted to remain married, but to one wife only.
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