Ireland under the Tudors Part 2

[3] 'It is quite true,' says Dr. Sullivan, 'that the central power was not always strong enough to enforce rights, and in many instances was defeated in its attempt to do so. But in what does this differ from other federal states, ancient and modern? The Emperors of Germany were not always able to subdue and to enforce their decrees against the princes and n.o.bles of the Empire, and in numerous instances the decisions of the imperial chancery might be regarded in precisely the same light--as mere arbitrations. To say there was no law, properly speaking, seems to me wholly irreconcilable with actual facts, and _especially with the existence of a rich and elaborate nomenclature of native terms not borrowed from Roman law_. This nomenclature implies an equally elaborate machinery. It was the existence of this legal system which kept out the canon law, which never, for instance, succeeded in suppressing or even modifying the marriage customs. In discussing the laws and inst.i.tutions of early nations we are liable to go to one or other of two extremes:--(1) We represent the laws, &c., in terms of modern law, by which we make inchoate inst.i.tutions full-grown, while the germs of a legal system are represented as a fully developed code; or (2) we deny the existence of all law and legislation. You are right I think as regards the Church; for owing to the organisation of the old Celtic Church it was perfectly acephalous. Whatever influence it did exert was individual and never official, and, therefore, not continuous--it might be described in fact as sporadic influence.'

[4] 'All through the laws,' says Dr. Sullivan, 'there is ample evidence to prove that the tribesmen, or _Aires_, were bound to take stock from the _Ri_, or chief, only. The amount of this stock, called _Saer_, or free-stock, is strictly laid down, and the amount of the tribute payable for this stock, called _Bestigi_, or house-refection, or tribute, is also strictly laid down. But if the _Ri_ were wealthy he might offer more stock to his _Ceiles_, clients or va.s.sals, on condition of paying him certain dues, called _Biatad_. The stock so given was called _Daer_, or base-stock; and its acceptance by a tribesman made a _Daer-ceile_ of him, and placed him very much in the power of the _Ri_, or chief. No tribesman could accept _Daer-stock_ without the consent of his _Fine_, or sept, which would be bound by the acts of its members. A tribesman, with the consent of his _Fine_, might accept _Daer-stock_ from any _Flath_, or lord, in his own _Tuath_, or tribe. All the above applies to the tribesmen, or _Aires_, who alone const.i.tuted the free cla.s.s. But besides the _Ceiles_, or clients, or free tribesmen, or _Aires_, there was another cla.s.s, called _Fuidirs_. The markland of the tribe and the land held in severalty of the _Ri_, and the similar land of the _Cendfinne_, or chieftain (or captain, as he is called in the Scottish Highlands) of a sept was let out to various cla.s.ses of _Fuidirs_. Some were _Saer_, or free _Fuidirs_, and others _Daer_, or base Fuidirs. The _Saer-fuidirs_, again, were of two sorts--broken tribesmen who went into another _Tuath_ and got stock as well as land from a _Ri_, or _Flath_, and _Saer-fuidirs_ who possessed some stock of their own which they grazed on land of a chief or of a _Flath_. Some of these free _Fuidirs_ entered into _daer_, or servitude, by accepting stock under certain conditions. The _Fuidir_ cla.s.ses were the true tenants at will. The _Aires_ were of the clan, the _Fuidirs_, _Bottachs_, or cottiers, and other servile cla.s.ses, _belonged_ to the clan. The giving and taking of _Daer-stock_ depended upon the impoverishment of a sept through cattle murrain, the levying of blood-fines on account of the misconduct of some of its members, &c. But the whole thing was voluntary, and depended on the poverty of a sept and the wealth and ability of the _Ri_, or _Flath_.'

[5] Dr. Sullivan does not think Christianity was fully established by the middle of the seventh century. 'The Irish Church organisation,' he says, 'was ill calculated to influence the social habits and the political life of the people; unlike the diocesan and centralised system of the Latin Church. Hence a high spiritual life and intellectual cultivation within the numerous coen.o.biums was quite compatible with practical paganism and disorder outside.'

[6] 'At all times' must be understood to refer only to those comparatively modern ages above mentioned.

[7] 'The election,' says Dr. Sullivan, 'was always from the _Geilfine_, or relatives within the fifth degree. Should the _Geilfine_ fail, or be all killed in battle, the _Derbfine_, or relatives from the fifth to the ninth degree, came in.'

[8] 'This,' says Dr. Sullivan, 'is not right. There was the "joint undivided family" formed by the _Bo-aire_ cla.s.s, or freemen possessed of cattle. The poorer _Flaths_, or heads of septs, did not gavel their possessions, but either elected a tanist or formed a "joint undivided family." When the property of an _Aire_ was not sufficient to gavel, so as to qualify one or more _Aires_, the division of the inheritance did not take place, but the parties agreed to form a "_joint_ undivided family." In such a family one was head, and as such was an _Aire_.

_Bo-aires_ of this cla.s.s, to avoid the gavelling of their property, elected a _Tanist_--the _Tanaise Bo-aire_. Poor and broken tribesmen, not having sufficient wealth to qualify them as _Aires_, formed a "joint-family," or _Congilda_. Every _Flath_, or head of a sept, had a tanist also. The Irish "joint-family" was an inst.i.tution of great importance and of surpa.s.sing interest in the comparative history of the Aryan family.'

[9] 'This account of Davies,' says Dr. Sullivan, 'is entirely wrong. The law of the distribution of the property of a deceased tribesman was most carefully laid down. No doubt then as now, and naturally more frequently then than now, a chief, or head of a sept, or of a _Treb_ (homestead) might usurp power he did not possess, and do wrong.'

[10] 'Marriages in Ireland,' says Dr. Sullivan, 'were not regulated by canon law. The Irish marriage customs were in full force long after the Norman conquest. According to these customs, which appear to have been wholly uninfluenced by the canon law, b.a.s.t.a.r.dy was entirely different from what that term implied in countries under canon law, and in modern times. The Irish marriage customs should consequently be taken into account here, as they sanctioned a kind of polygamy, divorce, &c. See also the excommunication in 1282, by the Archbishop of Canterbury against Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, at the request of Edward I., in which the marriage customs of the Welsh, identical with those of the Irish, const.i.tute one of the charges.'

[11] _Le Resolution des justices touchant le Irish custome de gavelkind._ Reported by Sir John Davies, A.G., 3 Jac. i.

[12] Dr. Sullivan believes the story of the decision against Columba to be a mere myth.

[13] 'The Irish Church,' says Dr. Sullivan, 'had undoubtedly two distinct phases of monasticism: one that of the Patrician period--an obscure but highly important and interesting phase; the other, that of the sixth and subsequent centuries, to which the Irish missionaries belonged.'

[14] 'Besides,' says Dr. Sullivan, 'the monastic bishop proper, who furnished the wandering Scotic bishops of the Middle Ages, there is a later development of a higher church organisation in the tribal bishop, who was a close approximation to a diocesan bishop. The tribal bishop was a bishop who had jurisdiction over the whole of a _Tuath_, and sometimes even a _Mor Tuath_. The growth of territorial jurisdiction is well marked by the prestige attached to the office--the bishop ranked in fact almost on a level with the chief, and was ent.i.tled to the same legal retinue.

Many of the ancient dioceses, and some of the existing ones, _e.g._ Ross, Kilmacduagh, Kilfenora, represent ancient _Tuaths_, or tribe territories.

Several deaneries were former dioceses, and are co-extensive with ancient _Tuatha_.

[15] Dr. Sullivan warns me not to attribute too much influence to the Danish Church. 'The tribe-bishop,' he says, 'was a much earlier development, and proves the growth of diocesan jurisdiction and the consequent merging of the Irish Church in the Latin Church. The acceptance of the Roman time for celebrating Easter by the Irish Church and the constant intercourse between Ireland and the Continent had brought the Irish Church fully under Roman supremacy three and a half centuries earlier. What really took place in the early part of the twelfth century was the more complete adoption of the organisation of the Western Church, and of the principles of the canon law; and especially the granting of lands and charters to the Church in the same way as in feudal lands. The marriage of Irish princes with Saxon and other foreign princesses, and the growth of towns which helped to relax its rigid tribal system, did more than the Danish Church.' The chief towns were, however, of Danish origin.

CHAPTER II.

THE SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENT.

[Sidenote: First appearance of the Northmen, 795.]

Norwegian ships began to appear on the Irish coast in 795, one year after the destruction of the church at Lindisfarne. The islands were harried, Lambay being perhaps the first to suffer; everything of value was taken, and the hermits and anchorites were killed or carried away. Iona, where the greatest of Irish saints had founded a new Church, was burned or plundered in 802 and 806. About twelve years after their first visit the Scandinavians began to venture inland, sacking the monasteries, which contained such wealth as Ireland then possessed, and slaughtering the monks. The famous religious community at Bangor, in Down, was thus destroyed about 824. The first permanent settlement of the northern invaders was perhaps in the neighbourhood of Limerick. They had a fort at Cork before 848, and at Dublin before 852. There were also forts on Lough Foyle and at Waterford. The flat coast between Dublin and the borders of Meath lay open to a floating enemy, and early obtained the name of Fingal, or the land of the stranger.

[Sidenote: Turgesius, 830.]

In or about 830 a chief arrived who pursued a more ambitious policy. He is called Turgeis or Turgesius by the Irish, and by the Irish only: this may be a form of Thorkils or Trygve, and may perhaps be a name applied to the mysterious hero whom the Scandinavians call Ragnar Lodbrok. Turgesius landed in Ulster, and planned the complete subjugation of Ireland. He burned Armagh and drove out St. Patrick's successor, and then took up a central position near Athlone, whence his flotillas could act on Lough Ree and Lough Dearg. We know that the Northmen dragged ships or boats overland to Loch Lomond, and similar feats may have been performed in Ireland. There was another plundering station on Lough Neagh about the same time.

Turgeis mastered the northern half of Ireland, and made frequent incursions into the other half. Against the Church he showed peculiar animosity, and his wife used the high altar at Clonmacnoise as a throne when she gave audience; perhaps she uttered oracular responses from it.

In the south Turgeis was less powerful, for the dispossessed abbot of Armagh took refuge at Emly in Tipperary. But the whole coast was attacked by innumerable corsairs, who sometimes made raids far into the central districts. Dublin was fortified by the Norwegians about 840, and became the chief seat of the Scandinavian power. Turgeis did not live to unite the various bands, but fell into the hands of Malachi, King of Meath, in 845, and was drowned in Lough Owel. The Northmen of Limerick were defeated in the same year at Roscrea, and their earl, Olfin, was slain.[16]

[Sidenote: A.D. 852.

The Black and White Gentiles.]

Seven years after the death of Turgeis came the Black Gentiles, who are generally supposed to have been Danes, as the White Gentiles were certainly Norwegians. Whether the colour of their armour or their complexion was referred to is doubtful. The new-comers made themselves masters of Dublin, and of the plunder which the first invaders had acc.u.mulated from all the Irish churches. Before one of the battles fought to decide whether Black or White Pagans were to enjoy this property, Horm, or Gorm, the Danish chief, is said to have invoked St. Patrick, a singular confusion of ideas, which may have resulted from intercourse with Christians in England. Victory followed. The Black Gentiles seem to have retained their supremacy; but the distinction becomes partly obliterated, and the Danes, of whom we read later, were probably intermingled with Norwegians. It is recorded that Amlaf, son of the King of Norway, came to Ireland in 852 or 853, that all the foreigners of Erin submitted to him, and that the Irish also paid tribute. The name of the Black Gentiles is believed to be preserved in the little town of Baldoyle.

[Sidenote: Forty years' peace.]

Amlaf and his sons were not satisfied with the spoils of thrice plundered churches, but everywhere violated tombs in search of gold ornaments.

Another great chief was Ivar, who appears to have been Ivar Beinlaus, son of Ragnar Lodbrok, and founder of the Northumbrian kingdom, which was afterwards closely connected with the Irish Danes. To the Norwegians who fled to Ireland from the iron rule of Harold Harf.a.ger, the King of Dublin was one of the chief sovereigns on earth. Carrol, lord of Ossory, was in alliance with Amlaf and Ivar, and ruled Dublin after their deaths; but he died about 885, and a Norse dynasty was then re-established by force. A dozen years later another Carrol drove the foreigners across the Channel, but Sitric, king of Northumberland, regained the fortress in 919, and the Celts do not appear to have recaptured it. For a period of some forty years, ending about 916, Ireland is said to have had a little rest. The enemy may have had enough to do elsewhere, but their predatory expeditions did not entirely cease. There were perhaps no fresh invasions in force, but former settlers held their own against the Irish, with whom they were generally at war.

[Sidenote: Renewed invasions, 916.]

[Sidenote: Severe treatment of the natives.]

Whatever may have caused the period of comparative rest, the Danish incursions began again with renewed vigour. A great host came to Waterford in 916, defeated the men of Leinster, and harried all the south of Ireland; churches, as usual, attracting their special attention.

Ragnal, Ivar's grandson, represented by the Ulster annalists as king of all the Irish Scandinavians, was the chief leader, and he afterwards led his men to Scotland, where the great but indecisive battle of Tynemoor was fought.[17] Sitric, Ragnal's brother, took Dublin from the Irish, who had, perhaps, held it since 902, and on Ragnal's death succeeded to the royal t.i.tle. The natives had occasional successes, but on the whole they were conspicuously inferior in the field, and Nial Glundubh, King of Ireland, who headed a great confederacy, fell in the attempt to recover Dublin. Twelve chiefs or kings of northern and central tribes are said to have died at the same time. After this reverse all serious attempt to check the invaders seems to have been given up, and fleet after fleet brought hordes of oppressors to the ill-fated island. Munster suffered especially, and the general nature of a Danish invasion cannot be better apprehended than by transcribing the chronicler's words:--'And a.s.suredly the evil which Erin had hitherto suffered was as nothing compared to the evil inflicted by these parties. All Munster was plundered by them on all sides and devastated, and they spread themselves over Munster and built earth-works and towers and landing-places over all Erin, so that there was no place in Erin without numerous fleets of Danes and pirates; so that they made spoil-land and sword-land and conquered-land of her throughout her breadth and generally; and they ravaged her chieftainries, privileged churches, and sanctuaries, and demolished her shrines, reliquaries, and books. They wrecked her beautiful ornamental temples: for neither veneration, nor honour, nor mercy for holy ground, nor protection for church or sanctuary, for G.o.d or man, was felt by this furious, ferocious, pagan, ruthless, wrathful people. In short, until the sand of the sea, the gra.s.s of the field, or the stars of heaven are counted it will not be easy to recount or enumerate or relate what the Gaedhil, all, without distinction, suffered from; whether men or women, boys or girls, laics or clerics, freemen or serfs, young or old; indignity, outrage, injury, and oppression. In a word, they killed the kings and the chieftains, the heirs to the crown, and the royal princes of Erin. They killed the brave and the valiant, the stout knights, champions, soldiers, and young lords, and most of the heroes and warriors of all Ireland; they brought them under tribute and reduced them to bondage and slavery. Many were the blooming, lively women; the modest, mild, comely maidens; the pleasant, n.o.ble, stately, blue-eyed young women; the gentle, well-brought-up youths; and the intelligent, valiant champions, whom they carried to oppression and bondage over the broad green sea. Alas! many and frequent were the bright eyes that were suffused with tears and dimmed with grief and despair at the separation of son from father, and daughter from mother, and brother from brother, and relatives from their race and from their tribe.'[18]

[Sidenote: The Northmen fail to found a permanent kingdom.]

The Irish Danes became strong enough to interfere with effect in English politics, and Olaf Cuaran, or Sitricson, King of Dublin, was a general of the great Scandinavian army which Athelstane overthrew at Brunanburgh.

The Danes were much fewer than the Irish, but their general superiority during the tenth century was incontestable; and had the invaded people been of kin to them the kingdom of Canute might have had a counterpart in Ireland. Irish Celts were only too ready to call in Scandinavian allies in their internal quarrels, but they could never amalgamate with them.

Occasionally a confederation of tribes would gain a great success, as at the battle of Tara, where King Malachi defeated the Dublin Danes under Athelstane's old opponent, Olaf Cuaran. After great slaughter on both sides the Dublin men had the worst, and were forced to release Donnell, King of Leinster, who was then in their hands. A great part of Ireland was at this time subject to the Danes, and the battle of Tara has been called the end of the 'Babylonish captivity of Ireland, inferior only to the captivity of h.e.l.l.' King Olaf went on a pilgrimage to Iona, where he died in the following year. Thirty-seven years had pa.s.sed since his acceptance of Christianity, at least in name; yet the Danes plundered the sacred isle only five years later, in 986, and killed the abbot and fifteen of his monks. It is to be noted that the Scandinavian treatment of churches reacted on the Irish, and that many native warriors came to regard saints and sanctuaries with as little respect as Turgesius himself.

[Sidenote: Their strongest power in Munster.]

Munster seems to have been more completely subdued than any other part of Ireland. The Danish stations at Waterford, Cork, and Limerick made invasion at all times easy, and the sons of Ivar bid fair to found a lasting dynasty at the latter place. There was a tax-gatherer in every petty district, a receiver to intercept the dues of every church, a soldier billeted in every house, 'so that none of the men of Erin ... had power to give even the milk of his cow, nor as much as the clutch of eggs of one hen in succour or in kindness to an aged man, or to a friend, but was forced to preserve them for the foreign steward, or bailiff, or soldier. And though there were but one milk-giving cow in the house she durst not be milked for an infant of one night, nor for a sick person, but must be kept for the steward, or bailiff, or soldier of the foreigners. And however long he might be absent from his house, his share or his supply durst not be lessened; although there was in the house but one cow, it must be killed for the meal of the night, if the means of a supply could not be otherwise procured.'[19]

[Sidenote: Succession to the kingdom of Cashel.]

At last a deliverer arose. According to the will of Olioll Olum, King of Munster in the third century--such is the theory--the sovereignty of Cashel, that is of Munster, was to belong alternately to the races of his two sons, Eoghan Mor and Cormac Cas. The Eoghanachts and Dal Cais are generally Anglicised as the Eugenians and Dalca.s.sians; the strength of the former and much stronger tribe being in Cork, Limerick, and Kerry--that of the latter in Clare. The Eugenian Fergraidh was king in 967, when he was murdered by his own people. Mahon the Dalca.s.sian then became king, in compliance with the const.i.tutional theory, but not without a struggle. Urged on by his brother Brian, he attacked the Danish settlements up and down the country, and became master of Cashel, when Ivar, finding his supremacy threatened, summoned all that would obey him to root out utterly the whole Dalca.s.sian race.

[Sidenote: Molloy, Mahon, and Brian.]

The tribes of Western Munster generally were disposed to follow Mahon, but Molloy, King of Desmond, and some others, adhered to the Dane rather than admit the supremacy of a local rival. A pitched battle took place at Solloghead, near Tipperary, in which the foreigners and their allies were totally defeated. Molloy and other chiefs who had taken the losing side were forced to give hostages to the victor. Mahon burned Limerick and drove away Ivar, who returned after a year with a great fleet, and fixed his head-quarters on Scattery Island, where St. Sena.n.u.s had so sternly resisted the blandishments of a female saint.

[Sidenote: Murder of Mahon. Brian succeeds him.]

For some years Mahon reigned undisputed King of Munster, but his successes only stimulated the jealousies of Molloy and the other Eugenian chiefs, who saw their race reduced to play an inferior part. They accordingly conspired with Ivar, and Molloy procured the treacherous murder of Mahon. The crime was useless, for Brian was left, and he immediately succeeded both to the leadership of his own tribe and to the kingdom of Munster, Molloy having certainly forfeited all moral claim to the alternate succession. Brian pursued the Danes to their strongholds, slew Ivar and his sons, and carried off the women and the treasure. There was, however, still a Scandinavian settlement at Limerick, and we find a grandson of Ivar afterwards in Brian's service as one of the ten Danish stewards whom he employed. He was ambitious, and he had experience of the skill of such officers in extorting contributions from unwilling subjects. Molloy and his chief allies were slain; and Brian, having reduced the Limerick Danes to insignificance, turned his arm against those of Waterford, whose territory he ravaged, and whose Celtic allies, inhabiting the modern county of Waterford, he easily subdued. Brian was acknowledged as supreme in Munster, and took security from the princ.i.p.al churches not to give sanctuary to thieves or rebels. As the consequence of further expeditions Leinster also became tributary; and thus, in eight years after his brother's death, Brian was admitted to be supreme in the southern half of Ireland.

[Sidenote: Brian aims at being King of all Ireland.]

In his further expeditions, undertaken with a view of becoming King of all Ireland, the Danes of Waterford sometimes accompanied Brian; but his progress towards the desired goal was arrested for a while by a prudent treaty with Malachi II., head King of Ireland, whom he acknowledged as undisputed sovereign of the northern half, and by a revolt of the Leinster men, who were allied with the Danes of Dublin, the united forces of Brian and Malachi having overthrown the Leinster Danes at Glenmama, near Dunlavin, Dublin fell an easy prey. The spoils taken are represented as enormous, and the mention of carbuncles and other precious stones, of buffalo-horns, goblets, and many-coloured vestures, betoken some degree of luxury and much commercial activity among the Danes. It is to be observed that Brian and his followers, though Christians, had no scruple about making slaves. His panegyrists simply say that the Danes by their cruelty and oppression had deserved no better treatment. Threshing and other rough work was done by the male prisoners. Menial work, including the severe labour of the hand-mill, was done by the women.

'There was not,' we are told, 'a winnowing sheet from Howth to the furthest point of Kerry that had not a foreigner in bondage on it, nor was there a quern without a foreign woman.' The fairer and more accomplished of the Danish women of course underwent the fate of Chryseis.

[Sidenote: Brian and the Danes, Gormflaith.]

Having in vain sought a refuge with the northern Irish, Sitric was forced to submit to Brian, who reinstated him at Dublin as a tributary king.

Sitric's mother, Gormflaith, or Kormlada, was sister to Maelmordha, King of Leinster, and her husband, King Olaf, having been dead many years, she was free to marry Brian, which she did soon after, while Brian's daughter married Sitric. Wielding thus the whole force of southern Ireland, Brian called upon Malachi to acknowledge his supremacy. The King of Ireland sought aid in vain from his kinsmen, the northern Hy Neill, whose king Aedh, or Hugh, sarcastically remarked that when his clan had held the chief kingship they had known how to defend their own. No help coming from Connaught either, Malachi was forced to submit to Brian's power, and though no formal cession took place the King of Ireland quietly subsided into King of Meath.

[Sidenote: Brian, King of all Ireland, 1002.]