Chapter 7

[1]Dr. Jones, the Bishop of St. Davids, in his interesting book, "Vestiges of the Gael in Gwynedd" (North Wales) has come to the conclusion that the Irish occupied the whole of Anglesey, Carnarvon, Merioneth, and Cardiganshire, with at least portions of Denbighshire, Montgomery, and Radnor. Their occupation of part of the south and south-west of England is attested by the area of Ogam finds.

[2]"Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars," p. 39. I find Migne, in his note on Pelagius, apparently confounding Scotia with Great Britain.

[3]See for Dr. Sigerson's ingenious argument "Bards of the Gael and Gaul," Introduction, p. 30.

[4]Except perhaps on stone. There is an inscription on a stone in Galway, "Lie Luguaedon Macc Lmenueh," for a facsimile of which see O'Donovan's grammar, p. 411. O'Donovan says it was set up over a nephew of St. Patrick's. Mr. Macalister reads it no doubt correctly, "Lie Luguaedon macci Menueh." This is probably the oldest extant inscription in Roman letters, and it shows that the old Ogam formmaquihad already changed into mac[c]i. The "c" in place of "q" is only found on the later Ogam stones, and only one stone is found to read "maic."

[5]Thus four cuts to the right of or below the long line stand for S, above it they mean C, passing through the long line half on one side and half on the other they mean E. These straight lines, being easily cut on stone with a chisel, continued long in use. The long line, with reference to which all the letters are drawn, is usually the right angle or corner of the upright stone between the two sides. The inscription usually begins at the left-hand corner of the stone facing the reader and is read upwards, and is sometimes continued down on the right-hand angular line as well. The vowels are very small cuts on the angle of the stone, but much larger than points. There is no existing book written in Ogam, but various alphabets of it have been preserved in the Book of Ballymote, and some small metal articles have been found inscribed with it, showing that its use was not peculiar to pillar stones.

[6]See a curious monograph by Dr. Ernst Rethwisch entitled, "Die Inschrift von Killeen Cormac und der Úrsprung der Sprache," 1886. "Einfachere Schriftzeichen als das keltische Alphabet sind nicht denkbar ... die Vocale haben die einfachsten Symbole und unter den Vocalen haben wieder die am bequemsten auszusprechenden bequemer zu machende Zeichen wie die Andern. Unter den Consonanten, hat die Klasse die am schwierigsten gelingt ... die am wenigsten leicht einzuritzenden Zeichen: die Gaumenlaute." He is greatly struck by "der so verständig und sachgemäss erscheinende Trieb dem einfachsten Laut das einfachste Symbol zu widmen." "Eine Erklärung [of the rational simplicity of the Ogam script] ist nur möglich wenn man annimmt dass die natürliche Begabung der Kelten, der praktische auf Einfachheit und Beobachtungsgabe beruhende Sinn viel früher zŭ einer gewissen Reife gediehen sind, als bei den Indogermanischen Verwandten" (p. 29).

[7]AsCurciandmaqifor the genitives of Corc and mac. In later times the genitive ending i, became incorporated in the body of the word, makingCuircandmaicin the MSS., which latter subsequently became attenuated still further into the modernmic. Another very common and important form isavi, which has been explained as from a nominative *avios [for (*p)avios], Old Irishaue, modernuaoro. Another extraordinary feature is the suffix*gnos = cnos, the regular patronymic formative of the Gaulish inscriptions. Another important word ismuco, genitivemucoi, meaning "descendant," but in some cases apparently "chief." The wordanmor evenancm, which often precedes the genitive of the proper noun, asanm meddugini, has not yet been explained or accounted for. All these examples help to show the great age of the linguistic monuments preserved in Ogam.

[8]"Ocus no bid in flesc sin dogres irelcib nangente ocus bafuath la each a gabail inalaim ocus cach ni ba hadetchi leo dobertis [lege nobentis] tria Ogam innti,i.e.Agus do bhíodh an fleasg sin do ghnáth i reiligibh na ngente, agus budh fuath, le each a gabháil ann a láimh, agus gach nidh budh ghránna leó do bhainidis [ghearradaois] tre Ogham innti."

[9]See Zimmer's "Summary of the Táin Bo Chuailgne,"Zeit. f. vgl., Sprachforschung, 1887, p. 448.

[10]Under the wordorc tréith.

[11]The classical reader need hardly be reminded of the striking resemblance between this and the σήματα λυγρά which, according to Homer, Prœtus gave the unsuspecting Bellerophon to bring to the King of Lycia, γράψας ἐν πἰνακι πτυκτῷ θυμοφθόρα πολλά.

[12]The "alphabet" laid before Fiacc, however, was not a list of letters, but a kind of brief catechism, in Latin "Elementa." St. Patrick is said to have written a number of these "alphabets" with his own hand.

[13]The "Confession" and Epistles attributed to St. Patrick are, by Whitley Stokes, Todd, Ussher, and almost all other authorities, considered genuine. Recently J.V. Pflugk-Harttung, in an article in the "Neuer Heidelberger Jahrbuch," Jahrgang iii., Heft. 1., 1893, has tried to show by internal evidence that the "Confession" and Epistle, especially the former, are a little later than St. Patrick's time, and he relies strongly on this passage, saying that it is difficult to imagine how St. Patrick came by the idea that a man could bring him "innumerable letters from the heathen Ireland of that time, where, except for Ogams and inscribed stones (ausser Oghams und Skulpturzeichen), the art of writing was as yet unknown." But seeing that Christian missionaries were almost certainly at work in Munster as early as the third century this contention is ridiculous. It is noteworthy, however, that even this critic seems to believe in the antiquity of the Ogam characters. As to his main contention that the "Confession" is not the work of Patrick, Jubainville writes, "Il ne m'a pas convaincu" (Revue Celtique, vol. xiv. p. 215), and M. L. Duchesne, commenting on Zimmer's view of St. Patrick's nebulousness, writes, "Contestir l'authenticité de la Confession et de la lettre à Coroticus me semble très aventuré" (Ibid., vol. xv. p. 188), and Thurneysen also entirely refuses his credence.

[14]Preface to "Three Old Irish Glossaries," p. lv. Zeuss had already commented on the Ogams found in the St. Gall codex of Priscian, and written thus of them, "Figuræ ergo vel potius liniæ ogamicæ non diversæ ab his quæ notantur a grammaticis hibernicis, in usu jam in hoc vetusto codice, quidni etiam inde a longinquis temporibus?" There are eight Ogam sentences in a St. Gall MS. of the ninth century which have been published by Nigra in his "Manoscritto irlandese di S. Gallo."

[15]See above, ch. V, note13. See O'Donovan's Grammar, p. xxviii, for the original of the passage from the Book of Ballymote.

[16]Translated by Rhys in his "Hibbert Lectures," from Bekker's edition, No. 7, and Dindorf's, No. 55.

[17]The Gauls assimilated their pantheon to those of the Greeks and Romans in so far as they could, and as the Greek gods are by no means always the equivalents of the Roman gods with whom popular opinion equated them, still less were of course the Gaulish; and this is a good case in point, for Ogmios has evidently nothing of a Hercules about him, though the Gauls tried to make him the equivalent of Hercules by giving him the classical club and lion's skin, yet his attributes are perfectly different.

[18]Grian-aineach, or "of the sunny countenance." See O'Curry MS. Mat., p. 249. Ogma was, according to some accounts, brother of Breas, who held the regency amongst the Tuatha De Danann for seven years, while Nuada was getting his silver hand.

[19]Leabhra, léigheadh, sgríobhadh, litreacha, pinn, meamram.

[20]"A anam a naem-chleirigh ni mó iná trian a scél innisit na senlaeich út, or dáig dermait ocus dichhuimne. Ocus sgribthar let-sa i támlorgaibh filed ocus i mbriathraib ollamhan, or bud gairdiugad do dronguibh ocus do degdáinib deirid aimsire eisdecht fris na scelaib sin" ("Agallamh," p. 101. "Silva Gadelica," vol. ii.) O'Grady has here translated it by "tabular staffs."Táibhliis evidently a Latin loan word,tabella. The thing to be remembered is that Ogam writing on staves appears to be alluded to.

[21]O'Curry found this piece in the MS. marked H. 3. 18 in Trinity College, Dublin, and has printed it at page 472 of his MS. Materials. Kuno Meyer has also edited it from a MS. in the British Museum, full of curious word-equivalents or Kennings. (See"Revue Celtique," vol. xiii. p. 221. See also a fragment of the same story in Kuno Meyer's "Hibernica Minora," p. 84.)

[22]Pronounced "Bal-a," and "Al-yinn."

[23]In Irish,Lughaidh.

[24]"Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy," May, 1894.

[25]See "Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," vol. xxvi. p. 263.

[26]"Studies in Irish Epigraphy," London, 1897, part i., by R. A. Stewart Macalister, who gives a most lucid study of the Ogam inscriptions in the Barony of Corcaguiney and of a few more, with a clear and interesting preface on the Ogam words and case-endings.

[27]It is thus he explains such Ogam forms as "Erc maqi maqi-Ercias,"i.e., [the stone] of Erc, son of, etc. But "Erc" is nominative, "maqi" is genitive, hence "Erc maqi" must be looked upon as one word, agglutinated as it were, in which the genitive ending of the "maqi" answers for both. As a rule, however, the name of the interred is in the genitive case in apposition to "maqi."

It has been frequently assumed, especially by English writers, that the pre-historic Irish, because of their remoteness from the Continent, must have been ruder, wilder, and more uncivilised than the inhabitants of Great Britain. But such an assumption is—to say nothing of our literary remains—in no way borne out by the results of archæological research. The contrary rather appears to be the case, that in point of wealth, artistic feeling, and workmanship, the Irish of the Bronze Age surpassed the inhabitants of Great Britain.

When we read such accounts as that, for example, in the Book of Ballymote, of Cormac mac Art, taking his seat at the assembly in Tara, all covered with gold and jewels, we must not set it down to the perfervid imagination of the chronicler without first consulting what Irish archæology has to say upon the point. The appearance of Cormac (king of Ireland in the third century, and perhaps greatest of pre-Christian monarchs), is thus described. "Beautiful," says the writer, quoting probably from ancient accounts now lost, "was the appearance of Cormac in that assembly, flowing and slightly curling was his golden hair. A red buckler with stars and animals of gold and fastenings of silver upon him. A crimsoncloak in wide descending folds around him, fastened at his neck with precious stones. A torque of gold around his neck. A white shirt with a full collar, and intertwined with red gold thread upon him. A girdle of gold, inlaid with precious stones, was around him. Two wonderful shoes of gold, with golden loops upon his feet. Two spears with golden sockets in his hands, with many rivets of red bronze. And he was himself, besides, symmetrical and beautiful of form, without blemish or reproach." The abundance of gold ornament which Cormac is here represented as wearing, is no mere imagination of the writer's. It is founded upon the undoubted fact that of all countries in the West of Europe Ireland was pre-eminent for its wealth in gold. How much wealthier was Ireland than Great Britain may be imagined from the fact that while the collection in the British Museum of pre-historic gold from England, Scotland, and Wales together amounted a couple of years ago to some three dozen ounces, that in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin weighs five hundred and seventy ounces. And yet the collection in the Academy contains only a small part of the gold-finds made in Ireland, for before 1861, when the new law about treasure-trove came into force, great numbers of gold objects are known to have been sold to the goldsmiths and melted down. The wealth of Ireland in gold—some of it found and smelted in the Wicklow mountains[1]—must have at an early period determinedcontinental trade in its direction, and we have seen that Tacitus reported its harbours as being better known through trade than those of Great Britain, or, on the most unfavourable reading of the passage, as being "known by commerce and merchants."[2]This is also borne out by archæologists. Professor Montelius, who has traced a close connection in pre-historic times between Scandinavia and the West of Europe,[3]regards much of the pre-historic gold found in the northern countries as Irish. Speaking of certain gold ornaments found in Fünen, which show, according to him, marked Irish influence, he writes: "Gold ornaments like these have not been discovered elsewhere in Scandinavia, while a great number of similar ornaments have been found in the British Isles, especially in Ireland, whose wealth of gold in the Bronze Age is amazing." Again he writes, "As certain of the goldobjects found in Denmark have been introduced demonstrably from the British Islands, probably from Ireland, the thought is obvious—is not a great part of the other gold objects found in Southern Scandinavia also of Irish origin, and of the Bronze Age there?... for this island [Ireland] was, during the Bronze Age, one of the lands of Europe richest in gold." "No other country in Europe possesses so much manufactured gold belonging to early and mediæval times," writes Mr. Ernest Smith.[4]

It is true that the Irish Celts, despite their mineral wealth, never minted coin, a want which has been adduced to prove a lack of civilisation on their part. But, as Mr. Coffey points out, coinage is a comparatively late invention; the Egyptians—for all their civilisation—never possessed a native coinage, and even such ancient trading cities as Carthage and Gades did not strike coins until a late period. "A little reflection," says Professor Ridgeway, "shows us that it has been quite possible for peoples to attain a high degree of civilisation without feeling any need of what are properly termed coins." "The absence of coinage," adds Mr. Coffey, "does not necessarily imply the absence of a currency system, and Professor Ridgeway has shown that the ancient Irish possessed a system of of currency or values, and a standard of weights."

A most interesting paper by Mr. Johnson, a Dublin jeweller, recently read before the Royal Irish Academy,[5]hasshown with the authority due to an expert, the marvellous skill with which the pre-historic Irish worked their gold, and the wealth of proper appliances which they must have possessed in order to turn out such unique and admirable results.[6]

The workmanship of Irish bronze articles is also very fine, and fully equal to that of Britain, while Greenwell considers their clay urns and food-vessels superior to the British. In Ireland he says the urns, "and especially the food vessels, are of better workmanship, and more elaborately and tastefully ornamented than in most parts of Britain. Many of the food vessels found in Argyleshire, and in other districts in the Southwest of Scotland, as might be perhaps expected, are very Irish in character, and may claim to be equally fine in taste and delicate in workmanship with those of Ireland."[7]

The brilliant appearance of Cormac mac Art when presiding over the assembly at Tara, covered with gold and jewels, receives enhanced credibility from the proofs of early Irish wealth and culture that I have just adduced. Let us glance at Tara itself, as it existed in the time of Cormac, and see whether archæology can throw any light upon the ancient accounts of that royal hill. It was round this hill that the great Féis, or assemblage of the men of all Ireland, took place triennially,[8]with a threefold purpose—to promulgate laws universally binding upon all Ireland; to test, purge, andsanction the annals and genealogies of Ireland, in the presence of all men, so that no untruth or flaw might creep in; and, finally, to register the same in the great national record, in later times called the Saltair of Tara, so that cases of disputed succession might be peacefully settled by reference to this central authoritative volume. The session of the men of Ireland thus convened took place on the third day before Samhain—November day—and ended the third day after it. We are told that Cormac, who presided over these assemblies,[9]had ten persons in constant waiting upon his person, who hardly ever left him. These were a prince of noble blood, a druid, a physician, a brehon, a bard, a historian, a musician, and three stewards. And Keating tells us that the very same arrangement was observed from Cormac's time—in the third century—to the death of Brian Boru in the eleventh, the only alteration being that a Christian priest was substituted for the druid.

To accommodate the chiefs and princes who came to the great Féis, Cormac built the renowned Teach Míodhchuarta [Toch Mee-coo-ar-ta] which was able to accommodate a thousand persons, and which was used at once for a house of assembly, a banqueting hall, and a sleeping abode. We have two accounts of this hall and of the other monuments of Tara, written, the one in poetry, the other in verse, some nine hundred years ago. The prose of the Dinnseanchus describes accurately the lie of the building, "to the north-west of the eastern mound." "The ruins of this house"—it lay in ruins then as now—"are thus situated: the lower part to the north and the higher part to the south; and walls are raised about it to the east and to the west. The northern side of it is enclosed and small, the lie of it is north and south. It is in the form of a long house with twelve doors upon it, or fourteen, seven to the west and seven to the east. This was the great house of a thousand soldiers."[10]Keating, followinghis ancient authorities, graphically describes the Tara assembly.

"The nobles," he writes, "both territorial lords and captains of bands of warriors, were each man of them, always attended by his own proper shield-bearer. Again their banquet-halls were arranged in the following manner, to wit, they were long narrow buildings with tables arranged along both the opposite walls of the hall; then along these side walls there was placed a beam, in which were fixed numerous hooks (one over the seat destined for each of the nobles), and between every two of them there was but the breadth of one shield. Upon these hooks the shanachy hung up the shields of the nobles previously to their sitting down to the banquet, at which they all, both lords and captains, sat each beneath his own shield. However, the most honoured side of the house was occupied by the territorial lords, whilst the captains of warriors[11]were seated opposite to them at the other. The upper end of the hall was the place of the ollavs, while the lower end was assigned to the attendants and the officers in waiting. It was also prescribed that no man should be placed opposite another at the same table, but that all, both territorial lords and captains, should sit with their backs towards the wall, beneath their own shields. Again, they never admitted females into their banquet-halls; these had a hall of their own in which they were separately served. It was likewise the prescribed usage to clear out the banquet-hall previous to serving the assembled nobles therein. And no one was allowed to remain in the building but three, namely, a Shanachy and abolsgaire[marshal or herald], and a trumpeter, the duty of which latter officer was to summon all the guests to the banquet-hall by the sound of his trumpet-horn. He had to sound his horn three times. At the first blast the shield-bearers of the territorial chieftains assembled round the door of the hall, where the marshal received from them the shields of their lords, which he then, according to the directions of the shanachy, hung up each in its assigned place. The trumpeter then sounded his trumpet a second time, and the shield-bearers of the chieftains of the military bands assembled round the door of the banquet-hall, where the marshal received their lords' shields from them also, and hung them up at the other side of the hall according to the orders of the shanachy, and over the table of the warriors. The trumpeter sounded his trumpet the third time, and thereuponboth the nobles and the warrior chiefs entered the banquet-hall, and then each man sat down beneath his own shield, and thus were all contests for precedency avoided amongst them."

These accounts of the Dinnseanchus and of Keating, taken from authorities now lost, will be likely to receive additional credit when we know that the statements made nine hundred years ago, when Tara had even then lain in ruins for four centuries, have been verified in every essential particular by the officers of the Ordnance Survey. The statement in the Dinnseanchus made nearly nine hundred years ago that there were either six or seven doors on each side, shows the condition into which Tara had then fallen, one on each side being so obliterated that now, also, it is difficult to say whether it was a door or not. The length of the hall, according to Petrie's accurate measurements, wasseven hundred and sixty feet, and its breadth was nearly ninety. There was a double row of benches on each side, running the entire length of the hall, which would give four rows of men if we remember that the guests were all seated on the same side of the tables, and allowing the ample room of three feet to each man, this would just give accommodation to a thousand. In the middle of the hall, running down all the way between the benches, there was a row of fires, and just above each fire was a spit descending from the roof, at which the joints were roasted. There is a ground plan of the building, in the Book of Leinster, and the figure of a cook is rudely drawn with his mouth open, and a ladle in his hand to baste the joint. The king sat at the southern end of the hall, and the servants and retainers occupied the northern.

The banqueting-hall and all the other buildings at Tara were of wood, nor is the absence of stone buildings in itself a proof of low civilisation, since, in a country like Ireland, abounding in timber, wood could be made to answer every purpose—as in point of fact it does at this day over the greater part of America, and in all northern countries where forestsare numerous.[12]All or most Irish houses, down to the period of the Danish invasions, were constructed of wood, or of wood and clay mixed, or of clay and unmortared stones, and their strongholds were of wooden pallisades planted upon clay earth-works. This is the reason why so few remains of pre-historic buildings have come down to us, but it is no reason for believing that, as in Cormac's banquet-hall, rude palatial effects were not often produced. An interesting poem in the Dialogue of the Sages, from the Book of Lismore, describes the house of the Lady Credé, said to have been a contemporary of Finn mac Cúmhail in the third century.[13]Though the poem may not itself be very old, it no doubt embodies many ancient truths, and is worth quoting from. A poet comes to woo the lady, and brings this poem with him. Finn accompanies him. When they reached her fortress "girls, yellow-haired, of marriageable age, showed on the balconies of her bowers." The poet sang to her—

"Happy is the house in which she isBetween men and children and women,Between druids and musical performers,Between cupbearers and doorkeepers.[14]

Between equerries without fear,And distributors who divide [the fare],And, over all these, the command belongsTo Credé of the yellow hair.* * * * *The colour [of her house] is like the colour of lime,Within it are couches and green rushes (?)Within it are silks and blue mantles,Within it are red, gold, and crystal cups.Of its many chambers the corner stones,Are all of silver and yellow gold,In faultless stripes its thatch is spread,Of wings of brown, and of crimson red.Two door posts of green I see,Door not devoid of beauty,Of carved silver, long has it been renowned,In the lintel that is over the door.Credé's chair is on your left hand,The pleasantest of the pleasant it is,All over, a blaze[15]of Alpine goldAt the foot of her beautiful couch.A splendid couch in full arrayStands directly above the chair;It was made byTuilein the East,Of yellow gold and precious stones.There is another bed on your right handOf gold and silver without defect,With curtains with soft [pillows],With graceful rods of golden-bronze.An hundred feet spans Credé's houseFrom one angle to the other,And twenty feet are fully measuredIn the breadth of its noble door.Its portico is covered, too,With wings of birds, both yellow and blue,Its lawn in front and its wellOf crystal and of Carmogel."

The houses of the ancient Irish were either like Cormac's banqueting-hall and Credé's house, built quadrilaterally of felled trees or split planks planted upright in the earth, and thatched overhead, or else, as was most usually the case, they were cylindrical and made of wickerwork, with a cup-shaped roof, plastered with clay and whitewashed. The magnificent dimensions of Cormac's palace, verified as they are by the careful measurements of the Ordnance Survey—a palace certainly erected in pagan times, since Tara was deserted for ever about the year 550—bear evidence, like our wealth of beautifully-wrought gold ornaments, and the superior workmanship of our surviving articles of bronze and clay, to a high degree of civilisation and culture amongst the pre-Christian Irish; I have here adduced them as bearing indirect evidence in favour of the probability that a people so civilised would have been likely to have seized on the invention of writing when they first came in contact with it, and would have kept their annals and genealogies all the more accurately from the very fact that they were evidently so advanced in other matters.

[1]In the Irish Annals gold is said to have been first smelted in Leinster. As late as the last century native gold was discovered on the confines of Wicklow and Wexford, and nuggets of 22, 18, 9, and 7 ounces are recorded as having been found there. Mr. Coffey quotes a most interesting account by a Mr. Weaver, director of the works established there by the Irish Government before the Union to look for gold. "The discovery of native gold in Ballinvally stream, at Croghan Kinshella," says Mr. Weaver, "was at first kept secret, but being divulged, almost the whole population of the immediate neighbourhood flocked in to gather so rich a harvest, actually neglecting at the time the produce of their own fields. This happened about the autumn of the year 1796, when several hundreds of people might be seen daily assembled digging and searching for gold in the banks and bed of the stream. Considerable quantities were thus collected; this being as it subsequently proved the most productive spot; and the populace remained in undisturbed possession of the place for nearly six weeks, when Government determined to commence active operations.... Regular stream works were soon established, and up to the unhappy time of the rebellion in May, 1798, when the works were destroyed, Government had been fully reimbursed its advances; the produce of the undertaking having defrayed its own expenses and left a surplus in hand." The total amount of gold collected from this place in the last hundred years is valued at about £30,000. This particular spot had been probably overlooked, as Mr. Coffey remarks, by the searchers of earlier days, but no doubt other auriferous streams in the Wicklow mountains had given up their gold long since in pre-historic times to the ancient workers. (SeeCoffey's "Origins of Pre-historic Ornament in Ireland," p. 40.) Dr. Frazer, on the other hand, does not believe that any great part of the gold found in Ireland is indigenous, and talks of Spain and South Russia, and gold plundered from Britain. But if this be the case, what an enormous pre-historic trade Ireland must have carried on, or what a powerful invader she must have been to come by such quantities of gold! (SeeDr. Frazer's paper in R.I.A. Proceedings, May, 1896). He has since supplemented this by another in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries in which he leans to the opinion that the Romanaurei, the coins plundered from the Britons, were the real source of Irish gold.

[2]See above, ch. II, note11.

[3]"Verbindungen zwischen Skandinavien und dem westlichen Europa vor Christi Geburt" ("Archiv für Anthropologie," vol. xix., quoted by Mr. George Coffey in his "Origins of Pre-historic Ornament in Ireland," p. 63).

[4]"Notes on the Composition of Ancient Irish Gold and Silver Ornaments," by Ernest A. Smith, Assoc. R.S.M., F.C.S., Royal School of Mines, London, R. I. A. Transactions, May, 1896.

[5]"Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy," May, 1896. The tools and appliances necessary for producing the fine gold fibulæ of a private collector, which Mr. Johnson examined, would be, he says, "a furnace, charcoal, crucible, mould for ingot, flux, bellows, several hammers, anvil, swage anvil, swages, chisels for ornament, sectional tool for producing concentric rings." On one of them, he says, "there is a thickened edge and a beautiful moulded ornament on the outer side only, which quite puzzles one as to how it was produced without suggesting what are considered to be modern tools."

[6]A splendid find of gold ornaments made last year near the estuary of the Foyle river, of a golden model of a boat, evidently a votive offering, fitted with seat, mast, oars, and punting poles, an exquisitely-wrought gold collar, decorated in relief with the most beautiful embossed work, torques, neckchains, etc., has been dated from internal evidences as work of the second century, the neck-chains being clearly provincial Roman work of that date. It is to be regretted that these exquisite articles have found their way to the British Museum, where they will be practically lost, instead of being added to the unique Irish collection in Dublin, to which they properly belong.

[7]Greenwell's "British Barrows," p. 62, quoted by Coffey.

[8]O'Donovan, in his preface to "The Book of Rights," gives some reasons for believing that it may have been held only septennially.

[9]Seethe Forus Feasa, p. 354 of O'Mahony's translation.

[10]SeePetrie's "Antiquities of Tara Hill," p. 129.

[11]This seems a plain allusion to the Fenians, believed in Ireland to have been Cormac's militia.

[12]Bede mentions, if I remember rightly—I forget where—a church built in the north of Britain,more Scotorum, robore secto,"of cleft oak, in the Irish fashion." The Columban churches were also of wood and wattles, contemporaneous with which were the beehive cells of uncemented stone, probably less warm and less comfortable than the thatched houses. "Ce que nous savons des anciens édifices irlandais," says M. Jubainville, "donne le droit d'affirmer que la plupart des constructions élevées à Emain macha [i.e., Emania, the capital of Ulster, and of the Red Branch heroes, two miles west of Armagh] pendant le période épique de l'histoire d'Irlande, ont dû être en bois; cependant il y avait été employé au moins quelques pierres." Angus the Culdee has a noble verse relating to the stones of Emania, the finest, perhaps, in the whole Saltair na rann, "Emania's palace has vanished, yet its stones still remain, but the Rome of the western world is now Glendaloch of the gatherings," "is Ruam iarthair beatha Gleann dalach dá locha."

[13]See"Silva Gadelica," p. 111, and O'Curry's MS. Materials, p. 595.

[14]Aibhinn in tech in atá,Idir fira is maca is mná,Idir dhruidh ocus aes ceóil,Idir dhailiumh is dhoirseoir.

[15]Thus O'Curry translatescasairas if he had taken it to belasair. O'Grady translates "an overlay of Elpa's gold."

Even supposing the Ogam alphabet to have been used in pre-Christian times, though it may have been employed by ollavs and poets to perpetuate tribal names and genealogies, still it was much too cumbrous and clumsy an invention to produce anything deserving the name of real literature. It is, so far as we know, only with the coming of Patrick that Ireland may be said to have become, properly speaking, a literary country. The churches and monasteries established by him soon became so many nuclei of learning, and from the end of the fifth century a knowledge of letters seems to have entirely permeated the island. So suddenly does this appear to have taken place, and so rapidly does Ireland seem to have produced a flourishing literature of laws, poems, and sagas, that it is very hard to believe that the inhabitants had not, before his coming, arrived at a high state of indigenous culture. This aspect of the case has been recently strongly put by Dr. Sigerson. "I assert," said he, speaking of the early Brehon laws, at the revision of which in a Christian sense St. Patrick is said to have assisted, "that, speaking biologically, such laws could notemanate from any race whose brains have not been subject to the quickening influence of education for many generations."[1]

The usual date assigned for St. Patrick's landing in Ireland in the character of a missionary is 432, and his work among the Irish is said to have lasted for sixty years, during which time he broke down the idol Crom Cruach, burnt the books of the druids at Tara, ordained numerous missionaries and bishops, and succeeded in winning over to Christianity a great number of the chiefs and sub-kings, who were in their turn followed by their tribesmen.

St. Patrick did not work alone, nor did he come to Ireland as a solitary pioneer of a new religion; he was accompanied, as we learn from his life in the Book of Armagh, by a multitude of bishops, priests, deacons, readers, and others,[2]who had crossed over along with him for the service. Several were his own blood relations, one was his sister's son. Many likely youths whom he met on his missionary travels he converted to Christianity, taught to read, tonsured, and afterwards ordained. These new priests thus appointed worked in all directions, establishing churches and getting together congregations from amongst the neighbouring heathen. Unable to give proper attention to the teaching of the youths whom he elected as his helpers, so long as he himself was engaged in journeying through Ireland from point to point, he, after about twenty years of peripatetic teaching, established at Armagh about the year 450 the first Christian school ever founded in Ireland, the progenitor of that long line of colleges which made Ireland famous throughout Europe, and to which, two hundred years later, her Anglo-Saxon neighbours flocked in thousands.[3]

The equipments of these newly-made priests was of the scantiest. Each, as he was sent forth, received an alphabet-of-the-faith or elementary-explanation of the Christian doctrine, frequently written by Patrick himself, a "Liber ordinis," or "Mass Book," a written form for the administration of the sacraments, a psaltery, and, if it could be spared, a copy of the Gospels.[4]A good-sized retinue followed Patrick in all his journeyings, ready to supply with their own hands all things necessary for the new churches established by the saint, as well as to minister to his own wants. He travelled with his episcopal coadjutor, his psalm-singer, his assistant priest, his judge—originally a Brehon by profession, whom he found most useful in adjudicating on disputed questions—a personal champion to protect him from sudden attack and to carry him through floods and other obstacles, an attendant on himself, a bellringer, a cook, a brewer, a chaplain at the table, two waiters, and others who provided food and accommodation for himself and his household. He had in his company three smiths, three artificers, and three ladies who embroidered. His smiths and artificers made altars, book-covers, bells, and helped to erect his wooden churches; the ladies, one of them his own sister, made vestments and altar linens.[5]

St. Patrick was essentially a man of work and not of letters, and yet it so happens that he is the earliest Irish writer of whom we can say with confidence that what is ascribed to him is really his. And here it is as well to say something about the genuineness of St. Patrick's personality and the authenticity of his writings, for the opinion started by Ledwich has gone abroad, and has somehow become prevalent, that St. Patrick's personality is nearly as nebulous as that of King Arthur or of Finn mac Cúmhail, and at the best is made up of a number of little Patricks lumped into one great one. Thatthere was more than one Patrick[6]is certain,[7]and that the great Saint Patrick who wrote the "Confession" may have got credit in the early Latin and later Irish lives for the acts of others, is perfectly possible, but that most of the essential features of his life are true, is beyond all doubt, and we have a manuscript 1091 years old, apparently copied from his own handwriting, and containing his own confession and apologia.

How this exquisite manuscript, consisting of 216 vellum leaves, written in double columns, has happily been preserved to us, we shall not lose time in inquiring; but how its exact date has been ascertained through what Dr. Reeves has characterised as "one of the most elegant and recondite demonstrationswhich any learned society has on record, is worth mentioning." The Rev. Charles Graves, the present Bishop of Limerick, made a thorough examination of the whole codex when, after many vicissitudes and hair-breadth escapes from destruction, it had been temporarily deposited in the Royal Irish Academy. Knowing, as O'Curry pointed out, that it was the custom for Irish scribes to sign their own names, with usually some particulars about their writing, at the end of each piece they copied, he made a careful search and discovered that this had actually been done in the Book of Armagh, and in no less than eight places, but that on every spot where it occurred it had been erased for some apparently inscrutable reason, with the greatest pains. In the last place but one,however, where the colophon occurred, the process of erasure had been less thorough than in the others, and after long consideration, and treatment of the erasure with gallic acid and spirits of wine, Dr. Graves discovered that the words so carefully rubbed out werePro Ferdomnacho ores, "Pray for Ferdomnach." Turning to the other places, he found that the erased words in at least one other place were evidently the same. This settled the name of the scribe; he was Ferdomnach. The next step was to search the "Four Masters," who record the existence of two scribes of that name who died at Armagh, one in 726 and the other in 844. One of these it must have been who wrote the Book of Armagh,—but which? This also Dr. Graves discovered, with the greatest ingenuity. At the foot of Fols. 52-6 he was, with extreme difficulty, able to decipher the words... ach hunc ... e dictante ... ach herede Patricii scripsit. From these stray syllables he surmised that Ferdomnach had written the book at the bidding of some Archbishop of Armagh whose name ended inach. For this the Psalter of Cashel, Leabhar Breac, and "Four Masters," were consulted, and it was found that one Archbishop Senaach died in 609; it could not then have been by his commands the book was written by the first Ferdomnach; then came, after a long interval, Faoindealach, who died in 794, Connmach, who died in 806, and Torbach, who held the primacy for one year after him. On examining the hiatus it was found that the letter which preceded the fragmentachcould not have been either anlor anm, but might have been ab, thus putting out of the question the names of Connmach and Faoindealach. Besides the vacant space before theachwas just sufficient to admit of the lettersTor, but notConn, much lessFaoindea. The conclusion was obvious: the passage ran,Ferdomnach hunc librum e dictante Torbach herede Patricii scripsit, "Ferdomnach wrote this book at the dictation (or command) of Torbach, Patrick's heir (successor)." Torbach, as we haveseen, became Archbishop in 806 and died in 807. The date was in this way recovered.[8]

I have been thus particular in tracing the steps by which the age of this manuscript came to light, because it contains the earliest piece of certain Irish literature we have, the "Confession of St. Patrick." Now the usually accepted date of St. Patrick's death, as given in the Annals of Ulster, is 492, about three hundred years before that, and Ferdomnach, the scribe, after copying it, added these words: "Huc usque volumen quod patricius manu conscripsit sua. Septimadecima martii die translatus est patricius ad cælos," i.e., "thus far the volume which Patrick wrote with his own hand. On the seventeenth day of March was Patrick translated to the heavens." It would appear highly probable from this that Ferdomnach actually copied from St. Patrick's autograph,[9]which had become so defaced or faded during the three previous centuries, that the scribe has written in many placesincertus liber hic, "the book is uncertain here," or else put a note[10]ofinterrogation to indicate that he was not sure whether he had copied the text correctly. It will be seen from this that there was not the slightest trace of any concealment on the part of the scribe as to who he himself was, or what he was copying; there was no attempt to antedate his own writing, or to suggest that his copy was an original. But long after the scribe's generation had passed away and the origin of his work been forgotten, the volume which at first had been regarded only as a fine transcript of early documents, became known as "Canon Phádraig," or Patrick's Testament, and popular opinion, relying on the colophon "thus far the book which Patrick wrote with his own hand," set down the work as the saint's autograph. The belief that the volume was St. Patrick's own autograph of course enhanced enormously its value, and with it the dignity of its possessors, and the unscrupulous plan was resolved on of erasing the signature of the actual scribe. The veneration of the public was thus secured by interested persons at the cost of truth, and the deception probably lasted so long as the possession of such a volume brought with it either credit or dignity. This same volume[11]has another interest attaching to it, so that we cannot but felicitate ourselves that out of the wreck of so many thousands of volumes, it has been spared to us—it was brought to Brian Boru, when in the year 1004 he went upon his royal progress through Ireland, the first man of the race of Eber who had attained the proud position of monarch or Ard-righ for many centuries, and he, by the hand of his secretary, made an entry which may still be seen to-day, confirming the primacy of Armagh, and re-granting to itthe episcopal supremacy of Ireland which it had always enjoyed.[12]

It is now time to glance at St. Patrick's "Confession," as it is usually called, though in reality it is much more of the nature of an apologiapro vita sua. The evidence in favour of its authenticity is overwhelming, and is accepted by such cautious scholars as Stokes,[13]Todd, and Reeves, no first-rate critic, with perhaps one exception, having so far as I know ever ventured to question its genuineness. It is impossible to assign any motive for a forgery, and casual references to Decuriones, Slave-traffic, and to the "Brittaniæ," or Britains, bear testimony to its antiquity. Again, the Latin in which it is written is barbarous in the extreme, the periods are rude, sometimes ungrammatical, often nearly unintelligible. He begins by telling us that his object in writing this confession in his old age was to defend himself from the charge of presumptuousness in undertaking the work he tried to perform amongst the Irish. He tells us that he had many toils and perils to surmount, and much to endure while engaged upon it. He never received one farthing for all his preaching and teaching. The people indeed were generous, and offered many gifts, and cast precious things upon the altar, but he would not receive them lest he might afford the unrighteous an occasion to cavil. He was still encompassed about with dangers, but he heeded them not, looking to the success which had attended his efforts, how "the sons of the Scots and thedaughters of their princes became monks and virgins of Christ," and "the number of holy widows and of continent maidens was countless." It would be tedious were he to recount even a portion of what he had gone through. Twelve times had his life been endangered, but God had rescued him, and brought him safe from all plots and ambuscades and rewarded him for leaving his parents, and friends, and country, heeding neither their prayers nor their tears, that he might preach the gospel in Ireland. He appeals to all he had converted, and to all who knew him, to say whether he had not refused all gifts—nay, it was he himself who gave the gifts, to the kings and to their sons, and oftentimes was he robbed and plundered of everything, and once had he been bound in fetters of iron for fourteen days until God had delivered him, and even still while writing this confession he was living in poverty and misery, expecting death or slavery, or other evil. He prays earnestly for one thing only, that he may persevere, and not lose the people whom God has given to him at the very extremity of the world.

Unhappily this "Confession" is a most unsatisfying composition, for it omits to mention almost everything of most interest relating to the saint himself and to his mission. What floods of light might it have thrown upon a score of vexed questions, how it might have set at rest for ever theories on druidism, kingship, social life, his own birthplace, his mission from Rome,[14]his captors. Even of himself he tells us next to nothing, except that his father's name was Calpornus,[15]the son ofPotitus, the son of Odissus, a priest, and that he dwelt in thevicusor township of Benaven Taberniæ; he had also a small villa not far off, where he tells us he was made captive at the age of about sixteen years. Because his Christian training was bad, and he was not obedient to the priests when they admonished him to seek for salvation, therefore God punished him, and brought him into captivity in a strange land at the end of the world. When he was brought to Ireland he tells us that his daily task was to feed cattle, and then the love of God entered into his heart, and he used to rise before the sun and pray in the woods and mountains, in the rain, the hail, and the snow. Then there came to him one night a voice in his sleep saying to him "Your ship is ready," and he departed and went for two hundred miles, until he reached a port where he knew no one. This was after six years' captivity. The master of the ship would not take him on board, but afterwards he relented just as Patrick was about to return to the cottage where he had got lodging. He succeeded at last in reaching the home of his parentsin Britannis[i.e., in some part of Britain, including Scotland], and his parents besought him, now that he had returned from so many perils, to remain with them always. But the angel Victor came in the guise of a man from Ireland, and gave him a letter, in which the voice of the Irish called him away, and the voices of those who dwelt near the wood of Focluth called him to walk amongst them, and the spirit of God, too, urged him to return.[16]

He says nothing of his training, or his ordination, or his long sojourn in Gaul, or of St. Germanus, with whom he studied according to the "Lives," but he alludes incidentally to his wish to see his parents and his native Britain, and to revisit the brethren in Gaul, and to see the face of God's saints there; but though he desired all this, he would not leave his beloved converts, but would spend the rest of his life amongst them.[17]

From this briefrésuméof the celebrated "Confession" it will be seen that it is the perfervid outpouring of a zealous early Christian, anxious only to clear himself from the charges of worldliness or carelessness, and absolutely devoid of those appeals to general interest which we meet with in most of such memoirs, but there is a vein of warm piety running through the whole, and an abundance of scriptural quotations—all, of course, from the ante-Hieronymian or pre-Vulgate version, another proof of antiquity—which has caused it to be remarked that a forger might, perhaps, write equally bad Latin, but could hardly "forge the spirit that breathes in the language which is the manifest outpourings of a heart like unto the heart of St. Paul."[18]

There are two other pieces of literature assigned to St. Patrick, as well as the "Confession"; these are the "Epistle to Coroticus" in Latin, and the "Deer's Cry" in Irish. TheEpistle is not found in the Book of Armagh, but it is found in other MSS. as old as the tenth or eleventh century, and bears such close resemblance in style and language to the "Confession," whole phrases actually occurring in both, that it also has generally been regarded as genuine.[19]There is some doubt as to who Coroticus was, but he seems to have been a semi-Christian king of Dumbarton who, along with some Scots,i.e., Irish, and the Southern Picts who had fallen away from Christianity, raided the eastern shores of Ireland and carried off a number of St. Patrick's newly-converted Christians, leaving the white garments of the neophytes stained with blood, and hurrying into captivity numbers upon whose foreheads the holy oil of confirmation was still glistening. The first letter was to ask Coroticus to restore the captives, and when this request was derided the next was sent, excommunicating him and all his aiders and abettors, calling upon all Christians neither to eat nor drink in their company until they had made expiation for their crimes. Patrick himself had, he here explains, preached the gospel to the Irish nation for the sake of God, though they had made him a captive and destroyed the men-servants and maids of his father's house. He had been born a freedman and a noble, the son of a decurio or prefect, but he had sold his nobility for others and regretted it not. His lament over the loss of his converts is touching: "Oh! my most beautiful and most loving brothers and children whom in countless numbers I have begotten in Christ, what shall I do for you? Am I so unworthy before God and men that I cannot help you? Is it a crime to have been born in Ireland?[20]And have we not the same God as they have? I sorrow for you, yet I rejoice, for if ye are taken from the world ye are believers through me, and are gone to Paradise."

The "Cry of the Deer," or "Lorica," as it is also called, is in Irish. The saint is said to have made it when on his way to visit King Laoghaire [Leary] at Tara, and the assassins who had been planted by the king to slay him and his companions thought as he chanted this hymn that it was a herd of deer that passed them by, and thus they escaped. The metre of the original is a kind of unrhymed or half-rhymed rhapsody, called in Irish aRosg, and is perfectly unadorned. The language, however, though very old, has of course been modified in the process of transcription. Patrick calls upon the Trinity to protect him that day at Tara, and to bind to him the power of the elements.

I bind me to-day[21]God's might to direct me,God's power to protect me,God's wisdom for learning,God's eye for discerning,God's ear for my hearing,God's word for my clearing,God's hand for my cover,God's path to pass over,God's buckler to guard me,God's army to ward me,Against snares of the devils,Against vices, temptations,Against wrong inclinations,Against men who plot evilsTo hurt me anew,Anear or afar with many or few.* * * * *Christ near, Christ here,Christ be with me,Christ beneath me,Christ within me,Christ behind me,Christ be o'er me,Christ before me,Christ in the left and the right,Christ hither and thither,Christ in the sight,Of each eye that shall seek me,[22]etc.

In the Book of Armagh, in the last chapter of Tirechan's life, St. Patrick is declared to be entitled to four honours in every church and monastery of the island. One of these honours was that the hymn written by St. Seachnall, his nephew, in praise of himself, was to be sung in the churches during the days when his festival was being celebrated, and another was that "his Irish canticle" was to be always sung,[23]apparently all the year through, in the liturgy, but perhaps only during the week of his festival. The Irish canticle is evidentlythis "Lorica," which was, as we see from this notice in the Book of Armagh, believed to be his in the seventh century, and it has been sung under that belief from that day almost to our own.[24]

The other hymn, the singing of which at his festival is alluded to as one of St. Patrick's "honours," was composed by Seachnall [Shaughnal],[25]a nephew of St. Patrick's, in laudation of the saint himself. It is a very interesting piece of rough latinity, and is generally regarded as genuine. The occasion of its composition deserves to be told, for it casts a ray of light on the prudential and self-restrained side of St. Patrick's character, which no doubt contributed largely to his success when working in the midst of his wavering converts. Seachnall said that Patrick's preaching would be perfect if he only insisted a little more on the necessity of giving, for then more property and land would be at the disposal of the Church for pious uses. This remark of his nephew was repeated to St. Patrick, who was very much annoyed at it, and said beautifully, that "for the sake of charity he forbore to preach charity," and intimated that the holy men who should come after him might benefit by the offerings of the faithful which he had left untouched. Then Seachnall, grieved at having thus pained his uncle, and anxious to win his regard again,composed a poem of twenty-two stanzas each beginning with a different letter, with four lines of fifteen syllables in each verse.[26]When he had done this he asked permission of Patrick to recite to him a poem which he had composed in praise of a holy man, and when Patrick said that he would gladly hear the praises of any of God's household, the poet adroitly suppressing Patrick's name which occurs in the first verse, recited it for him. Patrick was pleased, but interupted the poet at one stanza when he said that the subject of his laudations wasmaximus in regno cælorum,[27]"the greatest in the kingdom of heaven," asking how could that be said of anyman.Maximus, ingeniously replied Seachnall, does not here mean "greatest," but only "very great." He then disclosed to his uncle that he himself was the object of the poem, and asked—like all bards—for the reward for it, whereupon Patrick promised that to all who recited the hymn piously morning and evening, God in His mercy might give the glory of heaven. "I am content with that award," said the poet, "but as the hymn is long and difficult to be remembered I wish you would obtain the same reward for whosoever recites even a part of it." Whereupon St. Patrick promised that the recitation of the last three verses would be sufficient, and his nephew was satisfied, having proved himself the first poet of Christian Ireland, and having obtained such a reward for his verses as neither bard nor ollav had ever obtained before him. It was probably this same Seachnall who was the author of the much finer hymn of eleven verses which used to be sung in the old Irish churches at communion—

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