A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes – Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Irish History: Fascinating Snippets of Irish History from the Ice Age to the Peace Process

by Jonathan Bardon

  The fourth invasion was by the Tuatha Dé Danann, who had learned the arts of magic in the northern world. They defeated the Fir Bolg at the Battle of Moytura, and, in a second battle in the same place, they routed the Formorians. The Dé Danann hero Lug the Long-Handed slew the Formorian Balar of the Baleful Eye at Moytura and was rewarded by becoming the King of Ireland for forty years.

  The last conquest recorded in the Lebor Gabála was achieved by the Gaels. Fénius, a descendent of Japheth son of Noah, was at the Tower of Babel, where he selected the best elements of all the languages there to create the Irish language. His descendent, Goídil, who gave his name to the Gaels, had Pharaoh’s daughter Scotta as his mother. His grandson, Éber Scott, after wandering the world, conquered Spain. One winter evening, from a tall tower, Ireland was seen on the horizon. Soon afterwards the sons of Míl, the ruler of Spain, led a successful invasion, and their descendents, the Gaels, ruled Ireland since that time.

  All of this is, of course, nonsense. The word ‘Gael’ was originally a Welsh word for the Irish. The term ‘Scot’ had nothing to do with Pharaoh’s daughter, but was the Roman word for an Irishman. The Fir Bolg were probably Belgae, a group of tribes conquered by Julius Caesar. What is remarkable is that much of this confabulated pseudo-history was believed for centuries to come. Right up to the nineteenth century both scholars and politicians referred to the early Irish as Milesians (after Míl), and it was only later that the terms ‘Celts’ and ‘Celtic’ were preferred. However, the Lebor Gabála, in its account of the Tuatha Dé Danann, does provide a very comprehensive description of the gods of the Irish before the coming of Christianity.

  Episode 8

  PREPARING FOR THE OTHERWORLD IN PRE-CHRISTIAN CELTIC IRELAND

  The Tuatha Dé Danann, in effect, were the gods of the pre-Christian Celts in Ireland. These were to become the sídhe who, when conquered, became invisible and lived in fairy mounds. Lir was one of their kings and the story of his children—changed into swans by his third wife Aoife—is one of the most poignant in western literature. Lir’s son, Manannán mac Lir, was god of the sea. The greatest of the gods was the Dagda, who had beaten off the monster Formorians when they attacked in a magical mist. The best-loved was Lug the Long-Handed, the god of sun and fertility. Maeve—who appears as Queen Mab in Shakespeare’s plays—was the goddess of drunkenness. Which god is represented by the so-called Tandragee Idol from Co. Armagh is not known; certainly he looks ferocious with a horned helmet and a threatening right arm.

  In Ireland the Celtic year began with Samhain, now Hallowe’en, when cattle had been brought in from their summer grazing; this was a time when spirits flew free between the real world and the other world. Imbolg, the first day of February, marked the start of the lambing season; and the feast of Bealtine, at the start of May, was for the purification of cattle driven ceremoniously between two fires. Lughnasa, the first day of August, celebrated the harvest and paid homage to Lug the sun god.

  It is now becoming clear that the ancient capitals of Ireland were ritual rather than political sites. These include: Emain Macha (or Navan Fort) near Armagh, the capital of Ulster; Cruachain (or Rathcroghan) in Co. Roscommon, the capital of Connacht; Dún Ailinne near Kilcullen, Co. Kildare, the capital of Leinster; and Tara in Co. Meath, long regarded as the capital of Ireland. It is clear that they were not constructed for military purposes as the ditch in each of the locations was placed inside rather than outside the great circular earthen enclosures. If defence was needed, it was against hostile spirits from the Otherworld.

  At Emain Macha archaeologists found evidence that a great circular temple, forty-three metres in diameter, had been built, probably by a whole community acting together. Held up by concentric rows of posts thicker than telegraph poles and steadied by horizontal planks, the roof had been covered with a cairn of stones enveloped with sods. Then the whole structure had been deliberately set on fire. No one knows why. Had this been a ritual to invoke the aid of the gods while the kingdom was under attack? Remains of a similar structure were found at Dún Ailinne, and it may have provided tiered seating for large numbers of devotees until it too was purposely destroyed.

  No king of importance could hope to rule with authority unless fully initiated at one of these ancient sites. Lia Fáil, the Stone of Destiny, can still be seen at Tara—it was said to cry out in approval when the rightful king was inaugurated. Whether the Turoe Stone from Co. Galway was an oracle, a totem or a phallic symbol is impossible to say: a glacial erratic granite boulder, it is covered in swirling Celtic art motifs similar to those etched on metal objects. As in other parts of Celtic Europe, Ireland has produced two- and three-headed figures. The finest was found at Corleck in Co. Cavan, a block of local sandstone carved with three faces, each one different but all wide-eyed and thin-lipped.

  Like their continental counterparts, the Celts in Ireland assuaged the anger of the gods by casting their valuables into sacred pools. Had they not done so, the archaeological record would be very much the poorer. One of these pools, close to Emain Macha, yielded up four large bronze horns magnificently decorated in the Celtic style known as La Tène after a site in Switzerland. First developed in central Europe, this imaginative art, in contrast with the realism and natural beauty preferred by Greek and Roman artists, delighted in restless symbols and intricate curvilinear patterns. The earliest examples of this art can be seen on bronze scabbards from Lisnacrogher, Co. Antrim. Iron, of course, tended to rust away completely, and fewer than two dozen swords have survived from this period. Irish craftsmen added their own stamp to this style, most notably by using the compass to create arc patterns. This artistry is well displayed in the trumpet curves and tiny bird’s heads on the Bann Disc (now the symbol of the Ulster Museum) and portions of the so-called Petrie Crown, found in Co. Cork, which include a solar symbol, the sun represented by a wheel, and a stylised depiction of the boat of the sun drawn across the heavens by birds.

  In hoards deliberately placed in rivers, lakes and pools after around 300 BC, bronze horse-bits are the commonest surviving metal artefacts. It demonstrates the crucial role of the horse in helping to keep the ruling caste in power.

  Episode 9

  KINGS AND CHAMPIONS

  At the dawn of the Christian era Ireland was firmly under the domination of Celtic-speaking military rulers. They enforced their rule from well-defended forts where high-born men served as a warrior elite riding on horseback, equipped with lances, throwing-spears and short iron swords held in richly decorated bronze scabbards, and defended with large round shields. They were eager for fame, to beat their opponents in single combat and return to the banqueting hall to claim the ‘champion’s portion’ at the ensuing feast.

  The oldest vernacular epic in western European literature is the Táin Bó Cuailgne, ‘The Cattle Raid of Cooley’: it tells how Queen Maeve of Connacht made war on King Conor Mac Nessa of Ulster to win possession of the Brown Bull of Cuailgne, and how, during a long campaign, the champion Cúchulainn single-handedly held back the men of Connacht by Ferdia’s Ford. The earliest versions of the Táin are believed to have been written down in monasteries in the eighth century, and some verse sections are thought to date from two centuries earlier. It probably had a long oral existence before being committed to vellum. Fedelm, a girl who declared herself to be the woman poet of Connacht, drew up to Queen Maeve in her chariot and told her of her vision of Cúchulainn and of his prowess:

  I see a battle; a blond man

  with much blood about his belt

  and a hero-halo round his head.

  His brow is full of victories.

  A noble countenance I see,

  Working effect on womenfolk;

  a young man of sweet colouring;

  a form dragonish in fray.

  His great valour brings to mind

  Cúchulainn of Muirthemne,

  The hound of Culann, full of fame.

  Who he is I cannot tell

  But I see, now, the whol
e host

  Coloured crimson by his hand.

  Whole hosts he will destroy,

  making dense massacre.

  In thousands you will yield your heads.

  I am Fedelm. I hide nothing.

  The Táin and other tales in the Ulster Cycle at their best possess arresting power, vividly graphic yet stylised, in which stark reality and magic intertwine and the principal characters are ordinary mortals able on occasion to act like gods. From these epic tales the historian gets a vivid picture of an aristocratic Iron Age society remarkably similar in many respects to Celtic Gaul as described by Roman writers. To what extent these stories are based on actual events is difficult to say.

  There are remains of at least eighty hillforts dating from this period. Constructed usually of unmortared stone and with one, two or three defensive ramparts, commanding a clear view of the surrounding countryside, many remain imposing structures to this day. Some of the most notable examples include a remarkable cluster around Baltinglass in Co. Wicklow, the massive circular defences of Staigue Fort in Co. Kerry, and the Grianán of Aileach, on high ground at the base of the Inishowen peninsula, built massively of stone with inset stairways, wall passages and triple earthen bank defences. A remarkable series of earthworks runs across southern Ulster, beginning as the so-called Dane’s Cast near Scarva, Co. Down, continuing (double-banked and double-ditched, eight metres high) as the Dorsey in south Armagh, reappearing in Co. Monaghan as the Worm Ditch and intermittently as the Black Pig’s Dyke to Donegal Bay. Tree-ring analysis shows that timber for the Dorsey had been felled in 95 BC. Almost certainly these defences were designed to close off routeways to the north and to impede the driving of stolen cattle southwards.

  The High-Kings of Tara never ruled the whole island; indeed, until the eleventh century the title was little more than an honorary one. Ireland then was a land of many kingdoms, all with constantly shifting frontiers. Early kingdoms were given tribal names. Examples include: the Ciarraige, the ‘black-haired people’, who named Kerry; the Dartraige, the ‘calf people’, who named both a barony in Monaghan and the Dartry Mountains in Co. Leitrim; and the Conn Maicne Mara, the ‘sons of the wolves of the sea’, from whom the Connemara region derives its name. Later peoples called themselves after gods, and their tribal names have the suffix –achta, meaning ‘followers of’ as in the Connachta, ‘the followers of Conn’, who gave their name to the western province of Ireland.

  Meanwhile the Celtic domination of Europe north of the Alps was collapsing before the might of Rome. By 133 BC the Roman conquest of Spain was complete, and in 59 BC Julius Caesar began his conquest of Gaul. In 56 BC the Veneti were overwhelmed in Armorica and the Belgae were in retreat. Caesar invaded Britain in 55 BC, and three years later, in his account of the Gallic wars, he was the first to apply the word ‘Hibernia’ to Ireland.

  By AD 43 the Emperor Claudius had conquered Britain. Roman legions penetrated Caledonia as far as the Highland Line. Just across the sea to the west lay Hibernia—would this island be a worthy addition to the Empire?

  Episode 10

  AGRICOLA PLANS TO CONQUER IRELAND

  In AD 82 Gnaeus Julius Agricola, governor of Britain, summoned his fleet into the Solway Firth to take aboard his waiting cohorts. Ireland was directly across the sea, and this land he meant to conquer—a climax to a dazzling career the Empire would not forget. Posted to Britain as military tribune twenty-one years before, Agricola had been in the thick of the fighting with the Iceni and Brigantes during Boudicca’s uprising. Placed in command of the xxth Legion, he directed the Irish Sea flotilla for a time; perhaps it had been then that the notion that Ireland was worthy of conquest had formed in his mind. Now, having returned after distinguished service as a governor in Gaul and a consul in Rome, Agricola swept all before him: in the fastness of Snowdonia he reduced the Ordovices to abject submission, and then, pressing relentlessly northwards into Caledonia, he reached the base of the Highlands, harried the Inner Isles with his fleet, and ordered the erection of a network of castella.

  The Roman Empire knew little enough about this island of Hibernia on the north-west edge of its world. Sailing directions, written by a sea captain of the Greek colony of Massilia about 525 BC, referred to Ireland as the ‘Sacred Isle’ two days’ voyage from Armorica and significantly larger than Britain. However, Himilco, the Carthaginian, journeying to the ‘Tin Isles of Scilly’ around 480 BC, warned of dense seaweed entanglements and threatening sea monsters beyond. It was the epic voyage of Pytheas, another Greek from Massilia, who visited Norway and circumnavigated Britain about 300 BC, which gave Mediterranean traders Ireland’s correct position; this explorer’s account does not survive, but it seems to have formed the basis of Ptolemy’s map of Ireland, prepared in the second century AD. Known only from a fifteenth-century copy, this map includes some identifiable names, such as Buvinda (the River Boyne), Senos (the River Shannon), Logia (the Lagan or Belfast Lough), Isamnion (Navan Fort) and Volunti (the Ulaid, the people of Ulster). Even after Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 BC, the Greek geographer and historian Strabo was asserting that the Irish ‘think it decent to eat up their dead parents’, but fifty years later Pomponius Mela was better informed about Ireland:

  Its climate is unfavourable for the maturing of crops, but there is such a profuse growth of grass, and this is as sweet as it is rich, that the cattle can sate themselves in a short part of the day.

  The historian Tacitus was a more acute observer, and his descriptions of the Britons and continental Celts in the first century AD dovetail remarkably well with the picture presented in the early Irish law tracts and heroic tales. For information about the Celts of the British Isles, Tacitus relied on his father-in-law, Agricola:

  Ireland is small in comparison with Britain, but larger than the islands of the Mediterranean. In soil and climate, and in the character and civilisation of its inhabitants, it is much like Britain; and its approaches and harbours have now become better known from merchants who trade there.

  And it is from Tacitus that we learn that the invasion of Ireland was planned with a king in exile:

  Agricola received in friendly fashion an Irish petty king who had been driven out in a civil war, and kept him for use when opportunity offered. I have often heard him say that Ireland could be conquered and held by one legion and a modest force of auxiliary troops; and that it would be advantageous in dealing with Britain too if Roman forces were on all sides and the spectacle of freedom were, so to say, banished out of sight.

  Was this Irish king, Tuathail Techtmar, forced to seek aid in Britain to recover his throne? We cannot be certain. However, Agricola’s invasion was not to be: a legion of Germans stationed in Galloway mutinied, and there was disturbing news of Pictish rebellion. The Emperor Domitian ordered his governor north, and later, after Agricola’s recall, the Romans retired behind Hadrian’s Wall. Ireland would not become part of the Roman Empire after all.

  Yet there are tantalising indications that the influence of Rome on Ireland was greater than previously thought. It seems likely that bands of soldiers who had served in the legions sailed to Ireland to conquer lands for themselves there. In 1842 the stamp, or trademark, of an oculist—an eye specialist who travelled with Roman legions—was found by the River Suir in Co. Tipperary. Simple everyday Roman items—such as ladles, nail-cleaners, brooches, a lead seal and an iron barrel padlock—have been found in places as far apart as Bantry in Co. Cork and Clogher in Co. Tyrone. Several Roman burial sites have been unearthed, including one at Stoneyford in Co. Kilkenny containing the cremated ashes of a woman in a glass urn, together with her bronze mirror and cosmetics phial.

  Episode 11

  PATRICK THE BRITON

  There is good reason to believe that some of the most powerful kingdoms in Ireland at the beginning of the Christian era were carved out by warrior tribes driven west from Gaul and Britain by Roman expansion.

  By the beginning of the fifth century the situation had changed dr
amatically. The Roman Empire was reeling under the attack of German-speaking peoples from central and northern Europe seeking new corn lands and pastures. Legion after legion was withdrawn from the outposts to defend Rome, itself weakened by civil dissensions. In Britain the towns and villas fell into decay, bath-houses were abandoned, the great sewers of York became blocked with excrement, and the once-thriving town of Winchester became completely deserted.

  From the north came the Picts, from the east the Angles and Saxons and from the west the Irish. Irish raiders found rich pickings. In 1854 a hoard of Roman loot was found at Ballinrees, just west of Coleraine, including 1,500 silver coins, silver ingots and silver bars weighing five kilograms. Five hundred silver coins were unearthed near the Giant’s Causeway, three hundred more nearby at Bushmills, and in 1940 pieces of cut silver plate and four silver ingots were discovered at Balline in Co. Limerick. Coins dated these raids to the early fifth century.

  Roman Britain in its death throes had become Christian. From there and from Gaul Christianity had been brought by traders and others to the south of Ireland. We know this because in 431 Pope Celestine sent a churchman from Auxerre, Palladius Patricius, as a bishop to ‘the Irish believing in Christ’. Of the first missionaries we know very little except that Iserninus founded a church at Kilashee near Naas in Co. Kildare and that others were established at Aghade in Co. Carlow and Kilcullen in Co. Kildare by another evangelist named Auxilius. Unquestionably, however, the main credit for bringing Christianity to Ireland must go to the man we now know as St Patrick, the author of the very first document in Irish history, his own autobiographical Confessio.