The ramifications of early Irish literary history and its claims to antiquity are so multiple, intricate, and inter-connected, that it is difficult for any one who has not made a close study of it to form a conception of the extent it covers and the various districts it embraces. The early literature of Ireland is so bound up with the early history, and the history so bound up and associated with tribal names, memorial sites, patronymics, and topographical nomenclature, that it presents a kind of heterogeneous whole, that which is recognised history running into and resting upon suspected or often even evident myth, while tribal patronymics and national genealogies abut upon both, and the whole is propped and supported by legions of place-names still there to testify, as it were, to the truth of all.

We have already glanced at some of the marks left by the mysterious De Danann race upon our nomenclature. Mounds, raths, and tumuli, called after them, dot all Ireland. It is the same with the early Milesians. It is the same with the men of the great pseudo-historic cycle of story-telling, that of Cuchulain and the Red Branch, not to speak of minor cycles. There is never a camping-ground of Mève's army on their march a century B.C. from Rathcroghan in[Pg 57] Roscommon to the plain of Mochruime in Louth, and never a skirmish fought by them that has not given its name to some plain or camping-ground or ford. Passing from the heroes of the Red Branch to the history of Finn mac Cool and the Fenians, we find the same thing. Finn's seat, the Hill of the Fenians, Diarmuid and Gráinne's bed, and many other names derived from them or incidents connected with them, are equally widely scattered.

The question now arises, does the undoubted existence of these place-names, many of them mentioned in the very oldest manuscripts we have—these manuscripts being only copies of still more ancient ones now lost—mentioned, too, in connection with the celebrated events which are there said to have given them their names, do these and the universally received genealogies of historic tribes which trace themselves back to some ancestor who figured at the time when these place-names were imposed, form credible witnesses to their substantial truth? In other words, are such names as Creeveroe[1] (Red Branch) given to the spot where the Red Branch heroes have been always represented as residing; or Ardee (Ferdia's Ford) where Cuchulain fought his great single fight with that champion—are these to be accepted as collateral evidence of the Red Branch heroes of Ferdia and of Cuchulain? Are See-finn (Finn's seat) or Rath Coole[2] (Cool's rath) to be accepted as proving the existence of Finn and his father Cool?

In my opinion no stress, or very little, can be laid upon the argument from topography, which weighed so heavily with Keating, O'Donovan, and O'Curry, for if it is admitted at all it proves too much. If it proves the objective existence of Finn[Pg 58] and of Cuchulain, so does it that of Dana, "the mother of the gods," and of divinities by the score. Besides the Gaels brought their topographical nomenclature with them to Alba, and places named from Finn and the Fenians, are nearly as plentiful there as in Ireland. Wherever the early Gaels went they took with them their heroic legends, and wherever they settled place-names relating to their legends which were so much a part of their intellectual life, grew up round them too. Something of the same kind may be seen in Greece—a land which presents so many and so striking analogies to that of the Gael; for wherever a Grecian colony settled, east or west, it was full of memorials of the legendary past, and Jasonia, or temples of Jason, and other memorials of the voyage of the Argonauts, are to be found from Abdêra to Thrace, eastward along the coast of the Euxine and in the heart of Armenia and Media, just as memorials of the flight of Diarmuid and of Gráinne from before Finn mac Cool may be found wherever the Gael are settled in Ireland, in Scotland, or the Isles.

Having come to the conclusion that Irish topography is useless for proving the genuineness of past history, let us look at Irish genealogy. When the Mac Carthys, descendants of Mac Carthy Mór, trace themselves through Oilioll Olum, king of Ireland in the second century, to Eber Finn, son of Milesius; when the O'Briens of Thomond trace themselves to the same through Oilioll Olum's second son; when the O'Carrolls of Ely trace themselves to the same through Cian, the third son; when the O'Neills trace themselves back through Niall of the Nine Hostages, and Conn of the Hundred Battles to Eremon, son of Milesius; when the O'Driscolls trace themselves to Ith, who was uncle of Milesius; when the Magennises trace themselves through Conall Cearnach, the Red Branch hero, back to Ir, the son of Milesius; and when every sept and name and family and clan in Ireland fit in, and even in our oldest manuscripts have always fitted in, each in its own place, with universally mutual acknowledgment and unanimity, each man carefully[Pg 59] counting his ancestors through their hundredfold ramifications, and tracing them back first to him from whom they get their surname, and next to him from whom they get their tribe name, and from thence to the founder of their house, who in his turn grafts on to one of the great stems (Eremonian, Eberian, Irian, or Ithian)[3]; and when not only political friendships and alliances, but the very holding of tribal lands, depended upon the strict registration and observance of these things—we ask again do such facts throw any light upon the credibility of early Irish history and early Irish records?

The whole intricate system of Irish genealogy, jealously preserved from the very first, as all Irish literature goes to show,[4] played so important a part in Irish national history and in Irish social life, and is at the same time so intimately bound up with the people's traditions and literature, and throws so much light upon the past, that it will be well to try to get a grip of this curious and intricate subject, so important for all who would attempt to arrive at any knowledge of the life and feelings of the Irish and Scottish Gael, and upon which so much formerly depended in the history and alliances of both races.

All Milesian families trace themselves, as I have said, to one or other of the three sons of Milesius, who were Eremon, Eber, and Ir, or to his uncle Ith, who landed in Ireland at any time between[Pg 60] 1700 and 800 years before Christ according to Irish computation.[5] But while they all trace themselves back to this point, it is to be observed that long before they reach it, in each of the four branches, some place in the long row of ancestors is arrived at, some name occurs, in which all or most of the various genealogies meet, and upon which all the branch lines converge. Thus in the Eberian families it is found that they all spring from the three sons of Oilioll [Ul-yul] Olum, who according to all the annals lived in the second century—in this Oilioll all the Eberian families converge.

Again all, or nearly all, the Irians trace themselves to either Conall Cearnach or Fergus Mac Roy, the great Red Branch champions who lived in the North shortly before the birth of Christ.

The tribes of the Ithians, the least numerous and least important of the four, seem to meet in Mac Con, king of Ireland, who lived in the second century, and who is the hero of the saga called the Battle of Moy Mochruime, where Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles, was slain.

In the line of Eremon only, the greatest of the four, do we find two pedigrees which meet at points considerably antecedent to the birth of Christ, for the Dál Riada of Scotland join the same stem as the O'Neills as much as 390 years before Christ, and the O'Cavanaghs at a still more remote period, in the reign of Ugony Mór. But setting aside these two families we find that all the other great reigning houses, as the Mac Donnells of Antrim, Maguires of Fermanagh, O'Kellys of Connacht, and others, either meet in the third century in Cairbré of the Liffey, son of King Cormac mac Art, and grandson of Conn of the Hundred Battles; or else like the O'Neills of Tyrone, O'Donnells of Tirconnell, O'Dogherties of Inishowen, O'Conors of Connacht, O'Flaherties of Galway, they meet in a still later progenitor—the father of Niall of the Nine Hostages.

[Pg 61]

It will be best to examine here some typical Irish pedigree that we may more readily understand the system in its simplest form, and see how families branch from clans, and clans from stems. Let us take, then, the first pedigree of those given at the end of the Forus Feasa, that of Mac Carthy Mór, and study it as a type.

This pedigree begins with Donal, who was the first of the Mac Carthys to be created Earl of Clancare, or Clancarthy, in 1565. Starting from him the names of all his ancestors are traced back to Eber, son of Milesius. Passing over his five immediate ancestors, we come to the sixth. It was he who built the monastery of Irriallach on the Lake of Killarney. The seventh ancestor was Donal, from whose brother Donagh come the families of Ard Canachta and Croc Ornachta. The tenth was Donal Roe, from whom come the Clan Donal Roe, and from whose brother, Dermot of Tralee, come the family of Mac Finneens. The eleventh was Cormac Finn, from whom come also the Mac Carthys of Duhallow and the kings of Desmond; while from his brother Donal come the Mac Carthys Riabhach, or Grey Mac Carthys. The thirteenth was Dermot of Kill Baghani, from whom come the Clan Teig Roe na Sgarti. The fourteenth was Cormac of Moy Tamhnaigh, from whose brother Teig come the Mac Auliffes of Cork. The fifteenth was Muireadach, who was the first of the line to assume the surname of Mac Carthy, which he did from his father Carthach, from whom all the Síol Carthaigh [Sheeol Caurhy], or Seed of Carthach, including the Mac Fineens, Mac Auliffes, etc., are descended. The seventeenth was Saerbhrethach, from whose brother Murrough spring the sept of the O'Callaghans. The nineteenth was Callaghan of Cashel, king of Munster, celebrated in Irish romance for his warfare with the Danes. The twenty-third was Snedgus, who had a brother named Fogartach, from whose son Finguini sprang the Muinntir Finguini, or Finguini's People. The twenty-eighth was Falbi Flann, who was king of Munster from 622 to 633, from whose brother[Pg 62] Finghin sprang the sept of the O'Sullivans. The thirty-second was Angus, from one son of whom Eochaidh [Yohy] Finn are descended the O'Keefes; while from another son Enna, spring the O'Dalys of Munster—he was the first king of Munster who became a Christian, and he was slain in 484. The thirty-fourth was Arc, king of Munster, from whose son Cas, spring the following septs: The O'Donoghue Mór—from whom branched off the O'Donoghue of the Glen—O'Mahony Finn and O'Mahony Roe, i.e., the White and Red O'Mahonys, and O'Mahony of Ui Floinn Laei, and O'Mahony of Carbery, also O'Mullane[6] and O'Cronin; while from his other son, "Cairbré the Pict," sprang the O'Moriarties, and from Cairbré's grandson came the O'Garvans. The thirty-sixth ancestor was Olild Flann Beg, king of Munster, who had a son from whom are descended the sept of O'Donovan, and the O'Coiléains, or Collinses. And a grandson from whom spring the O'Meehans, O'Hehirs, and the Mac Davids of Thomond. The thirty-seventh, Fiachaidh, was well known in Irish romance; the thirty-eighth was Eoghan, or Owen Mór, from whom all the septs of the Eoghanachts, or Eugenians of Munster come, who embrace every family and sept hitherto mentioned, and many more. They are carefully to be distinguished from the Dalcassians, who are descended from Owen's second son Cas. It was the Dalcassians who, with Brian Boru at their head, preserved Ireland from the Danes and won Clontarf. For many centuries the history of Munster is largely composed of the struggles between these two septs for the kingship. The thirty-ninth is the celebrated Oilioll [Ulyul] Olum, king of Munster, whose wail of grief over his son Owen is a stock piece in Irish MSS. He is a son of the great Owen, better known as Mogh Nuadhat, or Owen the Splendid, who wrested half the[Pg 63] kingdom from Conn of the Hundred Battles, so that to this very day Connacht and Ulster together are called in Irish Conn's Half, and Munster and Leinster Owen's Half. The forty-third ancestor is Dergthini, who is known in Irish history as one of the three heirs of the royal houses in Ireland, whom I have mentioned before as having been saved from massacre when the Free Clans or Nobility were cut to pieces by the Unfree or Rent-paying tribes at Moy Cro—an event which is nearly contemporaneous with the birth of Christ. Hitherto there have been nine kings of Munster in this line, but not a single king of Ireland, but the forty-ninth ancestor, Duach Dalta Degadh, also called Duach Donn, attains this high honour, and takes his place among the Reges Hiberni? about 172 years before Christ, according to the "Four Masters." After this a rather bald catalogue of thirty-six more ancestors are reckoned, no fewer than twenty-four being counted among the kings of Ireland, and at last, at the eighty-sixth ancestor from the Earl of Clancarthy, the genealogy finds its long-delayed goal in Eber, son of Milesius.

It will be seen from this typical pedigree of the Mac Carthys—any other great family would have answered our purpose just as well—how families spring from clans and clans from septs—to use an English word—and septs from a common stem; and how the nearness or remoteness of some common ancestor bound a number of clans in nearer or remoter alliance to one another. Thus all septs of the great Eberian stem had some slight and faint tie of common ancestry connecting them, which comes out most strongly in their jealousy of the Eremonian or northern stem, but was not sufficient to produce a political alliance amongst themselves. Of a much stronger nature was the tie which bound those families descended from Eoghan Mór, the thirty-eighth ancestor from the first earl. These went under the name of the Eoghanachts, and held fairly together, always opposing the Dalcassians, descended from Cas. But when it came to the adoption of a surname, as it did in the eleventh[Pg 64] century, those who descended from the ancestor who gave them their name, were bound to one another by the common ties or a nearer kinship and a common surname.

It will be seen at a glance from the above pedigree, how, taking the Mac Carthys as a stem, and starting from the first earl, the Mac Finneens join that stem at the eleventh ancestor from the earl, the Mac Auliffes at the fifteenth, the O'Callaghans at the eighteenth, the O'Sullivans at the twenty-ninth, the O'Keefes at the thirty-second, the O'Dalys[7] of Munster at the thirty-second, the O'Donoghues, O'Mahonys, O'Mullanes, O'Cronins, O'Garvans, and Moriartys at the thirty-fourth, the O'Donovans, Collinses, O'Meehans, O'Hehirs, and Mac Davids at the thirty-sixth.

Now each of these had his own genealogy equally carefully kept by his own ancestral bardic historian. If, for instance, the Mac Carthys could boast of nine kings of Munster amongst them, the O'Keefes could boast of ten; and an O'Keefe reckoning from Donal óg, who was slain at the battle of Aughrim, would say that the Mac Carthys joined his line at the thirty-sixth ancestor from Donal.

All the Gaels of Ireland of the free tribes trace back their ancestry, as we have seen, to one or other of the four great stocks of Erimon, Eber, Ir, and Ith. Of these the EREMONIANS were by far the greatest, the EBERIANS coming next. The O'Neills, O'Donnells, O'Conors, O'Cavanaghs, and almost all the leading families of the north, the west, and the east were Erimonian; the O'Briens, Mac Carthys, and most of the leading tribes of the south were Eberians.[8] It was[Pg 65] nearly always a member of one or the other of these two stems who held the high-kingship of Ireland, but so much more powerful were the Eremonians within historical times, that the Southern Eberians, although well able to maintain themselves in the south, yet found themselves absolutely unable to place more than one or two[9] high-kings upon the throne of All-Ireland, from the coming of Patrick, until the great Brian Boru once more broke the spell and wrested the monarchy from the Erimonians. The Irians gave few kings to Ireland, and the Ithians still less—only three or four, and these in very early, perhaps mythic, times.

If now we trace the O'Neill pedigree back as we did that of the Mac Carthys, we find the great Shane O'Neill who fought Elizabeth, traced back step by step to the perfectly historical character Niall of the Nine Hostages, son of Eochaidh Muigh-mheadhoin [Mwee-va-on], who was grandson of Fiachaidh Sreabhtine [Sravtinna], son of Cairbré of the Liffey, son of the great Cormac Mac Art, and grandson or Conn of the Hundred Battles, all of whom are celebrated in history and endless romance; and thence through a list containing in all forty-four High-kings of Ireland back to EREMON, son of Milesius, brother of that Eber from whom the Mac Carthys spring, and from whom he is the eighty-eighth in descent. The O'Donnells join his line at the thirty-sixth ancestor, the O'Gallaghers at the thirty-second, the O'Conor Don and O'Conor Roe and the O'Flaherty at the thirty-seventh. We find too, on examining these pedigrees, the most curious inter-mixtures and crossing of families. Thus, for instance, the two families of O'Crowley[Pg 66] in Munster spring from the Mac Dermot Roe of Connacht, who, with the Mac Donogh, sprang from Mac Dermot of Moylurg in Roscommon, ancestor of the prince of Coolavin; while the O'Gara, former lord of Coolavin in the same county, to whom the "Four Masters" dedicated their annals, was of southern Eberian stock.

The great warriors of the Red Branch, the men of the original kingdom of Uladh [Ulla, i.e., Ulster], were of the third great stock, the IRIANS or race of Ir,[10] but they are perhaps better known as the Clanna Rudhraighe [Rury] or Rudricians, so named from Rudhraighe, a great monarch of Ireland who lived nearly three hundred years before Christ, or as Ulidians because they represented the ancient province of Uladh. But the Three Collas, grandsons of Cairbré of the Liffey, who was himself great-grandson of Conn of the Hundred Battles, and of course of the Eremonian stock, overthrew the Irians in the year 332, and burned their capital, Emania. The Irians were thus driven out by the Eremonians, and forced back into the present counties of Down and Antrim, where they continued to maintain their independence. So bitterly, however, did they resent the treatment they had received at the hands of the Eremonians, and so deeply did the burning of Emania continue to rankle in their hearts, that after a period of nearly 900 years they are said to have stood sullenly aloof from the other Irish, and to have refused to make common cause with them against the Normans at the battle of Downpatrick in 1260, where the prince of the O'Neills was slain.[11] So powerful, on the other hand, did the idea of race-connection remain, that we find one of the bards so late as the sixteenth[Pg 67] century urging a political combination and alliance between the descendants of the Three Collas who had burned Emania over twelve hundred years before, and who were then represented by the Maguires of Fermanagh, the Mac Mahons of Oriel[12] and the far-off O'Kellys of Ui Máine[13] [Ee maana].

As for the fourth great stock, the ITHIANS,[14] they were gradually pushed aside by the Eberians of the south, as the Irians had been by the Eremonians of the north, and driven into the islands and coasts of West Munster. Yet curiously enough the northern Dukes of Argyle and the Campbells and MacAllans of Scotland spring from them. Their chief tribes in Ireland were known as the Corca Laidhi [Corka-lee]; these were the pirate O'Driscolls and their correlatives, but they were pushed so hard by the Mac Carthys, O'Mahonys, and other Eberians, that in the year 1615 their territory was confined to a few parishes, and twenty years later even these are found paying tribute to the Mac Carthy Reagh. There is one very remarkable peculiarity about their genealogies, which is, that, though they trace themselves with great apparent, and no doubt real, accuracy back to Mac Con, monarch of Ireland and contemporary with Oilioll Olum in the end of the second century, yet from that point back to Milesius a great number of generations (some twenty or so) are missing, and no genealogist, so far as I know, in any of the books of pedigrees which I have consulted, has attempted to supply them by filling them up with a barren list of names, as has been done in the other three stems.[15]

[Pg 68]

Let us now consider how far these genealogies tend to establish the authenticity of our early history, saga, and literature. The first plain and obvious objection to them is this—that genealogies which trace themselves back to Adam must be untrue inventions.

We grant it.

But all Gaelic genealogies meet, as we have shown in Milesius or his uncle, Ith. Strike off all that long tale or pre-Milesian names connecting him with Adam, and count them as a late excrescence—a mixture of pagan myth and Christian invention added to the rest for show. This leaves us only the four stems to deal with.

The next objection is that pedigrees which trace themselves back to the landing of the Milesians—a date in the computation of which Irish annalists themselves differ by a few hundred years—must also be untrue, especially as their own annalist, Tighearnach, has expressly said that all their history prior to about 300 B.C. is uncertain.

We grant this also.

What, then, remains?

This remains—namely the points in each of the four great race stems, in which all or the most of the leading tribes and families belonging to that stem converge, and, as we have seen, all of these with a few exceptions take place within reach of the historical period. In the lines of EBER and of ITH, this point is at the close of the second century; in the race of IR it is about the time of Christ's birth,[16] and in the fourth and[Pg 69] perhaps most important stem, that of EREMON, the two main points of convergence are in the historical Niall of the Nine Hostages, who came to the throne in 356, and in Cairbré of the Liffey, who became High-king in 267.[17]
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[1] Craobh-ruadh.

[2] I.e., Ath-Fhirdia, Suidhe Fhinn, Rath Chúmhail. There are See-finns or See-inns, i.e., Finn's seats in Cavan, Armagh, Down, King's County, Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Tyrone, and perhaps elsewhere, and there are many forts, flats, woods, rivers, bushes, and heaps, which derive their name from the Fenians.

[3] As the various Teutonic races of Germany traced themselves up to one of the three main stems, Ing?vones, Isc?vones, and Herminones, who sprang from the sons of Mannus, whose father was the god Tuisco.

[4] A large part of the Books of Leinster, Ballymote, and Lecan, is occupied with these genealogies, continued up to date in each book. The MSS. H. 3. 18 and H. 2. 4 in Trinity College, Dublin, are great genealogical compilations. Well-known works were the Book of the genealogies of the Eugenians, the Book of Meath, the Book of the Connellians (i.e., of Tirconnell), the genealogy of Brian, son of Eochaidh's descendants (see above, p. 33), the Book of Oriel, the Genealogies of the descendants of the Three Collas (see above, p. 33) in Erin and Scotland, the Book of the Maineach (men of O'Kelly's country), the Leinster Book of Genealogies, the Ulster Book, the Munster Book, and others.

[5] See above, ch. II, note 2.

[6] The great Daniel O'Connell's mother belonged to this sept of the O'Mullanes, and the so-called typical Hibernian physiognomy of the Liberator was derived from her people, whom he nearly resembled, and not from the O'Connells.

[7] Not to be confounded with the Síol nDálaigh, who were the great northern family of the O'Donnells, who had also an ancestor called Dálach, from whom they derived, not their surname, but their race-patronymic.

[8] Strange to say Daniel O'Connell was not an Eberian but an Erimonian. The history of his tribe is very curious. It was descended from the celebrated Ernaan, or Degadian tribe to which the hero Curigh Mac Daire slain by Cuchulain belonged, who trace their genealogy back to Aengus Tuirmeach, High-king of Ireland about 388 B.C. These tribes were of Erimonian descent, but settled in the south. They were quite conquered by the descendants of Oilioll Olum—i.e., the Eberians, who owned nearly all the south—yet they continued to exist in the extreme west of Munster. The O'Connells, from whom came Daniel O'Connell, the O'Falveys and the O'Sheas were their chief families, but none of them were powerful.

[9] The Munster annals of Innisfallen themselves claim only five, but the claims of some of them are untenable. Moore will not admit that any Eberian was monarch of Ireland from the coming of St. Patrick to the "usurpation" of Brian Boru.

[10] Their greatest families were in later times the Magennises, now Guinnesses, O'Mores, O'Farrells, and O'Connor Kerrys, with their correlatives.

[11] O'Donovan says that Brian O'Neill was not assisted by any of the Ulidians at this battle, but of course they had more recent wrongs than the burning of Emania to complain of, for battles between them and the invading Eremonian tribes continued for long to be recorded in the annals. See p. 180, "Miscellany of the Celtic Society."

[12] I.e. Monaghan.

[13] Parts of the counties Galway and Roscommon.

[14] In later times their chief families were the O'Driscolls, the Clancys [Mac Fhlanchadhas] of the county Leitrim, the Mac Allans of Scotland, the Coffeys and the O'Learys of Roscarberry, etc. They were commonly called the Clanna Breogain, or Irish Brigantes, from Breogan, father of Ith.

[15] From Mac Con, son of Maicniad, king of Ireland, to the end of the second century, Mac Firbis's great book of genealogies only reckons twelve generations of Breogan, but in the smaller handwriting at the foot of the page twenty-two generations are counted up. See under the heading, "Do genealach Dairfhine agus shíl Luighdheach mic Iotha Mac Breoghain," at p. 670 of O'Curry's MS. transcript. Michael O'Clery's great book of genealogies counts twenty-three generations from Maic Niad to Ith, both included, see p. 223 of O'Clery's MS. Keating's pedigree, as given in the body of his history, gives twenty-three generations also, but only seventeen in the special genealogy attached to it. There are no such curious discrepancies in the other three stems. I can only account for it by the impoverished and oppressed condition of the Ithians, which in later times may have made them lose their records.

[16] The chief exceptions being, as we have seen, the Scottish Dál Riada and the Leinster O'Cavanaghs, who do not join the Eremonian line, one till the fourth and the other till the seventh century before Christ.

[17] Conall Cearnach, from whom, along with his friend Fergus mac Roigh or Roy, the Irians claim descent, was first cousin of Cuchulain, and Tighearnach records Cuchulain's death as occurring in the second year after the birth of Christ, the "Chronicon Scotorum" having this curious entry at the year 432, "a morte Concculaind herois usque ad hunc annum 431, a morte Concupair [Conor] mic Nessa 412 anni sunt." It is worth noting that none of the Gaelic families trace their pedigree, so far as I know, to either Cuchulain himself, or to his over-lord, King Conor mac Nessa. Cuchulain was himself not of Ithian but of Eremonian blood, although so closely connected with Emania, the Red Branch, and the Clanna Rury. If Irish pedigrees had been like modern ones for sale, or could in any way have been tampered with, every one would have preferred Cuchulain for an ancestor. That no one has got him is a strong presumption in favour of the genuineness of Irish genealogies.