Gaelic Society
Before
their political eclipse in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Gaelic people of
Ireland and northern Scotland had lived since prehistoric times in a society which was
tribal and pastoral in nature, and whose essential elements had come together toward the
beginning of the medieval period. Gaelic society in the early eighth century A.D. thus
represented a fusion between the old pagan, Heroic traditions and culture and the new
Christian society with its scholarship and monasticism.
This fusion, in its inception, was the bed
upon which Gaelic society would flower. It was a cultural synthesis born of a long history
of ethno-tribal relationships on Irish soil, and it would, through invasions by Vikings
(mainly Norwegians) and Normans, attain new equilibriums with each contact, and continue
on in its essentially Gaelic fashion. The resultant culture would maintain its vitality
well into the modern period, retaining both its ancient flavor and the universality of its
appeal. Far from being on the retreat, it would absorb the Viking and Norman invaders,
while by its own expansion it would convert the Picts of Albany (North Scotland) and the
Britons of Strathclyde (South Scotland) as well, covering most of medieval Scotland in the
process.
The absorption, however, of the Vikings and
Normans who settled in Gaeldom worked both ways. The Vikings brought towns, merchant and
seafaring expansion, and new blood. Their Norman cousins brought castles and mounted
knights in armor, both of which came to play a central role in all later political
struggles in the Gaelic areas. The Normans changed the face of Gaeldom forever with
efficient land use, encouraging the development of the previously emergent
"tribal-dynastic feudalism" of the native kings with a healthy infusion of their
own purely Norman feudalism. Thus, while the Normans were Gaelicized, the Gaels were
themselves Normanized as well.
Gaeldom in its sixteenth century heyday
consisted of a series of tribal kingdoms (tuaths) stretching from the bottom of Ireland,
clockwise, to the northern tip of Scotland. For most of their history these kingdoms were
under the often nominal or largely symbolic high-kingships of either Ireland or Scotland.
Medieval Scotland had in fact resulted from the ninth-century
merger
of the Kingdoms of the Scots, or Irishmen from Dal Riada in northeast Ireland (long
settled in Argyle on the west coast of Scotland), with the people known as the Cruithne (or
Picts), the native people of the rest of what would eventually become Scotland. Much of
the subsequent history of these areas centered around the attempts of their chief tribal
dynasties to make these "over kingdoms" a political reality.
Meanwhile, geographical factors in Scotland
and Ulster, such as mountains and glens, together with the presence of sparser, less
diverse population groups, combined to encourage the development of more tightly knit,
formalized clan groups, especially toward the sixteenth century. It was precisely these
clans and families who were successful in maintaining their group identity beyond the
Gaelic period, which ended between 1600 and 1750. The people of these areas could more
generally share in the Heroic tradition of Gaelic literature, as members of an Heroic
aristocracy, and this is reflected in the number of northern families tracing themselves
back to characters in that Heroic literature, particularly the "Ulster Cycle."
As a genealogical note however, it should be pointed out that, especially in Scotland, the
tribal following of a chief was often encouraged to take the name of the chief, once
surnames came into general use in place of clan names. What this means is that not every
clansman who bore the name "Robertson" (Mac Raibeirt) was descended from a
Robertson chief in the male line, although somehow related either in the female line, or
as a male-line branch from before the time of Raibeirt, eponymous ancestor of the
Robertson chiefs. This taking of the chief’s name was an expression of the old
kinship, and was a way for the group to promote their solidarity as a socio-political
entity, a phenomenon aided by the relatively late (fourteenth century) general adoption in
Scotland of surnames as opposed to clan-names. In Ireland to the south of Ulster, and
especially in Munster, society continued to reflect the ancient tribal patterns which
emphasized a more limited, numerically inferior warrior aristocracy (the Eoghanacht) in
overlord status over an ethnically diverse population.
Nevertheless, Gaelic society in general
involved a shared racial-national heritage. This was a time-honored culture which was no
more and no less than the lasting expression of its active bearers, the men and women who
lived it, made it, and passed it on to their descendants. The culture itself was
superimposed over a latticework of tribal divisions; some independent, some
semi-independent but owing tribute to another. Central to it was a tribal spirit of
patriarchal, extended-family independence. In this spirit, honor was upheld by the working
of the clan-lands, and by the demonstrated ability and strength to hold those lands by the
sword. A family lost face if it failed to uphold its tribal obligations, for the strength
of a tribe was the strength of the honorable commitments made by its constituent kindreds,
or basic extended-family units, and was therefore a function of tribal unity.
In spite of inter-tribal political and
economic competition, Gaelic society was
nonetheless united in culture and language. The bearers of religion, law, literature,
history, medicine, music and poetry, as hereditary tradesmen in their fields, enjoyed a
special status, and freely practiced their arts among and between such tribal groups.
Indeed, far from being merely tolerated by the tribes, these professional classes actually
performed the essential functions of the society, maintaining its tribal character of
independence and partition. For these professionals, the spoken word held a special and
ancient power. Gaelic bards and historians prided themselves in the cultivation of memory
for the oral transmission of information and records, a task which they accomplished with
the aid of poetic conventions, thematic paraphrase and aphoristic formulas of stock
idiomatic cultural meaning (the phrase "be literal" had no meaning prior to the
coming of the literate Christians). The spoken ire of a poet would maim a king through
sympathetic magic, while his blessing could bring prosperity.
Gaelic tribalism tended to foster a natural
aristocracy based on talent. A tribesman’s individual talent, and the talent of his
immediate ancestors played the major role in determining where one stood within the
internal tribal hierarchy. In another sense, the same hierarchy tended to run horizontally
rather than vertically, which meant that all members of the tribe, being equally descended
from the founding chief or king, shared equally in his royal blood, and therefore counted
themselves equal in blood to the king of the tribe. In this way, differences between
tribesmen tended to emphasize talent rather than blood, though the tribal king or clan
chief himself was "a breed apart."
A chief’s personal and family talent
played its role in securing him that dignity in the first place, but once inaugurated, a
new chief took on a new aspect. As chief, he symbolized the manifestation of the spirit of
the tribe, ritualistically reincarnated in each succeeding chief, presumably since the
beginning of time. Any man whose father, grandfather or great-grandfather had been chief
was generally eligible to be a chief himself as long as he acknowledged the male line and
reckoned himself a member of the tribe. However, this system often led to strife between
rival nominees and their supporters, especially when the succession was not prearranged by
the chief himself (contrast this with the Norman-English custom of primogeniture, wherein
the eldest son is automatically the heir).
A chief could appoint his successor by a
process known as tanistry, but otherwise the office was filled through election by the
tribal council, made up of the heads and elders of the kindred branches of the tribe,
though their decision could be influenced greatly by personal combats among the
candidates. Indeed, the succession itself was originally carried out by means of a ritual
combat between the chief and his successor (or at least challenger) within the kingroup,
or "dynastic family." Such ancient practices continued well into the Middle
Ages, and among some families (such as the MacCarthys and O’Flahertys) even later. It
arose in part from the prudent need to settle such questions
quickly
and decisively, for the good of the tribe. The kingship was originally a
sacral (sacred and official), and in a sense, sacrificial position. The
king performed a priestly function for the tribe, eliciting due awe from
the tribesmen, and living under religious restrictions ("gessa,"
or taboos).
There
were three pillars of Gaelic polity within the tribal structure; the Chief, the elders of
the kindreds, and the leaders of the church. Where matters of succession were concerned,
there was a rule of thumb in the Brehon law (the law of the Gael) which specified the
criteria for choosing precedence in each category; "Elder for kin, worth for
rulership, wisdom for the church" (Byrne 35). Worth here refers to the eligible
candidate with the most kindreds in his camp. This system helped foster good leadership
and keep it closely bound to the mass of tribesmen, and attuned to their needs and
desires. The chief acted in conjunction with the tribal council of elders, and with the
advice of the church. Although a strictly tribal ruler or dynast could be high-handed with
"alien tuatha" (subservient tribal groups), in keeping with the Indo-European
aristocratic tradition of their earliest ancestors, yet they could also treat them as
respected allies, and raise them to high position. In fact, even in the larger, more
centralized Kingdom of Scots in the late thirteenth century, Alexander Ill was known as a
highly accessible and personable king. He acted in the Gaelic tradition of contact with
his people, the local constituents of his kingdom, which was typical of the nobility of
the time (this was, of course, long before the urban population sprawl, and the anonymity
and social evils attributable thereto). In this way the Gaelic system came to resemble a
sort of tribal feudalism, in which accountability ran both ways.
Certain kindreds supported such hereditary
functions as law, religion, and the teaching of history and genealogy. Members of these
kindreds served as advisors when matters requiring their expertise were in question. In
the Celtic church, for example, certain kindreds maintained church lands, often as a
branch of the local tribe, and the heads of such kindreds were the bishops and abbots of
the Celtic church. They enjoyed princely status, and often descended from the founding
saint of the abbacy as well. They did not observe celibacy, for this was originally an
ascetic rule for certain monastic orders until its institution (twelfth century) in the
Roman church by the Pope as a means of controlling secular appointments generation by
generation. The Celtic church’s lack of celibacy should not be interpreted (as it has
been) as an indication that the church was decadent or degenerative, for it judged itself
by its own standards, and never duplicated Latin attitudes on this question. As Gaelic
society was different, so the church organization that emerged within this tribal
infrastructure was also different. Communities of Gaelic ascetics and hermits continued to
seek God in peaceful areas away from men, but their basic monastic system was from the
beginning adapted to the tribal society, and thus we have the abbey system of the Celtic
church. It is worth pointing out that the Celtic church was the first in Northern Europe,
and thus did not degenerate from a previous
and pervasive Roman church, although this assumption has been made (implied here is the
vulnerability on the part of the historian to distort history by interpreting
too much in the light of his
own age). Irish monasticism was in fact an outgrowth of that of Egypt, not Rome, and its
position in Europe was one of antecedence.
At any rate, the tribes, being the focus of Gaelic political power,
encompassed virtually the entire Gaelic population. Generally speaking, this meant that
anyone with any basic rights at all belonged to a tribe, and usually descended in the male
line from one of the ancient Celtic ethno-tribal groups of Ireland and Scotland (the Gaels
proper—the tribal sense of the name Gael— and also the Laigin, Erainn and
Cruithne), or from one of the Viking or Norman families that came later. The only
exceptions of note were those families which had attached themselves wholly to the church
or some other hereditary profession, or which became so debased in power that they lost
political significance even on the most local scale, and thus lost also their tribal
identity (a unique situation arose for the O’Donegans of North Tipperary and
O’Duggans of Cork who were tribally isolated and thus became entities unto
themselves, while the same can be said for the O’Lynches of County Cavan,
see Part II). Some church kindreds, such as the ancestors of the Skenes
of Aberdeenshire and the Glenesks of Angus, later became temporal lords of their
territories after these abbey lands were secularized in the thirteenth century.
It should be pointed out that families of the Galloway region of
southwest Scotland, though of Gaelic origin in many cases, cannot be placed in the larger
tribal framework of Gaeldom. The reason for this is their descent from
Norse-Gaelic pirates
and sea-kings who originally settled the area, whose tribal identity or continuity was
lost as that tribalism completely lost its political significance. Thus the families of
Kennedy, MacDowell, MacClellan, etc., of the Galloway region, though they form clan groups
traceable from about the end of the twelfth century, fall outside the scope of Part II of
this book. Other families in the south of Scotland are of Norman origin, but as their
ancestors settled in the Lowlands of South Scotland, outside the area of Gaelic influence
and cultural assimilation, most of these fall outside the scope of this book. This also
applies to some families of the northeastern coastal lowlands of Scotland, and even to the
mighty Lowland houses of Douglas and Bruce. The senior branch of the latter inherited and
held the Throne of the Scots (in the person of Robert the Bruce) during the critical wars
of Scottish independence in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but their male-line
failed soon after, and their royal inheritance and representation passed to the House of
Stewart.
Tribalism of course influenced Gaelic literature, and the oral tradition is crowded
with kings and heroes, often originally of a divine nature, who figure prominently in the
genealogies of the tribes. Indeed, if you include descent in the female line, the
likelihood was very great that a given Gael might descend, on a regional basis, from an
historical king or hero of old. Such likelihoods, together
with the pervasiveness of tribalism and the fact that tribal dynasts often had their own
pedigree attached to that of the ruling tribe of a province (making them, in a nominal
way, honorary members of those tribes), helped reinforce the emergence of a kind of
"national family." This is especially true when considering descent within
certain geographically defined areas, such as the Scottish Highlands, or one of the
provinces of Ireland. This is particularly true in Scotland, where a combination of
factors (the intermarriage of Picts and Scots, and the resultant substitution of
patrilineal descent for the original matrilineal decent of the Picts) resulted in an
unusual homogeneity of patrilineally traced, politically significant tribal/dynastic
pedigrees in Scotland. This homogeneity in turn encouraged other tribal branches migrating
from Ireland to northern Scotland during the Middle Ages to selectively intermarry in
order to acquire dynastic ties to these patrilineal groups, and the same principle applies
to the Norman settlers when they came. However, this does not mean that the reality of
patrilineally traced ethnic origin ceased to be of importance, for the provincially
unifying factors discussed above served only to streamline provincial politics which
remained based on ethnic/tribal origin.
The basic dress for men into the seventeenth
century included Celtic brogues (black leather shoes not unlike ballerina slippers: a kind
of moccasin), knee-length tartan hose of an argyle pattern, a long, saffron dyed linen
shirt of ample folds and yardage, and a mantle of wool, which in Scotland evolved into the
kilt of today. Originally the kilt was a large, rectangular plaid variously arranged on
the body, but generally belted at the waist producing the familiar kilted pleats. District
setts grew out of traditional weaving patterns and the local availability of vegetable
dyes. In Scotland, the circumscribing geography of mountain and glen encouraged the
association of certain district setts with the dominant local clan. However, the modern
idea of the Scottish tartan as a kind of "clan uniform" seems to have developed
by analogy to the regimental tartans of the 1780s, after the repeal of the ban on Highland
dress. Before that time, a poor Highlander wore any wool he could get his hands on, while
a rich one traded with other districts or else had a sett of his own made to suit his
individual taste. In any case, mixing and matching was the rule, and with the addition of
the tartan waistcoat and jacket in the eighteenth century, the Highland squire cut a
variegated figure indeed. This was a Celtic society, with individual vanity setting the
fashion statement. There was no need then to manifest group identity with a uniform: A
person lived all his life with the same clan, in the same place, and with the same
leaders. What was needed was a sense of personal identity, always achieved through
individual adornment.
Another aspect of the Gaelic tribal culture was its
heraldry,, the symbolism of which is often of very ancient origin, although it did not
develop in its medieval importance until the coming of the Normans in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. Nevertheless, families often shared common dy-nastic symbols even though their
dynastic connections predated heraldry per se, which indicates that older dynastic
traditions were applied to post—Norman heraldry. Occasionally the arms themselves are
of truly ancient origin. The arms of the O’Donnells of Tirconnell, for instance, bear
the cross of "the kindred of St. Columba," as do the arms of other families of
that kindred. The ancestor of the O’Donnells was told to bear this symbol on his
shield by the great saint himself, in the sixth century! Other symbols in Gaelic heraldic
practice developed out of ancient tribal totems, reminiscent of primitive magic, learned
druids, and the pre—Christian religion.
Out of this well of Celtic antiquity comes a heraldic symbol of the
great O’Neills and their tribal kin, the sacred salmon, which was originally
considered to be the water-borne manifestation of the "otherworld god" and a
source of his wisdom. As can be seen in the chart on page 94, the O’Neills traced
their descent from Conn Cetchathach ("Conn of the Hundred Battles"). Conn is the
otherworld god, and in this manifestation he is considered the "sun-god" (St.
Patrick once railed against the Irish practice of worshiping the sun).
"Conn" in Old Irish means "head" in the sense of
one’s head being the seat of reason. A divine head needs to see, and from its shape
and brightness, the sun was regarded as the "divine eye of the heavens." In
fact, the Irish word "suil," which etymologically means sun, has acquired
the meaning "eye." "The idea of the sun being the eye of the heavens is a
very old one. When conceived anthropomorphically, the deity was often regarded as a huge
one-eyed being (O’Rahilly 58—59) the deified sun, the heavenly Eye, who has observed the doings of
countless generations of men" (O’Rahilly 318).
The "Red Hand of Ulster" is also an O’Neill symbol,
recalling a tale about a severed hand, when a sea race was won by the unnatural touch of
the "Red Hand" upon the shores of Ulster. In this famous tale, the ancestor of
the O’Neills was racing another boat with the object of beating it to and thus claiming a
territory for himself. Falling behind at the critical moment, the dauntless O’Neill
ancestor lopped off his left hand with an axe, and threw it upon the shore ahead of the other boat,
thus winning the land! The royal "lyon" of the Scottish kings, symbol of
Dalriadic royal descent, is reminiscent of a time when there were still lions in the
forests of Europe, and is quartered in the arms of many famous Scottish families.
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