Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/261

 HISTORY.] IRELAND 245 support this view. The clan of Lugaicl, grandson of Breo- gan, is almost certainly that which used the Ogam inscribed stones, the last that came into the country, and with which originated the story of the migration from Spain. The Scoti. The opening of the historic period was marked by a great struggle of tribes, which took place about the beginning of the Christian era, and of which Irish annalists have left us but very scanty information, and that confused and misleading. This struggle was brought about by the arrival from abroad of a new tribe, or the rise of an old one. The former view seems the more probable, for at that time great displacements of the Celts were taking place everywhere consequent on the con quests of the Romans, and some of the displaced tribes may have migrated to Ireland. The victors in the struggle appear afterwards as Scots; the conquered tribes are called AitJiech Tuatha, that is, vassal tribes, because they paid daer or base rent. The names of the free and servile clans have been preserved, and were first published by the pre sent writer. 1 The former consisted of forty-six tribes, among them being the Scotraige or Scotraidc. This tribe probably took a foremost place in the subsequent invasions of Britain ; and, it having thus acquired the leadership of the free clans, the latter became all known to foreigners as the Scoti, a name which was subsequently extended to the whole people. That this was the way in which the name was first given is shown by its not having been used in Irish, but only in Latin documents. The ending -raige or -raide is a patronymic. In the struggle between the free and servile tribes the latter appear to have succeeded in throwing off the yoke of the free clans or Scots, but after some time the latter, under the leadership of Tuathal, called Tecktniar or &quot; the Legitimate &quot; (ob. dr. 160 A.D.), recovered their power and took effective measures to preserve it by making some kind of redistribution of the servile tribes, or more probably making a plantation of Scots among them, and building fortresses capable of affording mutual aid. The duns and raths on the great central plain of Ireland to which TuathaPs measure was probably confined appear to have been erected on some strategic plan of this kind, intended to keep up a chain of communication, and prevent the combination of the servile classes. Tuathal in fact founded a kind of feudal system which ruled Ireland while the Scotic power endured. 2 Another measure of Tuathal was the formation of the kingdom of Meath to serve as mensal land of the Ard Hi or over-king. Before his time there was, according to legend, a district about the sacred hill of Usnech called Mide, that is, &quot; the middle,&quot; the religious centre of the Irish ; this Tuathal enlarged by taking from each of the four provinces the two Munsters being reckoned as one a tract of land. In the Munster portion he built his Dun of Tlachtga, a sacred place of the Druids, now called the Hill of Ward, near Athboy. Usnech was considered to be in Olnegmacht (Connaught). Tailti (gen. Tailtenn, now Teltown) was his Ulster residence, and Temair or Tara the Leinster one. Tuathal made each of those places 1 In O Curry s Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, Introduc tion, vol. i. p. xxvii. 2 The Aithech Tuatha, or servile tribes, have been identified by some antiquarians with the British tribes known as Atticotti. The ground of this surmise is the resemblance of the names. Although the explanation we have given of the name is satisfactory, it is right to state that among the servile tribes there was one called the Tuath Aithechta, which might have given its name to the whole of the ser vile tribes, as the Scotraige gave theirs to the &quot;free clans.&quot; This tribe was seated on the sea-coast near the Liffey, and there is nothing improbable in the notion that when beaten they may have crossed over to Britain, where they became known as Atticotti, and were associated with the Scots in their devastations of the Roman pro vinces. a religious centre for the province from which it had been taken. 3 He was thus not only the founder of the central monarchy, but also it would seem the organizer of the reli gious^ system of the people, which he used as a means of securing the allegiance of their princes by holding their chief shrines in his power, while leaving them the rents derived from them. An act of Tuathal, which marks his power, and the firm grasp which he had secured over the country, was the infliction of a heavy fine on the province of Leinster, a legend tells us, for an insult offered to him by one of its kings. This fine, called the Boroim Laigen or Cow-tribute of Leinster, was levied until the Cth cen tury, when at the instance of St Moling it was remitted by the monarch Finachta. It was a constant source of op pression and war while it lasted, and helped to cripple the power of Leinster. Several attempts were made to reim- pose it, among others by the celebrated Brian, who, accord ing to some, derived his surname of Boruma from this circumstance. To carry out his measures of conquest and subjugation, Tuathal is credited with having established a kind of permanent military force which afterwards became so celebrated in legendary story as the Fiann or Fenians. He may have seen Roman troops, and attempted as far as his circumstances would permit to form a military tribe organized somewhat after the manner of a legion. Among the other measures attributed to Tuathal was the regulation of the various professions and handicrafts. The former he must necessarily have done as part of his religious organi zation, for the various professions were merely the grades of the Druidical hierarchy. The Rival Kingdom of Munster. If we accept the story of the plantation of the broken Aithech Tuatha, Tuathal s power must have extended over the whole country ; but it was practically confined to Meath and Leinster, and perhaps Olnegmacht. Ulaid was independent. In Munster the clan of Degaid had conquered a large tract of country in the middle of the province, and forced the clan of Dergtind or descendants of Eber into the south-west of Cork and Kerry. The origin of the clan of Degaid is obscure; one story makes it Ultonian, and the other Erimonian. The latter is probably the true one, for among the free clans associated with the Scotraige in the war of the Aithech Tuatha was a tribe called Corco Dega, which seems to be the one we are now discussing. The clan of Degaid, having dispossessed a non-Scotic tribe called the Ernaans, were themselves afterwards known by that name. From their peculiar position in the south they must have acknowledged the supremacy of Tuathal and his successors. In the reign of Cond, surnamed &quot; of the Hundred Battles,&quot; grandson of Tuathal, the clan of Degaid had succeeded in getting the upper hand of the clans both of Eber and Lugaid ; and Munster, now divided into three 3 Thus the great Druidical festival of Samuin (now Allhallowtide), on which occasion all the hearths in Munster should be rekindled from the sacred fire, and for which a tax was due to the king, was cele brated at Tlachtga. At Usnech, now the hill of Usnagh in West- meath, the festival of Beltaine was celebrated in the month of May. The horse and garments of every chief who came to the festival formed part of the toll of the king of Olnegmacht. At Tailti a great Oenath or fair was held at certain intervals on the first of August, at which was celebrated the Lugnasad, the games supposed to have been estab lished by Lugaid of the Long Arm, one of the gods of Dia and Ana, in honour of his foster mother Tailti. Here for the first time Tuathal erected a dun, thus securing possession of the shrine of the Ulaid, to the king oi which the rents of the fair belonged. These consisted chiefly in a fine due for each marriage celebrated there. At Tara, the principal residence, he established the Feis Temrach or Feast of Tara, which was a general assembly of the provincial and other subreguli of Ireland who came to do homage to the ard ri or over-king. This feast continued to be held from Tuathal s time to 554 A.D., when the last was held by Diarmait, son of Cerball. The establishment of this feast is also attributed to the prehistoric king Eochaid Ollam Fotla, which implies that Tuathal merely re-established it.