A Literary History of Ireland, from Earliest Times to the Present Day. Douglas Hyde
not involved in it.
[12] "Mos erat ut omni, qui in dignitatem elevatus fuerit, philosopho-poeta Oden caneret," etc. (See p. 10 of the "Institutio Principis" in the Transactions of the Gaelic Society, 1808, for O'Flanagan's Latin.) He does not give the original, nor have I ever met it. Consonant with this is a verse from Tadhg Mac Dairé's noble ode to Donogh O'Brien—
"Teirce, daoirse, díth ana,
Plágha, cogtha, conghala,
Díombuaidh catha, gairbh-shíon, goid,
Tre ain-bhfír flatha fásoid."
I.e., "Dearth, servitude, want of provisions, plagues, wars, conflicts, defeat in battle, rough weather, rapine, through the falsity of a prince they arise." I find a curious extension of this idea in a passage in the "Annals of Loch Cé" under the year 1568, which is recorded as "a cold stormy year of scarcity, and this is little wonder, for it was in it Mac Diarmada (Dermot) died"!
[13] There is a rather suspicious parallelism between these two risings, which would make it appear as though part at least of the story had been reduplicated. First Cairbré Cinn-Cait, and the Athach-Tuatha, in the year 10, slay the nobles of Ireland, but Fearadach escapes in his mother's womb. His mother was daughter of the King of Alba. After five years of famine Cairbré dies and Fearadach comes back and reigns. Again, in the year 56, Fiachaidh, the legitimate king, is slain by the provincial kings at the instigation of the Athach-Tuatha, in the slaughter of Moy Bolg. His unborn son also escapes in the womb of his mother. This mother is also daughter of the King of Alba. Elim the usurper reigns, but God again takes vengeance, and during the time that Elim was in the sovereignty Ireland was "without corn, without milk, without fruit, without fish," etc. Again, on the death of Elim the legitimate son comes to the throne, and the seasons right themselves. Keating's account agrees with this except that he misplaces Cairbré's reign. There probably were two uprisings of the servile tribes against their Celtic masters, but some of the events connected with the one may have been reduplicated by the annalists. O'Donovan, in his fine edition of the "Four Masters," does not notice this parallelism.
[14] This would appear to have left six provinces in Ireland, but the distinction between the two Munsters became obsolete in time, though about a century and a half later we find Cormac levying war on Munster and demanding a double tribute from it as it was a double province! So late as the fourteenth century O'Dugan, in his poem on the kings of the line of Eber, refers to the two provinces of Munster.
"Dá thir is áille i n-Éírinn
Dá chúige an Chláir léibhinn,
Tír fhóid-sheang áird-mhin na ngleann
Cóigeadh í d'Áird-righ Eireann"—
i.e., the two most beauteous lands in Ireland, the two provinces of the delightful plain, the slender-sodded, high-smooth land of the valleys, a province is she for the High-king of Ireland.
[15] There is a town in Clare called Bórúmha [gen. "Bóirbhe," according to O'Brien] from which it is said Brian Boru derived his name. But the usual belief is that he derived it from having imposed the bóroimhe tribute again on Leinster. Bórúmha is pronounced Bo-roo-a, hence the popular Boru[a] Boroimhe is pronounced Bo-rŭvă. It is also said that the town of Borumha in Clare got its name from having the Boroimhe tribute driven into it. The spelling Boroimhe [= Borŭvă] instead of Borumha [Boru-a] has been a great crux to English speakers, and I noticed the following skit, in a little Trinity College paper, the other day—
"Says the warrior Brian Boroimhe,
I'm blest if I know what to doimhe——
My favourite duck
In the chimney is stuck,
And the smoke will not go up the floimhe!"
[16] See "The Book of Rights," p. 172.
[17] It was O'Beirne Crowe, I think, who first translated this name by "Conn the Hundred-Fighter," "égal-à-cent-guerriers," as Jubainville has it, a translation which, since him, every one seems to have adopted. This translation makes the Irish adjective céadcathach exactly equivalent to the Greek ἑκατοντάμαχος, but it is certainly not correct, for Keating says distinctly that Conn was called céadcathach, or of the hundred battles, "from the hundreds of battles which he fought against the pentarchs or provincial kings of Ireland," quoting a verse from a bard by way of illustration.
[18] Pronounced "Eskkir Reeada."
[19] Pronounced "Ell-yull."
[20] Pronounced "Sive," but as Méadhbh is curiously pronounced like "Mow" in Connacht, so is Sadhbh pronounced "sow," rhyming to "cow." I heard a Galway woman in America, the mother of Miss Conway, of the Boston Pilot quote these lines, which she said she had often heard in her youth—
"Sow, Mow [i.e., Sive and Mève], Sorcha, Síghle, Anmneacha cat agus madah na tíre."
I.e., "Sive, Mève, Sorcha and Sheela are the names of all the cats and dogs in the country," and hence by implication unsuited for human beings. This was part of the process of Anglicisation.
[21] Pronounced "Keean."
[22] Keating.
[23] I.e., the hall of "the circulation of mead."
[24] Also the O'Dowdas of Mayo, the O'Heynes, O'Clearys, and Kilkellies.
[25] In 360 according to Keating.
[26] One branch of the Dál Riada settled in Scotland in the third century, and their kinsfolk from Ulster kept constantly crossing over and assisting them in their struggles with the Picts. They were recruited also by some other minor emigrations of Irish Picts and Milesians. Their complete supremacy over the Picts was not obtained till the beginning of the sixth century. It was about the year 502 that Fergus the Great, leading a fresh and powerful army of the Dál Riada into Scotland, first assumed for himself Royal authority which his descendants retained for 783 years, down to the reign of Malcolm IV., slain in 1285. It was not, however, till about the year 844 that the Picts, who were almost certainly a non-Aryan race, were finally subdued by King Keneth Mac Alpin, who completely Gaelicised them.
[27] The name of Scotia was used for Ireland as late as the fifteenth century upon the Continent, in one or two instances at least, and "kommt noch am 15 Jahrhundert in einer Unkunde des Kaisers Sigismund vor, und der Name Schottenklöster setzt das Andenken an diese ursprüngliche Bezeichnung Irlands noch in mehreren Städten Deutschlands (Regensburg, Wurtzburg, Cöln, &c.), Belgien, Frankreich und der Schweiz fort" (Rodenberg's "Insel der Heiligen." Berlin, 1860, vol. i. p. 321).