A Literary History of Ireland, from Earliest Times to the Present Day. Douglas Hyde

      [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.

      CHAPTER VII

      DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE

      We must now consider whether Irish genealogies were really traced or not to those points which I have mentioned. Is there any documentary evidence in support of such an assertion?

      There is certainly some such evidence, and we shall proceed to examine it.

In the Leabhar na h-Uidhre [Lowar na Heera], or Book of the Dun Cow, the existing manuscript of which was transcribed about the year 1100, in the Book of Leinster, transcribed about fifty years later, in the Book of Ballymote and in the Book of Lecan, frequent reference is made to an ancient book now lost called the Cin or Codex of Drom-sneachta. This book, or a copy of it, existed down to the beginning of the seventeenth century, for Keating quotes from it in his history, and remarks at the same time, "and it was before the coming of Patrick to Ireland the author of that book existed."[1] This evidence of Keating might be brushed aside as an exaggeration did it stand alone, but it does not, for in a partially effaced memorandum in the Book of Leinster, transcribed from older books about the year 1150, we read: "[Ernin, son of] Duach,[2] son of the king of Connacht, an ollav and a prophet and a professor in history and a professor in wisdom; it was he that collected the genealogies and histories of the men of Erin into one, and that is the Cin Droma-sneachta." Now there were only two Duachs according to our annals, one of these was great-grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages, and of course a pagan, who died in 379; the other, who was an ancestor of the O'Flaherties, died one hundred and twenty years later. It was Duach the pagan, whose second son was Ernin; the other had only one son, whose name was Senach. If O'Curry has read the half-effaced word correctly, then the book may have been, as Keating says it was, written before St. Patrick's coming, and it contained, as the various references to it show, a repertoire of genealogies collected by the son of a man who died in 379; this man, too, being great-grandson of that Niall of the Nine Hostages in whose son so large a number of the Eremonian genealogies converge.[3]

There are many considerations which lead me to believe that Irish genealogical books were kept from the earliest introduction of the art of writing, and kept with greater accuracy, perhaps, than any other records of the past whatsoever. The chiefest of these is the well-known fact that, under the tribal system, no one possessed lawfully any portion of the soil inhabited by his tribe if he were not of the same race with his chief. Consequently even those of lowest rank in the tribe traced and recorded their pedigree with as much care as did the highest, for "it was from his own genealogy each man of the tribe, poor as well as rich, held the charter of his civil state, his right of property in the cantred in which he was born."[4] All these genealogies were entered in the local books of each tribe and were preserved in the verses of the hereditary poets. There was no incentive to action among the early Irish so stimulative as a remembrance of their pedigree. It was the same among the Welsh, and probably among all tribes of Celtic blood. We find the witty but unscrupulous Giraldus, in the twelfth century, saying of his Welsh countrymen that every one of them, even of the common people, observes the genealogy of his race, and not only knows by heart his grandfathers and great-grandfathers, but knows all his ancestors up to the sixth or seventh generation,[5] or even still further, and promptly repeats his genealogy as Rhys, son of Griffith, son of Rhys, son of Teudor, etc.[6]

The poet, Cuan O'Lochain, who died in the year 1024, gives a long account of the Saltair of Tara now lost, the compilation of which he ascribes to Cormac mac Art, who came to the throne in 227,[7] and in which he says the synchronisms and chronology of all the kings were written. The Book of Ballymote too quotes from an ancient book, now lost, called the Book of the Uachongbhail, to the effect that "the synchronisms and genealogies and succession of their kings and monarchs, their battles, their contests, and their antiquities from the world's beginning down to that time were written in it, and this is the Saltair of Tara, which is the origin and fountain of the historians of Erin from that period down to this time." This may not be convincing proof that Cormac mac Art wrote the Saltair, but it is convincing proof that what were counted as the very earliest books were filled with genealogies.

The subject of tribal genealogy upon which the whole social fabric depended was far too important to be left without a check in the hands of tribal historians, however well-intentioned. And this check was afforded by the great convention or Féis, which took place triennially at Tara,[8] whither the historians had to bring their books that under the scrutiny of the jealous eyes of rivals they might be purged of whatever could not be substantiated, "and neither law nor usage nor historic record was ever held as genuine until it had received such approval, and nothing that disagreed with the Roll of Tara could be respected as truth."[9]

"It was," says Duald Mac Firbis[10]—himself the author of probably the greatest book of genealogies ever written, speaking about the chief