The Social History of Ireland: Including the Seamy Side

By Desmond Keenan

This book is a companion book to The Real History of Ireland Warts and All. It deals systematically with the social and economic aspects of Ireland from the earliest days until 1921. Many books with regard to the history of Ireland suffer to a greater or lesser degree of political or ideological distortion. It was always the authors aim to get at the actual facts of Irish history and to paint a picture with warts and all. Events are placed in their historical context, and not in the context of later political propaganda.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514471333

Desmond Keenan

The author was born in Ireland, studied economics and sociology at The Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland. He completed a doctoral thesis on the Catholic Church in Ireland in the early nineteenth century. Afterwards, he continued his research in the British Library and British Newspaper Library, London (UK).

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Copyright © 2016 by Desmond Keenan.

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter One: The Prehistoric Period

Climate and Geography

Early Man in Ireland

The Peopling of Ireland

The Iron Age (940 BC to 400 AD)

Chapter Two: Early Historical period (400-1200 AD)

Christian Period (400-800 AD)

The Fifth Century or 'Patrician' Age

The Sixth Century

Seventh and Eighth Centuries

The Dark Ages (800-1000 AD)

The Eleventh Century

The Twelfth Century

Chapter Three: The Medieval Period

General Conditions

Land and Climate

Population, Growth and Constraints

Irish Society: Social Structure

The Church in Ireland

The Economy

Lifestyles

Government

Government Local

Law and Courts

Military Matters

Chapter Four: The Tudor Period (1509- 1603)

The Tudor Period

Economic Matters

Primary Sector

Secondary Sector:

The Government

Chapter Five: The Stuart Period (1603-1702)

The Economy in General

Agriculture

Industry

The Government

Chapter Six: The Hanoverian Period (1702-1800)

The Economy in General: Agriculture

The Irish Economy: The Tertiary Sector

The Government

Local Government

The Legal System

Cultural Activities

Chapter Seven: Ireland within the Union (1800-1920)

The Structure of the Irish Economy

Government

Local Government

Education

Leisure

Bibliography

Dedication

Quid enim est aetas hominis nisi ea memoria rerum veterum cum superiorum aetate contexitur?

For what is man's lifetime unless the memory of past events is woven with those of earlier times?"

To Pat Patten a real friend for nearly half a century and her husband Jim no longer with us

Introduction

One might think that social and economic history would suffer less from ideological distortion than political history. Nationalism is as much an ideology as bolshevism or fascism and produces similar distortions. This occurs even with the most conscientious historians. Reports on the Great Famine are distorted by views of later struggles against supposed landlordism. The description of landlords itself is skewed by the political propaganda of Catholic politicians trying to seized control of the political corruption of Ireland from supposed foreign landlords. The definition of foreignness depended largely on your politics and that itself became confused by religious bigotry. How was Irishness defined? If you had a Norman name like Fitzgerald but supported the Catholics you were considered Irish. If your name was O'Neill but you were a Protestant landowner you were considered a foreigner.

I once heard two Irish historians discussing the 'traditional' version of Irish history and both agreed that whenever they sought its origins it was invariably in the middle of the 19th century. Nationalism did not antedate the 19th century, nor did racism, another 19th century invention. Mankind was supposed to be divided into various races, chiefly distinguished by the language they spoke. There was supposed to be the Teutonic race, the Gallic race, the Anglo-Saxon race and the Celtic race and others like the Negro race and the oriental race. Each race was supposed to have its own characteristics flowing from its own spirit(Geist). The races were supposed to be engaged in a Darwinian struggle for survival, another 19th century invention The Catholics in Ireland were identified as belong to the Celtic race and Irish Protestants with the Anglo-Saxon race and were said to have been engaged in a Darwinian race-struggle (Rassenkampf) since the 12th century. There is no evidence of this supposed struggle or indeed of any races.

Again each race was supposed to have its own Volksgeist or spirit of the race. Some believed that Association football (soccer) and hockey were incompatible with the spirit of the Irish race. The Gaelic language had to be fostered even when most people were adopting the far more useful English language when work was being sought in the towns, in eastern Ireland, in England and Scotland and in the United States. During the 1st millennium BC Celtic was spoken widely in Western Europe, but it gradually lost ground to Latin in the south and Germanic languages coming from the east. It spread when it was useful and declined when it lost its usefulness. There never was a Celtic race.

In the nationalist version of history invaders were always destructive of the native Irish culture and institutions. Yet that is not what we find. The various 'invaders' were beneficial to Irish society. In the 5th century Christian missionaries brought Christianity but also literacy. Literature in both Latin and Gaelic developed. Ireland became better connected with the wider Roman world. The Vikings brought towns, money and trade. In particular they brought the art of improved ship design. Invaders were usually small boatloads of men who immediately sought local wives and Viking chiefs made alliances with local chiefs. The benefits brought by the Normans, and later by the Elizabethans are too numerous to recount here. In Stuart times the settlers were astonished that the Gaelic chiefs had not developed their estates in the way the new planters were able to do. They were there first and had all the opportunities but did not take them. Modern Ireland did not develop on the mountains and bogs of Connemara.

It is obvious that the theory of racism and race war which was to reach its peak in Nazi Germany is no longer accepted. Therefore all the assumptions of racial theory must be rejected. We are no longer speaking of a Celtic race and a Celtic society distinct from other societies and totally cut off from societies in Britain and Gaul. We must look to the realities of the time. From the Neolithic period onwards the sea united the various parts of Western Europe. Rivers formed the other great routes of communication. It follows that peoples along the various coasts knew each other and copied from each other whatever they found useful. Merchants from Gaul would cross the English Channel, hug the coast as far as Cornwall as far as Wales. At a point where the Irish mountains were visible from the Welsh mountains, they would cross the Irish Sea and then hug the Irish coasts. Ptolemy, the geographer and astronomer of Alexandria (c. 100 AD) had a general idea of trading places on the Irish coasts. The Roman walls and Roman ships patrolling the Irish Sea were not intended to prevent merchants or other people crossing the limes or boundary. They were intended to prevent armed incursions. We can take it for granted that some Latin was spoken along the Irish coasts. There may even have been Roman trading settlements. There were Christians in Ireland before 432 for Palladius was sent to minister to them. It was a question not of conquest but of the diffusion of culture.

The Irish had more in common with the Angles and Saxons than they had with the Romans.There was no distinct or immutable Celtic culture or heritage. The common dichotomy between Irish and Anglo-Irish is a false one. There was no Celtic race. Celtic was simply a language. There never was a Norman Conquest. There was no eight-hundred year rule, or misrule by Britain of Ireland. There was no eight-hundred year struggle by the 'Irish' for freedom. The Irish people were never consulted, for the Irish chiefs looked only to their own interest. No chief had an interest in removing the Justiciar or Lord Lieutenant unless he himself could become king. To make this a possibility he would have to first conquer all the other Gaelic chiefs and Norman lords. Then he would have to challenge the king of England and defeat him. The distant authority of a Justiciar was much preferable to the domination of one of his compatriots.

Many articles on Irish history (for example in Wikipedia) refer unthinkingly to the British administration in Ireland. There never was such an administration. The Government of Ireland, both at central and local level was always staffed by independent-minded Irishmen. A careful study of the facts shows there was no 'British misrule' but on the contrary a series of enlightened and progressive Acts up until 1921. Yet many institutions date back for hundreds of years. The Corporation (Council) of Dublin dates back to the 12th century. The system of law courts similarly.

When Ireland was partitioned on sectarian lines in 1921 the Irish Free State was almost homogeneously Catholic. It is easy to forget the dominant part played by the Protestants before that. They were richer, better-connected, and better-educated. They filled most of the leading positions in the Government, the police, local government and in voluntary organisations in schools, hospitals, etc. It was the aim of the Catholic nationalists to reverse this by fair means or foul. They succeeded in the Irish Free State which became a Catholic country. Catholics in the Irish Free State which became the Republic of Ireland could ignore Protestants and they did. But before that the Protestants were the dominant caste, sometimes referred to as the ascendancy.

Chapter One

The Prehistoric Period

Climate and Geography

The history of Ireland may be said to have begun with the ending of the last Ice Age. Nearly all the surface soil had been stripped from the land and it took thousands of years to rebuild it. Nearly all the soils in Ireland are post-glacial in origin. The maximum extension and thickness of ice was reached in the British Isles about 22,000 to 20,000 years ago. Any evidence there might have been of humans in Ireland in the Palaeolithic period was swept away.

For millions of years the climate of the earth oscillated, at times warming up and at others cooling down. When the earth cools ice forms over large parts of the globe, and when it warms up the ice melts. The icesheets were not a continuous unbroken mass and their extent varied from glaciation to glaciation. South of these icesheets were tundra, cold grasslands, and scrublands, which supported the mammoth, the bison, the antelope, and other animals which were hunted by the contemporary humans. Small pockets of humans survived in southern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Those groups who survived in the south of France would have been the first to take advantage of the retreating ice, and to follow the animals they hunted northwards. The Palaeolithic peoples and cultures towards the end of the Ice Age are marked not only by their distinct skeletal remains, but also by their characteristic forms of stone tools.TheLate Magdalenian culture, between c. 17,000 and 12,000 BC is found in England, but not in Ireland or Scotland.

About 20,000 BC the temperature of the earth suddenly started to rise, and by about 15,000 BC the last Ice Age was deemed over. As we are concerned with the peoples of Europe and of Ireland the period we are dealing with is from approximately 10,000 BC to the present. The melting of the ice brought great changes. Soils which had been removed by ice had to be replaced and made fertile again. The first colonizers were lichens and certain mosses. Decay of the lichens supplied some humus, and eventually enough soil was formed to support other mosses. The growth, death, and decay of mosses produced more humus, until there was enough to support the growth of grasses and shrubby growth such as low-bush blueberries and huckleberries. These, in turn, provided the conditions for such sun-loving, fast-growing species as birch trees and poplars. Hardy animals moved in.

Gradually the surface of Ireland again became fertile and was covered in green; forests and many species of animals returned. Ireland was still connected to Britain throughScotland,and the Continent. This period extended for several thousand years after the retreat of the ice.

The climate of Ireland was not uniform after the retreat of the ice. Global warming continued until it reached the post-glacial climatic optimum c. 5000 BC. From that period the temperature continued to decline but with minor oscillations in the trend. Lesser optima were reached about 3000 BC, in Roman times, and in the early Middle Ages. This latter was followed by a cold spell, the Little Ice Age which lasted a few hundred years, after which the temperature began to rise again.Three geographical features characterise pre-historic Ireland. The first was the rise and fall of temperature. The second was the alternating of the wind systems. The third was the influx of new peoples with new ideas particularly with regard to food production. There appears to be no interconnection between these three. Too much rain leads to the spread of forests and bogs. Increased temperature favours growth while dryer winds favour grass. By 5000 to 3000 BC average global temperatures reached their maximum level during the Holocene and were 1 to 2 degrees Celsius warmer than they are today. Climatologists call this period either the Post-glacial Climatic Optimum or the Holocene Optimum.The optimum climatic conditions for agriculture appear to have been in the Sub-BorealBronze Age 2730 BC to 940 BC, and the worst in the subsequent Sub-Atlantic940 BC.

Irish climate was also affected by changes in the direction of the prevailing winds. When they blew from the east the weather was colder and dryer, and from the west warmer and wetter. (Boreas, the Greek for the north wind, means prevailing winds blowing from the Arctic regions. They were cold and dry. Atlantic means that the prevailing winds blew from the west or south west, as they do at present. In the first case the climate is called continental; in the other maritime.Thefollowing periods have been described, Dryas12,000-8250, Pre-boreal8250-7700, Boreal7700-6500, Atlantic6500-2730, Sub-Boreal2730-940 and Sub-Atlantic 940BC to the present.

Man survived the Ice Age on the shores of the Mediterranean and in the Near East. A great spread in the human population occurred after the ending of the Ice Age. The hunter-gatherers moved north as the ice retreated and the forests and the herds of animals revived over the lands that had been covered with ice and permafrost. This period of the retreat of the ice became known as the Mesolithic Period (about 9600-4000 BC in the British Isles). The distribution of rainfall and temperature meant that the whole region was covered in different kinds of vegetation. Ireland was in the region of the deciduous forests.

The first farmers arrived in the Atlantic period (around 4000 BC) when Ireland was warmer than at present and began clearing the great forests which covered the island. Cultural development reached its peak in the Sub-boreal period. In the Sub-Atlantic period, coinciding with the beginning of the Iron Age, the climate deteriorated, and Ireland may have been largely depopulated. In the warmer periods, like the Bronze Age, Roman timesand the Middle Ages, cultivation was possible further up hillsides than at present. In the wetter periods, like the Sub-Atlantic, bogsand forests expanded more rapidly than they could be controlled and travel by land became more restricted.

Ireland is basically a low plateau with uncertain drainage in many areas. Mountains are not very high, rarely exceeding 3,000 feet, but more often less than 2,000 feet. Heather often occurs around 1,000 feet, and so they are called mountains not hills. Ulster is the most mountainous province. The other main group of mountains is in the south east, stretching from Dublin to the shores of Kerry. There are other ranges of mountains in the far west in counties Mayo and Galway. These ranges are not continuous and are divided by valleys and lower ground. The soils in these may be fertile or boggy. The centre of Ireland is a low plateau composed of limestone. Drainage is often bad resulting in extensive bogs. But in other places it is well drained and provides excellent grazing land.

A scarcely perceptible watershed runs down through the centre of Ireland from the south of Lough Neagh, past the Slieve Bloom Mountains and into the north of Kerry. To the east the rivers flow inti the Irish Sea, and to the west into the River Shannon. In Ulster much of the land drains into Lough Neagh in the centre, and flows northwards into the sea. To the west the land drains also northwards into the River Foyle. Along the border between Ulster and Leinster the drainage is north-westwards though the lakes of the Erne. The watershed between the Erne and the Shannon is scarcely to the seen. Many of the rivers around the coast are short, flowing from the mountains directly into the sea, and are useless for navigation.

Much of the soil was stripped from it by glaciation, and then replaced by glacial drifts of sands and clays. Crop-bearing soils then had to re-develop in the post-glacial period. The natural vegetation was thick forest of alder, oak, and elm. Vegetation too could be affected locally by the type of soil and underlying rock, with limestone being more lightly covered than clay soils. Poor drainage, whether cause by the underlying rock or by glacial deposits, meant that a considerable amount of the land became covered by bogs and marshes. Malaria was endemic. Warfare and travel were largely confined to the summer half of the year. Ireland was at the limit of the cultivation of cereals the great food crops developed in the Near East.

Early Man in Ireland

Mesolithic Cultures

Ice had never covered the Mediterranean lands or Southwest Asia, and the Palaeolithic peoples lived there during the Ice Age. The term Mesolithic is used to describe the culture of the hunter-gatherers in the post-glacial period. In many ways it was a continuation of the old Palaeolithic culture, but there were differences. The characteristic markers of the period are the microliths. These are flint tools composed of small sharpened flints mounted in wood or bone to form tools with composite blades. Among these were arrows and flint sickles. The bow and arrow had just been invented. The sickle showed that the grains of the wild cereal plants were being gathered. The dog was the only domesticated animal. Ireland was still connected with Scotland and northern England when the first men arrived in Ireland. It cannot be doubted that the earlies settlers came from Britainbetween 7000 BC and 6500 BC and coincides with the onset of the Boreal period. Average temperatures were still slowly increasing.

A site at Mount Sandel near Coleraine, Co. Londonderry (7000 BC) is the earliest recorded. They made tools from flints that were found in a rare chalk outcrop in Ireland. Unlike in southern England and northern France chalk deposits with flints are rare in Ireland. This led to the development of trading, for tools made of chert were found there. Flint is nearly pure silica. Chert is also composed of silica, but is more coarse-grained, is not so good, but is found more widely distributed. Flint, chert, and the rare volcanic glass obsidian, could be shaped by chipping. A group of about a dozen people probably occupied the site for most of the year.Another site was excavated at Larne, county Antrim, and at one time they were called Larnian people.

Though Mesolithic peoples were undoubtedly in Ireland it cannot be established whether they were in Ireland for the whole of that time, or if they were still there when the Neolithic cultures arrived. The Mesolithic peoples probably came to Ireland from places in Spain and southern France where hunter-gathers had survived during the Ice Age. Nor can it be established if they inter-married with the Neolithic people and passed on their genetic inheritance. They probably numbered no more than 8,000 at any given time; but probably not more than 3,000. The Mesolithic people were the sole occupiers of Ireland for over 2500 years. It is impossible, from lack of evidence, to say if occupation was continuous during that period. It is not clear if the Mesolithic people were still in Ireland when farming arrived.

Neolithic Cultures

The Atlantic period is regarded as lasting from 6500BC to 2730 BC.Mesolithic was used to describe the post-glacial pre-farming cultures, while Neolithic came to be associated with the farming and herding cultures. This explains why the Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures could exist side by side. By Neolithic is now meant pre-metal farming cultures. It is divided into three stages, Pre-pottery, Pottery, and Chalcolithic, indicated by the presence or absence of bits of pottery, or pieces of copper.

The term Neolithic embraces every culture from the earliest farming communities, to the highly developed city and temple cultures of the Ancient Near East, and the great Megalithic cultures of Western Europe, which were only distinguishable from the Bronze Age by the absence of metal. Though the period is marked by the appearance of different kinds of stone tools the real difference was the introduction of farming. The presence of metal is a chronological marker. It does not mean than metal objects replaced stone ones. Metal objects were largely status symbols of the chiefs. Stone axes and sickles remained in common use. From its beginnings in the Near East until the adoption of metal in the British Isles covered from 7000 BC to 1700 BC, a span of over 5,000 years.

The developments of the Neolithic Age included the domestication of animals, the development of techniques of agriculture, the training of the dog, the donkey, and the horse to perform useful tasks, the invention of brick and pottery, the wheel, net-making and textiles, writing, the development of warfare, towns and of large-scale organisation and control of populations, long-distance trading, of ideas of religion and philosophy. Apart from anything else, these permitted the enormous growth in numbers of the human race. Herding and farming permit the selection of seeds and animals best for a particular climate, can increase the areas in which they can thrive, and increase their yields by techniques such as working the soil, weeding, and irrigation. The introduction of bronze and iron did not produce significant changes, except perhaps in weapons. Neolithic society kept on developing on the traditional lines. None of the animals or seeds used in farming was native to Ireland and was brought from the Near East as the techniques of farming spread.

By continuous experimentation in every field Neolithic peoples were able to build up an immense body of empirical knowledge. For example, all the substances that could be used for cleaning, fuller's earth, natron, potash, soda, resin and salt, palm oil, castor oil, lyes from wood ash etc. were noted, and classified and finally written down in the Near East. The knowledge of mathematics and the calendar before the invention of writing cannot be determined. In Egypt various rules for manipulating figures for practical purposes such as calculating areas and volumes were devised. A decimal system of numeration was developed perhaps as early as the time of the building of the pyramids. In Babylon true mathematics are known from Sumerian times (4000 to 3100 BC). Their system based on the number 60 survives for various purposes until the present day, as in time and measurement of degrees in a circle.

The farming revolution was confined for a while to the area within which it was first developed, the Near East. Then it spread out into Egypt and the Aegean. It first arrived in the British Isles about 5000 BC. The other cause of the diffusion of the techniques was the search for raw materials and with it the growth of trading. These materials might be flints, or amber or semiprecious stones, or pieces of natural pure gold or copper, or ivory, or various rocks to make pigments, or even salt. When a source of supply was found a settlement was likely to be formed. Though techniques of farming could spread by simple copying by the original population and may have been in places, it is commonly considered that there was an influx of new people. It is unlikely that farming spread through simple copying. In the mentality of the age there was a supernatural dimension to everything, from farming to warfare and to sex and marriage. (This was of course true also of the Glacial and Mesolithic Periods but it is mentioned here to indicate that farming could not simply be copied, but a priest or shaman would be needed to give instruction in the necessary rites.) It is most likely that newcomers who brought the farming culture to Ireland came from Britain.

The Neolithic Age lasted in the British Isles for about 3,000 years, from the arrival of the first farmers about 5000 BC until the arrival of the Beaker Folk with bronze goods about 2000 BC. The first date marked a clear break in culture; the latter did not.

The Peopling of Ireland

It is commonly agreed that early man spread out of East Africa into the Mediterranean basin, i.e. The Near East, southern Europe and North Africa about 40,000 BC. When the last Ice Age was coming to an end, about 20,000 BC and the ice retreated northwards, the Palaeolithic hunter followed the retreating Ice and thinly populated Europe and East Asia including the Russian steppes. This population persisted through the Mesolithic Period. Though not completely uniform it was relatively undifferentiated. North West Europe, including the whole of the British Isles can be regarded as being a single population. (The name 'British Isles' is of ancient Greek origin, taken up by the Romans.)

It is agreed that the Neolithic farming culture originated in the Near East and gradually farming techniques spread through Europe. The domesticated animals and plants all originated in the Near East It is not agreed whether a migrating population replaced the existing Mesolithic population, or whether the Mesolithic population copied the techniques. Or whether the incoming farmers married Mesolithic women, preserving the DNA of both populations. Metal working and pottery making were also developed in the Near East, and similarly spread though Europe. Though metal working needed special skills, and they were kept in families. These however probably had local wives and local slave girls who would contribute their DNA. The 19th century of Rassenkampf where successive waves of invaders wiped out the existing population and took their place is no longer believed by anyone. Nor is the belief that races were marked by their languages.

Much research has been done in recent years using the latest genetic, linguistic, ceramic, and other techniques to determine the population of Europe, and specifically of Ireland and the origin of the population of Ireland but without any definite conclusion. Genetically, the population of northern and central Europe is fairly uniform. The weight of evidence favours the arrival of a new population of migrants at the beginning of the Neolithic Age most likely from Britain. They were not 'Celts'. It is not known what language they spoke or if there had been several language changes in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, but it certainly was not Gaelic which had not developed from Proto-Indo-European at that time.

With regard to religion, it may be said that little or no distinction was made between the earthly and the divine. A spiritual dimension was attributed to everything, a belief that everything had a spiritual aspect, the earth, rivers, rocks, animals, and so on. They probably had the idea of 'propitious' times, mid-winter, spring, midsummer, and autumn, spring sowing and harvest, the first lambs. Much of the evidence for this comes from much later, but the alignment of stones at Stonehenge, Newgrange, etc. suggests a pre-occupation with propitious times. They probably also had a cult of the dead, perhaps to ward off malevolent spirits.

Neolithic society probably consisted of small related family groups of perhaps not more than 100 under a head of the family who decided all matters. This family would clear woods by cutting the bark on the trees causing them to die. They could also fell trees using stone axes. The slash-and-burn method of tillage would be used. The lighter vegetation would be slashed back, allowed to wither and then burned. The soil would then be tilled by means of hoes and later by ard ploughs drawn by oxen. Only lighter soils could be tilled with the primitive ard plough which could be drawn by oxen. After a few years when the fertility of the soil had declined, another part of the forest would be selected and the old part allowed to regenerate. Perhaps only a tenth or a twelfth of the area belonging to the family would be tilled in any year. The animals would be allowed to browse in the forest protected at all times by herdsmen. Cattle were first kept for meat, then for ploughing, and for their milk. The population became lactose tolerant, i.e. able to digest milk.

The extended family groups would have practiced exogamy, namely selecting their brides from other groups. These groups probably met at the great festivals where religious rites were performed, feasts held, animals and other goods exchanged, and brides chosen. Most brides probably did not have to go far from home. But the erection of huge structures like Stonehenge or Newgrange shows that quite large groups could assemble. Whether these gatherings were organised by the custodians of the sacred sites or by local chiefs who received tribute from the surrounding heads of families we have no idea.

The Neolithic Period in Ireland

Three phases can be distinguished in the Neolithic period in Ireland as in the rest of Western Europe. The first was the initial phases when the first farmers commenced clearing the forests, pasturing their cattle, and growing their cereal crops. Cereals have this property, the hardiness of their fruit or seeds. Grain from the seeds can be easily stored over winter as can nuts like hazelnuts. So too can the seeds of the pulses like lentils, peas, and vetches. Flax could also be sown for making linen. Foraging for mushrooms, berries and nuts continued.The second, or mature phase, corresponded with the period of the great earthworks and megaliths, when there was a considerable population and some form of developed social organisation. The final phase was marked by the introduction of various features that were to be prominent in the Bronze Age, the period in which, in some ways, the ancient civilisation reached its climax in Ireland. The warm dry climate of the Sub Boreal Bronze Age probable marked the most favourable conditions for agriculture easier travel, and tillage at higher altitudes.

Bellamy notes that they fed their cattle on the leaves of the nutrient-rich elm; then ring-barked the trees to kill the canopy to let the sunlight on to the grass and perhaps their crops. Cereals were cultivated. Grasses and nettles and weeds like plantains typical of cultivated areas appear. The almost indestructible pollen in the bogs indicates their presence. Elm, pine, oak, and alder declined while hazel and birch increased. These latter formed scrubs as the farmers moved on to the next patch of forest. This clearing had a catastrophic effect on the forest soils that had been accumulating for 4,000 years. The density of population was still very low. The village was shifted every ten to fifteen years, and long fallows allowed the best soils to recover fertility, and scrub to regenerate. Anything between two and twenty acres was needed to support an individual. Farming groups as elsewhere probably numbered between 35 and 70 individuals. But on good soils the lands held by each group were contiguous.

The initial period, i.e. before the megalithic period, probably lasted from 4500 BC to 3500 BC. Pottery reached Ireland about the beginning of this period. Its use was not necessarily widespread as wooden and leather containers could also be used. There was a plain shouldered pottery, kite-shaped arrowheads and hollow scrapers of flint and chert. Axes were made from igneous rocks in Antrim.

The Megalith Builders

The megalithic works appear almost as soon as the farming in Western Europe, so there is no question of a simpler society slowly evolving into a more complex one. The period of the great earthworks and henges was in full flower in the British Isles about a thousand years after the first farmers arrived. The construction of the great henges, dolmens, and passage graves, after 3,500 BC coincided in time with the development of the city states in the Middle East and the great works like the pyramids. There are several mysteries connected with the megaliths: how were their builders connected with the Neolithic farmers, how were they constructed, what was their purpose, what was their connection with the grave mounds, what was their connection, if any, with the pyramid-builders in Egypt, why do they occur in some places and not others? It seems that they were all connected in some way with the burial of the dead. This was also very important in the culture of the Egyptians, but the earliest megaliths antedate those in Egypt.

The megalithic constructions in Ireland are among the wonders of the world. The capstone at Brownshill, Co. Carlow, weighing an estimated 100 metric tons, is reputed to be the heaviest in Europe. That in Proleek, Co. Louth is estimated to be 46 tons. How these monuments were raised using only stone and wooden tools remains a mystery. The practical skills that were arrived at in constructing henges and dolmens, and above all the pyramids have astonished all who have examined them.

Towards the end of the period called Neolithic a change to a wetter climate in the Atlantic phase, and the removal of tree cover led to a leaching of the soil, and to the formation of an impervious iron pan beneath the surface. The result in the wetter parts was a widespread covering of blanket bogs.The Atlantic Period was coming towards its end with a secondary climatic optimum about 3000 BC. Temperatures in Ireland were about 2 degrees above today's levels. This was the time when the sea rose to its greatest height after the melting of the ice.

The somewhat cooler, dryer Sub-Boreal period commenced about 2700 BC. The indications are that the economy of Ireland from 3000 BC onwards was a more pastoral one. This would favour grasslands over forests in Central and Eastern Europe, and perhaps favour pastoralism over tillage. This trend continued into the Bronze Age. Slow re-growth of vegetation due to lack of rainfall means that herds must be moved around over large areas. If however warfare was endemic herds and flocks might have been easier to protect than cultivated crops.

The Bronze Age in Ireland 2000 BC to 940 BC

The Sub-Borealperiod lasted from2730 BC to 940 BC.There was no abrupt change of life between the Neolithic Age and the Bronze Age. People living at the time would not have noticed it. The appearance of bronze metal objects in archaeological sites was used by archaeologists to date material in excavations. It did represent an enormous technological advance for mankind. Tools and weapons could be made from bronze which in some cases had advantages over flints. But at first it was very expensive. It could be used by those skilled in the mystery of metal-working to make weapons or ornaments for rich chiefs but most of the people probably never saw it. The spread of the use of bronze extended over centuries. The common use of flint tools continued.

Free copper had been discovered about 8000 BC. Like gold it is a soft metal, and it would have been like all metals, precious. It was found that hammering could produce a hard edge, so it became possible to make edged tools from it. About 6000 BC the technique of melting and casting copper was discovered. Probably about 1,000 years after melting and casting was discovered, the smelting of copper ore was discovered. This involved the heating of copper ore along with charcoal that removed the oxygen and other substances from the ore. This was followed by another discovery. If the ore of copper was smelted mixed with a small quantity of the ore of tin, a superior form of copper could be produced. Not only could it be produced at a lower temperature, but also it could be easily cast and hardened better than if only copper ore was used. The resulting amalgam was called bronze. It appeared about the same time in the Near East and on the Danube.

The Bronze Age is regarded as commencing about 3,000 BC in the Near East and lasting until about 1,200 BC. Within this time-span there flourished the cultures of Sumer, of Akkad, the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms in Egypt, the Minoan civilisation in Crete, the city of Troy, and the Mycenaean culture in Greece, and the Bronze Age cultures of Central Europe and British Isles. Towns themselves developed in the Neolithic period even before the invention of pottery, but they reached their full flowering in the age of metal. The name city is misleading, for by our standards they were quite small towns with perhaps no more than a thousand inhabitants within their bounds. A town was an urban nucleus of a few thousand people devoted primarily to manufacture, exchange, and trade, or which possessed temples or permanent cult centres to which outsiders flocked. (There were no proper towns in Ireland before the Vikings, but settlements around the halls of chiefs or bishops could be regarded as towns, but they were not trading centres.)

In the British Isles the Bronze Age, based on archaeological finds, lasted from 2000 to 650 BC and is divided into Early Bronze and Late Bronze Periods. The peak of the Bronze Age was in the early period from about 2000 BC to 1400 BC which was followed by a period of relative decline after which there was a revival after 1200 BC which lasted until 700 BC. This short period of decline coincided with the lowest global temperatures in the post-glacial period. In the Late Bronze period the colder dryer Sub-Boreal period (2700 - 940 BC) was coming to an end, and the wetter Sub-Atlanticwas commencing.

The first signs of metals discovered by British archaeologists were in the graves of the so-called Bell Beaker folk. As noted above it was at first considered that they were a different invading people who wiped out the earlier people who buried their dead in long barrows. (The long skulls long barrows and the round skulls round barrows theory.) However there may have been a limited amount of immigration at this time by people who brought in new patterns of ceramics and the techniques of metal working. These techniques would have been closely guarded and lucrative family secrets. This would also have been the case when the working of iron was discovered.The Bell Beaker culture involved a particular pottery type, but also a complex cultural phenomenon involving metalwork in copper, gold and later bronze, archery, specific types of ornamentation and shared ideological, cultural and religious ideas. It was found in areas in Central Europe, NorthWest Europe and in places in Spain and southern France. Copper production in Ireland in the period 2400-2200 BC, was associated with early Beaker pottery. It is believed to have arrived by a maritime route from Spain through Brittany. A similar possible maritime route marks the distribution megaliths.

What distinguishes the Bronze Age from the Neolithic in Ireland is the abundance of small metal objects, pieces of pottery, and jewellery. Otherwise life was unchanged. The beginning of the Irish Bronze Age around 2000 BC was marked by the appearance of bronze objects, and also by pottery of the Bell Beaker type. It was in this period that most of the goldornaments in the National Museum in Dublin were made. The metal work became highly decorative, and so too did the pottery. The techniques of mining copper observed in Central Europe were also used in Ireland, notably at Mount Gabriel in Co. Cork from 1500 BC onwards. Copper is toxic to most plant life, and therefore the miners had only to search for bare patches of earth. Ireland was comparatively rich in shallow workable seams of copper ore.

Ireland was then probably the greatest source of gold in Western Europe. The gold would have been found in streams as placer gold. There are to this day gold-bearing rocks in Ireland but none are worth exploiting commercially. When all the deposits in the rivers were found and recovered there was no more. The abundance of copper and gold caused the maritime trade such as it was in those days to develop. Boats did not sail out of sight of land. Even propelled by oars it would probably have taken a boat from Brittany an entire summer to reach Ireland, calling at every local port in the south of England. After over-wintering in Ireland they would return by the same route the following summer.

As in Britain the Bronze Age in Ireland is distinguished into only two phases, Early Bronze and Late Bronze, the boundary between them being place conventionally at 1400 BC and coinciding with a deterioration of the climate as the Sub-Boreal phase gave way to the Sub-Atlantic phase. (Alternatively the boundary is placed about 1200 BC coinciding with the Bishopsland finds.) As the changes in the weather pattern took place over centuries, so too did the pattern of human life. This was not a sudden abandonment of more exposed sites, but archaeologists note that they cease to be occupied as the centuries pass. The pattern of human settlement became more like it was in the Iron Age. The Bronze Age, especially the later phases, is associated with the development of weapons, and what may be defended sites. Spears, rapiers, and later a slashing sword made from bronze were made.

Very few Bronze Age settlements have been found in Ireland, but the articles found indicate that Ireland was in wide contact with Western Europe. Apparently the population lived in small dispersed settlements with insubstantial huts. Again, we can assume that local chiefs of small tuatha or chiefdoms about several miles square were already present. It is impossible to say if the weapons were used in warfare was between tuatha, or to ward off bandits and rustlers, to use the later terms. Much of what we know of the period comes from graves. The dead were buried in individual graves or were cremated, as was the custom elsewhere on the Continent.

Stone circles of smaller extent than at Newgrange were set up, and these were probably for recording some cycles of the heavenly bodies. There was some ornamentation on stone as at Newgrange but the patterns were different. Houses were little different from in the previous age. The construction of henges and stone circles continued, and these are associated with Beaker pottery. There was a change over from communal burial in the Neolithic Period to single graves in the Bronze Age. At first there was simple burial in a crouched position, but later cremation was resumed. The graves were flat burials, not under long or round barrows. There was a vibrant Bronze Age culture at Newgrange and a large wooden henge was built there. A partial circle of stones may also have been erected there at this period. There was also an Early Bronze Age burial site, and perhaps religious site at Tara also continuing from the Neolithic Period.

The middle of the Bronze Age was probably Ireland's Golden Age. The climate was still warm, agricultural techniques ensured food for all, and the curse of Ireland, incessant warfare, had not yet appeared. The ard plough brought up nutrients from a greater depth than could be obtained by the hoe. Cultivation in ridges would have the same effect. In addition, cultivation was possible at higher levels that later were covered with heather and bog. An analysis of the remains of animals show that 57% of them were from cattle, 31% from pigs, 5% from sheep and goats, 4% from dogs, and 2% from horses. The horse was introduced at an early stage for a skeleton of one was found at Newgrange. It is difficult to say what the horses were used for, though they were a source of food on the steppes. They could have been pack ponies. Oxen, whose windpipe is not affected by a yoke, could be used for ploughing and drawing carts.

It was probably that in this period the great disparity of wealth between the chiefly families and the rest of the population began to develop though in the early days the difference may not have been as glaring as it was later to become. There were various reasons for this. In the absence of developed markets and a cash economy, dealing with those outside the tuath were conducted by the chief. Booty in war was hand to the chief who made a distribution in accordance with what was called distributive justice. This meant that the more important people got larger shares. So too, were those powerful people on whose loyalty the chief depended. Trade was only in precious portable objects which probably from an early date included wine, but probably not olive oil. Metals, and metal objects, besides precious stones and amber, were highly esteemed. So too were weapons Iron, though prone to rusting, was at first a precious metal. But its ability to take a sharp edge made it very valuable for weapons and sickles. Fine cloths, especially if dyed with bright colours, were esteemed. None of these would be given to ordinary farmers.

In sharing the booty from a cattle raid such as cattle and slaves most of the cattle or slaves would go to those on whom the chief depended. These then hired the cattle to the farmers expecting an annual return. It is safe to assume that in the initial distribution all of the captured wealth was given to the strongest families. These then could make a secondary distribution to their followers, perhaps an older mantle or a bronze axe instead of an iron one. A chief was expected to display 'princely generosity' and not keep too much for his own relatives. So the unequal distribution of wealth would grow. (Later the ever-increasing exactions of the swollen number of chiefs would impoverish the poorer classes further. These evils were not confined to Ireland as the denunciations of the grasping rich people were denounced by the prophets in the Bible.)

By 1440 BC the continuously worsening Sub-Boreal climate may have been producing ever-extending bogs, with the result that causeways had to be built over bogs and marshy areas. After 1250 BC the copper mines at Mount Gabriel seem to have been abandoned, and were then covered over by peat. The beginning of the Late Bronze Age c. 1200 was marked by the find at Bishopsland, Co. Kildare, with influences from northern Europe. The find was probably the tools and materials of trade of an itinerant smith. Craftsman's tools like the anvil, saw, hammer, and such are found for the first time. The socketed axe-head was introduced. An eastern Mediterranean influence was also detectable in the style of the gold ornaments. The patterns were still geometric. Some of the bronze objects are superb. The gold objects were still heavy indicating that gold supplies were still plentiful. Metalwork reached its peak in the Dowris phase beginning in the 8th cent BC. In a survey of Irish hill forts and promontory forts, Raftery concluded that they were mostly built during the Late Bronze Age., but other favour the Iron Age.

The Iron Age (940 BC to 400 AD)

There was a period of disturbance and apparently shifting ruling elites, in Eastern Europe, the Aegean, and the Middle East coinciding with the onset of the Iron Age in those parts. It is purely co-incidental that the use of iron roughly coincides with the change in climate.

The summer temperatures of the sub-Atlantic were generally somewhat cooler (by up to 1.0 °C) than during the preceding Sub-Boreal, the yearly average temperatures reduced by 0.7 °C. At the same time the winter rainfall augmented by up to 50%. Overall the climate during the Sub-Atlantic therefore tends to cooler and wetter conditions. The climate deteriorated and briefly reached a low point about 1000 BC which was not reached again until the 17th century AD. The change in climatic conditions was too slow and too little to be noted at the time.

Apart from metal objects we know little of the period between 1400 and 800 BC. There is an absence of graves and houses; a fact that also shows how dependent archaeology is on chance. This period is Ireland's Dark Ages. Elsewhere there were many great developments in literature, art, religion, government and conquests in this period of roughly one thousand years that make it one of the greatest epochs in the development of human society. The Jewish religion came to its full development. Architecture, art, astronomy, theatre, poetry, democracy, and philosophy were developed in Greece. The ordered government of empires was developed in Persia, China and Rome. Money or coinage was invented in the rich trading kingdom of Lydia about 600 BC and the idea was quickly copied by other trading nations. The use of regular weights of silver can be seen early in the Bronze Age when Abraham paid four hundred shekels of silver to the Hittites of Kiriath Arba for the cave of Machpelah near Hebron in which to bury his wife Sarah (Genesis 23.15).

Rome was traditionally founded in 753 BC by Romulus and Remus. It was a small town situated on a hill called later the Capitoline after the capitol or arx, a defensive point on the top of the hill and near a crossing of the river Tiber. The Romans were constantly at war, and bit by bit they conquered all the peoples around them.Roman law was codified about 450 BC and written down on twelve tablets. This was an attempt to codify and set down in writing exactly what laws the plebeians were bound by. But it also included an attempt at rationality and fairness. This was developed by later Roman law-makers and culminated in the Code of Justinian 483-565 BC. The original Roman calendar drawn up about the 7th century BC was a lunar calendar with all the problems that involved. There were no clocks, or any devices for measuring time, so the phases of the moon were convenient. The calendar was corrected first by Julius Caesar the Pontifex Maximus, or principal priest of Rome, who made it a solar calendar, and later by Pope Gregory XII in the sixteenth century.

Iron was being produced in the Near East around 1300 BC and reached the British Isles about 800 BC and Ireland about 500 BC.In Central Europe,Hallstatt was a Bronze Age site where the people produced salt. But it is chiefly famous as being the place where iron goods in a distinctive and widely-distributed style were manufactured about 750 BC. The Hallstatt style or period extended from 750 to 450 BC. Hallstatt art continued the geometrical patterns of the preceding age. The Hallstatt phase was followed by another widely-distributed style of art. The La Tène style or period lasted from 450 to 50 BC at which date the region was conquered by Caesar and Roman influences were introduced. La Tène was an archaeological site in Switzerland on the shore of Lake Neuchatel discovered in 1857. It was a very distinctive curvilinear style based on Mediterranean influences. It was often called Celtic art based on a misapprehension that the Celtic-speaking overlords were responsible for it. Motifs include stylised animal, bird, and human forms, but the most characteristic were the thick-lobed spiral and the trumpet curve. It was developed north of the Alps around 450 BC.

The first appearances of the use of iron in Ireland were in the Hallstatt period but there was very little of it. Bronze continued to be the common metal. The name Iron Age in Ireland is something of a misnomer, for very little iron was used or survived. Nor is there evidence that the working of iron was known in this period. We know almost nothing about life in the Iron Age in Ireland. Tillage seems to have declined, while the growth of bogs and forests increased. The weed seeds characteristic of tillage disappear. Birch trees which thrive on a healthy acid soil spread over the landscape. There are no certain traces of field systems. Cattle raising had become, and was long to remain, the dominant agricultural pursuit. Many of the artistic metal objects found, as in the Broighter hoard, are of foreign manufacture, but some high quality native work has been found, mostly in bronze that survives better. The Broighter Hoard is a hoard of gold artefacts from the Iron Age of the 1st century BC that were found in 1896.Iron smithing was added to the other skills in metalwork. Elaborately carved stones, including human figures, from this period survive.

We know from Greek written sources that in parts of central and Western Europe in contact with Greek merchants of various groups whom the Greeks called Keltoi had by 400 BC established themselves as the dominant powers. The Romans in Italy called them Galli (Gauls). It is now recognised that the genetic make-up of the population of Europe has not changed significantly since the Glacial Period. It has long been recognised that the 'Celts' could never have been more than an aristocracy in the lands they conquered. Little is actually known about them. Apart from their language there was nothing distinctive about them. Nordic and Anglo-Saxon societies were almost identical. They were not a 'race', nor were they a kingdom. Their social organisation and their methods of warfare were apparently no different from those of their neighbours. Nor is there evidence that they were the same everywhere. Like their neighbours they formed 'tribes' for lack of a better word. As in Ireland the tribe or family was composed only of the ruling families, and it was with these alone the Romans and Greeks were concerned. The various tribes could combine for purposes of warfare as was common elsewhere in northern Europe.

How the Celtic language spread is another mystery, but one way or another it became the lingua franca of the ruling families and their learned or priestly families. Nor is there any evidence regarding when or how the Celtic language arrived in Ireland. It was certainly in Ireland by the 4th century AD. There is no indication that any Celtic-speaking warriors came to Ireland and none that they replaced the existing population. That idea dates from the 19th century and is derived from the then current theories of Rassenkampf.

The seas joined the peoples in Western Europe not separated them. Ireland was always in contact with Britain and Europe and open to all influences from the Continent. Even in the Roman period the limes or boundary defences were there to prevent invasions not to prevent trade and other contacts. Peoples outside the limes were often as Romanised as those within them. Those on either side of the limes could trade, volunteer for the army, or spread religion, science and art, with little hindrance. Ireland was by no means cut off from the Roman Empire. Later, improvements in shipping enabled raiders from Scotland and Ireland to by-pass Hadrian's Wall, especially as a powerful Roman fleet was not maintained in the Irish Sea. This however increased contacts as captured slaves had to be ransomed. The coasts of Ireland were well-known to the Greeks and Romans. There was a constant trade between Britain and Ireland in Roman times. It is very likely that the various peoples along the coast were semi-Romanised as was common with peoples just outside the limes. There were certainly Christians living in Ireland before St Patrick, not necessarily all slaves There can be little doubt that Latin was spoken in coastal areas as a second language. Roman troops apart; there was probably little difference between the Irish east coast and the Welsh west coast.

The closest connection between Britain and Ireland was across the 13 miles of the Irish Sea. As the sea connected rather than divided it is not surprising the find chiefdom, Dál Riada, straddling the North Channel. Later Scottish chiefs made claims for lands in North Antrim down to Elizabethan times.

Chapter Two

Early Historical period (400-1200 AD)

Christian Period (400-800 AD)

General Characteristics

Alaric the Visigoth occupied Rome in 410 AD. In the same year the Romanised people in Britain were told that no more legions would be sent. In 406 a mixed group of barbarians that included Vandals, Alans and Suebi crossed the Rhine. The Migration Period called by the Germans Völkerwanderung. These semi-Romanised tribes were not interested in pillage and destruction but rather in capturing the centres of power for themselves. Romanised kingdoms were established by the Franks, Vandals, Ostrogoths, and Visigoths. By 628 most of modern France was controlled by the Franks. Saint Gregory of Tours (538 --594) described the Frankish kingdom in his book Historia Francorum (History of the Franks). Much of Roman civilisation remained though long-distance trade declined. Even in Britain following the invasions of Angles, Jutes, and Saxons, much of Roman culture remained. The Anglo-Saxons embraced the old culture. The principalities in Wales were proud of their Romanitas. From this Romanised Wales, centred on the Roman town of Caerleon (in Gwent, in South Wales) the Christian religion spread into Ireland. The date attributed to St Patrick is 432 AD.

Ireland and Irish society was very different from what we are used to. Ireland changed more in the last 3 centuries than in the previous 2 millennia. We must remind ourselves that up to 1800 the vast bulk of the people were illiterate. This went for kings, chiefs, warriors, and merchants as much as anyone else. Writing was introduced, it would seem by Christian missionaries from the Roman Empire, and was confined on one side to clerics and monks who wrote in Latin, and on the other to the learned families who wrote down traditional lore in Gaelic. All over Europe, clerics were pivotal figure in the administration of kings and lords who wrote important documents. Even in royal circles the bulk of administration was not written down.

Everybody relied on their memories to an astonishing extent. Even clerics had to learn the whole Latin psalter by heart. More learned monks might commit whole books of the Bible to memory. The texts and chants were likewise committed to memory. Musical notation appears in the 9th century. Everything was committed to memory, prices and equivalents in barter, the number of geese, goats, cattle and so one each might keep on common land, the dues payable to everyone: everything in fact.

The corollary was that visual signs were important, and with them colour. Though only non-fast mineral and vegetable dies were available, everything was coloured, and as brightly as the owner could afford. Everyone's status was proclaimed by their garments: the best cloth and the brightest dyes, frequently renewed, to the chiefs. Patched, undyed, or cast-offs to the very poor. Gold ornaments, and shining spears to the warriors. White or coloured walls for the raths of the great and of monasteries.

Painted signs and shields indicated individual warriors or merchants. (A relic survives as the painted signs outside public houses. As late as the 18th century, shops had signs not names.) A whole art of heraldry grew up giving details of the owner's place in society. Heraldic art was like poster art, simplified shapes in bold colours. The heraldic lion had huge red teeth, claws and tongue. Religion was similarly taught in pictures. St Peter had two keys, and St Paul a sword. We have no examples remaining in Ireland of the paintings on the insides of churches, though many remain in England. Carved crosses, once brightly coloured give out door