Natural Conditions

At the north-western corner of Europe lies the land whose history will occupy us, an
island of 1,530 German or 32,500 English square miles. But another island, three times
as large, lies obliquely interposed between Ireland and the rest of Europe. For the sake
of brevity we usually call this island England; it blocks Ireland off completely towards
the north, east and south-east, and allows a free view only in the direction of Spain,
Western France and America.

The channel between the two islands, 50-70 English miles wide at the narrowest points in
the south, 13 miles wide at one point in the north and 22 miles wide at another, allowed
the Irish Scots to emigrate from the north to the neighbouring island and to found the
Kingdom of Scotland even before the fifth century. In the south it was too wide for
Irish and British boats and a serious obstacle even for the flat-bottomed coastal
vessels of the Romans. But when the Frisians, Angles and Saxons, and after them the
Scandinavians, were able to venture beyond the sight of land on the open seas in their
keeled vessels, this channel was an obstacle no longer; Ireland fell a victim to the
raiding expeditions of the Scandinavians, and presented an easy booty for the English.
As soon as the Normans had built up a powerful, unified government in England, the
influence of the larger island made itself felt — in those times this meant a war of
conquest.[179]

If during the war a period set in when England gained control of the sea, this precluded the possibility of successful foreign intervention.

When the larger island finally became unified into one state, the latter had to strive to assimilate Ireland completely.

If this assimilation had been successful, its whole course would have become a matter of
history. It would be subject to its judgement but could never be reversed. But if after
700 years of fighting this assimilation has not succeeded; if instead each new wave of
invaders flooding Ireland is assimilated by the Irish; if, even today, the Irish are as
far from being English, or West Britons, as they say, as the Poles are from being West
Russians after only 100 years of oppression; if the fighting is not yet over and there
is no prospect that it can be ended in any other way than by the extermination of the
oppressed race — then, all the geographical pretexts in the world are not enough to
prove that it is England’s mission to conquer Ireland.

* * *

To understand the nature of the soil of present-day Ireland we have to return to the
distant epoch when the so-called Carboniferous System was formed.

[Unless otherwise stated, all the geological data given here is from J. Beete Jokes, The
Student’s Manual of Geology. New Edition. Edinburgh. 1862. Jukes was the local superior
during the geological survey of Ireland and therefore the prime authority on this
territory, which he treats in special detail.]

The centre of Ireland, to the north and south of a line from Dublin to Galway, forms a
wide plain rising to 100-300 feet above sea-level. This plain, the foundation so to say
of the whole of Ireland, consists of the massive bed of limestone (carboniferous
limestone), which forms the middle layer of the Carboniferous System, and immediately
above which lie the coal-measures of England and other places.

In the south and the north, this plain is encircled by a mountain chain which extends
mainly along the coast, and consists almost entirely of older rock-formations which have
broken through the limestone. These older rock-formations contain granite, mica-slate,
Cambrian, Cambro-Silurian, Upper-Silurian, Devonian, together with argillaceous slate
and sandstone, rich in copper and lead, found in the lowest layer of the Carboniferous
System; apart from this they contain a little gold, silver, tin, zinc, iron, cobalt,
antimony and manganese.

The limestone itself rises to mountains only in a few places: it reaches 600 feet in the
centre of the plain, in Queen’s County,[180] and a little over 1,000 feet in the west,
on the southern shore of Galway Bay (Burren Hills).

At several points in the southern half of the limestone plain there are to be found
isolated coal-bearing mountain ridges of considerable extent and from 700 to 1,000 feet
above sea-level. These rise from depressions in the limestone plain as plateaus with
rather steep escarpments.

“The escarpments in these widely separated tracts of coal-measures are so similar, and
the beds composing them so precisely alike, that it is impossible to suppose otherwise
than that they originally formed continuous sheets of rock, although they are now
separated by sixty or eighty miles ... This belief is strongly confirmed by the fact
that there are often, between the two larger areas, several little outlying patches in
which the coal-measures are found capping the summits of small hills, and that wherever
the undulation of the limestone is such as to bring its upper beds down beneath the
level of the present surface of the ground, we invariably find some of the lower beds of
the coal-measures coming in upon them.” (Jukes, pp. 285-86)

Other circumstances, which are too detailed for us here and can be found in Jukes, pages
286-89, contribute to the certainty that the whole Irish central plain arose through
denudation, as Jukes says, so that the lower layers of limestone were exposed after the
coal-measures and the high limestone deposits — of an average thickness of at least
2,000-3,000 and possibly 5,000-6,000 feet of stone — had been washed away. Jukes even
found another small coal-measure on the highest ridge of the Burren Hills, County Clare,
which are pure limestone and 1,000 feet high (p. 513).

Some fairly considerable areas containing coal-measures have survived in Southern
Ireland; but only a few of these contain enough coal to justify mining. Moreover, the
coal itself is anthracite, that is, it contains little hydrogen and cannot be used for
all industrial purposes without some addition.

There are also several not very extensive coal-fields in Northern Ireland in which the
coal is bituminous, that is, ordinary coal rich in hydrogen. Their stratification does
not coincide exactly with that of the southern coal deposits. But a similar washing away
process did occur even here. This is shown by the fact that large fragments of coal, as
well as sandstone and blue clay belonging to the same formation, are to be found on the
surface of limestone valleys to the south-east of such a coal-field in the direction of
Belturbet and Mohill. Large blocks of coal have been discovered by well-sinkers in this
area of the drift; and in some cases the quantity of coal was so considerable that it
was thought that deeper shafts must lead to a coal-bed. (Kane, The Industrial Resources
of Ireland, 2nd edition, Dublin, 1845, p. 265.)

It is obvious that Ireland’s misfortune is of ancient origin; it begins directly after
the carboniferous strata were deposited. A country whose coal deposits are eroded,
placed near a larger country rich in coal, is condemned by nature to remain for a long
time the farming country for the larger country when the latter is industrialised. That
sentence, pronounced millions of years ago, was carried out in this century. We shall
see later, moreover, how the English assisted nature by crushing almost every seed of
Irish industry as soon as it appeared.

More recent Secondary and Tertiary layers[181] occur almost exclusively in the north-
east; amongst these we are interested chiefly in the beds of red marl in the vicinity of
Belfast, which contain almost pure rock-salt to a thickness of 200 feet (Jukes, p. 554),
and the chalk overlaid with a layer of basalt which covers the whole of County Antrim.
Generally speaking, there are no important geological developments in Ireland between
the end of the Carboniferous Period and the Ice Age.

It is known that after the Tertiary Epoch there was an era in which the low-lying lands
of the medium latitudes of Europe were submerged by the sea, and in which such a low
temperature prevailed in Europe that the valleys between the protruding island mountain
tops were filled with glaciers which extended down to the sea. Icebergs used to separate
themselves from these glaciers and carry rocks of all sizes which had been detached from
the mountains, out to sea. When the ice melted, the rocks and other debris were
deposited — a process still daily occurring on coasts of the polar regions.

During the Ice Age, Ireland too, with the exception of the mountain tops, was submerged
by the sea. The degree of submergence may not have been the same everywhere, but an
average of 1,000 feet below the present level can be accepted; the granite mountain
chains south of Dublin must have been submerged by over 1,200 feet.

If Ireland had been submerged by only 500 feet, only the mountain chains would have
remained exposed. These would then have formed two semi-circular groups of islands
around a wide strait extending from Dublin to Galway. A still greater submergence would
have made these islands smaller and decreased their number, until, at a submergence of
2,000 feet, only the most extreme tips would have risen above the water.

Ireland has an area of 32,509 English square miles. 13,243 square miles are 0-250 feet
above sea-level; 11,797 are 251-500 feet above sea-level; 5,798 are 501-1,000 feet above
sea-level; 1,589 are 1,001-2,000 feet above sea-level; 82 square miles are over 2,001
feet above sea-level.

As the submersion slowly proceeded, the limestone plains and mountain slopes must have
been swept clean of much of the older rock covering them; subsequently there followed
the depositing of the drift peculiar to the Ice Age on the whole of the area covered by
water. Pieces of rock eroded from the mountain islands and fine fragments of rock
scraped away by the glaciers as they pushed their way slowly and powerfully through the
valleys — earth, sand, gravel, stones, rocks, worn smooth within the ice but sharp-edged
above it — all this was carried out to sea and gradually deposited on the sea-bed by
icebergs which were detaching themselves from the shore. The layer formed in this way
varies according to circumstances and contains loam (originating from argillaceous
slate), sand (originating from quartz and granite), limestone gravel (derived from
limestone formations), marl (where finely-crumbled limestone mixes with loam) or
mixtures of all these components; but it always contains a mass of stones of all sizes,
sometimes rounded, sometimes sharp, ranging up to colossal erratic boulders, which are
commoner in Ireland than in the North-German Plain or between the Alps and the Jura.

During the subsequent re-emergence of the land from the sea, this newly-formed surface
was given roughly its present structure. In Ireland, little washing away appears to have
taken place then; with few exceptions varying thicknesses of drift cover all the plains,
extend into all the valleys, and are also often found high up on the mountain slopes.
Limestone is the most frequently occurring stone in them, and for this reason the whole
stratum is usually called limestone gravel here. Big blocks of limestone are also
extensively strewn over all the lowlands, one or more in nearly every field; apart from
limestone, a lot of other local rocks, especially granite, are naturally to be found
near the mountains they originated from. From the northern side of Galway Bay granite
appears commonly in the plain extending south-east as far as the Galty Mountains and
more rarely as far as Mallow (County Cork).

The north of the country is covered with drift to the same height above sea-level as the
central plain; a similar deposit, originating from the local, mainly Silurian rocks, is
to be found between the various more or less parallel mountain chains running through
the south. This appears plentifully in Flesk and Laune valley near Killarney.

The glacier tracks on the mountain slopes and valley bottoms are common and
unmistakable, particularly in the south-west of Ireland. Only in Oberhasli and here and
there in Sweden do I remember seeing more sharply-stamped ice-trails than in Killarney
(in the Black Valley and the Gap of Dunloe).

The emergence of the land during or after the Ice Age seems to have been so considerable
that Britain was for a time connected by dry land not only with the Continent, but also
with Ireland. At least this seems the only way the similarity between the fauna of these
lands can be explained. Ireland has the following extinct large mammals in common with
the Continent: the mammoth, the Irish giant stag, the cave-bear, a kind of reindeer, and
so on. In fact, an emergence of less than 240 feet over the present level would be
enough to connect Ireland with Scotland, and one of less than 360 feet would join
Ireland and Wales with wide bridges of land.

See Map 15a in Stielers Handatlas, 1868.[182] This map, as well as No. 15d, specially of Ireland, picture the ground structure very clearly.

The fact that Ireland emerged to a higher level after the Ice Age than at present is
proved by the underwater peat bogs with upright tree trunks and roots which occur all
around the coast, and which are identical in every detail with the lowest layers of the
neighbouring inland peat bogs.

* * *

From an agricultural point of view, Ireland’s soil is almost entirely formed from the
drift of the Ice Age, which here, thanks to its slate and limestone origin, is not the
barren sand with which the Scottish, Scandinavian and Finnish granites have covered such
a large part of North Germany, but an extremely fertile, light loam. The variety in the
rocks, whose decomposition contributed — and is still contributing to this soil,
provides it with a corresponding variety of the mineral elements required for vegetable
life; and if one of these, say lime, is greatly lacking in the soil, plenty of pieces of
limestone of all sizes are to be found everywhere — quite apart from the underlying
limestone bed — so it can be added quite easily.

When the well-known English agronomist, Arthur Young, toured Ireland in the 1770s, he
did not know what amazed him more: the natural fertility of the soil or the barbaric
manner in which the peasants cultivated it. “A light, dry, soft, sandy, loam soil”
prevails where the land is good at all. In the “Golden Vale” of Tipperary and also
elsewhere he found:

“the same sort of sandy reddish loam I have already described, incomparable land for
tillage.” From there, in the direction of Clonmel, “the whole way through the — same
rich vein of red sandy loam I have so often mentioned: I examined it in several fields,
and found it to be of an extraordinary fertility, and as fine turnip land as ever I
saw.”

Further:

“The rich land reaches from Charleville, at the foot of the mountains, to Tipperary, by
Kilfenning, a line of twenty-five miles, and across from Ardpatrick to within four miles
of Limerick, sixteen miles.” “The richest in the country is the Corcasses on the Maag,
about Adair, a tract of five miles long, and two broad, down to the Shannon.... When
they break this land up, they sow first oats, and get 20 barrels an acre, or 40 common
barrels, and do not reckon that an extra crop; they take ten or twelve in succession,
upon one ploughing, till the crops grow poor, and then they sow one of horse beans,
which refreshes the land enough to take ten crops of oats more; the beans are very
good.... Were such barbarians ever heard of?”

Further, near Castle Oliver, County Limerick,

“the finest soil in the country is upon the roots of mountains; it is a rich, mellow,
crumbling, putrid, sandy loam, eighteen inches to three feet deep, the colour a reddish
brown. It is dry sound land, and would do for turnips exceedingly well, for carrots, for
cabbages, and in a word for everything. I think, upon the whole, it is the richest soil
I ever saw, and such as is applicable to every purpose you can wish; it will fat the
largest bullock, and at the same time do equally well for sheep, for tillage, for
turnips, for wheat, for beans, and in a word, for every crop ... you must examine into
the soil before you will believe that a country, which has so beggarly an appearance,
can be so rich and fertile.”

On the river Blackwater near Mallow,

“there are tracts of flat land in some places one quarter of a mile broad; the grass
everywhere remarkably fine.... It is the finest sandy land I have anywhere seen, of a
reddish-brown colour, would yield the greatest arable crops in the world, if in tillage;
it is five feet deep, and has such a principle of adhesion, that it burns into good
brick, yet it is a perfect sand.... The banks of this river, from its source to the sea,
are equally remarkable for beauty of prospect, and fertility of soil.” ‘Triable, sandy
loams, dry but fertile, are very common, and they form the best soils in the kingdom,
for tillage and sheep. Tipperary and Roscommon abound particularly in them. The most
fertile of all are the bullock pastures of Limerick, and the banks of the Shannon in
Clare, called the Corcasses.... Sand, which is so common in England, and yet more common
through Spain, France, Germany, and Poland, quite from Gibraltar to Petersburg, is
nowhere met with in Ireland, except for narrow slips of hillocks, upon the sea coast.
Nor did I ever meet with, or hear of a chalky soil.” [Arthur Young, A Tour in Ireland, 3
vols. London, 177 ..., Vol. 2, pp. 28, 135, 143, 154, 165; Vol. 2, Part II, p. 4.]

Young’s judgement on the soil of Ireland is summarised in the following sentences:

“If I was to name the characteristics of an excellent soil, I would say that upon which
you may fat an ox and feed off a crop of turnips. By the way, I recollect little or no
such land in England, yet it is not uncommon in Ireland.” (Vol. 2, p. 271.) — “Natural
fertility, acre for acre over the two kingdoms, is certainly in favour of Ireland.”
(Vol. 2, Part 11, p. 3.) — “As far as I can form a general idea of the soil of the two
kingdoms, Ireland has much the advantage.” (Vol. 2, Part 11, p. 9.)

In 1808-10, Edward Wakefield, an Englishman likewise versed in agronomy, toured Ireland
and recorded the result of his observations in a valuable work. [Edward Wakefield, An
Account of Ireland, Statistical and Political, London, 1812, 2 vols.] His remarks are
better-ordered, more extensive and fuller than those in Young’s travel-book; on the
whole, both agree.

Wakefield found little disparity in the nature of the soil in Ireland on the whole. Sand
occurs only on the coast (it is so seldom found inland that large quantities of sea sand
are transported inland for improving the turf and loam soils); chalky soil is unknown
(the chalk in Antrim is, as has already been mentioned, covered with a layer of basalt,
the products of the decomposition of which produce a highly fertile soil. In England the
chalky soils are the worst), “. . . tenacious clays, such as those found in Oxfordshire,
in some parts of Essex, and throughout High Suffolk, I could never meet with. ...” The
Irish call all loamy soils clay; there might be real clay in Ireland as well, but not on
the surface as in several parts of England in any case. Limestone or limestone gravel is
to be found everywhere. “The former is a useful production, and is converted into a
source of wealth that will always be employed with advantage.” Mountains and peat bogs
certainly reduce the fertile surface considerably. There is little fertile land in the
north; yet even here there are highly luxuriant valleys in every county, and Wakefield
unexpectedly found a highly fertile tract even in furthest Donegal amongst the wildest
mountains. The extensive cultivation of flax in the north is in itself sufficient proof
of fertility, as this plant does not thrive in poor soil.

“A great portion of the soil in Ireland throws out a luxuriant herbage, springing up
from a calcareous subsoil, without any considerable depth. I have seen bullocks of the
weight of 180 stone, rapidly fattening on land incapable of receiving the print of a
horse’s foot, even in the wettest season, and where there were not many inches of soil.
This is one species of the rich soil of Ireland, and is to he found throughout
Roscommon, in some parts of Galway, Clare, and other districts. Some places exhibit the
richest loam that I ever saw turned up by a plough; this is the case throughout Meath in
particular. Where such soil occurs, its fertility is so conspicuous, that it appears as
if nature had determined to counteract the bad effects produced by the clumsy system of
its cultivators. On the banks of the Fergus and Shannon, the land is of a different
kind, but equally productive, though the surface presents the appearance of a marsh.
These districts are called ‘the caucasses’ (so designated by Wakefield as distinct from
Young); the substratum is a blue silt, deposited by the sea, which seems to partake of
the qualities of the upper stratum; for this land can be injured by no depth of
ploughing.

“In the counties of Limerick and Tipperary there is another kind of rich land,
consisting of a dark, friable, dry, sandy loam which, if preserved in a clean state,
would throw out corn for several years in succession. It is equally well adapted to
grazing and tillage, and I will venture to say, seldom experiences a season too wet, or
a summer too dry. The richness of the land, in some of the vales, may be accounted for
by the deposition of soil carried thither from the upper grounds by the rain. The
subsoil is calcareous, so that the very richest manure is thus spread over the land
below, without subjecting the farmer to any labour.” (Vol. I, pp. 79, 80.)

If a thinnish layer of heavy loam lies directly on limestone, the land is not suited to
tillage and bears only a miserable crop of grain, but it makes excellent sheep-pastures.
This improves it further by producing a thick grass mixed with white clover and. ...
[There is an omission in the manuscript. According to Wakefield it is “wild burnet"]
(Vol. I, p. 80.)

Dr. Beaufort [Beaufort, Revd. Dr., Memoir of a Map of Ireland, 1792, pp. 75-76. Quoted
in Wakefield, Vol. I, p. 36.] states that there occur in the west, particularly in Mayo,
many turloughs — shallow depressions of different sizes, which fill with water in the
winter, although not visibly connected with streams or rivers. In the summer this drains
away through underground fissures in the limestone, leaving luxurious firm grazing-
ground.

“Independently of the caucasses,” Wakefield continues, “the richest soil in Ireland is
to be found in the counties of Tipperary, Limerick, Roscommon, Longford, and Meath. In
Longford there is a farm called Granard Kill, which produced eight crops of potatoes
without manure. Some parts of the County of Cork are uncommonly fertile, and upon the
whole, Ireland may be considered as affording land of an excellent quality, though I am
by no means prepared to go the length of many writers, who assert, that it is decidedly
acre for acre richer than England.” (Vol. I, p. 81.)

The last observation, directed against Young, rests on a misunderstanding of Young’s
opinion, quoted above. Young does not say that Ireland’s soil is more productive than
England’s, each taken in their present state of cultivation — which is naturally far
higher in England; Young merely states that the natural fertility of the soil is greater
in Ireland than in England. This does not contradict Wakefield.

After the last famine, in 1849, Sir.[The word “Ministry” appears above the “Sir"] Robert
Peel sent a Scottish agronomist, Mr. Caird, to Ireland to report on means of improving
agriculture there. In a publication issued soon afterwards he said about the west of
Ireland — the worst stricken part of the country apart from the extreme north-west:

“I was much surprised to find so great an extent of fine fertile land. The interior of
the country is very level, and its general character stony and dry; the soil dry and
friable. The humidity of the climate causes a very constant vegetation, which has both
advantages and disadvantages. It is favourable for grass and green crops,["green crops”
embrace all cultivated fodder crops, as well as carrot, beetroot, turnip and potato,
that is, everything except corn, grasses and garden plants] but renders it necessary to
employ very vigorous and persevering efforts to extirpate weeds. The abundance of lime
everywhere, both in the rock itself, and as sand and gravel beneath the surface, are of
the greatest value.”

Caird also confirms that County Westmeath consists of the finest pasture land. Of the region north of Lough Corrib (County Mayo) he writes:

“The greater part of this farm” (a farm of 500 acres) “is the finest feeding land for
sheep and cattle-dry, friable, undulating land, all on limestone. The fields of rich old
grass are superior to anything we have, except in small patches, in any part of Scotland
I at present remember. The best of it is too good for tillage, but about one half of it
might be profitably brought under the plough.... The rapidity with which the land on
this limestone subsoil recovers itself, and, without any seeds being sown, reverts to
good pasture, is very remarkable”

[Caird, The Plantation Scheme, or the West of Ireland as a Field for Investment,
Edinburgh, 1850. He also wrote travel reports on the condition of agriculture in the
main counties of England for The Times of 1850-51. The above quotations are found on pp.
6, 17-18, 121]

Finally we note a French authority [Léonce de Lavergne, Rural Economy of England,
Scotland and Ireland. translated from the French, Edinburgh, 1855]:

“Of the two divisions of Ireland, that of the north-west, embracing a fourth of the
island, and comprehending the province of Connaught, with the adjacent counties of
Donegal, Clare, and Kerry, resembles Wales, and even, in its worst parts, the Highlands
of Scotland. Here again are two millions of unsightly hectares, the frightful aspect of
which has given rise to the national proverb, ‘Go to the devil or Connaught’. [This
expression, as will be seen later, owes its origin not to the dark mountains of
Connaught, but to the darkest period in the entire history of Ireland.[183]] The other,
or south-east and much larger division, since it . : . includes the provinces of
Leinster, Ulster, and Munster, equal to about six millions of hectares, is at least
equal in natural fertility to England proper. It is not all, however, equally good; the
amount of humidity there is still greater than in England. Extensive bogs cover about a
tenth of the surface; more than another tenth is occupied with mountains and lakes. In
fact, five only out of eight millions of hectares in Ireland are cultivated (pp. 9, 10).
Even the English admit that Ireland, in point of soil, is superior to England....
Ireland contains eight millions of hectares. Rocks, lakes, and bogs occupy about two
millions of these, and two millions more are indifferent land. The remainder — that is
to say, about half the country — is rich land, with calcareous subsoil. What better
could be conceived?” (p. 343.)

We see therefore that all authorities agree that Ireland’s soil contains all the
elements of fertility to an extraordinary degree. This, not only in its chemical
ingredients but also in its structure. The two extremes of heavy impenetrable clay,
completely impermeable, and loose sand, completely permeable, do not occur. But Ireland
has another disadvantage. While the mountains are mainly along the coast, the watersheds
between the inland river basins are mostly lowlying, and therefore the rivers are not
capable of carrying all the rain water out to sea. Thus extensive peat bogs arise
inland, especially on the watersheds. In the plain alone 1,576,000 acres are covered
with peat bogs. These are largely depressions or troughs in the land, most of which were
once shallow lake basins which were gradually overgrown with moss and marsh plants and
were filled up with their decomposing remains. As with our north-German moors, their
only use is for turf cutting. With the present system of agriculture cultivation can
only gradually reclaim their edges. The soil in these former lake basins is mainly marl
and its lime content (varying from 5 per cent to 90 per cent) is due to the shells of
fresh-water mussels. Thus the material for their development into arable land exists
within each of these peat bogs. Apart from this, most of them are rich in iron ore.
Besides these low-lying peat bogs, there are 1,254,000 acres of mountain moor. These are
the result of deforestation in a damp climate and are one of the peculiar beauties of
the British Isles. Wherever flat or almost flat summits were deforested — and this
occurred extensively in the 17th century and the first half of the 18th century to
provide the iron works with charcoal — a layer of peat formed under the influence of
rain and mist and gradually spread down the slopes where the conditions were favourable.
Such moors cover the ridges of the mountain chain dividing Northern England from north
to south almost as far as Derby; and are found in abundance wherever substantial
mountain ranges are marked on the map of Ireland. Yet, the peat bogs of Ireland are by
no means hopelessly lost to agriculture; on the contrary, in time we shall see what rich
fruits some of these, and the two million hectares of the “indifferent land”
contemptuously mentioned by Lavergne, can produce given correct management.

* * *

Ireland’s climate is determined by her position. The Gulf Stream and the prevailing
south-west winds provide warmth and make for mild winters and cool summers. In the
south-west the summer lasts far into October which, according to Wakefield (Vol. 1, p.
221), is there regarded as the best month for sea bathing. Frost is rare and of short
duration, snow usually melts immediately on the low-lying land. Spring weather prevails
throughout the winter in the inlets of Kerry and Cork, which are open to the south-west
and protected from the north; here, and in certain other places, myrtle thrives in the
open (Wakefield mentions a country-residence where it grows into trees 16 feet high and
is used to make stable-brooms, Vol. 1, p. 55), and laurel, arbutus and other evergreen
plants grow into substantial trees. In Wakefield’s time, the peasants in the south were
still leaving their potatoes in the open all winter — and they had not been frost-bitten
since 1740. On the other hand, Ireland also suffers the first powerful downpour of the
heavy Atlantic rain clouds. Ireland’s average rainfall is at least 35 inches, which is
considerably more than England’s average, yet is definitely lower than that of
Lancashire and Cheshire and scarcely more than the average for the whole of the West of
England. In spite of this the Irish climate is decidedly pleasanter than the English.
The leaden sky which often causes days of continual drizzle in England is mostly
replaced in Ireland by a continental April sky; the fresh sea-breezes bring on clouds
quickly and unexpectedly, but drive them past equally quickly, if they do not come down
immediately in sharp showers. And even when the rain lasts for days, as it does in late
autumn, it does not have the chronic air it has in England. The weather, like the
inhabitants, has a more acute character, it moves in sharper, more sudden contrasts; the
sky is like an Irish woman’s face: here also rain and sunshine succeed each other
suddenly and unexpectedly and there is none of the grey English boredom.

The Roman, Pomponius Mela, gives us the oldest report on the Irish climate (in De situ orbis) in the first century of our era:

“Above Brittaine is Ireland, almost of like space but on both sides equall, with shores
evelong, of a evyll ayre to rypen things that are sown, but so aboundant of Grasse which
is not onelie rancke but also sweete, that the Cattell may in small parte of the daye
fyll themselves, and if they bee not kept from feedying, they burste with grazing over-
long.”

“Coeli ad maturanda semina iniqui, verum adeo luxuriosa herbis non laetis modo sed etiam
dulcibus!” We find this part amongst others translated into modern English by Mr.
Goldwin Smith, Professor of History formerly of Oxford and now in Cornell University,
America. He reports that it is difficult to gather in the harvest of wheat in a large
part of Ireland and continues:

“Its (Ireland’s) natural way to commercial prosperity seems to be to supply with the
produce of its grazing and dairy farms the population of England.”

[Goldwin Smith, Irish History and Irish Character, Oxford and London, 1861. — What is
more amazing in this work, which, under the mask of “objectivity,” justifies English
policy in Ireland, the ignorance of the professor of history, or the hypocrisy of the
liberal bourgeois? We shall touch on both again later.

From Mela to Goldwin Smith and up to the present day, how often has this assertion been
repeated — since 1846,[184] especially by a noisy chorus of Irish landowners — that
Ireland is condemned by her climate to provide not Irishmen with bread but Englishmen
with meat and butter, and that the destiny of the Irish people is, therefore, to be
brought over the ocean to make room in Ireland for cows and sheep!

It can be seen that to establish the facts on the Irish climate is to unravel a topical
political question. And indeed the climate only concerns us here insofar as it is
important for agriculture. Rain measurements, at their present incomplete stage of
observations, are only of secondary importance for our purpose; how much rain falls is
not so important as how and when it falls. Here agronomical judgements are most
important.

Arthur Young considers that Ireland is considerably damper than England; this is the
cause of the amazing grass-bearing qualities of the soil. He speaks of cases when
turnip- and stubble-land, left unploughed, produced a rich harvest of hay in the next
summer, a thing of which there is no example in England. He further mentions that the
Irish wheat is much lighter than that grown in drier lands; weeds and grass spring up in
abundance under even the best management, and the harvests are so wet and so troublesome
to bring in that revenue suffers greatly. (Young’s Tour, Vol. 2, p. 100)

At the same time, however, he points out that the soil in Ireland counteracts this
dampness of the climate. It is generally stony, and for this reason lets the water
through more easily.

“Harsh, tenacious, stoney, strong loams, difficult to work, are not uncommon (in
Ireland]; but they are quite different from English clays. If as much rain fell upon the
clays of England (a soil very rarely met with in Ireland, and never without much stone)
as falls upon the rocks of her sister-island, those lands could not be cultivated. But
the rocks here are cloathed with verdure; — those of limestone with only a thin covering
of mold, have the softest and most beautiful turf imaginable.” (Vol. 2, Part II, pp.
3-4.)

The limestone is known to be full of cracks and fissures which let the excess water through quickly.

Wakefield devotes to the climate a very comprehensive chapter in which he summarises all
the earlier observations up to his own time. Dr. Boate (Natural History of Ireland,
1645)[185] describes the winters as mild, with three or four periods of frost every
year, each of which usually lasts for only two or three days; the Liffey in Dublin
freezes over scarcely once in 10 to 12 years. March is usually dry and fine, but then
the weather becomes rainy; there are seldom more than two or three consecutive dry days
in summer; and in the late autumn it is fine again. Very dry summers are rare, and
dearth never occurs because of drought, but mostly because of too much rain. It seldom
snows on the plains, so cattle remain in the open all the year round. Yet years of heavy
snow do occur, as in 1635, when the people had difficulty in providing shelter for the
cattle. (Wakefield, Vol. 1, p. 216 and following.)

In the beginning of the last century, Dr. Rutty (Natural History of the County of
Dublin) made accurate meteorological observations which stretched over 50 years, from
1716 to 1765. During this whole period the proportion of south and west winds to north
and east winds was 73:37 (10,878 south and west against 6,329 north and east).
Prevailing winds were west and south-west, then came north-west and south-east, and most
rarely north-east and east. In summer, autumn and winter west and south-west prevail.
East is most frequent in spring and summer, when it occurs twice as frequently as in
autumn and winter; north-east is most frequent in spring when, likewise, it is twice as
frequent as in autumn and winter. As a result of this, the temperatures are more even,
the winters milder and the summers cooler than in London, while on the other hand the
air is damper. Even in summer, salt, sugar, flour, etc., soak dampness out of the air,
and corn must be kiln-dried, a practice unknown in some parts of England. (Wakefield,
Vol. I. pp. 172-81.)

Rutty could at that time only compare Irish climate with that in London, which, as in
all Eastern England, is drier, to be sure. If material on Western and especially North-
Western England had been at his disposal, he would have found that his description of
the Irish climate — distribution of winds over the year, wet summers, in which sugar,
salt, etc., are ruined in unheated rooms — fits this area completely, except that
Western England is colder in winter.

Rutty also kept data on the meteorological aspect of the seasons. In the fifty years
referred to, there were 16 cold, late or too dry springs: a little more than in London;
further, 22 hot and dry, 24 wet, and 4 changeable summers: a little damper than in
London, where the number of dry and wet summers is equal; further, 16 fine, 12 wet, 22
changeable autumns: again a little damper and more changeable than in London; and 13
frosty, 14 wet and 23 mild winters: which is considerably damper and milder than in
London.

According to measurements made in the Botanical Gardens in Dublin, the following total
amount of rain fell each month in the ten years between 1802 and 1811 (in inches):
December: 27.31; July: 24.15; November: 23.49; August: 22.47; September: 22.27; January:
21.67; October: 20.12; May: 19.50; March: 14.69; April: 13.54; February: 12.32; June:
12.07. Average for the year: 23.36 (Wakefield, Vol. I, p. 191). These ten years were
unusually dry. Kane (Industrial Resources, p. 73) gives an average of 30.87 inches for 6
years in Dublin and Symons (English Rainfall) puts it at 29.79 inches for 1860-62.
Because of the fleeting nature of local showers in Ireland, such measurements mean very
little unless they extend over many years and are undertaken at many stations. This is
proved among other things by the fact that, of the three stations measuring rainfall in
Dublin in 1862, the first recorded 24.63, the second 28.04, and the third 30.18 inches
as the average. The average amount of rainfall recorded by 12 stations in different
parts of Ireland in the years 1860-62, was not quite 39 inches according to Symons
(individual averages varied from 25.45 to 51.44 inches).

In his book about Ireland’s climate, Dr. Patterson says:

“The frequency of our showers, and not the amount of rainfall itself, has caused the
popular notion about the wetness of our climate.... Sometimes the spring sowing is a
little delayed because of wet weather, but our springs are so frequently cold and late
that early sowing is not always advisable. If frequent summer and autumn showers make
our hay and corn harvests risky, then vigilance and diligence would be just as
successful in such exigencies as they are for the English in their ‘catching’ harvests,
and improved cultivation would ensure that the seed-corn would aid the peasants’
efforts.” .” [Dr. W. Patterson, An Essay on the Climate of Ireland, Dublin, 1804]

In Londonderry the number of rain-free days each year between 1791 and 1802 varied from
113 to 148 — the average for the period was over 126. In Belfast the same average
emerged. In Dublin it varied from 168 to 205, average 179 (Patterson, ibid.).

According to Wakefield, Irish harvests fall as follows: wheat mostly in September, more
rarely in August, occasionally in October; barley usually a little later than wheat; and
oats approximately a week after barley, therefore usually in October. After considerable
research, Wakefield concluded that not nearly enough material existed for a scientific
description of the Irish climate, but nowhere does he state that it provides a serious
obstacle to the cultivation of corn. In fact he finds, as we shall see, that the losses
incurred during wet harvest times are due to entirely different causes, and states so
quite explicitly:

“The soil of Ireland is so fertile, and the climate so favourable, that under a proper
system of agriculture, it will produce not only a sufficiency of corn for its own use,
but a superabundance which may be ready at all times to relieve England when she may
stand in need of assistance.” (Vol. 2, p. 61.)

At that time, of course — 1812 — England was at war with the whole of Europe and
America,[186] and it was much more difficult to import corn — corn was the primary need.
Now America, Rumania, Russia and Germany deliver sufficient corn, and the question now
is rather one of cheap meat. And because of this Ireland’s climate is no longer suited
to tillage.

Ireland has grown corn since ancient times. In her oldest laws, recorded long before the
arrival of Englishmen, the “sack of wheat” is already a definite measurement of value.
Fixed quantities of wheat, malt-barley and oatmeal are quite regularly mentioned in the
tributes of inferiors to tribal and other chiefs [Ancient Laws and Institutes of Ireland
— Senchus Mor. Two volumes. Dublin, published in 1865 and 1869.[187] See Vol. 2. The
value of one sack of wheat was 1 screpall (denarius) or 20-24 grains of silver. The
value of the screpall is fixed by Dr. Petrie in Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland,
anterior to the Anglo-Norman Invasion, Dublin, 1845.]

After the English invasion, the cultivation of corn diminished because of the continual
battles, without ever ceasing completely; it increased between 1660 and 1725 and
decreased again from 1725 to about 1780; more corn as well as a greater quantity of
potatoes was again sown between 1780 and 1846, and since then they have both given way
to the steadily advancing cattle pastures. If Ireland were not suited to the cultivation
of corn, would it have been grown for over a thousand years?

Of course there are regions, in which because of the proximity of mountains the rainfall
is always greater, and which are less suited to wheat-growing — notably in the south and
west. Besides the good years, a series of wet summers will often occur there, as between
1860-62, which do great harm to the wheat. Wheat, however, is not Ireland’s principal
grain, and Wakefield even complains that too little of it is grown for lack of a market
— the only one being the nearest mill. For the most part, barley is grown only for the
secret distilleries (secret because of taxation). Ireland’s principal grain was and
still is oats. In 1810 no less than 10 times as much oats was grown as of all the other
sorts of corn put together. As oats are harvested after wheat and barley, the harvest is
usually in late September or October when the weather is usually fine, especially in the
south. And in any case, oats can take a considerable amount of rain.

We have already seen that Ireland’s climate, as far as the amount and distribution of
rain throughout the year is concerned, corresponds almost entirely with that of the
North-West of England. The rainfall is much greater in the mountains of Cumberland,
Westmorland, and North Lancashire (in Coniston 96.03, in Windermere 75.02 inches,
average in the years 1860-62), than in certain stations in Ireland known to me, and yet
hay is made and oats are grown there. In the same years the rainfall varied in South
Lancashire from 25.11 in Liverpool to 59.13 in Bolton, the average being about 40
inches; in Cheshire it varied from 33.02 to 43.40 inches, the average being
approximately 37 inches. In Ireland, as we saw, it was not quite 39 inches in the same
years. (All figures from Symons.) In both counties corn of all kinds, and in particular
wheat, is cultivated; Cheshire carried on mainly cattle-rearing and dairy farming until
the last epidemic of cattle-plague, but since most of the cattle perished the climate
suddenly became quite admirably suited for wheat-growing. If there had been an epidemic
of cattle-plague in Ireland causing devastation similar to that in Cheshire, instead of
preaching that Ireland’s natural occupation is cattle-raising, they would point to the
place in Wakefield which says that Ireland is destined to be England’s granary.

If one looks at the matter impartially and without being misled by the cries of the
interested parties, the Irish landowners and the English bourgeois, one finds that
Ireland, like all other places, has some parts which because of soil and climate are
more suited to cattle-rearing, and others to tillage, and still others — the vast
majority — which are suited to both. Compared with England, Ireland is more suited to
cattle-rearing on the whole; but if England is compared with France, she too is more
suited to cattle-rearing. Are we to conclude that the whole of England should be
transformed into cattle pastures, and the whole agricultural population be sent into the
factory towns or to America — except for a few herdsmen — to make room for cattle, which
are to be exported to France in exchange for silk and wine? But that is exactly what the
Irish landowners who want to put up their rents and the English bourgeoisie who want to
decrease wages demand for Ireland: Goldwin Smith has said so plainly enough. And yet the
social revolution inherent in this transformation from tillage to cattle-rearing would
be far greater in Ireland than in England. In England, where large-scale agriculture
prevails and where agricultural labourers have already been replaced by machinery to a
large extent, it would mean the transplantation of at most one million; in Ireland,
where small and even cottage-farming prevails, it would mean the transplantation of four
million: the extermination of the Irish people.

It can be seen that even the facts of nature become points of national controversy
between England and Ireland. It can also be seen, however, how the public opinion of the
ruling class in England — and it is only this that is generally known on the Continent —
changes with the fashion and in its own interests. Today England needs grain quickly and
dependably — Ireland is just perfect for wheat-growing. Tomorrow England needs meat —
Ireland is only fit for cattle pastures. The existence of five million Irish is in
itself a smack in the eye to all the laws of political economy, they have to get out but
whereto is their worry!

Notes

The draft shows that Engels’s work was to consist of four long chapters, the last two
being subdivided into sections. Engels actually succeeded in finishing only the first
chapter — “Natural Conditions.” The second chapter — “Ancient Ireland” — is unfinished.
The manuscript breaks off where Engels intended to throw light on the social structure
of Irish society before the invasion of the English conquerors in the second half of the
12th century. Engels did not begin writing the last two chapters, which were to describe
the development of the country up to the events of his own day, although he had compiled
most of the material for them. In his letter to Sigismund Borkheim in 1872, Engels
mentioned that the Franco-Prussian war, the Paris Commune, the clash with the
Bakuninists in the International, etc., interrupted his work. Engels used the results of
his research in his theoretical works, including The Origin of the Family, Private
Property and the State, and in his letters to various correspondents. The fragment
History of Ireland and some preparatory material Engels collected for this work were

179. Engels is referring to the formation of a centralised feudal state in England after
her conquest in 1066 by William, Duke of Normandy. The reforms carried out in the 12th
century by Henry II Plantagenet were particularly instrumental in strengthening the
King’s power. One of the objects of the English monarchy’s aggressive designs was
Ireland, a country at an earlier stage of social and political development than England,
and still in a state of feudal decentralisation. Between 1169 and 1171 part of the
island was conquered by the Anglo-Norman barons, who founded a colony there known as the
Pale.

180. A reference to County Laoighis (Leix) in Central Ireland, which, in 1557, following
the confiscation by the Tudors of the lands of local tribal communities (the clans), was
renamed Queen’s County in honour of Mary Tudor, the English Queen. The neighbouring
Offaley County, the population of which had also fallen victim to the expropriation
policy of the English colonial authorities, was renamed King’s County in honour of
Mary’s husband, Philip II of Spain.

181. In modern terms — deposits of the Mesozoic and Cainozoic periods.

182. A. Stieler, Handatlas, Gotha, 1868.

183. A reference to the period of cruel reprisals against the Irish population and their
wholesale expropriation, which began soon after the suppression of the Irish national
liberation uprising of 1641-52 by the troops of the English bourgeois republic.
According to the Acts of the English Parliament of 1652 and 1653, some of the Irish
landowners, who were declared guilty of revolt, were to be forcibly moved to the barren
province of Connaught and the swampy southern County of Clare. Resettlement was carried
out under pain of execution.

On the eve of the 1798 Irish uprising, Connaught, and to an even greater extent the
bordering counties of the province of Ulster in the north, became the scene of
widespread terrorism by the English mercenaries and Protestant gangs hired by the
landlords from among their menials (Ancient Britts, Orangemen, etc.), against the local
Catholic population and its self-defence units. Under the pretext of confiscating arms
from the population and billeting, soldiers and the Orangemen committed all kinds of
outrages, torturing and murdering Irish people who fell into their hands and burning
down their homes. Many Catholic peasants were evicted from Ulster after receiving
threatening notes reading: “Go to the devil or Connaught.”

184. A reference to the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, leading to the inflow of cheap
corn to England and creating conditions which from the point of view of the landlords
and bourgeoisie favoured the development of stock-breeding in Ireland.

Corn Laws — the high import tariffs on corn, aimed at limiting or prohibiting the import
of corn to England — were introduced in 1815 in the interests of the big landlords. The
struggle over the Corn Laws between the industrial bourgeoisie and the landed
aristocracy ended in 1846 with the passing by the Peel Government of a Repeal Bill. This
was a heavy blow to the landed aristocracy and promoted the development of capitalism in
England.

185. G. Boate, Ireland’s Natural History, London, 1652. Engels, like Wakefield, gives an earlier date of publication.

186. The reference is to England’s participation in the war against Napoleonic France
and the European countries depending on her (in 1812 England fought Napoleon in alliance
with Russia, Spain and Portugal), and to the Anglo-American war which broke out in the
same year because the English ruling classes had refused to recognise the sovereignty of
the U.S.A. and attempted to re-establish colonial rule there. The war was won by the
United States in 1814.

187. The third volume of this publication, comprising the conclusion of the collection
Senchus Mor (The Great Book of Old), appeared in 1873, after Engels had written the
passage in this book. Senchus Mor is one of the most detailed written records of the
laws of the Brehons, the guardians of and commentators on laws and customs in Celtic
Ireland.

Ancient Ireland

The writers of ancient Greece and Rome, and also the fathers of the Church, give very little information about Ireland.

Instead there still exists an abundant native literature, in spite of the many Irish
manuscripts lost in the wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It includes
poems, grammars, glossaries, annals and other historical writings and law-books. With
very few exceptions, however, this whole literature, which embraces the period at least
from the eighth to the seventeenth centuries, exists only in manuscript. For the Irish
language printing has existed only for a few years only from the time when the language
began to die out. Of this rich material, therefore, only a small part is available.

Amongst the most important of these annals are those of Abbot Tigernach (died 1088),
those of Ulster, and above all, those of the Four Masters. These last were collected in
1632-36 in a monastery in Donegal under the direction of Michael O'Clery, a Franciscan
monk, who was helped by three other Seanchaidhes (antiquarians), from materials which
now are almost all lost. They were published in 1856 from the original Donegal
manuscript which still exists, having been edited and provided with an English
translation by O'Donovan.

Annala Rioghachta Eireann. Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters. Edited,
with an English Translation, by Dr. Jolin O'Donovan. Second edition, Dublin, 1856, 7
volumes in 4°

The earlier editions by Dr. Charles O'Conor (the first part of the Four Masters, and the
Annals of Ulster) are untrustworthy in text and translation.[188]

The beginning of most of these annals presents the mythical prehistory of Ireland. Its
base was formed by old folk legends, which were spun out endlessly by poets in the 9th
and 10th centuries and were then brought into suitable chronological order by the monk-
chroniclers. The Annals of the Four Masters begins with the year of the world 2242, when
Caesair, a granddaughter of Noah, landed in Ireland forty days before the Flood; other
annals have the ancestors of the Scots, the last immigrants to Ireland, descend in
direct line from Japheth and bring them into connection with Moses, the Egyptians and
the Phoenicians, as the German chroniclers of the Middle Ages connected the ancestors of
the Germans with Troy, Aeneas or Alexander the Great. The Four Masters devote only a few
pages to this legend (in which the only valuable element, the original folk-legend, is
not distinguishable even now); the Annals of Ulster leave it out altogether; and
Tigernach, with a critical boldness wonderful for his time, explains that all the
written records of the Scots before King Cimbaoth (approximately 300 B.C.) are
uncertain. But when new national life awoke in Ireland at the end of the last century,
and with it new interest in Irish literature and history, just these monks’ legends were
counted to be their most valuable constituent. With true Celtic enthusiasm and
specifically Irish naivete, belief in these stories was declared an intrinsic part of
national patriotism, and this offered the supercunning world of English scholarship —
whose own efforts in the field of philological and historical criticism are gloriously
enough well known to the rest of the world — the desired pretext for throwing everything
Irish aside as arrant nonsense.

One of the most naive products of that time is The Chronicles of Eri, being the History
of the Gaal Sciot Iber, or the Irish People, translated from the original manuscripts in
the Phoenician dialect of the Scythian language by O'Connor, London, 1822, 2 volumes.
The Phoenician dialect of the Scythian language is naturally Celtic Irish, and the
original manuscript is a verse chronicle chosen at will. The publisher is Arthur
O'Connor, exile of 1798,[189] uncle of Feargus O'Connor who was later leader of the
English Chartists, an ostensible descendant of the ancient O'Connors, Kings of
Connaught, and, after a fashion, the Irish Pretender to the throne. His portrait appears
in front of the title, a man with a handsome, jovial Irish face, strikingly resembling
his nephew Feargus, grasping a crown with his right hand. Underneath is the caption:
“O'Connor — cear-rige, head of his race, and O'Connor, chief of the prostrate people of
his nation: ‘Soumis, pas vaincus’ (subdued, not conquered).”

Since the thirties of this century a far more critical spirit has come into being in
Ireland, especially through Petrie and O'Donovan. Petrie’s already-mentioned researches
prove that the most complete agreement exists between the oldest surviving inscriptions,
which date from the 6th and 7th centuries, and the annals, and O'Donovan is of the
opinion that these begin to report historical facts as early as the second and third
centuries of our era. It makes little difference to us whether the credibility of the
annals begins several hundred years earlier or later since, unfortunately, during that
period they are almost wholly fruitless for our purpose. They contain short, dry notices
of deaths, accessions to the throne, wars, battles, earthquakes, plagues, Scandinavian
raiding expeditions, but little that has reference to the social life of the people. If
the whole juridical literature of Ireland were published, the annals would acquire a
completely different meaning; many a dry notice would obtain new life through
explanations found in the law-books.

Almost all of these law-books, which are very numerous, still await the time when they
will see the light of day. On the insistence of several Irish antiquarians, the English
Government agreed in 1852 to appoint a commission for publishing the ancient laws and
institutions of Ireland. But the commission consisted of three lords (who are never far
away when there is state money to be spent), three lawyers of the highest rank, three
Protestant clergymen, and Dr. Petrie and an official who is the chief surveyor in
Ireland. Of these gentlemen only Dr. Petrie and two clergymen, Dr. Graves (now
Protestant Bishop of Limerick) and Dr. Todd, could claim to understand anything at all
about the tasks of the commission, and of these three Petrie and Todd have since died.
The commission was instructed to arrange the transcription, translation and publication
of the legal content of the ancient Irish manuscripts, and to employ the necessary ,
people for that purpose. It employed the two best people that were to be had, Dr.
O'Donovan and Professor O'Curry, who copied, and made a rough translation of, a large
number of manuscripts; both died, however, before anything was ready for publication.
Their successors, Dr. Hancock and Professor O'Mahony, then took up the work, so that up
to the present the two volumes already cited, containing the Senchus Mor, have appeared.
According to the publishers’ acknowledgment only two of the members of the commission,
Graves and Todd, have taken part in the work, through some annotations to the proofs.
Sir Th. Larcom, a member of the commission, placed the original maps of the survey of
Ireland at the disposal of the publishers for the verification of place names. Dr.
Petrie soon died, and the other gentlemen confined their activities to drawing their
salaries conscientiously for 18 years.

That is how public works are carried out in England, and even more so in English-ruled Ireland. Without jobbery, they cannot begin.

Jobbery: the using of public office to one’s private advantage or to that of relations
and friends, and likewise the using of public money for indirect bribery in the
interests of a party, is called jobbery in England. An individual transaction is called
a job. The English colony in Ireland is the main centre of jobbery.

No public interest may be satisfied without a pretty sum or some fat sinecures being
siphoned off for lords and government proteges. With the money that the wholly
superfluous commission has wasted the entire unpublished historical literature could
have been published in Germany — and better.

The Senchus Mor has until now been our main source for information about conditions in
ancient Ireland. It is a collection of ancient legal decisions which, according to the
later composed introduction, was compiled on the orders of St. Patrick, and with his
assistance brought into harmony with Christianity, rapidly spreading in Ireland. The
High King of Ireland, Laeghaire (428-458, according to the Annals of the Four Masters),
the Vice-Kings, Corc of Munster and Daire, probably a prince of Ulster, and also three
bishops: St. Patrick, St. Benignus and St. Cairnech, and three lawyers: Dubthach, Fergus
and Rossa, are supposed to have formed the “commission” which compiled the book — and
there is no doubt that they did their work more cheaply than the present commission, who
only had to publish it. The Four Masters give 438 as the year in which the book was
written.

The text itself is evidently based on very ancient heathen materials. The oldest legal
formulas in it are written in verse with a precise metre and the so-called consonance, a
kind of alliteration or rather consonant-assonance, which is peculiar to Irish poetry
and frequently goes over to full rhyme. As it is certain that old Irish law-books were
translated in the fourteenth century from the so-called Fenian dialect (Berla Feini),
the language of the fifth century, into the then current Irish (Introduction (Vol. I),
p. xxxvi and following) it emerges that in the Senchus Mor too the metre has been more
or less smoothed out in places; but it appears often enough along with occasional rhymes
and marked consonance to give the text a definite rhythmical cadence. It is generally
sufficient to read the translation in order to find out the verse forms. But then there
are also throughout it, especially in the latter half, numerous pieces of undoubted
prose; and, whereas the verse is certainly very ancient and has been handed down by
tradition, these prose insertions seem to originate with the compilers of the book. At
any rate, the Senchus Mor is quoted frequently in the glossary composed in the ninth or
tenth century, and attributed to the King and Bishop of Cashel, Cormac, and it was
certainly written long before the English invasion.

All the manuscripts (the oldest of which appears to date from the beginning of the 14th
century or earlier) contain a series of mostly concordant annotations and longer
commenting notes on this text. The annotations are in the spirit of old glossaries;
quibbles take the place of etymology and the explanation of words, and comments are of
varying quality, being often badly distorted or largely incomprehensible, at least
without knowledge of the rest of the law-books. The age of the annotations and comments
is uncertain. Most of them, however, probably date from after the English invasion. As
at the same time they show only a very few traces of developments in the law outside the
text itself, and these are only a more precise establishment of details, the greater
part, which is purely explanatory, can certainly also be used with some discretion as a
source concerning earlier times.

The Senchus Mor contains:

1. The law of distraint [Pfändungsrecht], that is to say, almost the whole judicial procedure;

2. The law of hostages, which during disputes were put up by people of different territories;

3. The law of Saerrath and Daerrath (see below)[190]; and

4. The law of the family.

From this we obtain much valuable information on the social life of that time, but, as
long as many of the expressions are unexplained and the rest of the manuscripts is not
published, much remains dark.

In addition to literature, the surviving architectural monuments, churches, round
towers, fortifications and inscriptions also enlighten us about the condition of the
people before the arrival of the English.

From foreign sources we need only mention a few passages about Ireland in the
Scandinavian sagas and the life of St. Malachy by St. Bernard,[191] which are not
fruitful sources, and then come immediately to the first Englishman to write about
Ireland from his own experience.

Sylvester Gerald Barry, known as Giraldus Cambrensis, Archdeacon of Brecknock, was a
grandchild of the amorous Nesta, daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr, Prince of South Wales, and
mistress of Henry I of England and the ancestor of almost all the Norman leaders who
took part in the first conquest of Ireland. In 1185 he went with John (later “Lackland”)
to Ireland and in the following years wrote, first, the Topographia Hibernica, a
description of the land and the inhabitants, and then the Hibernia Expugnata, a highly-
coloured history of the first invasion. It is mainly the first work which concerns us
here. Written in highly pretentious Latin and filled with the wildest belief in miracles
and with all the church and national prejudices of the time and the race of its vain
author, the book is nevertheless of great importance as the first at all detailed report
by a foreigner.

Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. J. S, Brewer, London, Longmans, 1863.[192] — A (weak)
English translation of the historical works including the two works already mentioned
was published in London by Bohn in 1863 (The Historical Works of Giraldus Cambrensis).

From here on, Anglo-Norman sources about Ireland naturally become more abundant;
however, little knowledge is gained about the social circumstances of the part of the
island that remained independent, and it is from this that conclusions regarding ancient
conditions could be drawn. It is only towards the end of the 16th century, when Ireland
as a whole was first systematically subjugated, that we find more detailed reports about
the actual living conditions of the Irish people, and these naturally contain a strong
English bias. We shall find later that, in the course. of the 400 years which elapsed
since the first invasion, the condition of the people changed little, and not for the
better. But, precisely because of this, these newer writings — Hanmer, Campion, Spenser,
Davies, Camden, Moryson and others[193] — which we shall have to consult frequently, are
one of our main sources of information on a period 500 years earlier, and a welcome and
indispensable supplement to the poor original sources.

* * *

The mythical prehistory of Ireland tells of a series of immigrations which took place
one after the other and mostly ended with the subduing of the island by the new
immigrants. The three last ones are: that of the Firbolgs, that of the Tuatha-de-
Dananns, and that of the Milesians or Scots, the last supposed to have come from Spain.
Popular writing of history changed Firbolgs (fir — Irish fear, Latin vir, Gothic vair —
man) into Belgian without further ado; the Tuatha-de-Dananns (tuatha — Irish people,
tract of land, Gothic thiuda) into Greek Danai or German Danes as they felt the need.
O'Donovan is of the opinion that something historical lies at the basis of at least the
immigrations named above. According to the annals there occurred in the year 10 A.D. an
insurrection of the aitheach tuatha (which Lynch, who is a good judge of the old
language, translated in the seventeenth century as: plebeiorum hominum gens), that is, a
plebeian revolution, in which the whole of the nobility (saorchlann) was slain. This
points to the dominion of Scottish conquerors over the older inhabitants. O'Donovan
draws the conclusion from the folk-tales that the Tuatha-de-Dananns, who were later
transformed in folk-lore into elves of the mountain forest, survived up to the 2nd or
3rd century of our era in isolated mountain areas.

There is no doubt that the Irish were a mixed people even before large numbers of
English settled among them. As early as the twelfth century, the predominant type was
fair-haired as it still is. Giraldus (Top. Hib. III, 26) says of two strangers, that
they had long yellow hair like the Irish. But there are also even now, especially in the
west, two quite different types of black-haired people. The one is tall and well-built
with fine facial features and curly hair, people whom one thinks that one has already
met in the Italian Alps or Lombardy; this type occurs most frequently in the south-west.
The other, thickset and short in build, with coarse, lank, black hair and flattened,
almost negroid faces, is more frequent in Connaught. Huxley attributes this darkhaired
element in the originally light-haired Celtic population to an Iberian (that is, Basque)
admixture,[194] which would be correct in part at least. However, at the time when the
Irish come clearly into the light of history, they have become a homogeneous people with
Celtic speech and we do not find anywhere any other foreign elements, apart from the
slaves acquired by conquest or barter, who were mostly Anglo-Saxons.

The reports of the classical writers of antiquity about that people do not sound very
flattering. Diodorus recounts that those Britons who inhabit the island called Iris (or
Irin? it is in the accusative, Irin) eat people.[195] Strabo gives a more detailed
report:

“Concerning this island [Jerne] I have nothing certain to tell, except that its
inhabitants are more savage than the Britons, since they are man-eaters as well as heavy
eaters [poluyagoi; according to another manner of reading pohyagoi — herbivorous], and
since, further, they count it an honourable thing, when their fathers die, to devour
them, and openly to have intercourse, not only with the other women, but also with their
mothers and sisters."[196]

The patriotic Irish historians have been more than a little indignant over this alleged
calumny. It was reserved to more recent investigation to prove that cannibalism, and
especially the devouring of parents, was a stage in the development of probably all
nations. Perhaps it will be a consolation to the Irish to know that the ancestors of the
present Berliners were still honouring this custom a full thousand years later:

“Aber Weletabi, die in Germania sizzent, tie wir Wilze heizên, die ne scament A nieht ze
chedenne daz — sie iro parentes mit mêren rehte ezen sulîn, danne die wurme.” ["But the
Weletabi who reside in Germany, which we call Wilze, who are not ashamed to say that
they have a greater right to eat their parents than the worms have."] (Notker, quoted in
Jacob Grimm’s Rechtsaltertümer, p. 488.)

And we shall see the consuming of human flesh reoccur more than once under English rule.
As far as the phanerogamy (to use an expression of Fourier’s[197]), which the Irish are
reproached with, is concerned: such things occurred amongst all the barbarous peoples,
and much more amongst the quite unusually gallant Celts. It is interesting to note that
even then the island carried the present native name: Iris, Irin and Jerne are identical
with Eire and Erinn; and how even Ptolemy already knew the present name of the capital,
Dublin, Eblana (with the right accent Eblana).[198] This is all the more noteworthy
since the Irish Celts have since ancient times given this city another name, Athcliath,
and for them Duibhlinn — the black pool — is the name of a place on the River Liffey.

Moreover we also find the following passage in Pliny’s Historiae Naturalis, IV, 16:

“The Britons travel there” (to Hibernia) “in boats of willow. branches across which animal-skins have been sewn together.”

And later Solinus says of the Irish:

“They cross the sea between Hibernia and Britannia in boats of willow-branches, which
they overlay with a cover of cattle-hide.” (C. Jul. Solini, Cosmographia, Ch. 25.)

In the year 1810, Wakefield found that on the whole west coast of Ireland “no other
boats occurred except ones which consisted of a wooden frame covered over with a horse-
or ox-hide.” The shape of these boats varies according to the district, but they are all
distinguished by their extraordinary lightness, so that mishaps rarely occur on them.
Naturally they are of no use on the open sea, for which reason fishing can only take
place in the creeks and amongst the islands. Wakefield saw these boats in Malbay, County
Clare. They were 15 feet long, 5 feet wide and 2 feet deep. Two cowhides with the hair
on the inside and tarred on the outside were used for one of these, and they were
arranged for two rowers. Such a boat cost about 30 shillings. (Wakefield, Vol. 2, p.
97.) Instead of woven willows — a wooden frame! What an advance in 1,800 years and after
nearly 700 years of the “civilising” influence of the foremost maritime nation in the
world!

As for the rest, several signs of progress can be seen. Under King Cormac Ulfadha, who
was placed on the throne in the second half of the third century, his son-in-law, Finn
McCumhal, is said to have reorganised the Irish militia — the Fianna Eirionn [Feini,
Fenier, is the name given to the Irish nation throughout the Senchus Mor. Feinechus,
Fenchus, Law of the Fenians, often stands for the Senchus or for another lost law-book.
Feine, grad feine also designates the plebs, the lowest free class of people] — probably
on the lines of the Roman legion with differentiation between light troops and troops of
the line; all the later Irish armies on which we have detailed information have the
following categories of troops: the kerne — light troops — and the galloglas — heavy
troops or troops of the line. Finn’s heroic deeds are celebrated in many old songs, some
of which still exist; these and perhaps a few Scottish-Gaelic traditions form the basis
of Macpherson’s Ossian (Irish Oisin, son of Finn), in which Finn appears as Fingal and
the scene is transferred to Scotland.[199] In Irish folk-lore Finn lives on as Finn Mac-
Caul, a giant, to whom some wonderful feat of strength is ascribed in almost every
locality of the island.

Christianity must have penetrated Ireland quite early, at least the east coast of it.
Otherwise the fact that so many Irishmen played an important part in Church-history even
long before Patrick cannot be explained. Pelagius the Heretic is usually taken to be a
Welsh monk from Bangor; but there was also an ancient Irish monastery, Bangor, or rather
Banchor at Carrickfergus. That he comes from the Irish monastery is proved by
Hieronymus, who describes him as being “stupid and heavy with Scottish gruel” (“scotorum
pultibus praegravatus”).[200] This is the first mention of Irish oatmeal gruel (Irish
lite, Anglo-Irish stirabout), which even then, before the introduction of potatoes, was
the staple food of the Irish people and after that continued to be so alongside with the
latter. Pelagius’s chief followers were Celest us and Albinus, also Scots, that is,
Irishmen. According to Gennadius,[201] Celestius wrote three detailed letters to his
parents from the monastery, and from them it can be seen that alphabetical writing was
known in Ireland in the fourth century.

The Irish people are called Scots and the land Scotia in all the writings of the early
Middle Ages; we find this term used by Claudianus, Isidorus, Beda, the geographer of
Ravenna, Eginhard and even by Alfred the Great: “Hibernia, which we call Scotland”
(“Hibernia the ve Scotland hatadh”).[202] The present Scotland was called Caledonia by
foreigners and Alba, Albania by the inhabitants; the transfer of the name Scotia,
Scotland, to the northern area of the eastern isle did not occur until the eleventh
century. The first substantial emigration of Irish Scots to Alba is taken to have been
in the middle of the third century; Ammianus Marcellinus already knows them there in the
year 360.[203] The emigrants used the shortest sea-route, from Antrim to the peninsula
of Kintyre; Nennius explicitly says that the Britons, who then occupied all the Scottish
lowlands up to the Clyde and Forth, were attacked by the Scots from the west, by the
Picts from the north.[204] Further, the seventh of the ancient Welsh historical
Triads[205] reports that the gwyddyl ffichti (see below) came to Alba over the Norse Sea
(Mor Llychlin) and settled on the coast. Incidentally, the fact that the sea between
Scotland and the Hebrides is called the Norse Sea shows that this ‘Triad was written
after the Norse conquest of the Hebrides. Large numbers of Scots came over again at
about the year 500, and they gradually formed a kingdom, independent of both Ireland and
the Picts. They finally subdued the Picts in the ninth century under Kenneth MacAlpin
and created the state to which the name Scotland, Scotia was transferred, probably first
by the Norsemen about 150 years later.

Invasions of Wales by the gwyddyl ffichti or Gaelic Picts are mentioned in ancient Welsh
sources (Nennius, the Triads) of the fifth and sixth centuries. These are generally
accepted as being invasions of Irish Scots. Gwyddyl is the Welsh form of gavidheal, as
the Irish call themselves. The origin of the term Picts can be investigated by someone
else.

Patricius (Irish Patrick, Patraic, as the Celts always pronounce their c as k in the
Ancient Roman way) brought Christianity to dominance in the second quarter of the fifth
century without any violent convulsions. Trade with Britain, which had been of long
standing, also became livelier at this time; architects and building workers came over
and the Irish learned from them to build with mortar, while up to then they had only
known dry-stone building. As mortar building occurs between the seventh and twelfth
centuries, and then only in church buildings, that is proof enough that its introduction
is connected with that of Christianity, and further, that from then on the clergy, as
the representative of foreign culture, severed itself completely from the people in its
intellectual development. Whilst the people made no, or only extremely slow, social
advances, there soon developed amongst the clergy a literary learning which was
extraordinary for the time and which, in accordance with the custom then, manifested
itself mostly in zeal for converting heathens and founding monasteries. Columba
converted the British Scots and the Picts; Gallus (founder of St. Gallen) and Fridolin
the Allemanni, Kilian the Franks on the Main, Virgilius the city of Salzburg. All five
were Irish. The Anglo-Saxons were also converted to Christianity mainly by Irish
missionaries. Furthermore, Ireland was known throughout Europe as a nursery of learning,
so much so that Charlemagne summoned an Irish monk, Albinus, to teach at Pavia, where
another Irishman, Dungal, followed him later. The most important of the many Irish
scholars, who were famous at that time but are now mostly forgotten, was the “Father,”
or as Erdmann calls him, the “Carolus Magnus” [Charles the Great] of philosophy in the
Middle Ages-Johannes Scotus Erigena. Hegel says of him, “Real philosophy began first
with him."[206] He alone understood Greek in Western Europe in the ninth century, and by
his translation of the writings attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, he restored the
link with the last branch of the old philosophy, the Alexandrian Neoplatonic
school.[207] His teaching was very bold for the time. He denied the “eternity of
damnation,” even for the devil, and brushed close to Pantheism. Contemporary orthodoxy,
therefore, did not fail to slander him. It took a full two hundred years before the
branch of learning founded by Erigena was developed by Anselm of Canterbury.

More about Erigena’s doctrine and works is to be found in Erdmann’s Grundriss der
Geschichte der Philosophie, 2. Aufl., Berlin, 1869, Bd. 1, S. 241-47. Erigena, who was
not a clergyman, shows real Irish wit. When Charles the Bald, King of France, who was
sitting opposite him at table, asked him the difference between a Scot and a sot,
Erigena answered: “The width of a table.”

Before this development of culture could have an effect on the people, it was
interrupted by the raids of the Norsemen. The raids, which form the main staple product
of Scandinavian, and particularly Danish, patriotism, occurred too late, and the nations
from which they originated were too small for them to result in conquest, colonisation,
and the forming of states on a large scale as had been the case with the earlier
invasions of the Germans. Their advantage which they bequeathed on historical
development is infinitesimal in comparison with the immense and fruitless (even for the
Scandinavians themselves) disturbances they caused.

Ireland was far from being inhabited by a single nation at the end of the eighth
century. Supreme royal power over the whole island existed only in appearance, and by no
means always at that. The provincial kings, whose number and territories were
continually changing, fought amongst themselves, and the smaller territorial princes
likewise carried on their private feuds. On the whole, however, these internal wars seem
to have been governed by certain customs which held the ravages within definite limits,
so that the country did not suffer too much. But this was not to last. In 795, a few
years after the English had been first raided by the same plundering nation, Norsemen
landed on the Isle of Rathlin, off the coast of Antrim, and burnt everything down; in
798, they landed near Dublin, and after this they are mentioned nearly every year in the
annals as heathens, foreigners, pirates, and never without additional reports of the
losccadh (burning down) of one or more places. Their colonies on the Orkneys, Shetlands
and Hebrides (Southern Isles, Sudhreyjar in the old Norse sagas) served them as
operational bases against Ireland, and against what was later known as Scotland, and
against England. In the middle of the ninth century, they were in possession of Dublin,
[the assertion of Snorri in the Haraldsaga,[208] that Harald Harfagr’s sons, Thorgils
and Frodi, were the first of the Norsemen to occupy Dublin — that is, at least 50 years
later than stated — is in direct contradiction with all Irish accounts which are
unimpeachable for this period. Evidently Snorri is confusing Harald Harfagr’s son
Thorgils with the Thorgils (Turgesius) mentioned later] which, according to Giraldus,
they rebuilt for the first time into a proper city. He also attributes the building of
Limerick and Waterford to them. The name Waterford is only a nonsensical anglicisation
of the ancient Norse Vedhrafiördhr, which means either storm-bay [Welterföhrde] or ram-
bay [Widderbucht]. Naturally, as soon as the Norsemen settled down in the land, their
prime necessity was to have fortified harbour-towns. The population of these long
remained Scandinavian, but in the twelfth century it had long since assimilated Irish
speech and customs. The quarrelling of the Irish princes amongst themselves greatly
simplified pillage and settlement for the Norsemen, and even the temporary conquest of
the whole island. The extent to which the Scandinavians considered Ireland as one of
their regular pillage grounds is shown by the so-called death-song of Ragnar Lodbrôk,
the Krâkumâl, composed about the year 1000 in the snaketower of King Ella of
Northumberland.[209] In this song all the ancient pagan savagery is massed together, as
if for the last time, and under the pretext of celebrating King Ragnar’s heroic deeds in
song, all the Nordic peoples’ raids in their own lands, on coasts from Dunamunde to
Flanders, Scotland (here already called Skotland, perhaps for the first time) and
Ireland are briefly pictured. About Ireland is said:

“We hew’d with our swords, heap'd high the slain,

Glad was the wolf’s brother of the furious battle’s feast;

Iron struck brass-shields; Ireland’s ruler, Marsteinn,

Did not starve the murder-wolf or eagle;

In Vedhrafiördhr the raven was given a sacrifice.

We hew'd with our swords, started a game at dawn,

A merry battle against three kings at Lindiseyri;

Not many could boast that they fled unhurt from there.

Falcon fought wolf for flesh, the wolf’s fury, devoured many;

The blood of the Irish flow'd in streams on the beach in the battle.”

“Hiuggu ver medh hiörvi, hverr lâthverr of annan;

gladhr, vardh gera brödhir getu vidh sôknar laeti,

lêt ei örn nê ylgi, sâ er Îrlandi styrdhi,

(môt vardh mâlms ok rîtar) Marsteinn konungr fasta;

vardh î Vedhra firdhi valtafn gefit hrafni.

Hiuggu ver medh hiörvi, hadhum sudhr at morni

leik fyrir Lindiseyri vidh lofdhûnga threnna;

fârr âtti thvî fagna (fêll margr î gyn ûlfi,

haukr sleit hold medh vargi), at hann heill thadhan kaemi;

Yra blôdh î oegi aerit fêll um skaeru.”

Vedhrafiordlir is, as we have said, Waterford; I do not know whether Lindiseyri has been
discovered anywhere. On no account does it mean Leinster as Johnstone translates
it[210]; eyri (sandy neck of land, Danish öre) points to a quite distinct locality.
Valtafn can also mean falcon feed and is generally translated as such here, but as the
raven is Odin’s holy bird, the word obviously has both meanings.

By the first half of the ninth century, a Norse Viking Thorgils, called Turgesius by the
Irish, had succeeded in submitting all Ireland to his rule. But, with fits death in 844,
his kingdom fell apart, and the Norsemen were driven out. The invasions and battles
continued with varying success. Finally, at the beginning of the eleventh century,
Ireland’s national hero, Brian Borumha, originally King of only a part of Munster,
gained the kingship of all Ireland and gave the decisive battle to the concentrated
force of the invading Norsemen on the 23rd April (Good Friday), 1014, at Clontarf, close
to Dublin, as a result of which the power of the invaders was broken forever.

The Norsemen who had settled in Ireland, and on whom Leinster was dependent (the King of
Leinster, Maolmordha, had come to the throne in 999 with their help and was maintained
there by it), had sent messengers to the Hebrides, the Orkneys, Denmark and Norway
asking for reinforcements, in anticipation of the impending decisive battle. Help came
to them in large numbers. The Niâlssaga[211] recounts how Jarl Sigurd Laudrisson armed
himself for the departure on the Orkneys, and how Thorstein Siduhallsson, Hrafn the Red
and Erlinger of Straumey went with him, and how he arrived in Dublin (Durflin) with all
his army on Palm Sunday.

“Brodhir had already arrived with his whole force. Brodhir tried to learn by means of
sorcery how the battle would turn out, and the answer was this: if the battle was fought
on a Friday, King Brian would win the victory but die; and that if it was fought before
that time, then all who were against him would fall. Then Brodhir said that they should
not fight before Friday.”

There are two versions of the battle itself, that of the Irish annals and the Scandinavian one of the Nialssaga. According to the latter:

“King Brian had come up to the fortified town” (Dublin) “with his entire army, and on
Friday the army” (of the Norsemen) “issued from the town. Both hosts arranged themselves
in battle array. Brodhir headed one wing, King Sigtrygg” (King of the Dublin Norsemen
according to the Annals of Inisfallen) “the other. We must say that King Brian did not
wish to give battle on Good Friday; therefore a shield-burg was set about him and his
army stationed in front of that. Ulf Hraeda headed the wing facing Brodhir, and Ospak
and his sons headed the wing facing Sigtrygg, but Kerthialfadh stood in the middle and
had the flag carried before him.”

When the battle began Brodhir was driven into a wood by Ulf Hraeda where he found
safety. Jarl Sigurd had a hard struggle against Kerthialfadh, who fought his way to the
flag and slew the flag-bearer as well as the next man who seized the flag; then all
refused to carry the flag and Jarl Sigurd took the flag from the staff and hid it in his
clothing. Soon after he was pierced by a spear, and with this his part of the army
appears to have been defeated. Meanwhile Ospak attacked the Norsemen in the rear and
defeated Sigtrygg’s wing after a hard fought battle.

“Thereupon the entire host took to flight. Thorstein Hallson stopped while the others
were fleeing and tied his shoe thong. Then Kerthialfadh asked him why lie was not
running too.

“ ‘Because I can’t get home this evening anyway,’ said Thorstein, as I live out in Iceland!’ Kerthialfadh spared him.”

Brodhir now saw from his hiding-place that Brian’s army was pursuing those who fled from
the battle and that few people remained at the shield-burg. Then he ran out of the wood,
broke through the shield-burg and slew the King. (Brian, who was 88, was obviously not
capable of joining in the battle and had remained in the camp.)

“Then Brodhir shouted: ‘Let it pass from mouth to mouth that Brodhir felled Brian!’ “

But the pursuers returned, surrounded Brodhir and seized him alive.

“Ulf Hraeda slit open his belly, led him round and round an oak-tree, and in this way
unwound all his intestines out of his body, and Brodhir did not die before they were all
pulled out of him. Brodhir’s men were slain to the last man.”

According to the Annals of Inisfallen the Norse army was divided into three sections.
The first consisted of the Dublin Norsemen and 1,000 Norwegian volunteers, who all wore
long shirts of mail. The second was made up of the Irish auxiliary forces from Leinster
under King Maolmordha. The third consisted of reinforcements from the Islands and
Scandinavia under Bruadhair, the commander of the fleet that had brought them, and
Lodar, the Jarl of the Orkneys. Against these Brian also placed his troops in three
sections; but the names of the leaders given here do not correspond with those given in
the Nialssaga, and the account of the battle is insignificant. The following account,
given in the Four Masters, is shorter and clearer:

“A.D. 1013 (given here as everywhere mistakenly for 1014). The foreigners of the west of
Europe assembled against Brian and Maelseachlainn” (usually called Malachy, King of
Meath under Brian’s High Kingship); “and they took with them ten hundred men with coats
of mail. A spirited, fierce, violent, vengeful, and furious battle was fought between
them — the likeness of which was not to be found at that time — at Cluaintarbh” (Meadow
of the Bulls, now Clontarf) “on the Friday before Easter precisely. In this battle were
slain Brian ... in the eighty-eighth year of his age; Murchadh, his son, in the
sixtythird year of his age; Conaing, ... the son of Brian’s brother; Toirdhealbhach, son
of Murchadh. . .” (there follow a multitude of names). “The” (enemy) “forces were
afterwards routed by dint of battling, bravery, and striking, by Maelseachlainn, from
Tulcainn to Athcliath” (Dublin), “against the foreigners and the Leinstermen; and there
fell Maolmordha, son of Murchadh, son of Finn, King of Leinster.... There was a
countless slaughter of the Leinstermen along with them. There were also slain Dubhgall,
son of Amhlanibh” (usually called Anlaf or Olaf), “and Gillaciarain, son of Gluniairn,
two tanists of the foreigners, Sichfrith, son of Lodar, Earl of the Orkneys (iarla Insi
h Oirc); Brodar, chief of the Danes, who was the person that slew Brian. The ten hundred
in armour were cut to pieces, and at the least three thousand of the foreigners were
there slain.”

The Niâlssaga was written in Iceland approximately 100 years after the battle; the Irish
annals are based, at least in part, on contemporary information. The two are completely
independent of each other. Yet not only do they correspond in all the main points, but
they also complete each other. We can only find out who Brodhir and Sigtrygg were from
the Irish annals. Sigurd Laudrisson is the name of Sichfrith, Lodar’s son. Sichfrith is
in fact the correct Anglo-Saxon form of the ancient Norse name, Sigurd. In Ireland,
Scandinavian names appear — on coins as well as in the annals — mainly in their Anglo-
Saxon forms, not in the ancient Norse. In the Niâlssaga the names of Brian’s generals
are adapted for easier pronunciation by the Scandinavians. One of the names, Ulf Hraeda,
is, in fact, ancient Norse, but it would be risky as some do to conclude from this that
Brian had Norsemen in his army too. Ospak and Kerthialfadh appear to be Celtic names;
the latter might be a distortion of the Toirdhealbhach mentioned in the Four Masters.
The date of the battle — given as the Friday after Palm Sunday in the one, and as the
Friday before Easter in the other — is the same in both, as is also the place of the
battle. Although this is given as Kantaraburg (otherwise Canterbury)[212] in the
Niâlssaga, it is also explicitly said to be close to the gates of Dublin. The course of
the battle is reported more precisely in the Four Masters: The Norsemen attacked Brian’s
army on the Plain of Clontarf. From there they were thrown back beyond the Tolka, a
little stream near the northern part of Dublin, towards the city. Both report that
Brodhir slew King Brian, but more detailed accounts are given only in the Norse source.

It can be seen that our reports on this battle are quite informative and authentic,
considering the barbarity of that time. There are not many eleventh-century battles on
which such reliable and corroborating accounts are available from both sides. This does
not prevent Professor Goldwin Smith from describing it as a “shadowy conflict” (Ir.
His., p. 48). Certainly, the most robust facts quite often take on a “shadowy” form in
our Professor’s head.

After their defeat at’ Clontarf, the Norse raids became less frequent and less
dangerous. The Dublin Norsemen soon came under the domination of the neighbouring Irish
princes, and, after one or two generations, were assimilated by the native population .
The only compensation the Irish got for the devastation caused by the Scandinavians was
three or four cities and the beginnings of a trading bourgeoisie.

* * *

The further back we go into history, the more the characteristics distinguishing
different peoples of the same race disappear. This is partly because of the nature of
the sources, which in the measure in which they are older become thinner and contain
only the most essential information, and partly because of the development of the
peoples themselves. The less remote the individual branches are from the original stock,
the nearer they are to each other and the more they resemble each other. Jacob Grimm has
always quite correctly treated the information given by Roman historians, who described
the War of the Cimbri,[213] Adam of Bremen and Saxo Grammaticus, all the literary
written records from Beowulf and Hildebrandslied to the Eddas[214] and the sagas, all
the books of law from the Leges barbarorum[215] to the ancient Danish and ancient
Swedish laws and the old Germanic judicial procedures as equally valuable sources of
information on the German national character, customs and legal conditions. A specific
characteristic may be of purely local significance, but the character reflected in it is
common to the whole race; and the older the sources used, the more local differences
disappear.

just as the Scandinavians and the Germans differed less in the seventh and eighth
centuries than they do today, so also must the Irish Celts and the Gallic Celts have
originally resembled each other more than present-day Irishmen and Frenchmen. Therefore
we should not be surprised to find in Caesar’s description of the Gauls many features
which are ascribed to the Irish by Giraldus some twelve hundred years later, and which,
furthermore, are discernible in the Irish national character even today, in spite of the
admixture of Germanic blood. ...

Notes

188. Engels is referring to the collection Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores Veleres
(Ancient Annalists of Ireland), published in four volumes in 1814, 1825 and 1826 by
Charles O'Conor in Buckingham.

The collection contains the first publication of part of the Annales IV Magistrorum, the
Annales Tigernachi, which were written between the 11th and 15th centuries and described
events from the close of the third century, the Annales Ultonienses (compiled by various
chroniclers between the 15th and 17th centuries and describing events beginning with the
mid-5th century), and the Annales Inisfalensis (generally assumed to have been compiled
from 1215 onwards, and treating events up to 1318), mentioned by Engels.

189. Arthur O'Connor was one of the few leaders of the United Irishmen society, which
prepared the 1798 uprising, who managed to escape execution. After his release from gaol
in 1803 O'Connor was banished to France, where he stayed to the end of his days.

190. Saerrath and Daerrath — two forms of tenancy in ancient Ireland, whereby the
tenant, generally an ordinary member of the community, was given the use of stock and
later also of land by the chief of the clan or tribe and by other representatives of the
tribal elite. They involved partial loss of personal freedom (especially in the case of
Daerrath) and various onerous duties. These forms of dependence were typical of the
period of the disintegration of tribal relations in ancient Irish society and of the
early stages of feudalisation. At this time land tenure was on the whole still communal,
while stock and farming implements were already private property, and private
landownership already existed in embryonic form. Engels’s “see below” refers to the
section of this chapter which remained unwritten.

191. S. Bernard, Vita S. Malachiae.

192. The works of Giraldus Cambrensis on Ireland, Topographia Hibernica and Expugnatio
Hibernica (in Engels’s manuscript Hibernia Expugnata), were included in the 5th volume
of the Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, mentioned by Engels, the publication of which was begun
by J. S. Brewer. The 5th volume published by J. F. Dimock appeared in 1867.

193. A reference to the following works: M. Hanmer, The Chronicle of Ireland; E.
Campion, History of Ireland; E. Spencer, A View of the State of Ireland, published in
Ancient Irish Histories. The Works of Spencer, Campion, Hanmer and Marleburrough, vols.
I-II, Dublin, 1809, and also to: John Davies, Historical Tracts, London, 1786; W.
Camden, Britannia, London, 1637; F. Moryson, An Itinerary Containing Ten Years Travels
Through the Twelve Dominions of Germany, Bohmerland, Switzerland, Netherland, Denmark,
Poland, Italy, Turkey, France, England, Scotland and Ireland, London, 1617.

194. Engels is referring to Huxley’s public lecture on the subject “The Forefathers and
Forerunners of the English People,” read in Manchester on January 9, 1870. A detailed
account of the lecture was published in the Manchester Examiner and The Times on January
12, 1870.

195. Diodorus Siculus, Bibliothecae historicae, Vol. 5.

196. Strabo, Geographic, translated by K. Kärcher, Buch 7, Tübingen, 1835.

197. Ch. Fourier, Le nouveau monde industriel et societaire on invention du procede
d'industrie attrayante et naturelle distribuee en series passionnees. The first edition
appeared in Paris in 1829. For the passage mentioned by Engels see p. 399 of that
edition.

198. Claudius Ptolemaeus, Geographia, Book 11, Chapter 2.

199. A reference to The Poems of Ossian written by the Scottish poet James Macpherson,
who published them in 1760-65. He ascribed them to Ossian, the legendary Celtic bard.
Macpherson’s poems are based on an ancient Irish epos in a later Scottish
interpretation.

200. S. Eusebius Hieronymus, Commentariorum in Jeremiam Prophetam libri sex. Prologus.

201. Gennadius, Illustrium, virorum, catologus.

202. The references are to the following medieval works: Claudianus, De IV consulatu
Honorii Augusti panegiricus; Isidorus Hispalensis, Etymologiarum, libri XX; Beda
Venerabilis, Historiae Ecclesiasticae libri quinque; Anonymus Ravenatis, De Geographiae
libri V; Egin hard, Vita et gesta Karoli Magni; Alfred the Great, Anglo-Saxon Version of
the Historian Orosius. In all probability Engels used extracts from the above-mentioned
works contained in K. Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstaemme. See pp. 568-69 of the
edition published in Munich in 1837.

203. Ammianus Marcellinus, Rerum gestarum libri XXXI, liber XX.

204. Nennius, Historia Brittonum, with an English Version by Gunn, London, 1819, § 15.

205. Triads — medieval Welsh works written in the form characteristic of the poetry of
the ancient Celts of Wales, with persons, things, events, etc., arranged in sets of
three. As regards their content the Triads are historical, theological, judicial,
poetical and ethical. The early Triads were composed not later than the 10th century,
but the extant manuscripts of these works relate to the period from the12th to the 15th
century.

206. G.W.F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie (Lectures on the
History of Philosophy), Bd. 3. In: Werke, Bd. XV, Berlin, 1836, S. 160.

207. Alexandrian Neoplatonic school — a trend in ancient philosophy originating in the
3rd century A. D. in Alexandria during the decline of the Roman Empire. The source of
neoplatonism was Plato’s idealism, and the idealistic aspect of Aristotle’s teaching,
interpreted in a mystical spirit by the neoplatonic philosophers. In the 5th century A.
D. an unknown adherent of this school, who attempted to combine the Christian teaching
with neoplatonism, signed his works with the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, the first
Christian Bishop of Athens.

208. Haraldsaga was written early in the 13th century by the Icelandic poet and
chronicler Snorri Sturluson. He tells of the life and exploits of the Norwegian King
Harald (9th-10th centuries), founder of the Harfagr dynasty.

209. Krakumal (Song of Kraka) — a medieval Scandinavian poem, composed as the death-song
of Ragnar Lodbrok (9th century), a Danish Viking taken prisoner and put to death by
Ella, the King of Northumberland. According to the legend Kraka, Ragnar’s wife, sang the
song to her children to inspire in them the desire to avenge their father’s death.
Engels used the text of the song as given in the reader: F. E. Ch. Dietrich,
Altnordisches Lesebuch, Leipzig, 1864, S. 73-80.

210. Johnstone, Lodbrokar — Quida; or, the Death Song of Lodbroke, London, 1782.

211. Niâlssaga — an Icelandic saga which according to recent research was recorded at
the end of the 13th century from oral tradition and ancient written monuments. The
central theme is the life story of Gunnar, an Icelandic Hawding (a member of the clan
nobility) and his friend Bond Nial (a free community member), an expert on and
commentator of ancient customs and laws. The saga tells of the battle of the Norsemen
against the Irish King Brian Born, and is an authentic source for the study of a major
event in Irish history the Irish victory over the Norse invaders in 1014 at the battle
of Clontarf. Engels quoted the excerpt from the Niâlssaga according to the text of the
reader: F. E. Ch. Dietrich, Altnordisches Lesebuch, Leipzig, 1864, S. 103-08.

212. Modern scholars transcribe the name of King Brian’s residence in Munster as Kankaraborg, or Kincora.

213. The Cimbri and Teutons, Germanic tribes, invaded Southern Gaul and Northern Italy
in 113-101 B.C. In 101 B.C. these tribes were routed by the Roman General Marius in the
battle of Vercelli (Northern Italy). The battle of the Romans against the Cimbri and
Teutons was described by Plutarch in his biography of Marius, by Tacitus in Germania,
and by other ancient historians.

214. Beowulf — a poem about the legendary hero Beowulf is supposed to have been recorded
in the 8th century and ranks as the finest known work of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The poem is
based on folk sagas about the life of the Germanic tribes of the early 6th century.

Hildebrandslied — an 8th century German epic poem, of which only some passages have survived.

Edda — a collection of epic poems and songs about the lives and deeds of the
Scandinavian gods and heroes. It has come down to us in a manuscript dating from the
13th century, discovered in 1643 by the Icelandic Bishop Sveinsson — the so-called Elder
Edda — and in a treatise on the poetry of the scalds compiled in the early 13th century
by Snorri Sturluson (Younger Edda).

215. Leges barbarorum — records of the common law of various Germanic tribes, compiled between the 5th and 9th centuries.