Before entering on the subject of Government, it will be useful to sketch the main features of the ancient territorial divisions of the country. It was parcelled out into five provinces from the earliest times of which we have any record: - Leinster; East Munster; West Munster; Connaught; and Ulster: a partition which, according to the legend, was made by the five Firbolg brothers, the sons of Dela. [note] Laigin or Leinster originally extended - in coast line - from Inver Colpa (the mouth of the Boyne at Drogheda) to the river Suir: East Muman or Munster from the Suir to the Lee at Cork: West Munster from the Lee round to the Shannon: Olnegmacht or Connaught from Limerick and the Shannon to the little river Drowes, which issues from Lough Melvin and flows between the counties of Leitrim and Donegal: and Ulaid or Ulster from this round northwards to the Boyne.

This division became modified in course of time. The two Munsters, East and West, gradually ceased to be distinguished, and Munster was regarded as a single province. A new province, that of Mide [Mee] or Meath, was formed in the second century of the Christian era by Tuathal [Thoohal] the Acceptable, king of Ireland.

[Fig. 5: Aill-na-Meeran, the “Stone of Divisions”; now often called the “Cat Stone”
(from a photograph; man put in for comparison) ]

Down to his time the provinces met at a point on the hill of Ushnagh (in the present county Westmeath) marked by a great stone called Aill-na-Mirenn [Aill-na-Meeran], the “Stone of the Divisions,” which stands there a conspicuous object still. Round this point Tuathal formed the new province by cutting off a portion of each of the others. It was designed to be the mensal land or personal estate of the Ard-ri or supreme king of Ireland, that he might be the better able to maintain his court with due state and dignity. Previous to his time the king of Ireland had only a small tract - a single tuath (see next page) - for his own use. This new province was about half the size of Ulster, extending from the Shannon eastwards to the sea, and from the confines of the present county Kildare and King’s County on the south to the confines of Armagh and Monaghan on the north. The present counties of Meath and Westmeath retain the name, but comprise only about half the original province.

At the time of Tuathal’s accession - A.D. 130 - there were four places belonging severally to the four provinces, situated not far from each other, which for centuries previously had been celebrated as residences and as centres for great periodical meetings for various purposes: - Tara in Leinster; Tailltenn in Ulster (now Teltown on the Blackwater, midway between Navan and Kells); Tlachtga in Munster (now the Hill of Ward near Athboy in Meath); and Ushnagh in Connaught, nine miles west of Mullingar in the present county Westmeath. All these were included in the new province; and Tuathal built a palace in each, of which some of the mounds and fortifications remain to this day. After his time the five provinces generally recognised and best known in Irish history were Leinster, Munster, Connaught, Ulster, Meath.

Besides the formation of a new province, there were several minor changes. The district forming the present county Louth was transferred from Ulster to Leinster; the present county Cavan, which originally belonged to Connaught, was given to Ulster; and the territory now known as the county Clare was wrested from Connaught and annexed to Munster. Down to the time of Tuathal, Connaught included a large tract east of the Shannon, a part of the present counties of Longford and Westmeath (nearly as far as Mullingar); but in accordance with his arrangements, the Shannon, in this part of its course, became the eastern boundary of that province. The most ancient division of Munster, as has been said, was into East and West: but a later and better known partition was into Thomond or North Munster, which broadly speaking included Tipperary, Clare, and the northern part of Limerick; and Desmond or South Munster, comprising Kerry, Cork, Waterford, and the southern part of Limerick. In later times, however, the name Thomond has been chiefly confined to the county Clare, the patrimony of the O’Briens, who are usually known by the tribe-name of Dalcassians. Recently Meath has disappeared as a province: and the original provinces now remain - Leinster, Munster, Connaught, and Ulster.

The provinces were subdivided into territories of various sizes. The political unit, i.e. the smallest division with a single government, under a chief or king, was the Tuath [Thooa]. A tuath contained about 177 English square miles, and might be represented in area by an oblong district, sixteen miles by eleven. There were 184 tuaths in all Ireland.

Sometimes three, four, or more tuaths were united to form one large territory under a king: this was called a Mór-tuath, or great tuath.

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Kings enjoyed many privileges, and were bound by many restrictions. A king’s evidence in a brehon’s court against all of a rank below him was accepted without question, as they had not the right to be heard in evidence against him: but this privilege did not hold against a bishop, a doctor of learning, or a pilgrim, all of whom were regarded as of equal rank with himself - so far as giving evidence was concerned.

When a king of any grade ascended the throne, he usually made a visitation or royal progress through his kingdom, to receive allegiance and hostages from his sub-kings. He moved very leisurely in a roundabout, sunwise, i.e. from left to right; and during the whole journey, he was to be entertained, with all his retinue, free of charge, by those sub-chiefs through whose territories he passed: so that these visitations were called “Free Circuits.”

In old times it was the belief of the Irish that when a good and just king ruled - one who faithfully observed in his government the royal customs and wise precepts followed by his ancestors - the whole country was prosperous: the seasons were mild, crops were plentiful, cattle were fruitful, the waters abounded with fish, and the fruit trees had to be propped owing to the weight of their produce. The same belief prevailed among the Greeks and Romans.

The ancient Irish had a very high ideal of what a king should be: and we meet with many statements throughout our literature of the noble qualities expected from him. He should be “free from falsehood, from the betrayal of his nobles, from unworthy conduct towards his people.” “For what is a prince selected over a country?” asks Carbery of King Cormac, who replies: “For the goodness of his form and race, and sense, and learning, and dignity, and utterance: he is selected for his goodness and for his wisdom, and strength, and forces, and valour in fighting.”

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Druidism. No trustworthy information regarding the religion of the pagan Irish comes to us from outside: whatever knowledge of it we possess is derived exclusively from the native literature. There were many gods, but no supreme god, like Zeus or Jupiter among the Greeks and Romans. There was little of prayer, and no settled general form of worship. There were no temples: but there were altars of some kind erected to idols or to the gods of the elements (the sun, fire, water, &c.), which must have been in the open air. The religion of the pagan Irish is commonly designated as Druidism: and in the oldest Irish traditions the druids figure conspicuously. All the early colonists had their druids, who are mentioned as holding high rank among kings and chiefs. There were druids also in Gaul and Britain; but the Gaels of Ireland and Scotland were separated and isolated for many centuries from the Celtic races of Gaul; and thus their religious system, like their language, naturally diverged, so that the druidism of Ireland, as pictured forth in the native records, differed in many respects from that of Gaul.

In pagan times the druids were the exclusive possessors of whatever learning was then known. They combined in themselves all the learned professions: they were not only druids, but judges, prophets, historians, poets, and even physicians. There were druids in every part of Ireland, but, as we might expect, Tara, the residence of the over-kings of Ireland, was, as we are told in the Life of St. Patrick, “the chief seat of the idolatry and druidism of Erin.” The druids had the reputation of being great magicians; and in this character they figure more frequently and conspicuously than in any other. In some of the old historical romances we find the issues of battles sometimes determined not so much by the valour of the combatants as by the magical powers of the druids attached to the armies.

Perhaps the most dreaded of all the necromantic powers attributed to them was that of producing madness. In the pagan ages, and down far into Christian times, madness was believed to be often brought on by malignant magical agency, usually the work of some druid. For this purpose the druid prepared a “madman’s wisp,” that is, a little wisp of straw or grass, into which he pronounced some horrible incantations, and, watching his opportunity, flung it into the face of his victim, who at once became insane or idiotic.

Madness was often produced by the rage of battle. For, during a bloody battle, it sometimes happened that an excitable combatant ran mad with fury and horror: and occurrences of this kind are recorded in the romantic accounts of nearly all the great battles fought in Ireland. There was a most curious belief - a belief that still lingers in some parts of the country - that during the paroxysm a madman’s body became as light as air, so that as he ran distractedly, he scarcely touched the ground, or he rose into the air, still speeding on with a sort of fluttering motion. There is a valley in Kerry called Glannagalt, “the glen of the galts or lunatics”: and it is believed that all lunatics, if left to themselves, would find their way to it, no matter from what part of Ireland. When they have lived in its solitude for a time, drinking of the water of Tobernagalt (“the lunatics’ well”), and eating of the cresses that grow along the little stream, the poor wanderers get restored to sanity. At the entrance to Lough Foyle, on the strand near Inishowen Head in Donegal, there is a well called Stroove Bran, which was thought to possess the same virtue as Tobernagalt, and to which all the deranged people in the surrounding district were wont to resort.

It was believed that the druids could pronounce a malign incantation, not only on an individual, but on a whole army, so as to produce a withering or enervating effect on the men; and they were sometimes employed to maledict a hostile army, as Balaam was employed by Balak. They could give a drink of forgetfulness, so as to efface the memory of any particular transaction. They were the intermediaries with the fairies, and with the invisible world in general, which - as they asserted - they could influence for good or evil; and they could protect people from the malice of evil-disposed spirits of every kind; which explains much of their influence with the people. They could -as the legends tell - bring on snowstorms, or showers of fire and blood, and cover the land with blinding clouds and mists.

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There were certain acts which people were prohibited from doing under penalty of misfortune or ill luck of some kind. Such a prohibition was called geis or geas [gesh, gass: g hard as in get, gap]: plural geasa [gassa]. A geis was something forbidden. It was believed to be very dangerous to disregard these prohibitions. Because Conari the Great, king of Ireland in the first century of the Christian era, violated some of his geasa - most of them unwittingly - the peace of his reign was broken by plunder and rapine; and he himself was finally slain in the sack of Da Derga’s Hostel. Some geasa were binding on people in general. Thus, on the day of King Laegaire’s festival, it was geis for the people to light a fire anywhere round Tara till the king’s festival fire had first been lighted. It was geis for anyone to bring arms into the palace of Tara after sunset.

The most interesting of the geasa were those imposed on kings: of which the object of some was obviously to avoid unnecessary personal danger or loss of dignity. For example, it was a geis to the king of Emain (i.e. of Ulster) to attack alone a wild boar in his den: a sensible restriction. According to the Book of Acaill and many other authorities, it was geis for a king with a personal blemish to reign at Tara: so that when king Cormac mac Art lost one eye by an accident, he at once abdicated. The reason of these two geasa is plain enough. But there were others which it is not so easy to explain. They appear to be mere superstitions - obviously from pagan times - meant to avoid unlucky days, evil omens, &c. Some kings were subject to geasa from which others were free. The king of Emain was forbidden to listen to the singing of the birds of Lough Swilly, or to bathe in Lough Foyle on a May Day. The king of Ireland and the provincial kings had each a series of geasa. To the king of Ireland it was forbidden that the sun should rise on him while lying in bed in Tara, i.e. he should be up before sunrise; he was not to alight from his chariot on Moy Breagh on a Wednesday; and he was not to go round North Leinster left-hand-wise under any circumstances. Many others of these kingly geasa may be seen in my larger Social History of Ancient Ireland, Vol. i., pp.311-12.

It is well known that geasa or prohibitions were, and are still, common among all people, whether savage or civilized. They flourish at this day among ourselves. Some people will not dine in a company of thirteen, or remove to a new house on a Saturday, or get married in May: what are these but geasa, and quite as irrational as any of those enumerated above?