# The Gaelic State in the Past & Future/Chapter 2

II
THE MAKINGS OF A POLITY
The myth of Invasions, elaborated from the seventh century onwards, shrouds the earliest Irish history from our view. Something authentic, aged and significant passes behind that screen, but we cannot clearly see what it is. Irish history only begins to emerge from that screen, and to pass into the clearer light of knowledge, with the opening centuries of our era. We then begin to get parts of information that can more and more be checked with one another and with other known facts, so building up a history that can be submitted to criticism; and it is interesting to notice that the emergence into greater certitude occurs at the very moment when the national life begins to be framed into a distinct and recognisable polity, ever tending towards a central authority.
The process begins with or about Tuathal Teachtmhair, Tuathal the Arriver, about the middle of the second century. With him there is still much twilight, but with him the daylight quickens. The main outlines of his life and work, even of his personality, can be checked with one another and take their place in a logical and reliable whole. With him the makings of the new State begin; and they continue, in spite of periods of disrepair, until at the end of the first millenium the State was knit ​together by a fiscal system that was put to writing. The work has much of the simplicity due to the simpler conditions of the time, although in fact the result was highly complex and elaborate; but, almost alone among the nations or peoples of Europe, in Ireland the work of constructive State-building went forward. Strife abounded (and modern times have lost what little right they ever had to point an accusing finger at it); it abounded throughout Europe, and Ireland had its share; but in Ireland the State always held the national sense together, and it was always being revised to meet new needs. It is interesting briefly to survey the process.
Tuathal came at a strategic moment. The Ulster Cycle shows quite clearly a struggle between Connacht and Uladh for the hegemony of the five provinces of Ireland. The earlier parts of that cycle (though written to exploit Uladh) show that hegemony claimed and won by Connacht; the later parts show it passing to Uladh. Then there is a dark period, in which we have no literature to guide us and for which the records in the Annals of Tigernach give little help. During this time occurs the mysterious episode known as the Revolt of the Vassals. Whatever that episode meant, it appears that Tuathal's mother had to fly the country. He himself returned later to his province of Connacht to resume the dynastic struggle with the kings of Uladh for the rule of Ireland. Probably Tuathal was the Irish prince to whom Tacitus refers as being for ​a time with the Roman legions in Britain. The dates are approximate; and Tuathal's first act on his return to Ireland suggests that he had not misspent his time? Fighting in Ireland prior to this time had mainly been that of contests between famous warriors, or from chariots. Henceforward it becomes that of trained legions existing as a standing militia. For Tuathal established the Fianna Eireann; and by means of this new weapon he restored the hegemony to Connacht.
It is right briefly to trace this dynastic struggle between Connacht and Uladh, because out of it, and out of the needs it created and the problems it raised, grew the national State. Tuathal, king of Connacht, with his palace at Cruachan Ai, came east to Uisneach, and from there exercised the hegemony of Ireland. It is said that he took the "necks" of the four provinces where they touched one another, and in each "neck" held a national festival for each quarter of the year. At Tar a a special festival was held, at which the Brehons discussed and collated the laws, and at which the local rulers discussed and compared the local administration of the country. In other words, a general tendency towards uniformity was set up because of a direct central authority; and it was undoubtedly because of this tendency that Tuathal's son, Fedhlimidh, who succeeded him, received the title of Reachtmhar, the Law-giver.
Tuathal, however, did not come east to Tara, except to the festival. Tara was the seat of the kings of Leinster, with an elder glory and ​significance attaching to it that it is not easy to explain in any critical use of the materials available. It was not for a century after Tuathal that the Connacian dynasty, in the person of Cormac, established itself at Tara and compelled the king&jof Leinster to make their headquarters elsewhere at Naas. Then the central authority took a fresh accession of strength, and a definite and distinctive polity began to emerge, with the looser system that till then had prevailed tightened up and made uniform in all its parts.
The hegemony, for instance, passed, and Cormac became Ard-Ri, or Monarch, bf Ireland. The new province of Meath was created for the maintenance of the new monarchy. The festivals at Tara became more splendid and authoritative, deriving as they now did from the administrative authority of the monarch. This was especially the case as Cormac shines out quite clearly as a man of considerable force of character and a statesman of a very high order. Under his supervision the laws were reduced to writing. They might previously have existed in writing, for there are indications to show that writing existed from a very early time in Ireland; but they were now gathered in a single authoritative book. The immediate result of this would be that a stricter uniformity in their administration was created. To ensure this, and to make more easy the general administration of the country, he regrouped the administrative units of the nation. Until then the nation had consisted of a number of separate stateships. Some were quite small, some were of considerable size. Some had been bound ​under heavy service, some had been comparatively free of service, to their respective provincial kings. We do not often hear after this time of these different obligations of service, nor do we find these great differences of size; and it is significant that this disappearance should occur at a time when we are told that Cormac created a new order over Ireland. He made a number of new units, uniform in size, grouped in the provinces, and leading up in ranks of authority through the provincial kingships to the monarchy.
The old stateships were known as Tuatha; the new were called Triocha Ced. The title Triocha Ced does not survive, while the older title of Tuatha does. Therefore it seems likely that the new Triocha Ced became known by the older and more familiar title of Tuatha; and, where an old Tuath of considerable size had a number of Triocha Ced created within it, that the new units became known as Tuatha, while the older stateship maintained its authority over the new units and became known by a new title that now comes into use, that of Mor-Thuath. That is conjecture; but it is a conjecture that conforms to the facts as we know them in the subsequent development of the system.
Such is the polity as it left Cormac's hands. He also established the Fianna Eireann as a standing militia in the provinces—except in Ulster, where the dynastic war had not ceased, and was not to cease till the burning of Emain Macha. The political system he created, with its central code of laws, was one that could continue itself without a central ​power; and it did so continue; for with his passing the central power weakened, falling into less able hands.
With the coming of Christianity two centuries later the system received a new strength and unity. Loeghaire, the Monarch at the time, was himself a man of considerable strength and ability, and Patrick was an administrator of power and insight. The facts that the laws were revised in the general assembly at Tara, in order to bring them into conformity with the teaching of Christianity, was in itself an impetus sufficient to brace the system anew; and a further strength -was given when Patrick based his church system on the political system, making the units of one identical with the units of the other.
Only two things remain to be mentioned in the making or unmaking of the polity. After the battle of Ocha, in the year 482, the dynastic family broke, the older line continuing as kings of Connacht, while the younger line held the monarchy at Tara. While it continued at Tara, with its central situation, it could hold its authority, though, as with all monarchies, its authority depended upon the personality of the monarch. But with the abandonment of Tara, after 1560, this authority was at once weakened, having to be exerted sometimes from the far north. The system, however, continued, because its device was such that it could continue itself. The State existed, complete in all its parts, at once simple and complex, sufficient for its own maintenance; but the strong central ​directive was lacking; for the tendency towards centralisation was suspended with the abeyance of the dynastic struggle. It was supplied, however, when Brian Borumha sprang into the field, and snatched the monarchy from a weakened line.
Brian rallied the nation, and knit and perfected the system that Cormac had created. A simple, and indeed very modern, method existed to his hand that was partly turned to his purpose. It is customary to speak of the Leabhar na gCeart as the Book of Rights, or Tributes. The modern word, however, is Taxes; for taxes remain taxes whether they be paid in coin or in kind. Each of the seven great territories, into which the provincial authorities had devolved, had some time prior to Brian laid down a regular revenue to be contributed to them by the stateships under their authority. This had been done as a national system, and had been committed to writing in one book. Brian, having transferred the Kingship of Thomond to his own line, revised the contributions accordingly within his own particular territory. He also took contributions from each of the other six Kingships as Monarch of the Nation. It only therefore required the centralisation of what was really a fiscal system to complete the unity and central function of the State. For so statecraft has always been compelled to meet the same difficulty that confronted Brian in A.D. 1002.
Had Brian lived, or had he been able to establish his dynasty, the result would, without doubt, have been achieved. Unfortunately he fell in the hour of ​his triumph, at the battle of Clontarf. He had broken the O'Neill succession; and the elder branch of that dynasty were the O' Conors of Connacht. Therefore for a century a triangular dynastic dispute arose between the O'Briens, the O'Neills, and the O' Conors.