Talk:Gaelic Ireland

message: I've made some changes as well as marking a number of places where more references/information is needed. In many cases I plan to come back when I have had a chance to find citations for material. The section on religion needs changed as it misunderstands the nature of the early medieval papacy (which did not control all of Europe) and also ignores that the Irish church did occasionally follow continental procedure. Buirechain 02:53, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Edits

message: Sorry to say that Gaelic Ireland didn't use arms in the heraldic sense. The blue ground with a golden harp was a Norman or Tudor creation (and very nice). The College of Heralds was set up in the 1550s by Queen Mary. Our arms were our surnames. The history is interesting enough without indulging in wishful thinking.Red Hurley (talk) 11:56, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. After the Norman invasion, land in Ireland was controlled either by Norman lords or by Gaelic chieftains. The Norman land was unified as one state (the Lordship of Ireland) while the Gaelic land was a patchwork of territories controlled by clans. These clans weren't united or represented by some "official coat of arms". The harp-on-blue-background was indeed created during Henry VIII's reign. ~Asarlaí 04:44, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Arms etc.

message: I added Category:Anarchist communities to this article, because it is often cited as one. I am aware this may be controversial, so I have set up this discussion in advance. Zazaban (talk) 20:19, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anarchist community  

message: I have opened a discussion on a reorganisation of the series of articles dealing with Irish history at Talk:History of Ireland#RFC: Irish history series. --RA (talk) 23:07, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  RFC: Irish history series 

message: The sentence, "However, laws influenced by the church would later disadvantage women" in this section was removed with the edit summary "obvious POV". This was reverted with the edit summary "not POV, but needs a citation". Whether it's POV or not would depend on your point of view, I suppose, but I agree with its removal because it is out of place in this paragraph. The section as currently written obviously deals with Gaelic society before the Church reforms of the twelfth century. Any discussion of the status of women in late medieval Gaelic Ireland should be in a separate paragraph, which should not be added unless and until it can be referenced.  Scolaire (talk) 10:21, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Women and children 

message: This edit did, as the edit summary says, remove unsourced statements, but it has taken out some kinda important content. There was a trend, from at least Brian Boru onwards, towards unification of the country under a single king, and it was a small number of families - Ua Briain, Mac Lochlainn, Ua Conchobair - who contended for the kingship. It shouldn't be difficult to source those statements.  Scolaire (talk) 17:41, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you. Actually we need a separate section for the royalty and nobility. I have read that the current practice in Ireland is to pretend most of them never existed. DinDraithou (talk) 19:10, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I will try to source and reinsert the part of the paragraph that was removed, I just got to remember in which pile I have put my copy of Byrne... Finn Rindahl (talk) 20:16, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

text: Put something back (slightly rewritten) to sort of qualify the description the tuahta. The trend towards unification (and the construction of a pseudehistory of an ancient unified kingdom) did indeed grow from BB as Scolaire points out, and the leading families from that period remained influental until 1600 or so. I'm not sure however if this section is the right place to add that info - is this really about Gaelic "Culture and society"...? Finn Rindahl (talk) 16:38, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the paragraph begins by saying that Ireland was not a unified kingdom "in the feudal sense", and this used to be qualified by saying it was moving that way at the time of the Norman Invasion. I would like to see that qualification go back in, as well as the information that the head of any of those three families (or a Mac Murchadha for that matter) might have been the person to create a unitary kingdom if the Invasion hadn't happened.  Scolaire (talk) 17:29, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unitary kingdom 

message: The following extracts are from "Medieval Ireland:An Encyclopedia", edited by Seán Duffy, 2005. I won't edit it into the article myself as I no longer feel competent to make such edits, but will leave it here for those who can. The section is titled "Women", the author is Katherine Simms and it is divided into the following sections:
"Women in Sagas Irish sagas set in the pre-Christian period feature some very masterful heroines, notably Medb, queen of Connacht ... This can give people the impression that women had greater freedom and control in pagan Ireland before the norms of Christianity redefined their role in society. However, there are two problems with this interpretation. First, most of the sagas were actually written between the ninth and the twelfth centuries or later, by Christian scribes adapting their rich inheritence of old traditions to suit the taste of their own times. Second, a number of their female protagonists, Queen Medb in particular, were based on goddesses or female symbols of soverignty, whose extensive powers reflect their own supernatural attributes rather than the role of ordinary women at any date." (p.520)
"Women in Saints' Lives Female saints also had supernatural attributes, in the sence that the Latin or Irish accounts of their lives credit them with many miracles. Otherwise they are shown as respected abbesses running communities of nuns ... . They show the nuns employing men to plow the lands attached to their communities, entertaining visiting bishops and abbots to hospitable meals that might include home-brewed beer, fostering young boys ultimatly destined for the priesthood, and giving them their early education. Certain saints, like Lasair of Kilronan, are reputed to have pursued academic studies under the instruction of male saints and to have become qualified to instruct male clerics themselves, but the Life of St. Lasair is a late text written in a secular school of hereditary male historians, and it is uncertain if this feature of the Life  is bas on very early tradition. The fact is, we have no Latin works from early Ireland attributed to female authors, though we may have some Irish poems, such as "St. Íte's Lullaby to the Baby Jesus" or "The Lament of the Hag (or Nun) of Beare." ... as "heir" to the lands and authority endowing her nunnery, any abbess qualified as a female landowner, and this was the one class of female who did enjoy a degree of independene and power in early Irish law." (p.520)
"Landownership in the Laws  ... Full status as a free citizen in early Ireland depended on landownership, and fmaily lands could only be transmitted through male heirs. If a man had no sons, his daughter might inherit his share of the family estate for her lifetime. Such an heiress would have the legal rights of a property owner, and the same public liability for tax and services as a male landowner. ... However, she could not pass on her estate to her children. After her death it would revert to her father's kindred, unless she married her first cousion on her father's side or another close relative, allowing her children to inherit the land through their father." (pp.520-21)
"Legal Capacity  Apart from these exceptional heiresses, women received only movable property - cows, household goods, or silver - from their fathers, normally as marriage goods. They were thus "second-class citizens", legally dependent on their fathers or brothers if they were single, or on their husbands or grown-up sons if they were married. However, women were not completly without rights. Honor price (lóg n-enech) was a graded system applied to different  classes in society, and used by lawyers to calculate the amount of compensation a freeman or noble could claim for insults or injuries. A wife's honor price was set at half the value of her husband's. ... The husband had an even greater right to object to his wife's contracts for a period of fifteen or twenty days after she agreed to a bargin. Secondary wives or concubines with children had lesser rights, and concubines with no children had even less control. ..." (p.521)
"Marriage Although Old Irish treatises on customary law bear all the sings of having been written by or for clerics, suprisingly they recognise many more types of union between man and woman than a monogamous Christian marriage. They were compiled between the seventh and the ninth century C.E. before Carolingian church reforms gave Continental clergy a greater tole in regulating marriage laws, and at a time when Christian Merovingian and Anglo-Saxon kings publicly kept concubines and sometimes passed on their thrones to the sons of those concubines. Old Irish law tracts give pride of place to a man's one offical wife, the "first in the household" (cétmuinter), who normally contributed movable property of her own to the joint housekeeping and was entitled to recieve it back, with any accumulated profits, if the couple divorced later. Divorce could be initiated by either the husband or the wife, on a number of grounds. A wife, for example, could cite her husband's impotence or sterility, beating her severly enough to leave a scar, homosexuality causing him to neglect her marriage bed, failure to provide for her support, disscussing her sexual preformance in public, spreading rumors about her, his having tricked her into marriage by using magic arts, or his having abandoned her for another woman. In this last case, however, the first wife had the right to remain in the marriage if she wished, and was then entitled to continued maintenance from her husband. 
A man could only marry another cétmuinter if his first wife was a permanent invalid unable to fulfill her marital duty, but it was not uncommon for husband to acquire one or more secondary wives or concubines, known in the Old Irish tracts as airech', but significantly described in the later commentararies as adaltrach (adulteress). Irish marital customs attracted severe criticism from church reformers in the late eleventh century. Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury referred to Irishmen arbitrarily divorcing one wife in exchange for antoher "by the law of marriage or rather the law of fornication," and Pope Gregory VII heard it rumoured that many Irish "not only desert their lawful wives, but even sell them." (p.521)
"The Later Middle Ages ... Ordinary Irishwomen are first described by foreigners, medieval pilgrims to St. Patrick's Purgatory, or the bureaucrats of the Tudor reconquest. All report a generally relaxed attitude toward nudity and sex, which may relate to the failure of the Gregorian drive for clerical celibacyt to make much headway in rural Ireland. Christina Harrington has noted that Irish churchmen, often themselves married, did not normally dmonize women in their writings or project her as a temptress responsible for man's sins. Young girls in Cork were seen by Fynes Moryson grinding corn stark naked, presumably to preserve their clothes from flour. The rural prostitutes of sixteenth century Gaelic Ireland, described by Edmund Spenser as monashul (mná siúl:wandering women), in default of urban centers wandered from place to place and fair to fair, and were seen as just one of the lower-class entertainers like gamesters or jugglers, suitable recipients of a great lord's fringe hospitality. Moryson noted as unusual that gentlewomen and irish chieftains' wives stayed drinking "health after health" with the men at banquets, though unmarried maidens might be sent away after the first few rounds. Monder Irish Puritanism originated in the seventeenth century, promoted by the Counter-Reformation missionaries and the extension of English common law to Gaelic Ireland under James I." (p522) Author - Katherine Simms. 
Related works noted by Katherine Simms are:
* Marriage in Ireland, ed Art Cosgrove, Dublin, 1985.
* Women and the Church in Medieval Ireland by Dianne Patricia Hall, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2003.
* Women in a Celtic Church: Ireland 450-1150, Christina Harrington, Oxford Univrsity Press, 2002.
I hope this will be of use to the editors. Fergananim (talk) 14:44, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Medieval Irish women

message: I note there is some discussion on the above topics. As an aid, I shall add the following extracts from the above publication, titled "Kings and Kingship", by Bart Jaski, pp.251-254.
"Kings and Kingship  Medieval Ireland was marked by the existence of dozens of kingdoms, each ruled by a king who in the early medieval period was technically the highest nobelman in the túath. Most kings were subject to over kings, who were the policy-makers of the time. They based their authority over other lords and kings on ties of blood relationship and alliance. The integrity of such alliances partially depended on the pwoer and personal qualities of the over king. The ruling kindreds of the Irish kingdoms were often caught between the forces of internal division and outward stability. The rule of inheritance and succession stiulated competetition among relatives and expansion by the kindred's branches. Yet it also gave the kindred as a whole a measure of stability and flexibilty, as the kindred hardly ever died out in the male line. Several royal dynasties remained in control of an area for many centuries." (p.251)
"Historial Roots The historical roots of Irish kingship are still debated. It has been argued that pagan sacral kings, who ruled over tribes, were replaced by aristocratic kings, who ruled over kindreds in the period of the coming of Christianity and the rise of expansionist dynasties. The monst anceitn collective names are those only found in the plural (such as Laigin and Ulaid), and those names enging in r(a)ige, from -rigion (kingdom), such as Cíarraige and Osraige. These are held to express a tribal feeling, since they are connected to matters usch as human characteristics, totem animals, or deities. Yet such "tribes" may well have been ruled by certain families, as they were among the continental Celts in the first centuries B.C. and A.D. ..." (pp.251-52).
"Royal Duties At around the eight century there were probably over one hundred territories that were ruled by a rí túaithe (king of a people or territory). Although the title rí means litterally "king", the holder was essentially the highest nobleman of the túath. He held the main nobilbity of the tuath in clintship; they owed him tribute and support in exchange for protection and representation. Together with the bishiop and the master-poet, the king had the highest status in the territory. A person's status was expressed by his honor price, wich determined his legal rights and entitlements. ... As leader of the people, the king hosted ayearly assembly (óenach), had a council (airecht; later oireacht)with members of the secular and ecclesiastical elite, and conferred with other kings at a meeting (dál). He had a number of servitors to support him in his office, such as a steward, messenger, judge, and champion." (p. 252).
"Succession According to theory, the headship of a royal or noble kindred was due the most suitable person in regard to descent, age, and abilities. When the head of a kindred died, and he had no other near relatives, this oldest son succeeded him. ... In practise, such matters were often resolved by internal struggle or by negotiation, by which a senior candidate could relinquish his claims in exchange for certain privileges. No candidate had an absolute right to the succession, not even the tánaise ríg. Daughters had no permanent right to kin-land, and heiresses could not pass on kin-land to their offspring. Hence, outsiders could not take the headship of a family that had died out in the male line by marrying an heiress, as became common in medieval Europe. When a lineage died out, their land reverted to their male next-of-kin. Theis catered to stability within the Irish dynasties in the long run, but division fo the kin-land and collateral succession often resulted in temporary fragmentation of the kindred's assets and political power." (p.252)
"Dynastic Kingship In theory, the descendants of the sons of a lord alternated in the headship of the kindred, as long as they were duly qualified. In practise, who who - for whatever reason - were passed over for the succession for often unable to attract sufficient clients to maintain noble status for several generations. Their descendants became commoners and clients of their more fortunate relatives. This fate could be avoided by joining the ranks of the poets or clerics, or by competing successfully for power."
"In order to relieve internal pressure and extend the domination of the kindred, a ruler could install brothers or sons as rulers over neighboring client-peoples. The new noble or royal branches thus created remained part of the same kindred, and nominally subject to an over king as their common head. The over kingship was often contested by the leaders of the most powerful branches of the kindred, and this often led to destructive succession struggles. An over king who was disobeyed raided the territory of his errant subkings, in order to drive off their cattle as tribute or to take their hostages as guarantees for future obedience. Internal wargare could weaken the kindred as a whole, with the succession erratically being taken by this branch or that."
"Usually, one or two branches came out on top and subjugated all others. Yet within a few generations the winningh branch would itself be split up into rival lineages, and the whole cycle would start anew. This process remained typical for irish dynastic kingship until the end of the Gaelic order in the decades around 1600." (pp.252-53)
"Over Kingships The importance of blood relationship for claims of submission and tribute is reflected in the Irish political nomenclature. The ruleing dynasties are all named after a legendary or historical ancestor, who name is preceded by a term expressing kinship, such as Corco (seed), Dál (division) Clann (children), Cenél (kindred), Síl (seed) and Uí (grandson or descendants). All those who recognized the same ancestor politically tied together. Certain dynasties were, by mutual consent or a procured relatioship, held to be related. This reflected in the Old-Irish word cairdes, which means "kinship" and by extension, "friendship." A popwerful over king could claim that others were his relatives, and thus claim authority over them. Genealogical bonds expressed political bonds, hence the importance of the recording of genealogy in the medieval sources."
"The law tracts of around 700 recognize a hierarchy of kings of a túath, king of several túatha, and the provincial kings. The provincial king ruled not only a powerful dynasty but also a defined territory that he habitually dominated, named a cóiced (literally "fifth"). A king of Ireland only existed on a theoretical basis, as no dynasty had bee able to rule Ireland permanently."(p.253)
"Political Structure Already before the eighth century the over kingship had begun to dissolve the túath as the basic sociopolitical unit. Most of the irish petty kings were subject to an over king, and many were hardly independent rulers. The power of the over kings over their dynasties and neighbouring kings increased in time, and about a dozen were of major consequence. The Uí Néill rule in Mide, Brega and The North (In Túasceirt); the Uí Briúin and Uí Fiachrach in Connacht; the Uí Meic Uais and Uí Chremthainn in Airgíalla; the Dál Fiatach and Dál nAraidi in Ulster; the Uí Dúnlainge and Uí Cheinnselaig in Leinster; and the Eóganachta in Munster. until the tenth century the over kings of the Ui Neill and Eóganachta dominated Ireland, and claimed suzerainty over Leth Cuinn and Leth Moga, respectively. ... The kings of Tara came to overpower the kings of Ulster and Leinster as well. Hence Máel Muire Othain (d. 887) attaches the Laigin and Ulaid (Dál Fiatach) to those whom shared a common ancestor with the Ui Neill in his poem on the Irish invasion myth.  A few kings of Tara, from Máel Sechnaill mac Máele Ruanaid (ruled 846-862) onward, took hostage of the kings of Cashel and claimed to be kings of Ireland. Internal rivalry and losses against the Vikings were among the factors by which the Eóganachta and Uí Néill fell apart in the tenth century."(p.253)
"Later Developments The career of Brian Boru (d.1014) marked the end of the domination of the Eóganachta and Uí Néill. This gave other dynasties the opportunity to rise to power. Notable kings were now given the honoary title "high king" (ard-rí), a term subsequently used to denote the kings of Tara of old. This gave rise to the anachronistic notion of a high kingship of Ireland. In the new political order that ensued, the leading families were Mac Murchada (Uí Cheinnselaig) in Leinster, Mac Carthaig (Eoghanacht Caisil) in Desmond, Ua Briain (Dal gCais in Thomond) Ua Conchobair (Ui Briuin Ai) in Connacht, Ua Bruaic (Ua Briuin Breifne) in the northern Midlands, and Ua Domnaill Cenel Conaill) Ui Neill, and Mac Lochlainn (Cenel nEoghain) in the North. Apart from Mac Lochlainn, they remained powerful from around 1150 to 1600, which tesifies to the resilience of the main Irish dynasties. These families also had the tendency to extend the domination by planting branches on neighbouring territories. After the Anglo-Norman invasion there was an increading development toward the exercise of lordship among feudal lines, but on the whole Gaelic tendencies persevered. These included the donation of turastal and the impositions of coshering and coyne and livery. Internal rivalry, raiding, hostage-taking, and fluctuations in alliances and power remained characteristic for the Gaelic lordships. This hampered the implementation fo the English surrender-and-regrant policy in the decades around 1600, by which the Irish kings and lords were recreated as English earls and barons, with the promise to follow English law and custom. In the end, the irish royal families died out, lost power, or their chiefs went abroad, and few managed to keep up their noble stature." (p.253-53)
Is mise, Fergananim (talk) 15:55, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Irish kings, kingship, and kingdoms

message: The first paragraph of this section makes several unsubstantiated claims, and currently reads like OR, can someone add some references please? Markb (talk) 13:59, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Culture and society 

message: So, yeah. No towns or villages in the early Medieval period of Ireland's history. Surely that's an exaggeration. I mean sure, as far as towns go, nothing on the scale of the European mainland. But no villages? I'm pretty sure that village life would have existed in this period. Certainly, the ringforts and monasteries would have needed such settlements close by to support them?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.216.205.29 (talk) 22:21, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It's also wrong when on the scale of England, from which the perspective comes. Towns in England were little bigger than the continent's largest villages as well, only five of England's cities were at the continental level. 216.252.76.143 (talk) 02:48, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  "No Towns or Villages". 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Could someone review certain OIr grammatical forms that look completely wrong to my eyes. I would suggest "mór-thúath" and "mór-thúatha" (needs to be lenited because an adjective is preposed) and an actual genitive please in "rí mór-thúaithe". Could someone check these proposed corrections? CecilWard (talk) 08:09, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  old Irish grammar review 

message: title, see 'gift economy' etc. 213.134.189.209 (talk) 12:59, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  'barter' link - moneyless society doesn't mean barter, that is a misconception 

message: 30K not counting descent.
https://www.dfa.ie/irish-embassy/south-africa/our-role/irish-relations/#:~:text=There%20are%20approximately%2030%2C000%20Irish,Ireland's%2040th%20largest%20trading%20partner. 2603:6011:A400:259:A0CC:B1B4:EC2A:A5A (talk) 14:07, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Irish in South Africa (Diaspora)