Irish Nationality

								

high-king's reign, and were entertained for seven days and
nights--kings and ollaves together round the high-king, warriors and
reavers, together, the youths and maidens and the proud foolish folk
in the chambers round the doors, while outside was for young men and
maidens because their mirth used to entertain them. Huge earthen banks
still mark the site of the great Hall, seven hundred and sixty feet
long and ninety feet wide, with seven doors to east and as many more
to west; where kings and chiefs sat each under his own shield, in
crimson cloaks with gold brooches, with girdles and shoes of gold, and
spears with golden sockets and rivets of red bronze. The Ardri,
supreme lord and arbitrator among them, was surrounded by his
councillors--the law-men or brehons, the bards and chroniclers, and
the druids, teachers and men of science. He was the representative of
the whole national life. But his power rested on the tradition of the
people and on the consent of the tribes. He could impose no new law;
he could demand no service outside the law.
The political bond of union, which seemed so loose, drew all its
strength from a body of national tradition, and a universal code of
law, which represented as it were the common mind of the people, the
spontaneous creation of the race. Separate and independent as the
tribes were, all accepted the one code which had been fashioned in the
course of ages by the genius of the people. The same law was recited
in every tribal assembly. The same traditions and genealogies bound
the tribes together as having a single heritage of heroic descent and
fame. The preservation of their common history was the concern of the
whole people. One of the tales pictures their gathering at Tara, when
before the men of Ireland the ancients related their history, and
Ireland's chief scholars heard and corrected them by the best
tradition. "Victory and blessings attend you, noble sirs," the men of
Erin said; "for such instruction it was meet that we should gather
ourselves together." And at the reciting of the historic glories of
their past, the whole congregation arose up together "for in their
eyes it was an augmenting of the spirit and an enlargement of the
mind."
To preserve this national tradition a learned class was carefully
trained. There were schools of lawyers to expound the law; schools of
historians to preserve the genealogies, the boundaries of lands, and
the rights of classes and families; and schools of poets to recite the
traditions of the race. The learned men were paid at first by the
gifts of the people, but the chief among them were later endowed with
a settled share of the tribe land in perpetuity. So long as the
family held the land, they were bound to train up in each generation
that one of the household who was most fit to carry on learning, and
thus for centuries long lines of distinguished men added fame to their