Irish Nationality

								

learned man of the clan was the learned man of the Gaelic race. By all
the higher matters of language and learning, of equity and history,
the people of Ireland were one. A noble figure told the unity of
their land within the circuit of the ocean. The Three Waves of Erin,
they said, smote upon the shore with a foreboding roar when danger
threatened the island; Cleena's wave called to Munster at an inlet
near Cork, while Tonn Rury at Dundrum and Tonn Tuaithe at the mouth of
the Bann sounded to the men of Ulster.
The weaknesses of the Irish system are apparent. The numerous small
territories were tempted, like larger European states, to raid
borders, to snatch land or booty, and to suffer some expense of
trained soldiers. Candidates for the chiefdom had to show their
fitness, and "a young lord's first spoil" was a necessary exploit.
There were wild plundering raids in the summer nights; disorders were
multiplied. A country divided in government was weakened for purposes
of offence, or for joint action in military matters. These evils were
genuine, but they have been exaggerated. Common action was hindered,
not mainly by human contentions, but by the forests and marshes, lakes
and rivers in flood that lay over a country heavy with Atlantic
clouds. Riots and forays there were, among a martial race and strong
men of hot passions, but Ireland was in fact no prominent example of
mediæval anarchy or disorder. Local feuds were no greater than those
which afflicted England down to the Norman Conquest and long after it;
and which marked the life of European states and cities through the
middle ages. The professional war bands of Fiana that hired themselves
out from time to time were controlled and recognised by law, and had
their special organisation and rites and rules of war. It has been
supposed that in the passion of tribal disputes men mostly perished by
murder and battle-slaughter, and the life of every generation was by
violence shortened to less than the common average of thirty years.
Irish genealogies prove on the contrary that the generations must be
counted at from thirty-three to thirty-six years: the tale of kings,
judges, poets, and householders who died peacefully in an honoured old
age, or from some natural accident, outruns the list of sudden murders
or deaths in battle. Historical evidence moreover shows us a country
of widening cornfields, or growing commerce, where wealth was
gathered, where art and learning swept like a passion over the people,
and schools covered the land. Such industries and virtues do not
flourish in regions given over to savage strife. And it is significant
that Irish chiefs who made great wars hired professional soldiers from
oversea.
If the disorders of the Irish system have been magnified its benefits
have been forgotten. All Irish history proved that the division of the
land into separate military districts, where the fighting men knew
every foot of ground, and had an intense local patriotism, gave them a