Wars of the Irish Kings (13 page)
Read Wars of the Irish Kings Online
Authors: David W. McCullough
“How is that, O slender Suibne?
thou wert leader of many hosts;
the day the iniquitous battle was fought
at Magh Rath thou wert most comely.
Like crimson or like beautiful gold
was thy noble countenance after feasting,
like down or like shavings
was the faultless hair of thy head.
Like cold snow of a single night
was the aspect of thy body ever;
blue-hued was thine eye, like crystal,
like smooth, beautiful ice.
Delightful the shape of thy feet,
not powerful methinks was thy chieftainship;
thy fortunate weapons—they could draw blood—
were swift in wounding ….
Thy body will be a feast for birds of prey,
ravens will be on thy heavy silence,
a fierce, black spear shall wound thee,
and thou shalt be laid on thy back, destitute ….”
Now when Suibne heard the shout of the multitude and the tumult of the great army, he ascended from the tree towards the rain-clouds of the firmament, over the summits of every place and over the ridge-pole of every land. For a long time thereafter he was (faring) throughout Ireland, visiting and searching in hard, rocky clefts and in bushy branches of tall ivy-trees, in narrow cavities of stones, from estuary to estuary, from peak to peak, and from glen to glen, till he reached ever-delightful Glen Bolcain [in Antrim]. It is there the madmen of Ireland used to go when their year in madness was complete, that glen being ever a place of great delight for
madmen. For it is thus Glen Bolcain is: it has four gaps to the wind, likewise a wood very beautiful, very pleasant, and clean-banked wells and cool springs, and sandy, clear-water streams, and green-topped watercress and brooklime bent and long on their surface. Many likewise are its sorrels, its wood-sorrels, its
lus-bian
and its
biorragan
, its berries, and its wild garlic, its
melle
and its
miodhbhun
, its black sloes and its brown acorns. The madmen moreover used to smite each other for the pick of watercress of that glen and for the choice of its couches.
Suibne also remained for a long time in that glen until he happened one night to be on the top of a tall ivy-clad hawthorn tree which was in the glen. It was hard for him to endure that bed, for at every twist and turn he would give, a shower of thorns off the hawthorn would stick in him, so that they were piercing and rending his side and wounding his skin. Suibne thereupon changed from that bed to another place, where there was a dense thicket of great briars with fine thorns and a single protruding branch of blackthorn growing alone up through the thicket. Suibne settled on the top of that tree, but so slender was it that it bowed and bent under him, so that he fell heavily through the thicket to the ground, and there was not as much as an inch from his sole to the crown of his head that was not wounded and reddened. He then rose up, strengthless and feeble, and came out through the thicket, whereupon he said: “My conscience!” said he, “it is hard to endure this life after a pleasant one, and a year to last night I have been leading this life,” whereupon he uttered the lay:
“A year to last night
have I been among the gloom of branches,
between flood and ebb,
without covering around me.
Without a pillow beneath my head,
among the fair children of men;
there is peril to us, O God,
without sword, without spear.
Without the company of women;
save brooklime of warrior-bands—
a pure fresh meal—
watercress is our desire.
Without a foray with a king,
I am alone in my home,
without glorious reavings,
without friends, without music.
Without sleep, alas!
let the truth be told,
without aid for a long time,
hard is my lot.
Without a house right full,
without the converse of generous men,
without the title of king,
without drink, without food.
Alas that I have been parted here
from my mighty, armed host,
a bitter madman in the glen,
bereft of sense and reason.
Without being on a kingly circuit,
but rushing along every path;
that is the great madness,
O King of Heaven of saints.
Without accomplished musicians,
without the converse of women,
without bestowing treasures;
it has caused my death, O revered Christ.
Though I be as I am to-night,
there was a time
when my strength was not feeble
over a land that was not bad.
On splendid steeds,
in life without sorrow,
in my auspicious kingship
I was a good, great king.
After that, to be as I am
through selling Thee, O revered Christ!
a poor wretch am I, without power,
in the Glen of bright Bolcan.
The hawthorn that is not soft-topped
has subdued me, has pierced me;
the brown thorn-bush
has nigh caused my death.
The battle of Congal with fame,
to us it was doubly piteous;
on Tuesday was the rout;
more numerous were our dead than our living.
A-wandering in truth,
though I was noble and gentle,
I have been sad and wretched
a year to last night.”
[After years of random flying around Ireland, Sweeney settles at the monastery of St. Moling in County Carlow, where the monks see that he is fed and cared for. Then, as the curse of St. Ronan foretold, he is killed by a spear, the killer being the cook’s husband, who was jealous of the attention the madman was getting. As he converts to Christianity and dies, Sweeney thinks back over his life.]
“There was a time when I deemed more melodious
than the quiet converse of people,
the cooing of the turtle-dove
flitting about a pool.
There was a time when I deemed more melodious
than the sound of a little bell beside me
the warbling of the blackbird to the mountain
and the belling of the stag in a storm.
There was a time when I deemed more melodious
than the voice of a beautiful woman beside me,
to hear at dawn
the cry of the mountain-grouse.
There was a time when I deemed more melodious
the yelping of the wolves
than the voice of a cleric within
a-baaing and a-bleating.”
KINGS
AND
BATTLES
I
T IS IMPOSSIBLE TO LEAF
through the early literature of Ireland and stop at a certain place and say, this is where the mythmaking ends and true history begins. When it came time to write about the early kings—sometimes centuries after they lived—fact, memory, current politics, religion, and the love of a good story mixed together in sometimes wildly unequal portions to create a historic tradition.
When Gerald of Wales wrote about the newly invaded Ireland in the twelfth century, he noted, “There are many kings there.” Indeed there were and there had been for centuries, as many as 125 at a time, ranging from the kings of tiny local kingdoms to the kings of the four provinces to the high king at Tara. Since none of these kings, great or small, inherited his crown, each had to win—one way or another—the support of his nobles and the recognition of the kings of rival kingdoms. This was done through force, through well-planned marriages, and through an elaborate system of gift giving.
The following accounts of some pre-eleventh-century kings mix legend and fact, but one scene provides some insight on the gift-giving process. Cormac, king of Munster, needs money and asks for gifts. His family and closest allies do not respond, but a distant clan—no doubt seeking closer ties to the ruler—is unexpectedly generous. Usually, however, the giving of gifts was not left to chance and everyone knew exactly what was required.
The Book of Rights (Kebor na Cert)
, which claims to be from the eleventh century but was probably written later, spells out the gift giving in detail. Here, for example, is a partial list of what was expected from a king of Munster:
Ten steeds and ten drinking horns and ten swords and ten
scrings
[horse harnesses] and two rings and two chessboards to the king of Gabhran.Ten steeds and ten bondmen [slaves] and ten women and ten drinking horns to the king of the Eoghanachta.
Eight bondmen and eight women and swords and eight horses and eight shields and ten ships to the king of the Deise Momhan.
Seven hounds and seven steeds and seven drinking horns to the king of Dairbhre.
Seven women and seven
matals
[cloaks] trimmed in gold and seven drinking horns and seven steeds to the king of Ciarraighe.
Irish knights and their attendants, 1521. The mantles and axes are typically Irish; the swords and armor are not. Drawing by Albrecht Dürer.
BY GEOFFREY KEATING
Geoffrey Keating (c. 1570-1650), a priest born in Tipperary and educated in Europe, is usually thought of as the first modern Irish historian. He wrote his history of Ireland from the mythic invasions (which he accepted more or less at face value) to the Norman invasion (brought on, he thought, by the sinful ways of the Irish) in Irish rather than Latin. Although his most enthusiastic admirers call him the Herodotus of Ireland, Keating is read by students today more for the clarity of his Irish than for historical fact.
These three selections from his history include a possibly mythic tale of two second-century kings who divided up Ireland between themselves, an account of the last battle fought by a tenth-century king of Munster, and a brief commentary of the Battle of Mag Rath, the battle from which Sweeney was said to flee after he went mad.
There might have been mythical elements in the division of Ireland between Conn (or Conan) of the Hundred Battles and Logan Mor (Owen the Great), between Ulster and Munster, but that line stretching from present-day Dublin to Galway was fought over for centuries to come, and for centuries the kings of Munster were chosen from the Eoganacht clan, who claimed to be descendants of the great Owen.
The account of the last battle of King Cormac has a couple of curious moments. One comes when Cormac, urged on by a priest but knowing that he will lose the battle and his life, decides to go to war. Just before the fight begins, one of his officers complains that the “the ecclesiastics” should fight their own battles. In a history written largely by monks and priests, this is a rare flicker of criticism.
The other moment, after the battle, is the scene involving what was proposed to be done with Cormac’s severed head. A nineteenth-century editor of the text was so shocked that he added a footnote to his edition saying that he had never before encountered a custom so “horribly distorted and heathenish” and suggesting that if such a thing did occur it must have had its origins in the East, presumably with the Mongol hordes. It is also worth noting the many parallels made with
the final hours of Cormac—who was an abbot as well as a king—with the Last Supper and crucifixion of Christ.
In his brief comments on the Battle of Mag Rath in County Down in 637, Keating does not discuss tactics or even show much interest in the outcome. Instead, he writes about flags and insignia. Heraldry had not been of much interest until the Tudor years, when complex coats of arms came into fashion. Writing soon after the death of Elizabeth, Keating shows that even in the seventh century the Irish could field relatively modern-looking armies.
