Clare Island Survey — Agriculture and its History. 5 19 



" Ise Dulesse is good for corne as whete, rye, peason and benes. 



" There is no place yn al these commotes where the people dwelle vicatim 

 but al sparsim." 1 



The polity of the Celts in Ireland had its origin in the same source as that 

 of the Celts in Wales. It was just another branch of the same tree, only it 

 lived till it was four or five centuries older, and probably, in consequence, was 

 somewhat different in the end of its days. From the point of view of our 

 present inquiry it may be suggested that time seems to have increased the 

 power of the Celtic chiefs in Ireland. Many of them armed their servile 

 class — fuidhirs as they were called — and through them not only attained a 

 greater ascendancy over the free tribesmen, but also acquired private owner- 

 ship in land. It was thus possible for agriculture to have made some advance 

 on the lands in the absolute possession of the chiefs, provided always that 

 there were no other circumstances to retard it. 



But before coming closer to the Irish tribal system, it may be observed 

 that it had already survived at least two disintegrating attacks before it 

 finally succumbed to those of Elizabeth and James. The earlier was that of 

 the Norsemen. 2 While the first of these were filibusters and plunderers 

 who were eager, as has been said frequently, to avenge upon Christianity the 

 terrible wrongs done to themselves and their religion by Charlemagne, the 

 later Norsemen came in with the intention of settling and holding the land, 

 just as they did in England and Scotland. But, although they raided and 

 ravaged it, divided it up into sections for purposes of government and taxation, 3 

 and even gave Norse endings to the names of the four provinces — Leighinster, 

 Mumh&ster, Uladsifer, and Kunnaksfer* — they were unable to hold the interior 

 permanently. Their interests lay in too many lands, and their strength was 

 dissipated in too many conquests at the same time. In Ireland the power of 

 the Norsemen was eventually confined to the cities they had built and to the 

 districts around them — Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Limerick, and so on — 

 and their energies were eventually turned to trade and commerce, by which 

 they became the intermediaries between the tribes of the interior and the 

 inhabitants of Britain and Europe. But it must not be forgotten that, just as 

 in the Highlands of Scotland, while only fragments of their language and civili- 



1 These quotations are from Toulniiu Smith's edition, published 1906. 



2 Meaning roughly Ostmen, Danes, Norsemen, and Swedes, and the Saxons driven into Denmark 

 by Charlemagne. 



3 " Imar (and his sons) ordained kings and chiefs, stewards and bailiffs in every territory, and in 

 every chieltanry after that, and he levied the roya rent. And such was the oppressiveness of the tribute 

 and rent of the foreigners over all Erinn at large, and generally, that there was a king from them over 

 every territory, and a chief over chieftainry, and an abbot over every church, and a steward over 

 every village, and a soldier in every house." — Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, p. 49. 



4 Halliday's Scandinavian Antiquities of Dublin, p. 135. 



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