MacNioili- — Earlfi Irish Population- Groups. 93 



territory anciently belonged to the Osseirge or Osraige, since their bounds also 

 extended to Duma Dresa and to Grian = Pallasgreen, co. Limerick, and the 

 story of the D^si settlement represents the Osseirge as having been driven 

 eastward across the river Andobor (" Anner "). The plantation of the Desi 

 may be regarded as a concomitant of the occupation of Cashel by the 

 Eoganachta. The Desi were settled partly in the baronies of Slieve Ardagh 

 and Iffa-and-Offa East, thus forming, as it were, a buffer-state between the 

 Eoganacht of Cashel and the dispossessed Osseirge. 



102. Three grades of tuatha can be distinguished in early documents : 

 (1) Soerthuatha, not subject to tributes ; (2) Fortuatha, retaining internal 

 autonomy but tributary to an external overking ; (3) Aithechtuatha, vassal com- 

 munities paying rent to local chiefs of free race. Genealogically, the fortuatha 

 were held to be outside of the kindred of the overking and his people, and 

 therefore subject to them ; the aithechfiiatha were regarded as of unfree race, 

 descended from the pre-Gaelic inhabitants. 



103. The genealogical doctrine, however, must be taken as often expressing 

 political status rather than racial origin. For this fact, which otherwise might 

 be inferred from a study of the genealogies, we have the testimony of Gilla in 

 Chomded Hua Cormaic, a twelfth-century poet (LL 144 a 24) : — 



Failet se muid sain mehair • cumviaiscit craeb ngenelaig 



totinsma daerchland ic dul • i-lloc saerchland re slonnud 



Torrchi mogad mod mebla • ocus dibad tigerna 



serg na saerchland etig uath • la forhairt na n-aithechthtiath 



Miscribend do gne eolais • do lucid uilc in aneolais 



no lucht ind eolais ni ferr . gniit ar muin miscribend. 



Six ways there are of special note that confound the tree of genealogy : 



intrusion of base stocks usurping the place of free stocks by name ; 

 migrations of serfs, a way of shame ; and decay of lords ; 



withering of the free races, dreadful horror ; with overgrowth of the 

 vassal folks ; 

 miswriting, in the guise of learning, by the unlearned of evil intent, 

 or the learned themselves, no whit better, who falsify the record 

 for lucre. 



104. The three discrepant origins — two importing free descent — assigned to 

 the Partraige exhibit one instance, from many that could be cited, of this 

 process of " confounding the tree of genealogy." By " migrations of serfs " 

 we may understand that, in time of conquest, unfree populations were enlisted 

 among the invading forces and were rewarded with the possession of lands under 



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