The question now arises, does the undoubted existence of these place-names, many of them mentioned in the very oldest manuscripts we have—these manuscripts being only copies of still more ancient ones now lost—mentioned, too, in connection with the celebrated events which are there said to have given them their names, do these and the universally received genealogies of historic tribes which trace themselves back to some ancestor who figured at the time when these place-names were imposed, form credible witnesses to their substantial truth? In other words, are such names as Creeveroe[1] (Red Branch) given to the spot where the Red Branch heroes have been always represented as residing; or Ardee (Ferdia's Ford) where Cuchulain fought his great single fight with that champion—are these to be accepted as collateral evidence of the Red Branch heroes of Ferdia and of Cuchulain? Are See-finn (Finn's seat) or Rath Coole[2] (Cool's rath) to be accepted as proving the existence of Finn and his father Cool?
In my opinion no stress, or very little, can be laid upon the argument from topography, which weighed so heavily with Keating, O'Donovan, and O'Curry, for if it is admitted at all it proves too much. If it proves the objective existence of Finn and of Cuchulain, so does it that of Dana, "the mother of the gods," and of divinities by the score. Besides the Gaels brought their topographical nomenclature with them to Alba, and places named from Finn and the Fenians, are nearly as plentiful there as in Ireland. Wherever the early Gaels went they took with them their heroic legends, and wherever they settled place-names relating to their legends which were so much a part of their intellectual life, grew up round them too. Something of the same kind may be seen in Greece—a land which presents so many and so striking analogies to that of the Gael; for wherever a Grecian colony settled, east or west, it was full of memorials of the legendary past, and Jasonia, or temples of Jason, and other memorials of the voyage of the Argonauts, are to be found from Abdêra to Thrace, eastward along the coast of the Euxine and in the heart of Armenia and Media, just as memorials of the flight of Diarmuid and of Gráinne from before Finn mac Cool may be found wherever the Gael are settled in Ireland, in Scotland, or the Isles.
Having come to the conclusion that Irish topography is useless for proving the genuineness of past history, let us look at Irish genealogy. When the Mac Carthys, descendants of Mac Carthy Mór, trace themselves through Oilioll Olum, king of Ireland in the second century, to Eber Finn, son of Milesius; when the O'Briens of Thomond trace themselves to the same through Oilioll Olum's second son; when the O'Carrolls of Ely trace themselves to the same through Cian, the third son; when the O'Neills trace themselves back through Niall of the Nine Hostages, and Conn of the Hundred Battles to Eremon, son of Milesius; when the O'Driscolls trace themselves to Ith, who was uncle of Milesius; when the Magennises trace themselves through Conall Cearnach, the Red Branch hero, back to Ir, the son of Milesius; and when every sept and name and family and clan in Ireland fit in, and even in our oldest manuscripts have always fitted in, each in its own place, with universally mutual acknowledgment and unanimity, each man carefully counting his ancestors through their hundredfold ramifications, and tracing them back first to him from whom they get their surname, and next to him from whom they get their tribe name, and from thence to the founder of their house, who in his turn grafts on to one of the great stems (Eremonian, Eberian, Irian, or Ithian)[3]; and when not only political friendships and alliances, but the very holding of tribal lands, depended upon the strict registration and observance of these things—we ask again do such facts throw any light upon the credibility of early Irish history and early Irish records?
The whole intricate system of Irish genealogy, jealously preserved from the very first, as all Irish literature goes to show,[4] played so important a part in Irish national history and in Irish social life, and is at the same time so intimately bound up with the people's traditions and literature, and throws so much light upon the past, that it will be well to try to get a grip of this curious and intricate subject, so important for all who would attempt to arrive at any knowledge of the life and feelings of the Irish and Scottish Gael, and upon which so much formerly depended in the history and alliances of both races.
All Milesian families trace themselves, as I have said, to one or other of the three sons of Milesius, who were Eremon, Eber, and Ir, or to his uncle Ith, who landed in Ireland at any time between 1700 and 800 years before Christ according to Irish computation.[5] But while they all trace themselves back to this point, it is to be observed that long before they reach it, in each of the four branches, some place in the long row of ancestors is arrived at, some name occurs, in which all or most of the various genealogies meet, and upon which all the branch lines converge. Thus in the Eberian families it is found that they all spring from the three sons of Oilioll [Ul-yul] Olum, who according to all the annals lived in the second century—in this Oilioll all the Eberian families converge.
Again all, or nearly all, the Irians trace themselves to either Conall Cearnach or Fergus Mac Roy, the great Red Branch champions who lived in the North shortly before the birth of Christ.
The tribes of the Ithians, the least numerous and least important of the four, seem to meet in Mac Con, king of Ireland, who lived in the second century, and who is the hero of the saga called the Battle of Moy Mochruime, where Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles, was slain.
In the line of Eremon only, the greatest of the four, do we find two pedigrees which meet at points considerably antecedent to the birth of Christ, for the Dál Riada of Scotland join the same stem as the O'Neills as much as 390 years before Christ, and the O'Cavanaghs at a still more remote period, in the reign of Ugony Mór. But setting aside these two families we find that all the other great reigning houses, as the Mac Donnells of Antrim, Maguires of Fermanagh, O'Kellys of Connacht, and others, either meet in the third century in Cairbré of the Liffey, son of King Cormac mac Art, and grandson of Conn of the Hundred Battles; or else like the O'Neills of Tyrone, O'Donnells of Tirconnell, O'Dogherties of Inishowen, O'Conors of Connacht, O'Flaherties of Galway, they meet in a still later progenitor—the father of Niall of the Nine Hostages.
It will be best to examine here some typical Irish pedigree that we may more readily understand the system in its simplest form, and see how families branch from clans, and clans from stems. Let us take, then, the first pedigree of those given at the end of the Forus Feasa, that of Mac Carthy Mór, and study it as a type.
This pedigree begins with Donal, who was the first of the Mac Carthys to be created Earl of Clancare, or Clancarthy, in 1565. Starting from him the names of all his ancestors are traced back to Eber, son of Milesius. Passing over his five immediate ancestors, we come to the sixth. It was he who built the monastery of Irriallach on the Lake of Killarney. The seventh ancestor was Donal, from whose brother Donagh come the families of Ard Canachta and Croc Ornachta. The tenth was Donal Roe, from whom come the Clan Donal Roe, and from whose brother, Dermot of Tralee, come the family of Mac Finneens. The eleventh was Cormac Finn, from whom come also the Mac Carthys of Duhallow and the kings of Desmond; while from his brother Donal come the Mac Carthys Riabhach, or Grey Mac Carthys. The thirteenth was Dermot of Kill Baghani, from whom come the Clan Teig Roe na Sgarti. The fourteenth was Cormac of Moy Tamhnaigh, from whose