The poets and historians "were obliged to be free from theft, and killing, and satirising, and adultery, and everything that would be a reproach to their learning." Mac Firbis, who was the last working historian of a great professional family, puts the matter nobly and well.
"Any Shanachie," he says, "whether an ollav or the next in rank, or belonging to the order at all, who did not preserve these rules, lost half his income and his dignity according to law, and was subject to heavy penalties besides, so that it is not to be supposed that there is in the world a person who would not prefer to tell the truth, if he had no other reason than the fear of God and the loss of his dignity and his income: and it is not becoming to charge partiality upon these elected historians [of the nation]. However, if unworthy people did write falsehood, and attributed it to a historian, it might become a reproach to the order of historians if they were not on their guard, and did not look to see whether it was out of their prime books of authority that those writers obtained their knowledge. And that is what should be done by every one, both by the lay scholar and the professional historian—everything of which they have a suspicion, to look for it, and if they do not find it confirmed in good books, to note down its doubtfulness,[12] along with it, as I myself do to certain races hereafter in this book, and it is thus that the historians are freed from the errors of others, should these errors be attributed to them, which God forbid."
I consider it next to impossible for any Gaelic pedigree to have been materially tampered with from the introduction of the art of writing, because tribal jealousies alone would have prevented it, and because each stem of the four races was connected at some point with every other stem, the whole clan system being inextricably intertwined, and it was necessary for all the various tribal genealogies to agree, in order that each branch, sub-branch, and family might fit, each in its own place.
I have little doubt that the genealogy of O'Neill, for instance, which traces him back to the father of Niall of the Nine Hostages who came to the throne in 356 is substantially correct. Niall, it must be remembered, was father of Laoghaire [Leary], who was king when St. Patrick arrived, by which time, if not before, the art of writing was known in Ireland. À fortiori, then, we may trust the pedigrees of the O'Donnells and the rest who join that stem a little later on.
If this be acknowledged we may make a cautious step or two backwards. No one, so far as I know, has much hesitation in acknowledging the historic character of that King Laoghaire whom St. Patrick confronted, nor of his father Niall of the Nine Hostages. But if we go so far, it wants very little to bring us in among the Fenians themselves, and the scenes connected with them and with Conn of the Hundred Battles; for Niall's great-grandfather was that Fiachaidh who was slain by the Three Collas—those who burnt Emania and destroyed the Red Branch—and his father is Cairbré of the Liffey, who overthrew the Fenians, and his father again is the great Cormac son of Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles who divided the kingdom with Owen Mór. But it is from the three grandsons of this Owen Mór the Eberians come, and from their half-brother come the Ithians, so that up to this point I think Irish genealogies may be in the main accepted. Even the O'Kavanaghs and their other correlations, who do not join the stem of Eremon till between 500 or 600 years before Christ, yet pass through Enna Cennsalach, king of Leinster, a perfectly historical character mentioned several times in the Book of Armagh,[13] who slew the father of Niall of the Nine Hostages; and I believe that, however we may account for the strange fact that these septs join the Eremonian stem so many hundreds of years before the O'Neills and the others, that up to this point their genealogy too may be trusted.
If this is the case, and if it is true that every Gael belonging to the Free Clans of Ireland could trace his pedigree with accuracy back to the fourth, third, or even second century, it affords a strong support to Irish history, and in my opinion considerably heightens the credibility of our early annals, and renders the probability that Finn mac Cool and the Red Branch heroes were real flesh and blood, enormously greater than before. It will also put us on our guard against quite accepting such sweeping generalisations as those of Skene, when he says that the entire legendary history of Ireland prior to the establishment of Christianity in the fifth century partakes largely of a purely artificial character. We must not forget that while no Irish genealogy is traced to the De Danann tribes, who were undoubtedly gods, yet the ancestor of the Dalcassians—Cormac Cas, Oilioll Olum's son—is said to have married Ossian's daughter.
[1] See Haliday's "Keating," p. 215.
[2] See p. 15 of O'Curry's MS. Materials. There was some doubt in his mind about the words in brackets, but as the sheets of his book were passing through the press he took out the MS. for another look on a particularly bright day, the result of which left him no doubt that he had read the name correctly.
[3] For a typical citation of this book see p. 28 of O'Donovan's "Genealogy of the Corca Laidh," in the "Miscellany of the Celtic Society."
[4] See "Celtic Miscellany," p. 144, O'Donovan's tract on Corca Laidh.
[5] "Generositatem vero et generis nobilitatem præ rebus omnibus magis appetunt. Unde et generosa conjugia plus longe capiunt quam sumptuosa vel opima. Genealogiam quoque generis sui etiam de populo quilibet observat, et non solum, avos, atavos, sed usque ad sextam vel septimam et ultra procul generationem, memoriter et prompte genus enarrat in hunc modum Resus filius Griffini filii Resi filii Theodori, filii Aeneæ, filii Hoeli filii Cadelli filii Roderici magni et sic deinceps.
"Genus itaque super omnia diligunt, et damna sanguinis atque dedecoris ulciscuntur. Vindicis enim animi sunt et iræ cruentæ nec solum novas et recentes injurias verum etiam veteres et antiquas velut instanter vindicare parati" ("Cambriæ Descriptio," Cap. XVII.).
[6] O'Donovan says—I forget where—that he had tested in every part of Ireland how far the popular memory could carry back its ancestors, and found that it did not reach beyond the seventh generation.
[7] According to the "Four Masters"; in 213, according to Keating.
[8] But see O'Donovan's introduction to "The Book of Rights," where he adduces some reasons for believing that it may have been a septennial not a triennial convocation.
[9] See Keating's History under the reign of Tuathal Teachtmhar.
[10] In the seventeenth century. His book on genealogies would, O'Curry computed, fill 1,300 pages of the size of O'Donovan's "Four Masters."
[11] This was a very ancient law book, which is quoted at least a dozen times in Cormac's Glossary, made in the ninth or tenth century.