The True Origins Of Irish Society

This book had its origin when the author was glancing through an English translation of Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf. He was so struck by Hitler’s account of German history before, during, and after the First World War that he went and bought the book. What amazed him was its resemblance to the version of Irish history that he had been taught in Irish schools. There was no question of either side borrowing directly from the other, but equally obviously both were drawing on a common set of ideas and used a common method of exposition. Further study showed that both exposed a racist view of history and believed in the Darwinian struggle of the races. Both regarded their countries as subjected by alien races who destroyed the pure native culture. Both attributed every evil in their respective societies to these malign evil influences. Both saw that the alien races would have to be expelled from their countries so that their countries could again prosper when their native cultures were restored. Protestant landlords in Ireland had the same place in Irish racist propaganda and political mythology that the Jews had in Nazi political mythology. Most Irish boys of the author’s generation had, like Hitler, come across an inspiring teacher of history who inspired them to nationalism with his one-sided stories of Irish wrongs at the hands of the English. Having realised that the standard version of Irish history was vitiated in its roots the problem arose as to how a version of Irish history could be written which was fair to all parties involved. Many excellent books and monographs on various parts of Irish history have been written, and he has drawn on them considerably in this book. It is noticeable that the further the subject of an historical study is from the present the easier it is to be objective, and the less controversy there is. Some of the points examined and tested in this book are basic assumptions of racist propaganda, that separate races exist, that languages distinguish races, that each race has its own unique culture, and that foreign invasions necessarily destroy that unique culture. The author makes no claim to have done original research on any of the topics discussed in this book, but has drawn on the standard published works. He brings to the research a wide knowledge of the various subjects discussed which he has gathered over a lifetime. As a result of his researches he came to several conclusions. Firstly, that there was no unique Irish or Celtic race, Celtic being merely a language that had spread into many parts of Europe including Ireland. There was only one race in Europe, that of the Palaeolithic hunters who spread over it in the wake of the retreating ice-sheets. Celtic was a branch of the Indo-European languages which originated, apparently in southern Russia about 3000 BC. Gradually it broke into different dialects which further developed into distinct languages. But as late at 1500 BC Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon, and German were the same language. There was no evidence of invasions like those of Celtic warriors or any evidence that they wiped out the native population. As one author (Raftery) however remarked ruefully, it was regarded as virtually heresy to suggest that there never was a Celtic invasion. The culture of Ireland was not unique. It was derived bit by bit from centres of origin abroad, often in the Middle East. Nor were the various bits introduced by conquering warrior races. Farming techniques seem to have been spread largely by copying. Techniques in metal-working by travelling families who kept their secrets among themselves. Borrowing was selective. The Celtic language is as likely to have been introduced by traders as by warriors. Some things like writing and building with stone seem to have been neglected until introduced later in differing circumstances. There is no evidence that Ireland was a peaceful and prosperous land before the coming of ‘the in

This book deals with Irish society and history at a turning point. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Irish society was just had it always had been from time immemorial. It was not a state but a collection of warring states. Even that statement is not quite accurate for there were warring statelets within the warring states. The attempts by the kings of England from the twelfth century onwards to impose law and order had been little more successful than the attempts of various Irish chiefs before them to establish a single kingdom in Ireland. Yet the endeavours of the English kings were not without some improvements. They managed, chiefly in the eastern half of the island, to bring in improvements. By the end of the 16th century a Government had been established with a system of central administration based on Dublin and local government and administration based on shires or counties under sheriffs. Ireland might have developed into a centrally-managed state with regular parliaments and systems of courts, as the old ways were abandoned and forgotten. Unfortunaately, a civil war broke out in England which became mirrored in Ireland. In Ireland, in addition, the civil disputes between the king and the English Parliament were complicated by religious disputes. Ireland became polarized on sectarian lines. Though a peace of sorts was established after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the sectarian struggle broke out again, at the end of the century. Both sides sought the help of foreign armies, and the Protestant armies proved victorious. The Catholics paid the inevitable penalty. This might have been confined to the history books, if the Catholics, largely financed from the United States, in the 19th century tried to recover their dominance through political and violent means.

The 18th century tended to be neglected by Irish historians in the 20th century. Irish achievements in the 18th century were largely those of Protestants, so Catholics tended to disregard them. Catholic historians concentrated on the grievances of the Catholics and exaggerated them. The Penal Laws against Catholics were stressed regardless of the fact that most of them affected only a small number of rich Catholics, the Catholic landowners who had sufficient wealth to raise a regiment of infantry to fight for the Catholic Stuart pretenders. The practice of the Catholic religion was not made illegal. Catholic priests could live openly and have their own chapels and mass-houses. As was the law at the time, the ordinary workers, Catholic or Protestant, had no vote, and so were ignored by the political classes. Nor had they any ambitions in the direction of taking control of the state. If they had local grievances, and in many places they had, especially with regard to rents and tithes, they dealt with them locally, and often brutally, but they were not trying to overthrow the Government. If some of them looked for a French invasion it was in the hope that the French would bring guns and powder to assist them in their local disputes. It is a peculiarity, as yet unexplained, that most of the Catholic working classes, by the end of the century, had names that reflected their ancestry as minor local chiefs. The question remains where did the descendants of the former workers, the villeins and betaghs go? The answer seems to be that in times of war and famine the members of even the smallest chiefly family stood a better chance of surviving. This would explain the long-standing grievance of the Catholic peasants that they were unjustly deprived of their land. We will perhaps never know the answer to this question. Penal Laws against religious minorities were the norm in Europe. The religion of the state was decided by the king according to the adage cuius regio eius religio (each king decides the state religion for his own kingdom). At the end of the 17th century, the Catholic landowners fought hard for the Catholic James II. But in the 18th century they lost interest and preferred to come to terms with the actually reigning monarch, and became Protestants to retain their lands and influence. Unlike in Scotland, support for the Catholic Stuarts remained minimal. Nor was there any attempt to establish in independent kingdom or republic. When such an attempt was made at the very end of the century it was led by Protestant gentlemen in imitation of their American cousins. Ireland in the 18th century was not ruled by a foreign elite like the British raj in India. It was an aristocratic society, like all the other European societies at the time. Some of these were descendants of Gaelic chiefs; some were descendants of those who had received grants of confiscated land; some were descendants of the moneylenders who had lent money to improvident Gaelic chiefs. Together these formed the ruling aristocracy who controlled Parliament and made the Irish laws, controlled the army, the judiciary and the executive. Access to this elite was open to any gentleman who was willing to take the oath of allegiance and conform to the state church, the Established Church but not the nonconformists. British kings did not occupy Ireland and impose foreign rule. Ireland had her own Government and elected Parliament. By a decree of King John in the 12th century, the Lordship of Ireland was annexed to the person of the king of England. When not present in Ireland in person, and he rarely was, his powers were exercised by a Lord Lieutenant to whom considerable executive power was given. He presided over the Irish Privy Council which drew up the legislation to be presented to the Irish Parliament. One restraint was imposed on the Irish Parliament. By Poynings’ Law it was not allowed to pass legislation that infringed on the rights of the king or his English Privy Council. The British Parliament had no interest in the internal affairs of Ireland. The Irish Council were free to devise their own legislation and they did so. The events in Irish republican fantasy are examined in detail. The was no major rebellion against alleged British rule. The vast majority of Catholics and Protestants rallied to the support of their lawful Government. The were local uprisings easily suppressed by the local militias and yeomanry. Atrocities were not all on one side. Ireland at last enjoyed a century of peace with no wasteful and destructive wars within its bounds. No longer were its crops burned, its buildings destroyed, its cattle driven off, its population reduced by fever and famine. Its trade was resumed and gradually wealth accumulated and was no longer dispersed on local wars. Gentlemen, as in England, could afford to build great country and town houses. The arts flourished as never before. Skilled masons could build great houses. Stone cutters could carve sculptures. The most delicate mouldings could be applied to ceilings. The theatre flourished. While some gentlemen led the life of wastrels, others devoted themselves to the promotion of agriculture and industry. Everywhere mines were dug to exploit minerals. Ireland had not the same richness of minerals as England, but every effort was made to find and exploit them. Roads were improved, canals dug, rivers deepened, and ports developed. Market towns spread all over Ireland which provided local farmers with outlets for their produce and increased the wealth of the landlords. This wealth was however very unevenly spread. The population was ever increasing and the poor remained miserably poor. In a bad year, hundreds of thousands of the very poor could perish through cold and famine. But the numbers of the very poor kept on growing. Only among the Presbyterians in Ulster was there emigration on any scale. Even before the American Revolution they found a great freedom and greater opportunities in the American colonies. Catholics, were born, lived and died in the same parish. Altogether it was a century of great achievement.

The history of medieval Ireland cannot be understood without some knowledge of the historical and social background. Also many concepts familiar to readers in Ireland are not familiar to readers in other countries. Therefore I have supposed that many readers will be coming to the subject for the first time. I trust that those who are already familiar with the subject will not regard me as condescending. Everyone has to start at some point. It should be remembered that records were kept and history written about the activities of the chiefs and noblemen. Little was written about ordinary people who formed the vast bulk of the population. We have to find what we can about them indirectly, for example from records of harvests kept on big estates. All of western civilization is derived from what happened in the various lands and regions in Western Europe after the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire. Numerous warrior families poured across the old frontiers of the Empire and adapted themselves to the Roman way of life. Usually they adopted the Latin language, though in England they did not. As the political and military power of Rome declined another power developed, that of the Christian Church based on Rome. It kept literacy and the art of writing alive. The various post-Roman states were ruled by kings who depended on the Christian clergy for much of their administration, and indeed for their defence. This however led to prolonged disputes as to the limits of the authority of the religious and secular powers. These states were then subjected to prolonged attacks by pagan peoples like the Vikings and Huns from the north the south and the east. They gradually reorganised themselves to beat off the invaders. Central to this organisation was the castle and the mounted knight. The whole structure of society was re-formed on the basis of supporting these. At the same time there were attempts to get the clergy to lead lives different from those of knights and more in keeping with their religious vocation. The invaders were driven off. Those to the north and east accepted Christianity and developed their states on the latest western European lines. Only in the south, in Spain and Africa did the threat remain. England, a former province of the Roman Empire was taken over by various Germanic-speaking families called Angles and Saxons and they at an early date, accepted Christianity. England suffered very heavily from the raiders from the north, the Vikings, but early in the 10th century succeeded in forming a unified kingdom and controlling the Vikings. In the 11th century the Anglo-Saxon rulers were overthrown by Normans from Normandy who introduced the feudal system of government which had grown up on the Continent. Ireland, though never a part of the Roman Empire, had accepted Christian missionaries in the 5th century and became a Christian country. It too suffered from the Viking invasions, and succeeded largely in overcoming them. Many of the Vikings remained in Ireland and brought many innovations to Ireland. As an island beyond an island Ireland was usually the last to keep up with developments. The Irish clergy began to try to adapt themselves to the standards of the new reform in Church affairs on the Continent. There was a fresh irruption into Irish affairs when some of the Norman king of Englands subjects were invited to take part in a struggle between Irish chiefs and were promised grants of land in Ireland. This would effectively have removed them from the authority of their feudal overlord, so he too went to Ireland to assert his authority over them. He received a general assent from the Norman knights, the Gaelic chiefs and the Irish bishops that he would be their feudal overlord and then departed. That might have been the end of the matter. For various reasons it became necessary to send more knights to Ireland to maintain the peace and to assert the kings authority. The knights for their part began to deve

This book is a shorter companion book to The Real History of Ireland: Warts and All. It deals systematically with the social and economic aspects of Ireland from the earliest days until 1921. Many books with regard to the history of Ireland suffer to a greater or lesser degree of political or ideological distortion. It was always the authors aim to get at the actual facts of Irish history and to paint a picture with warts and all. Events are placed in their historical context and not in the context of later political propaganda.