That the dominant classes desired to see themselves thus promoted should hardly surprise us — most ruling establishments throughout history have always sought to see their credentials well established, not just for the pragmatic political needs of the moment but often with an eye to posterity. And so the Gaelic genealogists set to their task with an energy and inventiveness which even today provokes admiration from scholars.
One of the main works produced as a result of this intensive effort was the Lebor Gabála, the ‘Book of Invasions’, which sought to enumerate all the successive invasions of Ireland and all the peoples who partook in those invasions. Leaving aside its genealogical purpose, the account stands by itself as a fascinating collection of legends, within which stalk mysterious peoples and their powerful heroes, constantly fighting gigantic battles — and which can still today provide a rich source of inspiration, as is witnessed by the beautifully imaginative illustrations of Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick.
Within this account the ancestors of the Gaels are said to have sprung from two sons of Míl, a warrior who had come to Ireland from Spain. In the earliest version (eighth century) only a limited number of ethnic groupings are awarded this important pedigree, while all others are relegated to an inferior status. Then, in a later, ‘revised edition’ of Lebor Gabála, Míl seems to have posthumously increased his sons, for a third, Ir, is now present. As T.F. O’Rahilly commented: “The invention of Ir was probably due in the first instance to the genealogists, who were favourably disposed towards the Cruthin and determined to provide them with a highly respectable Goidelic [Gaelic] pedigree.”
This process continued, with other important Irish dynasties being incorporated into the Milesian family tree, the number of Míl’s sons eventually increasing to eight. However, as Francis Byrne pointed out, “the mythological material is so rich and varied that not even the most assiduous monkish synchroniser nor the most diplomatic fabricator of pedigrees could bring complete order into this chaos. The resultant inconsistencies and anachronisms give us valuable clues.”
T. F. O’Rahilly, in his monumental work Early Irish History and Mythology, tried to reassemble the jigsaw of early Irish origins, although his conclusions as to who the various peoples in Lebor Gabála might have been are questioned today. Nevertheless, O’Rahilly neatly summed up the process by which the Gaelic genealogists undertook their task:
“In the early Christian centuries the ethnic origins of the different sections of the Irish population were vividly remembered, so much so that one of the chief aims of the early Irish historians and genealogists, was to efface these distinctions from the popular memory. This they did by inventing for the Irish people generally (apart from the lower classes, who did not count) a common ancestor in the fictitious Míl of Spain…”
“The ‘learned’ authors of that elaborate fiction, the invasion of the Sons of Míl, and the genealogy-makers who collaborated with them, were animated by the desire to invest the Goidelic occupation of Ireland with an antiquity to which it was entitled neither in fact nor in tradition; for only in this way would it be feasible to provide a Goidelic descent for tribes of non-Goidelic origin, and to unify the divergent ethnic elements in the country by tracing them back to a common ancestor… [By] obliterating the memory of the different ethnic origins of the people… the tribes of pre-Celtic descent were turned officially into Goidels… It was necessary to discountenance the popular view that the Goidels were, comparatively speaking, late-comers to this country, and so the authors boldly and deliberately pushed back the Goidelic invasion into the remote past.”
This re-writing of history was eventually to have its desired result, as O’Rahilly noted with particular reference to the Cruthin:
“The Cruthin or Priteni are the earliest inhabitants of these islands to whom a name can be assigned… The combined influence of Bede, Mael Mura, and the genealogical fiction of Ir, caused Cruithni to lose favour as the name of a section of the Irish population. This disuse of Cruithni as a name is doubtless connected with the rise of a new genealogical doctrine which turned the Irish Cruthin into Goidels and thus disassociated them from the Cruthin of Scotland. Nevertheless the fact that there were Cruthin in Ireland as well as in Scotland was, as might be expected, long remembered; and so it is not surprising to find writers occasionally suggesting, in defiance of Mael Mura, that the Cruthin of both countries formed one people in remote times.”
To be continued