Pre-Christian Irish Society
When Christians arrived in Ireland and started to write about the country they found an island of Gaelic kingdoms, perhaps up to 150, that was dynastic and the political organisation was based on the tuath. The tuath was the bedrock of the Gaelic political system and is described as a small kingdom. Most of what we know now has been gleaned from the Irish Law Tracts, commonly known as the Brehon Laws. Other written sources include the Hero and Saga Tales.
Assemblies
Assembly is a universal facet of civil communities’ functioning and was central to the practice of civil society across medieval northwest Europe.
There were many different types of Gaelic assembly – aireacht, tínoil, cét, dál, mór- dál, óenach, rigdál and comdál. Obviously the three most important assemblies were the inauguration of a new king for the tuath, the Óenach the annual festival assembly and the rigdál, the exceptional assemblies convened by a king and between kings. The most important rigdál held in Offaly was that held in Birr in 697AD and is known as the Synod of Birr. A later rigdál was also held in Birr in 827AD.
How do you identify assembly and inauguration sites? There is no unique archaeological methodology for researching medieval inauguration sites, it is very difficult. Elizabeth FitzPatrick leaves her archaeological and landscape background and suggests researching explicit mention in early historic or literary records, using detailed studies of place-name evidence, along with cartography and folklore evidence in order to pinpoint these locations. FitzPatrick has identified 115 assembly landscapes through archaeology, documentary evidence and other interdisciplinary methodologies.
Looking for assembly places is not simple, these sites have been unused for these purposes for at least 400 years – these were natural places, open fields, hilltops, far-seeing hills or ridges. Many inauguration sites are close to existing dynastic burial mounds and may be associated with the original sept name.
Many early church sites were located near assembly locations. Later, Christianity was formative in developing kingship within a Christian context in Ireland.
As far back as 1921 the eminent scholar Eoin MacNeill lamented the fact that so little research had been carried out on the public assemblies of ancient Ireland. It is only in recent years that scholars, particularly Elizabeth FitzPatrick have started to report on these important sites. The information gap had been filled out through the oral tradition and local folklore.
Place names
Place names can provide clues towards identifying a hill used for a gathering e.g. Ard na dTaoiseach in Inishowen, Donegal. Many sites have the root-words – ard (height), cnoc (hill, mound), mullach (top or crown), tulach (hill, hillock, mound), leac (flagstone, bedrock), carraig (rock, large stone) or carn (a heap). Ard na dTaoiseach is one of the last recorded inauguration sites used in Ireland when Feidhlim Óg Ó Dochartaigh was inaugurated by Aodh Ó Domhnaill in 1601.
Names of specific locations can change over time. One such is that at Mullach Croiche at Mullacrohy. It also appears as Mullach Chruich and lastly an earlier version of the name appears as Mullach Alluirc, described in the Kilcormac Missal as the place where Sean and Brian, the sons of Aodh Ó Maolmhuaidh were slain. Mullach Croiche is in the centre of Mullacrohy less than a mile northeast of Mountbolus.
Inauguration of a king
Sites were carefully chosen and exploited in order to bolster the authority of the royal candidate. The people of the tuath assembled around the inauguration site. Most tuatha had a single location where all the assemblies took place, a few, such as Tara, Cruachan or Uisneach had a number of locations.
The Uí Dhomhnaill had three inauguration sites in Tír Conaill – Carraig an Dúin (Doon Rock), Ráith Both (Raphoe Cathedral) and Cill Mhic Nenáin (Kilmacrenan).
There is no single source describing the rites carried out, many only mention a few of these rites. Most of the literature was written in the 11th and 12th centuries, although describing pre-Christian and early Christion practices.
The ritual involved a number of clearly defined formal steps – reading aloud the genealogy of the proposed king, recitation of a praise poem by the file, public acclimation of the king, bathing, feasting and drinking. Later, there were three texts such as the Life of Máedoc of Ferns from the 12th century which details the making of a king of Bréfne as the king of Leinster. However, in Irish and European rituals the king is acclaimed by his people as part of the process. Details of acclimation in an Irish context are described in the Book of Lecan.
Bathing and feasting were also part of the Anglo-Saxon and Viking inauguration rituals. Pits containing food waste are a common feature found at assembly places across Europe.
Gerald of Wales’ (Geraldus Cambrensus) account in his The Conquest of Ireland (Topograpgica Hibernica) of an Irish inauguration ritual for king elect Cinéal gConaill, was partly informational but mainly propaganda for his Norman masters. However, his views of the Irish included ‘rude people…living like beasts’ and ‘frightfully ugly’, including ‘given to treachery’.
P. MacCana has concluded that the ollam filed (chief poet) was the official presiding over the inauguration ceremony.
Acclamation. Public acclamation by the people was part of the process. The ceremony for O Dubhda is recorded in the Book of Lecan ‘it is not lawful ever to nominate the O Dubhda until O Caomháin and Mac Firbhisigh pronounce the name and every clergyman and comharba of a church and every bishop, and every chief of a district, pronounces the name after O Caomháin and Mac Firbhisigh’. The Annals of Connacht record the inauguration of Aed Ó Conchobair saying that ‘he was proclaimed in a style as royal, as lordly and as public as any of his race’.
There appears to have been a practice of a raid, usually a cattle raid as the first act of the new king. We find in the Annals of the Four Masters at AFM 1265 ‘Hugh O’Conor, his own son was inaugurated king over the Connachta, as his successor. Hugh committed his regal depredation in Offaly, and on his return to Athlone put out the eyes of Cathal, son of Teige O’Conor who died in consequence’. Again, in 1559 when Uilliam Odhar ÓCearbhall assumed the lordship of Éile he raided the Uí Bhriain Ara.
Inauguration stones.
There are a few references that the new king sat on an inauguration stone or a stone throne. In Europe kings were regularly enthroned on stone thrones. These stones were intended to grant the kingship when they approved the proper candidate.
In the Dindshenchas (compilation of local lore) we find information on the royal inaugurations at Tara. Of the ‘Fál beside the Mound of the Hostages on the north, to wit, the stone that used to roar under the feet of every King that would take possession of Ireland’. Lia Fáil stones emitted a shout at the arrival of the candidate.
Cadamstown inauguration stone Now situated in the village of Cadamstown, this stone is known locally as the ‘Ballykelly Stone’ and is locally believed to be the inauguration stone of the O’Flanagan clan of the Cinel Arga. The site consists of a large irregular and well weathered limestone boulder. It was moved from its original location in the townland of Coolcreen to its present location in 1978.
Clonfinlough Stone It is suggested that a ‘footprint’ on a stone can be found on a glacial erratic at Clonfinlough. Rev. James Graves in 1860s speculated that it could have served as an inauguration stone at some period. Other names associated with thin stone include the Fairy’s Stone and Horseman’s Stone.
Clonfinlough Stone, Courtesy National Museum of Ireland
A boulder in the garden of Cloghatanny House, Co. Offaly, carried the name ‘Fox’s Stone’ or Cloch an tSionnaigh.
O’Donovan makes reference in his Letters to the Leacht Conghail on Croghan Hill, it is unlcear what the leacht was used for.
Óenach
The Óenach was an important event in the calendar of a rural society. It was at once a political assembly, market-fair, games and an occasion for general jollification. It was the most important annual festival; it was closely associated with Lunasa and markede the beginning of the harvest. It corresponds very closely to the Scandinavian and Icelandic Thing assemblies.
Games and horse-racing were an essential element of the óenach, tribute was rendered and gifts exchanged. Colmán Eala (Lynally) was regarded as one of the three principal Óenach sites in Ireland during the 9th century according to the Triads of Ireland. In the Annals of Ulster for 827AD we read ‘A disturbance of the Fair of Colmán caused by an attack on the Laigin Desgabair by Muiredach, and very many fell therein’. Colmán Eala was the assembly location and a significant focal point on the territorial boundary between the kingdoms of Cenel Fiachach and Delbna Ethra. St. Colmán Eala was listed as the most important saint by the Ceinéal Fiachach tribe. Óenaig died out after the 12th century.
Óenaigh celebrated famous ancestral figures, these landscapes were places for assembling the communities of the living and the dead. Perhaps the Bronze Age burial of an adult and child with grave goods discovered during the N52 bypass at Screggan provided one of the funerary connections to the Colmán Eala assembly landscape.
Rígdál
These meetings were not held on a regular basis, they were meetings between kings and their advisors to discuss legal issues or mediate disputes. The most important rigdál held in Offaly was that held in Birr in 697AD and is known as the Synod of Birr. Annals say another one was held in Birr in 827AD.
Airecht
This is the law court for free-men (aire) and may have been part of the óenaig. The Annals of Ulster for 814 tell us that Cruachain was used to promulgate the Law of Ciarán, it states ‘Ciarán’s law was exalted at Cruachain by Muirgius’.
Airechta were also used occassionally for parleys between warring parties.
Kingship
Tuatha were governed by a Ri (king). There were three types of Ri tuaithe (king of a tuath):
- Ri Tuaithe – king of a tuath, ‘petty kingdom’
- Ruiri – overking of several petty kingdoms
- Ri Ruirech – provincial king e.g., Ulster, Leinster, Connacht, Munster and Meath.
There was also the Ri Érenn, the High King of Ireland. Although many claimed to be the High King of Eireann, particularly the Uí Néill, there is little evidence they were ever successful in gaining acceptance from the other provincial kings.
In addition to the king there were other dignitaries in the king’s court – the poet file, judge breitheamh, smith goba, steward rechtaire and several more. Outside the royal household there were also the draoi (druids) who were influential in the running of religious and civil affairs.
There is no mention of the majority of the people of the tuath – they were the slaves, the mug (male slave) and the cumal (female slave). The cumalwas highly valued as an item of currency – 1 cow was equal to 3 cumala or 1 ounce of sliver. Female slaves were traded regularly or used as payment for a fine.
Katherine Simms tells us that inauguration processes were not static but contained distinct regional variations and changed and developed over time.
Duties of the king
We have a list of the qualities of a king from the 9th century Teosca Cormaic (Teachings of Cormac) that included
- Fertility during his reign
- Fruit on the trees
- Fish in the rivers
- Fruitful crops
- Truthfulness
In addition, his responsibilities include roads and road maintenance. He must be just, firm,
patient and wise.
What the king cannot do
The king is also obliged to avoid certain taboos, the taboo was knows as a geis, plural gessa. In the Togail Bruidne Da Derga (The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel) Conaire, the King of Ireland is told to avoid the following taboos
- Must not go righthandwise around Tara,
- Must not venture out of Tara every ninth night,
- Must not interfere between two of his servants,
- Must not permit three red riders to enter the house of the red one before him
- Must not spend the night in a house where firelight is visible.
The breaking of a geis leads to the imminent downfall of the king, both king and tuath were punished. It is at this stage that we can look at the Bog Bodies and the theory of human sacrifice. The remains of Old Croghan Man indicate to us that he was a person of status – manicured finger nails and his leather arm-ring. He had a stab wound on his chest, he had been decapitated and his body cut in half. Current thinking is that this was a ritual killing, perhaps someone of a royal family and punished for some crime or failure. Other bog bodies, including some outside Ireland, had been executed in similar ways.
Old Croghan Man, Courtesy National Museum of Ireland
Other events listed in the law tracts can bring down a king – an unjust decision, failure in crops, famine, physical disability, dryness of cows. In Cath Maige Mucrama (The Battle of Mag Mucura) an unjust decision by the king led to his exile and then later execution.
Monitoring the actions of kings in Europe was the function of the Continental druids, there is no suggestion that they carried out the same function in Ireland.
Minor Ri tuaithe retained regal status into the 11th and 12th centuries when Anglo-Norman and English influence introduced Lordships in some parts of the country. Moreover, the number of Gaelic lordships in the 12th century was around 60 replacing a Ri for every tuath.
On 6 February 1595 the O’Neill marched into the O’Molloy lordship of Fercell to Gortacur near Rathlihen Castle, between Kilcormac and Blue Ball. There he made new lords of the Mac Colgan, Geoghegan. O’Melaghlin and O’Connors who swore him allegiance. This is the last recorded kingship assembly; O’Neill did not allow acclamation by the people or approval of the church at this assembly, altering both the practice and place of the traditional inaugurations in order to gain the support of these septs..
After the Battle of Kinsale (1603) the Tudor administration banned Gaelic administration practices, selection procedures, customs and outdoor assemblies. However, these new rules and regulations were ineffective. Of more consequences to the demise of the Gaelic structures was the Nine Years War (1594 – 1603) and the departure of the Irish Lords to Europe. Because the Gaelic system fell apart after 1,600AD most assembly venues mentioned in manuscripts were forgotten and are difficult to identify today.
Cadamstown inauguration stone. Now situated in the village of Cadamstown, this stone is known locally as the ‘Ballykelly Stone’ and is locally believed to be the inauguration stone of the O’Flanagan clan of the Cinel Arga. The site consists of a large irregular and well weathered limestone boulder. It was moved from its original location in the townland of Coolcreen to its present location in 1978.
Sites in Offaly
Mathew De Renzy, wrote in one of his letters in 1613 that the inauguration of the Mac Cochláin was at ‘the hill of Ard na Grossa’ or Ard na Croise in the old lordship of Dealbhna Eathra in Garrycastle. He was acclaimed by ‘a shute (shout) as if they said vive le gu maire tu thainim’ – may your name live.
Croghan Hill. Known in Irish as Cruachán Brí Eile. This hill in Ó Conchobhair’s territory of Uí Fhailghe is regarded as the inauguration site for this sept. However, O’Donovan when he visited the site in 1839 he said he was ‘much disappointed at not finding a rath upon it, or an inauguration stone of the Chiefs of Ophalia’.
Ardnagross Hill is situated in the assembly sites connected to Lynally (Colmán Eala). FitzPatrick says that these sites covered a substantial area but it is now impossible to identify due to the amount of landscape destroyed in the 20th century by quarrying for gravel removal and the development of the bypass. As is usual, spelling has changed over time with earlier references to Ard na Grossa and Ard na Croise. The Hill is the formal óenach landscape of Colmán Eala. Later, it became the inauguration and parliament site of the Mic Chochlán lords.
The Uí Mhaolmhuaidh lords of Fir Cell used the hill of Mullach Croiche southwest of Colmán Eala as their assembly place. Evidence of the Uí Mhaolmhuaidh, anglicised to O’Molloy, in the Pallispark townland can be traced back to the 14th century. The Inauguration Hill of the Uí Mhaolmhuaidh is mentioned in a manuscript copy of Keating’s Foras Feasa ar Eirinn. This manuscript states in Irish ‘Ar Mullach Chruich do goirthi O Maolmhuaidh, Magemhuin do goire’ which translates into English as ‘On Mullach Chruich [Mullaghcrohy] O’Molloy used to be name, Magemhuin named him’.
Durrow. On 6 February 1599 Ó Néill had moved into Uí Fhailghe and camped at Darú (Durrow). At Darú Ó Néill negotiated with the messenger of Calbhach Ó Cearbhaill, chief of Éile, which ended in disagreement. Ó Néill sent soldiers into Éile and subsequently nominated a new Ó Cearbhaill of his choice. The Ó Néill continued to appoint new lords in the midlands throughout 1599.
O Dempsy’s Ring. In Ballykean, Co. Offaly is regarded as an Uí Dhíomasaigh inauguration site. A low mound with an inner fosse and an external bank it is close to Ballykean medieval parish church.
Summary of Assembly and Inaugurations Sites, Co. Offaly.
| Site Name | Sept | Territory |
| Ard na Croise | Mac Chochláin | Dealbhna Eathra |
| Darú (Durrow) | Various | Uí Fhailghe |
| Mullach Croiche, or Mullach Chruich | Uí Mhaolmhuaidh/ O’Molloy | Mullacrohy, Fir Cell |
| Carraig an Iarla | Uí Chonchobair | Uí Fhailghe |
| Gort an Churraigh | Various | Gortacur, Fir Cell |
| O’Dempsy’s Ring | O’Dempsy | Ballykean |
| Cruachain Brí Éile | Uí Chonchobair | Uí Fhailghe |
| Cloghatanny | Ó Sionnaigh | Dealbhna Eathra |
Glossary.
Airecht: royal entourage, assembly of free-men (aire) and law court
Bainis: Marriage-feast, wedding
Ban-feis Rige: Inauguration ritual
Bó-aire: well off farmer
Cairde: a treaty
Cruachán: a hard place
Derbfine: A family of four generations
Feis: Feast, festival
Feis Temro: Feast of Tara
Foaid: Sleeps with
Foradh: Mound, platform
Geis: Taboo
Recht = Law
Rechtaid = steward/agent
Ri tuaithe: King of a tuath
Ri Ruirech: King who is a king of several petty kingdoms
Ri Ruirech: Provincial King
Ri Erenn: King of Ireland
Rigdál: a meeting between kings and their advisors
Rigforad: The royal seat
Slogad: a military hosting
Tuath: A kingdom
Thanks to John Dolan for an excellent article. If you would like to contribute email us info@offalyhisory.com
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