First we were Spaniards

First there was an account written in the ancient book, the Labor Gabala, or the Book of Invasions. It claimed to be a record taken from oral historians, of the peoples who settled in Ireland. In summary it suggested that the current population is mainly descended from the ‘Milesians’, who displaced earlier peoples – the fearsome Firbolgs and the noble Tuatha Dé Danann. It claimed the Milesians, our ancestors, came from Spain.

Then we were Central Europeans

For most of the twentieth century this transcribed folklore was largely dismissed. It had a value as mythology but none as history. Furthermore, it was averred by some, the book appeared to be nothing more than a local version of certain classical Greek scripts, inventing a glorious past. The view became established that the ‘Celts’ in fact came from central Europe. This was based mainly on a trail of ‘Celtic’ artefacts across Germany, France, Britain and then Ireland. Interestingly,  even in the mid twentieth century some voices dissented. Linguists protested that neither branches of the Celtic languages bore any clues of so recent a migration from central Europe.

Cold wet Spaniards again

Since the mid 1990′s it has become increasingly easy to map the genetics of people in each region. Genetics removes a lot of the guesswork. In summary, there is a kind of DNA (mitochondrial DNA) that is passed unchanged on the maternal line, allowing you to trace people back to individual women who existed thousands of years ago. Similarly, there is male DNA that is passed accurately from father to son (on the Y chromosome), allowing each man to be tracked back to progenitors thousands of years ago.

What the studies have shown in short, is that the ‘Celtic’ peoples of the islands of Britain and Ireland, largely migrated from what is now the Iberian peninsula. Our closest relatives are in the Basque and Catalan territories of Northern Spain. There were small pockets of hunter gatherers on the islands from over 9,000 years ago. The main ‘invasions’ of farming people came from what is Northern Spain, between 5,000 and 7,000 years ago. The small existing population appears to have been assimilated rather than wiped out. Thus, it turns out that they ‘mythology’ was not quite right about a series of invasions but was much closer to the truth than the archaeology. It is now understood that the ‘celtic design’ artefacts did not indicate a large movement of people across Europe so much as a movement of fashion and styles in tools and ornaments - much as happens to this day.

The ‘Celtic’ art of mainland Europe was not produced by the people known as Celts – i.e. the predominant populations of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Brittany. The word ‘Celt’, by the way, is only a recent invention, really taking hold in the nineteenth century in association with studies of the two main branches of ‘Celtic’ languages – the Welsh/Breton branch and the Irish/Scottish branch. One was called P-Celtic and the other, Q-Celtic.

Plants and Horses tell their own stories

There is other evidence of this migration from Northern Spain. There are species of plants in the Irish midlands that were thought to be unique and only recently discovered to exist in Spain. The Irish Draught Horse, very different from the English Shire horse or the other large draughts from France and Germany, turns out to be most closely related to a Spanish horse. Pure speculation on my part, but I’m going to guess that it will be shown that our indigenous cattle breeds, the Kerry, Maol and Dexter are related to old Spanish breeds. Just look at how similar the Kerry is to the bulls used (and abused) in Pamplona.   

How did they bring horses on Ryanair?

You might wonder who such a large migrantion could have happened, but remember, towards the end of the last mini ice age, the seas were 50 metres lower and the ancestors only had to walk.

Mythology trumps the rest

We might think that the accuracy of the Milesian ‘myth’ is just a coincidence. However, genetic studies in other parts of Europe and Asia have also caused great surprise by showing the mythology in many cases to be closer to the truth than any of the other theories.

Maybe this should not have been such a surprise. We assume that much meaning and accuracy was lost in the oral tradition – where information as well as stories were passed down by word of mouth. However, we forget that the bards and scholars who were given the responsibility, spent up to twenty years learning accurately the verses and cants in which the accounts were relayed. There is every reason to think that they were transmitted very accurately from generation to generation. The geneticists have proved this I believe.

Anyone who grew up in rural Ireland and many who grew up in the towns and cities know something of our raths. Some are quite large like the one in Dunmore you see in the picture above. You may have heard of them called fairy forts, ring forts, or fairy raths. They vary quite a bit in structure from small innocuous looking clumps of trees up to large moated rings with underground channels or souterrains. The experts classify them as ring forts, hill forts, enclosures and general raths. They are amongst the most common field monuments in Ireland. A clue is provided in the fact that so many placenames begin with Rath… Others, such as Laragh, where I come from, also refer. Laragh was originally Leath Rath or half rath.

Over sixty thousand of them survive. Many others have been levelled.

On my own farm in Kilkenny a very large rath was levelled by a previous owner in the 1960′s. All that remains of it is the circular ring of different growth betraying where the enclosure ditch was filled in. Only one of three raths that were marked on an 1860′s ordinance survey map of our area, still exists. It was on top of a small hill and is similar in proportions to a hill fort in South Kilkenny that was excavated by archeologists and deemed to be an enclosure from the Bronze age.

This is typical of the situation around the country. Even in recent times when people ought to have known better, raths have been levelled.

Who lived in the raths?

It depends on who you ask.

What the archaeologists say

The archaeologists and historians tell us that most raths were enclosures in which a fine (extended family or sub-clan) lived. The perimeter in many cases would have been a moat, a stone wall or a thorny fence, depending on whether your land grew hedges or grew stones! Inside the perimeter the homes of the families were built. There were also shelters for animals, kilns for drying grain, religious and burial structures and in some there were ‘souterrains’ or underground chambers. Some animals would have been brought in for milking or to protect at night from wolves and robbers. Most building in Ireland back then was of timber so little evidence survives of these homesteads other than traces of poles in the ground. Outside the perimeter were fields that were allocated to various members of the fine to use. The allocation of such land was done according to very ancient and complex Brehon law (more on that soon).

What the people say

The people of the country however had a different explanation than the archaeologists. They believed that the rath is the home of the little people or the good people. I never heard them referred to directly as fairies – and wonder whether this name was imported in recent centuries. And people were always afraid of offending the little people because they could do a lot of unpleasant things when riled. More on this another day.

What the ancient books say

One possible explanation for the belief that the rath belongs to people with magical powers and who are quick to take a grudge, is found in the Labor Gabala or the book of invasions. This is one of several manuscripts written by monks many centuries ago. The books are generally regarded as containing the first written recordings of the knowledge passed down by countless generations of poets and scholars – though the monks naturally may have put their own spin on some of the material. This particular book sets out a history of a wave of invasions of Ireland. I will come back to this. What is relevant here from the Labor Gabala is that it says that one of the previous peoples of Ireland were the Tuatha Dé Danann. The Dé Danann were defeated by our ancestors, the Milesians. (Scientists have a different take on this. But just as interesting. Oh dear, another thing I have to come back to later.) In the truce that followed, the Dé Danann were relegated to the underworld and the big people took most of the visible countryside. The raths are the only visible portals to the magical world of the Tuatha Dé Danann, who became known to us as the little people or the fairies. You can imagine why such a people, truce or no truce, might take umbrage at any intrusion on a rath!

That is, the raths became the homes of the fairies, people who did nobody any harm as long as you left them alone; people who on the other hand could do you a great deal of harm if you interfered with one of them or did damage to their homes, the raths or fairy forts.

There are many people in the country who have heard music or seen lights at night coming from a rath. There are many young people as well as old who will not ever harm even a branch of a tree in a rath because they do not want to upset the balance.

How old are raths?

The common view is that most raths were constructed between the 5th and the 9th century. However, relatively few have been excavated by archeologists and this is therefore not an established fact. Some ring forts that have been excavated have revealed Bronze Age as well as Iron Age and stone artefacts. From this and from the fact that raths vary considerably in size, shape, and layout, it is possible they were created in various eras and some may have been adapted and changed over several eras. It’s conceivable that some were first formed not long after people first came here about nine thousand years ago. The truth is that there are probably as many answers are there are raths. The very fine ring fort in the picture below is also in County Kilkenny and is a credit to the land owners as there is no evidence of any interference over recent decades.

What protection is there for raths?

In times past no protection was needed other than that bestowed by fairies and púcas. Many people still fear that if they went too near a rath with an excavator or cut branches from a rath, they would be followed to an early grave by bad luck.

There is something else – another protection that the raths secretly enjoyed. They were unofficial burial grounds of babies. Until recently, a rule of the Catholic Church was that an unbaptized person could not be buried in ‘consecrated ground’. What this meant was that babies who died before they could be baptized could not be buried in their family plots in the local graveyard. This cruel law meant that many silently grieving families had to find some other place to bury the beloved child. Some sneaked into the graveyard at night and buried their children in the family plot regardless of what the priests had said. Others buried babies in old church grounds. Many however went to the nearest rath. If the modern God would not accept their little ones, the ancient Gods would accept them. Babies buried in raths were thought to be protected by the fairies. And it was assumed that nobody would ever disturb the graves of these little people.

I think that farmers who level raths probably do so in ignorance rather than simply out of greed for more land. If younger farmers were reminded about the heritage and history, not to speak of the bodies of babies, few would dream of damaging a rath. Of course you can’t always rely on good will. You need laws too.

In recent years the raths have finally gained legal protection. County by county, inventories of archaeological sites have been taken in the past ten years. You can see these catalogued in an interactive map that details the monuments in every townland in the country. This is a brilliant tool and well worth a look. You’ll find it at http://webgis.archaeology.ie/NationalMonuments/FlexViewer/ 

Raths are listed in these inventories (along with other precious heritage sites such as fulachta fiadh, souterrains, and megalithic sites). That means they are now protected under the Monuments Act of 1930. It is now a serious criminal offence to damage a rath. Only last week the first prosecution under this legislation saw a Kerry farmer heavily fined for destroying a ring fort.

In the image above you see the circular outline of what may have been a fulacht fian. Also interesting in this image of bogland is the ridges. They are often called famine ridges. Before the great famine the land was so densely populated that even poor bogland like this was tilled for growing potatoes. Because the land is so poor, it has never been ploughed since – with the consequence of providing us a sad reminder of a population almost wiped off the face of the earth.

Farmers who own the land on which a rath is situated must come to see themselves as their ancestors did – not as owners of the rath but as privileged custodians and protectors of these monuments. They must be guardians of the peace, and ensue that we keep the truce with Tuatha Dé Danann.

Let’s be honest. It’s not that the stories are all gems, more polished than anything you will find on the Web or the TV. That’s not it. And while some of the music singing that is part of the fare in some circles, can be impressive, some is not. In fact, thanks to the story telling circles I’ve finally come to understand my grandmother’s phrase, ‘the tune (chewin’) the old cow died of’. But that doesn’t matter either. It still beats the most professional production you can hear on an iPod.

So what exactly is it that brings people out to sit for hours in church halls listening to ráméis, ‘rattrick’ and assorted ‘auld nonsense’?

My suggestion: it is that the storytelling circles fill a need that is not met by any of the modern media. It connects us with each other. It connects us with our ancestors. Through the story voice we hear echoes of people long gone. When we listen and when we contribute we are doing what people before us did for tens of thousands of years, sitting around a fire or on a river bank. We are absorbing and adding to the story of our existence. we are finding our belonging. We are rediscovering a part of being human that is not catered for on the web or TV.

You can see the remnants of dwellings, mounds, stones, raths, sacred trees and yet have looked through them for so long. You can listen to the talk, to the turn of phrase that is directly transposed through the generations, the stories and attitudes that reflect ancient morality. You can read what the archeologists have to say about the epochs and what the dendrologists have to say about decades when there was no sun and when famine, war, and calamity stalked the land. And yet, in my case, it took another age for all this to meet up. For years I failed to notice this. Now it all seems so obvious.

One shady looking gentleman protests that he is not a character from the book. Others are claiming that they are  characters from the book. And there’s irate professor Festus. Imposter posters? Maybe I could impose on you to do 3 things for me:

• First, if you haven’t read it (what ails you?) read all ABOUT it.
• Next, start the player here to listen to Mammy Una’s favourite grand nephew Tommy Hayes and his friends play a tune.

• Now, as you listen, take a scroll through the posts and tell me what you make of it all.

O’Neill

This ‘Trevor Saltee’ character is plainly a slander on my good self. O’Neill is trying to stab me with his biro..

O’Neill, you think you’re smart! You’ll be very very sorry. Nobody messes with Terrence Sail and gets away with it!

T. F. Sail esq.

My subjects recall my heroism. I brought honour to my lands.  Contrary to what this manuscript proclaims, it is well known that I fought nobly against faeries and other weasels. I was never even in Éirinn at any time as far as I can remember. I was never called ‘The Bear’. The term is an insult that I outlawed for all time.

This manuscript is a work of foul calumny and I sense little weasel hands at work.This writer is no more than a dumb channel for their work. Their aim is to rewrite legends to make themselves smell better.

I care little what the people of the uncivilized lands of Éirinn think. However, I command  the peoples of my own Lands of Cornobha and Móna to disregard these twistings of history. I rewarded bad poets well to record my true deeds and sing my praises. That is how I shall be remembered. I never had any truck with that ‘other’ people. I never associated with a little deceiving enchantress. Nobody shall be fooled! Heroism was my only trade.

O’Neill

Mighty job dude.

The Red