Ireland's Celtic tradition: From the beginning to 1800 Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Peck, Theodore Tuttle Ives, 1921- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 10/10/2021 02:35:56 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/291489 INFORMATION TO USERS The most advanced technology has been used to photo­ graph and reproduce this manuscript from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. 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Ann Arbor, MI 48106 IRELAND•S CELTIC TRADITION: FROM THE BEGINNING TO 1800 By Theodore Tuttle Ives Peck, M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 19 8 9 2 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under the rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. Signed: APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR This thesis has been approved on the date shown below: Richard A. Cosgrove 1 Professor of History TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT 4 INTRODUCTION 5 CHAPTER 1. THE ISLAND 7 CHAPTER 2. INDEPENDENCE 14 (300 B.C. TO 1170 A.D.) CHAPTER 3. OCCUPATION 41 (1170 TO 1485) CHAPTER 4. CONQUEST, COLONIZATION AND RECONQUEST 74 (1485 TO 1714) CHAPTER 5. SUBJUGATION, REACTION AND UNION 178 (1714 to 1800) REFERENCES 213 4 ABSTRACT From the Celtic invasions of the fourth century, B.C., until its union with England in 1800, Ireland developed its own distinctive Celtic culture. Its Christian religion, language and literature, law, social structure and land system were of Celtic origin and different from neighboring England's. Almost twelve hundred years of independence allowed Ireland to establish its unique qualities and become recognized as a nation. Then came three hundred years of English occupation and desultory control followed by two hundred and fifty more years of English conquest, confiscation and disruptive colonization. Finally came almost one hundred years of English economic subjugation and suppressed Irish indignation until nationalist Ireland in revolt was made a part of frightened England in 1800. The years of independence produced a unique cultural tradition which English strength changed but could not extinguish. What remained in 1800, supported by an irrepressible demand for national independence, was Ireland's Celtic tradition. INTRODUCTION In 1948, the Republic of Ireland emerged as one of the new post-war nations of the world and took its place in the international community as a fully independent and sovereign nation. This was the same Ireland which had declared its de facto independence from the United Kingdom in 1937 after having been a part of it since 1800. It might appear that the Republic of Ireland was just another small nation split off from its parent at a time when world maps were being revised every year to reflect the dismemberment of old colonial powers. In fact, however, this was not Ireland's case because Ireland had become a nation in its own right almost eight hundred years before it became a part of the United Kingdom.1 Not only had Ireland been a recognized European nation since before the Norman invasion of England but for more than a thousand years prior to that time it had been developing a national character of its own. Its people were the sole remaining society of Celts in the world, and the national character which led them to Ireland became a nation under King Brian Boru in the year 1002. acclaim as well as misery may be called its Celtic tradition. More than anything else, this tradition in each of its principal manifestations displayed a tendency to be different from other people and a demand for the right to be different. Irish religion, language and literature, law, social structure and land rights were of their own making, and in order to retain these and other expressions of their Celtic way of life, the Irish required the opportunity to govern themselves as family units and as a nation. England found the Irish to be poor subjects. The great Victorian Matthew Arnold noted that, "Irishmen were not just second-class Englishmen but something different- quaintly different perhaps or even horridly different, but different."2 It was Ireland's Celtic tradition that made it different and made its conquest by England a disaster for captor and captive alike. In 1948, the inevitable happened and Ireland resumed its former independence. Its Celtic tradition helped make this possible. Lyons, F.S.L. Culture and Anarchy in Ireland 1890-1939 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1979) p.4. 7 CHAPTER 1 THE ISLAND The Ireland of which I write is a small island lying close alongside another island almost three times its size, and together they and a number of other little places and bits of land are called the British Isles. Both islands are structurally a part of the European continent and are surrounded by shallow seas, but the one hundred fathom line lies close to Ireland's western coast, showing it to be the edge of Europe. Ireland is less than fourteen miles from Scotland across the North Channel and about fifty miles from southern Wales across St. George's Channel. In between lies the Irish Sea, a rather private body of water which separates but has served to unite the two islands since Patrick was taken across it as a slave boy early in the fifth century A.D. The intimacy of the two islands has helped to protect Ireland against unwelcome foreign intrusion since England first took an acquisitive interest in its small neighbor near the end of the twelfth century. It also has tended, however, to accentuate Ireland's remoteness from the rest of Europe by restricting its external relations to the dominant island. As England has on occasion been 8 helpful, it also has come to be seen by most Irishmen as virtually the sole source of their problems. In the shadow of England, Ireland has always struggled with the problem of isolation. Prehistoric upheavals of the land mass and the onrush of waters placed the two islands so close together that their destinies were sure to merge, but their physical natures and consequent cultures are different. Ireland contains about twenty million acres of territory, much of which is lake, bog or mountain, leaving the rest of it highly attractive farm land which has proved to be easily defended against invasion because of the island's rugged coastline and many internal natural barriers. Plentiful rainfall has normally enabled the rich soil to produce an abundance of food that has sustained the people and helped them recover from their many wars. Edmund Curtis comments that the high "survival value" of the Irish people may have resulted not so much from their physical strength as from their constant revival of manpower. As late as the year 1800, one of every three people in the British Isles was an Irishman.3 J Curtis, E., A History of Ireland (London, Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1950), p. V. 9 The remoteness of the island and its natural barriers have enabled the Celtic people of Ireland to avoid or withstand invasions which overcame England.