MORANN OF THE COLLAR OF GOLD. 215 importance in Irish history. Their plans were deeply and wisely laid, and promised the success they obtained. It is one of the lessons of history which rulers in all ages would do well to study. There is a degree of oppression which even the most degraded will refuse to endure; there is a time when the injured will seek revenge, even should they know that this revenge may bring on themselves yet deeper wrongs. The leaders of the revolt were surely men of some judgment; and both they and those who acted under them possessed the two great qualities needed for such an enterprise. They were silent, for their plans were not even suspected until they were accomplished; they were patient, for these plans were three years in preparation. During three years the helots saved their scanty earnings to prepare a sumptuous death-feast for their unsuspecting victims. This feast was held at a place since called Magh Cru, in Connaught. The monarch, Fiacha Finnolaidh, the provincial kings and chiefs, were all invited, and accepted the invitation. But while the enjoyment was at its height, when men had drank deeply, and were soothed by the sweet strains of the harp, the insurgents did their bloody work. Three ladies alone escaped. They fled to Britain, and there each gave birth to a son-heirs to their respective husbands who had been slain. After the massacre, the Attacotti elected their leader, Cairbre Cinn-Cait (or the Cat-head), to the royal dignity, for they still desired to live under a 'limited monarchy.' But revolutions, even when successful, and we had almost said. necessary, are eminently productive of evil. The social state of a people when once disorganized, does not admit of a speedy or safe return to its former condition. The mass of mankind, who think more of present evils, however trifling, than of past grievances, however oppressive, begin to connect present evils with present rule, and having lost, in some degree, the memory of their ancient wrongs, desire to recall a dynasty which, thus viewed, bears a not unfavourable comparison with their present state."* Cairbre died after five years of most unprosperous royalty, and his son, the wise and prudent Morann,† showed his wisdom and prudence by refusing to succeed him. He advised that the rightful heirs should be recalled. His advice was accepted. Fearadhach Finnfeachteach was invited to assume the reins of govern state, they therefore disappeared, or even sunk into insignificance. It was not so, for we find about the close of the sixth century, that the whole country of Ui-Maine, in the present counties of Galway and Roscommon, was in the actual possession of the Firbolgs when, about that time, it was forcibly wrested from them by Maine Mor, of the race of Colla da Chrioch, ancestor of the O'Kellys of that country. There is a curious and somewhat romantic account of this conquest in the Life of Saint Greallan, patron of the territory, preserved in the Royal Irish Academy, an extract from which is published in the Tribes and Customs of Hy-Maine, printed in 1843 by the Irish Archaeological Society. Evil was the state of Ireland during his reign: fruitless the corn, for there used to be but one grain on the stalk; fruitless her rivers; milkless her cattle; plentiless her fruit, for there used to be but one acorn on the oak.'-Four Masters, p. 97. + Morann was the inventor of the famous 'collar of gold.' The new monarch appointed him his chief Brehon or judge, and it is said that this collar closed round the necks of those who were guilty, but expanded to the ground when the wearer was innocent. This collar or chain is mentioned in several of the commentaries on the Brehon laws, as one of the ordeals of the ancient Irish. The Four Masters style him the very intelligent Morann.' ་ 216 THE DAUGHTERS OF TUATHAL. ment. Good was Ireland during this his time. The seasons were right tranquil; the earth brought forth its fruit; fishful its river-mouths; milkful the kine; heavy-headed the woods."* Another revolt of the Attacotti took place in the reign of Fiacha of the White Cattle. He was killed by the provincial kings, at the slaughter of Magh Bolg.† Elim, one of the perpetrators of this outrage, obtained the crown, but his reign was singularly unprosperous; and Ireland was without corn, without milk, without fruit, without fish, and without any other great advantage, since the Aitheach Tuatha had killed Fiacha Finnolaidh in the slaughter of Magh Bolg, till the time of Tuathal Teachtmar.‡ Tuathal was the son of a former legitimate monarch, and had been invited to Ireland by a powerful party. He was perpetually at war with the Attacotti, but at last established himself firmly on the throne, by exacting an oath from the people, 'by the sun, moon, and elements,' that his posterity should not be deprived of the sovereignty. This oath was taken at Tara, where he had convened a general assembly, as had been customary with his predecessors at the commencement of each reign; but it was held by him with more than usual state. His next act was to take a small portion of land from each of the four provinces, forming what is now the present county of Meath, and retaining it as the mensal portion of the Ard-Righ, or supreme monarch. On each of these portions he erected a palace for the king of every province, details of which will be given when we come to that period of our history which refers to the destruction of Tara. Tuathal had at this time two beautiful and marriageable daughters, named Fithir and Dairiné. Eochaidh Aincheann, King of Leinster, sought and obtained the hand of the younger daughter, Dairiné, and after her nuptials carried her to his palace at Naas in Leinster. Some time after, his people persuaded him that he had made a bad selection, and that the elder was the better of the two sisters; upon which Eochaidh determimed by stratagem to obtain the other daughter also. For this purpose he shut the young queen up in a secret apartment of his palace, and gave out a report that she was dead. He then repaired, apparently in great grief, to Tara, informed the monarch that his daughter was dead, and demanded her sister in marriage. Tuathal gave his consent, and the false king returned home with his new bride. Soon after her arrival at Naas, her sister escaped from her confinement, and suddenly and unexpectedly encountered the prince and Fithir. In a moment she divined the truth, and had the additional anguish of seeing her sister, who was struck with horror and shame, fall dead before her face. The death of the unhappy princess, and the treachery of her husband, was too much for the young queen; Four Masters, p. 97. † Now Moybolgue, a parish in the county Cavan. The history of the revolt of the Attacotti is contained in one of the ancient tracts called Histories. It is termed The Origin of the Boromean Tribute. There is a copy of this most valuable work in the Book of Leinster, which, it will be remembered, was compiled in the twelfth century. The details which follow above, concerning the Boromean Tribute, are taken from the same source. THE FAMOUS BOROMEAN TRIBUTE. 217 she returned to her solitary chamber, and in a very short time died of a broken heart. The insult offered to his daughters, and their untimely death, roused the indignation of the pagan monarch, and was soon bitterly avenged. At the head of a powerful force, he burned and ravaged Leinster to its utmost boundary, and then compelled its humbled and terror-stricken people to bind themselves and their descendants for ever to the payment of a triennial tribute to the monarch of Erinn, which, from the great number of cows exacted by it, obtained the name of the 'Boromean tribute '-bo being the Gaedhilic for a cow. The tribute is thus described in the old annals :— 'The men of Leinster were obliged to pay And three-score hundred cauldrons strong and polished." It is elsewhere described as consisting of five thousand ounces of silver, five thousand mantles, five thousand fat cows, five thousand fat hogs, five thousand wethers, and five thousand vessels of brass or bronze for the king's laving, with men and maidens for his service. The levying of the tribute was the cause of periodical and sanguinary wars, from the time of Tuathal until the reign of Finnachta the Festive. About the year 680 it was abolished by him, at the entreaty of St. Moling, of Tigh Moling (now St. Mullen's, in the county Carlow). It is said by Keating, that he availed himself of a pious ruse for this purpose,-asking the king to pledge himself not to exact the tribute until after Monday, and then, when his request was complied with, declaring that the Monday he intended was the Monday after Doomsday. The tribute was again revived and levied by Brian, the son of Cinneidigh, at the beginning of the eleventh century, as a punishment on the Leinster men for their adherence to the Danish cause. It was from this circumstance that Brian obtained the surname of Boroimhe. Tuathal reigned for thirty years, and is said to have fought no less than 133 battles with the Attacotti. He was at last slain himself by his successor, Nial, who, in his turn, was killed by Tuathal's son. Conn of the Hundred Battles' is the next Irish monarch who claims more than a passing notice. His exploits are a famous theme with the bards, and a poem on his 'Birth' forms part of the Liber Flavus Fergusorum, a MS. volume of the fifteenth century. His reign is also Keating, p. 264. |
