Early Ireland
Iron Age
The period of the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age in Ireland
is fraught with uncertainties. The problem of identifying archaeological remains
with language grouping is notoriously difficult, but it seems on the whole
likely that the principal Celtic arrivals occurred in the Iron Age. Irish
sagas, which probably reflect the pagan Irish Iron Age, reflect conditions
in many respects similar to the descriptions of the ancient classical authors,
such as Poseidonius and Julius Caesar. The Celts were an Indo-European group
who are thought to have originated in the 2nd millinneum BC, probably in east-central
Europe. They were among the earliest to develop an Iron Age culture, as has
been found at Hallstatt, Austria (c. 700 BC). Although there is little sign
of Hallstatt-like culture in Ireland, the later La Tène culture (which
may date in Ireland from 300 BC or earlier) is represented in metalwork and
some stone sculpture, mainly in the northern half of the country. Connections
with northern England are apparent. Hill-fort building seems also characteristic
of the Iron Age.
Early Celtic Ireland
Political and social organization
Politically, Ireland was organized into a number of petty kingdoms, or clans
(tuatha), each of which was quite independent under its elected king. Groups
of tuatha tended to combine, but the king who claimed overlordship in each group
had a primacy of honour rather than of jurisdiction. Not until the 10th century
AD was there a king of all Ireland (árd rí Éireann). A
division of the country into five groups of tuatha, known as the Five Fifths
(Cuíg Cuígí), occurred about the beginning of the Christian
era. These were Ulster (Ulaidh), Meath (Midhe), Leinster (Laighin), Munster
(Mumhain), and Connaught (Connacht).
Surrounding a king was an aristocracy (airi aicme, the upper class), whose land
and property rights were clearly defined by law and whose main wealth was in
cattle. Greater landowners were supported by céilí, or clients.
These and other grades of society, minutely classified and described by legal
writers, tilled the soil and tended the cattle. Individual families were the
real units of society and exercised collectively powers of ownership over their
farms and territory. At law the family (fine) did not merely act corporatively
but was, by one of the oldest customs, held responsible for the observance of
the law by its kindred, serfs, and slaves.