| The
basic organization of Gaelic society before the seventeenth century remained tribal;
changes brought on by outside influences were secondary in nature and were generally
adapted to the existing social order. Thus the society expressed the vitality of an
unbroken connection with its most ancient origins until the power of the Gaelic tribes in
Ireland and Scotland was broken by the English. The English facilitated their conquest of
Gaeldom with great cruelty, conquering with bravery, political treachery and great
military and logistical strength. The Gaelic people were completely disenfranchised and
denied education as well. This struck at the very heart of Gaelic society, one of the
truly great learned societies since ancient times. However, education did not entirely
die. Traditions continued to be passed down, and some semiformal education continued in
furtive "hedge row" schools, often run by priests on pain of death.
The Christian church in Gaelic Ireland and
Scotland (the Celtic church) had a unique character, and maintained its independence and
power from about the time of St. Patrick (ca. 400) to the coming of the Normans (ca.
1200). It was not fully submerged until after the end of the Gaelic period in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Celtic church was from the beginning very
important both in missionary activity and in the advancement of learning in Europe.
Indeed, many of the oldest European religious houses were founded by Gaelic saints, or had
Gaelic pilgrims associated with their beginnings. Throughout history, Gaelic
scholar-clerics continued to find a welcome at the courts and monasteries of the
Continent. Gaelic missionary and monastic activity (sixth to twelfth centuries) also show
a Gaelic wanderlust which is mirrored in the military sphere by Gaelic mercenaries of the
thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, who fought for hire under foreign lords, as antecedents
to the so-called "Wild Geese" of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
During the nineteenth century, Gaels in great
numbers were cleared from their once-healthy homeland to make way for British agriculture
and livestock; the removal was a dirty business which the English rationalized by quaint
economic theories proclaiming the Gaelic situation as "hopeless in any
case". There
was, however, a population explosion in Ireland at this time, and with the coming of the
Great Potato Famine of the late 1840s in Ireland, millions of Gaels starved for want of
potatoes, while the real agricultural fruit of the land passed on unhindered into England,
as per British policy. No less tragic was the clearing of the loyal Highlanders of
northern Scotland from the homes of their ancestors of a thousand years, to make way for
sheep. On the brighter side of irony is the fact that there are, as a result of
immigration (especially in North America), many millions more Gaels in the world community
than could ever have been nurtured on the "old sod" of Ireland and Scotland
alone. |
