This was originally posted to the Irish American mailing list and with Jerry Kelly's permission, I am passing on.... You've asked a good but very complicated question. The model of late German history whereby indigenous local lords made a decisive choice of religion for their populations doesn't really apply in Ireland. Instead, go back to early German history to pick up the right model. For example, take the area around Koln (Cologne). As you know, history starts there with the Celts. If I remember right, the Treveri held that area with their own Celtic religion and political organization centered at Treveri headquarters, now called the city of Trier but including the land west of the Rhine around what's now Koln/Cologne. Then the German-speaking Ubii came in with their own religion and promptly set up their own administrative unit, the Oppidum Ubiorum ('The Fortress Town of the Altar of the Ubii'). Then the Romans came in with their own religion and promptly set up their own administrative unit, COLONIA CLAUDIA ARA AGRIPPINENSIUM ('the colony of Claudius under the protection of Agrippina'). Then the Franks came in with their own religion and administrative unit (the Frankish Kingdom), didn't like walking around saying COLONIA CLAUDIA ARA AGRIPPINENSIUM because it took all day to say, so they shortened the name to Cologne in English and French or Koln ! in German. So, what I'm trying to say is, each of these successive invasions or population groups brought in their own religion and administrative unit. The same thing happened in Ireland. Let's take a look at the administrative units of the invasions or population groups of Ireland in order beginning with the Celts. 1. CELTS In Ireland in the early historic period (say 5th century AD), the major Celtic population groups are the Cruithin, Érainn, Laighin, and Féni. By the 5th-6th centuries AD, the Uí Néill of the Féni have created the concept of the High-Kingship of Ireland. By the 7th century AD, all the Celtic population groups of Ireland are speaking Gaeilge (Irish Gaelic) and their genealogies have been melded by the Uí Néill for propaganda and political purposes into a single population group called the Gaeil. The Uí Néill claim the kingship of all the Gaeil, and therefore of all of Ireland, and therefore it's essential that every inhabitant of Ireland be considered a member of the Gaeil, otherwise the Uí Néill claim of kingship over all of Ireland is invalid. So, by the 7th century AD, the Uí Néill have used genealogy to create and rule the Kingdom of Ireland, the biggest administrative unit of an island made up of hundreds of sub-kingdoms and tribal kingdoms. This Kingdom of Ireland w! as ceded in its entirety by the High-King Ruairt Ó Conchobhair with a sword literally at his throat to the Norman king Henry II in the 12th century (easy to check the date), which is how the Kingdom of Ireland with one stroke became part of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, (Wales), and Ireland, from which United Kingdom most of Ireland broke away in the early 20th century. The resulting administrative units are the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The latter remains part of the United Kingdom. Now let's look at the smallest administrative unit - the baile fearainn. The word baile in Irish Gaelic means both 'home' and 'town'. A baile fearainn is out in the country (or it used to be out in the country). Nevertheless, an English speaker will translate it typically as a 'town-land' even if there's no town in sight. But an Irish-speaker will think of baile fearainn as meaning literally a 'home of land'. In other words, to an Irish-speaker, it's just about the smallest place you can come from - your own little piece of land, your own home. So, if you're thinking in terms of administrative units, it's the administrative unit which in the early Gaelic period was based on the extended family. The extended family of a baile fearainn belong to a clann or tribe. So my family's baile fearainn of Ard Ua gCeallaigh ('the height of the O'Kellys') is part of the Tír ('land') of my tribe. My tribe is the Uí Fhiachrach Muaidhe ('the descendants of Fiachra on the river Moy'). Our land is the Tír Fhiachrach ('Land of Fiachra'). When the Cambro-Normans came in the 12-13th centuries and later the English came in the 16-17th centuries, they couldn't say that or spell it, so they called our Tír Fhiachrach the 'Barony of Tireragh.' Almost all of the so-called 'baronies' of Ireland are based on ancient Gaelic clann and tribe-lands, and most of their English names are bad phonetic attempts at the original Irish Gaelic names. 2. CHRISTIANS Christianity came to Ireland big-time in the 5th-7th centuries A.D., not as an invasion but as a conversion. The Irish Christians who followed Rome in this early period tried to set up a Roman / Gaullish diocesan system of church organization like that envisioned by Patrick. But because all the rest of Ireland was running on a tribal kingdom basis, it didn't work very well until the dioceses were laid out to match the boundaries of the many tribal sub-kingdoms. Which is the way almost all of the dioceses are still laid out today. The Christians who tried to follow Roman practice also tried to lay out paruchia (which gives us the word parish as far as I know), but that didn't work very well in this period either. They were far outnumbered by the Christian Irish who liked to organize things on the monastic system, and those Irish liked the monastic system because it could easily be set up on the clan system. So specific clans or tribes took over the ownership and operation of each of the monasteries and related schools, libraries, churches, convents, etc. Although celibacy was highly respected as a mark of special sanctity in the Celtic churches of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, marriage by the clergy was far more common. In Ireland, polygamy was lawful under Brehon law, for both lay and cleric, male and female, and all children of any union were legitimate. (There is no concept of bastardry under Brehon Law.) Church leaders in Ireland working towards re-establishing communion with Rome in the 9th! -11th centuries had a hard time persuading monks and nuns to limit themselves to a single spouse given that all the Biblical patriarchs had multiple wives. So there was always a large, new, educated generation ready, willing, and enabled to step into the family business of running and staffing the monastery, and related schools, libraries, churches, convents, etc., and that (in my opinion) is the main reason why Ireland far outshone the rest of Europe in this period as a 'Land Of Saints & Scholars.' We had a far more efficient system in place to generate that depth, breadth, and volume of quality ecclesiastic. At any rate, that's the way things stayed until Henry VIII of England confiscated the monasteries in the 16th century and the government of James VI of Scotland (James I of England) finally eradicated Brehon Law in Ireland in 1608. There were other major differences between the Roman Catholic Church of the time and the Celtic churches of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The Celtic countries had a different liturgy for the mass, different tonsure (haircut) for the monks, the tendency of Irish monasteries to regularly go to war against each other (this was, after all, a warrior society to which Christianity had been appended), a different date for Easter, the tendency on the part of the Irish and Scots to call Christ 'my druid', etc., etc., etc. Smaller differences than these still keep the Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Roman Catholic, and Lutheran Churches separated, so these differences were understandably regarded as schismatic. 3. VIKINGS When the Vikings came (8th-10th centuries A.D.), they saw 4 major kingdoms subject to a High-King over all of Ireland. These 4 major kingdoms were Uladh, Laighin, Mumhan, and Connachta. The Viking word for a place is -ster, so they called the first three of these kingdoms Uladh-ster ('Ulster'), Laighin-ster ('Leinster'), and Mumhan-ster ('Munster'). The Vikings didn't make any headway in Connacht so that was the end of -ster there. But in the rest of Ireland, it was the Vikings who founded the towns which became the cities of Ireland - Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Limerick, etc., and these have become the administrative centers for their surrounding countrysides. 4. CAMBRO-NORMANS (I.E., NORMANS FROM WALES) Around 1154 or so (easy to check the date), the English pope Adrian IV asked the King of England (the Norman Henry II, who was also the King of Normandy and Aquitaine and Anjou if I remember correctly) to invade Ireland in order to bring the Irish church back into full communion with Rome and eliminate its schismatic practices. Adrian wanted religion. Henry wanted more land. So in 1169, with the blessing of Adrian IV, Henry II encouraged Strongbow to invade Ireland and soon followed him. The Norman French and Welsh-speaking knights of the Cambro-Norman invasion soon began to set up a 'shire' system based as I understand it on the Anglo-Saxon shire system of England, for which they used the French word which eventually turns into the word 'county.' So this is the beginning of the county system in Ireland. Because the Cambro-Normans and their successors the English didn't really get effective control on the ground everywhere in Ireland until the 17th century, the full c! ounty system of 32 counties didn't come into existence until the 17th (?) century - easy enough to check the exact date. Henry II and his Cambro-Normans brought the Irish back into the Roman Catholic Church more fully than they had been since the time of Patrick. In areas controlled by the French-speaking Normans, all religious practice was strictly in keeping with Roman Catholic practice of that time. In areas controlled by the Irish, the Irish continued to follow Brehon Law in a number of areas. The monasteries and churches were still owned and operated by the ecclesiastical families, who continued to marry and produce ecclesiastics on a prodigious scale. But other issues like the dating of Easter, tonsure, and liturgy had been resolved. Eventually, however, as the Normans became 'More Irish than the Irish themselves' in language, law, and mindset, the Brehon Law approach to staffing the monasteries and churches re-asserted itself even in the 'Norman' areas. 5. ENGLISH The English conquered Ireland fully and effectively in 1603. By that time, almost all of the English in England had gone Protestant and almost all of the Irish had stayed Roman Catholic. The English of the Protestant Reformation then proceeded to set up their administrative units in Ireland (Protestant dioceses, poor law unions, parishes, etc.) while the Irish of the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation countered with their own administrative units (Roman Catholic dioceses, parishes, etc.). 6. OTHER ETHNIC GROUPS I hope I didn't leave anybody out from an administrative perspective. From an ethnic, cultural, and linguistic perspective, we also have the Welsh-speaking Welsh of the Cambro-Norman invasion, the Flemish-speaking Flemish of the Cambro-Norman invasion, the Breton-speaking Bretons of the Cambro-Norman invasion, the Cornish-speaking Cornish of the Cambro-Norman invasion, the Gaelic-speaking Manx who wander in from time to time, the Gaelic-speaking gall-óglaigh ('galloglasses') from the western isles of what is now Scotland in the 13th-15th centuries, the Irish-and-Scottish-Gaelic-speaking Highland Scots coming in especially with the Plantation of Ulster in the 17th century, the Irish-and-Scottish-Gaelic-speaking Galloway Scots coming in especially with the Plantation of Ulster, the lowland Scots and border clans like my ancestors the Armstrongs speaking their distinctive Lallans or Lowlands dialect of Northumbrian Anglish coming in especially with the Plantation of Ulster, an! d the German-speaking Palatines of the 17th-18th (?) centuries (are those dates correct?). And of course the new linguistic and ethnic groups from all over the world who have come to Ireland since Ireland joined the Common Market / EC / EU in 1973. But from an administrative point of view, I think 1-5 above are the main contributors. Hope that's helpful, and I hope I haven't forgotten any of the clans, tribes, and population groups of Ireland. Go raibh síochán orainn go léir / May peace be on us all, - Jerry

Wow - what a history lesson!!. You really know your stuff !! Although I find all these explanations quite confusing, I also find it very interesting. To be so knowledgeable is quite fascinating to me. I doubt that I'll ever get my family genealogy back that far in time to do me any good (I'm struggling with the 1830'S) but it certainly is worth saving just for the reading experience . Go raibh síochán orainn go léir / May peace be on us all, Researching : MAGOONAUGH, MCGOONA, MCGONEY,MAGONAUGH, MEERS, HART/HURT NANCY ----- Original Message ----- From: "ConnorsGenealogy" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, June 03, 2005 11:40 AM Subject: [ROLL CALL] Administrative units from the Celts on > This was originally posted to the Irish American mailing list and with > Jerry Kelly's permission, I am passing on.... > > You've asked a good but very complicated question. The model of late > German history whereby indigenous local lords made a decisive choice of > religion for their populations doesn't really apply in Ireland. Instead, > go back to early German history to pick up the right model. > > For example, take the area around Koln (Cologne). As you know, history > starts there with the Celts. If I remember right, the Treveri held that > area with their own Celtic religion and political organization centered at > Treveri headquarters, now called the city of Trier but including the land > west of the Rhine around what's now Koln/Cologne. Then the > German-speaking Ubii came in with their own religion and promptly set up > their own administrative unit, the Oppidum Ubiorum ('The Fortress Town of > the Altar of the Ubii'). Then the Romans came in with their own religion > and promptly set up their own administrative unit, COLONIA CLAUDIA ARA > AGRIPPINENSIUM ('the colony of Claudius under the protection of > Agrippina'). Then the Franks came in with their own religion and > administrative unit (the Frankish Kingdom), didn't like walking around > saying COLONIA CLAUDIA ARA AGRIPPINENSIUM because it took all day to say, > so they shortened the name to Cologne in English and French or Koln ! > in German. > So, what I'm trying to say is, each of these successive invasions or > population groups brought in their own religion and administrative unit. > The same thing happened in Ireland. Let's take a look at the > administrative units of the invasions or population groups of Ireland in > order beginning with the Celts. > > 1. CELTS > > In Ireland in the early historic period (say 5th century AD), the major > Celtic population groups are the Cruithin, Érainn, Laighin, and Féni. By > the 5th-6th centuries AD, the Uí Néill of the Féni have created the > concept of the High-Kingship of Ireland. By the 7th century AD, all the > Celtic population groups of Ireland are speaking Gaeilge (Irish Gaelic) > and their genealogies have been melded by the Uí Néill for propaganda and > political purposes into a single population group called the Gaeil. The > Uí Néill claim the kingship of all the Gaeil, and therefore of all of > Ireland, and therefore it's essential that every inhabitant of Ireland be > considered a member of the Gaeil, otherwise the Uí Néill claim of kingship > over all of Ireland is invalid. So, by the 7th century AD, the Uí Néill > have used genealogy to create and rule the Kingdom of Ireland, the biggest > administrative unit of an island made up of hundreds of sub-kingdoms and > tribal kingdoms. This Kingdom of Ireland w! > as ceded in its entirety by the High-King Ruairt Ó Conchobhair with a > sword literally at his throat to the Norman king Henry II in the 12th > century (easy to check the date), which is how the Kingdom of Ireland with > one stroke became part of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, > (Wales), and Ireland, from which United Kingdom most of Ireland broke away > in the early 20th century. The resulting administrative units are the > Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The latter remains part of the > United Kingdom. > Now let's look at the smallest administrative unit - the baile fearainn. > The word baile in Irish Gaelic means both 'home' and 'town'. A baile > fearainn is out in the country (or it used to be out in the country). > Nevertheless, an English speaker will translate it typically as a > 'town-land' even if there's no town in sight. But an Irish-speaker will > think of baile fearainn as meaning literally a 'home of land'. In other > words, to an Irish-speaker, it's just about the smallest place you can > come from - your own little piece of land, your own home. So, if you're > thinking in terms of administrative units, it's the administrative unit > which in the early Gaelic period was based on the extended family. > > The extended family of a baile fearainn belong to a clann or tribe. So my > family's baile fearainn of Ard Ua gCeallaigh ('the height of the > O'Kellys') is part of the Tír ('land') of my tribe. My tribe is the Uí > Fhiachrach Muaidhe ('the descendants of Fiachra on the river Moy'). Our > land is the Tír Fhiachrach ('Land of Fiachra'). When the Cambro-Normans > came in the 12-13th centuries and later the English came in the 16-17th > centuries, they couldn't say that or spell it, so they called our Tír > Fhiachrach the 'Barony of Tireragh.' Almost all of the so-called > 'baronies' of Ireland are based on ancient Gaelic clann and tribe-lands, > and most of their English names are bad phonetic attempts at the original > Irish Gaelic names. > > 2. CHRISTIANS > > Christianity came to Ireland big-time in the 5th-7th centuries A.D., not > as an invasion but as a conversion. The Irish Christians who followed > Rome in this early period tried to set up a Roman / Gaullish diocesan > system of church organization like that envisioned by Patrick. But > because all the rest of Ireland was running on a tribal kingdom basis, it > didn't work very well until the dioceses were laid out to match the > boundaries of the many tribal sub-kingdoms. Which is the way almost all > of the dioceses are still laid out today. > > The Christians who tried to follow Roman practice also tried to lay out > paruchia (which gives us the word parish as far as I know), but that > didn't work very well in this period either. They were far outnumbered by > the Christian Irish who liked to organize things on the monastic system, > and those Irish liked the monastic system because it could easily be set > up on the clan system. So specific clans or tribes took over the > ownership and operation of each of the monasteries and related schools, > libraries, churches, convents, etc. Although celibacy was highly > respected as a mark of special sanctity in the Celtic churches of Ireland, > Scotland, and Wales, marriage by the clergy was far more common. In > Ireland, polygamy was lawful under Brehon law, for both lay and cleric, > male and female, and all children of any union were legitimate. (There is > no concept of bastardry under Brehon Law.) Church leaders in Ireland > working towards re-establishing communion with Rome in the 9th! > -11th centuries had a hard time persuading monks and nuns to limit > themselves to a single spouse given that all the Biblical patriarchs had > multiple wives. So there was always a large, new, educated generation > ready, willing, and enabled to step into the family business of running > and staffing the monastery, and related schools, libraries, churches, > convents, etc., and that (in my opinion) is the main reason why Ireland > far outshone the rest of Europe in this period as a 'Land Of Saints & > Scholars.' We had a far more efficient system in place to generate that > depth, breadth, and volume of quality ecclesiastic. At any rate, that's > the way things stayed until Henry VIII of England confiscated the > monasteries in the 16th century and the government of James VI of Scotland > (James I of England) finally eradicated Brehon Law in Ireland in 1608. > There were other major differences between the Roman Catholic Church of > the time and the Celtic churches of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The > Celtic countries had a different liturgy for the mass, different tonsure > (haircut) for the monks, the tendency of Irish monasteries to regularly go > to war against each other (this was, after all, a warrior society to which > Christianity had been appended), a different date for Easter, the tendency > on the part of the Irish and Scots to call Christ 'my druid', etc., etc., > etc. Smaller differences than these still keep the Eastern Orthodox, > Coptic, Roman Catholic, and Lutheran Churches separated, so these > differences were understandably regarded as schismatic. > 3. VIKINGS > > When the Vikings came (8th-10th centuries A.D.), they saw 4 major kingdoms > subject to a High-King over all of Ireland. These 4 major kingdoms were > Uladh, Laighin, Mumhan, and Connachta. The Viking word for a place > is -ster, so they called the first three of these kingdoms Uladh-ster > ('Ulster'), Laighin-ster ('Leinster'), and Mumhan-ster ('Munster'). The > Vikings didn't make any headway in Connacht so that was the end of -ster > there. But in the rest of Ireland, it was the Vikings who founded the > towns which became the cities of Ireland - Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, > Cork, Limerick, etc., and these have become the administrative centers for > their surrounding countrysides. > > 4. CAMBRO-NORMANS (I.E., NORMANS FROM WALES) > > Around 1154 or so (easy to check the date), the English pope Adrian IV > asked the King of England (the Norman Henry II, who was also the King of > Normandy and Aquitaine and Anjou if I remember correctly) to invade > Ireland in order to bring the Irish church back into full communion with > Rome and eliminate its schismatic practices. Adrian wanted religion. > Henry wanted more land. So in 1169, with the blessing of Adrian IV, Henry > II encouraged Strongbow to invade Ireland and soon followed him. The > Norman French and Welsh-speaking knights of the Cambro-Norman invasion > soon began to set up a 'shire' system based as I understand it on the > Anglo-Saxon shire system of England, for which they used the French word > which eventually turns into the word 'county.' So this is the beginning > of the county system in Ireland. Because the Cambro-Normans and their > successors the English didn't really get effective control on the ground > everywhere in Ireland until the 17th century, the full c! > ounty system of 32 counties didn't come into existence until the 17th (?) > century - easy enough to check the exact date. > > Henry II and his Cambro-Normans brought the Irish back into the Roman > Catholic Church more fully than they had been since the time of Patrick. > In areas controlled by the French-speaking Normans, all religious practice > was strictly in keeping with Roman Catholic practice of that time. In > areas controlled by the Irish, the Irish continued to follow Brehon Law in > a number of areas. The monasteries and churches were still owned and > operated by the ecclesiastical families, who continued to marry and > produce ecclesiastics on a prodigious scale. But other issues like the > dating of Easter, tonsure, and liturgy had been resolved. Eventually, > however, as the Normans became 'More Irish than the Irish themselves' in > language, law, and mindset, the Brehon Law approach to staffing the > monasteries and churches re-asserted itself even in the 'Norman' areas. > > 5. ENGLISH > > The English conquered Ireland fully and effectively in 1603. By that > time, almost all of the English in England had gone Protestant and almost > all of the Irish had stayed Roman Catholic. The English of the Protestant > Reformation then proceeded to set up their administrative units in Ireland > (Protestant dioceses, poor law unions, parishes, etc.) while the Irish of > the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation countered with their own > administrative units (Roman Catholic dioceses, parishes, etc.). > 6. OTHER ETHNIC GROUPS > > I hope I didn't leave anybody out from an administrative perspective. > From an ethnic, cultural, and linguistic perspective, we also have the > Welsh-speaking Welsh of the Cambro-Norman invasion, the Flemish-speaking > Flemish of the Cambro-Norman invasion, the Breton-speaking Bretons of the > Cambro-Norman invasion, the Cornish-speaking Cornish of the Cambro-Norman > invasion, the Gaelic-speaking Manx who wander in from time to time, the > Gaelic-speaking gall-óglaigh ('galloglasses') from the western isles of > what is now Scotland in the 13th-15th centuries, the > Irish-and-Scottish-Gaelic-speaking Highland Scots coming in especially > with the Plantation of Ulster in the 17th century, the > Irish-and-Scottish-Gaelic-speaking Galloway Scots coming in especially > with the Plantation of Ulster, the lowland Scots and border clans like my > ancestors the Armstrongs speaking their distinctive Lallans or Lowlands > dialect of Northumbrian Anglish coming in especially with the Plantation > of Ulster, an! > d the German-speaking Palatines of the 17th-18th (?) centuries (are those > dates correct?). And of course the new linguistic and ethnic groups from > all over the world who have come to Ireland since Ireland joined the > Common Market / EC / EU in 1973. But from an administrative point of > view, I think 1-5 above are the main contributors. > > Hope that's helpful, and I hope I haven't forgotten any of the clans, > tribes, and population groups of Ireland. Go raibh síochán orainn go léir > / May peace be on us all, - Jerry > > > > > ==== IRELAND-ROLL-CALLS Mailing List ==== > To Unsubcribe from L: mailto:[email protected] > To Unsubscribe from D: mailto:[email protected] > Put the single word 'unsubscribe' in the message subject and body > >