Ireland Journey

The Red Branch Knights

Ulster's Legendary Defenders

The legends of many cultures include special bands of elite warriors, usually centered around a heroic king. This is not surprising, because the social and military structure of ancient societies often depended on groups of warriors to defend the community from outside threats. Naturally, the brave deeds of these warriors would sometimes become legends in the process of storytelling, and those legends would be used to inspire future generations of warriors.

The Kern

Irish Guerrilla Fighters

Imagine a man wearing a brightly-colored tunic with unbelievably baggy sleeves. His hair hangs in long bangs over his eyes. He carries a war dart- a kind of javelin- and wears a long dagger at his side. This startling figure prides himself on his extreme ferocity as a fighting man, and rumor has it that he makes a regular practice of taking his slain enemies' heads as trophies of his victory. He specializes in guerilla warfare- hitting the enemy hard and fast, and then escaping into the bogs and forests.

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The United Irishmen

Origins of Irish Republicanism

Most people these days would associate Irish Republicanism with the Catholic Irish, and the Orange Order with the Protestant Irish. The reality is, though, that the Irish Republican movement was founded by Protestants such as Robert Emmet and Wolf Tone, with the explicit aim of uniting Ireland's religious traditions in a common front to secure Irish independence. The Orange Order was created with the collusion of the British authorities with the specific goal of promoting sectarian religious hatred in order to “divide and conquer.”

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Clans of Ireland: The Traveler Clans

Modern "Celtic Clans"?

The clans of Ireland disappeared long ago, except within one small and marginalized community- the Irish travelers, who remain a clan-based society to this day. The rival Traveler clans of McDonough and Ward fought a pitched battle at a funeral as recently as 2008, an incident described as a “faction fight” in the Irish press. The significance of this is that faction fights between enemy clans have been unheard of in Ireland in the past hundred years, with the one exception of the Traveler community.

Clans of Ireland: The O'Malleys

Pirates of the Western Seas

Grace O'Malley, known in Gaelic as Grainne Ni Mhaille, is one of the most famous characters of Irish history. Her clan, the O'Malleys, lived in western Ireland, in a region where many of the clans supplemented their fishing and trading income through piracy. The O'Malley clan was no exception, and Grace O'Malley became a pirate queen, the commander of a large armada of seaborn raiders.

Clans of Ireland: The O'Donnells

Great Rivals of the O'Neills

The O'Donnell clan, like the O'Neill clan, was of the larger tribe known as the Ui Neill, but that didn't stop them from being sworn enemies. In fact, it probably contributed directly to the enmity between these powerful groups, as each could claim to be regional kings with roughly equivalent authority and lineage.

Clans of Ireland: The MacDonnells of Antrim

A Scottish Clan In Ireland

The MacDonnells of Antrim were a Scottish clan based in Ireland, a branch of the powerful Clan MacDonald. The MacDonalds were one of the largest and most influential Highland clans, and their power-base in the Hebrides put them right next to northern Ireland, easily reachable with their many war-galleys.

In the thirteenth century, they began sending warriors to Ireland to serve as mercenary soldiers known as “gallowglasses.” Gallowglass mercenaries typically received payment in the form of land, and in some cases became the hereditary rulers of particular districts. Those members of the Clan MacDonald who settled in Antrim eventually developed into a separate clan known as the MacDonells of Antrim.

Clans of Ireland: The O'Neills

Princes of the North

The O'Neill dynasties of ancient Ireland were descended from an Irish high king known as Neill of the Nine Hostages. For a number of generations, the O'Neill clan supplied the Ard Righ or High King of ancient Ireland.

The Battle of Clontarf

Irish vs Vikings?

Ask an Irishman about the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, and he'll probably tell you that's the battle where Brian Boru, Ireland's heroic high king, drove the Viking invaders from Ireland. The real story is not quite so simple.

Brian Boru wasn't the legitimate high king in terms of the traditional Irish monarchy- which never had nationwide power in the first place. Brian Boru was an usurper, the upstart chief of a tribe called the Dalcassians, who had managed to seize power in a coup.

He was known as “Boru”- meaning “of the cattle tribute”- because he had succeeded in imposing a cattle tribute on the men of Leinster by force of arms, something many other Irish kings had tried and failed to do.

Holy Wells of Ireland

Ancient Sites Of Prayer And Pilgrimage

Holy wells, also known as healing wells or Clootie wells, can still be found in a number of different places all over Ireland. The thing that is especially interesting about these holy wells is that we know some of them were in use with essentially identical rituals in pagan times. The ancient Celtic peoples, including the ancestors of the modern Irish, venerated deities associated with healing springs. In many cases, the deity attached to a particular well or spring was simply renamed as a saint, while the actual practices performed at the well went on unchanged.