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IRELAND, PROVINCES OF
Modern Ireland comprises four great provinces, Connacht, Ulster,
Leinster, and Munster, whose origin lies beyond the beginning of
recorded history. Yet, the Irish word for 'province' is Cóiced, which
means a 'fifth', not a 'fourth', and the expression 'five fifth of
Ireland' is familiar to all who speak the Gaelic tongue. The antiquity
of this five-fold conception cannot be doubted, but tradition is
divided as to the identity of the fifth fifth. Lebor Gabála Érenn
attributes the original division into five provinces to Fir Bolg. These
settlers were led by five brothers and they shared Ireland between
them. The fifth province of that division consisted of a subdivision of
Munster, and in accordance with this, Ireland is represented throughout
most of the early literature as consisting of Connacht, Ulster,
Leinster, and 'the two Munsters' (East Munster and West Munster). It
was held that all five provinces met at the Stone of Divisions on the
Hill of Uisnech, which was believed to be the midpoint of Ireland. The
alternative tradition is that the fifth province was Meath (Mide), 'the
Middle'. This is a common belief among present-day Irishmen who are
unfamiliar with the historical literature, and it is not a recent
invention. A poem which is attributed to Mael Mura, a ninthcentury
poet, tells of a revolt of the vassal tribes of Ireland under the kings
of the four provinces, a revolt in which Fiachu, King of Tara, was
killed. After a period of misrule, the legitimate dynasty was restored
in the person of Fiachu's son, Tuathal Techtmar, who defeated the
vassal tribes in each of the four provinces - Connacht, Ulster,
Leinster and Munster. According to some medieval texts, it was Tuathal
who created the central province of Meath by taking a portion of each
of the other provinces; Keating states that before Tuathal's conquest
Meath was but a minor kingdom (tuath) around Uisnech. We must, however,
consider a body of comparative evidence before accepting the view that
the central province, without which no province could be called a
'fifth' in this scheme, was the result of a military conquest in the
second century AD. What we have to try to understand, as the Rees'
points out in their CELTIC HERITAGE, is the meaning of the subdivision
of an island into four parts each of which is called a fifth, and the
existence of two apparently incompatible traditions - neither of which
can be shown to be more authentic than the other - which, respectively,
locate the implicit fifth fifth at the centre and as an entity within
one of the other four. In the Middle Irish text called 'The Settling of
the Manor of Tara', which relates how the territorial divisions were
confirmed at the beginning of the Christian era by a supernatural
authority, both these conceptions of the five-fold structure of Ireland
are re-authenticated, and there is no indication that the writer of
this remarkable document was aware that the one is inconsistent with
the other. The text relates that, in the reign of Diarmait son of
Cerball (AD 545-565), the nobles of Ireland protested against the
extent of the royal domain, and that Fintan son of Bóchra was summoned
to Tara, from his abode in Munster, to define its limits. Seated in the
judge's seat at Tara, Fintan reviewed the history of Ireland from
Cessair to the Sons of Mil, and told of a strange personage called
Trefuilngid Tre-eochair who suddenly appeared at a gathering of the men
of Ireland on the day when Christ was crucified. This stranger was fair
and of gigantic stature, and it was he who controlled the rising and
the setting of the sun. In his left hand he carried stone tablets and
in his right a branch with three fruits, nuts, apples, and acorns. He
inquired about the chronicles of the men of Ireland, and they replied
that they had no old historians. 'Ye will have that from me, ' said he.
'I will establish for you the progression of the stories and chronicles
of the hearth of Tara itself with the four quarters of Ireland round
about; for I am the truly learned
witness who explains to all everything unknown.' And he continued:
Bring to me then seven from every quarter of Ireland, who are the
wisest, the most prudent and most cunning also, and the shanachies of
the king himself who are of the hearth of Tara; for it is right that
the four quarters (should be present) at the partition of Tara and its
chronicles, that each may take its due share of the chronicles of
Tara.' It will be observed that the basic idea here is that Ireland
consists of four quarters and a centre - the provinces of Connacht,
Ulster, Leinster, Munster, and Meath. This arrangement was confirmed by
Trefuilngid, and in leaving that ordinance with the men of Ireland he
gave Fintan some berries from his branch. Fintan planted them where he
thought they would grow, and from them are the five trees: the Ash of
Tortu, the Bole of Ross (a comely yew), the Oak of Mugna, the Bough of
Dathi (an ash), and the Ash of populous Uisnech. Though the location of
most of these five places is uncertain, there can be no doubt that the
underlying idea is that the trees symbolize the four quarters around
the centre. The confirmation of this pattern by Fintan on Trefuilngid's
authority at Tara was not, however, the end of the matter. 'Then the
nobles of Ireland came...to accompany Fintan to Uisnech, and they took
leave of one another on the top of Uisnech. And he set up in their
presence a pillar-stone of five ridges on the summit of Uisnech. And he
assigned a ridge of it to every province in Ireland, for thus are Tara
and Uisnech in Ireland, as its two kidneys are in a beast. And he
marked out a FORRACH there, that is, the portion of each province in
Uisnech, and Fintan made this lay after arranging the pillar-stone.' In
the lay Fintan defines the extent of each of these five provinces of
the Fir Bolg division - Connaht, Ulster, Leinster, and the two
Munsters. 'So Fintan then testified that it is right to take the five
provinces of Ireland from Tara and Uisnech, and that it is right for
them also to take them from each province in Ireland!' Leaving the
second Munster aside for the moment, it can be shown further that the
four great provinces and the centre constitute a hierarchic system
which corresponds to that of the invasions from Partholon to the Sons
of Mil. When the representatives of the four quarters and of the Manor
of Tara had been assembled together as we have just described, the
supernatural Trefuilngid asked: 'O Fintan, and Ireland, how has it been
partioned, where have things been therein?' 'Easy to say, ' said
Fintan, 'knowledge in the west, battle in the north, prosperity in the
east, music in the south, kingship in the centre.' Then Trefuilngid
proceeded to indicate in detail the attributes of each quarter and the
middle. There is some overlapping in these descriptions which blurs the
clear distinctions drawn by Fintan. The latter we will bring here in
full: West (Connacht): learning (Fis), teaching, judgement, chronicles,
counsels, stories, histories, science, eloquence. North (Ulster) battle
(Cath), contentions, hardihood, rough places, strifes, haughtiness,
unprofitableness, pride, captures, assaults, hardness, wars, conflicts.
East (Leinster) prosperity (Bláth), supplies, bee-hives (? ceasa),
householders, good custom, good manners, splendour, abundance, dignity,
wealth, householding, many arts, many treasures, satin serge, silks,
cloths (?), green spotted cloth (?), hospitality. South (Munster) music
(Séis), fairs (oenaigi), reavers, musicianship, melody, minstrelry,
music, fidchell-playing, retinue. Centre (Meath) kingship, (not
mentioned by Fintan) stewards, dignity, primacy, stability,
establishments, supports, destructions, warriorship, charioteership,
soldiery, principality, high-kingship, ollaveship, mead, bounty, ale,
renown, fame, prosperity. Learning and Battle clearly refer to the
aristocratic funtions of the druids and the warriors, and their
ascription to Connacht and Ulster fully accords with what we have said
about the superiority of Conn's Half.
The Mythological Cycle of Tuatha De Danann was characterized by
wizardry, the CuChulain Cycle by heroism and the Fenian Cycle by
romance. It remains to add that Tuatha De Danann first appeared in
Ireland on a mountain of Conmaicne Réin in Connacht and that Mag
Tuired, the scene of the great battles which form the central theme of
this cycle is also in Connacht. The warrior Cycle of CuChulain is the
Ulster Cycle, while the Fenian Cycle, the tales of the ordinary people,
are located mainly in the South of Ireland. The three qualities which
we have discerned in these three cycles thus have their respective
provenance - thinking in the West, willing in the North, feeling in the
South.
The correlation of provinces with functions makes the great epic of the
CuChulain Cycle more intelligible. It commemorates a struggle between
the two aristocratic provinces of Connacht and Ulster, in which the
protagonists are Queen Medb of Connacht on the one hand, and King
Conchobar and his nephew CuChulain on the other. Tradition shows us
that Medb personifies 'Sovereignty', and Professor Dumézil has singled
that out in its magical and judicial aspects as primary attribute of
Function I. It is said that Conchobar had been Medb's first husband,
and her desertion of him against his will is said to have been the
first cause of the táin (cattle-raid). On the other hand, the immediate
cause of the táin was that Medb coveted Ulster's great bull. The bull
symbolizes the warrior function both in Rome and India. Thus the táin
appears as an example of the classic struggle between the priestly and
the warrior classes, each of which tends to usurp the functions and
privileges of the other. It may be compared with the First Battle of
Mag Tuired between the Tuatha wizards and the Fir Bolg warriors. That
battle belongs to the Mythological Cycle and in it the warriors are
defeated, but the warriors are victorious in the struggle of the
warrior Cycle. - Modern historians regard the allocation of two fifths
to Munster as a spurious tradition invented by the ancient historians,
but we have already suggested that the analogy between what may be
called the 'central fifth' and the 'outer fifth', on the one hand, and
the invasions of the Sons of Mil and of Cessair on the other, is a
sufficient justification for considering both traditions seriously. -
Divided into two, one half of Munster symbolizes serfs, the other the
Other World. But as one province it is a land of contradictions. In one
of the earlier law tracts, its king is described as 'a master (ollam)
over kings'. After Tuatha De Danann have repaired to the sidhe, leaving
the daylight world to the Sons of Mil, it is Bodb of the Sid of Munster
they have as king. The visiting high-king who instructs their rulers is
not a king of Tara, but Manannan mac Lir, the god of the sea. In the
occult, Munster and the powers beyond it are supreme. There, the last
IS first. 186 - 277 - 313 - 410 - 468 - 508 - 548
whole dictionnary of things Celtic - HERE
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In the tale, the "Settling of the Manor of Tara", Fintan, the oldest
living Seanchai, divided the Land of Ireland into five parts (East,
West, North, South and Center). The navel of Ireland was placed at
Uisneach as marked by the Stone of Divisions. This marked the center of
the plane of the surface. Trefuilingidh Tre-eochair (the Magical being
who came from out of the West, seeking the Sun's rising) further
defined these divisions into a series of qualities associated with each
province and direction. The Great Plane of the Sky, Magh Mor and the
Islands of the Otherworldly Sea, Tir Andomain, can also have their
surfaces defined in a corresponding manner. These divisions allow us to
define their centers so that we can understand their interconnection
with the Bile or World/Sacred Tree. The Celts and Neolithic peoples
defined a circle (as well as a world) by using an equal armed cross.
This symbol evolved into the "Celtic Cross". The Sunwheel is a symbol
of Lugh as well as the cross (being a symbol of Brighid as well). 
Tara (along with Uisneach) was once one of the "two kidneys" of Ireland. For those of us who profess the Druid faith, it is as if an ancient landscape temple were sacked by barbarian hordes. We are weeping at the thoughtless crime. It would have made so much better sense to revamp the already existing rail lines to accomodate commuters. The last thing a rapidly warming world needs is more cars and their toxic fumes. I hope that the Irish government will halt the desecration and pull up the road, create an archaeological park and bring back the railways! Ellen Evert Hopman (Saille) Order of the Whiteoak (Ord na Darach Gile)
www.whiteoakdruids.org
Posted by Ellen Evert Hopman on February 25,2009 | 12:37PM