Gaelic Ireland - Culture and Society

Culture and Society

Gaelic culture and society was centered around the Fine (clann) and, as such, the landscape and history of Ireland was wrought with inter-fine relationships, marriages, friendships, wars, vendettas, trading, and so on. Despite this, Gaelic Ireland had a rich oral culture and appreciation of deeper and intellectual pursuits. Filí and draoithe (druids) were held in high regard during pagan times and orally passed down the history and traditions of their people. Later, many of their spiritual and intellectual tasks were passed on to Christian monks, after said religion prevailed from the 5th century onwards. However, the filí continued to hold a high position in their clanns and territories. Poetry, music, storytelling, literature and other art forms were highly prized and cultivated in both pagan and Christian Gaelic Ireland. Hospitality, bonds of kinship and the fulfilment of social and ritual responsibilities were held sacred.

The Gaelic order in Ireland, rather than a single unified kingdom in the feudal sense, was a patchwork of túatha (singular: túath). These túatha often competed for control of resources and thus continually grew and shrank. Law tracts from the beginning of the 8th century describe a hierarchy of kings: kings of túath subject to kings of several túatha who again were subject to provincial overkings. Already before the 8th century these over-kingships had begun to dissolve the túatha as the basic sociopolitical unit.