The Ulster cycle and the world of the story

Four groups of stories

Much of early Irish literature has been lost. Much of what survives is in a few large manuscripts made in medieval times, and among their miscellaneous contents Kinsella finds four groups of stories.

• Mythological stories about the Tuatha Dé Danann, "the Tribes of the Goddess Danu", an ancient divine race said to have inhabited Ireland before the coming of the Celts.
• The Ulster cycle, about the exploits of King Conchobor and the champions of the Red Branch. The chief of them is Cúchulainn, the Hound of Ulster.
• The Fenian cycle, stories of Finn mac Cumaill, his son Oisín and the other warriors of the fianna.
• A group of stories centred on various kings said to have reigned between the third century B.C. and the eighth century A.D.

The Táin is the centre-piece of the second group.

The Red Branch

The name appears in the text itself. Conchobor has three houses at Emain Macha. The Craebruad, the Red Branch, is where the kings sit, red being for royalty. The Téte Brec, the Twinkling Hoard, is where all the javelins, shields and swords are kept, and the place twinkles with the gold of sword-hilts. The Craebderg, the Ruddy Branch, is where the severed heads and spoils are kept.

The world behind it

The Ulster cycle was traditionally believed to refer to the time of Christ. The barbaric world of the stories is untouched by Greece or Rome. Kinsella says it resembles the La Tène Iron Age civilisation of Gaul and Britain, and that the Táin shares many details with Classical descriptions of Gaulish society. In warfare alone these are the individual weapons, the boastfulness and courage of the warriors, and the practices of cattle-raiding, chariot-fighting and beheading.

Ireland, by its isolated position, could keep customs that had disappeared elsewhere centuries before. Kinsella says it is possible that the culture the Táin describes lasted in Ireland until Christianity arrived in the fifth century.

The conflict

Connacht invades Ulster. The Táin on its own lacks the motive for the invasion, the reason for the sickness of the Ulster warriors, the reason for Fergus's opposition to Conchobor, and the reason a troop of Ulster exiles marches in the Connacht army. The last three are supplied in separate tales. The motive is given in chapter I, from the later Book of Leinster form of the Táin. Kinsella calls Conchobor "the old usurper".

Provinces and territories

Kinsella's note says the translation uses the modern anglicised form of the province-names, so "Ulad" in the text is Ulster. Other proper names keep their Irish form. The word province literally means "a fifth", from an early division of Ireland into five fifths. A smaller division in the text is the "trícha cét", literally "a thirty-hundred", or perhaps the force of soldiers that a population of three thousand could raise.

Peoples named in the notes

• The Clanna Dedad are the inhabitants of West Munster. Under Cúroi mac Dáiri they are one of the three heroic tribes of Ireland. The other two are the Gamanrad of Irrus Domnann and the Clann Rudraige of Emain Macha.
• The Galeóin and the Fir Domnann are said to have come to Ireland with the Fir Bolg in the fourth of the five primeval invasions. Ferdia belongs to the Fir Domnann. Kinsella says it has been suggested that the Galeóin are connected with the Gauls.
• The Cruithni are the Pictish tribes of Down and Antrim.
• The Partraigi are a tribe said to have been related to the Dumnonii.

Gear and feasts

The notes say little. Fidchell and buanbach are each "some kind of board game". Light gold is an alloy, white bronze. Ogam is an incised lettering used on stone or wood. Kinsella notes that some scholars are not convinced warriors of this time went on horseback. Samain, Imbolc, Beltine and Lugnasa are feasts on the first days of November, February, May and August, which introduce the seasons.

What the scholars say

Kinsella says discussing the larger meanings is outside the scope of his book, and he reports four views.

• Alwyn and Brinley Rees see the Táin as an example of the classic struggle between the priestly and the warrior classes, each of which tends to usurp the functions of the other.
• Heinrich Zimmer saw the Pillow Talk as a conflict between Celtic-Aryan father-dominance and the mother-dominance of the pre-Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles.
• Frank O'Connor suggested that the earliest layer of the story, incompletely preserved in the rosc passages, is the remains of an ancient ironic anti-feminist poem.
• T. F. O'Rahilly believed the Ulster stories describe the invasion of Ulster by Uí Néill invaders from Leinster, not Connacht. On his view Medb was the tutelary goddess of Temair, or Tara, in Leinster, and Medb as queen of Connacht was a mistake by writers who did not know that Irish tribes had no queens.