The Story of the Irish Race Quotes

“In a dreadful storm that the supposedly wizard De Danann raised up against them, when they attempted to land in Ireland, five of the sons of Milesius, with great numbers of their followers, were lost, their fleet was dispersed and it seemed for a time as if none of them would ever enjoy the Isle of Destiny. Ancient manuscripts preserve the prayer that, it is said, their poet, Amergin, now prayed for them”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“The first English poet to use rhyme — in his Latin verse — was Aldhelm, in the eighth century, who, it will be noted, was a pupil of the Irish monk, Mael-dubh, whose school was on the site of the present English city of Malmesbury.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Dr. Atkinson thinks it was as far away as two thousand years ago that the Irish began to grace their then ancient poetic art with their new Invention of rhyme. From the Latin verses of Colm and other earliest Irish saints, we have positive proof that, anyhow, rhyme was in use in Ireland in the very earliest Christian times — both vowel rhyme (assonance) and consonantal rhyme called comharda.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“The fact that in such remote tune as the fifth century a woman could command the respect, the reverence, and moral obedience which were so fully and freely rendered to Bridget will naturally surprise the many who reflect that in most countries it is only a few centuries since women came out of semi-bondage. But, in Ireland, from the remotest time of which we have any record, historical or legendary, woman stood emancipated, and was oftentimes eligible for the professions, and for rank and fame.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“It is only recently that we have realised the all-important part played by legendary lore in forming and stamping a nation’s character. A people’s character and a people’s heritage of tradition act and react upon each other, down the ages, the outstanding qualities of both getting ever more and more alike — so long as their racial traditions are cherished as an intimate part of their life. But the people’s character gets a new direction on the day that there comes into their life any influence which lessens their loving regard for the past.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“One queen, famous and capable, whom early Ireland boasted was Macha Mong Ruad (the Red-haired), who reigned over the land about three hundred years before Christ.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“When, after they had long sojourned in Spain, they heard of Ireland (perhaps from Phoenician traders) and took it to be the Isle of Destiny, foretold for them by Moses, their leader was Miled or Milesius, whose wife also was a Pharaoh’s daughter, and named Scota.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“The sixteenth-century scholar, O’Flaherty, fixes the Milesian invasion of Ireland at about 1000 B. C. — the time of Solomon.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Here is a nature-picture (attributed to Oisin) as vivid as ancient: “A tale for you: oxen lowing: winter snowing: summer passed away: wind from the north, high and cold: low the sun and short his course: wildly tossing the wave of the sea. The fern burns deep red. Men wrap themselves closely: the wild goose raises her wonted cry: cold seizes the wing of the bird: ‘tis the season of ice: sad my tale.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“But a poet’s moral attainments were expected to be on the same high level with his intellectual. There were demanded of him: “Purity of hand, bright without wounding. Purity of mouth without poisonous satire, Purity of learning without reproach, Purity of husbandship.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“It is difficult for us to realise that in the ancient Irish Schools of Poets the students were trained in not less than three hundred and fifty different kinds of metre.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Douglas Hyde says: “Already, in the seventh century, the Irish not only rhymed but made intricate rhyming metres, when for many centuries after this, the Germanic nations could only alliterate. . . . And down to the first half of the sixteenth century the English poets for the most part exhibited a disregard for the fineness of execution and technique of which not the meanest Irish bard attached to the pettiest chief could have been guilty.” As is only to be expected, the Irish, the inventors of rhyme, carried it to a wonderful perfection, never approached by any other people — a fact acknowledged even by those who still withhold from them the credit of having originated It.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Constantine Nigra (quoted by Hyde) says: “The idea that rhyme originated among the Arabs must be absolutely rejected as fabulous. . . . Rhyme, too, could not in any possible way, have evolved Itself from the natural progress of the Latin language. Amongst the Latins, neither the thing nor the name existed. The first certain examples of rhyme, then, are found on Celtic soil and among Celtic nations . . . we conclude that final assonance or rhyme can have been derived only from laws of Celtic phonology.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Some noted Continental scholars such as Zeuss and Nigra, agree with leading Irish authorities that it was the ancient Irish who invented rhyme — and introduced it, through the Latin, to the countries of Europe.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“His dictum was, “Let not a single hour pass in which you do not devote yourself to prayer, reading, writing or some other useful work.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“On top of the mountain of Croagh Patrick in Connaught, he spent the forty days of Lent, watching, and fasting, and praying. And the tradition goes, as recorded by the Monk Jocelin that it was from this mountaintop he commanded all the serpents and venomous things in Ireland, driving them into the ocean, and ridding Ireland of all viperous things forever.[40”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Irish records say that Crimthann the Great reigned over Britain (meaning, of course, a chief part of Britain) for 13 years, from 366 to 379.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Conn, with his allies, the Degades, was defeated in ten battles — till at length, for peace sake, he had to grant to Mogh one-half of Ireland — the southern half, henceforth to be known as Leth Mogha, Mogh’s half — dominion over which was claimed by Mogh’s successors, through almost ten centuries following. The northern half, which he retained under his own rule is since known as Leth Cuinn, Conn’s half.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“In answer to them, the youth, standing up in the Hall of Heroes, with spear in one hand, and shield in the other, exclaimed: “I care not whether I die to-morrow or next year, if only my deeds live after me.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Some traditions say that he established a School of Learning. And as crowning glory he established the celebrated Feis of Tara, the great triennial Parliament of the chiefs, the nobles, and the scholars of the nation, which assembled on Tara Hill once every three years to settle the nation’s affairs. This great deliberative assembly, almost unique among the nations in those early ages, and down into Christian times, reflected not a little glory upon ancient Ireland.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“In a famed battle at Southern Moytura (on the Mayo-Galway border) it was that the Tuatha De Danann met and overthrew the Firbolgs. There has been handed down a poetical account of this great battle — a story that O’Curry says can hardly be less than fourteen hundred years old — which is very interesting, and wherein we get some quaint glimpses of ancient Irish ethics of war (for even in the most highly imaginative tale, the poets and seanachies of all times, unconsciously reflect the manners of their own age, or of ages just passed).”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“The great Irish historiographer, Eugene O’Curry, says: “The De Danann were a people remarkable for their knowledge of the domestic, if not the higher, arts of civilized life”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“But in the beginning of the fourth century, Ulster’s power was irrevocably broken, and by far the greater portion of her territory wrested from her — her people driven into miserably narrow bounds from which, ever after, they can hardly be said to have emerged. It was when Muiredeach Tireach, grandson of Carbri of the Liffey, was High-King of Ireland, that Ulster was despoiled and broken by his nephews, the three Collas, who, on the ruins of the old kingdom of Uladh, founded a new kingdom — of Oirgialla (Oriel) — which was henceforth for nearly a thousand years to play an important part in the history of Northern Ireland. Muiredeach’s”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“desire for Oisin’s delightful tales of these brave Pagans would overcome in Patrick the zest for theological controversy — “Oisin, sweet to me is thy voice, And a blessing, furthermore, on the soul of Fionn! Relate to us how many deer Were slain at Sliabh-nam-Ban-Fionn.” And, Oisin, mollified, forgiving and forgetting Patrick’s strictures on his Fian fellows, would forthwith launch into another of his rare tales.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Oisin had been carried away to the Land of Youth, under the western ocean. Both of them return to their mortal existence, and to Ireland, when Patrick is in the land, winning it from Crom Cruach to Christ. Patrick meets and converts each of them. They attach themselves to his company, and travel Ireland with him. When the Saint is wearied from much travelling and work, or, as often happens, from the perversity of the people he has to deal with, Oisin or Caoilte refresh and beguile him with many a sweet tale of the Fian — all of which, says the tradition, the pleased Patrick had his scribe Breogan write down and preserve for posterity. These tales make the Agallam na Seanorach. The”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“In every corner of Ireland to the remotest headland, the stories of the Fian awake the admiration, and excite the emulation of our people. Round every hearth, in every cottage, on every hillside in Eirinn, the Fian is the enchanted word with which the seanachie awakes the instant interest and for as long as he likes holds the spellbound attention of man and child, of learned and simple, rich and poor, old and young. The best of the stories of the Fian are preserved to us in the poems of Oisin, the son of Fionn, the chief bard of the Fian, in the Agallamh na Seanorach, and many other fine poems of olden time. The Agallam na Seanorach (the Colloquy of the Ancients), by far the finest collection of Fenian tales, is supposed to be an account of the Fian’s great doings, given in to Patrick by Gisin and Caoilte — more than 150 years after. After the overthrow of the Fian, Caoilte is supposed to have lived with the Tuatha De Danann, under the hills — until the coming of St. Patrick.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“the Fian na h-Eireann were gone forever. Yet, though dead, they live. The lays of Oisin, the Dialogue of the Ancients, and innumerable other Finian poems and tales have kept, and will keep, their name and their fame imperishable.[23] Not only is the Fian in general immortalised, but the names, the qualities, and the characteristics of every one of Fionn’s trusted lieutenants — Oscar who never wronged bard or woman, Gol the mighty, Caoilte the sweet-tongued, Diarmuid Donn the beautiful, the bitter-tongued Conan, and the rest of them, have lived and will live. Even their hounds are with us, immortal. Bran, Sgeolan, and their famed fellows still follow the stag over the wooded hills of Eirinn, and wake the echoes of our mountain glens, by their bay melodious.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“from enjoying too much power too long, the Clan na Baoscni had got arrogant. Amongst other privileges which they came to claim as their right was that no maiden in the land, of any rank, should marry outside the Fian unless she was first offered in marriage to the eligible in their ranks. And when at length they demanded gold tribute from Cairbre himself, because, without asking their approval, he chose to marry his beautiful daughter, Sgeimsolas (Light of Beauty) to a chief of the Deisi, the final break befell.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Although the Fianna were supposed to uphold the power of the Ard-Righ, their oath of fealty was not to him, but to their own chief. And in course of time, in the reign of Cairbre Lifeachar, son of Cormac, they revolted against the Ard-Righ — Fionn and his Fian joining Breasil, king of Leinster, in resisting Cairbre’s levying of the Boru tribute. Cairbre met with overwhelming defeat at the battle of Cnamros — where he is said to have left nine thousand dead upon the field. One”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“The Fianna[20] recruited at the great fairs, especially at Tara, Uisnech, and Taillte. The greatest discrimination was used in choosing the eligible ones from amongst the candidate throng — which throng included in plenty sons of chieftains and princes. But no candidate would be considered unless he, his family, and clan, were prepared philosophically to accept for him life or death, all the daily hazards of a hazardous career — and that his family and his clan should, from the day he joined the Fian, renounce all claims to satisfaction or vengeance for his injuring or ending. His comrades must henceforth be his moral heirs and executors, who would seek and get the satisfaction due if he were wounded or killed by any means that violated the code of honor and justice. And, it should here be remarked that the high ethical code of the Red Branch Knights in the days of Christ was not any more admirable than the code of justice and of honor observed now, two centuries after, by the Fian. Many”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland