Open [38.2 MB]

Ireland and the Making
of Britain
relation to the age in which they lived were to be counted
amongst the greatest philosophers and preceptors the
world has known.
Irish records annals, tales, and treatises contain
numerous references to these Irish lay schools, but the
old Irish law tracts, some of which have in recent years
1
been edited and published, furnish us with information
in regard to them more precise than the evidence found in
any other source. They outline the duties which the master
owes his pupils, and the return which the pupils owe
the master. They describe the proper plan and arrange-
ments of the schools, their different divisions and locations.
They are exceedingly minute in describing the curriculum,
the number of years proper to the course of studies, the
studies themselves, the varying learned degrees
and the
accomplishments they represent. We learn for example
that a lay college comprised three distinct establishments,
housed in three different buildings, grouped according to
a custom that came down from pagan times. We find
references to the college libraries, as in the case of Dalian
Forgaill (sixth century), celebrated as the contemporary
and elegist of Columcille, who in the Book of Leinster is
represented as saying: "Among the schools with libraries
(etir scoluib scripta) thou hast read the mysteries of the
Ro-sualt." 2
We learn that the master owed the student "instruction
without reservation and correction without harshness" as
well as gratuitous maintenance, if too poor to support
himself. This hospitality was as liberally dispensed to
the foreigner as to the Irish themselves. Thus Bede tells
us, as before noted, that a great many of the higher and
i Sequel to Crlth Gabhlach, Brehon L.aws TV. Also Brehon LAWS V, 27
(Small Primer) and II, p. 18 seq. See Joyce's Social History, Vol. I, Ch. XI,
p. 417 seq., where details and references are copious.
* Silva Gadelica, 480. ii; 527.
64