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Ireland and the Making
2. SYNOD OF DRUMCEAT, 575
of Britain
A. D.
As students in Ireland, both Irish and foreign, who
so desired, were not only taught but supported gratui-
tously, their numbers became in time so burdensome to
the country that legislation on the subject was found
necessary as early as the imperial parliament and synod of
Drumceat, A. D. 575. At this celebrated parliament, to
attend which Columcille and King Aidan voyaged with
numerous retinues from Scotland, lands were formally set
apart for the endowment of some of the educational estab-
lishments, which survived as public institutions down to
the English destructions of the seventeenth century.
The secular education of Ireland was reorganized by
this parliament which erected a chief bardic seminary
or college for each of the five kingdoms, and under each
of these mother establishments a group of minor schools,
one in each tuath or cantred, all liberally endowed. The
heads of these schools were ollaves of poetry and litera-
ture and were all laymen. 1 The curriculum included law,
history, antiquities, poetry, and other Irish studies and,
as the arts and professions in Ireland were largely hereditary,
these schools were often presided over by members
of the same family for generations. 2
At this same parliament, over which the High Monarch
presided, 3 the Bardic Order in Ireland was largely
deprived of its extraordinary privileges and wealth,
which had begun to make it a burden to the peo-
ple. At this time, Keating tells us, nearly a third of the
1 O'Curry, Manners and Customs, I, 78.
2 See, for example, Hy Fiachrach, 79 and 167, bottom; Keating, Hist. 455.
8 Numerous other measures, including
1 a grant of self determination to
the Irish kingdom of Scotland, were enacted at Drumceat. Following the fall
of Temhair or Tara, as the legislative capital of Ireland, the Irish parliaments
held their sessions at various centers, such as Usnach, Tailtenn, and
Drumceat
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