Irish high kings

Hochkönig ( Irish Ard-Rí - English High King ) was an honorary title of Irish kings, which was usually only awarded literary and posthumously. The seat of the Hochkönig is mainly considered to be the sacred hill of Tara , west of Dublin . The legend of an Irish high kingship was spread from Tara.

The legends that this or that ruler was the Irish High King are old, varied and ineradicable. Only recent research has made it clear that this title was a presumption that Irish provincial rulers indulged in without doing justice to the claim. Instead there were 97 tribes ( Tuaithe ) on the island , who had a king ( Rí ) who was subordinate to several upper kings ( ruirí ) and four to five regional kings . The only exception is Brian Boru ( Brian Bóruma mac Cennétig ), who ruled Ireland from around 1005 to 1014, but at no time was it undisputed.

Irish kingdoms

Rí and Ard-Rí - chief, prince, provincial king or king?

The larger Irish kingdoms were formed from the Celtic tribal society. Each tribe, tuaithe (singular: tuath ), had a chief, a rí , who was elected by the oenach , a small privileged group whose members had the right to carry arms. The tasks of the rí were only comparable to those of an absolute ruler in times of war. In peacetime he was only the chairman of the oenach . Early Irish society was more of an oligarchy than a monarchy .

Rí is today usually with King translated (king). But originally it was (Engl. As only the name of a selected from the weapons-carrying elite of the tribe head of, that a chief Chief called). In the course of the development to the four (sometimes also five) Irish regional kingdoms, the old name was retained, which is why the appropriate translation can vary depending on the context, period, tribe and region. Variations range from tribal chief to chief to prince, provincial king , minor king and king.

Each rí was indebted to an upper king called ruirí . There was another authority over this, that was the four (at times five) rí ruirech , provincial lords . Some of these always claimed to be the current Hochkönig at the same time. First, the Ui Néill of Armagh in Ulster ( called O'Neill ), where the monastic church had a seat since St. Patrick's . The rulers of Tara in particular did so later .

Origin of the Irish Kingdoms

Over time, short-term alliances were formed between several tuatha . For the duration of this alliance , the rí involved submitted to a ruirí , a kind of "great king". This gave rise to the title of rí ruirech , which the kings of the provinces of Ulster (Irish: Ulaidh) , Leinster (Laighin) , Munster (Mumha) and Connachta held in only a slightly modified form . These rí ruirech only had limited hegemonic power in their territory. In Brian Boru's time in the 11th century, there were 100 to 200 small kingdoms that went back to the Irish tribes and whose rí submitted to the rí ruirech only out of opportunism or under military pressure . Whenever the military power of the rí ruirech weakened, the rí revolted and questioned the power of the rí ruirech .

When the Uí Néill , who established the rí ruireach of Ulster, annexed Tara in the 8th century and the rí of the Uí Néill made himself King of all Irish , the idea of a great Irish empire, the High Kingdom of Ireland , arose for the first time . The Hochkönig is clearly identified by the prefix Ard .

High kingship

Although there are names of Hochkönigen well into prehistoric times (up to the 2nd millennium BC), these are mythological names that were only written down between the 6th and 8th centuries AD to historically legitimize the idea of an all-Irish empire based on the model of the Christian empires on mainland Europe. Before the 8th century, the High Kings were entirely unknown in Ireland.

In the 9th century, some Irish kings began, principally from the dynasty of Uí Néill to claim the title "King of Irish". After the conquest of the holy Hill of Tara , a fifth, only formally independent kingdom emerged for legitimation: Meath (Irish: Mide, "middle") , which, as the center of Ireland, was to hold the seat of the High King. The area that once belonged to Leinster was annexed by the Uí Néills of Ulster , (now called northern Uí Néills ) and declared an independent kingdom to legitimize the high kingship.

In fact, however, one cannot speak of an actual authority with sufficient influence in all parts of Ireland. Even the influence of Brian Boru, who is called the first (only) undisputed Irish high king , only reached all regions for a short time. He spent a long time of his reign as the Hochkönig with his army crisscrossing the island in order to consolidate his claims to power. Brian Boru has never been undisputed either .

In 940 AD the man was born who would be the only one, if only for nine years, to be the Irish High King. Brian mac Cenntig was born in Béal Bórú, near Killaloe , on the Shannon in what is now Co. Clare . His father was Rí of the still insignificant clan of the Dál gCais. In a joint fight with his older brother Mahon, who had ascended the father's throne, he defeated the Vikings in the enclave of Limerick . This made Mahon Oberkönig von Munster and his seat in Cashel . The fighting with the Vikings, who were also in Cork , Dublin , Waterford and Wexford , continued. Brian claimed the title of King of Munster after the death of his brother. But the King of Eoghanacht was already sitting in Cashel, whom Brian defeated without further ado. Then he defeated Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill (Malachy II.), The king of the southern Uí Néill, who sat at Tara. With the king of the northern Uí Néill, Maél Sechnaill, he agreed after a number of skirmishes on the division of Ireland . He then married the Vikings of Dublin and declared himself High King of Ireland and Augustus of north-western Europe. The northern Uí Néill initially gave in in 1005; Brian was already 65 years old.

However, resistance quickly arose afterwards, which the King of Leinster led with the Uí Néill, in which the Vikings of Dublin also participated. On Good Friday of 1014, the bloody Battle of Clontarf took place , which went down in legend as the expulsion of the Vikings. Brian Boru and his son Murchad mac Briain (Murrogh) fell in the battle. Brian's troops won and then spread the legends that were put on paper in the annals of Inisfallen . The result for Ireland was that everything stayed as it was before Brian's appearance, including the Vikings, only the numerous descendants that Brian Boru had with his four wives and 30 concubines, from then on called themselves the O'Brians.

The controversy between the Irish kings over hegemony led to Diarmait Mac Murchada , the king of Leinster (who had proclaimed himself high king), asking the English king Henry II for help in 1166 . As a result, the English and Anglo-Normans gained military power over Ireland for the first time. After that, the ambition for the office of the Hochkönig quickly waned and ended in 1175.

Edward Bruce

In 1315 another high king was proclaimed: Edward Bruce , the brother of the Scottish freedom fighter Robert Bruce . The Irish hoped with the help of Scotland, which had just become independent, the expulsion of the Anglo-Norman rule. But Edward had little success. Although he conquered Ulster and Connacht, he died in 1318 during a rather minor conflict in County Louth .

literature

Francis John Byrne: Early Irish society (1st – 9th century) . In: Theodore W. Moody, Francis Xavier Martin (eds.): The course of Irish history . Mercier Press, Cork, 17th ed. 1987, pp. 43-60.
Jürgen Elvert : History of Ireland . 4th updated edition. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-423-30148-1 .
Marianne Tölle (Ed.): In Ireland the Hochkönige. 400-1200 . Komet, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-89836-243-4 .