History of the World - Comprising a General History, Both Ancient and Modern, of All the Principal Nations of the Globe, Their Rise, Progress, Present Condition, Etc #248325

When the ancient kings and the ancient glories of Ireland are spoken Of, inexperienced readers are apt to picture one king of Ireland swaying the whole territory from the Giant's Causeway to Cape Clear, and from Galway-bay to the Hill of Howth. This, however, was so far from being the case, that within that island there were five separate kingdoms, always jealous of each other, and frequently at Open war. The five provinces or kingdoms of Ireland were Meath, Leinster, Munster, Connaught, and Ulster. The first named was considered the chief sovereignty; at the hill of Tara, famed alike in true history and bard's romance, which was situated in that kingdom, were the great assemblages of princes and chiefs; and the other four kings were nominally tributary to the king of Meath. Just as the tanists, or the chiefs of septs, in their respective kingdoms were to them. The bards, an idle, imaginative set of men, were not merely the diverters of the chieftain's hours of recreation and wassail; the chieftain's bard was also his recorder, and we may cease to wonder at the exaggerations that have come down to us, when we consider that these marvels were originally said, sung, and written — if written at all by men whose comfort depended upon the complacent feelings of him whose deeds they sang, and who, therefore, were under no very great temptation to Observe a too rigid adherence to paltry realities.