As far as can be told from the archaeological record, the social and political structures that existed in Ireland at the start of the fourth century had endured for centuries. A largely pastoral economy existed within political units that were evidently quite large and based around important ritual sites. Political power appears to have been extensive in geographical terms, but comparatively weak (Harbison 1988). It is difficult to know anything about these political units, although they probably bear some relationship to the kingdoms that can dimly be seen fragmenting in the earliest, problematic Irish written sources relating to the sixth century ((O Croinin 1995: 41-62), and to those mentioned in the heroic cycles (though these sources link the kingdoms with sites known to be much earlier).
In the fourth century, Ireland began to be drawn into the Roman world. Although Roman imports are known from throughout the Roman period, they seem to change subtly in nature in the fourth century, perhaps indicating high-level political contacts rather than sporadic exchange, as earlier (Edwards 1990: 1-5; Freeman 2001; Colloquium 1976). Underlining this, perhaps, is the fact that as yet few Mediterranean finewares are found. The Irish Ogam script, which probably appeared in the late fourth century, was based upon the Latin alphabet, arguing for further cultural influences, and the Church began to take an interest in the island. St. Patrick himself is actually more difficult to date than often supposed and might just belong to the late fourth century (C) Crdinin 1995: 23-7). If he did, it would perhaps make more sense of the references (in his Apologia) to his father’s curial office. Irish mercenaries were also beginning to be employed in the Roman army, if the Attecotti Seniores and Iunioresattested in the Notitia Dignitatum are from Ireland rather than the Isles. It has been suggested that an Irish settlement in Wales was established under Magnus Maximus (Rance 2001). Such a settlement would have further facilitated contact between Ireland and the diocese of the Britanniae and migration across the Irish Sea.
From the fourth century, important changes began to take place within Irish society (Cooney 2000; Cooney and Grogan 1994). The centuries-old structures of the earlier Iron Age had, by the seventh century, been completely swept away. Dairy farming appears to have been introduced and changes in the nature of settlements also took place, probably in association with such socio-economic changes (see below). Although they have often been ascribed to the introduction of Christianity (technical language aside, there is little to choose between the explanations of Maire and Liam De Paor 1958 and Mytum 1992), the new religion seems to have been encompassed by these changes rather than to have been their cause. Some of the changes seem to begin too early, in the fourth century. Increasing contacts with the empire are likely to have played a part in initiating these changes.
However important, these were nevertheless fairly gradual and, as in northern Britain, took until the seventh century to be fully worked through.
In the archaeological record, the most important development was the appearance of small, defended sites, called cashels (if stone-built), raths (earth and timber) and crannogs (if on islands, often man-made). These have been well studied and have a wealth of information to give on early historic Irish society and economy (most recently, Stout 1997, 2000). They are so different from the previous settlements that they cannot but be interpreted as evidence of profound social change. Their enclosed nature must relate to new ideas of private property. Most would not keep out a large or determined enemy and some sites seem to be corrals rather than human habitations, connected to the rise of dairying noted above. These sites seem to be the material cultural signature of the society based upon cattle farming, clientship, and kindred, and upon the political hierarchy of small kingdoms, both of which emerged at this time. This sociopolitical turmoil also played a part in producing migration to Great Britain, especially Dyfed and Argyll. As noted, the latter migration is difficult to date (it has been postulated that the linguistic frontier between P-Celtic and Q-Celtic may have been located in Argyll long before the late antique period), and the migration to Wales might not have been significant before the sixth century. The evidence for movement (place names, stone monuments, and so on) is not susceptible to fine dating.
The introduction of Christianity, needless to say, brought new underpinnings of secular authority as well as novel religious forms of power. Monasteries, quite apart from representing new types, physically, of settlement and, institutionally, of land-ownership within Irish society, provided a religious life that was adapted to local conditions but provided different avenues through life for men and women (Bitel 1990; Harrington 2002). Christianity, furthermore, strengthened the ties between Ireland and the rest of Europe. By the seventh century, famously, Irish monks were playing a significant part in the religious life of the continent, in Great Britain and on the mainland. These contacts are also manifest in the way in which Ireland was, by the seventh century, incorporated into the long-distance exchange networks that were at this time reaching the north of Britain (see above). Similarly, though to a slightly lesser extent than in northern Britain, the fifth - and earlier sixth-century Mediterranean trading network had not really included the western shores of the Irish Sea.
Ireland, in sum, underwent a long period of important change, more gradual than that experienced in barbaricum east of the Rhine but, cumulatively, more revolutionary than that in northern Britain. The island’s increasing contact with the empire in the fourth century probably played a major part in instigating these changes, but it is difficult, as in northern Britain, to see any dramatic breaks that can be linked with the crisis of the Roman Empire.
World History
