Seumas MacManus > Quotes

“In a dreadful storm that the supposedly wizard De Danann raised up against them, when they attempted to land in Ireland, five of the sons of Milesius, with great numbers of their followers, were lost, their fleet was dispersed and it seemed for a time as if none of them would ever enjoy the Isle of Destiny. Ancient manuscripts preserve the prayer that, it is said, their poet, Amergin, now prayed for them”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“The fact that in such remote tune as the fifth century a woman could command the respect, the reverence, and moral obedience which were so fully and freely rendered to Bridget will naturally surprise the many who reflect that in most countries it is only a few centuries since women came out of semi-bondage. But, in Ireland, from the remotest time of which we have any record, historical or legendary, woman stood emancipated, and was oftentimes eligible for the professions, and for rank and fame.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“The first English poet to use rhyme — in his Latin verse — was Aldhelm, in the eighth century, who, it will be noted, was a pupil of the Irish monk, Mael-dubh, whose school was on the site of the present English city of Malmesbury.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“When, after they had long sojourned in Spain, they heard of Ireland (perhaps from Phoenician traders) and took it to be the Isle of Destiny, foretold for them by Moses, their leader was Miled or Milesius, whose wife also was a Pharaoh’s daughter, and named Scota.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Miled having died in Spain, his eight sons, with their mother, Scota, their families and followers, at length set out on their venturous voyage to their Isle of Destiny.”
― Seumas MacManus

“One queen, famous and capable, whom early Ireland boasted was Macha Mong Ruad (the Red-haired), who reigned over the land about three hundred years before Christ.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“The sixteenth-century scholar, O’Flaherty, fixes the Milesian invasion of Ireland at about 1000 B. C. — the time of Solomon.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“It is only recently that we have realised the all-important part played by legendary lore in forming and stamping a nation’s character. A people’s character and a people’s heritage of tradition act and react upon each other, down the ages, the outstanding qualities of both getting ever more and more alike — so long as their racial traditions are cherished as an intimate part of their life. But the people’s character gets a new direction on the day that there comes into their life any influence which lessens their loving regard for the past.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Dr. Atkinson thinks it was as far away as two thousand years ago that the Irish began to grace their then ancient poetic art with their new Invention of rhyme. From the Latin verses of Colm and other earliest Irish saints, we have positive proof that, anyhow, rhyme was in use in Ireland in the very earliest Christian times — both vowel rhyme (assonance) and consonantal rhyme called comharda.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“the ancient ordinance which distinguished the various classes and professions by the colours in their dress. A King or Queen might wear seven colours; a poet or Ollam six; a chieftain five; an army leader four; a land-owner three; a rent-payer two; a serf one colour only. Tighernmas”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“The great Irish historiographer, Eugene O’Curry, says: “The De Danann were a people remarkable for their knowledge of the domestic, if not the higher, arts of civilized life”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“A warlike people must have war.”
― Seumus MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race

“It was in the reign of Conn, at the very end of the second, or beginning of the third century that was founded the Fian — a great standing army of picked and specially trained, daring warriors, whose duty was to carry out the mandates of the high-king — “To uphold justice and put down injustice, on the part of the kings and lords of Ireland — and to guard the harbors from foreign invaders.” From this latter we might conjecture that an expected Roman invasion first called the Fian into existence. They were soldiers in time of war, and a national police in time of peace. We are informed that they prevented robberies, exacted fines and tributes, put down public enemies and every kind of evil that might afflict the country. Moreover they moved about from place to place, all over the island. During the summer and harvest, from Beltinne to Samain — May first till November first — they camped in the open, and lived by the chase. During the winter half-year they were quartered upon the people. But Fionn, being a chieftain himself in his own right, had a residence on the hill of Allen (Almuin) in Kildare.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Although the Fianna were supposed to uphold the power of the Ard-Righ, their oath of fealty was not to him, but to their own chief. And in course of time, in the reign of Cairbre Lifeachar, son of Cormac, they revolted against the Ard-Righ — Fionn and his Fian joining Breasil, king of Leinster, in resisting Cairbre’s levying of the Boru tribute. Cairbre met with overwhelming defeat at the battle of Cnamros — where he is said to have left nine thousand dead upon the field. One”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“His dictum was, “Let not a single hour pass in which you do not devote yourself to prayer, reading, writing or some other useful work.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“In their possession of Ireland the Firbolgs were disturbed by the descents and depredations of African sea-rovers, the Fomorians, who had a main stronghold on Tory Island, off the Northwest Coast. But”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“The last Fair of Taillte was celebrated in the year in which the first English invaders came into Ireland — in 1169. It was held by order of the High-King, Roderic O’Connor — and is recorded by The Four Masters, who state that the horses and chariots, alone, carrying people to this Fair, extended from Taillte to near Kells, a distance of six miles. The great fairs and Feisanna were regarded as of such overwhelming national importance that special and exceptional laws and ordinances were instituted to insure their proper carrying out.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“One other most notable happening in this king’s reign was the laying upon Leinster of the famous Boru tribute — a crime which, for long centuries, was to be the cause of bloody wars that should shake the Island.”
― Seumas MacManus

“In answer to them, the youth, standing up in the Hall of Heroes, with spear in one hand, and shield in the other, exclaimed: “I care not whether I die to-morrow or next year, if only my deeds live after me.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Of these three certain colonisations of Ireland, the Firbolg was the first. Legend says they came from Greece, where they had been long enslaved, and whence they escaped in the captured ships of their masters.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Macha’s foster-son, Ugani Mor (the Great), who succeeded her, led his armies into Britain, and had his power acknowledged there.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Cathair Mor was succeeded by Conn who overthrew him in a great battle in Meath.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“the Fian na h-Eireann were gone forever. Yet, though dead, they live. The lays of Oisin, the Dialogue of the Ancients, and innumerable other Finian poems and tales have kept, and will keep, their name and their fame imperishable.[23] Not only is the Fian in general immortalised, but the names, the qualities, and the characteristics of every one of Fionn’s trusted lieutenants — Oscar who never wronged bard or woman, Gol the mighty, Caoilte the sweet-tongued, Diarmuid Donn the beautiful, the bitter-tongued Conan, and the rest of them, have lived and will live. Even their hounds are with us, immortal. Bran, Sgeolan, and their famed fellows still follow the stag over the wooded hills of Eirinn, and wake the echoes of our mountain glens, by their bay melodious.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Possibly the glimpses of some of these fugitive hill-dwellers and cave-dwellers, caught in twilight and in moonlight, by succeeding generations of Milesians, coupled with the seemingly magical skill which they exercised, gave foundation for the later stories of enchanted folk, fairies, living under the Irish hills. Though, a quaint tale preserved in the ancient Book of Leinster says that after Taillte it was left to Amergin, the Milesian poet and judge, to divide Eirinn between the two races, and that he shrewdly did so with technical justice — giving all above ground to his own people, and all underground to the De Danann! Another”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“because of the quarrel of the women, the beautiful peace of the Island was broken by battle. Eber was beaten, and the high sovereignty settled upon Eremon. It was in his reign, continues the legend, that the Cruitnigh or Picts arrived from the Continent. They landed in the southwest, at the mouth of the River Slaney (Inver Slaigne).”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“But the possession of the country was wrested from the Firbolgs, and they were forced into partial serfdom by the Tuatha De Danann (people of the goddess Dana), who arrived later. Totally”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Such a great people were the De Danann, and so uncommonly skilled in the few arts of the time, that they dazzled even their conquerors and successors, the Milesians, into regarding them as mighty magicians. Later generations of the Milesians to whom were handed down the wonderful traditions of the wonderful people they had conquered, lifted them into a mystic realm, their greatest ones becoming gods and goddesses, who supplied to their successors a beautiful mythology.”
― Seumas MacManus

“Those days when Conor MacNessa sat on the throne of Ulster were brilliant days in Ireland’s history. Then was the sun of glory in the zenith of Eire’s Heroic period — the period of chivalry, chiefly created by the famous Royal or Red Branch Knights of Emania. Though, two other famous bands of Irish warriors gave added lustre to the period — the Gamanraide of the West (who were Firbolgs), and the Clanna Deaghaid of Munster led by Curoi MacDaire.”
― Seumas MacManus

“In the case of a fair which was not instituted as the accompaniment of a Feis, a Feis usually developed as an accompaniment of the fair. For at all such fairs the chiefs, the judges, the scholars, and other leading ones held deliberative assemblies, on a certain day or days, during the fair’s progress.”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland

“Another pleasant old belief is that the De Danann, being overthrown, were assembled by their great immortal Mannanan at Brugh of the Boyne, where, after counselling together. It was decided that, taking Bodb Derg, son of the Dagda, as their king, and receiving immortality from Mannanan, they should distribute themselves in their spirit land under the happy hills of Ireland — where they have, ever since, enjoyed never-ending bliss.[4]”
― Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland