Page 29 - Demo

Chapter One 29
Gaelic word for the sun, resembles an epithet of Apollo by Virgil, who sometimes styles him as Grynaeus! Something to ponder.
In any case, as a result of this structured, civilized society, these ancients had as high a standard of right and wrong as any so called pagan people ever had, as we may see from the ancient tales dating from those times in which, truth, honour, pity and justice are celebrated and raised up as examples to be followed. It was once said that this singularly cultured people, ‘made the green isle in the western ocean a radiant beacon tower in the night of barbarism that then lay heavily upon the western world’.
But besides their artistic, literary, and astronomical qualities, they also possessed talents of a more practical and shall we say ‘down to earth’nature. They established a central par- liament (Feis) an idea irst muted by the celebrated Ollamh Fódhla , a King and Chief Poet of Ireland, which met once every three years at the Ard Righ’s or High King’s court on Teamhair na Rí, The Hill of Tara, which according to ancient lore was founded by Slainge of the Firbolgs.
There came the poets, the historians, the teachers, the Brehons or judges, the druids and priests and the chieftains and kings of the various tribes, to examine, approve or to change the old laws, to make and verify new laws, to mete out justice, and to record past history and pedigrees. The code of laws which they established, some aspects of which may have been in place previous to this time and which are now known to us as na Breithibh Nimhedh- the Brehon Laws, were, for that remote age, so wonderfully just, wise, and democratic as to amaze those who study them today. In fact, the Brehon Laws were so carefully detailed, so elaborate and fastidious on minute points of law, that they left no room for doubt or un- certainty in any legal proceeding or trial, and as a result, made for a peaceful and orderly society. Early Irish law inds its closest parallel in traditional Hindu law and the Brehons maintained that their system represented the law of nature, so that when Christianity came, it might add to, but not subtract from it.
The great advantage which the pagan Celts or Gaedhil had over the peoples who pre- ceded them was their aforementioned knowledge of iron. Equipped with their sturdy spears, axes, and other implements, they killed of many of the wild beasts still left in the land; this done, they next cut paths and road-ways through the dense forests, thereby safely linking up diferent parts of the country with a new network of connecting roads - which in after days, inadvertently helped the Christian missionaries in their evangelical forays throughout the land.