ABSTRACT
The darkness that shrouds the fifth century in Irish history makes it impossible to say whether the position as it emerges in our earliest sources represents a continuation of the political and social trends that were at work in the decades and centuries before that date, or whether some radically new developments marked off the years after 400.1 Some historians believe that cataclysmic upheavals took place on the eve of the documented period: plague and famine, among other things, bringing about the collapse of traditional society. There is no doubt that changes did take place, for example in the Irish language. ‘It might be said, indeed, that it changed more during that time than it has ever done since’, and the changes can be seen actually taking place on the ogam inscriptions.2 They are represented in our earliest written sources by the transition from Primitive Irish to Old Irish, a drastic shift in the sound laws of the language which is believed by the linguists to have taken place over a remarkably short period of time. Parallel changes in the physical landscape may have led to the emergence of the new political groupings and dynasties which appear to dominate the historical narrative from this point on. Scholars argue that the older, tribal, ‘archaic’ structures of society either collapsed or were deliberately dismantled by a new breed of men, more ruthless and dynamic than their predecessors, who rode roughshod over the ancient taboos and tribal customs of the prehistoric period in their drive for power and position.3
