Five Fifths of Ireland: New Approach

• Published in: Studia Celto-Slavica Vol. 2; pp. 26 - 39
• Main Author: Mikhailova, Tatyana
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• ISSN: 2058-9050; 2754-9941
• DOI: 10.54586/PQQB9019

The problem of the so-called ‘five fifths of Ireland’ remains unresolved up to now, in spite of numerous attempts to find a solution to this linguistic and geographical contradiction. In Modern Irish, traditional provinces of Ireland are called cúige (‘a fifth’), but there are only four (Ulster, Leinster, Munster and Connacht) of them. The same names of the four provinces were known in the Early Irish literature (cóiced Ulad etc). The Irish literati envisaged that contradiction and made some attempts to resolve it in early mythological and pseudo-historical sources (in sagas and poetry). According to their pseudo-historical theory, the province of Munster was further divided into ‘the fifth of Cú Roí’ and ‘the fifth of Eochu mac Luchta’. At the same time, the compiler of the saga ‘The Settling of the Manor of Tara’ proposes a theory of the sacred centre (Tara, the seat of kingship, and/or the hill Uisnech, the centre of druidism) of Ireland and of the four subject provinces or zones – North, South, East and West. The idea of of the dominant Goidelic race led T.F. O’Rahilly to propose the existence of the Midland kingdom. Rees Brothers added to this theory a veil of universal cosmology. We would like to propose another solution to this problem. It is not based upon the traditional cosmological or geographical principle of division of a country, but on another one, which can also be presented as the ‘traditional’ principle as far as the geography of the Ancient World is concerned. In reality, it may well be that Ireland was divided into five parts, but this so-called ‘native’ division of the island persisted for a short time only. The idea of the ‘five fifths’ preserved in Irish mythology and pseudo-history was supported by the symbolic role of the number ‘five’ in Irish tradition. Thus, the ‘power of word’ or a word-hypnosis influenced historical and native geographical tradition.