The Ritual Killing of the Irish Kings

Abstract

IT was suggested many years ago by Macalister1 that a custom of ritual killing of the kings of Tara prevailed in pagan times. Such practices are of course well known to have happened in other countries, and their occurrence in Ireland would be in no way surprising. Nevertheless, Macalister's suggestion met with little support, and has indeed been almost forgotten. This is no doubt because the evidence he brought forward was rather slight. On a reconsideration of the question, it appears that there are many extra items of evidence. It can be shown that the kings of Tara were killed on a particular day of the year, in a ritual manner, for religious reasons, and at the end of a fixed term of years or of some multiple of this term. All the principal elements of a ritual killing are thus present. I. The date. The list of evidential items given below includes fourteen deaths of kings. Of these, seven are said to have happened at the autumn festival, Samhain (Halloweve), and none at any other time of the year. (There is however one case not included the death of Cobthach Coel which is said to have happened on the eve of Christmas: an obvious anachronism, as the story comes from pre-Christian times, and there was no Irish pagan festival corresponding to Christmas.) This correlation is itself almost enough to prove the case. 2. The mode of death. Here there is less consistency. In four cases we have a suggestion of death by the Elements earth, air (or wind), fire (or sun) and water or of two or three of them. In five other cases there is what appears at first sight to be a private assassination, but the details suggest some kind of ceremonial. There are also some references to a poison or drug, not necessarily lethal. In four cases, again, we have descriptions of what I may call 'the masquerade of the plebs' a kind of formal uprising by