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Hence the professions of ollamh, shanachy, bard, brehon, physician, passed from father to son a very injudicious arrangement apparently, but it seems nevertheless to have worked well in Ireland.
If a specified amount of territory was assigned to the chieftain, a smaller portion to the bishop, the shanachy, head poet, and other civil officers each in his degree, such property was attached to the office and not to the man who filled it, but passed to his elected successor and not to his own children; while the great bulk of the territory belonged to the clan in common.
It must have been true only with regard to their mode of teaching, in that they gave no books to their pupils, but confined themselves to oral instruction. The order of Ollamh comprised various sub-orders of learned men. And the first of these deserving our attention is the class of "Seanchaidhe," pronounced Shanachy.
The shanachy of the family relates that then, and then only, Gerald sent a private message to his kinsmen and retainers, appointing his cousin James, son of Maurice, known as James Fitzmaurice, the head and leader in his family during his own absence.
It seems, therefore, that in Celtic tribes the order of File was anterior in point of time to that of Shanachy, and that both must have sprung naturally from the same social system. Hence the monarch of the whole nation had his poets, as also the provincial kings and every minor chieftain.
But the very name he gives them plebs shows that they were no more real slaves than the Roman plebs. They exercised their functions in the state by the elections, and Caesar did not know they could reach public office by application to study, and by being ordained to the rank of file, or shanachy, or brehon, in Ireland, at least: and this gave them a direct share in public affairs.
"For James," says the shanachy, "was well known for his attachment to the ancient faith, no less than for his valor and chivalry, and gladly did the people of old Desmond receive these commands, and inviolable was their attachment to him who was now their appointed chieftain."
The shanachies were also bound to prove for themselves the moral qualifications of the ollamhs.1 Many of these details and the following are chiefly derived from Prof. A shanachy of any degree, who did not preserve these "purities," lost half his income and dignity, according to law, and was subject to heavy penalties besides.
The ollamh seems to have been the historian of the monarch of the whole country; the shanachy had the care of provincial records.
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