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Updated: May 6, 2025
His scientific attainments require a little longer consideration, as they form the chief object we have in view. They may at the outset be stated in a few words. The ollamh was "a man who had arrived at the highest degree of historical learning, and of general literary attainments.
Each chieftain, in fact, down to the humblest, had an officer of this description, who enjoyed privileges inferior only to those of the ollamh, and partook of emoluments graduated according to his usefulness in the state; so that we can already obtain some idea of the honor and respect paid to the national literature and traditions in the person of those who were looked upon in ancient times as their guardians from age to age.
Indeed there was one singular, and, as far as I am aware, unique power possessed by the Irish Bards, which goes beyond any priestly or papal anathema, and which was known as the Clann Dichin, a truly awful malediction, by means of which the Ollamh, if offended or injured, could pronounce a spell against the very land of his injurer; which spell once pronounced that land would produce no crop of any kind, neither could living creature graze upon it, neither was it possible even to walk over it without peril, and so it continued until the wrong, whatever it was, had been repented, and the curse of the Ollamh was lifted off from the land again.
The Head bard or Ollamh, in the estimation of his tribesmen, stood next in importance to the chieftain or king higher, indeed, in some respects; for whereas to slay a king might, or might not be criminal, to slay an Ollamh entailed both outlawing in this life and a vaguer, but not the less terrible, supernatural penalty in another.
There is no doubt the other agglomerations of Celtic tribes, the Gauls chiefly, enjoyed institutions very similar, if not perfectly alike. The highest generic name for a learned man or doctor was "ollamh." These ollamhs formed a kind of order in the race, and the privileges bestowed on them were most extensive.
The Chiefs of territories sat, each in an appointed seat, under his own shield; the seats being arranged by order of the Ollamh, or Recorder, whose duty it was to preserve the muster-roll, containing the names of all the living nobles. The Champions, or leaders of military bands, occupied a secondary position, each sitting' under his own shield.
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