Historian Ellis (The Celtic Empire, 2001, etc.) examines Europe's oldest traceable aristocracy, from the ancient Gaelic tribal kings of Ireland down to their present-day descendants, claimants to the titular chiefships of some 18 surname-based clans (each individually profiled).
Such was the Celtic penchant for genealogy, the author tells us, that some settlers arriving in Ireland about 1050 b.c. with the legendary Milesius could recite their oral pedigrees back to Seth, son of Adam—the first, perhaps, of spurious claims that would blot the Irish escutcheon. Indeed, Ellis puts himself among the dupes of what he describes as a “fascinating” 20-year hoax (uncovered in 1999) pulled off by a pretender to the chieftainship of clan McCarthy. The principal aim here, however, is to frame today's vetted claimants to Gaelic titles as proud but tragic survivors of a persistent “ethnic cleansing” program described as extending from 11th-century Norman incursions through subjugation by generations of Tudor monarchs and the Cromwellian apocalypse to “planned” famines in the 18th and 19th centuries. Apart from suffering and the Diaspora, the author fixes on the co-opting of Irish nobility by the English crown as particularly insidious. The simple method: offer, under duress, a cobbled-up English title and token landholdings in exchange for relinquishing any claim to Gaelic tribal rank, influence, and territories. Most holdouts would eventually be eradicated or exiled. Centuries later, an independent Irish Republic that wants to promote cultural heritage through recognition of ancient families finds that only English-bestowed honors and holdings pass by law to the eldest surviving heir. Whereas Gaelic Ireland, Ellis and others stress, was a meritocracy: its kings elected by an inner circle of clansmen and the succession, usually by a relative but often not a direct heir, also established by consensus. While its “hereditary chiefs” act out, Ireland’s quandary persists.
Gripping historical turmoil gives way to the nitpicking milieu of formal heraldry, which may well make non-Irish eyes glaze over.
