THE HUNGER-STRIKE IN ANCIENT IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 30 December 1920, Page 19

THE HUNGER-STRIKE IN ANCIENT IRELAND

---t_"-.' :i '. (By P- J- Barry, in America.) " *■ ■« Readers . of America have followed - with close interest the able* discussion ; on the morality of the hunger-strike, ,: and may be willing to view the "strike" from an altogether different a ? g T , ; lhe hunger-strike, may be regarded as another evidence of Ireland s-continuity as a nation and of her identity with herself. A nation's pastes hot a ; dead' thing. 1 It is a force submerged, but : none the less active in the present: It is as if we were to identify the' man by the mannerisms of the boy we were familiar with in school. So, in the twentieth century, meeting with this phenomena in Ireland, we recall that 'it is a recurrence, a reversion to type; we jog bur memories ; that is, we reopen our histories and discover that it was a recognised legal device in Ireland before and for some centuries after the introduction of Christianity by St. Patrick. f! • ; Before , coming ;; to our subject, we must deal very briefly with the manner of recovering debt from an unwilling debtor at a time when coined money was . not yet current in Ireland but when values were calculated in kind. And for our purpose it will be an aid to clearness if we remember two terms : cumJml and; seoit. A ciimhal was a female slave, variously valued, but may be set down here as equal to three seoit. A seoit was a heifer two or three years old. .'■ :V..': for failure to pay a fine, to make compensation for an injury, or to discharge a debt, Brehon Law defined very precisely the right of the creditor to take and hold the chattels of the debtor. - In English law this is technically known as distrainment or distress. The legal procedure in Brehon Law was intricate; the debtor had to proceed with some circumspection, and : was advised to execute distress in company with a lawyer, .because through an irregular procedure he might not only incur a fine himself, but in some cases forfeit the debt or fine he:; was trying to collect. The presence of the lawyer was a safeguard, for, even should the lawyer give wrong instructions, the claimant was not held responsible' for the lawyer's mistake. ' We need not dwell on the various steps taken in the execution . of - a distress, from the serving of notice till the moment when the creditor acquired complete legal title to the goods distrained. ; This process,' 1 however, could be availed of only by the ordinary people against each other, or against the lesser aristocracy. In regard to the higher ranks of the aristocracy, the class that was itemed or sacred, it was not permissible to proceed in the same -way ; not permissible. I have no doubt, because it was 'not possible to enforce distress on the property of a powerful chief.' So, for that reason, a moral weapon was put in the hands of the weak to wield against the strong. Strange to say, it was what we call the "hunger-strike," what the Irish called troscod or fasting. :'.Tn'principle, the seizure of movable property should be preceded by a notice.. But when the person against'whom action was to be taken for the recovery of debt belonged to the aristocracy,'; legal etiquette forbade the serving of notice in the ordinary way. The : plaintiff must begin a fast of protest at the defendant's door. We can now consider the various possibilities that the Brehon Code provide for. ' After the claimant had begun his fast : (1) the aristocratic debtor was given a day and a night during which to discharge his indebtedness, or to give, then and there, security :for payment at a future date; (2) failing to do this within the prescribed time he incurred definite penalties A. "He who refuses to cede what should be accorded to fasting, the judgment on him according to the Feini is that he pay double the thing for which he was fasted upon." (Senchus Mor. I. 117.) In the first place the debt was doubled. B. "If food be not offered to him, he ! is entitled to double the food and double the debt and a cumlial and five seoit."' (Ibid.) If the aristocratic debtor then does not at least offer food to the humble hunger-striker, in addition to the increase by two of the" debt he has to pay for twice the amount of food the creditor would have eaten in the time; he incurs, too, a fine of a : cumlM and a fine of "five horned cattle.. " """' ' | C. "If food be offered to him, he gets double the debt and five horned cattle. If ; he respond to him by. giving security all is right. "ff-'( lbid.") That is, even where food L is offered,' the, debt is doubled and a fine of five"horned cattle is incurred, but the debtor may postpone his difficulties by giving security for payment. . w™." • .; i- (3) "If what was owing to the claimant he offered to him and he refuse it, he" (the claimant) ■ shall pay a fine of five horned cattle and forfeit the right of suing again." (4) "If there was no security for the debt originally, a surety is proper tender to stop 'fasting.;;.;lf .there, was no security originally the proper tender to stop fasting is a hostage. And a security in lieu of a hostage is the debt itself." (Senchus Mor. 118.) (5) "He who does not give a pledge (security for payment) to fasting is an evader of ; all; : and 1 he who disregards all things shall not be paid by God or man." (Ibid.) V- : - | So that he who refuses to take account of the hunger-striker at his door cannot collect his. own debt, or at least the law will not help ' him.-'^ It absolvesi'his debtors from their obligation's, and, apart; from other penalties, this ; was a very serious consideration/, ::. .: ■j. (6) Should the hunger-striker remain obstinate and die on the doorstep, then, of course, the debtor was held responsible for the death, and had. to pay an indemnity to the relatives-of the deceased. This indemnity was two-fold in cases of murder. It included (1) the body price (corp-dire), which in the case of all was, seven female slaves or their equivalent value; (2) the honor --price-' (enech-lann}, which "varied: according to the dignity^of

the ' dead. For ' the High King of Ireland the honor price was fixed u at 'twenty-eighty female slaves or, their ?equivalent, .'.vlt-.- is interesting to note, 4 too, that the Archbishop of • Armagh?was valued l as highly- as the King of ■. Ireland. '■■j'MrA- :>-v ; '. ir'r.dj A'i'i.: V If we * take the case, then/.-'of .an obstinate aristocratic > debtor to, let us suppose, an : . Archbishop of i Armagh, the total indemnity to .be 5 paid, iii 7 case the fast was a .carried to. the finish, . to,the Archbishop's heirs would be (1) the- body price, ; seven ; female slaves, (2) the honor' price, twenty-eight; (3) a fine of : five head of horned cattle-i (4) double the amount of the original indebtedness ;'■ (5) double the amount of food the Archbishop would have consumed in the time, had he been eating ;. (6) finally, : all -the creditors of the' aristocrat would be released from > their obligation ; in other words, he was outlawed.":! From these considerations we get some idea of the protection Brehon Law- afforded the. weak, against the strong, and it is rather a striking coincidence that Ireland is at the present.time attracting world-wide attention by a procedure recognised centuries ago by the Brehon judges in Erin; In old days, however, justice was more in evidence. ; - . : . ■'.•.-:.•-•-.•. ,h-