Fianna

The historical institution of the fiann is known from references in early medieval Irish law tracts. A fiann was made up of landless young men and women, often young aristocrats who had not yet come into their inheritance of land.[1] A member of a fiann was called a fénnid; the leader of a fiann was a rígfénnid (literally "king-fénnid").[2]

Geoffrey Keating, in his 17th-century History of Ireland, says that during the winter the fianna were quartered and fed by the nobility, during which time they would keep order on their behalf, but during the summer, from Beltaine to Samhain, they were obliged to live by hunting for food and for pelts to sell.[3] Keating's History is more a compilation of traditions than a reliable history, but in this case scholars point to references in early Irish poetry and the existence of a closed hunting season for deer and wild boar between Samhain and Beltaine in medieval Scotland as corroboration.[4]

Hubert Thomas Knox speculates that "they were bodies of Gallowglasses such as appeared in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but then under command of adventurers who were not inhabitants of the province, Free Companies who sold their services to any one who could raise their wages."[5]

Some legendary depictions of fianna seem to conform to historical reality: for example, in the Ulster Cycle the druid Cathbad leads a fiann of 27 men which fights against other fianna and kills the 12 foster-fathers of the Ulster princess Ness. Ness, in response, leads her own fiann of 27 in pursuit of Cathbad.[6]

However, the stories of the Fiannaíocht, set around the time of Cormac mac Airt, depict the fianna as a single standing army in the service of the High King, although it contains two rival factions, the Clann Baíscne of Leinster, led by Fionn mac Cumhaill (Old, Middle, Modern Irish: Find, Finn, Fionn), and the Clann Morna of Connacht, led by Goll mac Morna, and lives apart from society, surviving by hunting.

In more recent history, the name Fianna Éireann has been used, as Fianna Fáil ("the Fianna of Ireland", or Inis Fáil i.e. "the isle of destiny", and hence sometimes rendered "the soldiers of destiny") has been used: as a sobriquet for the Irish Volunteers, on the cap badge of the Irish Army, the name in Irish of the Army Ranger Wing (Sciathán Fiannóglaigh an Airm), in the opening line of the Irish-language version of the Irish national anthem, and as the name of the Fianna Fáil political party.

• Kóryos

• Irish Fairy Tales, a 1920 book by James Stephens containing many tales of the Fianna