‘Servants Lacking Manners’: The Relationship Between Social Status and Disability in the Medieval Irish Finn Cycle

Deborah Hayden

Dylan Bailey

Gúaire Goll’s first appearance in Acallam na Senórach, as found in Dublin, UCD MS A 4, p. 18, ll. 15–16 (image courtesy of Irish Script on Screen).

Acallam na Senórach (‘Tales of the Elders of Ireland’) is one of the longest and most well-known of the medieval Irish Finn Cycle texts, composed sometime between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.[1] It mostly concerns, like the rest of the Finn Cycle, the adventures of Fionn mac Cumaill, the leader of a group of warrior-hunters known as the Fían. As part of the LEIGHEAS project, I am conducting a PhD investigation into the depiction of physical disability and impairment in medieval Irish learned literature.[2] For this blog post, I would like to briefly discuss two characters associated with one-eyedness in Acallam na Senórach: Goll mac Morna and Gúaire Goll. It will be interesting to see what these two characters might reveal about how physical impairments were perceived within medieval Irish society.

Goll mac Morna is often considered the primary villain of the Finn Cycle. His traditional antagonism is displayed within the Finn Cycle story Macgnímartha Find (‘The Boyish Exploits of Finn’). Here, Goll mac Morna kills Finn mac Cumaill’s father, starting ‘a hereditary feud between Finn mac Cumaill and the sons of Morna’.[3] In this part of the story, Goll mac Morna is also described as receiving his famous eye injury, alongside the moniker Goll (‘the One-Eyed’).[4]

Interestingly, Goll mac Morna’s role in Acallam na Senórach seems less explicitly villainous. In some places, Goll mac Morna is even spoken of fairly positively. In one case, Finn’s mac Cumaill’s nephew Caílte (who is one of the narrators of the Acallam) describes Goll mac Morna as ‘one of the five best warriors’ in Ireland.[5] Cumall’s death at the battle of Cnucha is still mentioned in Acallam na Senórach, but no details are given revealing whether Goll mac Morna was involved or not.[6] The fact that this character is still referred to as Goll in this text might indicate he was still involved in the death of Cumall, but this is never made absolutely clear.

This more neutral depiction might be explained by discussing another character who is associated with one-eyedness in Acallam na Senórach. Gúaire Goll (note again the use of the epithet Goll) is one of Finn mac Cumaill’s servants. In the story, Gúaire Goll wagers that he can beat Fían-member Finn Bán in a series of fidchell games (a medieval Irish board game similar to chess).[7] After Gúaire Goll is easily beaten, the servant insults Finn Bán, and in response Finn Bán knocks out six of Gúaire Goll’s teeth.[8] Although Finn mac Cumaill initially thinks Finn Bán has mistreated the servant, the Fían eventually rule that Finn Bán assaulted Gúaire Goll ‘with ample cause’.[9] The story concludes with Finn mac Cumaill offering his blessing to Finn Bán, and with all of the Fían-members swearing: ‘That servants keep, from this day on, their tongues from better men [and] That servants lacking manners would quickly feel our wrath’.[10]

Both Goll mac Morna and Gúaire Goll appear to be strong examples of one-eyedness being associated with negative character traits, which I have found to be a fairly common theme within medieval Irish narrative literature. Goll mac Morna is the chief villain of the Finn Cycle, and even in a text where he appears to show more restraint in his villainy, like the Acallam, he is still potentially responsible for killing Finn mac Cumaill’s father. Gúaire Goll is also framed in a negative light, in this case being a troublesome servant who causes a serious dispute between Finn mac Cumaill and Finn Bán. This negative depiction of two characters both associated with the term Goll or ‘one-eyedness’ might indicate that there was a stigma for people with ocular impairments within medieval Irish society.

However, there are some significant differences in the portrayal of Goll mac Morna and Gúaire Goll, which are worth discussing. For example, their actions are treated very differently. Gúaire Goll is beaten and verbally berated for causing the dispute between Finn Bán and Finn mac Cumaill. Meanwhile, Goll mac Morna faces no consequences for being the traditional nemesis of Finn mac Cumaill, nor for possibly being responsible for killing Finn’s father.

This contrast in consequences could be explained by the difference in social status between the two characters. Social etiquette and hierarchy are wound deeply into the story of Gúaire Goll, which ends with a warning against ‘servants lacking manners’.[11] Gúaire Goll seems to be vilified and treated violently by the Fían more due to the fact he is a ‘servant lacking manners’ than because of his one-eyedness. Objectively speaking, Gúaire Goll represents far less of a real threat to Finn and the Fían than Goll mac Morna. Gúaire Goll is just a troublesome servant who speaks out of turn, whilst Goll Mac Morna is ‘one of the five best warriors’ in Ireland and has been shown to have caused real physical harm to members of the Fían, including members of Finn mac Cumaill’s own family. And yet, the Fían’s actions (or lack thereof) in responding to each of these two characters would suggest that they find Gúaire Goll’s behaviour a greater and more serious threat than that of Goll mac Morna. This can be explained by their differences in social rank. Goll mac Morna might represent a greater physical threat to Finn and his men, but he is still part of the same social sphere, essentially a social equal. Goll mac Morna, despite his actions, is still a Fían-member, part of the warrior elite, and even his most villainous deeds do nothing to challenge the social order. It is Gúaire Goll’s position in the social hierarchy that makes his insults a more serious action than those of Goll mac Morna, as they are levelled at a social superior – Finn Bán – and represent a challenge to the social order which governs the culture of the Fían. Even if both of these one-eyed characters are associated with bad deeds in Acallam na Senórach, only Gúaire Goll challenges such a social order due to his lower social status. This might suggest that social status has a greater role to play in the power dynamics on display in this story than that of impairment or disability.

Although social status might be a strong explanation for the difference between the treatment of the two characters, I would still argue that physical impairment plays a role in the fate of Gúaire Goll, and should be kept in mind when discussing these two characters. Gúaire Goll’s association with one-eyedness is inherently tied to his role as a troublemaker and subverter of the status quo. Geraldine Parsons has argued that, within the Finn Cycle, a lack of bodily symmetry can represent a subversion of the natural order.[12] Gúaire Goll’s actions represent a challenge to the Fían way of life, i.e. what the Fían would consider to be the ‘natural order’, whilst his association with one-eyedness acts as a marker of deviancy from the ‘natural order’ of human anatomy. The Fían act with such quick and violent retaliation against Gúaire Goll, not only to re-assert their authority against this rebellious servant, but also to maintain the ideals they possess about a ‘natural’ view of the physical body. This results in the Fían physically and verbally denouncing a troublesome servant whose epithet means ‘the One-Eyed’, a character who represents a challenge to their ideas about both society and physicality. In this way, Gúaire Goll’s social status and physical impairment could both be understood as reasons for his oppression by the Fían. This indicates that social status and physical impairment were both discussed in tandem by the elites of medieval Ireland, and this might reflect some of the intersections of power that prevailed in medieval Irish society.

The differences in the portrayal of Goll mac Morna and Gúaire Goll in Acallam na Senórach hint at how physical impairments might have been perceived differently depending on social status. This might indicate the elitist views of the audience for which Acallam na Senórach was possibly written.[13] There are certain other elements of these characters and their place in society that I would have liked to consider in more detail for this blog post. I plan to do this as part of my PhD thesis. However, for now all that can be said is that such an analysis reveals how an intersectional approach towards medieval Irish literature can sometimes help to reveal some of the attitudes held by the authors and audiences, and provide new and exciting interpretations of these texts.

Further Reading

[1] Dooley and Roe (1999: viii), Mac Cana (1986/1987: 84–5), Murray (2017: 21 and 163). Dooley (2004) argues for a date between 1190 and 1224. Connon (2014: 53–9) agrees with 1224. According to Kevin Murray (2017: 28), some argue for 1228 as the end date. Joseph Nagy (2006: 8) suggests that it could have been composed as early as the eleventh century and as late as the twelfth.

[2] For a discussion on the distinction between ‘impairment’ and ‘disability’, and how this can apply to a medieval Irish context, see Metzler (2006) and Boyd (forthcoming). My sincere gratitude must be expressed to Dr Boyd for sharing his insights with me at the 42nd Harvard Celtic Colloquium.

[3] Meyer (1882: 306); Meyer (1901: 180). Ó hÓgáin (1986/1987: 226) and Ó Murchadh (2009: xxv) have both discussed the traditional enmity between Goll mac Morna and Finn mac Cumaill.

[4] Meyer (1882: 306); Meyer (1901: 180). Gerard Murphy (1953: lxix) and Kevin Murray (2017: 118 and 149) have both commented upon the meaning of Goll mac Morna’s epithet. This story is also featured in the Middle Irish text Fotha Catha Cnucha (‘Cause of the Battle of Cnucha’). The text is discussed in the context of ocular impairments by Kim McCone (2021: 219).

[5] Stokes (1900: 163, ll. 5931–5932); Dooley and Roe (1999: 166).

[6] Dooley and Roe (1999: 52).

[7] Hellmuth (2006) gives a good overview of what is known about this game.

[8] Dooley and Roe (1999: 41–2).

[9] Stokes (1900: 40, ll. 1412 and 1430); Dooley and Roe (1999: 42–4).

[10] Stokes (1900: 40–1, ll. 1440 and 1442–4); Dooley and Roe (1999: 44–5).

[11] Anne Connon (2014: 41) has also argued that ‘disparate class elements’ are involved in the dispute between Gúaire Goll and Finn Bán.

[12] Parsons (2019: 3).

[13] Ann Dooley (2004: 103–23) discusses the audience of Acallam na Senórach, arguing that it was a mix of ‘the common people’ and the ecclesiastical/secular elites based in the west of Ireland.

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