{{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022 Sign for Prince Connell's Grave - geograph

A flaith (

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

) or flath (Modern

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...

), plural flatha, in the

Gaelic Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Ca ...

world, could refer to any member in general of a powerful family enjoying a high degree of

sovereignty Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the perso ...

, and so is also sometimes translated as

lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or ar ...

aristocrat The aristocracy is historically associated with "hereditary" or "ruling" social class. In many states, the aristocracy included the upper class of people (aristocrats) with hereditary rank and titles. In some, such as ancient Greece, ancient Ro ...

in the general sense, or can refer to sovereignty itself. Thus it did not usually refer to a specific position such as ''

Rí Rí, or commonly ríg (genitive), is an ancient Gaelic word meaning 'king'. It is used in historical texts referring to the Irish and Scottish kings, and those of similar rank. While the Modern Irish word is exactly the same, in modern Scottish ...

'' (king) which any given ''flaith'' might or might not hold, allowing for the term to eventually develop the slightly alternative meaning of any hereditary high aristocrat who was understood to be subordinate to the king. In this later sense a ''flaith'' was similar to a

tacksman A tacksman ( gd, Fear-Taic, meaning "supporting man"; most common Scots spelling: ''takisman'') was a landholder of intermediate legal and social status in Scottish Highland society. Tenant and landlord Although a tacksman generally paid a year ...

in the

Scottish clan A Scottish clan (from Goidelic languages, Gaelic , literally 'children', more broadly 'kindred') is a kinship group among the Scottish people. Clans give a sense of shared identity and descent to members, and in modern times have an official ...

system. The later development in meaning, innocent in itself, allowed the term ''flaith'' to become confused with "chief" as that term is commonly understood in English, when in fact a Gaelic "chief" was very often technically a ''rí'' (king) of any one of three or more grades and holding a

White Wand White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

. A ''flaith'' might not hold a White Wand; he might simply be a brother, nephew or some relation of the king. The ''flaith'' might be the head of a junior

sept A sept is a division of a family, especially of a Scottish or Irish family. The term is used in both Scotland and Ireland, where it may be translated as ''sliocht'', meaning "progeny" or "seed", which may indicate the descendants of a person ( ...

of the royal kindred or a member of another great family which was somehow in the king's service. It became an element in personal and eventually family names, an example being the royal family of O'Flaherty or ''Ua Flaithbertaig'' ("Descendants of the Bright Prince"). It could be combined with ''rí'' to form the personal name ''Flaithrí'' ("Princely King" or "Kingly Prince"), an example being

Flaithrí mac Domnaill Flaithrí mac Domnaill (died 777) was a King of Connacht from the Uí Briúin branch of the Connachta. He was the son of Domnall mac Cellaig (d.728), a previous king. The sept of Uí Briun he belonged to was the Síl Cellaig of Loch Cime. He rei ...

King of Connacht The Kings of Connacht were rulers of the ''cóiced'' (variously translated as portion, fifth, province) of Connacht, which lies west of the River Shannon, Ireland. However, the name only became applied to it in the early medieval era, being name ...

. A Banfhlaith (lit. "Lady Prince") was a princess more specifically described. However, illustrative of how ''flaith'' was principally a general term for a member of the high nobility, the personal names

Gormflaith (modern spelling: or ) is an Irish language female given name meaning "blue princess" or "illustrious princess". is also a Gaelic mythological personification of Ireland. The word ' is a compound of the Irish words ' ("blue") and ' ("soverei ...

("Blue Princess" or "Blue Sovereignty") an
Órflaith
("Golden Princess") were understood to be female without the addition of the feminine affix.

References

Dictionary of the Irish Language
Letter F, Column 160
Wiktionary: Flaith
from

Proto-Celtic Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly Linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed through the compar ...

*''wlati''- (“sovereignty”)
The Brehon Laws: The Flaiths
a treatise by

Laurence Ginnell Laurence Ginnell (baptised 9 April 1852 – 17 April 1923) was an Irish nationalist politician, lawyer and Member of Parliament (MP) of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as member of the Irish Parliamentary ...

on the title or class as understood in the later sense
Grades and Groups of Society
by

Patrick Weston Joyce Patrick Weston Joyce, commonly known as P. W. Joyce (1827 – 7 January 1914) was an Irish historian, writer and music collector, known particularly for his research in Irish etymology and local place names of Ireland. Biography He was born i ...

Irish nobility Gaelic nobility of Ireland Medieval Scottish nobility

See also

References