How did a clusterfuck like this function?

>>1502712
It didn't.

>>1502712
The concept isn't appreciably different to other places in Europe with the exception that there wasn't a single authority over all-Ireland.

You might as well ask how the HRE or Italy functioned.

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Oh, neat, a topic on /his/ I actually know something about.

I feel the use of the word "function" is a bit problematic (:^)), it wasn't a single cohesive state and it wasn't supposed to be. You could compare it to the Holy Roman Empire or medieval Italy. We think of it as one state in modern times but back then everyone identified with their own regional power (though there was a sense of being 'Gaelic' that extended beyond the boundaries of one's kingdom, and that was partially what the High Kingship was about but that's a whole other kettle of fish).

>>1502750
It did for probably ~1500 years basically unchanged. Then another 500 years in most of the country post-norman invasion.

>>1502712
For one those are tribes and independent petty kingdoms, not one big nation

They also warred on each other nonstop

Reading the annals is pretty funny when every year is filled with like 10 mentions of X went raiding at Y lands and X king and his sons died and also so-and-so from Y tribe

And they'd ally and betray each other at every turn

by killing each other

>>1502712
It was a great example of what a right-libertarian paradise would look like

>>1502712
The irish at that time was just settling back into ireland again. You see the first iberians was ruled by kings who was irish. Tarquinius superbus the last irish king of iberia was overthrown by the iberians who ruled iberia for a couple of centuries. Until sulla the great irish general overthrew the iberians and exterminated them in the social war. Now irish was running iberia again and a iberian wasnt seen in the region again until it was sacked by alaric and the iberians eventually killed or sent the black irish to ireland. Julius caesar was irish

>>1502712
There was a common law and most of these Lords were subservient to someone else. I mean, there was feudalism elsewhere at the time and the Irish system wasn't that different.

>>1502824
I know you're joking but this is an awful meme, Ireland was never an anarchist country, and anarchists who use it as an example of anarchy working are retarded. It happens all the time.

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>>1502750
This, but not so much because it failed to function and more because there was no 'it' to function in the first place. Pre-Norman Ireland wasn't a feudal kingdom and outside of monasteries and a few Norse port-towns it was a chieftainship-level society without cities, states or intensive agriculture.

There was a common Irish culture and identity, as well as a flourishing Christian culture in the monasteries, but political structure was basically non-existent. There was a trend towards 'Westernization' around the 12th century which might have seen the growth of real native kingdoms in Ireland, but that was cut short by the Norman invasion.