Life for a Celtic child was mainly predictable. Children grew up with five or six siblings, some of whom would be almost twenty years older than them. At about age seven, boys and girls were sent away to be fostered by families in other clans. There were few decent roads, so this probably was the first time the children had left their farms. Boys were trained to fight, hunt, and run a farm. Girls were educated in the arts of cooking, housekeeping, and sewing.

Children were fostered until the ages of fourteen to seventeen, and because of this they often had deeper relationships with their foster families than with their biological parents. The foster parents were paid between one-and-a-half to fifteen cows for the care of a male child, depending on his station, and more for girls because they were thought to require more care. At the end of her fostering, a girl would almost immediately marry. Her foster parents may listen to her opinions of men, but in the end who she married was their decision.

Women had little more legal importance than a child or slave, and they were worth only half as much as men. They were expected to be submissive and faithful to their husband, and work to bring him honor and support their family. When a marriage was agreed on, the families of the bride and groom would each contribute land, tools, and other practical belongings to the couple to help begin their life together.

A woman would often share her husband with his other wives. The first wife was considered the chief wife. She had more rights than any wives who came after her; she could legally mistreat and abuse the other wives to her heart’s content, although she could not kill them. However, a secondary wife’s retaliation was limited to scratching, pulling hair, and verbal insults. Needless to say, husbands usually kept separate houses for their wives, to control violence. A woman could only divorce her husband if he had magically tricked her into marriage, given her a permanent scar, become too fat, or talked about their marriage too much in public. A man could divorce his wife if she killed her child, stole something, was unfaithful, or dishonored him. 

The duties of a wife were many. She milked the cows, churned butter, made cheese, and fattened the pigs on whey for slaughter. She may have changed the floor rushes every few months, when they became too dirty. A wife cooked for the entire extended family living in the hut. Common dishes included roasted beef and pork; barley porridge; stews of meat, onions, parsnips, wild garlic, and other vegetables. Even the children drank ale at every meal. Special treats included apples, blackberries, and strawberries. Honey was the Celts’ only sweetener, and it was so precious that the bees it came from were considered livestock alongside cows and pigs. Beeswax was also used to make candles.

Women were also expected to make flour for their meals. This was accomplished by grinding grain between stones by hand, until the invention of the water-powered mill in the early 600’s. Then all the women had to do was travel to the communal mill, load their grain, and wait for the flour to be produced. Another laborious task was making linen and wool cloth from the fleece of small brown Irish sheep. Some of the cloth was used for the family’s clothing, and the rest was traded. The only escape women had form this life of hard labor and forced marriage, after the introduction of Christianity, was to become a nun and spend their lives in the service of God.

Husbands’ tasks were very different from those of women. Men were expected to plow the fields, care for and harvest the crops, and hunt for supplementary meat. A small farm, or ócaire, consisted of four acres, on which were kept an average of seven cows, one bull, seven sheep, one horse, and a few fields. The crop fields were fenced with stone topped with blackthorn to keep livestock out. Planting began once the ground was sufficiently dry, usually around March. Four or so farmers co-owned oxen and a plow made of iron by the local blacksmith, and they all pitched in to help with the planting of barley, oats, onions, peas, beans, cabbage, parsnips, and carrots. In May, cattle and sheep were moved to communal summer pastures in the mountains, a process called booleying. Some women and children spent the summer in the mountain pasture to protect their livestock from predators. After harvest in the fall, older cows and male calves not needed for studs were slaughtered for winter meat. The meat was cured with salt obtained either from a market, from boiled seawater, or from burned seaweed. The remaining cattle were allowed to graze on the harvest stubble. Manure and seaweed were considered to be valuable fertilizer.