Kern (soldier)

A Kern was a Gaelic soldier, specifically a light infantryman in Ireland during the Middle Ages.

The word kern is an anglicisation of the Middle Irish word ceithern [kʲeθʲern] or ceithrenn meaning a collection of persons, particularly fighting men. An individual member is a ceithernach. The word may derive from a conjectural proto-Celtic word *keternā, ultimately from an Indo-European root meaning a chain. Kern was adopted into English as a term for a Gaelic soldier in mediaeval Ireland and as cateran, meaning Highland marauder, bandit. See Oxford Dictionary of English.

Kerns notably accompanied bands of the mercenary Gallóglaigh as their light infantry forces, where the Gallowglass filled the need for heavy infantry. This two-tier "army" structure though should not be taken to reflect earlier Irish armies prior to the Norman invasions, as there were more locally trained soldiers filling various roles prior to this. The Gallowglass largely replaced the other forms of infantry though, as more Irish began to train to imitate them, creating Gallowglass of purely Irish origin.

Earlier, the Ceithernn would have consisted of myriad militia-type infantry, and possibly light horse, most likely remembered later in the "horse boys" that accompanied Gallowglass and fought as light cavalry. They would be armed from common stock or by what they owned themselves, and filled out numerous portions of an army, probably forming the vast bulk of most Gaelic forces. In the mid sixteenth century Shane O'Neill was known to have armed his peasantry and Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, outfitted many of his Ceithernn with contemporary battle dress and weapons and drilled them as a professional force, complete with experienced captains and modern weapons.

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