The Economy of Early Ireland

For much of its early history, ireland's situation was not very different to that in many of the african societies we looked at. It was a human economy perched uncomfortably on the fringe of an expanding commercial one. As one historian put it, ireland has no mineral wealth, and foreign luxury goods could be bought by irish kings mainly for two export goods, cattle and people. Hardly surprising, perhaps, that cattle and people were the two major denominations of the currency.