Irish Hist. [Ir. tūath people, cognate with OE. þéod, Goth. þiuda, OTeut. *þeuðô, Indo-Eur. *teutá; ME. THEDE, q.v.] A ‘tribe’ or ‘people’ in Ireland; hence, the territory or district of a tribe, in which sense written in 16th c. toghe, TOUGHE, q.v.
1873. W. K. Sullivan, in O’Curry’s Anc. Irish, I. Introd. 79. The term Tuath was … applied to the people occupying a district which had a complete political and legal administration, a chief or Rig, and could bring into the field a battalion of seven hundred men. The word was also applied however to a larger division, consisting of three or four, or even more Tuaths, called a Mór Tuath, or great Tuath,… associated together for certain legal and legislative purposes.
1877. W. F. Skene, Celtic Scotl., II. II. x. 460. Before letters were introduced … each tuath, or tribe, had probably its own variety of the common speech.
1898. J. Heron, Celtic Ch., 14. A group of families from a common ancestry made a sept; a still larger group was called a clann…; while a tribe or tuath consisted of several of such clanns, septs, and families. Ibid., 16. There were in Ireland one hundred and eighty four tuaths or tribal territories.
