Nippled Irish Royalty and Their Less Fortunate, Usually Dead, Nippleless Relatives

My museum time today yeilded the following:

Sucking a King's nipples was an ancient Irish form of submission. It rains a lot here (Dublin) and is rather chilly, so I would think the King would cover his chest. That means there must have been royal reception days when the King exposed his nipples in order to facilitate nipple sucking.

So much easier to just bow and kiss a ring.

As with all royalty, there were power games in the nipple hierarchy. Cutting off a royal descendant's nipples made him ineligible for kingship. Not as subtle as poison, but undeniable evidence of his unsuitability for a kingly role. No nips, game over.

Maybe his nipples were only important when celebrating Lughnasa, the harvest festival where the King was wedded to the Earth. His kingly role required him to keep nature and society in equilibrium. A little nipple sucking would surely increase his self-esteem and help him on his way.