that there was a time—after “the spirit of god moved on the face of the waters, and separated the dry land from the sea”—when the present british isles formed a continuous and integral portion of the european continent is the received opinion of the scientific. with that continuity of surface (whether before or after the glacial period matters not in the present inquiry) there was, we know, a uniform dispersion of vegetable and animal life over this portion of the globe; and so long as this country enjoyed the temperature and climate it now possesses, it must have been an emerald land—humid, green, and fertile, affording pasturage and provender for the largest herbivoræ—the mammoth, elephant, and musk ox, the reindeer, the wild boar, and perhaps even the woolly rhinoceros. the primitive races of horned cattle, possibly the red deer, and undoubtedly the largest and noblest of cervine creatures, the gigantic irish deer, or cervus megaceros, besides the wild pig, and smaller mammals, as well as birds and fishes innumerable, must then have existed here.
how long that condition of the land known now as ireland existed, what geological revolutions occurred, or what time elapsed during its continuance, is but matter of speculation; but a “repeal of the union” took place, and great britain and ireland became as they now are, and as they are likely to remain, geographically separated, although united in interest as well as government. in all probability the great pine forests, with some of the yews, the oaks, and the birch, had at this time been submerged beneath the lowest strata of our bogs.
it was after this epoch, i believe, that man first set foot upon the shores of erin—a country well wooded, abundantly stocked with animals, and abounding in all nature’s blessings suited to the330 well-being of the human race; with fowls in its woods and on its shores; fish in its seas, lakes and rivers; deer and other game in its forest glades, oxen on its pastures, fuel in its bogs; and a climate, although moist and variable, on the whole mild and temperate.
let us now go back for a moment and take a glance at the map of the world. the sacred writings tell us, and the investigations of historians, antiquarians, and philologists confirm the statement, that the cradle of mankind was somewhere between the caspian sea and the great river euphrates. without entering too minutely into the subject, i may state briefly that the human family separated in process of time into three great divisions—the african, the asiatic, and the indo-european. with the latter only we have to deal. as population increased, it threw off its outshoots; and emigration, the great safeguard of society, and the ordained means of peopling as well as cultivating and civilizing the earth, began to impel the races and tribes still farther and farther from the birthplace of humanity. but in those days the process was somewhat slower and more gradual than that which now sends an irish family across 3,500 miles of ocean in a week.
with but the rudest means of transit, hordes of the primitive races passed up the banks of the great rivers, the euphrates, the nile, the volga, the danube, and the rhone; while other tribes, in all likelihood more advanced and cultivated, wandered along the coasts, peopling as they went the northern shores of the mediterranean and the black sea.
that an early and uncultivated people passed up the danube in their immigration, and settled for centuries on its banks, when europe was a tangled wilderness, inhabited by the auroch and the gigantic deer, there can be no manner of doubt; for they have left memorials of their existence in the unerring and enduring remains of their sepulchres, their tools, and weapons, from the black sea to switzerland and savoy. in switzerland this primitive people rested for a considerable period, perhaps for many centuries, forming for themselves those peculiar piled lacustrine habitations on the shores of its picturesque inland waters, known as “pfaulbauten”—the analogues, and in all probability the types, of the crannoges recently discovered in ireland and scotland, to which countries the scattered fragments of that race finally carried this special form of domestic architecture. the lowest strata of implements were deposited beneath the sites of these pfaulbauten; and in some of the more ancient ones the only remains are those of stone, flint, and pottery—the former resembling in a remarkable manner the stone tools and weapons of the primitive irish.
what the language of this early helvetian people was, we have no means of ascertaining; but that their exodus was one of haste331 and compulsion, and probably the result of invasion by a superior and more cultivated race, is almost certain. driven from their mountain homes, they passed down the banks of the rhine and the elbe, and helped to people north-western europe, forming with those who arrived coastwise the great nation of the gauls and belgæ. it is not unlikely that this littoral wave of population carried with them the metallurgic arts; for we find in their tombs and barrows on the coasts of spain, france, and brittany, bronze celts identical in shape with some of those discovered in our own country.
still passing westwards towards the setting sun, some members of this early people stood at length face to face with the white cliffs of kent. impelled by curiosity and the thirst for knowledge, man’s undeviating enterprise soon sent these hardy people across the narrow strait that divides britain from the continent of europe, centuries before the ships of tarshish voyaged from tyre and sidon to trade with britain for the tin of cornwall, to alloy, harden, and beautify into bronze the copper with which solomon decorated the temple of jerusalem.
to the restless celt the breadth of this new possession was but a slight impediment to his western progress, and once more he looked upon the blue waters of the salt sea, and beyond them, to the green hills of erin. a plank—a single-piece canoe—formed out of an oak-tree by fire and a sharp stone, or a wicker curragh covered with hides, would soon waft him from portpatrick to donaghadee, or even from anglesea to howth.
here, then, the story of our race begins, and the immediate object of this inquiry commences. that man, as he first stood on this island, was in a rude, uncultivated state, without a knowledge of letters or manufactures—skilled in those arts only by which, as a nomad hunter and fisher, he supported life and ministered to his simple wants—there can be no manner of doubt. clad in the skins of animals he slew, which were sewn together with their sinews or intestines—his weapons and tools formed of flint, stone, bone, wood or horn—his personal decoration, shells, amber, attractive pebbles collected on the beach, or the teeth of animals strung together in a rude necklace, or bound round the wrists and arms; and his religion, if any, pagan, sun-worship, or druidism, man first stood, in all probability, on the north-eastern shores of erin. it may be unpalatable to our national vanity to learn that the early colonists of ireland did not come here clad in purple and gold direct from phœnicia, in brazen-prowed triremes, with the mariner’s compass and the quadrant; or stood for the first time upon the shores of hibernia armed cap-à-pied in glittering armour, as minerva sprang from the front of jove; but it is, nevertheless, indisputably true, that the first people were such as i have described them.
332
no date can be assigned to the period of the first inhabitation, but as evidence of the primitive condition of the race it is sufficient to state that human bodies clad in deer-skin have been discovered in our bogs; that flint weapons in abundance have been found all over ireland, but especially in the north, where that peculiar lithological condition chiefly exists; and that stone tools have been dug up in thousands all over the country, but more particularly from the beds of our rivers, marking the sites of contested fords, which were the scenes of sanguinary conflicts, as on the shannon and the bann; and that all these are referrible to a period when the irish had no knowledge of metals, and could neither spin nor weave.
to northern archæologists belongs the credit of that theory which divides the ages of man according to the material evidences of the arts of bygone times, as into those of stone, of copper, gold, and bronze, and of iron and silver. while i have no doubt that, generally speaking, such was the usual progress of development in those particulars, i deny that this division can, as a rule, be applied to ireland, where undoubtedly each period overlapped the succeeding, so as to mix the one class of implement with another, even as i myself have seen on the great cultivated plain of tyre harrow-pins formed of flints and sharp stones stuck into the under surface of a broad board; and on that battle field—
“where persia’s victim hordes
first bowed beneath the brunt of hella’s sword,”
i have picked up flint and obsidian arrow-heads, although we know that the athenians, whose remains still lie beneath the tumulus of marathon, gave way before the long-handled metallic spears of asia; and the stone missile, in one of its most formidable shapes, is not yet abandoned in this country.
i hold it as susceptible of demonstration, that man in similar stages of his career all over the world acts alike, so far as is compatible with climate, his wants, and the materials that offer to his hand, even from the banks of the niger or zambesi to the islands of the south sea, or the regions inhabited by the laps and esquimaux. thus, whenever man acquires or discovers a new art, he first applies it to continue the fashion of its predecessor, until accident, necessity, or ingenuity induces him to modify the reproduction. the first arrow-head and spear is almost the same all over the world, and is the type of that in metal; and the stone celt or hatchet formed, as i have proved elsewhere, the model for the copper or bronze implement for a like use in both ancient etruria and ancient ireland.
discussions may arise as to whether our knowledge of metals was a separate, independent discovery of our own, or was acquired333 by intercourse with other nations more advanced than ourselves. in answer thereto i can only say that we have no evidence or authority for the latter supposition; and that, as we possessed abundant materials on the one hand, and had sufficient native ingenuity on the other, it is most likely that our discovery of metals—at least of gold, copper, and tin—was independent of extrinsic influence. so far removed from the centres of civilization, unconquered by the roman legion, uninfluenced by saxon or frankish art, and with undoubted evidences of development and styles of art peculiar to ourselves, both in form and decoration, it is but fair, until some stronger arguments have been brought against it, to believe that we were the discoverers and smelters of our minerals, and the fabricators of our metallic weapons, tools, and ornaments. that some grecian influence pervaded the early irish metallurgic art, as exhibited by some of our leaf-shaped sword blades, is true; but it is an exceptional instance, and the form is common to almost all countries in which bronze sword blades have been found.
with regard to the dwellings of the early race we are not left to mere conjecture, for not long ago a log hut was discovered fourteen feet below the surface of a bog in the county of donegal. this very antique dwelling was twelve feet square, and nine high; and consisted of an upper and lower chamber, which were probably mere sleeping apartments. the oaken logs of which it was constructed are believed to have been hewn with stone hatchets, some of which were found on the premises, thus identifying it with the pre-metallic period of our history. man soon becomes gregarious, and passes from the hunter and the fisher to the shepherd, and thence to the agriculturist. the land is cleared of wood; the wild animals either die out, or are rendered subservient to his will. the domestication of animals in most instances precedes, and always accompanies, the pastoral state of existence; and to that condition the patriarchal stage ensues, and afterwards that of the monarchical. to such phases of development, from the age of escape from the rudest barbarism, to the most cultivated condition in government, polite literature, art and science, ireland was, i believe, no exception. of the shepherd state we still possess the most abundant proofs, in the numerous earthen raths, lisses, and forts scattered all over the country, and from which so many of our townlands and other localities take their names; but especially marking the sites of the primitive inhabitation on our goodly pastures, although now mere grassy, annular elevations, varying in area from a few perches to several acres, and in many instances alone preserved by the hallowed traditions or popular superstitions of the people.
such of those landmarks of the past as still remain, out of thousands that have been obliterated, show us that in those parts334 of ireland, at least, where they exist, there was once a dense population, even during the shepherd stage of its inhabitation. and if in the progress of events, uncontrolled by human agency, and brought about by influences that we have so recently mourned over and still deplore, but could not prevent, we are now again becoming a pastoral people, we are only returning to that state of existence for which this country is peculiarly adapted, and was, i believe, originally intended—that of being the greatest grass and green-crop soil and climate in the world.
the pastoral was undoubtedly the normal, one of the oldest, and beyond all question, the longest continued state in ireland; and, although changed by internal dissensions, invasion, confiscation, and foreign rule, is still remembered by the people among whom its influence, slumbering, but not dead, now and then crops out in questions of “tenant right.” years ago i showed, from the animal remains found in our forts, bogs, and crannoges, that centuries upon centuries before short-horned improved breeds of cattle and sheep commanded at our agricultural shows the admiration of europe, we had here breeds of oxen which are not now surpassed by the best races of holland and great britain; and which are unequalled in the present day even by those on the fertile plains of meath, limerick, or roscommon, or throughout the golden vale of tipperary. we were then a cattle-rearing, flesh-eating people; our wealth was our cattle; our wars were for our cattle; the ransom of our chieftains was in cattle; our taxes were paid in cattle; the price paid for our most valuable manuscripts was so many cows. even in comparatively modern times our battle cloaks were made of leather; our traffic and barter were the pecuaniæ of our country; and the “tain-bo-cuailne,” the most famous metrical romance of europe, after the “niebelungenlied,” is but the recital of a cattle raid from connaught into louth during the reign of mave, queen of connaught—a personage transmitted to us by shakspeare, as the queen mab of the “midsummer night’s dream.” and, although the anglo-norman invasion is usually attributed to the love of an old, one-eyed, hoarse-voiced king of leinster, sixty years of age, for dervorgil (attractive, we must presume, though but little his junior in years), and who became the helen of the irish iliad, when “the valley lay smiling before her,” she was but an insignificant item in the stock abduction from the plains of breffny along the boggy slopes of shemore.
the boromean, or cattle tribute, which the king of tara demanded from the leinstermen, was perhaps the cause of the greatest intestinal feud which ever convulsed so small a space of european ground for so great a length of time. this triennial cattle tax, besides 5,000 ounces of silver, 5,000 cloaks, and 5,000 brazen vessels, consisted of 15,000 head of cattle of different335 descriptions, the value of which, at the present price of stock, would amount to about £130,000. the cattle tribute also paid to the prince or petty king of cashel upwards of a thousand years ago was 6,500 cows, 4,500 oxen, 4,500 swine, and 1,200 sheep; in all, 16,700, or, at the present value of stock, between £80,000 and £100,000. in addition to which we read of horses and valuables of various descriptions.
brian o’kennedy, who drove the norsemen from the shores of clontarf, derived his cognomen of borrome from his reimposition of this cattle tax. and in the leabhar-na-garth, or ancient book of rights and privileges of the kings of erin, the cattle statistics, as they are there set forth, show that the irish were solely a pastoral people; and the whole text and tenor of the irish annals and histories, and the notices of the wars of the desmonds and of o’neil, confirm this view.
the great raths of ireland, where the people enclosed their cattle by night, have been erroneously termed “danish forts,” but when the shannaghees are pressed for further information as to the date of their erection they say, “they were made by them ould danes that came over with julius cæsar.” if, however, inquiry be made of the old illiterate irish-speaking population, they will tell you that they were made by “the good people,” and are inhabited by the fairies. hence the veneration that has in a great measure tended to their preservation; and i have no doubt that the ancient indigenous and venerated thorns that still decorate their slopes or summits are the veritable descendants of the quickset hedges that helped to form the breastworks, or staked defences, on their summits.
these forts are almost invariably to be found in the fattest pastures; so that if any of my friends were in the present day to ask me where they could best invest in land, i would fearlessly answer, “wherever you find most ancient raths remaining;” and i know that many of our cattle prizes have been carried off by sheep and oxen fed upon the grass lands cleared and fertilized by the early celts more than a thousand years ago, and a sod of which has not been turned for centuries. they were not originally the gentle slopes that now diversify the surface, but consisted in steep ramparts or earthworks, with an external ditch, on which a stout paling was erected against man or beast, a form of structure still seen in the kraal of the new zealander. the irish rath-maker was an artificer of skill, and held in high esteem, and occupied a dignified position at the great feasts of tara—second only to the ollamh and the physician. that the soil of which they were constructed had been not only originally rich, but had been subjected to man’s industry, is proved by the fact that it is now frequently turned out upon the neighbouring sward as one of the best of manures. within these raths, some of which had336 double, and even treble entrenchments, were erected the dwellings of the people and their chiefs, the latter of whom were often interred within the mounds, or beneath the cromlechs that still exist in their interior, as, for example, in the “giant’s ring,” near belfast. in some instances they also contained in their sides and centres stone caves, that were probably used as store-houses, granaries, or places of security.
the earliest historic race of ireland was a pastoral people called firbolgs, said to be of greek or eastern origin; probably a branch of that great celtic race which, having passed through europe and round its shores, found a resting-place at last in ireland. of the fomorians, nemedians, and other minor invaders, we need not speak, as they have left nothing by which to track their footsteps. the old annalists bring them direct from the ark, and in a straight line from japhet. the coming of pharaoh’s daughter from egypt with her ships may be also considered apocryphal. but the firbolgs begin our authentic history. they had laws and social institutions, and established a monarchical government at the far-famed hill of tara, about which our early centres of civilization sprung, and where we have now most of those great pasturelands—those plains of meath that can beat the world for their fattening qualities, and which supply neighbouring countries with their most admired meats.
i cannot say that the firbolg was a cultivated man, but i think he was a shepherd and an agriculturist. i doubt if he knew anything, certainly not much, of metallurgy; but it does not follow that he was a mere savage, no more than the maories of new zealand were when we first came in contact with them.
the firbolgs were a small, straight-haired, swarthy race, who have left a portion of their descendants with us to this very day. a genealogist (their own countryman resident in galway about two hundred years ago) described them as dark-haired, talkative, guileful, strolling, unsteady, “disturbers of every council and assembly,” and “promoters of discord.” i believe they, together with the next two races about to be described, formed the bulk of our so-called celtic population—combative, nomadic on opportunity, enduring, litigious, but feudal and faithful to their chiefs; hard-working for a spurt (as in their annual english emigration); not thrifty, but, when their immediate wants are supplied, lazy, especially during the winter.
to these physical and mental characters described by macfirbis let me add those of the unusual combination of blue or blue-grey eyes and dark eyelashes with a swarthy complexion. this peculiarity i have only remarked elsewhere in greece; the mouth and upper gum is not good, but the nose is usually straight. in many of this and the next following race there was a peculiarity that has not been alluded to by writers—the larynx, or, as it used to337 be called, the pomum adami, was remarkably prominent, and became more apparent from the uncovered state of the neck. the sediment of this early people still exists in ireland, along with the fair-complexioned dananns, and forms the bulk of the farm-labourers, called in popular phraseology spalpeens, that yearly emigrate to england. in connaught they now chiefly occupy a circle which includes the junction of the counties of mayo, galway, roscommon, and sligo. they, with their fair-faced brothers (at present the most numerous), are also to be found in kerry and donegal; and they nearly all speak irish.
by statistics procured from our great midland western railway alone i learn that on an average 30,000 of these people, chiefly the descendants of the dark firbolgs and the fair dananns, emigrate annually to england for harvest work, to the great advantage of the english farmer and the irish landlord. the acreage of arable land for these people runs from two to six acres.
connecting this race with the remains of the past, i am of opinion that they were the first rath or earthen-mound and enclosure makers; that they mostly buried their dead without cremation, and, in cases of distinguished personages, beneath the cromlech or the tumulus. their heads were oval or long in the anteroposterior diameter, and rather flattened at the sides: examples of these i have given and descanted upon when i first published my ethnological researches, which have been fully confirmed by the late andreas retzius. it is, however, unnecessary, even if space or advisability permitted, for me to allude to such matters, as that great work the “crania britannica” has lithographed typical specimens of this long-headed race.
the next immigration we hear of in the “annals” is that of the tuatha-de-dananns, a large, fair-complexioned, and very remarkable race; warlike, energetic, progressive, skilled in metal work, musical, poetical, acquainted with the healing art, skilled in druidism, and believed to be adepts in necromancy and magic, no doubt the result of the popular idea respecting their superior knowledge, especially in smelting and in the fabrication of tools, weapons, and ornaments. from these two races sprang the fairy mythology of ireland.
it is strange that, considering the amount of annals and legends transmitted to us, we have so little knowledge of druidism or paganism in ancient ireland. however, it may be accounted for in this wise: that those who took down the legends from the mouths of the bards and annalists, or those who subsequently transcribed them, were christian missionaries whose object was to obliterate every vestige of the ancient forms of faith.
the dananns spoke the same language as their predecessors, the firbolgs. they met and fought for the sovereignty. the “man of metal” conquered and drove a great part of the others338 into the islands on the coast, where it is said the firbolg race took their last stand. eventually, however, under the influence of a power hostile to them both, these two people coalesced, and have to a large extent done so up to the present day. they are the true old irish peasant and small farming class.
the firbolg was a bagman, so called, according to irish authorities, because he had to carry up clay in earthen bags to those terraces in greece now vine-clad. as regards the other race there is more difficulty in the name. tuath or tuatha means a tribe or tribe-district in irish. danann certainly sounds very grecian; and if we consider their remains, we find the long, bronze, leaf-shaped sword, so abundant in ireland, identical with weapons of the same class found in attica and other parts of greece.
then, on the other hand, their physiognomy, their fair or reddish hair, their size, and other circumstances, incline one to believe that they came down from scandinavian regions after they had passed up as far as they thought advisable into north-western europe. if the word dane was known at the time of their arrival here, it would account for the designation of many of our irish monuments as applied by molyneux and others. undoubtedly the danann tribes presented scandinavian features, but did not bring anything but grecian art. after the “stone period,” so called, of which denmark and the south of sweden offer such rich remains, i look upon the great bulk of the metal work of the north, especially in the swords in the copenhagen and stockholm museums, as asiatic; while ireland possesses not only the largest native collection of metal weapon-tools, usually denominated “celts,” of any country in the world, but the second largest amount of swords and battle-axes. and moreover these, and all our other metal articles, show a well-defined rise and development from the simplest and rudest form in size and use to that of the most elaborately constructed and the most beautifully adorned.
i believe that these tuatha-de-dananns, no matter from whence they came, were, in addition to their other acquirements, great masons, although not acquainted with the value of cementing materials. i think they were the builders of the great stone cahirs, duns, cashels, and caves in ireland; while their predecessors constructed the earthen works, the raths, circles, and forts that diversify the fields of erin. the dananns anticipated shakespeare’s grave-digger, for they certainly made the most lasting sepulchral monuments that exist in ireland, such, for example, as new grange, douth, knowth, and slieve-na-calleagh and other great cemeteries. within the interior and around these tombs were carved, on unhewn stones, certain archaic markings, spires, volutes, convolutes, lozenge-shaped devices,339 straight, zigzag, and curved lines, and incised indentations, and a variety of other insignia, which, although not expressing language, were symbolical, and had an occult meaning known only to the initiated. these markings, as well as those upon the urns, were copied in the decorations of the gold and bronze work of a somewhat subsequent period. the dananns conquered the inferior tribes in two celebrated pitched battles, those of the northern and southern moytura. on these fields we still find the caves, the stone circles, the monoliths, and dolmans or cromlechs that marked particular events, and the immense cairns that were raised in honour of the fallen chieftains.
although many of the warriors of the firbolgs fled to their island fastnesses on the coasts of galway and donegal, no doubt a large portion of them remained in the inland parts of the country, and in that very locality to which i have adverted, which is almost midway between the sites of the two battles, in a line stretching between mayo and sligo, where in time the two races appear to have coalesced by that natural law which brings the dark and the fair together.
moreover it has been recorded that the conquering race sent their small dark opponents into connaught, while they themselves took possession of the rich lands further east, and not only established themselves at tara but spread into the south. it is remarkable that in time large numbers of the dananns themselves were banished to the west, and likewise that the last forcible deportation of the native irish race (so late as the seventeenth century) was when the people of this province got the choice of going “to connaught or hell,” in the former of which, possibly, they joined some of the original stock. the natural beauty of the lakes and mountains of connaught remains as it was thousands of years ago; but no doubt if some of the legislators of the period to which i have already referred could now behold its fat pasture-plains, they might prefer them to the flax lands of ulster.
these dananns had a globular form of head, of which i have already published examples. for the most part i believe they burned their dead or sacrificed to their manes, and placed an urn with its incinerated contents—human or animal—in the grave, where the hero was either stretched at length or crouched in an attitude similar to that adopted by the ancient peruvians, as i have elsewhere explained. these irish urns, which are the earliest relics of our ceramic art that have come down to the present time, are very graceful in form, and some of them most beautifully decorated, as may be seen in our various museums.
specimens of this danann race still exist, but have gradually mixed with their forerunners to the present day. here is what old macfirbis wrote of them two hundred years ago:340 “every one who is fair-haired, vengeful, large, and every plunderer, professors of musical and entertaining performances, who are adepts of druidical and magical arts, they are the descendants of the tuatha-de-dananns.” they were not only fair but sandy in many instances, and consequently extensively freckled.
it is affirmed that the dananns ruled in ireland for a long time, until another inroad was made into the island by the milesians—said to be brave, chivalrous, skilled in war, good navigators, proud, boastful, and much superior in outward adornment as well as mental culture, but probably not better armed than their opponents. they deposed the three last danann kings and their wives, and rose to be, it is said, the dominant race—assuming the sovereignty, becoming the aristocracy and landed proprietors of the country, and giving origin to those chieftains that afterwards rose to the title of petty kings, and from whom some of the best families in the land with anything like irish names claim descent, and particularly those with the prefix of the “o” or the “mac.” when this race arrived in ireland i cannot tell, but it was some time prior to the christian era. it is said they came from the coast of spain, where they had long remained after their eastern emigration.
upon the site of what is believed to be the ancient brigantium, now the entrance to the united harbours of corunna and ferrol, stands the great lighthouse known to all ships passing through the bay of biscay. within this modern structure still exists the celebrated “pharos of hercules,” which i investigated and described many years ago. that tower, it was said in metaphorical language, commanded a view of ireland, and as such became the theme of irish poems and legends. certain it is that sailing north or north-westward from it the ships of the sons of milesius and their followers could have reached ireland without much coasting. if the story of breogan’s tower is true, then it must have been erected in the time of lime-and-mortar building, and that is during the roman occupation of iberia and gaul. how many thousands, rank and file, of these spanish milesians came here in their six or eight galleys and tried the fortunes of war from “the summit of the ninth wave from the shore” and conquered the entire danann, firbolg, and fomorian population, i am unable to give the slightest inkling of, no more than i can of the so-called phœnician intercourse with this country. perhaps without going into the fanciful descriptions of the “battle of ventry harbour,” or the southern conquest of ireland by the iberian milesians, we may find some more trustworthy illustrations of spanish dwellings in the architecture of the town of galway, and some picturesque representatives in the lithe upright figures and raven-haired, but blue-eyed maidens of the city of the tribes. here is what old macfirbis, who, i suppose, claimed341 descent from the sons of milesius, wrote about them: “every one who is white of skin, brown of hair, bold, honourable, daring, prosperous, bountiful in the bestowal of property, and who is not afraid of battle or combat, they are the descendants of the sons of milesius in erin.”
this high panegyric is only equalled by the prose and verse compositions of the ancient bards and rhymers and the modern historians, who have recorded the deeds of the great warriors, ith, heber, and heremon, whose descendants boast to have been the rulers of the land. even moore, although he wrote such beautiful lyrics concerning this race in his early days, yet when he came to study history, he felt the same difficulty i do now. i do not dispute their origin or supremacy; but i fail to distinguish their early customs, their remains, or race from those of the firbolgs or dananns whom they conquered, and who left undoubted monuments peculiar to their time.
now all these people—the piratical navigator along our coasts, the mid-europe primitive shepherd and cultivator, the northern warrior, and the iberian ruler—were, according to my view, all derived from the one celtic stock. they spoke the same language, and their descendants do so still. when they acquired a knowledge of letters they transmitted their history through the irish language. no doubt they fused; but somehow a quick fusion of races has not been the general characteristic of the people of this country. unlike the anglo-norman in later times, the milesian was a long way from home; the rough sea of the bay of biscay rolled between him and his previous habitat; and if he became an absentee he was not likely to find much of his possessions on his return. it is to be regretted that while we have here such a quantity of poetical and traditional material respecting the milesian invasion of ireland, the spanish annals or traditions have given us but very little information on that subject.
it would be most desirable if the government or some irish authority would send a properly instructed commissioner to investigate the spanish annals, and see whether there is anything relating to the spanish migrations to ireland remaining in that country.
besides the sparse introduction of latin by christian missionaries in the fifth century, some occasional saxon words springing from peaceful settlers along our coasts and in commercial emporiums, and whatever danish had crept into our tongue around those centres where the scandinavians chiefly located themselves, and which were principally proper names of persons and places that became fixed in our vernacular, we find but one language among the irish people until the arrival of the anglo-normans at the end of the twelfth century.
the linguistic or philological evidence on this subject is clearly342 decisive. the residue of the early races already described spoke one language, called gaelic; so did the scotch, the welsh, and probably, in early times, the britons and the bretons. it was not only the popular conversational tongue used in the ordinary intercourse of life, but it was also employed in genealogies, annals, and other records in a special character, not quite peculiar to this country, but then common in europe. much has been said about the necessity for a glossary of our ancient mss., such as those at saint gall, in trinity college, in the royal irish academy, and in belgian and english libraries; but there are very few ancient languages that do not require to be glossed in the present day, even as the words of chaucer do.
the government are now, under the auspices of our master of the rolls, and the special direction and supervision of mr. j. t. gilbert, giving coloured photographs of some of our ancient writings, and have promised that some of our remaining manuscripts will be translated. i see no occasion now for waiting for more elaborated philological dictionaries or glossaries while there are still some few irish scholars in this country capable of giving a free but tolerably literal translation of these records that do not require any great acumen in rendering them into english. is history to wait upon the final decision of philologists respecting a word or two in a manuscript, and to decide as to whether it may be of sanscrit or any other origin?
no doubt some of my hearers may ask, what about the oghams (or ohams)? do they not show a very early knowledge of an alphabet? as yet this is a moot question. a rude pillar-stone, having upon it a tolerably straight edge, was in early times notched along its angle which served as a stem-line by nicks formed on it, and straight or oblique lines, singly or in clusters, proceeding from the stem. the decipherers of these inscriptions have, one and all, agreed upon the fact that these lines represented letters, syllables, or words, and that the language is either irish or latin. therefore the persons who made them must have been aware of alphabetic writing and grammar. these carved monoliths are chiefly found in kerry and cork. upon some of them christian emblems are figured. the incising of the stone has evidently been performed by some rude instrument, either a flint or metallic pick; and it is remarkable that these pillars present scarcely any amount of dressing.
in connaught, in my youth, the exception in remote districts was where the person spoke both english and irish. in 1851, when we first took a census of the irish-speaking population, after the country had lost three-quarters of a million of people, chiefly of the irish race, we had then (to speak in round numbers) one and a half millions of irish-speaking population. in 1861 they had fallen off by nearly half a million; and upon the taking343 of the last census in 1871 the entire irish-speaking population was only 817,865. the percentages, according to the total population in our different provinces, were these: in leinster 1.2, in munster 27.7, in ulster 4.6, and in connaught 39.0; for the total of ireland 15.1. kilkenny and louth are the counties of leinster where the language is most spoken. in munster they are kerry, clare, and waterford; in ulster, donegal, where 28 per cent. of the population speak irish; but in connaught, to which i have already alluded as containing the remnant of the early irish races, we have no less than 56 per cent. of irish-speaking population in the counties of mayo and galway respectively. of my own knowledge i can attest that a great many of these people cannot speak english. we thus see that of the population of ireland, which in the present day might be computed at about five and a half millions, there were, at the time of taking the census in april, 1871, only 817,865; and i think i may prophesy that that is the very largest number that in future we will ever have to record. on the causes of this decadence it is not my province to descant. these celts have been the great pioneers of civilization, and are now a power in the world. are they not now numerically the dominant race in america? and have they not largely peopled australia and new zealand?
we have now arrived at a period when you might naturally expect the native annalist to make some allusion to conquest or colonization by the then mistress of the world. without offering any reason for it, i have here only to remark that neither as warriors nor colonizers did the romans ever set foot in ireland; and hence the paucity of any admixture of roman art amongst us.
to fill up a hiatus which might here occur in our migrations, i will mention a remarkable circumstance. a christian youth of romano-saxon parentage, and probably of patrician origin, was carried off in a raid of irish marauders, and employed as a swineherd in this very ulster, the country of the dalaradians, and lived here for several years, learning our customs and speaking our language. he escaped, however, to munster, and thence to his native land of britain or normandy, from whence he returned in a.d. 432 with friends, allies, and missionaries, and passing in his galley into the mouth of the boyne, walked up the banks of that famed stream, raised the paschal fire at slane, and speedily introduced christianity throughout ireland.
in thus briefly alluding to the labours of st. patrick, i wish to be understood to say that about the time of his mission there was much saxon intercourse with this country, and the great missionary had not only many friends but several relatives residing here, and some of them on the very banks of the boyne; and i believe that a considerable amount of civilization and some knowledge of344 christianity had been introduced long previously; so that, although old king laoghaire or loury and his druids did not bow the knee to the most high god, nor accept the teaching of the beautiful hymn that patrick and his attendants chanted as they passed up the grassy slopes of tara, still there were many hundred people in ireland ready to receive the glad tidings of the gospel of salvation.
having finished with the milesians, we now come to the danes (so-called), the scandinavians or norsemen—the pagan sea-kings who made inroads on our coasts, despoiled our churches and monasteries, but at the same time, it must be confessed, helped to establish the commercial prosperity of some of our cities and towns from 795 to the time of the battle of clontarf, a.d. 1014, when the belligerent portion of the scandinavians were finally expelled the country. during the time i have specified, dublin, limerick, and waterford belonged to these northern people. they not only coasted round the island and never lost an opportunity of pillage and plunder, but they passed through the interior and carried their arms into the very centre of the land. the danes left us very little ornamental work beyond what they lavished upon their swords and helmets; but, on the other hand, it should be borne in mind that there are no irish antiquities, either social, warlike, or ecclesiastical, in the scandinavian museums.
concerning their ethnological characters, i must again refer to the “crania britannica.” in the records they were designated strangers, foreigners, pagans, gentiles, and also white and black foreigners, so that there were undoubtedly two races—the dark, and the fair or red, like as in the case of the firbolgs or dananns. they were also styled “azure danes,” probably on account of the shining hue of their armour.
i believe the fair section of that people to have been of norwegian origin, while the dark race came from jutland and the coast of sweden; and both by the orkneys, the coasts of scotland, and the isle of man. their skulls were large and well formed; they had a thorough knowledge of metal work, and especially iron; and, as i have shown elsewhere, their swords and spears were of great size and power, the former wielded as a slashing weapon, while those of their early opponents were of bronze, weak, and intended for stabbing. in nowhere else in europe (that i am aware of) have these rounded, pointed, or bevelled heavy iron swords been found except in ireland and norway.
large quantities of danish remains have been discovered in deep sinkings made in dublin; and several weapons, tools, and ornaments, believed to be of scandinavian origin, have been found within a few inches of the surface on one of the battle-fields on the south side of the liffey, within the last few years. upon345 most of these i have already reported and given illustrations. i may mention one circumstance connected with this race. i never examined a battle-field of the danes, nor a collection of danish weapons or implements, that i did not find the well-adjusted scales and weights which the viking had in his pocket for valuing the precious metals he procured either by conquest or otherwise.
although considered hostile, these scandinavian vikings must have fraternized with the irish. we know that they intermarried; for, among many other instances that might be adduced, i may mention that during the battle of clontarf, when sitric, the danish king of dublin, looked on the fight from the walls of the city, he was accompanied by his wife, the daughter of the aged king known as “brian the brave.”
when, however, the irish chieftains were not fighting with one another, they were often engaged in petty wars with the scandinavians, who, in turn, were attacked by their own countrymen, the “black gentiles,” especially on the plain of fingall, stretching from dublin to the boyne, and which the white race chiefly occupied. it must not be supposed that the battle of clontarf ended the danish occupation of ireland; they still held the cities of dublin, limerick, and waterford at least, and largely promoted the commercial prosperity in these localities—a prosperity which has not quite yet departed. i should like to present you with some remains of the scandinavian language in ireland, but the materials are very scanty.
we are now coming to a later period. the romans had occupied britain, the saxons followed; the danes had partial possession for a time; the heptarchy prevailed until harold, the last of the saxon kings, fell at hastings, and england bowed beneath that mixture of norman, gaulish, scandinavian, and general celtic blood that william brought with him from the shores of france. the saxon dynasty was at an end, but the britons of the day accepted their fate; and not only the soldiers, but the norman barons fused with the people of that kingdom, and largely contributed to make it what it now is. this fusion of races, this assimilation of sentiments, this interchange of thought, this kindly culture, the higher elevating the lower, among whom they permanently reside, must always tend to great and good ends in raising a people to a nobler intellectual state.
the anglo-normans came here in 1172, a very mixed race, but their leaders were chiefly of french or norman extraction. why they came, or what they did, it is not for me to expatiate upon. i wish, however, to correct an assertion commonly made, to the effect that the norman barons of henry ii. then conquered ireland. they occupied some towns, formed a “pale,” levied taxes, sent in soldiery, distributed lands, and introduced a new346 language; but the “king’s writ did not run;” the subjugation of ireland did not extend over the country at large, and it remained till 1846 and the five or six following years to complete the conquest of the irish race, by the loss of a tuberous esculent and the governmental alteration in the value of a grain of corn. then there went to the workhouse or exile upwards of two millions of the irish race, besides those who died of pestilence. having carefully investigated and reported upon this last great european famine, i have come to the conclusion just stated, without taking into consideration its political, religious, or national aspects.
it appears to me that one of our great difficulties in ireland has been the want of fusion—not only of races, but of opinions and sentiments, in what may be called a “give and take” system. as regards the intermixture, i think there cannot be a better one than the saxon with the celt. the anglo-normans, however, partially fused with the native irish; for strongbow married eva the daughter of king dermot; and from this marriage it has been clearly shown that her most gracious majesty the present queen of ireland and great britain is lineally descended. several of the noble warriors who came over about that period have established great and widespread names in ireland, among whom i may mention the geraldines in leinster, the de burgos in connaught, and the butlers in munster; and they and their descendants became, according to the old latin adage, “more irish than the irish themselves.”
look what the intermixture of races has done for us in ireland; the firbolg brought us agriculture; the danann the chemistry and mechanics of metal work; the milesians beauty and governing power; the danes commerce and navigation; the anglo-normans chivalry and organized government; and, in later times, the french emigrants taught us an improved art of weaving.
it would be more political than ethnological were i to enter upon the discussion of that subsequent period which would conduct us to the days of cromwell or the boyne, or, perhaps, to later periods, involving questions not pertinent to the present subject.
but i must here say a word or two respecting irish art. in architecture, in decorative tone-work, from archaic markings that gave a tone and character to all subsequent art, in our beauteous crosses, in our early metal work, in gold and bronze, carried on from the pagan to the christian period, and in our gorgeously illuminated ms. books, we have got a style of art that is specially and peculiarly irish, and that has no exact parallel elsewhere, and was only slightly modified by norman or frankish design.
time passed, and events accumulated; political affairs intermingle, but the anthropologist should try and keep clear of them.347 at the end of the reign of elizabeth a considerable immigration of english took place into the south of ireland. subsequently the historic episode of the “flight of the earls,” o’neil and o’donnell, brought matters to a climax; and the early part of the reign of the first james is memorable for the “plantation of ulster,” when a number of celtic scots with some saxons returned to their brethren across the water; and about the same time the london companies occupied large portions of this fertile province, and the early irish race were transplanted by the protector to the west, as i have already stated. it must not be imagined that this was the first immigration. the picts passed through ireland, and no doubt left a remnant behind them. and in consequence of contiguity, the scottish people must early have settled upon our northern coasts. when the adventurous edward bruce made that marvellous inroad into ireland at the end of the fourteenth century and advanced into the bowels of the land, he carried with him a gaelic population cognate with our own people, and in all probability left a residue in ulster, thus leavening the original firbolgs, tuatha-de-danann, and milesians, with the exception of the county of donegal, which still holds a large celtic population speaking the old irish tongue, and retaining the special characters of that people as i have already described them. this scotic race, as it now exists in ulster, and of which we have specimens before us, i would sum up with three characteristics. that they were courageous is proved by their shutting the gates and defending the walls of derry; that they were independent and lovers of justice has been shown by their establishment of tenant right; and that they were industrious and energetic is manifest by the manufacturers of belfast. do not, i entreat my brethren of ulster, allow these manufactures to be jeopardized, either by masters or men, by any disagreements, which must lead to the decay of the fairest and wealthiest province and one of the most beautiful cities in this our native land.
printed in great britain by butler & tanner frome and london.
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