CHAP. II.

National vanity-Periods of Irish History-Ireland known to the Phenicians and Greeks-to the Romans-its Name-Celts-Goths-Firbolgs-Tuatha-de- Danans-Scots-Romans-Fables-Songs

Colonies

Language-Stories-Cairbre-Caitkan

Tuathal-Leinster Tribute-Fin Mac Combal-
Ofbin-Ofcar-Nial of the Nine Hoftages.

To derive their origin from ancestors of ancient CHAP. I.
renown and polished manners has been the ambition Vanity.
of every people, in a state of glimmering knowledge,
between the darkness of barbarism and the illumina-
tion of literature. Of this puerile vanity, which
endures not the light of historical refearch, Ireland
has had its portion. The curiofity of readers, defi-
rous to be inftructed in the uninterefting fables of
Irish antiquity, may be fatisfied, without more ex-
tenfive inquiry, by the perufal of the history given
by Keating, and the Ogygia of O'Flaherty. Refu-
tations of fuch fictions, and attempts of a judicious
nature to felect from the rubbish of romantic story
fome disfigured and obfcure facts, may principally
be found in the antiquities of Ledwich and the
frictures of Campbell. That in the ages anterior to
the birth of Chrift the affairs of this country are
utterly unknown and infcrutable, is the refult of the
moft laborious and accurate refearch. As darknefs Periods.
impenetrable refts on this period of Irish tranfactions,
fo hardly a few rays of glimmering light appear be

tween

II.

CHAP. tween the incarnation of our Saviour and the intro duction of Chriflian worship into this iland towards the middle of the fifth century. Even after that happy event, very little authentic matter can be collected, beyond the affairs of the church and fome actions of religious and literary men, till the invasion of the English under Henry the fecond; when commences a more authentic, regular, and connected chain of events. Thus the periods of time, with respect to Irish transactions, may not improperly be denominated the unknown, the fabulous, the legen dary, and the historical; the first ending about the time of the incarnation; the fecond near the middle of the fifth century; the third at the English invafion in 1170; and the fourth extending from that event to the present time.

That the Phoenicians, the renowned navigators of antiquity, who planted colonies in Spain, and are fuppofed to have frequented from commercial motives the ports of Britain, were not unacquainted with the coafts of Ireland, might feem in fome degree probable, without any authority of ancient writers. The fact was believed by the poet Feftus Avienus. That the Greeks had received fome obfcure account of this iland, either through the Phoenicians or fome other medium, four or five centuries before Christ, we learn from the Argonautics under the name of Orpheus, a poet imagined cotemporary with Pififtratus the Athenian. Above three centuries before the Chriftian era, Ariftotle, in his treatise of the World, names the two greatest Bretanic islands Albion and Lerne. More known to the Romans, it was noticed

II.

ticed by feveral writers in very early periods of the CHAP. Christian era, as by Strabo, Pomponius Mela, and Solinus; but chiefly by Ptolemy, a geographer of the second century, who has marked the names and fituations of places and tribes of Irish people, from the best information which he could procure. Of the state of the inhabitants, except their barbarism we are not informed by thefe writers. The name of Name. the country has been imagined of Celtic origin, denominated anciently Iri, Eri, Erin, Iere, Ierne, and Iris, by which was believed to be denoted its western fite with regard to Europe. Others confider the original term as Gothic fignifying the farther ile. From this perhaps are derived the names Ouernia, Juverna, and Hibernia. The appellation of Scotia, which it retained until the tenth century, is of a later date, and from a Gothic fource. Ireland is only a compound of a Gothic epithet with its primitive denomination.

That this land was firft colonized by Celtic tribes, the primitive poffeffors of the European continent, of a brownish complexion with black and curling hair, seems hardly to admit a doubt; but when and whence they firft arrived, are questions unanswerable. From the refearches of the best antiquarians, especially the acute and laborious Pinkerton, two races of Celtic people, diftinguished by the names of Gael and Cumraig, appear to have fucceffively inhabited the fouthern parts of Britain,

in

*

ages long anterior to the birth of Chrift. The

former,

Celts.

Inquiry into the History of Scotland.

CHAP. former, fuppofed with reafon to have been the fame

II.

Goths.

with the Gallic Celts of Cæfar,* and to have come immediately from France into Britain, were probably driven westward into Wales and Cornwal, and at last into Ireland, by the Cumri or Cumraigs, who are likewife with reafon fuppofed to have come from Germany. The language of the Gaels, termed Gailic, remains, how much corrupted soever, efpecially in the west of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, very diftinct from the Welch, the dialect of the Cumri. The proximity of the Welch and Scottish headlands, more efpecially the latter, afforded the opportunity of a fhort navigation from Britain to the Irish coasts, very fhort in comparison of the voyages now known to be performed by favage tribes, in veffels framed flightly of wood and covered with leather, fuch as have been formerly much in ufe in the feas of the British ilands.

Of these primitive colonifts, who were doubtless illiterate, and even favage, no history can be given; nor could a narrative of their transactions be other than difgufting by a uniform repetition of petty wars and acts of barbarian ferocity. Their first arrival may have happened nine or ten centuries before the Chriftian era, and later by fix or seven may have been the firft invafion of Gothic tribes. The vaft race of the Goths, proved by a chain of evidence to have been the fame with the ancient" Scythians, diftinguished by large limbs and ftature, fair complexions, blue or grey eyes, and red or flaxen

See Gordon's Terraquea, vol. 4. p. 288.

↑ Pinkerton's differtation on the Scythians or Goths,

II.

flaxen hair, are traced in their migrations from CHAP. Perfia, through the western regions of Tartary, into Europe, great part of which they overran, driving the Celts toward the west, and the Finns to the north. The first colonists of Scythian race in Ireland, were probably Belgians, a numerous people, who were known, long before the birth of Chrift, to have advanced fo far to the weft as to occupy the Netherlands, with a confiderable portion of the modern France and the south-eaftern parts of Britain. The Belgian colony, probably the Firbolgs of ancient Irish tradition, appear to have established principally their fettlements in the fouth-eastern parts, the maritime tracts of the modern counties of Waterford and Wexford, where Ptolemy found people distinguished by the appellations of Menapii and Cauci, appellations belonging to the Belgic tribes on the continent, and where, in the Baronies of Bargy and Forth, a people now dwells, diftinguished by a peculiar dialect from the rest of the modern Irish, probably the defcendants of the ancient Belgians, with a great intermixture of English colonists.

As we are led by circumstances to suppose that the Belgian Goths, the chief ancestors of the mo dern English, Dutch, Flemings, and feveral people of Germany, furnished the earliest colonies to Ireland after the tribes of Celtic denomination; fo likewife have we good grounds to believe that the Scandinavian Goths, from whom are defcended the prefent Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and Lowland Scottish people, were the next and more frequent colonizers of this country. Among these appear to have been the Tuatha-de-Danans, reported in Irish VOL. I. tradition