may be got rid of with a much less expenditure of learning and labour than it has cost Dr. O'Connor, and other such zealots in the cause of antiquity, to establish and support it.

Without entering at present, however, into any farther examination of the chronological reckonings and regal lists of the antiquaries, or pointing out how far, in spite of the extravagant dates assigned to them, the reality of the events themselves may be relied upon, I shall proceed to lay before the reader a sketch of the history of Pagan Ireland, from the time of the landing of the Scotic colony, to the great epoch of the conversion of the Irish to Christianity by St. Patrick. Into any of those details of war and bloodshed which form so large a portion of our annals, Pagan as well as Christian, I shall not think it necessary to enter; while, of the civil transactions, my object will be to select principally those which appear to be most sanctioned by the general consent of tradition, and afford, at least, pictures of manners, even where they may be thought questionable as records of fact.

A decisive victory over the Tuatha-de-Danaan, the former possessors of the country, having transferred the sovereignty to Heber and Heremon, the sons of the Spanish king, Milesius, these two brothers divided the kingdom between them; and while Leinster and Munster were, it is said, the portion assigned to Heber, the younger brother, Heremon, had for his share the provinces of Ulster and Connaught. There was also a third brother, Amergin, whom they appointed Arch-Bard, or presiding minister over the respective departments of Law, Poetry, Philosophy, and Religion. In the divided sovereignty thus exercised by the family, may be observed the rudiments of that system of government which prevailed so long among their successors; while, in the office of the Arch-Bard we trace the origin of those metrical legislators and chroniclers who took so prominent a part in public affairs under all the Scotic princes.

In another respect, it must be owned, the commencement of the Milesian monarchy was marked strongly by the features which but too much characterized its whole course. A beautiful valley, which lay in the territories of Heremon, had been, for some time, a subject of dispute between the two brothers;† and their differences at length kindling into animosity, led to a battle between them on the plains of Geisiol, where Heber lost his life, leaving Heremon sole possessor of the kingdom. Even the peaceful profession of the Arch-Poet Amergin did not exempt him from the effects of the discord thus early at work; as, in a subsequent battle, this third son of Milesius fell also a victim to his brother Heremon's sword.‡

To the reign of Heremon, the Bardic historians refer the first coming of the people called Picts into these regions. Landing upon the eastern coast of Ireland, they proposed to establish themselves on the island; but the natives, not deeming such a settlement expedient, informed them of other islands, on the north-east, which were uninhabited, and where they might fix their abode. To this suggestion the Picts readily assented, but first desired that some of the Milesian women might be permitted to accompany them; pledging themselves solemnly that, should they become masters of that country they were about to invade, the sovereignty should be ever after vested in the descendants of the female line.) This request having been granted, the Pictish chiefs, accompanied

Laws.

"Amergin was the Brehon of the colony, and was also a poet and philosopher."-O'Reilly on the Brehon The particulars of this quarrel are thus stated by Keating:-"The occasion of the dispute was the possession of three of the most delightful valleys in the whole island. Two of these lay in the division of Heber Fionn, and he received the profits of them; but his wife, being a woman of great pride and ambition, envied the wife of Heremon the enjoyment of one of those delightful valleys, and, therefore, persuaded her husband to demand the valley of Heremon; and, upon a refusal, to gain possession of it by the sword; for she passionately vowed she neɣer would be satisfied till she was called the Queen of the three most fruitful Valleys in the Island."

There are still extant three poems attributed to this bard, one of them said to have been written by him while he was coasting on the shores of Ireland. This latter poem the reader will find, together with a brief outline of its meaning, in Hardiman's Irish Minstrelsy, vol. ii. notes. "There still remain," says the enthu siastic editor," after a lapse of nearly three thousand years, fragments of these ancient bards (Amergin and Lugad, the son of 1th) some of which will be found included in the following pages, with proofs of their authenticity." Preface.

The following is the account given of the supposed poems of Amergin by the learned editor of the TransActions of the Tberno Celtic Society "These compositions are written in the Bearla Feini, and accompanied with an interlined gloss, without which they would be unintelligible to modern Irish scholars. The gloss itself requires much study to understand it perfectly, as the language is obsolete, and must in many places be read from bottom to top."

This matrimonial compact of the Picts is thus, in a spirit far worse than absurd, misrepresented by O'llalloran They, at the same time, requested wives from Heremon, engaging, in the most solemn manner, that not only then, but for ever after, if they or their successors should have issue by a British, and again by an Irish woman, that the issue of this last only should be capable of succeeding to the inheritance! and which law continued in force to the days of Venerable Bede, i. e. about 2000 years! a mark of such striking distinction that it cannot be paralleled in the history of any other nation under the sun!"—Vol. ii. chap 4.

This policy of deducing the royal succession through the female line, not through the male, was always retained by the Picts.

by their Milesian wives, set sail for the islands bordering on Scotland, and there established their settlement.

Passing over the immediate successors of Heremon, we meet with but little that is remarkable till we arrive at the reign of the idolater Tighernmas, who, while offering sacrifice, at a great popular convention, to the monstrous idol, Crom-Cruach, was, together with the vast multitude around him, miraculously destroyed. During the reign of this king, gold is said to have been, for the first time, worked in Ireland; a mine of that metal having been discovered in the woods to the east of the river Liffey.*

In the reign of Achy, who was the immediate successor of Tighernmas, a singular law was enacted, regulating the exact number of colours by which the garments of the different classes of society were to be distinguished.† Plebeians and soldiers were, by this ordinance, to wear but a single colour; military officers of any inferior rank, two; commanders of battalions, three; the keepers of houses of hospitality, four; the nobility and military knights, five; and the Bards and Ollamhs, who were distinguished for learning, six, being but one colour less than the number worn by the reigning princes themselves. These regulations are curious; not only as showing the high station allotted to learning and talent, among the qualifications for distinction, but as presenting a coincidence rather remarkable with that custom of patriarchal times, which made a garment of many colours the appropriate dress of kings' daughters and princes. {

For a long period, indeed, most of the Eastern nations retained both the practice of dividing the people into different castes and professions, and also, as appears from the regulations of Giamschid, King of Persia, this custom distinguishing the different classes by appropriate dresses. From the party-coloured garments worn by the ancient Scots, or Irish, is derived the national fashion of the plaid, still prevailing among their descendants in Scotland.

Among the numerous kings that, in this dim period of Irish history, pass like shadows before our eyes, the Royal Sage, Ollamh Fodhla, is almost the only one who, from the strong light of tradition thrown round him, stands out as a being of historical substance and truth. It would serve to illustrate the nature and extent of the evidence with which the world is sometimes satisfied, to collect together the various celebrated names which are received as authentic on the strength of tradition alone;** and few, perhaps, could claim a more virtual title to this privilege than the great legislator of the ancient Irish, Ollamh Fodhla. In considering the credit, however, that may safely be attached to the accoun's of this celebrated personage, we must dismiss wholly from our minds the extravagant antiquity assigned to himft by the seanachies; and as it has been shown that the date of the dynasty itself, of which he was so distinguished an ornament, cannot, at the utmost, be removed farther back than the second century before our era, whatever his fame may thus lose in antiquity it will be found to gain in probability; since, as we shall see when I come to treat of the credibility of the Irish annals, the epoch of this monarch, if not within the line to which authentic history extends, is, at least, not very far beyond it.

Some of the most useful institutions of Ollamh Fodhla are said to have but a short time survived himself. But the act which rendered his reign an important era in legislation

"At Fothart," says Simon, "near the river Liffey, in the county of Wicklow, where gold, silver, copper, lead, and iron, have of late years been found out."-Simon on Irish Coins.

A similar fancy for party-coloured dresses existed among the Celts of Gaul; and Diodorus describes that people as wearing garments flowered with all varieties of colour-χρωμασι παντοδαποις διηνθισμένους. Lib. 5. The part of their dress which they called braccæ, or breeches, was so named from its being plaided; the word brac signifying in Celtic any thing speckled or party-coloured. The historian Tacitus, in describing Cæcina as dressed in the Gaulish fashion, represents him with breeches, or trowsers, and plaid mantle:"Versicolore sago, braccas, tegmen barbarum indutus."-Hist lib. ii. cap. 20.

An order of men appointed by the state, and endowed with lands, for the purpose of keeping constantly open house, and giving entertainment to all travellers in proportion to their rank. These officers are frequently mentioned in the Brebon laws; and, among other enactments respecting them, it is specified that each Bruigh shall keep in his house, for the amusement of travellers, Taibhle Fioch-thoille, or chessboards.

§ Thus, Jacob made Joseph a coat of many colours, (Gen. xxxvii. 3.;) and Tamar (2 Sam. xiii. 18.) “had a garment of divers colours, for with such robes were the king's daughters that were virgins apparelled."

Saadi veut aussi, que ce prince ait non seulement divisé les hommes en plusieures états et professions, mais qu'il les ait encore distingués par des habits et par des coiffures différentes."-D'Herbelot.

¶ Pronounced Ollav Folla. This quiescence of many of the consonants in our Irish names, render them far more agreeable to the ear than to the eye. Thus, the formidable name of Tigernach, our great annalist, is softened, in pronunciation, into Tierna.

** Among the most signal instances, perhaps, is that of the poet Orpheus, who, notwithstanding the decidedly expressed opinion both of Aristotle and Cicero, that no such poet ever existed, still continues, and will of course for ever continue, to be regarded as a real historical personage.

tt In fixing the period of this monarch's reign, chronologers have been widely at variance. While some place it no less than 1316 years before the Christian era, (Thady Roddy, MSS.) Plowden makes it 950 years, (Hist. Review. prelim. chap) O'Flaherty between 700 and 800, and the author of the Dissertations, &c. about 600. (Scct 4.)

name of Scots, were all of the high and dominant class; whereas, in speaking of the great bulk of the people, he calls them Hiberionaces, from the name Hiberione, which is always applied by him to the Island itself. Such a state of things, resembling that of the Franks in Gaul, when, although masters of the country, they had not yet imposed upon it their name,-shows clearly that the Scotic dynasty could not then have numbered many ages of duration; and that to date its commencement from about a century or two before the Christian era is to allow the fullest range of antiquity to which, with any semblance of probability, it can pretend.

Even when lightened thus of the machinery of fable, and of all its unfounded pretensions to antiquity, the Scotic settlement must still continue a subject of mystery and discussion from the state of darkness in which we are left as to its real race and origin; and in this the Scoti and the Picts have shared a common destiny. In considering the Scots to have been of Scythian extraction, all parties are agreed, as well those who contend for a northern colonization as they who, following the Bardic history, derive their settlement, through Spain, from the East. For this latter view of the subject, there are some grounds, it must be admitted, not unplausible: the Celto-Scythæ, who formed a part of the mixed people of Spain, having come originally from the neighbourhood of the Euxine Sea, and therefore combining in themselves all the peculiarities attributed to the Milesian colony of being at once Scythic, Oriental, and direct from Spain. Of the actual settlement of several Spanish tribes in Ireland, and in those very districts of the Irish coast facing Gallicia, we have seen there is no reason to doubt; and there would be, in so far, grounds for connecting them with the Scotic colonization, as in that very region, it appears, was situated the principal city of the Scoti, in whose name, Hybernis, may be found the mark of its Iberian origin. But however strongly these various facts and coincidences tend to accredit the old and constant tradition of a colonization from Spain, at some very remote period, and however adroitly they have been turned to account by some of the favourers of the Milesian romance, it is evident that, to the comparatively modern settlement of the Scots, they are, in no respect, applicable; the race to whom the southern region of Ireland owed its Iberi and Hybernis, the names of its river Ierne and of its Sacred Promontory, having existed ages before the time when the Scoti-a comparatively recent people, unknown to Maximus of Tyre, or even to Ptolemy himself,-found their way to these shores.

We have, therefore, to seek in some other direction the true origin of this people: and the first clue to our object is afforded by the Bardic historians themselves, who represent the Scoti to have been of Scythic descent, and to have from thence derived their distinctive appellation. By the term Scythia, as applied in the first centuries of Christianity, was understood Germany and the more northern regions of Europe; and to confirm still farther the origin of the Scots from that quarter, it is added by the Bards that they were of the same race with three colonies that had preceded them; namely, the Nemedians, the Tuatha-de-Danaans, and the Fir-Bolgs or Belge. Now, that these tribes, whether coming through the medium of Britain, or, as some think, direct from their own original countries, were all of German extraction, appears to be the prevailing opinion. One of the most enthusiastic, indeed of the Milesian believers is of opinion that the Nemedians, or Nemethæ, belonged to that German people, the Nemetes, who

lend their sanction. The result of his observations on the subject is, that "following the analogy usual in such cases, we may conclude that the invasion of Ireland by the Scots ought not to be referred to as high an antiquity as some of our historians have pretended; otherwise it would be very difficult to explain how they could have been in our Saint's time considered as a nation distinct from the greater part of the people of Ireland."-Eccles. Hist. of Ireland, vol. i. ch. 5. He adds afterwards, that "the Scots might have been 400 or 500 years in Ireland before the distinction of names between them and the other inhabitants totally ceased;" thus assigning even a later date for their arrival in the country than, it will be seen, I have allowed in the text.

That the Scythe of Europe came from the northern parts of Persia seems to be the opinion of most inquirers on the subject. Hence the near affinity which is found between the German and the Persian lan

guages.

Among those authorities which have run the round of all the writers in favour of the Milesian story is that of Orosius, the historian, who is represented as stating, that "Scythians, expulsed from Gallicia in Spain by Constantine the Great, took shelter in Ireland."-See Dr. Campbell. (Strictures on the Ecclesiastical and Literary History of Ireland, sect. 5.) This authority, which Dr. Campbell has, in his turn, taken implicitly for granted, would, if genuine, be doubtless highly important. But there is, in reality, no such state. ment in Orosius, who merely mentions, in describing the position of Ireland, that a part of her coasts ranges opposite to the site of the Gallician city, Brigantia, in Spain.

Thus Anastasius, the Sinaite, a monkish writer whom Pinkerton cites as of the ninth age, but who lived as early as the sixth : Σκυθίαν δε ειώθασι καλεῖν οἱ παλαιοι το κλίμα απαν το Βορειον, ενθα εισιν οι Γότθοι

και Δάνεις.

The genealogy of the Milesians, or Scoti, as given by Keating, lies all in the Sarmatian line; and no less personages than Petorbes, King of the Huns, and the great Attila himself, are mentioned as belonging to one of the collateral branches of their race.

inhabited the districts at present occupied by Worms, Spire, and Mentz.* By some the Danaans are conjectured to have been Danes; or, at least, from the country of the people afterwards known by that name;† and the Bardic historians, who describe this colony as speaking the Germant language, mention Denmark and Norway as the last places from whence they migrated to the British Isles. Of the claims of the Belge to be considered a Teutonic people, I have already sufficiently spoken; and to them also, as well as to the other two colonies, the Scoti are alleged to have been akin both in origin and language.

Independently of all this testimony of the Bards, we have also the authentic evidence of Ptolemy's map,-showing how early, from the north of Belgium and the shores of the German Ocean, adventurous tribes had found their way to the Eastern Irish coasts. It has been asserted, rather dogmatically, by some Irish writers, that no descent from Denmark or Norway upon Ireland, no importation of Scandian blood into that island, can be admitted to have taken place before the end of the eighth century. How far this assertion is founded, a more fitting opportunity will occur for considering, when I come to treat of the later Danish invasions. It may at present suffice to remark, that traces of intercourse with the nations of the Baltic, as well friendly as hostile,** are to be found, not only in the Irish annals for some centuries before St. Patrick, but also in the poems, chronicles, and histories of those northern nations themselves. Combining these circumstances with all that is known concerning the migratory incursions to which, a few centuries before our era, so many of the countries of Europe were subject from the tribes inhabiting the coasts of the Baltic and Germanic seas, it appears highly probable that the Scoti were a branch of the same Scythic swarm; and that, having gained a settlement in Ireland, they succeeded in bringing under their dominion both the old Hiberionacesas St. Patrick styles the original population-and those other foreign colonies, by whom, in succession, the primitive inhabitants had been conquered.

Among the various other hypotheses devised by different writers to account for the origin of the Scots, and the very important part played by them in Ireland, there is not one that explains, even plausibly, the peculiar circumstances that mark the course of their history. According to Richard, the Monk of Westminster, and his ready copyist, Whitaker, the Irish Scots were no other than those ancient Britons, who, taking flight on the first invasion of their country by the Belgæ, about 350 years before the Christian era, passed over into the neighbouring island of Ireland, and there, being joined, after an

* Dissertations on the History of Ireland, sect. 13.

† Stillingfleet, Origin. Britann. Preface.-Ledwich, Antiquities, Colonization of Ireland.-O'Brien, Preface to Irish Dictionary.-O'Flaherty remarks, "I shall not aver that Danaan has been borrowed from the name of Danes, as the Danes have not been known to the Latins by that name until the establishment of Christianity, though they might have gone under the appellation earlier; in the same manner as the names of Scots and Picts were in use before they came to the knowledge of the Romans."-Ogyg. part 1. The name of Danes was not known till the sixth century, when it is first mentioned by the historians Jornandes and Procopius.

"Our historians have described, in an eloquent and pompous style, the different and various peregrinations of the Danaans, informing us that they resided, as has already been mentioned, in the northern parts of Germany, to wit, in the cities of Falia, Goria, Finnia, and Muria, and spoke the German language."Ogygia.

With that spirit of unfairness which but too much pervades his writings, Dr. Ledwich refers to this passage as containing O'Flaherty's own opinions upon the subject:-" O'Flaherty allows," he says, "that they spoke the German or Teutonic, and inhabited the cities Falia, Goria, &c. in the north of Germany."

§ The same division of opinion which prevails in England on this question exists also among the modern Belgians themselves, as may be seen by reference to different articles in the Mémoires de l'Académie de Bruxelles. See, for instance, Mémoire sur la Religion des Peuples de l'ancienne Belgique, par M. des Roches, (de l'anné 1773,) throughout the whole of which the learned author takes for granted the Teutonic lineage of the Belgæ, treats of them as a wholly distinct race from the Gauls, and applies to the ancestors of his countrymen all that Tacitus has said of the Germans. In speaking of the days of the week, as having been named after some of the northern gods, M. des Roches says:-" Ces jours sont aisés à reconnoitre par les nom, qui les désignent en Flamand; sur-tout si on les compare à la langue Anglo-Saxone, sœur de la nôtre, et aux autres langues septentrionales." On the other hand, in a prize essay of M. du Jardin, 1773, we find the following passage:-"Priusquam in Gallias Romani transissent, Belgæ omnes, ut qui origine Celta, Celtice loquebantur."

Dr. O'Connor, Wood, &c.

See the Annals of Tigernach, A. D. 79, where he notices the grief of the monarch Lugad for the death of his queen, who was the daughter of the King of Lochland, or Denmark. Alliances of the same nature recur in the second century, when we find the monarch Tuathal and his son Feidlim both married to the daughters of Finland kings. By these marriages," says the author of the Dissertations on Irish History," we see what close intercourse the Scots held, in the second century, with the nations bordering on the Baltic."

Sect. 5.

In translating the above record of Tigernach, the Rev. Dr. O'Connor has rather suspiciously substituted King of the Saxons for King of the Danes.

**It appears from Saxo Grammaticus (Hist. Dan. lib. 8.) that already, in the fourth century, some Danish chieftains, whom he names, had been engaged in piratical incursions upon the Irish coasts. Here again Doctor O'Connor has substituted Saxons for Danes; and it is difficult not to agree with Mr. D'Alton, who has pointed out these rather unworthy misquotations, (Essay, Period 1. sect. 1.) that they were designed to "favour the reverend doctor's system of there being no Danes in Ireland previous to the ninth century."

interval of 250 years, by a second body of fugitive Britons, took the name of Scuites, or Scots, meaning the Wanderers, or Refugees. This crude and vague conjecture, enlisted by Whitaker in aid of his favourite object of proving Ireland to have drawn its population exclusively from Britain, has no one feature either of authority or probability to recommend it. By Pinkerton, Wood, and others, it is held that the Belge were the warlike race denominated Scots by the Irish; but the whole course of our early history runs counter to this conjecture,—the Belge and Scoti, though joining occasionally as allies in the field, being represented, throughout, as distinct races. Even down to modern times, there are mentioned instances of families, in Galway and Sligo, claiming descent from the Belgic race, as wholly distinct from the Milesian or Scotic.t

It cannot but be regarded as a remarkable result, that while, as the evidence adduced strongly testifies, so many of the foreign tribes that in turn possessed this island were Gothic, the great bulk of the nation itself, its language, character, and institutions, should have remained so free from charge, that even the conquering tribes themselves should, one after another, have become mingled with the general mass, leaving only in those few Teutonic words, which are found mixed up with the native Celtic, any vestige of their once separate existence.

The fact evidently is, that long before the period when these Scythic invaders first began to arrive, there had already poured from the shores of the Atlantic into the country, an abundant Celtic population, which, though not too ready, from the want of concert and coalition, which has ever characterized that race, to fall a weak and easy prey to successive bands of adventurers, was yet too numerous, as well as too deeply imbued with another strong Celtic characteristic, attachment to old habits and prejudices, to allow even conquerors to innovate materially either on their own language or their usages. From this unchangeableness of the national character it has arisen, that in the history of no other country in Europe do periods far apart, and separated even by ages, act as mirrors to each other so vividly and faithfully. At a comparatively recent era of her annals, when brought unresistingly under the dominion of the English, her relations to her handful of foreign rulers were again nearly the same, and again the result alike to victors and to vanquished was for a long period such as I have above described. It has been already observed that, in the obscurity which envelops their name and origin, the destiny of the Scots resembles closely that of another people not less remarkable in the history of the British Isles, known by the name of the Picts; and as, according to the Irish traditions, the Scots and Picts made their appearance in these western regions about the same period, the history of the latter of the two colonies may help to throw some light on that of its Scotic neighbours. With the account given by the Bardic historians of the Picts sailing in quest of a settlement in these seas, and resting for a time in the south of Ireland on their way, the statement of Bede on the subject substantially agrees; and while the Bards represent this people as coming originally from Thrace, the venerable historian expressly denominates them a Sythic people. It would, therefore, appear, that the Scots and the Picts were both of northern race,

"It was then," Whitaker says, "they first incorporated themselves into one society." The details of this notable scheme, which supposes so large and important a body of people to have waited 250 years to be incorporated and named, are to be found in the History of Manchester, book i chap. 12. sec. 4.

Lastly, they (the Belgians) settled in Moy-Sachnoly, at this day Hymania, in the county of Galway, after the arrival of St. Patrick, and there O'Layn, and, in the county Sligo, O'Beunachan, to our times the proprietor of a very handsome estate, look on themselves as their real descendants."-Ogygia, part iii. chap. 12.

In the Irish tongue," says O'Brien, "the Celtic predominates over all other mixtures, not only of the old Spanish, but also of the Scandinavian and other Scytho German dialects, though Ireland anciently received three or four different colon.es, or rather swarms of adventurers, from those quarters." (Preface to Dictionary) One of the causes he assigns for the slight effect produced upon the language by such infu sions is, that "these foreign adventurers and sea-rovers were under the necessity of begging wives from the natives, and the necessary consequence of this mixture and alliance was that they, or at least their children, Jest their own original language, and spoke no other than that of the nation they mixed with;-which was exactly the case with the first English settlers in Ireland, who soon became mere Irishmen both in their language and manners"

It happened that the nation of the Picts coming into the ocean from Scythia, as is reported, in a few long ships, the winds driving them about beyond all the borders of Britain, arrived in Ireland, and put into the northern coasts thereof, and finding the nation of the Scots there, requested to be allowed to settle among them, but could not obtain it."-Ecclesiast Hist book i. chap. 1. In Bede's account of the region from whence they came, the Saxon Chronicle, Geoffrey Monmouth, and all the ancient English historians concur. The following passage also of Tacitus tells strongly in favour of the same opinion: "Rutilæ CaJedoniam habitantiu mcomæ, magni artus, Germanicam originem asseverant."-Agric. cap. 11. Attempts have been made to get rid of the weight of this authority by a most unfair interpretation of a passage which follows in the same chapter, and which applies evidently only to those inhabitants of Britain, who lived in the neighbourhood of the Gauls- proximi Gallis." In speaking of this portion of the British population, the historian says, "In universum tamen æstimanti, Gallos vicinum solum cccupasse credibile." To suppose that by the expletive phrase "in universum," so deliberate a writer as Tacitus could have meant to retract or overturn an opinion expressed so decidedly but a few lines before, is a stretch of interpretation, upon which only the sturdy spirit of system could have ventured.