CHAPTER III
The Original Inhabitants of Ireland
VAGUE poetical tradition flings a mystical veil over the origin of the earliest inhabitants of Ireland. The historian, McGee, who would seem to have made a serious study of the subject, says that the first account given by the bards and the professional story-tellers attributes the settlement of the island to Parthalon of the race of Japhet, who, with a number of followers, reached it by way of the Mediterranean and Atlantic, “about three hundred years after the Universal Deluge.” The colonists, because of the unnatural crimes of their leader, were, we are told, “cut off to the last man by a dreadful pestilence.”
The second colony, also a creature of tradition, was said to have been led by a chief called Nemedh from the shores of the Black Sea across Muscovy to the Baltic, and from that sea they made their way to the Irish shore. In Ireland, they encountered a stronger race, said to have been of African origin, called Formorians, with whom they had many severe battles and were by them finally defeated and either killed or driven from the country, to which some of their descendants returned in after years.
After Nemedh came the Firbolgs, or Belgæ, under the five sons of their king, Dela, who divided the island into five parts and held it undisputedly until the Tuatha de Danaans, said to be descended from Nemedh, and having magical power to quell storms, invaded the island, carrying with them the “lia fail,” or “Stone of Destiny,” from which Ireland derived its fanciful title of “Innis fail,” or the “Island of Destiny.” The Danaans are said to have been of the Greek family. In any case, it is claimed, they subdued the Belgæ and made them their serfs. They ruled mightily, for a time, but, in turn, were compelled to give way to a stronger tide of invasion.
This was formed by a people who called themselves, according to most Irish annalists, Gaels, from an ancient ancestor; Milesians, from the appellation of their king, who ruled in distant Spain, and Scoti, or Scots, from Scota, the warlike mother of King Milesius. These Milesians are said to have come into Spain from the region of the Caucasus, and all agree that they were formidable warriors. Tradition says that Ireland was first discovered, as far as the Milesians were concerned, by Ith, uncle of the Spanish king, who, while on a voyage of exploration, sighted the island, and, attracted by its beauty, landed, but was attacked by the Danaans and mortally wounded. His followers carried him to his galley, and he died at sea, but the body was brought back to Spain. His son, Loci, who had accompanied Ith, summoned all the Milesian family to avenge their kinsman’s death and conquer the Promised Island of their race. Milesius, or Miledh, had expired before Loci’s return, but his sons, Heber the Fair, Amergin, Heber the Brown, Colpa, Ir, and Heremon rallied to the call of vengeance and conquest, set sail for Ireland, landed there, and, in spite of Danaan witchcraft and Firbolgian valor, beat down all opposition and became masters of the beautiful island. Thomas Moore, in his immortal Irish Melodies, thus deals with this legendary event:
“They came from a land beyond the sea,
And now o’er the Western main,
Set sail in their good ships gallantly
From the sunny land of Spain.
‘Oh, where’s the isle we’ve seen in dreams,
Our destined home or grave?’
Thus sang they as, by the morning’s beams,
They swept the Atlantic wave.
“And, lo, where afar o’er ocean shines
A sparkle of radiant green,
As though in that deep lay emerald mines
Whose light through the wave was seen.
‘’Tis Innisfail! ’tis Innisfail!’
Rings o’er the echoing sea,
While bending to heaven the warriors hail
That home of the brave and free.
“Then turned they unto the Eastern wave,
Where now their Day-God’s eye
A look of such sunny omen gave
As lighted up sea and sky,
Nor frown was seen through sky or sea,
Nor tear on leaf or sod,
When first on their Isle of Destiny
Our great forefathers trod.”
The migration of those Celto-Iberians to Ireland is generally placed at from 1500 to 2000 years before the birth of Christ; but there is not much certainty about the date; it stands wholly on tradition. On one point, at least, a majority of Irish annalists seem to be agreed—namely, that the Milesians were of Celtic stock and Scythian origin, but the route they took from Scythia to Spain, as well as the date of their exodus, remains an undetermined question. Celtic characteristics, both mental and physical, are still deeply stamped on the Irish people, notwithstanding the large admixture of the blood of other races, resulting from the numerous after invasions, both pagan and Christian. Thomas Davis, the leading Irish national poet of the middle of the nineteenth century, sums up the elements that constitute the present Irish population, truly and tersely, thus:
“Here came the brown Phœnician,
The man of trade and toil;
Here came the proud Milesian
A-hungering for spoil;
And the Firbolg, and the Kymry,
And the hard, enduring Dane,
And the iron lords of Normandy,
With the Saxons in their train.
And, oh, it were a gallant deed
To show before mankind,
How every race, and every creed,
Might be by love combined;
Might be combined, yet not forget
The fountains whence they rose,
As filled by many a rivulet
The stately Shannon flows!”
And the fine verses of the Irish poet may be applied with almost equal propriety to the cosmopolitan population of the United States—more varied in race than even that of Ireland. No good citizen is less of an American simply because he scorns to forget, or to allow his children to forget, “the fountains whence they rose.” Anglo-Americans never forget it, nor do Franco-Americans, or Americans of Teutonic origin; or, in fact, Americans of any noted race. Americans of Irish birth or origin have quite as good a right to be proud of their cradle-land and their ancient ancestry as any other element in this Republic; and the study of impartial Irish history by pupils of all races would do much to soften prejudices and remove unpleasant impressions that slanderous, partial historians have been mainly instrumental in creating.
The language—Gaelic, or Erse, as it is called in our day—spoken by the Milesian conquerors of Ireland so many thousand years ago, is not yet nearly extinct on Irish soil; and it is often used by Irish emigrants in various parts of the world. More than thirty centuries have faded into eternity since first its soft, yet powerful, accents were heard on Ireland’s shore, but still nearly a million people out of four and a half millions speak it, and hundreds of thousands have more or less knowledge of the venerable tongue in its written form. Great efforts have been put forth of late years to promote its propagation throughout the island, and it is a labor of love in which all classes, creeds, and parties in Ireland cordially work together. It is not intended, of course, to supplant the English language, but to render Gaelic co-equal with it, as in Wales—a thoroughly Celtic country, in which the native language—Kymric—has been wondrously revived during the past and present century.