Phases of Irish History

by Eoin Mac Neill

Fourthly, the people of the Iron Age, Brythons or Britons, or Belgae, or P-Celts.

For the present, let us pass away from the Iberians, and consider the theory as it concerns the Celtic migrations to Britain and Ireland. The earliest known habitat of the Celts is the region to the north of the Alps. The earliest definitely known migration of the Celts is their southward movement into Northern Italy. For this migration no earlier date than 600 B.C. is assigned.

The chief authority on the Bronze Age in Ireland belongs to the late Mr. George Coffey. In his book on the subject, "The Bronze Age in Ireland," he hesitates to date the close of the Stone Age and the introduction of the Copper Period as far back as 2500 B.C., which is the approximate date estimated by Montelius. He puts the close of the Copper Period between 2000 and 1800 B.C. and the first period of the true Bronze Age between 1800 and 1500 B.C. Now, according to the theory prevalent in Britain, the first Celtic invaders introduced the Bronze Age, and these were the Gaels or Goidels. If we accept this view and combine it with the best archæological authority, we shall conclude that the Celts reached Ireland at least 1,200 years before they are known to have entered Italy—that they pushed out to a distant island in the ocean more than a millennium before they occupied the fertile and attractive plains which lay on their very borders.

But, it may be objected, is it not possible that the Celts of the Bronze Age had settled far away from the Alps, on the coasts of north-western Europe. Possible, perhaps, but what is the value of mere possibilities? We have seen it stated, and the Cambridge handbook is only a specimen of many publications that accept the view, stated most definitely that the Gaelic branch of the Celts introduced the Bronze Age to Britain and Ireland. Surely something more than a mere possibility, some shade or degree of probability should appear in support of teaching so positive.

Now let us suppose that the dominant Bronze Age population of Britain and Ireland were Celts, as we are instructed to believe. Let us see what would follow from this position. It would follow, beyond question, that the peculiar art and works of the Bronze Age in Britain and Ireland would be mainly connected with the art and works of the Bronze Age in those parts of Europe which were likewise inhabited by Celts, rather than with other parts of the Continent. I cannot find that any such connection has been established or is believed in by archæologists.

The Brythons, we are told, were Belgic invaders who introduced the Iron Age. Not the faintest probability has been brought forward to establish this very precise and positive doctrine. Coffey places the close of the Bronze Age in Ireland and the coming of iron into general use at about 350 B.C. It is admitted that the Celts of central Europe were in possession of iron about four centuries earlier. This affords a most cogent argument that, during the intervening four centuries, there was no such social and industrial continuity between central Europe and these islands as must undoubtedly have been if both regions and the intervening parts of the Continent had been occupied by Celtic populations.

Again, if the Brythons or Belgic Celts, armed with iron, were able to cross the channel and displace the western Celts in Britain, it would surely have been much easier for them to cross the Marne and the Seine and displace the western Celts in Gaul. The theory seems to presuppose that an invasion was necessary to bring the Iron Age into Britain, but the same theory would have it that the Iron Age found its way into Ireland without any invasion, for it leaves the Bronze Age Goidels of Ireland to learn the use of iron in some more pleasant way than by meeting iron-headed spears in the hands of Belgic conquerors.

It is certain that after the withdrawal of the Roman legions from Britain and after the Anglo-Saxon invasions, there were Gaelic populations in various parts of western Britain, in Argyllshire, North and South Wales, and the Cornish peninsula. Rhys supposed these to be the remnants of the Gaelic population which, in his view, had occupied all England during the Bronze Age. There is sufficient evidence to show that they were fresh settlements made by the Irish of Ireland during and after the collapse of the Roman power in Britain.

The "P and Q" element in the theory is equally unsound. It is certain that, where the Irish Celts retained the consonant Q in their language, the British Celts replaced it by P. But no such distinction has been shown to have existed between the language of the western Celts and the language of the Belgic Celts on the Continent. Such phonetic changes as the substitution of P for Q spread in an almost mysterious way through languages. Their spread may be arrested by a geographical barrier so considerable as the Irish Sea, but it was not at all likely to have been brought to a stand by the waters of the Seine and Marne. Nor can a phonetic change of the kind be taken as necessarily corresponding to any racial or political boundaries. In all the western dialects of Latin which grew into the Romance languages, the initial W of Germanic words was changed into GW, and this identical change also took place in the Welsh language, but not in Irish. It took place in Spanish, yet that does not appear to prove that the Welsh are more near akin to the Spaniards than they are to the Irish, nor, if history happened to be silent, would it prove that Britain after the Roman occupation was peopled by a Spanish invasion which did not extend to Ireland.

There is one serious argument which has been adduced in support of the view that Britain was in Celtic occupation during the Bronze Age. The existence of the word kassiteros, meaning "tin," is traced in the Greek language as far back as about 900 B.C. There seems very good reason for thinking that kassiteros was a Celtic word adopted into Greek. From this it is argued that the metal itself came from the Celts to the Greeks, which seems reasonable enough. It is further argued that the Celts must accordingly have been in possession of the country which produced the metal, and that this country was Britain. The conclusion is that the Celts were in occupation of Britain earlier than 900 B.C. It seems to me, however, that the fact, granting it to be a fact, that the metal tin reached the Greeks bearing a Celtic name is by no means proof that it came from a country inhabited at the time by Celts. If you visit the Zoological Gardens in the Phœnix Park, you will be invited, before you reach the entrance, to purchase for the delectation of the monkeys a certain vegetable product, the name of which, upon inquiry, you will learn to be "pea-nuts." No one will be rash enough to deny that "pea-nuts" is an English word. I have not the least idea where pea-nuts grow, but I am quite certain that the fact of their being named "pea-nuts" is no proof that they grow in England or in any English-speaking country. It is very good proof, however, if proof were needed, that the trade in pea-nuts has passed through the hands of English-speaking people. If kassiteros is a Celtic word, as I think it very probably is, it proves no more than that, when the Greeks learned this Celtic name for tin, the trade in tin passed towards them through the hands of a Celtic-speaking people. If it was British tin, which again is not improbable, I suggest that it came to Greece by an overland route through the Celtic region in Mid-Europe, probably along the Rhine and the Danube or to the head of the Adriatic. As a matter of fact, the Greek writer Poseidonios states that in his time British tin reached the Mediterranean by an overland route. "It is brought," he says, "on horses through the interior of the Celtic country to the people of Massilia and to the city called Narbon."