CHAPTER X.
Thus far have Ireland and Persia kept company together, both equally rejoicing in the common name of Iran. But now, when we descend to particulars, this harmony separates. Ireland being an island surrounded on all sides by water—which Persia is not—it was necessary it should obtain a denomination expressive of this accident; or, at all events, when the alteration was so easily formed as by the change of the final an into in—an meaning land, and in island—the transition was so natural as at once to recommend its propriety.
Hence it is that though we occasionally meet with Iran, as applied to this country, yet do we more frequently find Irin as its distinctive term; whereas the latter is never, by any chance, assigned to Persia, the former alone being its universal name. And this is all conformable to the closest logical argumentation, which teaches that every species is contained in its genus, but that no genus is contained in its species; Irin, therefore, which is the specific term, may also be called Iran the generic, while Iran—except as in our instance, where the extension of both is identical—could never be called Irin: and so it happens that Ireland is indifferently called by the names of Iran or Irin, the latter alone marking its insular characteristic; whereas Persia, not being so circumstanced, is mentioned only by the general form of Iran.
To simplify this reasoning I must repeat that Iran[147] signifies the Sacred Land, and Irin,[148] the Sacred Island; now every island is a land, but every land is not an island: Persia, therefore, which is not an island, could not be called Irin, whereas Ireland, which is, may as well be called one as the other.[149]
Irin, then, is the true, appropriate, characteristic and specific denomination belonging to this island:—and the words Ire, Eri, Ere,[150] and Erin, applied also thereto, are but vicious or dialectal modifications of this grand, original, and ramifying root.
The import of this appellative having spread itself over the globe before Rome was ever known, under that name, as a city, and when Greece was but just beginning to peep into the light, the Pelasgi—who were partly Budhists, allied somewhat to them in religion, and still more akin in birth and endowments—conveyed, in conjunction with the Phœnician merchants, to the early Greek inhabitants;[151] and they, by a very easy process, commuted Irin to Iérne, which is but a translation of the word—ἱερος signifying sacred, and νηος an island.
Of this Greek form, Ierne, there were again various inflections and depraved assimilations, such as Iernis, Iuernia, Ouvernia, Vernia, etc. And from one[152] of those, the Latins, without, perhaps, exactly knowing what it meant, conjured up Hibernia, but which, however, with soul-stirring triumph, retains uninjured our original root, the initial H being nothing more than the aspirate of the Greek ἱερος, sacred; νηος, island, remaining unaltered; and the letter b only interposed for sound-sake.[153]
So that, whether we consider it as Irin, Ierne, or Hibernia, or under the multiplied variations which diverge, almost interminably, from those three originals, in the several languages which they respectively represent, they will be found, each and all, to resolve themselves into this one, great, incontrovertible position of the “Sacred Island.”
Thus, under heaven, have I been made the humble instrument of redeeming my country from the aspersions of calumniators. I have shown to demonstration the real origin of its sanctified renown. I have traced from the Irish, through all the variations of Greek and Latin capricios, its delineatory name; and have proved, beyond the possibility of rational contradiction, that in all those different changes regard was still held to the original epithet.
Where, then, are the sneers—of “hallucination,”—of “lunacy,”—and of “etymological moonshine?” These are very cheap and convenient terms for gentlemen to adopt, as cloaks to the ignorance of the purport of denominations imposed at a time when every word was a history. In the early ages of the world whimsicality never mingled with the circumstantial designation of either person or locality. Every name was the sober consequence of deliberate circumspection; and was intended to transmit the memory of events, in the truest colours, as well as in the most comprehensive form, to the latest generation.