Cineadh Scuit saor an fine,
Mun budh breag an fhaisdine,
Mar a fuighid an liagh-fhail,
Dlighid flaitheas do ghabhail.
Rendered thus in English—
The Scots shall brook that realm as native ground,
If weirds fail not, where’er this chair is found.
So much for the Lia Fail.
There is a reluctance on the part of Irish writers to accept any theory that implies the colonisation of Ireland from Britain. On the contrary, they rather attempt to prove that the Scottish Gael emigrated from Ireland—a theory which appears to have been invented in the fifteenth century. It was afterwards adopted unquestioningly by Scottish antiquarians, with few exceptions, of whom James Macpherson of Ossianic fame was one. For some time the Highlanders generally accepted the theory, and almost all the Highland clans were somehow or other traced to an Irish original. MacMhaighstir Alastair thus sings of the original country of the clans according to the belief of last century:—