“There are thousands now in Alba
As stout as are in any land;
The grey Gaels from Scota,
Who cheerful round your colours stand.”
By Scota Ireland is meant. All the elaborate and romantic chronicles by which Milesian and Spanish colonies are made to land on Irish soil were mostly manufactured by monks in the Middle Ages, and have no defensible historical foundation; the same may be affirmed of the alleged colonisation of Argyllshire by Irish Gaels.
Some of the romances and the chronicles, however, suggest what appear to be reliable facts respecting the several races of Erin and Albin. Just as there were several tribes of Finians in ancient Eire, so there are different tribes of Celts in modern Ireland. A powerful pre-Celtic element, as in the north-west of Scotland, prevails in the south-west of Ireland. On the other hand a Norse element also prevails in the north-west of Scotland, which has largely entered into the population of the north of Ireland. The difference of character exhibited by the generic Irish and generic Scottish Celt is to be traced no doubt to the degrees of original difference in the blending of races.
The Norse element has always been recognised by the more intelligent of the Highlanders. We find Mary MacLeod, the Harris poetess, born in 1569, addressing the Dunvegan chief of the day in these words:—
“In counsel or fight, thy kindred
Know these should be thine—
Branch of Lochlin’s wide-ruling