Omnipotent, much dreaded Deity of this country! asswage my troubled mind! Thou, the support of feeble captives! being now exhausted with fatigue, of thy free will, guide me to my children.
In this example the affinity between the Punic and Irish is striking; and the same runs thro the whole speech.
That Ireland received colonies from Spain or Carthage is probable from other circumstances. The Irish historians say their ancestors received letters from the Phenicians; and the Irish language was called Bearni Feni, the Phenician tongue. Cadiz in Spain was first settled by Phenicians; and cadas in Irish signifies friendship.
The Irish seems to be a compound of Celtic and Punic; and if Ireland was peopled originally from Carthage, and received colonies from thence, the event must have been subsequent to the first Punic war; for this was the period when the Carthaginians adopted the Roman letters, and there is no inscription in Ireland in the Phenician character.
The Hebrew was the root of the Phenician and the Punic. The Maltese is evidently a branch of the Punic; for it approaches nearer to the Hebrew and Chaldaic, than to the Arabic. For this assertion we have the authority of M. Maius, professor of the Greek and oriental languages in the Ludovician university of Giessen, who had his accounts from Ribier, a missionary Jesuit and native of Malta. This fact will account for the correspondence between the Irish and the Maltese, in several particulars. In Maltese, Alla signifies God; in Irish, All is mighty. Baol in Maltese, and Bel or Bal in Irish, signify Chief Deity or Sun. In Maltese, ordu is end or summit; in Irish, ard, arda, are hill, high. These words are probably from the same root as the Latin arduus, and the English hard, implying labor. Bandla in Maltese, is a cord; in Irish, bann is suspension. In Maltese, gala is the sail of a ship; and in Irish, gal is a gale of wind. These Maltese words are taken from a Punica Maltese Dictionary, annexed to a treatise, Della lingua Punica presentamente usitate da Maltese, by G. Pietro Francisco Agius de Solandas.
There is also a correspondence between the Irish and Punic, in the variation of their nouns, as may be observed in the following example.
In several particulars the Irish bears a close affinity to the Hebrew and Greek. It was the custom with the Hebrews, and it still remains with them, to face the east in the act of devotion. From this practice it proceeded, that the same word which signified right hand, signified also south; the same with left hand and north; before and east; behind and west. This is the case also in the Irish language.
| Hebrew. | Irish. |
|---|---|
| Jamin,[147] right hand, south | deas, the same |
| Smol, left hand, north | thuaidh, the same |
| Achor, behind, west | tar, the same |
| Cedem, before, east | oir and oithear, the same, or rising sun. Latin, oriens |
That the Greeks had an intercourse with the islands of Britain and Ireland, or sent colonies thither, is not impossible; and Dr. Todd, not many years ago, discovered, at Colchester, in Essex, an altar dedicated to the Tyrian Hercules, with an inscription in Greek capitals,