As for the type of the Irish race it is undeniably Celtic, or at least essentially different from the Anglo-Saxon. The hair is black or brown, the eyes dark, the complexion pale, the nose short, the forehead bony. The general appearance is vigorous and active, the movements are quick and often graceful; the stature without being low, is nearer to middle height than is generally the case in a British country. The rudest peasant girls often have a sculptural grace of attitude; one sees them in the fields, carrying burdens on their head with that stateliness of Greek canephores which seems as a rule the exclusive attribute of the daughters of the East.
Still more different from the English is the inner man; naturally mirthful and expansive, witty, careless, even giddy, quarrelsome from mere love of noise, prompt to enthusiasm or despondency, imbued with the love of literary form and legal subtleties, he is the Frenchman of the West, as the Pole or the Japanese are Frenchmen of the East. And always there has been an affinity of nature, a harmony of thought, between them and us. At once we feel we are cousins. Their ancestors formerly came in thousands to fight under our flag. Our revolutions were always felt in Ireland. So strong, for nations as well as individuals, is that mysterious tie of a common origin, or even the most remote consanguinity.
Does this mean that the Irishman, thanks to his insular position, has escaped all cross breeding and remained pure Celt? Far from it. No country was oftener or more cruelly invaded than his. The stranger implanted himself in it, begat his children there, introduced in the race elements that are still recognizable; for example, that most peculiar expression of the eyes, the height of the cheek-bones, the outline of the temples and cranium, which are in many cases clearly Scandinavian.
In the origin of history the primitive inhabitants of Erin, the Firbolgs (men with the skin of beasts) were vanquished by the Thuathan-de-Danan, “the fairy people,” who came from the East, and who founded the realm of Innisfallen, or Island of Fate. A Spanish invasion (probably Phenician), that of the Milesians, overthrew that establishment ten or twelve centuries before the Christian era, and three hundred years before the foundation of Rome. After that came an uninterrupted list of one hundred and ninety-seven Milesian kings, who reached to the arrival of the Northmen, in the eighth century of the present era. Under their rule Ireland enjoyed a profound peace. It was during this period of more than a thousand years that flourished and developed in the island of Erin an entirely original civilization, characterised by the Brehon Code, by customs of great gentleness, by institutions of admirable prudence, among others that of a national militia, the Fiana-Erin, or Fenians, who were recruited by voluntary enlistment, defended the country and maintained order therein, while the citizens pursued their various avocations,—agriculture, in which they excelled, fishing and navigation, for which they displayed some ability.
Divided into five or six small independent kingdoms Ireland, without her militia, would have fallen an easy prey to the Britons, the Gauls, or the Caledonians, and later on to the Romans. Thanks to that national force,—a true civic guard, quartered during winter on the inhabitants, and ever popular, which proves that it knew how to preserve intact the tradition of Celtic virtues,—Ireland, alone almost among European nations, escaped a Roman invasion. After twelve hundred years the remembrance of the Fenians has remained so vivid in the hearts of the people that the Irish Republicans of America, when they resumed in our own days the struggle in arms against England, naturally chose the name of the ancient defenders of national independence.
With the fall of the Roman Empire and the dying out of the fear of invasion, the Fenian institution disappeared. The military instincts of the nation then manifested themselves at the exterior by frequent incursions made by Irish adventurers in England, Scotland, or Gaul. It was in one of those incursions off the coast of Brittany that Niall Mor, King of Tara, took prisoner, with several other young Christians, a boy named Sucoth, and whom they called Patricius (Patrick) on account of his noble origin. This was at the end of the fourth century of our era. The prisoner was employed in tending flocks in Ireland, spent seven years there, and at last found an opportunity of escaping to his own country. When back in Brittany, he constantly thought with grief of the dreadful destiny of the Irish, who still remained in ignorance of the true religion, and vegetated in the darkness of Druidism. One night he had a prophetic dream, after which he resolved to dedicate himself to the evangelization of those unhappy heathens. To this effect he went to the town of Tours, where he assumed the religious habit, then on to Rome, where he entered the missionary seminary. In the year 432 he was at the Barefooted Augustines’ Convent, in Auxerre, when he heard of the death of Paladius, fifth apostolic missionary of the Holy See in the island of Erin. Patrick solicited and obtained the honour of succeeding him. He was made Archbishop in partibus infidelium, and set out with twenty other French priests.
A certain number of Christians were already to be found in Ireland; but the bulk of the nation remained attached to its traditional worship, which was that of Chaldea and of Ancient Gaul, the worship of the sun or fire, as the principle of all life and purity.
Yet the sons of Erin were not by any means barbarians; their civilization could rather be regarded as the most flourishing in Europe. They knew the art of weaving stuffs, and of working metals; their laws were wise and just, their customs hardy without ferocity. Patrick knew better than any one that he must think neither of hurrying their conversion nor of imposing it by force. He devoted himself with great adroitness to the task of winning the favour of the chiefs, tenderly handled all the national prejudices, loudly extolled the excellence of the Brehon Code, and succeeded at last in giving baptism to the Princes of Leinster. After this the new religion made such rapid progress that at the end of fifteen years Patrick was obliged to ask for thirty new Bishops from Rome, besides the numerous native priests who had already received ordination at his hands. When he died at the ripe age of one hundred and twenty years, Ireland had become Christian, and was rapidly being Latinised in the innumerable schools attached to the monasteries and churches. She even entered so eagerly in the new path as to deserve the name of “Isle of Saints” throughout the Roman world, and that for a long time it was enough to be Irish or to have visited Erin to become invested with almost a halo of sanctity.