LAND’S END

CHAPTER XIX.

THE LAND’S END

The Irish settlers in Penwith—​Difference between Irish and Cornish languages—​The Irish saints of Penwith—​Other saints—​Penzance—​S. Ives—​Restored brass—​Wreck of Algerine pirates in 1760—​Description of Penwith—​The pilchard fishery—​Song—​Churches of the Land’s End—​S. Burian—​S. Paul’s and Dolly Pentreath—​The Cornish language—​Cornish dialect—​Old churches and chapels—​Madron—​Prehistoric antiquities.

The Land’s End is properly Penwith, either Pen-gwaed, the Bloody Headland, or Pen-gwaedd, the Headland of Shouting. Probably it is the former, for it was the last place of refuge of the Ibernian population, and in the first years of the sixth century, even perhaps earlier, it was occupied by Irish settlers, and that there was fighting is clearly shown us in the legend of SS. Fingar and Piala. It must have been to the original people of the peninsula what Mona was to the Welsh.

All we know about this invasion is what is told us in the legend just mentioned, and that states that Fingar, son of an Irish king, came to Hayle, landed there with his party, and was fallen upon by Tewdrig, the Cornish duke or king, who massacred some of the party. But the names of the parishes tell us more than that. They show us that the Irish were not defeated, that they made good their landing, and that they spread and occupied the whole of Penwith and Carnmarth, that is to say, the entire district of West Cornwall up to Camborne and the Lizard district.

The colonists cannot have been few, and they must have purposed settling, for they brought women along with them; and that they were successful is assured by the fact that those killed by Tewdrig are recognised as martyrs. Had the Irish been driven away they would have been regarded as pirates who had met their deserts.

Now this inroad of saints was but one out of a succession of incursions, and the resistance of Tewdrig marks the revolt against Irish domination which took place after the death of Dathi in 428, the last Irish monarch who was able to exact tribute from Britain; though Oiliol Molt may have attempted it, he was too much hampered by internal wars to make Irish authority felt in Britain. Oiliol fell in 483.