[10] τῶν Βρεττανῶν, τοὺς κατοικοῦντας την ὀνομαζομένην Ἴριν.
[11] "Solum cœlumque et ingenia cultusque hominum haud multum a Britannia differunt; in melius aditus portusque per commercia et negociatores cogniti." This employment of in before melius is curious, and the passage, which Diefenbach in his Celtica malignly calls the "Lieblings-stelle der irischen Schriftsteller," is not universally accepted as meaning that the harbours of Ireland were better known than those of Great Britain; but when we consider the antiquarian evidence for ancient Irish civilisation, and that in artistic treatment, and fineness of manufacture Irish bronzes are fully equal to those of Great Britain, and her gold objects infinitely more numerous and every way superior, there seems no reason to doubt that the text of Tacitus must be translated as above, and not subjected to such forced interpretations as that the harbours and approaches of Ireland were better known than the land itself!
[12] "Picti Saxonesque et Scotti et Attacotti Britannos aerumnis vexavere continuis." These Attacotti appear to have been an Irish tribe. There is a great deal of controversy as to who they were. St. Jerome twice mentions them in connection with the Scots (i.e., the Irish): Scotorum et Atticotorum ritu, they have their wives and children in common, as Plato recommends in his Republic! (Migne's edition, Book I., p. 735.) He says that he himself saw some of them when he was young, "Ipse adolescens in Gallia viderim Attacottos, Scotorum (one would expect Attacotorum) natio uxores proprias non habet." The name strongly resembles Cæsar's Aduatuci and Diodorus's Ατουατικοὶ and certainly appears to be same as the Gaelic Aitheach-Tuatha, so well known in Irish history, a name which O'Curry translates by "rent-paying tribes," probably of non-Milesian origin. These rose in the first century against their Milesian masters and massacred them. If as Thierry thinks the east and centre of Gaul were Gaelic speaking, they too may have had their Aitheach-Tuatha, which may have been a general name for certain non-Celtic tribes reduced by the Celts. According to the Itinerarium of Ricardus Corinensis quoted by Diefenbach, Book III., there were Attacotti along the banks of the Clyde: "Clottæ ripas accolebant Attacotti, gens toti aliquando Britanniæ formidanda."
[13] "Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis Ierne" ("glacialis," of course, only when looked at from a southern point of view. Strabo, as we have seen, said the island was scarcely habitable from cold).
"—Totam quum Scotus Iernen
Movit et infesto spumavit remige Tethys."
It is probably mere hyperbole of Claudian to say that the Roman chased the Irish out to sea,
"—nec falso nomine Pictos
Edomuit, Scotumque vago mucrone secutus
Fregit Hyperboreas velis audacibus undas."
[14] These appear in Britain in the middle of the fifth century, in 449 according to the Saxon Chronicle, which is probably substantially correct.
[15] Pronounced "Teear-nach."
CHAPTER III
EARLY HISTORY DRAWN FROM NATIVE SOURCES
The allusions to Ireland and the Irish from the third century before to the fourth century after Christ, are, as we have seen, both few and scanty, and throw little or no light upon the internal affairs or history of the island; for these we must go to native sources.
At the period when Emania was founded, that is, at the period when according to the learned native annalist Tighearnach, the records of the early Irish cease to be "uncertain," the throne of Ireland was occupied by a High-king called Ugony[1] the Great, and a certain body of saga, much of which is now lost, collected itself around his personality, and attached itself to his two sons, Cobhthach Caol-mBreagh and Leary[2] Lorc, and around Leary Lorc's grandson, Lowry[3] the mariner. It was this Ugony who attempted to substitute a new territorial division of Ireland in place of the five provinces into which it had been divided by the early Milesians. He exacted an oath by all the elements—the usual Pagan oath—from the men of Ireland that they would never oppose his children or his race, and then he divided the island into twenty-five parts, giving one to each of his children. He succeeded in this manner in destroying the ancient division of Ireland into provinces and in perpetuating his own, for several generations, when Eochaidh Féidhleach[4] once more reverted to the ancient system of the five provinces—Ulster, Connacht, Leinster, and the two Munsters. This Eochaidh Féidhleach came to the throne about 140 years before Christ, according to the "Four Masters,"[5] and it was his daughter who is the celebrated heroine Mève,[6] queen of Connacht, who reigned at Rathcroghan in Connacht, and who undertook the great Táin Bo or Cattle Raid into Ulster, that has been celebrated for nigh on 2,000 years in poem and annal among the children of the Gael; and her name introduces us to Conor[7] mac Nessa, king of Ulster, to the palace of Emania, to the Red Branch knights, to the tragedy of Déirdre and all the vivid associations of the Cuchulain cycle.
It was thirty-three years before Christ, according to the "Four Masters," that Conairé the Great, High-king of all Ireland, was slain, and he is the central figure of the famous and very ancient saga of the Bruidhean Da Derga.[8]
And now we come to the birth of Christ, which is thus recorded by the "Four Masters": "The first year of the age of Christ and the eighth of the reign of Crimhthan Niadhnair."[9] Crimhthan was no doubt one of the marauding Scots who plundered Britain, for it is recorded of him that "it was this Crimhthan who went on the famous expedition beyond the sea from which he brought home several extraordinary and costly treasures, among which were a gilt chariot and a golden chess-board, inlaid with three hundred transparent gems, a tunic of various colours and embroidered with gold, a shield embossed with pure silver," and many other valuables. Curiously enough O'Clery's Book of Invasions contains a poem of seventy-two lines ascribed to this king himself, in which he describes these articles. He was fabled to have been accompanied on this expedition by his "bain-leannán" or fairy sweetheart, one of an interesting race of beings of whom frequent mention is made in Irish legend and saga.
The next event of consequence after the birth of Christ