An introduction to the history of Great Britain and Ireland: By James Macpherson, ...

ANTIQUITIES OF THE British and Irish Scots.

Preliminary Observations.

* 1.1 THE dark regions of Irish antiquity oppose more than their barrenness to inquiry. To the common gloom, which covers the origin of other nations, the Bards of Ireland have added clouds of their own. The desart of their ancient history, to use a metaphor, is haunted by goblins and strange forms, which distract the attention and offend the eye. To encounter the absurdities which the more ancient Irish posses for the annals of their remote ages, is not an arduous, but a disagreeable and tedious task. The field is ample, but it produces no laurels; the combat is not dangerous, but the victory will be attended by no same. But the professed design of this work gives propriety to a minute inquiry into the pretensions of Ireland to high anti|quities, and the public, it is hoped, will

forgive the prolixity of the disquisition, on account of the necessity which has imposed so dry a subject upon the Author.

* 1.2 From the principles already established we may draw the following just conclu|sions: That the history of the Milesian colony, which, it is pretended, transmi|grated from Spain into Ireland under the conduct of Heremon and Heber, is ab|solutely unworthy of any credit: That the long list of kings, who are said to have held the scepter of Ireland, for thirteen centuries before the Christian aera, had their existence only in the dis|tempered fancies of the Bards of latter ages; and, in short, that every thing re|lated in their domestic annals concerning the Irish, prior to the mission of St. Pa|trick, ought to be banished to the region of fiction and romance. Whatever drea|mers in remote antiquities may be pleased to say, it is an indisputable fact, that the transactions of a nation, illiterate in itself, and too distant or obscure to be distinctly seen by foreign writers, must for ever lie buried in oblivion. The Irish, we have already seen, were so far from having the advantage of the Greeks and Romans in an earlier knowledge of let|ters* 1.3, that, on the contrary, they re|mained

much longer in ignorance than the inhabitants of the regions of the West and North, whom the latter of those il|lustrious nations subdued and humanized.

* 1.4 The only means the old Irish had to preserve the memory of their actions were the rhimes of the Bards, a race of men retained by the illiterate nations de|scended from the great Celtic stock. Without insisting on the known uncer|tainty of history in rhime, we may affirm that a dull narrative of facts in verse could never take hold of the human mind in a degree sufficient to transmit a knowledge of events, by oral tradition, through any considerable length of time. Granting then every possible indulgence to the tra|ditionary history of Ireland, we cannot admit that it extends much beyond the middle of the fifth age, if even to record the rhimes of the Heathen Bards had been the first use made of the alphabet intro|duced by St. Patrick. But as it is not, in any degree, probable that the first con|verts in Ireland would employ their time in collecting and recording historical poems, which were tinctured, perhaps, with the ancient superstition, we may naturally place the commencement of the fabulous, as well as of the true history of that Island, posterior to the introduction of Christianity.

Spanish Extraction of the Irish examined and confuted.

* 1.5 The Irish annalists have, for many ages, adhered invariably to the pretended descent of their nation from the old Spa|niards. The confidence with which they have always spoken on this subject, in|duced some learned men, who gave no credit to an early knowledge of letters in Ireland, to suppose that there was some foundation in fact for a story, concerning which, tradition had brought intimations from every quarter. But to those who have well considered the state of ancient Europe, it will appear just as improbable that the Spaniards could transport them|selves into Ireland before the Christian aera, as it is impossible to believe that any memory of that event, had it actually happened, could have been preserved by tradition to the introduction of letters by St. Patrick.

* 1.6 It does not appear that much of the knowledge of the arts of civil life was extended to the inhabitants of the moun|tains of Asturia and Gallicia, from the settlement established by the Phoenicians in the Island of Gades. So far were the

old Spaniards, who possessed the shore of the Atlantic, from improving themselves in navigation by their vicinity to the ocean, that Strabo affirms* 1.7, that from their situation they were cut off from all commerce with the rest of mankind. Of all the inhabitants of the Celtiberian di|vision of Spain, Diodorus Siculus re|marks† 1.8, that the Vaccaei were the most humanized, for they had some knowledge in agriculture. But if a small skill in one of the earliest and rudest arts entitled the Vaccaei to the character of a civilized people, when compared to the neighbouring tribes, we may, with jus|tice, conclude that those tribes had not made a progress in navigation sufficient to make them venture into the ocean, and transport a colony into Ireland.

* 1.9 The scheme of deducing the Irish Scotch from the Spaniards prior to the Christian aera, was dropt as indefensible by those of the most learning and judg|ment, who examined the subject. After Innes had destroyed the credit of the

Milesian tale, he found it necessary to in|vestigate the origin of the Scots in some other way. He proposed to himself as a question, from whence, and at what period, came the Scots into Ireland?

"They came,"

fays the ingenious father,

"either from Scandia or Cantabria, a|bout the time of the incarnation, or rather a little time after it* 1.10".

* 1.11 The antiquaries of England either did not examine with attention the origin of the Scots, or, averse to enter into a con|test with the Irish about a matter in which their own nation was not material|ly concerned, spoke very undecisively on this subject. Stillingfleet thought that the Scots were Scythians from Scandi|navia; but the time of their transmigra|tion he does not attempt to assign‖ 1.12. Cam|den, contrary to his usual precision, is full of uncertainty on this head. They were, says the celebrated writer, Scythi|ans from Spain, Scandia, or Germany. At one time he makes them the posterity of those Goths whom Constantine expel|led from Spain; at another time, they are a motley aggregate of many nations; and last of all they are descendants of those Britons who first possessed themselves of Ireland† 1.13.

* 1.14 It is idle, on this subject to listen to the tales of the Bards, annalists, and an|tiquariers of Ireland; they have been heard out and confuted. Innes is the only writer who has reduced the origin of the Scots into a regular system; and he endeavours to defend it. Should the in|genious father's scheme be destroyed, the Caledonian extraction of the Irish must of course rise upon its ruins. The Scots, says Innes, were foreigners who invaded or conquered Ireland in the first age of Christianity. Two kinds of proofs, ob|serves the ingenious father, are necessary to establish this proposition; the testimony of cotemporary writers, and the effects arising from such an invasion and con|quest.

* 1.15 In vain did Innes search for the testi|mony of writers to support the credit of this Hibernian revolution* 1.16. * 1.17 Diodorus Siculus, who mentions the Irish a little time before the Christian aera, says ex|pressly that they were Britons, who had derived their blood from the Gauls† 1.18; * 1.19 and Strabo, in the unfavourable account he gives of his cotemporaries of Ireland, gives no hint of the settlement of the Spaniards in that Island† 1.20.

* 1.21 The acrimony of Mela's¶ 1.22 observations on the national character of the Irish is a strong argument against the Cantabric descent of that nation. Mela himself was a Spaniard, he had some interest in the Gallaeci, and could not have been igno|rant of the Cantabric war. Had he learned, and had any such event happened it must have come to his knowledge, that, after all the efforts of Augustus in person, or by his lieutenants, Antistius, Furnius, Carisius, and Agrippa, the Cantabri col|lected a body of men, committed them|selves to the ocean, and seized upon Ire|land, from a natural partiality for his countrymen he would have treated the Irish with more decency and respect.

* 1.23 Cornelius Tacitus wrote the life of Agricola before the conclusion of the first age. Agricola had formed a plan to re|duce Ireland under the Roman yoke. The low idea that great commander en|tertained of the number and valor of the Irish is an unanswerable proof that the Cantabric descent of that nation is a mere fiction. Had any considerable body of those brave Spaniards, who fought against Augustus and his lieutenants, transmigrated into Ireland, Agricola could not suppose that a single legion was suf|ficient

to subjugate and maintain the conquest of that Island. It is idle, in short, to expect from Tacitus any support to Innes' Spanish system. The celebrated writer, from the best information,* 1.24, affirms, that the British and Hibernians were men of much the same genius and manners, and from that circumstance we may infer that the two nations derived their origin from one common source.

* 1.25 From the only favourable epithet be|stowed by Solinus† 1.26 on the Irish of the second or third age, Innes concludes that the Scots, a valiant body of foreigners, were settled among them before the time of that writer. It is difficult to com|prehend why a mixture of foreign blood should be necessary to make the Irish a warlike people. If the situation of their country secured them from invasion, the civil dissentions arising from their being divided into a number of petty septs would have undoubtedly kindled and preserved a martial spirit among them. But if a

colony from abroad was requisite to enti|tle the inhabitants of Ireland to the cha|racter of a brave race of men, it is more natural to suppose that some of the Bri|tons of the South, or of the Caledonians of the North, settled among them, than emigrants from Cantabria. Tacitus says, and indeed it is common sense, that many Britons fled into Ireland from the tyranny of the Romans.

* 1.27 Ptolemy, who wrote under the Anto|nines, has not once mentioned the Scots, though he is very minute with regard to inferior tribes settled in Ireland. The geographer found in the lesser Britain the Brigantes, Vellabori, Cauci, and Me|napii, but the redoubtable Scots of Can|tabria totally escaped his notice. Camden, willing to humour the Irish in their pre|tensions to a Spanish extract, has ob|served that the Lucensii and Concani were neighbours in Spain, as the Luceni and Gongani were in Hibernia. If this is an argument, others of the same kind and of equal force may be produced to oppose it. The Cauci and Menapii were neighbours in Germany, and so were tribes of the same name, according to Ptolemy, in Ireland. Shall we then bring some Irish tribes from Cantabria, others from Germany, transport the Brigantes from South Britain, and totally exclude all emigrants from Caledonia, which is with|in

a few leagues of the Irish shore? Camden's observation might have been extended further; the Iberians and Alba|nians were contiguous to one another in Asia; the Hibernians and Albanians pos|sessed the British Isles, divided from one another by a very narrow channel; and ought we from that circumstance to infer, that the Caledonians and Irish came from the shores of the Caspian?

* 1.28 In the days of Orosius the Irish were distinguished by the name of Scottish clans. Orosius does not say from whence these Scottish tribes transmigrated into Ireland. Though a Spaniard himself, he has not mentioned, in treating of the Cantabric war, a circumstance that would have done honour to his country; that a great body of the Cantabri, rather than submit to Augustus, or to skulk in moun|tains and desarts, or throw in despair their lives away like many of their countrymen, committed themselves to the Ocean, and acquired in Ireland better settlements than those for which they contended, with so much unavailing bravery against the Ro|mans.

* 1.29 Florus is another writer of Spanish ex|traction. He was evidently partial to the Cantabri, but he does not even furnish an obscure hint that either of the two warlike nations who were engaged in

the last Spanish war against the Romans, had, after their unsuccessful efforts to de|fend their liberty, found new settlements in the neighbouring ocean. The greatest part of the Cantabri, according to Florus, after being hard pressed both by sea and land, driven out of their fastnesses, hunted down like wild beasts, and, at last, in|closed within lines of circumvallation, rescued themselves from slavery by a vo|luntary death. A series of similar mis|fortunes pursued the Asturians; after having inclosed themselves within walls, they were taken by the armies of Rome, the whole nation were transplanted from their native mountains to the plain coun|try, and an end for ever put to Spanish insurrections.

* 1.30 In the whole history of the Cantabric war it is impossible to find a Spanish na|tion, hostile to the Romans, that were able to equip transports for a colony, escape the vigilance of the Roman navy, and numerous enough to conquer or peo|ple Ireland. In vain has Innes availed himself of a pretended analogy between the Biscayan dialect and the language of Ireland, to support his scheme of the Spanish extract of the Scots. That the most ancient inhabitants of Galicia were mixed with Celtes is a point sufficiently established by the authority of many of

the ancients* 1.31; and therefore that they originally spoke in part the same language with the Gaël who first transmigrated into Britain, may, from the circumstance of the descent common to both nations, be inferred. The sterility of the moun|tains of Galicia would never invite new settlers whom the bravery of the old in|habitants could not repel. They conse|quently remained an unmixed people, and the simplicity of their manners preserved their language from corruption. A simi|lar situation had a similar effect on the Scots of the British Isles. The north of Scotland received no colonies in any pe|riod that can be assigned; and the Irish remained, in a great measure, unmixed until the English conquest of their coun|try. But notwithstanding circumstances common to the Cantabri and the Scots of both our Isles, the language of the latter has less affinity with the modern Bis|cayan, than the English tongue has with

that of the Moguls of the eastern Tar|tary* 1.32.

Scandinavian Extraction of the Irish confuted.

* 1.33 If Innes had little reason to deduce the Scots from Spain, he had still less to de|rive them from any of the nations of Scandinavia. Neither he or Stillingfleet were able, with all their erudition, to sup|port a Scandinavian migration into Ireland, in the first age, by the authority of any cotemporary writer. One argument will be perhaps sufficient to destroy the credit of this part of the ingenious father's scheme. The language of the Scandina|vians, being a branch of the Sarmatic, is radically different from the Hibernian and British Galic. It must be acknowledged that the ancients sometimes distinguished the Germans, as well as those nations who inhabited beyond the Baltic, by the name of Scythians. But it is extremely puerile to infer, from the remote analogy between the name of Scythians and Scots, that the latter nation derived their blood either from the Germans or old Scandi|navians. The Danes, for a similar rea|son, might deduce themselves from the Danai of Greece; and the Caledonians of North Britain trace themselves to those of the same name in Aetolia.

* 1.34 Innes endeavours to support this branch of his system with other arguments.

"The Romans, says the ingenious wri|ter, after the conquest of Gaul found means to confine the Germans within their own territories. Being overstocked with numbers at home, they were obliged to put to sea, and try their fortune beyond the pale of the empire. The Germans, touching on the opposite shore of North Britain, were probably repulsed by the bravery of the Caledonians, upon which they steered their course to Ireland, and made a conquest of that country."

* 1.35 The legions of Rome it is certain frus|trated, for some time, the attempts which the Germans made to extend themselves towards the South. In the reign of Augustus they crossed the Rhine without success, and in that of Vespasian they aided, to no purpose, the rebellion of Claudius Civilis. When Domitian held the reins of government at Rome, the Germans attempted the conquest of Gaul, and they gave much trouble to many of his successors in the imperial dignity. The Romans, says Cornelius Tacitus* 1.36, rather triumphed over, than subdued, the Germans; the victories which the impe|rial armies gained in their country being

attended with more glory than any solid advantage. To prevent the incursions of enemies so formidable, the Romans had recourse to political expedients to weaken their power at home. Both Augustus and Tiberius concluded treaties with the Suevi and Sicambri, and transplanted them into the fertile provinces of Gaul.

* 1.37 It does not appear that Germany was o|verstocked with numbers, after the Roman legions had excluded their migrating ar|mies from Gaul. In the attempts of the Germans upon that country, in the reign of Augustus, they lost a great number of their bravest soldiers; and the expeditions of Drusus depopulated whole districts of their country. Tiberius was not less successful in Germany than his brother Drusus, nor his many victories less de|structive to the inhabitants of that coun|try* 1.38. After his accession to the imperial dignity, his nephew Germanicus, with eight legions supported by auxiliaries, ra|vaged all that tract of country, which lies between the Rhine and the Elbe, and made a general massacre of the whole nation of the Marsi. Germany, during that fatal period, was involved in civil wars. The ill-timed animosities between Arminius and Segestes, the ravages of Maroboduus,

and the invasion of the Romans, made it a scene of unparalleled miseries. It is therefore certain that Germany, in the first century, was more depopulated, than it was in any former or after period, if we except the time in which the Franks, Allemans, and Lombards, evacuated their territories to settle themselves in more fertile countries* 1.39.

* 1.40 It appears, upon the whole, that no colonies came to Ireland either from Spain or the North of Europe, between the commencement of the Christian aera, and the close of the third century, when the Scots are mentioned by Porphyrius for the first time. That the Scots came from either of those countries by a long voyage

to Ireland, prior to the first century, is sufficiently contradicted by the known barbarism of the old Hibernians, as well as of all other nations whom an inter|course with the Romans had not huma|nized. We must have recourse, in the last resort, to the Caledonian Britons for the genuine origin of the Irish. Their name of Gaël, their lan|guage, the conformity of their manners and customs with those of the old Britons, all concur in proving, beyond any possi|bility of reply, that the Irish are the posterity of the Gauls or Gaël, who. after having traversed the Island of Great Britain, passed over, in a very early pe|riod, into Ireland from the promontories of Galloway and Cantire.

Notes

• * 1.1

  General ob|servation.
• * 1.2

  Conclusions against the domestic accounts of the Irish.
• * 1.3

  Ken. Geneal. pref. p. 26.
• * 1.4

  History of Ireland commences with St. Patrick.
• * 1.5

  Spanish ex|traction of the Irish before the Christian aera
• * 1.6

  highly im|probable.
• * 1.7

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Strabo, lib. iii.
• † 1.8

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Diod. Sic. lib. v.
• * 1.9

  Dropt as in|defensible.
• * 1.10

  Innes' Critical Essay.
• * 1.11

  Vague con|clusions of English an|tiquaries.
• ‖ 1.12

  Stillingfleet, Orig. Britan.
• † 1.13

  Camden. Britan. in Scotis.
• * 1.14

  Innes' scheme.
• * 1.15

  Proofs from the ancients against it.
• * 1.16

  Innes' Critical Essay, p. 509.
• * 1.17

  Diodorus Siculus,
• † 1.18

  Ferocissimi Gallorum sunt, qui sub septemtrioni|bus habitant; dicunt ex iis nonnullos Anthropophagos esse, sicut Britannos qui Irin tenent. Diod. Sic. lib. v.
• * 1.19

  Strabo,
• † 1.20

  Strabo, lib. iii.
• * 1.21

  Pomponius Mela,
• ¶ 1.22

  Pomponius Mela, lib. iii.
• * 1.23

  Tacitus,
• * 1.24

  Saepe ex eo (Agricola vel ipso Hiberno; nonnulli enim existimant C. Tacitum in Caledonia militasse) audivi, legione una et modicis auxiliis debellari obtinerique Hiberniam posse. Tacit. Vit. Agric. cap. 24.

  Agri|cola expulsum seditione domestica, unum ex regulis gentis (Hibernicae) exceperat, ac specie amicitiae in oc|casionem retinebat. Tacit. Vit. Agric. cap. 24.
• * 1.25

  Solinus.
• † 1.26

  Hibernia inhumana ritu incolarum aspera. Gens inhospita et bellicosa: ••as et ne••as eodem animo ducunt. Solin. cap. 36.
• * 1.27

  Ptolomy.
• * 1.28

  Orosius,
• * 1.29

  Florus
• * 1.30

  The Irish not a Spa|nish colony proved from their lan|guage.
• * 1.31

  Ephorus ingenti magnitudine facit Celticam; quod illi (scilicet Celtae) pleraque ejus Terrae, quam nunc Iberiam vocamus, loca usque ad Gades tenuerint. Strabo, lib. iv.

  Galli occidua usque ad Gades inco|lunt secundum Eratosthenem. Strabo, lib. ii.

  Hi (Celtiberi) duo enim populi lberes et Celtae. Diod. Sic. lib. v.

  Martial, speaking to Lucius, of Spain their common country, says,

  Nos Celtis genitos. Martial Epig.

  Gallorum Celtae miscentes nomen Iberis. Lucan, lib. vi.

  Venere Celtae sociati nomen Iberiss Silius Ital. lib. iii.

  Vid. Appian. Hisp.
• * 1.32

  That the language of the mountaineers of Gali|cia, and that part of Spain which stretches along the Bay of Biscay, bears a near analogy to the language of the old Irish, has been an axiom universally admitted. This has been the last resort, the unanswerable argu|ment, to which all the Irish antiquaries have referred the certainty of the Spanish extraction of their nation. Unfortunately for the old Hibernian system, a dictio|nary of the Biscayan language is, at this moment, in the possession of the Author of the Introduction, and he publickly declares that there is less affinity between the Biscayan and Irish languages, than between the latter and the tongue of the most distant nations in the eastern Asia. The curious may satisfy themselves upon this head by looking into Diccionario Trilingue del Castel|lano BASCUENCE y' Latin, written by the Padre Ma|nuel de Larramendi, and printed in 1745 at St. Sebastians. This discovery seems to confirm the opinion of Varro, who, as he is cited by Pliny, insinuates that the Iberi|ans of Spain were of African origin. The language of the modern Biscayans, it is certain, bears no affinity to the other European tongues, which are radically de|scended from the ancient Celtic. The name of Iberi|ans given to them in contradistinction to the Celtae is a proof of their being a different people. Lucan seems to insinuate this fact in a line already quoted; Gallo|rum Celtae miscentes nomen Iberis; and the Venere Celtae sociati nomen Iberis of Silius Italicus, together with the express testimony of Diodorus Siculus and Appian, confirms the opinion.
• * 1.33

  Pretended Scandina|vian descent of the Irish confuted.
• * 1.34

  Innes' visio|onary argu|ment
• * 1.35

  from the population of Germany
• * 1.36

  Proximis temporibus triumphati magis quam victi. Tacit. de Mor. Germ. cap. 37.
• * 1.37

  confuted.
• * 1.38

  Velleius Paterculus, lib. i.
• * 1.39

  It must be confessed that several tribes in the North-East angle of Scotland have preserved in their traditions, and the genealogical histories of their fami|lies, pretensions to a German origin. The Clancattin, or the tribe of Catti, consisting of a great variety of branches, the most numerous of which are the Mac|phersans, Mackintoshes, and Sutherlands, affirm, with one consent, that the famous Catti of ancient Ger|many were their ancestors. Though this opinion very probably took its rise from an identity of names, it is far from being unlikely that some Celto-Germanic tribes transmigrated, at different times, into that part of Britain which was not subject to the Romans; but it is morally impossible that a migration, sufficient to people Caledonia and Ireland, could have happened, without falling within the knowledge of the writers of Rome, who certainly extended their enquiries to the transactions of the wild nations on the frontiers of the empire.
• * 1.40

  The Irish descended of the Bri|tish Gaël.