Romans lack of Interest in ireland

pedroeibar1 · 22-04-2012 10:46am

Correction on the dye industry -
Wiki has a piece here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whelk#cite_ref-6

It seems that the Irish whelk has similar properties to its warm-water cousin:
The dog-whelk can be used to produce red-purple and violet dyes, like its Mediterranean relations the spiny dye-murex. In Ireland, on the island of Inishkea North, Co. Mayo, archaeologists found a whelk-dyeing workshop, dated to the 7th century AD, complete with a small, presumed vat, and a pile of broken-open dog-whelk shells.
Source given as
Henry, F., 1952. A wooden hut on Inishkea North, Co. Mayo (Site 3, House A). Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 82: 163-178.

Solair · 22-04-2012 10:57am

I'd say it was largely timing and lack of serious maritime ability, the Mediterranean is like a warm swimming pool compared to the Irish Sea and North Atlantic which are proper seriously rough scary seas.

Crossing to Ireland wasn't easy in those days, unless you were hardened sea fairers like the Vikings were.

Also, the only short crossing, was in hostile Scotland.

They got to Britain at a time when them empire was already overstretched and beginning to in decline.

nuac · 22-04-2012 11:26am

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Correction on the dye industry -
Wiki has a piece here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whelk#cite_ref-6

It seems that the Irish whelk has similar properties to its warm-water cousin:
The dog-whelk can be used to produce red-purple and violet dyes, like its Mediterranean relations the spiny dye-murex. In Ireland, on the island of Inishkea North, Co. Mayo, archaeologists found a whelk-dyeing workshop, dated to the 7th century AD, complete with a small, presumed vat, and a pile of broken-open dog-whelk shells.
Source given as
Henry, F., 1952. A wooden hut on Inishkea North, Co. Mayo (Site 3, House A). Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 82: 163-178.

Thanks Pedroeiber

the reference I recall mentioned that the purple dye was exported from the Inishkeas to Rome ( for the Togas ?) so it must have been earlier than the 7th Century

pedroeibar1 · 22-04-2012 12:04pm

Solair wrote: »

..... the Mediterranean is like a warm swimming pool compared to the Irish Sea and North Atlantic which are proper seriously rough scary seas.

Clearly you never sailed in the Med! Levanters, Poniente's, Tramontanas, Mistrals, etc. Not to mention the williwaws that come out of nowhere. In a full gale the Med has a short steep sea, rather like the Irish Sea; the Atlantic has a much longer wavelength that is easier on ship and crew alike.

Enkidu · 22-04-2012 2:12pm

slowburner wrote: »

That would not be a strong point of mine, Enkidu, but Martin was from Sligo

Thanks, I was wondering with Cha. The rest of the grammar was Connacht, but the Cha made it look Northern.

dubhthach · 22-04-2012 4:35pm

Enkidu wrote: »

Thanks, I was wondering with Cha. The rest of the grammar was Connacht, but the Cha made it look Northern.

Given the transitional nature of North Mayo dialects (also tied in from historic migration from Donegal). It wouldn't surprise me if the Sligo dialectic were quite close to those of Donegal. After all we do see plenty of times with the Ó Domhnaill doing "power-projection" into Sligo/North Connacht during medieval era.

grenache · 25-04-2012 3:33am

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

I’ve always believed that Cruach is a pointed hill

That was always my understanding of the word too - my home village in West Limerick is Croagh. Now, the Irish for it is either Cruach (little hill or ridge) or Cróch (meaning saffron or gold). The village itself is in the flattest part of the Golden Vale, so i don't believe it was named after a some local non existant hill. So either buttercups were prominent in the area or else there was some serious hoards of gold in the village abbey.

slowburner · 25-04-2012 10:44am

grenache wrote: »

That was always my understanding of the word too - my home village in West Limerick is Croagh. Now, the Irish for it is either Cruach (little hill or ridge) or Cróch (meaning saffron or gold). The village itself is in the flattest part of the Golden Vale, so i don't believe it was named after a some local non existant hill. So either buttercups were prominent in the area or else there was some serious hoards of gold in the village abbey.

Croagh is not a million miles from Ardagh, of chalice fame.
Across the estuary too, near Newmarket on Fergus there was the Mooghaun hoard. This was probably the largest gold hoard ever found on this island. It was found when workers were digging for the railway between Limerick and Ennis in 1854. Very little of it survived in its original form: most was sold and melted down. It was said that workers were seen leaving with wheelbarrows full of gold. Four men were reputed to have gone to America with £6,000 pounds worth of gold each - a tidy sum in 1854. Only 29 of the original 146 pieces displayed by the Royal Irish Academy in that year, survive.

slowburner · 25-04-2012 11:18am

Tighernmas (sp.?) is also credited with being the first to dye cloth purple.

'It was Tighearmas first established in Ireland the art of dying cloth of purple and other colours, and the ornamenting of drinking cups, and goblets, and breast pins for mantles, of gold and silver.'

{From a poem by 'Flan of the Monastery of Bute', in the 'Book of Lecan' circa 1050.
In R. Rolt Brash. Precious Metals and Ancient Mining in Ireland. 1878}

I seem to remember that the reason for the conical nature of these mountains is to do with the hardness of the their constituent bedrock - quartz, and quartz is generally associated with deposits of gold.
Tighernmas, gold, Cruagh/Croagh, purple dye and the Phoenicians.
Very interesting indeed.

pedroeibar1 · 25-04-2012 12:05pm

slowburner wrote: »

Four men were reputed to have gone to America with £6,000 pounds worth of gold each - a tidy sum in 1854. Only 29 of the original 146 pieces displayed by the Royal Irish Academy in that year, survive.

Interesting story, no doubt much exaggerated. In 1854 the average weekly wage of an agricultural labourer was about 10 shillings*; a general labourer got about one third more and a clergyman got about £270 p.a**. On that basis £6k is the equivalent of 22 years salary for the latter, or several lifetimes for a labourer. The gold sum is easy. In 1717 Sir Isaac Newton, as master of the Mint, set the gold price at £3.17s. 10d. per troy ounce and it remained at that price (+/-) for a couple of centuries. If the Claremen each had £6k, it amounted to 1538 troy ounces or almost 48 kilos each. Not far off Euro 3 million in today’s money.

Terrible what happened at the RIA.

*Department of Employment and Productivity 1981 British Labour Statistics: Historical Abstracts, 1886-1968
**Williamson 1982 The Structure of Pay in Britain, 1710-Research in Economic History, 7.

grenache wrote: »

..........my home village in West Limerick is Croagh. Now, the Irish for it is either Cruach (little hill or ridge) or Cróch (meaning saffron or gold). ..........So either buttercups were prominent in the area or else there was some serious hoards of gold in the village abbey.

Saffron is from the stigma of the crocus flower, from the Greek ‘krokos’ meaning saffron or yellow. With 3 stigmas per flower it takes 75,000 flowers (225,000 stigmas) to make one pound of saffron. ( See http://faculty.ucc.edu/biology-ombrello/pow/saffron.htm ). As they grow on dry hillsides I’d go with your buttercups;)

slowburner · 25-04-2012 1:35pm

I don't know how exaggerated the story is, but here's a screenshot of the original passage, it's from a communication to the Ulster Journal of Archaeology, vol ix, p.42 made by John Windele, I think in the year of the hoard's discovery.
The amount of priceless prehistoric/historic artifacts which have been melted down over the years is absolutely mind boggling.

grenache · 27-04-2012 4:06am

slowburner wrote: »

Croagh is not a million miles from Ardagh, of chalice fame.

That's fascinating about the hoard in Newmarket, those Clare boys don't miss a trick. It's funny you should make mention of Ardagh, my mother hails from there. My father always teases her that she "moved to the civilised world" when she came to Croagh. To which she always replies "yeah but like the monks you needed to go to Ardagh to strike gold"

slowburner · 06-05-2012 11:44am

nuac wrote: »

It's ancient name was Cruachán Aigle =? Eagle mountain.

A similar early reference to Croagh Patrick here below - Cruachangeli. From The Works of Gildas and Nennius. Trans. J.A.Giles. 1841

books?id=3R1mCE7p44MC&pg=RA1-PA31&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U2-YT3x8CS15xCziEkl5t2BlYQzJg&ci=95%2C518%2C750%2C876&edge=0

nuac · 06-05-2012 12:22pm

Thanks for the quotation Slowburner.

About the figures Clew Bay is reputed to have 365 islands. Would have to count a lot of rocks as islands to get to that figure.

Tradition locally is that he did consecrate a bishop at Aughagower, which was then the nearest centre to Croagh Patrick. Aughagower was on the old pre-christian route from Croaghan Roscommon

Romans lack of Interest in ireland

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