Romans in Wicklow

MarchDub

CDfm wrote: »

Funny ol thing history, as it suggest's pre-Patrician/Palladian Christians and that they did not follow Rome.

And to be accurate it took some time for Rome to really care.

It was the Gregorian Reforms beginning in the eleventh century that attempted to reign it all in.

Wibbs

gbee wrote: »

We'd have been very much like Britain, very few snakes, it's unlikely we never had any, our islands were connected in the past and connected to Europe and at the time of sea rise, both were separated from each other and from Europe at the same time ~ our ecology would have been the same ~ ergo we should have had snakes like Britain has today.

Nope. Not since the ice ages started anyway and the last one ended. No human in Ireland has seen a wild Irish snake. We don't have moles either. Rabbits, the house mouse and brown rat are all later arrivals. The builders of Clonmacnoise would have never seen a rabbit.

slowburner

Isn't it odd though, that we have lizards and slow worms (?) but no snakes.
Quamobrem, as Palladius might have said?

Wibbs

We don't have slow worms either, just the common lizard. Even the frog may be a more recent import. We had a very low biodiversity, in flora and fauna compared to Europe and even the UK. They were joined for much longer to the european mainland.

slowburner

I have a dim memory that there were slow worms in the Burren?
Presumably, it was the Normans who introduced le frog?

slowburner

Wibbs wrote: »

Interestingly a Roman writer, either Strabo or Tacitus can't recall who, noted the lack of snakes in their description of Ireland. So the Roman or pre Christian world knew we were snake free. Likely contemporaries of Patrick did too which would suggest the whole Paddy kicked the snakes out as being a much later invention. IE if you said to a contemporary of Patrick or soon after "he threw the snakes out, you know" they'd scratch their head and tell you there were none to start with.

Here's as much as I could find from Tacitus and Strabo on Ireland; they don't mention snakes but it's good reading all the same.
Could there be a third Roman writer?
From here (Tacitus)

24. In the fifth year of the war Agricola, himself in the leading ship, crossed the Clota, and subdued in a series of victories tribes hitherto unknown. In that part of Britain which looks towards Ireland, he posted some troops, hoping for fresh conquests rather than fearing attack, inasmuch as Ireland, being between Britain and Spain and conveniently situated for the seas round Gaul, might have been the means of connecting with great mutual benefit the most powerful parts of the empire. Its extent is small when compared with Britain, but exceeds the islands of our seas. In soil and climate, in the disposition, temper, and habits of its population, it differs but little from Britain. We know most of its harbours and approaches, and that through the intercourse of commerce. One of the petty kings of the nation, driven out by internal faction, had been received by Agricola, who detained him under the semblance of friendship till he could make use of him. I have often heard him say that a single legion with a few auxiliaries could conquer and occupy Ireland, and that it would have a salutary effect on Britain for the Roman arms to be seen everywhere, and for freedom, so to speak, to be banished from its sight.

Presumably "the petty king" is Tuathal Tectmar's father.
And from here (Strabo)

3 The Deified Caesar crossed over to the island twice, although he came back in haste, without accomplishing anything great or proceeding far into the island, not only on account of the quarrels that took place in the land of the Celti, among the barbarians and his own soldiers as well,148 but also on account of the fact that many of his ships had been lost at the time of the full moon, since the ebb-tides and the flood-tides got their increase at that time.149 However, he won two or three victories over the Britons, albeit he carried along only two legions of his army; and he brought back hostages, slaves, and quantities of the rest of the booty. At present, however, some of the chieftains there, after procuring the friendship of Caesar Augustus by sending embassies and by paying court to him,150 have not only dedicated offerings in the Capitol, but have also managed to make the whole of the island virtually Roman p259property. Further, they submit so easily to heavy duties, both on the exports from there to Celtica and on the imports from Celtica (these latter are ivorya chains and necklaces, and amber-gems151 and glass vessels and other petty wares of that sort), that there is no need of garrisoning the island; for one legion, at the least, and some cavalry would be required in order to carry off tribute from them, and the expense of the army would offset the tribute-money;152 201in fact, the duties must necessarily be lessened if tribute is imposed, and, at the same time, dangers be encountered, if force is applied.

So it would seem there was Roman notion that it was not financially feasible to invade Ireland.
These Islanders were a nasty lot viz.

4 Besides some small islands round about Britain, there is also a large island, Ierne,153 which stretches parallel to Britain on the north, its breadth being greater than its length.154 Concerning this island I have nothing certain to tell, except that its inhabitants are more savage155 than the Britons, since they are man-eaters as well as heavy eaters,156 and since, further, they count it an honourable thing, when their fathers die, to devour them, and openly to have intercourse, not only with the other women, but also with their mothers and sisters; but I am saying this only with the understanding that I have no trustworthy p261witnesses for it; and yet, as for the matter of man-eating, that is said to be a custom of the Scythians also, and, in cases of necessity forced by sieges, the Celti,157 the Iberians,158 and several other peoples are said to have practised it.159

Enkidu

Wibbs wrote: »

Nope. Not since the ice ages started anyway and the last one ended. No human in Ireland has seen a wild Irish snake. We don't have moles either. Rabbits, the house mouse and brown rat are all later arrivals. The builders of Clonmacnoise would have never seen a rabbit.

Donkeys aren't native either. All this and more to be found in a book that's surprisingly interesting despite its name: "Early Irish Farming" by Fergus Kelly. Some crazy stuff in that book, e.g. The Ancient Bards had to know a selection of law poems dictating the treatment of cats, including the proclamation that the meone, the mighty cat that mews, is worth two cows.

slowburner

While you're here Enkidu - what do you think of the latin/Roman relation to names like Templemichael, Templepatrick etc.?

Enkidu

Also the stories of St. Patrick have to be taken with a grain of salt the size of Ireland itself. Some of the Annals say that:

1. Patrick, when under assault from assassins sent by the druids, summoned living wood from the ground to crush the assassins by wrapping around them like a boa constrictor.

2. He challenged God for the right to judge the Irish instead of God. This he did by starving himself on Crough Patrick, which brought bad luck to God (figure that one out), and God sent demon birds to test him, which Patrick defeated with his giant bell. In the end, Patrick won't concede unless God allows him to judge the Irish in stead of God. God finally relents after all creatures (including the invisible ones) and the twelve apostles beg him to give Patrick what he wants. This is the real reason for the fasting on Crough Patrick.

3. When Patrick attacks the druids it is said that the clouds recede as he approaches and "mighty music" blasts out from above his head as angels of war accompany him to Tara. At the giant battle of Tara (which is pretty crazy itself, but I won't go into it), when one of the druids attempts to fly away from the battle, Patrick makes a hand gesture and the druid is flung from the air into a rock.

4. Patrick also battles demons and has his "favourite bard" eaten by the Oilliphéist, a giant lake beast from Offaly, who creates the Shannon

5. Finally some of the Fianna, who are semi-immortal, Caílte mac Rónáin and Oisín, meet Patrick as they have survived to his time. The three team up and go on a series of adventures throughout Ireland.

6. Finally in some stories Patrick meets with, and is quite friendly to, some Celtic gods.

In the Annals, all of this is treated as completely accurate history. It also exists alongside genuine accurate material, such as Patrick's own writings in the Cathach.

Enkidu

slowburner wrote: »

While you're here Enkidu - what do you think of the latin/Roman relation to names like Templemichael, Templepatrick etc.?

I've a bit to say on that, but first I'll gather all the Roman stuff on Ireland that I have, just so people can see the full extent of the Romans knew and did. It will be easier to comment on it in the context of that material.

slowburner

Enkidu wrote: »

I've a bit to say on that, but first I'll gather all the Roman stuff on Ireland that I have, just so people can see the full extent of the Romans knew and did. It will be easier to comment on it in the context of that material.

Looking forward to it, your stuff is always fascinating.

Enkidu

P. Breathnach wrote: »

First, because the roots seem to be Latin, rather than that it is established that they actually are.

Second, because the people of ancient Ireland might have been the greatest borrowers of language any place, any time. They (we?) adopted a Celtic language and culture without being genetically a Celtic people. So what do a few Latinate words signify in that vast sea of borrowing?

First of all, several places across Europe borrowed languages as much as we did. Most of Europe is not that strongly genetically Indo-European, except central and eastern Europe on the male line only and India isn't remotely genetically Indo-European. However from Donegal to Dehli we all speak Indo-European languages.

Secondly borrowed Latin words still signify a lot, they indicate the arrival of Latin culture and if borrowed early enough indicate a Roman presence earlier than we may have thought. Often, at such an early date, language is one of the primary means of accessing history.

Of course I realise this is not intuitively obvious.

Enkidu

slowburner wrote: »

Looking forward to it, your stuff is always fascinating.

Thanks!:D There'll be a strong linguistic bent to it, but I'll use a lot of Roman and Greek sources as well. Trust me, you'll be surprised.

slowburner

Enkidu wrote: »

Thanks!:D There'll be a strong linguistic bent to it, but I'll use a lot of Roman and Greek sources as well. Trust me, you'll be surprised.

I'd expect nothing less from you Enkidu

slowburner

Wibbs wrote: »

OK lets imagine Romans were here, maybe a small garrison say. Then there are a couple of mysteries. Chief among them is pottery/ceramics. Ireland was unusual in one way we had very little of a ceramics based culture here at the time(IIRC a small amount in the north east?). Thy have found the odd ceramics but they're imported and in small number, no indigenous production. You would expect that if the Romans were here in any sort of numbers.

The second is building technique. The Irish vernacular has a very long continuity to it, from iron age and before and small evolutions of that. Round houses and round buildings, roughly dressed rock with corbeled stone roofs. Some with crude mortar like round towers, others dry stone walling. In some the expertise with the material is sublime. But stand in a later monks cell on the Skelligs and look up, then go to Newgrange and look up and the view is very similar yet separated by 4000 years. You see more of that lack of Roman/European influence with the monastic sites later on. It takes a long time before the simple Roman arch comes in. The early sites and round towers are lintelled. They're aware of arches, indeed carve arches into lintels, but of the technique itself strangely reluctant to change what they've always done. And this is when Ireland was collecting books on everything they could get their monkish hands on.

It does seem odd to me that if there were anything like a small garrison/trading town of Roman origins, they didn't take up pottery, building techniques, writing(at that stage) and other Roman fancies.

Re-reading this (and to keep things alive until Enkidu comes back) I will go out on a limb and state my own theory.
The Romans did not invade Ireland in exactly the same way as the Americans did not invade Vietnam prior to the outbreak of full scale war there (think 'military advisors'). Just as those American advisors left no traces, so too with the Romans - as far as we know at this time.

gbee

slowburner wrote: »

- as far as we know at this time.

BUT, advisers for whom?

CDfm

I agree with you it would be odd if a few romans in trading vessels didn't take a peak.

Deserters or mutineers etc may have come to Ireland too but to invade there would have needed to be something they wanted or a threat.

Is there any evidence of Irish trade in anything that the Roman's might have wanted ? Any pirates ?

There could have been topographical/terrain reasons why the Romans did not invade.

No town's , was there lots of forestry coverage was where their armies were vulnerable, I can understand invading Britain for its mineral wealth etc but Ireland was not as accessable.

Really what we are looking at is iron age Ireland.

slowburner

Apart from some dodgy geography, Tacitus is clear about the potential value of Ireland.

24. In that part of Britain which looks towards Ireland, he posted some troops, hoping for fresh conquests rather than fearing attack, inasmuch as Ireland, being between Britain and Spain and conveniently situated for the seas round Gaul, might have been the means of connecting with great mutual benefit the most powerful parts of the empire. Its extent is small when compared with Britain, but exceeds the islands of our seas. In soil and climate, in the disposition, temper, and habits of its population, it differs but little from Britain. We know most of its harbours and approaches, and that through the intercourse of commerce.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/tac/ag01020.htm

As to resources which might have been of interest to the Romans - Avoca (or Oboka according to Ptlolomy) might very well be the spot. Rich mineral resources were almost certainly there (copper, lead and zinc and possibly gold) and access from Wales would have been easy. It is possible that sea levels were slightly higher then, which would have made the river navigable for a greater distance inland than it is today.
If there was commerce between Romans in Wales and the Irish, traces would be hard, if not impossible to find for two reasons: 1. transport may have occurred along a river prone to violent flooding 2. 200 years of intensive mining activity has probably obliterated any terrestrial evidence. To give an idea of the scale, one of the spoil heaps is known as Mount Platt.[Embedded Image Removed]

slowburner

And then there is the matter of Boudica.
The Romans were on a pogrom against the Druids whom they believed were the most significant threat to the empire in Britain. The Romans under the command of Suetonius Paullinus were moving steadily westward but were compelled to retreat to Colchester to support the legions against the rampaging Boudica.

Far to the west, Suetonius Paullinus, the governor of Britannia, was in Mona (Anglesey) just off the coast of northern Wales. The island was a sanctuary for refugees, as well as an important religious center for the Druids, and Paullinus, despite Roman tolerance for native religions, was determined to subdue it. "For it was their religion to drench their altars in the blood of prisoners and consult their gods by means of human entrails." Tacitus describes in the Annals what happened. "The enemy lined the shore in a dense armed mass. Among them were black-robed women with disheveled hair like Furies, brandishing torches. Close by stood Druids, raising their hands to heaven and screaming dreadful curses." Uncertain at the spectacle, the Roman forces hesitated but then pressed forward, slaughtering all those before them. The island was garrisoned and the sacred groves of trees, their altars red with blood, cut down.
Hearing of the rebellion, Paullinus rushed to Londinium with Legio XIV and detachments of Legio XX, sending the cavalry on ahead, with orders for Legio II at Exeter to meet him there. But, inexplicitly, the camp commander refused and, when Paullinus finally arrived in Londinium, he realized that, with the defeat of Legio IX, there were too few troops to defend it. The town, the most populous in Britain, was abandoned, and those who could not accompany the retreating army left to be slaughtered by the rebels. Nearby Verulamium (St. Albans) suffered the same fate.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/britannia/boudica/boudicanrevolt.html

How much further west would Paullinus have gone, if his pogrom had not been cut short?

slowburner

Enkidu wrote: »

Thanks!:D There'll be a strong linguistic bent to it, but I'll use a lot of Roman and Greek sources as well. Trust me, you'll be surprised.

Wherefore art thou? Just came across this in relation to the townlands hereabouts prefixed with 'Temple'

The word temple derives from Latin templum, whose original meaning was 'viewing-space'.
This space or platform was in early- and pre-Roman times not for viewing celestial bodies,
but for viewing birds - birdwatching. For augury (from a proto-Latin word for 'bird') was practised
by observing the flight of birds (often geese) [FONT=Bookman Old Style, Book Antiqua]at prescribed times, or before taking important decisions.
Augury was practised by augurs, who would then inaugurate proceedings or actions.[/FONT]
[FONT=Bookman Old Style, Book Antiqua]It seems more than likely that prehistoric tombs and stone circles were templa for some kind or kinds
of augury, whether celestial or avian. Or even the interpretation of clouds[/FONT]

From here
http://www.irishmegaliths.org.uk/seanchlocha4.htm

CDfm

24. In that part of Britain which looks towards Ireland, he posted some troops, hoping for fresh conquests rather than fearing attack, inasmuch as Ireland, being between Britain and Spain and conveniently situated for the seas round Gaul, might have been the means of connecting with great mutual benefit the most powerful parts of the empire. Its extent is small when compared with Britain, but exceeds the islands of our seas. In soil and climate, in the disposition, temper, and habits of its population, it differs but little from Britain



We know most of its harbours and approaches, and that through the intercourse of commerce.

Did I see maps from this era and what has come up in the way of other archaelogy from the era to Ireland.

Like, were there migrations to Ireland or to other areas's beyond the reach of the empire ?

slowburner

Dunno CD, what maps might these be? The only one I can think of is Ptolomy's.
As to where there have been archaeological finds with Roman connections, I don't have a list to hand but there's the above mentioned Drumanagh (Loughshinny), Lambay island, Bray (not too sure about this one), Stoneyford in Kilkenny, Cashel and one or two others in the North.

CDfm

Well, of course ,the Romans were hardly going to make a big deal about it if they got their asses kicked, they were hardly going to write about it.

So , other the Romans, who were the Irish in contact with that traveled to/from Ireland at that time.

Enkidu

I need to do a bit of background in this post, about the Celtic world in ancient times and the Romans. A word given as “*word” indicates a reconstructed word. These are words not found in any written manuscript, but deduced from sound laws and other forms of linguistic analysis.

First things first, I use Celts, not as a name for an ethnic group, but as the name for any group of peoples who lived in Ancient Europe and spoke what we now call Celtic languages. All these languages share common features and originate from a language known as Proto-Celtic, which was spoken in Austria, the Czech republic and the Swiss plateau. The people who spoke Proto-Celtic are known today as the Halstatt culture. Somehow Halstatt culture spread the whole way through France, Northern Spain, Northern Italy, Slovenia, Ireland and Britain. How this occurred is not fully understood, however the archaeological record in Britain and France shows that it was not primarily through violent invasion. In some way it is related to the Celts being the the first European society to use iron. It probably involved a combination of trade and non-violent population movement. The real difficulty is deciding how much of each was involved in any given location. For example, it was probably mostly trade in Ireland and mostly population movement in France.

Around the fifth century B.C. The Halstatt peoples began to trade increasingly with the Greeks and Etruscans and became more Mediterranean in terms of their material culture. At this point the Halstatt power center shifts south and the culture changes to become some sort of “Mediterranean Celtic”. This new culture is known as the La Tène culture. Eventually this “update” of Celtic culture radiates out into the rest of Celtic territory: France, Switzerland, Northern Italy, e.t.c.

However the update never occurred in the British Isles, were people remained Halstatt Celtic materially. This is obvious from the fact that Halstatt artifacts in Ireland are the same as those on the continent, but La Tène artifacts are crude attempts that don't match their continental versions in quality.
In Northern Spain the update sort of half occurred.

As for the people themselves, we know now that all Celts on the continent knew themselves as Celts or “Keltoí”. This is used both by the Greeks and Romans and also by the Celts of Switzerland, France and Spain to refer to themselves. It has a secure derivation from Proto-Celtic as *keltos, probably meaning noble ones. All continental Celts knew themselves as *keltos or whatever *keltos became in their language.

However the inhabitants of the British Isles, although they spoke a Celtic language, did not call themselves *keltos. This is interesting as it suggests that continental Celts saw themselves as the Halstatt people, just living in a different location, since they continued to use *keltos. In contrast the people on the British Isles did not see themselves as Celts, they just spoke a Celtic language. Tied into this is the fact that Celtic Ireland and Britain did not see themselves as part as part of one Celtic culture.

Hence Ireland and Britain viewed themselves as separate cultures to each other and the continent. Although we know the languages were Celtic linguistically and hence there was some Halstatt cultural influence, the two islands most likely never came to see themselves as Halstatt peoples.

Now, to move toward the Romans. Britain was known as Bretannikaí Nesoi, to the Greeks. Probably since as far back as the writings of Pythias of Massilia in the 4th century B.C. The word Bretannikaí is a Greek attempt to pronounce the original Celtic word K(w)riten, meaning cut-off. This is reasonable, since we can imagine the original Halstatt Celts coming to the island of Britain, which they saw was cut-off from the continent. The native peoples of the island were the *K(w)ritenoi in the Proto-Celtic language, “The cut-off ones”. The strange thing is that this became the name for everybody on the island shortly after the Celts arrived. The fact that the people on the island continued to call themselves K(w)ritenoi, even after the Celts arrived, indicates that the Celts didn't really replace the original people. Most people remained genetically the native population and continued to think of themselves as such, not as the *keltos who brought the language. K(w)ritenoi became Prydyn as the Celtic language changed and Prydyn is the origin of the Latin “Britanni”, which gives our word Britain.

In Ireland, very early on, K(w)ritenoi was also the Celtic word for the natives. As Celtic changed in Ireland this word became Cruithin.

In both islands this word was later replaced by another word as an ethynoym. In both cases the word remained only as an ethynnoym for people in the extreme north of both Islands, who we'd call the Picts today, possibly because they were seen as the most native. (Or maybe, ironically, because they came to be seen as the least native, since they never spoke Celtic, but kept speaking an indigenous language.)

In Britain it was replaced by *Combrog-os “sharers of territory”, which is the origin of the modern Welsh “Cymry”. However this happened quite late, after Roman occupation.

Ireland is quite a different story.

First the original name of the island itself was probably a native word *Iweryu, of which we know no meaning since it is not Celtic. In Ireland itself this altered into Eweriyon (since Iweryu would have been difficult for a Celt to pronounce), which evolved into our modern Éireann.
In Britain, the Celts had a different accent and *Iweryu became Iweryon. This is the name they told to Greeks about the island to their west and the Greeks pronounced it as Ierne. When the Romans saw Ierne, they made a pun based on their own word for winter obtaining “Hibernia”.

The Celtic word for the natives was probably K(w)ritenoi, which became Cruithin, as mentioned above and this may have been used in some way to refer to most people on the island early on. This was very quickly replaced by a different word “skotas” based on the native (non-Celtic) word for flower. The Skotas became the name for the ruling, Celtic-speaking Elite in Ireland. Those under them became known as Attaskotas “Servents/Vassals of the Skottas”. Possibly (Probably?) the Skotas were the true Celts arriving from Britain and the Attaskottas the natives.

It's interesting that in Britain everybody came to call themselves the Celtic word for the natives, where as in Ireland everybody came to know themselves by a Celtic social marker. Although on neither island did the Celts keep calling themselves *keltos.

Now, we know from Roman records that the Romans kept calling Ireland Hibernia and the peoples in it Hibernians or Britanni until the 4th centruy A.D. When all of a sudden they start calling the nobles Scotti and the lower classes Attascotti. These words are obviously a Roman borrowing of the Irish words above. The common opinion of this is that it represents the point when the Romans actually encountered the Irish properly, instead of through British stories and the occasional boat visit. Hence any proper Roman settlement in Ireland could probably not date earlier than this, which may be relevant to slowburner's enquiries.

With the necessary linguistic background now in place, I can discuss original Roman sources on the Irish and their place in the Roman army in the next post.

slowburner

Magnificent Enkidu.

CDfm

slowburner wrote: »

Magnificent Enkidu.

+1

The linguistics is amazing and I almost never understand that stuff but this I did.

slowburner

It is utterly crucial to understand just how much linguistics and etymology can tell us about our history and prehistory.
Quite simply, the words we use everyday, are living history.
The history is within me and it's within you, like it or not.

When you see the subject elucidated by a scholar of this calibre, you begin to feel precisely the same emotional link with the past which an archaeologist must feel upon revealing a personal artifact from a person who lived thousands of years ago.
We undoubtedly take language and words for granted, but with scholarly insight, both can reveal so many things we have forgotten.

pedroeibar1

Enkidu wrote: »

.......This is the name they told to Greeks about the island to their west and the Greeks pronounced it as Ierne. When the Romans saw Ierne, they made a pun based on their own word for winter obtaining “Hibernia”.
<snip<
Now, we know from Roman records that the Romans kept calling Ireland Hibernia and the peoples in it Hibernians or Britanni until the 4th centruy A.D. When all of a sudden they start calling the nobles Scotti and the lower classes Attascotti. These words are obviously a Roman borrowing of the Irish words above. The common opinion of this is that it represents the point when the Romans actually encountered the Irish properly, instead of through British stories and the occasional boat visit. Hence any proper Roman settlement in Ireland could probably not date earlier than this, which may be relevant to slowburner's enquiries.

.

Fascinating post, but it seems a bit hard to accept that the Romans never properly encountered the Irish until the 4th c. .. Caesar did have some strange notions about this place (De Bello Gallico, V) but the Romans were familiar with Anglesea and regularly it is possible to see Ireland from N. Wales (given correct atmospheric conditions) so the comments on our winter would have been proven incorrect. After Caesar's comments in 55BC, surely 300+ years of slave trading, raids, piracy, etc, would have led to more than just an 'occasional boat visit' by the Romans. After all, Holyhead - Dun Laoghaire is only 60 miles and requires no great skills of navigation.
Rs
P.

slowburner

And it's only 50 miles from the Llyn peninsula to Wicklow. Might this be a view that struck the Romans with curiosity, greed or fear?

[Embedded Image Removed]

Enkidu

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Fascinating post, but it seems a bit hard to accept that the Romans never properly encountered the Irish until the 4th c.

Well all I can say is that it seems to be true. It becomes very hard to believe that the Romans really knew anything correct about Ireland until the 4th century. For example several resources state the "fact" that cows in Ireland eat grass so luscious that they eat until they explode. This is exactly the kind of over the top myth they had about the Britons until they actually properly explored Britain. Until the 2nd century Ireland appears in Roman records as some sort of semi-mystical land. Even in the 2nd century all we have is a few records giving possibly more detailed geographical information. Exactly the kind of vague knowledge the Britons had about the island and could have told the Romans.

Add to this, the fact that there is no native Irish word for Rome. A lot of the early Irish Christian records use the Latin word directly and the texts demonstrate that the Irish learnt of Rome through Christianisation. Even St. Patrick's own confession testifies to the fact that he really had no idea what Ireland was like when he got kidnapped.

So as unintuitive as it might seem, it would appear that Ireland simply didn't have any real contact with Roman society until about the 4th century.

Remember though that there were many locations within Roman reach that they simply never went to. For example Northern India had been conquered by Alexander, but the Roman centuries later rarely ever visited and seemed to almost have no interest in its existence.

I think this is because the Romans really only cared about the power of Rome, they weren't knowledge seekers like the Greeks.