Romans in Wicklow

slowburner

I must say I find this Roman apathy about certain places intriguing - do you think it applied to Ireland?

slowburner

Perhaps the Romans on the western seaboard of Britain were sent there because they weren't great geographers.

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.

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

Apologies for posting this quote a second time, but it does demonstrate the gaps in the Romans' knowledge of Ireland before the 5th century.

Enkidu

slowburner wrote: »

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.
....
We undoubtedly take language and words for granted, but with scholarly insight, both can reveal so many things we have forgotten.

Well said!

I thought it would be interesting to give an idea of how these things are figured out.
A genitive, by the way is a noun case. Noun cases are ways of modifying nouns to indicate their function
in a sentence. For example "John" and "John's book", in the later "John" is modified to "John's" to indicate possession. This case which marks possession, is the genitive case. The genitive case in English is the only case left. (aside from the basic one, i.e. "John")

The modern Welsh for Ireland is "Iwerddon" and the modern Irish "Éire". These seem very different, but let's take the genitive of "Éire" which is "Éireann", i.e. "Ireland's". Immediately there appears to be some kind of similarities:
Iwerddon
Éireann

Iwerddon is pronounced as if spelt in English as: Iwerthen, with the "Queen's English" th, like
you get in the word "this".*
Éireann is pronounced as if spelt Ai-zun. With Ai, the Ai in the English word "Air" and the z is the s sound in the word "vision" or the z in "azure".**

These words can be reversed backward in time, quite easily, to produce *Eweriyon in the oldest form of Irish and *Iweryon in the oldest form of British. This is very certain, because each time we take a step back in time we can change sounds back to their original form and obtain exactly the word for Ireland seen in manuscripts at that time. Only at the earliest stage do we pass beyond written record, but then we just use the sound changes that give the words on Ogham stones. So although "Ireland's" doesn't appear on any Ogham stone, there are several words which do. If we compare these words with their Old Irish forms, we obtain the list of sound changes which produced Old Irish from Primitive Irish. With a complete table of these sound changes, we can apply them in reverse on some known Old Irish word and obtain a Primitive Irish word that doesn't appear on any Ogham stone, like *Eweriyon.

However *Eweriyon and *Iweryon are exactly related by a sound shift, basically caused by a slightly different accent on the two islands, which we know independently to have existed between Irish and British at the time.
This sound shift implies that the original word for Ireland, in the common Proto-Celtic language before the split into Irish and British would have been *Iweryu. This is because *Iweryu if we evolve it forward using sound shifts we have discovered becomes *Eweriyon and *Iweryon respectively in Irish and British.

However *Iweryu is not a Proto-Celtic word, it simply has no meaning in Proto-Celtic. We know this because we've reconstructed enough of the grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation of Proto-Celtic to be able to write sentences in it. Hence *Iweryu must have been borrowed. Based on the sounds it has, it wasn't borrowed from another Indo-European language. So, given the time it was borrowed, when Proto-Celtic hadn't become British or Irish yet, i.e. when the Celts first arrived, it's probably a native word borrowed from the native population by the Celts on their arrival. It's one of only ten or so words we think we know from the original language.

By the way, the article on Wikipedia says it comes from a Proto-Indo-European word meaning "abundant". This has been known not to be the case for the last two decades. "Abundant" only gives an accurate derivation of the Irish word, but produces a completely incorrect Welsh word when evolved forward, i.e. it doesn't give "Iwerddon".

* This is Northern Welsh pronunciation.
** If any Irish speakers find my choice of z a bit odd, this is the pronunciation in Mayo and Waterford today and was the pronunciation in Tipperary and Southern Leinster, as well as Old Irish.

Enkidu

slowburner wrote: »

I must say I find this Roman apathy about certain places intriguing - do you think it applied to Ireland?

Probably, at least going by their own written records they didn't seem to care. Ireland had no known resources according to anybody they spoke to and seemed even colder than Britain. The Romans were extremely pragmatic and had no interest in even visiting a place unless there were material advantages. This lack of curiosity seems bizarre to us and the Greeks also thought it strange, but such was the Latin mind.

Mr. Presentable

Yup, it was all about tangible resources. They'd have done a pre-invasion estimate of cost versus return. Mostly the Romans were interested in metals and grain. Importantly, they liked a place with decent mineral reserves that coincided with good pasture. It may also explain the ultimate decision not to suppress Scotland.

Wibbs

slowburner wrote: »

Perhaps the Romans on the western seaboard of Britain were sent there because they weren't great geographers.

Neither were the Greeks. They tended to have very vague descriptions of places beyond the Mediterranean like "over there/above the winds" type of thing. The idea that Ireland lay off the coast of Spain was an idea also held by the Greeks and others. They don't give any distances to "off the coast" though. Then again if you're a sea faring type and that's your focus it is kinda off the coast of Spain. Certainly time wise it's a lot "closer" than by the European land route, so easy enough to make this mistake/claim. Go even further back to the Neolithic and there was a loose cultural association between the coasts of Spain, France, Scotland and Ireland that didn't transmit inland to closer areas.

P. Breathnach

Enkidu wrote: »

...
** If any Irish speakers find my choice of z a bit odd, this is the pronunciation in Mayo and Waterford today and was the pronunciation in Tipperary and Southern Leinster, as well as Old Irish.

Allow me to quibble in search of clarity for myself. I accept the "z" sound as a good approximation of the slender "r" in modern Irish (my flavour is Connemara-ish). But in my mind's ear there is a slight difference: it's as if it is a highly-truncated near-"z" sound with a little softening, rather like fraying about the edge. Is that the sound you mean, or is it a more definite "z" sound?

[I don't see this sidebar contributing much to answering the question about Roman involvement with Ireland.]

pedroeibar1

Enkidu wrote: »

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.

I have no academic knowledge of the topic, so will accept your reasoning. Perhaps the Romans looked at the Irish Sea as a sort of natural Hadrian’s Wall that kept the wild men at bay, and were content to disregard Ireland and its people. Even as late as Giraldus Cambrensis there were some strange ideas. Most of the ‘here be monsters’ type comments usually have some basis in fact, e.g. the floating fiery island appearing from the sea could be a volcanic event. The ‘exploding cattle’ story is quite viable, as there is a disease called ‘bloat’ to which ruminants are susceptible. See http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/111411/bloat.pdf

I’ve often noticed the similarity between Latin and Irish grammar, same declensions and conjugations, and often similar sentence structure. Spanish, ( a sort of ‘bog Latin’?) even has two verbs for ‘to be’ (ser & estar) just as Irish has (tá and is). In Latin the future conditional ‘ut’ is always followed by the subjunctive, as are ‘má’ and ‘dá’ in Irish (modh coinníollach). Is that a post Ogham linguistic development attributable to the influence of Christianity and its scribes?
Rs
P.

Enkidu

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Allow me to quibble in search of clarity for myself. I accept the "z" sound as a good approximation of the slender "r" in modern Irish (my flavour is Connemara-ish). But in my mind's ear there is a slight difference: it's as if it is a highly-truncated near-"z" sound with a little softening, rather like fraying about the edge. Is that the sound you mean, or is it a more definite "z" sound?

That's absolutely correct, in most dialects of Irish today, slender r is a palatalised tap, a sound found in Russian and Turkish as well. Palatalised tap is exactly the "highly-truncated near-"z" sound with a little softening, rather like fraying about the edge" which you described. (Good description actually)

However in a few dialects it doesn't have this sound, but actually sounds identical to the s in the English "vision". Today this can only be heard in the Erris region in Co. Mayo and around An Rinn in Co. Waterford. However it was originally the typical pronunciation of all of Connacht (except Connamara), South Leinster and all of Munster (except West Cork and Kerry) back around 150 years ago. It was also the Bardic pronunciation. So the slender r that you and I use, is in fact an unusual "Western" sound in the context of the full language, but given the way Irish has declined it's now the typical sound.

P. Breathnach wrote: »

[I don't see this sidebar contributing much to answering the question about Roman involvement with Ireland.]

I hear they let you away with anything here.:D

Enkidu

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

I’ve often noticed the similarity between Latin and Irish grammar, same declensions and conjugations, and often similar sentence structure.

Celtic and Italic evolved from the same stage of Proto-Indo-European, i.e. They both evolved from speakers of Middle-Proto-Indo-European migrating west. Greek and Sanskrit for example evolved from Late-Proto-Indo-European.

Spanish, ( a sort of ‘bog Latin’?) even has two verbs for ‘to be’ (ser & estar) just as Irish has (tá and is).

The fact that this exists in both Spanish and Irish has lead to the suggestion that the indigenous languages of both areas were related or the same. No other Latin language has this distinction and Welsh and Irish were the only Celtic languages to have it. So people think it developed from a distinction present in the original language of both areas.

In Latin the future conditional ‘ut’ is always followed by the subjunctive, as are ‘má’ and ‘dá’ in Irish (modh coinníollach). Is that a post Ogham linguistic development attributable to the influence of Christianity and its scribes?
Rs
P.

Actually it comes from the fact that this (if + subjunctive) was present in Indo-European. The Irish subjunctive is called "an modh foshuiteach", but in some places the conditional "an modh coinníollach" has replaced the subjunctive.

(Sorry slowburner, I promise I'll stop talking about languages and get back to the Romans!:))

fontanalis

Enkidu wrote: »

Celtic and Italic evolved from the same stage of Proto-Indo-European, i.e. They both evolved from speakers of Middle-Proto-Indo-European migrating west. Greek and Sanskrit for example evolved from Late-Proto-Indo-European.

The fact that this exists in both Spanish and Irish has lead to the suggestion that the indigenous languages of both areas were related or the same. No other Latin language has this distinction and Welsh and Irish were the only Celtic languages to have it. So people think it developed from a distinction present in the original language of both areas.

Actually it comes from the fact that this (if + subjunctive) was present in Indo-European. The Irish subjunctive is called "an modh foshuiteach", but in some places the conditional "an modh coinníollach" has replaced the subjunctive.

(Sorry slowburner, I promise I'll stop talking about languages and get back to the Romans!:))

Wasn't there a language called celt-iberian spoken in what is now Spain at one stage? I think I remember reading that q celtic may have a lot more similarities to it than p celtic languages (isn't q celtic considered to be more archaic).

For the more scholary amongst us I've seen the site below mentioend as a good resource on celtic linguistics.
http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/index.html

markesmith

Bravo lads, great topic, extremely interesting, some great minds on here

What about the theory that several invading tribes to Ireland were driven from their homelands as a result of the Roman invasions?

The Fir Bolg (which some claim are descended from the Belgae of the Low Countries and south Britain) come to mind.

fontanalis

Enkidu wrote: »

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.

Sorry to be deviating away from the whole Roman thing but you touch on a lot of fascinating topics, what about the idea that the celtic language spread with a culture know as the bell beaker culture? Also was cruithin not just an Irish word for British person?

slowburner

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Allow me to quibble in search of clarity for myself. I accept the "z" sound as a good approximation of the slender "r" in modern Irish (my flavour is Connemara-ish). But in my mind's ear there is a slight difference: it's as if it is a highly-truncated near-"z" sound with a little softening, rather like fraying about the edge. Is that the sound you mean, or is it a more definite "z" sound?

COLOR=Red]I don't see this sidebar contributing much to answering the question about Roman involvement with Ireland.[/COLOR

Hold on for part two of Enkidu's discourse. I suspect that much will be revealed.

Enkidu

I'm going to make up names for some languages, since Pre-Goidelic substratum isn't very catchy.

fontanalis wrote: »

Sorry to be deviating away from the whole Roman thing but you touch on a lot of fascinating topics, what about the idea that the celtic language spread with a culture know as the bell beaker culture?

The Bell-Beaker culture probably represents the second wave of Indo-European expansion. This is Middle-Indo-European, the migrations that brough Indo-European dialects into Europe, at a point when the language was half-way though its life. Ultimately these dialects would give rise to Celtic and Italic. The Halstatt culture evolved out of the Bell-Beaker culture. If you want more information just ask. On a related note, since Bell-Beaker expanded all the way to Europe it's possible that Ireland's linguistic history is something like:
Stage 1: Natives speaking some Old European language (related to Basque maybe?), which is not Indo-European. I'll just call it "Newgrangish".
Stage 2: Bell-Beaker culture arrives and some/all of the population starts speaking Indo-European.
Stage 3: This evolves into its own language "Rossish".
Stage 4: Celts arrive. They find the island some mix of "Rossish" speakers and "Newgrangish" speakers.

Ignoring my made-up names, this is a roughly agreed upon picture. There is a good chance that the Bell-Beaker culture totally "Indo-Europeanised" Ireland before the Celts even arrived. This would go some way toward explaining why the Celts disturbed the society so little, Ireland was possibly already Indo-European from Bell-Beaker culture. It's also important that the Bell-Beaker language could have completely replaced the original language of Ireland. This means Celtic would have replaced another Indo-European language, not some ancient indigenous language.

Stage 5: Proto-Celtic now spoken. At some point it comes to dominate the island, although how we don't know. It's dominance didn't become total until around the 7th century, since there are records of two other languages.
Stage 6: Effects from pre-existing language(s) and the people's accents cause Proto-Celtic to develop into Primitive Irish.
Stage 7: Irish remains dominant until about a hundred years after the Flight of the Earls. During the dominant period of Irish, two new languages enter Ireland. Anglo-Norman, a language which a developed from the Latin, itself an outcome of the Middle-Indo-European dialect spread. Also English, a language which developed out of Proto-Germanic, and outcome of the same dialect spread, except the one that went North instead of West. (Where it encountered quite a different culture and presumably language and so Proto-Germanic ended up quite different from Proto-Italic and Proto-Celtic.)
Stage 8: English becomes dominant, although modified by Irish.

Also was cruithin not just an Irish word for British person?

It was the word for some people in Ulster and carried an ethnic meaning. It's probable that it was used for people who were still like the pre-existing culture the Celts found.

fontanalis

Thanks, that seems to gel with the post below from a website I frequent. it was wrote by someone with an acrahelogical background and seems to ko his stuff on some linguistics.


It’s not surprising that you are having trouble with the Iberian idea. Its nonsense. It’s been rejected by archaeologists, historians, classicists, Celtic studies experts, linguists etc for several decades. It is essentially based on nothing but the Irish invasion legends. The latter were written by monks writing in a classical tradition whereby a history or ethnology is put together by trying to connect tribes and places with similar names and linking them. Often when modern linguists look at them the etymology is completely nonsensical. In the case of the Milesian myth the word linking was Hibernia=Iberia, Scoti=Scythia etc etc. The legend is full of people given names to represent ancient names for the Irish - goidel Glass (goidel-Gael), an Egyptian princess 'Scota' or similar.

For example Hibernia is from the Ierne or Iverna or similar which comes from an Indo-European/proto-Celtic root for 'lush/fertile/fat/bursting land’ while Iberia is from the non-Celtic river name Ebro in eastern Spain. Gael is from a Welsh word Gwiddel (sorry spelling), a pejorative term meaning something like 'wild men of the woods'. Most of the waves and names in the book of invasions are fabricated. The idea was to create a unified history for all the Irish when in fact there never was one. There was never a wave of Gaels under a leader who arrived in Ireland and was the ancestor of all the Irish. Each tribe in reality had a different history.

There are grains of real ethnic/tribal names in the mythology but their origins are confused and not agreed - Cruithin, Erainn, Fir Domnainn, Fir Galieon, Fir Bolg for example. Linguists think they probably represent respectively early Iron Age tribes via Britain, the indigenous Bronze Age peoples of the island, the Domnoni/Damnoni trines of the Irish Sea area, NW Gaulish tribes and Belgae respectively. Other traditional, 19th century and even modern, interpretations are pretty well nonsense. Ideas like the Cruithin being Picts and therefore pre-Celtic etc is clearly nonsense. Even the name is Celtic for heaven’s sake! There has been an awful lot of nonsense written about the stuff over the last 1600 years. It’s too confused to tell us much beyond what I have quoted above as the modern linguist’s best guess. The legends themselves seem to have been written when these tribes and peoples had faded away somewhat and the real origins had already been forgotten or confused, which is not surprising seeing as they were written down at least 600 years after the events. The inaccuracy of the tales as regards the periods they claim to describe has been analysed by linguists and archaeologists and they are essentially too confused to be of much value at all.

What archaeology tells us about Irelands peopling is this:

1. Mesolithic-Ireland was likely settled from north Britain c. 8000BC by peoples who probably were located in the southern/mid North Sea area prior to arriving in the isles.

2. Early Neolithic-Ireland and Britain seem to have been mainly settled very quickly and homogeneously by a single group who likely arrived from NE France to SE England and spread through the isles from there across a 400 year period. There was probably another more minor input into western Britain and Ireland from NW France.

3. Mid- Later Neolithic-Ireland had strong contacts with all of western Britain from Cornwall to the Orkneys indicated by exchange items. There was possibly some much lighter contact with NW France shown by similar ideas in monuments, art etc although this was shadowy, did not extend to mundane artefacts and was clearly mainly contact rather than settlement.

4. Beaker period-Ireland suddenly became part of a really major network that extended beyond the isles for the first time. The beakers that have an agreed origin point to the Middle and Lower Rhine and south, eastern and northern Britain while the burial traditions and deposition habits of beaker are more like western Britain and NW France. It is suspected that Ireland's paramount position in NW European metallurgy came from Atlantic contacts via NW France. It seems likely that NW France is the common denominator or link between the NW European beaker types and the Atlantic burial and metallurgical traditions and it was likely crucial in terms of the beaker influence in Ireland.

5. Bronze Age-A lot of the mundane culture and burial traditions are purely insular with no continental parallels. There is a lot of similarity of mundane culture and ritual monuments/burial traditions within and between the isles but not much with the continent. The exception is metalwork where ideas seem to have flowed in a confusing network whose directions seem to have varied greatly over time although Central European influence seemed to steadily grow as the period went on. Ideas like 'Atlantic Bronze Age' have no real basis. On the basis of settlement, burial, ritual etc traditions it is very hard to see continental settlement on any sort of scale into the isles in this period although trade contact shown in metalwork, ore and influences must have been frequent.

6. Iron Age-influences came from west-Central and Europe via Britain in the Hallstatt C and La Tene periods. The influences are relatively weak and like the Bronze Age largely confined to metalwork. Ireland is especially insular in terms of the monuments, burial traditions and mundane material culture and seems different from both the continent and Britain (which itself has a lot of insularity-house shapes etc). This has lead many to feel that no large scale invasions took place in the Iron Age in Ireland although I think there is enough to suggest some small scale. I would say the same is also true for Scotland and much of the rest of Britain.

In general I would think that most archaeologists feel that the main populating events were the Mesolithic and/or the Early Neolithic with a much lesser (but ultimately significant??) input in the beaker period, very little movement in the Bronze Age other than flotsam brought by elite contact (marriages, craftsmen etc??) and perhaps some small groups of war bands etc in the Iron Age. I doubt many archaeologists would disagree hugely with that summary.

You will note that Iberia is conspicuously absent from this summary which I would say few archaeologists would find much to disagree with. Convincing evidence for Iberian contact is extremely rare. This is in line with the genetic evidence of R1b clades. Not only do they suggest that the populations are different in immediate origin with Ireland a lot more like Britain, NW France and the Rhineland etc, the low quantity of S116* or its Iberian subclades or indeed other Iberian Haplogroups like E etc also suggests that contact and gene flow afterwards was also very rare. This is fully in keeping with the archaeological evidence.

In light of that it is amazing the fact that Iberia keeps springing up in relation to Ireland and it essentially shows the power of myths. It is clear from archaeology and the breaking down of R1b into clades (especially after the discovery of L21) that Ireland should look to Britain, northern France and the Rhine area for its roots and stop being in denial that the Iberian myth is a myth. This myth appears to be fact-proof!!

Unfortunately the recent 'blood of the Irish' TV series (made before L21, MRCA re-dating which showed western R1b is much younger and our recent better understanding of the SE-NW spread from ancestral to derived R1b forms) has misinformed a new generation and perpetuated the Iberian myth in a slightly altered form. The only very indirect link with Iberia and a major populating event of the isles was the old Palaeolithic refugia idea and the outpouring north and east from that refuge in the Magdallenian phase and its possible (although this is not clear) contribution to NW European terminal Palaeolithic and Mesolithic groups including those that went to the isles. This is what ‘blood of the Irish’ clung to. However, when progress in the last year made clear that Iberian and indeed all western European forms of R1b are much younger than those in SE Europe and indeed probably not older than 5000 years old (the refugia people spread out about 14000 years ago and the hunter gathers reached even Ireland and Scotland 10000 years ago) then the last saloon for the theory locked it doors

slowburner

Enkidu wrote: »

I'm going to make up names for some languages, since Pre-Goidelic substratum isn't very catchy.

'Tis if you sing it to the air of 'For he's a Jolly Good Fellow' .

slowburner

Fontanalis, any chance of a link to that website - it looks interesting.

fontanalis

slowburner wrote: »

Fontanalis, any chance of a link to that website - it looks interesting.

Here you go, you need to sign up. Some good posts on there but it can be a bit jargon heavy.

http://dna-forums.org/index.php?/topic/6561-gaels-and-l21/page__hl__goidel__st__40

Enkidu

fontanalis, I'd agree with what you've extracted from that forum, I'd just like to expand on two things. Firstly Ireland's name definitely does not come from an Indo-European word meaning "fertile", although it's easy to make this mistake since so many books still carry that old etymology.

Secondly, the word "Cruithin" is definitely associated with the Picts linguistically. It's just the Irish version of the word for Pict. However the author of that post isn't wrong, since he wasn't speaking linguistically. What makes things confusing is these two points:
1. The Cruithin are just Gaelic. In the records we have they speak Gaelic and archeologically they are Gaelic. They show no relation to the Picts, which makes it confusing as to why they are given the same name. Cruithin is just the Irish version of the Celtic word for "British Islanders". Why the Irish and Britons would continue to label the Cruithin and the Picts under the name for the Islands is a bit strange. Particularly when Britons had called themselves something like that originally.
2. The Picts themselves are a bit odd. The Romans seem to view them as "older", as do the Britons. Also Bede the Old English writer states explicitly that the Picts spoke a different non-Celtic language. However the Picts archeologically look like another Celtic tribe and an analysis of most of their writing shows the language to be a Brythonic Celtic language closely related to Welsh. However, even more confusing some of their writings contain Irish and some seem to be written in a second language that's sort of like Finnish (figure that one out).

The fact that the writings contain some Irish isn't surprising, since they wrote their language in Ogham, which they got from the Irish.

The current theory is that the Picts and Cruithin were a Pre-Celtic group that was heavily Celticised or a Celtic group that absorbed a lot of the culture of a Pre-Celtic group. This would explain them being basically Celtic but with some "wierd" features. Probably the Finnish-like language was the original language of the Pre-Celtic peoples of that area, which remained alive for some time. It's interesting though that the Britons and Irish continued to view them as something different even though they had basically become identical.

fontanalis

I thought the name Eire came from Eriu an old Irish word which was the name of one the three Godesses of the tuatha de danan (Banba and Fola being the other two) who had some agreement/compettitoon with the Milesians to name the island after them.
Pict was a name given to anyone beyond the wall and it also seems they were a bit regional; for example the stone buidling Brochs aren't all that widespread. Bede also tried to link them to Scythia which was a bit in style at the time.

Enkidu

fontanalis wrote: »

I thought the name Eire came from Eriu an old Irish word which was the name of one the three Godesses of the tuatha de danan (Banba and Fola being the other two) who had some agreement/compettitoon with the Milesians to name the island after them.

That is the etymology the monks claimed, but it's very unlikely. Most likely they made a god as a personification of the island, rather than the Celts already having a god with that name and naming the island after it.
Particularly since no other Celtic group had such a god and the name survives in Brythonic as a name for the island alone rather than being the name for a goddess.

fontanalis

Enkidu wrote: »

That is the etymology the monks claimed, but it's very unlikely. Most likely they made a god as a personification of the island, rather than the Celts already having a god with that name and naming the island after it.
Particularly since no other Celtic group had such a god and the name survives in Brythonic as a name for the island alone rather than being the name for a goddess.

The monks done agreat job of preserving pagan/celtic (non christian lore), some of this stuff could have been lost forever.

MarchDub

Enkidu wrote: »

Secondly, the word "Cruithin" is definitely associated with the Picts linguistically. It's just the Irish version of the word for Pict. However the author of that post isn't wrong, since he wasn't speaking linguistically.

Just to add that Professor John Francis Byrne in his seminal work Irish Kings and High-Kings gives his assessment of the Cruthin and the Picts.

The bulk of the population comprised in the reduced over-kingdom of Ulaid were the people known as Cruthin or Cruithni. Their name is the Q-Celtic version of Pritani [Welch Prydyn] – the Picts of northern Britain. In Irish both the Picts and the Irish Cruithin are referred to by the same name, but authors writing in latin, such as Adomnam, reserve the term Picti for the former. It is not therefore strictly correct to talk of the Ulster Cruthin as Picts. From their regnal succession we can see that they followed the Irish derbfhine system unlike the matrilinear Picts.

slowburner

Here's one for Enkidu to discuss
I have great difficulty accepting that our 'native language' is as insular as claimed below.

In Ireland, on the other hand, thanks to its exemption from Roman dominion and the preservation of the native tongue, a mass of traditions, which were later preserved in writing, remain. Most of them have come down to us in the form of stories connected with special districts and relating to personages some of whom appear to have had an actual existence in history, and they are so full of detail as to habits, dress, and ways of life that we can form from them a clear idea of social conditions in Ireland at a time before history proper can be said to begin. They supply the most complete record of a civilization during the pre-Christian period preserved by any European nation north of the Alps. They claim to represent the life of the first century of the Christian era and onward; and the results arrived at by archaeology serve to confirm the truth of this tradition. Some of the ornaments described in the tales, for instance, are known to have ceased to be worn elsewhere within the first century of our era; and, though this does not preclude the possibility that in a country so remote from the general current of European influences as Ireland was they may have continued to be worn until a later period, it does tend to prove that the extant descriptions date from a period when these ornaments were still familiar to the story-tellers. Such are the beautiful brooches of the La Tène period and especially the leaf-shaped fibulae found in Ireland, descriptions of which occur as part of the dress of heroes in the Cuchulain tales; in Britain and Gaul, where they were also worn, they fell into disuse before the close of the first century. Though not nearly so common as the penannular brooch, with the circle pierced by a long pin, of which the Tara brooch is the best-known example, six specimens of the fibula have been found, three having been discovered at Emain Macha or Navan Rath, the centre of the Cuchulain tales in which these descriptions occur. It is evident that the bards who recited these stories, and possibly those who first committed them to writing, must have seen such brooches actually in use, otherwise they could not have been so accurately described.

A History of Ireland. Eleanor Hull.
http://www.libraryireland.com/HullHistory/PreChristianIreland1.php

slowburner

And yet another topic for the bold Enkidu
From this excellent site on prehistory (http://www.irishmegaliths.org.uk/seanchlocha1.htm)

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]

Apologies JBG but the difficulty is that the period relevant to this thread is pre-historic on this island and historic on the neigbouring one.
For anyone else wondering why this thread is so linguistically focussed; it is because of the preponderance of townland names in this area which might have their origins in Latin - whether or not this came from the Romans remains to be seen.

slowburner

Is it a coincidence that the subject matter of this thread pops up all of a sudden?
The thread here, started on the 25th August 2011 and is still active on the 28th October 2011.

Note the dates.

http://irisharchaeology.ie/2011/11/roman-contacts-with-ireland/
(Nov 10th 2011)


http://www.discoveryprogramme.ie/research/late-iron-age-roman-ireland/149.html
(19th October 2011)


(First link is worth reading for a fine overview btw)

dubhthach

Well I came across this map recently enough, the areas with "Cruithne" based genealogies are all mostly in this area. EG.

• Soghain of Galway
• Loíghis of Laois
• Dál nAraide of Ulster
• Conaille Muirtheimne of Ulster (Louth)

as Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh wrote in the 17th century:

Of the Cruithin of Ireland are the Dál Araidhi (Dál nAraidi), the seven Lóigisi of Leinster, the seven Soghain of Ireland, and every Conaille that is in Ireland.

Obviously one of the Soghain groups is outside that zone been in Cork these been the Corcu Shogain in Cork.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Cruithne were military mercanaries brought in from Celtic Northern Britain. In general the areas of settlement are near boundaries between provinces.

Obviously the Picts are known by the term, but this has been argued as a surviving of and older name. After all it shares the same route as modern Welsh Prydain (Britain). So in Irish context it probably just denotes more "recent" migrants from Celtic Britain. After all we know the term Gall persisted in usuage to describe the Cambro-Normans for at least 400 years, even though many of them had assimiliated in language and customs.

Maudi

Enkidu wrote: »

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.

thats brilliant.ive just expanded my interest in history by starting a coarse.ive picked up so much here though.anyway i dont suppose anybody has s copy of prices notes liam price that is.or any books on wicklow dealing with prehistory i live in...wicklow but can travel

Maudi

Enkidu wrote: »

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.

thats brilliant.ive just expanded my interest in history by starting a coarse.ive picked up so much here though.anyway i dont suppose anybody has s copy of prices notes liam price that is.or any books on wicklow dealing with prehistory i live in...wicklow but can travel