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The "First" Irish people

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    #152
    Johnmb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,150 ✭✭✭Johnmb


    Misanthrope wrote: »
    I came across this on another site.

    "
    1The whole Celtic race has been regarded as descended from Gomer, though history suggests modern Celts are descended from both Gomer and Magog. Archaeologists and ethnologists agree that the first Indo-European group to spread across Europe were Celts.

    The Irish Celts claim to be to the descendants of Magog, while the Welsh Celts claim to be to the descendants of Gomer. Irish chronicles, genealogies, plus an extensive number of manuscripts which have survived from ancient times, reveal their roots.

    The Irish were descendants of Scythians, also known as Magogians, which is strongly supported by etymological evidence. Archaeological evidence shows that both the Celts (from Gomer) and Scythians (from Magog) freely shared and mingled cultures at their earliest stages. Russian and eastern European excavations plainly reveal the blending of these two groups. Their geographical locations (what is now eastern Europe, southern Russia and Asia Minor) were referred to by the Greeks under the name of Celto-Scythae, which was populated by the Celts to the south and west, and the Scythians to the north.

    The ancient Greeks first called the northern peoples by the general name of Scythae; but when they became acquainted with the nations in the west, they began to call them by the different names of Celts, including the Celto-Scythae. Celts and Scythians were considered essentially the same peoples, based on geography, though many independent tribes of Celts and Scythians existed. The Latins called them "Galli," and the Romans referred to them as "Gauls." Later names used by Greeks were the Galatai or Galatae, Getae, Celtae and Keltoi.

    In the third century before Christ (about 280 B.C.), the Gauls invaded Rome and were ultimately repelled into Greece, where they migrated into the north-central part of Asia Minor (Anatolia). Known as fiercely independent peoples, they conquered the indigenous peoples of that region and established their own independent kingdom. The land became known as Galatia. The Apostle Paul wrote his famous epistle to their descendants, the Galatians. Jewish historian Flavius Josephus wrote that the Galatians or Gauls of his day (93 A.D.) were previously called Gomerites.
    Early Celtic tribes (from Gomer) settled much of the European theater, including present-day Spain, France, England and Germany, prior to contact with Scythians.

    For many centuries France was called Gaul, after the Celtic descendants of Gomer, whom ceded the territory to Romans and Germanic/Teutonic Franks (whence France) in the 4th century A.D. Northwest Spain is called Galicia to this day. Some of the Gomerites migrated further to what is now called Wales. The Welsh claim their ancestors "first landed on the Isle of Britain from France, about three hundred years after the flood."

    The Celtic language survives intact today mainly in the two variants of Welsh and Irish/Scottish Gaelic. The Welsh call their language Gomeraeg (after Gomer). The Celts of today are descendants of Gomer, and of the blended tribes of Magog and Gomer."
    Pure fantasy for the most part.


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    #153
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    Misanthrope wrote: »
    Speaking of myths,the Twins myth seems to be ubiquitous to ancient cultures.Children of Lir, Romulous and Remus, Castor and Pollux etc.

    This could be a thread that links a lot of seemingly different cultures to a common source.

    I can't wait to hear more.Great thread
    Yes indeed and in most cases the source is well known, their common Proto-Indo-European heritage. For example "Divine Twins" are everywhere in Indo-European socities.

    The Vedic cultures had the Aśvi, Lithuania and Latvia had "The Sons of God, in both languages "Diẽvo Sunẽliai" and "Dieva Dēli".

    The twins tend to have "divine horses". Of course these can sometimes be distorted in interesting ways. For example, in English myth the brothers Hengeist and Horsa, who came to England to help the British King Vortigern defeat the Picts and Irish. Descendants of Woden, the English version of Odin, they have no horses themselves, but their names mean Stallion and Horse respectively.

    The presence of these twins is related to the hermaphrodite giant myth we suspect was present in Indo-European.


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    #154
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    Wibbs wrote: »
    Post diluvian? As in after the (biblical)flood? As a advanced city, it had many more rivals for that title. Athens it was not. Nor Minoan Thera. In any case the problem with that connection with the Celts is one of timing. The site most likely to be historical Troy was destroyed in 1300 BC about 500 years before the first proto Celtic culture sprang up. It seems a bit of a stretch to me anyway. Plus many cities came and went, to narrow it down to one that happens to be famous largely down to Homer is possible but unlikely I would have thought.
    Indeed, plus there is the additional problem that the culture of Troy was already speaking Phrygian, a seperate language in the Paleo-Balkan group of Indo-European, completely unrelated to Celtic. Essentially Troy couldn't possibly be the origin of the Celts.

    In fact the origin of the Celts is already known, to a high degree of certainty Celtic culture developed from a mixing of Indo-European culture with the native "Old-Europe" culture of the Halstatt region. The language developed from the Halstatt dialect of Indo-European.

    EDIT: I should add that the other family of Indo-European most closely related to Celtic is Italic.


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    #155
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    Misanthrope wrote: »
    I came across this on another site.
    The site contains a lot of errors.
    1The whole Celtic race has been regarded as descended from Gomer, though history suggests modern Celts are descended from both Gomer and Magog. Archaeologists and ethnologists agree that the first Indo-European group to spread across Europe were Celts.
    The phrase "First Indo-European group to spread across Europe" is very ambiguous, several groups moved around Europe.

    However saying that Celts are related to Gomer and Magog is ridiculous. Gomer and Magog are mythological locations from Semitic literature, to say the Celts come from them would be like saying the came from the palace of Huang Di in Chinese myth.
    The Irish Celts claim to be to the descendants of Magog, while the Welsh Celts claim to be to the descendants of Gomer. Irish chronicles, genealogies, plus an extensive number of manuscripts which have survived from ancient times, reveal their roots.
    The manuscripts were and attempt by the Irish monks to tie their origins to the bible. It doesn't stand up to recent scholarship at all.
    The Irish were descendants of Scythians, also known as Magogians, which is strongly supported by etymological evidence. Archaeological evidence shows that both the Celts (from Gomer) and Scythians (from Magog) freely shared and mingled cultures at their earliest stages. Russian and eastern European excavations plainly reveal the blending of these two groups. Their geographical locations (what is now eastern Europe, southern Russia and Asia Minor) were referred to by the Greeks under the name of Celto-Scythae, which was populated by the Celts to the south and west, and the Scythians to the north.
    Again the Scythians belong to the Iranian group of Indo-European and the Celts already existed.

    The Celtic language survives intact today mainly in the two variants of Welsh and Irish/Scottish Gaelic. The Welsh call their language Gomeraeg (after Gomer). The Celts of today are descendants of Gomer, and of the blended tribes of Magog and Gomer."
    The Welsh call their language Cymraeg.


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    #156
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    fontanalis wrote: »
    Well wasn't Troy always considered to be soem great city, even if it wasn't discovered to be true it really comes down to what people thought it to be when these tales were wrtitten.
    How close was Troy to the Anatolia region (as this is supposed to very important to the spread of Agriculture to Europe)?
    Troy (or at least the city most likely to be Troy) is in Anatolia.


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    #157
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    Lot's of posts, but I should mention that the flood is not a myth present in Indo-European. It is a Semite myth and its presence in any Indo-European culture comes from borrowing. For most Indo-European cultures, this was from the myths of the Canaanites, preserved in the Hebrew bible. (The Hebrew culture is suspected to have evolved organically from Late Canaanite culture)

    The only exception is the Anatolian Indo-European cultures who borrowed it from the Akkadians, another Semitic culture.


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    #158
    Misanthrope
    Closed Accounts Posts: 613 ✭✭✭Misanthrope


    Enkidu wrote: »
    Indeed, plus there is the additional problem that the culture of Troy was already speaking Phrygian, a seperate language in the Paleo-Balkan group of Indo-European, completely unrelated to Celtic. Essentially Troy couldn't possibly be the origin of the Celts.

    In fact the origin of the Celts is already known, to a high degree of certainty Celtic culture developed from a mixing of Indo-European culture with the native "Old-Europe" culture of the Halstatt region. The language developed from the Halstatt dialect of Indo-European.

    EDIT: I should add that the other family of Indo-European most closely related to Celtic is Italic.


    I wonder could there be another civilisation close to Scythia, that may have collapsed and its refugees made a cultural and/or ethnic contribution to those who ultimately became the migrating Celts.

    I would find it remarkable that a movement as widespread and pervasive as the Celts, considering that they were likely to have been polyethnic also,just emerged amongst a bunch of co-operative barbarian tribes as a due course of nature.

    There are too many coincidences and correlations with other cultures' histories and traditions for Celticism to have its origin in Scythia.I d really love to know where the movement was before that or what components of other cultures it was assembled from.

    The spiral volutes on the capitals of Ionic columns remind me of Triskels.


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    #159
    Misanthrope
    Closed Accounts Posts: 613 ✭✭✭Misanthrope


    Enkidu wrote: »
    Lot's of posts, but I should mention that the flood is not a myth present in Indo-European. It is a Semite myth and its presence in any Indo-European culture comes from borrowing. For most Indo-European cultures, this was from the myths of the Canaanites, preserved in the Hebrew bible. (The Hebrew culture is suspected to have evolved organically from Late Canaanite culture)

    The only exception is the Anatolian Indo-European cultures who borrowed it from the Akkadians, another Semitic culture.

    Hindus have the flood myth too,which is interesting because of an alleged tsunami in the Indian Ocean caused by a meteor strike c 3000 BC.

    The Chippewaw American Indian tribe also subscribe to flood mythology, as did the Meso American civilisations.

    Australian Aborigines have a version.

    So did the Inca and Mapuche in South America.It seems a universal theme.There could of course have been many isolated floods over time in different places.Given man's limited range back then a sizeable flood could seem like a global event.

    Or there could have been numerous simultaneous floods around the world.

    I love the Australian story.Its about a greedy frog who drank so much water that everything began to die around him until the other creature figured out how to make him laugh all the water back out causing a flood.



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    #160
    fontanalis
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,619 ✭✭✭fontanalis


    Well don't the flood myths tie in with the melt water from the last ice age? You also had a massive area of land in the North Sea Doggerland (nothing to do with Stan Collymore) that was submerged where fishign boats regularly drag up stuff.
    Isn't magog almost veering into book of revelation territory?


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    #161
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    Misanthrope wrote: »
    I wonder could there be another civilisation close to Scythia, that may have collapsed and its refugees made a cultural and/or ethnic contribution to those who ultimately became the migrating Celts.
    Unlikely, the Celtic language family shows no real evidence of influence from other Indo-European branches in its early history. The current theory is that the Celtic language and culture developed in the Halstatt region, mainly due to Indo-European migrations into Halstatt. This is the theory that best matches the evidence.


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    #162
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    Misanthrope wrote: »
    It seems a universal theme.
    True to a certain degree, but when you dig deeper it's not so true.

    As I mentioned above it's not at all present in Indo-European cultures. They had no flood myth.

    Also even in cultures where it does exist there are differences in significance and interpretation.

    For example, in Semitic myth, the flood comes as punishment for mankind disobeying or annoying the Gods/God. When the flood ends, the survivors indicate their continued obidence by an animal sacrifice. The Gods/God then renew their/his agreement with mankind.

    In Mesoamerican myth the flood only comes about because the world is constantly being destroyed and renewed. Each time it is destroyed by an element of which water is one.

    So in the Semitic myth the flood is a central part of the mythology and concerns the relationship of the mortal and the devine.

    In Mesoamerican myth its just one more round of "destroy the world". It didn't even affect our race, since we hadn't been created yet.


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    #163
    eh2010
    Registered Users Posts: 149 ✭✭eh2010


    Good thread. I don't know a whole lot about the first Irish , but genetic studies suggest they are related to the basques


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    #164
    Johnmb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,150 ✭✭✭Johnmb


    eh2010 wrote: »
    Good thread. I don't know a whole lot about the first Irish , but genetic studies suggest they are related to the basques
    Nope. Again, a result of journalists reporting on things they don't understand thereby giving people wrong information. There were no Basques at the time in question. The first Irish, i.e. those who most modern Irish are descended from, were descended from the same group that the peoples most modern Basques are descended from originally came from. There were no Basques (or Irish for that matter) at the time in question, both cultures developed at a much later date.


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    #165
    eh2010
    Registered Users Posts: 149 ✭✭eh2010


    Johnmb wrote: »
    Nope. Again, a result of journalists reporting on things they don't understand thereby giving people wrong information. There were no Basques at the time in question. The first Irish, i.e. those who most modern Irish are descended from, were descended from the same group that the peoples most modern Basques are descended from originally came from. There were no Basques (or Irish for that matter) at the time in question, both cultures developed at a much later date.

    Oh ok. I Guess its more accurate to say that the basques and Irish have common origins. But really we're a mix of early irish , some vikings, anglo-normans and later protestant planters. It'll be interesting to see what the newest wave of peoples - the e europeans, asians, africans etc will add to the mix.


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    #166
    Johnmb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,150 ✭✭✭Johnmb


    eh2010 wrote: »
    Oh ok. I Guess its more accurate to say that the basques and Irish have common origins. But really we're a mix of early irish , some vikings, anglo-normans and later protestant planters. It'll be interesting to see what the newest wave of peoples - the e europeans, asians, africans etc will add to the mix.
    Actually, modern Irish don't have much of a mix in them at all (compared to other European populations). The original settlers came about 8000 years ago, and that's it for most of Ireland, from a genetic point of view. The Vikings et al had very little genetic impact on Ireland, and what little they did have was concentrated into small areas. A similar lack of mixing occurred with the peoples who are now in the Basque areas, hence the genetic similarities. Scotland and Wales also have little mixing, and England, while it has more than us, has surprisingly little as well when you consider how many times they've been invaded and conquered.


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    #167
    fontanalis
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,619 ✭✭✭fontanalis


    eh2010 wrote: »
    Good thread. I don't know a whole lot about the first Irish , but genetic studies suggest they are related to the basques

    The Basque thing now seems to be questionable, that they may be more recent arrivals than thought. The science of genetics and haplogroups has snow balled since the claims were first made.
    Basically R1b is a common genetic haplogroup that appears in up to 97% of people in the Basque region and around 75% of Irish people so at first glance it seems that the two groups would be related/share common ancestry but when the branches are explored more it seems that Irish people and basques are at different ends of the tree (to use a cliched metaphor)
    http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/09/a-tale-of-y-chromosomes-and-tea-leaves/


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    #168
    oflynno
    Registered Users Posts: 729 ✭✭✭oflynno


    where can that DNA testing be done,it was on the telly a bit ago,and how much does it cost?


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    #169
    fontanalis
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,619 ✭✭✭fontanalis


    oflynno wrote: »
    where can that DNA testing be done,it was on the telly a bit ago,and how much does it cost?

    The site below seems to be popular and they have a sale on today. I think National Geographic do one and another company called Family Tree DNA, there's an interesting website called DNA forums which is worth signing up for.
    The science behind the whole thing seems to have completely snowballed in the last few years and there will probably be more advanced tests coming along in a few years, it's thought genomes may be able to be sequenced for $1,000 in a few years.
    https://www.23andme.com/


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    #170
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    fontanalis wrote: »
    Basically R1b is a common genetic haplogroup that appears in up to 97% of people in the Basque region and around 75% of Irish people so at first glance it seems that the two groups would be related/share common ancestry but when the branches are explored more it seems that Irish people and basques are at different ends of the tree (to use a cliched metaphor)
    People might find it helpful to know that R1b is a bit of a mystery.
    Of the two other main European genetic groups, Haplogroup R1a is almost certainly Indo-Europeans and Haplogroup I the Cro-Magnon peoples.

    However it isn't very clear who is connected to R1b. Some theories suggest that they were a group of peoples related to the Indo-Europeans who entered Europe earlier and took refuge from the Ice Age in Iberia before spreading out.


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    #171
    Enkidu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    Okay, I promised a while ago to start putting up things from the manuscripts. The first one is a tale from the book of Fermoy written in 1373 by Adam Ó Cianáin, also known as the Book of Roche.

    Although a lot of the book is poetry and myth-history of Ireland, there is also the strange tale of the transgendered abbot of Drimnagh.

    The tale begins with a description of the abbot as a beautiful young man (men are the more beautiful gender in Old Irish texts in general, just to mention). This man is the abbot of Drimnagh, married with no children. He is at the preparation of an Easter banquet. When the preparations are finished he leaves and walks around the countryside. After walking for a while he climbs up a hill and falls asleep.

    He wakes up, only to find he is now a she. He first notices the change when his sword is now a spindle. He basically checks all his clothes and possessions to find they have been replaced by womanly things. Finally he checks his dick, only to discover he doesn't have one.

    He's a bit worried and tells a passer-by about his story, but realises that God made him a woman and there is nothing he can do about it.
    He leaves for the Monastery of Crumlin and arrives into the courtyard. Eventually she meets and becomes friends with another beautiful young man. Eventually the have sex, and afterward the young man tells her that he is a member of the governing body of the abbey of Crumlin.
    They get married and the Abbot of Drimnagh has seven children.

    After seven years of marriage they are invited to Drimnagh for the Easter festival. They pass the hill and she falls asleep while her husband keeps going. Eventually she wakes up and she is back to a he. The abbot becomes extremely worried, because of the complicated situaion he is now in.

    He returns to the festival and explains to everybody what happened. He is restored as abbot. However there are legal proceedings to see who will get to keep his children. Eventually he gets three and the guy from Crumlin gets four.


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    #172
    Ash.J.Williams
    Registered Users Posts: 20,929 ✭✭✭✭Ash.J.Williams


    Enkidu wrote: »
    Okay, I promised a while ago to start putting up things from the manuscripts. The first one is a tale from the book of Fermoy written in 1373 by Adam Ó Cianáin, also known as the Book of Roche.

    Although a lot of the book is poetry and myth-history of Ireland, there is also the strange tale of the transgendered abbot of Drimnagh.

    The tale begins with a description of the abbot as a beautiful young man (men are the more beautiful gender in Old Irish texts in general, just to mention). This man is the abbot of Drimnagh, married with no children. He is at the preparation of an Easter banquet. When the preparations are finished he leaves and walks around the countryside. After walking for a while he climbs up a hill and falls asleep.

    He wakes up, only to find he is now a she. He first notices the change when his sword is now a spindle. He basically checks all his clothes and possessions to find they have been replaced by womanly things. Finally he checks his dick, only to discover he doesn't have one.

    He's a bit worried and tells a passer-by about his story, but realises that God made him a woman and there is nothing he can do about it.
    He leaves for the Monastery of Crumlin and arrives into the courtyard. Eventually she meets and becomes friends with another beautiful young man. Eventually the have sex, and afterward the young man tells her that he is a member of the governing body of the abbey of Crumlin.
    They get married and the Abbot of Drimnagh has seven children.

    After seven years of marriage they are invited to Drimnagh for the Easter festival. They pass the hill and she falls asleep while her husband keeps going. Eventually she wakes up and she is back to a he. The abbot becomes extremely worried, because of the complicated situaion he is now in.

    He returns to the festival and explains to everybody what happened. He is restored as abbot. However there are legal proceedings to see who will get to keep his children. Eventually he gets three and the guy from Crumlin gets four.
    best ending of a story ever


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    #173
    CDfm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Ash.J.Williams wrote: »
    best ending of a story ever
    +1


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    #174
    markesmith
    Registered Users Posts: 1,752 ✭✭✭markesmith


    CDfm wrote: »
    +1

    Thirded, but we're slightly off-topic :)

    Belaresque et al (according to Wikipedia) recently published a paper claiming that the R1b that we and the Welsh share with the Basques may be due to genetic drift.

    Would love to hear your opinions on this, or if this type of 'drift' is even possible or too much of a coincidence.


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    #175
    owenc
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 5,524 ✭✭✭owenc


    Johnmb wrote: »
    Actually, modern Irish don't have much of a mix in them at all (compared to other European populations). The original settlers came about 8000 years ago, and that's it for most of Ireland, from a genetic point of view. The Vikings et al had very little genetic impact on Ireland, and what little they did have was concentrated into small areas. A similar lack of mixing occurred with the peoples who are now in the Basque areas, hence the genetic similarities. Scotland and Wales also have little mixing, and England, while it has more than us, has surprisingly little as well when you consider how many times they've been invaded and conquered.
    and were did these original settlers come from?


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    #176
    Johnmb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,150 ✭✭✭Johnmb


    owenc wrote: »
    and were did these original settlers come from?
    Obviously Europe. It would seem that (assuming I remember correctly) Ireland was settled directly from Europe rather than via England, at least for the most part. But it would be very hard to say that is absolute as there'd be no difference genetically, so it is the archaeology that is being compared.


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    #177
    owenc
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 5,524 ✭✭✭owenc


    Johnmb wrote: »
    Obviously Europe. It would seem that (assuming I remember correctly) Ireland was settled directly from Europe rather than via England, at least for the most part. But it would be very hard to say that is absolute as there'd be no difference genetically, so it is the archaeology that is being compared.

    ok so what you are saying that they came from europe but not through english or scotland like the recent plantation?? i see what you mean.


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    #178
    brianthebard
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,165 ✭✭✭✭brianthebard


    owenc wrote: »
    ok so what you are saying that they came from europe but not through english or scotland like the recent plantation??

    Don't start this.


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    #179
    Johnmb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,150 ✭✭✭Johnmb


    owenc wrote: »
    ok so what you are saying that they came from europe but not through english or scotland like the recent plantation?? i see what you mean.
    Obviously in areas where the two islands are relatively near there is ample evidence of close links, and populations likely did come via there. Genetically, we are all the same on both islands, so there's no way to tell. Archaeologically, especially in the south and west of Ireland, there seems to be more in common with mainland Europe of the time, in terms of monument types. It can be confusing to use the modern terms for areas when describing it as none of them (not even the concepts) existed at the time. Even Europe, as a concept, didn't exist, and coasts would have been quite different at the time. To compare the settlement to more recent ones would also make absolutely no sense as the settlement we are talking about was by hunter gatherers, i.e. they didn't so much "settle" here as just didn't have to leave again as they could survive by moving around the small areas they found here without having to go all the way back to where they started from. Of course, given how much easier traveling on water was compared to land, there was likely a lot of forward and back movement of several populations over the sea.


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    #180
    fontanalis
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,619 ✭✭✭fontanalis


    markesmith wrote: »
    Thirded, but we're slightly off-topic :)

    Belaresque et al (according to Wikipedia) recently published a paper claiming that the R1b that we and the Welsh share with the Basques may be due to genetic drift.

    Would love to hear your opinions on this, or if this type of 'drift' is even possible or too much of a coincidence.

    Some recent blog entries I read recently seem to indicate the basque similarities were due to interpretations at a time when genetic testing was in it's infancy and the mutation rates used for R1b gave an incorrect timeline of it arising around 15,000 years ago whereby recent tests give an estimate of around 3,000 - 5,000 years ago. Also the various branches of R1b weren't explored as much back then. The link below goes into it although it's a bit jargon heavy.
    http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2010/08/r1b-founder-effect-in-central-and.html

    Hopefully this study might shed some light.
    http://www.ucc.ie/en/DepartmentsCentresandUnits/Archaeology/NewsItems/PrestigiousEuropeanFundingAwardforUCCArchaeologist/


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    #181
    sensibleken
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,650 ✭✭✭sensibleken


    Enkidu wrote: »
    Okay, I promised a while ago to start putting up things from the manuscripts....

    My favourite ones come from the life of St Columba by Adomnan.

    St Columba woke up in the middle of the night and got all the monks together. 'lads' he said 'theres a fella out there on the mull of kintyre whos going to try and get onto Iona, you can't let him on. Im not even going to tell you what a sick fecker this guy is but he cant come on here'

    'ok, fair enough' say the monks. Diarmuid, one of the monks, set off to the mull and met your man lughaid 'sorry boss, you cant come onto the island, columba wont allow it'. 'why not? I've been here for ages and have been getting ready to out there'. 'Dunno' replied Diarmuid, 'he said you're after doing something terrible so you can't come out'.

    The man in accordance with Irish tradition said 'right, im going on hunger strike'. Fearing a ****storm Diarmuid went back to Columba 'I think you better go have a chat with this lad before the papers get hold of it, he's on hunger strike, maybe you can let him in, whatever he did im sure hes very sorry'.

    So columba went over and said to his fellow monks 'Do you know what this sick little bollix did? He killed his da and fúcked his ma! his own ma! and not like that oedipus lad, he knew exactly what he was doing'

    'ahh, that thing' said lughaid, 'fair enough, how about i do penance and then you let me in'. 'Right so, you live in britain for 12 years and dont go back to ireland ever you have a chance of God letting you off. Also, stop banging your ma'. Lughaid accepted this and went on his merry way.

    Columba being a man of great inspiration then gave a prophecy 'you know, that guy is a right little shíte. I dont think hes going to do that penance. He'll probably go right back to Ireland and get himself killed'

    and lo it came to pass that a man who killed his da and started doing the nasty with the 'there from whence he came' turned out to be slightly dishonest and went back to ireland and was promtly done away with by one of his (presumably) many enemies, probably his brother.

    http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T201040/index.html


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