The "First" Irish people

Enkidu wrote: »

Obviously there was a language here before Gaelic and this language was almost certainly a language of Old Europe* like Basque.

Bythonic & Continental Belgic / Gaulish were actually spoken in Ireland in the period before early Old Irish, later Gaelic, there are references to this by historians who have studied this in detail.

Gaelic developed either in an insular manner, or perhaps with the coming of the Milesians, some believe that these people might have actually came from Aquitaine after the expansion of the Roman Empire into that region.

The first Indo European languages, which developed into Proto Celtic, in Ireland & Western Europe would have been during the early Bronze Age, possibly Beaker period during the expansion of farming culture.

Older Non Indo European Languages similar to Basque would have been previous to this, at least 2000BC or even further back in time. Unless they possibly survived for longer as minority languages.

purplepanda wrote: »

Bythonic & Continental Belgic / Gaulish were actually spoken in Ireland in the period before early Old Irish, later Gaelic, there are references to this by historians who have studied this in detail.

The first branch of Indo-European to arrive in Ireland was almost definitely Celtic. I'm aware of the presence of the Brythonic languages e.t.c. in Ireland, but the picture is more complicated and I can only flesh it out with a short history of the Celtic Branch. Roughly a dialect of Indo-European emerged in central Europe which no longer pronounced p and placed t's before r's. In time this became it's own language, Proto-Celtic, which expanded outward from its homeland in two seperate waves, both of which reached the British Isles. The current Celtic languages in Britain and Ireland come only from the second wave of expansion, we think, because they don't contain certain archaic features.

Upon arriving in Ireland and Britain, Celtic mutated into a very different language called Proto-Insular Celtic. This language had two main subdialects from what we can tell, Goidelic and Brythonic. Obviously because of the constant back and forth between the islands, both dialects existed side by side across the British Isles, however Goidelic eventually won on this island. Hence although there is an initial period where both are in Ireland, Brythonic wasn't here first in any sense.

Some scholars have suggested that P-Celtic was brought here first and then Q-Celtic by two different invading tribes, this is probably the work you are refering to. However this is now thought to be unlikely because of growing linguistic evidence. The P and Q divide is a single feature that doesn't reflect the real history of Celtic. We currently think that Insular Celtic developed/arrived here first by itself. The main divide in Celtic is actually this insular/continental divide. Later Brythonic and Gaulish had an innovation where they regained the "p" sound by turing "kw" into "p". However Brythonic is still closer to Goidelic than to Gaulish, it just shared a later innovation for a single sound. Hence Brythonic could not be here before Goidelic, because there was no P-languages to arrive before Q-languages. Rather Brythonic and Goidelic arrived or developed together as dialects of Insular Celtic.

Now since Celtic is suspected to be the first branch of Indo-European to arrive in the British Isles we imagine that language already present was non-Indo-European. This is considerd the most likely scenario. Of course, as Johnmb says, this could be wrong. Other possibities are another dialect or subfamily of Indo-European, which no longer exists, gaining a foothold on the island first.

"The Story of Ireland" by A.M. Sullivan goes into depth on the legends. Its from the 1860's, the age of the Celtic Twilight, and aimed as a kids book - shows how much kids learned then, its like a college book today.

As in the style of the times, and indeed the beliefs, the legends were presented as fact.

fontanalis wrote: »

Very good, never thought of that.
Now doesn't most mythology tie in with the Tuatha de Danann "invasion"? Is it known what Irish mythology is menat to represent, if anything and is there any link to mainland Europe?

A huge amount of Irish mythology is suspected to be an Irish reflection of Indo-European myths.

For example the second battle of Battle of Mag Tuired (Irish), the Titanomachy (Greek), Ragnarok (Norse), the Battle of Mahābhārata (Indic), the Plain of Ervandavan (Armenian), e.t.c. are all thought to be reflections of some original Indo-European myth about an enormous battle.

All involve an incredible enemy from a different lineage to the heroes appears, e.g. Loki (Norse), Bres (Irish). He exploits the heroes and is driven out, then returns to his own people. A new leader then springs up from the heroes, e.g. Lug (Irish), Zeus (Greek). Of course not all details of the original Indo-European myth are preserved in all versions. For example, it is thought that the original myth may have involved a great winter before the battle, but this only appears in the Germanic and Iranian versions of the myth today.

There are several more examples, but the explanation of a lot of myths is that they are local developments of Indo-European canonical stories.

fontanalis wrote: »

Are there any Irish flood myths?

Just the biblical flood myth tacked on to irish myths later by the monks.

tomasocarthaigh wrote: »

Irish as we know it, or Old Irish as it was then, was the language of the educated classes, probably the druids and such. The lack of rapid evolvment of the language in the period up to the advent of middle Irish suggests it was a classical language, spoken by an elite.

The common tongue may have been more akin to the "Iron" language, nicknamed so as it was so difficult for the writers circa 900AD to understand even though there was some speakers.

This is a quite interesting and much studied topic. Primitive Irish, Classical Old Irish and Early Modern Irish were all literary standards very disconnected with the average spoken language of the people.

Primitive Irish was a standard of the literary elite in pre-Christian times, we know this from how little it changed over the three hundred years that we have evidence of it. It probably represents Irish as it was spoken around 1st century B.C./A.D. however it was used until the 6th century. The shift to Old Irish in the 6th century probably occurred via a conscious decision by the new Christian literary class as part of their attitude to update everything from old pagan traditions. Old Irish was then based on colloquial speech.

Over time of course this colloquial speech became archaic itself and by the early 13th century it was impossible to maintain it as a standard of the written language since it was so old. Hence the new standard Early Modern Irish or the Bardic standard was born.

I should say that the spoken language basically evolved from Old Irish to Early Modern Irish. Middle Irish was not a spoken language, but represents a period where texts are inconsistent because people are by now speaking the language in a manner similar to Early Modern Irish, but are attempting to write Old Irish and accidentally put their spoken modern grammar into the writing.

Again, the standard became too remote from everyday speech and was criticised for being incomprehensible. Fionn Ó Dálaigh for instance wrote a satire of the Bards and their archaic language. Even Oxford scholar Edmund Campion remarked (in 1571) that the average Irish person could not understand 'true (Bardic) Irish'.

Eventually there probably would have been another revision but the poet classes collapsed and the language began to dwindle. During the Gaelic revival their were people saying that the Bardic standard should be reintroduced, however Peadar Ua Laoghaire argued that it was too remote and people should just use the dialect of their area. Of course over the next fifty years this lead to massive confusion due to dialectal differences and hence another standard was introduced, "An Caighdeán Oifigúil", in the 1950s. Which is basically what we learn in school.

Wibbs wrote: »

They'd write Amen at the end of stuff too. Greek/Roman/Irish. All got an amen. myths I seem to recall at the end of one early version of the Tain, the scribe wrote something like "right so finished. Interesting story but full of incredulous guff and pagan nonsense, but we recorded it anyway. Amen" Thankfully they did write the stuff down though. We lost many myths in the rest of Europe because their monks didnt.

What's interesting is that at the end of the book of Leinster version, first written in Irish is "A blessing on everyone who will memorise the Táin faithfully in this form, and not put any other form on it" and then right below that written in Latin is that it's a fantasy full of devilish lies fit for the "enjoyment of idiots"

No, I don't have a translation of the book of Leinster, I got that from Thomas Kinsella's translation of the Táin. He mentions the notes that the scribes left at the end and that they're from the book of Leinster.

sensibleken wrote: »

Really?

I've been looking for a translation of the book of leinster for ages (especially the book of invasions) did you find one or was it referenced in another translation of the Tain

In the original:

Irish:
Bendacht ar cech óen mebraigfes go hindraic Táin amlaid seo 7 ná tuillfe cruth aile furri

A blessing on every one who shall faithfully memorise the Táin as it is written here and shall not add any other form to it.

Latin:
Sed ego qui scripsi hanc historiam aut uerius fabulam quibusdam fidem in hac historia aut fabula non accommodo. Quaedam enim ibi sunt praestrigia demonum, quaedum autem figmenta poetica, quaedam similia uero, quaedam non, quaedam ad delectationem stultorum.

But I who have written this story, or rather this fable, give no credence to the various incidents related in it. For some things in it are the deceptions of demons, others poetic figments; some are probable, others improbable; while still others are intended for the delectation of foolish men.

The 7 symbol in the Irish is an old way of writing "ocus", meaning "and", similar to the & symbol in English.
"ocus" became "agus" in Modern Irish.

Wibbs wrote: »

It's interesting the guy uses the words "faithfully memorise" and not "reproduce in print" in that entreaty. As if he's aware that writing and books at the time were a relatively rare thing and that it may need to survive in the oral tradition too. That the old tradition still holds relevance even in the face of the new. Though the act of rendering it in ink on page sets the template to remember both are needed. An interesting take for what was lately an entirely oral tradition(IIRC some of the ancient Greek thinkers thinking similar).

Yes, making a canonical version. Indeed the Ancient Greeks did something similar.

Wibbs wrote: »

Seems there's a bit of a hidden thing going on too? The Irish part is easy going, but the Latin part presumably meant only for educated eyes is a bit more... well, dismissive? Though I'm damn thankful for the mindset that spent countless hours just to record it as they felt the act of recording itself important to do so, even if privately he/they thought it was all bollocks. IIRC they did similar for many of the tales of the classical world too. I wonder did they ever do anything similar in the lands these wandering scribes went preaching God to. It's a pity they didn't or that if they did it's lost to us or we would have a greater understanding of other early European myths and legends.

Or am I reading too much into that?

It's hard to know what the monks thought. In some senses he could be just covering his arse with the Latin text. Some people have read the Irish and Latin texts respectively as roughly:
Irish: Dear traditional Irish poets, the Táin is fantastic don't you agree?
Latin: Dear superiors who could kill me, the Táin is a load of bollocks don't you agree?

The monks were very contradictory. For example one monk, copying the New Testament says in a margin (probably to another monk who will also be copying from his copy):

Cidbé le bud emeilt, do scribus mar do fuarus ind lebur so nó fós.
I'm sorry if you find this boring, but I just copied the book the way I found it.

Not something you would expect from a pious monk!

A random note, just since we're discussing early Ireland:
The Brehon law texts rank entertainers. The lowest entertainer called a "braigetóir" was more lowly than even "the lowest female entertainer". The Braigetóir was a professional farter.