Has there ever been Roman artifacts found in Ireland ?

yes, coins have been found and other evidence that trading took place between Irish sailors/ports and romans.

O'Leprosy wrote:

Great Ned, very informative.

It's incorrect though. There is no evidence of any kind of Roman fort at Drumanagh. In fact what evidence there is would go against there being any fort there (i.e. of all the finds in the collection that includes what was found at Drumanagh, none were from the Roman military).

I have a book at home which is about celtic history. It claims the Dunaragh site was closed down by the government after researchers determined it to be a Roman fortress. I'll get the name later and post.

Lambay Island had roman artefacts as far as i remember from lectures.

Roman Ireland by Vittorio Di Martino

This makes a good argument that the Romans did in fact invade Ireland. An interesting observation is that Cashel was founded by Romans and the name is derived from the Latin "castra" meaning fortress.

nipplenuts wrote: »

Roman Ireland by Vittorio Di Martino

This makes a good argument that the Romans did in fact invade Ireland. An interesting observation is that Cashel was founded by Romans and the name is derived from the Latin "castra" meaning fortress.

I haven't read the book but why on earth would the Romans have established a fortress miles from the coast at Cashel? And the name Cashel, as far as I know, comes from the Irish: Caiseal, meaning stone fort.

Again, as far as I know there have been mighty few finds of anything even slightly connected with the Romans - a handful of burial coins and that's about it. What are we at here? I've heard of revisionism but come on....:D

Fionagus - just had a look at some info on the Derry coin find and I don't think it would indicate that Ireland was an outpost of the Roman Empire. The Limerick one is even more uninteresting.

Irish archeologists have been excavating many of the ancient sites over the past 30 or 40 years - and also using geophysical surveying equipment. Scholarship on ancient Ireland does not rely on mythology. That itself is a myth. The Celtic 'invasion' myth, for example, has long been discredited by the archeological evidence.


Professor of Archeology Barry Raftery has published on the Drumanagh peninsula, north Dublin - across from Lambay Island. This is where many Roman artifacts were found. The evidence suggests to him that there was trading with the Roman world but not an invasion, or conquest. Aerial photography revealed the outlines of circular Irish style homes - no Roman style found.

Here are some of Raftery's comments/review of the book, Roman Ireland by Vittorio Di Martino that contained much of the 'fantasy' [Raftery's words] of the Romans and Ireland.


Quote:
His basic premise is quite untrue. Today no reputable scholar concerned with a study of the first millennium AD in Ireland questions the extensive romanisation which obviously took place in so many areas of material, intellectual, artistic and religious development. Roman influences were durable, over time influencing, and adapting to, new trends. Nor has the identification of some Roman burials in Ireland ever been in question and nobody doubts that individuals, or small groups, from the Roman world may have set foot on Irish soil.
Di Martino's fascination and enthusiasm for his subject is evident and in this he is to be commended. In the basic material presented, however, there is little that is new and, more seriously, his reasoning, and the manner in which he presents the evidence, are deeply flawed. In addition, the book is littered with inaccuracies, so many in fact that only a handful can be noted in this review.
He deals in his first chapter with the alleged, oft-discussed "invasion" of Ireland by Agricola around 82AD. He adds nothing new to the argument and his inclusion of two well-known burial sites, on Lambay and at "Loughey" in Co Down, is unfortunate for neither is Roman and the latter is almost certainly that of a woman. Inevitably he rehashes, with approval, the Drumanagh controversy and concludes by invoking "burials of soldiers wearing their Roman arms", and an "invasion fort". Here he borders on pure fantasy.

Mr. Presentable wrote: »

Have you looked at the link in my previous post?

Look, I don't know who has the truth in this, but I think it's worth consideration that there may have been Roman occupation. I would find it more surprising, given the centuries of British occupation by Romans, that there would be no expeditions to here.

Well I would have thought that the trouble they had securing Scotland and West Wales would have severely discouraged them. A few coins and some alleged Roman burials does not amount to an invasion.

Mr. Presentable wrote: »

Have you looked at the link in my previous post?

The author of your 'source' admits in his Preface that his sources for the period in question are based purely on myth and legend.

There was a leather strap from roman armour found at rath gael in carlow

MarchDub wrote: »

Irish archeologists have been excavating many of the ancient sites over the past 30 or 40 years - and also using geophysical surveying equipment. Scholarship on ancient Ireland does not rely on mythology. That itself is a myth. The Celtic 'invasion' myth, for example, has long been discredited by the archeological evidence.

A bit off topic, but I've also heard the same about the Anglo Saxon 'invasion' of Engalnd. Seen a programme where an English historian suggested that it was more of an assimilation because of trade etc with what we now know as Holland, Fresian Islands and Germany than some sort of military conquest. Is it true ?

Mr. Presentable wrote: »

Care to expand on this pithy reply?

What you said was quite funny, and not based on reality. That would be my guess as to what he meant.

brianthebard wrote: »

As John says, the second half of your statement was just too unrealistic to be able to pass any other comment upon. I take it however you have no problem with the first half of my reply?

Not at all! That's the accepted view.

topper75 wrote: »

Admittedly, it is a little odd that they ignored us, especially given our relative proximity to Britain. However, they weren't the first to ignore us.

I doubt they actually ignored us, if they did their homework (as I'm sure the Romans would do) they probably just figured the political set up here was too difficult to conquer. England could be taken by defeating a handful of powerful kings. Even the Vikings managed to conquer half the country fairly quickly. Ireland, on the other hand, would have required hundreds of kings to be defeated, and by the time you got to the last one, half of the earlier conquests would have been fancying there chances for a rematch! That's why the Vikings never managed to rule much outside their initial settlements later on, and why it took hundreds of years before the Anglo-Normans finally completed their invasion. Romans probably just figured that the potential pay-off of an invasion wasn't worth the almost constant state of war that they would be in. They were happy to fight along their borders, but not constantly within territory they had already conquered.

well i think its been pointed out by a couple of historians that the massive roman fort at chester could have been building up to an invasion of ireland. but it was completed during Hadrians early reign who was calling a halt to the expansions of the empire.

While the issue is far from decided, I thought I'd throw in my two-cents' worth on the subject of Roman goods/burials in Ireland.

Firstly, I think most reputable archaeologists and historians are in agreement that there has never been a formally sanctioned Roman invasion of Britain. That said, there are instances in other sites where Roman legions intervened in local political and military events on the quiet - witness the number of Roman artifacts freely distributed around the Vindolanda site in Britain. Not everything was 'plunder' or piracy; many of the soldiers who manned Hadrian's wall eventually intermarried into local populations.

The fact that there is evidence (admittedly scant) that forces that were nominally under Agricola's control might have interceded in the Tuathal Teachtmhar debacle has contributed to much of the furor, and it is (in my opinion) largely unnecessary.The presence of significant quantities of small Roman goods near sites closely aligned with Teachtmhar gives some credence to this idea. Note that I did not say 'proved' - that would require a lot more than has been produced to date. Even a handful of legitimate, undisturbed Roman legionary graves with clear identifiers tying them to their units would be grounds for believing in the intervention theory. Until then, 'proof' is a long ways out.

Experienced Roman generals often let their men 'off the leash' to work out some of the frustration caused by the tedium and unavoidable boredom of standing watch on a border fort day in and day out; some of the incursions into Scotland are traceable to incidents not too different from what is being proposed here. Can we not at least consider the possibility that Agricola told a select few of his men 'Ok, so you can take a few boats and go and whack the Irish; but if you get caught I'm disavowing all knowledge of your actions and whereabouts'. For him it was a win-win situation; if his men succeeded in establishing a toe-hold and something like a diplomatic alliance with Teachtmhar, it would be a credit to him (Agricola) and provide possible justification for later incursions in a more formal capacity. If it ended in tears, he'd be rid of a few handfuls of hot-heads and their hangers-on. He couldn't know of course that only a few decades down the road the Legions would be irrevocably recalled from Britain to defend the last vestiges of the remaining Roman strongholds in Italy and Gaul against the Ostrogoths.

Even if a small number of Roman legionaries and their families settled in Ireland, I daresay the most likely outcome would be that they'd be assimilated and become 'Irish' in their own right. This certainly proved true for a lot of the British who were compelled to settle in Ireland (often against their will). Today their descendants are as Irish as you'd fancy.

Whatever the truth of the matter, I doubt we'll ever see a wholesale 'invasion site' in Ireland with unquestioned Roman origins. Without a sanction to initiate such an invasion from the Emperor himself, actions of this sort would have been career-ending. A quiet invasion on the other hand, has somewhat greater appeal.

If someone wants my ideas as to where to look for such a base of operations, let me know. I'll lay a few bucks (quid?) down on a case of Guinness. It won't be anywhere you've heard of, and certainly nowhere that has been excavated professionally.

-- Dave Lovering