Question about early Irish identity

Xivilai · 28-09-2013 6:06pm #1

Hi,

I've come across some guys ramblings on Youtube several times. He posts on different accounts across many videos. I'm not going to argue with this guy,but am still curious about whether his claims have veracity.
He says that:

(i) Scots were from Scotland and were totally distinct from Hibernii which he says were the Irish. I know that both terms were used at different times to refer to people from Ireland. I think what hes trying to get at is that the Scotti were an alien people to the Hibernii? who apparently lived in the South of the island. The Scotti were Ulster based and hence Ireland should be partitioned etc. You know where hes going with it anyway.
He claims St. Patrick recognised that the Scotti were a separate people newly arrived in the island at the time of his slavery.
I suspect hes talking **** because there were many different tribes on the island, but I always assumed that they held the notion of common heritage.

(ii) He claims that the Iona monks were Scottish and no Irish involved, that Brian Boru was a Scot who happened to live in the island and was an alien to the Hibernii? Hence the Emperor of the Scots thing he boasted of. Also, there were no Irish monasteries on the Continent because of their association with "Scots". He claims that there was no such identity as Irish in Boru's time - Irish is apparently a Catholic name that did not exist before Pope Leo X imposed it on the Hiberni in the 16th century, and before this the "Hibernii" knew of no such term.

In short Gaels(from an ancient British word) were from Scotland and Irish are impostors.

What did people from Ireland generally refer to themselves in ancient times? Or were they too divided to appreciate an overall identity?

Can anyone say how much of this is pulled out of his ass?

tac foley · 28-09-2013 6:27pm

IMO you'd be better amused watching my many train movies on Youtube than this ****e.

Mind you, I'm as interested as you are in reading the actual historical facts of the arrival of the Scotti on mainland Greater Britain, rather than this stuff.

'Emperor of the Scots?

Riiiiiiiiight.

tac

Ipso · 28-09-2013 6:43pm

If you want to go further down the crazy path read Ian Adamsons stuff on the Cruithin or some of the British Israelite stuff.

robp · 28-09-2013 6:56pm

Xivilai wrote: »

Hi,

What did people from Ireland generally refer to themselves in ancient times? Or were they too divided to appreciate an overall identity?

Can anyone say how much of this is pulled out of his ass?

Identity is a Pandora's box and you will get all sorts of answers as to when the Irish identity commenced. We can talk about certain levels of national identity in comparison to modern Irish identity. As no country had the modern national identity that exists today in ancient times.

The earliest Irish name for Irish people that I know of is Goídel from the 7th century. Its pretty pejorative as apparently Irish people borrowed the word from the Welsh term gwyddell (raider). Other terms include mic milidh (Sons of Mil) and the more familiar fir Éireann. I don't think anyone knows what words by the Irish themselves before writing came.

I'd say there was shared cultural identity early on as there is very little evidence for dialects in early Irish but very different to today.

robp · 28-09-2013 7:05pm

Xivilai wrote: »

Hi,

I've come across some guys ramblings on Youtube several times. He posts on different accounts across many videos. I'm not going to argue with this guy,but am still curious about whether his claims have veracity.
He says that:

(i) Scots were from Scotland and were totally distinct from Hibernii which he says were the Irish. I know that both terms were used at different times to refer to people from Ireland. I think what hes trying to get at is that the Scotti were an alien people to the Hibernii? who apparently lived in the South of the island. The Scotti were Ulster based and hence Ireland should be partitioned etc. You know where hes going with it anyway.
He claims St. Patrick recognised that the Scotti were a separate people newly arrived in the island at the time of his slavery.
I suspect hes talking **** because there were many different tribes on the island, but I always assumed that they held the notion of common heritage.

They shared a lot of culture. There may have been pockets of regional culture E.G. SW Ireland, NE Ireland or E Ireland but this is very very debatable.

Xivilai wrote: »

(ii) Also, there were no Irish monasteries on the Continent because of their association with "Scots".

You can be 100% sure this is false. The link between Irish and continental monasteries is not even slightly controversial. There is so much evidence.

Xivilai · 28-09-2013 7:12pm

robp wrote: »

Identity is a Pandora's box and you will get all sorts of answers as to when the Irish identity commenced. We can talk about certain levels of national identity in comparison to modern Irish identity. As no country had the modern national identity that exists today in ancient times.

Is Ireland or Eire used often as a name for the island in ancient times? Considering they shared the same language law and island i'd imagine there must have been a fairly strong awareness of a collective group for everyone. As for national identity back then can you give an example of solidarity?
Were Scotland Wales and other nations in a similar situation, composed of petty kingdoms?

robp · 28-09-2013 7:47pm

Xivilai wrote: »

Is Ireland or Eire used often as a name for the island in ancient times? Considering they shared the same language law and island i'd imagine there must have been a fairly strong awareness of a collective group for everyone. As for national identity back then can you give an example of solidarity?
Were Scotland Wales and other nations in a similar situation, composed of petty kingdoms?

'Ireland' came from the Anglo-Norman rendition of the Irish name c. 12th cen. Eire is the modern Irish for Eriu. I think Eriu comes from Iverio which goes back to atleast the 3rd cen AD. So its pretty darn old. I think its the name of the island not people.

According to Donnachadh O Corrain Irish national identity reaches back to least the 7th cen. We know know very little about the perspectives of ordinary people that far back. We only have glimpses from monastic scholars.

I am not very knowledgeable about England, Scotland and Wales political systems.

tac foley · 29-09-2013 11:13pm

No Irish in Europe? I'm far too polite to respond to that tosh, except to point anybody who is interested in hard facts, rather than biased bilge, to read the following -

'Christianity was spread in northern Scotland from the year 563 with the foundation of Iona by Columba. Following the foundation of Lindisfarne in 635 by the Irish monk Saint Aidan, Hiberno-Scottish missionaries converted most Anglo-Saxon kings during the following decades; the last pagan Anglo-Saxon king, Arwald of the Isle of Wight, was killed in battle in 686.

Columbanus was active in the Frankish Empire from 590, establishing monasteries until his death at Bobbio in 615. He arrived on the continent with twelve companions and founded Annegray, Luxeuil, and Fontaines in France and Bobbio in Italy. During the 7th century the disciples of Columbanus and other Scottish and Irish missionaries founded several monasteries in what are now France, Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland. The best known are: St. Gall in Switzerland, Disibodenberg in the Rhine Palatinate, St. Paul's at Besançon, Lure and Cusance in the Diocese of Besançon, Beze in the Diocese of Langres, Remiremont Abbey and Moyenmoutier Abbey in the Diocese of Toul, Fosses-la-Ville in the Diocese of Liège, Mont-St-Michel at Peronne[disambiguation needed], Ebersmunster in Lower Alsace, St. Martin's at Cologne, the Scots Monastery, Regensburg, Vienna, Erfurt and Würzburg. In Italy, Fiesole produced Saint Donatus of Fiesole and Andrew the Scot of Fiesole. Another early Schottenkloster was Säckingen in Baden, founded by the Irish missionary Fridolin of Säckingen who is said to have founded another at Konstanz. Other Hiberno-Scottish missionaries active at the time, predominantly in Swabia, were Wendelin of Trier, Kilian, Arbogast, Landelin, Trudpert, Pirmin (founded Reichenau abbey), Saint Gall (Abbey of St. Gall), Corbinian, Emmeram and Rupert of Salzburg.

I think that little lot would serve to put the record right with regard to Irish and Scottish religious personnel and their activities among the previously pagan European nations.

tac

Xivilai · 29-09-2013 11:58pm

I think its best to ignore this arsehole. I came across his ravings months ago and came across them the other day again, it looks like he has multiple accounts and even thanks himself with some of them. Hes well spoken but has clearly got an agenda, and he pushes it hard.

There is one thing he repeats that sounds interesting. He mentions St Patrick's Confession alot and that Patrick himself differentiated between the Scots and Hibernii in Ireland several times. Apparently he described the Scots as newcomers and rulers, and the Hibernii (Southerners apparently) were the lowly peasant Irish.

He says that Ireland was conquered by the Scots in the fourth century, and that basically our culture is an imitation of theirs. The guy won't acknowledge that Scots was a term used for Gaelic speakers of this country, and states that Brian Boru was more Scot than Irish, hence the title he gave himself in Armagh.

Dr.Tank Adams · 30-09-2013 7:04am

"The Veracity of his claims"
Yeah, no.......

tac foley · 30-09-2013 4:42pm

To tell the truth, Gentlemen, we have actually been spared. He has not yet made mention of Atlantis, The Golden Horde, or O'Siris, surely an Irish god if ever there was one.

tac

robp · 30-09-2013 5:12pm

Xivilai wrote: »

I think its best to ignore this arsehole. I came across his ravings months ago and came across them the other day again, it looks like he has multiple accounts and even thanks himself with some of them. Hes well spoken but has clearly got an agenda, and he pushes it hard.

There is one thing he repeats that sounds interesting. He mentions St Patrick's Confession alot and that Patrick himself differentiated between the Scots and Hibernii in Ireland several times. Apparently he described the Scots as newcomers and rulers, and the Hibernii (Southerners apparently) were the lowly peasant Irish.

He says that Ireland was conquered by the Scots in the fourth century, and that basically our culture is an imitation of theirs. The guy won't acknowledge that Scots was a term used for Gaelic speakers of this country, and states that Brian Boru was more Scot than Irish, hence the title he gave himself in Armagh.

All that before written history. I mean there were things happening in Ireland at this time but I never heard of large scale invasions.

Duckworth_Luas · 30-09-2013 8:58pm

The issue here is one of Scottish national identity. By the 14th century Scotland was a culturally divided country. While Scots Gaelic remained the language of the Highlands a dialect of English now had prominence in the south and east.

The cultural divide is famously seen in the poem The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy. In it Dunbar, an "Inglis" speaker admonishes the Gaelic speaking Kennedy's "Irishry. By the 17th century laws were in place ensuring that Gaelic speaking lords had their sons educated in English and that the "Inglishe toung be universallie plantit, and the Irische language …... abolisheit and removeit". So Scotland was trying to degaelicize itself.

However, after the 1707 Act of Union, Scotland was no longer an independent state. Instead it was a partner in the United Kingdom of Great Britain with England. By the early 19th century the Scottish middle and upper classes had adapted a romanticised version of Highland cultural to mark out Scotland as different from England. Highland customs, music, dress and dance now became the national symbols of Scotland.

The problem was that Scottish Lowlanders had previously being referring to the culture from where they took these emblems as being of foreign, Irish origin (many were also of Norse and native origin). Worse still, in these post reformation times, the Irish were still a Roman Catholic nation.

Presbyterian "scholars" in Glasgow and Edinburgh decided that the accepted historical evidence for a cultural transformation of Scotland from Pictish to Gaelic must be wrong. Instead they proposed that Gaelic culture must have originated in northern Britain and been exported to Ireland.

This of course is complete nonsense and modern Scots laugh at it's ludicrousness. However, imagine that you believe yourself to be an Ulster-Scot. Like the Scottish Lowlanders of the 1800s you've started to adopt elements of Highland cultural as part of your own. Now imagine that you find out that parts of that cultural owes its roots to papist Gaelic Ireland. This is your friend on Youtube!

dubhthach · 01-10-2013 2:15pm

robp wrote: »

Identity is a Pandora's box and you will get all sorts of answers as to when the Irish identity commenced. We can talk about certain levels of national identity in comparison to modern Irish identity. As no country had the modern national identity that exists today in ancient times.

The earliest Irish name for Irish people that I know of is Goídel from the 7th century. Its pretty pejorative as apparently Irish people borrowed the word from the Welsh term gwyddell (raider). Other terms include mic milidh (Sons of Mil) and the more familiar fir Éireann. I don't think anyone knows what words by the Irish themselves before writing came.

I'd say there was shared cultural identity early on as there is very little evidence for dialects in early Irish but very different to today.

The earliest term would probably be Féni -- this is of course gives rise to words such as Fenechas (the law/lore of the Féni).

As for initial post and in regards to Briain Borimhe, the expression used in the Book of Armagh is: " "Imperator Scottorum" -- "Emperor of the Irish". You see for example "scotus" used as a Agnomen for Irishmen (mostly monks/religious) working in Europe during the period, for example:
Johannes Scotus Eriugena

In his case it's spelt out bit more, as Eriugena means "Ireland born".

As for the term "Irish" it can be found in documents in english language form at least the 13th century (Irische, Irishe etc.) hardly anything to do with a Pope.

As for Iona he's talking out of his arse, is he saying that Colmcille who was a great-great-grandson of Niall (of the Nine Hostages) wasn't Irish.

The fact that he mentions popes and catholicism has me think he's someone who views the world through the prism of the 17th century.

I'll quote King Robert (Bruce) of Scotland:

Whereas we and you and our people and your people, free since ancient times, share the same national ancestry and are urged to come together more eagerly and joyfully in friendship by a common language and by common custom, we have sent you our beloved kinsman, the bearers of this letter, to negotiate with you in our name about permanently strengthening and maintaining inviolate the special friendship between us and you, so that with God's will our nation (nostra nacio) may be able to recover her ancient liberty.

And of course not longer after there's the famous Irish Remonstration to the Pope John XXII (1317) written by Domhnall mac Brian Ó Néill

http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T310000-001.html

For know, our revered Father, that besides the kings of lesser Scotia who all drew the source of their blood from our greater Scotia, retaining to some extent our language and habits,

Peadar237 · 12-10-2013 7:52pm

Was this YouTube user segano1 or Brythonic Fox?

Xivilai · 12-10-2013 10:30pm

Peadar237 wrote: »

Was this YouTube user segano1 or Brythonic Fox?

Indeed it was

Question about early Irish identity

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