Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Gallic Presence

  • 08-02-2021 7:09pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 1,752 ✭✭✭


    Is there any evidence of the tribes of Gaul in Ireland? Presumably after Caesar conquered Gaul, there was a mass exodus of these Gallic tribesmen?


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 3,597 ✭✭✭silliussoddius


    I can't remember if it was on this forum or somewhere else, but there is a story about a king in Munster who returned from exile in Gaul to claim back his throne. A poster had mentioned that the exile part of the story may have been made up and king was in fact someone who invaded from Gaul and the exile part was made up to make the story more palatable.
    There was a tribe around Wexford called the Menapii, they share their name with a Belgic group. With all the toing and froing in mainland Europe (and then Britain after the Angles and Saxons), liek you say you would have movements of people (or at least displaced leadership).


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,752 ✭✭✭markesmith


    I've heard it mentioned also that the Eoganacht had Gaulish origins. Just wondering if the archaeological record shows up anything.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 5,218 Mod ✭✭✭✭slowburner


    There were Gaulish style artefacts found with the burials on Lambay Island. The Gaulish artefacts consisted of a rosette brooch and two 'dolphin style' fibulae. These burials were uncovered during renovation works to the harbour wall in the 1920s. The finds also included British fibulae, most of which are distributed mainly through Hertfordshire and Lincolnshire with some examples from Essex, Gloucestershire, and Norfolk.
    Most of this material dates to the early part of the first century AD so if it represents a flight of Gauls (or Romano-British) to Ireland, it was a pioneering one.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,473 ✭✭✭Grolschevik


    I'm putting an asterix on this thread for future reference.








    [Ahem...]


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,665 ✭✭✭CelticRambler


    markesmith wrote: »
    Is there any evidence of the tribes of Gaul in Ireland?

    Dún na nGall? :D

    Here in France, it is implied by most local history information boards that Gaulish people were quickly and efficiently indoctrinated into the Roman way of life, so there may have been little incentive for whole tribes to relocate.

    From a more realistic point of view, the Roman expansion/invasion into Gaul was very fast (one reason, no doubt, for its success) but also more of a series of "surgical strikes" than a blanket invasion. This would have had the effect of quickly dividing Gaul into numerous smaller territories to be tamed afterwards, and cutting off routes of exit for anyone who declined to be crushed. Remember that the Romans had invaded Britain several years before they'd finished dealing with resistance in Gaul.

    We know that the Gaulish mentality didn't lend itself to strategic cooperation, and it's probably reasonable to assume that that was matched by fierce determination to fight to the death rather than run away ... which is what they did, with several small but isolated areas holding out against the Romans, and Vercingetorix' belated attempt to mount a coherent defence.

    Then there's the simple fact of geography: apart from the relatively few tribes living on the Atlantic coast, most of them would have had no direct access to Ireland - it's a long long way to Tipperary from places like Avaricum! :pac:


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 1,752 ✭✭✭markesmith


    These are interesting points, delighted to get a good conversation going :)

    Considering how many participated in battles like Alesia, how populous Gaul was, and the likely trading links between Gaul's western & northern coasts, I'm sure there's some parallels between the "Celtic" (want of a better word) culture.

    There has to have been some significant movement of people. I know the Romans were efficient and surgical in their conquest of Gaul, but given the migrations seen before & after this time (Cimbri, Gothic tribes etc.) it's surprising there's no noticeable archaeological record in Ireland?


Advertisement