A Brief History of the Celts (31 page)
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Authors: Peter Berresford Ellis
In Ireland, the Celts had survived unscathed by the threat of Roman empire, developing their native laws, literature and learning. Although Irish is the third literary language of Europe after
Greek and Latin and we have texts surviving from the sixth century
AD
, recording earlier oral traditions, the history of Ireland prior to that date is obscure. Some
historians do not believe that the Celts even arrived in Ireland until
c
. 200
BC
, following the Roman conquest of the Iberian peninsula.
Ireland had become known to the Roman world by the first
century
AD
. Tacitus records: ‘In soil and climate, and in the character and
civilisations of its inhabitants, [it] is much like Britain; and its approaches and harbours have now become better known from the merchants who trade there . . .’ Archaeology certainly
provides evidence of trading links. From Tacitus also we hear of an Irish prince ‘expelled from his home by rebellion’, who arrived in Britain in
c
.
AD
80 and whom Agricola considered using as a pretext for an invasion. However, he was too busily occupied trying to conquer northern Britain.
There was an Irish tradition, recounted in
Leabhar Gabhála
(
Book of Invasions
), that Míle Easpain (Soldier of Spain), the progenitor of the Gaels, led his people
to Ireland from Spain. Archaeological evidence from the stone
chevaux-de-frise
fortifications at, among other places, Dún Aenghus, on the Aran Islands, is cited in evidence, for
similar constructions are found in Spain and Portugal. However, Irish tradition and the Irish genealogies of kings, the king lists, put the date of the creation of the two major royal lines in
Ireland to 1015
BC
. These are the lines of Eremon and Eber, the sons of Golamh or Míle. This would place the arrival of Míle’s sons in Ireland
700–800 years before a date archaeologists would be happy to accept.
Certainly the first known inhabitants of Ireland lived there in 6000
BC
and the first farming communities were active in 3000
BC
. Around 1500
BC
Irish bronze and gold work was actually being exported to Europe. It may be possible that speakers of an Indo-European dialect had reached Ireland by this time. Is there,
however, anything to suggest that a new group of people arrived in Ireland around 1015
BC
which would give substance to the Irish literary tradition?
In fact, archaeologists have admitted to noticing ‘a wind of change’ in Ireland after 1200
BC
. This ‘change’ was revealed in an important find
from Bishopsland, Co. Kildare, where the equipment of a smith was unearthed. He had buried his anvil,
vice, saw and other tools such as a socketed axe-head, chisel and
palstave. These tools appear to be similar to Celtic developments in southern Germany. Similar finds were made in Lough Gur, Co. Limerick, and Annesborough, Co. Armagh. We also find Hallstatt-type
swords in Ireland though these are not of sufficient number to indicate a large-scale invasion. But while it is in the archaeologist’s nature to look for large-scale ‘invasions’,
the less dramatic ‘development’ theories must also be considered: changes in society do not have to be brought about by invasions from outside cultures.
It is possible, therefore, that the first Celtic-speaking groups came to Ireland exactly when the Irish literary traditions say they did; small groups, perhaps, intermarrying with the previous
Indo-European population and developing the Celtic language which was spoken throughout Ireland when the country emerged into recorded history. Ireland could still have been a haven for Continental
Celts fleeing from the Roman conquests towards the end of the first century
BC
, which would have reinforced this culture.
Cecile O’Rahilly, in
Ireland and Wales: Their Historical and Literary Relations
, demonstrated the evidence of a continuing movement of small population groups between Ireland and
Britain from the prehistoric period through to medieval times. She shows that groups of British Celts fled both Roman and Anglo-Saxon conquests and settled in Ireland.
The La Tène culture had reached Ireland by the third and second centuries
BC
, although more examples have been found in the northern half of the country. The
surviving archaeological material really gives us no reliable evidence of any large-scale Celtic migrations. The fact is that Ireland was Celtic-speaking from earliest references, such as
Avienus’
Ora Maritima
. Though surviving from the fourth century
AD
, this is known to contain material based on earlier Greek exploratory voyages of the fifth
century
BC
. Strabo speaks of Ireland in his
Geography
.
It is at this point, the start of the Christian era, that we may leave the world of the ancient Celts.
Today, the Celtic world has indeed dwindled to the sixteen millions dwelling on the north-west periphery of Europe, of which only two-and-a-half millions still speak a Celtic language. These are
the lineal descendants of the once extensive civilisation of the ancient Celts, the inheritors of 3000 years of a unique and rich cultural continuum.
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