The claim of the Irish to have been in very remote antiquity a nation of letters, and in some sort of civilization while their future conquerors were yet in a state of absolute barbarism, is not less eagerly contested on our side of the Irish Channel, than it is warmly asserted on theirs. To prove the negative of any question is commonly a very difficult task: in this case it is not merely attended with difficulty, it is absolutely impossible; and in a case of so much perplexity nothing remains but to deny the fact, and to treat the arguments brought by writers in support of the claim as fable and fiction, having their origin entirely in national vanity. But why should we be so unwilling to admit of this claim? — All nations have had their dark and their brilliant periods, their days of cloud and their days of sunshine; and why may not Ireland too have had hers? She has known enough of adversity, of that we have assurance double sure, — why should we be unwilling to allow that she ever knew prosperity?
If indeed pretensions were made by the Irish to their country having in ancient times arrived at as high a point in civilization, and in literature and the arts, as prevails at present in Great Britain and many other nations of Europe, they might not unreasonably be charged with presumption and arrogance. But such are not their claims. Civilization is but a term of comparison; and what in one age may be justly considered as a high degree, compared with a period, more remote, will, when compared with subsequent ages, perhaps be regarded but as a small step beyond barbarism; and it appears not much more reasonable to treat with ridicule and contumely the claims the Irish actually do urge,
The misfortune lies in these writings being disguised in a character and language which has become nearly obsolete; which from circumstances has not only been for many ages neglected, but over which it has been the policy to throw a veil of ridicule and contempt, as the language but of the vulgar classes of society. But was not the Greek the language of the vulgar as well as of the polished classes? — was it not so with the Roman or Latin? — and though the Irish is now confined to the lower classes, was not that once the language of the Court and the Great, as well as of the Little? — It is from this great circumstance of the Irish language being so lost, that the disbelief in the antiquity of their records arises; but if instead of despising the language, people would study it, the case might perhaps be very different. Is any one authorized to despise what he does not understand? Surely not; for the contempt to be justifiable, the object of it at least ought to be thoroughly understood. Thus much may certainly be said in favour of the language and the light to be derived from it, — that the few who have devoted themselves to these studies have been uniformly more and more interested by them, and more eager to pursue them the further they advanced; while the deeper their researches were carried, the more strongly were they convinced of the truth and antiquity of the documents to which they had thus obtained access. The late Henry Flood, Esq. was so earnestly impressed with the importance of the ancient Irish language being studied and cultivated, that he bequeathed a large property to Trinity College, Dublin, for the purpose
The truth is, that at the conquest of the country by the English it became the policy of the conquerors to represent the vanquished as a herd of rude barbarians, the better to gloss over their own illicit and unjustifiable procedure. This imputation unfortunately gained too much colour from the circumstances under which the invasion of Ireland was ultimately undertaken. Torn by domestic feuds, the assistance of the English monarch was implored by the weaker party, and thus was furnished a too plausible pretence for what had before been resolved on; at the same time that too much reason was given for treating as barbarous and uncivilized, a people who were thus divided. Yet, if the thing be examined with a really philosophical eye, the very nature of those feuds showed civilization to a certain point, since they were not the quarrels of barbarians, they savoured much more of those of legitimate monarchies. They were the factions which always arise sooner or later in long established governments, not the squabbles of those who had never known what it was to live under a regular system. It was not by utter barbarians that a foreign power would have been called in to settle their domestic feuds, this savours much more of the apathy and indolence of civilization. Under such influence men feel only the present inconvenience; and if a prospect appears of disencumbering themselves from that by the exertions of others rather than their own, they catch at it eagerly, regardless of the lessons they might learn from uniform experience. The Horse and the Stag is one of the finest among the many fine moral lessons afforded by the Fables of Æsop: but it is the fate of man, individuals no less than states, that they can never profit by the experience of others, they must purchase it themselves, and dear is the price commonly paid. The Britons, long before, had called in the Saxons to assist them against the inroads of their fellow-islanders the Picts; and these new guests once introduced into the country did not choose to depart; — they came to assist, they remained to enslave it. The Irish, or one faction at least among them, called in the English to aid them in supporting their claims to the sovereignty: — the English had long since cast an
Against the imputed advance in civilization among the Irish may be urged the rudeness of their habitations at the time of the English conquest — that Dublin did not afford any thing beyond houses, or rather cabins, of clay-built walls. But it is to be observed, that Dublin never was the capital under the proper Irish kings; their residence was at Tara; there they held their Court; thither the assemblies of the nation were convened. Dublin had been raised to consideration by the Ostmen or Danes; and the English, by whom alone these latter were finally expelled from the country, found it a more convenient situation for their capital, from its vicinity to the sea, and being directly opposite the English coast, than a more inland one. The arts of masonry in Ireland were then principally bestowed upon the religious seminaries or the castles of the chieftains; it is among them we must look for all the architectural remains so profusely scattered over the country. Many of these were indeed establishments subsequent to the English conquest. But it is rather in having had for so long a succession of years the use of letters and a regular established government, that the superior civilization of Ireland is to be looked for, than in their advancement in the arts, though that was by no means inconsiderable.
It may again be objected, that of the ancient Irish manuscripts handed down to the present time, the greater part are poetry, the fables of the bards of old, and in no way to be cited as authority for any thing like historical facts. Yet, even if it could be granted that no other ancient Irish manuscripts exist except the songs of the bards, is not poetry the almost universal vehicle through which the early annals of all countries have been handed down to posterity? Are not the very earliest writings we possess in many parts poetic? and do we reject the belief of them on that account? — It may be said that these writings were inspired; that they are not to be brought as an argument for affording any belief in profane poetry: but can we suppose the Being who inspired them, would have had them clothed in a garb which was ever after to be stigmatized as that of falsehood and delusion? — This seems an idea scarcely to be entertained for a moment of Infinite Wisdom. Turn to the Greeks: Is it not in the divine poems of Homer, is it not in the works of Hesiod, that we look not only for the earliest accounts of the history of this extraordinary people, but equally for the pictures
True it is, that in these latter years there have been people who have chosen to doubt whether such persons as the heroes of Homer ever existed save in the fancy of the poet, and whether such an event as the Trojan war ever occurred except in his imagination. That Homer has mingled a great deal of fable in all he has written I have not the least doubt; as little can I doubt that he had some foundation whereon to raise that edifice which was the delight of his own time, which ever has been, and probably ever will be, the admiration of posterity. What has been the practice in all epic poesy, but to raise a splendid superstructure of fable upon a slender base of facts? nor has any argument yet been adduced, according to my ideas, of sufficient force to overturn the long-established belief that this was the case with the great father of epic poets. Till, then, some stronger arguments appear than I have yet heard, to disprove the existence of such persons as Priam and Achilles, of Paris and of Hector, of such a city as Troy and of such an event as the Trojan war, I must believe that illustrious chiefs of such names once flourished in Greece and in Phrygia, that such a city as Troy once ornamented the banks of the Simoïs and the Scamander, and that this city endured a long and remarkable siege. Thus much I must believe, however largely I may think the poet drew upon his imagination in furnishing out the splendid garb with which his story is decorated.
Turn to the Northern nations, Is not poetry equally the vehicle by which we arrive at the earliest ideas to be traced of their history, of their strange and wild mythology, and of the customs over which it had so strong an influence? Granted, therefore, that it were through the medium of poetry alone the alleged antiquity of the Irish nation was to be traced; such testimonies, though to be cautiously believed, are not to be wholly rejected. But the Irish claims do not rest upon this base alone; laws and statutes of a very remote period are in existence, which show that the nation where they were enacted could not have been in a state of absolute barbarism — that the use of letters was familiar to it. Manuscripts of these laws and institutions are to be seen: there are several deposited in the library of Trinity College at Dublin, with other manuscripts upon different subjects, the antiquity of which the most determined sceptic, on seeing
Lord Lyttleton, who seems indeed desirous of stating the matter fairly, has yet fallen into a great error in saying that the letters of the ancient Irish alphabet, called the Beth-Luis-Nion27, are Roman, with but little variation from the originals. O'Halloran in his History of Ireland derives them from the Greek. He appears to me equally in an error; these letters are evidently of Celtic origin, having the utmost affinity, it might almost be said having identity, with the ancient Saxon character, as it is found in some old Saxon manuscripts preserved in this country: from these our ancient Black letter is derived; the modern German character, now used in Saxony, is properly the Teutonic, though the alphabets are but dialects (if I may be allowed the expression) the one of the other, in the same manner as the languages. But at the time Lord Lyttleton wrote, about the year 177028, or Mr. O'Halloran 1778, scarcely any body in this country thought of studying the German language, in any of its dialects;, the characters employed in them were of course very little known; and ignorant where the true affinity was to be found, these writers were ready to trace it to others with which they were familiar. Perhaps the very character in which the Irish manuscripts are written, rightly understood, is one of the strongest proofs that can be adduced of their antiquity; and if any resemblance is to be traced to the Greek characters, the Greeks, not the Irish, were the imitators. These are probably the characters which the Scythian nations brought with them from Asia when they spread themselves over so large a part of the North of Europe; they are in all probability what were used by the Phoenicians, and were carried by them into Spain, whence they were brought into Ireland by the Milesian colony at their conquest of the island.
Let me be allowed to quote a passage from Lord Lyttleton, and make a remark
A few pages further be says: "Together with the Gospel the British missionaries introduced into Ireland the Roman alphabet, and a general knowledge of the Latin language. A school was formed at Armagh, which soon became very famous; many Irish went from thence to teach and convert other nations; many Saxons out of England resorted thither for instruction, and brought from thence the use of letters to their ignorant countrymen, the same letters which Patrick had given to the Irish. We learn from Bede, an Anglo-Saxon, that about the middle of the seventh century, numbers both of the nobles and of the second rank of English left their country and retired out of England into Ireland for the sake of studying theology or leading there a stricter life. And all these, he affirms, the Irish, who he calls Scots, most willingly received and maintained at their own charge, supplying them also with books, and being their teachers without fee or reward. A most honourable testimony not only to the learning, but likewise to the hospitality and bounty of the nation."
Now it is of importance to observe, that here the author asserts Patrick to have been the person who introduced the Roman alphabet into Ireland; and though he does not positively say it, we are to understand by implication that
Dr. Ledwich would, however, with one stroke, throw both Lord Lyttleton's and my reasoning to the ground, — assuredly I should, at least, fall in good company, — for he totally disbelieves that such a person as St. Patrick ever existed. Now, though I am not disposed to be over-credulous, yet I must say in this instance, as in the instance of Homer's heroes, that I cannot persuade myself such traditions are entire coinages of the imagination. There is, I have no doubt, in all these cases a little base of truth, which is almost sunk beneath the monstrous weight of fiction pressing upon it: yet there it is still. It seems almost as ridiculous wholly to disbelieve the existence of such a personage as St. Patrick, as it would be to believe one half of the stories related of him.31 It is very immaterial, however, whether the Gospel was first preached in Ireland by a person of that name or not; all that bears upon the present question is, whether the Roman alphabet was introduced by its preachers, to the exclusion of the characters previously in use? and this is of great importance in determining the antiquity of manuscripts couched in the original character. If
But the dark policy of former ages unfortunately was concerned in devoting them to destruction. At the preaching of the Gospel the Christian missionaries would of course be earnest to sweep away as much as possible every vestige of the religion they came to abrogate; and, since the religions of the world have always been incorporated with State affairs, in destroying the vestiges of the one the records relative to the other unavoidably fell a sacrifice. In subsequent times, at the English conquest, State reasons completed the work of destruction religious ones had begun; — the Irish were to be represented as a people wholly sunk in barbarism, and whatever would prove the converse must be swept away by that fatal besom. The gross compact of iniquity into which the then sovereign of England, and the Holy Father of Rome, had entered for the subjugation of Ireland, was to have the best colouring put upon it that could be devised: — to affix the stigma of entire barbarism upon the devoted nation appeared the most plausible, and what therefore might aid to contradict such assertions was to be removed out of sight for ever. It is only wonderful that any of these remains of antiquity have been preserved amid such destructive moral hurricanes.
I feel that I have not said one half of what might be said upon this occasion; I have endeavoured only to throw out some desultory hints upon a subject which has struck me rather forcibly. I cannot but think that the Irish claims to antiquity are in general too rudely repelled, when the more equitable part would be to understand the nature of them, and to examine the grounds on which they rest; and this can only be done fairly by cultivating a better knowledge of the language. It is by no means my intention decidedly to pronounce the claims worthy of credit, though I very much incline to think them so to
Their own historian, Dr. Leland, is the man who seems of all the writers upon this subject to consider it in the most fair and impartial point of view he neither adopts nor spurns the ancient traditions of the country; their poetic fictions, or the writings which treat of their ancient laws and institutions. He candidly confesses, that not understanding the language he is little competent to decide upon the measure of credit to which the records are entitled; and having given a view of the ancient history, such as he collected it from the best sources within his reach, he thus sensibly and rationally sums up the whole: But to the antiquarian I leave it to establish the authenticity of this history. It is only pertinent to my present purpose to observe, that if we suppose that the old poets were merely inventors of this whole series of actions and incidents so circumstantially detailed, still they must have drawn their pictures from that government and those manners which subsisted in their own days, or were remembered by their fathers. So that we may reasonably conclude that the state of Ireland, for several centuries at least before the introduction of the English power, was such as they describe it in these early periods. And this is the only conclusion which I am concerned to establish.’’
Thomas Leland, History of Ireland, Preliminary Discourse, xvii.