A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland

By P W Joyce

1906

WARFARE.

Foreign Conquests and Colonisations.

IKE their ancestors the Continental Celts, the Irish, from the earliest ages, had a genius for war and a love of fighting. In the writings of classical Latin and Greek authors are found many passages that indicate the warlike character the ancient Irish had earned for themselves among foreign nations. They were not contented with fighting at home, but made themselves formidable in other lands. Their chief foreign conquests were in Wales and Scotland: but they not unfrequently found their way to the Continent. In those times the Scots, as the Irish were then called, seem to have been almost as much dreaded as the Norsemen were in later ages. Irish literature of every kind abounds in records of foreign invasions and alliances; and the native accounts are corroborated by Roman writers, so far as they touch on these matters.

All who have read the histories of England and Rome know how prominently the "Picts and Scots" figure during the first four centuries of our era, and how much trouble they gave to both Romans and Britons. The Picts were the people of Scotland: the Scots were the Irish Gaels. As a protection against these two tribes, the Romans, at different intervals in the second and third centuries, built those great walls or ramparts from sea to sea between Britain and Alban, so well known in the history of those times, the ruins of which still remain. For three or four centuries the Irish continued their incursions to Britain and Scotland, sometimes fighting as invaders against the Picts, sometimes combining with them against Romans and Britons; and as a consequence there were several settlements of colonies from Ireland in Wales and Scotland.

Criffan the Great, who reigned in Ireland from A.D. 366 to 379, is celebrated for his conquests in Britain, in all the Irish histories and traditions dealing with that time, so that he is often called Criffan the Great, "king of Ireland and of Alban to the Ictian Sea": "Alban" here meaning, not Scotland, but Great Britain; and the "Ictian Sea," the English Channel. His reign is almost exactly coincident with the command of the Roman general Theodosius (father of the emperor Theodosius the Great), who, according to the Roman historians, checked the career of the Gaels and their allies. The Irish accounts of Criffan's invasion of Britain are in the main corroborated by the Roman poet Claudian, in those passages of his poem that celebrate the victories of Theodosius. The continual attacks of the three tribes--Scots, Picts, and Saxons--became at last so intolerable that the Roman government was forced to take defensive measures. In 367, the year after Criffan's accession, Theodosius was appointed to the military command of Britain; and, after two active campaigns, he succeeded in delivering that country for the time from the invaders.

Criffan was succeeded as king of Ireland by Niall of the Nine Hostages (A.D. 879 to 405), who was still more distinguished for foreign conquests than his predecessor. Moore (Hist. I. 150) thus speaks of his incursions into Wales:--"An invasion of Britain, on a far more extensive and formidable scale than had yet been attempted from Ireland, took place towards the close of the fourth century under Niall of the Nine Hostages, one of the most gallant of all the princes of the Milesian race." He collected a great fleet, and landing in Wales, carried off immense plunder: but was at last forced to retreat by the valiant Roman general Stilicho. On this occasion Claudian, when praising Stilicho, says of him--speaking in the person of Britannia:--"By him was I protected when the Scot [i.e. Niall] moved all Ireland against me, and the ocean foamed with their hostile oars." The Irish narratives of Niall's life and actions add that he invaded Gaul, which was his last exploit; for he was assassinated (A.D. 405) on the shore of the river Loire by one of his own chiefs, the king of Leinster, who shot him dead with an arrow.

The extensive scale of these terrible raids is strikingly indicated by no less an authority than St. Patrick, who, in his "Confession," speaking of the expedition--probably led by Niall--in which he himself was captured, says:--"I was then about sixteen years of age, being ignorant of the true God; I was brought captive into Ireland, with so many thousand men, according as we had deserved."

Welsh scholars, from Lhuyd of two centuries ago, to Principal Rhys of the present day, as well as historical inquirers of other nationalities, have investigated this question of the Irish conquests in Wales, quite independently of Irish records: and they have come to the conclusion that, at some early time, extensive districts of Wales were occupied by the Irish; and, as a consequence, numerous places in Wales have to this day names commemorating the invaders: as, for instance, the Welsh name of Holyhead, Cerrig y Gwyddell, the 'Rocks of the Goidels or Gaels'; and the Welsh language still contains many Irish words, or words evidently derived from Irish. After careful examination of all the evidence, Dr. Jones, a Welshman, bishop of St. David's, in a book written by him on this subject, comes to the conclusion that the Gaels from Ireland once occupied the whole of Anglesey, Carnarvon, Merioneth, and Cardiganshire, and parts of Denbighshire, Montgomery, and Radnor. But besides all this, ancient Welsh literature--history, annals, tales, legends--like that of Ireland, abounds with references to invasions of Wales and other parts of Britain by Irishmen. In those early days too, as might be expected, a continual intimate relationship by intermarriage was kept up between the Irish kings and chiefs on the one side, and the ruling families of western and northern Britain on the other, which is fully set forth in our ancient books of genealogy.

About the period of the series of expeditions to Wales, the Irish also mastered the Isle of Man: and Irish literature abounds with references to the constant intercourse kept up by the parent people with those of their little insular colony. Though the Norsemen wrested the sovereignty of the island from them in the ninth century, they did not succeed in displacing either the Gaelic people or their language. The best possible proof of the Irish colonisation and complete and continued occupation of the island is the fact that the Manx language is merely a dialect of Irish, spelled phonetically, but otherwise very little altered. There are also still to be seen, all over the island, Irish buildings and monuments, mixed up, however, with many of Norse origin: and the great majority of both the place-names and the native family-names are Gaelic.

Niall's successor Dathi [Dauhy], king of Ireland, A.D. 405 to 428, followed in the footsteps of his predecessors, and, according to Irish authorities, invaded Gaul: but was killed by a flash of lightning at the foot of the Alps, after his followers had destroyed the hermitage of a recluse named Formenius or Parmenius. Although this legend looks wild and improbable, it is in some respects corroborated by continental authorities, and by present existing names of places at the head of Lake Zurich: so that there is very likely some foundation for the story.

We will now go back in point of time to sketch the Irish colonisation of north Britain, the accounts of which, however, are a good deal mixed with those of the Welsh settlements. From very early ages, the Irish of Ulster were in the habit of crossing the narrow sea to Alban or Scotland, where colonies were settled from time to time: and constant intercourse was kept up between the two countries down to a late period. The authentic history of these expeditions and settlements begins in the early part of the third century, during the reign of Conari II. (A.D. 212-220). This king had three sons, Carbery Musc, Carbery Baskin, and Carbery Riada, At this time a great famine devastated Munster; and Carbery Riada led a number of his Munster people to Ulster and to the south-west of Scotland, in both which places they settled down permanently.

These Irish narratives are confirmed by the Venerable Bede in his Ecclesiastical History, where he says:--"In course of time, besides the Britons and Picts, Britain received a third nation, the Scots, who, migrating from Ireland under their leader Reuda, obtained for themselves, either by friendly agreement or by force of arms, those settlements among the Picts which they still hold. From the name of their commander they are to this day called Dalreudini: for in their tongue dal signifies a part." The "Dalreudini" of Bede is the Dalriada of Irish history.

These primitive settlers increased and multiplied; and, supported from time to time by contingents from the mother country, they held their ground against the Picts. But the settlement was weak and struggling till the reign of Lewy, king of Ireland (A.D. 483 to 512), about three centuries after the time of Carbery Riada. In the year 503 three brothers named Fergus, Angus, and Lome, sons of a chief named Erc, a direct descendant of Carbery Riada, led a colony to Scotland from their own district in the Irish Dalriada (in the present Co. Antrim: see map): descendants of the Munster settlers of three centuries before. They appear to have met with little or no opposition, and being joined by the previous settlers, they took possession of a large territory, of which Fergus, commonly called Fergus mac Erc, and also known as Fergus More (the Great), was the first king. The descendants of these colonists ultimately mastered the whole country; and from them its name was changed from Alban to Scotia or Scotland. Fergus was the ancestor of the subsequent kings of Scotland; and from him, in one of their lines of genealogy, descend, through the Stuarts, our present royal family.