DISCOVERY OF AMERICA BY THE IRISH
|
DISCOVERY OF AMERICA BY THE IRISH
The geography of the western world, according to the old Norsemen, consisted of
- (1) Helluland (Newfoundland),
- (2) Markland (Nova Scotia),
- (3) Vinland (Massachusetts or some part of New England), and then
- (4) stretching far to the south of Vinland lay Whitemen's Land or Great Ireland.
O'Halloran states, on the authority of the Psalter of Cashel, said to be the oldest Irish MS., that Moghcorb, King of Leath Mogha, or Munster, prepared a large fleet in the yeare 296, and invaded Denmark; and that in the following century (A. D. 367), Criomthan, who in the Psalter of Cashel is styled Monarch of Ireland and Albany, and leader of the Franks and Saxons, prepared a formidable fleet, and raised a large body of troops, which were transported to Scotland, for the purpose of acting in conjunction with the Picts and Saxons against the Roman wall, and devastating the provinces of Britain. A town in the County Tipperary, Ireland, which is also a Catholic archbishopric and the see of a Protestant bishop, the Rock of Cashel, an ancient metropolis has lost its importance and most of its inhabitants. Originally known as Fairy Hill, or Sid-Druim, the "Rock" was, in pagan times, the dun or castle of the ancient Eoghnacht Chiefs of Munster. In Gaelic Caiseal denotes a circular stone fort and is the name of other places in Ireland. The "Book of Rights" suggests that the name is derived from Cais-il, i. e. "tribute stone", because the Munster tribes paid tribute on the Rock.
Corc, the grandfather of Aengus Mac Natfraich, erected a fort, and Cashel subsequently became the capital of Munster. Like Tara and Armagh it was a celebrated court, and at the time of St. Patrick claimed supremacy over all the royal duns of the province, when Aengus ruled as King of Cashel.
In 396, an expedition, upon a most extensive and formidable scale, was undertaken by the celebrated Niall of the Nine Hostages, one of the most distinguished princes of the Milesian race: "Observing," says Moore, "that the Romans, after breaking up the line of encampment along the coast opposite to Ireland, had retired to the eastern shore and the northern wall; Niall perceived that an apt opportunity was thus offered for a descent upon the now unprotected territory. Instantly summoning, therefore, all the forces of the island, and embarking them on board such ships as he could collect, he ranged, with his numerous navy, along the whole coast of Lancashire," etc. This same Niall extended this enterprise to the coast of Brittany, and ravaged the maritime districts of the northwest of Gaul, during which expedition was captured the great Christian apostle, St. Patrick. With the Veneti and other people of Gaul, Ireland still continued to cultivate her old relations with Spain, and saw her barks venturing on their accustomed course, between the Celtic Cape, and the Sacred Promontory, as they had done for centuries before.
About 450, Patrick preached at the royal dun and converted Aengus. The "Tripartite Life" of the saint relates that while "he was baptising Aengus the spike of the crozier went through the foot of the King" who bore with the painful wound in the belief "that it was a rite of the Faith". And, according to the same authority, twenty-seven kings of the race of Aengus and his brother Aillil ruled in Cashel until 897, when Cerm-gecan was slain in battle. There is no evidence that St. Patrick founded a church at Cashel, or appointed a Bishop of Cashel. St. Ailbe, it is supposed, had already fixed his see at Emly, not far off, and within the king's dominions. Cashel continued to be the chief residence of the Kings of Munster until 1100. Hence its title, "City of the Kings". The most famous man in Ireland of his time, but more of a scholar and warrior than an ecclesiastic, Cormac has left us a glossary of Irish names, which displays his knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and the "Psalter of Cashel", a work treating of the history and antiquities of Ireland. He was slain in 903, in a great battle near Carlow.
Brian Boru fortified Cashel in 990. Murtagh O'Brien, King of Cashel, in presence of the chiefs and clergy, made a grant in 1101 of the "Rock" with the territory around it to O'Dunan, "noble bishop and chief senior of Munster", and dedicated it to God and St. Patrick. Then Cashel became an archiepiscopal see, and O'Dunan its first prelate as far as the primate, St. Celsus, could appoint him. At the synod of Kells, 1152, Cardinal Paparo gave a pallium to Donat O'Lonergan of Cashel, and since then his successors have ruled the ecclesiastical province of Munster. In 1127 Cormac MacCarthy, King of Desmond, erected close to his palace on the "Rock" a church, now known as Cormac's Chapel, which was consecrated in 1134, when a synod was held within its walls. During the episcopate of Donal O'Hullican (1158-82), the King of Limerick, Donal O'Brien, built in 1169 a more spacious church beside Cormac's Chapel, which then became a chapterhouse.
The Roman knowledge of the British isles was extremely limited and imperfect; before the time of Tacitus they were ignorant of the insular position of Britain, and the acquaintance of Agricola with Ireland was principally derived from the doubtful information of a faithless Irish chief, who sought the Roman camp to betray his country. Ireland also, according to Ptolemy, was formerly called Little Britain, therefore when Caesar speaks of the Gauls repairing to Britain in order to become instructed in the mysteries of Druidism, the term may have been intended as a general expression for the British isles. The Druids, Caesar tells us, are concerned in divine matters, superintend public and private sacrifices, interpret religious rites, determine controversies... and they are said to learn by heart a great number of verses, for which reason some continue in the discipline twenty years.
The Irish are supposed to have obtained the name of Scots or Scoti from the Scotic or Scythic origin of the Spanish settlers under the sons of Milesius, whose invasion Moore places "about a century or two" before the Christian era; other more enthusiastic national historians take us back to 800 years before that period. The name Scott, he derives from Scota, the wife of Niulus, High Priest of Phœnius, the inventor of letters, and ancestor of Milesius, in proof of which is given a quotation from an Irish poem of the 9th century, entitled, Canam bunadhas na Nagaoidheal, or "Let us rehearse the origin of the Irish. The Cassiterides visited by the Phœnicians, were the British islands, though the Romans understood by the name the islands of Scilly, with perhaps, part of the coast of Cornwall. None of the colonizers of Britain are so likely to have been its parents as the Phoenicians or Carthaginians; the fact so explicitly asserted by Cæsar, that the Druidical system began in Britain, and was thence introduced into Gaul, increases our tendency to refer it to those nations. The pagan King of Uladh, Saron son of Caelbadh, treated Patrick with insult and tried to prevent him from building a church in his territories. We are not certain who was King of Uladh at the time that Patrick was a swineherd on SLIAV MISH - the most remarkable mountain in the county of Kerry. The said mountain much remarkable as the first battle that was fought in Ireland between the Millesians and the people then inhabiting said Island called Tuaha Dedanain, which were Easterlings, was at this mountain said battle fought about 3,050 years ago, when Eire, the Queen then of the Tuaha Dedanain, with her party, were defeated, and Scota, the daughter of the King of Egypt, second wife of Milelius, and six of his sons was (were) slain, which occasioned that her two sons, Herberus fion and Amergin, concerned in said battle, in memory of her, ordered the Island to be called Scota.
This particular class, combining the double office of judge and priest, although common in the time of Caesar to the British isles, would naturally be found most enlightened in that part of the three kingdoms, whose direct communication with Spain, from a remote period, brought it into more immediate contact with the Phoenician navigators; and the appellations of "Sacred Isle," and "Sacred Promontory," in the works of Ptolemy and Avienus, lead us involuntarily to the conclusion that, hundreds of years before the Roman invasion of Britain, Ireland was the depository of those Phœnician superstitions which afterwards became adopted throughout the British Isles under the form of Druidism. The root of the word Druid is to be found with little variation in the Hiberno-Celtic language of the present day, Draoj signifying a Druid, magician or wise man, and Draoideacht or Draoide-achta, magic or the Druidical form of worship; the golden ornaments in the shape of a half moon, which have been frequently found in the Irish bogs, are supposed to have been connected with these superstitions, of which lunar worship formed a part, and add to the numerous testimonies in proof of its great antiquity.