Concerning of IRELAND. by THOMAS WOOD, M. D. Author of the Prize

AN INQUIRY Concerning THE PRIMITIVE INHABITANTS of IRELAND. By THOMAS WOOD,M.D. Author of the Prize Essay, published in the thirteenth volume of the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy :—“ On the mixture of Fable and Fact in the early annals of Ireland ; and on the best mode of ascertaining what degree of credit these ancient documents are justly en- titled to.” “ All nations seem willing to derive merit from the splendour of their original, and where History is silent, they generally supply the defect with fable.” — Goldsmith. “ Nescire quid antequam natus sis, aciderit, id est semper esse puerum.”—Cicero. LONDON: PRINTED FOR G. AND W. B. WHITTAKER, AV E -M A RI A lane ; EDWARDS AND SAVAGE, CORK ; AND JOHN CUMMING, DUBLIN. 1821 To The MEMBERS of the ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY. MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN, In the endeavour to develop truth, amidst the mazes of fable, the deceptive play on names, and the errors of conjecture, I found it necessary to expose those manifest fictions which, for ages, have usurped its place, disguised and distorted it. If those researches have enabled me to prove that, with regard to the population, laws, morality, arts and sciences of the ancient Irish, the present race is comparatively a large nation, enjoying a considerably greater share of liberty, protection, knowledge and happiness, I shall deem my time well employed, in having contributed to the pleasure which such conviction would afford to the friends of Ireland. The composition of this History, such as it is, may be ascribed solely to your notice of, and liberality with regard to, the previous Essay. And, though it engrossed much of my time and labour, which, probably, would have been more advantageously reserved for other avocat- ions, I do not presume, in consequence, to insinuate that, either is worthy of your counten- ance. However, if you, my Lords and Gentlemen, should consider this work an appeal to facts as well as to common sense, and believe I have been successful in converting the groundwork of Bardic story from fable to authentic history, and in evincing the British and Irish to be, almost collectively, the posterity of one distinct stock, you will be sensible that I have spared no pains in my endeavours to deserve the honor of your patronage ; an honor, which I am the more anxious to obtain, lest abler writers should be deterred from prosecuting this Inquiry, and induced to pay more homage to our national vanity, at the expense, I fear, of truth and reason, than deference to the penetration and sound judgment of this enlightened age. I have the honor to be, MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN, With all due respect, Your most humble, Obedient and obliged Servant, THOMAS WOOD. August 15, 1821. ADVERTISEMENT. The Author begs leave to inform the Reader that the Inscription called PELASGIC, alluded to in page 135, and printed in page 172 of this Inquiry, has no pretension to antiquity.— This discovery has been made by Mr. TOWNLEY RICHARDSON, and communicated to the ROYAL DUBLIN SOCIETY, after those pages had been struck off. By a strict investigation in the vicinity of the place in which it was found, this gentleman learned that, those words reversed signify E, Conid 1731 ; a person who, it seems, in place of having been a Deity, was only a cutter of mill-stones. The Author thought it his duty to insert the Inscription as he found it in Gough’s Camden, although it tended to militate against the tenor of this History, and particularly, against his account of the Milesians, as some of the letters resemble the Bastulan. INTRODUCTION. Irish History, considered merely as a compilation from the accounts of bards, is not deserving of sober investigation. Its absurdity is too glaring for criticism, and would not merit examin- ation, were it not for the basis of the fabulous superstructure being in a great measure true, and for the importance which some learned authors have attached to fiction. It appears to have been the work of different hands : it is full of anachronisms, and is in other respects confused. The epic poems, from which the history is compiled, chiefly com- prise a relation of those unnatural wars, which, it is said, originated in a very trifling cause and were waged, not only between two reputed brothers, soon alter their supposed arrival in Eirin, but between the posterity of each, during many successive centuries, although this island was, long before the arrival of their families, planted with tribes naturally jealous of encroachment. The heroes of those poems, Heremon and Heber, erroneously called brothers, are brought hither immediately from Spain, and this emigration is so generally credited, not only here but in that country, that every writer on Irish history, is expected to coincide with this opinion. Even at this day, after the lapse of three thousand one hundred and twenty years from the supposed arrival of the Milesians in Ireland, many families in this country consider themselves ennobled by their Scythian or Hispanic descent ; as if Scythia or Spain were, at that remote æra, more civilized than Gaul or Britain ; admitting that the latter countries had been then inhabited. The author of the Milesian history was, according to some writers, St. Kevin, founder of a monastery at Gleandaloch in the county of Wicklow ; but, more probably, it was Fiech, a bard, as we are told, of the sixth century. The fictitious tenor of the composition has been faithfully transmitted, in successive ages, by Cuanac, Cennfaelad, Fiech’s scholiast, Nennius, &c. Supposing that the author had been acquainted with the true history of the first settlers, a plain, safe, and near road would not suit the dignity of his muse, nor the vanity of his chief- tains. The short passage from Caledonia to the opposite and visible north Irish coast, or from Anglesea, (Mona) to Erin, inviting hither the superabundant savages of Britain,[1] or those driven forward by the Gallic vis a tergo, could not afford any marvellous or remarkable incidents. The bard therefore sought after an ideal ancestry suitable to the credulity, and gratifying to the ambition of the age in which he wrote : [2] he described the travels, as long and dangerous; the wars, as full of wonderful achievements, accompanied with scenes of enchantment; and thus, The poet’s pen ———— gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. Whoever the original bard had been, the author of this Inquiry trusts he will be able to prove that his Milesian history is nothing more than a tale of wild adventures, founded upon the traditional denominations of tribes agreeing with the greater part of those described on Ptolemy’s map, and coexistent in Ireland in the second century ; and that it was composed, certainly, not before the fifth, probably, not earlier than the seventh, [3] evidently, by the aid of books brought hither by the Roman or British clergy. Ptolemy’s tribes constituting the basis of Irish history, the bard’s imagination furnished the materials of the superstructure, by the use of rhetorical figures ; which not only enabled him to personify inanimate objects, but also to convert tribes and nations into heroes. —Those tribes recorded by the BARDS, and the various figures, as epenthesis, metaplasm, metaphor, &c. used by the latter, will, as they occur in THEIR history, be expounded either after hyphens, or in notes. In the definition of some tropes the author may err ; but he believes the greater part, if not the whole, will be found correct. Legendary tales, intended for, and adapted to, the lowest sphere of understanding, are inter- woven with this history, and were evidently composed for the amusement of the credulous minds of a simple people. But, although the superstructure be anile, the greater part of that history is built upon a foundation of facts, which, according to the author’s researches, were coeval with the third century. And, considering that tradition cannot in general be depended upon, beyond one hundred years, it is a very extra-ordinary circumstance that those facts, which comprehend the names of the tribes, by which they were designated in the second, and probably not longer than the third century, should have been commemorated in song upwards of sixteen hundred years ! The map of Ireland by Ptolemy seems to have been wholly unknown to the bards, as well as to the early native writers of Irish History. His authority is opposed by Philo-Milesians, who do not consider that, if this map were non-existent, the ground-work of bardic history would appear as much in the light of a fable as the fictions raised upon it — They disclaim his authority, because they could not find any resemblance between the names of his tribes and those of the bards, and because they conceived that his tribes lived in an age too late to support their history, or to satisfy their vanity. Yet, they assign no reason why his map of Ireland should not be as authentic as that of Gaul, or that of South and North Britain. If we examine its coastings, rivers, lakes, and general outline, we will find it, as Mr. Pinkerton justly observes, surprisingly accurate, considering Ptolemy’s opportunities of information ; consequently, we have no cause to suppose its authenticity less so, with regard to the tribes he has planted upon it. Ptolemy wrote in the second century ; the most ancient Irish Bards, in later ages, as it evidently appears from their history being blended with the Jewish, which was not introduced into Ireland, probably before the fourth century.

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