Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/263

HISTORY.] I B E L A N D 247 Goklelic occupation of Britain, though contradictory and irreconcil able in their chronology, confirm all that we have said. Caraden, Edward Llhyd, and others pointed out a Goidelic clement in the topographical nomenclature of west Britain, and concluded that the country was once occupied by the Goedel, whence they wero driven into Ireland by the advancing Cymri. This was a natural and reasonable conclusion at the time. But our present knowledge compels us to adopt a different view, namely, that, without prejudice to the existence at an anterior period of Goidelic tribes in west Britain, the numerous traces of Goidelic namesfound there are derived from an Irish occupation in historic times. The Rev. W. Basil Jones (now bishop of St Davids), who by his valuable book, Vestiges of the Gad in Gwyncdd (North Wales), has so largely contributed to our knowledge of this subject, came to the conclusion that the Irish occupied the whole of Anglesey, Carnarvon, Merioneth, and Cardiganshire, with a portion at least of Denbighshire, Montgomery shire, and Radnorshire. The same tribes who occupied Anglesey and Gwyncdd also occupied the Isle of Man, which, as is well known, was an Irish possession before the Norse invasion. Its colonization is attributed to Manandan, son of Ler, a sea-god of the tribes of Dia and Ana, and who is associated in the Mabinogion 1 with Gwydion ap Donn and other deities. It would appear that the first occupation of Man, Mona, and Gwynedd took place before the dominance of the Scots, or was the work of Ultonians. But the subsequent importance of Gwydion ap Donn and Arianrod shows that the Erimonian Scots were afterwards the dominant element. South Wales was undoubtedly occupied by South Munster tribes, so that we have the curious historical phenomenon presented in Wales as in Ireland of Mug s Half and Cond s Half. The explanation of this as well as of the occupation itself is no doubt the pressure of the clan of Degaid and other Scotic tribes upon the tribes of Lugaid, 2 causing the greater part to emigrate. By the aid of these emigrants, who had become better armed, Mug Nuadat and his successors on the Munster throne were enabled to recover their possessions in Munster again. It was no doubt by their help that Lugaid Mac Cuind of the South Munster clan succeeded in defeating Art, the son of Cond of the Hundred Battles, and becoming king of Ireland. The occupation of North Wales was probably due to a similar pressure of the Scots upon the Ultonians. We have said that there was probably a fourth settlement of Irish in Britain, but that we had no definite information on the subject. The position of the Goidelic population in Galloway is, however, so peculiar that we have no hesitation in saying that it is derived from an emigration of Irish Cruithni or Picts in the first half of the 4th century, consequent on the Scotic invasion of Ulster. Before that period small settlements of Scots had already taken place, one of which is of very great historical importance. Conaire, son of Mug Liinia, the successor of Cond of the Hundred Battles as king of Ireland from about 212 to 220 A.D., had three sons, who, like the later Collas, carved out principalities for themselves in different parts of Ireland. These were Cairpre Muse, from whom six territories in Munster were called Muscraige, which has been Anglicized Muskerry ; Cairpre Baiscinn, who is said to have been the stem of the tribe of Corco Baiscinn in the west of the county Clare ; and Cairpre Riata, who acquired a territory in the north east of the county Antrim, called Dal liiata or Dal Riada (which is to be distinguished from Dal Araide, the country of the Cruithni or Ultonians), a name which still survives in the local name "the Route." It is probable that Cairpre Riata or some of his immediate successors passed over into Alba, and acquired territory also there. Bede is the earliest authority for such a migration. Speaking of the inhabitants of Britain, he says : " In process of time Britain, besides the Britons and the Picts, received a third nation, the Scots, who migrating from Ireland under their leader Reuda, either by fair means or by force of arms secured to them selves those settlements among the Picts which they still possess. From the name of their commander, they are to this day called Dalrcudins ; for in their language dal signifies a part." Bede derived his information from some of the Columban clergy, and knaw nothing of Wales, and therefore of any previous settlements of the Irish. About three hundred years after the first settlement a body of the Irish Dalriads of Antrim went to Alba, under the leadership of Fergus Mor, son of Ere, and his brothers, and founded on the basis of the previous colony a new Dal Riata, which became known as Aircr Goedcl or region of the Gael, a name now pro nounced Argyle. This petty kingdom ultimately developed into the kingdom of Scotland, and appropriated to itself the name of the mother country, or at least that which was its Latin name, The Roman historians are usually assumed to represent that the Scots taking part in the attacks on Roman Britain all came like 1 On the Goidelic character of the Mabinogion see CELTIC LITERA TURE, vol. v. pp. 321, 322. 2 Lugaid, the eponym of the South Munster tribes, which occupied South Wales and Cornwall, appears to be the Loucetio, a war god, who is associated with a local goddess Nemetona on an inscription found in Cornwall (cf., Nemon, the Irish goddess of war, wife of Neit). the Picts from the north. But Ammianus expressly states that the Picts, Atticotti, and Scots arrived by different ways (per diversa vagantes). The basis of the Scotic attacks was their settlements in Wales and south-west Britain, which afforded protection to the invading forces arriving from Ireland in their hide-covered wicker boats. Argyle may also have served as a point from which to send out piratical expeditions. The Irish Picts or Ultonians who had settled in Galloway, and who with their kinsmen in Ireland were the G wyddel ffichti of the Welsh, must have also joined in the fray, their position near the Solway giving them unusual facilities. Conversion of the Scots to Christianity. In the beginning of the 4th century there was an organized Christian church in Britain, for there were British bishops at the council of Aries in 314 A.D., one of whom was probably from Wales. At that time the Irish had possession of many places in west and south Britain, and must have come in contact with Christians. These were more numerous and the church better organized in South Wales and south-west Britain, where the Munster or southern Irish were, than in North Wales, held by the Scots proper. Christianity may have therefore found its way into Munster some time in the 4th century. This would account for the existence of several Christian Scots before St Patrick, such as Pelagius the heresiarch and his disciple Coelestius, one of whom was certainly a Scot, and Cselius Sedulius (in Irish Siadal or Siudal) the Christian poet, who flourished in Italy about the end of the 4th and beginning of the 5th century. There is a story of four bishops who, with several priests and anchorites, lived in Munster before the mission of St Patrick, which was credited by such high authorities as Colgan and Ussher, but later inquiries have shown that most if not all these either were contemporaries of St Patrick or belonged to a later time. But, although it is almost certain that no organized church existed in Ireland before the mission of St Patrick, there may have been several scattered communities in the south of Ireland. This might explain the words of St Prosper of Aquitaine in recording the mission of St Palladius in his chronicle for the year 431 : "Palladius was ordained by Pope Celestine and sent as first bishop to the Scots believing in Christ." This mission arose out of the visit of St Germanus of Auxerre to Britain. According to Constantius of Lyon, the contemporary and biographer of Germanus, the British bishops, alarmed at the rapid progress of Pelagianism in Britain, sought the aid of the Gaulish Church ; a numerous synod summoned for the occasion commissioned Germanus and Lupus to go to Britain, which they accordingly did in 429, according to the usual reckoning. Prosper of Aquitaine on the other hand attributes the mission of Germanus to the pope, and makes no mention of the action of the Gaulish bishops ; but he adds that it was done through the action of the deacon Palladius. There is nothing inconsistent in the two accounts, for the acts of the council were probably sent to the pope by a special messenger, who was Palladius. The latter was probably a Briton, but of the Gaulish family of the Palladii. Ammianus Marcellinus mentions a Palladius holding high office in Britain in the middle of the 4th century. Palladius was probably the envoy of the British bishops both to Gaul and to the pope. If he was a Briton, he would naturally have been anxious for the conversion of the Irish as the most effectual way of stopping the Scotic incursions, and was therefore a fitting person to be selected for such a mission. Our information about Palladius is derived from the various lives of St Patrick, of which seven have been printed by Colgan. The earliest of these are the two in the Book of Armagh, a MS. of about the year 800 A.D. ; one is by Murchu Maccumachtein, the latter part of the name being the equivalent of the "son of Cogitosus," and was compiled at the suggestion of Aed, bishop of Sletty, who died about the year 698 ; and the other is known as the Annotations of Thechan. According