about 200 B.C., to Ireland,[1] the ships employed being made of tree-trunks hollowed out and covered with leather. This may be reflected in the Irish story of the "Milesian" invasion. The dark complexion of the west coast population gives some countenance to the story, and a careful comparison of Basque and Irish skulls has further confirmed it.[2] There is some slight interest to the student of naval evolution in the glimpse of early Biscayan ships which it affords.
In 222 A.D., according to the 'Annals of the Four Masters,' a large fleet went from Ireland over sea, and did not return for three years. During that time Cormac MacArt, its commander and the titular king of Ireland, was ravaging the coasts of England. The grip of the Romans on Britian had been weakened by the failure of Severus to quell a Celtic insurrection between the years 208-211 A.D., and this probably was what encouraged Cormac's inroads. By 369 the Irish ships had become so dangerous that Theodosius, on his reconquest of Great Britain, appointed a Comes Britanniarum, besides a Dux Britanniæ and a Comes Littoris Saxonici, to protect the western coast from the Irish.[3] The victories of Theodosius are commemorated in Claudian's verses when the poet sings of "icy Ierne lamenting the heaps of slaughtered Scots," "the Orkneys reeking with Saxon gore," and Thule "growing warm with the blood of the Picts."[4] If this be anything more than poetic licence, the fleets on either side must have gone far afield. Less than a half century later, Niall of the Nine Hostages, a direct ancestor of our Queen, as it is claimed, was plundering in the English Channel, and fell in battle, probably off Boulogne.[5] The Saxons and Scots, as the inhabitants of Ireland were called at an early date, were often confused by the Romans, which may explain why we do not hear even more of the Irish.
Sidonius Apollinaris mentions these pirates as "ploughing the British sea in a skin, and cleaving the grey waters in a sewn skiff."[6] These phrases can only refer to coracles, which were the earliest form of boat known to have existed in this country. At the same time, it is difficult to suppose that the Irish Celts had
