Celtic Gallaecia: Encyclopedia II - Celtic Gallaecia - The invasion of Ireland

Celtic Gallaecia - The invasion of Ireland

Following the narration of the Leabhar Gabhala, the hero Breogan (or Bregon, or Bregan) also called Golam, that had commanded so many battles against the Hispani, constructed the city of Brigantia (or Braganza) and the Tower that took his name. From the Tower of Breogan, his son Ith descried Ireland “... an evening of a day of winter...”. This way, Ith commanded the first expedition to Ireland in which the natives (note that, surprisingly, they also spoke Gaelic, according to the text) killed him treacherously. It all ended up in the second and definitive expedition, commanded by Mil, also son of Breogan and brother of Ith, that led to the conquest of the island.

Returning to the historical sources, on the other hand, as result of the battle or waged war of the Gaedels against the Barchu that the Romans and their Gaedel allies tackled against the Barchunes all the Barchu territory was celtized and gaedelized until nearly the river Bidasoa (current French frontier) and, mainly, Asturias was turned into a simple colony. The Roman census of the year 77, mentioned by Plinius, yet included next to the classic conventus (territorial divisions) Bracarensis and Lucensis, the Asturicensis one, as conforming a kind of New Gallaecia. Just by then the Gaedels enjoyed one of their sweeter times ever because, with the victories in hand, their prestige increased to the eyes of the Romans, and it gave them power and wealth. It is by then when they erected the famous statues of the Gaedel soldiers and baptized their hill-forts as if they were the Greek colonies or polis (because in fact, the Greek model of civilization was the one they more envied) that they had left next to the Black Sea. This way we have Vilapol, Buspol and Castropol, with their names so similar to Sevastopol or Simferopol and, also, later, Pola de Allande.

In this conjuncture of triumph, resources and power, is when it seems that the Gaedels undertook the adventure of the conquest of Ireland. Proud of themselves, feeling impelled by the crest of an euphoria wave, it seems that they carried out their new enterprise without excessive problems. Unfortunately, this process is rather unknown to us, there is a lot of stuff to investigate and data to obtain to try an approach towards those facts. The only thing that seems sure, is that on a previous base of La Tène culture type, advanced progressively, from south to north and from west to east, a culture of no La Tène type, constructor of forts (duns, hill-forts in English) similar to the Gallaic castros (denominated dun, don or donga in the old Galician language). Also, by the written references of the Leabhar Gabhala we deduce that the protagonists of the conquest were military (sons of Mil) word that suggests clearly that the responsibility of the facts was on the part of Roman auxiliary troops, Gallaic in this case. As this it is not the central subject of the present Web page, we will not extend ourselves on the subject although, we must remember, it is one other of the crucial facts that happened towards the change of era, that conditions and surprises us a lot when we analyze them nowadays.

On the other hand we insist that in our opinion and in agreement with a coherent interpretation of the archaeological data available, as well as with the narration of the Leabhar Gabhala, there were Gaedel (or Gallaicoi) colonies in Ireland previous to the conquest, likely located there on the part of the Phoenicians, what would explain the absence of archaeological discoveries of La Tène type in this zone, as well as the observation of the milesian text, that the Irish, who received Ith, yet spoke Gaelic too.

Personally we consider as more likely the hypothesis that in fact the Galicians knew perfectly the existence of the Gaedel colony of Ireland (that would act, this way, like a kind of Trojan horse against the inhabitants who dominated the island, that were Brythonic Celts, and belonged to La Tène culture) and mediating pretext or not, they finally decided to completely seize the island, leaning in the military technology, the resources, the experience and, in short, the power that they had acquired in the course of the Cantabrian wars. We repeat that, like all the rest of the matters that are discussed here, it will have to be object of more and more investigations that will allow to explain the true real reach of the facts.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The invasion of Ireland", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki