AN GAODHAL.
205
on meeting with better guides, I am not ashamed
to retract.
In the Annals of Tigernach, and other ancient
documents, I found that our more authentic noti¬
ces are to be deduced from the building of Eama¬
nia in Uster, about 200 years before the Christian
Era. The seven generations of Ultonian princes
mentioned in the interval, prove the calculation to
be pretty exact. Of what passed in Ireland before
this Eamanian era little is known, except a few
capital facts, such as the expedition of the Scots
from Spain to Ireland, about 500 years before the
birth of our Saviour; the legislation of Ollamh
Fodhla, and his erection of apartments for the
College of Fileas at Teamor, where they contin¬
ued undisturbed under every revolution, and from
thence spread with equal immunities through the
neighboring provinces. These were facts which
were too big for oblivion in any country where
the elements of literature were cultivated. These
elements were imported from Spain, where native
Scytho-Celtes held intercourse with the Pheni¬
cians, and their Carthaginian posterity. It was
in memory of these intercourses they took occa¬
sionly and ostentatiously the name Phenii. Hence
the dialect among them called the Phenian (the
language of their jurisprudence preserved to this
day, but not understood by me or any other Irish
scholar in this kingdom), and hence the number
of Phenician terms discovered by Coll. Vallancey
in our old intelligible writings.
Through the lights obtained by the Scots (in a
part of the continent where the Phenicians had
lasting settlements), they learned the art of sail¬
ing on the ocean, and imported into this island the
17 ciphers they used in their writings; and thus
insulated on a remote island, and cut off from any
intellectual intercourse with the polished people
of Greece and Rome, they were left to the im¬
provement of their own stock. In such a situation
their improvement must have been slow as well
as gradual. It took the time to form their bar¬
ren Scytho-Celtic dialect (first used in the greater
division of Europe) into a nervous and copious
language, stripped of its original consonental
harshness. It is still preserved in old books and
discovers to us the corruptions of our common
people, who are corrupting it more and more ev¬
ery day, even in places where the English lan¬
guage is not yet used. By the way, how could
the language of the third century in our country
be preserved pure to this day in the Highlands
of Scotland? How could the poems of Ossian be
preserved by oral tradition through a period of
1,500 years? In our old written language, we
discover that the speakers were a cultivated peo¬
ple, but their cultivation was local ; and on that
score the discovery of what it was, among this se¬
questered people, is an object more interesting to
us than one offered to investigation from a bare
principle of curiosity.
To you, Sir, and to disengaged writers like you,
it is left to bring this subject of Scotish antiquity
out of the darkness spread over it. The lights
which the revolution under our Tuathal surnam¬
ed the Acceptable) afford will be of great use to
you. At the close of the first century, the Bel¬
gians of Ireland revolted against their Scottish
masters — expelled the old royal family, and set up
a monarch of their own blood. Tuathal, the pre¬
sumptive heir of the Heremonian line, was con¬
veyed to your country — his mother, Ethnea, being
the daughter of the king of the Picts, he was pro¬
tected there under his grandfather. Grown to
maturity, he returned, and after subduing all the
enemies of his house, he mounted the throne of
Teamor. Soon after, in a convention of the states
the crown of Ireland was by a solemn law declar¬
ed hereditary in his family, and from this epoch,
which commenced A.D. 130, to the establishment
of Christianity, we have a series of authentic his¬
tory productive of great men and great actions.
I shall owe much to your indulgence if you par¬
don all this before I come to the chief subject of
your letter. Of all that I could find relating to
your country, I shall in my next send you trans¬
cripts and literal translations; but I must confess
that I have not hitherto met with much that has
not been published in the last age by Mr. O'Flah¬
erty. In the book of Balimote, I find our antiqua¬
ries concurring with Bede in the establishment of
Carbry Riada, as the leader of the first colony of
Scots in Britain, supported there partly by the
indulgence of the Picts, and partly by the nego¬
ciating power of the wisest of our monarchs, Cor¬
mac Ulfadha, Carbry's cousin-german. The sec¬
ond great colony was established by Carbry's pos¬
terity, the Son's af Erk about the year 503. The
succession of the Dalraido kings from that period
with the years of reigns down to Malcolm Cammor,
has been preserved in the poem quoted by Mr.
O'Flaherty, a copy of which I possess and the o¬
riginal, with a translation, shall be remitted to you
as soon as I recover a little from my present lan¬
guid state, bound by rheumatic pains. That the
Tuatha de Danan arrived in Ireland from North
Britain, and subdued the Belgians all our docu¬
ments aver.
Be assured, Sir, of any service I can render you
in your present undertaking. The more it is agi¬
tated by able writers the more the truth of his¬
ory will appear. The motto of your arms, Post
Nubibus, makes me look up to you as the person
who will disperse the cloud cast on our history.
I scarcely have room to subscribe myself,
Your very obedient servant,
CHARLES O'CONOR.
(To be continued.)
Send sixty cents for the GAEL; it will
teach you to speak, and write Irish.
