396
an GAODHAL.
DR. MACNISH'S ADDRESS
Continued
Dr. Joyce, among others, has done much in his
Irish Names of Places to excite the interest of Celt¬
ic scholars ; to show how the topographical names
of Ireland were formed; and to verify the motto
which he has adopted, "Triallam timcheall na
Fodhla, Let me travel round Ireland." His lect¬
ures leave no room to doubt, that those who gave
their names to the various places in Ireland spoke
pure Gaelic, and were accurate observers of the
physical peculiarities of that country. So success¬
ful have the efforts of the Society for the preserva¬
tion of Irish language already been, that Irish
Gaelic is now taught in the Schools of Ireland, and
that patriotic and enlightened members of that So¬
ciety have gained for Ireland the commendation of
Horace : "Prima feres Ederae victricis praemia."
Thomas Stephen, the learned author of the Lit¬
erature of the Kymry, states that Welsh or Walsch
is not a proper name, but a Teutonic term signify¬
ing Strangers. The Welsh, or Kymry, — which he
contends is the correct designation, are the last
remnant of the Kimmeroi of Homer and of the Kym¬
ry, the Cimbri of Germany. From the Cimbric
Chersonesus, (Jutland, Stephens further avers, a
portion of the Kymry landed on the shores of
Northumberland, gave their own name to the
County of Cumberland, and, in process of time fol¬
lowed the seaside to their present resting place
where they still call themselves Kymry, and give
their country a similar name. Regarding the ob¬
scure, though very important question, as to
whether the Kymry preceded the Gaels in their
occupation of Britain, it is possible to cite the au¬
thority of two very able Welshmen in favor of the
theory, that the Gaels must have preceded the
Kymry. The topographical names of Great Brit¬
ain and Ireland go to prove, that Celts who spoke
Gaelic must have occupied those countries for a
sufficiently long time to give to the prominent
headlands and mountains, and bays and lochs,
and rivers, the names that they still bear.
Edward Lhuyd, the famous author of the Arch¬
aeo ogia Britannica, who expended five years in
travelling among those portions of Great Britain
and Ireland where the Celtic languages were spo¬
ken; who is justly regarded as the father of Welsh
philology, and whose important services are thus
commended by one of his Celtic admirers :
"Unde fres tanto molimine grates,
Val quae sint meris dona paranda tuis !"
writes; Nor was it only North Britain that these
Gwydhelians (Gael) have in the most ancient times
inhabited, but also England and Wales; *** and
our ancestors did, from time to time, force them
northward. From the Kintyre of Scotland where
there are but four leagues of sea, and from the
County of Galloway and the Isle of Man, they
passed over into Ireland, as they have returned
backward and forward often since. Whoever takes
notice of a great many of the names of the rivers
and mountains throughout the Kingdom, will find
no reason to doubt that the Irish must have been
the inhabitants when those names were imposed."
Professor Rhys, of Oxford, himself a Welshman
and a Celtic scholar of large attainments, thus
writes (Celtic Britain, p. 212, 213,) with reference
to inscriptions that are to be found in Wales;
"The Celts who spoke the language of the Celtic
Epitaphs were Goidels, belonging to the first Celt¬
ic invasion of Britain, and of whom some passed
over into Ireland and made that island also Celtic
*** Some time later there arrived another Celtic
people. These latter invaders called themselves
Brittones and seized on the best portions of Brit¬
ain, driving the Goidelic Celts before them to the
west and north of the island. *** Their Goidelic
speech which was driven out by the ever-encroach¬
ing dialect of the Brythones was practically the
same language as that of the Celts of Ireland, of
Man, and of Scotland," When Welsh scholars of
the acumen and Scholarship of Lhuyd and Rhys
concede, that the Gaels must have preceded the
Kymry in the occupation of Britain ; and when the
inference is quite natural that those writers always
deferred to the spirit of the Welsh proverb; My
cheri gy fofni gyvyeith," Thou will not delight to
put one of the same language in fear;" it may be
maintained that honest argumentation can lead to
no other conclusion than this, — that the evidence
which is available points distinctly to an earlier
occupation of Britain by Celts who spoke Gaelic.
There is no likelihood, however, that scholars who
hold a different theory respecting the arrival of the
earliest Celts in Great Britain, will be content to
acquiesce in the opinions of Lhuyd and Rhys, with¬
out making a further effort to substantiate their
own view. The Welsh aphorism has manifold ap¬
plications: Kudvy keissyessyt keissyadon, "As long
as there will be things to seek for, there will be
seekers." In the preface to his "Grammatica Cel¬
tica,” Zeuss asserts that "it can by no means be
established that there was a fellowship or an iden¬
tity of language between the British and the Irish
(Brittannos et Hibernos), in the 8th or 9th cent¬
ury ; nor even at a much older date, although it is
abundantly manifest that both dialects or langua¬
ges have begun from one fountain." The Welsh
have a copious literature. As well in prose as in
verse, they have many works of venerable antiqui¬
ty, and, therefore, of great value and interest. To
the Kymry justice is merely done, whenever it is
said, that for faithfulness to their language and
their traditions ; for a resolute determination to
uphold their language and to cultivate it assidu¬
ously in these modern days, for a liberal recogni¬
tion of excellence in writing the Welsh language
either in verse or prose ; for a refreshing absence
