Irish Literature - Vol Ix

1804 - A GLANCE AT IRELANDS HISTORY. WE shall arrive at a better appreciation of Irish literature, if we know something of Irish history, for history is one expression of life, as literature is another. The first step, and the easiest and quickest way of getting a general idea of the history of a country is to acquaint ones self with the lives of the great men and women who have figured in it-develop centers of interest along the line of biography, and the setting of the rest is easy. This the reader will have ample opportunity to do in the pages of IRISH LITERATURE. It is impossible in the brief space a t our command to do more than rapidly sketch the outline of Irish history, pointing out as we go on some of the great figures who have helped to make it, the study of whose lives is absolutely necessary if one would understand the relation in which the history and the literature of the country stand to each other. How or when Irelaxjd was first peopled we have no means of knowing. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the earlier history of the country, which had been preserved by a special class in order to keep the genealogical records of the ruling families and the memories of their deeds, was fitted with a chronology and synchronized with the annals of historic nations. These ethnic legends of Ireland no doubt contained the main facts as to the early peopling of the country, though there must be much confusion and lack of proportion as to both the relative and the absolute time. These Irish legends record the invasion of six successive races the Parthalonians, the Nemedians, the Fomorians, the Firbolgs, the Dedannans, and the Milesians. These names are given in the supposed order inwhich the invasions took place, but the dates usually assigned to them are purely mythical, and the directions from which the invaders came are not exactly known. The country of Ireland was referred to by various pagan writers before Christ, but little is known with certainty of its inhabitants until the fourth century after Christ, when they began to invade Roman Britain. It is a little curious that the Roman invasion never became permanent in Ireland. There are no place-names in Ireland embalming a history of Roman civilization, as do those of Chester, Leicester, Manchester, etc., in England...