50 



anciently divided into two large districts, one called lar-cael or 

 lar-gael, the W. Gauls ; the other Ros-gael or the sylvan Gauls ; 

 each name denoting the occupants to be of Gaulish descent. 



Mr. Whitacre has not been more fortunate with respect to the 

 Nagnake.^-^- These, he says, upon the authority of Ossian, were 

 the Belgae from the most S. part of Ireland ; who, liaving been 

 hemmed in by boundaries too confined for the growing tribes, 

 fought their way through the N. W. parts of the island ; and settled, 

 where Ptolemy has placed them, under the new denomination of 

 Nagnata\ And he still leaves them not only their former posses- 

 sions undisturbed, but assigns to them the whole W. region, through 

 which they passed from the county of Cork up to Leitrim and 

 Fermanagh. 



Irish history too agrees with the author of Ossian and Mr. Whit- 

 acre in fixing a Belgic tribe in the N. W. part of the county 

 Mayo ; a district, which had been long called loras Domnami,^-*' 

 where Ptolemy has placed the Nagnatae. This concurrence of 

 ophiion seems to militate against what has been said of the Nam- 

 netce ; but Mr. Whitacre could not have had any authentic infor- 

 mation, through Irish or Scottish historians, respecting Ireland, be- 

 fore the time of Ptolemy ; when all the tribes, of which the former 

 speaks, both Belgic and British, were by that geographer placed 

 where we now find them on his map, and, with some change of 

 position, confirmed by Richard. Among the rest, we find the Nag- 

 natae and the Belgic tribes of the S. E. and W. coasts ; whose dis- 

 tinct settlements prove that both were then co-existent, and the 

 one independent of the other. Consequently, Mr. Whitacre's ac- 

 count of the Nagnats and the fir Domnann of Irish historians 



123. Hist, of Man. p. 2H. 12t. Ogyg. p. 15. 



I 



