16 TOPOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY. 



Lastly, it is clear that the natural incorporation of Ireland in the British 

 Isles, and, through them, with Europe, has profoundly influenced her his- 

 tory. Her insular position laid her open to attack from a variety of nations, 

 in times when it was far easier to travel by sea than to court the dangers and 

 difficulties of the land. The early pre-Celtic inhabitants were thus invaded, 

 possibly by men of a central European race. A dominant tribe, which arose 

 ultimately, and which was known as the Scots, occupied the plain, and ruled 

 the country from the centre, as the Magyars now rule Hungary. The ex- 

 pansion and enterprise of the Scots enabled them to found a colony in 

 Galloway, and their descendants gave a name to .Scotland. In the ninth 

 century, the Irish coasts were in turn harassed by Norwegians, commonly 

 spoken of as Danes, who seized a number of the ports, including Dublin and 

 Limerick. They maintained communications from one settlement to 

 another, and commerce sprang up in the shelter of the rias and the fjords. 

 The value of these harbours was later realised by the freebooting Normans, 

 who were, after all, distant relations of the Scandinavians. The royal 

 authority planted castles to guard the entries of the ports, and to keep the 

 towns in Norman hands. The mountainous nature, however, of the rim of 

 Ireland allowed descents on these strongholds to be easily made on the 

 part of native tribes ; while the forests and bog-land of the central plain 

 prevented its settlement by the limited body of colonists, even as late as 

 Elizabethan times. To this day the western mountains of Ireland marl'i 

 the region where the old language is mostly spoken, while it prevailed quite 

 recently in the corresponding highlands on the east. Throughout the 

 country, the townlands still bear characteristic Gaelic names, which often 

 suggest some natural feature of the landscape. 



In this brief attempt to trace the influence of the physical structure of 

 Ireland upon her history, our survey of the country well may end. It may 

 be that one should be born a peasant among the purple hills of Connaught 

 to know to the full the enduring fascination of the land. But to all of us it 

 may be given to stand in some great meadow of the midland, and to hear 

 the plovers calling, and to see the plain melt, as it were, against a soft and 

 cloud-filled air ; or to view from some high brown moorland the streamlets 

 starting on their courses, and far below, in the precipiced combe, the gleam- 

 ing of a rock-girt lake ; or, again, at evening, to rest amid the crescent of 

 the sand-hills, our ears filled with a murmur of Atlantic waves, and to catch 

 far off^, against the gold of sunset, some glimpses of the fortunate isles. 



