894 REPORT — 1900. 



sea between the rivers Dovey and Mawddacb, displacing probably some Goidels 

 who may have gone to the opposite coasts of Ireland ; but in Irish story more 

 traces appear of invasions on the part of the Dumnonii, who possessed the coast 

 between Galloway and Argyle. These were so situated as to be able to assail 

 Ireland both in front and from behind, and this is countenanced to some extent by 

 Irish topograph}', not to mention the long legends extant as to great wars in the 

 west of Ireland between the Tuatha Dt5 Danann and invaders including the Fir 

 Domnann. I suspect also that it was the country of these northern Dumnonians 

 which was originally meant by Lochlinn, a name interpreted later to mean 

 Norway. 



Such are some of the faint traces of the Goidelic invasions of Ireland from 

 Britain, but it is possible — perhnps probable — that Ireland received settlers on its 

 southern coast from the north-west of Gaul at a comparatively late period, at the 

 time, let us say, when Cseosar was engaged in crushing the Veneti and the 

 Aremoric League. This has been suggested to me by the name of the Usdite, 

 which probably survives in the first syllable of Ossory, denoting a tract of 

 country now, roughly speaking, covered by the county of Kilkenny, but which 

 may have been considerably larger before the Deisi took possession of the baronies 

 of the two Decies and other districts now constituting the county of Waterford, 

 not to mention possible encroachments on the part of Munster on a boundary 

 which seems to have been sometimes contested. Now the Continental name which 

 invites comparison with that of the Usdije is that of the Ostiiiei, who in the time 

 of Pytheas appear to have occupied the north-western end of what afterwards 

 came to be called Brittany ; they were also called Ostiones, and more commonly 

 Osismi. I see no reason to suppose that the ships of the Aremoric League could 

 not make the voyage from Brittany to the principal landing-places on the south of 

 Ireland from the Harbour of Cork to that of Waterford, and I gather from 

 Ptolemy's Geography that Ireland was relatively better known on the Continent 

 than Britain, although the latter had in a manner been long connected with the 

 Poman world. This I should explain somewhat as follows : — Csesar, who knew 

 very little about the west of Britain and less about Ireland, says that in 

 his time the great druidic centre of Gaul was in the country of the Carnutes, 

 somewhere, let us say, near the site of the present town of Chartres, that 

 druidism had been introduced from Britain to Gaul, and that those who wished 

 to understand it had to go to Britain to study. The authors of antiquity tell us 

 otherwise nothing about druids in Britain except that Tacitus speaks of such in 

 the Annals, in his well-known passage as to Suetonius Paulinus landing with his 

 troops in Anglesey and the scene of slaughter which ensued. Indeed, one may 

 go further and say that there is no proof that any Belgic or Brythonic people 

 ever had druids : they belonged to the Celtican Gauls and the Goidelicising Celts 

 of Britain and Ireland, who had probably accepted the institution from the 

 Pictish race. At any rate it is significant that the Life of St. Columba intro- 

 duces the reader to a genuine druid at the court of the Pictish king, near Inver- 

 ness, where, as well as on Loch Ness, the saint had to contend with him. In any 

 case, it is highly probable that druidism was no less a living institution in Ireland 

 than in the Goidelic and Pictish parts of Britain. Presumably it was more so, 

 and it may be conjectured that Gaulish students of druidism visited Ireland 

 no less than Britain ; also, vice versa, that Irish druids paid visits to the 

 Celtican part of Gaul where druidism flourished on the Continent, and in 

 a word that there was regular intercourse between Gaul and the south of 

 Ireland. If the druids of Ireland, who, among otlier roles, played that of 

 schoolmasters and teachers in that country, travelled to Celtica, they must 

 have spread on the Continent some information about their native country, 

 while generations of them cannot have returned to Ireland, with their druidic 

 pupils, without bringing with them some of the arts of civilised life as understood 

 in Gaul : among these one must rank very decidedly the art of writing, which the 

 druids practised. Now you know the usual account given of the ordinary Latin 

 for Ireland, namely Hibernia — to wit, that it was suggested by such native names 

 as that of one of the greatest tribes of that country, namely the 'lovepvoi 



