124. REPORT—1874. 
haired, but blue-eyed maidens of the City of the Tribes. Here is what old MacFirbis, 
who, I suppose, claimed descent from the sons of Milesius, wrote about them:— 
“Every one who is white of skin, brown of hair, bold, honourable, daring, pros- 
perous, bountiful in the bestowal of property, and who is not afraid of battle or 
combat, they are the descendants of the sons of Milesius in Erin.” 
This high panegyric is only equalled by the prose and verse compositions of the 
ancient bards and rhymers and the modern historians, who have recorded the deeds 
of the great warriors, Ith, Heber, and Heremon, whose descendants boast to have 
been the rulers of the land. Even Moore, although he wrote such beautiful lyrics 
concerning this race in his early days, yet when he came to study history he felt 
the same difficulty I do now. I do not dispute thew omgin or supremacy ; but I fail 
to distinguish their early customs, their remains, or race from those of the Fil- 
bolgs or Dannans whom they conquered, and who left undoubted monuments 
peculiar to their time. 
Now all these peoples—the piratical navigator along our coasts, the mid-Europe 
primitive shepherd and cultivator, the Northern warrior, and the Iberian ruler— 
were, according to my view, all derived from the one Celtic stock. They spoke the 
same language, and their descendants do so still. When they acquired a knowledge 
of letters they transmitted their history through the Irish language. No doubt they 
fused ; but somehow a quick fusion of races has not been the general characteristic 
of the people of this country. Unlike the Anglo-Norman in later times, the Mile- 
sian was a long way from home; the rough sea of the Bay of Biscay rolled between 
him and his previous habitat; and if he became an absentee he was not likely to 
find much of his possessions on his return. It is to be regretted that while we 
have here such a quantity of poetical and traditional material respecting the Mile- 
sian invasion of Ireland, the Sais annals or traditions have given us but very 
little information on that subject. 
It would be most desirable if the Government or some Irish authority would 
send a properly instructed commissioner to investigate the Spanish annals, and see 
whether there is any thing relating to the Spanish migrations to Ireland remaining 
in that country. 
. Besides the sparse introduction of Latin by Christian missionaries in the fifth 
century, some occasional Saxon words springing from peaceful settlers along our 
coasts and in commercial emporiums, and whatever Das had crept into our 
tongue around those centres where the Scandinavians chiefly located themselves, 
and which were principally proper names of persons and places that became fixed 
in our vernacular, we find but one language among the Ivish people until the arrival 
of the Anglo-Normans at the end of the twelfth century. 
The linguistic or philological evidence on this subject is clearly decisive. The 
residue of the early races already described spoke one language, called Gaelic; so 
did the Scotch, the Welsh, and probably, in early times, the Britons and the 
Bretons. It was not only the popular conversational tongue used in the ordinary 
intercourse of life, but 1t was also employed in genealogies, annals, and other 
records in a special character, not quite peculiar to this country, but then common 
in Europe. Much has been said about the necessity for a glossary of our ancient 
MSS., such as those at Saint Gall, in Trinity College, in the Royal Irish Academy, 
and in Belgian and English libraries; but there are very few ancient languages that 
do not require to be glossed in the present day, even as the words of Chaucer do. 
The Government are now, under the auspices of our Master of the Rolls, and the 
special direction and supervision of Mr. J. T. Gilbert, giving coloured photographs 
of some of our ancient writings, and have promised that some of our remaining 
manuscripts will be translated. I see no occasion now for waiting for more ela- 
borated philological dictionaries or glossaries while there are still some few 
Irish scholars in the country capable of giving a free but tolerably literal transla- 
tion of these records that do not require any great acumen in rendering them 
into English, Is history to wait upon the final decision of philologists respect- 
ing a word or two in a manuscript, and decide as to whether it may be of Sanserit 
or any other origin ? 
No doubt some of my hearers may ask,—What about the Oghams (or Ohams) ? 
do they not show a very early knowledge of an alphabet? As yet this is a moot 
