360 THE president's address. 



Britain became now exposed to terrible scourges througli 

 the invasion of Picts, Scots, and Saxons. It must be clearly 

 understood that the Scots were Irish. It was not till about A.D. 

 350 at the very earliest, more probably in the first years of the 

 5th century, that the Irish Scots made their effective occupation 

 of Alba, and it was not till the 10th century that the name of 

 Scot was transferred from the Irish Gael to the dominant tribe 

 of conquerors in what we now call Scotland. 



The Irish inroads into Britain began very early, and the 

 Irish Chief King obtained sway over both Wales and Cornwall. 

 In Cormae's Glossary (he was b. 831, and d. 903) is a curious 

 story connected with an Irish envoy sent into Cornwall to collect 

 tribute, and in the same article, Glastonbury is called 

 Glastonbury of the Gaedhil, or Irish. 



The passage is su£S.ciently important to be given. "Great 

 was the power of the Gael (Irish Gaedhil or Scot) over Britain. 

 They divided Alba amongst them in districts, and the Gael 

 dwelt on the east coast of the sea no less than in Scotia (Ireland) 

 and their residences and royal duns were erected there. Thence 

 was named Dinn-tradui or the three-fossed fort of Crimthan the 

 Great, son of Fidaoh, King of Erin and Alba, and down to the 

 Ictian sea (the English Channel), and thence also Glasimper 

 (Glastonbury) was called 'of the Irish' a church on the confines 

 of the Ictian sea .... In that part is the dun of Map Lethain, in 

 the lands of the Cornish Britons (^ tirih Bretan Cornn.) i.e. the 

 dun of Mac Lethain, for Mac is the same as Map in British."* 



Carausius who made himself emperor in Britain in A.D. 

 209, checked the inroads of the Irish. A Menapian by birth, 

 and therefore probably of Irish extraction, and a pirate by 

 profession, he was not likely to allow the continuance of these 

 invasions by his country men, on the principle that the best 

 person to catch a thief is one who has been a thief himself. 



Carausius employed large bodies of Frankish mercenaries, 

 whom he settled in Britain. 



*" Three Irish Glossariea " with preface by W.S. (Whitley Stokes), Lond., 

 1862, p. xlviii 



