56 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



the approved account, Finn himself was sprung from the Ui Tairsigh, a sept 

 of the Galians. 1 As foreigners, however, they are a vassal people under the 

 domination of the Gael, and in course of time they join in the revolt of the 

 aithech tuatha, or 'unfree tribes of Ireland.' The leader of the revolt, Cairbre 

 Cat-head, is perhaps one of themselves. Though successful for a time, the new 

 dynasty is soon overthrown ; and the remnants of the Galians sink into 

 obscurity. We can trace them, however, into the historical period among the 

 Fortuatha Laigen, or ' Stranger tribes of Leinster,' for, like the O'Tooles and 

 the O'Byrnes, victims of a later conquest, they were cooped up among the 

 Wicklow mountains. There in diminished numbers, and becoming less and 

 less distinguishable, they continue to be governed by kings of the race of 

 Messi Corb down to the coming of the Normans. 



In the above dim outline of a suggested history of the Galians I have 

 taken a conservative view of the legend of ' Labraid the Exile ' and of other 

 legends, observing, indeed, the sequence of the legends, but not the chrono- 

 logy in which they have been set ; for legend has little or nothing to do 

 with chronology, and the only date we have is supplied by Ptolemy's notice 

 of the Manapians about Arklow. But it is possible to take another and 

 perhaps a more historically probable view, and to support it by other legends 

 and traditions, and that is to suppose that the Galians and other distinct 

 peoples were in Leinster before the coming of the people who traced their 

 descent from Mil; or, without entering into the thorny question of when the 

 Milesians came, we may say before that people had attained any wide pre- 

 dominance in Ireland. This does not involve pushing back the date to many 

 centuries before the Christian era. There is no indication on Ptolemy's 

 map of such predominance. The legends, too, point to the predominance of the 

 Galians in Leinster at a comparatively late period ; and we may perhaps regard 

 the suppression of the Eevolt of the Aithech Tuatha, placed in the genera- 

 tion preceding that of Cucorb, as a genuine tradition of what was the 

 first real subjugation of these peoples in Leinster. In the ' death-song ' 

 pronounced over his grave by his widow Medb, Cucorb himself is stated to 

 have " raised a contest to conquer the Galians " ; 2 and even later, in the will 

 of Cathair Mor — a document none the less valuable, because executed, so to 

 speak, long after the death of the testator — the benediction is given to his 

 son Daire Barrach, eponym of the Ui Bairrchi, " that he might be a powerful 

 champion over the green Galians." 3 



1 Duanaire Finn, I.T.S., Introd., pp. liii-lv. 



2 Comam Galian gignis fich, LL. 44 6 (40-1), and see the whole ' death-song ' trans- 

 lated by O'Curry (MSS. Mat., pp. 480-2), who, however, treats Galian as " an ancient 

 name of Leinster." I think it is genitive plural. 



3 Co madh ma co sobhaHhain os Gailiaiichaibh glas : Book of Bights, p. 195, where there 

 is a v. 1. Gailianaib. 



