3 8 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



and Munster, often became unrounded or open in unstressed syllables, e.g., in 

 the ending -6g of nouns, -ochaidh of verbs ; and the a of unstressed -ach, 

 normally a neutral vowel in Connacht and Munster, e.g., in suarach, was 

 sometimes heard with its typical value as in stressed syllables. I would 

 ascribe these northern traces to the transplantations of Ulster people to 

 Connacht in the seventeenth century, in part, perhaps, to the influx of 

 Hebridean galloglachs during the three preceding centuries. 1 



In the list of family names particulars of the recorded or traditional origin 

 of a considerable proportion of the families now settled in Clare Island have 

 been supplied. The notion exists that because the islands and coastlands of 

 western Ireland are on the outer edge of the Old World, their inhabitants 

 must in a specially high degree be representative of an aboriginal West 

 European stock. The mere inspection of a map does not afford sufficient 

 foundation for an assumption of this kind. Even if one is entitled to judge 

 the matter a priori, there are other considerations that cannot properly be 

 overlooked. The coastlands and the adjoining seas, since remote prehistoric 

 times, have always been the freest highways for the redistribution of the 

 human race. Mountainous, marshy, or heavily forested inland regions have 

 always been the least accessible, and, with the exception of wholly barren 

 deserts, the least tempting lands for newcomers. The predominantly mari- 

 time distribution of prehistoric megalithic structures in western Europe and 

 north-western Africa indicates an extensive migration coastwise, and reaching 

 to Ireland, at a period which at the latest was early in the Bronze Age ; and 

 must have preceded the Celtic immigrations traced from central Europe, a 

 region, according to Borlase, almost or wholly devoid of structures of the 

 kind. Since the Atlantic Ocean was the limit of early migratory movements 

 in a western direction, we should rather expect its fringes to exhibit the 

 maximum of accumulation, with a strong tendency in the conquering and 

 dominant newcomers to wear down and wear out the older and weaker 

 elements. 



In the ancient folk-migrations displacement of one population by another 

 is likely to have been of rare occurrence, and perhaps never took place except 

 in cases when the invaded population could find another territory in which 

 they might live in freedom. For conquering invaders, the most valued 

 acquisition, ministering at once to their wealth and ease and self-esteem, must 

 have been a subject population. The displacement of the language of the 



1 Surnames from the Hebrides and Argyle, belonging to families largely of Norse extraction, are 

 frequent in western Connacht. The galloglachs (" gallowglasses ") of Irish history were mainly 

 Norse -Hebridedn mercenaries. Eogers (MacEuaidhri), MaeDonnell, and MaeSweeney or Sweeny 

 are gaUoglach surnames common in co. Mayo. MacAlpine and SfacAuley are probably of like 

 origin. 



