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question of the distribution of races among us. But this is only 

 seemingly the case. For Philology can tell us a great deal about 

 this matter ; although the languages of the conquered and of 

 many other races in Ireland, may have given place in the main to 

 one predominant tongue, yet we have still some linguistic relics, 

 few in many cases it is true, which testify to a variety of race under 

 a community of language in our country. Men may lose their 

 language ; they do not so readily lose their names. The family 

 names existing in the country are the relics of distinctions of race 

 and language, which in many cases could not be proved to exist in 

 any other way. In fact, from the existing names of people alone 

 in this country, one might build up a general history of the island. 

 The Post Office Directories in the hands of a good philologist 

 might furnish us, if all other records were lost, with an authentic 

 history of our land. You know what Geology has done towards 

 determining the early history of this earth of ours ; you know how, 

 from the fossils of the different strata, it can determine the relative 

 ages of the many layers which encrust the globe. Well, Philology 

 has a similar work in a social respect, and uses similar means to 

 accomplish it. Sometimes its materials are very abundant ; some- 

 times it has a great part, if not the whole, of a language — a perfect 

 mine of philological fossils — to determine the age of a speech, and 

 the civilization of those who used it ; sometimes it has only a few 

 words — a few personal names for instance — a few scattered word- 

 fossils, to find out the great' social strata to which they belong, and 

 to determine their relative place and age in the world's history. 

 But in any case it can employ those materials in contributing to 

 or in confirming the existing annals of the human race. And this 

 is the purpose to which I propose to apply it this evening ; and 

 that, too, in reference to the history of our own island, which ought 

 to be dear to every Irishman. Ireland has been exposed from the 

 very earliest times to invasions. Whether drawn by its beauty, or 

 its climate, or its rich soil, the adventurous have sought a home in 

 it from the very dawn of history. The record of the earliest in- 

 vasions, as preserved in our most authentic annals, is of the most 

 meagre description. We have merely the bare statement that such 



