Galway is one of the most modern of the Irish provincial capitals. It does not figure at all in ancient annals. The first mention of it in the annals of the Four Masters is under the year 1124, when it is stated that the men of Connacht erected a castle in Galway. The first mention of it in the annals of Loch Key is under the year 1191, when it is stated that the river Gaillimh, from which the town takes its name, was dried up. The cause of this phenomenon is not stated. Galway was at one time a place of considerable wealth and trade. It was, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the port to which most of the Spanish wine destined for Ireland used to come; and it is generally believed that a Spanish type of features can still be noticed on some of its inhabitants. But whatever mercantile prosperity Galway enjoyed some centuries ago, very little of it unfortunately remains; for of all Irish towns the decrease of its population has been the most terrible. In 1845 it contained very close on 35,000 inhabitants, in 1891 it had only 14,000! It is painful to walk in the outskirts of the town and pass through whole streets in which nothing remains save the ruins of cottages. Galway ought to be a prosperous place, for it is situated on a noble bay that forms a spacious harbour, sheltered from the fury of the Atlantic by the Isles of Arran. It is pleasant to be able to state that the condition of this once fine city is improving.
OLD HOUSES IN GALWAY.
In spite of the signs of decay that are only too visible in Galway, it is a very quaint and interesting town. It contains many buildings that were erected centuries ago, in the days of its prosperity, that are evidences of its former wealth and trade. In what may be called mediæval remains, it is, perhaps, richer than any other town in Ireland, and will well repay a visit. It is one of the few large towns in Ireland in which a majority of the people are bilingual, using both the English and Irish languages.
There is not much either of scenic or antiquarian interest in the immediate vicinity of Galway; but if those who wish to see the most ancient and gigantic cyclopean remains in Europe, or perhaps in the world, go to the Isles of Arran, to which a small steamer sails from Galway, they will be well repaid for a two hours’ trip. The Arran Islands contain more antique monuments of thepre-historic past and of a more interesting kind than any other places of equal extent in these Islands. These monuments consist of vast drystone fortresses that were raised by some pre-historic race. There is what may be called historic tradition that they were built by a remnant of the Firbolgs in the century preceding the Christian era; but those most learned in things pertaining to Irish antiquities, do not think there is any reliable historic evidence as to where or by whom they were erected. The principal fortresses are, Dun Aengus, Dun Connor, Dun Onacht and Dun Eochla. They are all in the Great Island, or Arran Mór, except Dun Connor, which is in the Middle Island, or Inis Maan. Dun Connor is the largest. It is considerably over two hundred feet long, and over a hundred feet wide. Its treble walls are still twenty feet high in some places, and from sixteen to eighteen feet in thickness. These vast fortresses look as if they were the work of giants. Like almost every relic of the past, they seem to have been more marred by men than by time. They have evidently been injured by people looking for treasure; and a good deal of their stones have been removed to build cabins and outhouses. Miss Margaret Stokes, who has devoted almost all her life to the study of Irish antiquities, and whoconsequently knows more about them, perhaps, than any one in Ireland, says of these vast fortresses in Arran: “They are the remains of the earliest examples of architecture known to exist in Western Europe.” There is something awfully grand and grim in the aspect of these ruined fortresses. To gaze on their colossal dimensions and barbaric rudeness seems to carry us back almost to the beginning of time, when the earth was inhabited by beings unlike ourselves. But however old the forts in Arran may be, it is evident that they were the strongholds of a seafaring people; for the whole products of the barren islands on which they stand would not be worth the labour of erecting such gigantic fortresses for their protection. These islands support a good many people now, thanks to the potato; but in ancient times, when it was unknown, it is hard to understand how the multitude of men it must have taken to build so many vast fortresses could have found sustenance on these barren isles; and we are, therefore, almost driven to the conclusion that the fortresses in the Isles of Arran were built by pirates or seafaring men of some kind.
It is only those who have lived a long time in continental countries that can fully appreciate the beauty of Irish cloud scenery. As a rule, insular countries are richer in cloud scenery than continents. Any one who has lived even in the western part of continental Europe knows that Great Britain, owing to its being an island, is much richer in cloud scenery than France; and the further east one goes, the drier the climate will be found to be, the fewer the clouds, and consequently the less attractive the sky.
Ireland being situated so far out in the “melancholy ocean” is, beyond all European countries, a land of clouds, and it has to be admitted that she very often has too much of them. But if these clouds frequently pour down more rain than is necessary for the growth of crops, there is a certain amount of compensation given by skyey glories they create; and marvellous these glories sometimes are. It is not only at sunset or sunrise that Irish cloud scenery is fine; for often during even a wet summer, when the rain ceases for atime, and the sun appears, the sky becomes what it is hardly incorrect to call a wonderland of beauty, with its “temples of vapour and hills of storm.” But the real glories of Irish cloud scenery are its sunsets. Ireland is, beyond any other country perhaps in the world, the land of gorgeous sunsets. Sometimes they are such wonders of golden glory that even the most stolid peasant gazes on them with emotion. As a rule, it is only in the latter part of summer and the first half of autumn that Irish sunsets can be seen in their greatest beauty. Sometimes, when the summer is very wet, fine sunsets are seldom seen; but in fine weather they are generally such as can be seen in no other country. For months during the fine summer and autumn of 1893, every sunset was a wonder of indescribable beauty, with almost half the heavens a blaze of golden clouds.
It has been said that almost everything connected with Irish history and topography is peculiar. The truth of this can hardly be doubted. If the ancient Irish were a non-Aryan race, the strange phases of their history and the abundance of Irish place names might not strike us as so curious. But it is well known that the Irish are Aryans, and that they are substantially the same people as the ancient Britons were; yet nothing in the history of England or of Great Britain will satisfactorily account for the fewness of place names in the latter country as compared with Ireland. British, but especially English, place names are, in a vast majority of cases, either of Saxon, Norse, or Celtic origin. Their fewness as compared with Irish place names is what strikes a native of Ireland with astonishment. There are probably as many place names in a single Irish province as there are in the whole of England. The townland nomenclature of Ireland is almost unknown in England. The names of all the townlands in Ireland can be seen in the GovernmentSurvey of 1871. They number, exclusive of the names of cities, towns, and villages, about 37,000. But it is only the place names that mean human habitations, places erected by men, and where men dwelt, that shall be mentioned here. Let five denominations of place names suffice to show their immensity—namely,ballys,kills,raths,dunsandlises. The first means towns or steads; the second, churches or cells; and the three last mean fortified habitations of some kind. Ofballysthere are 6700, ofkills3420, oflises1420, ofraths1300, and ofduns760, making altogether 13,600 place names meaning habitations of some kind. But this is not the half of them! The place names in the subdivisions of townlands are not mentioned at all. There is a parish in Westmeath in which there are three place names beginning withrath, and three withkill, none of which is mentioned in the printed list of townlands. Multitudes of names in which some one of the five words mentioned is included have been translated or changed; just as Ballyboher has been made Booterstown, and Dunleary made Kingstown. Many place names in whichbally,kill,dun,rath, andlissoccur are not included in the numbers given, for very often the adjective goes before the noun, as in such names as Shanbally, Shankill,Shanlis, Shandun, &c. Taking everything into consideration, it would seem fair to estimate that not more than half the place names formed from the five words that have been mentioned appear in the printed list of Irish townlands; then we have the astounding total of overtwenty-seven thousandplace names in Ireland formed from five words that mean human habitations.
The only explanation of the astonishing number of ancient place names found in Ireland, as compared with England, seems to be the dense rural population that must have existed in the former country in ancient times. That an enormous percentage of ancient place names have totally faded away owing to the disuse of the Gaelic language, the consolidation of farms, and the decline of population, there cannot be any doubt at all. The puzzle about Irish place names is, if their extraordinary numbers were caused by a more dense population in Ireland than in England—why was Ireland more densely peopled than England in ancient times? The soil of Ireland is hardly more fertile than the soil of England, and the climate of Ireland is not as good, for it is much wetter than that of the larger island. England is nearer to the Continent, and therefore was more easy of access to continental traders. The situationas well as the soil and climate of England were rather more favourable to the growth of a large population than were those of Ireland. It is now generally conceded that the ancient Britons and Irish were of the same race, and spoke a language that was substantially the same. But why should there seem to have been such a difference in the political and social condition of the Irish and the ancient Britons who were their contemporaries? Why are there so comparatively few ancient place names in Great Britain and such an overwhelming number of them in Ireland? Why should Ireland have a history that goes so far back into the dim twilight of the past, and England have no history beyond the time of Cæsar? These are most interesting and important questions, but how can they be answered? It is to be hoped that some future savant will succeed in solving them.
The End.
PRINTED BYTURNBULL AND SPEARS,EDINBURGH
Footnotes:
[1]“History of England,” vol. iii., p. 107.
[2]Is iat Tuata De Danaan tucsat leo in Fál mór; i. in lia fisbaii Temraig; di atá Mag Fail for Erinn. In ti fo ngéised saide bari Erenn. “Book of Leinster,” page 9.
[3]Eemoing ni hed fota acht Crist do genemain; is sed ro bris cumachta nan idal. “Book of Leinster,” p. 9.
[4]
Is dar timna in Duleman, is darbrethir Crist chaingnigDo cech rig do Gaedelaib do beirammus for Laignib.“Book of Leinster,” p. 43.
[5]In Carsewell’s Gaelic,Giollaeasbuig van duibhne. Thevstands foru; the spelling was intended to representUa n Duibhne.UaandOmean the same thing, grandson. Thenbefore Duibhne would not now be used.
[6]This poem is in the “Book of Leinster,” and has not yet been translated.
[7]The eastern part of Ulster.
[8]Duvdaire was Muircheartach’s wife. She was daughter of the King or Chief of Ossory. Rushes in those days served as carpets, as they did in England.
[9]A poetic name for Muircheartach, for his patrimony was on the shores of Loch Foyle.
[10]Moy Breagh, or the fine plain, was the country round Tara. To possess Moy Breagh was the same as to possess Tara, and that was to be chief King. But Tara was as deserted in the time of the Circuit as it is now.
[11]This date is thought to be two years too early, and that 943 was the year in which Muircheartach was killed.
[12]The Eoghanachts were the posterity of Eoghan Mór, King of Munster in the third century. Eoghanacht meant a people of Munster, descendants of Eoghan; and Connacht, the descendants of Conn,—usually known as Conn of the Hundred Battles, most of which were fought against Eoghan.
[13]Prince of Scotts; this was evidently the great Steward, ormór maorof Lennox, who aided the Irish at the battle of Clontarf, and was killed there.
[14]This is an incorrect form of the word. It isBoramhain the most correct ancient manuscripts, and is a word of three syllables—Borava. It means “of the tribute.”
[15]Is hi seo bliadain ra gabad Tuirgeis la Maelseachlainn. Ra baided ar sain hé il Loch Uair. “Book of Leinster,” p. 307.
[16]Aed Abrat was Fann’s father.
[17]The old name of what is now called Queenstown Harbour.