Source: The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland OUP 1989
As the Roman grip on Britain weakened, the Irish in the west and the Picts in the north (who had long been a threat as raiders) began to attack the province with growing success. Each had fleets and each ravaged the coastline. Britain was devastated in 367 by a simultaneous attack of Irish, Picts, and Saxons, from the west, north, and east. Ammianus Marcellinus, a contemporary, calls it 'a barbarian conspiracy'. It marked one of the many stages of Roman collapse, and Roman imperial rule effectively ended in the very early 5th century.
Concurrently, Irish settlement in Britain began. It has been suggested that some of these settlements may have been formed with Roman encouragement or at least connivance, in the hope of setting up small buffer-states against further raiders. But this is uncertain.
In the 4th and 5th centuries, a large Irish colony, originating from south east Ireland, was established in south-west Wales (Pembroke, Carmarthen, and Cardigan). The rulers were of the Deisi, the ruling class spoke Irish, and the kingdom was apparently bilingual in the 5th century. There was another, less important, Irish colony in north Wales in Anglesea, Carnarvon, and Denbigh. Here some of the colonists (for we do not know whether others were involved) left their name on the Lleyn peninsula, which derives its name from Laigin, the ruling dynasty of Leinster in the Early Christian period. Their name also survives in that of a village on Nevin Bay, Porth Dinllaen, 'the harbour of the fort of the Leinstermen'. A third colony was established in south-west Britain, in the Cornish peninsula, by colonists called Ui Liathain. These were probably Erainn and were settled in historic times in the east of Co. Cork. The learned scholar-bishop and king of Cashel, Cormac (d. 908), preserves in his Glossary an account of Irish colonisation in western Britain: 'The power of the Irish over the Britons was great, and they had divided Britain between them into estates; and the Irish lived as much east of the sea as they did in Ireland, and their dwellings and royal fortresses were made there'. Hence is Dind Tradui, that is, the triple rampart of Crimthann, king of Ireland and Britain as far as the English Channel. From this division originated the fort of the sons of Liathain in the land of the Britons of Cornwall. 'And they were in that control for a long time, even after the coming of St Patrick to Ireland'. Cormac's source is not known, but his account is broadly confirmed elsewhere. As Professor Jackson says, 'it seems a certain fact that, at some time in the late Roman period, Irish colonies from East Munster settled in South Wales, Cornwall and Devon, and from one of them there sprang a line of kings of south-west Wales who were still ruling there in the 10th century'. Less is known of the colony in north Wales: there is no information in Irish sources, but Nennius records how Cunedda and his eight sons drove the Irish out of north Wales in what may have been the middle of the 5th century, though there may have been further struggles before the Irish were finally conquered in this area.
By far the most successful Irish colony in Britain was that of Dal Riata in Scotland: It lasted, and finally laid the basis for the kingdom of Scotland. As we have seen, the DaI Riata or at least the group of dynasties to which they belong are located by Ptolemy in the extreme north-east of Ireland. When and why they crossed over to Scotland is uncertain. Medieval Irish legends which tell that this began in the 3rd or 4th century - or indeed before - are most unlikely to be historical. Other traditions state that Fergus Mor mac Eirc and his brothers established DaI Riata in Scotland and scholars have argued (on the basis of very flimsy evidence, mainly genealogy which is no earlier than the 7th century) that this event took place about the middle or late 5th century. Whatever its beginnings, the Scottish kingdom of Dal Riata was a great success and by the time Columba came on his mission to Iona in 563 the king of Dal Riata was extending his authority over the Picts to the east. In the middle of the 9th century, DaI Riata took control of all Pictland, and Scotland became a united kingdom under Kenneth mac Alpine.
Close relations with Britain, with Roman and latterly Christian culture, brought about dramatic changes in Ireland. It is likely that the products of successful plundering expeditions changed the balance of power amongst dynasties within Ireland, and colonies abroad may have provided the resources for dynastic expansion at home. It has, for example, been suggested (perhaps with some plausibility) that the Eoganacht, who were to take the kingship of Munster from the early Erainn, were colonists returned from Britain. The earliest origin-tales of the Laigin convey an impression of extensive overseas raiding, and a poem on their early kings contains Latin borrowings which suggest close and extended contact with a Roman area. Is this the underpinning of their powerful kingdom which stretched from the Boyne to the south coast ?
Recently, archaeologists have become increasingly aware of the romanization of the material culture of Ireland. This is dated to the 5th century, though the process may have begun in the 4th, and the most obvious source is the late Romano-British culture of western Britain, that of the areas of concentrated Irish raiding and settlement. In this general context, too, we must look for the origins of Ogham, the earliest form of written Irish. It is an alphabet of lines and notches cut on the edge of a stone, and it is clearly based on the Latin alphabet. Its origin lies in the contact of Irish and Roman, in Britain or in southern Ireland under Roman influence. Ogham inscriptions written in a very early form of the Irish are found throughout Ireland, but most densely in the south and south-west. Quite a number of them are also found where the Irish settled in Britain: Cornwall, Devon, south Wales, north Wales, and Man. They belong to the 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries and provide solid evidence for the extent and continued Irish character of the colonies in Britain. In Britain, too, the Irish encountered Christianity, and the most famous missionary to the Irish, St Patrick, first saw Ireland as a boy from a comfortable background in western Britain, enslaved by Irish raiders. He was to be one of the many missionaries who brought Ireland more fully into the Roman world and, in consequence of the literacy in Latin introduced by them, into the clearer light of written history. ENDS
Ireland ?
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Oxford University Press for their kind permission to publish this article.