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18 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
ers in metal. They had the means and knowledge to construct great stone chambers to bury their dead and mighty fortifications to defend the living. They were farmers and agricultur- ists who ploughed their fields, reaped their corn, sheared their sheep and wove cloth from the shorn wool. And, as already mentioned, they also traded with other countries, so to do so they must have been familiar with the science of navigation; and, as seems probable, they may have had a certain settled system of Government.
Iron Age
The end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age are dated to about 350 B.C. This new metal had many advantages over the old, and its introduction advanced the story of civilization another step. With the coming of the Iron Age the past begins to take a somewhat clearer shape, although many centuries would elapse before written accounts of events were made.
As referenced at the beginning of the piece, many interesting tales and legends concern- ing the early inhabitants of Ireland are preserved both orally and in our oldest books and manuscripts. And while we know that some of these narratives are based on fact, others may just be legends that grew out of the unrecorded past; we also know that it is almost impossible to separate truth from fiction in any of them, and also, while they may have little historical value-yet, they still form a major part of the common culture and literature of our Irish nation.
The historian John McCarran wrote, “Ireland was known in the East by the name of ‘the Sacred or Hyperborean Island’ and much boasted of by the priests and poets of Apollo, or the Sun, many ages before the planting of Christianity, which probably could hardly arise from any other circumstance, than the island being sacred to the “God of the Silver Bow” and greatly honouring that order, which comprehended in its sub-divisions, their priests, their philosophers, poets and musicians. The Druids or ancient Chaldees came first to Ire- land from the East, and were influenced to take up their abode in a country watered and wooded like Eden and affording sacred groves for their mysteries, by the same reasons that determined the choice of the Phoenicans-climate and rich soil.”
The Biblically inspired Bardic tradition of Leabhar Gahbála Erenn –The Book of the Taking of Ireland, or The Book of Invasions, as this folkloric history of Ireland is better known, would have us believe that Caesair, granddaughter of Noah, accompanied by her father, three
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