Page 27 - Demo

Chapter One 27
The Celts
During the years following 600 B.C. the Celts, a race of diferent peoples linked together by a common language and by various characteristics in their appearance, dress, and way of life, who once occupied the upper valleys of the Danube, the Rhone, and the Rhine, expanded into the neighbouring territories, and occupied, amongst other places, the Ibe- rian Peninsula and parts of ancient Gaul or France. Forced westwards by attacks from the German-speaking peoples from across the Rhine, some of these Celts arrived into Britain, and about the same time-350 B.C.-they began their conquest of Ireland.
The arrival of the Celts brought about a complete change in Ireland. The Celts had not come to settle down peacefully side by side with the earlier settlers; no, they came instead with the intention of conquering this fertile, gold-bearing land, and making themselves lords of it. And, in truth, they had very little diiculty in doing so.
Their superior physical strength, coupled with the very important fact that they were equipped with swords, spears and war-axes of iron, hard, strong and sharp, made it com- paratively easy for them to overcome the small dark-haired natives, armed as they were for the most part with their bronze weapons.
Soon the country lay at the mercy of the invaders and they quickly began ruling the vanquished natives. However, as the centuries passed on, the new race began by degrees to mix with, and to intermarry with the old one, until at length, the distinction between them disappeared.
The Celts
(A Poem by Thomas D’Arcy McGhee)
Long, long ago beyond the misty space
of twice a thousand years,
In Erin old there dwelt a mighty race,
Taller than Roman spears,
Like oaks and towers they had a giant grace,
Were leet as deers
With winds and waves they made their ‘biding place, These western shepherd seers.
Their ocean god was Mannanan MacLir,