Scotland's Irish origins

[Milesian]

Scotland's Irish Origins Volume 54 Number 4, July/August 2001
by Dean R. Snow

Tracking the migration of Gaelic speakers who crossed the Irish Sea 1,700 years ago and became the Scots

http://www.archaeology.org/0107/abstracts/scotland.html

Ireland in the Early Christian period (A.D. 400-1177) was made up of at least 120 chiefdoms, usually described in surviving documents as petty kingdoms, typically having about 700 warriors. One of these petty kingdoms was Dál Riata, which occupied a corner of County Antrim, the island's northeasternmost part. Around A.D. 400, people from Dál Riata began to settle across the Irish Sea along the Scottish coast in County Argyll. Other Irish migrants were also establishing footholds along the coast farther south, as far as Wales and even Cornwall, but the migrants from Dál Riata were especially noteworthy because they were known to the Romans as "Scotti" and they would eventually give their Gaelic language and their name to all of what is now known as Scotland.

So far as we know, the only people already living in Scotland in A.D. 400 were the Picts, who were first mentioned by Roman writers in A.D. 297. This was in connection with an attack along Hadrian's Wall, in which the Picts had the help of Irish (Scotti) allies, so connections across the Irish Sea must have already been strong. Roman sources predictably describe their Pictish adversaries as barbarians and mention their use of blue paint, which some historians later interpreted perhaps too literally (Mel Gibson and his friends show up in the film Braveheart slathered with gallons of it). More likely the Picts were heavily tattooed.

The Picts lived mainly in eastern Scotland, north of modern Edinburgh. We know their homeland both from the distributions of Pictish place-names (which typically begin with "Pett" or "Pit") and the distribution of Pictish symbol stones, which were Pictish equivalents of a medieval coat of arms, each typically bearing the crest of a petty king and that of his father. The rugged west coast was only lightly occupied by Picts or some other Celtic-speaking people. Settlers from Dál Riata apparently established themselves along the west coast without much opposition. By A.D. 490 the population of Scotti was large enough that the head of the little kingdom moved the family seat across from Ireland. The Scotti alternately cooperated with and fought against the Picts for the next few centuries until the two were unified into a single kingdom under Cináed (Kenneth) mac Ailpín in A.D. 844. After that the Pictish language disappeared, along with the symbol stones and other archaeological traits that had distinguished them from the Scotti.

What the Scottish case and others like it tells us is that migrations by relatively small dominant societies are much more common in human history than many archaeologists have been willing to admit (much less assume), particularly in North America. Typically, the signatures of it have been explained away too easily as evolutionary change in place. There are so many good examples of change associated with the migration of whole societies or dominant subsets of them, that any major change over time that can be observed archaeologically is likely to have involved migration in one of its many forms, however minor. We should be assuming population movement as a first principle rather than denying it.



Take your Pict
From A.D. 400 to 1000 , northern Great Britain saw the withdrawal of Roman forces, arrival of the Scotti from northeastern Ireland, disappearance of the Picts, formation of a united kingdom of Scotland, and colonization by the Norse.



A.D. 400. Settlers from the Irish petty kingdom of Dál Riata were beginning to establishing themselves in what would later be called Scotland. Picts were well established north of other Celtic speakers except perhaps on the west coast and in the Hebrides.

A.D. 500. Departure of Roman legions in A.D. 407 left Britain to Picts, other Celtic speakers, and growing numbers of Irish settlers. Enough Scotti were in place by A.D. 490 to allow them to move the seat of Dál Riata from across the Irish Sea.

A.D. 600. Colum Cille left Ireland and established a monastery on Iona in 563. From this time on expansion of the Irish Scotti was assisted in part by the spread of Christianity.

A.D. 700. As the Scottish presence in Britain grew, so did that of the Angles and Saxons, many the descendants of Roman mercenaries. Angle settlements expanded south and east of Scottish territory.

A.D. 800. As both Angle and Scottish communities grew, small Norse settlements began to appear in the islands of Orkney and the Outer Hebrides.

A.D. 900. Competition from the Norse and Angles probably contributed to the unification of Scots and Picts into a single kingdom in 844. Pictish language and culture disappeared. Norse raids forced the abandonment of Iona by 878.

A.D. 1000. By 1,000 years ago the Picts were a memory and the united kingdom of Scotland was caught between Germanic Norse and Angle settlers.



Dean R. Snow, a professor of anthropology at the Pennsylvania State University, has studied Iroquoian archaeology since 1969. His work in Northern Ireland and Scotland was supported by the British Council.

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

It is a sort of enigma why they left Hibernia for Caledonia in the first place.

[svin]

Scots have to move back to Ireland.

j/k

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by prometheus

It is a sort of enigma why they left Hibernia for Caledonia in the first place.

There was always a lot of back and forth between the two lands. The main trade seems to have been mercenaries and monks. My father’s family was invited over from the Western Isles in the 13th Century to help with some trouble a chieftain was having. They were the Gaelic speaking ancestors of Vikings who had settled in the Scottish islands northeast of Ireland.

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Originally Posted by A Few Acres of Snow

There was always a lot of back and forth between the two lands. The main trade seems to have been mercenaries and monks. My father’s family was invited over from the Western Isles in the 13th Century to help with some trouble a chieftain was having. They were the Gaelic speaking ancestors of Vikings who had settled in the Scottish islands northeast of Ireland.

You keep memory of your family history into such a remote past????

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by prometheus

You keep memory of your family history into such a remote past????

It is quite easy because that part of the family has been in the same area for a very long time.

[Kernunnos]

Originally Posted by A Few Acres of Snow

It is quite easy because that part of the family has been in the same area for a very long time.

I think Scotland is the most identitarian land in Europe. Very few people can go back to more than the napoleonic census here in Italy, usually noblemen.

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Breha

I think Scotland is the most identitarian land in Europe. Very few people can go back to more than the napoleonic census here in Italy, usually noblemen.

Well to be fair Venice has had a much more exiting history with people coming and going with commerce. In Scotland and Ireland people stayed in one area to hold on to their land.

[Milesian]

Originally Posted by A Few Acres of Snow

There was always a lot of back and forth between the two lands. The main trade seems to have been mercenaries and monks. My father’s family was invited over from the Western Isles in the 13th Century to help with some trouble a chieftain was having. They were the Gaelic speaking ancestors of Vikings who had settled in the Scottish islands northeast of Ireland.

A Gallowglas family, eh?

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Milesian

A Gallowglas family, eh?

That's right. Here's a Wikipedia entry on the subject for our non-Irish friends:
Gallowglass - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Milesian]

Originally Posted by A Few Acres of Snow

That's right. Here's a Wikipedia entry on the subject for our non-Irish friends:
Gallowglass - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An old chief of my family line is buried in a tomb within a ruined chapel. The tomb is in the Hiberno-Norman style & the decoration depicts what appears to be gallowglas.
Is this where you got the image from?

[Errigal]

That image of the tombstone is from the Wikipedia article. Here is the caption:
"Uploader's own photograph. Depicts a Gaelic warrior (with galley in background). Late medieval graveslab of Domhall Mac Gill'easbuig, from Finlaggan of which this is a cast copy. Museum of Scotland, 2005."

Image:Norse-Gael Warrior.PNG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here's another gallowglas tombstone. I wish the photo was more detailed because the stonework is really intricate and impressive when seen in person.