Romans in Ireland

regeneration

So did they or didn't they? Wasn't there some unearthing of roman coins a while back in a location in Dublin that suggested some kind of settlement, or has that since been rubbished. A quick google reveals the location to be "...a possible Roman fort at Drumanagh", and this article was dated 1996, so am just wondering if there's anything new to take to this issue.

mike65

I was always under the impression the Romans never got further west than Offa's Dyke but that does'nt mean a few sailing expiditions did'nt happen I guess.

Mike.

Cabaal

Yeah I'd say they visited but they just couldn't get a foot hold

regeneration

mike65 wrote:

I was always under the impression the Romans never got further west than Offa's Dyke but that does'nt mean a few sailing expiditions did'nt happen I guess.

Mike.

well this is the '96 article I was talking about and what it said:
"Roman Ireland

The discovery of a possible Roman fort at Drumanagh, 15 miles north of Dublin, suggests the Romans may have invaded Ireland after all. The heavily-defended, 40-acre coastal site has produced 1st and 2nd century Roman coins, but its significance is disputed. Some claim it may have been a Roman bridgehead, used as a base for military campaigns inland, whereas others argue the site was simply a native Celtic settlement with evidence for trade with Roman Britain. The discovery, announced last month, was made a decade ago but kept secret because of a legal dispute over the ownership of finds from the site. "
http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba12/ba12news.html
*shrug*

Manach

According the fairly recent 'The Roman World 44Bc-180Ad ' by Martin Goodman, this was the site of a Roman fort in Ireland. There was a Roman policy of building outposts beyond the offical borders of the Empire, to keep a eye on the barbarians, and I guess Dublin counts as such a place .

pork99

regeneration wrote:

The discovery of a possible Roman fort at Drumanagh, 15 miles north of Dublin, suggests the Romans may have invaded Ireland after all.

Well they landed on the North Side, what they saw scared them, so they fecked off home again

Undergod

Well it seems obvious there was never an actual invasion, although that's not to say they didn't attempt. The camp may have been a small settlement that acted as a trading post. The Romans probably wouldn't have wanted to invade- they had enough problems with the Celts in Britain, another invasion may have spread their millitary forces too thin.

m1ke

Yeah i'd say they probably had some outposts. There was trade, the harbours and approaches were well known... it would make sense.

Of the various Roman artifacts that have turned up in Ireland... surely some customs and habits would have been adopted by traders with the rest of the Roman world.

Otherwise, what would be the advantage of controlling Ireland, not much.... covered in trees, not a great climate.

The only tactical advantage from a Roman perspective seemed to be to reinforce their hold over Britain... as if Britain were surrounded on all sides it would be easier. They also thought Ireland was in middle between Britain and Spain and could link both.

Definitely no invasion, ther'd be more evidence out there.

luckat

Wasn't there a trading post up Loughshinny way? I seem to remember scrawled on a wall: "Veni, vidi, EEEEEEEK!!!!"

Blade

Sorry for bringing up an old thread, just happened to come across it in a search. I was told a while back that there was a book for sale in Easons called ' The Romans in Ireland '. Or something like that. Might want to ask about it.

funktastic

Liam De Paor- 'St. Patrick's world' is the most accesible book for accurate information on Roman links in trade,jewellery(brooches etc) .There are loads of tourist bookshops in Dublin which stock terrible books on Roman links with Ireland.

pork99

I read something a few years ago about the legend of the Combat of the Clan Calatin

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/cool/cool19c.htm

From what I remember this historian was speculating that the Clan Calatin was a description of a Roman military unit - an Auxilium Palatina, Palatina = Calatin? The Clann Calatina fought as a many armed, many legged, many headed entity, a rough description of close-order Roman tactics?

Probably very far fetched. But there were Norman mercenaries fighting in Irish civil wars before they invaded, perhaps there were Romans here in a similar role? I've googled for this theory but haven't found anything.

Also found this

CROM CRUACH
An idol set up at Magh Slécht, 'Plain of Adoration', in County Cavan by the King,Tigernmas. Known as 'Lord of Death', Tigernmas is credited with the introduction of gold mining and of silverwork to Ireland. Some authorities have it that Tigernmas was a renegade Roman legion commander; this may be supported by the nature of the cult of Crom which has strong Eastern connections.

http://www.droitsweb.com/Druids/hist.html

Again very speculative.

Johnmb

I checked into Drumanagh Promontory Fort last year, and had a chat with a guy from the museum about it. Basically, there is absolutely no proof whatsoever that there was ever a Roman settlement there. No excavations have been carried out due to legal wranglings, and the are no visible earthworks there that resemble anything Roman (and they had pretty standard military settlement types when they launched expeditions, so people know roughly what to be on the look-out for). There were Roman coins found (although legally, the museum are not permitted to say if the coins where actually found in Drumanagh, just that the are in the collection which contains items from that area), however, there are no military artefacts in that collection. So whether it was Irish or Roman, it is probably not likely to have been military in nature. Either way, until the legal aspects are dealt with and an excavation takes place, any claims that the site definitely is, or isn't, a military site are unfounded and generally show a lack of research on the authors part, so be weary of the newspaper articles.

funktastic

No romans in ireland
Evidence is-links were in trade-such as wine, luxury goods -jewellery-beekeeping and watermills and coulter plough were said to have come fromRoman influence .brooches etc, coins have been found. Intermarriage came when Irish colonised parts of western Britain (Dal Riada) in wales/Cornwall parts of Scotland etc. Elements of latin merged with Irish on colonisation/raiding of western areas of Britain.

pork99

While there's no argument about a Roman invasion of Ireland - it didn't happen - personally I believe that a few Romans must have come here for trade, exploration and intelligence gathering.

It's possible that they also interfered on a political level in the affairs of the tribes and kingdoms of ancient Ireland. All empires in history had spheres of influence beyond the territories that they brought under their direct control.

pork99

funktastic wrote:

Elements of latin merged with Irish on colonisation/raiding of western areas of Britain.

It's fairly well established by linguistic historians that the many similarities in vocabulary between Latin and Gaelic are due to their common ancestery as Indo-European languages.

http://www.fiosfeasa.com/bearla/language/indo.htm

http://www.electricscotland.com/history/literat/gaelicl.htm

Capt'n Midnight

pork99 wrote:

It's fairly well established by linguistic historians that the many similarities in vocabulary between Latin and Gaelic are due to their common ancestery as Indo-European languages.

Glad that's cleared up, I always thought it had something to do with the monks & church using latin for everything from about the 660's to 1960's, and of course for the first 1,000 odd years they would be most travelled and cosmopolitan people, first with all the gadgets and stuff ..

pork99

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Glad that's cleared up, I always thought it had something to do with the monks & church using latin for everything from about the 660's to 1960's, and of course for the first 1,000 odd years they would be most travelled and cosmopolitan people, first with all the gadgets and stuff ..

I assume you are familiar with the idea of a family of Indo-European languages which developed from a common ancestor between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago?

http://nick.frejol.org/writings/proto-indo-european.live

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/3807/features/language.html

THe church was a big influence but when you see similarities in fundamental words like "cad" and "quod" for "what" or "ce" and "que" for "who", you can see it goes beyond loan words.

others;

fear - vir
sean - senex
tarbh - taurus
bhaile - villa

the list could go on and on

I apologise for the dodgy spelling and lack of fadas - my knowledge of Gaelic and Latin are fairly basic. But this just shows the great antiquity of the Gaelic language.

simu

OK but Irish being similar to Latin in some ways is not due to the Romans.

As you said, both Latin and Irish are Indo-European languages and so, they have a common ancestor. There's still disagreement about when this original Indo_European language was spoken (see here for example) but it was certainly long long before the Roman Empire.

And also, it's true that Christianity brought many Latin words into the Irish language. However, this happened after the Roman Empire's demise so it's not relevent to the question at hand.

Examples of Latin words brought into Irish by Chrisitan monks:

ecclesia -- eaglais
anima -- anam
benedictio -- beannacht
credo -- creid
peccatum -- peaca
argentum -- airgead
lego -- léamh
liber -- leabhar