B P
190 CRANIA BRITANNICA. [CHAP. VI .
I
m
islots, especially the former, their complete suhmission and their subsequent attachment to the
dominion of Norway, in the year 875, as well as the numbers of the settlers from that country,
must have had a weighty influence on the population. The previous inhabitants of these islets
were most likely few, and qmte unequal to cope with the superior vigour and mental capacity of
the Norse race ; hence a thorough and long-continued intercourse with Norway may well be
regarded as having materially weakened and diminished the aboriginal and Pictish element of the
population. Considering the great extent of country visited by Scandinavian rovers and settlers,
it is likely that in these very islets we shall find their most decided influence on the population,
to which isolation has contributed considerably. StUl it must not be overlooked that to some of
them, the Gaelic Scots from Hibernia, or their colonies in Kintire, also migrated, and brought a
new strain which we shall perceive has not by any means been dissipated.
Caithness and Sutherland, or South Caithness, also experienced the inroads of the Norwegians,
and the more southern Pictish territory was likewise frequently harassed by their attacks ;
but in the latter there were fewer resulting settlements. The names of both the former counties
proclaim the presence of the Norseman. Only a northern people, possessed of the islets and of
the terminating limits of the island, could have given the name of Sutherland.
In the invasions of these counti-ies the Norwegian rovers, unlike their allies, the Danes, in
the southern parts of the island, who chiefly encountered Anglo-Saxons, came into immediate
contact with the aborigines, the Picts, a race from which they differed essentially, and with
which their alliances would probably be few ; and any true amalgamation may be regarded as
problematical. Yet the chiefs did marry daughters of the Pictish and Scottish aristocracy, and
in all Likelihood their examples were followed by others *. This is a point of much importance
in any estimate of the results the intruders have left behind them in the Shetlands, Orkneys,
Hebrides, and, above aU, in Ireland, where the same primary conditions prevailed.
Before the close of the eighth century the Northern Vikingr ravaged the coasts of Hibernia,
and, during the ninth, effected considerable settlements on these coasts. These immigrants, like
the Danes in England, were not unmixed. Norse people greatly prevailed among them, but
there was a sprinkling of Danes also ; and as their advent was from the east, they acquired the
appellation of " Ostmen." Although foreigners, they did not fail to mingle their blood with
the natives, and to assume theh- names. Por these purposes they had ample opportunities,
during a period of nearly 400 years, in all which time they exercised power and influence in that
o-reen and fertile island, so long the theme of their admiration and desire. Many of the im-oads
on the Scottish and English, as well as the Irish coasts, may be considered as secondary, taking
their points of departure, not from Norway, but from the settlements of this hardy race in
Orkney, Shetland, and even Iceland.
Of the four great provinces into which Ireland is divided, the Norwegians invaded the shores
of three ; and in the names of these three, it is aflfirmed, they left an enduring mark of their
presence. Connaught alone presented a prey so Kttle alluring as to escape their attacks. As in
Eno-land, and stUl more exclusively, their object was to seize the richer cities and towns, where
the wealth of that rude age was stored, chiefly in the shape of material merchandise. These
they plundered, and over them obtained rule, so as to protect their fellow-countrymen who
followed for ptu-poses of trade and commerce. Norwegian sovereignties were established in the
Irish cities near the coasts—among the rest one in Dublin, which lasted through more than
three centuries. But in the rm-al portions of the island their influence was not extensive, and
• Worsaae, p. 137.
CHAP. VI.] ETHNOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF SUCCESSIVE POPULATIONS. 191
the subjection of the natives not very complete. The heterogeneity of race was deeply felt, as
it has been ever since.
The occurrence of frequent and reciprocal intermarriages between the " Ostmen " and the
native chieftains and their families is recorded, as weU as their military alHances with their
Danish and Norse brethren in both sections of the larger island. Even after the period of the
Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland, under Henry II., at the close of the twelfth century, which
brought the Norwegian domination to an end, many " Ostmen " long remained in their chief
cities—Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork and Limerick,—observed peculiar customs, even had
their own troops, and, although they failed to maintain a purity of blood, they doubtless
produced an effect more or less permanent on the native population.
I f the people of Hibernia, during the earlier epochs to which this sketch refers, remained
a tokrably pure race, owing mainly to the remote and isolated position of their island,
and if both Roman and Anglo-Saxon conquests of Britain passed them over unscathed, an era
had now commenced which, without controversy, gave them up to the common lot, of a
mingled blood. After the " Ostmen " came Earl Strongbow and other English and Welsh
adventurers, who introduced a considerable amount of English blood into the province of
Leinster. In this part of the island was established the " EngKsh Pale," or division, a territory
more or less settled by immigrants from the eastern island, at one time even defended by a
vaUum and ditch, but ill-defined and varying in its limits, always however of prime moment in
the successive strifes to which the country was subject; further north, especially in the county
of Down, Scottish immigrants from the neighbouring lowlands of Scotland, and EngKsh
settlers, under the famous "Plantation of Ulster," prevail; so that along the whole eastern
side of the island, from Wexford to Londonderry, an exotic population has been introduced
from different sources, and has mingled in different degrees with the native Irish, producing
effects which it would be very curious to investigate. In the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, in a
kind of peninsula extending along the coast from Bannow Bay to Wexford Haven, and partly
isolated from the rest of the county by the mountain of Forth, a remnant of one of these immigrant
races has long been preserved distinct from the Irish population. But when we turn our
eyes to the western side of the island and adjoining islets, even down to the present times, from
Donegal Bay to Kerry, as weU as the central regions of the country, the picture is reversed, and
we behold the well-marked descendants of a most ancient and venerable aboriginal race *
After the successful invasion of England by Swein and Cnut, their wars with the brave
Eadmond Ironside, so fatally murdered, the Danish conquest, which subjected England and
Denmark to the same i-nler, dates from the accession of Cnut in 1016. An aUiance thus intimate
brought great numbers of Scandinavians into the British islands, who formed frequent
connexions with the Anglo-Saxons, still the much predominating part of the population. The
Anglo-Danish dynasty was of short dm-ation; for the Confessor ascended the throne in 1042
Two centuries afterwards North Britain sustained the last attack of the Norsemen, when
kmg Haco entered the Clyde, in 1263, and was totaUy defeated at Largs in Ayrshii-e He
• Within the last twenty years it has been said that the
Irish language was still the vernacular tongue of about
2,000,000 of the population, excluding perhaps another
1,000,000 who were able to speak it, but could also converse
in English. Its local distribution was then described in these
terms. " In Connaught it is spoken almost universally; in
Munster generally ; in Leinster sparingly ; and in Ulster only
in the county of Donegal, and the mountainous districts."—
Halls' Ireland, vol. ii. p. 452. Now the Irish-speaking population
amounts to about 1,000,000 only, few of whom do not
speak English also.
2 c 2