The Ulster People: 6 – Ptolemy’s Map

Posted on July 19, 2016 by
In the second century AD there came from upper Egypt one of the greatest of ancient scientists, known to us today as Ptolemy the Greek. He wrote a magnificent work comprising eight books, the Geographia Hyphegesis, in which he not only gives us an account of Ireland, but provides the earliest known “map” of the British Isles, on which is marked various tribal and geographical names. At the beginning of research into Ireland’s ‘Celtic’ roots, the map proved disconcerting to many scholars, because it seemed to contradict the then-assumed antiquity of the Gaelic occupation of Ireland.The renowned Irish linguist T.F. O’Rahilly could find no evidence of Gaelic names in Ptolemy’s account and pointed out that those names which could be traced were of Belgic British stock. To compensate it was suggested that Ptolemy was using sources going back to the fourth century BC. Yet the Roman occupation of the southern part of Britain had already been completed by 84 AD, and it is difficult to believe that the great scholars of the Roman Empire had to rely on sources 500 years old for information about an island their soldiers could see every day from the coast of Galloway and of which they had gained much intelligence through traders.
On Ptolemy’s map are recorded two capitals in Ireland, and two only. One is a place called Isamnion. Scholars now feel that this place is the ancient capital of Ulster, called Emain in the earliest Irish texts, and more generally known as Emain Macha. This ancient seat of the kings of Ulster — still surviving today as Navan Fort — contained a great ceremonial building, the timbers for which were felled at the same time as the massive defensive enclosure of the Dorsey, and presumably by the same population group.The second is Regia e Tera at the centre of County Galway, precisely where Turoe is today, the site of the famous Turoe Stone. An expansive inner ward of linear embankments encloses an acropolis and necropolis in the complex along the western slopes of Turoe and Knocknadala. According to Ptolemy this was “the most illustrious city in all Britannia (Pretania) and the most considerable in size, located in the Western part of Ireland”. It appears to have been the centre of Belgic power. At this time the indigenous Cruthin or Pretani still held Cruthintuatha Croghain, Rathcroghan in Roscommon.

When the written records become acceptable for historical purposes — in the sixth and seventh centuries — the fastest rising power in Ireland are those “Celts” we now call the ‘Gaels’. While this name has had to suffice as a all-embracing description of these particular Celts, we do not know just what mixture of peoples made up the original groups of immigrants, or in what way these newcomers soon had other tribes grafted onto them. Indeed, in the later writings of the early genealogists, ‘Gaelic’ tribes appear to gain a remarkable and posthumous increase. The name Gael itself is derived from the Brittonic ‘Guidel’, modern Welsh ‘Gwyddel’, meaning ‘raider’, and would suggest that the newcomers had no common name for themselves until they had come into contact with foreigners. The Romans called them Scotti (Scots) or marauders.

Just as we are not able to identify any particular group of Celtic invaders as being the first ‘Gaels’ to arrive on Irish shores, nor can we be certain about dates. According to Gaelic tradition itself Tuathal Techtmar (who was probably a Roman soldier) had led the ancestors of the Gaels to Ireland, where they overthrew some of the aithechthuatha (non-Gaelic, ‘unfree’ peoples) and established themselves in the area around Meath. Under the leadership of Mug Nuadat (Eogan), another party of Gaels were able to establish themselves in Munster, this conquest seemingly being effected with much less conflict than that of their ‘Midland’ associates.

According to the genealogical material contained within ‘Laud 610’ the date reckoned for Tuathal’s becoming king of Tara is 153 AD. Another source, Mael Mura, gave a reckoning of 135 AD. However, any dates given at this time must be treated with the greatest of caution, and all that can be said is that the Midland Gaels were obviously able to establish themselves and consolidate their power base, for by the time Ireland moves into the ‘historic’ period proper, we find these particular Gaels involved in a gigantic struggle for control of the north of the island — the ancient province of Ulster.

The first Gaelic leader who bridges that twilight zone between ‘purported’ and ‘actual’ history is Niall Noígiallach, known as ‘Niall of the Nine Hostages’, whose mother was British. From him the greatest dynasty to emerge from among the Gaels, the Uí Néill, claim direct descent. (The Uí Néill would much later become synonymous with the long family line of powerful Gaelic chieftains, the O’Neills.) Although at the time of Niall’s reign — reckoned to be about the first quarter of the fifth century — Ireland was in the last phase of its unrecorded history, scholars find no reason to doubt his existence. While the middle of Ireland was still not secure to the Uí Néill — the ancient annals tell of battles between 475 and 516 before the Uí Néill conquered the plain of Mide — it appears that it was to the conquest of the North that Niall and his sons directed their first major efforts.

To be continued

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