Ireland is one of the worst countries in the world to campaign in or subdue, for it is a strange, wild place consisting of impenetrable forests, great lakes, bogs and uninhabited regions. It is hard to find a way of making war on the Irish effectively for, unless they choose, there is no one there to fight and there are no towns to be found.
Jean Froissart, Chroniques {c. 1410)
The discovery of large quantities of Roman artefacts on a fortified headland near Drumanagh in County Dublin in the early 1990s briefly threatened a revolution in thinking about late prehistoric Ireland. Had the pristine Celtic world of Ireland been violated by a Roman invasion after all? As it turned out, no it had not. Drumanagh was a native stronghold with trading links to the Roman world. Other sites have provided evidence for trade with the Roman Empire and even for the presence of resident Romano-British merchants in the shape of British-type burials with British and Roman grave goods. Merchants from the Roman world must have been frequent visitors because the Romans had a good knowledge of the Irish coast and even of major ceremonial centres inland, such as Emain Macha (Navan), which they called Isamnion. Despite these contacts, surprisingly few Roman artefacts have been found in Ireland. It seems that the Irish elite felt no urge to adopt the trappings of a Romanised lifestyle as the continental and British Celtic elites had done and that Roman coins and metalwork were simply melted down and recycled into La Tene artefacts more in keeping with native tastes. Contacts with the Roman world do not seem to have had any impact on social developments either, as there was no acceleration in state formation, urbanisation or settled agriculture. Ireland remained a world of tribes and chiefdoms and of cattle rearing and cattle raiding as portrayed in the epic Tain Bo Cuailgne (‘The Cattle Raid of Cooley’), which is believed to be set in the fourth century. One of the few overt signs of Roman influence was the development of the ogham alphabet in the third or fourth century. Ogham was designed to be simple to carve and was used for memorial inscriptions, which are the earliest records of the Irish language. Another Roman influence was the introduction of Christianity, a development that effectively brought an end to Irish prehistory.
World History
