Irish Translation Forum

sam4keys,

I love puzzles! I actually have a great set of visual ones that if I can figure out how to post like Lynn did her tatoo drawing...(hey, Lynn...where you be <grin>) then I'll start a new post on puzzles, etc.

Okay, back to regularly scheduled Irish History Programming.

Patrice

Any guesses on the time line of the first inhabitants of Irish soil?

Courtesy of a BBC site on Northern Ireland:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/ ... ions.shtml

Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Ages
First migrations c.7000 - 6000 BC

The oldest habitation site in Ireland was discovered in 1972 at Mount Sandel, a bluff overlooking the River Bann at Coleraine. The carbon-dating of charred hazelnut shells has revealed that people had lived here from before 7000 BC - a thousand years earlier than had previously been thought possible. Careful analyses have shown that huts had been erected, made of saplings covered with bark or hide; that flints were carried here from the Antrim sea shores and frequently resharpened; and that the inhabitants speared salmon and eels, gathered nuts in the autumn, and hunted wild boar in the forest.

I've been enraptured with history from 1600 forward....guess I didn't start early enough.

Pól posted a link once to the story of the Jeanie Johnston - a ship that sailed to America during the famine.

The records kept by the captains of the ships that sailed to America are surprisingly sparse - yet it is interesting to see what was considered important to be recorded.

http://freespace.virgin.net/alan.tupman/sites/irp1.htm

There is actually a replica of the Jeanie Johnston that sails today. I belong to the Emerald Society of the BCFD and we sent money so underpriveleged children could sail on her. Deb, isn't that interesting about the first inhabitants of Ireland. I know they were Celts and originally from Central/Eastern Europe? if I'm not mistaken. I have some Time Life books home about the birth of mankind. It's interesting to me to learn how these so-called primitive people survived. Sometimes I think we all could learn about the future by looking backwards.

JSmith13,
I agree, we could all learn survival methods from the "primitive" cultures.
I read recently in an old (1975, I think) National Geographic article on the Celts, that the early Celtic warriors went into battle naked as they held to the belief that the naked body was protected from mortal wounds.

Although, I am sure that they changed their beliefs, I think that a couple of hundred, screaming, naked warriors charging toward you could be pretty intimidating!

That was the whole idea. They would coat their hair in lime to make it stick up, take off everything but an amulet called a Torc, and charge screaming bloody murder. This supposedly caused much fear and anxiety amongst their foe, that they usually broke and ran before there was a fight. Plus they weren't very organized, so anything went. Hell, they sacked Rome so they must have been doing something right.

Very interesting Deb and Jsmith13! Naked with only a Torc. Here's a website with lots of time lines links on it.

http://www.celticcrossroads.com/index1.htm

This one looked very comprehensive

http://www.luminarium.org/mythology/ireland/

This one too.

http://www.ucc.ie/celt/

Old Ireland?

http://www.ireland.org/irl_hist/default.htm

Hey - Ailill - this turned out to be a pretty good link with some info on the Brehon Laws:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthen ... rehon.html

Also, there is some really good history information that shows up if you do a Google for The Book of Acaill.

That's great, thanks Deb. There's actually a huge volume of stuff on them on the net, bloomin' marvellous (oh dear, I've been in England too long).

I saw in the London Times today some UN statistics on the 'development index' and a list going from the most to the least developed countries in the world, based on life expectancy, literacy and GDP per capita.

Norway is top of the list, the US is at number 6 (I think) and Ireland is 12th ahead of our dear neighbours, the UK in 13th place (hee hee).

Ireland has one of the highest levels of GDP per capita in the world, going by the list I saw today, we're in third place at $32,200 behind the US at $34,000 and Luxembourg at $55,000. The UK managed only a miserable $24,000.

Mind you, Ireland's economy has benefitted from more than $30bn in subsidies and grants over the last 30 years of European Union membership so it wasn't all our own sweat.

So, Irish history as it is being made today is a brave new world. Let's hope we don't lose more than we gained.

I'm worried that the new EU farm subsidy laws will have a rather large impact on Irish farmers...I know that the German farmers are livid about the plans to make subsidies independent of yearly production!
If all else fails, I'll have to try to convince my parents to enlargen their Waterford crystal collection...(in that they buy some for me )