The Origins of the Irish by J. P. Mallory

Author:J. P. Mallory
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thames & Hudson

6.27. Stonyford burial: (a) mirror; (b) glass bottle; (c) glass urn (height c. 18 cm).

Summary

As generations of Irish archaeologists have indicated, there is really no convincing evidence for a substantial migration into Ireland by either Hallstatt or La Tène communities. If we were to compare, for example, the evidence for the Anglo-Saxon migrations to Britain with all the evidence adduced for Iron Age Continental or British migrations to Ireland, the difference in terms of plausibility is at several orders of magnitude. This is not to say that there were no population exchanges over the course of the Iron Age. But the most convincing evidence for any intrusive populations comes not with the onset of the Iron Age but during the first four centuries AD and is associated with the Romano-British populations who had settled in Ireland. This accounts for the foreign burials found in Ireland that suggest the establishment of some small foreign communities. Whether they occupied elite positions that went beyond the realm of traders and craftsmen depends to some extent on how one interprets the foreign finds from Clogher, Co. Tyrone. But at least we can imagine trading outposts with ethnically Romano-British populations, especially where we find imported material on coasts or along rivers. That there may have been some British settlement of a more substantial nature is supported to a certain extent by the linguistic evidence that we will review in Chapter 9.

As for earlier periods, we find ourselves acknowledging that contacts between Ireland and Britain can be clearly discerned and may well have involved the movement of restricted numbers of craftsmen and possibly families throughout the entire Iron Age. This would help explain the introduction of iron metallurgy and the spread of material either originating in Britain or at least passing through, e.g. Gündlingen swords and La Tène metalwork, especially horse gear. The presence of such material in proportions comparable to those found in Britain also suggests that Irish elites, at least in the northern two-thirds of the island, were adopting the same symbols of prestige as their British counterparts. On the other hand, Ireland was far from just being the end recipient of a series of innovations, but clearly also had its own regional identity in the manufacture of La Tène decorated items that were not common or were completely unknown in Britain or on the Continent. In addition, there are probably as many Irish objects known from Britain as British objects recovered from Ireland.

Conclusions

→There is no convincing evidence that the Irish Iron Age was introduced by a military incursion from abroad.

→There is some evidence that the comparability of material culture and the earliest iron metallurgy in Britain and Ireland during the Early Iron Age does allow for some movement of populations between the two islands.

→The Irish La Tène is primarily an elite art style that appears to derive from no specific part of the La Tène world, although it does reveal imports from both Britain and the Continent.

→The Irish La Tène was restricted to

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