Irish History-In the Beginning

The American Irish are descendants of awesome, proud and untamed people, the Celts. A Roman wrote of them; "The Celtic people are terrifying in appearance with deep harsh voices. In conversation they use few words and speak in riddles for the part hinting at things and leaving a great deal to be understood. They frequently exaggerate with the aim of extolling themselves and diminishing the status of others. They are boasters and threateners and given to bombastic self dramatization, yet they are quick of mind with a good natural ability for learning"

Another recorded; "The whole race is madly fond of war, they are high spirited and quick to do battle. When they are stirred up they then assemble in their groups and then assault without forethought and quite openly so that they are then easy to handle by those who wish to outwit them"

It was not until the 6th century that a Scottish scholar who established that the Celts were actually several distinct groups living in Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales and France.

One hundred years later it was correctly determined that the Gaelic spoke in Cornwall, Wales, Ireland and Brittany, although they had differences, came from a common root. From that point scholars worked backwards in determining the origins of the Celtic people. It was concluded that they were a branch of the Indo-European tree of mankind who took their roots in Europe 5000 years ago, near the eastern end of the European continent near what is today the Ural mountains.

Various versions of their spoken language broke off in to Greek, Latin, Greek, German, Slavic and Hindu Indian which in turn produced Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian. From there the scholars traced their subjects to the Danube river valley.

These people, in or about the third millennium eventually spread north and then westward, but at least one group went in the opposite direction, going east to west. These were the earliest Celtic people.