Page:Ireland and England in the past and at present.djvu/22

 the name of the natives, to Ireland, a name which they made. Far off in a dim and scarce visible past there lived in Erin, as in other places, the old stone men, and after them the new stone men who reared, as they did in France and Britain, their dolmens or burial houses, which stand even now before the traveller in gaunt and silent witness of days long forgotten. Later came from the continent of Europe, at a time not known, but which legend assigns to the year 1700 B. C., the Goidels or Gaels. Erin was peopled by Goidelic members of the Celtic race, as the neighboring island was settled by the other great branch, the Brythons.

Of early Celtic Ireland we have slight information, aside from legendary accounts. It lay off on the rim of the world, and was scantily discerned by classical writers, though Ptolemy described it better than Albion or Britain. Erin was known to the Phenicians; and Greek writers called it the Sacred Island, Iernis, Ierne. In the time of Tacitus its harbors were more renowned than those of Britain. It may be that considerable commerce was carried on in early times, and that some civilization had developed there by the beginning of the Christian era. The old stories of the era before the introduction of Christianity have to do with kings who fought great battles, of Cúchullain of Ulster, of Medb, queen of Connaught, of the men of Leinster who must pay great tribute, of Ulstermen who made voyages to Alban or Scotland, of Ollamh Fodla who established the meeting of nobles