Thanks a lot. You are very welcome. I have a few videos on stone circles (such as Uragh and Ardgroom) and stone rows. I have to buy a copy of Julian Cope's book (when I see it in a shop of course)
I saw an interesting video recently on Irish DNA and the Irish language. This shows that there was not a significant change to DNA at the time the Celts were supposed to have arrived around 600 BC. This significantly reduces the probability that they could have produced a significant cultural and language shift. The suggestion is that the Irish language is more likely to have been introduced by the Beaker people. That would mean that our myths have a far longer history having continuity from the Bronze age. Evidence cited for this is the fact that places which feature in myths, like Newgrange, have associations with their original purposes. If the myths had been brought in or created in 600 BC this would not be the case as the new people would not have had the required knowledge.
We have to be careful with DNA. It is good a pointing towards somethings but misses others. The arrival of the Bell Beaker culture seems to be the last big change in DNA. After they emerge the DNA of the neolithic culture that had made newgrange etc is largely replaced (or becomes less dominant, since most Irish have a small percentage of it in our genes). This seems to have been the last big change in Irish DNA, however, there have been major changes in Irish culture and history since then. The Beaker culture arrives around 2500 BC, perhaps a little later, and had ended by around 2000 BC. They seem to have (re) used Newgrange and perhaps some other places. It is possible they brought an ancestor version of the Irish language with them, but most archaeologists seem to disagree. Gaelic culture emerges with the Iron Age, approximately around 600 BC, so there is a large gap in the history. Moreover, in Gaelic mythology newgrange is mentioned, but so too are many Bronze age monuments, especially in SOuth Kerry, such as Eightercua (said to be burial of Sceine, wife of Amergin). Newgrange itself was also 'used' until the Christian period, since Roman coins dated from that time have been found in it. I think Newgrange was so big and so important that successive cultures treated it as something sacred. The Gaelic Irish realised that it and other later monuments were not built by them, so they said the Tuatha de Dannann lived there. Returning to DNA, the last major change in DNA seems to have been around 2500 BC, 4500 years ago, but culture and language has changed a lot since then. I think the Gaelic language as we know it goes back to 600, but there was no mass invasion of a Celtic people, rather the change took place on a cultural level, which could also have involved the incorporation of previous myths.
@@forasfeasa When there is a small population incoming they can bring significant material changes, Torcs, Iron, fashions and styles, etc. However there is no way they will change a language.
@ With language anything is possible. Look at Old English (or whatever it is called) before the Normans, it is more like German, then look at English of the 13th and 16th centuries, extremely different. How many Normans came to English and settled? A few thousand, the impact they had on English is huge. Irish also went through various changes, archaic Irish, then early Irish, then the Irish various forms in the medieval period and early modern. All very different from each other. I think Irish did emerge in Ireland, but not with the Beaker people, as these are far too early. I think the linguistic evidence they have also proves this (ie shows that the split from Indo Euro was not as far back as the beakers). However, we stil have lots to learn in this respect
Rivers were roadways in the past. 19th century migrants to Australia used rivers and waterways to reach the inland and used them again to ship produce to coastal ports and get imported goods. An island like Ireland would have used the sea, rivers and lakes in the same way. The location of ancient monuments must have been significant to those distant ancestors. It would have taken much time and human effort to construct them. Why dedicate so many resources unless it was important in some way. Fascinating stuff. Thank you for the podcast.
You are very welcome! The Irish sea (and indeed the Atlantic) were routes of movement. If you think of it, almost all farm animals, cows, pigs, and sheep came to Ireland by boat. To the best of my knowledge, none were native to Ireland after the last ice age. Cows were defintely brought by the first farmers! All by sea Thanks
Stories of the Fir Bolg & Tuatha Dé Danann are considered mythology. Do you think they might contain traces of a genuine oral history of Meso/neolithic or Bronze age people?
Thanks for the question. It is actually hard to answer and one I ask myself a lot. I think some Gaelic mythology contains elements of history. The problem is which parts and what sort of history. For example, I think the story of the Milesian coming to Ireland has some sort of truth. Not the part of Scotia and Egypt, that was copied from the bible. But it is not too unlikely that people came from Spain to Ireland. The Tuatha de Danann seem to be (Christianised) supernatural beings. I know many people think Lugh for example is the Celtic Jupiter. However, it is also possible that they are a mix of supernatural beings, of made up stories, and elements of oral history about previous peoples. Decipheering this is really difficult though. Gaelic mythology is also history in another way, it tells you something about how people thought when the stories were written down. Again this is hard to decipher. I think I will have to answer your question properly with another video :-)
@@forasfeasa Yes, it's a good topic for a video! I'm always struck by how the Fir Bolg seem like a displaced underclass (like today's Travellers) from a later wave of invaders prejudiced POV. - dirty, crude, living in the forest, etc,, etc - history written by the victors:?
@@benmulvey2704 I always thought they seemed out of place, caught between the god like Tuatha de Danann (the basis of Tolkein's elves I'm convinced) and the Formorian baddies under balor...
. . There are Huge Dolmans all round the world. . Spain has some beautiful ones. . There are also Round towers in other ancient cultures.. . Éire is great .. but we must see also, the bigger picture, ie other places too.
I know there are dolmans , stone circles, and other wonderful stone constructions elswhere in the world. I remember visiting Castro Daire in Portugal almost 30 years ago. I would love to visit so many of these places and film there (and indeed make films about the bigger picture), but for know because I have only filmed in Ireland, my videos are about here. I want to film (and experience) what I talk about, unlike so many other youtube channels. So day I will make a bigger picture video :-)
See, this emergence of Gallic/Celtic cultures is nowadays considered to be wrong. The following is taken from Britain Begins by Barry Cunliffe, and it closes an interlude on the origins of Celtic languages: Attempting to relate archaeology and language is a difficult and academically dangerous task, but it is one that we have to face if we are to attempt to write history. The hypothesis of the Atlantic origin of the Celtic languages is more in harmony with the available evidence than the myth of the eastern origin of the celts, first mooted in the seventeenth century, which formed the basis of the traditional view. It is, I believe, a useful working hypothesis rather than a new myth… if the hypothesis offered here is correct, then the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland were speaking Celtic dialects by 2000 BC, and some communities, particularly in the Irish Sea zone, may have been speaking Celtic for a lot longer. Britain Begins was first published in 2012, but since then there’s a belief that Celtic culture and languages may have had their beginnings in Ireland and Britain and then spread out into the wider Atlantic zone. I have my own theories and thoughts about the origin of the word Celtic (a Greek variation of Gallic/ Gaelic etc) but I’m happy to be invited to explain those rather than bore people in a TH-cam comments section. Summing up though; as Cunliffe states, this origin myth of Celtic being an Iron Age import to Ireland and Britain seems to persist in out imaginations simply because we haven’t updated our readings on newer evidence based history.
Thanks for your comment. I like Cunliffe's work - and his idea of the Atlantic origin of the Celts. I am not sure if I agree with it though. I agree with you about the difficulties of relating archaeology and language (and I would also say culture and more recently DNA). I am agonistic about where the Gaelic language first emerged (in other words I have read a lot of convincing arguments, but do not feel able to opt for one over any other. In part because it is hard to say which is true. ) Indeed, this video is about religion before the Iron age, before the emergence of Gaelic culture and its mythology. One day I will do a video on the origins of the Gaelic people, but I have lots of reading to do - lots of reading. I would love to hear more of your own view (and it is not boring at all). My view - open to change - is that the Gaelic people emerged with the iron age. However, there does not seem to have been any large invasion of Celts/Gaels. On the other hand, Gaelic mythology says they came from Spain. There could have been some truth in this, but when? I also think that in human life change has always been constant. Language changes, societies change. Please do tell me some more about your own ideas (either here, or if you have things written elsewhere). Thanks a lot
@ so, my suggestion (I’ll say that over assertion) is that the word Gaelic along with its many variants (Gallic, Gaul, Celtic etc) has its beginning once the Bronze Age had got under way. Much of Cunliffe’s work has been based on the paleo-linguistics studies of Andrew Koch, and he states in his book Celtic From the West how the distribution of placenames in any region tells us more about the prevailing culture of an area than archaeology can. After all, objects are often transported long distances and are found many years later by archaeologists who’d assume the object was of that area and culture. These findings had been the basis of antiquarian thoughts on the origin of Celts in the 17th century. We now have so many more scientific methods at our disposal which are simply contradicting that 300 year old narrative. So, I’m from Wales and Welsh is my first language. My father was Irish, from Conamara, and although I don’t speak Irish I was always interested in comparing both languages, as the belief is they would have been mutually intelligible during the Bronze Age. Indeed, Cunliffe offers the model that Celtic (or Gaelic) was a language that developed to facilitate trade between Ireland and Britain during that time. But we must realise that this language, if indeed it formed for that purpose, was based on an Atlantic version of Proto Indo European (PIE). It’s simply that these established peoples gave birth to this Celtic identity back then. The words used by early Celts were identical to words used by Neolithic farmers in these regions. Take this example of the persistence of words in a given culture, with very little change of sound and meaning across aeons: the word ‘generate’ has many different contexts now. Its root is PIE ‘gene’, to give birth to. The word has given birth to many permutations; ‘nation’, ‘generation’ ‘genes’ to name but a few. In Welsh the word has been preserved intact as ‘geni’ is a verb that means to give birth. Other permutations and contexts exist but it has been preserved in a Celtic language having its original meaning. So, on to my theory. The oldest word for our lands in Welsh is Gwalia. This is the Welsh version of the word ‘Gaelic’The Romans had a dislike of Gs it seems, and would pronounce them as a W sound. So they would say Walia. As an example compare the Brythonic tribe Gododdin with its A tin version Votadini, remembering that Vs were pronounced as Ws by the romans. As a footnote I’d like to help dispel the Anglo Saxon hypothesis that Wales is based on a Germanic word meaning stranger or foreigner. This is nothing other than propaganda and is pseudo academics at its worst. The Celts were all over greater Germanic lands aeons before the Germanic people formed an identity. But I digress… So the Phoenicians spoke of the lands of Pretania (Britain) as being a land of abundance and plenty. The abundance they were referring to was no doubt the metal ores. Although copper can be found in many places tin is quite localised and the Phoenicians had been trading it with Britons for centuries; some way into the Bronze Age. So there’s a word in Welsh that means plenty and that word is ‘gwala’. I would be confident enough to suggest that this is the origin of our word Gaelic, Gallic, Celtic etc. By applying the suffix ‘ia to ‘gwala’ we get Gwalia, and that meant the Land of Plenty or something akin to. It makes its own sense. Another myth I’d like to try and dispel is the origin of the word Goidel; Irish person. I’ve heard the meaning of it given as ‘wild person’ or similar, but I feel linguistics refutes that explanation. In Welsh it’s Gwyddel and the word Goidel is a Brythonic Celtic word that made in into Irish. Perhaps someone felt Gwyddel bor a superficial resemblance to ‘gwyllt’; wild, and made a decision based on that? However ‘Gwydd-‘ means knowledge and sometimes presence in Welsh. It is now ascertained that the extraction of metal ores and their smelting was introduced to mainland Britons during the copper age, so it makes perfect sense to me that having shared such massively important knowledge with the Britons that Gwyddel can only linguistically mean One Who Knows or similar. You can check the linguistic data online of course, and I hope you do. If I’m correct this identifier Gwyddel which is a known Brythonic and therefore Celtic word was used before the Bronze Age here in Britain.
Sorry about the length of this comment. Plus, I haven’t proof read it as I can’t be arsed plus I’m nursing my poorly pregnant girlfriend who’s nagging me to make her tea. So any mistakes in spelling and grammar will need to be forgiven.
My Bronze Age ancestors were R-L21 Y DNA haplogroup Indo-Europeans, closely related to continental people later described as Celts by Greeks and Romans. They were not “Bell Beakers” any more than I am a “Toyota Camry.” The “Bell Beakers” as an ethnic group nonsense is from ant-Gaelic bigots who are trying to perpetuate the myth that Gaelic language was an Iron Age blow-in to Ireland. Gaelic language is Indo-European just like R-L21 and is also closely related to continental Celtic language. Neither were Iron Age blow-ins to Ireland.
The Bell Beaker culture is not part of an anti-Gaelic conspiracy at all. Nor is DNA enough - culture is as important. DNA is good at pointing towards some things but misses others. The arrival of the Bell Beaker culture seems to be the last big change in Irish DNA and that was 4500 years ago. After they emerge the DNA of the neolithic culture that had made newgrange etc is largely replaced (or becomes less dominant, since most Irish have a small percentage of it in our genes). This seems to have been the last big change in Irish DNA, however, there have been major changes in Irish culture and history since then (Norman invasion, Viking, Plantations, etc, ), but this has not seemed to affect the DNA. Look at the timeline, the Beaker culture arrives around 2500 BC, perhaps a little later, and had ended by around 2000 BC. Then comes the Bronze age and the various cultures of that period. Gaelic culture emerges with the Iron Age, approximately around 600 BC, so they only emerge around 1500 years after the Bell Beaker culture. In addition, while after the second world war, many believed there had been Celtic invasions of ireland and Britain. There is little support for that now. Rather culture and language change. It is possible that around 600 BC or earlier a small group of elites arrived who became the Gaelic people. In relation to language, I know that some argue that the Bell Beaker language is the ancestor of Irish. Others disagree. I am not a linguist (my speciality is late gaelic history), so I am not going to go into linguistic arguments here. I follow the general historical line of thought here about the emergence of Gaelic culture which sees them emerging in Ireland around 600 BC. Some argue that they emerged later, others earlier. It is possible that the language could be a little older, but not much according to linguistics, who have mapped out the emergence of Irish from Indo-European. It is not a question of Gaelic culture being a blow in. No one argues that. Rather Gaelic culture emerges with the iron age and the revolution that was iron, just as other cultures had emerged with bronze. Moreover, Gaelic culture would be transformed in Ireland with the emergence of Christianity. All cultures develop and change. The Irish language is indo-European, it emerges much later than Bell Beaker culture. That is history
@@forasfeasa Hog Wash. Today, we don't have pint-glass Beer People, and wine-glass Wine People. I know women who drink wine out of coffee mugs, and men who drink beer in cans. This "Bell Beaker" designation, (presumably beer drinkers), is some hopeless professors invention/clutching at straws, soon to be mocked as a contrivance. DNA doesn't lie. Beer mugs come and go. Culture is a tool that reflects an economy. Anachronistically backwardly projecting your wanna-be heroic past is not science, it's fantasy.
Wtf are you talking about? Gaels are the original Irish. The Irish ruins align perfectly to all Irish and Celtic religions. You don't understand at all. That's so frustrating.
There were lots of cultures in Ireland before the emergence of Gaelic culture. The first people here after the retreat of the ice were hunter gatherers. Eventually the neolithic culture which built Newgrange and the large passage tombs emerged. Their DNA was different from the hunter gatherers. Eventually there was another big change in DNA at the beginning of what would become the Bronze age, this saw initially the emergence of the Bell Beaker culture. This appears to have been the last big change in Irish DNA. Following them other cultures emerged during the 1500 years before the emergence of Gaelic culture. This emerged around 600 BCE, possibly a bit before, and coincided with the Iron Age. The Gaelic Irish did not claim to be the original inhabitants of the island (see Lebor Gabala). Nor did they claim ownership of Newgrange and other mounds (calling this Sidhe, the name eventually passed to the inhabitants of these mounds, sort of supernatural beings). This is what the history and archaeology (and indeed mythology) shows, what is your understanding?
@forasfeasa that's complete nonsense and I've no idea where you got any of it. Irish DNA is unbroken, and unique. You're crazy. The Leabhar Gabhála Érenn is not history is folklore and mythology. They're Allegorical stories for the stars. You are talking waffle buddy. Absolute waffle.
@ I know the Lebor Gabala is not history. I used it just as an illustration that even Gaelic mythology did not put them as the first on the island. If you add in Keating's Foras Feasa, he shows how the Irish incorporated the Vikings and the Normans. Irish DNA is not unbroken, where did you get that idea? Google Irish genetic history and have a look at the results. A book I recommend on this is J P Mallory The Origins of the Irish. Here is a video of his updating his ideas a little (th-cam.com/video/ZdLUcBbYZqU/w-d-xo.html ). You may dismiss this as nonsense, that is your right. However, read Mallory's book. It is well worth a read.
@forasfeasa I have, and I find it masonic. As Geoffrey Keating is. A catholic rewriting history to fit a narrative. The Milesians are allegory for Orion. Amergin Glúngel the bright knee is Orion and the day they landed in Ireland the Sun was physically in Orion's hand. You can use astrology software to check. The Normans and British came later, in history the invasions are allegory. And yes the Irish DNA is unique, there are 10 unique to Ireland blood types that developed here. We have the highest rates of R1b, because it also developed here. You should realise that you're buying into the narrative that makes us a mix race. Which we are not.
Neolithic stone circles are incredible, thanks for this video. My interest was really increased by the work of Julian Cope.
Thanks a lot. You are very welcome. I have a few videos on stone circles (such as Uragh and Ardgroom) and stone rows. I have to buy a copy of Julian Cope's book (when I see it in a shop of course)
I just found your channel, hoping you get more recognition because this is great work!
Thanks for the lovely comment! I'd slowly building up numbers. One day I will get there :-)
Beautiful informative video. Thank youx
I saw an interesting video recently on Irish DNA and the Irish language.
This shows that there was not a significant change to DNA at the time the Celts were supposed to have arrived around 600 BC. This significantly reduces the probability that they could have produced a significant cultural and language shift.
The suggestion is that the Irish language is more likely to have been introduced by the Beaker people. That would mean that our myths have a far longer history having continuity from the Bronze age. Evidence cited for this is the fact that places which feature in myths, like Newgrange, have associations with their original purposes. If the myths had been brought in or created in 600 BC this would not be the case as the new people would not have had the required knowledge.
We have to be careful with DNA. It is good a pointing towards somethings but misses others. The arrival of the Bell Beaker culture seems to be the last big change in DNA. After they emerge the DNA of the neolithic culture that had made newgrange etc is largely replaced (or becomes less dominant, since most Irish have a small percentage of it in our genes). This seems to have been the last big change in Irish DNA, however, there have been major changes in Irish culture and history since then. The Beaker culture arrives around 2500 BC, perhaps a little later, and had ended by around 2000 BC. They seem to have (re) used Newgrange and perhaps some other places. It is possible they brought an ancestor version of the Irish language with them, but most archaeologists seem to disagree. Gaelic culture emerges with the Iron Age, approximately around 600 BC, so there is a large gap in the history. Moreover, in Gaelic mythology newgrange is mentioned, but so too are many Bronze age monuments, especially in SOuth Kerry, such as Eightercua (said to be burial of Sceine, wife of Amergin). Newgrange itself was also 'used' until the Christian period, since Roman coins dated from that time have been found in it. I think Newgrange was so big and so important that successive cultures treated it as something sacred. The Gaelic Irish realised that it and other later monuments were not built by them, so they said the Tuatha de Dannann lived there.
Returning to DNA, the last major change in DNA seems to have been around 2500 BC, 4500 years ago, but culture and language has changed a lot since then. I think the Gaelic language as we know it goes back to 600, but there was no mass invasion of a Celtic people, rather the change took place on a cultural level, which could also have involved the incorporation of previous myths.
@@forasfeasa When there is a small population incoming they can bring significant material changes, Torcs, Iron, fashions and styles, etc. However there is no way they will change a language.
@ With language anything is possible. Look at Old English (or whatever it is called) before the Normans, it is more like German, then look at English of the 13th and 16th centuries, extremely different. How many Normans came to English and settled? A few thousand, the impact they had on English is huge. Irish also went through various changes, archaic Irish, then early Irish, then the Irish various forms in the medieval period and early modern. All very different from each other. I think Irish did emerge in Ireland, but not with the Beaker people, as these are far too early. I think the linguistic evidence they have also proves this (ie shows that the split from Indo Euro was not as far back as the beakers). However, we stil have lots to learn in this respect
Thank you so much for this very interesting video. 😎💫
Thanks Lynn! Glad you enjoyed it and happy new year to you!
Magnificent! 🧚
Thank you very much
Great video again!
Thank you very much! Glad you enjoyed it
Great video
Thanks! :-)
Realms from the beginning! No hidden things that will not be made known!😊🍀👑
I'm kind of the opposite, lots of hidden things we will never discover
Give thanks to God richard whilst doing ur affirmations we are all one in him. Give him the glory.
Who is the God Richard?
Rivers were roadways in the past. 19th century migrants to Australia used rivers and waterways to reach the inland and used them again to ship produce to coastal ports and get imported goods. An island like Ireland would have used the sea, rivers and lakes in the same way.
The location of ancient monuments must have been significant to those distant ancestors. It would have taken much time and human effort to construct them. Why dedicate so many resources unless it was important in some way. Fascinating stuff. Thank you for the podcast.
You are very welcome! The Irish sea (and indeed the Atlantic) were routes of movement. If you think of it, almost all farm animals, cows, pigs, and sheep came to Ireland by boat. To the best of my knowledge, none were native to Ireland after the last ice age. Cows were defintely brought by the first farmers! All by sea
Thanks
🔥 Shemsu Heru 🔥
What do mythical kings of Egypt have to do with my video???
Iontach!!! ❤❤❤
Go raibh maith agat!
Stories of the Fir Bolg & Tuatha Dé Danann are considered mythology. Do you think they might contain traces of a genuine oral history of Meso/neolithic or Bronze age people?
Thanks for the question. It is actually hard to answer and one I ask myself a lot. I think some Gaelic mythology contains elements of history. The problem is which parts and what sort of history. For example, I think the story of the Milesian coming to Ireland has some sort of truth. Not the part of Scotia and Egypt, that was copied from the bible. But it is not too unlikely that people came from Spain to Ireland. The Tuatha de Danann seem to be (Christianised) supernatural beings. I know many people think Lugh for example is the Celtic Jupiter. However, it is also possible that they are a mix of supernatural beings, of made up stories, and elements of oral history about previous peoples. Decipheering this is really difficult though. Gaelic mythology is also history in another way, it tells you something about how people thought when the stories were written down. Again this is hard to decipher. I think I will have to answer your question properly with another video :-)
@@forasfeasa Yes, it's a good topic for a video! I'm always struck by how the Fir Bolg seem like a displaced underclass (like today's Travellers) from a later wave of invaders prejudiced POV. - dirty, crude, living in the forest, etc,, etc - history written by the victors:?
@@benmulvey2704 I always thought they seemed out of place, caught between the god like Tuatha de Danann (the basis of Tolkein's elves I'm convinced) and the Formorian baddies under balor...
Thank You. .SEAN DHONNCHAIDH
You are very welcome Sean
Choice
Your welcome!!!!! Thanks for the coffee too!
@@forasfeasa You`re welcome mate
@@waynemcauliffe-fv5yf 😀
.
. There are Huge Dolmans all round the world.
. Spain has some beautiful ones.
. There are also Round towers in other ancient cultures..
. Éire is great .. but we must see also, the bigger picture, ie other places too.
I know there are dolmans , stone circles, and other wonderful stone constructions elswhere in the world. I remember visiting Castro Daire in Portugal almost 30 years ago. I would love to visit so many of these places and film there (and indeed make films about the bigger picture), but for know because I have only filmed in Ireland, my videos are about here. I want to film (and experience) what I talk about, unlike so many other youtube channels. So day I will make a bigger picture video :-)
See, this emergence of Gallic/Celtic cultures is nowadays considered to be wrong. The following is taken from Britain Begins by Barry Cunliffe, and it closes an interlude on the origins of Celtic languages:
Attempting to relate archaeology and language is a difficult and academically dangerous task, but it is one that we have to face if we are to attempt to write history. The hypothesis of the Atlantic origin of the Celtic languages is more in harmony with the available evidence than the myth of the eastern origin of the celts, first mooted in the seventeenth century, which formed the basis of the traditional view. It is, I believe, a useful working hypothesis rather than a new myth… if the hypothesis offered here is correct, then the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland were speaking Celtic dialects by 2000 BC, and some communities, particularly in the Irish Sea zone, may have been speaking Celtic for a lot longer.
Britain Begins was first published in 2012, but since then there’s a belief that Celtic culture and languages may have had their beginnings in Ireland and Britain and then spread out into the wider Atlantic zone. I have my own theories and thoughts about the origin of the word Celtic (a Greek variation of Gallic/ Gaelic etc) but I’m happy to be invited to explain those rather than bore people in a TH-cam comments section. Summing up though; as Cunliffe states, this origin myth of Celtic being an Iron Age import to Ireland and Britain seems to persist in out imaginations simply because we haven’t updated our readings on newer evidence based history.
Thanks for your comment. I like Cunliffe's work - and his idea of the Atlantic origin of the Celts. I am not sure if I agree with it though. I agree with you about the difficulties of relating archaeology and language (and I would also say culture and more recently DNA). I am agonistic about where the Gaelic language first emerged (in other words I have read a lot of convincing arguments, but do not feel able to opt for one over any other. In part because it is hard to say which is true. ) Indeed, this video is about religion before the Iron age, before the emergence of Gaelic culture and its mythology. One day I will do a video on the origins of the Gaelic people, but I have lots of reading to do - lots of reading. I would love to hear more of your own view (and it is not boring at all). My view - open to change - is that the Gaelic people emerged with the iron age. However, there does not seem to have been any large invasion of Celts/Gaels. On the other hand, Gaelic mythology says they came from Spain. There could have been some truth in this, but when? I also think that in human life change has always been constant. Language changes, societies change.
Please do tell me some more about your own ideas (either here, or if you have things written elsewhere).
Thanks a lot
@ so, my suggestion (I’ll say that over assertion) is that the word Gaelic along with its many variants (Gallic, Gaul, Celtic etc) has its beginning once the Bronze Age had got under way. Much of Cunliffe’s work has been based on the paleo-linguistics studies of Andrew Koch, and he states in his book Celtic From the West how the distribution of placenames in any region tells us more about the prevailing culture of an area than archaeology can. After all, objects are often transported long distances and are found many years later by archaeologists who’d assume the object was of that area and culture. These findings had been the basis of antiquarian thoughts on the origin of Celts in the 17th century. We now have so many more scientific methods at our disposal which are simply contradicting that 300 year old narrative.
So, I’m from Wales and Welsh is my first language. My father was Irish, from Conamara, and although I don’t speak Irish I was always interested in comparing both languages, as the belief is they would have been mutually intelligible during the Bronze Age. Indeed, Cunliffe offers the model that Celtic (or Gaelic) was a language that developed to facilitate trade between Ireland and Britain during that time. But we must realise that this language, if indeed it formed for that purpose, was based on an Atlantic version of Proto Indo European (PIE). It’s simply that these established peoples gave birth to this Celtic identity back then. The words used by early Celts were identical to words used by Neolithic farmers in these regions. Take this example of the persistence of words in a given culture, with very little change of sound and meaning across aeons: the word ‘generate’ has many different contexts now. Its root is PIE ‘gene’, to give birth to. The word has given birth to many permutations; ‘nation’, ‘generation’ ‘genes’ to name but a few. In Welsh the word has been preserved intact as ‘geni’ is a verb that means to give birth. Other permutations and contexts exist but it has been preserved in a Celtic language having its original meaning.
So, on to my theory. The oldest word for our lands in Welsh is Gwalia. This is the Welsh version of the word ‘Gaelic’The Romans had a dislike of Gs it seems, and would pronounce them as a W sound. So they would say Walia. As an example compare the Brythonic tribe Gododdin with its
A tin version Votadini, remembering that Vs were pronounced as Ws by the romans. As a footnote I’d like to help dispel the Anglo Saxon hypothesis that Wales is based on a Germanic word meaning stranger or foreigner. This is nothing other than propaganda and is pseudo academics at its worst. The Celts were all over greater Germanic lands aeons before the Germanic people formed an identity. But I digress… So the Phoenicians spoke of the lands of Pretania (Britain) as being a land of abundance and plenty. The abundance they were referring to was no doubt the metal ores. Although copper can be found in many places tin is quite localised and the Phoenicians had been trading it with Britons for centuries; some way into the Bronze Age. So there’s a word in Welsh that means plenty and that word is ‘gwala’. I would be confident enough to suggest that this is the origin of our word Gaelic, Gallic, Celtic etc. By applying the suffix ‘ia to ‘gwala’ we get Gwalia, and that meant the Land of Plenty or something akin to. It makes its own sense.
Another myth I’d like to try and dispel is the origin of the word Goidel; Irish person. I’ve heard the meaning of it given as ‘wild person’ or similar, but I feel linguistics refutes that explanation. In Welsh it’s Gwyddel and the word Goidel is a Brythonic Celtic word that made in into Irish. Perhaps someone felt Gwyddel bor a superficial resemblance to ‘gwyllt’; wild, and made a decision based on that? However ‘Gwydd-‘ means knowledge and sometimes presence in Welsh. It is now ascertained that the extraction of metal ores and their smelting was introduced to mainland Britons during the copper age, so it makes perfect sense to me that having shared such massively important knowledge with the Britons that Gwyddel can only linguistically mean One Who Knows or similar. You can check the linguistic data online of course, and I hope you do. If I’m correct this identifier Gwyddel which is a known Brythonic and therefore Celtic word was used before the Bronze Age here in Britain.
Sorry about the length of this comment. Plus, I haven’t proof read it as I can’t be arsed plus I’m nursing my poorly pregnant girlfriend who’s nagging me to make her tea. So any mistakes in spelling and grammar will need to be forgiven.
Our history has been erased and re wrote..
History is continually written and rewritten. At times it is erased, but then it can be unerased...
@@forasfeasa The truth shall set us free..
@@steadyeddie639 Hopefully!!!!
I think you mean 're-written'. Maybe I'm wrong and you really mean 're wrote'.
"Our" history? There's a very good chance you don't descend from these original people who lived on the island of Ireland.
My Bronze Age ancestors were R-L21 Y DNA haplogroup Indo-Europeans, closely related to continental people later described as Celts by Greeks and Romans. They were not “Bell Beakers” any more than I am a “Toyota Camry.” The “Bell Beakers” as an ethnic group nonsense is from ant-Gaelic bigots who are trying to perpetuate the myth that Gaelic language was an Iron Age blow-in to Ireland. Gaelic language is Indo-European just like R-L21 and is also closely related to continental Celtic language. Neither were Iron Age blow-ins to Ireland.
Childish
The Bell Beaker culture is not part of an anti-Gaelic conspiracy at all. Nor is DNA enough - culture is as important. DNA is good at pointing towards some things but misses others. The arrival of the Bell Beaker culture seems to be the last big change in Irish DNA and that was 4500 years ago. After they emerge the DNA of the neolithic culture that had made newgrange etc is largely replaced (or becomes less dominant, since most Irish have a small percentage of it in our genes). This seems to have been the last big change in Irish DNA, however, there have been major changes in Irish culture and history since then (Norman invasion, Viking, Plantations, etc, ), but this has not seemed to affect the DNA. Look at the timeline, the Beaker culture arrives around 2500 BC, perhaps a little later, and had ended by around 2000 BC. Then comes the Bronze age and the various cultures of that period. Gaelic culture emerges with the Iron Age, approximately around 600 BC, so they only emerge around 1500 years after the Bell Beaker culture. In addition, while after the second world war, many believed there had been Celtic invasions of ireland and Britain. There is little support for that now. Rather culture and language change. It is possible that around 600 BC or earlier a small group of elites arrived who became the Gaelic people.
In relation to language, I know that some argue that the Bell Beaker language is the ancestor of Irish. Others disagree. I am not a linguist (my speciality is late gaelic history), so I am not going to go into linguistic arguments here. I follow the general historical line of thought here about the emergence of Gaelic culture which sees them emerging in Ireland around 600 BC. Some argue that they emerged later, others earlier. It is possible that the language could be a little older, but not much according to linguistics, who have mapped out the emergence of Irish from Indo-European.
It is not a question of Gaelic culture being a blow in. No one argues that. Rather Gaelic culture emerges with the iron age and the revolution that was iron, just as other cultures had emerged with bronze. Moreover, Gaelic culture would be transformed in Ireland with the emergence of Christianity. All cultures develop and change. The Irish language is indo-European, it emerges much later than Bell Beaker culture. That is history
@@forasfeasa Hog Wash. Today, we don't have pint-glass Beer People, and wine-glass Wine People. I know women who drink wine out of coffee mugs, and men who drink beer in cans. This "Bell Beaker" designation, (presumably beer drinkers), is some hopeless professors invention/clutching at straws, soon to be mocked as a contrivance. DNA doesn't lie. Beer mugs come and go. Culture is a tool that reflects an economy. Anachronistically backwardly projecting your wanna-be heroic past is not science, it's fantasy.
“BCE” is offensive.
Why? I alternate between BC and BCE. Neither is offensive.
Wtf are you talking about? Gaels are the original Irish.
The Irish ruins align perfectly to all Irish and Celtic religions. You don't understand at all. That's so frustrating.
There were lots of cultures in Ireland before the emergence of Gaelic culture. The first people here after the retreat of the ice were hunter gatherers. Eventually the neolithic culture which built Newgrange and the large passage tombs emerged. Their DNA was different from the hunter gatherers. Eventually there was another big change in DNA at the beginning of what would become the Bronze age, this saw initially the emergence of the Bell Beaker culture. This appears to have been the last big change in Irish DNA. Following them other cultures emerged during the 1500 years before the emergence of Gaelic culture. This emerged around 600 BCE, possibly a bit before, and coincided with the Iron Age. The Gaelic Irish did not claim to be the original inhabitants of the island (see Lebor Gabala). Nor did they claim ownership of Newgrange and other mounds (calling this Sidhe, the name eventually passed to the inhabitants of these mounds, sort of supernatural beings). This is what the history and archaeology (and indeed mythology) shows, what is your understanding?
@forasfeasa that's complete nonsense and I've no idea where you got any of it.
Irish DNA is unbroken, and unique. You're crazy.
The Leabhar Gabhála Érenn is not history is folklore and mythology. They're Allegorical stories for the stars. You are talking waffle buddy. Absolute waffle.
@ I know the Lebor Gabala is not history. I used it just as an illustration that even Gaelic mythology did not put them as the first on the island. If you add in Keating's Foras Feasa, he shows how the Irish incorporated the Vikings and the Normans. Irish DNA is not unbroken, where did you get that idea? Google Irish genetic history and have a look at the results. A book I recommend on this is J P Mallory The Origins of the Irish. Here is a video of his updating his ideas a little (th-cam.com/video/ZdLUcBbYZqU/w-d-xo.html ). You may dismiss this as nonsense, that is your right. However, read Mallory's book. It is well worth a read.
@forasfeasa I have, and I find it masonic. As Geoffrey Keating is. A catholic rewriting history to fit a narrative.
The Milesians are allegory for Orion. Amergin Glúngel the bright knee is Orion and the day they landed in Ireland the Sun was physically in Orion's hand. You can use astrology software to check.
The Normans and British came later, in history the invasions are allegory. And yes the Irish DNA is unique, there are 10 unique to Ireland blood types that developed here.
We have the highest rates of R1b, because it also developed here. You should realise that you're buying into the narrative that makes us a mix race. Which we are not.
@@forasfeasa lol this platform, it's unbelievable.
I'm not allowed reply and I've messaged you elsewhere if you'd look