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17th Century Ireland - James Ware (1594-1666)
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Email: info@searcs-web.com 17th Century Ireland - James Ware (1594-1666) |
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James Ware was born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, which he later represented as a member of Parliament between 1634-1637 and 1661. He was knighted in 1629 and succeeded his father as
Auditor General of Ireland in 1632 and in 1634 he was elected Burgess for the University of
Dublin. In 1636 Ware sat on the Commission for Defective Titles and became a
Member of the Privvy Council in which capacity he supported King Charles I against the
Parliamentarians and was twice imprisoned before being expelled from Ireland in 1649. Ware travelled to England and France where, for several years, he collected Irish manuscripts and works of Irish history. He returned to Ireland with the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Ware continued his pioneering work on Irish antiquity and, while he was not a fluent Irish speaker, he employed Irish scholar, Dubhaltach Mac Firbisigh, to translate the manuscripts he had collected. Ware's literary output was enormous. His nephew, Walter Harris, edited Ware's Whole Works in six volumes between the 1739 and 1764. This extract is from Ware's Antiquities of Ireland first published posthumously in 1705.© It was a common practise with the ancient Irish to call all foreigners especially their European neighbours, of what nation soever they were without distinction, by the name of Gauls. From this practise a little territory near Dublin, northward, formerly inhabited by the Norwegians took the name of Fin-Gall; and Dermot MacMurrough, King of Leinster, was called Ni-Gall, ie; a friend of the English because in aid of him the English in the Reign of King Henry 11 invaded Ireland. It is however not to be denied that the English are commonly called by the Irish 'Sassonach' from Saxons. So the Danes and Norwegians (who in the 9th century subdued a great part of Ireland and held possession of Dublin, Waterford, Limerick and other maritime towns even to the arrival of the English in the Reign of King Henry II) who were sometimes called Nor-mans; as it were Northern men and sometimes Ost-men or men from the East; and to these people the northern suburbs of the City of Dublin is indebted for its name which to this day is called Ostmanstown and corruptly Oxmanstown... Nor can we here omit to mention the Scotch Britons, whom the Irish commonly called Albanach ie; Albanians, nor the Cambrians or Welch whom they called Brannach ie; Britons. But to return to the Gauls. From what has been said it appears that some footsteps yet remain in Ireland of the ancient Gauls whom Edmund Spenser thinks formerly possessed the southern parts of that kingdom and he strengthens his conjecture from the Manapii, a people of the ancient Gaul, whom Ptolomey has placed among the inhabitants of the south-east parts of the island. This conjecture also receives further force from observing certain arms used by the Irish which bear a great resemblance to the arms of the ancient Gauls. These were darts used by the light-armed Foot called the 'Kernes'; and axes and coats of mail worn by the heavy-armed Foot called 'Gallo-Glasses'; and further because the ancient wild Irish wore their hair curled commonly called 'Glibbs' after the manner of the ancient Gauls and wild Britons... Nor did the Irish follow the fashions of the ancient Britons and Gauls in their hair only but also in their beards which they wore only on their upper lip. In such manner did the Britons anciently wear their beards by the testimony of Ceasar; and Diodorus says the same thing of the Gauls. That the same custom afterwards prevailed among the English in Ireland, especially among the inhabitants of the Marches, appears by an Act made in a Parliament held in Trim in the year 1446 in the Government of John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland by which as a mark of distinction between the English and the Irish the wearing of a beard on the upper lip alone was prohibited under a grevious penalty that the offender should be taken for an Irish enemy. That almost all foreigners of Europe were in old times often called Gauls by the Irish is further confirmed by the saying of a certain Irishman taken notice of by Saint Bernard in the Life of Malachy*, Archbishop of Armagh: 'Scoti fumus, non Galli, We are Irish, not Gauls.' * Bernard of Clairavaux's Vitae Malachiae circa. 1150. © Searc's Web Guide 1997-2007 |
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