Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-31T23:18:13.328Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter One - “Iran” in Irish Nationalist Antiquarian Imaginations: The Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 February 2024

Get access

Summary

Irish antiquarians in the late eighteenth century did not invent the idea of Ireland's oriental past. As far back as the ‘Middle Ages,’ Irish scholars had presumed various oriental origins of the ancient Gaelic population of Ireland. In the Middle Ages, Scythia was the prevalent choice as the originary home of the Gaels, with Phoenicia later becoming the main alternative to this model. The supposition of Eastern origins of some of the earliest population settlements in Ireland can be traced back to sources antedating the initial twelfth-century Anglo-Norman conquests in Ireland. A case in point is the elev-enth-century Lebor Gabála Érenn (variously translated as The Book of the Taking of Ireland or as The Book of Invasions), which with some alterations in its different surviving versions largely relied on earlier works by “Irish learned men, the filid, whose duty it was to preserve the genealogies and uphold the honour of their kings.” Among other (also legendary) oriental ancestors of early populations of Ireland, one recension of Lebor Gabála Érenn designated Fénius Farsaid (also appearing as Fenius Farsa)—purportedly a historical Scythian prince—as the ancestor of the Gaels, who reportedly arrived in Ireland following earlier smaller-scale settlements on the island by other population groups and subsequently constituted the major population branch of ancient Ireland. Farsaid's lineage was traced back through his supposed father Baath to Japheth, one of Noah's sons. In the seventeenth century, the oriental pedigree of the ancient Irish continued to be traced to Scythians, notwithstanding the designation of Scythians in ancient Greek and Roman sources as uncivilized and savage, albeit brave. The presumed pedigree of Farsaid and the Scythian designation of the early Gaels, which traced their route from Scythia to Ireland by way of the Iberian Peninsula (more specifically “Spain”), was an early version of what became the “Milesian” model of Gaelic ancestry that continued to be reproduced in different forms well into the twentieth century. The Gaels in this ancestral lineage of the ancient Irish were descendants of Scythian followers of Miledh/Milesius (Míl Espáine) and, hence, designated ‘Milesians,’ with Miledh/Milesius considered a descendant of Fénius Farsaid.

Whereas the ‘medieval’ Scythian theory relegated the ancient population of Ireland to a state of general “pagan” savagery prior to the introduction of Christianity to the island after the fifth century, by the seventeenth century some Irish antiquarians were hailing Ireland's ancient pre-Christian oriental past as a civilizational Golden Age.

Type
Chapter
Information
Éirinn and Iran Go Brách
Iran in Irish-Nationalist Historical, Literary, Cultural, and Political Imaginations from the Late-18th Century to 1921
, pp. 47 - 166
Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×