Iverni
Encyclopedia
The Iverni were a people of early Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
first mentioned in Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
's 2nd century Geography as living in the extreme south-west of the island. He also locates a "city" called Ivernis in their territory, and observes that this settlement has the same name as the island as a whole, Ivernia . The name Iverni has been derived from Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
*PiHwerjoHn, "the fertile land". It was probably once the name given to all the peoples of Ireland, but by Ptolemy's time had a more restricted usage applicable to the inhabitants of the south-west. These Iverni can be identified linguistically with the Érainn (Éraind, Érnai, Érna), a people attested in Munster
Munster
Munster is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the south of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial purposes...
and elsewhere in the early Middle Ages.
The prehistoric Érainn royal dynasties are sometimes referred to as the Dáirine
Dáirine
The Dáirine , later known dynastically as the Corcu Loígde, were the proto-historical rulers of Munster before the rise of the Eóganachta in the 7th century AD. They appear to have derived from the Darini of Ptolemy and to have been related to the Ulaid and Dál Riata of Ulster and Scotland...
.
Historical septs
In early Irish genealogical tracts the Érainn are regarded as an ethnic group, distinct from the LaiginLaigin
The Laigin, modern spelling Laighin , were a population group of early Ireland who gave their name to the province of Leinster...
and Cruthin
Cruthin
The Cruthin were a people of early Ireland, who occupied parts of Counties Down, Antrim and Londonderry in the early medieval period....
. Population groups in Munster classed as Érainn include the Corcu Loígde
Corcu Loígde
The Corcu Loígde , meaning Gens of the Calf Goddess, also called the Síl Lugdach meic Itha, were a kingdom centered in West County Cork who descended from the proto-historical rulers of Munster, the Dáirine, of whom they were the principal royal sept...
in southwest County Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
, the Múscraige
Múscraige
The Múscraighe were an important Érainn people of Munster, descending from Cairpre Músc, son of Conaire Cóem, a High King of Ireland. Closely related were the Corcu Duibne, Corcu Baiscind, both of Munster, and also the Dál Riata of Ulster and Scotland, all being referred to as the Síl Conairi in...
in Counties Cork and Tipperary
County Tipperary
County Tipperary is a county of Ireland. It is located in the province of Munster and is named after the town of Tipperary. The area of the county does not have a single local authority; local government is split between two authorities. In North Tipperary, part of the Mid-West Region, local...
, the Corcu Duibne
Corcu Duibne
The Corcu Duibne was a notable kingdom in prehistoric and medieval County Kerry, Ireland which included the Dingle Peninsula, the Iveragh Peninsula and connecting lands...
in County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
, and the Corcu Baiscinn in west County Clare
County Clare
-History:There was a Neolithic civilisation in the Clare area — the name of the peoples is unknown, but the Prehistoric peoples left evidence behind in the form of ancient dolmen; single-chamber megalithic tombs, usually consisting of three or more upright stones...
. The Dál Riata
Dál Riata
Dál Riata was a Gaelic overkingdom on the western coast of Scotland with some territory on the northeast coast of Ireland...
and Dál Fiatach
Dál Fiatach
The Dál Fiatach were a group of related dynasties located in eastern Ulster in the Early Christian and Early Medieval periods of the history of Ireland.-Description:...
(or Ulaid
Ulaid
The Ulaid or Ulaidh were a people of early Ireland who gave their name to the modern province of Ulster...
) in Ulster
Ulster
Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...
are also considered Érainn. The Érainn appear to have been a powerful group in the proto-historic period, but in early historical times were largely reduced to politically marginal status, with the notable exception of the enigmatic Osraige. The most important of the Munster Érainn, the Corcu Loígde, retained some measure of prestige even after they had become marginalized by the Eóganachta
Eóganachta
The Eóganachta or Eoghanachta were an Irish dynasty centred around Cashel which dominated southern Ireland from the 6/7th to the 10th centuries, and following that, in a restricted form, the Kingdom of Desmond, and its offshoot Carbery, well into the 16th century...
in the 7th or 8th century. It is likely that the sometimes powerful Uí Liatháin
Uí Liatháin
The Uí Liatháin were an early kingdom of Munster in southern Ireland. They belonged the same kindred as the Uí Fidgenti, and the two are considered together in the earliest sources, for example The Expulsion of the Déisi...
and their close kin the Uí Fidgenti
Uí Fidgenti
The Uí Fidgenti or Wood-Sprung People were an early kingdom of northern Munster, situated mostly in modern County Limerick, but extending into County Clare and County Tipperary, and possibly even County Kerry and County Cork, at maximum extents, which varied over time...
originally belonged to the Érainn/Dáirine as well, but were later counted among the Eóganachta for political reasons. Another prominent Érainn people of early Munster are believed to have been the Mairtine
Mairtine
The Mairtine were an important people of late prehistoric Munster, Ireland, who by early historical times appear to have completely vanished from the Irish political landscape...
, who by the early historical period have completely vanished from the Irish landscape, although they may be in part ancestral to the later Déisi Tuisceart and Dál gCais
Dál gCais
The Dál gCais were a dynastic group of related septs located in north Munster who rose to political prominence in the 10th century AD in Ireland. They claimed descent from Cormac Cas, or Cas mac Conall Echlúath, hence the term "Dál", meaning "portion" or "share" of Cas...
. The Déisi Muman may also have had Érainn origins, but this has long been disputed.
Dáire: Darini, Dáirine
It seems likely the Iverni were related to the DariniDarini
The Darini were a people of ancient Ireland mentioned in Ptolemy's 2nd century Geography as living in south Antrim and north Down...
of eastern Ulster
Ulster
Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...
. The name "Darini" implies descent from an ancestor called Dáire, (*Dārios) as claimed by several historical peoples identified as Érainn, including the Dál Riata and Dál Fiatach in eastern Ulster as well the Érainn of Munster. An early name for Dundrum, County Down
Dundrum, County Down
Dundrum is a village and townland in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is beside Dundrum Bay, about 4 miles outside Newcastle on the A2 road. The town is best known for its ruined Norman castle. It had a population of 1,065 people in the 2001 Census....
, is recorded as Dún Droma Dáirine, and the name Dáirine
Dáirine
The Dáirine , later known dynastically as the Corcu Loígde, were the proto-historical rulers of Munster before the rise of the Eóganachta in the 7th century AD. They appear to have derived from the Darini of Ptolemy and to have been related to the Ulaid and Dál Riata of Ulster and Scotland...
was applied to the Corcu Loígde, further suggesting a relationship between the Darini and the Iverni.
Érainn: Clanna Dedad
The genealogies trace the descent of the Érainn from two separate eponymous ancestors, Ailill Érann and Íar mac DedadÍar mac Dedad
Íar mac Dedad was a legendary King of Munster. He is the father, or in some sources more distant ancestor, of Eterscél Mór, and grandfather of the famous Conaire Mór, both High Kings of Ireland....
. Legendary relatives of the latter include the Cland Dedad (offspring of Deda mac Sin
Deda mac Sin
Deda mac Sin was a prehistoric king of the Érainn of Ireland, possibly of the 1st century BC. Variant forms or spellings include Dedu, Dedad, and Dega...
), a Munster people who appear in the Ulster Cycle
Ulster Cycle
The Ulster Cycle , formerly known as the Red Branch Cycle, one of the four great cycles of Irish mythology, is a body of medieval Irish heroic legends and sagas of the traditional heroes of the Ulaid in what is now eastern Ulster and northern Leinster, particularly counties Armagh, Down and...
, led by Cú Roí
Cú Roí
Cú Roí mac Dáire is a king of Munster in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. He is usually portrayed as a warrior with superhuman abilities and a master of disguise possessed of magical powers. His name probably means "hound of the plain/field", or more specifically, "hound of the battlefield"...
, son of Dáire mac Dedad
Dáire mac Dedad
Dáire mac Dedad is the eponymous ancestor of the Dáirine of Munster and father of the legendary Cú Roí mac Dáire. These further associate him with the prehistoric Darini of Ulster. He is probably identical with Dáire Doimthech , an ancestor of the Corcu Loígde...
, and the legendary High King
High King of Ireland
The High Kings of Ireland were sometimes historical and sometimes legendary figures who had, or who are claimed to have had, lordship over the whole of Ireland. Medieval and early modern Irish literature portrays an almost unbroken sequence of High Kings, ruling from Tara over a hierarchy of...
Conaire Mór
Conaire Mor
Conaire Mór , son of Eterscél, was, according to medieval Irish legend and historical tradition, a High King of Ireland. His mother was Mess Búachalla, who was either the daughter of Eochu Feidlech and Étaín, or of Eochu Airem and his daughter by Étaín...
, grandson of Iar and ancestor of the Síl Conairi
Síl Conairi
The Síl Conairi or "Seed of Conaire" were those Érainn septs of the legendary Clanna Dedad descended from the monarch Conaire Mór, son of Eterscél Mór, a descendant of Deda mac Sin, namely the Dál Riata, Múscraige, Corcu Duibne, and Corcu Baiscinn.The Dál Riata, presumably settling in far...
. The historical sept of the Uí Maicc Iair ("grandsons of the son of Iar") and the MAQI IARI of ogham inscriptions also appear to be related. The personal name Iar is simply another variant of the root present in Iverni and Érainn. Finally, the name Íth, given in the genealogies as the ultimate ancestor of the Corcu Loígde (Dáirine) and offering some confusion about their parentage and relation to the Iverni, in fact preserves the same Indo-European root *peiH- ("to be fat, swell"), thus in effect completing a basic picture of the Iverni/Érainn and their kindred in later historical Ireland.
Origins and controversies
As Irish scholarship was in its infancy at the time, it was believed by many scholars at the beginning of the 20th century that the Iverni were a remnant of Ireland's pre-CelticPre-Celtic
The term pre-Celtic refers to the period in the prehistory of Central and Western Europe postdating the emergence of Proto-Celtic and predating the expansion of the Celts, or Celtic culture, in the course of the earlier Iron Age . The area involved is that of the maximum extent of Celtic languages...
"indigenous" inhabitants, who had been conquered by the invading Gaels
Gaels
The Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....
. This view resulted chiefly from the fact that they were not believed at the time to be made up of most of the historical septs mentioned above, but to belong mostly to the realm of later mytho-historical tradition and antiquarian
Antiquarian
An antiquarian or antiquary is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient objects of art or science, archaeological and historic sites, or historic archives and manuscripts...
speculation, and of course to Ptolemy's Geography.
O'Rahilly's Belgae hypothesis
T. F. O'RahillyT. F. O'Rahilly
Thomas Francis O'Rahilly was an Irish scholar of the Celtic languages, particularly in the fields of Historical linguistics and Irish dialects. He was a member of the Royal Irish Academy.-Biography:He was born in Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland...
identified the Érainn with the mythological Fir Bolg
Fir Bolg
In Irish mythology the Fir Bolg were one of the races that inhabited the island of Ireland prior to the arrival of the Tuatha Dé Danann.-Mythology:...
and the historical Belgae
Belgae
The Belgae were a group of tribes living in northern Gaul, on the west bank of the Rhine, in the 3rd century BC, and later also in Britain, and possibly even Ireland...
of Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
and Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
. He proposed that they invaded from Britain and spoke a Brythonic
Brythonic languages
The Brythonic or Brittonic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other being Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning an indigenous Briton as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael...
language, which he named Ivernic and identified with a language referred to in a number of early sources as Iarnnbélrae, Iarnbélrae, and Iarmbérla, which, if treated as Old Irish, means "Iron-speech". The 9th-century Irish dictionary Sanas Cormaic
Sanas Cormaic
Sanas Cormaic , also known as Cormac's Glossary, is an early Irish glossary containing etymologies and explanations of over 1,400 Irish words, many of which are difficult or outdated. The shortest and earliest version of the work is ascribed to Cormac mac Cuilennáin , king-bishop of Munster...
("Cormac's glossary") describes Iarnnbélrae as a recently extinct language which was "dense and difficult", and records two words which derived from it. However, by the proto-historical period the Érainn were evidently Goidelic-speaking, as evidenced by the fact that ogham
Ogham
Ogham is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the Old Irish language, and occasionally the Brythonic language. Ogham is sometimes called the "Celtic Tree Alphabet", based on a High Medieval Bríatharogam tradition ascribing names of trees to the individual letters.There are roughly...
inscriptions in Primitive Irish are most abundant in Counties Cork and Kerry.
Further reading
- "Ireland: Early History", Volume 14, Page 789 of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
- J.-J. Tierney, The Greek geographic tradition and Ptolemy's evidence for Irish geography, in RIA Proc., Ixxxvi (1976) sect.C, pp. 257–265
- Theodore William Moody ,A New History of Ireland, p. 140, Oxford University Press, 1976
- Nora Kershaw Chadwick, The Celts, Pelican Books, 1970
- C. Thomas Cairney, Clans and Families of Ireland and Scotland, An Ethnography of the Gael, AD 500 - 1750, McFarland & Company Inc, Publishers ISBN 0899503624
- T. F. O'Rahilly, Irish Dialects, Past and Present, 1932
- T.F. O'Rahilly, The Goidals and Their Predecessors, London, The British Academy, 1935
- C.F.C. Hawkes, Pytheas: Europe and the Greek Explorers, Oxford University Press, 1977
- John Haywood, Atlas historique des Celtes, trad. Colette Stévanovitch, éditions Autrement, coll. Atlas/Mémoires, Paris, 2002, ISBN 2-7467-0187-1.
- Byrne, Francis John, Irish Kings and High-Kings. Batsford, London, 1973 ISBN 0713458828
- Duffy, Seán (ed.), Atlas of Irish History. Gill & Macmillan, Dublin, 2nd edn, 2000 ISBN 0717130932
- Nora Chadwick, The Celts, Pelican Books, 1971
- C. Thomas. Cairney, Clans and Families of Ireland and Scotland - An Ethnography of the Gael AD 500-1750, Willow Bend Books, 1989.
- Richard BradleyRichard BradleyRichard Bradley may refer to:*Richard Bradley .*Richard Bradley , English botanist*Rich Bradley , politician from Chicago, Illinois*Richard H. Bradley, American developer...
, The Prehistory of Britain and Ireland, Cambridge University Press, 2007, ISBN 0521848113, ISBN 9780521848114 - T. M. Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland, Cambridge University Press, 2000, ISBN 0521363950, ISBN 9780521363952
- Barry RafteryBarry RafteryBarry Raftery was an Irish archaeologist and Celtic scholar known for his work on the Iron Age in Ireland. He was recognised as Ireland's leading scholar on the archaeology of later prehistoric societies and was appointed to the chair of Celtic archaeology at University College Dublin in 1996...
, Pagan Celtic Ireland: The Enigma of the Irish Iron Age, Thames and Hudson, 1998 ISBN 0500279837 - Lloyd Robert Laing, The Archaeology of Celtic Britain and Ireland, C. AD 400-1200: C. AD 400 - 1200, Cambridge University Press, 2006 ISBN 0521838622
See also
- O'Rahilly's historical modelO'Rahilly's historical modelO'Rahilly's historical model is a theory of Irish prehistory put forward by Celtic scholar T. F. O'Rahilly in 1946. It was based on his study of the influences on the Irish language and a critical analysis of Irish mythology....
- Early history of IrelandEarly history of IrelandThe early medieval history of Ireland, often called Early Christian Ireland, spans the 5th to 8th centuries, from the gradual emergence out of the protohistoric period to the beginning of the Viking Age...
- Kingdoms of Ireland
- List of Celtic tribes
- Lugaid Mac ConLugaid mac ConLugaid Mac Con, often known simply as Mac Con, was, according to medieval Irish legend and historical tradition, a High King of Ireland. He belonged to the Corcu Loígde, and thus to the Dáirine. His father was Macnia mac Lugdach, and his mother was Sadb ingen Chuinn, daughter of the former High...