sophistry | Taking a moment.

This is the sort of editorial that I have to try and be unbiased about in my dissertation.

The Times, London; TUE 23 JAN 1996, Page 15

The bull that is Erin, the grandeur that was Rome

Two fundamental axioms about Ireland that every schoolchild once learnt were that Ireland was free (a) from snakes and (b) from Romans. Both axioms now appear to be wild Irish bull. There are snakes in Ireland: the notion that St Patrick cleansed the Emerald isle of reptiles is a pious myth. Dr Johnson asserted that the sentence "There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island" was a complete chapter in the natural history of Iceland [sic]. And he may have been pulling legs. Samuel's joke was ascribed to an imaginary volume on Ireland.

But at least every schoolchild knew that Ireland was supposed to have been the only European country to have been left out of the original Roman Empire. Until now the Irish were said to have escaped colonisation until Henry II and the Plantagenets arrived, having been granted imperial overlordship by Pope Adrian, followed by Tudors, Oliver Cromwell, settlers inside the pale and waves of Scots and English. Until now the aboriginal Irish were supposed to have lived in a romantic Celtic twilight on the wild west outpost of the Roman empire, with their civilisation and culture uncontaminated by the rest of Europe. Great Gaels and wild myths ruled rather than conquerors. There are no references to the conquest of Ireland in classical literature. Any Roman artefacts found in Ireland have been explained as imports by fast-talking, fast-running Irish dealers. Now Ireland's hidden Roman past has been exposed. A huge Roman coastal fort has been turned up at Drumanagh, 15 miles north of Dublin. It looks like a Roman beach-head built to support an invasion in the 2nd century. Coins have been found there from the reigns of Titus, Hadrian and Trajan, and jewellery and weapons have been taken to the museum in Dublin.

This site could be one of the discoveries of the century. It conforms to the Roman imperial strategy of the period of soldiering ever onwards to find secure frontiers. If confirmed, it will rewrite serious Roman history and even Asterix and Celtic nationalism. Although this Roman connection has been known to archaeologists and the National Museum of Ireland for more than a decade, it has leaked out only now.

No doubt the Irish scholars wanted to secure the purchase of the site from its owner and perfect their research before they published. Perhaps they hoped to keep the lucrative secret from imperialist publishers. But the Irish should certainly not be ashamed that they too were part of the Roman Empire. Their Irish traditions of hard fighting, fine writing, classical scholarship, jokes and even rugby have often combined Celtic wildness with a fierce Roman discipline. It was always obvious that under the skin they were brothers as well as rivals of the other British.

------

YEAH.