Romans in Ireland?

[Scipio Bristolus]

If, as stated, Ireland was largely pastoral, then it could, like parts of Germania and those other damp, forested places, prove too costly to bother conquering? In that there are few population concentrations i.e. not enough strategic cities to take and hold to control trade and revenue in relation to the likely income from the place. So the bottom line is the balance sheet rather than anything else?

[Chilperic]

If, as stated, Ireland was largely pastoral, then it could, like parts of Germania and those other damp, forested places, prove too costly to bother conquering? In that there are few population concentrations i.e. not enough strategic cities to take and hold to control trade and revenue in relation to the likely income from the place. So the bottom line is the balance sheet rather than anything else?

If my understanding of current readings of Irish society, economy and politics before c.300 is right, then there were a few largeish polities, focussed on ritual sites. These, one imagines, would have been fairly easy to take out. But then what? If one destroyed the links that held those communities together then what? Society would fragment and be difficult to police or govern (shades of Iraq here, if that isn't breaching forum rules). Elsewhere (in Gaul, Britain, and, in a different way, Spain), Rome tended to replace such focal points with new towns and so on, but where was the local produce/surplus going to come from to help build and maintain such new civitas-capitals?

Ireland before the fourth century seems too poor to be able to support any kind of significant Roman military or administrative presence. Roman armies needed to be able to be supported by the area in which they were stationed or campaigning. A similar argument has been presented for the non-occupation of Germania Magna in the early Roman period.

So, yes, if that is a balance sheet, then it doesn't look very promising!

Guy

[Casmin]

One thing to remember, the Empire was not an invincible machine that smothered countries at will like an ameba. It had it's limits. btw kudos to chilperic.

[Chilperic]

Thanks, Michael!
Guy

[Ceannt]

Ireland was forested up untill 1600 so you had a lot of timber :wink: and wolfhounds 8)

[Nerva]

There are two separate questions here. Firstly, did the Romans ever 'invade' Ireland and secondly, did the Romans ever 'come' to Ireland.

Before we can answer the first of these we must first define what we mean by 'invade'. If we mean a full scale military campaign by the Roman army to conquer and occupy the island of Ireland by direct Roman force, then, based on the historical evidence found so far, the answer has to be no.

This leaves us with two other possibilities. If we accept the word 'invade' in the same context as Julius Caesars invasions of Britannia, then the jury is still out. There has been little by way of physical evidence discovered so far to support this. There is a much disputed iron age fort at Drumanagh, near Lusk in North Co.Dublin which is reputed to have yielded many Roman artifacts, but this is surrounded in mystery and legal controversy.

The finds from this 'fort' are supposedly held in the National Museum of Ireland, hidden away in a remote corner. This has given rise to many a conspiracy theory i.e. the 'Powers that be' do not want it known that Ireland was invaded by the Romans after all. This may be true, who knows? Certainly Richard Warner seems to 'intimate' this theory in some of his writings.

The main problem is with the site itself. While the 'fort' has been declared a 'National Monument', excavations on the site were very brief as the landowner sought and got a court order to halt works at the site. That's the way it's been for the last 10 years or so. While it's very enticing to believe the claims of this site, there are some aspects that simply don't ad up and I'm not going to go into them here.

The other possible interpretation of 'invasion' may not involve Roman troops at all but rather the sponsorship of an army led by a returning disaffected king or clan leader. There is evidence to support this theory, even from the most sacred of Irish sites, the Rock of Cashell. The very first excavations on the site yielded Mediterranean pottery from the fourth century, and a fourth century fibula.

Anyroad, I don't think it's possible to do a full dissertation on Roman Ireland here so I'll summarise...Did the Romans conduct a classical invasion and conquest of Ireland...No, unless the evidence is hidden under my Grannies pillow. Did the Romans ever conduct a limited military operation into Ireland to 'look-see'?...The jury's still out (remember Caesars 'invasions' of Britannia. Did the Romans ever 'sponsor' a campaign of conquest by a disaffected Hibernian king or clan leader...The evidence would say Yes.

In any case, to answer the original question, did the Romans ever come to Ireland? We'll, the answer is clearly YES, just look here www.romanarmy.ie :wink:

[Nerva]

Oh, nearly forgot to say, we had Wolfhounds...not many Wolf's(wolves?), but plenty of wolfhounds...big buggers, crapped like Donkeys, hence the Green grass. So if you don't agree with our hypotheses we'll send them over to bite your sorry ass' :lol:

(I can't believe I used the word 'we'. I've been washed up on the shores of this infernal rain ridden land too long. For Jupiter's sake Agricola, please send a boat over here to repatriate us before we all go native!)

[Chilperic]

Did the Romans ever 'sponsor' a campaign of conquest by a disaffected Hibernian king or clan leader...The evidence would say Yes.

What evidence?

Guy

[Nerva]

Guy

As a professor of history I'm very surprised to see you ask that question, I take it your not a student of Irish history then? I'll tell you what I'll do, when I return to Ireland tomorrow I'll post a list of reference material that you can acquire and make a study of. There's actually quite an amount of material written on Roman/Hibernian history.

By the way, and this can be validated by any student of ancient Irish history, there's actually more evidence to support a Roman 'invasion' of Ireland than there is of a Celtic one hock:

[Nerva]

I actually found what I was looking for on my Laptop...

Select Bibliography on Romans in Ireland and other connections with the Classical world (from R Warner).

Adams, C., 1996, 'Hibernia Romana? Ireland & the Roman Empire', History Ireland, 4.2, 21-25. (orthodox view).
Bateson, D., 1973, 'Roman material from Ireland: a reconsideration', Proc. Royal Irish Academy, 73C, 21-97. (basic catalogue; crucial)
Di Martino, V., 2003, Roman Ireland (Cork). (very misleading)
Freeman, P., 1995, 'Greek and Roman views of Ireland: a checklist', Emania (Bulletin of the Navan Research Group), 13, 11-13. (basic texts; crucial)
Freeman, P., 2001, Ireland and the Classical World (Austin). (basic texts; crucial)
Kenney, J., 1929, Sources for Early Irish History (New York). (useful)
Killeen, J., 'Ireland in the Greek and Roman writers', Proc. Royal Irish Academy, 76C, 207-215. (discussion; perceptive & interesting)
O'Rahilly, T. F., 1946, Early Irish History & Mythology (Dublin). (difficult but crucial)
Ó Ríordáin, S. P., 1947, 'Roman material in Ireland', Proc. Royal Irish Academy, 51C, 43-53. (out of date, some insights)
Pokorny, J., 1954 , 'Die Geographie Irlands bei Ptolemaios', Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie , 29, 94-120. (out of date, some insights)
Raftery, B., 1996, Pagan Celtic Ireland (London) (discussion; necessary)
Raftery, B., 1996, 'Drumanagh & Roman Ireland', Archaeology Ireland, 10.1, 17-19. (orthodox view)
Rankin, D., 1996, Celts and the Classical World (London) (2nd edition) (discussion, insightful)
Tierney, J., 1976, 'The Greek geographic tradition and Ptolemy's evidence for Irish Geography', Proc. Royal Irish Academy, 76C, 257-265. (important)
Warner, R., 1976, 'Some observations on the context & importation of exotic material in Ireland, from the first century BC to the second century AD', Proc. Royal Irish Academy, 76C, 267-292. (analysis, slightly out of date)
Warner, R., 1991, 'The earliest history of Ireland', in Ryan, M. (ed), The Illustrated Archaeology of Ireland (Dublin), 112-116. (simple summary)
Warner, R., 1991, 'Cultural intrusion in the early Iron age: some notes', Emania 9 (1991), 44-52. (peripheral but necessary)
Warner, R, 1995, 'Tuathal Techtmhar: a myth or ancient literary evidence for a Roman invasion?', Emania (Bulletin of the Navan Research Group), 13, 23-32. (the reinterpretation)
Warner, R., 1996, 'Yes, the Romans did invade Ireland', British Archaeology, 14, (1996), 6 (defence)
Warner, R., 1996, 'De Bello Hibernico', Archaeology Ireland, 10,3 (1996), 38-40 (defence)
Warner, R., 2000, 'Clogher: an archaeological window on early Medieval Tyrone and Mid Ulster', in Dillon, C. & Jefferies, H. (eds), Tyrone, History and Society (Dublin), 39-54.
Warner, R., 2000, Irish entries in R. Talbert (ed), The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (Princeton).

I have no intention on writing a dissertation on the history of Roman Ireland here, but I'm sure that anyone who is interested in the subject will find the above references enlightening.

Guy, I think you'll find the physical and literary proof you need in these works.

There is one Roman invasion of Ireland that is not in dispute, that of the Holy Sea - The Roman Catholic Church and this invasion, like those of the Roman emperors before, was far from benign :wink:

[Chilperic]

I've read most of these but have yet to find anything I would classify as evidence of a Roman backing of a hibernian invasion.

Perhaps you could just answer the question? It wouldn't take long.

Oh and please don't make slighting references to my profession. That seems out of keeping with the spirit of this forum.

Guy

[Chilperic]

P.s. I am assuming that the 'evidence' you infer is later Irish legend. That might support an hypothesis but it does not constitute evidence, as not everyone, by a long chalk, would accept it as valid. As I have said before, the archaeology shows dramatic change in Ireland from the fourth century onwards, which makes the legends very difficult indeed to project into the pre-Christian period. Certainly Irish scholars such as O Croinin would raise eyebrows at the idea.

That means, to my mind, that one cannot say, by any rigorous historical standards " Did the Romans ever 'sponsor' a campaign of conquest by a disaffected Hibernian king or clan leader...The evidence would say Yes."

We might suggest that such a sponsored invasion might fit within the broad pattern of Imperial relations with people beyond the frontier; we might say that it might have left a trace in a later legend. We cannot say that any of that constitutes proof of the sponsorship of an invasion.

Even the new fort doesn't alter the general position that contacts between the Irish world and the Empire were in broad perspective, limited, even in the 4th century. Roman finds remain scarce and as I said before trade from the Roman world, even when reaching the eastern shores of the Irish Sea in reasonable numbers in the fifth and early sixth centuries, is rarely (not never, but rarely) found on the western shore.

Guy

[Nerva]

Guy

I was not making a 'slighting' reference to your profession at all and I am sorry if I upset you, I was just pointing out my genuine surprise that somebody with your qualifications (And you do advertise your qualifications), should be surprised to hear of the existence of evidence to support a Roman backed 'invasion' of Ireland sometime in the late 4th to early 5th centuries, especially when you chose to contribute to such a discussion :wink:

As for your question, 'Where's the proof?', and especially your remark as to how quickly it it could be presented, I can only say that I find you unique among modern historians in that you are the first to admit that such an 'invasion' can be quickly explained - any chance you could influence some of our own :lol: In any case I'll explain in short.

The evidence comes in two forms. The first is from literary sources describing the clan wars of Munster and south Lienster of the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries. Specifically of the campaigns of Conor and Donal, both said to be sponsored from Britain with 'fierce foreign soldiers'. No specific reference is made to Rome other than the source of their sponsorship. The annals of Conor are well documented - kicked out of Munster, went to Britain, came back with an army and so on, one of at least 3 'kings' to have done so. Irish society changed radially throughout this period reflecting an era of great turmoil.

There are more than three references to these wars. The physical evidence comes from a number of finds. Firstly coin hoards, from Wexford to Tipperary and on to Tara, many finds, all documented. Then there's pottery. Finds in Wexford, Cork and Tipperaary. Unfortunately all fragments, some from Britain and some Mediterranean in origin.

There's a number of silver hoards, Particularly that found in the townland of Balline, near Knocklong, Co. Limerick. Near Clareen Cross Roads - just down the road from Cashell. We also have weapons finds, identical to Spatha of Roman auxiliaries serving in Britannia Circa 380 to 400 AD.

Again, as I've already said, this is already contained in the documents I made reference to and is argued far more eloquently there than I could ever do. If you wish, I can give you references to purely Irish historical papers that better explain the structure of Irish society during the late Iron age and on?

Now I have no doubt that one could say that these historical stories and finds are all unconnected and of a truly random nature. That certainly seems to be what many modern Irish historians believe but finds from recent digs along new motorway routes are throwing up some very surprising stuff.

Personally I have to agree with people such as Rafetry and Warner that a Roman sponsored 'invasion' of Ireland in the mid to late 4th century is not inconsistent with the evidence.

[Nerva]

Guy

I think your going to have to be a bit more specific in your arguments to prove the negitive than that my friend.

Granted, we've not found a dead Roman soldier buried in the middle of St. Patrick street in Cork with a piece of paper stuck in his hand saying "Go forth young mand and kill the Paddy's" or "Guinness - by Royal appointment to his majesty Hadrian Caesar Augustus" but by the same token the writings and finds to date can hardly be described as circumstantial.

Exactly what standards of proof would you apply? And more specifically what, as you say you have read the references I quoted, do you dispute and on what speific basis?

[Scipio Bristolus]

Is there much evidence of Irish-British trade before the Roman invasion of Britain, that would lead the romans to take an interest in what was over the water and eye up the profitability of absorbing Ireland?

I guess some of the finds could be from trade (and indeed 'Roman' traders themselves being there) rather than any form of military presence?