Irish Druids and old Irish religions / by James Bonwick.

  • James Bonwick
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Irish Druids and old Irish religions / by James Bonwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    system of Druidism, which must have been about the second century of the Christian era, the Jilts (Bards) had to fall into something like the position of the British bards. But let us examine our older compositions—pieces which have about them intrinsic marks of authenticity— and we shall be astonished to see what a delicate figure the Druid makes in them.” On the supposition that Druidism had not time for development before the arrival of the Saint, he accounts for the easy conversion of Ireland to Christianity. It is singular that Taliesin should mention the sun as being sent in a coracle from Cardigan Bay to Aikle, or Arklow, in Ireland. This leads Morien to note the “solar drama performed in the neighbourhood of Borth, Wales, and Arklow, Ireland.” Arthur Clive thought it not improbable that Ireland, and not Britain, as Csesar supposed, was the source of Gaulish Druidism. “ Anglesey,” says he, “ would be the most natural site for the British Druidical College. This suspicion once raised, the parallel case of St. Colum Kille occupying Iona with his Irish monks and priests, when he went upon his missionary expedition to the Piets, occuis to the mind. Assuredly, Iona was a sacred place of the Druids, and hence the likeness of the Culdees to the older tenants of the Isle. Clive believed the civilization of Ireland was not due to the Celt, but to the darker race before them. In Druidism he saw little of a Celtic character, “ and that all of what was noble and good contained in the institution was in some way derived from Southern and Kuskaiian sources. May not the same be said of Wales 1 here, the true Welsh—those of the south and south-east—are certainly not the light Celt, but the dark Iberian, like to the darker Bretons and northern Spaniards. Martin, who wrote his Western Islands in 1703, tells us