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THE 
 
 IRISH IN AMERICA 
 
 ONE THOUSAND 
 YEARS BEFORE COLUMBUS 
 
 MARTIN J. MULLOY 
 
 7iu ' 
 
 Angel Guardian Press 
 
 1906 
 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 

 c 
 
 LIBRARY of CONGRfSS 
 
 Two Codes Ruceived 
 
 JUM 2H906 
 
 fl Copyn^m Entry 
 
 tLASS CC XXc. No. 
 
 ' COPY B 
 
 Copyrighted hy 
 
 MARTIN J. MULLOY 
 
 1906 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Early Traditions i 
 
 II. CONDLA THE BEAUTIFUL 7 
 
 III. CucHULLiN, Champion of the Red 
 Branch Knights of Ulster 15 
 
 IV. Tir Na-N-og, "Land of Perpetual 
 Youth" 22 
 
 V. Adventures of the Middle Ages 28 
 
 VI. Biography of St. Brendan 31 
 
 VII. Legends of the First Voyage... 39 
 VIII. Gleanings from the Early Ages 49 
 IX. Further Adventures of Celtic 
 
 Adventurers 55 
 
 X. Knowledge the English and 
 Spaniard Sailors Gained by the 
 Adventure of Celtic Traditions 65 
 XI. St. Matthew of Finisterre in 
 
 Search of Jewish Patriarchs. . . 70 
 
XII. CuLDEES OR Celtic Priests in the 
 West and Northwest 75 
 
 XIII. Barton and His Voyage 84 
 
 XIV. CuLDEES ' \ND THE NORTHMEN 93 
 
 XV. Irland It Mikla (Greater 
 
 Ireland) loi 
 
 XVI. Irish Chronology 107 
 
 XVII. Irish Documentary Proofs 116 
 
 XVIII. Literature of the Period Estab- 
 
 lishing New Facts 1 23 
 
 XIX. The Gauls and the Whaling In- 
 
 dustry 128 
 
 XX. Filson's Proof of the Celtic 
 Tongue Being Spoken by American 
 
 Indians 134 
 
 XXI. The Implanting of the Cross on 
 
 American Soil 139 
 
 XXII. Father Le Clerque Concludes 
 That the Cross was Implanted 
 on American Soil by the Gauls. 142 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 Early Traditions. 
 
 The Ireland of the early ages was not 
 only the land of saints and scholars, but 
 also the country of travelers. Energetic 
 and restless; proud of their independence, 
 both religious and political, the Irish ap- 
 pear to have inherited the qualities of 
 their legendary ancestors, the Phoenicians. 
 They loved change and activity, and like 
 them, they hesitated not to carry into 
 other climes their genius and enterprise. 
 The sea which surrounded them on all 
 sides assisted them considerably in those 
 projects. They spoke from their imag- 
 inations with its changing colors, its various 
 horizons and the marvellous phenom- 
 ena of which it is the theatre. They 
 dreaded not to face its tempests in their 
 barques covered with skins heavily laid 
 on, and coarsely stitched, which recall the 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 ''baidares" of the modern Esquimaux, 
 and which had struck the mariners of 
 antiquity with astonishment. This "cur- 
 ach" of the ancient Celt is described by 
 Caesar, by Lucien, by Pliny and by Solin; 
 and the description given by any of those, 
 two thousand years ago, will find its exact 
 counterpart to-day on the shores of Con- 
 nemara or Galway Bay. 
 
 Avienus says of them: "A numerous 
 people live there having a proud spirit 
 and great activity, free to the exclusive 
 cares of commerce, and they traverse the 
 seas in their canoes, which are constructed 
 either of pine or fir, and wTapped in furs 
 and hides." The framework of the mod- 
 ern curach is just as he described it, but 
 a plain cheap tarred canvas does duty for 
 the furs and hides which go to grace the 
 trappings of the foreign master, while the 
 cheaper material is always characteristic 
 of the slave. 
 
 Long before either the Italian or the 
 Englishman had any notion of venturing 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 from their native shores, and ages before 
 the modern idea of English or Italian ex- 
 isted, the Irish Celts felt it a national 
 anxiety to explore and introduce into 
 strange lands their science and their ex- 
 perience, which even in those remote ages 
 caused the country to be surnamed the 
 "Island of scholars-," from the great num- 
 ber of its monasteries, the learning of its 
 druids, and above all the captivating ardor 
 of its missionaries, who could be found on 
 all seas and in all the countries of Western 
 Europe, professing the then unknown laws 
 of ''justice" and "humanity," and teaching 
 the scientific works so little known outside 
 of Alexandria, such as those of Pris- 
 cian, Solin, Pliny, Ptolemy and Pythagoras. 
 While circumstantial evidence points 
 to a very early civilization, unfortunately 
 the direct or documentary evidence that 
 should be in Ireland has been destroyed, 
 some say as part of a preconceived scheme 
 always followed by the victorious party, 
 as well now as in those early days, for no 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 sooner does the Italian get a landing on 
 the Irish shore than we hear of his destroy- 
 ing the books and manuscripts of the Irish 
 Druids as if they were of no value, and 
 nothing fit to be preserved by mankind, 
 but the peculiar ideas of which he pretended 
 to have a monopoly. Ages later we find 
 the Danes resorting to the same custom 
 of destroying manuscripts and relics for 
 some mysterious purpose, and sparing 
 nothing that was sacred in the eyes of the 
 people, while at a still later date we find 
 the English nation in the same roll and 
 proclaiming aloud to the world as a divine 
 mission from the Almighty God, that they 
 must destroy everything, belonging to the 
 Celtic race, that they cannot steal for them- 
 selves, on the plea that to them as his 
 chosen people belong the entire earth, but 
 to the Irish Celt not one foot of ground ; 
 and strange to say apologists who pre- 
 tended to be Celts, endorsed this wonder- 
 ful dogma, and taught that the Celtic 
 mission was to spread civilization and 
 humanity wherever man could be found. 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 It was thus from the earhest period of 
 which we have any knowledge until we 
 come to the period of Columbcille, who 
 has been styled by some the "Dove", and 
 by others the ''Prop" or "Corner Stone" 
 of the Church. We are inclined to agree 
 with the latter idea for the reason that in 
 his day and for ages afterwards, the laws 
 and regulations laid down by him were 
 strictly adhered to, both in Ireland and 
 the various places over which this partic- 
 ular order claimed any jurisdiction. Hap- 
 pily, we do not need to depend upon Irish 
 authority alone for this, as we have ample 
 proof of it in Scotland and the continent 
 of Europe, over which he and his immediate 
 disciples traveled, with cross in hand, con- 
 verting the barbarous inhabitants, while 
 their co-patriots ventured on the ocean, 
 and have the glory of discovering ignorant 
 peoples, and the consolation of reducing 
 them to their own faith Or civilization. 
 
 About the year 565 A. D., (Aois AnTig- 
 earna), finding themselves at the court of 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 Brudeus, king of the Picts, in presence of 
 the Chief of the Orcades or Western Isles, 
 Columbcille took occasion to recommend 
 to the latter, some of his monks who were 
 exploring upon the ocean. "Some of us", 
 said he to Brudeus, ''have lately emigrated 
 with the hopes of finding desert countries 
 in the impenetrable seas; perhaps after a 
 long voyage they arrived at the Orcadian 
 Isles. Make now some pressing recommen- 
 dations to this chief, whom thou hast as 
 a hostage in thy power, to the end that he 
 may not do us any injury within the limits 
 of his territories." 
 
 L^-*^^ 
 
 '^*«««^- 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 CONDLA THE BEAUTIFUL. 
 
 Their immediate successor followed 
 their example, and continued their voy- 
 ages until the following centuries, when 
 the movement of emigration became more 
 marked. Bernard in his "Life of Mal- 
 achy," writes: "These swarms of holy 
 Irish monks have placed themselves among 
 all strange nations, one might say an in- 
 undation;" and Strabo, writing in the 
 ninth century, as quoted by Montelambert, 
 says: "The custom of exploring on the sea 
 has become a second nature with the Irish. 
 They despise the dangers of the deep, 
 emigrate almost entire with their troops 
 of philosophers and descend upon our 
 shores." Their object was education and 
 equality, the two cardinal pillars of Celtic 
 civilization, and here we cannot help con- 
 trasting these with the selfishness, which 
 
 7 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 induces the civilized plunderers of the 
 modern day to follow in the wake of the 
 lackadaisical missionary. 
 
 These troops of philosophers who are 
 here mentioned, not without a shade of 
 irony, were organized into confraternities 
 of twelve from the earliest period of which 
 we have any record, and was the general 
 arrangement in the time of Columbcille, 
 whose successors carried out the general 
 designs that he had marked for them to 
 follow. They called those groups, Cul- 
 dees, which means, according to some 
 writers, Cultores Dei; that is workers in 
 divine things, or pious learning, but we are 
 inclined to think the word comes from the 
 Celtic word "Coll" a wood, a grove, and 
 very aptly had reference to the custom of 
 those men, both officiating and teaching 
 in the sacred groves, the arrangement of. 
 whose trees had been so complete and beau- 
 tiful that it was copied ages afterwards into 
 stone and marble, and is presented to us 
 to-day in what is known as the Gothic 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 style of architecture, but which is in reahty 
 a reproduction of the grove where the 
 Celtic druid preached and taught ages 
 before the Goths had assembled into human 
 societies. In several places they were 
 called Papae, which comes from an Irish 
 word "Puppa" a teacher or one who had 
 a knowledge of books. 
 
 Either Columbcille or some earlier chief 
 had prescribed a white tunic and this they 
 most scrupulously adhered to wherever 
 they went for ages afterwards. Their 
 tonsure or manner in which the hair was 
 shaved was different also from what they 
 were pleased to call the Italian, Jewish or 
 Eastern tonsure, and their mode and time 
 of celebrating Easter, was entirely at vari- 
 ance with that then in vogue, only in a few 
 places on the European continent. 
 
 We shall not trace, here, the wanderings 
 of the Irish Papae or teachers across bar- 
 barous Europe, to the shores of the Med- 
 iterranean Sea, and will follow them, only, 
 in the direction of the Atlantic, and the 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 Western regions, where they made import- 
 ant discoveries, and founded several 
 colonies. 
 
 These voyages belong to two different 
 epochs. The first, all of tradition, but 
 of a persistent tradition, is marked by leg- 
 ends of either Pagan or Christian origin, 
 while the second rests upon witnesses more 
 authentic and is marked by the voyages 
 of these Culdees or Papae in the Atlantic 
 Ocean, and by the colonization of Irland 
 It Mikla or Greater Ireland. 
 
 The first of these daring Irish of whom 
 either legend or history has preserved a 
 name, was called "Condla the Beautiful." 
 The story is preserved in a manuscript 
 of the year i,ooo A. D. (Aois An Tigearna), 
 called "Leabhar na Huidre" and has been 
 translated for several societies. The last 
 edition for the "Review of the History of 
 Religions" in 1883, under the title of "The 
 Transatlantic Elysium and Western Eden," 
 being the most exhaustive and closely con- 
 nected with our present subject. 
 
 10 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 This Condla was the son of Conn, who 
 was king of Ireland from 123 to 157, A. D., 
 and relates that one day being alone with 
 his father on the summit of Uisneac, a 
 woman appeared to them who said she 
 had come from the "Land of Youth," 
 where no one knew death or evil, and where 
 all are continually in luxury and happiness. 
 She invited him to visit her there, where he 
 could enjoy communion with those frec- 
 kled-skinned beauties, whose beautiful eyes 
 and vermilion cheeks were a delight, and 
 where he would lose none of his youth or 
 beauty until the "Day of Judgment." 
 
 The old king called a council of his 
 druids, and demanded an explanation of 
 the witcheries of this fair unknown, whose 
 voice he heard, but whose form was in- 
 visible to him, and all the knowledge he 
 could glean was that she had presented his 
 favorite son with a beautiful apple, a 
 sample product of the Western Eden, and 
 we are told that Condla fell as Adam did, 
 for this Celtic fairy was more captivating 
 
 II 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 than Eve was, and used all the arts of 
 coquetry to entice him to visit that land be- 
 yond the seas where such pleasures and 
 luxuries awaited him. 
 
 The interview affected him sorely, for 
 upon her departure, after giving him the 
 magic apple which was always intact, he 
 grew melancholy and acted a good deal like 
 one of our modern heroes who, failing to 
 navigate the seas of love resolve to commit 
 suicide. This condition so alarmed his 
 royal father, that he demanded an ex- 
 planation, and was told by the youth that 
 the cause of his grief was this beautiful 
 damsel from the Western Eden; that he 
 loved his country and its people, but that 
 his heart had gone over the seas with this 
 strange fairy, and that he could find no 
 peace without following also, in the path 
 she had marked out. 
 
 During this interview, he could hear 
 someone whisper into his ear, "Thou 
 beautiful, silly, Celtic youth, I know you 
 are sad, but I know also the cause of your 
 
 12 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 sadness. To be relieved you must be 
 united with me in my Crystal Curragh, 
 and before yonder sun goes down we will 
 be resting in the land of Boadog, the Eden 
 of the West." Scarcely had she finished 
 her magic whisper when Condla threw 
 himself into her canoe and was lost to his 
 father and his country forever. 
 
 Some no doubt will deny that such an 
 event could occur, that it was only in the 
 East that wonders, miracles and ghosts 
 appeared, but let us say to those, if the Irish- 
 man is called upon to believe without ques- 
 tion stories of strange things happening in 
 the East is it not natural and logical that 
 he should ask that similar and parallel 
 stories of ghosts, miracles and wonders be 
 believed by others as happening on the 
 sacred soil of Ireland ? If we admit the 
 truth of one how can we deny the logic of 
 the other, and as to its legendary feature, 
 do we not find the exact counterpart hap- 
 pening to-day, when princes and youths 
 of so called noble blood, desert the faded 
 
 13 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 traditions of Europe and the East, for 
 some fair American, if not for perpetual 
 youth, at least to bolster up a falling dyn- 
 asty or preserve a patent of nobility, and 
 an ancestral home by hard American dol- 
 lars, wheat, oil, sweet apples or fat pork. ? 
 This legend was well known in Ireland, 
 and is to-day to all readers of Irish 
 literature, though modified by the different 
 civilizations from then till now. The 
 foundation, however, remains the same; 
 always pointing to a voyage by sea west- 
 ward, in search of a marvellous land, to 
 which the Irish were always attracted 
 with singular facility, regardless of the 
 distance or the difficulty of the enterprises. 
 
 14 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 CUCHULLIN. 
 
 Champion of the Red Branch Knights 
 OF Ulster. 
 
 The next legend bearing upon our sub- 
 ject is that of Cuchullin the famous royal 
 athlete and champion of the Red Branch 
 Knights of Ulster. Here the legend re- 
 lates to a country situated to the west of 
 the great ocean, and called the ''Valley of 
 Delicacies." Here in this "Fairy Plain" 
 could be found trees always laden with 
 fruit and some of this fruit of enormous 
 size, while some were covered with silver, 
 that glittered like the rays of the sun. 
 Scattered through the vale were fountains 
 which recalled the cornucopia of classical 
 antiquity, or, if shaded over, would suggest 
 the idea that Gambrinus was anticipated, 
 and that some genial spirit had built a 
 
 15 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 primeval brewery to which the gods and 
 spirits had descended to quench their 
 thirst with the delicious nectar of the plain. 
 But its greatest attraction was its beau- 
 tiful women, the most resplendent of 
 whom was Fand, the daughter of Aid 
 Arbhal, who, being forsaken by her spouse, 
 MacNanain, set out to find him, and on 
 her journey had heard of the achievements 
 of Cuchullin, of whom she became enam- 
 ored, and immediately offered him the 
 place left vacant by the absent MacNanain. 
 Celtic chivalry in those days demanded 
 that a gentleman must not refuse a lady's 
 request, be the consequences what they 
 may, so regardless of the fact that he had 
 a wife and mistress of his own, he decides 
 to cross the sea, live in the Vale of Delica- 
 cies, wed the beautiful Fand, and then re- 
 turn to his own country and his first 
 wife, the beautiful and jealous Emer, but in 
 company with the beautiful flower which 
 he had taken with him from the West. 
 The two rivals meet, perhaps the two most 
 
 i6 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 attractive women of an age, fertile in beau- 
 tiful women, but sensible, as they were, 
 instead of coming to blows, as their 
 civilized sisters would do to-day, they 
 embrace one another, and are both lavish in 
 generosity. All is well until the unfaithful 
 MacNanain returns from a trip further 
 West, where he had been detained, to 
 seek his bride, the beautiful Fand, and 
 Cuchullin, who cannot console himself at 
 her departure, drinks a magic beverage 
 which lulls him into forgetfulness. 
 
 Other voyages and adventures of Cuchul- 
 lin in this direction are recorded in Leabhar 
 Na h-Uidhre, in Windisch' Irish Texts, 
 in the Atlantis of July, '58 to January, '59, 
 and in Beauvais' Transatlantic Elysium. 
 
 Another hero of Irish legend appears 
 to have more voluntarily accommodated 
 his life to the new situation. He was 
 Laogaire, the son of Crimthan Cas, king 
 of Connaught. He embarked and crossed 
 the seas to succor his friend Fiacha mac 
 Retach, king of the Sidhs, from whom he 
 
 17 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 obtained as a reward his beautiful daughter 
 with whom he retired into Dun Magh 
 Mealla or the Fortress in the Plains of 
 Honey. After sojourning here for some 
 time he returned to his native country, 
 where he found that his father had decreed 
 that he must never again leave his people 
 to wander into the Western wilds. Lao- 
 gaire remained deaf to all supplications 
 and replied to his father when offering to 
 abdicate in his favor, "That just one night 
 among the Sidhs was better than a life- 
 time in the paternal kingdom." This whole 
 story may be found in the Book of Leinster, 
 edited some time ago by Dr. Atkinson, 
 whose untiring efforts have placed within 
 the reach of Gaelic readers some of those 
 treasures of their native tongue, which 
 has lain dormant for centuries. 
 
 But the Magh Mealla is not the only 
 land spoken of in Irish legends. O' Curry 
 tells us of another land, just as marvellous 
 visited by the Fianns, the heroes of Os- 
 sianic poetry, whose name is usurped by 
 
 i8 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 the modern Fenians through the agency 
 of John O'Mahoney. The Fianns were 
 the enemies of the Danaans, and have 
 united to expel them from the country, 
 and have compelled them to seek a refuge 
 on the other side of the Atlantic. The 
 Danaans although settled in their new 
 home, have not forgotten the old soil, and 
 revisit it occasionally to vindicate their 
 explusion upon the Fianns, but as they 
 were magicians they have recourse to 
 miserable artifice to satiate their vengeance. 
 One of them, Avarta, metamorphised as 
 a pirate, concealed himself under the 
 name of Giolla Deacair, and entered the 
 service of the chief of the Fianns, Fionn 
 Mac'Cumhaill, whom Macpherson immor- 
 talized centuries later under the name of 
 Fingal. 
 
 One day he enticed into his suite fifteen 
 of the Fianns, compelled them to enter a 
 magic curach that travelled fleeter than 
 the wind, and crossed the seas. The 
 waves fled before them, and soon they 
 
 19 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 landed in the grand Western Country 
 where the Danaans awaited them. Fionn, 
 aided by two vaHant champions, Feredith 
 and Folt Leabhar, sped in their pursuit, 
 and travelled through tempest and dark- 
 ness upon the ocean until they reached a 
 perpendicular rock, the summit of which 
 was lost in the clouds. Fionn attempted 
 to climb it and mounted upon a shady 
 plateau, in the middle of which rolled a 
 fountain guarded by a giant. After many 
 extraordinary adventures, he was forced 
 to take to the sea again, and wander from 
 isle to isle, until they finish by finding 
 Avarta and rescuing their compatriots. A 
 fuller account may be found in O'Curry's 
 Mss. Materials, or in the "Adventures of 
 Giolla Decair" lately published, where we 
 read that the rescued comrades were not 
 inclined to return home without seeing 
 more of the beauty and delight of the coun- 
 try which made such a vivid impression on 
 the minds of all, that must be satisfied by 
 other visits at a later period. 
 
 20 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 Early in the second century, of the pres- 
 ent era, the fame of the Western Eden was 
 so well known throughout Ireland, that 
 the reigning prince himself, Ossian, the 
 son of Fionn, concluded his life was not 
 worth living unless he had seen with his 
 own eyes this beautiful country, and tasted 
 of its honeyed delicacies. His visit to the 
 Western World and its marvels have 
 charmed every generation down to the 
 present, and while travelers may describe 
 the real beauties of America of the eigh- 
 teenth, nineteenth, or twentieth centuries, 
 still the wanderings of Ossian in the West- 
 ern Eden, his famous Tir Na-N-og will 
 ever be considered by Irishmen as a classic, 
 a foundation from which the real miracles 
 have been wrought, that resulted in the 
 discovery of the America of the fifteenth 
 century. 
 
 21 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 TIR NA-N-OG. 
 "Land of Perpetual Youth." - 
 
 About the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, a bard by the name of Michael 
 Comyn, blended the old Pagan traditions 
 and Christian legends of this famous man 
 and produced a poem of which the princi- 
 pal episode is Tir Na-N-og, or the "Land 
 of Perpetual Youth". Ossian, blind and 
 old, but having still preserved the belief 
 in the divinities of his youth, and the ideal 
 Celtic worship of Equality, Virtue and 
 Courage, is honored by Patrick the national 
 saint of Ireland, who kindly condescends 
 to converse with the ancient bard, because 
 all the writers of this and earlier periods 
 never fail to represent the foreigner in Ire- 
 land, as superior to the native Celt. Then 
 the representative of Druid ism or Celtic 
 
 22 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 Civilization, and the champion of Itahan- 
 EngHsh Christianity engage in a terrible 
 controversy. The aged Ossian cannot 
 control his fury, but the cunning Anglo- 
 Italian soothes him by asking him to nar- 
 rate a part of his past history, and the Celtic 
 hero could not resist the pleasure of imag- 
 ining himself on the scene in those happy 
 days when he was young and full of ardor. 
 Ossian says that one day when finding 
 himself with his father Fionn, he saw ap- 
 proaching them a young woman of marvel- 
 lous beauty. She called herself Niamh of 
 the Golden Hair, and said she had come 
 from the great land of the West, Tir Na- 
 N-og. "It is the most delightful country 
 that exists," said she, '^and the most won- 
 derful in the world; there the trees are 
 laden with fruits and flowers; there honey 
 and wine are in abundance. Once there 
 thou shalt fear neither death nor infirmity; 
 thou shalt live in luxury, joy and happiness. 
 Thou shalt listen continually to the most 
 exquisite music of concordant harps, and 
 
 23 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 shalt have silver, gold, jewels, and swords, 
 with thousands of nameless pleasures for 
 which the human heart has sighed." 
 
 Without more ado, Ossian accepted the 
 invitation of Niamh, and after bidding his 
 father, Fionn, and his son, Oscar, farewell, 
 he set our for Tir Na-N-og. Niamh be- 
 came his spouse and bore him three chil- 
 dren, but after a joyous existence of three 
 centuries, he grew tired of all, even of hap- 
 piness, and wished to return once more to 
 his own beloved Ireland. She consented 
 to his departure, but on condition that he 
 should not dismount from his horse, else 
 he would become affected like all mortals 
 and crumble into dust. 
 
 Ossian accepted these conditions and 
 departed, but when he disembarked in Ire- 
 land his disappointment was great; no- 
 body knew him; all the Fianns were dead, 
 and briars and thistles grew upon the site 
 of his ancient residence in Almhuin. At 
 this moment several men called him to 
 their aid where they were crushed by a 
 
 24 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 large flat stone which had fallen upon them. 
 Ossian, without descending from his horse 
 extended his hand to aid them, but the 
 girth of his saddle breaking he was thrown 
 to the earth, and became at once old, frail 
 and blind. For a more comprehensive ac- 
 count of this beautiful legend the reader 
 may consult any of the following works, 
 "Ossian in the land of Perpetual Youth," 
 edited by O'Looney in 1859, and lately re- 
 printed for the Celtic Union, and translated 
 into the French by Beauvais for his " Trans- 
 atlantic Eden" while the Scotch have it 
 under the titles of " Ossian and the Clyde." 
 '' Fingal in Ireland" and "Ossian Historical 
 and Authentic" published in Glasgow in 
 
 1875- 
 
 Tir Na-N-og or as some prefer to call 
 it the "Fountain of Perpetual Youth", 
 has, since Ossian, been celebrated several 
 times, and the different writers who have 
 recounted this legend have always placed 
 it in the West. 
 
 These stories, though marvellous to us 
 
 25 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 to-day, so impassionated not only the early 
 Irish, but even other Europeans, for we 
 find as late as the sixteenth century, a 
 learned Spaniard, John de Solis, who ought 
 to have been well informed by the experi- 
 ence of his own countrymen and contemp- 
 oraries, set out for the conquest of this 
 region, this "Land of Perpetual Youth." 
 Assuredly, all these early legends are 
 strange and perhaps a little fabulous, but 
 yet we must not treat them lightly. The 
 characters may have been invented, but 
 at an age when the marvellous was accepted 
 by intelligence, while races now cultured 
 were at that time only evolving into their 
 infancy from barbarism, and had yet to 
 evolve still further into the family of na- 
 tions; and while those adventures of this 
 early period and the manner of their re- 
 cital may seem incredible to us, looking 
 back through the mists of centuries, still 
 the effect, in all these past ages, was the 
 persistent belief in a great Western land 
 beyond the ocean, and the frequency of the 
 
 26 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 relations which existed between the Irish 
 and the inhabitants of this transatlantic 
 world. 
 
 27 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 Adventures of the Middle Ages. 
 
 The Middle- Age legends which now re- 
 main to be examined, are equally full of 
 extraordinary events, and the heroes who 
 took part in those exploits are perhaps, 
 imaginary also, but yet they confirm the 
 reality of the voyages undertaken by the 
 early Irish, in the direction of the West, 
 and for this reason they merit from us a 
 strict examination. 
 
 Brendan is the hero of those legends. 
 The recital of his adventures was widely 
 circulated in the Middle Ages, not only in 
 Ireland, but throughout Europe; and thus 
 he contributed to turn public attention 
 towards those Western seas, where already 
 certain savants had placed the terrestrial 
 Paradise. His adventures were recounted 
 by the Gauls, the Normans, the English, 
 the French, the Germans, and the 
 
 28 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 Spaniards, and were carried still further East 
 to the regions bordering on the Bosphorus 
 and the Black Sea. Several of these leg- 
 ends can be found in the Bollandist Col- 
 lection, Palme Edition; some in the Latin 
 Legend of Brendan, published by Jubinal 
 at Paris, in 1836; a few in the Percy Society 
 publications of London, 1S34. Reeves 
 quotes a number in his Lives of the Cam 
 bro-British saints of the fifth and sixth 
 centuries. Schroeder and Suchier have col- 
 lected them for the German people, while 
 T. Moran has rendered them into Latin for 
 the Irish people, so that they might the 
 more easily understand them(?); but per- 
 haps no one has presented the facts so 
 clear and elaborate as Gafferel in the 
 ''Marvellous Voyages of Brendan and the 
 Celtic Papae in the Atlantic during the 
 Middle Ages." 
 
 Raoul Glaber tells us that in the time of 
 King Robert who died in 1030, A. D., 
 the French placed the most absolute con- 
 fidence in the history of the discoveries 
 
 29 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 of Brendan in the Western World as taught 
 in France and throughout Europe by the 
 hordes of Irishmen who were then teaching 
 in Europe and scattering the beauties of 
 Celtic Civilization among its barbarous 
 inhabitants. In France those voyages be- 
 came the subjects of their national and 
 popular poetry as we find in the Roman 
 Du Renard. 
 
 "Je fat savoir Ion lai Breton 
 Et de Merlin, et de Faucon 
 Del Roi Artur, et de Tristan 
 Del chievrefol, de Saint Brendan.' 
 
 It is therefore indispensable to know the 
 legend that exercised such an influence 
 upon his contemporaries as would induce 
 them to follow his example, and as it stood 
 so many editions in those early times, it is 
 well fit for another recital in this the twen- 
 tieth century. 
 
 30 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Biography of St. Brendan. 
 
 Brendan was an Irishman. The Bol- 
 landists fix the date of his birth at the year 
 460, A. D. In his early years he was 
 placed in charge of a good woman, the 
 chief of one of those institutions for which 
 Ireland was remarkable from the earliest 
 ages and which were very popular in Ire- 
 land at the dawn of the period known in 
 Europe as the Christian Era. When a 
 man, he entered ecclesiastical orders and 
 established monasteries in his territory, 
 the most important of which was Clonfert 
 in Connaught, where he, being of noble 
 family, assumed chief control. His com- 
 munity consisted of three thousand, all de- 
 voted to the arts of peace and production in 
 the midst of a warlike community. Two 
 of his disciples, Fursa and Machuta be- 
 came afterwards bishops in Peronne and 
 
 31 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 St. Malo, in France, where they were se- 
 lected by the people among whom they 
 preached the grand truths of Celtic civil- 
 ization, and whom they brought from 
 ignorance to an enlightened stage. 
 
 Thus we can see that the Ireland of those 
 days was the centre from which emanated 
 the learning and religion of Europe, for 
 not only do we find our countrymen going 
 West on the Atlantic, but also do we find 
 them in every continental city of any con- 
 sequence, teaching and lecturing, combat- 
 ing the heretical and erroneous opinions 
 of the times, and laying the foundations of 
 learning and advancement among those 
 European communities which were then 
 emerging from the Kimmerian darkness, 
 where they revelled for centuries before. 
 
 Brendan's reputation for sanctity and 
 wisdom was so well known that European 
 clerics came and submitted to him grave 
 and disputed questions of conscientious 
 guilt. In fact his school was the Supreme 
 Court of his day, from whose decisions 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 there was no appeal, for the name Irish in 
 those early days carried with it all the at- 
 tributes that to-day constitute an educated 
 man, and on the contrary to say that a man 
 was educated, was tantamount to saying 
 that he was either an Irishman or had been 
 to the Irish schools for his learning and 
 knowledge. 
 
 But there was a greater destiny before 
 him, and like all lovers of the curious, 
 he wondered what new ideas the Western 
 world could unfold, and as in a later day 
 Napoleon had wished to possess himself 
 of the Kremlin, the palace of the Caesars, 
 so at this early stage Brendan had wished 
 to follow the footsteps of his countrymen, 
 Condla, Laogaire, Fionn and Ossian, and 
 give their descendants the benefit of his 
 counsel and advice, or implant among 
 them, what was already being scattered 
 broadcast through Europe, the seeds of 
 Celtic Civilization. 
 
 Brendan had been preceded by a brother 
 monk, named Mernoc, and by one of his 
 
 33 
 
V 
 
 THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 former teachers Barinta. Mernoc had in- 
 stalled himself on an island in the distant 
 ocean and had under his control a colony 
 or community of monks. When he re- 
 turned to Ireland, he related that on one 
 occasion he was absent from his home, 
 being detained in the woods for some days, 
 and when he returned the air was impreg- 
 nated with an odor that lasted for several 
 days. Here we must remark, that when 
 Lescarbot a thousand years afterwards, 
 was describing the first voyage of Colum- 
 bus, he either plagiarizes Mernoc, or else 
 actually met those zephyrs, loaded with 
 perfume, for he says, "We have come to a 
 land where the odors excel in sweetness, 
 and are borne on a Southern wind, so 
 abundant that all the Orient could not 
 produce a parallel. W^e stretched out our 
 hands to take them as if they were 
 tangible." 
 
 We must here remark about the persist- 
 ence of thite odor; for all the ancient 
 voyagers are unanimous in speaking of the 
 
 34 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 perfumed air of tropical America. In the 
 first voyage of Columbus, October i8, 1492, 
 "The air was as sweet as in Andulusia." 
 "It was a pleasure to respire this air, which 
 was truly embalmed." Verrazona had re- 
 marked, "These perfumed breezes which 
 announced the proximity of the American 
 continent"; and Barlow, in his description 
 of the Carolinas in 1584, says, "We smelled 
 so sweet and strong a smell, as if we had 
 been in the midst of some beautiful garden, 
 abounding in all kinds of odoriferous 
 flowers." 
 
 But Mernoc had not forgotten his native 
 land which he occasionally revisited. In 
 one of his voyages, he persuaded his master 
 Barinta to accompany him, and placed him 
 in a barque enveloped in mist so thick, that 
 the voyagers could not distinguish the poop 
 from the prow. Barinta describes this 
 visit, and says that the sun dissipated the 
 clouds, and soon after, they beheld towards 
 the West a great island on which they en- 
 tered. After fifteen days travelling across 
 
 35 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 a beautiful country, amongst fragrant 
 flowers and trees laden with fruit, it ap- 
 peared they were still only in the middle 
 of the island, and prepared to cross a large 
 river which rolled from the West towards 
 the East, when an angel appeared to them 
 and bade them turn back, saying that Par- 
 adise began from this side of the stream. 
 
 They retraced their steps and soon Bar- 
 inta returned to his home in Ireland, where 
 the recital of his adventures and journey 
 so inflamed the minds of those who heard 
 him, that soon a company of one hundred 
 monks, were resolved to tempt the dangers 
 of the deep, and establish themselves in 
 this Western Eden. 
 
 Brendan was the leader in this expedition, 
 but owing to the inexperience of the crew, 
 it proved a failure, and they returned with- 
 out locating Mernoc and his community 
 of monks. Undaunted by failure, Bren- 
 dan resolved a second time, and took with 
 him only fourteen of his former comrades, 
 with provisions for forty days and a light 
 
 36 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 boat, whose framework was covered with 
 skins of animals sewed together At the 
 moment of their departure three brothers 
 joined them, in spite of the remonstrances 
 of Brendan and his sad presentiments. 
 
 For fifteen days the wind blew steadily 
 from the East, when it suddenly fell, com- 
 pelling the monks to resort to the oars to 
 propel the vessel. In this extremity it 
 took all the genius and patience of Bren- 
 dan to encourage them, especially as their 
 provisions were giving out fast. However, 
 at the end of a month, they reached a large 
 island where they went ashore and found 
 a deserted mansion, which showed signs 
 of Eastern civilization, for it contained a 
 table and some furniture, if these be re- 
 garded as of Eastern origin. Lying around 
 were several pieces of shining gold, and 
 one of the monks, more selfish than his 
 kind, took a lump of the tempting metal, 
 and was punished by death. This so 
 alarmed the others that they took to sea 
 again, and soon reached another land 
 
 37 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 where they saw a number of strange white 
 animals grazing, about the size of an ox. 
 The inhabitants of this island were very 
 hospitable as one of them brought the 
 wanderers some food and caused them to 
 be sprinkled with water on their departure. 
 
 3^ 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 Legends of the First Voyage. 
 
 After a few days they find themselves 
 in view of an isolated island which ap- 
 peared to them a convenient place to take 
 their repast and rest from sailing. Scarce- 
 ly had they lighted a fire when the island 
 began to move, and what they had taken 
 for a solitary rock was in effect a fish, per- 
 haps one of those monsters whose species 
 has perished in the course of nature's 
 evolutions. This fish story may appear 
 strange to us to-day in this enlightened 
 twentieth century, but Fournavat, writing 
 from a manuscript of the tenth century, 
 refers to this island fish, in his ''Bestiare 
 d'Amour"; so does La Croix in his 
 ''Science of the Middle Ages", and as late 
 as the year 1530, Landrin in his "History 
 of Marine Monsters" quotes no less a 
 personage than the Bishop of Nidros, Eric 
 
 39 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 Falkendorf, who, writing to Pope Leo X., 
 described a similar occurrence. Whether 
 he was quoting from Brendan or reciting 
 his actual experience the reader must judge 
 for himself. He says: "Wishing to cele- 
 brate Mass in some place besides on board, 
 we disembarked upon an island which sunk 
 as soon as the Sacrifice was finished." In 
 passing, let us say that the story is no more 
 improbable than the story of Jonah and his 
 whale ; if we believe one, how can we doubt 
 the other ; or if we doubt one who can ask 
 us to swallow the other. 
 
 Some days after this, Brendan landed 
 on a beautiful island, where they were 
 astonished at the beauty and familiarity of 
 the birds, and he says that some of them 
 could talk. To the Irish monks it looked 
 miraculous and they named it the "Para- 
 dise of Birds." No one would believe that 
 St. Francis D 'Assise would repeat an old 
 story of the fifth century, or that he would 
 misrepresent what he saw ; yet, still his ac- 
 count of the famous swallows that perched 
 
 40 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 upon his shoulders and head, so familiar 
 to us in that beautiful painting, is only 
 another link in the chain of evidence that 
 Brendan and his companions visited those 
 islands. 
 
 Let us here remark that the navigators 
 who discovered the Azores, at a compara- 
 tively modern period, were astonished at 
 the number and familiarity of the birds in 
 this group of islands, and called them 
 Azores from the Portugese word Acor, a 
 bird. The chart of Gabriel de Valesquc 
 composed in 1439, and upon which this 
 archipeligo appears calls it Ylha de Oesels. 
 Fructuoso in his chronicle goes into ecstasy 
 when relating of the delicious melody that 
 he always heard in the woods of San 
 Miguel. He recounts with a charming 
 simplicity which recalls the Irish legend, 
 that he assisted at a concert, the principal 
 characters of which were larks, canaries, 
 blackbirds and turtle doves. A great deal 
 more on this subject can be seen in 
 Avezac's account of the "Discoveries 
 
 41 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 made in the Atlantic Ocean, during the 
 Middle Ages." 
 
 The companions of Brendan withdrew 
 themselves with difficulty from those del- 
 icacies, and returned to their vessels, from 
 which they next landed on the Isle of 
 Albaeus, where one of Ireland's famous 
 apostles Ailbe of Emly had secluded him- 
 self with his companions. When they 
 landed on this island they were met by an 
 old man, one of their countrymen, who 
 said nothing but made signs for them to 
 follow him. They soon reached a mon- 
 astery, where they found twenty-four 
 monks, two groups of twelve each, their 
 own kindred, who for years had maintained 
 a marvellous silence. They wanted for 
 nothing, however, and Brendan says: 
 "Even the very lights sprang up spontan- 
 eously. "Can it be possible that these Celtic 
 apostles had investigated electricity, and 
 harnessed the magnetic fluid, centuries be- 
 fore Edison came on earth? Quite pos- 
 sible, and very probable, for those stories 
 
 42 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 were written and related as an every-day 
 occurrence, when there could be no object 
 in claiming a patent or deceiving anybody, 
 and we have no doubt they only related 
 what they saw. In revisiting the Paradise 
 of Birds to celebrate their Celtic festival 
 of Caisg, now Easter, they found in one 
 place a dead calm sea, and in another, ice 
 blocks which offered great resistance, but 
 still for the five years that they wandered 
 this beautiful country they were always in 
 this Paradise, with the birds, at the period 
 when it was the Equinox of Spring, and 
 the day and night were equal all over the 
 world. 
 
 In a later age we find references to the 
 same and similar experiences in the chiv- 
 alrous romances of the Frenchman, Roman 
 De la Charette, Chanson D'Antioch, and 
 one writer, Francisque Michel, who wrote 
 between the years 896-9, A. D. The ac- 
 counts they gave of the wild birds and 
 other animals met with were exactly as the 
 Spanish and Portugese explorers described 
 
 43 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 them in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- 
 turies almost a thousand years after those 
 Irish monks had dared to Hft the veil of 
 ocean and bring back to the then barbar- 
 ous Europe the knowledge of land still 
 further west on the other shores of the 
 broad Atlantic. 
 
 It was those Celts who first described 
 the Griffon, that peculiar species of bird, 
 so powerful that it lifted vessels in the air 
 with the merciless grasp of its talons, and 
 then let them fall upon the rocks to be 
 shattered into pieces; or dashed up against 
 them in an attempt to seize them, when it 
 is immediately killed by another bird, 
 more powerful and of a fiercer nature. 
 Another day an enormous fish would dash 
 against them, and attempt to devour them, 
 only to be killed himself by another marine 
 beast more monstrous still. This fish 
 was so large that it furnished food for the 
 wanderers for three months. 
 
 After several days they reach an island 
 where they are not allowed to land. 
 
 44 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 although they understand the language of 
 the people, who were chanting and singing 
 the music of their own country. They were 
 directed to an island further south where 
 they land and in a country covered with 
 forests, find vines loaded with grapes, 
 from which is emitted a most delicious 
 odor, as if from a room full of apples. 
 This incident which we have already shown 
 in the history of Mernoc appears to indicate 
 that the pious explorers were now near the 
 American Tropics. In this vicinity they 
 passed through a sea whose waters were so 
 transparent, that they could see plainly the 
 huge fishes which sported at an enormous 
 depth below. 
 
 Soon the tempest drifted them into a 
 place which they considered the entrance 
 to the infernal regions. The picture drawn 
 by those early dreamers of what they act- 
 ually saw was so vivid and awful that any- 
 one who has compared it and Dante's 
 Inferno will have no hesitation in saying that 
 the Italian only copied vaguely from the 
 
 45 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 original drawn by the Irish monks cen- 
 turies before, from the real panorama as 
 they beheld it while riding upon the crest of 
 the Atlantic wave. They imagined they 
 saw Vulcan erect before them, perhaps 
 Hecla or the Mt. Beerenberg of Jean 
 May en, who made the sea boil at a dis- 
 tance and filled the atmosphere with a 
 sulphurous vapour, while th6 neighboring 
 islands resounded under the hammer of 
 the gigantic Cyclops, the famous GoU 
 MacMorna, of the early Celt. They met 
 demons who submitted them to a thousand 
 proofs, but they surmounted all and after 
 passing through the most dense fogs, they 
 finally arrived at an island which they 
 called the "Terrestrial Paradise." But 
 this was an immense continent where they 
 met the most varied productions, under an 
 atmosphere through which the sun never 
 ceased to shine. 
 
 During forty days the monks endeavored 
 to find the confines of this land which they 
 took to be an island, until they arrived at 
 
 46 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 the mouth of an immense river, which 
 proved to them as the Orinoco did to 
 Columbus, that the island was an immense 
 continent. It was here that an angel or 
 spectre appeared to them and ordered them 
 to return to Ireland, which they did, not 
 however, without having carried with them 
 fruit and stone souvenirs of this Paradise, 
 the residence of the saints, the Elysium, 
 when the entire world will be converted or 
 dead. 
 
 Having celebrated their "Caisg" or 
 Vernal equinox, for the last time in the 
 Paradise of Birds, they return to their 
 native country. Soon after their arrival 
 Brendan died in his ninety-sixth year, in 
 all the glory of sanctity and renown, after 
 having spent the prime of his life in edu- 
 cating his countrymen, and the declining 
 years in spreading a knowledge of their 
 civilization among the Atlantic and Western 
 islands. 
 
 His favorite disciple Machutu was not 
 content to remain in Ireland, but made 
 
 47 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 one other attempt to go West, with mes- 
 sages from his Irish Alma Mater to her 
 apostles in the Western seas. His vessel 
 was driven by a storm from her path, and 
 stranded on the coast of Armoric Gaul, in 
 Finance, where he resolved to end his career, 
 by accepting of their hospitality, and giv- 
 ing them in return the benefit of his voyages 
 and the learning for which Ireland was 
 then so remarkable. They elected him 
 bishop of the community, called their prin- 
 cipal town by his name, and have jealously 
 guarded his memory and traditions to this 
 day in the town of St. Malo, while even at 
 this distant date they preserved the lan- 
 guage in which he addressed them, his 
 own native, Celtic tongue. 
 
 48 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 Gleanings from the Early Ages. 
 
 Such is the legend. It is not always told 
 after the same fashion, but the differences 
 only record different adventures, and al- 
 ways point to one grand conclusion, the 
 great discovery of a wonderful land beyond 
 the Western horizon. But what surprises 
 us most is the analogy that exists between 
 this legend and Oriental traditions, and 
 it would be very interesting to learn 
 whether this legend passed from Ireland to 
 the Orient or did the two peoples conceive 
 it spontaneously. Renaud, in his "In- 
 troduction to the Geography of Abelfonda" 
 mentions these discoveries. Edrisi in his 
 translation of Joubert, as the anonymous 
 author of the " Marvellous Voyages" names 
 the "Isle of Flocks" and the "Paradise of 
 Birds," while in the "Thousand and One 
 Nights" the famous Sinbad, in one of 
 
 49 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 his numerous voyages lands on the isle 
 El-Ghanamh, wher eare found enormous 
 flocks of brebis. The bird called the Roc, 
 which raises him into the air, strangely 
 resembles the Gripha of Brendan, while 
 the story of the island fish seems wonder- 
 fully like the Jewish myth of Jonah and the 
 whale. 
 
 *'But the name Gripha is mentioned very 
 often in early Irish romances and literature, 
 and as it plays a very important part in 
 the sacred rites and initiations in Persian 
 mysteries and mystic orders, I will quote 
 from "Richardson's Dissertations" on that 
 subject: 
 
 'In Fox's collection of Persic books, there 
 is an illustrated copy of Ferdusi, containing 
 a picture of the Gripha, which is there rep- 
 resented as an ugly dragon-looking sort of a 
 bird. This omniscient griffin, called Sim- 
 orgh, who had existed through all the rev- 
 olutions of ages, revealed to a hero, called 
 Cahermann, that the first inhabitants of 
 this earth were the Peris or good beings, 
 
 50 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 and the Dives or wicked ones, (very similar 
 to the Irish good and bad Fairies, the one 
 inhabitating the air and upper realms 
 while the others take charge of the infernal 
 regions), who wage eternal war with each 
 other, and though the former were the 
 most powerful, their contests for superi- 
 ority were sometimes so violent as to throw 
 nature into convulsions and cover the uni- 
 verse with dismay; that she, herself, wit- 
 nessed seven creations and destructions of 
 this world." 
 
 We must not be surprised when told that 
 the legend of Brendan found its way into 
 the East, and was read everywhere during 
 the Middle Ages, for did not the adven- 
 tures of Ulysses charm the Greeks, and 
 why should not we glory in the adventures 
 and patience of our own countrymen? 
 They may not have been all true, but the 
 greater part of them have been verified, 
 some to-day, and some a thousand years 
 after their first recital, and who would not 
 wish to retain those legends which have 
 
 5^ 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA 
 
 been verified, even they v^^ere forced to re- 
 ject the Odyssee and other epics, with all 
 the marvels and fables which ornament 
 them. 
 
 The learned savant who wrote the "His- 
 tory of Ancient Alban," says, "It is a pious 
 romance, but it rests upon a historic foun- 
 dation, for why should these fabulous re- 
 citals be interspersed in the biography of 
 Brendan, if there had not been in the events 
 of his life, a great enterprise for the exten- 
 sion of his native Celtic civilization, into 
 some far distant lands, and if he failed not 
 to indicate that, by showing that he was 
 there." The true or false courses only 
 prove that they did not hesitate to under- 
 take them; besides, the islands that they 
 traveled on, the great continent upon which 
 they disembarked ; the dangers, the adven- 
 tures, all these episodes, we have no doubt, 
 conceal under the veil of fiction, true 
 discoveries. It is left for us however, to 
 unravel the historic truth from the orna- 
 mentation surrounding it. 
 
 52 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 As we have already remarked, Brendan 
 and his companions, always directed their 
 course for the West, in the direction of 
 America, passing by the Archipelagoes 
 which we recognize as the Azores, the 
 Canary and Madeira Islands, besides Ice- 
 land and other groups lying between the 
 two continents. The Paradise of Birds 
 corresponds to one of the Azores. Tene- 
 riffe in the Canaries is an ancient volcano, 
 which, without doubt, was in activity when 
 Brendan and his companions contemplated 
 with awe the ebullitions of flame which 
 crowned its summit, and the streams of 
 lava which coursed along its sides. Be- 
 sides the eruptions of Hecla, those of Beer- 
 emberg are still active, and it is not amiss 
 to say that the Irishman Brendan has 
 explored as far as these northern latitudes. 
 As to the terrestrial Paradise, so far away 
 from Ireland, and watered by such ma- 
 jestic rivers, the whole course of which the 
 monks did not take time to trace or if they 
 did have not recorded, would not this be 
 the American continent? 
 
 53 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 While it is not necessary to indicate lit- 
 erally the exact geographical position of 
 these marvellous voyages, it appears, never- 
 theless, well established that they sailed 
 to the West; that they discovered islands 
 and landed on a continent; that at several 
 times in the course of their voyages they 
 met their own co-religionists, kinsmen and 
 countrymen, which would prove to them 
 that there were explorers and adventurers 
 from Ireland long anterior to themselves. 
 
 54 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Further Adventures of Celtic 
 Explorers. 
 
 We have it on the authority of the '' Book 
 of Leinster" and quoted by O' Curry in his 
 ''Lectures," that Brendan, Mernoc and 
 Machuta were not the only Irishmen who 
 made explorations and voyages upon the 
 Atlantic, during, and previous to the 
 Middle Ages, of which early history, dis- 
 figured at a later period by pious legend, 
 has singularly preserved the remembrance. 
 A curious account is preserved in the 
 " Book of Leinster" of one " Conal Deagh" 
 a wealthy resident of the province of Con- 
 naught, who had three sons that followed 
 the profitable occupation of pirates, which 
 in those days was viewed in a different 
 light to what it is to-day, for it combined 
 the defence of the neighboring coasts with 
 that of trade, and unlike the modern one. 
 
 55 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 was considered a highly useful and 
 respected occupation. Tired of trading 
 along their own coasts, they resolved to 
 venture further West, among the Atlantic 
 islands, on what they called a pilgrimage. 
 Their curachs were covered with skins, and 
 large enough to contain each nine men, 
 with provisions for a long voyage. They 
 left Galway Bay sometime about the year 
 540, A. D., (Aois an Tigearna), and after 
 spending considerable time among their 
 countrymen in the West, they were re- 
 turning home, when they were ship- 
 wrecked. A few of the survivors were cast 
 on the shores of Spain. The bishop of the 
 Spanish Community, being of their own 
 race, and speaking their own or a kindred 
 language, received them, and gave them all 
 the assistance within his power. This 
 bishop, Justin by name, afterwards related 
 the occurrence as he had remembered it to 
 the two Celtic or Irish saints, Coman and 
 Mocholmog, the latter of whom was a poet, 
 and to his verses to-day, preserved in the 
 
 56 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 ''Book of Leinster" are we indebted for 
 the account of the wanderings of Irishmen 
 on the Atlantic ocean at the period we men- 
 tion, a thousand years before Columbus or 
 any other European had conceived the 
 daring idea of venturing from their native 
 shores. 
 
 Of all these accounts, there is, perhaps, 
 none better known than the voyages of 
 Maelduin, originally met with in Leabhar 
 Na Huidri, and published by Joyce in his 
 ''Celtic Romances", while Arbois de Jub- 
 ainville gives a French version of it in his 
 ' ' Epic Literature of Ireland . ' ' This Mael- 
 duin was the son of Oliol Corac Ago, who 
 was assassinated on some pretext by a 
 band of sea rovers. As soon as Maelduin 
 reached the age of manhood, and was in- 
 stalled in his father's stead among his breth- 
 ren, his first act was to seek reparation for 
 the blood of his parent. He caused some 
 large curachs to be built, each plated with 
 iron and covered with ox hides, laid on in 
 three layers. Each of those vessels 
 
 57 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 contained sLxty men with stores of provisions 
 and with this band of warriors he set out 
 for the Western isles to vindicate the death 
 of his parent. They reached an island 
 where the inhabitants were acquainted 
 with the story of his father's death, but 
 could or would not give any intelligence 
 of the actors in the tragedy. Along their 
 way they met several islands and Maelduin 
 left on account of his findings. 
 
 In one place they found a splendid man- 
 sion, after the manner of their own country, 
 which was entirely devoted for the ac- 
 commodation of strangers, for the tables 
 and chairs were all set, and they found 
 choice delicacies in abundance. Surround- 
 ing the mansion was a beautiful orchard of 
 apple and orange trees, laden with fruit of 
 immense size, but what attracted the most 
 attention was a lofty palace which was built 
 entirely in a block of limestone, with no 
 aperture but a single gate, and here again 
 the hospitality was lavish, which showed 
 from the descriptions they left at that early 
 
 58 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 date, that they were well aware of the ex- 
 istence of a world west of their own coun- 
 try, and that considerable of their own 
 kinsmen lived there, who were imbued 
 with their own national ideas and customs, 
 while their constant references to the mar- 
 vels of Nature, such as the immense fruit 
 and gigantic trees, large tracts of land and 
 broad rivers, prove that they must have 
 come upon American territory, and from 
 their description of the hospitality of the 
 inhabitants, that they were as humane 
 and generous as themselves, or else were 
 inspired by Celtic or a kindred civilization. 
 
 Soon they reach what they called the 
 "Isle of Tears and Laughter"; then the 
 "Isle of the White and Black Sheep," 
 which change their color when they change 
 their flocks. In the "Isle of Amazons" 
 they receive a most emphatic reception, 
 but they repulse all matrimonial proposals. 
 
 In the "Isle of Birds", all the tribe 
 winged with different plumage, speak, 
 sing, and jest. Here a hermit of their own 
 
 59 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 kinsmen, related to them how the island 
 upon which he was cast, by a tempest, 
 grows larger and higher each year. Close 
 by stands a colossal pillar, the base of 
 which disappears below the water, while the 
 summit is lost in the clouds. From this 
 summit, juts out a conical net work of 
 silver meshes, so very large that they are 
 tempted to cut one as a memento which 
 they bring with them to their native coun- 
 try. They finally reach another island, 
 where they find some very high mountains 
 and great plains covered with heather. 
 Here the young women ran to meet them 
 and showed so much regard for them, as if 
 they never wished them to depart, but 
 Maelduin and his companions soon re- 
 solved to leave this Transatlantic Elysium 
 and return again to Ireland. 
 
 On their homeward journey they met 
 an island where the trees produced an 
 intoxicating, though delicious beverage or 
 milk, and dwelling upon this island were 
 fifteen monks who had resolved to follow 
 
 60 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 Brendan, and make a pilgrimage upon the 
 ocean . Among their possessions was a bag 
 which belonged to the saint, and which 
 they prized very much on account of its 
 associations. In the middle of the island 
 was a large lake which they told their coun- 
 trymen, had the property of rejuvenation. 
 One of the monks, more curious than the 
 others, plunged himself in the clear waters, 
 but whether this crystal Elixir proved equal 
 to its reputation he does not tell us, but he 
 announces that he had no suffering for the 
 remainder of his life. 
 
 The two last landing places of Maelduin 
 were on an island where he met another 
 pilgrim from his native land, a man who 
 had at one time been a cook in one of the 
 monasteries for which Tory Island was 
 famous, in the days when Columba was the 
 column or pillar of Celtic civilization. On 
 another part of this island he was driven 
 upon a rock, where he found hawks re- 
 sembling those found along the cliffs over- 
 hanging Clew and Galway Bays. 
 
 6i 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 Following the example of the hawks as 
 they took wing eastward, Maelduin and 
 his companions prepared to cross the At- 
 lantic again for home, and soon arrived in 
 their own beloved land, where among the 
 national trophies at Cruachan, that great 
 centre .of Irish education, they deposited 
 the "mesh" the latest marvel from the 
 Western World, where it continued to re- 
 pose until the sacriligious hand of the 
 Norman or the Dane snatched if from its 
 resting place, to make room for the in- 
 ferior and degrading civilizations of Eastern 
 and Western Europe. 
 
 Certain it is, that some of these recitals 
 may appear fantastic, and even some of 
 them, appear as imitations of the legends 
 of Brendan, but some passages, however, 
 merit consideration, as indicating a knowl- 
 edge of the existence of the American 
 Continent. 
 
 The chanting birds singularly enough 
 resemble the parrots of tropical America; 
 the island that increases from year to year 
 
 62 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 recalls the geological formation of the Ber- 
 mudas, and some of the Antilles, while the 
 persistence of these voyages in the direction 
 of the West, and the constant meetings with 
 their countrymen, all tend to show that 
 Maelduin and his companions had not 
 wandered into lands then unknown, but 
 explored and peopled ih previous ages by 
 their own kinsmen and co-religionists. 
 
 His account of the talking birds was then 
 considered a marvel, yet to-day we know 
 it was possible. The great precision, with 
 which they described islands and lands 
 that have become since realized and ma- 
 terial, causes us to wonder why it was, 
 and is still, that those early voyagers got 
 no credit for their just and unselfish dis- 
 coveries, while those whose purposes were 
 the most sordid, commercial and inhumane 
 were undeservedly crowned by their own 
 people, while we, the kinsmen of Brendan 
 and Maelduin, are commanded, in this the 
 twentieth century, by a usurped and spuri- 
 ous civilization, to pay the stranger that 
 
 63 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 homage and deference which of right be- 
 longs to our ownTnation, and which, to 
 our eternal disgrace, we are doing to bolster 
 up the effete and presumptuous claims of 
 South and Western Europe. 
 
 64 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Knowledge the English and Spanish 
 
 Sailors Gained by the Adventure 
 
 OF Celtic Traditions. 
 
 That those sailors who ventured from 
 the Spanish and English shores in the 
 fifteenth century were fully aware of the 
 early voyages of the Irish, we will/;now 
 show, and then use them to prove thei early 
 ones of our countrymen. For this pur- 
 pose we will take the traditions found 
 among the kindred Celts of Europe. The 
 French Celt had, perhaps, the closest con- 
 nection and sympathy with the Irish, and 
 though their monasteries were destroyed 
 both before, during and after the Reforma- 
 tion, first by the Italians, then by the pro- 
 English party, of the Reform, still they 
 dung to their ancient convictions with a 
 tenacity that knew of no compromise but 
 death. One writer sums the situation very 
 
 6s 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 concisely when he tells us that "their man- 
 uscripts and monuments have been scat- 
 tered and destroyed, and nothing left or 
 preserved but the sad traditions of their 
 former glory." 
 
 The Welch and Highland Scotch have 
 each contributed their portion to our pres- 
 ent theme, and have enabled our anti- 
 quaries to arrange those transatlantic 
 legends into four distinct series. 
 
 The first relates to the country of the 
 Sidhs, which is placed by the Bards and 
 Druids of Britain to the west of the great 
 ocean. In this respect the Celtic race 
 owes a compliment to Mr. Nash in his 
 treatment of the Bardic Mysteries and 
 learned account of the Druids and Bards 
 of Great Britain. But we must not forget 
 the other noble Celts who have endeavored 
 to place their race and nation in the fore- 
 front of the world's civilizations, such as 
 "Skeene" who brought into prominence 
 the "Four Ancient Books of Wales," and 
 the Scot Campbell who produced the 
 
 66 
 
THE IRISH JN AMERICA. 
 
 'Topular Tales of the West Highlands," 
 while noble and devoted France, gave 
 from the pen of Beauvais the "Western 
 Eden," all of which make the fact, that the 
 early Irish had certain knowledge of a great 
 Western land, had their polar star, and 
 did radiate from that point with not the 
 slightest doubt of the contrary. 
 
 The second series relates to the disap- 
 pearance of a certain Gafran, son of Aldan, 
 who with his companions and associates, 
 in the fifth century of this present era, 
 set sail for the "Great Green Land of 
 Streams," and of which all trace was lost. 
 The learned and patriotic Jones in his 
 "Myrvyrian Archaeology" gives an elab- 
 orate account of this period of Celtic ex- 
 plorations, all of which he authenticates 
 from the Ancient Manuscripts to which he 
 had access. 
 
 In the third and fourth series are re- 
 lated all the incidents relating to King 
 Arthur, and the enchanter Merlin, and for 
 the information of our readers we may refer 
 
 67 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 to the able and learned works of Michael 
 and Wright on Merlin and the "Marvels 
 of the Middle Ages" by Villamarque. 
 From perusing these we find that it is, above 
 all, in this great Western country where 
 King Arthur shelters himself, and awaits 
 the auspicious moment to attack and chase 
 the vindictive Dane, the treacherous Saxon, 
 and the cruel Italian, who have excited the 
 anger of the Gallic bards and usurped the 
 land and place which was once the cradle 
 of the most humane, if not the greatest 
 civilization that ever appeared upon this 
 earth. 
 
 This great Western country was named 
 J by them "Avalon" or the "Isle of Apples" 
 from a Celtic word Abhal, an apple; the 
 ocean entirely surrounded the islands 
 which had no evils. In it there were no 
 thieves, no brigands, no enemies to set 
 their snares for the unwary traveller; no 
 violence, nor insupportable cold or heat; 
 there peace, concord and a beautiful bloom 
 was reigning eternally. In it the flowers. 
 
 68 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 lilies, roses, violets, abounded; the trees 
 bore fruit and flowers on the same branch 
 and man knew neither age, malady nor 
 grief; but with their youths and maidens 
 lived in one grand community, where noth- 
 ing was private property and no one man 
 or set of men would or could say to another 
 what they should do or accomplish. All 
 were nature's children, born in the same 
 manner, and for that reason, all must enjoy 
 the fruits of nature's divinity to its fullest 
 limits. Such, then, was the birthright of 
 the Celt. Alas, what is it to-day? 
 
 69 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 St. Matthew of Finisterre in Search 
 OF Jewish Patriarchs. 
 
 It is in another marvellous country West 
 of the Atlantic, that the Armoric monks 
 of St. Matthevs^ of Finisterre, believed they 
 could find the Jewish patriarchs Enoch 
 and Elija, who, according to the French 
 tradition, were there awaiting the day of 
 final judgment. 
 
 These monks explored the ocean, and 
 on one occasion, they were carried so far 
 beyond their course that it took them some 
 three years to return home. It was on this 
 occasion that they were driven on an island 
 where they found their Irish co-religionists 
 enjoying life and happiness in a manner 
 peculiarly Celtic. On another island they 
 met a brass statue ; it was that of a woman 
 with uplifted hand and seemed to point out 
 to them the course which they should 
 
 70 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 follow. They went in that direction and to 
 their great joy they discovered a mountain 
 in the distance, but to their amazement, as 
 they approached it, it emitted a marvellous 
 odor, while its summit vomited forth flame 
 in great volumes, and at a great distance 
 could be seen the burning matter as it 
 rolled down along the sides. 
 
 Turning away from here they came to 
 another island where they found neither 
 men nor animals, but they met what seemed 
 to them to be a fort or town, surrounded 
 by a strong, high wall. Within they could 
 see gold, silver and furniture, but no one to 
 guard the treasures. They eventually set 
 sail for France, and arrived home to find 
 that no one knew them, that all the existing 
 order of things as they left them had been 
 changed, and nothing left to them but 
 record the news they had got of what they 
 considered the Transatlantic Eden, and 
 embellish it where necessary with the 
 Celtic idealism so proHfic in the race. 
 
 Such are the legends, Pagan or Christian, 
 
 71 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 by which the Irish have affirmed their 
 belief in the existence of Transatlantic 
 lands. It is not possible to give here all 
 the episodes, nor is it necessary to give en- 
 tirely these legends destined for the edi- 
 fication or amusement of those who heard 
 them retold, but as one of our antiquaries, 
 who has done more for their preservation 
 than any other man, has remarked in his 
 "Manners and Customs:" ''These facts 
 would be of great value if they had been 
 transmitted to us in their original form; 
 but in the course of ages, after having 
 passed from narrator to narrator, each full 
 of imagination, these legends have lost 
 considerable of their original simplicity, 
 and have become more and more orna- 
 mented so as to make them appear fan- 
 tastic and extravagant." 
 
 The Frenchman, Beauvais, in his West- 
 ern Eden, arguing along the same lines 
 says of these early accounts, "It is thus 
 that to-day, lovers of fiction, vulgarize 
 science by placing it in imaginary and even 
 
 72 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 incredible adventures. If adorned by this 
 romantic garb, their lives came to be re- 
 membered only in some work of fiction, 
 some shipwreck of human knowledge as 
 have made the Gaelic or Cymric legends, 
 our great-grandchildren would have no 
 more right to neglect the positive facts con- 
 tained in these recitals than would we our- 
 selves have to deny the voyages and the 
 transatlantic establishments of the Irish and 
 French Celts, on account of the fiction with 
 which they were adorned, for they constitute 
 a source of information no less precious." 
 This was the age of miracle and mystery 
 and the Irish Celt who had no place for, 
 nor word to express the idea of privilege, 
 could see no reason why, if Jehovah of 
 the; Jews had performed certain wonderful 
 acts for their edification and that the world 
 was called upon to believe those things and 
 stake their eternal hopes thereon, that the 
 Baal of the Celt, who never deserted his 
 post during the countless evolutions of 
 nature, should not be credited with at 
 
 73 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 least as much of foresight and protection 
 to his own favored race. If we accept the 
 one, how can we, as rational beings, reject 
 the other." But it is time to pass from 
 legend to history, and to show from very 
 authentic voyages, that we can register as a 
 reality the truth of the voyages of "Oisin," 
 ''Brendan" and "Maelduin." 
 
 74 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CuLDEES OR Celtic Priests in the 
 West and Northwest. 
 
 That the Culdees or Celtic priests were \ 
 the forerunners of the discoverers in the 
 West and Northwest, there is but Httle 
 doubt. Several motives forced this emi- 
 gration upon them, the principal of which 
 was the variance with the Italian and Eng- 
 lish churches in the time of celebrating 
 Easter, baptismal ceremonies, monastic 
 tonsures, etc., which are very fully re- 
 ferred to by "Varin" in his "Causes of 
 Disagreement between the Irish and the 
 Italian Churches." Montelambert in his 
 "Monks of the West" referring to this 
 matter says of the Irish, "Very faithful to 
 the rites of their beloved teacher, several 
 of them conformed to the decisions of the 
 Conference of Wilby, quitted England, 
 
 75 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 and returned with their chief, Bishop Col- 
 man, to the monastery of lona in 664, A. 
 D., while Bede in his "Ecclesiastical His- 
 tory of the Angles" tells us that they left 
 England on account of the plague that 
 broke out there, and from which the people 
 died in swarms. He says that during this 
 period several of the then native English or 
 Saxons left England and migrated to Ire- 
 land, where they were accommodated 
 gratis, with food, shelter, clothes, learning 
 and books, and Alfred, King of the North- 
 umbrians, who was amongst those exiles, 
 when about to return home, wrote a Gaelic 
 poem of some sixty lines, in Bardic metre. 
 This poem was intended as a compliment 
 to the high state of civilization, learning, 
 fraternity and hospitality of the Irish, and 
 as the only remuneration he could offer 
 for all the courtesies and favors he and his 
 people received from the then flourishing 
 and independent Irish nation. This poem 
 is still extant. Hardiman had a vellum 
 copy of it, in which he says the character 
 
 76 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 was ancient and obscure, Mangan made 
 a poetical translation for Montgomery, 
 which is worth recording here as a testi- 
 mony of the high standing of our people at 
 an age when Europe was just emerging 
 from the Cimmerian darkness of the bar- 
 baric ages, although we are told by would- 
 be reformers, and pious frauds that our 
 ancestors were in a very deluded state until 
 the light of the Italio- Jewish civilization 
 was brought in by a man who was able to 
 take no higher place in a Celtic Community 
 than to attend to the swine on the slopes of 
 Slieve Mis. 
 
 "Alfred's Tribute to the Irish 
 Nation. 
 
 I found in Innisfail the fair 
 
 In Ireland, while in exile there 
 
 Women of worth, both grave and gay men, 
 
 Many clerics and many lay men. 
 
 I travelled its fruitful provinces round, 
 And in every one of the five I found, 
 
 77 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 Alike in church and in palace hall, 
 Abundant apparel and food for all. 
 Gold and silver I found, and money, 
 Plenty of wheat, and plenty of honey, 
 I found those people, rich in pity, 
 Found many a feast and many a city. 
 I also found in Armagh the splendid, 
 Meekness, prudence and wisdom blended, 
 Fasting as Columba recommended 
 And noble councillors untranscended. 
 I found in each great church moreo'er. 
 Whether on island, or on shore, 
 Piety, learning, fond affection. 
 Holy welcome and kind protection. 
 I found the good lay monks and brothers. 
 Ever beseeching help for others, 
 And in their keeping the holy word. 
 Pure as written first from the Lord. 
 I found in Munster, unfettered of any, 
 Kings and Queens, and poets a' many; 
 Poets well skilled in music and measure, 
 Prosperous doings, mirth and pleasure. 
 I found in Connaught the just, redun- 
 dance — 
 
 78 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 Of riches, milk in lavish abundance, 
 Hospitality, vigor, fame, 
 In Cruachan's land of heroic name. 
 I found in Ulster, from hill to glen, 
 Hardy warriors, resolute men, 
 Beauty that bloomed when youth was gone 
 And strength transmitted from sire to son. 
 I found in Leinster the smooth and sleek, 
 From Dublin to Slewmargy's peak. 
 Flourishing pastures, valor, health. 
 Song loving worthies, commerce, wealth. 
 I found beside from Ara to Glea 
 In the broad rich country of Ossory, 
 Sweet fruits, good laws for all and each. 
 Great chess-players, men of truthful speech, 
 I found in Meath's fair principality 
 Virtue, vigor and hospitality. 
 Candor, joyfulness, bravery, purity, 
 Ireland's bulwark and security. 
 I found strict morals in age and youth, 
 I found historians recording truth. 
 The things I sing of in verse unsmooth, 
 I found them all— I have written, sooth." 
 
 79 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 The Celt of those early days, unlike his 
 descendant of to-day, refused to be dic- 
 tated to by either Italian or Saxon, and 
 knowing the real nature of both those races 
 stoutly refused to purchase salvation from 
 their hands, but maintained that he himself 
 had received his revelations from a higher 
 and a purer source than any of those Sal- 
 vationists was capable of producing ; in fact 
 that he received it not second-hand, but 
 directly from the East, and practised then 
 what his Eastern forefathers had done cen- 
 turies upon centuries before; that lately he 
 had kept a festival upon whose anniversary 
 every cottage and hamlet was lighted by a 
 bonfire, a custom preserved to this day, 
 while the memory of lesser dignitaries 
 passed by unnoticed. When however, it was 
 decided by the king of Northumbria, that 
 only one system of computing Easter 
 should be held in his dominions, and pref- 
 erence was given to the Italian over the 
 Irish system, the Celtic monks withdrew 
 to lona and Ireland from a field where they 
 had labored for centuries, and from a 
 
 80 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 people they had raised from the most bar- 
 barous depths to members in a civilized 
 religious society. 
 
 Fifty years after this period, when Neach- 
 tan, King of the Picts, ordered his people 
 to be guided by Italian customs and belief, 
 the Culdees voluntarily exiled themselves 
 from Scotland, and later, when at one fell 
 stroke, Ireland was brought under Italian 
 and English domination, there was nothing 
 left to them but emigration to the Western 
 and Northwestern Archipelagoes, and]|there 
 they retired one after another, but^they 
 were always viewed with jealousy by the 
 followers of the Italio- Jewish Cult, then 
 becoming fashionable in Western Europe. 
 
 In a paper read before the American 
 Congress at Copenhagen, the Frenchman, 
 Beauvais, gives a very vivid account of 
 this important period in the history of 
 Irish development in the Western world 
 and especially in Mexico. 
 
 He says, ''that no sooner had the new 
 Italio- Jewish faith located itself than its 
 
 8i 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 followers began to demand the control if 
 not the expulsion of the native Irish civil- 
 ization, and being disgusted with the lack 
 of patriotism in their countrymen, and the 
 gradual elimination of every national char- 
 acteristic, the Papae renounced their native 
 land with some misgivings, for its future 
 welfare, which alas, was too well founded, 
 and explored the Northern seas, whose 
 mysterious regions always exercised an 
 invincible attraction over them." 
 
 Cambrensis says in his "Hibernian Top- 
 ography," "The Lord has made what- 
 ever he wished both in heaven and in earth, 
 and in the deep abysses, but it is at the 
 remote extremity of the earth that eman- 
 cipated nature enjoys itself with the most 
 astounding prodigies." The Irish were no 
 doubt his ideal of those prodigies. They 
 believed that beyond the countries inhab- 
 ited by men, were others extending to lands 
 unknown, perhaps the remnants of former 
 continents now disappeared, and into 
 those strange lands the Irish saints and 
 
 82 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. ' 
 
 scholars loved to wander, where they en- 
 joyed themselves in educating and elevating 
 the less enlightened members of the human 
 race. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 Barton and his Voyage. 
 
 Adamnan in his "Life of Columbcille," 
 cites the voyage of Barton, the next succes- 
 sor in lona, and another voyage of his 
 cotemporary, Cormac, who was drifted for 
 forty days by a violent south wind, on the 
 Atlantic Ocean, when having gone beyond 
 all previous and known limits, was forced 
 into a region of the ocean, where he was 
 assailed by black little insects, that threat- 
 ened to pierce with their fangs the skins, 
 with which the vessel was sheathed. This 
 very detail proves the authenticity of the 
 recital, for it is now well known that there 
 is a species of Crustacea in the Northern 
 seas that attacks the ships in bands or 
 swarms. However, when the wind fell, 
 Cormac was able to retrace his steps south- 
 ward to home and give an account of his 
 experiences in the frozen waters of the 
 Arctic Ocean. 
 
 84 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 Later in the seventh century, we have, 
 upon the authority of O' Curry, who quotes 
 the incident in his "Manners and Customs 
 of the Ancient Irish," a more authentic 
 testimony of the knowledge of a Western 
 World by the Irish Celts. Two chieftains, 
 monks of lona, Snedgus and MacRiagla, 
 with some of their followers, undertook a 
 maritime pilgrimage. They wandered for 
 many months on the Atlantic, and dis- 
 covered the existence of several islands un- 
 known before, some of which were deserted, 
 while others were thickly inhabited. On 
 one occasion, they were surprised to hear 
 the mournful dirge of a native funeral, 
 and immediately recognized the Irish Bean 
 Caointe or Female Mourner of their native 
 land, who chanted those doleful strains at 
 the last obsequies of a dear, departed rela- 
 tive, ages before other European peoples 
 could realize that nothing more was needed 
 than allow their aged or infirm to die by the 
 wayside, and permit the wild beasts to 
 arrange for their interment. Indeed we 
 
 85 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 may safely claim without any fear of con- 
 tradiction, that the burial services now so 
 popular and remunerative, first originated 
 among the Irish Celts, and that the 
 soprano of the modern day is only the lineal 
 successor of the Irish Bean Caointe. 
 
 However, they landed and were most 
 hospitably received by a number of ladies 
 who addressed them in the mellifluous tones 
 of their own native tongue. It sounded 
 to them like heavenly music for they im- 
 agined themselves again on their native 
 shores, and only recovered from their 
 trance to find out that they were on one of 
 the islands far away, beyond the Atlantic 
 Ocean. Those ladies conducted them 
 before the chief who received them with 
 all the hospitality of an Irish chieftain, and 
 that deference which it was the custom of 
 his people to pay to strangers. This chief 
 and his followers were exiles of the tribe 
 of Per Roy, who having transgressed the 
 laws of hospitality in some manner, under- 
 took as penance a voluntary exile, beyond 
 the Atlantic waves. 
 
 86 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 After a long sojourn in this Western 
 land, Snedgus and MacRiagla returned 
 again to lona. They brought with them, 
 however, a proof of their discovery. It was 
 a large leaf from one of the tropical trees, 
 no doubt, for we are told it was almost as 
 large as an ox hide, and was carefully 
 deposited at lona until the Culdees trans- 
 ferred their headquarters to Ireland, where 
 they brought the leaf and it was carefully 
 preserved in Kells. When McFirbis and 
 his brother GioUa losa were adding to the 
 Book of Leacain in 1390, A. D., their ac- 
 count of the ''Adventures of the Clerics 
 of the Order of Columbcille this leaf was 
 in a good state of preservation, but unfor- 
 tunately it, like other monuments of our 
 people's greatness, has been ruthlessly 
 destroyed, and nothing left us to-day but 
 the sad mementoes as fruits of a barbarous 
 Italian-English civilization. 
 
 Beauvais, in his essay on the "Great 
 Land of the West" quotes these voyages 
 from the Book of the Maelconroys, a 
 
 87 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 manuscript still inedited, and shows from a 
 work of Magnus O'Donnell, in the year 
 (647, that in that age those voyages and 
 discoveries were well known and taught. 
 
 The famous leaf of which we write was 
 called the Duilleabar Baithe, and from its 
 immense size, all the eminent men who 
 have mentioned it, agree that it could only 
 be found in tropical America. Then who 
 can say that the Irish with their curraghs ? 
 did not land upon the American shores. 
 We can only mention some of the voyages 
 of the Culdees in the Northwestern 
 Atlantic, because the manuscripts which 
 contain those voyages and several other 
 matters relating to that period are still un- 
 published and accessible only to a few 
 select Gaelic scholars. 
 
 Although we may speak reservedly of 
 several voyages, undertaken at this early 
 period by the monks of Columba or Cul- 
 dees, the certainty of those voyages does 
 not admit of doubt. The Orcades or 
 Western Isles of Scotland, the Shetland 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 Isles and all that group were first known 
 and settled by them. Their colonies were 
 so acceptable to the Aboriginal inhabitants 
 that they not only took the name, but 
 adopted the costume of those that came to 
 civilize them, and preserved their manners, 
 customs, and language until the ninth cen- 
 tury, when the king or Norway, Harold, 
 invaded these archipelagoes and resettled 
 it with his own savage Norwegians. But 
 the name Papae still lingers in the Orcades, 
 for we find to-day the Isles of Papawertra 
 and Papastronsa; and in several localities 
 such as Paplay. In Shetland it is still sig- 
 nificant in the three Isles of Papastone, 
 Papalittle and Papa, close to the territory 
 of Papil. 
 
 The Swedish geographer Miinch, in his 
 "Geography of the Shetland and Orkney 
 Islands" quotes a number of localities 
 which are derived from those teachers of 
 Celtic Civilization, the Papae or Pupae. 
 In another work of his published at Chris- 
 tiana in 1850, entitled "Symbols relating 
 
 89 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 to Ancient History," he quotes a peculiar 
 and interesting passage from Norwegian 
 History which he had discovered and bear- 
 ing upon the subject under our consider- 
 ation. He says: "The Papae or Pupae 
 are so called on account of the white gar- 
 ments which they were accustomed to 
 wear; and in all the Teutonic languages 
 the clerics and teachers were called 
 Papae." But it is in our own manuscripts 
 we must look for the meaning of this cus- 
 tom. In the Irish language the word 
 Papa or Pupa means a teacher or cleric, 
 and the Book of Ballymote furnishes the 
 remainder where it describes how only 
 certain colors were allowed for certain 
 ranks of society, not for the purpose of 
 comparison but to mark distinctly what the 
 profession or calling of each one was, thus : 
 
 Blue to women 
 
 Crimson to kings of every host, 
 Green and black to noble laymen, 
 White to clerics 
 
 90 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 According to O'Curry this distinction 
 was made at a period long anterior to the 
 dawn of ItaHo- Jewish civilization in Western 
 Europe, hence these men could not have 
 copied it from any of those two peoples 
 who did not themselves possess or know 
 of the custom for ages afterwards. 
 
 From the Orcades and the Shetland 
 Islands, the Papae or Culdees passed easily 
 into the Faroe Islands. One of them, 
 Diciul, who composed a geographical 
 tract, called "The Extent of the Earth's 
 Surface" in the year 825, A. D., speaks of 
 this discovery, thus: "There are a great 
 number of other islands in the ocean to the 
 north of Bretagne. The vessels sailing 
 there and driven by a wind always favor- 
 able, require two days and two nights to 
 reach those Northwestern isles." 
 
 "A missionary, worthy of belief, has 
 told me that after having sailed for two 
 days and one night in Summer time, he 
 landed in one of the islands. These islands 
 are small, for the most part they are all 
 
 91 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 separated, the one from the other by passes 
 or straits very difficult of navigation. They 
 were perhaps, some hundred years estab- 
 lished and inhabited by monks who de- 
 parted from Scotia, But just as if they 
 had been deserted since the creation of 
 the world, the monks and religieuse being 
 driven out by the savage Northmen, these 
 beautiful isles are now (825) inhabited by 
 flocks of wild beast and every known species 
 of seabird." 
 
 Scotia, here means Ireland, for it was so 
 called all through the Middle Ages, and 
 meant in the works and writings of Alcuin, 
 Alfred the Great, Bede and Eginhard. 
 It was only in the middle of the ninth cen- 
 tury, when the king of the Picts died, with- 
 out leaving any direct heir to the kingdom, 
 that Kenneth, king of Dalriada, the coun- 
 try of the Ancient Scotts, possessed himself 
 of the country of the Picts, and united the 
 two territories into one kingdom in 843, 
 A. D., although the name Scotland was 
 not applied to Alban until the eleventh 
 century. 
 
 92 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 CULDEES AND THE NORTHMEN, 
 
 In 1849 the German Schroeter, who was 
 very much devoted to collecting and per- 
 petuating local traditions, thus speaks of 
 these islands, — "This archipelago was rav- 
 ished by the Northmen as were the 
 Orcades and the Shetland Isles, but the tra- 
 ditions and remembrances of the Culdees 
 still linger there. When the Northmen in- 
 vaded these islands, they found there men 
 whom they regarded as of a different crea- 
 tion, for they had books and could write, 
 which contrasted so strongly with their 
 own savage nature, while they understood 
 nature so well that they were able to heal 
 both men and animals. They made pre- 
 dictions according as the general catch of 
 the fish, and the health of the people, were 
 favorable or unfavorable. 
 
 They did not live as others, for their food 
 
 93 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 consisted only of milk, wild birds' eggs, 
 roots and sea weed. They tamed some 
 goats which supplied them with milk, but 
 they neither killed an animal nor spilled 
 blood, preferring like the ancient Egyp- 
 tians, to live upon the vegetable kingdom, 
 and we have no doubt this fact contributed 
 much to the advanced state in which learn- 
 ing and science then prevailed. The only 
 things they accepted as presents or in re- 
 muneration for their services, were un- 
 leavened bread, the cuttle-fish, and a 
 species of composite cloth, called drugget, 
 which is made of a mixture of flax and 
 coarse wool. They still point out several 
 localities where these pious and good men 
 inhabited. When the Norwegians arrived, 
 some of them fled by sea to other desolated 
 places, and there took refuge in the caverns. 
 Through all this one can easily see the 
 Irish Culdees who dwelt there and converted 
 the inhabitants to their own principles of 
 belief." 
 
 But where did the fugitives go when 
 
 94 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 they left the Faroe Islands? Dicuil, the 
 astronomer, who wrote a learned tract on 
 the measurement of the orb of the earth, 
 says it was to Iceland, an island distant 
 about two days' sail from Bretagne. That 
 it was peopled by the Scots at one time, 
 but those being driven out by the savage 
 Northmen, its only tenants then were wild 
 beasts and sea fowl. 
 
 Faithful to their spirit of initiating and 
 propagating, the Culdees always sought 
 new lands where they might teach others 
 their native cult, and find repose. 
 
 The first land which they met to the 
 north was Iceland. Dicuil calls it Thule, 
 but the description which he has left leaves 
 no doubt, because Iceland is the only one 
 of all the islands around the Polar Circle, 
 where the Culdees could land and reside 
 on quitting the Faroe Islands. We will 
 let himself describe his voyage. He says, 
 ^'Some of the clerics who lived there for 
 thirty years have told me, that from the 
 first of February, almost to the first of 
 
 95 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 August, the sun does not set, except dur- 
 ing the Summer Solstice, and a few days 
 before and after, when he appears to hide 
 himself behind a hill, so that darkness pre- 
 vails only for a very short duration. In fact 
 it is so short that one can see to pursue all 
 his occupations, even to the most minute, 
 during the entire time between the periods 
 above specified, and it is probable that if 
 one was on the top of a mountain, the sun 
 would not be so hidden from his view. 
 They have contradicted those who have 
 said that this was an island surrounded 
 by a sea of ice, because these clerics have 
 told me that they went there in the coldest 
 season, and were able to land. It is true 
 they have said, that in wandering to the 
 north of this isle, they have found the 
 entire ocean impenetrable." 
 
 The Culdees, as we see, were enterpris- 
 ing, and if they were not hindered by these 
 unsurmountable barriers of ice, against 
 which have been shattered all the heroic 
 and daring attempts from Pythias to 
 
 96 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 Nansen, they would have carried their Celtic 
 doctrines and civilization far beyond Ice- 
 land, wherever man was found, and have 
 planted there the Gal Greine or Sunburst 
 of the Gael. 
 
 In the direction of the north, Iceland was 
 their final goal, and when the Northmen 
 landed there in the latter portion of the 
 ninth century, after ravaging the Irish ec- 
 clesiastical establishments that were within 
 their reach, the monks ceded the place to 
 them, and wandered into other lands. But 
 Are Frodhe says in his "Islendina, Segur," 
 1843, ''Some of those monks, however, 
 remained in the country of Iceland. It 
 was evidently an Irishman, or his de- 
 scendant, who in 986, A. D., accompanied 
 Erick Raudhe in his expedition into 
 Greenland, and composed a poem 
 entitled ''Hafderdingar," of which the re- 
 frain has been preserved in the Landnam- 
 abok, thus, ''I pray that Power who 
 submitted the monks to those salutary tests, 
 to favor my voyage ; that the Master of the 
 
 97 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 celestial vault reaches out to me a helping 
 hand." 
 
 The same author remarks, "There were 
 in Iceland, at this time. Christians, whom 
 the Sagas tell us were Irish, and whom the 
 Norwegians called Papae, but these latter 
 departed, because they did not wish to re- 
 main with the Pagan Northmen. They 
 left behind them, Irish books, bells and 
 crosses, from which it was justly concluded 
 that they were Irish." 
 
 In another place the Landnamabok or 
 Book of Invasions says, "Before Iceland 
 was colonized by the Norwegians, there 
 had been in the island some men whom the 
 Northmen called Papae. They were Chris- 
 tians, and it is asserted and believed they 
 came from some country west of the ocean, 
 for the objects found among them must cer- 
 tainly have come from Ireland. They had 
 a church dedicated to St. Columbcille, and 
 was built in honor of Aslof-Aslik, one of a 
 dozen Irish teachers who had been estab- 
 lished in Rengarthnig, and who did not 
 
 98 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 wish to have any intercourse with the sur- 
 rounding Pagans." The things thus found 
 were made at Papey and Papylae. We see 
 thus by EngHsh books that there existed 
 an intercourse between them. 
 
 All the archipelagoes of the northern 
 seas, as well as Iceland, have been trav- 
 elled and colonized by the Culdees, but 
 being impeded by the ice they were unable 
 to push their investigations further, and 
 stopped from their labors by the North- 
 men in their inhumanity and brutality of 
 conquest, they were obliged to recoil before 
 them, as formerly the Phoenicians before 
 the Greeks, and attempt new discoveries 
 in this ocean, which even to them had not 
 deceived any of their hopes. They 
 boarded their currachs once more and from 
 tempest to tempest, from storm to storm, 
 they finally landed on American soil which 
 they named ''Irland It Mikla" or "Greater 
 Ireland." 
 
 Beauvais in his "Discovery of the New 
 World by the Irish" and his "First Traces 
 
 LOFa 
 
 99 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 of Christianity in America Before the Year 
 i,ooo A. D.," gives an elaborate account 
 of the civihzation and humanity of those 
 Irish Culdees from the tenth to the four- 
 teenth century, and quotes authorities to 
 which we, alas, have not access, all em- 
 inent French explorers and missionaries, 
 who had no purpose to serve nor vanity to 
 gratify, but only to tell the truth, of what 
 they found, to their own countrymen who 
 sent them. 
 
 The Scandinavian Sagas are practically 
 in accord with these stories of our own, 
 and only differ in being more full and giv- 
 ing our people greater credit for those early 
 exploits than we claim for them, for we 
 have been taught a false modesty in con- 
 ceding to the Spaniard, the Italian, the 
 Englishman and the Jew, the deeds which 
 should shine as halos in our own bright, 
 lustrous crowns. 
 
 I GO 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 Irland It Mikla (Greater Ireland.) 
 
 The Culdees profiting by their former 
 experience with the savagery of the North, 
 took good care on this occasion to guard 
 their discoveries and watched with jealous 
 care, lest they should become known on the 
 European side of the Atlantic. These are 
 the Northmen from Iceland who estab- 
 lished themselves on these new domains, 
 and it is in the works written by them, 
 that we shall find the proof of this first 
 establishment of a true Celtic civilization in 
 the New World. 
 
 Three Icelandic works speak of ''Ir- 
 land It Mikla" or Greater Ireland. The 
 first is the " Landnamabok" or "Book of 
 Invasions of Iceland." It is a genealogical 
 history of the principal Icelandic families 
 from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries. 
 It was composed or begun by Are 
 
 lOI 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 Thorgilsson, surnamed Frodhe, or the 
 philosopher, and completed by five other 
 historians or genealogists. 
 
 Are Frodhe lived from 1067 to 1148, A. 
 D., and thus speaks of his great-grand- 
 father, Are Marsson. "Are the son of 
 Mar and of Thorkatla was driven by a 
 tempest on the Huitramannaland, that 
 some call " Irland It Mikla". This coun- 
 try is situated to the west of the sea, near 
 Vinland St. Godha, and they say about six 
 days' journey from Ireland. This was 
 first made known by Rafin, Hlymreksfare, 
 who had for a long time lived in Hlymrek 
 in Ireland." 
 
 "Thorkell Gellisson reports also that 
 some Icelanders said they learned from 
 Thorfinn, chief of the Orkneys, that Ar^ 
 had been met and known in Huitramanna- 
 land; that he could not leave it but was 
 treated with great honor there as chieftain ; 
 that Rafin who lived a long time in Lim- 
 erick, Ireland, got his information from 
 Irish voyagers returned from America." 
 
 102 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 Here then is an Icelander, At6 Marsson, 
 thrown by a tempest on a land where he 
 was well received by the people, who would 
 not permit him to return again to his own 
 country. The reports of these voyagers 
 spread nevertheless, and there are two Ice- 
 landers, Rafin and Thorkell Gellisson, 
 who transmitted them to the compilers of 
 the ''Book of Invasions of Iceland." As 
 this Rafin lived, we are told, for a long time 
 in Limerick, Ireland, it is safe for us to as- 
 sume that he gleaned the information from 
 those Celtic sailors who had ventured be- 
 yond the Atlantic waves and on their 
 return home had reported the story of 
 their travels. 
 
 As to Thorkell Gellisson, he was the 
 paternal uncle of Are Frodha. He had 
 voyaged much, learned much, and trans- 
 mitted a great deal to his nephew, through 
 whom the story and facts have been pre- 
 served, which we ought to have had made 
 known centuries ago, but which like all 
 other attributes and facts of our former 
 
 103 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 greatness have been studiously destroyed, 
 and nothing preserved by those trusted 
 few, but something detrimental to our 
 fame or character, painted to exaggeration, 
 to show a necessity for redeeming us. 
 Yes, men who claim to be our countrymen 
 have actually belied their ow^n ancestors 
 for the sake of a living and left it for the 
 French and the German scholars to undo 
 what they had villainously done. 
 
 These facts, then, rest upon the testi- 
 mony of the chief of the Orcades or West- 
 ern Isles, who told of a country colonized 
 by the Irish Culdees, and who, without 
 doubt, had preserved some relations with 
 the other colonies founded by the same 
 order of men; that they occupied a great 
 country to the west, and that they hindered 
 all the navigators, who, either by hazard 
 or storm, had been driven on the shore 
 from landing in their newly acquired terri- 
 tory. 
 
 But we have a new fragment of Irish 
 chronology, more conclusive still. It is 
 
 104 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA 
 
 taken from the Eyrbyggia Saga, which was 
 composed in 1148, A. D., before the Irish 
 submitted to the king of Norway, in 1204, 
 A. D. It has been pubHshed twice on 
 the continent of Europe in its entirety in 
 1782, A. D., at Copenhagen, and in 1864, 
 A. D., at Leipsic. Beauvais has given 
 extracts from it in his ^'Scandinavian Dis- 
 coveries in America from the X. to the 
 XIII. Centuries." It is a history of 
 notable persons of the peninsular of Thor- 
 ness and of Erbygges in Western Iceland. 
 According to this Saga, Bjern, son of As- 
 brand, was smitten by the charms of the 
 beautiful Thuride of Frodha, and remained 
 on intimate terms with her after his mar- 
 riage with another lady named Thorold. 
 From this followed hostilities and assassi- 
 nations. Being arrested and brought be- 
 fore the chief judge for having killed two 
 of his adversaries, Bjern was sentenced to 
 exile, where he distinguished himself for 
 his bravery and returned to Iceland after 
 six years, but always preserving the same 
 
 105 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 affection for his former love Thuride. 
 Compromised by his assiduities and pur- 
 sued by the hatred of the family of Thuride 
 who did not favor her illegitimate relations, 
 Bjern was exiled a second time, and set sail 
 under a strong northeasterly wind which 
 blew continually for a long period. Noth- 
 ing is heard of this ship for several years 
 afterwards. 
 
 1 06 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 Irish Chronology. 
 
 The second exile of Bjern occurred in 
 the year i,ooo, A. D., and about thirty 
 years afterwards, or 1030, towards the end 
 of the supremacy of St. Olaf, a rich Ice- 
 landic ship owner, Gudhlief, having made 
 a voyage to Dublin, Ireland, sailed to- 
 wards the west, returning into Iceland, 
 but a strong northeastern wind drove him 
 so far to sea, towards the west or south- 
 west, that he lost his course and did not 
 know where to land. Towards the end of 
 Summer his sailors prayed and made vows, 
 in case they should be preserved from ship- 
 wreck, and very soon after they descried 
 land at a distance which proved to be a 
 veryjarge tract, that they knew nothing 
 about, forjhey had never seen it or heard 
 of it before this occasion. 
 
 Gudhlief and his crew, fatigued by a 
 
 107 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 long and dreary voyage, were glad to meet 
 land and as soon as the opportunity offered 
 came ashore. They found a good port 
 and were only a little while landed when 
 some men arrived to meet them, of whom 
 they knew nothing save that they spoke the 
 Irish language. Soon this multitude, in- 
 creased to several hundreds, assailed the 
 navigators, seized them all as captives, 
 secured them with chains, and brought 
 them inland to the high country. 
 
 They were conducted before an assembly 
 to be judged, where they learned from the 
 conversation and discussions, that some 
 of the people wished to end their career at 
 once by massacre, but that others, more 
 lenient and humane, counselled saving their 
 lives, but reducing them to slavery for a 
 time and dividing them among the several 
 communities or tribes. 
 
 During the deliberations, they saw ap- 
 proaching a troup of horsemen bearing a 
 standard resembling the Irish flag, from 
 which they concluded that the chief of 
 
 io8 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 the assembly was of the company. When 
 the troop arrived, they saw riding beneath 
 the banner, a noble and vigorous looking 
 man, already aged and hair tinged with 
 gray. All the assistants bowed before this 
 personage and received him with every 
 mark of honor. To him was left the final 
 settlement of the affair. 
 
 The old man, came to seek Gudhlief 
 and his people, and speaking to them in 
 a northern language asked them from 
 what country did they hail. Gudhlief re- 
 plied that the majority came from Iceland. 
 "And which of you comes from Iceland?" 
 Gudhlief said he was one of them, and 
 saluted the old man who saluted him and 
 received him so kindly and asked him, 
 "From which part of Iceland are you?" 
 Gudhlief said he was from the Cantred of 
 Borgarfoerdh. He then questioned him 
 about all the personages in the locality of 
 any standing, as well as those in the district 
 lying around Brerdhaf joerdh. In this con- 
 versation he asked him of everything in 
 
 109 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 particular regarding Snorre Godha, and 
 his sister Thuride of Frodha; but above all 
 of Kjartan, son of Thuride, who was at 
 that time master of Frodha. 
 
 As the inhabitants were growing im- 
 patient and demanded a speedy solution 
 of the affair, the chief declared that he 
 should let the strangers go free, but said in 
 confidence to Gudhlief: "Now that the 
 Summer is well advanced, I advise you to 
 set sail from here prom.ptly, because it 
 is not necessary or good that you trust 
 yourselves too much to the inhabitants, as 
 they are now annoyed and believe that the 
 law has been violated in your favor." 
 
 "But," said Gudhlief, "if we should ever 
 arrive in our native country, who, shall we 
 say, has saved us from this catastrophe?" 
 "I cannot tell you that," said he, "for I 
 would not wish my parents, friends or 
 brothers-in-arms, to know where I am, lest 
 they might make a voyage here as you 
 have done and then, perhaps, I might not 
 be here to protect them. There are in this 
 
 no 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 land chiefs more powerful than I am, 
 although not in this locality where you 
 landed, but if they chanced to be here they 
 would have little regard for strangers." 
 
 In spite of the entreaties of the Icelanders 
 the old chief would not tell his name, but 
 pressed their departure, assisted them in 
 embarking and gave them many presents 
 destined for Thuride and her son, but in 
 parting admonished them sternly, "If any- 
 body shall insist on knowing or believing to 
 know from whom those objects come, tell 
 them from me that I object, and that I 
 oppose anyone, whoever he may be, com- 
 ing on my part, to find me. It would be a 
 dangerous enterprise, unless it should hap- 
 pen them as it did you, that they should 
 get a favorable landing place. This coun- 
 try is large and badly provided with places 
 to land, but above all, tell them, that there 
 is a very bad reception given to strangers." 
 Gudhlief and his crew betook themselves 
 immediately to their ships, and arrived in 
 Dublin, Ireland, late in the Autumn, where 
 
 III 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 they spent the Winter. The following 
 Spring they set sail for Iceland, where they 
 arrived in good season, and delivered the 
 presents to their proper destination. Some 
 writers hold for certain that this chief was 
 Bjern, but there is no proof for it, other 
 than this we have just quoted. 
 
 No doubt, these adventures are very 
 romantic, and the fortuitous meeting of 
 Bjern and Gudhlief appear arranged to 
 suit, but it is not incredible and besides 
 it is preserved in an Icelandic Saga, whose 
 authenticity has never been contested. 
 But if we accept the truth of this story, we 
 must conclude that the two Icelanders, 
 Bjern and Gudhlief, have both been cast 
 by a tempest in a civilized country, sit- 
 uated far to the west, where the Irish lan- 
 guage was freely spoken, but where the 
 inhabitants, for reasons of self-preservation, 
 either massacred or reduced to slavery, all 
 those plundering Northmen, who chanced 
 to come among them. Then, again, this 
 country was situated to the west of Ireland 
 
 112 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 and of Iceland, in the direction of America, 
 and appears to correspond to the Irland It 
 Mikla, where Are the son of Marsson, had 
 previously landed. 
 
 A third Saga, that of Thorfinn Karlsefne, 
 composed from the accounts of one of the 
 many Northmen, who discovered Vinland, 
 contains a passage of great importance, rel 
 ative to the establishment of the Irish in 
 the New World. It is said that some time 
 about the year i,ooo, A. D., Thorfinn and 
 his companions after having passed three 
 years in Vinland, or America, were return- 
 ing into Greenland, when they found upon 
 their way five Skroelligs or Esquimaux, a 
 man v/ith beard, two women and two chil- 
 dren. The people of the Karlsefne, cap- 
 tured the children, but the man and the 
 women escaped and hid among the bur- 
 rows of the rocks. The children were 
 taken along and soon learned the northern 
 language, when they told their captors that 
 "their father's name was Uvaege, and their 
 mother they called Vetthilde. They said 
 
 113 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 that the Skroelhgs were controlled by two 
 kings or chiefs, one called Avalldania, and 
 the other Valldidida; that they had no 
 houses, but dwelt among the rocks or in 
 holes in the earth ; that another great coun- 
 try close to theirs was inhabited by a people 
 who dressed in white, and often when trav- 
 elling in great numbers carried poles from 
 which hung long pieces of cloth, while they 
 cried aloud: "This great country is be- 
 lieved to have been Huitramannaland or 
 Irland It Mikla." 
 
 Who were those people, dressed in white ? 
 Who, but the ancient Culdees, or some of 
 the original inhabitants, amongst whom 
 they settled, and who retained faithfully 
 the costume of Columbcille. Perhaps, 
 these were the Indian tribes who were called 
 Cneistneaux by the French (the letters 
 "r" and "n" are commutable). They 
 dwelt close to the great lakes, west of Mich- 
 igan. What were these poles borne aloft 
 and hung with draperies; and what were 
 these chants, which had struck and had so 
 
 IT4 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 much affected the imaginations of the 
 young Esquimaux? Is it not easy to rec- 
 ognize a procession of some chanters, of 
 which those Culdees would have preserved 
 the custom even in their new country? 
 The Icelandic Saga of Thorfinn says so, 
 and reference is made to those early Irish- 
 men in each of five manuscripts, preserved 
 in Iceland, and published by Rafin in his 
 "American Antiquities," and by the 
 "Greenland Historical Society" in their 
 transactions. 
 
 115 
 
CHAPTER XVII . 
 Irish Documentary Proofs. 
 
 From these three Irish documents, pre- 
 served by the Landnamabok, the Eyrbyg- 
 gia, and the Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne, 
 it is proved that the Irish had discovered, 
 in the West, a country, to which they gave 
 the name of Irland It Mikla, or "Greater 
 Ireland." That this other name of " Huit- 
 ramannaland" or "Land Where Man 
 Dressed in White" recalls the customs of 
 the Culdees; that they had preserved the 
 usages of the Celtic language, and remained 
 faithful to their Celtic civilization; that 
 they celebrated with processions and the 
 singing of hymns; and finally that they 
 were without pity for shipwrecked sailors, 
 because, being themselves several times 
 pursued and banished from their settle- 
 ments, by the cruel Northmen, they wished 
 to ensure future security, and for that 
 
 ii6 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 reason concealed, as niuch as possible, 
 all their discoveries. America, therefore, 
 has been known and partly colonized by 
 the Irish, and although the testimony from 
 their own literature fails in precision owing 
 to the immense quantity of their native 
 books that were ruthlessly destroyed, still 
 the existence of Irland It Mikla can and 
 must be considered as an established his- 
 torical fact. 
 
 Two other documents, the one of Ital- 
 ian origin, the other from the province of 
 Gaul, confirm the realty of this coloniza- 
 tion of America by the Irish long before 
 Columbus dreamt of venturing on the 
 Atlantic storms. 
 
 At the end of the fourteenth century, 
 two patricians of Venice, Nicolo and An- 
 tonio Zeno, compelled by the chances of 
 an adventurous life, in the regions, situ- 
 ated in the Northwest of Europe, visited, 
 one after another the countries formerly 
 colonized by the Culdees or white-robed 
 monks of the Irish Cult. They wrote an 
 
 117 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 account of their voyages, and described 
 all the countries visited in glowing pictures 
 and eloquent words. In describing the 
 Faroe Islands they said: "About the year 
 1360, A. D., an old fisherman belonging to 
 one of those islands had been beyond the 
 Atlantic and there saw a large country, 
 very rich and very populous." 
 
 But before the Zenos, in the time of King 
 Robert of Sicily, another Italian, Edrisi, re- 
 counts a curious piece of intelligence which 
 he learned from one of the Northmen at 
 the court of King Robert (1130-54) A. D. 
 "Four fishing vessels set sail westward, 
 but soon they were assailed by a violent 
 storm which blew for several days in the 
 same direction, until they were driven from 
 their known course, and had lost all knowl- 
 edge of their whereabouts in the ocean. 
 When it grew calm, they discovered an 
 island far to the west, and named it 
 Estotiland. They thought themselves then 
 more than one thousand miles from Fries- 
 land, their native home. One of the 
 
 118 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 vessels and six men were taken by the nati- 
 ves to a village or community which was 
 very thickly populated, where the chief lived. 
 He asked them several questions but neither 
 one could understand the other. The 
 chief however sent out one of his subordi- 
 nates, who soon returned with another 
 stranger that was able to talk with them 
 in their own language. He asked them, 
 on behalf of the king, who they were and 
 where did they come from, and told them 
 that he had been driven upon the island 
 himself some years previously, and had 
 made his home there. 
 
 When the king or chief was told about 
 them, he resolved to make them prisoners, 
 They had no choice, but submit readily, 
 as the best policy. They remained here for 
 five years and learned the language of the 
 natives. One of them visited several 
 places, and v/hen, later, he visited his native 
 land, gave his lord an accurate and lengthy 
 account of what he observed. 
 He described it as "very rich, abundantly 
 
 119 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 provided with all the goods of the world, 
 and a little smaller than Iceland, but 
 much more fertile. About the middle of it 
 was a very high mountain from which four 
 streams flowed that watered the entire land. 
 The inhabitants were ingenious and as far 
 advanced as the Frieslanders, where they 
 must have originally traded, because they 
 observed in the king's hall several books 
 which, however, they could not understand 
 for their language and alphabet differed 
 much from that of the Frieslanders. They 
 work mines and have gold in abundance. 
 They have commercial relations with 
 Greenland, from which they get skins in 
 exchange for sulphur and pitch. South of 
 this was an immense region, very rich and 
 very populous, where the people cultivate 
 grain and make a kind of drink which is 
 greatly in use among those western peoples, 
 like wine among the Italians. They have 
 towns, villages, and mansions; they con- 
 struct vessels and navigate but they know 
 nothing of the usage of the lodestone, or 
 
 1 20 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 governing their ships by the direction of 
 the North Pole." 
 
 "According to these extraordinary ad- 
 ventures of which more shall be said 
 elsewhere, this fisherman of Friesland, 
 succeeded in equipping his vessel at their 
 expense and returned to his native country, 
 where he reported to his lord the discov- 
 ery of such a rich country." 
 
 Now what was this rich country, and 
 who were those civilized people, dwelling 
 upon what seemed to those wanderers to 
 be an island ? Their name, their mode of 
 living, their caution against admitting 
 strangers, and above all, their library of 
 strange books at such an early period 
 would prove that they were either Celts or 
 Greeks ; but as it is well known the Greeks 
 did not go so far west until centuries later, 
 while the Irish Celts were, for several 
 reasons missionaries, both to the west and 
 to the east, it is fair to assume that this 
 highly civilized people were no other than 
 the Irish Culdees, who, to escape the 
 
 121 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 savage civilization of the South and the plun- 
 dering hordes of the north of Europe, 
 went West, where they could enjoy in 
 peace, the fruits of their labor. 
 
 We believe that this land corresponds 
 exactly with Irland It Mikla, not only be- 
 cause its inhabitants had preserved the 
 customs, as in the time of Bjern and 
 Gudhlief, of fortifying themselves against 
 strangers, by detaining them as prisoners, 
 but above all because they enjoyed such 
 a very advanced civilization, seen by the 
 words of the Friesland fisherman, and had 
 considerable communication with Europe. 
 
 122 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Literature of the Period 
 Establishing New Facts. 
 
 Again, they had a literature, their king 
 possessed a library, and without forcing 
 the conclusion very much we can say that 
 the Latin books, found in this library were 
 brought there by the Culdees, who carried 
 them very carefully with them in all their 
 wanderings. True, indeed, they may not 
 have comprehended the Latin tongue, 
 but then we must remember that these 
 Americans of Irish origin had no teachers 
 schooled in the Universities of Ireland. 
 
 It is not alone the name of Estotiland, 
 which lends a new proof to this probable 
 identity of Irland It Mikla, and of this 
 country discovered by the Friesland fisher- 
 men; for Ireland, during all the Middle 
 Ages is called Scotia or Scotland; and if 
 the first editor of the voyages of the Zenoes, 
 
 123 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 had misunderstood his text, and printed 
 Estotiland for Escotiland, it is quite pos- 
 sible that the Escotilanders descended in 
 fact from the Irish colony, of which we 
 have already told the story. For a further 
 account of this colony we refer the reader 
 to the "Voyages of the Venetian Brothers, 
 Nicolo and Antonio Zeno, to the Northern 
 Seas in the Fourteenth Century" which was 
 published in English, in London, in 1873. 
 It is true that many ages have rolled 
 since the days when Bjern and Gudhlief 
 exchanged their compliments, to the days 
 when Zeno wrote about his voyages, and 
 in this interval of near four hundred years, 
 we find little or nothing in contemporary 
 documents, which would allow us to war- 
 rant, that the Irish of Europe had not 
 forgotten their brothers in America, but it 
 is none the less very probable that some 
 other mariner should wish to visit a coun- 
 try that had so enriched a number of his 
 brave companions. There is no doubt, 
 the reports of these voyages have not been 
 
 134 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 preserved in history, although they ought 
 to be by right and authenticity, and it is 
 only by admitting the existence of Irland 
 It Mikla, that we can explain a very 
 curious Gaulish document, whose authen- 
 ticity was never denied or even contested, 
 and which appears to us to apply to this 
 mysterious region so long ago colonized by 
 the Irish monks. 
 
 In the twelfth century, about the year 
 1 1 70, a dispute arose between the sons of 
 Owen Guyneth, king of Western Gaul, 
 concerning the succession to the throne. 
 Madoc, one of these princes, wearied and 
 disgusted by these discussions, decided to 
 emigrate, and seek a more tranquil so- 
 journ. He directed his course, straight 
 for the west, and leaving Ireland far be- 
 hind him, he arrived in a strange country, 
 which appeared so agreeable to him, that 
 he returned to his own country and took 
 with him a number of his followers, whom 
 he persuaded without much trouble to ex- 
 change a cold and sterile country for a 
 
 12 
 
 $ 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 magnificent region ; and the disturbances of a 
 civil war for the peaceful possession of a 
 country which no one could dispute. 
 
 But David Powell, the Gaulish historian, 
 who has preserved this curious and valu- 
 able history, is not the only one who can 
 be brought forward in support of Madoc. 
 A bard, his co-patriot, Meredith, by name, 
 also records the voyages of this Madoc 
 in the unknown western seas. Now, this 
 bard lived a long time before the discovery 
 by Columbus, when no one could be sus- 
 pected of having invented this story for 
 the purpose of national conceit, or of giving 
 to his country a glory which it did not 
 deserve. 
 
 The writer, Hakluyt, who published an 
 account of the voyages of the English na- 
 tion in 1600, A.D., quotes largely from this 
 bard, but there is a better account given in 
 the Gallic Triades, a work which appears 
 to be transcribed in the twelfth century, 
 and refers to the losses suffered by the Isle 
 of Bretagne in Macdewag, Ab. Owen 
 
 126 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 Gwyned, who with six hundred men, em- 
 barked in six ships, and arrived they knew 
 not where. 
 
 But this tradition, then, is it true? 
 Most certainly it is. The inhabitants of 
 the principality of Gaul, have always been 
 energetic mariners. The coasts indented 
 with bays and harbors, the wooded hills 
 which descend almost to the very waves, 
 the continual view of the ocean, all, as 
 well as the traditions of their ancestors, 
 contribute to inspire them with the idea 
 of voyages beyond the seas. They had 
 not forgotten, neither their King Arthur, 
 nor the mysterious Avallon, who, they ex- 
 pected some day, would chase the Saxons; 
 but above all, every Gaul expected to meet 
 this much-desired land in one of his fishing 
 trips upon the ocean. 
 
 127 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Gauls and the Whaling 
 
 Industry. 
 
 The Gauls, in fact, were the first to pur- 
 sue the whale from the shore into the deep 
 sea, and braving the tempest led back their 
 dead captive, as an emblem of adventure 
 and trophy. When dividing the spoils the 
 harpooner received one-fourth more than 
 his comrades, as a token of their apprecia- 
 tion of his skill and daring. 
 
 In these difficult voyages, carried on for 
 passion or cupidity, they have often gone 
 beyond the limits of their maritime ex- 
 periences, and perhaps surprised by a 
 tempest, they were driven upon unknown 
 shores, which would be quite natural, when 
 we recall that the space from where they 
 hunted the whale to the American shores 
 was only a short distance, and also the 
 astonishing voyages that were taken in 
 
 128 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 these frail barks. Some of them, who re- 
 turned, recounted the marvels of the coun- 
 try which they had visited, and this, in itself 
 was enough to excite in all the nation the 
 ardor of adventure. The chiefs of the 
 country were effected, and one of them 
 more daring than the others, resolved to see 
 the glories of the great western land, the 
 "Greater Ireland" of his fathers. 
 
 Some say that the voyage of Madoc, 
 had been invented from several others, 
 and that Powell and Hakluyt had fab- 
 ricated it, to sustain and legalize the pro- 
 jects of Walter Raleigh, who, as his name 
 shows, O'Rahallaigh or O'Reilly, was of 
 Celtic origin. But here let us remark, 
 that the English are not illustrations of like 
 or similar analogies. Whenever they want 
 to establish themselves in a country, they 
 do not look to precedents or the arguments 
 of retrospective eruditions except with a 
 view to deceive, and only look to brutal 
 force which has always characterized their 
 settlements, and scruple not at the means 
 
 129 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 employed so long as the desired end is ac- 
 complished. Success is their object, and 
 once accomplished, with "whatever is is 
 right" both church and state sing in con- 
 cert, "the end justifies the means." 
 
 Besides, the reign of Elizabeth, which was 
 an open war with Spain, had little time to 
 spare, and little cared for its rights to pos- 
 session in the New World, seeing its own 
 very existence was in danger, and we can 
 affirm it boldly, that the haughty and gal- 
 lant Raleigh never dreamt to pose as the 
 heir and successor to the Gaulish Madoc. 
 It was thus in a virgin country, and at the 
 head of a purely English expedition that 
 Raleigh intended to create in America a 
 new England, greater than the old. 
 
 If the bard, Meredith, or the historian, 
 Powell, or if the compiler of the "Triades" 
 have re-told the voyage of Madoc, it is 
 because the voyage was really executed, 
 and that all things happened in it as it was 
 recorded. We must not reject it because 
 of tradition, for no less an authority than 
 
 130 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 the great Humboldt, says in^referring to a 
 similar matter, "I have not indulged in, 
 nor do I sanction the contempt with which 
 these national traditions have been treated. 
 I have, on the contrary, the firm persua- 
 sion, that with more assiduity in that 
 direction, facts, entirely unknown to-day, 
 shall be brought to light, which will give 
 much explanation to intricate historic 
 problems." 
 
 We shall now endeavor to show from 
 what country the Gaulish prince set sail, 
 and to what people he belonged. Hakluyt 
 pretended to find it in Yucatan, and he 
 gave it as proof, the great number of 
 crosses found in this country by the Span- 
 iards in the sixteenth century; but the 
 worship of the cross was propagated in 
 America and the Old World ages before 
 Christianity. This, then, proves nothing. 
 
 Horn, also, believed in the reality of 
 Madoc's voyage, but thought that he landed 
 in Virginia. He attempted to support it by 
 the traditions of the native Indians. He 
 
 131 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 recalled that the Virginia Indians ren- 
 dered homage to a certain Madeczunga or 
 Madinga, whose name presented a certain 
 analogy to that of Madoc. Laertes, enumer- 
 ates with complacency, fifty words used 
 by the Virginia Indians, and which are 
 analogous to the Gaelic These resem- 
 blances have been more signally marked 
 by Ulloa in his "Philosophical Memoirs of 
 the Discovery of America," but a great 
 portion of them would appear forced to 
 any but Celtic scholars, and it is for this 
 reason that Robertson endeavored to rid- 
 icule them in his ''History of America," 
 edition of 1777. Shall we, then, conclude 
 from the identity of the Virginian and 
 Gaelic tongues, because that the former, in 
 the time of Raleigh, had a Gaelic salute or 
 address. Hoa, horis, loch; or else they 
 called the bread, bara; the egg, toy; the 
 mother, mam; the father, tas; the barrel 
 of a pen, colaf; a fox, clynog; a nose, 
 trwyn, or the heaven, neaf . Perhaps these 
 resemblances are accidental, or may have 
 
 132 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 been introduced at a very late epoch. To 
 tell the truth, the necessities of contempor- 
 ary science absolutely repels a parallel sys- 
 tem of proofs. 
 
 But they have still maintained upon other 
 points of America, some pretended traces 
 of the Gaelic language. Thus Torres 
 Caicedo, in the Revue Americaine says, 
 that the Tuneba language, spoken by the 
 Indians of Tierro Adentro, in the province 
 of Tunja, north of New Granada, abounds 
 in Gaulish words, which they have used 
 for a very long time. 
 
 133 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Filson's Proof of the Celtic Tongue 
 
 BEING Spoken by American Indians. 
 
 Now where did this Madoc, in 1170, 
 settle among his kindred people ? We can 
 only, now, conjecture, but offer you some 
 of the many evidences that exist. Filson 
 in his "History of Kentucky" tells of 
 one Captain Abraham, who in the Revo- 
 lutionary War, was cast among a tribe of 
 Indians, that conversed freely in the Gaelic 
 tongue with a number of Gallo-French 
 soldiers, who were with him. The French- 
 men understood the Indians thoroughly, 
 and from them learned a great deal 
 concerning themselves and the western 
 country. 
 
 Another Gaul, named Beatty, was one 
 day surprised by a party of Carolina sav- 
 ages, who prepared to kill him, as our 
 highly civilized nations would a supposed 
 
 134 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 spy. A minister of God, by trade, he 
 looked to heaven for sympathy and assist- 
 ance, and loudly addressed a few words 
 to the invisible powers, for pardon of past 
 offences. He was fortunate. They were 
 not spoken in Latin, English, or Hebrew, 
 but in good, plain Gaelic, and they were 
 not spoken in vain, for it was the language 
 of his captors, who, instead of executing 
 him, took him some distance inward where 
 they had a flourishing colony, and where he 
 had the pleasure of preaching to them on 
 several occasions; but what surprised him 
 most was a roll of manuscript which they 
 showed him, and told him was a copy of 
 their own sacred Celtic Scriptures in their 
 own tongue and script, but entirely dif- 
 ferent from anything he had ever seen. In 
 his "Journal of Two Months" he refers 
 to this episode at great length, and is sup- 
 ported by the "Philosophical Memoirs" 
 of Lefebre, who quotes another adventurer 
 named Sutton, that was fortunate enough 
 to fall among this same Indian tribe. 
 
 135 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 Owen in his "British Antiquities" cites 
 another pecuHar case of one Morgan Jones, 
 who was made prisoner by the Doegs and 
 Tuscaroras of Virginia, in 1685, A. D., but 
 was spared by them because he spoke their 
 own language. "They treated us most 
 affably," writes Mr. Jones, "I spoke to 
 them on numerous things in the Gallic 
 language, and preached three sermons for 
 them, every week, in Gallic. It gave them 
 great pleasure to communicate their most 
 difficult affairs to me, and when we were 
 leaving them, they treated us with much 
 civiUty and manliness." 
 
 It is certainly not necessary to place a 
 confidence too absolute in these testimonies, 
 of which some have, perhaps, been invented 
 in later days, and a little suspected, but 
 still it shows that the tradition of Madoc 
 has never been lost, even in America, and 
 that it was not the Irish alone, who knew of 
 a great western island, called Greater 
 Ireland, but that their kinsmen, the Gauls, 
 were well aware of the existence of this 
 
 136 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 land, and when Madoc set out to visit 
 his kinsmen, he was well aware of their 
 existence, and the location they occupied. 
 
 Now, it is not in Yucatan, Virginia, Car- 
 olina, Kentucky, or New Granada, that 
 we must seek the site of the colony headed 
 by Madoc. It is only in Irland It Mikla 
 that we are sure to find it. The Irish and 
 the Gauls are, in fact, the same race. 
 They have always had kindred relations 
 and intercommunications. It is thus we 
 see by the Pagan and Christian legends of 
 which we have given the analysis, that the 
 Gauls as well as the Irish, believed in the 
 existence of isles and continents on the 
 other side of the Atlantic. 
 
 In spite of the precaution taken by the 
 Irish, for the purpose of hiding their mar- 
 itime discoveries, it was impossible that 
 vague rumors should not be known, and 
 especially to their neighbors and kinsmen, 
 the Gauls. So it was, that when Madoc 
 formed the project of emigrating, it was 
 not to chance, that he entrusted his 
 
 137 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 adventures upon the ocean. He knew of the 
 existence of *'Irland It Mikla," and it was 
 there that he particularly directed his steps, 
 where he was sure to find before him, some 
 of his kinsmen, and consequently, expected 
 a good and a hearty reception. 
 
 13S 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The Implanting of the Cross on 
 American Soil. 
 
 Nothing now remains but to find the 
 site of this Irland It Mikla, this land of 
 asylum in the Middle Ages, where was sue 
 cessively sheltered ,the Irish, chased from 
 their maritime possessions by the North- 
 men, and the Gauls, who left their homes, 
 to search adventure beyond the seas. 
 
 Several savants are unwilling to repro- 
 duce an assertion of Rafin, who placed 
 ''Irland It Mikla" in the middle portion 
 of the United States, and founded his state- 
 ment upon a vague tradition of the Savan- 
 nah Indians, according to which Florida 
 should have been formerly inhabited by 
 men of a white race, who used iron tools. 
 He further alleges pretended analogy of 
 language and persistent traces of Chris- 
 tianity there. Beauvais, however, 
 
 139 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 in his "Discovery of the New World by the 
 Irish" has demonstrated by an attentive 
 study of texts, and a rigid argumentation, 
 that the true position of "Irland It Mikla" 
 should be placed much further to the north, 
 perhaps, somewhere round the Gulf of St. 
 Lawrence. 
 
 It resulted in fact from different pass- 
 ages in the Northern Sagas, that "Irland It 
 Mikla" was situated between Helluland 
 and Vinland. Helluland, according to the 
 voyages of the Northmen in America, was 
 our present Labrador, and Vinland cor- 
 responded nearly to the present States of 
 New York, Rhode Island and Massachu- 
 setts; and as they placed Irland It Mikla 
 between those two countries, it must have 
 occupied the southern shores of the St. 
 Lawrence and the islands which stud the 
 Gulf. 
 
 The authenticity of this new theory is 
 confirmed by the continual traces of Chris- 
 tianity, or some other cult with common 
 origin, in this region, when first visited 
 
 140 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 by French missionaries from . Canada. 
 One of these, a Father Le Clerque, was 
 stationed for twelve years (1675-87), in 
 Gaspasia, the region which corresponds to 
 the ancient Huitra-manna-land. 
 
 Very much surprised to find the worship 
 of the cross established among the savages, 
 he was delighted while evangelizing them. 
 He studied their manners and traditions, 
 and on returning'^to France, embodied his 
 observations in a work, now very rare, 
 which was published in Paris 1691. "The 
 ancient worship and religious custom of 
 the Cross," wrote this priest, "which is 
 admired to-day among those savages should 
 persuade us that this people have formerly 
 received a knowledge of the cross, evan- 
 gelism and Christianity, which was lost by 
 the negligence of their ancestors." 
 
 141 
 
CHAPTER XXIL 
 
 Father Le Clerque Concludes that 
 
 THE Cross was Implanted on 
 
 American Soil by the Gauls. 
 
 Father Le Clerque concludes that the 
 civilization of the Cross was implanted in 
 those regions by some Gaulish or kindred 
 people, who venerated the ideas expressed 
 by those symbols. He says, "These In- 
 dians, infidel though they be, hold the 
 cross in great veneration." "They bear 
 it, figured upon their clothes, and upon 
 their skin, they hold it in their hands when 
 travelling either by sea or land, and placed 
 it at both ends of their houses as a mark of 
 honor, to distinguish them from the other 
 tribes of Canada." The good priest en- 
 deavored to find out the origin of this form 
 of worship, but its origin, like that of all 
 forms of religious worship was so obscure, 
 that it was impossible in his day, 1675, to 
 
 142 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 say just when it began. However, he 
 learned enough from their traditions to 
 assert, that they first received a knowledge 
 of the cross from a man who came across 
 the seas and having settled among them, 
 devoted his time to the instruction of the 
 people. One old man said, that "Their 
 ancestors were dying of hunger, when 
 there appeared among them a youth, bear- 
 ing a cross, who told them to adore this 
 emblem of salvation. They obeyed, and 
 were rescued, but to this day, they pre- 
 serve for this sacred sign the most pro- 
 found veneration. 
 
 As Father Le Clerque composed his 
 book at the end of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, it may be objected to on the ground 
 that the Aborigines, with whom he was so 
 much astonished in finding them Chris- 
 tians, almost, had perhaps been evangel- 
 ized by the first Europeans who landed in 
 the country in the sixteenth century, but 
 we reply that those Europeans had been 
 just as much astonished themselves, by 
 
 143 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 the numerous vestiges of Christianity that 
 they had met. 
 
 In 1534, A. D., seeing Jacques Cartier 
 plant a cross upon the coast, the Aborigines 
 had indicated to him by signs, which he 
 found similarly placed in their territory, 
 that they were no strangers to Christianity. 
 At the time of Jean Alphonse, 1541, A. D., 
 their language contained many Latin 
 words which he gives in his manuscripts 
 of 1542. 
 
 In the year 1502, A. D., Champlain 
 found on the shores of the Bay of Fundy, a 
 wooden cross, covered with moss and al- 
 most rotten. On going further inland, 
 he found that the Aborigines, not only made 
 the sign of the cross occasionally, but had 
 it engraved upon their skins, marked upon 
 their clothes, and erected in their cabins. 
 Lescarbot, in his "History of New France" 
 does not hesitate to write "that these 
 people have sprung from some race of men, 
 who have been instructed in the faith of 
 our God." 
 
 144 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 It is easy to multiply examples, but have 
 we not shown enough to prove, that, tra- 
 dition, is in accord with history, in demon- 
 strating, without the shadow of a doubt, 
 the existence in America, of a colony 
 founded by the Irish people, several cen- 
 turies before Columbus left the European 
 shores. 
 
 As I have already written more upon this 
 subject than I originally intended, I will 
 now conclude by calling the attention of all 
 my thinking countrymen and women to 
 the period when our people were the stan- 
 dard bearers of a civilization that was 
 peculiarly their own; that this was at a 
 period when the present Anglo-Italio- Judaic 
 civilization was almost unknown; that 
 either consciously or unconsciously we have 
 neglected our own ideals, and have been 
 the mainstay of these foreign ones, thereby 
 degrading ourselves, and in a correspond- 
 ing degree, elevating those, who, when in 
 position have ruthlessly sacrificed us, and 
 compelled us to carry the cross of their 
 
 145 
 
THE IRISH IN AMERICA. 
 
 civilization instead of our own, producing 
 the conditions as they exist to-day, our igno- 
 rance of the glory and humanity of our an 
 cestors, while we display an immense 
 knowledge of a barbarous European civil- 
 ization which is, and was ever antagonistic 
 to the manners, customs, and welfare of 
 our Celtic Race. 
 
 146 
 
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