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You couldn't tax as many traders or keep check
on people movements through the Antonine like
they could Hadrians.

Hill/alpine tribes be they in Gaul, Iberia or Caledonia
were typically more of a challenge to the Romans,
Some say because they were more 'savage' but probably more due to the fact that Roman tactics
worked best in open ground set-piece battles.

Rome eventually subdued the alpine tribes in Gaul
and Iberia, but didn't bother with the hill tribe
Scots/Caledonians, cause like Hibernia, it was not
deemed worth the effort.

You're probably related to my wife Birdie. It was pretty much a roots trip over there for her last year, me tagging along cause if I don't travel at least somewhere once every few years she gets pissy. She loves to travel.

Anyways, here great grandmother came from Skibbereen, potato famine central although somehow they didn't leave until after. They must have been slightly more well off or lucky than the rest. As you know absolute hoards of people left there, most coming to north America. We went there and checked out the museum next to an old building where many many people died. I had to GTF out of there it was creeping me out.

Cork is cool we had a good time there. Took a boat downstream to Cobh right on the coast, where the Titanic left from actually. Very beautiful area out there. Dublin I would give a bit fat pass if I ever went back. Not that there's anything overly wrong with it but its just a big crowded city with all the big crowded city problems. Up the west coast was nice too. Gallway was cool and then we went way up the west coast and at some point all the sudden no one's speaking English and all the signs are in Irish (Celtic I guess). And they speak a mix of that and English when they see you're a tourist. Fug.... that took a few days to have a clue wtf was going on..

A good chunk of my family were Ulster Scots. We have talked about going over there someday, I would like to see it.

For equal time....

An Orange Order parade through a Catholic town, Maghera, Ulster, July 2016.



Celebrating the Protestant victory at the Battle of the Boyne, 7/1/1690. The Prods did this through Catholic areas just to rub it in, things are different now the Catholics are gaining ground in numbers on the Protestants, but they still do it. Only parade I've seen where no-one was smiling, just muttered curses or stony silence. A heavy police presence.

The orange comes from William of Orange, or King Billy as they refer to him, the Dutch guy who became King of England, laying to rest any possibility of a Catholic ascendancy.



Same parade going away, seemed sorta desolate, its like they're being overwhelmed and I gotta feel for 'em now that the Irish flag is sometimes flown in the Government places in Belfast. Must be like a slap in the face.



But the seeds of hatred on both sides were sown way early, and the Protestants did treat the Catholics in Ulster like crap for generations. There once was a time when these parades were just mean.

On a brighter note; this is the Presbyterian Church in Tobermore, not three miles down the road from Maghera, and clearly a Protestant neighborhood.

Soon as I saw it it struck me how familiar it looked. "We preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord."



Take away that Union Jack and substitute Old Glory and that photo coulda been taken anywhere across our Southern States.

Roots

There's a lot of theories on it. There are (or were) a significant number of Irish that had dark hair and eyes. DNA tests have shown that the founding stock of Ireland in prehistoric times is closest related to modern people of the Basque region of northern Spain and southwest France who do tend to be darker. Ancient Irish folklore tells stories of the early settlement of Ireland by the "Sons of Mil" which is often attributed to people from Iberia. It's all prehistoric oral tradition so probably not very reliable, but interestingly an Iberian connection does seem to be shown through the DNA studies. Here's a wikipedia link about Mil Espaine: Mil Espaine

That the original Irish would be darker isn't surprising, DNA studies have shown that most early celtic inhabitants of what's now England were darker too. The blue eyes and blond hair came to England with the later Germanic and Viking invasions. In the case of the Irish I think the red & blond hair and blue eyes probably did come later too. Dublin was settled by the Vikings and a few hundred years later the Normans arrived with Strongbow's invasion. The Normans were just Vikings that stopped in France and England for a bit. Just like the Angle/Saxon/Jute invasions of what would become England, the Normans were invited into Ireland by local chieftains who wanted their help killing their rival chieftains. They didn't just one day decide to show up and move in, the local infighting resulted in their recruitment to come help one side over another. I think there's a lot more viking/norman DNA in Ireland than many think.

https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/genealogy/irish-viking-norman-dna

Also, ironically there was plenty of food in Ireland during the potato famine, Ireland was exporting food to Britain the whole time. Ireland was essentially one big plantation dedicated to growing food for England and any decent farmland was owned by either English or Anglo-Irish landlords. The English weren't so benevolent in those days and didn't give one whit whether the natives starved while they exported grain and beef to England. The natives were left the poorest land and their mainstay crop was potatoes. When the potato blight hit they were left to starve while the English landowners happily shipped the profitable crops and cattle to England. Welfare wasn't much of a thing then and the landlords didn't feel any particular need to feed those around them that were starving, they pretty much said tough luck while they shipped off their crops to the English markets.

That She is. She tickled me when She was in the bowling pin shoot at Quemado, and lost out. I was keeping score, and She came over and asked me what She had to do, to get back in. miles

You’d enjoy the movie, Black 47.
Some of what you’ve posted is a part of the story.

That’s too cute!

Hey thanks for that link, it will be interesting to see what they can work out from the genetics in modern-day Ireland, another puzzle being why the traces of the Vikings and Normans should be so different in Ireland than they are in England. maybe ten years ago when the book "The Blood of the Isles" came out IIRC there was much to do about an identifiable "Viking Y" chromosome vs a "Celtic Y', the Celtic version as expected IIRC being found in the Basques, the Bretons and Ireland, I'm not sure about Wales and Cornwall.




Just for the sake of argument, and to add context..

1) Did those same English landowners not have bills to pay, loan obligations to meet and employees needing salaries?

2) Who besides the Catholic Irish were to blame for them breeding themselves in to a state of absolute squalor and deprivation over the three or four generations prior to the famine?

3) How many of the poor over in England ordinarily died of malnutrition and other poverty-related causes every year?

4) If all that food had stayed in Ireland, how many of those in need would have any means at all with which to buy it? even at a much reduced price? Or were people to just give it away? (an exactly similar issue prevails globally today).

5) How many of us Americans today, citizens of the greatest and one of the wealthiest Nations per capita in the world willingly donate major proportions of our income (as British landowners would have had to do) to support the world's poor?


Anyhow, here's a pretty good take on the politics of the famine years, and note that Ireland was a net importer of grain before, during and after the famine years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/famine_01.shtml

Hey thanks for the heads-up...





A nice touch that they're still using flintlocks in this backwater in '47.

This here is at the top of the Caha Pass, at the line between South Kerry and West Cork. I camped overnight there (down in the 40's in July!)



Come to find out this long, winding narrow track originated as a famine road: a public works project designed by the Brits to bring relief to Ireland's poor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R574_road_(Ireland)

I have in fact not been to the green island, though I'd like to maybe one day. But that said, that has nothing to do with the conversation. What natural or strategic resources did Ireland have that the rest of the world needed? The answer is none. Rome could've destroyed the local populace without a second thought. But it simply wasn't worth the effort. Same going forward, until quite late in modern history. Folks get awful emotional when their notions of historical badassery don't really pan out.

Wasn't gaga over gold and silver? What does that even mean. There was quite a bit of gold used in their trinkets, and jewelry. They certainly liked the shiny stuff at least as much as anyone else. They were a crude tribal society, and that in part kept them from any real historical significance.

What then led the Vikings to establish kingdoms in England but not Ireland?

The land WAS the root of prosperity, and Ireland was exceedingly productive.

I'm currently reading an excellent book; "Medieval Warfare: The Rise and Fall of English Supremacy at Arms, 1314-1485." by a retired British General and former Head of the Royal Amored Corps. The book covers the Hundred Years War and the Wars of the Roses. Briefly, British supremacy originates with the longbow and professional (as opposed to feudal) men at arms, and ends with improved armor becoming increasingly arrow-proof and more than anything with the rise of field artillery. By 1450 the French had standardized gunpowder production, standardized-caliber iron cannonball production, and field artillery with a range of 800 yards.

Relevant to this thread, the ravages wrought by raiding English armies in the field in France made anything the Vikings did in their day look like a girl scout troop, and more than anything those armies cost the English money, lots of it, raised by taxation. In particular English national fortunes in that era rose and fell with the volume of the wool trade, them exporting raw wool to the Flemish.

Are you suggesting you couldn't produce wool in Ireland?

Miles: Thanks. She sure enjoyed that bowling pin shoot and I'd say she acquitted herself quite well, especially since that was her first time to shoot a pistol - with only about a half hour of practice beforehand!

Just look at what she started here. That little gal has some real potential !!

Now don't be intentionally dense Birdman. It's a beautiful island populated by an interesting and robust people. I'm just saying what it had to offer wasn't worth the effort to subdue it. Not because of the quality of arms and soldiers.

Gruff, it was in its day a breadbasket. You don’t scchitt in your oatmeal. The history is there.

Indeed she does! Thanks.

Relatively late history. Prior to England's dominance what role did it play? Did Rome staff it's auxilliary legions with hibernians? That'd be a neat paper or book I'd love to read if it's out there. Great Britain had tin, coal, etc and was evidently worth the effort.

Prior to Englands dominance was Ireland a great exporter of foodstuffs?

Years ago you recommended Winter's Bone as a movie for me to see. It was indeed very good. It might make my top 100 of all-time. This one looks good as well.