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Ireland |
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The Celts In Ireland
The Celts were the people who had the
greatest influence on Ireland. Linguistically the Celts belonged to the
“Indo-European” group and around the 2nd century their ancestors
began to dominate Ireland. Politically Celtic Ireland was unified only
by the culture and the language. The organization of the politic administration of the
country was very fluid and democratic, with constant changes in power among the most
important contenders. The economy of the country was simple and
agrarian: the unit of currency used in Ireland was the cow and the people settled not in
towns but on individual farms. When Christianity was introduced by St.
Patrick the “Golden Age” began. Big political and cultural problems began in the 17th century when the English kingdom wanted to colonize Ireland. UNIQUE HISTORICAL POSITION OF IRELAND Ireland alone was never visited by Roman
legionaries and maintained its independence against all comers nominally until the close
of the twelfth century. Consequently Ireland nowadays has a unique feature of interest
that carries from the indigenous Celtic civilisation, institutions, art, literature, and
the oldest surviving form of the Celtic language. The “Goidelic” or
“Gaelic” Celts were the first to colonise the British Island and after
successive waves of invasions spread to the extreme west. They had a particular dislike for the
pronunciation of the letter “p”. This letter was not simply dropped, it was
usually changed in “c, k, g“ . After the sixth century there is another change over
the language of the Continental Celts. The sound “c” substituted the
pronunciation of “p”.
The comparison between many Irish and Welsh
words shows distinctly this: avoidance of “p” on the Irish side and Iack of any
objection to it on the Welsh. The conclusion that Irish must represent the oldest form of
the language seems obvious. It is remarkable that even to a comparatively late date the
Irish preserved their dislike for “p”. (Alessandra Merico – Jacopo De Martini, 3^B int) |
