Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PHOENICIAN IRELAND. CHAP. I. Scope of the Work Origin of first Inhabitants of Ireland uncertain Way to trace it out Difficulty of diving into early dates Instance of this Number and credibility of Irish historians Foreign denominations of the old clans and localities of Ireland Where to look for their etymology The Author's acknowledgments as well to the more modern as the ancient writers upon Irish topics Not always safe to follow them. The origin of the early inhabitants of Ireland is not only ancient but uncertain, and not easily recon- cileable to the exact rules of proof. But though we must not altogether reject what tradition records of them, still it strikes me that in our pursuit after truth, the more likely road for its attainment would be to trace out the origin of the names of the several septs and tribes which from time to time have visited those shores; a course which, as in other instances, will be found, if I mistake not, in this too, most convincingly demonstrative of their lineage, their progeny, and the country whence they emigrated. Ido not, however, mean to say that the conviction produced by such a search is in its nature so complete as that it may not even be superseded by other evidences; but this I assert, that it is not contemptuously to be trifled with by ignorance or guess-work, and that until something more authentic in the shape of argument be adduced it is entitled, at least, to a respectful hearing. If we consider how difficult a thing it is, as Pliny well observed, to clothe antiquity in a modern costume, to give fashion to novelty, splendor to decay, light to obscurity, beauty to deformity, and belief to doubt, the mere endeavor after the object, however short it may fall of success, must, from the nobleness of the intention, comman...