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CHAPTER XIII
IRISH PRINCIPALITY IN WALES
i. Gael and Sassenach in Britain. 2. Irish Clans in Britain. 3. Irish
Military Expeditions Abroad. 4. Irish Kings in Britain. 5. Wales
Medieval Irish Colony.
i. GAEL AND SASSENACH IN BRITAIN
WHILE Irishmen in North Britain were bending
their energies to the work of conquering, colonizing
and civilizing Caledonia, another conquest
was going forward, chiefly under the direction of Irishmen
of the center and south, which has received less attention
from historians. Had there been no Anglo-Jute-Saxon
conquest of Great Britain these two Irish conquests would
in all likelihood have been decisive of the future of the
island. They would have issued in a British Isles almost
entirely Irish, with the Irish tongue the prevalent speech
from Kerry to Lincoln and from the Orkneys to the Isle
of Wight, and with the equivalent of what is now Wales
pushed eastwards and southwards and confined to a jut-
ting headland between the estuary of the Thames and the
Wash, or more probably absorbed in the kindred Irish
population. But there was an Anglo-Jute-Saxon invasion,
so that the Gael and the Sassenach met on the broad moors
of Britannia and fought their destiny out. The issue lay
for centuries in doubt, but eventually the Sassenach proved
the stronger, not in individual prowess indeed, for the
Irishman is superior in physique to the Englishman, 1
but
primarily then as later because the Gael had only the
i The Irish are probably the strongest, tallest, and most athletic race on
earth, and their record in the world of sport seems to make this abundantly
clear. But see "The Irish People; Their Height, Form and Strength," by
F. E. Hogan (Dublin, 1899). Irish hatters stock larger sizes than hatters in
England. The English made a remarkably poor comparative showing in the
recent war measurements.
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