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Ireland and the Making
of Britain
Culinan, in his ninth century Glossary also places a "Dind
map Letani" 1
among the Cornish Britons.
It has been shown that from 270 A. D. onward there
were many expeditions from Ireland directed against
the Britons. The suggestion that such evidences of the
Gael as exist in south Britain might be derived from the
Irish wave that is supposed to have preceded the arrival
of the Britons in the island appears to have been dis-
proved. "Whether we take history for our guide or
native tradition or philology, we are led to no other
conclusion than this: that no Gael ever set foot on British
soil save from a vessel that had put out from Ireland."2
The eighth century tale of Indarba mna n Dese tells
how the
3
Desii, a powerful Irish family, having been
defeated by the high king, Cormac, mac Art (226-266
A. D.), left their old holdings in Deece, near Tara, and,
dividing, went part to Decies in Munster, which still
bears their name, and part under the leadership of
Eochaid, son of Artchorp, to Dyfed or (south Wales)
and remained there permanently. These Irish invaders
appear to have displaced or conquered the native Silures,
of whom the famous Caractacus, made prisoner by the
Romans, had been king. In the eighth century Tewdor
ap Rhain, king of south Wales, was claimed by the Deisi
of Munster as a descendant of 'one of their ruling chief-
tains, Eochaid Allmuir, whose second appellation points
him out as one who had sought his fortunes across the
sea.
1 S. v. Mugeime.
2 Irish tale, ed. by Kuno Meyer for Vol. XIV of the Cymmrodor.
3 The Welsh form of the pedigree is to be found in Harl. MS. 3859 (Cymmr.
DC, 171) and Jesus College (Oxford) MS. 20 (Cymmr. VIII, 86).
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