Iron Age Ireland Had No Celtic Invasion, Only Trade and Language
The traditional story says Celts brought iron to Ireland around 500 BC, but archaeology finds almost no trace of incoming migrants — Celtic identity was really a language community that grew slowly out of Late Bronze Age maritime trade networks.
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Why the Irish Iron Age is the murkiest period of all
John Waddell says the Irish Iron Age is the darkest stretch of Irish prehistory, partly because people at the time cremated their dead. In much of Europe the dead were buried with quantities of fine grave goods, whereas cremation plus burial destroys a great deal of useful archaeological evidence. So despite very fine metalwork and monuments, the absence of burial evidence makes this history especially hard to read. He also points out that using the phrase "Celtic Iron Age" to describe the period amounts to sticking an ethnic label on an era, adding another layer of trouble to an already complicated story.
— Dr John WaddellSea routes connected people rather than isolating them
Waddell repeatedly stresses an underrated fact: in prehistory, waterways were channels connecting people, not barriers. Ireland and Britain are both islands, and people habitually assume islands mean isolation, but coastal routes and river routes were very likely the main means of connection. Before the Romans built their straight roads, travel by water was far easier than travel by land. This means we have consistently underestimated how connected the populations of prehistoric Britain and Ireland were. The Irish Sea was itself a connecting force, and the English Channel linked England to the continent.
— Dr John WaddellSacred sites sat on high ground, not by rivers
Tristan asks whether Iron Age settlements were all close to rivers and coasts. Waddell's answer is unexpected: famous sites like Tara, Rathcroghan and Navan Fort are not obviously on major routes. Each sits on high ground in its own different way, and these locations may have carried a kind of sanctity since the Neolithic. Tara was already an important burial place before 3000 BC, and its story runs into the medieval period, representing more than 4000 years of ritual activity. The importance of these places comes from accumulated time and religious meaning, not from rivers and sea routes.
— Dr John WaddellA sacral king who fails or is wounded must be deposed
Waddell draws a key concept out of medieval Irish texts: sacral kingship. The king of Tara was not a political strongman; his fundamental duty was to maintain cosmic order. If a sacral king could not bring good harvests, he was deposed. Another feature was that his body had to be flawless: once a sacral king was wounded, scarred or deformed, he was deposed. Waddell thinks this ritual may eventually be traceable in the archaeology of Britain and Ireland, suggesting that in the Celtic era, the pre-Roman period, certain tribal rulers did carry a sacred quality.
— Dr John WaddellThe Celts were not invaders but a language community
The traditional story is that around 500 BC a Celtic-speaking people brought knowledge of iron to Ireland. Waddell says this is wrong. His best definition of the ancient Celts is "people who spoke Celtic", not an ethnic or racial definition. Ireland in the pre-Roman period was undoubtedly Celtic-speaking, but archaeology finds almost no evidence of incoming migrants in the Iron Age or the Late Bronze Age. Instead, from about 1000 BC there is abundant archaeological evidence of trade and exchange between Britain and Ireland, with the Thames, the Rhine, the Rhône, the Saône, the Ruhr and the Danube all serving as major corridors. Trade and exchange means movement of people, and people carried myths, legends and language with them. The Celtic languages most likely took shape gradually amid this Late Bronze Age surge of connectivity.
— Dr John WaddellThe Banquet Hall is really a ceremonial processional way
On the hill of Tara there is a monument called the Banquet Hall, a pair of very long parallel earthworks. Waddell's colleague Conor Newman established that it was never a banquet hall — it is far too large to be any kind of hall. Standing between the banks, you find you cannot see the world outside, because the banks are still high even in their ruined state. Newman proposed that it was a processional way running from the northern end of the hill to the centre of the summit, used for royal inauguration rituals. There are gaps in the banks that let the procession look left and right at the burial mounds and other monuments on either side, reminding the man about to become sacral king of the stories of his ancestors and predecessors. Waddell compares it to Rome's Appian Way, lined on both sides with tombs.
— Dr John WaddellBeneath Tara lies a timber circle bigger than Stonehenge
Geophysical survey on the hill of Tara revealed a huge circular timber structure, four to five times the scale of Stonehenge. It was built around 2000 BC and should have stood on the hilltop as prominently as Stonehenge, yet today there is no trace of it on the ground — only aerial photographs show the faint outline of the circle. Waddell says this reminds us that large timber circles earlier than Stonehenge are a feature of the prehistoric landscape of Britain and Ireland. Tara's burials have another detail: many of them intersect one another, as if new graves were deliberately laid partly over old ones to connect with ancestral remains, both legitimising one's own existence and conveying some kind of story.
— Dr John WaddellThe forgotten king Dathi and a Swiss myth
Waddell tells the story of an almost forgotten king, Dathi, associated with Rathcroghan in western Ireland. In medieval legend Dathi was the last pagan king of Ireland, said to have campaigned on the European continent, possibly reaching the foot of the Swiss Alps, and to have been struck dead by lightning at the foot of the Alps, with his body carried back to Ireland and buried at Rathcroghan. The story was especially popular in the 19th century, because some people took it as proof that Irish military power reached far overseas. But Waddell says it looks like pure fabrication: there was never any Irish invasion of Switzerland. Dathi most likely only raided Britain occasionally. He was later overshadowed by the more famous warrior Cú Chulainn and gradually forgotten.
— Dr John WaddellThe Fianna were a prehistoric gang of juvenile delinquents
The Fianna in medieval Irish stories are the warriors under the hero Finn MacCool. But Waddell points out that these stories are largely a medieval invention. The original Fian was a warband, with traces in pre-Roman Gaul and elsewhere. The earliest Fian were a group of landless young men, allowed to roam in a lawless manner, engaging in plunder, robbery, occasional murder and possibly sexual violence. They roamed the countryside like juvenile delinquents until they came of age and became members of the community. Early Christian writers mention them with obvious disgust and irritation. Waddell says this makes us uncomfortable: prehistoric society tolerated juvenile delinquents for all those years, but the medieval Irish evidence indicates that this was indeed the case.
— Dr John WaddellIn their own words · checked verbatim
Part of the reason, I think, is that the population in later prehistory had the unfortunate habit of cremating themselves, if that's the right way to put it.
Dr John Waddell2:18
In fact, if you think hard about it, certainly in prehistory, both in Britain and in Ireland, sometimes travel by land was far, far more difficult than travel by sea and by river.
Dr John Waddell7:26
Their fundamental role was to maintain cosmic order. And if, for example, a sacred king wasn't able to produce good harvests, he would be deposed.
Dr John Waddell15:38
the best definition of an ancient Celt is somebody who spoke a Celtic language
Dr John Waddell21:43
But when you remember it, trade and exchange means people. And people were traveling along with their myths and legends and languages as well.
Dr John Waddell23:43
Ritual permeated daily life.
Dr John Waddell38:19
And I think it's something we're rather uncomfortable with, that there were notions of juvenile delinquents tolerated in prehistory for a number of years before they got sense.
Dr John Waddell50:00
Figures
| Approximate span of the Irish Iron Age | about 500 BC to AD 500 | 4:21 |
| When iron began to be tentatively used in Ireland | about 800 BC | 4:21 |
| Tara as an important site dates back to | before 3000 BC | 10:31 |
| Span of ritual activity at Tara | more than 4000 years | 10:31 |
| When Celtic languages may have formed in Ireland | about 1000 BC | 22:43 |
| Scale of the timber structure beneath Tara | four to five times that of Stonehenge | 33:07 |
| Date of the Tara timber structure | about 2000 BC | 33:07 |
| Diameter of the central great mound at Rathcroghan | about 80 metres | 43:30 |
| Peak date of the great mound at Navan Fort | about 100 BC | 43:30 |
Glossary
- sacral kingship
- The king's fundamental duty is to maintain cosmic order; failure or physical blemish means deposition.
- Fianna
- A warband of landless young men, allowed to roam the countryside lawlessly until adulthood.
- currach
- A boat of animal hide stretched over a frame, still in use in western Ireland today.
- opidum
- A defensive settlement centre of the late Iron Age, such as Colchester and Camulodunum.
How to listen
Listeners interested in pre-Roman Europe, the origins of Celtic identity, and archaeological method; founders and researchers who want to understand how ethnic labels get overturned by archaeological evidence.
The host introduction from 1:14-2:18 and the sponsor ad from 26:50-29:00 can be skipped.