Ask the average Irish person to describe Gaelic civilization and negative terms might follow. Warlike, violent, fragmented, uncivilized. Ask the same person to describe Roman civilization and the opposite occurs. Greatness, law, civilizing influence, cosmopolitan achievement. The negative perception of Gaelic Ireland is not innate, it is taught. Which raises the question – by whom, and for what purpose?
Gaelic Ireland describes a period between 800BC and AD1600 when the people of Ireland took on customs, culture and identity recognizably different to other…