Celtic and Irish mythology and history

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Hello everyone I dont know if this is the right place to put this on. Does anyone here know alot about the history of Ireland around 300Bc to 100AD I am interested in the Celtic way of life their beliefs, the way they live, their weapons extra Im mostly interested in the swords and the shields that they had, for I am at the moment drawing them and the chain mail and how they dressed when they went to war. I am currently reading about the Galloglass 1250- 1600 Gaelic Mercenary Warrior its very interesting but it only explains about how the warriors live to their traditions and everyday life. I have looked up numerous internet sites but they dont tell me much. Id love to know how the swords were made and the shields and the celtic mythology the different gods and their spirtial beliefs like Bree and Brigid or Brigette, Freea, Frenrir. Im also interested in the books that were written of that time like the great wars different tales or stories past on from generation to generation I dont know how to access these. Im stuck.

Pretty sure the Celts didn't have chain mail - they were bronze age, IIrc.

Depending on period, the Celts had this habit of running into battle starkers. Not that they didn't use the occasional shield and helmet Tended to disconcert the opposition.

There is a lot of material aroun on the early somewhat legendary history of Gaels particularly - and a fair amount of archaeology. Mein Papa was a Celtic legend fan and we had lots of stuff arounf the house. Number 1 Son was heavily into arms and armor, and we found a lot of stuff, including one book [do not know if it is on the web] that catalogued with measurements and illustrations piles Celtic and Gemanic sword finds.

oke around the web - there are a lot of Celt-focussed people and there will be stuff out there. Watch out for the enthusiastic nutters.

This is all that I could compile in less than 5 minutes:

300BC/9701HE - (Approximate Year) In Ireland, 2 men were murdered about this time. In 2005AD/12005HE their preserved remains were found in a peat bog. One dubbed Clonycavan Man was about 5 feet 2 inches and used hair gel. The other, dubbed Oldcroghan Man, stood 6 feet 6 inches. "Oldcroghan Man was stabbed through the chest. He was then decapitated and his body cut in half while Clonycaven Man had his head split open with an axe before he was disemboweled. (Reuters, 1/7/06)

1AD/10,000HE - (Approximate Year) Stone forts were built on the 3 Aran islands: Inishmore, Inishmaan, and Isisheer, whose total area was 18 sq. miles. The islands are on the west coast of Ireland at the mouth of Galway Bay. (SFEC, 1/23/00, T8,9)

238AD/10,238HE - Solinus wrote that the Hibernian mother places the first morsel of food in her child’s mouth with the point of her sword. (AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.11)

I'll keep looking.

Don't forget the Galatians.

Didn't the Celts have iron weapons much earlier than most?

depends on how you define "most."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... metallurgy

Sometimes you just have to go old school and buy the books or check them out from the library. In time I am sure the bulk will be scanned and available (although for a fee, as with Kindle) but for now:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/the-ancient-celts?r=1


there are these books

The period in question (300BC-100 AD) was well within the Iron Age for all of Eurasia including barbarians of transalpine Europe ( the germans,celts, and slavs) despite the fact that all those groups were still barbarians.

Chain mail was a medeavel innovation - long after the period in question.

The Celtic part of europe was much vaster then than the little fringe clinging to the Atlantic coasts of Europe that it is today.

All of France, and Northern Italy, were inhabited by Celtic tribes of Gaul.

These continental Celts were on the verge being a great empire, but then ceasar conquered the Gauls a few decades before Christ and for the next five hundred years they became Latinized subjects of Rome- their descendants being the modern French ( France is named after the germanic Franks but the people are descended from the latinized celts and the French languages is really a vulgar regional version of Latin).

In the far northwest corner of France are the Breton who still speak a Celtic tongue, but they are not descended from the Gauls, but are Celtic refugees from Britian who fled to Brittany in the age of King Arthur (around 600).

Britain, and Ireland, were also inhabited by celts. Britan south of scotland was also conquered by the Romans in the perioed in question.

When the Romans withdrew around 400 AD the Germanic tribes invaded and pushed the celts out of the south eastern parts of Britain.

The Germanic Anglo Saxons became the English, and the Celts became the Welsh, the Scots, the Irish, and the Breton.

I dont know whether you are interested in just the Celts of the Brtish Isles, or are interested in the continental Gauls, or in both.

I recently happened to have googled the subject of Celtic gods and mythoology( because of all the neo pagans posting on this site), and it seems that the Celts of both the islands and the continent had a quite a cast of characters in thier mythology- much like gods of Valhalla, and those of Olympus.

Dont know much specific about their weaponry. But they did have iron.
And they were probably better at craftsmanship than they were at mass production. Their blacksmiths made good swords but they had to rely on stuff they captured from Rome to keep fighting Rome in protracted wars from what I gather.

Just a few random thoughts on the subject. I believe that the archeological strata of europe associated with the pre Roman Celts is called "the La Tene Iron Age". There is also the "Beaker Culture" because they made and left alot of beakers in their tombs. So google those terms.

If you are willing to accept Irish history as part of the larger Celtic history, then this website might meet your needs:

A CELTIC CHRONOLOGY

- Detailed chronology from about 3000BC/7001HE to the present.

I am mostly aware of Celtic history from a historical-linguistic point of view. The Celtic language family is considered to be a part of the Indo-European language family and is sometimes grouped with the Italic languages (e.g., Latin, Faliscan, Oscan, Umbrian) to form an Italo-Celtic clade. The Celts expanded south- and westward through Transalpine Gaul (roughly coterminous with modern-day France), pushing through the Pyrenees into the Iberian Peninsula (i.e., the Celtiberians) and running into the Aquitanians (i.e., the ancestors of the Basques, Vascones, and Gascons). The Gauls later pushed east of the Rhone and into what is today Lombardy in Italy, becoming the Cisalpine Gauls. The Cisalpine Gauls eventually sacked Rome before themselves being conquered and assimilated by Rome.

The Romans knew Ireland as Hibernia, relating it to the word hibernus for winter. One Goidelic tribe was known to the Romans as the Scotti, their kingdom being called Dál Riata. At about the time the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britannia, the Scots invaded Caledonia; the Scottish holdings in Caledonia would later merge with Pictish holdings to become the Kingdom of Scotland. The Picts are thought to be possibly Celtic, possibly Brythonic (thus relating their language to the Welsh).

Celtic, not surprisingly, is intermediate between Italic and Germanic. Inflections from the Gaulish material are closer to Italic than to the earliest extant Germanic, but that probably reflects time depth.

The shift *p > 0 is diagnostic for Celtic.

The evidence for the linguistic affinities of thre Picts - even their identificatin as Celts - is by no means conclusive. It does not help that the practice of body decoration was by no means limited to the Picts, making their actual borders unclear.

Thankyou everyone for your help you guys have been very helpful.

Actually, Celtic and Italic had a very common origin. In fact, there is good evidence that many ancestors of the Romans were Proto-Celts from the Black Forest. The Germanic tribes, while an Indo-European people, spoke a language closer to that of the Slavs and Balts, though the Italio-Celts had had a significant influence on Germanic.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Thats an old school theory. I read that the concensus has gone back to what Philogos is saying: that Celtic is a branch about equidistant between the Italic and Germanic branches of the IE family tree.

IE does not in fact tree very well - few language families do when you look at them closely. Language is too malleable, too dependent on contact and features spreading across already "separated" linguistic groups.

The first approximation was the centum / satem major split, roughly West / East. But that really does not hold up well. Best guess at present is that Indic / Iranian and Baltic / Slavic are likely valid branchings, but that Greek, Albanian, BaltoSlavic, Italic, Celtic, Germanic operated as a cluster [IndoIranian and Tocharian probably off to one side and not interacting] mutually influencing, sending and receiving innovations. The very close contact in Italy between Italic and Celtic, across the Alps between Celtic and Germanic, and of course the wide ranging Slavic / Germanic interaction make it harder to distinguiish inheritance from borrowing - nature / nurture. if you will.

I have still not made up my own mind on the Hittite issue - it is a lumper / splitter thing.