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 he history of a people fades rapidly into distorted shadows with the passage of time. Irish history proves the rule. Unfortunately, for the objective mind, history was written by the conqueror, not by the conquered. Even more unfortunately, the Historian is seldom fair-handed and, more often than not, has a theory to prove, or an axe to grind. The chroniclers of Irish history in the past centuries ground their Christian axes finely and swung them with vehement vengeance against the Pagan. It is only in the last century that a few flickering candles have shed light into the dark corners, dimming the shadows of religious fervor, mis-conception and religious as well as ethnic bias.
For centuries, conquerors and visitors alike have marveled at the antiquities of Ireland. But, without the ability to determine an items age, the marvelous wonders that continued to be found within Ireland created questions rather than answers concerning the history of Ireland. The ancient stone structures remained enigmatic. The huge Passage tombs, some alive with intricately carved circles, cup-marks, zigzags and spirals. Others with no carvings at all. There were the free-spirited Portal tombs, the hundreds of stone circles that lay scattered across the land. All held tightly to their secrets. There were the wall-defended Raths and the round-towers. There was also the ornate gold and bronze artifacts, unlike any others in the world. Roman coins here, Egyptian faience beads there, ornately inscribed scabbards, shields, were found in scattered location across the land. How did they get there? Who made them? When? Sure, Ireland had her "mythology," but what rational individual, especially a scientist, is going to give credence to "fairy tales?" The 19th and 20th centuries gave rise to increasing awareness of Ireland's antiquity. Early 20th century authors seemed to be developing resistance to forcing the square peg of Irish antiquity into the round hole of Christian myth. Still old biases die hard and modern scholars, such as McAlister1, continued to remain quite sensitive to Christian doctrine. Yet, modern Archeology was becoming a science and no longer the hobby of wealthy pot snatchers. Ancient sites were now carefully examined grain of sand by grain of sand. Plottings were made where every removed item was shown to establish dispersal patterns. Artifacts were studied by experts in particular fields, such as pottery, metallurgy, geology, etc. Patterns of cultures began to emerge gradually. Still, a more accurate dating technique was needed. The lights slowly flickered into existence in the 1940's as new dating techniques began to merge and methodical, measured archeological research began to probe the ancient artifacts of that Emerald Isle in more objective fashion. With the growing illumination, old pre-conceived biases have begun to fall. Established misconceptions are at last being recognized and much of the Christian mythos about Ireland is crumbling, revealing at last the false assertions of biased men and Irelands history begins to emerge from the mists of the past. A major breakthrough in artifact dating was made when Radiocarbon (C-14) techniques began developing in the 1940's. An off-shoot of atomic energy research, it was hailed as a great achievement at the time. However, major flaws were soon discovered. First, it was found that the proportion of radiocarbon in the atmosphere varies over time in a decidedly non-linear fashion, due to atmospheric and other conditions. Also, it was discovered that the true half-life of C-14 was a bit longer than originally assumed. However, help was on the way with Dendrochronology (tree ring study) and Palynology (pollen sampling). Thus in my view, with the combination of techniques, reasonably accurate dating can now be made of certain artifacts as early as 6,000 years before the present (BP). Earlier dates become increasingly suspect, as we have little hard scientific data from that era. However, the dates used in this paper represent scientific dating using the latest techniques and I have confidence in an accuracy of plus or minus 5 % back to 6000 BC. The full story is not yet written. The ability to determine exact dates for the multitude of the historical findings and artifacts of Ireland is yet to be finalized. But, we are getting closer and we are finding the treasures even more precious than imagined. My presentation here is but a thumb-nail sketch of what I hope someday will be a considerable body of work. No doubt, there will be those who will contradict my assertions and deny their validity. Such resistance may never be fully defeated for closed minds are seldom capable of reason. Others will find my work interesting and, I sincerely hope, stimulating. I researched this work with a two-fold approach. I began study with an examination of the Myth. Much of the so-called myth is historical data. Could that data contain at least some factual information? I felt that it could. The next step was to find scientific proof of that opinion, if I could. Here, I have turned to modern Science. Primarily I have looked to the Archeologist and Anthropologist. I know, it is an unlikely alliance, but truth is truth and fact is fact, no matter who provides it.
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