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The Atlantean Irish

Bob Quinn
THE ATLANTEAN IRISH: IRELAND�S ORIENTAL AND MARITIME HERITAGE.
Lilliput Press, Dublin, 2005. Pp. 256. Price �20 (pbk). ISBN 1843510241.



In The Atlantean Irish Bob Quinn has written what he describes as an almost total revision of his The Atlanteans, published 20 years ago. In his introduction Quinn disarmingly tells us how his first book was ignored by the academics because he �was not an accredited scholar�. I also reacted to that book by ignoring it - that is, I refused to read it on the grounds that the writer was completely untrained in every field in which he delved, and from which (I had heard from others) he drew some outrageous conclusions. I now believe this is a fundamentally wrong reaction, not only because it was discourteous, nor because I have ceased to agree with Pope�s dictum that one should drink deep at the Pierean Spring, but because I think that the untrained scholar-manqu� can be a very dangerous person if his views are disseminated widely, are believed by many, and are not refuted or corrected by those who know more. It might be academically justifiable for the world of scholarship to ignore opinions published or propounded by non-scholars but it is, I now firmly believe, foolish. Populist pseudo-scholarship has a way of spreading if unchallenged - witness the appeal of the nonsense propounded by Hancock through very popular books and expensive television programmes.

Notwithstanding these reservations, it can be a salutary experience for any scholar who comes to believe (as most of us do) that his pronouncements are virtually ex-cathedra, to be faced by the student or amateur (by which I mean a person lacking the �authority� that is conferred by training, study and appropriate experience, not one who is unpaid) who asks �why? - please justify your claim�. Nevertheless, such questioning, however necessary and valuable, does not under any circumstances justify the questioner in also providing the answers himself, much less disseminating his lack of knowledge in book form. The latter should only be indulged in by those who have �authority� comparable to those who hold the view being questioned. This is not the position taken by Sir Barry Cunliffe, who has written a very generous and, I think, unwisely uncritical foreword, and finds the excitement that is obvious in Quinn�s discovery of his version of the past quite refreshing. Admittedly the book is highly readable, and I enjoyed almost every well-written page, but readability and the ability to excite aren�t necessarily scholarship.

Quinn has taken the whole gamut of Irish history and has asked �why?�. He also provides his own �answers�, through which he betrays a profound ignorance of archaeology and of the other -ologies on which the knowledge of the past is based. Most of his more interesting opinions are blatantly in error, but occasionally he has hit upon an idea which, had he read more widely, he would have discovered had already been proposed with proper supporting arguments. An opinion without �authority�, even if it agrees with the scholastic position, is still worthless (on this, see my review in Ulster Journal, 61 (2002) of di Martini�s recent book on Roman Ireland). Quinn gives an extensive list of the published sources which he presumably consulted - it is eclectic and quite inadequate. Basic authorities and authoritative discussions are ignored, and a substantial number of his views reference conversations with persons who, if renowned for scholarship at all, are experts in a quite inappropriate field. The intention too often appears to be to impress the reader with his circle of contacts rather than with the appropriate authority of his sources.

In his introduction Quinn describes his �purpose� and the pursuit of that purpose � to show �that Irish culture ... was not just a vestigial remnant of Celticism�. The fact that no reputable scholars now believe it was makes it no less imperative that the Celtic obsession � as applied to Irish history - should be demolished at the popular level at which it thrives. Were he to succeed in such a quest Quinn would earn our gratitude - but do the arguments he proffers do proper service to his intention? And do his alternatives stand up to rigorous criticism? That is what I must determine in this review. Unfortunately the book is arranged rather oddly, with numerous excursions of a dubious relevance, before we find the Celts addressed in detail. But all these excursions must be followed by the reviewer, however tedious. Here, of course, is the great trap. I am an archaeologist, and there lies my authority. I am not an anthropologist, linguist, geneticist or an expert in most of the other fields explored by Quinn. Nor, of course, is Quinn. My views on these other matters are worth no more than Quinn�s and I shall leave experts in those areas to assess (and support or refute) his claims. In both the introduction and the first (historical) chapter Quinn betrays a belief that weakens his attempt at objectivity (apart, that is, from his aim to prove his opinion rather than find the truth). He quite clearly believes that the uninitiated dabbler is more likely to be correct than the scholar � opinion, it appears, is more to be valued than fact. This is very reminiscent of the nonsensical politically-correct approach to education that is doing so much damage in British schools. This �against the establishment� line is coupled with what I can only describe as an obsession with the idea that scholars will use all manner of dirty tricks in order to defend their authority from attacks by the uninitiated (see the comment on Brennan on pp. 25-6). He rightly condemns the politically-partisan positions of some past (and not-quite-so-past) scholars, but claims that the truth would emerge if the ordinary unlearned folk who accidentally found the occasional object were more widely consulted on the historical and archaeological implications of their find (p. 27). One�s mind well and truly boggles at this descent into the myth of �the wisdom of the common man�. In fact, the latter part of chapter 1 betrays a distrust of, and misunderstanding of, modern scholarship that quite undermines any possibility of objectivity from the author.

Chapter 2 can be read, and enjoyed, as an ode to Connemara. In fact it is a claim that two icons of the area � the sailing boats and the sean-n�s singing � show a connection with the Mediterranean at some unspecified time. It is a superb example of the idea that widely bedevils populist archaeology (and this book) � viz. if you can find similar objects, sites, or characteristics in widely separated places the similarity is enough to prove the connection. No further evidence is required and in this case, as in almost every other, none is forthcoming. The theme is expanded in chapter 3, by which stage it appears that Quinn�s �pursuit� of the demolition of the Celtic myth has been replaced by the promotion of the Gaelic-Arab axis. By now anecdote has the role of evidence and non-sequiturs have become the norm, and we are not in the least surprised to see a photo of the Cong pyramid which, despite the author admitting that it was built as a folly in 1750, can only have been included to illustrate his theme. In passing it should be stressed that the Turoe stone is not carved with �arabesque� ornament but is a perfectly good example of Irish La-Tene (�Celtic�) art. The similarity of some Irish and Arabic Early Medieval art is not due to close intercourse between the Coptic and Irish churches but is the result of the normal spread of religious ideas within the monastic world; an obsession, shared by Irish and Arabic Medieval artists, with ordered geometric patterns, and, ultimately a cognate origin in the floral/geometric art of Egypt and Greece, as Quinn appears to acknowledge on p. 57. It is the overall impact which conveys the idea of similarity, not the detail and certainly not a provable cultural connectivity. The collection of superficial similarities is the basic method of this book, and the blithe disregard for chronological and cultural consistency is its particular weakness. For example, whatever the explanations might really be for the claimed Arabic inscription on an 8th-century AD Frankish or Saxon brooch from Co. Cork, or for the 2nd-century BC Barbary-ape skull from Navan, Co. Armagh, these explanations will not be the same, nor will they support, as is implied at the end of chapter 3, the thesis that the Gaelic-Arabic connection was of greater importance than the Irish-Continental connection of conventional history and archaeology. Again, to quote another example from his overwhelming collection of �evidence�, the use of penannular brooches as ornaments in first-millennium Ireland can have absolutely no connection with the use of similar brooches in 19th-century north Africa. Chapters 4 to 7 are full to the brim with confused, misunderstood and, frankly, wrong-headed pieces of �evidence� snatched from countless sources of limited relevance to the author�s thesis and of limited authority.

Chapter 8 is called �Deconstructing the Celtic Myth�, a laudable aim with which I would normally have sympathy. Unfortunately it consists of an attempt to play down the accepted and correct notion that the Irish language was, by whatever mechanism, derived ultimately from the European �Celtic� group of Indo-European languages and to play up the claims, now mostly dismissed, that there is a strong underlying Hamito-Semitic influence in Irish. What Quinn seems to have difficulty understanding with respect to �Celtic� art, �Celtic� archaeology and �Celtic� language is that accepting the European origins for these things (which one must) is not the same as postulating a Celtic invasion or concluding that the �Irish are Celts�. There are other mechanisms for the intrusion of influences, and even of language change, that do not require a population change. On p. 130 Quinn defends his use of the term �Atlantean� because it better describes ancient Irish culture than �Celtic�, and with this I would agree wholeheartedly if it were not that the unfortunate similarity between �Atlantean� and �Atlantis� so pollutes the first that its usefulness is compromised. In fact, the idea that there was, at various times, a loose cultural �uniformity� over the Atlantic seaboard areas of Europe is widely acknowledged by archaeologists but this has no automatic genetic or ethnic implication, nor can there be shown to be any significant north-African element in this Atlantic �culture-group�. Chapter 9 should be ignored � the author�s understanding of comparative linguistics being unimpressive. But of particular surprise is his apparent realisation that there must have been a pre-Celtic language in Ireland. Of course there must � indeed several, going back at least a further 6000 years. But this has absolutely nothing to do with the questions of �Celtic� and �Arabic� with which he is obsessed. The similarities that he finds between some Irish linguistic elements and an eclectic mix of other languages are sometimes real (common linguistic roots or borrowings) but more often imaginary, and the fact that, for instance, oak trees are found in Ireland before the intrusion of the �Celtic� element dar is quite irrelevant to the discussion.

The following chapters are mostly expansions on the matters already raised, with still more �coincidences� posing as �connections�. A strong element, however, is to show that Ireland had strong maritime contacts with the Atlantic world throughout history � a fact that is both self-evident and without relevance to the question of Irish origins. We may ignore his arrogant claim, in his concluding chapter, that the scholastic world is slowly coming round to his way of thinking � this simply betrays his attitude to, and his knowledge of, the scholastic world. We should be more scathing of his claim that his �perspective is that of common sense observation, informed by field archaeology rather than desk archaeology�. �Common sense� is too often, as here, a euphemism for �ignorance� or �laziness�, and I see absolutely no evidence that Quinn knows the meaning of �field archaeology�. Knowledge advances through both observation and the authoritative opinions of past scholars. Anecdote and personal opinions are not sound alternatives to learning.

The present archaeological consensus (as opposed to the �popular� belief) is that the genetic and cultural (and linguistic) make-up of the Irish people is a mix of many intrusions and influences of differing impact over the 10,000 years of Irish history. One element of this mix is the package of traits that have been called �Celtic� in view of their ultimately mid- and west-European origin in the later first millennium BC. All the significant elements in these intrusions whose origins can be identified stem from western Europe or Britain, and absolutely no significant elements can be attributed to a north-African origin. The Irish are not Celts, or Africans. They are Irish.

RICHARD WARNER