The Irish first to discover North America? Theory found in old book.

[Poldugarian Warrior]

I was reading a book  today at work during lunch, the title and publisher I can't recall at this time, but will tomorrow. And in it I found a theory that the Irish not the Vikings were the first to discover what is today known as Newfoundland or Nova Scotia. This comes to light in the fact that records of lands being discovered west of Greenland and Iceland were kept by the Druids and some of the religious rituals described by the Vikings as they too started to discover these lands as they ventured westward, were reminiscent of the same practices seen in Ireland and England.
I'll post the actual article here though and then go ahead and post opinions. It seems that it may not be such a ridiculous claim, for it's being found that more people's besides the Vikings were also fine seafaring people during the Middle Ages.

[groomporter]

Would that be the the theory about St. Brendan?

I think the original version of this book came out in 80's?
The Brendan Voyage: Across the Atlantic in a Leather Boat
http://www.amazon.com/Brendan-Voyage-Across-Atlantic-Leather/dp/0717139271/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221568793&sr=8-1

[Malcolm]

Long time ago I read America B. C. The author thought Celts had traded America prior to the Roman conquest of Gaul, when the Roman destruction of their fleet ended the trade.
http://www.amazon.com/America-B-C-Ancient-Settlers-World/dp/0671679740

That would have been a few years before St. Brendan's voyage.

[Poldugarian Warrior]

Well, here's the info and article. The title of the book is Strange Stories,Amazing Facts by Reader's Digest, published in 1976.

                                       "Did Irishmen reach America?"

           Historians have established that Irishmen discovered and settled Iceland and were driven out by Norsemen about A.D. 870. Did the Irish sail on to America? Samuel Eliot Morison, unsurpassed chronicler of voyages and voyagers, writes that the sagas describing Norse discoveries call a certain land near Greenland "White Man's Land" or "Ireland the Great." One Icelander named Bjorn was said to have sailed west about the end of the 10th century and vanished. Many years later, another Icelander, Gudlief Gunnlangson, was deposited by a western gale in a country where he was seized by natives who seemed to speak Irish. Their aged leader, whom Gudlief recognized as Bjorn, rescued him from these "rough Irish" and sent him on his way. Another Norse saga tells of captives in a western land who reported seeing white people who "wore white garments and yelled loudly, and carried poles before them to which rags were attached." Comments Morison: "Just what an Irish religious procession would have looked like to Indians! But, if Irishmen did reach America in the ninth and tenth century, they never returned, and left no trace....Some day, perchance, authentic Irish relics will be found in northeastern Canada; but until that time comes we have only these elusive stories of an Irish colony glimpsed vaguely through northern mists."

                                             The Elusive Welshman

      "Even more elusive is the legend of the Welshman, Prince Madoc ap Owain Gwynedd, who is supposed to have landed on the shores of Mobile Bay in 1170 and left behind, with the Indians, the Welsh language. On this shaky foundation of fact or fancy was built the theory that the light-skinned Mandan Indians of the Missouri River were descendants of Welshmen. Explorers of the West and scientists have exploded this theory, but it still titillates the imagination of some students of America's past.

So there are the theories, I think in my opinion that humans throughout history have been very resourceful, and it's very possible they could've made it to America, why they weren't able to settle is always open for debate because there are so many factors to take into account. One and I think the most probable reason for no settleing of the Americas by the Irish or Vikings was the Native Americans fought off the Vikings and Irish seeing them as evil invaders too different from themselves to be treated humanly. Think the movie Pathfinder. And who can blame them, just look at our beautiful country who wouldn't fight for it especially if you've lived here for thousands of years, and now someone wants to take it from you or share it with you, but it's just too good to share.
And note the use of the word Indian here in the article, it seems to denote the Native Americans. Being it's a 1976 printing Political Correctness wasn't being practiced all that much. But, I feel it's better to use the term Native American instead of Indian, because both peoples lived in different parts of the world and still do and it's fitting to tell them apart by calling them by their appropriate names. So that both cultures can be viewed in different ways and not confused. After years of studying history as a study now when people say that's Indian art or clothing or weaponry. I always ask, you mean Indian as in India, or Native American. I'm not of Native American descent, but I know people whom are, and I didn't want to offend anyone on this site if they are, by calling them Indians, when in fact they are Native Americans and should be recognized and respected.

[Julianne]

Interesting but .. in a word..balderdash.

I don't think it's a viable situation.  Celtic tribes were nomadic but never (in my reading) by ship.

The years mentioned in your essay it would just have been impossible for the Irish to have been able to gleen the resources needed to do such a thing.

[Malcolm]

There are several reports of Englishmen finding tribes of Native Americans that spoke Welsh. I think that it is telling that there is not one report from a Welshman of a tribe that speaks English.

[groomporter]

Here's an interesting webpage on that subject
http://www.languagegeek.com/siouan/mandan_is_not_welsh.html

The story about the Mandans secretly being white apparently started after the Lewis and Clark expedition captured the American imagination.

The Wikipedia page about the Welsh Prince Madoc claims "Most present-day academic historians believe the Madoc story originated with Queen Elizabeth's advisors around 1580, as a ploy to assert prior discovery, and hence legal possession, of North America by England.[1]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoc

[SirRichardBear]

While unlikely it is I suppose possible after all the Irish knew the same ships as the Vikings did and the Polynesian crossed larger distants in boots not much bigger than the Irish used.  Its possible that a boat was blown to sea and landed in north America its only around 2000 miles.  How they would get back with their limited navicational abilities is a different matter. 

Makes for fun reading.

Personally I liked Robert E. Howard's story that Conan was the reason the South American indians expect visitors from the east to be white and have beards.

[Capt Gabriela Fullpepper]

No it is not balderdash or poppycock

Thor Hiadal proved that the Egptians may have said from Egypt to the new world and the Aztecs, Incan,s Mayans and Tultecs were all decendant.

While the Irish may not have had as much skill at sailing as the Norsemen did, it is possible. The History channel did a show about white settling America a very long time ago during the ice age. It was nicely done and very interesting and could have been possible.. Those then mixed withthe natives of America. if you look at most Natives from the east coast, most are of fairer skin and even hair. it is not unheard of for them to have eye color other than brown which is the norm for the Natives of America.

The true Irish and welsh were not red haired, but dark haired and dark skinned. The red hair comes from the Norse who settle and conquered parts of Ireland and England. The term "Black Irish" refers to Irish of dark hair and dark skin of which is part of my ancestors. And thus the reasoning darker hair and darker skin was more the norm on the eastern natives.

The Natives to the west look more oriental and it is highly believed that the Natives from the west were of descent from mass migrations from east Asia.

Also on a last bit of this I will add that remains of humans have been found on the west coast of central america that date back long before the ice mass migration of man to the America's. Mankind may have reached this land long before believed.

Some believe that the Irish are part of the lost Atlantians and if Atlantis did exist they would have had the skill to navigate and sail to the west and settle the America's

Being of also Native decent as is Toki it is more PC to refer to those from this land as native Americans and not Indians (I being Saux and Fox, Toki being Osage). Indians are from India. But neither of us hold grudges for improper terms.

[groomporter]

No it is not balderdash or poppycock

Thor Hiadal proved that the Egptians may have said from Egypt to the new world and the Aztecs, Incan,s Mayans and Tultecs were all decendant.

While the Irish may not have had as much skill at sailing as the Norsemen did, it is possible. The History channel did a show about white settling America a very long time ago during the ice age. It was nicely done and very interesting and could have been possible.. Those then mixed withthe natives of America. if you look at most Natives from the east coast, most are of fairer skin and even hair. it is not unheard of for them to have eye color other than brown which is the norm for the Natives of America.

I don't think anyone disagrees that it's possible -just that there's a lack of hard evidence.

And while Thor Heyerdahl certainly proved it was possible to sail across the oceans at a much earlier period than people previously thought, much of his work remains controversial within the scientific community, and for the most part, many of Heyerdahl's theories have not been accepted by anthropologists.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/264693/Thor-Heyerdahl

[SirRichardBear]

I saw that History channel show it was very good.  I like the idea that the Americas were settled my several small waves of migration instead of a single huge one.   I think the theory that people migrated here in prehistorical times just as they did doing the colonial period is a good one.   

[Capt Gabriela Fullpepper]

No it is not balderdash or poppycock

Thor Hiadal proved that the Egptians may have said from Egypt to the new world and the Aztecs, Incan,s Mayans and Tultecs were all decendant.

While the Irish may not have had as much skill at sailing as the Norsemen did, it is possible. The History channel did a show about white settling America a very long time ago during the ice age. It was nicely done and very interesting and could have been possible.. Those then mixed withthe natives of America. if you look at most Natives from the east coast, most are of fairer skin and even hair. it is not unheard of for them to have eye color other than brown which is the norm for the Natives of America.

I don't think anyone disagrees that it's possible -just that there's a lack of hard evidence.

And while Thor Heyerdahl certainly proved it was possible to sail across the oceans at a much earlier period than people previously thought, much of his work remains controversial within the scientific community, and for the most part, many of Heyerdahl's theories have not been accepted by anthropologists.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/264693/Thor-Heyerdahl

Just as the Prymids exist but no solid proof on how they were built or the why. The Sphinx is another. The Nazca lines in South America are another. None of these have scientific proof on the why's and how's but we know they did exist. No one belived the Vikings had came to the new world and it wasn't until late in the 20th centry that it became accepted in the scientic community. I remember how when I was in Elementry and Jr high how it was pushed into our heads that it was Columbis that discovered America. We were also taught that smoking was no so dangerous and didn't cause cancer, but today that's a whole different tune.

There are so many in the science world who deny things that are proven, but they still deny it just because it's not enough proof.

[groomporter]

But, until there is the hard evidence it's really just speculation...

It would not surprise me at all that Europeans might have stumbled on to the Americas long before Columbus, it's mainly all the claims that they had significant effects on the indigenous populations that I doubt. ( Heck, although they have backed off on it more recently, part of Mormon teachings claimed that a man from Jerusalem came to the America with his family in about 600 B.C., and became the forebears of Native Americans. http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4043 )

By the way, on a related subject, here's a little something I wrote for an online Celtic History Newsletter about a theory claiming that there may have been a Scot who made a voyage to the new world a hundred years before Columbus
http://lists.topica.com/lists/celtic_history/read/message.html?mid=1720748782&sort=d&start=22

[Julianne]

 

Exactly.

It might has well been a Scot....why not?

[SirRichardBear]

The author James Hogan had an interesting theory he said that people will explore new places but not exploit or colonize them unless there is heavy population or resource pressure to do so.  He said that is why the Chinese never did anything about the west coast even through we know they explored it. Or the Vikings with North America and why we haven't done anything in space.  Which means that europeans could have visited North America many times before Columbus but had no real need to do anything about it because they had plenty of land and resources much closer to home.