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Ireland in ancient times was called by the Romans Hibernia (from the word hibernus – “winter”). The Romans certainly had commercial contact with the inhabitants of the island. The question arises: what did they know about “Green Island” and whether a Roman legionary appeared on the Irish coast?
Discovery of Ancient Ireland
There are indications that Ireland was discovered as early as the 6th century BCE, by Phoenician or Greek merchant ships, famous for their greatest discoveries in ancient times. The term “Massiliote Periplus” appeared in the scientific literature in the 20th century. According to the German historian Adolf Schulten, based on some verses of the work of a Roman writer from the 4th century BCE – Festus Rufus Avienus entitled “The Sea Coast” (Ora maritima), it can be concluded that there was a kind of document – periplus – which did not survive to our times, but which was primarily to present key places and the route from ancient Massala (present Marseille) to the Pointe du Raz headland in northwestern France. Periplus was a directory of important and useful information for sailors. According to the German researcher, the document was also supposed to mention a distant island (Ireland?) And its more important points on the coast, along with the determination of the distance between them, facilitating navigation. This bold theory, however, did not receive great recognition and is currently criticized by the research community.
Another evidence of very early discovery of Ireland (even in the 10th century BCE) is a spearhead found in the port of Huleva (southwestern Spain), which some say is to prove the existence of early trade between the island and the Mediterranean region.
The first, reasonably credible records of Ireland are due to the discoveries of Pytheas of Massalia, a Greek explorer and geographer from the 4th century BCE. We know about Pytheas’ expedition thanks to Strabo and his book Geographica. Ireland there is called “Ierne” and is described as “cold”1. You ask was an extremely brave traveler; according to Pliny the Elder even reached the Baltic Sea2. On the occasion, however, he was criticized by his contemporaries who questioned his bold claims about, for example, great tides or the existence of 19-hour days in some places.
The first term for Ireland – Hibernia – was used by Julius Caesar in his work Commentarii de Bello Gallico3. He describes the island as being half the size of Britain. Moreover, Caesar correctly states that it is west of Britain and not north as Strabo claimed.
Pomponius Mela, a Roman geographer of the middle of the 1st century CE, calls Ireland Iuverna. According to him, the climate on the island is unfavourable for the cultivation of grain, but the grass grows so abundantly that it is an ideal place for grazing cattle4.
The term Hibernia appears once again in the work of Tacitus, a Roman historian from the late 1st century CE, entitled “The Agricola”. The author also uses the phrase partem Britannia quae Hiberniam, meaning “Hibernia is part of Britain”. The name “Hibernia” was derived from the transformation of the word hibernus – “winter”, which confirms again that the peoples of the Mediterranean considered the island’s climate to be cool.
Another geographer mentioning ancient Ireland was Claudius Ptolemy, a scholar from Alexandria who in his mid-2nd century work “Geography” calls the island Iouerníā5. From the surviving manuscripts of the researcher’s work, it is possible to read several Irish centres that modern researchers have combined w