crossed over to Scotland, to the Hebrides, from rock to rock, and
in Christian times they went as far as the Faroe group, even as
far as Iceland, which some of them appear to have attempted to
colonize long before the Norwegian outlaws went there; and some
even say that from Erin came the first Europeans who landed on
frozen Greenland years before the Icelandic Northmen planted
establishments in that dreary country. The Celts, therefore, and
those of Erin chiefly, were a seafaring race.

But to construct a fleet, to provision and arm it, to fill it with
the flower of their youth, and send them over the ocean to plunder
and slay the inhabitants for the purpose of colonizing the countries
they had previously devastated, such was never the character of
the Celts. They never engaged extensively in trade, or what is
often synonymous, piracy. Before becoming christianized, the Celts
of Ireland crossed over the narrow channel which divided them from
Britain, and frequently carried home slaves; they also passed
occasionally to Armorica, and their annals speak of warlike
expeditions to that country; but their efforts at navigation were
always on an extremely limited scale, in spite of the many inducements
offered by their geographical position. The fact is striking when
we compare them in that particular with the Scandinavian free-rovers
of the Northern Ocean.

It is, therefore, very remarkable that, whenever they got on board
a boat, it was always a single and open vessel. They did so in pagan
times, when the largest portion of Western Europe was theirs; they
continued to do so after they became Christians. The race has always
appeared opposed to the operations of an extensive commerce, and
to the spreading of their power by large fleets.