Dr Alfred Smyth Chair of Medieval History, University of Kent, Canterbury, Author of Celtic Leinster
"An astonishing achievement...of sound scholarship...speculative and antiquarian"
Professor Liam de Paorlate of Dept of Irish History, Boston College, Boston, Mass.
"(In) this well researched work...of considerable interest... by taking one Celtic tribe, the author has found an angle from which the history of Celtic Europe, and in particular Celtic Ireland can very usefully be viewed.... I salute the diligent research".
Dr Ian Adamson former Mayor of Belfast, Author of The Cruithin
" A tremendous voyage of discovery... most stimulating and impressive"
Books Irelan, Summer '95
"The Menapii were a Belgic tribe of Northern Gauls....Mr Mongan with great industry and enthusiasm traces them here. While this is less cautious than the work of most archaeologists and historians, who is to say in the face of such meagre contemporary evidence that brave speculation is less valid than pedestrianism ? ....In any case the book will be of considerable value to genealogists."
Dr Hugh Weir Clare Champion, Feb. 1996
" I sincerely reccomend this book to anybody interested in our past and people....for the deep amount of research it contains"
Col Con Costello, Leinster Leader, July 1995
"In all the author has unearthed much material which will offer anyone interested in the early builders and occupiers of those great (Celtic) enclosures plenty of theories on which to ponder on"
Ian Ramsey Passport Sabena, Sept 1997, Belgian airlines inflight magasine
"With (its) painstaking detective work,...(Mongan's) book... coincides with a renewed interest in Celtic culture across Europe : London's British Museum recently opened a permanent display of Iron Age artefacts, while new exhibitions in Belgium explore the country's Celtic heritage"
Synopsis
Who are the Irish? Where did they come from? This is the odyssey of the Menapii, the oldest traceable Celtic tribe in Europe. The Menapii, a Gaulish maritime tribe inhabiting the dense forests of the Rhine estuary on the North Sea coast, were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in 57 BC. During the Gallic War he singled them out as the only tribe never to surrender to his legions. As part of the Belgae, the Belgic tribal confederation, they had for centuries valiantly resisted encroaching Germanic tribes. Celtic seafarers and traders, their ships had sailed the Irish Sea for centuries BC, establishing trading colonies on the Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Manx coasts, as confirmed by ancient and modern placenames. They worshipped Manannan mac Lir, their Celtic sea-god; a renown navigator, merchant and magician. The Menapii are the only known Celtic tribe specifically named on Ptolemy's 150 AD map of Ireland, where they located their first colony - Menapia - on the Leinster coast circa 216 BC. They later settled around Lough Erne, becoming known as the Fir Manach, and giving their name to Fermanagh and Monaghan. Mongan mac Fiachna, a 7th century King of Ulster, is the protagonist of several legends linking him with Manannan man Lir. They spread across Ireland, evolving into historical Irish (also Scottish and Manx) clans whose descendants are found worldwide today.
