Courtney McGrailThe Books Editor
People have been migrating throughout history
Some of the central chapters in Edward Gibbons Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (a work which is not very friendly to the Catholic Church) are devoted to the invasion of the Germanic and other tribes, which shook the empire and changed its course.
Of course, the empire in a formal sense did not end until the capture of Constantinople by the Muslims in 1453. The barbarians changed the shape of Europe after 400AD. Even between 525 and 600 there were extraordinary changes, with the disappearance of the Ostrogoth Kingdom and that of the Vandals in North Africa. Then came the Muslim invasion of Spain.
The migration of these tribes, the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, the Lombards, the Franks and even the Huns, transformed Europe, not in the sense of destroying it but of renewing it in many ways. These tribes are as much a part of the foundations of modern European nations as the Romans were. Later historians, such as Sir Stephen Runciman, in Byzantine Civilization (1933) and many other books, have described the historical process from a modern perspective.
Indeed it is very strange that as the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, walls up his country, he seems to have forgotten that his own nation originated in central Asia far beyond the Urals. Hungary was founded in 896, when the Magyars swept into the Carpathian basin.
He ought to welcome new arrivals one would have thought, but no. (Indeed, he also seems to have forgotten the welcome that Western Europe, including Ireland, gave to Hungarian refugees after the Rising in 1956.)
Many Europeans, like the Hungarian prime minister, feel they are being overwhelmed by a tide of humanity. But in world history there is nothing new about this movement of peoples.
Palaeontologists tell us (in a narrative that is in constant revision) that humanity arose in South Africa perhaps two millions years or more ago. From that African Eden the human race migrated northwards into the Middle East, Asia and Europe.
The Americas were also settled by ancient migrants. In more recent centuries further migration from Europe and Asia has added to the native stock. Indeed the United States, until a recent date made much of its open door policy, as enshrined in the Statue of Liberty in New York harbour. Robert Kennedy indeed wrote a book about this, called A Nation of Emigrants. Both the Irish and the Hungarians – and many other nations as well – benefited by this policy.
Over history, human beings have gone on migrating. We have only to think in the Asian context of the Mongols, carried by their sturdy horse, who conquered something like half the known world.
Great Wall of China
It was against them that the Great Wall of China was built, the classic statement of a settled community to protect itself against incomers who were more mobile.
But the wall did little good. The Mongols under Kublai Kahn (whom Marco Polo visited) and later the Manchu conquered China and imposed new customs and new laws.
Here in Ireland there were waves of settlers of which the Gaels, the so-called Celts, the Normans and the English were the last. However you date the Gaels, there was at least 8,000 years of Irish settlement behind them of which we have the remains, but not the history. Most of us, however, are descended from people who came here up to 10,000 years before, long before the Gaelic over-lords of historic times.
Of course, the true culture of the original, aboriginal Irish, is now lost, their language, religion and laws replaced by the Brehon and English laws, the ‘Irish’ language and a whole new range of place names, all brought in by newcomers.
Migration is a defining characteristic of the human species. But so too is the urge to settle. Everyone needs their own nest, their own home, their townland. But as we also know people have had to leave their townlands and migrate around the world by force of circumstance.
Our people benefited by this. So to when the migrants arrive here, the latest of a long line, of settlement going back more than 10,000 years, they too will benefit. And as they do, we all will benefit as well.