Blair Collection > Celtic gleanings, or, Notices of the history and literature of the Scottish Gael

62 LECTURE II.
fact, considering the identity of the languages,
there is nothing more remarkable than the di-
versity in the topographies of the two countries.
And rising from the names of places to those of
men, we find similar diversities, and those di-
versities by no means of recent growth, as can
be shown. Where are the innumerable O's of
the Irish clans to be found in Scotland ? For
their O'Neil we have M'Neil ; for their O'Don-
nell we have M'Donald or McDonnell ; for their
O'Loughlin we have M'Lauchlan. O'Duibhne,
the Celtic patronymic of the clan Campbell, is
the only " 0" Scotland possesses; and it has been
for a long period well nigh obsolete. Surely, if
our Highlanders were colonists of a period so
late as the sixth century we should have had
at the first dawn of the historic period more
abundant remains than then existed of what is
distinctive of the Celt of Ireland. The theory
of our Irish colonization does not meet the de-
mands of the case with respect to the origin of
the Scottish Highlanders. We are not disposed
to quarrel with our Irish brethren for denying
to Britain the honour of giving them an origin,
and transferring it to Spain. Nor are we dis-
posed to quarrel with them at all. We would
rather draw somewhat tighter the bonds be-
tween them and us. There is much about them