This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 Excerpt: ...people, whom the Northmen called Papas; but they went afterwards away, because they would not be here amongst heathens, and left after them Irish books, and bells, and croziers, from which could be seen that they were Irishmen. But then began people to travel much here out from Norway, until King Harold forbade it, because it appeared to him that the land had begun to be thinned of inhabitants. Til vestan um has. Ireland lying to the west of Norway, from whence the Icelanders had emigrated, was generally spoken of by them with reserence to their satherland, and for the same reason they called the Irish "westmen." According to a learned enquirer into the origin of the Irish, the literal meaning of the word " Ireland" is Westland, the Celtic syllable iar, or er, meaning the west. This, however, is disputed by O'Brien, who maintains that the original interpretation of iar is "after," or "behind," and considers Eirin to be compounded of i and erin, the genitive of ere, iron, signifying the island of iron or mines, for which Ireland had formerly been famed, and hence ranked by ancient writers among the Casliterides.--See tVood's Inquiry concerning the Primitive Inhabitants of Ireland, p. 1; CPBrieris Irijh Difl. in voce Eirin.--Beamish. 86 The strongest testimony on this point is given by Dicuil, in a work entitled "De Mensura Orbis Terrae," wherein he shows that Iceland had been visited by Irish ecclesiastics in 795, and the Faroe Islands in 725.--See Antiq. Amer., p. 204. note a. The particulars given of Thule by the Irish monk, Dicuil, who wrote in the year 825, offer a remarkable confirmation of the Icelandic manuscripts respecting the residence of the Irish people, ecclesiastics in that region, which, in..