Old Spanish document suggests Irish were in America before Columbus

1521 Spanish reports indicates Irish may have settled in Georgia and the Carolinas

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KERRY O'SHEA,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

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Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, a historian and professor, wrote about what would become Georgia and the Carolinas in his report named "De Orbe Novo” (About the New World.)

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However, later in 2006, People of One Fire, a nationwide team of Native American scholars, primarily of Creek Indian heritage, began a comprehensive research program to obtain more accurate and detailed knowledge of North America’s pre-European history.

As part of their research, they began to attempt to translate every single Native American word that was translated by the Spanish. While many of those words were easily translated by modern Creek, Alabama, Koasati or Choctaw dictionaries, the words associated with the province of Duhare defied translation until 2011.

Researchers began to investigate the similarity of Irish rock carvings to those in the state of South Carolina. One member of the People of One Fire team came across an ancient Irish lullaby entitled “Bainne nam fiadh;” On milk of deer I was reared. On milk of deer I was nurtured. On milk of deer beneath the ridge of storms on crest of hill and mountain.”

The lullaby has particular significance as the deer were a prominent resource for Duhare people. According to Spanish sources, the Duhare maintained large herds of domesticated deer and made cheese from deer milk. The excess male deer population was fattened with corn for butchering.

The deer stayed in corrals within the villages at night, but grazed in herds in the day time, accompanied by “deer-herders” and herd dogs. Neighboring peoples knew not to hunt them.

The Duhare words, recorded by the Spanish, were able to be translated using Gaelic dictionaries. Duhare, in fact, was found to be translated to either “place of the Clan Hare,” or if the Duhare came from west of the Shannon River, it meant, “du’hEir,” place of the Irish.

Read more: Our unusual Irish ancestors – the poets, madmen and scoundrels who hail from Ireland

Further solidifying the Irish roots in Duhare, it was found that Datha, the name of the leader of Duhare, was a standard Medieval Irish Gaelic word that means “painted.” Datha of Duhare was remembered for being tattooed or painted, as if to separate himself from the commoners - a tradition among Celts.

Also in 2011, the mystery of the Reinhardt Boulder - an ancient and mysterious carved rock that was found years ago on the Cline farm in the Hickory Log area of Cherokee County in Georgia near the Etowah River - was put to rest after striking similarities between its carvings were made with rock carvings that originated around the Atlantic Coast of Ireland.

“There is a boulder on the Dingle Peninsula of County Kerry that has the same glyphs (carvings) as the Reinhardt boulder and is approximately the same size. The Reinhardt Boulders’ concentric circles are a common theme of petroglyphic boulders all along the western Irish coast. However, the answer to the riddle of the Reinhardt Petroglyph has created many more questions about North America’s history before Christopher Columbus’s voyage,” writes Thornton in a separate article.

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