Whether "summer" refers to the complexion, the disposition, the time of arrival or something else, we leave for the individual to conclude, although before surnames, Irish names often described personal or physical characteristics.

C. S. Matthews reminds us that '~ in dealing with Celtic names one must always keep in mind the close connection between M and B and V-especially the last two. The Romans generally wrote this as B but when it survived it generally did so as V. In Gaelic it is written BH or MH but has the sound of V  - or nothing. Matthews also tells us "the Irish are a people with a tremendous sense of the past. Their proper names, both personal and local, have come down from a very remote past. In the course of many centuries they have been softened and modified in speech to pleasant sounds like Sullivan and Kevin though some modern Irish scholars insist on writing these very names as "Suileabhain and Caomhghin."

THE CELTS

As we have noted, the superiority over their neighbors in the use of iron instead of bronze, enabled them to spread successfully from Asian Minor to the Atlantic. While the Greeks and Romans were developing their brilliant cultures and civilization, the Celts were fanning out behind them to the East and West.

The Greeks called them Keltoi, but their more general name, used by the Romans, was the Galli. Some of them were the Galatians to whom St. Paul wrote an Epistle. Others left their name in Gallipoli on the Bosphorous, in Gallina in Italy, in the districts of Galacia in Poland and Spain, in Galloway in Scotland, and in Gaul, which became France.

Joseph Henry McGovern, an eminent architect and historian of the McGoverns thinks from his examinations that there were actually three branches of septs of the McGoverns. But we will get to his views later.

One must remember that the Celts passed their traditions down orally for most of their history. One also must remember that there is no people who surpass the Celts in imagination, mystique or story-telling. As this tradition was passed down for 5,000 years or so, the imagination of the scribes may have spruced up the truth or the action a wee bit - only to make a "dacent" story, mind you.

So when we hear of the high Celtic adventures and courageous conquests of the Celts, we should remember we are dealing in legend. But after all, the metaphor is what counts. "Duchas" that typically mercurial Celtic word says, "what is bred in the bone will out." And what kind of a lout would spoil a good story just for the snippance of a fact?

To be sure, the Celts, in their restless roamings, rampagings and searchings were intermingled with many of the various peoples they came in contact with-other Indo­Europeans, the Vikings, Danes, Normans and including the Mathriage and Cathraige tribes who got to keland before all of them maybe 5,000 years before. So the Irish today are much like a melting pot of the

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