Orpheus is the first writer who definitely names Ireland.

In the imaginary route which he prescribes for Jason and the Argonauts, he names Ireland (Iernis), and describes its woody surface and its misty atmosphere.

All authorities are agreed that this poem[52] was written five hundred years before Christ; and all doubt as to whether Iernis meant the present island of Ireland must be removed, at least to an unprejudiced inquirer, by a careful examination of the route which is described, and the position of the island in that route.
The early history of a country which has been so long and so cruelly oppressed, both civilly and morally, has naturally fallen into disrepute.

We do not like to display the qualifications of one whom we have deeply injured.

It is, at least, less disgraceful to have forbidden a literature to a people who had none, than to have banned and barred the use of a most ancient language,--to have destroyed the annals of a most ancient people.