‘race of cannibals’ had once dwelt in the neighbourhood of Glasgow. Possible Irish connection Perhaps as early as the 17th century, and certainly in the 18th and 19th centuries, some Irish scholars (Charles O'Conor and John O'Donovan, for example) had suggested that the origin of the Attacotti might lie in Ireland. This was based on the perceived similarity between Latin Attacotti and the Old Irish term aithechthúatha, a generic designation for certain Irish population groups, usually translated "rent-paying tribes", "vassal communities" or "tributary peoples". In the context of well-attested Irish raids on the western coast of Britain in the late Roman period, it was suggested that one or more of these population groups might be the raiders reported by Ammianus in the 360s. The thesis was given impetus when historian Charles O'Conor promoted it in the late 18th century. However, this remained controversial among scholars into the late 19th century. Later scholarship has criticised the possible connection between Latin Attacotti and aithechthúatha on etymological grounds. Early scholars had based their arguments on the Old Irish that was known from medieval manuscripts rather than on the largely hypothetical Primitive Irish used in the 4th century when the Attacotti were in Britain. Knowledge and understanding of the history of the Irish language were revolutionised from the end of the 19th century, largely owing to the efforts of Rudolf Thurneysen (1857–1940). He hypothesised that Attacotti and aithechthúatha are unconnected, and that the Primitive Irish equivalent to aithechthúatha would be *Ateûiācotōtās. This, in his opinion, is too far removed from the Latin form Attacotti in Ammianus. More recent research has shown that some of the Irish population groups involved in the raiding and settlement of Roman and/or sub-Roman Britain could be classified as aithechthúatha, however, problems of chronology and identification persist. References Bibliography Freeman, Philip (2002), 'Who Were the Atecotti?' in J.F. Nagy (ed.), Identifying the "Celtic" ([Celtic Studies Association of North America Yearbook 2] Dublin, 2002), 111—114. MacNeill, Eoin, "Early Irish Population Groups: their nomenclature, classification and chronology", in Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (C) 29. 1911. pp. 59–114 Scharf, Ralf (1995), 'Aufrüstung und Truppenbenennung unter Stilicho: Das Beispiel der Atecotti-Truppen', Tyche 10: 161—178. Tribes of ancient Britain Tribes of ancient Ireland Historical Celtic peoples Mercenary units and formations of antiquity Incidents of cannibalism