Many families of Irish origin in this and other countries have foolishly dropped the Celtic prefixes from their names, and thus destroyed their best title to respectability. They should remember that “Mac” and “O” indicate a longer and nobler pedigree than either Capet, Plantagenet, Tudor, Stuart, Guelph, or Wettin—all distinguished enough in their way, but quite modern when compared with the Gaelic patronymics. The Scotch Highlanders, who are of the junior branch of the Irish race, according to the most reliable historians, use the “Mac” very generally, while the “O” is rarely found among them. On this account, as well as others, some of the Scottish savants have attempted to argue that Ireland was originally peopled by immigrants from Scotland, but this argument is fallacious on its face, because Ireland was known to the ancients as “Scotia Major”—greater or older Scotland; while the latter country was designated “Scotia Minor”—smaller or younger Scotland. The Irish and Scotch were alike called “Scots” until long after the time of St. Patrick, and the kindred nations were close friends and helpful allies, from the earliest historical period down to the reign of Edward III of England, and even later. It was in Ireland that Robert Bruce, his brother Edward—afterward elected and crowned king of that country—and their few faithful retainers sought and found friends and a refuge just before their final great victory at Bannockburn, A.D. 1314. Sir Walter Scott mentions this fact in his graphic “Tales of a Grandfather,” and also in his stirring poem, “The Lord of the Isles.” Keating quotes Bede, who lived about 700 hundred years after Christ, as saying in his “History of the Saxons,” “Hibernia is the proper fatherland of the Scoti” (Scots). So also Calgravius, another ancient historian, who, in writing of St. Columba, says: “Hibernia (Ireland) was anciently called Scotia, and from it sprang, and emigrated, the nation of the Scoti, which inhabits the part of Albania (Scotland) that lies nearest to Great Britain (meaning England), and that has been since called Scotia from the fact.” “Marianus Scotus, an Alban (_i.e._ Scotch) writer,” says Keating, “bears similar testimony in writing on the subject of St. Kilian. Here are his words: ‘Although the part of Britannia which borders upon Anglia (England) and stretches toward the north, is at present distinctively called Scotia (Scotland), nevertheless, the Venerable Bede (already quoted) shows that Hibernia was formerly known by that name; for he informs us that the nation of the Picti (Picts) arrived in Hibernia from Scythia, and that they found there the nation of the Scoti.’