Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

Ireland is an interesting case. It's long been held that the Romans made initial exploratory excursions and decided that the combination of landscape and hostile natives made it not worth expending further military effort on. However, they may well have had some social/cultural influence after all according to this article:

http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba14/BA14FEAT.HTML

One thing is for sure, they certainly made up for it when the Roman Empire effectively transformed itself into the Roman Catholic Church, but that's another story....

The later Scandanavian and Norman invasion/settlement also get conveniently ignored in Scotland and Ireland when both , particularly the latter had major impacts .The english seem to have a more adult confident approach and accept their invasions and defeats .

A lot of English people also have a peculiar inability to understand their multi cultural/ethnic roots as well!

;-)

[quote="CARL"] I can imagine a v boring final episode charting roman britain and the contrast between England and Wales and the lucky Scots & Irish who weren't so aflicted.

The area we now call Scotland was terribly afflicted by the Roman Empire and was subjected to nearly three centuries of Roman Invasions, campaigns and military occupation. All of Scotland's many roman remains are of a military nature (ie. no public bathouses, circuses, villas or temples). The Gask Ridge Frontier which runs from Braco to Perth formed the earliest known Roman military frontier in the world was built around around AD 79. A massive Legionary fortress was built a few years later at Inchtuthill near Meikleour by Agricola following the decisive battle of Mons Graupius. Campaigns continued throughout the time of the Antonine Wall in the 2nd Century. Septimus Severus later built a huge new base at Carpow near Newburgh further down the Tay to run punishing campaigns in the North East in ther early 3rd century.
England and Wales were only afflicted for a few years until they all started wearing togas, building villas and sitting around in bathhouses singing "'decem urnae pendent ex muro".

Just had a quick browse around the A History of Ancient Britain website. To my suprise, it appears they have inside knowledge as to how stone circles were built. Forget foam henge, stone rowing and all that...

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/history/handsonhistory/ancients_circle.pdf

The area we now call Scotland was terribly afflicted by the Roman Empire and was subjected to nearly three centuries of Roman Invasions, campaigns and military occupation. All of Scotland's many roman remains are of a military nature (ie. no public bathouses, circuses, villas or temples). The Gask Ridge Frontier which runs from Braco to Perth formed the earliest known Roman military frontier in the world was built around around AD 79. A massive Legionary fortress was built a few years later at Inchtuthill near Meikleour by Agricola following the decisive battle of Mons Graupius. Campaigns continued throughout the time of the Antonine Wall in the 2nd Century. Septimus Severus later built a huge new base at Carpow near Newburgh further down the Tay to run punishing campaigns in the North East in ther early 3rd century.
England and Wales were only afflicted for a few years until they all started wearing togas, building villas and sitting around in bathhouses singing "'decem urnae pendent ex muro".