Irish pre-Celtic substrate language

The Irish pre-Celtic substrate is the name given to the hypothesized language or languages spoken by the natives of Ireland in Pre-Celtic time, i.e. before the arrival of the Celtic language c.500BCE.
Hypothesis of non-Indo-European languages
Ireland was settled, like the rest of Europe, after the retreat of the ice-caps c.9,000BCE. Indo-European languages are usually thought to have been a much later importation. The language of the inhabitants would have formed a "substrate" to the Celtic tongues of the newcomers, and would have remained in some of the words, placenames, personal names and grammatical constructs of the new Insular-Celtic language. A modern analogy would be the Aboriginal languages which are now a substrate of Australian English, with Aboriginal place names and words such as 'boomerang' still in use. However, the comparison with Australia may not be completely correct, as there are different, competing models on how the indigenous language was replaced, for example:
A. Like Australia, the incomers were vastly more powerful than the natives, and greatly reduced their numbers, and then greatly outnumbered them, possibly involving later waves of settlers as is true with Australia. In this case, the pre-Celtic substrate would be much weaker and less present than the other two.
B. More similar to what occurred in what is now Uyghuristan (or Xinjiang in Chinese). The newcomers are comparable in numbers and only slightly more advantaged than the natives (who are not decreased in number substantially by the initial warfare), and over the process of a couple generations, the two peoples mix to form a hybrid group, but they speak the Celtic language that became Irish as their sole language, except for in certain pockets where the mix was overwhelmingly more native, but these pockets are doomed to Gaelicisation nonetheless. In this case, the substrate in Irish would not be overwhelmingly influential, but still significantly present
C. Similar to the situation that occurred in what became modern Turkey. The natives vastly outnumbered the settlers, and simply adopted the language of their new Celtic lords, who eventually assimilate with the populace to form a common identity. The resulting group is overwhelmingly native in genetics (as the Turks in Anatolia are as well), but culturally mixed between the natives and the invaders. In this case, the language could have survived for a relatively long period of time and had much influence on the modern language.
Techniques of research
No inscriptions in the postulated substrate language have been discovered. The chief technique used is to compile a list of words in the Irish language which do not seem to have an Indo-European cognate, on the assumption that these are probably derived from the substrate. This method of research is still at an early stage. It is particularly difficult because there are no inscriptions in the Irish language itself before about 400CE, nearly a millennium after the arrival of Celtic languages. This period is enough to allow many developments within Irish which would obscure the origins of words. Attempts have been made to find Irish substrate cognates in other non-Indo-European nearby languages such as Aquitanian, Iberian, and Basque, without success so far. However as the Irish substrate may have split from these language locations up to eight thousand years before the earliest writing in Western Europe, it is not surprising such cognates are difficult to find or recognise.
Suggested non-Indo-European words in Irish
Gearóid Mac Eoin proposes the following words as deriving from the substrate- Bréife(ring or loop), Cufar, Cuifre/Cuipre(kindness), Fafall/Fubhal, Lufe(feminine), Slife, Strophais(straw); and the following placenames- Bréifne, Crufait, Dún Gaifi, Faffand, Grafand, Grafrenn, Life/Mag Liphi, Máfat.
Peter Schrijver submits the following words as deriving from the substrate- partán ‘crab’, Partraige (ethnonym), (partaing > Lat. parthicus), pattu ‘hare’, petta ‘hare’, pell ‘horse’, pít ‘portion of food’, pluc `(round) mass’, prapp ‘rapid’, gliomach ‘lobster’, faochán ‘periwinkle’, ciotóg ‘left hand’, bradán ‘salmon’, scadán ‘herring’. In a further work he refutes some criticisms by Graham Isaac.
Paul Tempan suggests that nouns, proper names and common nouns which form their oblique cases by adding -nn, e.g. Ériu (gen. Érenn), Áru, Málu, Maistiu, Rechru, Tru(i)stiu may be pre-Celtic in origin, as Thurneysen suggests this declension is a miscellaneous category for nouns of various genders rather than a class which Irish inherited from Indo-European. Tempan also suggests that peculiar consonant clusters in names like Tlachtga & Cnodba may also derive from the substrate.
Dennis King suggests the following Irish words which do not seem to have a Celtic cognate- adaig(night), amm(time), arán(bread), baile(place, village), bláesc(shell), bráen(drop), cith(shower), dúil(creature, element), meccon (edible root), óg (virgin), remor(fat), rosc(eye), smacht(rule, control), tost(silence), úaine(green). Also possibly:feóil(meat), fót(sod), gér(sharp).
points out that there are words of possibly or probably non-Indo-European origin in other Celtic languages as well; therefore, the substrate may not have been in contact with Primitive Irish but rather with Proto-Celtic. Examples of words found in more than one branch of Celtic but with no obvious cognates outside Celtic include:
*Middle Irish 'young woman', Middle Welsh 'heifer', perhaps Gaulish anderon (possibly connected with Basque 'lady, woman')
*Old Irish 'peak', Middle Welsh 'peak', Gaulish bennicus (name element)
*Old Irish 'short', Middle Welsh 'short', Gaulish Birrus (name)
*Old Irish 'raven', Middle Welsh 'raven', Gaulish Brano- (name element)
*Middle Irish 'badger', Middle Welsh 'badger', Gaulish Broco- (name element)
*Old Irish '(war) chariot', Gaulish carpento-, Carbanto-
*Old Irish 'salmon', Middle Welsh 'salmon', Gaulish *esoks (borrowed into Latin as )
*Old Irish 'piece', Middle Welsh 'thing', Gaulish *pettia (borrowed into Latin as and French as )
*Old Irish 'wether', Middle Welsh 'ram, wether', Gaulish Moltus (name) and *multon- (borrowed into French as )

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