Conquests, and from the Leabhar Dhroma Sneachta,or the
snow-backed book, by soöïë said-fo have been written before St.
Patrick arrivedin Ireland.* From 'Magog weredsscended the
Sfemedians, the Fîr-Bolg, and the Tuatha De-Danânn, and from
the same patriarch came Nd^, a particular friend o ï Aafèn and
MoseSjf- who married Scota, daughter<of Pharaoh, and afterwards
saw his father-in-law drowned in the Red Sea: Their
son was Gaodhaf-from whom the Gaoidhil or-Gael are named.
They went to Scythia or,Gothia, and thence to.iSpain, in four
shipé,>ïlad by Oige—TomM—Urge—Knowledge, and the two?
som of Allod—Antiquity, and obtained many victories oyer the;
people of Spain, till at length one of their princes Mîleàbh—a
soldier, usually termed Milesius of Spain,' sailing fabroad be--
came marshalof the army of Pharaoh Nectonibus,' then fighting
against_the:Ethiopians. He went then to Spain,rand beat
the Gothi who ravaged that«pantry—doubtless the Visigoths^
We find here an anachronism of two thousand years>\ )Âfter
fighting fifty%four battles he expelled them fromSpai4i?nMe^ed'
by a famine he despatched Ith-^-Gorw—in quest of the Western
Island. Ith and his company carnête Ireland, and conyersed?
with thé nations who spoke the Gaoidhealgj .^raelianr Irish,
la n g u ^ e ^ Aeeordmg to the-Book ^C o n q u ests, m«t>odly the
Milesians m Gaoidhil, but likewise the other udeseend-:
ants of Neimhidh, including the Fîr-Bolg and the -Tuatha
De-Danann, spoke the Gaoid'healg or Gaelic! language.'
Richard Creagh, primate of Ireland; says th a t GaeMnwas eon-
stantlymsed in Irelandsinee; the arrival • of ; N eimhidih; namely,
630 years after Noah’s .Deluge. The Milesians ..arrived in
1300 b .c ., at Inmhear -Slainge or Wexford harbour, the.name
of which is a proof that the Milesian story was written aften
the seventh century, since in the second that place was called
“ Modoni ostia” by Ptolemy, and in the seventh Moda by S t
Adamnan.+ The remains of the Tuatha De-Danânn were
* Keating, pi 54. ‘ i.
- t NinI had his camp U Capacirunt, near Egÿgt, when Moàéë and Aaron
arrived in’the neighbourhood. Moses cured Ninl’s son Gadelus,who had been
bitten by a serpent, by laying his rod upon the wound, and thereby conciliated the
friendship of the Gael. He moreover prophesied that they should settle in a country
free from venomous reptiles.
X Dr. Wood’s In qu iry. ;
145
banished, and Ireland became the sole possession and dwelling-
plaee-of the Milesians or Gaoidhil.
These traditions .are preserved in poems or metrical frag-
mentsof Fiech,* Ceuafaolad, Maelraur, Coemann, Eoehod,and
rqper dxish bards, who composed their poems between the
sixth and tenth centuries. , These compositions, some of which
have been printed from Irish manuscripts^were the materials
which the -liionkisk 'cji-rooiclers, bfr1 a somewhat later period
worked up in their annaLs..'Of theftmonki&h^hronicfes, those of
Tjgernaqhj Innisfallen, Twister, and the Psalter-ef Cashel are
the m.o&ficelebrated«j ’ A part'of the poe%|ahjfictioris are even
itao wild fo haves;obtained' credit'„with the moreisober o f the
chroniclers.- -.Tigernach allows7\thafe-allfbe; Irish mompnents
axe uncertain down :to, the age of Kimbaoth, or that the
first; Ptdlem^;
^l^eaFlyUhe j spape enumeration^ of tbie-co,Ionics, said to have
settled in Ireland,has been deduced by.the learned Dr. O’Connor
from the various^ annals above mentioned, thefeomposi-tions
of the Irish chiwdolers-.b -Thefe^llo w ing jis \Sl hr^fiabsfrac^pf
hisAStatemeM.^ He terms the brstieejbny that;of Partholanns,
who lived an th e third age; of thpcworld,; aepordingfo th e com-,
putation^of#ra'ges“.?supposed to havejb.een made-b'p.Bedeji and
adopted^by’fh e, monastic, historians;, qf the Irish. The third-
fage* GOthmepe'es^with the time o f Abraham.
This .fiEst-^colony, led( ’by Partholanj was-nfollowed, vby a
seconds under-yNemethns,, about the itiipe vpfjdthe patrififFch
Jaepb.d The,third polony*was tbaU,of-the ^Fir-Bo^s,-who
came to the ^south:of -Ireland. , From these were the first
dynasties of.Irish kings,, whose ,names and are
given bys Keating and O’Flaherty, as these-writers, haye’eofe
lected them from then old poets above7 mentioned..-. The
fourth weri the Tuatha De-Danann,- wbb-)Came\ un,der their
leader INuadha. All thesh coloniesi: were in the third age(of
the worl^1 i. e. before the time. o^^plomon. After that time*
in thedf$urth age q£ thc -world, came thp S,cpti>ifrqm Spain.
Such,«according to i O’Connor,$ is the uniform and constant.
* Fiecb is said to have been a p^pil- of St. Patrick,
f .Sfi’e the, Prolegomena to O’Connor’s collection, of Irish historians.
VOL. III. L