[198]. See Irish Nennius, p. 221.
[199]. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 45.
[200]. This seems clearly implied. Gillacaoman, in a poem quoted by Colgan, A.SS. p. 198, also identifies the Nemedians with the Tuatha de Danaan. Two of the three bands of the Nemedians who left Erin, according to the Book of Conquests, seem obviously the same—the one under Fergus Leth Derg settling in a district in Alban called Dobhar and Iardobhar, and the Tuatha De Danaan coming to Erin from the same district.
[201]. O’Curry, Lectures on MS. Materials, p. 223.
[202]. O’Curry’s Lectures on Manners and Customs of Ancient Irish. Introduction by Professor Sullivan, p. lxxii.
[203]. The colony of Partholan seems to have been the same with the Firbolg. Partolan has three sons—Slainge, Rudhraige, and Laighlinne—and two of these, Slainge and Rudhraige, are among the leaders of the Firbolg. If we may consider the following passage from the Welsh Bruts as containing genuine tradition, they seem to have considered them as Iberian or Basque: ‘Gwrgant, on his return, as he was passing through the isles of Orc, came up with thirty ships, which were full of men and women, and finding them there, he seized their chief, whose name was Partholym. Hereupon this chief prayed his protection, telling him that they were called Barclenses, had been driven from Spain, and were roving on the seas to find a place of settlement, and that he therefore entreated Gwrgant to grant them permission to abide in some part of the island, as they had then been at sea for a year and a half. Gwrgant having thus learned whence they were and what was their purpose, directed them with his goodwill to go to Ireland, which at that time lay waste and uninhabited. Thither therefore they went, and there they settled, and peopled the country, and their descendants are to this day in Ireland.’
[204]. B. iii. c. iii. where he distinguishes between ‘Septentrionalis Scottorum provincia,’ and the ‘Gentes Scottorum, quæ in australibus Hiberniæ insulæ partibus morabantur.’
[205]. Heber appears also to have in one view represented the old Iberians of Munster, with whom, indeed, the name seems connected. Partholan is said to have divided Ireland into four parts among his four sons, Er, Orba, Fearran, and Feargna; and Heremon, when he divides Ireland, gives Munster to Er, Orba, Fearran, and Feargna, the four sons of Heber. The southern Scottish royal race are brought, however, from Conmaol, son of Heber.
[206]. The turning-point appears to be the battle of Ocha, which was fought in the year 478 by Lughaidh, son of that Laogaire who appears as king of Ireland in the Acts of St. Patrick;—Murcertach MacErca, Fiachna, king of Dalaradia, and Crimthan, king of Leinster, against Olioll Molt, son of Dathi, king of Ireland. It is made an era by most of the annalists, and undoubtedly was viewed as accomplishing a revolution which secured the throne of Ireland to the Hy Neill, or descendants of Niall Mor of the nine hostages. There is also a marked difference in the annals that precede and follow it, as those incidents which evidently belong to a mythic period—such as the death of Dathi by a flash of lightning at the foot of the Alps, and that of Laogaire by the elements, because he had violated an oath he had sworn by them—here come to an end. Murcertach MacErca, too, who followed the short reign of Lugliaidh, was the first Christian monarch of Ireland. The author considers that the real chronological history of Ireland begins here, and that the previous annals are an artificially-constructed history, in which some fragments of genuine annals, and some historic tales founded on fact, are imbedded in a mass of tradition, legend, and fable.
[207]. ‘In anno xviii. Ptolemæi, initiatus est regnare in Eamain Cimbaoch filius Fintain qui regnavit annis xviii. Omnia monumenta Scotorum usque Cimbaoch incerta erant.’ Eaman was the great capital of Ulster, now Navan, near Armagh.