Introduction. urns, have often been found. The name Tallaght means the Plague Stone. After this sweeping extermination Ireland would seem to have remained unoccupied by any tribe known to history for a period of upwards of thirty years, when the country was again invaded by a host, also Scythian, under Nemedius. Then a second Fomorian invasion is recorded in the annals. These people are said to have been expert sailors and robbers, swarming all through the German Ocean, and ruling over the Shetland Isles and the Hebrides. They were shortly followed by the Viri Bullorum, i.e., the Firbolgs, so called, it is said, by the historian Keating, from the leathern bags which they had with them in Greece for carrying mould to lay it on the flat surface of rocks, so as to convert them into flowery plains.* Of the Firbolgs a not very flattering description is given in an Irish compilation styled the Book of MacFirbis, written about the year 1650; but from materials incalculably older, in which it is stated that every one who is black, loquacious, lying, taletelling, or of low or grovelling mind is of the Firbolg descent. From the same authority we learn that every one who is fairhaired, of large size, fond of music and horse-riding, and practises the art of magic, is of Tuatha-Dé-Danaan descent. By these Danaans the Firbolgs were invaded and subdued. They appear to have been of a superior race. The moral and physical differences between these two peoples may have been very well marked some two thousand years ago, but in more recent times, no doubt, many respectable families of decent behaviour, though possessed of dark eyes and ebon hair, may have settled and multiplied in Erin. The fair in appearance are not on that account to be considered as having claim to monopolise the credit of all fairness in action, or of culture or refinement in every day life. Perhaps the venerable chronicler quoted by MacFirbis may have recollected that his patroness was a kind of "fair one with the golden locks." Who can tell? On the completion of their conquest the Tuatha-Dé-Danaans divided Ireland into three parts, and appointed a king over each. They were the first it appears to establish a regular monarchial * See Wilde's Bee, &c., p. 219. form of government in Ireland, the seat of which was Tara Hill, in Meath; and Teamur, or Tara, held its pre-eminence over all other chief places in the country down to A.D. 563, when its halls and ramparts, which had for untold centuries been the scene of most of the leading events of Irish history, and the abode of the chief warriors, poets, law givers, antiquaries, and artists of old Erin, were abandoned, in consequence of a curse pronounced against the place by St. Ruadau of Lorha. A full notice of all that remains to be seen on this historic eminence will be found in a subsequent chapter. It is a remarkable fact that the language spoken by the various waves of invaders just referred to appears to have been the same with all, or nearly so; for we have no mention, even in our oldest manuscripts, of any other tongue but the Gaelic having at an early period been used generally in Ireland. Whence came that still living language? Byron writes: "Those antiquarians who can settle time, Which settles all things-Roman, Greek, and Runic- As Hannibal, and wears the Tyrean tunic Of Dido's alphabet." But he subsequently adds: "all this is rational, As may any other notion, but not national !" Probably the high contending parties were each and all but members of that great clan of humanity now rightly or wrongly styled "Celtic." They may have been long scattered and separated from each other, but not sufficiently long to have caused them to forget their ancestral tongue. Amongst them some very remarkable personages have been noted. Perhaps not the least of these is Balor, "of the mighty blows," a chieftain or king of the Fomorians, of whom it is said that he carried an eye placed in the centre of his forehead and a second eye placed on a line with his ears, in the back of his head! In the front optic he possessed the whole power of a magical battery, before which a host of enemies could not for a moment hope to stand. His foes at one glance were, as it were, melted, or shrivelled, ere yet a gn could be made. This kind of manœuvre at the present day 7188. would not be considered fair fighting, and certainly a Balor thus acting, if caught during the chances incident to any European or American campaign, would suffer the fate accorded to certain soldiers convicted of using explosive bullets, and so forth, contraband to the rules and etiquette of civilized warfare. But Balor, as we have stated, was doubly armed; the aft eye, as sailors would say, acting as a stern chaser in times of extremity. "Like meets like " is a very ancient saying, and accordingly our Fomorian hero, if he where a hero, appears to have possessed a spouse worthy of his hand, or rather eye, or eyes. The name of this interesting lady was Kethlenn, not Cathleen, or Little Kate, which is Christian; and from her, according to the Annals of the Four Masters, the town of Enniskillen, i.e., Inis Kethlenn, or the Island of Kethlenn, has been called. This gentlewoman and princess possessed a very remarkable tooth, whether in itself malformed, or unusually fitted, as our American friends would say, does not appear, with which, when in battle (for she always was to the front), she was worth a second pair of death launching ports to her fore and aft fighting lord and (query), master. Whether his bride had been won in one of Balor's "melting" moods or otherwise is not recorded either in history or tradition. But the tooth! Could he, when his eyes were shut, and incapable of immediate action, have been, as it were, gaffed and landed by Kethlenn through the agency of that historic member? Their tastes appear, from all accounts, to have been congenial, and no quarrel between the pair has been even hinted at by the recording bards. Kethlenn was a good fighter, or woman at arms, and behaved well, probably with the consideration that otherwise she might have one of her noble spouse's eyes upon her. Balor was killed at the great battle of Northern Moytura, in the County Sligo, Kethlenn fighting bravely by his side amid the shock of spears. We cannot find any particulars of the time or mode of her departure to Tir-na-nog, the Valhalla of the pagan Irish; but it is certain that she was able to survive the loss of a king and a husband, both in one, who, "Take him for all in all, She ne'er might look upon the like again." Poor Kethlenn! One of Balor's chief opponents was a Tuatha Danian king, known in Irish history as Nuada, Airgeat Lamh, or of the silver hand. In the great battle of Southern Moytura this leader is stated to have lost one of his hands, which, through the skill of some of his medical men and workers in metal, was in a manner replaced by one in silver. The tradition serves to show that in very early days the people then occupying this country, and from which the modern Irish are descended, possessed a not inconsiderable degree of civilization, and knowledge of many of the arts. I have sufficiently glanced at old, old Erin, at least, for all purposes of a Guide; and shall now refer to an era much nearer our own time, and quite within the period of authentic history. THE EARLY CHRISTIAN PERIOD. "Whilome, when Ireland flourished in fame, -SPENCER. The period, extending from about the middle of the sixtlı down to the earlier half of the ninth century, A.D., is, perhaps, the most glorious in the history of this old country. Uninvaded, and enjoying comparative internal peace, while the rest of Europe knew little or no settled rule, Saxons, Franks, and, indeed, people of many nationalities, flocked to Erin as to a sanctuary, where they were received with holy welcome, educated, entertained, and furnished with books, all gratuitously, or for the love of God, by the since libelled "barbarous Irish !" In this Guide, as, indeed, in all the sketches I have ever penned, it has been my especial care to touch upon no topic the consideration of which might be calculated to excite unpleasant controversy. But the fame our early teachers of the TRUTH, such as Saints Columba, Aidan, Brendan, Molaisse, and a host of other great and good men, to whose works I shall have occasionally to refer, is claimed alike by the representatives of Protestantism on the one hand, and of Roman Catholicism on the other, for the honour of their respective Churches. Here, then, In according reverence to such names, is one point upon which Irishmen and our English and Caledonian neighbours may agree not to differ. In the early ages of the Church Erin was not content with what we would now style a home call. "From Ireland," writes a distinguished author of the twelfth century, "as from an overflowing stream, crowds of holy men descended upon foreign shores." Germany, especially, appears to have been a fruitful field of labour amongst these pioneers of Christianity. St. Album, or Witta, is the apostle of Thuringia; St. Disibode, of Treves; St. Erhard, of Alsace and Bavaria; St. Fridolin, of the Grisons of Switzerland; St. Gall, of the Swiss, Suabians, and Rhetians; St. Virgil, of Strasburg; St. John, of Mecklenburgh; St. Killian, in Franconia; and St. Rupert, in a part of Bavaria. These saints were all natives of Ireland. Nearer home the Irish missionaries were no less active. St. Columba was the apostle of the Picts and Northern Britons. From his celebrated establishment of Iona, on the Scottish coast, the light of Christianity was spread, not only over Scotland, but also over many districts of the country now called England. An Irish ecclesiastical establishment appears, at an early period, to have existed so far north as Iceland. When the Norwegians first visited that Ultima Thule, Irish books, bells, croziers, and other relics of a mission were found by them upon the shore. The Churchmen had, probably, long before perished. According to Dean Reeves, Irish missionaries appear to have penetrated even to portions of Africa. The following poem, written by Aldfred, King of the Northumbrian Saxons, gives the experience of a Saxon in Ireland more than a thousand years ago. The original is written in choice Gaelic, and has been translated by our friend and fellow-labourer on the Topographical Survey of Ireland, the late Doctor O'Donovan : I found in the fair Innisfail, I found in each province, |