Above : Ancient Ireland (A.D 460)

The traditional accounts of the earliest colonies are frankly mythological, and convey no impression of an attempt to deal with real events. The exploits of gods, heroes, and men are narrated without distinction, and incredible details are given with a minuteness which defies reason. Whether these fables are based upon any real events of importance, and what the nature of such events may * “ster ” was a Norst suffix added to thru oj the native names. have been, are questions of the merest conjecture. This applies especially to the accounts of all the colonies which are said to have landed before the coming of the ” Milesians,” and they may, therefore, be summarised as ” mythological ” history.

Above: The Legends of the Early Colonies

Resides some fables about the landing of the lady Ccasair [Kasserj and her people forty days before the flood, our manuscripts have legends of five ancient colonies. The Parthalonians: the first colony, 2520 BC. The first man that led a colony to Ireland after the flood was a chief named Parthalon, who came hither from Greece, with his wife, his three sons, and 1,000 followers. He took up his abode first on the little island of Inish-Samer in the river Erne just below the waterfall of Assaroe at Ballyshannon; and afterwards on Moy-Elta, the level district between Dublin and Ben Edar or Howth. At the end of 300 years the people of this colony were destroyed by a plague, which carried off 9,000 of them in one week on Moy-Elta.