annals of the 'Four Masters,' was founded by Heremon himself, and took its first name, Teamair, from Tea, his wife, who selected this spot. All this is perfectly consistent with what we know of the history of the place. The earliest monument at Tara is the Rath of Cormac[1] (218 A.D., or probably fifty years later). Though therefore chosen by Heremon as a sacred or desirable spot for residence, there is no proof that his race ever occupied it; and in the two centuries that elapsed from his advent to the time of Cormac his race had passed away from Meath at least, and was only to be found in the south and west of Ireland. The one reminiscence of the Milesian race that remained at Tara, in historical times, is the Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny, which these "veneratores lapidum" are said to have brought with them from Spain, but which, with all due deference to Petrie, is not the obelisk still standing there,[2] but may be the stone now in Westminster Abbey. The Spanish colonists seem principally to have occupied the country about Wexford and Galway,[3] and to these places, especially the latter, a continual stream of immigration appears to have flowed from the first century of our era down to the time of Elizabeth. No one can travel in these counties without remarking the presence of a dark-haired, dark-eyed race that prevails everywhere; but, strange to say, the darkest-complexioned people in the west are those who still linger among the long-neglected dolmens of Glen Malim More.
According to the annals of the 'Four Masters,' Heremon landed in Ireland fifty years after the death of the great Dagdha. The Irish historians say that the country was then ruled by three princesses, wives of the grandsons of the Dagdha, and add that the event took place 1002 years after Forann (Pharaoh) had been drowned in the Red Sea.[4] If that event took place in 1312, as I believe it did,[5] this would fix their advent in 310 B.C., which, though less extravagant than the chronology of the 'Four Masters,' is still, I believe, at least three centuries too early.
- ↑ Ante, p. 193.
- ↑ Petrie, "Essay on Tara," 'Trans. R.S.A.' xviii.
- ↑ "The two provinces which the race of Heremon possessed were the province of Gailian (i.e. Leinster) and the province of Olnemacht (i.e. Connaught)."—Petrie, 'Round Towers,' p. 100.
- ↑ Reeves, translation of Nennius, p. 55.
- ↑ 'True Principles of Beauty in Art,' by the Author, appendix, 526.
