THE IRISH COLONIES FROM ATLANTIS.
We have seen that beyond question Spain and France owed a great part of
their population to Atlantis. Let us turn now to Ireland.
We would naturally expect, in view of the geographical position of the
country, to find Ireland colonized at an early day by the overflowing
population of Atlantis. And, in fact, the Irish annals tell us that
their island was settled prior to the Flood. In their oldest legends an
account is given of three Spanish fishermen who were driven by contrary
winds on the coast of Ireland before the Deluge. After these came the
Formorians, who were led into the country prior to the Deluge by the
Lady Banbha, or Kesair; her maiden name was h'Erni, or Berba; she was
accompanied by fifty maidens and three men--Bith, Ladhra, and Fintain.
Ladhra was their conductor, who was the first buried in Hibernia. That
ancient book, the "Cin of Drom-Snechta," is quoted in the "Book of
Ballymote" as authority for this legend.
The Irish annals speak of the Formorians as a warlike race, who,
according to the "Annals of Clonmacnois," "were a sept descended from
Cham, the son of Noeh, and lived by pyracie and spoile of other nations,
and were in those days very troublesome to the whole world."
Were not these the inhabitants of Atlantis, who, according to Plato,
carried their arms to Egypt and Athens, and whose subsequent destruction
has been attributed to divine vengeance invoked by their arrogance and
oppressions?
The Formorians were from Atlantis. They were called Fomhoraicc,
F'omoraig Afraic, and Formoragh, which has been rendered into English as
Formorians. They possessed ships, and the uniform representation is that
they came, as the name F'omoraig Afraic indicated, from Africa. But in
that day Africa did not mean the continent of Africa, as we now
understand it. Major Wilford, in the eighth volume of the "Asiatic
Researches," has pointed out that Africa comes from Apar, Aphar, Apara,
or Aparica, terms used to signify "the West," just as we now speak of
the Asiatic world as "the East." When, therefore, the Formorians claimed
to come from Africa, they simply meant that they came from the West--in
other words, from Atlantis--for there was no other country except
America west of them.
They possessed Ireland from so early a period that by some of the
historians they are spoken of as the aborigines of the country.
The first invasion of Ireland, subsequent to the coming of the
Formorians, was led by a chief called Partholan: his people are known in
the Irish annals as "Partholan's people." They were also probably
Atlanteans. They were from Spain. A British prince, Gulguntius, or
Gurmund, encountered off the Hebrides a fleet of thirty ships, filled
with men and women, led by one Partholyan, who told him they were from
Spain, and seeking some place to colonize. The British prince directed
him to Ireland. ("De Antiq. et Orig. Cantab.")
Spain in that day was the land of the Iberians, the Basques; that is to
say, the Atlanteans.
The Formorians defeated Partholan's people, killed Partholan, and drove
the invaders out of the country.
The Formorians were a civilized race; they had "a fleet of sixty ships
and a strong army."
The next invader of their dominions was Neimhidh; he captured one of
their fortifications, but it was retaken by the Formorians under "Morc."
Neimhidh was driven out of the country, and the Atlanteans continued in
undisturbed possession of the island for four hundred years more. Then
came the Fir-Bolgs. They conquered the whole island, and divided it into
five provinces. They held possession of the country for only
thirty-seven years, when they were overthrown by the Tuatha-de-Dananns,
a people more advanced in civilization; so much so that when their king,
Nuadha, lost his hand in battle, "Creidne, the artificer," we are told,
"put a silver hand upon him, the fingers of which were capable of
motion." This great race ruled the country for one hundred and
ninety-seven years: they were overthrown by an immigration from Spain,
probably of Basques, or Iberians, or Atlanteans, "the sons of Milidh,"
or Milesius, who "possessed a large fleet and a strong army." This last
invasion took place about the year 1700 B.C.; so that the invasion of
Neimhidh must have occurred about the year 2334 B.C.; while we will have
to assign a still earlier date for the coming of Partholan's people, and
an earlier still for the occupation of the country by the Formorians
from the West.
In the Irish historic tales called "Catha; or Battles," as given by the
learned O'Curry, a record is preserved of a real battle which was fought
between the Tuatha-de-Dananns and the Fir Bolgs, from which it appears
that these two races spoke the same language, and that they were
intimately connected with the Formorians. As the armies drew near
together the Fir-Bolgs sent out Breas, one of their great chiefs, to
reconnoitre the camp of the strangers; the Tuatha-de-Dananns appointed
one of their champions, named Sreng, to meet the emissary of the enemy;
the two warriors met and talked to one another over the tops of their
shields, and each was delighted to find that the other spoke the same
language. A battle followed, in which Nunda, king of the Fir-Bolgs, was
slain; Breas succeeded him; he encountered the hostility of the bards,
and was compelled to resign the crown. He went to the court of his
father-in-law, Elathe, a Formorian sea-king or pirate; not being well
received, he repaired to the camp of Balor of the Evil Eye, a Formorian
chief. The Formorian head-quarters seem to have been in the Hebrides.
Breas and Balor collected a vast army and navy and invaded Ireland, but
were defeated in a great battle by the Tuatha-de-Dananns.
These particulars would show the race-identity of the Fir-Bolg and
Tuatha-de-Dananns; and also their intimate connection, if not identity
with, the Formorians.
The Tuatha-de-Dananns seem to have been a civilized people; besides
possessing ships and armies and working in the metals, they had an
organized body of surgeons, whose duty it was to attend upon the wounded
in battle; and they had also a bardic or Druid class, to preserve the
history of the country and the deeds of kings and heroes.
According to the ancient books of Ireland the race known as "Partholan's
people," the Nemedians, the Fir-Bolgs, the Tuatha-de-Dananns, and the
Milesians were all descended from two brothers, sons of Magog, son of
Japheth, son of Noah, who escaped from the catastrophe which destroyed
his country. Thus all these races were Atlantean. They were connected
with the African colonies of Atlantis, the Berbers, and with the
Egyptians. The Milesians lived in Egypt: they were expelled thence; they
stopped a while in Crete, then in Scythia, then they settled in Africa
(See MacGeoghegan's "History of Ireland," p. 57), at a place called
Gæthulighe or Getulia, and lived there during eight generations, say two
hundred and fifty years; "then they entered Spain, where they built
Brigantia, or Briganza, named after their king Breogan: they dwelt in
Spain a considerable time. Milesius, a descendant of Breogan, went on an
expedition to Egypt, took part in a war against the Ethiopians, married
the king's daughter, Scota: he died in Spain, but his people soon after
conquered Ireland. On landing on the coast they offered sacrifices to
Neptune or Poseidon"--the god of Atlantis. (Ibid., p. 58.)
The Book of Genesis (chap. x.) gives us the descendants of Noah's three
sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. We are told that the sons of Japheth were
Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and
Tiras. We are then given the names of the descendants of Gomer and
Javan, but not of Magog. Josephus says the sons of Magog were the
Scythians. The Irish annals take up the genealogy of Magog's family
where the Bible leaves it. The Book of Invasions, the "Cin of
Drom-Snechta," claims that these Scythians were the Phoenicians; and we
are told that a branch of this family were driven out of Egypt in the
time of Moses: "He wandered through Africa for forty-two years, and
passed by the lake of Salivæ to the altars of the Philistines, and
between Rusicada and the mountains Azure, and he came by the river
Monlon, and by the sea to the Pillars of Hercules, and through the
Tuscan sea, and he made for Spain, and dwelt there many years, and he
increased and multiplied, and his people were multiplied."
From all these facts it appears that the population of Ireland came from
the West, and not from Asia--that it was one of the many waves of
population flowing out from the Island of Atlantis--and herein we find
the explanation of that problem which has puzzled the Aryan scholars. As
Ireland is farther from the Punjab than Persia, Greece, Rome, or
Scandinavia, it would follow that the Celtic wave of migration must have
been the earliest sent out from the Sanscrit centre; but it is now
asserted by Professor Schleicher and others that the Celtic tongue shows
that it separated from the Sanscrit original tongue later than the
others, and that it is more closely allied to the Latin than any other
Aryan tongue. This is entirely inexplicable upon any theory of an
Eastern origin of the Indo-European races, but very easily understood if
we recognize the Aryan and Celtic migrations as going out about the same
time from the Atlantean fountain-head.
There are many points confirmatory of this belief. In the first place,
the civilization of the Irish dates back to a vast antiquity. We have
seen their annals laying claim to an immigration from the direction of
Atlantis prior to the Deluge, with no record that the people of Ireland
were subsequently destroyed by the Deluge. From the Formorians, who came
before the Deluge, to the Milesians, who came from Spain in the Historic
Period, the island was continuously inhabited. This demonstrates (1)
that these legends did not come from Christian sources, as the Bible
record was understood in the old time to imply a destruction of all who
lived before the Flood except Noah and his family; (2) it confirms our
view that the Deluge was a local catastrophe, and did not drown the
whole human family; (3) that the coming of the Formorians having been
before the Deluge, that great cataclysm was of comparatively recent
date, to wit, since the settlement of Ireland; and (4) that as the
Deluge was a local catastrophe, it must have occurred somewhere not far
from Ireland to have come to their knowledge. A rude people could
scarcely have heard in that day of a local catastrophe occurring in the
heart of Asia.
There are many evidences that the Old World recognized Ireland as
possessing a very ancient civilization. In the Sanscrit books it is
referred to as Hiranya, the "Island of the Sun," to wit, of sun-worship;
in other words, as pre-eminently the centre of that religion which was
shared by all the ancient races of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. It
is believed that Ireland was the "Garden of Phoebus" of the Western
mythologists.
The Greeks called Ireland the "Sacred Isle" and "Ogygia."
"Nor can any one," says Camden, "conceive why they should call it
Ogygia, unless, perhaps, from its antiquity; for the Greeks called
nothing Ogygia unless what was extremely ancient." We have seen that
Ogyges was connected by the Greek legends with a first deluge, and that
Ogyges was "a quite mythical personage, lost in the night of ages."
It appears, as another confirmation of the theory of the Atlantis origin
of these colonies, that their original religion was sun-worship; this,
as was the case in other countries, became subsequently overlaid with
idol-worship. In the reign of King Tighernmas the worship of idols was
introduced. The priests constituted the Order of Druids. Naturally many
analogies have been found to exist between the beliefs and customs of
the Druids and the other religions which were drawn from Atlantis. We
have seen in the chapter on sun-worship how extensive this form of
religion was in the Atlantean days, both in Europe and America.
It would appear probable that the religion of the Druids passed from
Ireland to England and France. The metempsychosis or transmigration of
souls was one of the articles of their belief long before the time of
Pythagoras; it had probably been drawn from the storehouse of Atlantis,
whence it passed to the Druids, the Greeks, and the Hindoos. The Druids
had a pontifex maximus to whom they yielded entire obedience. Here again
we see a practice which extended to the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Hindoos,
Peruvians, and Mexicans.
The Druids of Gaul and Britain offered human sacrifices, while it is
claimed that the Irish Druids did not. This would appear to have been a
corrupt after-growth imposed upon the earlier and purer sacrifice of
fruits and flowers known in Atlantis, and due in part to greater cruelty
and barbarism in their descendants. Hence we find it practised in
degenerate ages on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Irish Druidical rites manifested themselves principally in sun
worship. Their chief god was Bel or Baal--the same worshipped by the
Phoenicians--the god of the sun. The Irish name for the sun, Grian, is,
according to Virgil, one of the names of Apollo--another sun-god,
Gryneus. Sun-worship continued in Ireland down to the time of St.
Patrick, and some of its customs exist among the peasantry of that
country to this day. We have seen that among the Peruvians, Romans, and
other nations, on a certain day all fires were extinguished throughout
the kingdom, and a new fire kindled at the chief temple by the sun's
rays, from which the people obtained their fire for the coming year. In
Ireland the same practice was found to exist. A piece of land was set
apart, where the four provinces met, in the present county of Meath;
here, at a palace called Tlachta, the divine fire was kindled. Upon the
night of what is now All-Saints-day the Druids assembled at this place
to offer sacrifice, and it was established, under heavy penalties, that
no fire should be kindled except from this source. On the first of May a
convocation of Druids was held in the royal palace of the King of
Connaught, and two fires were lit, between which cattle were driven, as
a preventive of murrain and other pestilential disorders. This was
called Beltinne, or the day of Bel's fire. And unto this day the Irish
call the first day of May "Lha-Beul-tinne," which signifies "the day of
Bel's fire." The celebration in Ireland of St. John's-eve by watch-fires
is a relic of the ancient sun-worship of Atlantis. The practice of
driving cattle through the fire continued for a longtime, and Kelly
mentions in his "Folk-lore" that in Northamptonshire, in England, a calf
was sacrificed in one of these fires to "stop the murrain" during the
present century. Fires are still lighted in England and Scotland as well
as Ireland for superstitious purposes; so that the people of Great
Britain, it may be said, are still in some sense in the midst of the
ancient sun-worship of Atlantis.
We find among the Irish of to-day many Oriental customs. The game of
"jacks," or throwing up five pebbles and catching them on the back of
the hand, was known in Rome. "The Irish keen (caoine), or the lament
over the dead, may still be heard in Algeria and Upper Egypt, even as
Herodotus heard it chanted by the Libyan women." The same practice
existed among the Egyptians, Etruscans, and Romans. The Irish wakes are
identical with the funeral feasts of the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans.
(Cusack's "History of Ireland," p. 141.) The Irish custom of saying "God
bless you!" when one sneezes, is a very ancient practice; it was known
to the Romans, and referred, it is said, to a plague in the remote past,
whose first symptom was sneezing.
We find many points of resemblance between the customs of the Irish and
those of the Hindoo. The practice of the creditor fasting at the
door-step of his debtor until he is paid, is known to both countries;
the kindly "God save you!" is the same as the Eastern "God be gracious
to you, my son!" The reverence for the wren in Ireland and Scotland
reminds us of the Oriental and Greek respect for that bird. The practice
of pilgrimages, fasting, bodily macerations, and devotion to holy wells
and particular places, extends from Ireland to India.
All these things speak of a common origin; this fact has been generally
recognized, but it has always been interpreted that the Irish came from
the East, and were in fact a migration of Hindoos. There is not the
slightest evidence to sustain this theory. The Hindoos have never within
the knowledge of man sent out colonies or fleets for exploration; but
there is abundant evidence, on the other hand, of migrations from
Atlantis eastward. And how could the Sanscrit writings have preserved
maps of Ireland, England, and Spain, giving the shape and outline of
their coasts, and their very names, and yet have preserved no memory of
the expeditions or colonizations by which they acquired that knowledge?
Another proof of our theory is found in "the round-towers" of Ireland.
Attempts have been made to show, by Dr. Petrie and others, that these
extraordinary structures are of modern origin, and were built by the
Christian priests, in which to keep their church-plate. But it is shown
that the "Annals of Ulster" mention the destruction of fifty-seven of
them by an earthquake in A.D. 448; and Giraldus Cambrensis shows that
Lough Neagh was created by an inundation, or sinking of the land, in
A.D. 65, and that in his day the fishermen could
"See the round-towers of other days
In the waves beneath them shining."
Moreover, we find Diodorus Siculus, in a well-known passage, referring
to Ireland, and describing it as "an island in the ocean over against
Gaul, to the north, and not inferior in size to Sicily, the soil of
which is so fruitful that they mow there twice in the year." He mentions
the skill of their harpers, their sacred groves, and their singular
temples of round form.
THE BURGH OF MOUSSA, IN THE SHETLANDS
We find similar structures in America, Sardinia, and India. The remains
of similar round-towers are very abundant in the Orkneys and Shetlands.
"They have been supposed by some," says Sir John Lubbock, "to be
Scandinavian, but no similar buildings exist in Norway, Sweden, or
Denmark, so that this style of architecture is no doubt anterior to the
arrival of the Northmen." I give above a picture of the Burgh or Broch
of the little island of Moussa, in the Shetlands. It is circular in
form, forty-one feet in height. Open at the top; the central space is
twenty feet in diameter, the walls about fourteen feet thick at the
base, and eight feet at the top. They contain a staircase, which leads
to the top of the building. Similar structures are found in the Island
of Sardinia.
ROUND-TOWER OF THE CANYON OF THE MANCOS, COLORADO, U.S.
In New Mexico and Colorado the remains of round-towers are very
abundant. The illustration below represents one of these in the valley
of the Mancos, in the south-western corner of Colorado. A model of it is
to be found in the Smithsonian collection at Washington. The tower
stands at present, in its ruined condition, twenty feet high. It will be
seen that it resembles the towers of Ireland, not only in its circular
form but also in the fact that its door-way is situated at some distance
from the ground.
It will not do to say that the resemblance between these prehistoric and
singular towers, in countries so far apart as Sardinia, Ireland,
Colorado, and India, is due to an accidental coincidence. It might as
well be argued that the resemblance between the roots of the various
Indo-European languages was also due to accidental coincidence, and did
not establish any similarity of origin. In fact, we might just as well
go back to the theory of the philosophers of one hundred and fifty years
ago, and say that the resemblance between the fossil forms in the rocks
and the living forms upon them did not indicate relationship, or prove
that the fossils were the remains of creatures that had once lived, but
that it was simply a way nature had of working out extraordinary
coincidences in a kind of joke; a sort of "plastic power in nature," as
it was called.
We find another proof that Ireland was settled by the people of Atlantis
in the fact that traditions long existed among the Irish peasantry of a
land in the "Far West," and that this belief was especially found among
the posterity of the Tuatha-de-Dananns, whose connection with the
Formorians we have shown.
The Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, in a note to his translation of the
"Popol Vuh," says:
"There is an abundance of legends and traditions concerning the passage
of the Irish into America, and their habitual communication with that
continent many centuries before the time of Columbus. We should bear in
mind that Ireland was colonized by the Phoenicians (or by people of that
race). An Irish Saint named Vigile, who lived in the eighth century, was
accused to Pope Zachary of having taught heresies on the subject of the
antipodes. At first he wrote to the pope in reply to the charge, but
afterward he went to Rome in person to justify himself, and there he
proved to the pope that the Irish had been accustomed to communicate
with a transatlantic world."
"This fact," says Baldwin, "seems to have been preserved in the records
of the Vatican."
The Irish annals preserve the memory of St. Brendan of Clonfert, and his
remarkable voyage to a land in the West, made A.D. 545. His early youth
was passed under the care of St. Ita, a lady of the princely family of
the Desii. When he was five years old he was placed under the care of
Bishop Ercus. Kerry was his native home; the blue waves of the Atlantic
washed its shores; the coast was full of traditions of a wonderful land
in the West. He went to see the venerable St. Enda, the first abbot of
Arran, for counsel. He was probably encouraged in the plan he had formed
of carrying the Gospel to this distant land. "He proceeded along the
coast of Mayo, inquiring as he went for traditions of the Western
continent. On his return to Kerry he decided to set out on the important
expedition. St. Brendan's Hill still bears his name; and from the bay at
the foot of this lofty eminence be sailed for the 'Far West.' Directing
his course toward the southwest, with a few faithful companions, in a
well-provisioned bark, he came, after some rough and dangerous
navigation, to calm seas, where, without aid of oar or sail, he was
borne along for many weeks." He had probably entered upon the same great
current which Columbus travelled nearly one thousand years later, and
which extends from the shores of Africa and Europe to America. He
finally reached land; he proceeded inland until he came to a large river
flowing from east to west, supposed by some to be the Ohio. "After an
absence of seven years he returned to Ireland, and lived not only to
tell of the marvels he had seen, but to found a college of three
thousand monks at Clonfert." There are eleven Latin MSS. in the
Bibliothèque Impériale at Paris of this legend, the dates of which vary
from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, but all of them anterior to
the time of Columbus.
The fact that St. Brendan sailed in search of a country in the west
cannot be doubted; and the legends which guided him were probably the
traditions of Atlantis among a people whose ancestors had been derived
directly or at second-hand from that country.
This land was associated in the minds of the peasantry with traditions
of Edenic happiness and beauty. Miss Eleanor C. Donnelly, of
Philadelphia, has referred to it in her poem, "The Sleeper's Sail,"
where the starving boy dreams of the pleasant and plentiful land:
"'Mother, I've been on the cliffs out yonder,
Straining my eyes o'er the breakers free
To the lovely spot where the sun was setting,
Setting and sinking into the sea.
"'The sky was full of the fairest colors
Pink and purple and paly green,
With great soft masses of gray and amber,
And great bright rifts of gold between.
"'And all the birds that way were flying,
Heron and curlew overhead,
With a mighty eagle westward floating,
Every plume in their pinions red.
"'And then I saw it, the fairy city,
Far away o'er the waters deep;
Towers and castles and chapels glowing
Like blesséd dreams that we see in sleep.
"'What is its name?' 'Be still, acushla
(Thy hair is wet with the mists, my boy);
Thou hast looked perchance on the Tir-na-n'oge,
Land of eternal youth and joy!
"'Out of the sea, when the sun is setting,
It rises, golden and fair to view;
No trace of ruin, or change of sorrow,
No sign of age where all is new.
"'Forever sunny, forever blooming,
Nor cloud nor frost can touch that spot,
Where the happy people are ever roaming,
The bitter pangs of the past forgot.'
This is the Greek story of Elysion; these are the Elysian Fields of the
Egyptians; these are the Gardens of the Hesperides; this is the region
in the West to which the peasant of Brittany looks from the shores of
Cape Raz; this is Atlantis.
The starving child seeks to reach this blessed land in a boat and is
drowned.
"High on the cliffs the light-house keeper
Caught the sound of a piercing scream;
Low in her hut the lonely widow
Moaned in the maze of a troubled dream;
"And saw in her sleep a seaman ghostly,
With sea-weeds clinging in his hair,
Into her room, all wet and dripping,
A drownéd boy on his bosom bear.
"Over Death Sea on a bridge of silver
The child to his Father's arms had passed!
Heaven was nearer than Tir-na-n'oge,
And the golden city was reached at last."