e of whose arguments are based on the
wild romancing of the chroniclers.

Various stories were told of the first peopling of Ireland. Banba, with
two other daughters of Cain, arrived with fifty women and three men,
only to die of the plague. Three fishermen next discovered Ireland, and
"of the island of Banba of Fair Women with hardihood they took
possession." Having gone to fetch their wives, they perished in the
deluge at Tuath Inba.[155] A more popular account was that of the coming
of Cessair, Noah's granddaughter, with her father, husband, a third man,
Ladru, "the first dead man of Erin," and fifty damsels. Her coming was
the result of the advice of a _laimh-dhia_, or "hand-god," but their
ship was wrecked, and all save her husband, Finntain, who survived for
centuries, perished in the flood.[156] Cessair's ship was less
serviceable than her grandparent's! Followed the race of Partholan, "no
wiser one than the other," who increased on the land until plague swept
them away, with the exception of Tuan mac Caraill, who after many
transformations, told the story of Ireland to S. Finnen centuries
after.[157] The survival of Finntain and Tuan, doubles of each other,
was an invention of the chroniclers, to explain the survival of the
history of colonists who had all perished. Keating, on the other hand,
rejecting the sole survivor theory as contradictory to Scripture,
suggests that "aerial demons," followers of the invaders, revealed all
to the chroniclers, unless indeed they found it engraved with "an iron
pen and lead in the rocks."[158]

Two hundred years before Partholan's coming, the Fomorians had
arrived,[159] and they and their chief Cichol Gricenchos fought
Partholan at Mag Itha, where they were defeated. Cichol was footless,
and some of his host had but one arm and one leg.[160] They were demons,
according to the chroniclers, and descendants of the luckless Ham.
Nennius makes Partholan and his men the first Scots who came from Spain
to Ireland. The next arrivals were the people of Nemed who returned to
Spain, whence they came (Nennius), or died to a man (Tuan). They also
were descendants of the inevitable Noah, and their sojourn in Ireland
was much disturbed by the Fomorians who had recovered from their defeat,
and finally overpowered the Nemedians after the death of Nemed.[161]
From Tory Island the Fomorians ruled Ireland, and forced the Nemedians
to pay them annually on the eve of Samhain (Nov. 1st) two-thirds