V.

Emain of Maca.

B.C. 50—­A.D. 50.

The battles of Southern and Northern Moytura gave the De Danaans sway over the island.  After they had ruled for many centuries, they in their turn were subjected to invasion, as the Firbolg and Fomorian had been before them.  The newcomers were the Sons of Milid, and their former home was either Gaul or Spain.  But whether from Gaul or Spain, the sons of Milid were of undoubted Gaelic race, in every feature of character and complexion resembling the continental Gauls.

We must remember that, in the centuries before the northward spread of Rome, the Gauls were the great central European power.  Twenty-six hundred years ago their earlier tribal life was consolidated into a stable empire under Ambigatos; Galicia in Eastern Austria and Galicia in Western Spain mark their extreme borders towards the rising and setting sun.

Several centuries before the days of Ambigatos, in the older period of tribal confederation, was the coming of the Gaelic Sons of Milid to Ireland.  Tradition places the date between three and four thousand years ago.  Yet even after that long interval of isolation the resemblance between the Irish and continental Gaels is perfect; they are tall, solidly built, rather inclined to stoutness; they are fair-skinned, or even florid, easily browned by sun and wind.  Their eyes are gray, greenish or hazel, not clear blue, like the eyes of the Baltic race; and though fair-haired, they are easily distinguished from the golden-haired Norsemen.  Such are the descendants of the Sons of Milid.  Coming from Gaul or Spain, the Sons of Milid landed in one of the great fiords that penetrate between the mountains of Kerry—­long after so named from the descendants of Ciar.  These same fiords between the hills have been the halting-place of continental invaders for ages; hardly a century has passed since the last landing there of continental soldiers; there was another invasion a century before that, and yet another a hundred years earlier.  But the Sons of Milid showed the way.  They may have come by Bantry Bay or the Kenmare River or Dingle Bay; more probably the last, for tradition still points to the battlefield where they were opposed, on the hills of Slieve Mish, above the Dingle fiord.

But wherever they debarked on that southwestern coast they found a land warm and winning as the south they had left behind—­a land of ever-green woods, yew and arbutus mingling with beech and oak and fir; rich southern heaths carpeting the hillsides, and a soft drapery of ferns upon the rocks.  There were red masses of overhanging mountain, but in the valleys, sheltered and sun-warmed, they found a refuge like the Isles of the Blest.  The Atlantic, surging in great blue rollers, brought the warmth of tropical seas, and a rich and vivid growth through all the glens and vales responded to the sun’s caress.