These people, according to my theory, were colonists from Atlantis—­colonists of three different races—­white, yellow, and sunburnt or red.

CHAPTER VII.

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.”)