miles Hispanicus,[1] for it is from Spain he is fabled to have come, which is to be regarded as a way of tracing the descent of the Milesian Irish from the Celtic Dis (pp. 90-1, 262-3). Mile is described as the father of two sons, Eremon and Eber or Emer, who divide the island between them; and it is not improbable that they represent the Aryan and the non-Aryan elements respectively in the population of ancient Ireland. At any rate it is only with this fifth invasion of the country we begin to have regularly to do with the human inhabitants of Erinn; not that it by any means follows that from the Milesian settlement forth the history of Ireland, such as it is, confines itself to real men and women; but the story of the previous invasions is scarcely human, except in that it is a product of the human mind.
Putting aside, then, the Milesian invasion, there remain for our consideration four mythic ones, namely, by Partholon, by Nemed, by the Fir Bolg, and by the Tuatha Dé Danann respectively. Now when Partholon and his people had been some time in the island, they were disturbed by a race called the Fomori, under the leadership of a giant and his mother,[2] and they had, according to some authors, as Keating tells us, been living by fishing and fowling 200 years in the island when they met with Partholon and his people. A great battle ere long took place, in which the latter destroy the Fomori, but not so as to prevent our hearing of them again more than once. It is of importance to notice that the Fomori are said to have landed at Inver Domnann
