ay. But it was no time for dreams, though the
Celt in all ages has proved the sweetest of dreamers, the truest of
bards. These men have rough work to do, and, it may be, gave but scant
thought to the beauties of the western isle, and scant thanks to their
gods for escape from peril. Plains were to be cleared, forests cut down,
and the red deer and giant elk driven to deeper recesses in the
well-wooded country.

Several lakes are said to have sprung forth at that period; but it is
more probable that they already existed, and were then for the first
time seen by human eye. The plains which Partholan's people cleared are
also mentioned, and then we find the ever-returning obituary:--

"The age of the world 2550, Partholan died on Sean Mhagh-Ealta-Edair in
this year."[30]

The name of Tallaght still remains, like the peak of a submerged world,
to indicate this colonization, and its fatal termination. Some very
ancient tumuli may still be seen there. The name signifies a place where
a number of persons who died of the plague were interred together; and
here the Annals of the Four Masters tells us that nine thousand of
Partholan's people died in one week, after they had been three hundred
years in Ireland.[31]

The third "taking" of Ireland was that of Nemedh. He came, according to
the Annals,[32] A.M. 2859, and erected forts and cleared plains, as his
predecessors had done. His people were also afflicted by plague, and
appeared to have had occupation enough to bury their dead, and to fight
with the "Fomorians in general," an unpleasantly pugilistic race, who,
according to the Annals of Clonmacnois, "were a sept descended from
Cham, the sonne of Noeh, and lived by pyracie and spoile of other
nations, and were in those days very troublesome to the whole
world."[33] The few Nemedians who escaped alive after their great battle
with the Fomorians, fled into the interior of the island. Three bands
were said to have emigrated with their respective captains. One party
wandered into the north of Europe, and are believed to have been the
progenitors of the Tuatha De Dananns; others made their way to Greece,
where they were enslaved, and obtained the name of Firbolgs, or bagmen,
from the leathern bags which they were compelled to carry; and the third
section sought refuge in the north of England, which is said to have
obtained its name of Briton from their leader, Briotan Maol.[34]

The fourth immigration is that of the Firbolgs;