TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 121 
A pastoral people called Firbolgs, said to be of Greek or Eastern origin, and pro- 
bably a branch of that race that, having passed through Europe or round its shores, 
arrived in Ireland. We will call them Geits, as I do not know much of the Phe- 
nicians or Carthaginians. They had laws and social institutions, and established 
a monarchical government at the far-famed Hill of Tara, about which our early 
centres of civilization sprung, and around which we have now most of those great 
pasture-lands which, notwithstanding this island being described as “ a marsh satu- 
rated with the vapours of the Atlantic ”’ and ‘“ surrounded by a melancholy ocean,” 
on the shore of which the wretched inhabitant might sit and sigh for the time of 
his exodus and the hour of his exile—these plains of Meath that can beat the world 
for their fattening qualities, and supply neighbouring countries with their most 
admired meats. 
I cannot say that the Firbolg was a cultivated man, but I think he was a shep- 
herd and an agriculturist. I doubt if he knew any thing, certainly not much, of 
metallurgy ; but it does not follow that he was a mere savage, no more than the 
Maories of New Zealand were when we first came in contact with them. 
The Firbolgswere a small, straight-haired, swarthy race, who have left a portion 
of their descendants with us to this very day. A genealogist (their own country- 
man resident in Galway about two hundred years ago) described them as dark- 
haired, talkative, guileful, strolling, unsteady, “ disturbers of every Council and 
Assembly,” and “ promoters of discord.’ I believe they, together with the next 
two races about to be described, formed the bulk of our so-called Celtic population— 
combative, nomadic on opportunity, enduring, litigious, but feudal and faithful to 
their chiefs ; hard-working for a spurt (as in their annual English emigration) ; 
not thrifty, but, when their immediate wants are supplied, lazy, especially during 
the winter. 
To these physical and mental characters described by MacFirbis let me add 
those of the unusual combination of blue or blue-grey eyes and dark eyelashes 
with a swarthy complexion. This peculiarity I have only remarked elsewhere in 
Greece ; the mouth and upper gum is not good, but the nose is usually straight. In 
many of this and the next following race there was a peculiarity that has not been 
alluded to by writers—the larynx, or, as it used to be called, the pomum Adami, 
was remarkably prominent, and became more apparent from the uncovered state of 
the neck. The sediment of this early people still exists in lreland, along with the 
fair-complexioned Dannans, and forms the bulk of the farm-labourers, called in 
popular phraseology Spalpeens, that yearly emigrate to England. In Connaught 
they now chiefly occupy a circle which includes the junction of the counties of 
Mayo, Galway, Roscommon, and Sligo. They, with their fair-faced brothers (at 
present the most numerous), are also to be found in Kerry and Donegal; and they 
nearly all speak Irish. 
By statistics procured from our Great Midland Western Railway alone, I learn 
that on an average 50,000 of these people, chiefly the descendants of the dark Fir- 
bolgs and fair Dannans, emigrate annually to England for harvest work, to the great 
advantage of the English farmer and the Ivishlandlord. The acreage of arable land 
for these people runs from two to six acres. 
Connecting this race with the remains of the past, I am of opinion that they 
were the first rath or earthen-mound and enclosure makers; that they mostly buried 
their dead without cremation, and, in cases of distinguished personages, beneath 
the Cromleach or the Tumulus. Their heads were oval or long in the antero- 
posterior diameter, and rather flattened at the sides: examples of these I have 
given and descanted upon when I first published my Ethnological Researches, 
which have been fully confirmed by the late Andreas Retzius. It is, however, 
unnecessary, even if space or advisability permitted, for me to allude to such mat- 
ters, as that great work the ‘Crania Britannica’ has lithographed typical speci- 
mens of this long-headed race. 
The next immigration we hear of in the ‘Annals’ is that of the Twatha-de-Dannans, 
a large, fair-complexioned, and very remarkable race ; warlike, energetic, progressive, 
skilled in metal work, musical, poetical, acquainted with the healing art, skilled in 
Druidism, and believed to be adepts in necromancy and magic, no doubt the result 
of the popular idea respecting their superior knowledge, especially in smelting and 
