14') Proceedings of the Rot/al Irish Academy. 



present great difficulties to the naodern transcriber. The textual dis- 

 crepancies, then, cannot be held to invalidate the common period of the 

 four reigns, 718-722, as the utmost range of date for the composition of the 

 synchronism. 



Synchronism Z is thus shown to be an eleventh-century version of one 

 of the oldest known documents of early Irish history and historical legend. 



The particulars of the chronology and also of the reigns appear to have 

 been tampered with in several places, doubtless with a \-iew to bringing the 

 account into closer accord with later teachings. But the achievement of 

 such a design would have involved the reconstruction of almost the entire 

 tract ; and the meddler, having done some mischief, desisted without either 

 undoing or completing it, and drew up B as a substitute for Z. (See 

 concluding note.) 



5. The Chbokological Basis op Z. 

 The framing of Z is as follows : — 



IRlSn EVKST. CONTEMPORARY WORLD-PERIOD. 



(.'oming of Partholon, . 

 End of Partholon's race. 

 Coming of Nemed, 

 End of Nemed's colony, 

 Coming of Fir Bolg, 

 Coming of Tuatha Dd Danann, 

 Coming of the Gaedhil, 



300 years after Deluge. 



SoO „ „ „ 



880 „ „ „ 

 1110 ,. „ „ 

 Beginning of Pei-sian Empire. 

 Usurpation of the Magi. 

 Beginning of Alexander's Empire. 



The last three pairs of contemporary events supply the clue to the 

 method of the synchronist. He had before him the Eusebian world-history 

 with its epochs. He had in his mind the traditional or l^ndarj' epochs of 

 prehistoric Ireland. These latter had no chronologj'. No trace of a 

 native Irish chronology has been anywhere discovered. The synchronist 

 followed the simple plan of making the Irish periods coincide exactly with 

 the world-periods. 



It will appear that the Magian conspiracy, which raised the impostor 

 Smerdis for a few months to the throne of Cambyses, is a rather minor 

 event against which to date the invasion of Ireland by the Tuatha D^ 

 Danann. In my opinion, the inclusion of this pair of events in the scheme 

 was an afterthought, a refinement. That the Tuatha D^ Danann in genuine 

 Irish tradition, aside from the theorizings of the schools, were no race of 

 mortals, but a race immortal and divine, inhabiting the Celtic Otherworld 

 and ruled over by Celtic gods ; that their conquest of the Fir Bolg or Irish 



