Mooney.] 248 [Oct. 19, 
descent.”’* These two distinct types—one large-bodied and blond, the 
other darker and generally more slender—exist in Ireland to day, and the 
difference has been noted by every observant traveler. The blond race is 
most numerous east of the Shannon, the portion occupied by the Tuatha- 
de-Dananns, while the darker race is found chiefly along the west coast, 
to which the old Fomorians and Firbolgs retired when their power was 
broken. The inroads of the Danes and later invaders ar not sufficient to 
account for this difference. The testimony of most ancient writers goes 
to show that the Kelts wer of the blond type, but the Firbolgs ar expressly 
described as a dark race, inferior in intellect to their conquerors, the 
Tuatha-de-Dananns.. Nothing is said of the physical type or mental 
status of the Fomorians, but the indications ar that they wer but little 
removed from savagery. If the Firbolgs wer Kelts they cannot hav dif- 
ferd greatly from the Tuatha-de-Dananns, and it is possible that the Mac 
Firbis confounded under one name the Firbolgs and the earlier Fomo- 
rians, who wer both driven to take refuge along the western coast, where 
they became allies against the common enemy. At all events we hav 
evidence of the former existence in Ireland of a pre-Keltic dark race, 
physically and intellectually different. from the conquering race, and 
there is good ground for the opinion that either the Firbolgs or the Fomo- 
rians wer a part of that ancient people who preceded the Kelts in western 
Europe, and who, under the various names of Silures, Iberians and per- 
haps Ligurians, hav left traces of their former presence in Britain, France, 
Spain and Italy, but whose limits hav been contracted by centuries of 
conquest and absorption, until their modern descendants, the Basques, 
ar now confined to the valleys of the Pyrenees. How far this hy pothesis 
may be true must be left for the philologist and archzeologist to decide by 
a critical study of the language and antiquities of Ireland, and their com- 
parison with the prehistoric languages and antiquities of the continent. 
DisPosivion OF THE BoDY—GRAVE TYPEs. 
In studying the funeral remains of ancient Ireland we find the body 
disposed of in three distinct ways, by disjointed burial, by extended 
burial and by cremation, the last method being by far the most common. 
The process of embalming or mummy burial seems to hav been unknown 
as well as the contracted burial, so frequent in English mounds and prob- 
ably belonging to the early Saxon period. The burial structures may also 
be divided into three classes, the mound, the subterranean kistvaen and 
the simple urn. The character of the structure, however, is no indication 
of the condition of the human remains, as the mound may cover either 
*Quoted from Eugene O’Curry’s translation, by Sir Wm. Wilde, The Boyne and the 
Blackwater, 2d ed., Dublin, 1850, 218 and 221. The rendering is somewhat different in 
O’Curry’s Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History (reissue, 228-4, 
Dublin, 1878), and the detailed description there given of the descendants of the Fir- 
bolgs shows that they wer held in utter contempt by the later races. The fact that 
magic powers ar attributed to the Tuatha-de-Dananns probably indicates their superior- 
ity to the earlier races in the arts and in general knowledge. 
