stronghold of the giants,) also at Tor Coning, now Tory Island.

FIRBOLGS AND THIRD CYCLE OF THE FOMOROH.

1525 B.C. Age of the FIRBOLGS and third cycle of the Fomorians,
once gods, but expulsed from their sovereignty by the Tuatha De
Danan, after which they loom through the heroic literature as
giants of the elder time, overthrown by the gods. From the FIRBOLGS
were descended, or claimed to have descended, the Connaught
warriors who fought with Queen Meave against Cuculain, also the
Clan Humor, appearing in the Second Volume, also the heroes of
Ossian, the Fianna Eireen. Even in the time of Keating, Irish
families traced thither their pedigrees. The great chiefs of the
FIR-BOLGIC dynasty were the five sons of Dela, Gann, Genann,
Sengann, Rury, and Slaney, with their wives Fuad, Edain, Anust,
Cnucha, and Libra; also their last and most potent king, EOCAIDH
MAC ERC, son of Ragnal, son of Genann, whose tomb or temple may be
seen to-day at Ballysadare, Co. Sligo, on the edge of the sea.

The Fomorians of this age were ruled over by Baler Beimenna and
his wife Kethlenn. Their grandson was Lu Lamada, one of the
noblest of the Irish gods.

The last of the mythological cycles is that of the Tuatha De Danan,
whose character, attributes, and history will, I hope, be rendered
interesting and intelligible in my account of Cuculain and the Red
Branch of Ulster.

Irish history has suffered from rationalism almost more than from
neglect and ignorance. The conjectures of the present century are