All seafarers coming to Ireland had to have pottery jars onboard the ship for all kinds of storage needs. On land, pottery-based containers were essential for storage. Evidence suggests that there were staging and trading points on the seafaring trade routes involving Ireland during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. The origins of the Grooved Ware people were probably in the Orkney Islands, a key location to the harbors of Northern Europe, particularly Denmark. A seafaring connection between the Irish and Orkney cultures had to exist.
The Grooved Ware pottery (see Figure 3-2a) originated in the Orkney Islands (c. 3100 BC) before spreading across Britain and Ireland by seafarers.
Figure 3-2: Grooved Ware and Bell Beaker pottery, Reference 61
Grooved ware pottery has been identified at a number of different Irish locations, the majority of which were in the Boyne Valley. The Grooved Ware pottery has many symbols similar to the symbols found on the Irish stones, as will be seen in Chapter 6.
The Grooved Ware people were trading in the Mediterranean area (e.g., tin for bronze production), and their beliefs were passed on to the Canaanite and Phoenician seafarers. The Grooved Ware people were obsessed with tracking Venus. In fact, the triple spiral at Newgrange is not fully illuminated at winter solstice, but every eight years, Venus comes up just before the sun and directly illuminates the triple spiral. (See Chapter 9.)
2956 BCE, Cessiar
From myth, Cessair came to Ireland and was known as the first goddess of Ireland. She came from Meroe, in the Nubian Desert, and was said to be a granddaughter of Noah. She was the daughter of Noah’s son, Bith, and his wife, Birren.
According to legend, when her father was denied a place in the ark by Noah, Cessair advised him to build an idol. This idol advised them that they could escape the deluge in a ship. Cessair arrived forty days before the deluge. They landed in Southern Ireland at Dún na mBarc, Boat Fort, in County Cork, but two of her three ships were wrecked, and she eventually came ashore in the Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry. Cessair is credited with bringing the first sheep to Ireland. Timber may have been used at this time for calendars, instead of always using stones for the sundials.
If Cessair started her voyage in Meroe, which is below the cataracts of the Nile River in Nubia, then the seafarers were Nubians. Thus, the Nubians also arrived in Ireland. Cessair is said to be buried at the summit of Cnoc Meadha, six miles southwest of Tuam, County Galway.
The ship-building capability for long-distance ocean travel existed before the flood, and the Nubians were the expert seafarers at that time. As more ships came to Ireland, more timber was needed for ship building and repairs. This also led to stone circles becoming timber circles in some locations, based on holes that were dug.
2678 BCE, Partholon
Partholon came to Ireland from Asia Minor Anatolia, Greece, Sicily, and Iberia and arrived about three hundred years after the flood, landing at Inber Scene (Kenmare) in South Kerry, Southeastern Ireland. He may have been a Greek who fled Greece after slaying his father and mother in an unsuccessful attempt to take the kingship from his brother. After seven years of wandering, he arrived in Ireland with his wife and his three sons with their wives. His sons, by myth, made the first guest house, instituted cooking and dueling, and were the first brewers who made ale from fern. Partholon also brought with him four oxen, which were the first cattle in Ireland. At the time they arrived in Ireland, there was only one clear plain in all of Ireland, so they set about clearing more plains.
This time period was the Copper Age. Copper was in demand. Taking seven years in travel, Partholon took the copper-trading route from Anatolia to Spain and then to Ireland. He must have been aware of the massive gold, silver, and copper trading and mines in Spain. Arriving in Ireland on the southeastern coast, Partholon must have been aware of the copper mines in and around Ross Island and the Wicklow Mountains. Also, as a sailor, he must have been aware of the copper on the Isle of Anglesey, Wales.
Partholon is a variation of the original form of the name Bartholomaeus, which was said to mean “son of him who stayed the waters.” He, then, is associated with the post-deluge invasion of Ireland, whereas Cessair was the predeluge invader. After thirty years in Ireland, Partholon died, but his survivors and descendants continued to inhabit the country for another five hundred years, by which time they numbered over nine thousand. The clearing of the plains indicates the need for bigger gardens for the growing population. More stones resulted from the clearings and, then, were used for construction (Reference 61).
Beaker People
The Bell Beaker culture, c. 2800–1800 BC, is the term for a widely scattered culture of prehistoric Western Europe, probably originating in Spain. They were known as a novel material (metal) culture with foreign practices, including taking the first metals from Europe to Ireland at the beginning of the Bronze Age.
The earliest copper production in Ireland, identified at Ross Island in the period 2400–2200 BC, was associated with early Beaker pottery. The evidence suggests the initial spread of seafaring Bell Beakers along the Atlantic and into the Mediterranean, using sea routes related to the quest for copper and other rare raw materials.
The Bell Beaker people appear to have had knowledge of copper, bronze, and gold working. The distribution of beakers was highest in areas of transport routes, including fording sites, river valleys, and mountain passes. The Beaker people were probably bronze traders. Analysis of the bronze tools associated with beakers suggests an early Iberian source for the copper (Reference 61).
2098 BCE, Nemedians
The next invader, Nemed, which is an old Celtic word for a holy or sacred place, came from Scythia. He had started from the Caspian Sea with a fleet of forty-four ships, taking a year and a half. In the end, only his ship reached Ireland. But on the journey, they came across a tower of gold in the sea. Seeking the gold, they went to take the tower, but the sea rose in a great torrent and swept them all away, except for one ship—Nemed’s ship. After a year and a half of wandering, they eventually landed in Ireland. Forty-four ships had required massive financial backing. This could only have been funded by a rich Eastern Mediterranean society.
Gold and the violent seas remind me of the danger involved in going through the Strait of Gibraltar to the great gold and copper mines of Spain. The seafarer, going west, found a safer route: going from the southwest corner of France to Toulouse, then to Carnac on the west coast of Brittany.
Ireland, by this time, was being used as a base by the strange race known as the Fomoire, and after three great battles, Nemed defeated them and built himself a strong fort in south Armagh, in northeast Ireland. Nine years after arriving in Ireland, Nemed died of a plague, along with three thousand of his people. He was buried on the hill of Ard Nemid on Great Island in Cork Harbor.
The Fomoire returned and imposed heavy taxes on his survivors. After a while, the survivors of Nemed’s original people staged a revolt. They put up a good fight but were eventually overpowered by the Fomoire, and only one ship managed to escape from Ireland with a crew of thirty warriors on board. Fomoire had a significant presence in Northern Ireland as well as in the northwest during the Copper and early Bronze Ages.
According to tradition, later groups of settlers in Ireland were descended from these fleeing warriors. One of Nemed’s grandsons, Semeon, went to Greece, where his progeny later became the race known as the Fir Bol; another grandson, Beothach, fathered the race that would become the Tuatha Dé Danann; and one of his sons, Fearghus Leathdearg, went to Britain and fathered the race that would later be known as the Britonic people (Reference 61). The invaders came and went, but the descendants returned.
1972 BCE, Fir Bolgs
The Fir Bolgs came to Ireland (probably from Greece) and settled on the western side of Ireland. The Fir Bolgs were recorded as being ejected from Ireland and returning under a king named Aengus. The Fir Bolgs settled in the Aran Islands and surrounding coastland. The largest of these Islands, Inishmore—Árainn—is home
to a fortress allegedly related to Aengus and the Fir Bolg, Dun Aengus. It is always a challenge to sail to the Aran Islands, which we have experienced several times (see Figure 3-3).
Figure 3-3: Aran Island stone fort, Reference 61
The origin of the Fir Bolg name is the subject of some dispute. Older commentators consider them the “men of (the god/goddess) Bolg” or “men of bags” (compare Irish bolg meaning “belly, bag”). The bags were thought to be carrying dirt, which may have been easier to move than the stones. Another use of a “bag” is to collect valuable rocks: gold. The west coast of Ireland had many streams leading to the ocean. Alluvial gold was abundant in these locations.
When visiting the Aran Islands in 2012, I observed that it is a stone Island. The island also was strategically located for all shipping traffic on the west coast of Ireland and from the Galway Bay next to the Aran Islands. Living on the Aran Islands required good sailing skills.
1896 BCE, Tuatha Dé Danaan
The Tuatha Dé Danaan (which means “the people of Danu”) arrived in Ireland with the stone of destiny, called the Lia Fail, which they placed on the mound of Tara, and ever after the rightful kings of Ireland were chosen when it called out. They became the divine race whose kings reigned at Tara.
The Tuatha Dé Danaan arrived in ships on the coast of Connemara, on the west coast of Ireland above Galway Bay. They burned the ships “so that they should not think of retreating to them; and the smoke and the mist that came from the vessels filled the neighboring land and air.” Prevailing winds would bow eastward into the land. Therefore, it was conceived that they had arrived “in clouds of mist” (Reference 61). The ships came from Northern Europe, Denmark. Some say that they came from the West.
There is a story that they came to Ireland in flying ships but could not land as the Fomorians had set up a great energy field that they could not penetrate. So they had to circle Ireland nine times before finding a breach in the energy field and before setting down on the Iron Mountains in County Leitrim, in Northeastern Ireland.
They clashed with the Fir Bolg (the “men of the bags” or “potbellied ones”) whom they defeated at the first battle of Moytura, in northwest Ireland, Carrowmore. The Tuatha Dé Danaan, winning the battle, allowed the Fir Bolgs to stay in the west after they found out that they had a common heritage. The Fir Bolgs and the Tuatha De Danaan spoke the same language.
Tuatha Dé Danaan had better spears than the Fir Bolgs. This really suggests that the metallurgy was developed in the Eastern Mediterranean societies. In other words, Ireland and Spain were the suppliers of the copper; the customers were in the Eastern Mediterranean area. It was reputed that only iron weapons could injure them. This is an indication that iron was beginning to replace bronze.
The life-and-death struggle of two races is commemorated by a multitude of cairns and pillars found in the great battle plain in Sligo. It is interesting to note that this Sligo area was the major gold location in Ireland. The Danaan now ruled.
Totally unlike the uncultured Fir Bolgs, the Tuatha Dé Danaan were a capable, cultured, highly civilized people skilled in the crafts and the arts. The cultured Tuathan Dé Danaan probably created libraries and hospitals and studied astronomy and mathematics. This continued the coding of symbols and the building of mounds in the Boyne Valley of Ireland.
The Tuatha Dé Danaan ruled Ireland for over seven hundred years during the Bronze Age. One of their heroes was Nuada of the Silver Arm. They prospered under their two great heroes, Nuada of the Silver Arm and Lugh of the Long Arm. Is there a connection with the “silver arm” with Spain or the Silver Mountain in central Ireland?
The Tuatha Dé Danaan became known as the people of the Sidhe (mounds), and there are many faery mounds in existence in Ireland today. As they were a magical people, they decided to go underground into another dimension of space and time—the entrances to which are at many sites around Ireland, one of the most famous being Brugh na Boinne (Newgrange). Myth has it that the gold was stored in the mounds. The leprechauns guarded the mounds, and the shamrock was the symbol needed to open the mounds.
The Tuatha Dé Danaan were probably mound builders and controlled the copper and gold trade in Ireland for hundreds of years. They were likely both the customer and the supplier of the metals.
They were eventually defeated by the Milesians at Teltown. The Milesians were in control of the “above ground,” and the Tuatha Dé Danaan controlled the “otherworld”—the West. The myth goes like this: When Amergin was called upon to divide the land between the Tuatha Dé Danaan and his own people, he cleverly allotted the portion above ground to the Milesians and the portion underground to the Tuatha Dé Danaan. The Tuatha Dé Danaan were led underground into the Sidhe mounds by Manannan mac Lir, the Sea God. Appendix E contains the Amergin poem.
The invisible otherworld was the last refuge in time of trouble. The underground stretches across the water—North America. By about 1200 BCE, the North American copper trade to the Eastern Mediterranean societies appears to have stopped.
The copper trade from North America utilized the west coast harbor facilities of Ireland during the 2000 to 1200 BCE period (see Chapter 11). This would explain the number of stone forts along the western coasts of Ireland. The Iron Age led to their diminished role in the copper trade routes through Ireland. We were left with the harp symbol as an emblem of Ui Neill kingship at Tara, recovered from the Fomorians.
1498 BCE, Milesians
Milesians and the sons of Milesians are legendary ancestors of the Gael. Mil was a “soldier of Hispania” and represents the Gaelic-speaking Celts. They descended from Goídel Glas, a Scythian who was present at the fall of the Tower of Babel, and Scota, a daughter of a pharaoh of Egypt. Two branches of their descendants left Egypt and Scythia at the time of the exodus of Moses, and after a period of wandering the shores of the Mediterranean, they arrived in the Iberian Peninsula. A tower was built at a place called Brigantia (probably in the coast of Galicia—see Tower of Hercules) from the top of which one could see Ireland. This maybe a reference to the Pillars of Hercules, another name for the Strait of Gibraltar.
The annals, Reference 34, indicate that from Galicia to Ireland was a nine-day sail. The sons of Míl landed in County Kerry and fought the Danaan on their way to Tara. The name of this Island was then named Eire. At Tara, the sons of Míl met the three kings, and it was agreed that the invaders would return to their ships and sail a distance of nine waves from Ireland, and if they were able to land again, Ireland would be theirs. They set sail, but the Tuatha Dé Danaan used magic to call up a storm in which five of the sons were drowned, leaving only Eber Finn, Eremon, and Amergin Glúingel, the poet, to land and take the island. Amergin divided the kingship between Éremon, who ruled the northern half, and Éber Finn, who ruled the southern half of the island.
The Irish race of today is popularly known as the Milesian race because the genuine Irish (Celtic) people were supposed to be descended from Milesius of Spain, whose sons, say the legendary accounts, invaded and possessed themselves of Ireland.
Milesius was a general of the Scythian forces who sailed to Egypt with sixty ships and who was a general of the Pharaoh Nectonibus’s forces. Milesius defeated the Ethiopian forces and educated his people in the trades, arts, and sciences used in Egypt to teach the Spanish. Milesiun means “no stranger.”
Milesius also married Scota, the daughter of a pharaoh. Scota came to Ireland with the sons of Mil. Scota is significant, having transported the Stone of Scone (see Figure 3-4) from Egypt to Scotland during the exodus of Moses.
Figure 3-4: The Stone of Scone and the Judgment Stone at Loughcrew, Ireland
The grave of Scota reputedly lies in a valley south of Tralee town, in Co. Kerry, Ireland. The area is known as Glenn Scoithin, “vale of the little flower.” Is she the real Rose of Tralee? (Lyrics are in Appendix E.)
Scota has a second meaning from the Greek, where scota means darkness, shadow, obscurity, and secrecy. Scota also has a
n archaic architectural meaning of a sunken molding or a hollow. Both of these alternate meanings may have arisen from Scota’s Greek husband. It may have related to an important part of the body: its shadow. There is some thought that Scota may relate to a sun shadow or a basin.
In 583 BCE, a boat arrived in Ireland with an aged guardian, who was called Ollamh Fodhla, Hebrew for “revealer” or “prophet.” Figure 3-4b may be his judgment seat. The aged guardian became the most influential statesman and spiritual leader of Ireland. The Brenan Laws were established based on the Torah as the law of the land. A scribe and a servant, an Ethiopian, also came. Accompanying the man was an eastern king’s daughter, known as Tea Tephi. From Northern Ireland, Eochaidh (Eremhon) married the daughter, Tea Tephi. North and South Ireland were united. The Claddagh hands were now united.
In Cairn T at Loughcrew, there is a stone that has, possibly, the above trip carved into it (see Figure 3-5), which may represent the trip to Ireland of Ollamh Fodhla, as interpreted at http:/jahtruth.net.
Figure 3-5: Stone with glyphs showing a trip, http:/jahtruth.net
CE Seafarers
The seafarers in the current era, CE, all had associations with Ireland in one way or another. The main reason was that Ireland was the strategic location with regard to the trade routes from the north, south, and the west to North America.
The key CE seafarers were the Romans, Joseph of Arimathea, Saint Patrick, seafaring saints, Vikings, knight templars, and the Sinclairs of Rosslyn. Seafarers in the current era, CE, had many things in common with the BCE seafarers. They all came to Ireland by boat. They all took long ocean voyages, which required navigation knowledge of latitude and longitude. They all built magnificent per ankhs of their time—places of congregation to discuss truth. The passageways of the per ankhs had shapes with ring crosses and ankhs. They all dealt with trade of valuable rocks: gold, silver, iron, and gemstones. Their arks, or safe storage facilities, were always subject to raids.
A Seafarer's Decoding of the Irish Symbols Page 4