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THE IRISH COLONIES FROM ATLANTIS.

have seen that beyond question Spain and France owed a great part of their population to Atlantis. Let us turn now to Ireland.

We would naturally expect, in view of the geographical position of the country, to find Ireland colonized at an early day by the overflowing population of Atlantis. And, in fact, the Irish annals tell us that their island was settled prior to the Flood. In their oldest legends an account is given of three Spanish fishermen who were driven by contrary winds on the coast of Ireland before the Deluge. After these came the Formorians, who were led into the country prior to the Deluge by the Lady Banbha, or Kesair; her maiden name was h'Erni, or Berba; she was accompanied by fifty maidens and three men—Bith, Ladhra, and Fintain. Ladhra was their conductor, who was the first buried in Hibernia. That ancient book, the "Cin of Drom-Snechta," is quoted in the "Book of Ballymote" as authority for this legend.

The Irish annals speak of the Formorians as a warlike race, who, according to the "Annals of Clonmacnois," "were a sept descended from Cham, the son of Noeh, and lived by pyracie and spoile of other nations, and were in those days very troublesome to the whole world."

Were not these the inhabitants of Atlantis, who, according to Plato, carried their arms to Egypt and Athens, and whose subsequent destruction has been attributed to divine vengeance invoked by their arrogance and oppressions?