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Letter of Florence Mac Carthy to the Earl of Thomond, on the ancient history of Ireland (Author: Florence MacCarthy Reagh)
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And for the opinion that their original came from Greece, not only other writers doe so conclude but also themselves call the contrey from whence they came first Sceth iath2 the country of the thorns, for iath is a country and sceth a thorn, which all our ancient writers and others interpret Greece, as in the beginning of the 1st book of the Machabees is set down that Alexander the Great came out of Terra Cethim3 the country of the thorn, whereby there is no doubt but their original comes out of Greece: but what colony of
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Greeks they were, what time they came from thence, who was their conductor, where they remained until they came for Ireland, and upon what occasion they came thither, there stands the chiefe question, wherein all the Scottish writers that I have seen and the English in what they borrowed of them are (I think) erroneous: the cause (I believe) is that our nation in Scotland have been first vexed by Pights, Britons and others, and annoyed afterwards out of this land by the Romans that were very powerful, and much exercised against all warlike nations, neither have they been shortly after quiet with the Saxons, nor after them with the Danes, nor quiet always with the Kings of England, nor free from civil wars oftentimes; and being joined with Pights from the beginning, divers noble houses out of France, England, and other parts came thither since, whose fashion was so imbraced that many or most of the ancient nobility of the Scottish nation disdained and forgot their language and despised and neglected their monuments and antiquities, whereby it seems that some of them that write thereof know not well from whence came the original, nor who was the head and Ancestor of the nation, who in myne opinion is by them erroneously called Gathelus, as appeareth by the Britons, who is an ancienter and a nobler nation than what is said of Brutus would make them, for all our ancient books and writers doe conclude that these three kingdoms were first peopled by the colony that was brought out of Greece about 500 years after the universall Fludd by Nemeus or Nemhedh mac Agnomhain,4 whose Grandchild Britanus it was that gave the name to his land and nation who being our nearest neighbours and here long before we [Milesians] came into Ireland terme us still Gaedhail, as we do of our said head and ancestor, Gedhal, which (as it is pronounced) is Gél, who was no son of Caecrops, nor of Argus as they supposed because perhaps they found that he was of the kingdom which was the ancientest of Greece except the Sicyonian that Ægialus begun, when Belus began the Asyrian kingdom, where Xerxes their 7th king reigned and Turimachus the 7th also of the Sicionians, Inach begun the kingdom of the Argives in Peloponessus, whose son Phoroneus5 was grandfather to Argus that (after Apis went into Egypt) reigned there, whom Creasus succeeded, in whose time when Matnilas the 14th king reigned over the Assyrians, and Orthopolis the 12th king over the Sicyonians. Moysis was born in Egypt, who (according to our writers ledd the Israelites from thence before Gaedhal went thither, whereby he could be no son of Argus, for his father, who is called by our writers Nél or Nelus, is by the Greeks called Sthe-Nélus,6 and himself which
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we call Gaedhal or Gel) Gelanor,7 which addition proceeds of the alteration of the ancient brief languages used then in Greece, that is imported by our writers and differs much from the Greek tongue, which an infinite number, excellently learned in all sciences brought afterwards to the height of perfection, who as they beautified and altered the language, did also beautifye with these additions, the names which they got by Tradition, being destitute of letters in Greece, long after Gaedhal or Gelanor8, for whose time & and the cause of his going out of the country our writers agree with the Greeks: for Eusebius writes that Danaus, called Armeus was driven away by the Egyptians, who created King Ramesses, called Egyptus of whom the country (called before Cerie [aerie] ) take the name, and that the Argives expulsed Gelanor son to Sthenelus their 9th king and made Danaus their king.