Part 6 of Letter of Florence Mac Carthy to the Earl of Thomond, on the ancient history of Ireland

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Letter of Florence Mac Carthy to the Earl of Thomond, on the ancient history of Ireland (Author: Florence MacCarthy Reagh)

paragraph 5

It appears by some ancient books that (before any other people of Greece) they had in Egypt knowledge of letters, which carries some likelihood in respect that Gaedhal, or Gelanor went into Egypt, after Moyses, in the time (according to Eusebius) of Cath the son of Tresmegistus when (long before Greece had any) letters were known in Egypt, where he and his son and Grandchild came back into Greece spent their tyme, as also that in Ireland at the first they had several sorts that were seen in letters, whereof the one was derived from fis³⁴ which is knowledge and called fisici —

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men of knowledge, as philosophers were called, before modesty moved Pythagoras to term himself a lover of wisdom, the other was filedh a poet, and another called draoi, wise man, some kind of magician or soothsayer, for the nation was not destitute of the superstitious Idolatrous sacrifices and observations of the Greeks, whereunto their king Tighernmus mac Follaigh Grandchild to Irial, Hermon's son being given, thrived as well as Zoroastres, for as he did set up an Idol called Crom Cruach³⁵ and imitating the oracles of the Greeks, allured Demons or Spirits to give answers therein (as hath been done if Trismegistus be to be believed) himself and the most part of the people were consumed with fire at Magh Slecht, before whose time, which was about one hundred years after their coming into Ireland, the nation was not cautious nor careful of wealth, for they had no coyne stampt nor no plate nor vessels of gould nor silver, nor clothes died with sundrie colours, until his reign, nor had noe skill in ordering or arraying of battles, nor their men reduced into companies, and brought to fight under insegnes until afterwards in the reign of Enna Airgthech³⁶ a king of the house of Iberius. It seems that they had a silver mine there, by the name of the place called thereof Airged-ros³⁷ by the great store of coin that was stamped there, and by the number of silver shields made there by the King of Ireland — Enna Aircthech, the son of Eachus surnamed Mumo³⁸ (of whom Munster took the name Mumonia) whose great Grandfather was Conmaol, Iberius his son.