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All these were of the race of Miledh; one only was a firbolg, or plebeian, and one a woman. It is certainly very remarkable that for so long a time nearly two thousand years, according to the best chronologists Ireland was ruled by princes of the same family. The fact is unparalleled in history, and shows that the people were firmly attached to their constitution, such as it was.
The truth is that, after the heir-apparent, sustained by some provincial king, supplanted the reigning monarch, one of the provincial chieftains claimed the crown and succeeded to it by violence. Yet the general rule that the monarch was to belong to the race of Miledh was adhered to almost without exception.
The very idea of national unity, once so cherished by all the children of Miledh Espaigne, seems to have been as wholly lost as any of those secrets of ancient handiwork, over which modern ingenuity puzzles itself in vain. In the times to which we have descended, it was every principality and every lordship for itself.
The name Fena, used to designate the old Scoti or Irish, is the plural of Fion, "fair," seen in the name of the hero Fion Gall, or "Fingal"; but the monkish chroniclers identified Fena with phoinix, whence arose the myth; and by a like misunderstanding of the epithet Miledh, or "warrior," applied to Fion by the Gaelic bards, there was generated a mythical hero, Milesius, and the soubriquet "Milesian," colloquially employed in speaking of the Irish.
The very idea of national unity, once so cherished by all the children of Miledh Espaigne, seems to have been as wholly lost as any of those secrets of ancient handiwork, over which modern ingenuity puzzles itself in vain. In the times to which we have descended, it was every principality and every lordship for itself.
These learned men who flourished in the golden reign of Elizabeth must have thought the Irish very easily imposed upon if they imagined they could give ear to such a fabrication, at a time when each great family had its own chronicler to trace its pedigree back to the very source of the race of Miledh.
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