Ancient Irish Arrivals
"Of Pharoah Intur's Banishment of the Children of Gaedal from Egypt; and of their chiefs, and of their adventures thereafter down here."
Location: Ireland
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From The History of Ireland, From the Earliest Period to the English Invasion by Geoffrey Keating, translated by John O'Mahony.
Of Pharoah Intur's Banishment of the Children of Gaedal from Egypt; and of their chiefs, and of their adventures thereafter down here.
Pharaoh Intur and the Egyptians, in time, remembered their old grudge to the descendants of Niul and the family of Gaedal, namely, their resentment for the friendship the latter had formed with the Children of Israel. They, then, made war upon the Gaels, who were thereby compelled to exile themselves from Egypt.
With this account Thomas Walsingham agrees, in the book called Hypodeigma, where he states that, "When the Egyptians had been drown in the Red Sea, those of their countrymen who survived, drove out a certain chieftain of the Scythian nation, who lived among them, that he might not assume sovereignty over them. Banished with his tribe he came to Spain, where he resided many years, and where his posterity grew numerous, and that thence he came at last to Ireland."
Know, reader, that this chieftan was Sru, son of Esru, son of Gaedal, and not Gaedal himself, notwithstanding the false assertion of Hector Boethius; and also, in the contradiction to the modern English writers, who suppose that it was Gaedal himself, that led the migration to Spain; for according to the truth of Irish history, which we should rather trust to in this matter, it is a fact that it was in Egypt that Scota, daughter of Pharaoh Cingris, gave birth to Gaedal; and in that land he resided until his death. It was Sru, son of Esru, that was the leader of this migration, until they reached the island of Crete, where he died.
His son Eber Scot then assumed the chieftainship of the people, until they arrived in Scythia...The reader must understand that Moses and Gaedal were contemporaries, and therefore that Gaedal was fourscore years of age when Pharaoh was drowned, and that the fourth generation from his birth, namely, Eber Scot, son of Sru, son of Esru, son of Gaedal, was then in existence, when the children of Gaedal emigrated to Scythia...
Geoffrey Keating, The History of Ireland, From the Earliest Period to the English Invasion, trans. John O'Mahony (New York: P.M. Haverty, 1857), 166-169.
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