THE FIRST INVASION OF IRELAND
According to Leabhar Gabhla, The Book of Invasions, the first invasion of Ireland was by Casnarthe daughter of Noah, just before the Flood. Refused entry into the Ark, they consulted an idol which told them to flee to Ireland. There were three men and fifty-one women in the party and they may have landed where the Barrow, Nore and Suir meet.
Fleeing from threatened flood, they sailed,
Seeking the fair island, without serpent or claw;
From the deck of their hasty barque watched
The soft edge of Ireland nearward draw.
A sweet confluence of waters, a trinity of rivers,
Was their first resting place:
They unloaded the women and the sensual idol,
Guiding image of their disgrace.
Division of damsels they did there,
The slender, the tender, the dimpled, the round,
It was the last just bargain in Ireland,
There was enough to go round.
Lightly they lay and pleasured
In the green grass of that guileless place.
Ladhra was the first to die;
He perished of an embrace.
Bith was buried in a stone heap,
Riot of mind, all passion spent.
Fintan fled from the ferocious women
Lest he, too, by love be rent.
Great primitive princes of our line
They were the first, with stately freedom,
To sleep with women in Ireland;
Soft the eternal bed they lie upon.
On a lonely headland the women assembled,
Chill as worshippers in a nave,
And watched the eastern waters gather
Into a great virile flooding wave.