The Book of Invasions or The Book of Conquests, Leabhar Gabhála Éireann or Leabhar Gabhála na hÉireann.A Factual look.

The Book of Invasions or The Book of Conquests, and in Modern Irish as Leabhar Gabhála Éireann or Leabhar Gabhála na hÉireann.
THE LEGEND
Purporting to be a literal and accurate account of the history of the Irish race,
A pseudo-Biblical account of the origin of the Gaels as the descendants of the Scythian prince Fénius Farsaid, one of seventy-two chieftains who built the Tower of Babel. His grandson Goídel Glas, whose mother is Scota, daughter of a Pharaoh of Egypt, creates the Irish language from the original seventy-two languages that arose at the time of the dispersal of the nations. His descendants, the Gaels, undergo a series of trials and tribulations that are clearly modelled on those with which the Israelites are tried in the Old Testament. They flourish in Egypt at the time of Moses and leave during the Exodus
THE FACT
Recent genetic findings suggest that the people now known as Gaelic speaking Celts (including Irish, Welsh, Scots, Basques and Berbers) are a remnant of a group of people who also left Spain between 18,000 and 12,000 years ago.
Professor Calvert Watkins of Harvard, one of the leading linguistic experts in his field, has pointed out that of all the Celtic linguistic remains, Old Irish represents an extraordinarily archaic and conservative tradition within the Indo-European family.
Its nominal and verbal systems are a far truer reflection of the hypothesized parent tongue, from which all Indo-European languages developed, than are Classical Greek or Latin. The structure of Old Irish/Gaelic, says Professor Watkins, can be compared only with that of Vedic Sanskrit or Hittite of the Old Kingdom.
The vocabulary is amazingly similar. The following are just a few examples:
Gaelic- arya (freeman),Sanskrit – aire (noble)
Gaelic – naib (good), Sanskrit – noeib (holy)
Gaelic – badhira (deaf), Sanskrit – bodhar (deaf)
Gaelic – names (respect), Sanskrit – nemed (respect)
Gaelic – righ (king), Sanskrit – raja (king)
Ramoses II “After having achieved this immense work, an important scientific conclusion remains to be drawn: the anthropological study and the microscopic analysis of hair, carried out by four laboratories: Judiciary Medecine (Professor Ceccaldi), Société L’Oréal, Atomic Energy Commission, and Institut Textile de France showed that Ramses II was a ’leucoderm’, that is a fair-skinned man, near to the Prehistoric and Antiquity Mediterraneans, or briefly, of the Berber of Africa.” Balout, et al. (1985) 383.
Microscopic examinations proved that the hair roots contained traces of natural red pigments, and that therefore, during his youth, Ramses II had been red-haired. It was concluded that these red pigments did not result from the hair somehow fading, or otherwise altering post-mortem, but did indeed represent Ramses’ natural hair colour. Ceccaldi also studied a cross-section of the hairs, and he determined from their oval shape, that Ramesses had been “cymotrich” (wavy-haired). Finally, he stated that such a combination of features showed that Ramesses had been a “leucoderm” (white-skinned person). [Balout, et al. (1985) 254-257.] Her speculations have been proved correct: Dr. Joann Fletcher, a consultant to the British Bioanthropology Foundation, has proved that Seti I (the father of Ramesses II), had red hair. [Parks (2000).] It has also been demonstrated that the mummy of Pharaoh Siptah (a great-grandson of Ramesses II), has red hair. [Partridge (1994) 169.]
Red hair is the rarest natural hair colour in humans. The pale skin associated with red hair may be of advantage in far-northern climates where sunlight is scarce.
Approximately 1% to 2% of the human population has red hair.Red hair appears in people with two copies of a recessive gene on chromosome 16 which causes a change in the MC1R protein.
The pigment pheomelanin gives red hair its distinctive colour. Red hair has far more pheomelanin than other hair colours, but far less of the dark pigment eumelanin.
The genetics of red hair, discovered in 1997, appears to be associated with the melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R), which is found on chromosome 16. Red hair is associated with fair skin colour due to low concentrations of eumelanin. This lower melanin-concentration has the advantage that a sufficient concentration of important Vitamin D can be produced under low light conditions. However, when the UV-radiation is strong (like in the regions close to the equator) the lower concentration of melanin leads to several medical disadvantages – one of them is the higher rate of skin cancer.
The MC1R recessive variant gene, which gives people red hair and fair skin, is also associated with freckles, though it is not uncommon to see a redhead without freckles. Eighty percent of redheads have an MC1R gene variant and the prevalence of these alleles is highest in Scotland and Ireland. Scotland has the highest proportion of redheads, as 13 percent of the population has red hair and approximately 40 percent carries the recessive redhead gene.[8] Ireland has the second highest percentage; as many as 10 percent of the Irish population have red, auburn, or strawberry blond hair.
Red hair can originate from several different changes on the MC1R-gene. If one of these changes is present on both chromosomes then the respective individual is likely to have red hair. This type of inheritance is described as an autosomal recessive mode of inheritance.
and Yes Ireland was called Scotland before Scotland
THE LEGEND
; they wander the world for four hundred and forty years before eventually settling in the Iberian peninsula. There, Goídel’s descendant Breogán founds a city called Brigantia, and builds a tower from the top of which his son Íth glimpses Ireland. Brigantia can probably be identified with A Coruña, north-west Galicia, known as Brigantium in Roman times;
THE FACT
A Roman lighthouse there known as the Tower of Hercules has been claimed to have been built on the site of Breogán’s tower.
THE LEGEND
Cessair
This book, according to Macalister’s scheme, constitutes the first interpolation in the Liber Occupationis. Cessair is the granddaughter of the Biblical Noah, who advises her and her father, Bith, to flee to the western edge of the world on account of the impending Flood. They set out in three ships, but when they arrive in Ireland two of the ships are lost. The only survivors are Cessair, forty-nine other women, and three men (Cessair’s husband Fintán mac Bóchra, her father Bith, and the pilot Ladra). The women are divided among the men, Fintán taking Cessair and sixteen women, Bith taking Cessair’s companion Bairrfhind and sixteen women, and Ladra taking the remaining sixteen women. Ladra, however, soon dies (the first man to be buried on Irish soil). Forty days later the Flood ensues. Fintán alone survives by spending a year under the waters in a cave called “Fintán’s Grave”. Afterwards known as “The White Ancient”, he lives for 5500 years after the Deluge and witnesses the later settlements of the island in the guises of a salmon, an eagle and a hawk.
THE FACT
This is probably a memory of the first settlers arriving from Scotland and the flood that seperates Ireland and Scotland.
Pretanic – Between about 10,800 and 7000 BC P-Celtic-speaking people colonised Britain and Ireland from the continent.In c.7000BC Ireland is cut off from Celtic Briton by global flooding caused by the end of the Ice Age.
THE LEGEND
Partholón
Three hundred years after the Flood, Partholón, who, like the Gaels, is a descendant of Noah’s son Japheth, settles in Ireland with his three sons and their people. The followers of Partholon were said to be the first to invade Ireland after the flood, but the Fomorians were already there: Seathrún Céitinn reports a tradition that the Fomorians, led by Cíocal, had arrived two hundred years earlier and lived on fish and fowl until Partholon came, bringing the plough and oxen.
The Fomorians, Fomors, or Fomori (Irish Fomóiri, Fomóraig) were a semi-divine race who inhabited Ireland in ancient times. They may have once been believed to be the beings who preceded the gods, similar to the Greek Titans. It has been suggested that they represent the gods of chaos and wild nature, as opposed to the Tuatha Dé Danann who represent the gods of human civilization.
The word fomóire is believed to derive from Old Irish fo muire (Modern Irish faoi muire), “under the sea”. This, combined with their association with glass towers in the western ocean, suggests a connection with icebergs. However the mór element may derive from a word meaning “terror”, whose Anglo-Saxon cognate “maere” survives in English “nightmare”.Another educated opinion leaves the conclusions of Zimmer fomóiri > fo-mór “sub-magnus” (giants, small? giants, nearly? giants, huge people?).
THE FACT
The anthropological record of early man clearly shows health took a nosedive when populations made the switch from hunting and gathering to agriculture. It takes a physical anthropologist about two seconds to look at a skeleton unearthed from an archeological site to tell if the owner of that skeleton was a hunter-gatherer or an agriculturist.
But the skeletal remains of hunter-gatherers show them to be much healthier than agriculturalists. Hunter-gatherers had better bones, had no signs of iron-deficiency anemia, no signs of infection, few (if any) dental cavities, fewer signs of arthritis and were in general larger and more robust than their agriculture-following contemporaries. One of the theories as to why postulates that hunter-gatherers lived in smaller, more mobile societies. Consequently, they weren’t as likely to get communicable diseases and were able to travel to find food, whereas agriculturists were rooted to one spot, lived in larger groups, making the spread of disease more likely, and they were subject to lack of food if a drought or other natural disaster decimated their crops.
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmi…nter-gatherers/
THE LEGEND
After ten years of peace war breaks out with the Fomorians, a race of evil seafarers led by Cichol Gricenchos. The Partholonians are victorious in the Battle of Magh Ithe, , but their victory is short-lived. In a single week they are wiped out by a plague — five thousand men and four thousand women — and are buried on the Plain of Elta to the southwest of Dublin, in an area that is still called Tallaght, which means “plague grave”. A single man survives the plague, Tuan mac Cairill, who (like Fintán mac Bóchra) survives for centuries and undergoes a succession of metamorphoses, so that he can act as a witness of later Irish history. This book also includes the story of Delgnat, Partholón’s wife, who commits adultery with a henchman.
THE FACT
It is possible that this is a memory of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers giving way to Neolithic farmers(c. 3500 BCE). Plague seems to have killed the farmers
THE LEGEND
Nemed
Thirty years after the extinction of the Partholonians, Ireland is settled by the people of Nemed, whose great-grandfather was a brother of Partholón’s. During their occupation, the land is once again ravaged by the Fomorians and a lengthy war ensues. Nemed wins three great battles against the Fomorians, but after his death his people are subjugated by two Fomorian leaders, Morc and Conand. Eventually, however, they rise up and assault Conand’s Tower on Tory Island. They are victorious, but an ensuing sea battle against Morc results in the destruction of both armies. A flood covers Ireland, wiping out most of the Nemedians. A handful of survivors are scattered to the four corners of the world.
THE FACT
This seems to be another attempt by another Celtic tribe to bring Neolithic farming from Scotland ,but they fail and are subjugated by the local hunter gatherers.The farmers die of plague again. Nine years after arriving in Ireland, Nemed died of plague along with three thousand of his people. He was buried on the hill of Ard Nemid on Great Island in Cork Harbour.c. 2350 BC according to the chronology of the Annals of the Four Masters,
THE LEGEND
Fir Bolg
One group of the seed of Nemed settled in Greece, where they were enslaved. Two hundred and thirty years after Nemed they flee and return to Ireland. There they separate into three nations: the Fir Bolg, Fir Domnann and the Fir Gálioin. They hold Ireland for just thirty-seven years before the invasion of the Tuatha Dé Danann.
THE FACT
The Fir Bolg .The origin of their name is the subject of some dispute. Many commentators consider them the “men of Builg” or “men of bags”, or by comparison with the modern Irish word bolg meaning ‘belly’ (and originally meaning ‘bag’). Alternatively they may be related to the Belgae tribe, whose name meant the “shining ones” (from Proto-Celtic *belo, meaning “bright”). In Early Irish, “boillsg” meant gleam; from Proto-Celtic *bolg-s-cio-; related to Latin “fulgeo”, shine, English “effulgent”, Lithuanian “blizgù” and even Russian “byela” (white).
The Fir Domnann They are probably related to the Celtic British Dumnonii tribe.
THE GREEK CONNECTION.
The Greek civilsation and culture seems to have been taken from the previous Celtic culture.Zeus ,Apollo and the Titans can all be traced to Celtic roots.As can most Greek mythological stories be found in Celtic mythology which pre-date the Greeks by thousands of years.
“Pelasgian” has come to mean more broadly all the autochthonous inhabitants of the Aegean lands and their culture before the advent of the Greek language the Pelasgians used to speak a Barbarian language.There are, indeed, various names affirmed to designate the ante-Hellenic inhabitants of many parts of Greece — many seem similar to known Celtic names.
the Pelasgi, the Leleges,(Vellavi -from Ruessium) the Curetes, the Kaukones,(The Carnutes (Latin Carnuti), a powerful Celtic people in the heart of independent Gaul, in the P-Celtic form Picts where “Cruithne”,Welsh Cymru) the Aones,(Aryans) the Temmikes, the Telchines,(Tocharians or Tuatha De Danann) the Boeotian Thracians,(Hyperborean)
The Hyperboreans seem to refer to the Celts.
Dodona (from Doric Greek ??d??a, Ionic Greek: ??d???,Dòdònè) in Epirus in northwestern Greece, was a prehistoric oracle devoted to the Mother Goddess identified at other sites with Rhea or Gaia, but here called Dione and later, in historical times also to the Greek god Zeus.The shrine of Dodona was the oldest Hellenic oracle, according to the fifth-century historian Herodotus and in fact dates to pre-Hellenic times, perhaps as early as the second millennium BCE.(eariler in my opinion) Aristotle considered the region to have been the most ancient part of Greece and where the Hellenes originated.Priestesses and priests in the sacred grove interpreted the rustling of the oak (or beech) leaves to determine the correct actions to be taken.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodona
For their part the Hyperboreans sent mysterious gifts, packed in straw, which came first to Dodona and then were passed from people to people until they came to Apollo’s temple on Delos (Pausanias). Abaris, Hyperborean priest of Apollo, was a legendary wandering healer and seer.(Druid?)
Abaris the Hyperborean (Greek: ?ßa??? ?pe?ß??e???, Abaris Hyperboreios),was a legendary sage, healer, and priest of Apollo known to the Ancient Greeks. He was supposed to have learned his skills in his homeland of Hyperborea,
As the patron of Delphi (Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an oracular god — the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing were associated with Apollo, when it was a major site for the worship of the god Apollo after he slew the Python, a deity who lived there and protected the navel of the Earth. Both Homer (Odyss. XII. 1) and Hesiod ,(Theogonia, v.242. 959) in their theogonic legends exclusively refer to the lower Danube as the Okeanos Potamos(Great Ocean River God).At the end of the Okeanos Potamos, is the holy island of Alba (Leuke, Pytho Nisi, Isle of Snakes). sacred to the Pelasgian. (and later, the Greek) Apollo, greeting the sun rising in the east.,Alba is the Gaelic name of Scotland
Hecateus Abderitas refers to Apollo’s island from the region of the Hyperboreans, in the Okeanos.(Great Ocean)
Alone among the Twelve Olympians, Apollo was venerated among the Hyperboreans, the Hellenes thought: he spent his winter amongst them(same as the Celtic god CAILLEACH with the power of the snake?).In Greek mythology, according to tradition, the Hyperboreans were a mythical people who lived far to the north of Thrace. The Greeks thought that Boreas, the North Wind,lived in Thrace, and that therefore Hyperborea was an unspecified region in the northern lands that lay beyond Scythia. Their land, called Hyperborea or Hyperboria — “beyond the Boreas” Hesiod mentioned the Hyperboreans, Herodotus reported, though the text is now lost, “and Homer also in the Epigoni, if that be really a work of his”.
In the Highlands of Scotland, the adder or serpent is supposed to represent the CAILLEACH’S power,. See: SAMHAIN, and OIMELC
In partnership with the goddess Brìghde, the Cailleach is seen as a seasonal deity or spirit, ruling the winter months between Samhuinn (November 1) and Bealltainn (May 1), while Brìghde rules the summer months between Bealltainn and Samhuinn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cailleach
Calidonia(one of Scotlands original name) originally ment the “Land of Cali” or the CAILLEACH.
Also, the sun was supposed to rise and set only once a year in Hyperborea, which would place it at or near the North Pole. i.e. North of Scotland (Alba in Celtic) ,Orkney?Also the PYTHION APOLLO seems to reflect a Celtic snake diety and the Druids symbol was also the snake.
Or that it could have referred to beliefs such as Pelagianism,(the Pre-Greek barbarian belief) symbolized as “serpents”
THE LEGEND
Tuatha Dé Danann
The Tuatha Dé Danann are descendants of another group of the scattered seed of Nemed. They return to Ireland from the far north, where they have learned the arts of pagan magic and druidry, on or about May 1. They contest the ownership of Ireland with the Fir Bolg and their allies in the First Battle of Moytura (or Mag Tuired). The Tuatha Dé are victorious and drive the Fir Bolg into exile among the neighbouring islands. But Nuada, the king of the Tuatha Dé, loses his right arm in the battle and is forced to renounce his crown. For seven unhappy years the kingship is held by the half-Fomorian Bres before Nuada’s physician Dian Cécht fashions for him a silver arm, and he is restored. War with the Fomorians breaks out and a decisive battle is fought: the Second Battle of Moytura. Nuada falls to Balor of the Evil Eye, but Balor’s grandson, Lugh of the Long Arm, kills him and becomes king. The Tuatha Dé Danann enjoy one hundred and fifty years of unbroken rule.
THE FACT
This could be refering to the new technologies arriving from Scotland.The use of bronze spread to Ireland around 2200 to 2100 B.C.,probably from Scotland either through commercial contacts or through the migration of a new people. The so-called Beaker People came at the beginning of the Irish Bronze Age.
THE LEGEND
Milesians
The story of the Gaels,and thier journey from Egypt, which was interrupted at the end of Book 2, is now resumed. Íth, who has spied Ireland from the top of Breogán’s Tower, journeys to Ireland to investigate his discovery. There he is welcomed by the rulers, but jealous nobles kill him and his men return to Iberia with his body. The Milesians, or sons of his uncle Míl Espáine, set out to avenge his death and conquer the island. When they arrive in Ireland, they advance to Tara, the royal seat, to demand the kingship. On the way they are greeted in turn by three women, Banba, Fodla and Ériu, who are the queens of the three co-regents of the land. Each woman welcomes the Milesians and tells them that her name is the name by which the land is known, and asks that it remain so if the Milesians are victorious in battle. One of the Milesians, the poet Amergin, promises that it shall be so. At Tara they are greeted by the three kings of the Tuatha Dé Danann, who defend their claim to the joint kingship of the land. It is decided that the Milesians must return to their ships and sail out to sea to a distance of nine waves from the shore, so that the Tuatha Dé Danann may have a chance to mobilise their forces. But when the Milesians are “beyond nine waves”, the druids of the Tuatha Dé Danann conjure up a ferocious storm. The Milesian fleet is driven out to sea but Amergin dispels the wind with his poetry. Of the surviving ships those of Éber land at Inber Scéine (the Shannon estuary) in the west of the country, while those of Érimón land at Inber Colptha (the mouth of the Boyne). In two ensuing battles at Sliabh Mis and Tailtiu, the Tuatha Dé Danann are defeated. They are eventually driven out and the lordship of Ireland is divided between Éber and Éremón
THE FACT
The Milesian invasion is clearly a semi-legendary version of the historical Goidelic invasion. Éber and Éremón (whose names mean simply “Irishman” and “Ireland”, respectively) have replaced the historical leaders of the Eoganachta and Connachta respectively. In the case of Éber, the allusion may be to the Iberian peninsula, whence doubtless warriors of Celtiberian stock came and later emigrated to Ireland. The name of their father Míl Espáne is similarly derived from the Latin Miles Hispaniae, “a soldier of Spain.”
Hope this has been interesting.