The Fir Bolg (Fir Bholg)

The wave that brought kingship and divided Ireland into the provinces it still has.

The Fir Bholg are Nemedian descendants coming home from Greece, where the tradition says they had been put to carrying earth in leather bags, which is one explanation offered for the name: men of bags. Scholars have also connected it to a tribal name, the Builg, and the question is not settled.

What they bring is political. Before them Ireland has people in it; after them it has a shape. They divided the island into five provinces, which is the division Ireland has kept ever since in the word cúige, meaning a fifth. They also brought the institution of kingship, and the first king to rule all of Ireland in the sequence is theirs.

Their rule lasted thirty seven years and nine kings, and ended when the Tuatha Dé Danann arrived. The two peoples met at the first battle of Mag Tuired. It is written as an honourable war between equals: terms were negotiated, weapons were compared and matched before fighting, and when Nuadha lost his arm and asked for the fight to continue on even terms, the Fir Bholg champion Sreng simply refused, which was his right.

The Fir Bholg lost. They were not exterminated. They were given Connacht, and they stayed, and later Irish families claimed descent from them. The Aran Islands fort of Dún Aonghasa is traditionally attributed to them.