The Partholonians (Muintir Partholóin)

The second wave, who cleared the first plains and died of plague in a week.

Partholón came to Ireland three hundred years after the Flood, from Greece by way of Sicily and Spain, having killed his own father and mother in a failed attempt on his brother's kingdom. He arrived at Inbhear Sceine with a small company.

What his people are credited with is work. Before them, the tradition says, Ireland had one treeless plain, three lakes and nine rivers. The Partholonians cleared four more plains and seven lakes appeared in their time. They are given the first guesting house, the first brewing of ale, the first cattle herding, the first ploughing and the first division of labour. This is the compilers doing what they do: assigning every element of ordinary Irish life to a founding moment.

They also fought the Fomorians, under Cichol Gricenchos, in what is given as the first battle fought in Ireland.

They ended all at once. After five thousand of them had multiplied across the country for several centuries, a plague took the whole population in a single week, and they were buried together on the plain outside Dublin still called Tallaght, Tamhlacht, the plague grave. One man, Tuan mac Cairill, survived, and like Fintan before him lived on through a series of animal shapes to tell it.

The modern Irish spelling of his name is Parthalán. Partholón is the older form the tradition carries.