Firbolgs.

Firbolgs. the name given in the fabulous history of Ireland to one of the races who successively invaded that country in what was probably the bronze age. The various tribes of the Firbolgs seem to have been Britons, and were said to have landed in Ireland under the command of five principal chiefs in three separate divisions, one in the river Slaney, the second in Mayo county, and the third in Ulster. Their chief stronghold, called Dind Rig, was near the Barrow, in Carlow. The Firbolgs were in their turn defeated and almost exterminated by a new race of invaders, the Tuatha Dé Danann, in a battle fought at Moytura, in Mayo. Nevertheless, the race did not wholly perish, for there long continued to be Firbolg kings of Connaught, and in the time of St Patrick it was in all probability the Firbolgs who constituted the bulk of the population of Ireland.