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Kerry People "Came from Egypt"
By TOM PRENDEVILLE

 
An Irishman's Home Is His Pyramid?

They call it the Kingdom, And if one expert is to be believed, 
they have every right to.
  For Lorraine Evans says the people of Kerry are descended 
from the Pharoahs of EGYPT.
And - that includes the men who lifted a record 32nd 
Ail-Ireland Gael Football crown last weekend (Oct 8,2000).
  Now heroes like Maurice Fitzgerald and Liam Ilassett could 
be asked to take part in a unique genetic fingerprint 
experiment to prove it's all true.
  Egyptologist Lorraine Evans reckons the dark features and 
melodic sing-song voices of many Kerry folk can be traced back 
to the arrival of warrior Princess Scota, a Pharoah's daughter 
who arrived in Kerry around 1,500 BC. 
  The controversial theory has started a huge row among,
historians.  But Lorraine insists that with DNA testing, she 
can prove her theory.

  
			- FLED -

	She says the princess fled north Africa, and settled 
with her army of royal retainers, soldiers and slaves along 
the coast of Co. Kerry more than 1,000 years before the arrival 
of the first Celts in Ireland.
  The Egyptologist trawled through ancient Irish manuscripts 
which provide graphic accounts of the people who lived in 
prehistoric Ireland.
  During her research she came across numerous references to 
a mysterious Princess Scota who was described by early Irish 
scholars as a dark-skinned daughter of an Egyptian king.
   Said Lorraine:  I trawled through ancient Egyptian 
hieroglyphic texts which revealed that Scota's real name was 
Meritaten who was a half-sister of Tutankhamun.  "Little else 
is known about Princess Scota, except that she fled her 
homeland and went into exile in 1500BC as a result of a bloody 
internecine dynastic feud, a date which roughly coincides with 
ancient Irish accounts of her mysterious arrival in Ireland."
   As further proof of Lorraine Evan' astonishing theory a 
body discovered in the hill  of  Tara in the 1950s of a young 
chieftain who wore Egyptian- blue faineance beads, has been 
carbon dated to 1450 BC.
	It  indicates that he died 50 years after the arrival 
of ancient Egyptians in Ireland.
  Now Lorraine is trying to get permission to take DNA samples 
from the Tara body and pharaoh mummies to see if a' racial link 
can be established.
   She maintains: "Princess Scota and her army overcame the 
native Irish and later went on to become the rulers of ancient 
Ireland."
   But west Kerry mythology indicates that technologically 
advanced Egyptian, invaders may have been routed by equally 
advanced natives in brutal fighting.
	The area is littered with hundreds of ancient 
fortifications, many dating from bronze age era 1750 BC-500 BC, 
the time of the Tuatha De Danaan.

                     - Invasion -

   Scholar Seamus Moriarty suggests that there is enough 
evidence to indicate that a huge invasion fleet of foreign 
invaders - maybe Egyptian - was vanquished at Ventry Harbour, 
near Dingle Town in Kerry, after an epic  battle.
   Thereafter, he thinks the defeated Egyptians later settled 
down and assimilated into the population.
A theory which would explain similarities between west Kerry 
Gaelic and the ancient Egyptian tongue.
   Tuatha De Danaan built the giant grave at Newgrange, but 
they declined around 500 years BC when overcome by hordes of 
crazed Celtic invaders.
   Princess Scota, it's thought, bore children in Ireland and 
her name, lived on long after she was slain in battle.
   Modern DNA testing could unravel the entire mystery once 
and for all.
  For Lorraine Evans it will be a defining moment.


Irish Sunday People, 
Rathfarnham Road,Dublin 6
October 15,2000,  Pg 29