His arrival is stated in the Chronicum Scotorum to have taken place "in the sixtieth year of the age of Abraham."[27] The Four Masters say: "The age of the world, when Partholan came into Ireland, 2520 years."[28] Partholan landed at Inver[29] Scene, now the Kenmare river, accompanied by his sons, their wives, and a thousand followers.

His antecedents are by no means the most creditable; and we may, perhaps, feel some satisfaction, that a colony thus founded should have been totally swept away by pestilence a few hundred years after its establishment.
The Chronicum Scotorum gives the date of his landing thus: "On a Monday, the 14th of May, he arrived, his companions being eight in number, viz., four men and four women." If the kingdom of Desmond were as rich then as now in natural beauty, a scene of no ordinary splendour must have greeted the eyes and gladdened the hearts of its first inhabitants.

They had voyaged past the fair and sunny isles of that "tideless sea," the home of the Phoenician race from the earliest ages.

They had escaped the dangers of the rough Spanish coast, and gazed upon the spot where the Pillars of Hercules were the beacons of the early mariners.

For many days they had lost sight of land, and, we may believe, had well-nigh despaired of finding a home in that far isle, to which some strange impulse had attracted them, or some old tradition--for the world even then was old enough for legends of the past--had won their thoughts.