Irish Celebrity Girl

Likewise, the terms for people from Ireland—all from Roman sources—in the late Roman era were varied. They included Attacotti, Scoti, and Gael. This last word, derived from the Welsh gwyddel (meaning raiders), was eventually adopted by the Irish for themselves. However, as a term it is on a par with Viking, as it describes an activity (raiding, piracy) and its proponents, not their actual ethnic affiliations.
The term Irish and Ireland is derived from the Érainn, a people who once lived in what is now central and south Munster. Possibly their proximity to overseas trade with western Great Britain, Gaul, and Iberia led to the name of this one people to be applied to the whole island and its inhabitants. A variety of historical ethnic groups have inhabited the island, including the Airgialla, Fir Ol nEchmacht, Delbhna, Fir Bolg, Érainn, Eóganachta, Mairtine, Conmaicne, Soghain, and Ulaid. In the cases of the Conmaicne, Delbhna, and perhaps Érainn, it can be demonstrated that the tribe took their name from their chief deity, or in the case of the Ciannachta, Eóganachta, and possibly the Soghain, a deified ancestor. This practise is paralled by the Anglo-Saxon dynasties claims of descent from Woden, via his sons Wecta, Baeldaeg, Casere and Wihtlaeg.
The Greek mythographer, Euhemerus, originated the concept of Euhemerism, which treats mythological accounts as a reflection of actual historical events shaped by retelling and traditional mores. In the 12th-century, Icelandic bard and historian Snorri Sturluson proposed that the Norse gods were originally historical war leaders and kings, who later became cult figures, eventually set into society as gods. This view is in agreement with Irish historians such T. F. O'Rahilly and Francis John Byrne; the early chapters of their respective books, Early Irish history and mythology (reprinted 2004) and Irish Kings and High-Kings (3rd revised edition, 2001), deal in depth with the origins and status of many Irish ancestral deities.
One legend states that the Irish were descended from one Míl Espáine, whose sons supposedly conquered Ireland around 1000 BC or later. The character is almost certainly a mere personification of a supposed migration by a group or groups from Iberia to Ireland. It is from this that the Irish were, as late as the 1800s, popularly known as "Milesian". Medieval Irish historians, over the course of several centuries, created the genealogical dogma that all Irish were descendants of Míl, ignoring the fact that their own works demonstrated inhabitants in Ireland prior to his supposed arrival.