The earliest surviving reference to Partholón is in the Historia Brittonum, a 9th-century British Latin compilation attributed to Nennius.
Partholón and his people sail to Ireland via Sicily and Iberia, arriving 300 or 312 years after the flood and landing at Inber Scéne (Kenmare in County Kerry).
It claims that Partholón was the son of Sera, the king of Greece, and fled his homeland after murdering his father and mother.
He and his followers set off from Greece, sailed via Sicily and arrived in Ireland from the west, having traveled for two and a half months.
Named figures are credited with having introduced cattle husbandry, ploughing, cooking, dwellings, trade and dividing the island into four parts.
A poem in the Lebor Gabála, expanded by Céitinn, tells how Partholón and his wife, Delgnat, lived on a small island near the head of the estuary of the River Erne.
This work states that the plague came 300 years after their arrival, in May, and that one man survived: Tuan, son of Partholón's brother Starn.