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CONNACHT

GALWAY

Gaillimh, ‘stony (river)’, also Gaillem, ‘the river and town of Galway’ Cnoc Medbha (‘Medb’s* Hill’), also known as Cnoc Magh (‘the hill on the plain’) and now known as Knockma, is five miles south-west of Tuam and south-east of Castlehacket [46]. Although only a little more than 500 feet high, the summit of Knockma commands some of the finest views in Ireland; the hill in the early part of the twentieth century was part of the folklore of Galway and Mayo. The fairies of Connacht were said to dwell in the depth of the hill under their leader Finvarra. The great cairn on the summit of the hill is marked Finvarra’s Castle on the Ordnance Sheet. Knockma is the south-eastern limit of the great plain anciently called Nemidh or Magh-Ith.

Fairy-fighting in the sky over Knockma and on towards Galway was held responsible for the famine of 1846–7. Or one might hint that if something disastrous occurred then the remnants of the fairy faith were somehow responsible.

There are four cairns in this area within which are said to be excavated passages and a palace where the aes síde live. Inside the cairn of Knockma there is believed to be an entrance to the Otherworld. It was common belief in this area that after consumptives died, they became well again with the aes síde.

The cult of the head which I have encountered in a few counties is found in a novel called Hero Breed by Pat Mullen, from Inishmore on the Aran Islands, published 1936:

What it was she saw or how far into the future it went nobody has ever known, but she said it as a geasa on his eldest son that he must dig up his father’s skull at the coming of the first new moon after one year had elapsed, and never part with it until his death, when it was to be placed in the care of his eldest son in turn. In this way it would be passed down through the centuries until time ceased to be. ‘For’, said she, ‘while the skull is kept carefully in the possession of the eldest son the spirit of the great warrior will always be near to watch over the family. The name shall never die out, the men shall be fearless, brave and strong, the women beautiful and kindly.

A further example can be seen at St MacDara’s Island, a monastic site almost two miles south-west of Mace Head. It is best approached from the village of Carna [44]. Here on 16 July, the saint’s patron day, local people came to the island and celebrated mass. After this some put their hands down into the earth in that part of the church where the saint’s skull lay and touched it. This ritual continued until one year when it was stolen by what some locals say was a tourist; however, no proof has ever emerged as to the guilty party. The thief destroyed a custom that lasted, supposedly, for nearly 1,500 years.

There are other less intense traditions associated with this sixth-century saint; passing fishing boats are said to dip their sails three times for luck. The distinctive-looking oratory, according to Estyn Evans in Prehistoric and Early Christian Ireland, may have been timber-built. ‘The whole arrangement suggests a translation into stone of a timber building with its roof supported by elbowed crucks. This is the only surviving example of its kind, though miniature copies of similar oratories occur on top of high crosses at Monasterboice and Durrow.’ As the name Dair means ‘oak’, it is fitting that the original oratory was of timber.

The sighting of péists or Otherworld beasts (most notably the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland), was a common enough occurrence in Galway in the twentieth century. These sightings occurred firstly at Loch Fadda [44] close to Clifden, Connemara, and at Loch Ána (‘Ána’s lake’) [36] and at Loch Shanakeever (Loch Sheanadh Chíamhair, ‘the lake of ancient mist’) [37]. The beast was known as the Ech Uisce or ‘water horse’ as its head was similar to that of a horse. According to local reports it was black, had a large white stripe along its back and was about seven to eight feet in length. Georgina Carberry, librarian at Clifden, said that she saw it in 1954. In 1960 the Loch Ness investigation bureau came to Loch Fadda and used dynamite, with government permission, in order, one presumes, to bring the beast out of its lair. Some academics have dismissed the possibility of a monster by saying that the sightings may be merely of a group of otters, which, black and in procession, may appear humped. This ollphéist or monster was mentioned by William Makepeace Thackeray in 1842.

Loch Fadda features a crannóg or ancient lake dwelling; these were usually wooden enclosures. This lake dwelling is known as Beaghcauneen (Beitheach Cháinín, ‘the lake of the birch groves’). Coincidentally, the lake west of Loch Fadda is known as Loch Each, or ‘the lake of the horse’. Two miles south-west of Loch Each by foot (or by horse!) is Loch Naweelaun (Loch na bhFaoileann, ‘the lake of the seagulls’) where sightings of the Ollphéist have also been observed. For the enthusiast there is a megalithic tomb about 300 yards south-west from the east side of the lake.

Inchagoill Island on the northern end of Lough Corrib [45] has an important pillar stone associated with Lug,* the Celtic sun god. Known as the Lugaedon stone, it has been cited by Professor Etienne Rynne as one of the more important pillar stones in Ireland. It can be seen a short distance south-west from the old church called Teampull Phádraig (‘Patrick’s temple’) which, though believed traditionally to go back to the time of the saint, most likely dates from the thirteenth century. The pillar stone has an inscription, ‘LIE LUGUAEDON MACCI MENUEH’, which there have been many attempts at translating over the years. The first attempt was in 1810 by a member of the Tipperary militia who interpreted it as reading: ‘Underneath this stone lie Goill, Ardan and Sionan.’ The names were supposed to be those of three brothers, the eldest of whom was said to be the head of a religious order there and gave his name to the island. A further attempt was made in 1904 and came up with the reading: ‘To speak yonder on the graves of those who are blessed.’ In the early nineties a local boatman taking a group to the island informed Rynne that ‘the stone is a fossilized rudder of St Patrick’s boat’! Further misreadings abound, one of which is as follows: ‘The stone of Lugnaedon, son of Limenueh’, Limenueh being identified as Liemania, the sister of St Patrick, and Lugnaedon as Lugna, Liemania’s son. The ancient collection of manuscripts known as Leabhar Breac states that Lugnat was the foster son of Patrick and son of his sister and that he was also his navigator–thus the seed for the boatman’s story.

Eventually it was acknowledged that the original markings on the Lugnaedon stone were in ogam and later in Gaelic script, presumably from the ogam. So finally, we end up with our old harvest and sun god Lug,* a Celtic deity found throughout Europe and along the coast of North Africa. Thus, we are left with two pre-Christian or pagan deities: namely, Lug or the ‘shining one’ and Aed ‘the fiery one’, both solar deities. The noted antiquarian R.A.S. Macalister suggested that the original ogam inscriptions were cut from the sides of the stone and substituted with what one can see today. According to Rynne, it is generally accepted nowadays that the inscription dates from the sixth century and ‘is probably the oldest extant example of an Irish inscription in Latin characters’. It has also been pointed out that the word gall is an old Irish word for a stone, and that Inchagoill should be translated as ‘The Island of the Stone’, or the ‘Island of Lug’s Stone’.

Lough Corrib was originally known as Loch Orbsen, Orbsen being the proper name of Mannanán mac Lir.* According to legend, when Orbsen’s grave was being dug, the lake burst forth over the land. Keating says:

Mannanán mac Lir ó’n sír sreath, Oirbsean a ainm, iar gcéd gcloth ég adbath.

Manannán son of Lear, from the ‘loch’ he sought the ‘sraith’ [‘sraith’, a level space by a river]. Oirbsean his (own) name, after a hundred conflicts he died the death.

[Translated by David Comyn]

Legend relates that a great fight took place between Orbsen mac Alloid or Manannán mac Lir* and Uillinn, the grandson of Nuadu Argatlám (‘Nuadu of the Silver Hand’, who was a king of Ireland and whose replica, minus his arm, can be seen today in the Anglican cathedral in Armagh).This fight took place on the western shores of Lough Corrib near Moycullen [45], which in Irish is Magh Uillinn or ‘the plain of Uillin’. A standing stone known as Uillin’s stone was said to commemorate this battle but seems to have disappeared by the middle of the twentieth century.

A different origin for the Corrib’s name is given by O’Rahilly who says that it is named after Oirbsiu Már, who was son of Lugaid Conmac, thus providing another connection, beside that on Inchagoill, with Lug.* The Conmaicne were a pre-Gaelic race who worshipped Lug as their sun god.

Kilbennan [39], about ten miles north-east of Lough Corrib, also has an association with Lug,* its pagan name having been Dún Lugaid (‘the fort of Lug’). A monastery was founded there by St Benin, a disciple and successor of St Patrick at Armagh; the land here was given by a local chieftain, Lugaid, who was baptised by Patrick. He followed the tradition of incorporating the local god, the sun god Lug, into his name. The early church of Benin was burnt down in 1114, but there are portions of a round tower still standing there. O’Donovan in the nineteenth century wrote that ‘the present coarb [successor] of St Benin is making every exertion to put a stop to these courses, because he believed that the tower was a pagan fire-temple and that the well was of druidical sanctity, and that St Benin was obliged to transfer them to Christian purposes to please the superstitious natives’. St Benin’s Well (Tobar Chill Bheinín) is about 150 yards north-west from the ruins of the medieval church.

FIGURE 2. The pillar stone on Inchagoill Island, Lough Corrib, associated with the god Lug.

On the last Sunday in July a great pattern was held at ancient Dún Lugaid to commemorate Lug,* a day that was also known as the Feast of Lughnasa and later as Garland Sunday. John O’Donovan visited here in 1838 and found that ‘stations were performed at the well on Domnach Chrom Dubh [the Irish name for Garland Sunday]’. The parish priest at the time, a Father Joyce, wished to put a stop to the practice because of its pagan origins.

A few hundred yards to the east of the round tower is a townland named Ballygaddy (Baile an Gadaighe, ‘the townland of the thief’), and according to O’Donovan there existed here two heaps of stones and a larger monument named Altóir Phádruig, or ‘St Patrick’s Altar’, on which the saint is said to have said mass.

St Benin also has a small church on Inishmore, Aran Islands. The church known as Temple Benan is on the hillside a few hundred yards south-west from the village of Killeany. The internal measurements are about eleven by seven feet, while the gables, rising to about sixteen feet, are quite steep. Why the roof here cannot be restored is a mystery, for the walls are very solid and have remained so for almost a millennium and-a-half. It would be a place of great pilgrimage and memory to the monk who was the first disciple of St Patrick and who practised religion on the ancient site of Dún Lughaid.

Twelve miles east of Lough Corrib is the townland of Coolfowerbeg (Cuil Fobhair, ‘the back of the spring well’) [46] in the parish of Killererin. Here Tigernmas defeated the descendants of Éber, the Milesian or Gaelic chief, according to Keating, but Hogan says that Tigernmas fought and defeated the Érainn here. This vagueness as to who fought whom is indicative of our prehistory. Yet it stands as one of the many battles fought by Tigernmas, High King of Ireland, as recorded in the annals.

To the south-west of Kinvara (Cinn Mhara, ‘head of the sea’) [52] is the Doorus Demesne, the summer home of Comte Florimond de Basterot, and during a visit to the Count there in 1898 Lady Gregory recalled that ‘The Count remembered when on Garland Sunday [last Sunday in July] men used to ride races naked on unsaddled horses out into the sea; but that wild custom has been done away with by decree of the priests.’

The wild custom would appear to have been part of a central ritual during the feast of Lughnasa and reveals the connection between Epona, a Gaulish horse goddess who was the daughter of a man called ‘nature of the sea’ and is also the mother of a horse who returns to the sea, and Lug,* the foster son of Manannán mac Lir,* the Irish and Welsh sea god. Epona’s Irish equivalent is Macha, a horse goddess and a goddess of fertility. The central motif in the ritual horse bathing at harvest time is that the mare goddess is married to the sea and at certain times returns to her lover. In Greek mythology, Demeter, often depicted with a mare’s head, had intercourse with Poseidon, the god of the sea. A central part of this Indo-European rite was expressed with the horse race into the sea at Kinvara.

About ten miles south of Kinvara is the town of Gort [52], and about two miles north-east of here is Ballyconnell, which derives its name from a famous battle known as Cath Carn Conaill or ‘the battle of Carn Conaill’. According to the Annals of Ulster the battle took place in 649 AD, and although firmly placed in the historic period, contains many elements discernible in the older tales. The battle was fought between Duirmuid Ruanaid, a powerful chief of the southern Uí Néill, and Guaire of Aidne, King of Connacht. Aidne comprised the barony of Kiltartan and the dioceses of Kilmacduagh.

Guaire held his court at his castle originally known as Durlas Guaire (‘the strong fort of Guaire’) but now named Dungory just east of Kinvara. A more modern castle stands here now, but in 1914 it was said that the remains of the original castle could be seen. According to P.W. Joyce, ‘half a mile east of Kinvara, on the seashore stands an ancient circular fort; and this is all that remains of the hospitable palace of Durlas’. The castle that now goes by the name Dungory Castle was built by the O’Heynes and stands in the middle of this original circular fort.

Like Suibhne Geilt (‘Mad Sweeny’*) from Magh Rath in Co. Down, Guaire is from an age when the ancient order was changing and saw a flowering of the poetic order. It was perhaps because his durlas was a meeting place for poets that he was named Guaire the Hospitable. In a tale handed down from the seventh century it is said that after Seanchan Torpeist was elected to Ollamh (chief file or poet) of Ireland, he consulted with his fellow poets as to which king they should honour with their first or inaugural visit according to ancient custom, and they decided to visit Guaire. Thus, they visited Gort Insi Guaire (‘the field island of Guaire’), which is an accurate description of Guaire’s fortress at Kinvara, as the castle was on a small island just off the mainland in Kinvara Bay. Today there is a small causeway which leads to the island.

Seanchan took with him 150 poets, 150 pupils and a corresponding number of women – which follows the storytelling tradition of giving numbers in fifties. However, an ollamh was only entitled to a retinue of thirty, and this number was lowered to twenty-four at the Convention of Drom Ceat in 590 AD. Seanchan was well received by Guaire, of whom it is said that one of his arms was longer than the other, thus earning him the soubriquet ‘hospitable’. Seanchan was entitled to stay at the royal residence for ‘a year, a quarter and a month’. While he was at the king’s residence, a dish sent to his bedroom by his wife Brigit contained nothing but gnawed bones, and the servant said that this was due to rats. Here Seanchan used his power in verse to rhyme the vermin to death. The following is a translation by O’Curry of his rhyme:

Rats, though sharp their snouts,

Are not powerful in battles;

I will bring death on the party of them

For having eaten Brigit’s present.

Small was the present she made us,

Its loss to her was not great;

Let her have payment from us in a poem,

Let her not refuse the poet’s gratitude!

You rats which are in the roof of the house

Arise, all of you, and fall down.

Ten rats then fell dead from the roof, and Seanchan said that it was not the rats that should have been satirised but the cats for failing in their duty. He then satirised the chief of the cats who was said to reside in the cave of Knowth near Slane. However, regardless of the rats and the delightful setting, the poets became troublesome to the extent that the king’s brother, a hermit named Marbhan, put a geis or obligation on them to depart and to devote themselves to the discovery of the ancient tale of the Táin Bó Cúailnge.* Seanchan Torpeist was aggrieved at this and on his departure presented a short farewell poem to Guaire.

We depart from thee, O stainless Guaire!

We leave thee with our blessing;

A year, a quarter and a month,

Have we sojourned with thee, O high king!

Three times fifty poets, – good and smooth, –

Three times fifty students in the poetic art,

Each with his servant and dog;

They were all fed in one great house.

Each man had his separate meal;

Each man had his separate bed;

We never arose at early morning,

Without contentions without calming.

I declare to thee O God!

Who canst the promise verify,

That should we return to our own land,

We shall visit thee again, O Guaire, though now we depart.

[Translated by Eugene O’Curry]

Seanchan was later successful in retrieving the great epic of the Táin. He originally set out from Durlas Guaire in search of the epic to Scotland and then to the Isle of Man but had no success. He then returned to Ireland and went to St Caillin of Magh Rein in Leitrim, who was the poet’s brother, after which he went back to Durlas Guaire. In order to help them in their endeavour, Guaire sent for his brother Marbhan from his hermitage at Glenn-an Scail (‘the glen of the shadows’), now known as Gleananscaul [46], about two miles north of Oranmore. Marbhan arrived at Durlas Guaire and here they discussed the best way to recover the lost tale. Many saints went to the burial place of Fergus mac Roich, a prominent person in the tale, and through prayer persuaded God to raise him from the dead, and thus the tale was retrieved.

Guaire had a daughter named Créde who was in love with Dinertach of the Uí Fhidgente of east Limerick, who had come to support Guaire in his fight against Diarmait of the Uí Néill in the battle of Carn Conaill. A poem she composed, known as the ‘Song of Crédne, Daughter of Guaire’, was transcribed by Gilla Riabach mac Tuathail ui Chlérig who lived in the first half of the sixteenth century. Whether Dinertach was slain or survived this battle is not clear, but the poem tells us that he suffered seventeen wounds, which prompted Créde to keen the following:

It é saigdi goine súain

cech trát[h]a ind-oidc[h]I adhúair:

sercoi lie gnása íar ndé

fir a tóib tíri Roighne.

Rográd alathíre

romsíacht sech a comdíne:

rucc mo lí, ní lór do dath,

nímlécci do tindabrad.

Im-sa náidi rob-sa náir,

ní bind fri dula do dái:

óttalod I n-inderb n-aois,

romgab mo thédi toghaois.

Tathum cech maith la Guairi

lie rig nAidne n-adfúaire:

tocair mo menma óm thúathaib

isin iath I n Irlúachair.

Canair a n-íath Aidne áin

im thaobu Cilli Colmáin:

án breó des luimnech lechtach

dienad comainm Dínertach.

Cráidid mo chridhe cóinech,

a Chríst cáidh a forróidhedh:

it é soigde gona súain

cech trátha a n-oidchi adhúair.

These are the arrows that murder sleep at every hour in the bitter cold night: pangs of love throughout the day for the company of the man from the side of the land of Roigne.

Great love of a man of another land has come to me beyond all his mates: it has taken my bloom, no colour is left, it does not let me rest.

When I was a child, I was bashful, I was not used to go to a tryst; since I have come to an untried age, my wantonness has beguiled me.

I have every good with Guaire, the king of cold Aidne; but my mind has fallen away from my people to the meadow at Irluachair.

There is singing in the meadow of glorious Aidne around the sides of Cell Cholmain: glorious flame, lovely mantled, now sunk into the grave, the name of whom is Dinertach.

It wrings my pitiable heart, O chaste Christ, what has been sent to me: these are arrows that murder sleep at every hour in the bitter cold night.

[Translated by Kuno Meyer]

Gort, mentioned above, four miles from Lough Cutra [52], and between Lough Cutra and Derrybrien, is where the first resting place of Diarmuid* and Gráinne* was, namely Doire dhá Bhóth (‘the oak wood of the two bothys’), which was also known as Coill idir dhá mhaide (‘the hiding between the two woods’. The place-name makes clear that they did not stay in the same bothy – or small hut or cottage – because of Diarmuid’s loyalty to Finn.* However, this arrangement did not last long, and they proceeded to have a family. In this area between Lough Cutra and Derrybrien there are ten townlands beginning with doire, which means oak wood, so this area must have been one large oak forest. Running through it is the Derrywee River, known in Irish as Abhainn Dá Loilíoch, or the ‘river of the two milch cows’.

FIGURE 3. The Turoe Stone.

Four miles north-north-east of Loughrea is a decorated stone known as the Turoe Stone, which originally stood outside the rath of Feerwore in the townland of Turoe but now stands nearby on the lawn of Turoe House [46]. The nearby rath of Feerwore is an Early Iron Age habitation and was investigated by Joseph Raftery in 1938, the first Iron Age habitation to be excavated in modern times. According to Raftery the work on the site did not make any ‘clearer the date or purpose of the Turoe stone’.

The community in which the stone stood was a settled agricultural one which concentrated on stock-raising and a small amount of tillage. The underlying limestone would have enriched the soil and the grass, which was the mainstay of the cattle. These conclusions were prompted by the number of animal bones recovered at the site. Raftery says that the animal most adapted to the locality was the ox of the Celtic shorthorn variety. Sheep and pigs were also present, but in smaller numbers. Recovery of the bones of red deer and wolf together with a flint arrowhead shows that hunting was a likely activity and possibly on occasion a necessity for survival. That grain was grown was surmised by the existence of one fragment of a rotary quern. Iron was smelted on the site, and the objects were likely wrought by a travelling smith. An iron fibula or brooch found on the site suggests the first century BC as the latest date, according to Raftery, for the ‘beginning of the settlement at Turoe’.

The Turoe Stone would seem to demonstrate a spiritual aspect to the community. And it is here that the prevailing mythology should be investigated. The stone with its three smaller standing stones may have nothing to do with the fort and may have existed prior to its establishment. It may also have constituted a pre-Christian sacred centre, and the fort may have been set up in order to care for and manage any ceremonies that occurred there. It is usual for communities to develop close to sacred centres. As the stone was only ten yards outside the banks of the fort, the inhabitants would have been very close to the stones and very protective of them. It is also possible that the fort may have been inhabited only at certain times of the year during specific rites. Similar forts can be found at Magh Slecht in Co. Cavan, where Crom Dubh* was worshipped. Raftery mentions that the site may have been used as a sacred grave, which would make the presence of the stones more understandable. However, the desire to be buried within the precincts of a holy place generally comes after the site is no longer used as a ritual centre. For example, the burial of bodies within chuches throughout the length and breadth of the country almost always occurs when the church is in ruins.

Feerwore is most likely derived from fear mór (‘great man’), a local term for those standing stones considered to represent the phallus. Cloghafarmore (Cloch an Fear Mór, ‘the stone of the great man’) is another example found at Knockbridge [36], west of Dundalk, Co. Louth; the great warrior Cú Chulainn died fighting while tied to this stone. The phallus symbolised the generative power of nature. In ancient Greece an image of the phallus was carried in procession during the Dionysian festivals. It was a central part in many religious systems and thus was widely venerated.

The stone has been described as a massive granite boulder ‘hewn to its present shape from a glacial erratic’. It is nearly four feet high and worked into the shape of a domed pillar, cylindrical and with a domed cap. Raferty describes it as ‘decorated with an asymmetrical series of double interlocking spirals, trumpet designs, circles and meandering curves, motives which continue downwards on the cylindrical portion of the stone. Near the base is a narrow band with a step-pattern, or “Wall of Troy” design.’

Professor Michael V. Duignan, from Galway University, in his analysis of the stone’s designs compared it to British La Tène art, in particular to the British mirror style. Although there are five examples of this form of La Tène art in Ireland, the stone seems to be of Irish manufacture. A similar design can be found on the gold collar from Broighter in Co. Derry. It has been suggested that an old Atlantic route between France and Ireland in the second and first centuries BC may have been the conduit which introduced these highly decorative stones. A Breton craftsman may even have chiselled the great Turoe stone.

Three islands – Inishmore, Inishmaan, and Inisheer – collectively known as the Aran Islands [51] lie in a north-east to south-west direction about ten miles off the coast of Galway. The name Aran comes from the Irish word ara meaning kidney, which probably refers to their shape. Inishmore (Inis Mór, ‘big island’), the largest of the islands, is about eight miles long by two-and-a-half miles wide, though its width is less than a mile at some points. The population of Inishmore is about 900, while that of Inishmaan (Inis Meáin, ‘the middle island’) is around 160 and Inisheer (Inis Oírr or Inis Oirthir, ‘east island’) about 260. Irish is the main language spoken on the islands.

FIGURE 4. Dún Aengus on Inishmore.

The most distinctive feature of the islands is the plate of limestone covering them, which is a continuation of the limestone lands of the Burren in north Clare and south Galway. This carboniferous limestone, in which many fossils can be seen, was the muddy base of the Atlantic Ocean about 300 million years ago.

The great fort of Dún Aengus on Inishmore is the most striking of all the monuments on the islands. It stands on the edge of a vertical cliff more than 300 feet above the Atlantic. It has an inner enclosure which contains a rectangular platform of limestone. This platform is central to how one ‘sees’ Dún Aengus. There are four enclosures or ramparts surrounding Dún Aengus and there is a chevaux-de-frise (upright protective stones) between the third and fourth ramparts. For many archaeologists, though not all, Dún Aengus is seen as a fortress. The ‘outer wall’ presumably fell into the sea. The contention that the monument was a fortress is backed up by the presence of the defensive chevaux-de-frise.

However, if the wall did not fall into the sea and the chevaux-de-frise was merely for reasons of prestige, then what you see is a magnificent amphitheatre, with terraces for sitting and a platform or raised structure for ceremonial celebration, where celebrants looked out to sea and the setting sun to the sound of Bronze Age horns and drums. A probable time for these ceremonies was mid-summer during the Late Bronze Age. This raised platform is a ceremonial site of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age for the ritual of mating and harmony. When I was lecturing in Dublin, I brought foreign exchange students from Europe and America to this site and we were joined by Simon O’Dwyer, the Irish expert on Bronze and Iron Age horns, and his wife Maria who plays the bodhrán, a leather drum. After a brief talk on the site from the platform, Simon and Maria played Bronze Age music. When they finished, we were surprised by the arrival of a group of women who sang many old songs in Irish and continued singing while the sun went down, leaving in its train a long, golden pathway to the distant horizon.

Because of its outstanding presence, Dún Aengus has a continuous stream of tourists. If one wishes to see a lesser and quieter version of the great monument, one should begin one’s Aran experience at the promontory fort on Inishmore known as Dún Duchathair. Being less known, it is peaceful and spectacular in its own way, surrounded as it is on both sides by the sea, with magnificent views.

Inishmore can be comfortably explored by foot. A half hour’s walk in a westerly direction from Kilronan will bring you to Cowragh. Here, you take a boreen signposted for Teampall an Ceathrar Alainn (‘the church of the four beautiful women’). Head south along this path and you will come to a megalithic tomb known as the Eochaill Wedge Tomb, which is about 4,000 years old. It is locally known as the Bed of Diarmuid* and Grainne.*

Return then to the main road and walk about one mile to the beach at Kilmurvey, and continue along the road for about half a mile until you come to a crossroads; here turn right and walk a short distance to Clochán na Carraige, a rectangular stone-built hut in good condition with a corbelled roof and two entrances. Whether it was a retreat house for the Seven Churches nearby remains a moot point.

FIGURE 5. Simon O’Dwyer playing a reconstruction of the Loughnashade trumpa at the Technological University Dublin, watched by Etienne Rynne and Helene Conway. In the background are sculptures by John Behan inspired by the Táin.

The Irish Church has many connections with Arainn; at the centre of this is the Community of Enda (Teaghlach Einne), a ninth-century church at the beach end of a large graveyard at Killeany, about a mile south-east of Kilronan. Traditionally the Aran Islands were known as Ara na Naomh (Aran of the Saints), and many of these saints are buried on Inishmore. A half-mile walk uphill from Teaglach Einne to Teampall Bheanain will bring you past the stump of a round tower, several wells, and a Mass rock, and at Teampall Bheanain (St Benin, a disciple of St Patrick) you can see the extent of the monastic settlement. St Enda’s Church and later a Franciscan friary were demolished by Cromwellian forces in the middle of the seventeenth century, and the stones were used to build Arkin Fort, also known as Castle Arkin. These same stones eventually found a new lease of life when local houses were built. A disciple of St Enda, St Ciaran, had his monastery at Mainistir Chiarain. Within the church grounds is a standing stone which has a sundial.

Aran has a fine legacy of poets and writers. Máirtín Ó Direáin, wrote solely in Irish while Liam O’Flaherty wrote both in Irish and English, his notable work in Irish being Duil (‘instinct’) and in English, The Informer and The Famine. A lesser-known but interesting writer is Pat Mullen, whose most noted work is Hero Breed about the fishing community in Killeany in the 1930s. The American director Robert Flaherty made the famous drama documentary Man of Aran in the 1930s, using only local actors.

The writer most associated with Inishmaan is the playwright John Millington Synge. He went there at the behest of Yeats to learn Irish and to establish a literary tradition based on the speech he heard everyday on the island. Synge visited the island between 1898 and 1902 and integrated with the community, attending weddings and funerals, and was also witness to an eviction. Synge’s plays avoided a patronising manner and described life as it was experienced by the islanders. He thus elevated the people from being stage characters to being vivid, recognisable people.

Dún Chonchuir is the largest stone fort on Inishmaan. Synge often came here to smoke and relax. It is a fine, oval stone enclosure possibly dating from early historical times and has several ruined stone huts on the inside. The fort has a dominant view of the island. It measures about 200 feet east–west and over 100 feet north–south, and has two terraces on the inside. It may be named after Conchuir, a brother of Aengus, who probably gave his name to the great fort on Inishmore; according to legend, they were the two sons of Umor, a chief of the Fir Bolg,* and had fled to the Aran Islands after the defeat of the Fir Bolg of Connacht. On the south-east coast of the island is a place named Leaba Chonchuir (‘Conchuir’s bed’), a natural rock bridge. Another fine fort is Dún Fearbai, perhaps similar in age to Dún Chonchuir. It gets its name from the local area, An Fhearbach, meaning abounding in cows.

FIGURE 6. Dún Dúncathair on Inishmore.

LEITRIM (SEE ALSO CAVAN)

Liathdroim, ‘grey ridge’

The Black Pig’s Dyke (Claí na Muice Duibhe), a ‘linear earthwork’, is sometimes seen as the defensive fortification of Ulster. It gets it name from a legend concerning the Black Pig, which is as follows: A druid had a school in Co. Louth, and he had a magic stick which he used for maintaining discipline. When pupils were unruly, he used it to turn them into animals and then chased them through the country. The father of one of these pupils went to the school and struck the master with the wand and changed him into a pig. This pig was chased westward and as he went he made a great trench with his snout, and a blacksmith is said to have shoved a red-hot iron into his mouth and the pig went up in smoke.

Two lakes in Leitrim are steeped in mythology, Lough Allen [26] and Lough Garadice [26, 27A]. To the east of Lough Allen lies Slieve Anierin or Sliabh an Iarainn (‘iron mountain’). Here, Goibniu* the smith (goba) had one of his many forges, and it is close to here that he reputedly forged the weapons for the Second Battle of Magh Tuiredh which was fought between the Tuatha Dé Danann* and the Fomorians* near Lough Arrow (see under Sligo).

The smith played a hugely prominent role in ancient Irish life, underlined by Kuno Meyer in one of his books on ‘Irish Triads’ as follows: ‘There are three renovators in the world – the womb of a woman, a cow’s udder and a smith’s ness.’ This ness was the moulding clay of which the furnace was made from time to time. The word ness was applied to both the shaped furnace and to a bag of moulding clay for making it.

The ore for the Goibniu’s* forge was taken from Sliabh an Iarainn and brought to the townland of Doire na Tuan (‘the ancient oak wood’). Derrynatuan [26] is near the source of the Shannon, and it was here that the ore was smelted, and according to the noted antiquarian John O’Donovan, ‘there has been a forge ever since’. In April 2014, I went in search for this forge and met someone who suggested that I speak to Ted McHugh, a local farmer, who then directed me to what is locally described as the remains of a mill. If this building was once a forge, where the entrance has collapsed and been replaced by concrete blocks. However, it is more likely the remains of an unclassified mill, possibly horizontal in form. The remains of the forge, I was informed, were in the area and close by but very much overgrown, and I could not find it. These remains bear testament to a possible site of the original smith’s forge. The Shannon is within a stone’s throw of the general area and, though here only a stream, would be enough for the Gabha* to take his metal workings.

Derrynatuan is in Cavan, and that is why it is important to consider the two counties together, for both share adjacent places connected to the Goibniu* or Gabha. Derrynatuan is to the north-west and broad end of Glangavlin or Gleann Gaibhleann or ‘the glen of the grey (cow) of the Gabha’. The smith kept the mythic cow here in the glen, where she was famous for her milk yield; according to legend, if she slept in a field, the ‘grass would become luxurious’. Legend also says that the tsumami of milk from her udder formed the mountain pass at Bellavally Gap or Béal a’Bhealaigh (‘the Mouth of the Pass’) [26], three miles east from Glangavlin.

Many verses have been written in praise of Gleann Gaibhleann, and the following is from a late medieval poem written by the fifteenth-century poet Tadhg Óg Ó hUiginn where he addresses the Shannon:

Dúthcha dhuit bheith againne

dá bhféachtha dona fáthaibh:

Gleann Gaibhle as é t’athairsi,

an Bhréifne is í do mháthair.

By nature thou art ours, if sound reasons be regarded: Glen Gavlin is thy father and Brefney is thy mother.

[Translated by Osborn Bergin]

The Gabha* also had ale which preserved the Tuatha Dé Danann* from old age and disease; he was also invoked for a good yield of butter, which was possibly connected to his famous cow. The smith had several names signifying his different roles; as the Gobán Saor he enters folklore and legend as the man who built the round towers and as an all-around artificer, while as the Gabha he is the mighty smith and one who officiates at rites, such as the rite of coming of age and weddings. As the Goibniu,* he is the god of the smiths and holds the Otherworld feast in which no one ages and which presumably never ends.

The River Shannon takes its name from the goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann,* namely Sinann. The legend of the Shannon’s origin is preserved in a sixteen-stanza poem by the medieval poet Cuan O’Lothchain. The first verse is as follows:

Saer ainm Sinna saighuidh uaim

nadad Loind a lom luaid

ni h-inand a gním sa gléo

dia mbai Sinand co saer beo.

The noble of Sinainn seek ye from me;

Its bare recital would not be pleasant,

Not alike now are its actions and noise,

As when Sinann herself was free and alive.

[Translated by Edward Gwynn]

The source of the Shannon is at a place known as the Shannon Pot [26], the fame of which can be traced back to Finn mac Cumhail* who gained wisdom from the salmon that dwelt there. Legend says that the goddess Síonann, the daughter of Lodan, a son of Manannán mac Lir,* the sea god, came to the Shannon Pot in search of the great Salmon of Wisdom. The salmon was angered at the sight of Síonann and caused the pool to overflow and drown her. Thus, the Shannon Pot, Log na Sionna, was created and bears the name of the goddess to this day. The drowning of a goddess in a river and thus giving her name to it is a common motif in mythologies – for example, Boand, the white cow goddess, drowning in the Boyne.

If one wished to be pernickety, one could claim that the source of the Shannon lies in the western banks of the Cuilcagh Mountains astride Cavan and Fermanagh. But, regardless of argument, the Shannon Pot is one of our sacred pools together with Loughnashade (Loch na séad, or ‘the lake of the jewels’) and the artificial pool known as the ‘King’s Stables’, both of which are at Emain Macha or Navan Fort in Co. Armagh.

MAYO

Magh Eo, ‘plain of the yews’

Around Rathfran Bay, to the south-west of Killala Bay [24], there are a number of megalithic tombs dating from the Neolithic, about 4,000 years ago, which consist of large capstones resting on upright stones. They are generally referred to as ‘cromlechs’, a term that has the same meaning as the Breton word ‘dolmen’.

One distinguished structure lies about four miles from Killala at Mullaghnacross crossroads. It has been termed Baal Tien, or ‘The House of Baal’, though one would think that Baal Teine, or ‘the fire of Baal’, would be more accurate. It was seen by nineteenth-century scholars as a sort of low temple. It has a simple pronaos – the space in front of the body of a temple enclosed by the portico and projecting side walls – formed by four upright stones on each side, which led to an altar. The altar was placed over a deep pit, at each end of which a great stone was fixed to support a large table stone. This table or altar stone has been displaced. It has been suggested that the pit may have been used to receive the blood of victims sacrificed on the altar. Similar pits were used by the Greeks and the Romans when sacrificing to Sol, the sun god. In Italy at the Temple of Serapis at Puzzuoli there is a deep square pit which was used for receiving the blood of those sacrificed. A powerful example of ‘The House of Baal’ is the Temple of Baal at Palmyra in Syria. I was fortunate to walk around this temple but unfortunate not to gain admittance in order to see the fire altars. Many of these precious sites at Palmyra have since been destroyed by militant Islamists.

Baal in Irish mythology is sometimes referred to as Bel, but usually as Balor or Balar. The month of May in Irish (Bealtaine) takes its name from Bel as in Belteine or the fire of Bel or Balor. Balor has never been fully acknowledged as being another name for Bel, but his epithet ‘Balor of the Baleful Eye’ seems to indicate an original sun god. Samain, which continues today as Hallowe’en, was one of the four great festivals of pre-Christian Ireland. In Indian mythology the great feast of fire is held in honour of Baal-Samin—Sahm or Sahman being one of the sacred names of the sun and corresponds to samain in Irish mythology. In India, cakes of flour are spotted with poppy and caraway seeds and stained with saffron. The Irish equivalent at this feast is the spotted cake or Bairin-Breac, the barnbrack or speckled cake. In India, all the devotees at this ceremony stain their bodies with saffron. In Ireland, the saffron-coloured kilt was a sign of royalty.

The fires of Baal were lit upon particular days in Ireland. They fires were said to purify the devotees and preserve them from harm. Cattle in Mayo were driven between blazing fires in order that the smoke might delouse them. This custom continued in Mayo up to the middle of the twentieth century. John Toland in 1747 wrote:

The writer has more than once been a personal witness of the ceremony of driving the cattle of a certain village through the blazing fire; whilst the young people and children followed, and each seizing a lighted brand, formed a sort of irregular winding dance, waving the flaming torches over their heads, and shouting in a sort of rude chorus. Can there be a doubt as to the source of this custom?

Other places associated with sun worship are Carngrainey in Co. Antrim; Altoir na Greine, ‘the altar of the sun’ on Mount Callen, Co. Clare; and Knockainey in Co. Limerick, to name but a few. Although these practices had their origins in the Middle East, they never fully died out in the west and the south-west of Ireland.

Seven miles south-east of Castlebar is another place associated with and named Baal, now known as Balla [31]. St Mochno or Cronan founded a monastery here in 637, of which there remain a round tower and and the ruins of a small church. The tower is nearly fifty feet in height and the church is of similar stone and workmanship. In one of the walls of the church is a monumental inscription of ‘great antiquity’.

According to the nineteenth-century antiquarian L.C. Beaufort, the place was noted for ‘superstitious practices, particularly at one season of the year’. This time could have either been the samain to honour Baal-Samin or in early May for the feast of Belteine. However, both times would have merited ceremonial rites. Dr James McParlan in 1801 described a festival at Balla as follows:

And this Baal is to this day a most extraordinary place of superstitious worship. Here are a couple of small chapels vaulted over a river which runs through the town; and once a year, I think in autumn, immense swarms of people crowd from all parts to perform certain circuits and evolutions on their knees, dropping as they proceed in describing those figures, a certain number of beads to various intentions, and in expiation of various sins; but the day closes most cheerfully in eating and drinking. Mr Lynch who lives just at the town, assured me that not less than three hundred sheep are consumed at this festival.

In the early nineteenth century some English antiquarians believed that round towers such as that at Balla were erected to display the sacred fires of Bel, and were thus not Christian but had been built at a time when sun worship was the prevailing religion. In this they had the support of Charles O’Conor, a noted Irish scholar. One might even say that the prevailing consensus in the nineteenth century was that the round towers had their origin in the Middle East and were brought to to Ireland by the Phoenicians. It was also said that they were astronomical centres for observing the stars, or more mundanely to observe sunrise at important festivals.

These opinions were severly criticised if not dashed by George Petrie in his Inquiry into the Origin and Uses of the Round Towers in Ireland. Petrie systematically refuted all of these scholars and proved their theories to be ‘fallacious’. Petrie saw the event of ‘quadrangular architecture’ in Ireland as contemporaneous with the primitive Irish Church and the round towers as a distinctive expression of ecclesiastical architecture.

Folk customs connected to the sun can be found in Ballinrobe (Bailean Róba, ‘town of the River Róba) [38] on the eve of the feast of St John on 24 June. This night is known as Féile Eoin in Wexford. On this night the summer solstice is celebrated by bonfires or, as they are sometimes called, ‘bonefires’ or tine cnámh, as originally the bones of dead animals were burnt at this time. It was also custom for people to come to the fires carrying bones. After the fires, the remaining coals were thrown into adjoining fields to bring luck to future crop-growing. Burning wood was thrown into the air; these ‘fireballs’ were a way of acknowledging that the sun had achieved its height and that soon the days would be drawing in. These customs were common in Europe as far away Poland and Estonia. Jumping over the fires was another feature of the customs at this time in Ireland and in Spain.

FIGURE 7. Croagh Patrick.

Croagh Patrick (Cruach Phádraig, ‘St Patrick’s Reek or Peak’, commonly referred to as ‘the Reek’) [30, 38] is one of the great assembly points, both in pre-Christian and Christian Ireland. Five miles west of Westport, it rises 2,530 feet above sea level to give a panoramic view across Clew Bay, and from it one can see Inishbofin, Inishturk, Clare Island and the Nephin Beg range of mountains. It was traditionally associated with the pagan god of the harvest, Crom Dubh;* today it still remains a place of pilgrimage, its quartzite summit pointing to the heavens, beckoning all those who fall within its gaze. Originally named Cruachán Aigle, it is refered to in the ninth-century Book of Armagh as Mons Egli, and it was here that Patrick, in imitation of Christ, and of Moses on Mount Sinai, fasted for forty days. According to the account of Muirchu Maccu Mactheni given in the Book of Armagh, as Patrick fasted the landscape was darkened by the wings of spirits in the form of birds, those with black wings representing demons and those with white representing the redeemed.

The most famous legend associated with Patrick was written in the twelfth century and tells how the saint brought all the snakes and demons of Ireland to the top of Cruachán Aigle and from there drove them into the sea. This highly popular tale of the snakes is a later addition to the observation by the third-century Roman writer Solinus that Ireland was free of all reptiles. To the south of the mountain is Loch na Corra, written as Lough Nacorra on the Discovery map; the name can be translated as ‘the lake of the heron’ but also as ‘the lake of the Serpent’ [37]. St Patrick is said to have driven a demon bird into a hollow which subsequently filled up with water to form the lake. This bird-demon is reminiscent of in tEllén Trechend (‘triple-headed Ellén’), a bird associated with the Otherworld cave at Cruachain in Roscommon. After a while, the bird flew out of Lough Nacorra and flew north to land in Lough Derg [17], where she continues to observe the pilgrims.

Another lake associated with Croagh Patrick is Lough Carra (Loch Ceara, with an older name being Finloch Ceara, ‘the white lake of Carra’) [38]. An eleventh-century verse by an unknown author where, unlike at Lough Nacorra, the birds are ‘angelic’ is as follows:

when St. Patrick, glorious in grace, was suffering on goodly Cruach – an anxious toilsome time for him, the protector of lay men and women –

God sent to comfort him a flock of spotless angelic birds; over the clear lake without fail they would sing in chorus their gentle proclamation.

And thus they called, auspiciously: ‘Patrick, arise and come! Shield of the Gael, in pure glory, illustrious golden spark of fire.’

The whole host struck the lake with their smooth and shadowy wings, so that its chilly waters became like a silver sheen.

Hence comes the bright name The White Lake of Carra of the contests; I tell you this triumphant meaning as I have heard in every church.

There is a hollow on the northern face of Croagh Patrick known as Lugnademon [30] or ‘the hollow of the demons’, lug meaning ‘hollow’. This is where the demons retreated prior to their banishment. A more solid edifice of Christian presence on Croagh Patrick is a dry-stone oratory that was discovered in an archaeological excavation. It has been compared to St Gallarus’s oratory in Co. Kerry and has a carbon dating from between 430 and 890 AD.

Cruachán Aigle is mentioned in a poem from the Dindshenchas, (a work of early Irish literature recounting the origins of place names)* the following being the first two verses:

Oighle mac Deirg, derg a dhrech,

romarb Cromderg mac Connrach:

don gnim-sin co ngairge ngus

as de atá Oighle ar Gharbrus.

Cruachán Garbrois gairmdís de

lucht eólais in tiri-si:

Cruachán Aighle ósin amach

a ainm co tí in bráth brethach.

Aigle son of Derg (red his face); him Cromderg son of Connra slew: from that deed of savage force the name Aigle is given to Garbros.

Cruachán Garbrois the learned of this land used to call it: thenceforth name Aigle is given to Garbros.

[Translated by Edward Gwynn]

The location of Garbros is problematic, but Edward Gwynn in his commentary to the Dindshenchas* says that it probably was a district extending from Mayo across to north Sligo. Garbros can mean a ‘rough tract of arable land’, and this may well have described a large section of the land in Mayo and Sligo during Patrick’s time and even up to the present day. As the Dindshenchas is often mentioned in these pages, perhaps it is time to define precisely what the word means. Essentially it means ‘hill lore’ or a topographical explanation of noted places both in verse and in prose. Most of these commentaries are in verse, and are to be seen in the Book of Leinster compiled in the late-eleventh century, although Cruachán Aigle is in other manuscripts.

Although the chapel on the summit of Croagh Patrick is the central attraction for most of the pilgrims, the landscape surrounding the mountain contains evidence of a Stone Age and Bronze Age ritual nature, as shown, for example, by the number of hillforts, which was revealed as the result of an archaeological dig in 1994. However, its pre-Christian role is seldom alluded to.

The pilgrim route to Croagh Patrick was known as Tóchar Phrádraig, and it is along this route that many of the monuments which testify to the importance of the ancient landscape can be seen. The Christian pilgrimage starts at Ballintubber Abbey (Baile an Tobair, ‘homestead of the well’) but the earlier or pagan pilgrimage started at Aghagower (Achadh Ghobair, ‘field of the horse’), which previously was called Achadh Fhobair (‘field of the spring well’). At both starting points the spring wells would have supplied the liquid essentials for a rocky journey.

At Aghagower [31] begins the ritual landscape connected to Croagh Patrick. One finds here the Leacht Tomaltaigh or the ‘stone of feasting’, but before one gets carried away with an image of gluttonous pilgrims, the meaning is far more likely to mean ‘the stone in memory of Tomaltach’. Tomaltach was a fifth-century King of Connacht, and this stone may have signified his standing before or during the early Christian period. The stone is just beyond Aghagower to the left of the pilgrim path. Pilgrimage to the Reek was customary among kings, and Hugh O’Rourke, King of Breffni, was captured while returning from Croagh Patrick in 1351, according to the Annals of Clonmacnoise.

As we walk about two miles west beyond Aghagower, we find a landscape strewn with monuments from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. And one may presume that among these monuments is the original route. A starting point may be at Cloghan Bridge [38], underneath which the River Carrowbeg flows from south to north. Less than a mile beyond Cloghan Bridge is a crossroads, and shortly after this is the Lankill stone, and about a third of a mile south of this is the Lanmore standing stone. These two stones can be seen as the grand gateway to the ancient landscape. A mile further on along the pilgrim’s walk is the Boheh standing stone, which is on a mild elevation on the right side of the road. From here, in order to immerse yourself in the landscape, walk due south for a little over a mile and climb to the top of Liscarney Hill, and from there you should see the Liscarney stone row and ring barrow. Walking from the barrow in a south-west direction, you cross the N59 and from here you can see, about 200 yards away, Lough Moher Lough (Loch Mothar, ‘the lake of the thicket’) [38]. The name presumably refers to the cluster of trees and bushes that were once around the lake; There is a crannóg on the lough, a word that comes from the Irish crann, ‘a tree’, and signifies a dwelling made of wood; crannógs were built on artificial islands on lakes as homesteads at roughly the same time as ring forts, from the fourth to the seventeenth century.

Back on the N59, Liscarney village [38] is merely one mile north along the road. One mile north from Liscarney you pass two lakes on your left, which are known as Boheh Loughs, and beyond them you are back on Tóchar Phádraig. At this point you should turn right to view the rock art on a rock outcrop, which consists of cup and ring motifs and is regarded as one of the most highly decorated forms of rock art in Britain and Ireland. Archaeologists such as Corlett, Bradley and Johnson researching in the 1990s have suggested that this form of art may have its origins from as early as the fourth millennium BC. In Offaly, another example of this art can be seen at Clonfinlough, close to Clonmacnoise [47].

Croagh Patrick can be seen from many locations both near and far, and observing it from ancient sites adds to its appeal. A cairn in the townland of Aillemore on a hill two miles south-east from Bunlough Strand [37] is an excellent viewing location. Slightly north of the megalithic court tomb at Formoyle, three miles east from Sruhir Strand [37], is another viewing point. Carrowkeel megalithic cemetery overlooking Lough Arrow [25], at a distance of forty-five miles, presents a memorable view. Once, while visiting Reilig na Rí at Rathcroghan [40], a student pointed out a cone-like peak in the distance, and fifty miles to the west Croagh Patrick could be seen from this trivallate ring fort.

The Táin Bó Flidais or ‘The Cattle Spoil of Flidais’ derives its name from Flidais Foltchain, or ‘Flidais of the beautiful hair’, who was the young wife of Ailill or Oilill Finn, a chief of Erris (Irrus) [23] in north-western Mayo just prior to the Christian era. Ailill lived on Nemthann, the present Nephin Mountain. The tale concerns a raid on Ailill during which Fergus mac Roich, an exiled King of Ulster and lover of Medb,* carries off Flidais along with 100 cows, 140 oxen, and 3,000 calves. Medb then decrees that Flidais live with Fergus and, feeling that the proceeds of the raid will feed her army while on the Táin Bó Cúaligne,* requests Flidais to provide food for them every seventh day during the expedition.

Ailill Finn was the son of Domnall Dual Buidhe ‘of the yellow locks’, who was deferentially named ‘Emperor of Erris and Western Europe’. Flidais owned a wonderful hornless cow, the Maol, which could give milk for 300 men (not counting women and boys) in one day. In the Ulster version of the Táin Bó Flidais, ‘the lady’s cows every seventh day gave milk enough to support the men of Ireland’.

Few stories contain so many previously unrecorded place names as does this tale. The place names associated with the story in east Connacht, Roscommon and Sligo can, according to Dobbs, be placed by the references given in Hogan’s Onomasticon Goedelicum. ‘But those in north-west Mayo seem,’ as Dobbs writes, ‘to have been outside the works of the earliest writers.’

One part of the tale concerns a journey from Cruachain, the ancient capital of Connacht, to the fort of Ailill at Dún or Rath Morgain in north-west Mayo, and is described with so many place names that make it a worthy pilgrimage to take should one wish to go back to late-Iron Age Ireland.

The route from Cruachain [33] to Rath Morgan [22] is about fifty miles. Medb* thus began her cattle raid by travelling across Magh Ai, the plain running south from Cruachain, past the east of Sliab Treblainde, across the top of Cruad-luachrai and across Dub Abuind mBreasa where, according to Hogan, Dún Diarmada or Dundermot was built. This would appear to have been past Castleplunkett [40] and across Caran Hill, towards Dundermot north of the River Suck and crossing the Suck River below Ballymoe [39]. There are two Caran Hills, the first two miles south-east and the other three miles south of Castleplunkett. Both contain barrow graves.

In describing this part of the Táin Bó Flidais, Dobbs writes: ‘In Dundermot townland, east of Ballymoe and down stream from it, on the east bank of the Suck, is a large rath, standing on the high bank above flood level and overlooking the river. The ancient name for the Suck may have been Dublind Brea or ‘the bank above the dark water.’

The interior of the rath, which is roughly circular, measures between 165 and 180 feet in diameter. The fort guards the fords at Ballymoe, and the approaches are over high, dry ground. Before crossing the causeway, Medb* may have stayed at Dundermot [39].

Medb* then goes east towards Slieve Dart on the Galway–Mayo border, which is above Móin Connedha or Tóchar Móna Connedha (‘the causeway across the Bog of Connedha’) between Ballymoe and Dunmore [39]. She presumably used this causeway as she travelled west towards Rath Morgan. Medb then travelled west of Cloonfad in Roscommon and came to the ford at the present Blackford Bridge at the head of low-lying ground on the borders of Roscommon and Mayo. This was an area noted for floods, and here Medb headed north to cross the River Dalgan on the borders between Galway, Roscommon and Mayo. She then headed north along the high ridge near the present road (N83) from Cloonfad to Ballyhaunis. North of present-day Ballyhaunis, she would have come to Loch Mannin [32] which, with Island Lake, was probably a turlough (a type of disappearing lake found mostly in limestone areas) joined by the Mannin River. In Medb’s time this was known as Loch n-Airnedh. Her army, as Dobbs writes, would probably ‘have camped at the southern end of this lake’. Dobbs further says that ‘after leaving Loch n-Airneadh they went to the eastern border of Mothar, and past the west of Magh Sanais’. Hogan also says that Mothar is in Crích Guaire at Damh-inis, in Clew Bay [31]. This is probably the island called Inishdaff, about two miles south-west of Newport.

Medb* then moved north-eastwards to the valley of the River Newport, passed Loch Beltra and camped at the foot of Nemthainn hua n-Amalgaidh or Nephin Mountain. Her men then ran up the mountain, either to get some exercise or simply to see the cairn at its summit, presuming it was there nearly 2,000 years ago. At about a 1,000 feet above ground it was quite a run!

After leaving here, the army was met by the poet Torna who is buried at Dumha Torna, also known as Lios na gCorp, a few hundred yards south of Lahardaun [23/31]. The townland of Tonacrock is south-east from Lahardaun, and one may wonder whether this is Torna’s Rock. This poet should not be confused with Torna Eigeas who fostered and educated Niall of the Nine Hostages, a Leinster king from the fourth century.

A probable route for the army then was to take the high ground to the north of Loch Beltra, leaving the wet marsh of Glen Nephin on their right flank. A stone fight during the night left some of Medb’s* horses dead, and this place was known as Ech Oilech (‘the pillar stone to the horses’). A suggestion for the location of Ech Oilech may be Ballynafulla [31] – Baile na Folanna (‘the bloody townland’). There is a standing stone here, and on the north-west slopes of Nephin Mountain there would have been plenty of available stones. Two miles north of Lahardaun [23] was Dún Átha Fen, three miles south from the Deel River, and it was here that Medb rested after the encounter with the stone attack. Some have associated this fort with Knockfarnagh, a hill one mile south-east from Lahardaun and one mile west from Tonacrock.

Aldridge suggests that on the south-eastern slopes of Nephin lies the burial place of Medb’s* warrior Nochta and that she is buried at Cruach na h-Oinseacha (‘the burial hill of the foolish or giddy women’), though ‘loose’ women may also be implied. This area is close to Cloghbrack [23] (An Cloch Bhreac, ‘the speckled stone’). As to the existence of this stone now, one is left in the land of conjecture. However, local people in the early twentieth century referred to this place as the ‘rath’, and there are two ring forts close to Cloghbrack in the present day, though again if one of them were a mound or a ring barrow then one may well be the burial place of Nochta.

The Glenmasan Manuscript, a fifteenth-century Scottish document, which has the fullest version of the tale, states that Dara Derg cast a spear at Medb* but she bent her head to avoid the weapon, which then pierced the heart of Cainner ‘so that she fell dead’. Cainner was taken out of her chariot, agus do gabastar Meadb lam ar a fert do claide, agus do rindi an laidh – and Medb dug her grave with her hand and sang this lay:

Claidfid fert Cainnire,

Fuil sund sa duma ar n-á dith;

Oir Fermenn mac Dara Deirg

Do telic an t-selg diá ro-d-bí.

Cainner derg ingen Oilella

Agus Medba, is I ro bith,

Ac duma an sgáil,

Ar bhaid ré h-ogaib Emna.

Cele Lugdech mic Conraí

Re secht laithib, lith n-gaili;

Togthar a lia os a lecht,

Dentar a fert do claide.

Dig ye the grave of Cainner

Lying here on the mound slain;

Fermenn son of Dara Derg,

Threw the spear which caused her death.

Red Cainner daughter of Oilill

And Medb, she is the victim,

At the mound of the shade,

The darling of the warriors of Emain.

The spouse of Lugaid son of Curoi,

During seven (short) days, delight of valour;

Raise her pillar above her gravestone,

Dig ye her grave.

[Translated by Professor Donald Mackinnon]

After leaving Dún Átha Fen, Medb’s* army split into two columns, one party camping at Rath Ruadh (‘the red fort’) in the present-day townland of Rathroe, where there is a ring fort south of the river named both the Belladooan and the Rathroe. After this, Medb’s column stopped at Knockroe [24], which is north of the Cloonaghmore River just as it enters Killala Bay; there are five megaliths within a mile of Knockroe and an ogam stone. The area was anciently known as Tulaig Liath (‘stone knoll’) from the huge stones found here. This area has been described by O’Donovan as having ‘several remains of druidical monuments, consisting of great round stones spread over the hill, among which are two of great size that evidently crowned a Druidical Altar’. A townland closeby is named as Carrowmore or Ceathrú Mhór Leacan (‘the district of the great stones’).

Leaving Rathroe and crossing the Belladooan/Rathroe River, Medb* travelled north-west and crossed the River Glenedagh and marched up the Keerglen [23] and into Erris. Prior to this they would have crossed the Ballingen River, which is a continuation of the Keerglen. The Keerglen River was also known as Glen Cainner; another possible burial place for Cainner was Dún Draighin or the ‘Dragon’s Grave’. This grave is noted on the six-inch survey maps. It was possibly a cromlech or burial place; it possessed huge flagstones, and there was, according to Aldridge, a passage from the riverbank running into the dún. Today there are megalithic tombs between the Ballinglen River west of Ballyglass Bridge, which is less than a mile west from Ballycastle [23] and the Bellananaminnaun River.

Up Keerglen or Cainner’s Glen on the north side of the river is said to be a townland named Skahaghna-shee or Sceach na Síd (‘the fairy bush’). According to Aldridge, it was known to the owner of the land as Sceach na h-Oinseacha, or ‘the thorn tree of the female fool’, which one may compare with the earlier-mentioned Cruach na h-Oinseacha. Both of these places were on Medb’s* route, and one of these places may be the supposed site of Cainner’s grave. Aldridge mentions that Sceach na h-Oinseacha is the burial place of Cainner. There is an enclosure here and an ancient track to this ring fort or barrow.

The route from Keerglen follows an ancient track to Erris, also known as Bangor Erris or simply Bangor (Beannchar, ‘peaked hill’). This route may well be part of the present Slí an Iarthair or the Western Way. Medb* crossed the Maumakeogh and Benmore mountains into Glenamoy. According to Aldridge, this route was used for pony traffic across the mountains up to the nineteenth century. Apparently the road from Crossmolina and Ballina to Bangor were under forest and swamp and thus impossible for chariots.

South of Benmore, Medb* and her army went north-west to Glencalry, apparently named after Calraide, a warrior who fell there. From here they went west along the Glenmoy River valley. Aldridge writes that they kept to the high ground south of the river. They then crossed the Munhin River, termed the Munkin River in the Discovery map [22]. This river is at the southern end of Carrowmore Lake. From here they went to Rath Morgan, which is two miles north-west from Munhin Bridge. Significant parts of this saga occur at Rath Morgan, sometimes referred to as Dún Morgan. It was here that Flidais disclosed her love for Fergus to Bricriu, the great Ulster satirist, confiding to him that should Fergus come to visit her she would supply him with horses, weapons and armour in preparation for the cattle raid described in the Táin Bó Cúailnge.*

According to Aldridge,

the present owner discovered what must be a souterrain at the north-east side of the rath, opening up flagstones at the base of the earth wall of the fort; but he covered these up again. Under the floor of a stable about thirty yards to the north-east of this there are more flags, either the continuation of a souterrain, or perhaps a grave; without digging it is not possible to prove the connection; but it is very similar to the souterrain at Rath Munhin (Castletown townland, east of Carrowmore Loch).

Rath Morgan is also where Ailill Finn summoned his household and counsellors when he found that he was surrounded by Medb.* Ailill also sent his chief messengers, Engán and Édar, to summon the clans to his aid. Engán came from his fort on the north side of a stream called Muingingaun which flows into the the north-east corner of Lough Carrowmore. The stream derives its name from Engán, though the fort is not included on the Discovery map. According to Aldridge, the rath existed in the early 1960s and was called the Liss by the villagers of Muingingaun. South of Muingingaun there is a gap in the long ridge running between the valleys of Muingingaun and Glenturk More [23], which is called Bearna na Maoile (‘the gap of the hummel cow’ or ‘the gap of the hornless cow’).

The second messenger sent, Édar, probably gave his name to Ederglen [22], a townland one mile north-east of Rath Morgan. Although, as Aldridge writes, ‘Édar is forgotten’, his fort still exists, and that fort presumably is the promontory fort which overlooks the stream flowing into Trawmore Bay. From here Édar could watch his cattle as they grazed down the valley.

As an emissary, Édar journeyed around Broadhaven [22], the Mullet and Lough Carrowmore. Engán’s journey was longer, as he went along the ancient Bronze Age route to Cruachan Aigle, now known as Croagh Patrick, and he also travelled to Clew Bay, Achill and Blacksod Bay. The calling together of the chiefs shows that these clans opposing Medb* were located in north-west Mayo and beyond. At least fifteen clans are named in this area and their names are recorded. This shows a prevailing sense of place and a desire to locate each tribe or clan within a particular district. As an example: the two sons of Curnan Blackfoot lived in the area known as Ros Inbir da Egonn, now known as Es-Ruaidh or Assaroe, the modern Ballyshannon at the mouth of the River Erne [16] in Donegal.

The end of this saga is as follows:

Acus ro ergedar ceithre holl-cuigid Érend and sin, ocus in dubloingeas mar aen riu, ocus ro greis Oilill go mor, ocus Fergus, ocus Medb iat, ocus tucsat anaigthi a naenfecht ar in dunadh, ocus ro shendit a Stuic ocus a Sturgana leo i comfuagna catha, ocus ro thogbadar gairi aidbli uathmara.

And then arose the men of the four great provinces of Ireland, and the dark exiles of [Ulster] along with them; and they were excited greatly by Ailill and Fergus and Medb; and they altogether faced the fortress; and they sounded their Stuic,* and their Sturgana* in proclamation of battle, and they raised tremendous terrific shouts.

[*Stoc, a horn or trumpet, do stoic Catha, ‘battle trumpet’, Sturgan, trumpet or horn.]

[Translated by Eugene O’Curry]

Close to Newport (Baile Uí Fiacháin, ‘the townland of O’Feehan’) [31] is Cillin Daire, a place that contains a number of fairy paths; the local man with knowledge of these ways is Mickey Joe Doherty. Fairy processions generally began as soon as night fell and the tracks they followed as well as fairy palaces were much respected.

According to an account in the Daily Mail on 23 April 1959, the construction of a new road at Toorghlas, Co. Mayo, would mean a fairy palace would have to be destroyed, which led to a strike by twenty-five Land Commission labourers who wanted the domain of the Good People preserved. After negotiations, workers had their way and the direction of the road was changed.

Mentioned above in relation to the Táin Bó Flidais is the birthplace of Flidais at Bangor Erris [23]. The original name is Irrus Domnann or ‘the promontory (fort) of the Domnann’. The Dumnoni were, as O’Rahilly says, ‘a pre-Gaelic tribe’ with whom other places in Connacht are associated. Another of these sites is the promontory fort south of Glencastle Bridge in the valley of Glencastle [22] known as Dún Domhnaill or Dundonnell. It has been suggested that these sites are the remnants of early Atlantic settlements which were not included in Ptolemy’s map of Ireland, which may suggest that they came later. However, if the Dumnoni did arrive from the Atlantic and came into Tramore Bay [22], they presumably sailed along the Glencastle River and built their defensive fort just two miles in from the bay on the north bank of the river south-east from Bunnahowen. Both these forts associated with the Domnann are in a continuous line from Tramore Bay and lead to Magh Domnann (‘the plain of the Domnann’) to the west of Killala Bay in the barony of Tirawley (Tír Amalgada) and thence to Inbher Domnann which, according to Hogan, is the present Killala Bay. They may well appear to have been a coastal people as they also appear in coastal regions on the east coast (see under Dublin).

The warrior most associated with the Fir Domnann is Fer Diad; the Book of Leinster reads: Fer nDiad mac nDamáin meic Dáre, in míled mórchalma d’ fheraib Domnand, or ‘Fer Diad son of Daman son of Daire, the soldier of great deeds of the Fir Domnann’.

The tribe most associated with the Fir Domnann are the Gamanrad or the ‘calf tribe’ (gamhain, ‘calf’), who are credited with importing calves and milch cows. They are also connected to Irrus Domnann [22] and are said to have built the ramparts about Cruachain (see under Roscommon) around 100 BC. They are said to have come from Britain, where they are associated with Devon and south-west Scotland. In Ireland, they came to the coastal areas of Leinster and Connacht. The settlement of the Fir Domnann and the Gamanrad in north-west Mayo may be because of the Gaelic conquest of Connacht. Eochaid Fedlech, King of Tara, banished Tinne mac Conrach, King of Connacht, from Cruachain to the wilds of Mayo and bestowed the kingdom of Connacht at Cruachain to his daughter Medb. The Gamanrad are said to have been one of the three warrior races of Ireland, the other two being the Clann Dedad (the Érainn) and the Clann Rudraige (the Ulaid).

Whether the Fir Domnann or the Gamanrad ever heard of the tale of ‘The Children of Lir’* is a moot point, but if they had, they would not have had far to go to see their final resting place by taking to the sea from Irrus Domnann (Bangor Erris) and sailing down to Inishglora (Inis Gluaire) [22]. ‘The Children of Lir’ is one of the great tales of Irish myth, and its original title is Oidheadh Cloinne Lir or ‘The Fate of the Children of Lir’, which is counted as one of the ‘three sorrowful tales of Ireland’.

The Children of Lir* spent 900 years as swans because of a curse placed on them by their stepmother. They spent the first 300 on Lough Derravarragh in Westmeath, the second 300 on the Sea of Moyle, the North Channel between Ireland and Scotland, and the last 300 on Irrus Domnann. At Irrus Domnann they turned back into human shape and met a man named Ebric, who wrote down their tale. They then went to Inishglora where they died. The four Children of Lir are Fionula, Aodh, Fiachra and Conn; before they left the Moyle, Fionula chanted a lay, part of which is as follows:

We leave forever the stream of Moyle:

on the clear, cold wind we go;

three hundred years around Glora’s isle,

where wintry tempests blow.

[Translated by P. W. Joyce]

Their grave can be seen today as four standing stones about a well; the central stone is said to be Fionula’s headstone.

Moving to the early Christian era, also found on Inishglora are three round beehive huts or cells close together as part of the same block of masonry. They have the same corbelled dome as the Skellig huts off the coast of Co. Kerry [83].

Less well known than the Children of Lir* but a vital force in both pre-Christian and Christian mythology is Brigit. In addition to the numerous places in Ireland, Britain and throughout Europe, she also has a strong connection with Ceann na Corra (‘headland of the bend’) on Clare Island [30]. Kinnacora is on the most easterly point of the island, where there is a holy well known as Tobar Féile Brighde or ‘the well of Brigit’s Feast’. A pattern was observed here on Lady’s Day, 15 August, with worshippers walking seven times around the nearby cashel or enclosure in a clockwise direction or deas sol – ‘right to the sun’. Devotional exercises are also practised at it on 1 February, St Brigit’s feast day.

At Murrisk (Muraisc, ‘low-lying seashore’) [30], towards the south-east end of Clew Bay and five miles west of Westport, a battle was fought between the invading Gaels under Édan and the pre-Gaelic Tuatha Dé Danann,* supposedly around 100 AD. Here the older tribes with their allegiance to the goddess Anu were slaughtered, and the Gaelic chief Édan established a fort named Rath Rígbairt. This fort is mentioned in the Book of Leinster as Argain Ratha Rigbaird, meaning the ‘destruction of the fort of the supreme bard’. Did Édan destroy an existing fort or did he establish one? Another reference to a battle in the vicinity is the Battle of Glaise Fraochain where Fraochan Faidh fell. Glaise Fraochan or ‘the stream of Fraochan’ is said to be close to Rosreaghan.

Clare Island [30], three and-a-half miles from Roonagh pier and fifteen miles west from Westport, is situated in the middle of the entrance to Clew Bay. Covering an area of almost 4,000 acres, it is five miles long and three miles wide. Knockmore in the Bunnamohaun mountain range rises to 1,500 feet above sea level. Here are also found the Bunnomohaun group of sod huts, said to have been huts or shelters for herders and milkers rather than part of a ‘booley’ settlement (a summer settlement in which pastoral communities lived close to their herds on high ground).

A comprehensive natural history survey was carried out in 1909 under the direction of the botanist Robert Lloyd Praeger. Between 1909 and 1911, over 100 field workers collected material which was published in a series of reports by the Royal Irish Academy. A member of this team, Jane Stephens, was part of the dredging expedition which collected sponges. A sponge she found in Ballytoohy More to the north of the island was five million years old, making it one of the oldest fossils found in Ireland. More recent discoveries by the archaeologist Paul Gosling have included court cairns, fulacht fia – cooking sites – and a court tomb.

The island was owned for a while by the O’Malley clan, although it had other owners. The most famous O’Malley is undoubtedly Grace, more frequently known as Granuaile. She was born in 1530 into the chief family of the O’Malleys. She was a formidable woman and controlled the waters of the western seaboard during the sixteenth century. The Lord Deputy Henry Sidney, writing to the English Council in 1576, stated: ‘O’Malley is powerful in galleys and seamen.’ This observation followed him being offered three galleys and 200 fighting men by Granuaile in 1576 at Galway. However, the government did not give enough money to allow Sidney to hire her ships.

The O’Malley castle close to the harbour is one of eleven castles associated with the O’Malleys and the one which Grace used as her base. Her father was Owen Dubhdara O’Malley, the chief of the clan. When not engaged in piracy, she spent much of her time defending her realm againt the invading Elizabethan forces. At one time she ended up in prison in Dublin and at another sailed up the Thames and met Queen Elizabeth. Their conversation was in Latin and is recorded in the Elizabethan State Papers. She was offered the title of countess but refused, saying that she herself was a queen. Her son Tiobóid became the first Viscount of Mayo after her death. She is said to be buried in Clare Abbey close to the harbour on Clare Island. T.H. Mason, the antiquarian and authority on St Brigit’s crosses, was once shown a skull in the abbey which local people said was that of Granuaile. This, if it existed, has either been hidden or more likely stolen. The O’Malley arms are displayed in this abbey. The coat of arms is topped by a white seahorse, below which is a boat with six oars, and to its right a bow with an inlaid arrow. The inscription is Terra Marique Potens O’Maille (O’Malley powerful on land and on sea).

The Legend of the Seal Wife played a big part in the folklore of the island. Many versions of the tale can be found in the Hebrides and the west of Ireland, but the fullest version was recorded by Nathaniel Colgan in the early part of the last century on Clare Island:

Three Clare men went out seal fishing in a canoe one day, when they got out to the island they were making for, one of them landed in a cave to see if any seals would be in it, and the other three pulled away to another cave to look for more seals. But by the time the canoe came back to pick up the first man, the wind had rose up and the sea was that coarse they didn’t dare venture in with the canoe to take him off … So the end of it the man in the cave roared out: ‘Go away with yous before the storm gets real bad and leave me here for the night.’

So away they went and left him there all alone by himself, and he climbed into a skelp [cleft] of the rocks the way the high tide couldn’t catch him. But it wasn’t long he’d been there when a big herd of seals came swimming and splashing into the cave and got up and lay down on the round stones on the floor, and he could see them without they seeing him, for its well hid he was in the skelp of the rock above them. And he kept watching them; and when the night began to fall what does he see but all the seals taking off their cuculs [cochall, ‘cowl or hood’] and hanging them on to the rocks. And the minute they took off the cuculs they all turned into men and women and began to talk to each other, the way you and me is talking at this present. And when they got tired talking they all lay down to sleep, the women seals lying up at the top of the cave by themselves where the stones were dry, and the men seals lower down near the water.

And they slept there all night; and as the light of morning came creeping into the cave, the canoe man rose up softly in the skelp he was hiding in and put his hand down and pulled up one of the women’s cuculs and hid it under him in the skelp. It wasn’t long till all the men and women woke up and went putting on their cuculs and swimming off into the sea as good seals… as ever they were when they came in. But one of the women couldn’t find her cucul at all, and she went up and down the cave in a terrible state, crying and calling to the others not to leave her there. But they wouldn’t wait, and so they went off with themselves and left her alone by herself.

By this time the sea had gone down, and the canoe came out again to take the man from the cave; so he got down out of the skelp with the cucul hid under his bawneen [white flannel vest], for well he knew the seal woman once she got hold of the cucul would slip it on and turn back into a seal and swim off with herself. A real handsome woman she was, and after speaking to her fair and kindly, he took her into the canoe and brought her home to the island, and they were married there by the priest. And they lived very happy there, and had two children, and the husband took care to keep the cucul hid in the thatch the way the wife wouldn’t see it.

But one day he was out fishing, and the wife was drying flax by the fire – for at that time flax was grown on the island – when the flax caught fire and before she knew where she was the house was all in a blaze. So she ran out with the children, and the flax caught fire in a few minutes and she got a queer smell coming from the thatch and she looked up and what did she see but her cucul, and it singeing with the fire. With that she made a leap at the cucul and caught it, and ran down to the shore with it, and slipped it on and made a seal of herself, and away she swam off with herself, leaving the two children behind her.

So the husband was left forlorn there with the children till one day a neighbour came and told him how he’d seen his wife come out of the sea and throw off her cucul and walk up on the rocks and hug and kiss the children and cry as if her heart were breaking. ‘And,’ says he, ‘if you go your way down now to the shore and hide till she comes up again you’ve nothing to do only dart out and snap up the cucul, and you’ll have her back with you.’ With that the husband goes down to the shore and hides behind a rock where the children were sitting, and sure enough a seal comes swimming up and throws off its cucul and he seen at once that ‘twas his wife that was in it, and she takes to hugging and kissing the children as if she’d like to eat them. Then out he leaps and grabs at the cucul; but he wasn’t smart enough, for she caught it up before he came near it and on she claps it, and away with her into the sea. And the poor man never seen sight or light of her after that. He was a man that lived over there at the other end of the island, but I disremember his name.

The word cucul, more correctly cuculle, means a ‘hood’, or ‘cowl’. The islanders, according to Colgan, had various translations for the word: some thought it was a cap, others thought it meant a cape or the whole skin or vesture of the seal. Larminie, in his West Irish Folk Tales, translates it as a ‘transforming cap’, whereas the Scottish folklorists MacDougall from Argyleshire and Campbell of Islay render it as ‘husk’. It is also connected to the infant’s caul, which is the inner membrane enclosing the foetus before birth, a portion of which may sometimes envelop the head of the child at birth. It is regarded as lucky and is supposed to be a preservative against drowning, particarly by sailors.

According to Westropp in A Folklore Survey of County Clare,

the belief that seals are disguised human beings prevailed, I am told, in Clare forty years ago, at least along the Kilkee coast. I never heard it myself from fisherfolk. A little further north, from Connemara up to Mayo the Kinealys are reputed to be descended from a beautiful seal-woman. The belief is nearly universal and is attached even to a few of the family in Clare.

In the Book of Lismore, St Brendan changes fifty seals into horses, which carry into the sea their riders who are then also changed into seals. In Galway, it is said that the O’Connollys or Ó Conghaile are of seal descent.

Caher or Cahir Island [37], south-west of Clew Bay and ten miles from Westport, is known in Irish as Cathair na Naomh (‘the stone enclosure of the saints’) as well as Cathair Phadraig (‘the monastic settlement of St Patrick’). It is about one mile in length from its north-western extremity to its south-eastern one, covering about 130 acres. It rises to about 270 feet on its western side, and here are several daunting cliffs. Uninhabited for more than a century, it has no harbour, so landing is only possible on a calm day. The usual landing spot is at Portatemple, which is on the north shore.

The monastic settlement associated with St Patrick, close to the landing place at Portatemple, is in ruins. The smallness of the site would seem to make it an oratory. Around it are twelve crosses, and above it on a hilltop a stone cross has a human face in relief. Of the two entrances to the oratory, one is Romanesque in design and the other has a lintel stone above the door; this may have been an earlier entrance. On the leacht or altar there is a stone dish with coins placed by people in recognition of favours granted.

There is a horizontal slab in the graveyard known as ‘St Patrick’s Bed’, which is said to cure ailments such as epilepsy and nervous disorders. There are marks on this bed which are said to be the marks of hands, feet and hips. All that is required of the person seeking a cure is that they stay on the bed overnight.

Stones on the island can be used to put a curse on wrongdoers – such ‘cursing stones’ also feaure on both Inishmurray and Tory. Also like Tory, Caher has sacred soil which can be used to keep rats at bay and, like the stone bed, has many curative powers. Perhaps we can expand from this and assume that, with its sacred stones and earth, the island itself is sacred and that simply being there induces a state of blessedness.

Close to the monastic ruins are traces of an old path known as Bothar na Naomh (‘the way of the saints’), which is said to traverse the seabed and join the ancient pilgrim track from Croagh Patrick. This would make this pilgrim track about twenty miles in length. Interestingly, there is also a Leaba Phadraig or ‘St Patrick’s Bed’ on the top of Croagh Patrick. In keeping with this lore and coincidence, Caher island formed a part of the pilgrimage on Reek or Garland Sunday on the last Sunday in July each year.

As in the case of Mac Dara’s island off Galway, boatmen can occasionally be seen lowering their sails as they pass Caher. This is in recognition of its holy esteem and the rumour that St Patrick is said to lie beneath one of its carved stones.

Inishturk Island [37], measuring three by two miles, lies about four miles west of Louisburgh and has a population of about ninety, in contrast to its pre-Famine population of 577, recorded in the 1841 census. The name of the island may mean ‘island of the hog’, but torc also means a pile or a heap and may refer to the rugged landscape that the island presents.

The island is of special interest to the geologist; the sandstone here dates back to the Lower Palaeozoic era and is from the Ordovician period about 500 million years ago. The sandstone ridges are still visible today. From the Iron Age, about 2,000 years ago, one can find a standing stone, a fulacht fia and a promontory fort situated on the south coast of the island. North of this is a cillín, which can be accessed from the road. Less than a mile north-west from the standing stone and at a height of 500 feet is a signal tower.

From either the graveyard or the promontary fort, one can look south-east and, weather permitting, see Inishdalla, which may mean either a dark and gloomy island or ‘the island of the blind’ or possibly ‘seers’. South of this isle is a place called Ooghnamuirish which may well mean ‘a sea cave’ but could also mean ‘the cave of the mermaid’. And there is a legend that it is the home of a seal with horns like that of a cow. It is said to be seen once every two or three generations.

The island has a connection with a son of Grace O’Malley or Granuaile. His name was Owen O’ Malley, and both he and his family were massacred by Bingham, the then Governor of Galway.

ROSCOMMON

Ros Comáin, ‘Coman’s grove’

The royal centre of Connacht was based in Roscommon at Cruachain [33], the high status of which is testified in many sources. The other royal and assembly centres in Ireland were Emain Macha in Ulster, Tara in the kingdom of Meath, Dind Ríg in Leinster and Cashel in Munster.

The following is an extract of a poem from the Dindshenchas* that testifies to the importance of Cruachain:

Estid a churu im Chrúachain

fri dumu cach dag-núachair:

a shlúag ónad sír-blad smacht,

a rígad fer n-Olnécmacht.

A shlúag na nglond fata fír

col-lín drong ndata is dag-ríg,

a dremm is déniu dolud,

diargell Ériu il-torud.

Listen, ye warriors about Cruachu!

with its barrow for every noble couple:

O host whence springs lasting fame of laws!

O loyal line of the men of Connacht!

O host of the true, long remembered exploits,

with number of pleasant companies and of brave kings!

O people, quickest in havoc

to whom Erin has pledged various produce!

[Translated by Edward Gwynn]

Cruachain, overlooking an extensive plain that slopes north-east to the River Shannon, comprises over seventy earthworks, and it preserves the landscape for Ireland’s prehistory like none other, excepting Tara. Here one can find the royal palace of the prehistoric Queen Medb known as Rathcroghan (Rath Chrúachain). According to E.E. Evans in his Prehistoric Ireland: ‘Rathcroghan has at 500 feet the appearance of a natural glacial hillock some 70 yards across the top and about 25 feet high; near the centre is a low mound five yards across which looks like a denuded ring barrow, and there is a small standing stone near the edge of the hillock.’ Rathcroghan remained a royal residence until the seventh century, and the festivities of Samain or Hallowe’en were celebrated here.

FIGURE 8. Dathi’s Stone at Cruachain (Carole Cullen).

The pillar stone at Cruachain is known as Dathi’s Stone, named after Dathi, a King of Connacht who was said to have been killed in Switzerland and was brought home and buried here. Dathi’s pillar is south-east of Relignaree (reilig na rí, ‘the graveyard of the kings’). The following extract is from the poet Torna Eigeas who, addressing the stone, says:

Atá fút-sa fionn Fáil,

Dáthí mac Fiachrach fear gráidh;

A Chruacha ro cheilis sain

Ar Ghallaibh ar Ghaedhealaibh.

A fair king of Fail lies beneath thee,

Dathi son of Fiachraidh, a man of dignity;

O Cruacha, thou hast concealed this

From foreigners and from Gaels.

[Translated by Eugene O’Curry]

Although Relignaree is described as a royal cemetery, particularly as it contained a number of small mounds, excavations have not discovered any signs of burials. To the south of the main entrance is a mound named Cnocán na gCorp (‘the hillock of the bodies’), a place where corpses were laid out to be wept over before burial.

Medb* is a major protagonist in the epic Táin Bó Cúailnge* or ‘The Cattle Raid of Cooley’. And Cruachain also contains the bullring (rath ‘a tairbh) in which the Finnbennach, one of the two competing bulls in the Táin Bó Cúailgne, was kept. It was here that this bull fought the Donn bull of Cooley to the death. The writers of the Táin used a ploy by which the remains of the bulls were figuratively gathered together to form the story of the epic in much the same way as two millennia later James Joyce used the scatterings of a midden heap to form the basis of Finnegans Wake. However, more than the bulls died in the bullring at Rath Tarbh. Bricriu the great satirist of the Ulster Cycle (‘Clearer to me a whisper than anyone else a shout’) was the umpire at this contest and was mauled to death by the competing bulls, so perhaps the scattered skin and flesh of Bricriu forms the basis of the Táin Bó Cúailnge.

An important ring fort at Cruachain is the trivallate ring fort known as Rathmore; trivallate forts have traditionally been connected with royalty, and this one is also known as Rath na Rí, or ‘the rath of the king’. On a clear day from Rathmore it is possible to see Croagh Patrick rising up in the west.

Roscommon also contains the inauguration site for the Kings of Connacht at Carnfree [40] or ‘the cairn of Fraoch’, a prominent hill about 400 feet high in the townland of Carns, about two miles south-south-west of Tulsk [33]. Evans has suggested that as well as being connected to Gaelic royal dynasties: ‘Its sanctity may well go back to the Bronze Age.’

A poem from the fourteenth-century Book of Uí Maine titled ‘Carn Fraoich Soitheach na Saorchlann’ or ‘The Carn of Fraoch, a Vessel for a Noble Clan’, describes the life of Fraoch in 105 quatrains and the following are a few verses:

Carn Fraoich, soitheach na saorchlann,

ríogha Dean ‘na dhonnmhaothbharr,

sluaigh ó nach baothchranna breath

na saorchlanna dán soitheach.

Ó Fhraoch mhac Fhiodhaigh na n-arm

comhartha fuair an fionncharn;

sám don tulaigh mar tarla

don churaidh an comhartha …

Grádhaighis-si Fraoch Fabair,

grádhaighis Fraoch Fionnabhair;

glór aobhdha fa sámh snadhma

grádh laomdha na lánamhna.

… ’nathaobh (thaoibh)

ó do marbhadh ‘na mhacomh;

is mór laoch a-muigh do mharbh

nó gur luigh Fraoch fán bhfionncharn.

Carn Fraoich, goodly house of the noble kindreds, the kings of Dean in its brown soft top; the nobles whose goodly house it is are a host not foolish or decrepit in giving judgements.

From Fraoch son of Fiodhach of the weapons did the fair hill get a name; a pleasant matter it is for the hill that it got the hero’s name …

She [Fionnabhair] loved Fraoch of Fabhar, Fraoch loved Fionnabhair; the flaming love of the pair was [like] a pleasant voice that smoothed out difficulties.

… about him since he died in his youth; many a warrior did Fraoch slay in the field before Fraoch lay beneath the fair cairn.

The inauguration stone previously at Carnfree is not in its original place but has been removed to Clonalis House, Castlerea [32], the home of the family of the O’Conor Don. It lies today to the left of the front door of the house, and the footprint in stone, which Evans says is of ‘doubtful authenticity’, is still visible. The O’Conor Don is the longest continuous lineage in Britain and Ireland, and can be traced back to Rory O’Conor, High King in the twelfth century.

The Táin Bó Fraích or ‘The Raid on Fraoch’s Cattle’ is an eighth-century tale in which Findabair, daughter of Medb,* falls in love with Fraoch, the son of Idath, King of the Connachta, and Bé Find from the Otherworld. From this it would seem that he has one foot in early history and the other in mythology. Fraoch asks Findabair’s father, Ailill, for her hand and Ailill accepts as long as he gets the bride-price.

Afterwards they go with Medb* to the Dublind Fraoich or ‘Fraoch’s black pool’ on the River Suck [39] to swim. While Fraoch is in the water, Ailill steals a thumb ring (ordnasc) that Findabair gave Fraoch as a token of their love. Ailill throws the ring into the pool and it enters the mouth of a salmon. He then takes the ring from the salmon and hides it in the bank of the river. Ailill then asks Fraoch to break a branch of a rowan tree growing out of the bank and bring it to him. He breaks off a branch and brings it across the water, holding it over his back. There follows a description of Fraoch by Findabair:

Ba hed íarum athesc Findabair, nach álaind atchíd, ba háildiu lee Fraoch do acsin tar dublind, in corp do rogili agus in folt do roáilli, ind aiged do chumtachtai, int shúil do roglassi, is hé móethóclach cen locht cen ainm, co n-agaid fhocháel forlethain, is é díriuch dianim, in chráeb cosna cáeraib dergaib eter in mhbrágit agus in n-agid nhgil. Iss ed atbered Findabair, nocon fhacca ní rosáissed leth nó trían do chruth.

This is what Findabair used to say afterwards when she saw any beautiful thing: that it was more beautiful for her to see Fraoch coming across the [river] Dublind, the body for shining whiteness and the hair for loveliness, the face for shapeliness, the eye so blue-grey, and he a gentle youth without fault or blemish, face broad above, narrow below, and he straight and perfect, the branch with the red berries between the throat and the white face. This is what Findabair used to say: that she had never seen anything half or a third as beautiful as he.

[Translated by James Carney]

I include the above in its original Gaelic as, apart from its content, its use of alliteration shows it as an example of a ‘run’ of words which was used to give vibrancy to the storyteller.

According to the story, Ailill wants more berries, so Fraoch returns to the pool and meets a monster (béist) in the water, which he eventually kills by cutting off its head, thanks to Findabair derobing and plunging into the water with Fraoch’s sword. This gives the name the Dublind Fráech i mBréib, considered by the Dindshenchas* and Hogan to be the River Suck.

The story continues with a number of motifs that show much European influence, and then the cattle spoil begins. Fraoch occasionally returns to the síd or fairy mound at Cruachain, so we see how deeply he is a lightning rod for the early stories along Magh Aí or the plain of Connacht. With elements from the European Romantic Age, Fraoch is the romantic hero from Connacht, as Naoise is from Ulster and Diarmuid* Uí Duibhne from Munster. But without Findabair, Deirdre and Gráinne,* they would be merely heroes.

The allusions to the River Suck above is consistent with O’Rahilly’s mention of Fraoch mac Fidaig being of the Gamanrad tribe, and that these people were of the Domnann and associated with the Suck and present-day Irrus domnann or Bangor Erris [23] in Co. Mayo. In Tochmarc Treblainne or ‘The Wooing of Treblan Fraoch’, Fraoch is said to be of the Domannann, a dominant tribe in Connacht. He may also have been from the Ól nÉcmacht, an older name for Connacht or the Connachtaí, who were dominant in Connacht but lost power and were moved further west. In pre-Gaelic times their territory extended from Limerick to Assaroe in Sligo, and from Uisneach in Westmeath to Inis Bó in Mayo.

About ten miles north-west of Cruachain is the River Boyle [33] and it is near here at Knockadoobrusna Cnoc-a’ dumha brusna, or ‘the hill of the burial mound of the wood for firing’, that Cesair, the first woman to enter Ireland, is said to be buried. Cambrensis in his Topographica Hibernia wrote that ‘the mound of earth in which she was buried is called the tomb of Ceasara to this day’, which shows that the name and tumulus existed down to the beginning of the thirteenth century. The tomb can be seen from the town of Boyle as you approach the railway station, where, looking south, a mound can be seen on a hilltop about a mile away.

The name Ól nÉcmacht has been translated in several ways. In the late Middle Irish treatise on personal names known as Cóir Anmann (‘fitness of names’), a tale purports to explain its meaning as follows: a banquet was held for the Ól nEcmacht by the druid Domma, and the Ól nEcmacht failed to share the food and drink – ‘whereupon the host Domma said: “Uncomradelike (écumachta) is this drinking (ól) ye do”’, so from that time the term Ól nÉcmacht clung to the province of Connacht. However, another possible meaning could be ‘great horsepeople’, with macht meaning either from ‘across the sea’ or ‘death’ or ‘wonderful’. The Echach were at the heart of the Dál nAraide,* and the Cruithin* and were the horse people who came from east Co. Down and gave their name to Lough Neagh – ‘the lake of the horse’. Eochaid Echbel (horse-mouth) was a noted leader of the Echach. The word Echtrai or ‘horse-travelling’ is the Irish word used for tales which come under the title of ‘adventures’.

The Battle of Airtech was fought between the Ulaid and the Fir Ól nEchmacht close to Cruachain. It would seem that this battle marked the end of the Ól nEcmacht as a power in Ulster and in Connacht. A manuscript translated by R.I. Best alludes to this battle as follows:

Nir leicsit dono fir Ól nEgmacht Ailill no Medb léo insin cath. Digniet ierom catha commorae comardae dib cechtor dilina occus ro indsaigh cach i cheile dibh i rrói cath occus imbualtae; ro comraicsit iarom ocus ro gab cách dib for truastrad i ceili ocus for trencuma. Ba hacgarb ba haithaihge ro ferad in gleo eter firu Ol nEgmacht ocus Ulta. Bai tnuth ocus miscais ocus midduthracht oc cach dia cheile dibh. Bui muirnn occus seselbi isin cath chechtordae .i. buirfedach na fer, iachtad na miled, cnetu ocus osnadhach na trenfer, beimnech occus blesbarnach na cloidem, síanu ocus scretu na sleg ocus na soicchet, occus becedach ocus golbemnech na carruc n-adbalmor n-anbforustai oc beim fri sciathaib ocus luirechaib occus cathbarraib na n-arcon occus na n-arsed:

The Fir Ól nEcmacht did not let Ailill or Medb go with them into battle. They form battalions then on each side, one as great and lofty as the other, and they make towards one another on the field of battles and of conflicts. Then they encountered, and every man took to smiting his fellow and to hard hacking. Rude and sharp was the fight between the Fir Ól nEcmacht and the Ulaid. Envy and hatred and ill-will there was on every side. There was uproar and tumult on both sides of the host, namely the bawling of the men, the outcry of the soldiers, the groans and lamentations of the strongmen, and clashing and clatter of the swords, the whiz and whirr of the spears and arrows, and the roaring and wailing of the huge tottering rocks as they crashed upon the shields and breastplates and helms of the wardogs and veterans.

As to the meaning of airtech and its location, one is left in the land of supposition. The word may be related to airtherach, meaning ‘eastern’; the ind Airthir were the ‘eastern districts’, and the Airthir were a tribe whose territory included the present county of Armagh and the capital of Ulster, Emain Macha.

Síd ar Cruachain, also known as Oweynagat (Uaimh na gcat, ‘the cave of the cat’), is perhaps the most interesting site in Cruachain, as it has an entrance to the Otherworld. From here at Oíche Shamhna or Hallowe’en emerged the Ellén Trechenn or triple-headed deity who laid waste to Ireland. It is also said that from here emerged a flock of birds that ‘withered up whatsoever their breaths impinged on’. For many years Simon O’Dwyer and his wife Maria, along with their Bronze Age horn and bodhrán, joined me and many others in acknowledging the start of Samain from within this underground cave.

FIGURE 9. An entrance to the Otherworld – Oweynagat at Cruachain.

There are many caves in this area, and according to local tradition they go back as far as Sligo. In Christian times, Síd ar Cruachain was known as the Hell’s Gate of Ireland, and it was the destiny of one warrior named Nera and his wife to live there until the Day of Judgement. At the entrance are a number of lintel stones which act as a ceiling; two of these contain ogam writing. The archaeologist Robert Macalister translated one inscription, VRAICCI MAQI MEDVII, as ‘Fráech son of Medb’.

According to a poem by the seventh-century poet Fintan, festivities were also held at Cruachain at the Feast of Lughnasa or Lammas on 1 August ‘on the sporting green of the palace’. The poem is in memory of King Raghallach, who was murdered by poachers on his land after he demanded recompense when they had killed and eaten a buck. Muirenn was Raghallach’s wife, and their three sons were Fergus, Cellach and Cathal. Nindé, a prince from Tír Chonaill, made a predatory invasion into Connacht when the nobles of the province were holding the ancient games of Lughnasa. The following is an extract from the poem:

Raghallach on Lammas-Day,

Cellach and Fergus the choleric,

And Muirenn, with her necklaces,

Were preparing for the games of Cruachan.

When came Nindé the vindictive …

And they burned all before them to Ceis Corann …

The land was filled with burnings from

Sliab Gamh to Sith Seaghsa [‘the Curlews’] …

Though our losses were numerous,

We did not miss them in our pride;

On the steeds of the men of Tir Eoghain

We perfomed the games of Cruachan.

[Translated by Eugene O’Curry]

From Owneygat also came a flock of white birds that throughout Ireland ‘withered up whatsoever their breaths impinged on’. Not only are birds and cats associated with the cave but also pigs emerged from the souterrain and went south to Athenry, giving the name Magh Muccrama (‘the plain of the counting of pigs’) to that part of Galway. It was from here also in the Táin Bó Cúailgne* that the great warrior–goddess, the Mórrígan, came in a chariot ‘pulled by a one-legged chestnut horse towards Cúailgne’.

At Ogulla (from Óghda, ‘pure, virginal, or attached to a monastery’), half a mile west from Tulsk [33], there is a holy well known as Clébach (Clíabach, meaning a wild boar, deer, wolf or fox). The two druids associated with the well were Máel and Caplit. A small modern chapel here now is testament to the Christianisation of the place. Close by is a ring barrow grave in which the daughters of King Laoghaire, who were sent to be fostered by the two druids, are said to be buried. Here also was an assembly point for the gathering of the forces of Connacht under Medb* prior to advancing on Ulster in the Táin. This area is known as Tuaim Móna or ‘peat ridge’.

Certain customs have been associated with corpses throughout Ireland, and many of these have been recorded by the Irish Folklore Commission. One example is from John Flanagan from Mount Talbot [40]: ‘I heard of a cure in the corpse. I saw a man got something in his jaw, some kind of a lump. He was discussin’ this lump he had on his jaw and he said he got a dead woman’s hand and rubbed it off it and it cured the lump.’ It was also believed that the hand of a corpse could also cure toothache: ‘If you take the hand of a corpse and rub it on your face, if you had a toothache, it would cure the toothache,’ according to a Mrs Hanley from Derraghmylan in Rooskey [33].

Magh Aíi or Magh Aoi, also known as Machaire Chonnacht and locally as ‘the Maghery’, is the plain from Strokestown [33] to Castlerea [32] and from the hills two miles north of Roscommon town to Lismacoil, two miles north-east of Elphin [40]. On this plain is Énloch, or ‘the lake of the birds’, where Fergus mac Roich is buried, although its exact location is open to speculation. Fergus left Ulster due to King Conchobar mac Nessa’s treatment of Deirdre and the sons of Uisnech. Legend states that he was the last person to be able to relate the great epic of the Táin Bó Cúailnge* from memory.

Énloch is the starting point for the tale of Echtra Laegaire meic Crimthainn (‘The Adventures of Laegaire mac Crimthainn’). A possible location for the lake is Lough Fergus [40], four miles north-west on the N60 from Roscommon town, and another possibility, though less likely, is Finn Lough, two miles south-east from Strokestown. Yet another contender is Loughnaneane, just west of Roscommon town. Some locals say that as the lake is so close to the town the stone or stones may have been removed for building purposes. This brings one back to Lough Fergus where there are half a dozen barrows within a slingshot of the lake and a ring fort close by named Lisnalegan (from the Irish for ‘the fort of the flagstone’), and beside it is a moated site. Further close to Lough Fergus is Lough Creevin or ‘the lake of the little branch’. Fergus was a dominant member of the Craeb Ruad or ‘the Red Branch knights’. A townland nearby is named Creeve.

SLIGO

Sligeach, ‘abounding in shells’

Two miles south-west of Sligo [25] in the peninsula between Lough Gill and Ballysadare Bay are the ancient tombs at Carrowmore (Ceathrú Mhór, ‘large quarter’) which, according to the Swedish archaeologist Goran Burenhult, are the earliest known in Ireland or Britain. He contended that the ancient structures were built by fishermen whose ancestors had been there for generations, and not by Neolithic farmers as previously supposed. And he explains: ‘The traditional stereotype, farming community equals megalithic monuments, can no longer be upheld, and a development within a pre-existing Mesolithic population is supported by offerings of unopened seashells in the excavated monuments.’ He dated the tombs to be from between 4580 and 3710 BC, which would make them as old as the first cities at Mesopotamia.

FIGURE 10. The sacred centres of Sligo (map by Jack Roberts).

This passage-grave cemetery at Carrowmore contains a large number of chambered cairns, with as many as sixty passage graves in various states of repair. These graves fanned around the central and largest grave at Listoghil. Many of the cairns have retained only the chamber, the other stones presumably used for house building and for enclosing fields. The sites where only the kerb stones remain, and where once there were cairns, have sometimes been misnamed as stone circles. According to Séan Ó Ríordáin who worked on the site, the passage graves do not ‘indicate a settlement pattern as many of their hill-top positions would have been inhospitable at any period’.

The passage-graves lack ornament and are a simpler design than those found in the Boyne Valley complex. This has led some to speculate that the passage-graves moved from west to east rather than east to west. However, the Carrowmore graves, which consist of uprights covered with a large capstone and surrounded by a circular stone kerb, are very different from the more elaborate structures found in the Boyne Valley. A rare example of megalithic art in the Carrowmore district was found at Cloverhill Lake. On one stone there are inscribed three circles, and one is tempted to ask whether these relate to the sun, moon and earth, which, as in Newgrange, would have been central to their religion and used as a calendar to the farming seasons. It is also noteworthy that the name for the shell middens found here in this sacred place can be traced back to Sligeach or ‘shelly place’, from which the county gets its name.

Carrowmore represents a fine example of sun alignment at Samain (sam fuin, ‘summer’s end’) or Hallowe’en, when the sun rises over the ‘Saddle’ at the Ballygawley Hills, the eastern extension of the Ox Mountains. At samain, the sun lights up the underside of the capstone and illuminates the chamber. This event occurs at Listoghil at 7.45 a.m. on 31 October and at 7.48 a.m. on 1 November annually. The Ballygawley Hills are also known as the ‘sleeping woman’, who is the Cailleach Bhéara; these hills contain her head, breasts, belly and legs and, up to her thighs, the Lake of the Two Geese, loch dá ghed, which is a high corrie lake. From this lake is derived the Irish for these hills, namely Sliabh Dá Én or the ‘mountain of the two birds’. According to Pádraig Meehan, author of Listoghil: A Seasonal Alignment?, ‘the Ballygawley Mountain range, with its distinctive rounded forms, may also have been part of the narrative that informed the positioning and layout of the Carrowmore complex’.

W.B. Yeats is buried ‘up the road’ from Carrowmore at Drumcliff. He refers to the Cailleach Bhéarra in his poem ‘Red Hanrahan’s Song about Ireland’ as Clooth-na-Bare. He also refers to Medb* at Knocknarea:

The wind has bundled up the clouds high over Knocknarea,

And thrown the thunder on the stones for all that Maeve can say …

FIGURE 11. Capstone in chamber at Listoghil (Jack Roberts).

The yellow pool has overflowed high up on Clooth-Na-Bare,

For the wet winds are blowing out of the clinging air;

Listoghil is at the centre of the Carrowmore complex and is a passage grave tomb; it is locally known as the ‘Giant’s Grave’. Passage tombs consist of a round mound or cairn with a passage leading from the edge to a chamber within. They belong to the Neolithic or New Stone Age period (c. 4000–2000 BC). Passage tombs occur predominantly in the northern third of the country.

Michael J. O’Kelly in Early Ireland: An Introduction to Irish Prehistory writes:

There is only one monument in the Carrowmore cemetery which comes within the classic passage tomb definition. This is no. 51, known as ‘Listoghil’. It is centrally placed with regard to the other tombs and is at a somewhat higher elevation. It consists of a large srone cairn, between 35m and 41m [114ft and 135.5ft] in diameter at present, with remains of a kerb. At the centre is a rectangular chamber roofed with a singular limestone capstone, 3m by 2.75m and the cairn must originally have covered it.

This last point by O’Kelly, namely that a ‘cairn must originally have covered it’, was verified for me by Pádraig Meehan. He mentioned that the cairn was about to be stripped for use in building, but when the workers came to the tomb they halted their labour, as they did not wish to interfere with the tomb. Thanks to this respect for the dead by the local workforce, this unique tomb still exists and the seasonal alignment can still be observed.

Megalithic tombs are plentiful in Sligo, and one can even be seen in the town of Sligo [25]. This is now surrounded by a roundabout, the first to be built in Sligo. At one time it was proposed that the tomb be destroyed, and its fate was in the balance until an old woman coming up the river demanded that it be preserved, after which she went away. Some say that she was the Cailleach Bhéara who came up the Garvoge River (An Gharbh Óg, ‘Rough Ogress’), though others say it was a local woman with a passion equal to that of the cailleach. The megalithic tomb standing today is a testament to folklore and the power of women. This first roundabout, which is near the fire station, is known locally as Garbh Óg Villas and archaeologically as Abbey Quarter North. A testament to folklore in the area was a letter to the Sunday Times in late July 2017, in which Martin Ford from Sligo stated:

One night when my sister was four years old, she went looking for my mother who was out visiting. She stopped at a fairy fort to tie her laces, and the ‘little people’ appeared and were playing around her. She asked did they know where her mammy was, and they said, ‘we will take you to her.’ They led her to a neighbour’s house. When my Mum came out, my sister said, ‘Meet my new friends.’ But when she turned around, they had disappeared. That fairy fort is still there, at Garavogue Villas in Sligo town.

The Garvoge flows into Tobernalt Bay and close by is Tobar an Ailt (‘the well by the cliff’) which is both a Christian and a pre-Christian well and an example of the two traditions melding together. One problem with the continuing pre-Christian custom of placing votary offerings on trees, generally hawthorns, is that the old custom of not allowing pieces of cloth to be left for more than three days is not adhered to. I have seen this in Sligo, both at Creevykeel and at Tobar an Ailt, where the rotting offerings show an ignorance of the older custom and are aesthetically unappealing.

Four miles south-east of Ballymote [25] on the R295 is one of the most remarkable hills in Irish legend, namely Keshcorran (Céis Chorainn, ‘the harp of Corann’). The plain from which the hill rises was known as Magh Chorainn, or ‘the plain of Corann’. The Dindshenchas* describes Magh Chorainn and Céis Chorainn as follows:

Magh Corainn whence the name? Not hard to say. Corann, harper to Dian Cécht the Dagda’s son, called with his harp Caelcheis, one of Drebriu’s swine. And Caelcheis ran forward as fast as his legs would carry him; and the hounds of Connacht and their soldiery pursued him as far as Céis Chorainn; hence the names of Céis Chorainn and Magh Corainn.

Céis Chorainn may also mean ‘the young sow of Corann’. Also known as Céis Chorainn na bhfiann, or ‘Keshcorann of the Fianna’, it is a humpbacked limestone hill 1,200 feet in height. There is a cairn on top of the hill and, to keep it company, a triangulation pillar. Halfway up the hill, about 200 feet from the base, is a vertical limestone cliff-face with panoramic views over south Sligo, east Mayo and Roscommon. The caves here comprise sixteen chambers all aligned east–west with the entrances facing the west. They are identified by the letters A to P from north to south. Some were named after archaeologists who investigated them, as, for example, cave J or the Coffey Cave, named after George Coffey who was involved in the first excavations of Kesh in 1903. This cave is about eighteen feet deep and nearly seven feet wide at the entrance, narrowing to just under a foot at the rear. Artefacts unearthed over the years include a medieval armour-piercing projectile head, an Early Medieval bone comb fragment and two bone pin fragments. A human tooth was radiocarbon dated to the Iron Age.

In the nineteenth century, it was thought that caves could be the long-sought repository of ‘Early Man’ in Ireland, but this was unfounded; the human remains were more often Neolithic rather than Mesolithic or Paleolithic. In earliest times, caves were used for burial rites and offerings, and from Early Medieval times for occupation and shelter; archaeological evidence shows that the caves at Keshcorann were used for short-term occupation during the Early Medieval period. Though archaeology states that certain activities occurred at the ‘entrance to the caves’ at Keshcorann, we need to go to mythology to get some idea as to what these activities were.

The earliest story relating to the caves was written about 800 AD and is found in the Book of Leinster under the heading of Turim Tigi Temrach or ‘The Enumeration of the House of Tara’, and as Cath Maige Mucrima or ‘The Battle in the Plain of the Counting of Pigs’. The book also refers to Keshcorran as the cave where Cormac mac Airt, High King of Ireland, spent his early childhood: Conamail … ruc. Cormac mac Airt a hÚaim Céise Coraind (‘houndlike Cormac mac Airt was brought up in the cave of Corann’); it also states: Cormac mac Airt ina ucht altram (‘Cormac mac Airt was suckled by a she-wolf’). Both these statements give body to the legend that Cormac was taken by a she-wolf shortly after his birth and was reared by her in one of the caves at Keshcorran. On a six-inch Ordnance Survey map of 1838, Cave P is named Owey Cormac mac Airt (‘the Cave of Cormac mac Airt’). A local legend recorded in 1836 told how the mother of Cormac mac Airt gave birth to him while collecting water at Tober Cormac to the north-west of the caves; this well is situated in the townland of Cross [25], a mile north of the village of Kesh. It is in the corner of a field on a north-facing slope. The area is overgrown and muddy, and some moss-covered stones mark the site of the well at a T-junction along an old road known as Bóthar an Corann or Bóthar na Slieve. This road was built by Richard de Burgh, the Red Earl of Ulster, and is situated between Keshcorann and the R295.

Similarities can be seen with the suckling of Romulus and Remus by a wolf, both going on to found Rome, as Cormac is credited with the founding of Tara. So often our early history is seen as mythology, and this is partly because our history is seen as beginning in 431 AD with the arrival of Christianity. In the case of Cormac mac Airt and his cave, his story fits into the motif of the European hero–king, but this is not to say that it is necessarily borrowed from the tale of Romulus and Remus and it may stand on its own.

Another later story relating to Keshcorran is included in the ‘Lays of Finn’ or the Duanaire Finn compiled in the seventeenth century. This is a story known as ‘The Lay of the Smithy’, in which Finn* and his Fianna* find themselves on Sliabh Luachra in Kerry, where they are approached by Lon mac Liomtha, the chief smith of Norway. He challenges the Fianna to race him, and he leads them all the way to the caves of Keshcorran. Lon makes swords and spears and presents them to Finn and his warriors. He names all the weaponry, Mac an Luin being the name given to Finn’s sword. At sunrise the next day the Fianna wake up to find themselves once again on Sliabh Luachra. Here is an unusual tale where no one dies nor is injured. It possibly has a derivation in an ancient warrior route from Sliabh Luachra to Ard Patrick in Limerick, and from there to Clare and Galway and finally to Keshcorran.

A more famous tale relating to the caves, Bruidhean Chéise Corainn, or ‘The Otherworld Hostel at Keshcorran’, tells of Finn and the Fianna* being trapped here by three cailleacha or hags, the daughters of Conaran mac Imidel of the Tuatha Dé Danann,* and then being rescued by Goll mac Morna, the same Goll who in time rescued Finn in hell from the ‘demons of the blue host’.

The caves were a meeting place for the goddesses or cailleacha, later demoted to hags but still retaining their power. In Mayo folklore, according to Máire Mac Neill, the caves were home to Áine, as were Knockainey in Co. Limerick and the Paps of Anu (the mother of the Irish gods) on the Cork–Kerry border. The Mórrígan (‘great queen’) had a tryst with the Dagda* on the River Unshin, three miles north of Corann Hill. In Old Irish, Uinnius means ‘ash tree’, one of the sacred and venerated trees both in these islands and in Norse mythology, as it was seen as the tree that connected the earth with the Otherworld. The Unshin was a living manifestation of the goddess, in this case the Mórrígan, with nine loosened tresses, who was washing herself, ‘one foot on the south bank the other on the north’. She and the Dagda conversed and then mated over water, this being part of an ancient fertility ritual. The ‘Bed of the Couple’ is the name of this place. Here on this river she prophesied the second battle of Magh Tuiredh, telling the Dagda to summon the skilled men to meet her at the River Unshin. Here the Mórrígan killed Indech, a Fomorian giving handfuls of his blood to the waiting warriors. At a more local level, the Cailín Cennruad or ‘red haired girl’ was one of the cailleachs connected to Keshcorran.

Several ring forts connected to the Fenian saga of Diarmuid* and Gráinne* are just north of Keshcorann at Graniamore (Gráinne Mór) [25]. There are at least five in the townland of Graniamore and one in the townland of Graniaroe. A rath or ring fort at the base of the hill to the north is termed by Máire Mac Neill as Ráth Gráinne, and here she says the two lovers stayed during a lull in the trouble with Finn. This ring fort is at Carnaweeleen at the north base of the hill about a third of a mile north of the megalithic tomb from which Carnaweeleen gets its name. However, as the territory of Corann was part of Gráinne’s dowry given to her by her father, Cormac mac Airt, she was not restricted to any one homestead but had her pick of a large number.

The identification in south Sligo of so many Early Medieval homesteads or ring forts connected with Gráinne gives this story, one of the great tales of early Irish literature, a strong resonance of place, and specific places at that. Many ancient places are named ‘the love beds of Diarmuid* and Gráinne’;* altogether there are said to be 366 of them throughout Ireland. They are mostly associated with dolmens or ring forts.

Perhaps the most significant site associated with this saga is Ben Bulben, or more accurately Ben Gulban [16], an imposing flat-topped plateau with its cliffs formed of limestones. It was on this plateau that Finn and the Fianna* finally caught up with the couple, and in a wild boar hunt Diarmuid* died from wounds received from the swine. Finn let him die unaided and Gráinne returned to Finn and the Fianna. Diarmuid was killed at a place known as Leacht na Muice or the ‘grave of the pig’, identified as Áth Doimhghlais, which may be in the townland of Ardnaglass between Ben Gulban and Grange on the N15. The legend relates that Diarmuid was taken by his guardian god Aengus of the Brú back to the burial place of the gods at Brú na Bóinne along the Boyne Valley in Co. Meath.

Ben Gulban is named after Conall Gulban, whose adventures in eastern lands are described in the sixteenth-century manuscript Eachtra Chonaill Ghulban, as it was here that he was fostered. Conall was a son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, who lived in the fifth century. Tír Conaill Gulban is the Irish version of Donegal, named after Gulban. Conall, together with his brothers Énnae and Eógan, were founders of the northern Úi Néill.

Three miles north-west of Drumcliff is Cooldrumman (Cúl Dremne, ‘the back of the ridge hill’), the ridge hill referred to being Ben Gulban. Cooldrumman [16] is about two miles west of Ben Gulban. Here another O’Neill, namely Colm O’Neill, otherwise known as St Columcille or St Columba, was involved in the first recorded act of plagiarism, which led to the so-called Battle of the Books fought at Cooldrumman in 561 AD.

The origins of this battle go back to a visit by Columcille to St Finnian in Droma Find or Dromyn near Ardee, Co. Louth, to ask him for a loan of his book of the Psalms. Without Finnian’s knowledge he began copying it, and when he was nearing the end Finnian sent someone to ask him for it back. The messenger observed Columcille transcribing the book, and when it was revealed to the saint that he had been observed, he spoke in saintly language to a pet crane he had, saying: ‘It’s all right with me if it’s all right with God for you to pluck out the eye of that youth that came to spy on me without my knowledge.’ The crane dutifully whipped out the eye so that it was left hanging externally on the cheek of the observer. St Finnian did not like this, and he blessed and healed the eye and put it back in its socket. He then approached Columcille and complained about his copying the book of Psalms without his consent. To this, Columcille said: ‘I will need the ruling of the king of Ireland about this.’ The king at the time was Diarmait mac Cerball.

Finnian replied: ‘I will accept that.’

After that, they both went to King Diarmait at Tara for judgement. Finnian said: ‘Columcille copied my book unknown to me and I say that the “son” [copy] of my book is mine.’ To which Columcille replied:

Finnian’s book that I copied from is none the worse for it, and it is not right that the divine words in that book should perish or that I or any other should be hindered from copying or reading them or from spreading them among the people; and further I claim that I was entitled to copy it, for if there was any profit for me in copying it I would want to give that profit to the people, without consequence to Finnian or his book.

Then Diarmait gave his famous judgement: ‘To every cow its little cow, that is its calf, and to every book its little book, that is its copy: and because of that, Columcille, the book you copied is Finnian’s.’

‘That’s a bad judgement,’ said Columcille, ‘and you will be punished for it.’

Around the same time a row broke out between the son of the King of Connacht and a steward during a hurling game, resulting in the prince killing the steward. The prince sought the protection of Columcille, but to no avail –he was taken away and executed. It seems that the execution of the prince while under the protection of the saint was more the cause for the ensuing battle, but the plagiarism has had a greater impact on our scribes and historians. In the battle of Cúil Dremne, the Úi Neill were victorious against Diarmait the King of Ireland. After this victory, Colum left Ireland due to his guilt at instigating this battle with all its loss of life, but he returned on occasion. His departure was not voluntary but in accordance with a ruling by St Molaise of Devenish, whose account of the battle is preserved in the Cathach or ‘Battle Book’, a most precious book in the possession of the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. It is Ireland’s oldest Latin manuscript. The book shrine in which the manuscript was originally contained may be seen in the National Museum of Ireland.

There were two Battles of Magh Tuiredh. The first, between the Tuatha Dé Danann* and the Fir Bolg,* was fought near Cong in Co. Galway, and the second, discussed below, near Lough Arrow. In the first battle, the last King of the Fir Bolgs, Eochaid mac Eirce, fell. He and his tribe were routed by the mythical Tuatha Dé Danann. Eochaid mac Eirce was buried at Trá Eóchaille at Beltra Strand in Ballysadare Bay west of Ballysadare [25]. A verse of a poem written by Tanaidhé O’Mulconry (who died in 1136) describing the death of Eochaid mac Eirce is as follows:

Tucsat Tuath de Danann dil

laigne leó ina lámaib,

dibsein ro marbad Eochaid

la sil Nemid nertbrethaigh.

The brave Tuatha Dé Danann brought

pointed spears in their hands with them.

Of these was killed king Eochaid,

by the victorious race of Nemid.

[Translated by Eugene O’Curry]

Eochaid was pursued by the sons of Nemed from Magh Tuiredh to Trá Eochaille, a distance of fifteen miles, and there a fierce battle ensued. Both Eochaid and the three sons of Nemed died here. The sons of Nemed were buried at the west end of the strand at a place known as Leca Meic Nemedh or ‘the gravestones of the sons of Nemed’. King Eochaid was buried where he fell, and a large cairn was erected to him. This cairn was, according to O’Curry, ‘one of the wonders of Ireland’. In the nineteenth century, it was known as the Cairn of Traigh Eothaile, Eothaile being a softer pronunciation of Traigh Eochaille. His cairn was raised over him by the Nemedians. The modern word for Traigh Eochaille is Beltra or in Irish Béal Trá, ‘mouth of the beach’.

Trá Eochaille or Eochaid’s Strand was three miles west of Ballysadare, and at low tide it was about a square mile in extent; today it is known as Trawohelly, an anglicised version of Traigh Eothaile. It is just east of Tanrego, a townland less than four miles west of Ballysadare. The historical importance of Trá Eochaille diminished when in 1858 a rampart was constructed which cut out the sea. Up until then, roads from the north, south-east and west crossed this strand, which is now marshland covered in sedge and rushes. As a result, the monuments to King Eochaid and the sons of Nemed were destroyed. The larger stones were used to build the rampart, and according to a writer in 1928, ‘only a couple of little heaps of small stones at present mark these ancient sepulchres’. One wonders if these small stones are visible today.

Ballysadare (Baile Easa Dara, ‘homestead of the waterfall of the oak’) [25] mentioned above in relation to Moytura has an older meaning, namely, ‘the home of Dara by the waterfall’. Dara was a Fomorian druid who was slain by the Tuatha Dé Danann* chief, Lug of the Long Hand. The Fomorians* are said to have landed in Ballysadare Bay. They were seen as pirates, and as the Vikings had a name for piracy, both groups often became confused in the popular mind.

The god of the Fomorians* was Balor, and Balor was the god of the Phoenicians who were a trading people; this leads one to speculate that the Phoenicians and the Fomorians were one people. Many statues of Balor stand today in the Lebanon at Tortosa in territory anciently connected with the Phoenicians.

The plain south of the River Duff and north of Ben Gulban and extending to the sea was known as Magh Cétne na bFomorach [16], possibly ‘the first plain of the Fomorians’. When the Fomorians* were in power, the Nemedians had to bring their taxes of cattle, corn and children to Magh Cétne. A poem by Eochaidh O’Floinn who died in 1004 includes a reference to this:

To hard Magh Ceitne of weapons,

To Ess Ruadh of wonderful salmon,

They deliver it to them every Samhain eve.

[Translated by R.A.S. Macalister]

Henry Morris the early twentieth-century antiquarian says that the Fomorians* settled on Dernish Island facing Magh Cétne. Dernish Island extends to 115 acres and at its centre rises to over 100 feet. So, it was to here that the taxes were paid from Magh Cétne, and the Nemedians also paid their taxes to the Fomorians at Magh Itha, which was an older name for the plain of Magh Itha or Magh Ene or Magh Céthne. This place is so old that it has been identified as the Magnata of Ptolemy. This would seem to suggest that Tor Conaing (‘Conaign’s tower’) was located in Dernish and not on Tory Island. Ptolemy’s names refer to the second century, and at that time this stone-built tower presumably would have still been standing.

The foundations of the Fomorian tower on Dernish Island were dug up in 1910 by the owner of the land, a Peter Mulligan. According to Henry Morris, it was still possible to see the trace of the circle in 1925. The tower was on the highest part of the island which in the early twentieth century was still called Cnoc a’ Dúin, ‘the Hill of the Dún or fortress’. Up until the middle of the nineteenth century there existed the remains of a stone fort which has been compared to the stone fort at Dún Aengus on Inis Mór on the Aran Islands off Co. Galway. The trace of the circle measured thirty-three yards in diameter, and Peter Mulligan found the remains of a fulacht fiadh or ancient cooking place which contained pieces of blackened stone. Mulligan was the first farmer to grow a crop on the spot, and presumably used the stout stones of the remaining tower to build field enclosures.

Around the site of the tower are immense stone fences, and Morris suggests that the Nemedians built a stone wall near the tower to ‘attack the defenders on equal terms’. As the Nemedians had to give a quarter of their firstborn children and their corn and cattle as a tax to the Fomorians,* it is no wonder that they rose up and attacked their oppressors.

Dernish has associations with the Spanish Armada; a little rock to the west of the island is named Carrig na Spainneach (‘the Spaniard’s Rock’), commemorating the spot where one of the ships of the Spanish Armada went down. On the north-west of the island is a place named Crochan na gCorp (‘the hillock of the corpses’) where a number of the Spanish were buried. And going back in time 1,000 years we find a well dedicated to St Patrick in a little wood on the south-west side of the island.

About twenty miles south-east of Dernish is Loch na Súil, now named Lough Nasool [25] or ‘lake of the eye’. This lake is associated with Balor, the god of the Fomorians,* and recalls another appellation for Balor – Balor of the Evil Eye. Balor was the name all subsequent chiefs took, and because of this a confusion can exist between the mythological and the early historical telling of tales. Balor is said to have lost an eye in the Battle of Moytura and tears flowed from it, flooding the valley and forming Loch na Súil. This small lake is all that remains of this watery cataract. In 1933, the waters of the lake disappeared overnight through an opening in its bed known as Balor’s Eye; the phenomenon reoccurred in 1964 and again in 2006.

Overlooking Ballysadare Bay from the north side is the famous cairn of Medb* known as Knocknarea (Cnoc na Riadh, ‘the hill of the races or journey’) [25]. This is one of two passage tombs associated with the legendary queen; another is at Knockma, Co. Galway. It is a stunning setting for this Iron Age leader, a massive passage tomb built up over the years by the custom of bringing a stone and placing it on the top of the cairn. According to Dr Stefan Berg from the Knocknarea Archaeological Project, another six passage tombs have been found at Knocknarea. The term Miosgán Medbha has been used to describe this cairn, mios being the Irish for table or altar, and as the top of the cairn is flat, ‘Medb’s Altar’ would seem quite a good description. It is possible that Neolithic rites involving sun worship took place here, where one has a splendid view of the setting sun and the night sky, which were so much part of early man’s religious experience.

FIGURE 12. The cairn marking the burial spot of Queen Medb on Knocknarea.

About ten miles west from Knocknarea is Aughris Head [25] or Each Ros, ‘the headland of the horse’. The territory here was traditionally known as Tír Fhiachrach and was a probable inauguration site for the O’Dubhda or the O’Dowds, who were the ruling clan in this area. Elizabeth Fitzpatrick writes in Notes on the Gathering Place of Tír Fhiachrach: ‘The place names of the district and its recorded folklore remain the only ancillary supports to our understanding the field monuments,’ and presumably she also implies the customs, rites and early history as well. With the help of Joe Fenwick, she opens the salient aspects of early Irish society in relation to kingship and its customs.

The name Each Ros underlines how important the horse was in the culture of the society, and this is further supported by an area south from the headland known as the ‘hoof-mark of Ó’Dubhda’s Horse’, which is a natural indentation in the rock; also, south of here a racecourse is marked, its name in Irish being Ruball na Sionnach, or the ‘clearing area for the foxes’. The horse is remembered in the folklore of the area and was recorded in the Folklore Commission’s collection for 1937. The myth of the king’s mating with a white mare is part of the rite of kingship but is not to my knowledge part of the lore. As in Christianity, miracles are part of the lore, but the myth of resurrection is at the core of Christian mythology.

The story of the white horse from folklore and told by John Furey from Skreen is as follows:

Long ago a family named O’Dowds reigned; they were chieftains of Tireagh and lived at Ardglass not far from here and at Ardnaree near Ballina. Of course, they had many horses to convey them from place to place as there was no other means of conveyance at the time. At any rate, they had a white horse that never left his stable. He was about seven or eight years old and was always well fed. One day when his master was away a man who lived nearby said to himself, that it would be great fun to go for a ride on the lovely horse. He went to the stable with a bridle and put it on the horse. Then he took him out and jumped up on him and off with them. He galloped until he came to Dunmoran river and it was no trouble for him to jump across it. Then he turned for Aughris pier along the shore all along the shore and all the way jumped the ditches as lively as another horse would run on level land. He kept on at this rate until he came to Córa Donn. When he saw the deep hole and the water going up under the land he turned on his heel and left a deep mark from his hoof on the solid rock, which is to be seen yet.

The cavern called Comhra Donn, which follows a deep cut in the cliff, is also mentioned by Máire Mac Neill in The Festival of Lughnasa – ‘wherein there is a flagstone bearing hoof marks. Finally, there is a fort in Kilruiseighter where, people say, the kings used to be crowned and in this fort there are two tracks of feet which always remain an everchanging green’.

As mentioned above, the white mare was an integral part of some inaugural rites of kings, and a dramatic example of the white horse can be seen at the Vale of the White Horse at Uffington in Wiltshire. This figure, some 370 feet in length, was cut into the chalk of a hillside close to an Iron Age fort in the first century BC. Though legend purports that the acre site on which it stands was the idea of Alfred the Great as a commemoration of a victory against the Danes, the figure is not too far from the tomb of Wayland Smithy, a character similar to the gabha or smith in Irish mythology who could see into the future.

The horse goddess is a manifestation of the mother goddess, and thus the union of the king with the mother goddess is another variation of the sovereignty myth where the white horse as a symbol of life represents the cailleach as one who legitimately bestows sovereignty on the king-to-be.

Inaugural connections with other Celtic tribes can be found, and Herodotus mentions a Celtic tribe in Carinthia, north of the Adriatic, with similar inauguration rites to the Irish. He writes:

In Carinthia as often as a new prince of the republic enters upon the government, they observe a solemnity nowhere else heard of. In the open fields stands erect a marble stone, which when the leader is about to be created a certain countryman, to whom through his race the succession to that office hereditarily belongs, ascends, having on his right hand a black heifer in calf, while on his left is placed a working mare … he in the common dress of the country, wearing a hair cap, carrying shoes and a pastoral shaft, acts the herdsman more than the prince … the man in charge says that the mare and the heifer shall be his [the prince’s] and that he shall be free of tribute … then the king to be gently stikes the cheek of the official in charge and commands him to be a fair judge. Then the prince takes possession of the stone and turns himself around to every part and brandishing a naked sword addresses the clans and promises to be an equitable judge.

O’Donovan in Tribes and Customs of Hy-Fiachrach writes that in Ireland the king-to-be turns himself around thrice forwards and thrice backwards in order to view his people and territory in every direction.

The inauguration rite of kings is generally associated with the Iron Age, which straddled the late pre-Christian and early Christian era. At the inauguration site at Aughris Head, we may assume that a man became eligible to succeed as king, as Mac Neill writes in Celtic Ireland, if ‘they belonged to the derbfine as a king who had already reigned’. The derbfine consisted of four generations in direct line – that is, father, sons, grandsons and great-grandsons. All those within the derbfine were eligible to succeed, subject to election. Those in line for kingship were classified as rígdomna, or ‘crown prince’, or ‘royal heir’. Given the number of possible contenders to the throne, one can see how this led to the continuous series of battles that are at the basis of our early history.

Moytirra West and Moytirra East [25], three miles east of Lough Arrow, are the location of the Second Battle of Moytura (Cath Muighe Tuireadh, ‘the battle of the plain of reckoning or keening or lamentation’). There are five megalithic tombs in the area as well as mounds, cairns, sweathouses and ring forts. There is also a crannóg on the northern end of Lough Arrow. The plain of Moytura is about ten miles from Ballysadare Bay, which would have been a good landing place for an invader.

The Second Battle of Moytura is possibly the most widely known of all the inter-racial battles in Ireland. It was fought between the ‘native’ Irish, the followers of the sun goddess Anu, whose people were known as the Tuatha Dé Danann,* and the invading force, the Fomorians* – Fomoiri (a race from ‘across the sea’) – more generally known as the Phoenicians, who were traders from Lebanon.

Like the Tuatha Dé Danann,* the Fomorians,* who had become the overlords of Ireland after their invasion, also worshipped a sun god namely Balor, so this story has often been regarded as a great tale of the Irish gods. Perhaps more than any other tale, this legend presents a roll call of the gods who combine to defeat the invading force led by their king, Elatha Mór mac Dealbhaoi, who reminds the Fomorians of their supremacy and charges them to defeat their vassals. The Tuatha Dé Danann forces are led by Lug,* who is a man, a sun god and a master of all the arts (samildánach).

The story is interwoven like many a biblical one with elements of the godly and the earthly. The great goddess the Mórrígan previously had predicted the battle when mating with the Dagda* on the River Unshin. The Dagda was the king and god of the Tuatha Dé Danann.* Prior to the battle the Mórrígan killed the Fomorian warrior Indech and gave handfuls of his blood to the Dagda’s warriors. She then went with Badb and Macha to the Mound of the Hostages at Tara and from here they sent forth ‘a cloud of mist and furious rain of fire, with a downpour of red blood from the air onto the warriors’ heads’.

Then the battle begins and Nuadu mac Echtach of the Tuatha Dé Danann engages Elatha in combat and wounds him. Lug* then arrives and strikes off Elatha’s head – Is ann sin do riacht Lug an láthair agus sealluis a cheann de.

Balor’s eye, which no one could look at directly, is eventually pierced by a sling shot from the Goibniu,* the smith to the gods. Balor awakens from his injury and beheads Nuadu, then escapes from the field of battle followed by the remainder of the Fomorians;* they go to Carn Eóluirg, alternatively called Carn Uí Néid or Mizen Head [88], at the southernmost part of Ireland – agus do Carn Eóluirg risa raitear Carn Í Néid I n-iarthur Éireann. It is named after the father of Elatha.

Brian Ó Cuív who edited Cath Muighe Tuireadh came across a summary of the battle in a Trinity College manuscript written about 1630, or twenty years earlier than Cath Muighe Tuireadh. The following extract refers to the form that the tributes imposed by the Fomorians* took:

Tángatar Fomhóraigh go hÉrind, agus do chuirset dáorchíos uirre .i. dá ttrían etha, bleachta, cloinne, agus conáich do tharclamh ó fhearaibh Éirionn gacha Sámhna go Magh gCéidne na bFhomhórach .i. uinge dh’ór ón tsróin, nó an tsrón ón chionn amach.

The Fomorians came to Ireland, and they put a severe tribute on them, namely two thirds of arable land, of milch cows, of their progeny and their wealth to be collected from the men of Ireland each samain [Hallowe’en] at Magh Céidne of the Fomorians [a plain between the rivers Erne which extends eighty miles between Cavan to the west of Ballyshannon where it flows into the sea at Drowes], for example, the wealth tax being the nose tax for which an ounce of gold was to be paid or one’s nose to be cut off.

[Translated by the author]

Donegal Bay, which is shared by Donegal, Leitrim and Sligo, may have been the entrance for the first recorded people to have arrived in Ireland, namely Cesair with fifty women and three men; they possibly arrived at Dún na mBárc or present day Mount Temple, and close by at Trá Tuaidh or Traig Eba [16] is where Eba or Eua or Eve, one of the fifty women who arrived with Cesair, is said to have drowned. Machaire Eba, or the Plain of Eba, is a name for a stretch of the Sligo coast which goes from Drumcliff Bay to Cliffony. The name is now reduced to Magherow, a townland north of Lissadell Strand west from Drumcliff.

At Streedagh [16] south-west of O’Conor’s Island is a megalithic tomb mentioned in Acallam na Senórach or the Colloquy of the Ancients, a twelfth-century tale of discourses mostly between Caoilte of the Fianna* of Finn mac Cumhail* and St Patrick. According to Caoilte, this tomb, which still stands, was where the remains of Finn’s deer-hound was buried, and in this tomb were later found ‘the two lower jaws of a hound or wolf’. Whether or not this animal was Finn’s, it certainly enriches the tale.

A mention of Trá Eba in the Dindshenchas* gives credence to the suggestion that Sligo rather than Kerry may have been the location of Dún na mBárc, the port of call where Cesair and her followers entered Ireland:

‘Tráigh Eaba, cídh diatá? Ní ansa. Día tanic Cesair ingen Betha mic Naoí lucht curaigh co hÉrinn. Tainic Eaba in banlíaidh léi, cho rocodail isin trácht, co robáidh in tonn iarom. Conidh de raiter Rind Eaba agus Traigh Eaba dona hinadhaibh sin osin ille.

Traig Eba, whence the name? Not hard to say. When Cesair daughter of Bith son of Noah came with a boat’s crew to Erin, Eba the leech-woman came with her. She fell asleep on the strand, and the waves drowned her. Hence these places were called Rind Eba and Traig Eba from that time forth.

[Translated by Edward Gwynn]

Cesair has been connected to Noah in the Book of Invasions and in Keating’s Foras Feasa ar Éirinn but she is also regarded as a Greek princess and as a French woman in other stories. Many early scholars connected or dovetailed Biblical events with early Irish history and mythology in order to set the events within a plausible timeframe.

Cesair possibly entered by Dernish Island, where her landing would have been sheltered by the peninsula known as Conor’s Island. The Book of Ballymote and the Book of Lecan mention that Cesair and her womenfolk landed at Cairns which is now known as Mount Temple ‘to flatter a local landlord’; according to Morris the territory of ‘Cairns’ extended from the present day Drumfad to the coast. Morris gives a number of reasons for his contention that Cesair landed in the estuary between Dernish Island and Trá Tuaidh [16]. Among the reasons Morris gives is that Dún na mBárc is a landlocked harbour with a fortress commanding it; the name ‘cairns’ was still in use when he was writing in the early twentieth century. One could also add the number of references to the area, many of which are mentioned above.

Cesair and her followers travelled south towards the Boyle River and, having crossed the Curlew Mountains, arrived on the wide fertile plain of Magh Luirg or ‘the Plains of Boyle’. It is in a tumulus overlooking the Boyle River [33] that she is buried (as her burial place is in Roscommon, I have included this part of her story with that county). The area is regarded as a meeting place from ancient times.

Inishmurray (Inis Muirdeach, ‘Muirdeach’s island’) [16] is a low-lying island one mile long and half-a-mile wide, with a maximum height rising to about seventy feet. Its name is derived from Muirdeach, who was bishop of Killala and was consecrated by St Patrick. The island is four miles from Streedagh Point in Co. Sligo, at the entrance to Donegal Bay, and is ten miles south-west from Mullaghmore Head. Muirdeach was also known as St Molaise and is credited with founding the monastery on Inishmurray about 520 AD. The remains of the monastery are fairly intact after 1,500 years – in stark contrast to the houses, which have gone to ruin after just 100 years. The remaining islanders left on 12 November 1948. It is a sign of their strength and persistence that in 1926, seventy-four people were able to make a living from the island and surrounding waters. The decision to abandon the island is said to have been due to isolation rather than poverty, but more likely was influenced by the letters and parcels coming from America and Britain telling of a better life.

A possible reason for the preservation of the monastic settlement is that it is enclosed behind a thick circular wall or caiseal, which was built during the Bronze Age. The wall is fifteen feet at its highest and is between six and nine feet wide. It encloses about a third of an acre of land. The presence of cursing stones and the name of a chapel as ‘the temple of fire’ would suggest that it may have been a druidic site before the arrival of the monks. There are three internal walls that result in the enclosure being divided into four areas. The largest enclosure contains Teampall Molaise or ‘Molaise’s church’. It was also known as Teampall na bFhearr or ‘the men’s church’. North-west of the church, there are two praying stones, and to the west is a font. To the south-west are Na Clocha Breacha, literally ‘the speckled stones’ but generally translated as ‘cursing stones’. The stones were turned about while ‘praying’ by the person wishing to curse another. The ritual involved fasting for three days, and if the reasons for applying the curse were justified, it would have its effect; otherwise, the curse would rebound on the person who turned the stones.

In one of the smaller enclosures within the cashel is a building known as Teac na Teine or ‘the house of fire’. This may have been the kitchen of the monastery, but some authorities say that its real name was Teampall na Teine or ‘the church of fire’. This could place its origins in pre-Christian druidic times. The remains of the stone at the centre of the church are known as Leic na Teine or ‘the stone of the fire’. Tradition has it that if all fires on the island were extinguished, then a sod placed on this hearth would spontaneously ignite. This ‘miraculous hearth’ was broken up by workers reconstructing the gable in the 1880s. When the antiquarian John O’Donovan visited the island in the 1830s, he recorded that there was a flagstone on the floor of this church which ‘was always kept lighted for the use of the islanders’.

The enclosure contains three clocháns or beehive huts, each of which has a corbelled roof. There are also two standing stones and a holed or fertility stone where women prayed in order to have a healthy child. Outside the cashel there is a sweathouse, known as a teach an allais, from the Irish allas, meaning ‘sweat’. This has been compared to the Turkish bath: the house was filled with smoke, presumably from turf, and when it became very hot, the embers were swept away and water was thrown on the hot stones; then a person wrapped in a blanket entered to breathe the steam and ‘sweat’ for a while, after which they washed in the nearby well. Although we often refer to these baths as Turkish baths, in Germany and Bohemia they were known as Roman-Irish baths. The sweathouse was used as a cure for rheumatism as well as several other ailments, and there are hundreds throughout Ireland.

According to legend there is an invisible enchanted island between Inishmurray and the mainland, which is said to be seen every seven years. In the nineteenth century, a Sligo man named Patrick Waters claimed to have seen it. The island is said to be inhabited by the invisible ‘gentry’. Hy Brazil, another enchanted place, is said to have been seen at the same time. Some say that Hy Brazil is associated with a place known as Bruach Gráinne or Grace’s Bank, about one mile south of Inishmurray, which appears occasionally on the surface of the water. The last ‘sighting’ of Hy Brazil was during the summer of 1908; it too ‘appears’ every seventh year.

As on Tory Island, holy clay was used on Inishmurray to expel rats, and thus no rats are said to survive on the island. The clay was apparently given to St Molaise when he was on a pilgrimage to Rome. Swans on the island were never harmed, as it was felt that they might be the Children of Lir.* Other customs persisted on the island; for example, when pointing to a boat, you never pointed with your finger but rather with your thumb or with your whole hand. As on much of the mainland, it was always better to move clockwise in order to avoid bad luck; this particularly applied to boats, for when bringing a boat around it was always turned clockwise or deas sol (‘right to the sun’).