Читать книгу Earthing the Myths - Daragh Smyth - Страница 9
ОглавлениеLEINSTER
CARLOW
Ceatharloch, ‘four lakes’
The four lakes, according to tradition, were formed by the River Barrow (An Bhearú), but today of these lakes there is no trace. The tradition of the lakes existed up to the end of the eighteenth century, as the following verse from a 1798 song shows:
That glorious plan, the rights of man,
with sword in hand we’ll guard it;
the power to quell these infidels,
down by the lakes of Carlow.
The plain surrounding the River Barrow is called Magh Fea, after one of the oxen of Brigit in her role as fertility goddess.
Dind Ríg (‘the fortress of kings’) [61], the palace of the Kings of Leinster and the ancient capital of the province, is on the River Barrow, a quarter of a mile south of Leighlinbridge in the townland of Ballyknockan. It has been equated with Dunon as listed among the city names given in Ptolemy’s Geography of Ireland written about 150 AD, in which the Barrow is named Birgos. Dind Ríg today stands well off the tourist track, and the visitor may see it either as ancient and neglected or as a royal fortress and residence untouched by time and retaining its Iron Age atmosphere in a calm river setting. Dind Ríg is a high, steep-sided and flat-topped mound, similar to Bruree (Brug Ríg, Co. Limerick) and to Cú Chulainn’s* mound at Dún Delca, Castletown, Co. Louth. The mound at Dind Ríg is situated at the S-end of a gravel ridge and junction of two rivers. It measures 237 yards in circumference at base, is sixty-nine feet above the river and forty-five yards in diameter at the top.
The site is also known as Duma Sláinge or ‘the burial place of Sláinge’, a king of the Fir Bolg* who died in the fourth century BC. The Lebor Gabála Érenn (‘The Book of Invasions’) states: ‘No king, so called, took the kingship of Ireland, till the Fir Bolg came, and they gave the kingship to Slanga son of Dela, for he was the eldest of the sons of Dela. A year at first had Slanga, till he died in Dind Ríg.’ It continues:
Bliadain do Shláine, is fír so,
conerbailt ‘na dég-dumo;
cet-fher d’Fheraib Bolg na mbend
atbath I n-inis Érend.
A year had Slanga, this is true,
till he died in his fine mound;
the first man of the Fir Bolg of the peaks
who died in the island of Ireland.
[Translated by R.A.S. Macalister]
The Laginian invasion (from which Leinster, or Laighean in Irish, derives its name) was the last invasion before that of the Gaels, and their story is contained in the tale Orgain Denda Ríg or (‘The Plunder of Dind Ríg’), the hero of which is Labraid Loingsech. Known as the first story of the Leinstermen, it was probably written in the ninth century. According to the Lebor Gabála, ‘The Plunder of Dind Ríg’ is dated to 307 BC. This date is not seriously contended by scholars, as the third century before Christ is generally agreed to be the time of the Laginian invasion. Although the invasion of the Lagin is not disputed, the idea of Labraid being exiled, a word implied in the epithet Loingsech or ‘exile’, is not given much credence. However, it allows for a good story while preserving the invasion and the plunder intact. In the original version, rather than being exiled Labraid is the leader of an Armorican (Fir Morca) invasion from north-west France. The later story also allows Labraid to lay waste to Dind Ríg as an act of legitimate revenge rather than a work of invasive destruction. Labraid was said to have come up from Munster and failed in his first attempt to capture the royal fortress and its king, Cobthach, who was within. Thus, the tale provides a solution, namely that the harper Craiphtine was to lull the enemy to sleep by playing sleep music (suantraighe) on his harp while the besiegers put their faces to the ground and their fingers in their ears. The result was that the defenders of Dind Ríg fell asleep and were slaughtered and Dind Ríg was destroyed. According to the original version, Cobthach was spared and lived in peace with Labraid who then became King of Leinster.
A later version tells how Labraid invited Cobthach to a feast in Dind Ríg, where he and his followers were roasted in an iron house that Labraid had spent a year building in total secrecy (thus giving rise to the proverb: ‘every Leinsterman has his secret’). The Book of Leinster has the following verses:
Ro hort in rigrad moa ríg,
(ba gním olc, ba domna hír);
loisc Labraid méit gaile
Cobthach Cóel mac Ugaine.
Ba Túaim Tenbath cosin olc
in ríg-dind rán, in rochnocc,
coro n-oirg Labraid, lán ngaile,
diar chuir ár a maccraide.
The princes were slain round their king
(it was an ill deed, it was matter for wrath):
the Dumb Exile of martial might burnt
Cobthach Cael, son of Ugaine.
Till that crime, Tuaim Tenbath was the name
of the noble kingly hold, the noted hill,
till Labraid full of valour sacked it,
when he made a slaughter of its young men.
[Translated by Edward Gwynn]
Tuaim Tenbath was the old name for Dind Ríg. Tuaim has been translated as a moat mound or burial mound, and Tenbath has been glossed as a ‘red flaming wall of fire’.
In 1934, The Irish Times reported that a ‘most compact and regular cist’ containing cremated bones had been found in the townland of Ballyknockan. The precise location of this site is unknown, but that a Bronze Age burial should be found close to this Late Bronze Age site is significant.
At Killinane, a mile south-south-east from Dind Ríg and on the same side of the River Barrow is an Early Bronze Age burial site, or cist. During the Early Bronze Age, from about 1800 to 1300 BC, funeral rites involving both cremation and inhumation were popular, many of the bodies being buried in a crouched position. Burials were sometimes accompanied by a range of distinctive pottery and grave goods (a sign of Christian burial being an absence of grave goods). The cist at Killinane contained the cremated remains of two individuals as well as rock crystal and quartz fragments and a food bowl. If Dind Ríg were plundered in 307 BC, as stated by the Lebor Gabála, then the cist at Killinane as well as that at Ballyknockan would presumably have been known to the inhabitants of Dind Ríg, and may well have been the graves of Slanga and of earlier kings from this famous royal site.
Perhaps the largest Bronze Age site in Carlow, and possibly in the country, was found at Ballon Hill [61], about six miles south-west of Tullow. Much of Ballon Hill was a Bronze Age cemetery and included pit and cist burials; cist burials were often under mounds and contained in a box-like structure of stone slabs. Ballon Hill contained two ring barrows, which are generally small mounds with an encircling ditch and bank. They are burial mounds, and excavations have shown cremations of a Bronze Age or Iron Age date. A good example of a ring barrow is Rath Gráinne on the Hill of Tara, Co. Meath [42]. Julius Caesar and other writers note that burning the dead was customary among the Celts. Generally, this was reserved for the upper stratum of society, but with such a large graveyard as that on Ballon Hill, the custom of cremation may have been more inclusive.
Another custom associated with burial was the burying of white stones or lumps of quartz crystal with the dead. Beneath one of the graves at Ballon Hill a funeral urn was found upside down and beneath it, placed in a triangular position, were three small pebbles, one white, one green and one black. This custom can be seen all over the country as well as in Scotland and within what is known as the Sacred Circle on the Isle of Man. A stone’s throw from where I write in Co. Cork is a cromlech with a large quartz stone beside it, a material that seemingly had a religious meaning for our ancestors, though in what precise way we do not know. We do know that stones were regarded in many primal societies as the abode of supernatural beings. At Plouër, in the French part of the Cȏtes-du-Nord, since earliest times, girls have been sliding down a large block, and if a girl manages to do this without scraping her flesh, she is assured of soon finding a husband. The custom can also be seen in other parts of France and is no doubt connected to an earlier form of stone worship.
We do not have any poets or bards from the Bronze Age to weave a picture of the world they lived in, but we can possibly get a glimpse into their beliefs and world view from the way they buried their dead. An excavation at Ballon Hill in 1853 unearthed three skeletons ‘huddled together in a small space not above two feet in length’. They were buried beneath an immense boulder, and urns were found close by. Beneath the boulder were granite slabs and beneath these a bed of charcoal was found. Some of the urns found here are the finest examples discovered in Ireland, and they along with the food vessels show that these peoples believed in an afterlife. Their ‘sitting-up’ positions also showed that they were ready to attend some ceremonial gathering in the afterlife, but the presence of a dagger blade of bronze seems to suggest that one needed to be on one’s guard even in the Otherworld.
About five miles north-east of Leighlinbridge is Kelliston (cell osnaid, ‘the graveyard of the groans’) situated on Magh Fea or the Plain of Fea [61], the site of a noted battle in the fifth century AD. The King of Leinster at that time was Fraoch son of Fionnchaidh. This battle probably took place in the late fifth century AD. Aonghus who was King of Munster at that time and his wife Eithne Uathach both fell by Muiredach and by Oilill. This battle is remembered in the following verse from Keating’s history:
Atbath craobhdhos bhile mhóir
Aonghus Molbhthach mac Natfraoich
Fágbhaidh lá hOilill a rath
I gcath Cell Osnadha claoin.
There died by the spreading branch of a great tree,
Aonghus Molbhthach, son of Natfraoch;
He lost his success by Oilill
In the battle of Cell Osnaid the vile.
[Translated by P.S. Dinneen]
A possible site for this battle is at Kelliston East where there is a graveyard in an area locally known as Kilomeel. It is a circular, raised area, and there is a local tradition of bones being buried at the site. About 400 yards north-west of the graveyard is St Patrick’s Well. To get to the graveyard, go to Kelliston Crossroads, which are approximately four miles south-east from the town of Tullow. At the cross, turn right and continue for one mile, and here you will find a church on your right; looking north-east from the church is the likely battle site. A few hundred yards before the crossroads is a mound with steep sides and a small, rounded summit. This may well have been the site of the local king, and the battle may have been an attempt by a provincial king to extend his kingdom. Oilill, one of the invaders, eventually became King of Leinster. Legend has it that around this time St Patrick and Caoilte mac Ronáin, a warrior of the Fianna* who had miraculously survived into Christian times, came to Kilomeel, where they were entertained by a dulcimer player and where St Patrick performed a miracle.
St Mullin’s (Tigh Moling, ‘the houses of Moling’) is situated on the east side of the Barrow River six miles south from Graiguenamanagh [68]. St Moling, who flourished in the seventh century, is cited by Aengus the Culdee (a bishop from the ninth century) as one of the early ecclesiastics who was distinguished as a literary figure. The story of the building of the oratory of St Moling involves the legendary builder of round towers, castles and oratories, namely the Gobán Saor,* the famous smith whose buildings and whose antics are a necessary part of the storyteller’s bag. As payment for building the oratory, the Gobán Saor wanted the chapel filled with corn, rushes, apples and nuts. Whether he was successful or not leads to a long story, way beyond the remit of the present work. An oratory still stands at St Mullin’s, although in ruins; whether this is the one that the Gobán built is anybody’s guess.
The association of St Moling with that great personage of Irish myth, Suibhne Geilt* or Mad Sweeney* – the inspiration of the Ulster poets – is an example of a blending of Irish mythology with Christian saga. Some people say they are one and the same person due to the fact that Suibhne was said to have flown from place to place around Ireland, and the etymology of Moling’s name is mo ling or ‘my flight’. Be that as it may, St Mullin’s is special insofar as it encloses these two notable people within its grounds. Suibhne* eventually settled down at Tigh Moling, where he was looked after by the saint. His wanderings have inspired the imagination of many poets to which the following verses give testament:
Duairc an bhetha-sa
bheith gan maeithleaptha,
adhbha úairsheacha,
garbha gáoithshnechta …
Gloomy this life,
to be without a soft bed,
abode of cold frost
roughness of wind driven snow.
Cold, icy wind,
faint shadow of a feeble sun,
shelter of a single tree,
on the summit of a table land.
Enduring the rain-storm,
stepping over deerpaths,
faring through greensward
on a morn of grey frost.
The bellowing of the stags
throughout the wood,
the climb to the deer-pass,
the voice of white seas.
[Translated by J.G. O’Keeffe]
St Moling told his cook, Muirgil, to give Suibhne* fresh milk to drink each day. She used to ‘thrust her heel up to her ankle in the cow dung … and leave the full of it of new milk for Suibhne’. Suibhne* would come cautiously into the yard to drink the milk. Muirgil’s husband was Moling’s swineherd Mongán, whose sister provoked him to jealousy, leading him to throw a spear at Suibhne as he was drinking the milk. The spear passed through the nipple of Suibhne’s left breast and broke his back in two. At this, Suibhne, Moling and Mongán utttered a lay between them, Suibhne speaking the following:
There was a time when I deemed more melodious
than the quiet converse of people,
the cooing of a turtle dove
flitting about a pool.
There was a time when I deemed more melodious
than the sound of a little bell beside me
the warbling of the blackbird to the mountain
and the belling of a stag in a storm.
There was a time when I deemed more melodious
than the voice of a beautiful woman beside me,
to hear at dawn,
the cry of the mountain grouse.
[Translated by J.G. O’Keeffe]
Suibhne died because of Mongán’s assault and was buried at tobar na ngealt, ‘the madman’s well’. There is a possibility that the well in question is St Mullins’ Well, about 100 yards north of the wheeled cross, which contains a rectangular stone with a circular basin. However, as this was a significant centre in the seventh century, it is possible that there were a number of other wells, any one of which could be his resting place. Tigh Moling is sited on a field known anciently as achadh cainida (‘the field of keening or wailing’); whether there is any connection with this and Suibhne’s* burial place is open to speculation. St Moling died in 697 AD.
Another impressive earthwork is at Mohullen or Mohullin (magh-chuilinn, ‘plain of holly’), an earthwork locally known as ‘the Rath’. This place is associated with numerous traditions and beliefs. Bones were found when the field was tilled. It does not have a record in the annals like Dind Ríg but is nonetheless full of local folklore. Mohullen is three miles south-east of Borris [68] on the R702; before you get to Ballymurphy, turn right onto the R703 and about a half-mile on your right is Mohullen.
Two miles west from Leighlinbridge is Oldleighlin [61] (Seanleithghlinn, ‘the old half glen’), named from the configuration of the Madlin riverbed. This place was celebrated as an ecclesiastical establishment with a cathedral, and prior to that in pre-Christian times it was celebrated as possessing one of the sacred trees of Ireland, namely the Eó Rossa. The Eó Rossa was a yew, one of the five famous trees of Ireland as mentioned in the Book of Leinster. The Eó Rossa has been in the Rennes Dindshenchas* as ‘noblest of trees, glory of Leinster, dearest of bushes’. In the Book of Leinster, it receives a thirty-three-line stanza in its praise, ascribed to Druim Suithe (‘ridge of science’ − so this poet has presumably taken a pseudonym), and his or her praise in the form of epithets for this sacred tree is as follows:
Eó Rosa
roth ruirech
recht flatha
fuaim tuinni
dech dúilib
diriuch dronchrand
dia dronbalc
dor nime
nert n-aicde
fó foirne
fer ferbglan
gart glanmár
tren trinoit
dam toimsi
maith máthar
mac Maire
muir mothach
miad maisse
mál menman
mind n-angel
nuall betha
blad Banba
brig búada
breth bunaid
brath brethach
brosna suad
saeriu crannaib
clu Gálion
caemiu dossaib
dín bethra
brig bethad
bricht n-eolais
Eó Rossa
Tree of Ross; a king’s wheel; a prince’s right; a wave’s noise; best of creatures; a straight firm tree; a firm strong god; the door to the sky; a powerful bond; possessing great strength; a generous tree; full of hospitality; the strength of the trinity; a silent hero, fully measured; good mother; son of Mary; beautiful sea of honour and glory; worthy prince; treasure of nobles; proclaimer of life; renowned Banba; of prevailing strength; of ancient bearing; fame in judgement-giving; inspiration of bards; noblest of trees; the pride and glory of Leinster; beloved to them; shelter of water; force of life; an incantation of wisdom; Tree of Ross.
[Translated by the author]
Assemblies were held under these sacred trees and there was a geis or taboo placed on anyone who damaged them in any way. The name for a sacred tree was bile, meaning ‘large tree’.
The Eó Rossa’s power and veneration may have led the local saint, Laserian of Leighlin, to covet its wood for church-building and to incorporate this strong pagan tree into the body of his church. It was not only Laserian who desired the tree but ‘all the saints of Ireland’ as well. The saints of Ireland assembled around the tree and prayed for its fall, and as they prayed the roots moved but when Laserian uttered his prayers the tree fell down. It is also possible that in the tree-chopping tradition of St Boniface, St German and St Ninian, the abbot of Cluain Conaire in Kildare, that it was chopped down as the idolatrous centre of an earlier spiritual tradition. However, according to O’Flaherty’s Ogygia, all the sacred trees were blown down in 665 AD at the same time as a plague desolated Ireland, a plague known as the Buide Conaill, or the Yellow Plague.
It is said that St Moling asked Laserian for some of the sacred tree and was granted enough to build his oratory. The Gobán Saor then built the roof from the shingles, or parallel slats of wood, from the Eó Rossa. From a passage in St Bernard’s life of Malachy we learn that the custom of building oratories of wood continued in Ireland as late as the twelfth century.
DUBLIN
Dubh Linn, ‘black pool’, the name preferred by the Vikings and later by the Anglo-Normans; later in Gaelic as Baile Átha Cliath, ‘the homestead at the ford on the wattles’
The earliest mention of Dublin is as Eblana polis on the map of Ptolemy from the second century AD. This is the oldest contemporary document for Irish history. Ptolemy lived in Alexandria in Egypt, and his map of Ireland (Iouernia) was derived from sailors and merchants who presumably had their information from other mariners. The map’s blank interior of Ireland is testament to the fact that knowledge of the island was limited to its shores. Howth is named Edros, which corresponds to Edar in the Gaelic name for the place, Beinn Edair.
Three miles south from Tallaght on the R114 is Glenasmole (gleann an smóil, ‘the glen of the thrush’) [50], which is at the source of the River Dodder and possesses a large lake now used as a reservoir. Oisín,* a son of Finn mac Cumhail* and a hero of the Fenian Cycle of sagas, has a strong association with Glenasmole. It was at this place that tragedy struck for the warrior when he returned to Ireland after 300 years in Tír na nÓg (‘the land of eternal youth’). A group of men asked him to help them raise a huge stone onto a wagon, and when he stooped to do so the reins on his horse snapped and he fell to the earth. As a result, he changed suddenly to be a very old man, and because of his fall he could no longer return to Tír na nÓg. Oisín had been taken to this world, also known as Tír Tairngire (‘the land of promise’) and Magh Mell (‘the plain of honey’), by Niamh, an otherworldly princess. She told him that:
It is the most delightful country to be found,
of greatest repute under the sun
trees drooping with fruit and blossom
and foliage growing on the tops of boughs.
Finn mac Cumhail’s* father was Cumall mac Trénmór, and he fought in a battle at Castleknock at the Battle of Cnucha located in present-day Castleknock at the north end of the Phoenix Park [50]. Cumall was King of the Leinster Fianna,* and he was defeated and killed in this battle by Goll mac Morna of the Connacht Fianna who were supported by the Lagin. The ‘hills’ referred to in the word cnucha are within the grounds of Castleknock College; a request to walk around the site should be made to the school authorities. The cause of this battle was Cumall’s abduction of Muirenn, the daughter of the druid Tadg who complained to the king, Conn Cét Chathach, or ‘Conn of the Hundred Battles’ (177–212 AD). Cumall refused to either send Muirenn back or pay restitution, and he refused to attend a meeting at Tara with Conn to seek a resolution. As a result, Conn promised leadership of the Fianna to Goll mac Morna. After the battle, Muirenn who was now pregnant with Finn mac Cumhail, attempted to return home to her father, but he refused to admit her because she was pregnant. He told his people to burn her, but mercifully this was not carried out. On the eve of the battle, Cumall sent the following message to Muirenn: ‘When my son is born, flee away with him, and let him be brought up in the most secret places you can find. Conmean the druid has foretold his fortune, and that under his rule the Fianna of Érinn shall much exceed what it enjoys under mine. Entreat the forgiveness of the golden haired Muirrean for me. Farewell.’
Another battle involving the Fianna* was fought at Garristown [43] in 285 AD (although it has on occasion been mentioned as having been fought in Meath, presumably because of changing boundaries). Known as the Battle of Gabhra, it ended the power of the Fianna in Ireland. The background is as follows: King Cairbre Lifechair wished to marry his daughter Sgéimh Solais (‘beauty of light’) to a prince, but the Fianna wanted her to marry one of them – or, failing that, they demanded to be paid a ransom of twenty ounces of gold. When Cairbre refused both requests, the Fianna marched on Tara and both sides met in a field known as the Black Acre in Garristown, where Oscar, the son of Oisín,* was carried from the field on a bier after being fatally wounded. The Book of Leinster tells a different story, stating that Cairbre was slain by Oscar, and Acallam na Senórach (‘Discourse of the Elders’) concurs with this. However, the local people to the present day believe that the Fianna lost the battle, and as an act of respect to the Fianna who fell at the battle they erected a large Celtic cross towards the end of the nineteenth century. This was blown down by a strong wind in the twentieth century, and the author met some local people who had removed the shaft of the cross to an adjoining ditch. A headstone has been erected in front of the library at Garristown, and the ogam writing on it commemorates the Battle of Gabhra; it translates as ‘Oscar son of Oisín, grandson of Finn’.
The name Gabhra is interesting linguistically in so far as gabhar generally means a goat, but here may mean a white horse or brightness or even the sun; whether there is a connection to Sgéim Solais, the daughter of Cairbre, is open to debate. The Annals of Ulster refer to this battle as follows: ‘Kalends of January third feria, twelfth of the moon [285 AD]. Cairpre Lifechair son of Cormac Ulfhota was killed by Oscar son of Oisín* son of Finn in the battle of Gabhra, and Oscar was killed by Cairpre at the same time.’
Two miles east from the north end of the Glenasmole Reservoir stands Montpelier Hill [50], to the north of which is a megalithic tomb and, to the east, a standing stone; up to the early eighteenth century there stood a large cairn here bounded by a circle of large stones. This site was desecrated in 1725 by William Conolly of Castletown, who used the stones of the cairn in the construction of a hunting lodge generally known as the Hell Fire Club. The roof was originally slated but a sharp wind stripped the roof of its slates so Conolly built a stone roof in its place, much of which stands today.
Local people said the lodge was haunted, due to the desecration of the site and that the devil was responsible for the original damage to the roof. Although Montpelier Hill is mainly associated with the club, most of its meetings were held at the Eagle Tavern on Cork Hill, which was part of a high ridge extending from Dame Street to beyond Christ Church. The drink of choice was known as scaillín or ‘scaltheen’ – a mixture of hot whiskey, butter, sugar and hot milk, which was apparently used as a remedy for a cold in the chest. The Hell Fire Club was founded by Richard Parsons, the first Earl of Rosse, and James Worsdale, the painter. Worsdale’s painting of five members can be seen in the National Gallery of Ireland Dublin. A black cat supposed to represent the devil presided at the meetings, and on occasion at midnight a member of the club would emerge as the devil, wearing the horns and tail of a cow. On one occasion the cat, after being immersed in the punchbowl and set alight, ran out of the tavern on fire, reinforcing the belief among onlookers that the devil was truly present at these sessions.
Two miles north of the post office at Rush on the R128 you come to a crossroads, and here, if you turn right and then take the first turn to the right, you will arrive at Carnhill. To the east you should see Loughshinny, and walking south-east you will arrive at Drumanagh (Druim Manach, ‘the ridge of the Manach’) [43]. It is probably here that the great hero Cú Chulainn* came to woo Emer, the daughter of a local chieftain. The older name for Drumanagh was Luglochta Logo, ‘the gardens of Lug’. Drumanagh is a forty-acre promontory fort overlooking the Irish Sea with Loughshinny to the north and Rush to the south. Emer’s father was Fergal Manach, or ‘Fergal Monks’, and there are still Monks living in the area. The townland of Rathmooney is Rathmanach, ‘the rath of the monks’. This fort of Fergal Manach is four miles due west from Drumanagh. To get there, take the north-west road from the post office at Lusk and turn right after a mile to bring you to Rathmooney. The fort at Drumanagh has three ramparts, and according to the ‘Wooing of Emer’, a story whose earliest extant version comes from the twelfth century, ‘Cú Chulainn reached the fort of Fergal within a day, and performed the Salmon leap across the three ramparts, so that he landed in the centre of the fortress.’
Fergal did not see ‘this wild man from the north’ as a suitable suitor for his daughter and had Drumanagh guarded. Cú Chulainn* slaughtered all the defendants except the three brothers of Emer. Fergal tried to escape but failed and was left ‘lifeless’; Cú Chulainn then took Emer with him and bolted across the three ramparts. Talking to local farmers in the 1970s, I was informed that I could better spend my time with other aspects of folklore rather than with this ‘immoral man’; two millennia later, ‘the wild man from Ulster’ is still seen as one to be avoided.
Drumanagh entered the news in 1996 when an article in The Sunday Times led to a war of words with some academics. The article stated that: ‘A nondescript patch of land fifteen miles north of Dublin has shattered one of Ireland’s strongest myths [that the Romans never invaded Ireland]. It indicated that the country was, after all, invaded by the Romans.’
Drumanagh was here being described as a Roman promontory fort and a bridgehead for the invading Roman legions. This extrapolation was based on a find of Roman coins and small pieces of jewellery on or near Drumanagh, and further supported by Roman burial finds at nearby Lambay Island. Another point of view stated that the artefacts discovered were ‘most likely due’ to Irish trading with Roman Britain.
Farmers ploughing in the 1950s and 1970s found Roman and Gallo-Roman ware. However, as no scientific excavation took place, the way was open for pillagers with metal detectors. A preservation order was put on the site, but this was contested by the local landlord as far as the Supreme Court, where he lost the case. Although artefacts reappeared at Sotheby’s in London, many have been recovered and are now in the National Museum in Dublin; for legal reasons, however, they are not open to public viewing. Loughshinny just north of Drumanagh was an established port from earliest times, and it appears that trading with Roman Britain did occur, as the artefacts testify. But whether this constitutes an outpost of the Roman Empire remains a moot point. One thing that is not open to debate is that Drumanagh should be the subject of a scientific survey, and the results should be on public display.
Rathmooney, mentioned above, was also known as Bruiden Fergaill Manach, the ancient bruiden (‘hostels’) being centres of feasting as well as lookout posts. There is a well here known as St Bride’s well, which is most likely a Christian gloss on the ancient name. There were five bruidne (the plural form of the word) in Ireland, and these were places of perpetual feasting, the four others being Bruiden Da Derga, Bruiden Da Choca, Bruiden Meic Da Réo and Bruiden Meic Da Thó. According to legend, the god of the Otherworld presided at these banquets.
Six miles north-west of Rathmooney is the village of Naul [43], also known as ‘The Naul’ (an Ail, ‘the cliff’ or ‘the rock’), apparently relating to the rock on which the original castle stood on the banks of the River Delvin (Ailbine or Ollbine). A cave close to the village fits into the story that Máire Mac Neill tells in her work The Musician in the Cave. Here she writes of tales of musicians in caves from Rathlin Island to Inish Maan to Ceis Corann; but here in the Naul lies a tale in the world of empirical reality in so far as the piper Seamus Ennis played his pipes in a cave down the side of a cliff just north of the village. I was taken to this cliff and wondered what those unaware of Seamus’s sense of creativity thought of the music and its source.
Malahide Bay [50] is where a people known as the Domnann entered Ireland, as preserved in the Irish version of the name, Inber Domnann (‘the rivermouth of the Domnann’). As they were a pre-Gaelic people, they are sometimes seen as either aboriginal or primitive. According to T.F. O’Rahilly, they were ‘a branch of the Dumnonii of Devon and Cornwall’. They also had connections with Scotland, especially around Dumbarton and extending to Ayr. O’Rahilly states that their tribal name is derived from the name of a deity, namely Dubnonos or Dubnona. They were also known as the Fir Domnann. The academic Sharon Paice Macleod has suggested in Mater Deorum Hibernensium that they may also be related to the Tuatha Dé Danann,* insofar as the form Tuatha Dé Domnann is often used to name the same people. The Broadmeadow and Ward rivers flowing into Inber Domnann would have been the conduits along which they entered the island. At the estuary of Malahide Bay is a dangerous sandbank called Mol Downey Bank which perpetuates the name of the Domnann in Mael Domhnann (‘the whirlpool of the Domnann’).
Perhaps the most famous person to enter Inber Domnann was Tuathal Techtmar or Tuathal the Legitimate, who was a king of Ireland in the second century AD. Tuathal arrived at Inber Domnainn or Malahide Bay with a fleet of foreigners and defeated three tribes: the Fir Bolg,* the Domnann and the Gálioin. He is seen by some as an historical character who led the Gaels across the sea, gradually conquering Ireland. He became King of Ireland about 130 AD after subduing the aithechthuatha or vassal tribes of Ireland. Some say that Tuathal was a Roman legionary who was supported by the Gaels.
About fifteen miles north of Malahide Bay is Balbriggan; once there, take the R132, and two miles north you cross the River Delvin, which today forms the northern boundary of Co. Dublin and flows into the sea through the townland of Knocknagin. It marks a boundary of Fine Gall (a name for the Vikings), now Fingal. The river takes its name from Ollbine, ‘great crime’, the story of which concerns a king named Rúad mac Ríg Dúnd from Munster, who set out with a number of boats for a meeting with men from the south-west of Scotland. After their ships were becalmed, Rúad jumped into the sea to investigate the cause and he found nine women there, who confessed that they had stopped the boat. They brought nine ships of gold to him, and he in turn spent nine nights with them. One of the women conceived a child and said she would bear a son, and that she would return to them before his birth. The king took the other women to his men, and they all remained carousing for seven years. When they eventually landed in the estuary of the Delvin (Inber Ollbine), the women left the boy behind at the landing place, which was stony and rocky, where the men threw stones at him and killed him. The women then began to scream ‘bine oll, bine oll’, or ‘great crime, great crime’. That is how the Delvin got its name. The area is still stony and rocky. If you go one mile south from the estuary at Knocknagin Bridge and take the second turn left until the end of the road, you will find yourself in the vicinity of five mounds. And this, apart from its ancient associations, is the perfect viewing place from which to see the estuary and conjure up the story of Rúad and the fate of the newborn boy.
To the north and west of Donabate is the townland of Turvey, referred to as Traigh Tuirbhi, ‘the strand of Turvey’, in the annals [43]. The Books of Lecan and Ballymote say that Tuirbhi was the father of the Gobán Saor. His full name was Tuirbhi Tragmár or ‘large-footed Turvey’. He apparently owned all the land attached to the strand. Like Canute, King of England and Denmark, Turvey had a penchant for controlling the tides. Whereas Canute tried it by shouting orders, Turvey tried it by throwing a hatchet from Tuladh an Bhiail (‘the hill of the hatchet’), into the face of the flowing tide. Needless to say, legend has Turvey stopping the tide. Tuladh an Bhiail may well have been situated at Portrane on the hill overlooking the Irish Sea. The present hospital at Portrane was built on this hill in 1898, and workmen digging the foundations ‘found a subterranean sepulchral chamber lined with small stones; a long approach also lined with stones led to it, and in it was the skeleton of a man of large size; the whole was cleared away and the skeleton was thrown over the bank of rubbish’ (Hogan, Onomasticon). Another example of the past being consigned to the rubbish tip!
The Dindshenchas* encapsulates this story in verse as follows:
Tráig Thuirbe, turcbaid a hainm,
do réir anctair ria imshaidm:
Tuirbe trágmar ós cach thráig
athair grammar gú Gobáin.
A thúaig notelged iar scur
in gilla mergech mór-dub
ó Thulaig Béla buide
fri cach ména mór-thuile.
Cían nodcuired a thúaig the
in muir ní thuiled tairse:
cid Tuirbe thess na túag tré,
ní fess can cúan nó chenél.
Manip don tshíl dedgair dub
luid a Temraig ria láech-Lug,
ní fess a chan fri dáil de
fir na cless ó Thráig Thuirbe.
The strand of Tuirbhi received its name,
according to authors I relate,
from Tuirbhi of the strands, lord over all strands,
the affectionate acute father of Gobán.
His hatchet he would fling after ceasing from work.
The rusty faced, black, big fellow,
from the pleasant Hill of the Hatchet,
which is washed by the great flood.
The distance to which his hatchet he used to send,
the tide beyond or within flowed not;
though Tuirbhi in his land in the south was strong,
it is not known of what stock was his race.
Unless he was of the mystical black race,
who went out of Tara from the heroic Lug,
it is not known for what benefit he avoided to meet him,
the man of the feats from the strand of Tuirbhi.
[Translated by Edward Gwynn]
Tuirbhi was quite possibly a Pict, and his darker skin, as mentioned in the verses above, could possibly be explained by this. Like Cú Chulainn* he was swarthy, yet unlike the great Pictish warrior he was a ‘big fellow’, and the skeleton of ‘large size’ that was treated with such glaring disrespect could have been him or a relative of his. Turvey Castle is in the townland, and it was here that Edmond Campion wrote his History of Ireland.
Ten miles north-east from Turvey’s Strand are two rocks in the sea beside each other, with a lighthouse on one. They are known as Rockabill, having been originally known as Da-bille, ‘two little (rocks)’. An old Dindshenchas* legend tells us that they got their name from Dabilla, a famous dog that was drowned there. Another legend associates these rocky outposts with the Glas Gaibhleann, the cow and calf of the Gobán Saor, turned to stone here by the Fomorian* god Balor.
On the south side of Dublin Bay lies Merrion Strand which comprises the strand from Sandymount to Blackrock, which in Irish is Trácht Muirbthen or Muirbech (a level strip of land along the coast). The name for the strand in the manuscripts is Trácht Fuirbhi, which seems very close to Trácht Tuirbhi. This leads to the possibility that Tuirbhi was chief (tuire meaning chief or lord) of the land from Donabate to Dún Laoghaire. This strand has strong associations with Conaire Mór, a third-century King of Ireland. The story of his death is told in the tale Togail Bruidne Da Derga (‘the destruction of the hostel of the red god’), which was compiled in the eleventh century from two earlier versions. Conaire left Bruidne Da Derga close to Lough Bray Lower and walked to Tara along the Slighe Cualann and across Merrion Strand. At the same time, a group of marauders under Ingcél, a British or Welsh prince, was setting out to plunder Da Derga’s hostel. They landed at Howth but, hearing that Conaire was on Merrion Strand, they sailed across Dublin Bay. Not finding him, they sailed further south and landed at Leamore strand in Wicklow. At that time an ancient rite was being carried out at Tara to determine who would be King of Ireland, and it was prophesied that the king to be was walking naked along Trácht Muirbthen on his way to Tara. When Conaire arrived at Tara he was proclaimed King by the druids. James Joyce’s character in Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus, mirrors Conaire’s appointment with destiny when he asks himself while strolling along the beach at Merrion: ‘Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand?’
Around 5,500 years ago Howth Head [50] was an island, and as the waves fell back, they left an isthmus of sand and gravel about sixteen feet above sea level, which today links the promontory of Howth to the mainland. For 6,000 years there have been fishermen on Howth, and in ancient times they traded fish for polished stone axes from the incoming Neolithic farmers who would go on to build the great astronomical calendar in stone known as Newgrange. In more modern times, a popular folktale from Howth is known as ‘Conall Gulban from Howth’, more than sixty versions of which are recorded in manuscripts of the Irish Folklore Commission. They are all recorded in Irish, but English versions are published in Hero-Tales of Ireland by J. Curtin. This tale was also well known in Gaelic-speaking Scotland.
The present Baily Lighthouse [50] on the south-eastern extremity of Howth is built upon the fort of Crimthann Nianar, who was High King of Ireland around the time of Christ. He was buried here, having died in a battle with the Aithech Tuatha, an underclass of serfs.
According to the Annals of Clonmacnoise, Crimthann was brought by a fairy woman into her palace ‘where after great entertainment and after they took their pleasure of one another by carnal knowledge she bestowed a gilted coat with a sum of gold on him as a token of her love, and soon after [he] died’. This would seem to be an example of the sovereignty myth wherein it was necessary for a king to sleep with a local goddess in order to be a proper king. The goddess herself was sovereignty and only through her could the king claim legitimacy. We see reflections of this in the Egyptian/Greek myth of Oedipus who, after sleeping with an older woman, his mother, becomes king. Crimthann himself shares with Oedipus an incestuous history in so far as his own father Lugaid Réoderg is said to have slept with his own mother Clothru, daughter of Eochaid Fedlech. Thus, Crimthann’s mother Clothru was both his mother and his grandmother.
High Street in the centre of Dublin [50] is the starting point of a line of low hills stretching from Dublin to Clarinbridge in Co. Galway known as the eiscir riada. The Irish word eiscir has ‘passed into international geological usage’, the anglicised word being ‘esker’. These eskers were formed after the Ice Age when sand or gravel that had built up inside tunnels in the ice remained after the ice melted away. In boggy country they provide natural causeways, the literal meaning of eiscir riada being the ‘sand-ridge of chariot driving’. The escir riada was also a boundary between the north and south of Ireland, the southern half being known as Leth Moga Nuadat (‘Mug Nuadu’s half’). Mug Nuadu means ‘the servant of Nuadu’, a god venerated both in Britain and Ireland. Mug Nuada may have been a title which the King of the Eoganacht carried for life. The northern half was known as Leth Cuinn (‘Conn’s half’); this Conn was known as Conn Cét Chathach or ‘Conn of the hundred battles’.
Ireland’s Eye [50] lies about one mile from Howth, just north of Dublin Bay. Its area is about ten acres or half a square mile. The island has had a bevy of names, starting with Inis Ereann or the island of Éire, the goddess from whom Ireland is named. With the Danish influence it became Erin’s Ey, to the present Ireland’s Eye. In a Papal Bull from Alexander III to St Laurence O’Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, in 1179, it is described as Insula Filiorum Nessani, ‘the Island of the Sons of Nessan’, which was originally gaelicised as Inis mac Nessan. The ruin of the church on the island is known locally as Mac Nessan’s Church. A scriptorium presumably existed close to the church, as a copy of the four gospels was penned there in 690. It has two illuminated pages and is known as the Garland of Howth. The book was used to drive away evil spirits and as a swearing rite for making oaths. It can be seen today in Trinity College Dublin; perhaps the ‘Book of Ireland’s Eye’ would be a more appropriate title! The church is essentially a small oratory and was part of the early Irish Church which spread throughout Europe in the Dark Ages. The church is mentioned by George Petrie as belonging to the seventh century.
The oldest rocks on the island are from the Cambrian Age and are therefore more than 500 million years old. Both ends of the island have quartzite, but the north side of the island contains the main mass of this stone, a hard, sandstone rock of quartz grains cemented together by silica.
One may take an open boat from Howth Harbour to Ireland’s Eye, a journey of about fifteen minutes. The boat lands near the Martello Tower, which is on lower ground, and was built at the same time as the tower on Dalkey Island (see below). This tower was built by order of the Duke of York in 1803 as a lookout point and fortification against a Napoleonic invasion. On the east side there is a rock known as Puck’s Rock, with a cleft in it which is said to have been formed by the devil, and its lore is like that of the Devil’s Bit Mountain, a few miles north-west of Templemore, Co. Tipperary. Around here is a gannet colony, established in 1989. There are now a few hundred of these birds, and in time it may rival the vast colony on the Skelligs off the coast of Co. Kerry. As well as the gannets, breeding seabirds include kittiwakes, guillemots, fulmars, cormorants, shags and razorbills. There are also a few puffins; during winter, brent and greylag geese can be seen grazing the land. Indeed, with good eyesight or with a pair of binoculars one can see them from Howth Harbour. For a view of the nests it may be necessary to persuade the boatman to encircle the island, and if that happens, you may see seals as well.
Lambay Island [50] is situated about six miles north of Howth Head. The island is privately owned by the Revelstoke family and landing is not encouraged; when embarkation does take place, it is usually done from Rush Harbour, but if the weather is rough travelling takes place from the sheltered harbour of Lough Shinny. The island possesses the largest colony of cormorants in Ireland, and the second-largest colony of guillemots. In winter there are as many as 1,000 greylag geese on the island. Puffins can also be seen here. It is also home to a large colony of shag and herring gull. The Romans called the island Limnios, and Roman coins have been found on the nearby peninsula of Drumanagh on the mainland. The first Viking raid in Ireland occurred here in 795 AD. After the Battle of the Boyne in 1691, a fifteenth-century castle was used as a holding centre for the defeated Jacobite troops. This was converted into the present mansion about 1900. A shipping tragedy occurred on the east side of the island in 1854 when the Tayleur, a passenger ship of the White Star Line bound for Australia, floundered in shallow water and many passengers lost their lives. More than 100 are buried on the island.
Dalkey Island [50] is situated south of Dublin Bay, Co. Dublin. It covers an area of about twenty-five acres or a third of a mile by a third of a mile, and is less than half a mile from Coliemore Harbour, close to the village of Dalkey. The early name in Irish is Delginis Cualann. It is referred to in the twelfth-century Book of Leinster in the chapter concerning the sovereignty of Ireland:
7 Cumtach Delginsi Cualand la Setga.
And [a fort] at Dalkey Island was built by Setga.
Dealg (delg in Old Irish) means ‘a thorn’ or ‘a brooch’. It is to be found also in the village of Delgany, Co. Wicklow, and in Dundalk (Dún Delca), Co. Louth. It was an ancient custom for an important woman to encircle a piece of land prior to building on it, thus making it sacred. This custom goes all the way back to Medea and beyond. The pin or clasp on many brooches was often about a foot long. The present name of ‘Dalkey’ shows a Viking influence in that the suffix ey is Norse for island; this word appears again in Ireland’s Eye north of Howth Harbour (see above).
Dalkey’s ‘history’ begins in the Late Mesolithic Age about 7,000 years ago. Flint blades, which had long cutting edges and were possibly set in handles to be used for cutting and for whittling, were found at Dalkey Island, showing signs of habitation during Mesolithic times. Domesticated animal remains have been found on the island going back to these times, showing contact between hunter–gatherers and a farming community; Neolithic hollow scrapers and Bronze Age arrowheads have also been excavated.
Easily visible from the mainland is the church of St Begnet. Little is known of the saint, and the church has undergone many changes since her time. There are pilasters at each corner of the church and a lintel over the doorway. There is a fireplace at the east gable, apparently built for the workers who were constructing the nearby Martello tower between 1801 and 1803. The bell tower was possibly added during the fifteenth century. On a rock close to the west gable of the church is a rock with a circular or Greek cross incised upon it. This may be associated with the original settlement of St Begnet; another church associated with Begnet stands beside Dalkey Castle and Heritage Centre and is accessed through there.
KILDARE
Cill Dara, ‘church of the oak tree’
Kildare town [55] still celebrates the feast of imbolc on the eve of 1 February. Imbolc is referred to in Cormac’s Glossary as óimelc, or ‘sheep’s milk’ (Óimeilg .i. Is í aimser andsin tic as cárach melg. i.ass arinni mblegar, ‘at this time the sheep comes for the purpose of milking’); this ancient event became in time contemporaneous with the old pagan festival celebrating the first day of spring. As the festival is believed to have been at first connected with shepherding, it is understandable that a sheep was part of the ritual. It finds its origins in Greece and beyond, where it is associated with Pan, and in ancient Rome, where it is associated with the festival of the Lupercalia. This latter festival was held on 15 February: during it goats and dogs were sacrificed, and their skins were cut up and twisted into thongs with which women would run through the streets striking all in the hope that the gods of fertility would be propitious towards them. The place where the festival was held was called the Lupercal and was situated at the foot of the Palatine Hill. It contained an image of Lupercus covered with a goat’s skin.
The early Christian Church responded to the Lupercalia with the Feast of Lights, also known as Candlemas. This festival took place on 2 February. Processing through towns with waxed candles which had been blessed in the church was the answer to the torches people carried through the streets of Rome even centuries after the arrival of Christianity.
An important part of the rites during the feast of Imbolc centred on fire, and the pit in which it was begun still exists within the grounds of Kildare Cathedral. This pit no longer contains fire at Imbolc, but the fires and festivities connected with Brigit now continue outside the church gates. The goddess associated with the rites at Imbolc is Brigit, whose name has been translated as breo-shaighead or ‘arrow of fire’; as Brigit is the goddess of fertility, her symbol is fire represented by her sun symbol, Brigit’s Cross. The sacred fire of Brigit was kept alight from pre-Christian times until it was extinguished by the Normans in the twelfth century. This fire, which may originally have been looked after by vestal virgins, was protected by nuns after the Christian Brigit became Abbess of Kildare in the sixth century. It is recorded in the Historia Pontificalis that these nuns took precedence over the bishops until the papal envoy directed otherwise in 1151. As Brigit was the goddess of éicse or divination, and was thus associated with supernatural knowledge, her centre, which stood at the heart of present-day Kildare town, was presumably enclosed within an oak wood.
Five miles north-east of Kildare town on the R415 is the Hill of Allen [49], standing 676 feet high. A large part of it has been quarried, and the erection of a monument in the late nineteenth century nearly destroyed the ancient mound at the summit of the hill. Its ancient name was Almu, who was the wife of Nuadu. Legend says that they were both buried on the hill. In the Dindshenchas,* there are twenty-two verses to Almu, three of which are given here to help with an early understanding of the place:
Almu rop alaind in ben
ben Nuadat móir mic Aiched
rachunig, ba fír in dál,
a ainm ar in cnocc comlán ...
FIGURE 13. An earlier form of Brigit’s Cross known as a triskel – a symbol of the sun.
Almu, beautiful was the woman!
the wife of Nuadu Mór, son of Achi;
she entreated—just was the reward—
that her name should be on the entire hill.
Nuadu the druid was a fierce man;
by him was built a fort strong and high:
by him alum was rubbed on the rock
over the whole fort after it was marked out.
All white is the fort (bitter strife),
as it had received the lime of all Erin,
from the alum he put on his house,
thence is Almu so named.
[Translated by Edward Gwynn]
The Hill of Allen was originally a síd where the Otherworld, ruled by Nuadu, was located. The naming of the hill is further contested by the piece of verse which states that ‘Almu is the name of the man who got the place in the time of Nemed’, while another extract from the poem alludes to a woman ‘from whom Almu is so called’; a name ending in ‘u’ signifies a goddess, and Almu is named as the wife of Nuadu, also a deity.
The hill also has a strong association with Finn mac Cumhail*; according to the Dindshenchas,* Muirne, the granddaughter of Nuadu, married Cumall (although in truth she was carried off by Cumall in an act that led to the Battle of Castleknock – see the section on Dublin) and their eldest son was Finn. The hill was granted to Finn by his mother and became his chief seat and that of the Fianna.* Finn was watched over by an Otherworld woman known as a bean faith or fée; this blending of the mythological cycle with the Fenian cycle is a product of eleventh- and twelfth-century storytellers plying their craft to create a romantic set of tales.
This sacred hill became a centre of the Fianna* and not, as some suggest, a possible seat for the Kings of Leinster. O’Donovan wrote in 1837: ‘I traversed the hill but could find upon it no monuments from which it could be inferred that it was ever a royal seat.’ It is easier to see Almhain during the third century AD as the centre for the Fianna who represented the military wing of the Kings of Leinster, who were based at Dún Aillinne (Knockaulin) [55] less than ten miles south (discussed below).
A number of battles were fought here, but the most detailed is the battle of Almhain fought between Fergal mac Maelduin, King of Ulster at Grianán of Ailech, and Murchadh mac Brain, King of Leinster, over the bóraime, a tribute imposed on the Leinster men by the King of Tara. The payment was in cattle, and its imposition was for generations a cause of domestic warfare. Whether or not Fergal saw himself as a King of Tara is a moot point, but he left his fortress in present-day Donegal and travelled south-east to claim what he felt was a just tribute. According to ancient historians, the battle, in which Fergal was defeated, was the ‘fiercest ever fought in Ireland’. According to the Annals of the Four Masters, 160 Ulstermen were killed at this battle:
At mid-day at Almhain,
in defence of the cows of Breaghmhainé
a red-mouthed beaked vulture raised
a shout of exultation over the head of Fergal.
Murchadh put off his former disability,
many a brave man did he cut to the ground;
he turned his arms against Fergal,
with his immense body of Fianna at Almhain.
[Translated by John O’Donovan]
In this battle there is reference made to musicians being in the train of the king while the king was pursuing warfare. The instruments played were harps and pipes [cúisech]. The Druid’s Shout or Géim Druadh was a chant which was performed at the Battle of Almhain.
Murchadh’s kingdom extended to Breaghmainé, which is in Meath; the Ua Brains kingdom extended to Meath at that time. The mac Brans are an east Ulster family and take their name from the raven, that is, ‘Bran’, the Irish for the said bird.
Ten miles south-east of the Hill of Allen and two miles south-west of Kilcullen on the N78 is Knockaulin (Dún Ailinne), the royal seat of Leinster. It is a large hillfort with the bank outside the ditch or fosse, where the earthen rampart of the fort still surrounds its summit. Having the ditch on the inside gives credence to the probability that Knockaulin was a royal enclosure of assembly and ceremonial activities. The fort, which covers nearly forty acres, lasted from the Late Bronze Age through to the Iron Age and up to the Middle Ages. Excavation revealed that a large, circular, wooden structure probably existed within the enclosure. The defences are built on a steep hill slope to strengthen the fort against attack. Evidence of Neolithic occupation has been found here, and the discovery of glass beads, coarse pottery and a sword of the La Tène type is evidence that habitation existed here during the second century BC, the Early Iron Age. Although O’Rahilly has conjectured that Dind Ríg is a possible site for Ptolemy’s Dunon, Dún Ailinne must also be considered as a serious candidate for this honour.
Ederscél, who was King of Ireland for five years, was slain at Dún Ailinne by Nuadu Necht, a king with strong associations with the Hill of Allen. Ederscél’s father was Eógan, a grandson of Oilill Olum, who reigned for five years as King of Ireland. His son was Conaire Mór, and he also reigned as King of Ireland. Nuadu may have been connected to the Nodons from the River Severn, and thus the slaying of Ederscél may well have been the result of an invasionary force. They may have stemmed the flow of the Munster clans under Ederscél. These places present fragmentary historical evidence from a people living during the Iron Age. The name Nuadu figures prominently both here and at Almu, ten miles over, may well have been applied to sons, grandsons and so on, so that the progenitor’s name was held through many generations. During the Late Iron Age, Finn mac Cumhail* kills Nuadu, who has by now become a god with his síd at Almhain.
The óenach or fair at Carman possibly tells us more about the early history of Kildare, and by extension, Leinster than any other place in Leinster apart from Tara, which was a kingdom unto itself. Generally it was seen as being located on the Plain of the Liffey (Magh Life). The River Liffey runs nine miles through Wicklow, nine miles through County Dublin and thirty-one miles through Kildare.
The following verse includes noted places connected to the fair at Carman:
The noble Aillinn he shall inhabit,
The famous Carman he shall obtain;
He shall rule over the venerable Almhain,
The impregnable Nas he shall strengthen.
The above verse is part of the will of Cathair Mór, King of Leinster, in the second century, and is addressed to his son Fiacha, the progenitor of most of the subsequent Kings of Leinster.
In the Críth Gablach (laws of settlement or agreement) it is stated that every king is expected to hold an óenach for the people of his túath. Other laws stress the duty of the king to have the site for the óenach cleared and prepared. The legal sources do not explicitly say so, but it is generally agreed that the óenach was held in early August, corresponding with the Feast of Lughnasa.
