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Two miles west of the city of Armagh lies an earthen fort known as the “Navan Ring.” This is all that remains of the renowned palace of the Pagan Kings of Ulster, the real name of which was Emain Macha, which has been Latinised Emania, and corrupted into Navan.

After Tara, Emania is the most historic spot of Irish soil. No other place in all Ireland, Tara only excepted, is so often mentioned in the historic and romantic tales that have been preserved in such abundance in ancient Gaelic. Emania is the great centre of that wondrous cycle of legend, history, and song known as the Cuchullainn cycle of Celtic literature. Every tale and legend in it refer more or less to Emania. It is curious that while hardly any of the treasures of ancient Irish manuscript literature we possess were compiled in Ulster, there is hardly a page of them, no matter in what province they were originally composed, that does not mention this now almost obliterated stronghold of the Ulster kings. The “Book of Leinster” was compiled in Kildare or in Glendoloch, and for nearly a thousand years, or from the imposition of the Leinster Tribute early in the second century down to the time of Brian Boramha, Leinster and Ulster were inveterate enemies, yet the “Book of Leinster” teems with mention of Emania. Even in the great manuscript books compiled in Connacht and Munster, the name of Emania occurs next in frequency to that of Tara.

So far as can be gathered from the most authentic sources, the palace of Emain Macha, or Emania, was erected by the over-king Cimboath, about five hundred years before the Incarnation. It continued to be the seat of the Ulster kings down to A.D. 331, when it was destroyed by the three Collas, chieftains of the race of the over-kings of Ireland from a hostile province, that made war on Ulster. The destruction of Emania is recorded by the Four Masters under the year 331, when Fergus, King of Ulster, was defeated and slain by the three Collas. Emania was burned, and the ancient dynasty that had so long ruled the province of Ulster was destroyed. Emania may be said to have been a desolation since then; for though we are told that one of the O’Neill’s built a house within the ruins of the fort in 1387, no vestige of it now remains, and it is not probable that it was long in existence.

None of the ancient palaces or great duns of ancient Ireland shows such utter desolation, or bears evidence of having been so uprooted as does Emania. The great fosse by which it was once surrounded is entirely obliterated save on the west side, where it is nearly twenty feet in depth. Much as Tara has been obliterated, its monuments are more easily traced than are those of Emania. The county Meath seems to have been a grazing country almost from time immemorial. This saved Tara from being entirely uprooted; but the country round this ancient seat of the Ulster kings is essentially agricultural; it is mostly in the possession of small farmers owning from ten to twenty acres; consequently they have levelled most of the great circular embankments that formerly enclosed an area of nearly a dozen acres, and have filled up most of the deep fosse which, if we can judge by the small part of it that still remains, must have been, when Emania was in its glory, between twenty and thirty feet deep. So potatoes are growing and corn is waving over a large extent of the inside of the fortress, where vast wooden buildings once stood, and where mirth and revelry and clash of arms once resounded.

Mons. Darbois de Jubainville, the eminent French archæologist and Celtic scholar, made an exhaustive examination of Emania some years ago. He found that the area within the original enclosure was four and a half hectares, or between eleven and twelve English acres in extent, and that the space enclosed was nearly circular. Like Tara, the buildings in Emania must have been almost entirely of wood. Some of them may, like many of the wooden houses in America, have been built on stone foundations, and there are some traces of stone-work still to be seen. There is a magnificent passage in the Féilere of Oengus the Culdee, written about A.D. 800, in which the greatness and glory of the Christian cities of Ireland are contrasted with the state of utter desolation into which the strongholds of the Pagan kings had fallen. Speaking of Emania he says—

“Emain’s burgh hath vanished

Save that its stones remain;

The Rome of the western world

Is multitudinous Glendaloch.”

There is no doubt that the ruins of Emania were in a much better state of preservation when Oengus wrote, nearly eleven hundred years ago, than they are in at present, and it is certain that many of its stones have been carried away to build walls and houses. But it is also quite certain that neither in Ireland, Great Britain, or in any northern country, were stone buildings general in ancient times, and we may be sure that when Emania was at the height of its splendour its best and largest buildings were of wood.

The area of eleven or twelve acres that was once surrounded by a deep fosse and high embankment, and within which all the buildings of Emania were erected, is not quite circular, nor is its surface level. Considerable inequality of surface evidently existed in it before it was chosen for the site of palace or dun. The highest part within the enclosure is a good deal removed from its centre, and it was evidently on it that the citadel stood. There was a dun within a dun, as there generally was in all ancient Irish fortresses of any great extent. The citadel having been on the highest ground within the enclosure, commanded a view of the surrounding country for a considerable distance. Emania, when at its best, with its vast surrounding fosse and high earthen rampart, capped with a strong fence of wood, might, if properly provisioned and manned, defy almost any army that could be brought against it in ancient times when firearms were unknown.

It is for the antiquarian rather than for the seeker of the picturesque that Emania will ever have the most attraction. There is nothing very striking from a scenic point of view in its environs. Its present shockingly uprooted condition, and the almost total lack of interest the peasantry living in its immediate vicinity take in it, have a depressing effect on anyone interested in Irish literature, history, or antiquities. During the writer’s last visit to this historic spot he met a small farmer whose potatoes were planted over part of the obliterated fosse and rampart of this famous stronghold of Ulster. He had never heard of King Connor MacNessa, of Connall Carnach, of Cuchullainn, or of the Red Branch Knights. He knew no more about them than about the heroes of ancient China. He said that he “ever an’ always hard that the Navan Ring was built by the Danes.” This man had been born and bred in the locality, but he took no more interest in the historic spot that had given him birth than if he were a Hottentot instead of an Irishman. Anglicisation has indeed been carried to an extreme pitch in most parts of Ireland, and is rapidly turning the Irish peasant into the most generally uninteresting, prosy, and least spirituel of mortals. As a rule, the more Anglicised he becomes the more intolerable he is. If the peasantry living round Emania had preserved their native language, while at the same time knowing English, if they were bilingual, like millions of their class in different European countries, many things connected with the history of this celebrated place would be known to them; but having lost the link that bound them to the past, they are like a new race in a new country. It is well known that the masses of the Greek peasantry, notwithstanding that a large percentage of them are illiterate, know more about the history and traditions of their country than any Irishman, save a specialist, knows about the history and traditions of Ireland. In very few European countries will such a knowledge of its past be found among the masses as in Greece, and principally because the Greeks have preserved their language.

Although Tara is more ancient and more historic than Emania, the latter place is connected with the most pathetic, the most dramatic, and most generally beautiful tale in all the vast mass of ancient Gaelic literature—“The Fate of the Children of Uisneach.” It was in Emania that their betrayer and murderer, Connor, King of Ulster, lived; it was there that they themselves were killed, and it was there that Deirdre died. The tale appeared almost a century ago in a book brought out by a Gaelic Society that then existed in Dublin. The Irish text was given, with a translation by Theopholus O’Flanagan. It was thought by some that he had no ancient copy of the tale, and that he might have embellished it, for he did not say from what manuscript he had taken it. The story, as given in the “Book of Leinster,” while agreeing in the main with O’Flanagan’s version, is not nearly of such literary value as his, and is not more than one quarter the length. But all doubts as to the existence of an ancient version of the story given by O’Flanagan have been removed, for an ancient copy of it, supposed to be of the fourteenth century, was found some years ago in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh, and has been edited and translated by Mr. Whitley Stokes. It may be seen in Windische’s Irische Texte. It agrees almost exactly with the version given by O’Flanagan. It would be hard to give a clearer proof of the utter neglect with which Celtic literature has heretofore been treated, than by a statement of the fact that there are not probably a hundred persons living, at least of the literary class, who have read this wondrously beautiful tale of the Children of Uisneach. For pathos, dramatic power, and pure poetry it would be hard to get anything in the way of romance superior to it. If such a literary gem existed in the literature of any European language but Irish, if such existed even in Arabic or Persian, it would be known to literary people almost all over the world. But how can people of other nations be blamed for their ignorance of Gaelic literature when the Irish themselves are more indifferent about it than the Germans or the French? A text and translation of the “Fate of the Children of Uisneach” is sorely wanted—not merely as a text for scholars, but for the people at large. When such appears it will make a visit to Emania infinitely more interesting; for, after reading such a pathetic tale, he would indeed be hard-hearted and unsympathetic that would not, if he could find where she was buried, shed a tear over the grave of Deirdre. The very fine poem by the late Doctor Robert Dwyer Joyce, published in Boston, America, in 1877, was the only attempt ever made to popularise the story of the Children of Uisneach and the fate of the unfortunate but true and noble Deirdre.

The country in the vicinity of Emania, while containing no striking objects of scenic interest, is, at the same time, picturesque and beautiful. Southern Ulster, even where it is not mountainous, is usually most varied and interesting in its general features. It is essentially a land of hills and valleys; but the hills are never so high that they cannot be cultivated, and the best land is sometimes found on their very tops. The country round Emania is extremely broken, hill and valley are on every side. It is generally, like most parts of Ulster, well cultivated. There are many antiquarian curiosities in the neighbourhood of this ancient fortress. Some of the most perfect Druid circles in Ireland are in its vicinity. There is a very remarkable one about a mile from it which a thrifty farmer has turned into a haggard. It encloses about quarter of an acre of ground. The stones of which it is composed stand about four feet over the surface, and must average nearly a ton each in weight. But vandalism is strong in the vicinity, for it is only a short time since another splendid Druid circle, nearly as large as the one mentioned, was torn down, and its stones broken to mend roads withal. Thus are many of the relics of ancient Erin disappearing before the march of denationalisation.

Those who live in the vicinity of Emania tell many stories about the finding of treasure-trove close to and in this ancient fortress. According to them, gold ornaments of great value were found by some persons many years ago who suddenly became rich, much to the surprise of their neighbours. Those ornaments were, of course, melted down, and like hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of similar articles found in almost every part of Ireland, never found their way to any museum, and are lost to the country for ever. There can hardly be any doubt that some very valuable articles in gold have been found near Emania.

One of the most interesting instances of the long survival of a place name is to be found adjacent to this celebrated spot. Most Irish persons have heard of the Red Branch Knights. Moore has immortalised them in his exquisite lyric, “Let Erin Remember the Days of Old.” Few believe that such an institution as the Red Branch Knights ever existed. It is generally looked on as a bardic fable; but there is a townland close to Emania which is still called Creeve Roe, in correct orthography, Craobh Ruadh, which means Red Branch. The preservation of this place name for nearly two thousand years cannot be regarded as an accident. It goes far to prove that the Red Branch Knights did exist, and that the townland took its name from them. This extraordinarily long survival of a place name, the historic fame and antiquity of the locality, lend a supreme interest to this ruined stronghold, which, centuries after its glories had vanished, Gaelic bards used still to call “Emania the Golden.”

Ardmagh is so near Emania, only two miles from it, that one place could hardly be described without saying something about the other. Its ancient name was Ardmacha, meaning the height of Macha. This Macha was queen, or at least ruler, of that part of the country in far-back pagan times. It was also from her that Emain Macha, or Emania, was named. Ardmagh was founded by St Patrick in the year 457. A man named Daire, chief of the district, is said, in the “Annals of the Four Masters,” to have given Patrick the site on which the city is built. Patrick appointed twelve men to build the town, and ordered them to erect an archbishop’s city there, and churches for the different religious orders. It seems strange that the saint should have chosen Ardmagh for the site of the chief religious establishment in Ireland. Emania had been ruined and desolated in the previous century, but it is evident that it was the fame of the ancient stronghold of Ulster that induced Patrick to choose its immediate vicinity as a site for his new Christian city, because Emania had been for so many centuries previous the political centre of the province, and, next to Tara, the chief political centre of Ireland. Of the old ecclesiastical buildings of Ardmagh, not a vestige remains. Some of its new ones are, however, magnificent. The new Catholic cathedral is the finest building of its kind in Ireland. It is hardly to be wondered at that none of the ancient buildings of Ardmagh should remain, for of all towns in Ireland, it was burned, plundered, and razed the oftenest. In the course of the two centuries and a half ending in 1080, it was plundered and wholly or partially burned twelve times by the Danes. No other city in Ireland seems to have suffered so much from the Northmen. Turgesius, the Danish king, captured it and lived there for some years. The present city is one of the most picturesque towns of its size in Ireland, but it is not growing much. It once had a good linen trade, but since the introduction of cotton fabrics, its linen trade has entirely ceased.