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About archaeological findings in Ireland as well as old places there
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The Children of the Mermaid
Enniscrone, Co. Sligo
A mermaid found a swimming lad,Picked him up for her own,Pressed her body to his body,Laughed; and plunging downForgot in cruel happinessThat even lovers drown.W. B. Yeats, “The Mermaid,” 19281
Click to explore the Children of the Mermaid site in virtual reality.
The seven stones traditionally known as the Children of the Mermaid are on private land and often are
completely obscured in the brush. It is for this reason that by some accounts the legend associated
with them has migrated, as did the mermaid in the story below, to a different group of stones at the
tidemark on the beach below.2
The original stones, which may be seen in the virtual-reality environment at the left, are a group of six
boulders and an outlier. These may have been originally associated with an adjacent mound called
Cruchancornia, with a ditch and an outer bank. These may date from the late Bronze Age or the early
Iron Age. The stones are not considered an alignment, as they do not seem to be arranged in any
particular pattern.3
There are other stones featured in Voices from the Dawn that, in legend, were once human beings. In
Co. Wicklow, the Athgreany Piper’s Stones were believed to be dancers punished for violating the
Sabbath. But the stones on this seaside bluff in Co. Sligo were not, in legend, people accused of any
profanity. Rather, it was just a family of seven innocent children.
The story is one still repeated by members of the ancestral clan of the area, the O’Dowds (O Dubhda).
It’s now found within online genealogical forums4 and websites assembled by local school
children.5 The earliest version in print may be the one by W.G. Wood-Martin, who wrote in 1888 that
the legend was “still recounted by the country people.”6
In old days, when the O’Dowds were Lords of Tireragh, the then chief, when walking early in the morning along the sea-shore, discovered amongst the rocks a mermaid lying asleep, enveloped in a gorgeous mantle, Now everybody—or at least everybody in that locality—knows that if one can only get possession of this special article of a sea-nymph’s costume she at once loses her aquatic nature both as regards form and disposition, and degenerates into an ordinary mortal!O’Dowd, therefore, stepped forward stealthily, and became the happy possessor of the magic mantle. In this case the wooing was not long in doing, for the chief took the metamorphosed nymph home as his bride, and carefully concealed the gorgeous garment.
Some of the mermaid's children are hidden in the brush.
Retribution, however, finally overtook him. His seven children were nearly grown to maturity, when, one day his youngest born saw him abstract the mantle from its hiding-place to deposit it where he imagined it would be still more secure. The youth, struck by the manner in which—as he gazed on it—the garment flashed, glistened, and changed hues—ran off to describe its beauties to his mother, who, thereupon seized with a sudden yearning to return to her native element, inquired where her husband had left it. On resuming possession of her long-lost garment she bade her children follow her to the sea-shore, and being now reendowed with all the attributes of a mermaid, she touched each of her children in succession with her magic wand, and thus changed them into seven stones, while she herself plunged into the ocean, and has never again been seen in Tireagh.7
In a coda to the story, found on an “ancestry.com” web site, the tale ends with “Did the youngest child
drown? Maybe not. There seems to be lots of O’Dowds around, and they are known to be quite fond of
fresh fish.”8
"What's your name, my darling," says Dick.
This may be the only megalithic monument in Ireland connected to the mermaid, or merrow, in
Irish murúch. However Crofton Croker related a similar legend in 1834: “The Lady of Gollerus.” In this
tale, the man seizes the mermaid’s cohuleen driuth, her enchanted red cap, which makes her unable
to return to the sea. This story has a happier ending: when the mermaid finds her cap and returns to
the deep, she leaves her children behind to live out their lives on land. (See illustration from the book,
left.)9
The story of the mermaid’s transformation has parallels in many different folk traditions, as well as
within the Disney vault. The Faroe Islanders believe that every ninth evening a seal would shed its
skin, assume a woman’s form, and dance through the night. If a man chanced to come by while the
creature was dancing, and seized its skin, he would have a wife. Until, of course, she happened to find
her skin and use it to return to her briny home. A similar tale is told on the Shetland Islands. In Ireland,
Crofton-Croker explains, some families in Kerry (O’Flahertys and O’Sullivans) actually believed that
they were descended from marriages between men and Merrow.10 This may have been an effort of
these important Anglo-Norman families to legitimize their political aspirations by combining the
Continental “seal woman” tale with the more Gaelic notion of a mythical clan goddess.11 W.B. Yeats
offers a further explanation of these folk beliefs:
The Merrow…from muir, sea, and oigh, a maid, is not uncommon, they say, on the wilder coasts. The fishermen do not like to see them, for it always means coming gales. The male Merrows…have green teeth, green hair, pig’s eyes, and red noses; but their women are beautiful, for all their fish tails and the little duck-like scale between their fingers. Sometimes they prefer, small blame to them, good-looking fishermen to their sea lovers. Near Bantry in the last century, there is said to have been a woman covered all over with scales like a fish, who was descended from such a marriage. Sometimes they come out of the sea, and wander about the shore…12
Click here for all the notes from this page.
The Children of the Mermaid, Co. Sligo
Nearest Town: Enniscrone (Inishcrone)
Townland: Scurmore
Latitude: 54° 11′ 35.26″ N
Longitude: 9° 6′ 51.24″ W
Clochafarmore Standing Stone
Knockbridge, Co. Louth
Cúchulainn and his friends are historical characters, seen as it were through mists of love and wonder, whom men could not forget, but for centuries continued to celebrate in countless songs and stories. They were not literary phantoms, but actual existences; imaginary and fictitious characters, mere creatures of idle fancy, do not live and flourish so in the world’s memory.
Standish O’Grady, The Coming of Cuculain, 18941
There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.
David Eagleman, Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, 20092
Click on the image to explore the Clochafarmore Stone in virtual reality.
The ancient monuments considered in these pages were likely inspired by extraordinary individuals.
They must have led lives of considerable importance for them to be memorialized by these imposing
megalithic structures. Is it not likely that their names were still spoken many years after their deaths?
Now, a few thousand years afterwards, there are still tales told about these monuments, and the
warriors, witches, or giants whose deeds they commemorate or whose remains they shelter. These
stories create, at least in the abstract, a continuation of the folk memory of the person buried in the
tomb. These “voices from the dawn” are, within David Eagleman’s construct, the words that postpone
that awful final death, when the name of the deceased is never again uttered.
The tragic end of Cúchulainn, the half-human, half-supernatural hero of the armies of Ulster in the Táin
Bó Cúailnge3 is a case in point. This 3 m (10 ft) tall standing stone is known as Clochafarmore, or the
Big Man’s Stone. According to legend, the mortally wounded Cúchulainn bound himself to this pillar,
standing tall to keep his enemies at bay until the moment of his death.
One knows one will be long forgetting Cúchulainn, whose life is vehement and full of pleasure, as though he always remembered that it was to be soon over.4The story of the death of Cúchulainn has provided a metaphor for the resolve of the Irish nation. A
1911 sculpture of the hero (below, right), bound to his standing stone, occupies a prominent spot at
the General Post Office in Dublin, a hallowed scene of battle during the ill-fated Easter Rising of 1916.
The Dying Cuchulain (1911) by Oliver Sheppard, at the GPO, Dublin
Paradoxically, the same champion provides heroic imagery for those who were the fiercest opponents
of the fight for Irish independence in 1916. Wall murals painted in the Unionist enclaves of Belfast (see
photo in gallery) evoked Cúchulainn, the Hound of Ulster,5 in their resolve to remain forever British.
Cúchulainn was born of a noble mother, Deichtine, the sister of the king who ruled Ulster from its
capital at Emain Macha(Navan Fort). Cúchulainn‘s father, however, was the god Lug, who entertained
Deichtine at his home in Newgrange, the great mound at Brú na Bóinne (the Palace of the Boyne).6
While still a child, Cúchulainn overheard the Chief Druid explaining to his pupils that whoever took up
arms that particular day would be famous in Ireland forever. Cúchulainn immediately ran off to enlist
as a warrior. He did not stay to hear the rest of the druid’s explanation—that while his name would live
forever, his life would be short. When he discovered this, Cúchulainn replied, “Provided that I shall be
famous I do not care if I last in this world for only a single day.”7
When Cúchulainn was growing out of his boyhood at Emain Macha, all the women of Ulster loved him for his skill in feats, for the lightness of his leap, for the weight of his wisdom, for the sweetness of his speech, for the beauty of his face, for the loveliness of his looks, for all his gifts. He had the gift of caution in fighting, until such time as his anger would come on him, and the hero light would shine about his head; the gift of feats, the gift of chess-playing, the gift of draught-playing, the gift of counting, the gift of divining, the gift of right judgment, the gift of beauty.8
Click to see in high resolution.
In the Iron Age culture in which these stories are placed, around the first century CE, battle weapons
included the sling, in which Cúchulainn had acquired great skill. But his most extraordinary weapon
was his horrible spear, called the Gáe Bulga, which its victim could not extract from the wound. Thus it
was always fatal.9 The Gáe Bulga would ultimately prove to be the hero’s undoing.
At the age of seven Cúchulainn was returning home from a great battle, in which he had taken many
heads. Unfortunately, he was still possessed by his “battle-rage,” in which he could not control his
super-human martial powers, and could not distinguish friend from foe. The men of Ulster {the “Ulaid”)
devised a plan to bring him back to normalcy. First, they sent out 130 bare-breasted women, causing
him to avert his eyes in modesty. Then they grabbed him and plunged him into a vat of cold water,
which immediately exploded. They plunged him into a second vat, which quickly boiled over. Finally,
when they put him into a third vat, it merely became hotter than the average person could bear. “But
the ‘fury’ had then left him.”10
Cúchulainn’s “battle-rage” (also “warp-spasm,” or “berserker’s frenzy”) was the signature behavior
that would today provide him marquee status as a superhero. Like some Incredible Hulk of the Iron
Age, he would become a fearsome shape-shifter when his “…anger came on him, and the flames of
the hero light began to shine about his head…and he lost the appearance of a man, and what was on
him was the appearance of a god.”11
In The Táin, his 1969 translation of the traditional tales, Thomas Kinsella conveys the power of this
horrible transformation:
The first warp-spasm seized Cúchulainn, and made him into a monstrous thing, hideous and shapeless, unheard of. His shanks and his joints, every knuckle and angle and organ from head to foot, shook like a tree in the flood or a reed in the stream. His body made a furious twist inside his skin, so that his feet and shins and knees switched to the rear and his heels and calves switched to the front…His face and features became a red bowl : he sucked one eye so deep into his head that a wild crane could not probe it onto his cheek out of the depths of his skull; the other eye fell out along his cheek…
His heart boomed loud in his breast like the baying of a watch-dog at its feed or the sound of a lion among bears.12When Cúchulainn finally came to his end, it was not due to any diminishing of his ferocious skills of
battle. Rather it was a combination of trickery and magic that led him to his final hour, bleeding and
bound to the Clochafarmore Stone in this field near what would become the town of Knockbridge in Co.
Louth.
His life-long enemies gathered to conspire against him. Chief among them was Lugaid, whose father,
Cú Roí, was killed by Cúchulainn at his mountaintop fortress of Caherconree. There were other men
as well, men made fatherless by the warrior prowess of Cúchulainn.
In the formulaic chivalry of these tales, fighters were bound by certain geasa, or taboos. For
Cúchulainn, there were two geasa that created for him a quandary he could not avoid. He could never
refuse any hospitality that was offered him, and he could never eat the meat of a dog. Thus, when he
encountered three one-eyed hags who invited him to join them at their feast of roast dog, he was
forced to break one or the other of his geasa. After his first a bite of the dog meat the strength drained
out of one side of his body.
When the battle began, it first seemed that Cúchulainn would again prevail, as he always had before:
…Cúchulainn came against them in his chariot, doing his three thunder feats, and he used his spear and his sword in such a way, that their heads, and their hands, and their feet, and their bones, were scattered through the plain of Muirthemne, like the sands on the shore, like the stars in the sky, like the dew in May, like snow-flakes and hailstones, like leaves of the trees, like buttercups in a meadow, like grass under the feet of cattle on a fine summer day.13
"So stood Cuculainn, even in death's pangs a terror to his enemies and the bulwark of his nation." (P. Tuohy,
1919)
He then encountered a Druid, in league with Lugaid, who asked Cúchulainn for his enchanted spear.
When the hero initially refused, the Druid threatened to compose a poem that would satirize him for
his lack of generosity. At this, Cúchulainn relented, and killed him with his spear. This, however,
allowed Lugaid to obtain the weapon, and with it put an end to Láeg, Cúchulainn s faithful chariot
driver.
Afterwards, another Druid deployed the same ruse, giving his life so that Lugaid could again get his
hands on the Gáe Bulga, and with it kill the Grey of Macha, Cúchulainn’s “king of horses.” Then, the
last of Lugaid’s Druids, again using his trickery, goaded the hero into skewering him with the magical
spear.
‘You do your kindness unkindly, Cúchulainn,’ said the Druid, as he fell. Then Cúchulainn drove for the last time through the host, and Lugaid took the spear, and he said: ‘Who will fall by this spear, children of Calatin?’ ‘A king will fall by it,’ said they…Then Lugaid threw the spear, and it went through and through Cúchulainn’s body, and he knew he had got his deadly wound; and his bowels came out on the cushions of the chariot, and his only horse went away…and left his master, the king of the heroes of Ireland, to die upon the plain of Muirthemne.14Cúchulainn, mortally wounded, received Lugaid‘s permission to quench his thirst in the nearby lake,
promising to return. He then saw near the lake a tall pillar stone, marking the grave of a warrior slain
there in some ancient battle. He staggered to the stone, and removed his girdle and used its cords to
bind himself to the pillar. With his dying breath he gave a great sigh, forming the crack in the stone
that may be seen today.15 From a distance, his enemies were watching him.
So afar they retreated, when they beheld him standing with the drawn sword in his hand, and the rays of the setting sun bright on his panic-striking helmet. So stood Cúchulainn, even in death pangs a terror to his enemies and the bulwark of his nation.16It was three days later when the Morrígan, Celtic goddess of war and fertility, appeared as a raven and
landed on his shoulder. Only then did his enemies believe that he was dead, and dared to approach
him. But as Lugaid went over to the Clochafarmore Stone to cut off the head of his vanquished enemy,
the “hero-light” burned around Cúchulainn one last time, and his sword fell from his grip. As it fell, it
severed the hand of Lugaid. And only then was Cúchulainn’s hero-light finally extinguished. With his
one remaining hand Lugaid was able to take the head of Cúchulainn.
"Cuchulain in Battle", 1911, by Joseph Christian Leyendecker
Lugaid may have intended to take his prize away with him as a gift for Queen Maeve at
Rathcroghan. But Cúchulainn’s death was quickly avenged by his brother-in-arms, Conall Cernach,
who killed Lugaid and took the head and the right hand of Cúchulain and buried them at Tara, “with his
shield’s fill of earth being used to cover them.” Cúchulainn, the Hero of Ulster, died in his 27th year.17
The various stories of Cúchulainn and the other tales of the Ulster Cycle come from manuscripts dating
from the twelfth century or earlier. It is believed that the stories themselves were almost always
known from older sources. For example, the story of Cúchulainn’s birth is from Lebor na hUidre (The
Book of the Dun Cow, c. 1106), where it is claimed that the story originated in a lost text,The Book of
Druim Snechta, said to date from the eighth or ninth century.18
The Ulster Cycle historically was the literature of the aristocracy and the clergy. By the eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries, when Cúchulainn appears at all in popular folktales it is as a caricature of
the hero of the original stories, perhaps even as a stupid or pompous giant. But by the time of the
Gaelic Revival in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Cúchulainn of the Iron Age was
re-emerging. The original spirit of the stories of the Ulster Cycle were being presented to a new
audience, with translations and re-workings of the material by Lady Gregory, W.B. Yeats, Standish
O’Grady and, more recently Thomas Kinsella andCiaran Carson. Some of these are excerpted
here.19
Nearby the Clochafarmore Stone in the 1920s someone found an ancient bronze spearhead.20 Could
this have been evidence of the long-ago battle? Unfortunately the spearhead was given to the parish
priest for safekeeping rather than to a museum. It was subsequently lost. Is it possible that the
legendary hero tales of Cúchulainn were based, at least in part, on folk-memories of the exploits of one
or more flesh-and-blood Iron Age warriors? It is not easy to say. It may be just as likely that his
character was invented in the early years of the Christian era so as to provide Ireland with a
mythological analog for the classical Achilles.
While the personages may not have been real, there is no argument about the certainty of the places.
The Clochafarmore Stone, in its hard-edged reality, most likely was erected as a memorial of some
sort. Its naming, however, was a part of the “topographic preoccupation,” to use Kinsella’s phrase, that
was characteristic of early and medieval Irish writing.21 The Dindsenchas manuscripts of early Irish
literature are the explanations of place names. In modern Irish, the word dinnseanchas means
“topography.”
In the fourth century CE, St. Helena traveled throughout the Holy Land designating particular locations
to be forever identified with the stories of the Bible. Was there a similar process underway in Ireland
during the early Medieval period, with the authors of the place-name stories traveling about the
countryside seeking ancient stones and tombs that might provide a grounded verisimilitude for the
appropriate legendary personage?
The region of Rathiddy Townland where the Clochafarmore Stone sits was referred to in the Ulster
Cycle as An Breisleach Mor, “The Great Carnage.” The gently rolling area of the pillar stone is still
known locally as the “Field of Slaughter.”22
So how has Cúchulainn fared, using David Eagleman’s allocation of “three deaths” for each person?
Has he managed to stave off his ultimate demise, when his “name is spoken for the last time”? Judging
by Ciaran Carson’s new translation, the graphic novel, and the other diffusions of the Ulster hero into
the realm of popular culture,23 the answer would seem to be in the affirmative. In many different ways,
traditional and modern, the name of Cúchulainn continues to be heard.
Those who listened to [the stories of Cúchulainn] must have felt as if the living were like rabbits digging their burrows under walls that had been built by Gods and Giants, or like swallows building their nests in the stone mouths of immense images, carved by nobody knows who…The fruit of all those stories…is the quick intelligence, the abundant imagination, the courtly manners of the Irish country people.
W.B. Yeats, 190324
Click here to see all the notes from this page.
Clochafarmore Standing Stone, Co. Louth
Nearest Town: Knockbridge
Townland: Rathiddy
Latitude: 53° 58′ 28.25″ N
Longitude: 6° 27′ 57.18 W
Eightercua Alignment
Waterville, Co. Kerry
Six women of their nobles were their losses on the sea and land from their setting out from Spain till then. These are their names; Buan wife of Bile; Dil wife of Donn; Scéine, the woman-satirist, wife of Amergin White-Knee. She died with them on the sea while they were coming to Ireland; so that Amergin said, “The harbor where we land, the name of Scéine will be on it”. That was true, for from her is named Inber Scéine.
Leabhar Gabhála Éireann (The Book of Invasions,) eleventh century1
Click on the image to explore the Eightercua Alignment in virtual reality.
The Eighercua Alignment, as you will see in the virtual-reality view (at the left), looks west to
Ballinskelligs Bay and the open ocean. To the east is Lough Currane and then the mountains of the
Ring of Kerry. The mound on which it sits was likely a ritual enclosure destroyed by road-builders more
than a century ago, its meaning long forgotten. The tallest of the four stones is 2.7 m (9 ft) high. The
alignment stretches east-west, pointing from lake to ocean for 7.6 m (25 ft). The monument is
estimated to be from the Bronze Age, c. 1700 BCE.2
In Irish mythology the four stones mark the burial spot of Scéine, the wife of the Milesian bard-
magician Amergin. She died at sea just prior to the landing of the invasion force come to wrest Ireland
away from the Tuatha Dé Danann. Amergin named the bay here Inber Scéne in her honor.3
Click on the image above to see it in high resolution.
This tale is from theLebor Gabála Érenn (The Book of the Taking of Ireland) more commonly known
as The Book of Invasions. Dating from the eleventh century CE this collection of poems and stories
recounts an epic mythical history of the Irish people from the biblical creation up to the Middle Ages.4
Just down the road to the south of this monument is the Baslicon Dolmen , also connected in legend
to this invasion story.
In local lore there are other stories told of the origin of the stone alignment. Schoolteacher Michael
Dineen, in a 1979 audio interview (below left), said that the stones were a memorial to children lost in
a fire a thousand years earlier. His neighbor Michael Moriarty claimed that from the position of the
standing stones you can spot two other groups of stones across the lake. From the stories collected by
schoolchildren interviewing their elders in a 1937-38 government project, one local man reported that
the stones were “…supposed to have been built by a blind Firbolg and his wife in one night.”5
Michael Dineen and Michael Moriarty discuss the local lore of the Eightercua Alignment.
While there is only faint evidence to be seen now, at the end of the nineteenth century there were
sufficient stones remaining for an antiquarian to fully describe the ritual enclosure with the Eightercua
Alignment at its apex. (see diagram at right). In fact, the investigators considered the enclosure to be
the principal unifying monument of the site, which also included the ruins of a small church, called
Templenakilla, and other building foundations beneath the hill of the stone alignment.6
The partial excavation of the enclosure described in 1902 by P. J. Lynch revealed evidence of a roughly
circular wall structure, with a diameter of approximately 15.2 m (50 ft), with what may have been a
ceremonial entrance. He also determined that a stone standing on its edge was the support for an
“altar-table.” It was clear to the investigator that stones had been removed and the rampart leveled.
One of the standing stones showed evidence of an attempt to quarry it for another use.7
The Eightercua Alignment as part of a ritual enclosure. P. J. Lynch, 1902.
The stone to the right appears cut through horizontally near the base for nearly one half of the breadth. I am informed that the contractor who was building the bridge over the Currane river, close by, some years ago, took a fancy to these fine stones, and had gone so far in securing a portion of this
one, when fortunately he was stopped. This must have been the vandal who removed the wall of the enclosure, and possibly the altar-slab as well.8In The Book of Invasions the widowed Amergin used his powers to compose a magical incantation to
the spirit of Ireland. His words enabled his fleet to make landfall here on the shore of Ballinskelligs Bay,
at the bit of land he named after his beloved. His invocation came to be known as The Song of
Amergin. It begins….
I am a wind on the sea,I am a wave of the ocean,I am the roar of the sea…9
In 1999, Irish poet Paddy Bushe imagined how the spirit of the deceased wife might have responded to
Amergin’s lyrical phrases. The poem is entitled Scéine’s Reply to Aimherigin.
If you are the wind on the seaI am the water tingling under the breeze.If you are a wave in a floodI am an empty shell dreaming of your coming.If you are the roar of a stormI am the tide lapping in the noon heat…10
Click here to see all the notes from this page.
Eightercua Alignment, Co. Kerry
Nearest Town: Waterville
Townland: Eightercua
Latitude: 51° 48′ 53.69″ N
Longitude: 10° 9′ 29.07″ W
Aghade Holed Stone (Cloghaphoill)
Tullow, Co. Carlow
Click on the image to see in high resolution.
Then Niall went to Leinster on a raid, and he said that he would not go from them so long as he was alive, or until Eochaid were given him as a pledge and hostage. And this had to be done. So Eochaid was taken to Áth Fadat in Gothart Fea on the bank of the Slaney, and was left there before Niall, with a chain around his neck, and the end of the chain through the hole of a stone pillar. {The] champions advanced towards him to slay him. “Woe”’ said Eochaid, “this is bad indeed!”With that he gave himself a twist, so that the chain broke in two. He seized the iron bolt that was through the chain, and advanced to meet them. He plied the bolt on them so that [they] fell. The other men turned before him down the hill. Those of Leinster pursued them and slaughtered them, so that they fell.“The Escape of Eochaid,” from “The Death of Niall of the Nine Hostages,” Book of
Ballymote (fourteenth century)1
The high-resolution photograph (left) was made with a large-format view camera in 1979. Click the
photo, and then click the button at the right of the Zoomify toolbar to see it full-screen.
(See example.)
The smoothly bored aperture in the broad Cloghaphoill (“holed stone”) was not able, in the legendary
tale quoted above, to long hold Eochaid, Niall’s prisoner.
The unfortunate prince [Eochaid] was compelled to maintain one position, with his back to the stone, and subject to the galling weight of the iron chain…2
"The Death of Niall of the Nine Hostages" in The Book of Ballymote.(RIA. MS 23 P 12, f. 7 v)
Eochaid used the hole in the stone to help him break the chains with which he was bound. Some
writers reported noting, in the modern era, the marks left on the stone by the friction of the iron chain.
In 1839, the Ordnance Survey’s Eugene O’Curry visited here and reported finding a field with “small
graves formed of flagstones,” which he considered a confirmation of the traditional story.3
Into the eighteenth century it was reported that “ill-thriven” infants afflicted with rickets were passed
through the hole, 29 cm (11.5 in) in diameter, in an attempt to obtain a cure. In 1833 an antiquarian
wrote:
Great numbers formerly indulged in this superstitious folly, but for the past twenty years the practice has been discontinued. My informant on this occasion was a woman who had herself passed one of her infants through the aperture of this singular stone. She informed me, that some of the country people talked of having it cut up for gate posts, but a superstitious feeling prevented them.4According to archaeologists the Cloghaphoill may have once stood upright, serving as a “porthole
stone” that closed the burial chamber of a megalithic tomb from the Neolithic. The large hole then may
have served as a way for the descendants of the deceased to offer food or other tributes into the
afterlife.5 The stone stands 2.3 m (7.5 ft) above the ground, and is 1.7 m (5 ft 8 in) wide, and up to 46
cm (18 in) thick.
Niall of the Nine Hostages may be the first of the Irish mythological heroes to have been an actual
historical character, belonging to the fourth or fifth century CE.6 He is known as the legendary ancestor
of the Uí Néill tribe, which would prosper to become the feudal rulers of all Donegal and who
dominated Ireland from the sixth to the tenth century. The traditional coronation site of the O’Donnell
branch of this family is visited in our entry on the Rock of Doon.
In one legend, Niall of the Nine Hostages agrees to lie with a “hideous crone” in order to obtain water
from her. She then magically becomes a young girl, representing the sovereignty of Ireland, “more
radiantly beautiful than the sun” and promises the warrior that he and his descendants would become
the rulers of the land.7
There is little that can be noted with certainty about the historical Niall, as all the written information
comes from genealogies (now thought to be dubious) of Irish kings and other medieval texts that date
from long after the purported reign of this late Iron Age pre-Christian king, known as the 126th High
King of Ireland.8Writing in the seventeenth century, Geoffrey Keating claimed that it was one of Niall’s
raiding parties in England that kidnapped the young St. Patrick in 405 CE; the result was that Patrick’s
initial experience in Ireland was as a slave.9
Niall gained his traditional sobriquet, Noígíallach (“of the Nine Hostages”), from the story that relates
how each of the five provinces of Ireland, in order to demonstrate their fealty, sent Niall a hostage. He
also received additional hostages from Scotland, the Saxons, the Britons, and the Franks, totaling nine.
Niall of the Nine Hostages was the greatest king that Ireland ever knew. His reign was epochal, and was the Irish equivalent of Alexander the Great in Macedonia. He not only ruled Ireland greatly and strongly, but also carried the name and the fame, and the power and the fear, of Ireland into all neighbouring nations. He was, moreover, founder of the longest, most important, and most powerful Irish royal dynasty. Almost without interruption his descendants were the High Kings of Ireland for 600 years. Under him the spirit of pagan Ireland leaped up in its last great flame of military glory.10
The Death of Niall of the Nine Hostages.
Whatever the place in history of Niall of the Nine Hostages, some have called him the “Irish Genghis
Khan” due to the number of his descendants. Geneticists have determined that more than three
million men around the world are likely to be descended from this prolific medieval Irish king.
Scientists suspect that Niall, or someone very much like him, may be the ancestor of one out of every
twelve Irishmen, and as many as 22% of the men up in the northwest of the country, where Niall
established his kingdom. The study of the Y-chromosomes appears to trace back to one particular
person. One of the researchers, Brian McEyon, at Trinity College, Dublin reported that, “there are
certain surnames that seem to have come from Ui Neill. We studied if there was any association
between those surnames and the genetic profile. It is his (Niall’s) family.”11
It is unclear at what point in the history of the Cloghaphoill it began to be used as an agent of folk
medicine. An author in 1937 pointed out the tantalizing coincidence that its traditional use as a way to
affect a cure for rickets, involved a disease that was a scourge of the Neolithic and Bronze
Ages.12 While the practice of passing infants through the hole in the Cloghaphoill faded away more
than two centuries ago, the Tobernaveen Holed Stone in Co. Sligo has apparently been utilized in a
curative ritual in very recent times.
Other standing stones with apertures have acquired different traditions in folk practices around the
country. An early-Christian pillar stone that serves as one of the stations of the Turas (procession)
in Glencolumbcille, Co. Donegal, has a small hole once used by engaged couples that would touch
their fingers from the opposite sides of the stone. In Co. Antrim, the Doagh Holestone is used still
today for a similar betrothal ceremony. Guidebook author Anthony Weir has considered the possibility
that the hole was once used in a more primal fertility ceremony.13
If the Cloghaphoill eventually developed the ability to affect cures, it did not have such a salutary
effect for Niall of the Nine Hostages. The stone proved unable to hold his enemy Eochaid, who later
caused the death of Niall, piercing him with an arrow shot from across a valley in Scotland. His men
carried his body home, fighting bloody battles on the way, and buried him at a place now known as
Faughan Hill in Co. Meath (see illustration, above left).14
Like the foxglove, like a calf’s blood–a feast without a flaw!Like the top-branches of a forest in May.Like the moon, like the sun, like a firebrand was the splendor of Niall,Like a dragon-ship from the wave without a fault was Niall the son of Eochaid Mugmedon.15Click here to see all the notes from this page.
Aghade Holed Stone, Co. Carlow
Nearest Town: Tullow
Townland: Ardristan
Latitude: 52° 46′ 9.41″ N
Longitude: 6° 44′ 45.73″ W