in Irish mythology is sometimes referred to as Bel, but usually as Balor or Balar. The month of May in Irish (Bealtaine) takes its name from Bel as in Belteine or the fire of Bel or Balor. Balor has never been fully acknowledged as being another name for Bel, but his epithet ‘Balor of the Baleful Eye’ seems to indicate an original sun god. Samain, which continues today as Hallowe’en, was one of the four great festivals of pre-Christian Ireland. In Indian mythology the great feast of fire is held in honour of Baal-Samin—Sahm or Sahman being one of the sacred names of the sun and corresponds to samain in Irish mythology. In India, cakes of flour are spotted with poppy and caraway seeds and stained with saffron. The Irish equivalent at this feast is the spotted cake or Bairin-Breac, the barnbrack or speckled cake. In India, all the devotees at this ceremony stain their bodies with saffron. In Ireland, the saffron-coloured kilt was a sign of royalty.
The fires of Baal were lit upon particular days in Ireland. They fires were said to purify the devotees and preserve them from harm. Cattle in Mayo were driven between blazing fires in order that the smoke might delouse them. This custom continued in Mayo up to the middle of the twentieth century. John Toland in 1747 wrote:
The writer has more than once been a personal witness of the ceremony of driving the cattle of a certain village through the blazing fire; whilst the young people and children followed, and each seizing a lighted brand, formed a sort of irregular winding dance, waving the flaming torches over their heads, and shouting in a sort of rude chorus. Can there be a doubt as to the source of this custom?
Other places associated with sun worship are Carngrainey in Co. Antrim; Altoir na Greine, ‘the altar of the sun’ on Mount Callen, Co. Clare; and Knockainey in Co. Limerick, to name but a few. Although these practices had their origins in the Middle East, they never fully died out in the west and the south-west of Ireland.
Seven miles south-east of Castlebar is another place associated with and named Baal, now known as Balla [31]. St Mochno or Cronan founded a monastery here in 637, of which there remain a round tower and and the ruins of a small church. The tower is nearly fifty feet in height and the church is of similar stone and workmanship. In one of the walls of the church is a monumental inscription of ‘great antiquity’.
According to the nineteenth-century antiquarian L.C. Beaufort, the place was noted for ‘superstitious practices, particularly at one season of the year’. This time could have either been the samain to honour Baal-Samin or in early May for the feast of Belteine. However, both times would have merited ceremonial rites. Dr James McParlan in 1801 described a festival at Balla as follows:
And this Baal is to this day a most extraordinary place of superstitious worship. Here are a couple of small chapels vaulted over a river which runs through the town; and once a year, I think in autumn, immense swarms of people crowd from all parts to perform certain circuits and evolutions on their knees, dropping as they proceed in describing those figures, a certain number of beads to various intentions, and in expiation of various sins; but the day closes most cheerfully in eating and drinking. Mr Lynch who lives just at the town, assured me that not less than three hundred sheep are consumed at this festival.
In the early nineteenth century some English antiquarians believed that round towers such as that at Balla were erected to display the sacred fires of Bel, and were thus not Christian but had been built at a time when sun worship was the prevailing religion. In this they had the support of Charles O’Conor, a noted Irish scholar. One might even say that the prevailing consensus in the nineteenth century was that the round towers had their origin in the Middle East and were brought to to Ireland by the Phoenicians. It was also said that they were astronomical centres for observing the stars, or more mundanely to observe sunrise at important festivals.
These opinions were severly criticised if not dashed by George Petrie in his Inquiry into the Origin and Uses of the Round Towers in Ireland. Petrie systematically refuted all of these scholars and proved their theories to be ‘fallacious’. Petrie saw the event of ‘quadrangular architecture’ in Ireland as contemporaneous with the primitive Irish Church and the round towers as a distinctive expression of ecclesiastical architecture.
Folk customs connected to the sun can be found in Ballinrobe (Bailean Róba, ‘town of the River Róba) [38] on the eve of the feast of St John on 24 June. This night is known as Féile Eoin in Wexford. On this night the summer solstice is celebrated by bonfires or, as they are sometimes called, ‘bonefires’ or tine cnámh, as originally the bones of dead animals were burnt at this time. It was also custom for people to come to the fires carrying bones. After the fires, the remaining coals were thrown into adjoining fields to bring luck to future crop-growing. Burning wood was thrown into the air; these ‘fireballs’ were a way of acknowledging that the sun had achieved its height and that soon the days would be drawing in. These customs were common in Europe as far away Poland and Estonia. Jumping over the fires was another feature of the customs at this time in Ireland and in Spain.
FIGURE 7. Croagh Patrick.
Croagh Patrick (Cruach Phádraig, ‘St Patrick’s Reek or Peak’, commonly referred to as ‘the Reek’) [30, 38] is one of the great assembly points, both in pre-Christian and Christian Ireland. Five miles west of Westport, it rises 2,530 feet above sea level to give a panoramic view across Clew Bay, and from it one can see Inishbofin, Inishturk, Clare Island and the Nephin Beg range of mountains. It was traditionally associated with the pagan god of the harvest, Crom Dubh;* today it still remains a place of pilgrimage, its quartzite summit pointing to the heavens, beckoning all those who fall within its gaze. Originally named Cruachán Aigle, it is refered to in the ninth-century Book of Armagh as Mons Egli, and it was here that Patrick, in imitation of Christ, and of Moses on Mount Sinai, fasted for forty days. According to the account of Muirchu Maccu Mactheni given in the Book of Armagh, as Patrick fasted the landscape was darkened by the wings of spirits in the form of birds, those with black wings representing demons and those with white representing the redeemed.
The most famous legend associated with Patrick was written in the twelfth century and tells how the saint brought all the snakes and demons of Ireland to the top of Cruachán Aigle and from there drove them into the sea. This highly popular tale of the snakes is a later addition to the observation by the third-century Roman writer Solinus that Ireland was free of all reptiles. To the south of the mountain is Loch na Corra, written as Lough Nacorra on the Discovery map; the name can be translated as ‘the lake of the heron’ but also as ‘the lake of the Serpent’ [37]. St Patrick is said to have driven a demon bird into a hollow which subsequently filled up with water to form the lake. This bird-demon is reminiscent of in tEllén Trechend (‘triple-headed Ellén’), a bird associated with the Otherworld cave at Cruachain in Roscommon. After a while, the bird flew out of Lough Nacorra and flew north to land in Lough Derg [17], where she continues to observe the pilgrims.
Another lake associated with Croagh Patrick is Lough Carra (Loch Ceara, with an older name being Finloch Ceara, ‘the white lake of Carra’) [38]. An eleventh-century verse by an unknown author where, unlike at Lough Nacorra, the birds are ‘angelic’ is as follows:
when St. Patrick, glorious in grace, was suffering on goodly Cruach – an anxious toilsome time for him, the protector of lay men and women –
God sent to comfort him a flock of spotless angelic birds; over the clear lake without fail they would sing in chorus their gentle proclamation.
And thus they called, auspiciously: ‘Patrick, arise and come! Shield of the Gael, in pure glory, illustrious golden spark of fire.’
The whole host struck the lake with their smooth and shadowy wings, so that its chilly waters became like a silver sheen.
Hence comes the bright name The White Lake of Carra of
