is a hollow on the northern face of Croagh Patrick known as Lugnademon [30] or ‘the hollow of the demons’, lug meaning ‘hollow’. This is where the demons retreated prior to their banishment. A more solid edifice of Christian presence on Croagh Patrick is a dry-stone oratory that was discovered in an archaeological excavation. It has been compared to St Gallarus’s oratory in Co. Kerry and has a carbon dating from between 430 and 890 AD.
Cruachán Aigle is mentioned in a poem from the Dindshenchas, (a work of early Irish literature recounting the origins of place names)* the following being the first two verses:
Oighle mac Deirg, derg a dhrech,
romarb Cromderg mac Connrach:
don gnim-sin co ngairge ngus
as de atá Oighle ar Gharbrus.
Cruachán Garbrois gairmdís de
lucht eólais in tiri-si:
Cruachán Aighle ósin amach
a ainm co tí in bráth brethach.
Aigle son of Derg (red his face); him Cromderg son of Connra slew: from that deed of savage force the name Aigle is given to Garbros.
Cruachán Garbrois the learned of this land used to call it: thenceforth name Aigle is given to Garbros.
[Translated by Edward Gwynn]
The location of Garbros is problematic, but Edward Gwynn in his commentary to the Dindshenchas* says that it probably was a district extending from Mayo across to north Sligo. Garbros can mean a ‘rough tract of arable land’, and this may well have described a large section of the land in Mayo and Sligo during Patrick’s time and even up to the present day. As the Dindshenchas is often mentioned in these pages, perhaps it is time to define precisely what the word means. Essentially it means ‘hill lore’ or a topographical explanation of noted places both in verse and in prose. Most of these commentaries are in verse, and are to be seen in the Book of Leinster compiled in the late-eleventh century, although Cruachán Aigle is in other manuscripts.
Although the chapel on the summit of Croagh Patrick is the central attraction for most of the pilgrims, the landscape surrounding the mountain contains evidence of a Stone Age and Bronze Age ritual nature, as shown, for example, by the number of hillforts, which was revealed as the result of an archaeological dig in 1994. However, its pre-Christian role is seldom alluded to.
The pilgrim route to Croagh Patrick was known as Tóchar Phrádraig, and it is along this route that many of the monuments which testify to the importance of the ancient landscape can be seen. The Christian pilgrimage starts at Ballintubber Abbey (Baile an Tobair, ‘homestead of the well’) but the earlier or pagan pilgrimage started at Aghagower (Achadh Ghobair, ‘field of the horse’), which previously was called Achadh Fhobair (‘field of the spring well’). At both starting points the spring wells would have supplied the liquid essentials for a rocky journey.
At Aghagower [31] begins the ritual landscape connected to Croagh Patrick. One finds here the Leacht Tomaltaigh or the ‘stone of feasting’, but before one gets carried away with an image of gluttonous pilgrims, the meaning is far more likely to mean ‘the stone in memory of Tomaltach’. Tomaltach was a fifth-century King of Connacht, and this stone may have signified his standing before or during the early Christian period. The stone is just beyond Aghagower to the left of the pilgrim path. Pilgrimage to the Reek was customary among kings, and Hugh O’Rourke, King of Breffni, was captured while returning from Croagh Patrick in 1351, according to the Annals of Clonmacnoise.
As we walk about two miles west beyond Aghagower, we find a landscape strewn with monuments from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. And one may presume that among these monuments is the original route. A starting point may be at Cloghan Bridge [38], underneath which the River Carrowbeg flows from south to north. Less than a mile beyond Cloghan Bridge is a crossroads, and shortly after this is the Lankill stone, and about a third of a mile south of this is the Lanmore standing stone. These two stones can be seen as the grand gateway to the ancient landscape. A mile further on along the pilgrim’s walk is the Boheh standing stone, which is on a mild elevation on the right side of the road. From here, in order to immerse yourself in the landscape, walk due south for a little over a mile and climb to the top of Liscarney Hill, and from there you should see the Liscarney stone row and ring barrow. Walking from the barrow in a south-west direction, you cross the N59 and from here you can see, about 200 yards away, Lough Moher Lough (Loch Mothar, ‘the lake of the thicket’) [38]. The name presumably refers to the cluster of trees and bushes that were once around the lake; There is a crannóg on the lough, a word that comes from the Irish crann, ‘a tree’, and signifies a dwelling made of wood; crannógs were built on artificial islands on lakes as homesteads at roughly the same time as ring forts, from the fourth to the seventeenth century.
Back on the N59, Liscarney village [38] is merely one mile north along the road. One mile north from Liscarney you pass two lakes on your left, which are known as Boheh Loughs, and beyond them you are back on Tóchar Phádraig. At this point you should turn right to view the rock art on a rock outcrop, which consists of cup and ring motifs and is regarded as one of the most highly decorated forms of rock art in Britain and Ireland. Archaeologists such as Corlett, Bradley and Johnson researching in the 1990s have suggested that this form of art may have its origins from as early as the fourth millennium BC. In Offaly, another example of this art can be seen at Clonfinlough, close to Clonmacnoise [47].
Croagh Patrick can be seen from many locations both near and far, and observing it from ancient sites adds to its appeal. A cairn in the townland of Aillemore on a hill two miles south-east from Bunlough Strand [37] is an excellent viewing location. Slightly north of the megalithic court tomb at Formoyle, three miles east from Sruhir Strand [37], is another viewing point. Carrowkeel megalithic cemetery overlooking Lough Arrow [25], at a distance of forty-five miles, presents a memorable view. Once, while visiting Reilig na Rí at Rathcroghan [40], a student pointed out a cone-like peak in the distance, and fifty miles to the west Croagh Patrick could be seen from this trivallate ring fort.
The Táin Bó Flidais or ‘The Cattle Spoil of Flidais’ derives its name from Flidais Foltchain, or ‘Flidais of the beautiful hair’, who was the young wife of Ailill or Oilill Finn, a chief of Erris (Irrus) [23] in north-western Mayo just prior to the Christian era. Ailill lived on Nemthann, the present Nephin Mountain. The tale concerns a raid on Ailill during which Fergus mac Roich, an exiled King of Ulster and lover of Medb,* carries off Flidais along with 100 cows, 140 oxen, and 3,000 calves. Medb then decrees that Flidais live with Fergus and, feeling that the proceeds of the raid will feed her army while on the Táin Bó Cúaligne,* requests Flidais to provide food for them every seventh day during the expedition.
Ailill Finn was the son of Domnall Dual Buidhe ‘of the yellow locks’, who was deferentially named ‘Emperor of Erris and Western Europe’. Flidais owned a wonderful hornless cow, the Maol, which could give milk for 300 men (not counting women and boys) in one day. In the Ulster version of the Táin Bó Flidais, ‘the lady’s cows every seventh day gave milk enough to support the men of Ireland’.
Few stories contain so many previously unrecorded place names as does this tale. The place names associated with the story in east Connacht, Roscommon and Sligo can, according to Dobbs, be placed by the references given in Hogan’s Onomasticon Goedelicum. ‘But those in north-west Mayo seem,’ as Dobbs writes, ‘to have been outside the works of the earliest writers.’
One part of the tale concerns a journey from Cruachain, the ancient capital of Connacht, to the fort of Ailill at Dún or Rath Morgain in north-west Mayo, and is described with so many place names that make it a worthy pilgrimage to take should one wish to go back to
