12. The cairn marking the burial spot of Queen Medb on Knocknarea.
About ten miles west from Knocknarea is Aughris Head [25] or Each Ros, ‘the headland of the horse’. The territory here was traditionally known as Tír Fhiachrach and was a probable inauguration site for the O’Dubhda or the O’Dowds, who were the ruling clan in this area. Elizabeth Fitzpatrick writes in Notes on the Gathering Place of Tír Fhiachrach: ‘The place names of the district and its recorded folklore remain the only ancillary supports to our understanding the field monuments,’ and presumably she also implies the customs, rites and early history as well. With the help of Joe Fenwick, she opens the salient aspects of early Irish society in relation to kingship and its customs.
The name Each Ros underlines how important the horse was in the culture of the society, and this is further supported by an area south from the headland known as the ‘hoof-mark of Ó’Dubhda’s Horse’, which is a natural indentation in the rock; also, south of here a racecourse is marked, its name in Irish being Ruball na Sionnach, or the ‘clearing area for the foxes’. The horse is remembered in the folklore of the area and was recorded in the Folklore Commission’s collection for 1937. The myth of the king’s mating with a white mare is part of the rite of kingship but is not to my knowledge part of the lore. As in Christianity, miracles are part of the lore, but the myth of resurrection is at the core of Christian mythology.
The story of the white horse from folklore and told by John Furey from Skreen is as follows:
Long ago a family named O’Dowds reigned; they were chieftains of Tireagh and lived at Ardglass not far from here and at Ardnaree near Ballina. Of course, they had many horses to convey them from place to place as there was no other means of conveyance at the time. At any rate, they had a white horse that never left his stable. He was about seven or eight years old and was always well fed. One day when his master was away a man who lived nearby said to himself, that it would be great fun to go for a ride on the lovely horse. He went to the stable with a bridle and put it on the horse. Then he took him out and jumped up on him and off with them. He galloped until he came to Dunmoran river and it was no trouble for him to jump across it. Then he turned for Aughris pier along the shore all along the shore and all the way jumped the ditches as lively as another horse would run on level land. He kept on at this rate until he came to Córa Donn. When he saw the deep hole and the water going up under the land he turned on his heel and left a deep mark from his hoof on the solid rock, which is to be seen yet.
The cavern called Comhra Donn, which follows a deep cut in the cliff, is also mentioned by Máire Mac Neill in The Festival of Lughnasa – ‘wherein there is a flagstone bearing hoof marks. Finally, there is a fort in Kilruiseighter where, people say, the kings used to be crowned and in this fort there are two tracks of feet which always remain an everchanging green’.
As mentioned above, the white mare was an integral part of some inaugural rites of kings, and a dramatic example of the white horse can be seen at the Vale of the White Horse at Uffington in Wiltshire. This figure, some 370 feet in length, was cut into the chalk of a hillside close to an Iron Age fort in the first century BC. Though legend purports that the acre site on which it stands was the idea of Alfred the Great as a commemoration of a victory against the Danes, the figure is not too far from the tomb of Wayland Smithy, a character similar to the gabha or smith in Irish mythology who could see into the future.
The horse goddess is a manifestation of the mother goddess, and thus the union of the king with the mother goddess is another variation of the sovereignty myth where the white horse as a symbol of life represents the cailleach as one who legitimately bestows sovereignty on the king-to-be.
Inaugural connections with other Celtic tribes can be found, and Herodotus mentions a Celtic tribe in Carinthia, north of the Adriatic, with similar inauguration rites to the Irish. He writes:
In Carinthia as often as a new prince of the republic enters upon the government, they observe a solemnity nowhere else heard of. In the open fields stands erect a marble stone, which when the leader is about to be created a certain countryman, to whom through his race the succession to that office hereditarily belongs, ascends, having on his right hand a black heifer in calf, while on his left is placed a working mare … he in the common dress of the country, wearing a hair cap, carrying shoes and a pastoral shaft, acts the herdsman more than the prince … the man in charge says that the mare and the heifer shall be his [the prince’s] and that he shall be free of tribute … then the king to be gently stikes the cheek of the official in charge and commands him to be a fair judge. Then the prince takes possession of the stone and turns himself around to every part and brandishing a naked sword addresses the clans and promises to be an equitable judge.
O’Donovan in Tribes and Customs of Hy-Fiachrach writes that in Ireland the king-to-be turns himself around thrice forwards and thrice backwards in order to view his people and territory in every direction.
The inauguration rite of kings is generally associated with the Iron Age, which straddled the late pre-Christian and early Christian era. At the inauguration site at Aughris Head, we may assume that a man became eligible to succeed as king, as Mac Neill writes in Celtic Ireland, if ‘they belonged to the derbfine as a king who had already reigned’. The derbfine consisted of four generations in direct line – that is, father, sons, grandsons and great-grandsons. All those within the derbfine were eligible to succeed, subject to election. Those in line for kingship were classified as rígdomna, or ‘crown prince’, or ‘royal heir’. Given the number of possible contenders to the throne, one can see how this led to the continuous series of battles that are at the basis of our early history.
Moytirra West and Moytirra East [25], three miles east of Lough Arrow, are the location of the Second Battle of Moytura (Cath Muighe Tuireadh, ‘the battle of the plain of reckoning or keening or lamentation’). There are five megalithic tombs in the area as well as mounds, cairns, sweathouses and ring forts. There is also a crannóg on the northern end of Lough Arrow. The plain of Moytura is about ten miles from Ballysadare Bay, which would have been a good landing place for an invader.
The Second Battle of Moytura is possibly the most widely known of all the inter-racial battles in Ireland. It was fought between the ‘native’ Irish, the followers of the sun goddess Anu, whose people were known as the Tuatha Dé Danann,* and the invading force, the Fomorians* – Fomoiri (a race from ‘across the sea’) – more generally known as the Phoenicians, who were traders from Lebanon.
Like the Tuatha Dé Danann,* the Fomorians,* who had become the overlords of Ireland after their invasion, also worshipped a sun god namely Balor, so this story has often been regarded as a great tale of the Irish gods. Perhaps more than any other tale, this legend presents a roll call of the gods who combine to defeat the invading force led by their king, Elatha Mór mac Dealbhaoi, who reminds the Fomorians of their supremacy and charges them to defeat their vassals. The Tuatha Dé Danann forces are led by Lug,* who is a man, a sun god and a master of all the arts (samildánach).
The story is interwoven like many a biblical one with elements of the godly and the earthly. The great goddess the Mórrígan previously had predicted the battle when mating with the Dagda* on the River Unshin. The Dagda was the king and god of the Tuatha Dé Danann.* Prior to the battle the Mórrígan killed the Fomorian warrior Indech and gave handfuls of his blood to the Dagda’s warriors. She then went with Badb and Macha to the Mound of the Hostages at Tara and from here they sent forth ‘a cloud of mist and furious rain of fire, with a downpour of red blood from the air onto the warriors’ heads’.
Then the battle begins and Nuadu mac Echtach of the Tuatha Dé Danann engages Elatha in combat and wounds him. Lug* then arrives and strikes off Elatha’s head – Is ann sin do riacht Lug an láthair agus sealluis a cheann de.
Balor’s eye, which no one could look at directly, is eventually pierced by a sling shot from the Goibniu,* the smith to the
