alternatively called Carn Uí Néid or Mizen Head [88], at the southernmost part of Ireland – agus do Carn Eóluirg risa raitear Carn Í Néid I n-iarthur Éireann. It is named after the father of Elatha.
Brian Ó Cuív who edited Cath Muighe Tuireadh came across a summary of the battle in a Trinity College manuscript written about 1630, or twenty years earlier than Cath Muighe Tuireadh. The following extract refers to the form that the tributes imposed by the Fomorians* took:
Tángatar Fomhóraigh go hÉrind, agus do chuirset dáorchíos uirre .i. dá ttrían etha, bleachta, cloinne, agus conáich do tharclamh ó fhearaibh Éirionn gacha Sámhna go Magh gCéidne na bFhomhórach .i. uinge dh’ór ón tsróin, nó an tsrón ón chionn amach.
The Fomorians came to Ireland, and they put a severe tribute on them, namely two thirds of arable land, of milch cows, of their progeny and their wealth to be collected from the men of Ireland each samain [Hallowe’en] at Magh Céidne of the Fomorians [a plain between the rivers Erne which extends eighty miles between Cavan to the west of Ballyshannon where it flows into the sea at Drowes], for example, the wealth tax being the nose tax for which an ounce of gold was to be paid or one’s nose to be cut off.
[Translated by the author]
Donegal Bay, which is shared by Donegal, Leitrim and Sligo, may have been the entrance for the first recorded people to have arrived in Ireland, namely Cesair with fifty women and three men; they possibly arrived at Dún na mBárc or present day Mount Temple, and close by at Trá Tuaidh or Traig Eba [16] is where Eba or Eua or Eve, one of the fifty women who arrived with Cesair, is said to have drowned. Machaire Eba, or the Plain of Eba, is a name for a stretch of the Sligo coast which goes from Drumcliff Bay to Cliffony. The name is now reduced to Magherow, a townland north of Lissadell Strand west from Drumcliff.
At Streedagh [16] south-west of O’Conor’s Island is a megalithic tomb mentioned in Acallam na Senórach or the Colloquy of the Ancients, a twelfth-century tale of discourses mostly between Caoilte of the Fianna* of Finn mac Cumhail* and St Patrick. According to Caoilte, this tomb, which still stands, was where the remains of Finn’s deer-hound was buried, and in this tomb were later found ‘the two lower jaws of a hound or wolf’. Whether or not this animal was Finn’s, it certainly enriches the tale.
A mention of Trá Eba in the Dindshenchas* gives credence to the suggestion that Sligo rather than Kerry may have been the location of Dún na mBárc, the port of call where Cesair and her followers entered Ireland:
‘Tráigh Eaba, cídh diatá? Ní ansa. Día tanic Cesair ingen Betha mic Naoí lucht curaigh co hÉrinn. Tainic Eaba in banlíaidh léi, cho rocodail isin trácht, co robáidh in tonn iarom. Conidh de raiter Rind Eaba agus Traigh Eaba dona hinadhaibh sin osin ille.
Traig Eba, whence the name? Not hard to say. When Cesair daughter of Bith son of Noah came with a boat’s crew to Erin, Eba the leech-woman came with her. She fell asleep on the strand, and the waves drowned her. Hence these places were called Rind Eba and Traig Eba from that time forth.
[Translated by Edward Gwynn]
Cesair has been connected to Noah in the Book of Invasions and in Keating’s Foras Feasa ar Éirinn but she is also regarded as a Greek princess and as a French woman in other stories. Many early scholars connected or dovetailed Biblical events with early Irish history and mythology in order to set the events within a plausible timeframe.
Cesair possibly entered by Dernish Island, where her landing would have been sheltered by the peninsula known as Conor’s Island. The Book of Ballymote and the Book of Lecan mention that Cesair and her womenfolk landed at Cairns which is now known as Mount Temple ‘to flatter a local landlord’; according to Morris the territory of ‘Cairns’ extended from the present day Drumfad to the coast. Morris gives a number of reasons for his contention that Cesair landed in the estuary between Dernish Island and Trá Tuaidh [16]. Among the reasons Morris gives is that Dún na mBárc is a landlocked harbour with a fortress commanding it; the name ‘cairns’ was still in use when he was writing in the early twentieth century. One could also add the number of references to the area, many of which are mentioned above.
Cesair and her followers travelled south towards the Boyle River and, having crossed the Curlew Mountains, arrived on the wide fertile plain of Magh Luirg or ‘the Plains of Boyle’. It is in a tumulus overlooking the Boyle River [33] that she is buried (as her burial place is in Roscommon, I have included this part of her story with that county). The area is regarded as a meeting place from ancient times.
Inishmurray (Inis Muirdeach, ‘Muirdeach’s island’) [16] is a low-lying island one mile long and half-a-mile wide, with a maximum height rising to about seventy feet. Its name is derived from Muirdeach, who was bishop of Killala and was consecrated by St Patrick. The island is four miles from Streedagh Point in Co. Sligo, at the entrance to Donegal Bay, and is ten miles south-west from Mullaghmore Head. Muirdeach was also known as St Molaise and is credited with founding the monastery on Inishmurray about 520 AD. The remains of the monastery are fairly intact after 1,500 years – in stark contrast to the houses, which have gone to ruin after just 100 years. The remaining islanders left on 12 November 1948. It is a sign of their strength and persistence that in 1926, seventy-four people were able to make a living from the island and surrounding waters. The decision to abandon the island is said to have been due to isolation rather than poverty, but more likely was influenced by the letters and parcels coming from America and Britain telling of a better life.
A possible reason for the preservation of the monastic settlement is that it is enclosed behind a thick circular wall or caiseal, which was built during the Bronze Age. The wall is fifteen feet at its highest and is between six and nine feet wide. It encloses about a third of an acre of land. The presence of cursing stones and the name of a chapel as ‘the temple of fire’ would suggest that it may have been a druidic site before the arrival of the monks. There are three internal walls that result in the enclosure being divided into four areas. The largest enclosure contains Teampall Molaise or ‘Molaise’s church’. It was also known as Teampall na bFhearr or ‘the men’s church’. North-west of the church, there are two praying stones, and to the west is a font. To the south-west are Na Clocha Breacha, literally ‘the speckled stones’ but generally translated as ‘cursing stones’. The stones were turned about while ‘praying’ by the person wishing to curse another. The ritual involved fasting for three days, and if the reasons for applying the curse were justified, it would have its effect; otherwise, the curse would rebound on the person who turned the stones.
In one of the smaller enclosures within the cashel is a building known as Teac na Teine or ‘the house of fire’. This may have been the kitchen of the monastery, but some authorities say that its real name was Teampall na Teine or ‘the church of fire’. This could place its origins in pre-Christian druidic times. The remains of the stone at the centre of the church are known as Leic na Teine or ‘the stone of the fire’. Tradition has it that if all fires on the island were extinguished, then a sod placed on this hearth would spontaneously ignite. This ‘miraculous hearth’ was broken up by workers reconstructing the gable in the 1880s. When the antiquarian John O’Donovan visited the island in the 1830s, he recorded that there was a flagstone on the floor of this church which ‘was always kept lighted for the use of the islanders’.
The enclosure contains three clocháns or beehive huts, each of which has a corbelled roof. There are also two standing stones and a holed or fertility stone where women prayed in order to have a healthy child. Outside the cashel there is a sweathouse, known as a teach an allais, from the Irish allas, meaning ‘sweat’. This has been compared to the Turkish bath: the house was filled with smoke, presumably from turf, and when it became very hot, the embers were swept away and water was thrown on the hot stones; then a person wrapped in a blanket entered to breathe the steam and ‘sweat’ for a while, after which they washed in the nearby well. Although we often
