don tshíl dedgair dub
luid a Temraig ria láech-Lug,
ní fess a chan fri dáil de
fir na cless ó Thráig Thuirbe.
The strand of Tuirbhi received its name,
according to authors I relate,
from Tuirbhi of the strands, lord over all strands,
the affectionate acute father of Gobán.
His hatchet he would fling after ceasing from work.
The rusty faced, black, big fellow,
from the pleasant Hill of the Hatchet,
which is washed by the great flood.
The distance to which his hatchet he used to send,
the tide beyond or within flowed not;
though Tuirbhi in his land in the south was strong,
it is not known of what stock was his race.
Unless he was of the mystical black race,
who went out of Tara from the heroic Lug,
it is not known for what benefit he avoided to meet him,
the man of the feats from the strand of Tuirbhi.
[Translated by Edward Gwynn]
Tuirbhi was quite possibly a Pict, and his darker skin, as mentioned in the verses above, could possibly be explained by this. Like Cú Chulainn* he was swarthy, yet unlike the great Pictish warrior he was a ‘big fellow’, and the skeleton of ‘large size’ that was treated with such glaring disrespect could have been him or a relative of his. Turvey Castle is in the townland, and it was here that Edmond Campion wrote his History of Ireland.
Ten miles north-east from Turvey’s Strand are two rocks in the sea beside each other, with a lighthouse on one. They are known as Rockabill, having been originally known as Da-bille, ‘two little (rocks)’. An old Dindshenchas* legend tells us that they got their name from Dabilla, a famous dog that was drowned there. Another legend associates these rocky outposts with the Glas Gaibhleann, the cow and calf of the Gobán Saor, turned to stone here by the Fomorian* god Balor.
On the south side of Dublin Bay lies Merrion Strand which comprises the strand from Sandymount to Blackrock, which in Irish is Trácht Muirbthen or Muirbech (a level strip of land along the coast). The name for the strand in the manuscripts is Trácht Fuirbhi, which seems very close to Trácht Tuirbhi. This leads to the possibility that Tuirbhi was chief (tuire meaning chief or lord) of the land from Donabate to Dún Laoghaire. This strand has strong associations with Conaire Mór, a third-century King of Ireland. The story of his death is told in the tale Togail Bruidne Da Derga (‘the destruction of the hostel of the red god’), which was compiled in the eleventh century from two earlier versions. Conaire left Bruidne Da Derga close to Lough Bray Lower and walked to Tara along the Slighe Cualann and across Merrion Strand. At the same time, a group of marauders under Ingcél, a British or Welsh prince, was setting out to plunder Da Derga’s hostel. They landed at Howth but, hearing that Conaire was on Merrion Strand, they sailed across Dublin Bay. Not finding him, they sailed further south and landed at Leamore strand in Wicklow. At that time an ancient rite was being carried out at Tara to determine who would be King of Ireland, and it was prophesied that the king to be was walking naked along Trácht Muirbthen on his way to Tara. When Conaire arrived at Tara he was proclaimed King by the druids. James Joyce’s character in Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus, mirrors Conaire’s appointment with destiny when he asks himself while strolling along the beach at Merrion: ‘Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand?’
Around 5,500 years ago Howth Head [50] was an island, and as the waves fell back, they left an isthmus of sand and gravel about sixteen feet above sea level, which today links the promontory of Howth to the mainland. For 6,000 years there have been fishermen on Howth, and in ancient times they traded fish for polished stone axes from the incoming Neolithic farmers who would go on to build the great astronomical calendar in stone known as Newgrange. In more modern times, a popular folktale from Howth is known as ‘Conall Gulban from Howth’, more than sixty versions of which are recorded in manuscripts of the Irish Folklore Commission. They are all recorded in Irish, but English versions are published in Hero-Tales of Ireland by J. Curtin. This tale was also well known in Gaelic-speaking Scotland.
The present Baily Lighthouse [50] on the south-eastern extremity of Howth is built upon the fort of Crimthann Nianar, who was High King of Ireland around the time of Christ. He was buried here, having died in a battle with the Aithech Tuatha, an underclass of serfs.
According to the Annals of Clonmacnoise, Crimthann was brought by a fairy woman into her palace ‘where after great entertainment and after they took their pleasure of one another by carnal knowledge she bestowed a gilted coat with a sum of gold on him as a token of her love, and soon after [he] died’. This would seem to be an example of the sovereignty myth wherein it was necessary for a king to sleep with a local goddess in order to be a proper king. The goddess herself was sovereignty and only through her could the king claim legitimacy. We see reflections of this in the Egyptian/Greek myth of Oedipus who, after sleeping with an older woman, his mother, becomes king. Crimthann himself shares with Oedipus an incestuous history in so far as his own father Lugaid Réoderg is said to have slept with his own mother Clothru, daughter of Eochaid Fedlech. Thus, Crimthann’s mother Clothru was both his mother and his grandmother.
High Street in the centre of Dublin [50] is the starting point of a line of low hills stretching from Dublin to Clarinbridge in Co. Galway known as the eiscir riada. The Irish word eiscir has ‘passed into international geological usage’, the anglicised word being ‘esker’. These eskers were formed after the Ice Age when sand or gravel that had built up inside tunnels in the ice remained after the ice melted away. In boggy country they provide natural causeways, the literal meaning of eiscir riada being the ‘sand-ridge of chariot driving’. The escir riada was also a boundary between the north and south of Ireland, the southern half being known as Leth Moga Nuadat (‘Mug Nuadu’s half’). Mug Nuadu means ‘the servant of Nuadu’, a god venerated both in Britain and Ireland. Mug Nuada may have been a title which the King of the Eoganacht carried for life. The northern half was known as Leth Cuinn (‘Conn’s half’); this Conn was known as Conn Cét Chathach or ‘Conn of the hundred battles’.
Ireland’s Eye [50] lies about one mile from Howth, just north of Dublin Bay. Its area is about ten acres or half a square mile. The island has had a bevy of names, starting with Inis Ereann or the island of Éire, the goddess from whom Ireland is named. With the Danish influence it became Erin’s Ey, to the present Ireland’s Eye. In a Papal Bull from Alexander III to St Laurence O’Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, in 1179, it is described as Insula Filiorum Nessani, ‘the Island of the Sons of Nessan’, which was originally gaelicised as Inis mac Nessan. The ruin of the church on the island is known locally as Mac Nessan’s Church. A scriptorium presumably existed close to the church, as a copy of the four gospels was penned there in 690. It has two illuminated pages and is known as the Garland of Howth. The book was used to drive away evil spirits and as a swearing rite for making oaths. It can be seen today in Trinity College Dublin; perhaps the ‘Book of Ireland’s Eye’ would be a more appropriate title! The church is essentially a small oratory and was part of the early Irish Church which spread throughout Europe in the Dark Ages. The church is mentioned by George Petrie as belonging to the seventh century.
The oldest rocks on the island are from the Cambrian Age and are therefore more than 500 million
