is a townland named Ballygaddy (Baile an Gadaighe, ‘the townland of the thief’), and according to O’Donovan there existed here two heaps of stones and a larger monument named Altóir Phádruig, or ‘St Patrick’s Altar’, on which the saint is said to have said mass.
St Benin also has a small church on Inishmore, Aran Islands. The church known as Temple Benan is on the hillside a few hundred yards south-west from the village of Killeany. The internal measurements are about eleven by seven feet, while the gables, rising to about sixteen feet, are quite steep. Why the roof here cannot be restored is a mystery, for the walls are very solid and have remained so for almost a millennium and-a-half. It would be a place of great pilgrimage and memory to the monk who was the first disciple of St Patrick and who practised religion on the ancient site of Dún Lughaid.
Twelve miles east of Lough Corrib is the townland of Coolfowerbeg (Cuil Fobhair, ‘the back of the spring well’) [46] in the parish of Killererin. Here Tigernmas defeated the descendants of Éber, the Milesian or Gaelic chief, according to Keating, but Hogan says that Tigernmas fought and defeated the Érainn here. This vagueness as to who fought whom is indicative of our prehistory. Yet it stands as one of the many battles fought by Tigernmas, High King of Ireland, as recorded in the annals.
To the south-west of Kinvara (Cinn Mhara, ‘head of the sea’) [52] is the Doorus Demesne, the summer home of Comte Florimond de Basterot, and during a visit to the Count there in 1898 Lady Gregory recalled that ‘The Count remembered when on Garland Sunday [last Sunday in July] men used to ride races naked on unsaddled horses out into the sea; but that wild custom has been done away with by decree of the priests.’
The wild custom would appear to have been part of a central ritual during the feast of Lughnasa and reveals the connection between Epona, a Gaulish horse goddess who was the daughter of a man called ‘nature of the sea’ and is also the mother of a horse who returns to the sea, and Lug,* the foster son of Manannán mac Lir,* the Irish and Welsh sea god. Epona’s Irish equivalent is Macha, a horse goddess and a goddess of fertility. The central motif in the ritual horse bathing at harvest time is that the mare goddess is married to the sea and at certain times returns to her lover. In Greek mythology, Demeter, often depicted with a mare’s head, had intercourse with Poseidon, the god of the sea. A central part of this Indo-European rite was expressed with the horse race into the sea at Kinvara.
About ten miles south of Kinvara is the town of Gort [52], and about two miles north-east of here is Ballyconnell, which derives its name from a famous battle known as Cath Carn Conaill or ‘the battle of Carn Conaill’. According to the Annals of Ulster the battle took place in 649 AD, and although firmly placed in the historic period, contains many elements discernible in the older tales. The battle was fought between Duirmuid Ruanaid, a powerful chief of the southern Uí Néill, and Guaire of Aidne, King of Connacht. Aidne comprised the barony of Kiltartan and the dioceses of Kilmacduagh.
Guaire held his court at his castle originally known as Durlas Guaire (‘the strong fort of Guaire’) but now named Dungory just east of Kinvara. A more modern castle stands here now, but in 1914 it was said that the remains of the original castle could be seen. According to P.W. Joyce, ‘half a mile east of Kinvara, on the seashore stands an ancient circular fort; and this is all that remains of the hospitable palace of Durlas’. The castle that now goes by the name Dungory Castle was built by the O’Heynes and stands in the middle of this original circular fort.
Like Suibhne Geilt (‘Mad Sweeny’*) from Magh Rath in Co. Down, Guaire is from an age when the ancient order was changing and saw a flowering of the poetic order. It was perhaps because his durlas was a meeting place for poets that he was named Guaire the Hospitable. In a tale handed down from the seventh century it is said that after Seanchan Torpeist was elected to Ollamh (chief file or poet) of Ireland, he consulted with his fellow poets as to which king they should honour with their first or inaugural visit according to ancient custom, and they decided to visit Guaire. Thus, they visited Gort Insi Guaire (‘the field island of Guaire’), which is an accurate description of Guaire’s fortress at Kinvara, as the castle was on a small island just off the mainland in Kinvara Bay. Today there is a small causeway which leads to the island.
Seanchan took with him 150 poets, 150 pupils and a corresponding number of women – which follows the storytelling tradition of giving numbers in fifties. However, an ollamh was only entitled to a retinue of thirty, and this number was lowered to twenty-four at the Convention of Drom Ceat in 590 AD. Seanchan was well received by Guaire, of whom it is said that one of his arms was longer than the other, thus earning him the soubriquet ‘hospitable’. Seanchan was entitled to stay at the royal residence for ‘a year, a quarter and a month’. While he was at the king’s residence, a dish sent to his bedroom by his wife Brigit contained nothing but gnawed bones, and the servant said that this was due to rats. Here Seanchan used his power in verse to rhyme the vermin to death. The following is a translation by O’Curry of his rhyme:
Rats, though sharp their snouts,
Are not powerful in battles;
I will bring death on the party of them
For having eaten Brigit’s present.
Small was the present she made us,
Its loss to her was not great;
Let her have payment from us in a poem,
Let her not refuse the poet’s gratitude!
You rats which are in the roof of the house
Arise, all of you, and fall down.
Ten rats then fell dead from the roof, and Seanchan said that it was not the rats that should have been satirised but the cats for failing in their duty. He then satirised the chief of the cats who was said to reside in the cave of Knowth near Slane. However, regardless of the rats and the delightful setting, the poets became troublesome to the extent that the king’s brother, a hermit named Marbhan, put a geis or obligation on them to depart and to devote themselves to the discovery of the ancient tale of the Táin Bó Cúailnge.* Seanchan Torpeist was aggrieved at this and on his departure presented a short farewell poem to Guaire.
We depart from thee, O stainless Guaire!
We leave thee with our blessing;
A year, a quarter and a month,
Have we sojourned with thee, O high king!
Three times fifty poets, – good and smooth, –
Three times fifty students in the poetic art,
Each with his servant and dog;
They were all fed in one great house.
Each man had his separate meal;
Each man had his separate bed;
We never arose at early morning,
Without contentions without calming.
I declare to thee O God!
Who canst the promise verify,
That should we return to our own land,
We shall visit thee again, O Guaire, though now we depart.
[Translated by Eugene O’Curry]
Seanchan was later successful in retrieving the great epic of the Táin. He originally set out from Durlas Guaire in search of the epic to Scotland
