The belief that the "torch of tradition" has burned continuously, without rekindling, is strengthened by the slight and bald narrations about the all-important Mound of Inauguration at Magh Adhair,[1] despite its appearance in accessible works, from the Collectanea of Vallancey onwards. It is also noteworthy that the bulk of the Clare stories are Dalcassian, the great tribes of the Corcabaiscinn only appearing in the tales of St. Senan, and those naming the Corca Modruad having seemingly died out.[2]
1. The Gods.
Ana or Danann, Mother of the Gods, is still kept in mind by Irish speakers in naming certain hills in Kerry,[3] and her children, the Tuatha Dé Danann, are not forgotten in ancient Thomond. Slieve Boughty or Aughty (Sliabh n Echtgha), on the north-eastern border of Clare, is named from "Echtghe the Awful," the divine daughter of the god Nuada Silver-Arm.[4] These hills were given to her by her lover, the cup-bearer of Gann and Genann, the eponymous ancestors of the Ganganoi of Ptolemy.[5] Tuath Aughty is the parish of Feakle. The god Lugh had a daughter Tailti, and a rath-builder, Alestar, dug a fort to appease her anger at a slight offered when her husband, Eochy Garbh, was clearing a forest to make a fair green in her honour. This fort lay at Cluan Alestair on Sliabh Leitreach (or Mount Callan),[6] but its site is now forgotten. The two tales are recorded in ancient books, and the place-names themselves are still preserved.[6]
I have already noted[7] a warning in 1905 by two natives at
- ↑ Cf. vol. xxii., p. 208.
- ↑ Cf. vol. xxi., pp. 181-2.
- ↑ The Paps of Kerry are called Da chich Danainne ("The Two Breasts of Ana"), Annals of the Four Masters (ed. O'Donovan), vol. i., p. 24 n.
- ↑ "Dindsenchas" (ed. Whitley Stokes), Revue Celtique, vol. xv. (1894), p. 458. See also the later "Agallamh na Senorach" (The Colloquy with the Ancients), S. H. O'Grady, Silva Gadelica, vol. ii., p. 126.
- ↑ See paper by Mr. G. H. Orren in The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. xxiv., p. 119.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Dindsenchas," Revue Celtique, vol. xv. (1894), p. 317.
- ↑ Vol. xxi., p. 198. So in Silva Gadelica, vol. ii., pp. 123-6, people are afraid to sit on certain tulachs or mounds from fear of the Tuatha Dé Danann. For a description of this remarkable district see The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. xxxv., pp. 343-52.
