died. Three persons were struck by lightning at the Assembly in 856, and the strange story of a mysterious explosion, which blew part of a cross[1] to Tailltiu ten years before, must have added to a sense of insecurity. At last, in 872, for the first time in tradition, the Assembly was discontinued. Futile attempts were made to re-establish it in 898, by Diarmaid, son of Cerball; in 916 by Niall, King of Tara; and perhaps by King Donchad in 925, when the Dub óenach[2] was stopped; in 1006, by King Mael Sechlainn, after eighty years’ disuse (his rival, King Brian, visited the place two years before, but had not attempted to hold a meeting) and lastly, after 114 years, Ruadri, the last monarch of Ireland, appropriately closed its official history by a huge gathering (the crowds covering the country for several miles) in 1166. The artificial renewals naturally died out when the Normans occupied the country, though some sort of customary sports were kept up by their tenants. Otherwise the last trace of a forgotten god and discredited social system disappeared.
Unlike the instructive details in the poem on the great sister Assembly of Carmun, we find little as to the sports and etiquette at Tailltiu. The chariot races and horses are named in many sources, notably in 810, and in Cormac’s Glossary a century later. The coursers still ran in 1550, and a bard frequented the place so late as 1571 and played the harp. Sacred fires were lit, judgments were given, offences against the solemnities were punished with death, even in the sixth century, and we hear of a fine for cutting a gap in the grave (mound) of a chief at Suidech na Taillten,[3]
- ↑ ^ From Slane: strange to say a small fragment of a Celtic cross remains there (R. Soc. Ant. Ir. xxxi. pp. 421-4); see also Irish Nennius, p. 215.
- ↑ It was held by every monarch of Ireland from 1500 B.C. to the “Dubh Oenach” of Donchad, son of Flann, son of Mael-Sechlainn (A.D. 918-942); see Dind S. (Rev. Celt. xvi. p. 51).
- ↑ Ancient Laws, v. p. 477, a penally of five “seds,” like the double tine for going over the “mur” (enclosure) of a church or the gate of a fort (“dun”).
