Lough Crew.
At a distance of twenty-five miles nearly due west from Brugh na Boinn, and two miles south-east from Oldcastle, is a range of hills, called on the Ordnance map Slieve na Calliagh—the hags' or witches' hill. It is upwards of 200 feet above the level of the sea, and the most conspicuous elevation in that part of the country. On the ridge of this range, which is about two miles in extent, are situated from twenty-five to thirty cairns, some of considerable size, being 120 to 180 feet in diameter; others are much smaller, and some so nearly obliterated that their dimensions can hardly be now ascertained. Till seven or eight years ago this cemetery was entirely unknown to Irish antiquaries, and the positions of the cairns were hardly even indicated in the Ordnance Survey; but in 1863 they attracted the attention of Mr. Eugene Conwell, of Trim. In the years 1867-8 he was enabled, with the assistance and co-operation of the late Mr. Naper, of Lough Crew, the proprietor of the soil, to excavate and explore the whole of them. A brief account of the results which he obtained was submitted to the Royal Irish Academy in 1868, and afterwards printed by him for private circulation in 1868; but the greater work, with plans and drawings, in which he intends fully to illustrate the whole, is still in abeyance, owing to want of encouragement. When completed it will be one of the most valuable contributions to our archæological knowledge that we have received of late years. Meanwhile the following meagre particulars are derived from Mr Conwell's pamphlet and the information I picked up during a personal visit which I made to the spot in his company in the Autumn of last year. The illustrations are all from his drawings.
72. Cairn T, at Lough Crew.—From a plan by E. Conwell.
One of the most perfect of these tumuli is that distinguished by Mr. Conwell as Cairn T ([woodcut No. 72]). It stands on the highest point of the hill, and is consequently the most conspicuous. It is a truncated cone, 116 feet in diameter at base, and with a sloping side, between 60 and 70 feet in length. Around its base are thirty-seven stones, laid on edge, and varying from 6 to 12 feet in length. They are not detached, as at New Grange, but form a retaining wall to the mound. On the north, and set about 4 feet back from the circle, is a large stone, 10 feet long by 6 high, and 2 feet thick, weighing consequently above 10 tons. The upper part is fashioned as a rude seat, from which it derives its name of the Hag's Chair ([woodcut No. 73]), and there can be little doubt but that it was intended as a seat or throne; but whether by the king who erected the sepulchre, or for what purpose, it is difficult now to say.
73. The Hag's Chair, Lough Crew.—From a drawing by E. Conwell.
On the eastern side of the mound the stones forming the periphery of the cairn curve inwards for eight or nine yards on each side of the spot where the entrance to the chamber commences. It is of the usual cruciform plan, and 28 feet long from the entrance to the flat stone closing the innermost cell; the dome, consequently, is not nearly under the centre of the tumulus, as at New Grange, and lends something like probability to the notion that the cell at Dowth ([woodcut No. 69]), was really the principal sepulchre. Twenty-eight of the stones in the chamber were ornamented with devices of various sorts. Two of them are represented on the accompanying woodcut (No. 74), which, with the drawings on the Hag's Chair give a fair idea of their general character. They are certainly ruder and less artistic than those on the Boyne, and so far would indicate an earlier age. Nothing was found in the chambers of this tomb but a quantity of charred human bones, perfect human teeth, mixed with the bones of animals, apparently stags, and one bronze pin, 2½ inches long, with a head ornamented and stem slightly so, and still preserving a beautiful green polish.
74. Two Stones in Cairn T, Lough Crew.—E. Conwell.
Cairn L ([woodcut No. 75]), a little further west, is 135 feet in diameter, and surrounded by forty-two stones, similar to those in Cairn T. The same curve inwards of these stones marks the entrance here, which is placed 18 feet from the outward line of the circle. The chamber here is nearly of the same dimensions as that last described, being 29 feet deep and 13 across its greatest width. In one of the side chambers lies the largest of the mysterious flat basins that have yet been discovered, 5 feet 9 inches long by 3 feet 1 inch broad, the whole being tooled and picked with as much care and skill as if executed by a modern mason. This one has a curious nick in its rim, but as it does not go through, it could hardly be intended as a spout. Till some unrifled tomb is found, or something analogous in other countries, it is extremely difficult to say what the exact use of these great stone saucers may have been. That the body or ashes were laid on them is more than probable, and they may then have been covered over with a lid like a dish-cover, such as are found on tombs in Southern Babylonia.[252] Under this basin were found great quantities of charred human bones and forty-eight human teeth, besides a perfectly rounded syenite ball, still preserving its original polish, also some jet and other ornaments. In other parts were found quantities of charred bones, some rude pottery and bone implements, but no objects in metal. The woodcut representing the cell, with large basin, gives a fair idea of the general style of sculpture in this and the neighbouring cairns. The parts cross-hatched seem to have been engraved with a sharp metal tool. The ordinary forms, however, both here and on the Boyne are picked; but whether they were executed with a hammer, or pick direct, or by a chisel driven by a hammer, is by no means clear. My own impression is, that it would be very difficult indeed to execute these patterns with a hammer of any sort, and that a chisel must have been used, but whether of flint, bronze, or iron, there is no evidence to show.
75. Cell in Cairn L, at Lough Crew.—E. Conwell.
Cairn H, though only between 5 and 6 feet in height and 54 feet in diameter, seems to have been the only one on the hill not previously rifled, and yielded a most astonishing collection of objects to its explorer. The cell was of the usual cruciform plan, 24 feet from the entrance to the rear, and 16 feet across the lateral chambers. In the passage and crypts of this cairn Mr. Conwell collected some 300 fragments of human bones, which must have belonged to a considerable number of separate individuals; 14 fragments of rude pottery, 10 pieces of flint, 155 sea-shells in a perfect condition, besides pebbles and small polished stones, in quantities.
The most remarkable part of the collection consisted of 4884 fragments, more or less perfect, of bone implements. These are now in the Dublin Museum, and look like the remains of a paper-knife-maker's stock-in-trade. Most of them are of a knife shape, and almost all more or less polished, but without further ornamentation; but 27 fragments appear to have been stained, 11 perforated, 501 engraved with rows of fine lines; 13 combs were engraved on both sides, and 91 engraved by compass with circles and curves of a high order of art. On one, in cross-hatch lines, is the representation of an antlered stag, the only attempt to depict a living thing in the collection.
Besides these, there were found in this cairn seven beads of amber, three small beads of glass of different colours, two fragments, and a curious molten drop of glass, 1 inch long, trumpet-shaped at one end, and tapering towards the other extremity; six perfect and eight fragments of bronze rings, and seven specimens of iron implements, but all, as might be expected, very much corroded by rust. One of these presents all the appearance of being the leg of a compass, with which the bone implements may have been engraved, and one was an iron punch, 5 inches long, with a chisel-shaped point, bearing evidence of the use of the mallet at the opposite end.
Cairn D is the largest and most important monument of the group, being 180 feet in diameter, and though it is very much dilapidated, the circle of fifty-four stones which originally surrounded it can still be traced. On its eastern side the stones curve inwards for about twelve paces, in the form universal in these cairns; but though the explorers set to work industriously to follow out what they considered a sure "find," they could not penetrate the mound. The stones fell in upon them so fast, and the risk they ran was so great, that they were forced to abandon the idea of tunnelling, and though a large body of men worked assiduously for a fortnight trying to work down from above, they failed to penetrate to the central or any other chambers. It still, therefore, remains a mystery if there is a blind tope, like many in India, or whether its secret still remains to reward some more fortunate set of explorers. If it has no central chamber, the curving inwards of its outer circle of stones is a curious instance of adherence to a sacred form.
The other monuments on the hill do not present any features worth enumerating in a general summary like the present, though they would be most interesting in a monograph. Though differing greatly in size and in richness of ornamentation, they all belong to one class, and apparently to one age. For our present purpose one of the most interesting peculiarities is that, like the group on the banks of the Boyne, this is essentially a cemetery. There are no circles, no alignments, no dolmens, no rude stone monuments, in fact. All are carefully built, and all more or less ornamented; and there is a gradation and progression throughout the whole series widely different in this respect from the simplicity and rudeness of the English monuments described in the last chapter.
It now only remains to try to ascertain who those were who were buried in these tumuli, and when they were laid there to their rest. So far as the evidence at present stands it hardly seems to me to admit of doubt but that this is the cemetery of Talten, so celebrated in Irish legend and poetry:—
"The host of Great Meath are buried
In the middle of the Lordly Brugh;
The Great Ultonians used to bury
At Talten with pomp.
"The true Ultonians, before Conchobar,
Were ever buried at Talten,
Until the death of that triumphant man,
Through which they lost their glory."[253]
The distance of the spot from Telltown, the modern representative of Talten, is twelve miles, which to some might appear an objection, but it must be remembered that Brugh is ten miles from Tara, where all the kings resided, who were buried there; and as Dathi and others of them were buried at Rath Croghan, sixty-five miles off, distance seems hardly to be an objection. Indeed, among a people who, as evidenced by their monuments, paid so much attention to funeral rites and ceremonious honours to their dead, as the Pagan Irish evidently did, it must have mattered little whether the last resting-place of one of their kings was a few miles nearer or further from his residence.
It must not, however, be forgotten, that the proper residence of the Ultonians, who are said to have been buried at Talten, was Emania or Armagh, forty-five miles distant as the crow flies. Why they should choose to be buried in Meath, so near the rival capital of Tara, if that famed city then existed, is a mystery which it is not easy to solve; but that it was so, there seems no doubt, if the traditions or Books of the Irish are at all to be depended upon. If their real residence was so distant, it seems of trifling consequence whether it was ten or twelve miles from the place we now know as Telltown. There must have been some very strong reason for inducing the Ultonians to bury so far from their homes; but as that reason has not been recorded, it is idle to attempt to guess what form it took. What would appear a most reasonable suggestion to a civilized Saxon in the nineteenth century would in all probability be the direct antithesis of the motive that would guide an uncivilized Celt in the first century before Christ, and we may therefore as well give up the attempt. Some other reason than that of mere proximity to the place of residence governed the Irish in the choice of the situation of their cemeteries; what that was we may hereafter be able to find out,—at present, so far as I know, the materials do not exist for forming an opinion. If, however, this is not Talten, no graves have been found nearer Telltown, which would at all answer to the descriptions that remains to us of this celebrated cemetery; and, till they are found, these Lough Crew mounds seem certainly entitled to the distinction. I cannot see that the matter is doubtful.
If this is so, there is little difficulty in determining who were buried here. Besides the testimony of the poem just quoted, it is stated in the Book of the 'Cemeteries'—"At Tailten the kings of Ulster were used to bury vigt. Ollamh Fodhla with his descendants down to Conchobhar, who wished to be carried to a place between Slea and the sea, with his face to the east, on account of the faith which he had embraced." This conversion of Conchobhar is one of the most famous legends in Irish ancient history. He was wounded in the head by a ball that remained there, and was ordered by his physician to remain quiet and avoid all excitement as his only chance of surviving. For seven years he followed this advice; but when he saw the eclipse of the sun, and felt the great convulsion that came over nature, the day that Christ was crucified, he turned to his Druid and asked, "What is this?" To which Bacrach, the Druid, replied: "It is true, indeed, Christ, the Son of God, is this day crucified by the Jews." "At the recital of this enormity, Conchobhar felt so indignant that he went nearly mad: his excitement was so great that the ball burst from his head, and he died on the very Friday on which the crucifixion took place."[254] All this may be silly enough, as the electric telegraph was not then in use, but it is worth quoting here, as it seems that it was to establish this synchronism that the chronology of the period was falsified to the extent of half a century at least. Conchobhar and Crimthann were the two kings of the two great dynasties then reigning in Ireland whom the annalists strive to synchronize with Christ, and though they fail in that, they establish beyond much doubt that those kings were contemporaries. If to this we add the fact so often repeated by the authorities quoted above, that Conchobhar was the last of his race buried at Talten, and that Crimthann was the first of his line buried at Brugh, we obtain a tolerably clear idea of the history of these cemeteries. Brugh, in fact, succeeded to Talten on the decline of the Ultonian dynasty and the rise of Tuatha de Danann after the victories at Moytura had established their supremacy and they had settled themselves at Tara.
The character of the sculptures in the two groups of monuments fully bears out this view. The carvings at Lough Crew are ruder and less artistic than those at Brugh. They are more disconnected, and oftener mere cup markings. The three stones represented in the preceding and following woodcuts (Nos. 75 and 76), are selected from a great many in the Conwell portfolios as fair average specimens of the style of sculpture common at Lough Crew, and with the woodcut No. 73, representing the Hag's Chair, and No. 75, the chamber in cairn L, will convey a fair notion of the whole. In no one instance does it seem possible to guess what these figures were meant to represent. No animal or vegetable form can be recognized, even after allowing the utmost latitude to the imagination; nor do the circles or waving lines seem intended to convey any pictorial ideas. Beauty of form, as a decoration, seems to have been all the old Celt aimed at, and he may have been thought successful at the time, though it hardly conveys the same impression to modern minds. The graceful scrolls and spirals and the foliage of New Grange and Dowth do not occur there, nor anything in the least approaching to them. Indeed, when Mr. Conwell's book is published, in which they will all be drawn in more or less detail, I believe it will be easy to arrange the whole into a progressive series illustrative of the artistic history of Ireland for five centuries before the advent of St. Patrick.
76. Stone in Cairn T. Lough Crew.—E. Conwell.
It would be an extremely dangerous line of argument to apply this law of progressive development to all countries. In India, especially, it is very frequently reversed. The rudest art is often much more modern than the most refined, but in Ireland this apparently never was the case. From the earliest scratchings on pillar stones, down to the English conquest, her art seems to have been unfalteringly progressive; and, beginning with these two cemeteries, which are probably the oldest incunabula of her art, its history might be written without a gap, or halt, till it bloomed in those exquisite manuscripts and crosses and works of gold and metal which still excite such unqualified admiration.
77. Stones in Sculptured Graves, Clover Hill. From a sketch by the Author.
There may be, and no doubt are, many other sculptured graves in Ireland, but they have not yet been explored, or, at least, published. One, however, deserves notice; not, certainly, on account of its magnificence, but for several points of interest which its peculiarities bring out. It is situated in a field near Clover Hill, not far from Carrowmore, the battle-field of northern Moytura.[255] It measures only 7 feet by 5, and is 4½ feet deep. Its cap-stone was originally flush with the earth, and no cairn or circle of stones marks it externally, nor is there any tradition of any such ever having existed. The carvings on the stones forming the chamber are shallow, and now very indistinct, from being overgrown with lichens and moss, but their general character will be understood from the annexed woodcut. Its character is something between the sculptures of Talten and Brugh, which would agree very well with its date if we suppose it connected with the battle-field. This, however, is very doubtful, for there are few things that come out more prominently in the investigation than the fact that all those monuments which are directly or indirectly connected with battle-fields are literally rude and untouched by the chisel, but that all, or nearly all those which are in cemeteries, or have been erected leisurely by, or for, those who occupy them, are more or less ornamented. It may, however, be that some one connected with the battle wished to be buried near his companions who fell there, and prepared this last resting-place for himself, but we must know more before such speculations can be of much value.
One other point is of interest regarding this tomb. If the minor sepulchres at Brugh were like the one flush with the surface, we cannot guess how many may yet be there undiscovered, and equally difficult to say how they are to be disinterred.