STONE PILLAR WORSHIP AND IDOL WORSHIP.
(Vol. v., p. 121.; Vol. vii., p. 383.)
Stone Pillar Worship.—Sir J. E. Tennent inquires whether any traces of this worship are to be found in Ireland, and refers to a letter from a correspondent of Lord Roden's, which states that the peasantry of the island of Inniskea, off the coast of Mayo, hold in reverence a stone idol called Neevougi. This word I cannot find in my Irish dictionary, but it is evidently a diminutive, formed from the word Eevan (Iomhaigh), image, or idol: and it is remarkable that the scriptural Hebrew term for idol is identical with the Irish, or nearly so—אָוֶנ (Eevan), derived from a root signifying negation, and applied to the vanity of idols, and to the idols themselves.
I saw at Kenmare, in the county of Kerry, in the summer of 1847, a water-worn fragment of clay slate, bearing a rude likeness to the human form, which the peasantry called Eevan. Its original location was in or near the old graveyard of Kilmakillogue, and it was regarded with reverence as the image of some saint in "the ould auncient times," as an "ould auncient" native of Tuosist (the lonely place) informed me. In the same immediate neighbourhood is a gullaune (gallán), or stone pillar, at which the peasantry used "to give rounds;" also the curious small lakes or tarns, on which the islands were said to move on July 8, St. Quinlan's [Kilian?] Day. (See Smith's History of Kerry.)
However, such superstitious usages are fast falling into desuetude; and, whatever may have been the early history of Eevan, it is a sufficient proof of no vestige of stone pillar worship remaining in Tuosist, that, to gratify the whim of a young gentleman, some peasants from the neighbourhood removed this stone fragment by boat to Kenmare the spring of 1846, where it now lies, perched on the summit of a limestone rock in the grounds of the nursery-house.
J. L.
Dublin.
Idol Worship.—The islands of Inniskea, on the north-west coast of Ireland, are said to be inhabited by a population of about four hundred human beings, who speak the Irish language, and retain among them a trace of that government by chiefs which in former times existed in Ireland. The present chief or king of Inniskea is an intelligent peasant, whose authority is universally acknowledged, and the settlement of all disputes is referred to his decision. Occasionally they have been visited by wandering schoolmasters, but so short and casual have such visits been, that there are not ten individuals who even know the letters of any language. Though nominally Roman Catholics, these islanders have no priest resident among them, and their worship consists in occasional meetings at their chief's house, with visits to a holy well. Here the absence of religion is filled with the open practice of pagan idolatry; for in the south island a stone idol, called in the Irish Neevougi, has been from time immemorial religiously preserved and worshipped. This god, in appearance, resembles a thick roll of homespun flannel, which arises from a custom of dedicating a material of their dress to it whenever its aid is sought: this is sewed on by an old woman, its priestess, whose peculiar care it is. They pray to it in time of sickness. It is invoked when a storm is desired to dash some helpless ship upon the coast; and, again, the exercise of its power is solicited in calming the angry waves to admit of fishing.
Such is a brief outline of these islanders and their god; but of the early history of this idol no authentic information has yet been obtained. Can any of your numerous readers furnish an account of it?
William Blood.
Wicklow.