Noble is the King of Teamor,
Teamor the Tuathan Tower,
Tuaths were the sons of Miledh,
Miledh of the Libearn vessels.
Here, then,—a circumstance which I cannot imagine how it could have escaped all before me!—we have this disputed question at length settled, and incontrovertibly adjudicated by the very head of that body which Montmorency had assured us never alluded to those edifices as a subject of national boast—I mean the Bards. For, whether we admit this Amergin to have been the person above described,[438] the actual contemporary and successor of the Tuatha-de-danaans, or as the other of that name who belongs to the Christian age, and the time of St. Patrick, the supposition is equally valid, to prove the existence of those structures anterior to their respective eras! and the ascription in either case remains unshaken and irrefragable, which in the word Tuathan Tower unites the Tower erectors with the colony of the Tuatha!
My opponents may now demolish, if they can, all my foregoing deductions, as speedily as they please,—nay, did the destructiveness of fire, or other untoward accident, deprive me of the deductions of my preceding labours, to this one stanza would I cling, as the palladium of my truth; to this landmark would I adhere as my “ne plus ultra” against error, in its encroachments upon history![439]
In the whole catalogue of Irish deposits, there exists not one of more intrinsic value to the lover of antiquities, so far as the right settlement of history is concerned, than what those four lines present. For, in the first place, we learn that the celebrity of Teamor[440] arose not from any gorgeous suit of palaces of a castellated outline. Its renown consisted in being the central convention for religious celebration to all the distant provincials once in every year; who, after attending the games in the adjoining district of Tailtine, now Telltown, adjourned, for legislative deliberations, to the Hill of Tarah, where they propounded their plans, not within the confined enclosures of any measured dome, but under the open canopy of the expanded firmament.
Teamor, then, was not a palace at all, but one of the Round Towers, or Budhist Temples, belonging to the Tuath-de-danaans; and this is further proved by the result of researches, made to explore the foundation of an edifice, confirmatory of a regal mansion, having all ended in the most confuting disappointment—no vestiges could be found save those of the Round Tower!
The importance which attaches to the Tailtine games above noticed, makes it necessary that I should bestow upon them something more than a cursory glance. Let me, therefore, first state what other writers have said respecting them.
“We attribute,” says Abbé Mac Geoghegan, “to Lugha Lamh Fada, one of their ancient kings, the institution of military exercises at Tailton in Meath; those exercises consisted in wrestling, the combats of gladiators, tournaments, races on foot and on horseback, as we have seen them instituted at Rome a long time after by Romulus, in honour of Mars, which were called ‘Equitia.’ These games at Tailton, which Gratianus Lucius and O’Flaherty call ‘ludi Taltini,’ were celebrated every year, during thirty days, that is, fifteen days before, and fifteen days after, the first of our month of August. On that account, the first of August has been, and is still called in Ireland, ‘Lah Lugh-Nasa,’ which signifies a day in memory of Lugha. These olympiads always continued amongst the Milesians until the arrival of the English. We discover to this day some vestiges of them, without any other change than that of time and place. Wrestling, which we call in France ‘le tour du Breton,’ the exercises of gladiators, and races on foot, are still on festival days their common diversion in various districts of Ireland, and the conquerors generally receive a prize.”
“Tailtean,” says Seward, “a place in the county of Meath, where the Druids sacrificed in honour of the sun and moon, and heaven and earth, on the first of August, being the fifth revolution of the moon from the vernal equinox. At this time the states assembled, and young people were given in marriage, according to the custom of the eastern nations. Games were also instituted, resembling the Olympic games of the Greeks, and held fifteen days before and fifteen days after the first of August. This festival was frequently denominated Lughaid Naoislean, or the Matrimonial Assembly.”
“This chapter,” says Vallancey, “might have been lengthened many pages, with the description and etymology of the various ornaments of female dress, but enough has been said to convince the reader that the ancient Irish brought with them the Asiatic dress and ornaments of their ancestors, for they could not have borrowed these names of Spaniards, Britons, Danes, or Norwegians.