There are no other traditions, so far as I know, attached to anything in this glen, except those that relate to St. Columba, who, it is understood, long resided here, attempting to convert the inhabitants to Christianity. Whether he was successful or not is not clear. He certainly left Ireland in disgust, and settled in the first island whence the shores of his detested native land could not be seen. The only other tradition that seems to bear on the subject relates to St. Patrick, who, being unable to convert the "Demons" about Croagh Patrick, in Mayo, drove them into the sea; but, instead of perishing, as they ought to have done, when he threw his bell after them, they reappeared, and settled on this promontory.[258] The meaning of this fable seems to be, that some tribe—not Celtic, for the Celts accepted Christianity whenever and wherever it was preached to them, but, it may be of Iberian origin—refusing to accept the doctrine, was expelled by force from their seats in Mayo, and sought refuge with kindred tribes in this remote corner of the island, and here remained till St. Columba took up his abode among them. If we might assume that the Columbkille group belongs to a time immediately preceding their conversion, and that the other five groups in Malin More extended back to a date two, three, it may be four centuries before St. Columba's time, and that they belonged to an Iberian or Celtiberian race, we should have an hypothesis which at least would account for all their peculiarities. Though in sight of Carrowmore, on the southern side of Sligo Bay, it is certain that these monuments have no affinity with them or with the works of any of the Northern circle-building nations. Spanish or French they must be; and we can hardly hesitate between the two. In Elizabeth's time, and as far back as history reaches, we have Spaniards settled in Galway, and on the western coast of Ireland. Such colonisation, if lasting, is not the work of any sudden impulse or of a long past time; and the probability is that Iberians, before they learned to talk Latin, were settled here from a very early age. It is also probable from what we know of them and their monuments in the Peninsula, that they would refuse for a longer period than the Celts to be converted, and that they should use dolmens for their sepulchres in preference either to tumuli or circles.
Be this as it may, there are at least two points which we may assume negatively with regard to these dolmens. The first is, that they do not mark battle-fields: they have none of the appearance of such monuments. The second is, that as there is no capital or fertile country in their neighbourhood, they are not a royal cemetery; they are not, indeed, claimed, even in the remotest manner, by any of the royal races of Ireland. They are, so far as we can see, the sepulchres of a foreign colony settled on this spot. Whether this is probable or not must, of course, depend on a comparison of these monuments with those in the countries from which they are supposed to have come. But, in the meanwhile, it may be assumed, as an hypothesis which at least accounts for the phenomena as we find them in Ireland, even when judged of by their own internal evidence alone.
One of the most interesting of the Irish dolmens is that known as the Giant's Grave, near Drumbo, about four miles south from Belfast. The interest attached to this monument does not, however, arise so much from the grandeur of the structure itself, though it may be considered a first-class example and very tolerably perfect, but from its standing solitary in the centre of the largest circle in these islands, Avebury only excepted. The circle is about 580 feet in diameter, and consequently more than six acres in extent, and is formed, not as at Avebury or Arbor Low, by a ditch dug inside, and the earth so gained being used to form a rampart, but by the top of a hill being levelled and the earth removed in so doing being thrown up so as to form a circular amphitheatre. Although, consequently, the rampart is not so high outside as at Avebury, the whole surface internally having been lowered, the internal effect is very much grander.[259]
What, then, was the object of this great earthwork with one solitary dolmen in the centre? Was it simply the converse of such a mound as that at New Grange? Was it that, instead of heaping the earth over the sepulchral chamber, they cleared it away and arranged it round it, so as to give it dignity? Or was it that funereal games or ceremonies were celebrated round the tomb, and that the amphitheatre was prepared to give dignity to their performance? These are questions that can only be answered when more of these circles are known and compared with one another, and the whole subject submitted to a more careful examination than has yet been the case. My impression is that it is the grave of a chief, and of him only, and that it is among the most modern of its class.
At about the same distance west from Belfast is another dolmen, which, in itself, is a much finer example than this Grave of the Giant. Its cap-stone is said to weigh 40 tons, and is supported by five upright stones of considerable dimensions. It has, however, no circle or accompaniments. The Celtic name of the district in which it stands was 'Baille clough togal,' i.e. the Town of the Stone of the Strangers, which would seem to indicate that it was not very old, nor its origin quite forgotten.
78. Dolmen at Knockeen.