Aileach is a circular, dry-stone fortress with walls nine feet thick. It was levelled down to the ground when Mr Barnard undertook its restoration. The history of its destruction is so strange, so unique, and so Irish, that it must be given. Let the Four Masters tell it. They say, under the year 1101, that “A great army was led by O’Brian, King of Munster, with the men of Munster, Ossory, Meath and Connacht, across Assaroe into Innishowen.... He demolished Grianan Aileach in revenge of Kinncora, which had been razed and demolished by Muircheartach O’Lochlainn some time before. O’Brian commanded his army to carry with them from Aileach to Limerick a stone of the demolished building for every sack of provisions they had. In commemoration of which was said (by some unknown poet)—
“‘I never heard of the billeting of grit stones,
Though I heard of the billeting of companies,
Until the stones of Aileach were billeted
On the horses of the King of the West.’”
This is the only attempt at anything like humour in all the dreary annals of the Four Masters. Such quiet sarcasm would be a credit to Mark Twain. But if the poet had said “King of the South” instead of “King of the West,” although it might not have answered his Gaelic rhyme or assonance quite so well, it would have been more correct, for although Munster is west of Aileach, it is more south than west. It can never be known how high the walls of Aileach had been before they were pulled down by O’Brien, because we don’t know how many cavalry he had, or how many stones he carried to Limerick. Never before was an army loaded with such impedimenta; but that the story of the stones of Aileach, or at least, stones similar to them, having been brought to Limerick or its immediate vicinity, there cannot be much doubt, for they were found there.
The fortress of Aileach is nearly a hundred feet in diameter in the inside. It is not known if it was ever roofed, but it is probable that it was. There were two lines of earthen ramparts round it, but they have nearly disappeared. John O’Donovan thought that the entire hill of Grianan, on which the fortress stands, was once enclosed by a vast rampart of earth, and that cultivation has destroyed all but the faintest traces of it. It seems probable that Aileach was intended more for a stronghold than for a permanent dwelling-place. It may have been inhabited only when a siege or an invasion was expected. One of its names, or rather the first part of one of its names, “Grianan,” would indicate that it was intended only as a summer residence, like the Dunsinane = Dún soinine, fine weather fortress, of Macbeth. Those who could live in winter on top of the wind-swept hill on which Aileach stands without getting coughs or colds would require constitutions of iron and lungs of brass.
O’Donovan says that if any reliance can be placed on Irish chronology, the antiquity of Aileach must be very great, no less than upwards of a thousand years before the Christian era. He says, also, that the poet, part of whose poem on Aileach is given below, in making the Tuata de Danaan King, Eochy, generally known in Irish history and legend as the Dagda, contemporaneous with the Assyrian King, Darcylus, exactly agrees with the chronology of O’Flaherty and Usher, who say that he reigned 1053 years before the Christian era.
There is a poem in the “Book of Lecan” on Aileach by the poet to whom O’Donovan alludes, that in language and tournure bears the marks of extreme antiquity. Even O’Donovan, great a Celtic scholar as he was, had apparently extreme difficulty in translating it. It has never been published. The first dozen or so lines are given here:—
“Aileach Fridreann, arena of mighty kings. A dun through which ran roads under heroes through five ramparts. Hill on which slept the Dagda. Red its flowers. Many its houses. Just its spoils. Few its stones. A lofty castle is Aileach. Fort of the great man. A sheltering dun over the lime [white] schools. A delightful spot is Aileach. Green its bushes. The sod where the Dagda found the mound wherein rested Hugh.”
But it is in more recent times that the history and records of Aileach become supremely interesting. It was from there that Muircheartach Mac Neill, styled the Hector of the west of Europe by old annalists, started on his celebrated “Circuit of Ireland” in the year 942. He was heir apparent to the chief kingship of Ireland, and wanted to show the provincial rulers that he was fit to rule them. So he determined to start on his circuit in the depth of winter, when it appears the ancient Irish seldom went on forays, and either make or persuade the provincial rulers to acknowledge his right to the throne when the then reigning chief king, Donacha, died. The way he is said to have chosen men for the expedition is very curious and very Irish. He caused a tent to be erected, keeping the cause of its erection unknown, and made his men to go into it at night. A fierce dog attacked every one that entered; and opposite to where the dog was, an armed man also attacked those that entered; both man and dog simultaneously attacking the intruder. If he who entered the tent flinched neither from dog nor man, but showed fight to both, he was chosen; but whoever showed the least sign of cowardice was rejected. Out of his whole army we are told that Muircheartach could only get a thousand men, and with that small army, protected by strong leather cloaks, he started on his Circuit of Ireland to force, intimidate, or coax the provincial kings to acknowledge that he was their master, and that he was to be their next suzerain.
Our principal source of information about the Circuit comes from a poem of undoubted authority and antiquity, written by one called Cormacan Eigeas, who accompanied Muircheartach on the expedition. It is one of the most remarkable poems of its age, not only in Gaelic, but in any language. It was translated more than forty years ago, and may be seen in the “Transactions” of the Royal Irish Academy; but it is not probable that even forty persons have ever read it, so little general interest has heretofore been taken in Gaelic literature or Irish history. For these reasons it cannot be uninteresting to give some extracts from it. It commences:
“O Muircheartach, son of the valiant Niall,
Thou hast taken the hostages of Inis Fail,
Thou hast brought them all into Aileach,
Into the stone-built palace of steeds!
“Thou didst go forth from us with a thousand heroes
Of the race of Eoghan of red weapons,
To make the great Circuit of Ireland,
O Muircheartach of the yellow hair!
“The day thou didst set out from us eastwards
Into the fair province of Connor,[7]
Many were the tears down beauteous cheeks
Among the fair-haired women of Aileach.”