One Irish Summer

by William Eleroy Curtis

Was then convened firmly

By the illustrious King of Erin.”

The last ard-ri, or king of all Ireland, was Roderick O’Conor, who died in 1198.

The archæologists, judging by the ruins and the traces of the walls, find that the great banqueting hall was 759 feet long by 90 feet wide; the other buildings were circular or oval; and it is apparent that they were surrounded by walls of stone intended both for privacy and protection.

No doubt the royal residences and other buildings at Tara were of wicker construction. Furthest to the south, on the ridge or hill of Tara, is the Rath Laoghaire (Leary), built by an old king whom St. Patrick tried to convert, but without success; and somewhere in the rampart on the southern side of this are the bones of Laoghaire. He was buried as he ordered—in the bank of his rath, standing erect, with his shield and weapons, with his face turned southward toward his foes, the Lagenians (Leinstermen). Next northward is Rath na Riogh (Rath of the Kings), probably the oldest structure at Tara, and the royal residence. It is oval, and 853 feet long from north to south. Within its inclosure are: Teach Cormaic (Cormac’s House), a rath with an outer ring, probably built by Cormac Mac Art. Its diameter is about one hundred and forty feet. Next to the northwest, and joined to Teach Cormaic by a common parapet, is the Forradh (“place of meeting”). Its greatest diameter being 296 feet and the diameter of the inner circle 88 feet. To the north of these, but still within the Rath na Riogh, is a mound called Dumha na n-Giall (Mound of the Hostages), on the flat summit of which was probably a house wherein dwelt the hostages often required by the ard-ri of minor kings, of whose fealty he might have doubts. No doubt the hostages of Niall of the Nine Hostages were kept here. To the west of this mound are the remains of another, the Dumha na Bo, or Mound of the Cow. Outside the inclosure of the Rath na Riogh, on the north, is Rath na Seanaidh, or Rath of the Synods, so called because of the synods held there by St. Patrick and his successors, though it is of much older date.

Upon the summit of the hill is a rude statue of St. Patrick carved in granite by Mr. Curry, a stone cutter in one of the neighboring towns, and erected at the expense of local contributors many years ago. It bears no likeness to any human being, but the motive which erected it was pure and patriotic, and in a measure it is appropriate because on Easter morning in the year 433 St. Patrick proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ to the pagan priests and the King of Tara and his court, standing upon the very spot now occupied by his statue. Father Mathew once delivered a temperance speech from that holy spot, and in 1843 Daniel O’Connell addressed a monster meeting, attended by a quarter of a million people, many of whom came fifty miles or more to hear him advocate the political emancipation of the Roman Catholic population of Ireland. The meeting lasted two days and O’Connell spoke twice. It was one of his last meetings before his arrest and imprisonment at Dublin. On or near the Mound of the Hostages, according to the best authorities, stood the “Lia Fail,” or “Stone of Destiny,” upon which for ages the monarchs of Ireland were crowned. This stone, according to tradition, was the pillow of Jacob when he dreamed his dream and when the angels descended and ascended a golden ladder at his head. It was preserved by fugitive Israelites at the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the tribes, was brought to Ireland with the Ark of the Covenant, and passed into the possession of the early kings. This stone was carried to Scotland and preserved at Scone until Edward I. took it to London for his coronation, and ever since his day it has been the seat of the coronation chair. All of the kings of England have sat upon it while the crown of sovereignty was placed upon their heads, from Edward I. to Edward VII., and any one may see it in the coronation chair at Westminster Abbey.

Petrie, one of the highest authorities on Irish history, denies that the coronation stone of Scone, now in the coronation chair at Westminster Abbey, is the Lia Fail. He asserts that it never left Tara. And he believes it is now there—a stone pillar, standing erect on the Forradh, marking the place of the interment of a number of Irish who were killed in the rebellion of 1798. It is about eleven feet long, and about half of its length is in the ground, so that it appears but a rough, unhewn pillar, five feet three inches high.

A similar stone was used by the Ulstermen to inaugurate The O’Neill. It was in a rath at Tullyhogue, near Cookstown, County Tyrone, and was broken up by an English expedition in the time of Queen Elizabeth. The Clannaboy O’Neills used an inauguration chair, a fragment of gray sandstone in the shape of a chair with a high back, without the mark of chisel upon it—evidently found somewhere just as it was. It was kept at Castlereagh, on the hills overlooking Belfast on the southeast. It was found among the ruins of the castle about seventy-five years ago, and is now in the Museum at Belfast.

Joyce’s “History of Ireland” gives an interesting story of the taking of the Lia Fail to Scotland: The Irish, or Gaels, or Scots, of Ulster, from the earliest ages were in the habit of crossing over in their currachs to the coast of Alban, as Scotland was then called; and some carried on a regular trade therewith, and many settled there and made it their home. The Picts often attempted to expel the intruders, but the latter held their ground, and as time went on occupied more and more of the western coast and islands. About A.D. 200, a leader named Riada (meaning the long armed), a grandson of Conn of the Hundred Battles, and first cousin of Cormac Mac Art, settled among the Picts of Alban with a large following of Munster fighting men and their families. From him all this western portion of Scotland was called Dalriada (Riada’s portion). There was also an Irish Dalriada named for him, comprising what is now the northern portion of County Antrim. The Venerable Bede, in his “Ecclesiastical History,” also gives an account of Riada and his colony.

About A.D. 503, three brothers, Fergus, Angus, and Loarn, sons of a chief named Erc, and all Christians (Erc was a direct descendant of Riada), led a large body of colonists over to Alban. They united with the previous settlers from Ireland, and took possession of a large territory, which they formed into a kingdom, of which Fergus, the son of Erc (hence called Fergus Mac Erc), was made the first king. The Lia Fail was taken over from Tara in order that Fergus might be inaugurated king upon it, and was never brought back. So, if this is true, the Stone of Destiny had been taken from Tara a generation before the curse of St. Ruadhan caused Tara to be abandoned as a royal residence.