LITMIR.BIZ

      First published in 2020 by

      © Daragh Smyth, 2020

      9781788551359 (Cloth)

      9781788551366 (Kindle)

      9781788551373 (Epub)

      9781788551380 (PDF)

      British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

      An entry can be found on request

      Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

      An entry can be found on request

      All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved

      alone, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or

      introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any

      means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),

      without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the

      above publisher of this book.

      Typeset in Minion Pro 11/14 pt

      Unless otherwise stated, all images are from the author’s private collection.

      Images on pp. 13, 20, 23, 28, 62, 134, 140, 158, 213, 266, 277, 279, 321, 355

      © Alamy Stock Photo.

      Front cover: David Lyons / Alamy Stock Photo

      Back cover: Andrew Holt / Alamy Stock Photo

      CONTENTS

       INTRODUCTION

       The Druids

       Foundation Myths

       The Cailleach and Kingship

       Sacred Trees

       How to Use this Book

       CONNACHT

       Galway

       Leitrim (see also Cavan)

       Mayo

       Roscommon

       Sligo

       LEINSTER

       Carlow

       Dublin

       Kildare

       Kilkenny

       Laois

       Longford

       Louth

       Meath

       Offaly

       Westmeath

       Wicklow

       Wexford

       MUNSTER

       Clare

       Cork

       Kerry

       Limerick

       Tipperary

       Waterford

       ULSTER

       Antrim

       Armagh

       Cavan

       Derry

       Donegal

       Down

       Fermanagh

       Monaghan

       Tyrone

       NOTES ON PICT-LAND AND SCOT-LAND

       GLOSSARY

       BIBLIOGRAPHY

       ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

       INDEX

INTRODUCTION

      It is my experience in studying our historical and quasi-historical legends, and in the best of all ways, namely by going over the actual ground where they are alleged to have happened, that wherever you are on sure ground there is a remarkable appropriateness between the episodes and the incidents of the tales and their topographical setting. The story told whether actual happenings or a conflation of legends, or a conscious invention, suits the geography and the terrain.

      –Henry Morris, First Battle of Magh Tuiredh, JRSAI, 1928.

      The purpose of this book is to provide a guide to readers who would like to become familiar with those places associated with early Irish history and mythology. In Ireland, the link between place and myth is strong. The hundreds of dolmens and ring forts associated with the love story of Diarmuid and Gráinne, for example, keep this medieval tale alive, just as ‘The Cave of the Otherworld’ near Tulsk in Co. Roscommon connects us to the earliest rites of samain, a festival that is still with us in the shape of Hallowe’en; or there is Glenasmole on the borders of Dublin and Wicklow, where Oisín, the son of Finn mac Cumhail, fell from his horse on his return from Tír na nÓg, having set out 300 years previously from Glenbeigh Strand in Co. Kerry.

      Like most mythologies, Irish mythology has a mythos or a sacred narrative and a religio, that which binds members by vows and rules. In the Irish context, the mythos is the strongest component and the religio is the weakest. This means that pre-Christian Ireland did not have a religion as such, but this apparent absence of structure does not mean that

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