Skip to main content

Glencar

Glencar Cairn on Gortnageragh to the north of Doon but in Co. Tipperary. Its a pretty unimposing cairn but Professor Ronald Hicks (who is an expert on references to fairy Síds in ancient literature) thinks its a candidate for Sid Cuile. He says "Síd Cuile (Síd Cuillne) – Mentioned in the Yellow Book of Lecan in the tale Táin Bó Dartada ("The Cattle Raid of Dartaid"), where Eocho Bec of Dún Cuile is invited by Ailill and Medb to a Samhain (Halloween) conference at Crúachan. A woman from the síd (banshee) appears to give him advice about his journey. Location unclear, but my candidate is the hill of Gortnageragh ("field of the sheep"), which lies just northeast of Doon (Dún Cuile), County Limerick, on the Tipperary side of the county boundary. There is a cairn on top."

It is described on archaeology.ie as follows:

"On top of a poorly drained mountain with good views in all directions. A small modern cairn (H 0.5m; diam. 2m) has been built to support a trigonometrical station on top of an earlier cairn (diam. 8m E-W), the outline of which is still visible. The modern cairn may have reused stones from the earlier cairn."



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hag Stones, are they an example of authentic Irish folklore or a neo-pagan import?

By Darkone CC BY-SA 2.0 The first time I ever heard of Hag-stones was this year. They are more commonly known as Adder stones and described on wikipedia as follows: " An adder stone is a type of stone, usually glassy, with a naturally occurring hole through it. Such stones have been discovered by archaeologists in both Britain and Egypt ."  In Britain they are also called hag stones , [1] witch stones , serpent's eggs , snake's eggs , or Glain Neidr in Wales , milpreve in Cornwall , adderstanes in the south of Scotland and Gloine nan Druidh ("Druids' glass" in Scottish Gaelic ) in the north. In Germany they are called Hühnergötter ("chicken gods"). In Egypt they are called aggry or aggri . Adder stones were believed to have magical powers such as protection against eye diseases or evil charms, preventing nightmares , curing whooping cough , the ability to see through fairy or witch disguises and traps if looked at ...

The Origins of the surname Ryan

NOTE: This is currently a work in progress and I ask for any feedback on what I have written. Ryan is one of the top ten surnames by population / number of people in Ireland. It would be nice if there was a simple explanation as to the meaning of the surname Ryan, unfortunately to my knowledge there isn't. The most likely explanation is that it goes back to a King or Chief of Idrone circa 900AD named Rian or Rien. It was around this time that the Irish began taking on surnames and it may be that it was after him his descendants began to be called, O or descendent of Rian. We are not sure how or when exactly the O'Mulryan name came about. It is likely that it means "descendent of the followers of Rian". However, this is not certain. We will see further down in this article that the genealogies suggest they are both descended from the same ancestor circa 900AD. Although other evidence does contradict this. Just what Rian means is not known for sure. Explana...

Ryan Family Nicknames

Over 500 individual Ryan Family nicknames - many with townlands associated with them. Click Here