The Tipperary Antiquarian

I finally got a chance to do some more research on the Rian Bó Phadraig that I had previously written about here . I decided to ask at a house in the area and as luck would have it I found the land-owner who was kind enough to allow me access to where the stone was thought to be. He had heard the story linked to the area but didn't know what specific stone it referred to. Dermot Gleeson wrote about the track in the North Munster Antiquarian Journal in 1958. On the 1840s Os map on this track is marked "Lurganboe". He says "The only other tradition of the saint I know of in the Ormond area concerns not himself but his cow. This is the "Rinne Bó Phadruig" or track of St. Patrick;s cow at Grennanstown in Toomevara. On the ancient road, part of which still remains, between Latteragh and Tyone and just after it passes by the road from Ballinamona cross to Grawn, is found a large stone by the roadside with a depression in it said to have been made by the...

There has often been debate as to the function of Fulacht Fia or "cooking pits of the fianna" that are dotted around Ireland. A new technique that was used at a rescue excavation at Errarooey More in Co. Donegal has allowed what was in "the last boiling episode" to be analysed. "The lipid analysis suggests that a variety of plants along with large herbivores (possibly deer/cow) were processed within the trough. Interestingly, common vetch (Vicia sativa) and wild mustard (Sinapsis sp.) were recovered from the fill of the trough. Both species are anthropogenic indicators and have uses as a foodstuff in the archaeological and ethnographical record." (Hawkes & Malainey, 2018, 50, Archaeology Ireland, Winter Edition 2018). The fulacht fia was dated to 2187-1898 BC. There are records of at least 180 fulacht fia's in Co. Tipperary. For a lot more information on fulacht fia's http:// ucc-ie.academia.edu/ AlanHawkes Below is the fu...