The Tipperary Antiquarian

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 ...

Leaba na Muice or the Black Pig's Bed on the edge of Lough Gur in Limerick from the archives (circa 2006). "Leaba na Muice" is supposed to have been the abode of a famous black pig which did considerable damage to all other animals - especially cows - in the neighbourhood. This famous animal was of considerable size and was fery ferocious and often "mangled" other animals much larger than herself. Finally the people became exasperated and decided to take the offensive against this destructive animal. The "Clarion Call" went forth and the people armed with forks, knives and patches assembled on Cnoc Aine which would be about 4 miles from the abode of  the Black Pig. The people were not sure where she had her headquarters as she was often seen miles away from "leaba na muice", and hence they decided to comb the whole district for her. They even knew of three other haunts where they expected she might be. One of those haunts was co...

  EDIT: I wrote this post based on secondary sources that had taken information by Hervey Morres as being accurate. In the post I wondered was this effigy (pictured) - Geoffrey De Marsico as outlined in Morres's book (see pg 334 of the Google book version). However the table tomb that the sketch shows no longer exists (and likely never did). Manning in his piece in History Ireland states "A print of the effigy of a knight at Hospital, Co. Limerick, from Morres’s 1828 book. He added the fictitious tomb surrounds with the de Montmorency arms, and further embellished the print by adding an inscription to the base of the tomb surround." https://www.historyireland.com/hervey-morres-and-the-montmorency-imposture/ Some reputable sources such as Hunt's Irish Medieval Sculpture Figures records the effigy as De Marisco and so does the Trinity website. http://www.tara.tcd.ie/bitstream/handle/2262/38941/ertk2167.jpg?sequence=1&isAllowed=y The SMR note on archa...

1840s Map of Rathurles Rath - The Fair of Munster (c) OSI Rathurles is a huge multi-vallette ring-fort near Nenagh in Co. Tipperary.   It is described in the Archaeological Inventory of County Tipperary (Vol. 1 – North Tipperary) as a; Ringfort - “Situated in undulating pastureland. A roughly circular area (diam. 55m N-S) defined by an inner bank largely reduced to a scarp, a fosse (Wth 6m), a berm or walkway and an outer fosse (Wth 6.5m; D c. 2.5m). The central bank was probably backfilled into the central fosse to provide the walkway which has the stone foundations of a building at N. A fifteenth-century church (TN021-012002) occupies the interior of the ringfort. The outer bank is levelled in the NE quadrant.” Aerial Photo of Rathurles (c) OSI T here are 3 other features associated with it – Church - Situated in the interior of a ringfort (TN021-012001). A well-preserved fifteenth-century rectangular church (dims. 9.1m N-S; 17.4m E-W; wall T 0.85m) of roughly ...

An Buchaill Breige on Luddenmore hill in Co. Limerick An Fear Breaga or the "Lieing Man" seems to be a fairly common name applied to monuments particularly standing stones that look a bit like a person or "false man". There is an interesting bit of folklore relating to the name which attributes a different type of story to the name, this time from the Glen of Aherlow. "Fear Bréige - the old-time sun dial for the people who lived in the mid-valley (Glen of Aherlow). It stands out like a real Fear Bréige on the mountain sky line above Lough Muskery. When the sun is seen from the valley to be directly overhead it, it is 12 o clock noon. (Many a child weary from haymaking and longing for the dinner hour was told to look up and notice that the sun hadn't yet come overhead "fear bréige")." https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922274/4866364/5052610 So this appears to have been a natural "Fear Bréige" or some kind of marker that may...

Part of the hill-fort at Brusselstown Hillfort There are over 138,800 recorded archaeological monuments in Ireland. Some are under state care, ie actually owned by the state and a lot of these are cared for by the OPW. The vast majority aren't but are protected under legislation under the National Monuments Act 1930-2004 with fines and/or imprisonment. The main issue with the state taking ownership of private property is the Irish Constitution. This could be amended by a referendum and the land taken from the various landowners and taken into state care. This would normally be termed "Nationalisation". It would then be up to all of us through our general taxation to care for the 138,800 monuments and adjacent lands. Personally I'm not sure how easy it would be to legally draft such an amendment without affecting the rights of all private property and it may set a precedent for other nationalisations. It may also affect the confidence of indigenous and foreign i...