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| The Birr Stone |
Near the Hodson Bay Hotel in Athlone there is a small island known as Temple Island. It seems to actually be a part of County Roscommon. Here according to information at the Hodson Bay Hotel is where a tower was built sometime in the 1700s that marks the geographical centre of Ireland.
The Hodson Bay Hotel Blog also has this bit of a mystery relating to a stone found on the island.
"In recent years, the tower has begun to crumble. It revealed a secret. A perfect replica of an ark-shaped stone boat remained hidden inside the Round Tower. The monks are thought to have originally carved the boat. It is still a mystery why Hodson hid the boat 300 years ago."
http://hodsonbayblog.com/how-hodson-bay-got-its-name/
What exactly that is I'm not sure, perhaps something related to the nearby monastery or something that General Hodson had carved to mark the geographical centre of Ireland.
Another candidate (not far from Tipperary) according to Geraldus Cambrensis in the 12th Century is the Birr Stone..
The stone, which was probably originally located in the townland of Seefin just on the edge of Birr, is reputed by oral tradition to have marked a meeting place of the Fianna. It was taken from Birr in 1828 by Thomas Steele to his residence Cullaun House, Co. Clare, to honour Daniel O'Connell and used as a Mass rock at that site.
It was returned to Birr Urban Council in June 1974 by the Department of Lands. The stone itself of local origin. It was probably part of a megalithic monument located at Seffin, the exact site of which now unknown.
It is reputed to have various markings on it including the cross that you can clearly see in the photo. In the IFC it states "This stone was a huge mass of limestone, marked with a number of incisions in the shape of fantastic crosses and other curious symbols. The people accounted for the number and shape of these cavities; by saying they were the impressions of the thumb and four fingers of Finn MacCoul".
Fionn McCool is literally all over the landscape in this area - In the book, Royal Inauguration in Gaelic Ireland by Elizabeth Fitzgerald, it is quoted that “A well formed, man sized, single shod footprint known locally known as ‘Finn McCools’ Footprint, (is) carved into the rock beside Killeen motte and bailey, two miles west of Birr".
Elizabeth Fitzgerald has since looked at the importance of Seefin placenames in the landscape and that is a fascinating study.
There are a lot of tentative connections in the area that may suggest that although it wasn't the geographical centre of Ireland, it may have been a ritual centre during the Bronze Age.
Lastly I guess is the mythological centre of Ireland at the Catstone on Uisneach in Westmeath. You know your getting old when the last time you visited it was over 15 years ago. For more info on this amazing site or to get a tour follow Uisneach or see here http://uisneach.ie/history/
It is the reputed burial site of the Tuatha De Danann god Lugh whose festival you could argue is being celebrated today as Reek Sunday. One of the Irish Earth Goddesses Eriu is also supposed to have been buried at Uisneach (under the Catstone). Similar to the Birr Stone - The Cat Stone is thought to be the 'Umbilicus Hiberniae’, ‘Axis Mundi’, or ‘the Naval of Ireland’.
The god Dagda is also thought to have resided here and is linked in mythology to two souterrains that were excavated in the 1920s by MacAllister.
It is probably best known as the location of a fire cult from where the Beltaine fire ushering in Summer was lit. Legend says that the first Beltaine fire was lit here and from here others on hill tops around Ireland were lit upon seeing the fire on Uisneach.
As a last note, although Carrauntoohill in Co. Kerry is the highest point in Ireland, Ard Eireann in Co. Offaly was known as the "Height of Ireland". Whether this was just symbolic or if people actually thought it was the highest part of Ireland I'm not sure.
https://www.logainm.ie/en/107000
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