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The Tipperary Antiquarian

The Tipperary Antiquarian is an independent historical research blog exploring the archaeology, folklore, architecture, genealogy and local history of County Tipperary. Since its launch, it has published hundreds of original articles based on archival sources, fieldwork and historical research, documenting the people and places that have shaped the county's heritage.

Down Survey of Castletownarra - Amended to point North

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- August 06, 2022

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The Origins of the surname Ryan

- April 09, 2020

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...

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

- September 22, 2019

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 ...

A Bronze Age Wooden Idol in the Bog of Cullen, County Tipperary

- June 10, 2017

Löwenmensch figurine by Dagmar Hollmann / Wikimedia Commons - " License: CC BY-SA 4.0 " I'm taking a break from Early Medieval and Gaelic inauguration sites to write about an interesting reference I came across recently. I watched this lecture by Prof John Waddell for a course I was doing https://youtu.be/-GI98d0EdAg and at 18.01 mins he mentions a "Tipperary Idol" that had been used as a gate-post. I did a brief search for it at the time but couldn't find anything about it. Recently the owner of https://www.facebook.com/TheIrishWay/ kindly shared some of my facebook posts and we have corresponded back and forth on occasion since. They recently suggested a book to read called "Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions" by James Bonwick. They thought it might be of interest. I had a quick look through it and the first thing I found was the original reference to the "Tipperary Idol" that Prof Waddell had mentioned. On pg 98...