St. Patrick: Converting Pagan Princesses at Ogulla Holy Well, County Roscommon

The spring-fed Ogulla Holy Well in County Roscommon near Tulsk is where legend has it that St. Patrick baptized pagan High King Laoghaire’s daughters, Eithenia the Fair and Fedelmia the Red.

The Ogulla well is also called the Cliabach Well in some of Patrick’s hagiographies. 

The was in use by Irish pagans prior to the arrival of Christianity. The well is one of numerous examples of Catholicism converting sacred pagan sites into scared Christian sites as the Irish pagan population is converted.

Today the site is considered one of the most sacred of the 25 holy wells associated with Patrick in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The faithful leave votive offerings at a statue of St. Patrick located next to the well. In the rag tree tradition strips of cloth are tied around tree limbs and sometimes on the high cross that sits atop the well. The statue of St. Patrick is deteriorating and has lost its hands. Photos online show the statue once had a metal shepherd’s crook, which as of late 2022, was missing.

The story of the baptism of Eithenia and Fedelmia is one of more bizarre and creepy of the St. Patrick legends.

Prior to the baptisms at Ogulla, Patrick had already had an intense encounter with their father, King Laeghaire at Tara. Patrick had ignited a fire at Hill of Slane in defiance of the king’s order not to light fires while a pagan feast fire was burning at Tara.

Summoned to Tara to explain himself, Patrick had a kind of evangelical mystical showdown with the king’s pagan priests, according to biographies written centuries after Patrick’s death.

Laeghaire, who had reportedly been trying to assassinate Patrick. However, he was impressed by the Christian missionary’s devotion to his belief and allowed him to continue preaching in Ireland.

Which bring us to his encounter with the king’s daughter’s.

The legend of Patrick’s baptism of Eithenia and Fedelmia is repeated in similar form in at least three separate accounts, all written hundreds of years after Patrick’s death near the end of the 5th century.

The accounts appear in the Book of Armagh (mid 9th century), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Armagh  the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick (late 9th century) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vita_tripartita_Sancti_Patricii, and in Fr. John Colgan’s Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acta_Sanctorum_Hiberniae published in 1645.

It is Fr. Colgan’s account that has become the popular version of the story.
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=7tdhAAAAcAAJ&rdid=book-7tdhAAAAcAAJ&rdot=1&pli=1

In Colgan’s elaborate account, Ethenia and Fidelmia were baptized at Ogulla Well in the year 432 or 433, depending the source.

According to CatholicSaints.Info, Ethenia and Fidelmia “among the first converts to Christianity made by Saint Patrick.” https://catholicsaints.info/book-of-saints-ethenia-and-fidelmia/

While on a pilgrimage, St. Patrick arrived at a fountain called Clibech (today Ogulla Well) near Cruachan, with a large number of clerics. The group decided to camp there for the night and the account says they sang the praises of god and prayed all night.

In the morning, Ethenia and Fidelmia, the daughters of the King, show up at the fountain. In this telling, the astonished royal daughters thought Patrick and his band of clerics beings of another world.

But they quickly began questioning the group, most likely recognizing Patrick from his showdown with their father at Tara.

But Patrick manages to convert the two Druid princesses who take holy communion – and they die. Some account says Ethenia and Fidelmia wanted to be with Jesus so much the died of longing.

Ethenia and Fidelmia are later named as Catholic saints.

And no doubt their father was unhappy with Patriock and his band of roving clerics.

Sources and links:

Acta Triadis Thaumaturgae. In: Colgan, John. Acta Sanctorvm Veteris Et Maioris Scotiae, Sev Hiberniae Sanctorvm Insvlae, Volume 2. Publisher: Apud Cornelivm Coenestenivm, 1647.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7tdhAAAAcAAJ

Ogulla Holy Well
http://www.megalithicireland.com/Ogulla%20Holy%20Well%20Tulsk.html

Ogulla Holy Well: A Microcosm of Irish Spiritual History 
http://pentecostaltopagan.com/my-pagan-path/ogulla-holy-well-a-microcosm-of-irish-spiritual-history/
St. Patrick Converts the King’s Daughters
https://traditioninaction.org/religious/h121_Patrick_4.htm

St. Patrick founds Ogulla Church, 
https://www.irelandxo.com/ireland-xo/history-and-genealogy/timeline/st-patrick-founds-ogulla-church

Music:
Where the Thistle Grows - Bonnie Grace
Governor Of The North - Jo Wandrini

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#ireland #irishhistory #irish #history #HolyWell #stpatrick #earlychristian #saintpatrick #Ogulla #Roscommon

A Very Quick, Oversimplified Overview of Ireland’s 3 Patron Saints

St. Patrick is Ireland's leading patron saint. Although he wasn't the first Christian missionary in Ireland, he is credited with bringing Christianity to the island.

St. Patrick has a cool symbol: The shamrock.

St. Patrick is known for  driving snakes out of Ireland.

There weren't any snakes in Ireland but Patrick drove them out anyway.

St. Patrick is the official sponsor of an awesome drinking holiday. Not an endorsement for this or any other beverage.

Today St. Patrick's Day, the anniversary of his passing, is celebrated worldwide.

St. Brigid is Ireland's female patron saint. She's as big a deal as St. Patrick.

St. Brigid also has a cool symbol: Brigid's cross.

St. Brigid is the patron saint of a great many things.

Among the things St. Brigid is patron saint of:
babies, 
blacksmiths,
blacksmithing,
boatmen,
cattle farmers,
children whose parents are not married,
children whose mothers are mistreated by the children's fathers,
Clan Douglas,
dairymaids,
dairy workers,
dairy production,
fugitives,
healing,
Ireland,
learning,
Leinster,
livestock,
mariners, 
midwives, 
milkmaids,
nuns,
poets,
poetry,
the poor,
poultry,
poultry farmers,
poultry
raisers,
printing presses,
protection,
sailors,
scholars,
travelers,
and watermen.

She is also one of several patron saints of beer.
https://vinepair.com/articles/patron-saint-of-beer/

St. Brigid even turned water into b*er. (Sorry about the  *. You can't say this word in a description of YouTube doesn't like it.)
That's right. She's a patron saint of b*er.

Sadly, Brigid does not have an awesome drinking holiday associated with her.

St. Columba is Ireland's third patron saint.

He was such a badass saint he could baptize an entire tribe of Picts with one hand.

St. Columba came to Ireland from Scotland.

Columba could predict when people would die, which made him popular.

Despite the obvious handicap of being Scottish, Columba became one of the 12 apostles of Ireland.

Columba left behind this church in Donegal.
But he lacks both a cool symbol and an awesome drinking  holiday.

Thank you for watching!
Image credits:
Shamrock: According to legend, Saint Patrick used the three-leaved shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to Irish pagans. – Creative Commons via Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamrock#/media/File:Irish_clover.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Irish_clover.jpg

Pint of Guinness – Public Domaine pictures
https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/pictures/20000/velka/pint-of-proper-guiness-in-dublin.jpg

St. Columba’s church - West wall of St Columba's church, Gartan, Donegal; Gartan is said to be the birthplace of Columba, Kay Atherton, Creative Commons via Wkipedia
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/St_Columba%27s_church%2C_Gartan%2C_Donegal.jpg

St. Patrick postcard - : "St. Patrick's Day Souvenir" postmarked 1912 in the United States. On postcard: "OLD WEIR BRIDGE" Description: "1912 POSTCARD ST. PATRICK'S DAY SOUVENIR; POSTALLY USED and CANCELLED MARCH 1912" Pictured: The painting depicted is of the "Old Weir Bridge" located Dinis Cottage, in Killarney National Park, Ireland. Public Doman via Wikimedia Commons 
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/PostcardStPatricksDaySouvinir1912.jpg

Patrick depicted with shamrock in detail of stained glass window in St. Benin's Church, Kilbennan, County Galway, Ireland, Andreas F. Borchert, Creative Commons via Wikipedia

St. Finnian imparting his blessing to the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. 
Clonard, County Meath, Ireland Detail of the seventh stained glass window in a series depicting the life of St. Finian in the Church of St. Finian at Clonard. The windows were created by Hogan in 1957. The inscription reads: Saint Finian imparts his blessing to twelve apostles of Ireland. This image has been cropped from this image. Andreas F. Borchert, Creative Commons via Wikipedia.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_Columba_converting_the_Picts.jpg Saint Columba converting King Brude of the Picts to Christianity, Mural painting in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, photographed by uploader, Kim Traynor. Creative Commons via Wikimedia Commons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-Scottish_mission#/media/File:Columbanus_at_Bobbio.jpg
Fresco of Saint Columbanus in Brugnato Cathedral, Fresco of Saint Columbanus on a column at Brugnato Cathedral in Italy, Davide Papalini, Creative Common via Wikipedia.

https://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_130889/Lorenzo-Lotto/Blessings-of-St-Bridget-(detail)-1524
"Blessings of St Bridget (detail) 1524" oil on Canvas. Lorenzo Lotto. Public domain via Wikigallery.

St. Patrick and the Hill of Slane

In 433 AD St. Patrick lit a fire on Hill of Slane, in an act of defiance of the pagan High King Lóegaire (Laoire), according to the monk Muirchú’s highly mythological 7th century hagiography of St. Patrick, Vita sancti Patricii.

Lóegaire had forbidden any other fires while a festival fire was burning at his headquarters on the Hill Tara, which can be clearly seen from the Hill of Slane, about 16 kilometers (about 10 miles) away, according to Muirchú’s account.

Other accounts of the life of St. Patrick describe various versions of what happened after the saint lit his defiant fire. The accounts agree that Lóegaire apparently allowed St. Patrick, who he had reportedly been trying to assassinate, to continue spreading the word of Christianity in Ireland.

In another legendary act, St. Patrick would later in his life baptize two of Laoghaire’s daughters, Eithne the Fair and Fedelm the Red at Rathcroghan’s Ogulla Holy Well in County Roscommon.

Today the Hill of Slane is dominated by a group of picturesque ruins and historical sites, most dating to the middle ages.

The ruins of a friary church, with a still in use graveyard, and college can be seen on the top of the hill. The now ruined friary church was built on the site of an earlier church, was restored in 1512. The ruins include a 19-meter (62 ft) high early gothic tower.

The friary was abandoned in 1723.

A holy well, now filled in with rocks due to safety concerns, is located just inside the graveyard’s wall.

At this well, Patrick is said to have baptized St. Erc, a pagan priest, who he appointed a bishop. The foundation of the original monastery on the Hill of Slane is attributed to St. Erc and it remained active for at least six hundred years.

The baptism and life of St. Erc are on firmer historical footing than many of St. Patrick’s mythical exploits such as driving the snakes out of Ireland.

Next to the friary church is a structure known as the college.

These ruins are from different phases of construction and various purposes, according to the Voice From Dawn website.

From Voice of Dawn:
“The earliest building, likely a tower house, is now known as the “rectory,” and was used for the administration of the parish. In the late 15th century a chantry college was built on the site, endowed for priests to celebrate masses for the souls of the Fleming family. The structure housed four priests, four lay-brothers and four choirboys in some comfort, with fireplaces and a double garderobe (toilet). The buildings were situated around an open rectangular cloister.

The college was rebuilt in the 16th century with a further Fleming family bequest, There was once a bawn (defensive enclosure) around the tower house, whose only remnant today is its massive gatehouse.”
https://voicesfromthedawn.com/hill-of-slane/

Over the centuries the site endured numerous attacks and tribulations including dissolution of the monastery by Henry VIII in 1631 and attacks by Oliver Cromwell’s troops in 1651.

Sources and links:
Discovery Boyne Valley
https://www.discoverboynevalley.ie/boyne-valley-drive/heritage-sites/hill-slane

Voices From Dawn
https://voicesfromthedawn.com/hill-of-slane/

Slane and District History Society
https://slanehistoryandarchaeologysociety823029674.wordpress.com/

Meath County Council – Hill of Slane
https://www.meath.ie/discover/heritage/heritage-sites/hill-of-slane

Read more on our website: https://irelandinsideandout.com/
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Music:
Highland Hymn - Bonnie Grace
Celtic Blessing - Bonnie Grace
Tudor - Bonnie Grace

#ireland #irishhistory #irish #history #HillOfSlane #stpatrick #earlychristian #saintpatrick #saintpatricksday #meath

The Tower of Power – Roodstown Castle: Inside A Fortified Tower House In The Dublin Pale – County Louth, Ireland

Chapters: 00:00 intro 00:50 The Pale 01:21 Tower House subsidy and building boom 01:33 Ardee Castle – Ireland’s largest Tower House 02:50 A look inside from the northwest side. 03:40 Another look inside O4:08 View of the vaulted ceiling storeroom 04:31 Stone Spiral Staircase 04:59 The murder hole 05:15 Castle features 05:58 Site of forge and blacksmith shop

Roodstown Castle is a 15th-century fortified tower house and National Monument located in County Louth, Ireland.

Tower houses were fortified residencies of Irish rural gentry built during the 15th and 17th centuries. Roodstown Castle is associated with the Taaffe family, who were active in the area until the 17th century.

In the mid-fifteenth century men loyal to the English crown living in the Dublin (English) Pale were offered a £10 annual government subsidy to construct a fortified house within the Pale. £10 may not sound like a lot, but in the mid-15th century this was enough money to buy 13 horses or 25 cows or pay a skilled craftsman for almost a year. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/c…

Thanks to the subsidy, numerous tower houses were built win the Pale during the 15th century. Pioneering Irish historian and archeologist Harold G. Leask estimated that more 2500 tower house may have been built in Ireland. There are similar structures in Scotland.

There are 26 tower houses in Co. Louth. Roodstown may have been one of these subsidized tower houses. Roodstown Castle shows the original owners’ wealth and the builders’ craftsmanship six hundred years ago.

The castle’s detailed window and door openings are testament to the skills and craftmanship of the area’s stone workers.

Subsidized or not Roodstown Castle sits at a strategic location between the River Glyde, River Dee, Ardee and the Irish Sea. Roodstown Castle is considered an excellent example of a surviving tower house since its original outside structure is still intact.

Constructed of rubble masonry with limestone trim, Roodstown Castle is a rectangular four-story tower house with small turrets at diagonally opposed corners.

There is a spiral stairway in the southeast side and garderobes in the northwest. The castle contained a vaulted ground-floor cellar or storage space, a murder-hole, a crenelated parapet, chemin de ronde.

The upper floors have large ogee arch windows and fireplaces. The roof and timber floors above the ground floor no longer exist. Roodstown Castle was occupied during a tumultuous period of history. The nearby town of Ardee, which has its own significant tower house, Ardee Castle, suffered mightily during this time.

Roodstown Castle is located 3.6 km (2.2 mi) north-northeast of Ardee. There is no access to the inside of the castle for safety reasons and the main gate to field where the castle is located is frequently locked. https://www.geograph.ie/photo/881262

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Sources:

Dolan and Murray, n.d., p.75 in Mitchell, Frank & Tuite Breeda, ‘The Great Bog of Ardee’, Journal of the County Louth Archaeological and Historical Society, 1993, Vol.23 No.1, pp.7-95.

Donnolly, Colm J., ‘Frowning Ruins: The Tower Houses of Medieval Ireland,’ History Ireland, Vol. 4 No.1, Spring 1996, 11-16.

Leask, Harold G., Irish Castles and Castellated Houses, Revised 2nd ed., Dundalgan Press, Dundalk, 1951, p.75.

Mitchell, Frank & Tuite, Breeda, ‘The Great Bog of Ardee’, Journal of the County Louth Archaeological and Historical Society, 1993, Vol.23 No.1, pp.7-95.

Rowan, Alistair, ‘The Irishness of Irish Architecture’, Architectural History, 1997, Vol.40 pp.1-23. Wright, Thomas, Louthiana: Or an Introduction to the Antiquities of Ireland, 1758, Dundalk: W. Tempest Limited.

Links to further reading:

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading…

http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls00…

http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls00…

http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls00…

http://downsurvey.tcd.ie/down-survey-…

https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5008856…

https://geohive.maps.arcgis.com/apps/…

http://irishantiquities.bravehost.com…

https://www.libraryireland.com/topog/…

https://www.logainm.ie/ga/1165428?s=r…

https://www.logainm.ie/ga/33627

https://theirishaesthete.com/tag/rood…

#ireland #irish #irishhistory #countylouth #medievalireland #medievalcastle #thepale #englishhistory #towerhouse #irishcastle #ardee #roodstown

Exploring the “Druid’s Altar” – Drombeg Stone Circle

Drombeg stone circle (also known as The Druid’s Altar), is one of Ireland’s most-visited megalithic sites. It is a protected Irish National Monument.

Chapters: 00:00 Intro 00:49 3-D View of recumbent stone. 02:46 E.M. Fahy’s schematic drawing of Drombeg excavation 04:42 fulacht fiadh

Drombeg is a small axial stone circle located 2.4 km (1.5 mi) east of Glandore, County Cork, Ireland.

The name Drombeg means small ridge.

The site is strategically situated in atop a small valley with an expansive view of the surrounding area. It overlooks a gentle slope that extends down to the Atlantic ocean to the west.

Archeologist E.M. Fahy excavated and restored Drombeg in 1957-58. Drombeg originally had 17 stones and 13 remain today. The circle is about 9 meters, 31 feet, in diameter.

Fahy replaced two stones during the restoration in the late 1950s. He also removed an area of gravel from the center of the circle and made a startling discovery.

Fahy discovered an inverted pot in the center of the circle containing the cremated remains of an adolescent wrapped with thick cloth.

Near the pot were smashed pottery sherds and sweepings from a pyre. Radiocarbon dating of samples taken from Drombeg revealed it was active c. 1100–800 BCE.

Several surveys of the site were made in the early 20th century and a journal article from 1903 indicated there may have once been a standing stone at the center of the circle, according to the website voicesfromthedawn.com https://voicesfromthedawn.com/drombeg….

Drombeg’s alternate name, the Druid’s Altar, may have originated from local stories the recumbent stone was a sacrificial altar and the circle was built by Druids.

Reputed to be a sacrificial altar, the recumbent stone is darker than the other stones in the circle. It is directly opposite two stones, each more than two meters (7 ft) tall, that appear to frame a ceremonial entrance portal.

The recumbent stone has two cup-marks and what has been interpreted as a depiction of either a stone axe or a human foot.

Although the discovery of the cremated remains lends some credence to the idea that the site may have involved some form of human sacrifice.

However, the circle predates and the radiocarbon dates for the human remains predate the Druids. A guidebook written in the 1990s also invented a narrative for the Drombeg which may have also helped reinforce the idea the site was associated with human sacrifice even though the exact nature of how and why the remains were buried in the circle is unknown.

The Drombeg site also includes another Bronze Age feature, a fulacht fiadh and the remains of two associated stone and wood huts. A fulacht fiadh is a kind of pit that was used for boiling water by means of heated stones.

Excavation by Fahy in 1959 uncovered the foundations of two conjoined circular huts. The huts, one of which was used as a hearth for heating rocks, are linked by a 9 m (30 ft) stone causeway to the fulacht fiadh.

Water in a trough was boiled by dropping in red-hot stones from the adjacent hearth. Evidence form the site suggests the fulacht fiadh was in use until 5th century AD.

The fulacht fiadh at Drombeg is often referred to as a communal cooking pit. The term, fulacht fiadh, has been treanslated by some scholar to mean “cooking place” of deer or game. However, no direct evidence of food or cooking food has been found at the site. A number of alternate uses for the boiling pit have also been suggested ranging from a sweat lodge to being used to prepare hides to make leather to boiling wool.

When Fahy excavated the fulacht fiadh he reportedly conducted experiments demonstrating that he could heat the 265 liters (70 gallons) of water in the trough by adding stones baked three hours in a hearth. The water boiled vigorously after 18 minutes and was hot two hours later.

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Music: Tomorrow’s Rain – Hushed

How to pronounce fulacht fiadh:    • How To Pronounce …  

Fulacht fiadh experiment:    • Putting the stone…  

Fulacht fiadh cooking experiment    • Wild Atlantic Way…  

Sources: Fahy, E.M. (1959). “A Recumbent-stone Circle at Drombeg, Co. Cork”. Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society. 2. LXIV: 1–27. Fahy, E.M. “A Hut and Cooking Places at Drombeg, Co. Cork.” Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 65 (January-June, 1960): 9-10. Keogh, Jackie (4 January 2017). “New discoveries about Drombeg Stone Circle”. Southern Star. Retrieved 6 January 2017.

Links: https://voicesfromthedawn.com/drombeg…

http://www.megalithicireland.com/Drom…

https://www.megalithomania.com/

Inside St. Brigid’s Holy Well – Imbolc/St. Brigid’s Day

St. Brigid is the bridge between paganism and Christianity in Ireland.

St. Bridgid is one of the three Irish national saints – the others are Patrick and Columba. She is considered the patroness saint, or mother saint, of Ireland. https://www.libraryireland.com/Wonders/St-Brigit-1.php/

Feb. 2023 marks the first year that St. Brigid’s Day will be a national holiday in Ireland, the first named for a woman. https://www.newsendip.com/saint-brigid-day-ireland-first-public-holiday-created-after-a-woman/

The result of a successful three-year campaign to establish St. Brigid’s Day, Ireland’s newest national holiday will be observed in 2023 on Monday, 6 February.

The initiative to make St. Brigid’s Day an Irish national holiday was spearheaded by HerStory https://www.herstory.ie/home, an organization founded in 2016 that tells women’s stories through education and arts programs.

Also known as Saint Brigid of Kildare or Brigid of Ireland, she is purported to have been born and raised circa  451 AD in Faughart just north of Dundalk in County Louth. She is said to have died in Kildare on 525 AD.

St. Brigid is the patron saint of Ireland, poetry, learning, healing, protection, blacksmithing, livestock and dairy production. A very busy saint, Brigid is also patron saint of babies, boatmen, children whose parents are not married, children whose mothers are mistreated by the children’s fathers, Clan Douglas, fugitives, Leinster, mariners, midwives, nuns, the poor, poultry farmers, printing presses, sailors, scholars, travelers, and watermen.

However, there are few historic facts about Brigid. There is on-going debate among both secular and Christian scholars over whether she was a real person.

St. Brigid shares her name with a Celtic goddess.

Some scholars suggest that St. Brigid is a Christian version of the pagan goddess. Others argue that she was a real person whose story was given the goddess’s attributes.

Christian monks “took the ancient figure of the mother goddess and grafted her name and functions onto her Christian counterpart,” art historian Pamela Berge asserts.

St. Brigid was an abbess who founded several convents, most notably in Kildare, which were Ireland’s most important, according to medieval Irish hagiographies.

“By the end of the seventh century, at least two Latin biographies had been written describing her as a nobleman’s daughter who chose to consecrate her virginity to God, took the veil as a Christian nun, and became the leader of a community of religious women — or perhaps of both women and men,” Phylilis G. Jestice wrote in ‘Holy People of the World: A Cross-Cultural Encyclopedia’. “Certainly, by the seventh century, there was an important double monastery at Kildare that regarded her as its founder.”

Votive Offerings and The Rag Tree

Pilgrims often leave votive offerings at St. Bridgid’s Holy Well. Growing next to the well is a rag tree. A common offering at holy wells is a rag or piece of cloth that is attached to the ‘rag tree’, which is often also considered holy. Offerings include pins, medals, rosary beads, holy pictures, statues and so forth. The offering represents the sickness the pilgrim wants cured.

St. Brigid’s feast day is 1 February, which was originally a pre-Christian festival called Imbolc, marking midwinter day, the beginning of spring. Brigid was a fire goddess in ancient Irish mythology. Today St. Brigid is celebrated with a perpetual flame at her shrine in Kildare.

St. Brigid’s Day/Imbolc traditions and customs https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/st-brigids-day-traditions

A folk tradition celebrated on St. Brigid’s Day or Imbolc is Brigid’s Bed. Girls and young unmarried women make a corn doll representing Brigid that is called the Brideog and they make a bed for the Brideog.

the girls and young women gather in one house and stay up all night with the Brideog. The next day they visited by the young men of the community who must ask permission to enter, and must then treat them and the doll with respect.

Brigid is said to walk the earth on Imbolc eve. On St. Brigid Day’s eve people may leave clothing or strips of cloth outside for Brigid to bless when she passes by in the night.

A Brigid of Faughart Festival http://www.brigidoffaughart.ie/ takes places in 2023 from 29 January to 6 February at the An Táin Arts Centre Crowe Street, Dundalk, Co. Louth, St. Brigid’s Shrine and several other locations in co. Louth.

Click here for more information: http://www.brigidoffaughart.ie/festivals/

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ireland #irishhistory #imbolc #irish #louth #Faughart #countylouth #holywell #saintbrigid #hilloffaughart #medieval #edwardbruce #ragtree

The Secrets of The Hill of Faughart: A Saint, a King and 3 Epic Battles!

Here a saint was born. A king was killed. A vanquished chieftain lost his head. Three major battles were fought.

There’s a centuries-old cemetery, a ruined medieval church and a holy well that attracts pilgrims from around the world. There’s even the remains of an iron age Norman-style motte-castle.

Here is the Hill of Faughart.

Located just north of Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland, the Hill of Faughart has a lot of Irish myth and history going on in one fairly small site.

The hill itself is in a natural position to become an important place. Occupied since prehistoric times, Faughart was strategically important for centuries.

Faughart overlooks the Gap of the North/Moyry Pass — eastern Ireland’s main south-north route — Dundalk and its bay, the Cooley mountains and Slieve Gullion to its north. It has a clear view north and east of a large area.

The remains of an iron age, Norman-style earth-and-wood motte-castle stand to northeast of the cemetery, evidence of Faughart’s strategic location.

Even by Irish stands Faughart is steeped in history. It is the birthplace of St. Brigid, 451 AD. It is the burial place High King of Ireland Edward Bruce who was killed near here 14 October 1318.

St. Brigid is Ireland’s female patron saint. Sharing a name with a popular Celtic pagan goddess, Brigid is the bridge between paganism and Irish Christianity. Few historical facts are known about St. Brigid’s life, but she is an extremely popular saint both in Ireland and around the world.

There are three sites related to St. Brigid at the Hill of Faughart. The most significant site is St. Brigid’s Holy Well.

The holy well attracts pilgrims who believe the well’s water has healing powers. The second is St. Brigid’s Bed, said to be the remains of a hut where she slept. The third site is St. Brigid’s Pillar.

This site appears to be the remains of the base of a round tower that once existed there. In the center of the circle is a piece of a broken Celtic high cross. A church has existed on the Faughart since at least the 4th century and monastery once existed there. The ruined church in the graveyard dates from the 12th century.

A rag tree grows above the holy well. Pilgrims leave various votive offerings, often strips of cloths or rags, in hopes of healing ailments or being granted answers to prayers.

Faughart was at the center of three significant battles. In 248 AD, a battle was fought by Cormac Ulfada, High King of Ireland, against Storno (Starno), king of Lochlin (Scandinavia). Ulfada prevailed.

Legend has it that the defeated Storno was allowed to sail home to Scandinavia. https://books.google.com/books?id=NSE…

In 732 AD, Áed Allán, king of Ireland, fought a battle with Áed Róin, king of Ulaid, over what amounted to an insult to a parish controlled by a powerful bishop[. 2]https://books.google.com/books?id=NSE…

Áed Róin was vanquished and wound up having his head cut off on The Stone of Decapitation (Cloch-an-chommaigh) in the doorway of the church of Faughart. A number of other chieftains in Áed Róin’s army were also killed.

Today there are several stones near the entrance of church. It was unclear when we visited which stone was THE Stone of Decapitation. If you know the answer please let us know in the comments.

Perhaps the most significant Battle of Faughart was fought 14 October 1318 between Hiberno-Norman forces led by John de Bermingham, 1st Earl of Louth, and Edmund Butler, Earl of Carrick and his Scots-Irish army commanded by Edward Bruce.

Bruce was the brother of Robert Bruce, King of Scots, Edward Bruce has been backed as King of Ireland by some Irish chieftains. Butler’s army was defeated. Bruce was killed. His body was quartered and sent to various towns in Ireland. His head was sent to King Edward II in England.

Thus, it is hard to know what, if any parts of Bruce, are actually buried in the grave at Faughart. The Battle of Faughart was part of the First War of Scottish Independence, during a three-year era known as the Irish Bruce Wars. Bruce’s death ended an attempt to revive the High Kingship of Ireland.

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Bunratty Castle and Folk Park: Top Irish Tourist Destination

Brunratty Castle and Folk Park

#irish #castle #irishhistory #bunratty #countyclare #ireland

Bunratty Castle is a large 15th-century tower house in County Clare, Ireland. https://www.bunrattycastle.ie/

The castle and adjoining folk park are one of Ireland’s top tourist attractions. The current structure is the forth castle to occupy the site.

This one was built by the MacNamara family after around 1425. At around 1500, Bunratty Castle came into the hands of the O’Briens (or O’Brians), dominate clan in Munster and later Earls of Thomond. They expanded the site and eventually made it their seat.

In 1720 the O’Breins sold the site. By the late 1800s the castle had fallen into disrepair. In 1956, the castle was purchased and restored by Standish Vereker, 7th Viscount Gort, with assistance from Ireland’s Office of Public Works.

Bunratty Castle opened to the public in 1960, with sporting furniture, tapestries and works of art dating to around the 1600’s.

A folk park, preserving traditional Irish homes, from the humblest to the most prosperous, has been developed on the 240 acres around the castle.

Today the property is run by Shannon Heritage a company that also operates tourist attractions Craggaunowen – The Living Past Experience, Co Clare, Knappogue – Co Clare, Dunguaire Castle, Co Galway. https://www.shannonheritage.com/about…

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Marconi Was Irish

Guglielmo Marconi was IRISH.

Irish!? Wait.

Guglielmo Marconi. One of the most famous Italians of modern times. How could he be Irish?

OK. Guglielmo Marconi was HALF Irish.

Marconi’s mother was Anne Jameson. Annie Jameson of Daphne Castle in County Wexford, Ireland. She was a granddaughter of John Jameson, founder of whiskey distillers Jameson & Sons.

Marconi was born into the Italian nobility.

Annie Jameson was an aspiring opera singer. She travelled to Italy to study.
She met and married widower Giuseppe Marconi, an Italian aristocrat, while in Italy.

Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marcon was born 25 April 1874 in Bologna, Italy. Living at Villa Griffone, near Bologna,.

Guglielmo Marconi was educated at home by a series of tutors. He spent time Ireland as youth and as child lived in England for about four years with his mother.
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/world/n…

While teenager, Marconi began working on ‘wireless telegraphy’.

Summer of 1895, Guglielmo, 21, made his first wireless over land transmission of 3 kilometers at Villa Griffone.

And radio was born.

Italy uninterested in Marconi’s work.

But England was.

In 1896 he traveled to London.

Sir William Preece, the chief electrical engineer of the British Post Office, supported Marconi’s work.Soon it was being tested by engineers

In 1987, Marconi made his first wireless transmission over the sea.

A test between Ballycastle and Rathlin Island off the County Antrim coast for insurance company Lloyds of London took place In 1898. This was the first commercial wireless telegraph transmission.

At the turn of the 20th century, Marconi began investigating sending transatlantic wireless messages to compete with the undersea telegraph cables.

Marconi set up wireless transmitting stations in Ireland and Canada to compete with transatlantic telegraph cables.

Marconi established a wireless transmitting station at Marconi House, Rosslare Strand, County Wexford, in 1901 to act as a link between Poldhu in Cornwall, England, and Clifden in Connemara, County Galway, Ireland.

Regular transatlantic radio-telegraph service begun on 17 October 1907 between Clifden, Co. Galway, Ireland, and Glace Bay.

Marconi won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1909.

The first trans-Atlantic wireless telephone conversation between Ballybunion, Co. Kerry and Louisburg, Nova Scotia took place in 1919.

On 17 December 1902, a transmission from Marconi’s station in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada, became the first radio message to cross the Atlantic from North America to Europe.

Marconi and his wireless are credited with the rescue of the 706 survivors of the Titanic’s sinking. The Titanic’s radio operators – Harold Bride and Jack Philips – were Marconi Company employees. Radio contact with the Cunard liner the Carpathia led to the rescue of the Titanic survivors.

Bride survived the Titanic disaster but was badly injured. Philips, the wireless operator on duty the night of the sinking, did not.

Marconi had been offered free passage on Titanic’s maiden voyage. But he had taken the Lusitania, which would be sunk by German U-boats in 1915, to New York.

Marconi also had another personal connection to Ireland.

While in England, he met Beatrice O’Brien (1882–1976), a daughter of Edward Donough O’Brien, the 14th Baron Inchiquin.

Beatrice O’Brien and Marconi were married 16 March 1905. They had three daughters and a son.

The Marconi family returned to Italy In 1913, joining Rome’s high society. Beatrice became a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elena.

Marconi and Beatrice divorced in 1924. Marconi had the marriage annulled in 1927 so he could remarry in the Catholic Church.

Marconi joined the joined the Italian Fascist party in 1923, just as the party rose to power.

Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who used radio to spread the Fascist message, was Marconi’s best man when he married Maria Cristina Bezzi-Scali in 1927.

In 1930, Mussolini made Marconi president of the Royal Academy of Italy, and a member of the Fascist Grand Council. Marconi was an advocate of fascist ideology.

He personally ensured that Jews were not appointed to the scientific society during his time as president. https://www.theguardian.com/world/200…

In 1937, while developing microwave technology, Marconi had a series of nine heart attacks.

He died in Rome on 20 July 1937, age 63.

Marconi’s remains are interred in an elaborate mausoleum adjacent to the 17th-century Villa Griffone/Villa Marconi, located in Pontecchio Marconi, outside Bologna in Emilia Romagna, Italy.

He didn’t not look like it or act like it. But Marconi was half Irish.

Spanish Armada Wreck On Streedagh Beach, Co. Sligo, Ireland

Spanish Armada Wreck At Streedagh Beach

On 21 September 1588, three damaged vessels of the Spanish Armada were blown ashore during a violent storm on Streedagh Beach in what is now County Sligo, Ireland.

The three ships were carracks, armed merchant ships.

The three ships were the La Lavia (25 guns), a Venetian merchantman and the vice-flagship; La Juliana (32 guns) a Catalan merchantman; and Santa Maria de Vison (de Biscione) (18 guns) a Ragusan merchantmen.

The ships were 3 of 28 from the Spanish Armada, part of an unsuccessful attempt to invade England, that had fled to the Irish coastline after the invasion plan collapsed in August 1588. The three ships retreated to the west coast of Ireland and were anchored about a mile offshore when a major storm began.

On 21 September, the ships’ anchor cables gave way in heavy seas. When the storm began on 17 September all three ships were already in serious trouble.All three were heavily damaged from battle in the English channel.

All three had cut their main anchors to flee the English fleet when the battle of Battle of Gravelines began.

Having no main anchors made anchoring near to shore difficult. When the ships hit the shore, they broke apart in less than hour.

Accounts differ by about 1,800 men drowned, according to an account by Captain Francisco de Cuellar, one of the few survivors.

Approximately 300 made it ashore.“ ..and not being able to weather round or double Cape Clear, in Ireland, on account of the severe storm which arose upon the bow, he was forced to make for the land with these three ships, which, as I say, were of the largest size, and to anchor more than half a league from the shore, where we remained for four days without being able to make any provision, nor could it even be made.

On the fifth day there sprang up so great a storm on our beam, with a sea up to the heavens, so that the cables could not hold nor the sails serve us, and we were driven ashore with all three ships upon a beach, covered with very fine sand, shut in on one side and the other by great rocks. The likes of this had never been seen for, within the hour, our three ships broke up completely, with less than three hundred men surviving.

Over a thousand drowned among them many important people, captains, gentlemen and regular officers….many men drowned inside the ships, while others jumped into the water never to come up again.” — Captain Francisco de Cuellar
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?i…

Once ashore, most of the survivors were attacked by locals and robbed of everything, including their clothes, or they were attacked by English soldiers and slaughtered. De Cuellar managed to survive a number of encounters with robbers and the English.The late sixteenth century. and 1588 in particular, was marked by unusually strong North Atlantic storms.

Most of the 28 Spanish ships lost in the storms were along the jagged steep rocks of the western coast of Ireland.

About 5,000 men died by drowning, starvation and slaughter by local inhabitants after their ships were driven ashore on the west coasts of Scotland and Ireland.

English soldiers in Ireland were ordered to kill any Spanish prisoners, England’s Lord Deputy William FitzWilliam instead of asking for ransom as was common during that period.

The locations of the wrecks were discovered in 1985.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqCs-… and some other artifacts were recovered in 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOyas… The local community commemorates the event each year on the third weekend in September. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj5jx… Armada In Irelandhttps://spanisharmadaireland.com/