condition for many years and had a son![1] shows how dear Tailltiu was to the Irish mind. Miracles sometimes, however, become realities; three “aerial ships sailed over Tailltiu óenach” during the visit of Murchad, son of Domnall. A similar sight was there during the War when we were returning from Tailltiu at the time when the enemy’s line was broken in July, 1918; but by that time the wonder had become commonplace![2]
I will not repeat the many extracts of the Annals[3] telling of the Óenach, but will summarise the principal. It was visited by St. Patrick at the dawn of Christianity, 434, and there was a tale how he promised that no one should be slain at it.[4] This was broken in a riot in 716[5] and 790, when it was the scene of a violent battle. This was a blow from which the Oenach never recovered; its inviolability was gone for ever. It was ravaged by the King of Connacht (though his army “fled like goats” before King Aed), 807. In 810 the clerics of Tamlacht, near Dublin, who had been plundered by the Ui Neill, went and prohibited (banned) the games, “so neither horse nor chariot arrived”; they were paid a large indemnity. In 826 it was destroyed and many slain in a raid. In 830 a disturbance broke out, round the very forad, or President’s seat, and the shrines of MacCuilind and St. Patrick, which the clerics used to exhibit there; so many
- ↑ Silva Gad. ii. p. 453; Irish Nennius, p. 207; Four Masters, under A.D. 539, and Keating, iii. p. 52.
- ↑ Compare Lir’s fatal accident from a flying machine, the visit to a submerged island in a diving dress (Squires’ Myth. Brit. Isles, 2nd ed. p. 103); the aerial paddle ship raining down fire and death; the slaying men by poison gas (Duannire Finn, p. 136); the blowing up of Slane cross and the flask that kept warm drinks hot and cool drinks cold, and we see that Celtic imagination only lacked practical invention to forestall the most recent discoveries.
- ↑ Those of Ulster, Clonmacnoise and Four Masters.
- ↑ Tripartite Life, evidently the tale of the promise was earlier than 716.
- ↑ Fighting at an Óenach was strictly forbidden (Anc. Laws, i. p. 233); and at the Feis of Tara (Metr. Dind S. x. p. 713).
