From An Illustrated History of Ireland by Margaret Anne Cusack
« start... Chapter XI. ...continued
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The well Neamhnach was first identified. Tradition, asserts that the first mill [3] erected in Ireland was turned by the stream which flowed from it, and even at the present day a mill is still worked there. The situation of the Rath-na-Riogh was then easily ascertained. This is the most important of these ancient sites, but it is now, unfortunately, nearly levelled to the ground. This rath is oval, and measures about 853 feet from north to south; it contains the ruins of the Forradh and of Teach Cormac (the House of Cormac). A pillar-stone was removed in 1798 to the centre of the mound of the Forradh. It formerly stood by the side of a small mound lying within the enclosure of Rath-Riogh. This stone Dr. Petrie considers identical [4] with the famous Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny, which other authorities suppose to have been removed to Scotland, and subsequently to Westminster. The Rath-na-Riogh is identical with Teamur, and is, in fact, the ancient Tara, or royal residence, around which other scarcely less important buildings were gradually erected. It was also called Cathair Crofinn. The name of Cathair was exclusively applied to circular stone fortifications built without cement; and stones still remain which probably formed a portion of the original building. In ancient Irish poems this fortification is sometimes called the Strong Tower of Teamur, an appellation never applied to a rath, but constantly to a Cathair, or circular stone fort.
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[3] Mill.—"Cormac, the grandson of Con, brought a millwright over the great sea." It is clear from the Brehon laws that mills were common in Ireland at an early period. It is probable that Cormac brought the "miller and his men" from Scotland. Whittaker shows that a water-mill was erected by the Romans at every stationary city in Roman Britain. The origin of mills is attributed to Mithridates, King of Cappadocia, about seventy years B.C. The present miller claims to be a descendant of the original miller.
[4] Identical.—First, "because the Lia Fail is spoken of by all ancient Irish writers in such a manner as to leave no doubt that it remained in its original situation at the time they wrote." Second, "because no Irish account of its removal to Scotland is found earlier than Keating, and he quotes Boetius, who obviously wished to sustain the claims of the Stuarts." The pillar-stone is composed of granular limestone, but no stone of this description is found in the vicinity. As may be supposed, there are all kinds of curious traditions about this stone. One of these asserts that it was the pillar on which Jacob reposed when he saw the vision of angels. Josephus states that the descendants of Seth invented astronomy, and that they engraved their discoveries on a pillar of brick and a pillar of stone. These pillars remained, in the historian's time, in the land of Siris.—Ant. Jud. 1. 2, § 3.
From a sad, comfortless childhood Giles Truelove developed into a reclusive and uncommunicative man whose sole passion was books. For so long they were the only meaning to his existence. But when fate eventually intervened to have the outside world intrude upon his life, he began to discover emotions that he never knew he had.
A touching story for the genuine booklover, written by an Irish bookseller under the pseudonym of Ralph St John Featherstonehaugh.
Annals of the Famine in Ireland
Annals of the Famine in Ireland, by Asenath Nicholson, still has the power to shock and sadden even though the events described are ever-receding further into the past. When you read, for example, of the poor widowed mother who was caught trying to salvage a few potatoes from her landlord's field, and what the magistrate discovered in the pot in her cabin, you cannot help but be appalled and distressed.
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger
This book, the prequel to Annals of the Famine in Ireland cannot be recommended highly enough to those interested in Irish social history. The author, Mrs Asenath Nicholson, travelled from her native America to assess the condition of the poor in Ireland during the mid 1840s. Refusing the luxury of hotels and first class travel, she stayed at a variety of lodging-houses, and even in the crude cabins of the very poorest. Not to be missed!
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
Henry Ford Jones' book, first published in 1915 by Princeton University, is a classic in its field. It covers the history of the Scotch-Irish from the first settlement in Ulster to the American Revolutionary period and the foundation of the country.
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
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