Kings and Queens and Railroad Tracks

Ireland is unique among probably all European countries in that traditions concerning pre-Christian sacred places persisted into the late 19th and early 20th centuries in some parts.

(Wales and the Highlands of Scotland and Brittany have much, much less)

There are reasons for this: yes, the places and personages and traditions were considered locally important for various reasons, and were closely integrated with local life, but there are regions of Ireland where this once true, but where such traditions disappeared, In other areas, they continued.

For example, in the province of Munster, traditions survived strongly. This might have been linked to the fact the sacred figures (“fairy queens”) associated with the places were important in the 18th century Irish language poetic tradition that is strongly associated with the area. On the other hand, the “fairy queens” were not central to the almost equally strong 18th century south Ulster poetic tradition, and local traditions did not survive at all as well there. (A contributing factor might have been the strong clerical opposition in south Ulster to the Irish language and traditions associated with it: an animosity engendered by strong Irish language Protestant religious proselytization that taught literacy in Irish in the early 19th century.)

It’s possible to recover information about some now lost traditions outside the core west Munster area, but for Tipperary and Waterford, for example, you need to search. In Offaly and Wexford, etc., it is even more difficult. East Galway traditions about Finnbhar did survive more strongly, though, again, many extraneous elements may enter into survival, like the fact that Irish language folklore collection happened in the early 20th century there. On the other hand, it is a tall hill not far from water (Loch Corrib), and this was a strongly traditional area.

Very little information survived in areas where Irish was lost, by the way: linguistic change was not just linguistic but a signifier of profound social change and not in the direction of strengthened old tradition.

Traditions about Áine (east Limerick, Loch Gur), Aoibheall (east Clare), Donn (west Clare, central Limerick), Gearóid Iarla (east Clare) and Clíona (north and west Cork) are well-documented, but since Aindrias Mac Cruitín’s poem given here last week mentioned Donn, that’s what I will talk about.

It does not hurt that Kate Miller-Lisowski published the results of her research in the mid 1940s in Béaloideas #21.

She was interested in establishing an outline of beliefs about an old God, Donn, and therefore in my opinion, tried to fit disparate material into a consistent picture in ways maybe not profitable. 19th and 20th century folktales and belief, ancient manuscript traditions, manuscript tales etc. all served different social functions and often therefore emphasized different aspects of tradition, Stories and traditions were sometimes even “captured” by unrelated streams of tradition, developing thereafter in directions that have little to do with Donn.

What do I mean?

A story featuring Donn might contain elements that also exist in other specific story traditions, so that a Donn story or anecdote might switch onto another track and to another separate tradition through a narrator's confusion. This confusion might replace older tradition depending on circumstances. Fir example, a particular storyteller lives a long time and is heard by many people, or a narrator has a strong personality or is an important person etc etc, and other traditions gradually face into the background and new traditions take their place: traditions not originally associated with Donn at all.

Plus there are maybe several Donns, depending on place.

In west Munster and in old literary and historical tradition, Donn was associated with a small island off south Kerry where all the dead were thought to go...or at least that’s what some sources say. Tales focusing on this Donn are fairly different from those in west Clare and Limerick tradition.

In those places, Donn was thought of as the local “fairy king” dwelling in the hill and ruling certain aspects of land and life. For example, in one story of a man who unintentionally goes into the hill, the man sees dead relatives there. In another, a man out at night meets Donn riding the road. In another, people establishing potato fields up on the sides of Donn's hill (Knocjfeerina) are directed not to do that. Women in the area left presents every year for Donn, not because they were women, necessarily, but because women were considered custodians of human settlement and life. In another tale, Donn and his people play a hurley match across country against the fairies of Áine (east Limerick) for good crops.

All these traditions are consistent with Aindrias’s attitude and his plea to be taken into the Otherworld hill.

Is it possible to pull the information from different types and ages of sources, and different places, together and portray one consistent Donn?

I am not sure.

There are very similar traditions about the other kings and queens I mentioned above and I could go on a lot longer, but there is a lot to do today.

Máire O’Neill’s book The Festival of Lughnasa does provide a lot of information about local traditions similar to the ones I’ve mentioned here, but from all over Ireland. They do all relate to the old harvest festival and stories connected to it: stories originally linked to beliefs about the old god Lugh, but then transferred to St. Patrick etc. These same concerns were behind a lot of the types of traditions discussed above and I don't know of any other one place where such things are gathered. She did her research in a good time (1930s and 1940s) when older people remembered such things at least vaguely, but it is a great and unusual (and out of print) book and a model of scholarship.

She was daughter of Eoin MacNeill, by the way,IC

This is not Cnoc Firinne below, but it's all that Hostinger allows

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