Magh Adhair
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Magh Adhair ( German "Adairs level" ) is from 1118 the inauguration place of the Kings of Thomond and a place of archaeological importance near Quin in County Clare in Ireland . It is traditionally known as the place where the O'Briens were enthroned.
Magh Adhair consists of the about 6.0 m high, with a mantle provided partially eroded Cairn , another smaller Cairn, residues of earthworks, a 1.9 m high Menhir , a burnt mound ( Irish Fulacht fiadh ) and a Bullaun of violet Rock. The site has not been excavated and dated so the era in which the complex first came into use is speculation. The hill was probably built between the Bronze and Iron Ages . Probably the place was used in different phases for about 1500 years.
Irish antiquarians John O'Donovan (1806–1861) and Thomas Johnson Westropp (1860–1922) believed that the name “Magh Adhair” originally described a large area, perhaps even all of Clare or the plain from which the county is its Name has. They believed that the area of meaning continuously shrank until it only applied to the field in which the memorial stands and the adjacent "Moyross / Moyree". It is interesting that the suffix Ree is derived from the word rí , which means "king".
The earliest reference to this point was made in 981 in the annals of the four masters . Maelseacchlainn, the son of Domhnall, plundered the area of the Dal gCais and tore the "Bile of Magh Adhair" out of the ground. A bile is a tree of religious significance. It can be seen from the notes that felling such a tree is an offense. In 1051 a tree was felled again by Magh Adhair by Hugh O'Conor.
In Frost's History and Topography of County Clare and in O'Donovan & O'Curry's ordnance survey letters of 1839, the hill is reported to take its name from Adhair, the son of Umor and the brother of Aengus, a chief of the Fir Bolg , received.
The Lecan records state that Amhalghaidh Mac Fiachrach designated the hill of Magh Adhair as a tomb for his descendants to have mass read on the hill. In fact, there are meetings or irachts (English efforts) narrated that took place up to the 19th century. The last known fair took place in 1838.
About 500 meters to the southwest is the tree-covered, triple-walled Cahercalla, which is said to have been related to the inauguration rites.
literature
- John O'Donovan, Eugene O'Curry: The Antiquities of County Clare , 1839
- James Frost: The history and topography of the county of Clare, from the earliest times to the beginning of the 18th century. Dublin 1893
- Peter Harbison : Guide to the Naional Monuments in the Republic of Ireland Gill and Macmillan, Dublin 1992 ISBN 0-7171-1956-4 p. 46
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 50 ′ 28.4 " N , 8 ° 49 ′ 44" W.