General Notes

[1700591.ged]
an Ard Righ, High King of Ireland of legend.
He was said to have fought 133 battles for kingship
Extended castle at Tara and built a castle in each of the other 4 counties
built 5 great roads throughout Ireland
Tara, which attained the climax of its fame under Cormac, is said to have
been rounded by the Firbolgs, and been the seat of kings thenceforth.
Ollam Fodla first gave it historic fame by founding the Feis or Triennial
Parliament, there, seven or eight
centuries before Christ. It is said it was under, or after, Eremon, the
first Milesian high king that it, one of the three pleasantest hills in
Ireland, came to be named Tara - a corruption of the genitive form of the
compound word, Tea Mur - meaning
"the burial place of Tea" the wife of Eremon, and daughter of a king of
Spain. In its heyday Tara must have been impressive. The great, beautiful
hill was dotted with seven duns, and in every dun were many buildings -
all of them, of course, of wood,
in those days - or of wood and metal. The greatest structure was the Mi
Cuarta, the great banqueting hall, which was on the Ard Righ's own dun.
Each of the provincial kings had, on Tara, a house that was set aside for
him when he came up to attend the
great Parliament. There was a Grianan (sun house) for the provincial
queens, and their attendants. The great Feis was held at Samain
(Hallowday). It lasted for three days before Samain and three days after.
But the Aonach or great fair, the assembly of
the people in general, which was a most important accompaniment of the
Feis, seems to have begun much earlier. At this Feis the ancient laws
were recited and confirmed, new laws were enacted, disputes were settled,
grievances adjusted, wrongs righted.
And in accordance with the usual form at all such assemblies, the ancient
history of the land was recited, probably by the high king's seanachie,
who had the many other critical seanachies attending to his every word,
and who, accordingly, dare not
seriously distort or prevaricate. This highly efficient method of
recording and transmitting the country's history, in verse, too, which
was practised for a thousand years before the introduction of writing,
and the introduction of Christianity and
which continued to be practised for long centuries after these events was
a highly practical method, which effectively preserved for us the large
facts of our country's history throughout a thousand of the years of dim
antiquity when the history of
most other countries is a dreary blank.
As from the great heart and centre of the Irish Kingdom, five great
arteries or roads radiated from Tara to the various parts of the country
the Slighe Cualann, which ran toward the present County Wicklow, the
Slighe Mor, the great Western road, which
ran via Dublin to Galway, the Slight Asail which ran near the present
Mullingar, the Slighe Dala which ran southwest, and the Slighe
Midluachra, the Northern road. "Great, noble and beautiful truly was our
Tara of the Kings.