Cloghan in the King's County, the old name of which was Cloghan-na-gcaora, the stone of the sheep, which represented an Hermaphrodite, one of the breasts being like the sun and the other a crescent like the moon. This image may have given its name to the neighbouring town of Ferbane, which may be composed of fear (man) and bean (woman). It is said that the Druids worshipped the Sun-god Apollo under the form of an Hermaphrodite. He was worshipped by the Celts under various forms, one of his names being Borvo, "the boiler," the god of hot springs, whence the name Bourbon. Another title was the Grannos, or Sun, as in Aquae Granni, the old name of Aix-la-Chapelle. Grian means sun in Irish. Now the customary offering to the sun was a horse among the ancient Persians. Xenophon gave a horse to the priest to be sacrificed to the sun, and Pausanias states that the Lacedæmonians sacrificed a horse on Mount

Taygetus to the sun. It is said that the Irish, too, burnt a horse's head in the bonfires of the first of May, and that the peasantry about Croghan Hill in the King's County, distinctly visible from the Kinnetty mountains, were in the habit of sliding down the hill seated on a horse. We have also some indications that the sun was worshipped in the district around Kinnetty. Knock-na-man, the hill that was above the village, means the hill of the women. Mann also means God. Some kind of worship was doubtless offered within the remarkable circle on its summit. Clonbela, in the neighbouring parish of Drumcullen, means the meadow of Belus or the sun (cluain-beat). We have Bell-hill in Seirkieran, where the fires of Beltaine, on the first of May, were kindled. We have, in Glendissaun, a glen between

Forelacka Hill and Glen Regan, which, probably means the Glen of the shrubs, but in which there may be a reminiscence of the fires of Samhain (Sowan) of the first of November. And Coolacrease, near Cadamstown, may mean the retired place of the sun (crios). While it has been plausibly suggested that Lacaroe, the red hill side near Cadamstown, was the ancient Tlachtga which the Abbé Macgeoghegan stated was in the neighbouring parish, Clonlisk, and which was the site of the inauguration of the fires of Beal tinne. Lacaroe lies also on the ancient borders of Munster, which embraced Ormonde, and Meath which almost touches it. And we read (Keating, p. 233) that Tuathal erected the royal seat of Tlachtga "in the tract he divided from Munster and added to Meath." However, this is only conjecture; for Tlachtga is believed by others to be the Hill of Ward near Athboy, but the fact remains that there is some connexion between the Celtic pantheon and these ancient hills. Lacaroe is in the parish of Letter luna, which may be connected with luan the moon, letter meaning hill-side. There are certain stone piles on the top of the different hills, such as those on Ard-na-h-Éireann and Botheraphuca, the road of the Sprite. The latter of these is called in Irish "Fear-brogac" (Far breague), which means a coarse man and is known as the Hardy man. This may be identified with Mercury, who was worshipped in Gaul under the form of Jovantucaros or lover of youth. It is possible that this equestrian image may have been originally an idol, although such idols have rarely if ever been found, representing some local Celtic or pre-Celtic divinity (for we find

that the Milesians often assimilated cults they cared not to or could not obliterate), attached to the gens of the Kin-Eatach or tribe of the Horseman, just as the Gallic Essus was the patronymic God of the Essui. The early Christian settlers may have buried this image and its temple, and ascribed the origin of the name to the interment of the head of Etech, a Christian saint. Be this as it may, the visitor who makes his way through the Slieve Bloom must be awe-struck at times by the great sense of solitude and by the vastness and silence in which he moves, and which suggest the Presence of the Invisible at every step. For ought that can be proved to the contrary, this district is the cradle of the Irish people, the ancient home of the mysterious Tuatha-De-Danann, be they people or be they fairies. The latter indeed would have had many a suitable Sidhe or abode in the ancient mounds and knolls and magic circles of these rolling hills, in which the race of Eochaidh the Horseman once held dominion.

NOTE.-In the Four Masters Kinnetty is spelt in different ways. e.g. 850, Cind Eitig (gen.); 884, Cinn Ettic (gen. case); 903; Cindeittig (gen.); 1213, Cinneitig (gen.); 1397, Chinn Eitig (gen. not our Kinnetty). Cf. Cind Fine, or children of the family. The form given for year 884, Cinn Ettic, is most in harmony with the spelling and derivation suggested in these pages.

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Also as regards the hardening of the aspirated consonants in Leinster place-names, cf. Stoneybatter" and "Booterstown" (formerly "Butterstown ") near Dublin. "Batter" or "butter" is the Irish bótar, pronounced boher, as in Boheraphuca. A prosthetic n is sometimes found, e.g., the old name of Lough Neagh is spelt in the Book of Leinster both Loch-nEthach and Loch-Echach, the lake of Eochaidh or Eochy. The former supports the suggested explanation of Kinnetty.

C

CHAPTER III.

THE KING'S COUNTY AND THE SLIEve Bloom.

THE best way, perhaps, to realize what life in an Irish sept was like, would be to glance at the annals of some of the more prominent and pugnacious of the clans. Of these the O'Connors and the O'Carrolls may be selected as being the King's County clans. They are connected with some of the most stirring events in the history of the conquest of Ireland, and proved a constant source of annoyance to the English Government and of anxiety to the English settlers of the Pale.

The King's County occupies the midland districts of Ireland. Sir W. Petty, in his Survey Map (1657) marked the site of the old church of Birr as "umbilicus Hiberniae," the central point of Ireland. Archbishop Ussher mentions that in his life-time a peculiar mass of limestone in Birr was considered the centre of Ireland.1 This rock stood near the present railway station at Seffin or Seefin, the seat of Fin (suidhe Finn) outside the town. Athlone is now regarded as the centre of Ireland. Giraldus Cambrensis in his "Topography of Ireland" (iii. 41), which he read with so much pleasure to himself if not to others, before admiring crowds in classic Oxford, also described the town of Birr as the middle point of Ireland, being situated in the very heart and centre of the country, and makes some interesting remarks on the colossal stones which are found in the country, which he described as chorea

1 Elrington's Edition, v. 518.

gigantum, or the dancing places of the giants. It is matter of regret that this great stone of Seffin, which was supposed to mark the centre of Ireland, was removed from its ancient site by Mr. Thomas Steele, who had it conveyed to Clare in 1833.

The present King's County contained the larger portion of the ancient kingdom of Hy Failghe or Offaly, which also comprised certain districts in Kildare and the territory of the O'Dempseys and O'Dunnes in Queen's County. From olden times this district has been associated with the O'Connor sept. In 1170, soon after their landing in Ireland, the Normans penetrated into these parts. Hugh de Lacy, perhaps the greatest of the territorial barons, was slain in 1186 at Durrow in the northern barony of Ballycowan. At the time he was engaged in superintending the laying of the foundations of a frontier castle, for which he had seized portion of the lands of the ancient abbey, founded by S. Columba in 546. These lands belonged to an Irish chieftain called Fox, who sent his foster brother O'Meyey to watch for an opening against the ruthless invader and desecrator of Celtic sanctities.

One morning the baron was engaged at the operations, and to encourage the Irish men "who had prayed to be set on work for hyre," as Campion tells us, seized a pickaxe to show them how to work in the trench, but as he bent forward with the stroke O'Meyey, whose tool he had taken, seized his opportunity and struck down the unsuspecting baron with a blow of his light axe, and made good his escape to the wood of Kill clare or Coill-an-chlair, the Wood of the Plain, which is near Tullamore, and is interesting to