Meath Ireland

But it was of no avail; he was seized and led in chains to Tara. As Diarmaid refused to surrender Guaire, the Saint and his clergy assembled at Tara, where singing psalms and ringing bells they cursed the place for ever- more, praying that no king or queen should ever again dwell at Tara. The palace was shortly afterwards abandoned, and it probably soon became, what it is to-day, a mere mass of grass-covered earthworks. Professor R. A. S. Macalister in his recently published monograph. Ternary Breg,1 has examined the various sources from whence the accounts of Tara are derived, and has sought to show that the narrative, though based on ancient traditional material, cannot he considered as historical. It was compiled by early native historians (circa a.d. sixth-eighth century) under the idea that the High Kingship as known to them was an institution of primitive times. In point of fact, the supremacy of Tara over the greater part of Ireland does nut date earlier than Cormac mac Airt, who made him- self king at Tara some time in the third century a.d. Previously to this, the kingship of Tara was of a local character, the king being rather a religious than a political functionary. It being apparently as a sanctuary more than as a royal residence that Tara first obtained importance. The early legends would seem to be to a large extent cosmogonic and other myths of the pre- Christian Celtic, and lire-Celtic inhabitants. Nor was Tara altogether abandoned after a.d. 558. It declined in importance when Christianity succeeded to Paganism, but it was not wholly deserted till the fall of the native monarchy.

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Posted on April 17th, 2008 under Antique. Tags: Adamnans Pavilion, Christian Celtic, churchyard, Co. Meath, Cormac mac Airt, Cormacs House, Critachain, Dowth, Dublin, High Kingship, Ireland, Kells, La Tone, Lathrach an Forraid, Leinster, Meath, monuments, Mur Tea, Mycensaean, National Museum, Paganism, Petric, Portray, Professor Macalister, Rath na Riogh, Rath Riogh, Rath Riogi, Royal Irish Academy, Scandinavia, stones, Tara, Teach Clwrmaic, Ternary Breg, Teuch Chormaic, The New Grange, Touch Miodchuarta, Treasury of Atreus, Tuatha, Ulster, Yellow Book of Lecan. Comments: 4