Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries: Their Age and UsesFergusson, James
History
Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries: Their Age and Uses
Fergusson, James
Megalithic monuments
There is no doubt but that many similar passages to these might be
found in Irish MSS., if looked for by competent scholars, but these
extracts probably are sufficient to prove two things. First, that
the celebrated cemetery at Brugh, on the Boyne, six miles west from
Drogheda, was the burying-place of the kings of Tara from Crimthann
(A.D. 84) till the time of St. Patrick (A.D. 432), and that it was
also the burying-place of all those who were concerned--without being
killed--in the battles of Moytura. We are not, unfortunately, able to
identify the grave of each of these heroes, though it may be because
only one has been properly explored, that called New Grange, and that
had been rifled before the first modern explorers in the seventeenth
century found out the entrance. The Hill of Dowth has only partially
been opened. The great cairn of Knowth is untouched, so is the great
cairn known as the Tomb of the Dagdha. Excavations alone can prove
their absolute identity; but this at least is certain, we have on the
banks of the Boyne a group of monuments similar in external appearance
at least with those on the two Moytura battle-fields, and the date of
the greater number of those at Brugh is certainly subsequent to the
Christian era.[230]
The second point is not capable of such direct proof, but seems equally
clear. It is that the kings of the race of Crimthann immediately
succeeded to the kings of the Tuatha de Danann, who fought at Moytura.
If, indeed, we could trust the assertion that Crimthann was the first
king that was buried at Brugh, we should be obliged to find a place for
the Daghda under some pseudonym afterwards, and it is possible that
may be the case,[231] but for the present it seems more reasonable to
assume that he preceded him at a very short interval.
According to the 'Four Masters,' the Tuatha de Danann had been extinct
for nearly 2000 years when we find Crimthann marrying a princess of
that race, and one of sufficient influence to induce him to adopt what
appears literally to have been the family burying-place of the Dagdha
for that of himself and his race; and it seems impossible to believe
that when this took place it could have been old, or neglected, or
deserted.
According to the 'Four Masters,' the Firbolgs reigned thirty-seven
years only, so that they do not in this case seem to err on the side of
exaggeration, and the Tuatha de Danann 196 years. From this, however,
we must deduct the twenty years they unnecessarily interpolated between
the two battles, and we must take something from the eighty years the
Dagdha reigned after he was ninety-one years of age. If we allow, then,
a century, it will place the battles of Moytura 20 to 30 B.C.,
and the arrival of the Firbolgs about the middle of the first century
B.C. This, with a small limit of error either way is, I am
convinced, pretty nearly the true date of these events.[232]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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