Entities

Ráith Crúachain (Rathcroghan)

  • monuments
  • (places)
The site of a prehistoric mound and other monuments; figures as a royal site of the Connachta in the Ulster Cycle of Irish literature.


See also: Ailill mac Máta
Ailill mac Máta
(time-frame ass. with Ulster Cycle)
king of Connacht, husband of Medb of Connacht

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Medb Chrúachna
Medb of Crúachan
(time-frame ass. with Ulster Cycle)
Queen of the Connachta, co-ruler with her husband Ailill mac Máta, in the Ulster Cycle. She is said to have a daughter, Findabair, and seven sons known as the seven Maines. Her lover is Fergus mac Róich.

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Sources

Secondary sources (select)

Corns, Anthony, Rory McNeary, Brian Shanahan, and Robert Shaw, “Rathcroghan and Carnfree, Co Roscommon (Ireland)”, in: Christoph Bartels, María Ruiz del Arbol, Heleen van Londen, and Almudena Orejas [eds.], Landmarks — profiling Europe's historic landscapes, 158, Calbe: Selbstverlag des Deutschen Bergbau-Museums Bochum, 2008. 31–42.
Waddell, John, “Rathcroghan in Connacht”, Emania: Bulletin of the Navan Research Group 5 (Autumn, 1988): 5–18.
Waddell, John, “Notes and queries: corrections: Rathcroghan”, Emania: Bulletin of the Navan Research Group 6 (Spring, 1989): 42.
Waddell, John, “Continuity, cult and contest”, in: Roseanne Schot, Conor Newman, and Edel Bhreathnach (eds), Landscapes of cult and kingship, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2011. 192–212.  
The degree to which pagan traditions influenced early medieval Irish literature has been the subject of some debate. The phrase a window on the Iron Age once encapsulated a view that epic tales in particular depicted a real prehistoric past. The general rejection of this thesis has accentuated a perception of a wide gulf between pagan and Christian Ireland. Archaeology now offers considerable evidence for continuity in funerary ritual, art and monument usage between pagan pre-Christian times and the early Medieval era. This is especially evident at archaeological complexes such as Teltown (Tailtiu), Rathcroghan (Cruachain) and Tara and in a number of literary references to pagan prophetic or divinatory practices at prehistoric burial mounds in Medieval times. The process of the Christianization of Ireland is often seen as an instance of religious syncreticism, a fusion of the old and the new, but the ready acceptance of a syncretic model obscures how complex, prolonged and contested this process may have been. {source: NUI Galway)
Ó hUiginn, Ruairí, “Crúachu, Connachta, and the Ulster Cycle”, Emania: Bulletin of the Navan Research Group 5 (Autumn, 1988): 19–23.
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Contributors
C. A., Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
September 2016, last updated: May 2020

Map with surrounding places (150 km radius)

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