School: Synge, Inagh (roll number 14440)
- Location:
- Glennageer, Co. Clare
- Teacher: Máirtín Flynn
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0612, Page 321
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of the ancient Oenachs, fairs, and Tocomracs or general assemblies, of that part of the country.
You will see from the passages I translate from Michael Comyn's account of the adventures of Torolb Mac Stairn and his three sons that the slaying and immolating of quadrupeds formed part of the ceremonies at Altóir na Greine, indeed I may say we have no other ceremony but that and we have the important additional statement that the ceremony closed with the cooking and eating of the quadruped killed there.
The killing of the quadruped at Altoir na Greine goes far in support of my view that those assemblies represented the more ancient Oenachs. The poem on the celebrated Oenach Tailtein preserved in the books of Lecan and Ballymote contains the following quatrain from which it appears that a similar practice formed part of the rites of that ancient fair.
The three forbidden bloods:
Patrick preached (against) in it
(i.e. in the fair of Tailtein)
Yoke oxen and slaying of milch cows
And the burning of the first fruits
(first born)(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Liam O' Looney
- Gender
- Male
