The banquet of Dun na n-Gedh : and the battle of Magh Rath : an ancient historical tale now first published from a manuscript in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin / with a translation and notes by John O'Donovan.

Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The banquet of Dun na n-Gedh : and the battle of Magh Rath : an ancient historical tale now first published from a manuscript in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin / with a translation and notes by John O'Donovan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    lie first selected Dun na n-gedhg, on the bank of the Boinn [the River Boyne], to be his habitation beyond all the situations in Erin. And he drew [formed] seven very great ramparts around this fort after the model of regal Tara, and he also laid out the houses of that fort after the model of the houses of Tara, namely, the great Midhchuairth, in which the king himself, and the queens, and the ollaves1, and those who were most distinguished in each profession, sit; also the Long Mumhanj, the Long Laigheank, the Coisir Con- nacht1, the Eachrais Uladhm, the Prison of the Hostages, the Star of the Poets0, the Grianan of the one pillarp (which last had been first built at Tara by Cormac Mac Art' other houses besides. also on the Ordnance Map of the county of Meath, Parish of Tara. q Cormac Mac Art The commence- ment of the reign of this monarch is re- corded in the Annals of Tighernach, at A. D. 2i 8, and his death is entered in the Annals of the Four Masters at the year 266. His daughter Graine, for whom the Grianan here mentioned was erected, was the wife of the celebrated warrior Finn Mac Cumhaill, the Fingal of Mac Pherson’s Ossian. The word “ Grianan” may be thus correctly defined: 1. A beau- tiful sunny spot, as Grianan Calraiglie, a place in the parish of Calry, in the north of the county of Sligo. I11 this topogra- phical or rural sense, it is translated by Colgan, solarium, terra Solaris, (Acta SS. p. 13, not. 6). 2. A bower or summer- house. 3. A balcony or gallery, a boudoir. 4. A royal palace. In the third and fourth sense here set down, this word is , for Ills daughter Grainne), and One very frequently used in the old Irish His- torical Tales and Romances. The follow- ing description of the erection of a Gria- nan, as given in a very ancient historical tale, entitled Fledh Bricrinn, i. e. the Feast of Bricrenn, preserved in Leabhar na h-Uidhri, a MS. of the twelfth century, now in the possession of Messrs. Hodges and Smith, will give one a tolerably cor- rect idea of what the ancient Irish meant by the word:—“ Then did Bricrenn erect a Grianan near the couch of King Concobhar and those of the heroes. This Grianan he formed of gems and various rich mate- rials, and placed on it windows of glass on every side. One of these windows he placed over his own couch, so that he might see the whole extent of the great house out of it.” In the third sense it is used in the Leabhar Breac, fol. 27, a, a, to translate the Latin word ccenaculum.