Page:Rude Stone Monuments.djvu/217

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Chap. V.
MOYTURA.
191

of Conn, and Cormac the son of Art, and Niall of the Nine Hostages." A little further on we have the following paragraph:—"(101.) The nobles of the Tuatha de Danann were used to bury at Brugh, i.e., the Dagdha with his three sons, and also Lughaidh and Oe, and Ollam and Ogma, and Etan the poetess, and Corpre the son of Etan, and Crimthann followed them because his wife was one of the Tuatha Dea, and it was she that solicited him that he should adopt Brugh as a burying-place for himself and his descendants."

In the 'Book of Bally mote' (p. 102) it is said, "Of the monument of Brugh here, viz., The Bed of daughter of Forann. The monument of the Daghda. The mound of the Morrigan. The Bare of Crimthann in which he was interred. The Carnail (stone cairn) of Conn of a Hundred Battles," &c. In a second passage we recognise the following names rather more in detail: "The Bed of the Dagdha first, the two paps of the Morrigan, at the place where Cermud Milbhel, the son of the Dagdha was born[1]—(the monuments of) Cirr and Cuirrell wives of the Dagdha—there are two hillocks; the grave of Aedh Luirgnech, son of the Dagdha." Again, in a prose commentary on a poem which Petrie quotes, we have the following apparently by Moelmuori. The chiefs of Ulster before Conchobar (he is said to have died 33[2]) were buried at Talten . . . The nobles of the Tuatha de Dananns, with the exception of seven who were interred at Talten, were buried in Brugh, i.e., Lugh and Oe, son of Ollamh and Ogma, and Carpre the son of Etan, and Etan (the poetess herself), and the Daghda and her three sons, and a great many others besides of the Tuatha de Danann, Firbolgs, and others."

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.


  1. Could this be the great Rath close to the Netterville domain? See Sir W. Wilde, 'The Boyne and the Blackwater,' p. 211.
  2. Tighernach, O'Connor, ii. p. 23, "Carcobarus filius Nessæ obiit hoc anno—33."