When the people of the small town of Tulsk in Roscommon first gathered to build a visitor centre about the nearby royal centre of Rathcroghan, it turned out that many of them recalled similar stories from their forebears. Their collective memories told a story that Rathcroghan marked the start of an ancient pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick. The pilgrims first gathered at Rathcroghan and walked three days to reach the mountain, and took another three days to come back. They departed on 17 March - now celebrated as Saint Patrick’s Day - to reach the mountain on the spring equinox.
There’s little visible remaining of the ancient capital of Rathcroghan in Connacht. People stop here for ten minutes on the road to the west coast, survey the view, and get back in their cars. You can get the feeling that there’s nothing really to see here. But there are layers on layers of ancient sites on this spot, stacked like pancakes, and each layer has its own myths and legends that still resonate powerfully in Ireland and beyond.
The remains of the royal centre of Rathcroghan
A thousand years ago the modern festival of Halloween was created here by the Christian scribes. A thousand years earlier, it was the royal seat of Queen Maeve of Connacht, who is the star of the Táin Bó Cúailnge stories, where she tries to steal the brown bull of Cooley, setting off a conflict with the warriors of Ulster. In yet more ancient times, it was the gate to the otherworld and the home of the Morrigan the triple goddess of the Tuatha de Danann.
It’s the earlier stories that hold our attention, for at Rathcroghan, the old world stands close by to the new. Rathcroghan itself is at a high point of a great plain, with views far to the distance all around. A few hundred metres from the great centre of Rathcroghan is a place which retains a reputation as a gateway to the otherworld.
Oweynagat, gates to the otherword
It’s known as Oweynagat, the cave of the cats, and it’s here that the modern day celebration called Halloween has its origins. It’s still known in Ireland as Samhain, and by tradition lasts for three days. The last days of October and first days of November are long held to be a point where the veil between worlds is thinnest. This place was one of the homes of the earth gods of ancient Ireland, a place from where the Morrigan emerges. The Morrigan of the Tuatha de Danann, goddess of birth and death, sometimes took the form of a raven or crow. In the legends of Saint Patrick, probably an invention of the eight-century Catholic church, the saint does battle with the Morrigan on the mountain, fighting the ravens, and running the snakes out of Ireland. Take that, pagans!
The cave is one indication that there are older layers beneath Rathcroghan
More than two thousand years back, Rathcroghan was one of the royal centres of Ireland along with Tara, Emain Macha and Cashel, a place of great assemblies. It’s also deeply associated with the story of the Táin Bó, and the warrior queen Maeve who in legend undertakes the Cattle Raid of Cooley to gain more wealth than her husband. Some place Maeve’s rule at around two thousand years ago, in the era when Christianity was taking root in the Middle East.
It took a few hundred years more from that time for the Christian missionaries to reach Ireland, and they devoted themselves first to re-writing the tales of the old gods into their tracts. For the Christian writers, Oweynagat was no longer home of the Morrigan, and place of birth and death, but a place of evil. In early Irish literature, this place became dorus irrfin na Hérend, Ireland’s gate to hell. In this version of the story, demons now emerge from Oweynagat at Samhain, rotting the vegetation with their toxic breath. Fearful of being dragged into the otherworld, people only went out these nights wearing disguises. The Hallows Evening, the night before All Hallows Day (or All Souls Day), became our modern Hallowe’en, now celebrated all around the world. You can buy witch hats and ghoul masks on the streets of Nairobi, San Francisco and Tokyo in the last weeks of October.
So this is a good time to start on the road between Rathcroghan and Croagh Patrick, where we’ll find dozens of sacred sites, almost all re-named for the Christian saint. Digging past the stories of Saint Patrick, we’ll find a route that is rich in earth magic, stone circles, standing stones and carvings that tell a vastly different story than the well-known legend of Saint Patrick.
Seems to be the most neglected site of all, given its importance, and yet neglect is maybe the best thing for its long-term survival. Fairies too famously dislike being disturbed by coachloads of Instagrammers.