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Irish Forgotten Places, 67 Castle Dawson, Maynooth (2026)

17/06/2026

Despite its ‘Seven Wonders’ Fore in Westmeath remains largely unvisited. Not only are there ‘Wonders’ to be wondered at but they are spread over a bowl-shaped valley with historic remains tracing 1500 years of Irish history,
The ‘Wonders’ are: a monastery in a bog, a mill without a race (stream), water that flows uphill, a tree that won’t burn, water that doesn’t boil, an anchorite in a stone (tower) and a lintel stone raised by prayer. For a while I thought I had found an eight.
Within the saucer-shaped valley there are at least three gates, now standing isolated and almost forgotten. One to the east, one to the west and another at the monastery to the north. Any wall connecting them would have surrounded a considerable area, now almost empty because it is (and probably always was) a bog.
Was there ever a large town there? With a bog in its centre?
When I finally discovered the answer it was not as dramatic as I had expected but it opened a page of Irish history that I had skipped over.
Fore’s fame goes back to the monk Feichin (also of Omey island and Termonfechin) who in 630 set up a community on the hillside where the 10th century St Feichin’s Church now stands.
It drew students from Ireland and abroad and was so important that when the Norman Hugh de Lacy received lordship of Meath he had a fortified Benedictine monastery built there around 1180. It still stands strong with its own imposing gateway.
In the 15th century the area was at the edge of the Norman-controlled Pale and vulnerable to raids from Irish families like the O’Reillys and the O’Farrells. Its defences were strengthened.
But how far did the town walls extend? As you can see today the monastery was formidable but it is on the other side of the valley from St Fechin’s church, mill, well and early settlement. Yet they were evidently linked. A grant to wall the town was given in 1436 but seems to have amounted to no more than strengthening the two gates and an earthen rampart on the southern and northern sides.
The gates themselves were not intended to repel attackers but to ensure that taxes would be collected from those entering.
So there were two ‘towns’ with the bog in between and while they were dependent on each other they were separate.
I recommend a visit. There is so much to climb, to see and simply sit back and enjoy. And its free.
Have you come across any other ‘lost walled cities’ of Ireland such as Kells in Kilkenny?

Photos: The monastery across the bog from St Feichin’s 10th c. church; old town gate; ‘a tree that won’t burn’.

10/06/2026

What or who were the ‘Two Eyes of Ireland’ in the 8th century? Were they two places or two people?
If two places, they are Tallaght and Finglas, both on the outskirts of Dublin but on opposite sides of the Liffey.
The eyes in Tallaght were those of Maelruan. Thanks to 8th century books like ‘The Monastery of Tallaght’, ‘The Rule of Tallaght’, Aengus’s ‘Record of Irish Saints’ and even the ‘Stowe Missal’ we have plenty of information on him. He was the founder of Tallaght Monastery and a leading force in the Celi De movement seeking to recover the simplicity and enthusiasm of the early Irish Church.
In Finglas the eyes were not those of its founder, Canice, though he is the one mentioned in the tourist information. He died in the 600s, two hundred years before Maelruan. He was known as a graduate of Finnian’s famous school at Clonard and one of the ‘Twelve Pioneers of Ireland’ who had gone on to found famous monastic schools around the county and overseas.
However Canice probably spent little time in Finglas. He went on to found more famous centres at Aghaboe and Kilkenny.
The head of Finglas in Maeruan’s time was Dublitir. As his name, ‘Black Letter’, suggests he was a noted scholar, always up to his elbows in ink. As an enthusiastic member of Celi De he was in regular contact with Maelruan. I can imagine their two eyes watching each other across the Liffey as well as observing the progress of monastic reform around the country.
One day Dublitir came to Maelruan to urge him to allow his monks to celebrate with beer on the three major feast days of the year.
Maelruan was not willing. He did not allow beer in his community because he believed ‘liquor causes forgetfulness of God’.
Dublitir replied, ‘Well, my monks shall drink it and they shall be in heaven along with yours’.
Dublitir is buried in Finglas old graveyard which is seldom open and has a sign that reassures visitors ‘there is nothing to see anyhow’. An ancient cross, ‘The Nethercross’, looks out over the wall as if to reassure people that this indeed had once been one of the ‘Two Eyes of Ireland’.
There should at least be a pub nearby offering black Dublitir Beer.
Photos: The ‘Nethercross’ looks out from inside; a view of the inside where ‘there is nothing to see’; Tourist Information.

03/06/2026

There is nothing like a visit to the place where it happened to bring a story to life.
I was passing Lough Derravaragh in the ‘Lakeland of Ireland’ (aka Westmeath) when I saw a road side totem pole-like figure of the legendary King Lir. He was the father of the famous Children of Lir.
In case you have forgotten, the story goes back to the time when the defeated Tuatha De Danaan retreated to the hilly mounds where they now live. They elected a new king, Bodb Dearg, who gave his daughter Aoibh as bride to his great rival, Lir, to seal an alliance. The couple lived happily together and had four beautiful children. When Aoibh died suddenly Lir was heartbroken but to keep his relationship with Bodh Derg agrees to marry Aoibh’s sister, Aoife.
Aoife soon realised that Lir loved his children more than her and when one day she took them to swim in Lough Derravaragh she turned them into swans and doomed them to wander the lakes and shores of Erin for 900 years.
Their misery is described at length in the 39-page manuscript, ‘The Fate of the Children of Lir’.
Toward the end of their 900 years Christianity had arrived in Ireland and a monk named Mochaomhog came looking for them. He heard them singing on a lake and became their friend. However when the time came for them to return to human form ‘the sons became three withered, bony old men and the daughter a lean, withered old woman, without blood or flesh’.
In a final poem the daughter, Fionnuala, asked Mochaomhog to baptise them and gave him precise instructions as to how her brothers were to be buried around her.
This story began in the magical world of the Tuatha de Danaan but was written in the 14th century with a Christian message. Rather than blaming cruel fate for the sorrows of life, Christian faith gives purpose and hope in coping with suffering.
Interesting, the Irish were among the few who had no trouble combining their past beliefs with a contrasting Christian worldview.
Today one of the few access roads to Lough Derravaragh is at Knockleyon. At least until the 17th century, on the ‘first Sunday of the harvest’ local people gathered on the nearby ‘Hill of St Eyon’ (Knockleyon), to celebrate ‘St Eyon’s Fire’. It was a Christianised version of the ancient harvest Festival of Lughnasadh, also dating from the Tuatha De Danaan,
Passing the entry today you might not be aware that the Tuatha De Danaan’s Lir and Lugh (after whom Lughnasadh is named) mix peacefully there with the Christian St Eyon.
It’s a very Irish thing.
(2nd Photo: the Lough and Knockleyon.)

27/05/2026

Formal education in Ireland began as far back as the 500s AD as I was reminded when looking for Mobhi‘s school on the banks of the Tolka in Dublin.
According to the historian Sir James Ware there were 164 famous schools in Ireland between 500 and 700 AD. For a population of about 600,000 there would have 4-5 higher institutions in every county.
Mobhi himself was a graduate of Finnian’s Clonard which was already drawing students from abroad. From Clonard came the ‘Twelve Apostles of Ireland’ who went on to found major centres of learning around the country.
By Mobhi’s time this ‘second generation’ were all Irish-born, steeped in the language and traditions of their own people. They continued with the ‘Desert Fathers’ training they had received from the pioneers and expanded the curriculum to include Latin and Greek classics as well as sciences such as astronomy, as understood at that time.
It was not unusual for young children to receive their earliest education from religious women before been sent at the age of six or more to a local monastic school. St Ita was among those who provided schooling for girls as well as boys (such as St Brendan).
Mobhí’s school was one of the ‘higher institutions’ and had about fifty students at a time. Scholars who received their initial training from one master often went on to another in order to learn from his speciality (post graduate study?). Among those who came to Mobhi for a period were Columba of Iona, Comgall of Bangor and Ciarán of Clonmacnoise.
Today only a road sign pays tribute to Mobhi in the area now better known as Glasnevin. The site of his school is occupied by a COI church that is seldom open. Even the Tolka River is now less visible. Once the huts of his pupils were on its west side and when the river was frozen they could walk on the ice over to the church on the east.
Glasnevin is now a tourist attraction thanks to its National Cemetery, opened in 1832 by Daniel O’Connell. 1.5 million people are now buried there. Many of them are national heroes but Mobhi is not among them. His grave is nearby, unmarked where his school once stood.
When will we see a monument raised to the early educators of Ireland?
Photos: The nearby National Cemetery, the lone Road Sign, Mobhi’s site.

20/05/2026

Why is Baltinglass in south Wicklow the ’Hill Fort Capital of Ireland‘ yet so few know about it?
I went to find out and searched for an entry point at the hill nearest the town. It is called the ‘Pinnacle’ and seemed the most accessible of the 13 prehistoric forts in the area.
For an obvious tourist attraction there were no signs for where to begin climbing (I found out the reason later).
A local simply told me ‘Take the path beside the graveyard and follow it’ but the path soon faded away. A thick wall of yellow gorse lay ahead between me and the summit, beautiful but impenetrable.
I spent an hour edging my way around the gorse looking for a gap and negotiating fences.
At the top there was nothing more ancient than a radio tower and a cross. On the hill behind was what looked like a stone fort. It was too early to give in but the grassy ground soon gave way to broken rock and each step had to be taken with care.
On the second summit there was a huge heap of stones. The shale was too unstable to climb and look inside so I missed what I had come to see. The stones in fact were the collapsed walls of a fort and inside was an exposed passage tomb.
Why would people live in a fort around a passage tomb? However the more urgent question was how to get back down the hill.
Unwilling to retrace the circular way by which I had come I set off in the opposite direction. More fences had to be negotiated but there was less gorse. Finally at the bottom only a locked farmyard remained between me and a road.
I shouted to attract attention and eventually an irate man appeared demanding how I had got there and did I not know this was private land? Who told me about the hill, how did I get in and what did I want there? Did I not see all the ‘no entry’ signs warning people off?
I tried to explain there had been no one to give me directions and I had seen no signs. Finally he conceded there was a road ‘two fields away’ and left me to cross a few more fences to get there.
It was only later I discovered that visitors to the hills are discouraged because they ‘vandalise the land’. How the rocky hillside could be vandalised was not explained but I took it that meant sheep had been stolen.
I then began to see why the ‘Hill Fort Capital of Ireland’ is so little known and visited. Probably because of strong local feelings Wicklow County Council makes no effort to advertise what could be a great tourist attraction. Building hillforts may have been a long-standing local tradition to ‘keep vandals out’ and now if there is a sudden revival of fort building in the ‘Hill Fort Capital of Ireland’ you can blame intrepid day-trippers like me.
Photos: View on the way up, the fort at the top, the Pinnacle behind the 1148 Cistercian Abbey.

13/05/2026

In the 8th century a monk from Clonenagh visited nearby Coolbanagher in Laois and was inspired to write a ‘hugely influential book’ that scholars still draw on today. Who was he and why did he write the book?
His name was Oengus and as he passed the graveyard in Coolbanagher, ‘He saw a grave there, and all between heaven and the ground over the grave was full of angels. So he asked the priest of the church, “Who has been buried in yonder grave?”
“A wretched old man who was in the place," says the priest. “What thing at all used he to do?” says Oengus. “He recounted the saints of the world,” says the priest, “such of them as he remembered, on lying down and getting up each day.”
“O God of heaven,” said Oengus, “whosoever should compose in poetry a song of praise for the saints, surely great would be his guerdon (reward) thereafter, since yon grace came upon that man.”’
I wonder if this translation of ‘Old Irish’ came via Hollywood but in any case Oengus began his Martyrology there. It the earliest register of Irish saints with comments on them written in verse and in Irish. Much of what we know of that ‘Old Irish’ and of Ireland of the time comes from it.
Today copies are stored in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin and the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
Oengus described himself as a mendicant and ’one of God's poor’. He became a monk at Clonenagh where the ‘Celi De’ reform movement was calling for a return to the simplicity and high standards of previous generations. The Vikings had begun ferocious attacks on monasteries and some believed it was God’s punishment for a Church and society that had lost its way. Oengus’ solution was to recall the personal example of the early pioneers who had inspired enthusiasm for Christianity in Ireland.
Coolbanagher itself was probably never an impressive place and when I visited there I could find no reminder of Oengus among its lonely ruins.
No angels hovered over the graveyard but I felt I should write something to ensure Oengus at least would not be forgotten. Will I earn a ‘guerdon’ for that?

06/05/2026

Over 60,000 people came to the annual Púca Festival in the Trim-Athboy area to celebrate the birthplace of Halloween. The ‘birthplace’ itself is on the Hill of Ward between the two towns and many of the visitors would have gone there late at night to join in the festivities.
It was an afternoon when I went recently to see what attracted them but the place was deserted (except for the sheep). Neither were there any signposts to inform me whether I had arrived at the right place and when I finally found the entrance it was firmly locked.
Like other famous hills in Meath, such as Tara and Loughcrew, the ‘birthplace of Halloween’ does not impress with its height as you approach. You have to get on the summit to appreciate their commanding view. Also what you find on the site itself might not, at first glance, live up to expectations. Rolling grassy mounds do little to indicate past glory unless you have a guide to explain or you have done your homework.
You could start by looking up ’Tlachtga’, the original name of the Hill of Ward (Ward was a landlord at a much later date). Tlachtga, the daughter of a legendary figure called Mog Ruith, died on the Hill while giving birth to three sons. There are similar stories about ‘sacred marriages’ that took place on monument complexes to ensure good harvests. The message is multi-layered like the hill itself which served different functions over the centuries.
Most famously, the hill is associated with Samhain, the Celtic ‘New Year’ festival on the evening of 31 October. It comes from the time when farming people paid close attention to the behaviour of the sun. As it weakened and the dark half of the year crept in, druids gathered on sacred high places to light bonfires and pray for the sun’s return.
At such ‘in-between’ moments, when one half of the year ended and people waited for a new year to dawn, inhabitants of the ancestor’s ‘other world’ could emerge and frighten people. Ways of appeasing or diverting them evolved and such customs continued into Christian times becoming Halloween (the Eve of the Feast of all Saints).
Tlachtga was not the only place in Ireland or the world to mark this important annual event but it was a major site in Ireland and so popular that Irish emigrants are said to have brought Samhain practices to the United States and beyond. Today many flock back to the Hill of Ward for the Samhain experience.
I did not know all this before my recent visit to the Hill but got help when returning the key.
I was fortunate in meeting the landowner and his wife. They welcome visitors but had been told by insurers they have to keep the entrance locked. As residents on the Hill they are well informed of its heritage and even conduct guided tours during the summer. The farmer himself was convinced that the hill not only has historical importance but a unique energy. He told me the most authentic relic there from ancient times was probably a half-submerged stone near the top. It has an intensity that many had felt and noted. Indeed it had impressed me enough to stop and take its photo when passing. On checking the photo the stone did seem to have an unusual glow. I agreed that a geologist should take a closer look to determine its origin and properties.
On the Hill its present day guardians, sheep not druids, gathered around to scrutinise me. I was reminded of a line from an old poem:
‘Tlachtga, proud and princely hill,
has seen the passing of many a stern king’.
Photos: The circling mounds, the Stone , the guardian sheep.

29/04/2026

As a modern satellite of Dublin, Tallaght might not want to be remembered for its original name of ‘Taimhleacht Muintire Parthalóin’ meaning ‘The plague-burial place of the Parthalóns’. 9,000 of those early invaders are said to be buried there.
It became known as Tamhleacht Maelruan’ (Tallaght of Maelruan), when a reforming monk of that name arrived in 769. The monastery he founded soon became known as one of the ‘Two Eyes of Ireland’ (the other being Finglas, on the opposite side of Dublin). I went to Tallaght recently to see what that might mean.
As it turned out the only physical trace of Maelruan I came across was his ‘Losset’, a magnificent font that unfortunately dates from a different era. There are no statues of him or tourist boards to remind people of his achievements. However when walking past the nearby Dominican Retreat Centre a thought occurred to me.
Some years ago I was part of a challenging three-day Zen retreat there. Led by an American lady dressed in the robes of a Japanese Zen Master, it introduced us to strict Japanese Buddhist practices -- long meditations sitting on the floor, reciting scripture, silence, simple food and early rising. It was a comforting but not comfortable experience.
Although those activities had an exotic edge at that time, on my recent return to Tallaght I realised that they were not unlike what Maelruan was trying to restore at Tallaght over a thousand years earlier.
The Christianity that first came to Ireland had roots in the demanding spiritual discipline of the ‘Desert Fathers’ as described by John Cassian and others. Physical and mental restraint were taught through the same physical and mental practices found in Zen: long spells of communal and personal prayer, silence, fasting and a simple lifestyle. The example set by those monasteries inspired ordinary Irish people until Norman times and beyond.
Inevitably the more testing practices were relaxed and abuses began to creep in so a movement known as the ‘Celi De’ (People of God) emerged to restore the original spirit. Maelruan was one of its leaders and much of what we know about the group comes from documents such as his ‘The Rule of Tallaght’ that have survived in libraries and museums.
Finglas was the second ‘Eye of Ireland’ but there were other centres I had visited without realising their role -- Terryglass, Derrynaflann, Lorrha, Clones and Castledermot (Díseart Diarmada). Numerous ‘Diseart’ hermitages for ascetics sprung up around the country at that time.
Many questions remain about Celi De – who started it and how wide was its influence? Clues can be found in the Tallaght documents but also in an artistic expressions (as Zen had) that, for Ireland, were expressed in Round Towers, High Crosses and illuminated manuscripts.
Today little physical trace of Maelruan can be seen in Tallaght but his spirit lives on in the poems of his manuscripts:
‘Melodious music the birds perform
To the king of the heaven of clouds,
Praising the radiant king,
Hark from afar to the choir of the birds.’
Photos: The tower that is all the remains of a fortified house built over Maelruan’s site by an Archbishop of Dublin in 1324, St Maelruan’s Losset and the Retreat House.

15/04/2026

Where else in the world could you just go to a neighbouring house to get the key and then walk up the road into a chamber where your ancestors were placed 5000 years ago and is still well preserved because it was not uncovered until the 1950s?
The one I visited recently is Fourknocks, a passage tomb in the Boyne Valley, ten miles from the megalithics of Newgrange. Though less visited than its neighbour it has a larger inner chamber, indeed the largest in Ireland.
What it brought home to me is how much more we can know about our ancestors than I thought possible and also, they were smarter than I presumed.
When returning the key to its keeper down the road I got a copy of Anthony Murphy’s ‘Fourknocks: Archaeology, Astronomy and Mythology’. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in Ireland’s early years. It gives not only a detailed account of Fourknocks but also an easy-to-read introduction to life, monuments and art in early Ireland. His enthusiasm for the subject is heart-warming.
Fourknocks is from the same cultural period as neighbouring Newgrange but has no car park, interpretative centre or guides. You find the house of the key-keeper, park on the side of the road, walk up a tidy path and come upon a grassy tomb looking out over countryside that has not changed over centuries.
The entrance passage is short and low, and the chamber inside dark, but there is enough natural light to appreciate the size and to note three recesses in which most of the human remains were found. With a phone torch you can make out some of the wall carvings but it is difficult to see the detail Anthony Murphy describes so well in his book. One unusual figure seems to be that of a woman.
When the tomb was discovered in the 1950s, the Office of Public Works carried out careful archaeological examinations before doing an admirable job in preserving its character and atmosphere.
The reason the tomb and its contents were in good condition was because building an arched roof over such a wide chamber proved too much for the ambitious builders of that time and it collapsed at an early period.
Inside the remains of over sixty individuals were found, equally divided between men and women. There also were children. They were not royalty, just families in the community.
On the way out the passage you can glimpse Mullaghteelin Hill off in the distance. Anthony Murphy describes the alignment of the passage not only with stars but with other similar monuments in a northerly direction. Our past is far more sophisticated than we credit it.
If you want to experience Fourknocks it would be good to go soon. Anthony Murphy warns how unthinking visitors have damaged nearby sites with graffiti and garbage and that is beginning to happen at Fourknocks. The OPW who manages the site may not continue to consider it safe to leave it so available and vulnerable.

01/04/2026

Looking through photos taken at Carbury I was reminded that Ireland has ‘a mythology as rich and vibrant as that of Greece’.
I had gone to Carbury to find the mythical source of the River Boyne but was defeated by the locked gates of the demesne where the magic well of Segais, the source of the river, is located. I was so intent on finding the infant river that I almost missed the Fairly Hill of Neachtain (Sidh Neachtain) itself, on the other side of the demesne where it is open to the public. That was where Neachtain, guardian of the sacred well, lived with his wife Boann who gave her name to the Boyne.
Neachtain was a warrior lieutenant of the Dagda, the ruler and father figure of the Tuatha de Danann, the People of Danu who occupied Ireland before the Celts. Their super-human abilities did not protect them from the invaders who banished them into the fairy mounds (sidhe) to be found around the country to this day.
The Dagda put Neachtain in charge of the sacred well at Carbury with instructions to keep its location secret so that no one would drink of its wisdom. Of course Boann found the well and when she drank from its waters they broke out and rushed down to the sea at Drogheda. Boann was swept along, giving her name to the newly created river.
On the way to the sea Boann passed Brugh na Boinne (Newgrange) where the Dagda was waiting. He delayed her and they had a son, Aenghus Og, the Irish personification of youth, love and poetry who still lives at Brugh na Boinne.
When I got to the ‘Fairy Hill‘ I did not spot the two grassy rings on its top that mark the home of Neachtain and Boann. What caught my attention was the striking ruins of a Norman castle on the side of the hill and below it the enclosed graveyard of Teampall Do-Ath, a 19th century mausoleum of the Colley family that looks much older than it actually is.
The Normans took over the hill for strategic reasons. The old road beneath it was the Eiscar Riada, connecting the east of Ireland with the River Shannon and the West. Their stone castle announced their ownership of the area and showed no respect for what was there before. Rather the opposite, they were determined to stamp their own identity on the landscape.

The Irish who realised what was happening wanted to preserve their heritage before it was too late. In 1632 scholars and monks in Donegal began recording the old stories in the ‘Annals of the Four Masters’. Thanks to them we still know about The Dagda, Neachtain and Boann.

Much of that history was from a pre-Christian world but the master scholars recognised it as an essential part of their cultural DNA. The world view in which humans and nature are linked, where life is not limited to a short spell and where actions can have lasting and wide effects was at the heart of Irish life from early on, Christianity took it up and continued it.

It’s not often that you get a chance to experience Ireland’s mythic past as you can at Carbury. The magic well of Segais, where Boann drank, is open to the public only one day a year (31 May in 2026). However if you find your way around to the far side of the demesne you can climb the Fairy Hill, see where the legendary couple lived, the ruins of the Norman Keep and ancient-looking Teampall Do-Ath beneath. There you can see for yourself what happened when the imaginative and idealistic Irish encountered the unsentimental and practical Norman. If we even think about such things today it is because we have ‘a mythology as rich and vibrant as that of Greece’.

Photos: The Hill and castle, the Teampall, the locked gate of the estate.

Irish Forgotten Places

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