The Slieve Mish mountains act as the barrier to an area that has one of the richest local heritages – in terms of archaeological remains, language, folklore and music – in the island of Ireland. The Dingle Peninsula, or Corca Dhuibhne (named for one of the septs who lived here in ancient times), is also one of the most astoundingly beautiful places in the country and, as a result of this, has become something of a tourist fly-trap in recent years. However, within a few miles of where a United Nations of visitors eat in restaurants with cuisine (and prices) comparable to the capitals of Europe, there are high and lonely green valleys, cloud-covered for much of the year, where the old ways have not changed greatly and the feeling remains of another world.
One such valley is that of the Finglas River, which leads to the base of Slieve Mish and is one of the starting points for the approach to Caherconree hill-fort. The fort is situated on a spur of Baurtregaum mountain, 683 metres (2,241 feet) above sea level. The climb to the fort is not an easy one, and should be attempted only in good weather – the best route to take is to turn off from the Castlemaine Road to the south where the ascent is marked by red and white poles, a route which avoids the worst of the bogs. At the fort, the views are magnificent, incorporating much of west Munster. Be aware, however, that the mists can come down suddenly and surround you completely, leaving you imprisoned in a grey, swirling world of stone and water-laden air. The hill-fort, which has not been dated exactly but was certainly in use by the Celtic Iron Age, is what is known as an inland promontory fort, with cliffs falling steeply to the north, south and west, and a 110-metre (360-foot) line of massive sandstone blocks stretching fully across the mountain spur and acting as the defence to the east. It was thus almost impregnable – with no entrance apart from the two gateways in the line of rocks.
The location of the fort indicates that it acted as a defence or marker between two tribes; it still forms the boundary between the baronies of Corkaguiney and Trughanacny. There are the remains of a number of stone huts inside the walls and there was also originally a stone trough which was removed in the nineteenth century. However, little else remains to give evidence of the life within the fort. Historically, Caherconree was said to have had seven battles fought around it, but probably, because of its situation, had completely fallen out of use by the time of the Normans. By the nineteenth century, there was even some dispute as to whether anything remained of the legendary cathair. For the legends endured – Caherconree was still famous as the stone fort of the great warrior magician, Cú Roí, from which its name comes.
Muckross Abbey, County Kerry, by A Nicholl.
Cú Roí is an important figure in the stories of the Ulster Cycle, acting as a wise judge and arbitrator in some of its tales. It was he who judged who should receive the champion’s portion. He did this by fighting the three great heroes of the Red Branch – Cónal, Laoghaire and Cú Chulainn – in the form of a demon outside his fortress. He eventually awarded the prize to Cú Chulainn, though their relationship was to sour badly in later years. Cú Roí seems to have been associated with the sun. He was said to be a great traveller who returned to his fortress in the evening. He could make the fortress revolve, and so no one could gain entrance to his shining, spinning palace after sunset. But when he was angry he could become terrible. When he helped the men of Ulster in their raid on Iuchar’s fortress and he was not included in the sharing of the spoils, he took a terrible revenge.
In legendary terms, the Slieve Mish mountains are also associated with the coming to Ireland of the sons of Míl. They landed at Kenmare Bay on Bealtaine (May) eve and fought their first battle with the Tuatha Dé Danann here. Scota, their queen and wife of Míl, died in the battle and was buried at the place known as Scota’s Grave near Tralee. Another Milesian princess, Fas, is buried in nearby Glen Fais. On Slieve Mish, the Milesians met Banba, one of the three queens of Ireland after whom the island was named. As well as having a wealth of legends associated with it, the area is also exceptionally rich in the physical remains of the past – in the early 1980s, an archaeological survey, carried out on the Corca Dhuibhne area, listed no fewer than 1,572 sites of interest. These included rock art, tombs, standing stones, cairns, ring-barrows, promontory forts, ogham stones, holy wells and a large number of wedge tombs dating from the Bronze Age, when the district as a whole seems to have experienced a population explosion.
The slopes and valleys around the Slieve Mish mountains are thinly inhabited today, and the isolation of these valleys may be one of the reasons for their association with madness – Glanagalt (Gleann na nGealt, ‘The Glen of the Mad People’), the valley where it was reputed that all the insane people of Ireland (including Suibhne or Mad Sweeney) felt compelled to visit, is a little to the west, and Mis herself, after whom the mountain range is named, was said to be a princess who was driven to insanity by the death of her father in battle. When the mist comes down and the valleys become as isolated as islands, it is easy to understand these associations.
If the mist and rain do come down, and Cú Roí’s fortress refuses to show itself, spend time around the village of Camp and in the Finglas valley. Finnghlas, the white speckled river, is known as such because of the milk poured down by Cú Roí’s wife, Bláthnaid, as a sign to her lover that the time had come to rescue her from her prison in the clouds. The river winds its way through woods of oak and holly, the dark greenness broken only by the vivid colours of montbretia and fuchsia – a world away from the high bleak beauty of the mountainside.
THE DEATH OF CÚ ROÍ
A clear day on the mountain, and a girl with nut-brown hair was carrying a bucket of milk in from where three white cows were pastured. The birds that played about the cows circled her head, unafraid, for the cows were Iuchar’s, and Bláthnaid, the flower-like one, was the daughter of that same king. A tall man in a dark grey cloak came down towards her.
‘Leave it, my love. Let one of the servants do that.’
The girl smiled, and said in a voice as soft as music, ‘Are not all the servants down helping out with building the palace that you are making for me, the greatest palace in Ireland? Are not all the men at arms and bondmaids and builders working down there, and the harpers along with them to keep them cheerful? Are we not the only ones left up here on the mountain?’
Cú Roí, the great king and even greater magician, laughed. His face was like that of a blazing lion, though his curling mane had long ago turned as grey as his cloak.
‘Indeed they are – they are all doing your bidding, sweet one. All but Feircheirdne, who is going to play music for us; his tunes are too good to labour to. Let us lie in the sun and listen to him. Ah, here he is. Feircheirdne, play for us.’
Feircheirdne was a fair-haired man with grey eyes that were soft only when he played his music, or sometimes, but even then rarely, when he looked at his king.
‘I have a new song, King,’ he said. ‘I have made it in honour of Bláthnaid, your new wife. It tells the story of how the men of Ulster would not share their spoils with you after you had helped them in their raid against Iuchar, king of the Isle of Man. It tells of how you took Bláthnaid and Iuchar’s three cows and the magical cauldron away from the men of Ulster. It tells how you defeated that beardless youth, Cú Chulainn, the young pup they call the Hound of Ulster, and shaved his head and daubed his skull with dung when he tried to fight you and steal her back from you. They say that he is still skulking around, ashamed to show his face until his hair grows again. It is a mighty song.’
The Slieve Mish mountains, County Kerry.
‘She is not so new a wife, for it is nearly a year now that I have her,’ said Cú Roí fondly. ‘But she is all the dearer for that, for a sweeter girl was never born. She it is who calls me back here from all my wanderings. She is the one who holds all the secrets of my heart.’
Bláthnaid put her hand on her husband’s arm and said something softly into his ear. Cú Roí’s ruddy face became redder and he smiled.
‘Well, Feircheirdne, it seems that my wife would like to be alone with me today. Take the chariot out and go down to see how the work is progressing at the fortress.’
Feircheirdne looked as if he might be about to protest, but he caught the glint in his master’s eye and turned away, giving a peremptory bow to the lady. Bláthnaid drew her husband to the steps of the fort, where they could look down into the valley, blue and hazy on this summer’s afternoon, the sea glinting in the distance no bluer than the girl’s eyes.
‘Let me look for lice in your head, beloved,’ she said. ‘I saw you scratching yesterday.’
Cú Roí lay with his head in the girl’s lap, content in his power and in his love for this captive princess. It seemed that the gentle hands wove their own spell over his grey curls, and she sang gently to him so that he almost slept. In his daze, he did not notice that men were gathering in the glen below Caherconree.
When the sun had risen to its highest point, Bláthnaid said, ‘Let me go and heat water for your bath. I will wash you and clean your hair, and then we will lie down together and take some rest.’
‘Can we not rest now?’ said Cú Roí. Bláthnaid laughed. ‘No, let you wash yourself first, you old goat. Go inside and I will bring water.’
Should anyone have been watching Bláthnaid when she went to the stream, they would have seen that she did a curious thing. She took two buckets with her, and while she filled one bucket with water, she poured the contents of the other into the spring. The milk from the marvellous cows coloured the water white as it mixed with the stream. She watched as it flowed downwards to the green valley – that place full of oak trees and holly and small flowers, so different from this cloudy palace where for most of the year she lived in a world enclosed by mist, a thick, grey mist that made her a captive of Cú Roí as effectively as bars and padlocks. Her father’s small island had been like the valley, low-lying and fertile, not a fortress of hard, grey stone, of freezing, swirling fog and angry sunsets.
Back with Cú Roí, she washed him and, still singing to him, began to comb and play with his long locks as he lay on their bed. He felt something tug at his scalp and realised that his hair had been tied to the posts and bedrails.
He laughed. ‘What are you at, girl? What game is this? Leave over and come in beside me.’ He reached for her, but she was already behind the bed, tying another of his locks to the other bedrail.
‘I told you, girl,’ he said, impatient now. ‘Leave that over.’ He reached out to try to untie the knots but they were tied so securely that he could not move. Then he saw his wife standing over him. His hands were grasped and bound; then his sword was in her hand, and a look in her hooded blue eyes that he had never seen before.
‘I would kill you now, Bellowing Hound, myself with my own hand, only that I have promised that pleasure to Cú Chulainn for the shame you put on him. Old dog, know that you will die here today, with your servants far away, your home taken over by the men of the north; and with all your great powers you can do nothing about it, for you have been tricked by a girl. I sent milk down the stream to give the signal for Cú Chulainn and his men to attack, and I can hear them now at the open gate.’
Cú Roí looked at her, still too confused to be angry. ‘But I thought you had grown to love me. Have I not given you everything you wanted?’
The girl laughed. ‘What did I want but the kisses of a young man and the freedom to be a princess in my own land? How could I love a man who stole me from my people, and raped me? How could I feel anything but horror and disgust at you, you hairy old goat of the mountains, who has put me in prison here in this grey place?’
At this moment, a bevy of warriors swept into the room, and though Cú Roí had no weapon but his teeth and his manacled fists, he killed a hundred of them before he succumbed. Cú Chulainn was the one who finally struck the blow that severed his head from his body.
The Hound of Ulster came to Bláthnaid where she stood looking out over the ramparts at Caherconree, towards the people returning to the dún. The day had clouded over, and the mist was filling the valley below, hiding the bright river and the fields where sheep grazed. She ran to the young hero and embraced him.
‘Oh, my love,’ she said. ‘At last I am free of that old man.’
There was a scuffle as Feircheirdne, the musician of Cú Roí, was brought before them, his arms held by the Ulster champions. He spat at Bláthnaid, glaring at her with fiery eyes.
‘You bitch,’ he said. ‘I see you have chosen the young Hound of Ulster rather that the great Hound of Munster for your bed.’
‘Kill him,’ said Bláthnaid, turning from him.
Cú Chulainn shook his head. ‘He is a musician, not a warrior, and therefore worthy of protection,’ he said. ‘But do not dare speak to this lady in that way again,’ he added. ‘For she is to be my wife.’
Feircheirdne laughed and with a mighty effort shook himself loose of the restraining hands. ‘Is she indeed? Well, maybe not all the plans you made together will come to pass.’
He rushed towards where Bláthnaid stood, gazing out from the high walls of the dún over the rocky cliffside, and, catching her up in his arms, he jumped onto the rampart. He hesitated a second. No one knew whether he intended what happened next, or whether Bláthnaid’s struggles caused it, but the two of them fell headlong into the mist, down onto the rocks below.
The three cows of Iuchar set up a mournful bellowing and the birds that circled their heads dropped to the ground, stricken to death. Cú Chulainn stood, gazing not at the two bodies lying twisted and broken far below, but at the bloody head of Cú Roí set up on a stake in the centre of the dún. It seemed to him that the face peering through the grey locks matted with blood smiled a lion’s smile.
