Tara

Tara, Temair, Teamhair, Temuir; the anglicized Tara derives from the genitive form Teamhrach [Ir. Temair, dark one (?); spectacle (?); elevated place (?); assembly hall (?); free-standing eminence of wide prospect; the Lebor Gabála contrives the etymology téa múr, Téa's wall]. Hill (507 feet) in Co. Meath, 6 miles SE of Navan, where the Irish ard rí [high king] is said to have had his seat. One of the most famous sites in the Celtic world, partially because of well-meaning but romantic misreadings of evidence by 19th-century poets and fiction-writers, Tara is unspectacular to visit, yet excavations there have yielded abundant and interesting information. According to the pseudo-history Lebor Gabála [Book of Invasions], the mortal Milesians named the site Temair after Éremón's queen, Téa, displacing the earlier name, Druim Caín. Other names applied to Tara are: Cathair Crofhind, Druim Léith, and Fordruim. Forms of the name Temair survive elsewhere, e.g. Tara hill (831 feet), 4 miles NE of Gorey, Co. Wexford.

From the earliest Irish history Tara was an important centre of religious ceremony, sacred to Medb, then considered a goddess, or to her double, Medb Lethderg [red side]. It had been a burial site as early as the second millennium BC. Tara was the seat of kings who were also over-kings of the region and heads of the Uí Néill federation, and thus the most powerful leaders in all Ireland. Central to each kingship was the ritual mating with the local earth-goddess in a ritual banquet, the feis temrach [feast of Tara] at Samain time; see also KINGSHIP; BANAIS RÍGHE. The Uí Néill were named for Niall Noígiallach [of the Nine Hostages], who had supposedly seized Tara from the Leinstermen in the 5th century, before Christianization. As the Irish rule of descent (see DERBFHINE) did not foster an orderly distribution of property, Niall's many sons carved up what had been his hegemony. Later ‘king of Tara’ was only an honorary title for a ruler whose seat was often far distant. Beginning with Sláinge, said to have reigned in the 20th century BC, the Annals list many monarchs of Tara, both pagan and Christian. The advance of Christianity may have led to the suppression of the highly pagan feis temrach; Diarmait mac Cerbaill was the last to celebrate it. Later ecclesiastical writers invented the story of St Rúadán's curse upon Diarmait in a Church/State dispute. Testimony in the Annals implies that Tara was by no means abandoned even two centuries later. The Uí Néill continued to refer to their leaders as ‘kings of Tara’, although the site itself became overgrown. In time the hill also attracted one of the largest of the medieval fairs [OIr. óenach; ModIr. aonach], held triennially at Samain, and comparable to those held at Tailtiu, Tlachtga, and Uisnech; the legendary king Ollam Fódla is thought to have begun the fair.

Much of the action of early Irish literature either takes place at Tara or touches upon it, but always from a distant narrative point of view, i.e. on the assumption that events portrayed had taken place in the past. The stories of Conaire Mór depict a magical kingdom at Tara. The most important mythical king of Tara is Cormac mac Airt, whose court may have been derived from Uí Néill ambitions or aspirations. The young Fionn mac Cumhaill earns his first heroic distinction by slaying the ‘burner’, Aillén mac Midgna, who comes to prey upon the ‘palace’ each year. Lóegaire mac Néill is the king of Tara who meets St Patrick.

Many features of the Tara site bear English names of modern provenance, some from an imaginative reading of the Dindshenchas; their long-term popularity makes them irresistible, even when there is scant evidence to shore up their purported associations. These include:

Adamnán's Cross. Upright stone attributed to St Adamnán, St Colum Cille's biographer, containing vague outlines of a female figure, possible a Sheela-na-gig.

The ‘Banqueting Hall’ [Ir. tech midchuarta, teach miodhchuarta]. Rectangular earthwork, 750 by 90 feet, which does not match the descriptions of the five-sided banqueting hall in medieval literature. Recent scholarship favours an entrance-way for horses and chariots.

Cormac's House [Ir. teach Cormaic]. Small earthwork enclosed by the Fort/Rath of Kings (see below) at whose centre stands the Lia Fáil (see below). Named for the mythical king of Tara, Cormac mac Airt.

Fort/Rath of the Kings [Ir. ráth na ríogh]. Also known as the Royal Enclosure. Large, oval hill-fort, 950 by 800 feet, which nearly encircles three other earthworks (Cormac's House, the Mound of Hostages, the Royal Seat) and the Lia Fáil.

Fort/Rath of the Synods. Trivallate earth-work once thought to have been the site of a meeting between St Patrick and St Brendan as well as other non-contemporaries. In the late 19th century British Israelites mutilated portions of the earthworks looking for the Ark of the Covenant. Later excavations showed timber palisades from the 1st and 3rd centuries AD.

Lia Fáil [stone of destiny]. Twelve-foot erect pillar-stone, 6 feet above ground, made of granular limestone, not quarried in the district, raised to honour the dead of the 1798 revolution. Found lying horizontally near the Mound of Hostages, it was moved to the centre of Cormac's House and is now marked with the letters ‘R.I.P.’ Assertions that it is identical with the ancient Lia Fáil or mythical Fál are less than convincing.

Mound of the Hostages [Ir. dumha na ngiall]. Small earthworks at the north end of the Fort/ Rath of the Kings. Records indicate that the ‘Lia Fáil’ now standing at Cormac's House (see above) should have been here before 1798.

Ráth Gráinne [Gráinne's fort, Gráinne's enclosure]. A burial-mound between the Banqueting Hall and the Sloping Trenches, fancifully thought to be the place whence Gráinne eloped with Diarmait while betrothed to Fionn mac Cumhaill.

Ráth Lóegaire, Ráth Laoghaire [Laoghaire's fort, Leary's fort]. Large, univallate ring-fort associated with Lóegaire mac Néill, the king of Tara at the time of St Patrick.

Ráth Meidbe, Rath Maeve [Ir., Maeve's fort]. A univallate hill-fort, 750 feet in diameter, half a mile S of the centre of Tara. Although queen of Connacht, Medb is cited at Tara in Fled Bricrenn [Briccriu's Feast] and elsewhere.

Royal Seat [Ir. Forradh]. Small earthworks adjacent to Cormac's House (see above).

Sloping Trenches [Ir. Claoin-fhearta]. Two unusual ring-earthworks in the far north-west of the site.

Bibliography

See George Petrie , History and Antiquities of Tara Hill (Dublin, 1839);
Josef Baudiš , ‘On the Antiquity of the Kingship at Tara’, Ériu, 8 (1916), 101–7;
R. A. S. Macalister , Tara: A Pagan Sanctuary of Ancient Ireland (London, 1931);
Seán P. Ó Ríordáin , Tara: The Monuments on the Hill (Dundalk, 1954, 1971);
‘Tara’, in G. E. Daniel (ed.), Myth of Legend (London, 1954), 49–59;
D. A. Binchy , ‘The Fair of Tailtiu and the Feast of Tara’, Ériu, 18 (1958), 113–38;
E. Estyn Evans , Prehistoric and Early Christian Ireland, a Guide (London, 1966);
Francis J. Byrne , Irish Kings and High-Kings (London, 1973);
Michael Herity and and George Eogan , Ireland in Prehistory (London, 1977).