Lough Gur – Limerick’s Ancient Home of Halloween
Halloween is an ancient festival, and its origins can be traced back to the Celtic celebration of Samhain. This was at the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the long months of Winter. It is a time, so the old people said, when the veil between our world and the Otherworld was at it thinnest. The Good People (from the Irish Na Daoine Maithe, usually called the Fairies in modern times) were known to be abroad on this night, moving from their summer residences into their winter homes, and for this reason people were encouraged to not go outside. At Lough Gur, there is evidence from both archaeology and folklore which suggests that Halloween has been celebrated on her shores for literally thousands of years.
The Grange Stone Circle is the largest circle in Ireland, with its initial phase of construction being traced to the late Neolithic period. It was built close to the banks of Lough Gur. Its exact function remains a mystery though one of its uses appears to have been as a celestial calendar. The ancient people who called Lough Gur home were skilled observers of the sky and they seem to have marked key moments in the year through the alignments of their monuments. Locally, it has long been said that the ‘V-Stones’, two of the larger megaliths in the circle, mark the setting sun of Samhain. It is widely held that the sun descends between the two prominent megaliths on the evening of Halloween. The stones are believed to have been put in place approximately 4,500 years ago, at the beginning of the Bronze Age. If this alignment is intentional, then it is likely one of the first examples of a monument being connected to this precise moment in the calendar year.
Of all the characters and creatures said in inhabit Lough Gur’s famous waters, none are so well known, or admired, as Áine, the goddess and fairy queen. It is no small thing therefore that the earliest legend we have of Áine takes place on the night of Halloween. It is an ancient tale; one originally composed many centuries before the arrival of Christianity to Ireland.
Oilill was the son of the king of Munster. One Halloween he brought all his horses to pasture on a low hillside near Lough Gur. This was the hill we now know as Knockainey, which at that time called Drom Collchoille, or the ridge of the hazel woods. Oilill made himself a bed once the night fell and he quickly fell into a deep sleep. Later, when Oilill awoke, he was astonished to see that not a single blade of grass remained on the slopes of the hill. None could explain what had happened, but clearly his own horses could not have eaten all that grass from the now bare hillside. Perplexed, Oilill summoned Ferches Mac Commán, a poet, prophet, and warrior from Leinster to try and help him solve this mystery. Ferches agreed to return to Drom Collchoille with Oilill the following year.
One year later, and the two men arrived at the slopes of Drom Collchoille. Once there, they separated, each going his own way to explore the hill. Once again Oilill fell asleep, this time not far from the hill’s summit. Drom Collchoille, like many of Ireland’s hills, has several low mounds on its summit. These are known in Irish as na Sídhe, or the fairy mounds. They have long been held as entrances to the Other World, an invisible and parallel place, where the Good People typically reside. Oilill awoke to two figures emerging from the fairy mound. This was Eógabal and his daughter Áine. As they walked into our reality Áine plucked softly on a bronze lyre. Behind them soon followed their otherworldly herds and Oilill immediately realised how the slopes of Drom Collchoille had been cleared of grass on that previous Halloween night.
Out of the darkness Ferches suddenly appeared, striking Eógabal with a fierce blow. This caused Eógabal to turn and flee back towards the safety of his fairy mound. Ferches’ anger was not sated however, and he struck again, this time with his spear. Eógabal crumpled to the ground, badly wounded, and his back utterly broken. Turning from the prostate Eógabal, Ferches descended to where Oilill loomed over a devasted Áine.
Oilill forced himself upon Áine whilst Ferches looked on. Áine however, was not entirely defeated and her teeth found Oilill’s ear. She bit into him savagely, tearing the ear away from the side of his head. That wound would not heal cleanly and Oilill was ever after known as Oilill Olum, or Oilill of the docked ear. In Irish mythology there is a precedent of men being ineligible for kingship if they are physically blemished, and it is certainly possible that Áine maimed Oilill for precisely this reason.
This is an old story, and on first reading it can be somewhat challenging to interpret. It has most likely morphed over time, as it all but inevitable in a story well over 1,000 years old. However, at its heart, is a tale which directly links Áine, the sovereignty land goddess of Lough Gur, with the ancient festival of Samhain. Within the tale, Halloween was almost certainly chosen precisely because it was one of the most important moments in the Celtic year. It is on this specific night that Áine and her father emerge from their síd (a mound which acts as entrance to the Otherworld) and this clearly reflects the much later belief that Halloween is a night when the Good People are abroad in our world, moving from one residence to another.
If Halloween is a time when the veils between the worlds are at their thinnest, then Lough Gur is surely one of the places where this most vigorously happens. The monumental remains, alongside the pre-Christian folklore, are strong indicators that Halloween has been understood, celebrated, and possibly even feared, for countless generations at Lough Gur. Samhain observations at Lough Gur are quite literally ongoing for millennia.
Of course, not all the tales from Lough Gur come from the remote past. Some are much more recent, and perhaps all the more uncomfortable for that. The roads and ways around Lough Gur are filled with all manner of happenings that continue to defy easy explanation. Around the lake it is said that stories shrugged off as fantastic under the sun become suddenly and frighteningly possible soon after its setting.
The Cóiste Bodhar, or Dead Coach, is still known to rattle its sepulchral way across the hills and roadsides of Lough Gur. People were long warned to avoid standing at their front door as the night descended. It is said that as the coach thunders down the road its spectral driver throws a bucket of blood over anyone unfortunate enough to be found leaning against their door jamb in the gloom of the evening. Ill-fortune and death are the inevitable conclusions of such an encounter.
In a similar vein, many tales are told, and told by those yet living, of the Dead Hunt. A lonely and dark road, fully deserted except for a weary walker, is suddenly filled with the frenetic sounds of a hunt in full flow. Invisible dogs snap and bark in and out of the terrified witness’s legs. Horses whiny, stamp, and snort, though none can be seen. As soon as it begins it is over, with the bewildered walker left open-mouthed in a newly returned silence. To those who have experienced this weird event, many are reluctant to speak of it, fearing mockery or ridicule. However, enough people have recalled their encounters, and some of these tales are alarmingly recent, to show us that the Good People still like their hunt and sport around Lough Gur.
There is a field, perhaps two miles from Lough Gur, that has long been known as a haunt of the Good People and prudent locals know to avoid it around Halloween. On Samhain music is still occasionally heard coming from the fairy-fort which gives the field its name. A lone Hawthorn grows from its centre. The music is odd, otherworldly, and has left those who have heard it with a deep feeling of unease. Sensible people know to stay well away from that particular field around Halloween.
The ancient road of Bóthirín na gCapaill (Little Road of the Horses) snakes its way across Rusheen Bog, past Killalough Hill, to an ancient burial ground by the southern shores of Lough Gur. On those long dark nights around Samhain, it is still said that the Good People can be heard marching along the old route, with their sounds finally disappearing as they come upon the gently lapping waters of the lakeshore. Those who have heard the fairy host as it makes it way across Bóthirín na gCapaill are usually slow to speak of it, fearing mockery as those who have felt the Dead Hunt’s eerie presence do.
There is hardly enough space to recount all the unusual happenings that occur around Lough Gur. This is an ancient and haunted place, where the darkness of the evening settles with an inky thickness. Lough Gur is a place of old beliefs and resilient customs. Other places might have forgotten the origins of Halloween, but not so easily could it be forgotten around Lough Gur. The rolling hills and brooding waters of the Lough have long memories and under a Samhain moon the past can suddenly seem very present. Of course, is it really surprising that Limerick’s most ancient landscape would be home to one of Ireland’s most ancient festivals?
