Stonehenge legend traced to Limerick hillside

THE identity of an Irish mountain said to have been the original location of the world-famous Stonehenge monument may finally be revealed.

First recorded in 1136 by Anglo-Norman historian Geoffrey de Monmouth, the centuries-old legend of Stonehenge’s Irish provenance describes the search by King Aurelius of Britain for a fitting monument to honour those slain by the invading Saxons on Salisbury Plain.

Having first proposed the ‘Giants’ Dance’ on Ireland’s Mount Killara as best-suited, court-magician Merlin is promptly sent forth, along with Uther Pendragon (father of King Arthur) and 15,000 men, to defeat the local king and transport the stones back to Amesbury for re-assembly.

The legend of the ‘Giants’ Dance’ was preserved by medieval English historians John Stow and Henry of Huntingdon and by Sir Thomas Malory’s ‘Tales of King Arthur’, with the belief that only a race of giants could have constructed the massive edifice, which was thought to resemble a group of giant circle-dancers with arms on one another’s shoulders. Over time, however, the location of the original Irish site of the ‘Giants’ Dance’ at Mount Killara/Killara(us) was lost.

My own ‘Excalibur’ moment came while researching the royal sites of East Limerick/West Tipperary for an upcoming publication.

There, in a footnote by renowned Limerick antiquarian Thomas Johnson Westropp of Attyflin Park, Patrickswell (1860-1922), was a reference to a local mountain named by John Stow and Geoffrey Keating as the source of the Stonehenge pillars!

The Stow passage provided no further clarity, but priest/historian Geoffrey Keating’s AD1634 ‘Foras Feasa ar Éirinn’ delightfully provided the name of the mountain in the original Irish language, - ‘Sliabh gCláire’.

I was in the happy position of being able to instantly identify Keating’s reference since this peak and the magnificent Dunglara (Dún gCláire) hill fort ( 52.38795°N, 8.39785W) on its northern slope tied in neatly with my research. The mountain was originally named for its location overlooking Clár Múmhan, the Plain of Munster, (slíabh - mountain, gCláire - of the plain) and is known as Sliabh gCláire throughout medieval Irish literature.

Somewhere along the line the original name of the mountain changed, but I can now happily reveal that the legendary Irish mountain forever linked to the iconic Stonehenge monument is Slievereagh, above the sequestered hillside village of Glenbrohane in south-east Limerick.

Said to have been originally built in the century before Christ by Art Imlech (Art of Emly, High King of Ireland), Dún gCláire was rebuilt one thousand years later by high king Brian Boru as he consolidated power over the entire island.

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As a high-status multivallate (having multiple banks and ditches) ringfort, Dún gCláire is most associated with early kings of Munster such as Oilioll Olum (reportedly buried at the summit), Mogh Corb and Fiacha Mullethan, and this was also the likely dwelling of Mogh Nuadat, father of Oilioll Olum, who once ruled the southern half of Ireland from this base (Leth Mogha).

Below lies the fertile core of the Golden Vale and an unremembered royal estate which quite overshadows the second-hand sarsens of our neighbouring isle!

At Raheenamadra, Knocklong is the site of the recently-discovered Oénach Clochair assembly place of Munster, while nearby the now-destroyed Clogherbeg Moat was the generational burial place of Munster’s tribal royalty.

Eight kilometres north of this, the Hill of Knockainey was the sanctuary of the earth goddess, Áine and royal-fort of the Eóghanacht Áine, while the rivers Mahore, Camogue and Morningstar hold the highest density of Bronze-Age barrow-burials along their banks of anywhere in Ireland.

At Cush, on Cláire’s western flank, lies Temair Érann, royal cemetery of the Ernai, while thirteen kilometres north lies the enchanted lake of Lough Gur, home of the largest stone circle in Ireland and said to hold over 2,000 archaeological sites within a 5k radius.

At Emly, eight kilometres north, lies the site of Ailbe of Emly’s monastic enclosure, now acknowledged as one of Ireland’s original Christian settlements.

Nearby, Duntryleague and Shrough hold two of Munster’s only passage-tombs, while wedge-tombs at Cromail, Corderry and Lough Gur add to the composite picture of a rich archaeological arena.

With an outer diameter of over three hundred feet and a circumference of nine hundred, Dún gCláire proves an uncanny match for Stonehenge’s outer henge, while the positioning of their entrances, their alignment to the solstice sunrise and their prominent locations within pre-historic tribal strongholds provide further eerie parallels.

The choice of Cláire as Stonehenge’s legendary surrogate points to the long-standing royal significance of this entire area, the shared geometrical knowledge across both islands and our unrecalled ancestral links with Britain - a rich legacy awaiting rediscovery while yet the legends and lore survive, while yet the ancient sites beckon, while yet the Giants Dance…