[ 363 J 



X. 



THE ASSEMBLY-PLACE OF 'OENACH CAIEBEE AND SID ASAIL 

 AT MONASTEKANENAGH, COUNTY LIMElilCK. 



By THOMAS JOHNSON WESTEOPP, M.A. 



Read April U, 1919. Published April 23, 1920. 



The great importance of the remains in eastern County Limerick and the 

 mass of very early and illuminative tradition, some evidently in its origin 

 going back to pagan times, led me to lay several long and complicated Papers 

 before the Academy and other Societies.^ The subject of the local cultus of 

 the Irish gods and their sanctuaries was nearly altogether neglected by Irish 

 antiquaries ; and, with little confidence in my own ability to deal with it with 

 any degree of completeness, it seemed desirable to make a beginning. 



'Oenach-Cairbre, 'Oenach Orbeco, or 'Oenach Beag. 



Tlie fourth of the chief assembly-places of what is now Co. Limerick 

 lay at Monasterahenagh, to which it gave its name. It is on the northern 

 bank of the Cammoge. About a mile and a half to the north-west of the 

 Abbey bridge rises Dromassell, or Tory Hill. It seems extremely probable 

 that the places named along with this hill in our literary sources, Sid nAsail, 

 Ceann Luin Asail, and Siddn maige Asail, represent an important fort and 

 sacred mound which lay somewhere near the 'Oenach or assembly. 



The predominance of the name " Asal " at Monasteranenagh lays on us the 

 necessity of research into the legendary material gathered round it. 



Asal. — The "Sons of Umor," of the Fir Bolg, have acquired more than their 

 meed of fame, owing to O'Donovan and Petrie (and still more their followers) 

 having based an entirely unfounded theory of the origin of the endless ring- 

 walls of western Ireland on the legend. The "proof" is presumed to rest 

 on a poem of MacLiac, the chief bard of King Brian, who died in 1016. 



' Supra, xxxiii, 0.444 ; xxxiv, p. 47, p. 127 ; Roy. Soc. Antt. Ir., xlviii, p. Ill [xlix, 

 p. 1]; North Munster Archaeol. Soc, iv, p. 122, p. 157. See Soc. Prehist. Frftn9iiiae, 

 xvi, p. 343. 



R.l.A. PROC, VOL. XXXV, SKCT. C. [47] 



