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III. 



THE ANCIENT SANCTUARIES OF KNOCKAINEY AND CLOGHER, 

 COUNTY LIMERICK, AND THEIR GODDESSES. 



By THOMAS JOHNSON WESTROPP, M.A. 

 Plate I. 



Read Junk 25. Published August 27, 1917. 



The study of the great forts of the Dalcassian kings and the cemetery of 

 the Ernai on Sliab Claire 1 opened up many questions of interest touching 

 not merely the earliest semi-historic legends, but complex problems of topo- 

 graphy and of the religion of the pagan Irish. An elaborate monograph 

 might have been attempted on the sanctuary of the great and beneficent 

 goddess 'Aine. I think, however, the time has scarcely come when such 

 could be completed with really satisfactory results. I may, however, give, 

 along with the first account of the interesting remains (there and at what 

 one can hardly question to be the site of the great 'Oenach Culi or 'Oenaeh 

 Clochair) some notes to indicate the lines on which the subject has been 

 studied. It is very important that the sites of the Irish sanctuaries should 

 be identified and described. 



As briefly as possible let me recall that it is well established that 'Aine 

 was of the god-race of the Tuatha De Danann ; but so far she has not been 

 identified with any Gaulish deity, and probably, as her legend implies, she 

 was venerated by races established round her hill before the Dergthene 

 subdued the district. Our literary material begins with the Sanas Chormaic, 

 circa a.d. 890-910, of a period when hatred of the Norse religion had not 

 been fostered by Danish violence into an attempt to obliterate the divinity 

 of the early Irish gods in Christian literature. It precedes the labour of that 

 school of euhemerists (from 970 to 1170) who eonfected the valuable ancient 

 legends that they found into a patchwork of false history, and that long list 

 of High Kings which, in the hands of " scholars " and uncritical " historians," 

 became the opprobrium of early Irish historical studies. 



In the genuine literature we can see very clearly that there was no 

 "orthodox" standard of pagan belief; different tribes, though worshipping 

 the same gods, gave them a different parentage ;■ Gaulish gods, worshipped 



1 Supra, vol. xxxiii, p. 492. 



2 There was uo arch-druid as in Britain, so each tribe had its own god-myths. 

 B.I.A. PROC, VOL. XXXIV, SECT. C, [8] 



