Macalisteu — Temair Breg: Remains and Traditions of Tara. 283 



in the pre-Cormac stages of its history. It is as a sanctuary, or rather as a 

 group of sanctuaries, that it calls for attention ; and, as we hope to show, its 

 king was primarily a religious rather than a civil functionary. It is not for 

 nothing that the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick calls Temair cencl idlachta ocus 

 druideehta na hEirenn* — "head of the idolatry and druidry of Ireland." 



A further classification may now be indicated, in which the different 

 monuments are grouped by constructional types. It is scarcely necessary 

 to set forth this classification at length ; we may content ourselves with 

 indicating the headings. Primarily we may divide the monuments of Temair 

 into (i) stone and (ii) earthen structures. The former may be grouped as — 



(1) standing stones ; 



(2) stone circles (round Tech Mairisend, and Deisel Temrach); 



(3) cists and dolmens (Lecht in Abaic and Arad Caelchon). 



The latter may be divided into 



(4) earthen rings ; 



(5) earthen mounds ; 



(6) earthen mounds (tumuli) within rings. 



Of these, class (1) may belong to any pre-Christian date, and cannot be 

 assigned, without external aid, to any definite period. The same is true of 

 (4) and of (5). On the other hand, classes (2) and (3) are essentially bronze- 

 age monuments. 2 The same is perhaps true, as a rule, of no. (6), if the 

 analogies presented by the Giant's King and Longstone Fort hold good. But 

 even if we have to assign certain ringed tumuli to the Iron Age, 3 there is 

 sufficient evidence in this classification of the monuments that the history of 

 Temair begins in the Age of Bronze. It is especially to be noted that the 

 burial monuments are for the greater part at the north end of the ridge : 

 and it is not improbable that this was due to the existence here of the stone 

 circle called Deisel Temrach. Just as Stonehenge stands surrounded by the 

 grave-mounds of those who desired to be buried near the sanctuary, so the 

 "sward that brought luck before dying" was regarded as a suitable centre 

 for burial. The history of Temair, therefore, seems to begin, at least partly, 

 as the history of a cemetery; but other elements, as we shall see, entered 

 into its sanctity from the first. Even Dind-shaichus Ercnn has not ignored 



1 Ed. Stokes, vol i, p. 40. 



- Dolmens are usually Co be assigned to the Stone Age, bul oists (such as I. edit in 

 Abaic seems to have been) and alle'es coil vert es (tu which class Arid Caelchon may have 

 belonged) are more probably bronze-age. 



3 Such as the small mound at Grannagh, Co. Gahvay ; si e Proceedings HI \ . 

 vol. xxxiii, Sect. C, p. 508. 



