We.si'ROPP — iJarthworks and Ring-walls in Count)/ Limerick. 479 



to Slievenaman, with its endless legends of Finn and the hunting parties of 

 his army ; far over central Tipperary, with the spire marking its town, and 

 northward over the whole of eastern and central (Jo. Limerick, and across 

 Clare to the border of G-alway, where Liighaidh Meann's " red hand " 

 triumphed. Southward are the noble flanks of the G-altees, scored with their 

 dark branching watercourses, and the great russet slopes rising up to the 

 crown of Galteemore, 3000 feet above the sea, the long valley (past the dark 

 tower of Ballylanders) and Sliabh riach crouching in advance of the peaks 

 of Ballyhoura. 



BRUREE. 



Legends of Oilioll Olom. 



Oilioll Olom in the later legends is especially connected with the forts of 

 Bruree. It is evident that this was an afterthought, for the older myths 

 mention him along with Knockainey and Dun Claire, where he died and 

 was buried in it, or in the ring-wall on the summit above it. So also we 

 have his son, Cormac Cass, dying and being buried at Duntrileague ; Oilioll's 

 counselloi-, Ferchis, dying near Dungrot ; and, most illuminative of all legends, 

 how Cormac Cass was mortally wounded, presumably defeated, near Kilmallock 

 at Knocksouna, on ihe way to Bruree apparently. Again, if the supposed 

 " High Kings " be Dal Cais, we see that Mogh Corb was " of Claire " (died 

 " A. P. oo-^ "), and his son Fereorb attacked and slew Irereo, King of Brugh 

 (Bruree). All this shows that the older legends did not claim Bruree for 

 their heroes, but put its capture late down the generations after Oilioll Olom. 

 Nevertheless, in most existing later literature, he is to be thought of at it 

 and Knockainey, and so we give iiis legend here rather than with Dun Claire. 

 As we saw, Oilioll is said to have been son of Eoghan " Mogh Nuadat," with 

 whom the tangible tradition of the Munster Kings commences. He went on 

 Samhain Eve with his friend and not too wise counsellor, Ferchis mac Comain, 

 the poet, to tend his horses on the hill of Drom Colehailli, the hazelridge,' 

 where the group of tribes of his Firbolg predecessors used to meet. It was 

 a sidh or fairy residence (we shall study its legend later), and, it being known 

 that such places opened on Samhain Eve,- Ferchis bade him wait and attack 



1 The hazel had magic significance. The five tribes of the Mairtinigh cut firewood 

 from the hazel thickets at Drum Colchoilli. The king of the Sidh of Cruachan demanded 

 a tribute of a bundle of firewood each day (Echtra JSferai, Rev. Celt. vol. x, p. 219). In 

 the mansion of the god Elcmair at the Brugh (of the Boyne), " a fork of white hazel " is 

 brought instead of arms (Tochmarc Etaine, Rev. Celt., vol. xxvii, p. 330). Tara itself 

 was a "Collchaill" (Metrical Dindshenchas). 



^ Echtra Nerai, Rev. Celt., vol. x. pp. 221-5. The Morrigan takes a cow from a sidh; 

 the host could do nothing for a year till the next Samhain, "for the fairy mounds of 



