Dalton — Cvomm Cruaich of Magh Sleacht. 53 



and under its precipices some thousands of people still assemble annually to 

 celebrate the last Sunday of summer, or of July.' 



Half way up to Bellavally, along the county road leading from Bawnboy 

 to Glengevlin, a formidable protuberance of limestone rock rises just by the 

 roadside. Commonly known as the " Black Eocks," this crag-mass is some- 

 times named " Maguire's chair," ^ and its fame is widespread even yet as a 

 "Domnach Sunday" station, to which people resort, not alone from the 

 neighbourhood, but from distant parts of the surrounding country. 



Inside the Bartonny ridge of Slieve Anierin there is a place called 

 Scarahoo (Scairbh thuadh ?), well up along the chasm of a mountain torrent.^ 

 There is another curious spot called Polity, or Polltyhalla, some five or six 

 miles farther west towards Drumshambo, right under the highest point of 

 Slieve Anierin. I have spoken to several people, young and old, who have 

 frequently attended one or both of the festivities held at these remote try- 

 sting grounds on Domnach Sunday, or the last Sunday of July. At Polity 

 one of the pastimes consisted in throwing stones into a fathomless hole, or 

 fissure, through which a mountain rill descends among the rocks, to reappear 

 at a lower level about a mile farther down. The object, or origin, of this 

 performance, my informants did not know ; but I could not help recalling, as 

 a possible clue to its explanation, a story I had heard in Ballymagauran, that 

 the demon Crom when vanquished had east himself into the earth, making a 

 deep hole in his descent.^ The hole-idea was invoked even in the mode of 

 paying the musicians. Everybody who participated in the dancing threw his 

 contribution at the end of the bout into a hole appointed for the collection.^ 



' There are many dolmens and ancient monuments around, from Knookninny on the 

 east to the " Marble Arches " on the west. 



- It was this name, I presume, that misled Coote into foolishly locating the 

 coronation seat of the Fermanagh chieftains on top of Cuilcagh (" Statistical Survey of 

 Co. Cavan," p. 25). 



^ I have heard the name variously pronounced as Scarhoo, Scarahoo, and Skerahoo. 



* The local tradition, as I heard it summed up by old Pat Prior of Ballymagauran, 

 now in his hundredth year, runs thus : " When Crom Cruaich was killed by St. Patrick 

 he flung himself into the earth behind Ballymagauran, making a deep hole in the ground, 

 and he is there buried." Mr. Walker, of Clones, has sent me some verses of an old 

 folk-ballad, which he heard recited in Co. Cavan, and which, after vaunting that 

 Magauran's "tribal ground" in Tullyhaw was once the centre of a nation's faith, 

 relates : 



" So quickly did the TuUyhagh come into Christian birth. 

 That legends tell, Crom Cruaich fell and vanished in the earth." 



' I have fully authenticated all these, and some other, " Domhnach " stations, 

 having visited the places and conversed with many — including some members of the 

 teaching profession — who were present at one or more of the anniversary meetings. 



