54 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



The Domnach Sunday carnivals, at the end of July, are decaying ; the 

 numbers who frequent them are diminishing, and getting restricted to the 

 juvenile population ; the race of blind minstrels has died out, and music is 

 now rarely heard on the occasions ; but all round Slieve Auierin, nevertheless, 

 the fete, or gala-gathering, is still kept up, an organic institution of the social 

 life, a recurrent function of the hereditary customs, throughout a large dis- 

 trict of country.^ The assembly stations hide, in a continuous line, within 

 the long chain of mountains that overlook Magli Sleacht from the west, in 

 retreats or at elevations difficult of access. From Darraugh fort the full 

 extent of this range, to both its extremities, can be surveyed at ease, its 

 course throughout being clearly discernible. So far as I could ascertain, the 

 meetings held at Benauglilin and at Bellaleenau on the last Sunday of July 

 have now no particular name. But at Polity, Scarahoo, and Cuilcagh (Black 

 Eocks) the occasion is styled Domnach Sunday .- 



Did St. Patrick hear of these celebrations when he demolished Crom's 

 famous shrine ? His route through Magh Sleacht and Magh IJein supplies 

 the strongest reason to believe that he did. After leaving fossa Slecht, he 

 made a full circuit of both Maghs, keeping close all the time beside the 

 mountain bases, and baptizing his converts at intervals of about half a dozen 

 miles. There is a Patrick's Well near Pottore, in front of the glen leading 

 into Scarahoo. There is another near Liscarbin, not far from the Aghacashel 

 entrance to Polity. The Saint, I think, beleaguered Crom not alone on 

 Magh Sleacht, but likewise in his lurking-places among the mountains. 

 The number of these stations within such a limited area is most remarkable. 

 It shows that every inhabited quarter along the lower ground dedicated a 

 mountain temple of its own to the great deity. The opening verse of the 

 Dinnsenchus poem — " Sund nobid idal ard co n-immud fich " — has been 

 translated, not very intelligibly, into " Here used to be a high idol with many 

 fights." ' I find fich rendered by Zeuss as municipium, 'pcujus or vicus t that is, 

 cantonment or minor population-group. In view of the facts which I have 

 just outlined, this rendering appears to me to bring out, with striking elfect, 

 the bard's intended meaning. 



' " L'homme abandonne moins volontiers ses ceremonies que ses dogmas." Camille 

 JuUian, '■ Histoire de la Gaule," i, 143. 



■ I have not heard of such observances in Leinster, though " The Maas " (Lammas) 

 is still celebrated in South Wexford. Domnach Sunda}' patterns are most numerous 

 around Lough Allen, from Kiltoghert, near Carrick-on-ShannOn, to Kinawley, near 

 Lough Erne. Mr. Walker tells me that the curious custom of i-unaway matches, well 

 known at TaUltu, was long kept up in connexion with these occasions at Cuilcagh. 



3 " Voyage of Bran," pp. 301 and 304. 



^ "Grammatica Celtica,'' pp. 21 and 53. 



