161 



Cat's Cave, of which, the following account is given in the MS. letters 

 above referred to : — 



"There are two remarkable caves in the townlandof Glenballythomas, 

 of which the more remarkable is called "Uriiaitj na ^cac, because wild 

 cats used to hunt rabbits in it. I walked into this a considerable dis- 

 tance, and saw its fine roof and hanging spars, like icicles, but will 

 leave the description of it to geologists. The country people say that 

 a woman followed a calf into this cave, and that she could not stop him 

 till he came out at Keish Corran. I went as far into it as any one 

 could, that is, until it terminated in a cleft, not wide enough to admit my 

 head. This, according to tradition, was the Bank of Ireland in the 

 time of Queen If ab ; but if it was, the drops from the Gothic roof of the 

 edifice must have injuredf the bank notes very much. A truer tradition 

 connected with it is, that one Croghan, a rebel, lived in it after the 

 rebellion, and by so doing saved his neck from the halter." 



On examining this cave, on the 30th of September, 1864, the writer 

 observed inscriptions in the Ogham character, on two of the roofing 

 stones of its upper chambers or galleries. Part of the inscription on each 

 stone was built into the structure, so that the stones before being placed 

 must have been already sculptured. Whatever the age of the cave, the 

 inscriptions must, therefore, have at least an equal antiquity. 



The cave has always, within literary memory, been regarded as of the 

 epoch of Meave, the celebrated Queen of Connaught, who lived about the 

 beginning of the Christian era. The Tain Bo Cuailgne, or Cattle-Spoil of 

 Quelgny, commemorates an expedition led by this heroine of antiquity 

 into Ulster daring the reign of Conor Mac Nessa, whose death is made, 

 in Irish traditionary history, to synchronize with that of our Lord. She 

 was daughter of Eochaid Pidleach, by whom the principal fort, or royal 

 dwelling at Eathcroghan, is said to have been erected. Her name, 

 which popular tradition has impressed on a great number of places in 

 Ireland, is in its simplest form spelled Medbh, equivalent to Medf. 

 Some one intimately connected with her family was called Fkaech. 

 Such is the name given to her son-in-law in the ancient historical 

 tract called the " Tain-lo-Flidisi" one of the introductory stories which 

 constitute the preface to the Tain-bo- Cuailgne. She had many sons, by 

 different fathers, and has left a vivid recollection of her name through- 

 out the west of Ireland. That she lived at Eathcroghan at a period 

 before the introduction of Christianity into Ireland is a fact which no 

 one, in the present state of historical knowledge, will be disposed to 

 deny. 



The earliest notices of the cave appear to treat it as a treasury house 

 of Meave and her husband Ailill. It is so represented in the Tain- 

 bo-Aingin, another of the introductory or pre-tales of the Tain-bo of 

 Quelgny. Such also was the tradition of the country in 1838, when 

 O'Donovan made his communications to the Ordnance Office. The same 

 idea still exists among the peasantry of the country, by whom the interior 

 of the cave has been repeatedly explored within the last twenty years, 

 in the hope of finding treasure. Their operations have resulted in 



