October 17, 2002
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Slieve na mBan
The view in the entry below is from Slievenamon or Slieve/Sliabh na mBan, a mountain in County Tipperary.
From an interview with Dr. Mary McAuliffe, an historian who specializes in women’s history of the medieval period in Ireland:
“It seems that there were no witchcraft trials in the Gaelic Irish areas. There isn’t a tradition of witchcraft in the Gaelic Irish communities because people believed in magical women…. Another interesting thing about the… case was that it happened in Slieve na mBan, where the barrier between this world and the next is thinnest. Slieve na mBan means the ‘mountain of women.’”
From Finn’s Household in Part II Book I of
Gods and Fighting Men
The Story of the Tuatha De Danaan
and of the Fianna of Ireland,
arranged and put into English
by Lady Augusta Gregory
with a preface by W. B. Yeats
[1904]
“Where do you come from, little one, yourself and your sweet music?” said Finn. “I am come,” he said, “out of the place of the Sidhe in Slieve-nam-ban….”
Comments (1)
I think I’m going to change my name to Finn MacCool. Then I’ll continue to be a Mac user, and I’ll move to Finland. Or maybe I’ll meet Neil Finn and we’ll be able to joke about the similarity of our names. And I’ll ask him if he thinks Macs are cool.