An Chraobh Airgid
On a clear early morning the Fianna's hounds and spearmen run down the green Hill of Allen, crowned by a lime-white ring-fort, above bog pools and drifting mist.

Laigin · Leinster

Almu

The Hill of Allen · Co. Kildare

Fionn’s white fort in Leinster.

Open it on the full site There it is marked on the map of the five fifths, where the road of a tale can be traced.

The Dindshenchas calls it “a fort of the Fians”, and in Lady Gregory’s retelling it is where Fionn lived. Its poem says the hill is named for a woman, Almu, and that Nuada the druid built a fort on it and rubbed it with alum until it was all white. When Fionn was grown he demanded a price from Tadg for the death of his father, Cumhall, and Tadg, rather than fight him, gave him the whole of Almu. Today the hill is Cnoc Alúine in Irish; a folly tower built between 1859 and 1863 stands on the summit, and much of its western side has been quarried away.

In the tales

  • The Boyhood Deeds of Fionn A druid and a warrior woman hide a hunted boy in the woods. Years later a poet on the Boyne gives him a salmon to cook, and tells him not to taste it.
  • The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne Promised to the ageing Fionn, Gráinne puts the feast to sleep and lays a geis on Diarmuid to take her away. Fionn hunts them for sixteen years.
  • Oisín in Tír na nÓg Niamh of the Golden Head carries Fionn’s son away to the Land of the Young. Three hundred years go by like three, and then he asks to go home.

See also

  • Cumhall Fionn’s father, who fought for the leadership of the Fianna and died for it at Cnucha.
  • Fionn mac Cumhaill Leader of the Fianna: poet, hunter and seer. In later folklore, a giant.
  • Muirne Fionn’s mother: “Muirne of the fair neck”.

Sources

Each tale above lists the sources it is retold from. Every source the site draws on is listed on the full site.