An Chraobh Airgid
In soft morning light monks walk up to Armagh's palisaded hilltop, a thatched timber church among round huts, mist in the hollows and Emain Macha's earthwork beyond.

Ulaid · Ulster

Ard Mhacha

Armagh · Co. Armagh

Where Diurán laid the silver from the net on the altar.

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.

Its name means “Macha’s height”. Tradition says that Patrick founded a church on the hill in 445, and it became the head church of Ireland; Emain Macha lies just to the west. In The Voyage of Máel Dúin, Diurán the Rhymer cut a piece from the silver net of a pillar in the ocean so that his story would be believed, and laid it on the altar of Armagh: two ounces and a half of silver.

In the tales

  • The Voyage of Máel Dúin He set out to avenge his father and found the killers’ island in the dark. Then a wind took him, and for three years and seven months the ocean showed him wonders.

See also

  • Diurán Diurán the Rhymer, who cut a piece from the silver net and laid it on the altar of Armagh.
  • Emain Macha Navan Fort. Royal seat of the Ulstermen, named for Macha’s twins.
  • Saint Patrick Ireland’s patron saint, and in the later tales the last listener of the Fianna.

Sources

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