An Chraobh Airgid
Lir's palisaded fort and thatched hall crown the heathery summit of Sliabh Fuaid on a hazy afternoon, a white hawthorn at the gate, drumlins and lakes below.

Ulaid · Ulster

Síd Fionnachaidh

Lir's hill, Sliabh Fuaid · Co. Armagh

Lir’s house, on the highest hill of the Fews.

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.

Tradition puts it on the summit of Sliabh Fuaid, the highest hill of the Fews in south Armagh; Joyce placed it near Newtownhamilton. After nine hundred years the swans came home here and found only ruins, rank grass and forests of nettles. Sliabh Fuaid was the march of Ulster too: in the Táin the champions took turns to keep watch on it, and the boy Cú Chulainn drove past the watch there in his first chariot.

In the tales

  • The Children of Lir A jealous stepmother, a druid’s wand, and four children who must live nine hundred years as swans.
  • The Boyhood Deeds of Cú Chulainn A small boy walks alone to Emain Macha, kills a smith’s hound and takes its place, and on a day of prophecy chooses fame over a long life.
  • The Colloquy of the Ancients The last two of the Fianna part in tears. One goes into a hill to his mother; the other finds Patrick blessing Fionn’s old fort, and tells him the story of every hill.
  • Fionn and the Burning of Tara For twenty-three years a man of the sídhe has played Tara to sleep at Samhain and burned it. Then a boy of ten, an outlaw, offers to keep it till morning.

See also

  • Aillén mac Midgna The musician of the sídhe who burned Tara every Samhain, until the boy Fionn stayed awake.
  • Cú Chulainn The Hound of Culann: the great hero of the Ulster tales.

Sources

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