Back to About page

Notes, December 2003. Slievenamon - the mountain of the women - a stand-alone mountain of approximately 5,000 acres situated in the  east of South Tipperary. It is 719 metres in height. It was proposed to build an enormous, induatrial wind-power station on it in 1994. The proposer, Keneth O'Reilly-Hyland, "the man that made Charlie Haughey" was also  asserting ownership of the  mountain and the denial of public access to it. Apart from the uproar that such a  restriction caused, It would have been an environmental disaster, destroying one of the most historic mountain sites in Ireland. The surrounding communities, with a vengeance, did not want it and several groups were formed to fight the proposal. I played a strong part in those groups and finally the development was dropped. 
The article below was published in Ireland of the Welcomes magazine, Vol. 43 No. 2 March-April 1994, pp 36 - 41.
There were fourteen photographs, in colour, plus one super-imposed map. Below, I have included two - the rest I will add later.
The editor, Dr Peter Harbison, the well-known historian, at first complained that I had considerably exceeded the length of article he had stipulated, and asked me to edit it. Whether it was the usual conceited reverence for one's own written words or what, I failed to edit it at all, and asked Dr Harbison to do it for me. He surprised me by not taking a word from it either, saying it was a "bit like an egg" and so it was published in full. But he worried that "it might exceed the attention-span of the average American tourist reader"!
 I tried scanning the article and saving to an HTML page. That didn't work. So I transferred the file from a 1994 floppy across and lifted two of the photos from the scan. It doesn't work as well as the original magazine article with its text columns, good repro of photos and text wrap etc.

I had intended writing a book about Slievenamon and district and did the initial research, taking great tranches of photographs in the proccess. However it wasn't to be, as I couldn't interest a publisher and the cost of self-publishing at the time ('93-'94), was IP 25,000 for 2,000 copies. It would have been of an ambitious quality, but although I had considerable success in the 1980s publishing quality, limited-edition reprints (History of Clonmel by Canon W. Burke and My Clonmel Scrapbook by James White) I decided to let the project hang for a while. 

MORNING ON A MOUNTAIN - text and photography by Jim O'Connor

I am sitting on the cairn of sandstone rocks at the summit of Slievenamon in South Tipperary having just performed one of the world's oldest acts of ancestor worship. Walking three times around the monument, I added a stone to it saying,"síoth ar d'ainm agus clog ar do chairn" - peace to your name and a stone on your cairn. The golden dawn that crept up from the distant Wexford horizon promised a lovely day. 

This sensuously curved mountain, an inspiration to druids and poets, writers and songsters for millenia, is congruously and popularly named in Irish, Sliabh na mBan - the mountain of the women. Even if the historical sources were silent (and they are not), its rounded, nippled dome, its soft receding shoulders and flanks almost proclaim femininity and demand a dedication to woman.

Some manuscripts describe the mountain as Sliabh Dile and the cairn (the nipple) as the tomb of Aighe,son of Úghaine Mór. Archaeologically, it is indeed likely that it is a passage grave. Others refer to the cairn as the Sídhe ar Feimhin, the fairy palace on Feimhin, doorway to the other-world of the Tuatha de Danann.This ancient name, Feimhin, which also describes the plain of South Tipperary, is possibly derived from one of the three enchanted animals of the pre-Christian poet/goddess Brighid. It was said to bellow when rape was committed in the land.The beast, an ox, was not without employment! An eight-century story describes the bethrothal of Sabia to Fionn at the Sidhe ar Feimhin which was also the home of her father Bodhbh Dearg,king of the Munster Tuatha de Danann. She and her handmaidens were ravished and slaughtered by Fionn's rivals, the Clanna Morna. It is suggested that, in their memory, the mountain was subsequently called Sliabh na mBan Feimhin .

But the most familiar, if slightly facile, explanation of the origin of the mountain's name is the oral tradition still current telling of a contest amongst women for the hand of the above-mentioned Fionn.This of course is Fionn mac Cumhaill, that mythical/historical figure whose character and exploits bestride a thousand years of our literature and folklore. Warrior, romantic, soothsayer, giant shaper of the landscape, sometimes wise, oft times petulant, he was a forever mutable quantity in the hands of our poets and writers. Combining the seductive geology of Slievenamon with the deeds of their fabled hero was an irresistible temptation to our creative storytellers.

The rock on which I sit is called Suidhe Finn - the Seat of Fionn, a not infrequent mountain-top placename. From these heights he is said to have observed the progress of his greatest passion, the deer-hunt. A large flat stone some yards away is known as Bórd Finn - Fionn's Table, whilst the level summit, once covered with turf, is Móinfhéar Suidhe Finn - the meadow of Fionn's sitting place.The cavern door to the fairy world lies behind me in the rocks. Here it is said he bruised his thumb trying to gain entry and thereafter each time he sucked it he acquired the gift of wisdom. In other tales he did get past the door, and deep in the bowels of the mountain with five companions he was kept by the Sidhe for a year assisting them in their internecine warfare. Here also he was posed the riddle of the old man, the ram and the beautiful girl, symbolizing, age, the world and youth. The 'Hunt of Slievenamon', a post-mediaeval poem, describes Fionn and the Fianna (a national warrior-corps) gorgeously dressed in satin, slaughtering six thousand deer in the mountain glens.Their improvidence was punished by the death of a thousand of their revered hounds killed by a hundred cornered boars. Bran, Fionn's favourite dog, a victim not of this particular fray but of suicide (!), was said to have been buried on the mountain under a small dolmen. A site called Bran's Grave did exist on the mountain side until modern times but was reputedly smashed by vengeful tithe-proctors in the nineteenth century.

But vandalism, not exclusive to any age, continues and other megalithic monuments on the mountain have been damaged, some recently. Cnocahunna - hill of the firewood - a mile to the north, has had a concrete-block hut raised on top of its unrecorded cairn. However a new monument has been created! Across the flat summit to the southwest is a granite pillar-stone topped by a copper artichoke.This 'appeared' during a snowstorm at the winter solstice in 1991.There were some who said that Fionn's hand was again at work! But, less fancifully, if more idealistically, it was put there, with no mean effort, by a Tipperary sculptor and friends.This deliberate act of creative constructiveness, somewhat misunderstood, was intended to draw attention to the cultural and environmental importance of the mountain.

Returning to the story of the contest, Fionn needed a wife. At least the Druids and everyone else thought so. His philandering was the cause of national scandal and bloodshed. To avoid favouritism the druids decided that the winner of a race of eligible females to the top of Slievenamon would become his bride. His fancy was the beautiful Gráinne (paradoxically meaning "the ugly one") daughter of the High King, Cormac mac Airt.Through sorcery he ensured that his favourite would win. However, the old rogue, here grey and not fair as his name implied, was jilted when Gráinne at their wedding feast ran off with his friend, the womanising warrior, Diarmaid uí Duibhne.

It is this well-known local story of a race that is the inspiration for the event which will take place here today. About 9 hours from now some of the toughest hill-runners in Ireland will appear over the shoulder of the mountain there by the "Stone Man". They'll race across the boulder-strewn summit to the cairn here, turn around and head back down the ankle-threatening shale path to the finish at Kilcash 2 1/2 miles below. Unbelievably, the leading runners will finish in less than 40 minutes.

These hardy male and female athletes are competing in Rás Sliabh na mBan. This race was initiated in 1992 when Slievenamon Fáilte a local tourist-action group combined with the Irish Hill Runners Association to organise and promote the event. The IRHA, now known as the Irish Mountain Running Association has held races here since 1980. Less formally, running from Kilcash to "the Rock", the local name for the cairn, goes back a long, long time.

There are other traditions of races on the west and north sides of the mountain. John Dunne, a 19th.century local historian from Garryricken says 'the race was to a lesser eminence .........in the old barony of Compsey'. An August pilgrimage to the height of Carraigbrock, on the western side of Slievenamon, was established in 1950 when a Holy Year cross of Oregon pine was erected there. This followed in the rearguard of an older tradition that our parents told us about. As children we blended the old with the new, raced to the cross, 'heard' Mass and then continued to Suidhe Finn at the top, picking on our way the fraocháns (hurts or bilberries) and eyeing-up the girls.

I wish we'd known then of the folk-practice on the other side of the mountain in south Kilkenny. Related by Máire Mac Neill in her seminal book Festival of Lughnasa, she tells how the girls with their lovers would collect the berries and make them into fraochán cakes to be eaten later at the dance. Also, a young woman was chosen and bedecked with flowers and leaves. Afterwards the garlands were buried on the mountain mar cómhartha go raibh deire leis an tSamhraidh - as a symbol that an end had come to the Summer.

Although the race of the women of Fionn is a particular tradition hill-racing survives elsewhere too. Nephin in Mayo and Enniskerry in Wicklow are two examples. These hill-races call to mind a time when the great Lughnasa festivals were celebrated, often at mountain-sites like this. Lugh was the Celtic god of the harvest, 'the bright one' (of the sun), the god of all arts and crafts, who was honoured at the beginning of August. Feats of arms, athletics, horse-racing, feasting and courting went on for several days as stone idols of the gods looked on. Lugh is remembered in the Irish name for August, Lughnasa and in many European city names, Lyon, Loudon, Laon and London.

I see a farmer down on a lower hill to the north. He calls his collie to him as he sits to smoke on the grey stones of Sheegouna - the fairy fort of the magic cow. I'm sure that, like myself, he must ponder at times the weighty heritage of this place. A stone's throw from him is the rock that bears the footprints of Goll - 'the One-Eyed' - who made a giant leap across the valley to catch up with the hunt of the Fianna. He will know that the Clodagh which drains the bog below him to the north-west above Tober and Gortnapisha has a deep place called Pollataggart - priest's hole. Here, in Penal times, it is said that a fugitive priest with a £5 bounty on his head was lifted to safety by a communion host. Away to the north-east no local can look upon the small sugar-loaf of Carraigmoclear without thinking of the blood-drenched days in 1798 when the traitor Neill precipitated a rebellion. The Yeomen had the sport of their lives hunting and hacking down the ill-prepared insurgents.'Tipperary is peaceful' they reported .

Back over towards the west, the sun, now getting very warm, is beginning to light up the rocks of Carraigdotia - burnt rock. I wonder if its name derives from the massive fires that traverse the mountain in the early spring, clearing the heather for sheep grazing? Or perhaps the story from the 17th century is true; that Cromwellian soldiers set fire to the turf-bog in an unseasonably dry summer. They say the mountain glowed like a volcano for months - 'Sliabh na mBan Feimhin,agus Sliabh ós a cheann tré theine" - Slievenamon and above it all is on fire - an old rhyme noted by Canon Power. This leads to the chilling tale of the twelve horned witches that terrorised the mother of a weaving family on Slievenamon. They drained the blood from the bodies of her sleeping family and used it to make appalling cakes. A dreadful outcome was avoided when a water spirit gave the woman powerful pishogues or charms. One of these was to tell them that, 'Sliabh na mBan is on fire and all the air around it' .Thwarted in their vampirism, they shrieked off into the air and were prevented from returning by the effective spells. Even abridged here, it is a strange story indeed in its atmosphere and detail, and one that is not generally known. Folk tradition too makes its choices, more's the pity. Perhaps the tale is of a kind that sits uneasily on a 20th century christian mind .

And then there is the witch burning of 1895 ... and so much more.

Today there are fires of a different kind.The sun at 10 a.m. is very hot and I am not prepared for it, having expected the usual cold dampness. Five more hours of this and I'll be begging the Sidhe to take me into their cool caverns beneath the cairn. I have no water and there is little shade. I'll go down and try for late breakfast at the Grand Inn in Nine Mile House. The race will have to be caught later at the bottom of the hill.

A sheep-farmer from the Stacks in Kerry, John Linehan, won the race in record time and on the hottest day for years! Many runners had severe blistering from the melting tarmac leading into the village. Linehan also won in 1991, and then went on to add the World Hill Racing Championship in Switzerland to his accomplishments.Veronica Colleran, only minutes behind, was the first lady runner home.She also won the ladies' event the year before.

Jim O'Connor, formerly a bookshop owner and publisher, is now a freelance writer and photoghrapher. He is the author of 'Sheela na gig' and other historical booklets. He lives in Co. Kildare.