Boyne: Annals Rioghachta Éireann/The Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, better known as The Annals of the Four Masters, relates the history of Ireland from "the earliest times" to 1616.
The work was completed on August 10th 1636. It starts with "The Age of the World, to this Year of the Deluge, 2242", continuing to the year 5194. Then it switched to page One of "the first year of the age of Christ".
The Annals inform that in the year 5160 "great abundance of nuts were (annually) found upon the Bóinn (Boyne)." At that time, it was related, the trees bent from the weight of the fruit. Would dendrochronology, assessing the age of trees by a study of the trees' timber, help in dating them?
The river Boyne is probably best recalled through the famous Battle of the Boyne (1690), where England's King William III defeated King James. In Irish mythology Boland/Bóinn is the goddess of the Boyne, wife of the god Nechtain, mother of Óengus, the young god. (Nothing like having good connections!)
Listing the accommodation then in the town of Dunboyne, The Civil Survey 1654-56 notes "some Thatch houses", "A few Thatch houses", "A few small cottages, four cottages", "An old stone house & three small thatch cottages & one decayed church", etc. There were more than 60 townlands listed in this parish, with 36 having "-town" as the second element.
We have been unable to trace a note taken from a book some time ago concerning "Balrudery" and "a country dance", with a reference to "the whipp of Dunboyne". Might "the whipp of Dunboyne" have been some kind of dance?
Not connected with Dunboyne, but The Shorter Oxford Dictionary, in defining the word "ton" gives a quote referring to whips from Sheridan: "None of the London whips of any degree of ton wear wigs now." And "ton"?
