An Irishman's Diary

AN American PhD student has been in touch, seeking readers’ help with a research project. His name is Jeff Tolbert. He’s from Indiana University. And he’s currently in Ireland to carry out interviews for his doctoral dissertation, which is about Irish folklore.

Specifically, he’s interested in how supernatural traditions (“legends about fairies, ghost stories, etc”) influence the way we “interact with the physical environment”. But his study will also consider the extent to which people sometimes use these traditions towards certain ends, “such as influencing development projects, etc”.

It’s a timely project, in several ways. Firstly because, after a decade during which Ireland’s fairies and other supernatural residents were on the run from the forces of progress, they may now be reasserting themselves, with some help from the temporal sphere.

Only last month, a judge in Kerry imposed a €25,000 fine on a farmer who destroyed an ancient ring-fort: albeit because it was an offence against heritage laws, rather than against the little people who, according to tradition, reside in these forts and wreak supernatural havoc on intruders.

More generally, the continued flat-lining of the construction and road-building industries may also be an act of vengeance by the citizens of the underworld. Never mind Lehman Brothers. As early as 2007, some anti-motorway protesters were warning of a modern-day “Curse of Tara” if the M3 was put through the Skryne Valley.

The rest is history. And even if the sub-prime mortgage crisis were the immediate cause of the international banking crash, there are those who will insist that a subterranean immortal crisis had a role in it as well.

BUT JEFF TOLBERT’S e-mail was doubly well-timed because, by hapyy coincidence – or was it? – it arrived only days before the feast of St Ruadhan, the man allegedly responsible for the original Curse of Tara.

St Ruadhan (whose name, I should explain to Jeff and other American readers, is pronounced “ruin”) was one of the so-called “Twelve Apostles” of early-Christian Ireland. And his curse is said to have its origins in the murder of a steward of the King of Tara.

According to the legend, the steward was in the habit of demonstrating his king’s power by entering the forts of lesser kings with his spear held aloft, forcing them to make a breach in the wall above the entrance to admit him.

Unfortunately, when he tried this in the fort of a king called Aed Guaire, the latter made a breach in the steward instead of the wall, and then fled to the sanctuary of St Ruadhan. The King of Tara duly followed him and, defying the rule of sanctuary, took Aed prisoner. And thus was set the scene for a stand-off in which, this being early-Christian Ireland, there could be only one loser.

First the saint and another holy man went to Tara where, in that well-known ancient Irish stratagem, they “fasted against” the king. The king responded with the equally standard defence a counter-fast – thereby defying the saints’ powers for a time.

But then they tricked him into thinking they had ended their fast, so that the king abandoned his too. That was game, set, and match to the saints. After a dream about a great tree being felled, the king woke to the sound of the holy men ringing their bells and chanting a curse, against which he was now defenceless.

THE CURSE, predicting the destruction of Tara, probably didn’t happen.

In reality, this was more likely just one of those allegories used to explain the triumph of the new religion over pagan Ireland. But the king it probably didn’t happen to was a real person, who died circa 565 AD. So there may be some grain of truth in the tale of his own grisly demise.

The story goes that Ruadhan had predicted he would be killed by the falling roof beam from his Tara hall. The king therefore had the beam removed and thrown into the sea. Then, seeking further assurance, he bade his druids predict the nature of his death.

They told him he would be struck down by a man called Aed Dubh, but that there would be burning and drowning involved as well. Furthermore, they said that his demise would be foretold by omens including a shirt made from a single flax plant, ale brewed from a single seed of corn, and bacon from a sow that had never farrowed.

Thus it came to pass that, one day on his travels, the king entered the hall of a host, only to learn that the roof beam overhead had been rescued from the sea, and to find himself presented with the shirt, the vat of ale, and the bacon.

So he turned to flee, and promptly met Aed Dubh, who mortally wounded him and set fire to the hall. The hapless king then sought to avoid the flames by crawling into the ale vat. And while simultaneously burning, drowning, and being murdered, he was only put out of his miseries when – yes, reader – the roof beam collapsed on top of him.

That’s a fairly extreme example of the way supernatural traditions influence the interaction between people and their physical environments. If anybody has a more recent example – the re-routing of a bypass, say – and is prepared to be interviewed about it for a PhD, contact Jeff Tolbert now via jeftolbe@umail.iu.edu