TaraWatch is sending a delegation to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting, to the held in Quebec City, 2-10 July, to lobby for the preservation of the Hill of Tara archaeological complex, being threatened by the M3 motorway construction works.

This initiative is being taken in response to the proposal by Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, to make a World Heritage site, with the M3 passing through the middle of it. TaraWatch supports the nomination of Tara, but wants UNESCO to insist that the M3 is re-routed first.

An art auction is being held on Saturday, 21 June, in the Pearse family home, at 27 Pearse Street, Dublin, in order to fund the delegation. The house was the birth place of Pádraig Pearse, (10 November 1879 – 3 May 1916) Pearse was a teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist and political activist who was one of the revolutionary leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising. The perfectly restored building now houses the Ireland Institute for Historical and Cultural Studies. Pearse is recorded as wanting the 1916 Proclamation of Independence read out on the Hill of Tara, as well as outside the General Post Office,on O’Connell Street, where he read it out at the beginning of the Easter Rising.

Works of art are being donated by a number of celebrated Irish artists, including Louis le Brocquy, Jim Fitzpatrick and Tom Mathews. The auction remains open for other artists to donate works, if they wish to participate.

The print being donated by Louis le Brocquy can be viewed at the Taylor Galleries, 16 Kildare Street, up until the day of the auction. Mr le Brocquy will also provide a written statement, concerning the artistic importance of Tara, to be submitted to UNESCO.

All the works will be on display at Pearse House, from 11.00am onwards, on 21 June. The auction itself will take place at 7.00pm.

For more information, please contact info@tarawatch.org / +353-87-972-8603

The artists

Jim Fitzpatrick is an Irish artist famous for Irish Celtic Art. Perhaps his most famous piece is his iconic two-tone portrait of Che Guevara created in 1968 and based on a photo by Alberto Korda. In 1978, he wrote and lavishly illustrated a book called The Book of Conquests, retelling of a cycle of Irish myths, the Lebor Gabála Érenn. The book retells the legends interpolated into a linear story via a series of exceptionally detailed illustrations matched with text of the deeds of might and valour contained in the myth. It is replete with intricate Celtic scrollwork and knotwork. This was followed up by The Silver Arm, which retells further portions of Irish myth. A third volume, The Son of the Sun, is listed as “in preparation” as of 2004. He has also produced artwork for Thin Lizzy, for Sinéad O’Connor’s 2000 album Faith and Courage and for The Darkness’ 2003 single Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End).

Louis le Brocquy (born November 10, 1916) is an Irish painter. Born in Dublin, Louis le Brocquy’s work has received much international attention and many accolades in a career that spans seventy years of creative practice. Le Brocquy is widely acclaimed for his evocative “Portrait ‘Heads” of literary figures and fellow artists, which include William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, and his friends Samuel Beckett, Francis Bacon and Seamus Heaney. In 1967 Louis le Brocquy was commissioned by the publisher Liam Miller to illustrate Thomas Kinsella’s inspired version of the Táin Bó Cúailnge, the dramatic record of Ireland’s proto-historic past. He and his partner, artist Anne Madden, have been very vocal in their opposition to the M3 at Tara, writing letters to the Irish Times, and attending marches.

Tom Mathews was born in Dublin in 1952. After working for a time in advertising he studied Fine Art at NCAD, since leaving which in 1974 he has worked as freelance writer, critic, and cartoonist. His work appears weekly in The Irish Times and The Sunday Independent as well as in Cara Magazine, Hot Press, and other publications. He has had sixteen one-man shows to date including three exhibitions of paintings. These have also featured in the Living Art and RHA. His cartoons are in many private and public national and international collections.

For more information see http://www.tarawatch.org

Pic: fjorukrain

Our Viking cousins are holding an annual Viking festival in Hafnafjordur that kicked off on the 12th June with the opening of the Viking craft market at 5pm.The festival has been held since 1995 and is the oldest, largest and most important event of its kind in Iceland. Activities include battle demonstrations, storytelling, wrestling, archery, music, dancing and plenty of eating and drinking.

The organisers behind the event, the Viking restaurant and hotel Fjorukrain, have arranged for almost two hundred Vikings to attend, both foreign and domestic, often arriving by boat with an exotic cargo of goods to sell. There are also troops of jesters and dancing girls, filling the centre of this normally quiet coastal town with music and merriment.

The event is not all peaceful, however, as the organisers promise a good Viking battle with mock deaths, just as visitors least expect it.

The Viking festival is held from 12th to 18th of June in Hafnafjordur, a town just outside Reykjavik.

Source

Not everyone has the time to keep in touch with all their friends using all the exciting new social media that we see around us and still visit us here on the Show site to find out what’s going on and when the next episode is due, and so on. So we thought that it would be a good idea to support the news and forums that we’ve got here if we set up a Myspace page and a Facebook group, so that users of either of those services could check in with us and their friends at the same time. It would be lovely if the fans of the Show became firm friends with each other as well. I’ve always thought of us all as a kind of worldwide clan and the more ways we can talk to each other, the better.

The Facebook group seems to be a favourite with lots of people already joining, although there haven’t been many discussions there yet. If you are a Facebook fan, click the button above and come and meet more people that like the same things you do.

The Myspace page has more keep-in-touch widgets on it at the moment, so that you get an echo of the main blog here, listen to a show or the Utterz and see what we’re saying on Twitter. If you’re a Myspace fan, come along and say hello

CATHAL, King of Munster, was a good king and a great warrior. But there came to dwell within him a lawless evil beast, that afflicted him with hunger that ceased not, and might not be satisfied, so that he would devour a pig, a cow, and a bull calf and three-score cakes of pure wheat, and a vat of new ale, for his breakfast, whilst as for his great feast, what he ate there passes account or reckoning. He was like this for three half-years, and during that time it was the ruin of Munster he was, and it is likely he would have ruined all Ireland in another half-year. Now there lived in Armagh a famous young scholar and his name was Anier MacConglinney. He heard of the strange disease of King Cathal, and of the abundance of food and drink, of whitemeats, ale and mead,

Pic :kagey b

there were always to be found at the king’s court. Thither then was he minded to go to try his own fortune, and to see of what help he could be to the king. Continue Reading »

The Heaven-World of the ancient Celts, unlike that of the Christians, was not situated in some distant, unknown region of planetary space, but here on our own earth. As it was necessarily a subjective world, poets could only describe it in terms more or less vague; and its exact geographical location, accordingly, differed widely in the minds of scribes from century to century. Sometimes, as is usual today in fairy-lore,

Pic :Mark Grealish

it was a subterranean world entered through caverns, or hills, or mountains, and inhabited by many races and orders of invisible beings, such as demons, shades, fairies, or even gods…

And the underground world of the Sidhe-folk, which cannot be separated from it, was divided into districts or kingdoms under different fairy kings and queens, just as the upper world of mortals. We already know how the Tuatha De Danann or Sidhe-folk, after their defeat by the Sons of Mil at the Battle of Tailte, retired to this underground world and took possession of its palaces beneath the green hills and vales of Ireland; and how from there, as gods of the harvest, they still continued to exercise authority over their conquerors, or marshaled their own invisible spirit-hosts in fairy warfare, and sometimes interfered in the wars of men…

“Many go to the Tir-na-nog in sleep, and some are said to have remained there,
and only a vacant form is left behind without the light in the eyes
which marks the presence of a soul.”
~~ A. E. ~~

More frequently, in the old Irish manuscripts, the Celtic Otherworld was located in the midst of the Western Ocean, as though it were the ‘double’ of the lost Atlantis; and Manannan Mac Lir, the Son of the Sea–perhaps himself the ‘double’ of an ancient Atlantean king–was one of the divine rulers of its fairy inhabitants, and his palace, for he was one of the Tuatha De Danann, was there rather than in Ireland; and when he traveled between the two countries it was in a magic chariot drawn by horses who moved over the sea-waves as on land. And fairy women came from that mid-Atlantic world in magic boats like spirit boats, to charm away such mortal men as in their love they chose, or else to take great Arthur wounded unto death. And in that island world there was neither death nor pain nor scandal, naught save immortal and unfading youth, and endless joy and feasting… Continue Reading »

The Fairies of Scotland are represented as a diminutive race of beings, of a mixed, or rather dubious nature, capricious in their dispositions, and mischievous in their resentment. They inhabit the interior of green hills, chiefly those of a conical form, in Gaelic termed Sighan, on which they lead their dances by moonlight; impressing upon the surface the marks of circles, which sometimes appear yellow and blasted, sometimes of a deep green hue; and within which it is dangerous to sleep, or to be found after sunset. The removal of those large portions of turf, which thunder-bolts sometimes scoop out of the ground with singular regularity, is also ascribed to their agency.

Cattle, which are suddenly seized with the cramp, or some similar disorder, are said to be elf-shot, and the approved cure is, to chafe the parts affected with a blue bonnet, which, it may be readily believed, often restores the circulation. The triangular flints, frequently found in Scotland, with which the ancient inhabitants probably barbed their shafts, are supposed to be the weapons of Fairy resentment, and are termed elf arrow-heads.

The rude brazen battle-axes of the ancients, commonly called celts, are also ascribed to their manufacture. But, like the Gothic duergar, their skill is not confined to the fabrication of arms; for they are heard sedulously hammering in linns, precipices, and rocky or cavernous situations, where, like the dwarfs of the mines, they busy themselves in imitating the actions and the various employments of men.

The Brook of Beaumont, for example, which passes, in its course, by numerous linns and caverns, is notorious for being haunted by the Fairies, and the perforated and rounded stones which are formed by trituration in its channel are termed, by the vulgar, fairy cups and dishes.

It is sometimes accounted unlucky to pass such places, without performing some ceremony to avert the displeasure of the elves. There is, upon the top of Minchmuir, a mountain in Peeblesshire, a spring called the Cheese Well, because, anciently, those who passed that way were wont to throw into it a piece of cheese, as an offering to the Fairies, to whom it–was consecrated.

The usual dress of the Fairies is green; though. on the moors they have been sometimes observed in heath-brown, or in weeds dyed with the stoneraw, or lichen. They often ride in invisible procession, when their presence is discovered by the shrill ringing of their bridles. On these occasions they sometimes borrow mortal steeds; and when such are found at morning, panting and fatigued in their stalls, with their manes and tails dishevelled and entangled, the grooms, I presume, often find this a convenient excuse for their situation; as the common belief of the elves quaffing the choicest liquors in the cellars of the rich might occasionally cloak the delinquencies of an unfaithful butler.

Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales
by Sir George Douglas
[1901]

Episode 9 is up and available now. This episode tells of the eve of the Second Battle of Magh Tuireadh and Lugh gets promises of aid from the Tuatha De Danaan. The giant Balor enters the fray and the death toll rises. The Tuatha De are fighting not only for their land but for their entire race. There is a titanic clash between Lugh and Balor and the fate of Ireland is decided. The Episode is available for subscribers on the feed, or you can download it or listen to it from our Episodes page. You can find the Shownotes for this episode in the Shownotes section.

In this episode, we fulfill our promise not to use any accents. This is part of our experiment to find out which form of production is most suited to you, our listeners. If you find this format better for you to listen to than Episode 8 and others then let us know so that we can make the necessary changes. We are still getting feedback on both sides of the fence. We hope that now you can hear both versions you are in a better position to make an informed judgement

This article, translated from the Dutch courtesy of Peter Alaca, tells us of new finds in Lomm. Archaeologists are currently putting the finishing touches to the excavation of a very special site near Lomm, between the Meuse and the German border in Dutch Limburg [Lomm]. It is a grave field and cult site from the Iron Age (circa 800 to 12 BC.) In 2006 started near Lomm the construction of a high water channel as part of the project Zandmaas of the Maaswerken [Maaswerken]. This channel should give the Meuse more space in times of high water. Before the extraction of sand and gravel operations, archaeological research is obligatory in the framework of the Convention of Malta/Valetta [the Convention].

  Already in 1999 and 2003 preliminary archaeological investigations took place in the area, which showed that especially in the Iron Age people lived in the area, but also remains and traces from the Stone Age, Bronze Age, the Roman era and the Second World War came to light.

Because of that the National Office for Archaeology, Cultural and Monuments (RACM), labeled the entire 80 hectare planning area as being of very high archaeological value, where settlements, grave fields and fields, can be studied in cohesion. In 2007 an area of 5.3 hectares was excavated. There were numerous traces found of Iron Age farms and associated buildings, which have stood on the highest parts of the former river landscape of the Meuse.

The first graves, consisting of cremations and charcoal, came already to light in the first week of the excavation. Later other graves were also discovered and prehistoric ditches, forming two rectangles. In recent weeks (2008), the grave field and ditches are fully excavated. Some 50 burials were found, which makes the site one of the largest late Iron Age grave fields in the Netherlands. Grave fields of 20 or more graves from this period in the Netherlands can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

The graves are often without urns. They consist of small clusters of cremations and charcoal, believed to be buried in a cloth or rag. Also associated structures, such as ring ditches and burial mounds, are almost absent. Because of these characteristics grave fields from the late Iron Age are not quickly noticed during archaeological fieldwork. Among the finds associated with the burials are a bronze fibula, fragments of glass bracelets and urns. Some shards of pottery from the Roman period indicate that burials took place up to the beginning of our era.

The cult site is older than the burials and consists of four ditches, making up a large rectangle of about 33 x 37 meters. Within this lies a smaller rectangle of about 7 x 8 meters. They are dated to the Middle Iron Age (500-250 BC) and the archaeologists believe that the ditches are marking an area in which ritual acts were performed. Inside stood some small wooden buildings and rows of posts.

Prehistoric cult sites in the Netherlands are very rare and only barely archaeological investigated. The banks of the Meuse appear in this context of great significance. For example, north of Maastricht in Itteren [Itteren] in the framework of the Grensmaas project a possible second cult site from the Iron Age is discovered. This site will be examined later this year.

Pic: CeltFest

CeltFest 2008 brings an international Celtic music and dance summer school and concert series to Nanaimo for the eighth time on July 6-11. The school, which offers classes in music, dance, singing and visual arts, will be held at Malaspina University-College. Instructors Mac Morin, Mairi Rankin and Wendy MacIsaac will join Toronto’s champion piper Bob Worrall and his group Scantily Plaid.

CeltFest provides a unique opportunity for us to share traditions in which entire families, individuals and groups from diverse backgrounds come together to learn and enjoy an age-old art form.

Continue Reading »

Pic: LuluP

England’s enigmatic Stonehenge served as a burial ground from its earliest beginnings and for several hundred years thereafter, new research indicates. Dating of cremated remains shows burials took place as early as 3000 B.C., when the first ditches around the monument were being built, researchers said Thursday. And those burials continued for at least 500 years, when the giant stones that mark the mysterious circle were being erected, they said.

Continue Reading »