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Today with Clareburn on RTE Radio

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1, sponsored by Cash and Carrie

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Kitchens, at the heart of Irish

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homes for over 40 years. CashandCarrieKitchens.ie

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Now though, each year on the summer

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solstice, a sacred day in the Celtic

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tradition, people gather to celebrate at the

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landmark known as the ancient seat of

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the High Kings of Ireland, the Hill

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of Tara. It's the first of the

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ancient royal sites of Ireland we'll feature

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in a short series dedicated to them

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on this programme in the coming weeks.

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Now our reporter Maura Faye was at the Hill

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of Tara last night and Maura spoke to some of

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the people who were gathered there. Basil

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Donohue and I'm just from outside in Avon and

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Wilkinson. Just kind of want to set intentions on

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the solstice just for the

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year to keep going through the

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summer and entering into the winter months when

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it starts getting a bit darker earlier. Just

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for the big solstices and the equinoxes and

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stuff, I like to come to these kind

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of places where our ancestors used to come

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and try and connect. Ana

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Mona and I'm from Spain. I received

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guidance during a meditation that I need

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to come to Tara. This

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is a very powerful, energetic

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place. It's actually my first

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time celebrating solstice at

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all, so I'm

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looking forward for a very non-ordinary

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experience. My name

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is Michael Fox and I'm from Summerhill,

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Cantimid. We come every year for

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the summer solstice. What do you think is special

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about the Hill of Tara? It's a lot.

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Nice view. We come to the fertility

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stone and gave it a robe and we've got a baby.

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Oh really? So tell me about that. Tell me more about

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that. I think it's called the stone

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of destiny but it's a, I don't know, some

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people say it's a fertility stone. We gave it

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a robe a couple years ago. And now you

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have a baby. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Congratulations.

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My name is Zetu. I'm from

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Portugal. When you arrive in Intara

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you feel the peaceful

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energy and you know, and

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the community of the because it's unbelievable,

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beautiful, you know. My name

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is Mark Hoskins, I'm from Navin. It

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feels spiritual, you know, it's got something

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kind of magical about it, you know, and you

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can feel it in the grass and

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the hawthorn tree down there, and you know,

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the wells around it. It's just like, it's

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just a special place, you know, like... So my

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name is Anne-Marie and I'm from County Mead. What

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I think is special about the Hillett Tower is

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the people that are tracks. I've been coming here

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for years and I've met people from all over

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the world, mostly are looking

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or searching for something, and

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I think they do find an element of peace here

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when they come to Tower. They do find answers. Do

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you think Tower has a special energy? Definitely,

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I think so. I find,

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I get energy from it whenever I walk on it.

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Maura Fay there, speaking to people at the

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Hill of Tower last night, and I'm joined

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now in the studio by Anthony Murphy, who's

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an author and tour guide and curator of

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mythical Ireland. Lovely to have you here. Thanks,

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Claire. I heard someone there telling Maura that

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there's magic in the grass in Tower. Is

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that right? Well, yeah, I've spent

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enough time out there over the years,

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you know. I

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tend to find that spending time in

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those ancient landscapes does, I don't know,

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it seems to inject you with something,

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you know, you come away... There's spirituality

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there that you sense. It's

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hard to define, as it were, you know,

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but you do get the sense. I mean,

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I know a lot of people who spend time

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at these places and they all seem sort of

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relatively youthful for their age, you know. There's a

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spring in their step, you know. It's

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good for them. Yeah, and of

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course, well, the other aspect

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is that a tower is located,

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you know, in the best farmland

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in Ireland. So it's beautiful in and of

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itself. You know, it's always... Well, the landscape

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around Tower is always lush, you know. Listen,

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let's talk about the summer solstice because it happens when

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the sun, of course, is at its highest, but it

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was earlier this year, wasn't it? Yes,

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it was actually yesterday evening, the 20th of

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June, which is unusual, but that's just related.

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to the clumsiness of the or the awkwardness

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of the Gregorian calendar and the fact that

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our year is 365 and a

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quarter day. So, you know, every

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four years we have to add on. And basically we

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have to reset because if we don't do that, you

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know, our calendar ends up going totally out

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of skew. Yeah. And occasionally what that does

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is it puts the solstice on the 20th.

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But I mean, technically, technically

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the solstice is the maximum declination of

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the sun or the

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sun's furthest reach north. But at this time

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of year, if you were to get up

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early in the morning or even watch for

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the sunrise or watch the sunset, you'll notice

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that the sun's rising and setting positions don't

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change for several days. Right. They appear to,

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the sun appears to rise and set in exactly

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the same place. If you're in a house and

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you're looking out a window and mark the spot,

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by next week you'll have noticed it's starting to

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turn back again. Right. But nobody is allowed to

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say that the days are getting shorter now from

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today. We will not go there. No, these are

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the longest days and we'll be happy about it.

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Listen, let's talk about the hill

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of Tara and go back to, you

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know, where all the myth and legend

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began because it's associated with the High

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Kings of Ireland. Or is that accurate

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to make that association? No, it is.

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But I mean, I suppose the question

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would be, was there ever a single

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true High King who ruled over the

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entire island? That's

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been debated. The origins of kingship

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at Tara are mythological. They go back

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into a time that's pre-Christian, that's prehistoric,

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that we can't put a date on.

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It actually begins with the Tuatha Dhanan,

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the ancient prehistoric gods

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and goddesses of Ireland. And

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the last kings

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of the Tuatha Dhanan, Macul, Machecht and Magrena

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were said to have reigned there. And

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of course, Nuadu, the famous Nuadu of the

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Silver Arm, the king who had

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his arm chopped off in a battle and had

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a silver arm made for him by Deon Kekt,

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the healer. And we're thinking Star

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Wars here, you know, and was able to

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retake the kingship. So the

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origins of that are truly sort

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of prehistoric and belonging to a time we

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can put a date on. But

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the monument, the monumental landscape of Tara, we

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can put a date on because there are

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monuments there from the Neolithic. So

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there are monuments there going back 5000 years. And

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what that tells us is that Tara

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was sacred to a community of people

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based there over five millennia ago. So

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trying to marry the two, the

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archaeological and historical. The evidence and

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the legend almost. Yeah, they don't

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often marry up very neatly. So where

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does Nile come into it? Nile of the Nile?

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Nile has to. You know, there's I think 150

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or so high kings listed for Tara. I

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think Nile would be the one that most

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people would know the best. You know, he

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he I think reigns at

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the end of the fourth, early fifth

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century. And he comes to power in the

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most, well, incredibly mythological,

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supernatural way by kissing

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a mysterious hag. And

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when he kisses her, she turns into a

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beautiful young woman and she tells him that

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her true identity is flawless sovereignty and

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that he's going to be the high king. And

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he begets, as it

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were, the he is

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the beginning of the O'Neill dynasty who

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ruled large parts of the

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Meade and Midlands area, large parts

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of the north for centuries

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afterwards, you know. And

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of course, the O'Neill family name is very,

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very prevalent in Ireland today. And

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there's also a condition, a health

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condition, which you believe can

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be linked right the way back. Hemochromatosis, which

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is common in some parts of Ireland. Yeah,

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this is research from about a decade or maybe

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a decade and a half ago from Dan

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Bradley and others relating

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to looking at ancient

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DNA and and modern DNA.

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And they saw a very high

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prevalence of a specific marker in

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Irish. men that

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denotes one common ancestor and

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they found that this was associated with

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a very high prevalence of hemochromatosis, the

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production of too much iron in the

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blood. Believe it or not, one in

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ten Irish men have this condition and

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in the northwest of the country in Donegal,

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one in five. And fascinatingly,

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when they started thinking about, well,

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who is the common ancestor? In

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Professor Bradley's own words, all

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the signs were pointing in the same

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direction at Nile of the Nine Masters.

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Back to himself. Back to the main

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man. Now Leophil, which is

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a contentious part, would you agree, of

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Tara's history? Tell us a bit about

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it. It's only contentious because of the

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British Israelites and the nonsense

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that they have been propagating for the last

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century or century and a half. Leophil

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mythologically is the understone brought to

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Ireland as one of four great

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items by the Two of the

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Danons. It's called, Leopho

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Oil, the understone because of the

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tradition that the rightful king, the

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candidate for kingship, must step on

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or step over the stone and

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it screams so that everybody hears it. And if

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it doesn't scream, well, I'm sorry, you're the

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wrong choice, you know? So this is the

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mythological tradition. It stands on

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for the royal seat today as

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a standing stone. However, it was

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moved there in

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the early 1800s to commemorate the

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United Irishmen who had died in

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the rebellion in 1798. And our

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difficulty is that we don't know exactly where

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it was moved from. There's conflicting accounts. One

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says it was over by the mound of

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the hostages doing the meal. The other says

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that it was recumbent in the ditch of

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on for a... Both of those make sense because

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there are standing stones outside the entrances of some

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passage tombs. But the idea of it being recumbent

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as a sort of a threshold stone that the

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king would step over. A lot

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of people who go to Tara today, I wouldn't

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encourage it, of course, the idea of standing

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standing on the stone. I mean, it stands

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four feet tall. Want

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to see does it scream at them, do they? Exactly.

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Well, a lot of people touch it, you

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know, to see if it and you'll see

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people touching it and actually screaming, you know.

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And tell me, have all of the secrets of Tara been

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revealed at this stage or is there more to learn? It's

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difficult to say that there isn't more to

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be found. You may know that I've found

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monuments at Bruno Bonia with my

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drone. So the Discovery program has been

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very active at Tara for the last

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probably two and a half decades and

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have found like substantial monumental

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remains under the surface of

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Tara that we didn't know

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about. And because they've

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been so active and because of the

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techniques they've been using, it's hard to

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say that there'd be much left there

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to find. But I always say never

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say never. Yeah. And plenty to see,

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even though it has all been discovered.

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And thank you very much for coming in. Anthony

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Murphy, author, tour guide and curator of mythical Ireland.

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And I hope that whets your appetite. Maybe for

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a visit to the Hill of Tara over the

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coming months or indeed into Halloween, which I know

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is a lovely time to visit as well. Isn't

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it around the October time? Yeah, there's

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an alignment there. The sun at Samhain shines into

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the passage to him there. There you go. So

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plenty of opportunity to go and see it at

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its best.