6/23/2023 0 Comments Broken coast dolmen![]() At first Diarmuid resisted sleeping with Gráinne out of respect for Fionn. While Diarmuid did not wish to break the trust of his chieftain, his will was broken by the strength of Gráinne’s ghessa. ![]() Gráinne gave a sleeping potion to most of those gathered at the wedding, and then laid magic-bonds ( faoi ghessa) on the youth to run away with her. It seems that the youth had on his forehead a mole that caused any woman who caught sight of it to fall hopelessly in love with him. But Gráinne took a liking to a striking young man, one of Fionn’s warriors, named Diarmuid. The betrayal of Fionn began at the wedding feast, where the warrior, already quite old, was to be married to the young and beautiful Gráinne, daughter of the king. ![]() Clare of how a dolmen, or “Diarmuid and Gráinne’s bed,” was said to be covered by Diarmuid with seaweed so that Fionn, using his prophetic vision, would sense that the two lovers were under the ocean, and presume them drowned. In folklore these stone structures served as nightly resting places for the fleeing couple. 8 This tale of fugitive lovers, fleeing from the magical powers of the betrayed warrior Fionn Mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool) has been connected in folk tradition with the portal tombs, or dolmens, throughout the Irish countryside. The first known mention of the Fenian Cycle tale “The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne” was in a saga list dating from the tenth century, although the oldest existing complete manuscript of the story is from the sixteenth century. However, when the monument was first reported by antiquarian John Windele after his 1860 visit, he wrote: 5Īlthough William Borlase in 1897 suggested the possibility that the monument may have once been “willfully thrown down,” 6 there is no evidence of this having occurred. When the virtual-reality view is rotated 180°, you will note, mostly obscured in the shore vegetation, what has variously been identified as the quarry from which the dolmen’s stones originated or the ruins of another tomb. Another stone, now lying flat in the water, may have once been part of a larger chambered tomb structure. The backstone no longer provides support for the capstone. They are set into slots in the limestone pavement. These stones are each about 2 m (6.5 ft) tall and 1.5 m (5 ft) wide. Only the two uprights now support the 1.8 m (6 ft) long capstone of this monument. You will also see the skeletal remains of a boat exposed at the low tide. If you view the telephoto-lens VR (below, left) in full-screen mode you can find shore birds in the tidal mud flats. Click the red hotspot to see a closer view of the dolmen at low tide. Click the “play” button to cycle the tides. The dolmen can be much more easily accessed within the virtual-reality environment above. There is also a route down toward the estuary from the Rostellan Woods car park, but the path may disappear before it reaches the shore, necessitating a length of trail blazing through the stinging nettles. At low tide, with a walking stick and a pair of Wellingtons it is about a kilometer (.6 mile) walk from the closest seaside parking area, along the rocky shore though slippery hillocks of kelp and sea lettuce. But direct access to the tomb itself can be problematic. The dolmen is just visible on the opposite shore. 4 Other shoreline megalitihic monuments featured in Voices from the Dawn include the Knockbrack Chambered Tomb and the Altar Wedge Tomb.Ī distant view of the dolmen may be had from Church View Road, in Saleen, across the estuary. A kilometer to the west along the rocky shoreline are the crumbling ruins of “Siddons’ Tower,” built in 1727. The Shell Guide of 1967 calls it Carraig a’ Mhaistin, which may mean “Bully Rock.” 3 While it now sits in the sea ten meters (33 ft) below the high-tide mark, when it was built in the Early Neolithic the oceans were lower and it likely sat on beachfront, rather than aquatic, property. 2 There is no trail leading to it, nor is it mentioned in most modern guidebooks. It is also unique in that it opens to the east, rather than facing the setting sun, as does the normal, land-locked portal tomb. Nearly submerged by the tidal waters of Cork Harbor’s Saleen Creek, the Rostellan Dolmen (portal tomb) is the only example of such a Leaba Dhiarmada agus Gráinne (Diarmuid and Gráinne’s Bed) in Ireland to wear a garland of seaweed.
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