Comments for The Lost Tales of Fionn Mac Cumhaill

Comment on No word of a lie by John O'Neill

John O'Neill — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 19:34:07 +0000

Come on, Tom. Out with it.

Comment on Disturbing fiction by An author with opinions | The Butterfly Heart

An author with opinions | The Butterfly Heart — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 19:25:56 +0000

[...] Disturbing fiction [...]

Comment on What’s the story with raths? by John O'Neill

John O'Neill — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 08:06:47 +0000

Gottabe heaps of bones around the boiling pits, no?
Hey, on another tack, see Jim Flynn’s The Torchlight List : Around the World in 200 Books. A fascinating guide to worldwide intelligent fiction.

Comment on What’s the story with raths? by fionnfolk

fionnfolk — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 12:19:06 +0000

I need very little excuse to go digging but I know it would definitely work in the ground here. We have very heavy clay with almost no drainage – to the extent that running to the top of the hills behind us, right in the heart of County Kilkenny, there are extensive bogs like you might expect only to see in Roscommon. Where I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t work is in well drained land – such as the lands that the children of the cromlech hail from. I don’t believe any amount of patching with stones etc would keep water in a pit in by the banks of the Slaney fron Aghade to Tullow for example. Perhaps they only selected heavy water logged sites. Now that would make an interesting study: to look at the correlation between soil type permeability and the locations of the known fulachta fiadh. One for some eager young archaeology Masters student perhaps.

Comment on What’s the story with raths? by John O'Neill

John O'Neill — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 20:57:49 +0000

Enough theorizing! Get out the digger, make a hole, build the bonfire, invite the neighbours to bring the beer, post the event in the Journal of Irish Archaeology. Done.

Comment on What’s the story with raths? by fionnfolk

fionnfolk — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:04:56 +0000

We had been through a bit of a cold snap not that long before, right enough. But men were hardier back then and not given to complaining about a little bit of lumbago.

Comment on What’s the story with raths? by John O'Neill

John O'Neill — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 00:41:34 +0000

Give or take a thousand years, were we just emerging from the Ice Age? Gotta be a sauna. My guess is that they were riddled with arthritis and no better remedy. Just read of a dig in Syria which established the women had displaced toes, knees from hours of kneeling at the grindstones. Then the Christians came and told them to kneel down again!

Comment on What’s the story with raths? by fionnfolk

fionnfolk — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 07:09:01 +0000

You’ve prmpted me to do an overdue post on the fulachta which I realize I now need to update with the origins of the words themselves; I must say though, the sauna for freezing Spaniards is a far better theory than any I’ve dreamt up!

Comment on What’s the story with raths? by John O'Neill

John O'Neill — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 05:10:52 +0000

I love harassing opinionated authors. Wot’s a fulachta? and is it fiadh, fiach, fian? Might make a differ. But seriously, if these holes in the ground were up to 3 metres wide they must have boiled an elk. How about we are cousins of the Finns or Japanese? They were a sauna, badly needed for exiled Spaniards in an Irish winter. I kind of like the idea of Fionn Mac sitting up to his neck in queens and calling on a serf – roll another stone in here, man or I’ll kick you all the way to Scotland.

Comment on What’s the story with raths? by fionnfolk

fionnfolk — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 10:09:11 +0000

Thanks John. I should have explained the fulachta fiadh.

All that appears of them today is roughly circular indents. The ones I’ve seen are under three metres in diameter. Originally most were lined with stone or impermeable clay. The theory is that they were communal cooking places. They would be filled with water. (They are mostly very near rivers.) In a large fire lit next to the fulacht fian, stones were reddened and then rolled into the water to bring it to the boil. Meat was thus cooked in the water. Evidence for this theory is provided by the burnt stones usually found in the vicinity. I believe people have recreated such structures to show that this system of cooking would have worked. The only moment of doubt I had on the matter was on seeing pictures of strikingly similar structures in Africa. There, the usage is much more straight forward. The submerged pit simply provides a stable place in which to manage a fire for roasting meat over. Having a contrarian bent, I rather fancy this theory. It seems a less laborious method – though of course we are not renowned for always doing things the easiest way. It removes the problem of hot water seeping away. From this perspective, might the point about the fulachta fiach being found near rivers be explained by the fact that many of the early habitations stemmed out from river banks? One could imagine that for a communal event, people would move along the water arteries to meet, rather than navigating through woodlands. And the charred stones? Well the stones around any open fire would be charred.

And of course, leaping wildly over forty thousand years, we all came from Africa, Milesians, Sumerians, and prophets!

The genetics studies are not doing much for the theories of chosen people(s) by the way. Like most every other Nation, it’s transpiring that the Jewish Nation is pretty much an amalgamation with appropriated cultural trappings and adaptations tacked on – in the same pragmatic manner that any tribe intent on survival operated.

Tell Sarah that it seems the Galicians and the Basques are the most closely related to us. So if she wants to meet level headed people, she should steer further South.