tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005314134013556886.post8577160965515729044..comments2024-03-17T07:54:08.822+00:00Comments on Michael Farry: Knocknashee Hill, SligoUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005314134013556886.post-90683229090203218832013-09-04T21:01:26.942+01:002013-09-04T21:01:26.942+01:00Thanks Michael for your great pics of Knocknashee....Thanks Michael for your great pics of Knocknashee. However, despite your discomfort with the term 'sacred' This landscape is definitely very sacred and the people who built its monuments were a very 'religious' people indeed. These monuments had obviously deep 'supernatural' power and significance for these people also, as did the 'ritual' landscape they were built on. It is obvious that some sort of pilgrimage took place here that involved processions across the landscape from monument to monument and probably culminating on the summit of Knocknarea, the most sacred hill of them all. This pilgrimage was annual (probably taking place at different significant dates throughout each year) and guaranteed that the natural world they inhabited continued to provide for the very large population that lived there. This was also their 'Garden of Eden' where the gods or more succinctly the Goddess', 'Meave?' created the whole universe they knew, at the beginning of time. As such this is a mythic landscape and by traversing it the people guaranteed that the magic that created the universe they inhabited continued to flow and provide and sustain them year after year. Eliade called this phenomenon the 'eternal return'. Croagh Patrick is another example of this sacred landscape and was almost certainly used as a place of pilgrimage thousands of years before the Christians discovered it and its first 'religious' use was probably coeval with the use of this landscape. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005314134013556886.post-12908714216502463482012-01-24T05:23:55.208+00:002012-01-24T05:23:55.208+00:00Thanks for sharing about Knocknashee. The one and ...Thanks for sharing about Knocknashee. The one and only time I climed it, I was a little boy of maybe 7 or 8 years (50 yrs ago) and I climbed it with my mum - we were visiting (from England) her mum (my grandmother). My mum grew up on a small farm at the foot of Knocknashee (They were Henrys). I remember her telling us that it meant 'hill of the fairies', and I don't know whether it's still there, but I recollect her showing us a couple of rocks which made a sort of seat looking over the view you mentioned. She called it the 'wishing seat.' I also remember her telling us a legend about the giant that was going to move the hill, but it was too big for him to carry, so he was going to take it a bit at a time. He took the top off (hence Knocknashee is flat-topped), but soon tired or his journey and put the top down and left it - now called Mucklty. Thanks again for the trip down memory lane. <br />DavidAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005314134013556886.post-59341964481234436802010-11-13T14:52:34.534+00:002010-11-13T14:52:34.534+00:00Great pic!Great pic!Orla Fayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06793698838699811789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005314134013556886.post-31238757409305109902010-11-05T13:46:02.762+00:002010-11-05T13:46:02.762+00:00There's an interesting book on that landscape,...There's an interesting book on that landscape, "Pi in the Sky". Sacred or not, I don't know, but interesting!<br /> FM.Frankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13421802466426089808noreply@blogger.com