The Hill of Tara, a great ceremonial center in the middle of Ireland, was the seat of the High Kings of Ireland. It is a conspicuous mile-long ridge covered in more than 60 monuments of different periods. The Irish people—let us call them Celts— carried out major ceremonies here over a very long period, from the middle of the Neolithic, around 3500 BC, to about AD 450.
The Feast of Tara was a major event of uncertain nature. There are two views about it. One is that it may have been an annual or less frequent event at which rather mundane political issues were settled; the other is that major pagan ceremonies took place. As far as the historical record goes, the Irish Annals only record it in relation to three kings in the sixth century.
The pagan ceremony view holds that on certain ceremonial occasions at Tara, the High King became a god. It was common in archaic societies for priests, priestesses, kings, or queens to become gods or goddesses, at least for the duration of a religious ceremony. This epiphany (appearance of the god) would have been a major event for the assembled tribe. In this case, the High King became the Daghda. In that role, he had sex with a maiden who, in her turn, was an epiphany of the goddess of the Boyne River, Boann. This public copulation was an enactment of the fertilization of the tribal territory—the High King had become the god of Ireland and the Irish, and he was ensuring the fertility of his island and the prosperity of his people. Specifically, the ceremony was supposed to ensure the survival of viable seed until the following season.
The political conference view points to the surviving documentation, which suggests rather dull events. In 660, an “assembly to regulate the laws and customs of the country” was held. There is nothing in the documents to suggest that the Christian community of the time disliked the Feast of Tara because of any pagan associations. But the political nature of the feast may have involved hostages. Diarmait’s fatefial execution of the King of Connacht’s hostage son appears to have taken place during the Feast of Tara.
Tara is one of a handful of prestigious royal sites in Ireland. It is central to Ireland’s ancient identity, as relatively little has survived from the Irish Iron Age: some metalwork, an oral tradition of epic sagas, and these few royal centers. These remains show how a small elite group lived, but the great mass of Iron Age Irish people remain invisible. They existed, but we cannot see them.
World History
