Irish customs, restrictions that were increasingly suc-
cessful in changing the shape of Irish education so that,
in the first half of the sixteenth century, the monasteries
were dissolved and replaced by grammar schools and
Jesuit schools.
MATTHEW BROWN
References and Further Reading
Atkinson, Norman. Irish Education: A History of Educational
Institutions. Dublin: Allan Figgis, 1969.
Dowling, P. J. A History of Irish Education: A Study in Con-
flicting Loyalties. Cork: Ireland Mercier Press, 1971.
Hanson, W. G. The Early Monastic Schools of Ireland. Cambridge:
W.Heffer & Sons, Ltd., 1927.
McGrath, Fergal. Education in Ancient and Medieval Ireland.
Dublin: Studies “Special Publications,” 1979.
Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí. Early Medieval Ireland 400− 1200. London:
Longman, 1995.
Richter, Michael. Medieval Ireland: The Enduring Tradition.
London: MacMillan Education, 1983.
See alsoBardic Schools/Learned Families;
Brehon Law; Classical Influence; Clonmacnoise;
Colum Cille; Columbanus; Conversion to
Christianity; Ecclesiastical Settlements;
Ériugena, John Scottus; Glendalough,
Book of; Glosses; Languages; Manuscript
Illumination; Moral and Religious Instruction;
Pre-Christian Ireland; Religious Orders;
Scriptoria; Viking Incursions
EISCIR RIATA
SeeRoads and Routes
EMAIN MACHA
Emain Macha, the pseudo-historical capital of Ulster
and the principal setting of the Táin Bó Cúailnge (The
Cattle-Raid of Cooley), lies three miles west of the
ecclesiastical city of Armagh. It derives its name from
the goddess Macha, who is also immortalized in the
place name Ard Macha or Armagh, which translates
as the “heights of Macha.” Pseudo-historical texts
claim that Emain Macha was established as the center
of the Ulaid between the seventh and fourth centuries
B.C.E. and that the power of its dynastic rulers declined
in the fourth or fifth century C.E. Emain Macha com-
prises a concentration of forty-six prehistoric monu-
ments, central to which is Navan Fort. The fort is a
large circular earthen enclosure, 286 meters in diameter,
consisting of a broad, deep ditch and external rampart.
A ring ditch and an impressive mound 6 meters high,
both of which were excavated by D. M. Waterman
between 1963 and 1971, lie within it. The most exciting
discovery within the mound was a very large multiring
timber structure of radial plan, 40 meters in diameter.
The large central post of that structure produced a tree-
ring date of late 95 B.C.E. or early 94 B.C.E., after which
it was covered by a large cairn of limestone blocks.
Additional elements in the Emain Macha complex
include the sites of two possible passage tombs of
fourth millennium B.C.E. date that lie to the north of
Navan Fort, and a small natural lake called Lough-
nashade is situated to the northeast. A multivallate hill
fort known as Haughey’s Fort, occupied in the period
1300 − 900 B.C.E., and an artificial pond called the
King’s Stables are located approximately 1,000 meters
west of Navan Fort. The development of the Navan
complex appears to have begun about the thirteenth
centuryB.C.E. when Haughey’s Fort and the King’s
Stables were constructed, while Navan Fort apparently
became the new focus of ritual activity from about the
tenth century B.C.E. onward.
It has been suggested that the mound within Navan
Fort may have been purpose-built for kingly inaugura-
tion, but there is no evidence, as yet, that a sense of
royalty and an established custom of inaugurating kings
on mounds actually prevailed in the Irish late prehistoric
period. Emain Macha is, however, frequently evoked as
an ideal kingship center during the later medieval
period. The Uí Néill kings of the fourteenth century, for
instance, closely identified themselves with the heroes
of the Ulster Cycle and particularly with Conchobar mac
Nessa and his abode at Emain Macha. In an attempt to
physically attach himself and his dynasty to the ancient
seat of the legendary kings of the Ulaid, Niall Óg Ua
Néill had a temporary house built there to entertain poets
and learned men in 1387. The perception of Emain
Macha as the most desirable inauguration site for Ulster
royalty is also evoked in later medieval bardic poetry.
The thirteenth-century poet Gilla Brigde Mac Con
Mide, in his aisling(dream or vision) on the desired
inauguration of Roalbh Mac Mathgamna as chief of
Airgialla, uses Emain Macha as the setting for the inau-
guration. In the dream he sees Roalbh made chief by
the “poet bands of the world” who are arranged in order
upon the mound within Navan Fort.
ELIZABETH FITZPATRICKReferences and Further Reading
Aitchison, Nicholas B. Armagh and the Royal Centres in Early
Medieval Ireland. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1994.
Lynn, Chris J. Excavations at Navan Fort 1961−71 by D. M.
Waterman. Belfast: Stationary Office Publications, 1993.
Simms, Katharine. “Propaganda Use of the Táin in the Later
Middles Ages.” Celtica15 (1983): 142−149.
Waddell, John. The Prehistoric Archaeology of Ireland. Galway:
University Press, 1998.
See also Armagh; Inauguration Sites; Kings and
Kingship; Poetry, Irish; Poets, Learned Men;
Uí Néill; Ulaid; Ulster CycleEMAIN MACHA