This famous old mound lies in
the
grounds of a hotel
just outside the town and seems to be fairly unpopular with tired
golfers, whom
the amused onlooker can watch struggling over the rough ground
from the comforts of the bar. But in days of yore, this overgrown
golfing hazard was the scene of an important event in Irish history.
In the year 573 a great convention was called by Aedh, son of Ainmire,
King of Ireland - also known as king Hugh the
Second - to decide
on various important issues. The two most important of these were the
question of
what to do with the bards - who had abused their many privileges in
time-honoured fashion and
hence had become a pain in the royal neck - and to consider the request
of
the
Scottish colony of Dalriada or Scotia minor (Ireland then was known as
Scotia major) for financial independence. The king wanted to
get
rid of the bards and - if at all possible - retain the
yearly taxes from
Scotland.
The
Scottish colony of Dalriada had been wrested from the
Picts - a fierce and colourful tribe who inhabited Scotland in those
days. St Columba - the spiritual leader of the proto-Scots - who had
founded the monastery of Iona, was
persuaded to lead the Scottish delegation and argue their case at the
great
Convention of Drumceat. Earlier
in his life he had been held indirectly responsible for the death of a
few thousand men who died in battle, and he had made a vow to convert
the same
number of heathens to Christianity and never set eyes upon Ireland
ever again. The
problems caused by this hasty vow were overcome with a certain amount
of mental ingenuity and the use of a white - vision-obscuring -
headscarf .
Another version of the legend
relates that
Columba had
promised never to set foot in Ireland again .
Hence when he
arrived he did not disembark, but was carried to Drumceat reclining in
his boat. This is of course how he is commemorated on the crest of the
borough - the many meanings of which are thoroughly explained elsewhere in these pages.
Saint Columba came to Ireland with
a
large
following, consisting of monks and almost certainly many of the warlike
Picts whom he had converted. The first hand-pict
delegation in Irish history!
St Columba seems to have been a
very
persuasive man. Not only was
the
Scottish colony allowed to spend their taxes locally, but the bards
were allowed to reform and keep on singing.
Curiously, a third decision taken
during the
great Convention of Drumceat - and one strongly argued by St. Columba -
was to
exclude women from military service.
History fails to relate what the
women-folk made of all this.
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