Magh Adhair Traditional Geocache

About one hundred and forty one feet to the west of the stream called the Hell River is a liagaun or standing stone, measuring six feet four inches in height from the level of the surface of the field, three feet two inches in width and ten inches in thickness.

According to the Lecan Records and all the ancient tracts which treat of the Firbolgic Colony, the Plain of Magh Adhair in Thomond was inhabited by, and received its name from Adhar (Eyre) the son of Huamor and brother of Aengus of Dun Aengus in Aran, whose tribe came into Ireland in the first century, when Oilioll and Maeve reigned in Connaught.

The authors of the Ordanace Survey letters of 1839, John O'Donovan and Eugene Curry, note that this mound has a striking resemblance to Carn Amhalgada, on which the O’Dowd was made, and to Carn Fraeich at Dumha Sealga in Magh Aei.

The Lecan Records state that Amhalghaidh Mac Fiachrach raised the carn that it might serve as a tomb for himself (and there is no doubt that he is entombed in the conical chamber in its interior) as a place of fairs and meetings of the people, and that his heir might be inaugurated on its summit, that is, standing over his own urn. This was a sure way to hand down his own name to immortality and to establish a veneration for his own tomb. The carn at Carn Fraeich, on which the O’Conor was inaugurated was also, according to the Dinnseanchus, a monument raised over the remains of a Bolgic Chieftan.

That the Bolgic Chieftain Eyre (Ire) the brother of Aengus of Aran, was buried in this mound appears highly probable, though a similar difficulty presents itself as to why it should have been adopted by the Dalcassian family as their place of inauguration. That the O’Dowd should have been “made” on the tomb of his great ancestor Awley, appears sufficiently reasonable, but it looks strange enough that Chieftains of Milesian blood should adopt the monumental mounds of Bolgic Chiefs as their places of inauguration. Perhaps these mounds were first used as places of inauguration by the Bolgic people of Magh Aei and Thomond, and that when these were conquered by the Scoti in the interval between the first and beginning of the fourth century, they took a pride in being inaugurated on the mounds on which antiquity had impressed its veneration.

The ordanance Survey Letters have been published by Clasp Press under the following title:
The Antiquities of County Clare,
Ordnance Survey Letters, 1839
by John O'Donovan & Eugene Curry