Paul Gosling
(Independent Researcher)

Cúchulainn and the Standing Stone OR How to Ground Verify a Myth

The townland of Rathiddy in north Louth is graced by an impressive prehistoric monolith labelled 'Cloghafarmore' by the OS maps. From the latter part of the 19th century, a series of writers have sought to equate this location with the  story of the death of Cúchulainn, the youthful hero of the medieval Ulster Cycle stories. This talk re-traces the cultural process by which an anonymous monument has been inscribed with a nationalist cultural identity.

Death of Cúchulainn by Stephen Reid 1909.

Cloghafarmore by Paul Lynch 2015.

PAUL GOSLING is an archaeologist who lectures part-time in the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology. He is the author of several papers on the topographic and toponymic aspects of Táin Bó Cúailnge (TBC) including 'The route of Táin Bó Cúailnge revisited' (Emania No. 22: 2014) and a series of Heritage Guides on the route of TBC: Louth (No. 69: 2015), Roscommon and Longford' (No. 75: 2016) and most recently, Westmeath and Meath' (No. 86: 2019). His latest publication, 'Cloghafarmore alias Cúchulainn's Stone, Co. Louth: its topographic setting', has just appeared in the County Louth Archaeological & Historical Journal (Vol. 29, 2 (2018)).