Crom Cruach

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In the pre-Christian Irish pantheon, Crom Cruach (alternative spellings Crom Crúaich, Cromm Crúaich, Crom Cróich, Cromm Cruach, Cenn Cruach, Crom Cruagh, Crom Crooach, Crom Cruaidh, Ceancroitihi, Crom Dubh, Black Crom and as Crom-cruaghair, the great Creator, he has, by some writers, been identified with the Persian Kerum Kerugher) was the chief god of Ireland. He was both a solar deity and a fertility deity.

The ancient texts tell us that there was an idol on Magh Slécht, which is the plain of adoration or prostration, in the Parish of Templeport, County Cavan, Ulster named Crom Cruach. His statue was an upright stone pillar coated in gold and silver (to symbolise the sun and moon) and surrounded by twelve smaller statues of bare stone or covered in bronze (according to different sources). This alignment would have represented the sun surrounded by the signs of the zodiac.

It was claimed by later chroniclers that on the annual feast of Samhain (later renamed Halloween, November 1), his followers sacrificed one third of their firstborn to him in exchange for milk, corn, the fertility of cattle and a fertile growing season.

The tradition of offering the firstborn to a god was still continued by the Christian priests, successors to the Crom priests, at least as late as the 8th century AD. See "The Collection of Tithes in Ireland", [1] and also the poem of St. Grellan in "The Tribes and Customs of Hy-Many" (page 13). [2]

Crom Cruach's worship was said to have been introduced by the High King Tigernmas. One Samhain night, during prostration, the king and 4,000 of his followers died from a plague contracted there, called "The Seventh Plague of Ireland". Only about 1,500 survived.

According to contemporary sources, St. Patrick cursed and destroyed the idol and stopped the worship of Crom Cruach. However, it has been shown that the stones sunk in the earth before the time of St. Patrick, so this was probably just an anecdote.

The Masraige tribe were the inhabitants of Magh Slécht at the time of St. Patrick. It was this tribe who supplied the ancient Druids and High Priests of the god Crom Cruach and their successors, the Christian priests. Saint Dallan Forgaill, the Chief Ollamh or Poet of Ireland, was a member of the tribe. They survived at least until the coming of the Ui Bhriuin in 700 A.D. who then dispossessed them and took control of Tullyhaw. The word Masraige means "Kings of Death", which may be related to their worship of Crom. The name of Tigernmas, the high king who is said to have introduced Crom's worship, also translates as "Lord of Death".

There is another standing stone also named Crom Crúaich in Drumcoo townland, County Fermanagh. It has the figure of a man walking engraved on it which either represents Saint Patrick or a druid, depending on when it was engraved.

Crom is mentioned in the Dinnshenchas in the Book of Leinster, as well as the Tripartite Life of Patrick and the 14th century Book of McGovern.

He may be the same as the Clogher idol Cermand Cestach.

Alternative: Cromm Cruac ("bloody crescent"), Cenn Cruaic ("bloody head"), rid-iodal h-Éireann ("the king idol of Ireland").

[edit] Archaeology

The Crom stone was rediscovered in 1921 buried in the ground beside a stone circle on a nearby mound from where it had been moved. It had been smashed into several pieces, some of which lay nearby. When excavated and placed upright on its flat base, it was found to lean obliquely to the left from the vertical. This has been linked to the translation of Crom Cruaich as the "bent or crooked one of the mound". It was decorated in the 1st century BC with "La Tène" symbols in the "Waldalgesheim Style", but the stone circle was erected much earlier, in the Early Irish Bronze Age, c. 2000 BC.

The stone has been interpreted as a phallic symbol, like the similar Turoe Stone in County Galway. [3]. Although now much damaged, it can be reconstructed from the different surviving pieces. At the base of the stone there were four rectangular adjoining panels measuring 90 cm each in width giving a circumference of 3m 60 cm when it was first carved. The height of each panel was about 75 cm. These panels are said to represent the foreskin of the penis. [4] The top of the stone (perhaps representing the glans of the penis) was carved in parallel lines. [5] Connecting the top with the panels was a blank triangular section representing the triangular piece of skin attaching the foreskin to the penis.

The stone was named the Killycluggin Stone, after the townland where it was found, and is now in Cavan Museum. A replica is situate at the roadside in Killycluggin. Beside the mound is Kilnavert Church, which was founded by St. Patrick to eradicate the worship of Crom in the area. It was originally named Fossa Slécht or Rath Slécht, and it is from this small location that the wider Magh Slécht area received its name. There is also a Tobar Padraig (St. Patrick's Well) nearby, as also described in the ancient manuscripts.

The 14th century Book of McGovern, written in Magh Slécht, contains a poem which states that Crom was situate at Kilnavert beside the road and that the local women used to tremble in fear as they passed by. There is still a local tradition in the area that the Killycluggin stone is the Crom stone and all the manuscript sources confirm this.

The symbols on the stone have been variously interpreted as (1)the Sun and Moon (2) as sperm (3) as channels for the blood from sacrifices, human or animal, to flow down with the path of the blood being read as an oracle by the druids (4) as a penile tattoo.

The cult of Crom is still fashionable today. A street in Belcoo, County Fermanagh is named Crom Crúaich Way in his honour. There is even a mountain in Australia named after him "Mount Cenn Cruaich" in Warrumbungle National Park. A popular novel was published about modern human sacrifice in Cavan, entitled "Cromm" by Kenneth Flint, Doubleday 1990. John Montague the poet has a poem "The Plain of Blood" about Crom. Thomas D'Arcy Magee wrote a famous poem in the 19th century called "The Celts", which mentions Crom. A type of Scottish harp is named crom-chruit because of its shape.

[edit] References

The following sources may be consulted for further information-

• Tirechan's memoir of St. Patrick, written in 670 AD, known as the "Breviarium", which is preserved in the Book of Armagh. Tirechan used notes given to him by his teacher St. Ultan of Ardbraccan; as Ultan died in 657 AD after a very long life, he may have known people who knew St. Patrick.
• The Tripartite Life of Patrick, written c. 895 AD from older sources.
• The Metrical Dindshenchas. The first recension is found in the 12th century manuscript the Book of Leinster, with partial survivals in a number of other manuscript sources. The text shows signs of having been compiled from a number of provincial sources and the earliest poems date from at least the 11th century. Internal evidence suggests the majority of the poems have a pre-Christian origin. Two poems (7 & 71) on Magh Slécht can be found online. [6]
• The Book of McGovern, written in the 13th century by poets living in Magh Slécht.
• Excavations at Killycluggin- (1. Ó Ríordáin, S.P. 1952. Fragment of the Killycluggin Stone. J. Roy. Soc. Antiq. Ireland 82, 68. (2. 1974 by B. Raftery, Department of Archaeology, University College, Dublin. (A short synopsis of the full report can be found online.) [7]
• Geoffrey Keating's History of Ireland 1632 [8] , (Section XXV, 25)
• Annals of the Four Masters
• For the continued worshipping of Crom up to the 20th century in Ireland, see Festival at Lughnasa (Oxford Univ. Press, 1962) by Máire Mac Neill.
• "Killinagh Church and Crom Cruaich" by Oliver Davies in Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Volume 2, 1939.

[edit] Texts

• Mag Slecht from the Metrical Dindshenchas Vol 4