Keash

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Keash possibly hosts the most abundant collection of ancient sacred sites in Ireland. To start, it is the site of 5 early Celtic Christian monastic sites and churches within a mile radius. It is said that most of the Celtic Christian saints spent time here such as Columcille,St. Kevin and St. Patrick. Toomour was also said to be the resting place of the kings and chieftains who fell in the "Battle Of Ceis Chorann in 971.

The local priest, Brother Thomas Connelly, has been quite a researcher in the local heritage, sites and spirituality. Brother Thomas and the local community have created and built a wonderful information plaque in the village at Toomour, the centre of a monastic site where St. Kevin was ordained, the saint who founded the monastic site of Glendalough where I have just moved from.

There is much pre-Christian history here with an abundance of cairns and tombs dating back as far as 7500 BC. The area is full of standing stones, that the locals today still use as "prayer stones". There are several ballaun stones that the locals refer to as healing stones.

A major annual festival of Lughnasa is still held here as it has done every year since around 1800 BC which combines sport, music and dance with a pilgrimage climb of the Kesh Corran, as it is spelled today, mountain. Today this is held on the last Sunday of July rather than the original cross quarter day of around August 4th. The locals now call this festival "Garland Sunday".

The legends founded around Keash are certainly the most abundant in Ireland with most of them involving the famous and beautiful white limestone entrance "Caves Of Kesh Corran" above the village.

The earliest is probably the legend of Tuatha De Dannan harper, Corran. A giant sow was terrorizing Ireland and causing widespread destruction. Nobody could catch and kill it but Corran sent it to sleep with his harp playing so the hunters could finally kill it. It is said that Kesh Corran mountain is the hardened carcass of this sow, but the mountain is much older than the story.

Corran was rewarded with what is now Kesh Corran mountain and the surrounding plains. It is believed that Kesh comes from the word Ceis which is said to mean "ground bass", a style of droning harp playing unique to Ireland and a musical style that was eventually taught all over Europe. It is a style that is said to have been developed by St. Kevin of Glendalough but St. Kevin was ordained below Kesh Corran. I suspect Corran developed the style which was passed on to other harpers in the area and then St. Kevin made it famous.

The bass drone was probably inspired by the droning sound of the wind through the caves. However, the giant sow was also known as Cael Ceis so the hill may have been named after her. The same word may well have been applied to the later droning music style. The imagination can wander with this story.

More famous is the Kesh Corran caves being the final hiding place of Diarmuid and Grainne. King Cormac MacArt arranged for his daughter to marry Fionn Mac Cool, a man much older than Grainne. Instead Grainne fell in love with one of Fionn's soldiers, Diarmuid and they ran away together. Fionn chased them around the country but eventually peace was created when Diarmuid managed to pay Fionn with cattle, which was valuable currency then. For many years Diamuid and Grainne lived in peace farming on the plains west of Kesh Corran. There's a lot more to that story, of course.

King Cormac was one of Ireland's most popular kings with legends very parallel to King Arthur of England. It is said that Cormac Mac Art and his soldiers are asleep within Kesh Corran ready to awake when Ireland needs them.

The legends of the Tuatha De Dannan, which provided much inspiration for Lord Of The Rings, includes a story of the Milesians driving the Tuatha De Dannan underground through the Caves Of Kesh. However, through the years after the Milesians experienced famine and disease. They formed a treaty with the Tuatha De Dannan to rise from the underground, as spirits, or The Sidhe, pronounced Shee, and join them. The Caves Of Kesh are often still thought of as the entry to the underground, the "middle earth", Tir na Nog, etc.