History
Boher National SchoolHistory of The Boher National School ........ |
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Louth as a CountyLouth as a county is not all that ancient. It dates only from the time of the Anglo-Norman invasions. It was these invaders who drew the present boundaries of Co. Louth and who first used the term 'county'. Before, this land was divided into many principalities of different names - Cuailgne, Fir Rois, Muirthemhne etc. But the name of Louth itself is very old. Louth or Lugmed (as it was then spelt) was the name given by the ancient Celts to the land lying between the Boyne river and the Mourne Mts. Here dagda gave a subterranean palace to Lug (Lugmed) the sun god whose festival was on the first of August and in whose honour the yearly games of Lughnasa were held. (Lughnasa is now the Irish word for August). In the earliest ages the land belonged to Ulster. .jpg) |
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Birth of Carlingford LoughAt the peak of the Ice Age Louth was covered by hundreds of feet of ice while Carlingford Lough area was the terminus of a great glacier that stretched north-westwards across Armagh and Tyrone. Perhaps the dramatic effects of retreating ice still to be seen in the landscapes Carlingford Lough, a natural fjord formed by the effects of the retreating glacier. |
CúchulainnThere are many legends of Co. Louth but perhaps the most famous concerns Cúchulainn and the Brown Bull of Cooley. The Táin Bó Chuailgne is a long saga telling the story of how Queen Maeve of Connacht sent her warriors to capture 'The Brown Bull of Cooley'. Cúchulainn defended Ulster against her armies. A gap in the Cooley mountains known as 'Maeve's Gap' is reportedly to be the place where her army crossed into Cooley. As we all know The Brown Bull returned home and unfortunately died from exhaustion after his escape from Connaught. .jpg) |
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Long Woman's GraveConn O'Hanlon, a local chieftain, on his deathbed called his sons and requested them to divide his land equally between them. The elder son Conn was not faithful to his promise. He brought his younger brother Lorcan to a high point on The Cooley Mountains so that he could possess all of the land that he could see. However he took him to a lug or hollow, from where he could see nothing but rocks. Dissapointed, he set off abroad and became a prosperous merchant. Falling in love with a Spanish princess the pair eloped and returned to Ireland. Appartently she was seven foot tall and locals claim strangely dressed. He bragged that he owned all the land from a certain point in The Cooley Mountains. Intrigued they set off and on arriving at the lug the shock of seeing nothing all around her was too much for her and she fell down dead on the spot. Lorcan himself drowned in a nearby bog. Digging a grave, they buried her, each person throwing a stone on the grave to build a mound or a cáirn. this is known locally as the 'Lug Bhan Fhada'. |