"Howth" Howth Travelogue by Lochlainn

Irish mythology is largely split into two great cycles - the Northern and the Southern. The Northern abounds with 'go it alone' heroes like Cu Chulainn who single handedly defended the assault on Ulster by Maeve's armies - the Southern centres on the exploits of a gang of mercenaries called Na Fianna, under the leadership of Fionn McCumhaill who never seemed to claim lordship over the land even though they were all possessed of superhuman strengths and skills, but seemed instead to treat this island as their playground. In the southern cycle Ireland is purely the backdrop against which they conducted their personal dramas - illicit sexual unions, wars against man and monster, and most of all good plain carousing! The Fianna were famous for their parties (so that's where we got it from!) and one of their own favourite party locations was Beann Eadair - the Headland of Eadar, renamed by the more pedantic Viking invaders as "Hoved" (meaning Head) and which eventually became pronounced as Howth.

(I took this photo when I was 14 years old walking across Howth Head on a winter's evening)

As with all wild parties it was only a matter of time before there were tears! According to legend Etain (pronounced Aideen) - wife of Oscar (son of Oisín) - had the hots for Fionn and divorced her husband in order to spend the rest of her natural with the Fianna's leader (sigh). She announced this before all and sundry at one of these wild hoolies up on Howth Head, only to be publicly informed by Fionn that he'd only been teasing her (men!) and her gesture of giving up all rights to her herd and land, while very amusing was actually rather silly! Etain did what any sensible heroine does in such situations. She took herself off to the cliffs overlooking Dublin Bay and flung herself into the tide.

The legend continues that the Fianna - a bit embarassed by their leader's crassness - did the decent thing. They retrieved her corpse and buried her on the sheltered side of the hill. The collapsed dolmen still remains and is still called after the silly bint. Whoever was really buried there remains a mystery however. An archaeological dig found that the site had been excavated already, probably in antiquity, and whoever or whatever had been placed beneath the stones had long since vanished. The dolmen itself is now contained within the wild, and beautiful, gardens of Howth Castle.

When the Normans invaded eastern Ireland Howth was one of the first parcels of land allocated to the new landlords. The St Lawrence family became (and remain to this day) the Lords of Howth, naming themselves after the saint's day on which they 'acquired' their ill gotten estate. What they inherited was a small fishing village, a lot of arable land, and two important local ecclesiastical sites - that of the Abbey of St Mary on the mainland and the hermitage of St Nessan on a little offshore island now rather euphemistically entitled Ireland's Eye. In the photo you can also see it's neighbouring island, Lambay, which bears the dubious distinction of being the first piece of Irish soil ransacked and claimed by the Normans' land grabbing predecessors, the Vikings.

When the St Lawrences established their landlordship they built two small castles, or 'keeps' - one on the isthmus of Sutton that just about prevents Howth from being an island, and the other on the village's shore where the east pier now stands. After a few hundred years however they reckoned it was safe enough to move a bit inland and built themselves Howth Castle. One of their early uninvited guests was the pirate queen Grace O'Malley (Grainne Mhaol) who landed in the harbour and proceeded straight up to the castle demanding bed and breakfast from those she considered her peers. Lord Howth rather stupidly told her to sod off, so she did what any full blooded pirate queen should, she kidnapped his son and whisked him off in her ship to her headquarters in Clew Bay on the west coast! Her ransom was simple - that any stranger knocking on the castle door looking for lodging would get a dinner and an offer of a bed. Lord Howth took his time giving in to the demand (legend has it that his son left Howth a five year old Norman and came back a young man speaking only Irish) but did eventually, and tradition in the family to this day is that an extra place is set at the dining table every evening for 'enexpected guests'.

Howth harbour itself has enjoyed a rather checkered history. Benefitting from the fact that Dublin port itself was prone to silting, Howth and Ringsend became
the disembarkation points for visitors to the capital, from Norman times right up to the reign of the English queen Victoria. Its importance nose dived however when the port of Dun Laoghaire was developed on the southside and the all important mailboat switched its terminus to the new harbour. The harbour reverted to its traditional purpose, as base for a large fleet of fishing vessels. It was on such a vessel, the Asgard, that a large haul of German arms used in the Easter Rising were landed here in 1914 and distributed by the IRA.

Howth is a geologist's dream. For such a tiny tombola type peninsula it has a lot of evidence of cataclysmic events in earth's early formation. The juxtaposition, side by side, of quartzite rock with limestone (rocks formed 200 million years apart) is proof of a massive earthquake that churned up this part of the globe some 280 million years ago. The fault line stretches right up through the Scottish highlands and the same event left similar evidence as far away as Norway. Quite a tremor! Erosion has shaped the limestone into many craggy formations - this one being Mush Rock in the castle grounds, a great vantage point from which to view Dublin. No great mystery about the name by the way - early maps indicate the area as 'much rocks'!

Howth is a thriving village, still host to a fishing fleet, but also to a rather conspicuous yacht club, several restaurants and a large tract of land managed by the National Trust traversing the ancient headland. Access from Dublin city is quite handy - the number 31 bus route and the Dart train service both have their terminus there.