Uisneach Festival of Fire attracts 5000 from around the world
They came from around the world to the Uisneach Festival of Fire on The Hill of Uisneach on Friday evening. It was a special occasion where just over 5000 people of all ages defied the rain and marched along the famous ceremonial road to the sacred and ancient hill in the heart of Ireland, where fire were blazing skywards as in the days of our ancestors. It was a signal and a celebration that summer is coming.
The lighting of the Bealtaine Fire on the Hill of Uisneach is one of Ireland’s oldest traditions.
In ancient times, a great assembly would gather on the hill to witness the fire being lit by the high king of Ireland.
The Bealtaine Fire traditionally marked the arrival of summer in Ireland. In recent years, the tradition has been revived to become one of the key events in the Irish cultural calendar and a great family and community event.
The Hill of Uisneach in has played a part in just about every significant Irish event, be it political, cultural, religious, mythological and geographical. The centre of Ireland in many ways, the enigmatic hill is one of the most sacred and historic sanctuaries in the world.
The roots of Uisneach lie beyond recorded history, but its surviving monuments and relics range in date from the Neolithic, early Bronze Age to the medieval period, indicating human activity spanning some five millennia.
The burial site of the Earth Goddess Ériu and the Sun God Lugh, it was regarded as sacred ground. Uisneach was seen as a gate to the mythical fifth province, Mide, which held the four more familiar provinces together. For centuries, the fifth province was accessed at ‘Aill na Mireann’ (the Stone of Divisions) a sacred, fragmenting limestone boulder on the south west slope of the hill.
A glacial erratic, this six-metre, 30-tonne boulder symbolises Ireland united in its divisions. It has also been known as ‘Umbilicus Hiberniae’, ‘Axis Mundi’, and ‘the Naval of Ireland’.
Today, it is the most famous of more than 40 surviving features on Uisneach, although it is more commonly known as the ‘Catstone’, named so because it resembles a cat watching a mouse. It is under the ‘Catstone’ that Ériu is resting.
Uisneach became the seat of the high kings in later years and ancient texts state it became customary for the claimant to the high throne of Ireland to ‘marry’ Ireland’s founder Ériu at a ceremony on Uisneach.
It was said in ancient times that Uisneach divided Ireland into ‘knowledge in the West, battle in the North, prosperity in the East, music in the South and Royalty at the Centre’ .
When Tara later became the seat of the high kings, Uisneach was still the royal centre of Ireland – the meeting point of the ancient provinces where laws were struck and divisions agreed. It was linked to Tara by a ceremonial road, a section of which remains today.