If at some stage you happen to be in Ballyjamesduff, then take a moment and go around to the County Museum. On entering the building, enquire as to where you can view the Killycluggin stone. Why, I hear you ask? Well, at first sight, the Killycluggin is just a decorated boulder; but on a darker level, it may have been a representation of a cruel and dreadful god that our Cavan ancestors were subjected to.
Crom Cruach
On thumbing through Daragh Smyth’s, Guide to Irish Mythology, I happened to notice a section on Crom Cruach. Smyth in quoting the Dindshencas, informs us that this ancient god was ‘the principal idol of all colonies established in Ireland from earliest times to the sweep of Christianity.’ In Co. Cavan, Crom Cruach was represented in the form of a stone idol which stood on a hill known as Magh Sleacht, near to Ballymagauran. The Crom Cruach stone was positioned amongst twelve other stones. As the primary idol, Crom Cruach was embossed in gold while the remaining eleven were decorated in silver.
Corn god
In those far off days, crop failure was to put it bluntly, a sentence of death. Crom Cruach was classed as a corn god. So what was a corn god? The ancients believed that he was a being who if appeased might provide a bountiful supply of milk and corn for the coming year, or alternatively, he would turn angry and vengeful. Even if Crom was in the best of humours, there was still alot at stake for both human and animal alike during worship. There was a price to pay for Crom’s help and it came in the form of a sacrifice of one-third of all healthy issue of first-born people and animals. Others, would rub their noses to the bone against the Crom Cruach stone with the assurance that food supplies would now be plentiful. The activities on Magh Sleacht have been likened to a ‘Dionysian Cult of ancient Greece’ and on that level, they do not sound so different to the activities of the Aztec tribes.
St. Patrick
However, this barbaric practise was soon put to an end when St. Patrick was said to have tossed the Crom Cruach into a large hole. A festival, known as Chrom Dubh (black god) Sunday, was established to celebrate the defeat of this idol. Now, the story does not quite end here. In 1900, a farmer was said to have used explosives to remove partially buried rocks in a field which included the aforementioned Killycluggin stone. In 1974, the Killycluggin and its fragments were removed to the National Museum in Dublin. The stone is decorated in swirling designs that are classed as La Tene, a style used in the Iron-Age. Eventually, the Killycluggin was returned to Cavan when the County Museum opened in 1996.
Finally, if you do visit the museum, just be careful of what you wish for when you meet that rock.
