"Islands and daring sea forts"

Dun Aengus: Promontory Fort by Atlantic's foam

Perched on the largest of the three Aran Islands - Inis Mor - off the west coast of Ireland, is a defense fort by the cliff, properly called a Promontory Fort in archaeological parlance. This is a spectacular stone fortification which overlooks the foaming Atlantic below! Others can be seen on the west coast of Ireland - around the Dingle Peninsula particularly - and there are one or two others on Inis Mor but this one is particularly famous and well known! Dated to circa 1,000 BC, it's not known why it was constructed save that the builders clearly felt under threat from the sea and marauders coming in from the Atlantic. Some theorists attribute it to the mythical Fir Bolg - who according to the chronicles, after defeat by the Tuatha De Danaan, were allowed to take refuge in Connacht (the west), as part of the peace treaty after the battle. Hence, the legends dictate that the Fir Bolg retreated to the west! The one thing archaeologists are adamant about is that there is some Iberian connection, and as I've alluded to before in some posts in this blog, there are undoubtedly connections between Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula, which re-inforce the many references in the myths.

My first visit here was back in 1993, and permit me to digress a little here - for on that trip, I got one of the worst sun burnings I've ever had (my last one!). The Atlantic breezes tend to be very warm, and a hot torrent wafts ashore from the west! Anyway.... It was an amazing feeling when first getting to Dun Aengus - in the days, much like Newgrange, when heritage sites were yet to be commercialised - I was able to walk straight up into the fort, without having to go through the omnipresent Visitor's/Intrepretive Centre, which cropped up at many places in the late 90's! Lying over the edge, was a spectacular experience; the crazy and whimsical idea I had, of throwing the football I had with me, into the herculean Atlantic below, to see if it would float out to sea, an example of youthful and capricious exuberance, as if the lady of caprice was waving her mantle or cape avidly for me there!

The name of the fort is interesting - Dun Aengus - Aengus's Fort - and making a beeline for the mythology, the permutations are interesting. For, of course, Newgrange is often called "Aengus's Tomb or Palace" - in fact, that's what it's known as in the mythology - Aengus being the son of the male deity, the Dagda; Aengus the Gaelic God of love - him of the famous Song of Wandering Aengus by WB Yeats. So does the fort have some connection to Aengus? Certainly, the view from here of the Atlantic below and the elliptical angle of the cliff, as elliptical as the curve a half moon makes, would fertilise the most banal muse and feed the most barren mind into fertile and inspiring creativity! So as an aside, apart from its clear defensive purposes, perhaps it's meant to be a kind of romantic refuge or bastion! (Of course, in the days of yore, when it was noncommercialised - just like Newgrange - one could walk up to it, stay as long as one wished, contemplate, meditate and let the eloquence and muse drift in, from the Atlantic!!)

At the entrance to Dun Aengus promontory stone fort; on my third and final visit 2002

                                                                       
Notwithstanding the now commercialised nature of the site, to actually see those limestone walls and stonework, the very impressively built structure of this promontory fort, and to gaze out at the broad and billowing Atlantic - foaming felicitously and powerfully, gives one a great insight, into why the land of Ireland, the island of Eireann, has mystery and mystique laced all over it like an embroidered quilt, embroidered intricately! In addition, to merely stand there at quite possibly the most westerly point of Europe is awesome in itself! Visions of pirates or ancient marauders surrounding the cliffs, seeking a hornet's nest, the cliff's face and nooks and crannies being eked out, for some vantage point to come ashore, spring to mind and send the thinker into overdrive; visions like a scene from an Errol Flynn film or an ancient equivalent of Pirates of the Caribbean - renaming it "Pirates of the Atlantic" - and the descriptions in the annals and mythology of the sea pirates called the Fomorians come to mind; visions of the mythical "Tir na Nog" (the land of eternal youth), all break out of the shell of legend as through the Atlantic squalls and the Aran Island's mists! Dun Aengus Promontory Fort is a hill fort with a difference.

PS For the definitive and authoritative guide to megalithic and archaeological monuments in Ireland:

Pre-Christian Ireland by Professor Peter Harbison is recommended;

And in addition The Stones of Time by Martin Brennan;

www.stonepages.com