A Green Queen

Hello La Reina fans, I hope it was a fun Saint Patrick's Day. Now let's get back to Women's History Month.

Who is this woman on the Irish 1 Pound note? What's that, you say, the Irish Pound is mythical, it has been replaced by the Euro? Well the lady here is mythical also. Her name is Queen Maeve (or Medbh in Gaelic spelling).

Queen Maeve is famous, even if she wasn't a real person, or only a fierce goddess with an insatiable appetite for men (husbands are great, every woman should have three). But if that's the case, then who is buried in this huge mound? Someone important, certainly! You'd be famous too for fighting a war over a stud bull.

I'm sure we all have found ourselves drunk and reading through the classic Irish Ulster Cycle. No, just me?

The story of the Táin Bó Cúailnge (Cattle Raid of Cooley) is Maeve at her best. Connacht fought a war with Ulster. Ulster won,but why are we being so negative?

As Queen of Connacht, Maeve quarreled with her husband Ailill about who was the richer. To settle it, they had their accountants compare all their possessions--coin to coin, jewel to jewel, slave to slave, etc. It came down to the cattle. When their vast herds were counted and compared, it was found that that they were of equal quality and quantity, except that Ailill had a great bull which Maeve could not match. Maeve soon learned of an even better bull in Ulster, but her efforts to borrow it failed. Determined to take it by force Maeve, supported (for some reason) by Ailill, gathered a great army and invaded Ulster. The Tain describes the many great battles and glorious deeds of this war. Suffice it to say that the Ulstermen drove the Connacht army out of their lands, but not before Maeve captured the great bull she sought. The Ulster bull was taken to Connacht where it fought Ailill's bull, killed it, then wandered home unimpeded to Ulster.

Now, let's all thank the Irish for saving civilization.

-E.M.

Thanks to Paul Burns on the Sligo County genealogy site for some of this information.