In the 1860s, Eugene O'Curry, published a collection of his Lectures on The Manuscript Materials of Early Irish History. The work remains a useful and valuable resource, and in Lecture XX, the author examines the prophecies concerning the Feastday of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist:
So far I have led you through the chief part of the foundations upon which have been built the various compositions long concerning spoken of and referred to as the popular " Irish Prophecies” , as well as of some few that have not, I believe, been ever before brought into public notice. In place of entering into any further discussion upon their antiquity or authenticity, I shall now proceed to add a few more specific references, which may throw some light on the often-mentioned Roth Ramhach, or Rowing Wheel, the Broom out of Fanait, and the fatal day of the Festival of John the Baptist, so often and so mysteriously spoken of in the old MSS.
That these were fanciful names for threatened visitations of the Divine vengeance, which were to afflict the people unless they repented of their imputed sins and iniquities (threats of vengeance, which might be held in terror over evil doers for ever, no matter how long after they may have from time to time been apparently verified, or stated to have been so), will I think, appear clearly enough, from the few short articles which I now propose to lay before you.
The first of these articles is an extract from the life of St. Adamnan, who died in the year 703. Of this extract, the following is a literal translation [see original in Appendix, No. CXLIX.] :—
" Two of the various gifts of St. Adamnan were preaching and instruction. He preached in the last year of his life, that a pestilence would come upon the men of Erinn and of Scotland, at the ensuing festival of St. John.
" At this time an unknown young man was in the habit of visiting St. Colman of Cruachan Aigle, [Cruach Patraic,] a spiritual director of Connacht. And the young man related many wonderful things to Colman, and asked him if Adamnan had not predicted a pestilence to the men of Erinn and Scotland at the ensuing festival of St. John. The prediction is not true, said Colman. It is true, said the young man, and the pestilence shall be fulfilled by the death of Adamnan himself at this approaching St. John's festival".
And the life goes on to say, that the prediction was in fact so verified by the death of St. Adamnan on the 23rd of September in that year, three weeks after the festival of the beheading of John the Baptist (29th August); and that this was felt by the men of Erinn and Scotland as the greatest calamity that could befall them.
This would appear to have been the real origin and verification of the St. John's festival prediction; though succeeding dealers in prophecies, like those of the present day, found it their interest, or their inclination, to give new interpretations.
At some period subsequent to the Danish Invasion, this prophecy of St. Adamnan was put into a more formal shape, and written and preached under the title of Adamnan's vision. Of this piece called Adamnan's vision, which is very short, there is a beautiful copy in Latin, with a Gaedhlic commentary, preserved in the Leabhar Mor Duna Doighre (or Leabhar Breac), in the Royal Irish Academy, and a fragment, on paper, in the library of Trinity College. The whole tract makes more than one of the closely and beautifully written pages of the Leabhar Mor Duna Doighre. The following is the text of the vision and its title [see original in Appendix, No. CL.]:
" The vision which Adamnan—a man filled with the Holy Spirit—saw, that is, the angel of the Lord spoke these His [that is, the Lord's] words to him:
"Woe ! woe ! woe ! to the men of Erinn's Isle who transgress the commands of the Lord. Woe ! to the kings and princes who do not direct the truth, and who love both iniquity and rapine. Woe! to the prostitutes and the sinners, who shall be burned like hay and straw, by a fire ignited in the bissextile and intercalary year, and in the end of the cycle. And it is on the [festival of the] beheading of John the Baptist, on the sixth day of the week, that this plague will come, in that year, if [the people] by devout penitence do not prevent it as the people of Nineveh have done".
So far the vision, which is immediately followed by an explanation of the cause and character of this fearful visitation, and the mode of warding it off. The substance of this explanation may be summed up as follows:
It was to Adamnan, it informs us, that were revealed all the plagues, mortalities, and destructions by foreigners which were to afflict Erinn in consequence of the iniquities of her people. Dreadful would be the plagues that were to come if they did not repent, namely, a flame of fire that would purify from the south-west: and that was to be the fire which would burn the three-fourths of the men of Erinn in the twinkling of an eye,—men, women, boys, and girls. Of all the plagues that were to afflict the nation,—disease, famine, foreign invasion, and destruction,—this terrible fire of St. John's festival would be the last and most destructive. The people are then charged with the crimes of theft, falsehood, murder, fratricide, adultery, destruction of churches and clergy, charms, incantations, and all sorts of wickedness, excepting alone the worship of idols. This catalogue of imputed crimes is then followed by an earnest inculcation of the mode of warding off the fiery visitation of St. John's festival, in accordance with the testament of St. Patrick and St. Adamnan, and after the example of the people of Nineveh and several others of sacred history. And this was to be done by a total change of life, by fasting and praying, and giving large and liberal alms to the poor and the churches.
There can, I think, be little doubt but that this piece was written after the great mortalities of the seventh and eighth centuries, the Buidhe chonnaill and Crom chonnaill , and even after the total overthrow of the Danish power in the year 1014, but before the Anglo-Norman Invasion was so much as thought of. The ecclesiastics of this time were expert calculators of cycles, and they availed themselves here of an ancient prediction (if, indeed, it was ancient), threatening a fiery visitation when the festival of the Beheading of John the Baptist (that is, the 29th day of August) should fall on a Friday near the end of what I must believe to be a cycle of the Epact. Now the number of the Epact for the year 1096 was 23, so that a cycle of the Epact terminated that year. In that year also the Decollation of St. John the Baptist fell on a Friday. And this conjunction had not happened, I believe, from the time of the Danish supremacy until this year of 1096. This year of 1096 was besides a bissextile, or leap-year. We have already seen, from the Annals of the Four Masters at this year, how strictly in accordance with the instructions laid down in this tract was the course recommended by the clergy of that period and acted on by both laity and clergy. And so we may, think, fairly assume that this version of the vision of St. Adamnan was written (at least in its present form) immediately or shortly before that year, although it is possible that a portion of it, or perhaps some version of the entire, may have been uttered or written many generations before. And the probability of this “Vision” being of the date I assign to it., is further sustained by the fact that the language is not of a more ancient character.
It appears certain, from the Life of St. Adamnan, that his prophecy respecting the St. John's festival amounted only to the prediction of a simple pestilence or calamity, and that this prophecy was believed to have been fulfilled in his own death. At what time this simple calamity was magnified into a flame of fire which would burn to cinders three-fourths of the people, from the south of Erinn to the Mediterranean Sea, and back again from Fanait (in Donegal) to Cork, it would be curious and instructive to inquire; and it is fortunate that we have, in the same Leabhar Mor Duna Doighre, a short article, giving such an origin to this fiery visitation as will, I am satisfied, take it for ever out of the catalogue of inspired predictions, as well as another short article, which, in my opinion, clearly identifies the " Fiery Dragon" with the so-called " Broom out of Fanait". The following literal translation of the first of these little tracts will be found as curious in its topographical as in its legendary interest [see original in Appendix, No. CLII.]:
" It is in the reign of Flann Cinaidh [Ginach, or " the voracious"] that the Rowing-Wheel, and the Broom out of Fanaid, and the Fiery Bolt, shall come.
Cliach was the harper of Smirdubh Mac Small, king of the three Rosses of Sliabh Ban [in Connacht]. Cliach set out on one occasion to seek the hand in marriage of one of the daughters of Bodhbh Derg, of the [fairy] palace of Femhen [in Tipperary]. He continued a whole year playing his harp, on the outside of the palace, without being able to approach nearer to Bodhbh, so great was his [necromantic] power; nor did he make any impression on the daughter. However, he continued to play on until the ground burst under his feet, and the lake which is on the top of the mountain, sprang up in the spot: that is Loch Bel Sead. The reason why it was called Loch Bel Sead, was this:
" Coerabar boeth, the daughter of Etal Anbuail of the fairy mansions of Connacht, was a beautiful and powerfully gifted maiden. She had three times fifty ladies in her train. They were all transformed every year into three times fifty beautiful birds, and restored to their natural shape the next year. These birds were chained in couples by chains of silver. One bird among them was the most beautiful of the world's birds, having a necklace of red gold on her neck, with three times fifty chains depending from it, each chain terminating in a ball of gold. During their transformation into birds, they always remained on Loch Crotta Cliach [that is, the Lake of Cliach's Harps], wherefore the people who saw them were in the habit of saying: ' Many is the bead [that is, a gem; a jewel, or other precious article] at the mouth of Loch Crotta this day'. And hence it is called Loch Bel Sead, [or the Lake of the Jewel Mouth.]
" It was called also Loch Bel Dragain, [or the Dragon-Mouth Lake]; because Ternog's nurse caught a fiery dragon in the shape of a salmon, and St. Fursa induced her to throw it into Loch Bel Sead. And it is that dragon that will come in the festival of St. John, near the end of the world, in the reign of Flann Cinaidh. And it is of it and out of it shall grow the Fiery Bolt which will kill three-fourths of the people of the world, men and women, boys and girls, and cattle, as far as the Mediterranean Sea eastwards. And it is on that account it is called the Dragon-Mouth Lake.
" Cliach the Harper, now, always played upon two harps at the same time; and hence the name Crotta Cliach [the Harps of Cliach—Cruit being the Irish for a harp], and Sliabh Crott, [or the Mountain of the Harps, on the top of which the lake of Cliach's Harps is still to be seen].
" It was of this fiery bolt that St. Moling was preaching when predicting the St. John's festival, when he said,
" O great God [O great God],
May I obtain my two requests,
That my soul be with angels in bliss,
That the flaming bolt catch me not.
In John's festival will come an assault,
Which will traverse Erinn from the south-west;
A furious dragon which will burn all before it,
Without communion, without sacrament.
As a black dark troop will they burst in flames.
They will die like verbal sounds;
One alone out of hundreds
Of them all shall but survive.
From Dun Cearmna to Sruibh Brain,
It will search; and to the Mediterranean Sea, eastwards;
A furious, flaming dragon, full of fire;
It shall spare but only a fourth part.
Woe to whom it reaches, woe him who awaits it,
Woe to those who do not ward off the plague;
The Tuesday upon which the festival falls,—
It were well to avert it in time.
One shall tell the precise time
When the Lord shall bring all this to pass;
Five days of spring after Easter,
Five years before the mortality.
A time will come beside this,
When in a bissextile year;
A Friday upon a cycle, woe who sees.
Oh ! the fiery plague may I not see !"
Such, then, was the purely fabulous origin of the Fiery Bolt which was to burn three-fourths of the men of Erinn from the south-west.
You will remember that this version of St. Moling's prediction of the festival of St. John differs considerably from the version of it already given. In his poem on the succession of the kings of Leinster, the time of its fulfilment is referred to some indefinite period after the appearance of the Roth Ramhach (the Rowing, or Oar Wheel) ; whilst here its occurrence is particularly laid down in five years after the year in which the festival falls on Tuesday in the same year in which Easter Sunday should happen five days before the end of spring, that is, on the 25th of April. This combination of these festivals has never since occurred, even to the present time ; for, although Easter Sunday fell upon the 25th of April in the years 482, 672, 919, 1014, 1204, 1451, and 1546, yet the 29th of August did not happen to fall upon a Tuesday in any of these years, nor in the fifth year after any of them, so that the would-be prophet would appear to have miscalculated his time, or the prediction is yet to be fulfilled !
Having thus laid before you all that I have been able to collect relative to the origin of the Rowing Wheel, and the prediction respecting the festival of the Decollation of St. John, as well as the use made of them in after ages, and having expressed my own decided opinion, that these never were real prophecies or inspired predictions at all, I shall now pass to the third of this group of foretold misfortunes, namely, the Scuap a Fanait, or " Broom to come out of Fanait" (in Donegal).
You will remember that in the poem on the succession of the kings of Leinster, ascribed to St. Moling, who died in the year 696, the saint is made to predict that
" The broom out of Fanait will be severe
Over the centre of Erinn : from the north -west
To the sea in the south it shall make its course,
And bring direful woe to the people of Cork".
And in the second place he says it will come on a Tuesday.
It will be seen from the following note on the festival of the Beheading of John the Baptist, in the Festology of Aengus Сéilé Dé (preserved in the same Leabhar Mor Duna Doighré) that this calamity, like the Fiery Bolt, was to afflict Erinn in revenge of the decapitation of the man who baptized the Saviour. Thus runs this curious note [see original in Appendix, No. CLIII.] :
" It is in revenge for the death of John the Baptist that the Broom will come out of Fanait to purify Erinn towards the end of the world, as it was foretold by Aireran the Wise, and by Colum Cillé, and it is on Tuesday in particular the Broom out of Fanait will come, as Colum Cillé said : ' Like unto the grazing of a pair of horses in a yoke, so shall be the closeness with which it will cleanse Erinn'.
" Thus saith Aireran, of the Broom : 'There will be two alehouses within the one close, side by side. The man who goes out of the one into the other shall find no one alive in the house into which he goes, and neither shall he find any one alive in the house out of which he went, on his return to it. such shall be the rapidity with which the Broom comes out of Fanait.
" Thus saith Riaghail [on the same subject] : ' Three days and three nights over a year shall this plague remain in Erinn. When a ship can be seen on Loch Rúdhraidhé, from the door of the refectory, it is then the Broom out of Fanait shall come. A Tuesday, too, after Easter, in spring, will be the day upon which the Broom shall issue from Fanait, to avenge the death of John the Baptist' ".
We have here three different persons predicting, as we are told, the Broom out of Fanait, besides St. Moling, whose prediction of it we have noticed twice already. St. Colum Cillé is made to say that it would come on a Tuesday. St. Airerán the Wise docs not specify any particular day or season ; and he himself, I may observe, died of the plague which was called Buidhe chonnaill, in 664 ; but St. Riaghail gives a Tuesday in spring, after Easter, as the day of its appearance, " when a ship could be seen on Loch Rúdhraidhé from the door of the [his] Refectory". The Loch Rúdhraidhé mentioned here, is the present bay of Dundrum, in the county of Down ; and St.Riaghail's refectory and church were situated on the east side of this bay, near its mouth, where the name is still preserved in the parish of Tyrella, properly Teach Riaghala, or Riagail's house or church.
The reference to a Tuesday after Easter in spring, given by St. Riaghail as the day on which the Broom was to come, is not precise enough to enable us to understand what Tuesday is meant ; and it is evident that there is something left out in the note from which it is taken. There can scarcely be any doubt that it was intended to agree with St. Moling's time for the coming of the Fiery Bolt : that is, when the 29th of August, the feast of the Decollation of John the Baptist, should fall on a Tuesday, and Easter Sunday within five days of the end of spring.
The probable fact would appear to me to be, that when the Fiery Bolt was, by some southern prophet of disaster, threatened to flash from Dan Cearmna [now called the Old Head of Kinsale, in the county of Cork] to Sruibh Brain [or Loch Foyle, in Inis Eoghain], that is, from the southern to the northern extremity of the island, — some northern rival afterwards took it upon himself to return the compliment, and send back the Broom from Fanait, in the same northern point, to deal destruction on the people of Cork. But the time first appointed by St. Moling for the visitation of the Fiery Bolt, — that is, five years after the year in which Easter Sunday would fall on the 25th of April, and the 29th of August on a Tuesday, — as already shown, has not yet come.
Then, as regards the second time appointed by St. Moling for the coming of the Fiery Bolt, if that be what is meant, — that is, on a Friday in a leap year, at the end of a circle, or cycle, — I have already shown that all the predicted circumstances of this appointed time occurred in the year 1096. In that year the 29th of August fell on Friday ; the year was a leap year; and it was at the end of a circle or cycle of the Epact, which was twenty-three in that year ; for, if we add the annual increase of eleven days to twenty-three, it would make it thirty-four, thus passing into a new cycle of the Epact for the next year, 1097, whose Epact would accordingly be four.
But, what is much more important than any argument of mine, I have already shown, from the annals of our country, the consternation which seized on the people at the approach of the year 1096 ; and how faithfully the means of averting the threatened calamities, as said to have been recommended by St. Adamnan, were carried out — in penitence, prayers, devotions, fastings, alms to the poor, and offerings to the churches; thereby showing clearly that the prophecy had not been, up to that time, fulfilled. And, as we have no record of its being feared or talked of ever since, I suppose we may hope that the means so long prescribed as efficient, and then so amply and so successfully put in practice to avert it, have for ever blotted out the hard sentence which the Lord was believed to have passed on an already sorely afflicted country !
Eugene O'Curry, Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Irish History (Dublin, 1861), 423-430.
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