And now the 'Electric Picnic'

A rocky mound outside Stradbally attracted visitors long before ‘the ultimate rock n’ roll circus’ (‘Electric Picnic’) came to town.

Is the crumbling building there a fort or a church or both? Go inside and its religious function becomes obvious but you could still spend an hour wandering around trying to make sense of its layout.

The confusion is due to the local Cosby landlords who adopted the old church there for their ancestral vaults.    

In 1565 Francis Cosby had been granted 2,000 acres at Stradbally for military services in Europe. The lands of Laois and Offaly had been confiscated by the English Crown to reward the military and to secure it from it hereditary owners, the O’More clan. Francis benefitted from both.

The rest of his life was spent struggling with the O’Mores.  An uneasy coexistence ended in 1577 when Francis invited the O’More leaders for negotiations at Mullaghmast ring fort and massacred from 100 to 400 of them.  

At the age of 70 he joined Lord Deputy Arthur Grey in an attack on O’More allies, the O’Byrnes of Wicklow. He was killed in the ensuing Battle of Glenmalure, August 1580.    

The family prospered however and amassed land around Stadbally. They took over the ancient church at Oughaval for their family vaults, adding a chancel and a warren of nooks for their tombs.  

Francis’ remains are not there, they lie in the hills of Glenmalure.

In more recent times the Cosbys encountered financial difficulties and leased land for the annual ‘Electric Picnic’, ‘Ireland’s largest gathering of music & arts’. It was a striking break with their history but long before the Cosbys came Stradbally had been famous for its art, whatever about music.    

In the 6^th century a young pilgrim-scholar, Colman mac Ua Laoighse, founded a monastic school on the site of the Oughaval ruins. He had studied on the Scottish island of Iona under the famous Columcille and on his way home had visited the school at Clonenagh run by the scholarly Fintan.  Fintan was noted for living on ‘bread of woody barley and clayey water of clay’ and his community was not allowed to own even one cow.

Colman’s school, however, was to become known for scholarship. Today its Lebor na Nuachongbála, Book of Oughaval, also known as The Book of Leinster, can be seen in Trinity College Dublin. It includes the oldest version of the epic Ulster Cycle tale, Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley). Also the Lebor Gabála Érenn (Book of Invasions), tracing the earliest days of Irish history.

One ‘family’ of Oughaval/Stradbally helped preserve Irish self-awareness with it invaluable manuscripts and a later ‘family’ contributes to Irish life with ‘Electric Picnic’. In 1990 the two ‘families’ came together in unlikely circumstances.

 More on that next time.