The Fairy Hill of Carbury

Looking through photos taken at Carbury I was reminded that Ireland has ‘a mythology as rich and vibrant as that of Greece’.

I had gone to Carbury to find the mythical source of the River Boyne but was defeated by the locked gates of the demesne where the magic well of Segais, the source of the river, is located.  I was so intent on finding the infant river that I almost missed the Fairly Hill of Neachtain (Sidh Neachtain) itself, on the other side of the demesne where it is open to the public. That was where Neachtain, guardian of the sacred well, lived with his wife Boann who gave her name to the Boyne.

Neachtain was a warrior lieutenant of the Dagda, the ruler and father figure of the Tuatha de Danann, the People of Danu who occupied Ireland before the Celts. Their super-human abilities did not protect them from the invaders who banished them into the fairy mounds (sidhe) to be found around the country to this day.  

The Dagda put Neachtain in charge of the sacred well at Carbury with instructions to keep its location secret so that no one would drink of its wisdom.  Of course Boann found the well and when she drank from its waters they broke out and rushed down to the sea at Drogheda. Boann was swept along, giving her name to the newly created river.  

On the way to the sea Boann passed Brugh na Boinne (Newgrange) where the Dagda was waiting. He delayed her and they had a son, Aenghus Og, the Irish personification of youth, love and poetry who still lives at Brugh na Boinne.  

When I got to the ‘Fairy Hill‘ I did not spot the two grassy rings on its top that mark the home of Neachtain and Boann. What caught my attention was the striking ruins of a Norman castle on the side of the hill and below it the enclosed graveyard of Teampall Do-Ath, a 19th century mausoleum of the Colley family that looks much older than it actually is.    

The Normans took over the hill for strategic reasons. The old road beneath it was the Eiscar Riada, connecting the east of Ireland with the River Shannon and the West. Their stone castle announced their ownership of the area and showed no respect for what was there before. Rather the opposite, they were determined to stamp their own identity on the landscape.

The Irish who realised what was happening wanted to preserve their heritage before it was too late.  In 1632 scholars and monks in Donegal began recording the old stories in the ‘Annals of the Four Masters’. Thanks to them we still know about The Dagda, Neachtain and Boann.   

Much of that history was from a pre-Christian world but the master scholars recognised it as an essential part of their cultural DNA.  The world view in which humans and nature are linked, where life is not limited to a short spell and where actions can have lasting and wide effects was at the heart of Irish life from early on, Christianity took it up and continued it.    

It’s not often that you get a chance to experience Ireland’s mythic past as you can at Carbury. The magic well of Segais, where Boann drank, is open to the public only one day a year (31 May in 2026). However if you find your way around to the far side of the demesne you can climb the Fairy Hill, see where the legendary couple lived, the ruins of the Norman Keep and ancient-looking Teampall Do-Ath beneath. There you can see for yourself what happened when the imaginative and idealistic Irish encountered the unsentimental and practical Norman. If we even think about such things today it is because we have ‘a mythology as rich and vibrant as that of Greece’.