Fianna

Throughout the Middle Ages, when Christianity had firmly placed a hole on the island of Ireland and the line of kings had been established in Britain, there were various attempts to weave pagan mythology into Christian dogma and the destiny of monarchs.

from a granddaughter of Noah, becoming the first person in Ireland, to St. Patrick offering confession to Usheen, the last of the Fianna.

But when St. Patrick returned to Britain to establish a church in the area of Somerset, he entered a marshy land known as the Isle of Avalon.

an isle that would grow stories of fairies, kings, and even the blood of Jesus of Nazareth.

If we needed some fantastic long-range scores in it, it was a real championship game and one that both sides would probably be saying we should have won that and in the end had to settle for a draw.

Yeah, we both had the same idea, Tom, on Saturday to take the long way to Newcastle West and go by Fianna to see a bit of Croke versus Blackrock.

I think both teams will be more relieved they didn't lose now than maybe rowing, kind of not getting over the line.

It's such a tight competition and every point is so crucial and it kind of keeps both clubs in a pretty good position in terms of trying to get that top four i'm blackrock currently sitting in fourth croak in fifth so um again maybe croak a bit like brock to an extent would love to have got that win got over the line but i'm in such a tight competition and we saw We saw last year in this competition, actually, Blackrock were outside the top four for a lot of us, had won the last two or three games, came good at the right time.

And you probably feel, obviously Maru were looking to just cement themselves at the top of the table, probably feel that Croke Kilfinnie need a win here just to kickstart their championship.

And the two points will be very much welcome for the West Limerick Club.

Just to mention in the intermediate ranks, Fianna Cilmédi have set the pace in Group 1.

They've made it three wins from three.

And then we have the odd story, like I grew up with a family who was really steeped in their lineage.

So it's not stone lifting, but there's a lot of stories about someone being a very strong farmer, a very strong fisherman, lifting up the ox's cart, lifting bags of oats, etc., carrying carrying bags of oats but the actual folklore and I know we're going to dig into it more around stone lifting only really exists in the national folklore collection outside of that you're looking at stories from you know thousands of years ago millennia ago with the Fianna rather than Fianna which is always a fun distinction between Ireland and Scotland or it's just a kind of family lineages and family histories

Yeah, so you're saying most of the folklore was what you had for information, but it wasn't until the folklore collection, the Dukas archives, that you actually had documented proof of stone lifting?

Yeah, and this is a thing that actually still makes stone lifting accessible and rediscoverable on the island of Ireland.

But they've managed to capture enough of the stones... with their original names before they disappeared.

So this is, again, why the Irish context is so unique because there is a little bit of modern reinvention there.

You know what I mean? It's not like Scotland where we have the Fianna Stone or the Inverstone or, you know, the Castle Menzies, et cetera.

Sure.

There were stories attached to them, you know, and that's what really piqued my interest.

So then I went over to Scotland to lift some of these stones in Scotland, enamored by some of the stories, especially stones like the Fianna Stone, which is attached to the ancient Irish Fianna tribe, you know, so like, you know, you're telling me there's a stone attached to the Fianna warriors that you had to lift to become a member of the tribe in Scotland.

I thought that was amazing.

You know, I thought this was incredible.