Celtic peoples held
lakes and rivers to be sacred as evinced from their mythology. According
to the myths the rivers Shannon and the Boyne were created by
goddesses. The sacred nature of water is also evident in the
archaeological record due to the many finds of votive offerings of
precious objects in watery places. Sometimes river names reveal creation
myths not by gods but by furrowing animals. It may be indicative of how
sacred these animals were once considered.
The pig was one
such animal, spending its lifetime furrowing through the earth creating
river like meandering channels. It gives its name of the River Suck in
Connacht which is one of the main tributaries of the River Shannon. The
word derives from the old Irish word for pig ‘socc’ or more specifically the pigs digging instrument the snout. The river, Afon
Soch and the village named after it Abersoch in Wales contain the
element ‘soch’ which is of Celtic origin and thus related to the Irish word ‘socc’.
In
Wales also there is the river Twrch (literally 'hog') in Ystalyfera and
Llanuwchllyn are other examples, as is the river Hwch (sow) near
Llanberis. Banw, a word for a 'piglet', is apparent in the river names
Banw in Montgomeryshire and the rivers Aman (from Amanw) and Ogwen.
Image: River Suck at O’Flynn’s Lock C. Roscommon.
The oldest tidal mill so far discovered in the world
belongs to Monastery of Nendrum on Mahee Island on Strangford Lough in
Co. Down.The first tidal mill was constructed there between 619 and
621AD making it older than the previously earliest known tidal mill at
Little Island in Co. Cork which dates from about 630AD. The Cork mill is
a A twin flume horizontal-wheeled tide mill.
As the name
suggests tide mills or sea mills used the sea tides to fill an
artificially created mill pond and when the tide receeded the enenrgy
stored in the captured water was used to power the mill. Engineers
estimate the mill wheels would probalby have been capable of developing
between 7 and 8 horsepower.
Image: artists impression of a single flumed mill.
Predicting the date when Easter Sunday will fall is necessary
when the church decided to place a 40 day fast in advance of it. Such an
endeavour is not as easy as it may seem as it involves reconciling
two irreconcilable calendars the lunar and solar. The month is named
after the moon because each month is approximately the duration of a
single moon cycle. The average number of days between moon phases is
actually 29.5 days and months were devised to have 29 (hollow month) or
30 (full month) days. This Romulus calendar had only ten months with the
spring equinox in the first month. It had only 304 days and it seems
that the Roman just ignored the remaining 61 days which fell in winter.
The calendar was reformed many times but it was not reliable. According
to tradition under the second emperor of Rome Numa Pompilius c. 700BC
two extra months were added (Januarius and Februarius) and this accounts
for the mismatch in the month names Sept, Oct, Nov & Dec which
translate as month numbers 7, 8, 9 & 10 but are now actually months
9, 10, 11 & 12. Confusion about when to add leap days meant that it
was not till about 4AD that the Julian calendar had become reliable with
leap days inserted every 4 years but it was still out of sync with the
solar year by between 10 & 11 minutes. Thus the accumulation of this
error over time meant that after about 131 years the calendar was out
of sync with the equinoxes by one day. The date of the spring or vernal
equinox is the basis from which the calculation of the date of Easter
Sunday is taken. Thus errors in the calendar mean the calculation of
Easter day may also be in error.
In 325AD the Council of
Nicaea established that Easter would be held on the first Sunday after
the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox. Easter is
based on the Jewish Passover which occurs on the first full moon after
the vernal equinox by watching the phases of the moon the date of
Passover can be determined easily a few weeks before. However the
Christians had to know many weeks in advance when Easter Sunday was
going to occur in order to calculate the date of Ash Wednesday. Mistakes
in such calculations might mean that one parish could be celebrating
Easter a week or two after their neighbours. Because fasting and
abstinence was quite austere in medieval times the Easter celebration
was anticipated like no other. If the neighbours got to celebrate first
then they could legitimately celebrate it again in the next parish and
it is fair to assume there would not be many happy Easter bunnies in a
particular parish.
In order to accurately calculate the date of Easter Sunday it required figuring out how the universe worked.
“In fact, Ireland in the Early Middle Ages led the way in terms of
serious scientific engagement with the physical universe and the attempt
to understand the nature of the created world. The famous studies of
Archbishop James Ussher in the seventeenth century have their
antecedents in the efforts of Irish scholars, 1000 years before him, to
offer rational explanations of the natural phenomena that they observed
around them in their everyday world. More than anywhere else in Europe
at that time, the Irish in the seventh century succeeded in figuring out
‘how things worked’ in the universe. They did so not only in the field
of technical chronology (in which they were THE masters), but also in
those areas of study that the modern world calls Science.” From Saints,
scholars and science in early medieval Ireland – Prof. Dáibhí Ó Cróinín,
NUI Galway
