Over each of the Irish
provinces was a ri or king, and there was also over all Ireland an
Ard-ri or supreme monarch who lived at Tara up to the time of its
abandonment in the sixth century. Before Tuathal's day, the Ard-ri
had for his land allowance only a small tract around Tara, but
Tuathal cut off a portion from each of the four older provinces, at
the Great Stone of Divisions in the centre of Ireland, making the
fifth province of Royal Meath, which has since disappeared, but
which was much larger than the present two counties of Meath and
Westmeath. In this once famous, and now most lovely and fertile
spot, with the good republican's love of royalty and royal
institutions, we have settled ourselves; in the midst of verdant
plains watered by the Boyne and the Blackwater, here rippling over
shallows, there meandering in slow deep reaches between reedy banks.
The Old Hall, from which I write, is somewhere in the vale of the
Boyne, somewhere near Yellow Steeple, not so far from Treadagh, only
a few miles from Ballybilly (I hope to be forgiven this irreverence
to the glorious memory of his Majesty, William, Prince of Orange!),
and within driving distance of Killkienan, Croagh-Patrick, Domteagh,
and Tara Hill itself. If you know your Royal Meath, these
geographical suggestions will give you some idea of our location; if
not, take your map of Ireland, please (a thing nobody has near him),
and find the town of Tuam, where you left us a little time ago.
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