Uisnech

Uisneach Hill is an historical site in County Westmeath located near the village of Ballymore, and is considered the omphalos (mystical navel) of Éire, the country known by the English name Ireland, whereupon rests a great stone ("Ail na Míreann", which means “stone of divisions”) marked with lines indicating the provincial borders of Connacht, Leinster, Ulster and Munster. Tradition tells that Uisneach was a site favored for Beltane fires and Druidical ceremonies, in fact being considered second only to Emain Macha. In the poetic history "Lebor Gabála Érenn" (“Book of the Takings of Ireland”), the Nemedian Druid Mide lit the first fire there. A fire was also lit on the Hill of Uisneach on the feast of Bealtaine. This fire could be seen from Tara and when they saw it they lit their fire.

According to a popular passage from the same record, Ériu, a tutelary goddess sometimes considered the personification of Éire, meets the invading Milesians at Uisneach hill, where after some conversation and drama the Milesian poet Amairgin promises to give the country her name. Geoffrey of Monmouth's "Historia Regum Britanniae" (History of the Kings of Britain) claims a common belief that Stonehenge was transported to Britain from Uisneach. St. Brigid of Christian legend, who is also notably connected with fire, took the veil at this sacred locus.

Based on co-ordinates alone this may be the site identified as Raiba or Riba, the capital of North Leinster by Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy), the Egyptian-Greek astronomer and cartographer, writing in his "Geographia" around the year A.D. 140.

Archaeologically the site consists of a set of monuments spreading over two square kilometres and includes enclosures and barrows, a megalithic tomb and two ancient roads. There was an excavation in the 1920s and this showed occupation evidence from Neolithic up to the medieval period.

References

*cite book | first=James | last=MacKillop | authorlink= | coauthors= | year=1998 | title=Dictionary of Celtic Mythology | edition= | publisher=Oxford University Press | location=New York, New York | id=ISBN 0-19-869157-2

*cite book | first=Phyllis G. | last=Jestice | authorlink= | coauthors= | year=2000 | title=Encyclopedia of Irish Spirituality | edition= | publisher=ABC-CLIO, Inc. | location=Santa Barbara, California | id=ISBN 1-57607-146-4