- Sliabh Luachra
Sliabh Luachra (pronounced Shleeve Lew-cra) is a region in
Munster , Ireland, located around the River Blackwater, on theCounty Cork /County Kerry borderland.This region has a unique musical style which makes heavy use of thepolka and the slide.Indeed, most of the polkas and slides in Irish traditional music derive from this region. Musicians from the area include Denis Murphy,Julia Clifford ,Paddy Cronin ,Padraig O'Keeffe ,Johnny O'Leary , andJackie Daly .Two of Kerry's best known Gaelic poets, Aogan O Rahilly and Eoghan Rua O Sullivan are also from the area.
Opinions differ as to the exact location and extent of Sliabh Luachra, but it is generally accepted to refer to the mountainous rush-filled upland that straddles the border area of Cork, Kerry, and Limerick, including the Kerry
parish es ofCordal ,Brosna andGneeveguilla , the town ofRathmore and the Cork village ofBallydesmond .The name Sliabh Luachra means “a mountain of rushes”. However it is not a singular mountain, but a rolling plateau interspersed with what is generally accepted as its seven glens, or ‘seacht ngleann Shliabh Luachra’, over which various mountain peaks reach heights from approximately 450 to 500 metres.
Sliabh Luachra was inhabited for centuries before the
Egypt ian geographer,Claudius Ptolemy , drew the first map of Ireland in the second century A.D.The Sliabh Luachra mountains are said to have prevented
Saint Patrick from entering Kerry.External links
* [http://www.kennys.ie/Search_Results.aspx?profile=Books&view=single&barcode=0954142519 Kennys.ie - "Sliabh Luachra Milestones"] History book by Diarmuid Moynihan
* [http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_hickey_stonemad.html]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.