on record… with an extensive burial ground still in use.'

MCGOVERNLAND: HEAD SEAT OF POETRY AND RELIGION

It is not generally known that in remote times there was a university presided over by the 'saintly' Dallan, chief poet of Ireland, in Magh Sleacht, a district lying around Ballymagauran. (Keatings General History of Ireland 1738).

Dallan Forgaill, the chief poet of Ireland in the late century was probably the author of the Amra Cholium Chille—or Eulogy of St. Columbkille (Columba), one of the earliest Irish of poems of any length. 

Composed after St. Columba's death in 597, it is preserved in the book of Dun Cow and in the Liber Hymnorum, a collection of Irish and Latin hymns...both texts being obscure.  It is written in the archaic, alliterative style, without regular rhythm or rhyme that reappears in later Irish sagas.

It should be noted here that it was St. Columba who chose Aidan MacGabhran/McGovern to be King of Dalriada in Scotland.

Little is known for certain about Dallan Forgaill's life.  According to the preface of the assembly of Druim Cetta in 595, the saint successfully defended the filid (professional bards) against charges of demanding excessive payment. He reputedly died as the result of leading the filid in their demands at a later assembly.  Dallan was also known as Eochaidh.  This fact, and his university located in McGovern territory, suggests he may have been a McGovern.

So we see that Tullyhaw, McGovernland, was the head seat of poetry and religion and the celebrated temple of the Druids where the great idol, Crom Cruach, stood. Keating tells us that 'this Crom was the chief deity of Milesian worship... the Delphos of our Gidelian ancestors.'

MCGOVERN CASTLES...

P.W. Joyce tells us that there was a pamphlet issued in London in 1650 by order of the Parliament and signed by one Henry Scobel with the names of several hundreds of Irish fortresses destroyed by Cromwell in the short space of one year from August 1649 to July 26 1650.  Whether Cromwell destroyed any of the McGovern fortresses is not known but the McGovern territory was one of the last taken over by the British because part of the barony... in the Glangevlin area... is surrounded by mountains and easy to defend by guerilla type of activity.

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