ST. PATRICK AND CROM IN TULLYHAW....

Since Crom was the chief pagan god of Ireland and situated in Tullyhaw, no wonder that Patrick had to come to Derryragh, that high hill over Ballymagauran where Crom had his stronghold.

'The Magh Slecht idol was an object of national pagan veneration' Dinnsenchus, in his ode of the Book of Leinster, tells us. 'He was their god… votaries flocked from far and near and prostrated themselves before Cromm, the men of Meath and of Leath-Moga coming, like Patrick over the water named Guthard (lake with a loud voice).

‘All alike they bent their palms, they pounded their bodies, to the demon who enslaved them… they shed showers of tears...'

‘The Lebor Gabala (Book of Invasions) tells that Tigernmas, son of Ollach died in Magh Slecht with three-fourths of the men of Ireland about him one samain eve while adoring Crom Croich--for he was the king-idol of Ireland.  And only one-fourth of the Men of Ireland escaped thence. From these bowings is said to come the name if Magh Slecht.’

'Here used to be a high idol with many fights (?), of the Bent One of the Hill...he caused every tuath to be without peace... sad the secrets... the keen Goidil used to adore him... from him they –used lawlessly to ask for their satisfactions as regards the hard world.

'He was their god, the wizened Bent One with many glooms. . the people who believed in him over every harbor of the eternal kingdom shall not be theirs.  For him, ingloriously they slew their wretched first-born with much weeping and distress... to pour out their blood around the Bent One of the Hill… Milk and corn they used to ask of him speedily in return for a third of their whole progeny, great was the horror and outcry about him...'

So much for Crom, the horrors of which while attributed to him, many do not believe to be true, but legend.  But then St. Patrick came.

And the Tripartite Life of the Saint says, 'Thereafter, Patrick went over the water to Magh Slecht, a place to which was the chief idol of Ireland, namely Cenn (Crom) Cruaich, covered with gold and silver and twelve other idols covered with brass, about him.'

Colgan's Tertia Vita tells us, Patrick turned aside to see that the idol was well-constructed of gold and silver, which King Loegaire (Leary) adored in Magh Slecht.  And at St. Patrick's prayer the image that peoples adored was broken up and (reduced to powder).

As we said, not everyone agreed with the legend of Crom’s slaughters at Magh Slecht.

Michael O'Duigeannain maintains that 'even though some writers and even recent ones like J.P. Dalton and Phillip O'Connell have attached importance to this event, they are nothing more than psuedo-learned inventions of the tenth and eleventh centuries. The crude

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