at Darragh hill,’ I consider it more probable that Rath Sleacht served to house the dignitary, or fraternity, who had custody of Crom’s temple, and presided at his worship.  Druids, Magi or whatever their proper title may have been, there were surely some sacerdotal functionairies at Magh Sleacht dedicated to the service of Crom Cruiach and his subordinate gods. The body may have consisted of a community or consortium of the Cathraighe whom Colgan associates with the primitive Masraighe as an occupying folk group of Magh Sleacht. 

As custodians of the elliptical shrine overlooking Guthard and ministers of its ritual they had to be provided with dwellings and sustenance befitting their dignity.  Not improbably they held in trust all the precincts and approaches of the sacred retreat--but where are we to search for their own habitation? That site that will most readily and naturally present itself is the strong rath at Kilnavart.

‘It behooves me now to see whether the mystery of Crom's personal identity be penetrated. The documents imply that he must have occupied a station of unquestioned supremacy in the old Irish pantheon.’

'Of all its iniates he alone can produce from our ancient literature specific credentials of divinity.  Every succeeding wave of invaders brought, no doubt, some of its own chosen celestials to our shore… but each and all failed to dethrone Crom and his empire tottered only when the Gospel message was sounded at Mach Sleacht.' 

Dalton says St. Patrick ' beleagured Crom not alone on Magh Sleacht but likewise in his lurking-places among the mountains. The number of these stations within such a limited area is most remarkable.  It shows that every inhabited quarter along the lower ground dedicated to a mountain temple of its own to the great deity.'

THE DATE OF ST. PATRICK’S ARRIVAL
IN MCGOVERNLAND

The late great mythologist Joseph Campbell in his epic work, THE MASKS OF GOD, wrote that while the coming of Patrick to Ireland is set traditionally at 432 A.D., the date is suspect, particularly when 432 when multiplied by 60 (the old Sumerian Sexagesima Soss), it yields the number 25,920 which is precisely the sum of years of  the ‘Great’ or 'Platonic' year. 

That is, the sum of years required for  the precession of equinoxes to complete one cycle of the zodiac. 

In the Germanic deity, Odin's warrior hall there were 540 doors through each of which 800   warriors fared to the 'war of the wolf' at the end of the cosmic eon. 540 x 800 = 432,000, which is the sum of years ascribed in India to the cosmic eon.

The earliest appearance of this number in such an association was in the writings of the Babylonian priest, Berossos, 280 B. C., when it was declared that between the legendary date

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