Cultural Heritage
The Ring of Gullion has numerous associations with Irish legends and myths, and several remains from the pre-Norman, and indeed pre-Christian era. In the Táin Bó Cuailgne (the Cattle raid of Cooley) CuChulainin is reputed to have defended Ulster, single-handed, against the armees of Queen Maeve of Connacht at the Gap of the North, which lies at the south of the area. In another tale, Fionn Mac Cumhaill was bewitched by the Sorceress Miluchra on the summit of Slieve Gullion at the Lough of calliagh Bhirra and turned into an old, decrepit man. Although he managed to have the spell undone, his hair remained white thereafter. To this day the superstition survives that if you bathe in the lough your hair will turn white.
Human habitation in the Ring of Gullion is said to have occurred for at least 6000 years and a rich inheritance of historic monuments survives to mark the duration of that settlement. The area contains the remains of 20 or so large stone tombs and the King's Ring at Clontygora, and the Ballymacdermot tomb are two of the best examples of Court Tombs in the Northern Ireland. The monument at Ballykeel is also an outstanding example of a Portal Tomb while the South Cairn on the summit of Slieve Gullion has the distinction of being the highest surviving Passage Tomb in Britain or Ireland.
During the eighteenth Century, the last great age of Irish language literature, the Ring of Gullion was known as the District of Poets or District of Songs. Well-known poets associated with the area included Seamus Mor MacMurphy, Art McCooey, and Peadar O'Doirnin.
Among the cultural and architectural heritage of the area are the following sites:
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“Quite apart from any conscious program, the great cultural historians have always been historical morphologists: seekers after the forms of life, thought, custom, knowledge, art.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things and because it takes a man’s life to know them the little new that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)