The Hill of Uisneach

Uisneach is not the highest or most famous hill in Ireland, and Irish tradition never claimed it was: it is the center. The Catstone, Ail na Mireann, marks the meeting point of the provinces, and beneath it, tradition says, lies Eriu, the goddess who gave the country her name. The hill carries Lugh's lake, a ring fort excavated in the 1920s called the Royal Palace, a probable megalithic tomb at the summit where St Patrick is said to have stayed, and a mythological resume that made it a political and ritual center of the early Irish world. In the literature and in the landscape tradition, Uisneach's Bealtaine fire, lit at the turning of spring, was the fire from which others were kindled and seen across the land.

Today the hill is a working farm, and access is by guided tour only, \u20ac15 a head on pre-booked weekend walks that run through the myths with a local guide. The Bealtaine fire tradition has been revived as a ticketed festival the operators describe as a genuine gathering of the tribes, drawing people of many creeds each May. The entry holds both frames honestly: Uisneach's sacred geography belongs to the early Irish literary and oral tradition, and its present life is a private farm that welcomes the public only through its own gate and its own schedule, where the oldest claim on the hill, the navel of Ireland, is still the one the guides lead with.

Visiting

Hill of Uisneach runs the access: guided tours only, pre-booked; Saturday and Sunday public tours at 11 am year-round, Friday sunset tours May to September; \u20ac15 adult, \u20ac12 student/senior, \u20ac25 family; private land and a working farm, no dogs. The Bealtaine Fire Festival is ticketed separately each May.

Photo: Abi Skipp, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hill_of_Uisneach.jpg))