Finvarra at Knockma Hill

Knockma Hill — Cnoc Meadha in Irish, perhaps 'the hill of the plain' — rises 167 metres above the boggy countryside west of Tuam in County Galway. Its summit carries three large prehistoric cairns, and the tradition that the largest is the underground palace of Finvarra (also Finnbheara or Fionnbharr), King of the Daoine Sí of Connacht, runs unbroken into the twentieth century. As a son of the Dagda and a remnant of the Tuatha Dé Danann who retreated into the fairy mounds after their defeat by the Milesians, Finvarra represents the fairy sovereignty of the western province: when he dwells in the hill, the land prospers; when he is absent, the harvests fail.

The most celebrated legend concerns Ethna the Bride. Finvarra coveted Ethna, the most beautiful woman in Connacht, and abducted her on her wedding night, leaving her body present but her spirit gone. Her husband was told by a wise woman to dig into the hill and salt the earth; after three nights' labour the digging broke through to the fairy palace and Ethna was returned — but Finvarra had dressed her in a fairy girdle and pinned her hair with an enchanted pin, binding her soul. Only when her husband removed them both did she wake, with no memory of the fairy kingdom.

Lady Wilde (Speranza) collected many Finvarra traditions in the nineteenth century, and modern archaeological investigation has confirmed that Knockma's cairns are substantial Neolithic or Bronze Age monuments. Finvarra also appears as a horse-racing figure — he favours certain gamblers — and as a protector against winter disease. A fairy battle was reportedly witnessed above the hill in 1846 during the Great Famine, with armed fairy armies clashing in the sky above Connacht.