The last Macha, a goddess bride

One of the most famous birth stories of all time concerns Macha, one of three war goddess, known for her association with the land and with fertility. It was Macha who gave her name to Eamhain Mhacha, or the fort of Macha, the former seat of the Kings of Ulster. Macha also gave her name to Armagh itself, or Ard Mhacha, which means 'the high ground of Macha'. Initially the nerve centre of pagan Ireland, Armagh later became the ecclesiastical capital of both the Catholic and the Anglican Churches. This story is about the last Macha, a goddess bride.

One day, a beautiful young woman walked into the house of a wealthy widower whose name was Crunnchu. Without speaking a word, she took over the running of the house. When night fell, she went upstairs, made a ritual right hand turn at the top of the stairs for good luck, and climbed into Crunnchu's bed. He didn't kick her out. Time went on, and Macha stayed. She became pregnant. One day, her husband went off to the Assembly of Ulstermen. This was a bit like a Fianna Fail Ard Fheis, except that the men were there to decide solely on how to run the province, and there was a ban on women!

Macha had warned her husband not to mention her name in male company. When Crunnchu saw the king's horses racing, and heard the poets, and the people, praising them, he got carried away. He boasted, publicly, that his wife could outrun the horses. The king, naturally, took up this male challenge. He sent for Macha, who was now nine months pregnant. She cried out that her time was up. No one listened, and Macha was forced to race the king's horses.

At the finishing-post, after beating the horses in the race, she cried out in pain, and gave birth to twins. Before she died, she cursed the men of Ulster, and said that for the next nine generations, Ulstermen would be useless in the face of danger, prostrate with pain just like like a woman in labour.
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And this is what came to pass. When Queen Maeve attacked Ulster, the men of the kingdom lay prostrate on the ground, and only one man could be found to to defend Ulster against Connaught, and that was Cu Chulainn!

Is there a moral to the story?

I think there is. I can think of two court cases, both involving the private patients of consultant obstetricians, where not listening to a woman in labour led to a tragic outcome. In one of the first major obstetric cases to come to court in this country, Catherine Dunne maintained that she had experienced a 'tumultuous kicking' in her womb, but that hospital staff would not listen. She was expecting twins: the first baby was born dead, and the second was brain-damaged.

The most recent case involved another consultant at the National Maternity Hospital. Like his colleague, this doctor was not in the hospital at the time his patient was admitted to the labour ward. Avril Gallagher later told the court that staff would not listen to her when she she told them her baby was coming,. She had gone into premature labour: her baby was born severely brain damaged. The moral of the story is clear - listen to the woman in labour.

Traditional society,
Marriage, and motherhood

Back to traditional society. Marriage, and motherhood, was what every girl in Ireland aspired to! It was a case of once a girl always a girl - until you got married! Some continued to be girls until they were 90 years of age! It was a culture that valued boys above girls. There were ways and means of ensuring that the baby, while still a gleam in the eyes of the newly-married couple, would be a boy! One piece of advice given to the father was to wear his cap back to front - in bed.

The Blasket Island
The Blasket Island midwife, Meini, gave the English anthropologist, Robin Flower, another piece of advice, however. The Flowers had just had their third daughter. 'Why don't you have a son?' she asked him. 'How could I have a son?' he replied. 'The next time you are about your business with your wife, she said robustly, 'whistle, and you will have a son'. Robin Flower did as he was told, and, nine months later, the Flowers had a boy!
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14th Century

Now for something quite different, a breech birth from the fourteenth century. This baby's place in history is guaranteed - his name has been taken up by a loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland, who call themselves the Red Hand Commandoes. Now for the storyline, which as always, is based on sexual intrigue!

The King of Connaught had no son by his wife, so whether it was in an attempt to have a son, or for some other reason, history does not say, but he went off with another woman, whose name was Gearrog Ni Mhorain. Gearrog subsequently became pregnant by him. The queen, hearing the news, was very angry. She asked a cailleach - or, as we might say, an old hag - to devise a charm to prevent Gearrog from giving birth, or - in modern medicine-speak, to obstruct her labour. The cailleach began to tie knots in a piece of string, saying Gearrog would not give birth til the knots were undone. Just as the third knot was being tied, Gearrog began to give birth. Only the baby's hand was out.

Time passed. Hours went by - history does not record how many. A wise man happened to be passing, saw the baby's hand out, and went straight to the queen. He told the queen Gearrog had given birth to a child. The queen cursed the witch, burnt the string, and the child, who later became known as Cathal Crobhdhearg, or Cathal of the Wine Red Hand, was born.

When Cathal grew up, he became King of Connaught, and his birth signalled the beginning of a long reign of O'Connors as High Kings of Ireland!

Special powers were attributed to the child who was born feet first, but the lore surrounding the child who was born hand first has yet to be uncovered. This is a story that lives on in folklore, in the knot known as 'the knot of conception'.

Faced with the prospect of her lover marrying someone else, we are told, a jealous girl, while repeating in reverse the words of the priest, might tie knots in a handkerchief during the marriage ceremony, to prevent the newly-married couple from having a child. The knot was known as snaidhm na giniuna, or the knot of conception.

If a marriage was unconsummated or a man impotent, this was usually invoked as the most likely explanation. Someone must have made the knot of conception, neighbours would say, shaking their heads, and wondering who had done it.

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