Clane On-line

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historical notes

by A. McEvoy

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Clane has been a focus of settlement from remote antiquity. It is situated at a fording point on the Liffey and that the river was not fordable for some miles on either side of it gave Clane an importance in the earliest times, in probably the same way as neighbouring towns in north Kildare such as Sallins, Robertstown and Prosperous were in recent centuries to grow around the building of canal, rail and improved road infrastructure. Clane, by contrast however, was there from the earliest times. Pre-Christian relics in the locality include a cromlech or stone age burial site on a sloping limestone outcrop above the quarry at Carrigeen, about one hundred yards from the Liffey bank. This was unfortunately bulldozed by Kildare County Council when turning the quarry into a public dump. Stoneage burials with pottery inclusions were found in sandhills at Loughbollard in 1971. The Mounds at Clane and Mainham, together with the Bullaun Stone on the bank of the Naas Road stream have been tied in with the saga describing the killing of the first century king, Mesgegra, at the Ford of Clane. It has been suggested that his body was buried under the earthen mound at Clane, his head was severed at the Bullaun stone, in the bowl shaped hollow of which the druids offered sacrifices of milk and grain and even human blood. His wife Buan, is reputedly buried under the mound at Mainham.

Even the name Clane has existed a very long time. In the Annals of MacFirbhis, it is stated that before the Leinster men went into battle, they assembled on the Crocaun Claonta, which has been translated as the round Hill of Clane. They believed that if they set out from there they could only meet with success. The name Clane has been variously described as deriving from Cluain Damh (Meadow of the Oxen) and as Claonta in the Annals of the Four Masters, and Claonadh in the Irish Calendar. Though the first explanation is that most often given, and is supported by a medieval translation into the Latin 'Pratum Bovum', the objection is pointed out that the vowel change from 'Cluain' to Clane is without precedent in this very widely used word in the context of place names. One would wonder whether 'Claonta' were not a more likely explanation and that the 'Crocaun Claonta' already mentioned should not in fact be translated as the 'Sloping Hill', which might very well be in fact the sloping limestone outcrop at Carrigeen, site of the ill-fated cromlech, which stands beside a little bohereen, now disused, but which could well have been the main road from the North, the Road of the Kings, leading between Tara and Naas, for it once led directly to the ford.

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