During the centuries of Irelands "pre-history" (so-called because there is no *written* record) the word-accurate accounts of oral historians were meticulously passed forward to the next generation through carefully training under rigourous oversight.
Using mnemonics, number-groups, rhyming patterns, song-forms, alphabet-groupings, riddle-games, repetitive chant and various other memory devices... the history, geneology, law-precedents, healing methods, incantations, astrology/sky-knowledge, and animal/landscape/energy-reading knowledges were carefully preserved, and in great detail. It was reputed that it took 12 years of bardic training to master the histories; another 12 of oblate training to master the natural and human laws of interaction; and a summing 12 years (or more) to acquire a druidic comprehension of (and linkage with) the invisible and visible forces in plants, spirits, nature, and the spinning universe.
Given the depredations of the bardic and druidic colleges (most notably the brutal Roman invasion of Anglesey and the wholesale slaughter of the Holyhead druidic scholar community of more than 3000 men and women in 32 AD) it is small wonder that the accurate "keeping of knowledge" and history eludes us. Much oral history of earlier centuries was lost that day.
We can guess that tsunamis were a significant hazard in Irish culture, if only because they are one of four named exceptions which can abrogate a vow... "unless stars down fall from the sky upon me (meteorites); the earth open under my feet (earthquake); the seas rise up and roll over me (tsunamis) or the mountains spew fire upon me (volcanoes).
I am also aware (see article link) from Armann Hoskuldsson and papers from Iceland's Centre for Earth Studies/Nordic Volcanological Institute that many pre-historic and near-historic eruptions of the volcano Katla lead to "Ireland-facing"
jökulhlaups or volcanic glacial melt burst-floods similar to that we recently saw from Eyjafjallajökull.
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| http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJII-u-41Lg&feature=player_embedded |
These 30-metre (or higher) hot, debris-laden waters burst over the southeast ridge of the Myrdalsjökull glacial "ring" and violently plunge down the east slopes, scour the Myrdalssand, smack into the sea and release a shockwave that moves across the ocean at 800 kph, and reaches Ireland in about two hours. According to Hoskuldsson (personal communication) many of these tsunamis are 5-15 metres in height at landfall... and in Irish oral history may account for three of at least four major tsunamis with extensive loss of human life.
One is mentioned in the Dindshenchas (place-name origin-story) for "Limerick" - a tsunami which interrupted a champions swine-herding competition between two brothers. Each represented a king - one from the Shannon's north bank, the other whose territory formed part of its south bank.
The approximately 400 AD contest attracted several thousand onlookers, most of whom were warriors fully outfitted in battle dress for the occasion, which took place on a huge south meadow on the Shannon estuary near where Limerick City now stands. The kings in the competing issue (to be decided) watched from a nearby hill (now crowned by a housing estate) and to their horror watched the waters draw out, and then return to engulf the combatants and all the crowd... who could not swim in their armour and drowned.
The name Limerick derived from the old Irish word for "glittering"... describing the sparkling reflections from thousands of metal embossed shields floating out to sea, whose owners perished under the wave.
Yet another combat, much more crucial to Ireland's future, was "decided" by a tsunami around 1750 BC. In that event off the shores of Donegal's Toreigh Island, the invading Fomorian Berber sea pirates had begun to set up another advance base in preparation for invading and conquering Ireland proper, as they had a generation prior. Unbeknownst to them, in the interval Phoenician sea traders had taught the Irish how to build a fleet of sea-worthy ships in order to mount a surprise counter-attack.
The fleet of Irish vessels struck early and before most of the Fomorians could get to their vessels, and momentarily they had the advantage until the pirates were able to launch their own ships and engage in pitched battle, ship-to-ship. Meanwhile, three pre-selected Irish chieftains and their contingent watched from shore... prepared to cut off any pirates attempting to escape in their direction if the battle turned. In all, almost 80 ships were engaged.
No one was paying attention in the heat of battle (described in vivid detail, in a recent translation of the event prepared at UCC, Ireland) except those on shore, to the drawing-down of the ocean level and the sudden return of a huge wave which... in the shallow waters off the island... rose to sufficient height to overturn all the fighting boats and drown everyone on both sides with the exception of one ship of the Fomorians, which quickly retreated over the horizon to summon help.
The despairing chieftains on shore, who had just watched the best of Ireland's warriors die, were then left with the gruesome choice of staying until another contingent of Fomorians returned, but without having sufficient defenders to fight them off... or of leaving Ireland altogether. They chose the latter course - with each of the three chieftains choosing a different destination. A devil's bargain.
This led to the eventual re-grouping of survivors into three Irish tribes - those who went to Wales (under Bretan); those who went to the Mediterranean (and were enslaved as dirt-moving marsh-fillers on Greece) to eventually escape and return as the Fir Bolg; and those of Béotach's clan who built new ships and went to the northwest Baltic (Fion-Lochlainn) looking for the magic-dealing offspring of the people of ancient Hy Breasil... and who, (after finding those descendents and being tutored by them for five generations) returned to Ireland as the Tuath Dé Danann.
Another tsunami figures into a small but emotion-laden story of an impetuous young Celt who kidnapped the young woman Clidna who would not have him, took her by guile to an offshore island in what is now the Bay of Glandore where he raped her, and then left her there to fend for herself. To her misfortune - and bringing about a deeper tragedy - a tsunami which swept onto Ireland's southwest and southern coasts also arrived while she was coursing the small island trying to escape... and drowned her.
This story (of uncertain date, between 500 BC and 200 AD) is notable in that the teller distinguishes this particular tsunami from others near in time, and an earlier monster... "the one which swept across all Ireland." Called "Tond Clidna" (Clidna's Wave) to distinguish it from the others in nearby centuries - Ladru's Wave and Baile's Wave (one of which may have been the later Limerick tsunami).
The big wave, the really big wave... the one which the monks in the scriptoria heard referred to as "The Flood" (and hence badly-confused it with Noah's Flood and dated it Anna Mundi accordingly) can be easily estimated by referring to that one surviving first-person account. Our witness was awakened before dawn during the month we would call April by the sound of rushing water in all directions... and in the dim early morning light he perceived that the "world in all directions" was engulfed by water, swallowed, over-run by the onslaught of incoming ocean.
The hill upon which he had been sleeping is now called Cnoc Rhua or Knockroe in County Limerick, a split-peak formation near Caherconlish. Its southwestern peak was topped by a thick-walled ring fort only used during times of invasion. The northwestern side of split peak (now called Knockroe Mason) was used in the warm months by the royal household as their open-air lodging... a gay collection of tents, banners and pavilions overlooking Lough Gur from the west. Behind them was a vast, palisaded craftspersons' village.
In winter months the royal family shared (with high-ranked fighters and their families) the large 30-metre across, two-hearthed Warriors Hall on the sweeping plateau below... which wrapped around the twin peaks to the south, location also for the stables, turn-out rings, armouries and other stone buildings for food storage and weaponry, as well as a sun-sighting circle at the far south-western end.
The narrator, a literate Phoenician who had docked his trading vessel at the mouth of the Suir (what is now Waterford) and then loaded his fine goods onto wagons and traveled with his crew and family along the south and west Cork coast until entering County Kerry, passed Lough Leinn, and made his way to the central County Limerick. Along the way he noted many earth tremours - that the "Suir and the Barrow leaped their banks"... which is to say, the "banks" (and beds) of the rivers moved abruptly sideways underneath the flowing rivers - which momentarily were displaced out of their beds and onto the shore.
He was overwhelmed with grief when he heard and saw the inrushing water. Perhaps he had, in the Mediterranean, seen the awesome power of a tsunami before or at least had heard of it. This was April of 1159 BC and 500 years prior, in 1645 BC, Mt. Santorini had erupted and blown much of its enormous central mass into the sea adjacent to itself, leaving only a crater where much of the magnificent culture of Thera had stood. The country of Phoenicia had been dead in the sights of the resulting tsunami and a following ash cloud... which darkened the sun over Sumeria and further east. He had probably heard those stories.
So there, in the early morning, he wrote that "all Ireland has died, all my *coevals have died... the night that the sea came ashore in one blow." His family and crew had been camping on the plateau below, and he noted that the waters came half-way up the height of the hill... sweeping away everything. Today that hill stands at 208 metres, so half its height would indicate a tsunami wave runup of approximately 104 metres high - 300 feet. (*contemporaries)
That wave is the one described as "
The Wave Which Swept Across Ireland" and apparently it did.
Because that same day... by coincidence that
very same day... a fleet of Iberian Milesian invaders were just ending a three-day hiatus given to the
Tuath Dé Danann royal household north of the Boinne estuary, so they could prepare for battle. As they set out to complete the battle, their ships in the Irish Sea off the Boinne were (without any warning) suddenly lifted almost straight up by mysterious waves more than 25 m/40' high... which turned some of their ships over, drowning some of the passengers, and then just as mysteriously disappeared again.
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The megatsunami wavefront (wrapping Ireland from the north & south) "met itself" in the Irish Sea.
Time of Arrival plot - hypothetical source 1 - by Pal Wessel, Univ. of Hawaii |
They recuperated and tried to keep their spirits up, and just as they were attempting to head back to shore, a second wave arrived about an hour and a quarter after the first... almost as violent and unexpected, and nearly shut the entire invasion off. Only after many encouraging words and chants from their druids were the warriors able to muster the courage to proceed, only to face the terrifying spectre of water rushing
toward them from shore. There was no more land, they frighteningly reported back to the druids, "than could cover a pig's back." They thought Ireland had been magically possessed by their opponent.
Even when they returned and found the onrushing water had receded, they were dismayed to observe that cattle, houses, and other landmarks had all disappeared from the land. As it happens, the Boinne valley is one of three routes which a west-coast tsunami (of <200+ metres in height) could and would take in the event of a mega-tsunami... and would have been swept bare by west-to-east rushing waters which (by then) would have traveled completely across Ireland.
The Tuath Dé Danann culture (and their history) had been swept away with that Great Wave... in one night.
Accounts of that hopelessly tragic night, and the weeks thereafter also indicate that the sky darkened, there were far-off howls and booms in the sky, and that strange mists and shakings continued for a long time. It is not clear that Iceland was involved... it could just as easily been. In several accounts telling it from the Irish eastern side of the country, two make the point to report (of the battle) "that while this was going on, there was a great rushing of water in (County Limerick). The marshes became lakes, and lakes and rivers joined together to make a temporary "inland sea." The sky went black - the Sun no longer visible.
The Sun itself did not reappear over Ireland until almost three years later... after which the Tuath Dé Danann gradually faded from all but mythic memories, their culture almost completely unavailable for comment or relics or cultural references. And the Phoenician narrator - his family gone, his ship gone, his will to continue broken... went north to County Donegal to solitude, self-enforced isolation, and writing.
There is much more to the story of course. The origin of that tsunami (in order to create an additive wave in the Irish Sea which lifted the Milesian ships vertically)... had to have been somewhere in the mid-Atlantic between the U.S. coast and Portugal, or further south.
It was unbelievably enormous, and yet could well happen again (for instance) after a particularly violent eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on Los Palma island in the Canary Island chain. Such a mega-tsunami would be very unwelcome.
