Chulainn, Cú

The myth of Cú Chulainn (Cuchulainn) is told in the Táin Bó Cúailnge (the Cattle Raid of Cooley), first fully transcribed in the twelfth century c.e. (see Kinsella 1970). The epic tale tells of rivalry between Queen Medb (Maeve) of Connacht and her husband Ailill as to which of them had the richest possessions. They were evenly matched except in one respect—that Ailill had a large bull. So Medb set out with her army to the Cooley peninsula in Ulster to steal a large brown bull belonging to Dáire mac Fiachna, owner of the brown bull of Cooley, casting a spell on the defending warriors of Ulster—the Red Branch (Craobh Rua) heroes. One warrior did not succumb to the spell: Cú Chulainn was semidivine, the son of the princess Deichtine (Dectera) and the sun god Lugh. As Medb made her way back to Connacht with the stolen bull, Cú Chulainn employed guerrilla tactics to harass her army until the Red Branch heroes shook off the spell and came to his aid. A further tale tells how Cú Chulainn acquired his name. As a young boy known as Sétanta, he was making his way to the house of Culann for a feast when Culann's wolfhound attacked him. Sétanta struck a hurling ball with his stick so forcefully that he killed the wolfhound instantly. By way of reparation Sétanta promised to be Culann's guard dog, thereby changing his name to Cú Chulainn, the hound of Culann. Another tale tells of his death: Mortally wounded in battle, Cú Chulainn tied himself to a rock so that he might die upright. As he expired, a raven landed on his shoulder. This is significant because the raven would not land on the shoulder of a live person. It indicates that the hero is really dead.

The popularity of the myth of Cú Chulainn has waxed and waned through the centuries, and each revival has served a political purpose. The O'Neill clan revived the myth in the fifteenth century to justify their rule in Ulster against the usurping Elizabethans (Morgan 1993). The Gaelic revival of the late nineteenth century saw the exploits of Cú Chulainn reworked by scholars such as Standish O'Grady for an emerging nationalist consciousness. The Gaelic scholar and revolutionary Padraic Pearse in particular viewed Cú Chulainn as the embodiment of the nationalist ideal, and when Pearse was executed for his role in the doomed 1916 Easter Rising, it was perhaps inevitable that Cú Chulainn should come to symbolize not just nationalist aspirations but also republican struggle. Thus Cú Chulainn was the obvious choice when Taoiseach Eamon de Valera, himself one of the leaders of the 1916 Rising, sought an emblem to sum up the spirit of 1916. The sculptor Oliver Sheppard had already begun casting a bronze statue of the dying Cú Chulainn in 1914, and for the twentieth anniversary of the Rising, at the direction of de Valera, the completed statue was placed in the General Post Office in Dublin, the headquarters of the republican insurgents.

Ironically, in 1991 the image of the Sheppard sculpture was meticulously reproduced in a loyalist wall mural in East Belfast—one of a half-dozen murals that, for the most part, display the weaponry and activists of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the largest loyalist paramilitary group. This imaginative attempt to convert Cú Chulainn to the loyalist cause began with Belfast doctor—and later lord mayor—Ian Adamson, who argued that Ulster was once inhabited by Cruthin (or Picts) who were progressively forced out by the invading Celts from Europe, pushing their way up from the west and south of Ireland. In this interpretation Queen Medb is a Celt and Cú Chulainn the brave Cruthin defending Ulster. Not only does this serve to emphasize that Ulster is historically, culturally, even racially separate, but it also justifies the role of the UDA—Cú Chulainn becomes, in effect, the first UDA man.

Historians agree that Adamson's reinterpretation is fatally flawed. More significant, though, is the question of how it has been accepted by loyalists. Although the officer cadres of the UDA (and on one occasion, the Ulster Volunteer Force, the other major loyalist paramilitary group) have sponsored Cú Chulainn murals in Rathcoole (north Belfast), Highfield (west Belfast), and Derry, as well as on the walls of the UDA wings in Long Kesh prison, rank-and-file loyalists appear to be unconvinced by the revisionism. Most people interpret the Cú Chulainn image in its traditional republican light, and indeed republicans have transposed the Sheppard emblem onto the walls in their own murals in Turf Lodge and Lenadoon (west Belfast), as well as in Armagh. In this setting Cú Chulainn justifies the struggle of republican militants, prisoners, and hunger strikers.

SEE ALSO Cruachain; Emain Macha (Navan Fort); Myth and Saga; Prehistoric and Celtic Ireland; Táin Bó Cúailnge

Bibliography

Adamson, Ian. The Cruthin: A History of the Ulster Land and People. 1974.

Kinsella, Thomas, trans. The Tain. 1970.

Morgan, H. J. "Deceptions of Demons." Fortnight (September 1993): 34–36.

Rolston, Bill. Drawing Support 2: Murals of War and Peace. 1995.

Bill Rolston