Standish O'Grady; selected essays and passages

MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS 337
in descent to Ana, " the Mother of the Irish gods,"
Those who take any interest in such strange lore will
remember that " the Mighty Mother " of Greek
mythology, Mother of gods and men, was also ANA
and will observe that the Celts when they conquered
Ireland brought into this land in which we dwell to-day
a religion which by conquest or otherwise— probably
by conquest—they, or some of their Indo-European
cousinry, introduced also into Greece, and which became
there the source and inspiration of Greek literature, Greek
art, and Greek philosophy.
And so we see that Slievenaman, in East Tipperary,
does not stand by itself, or unrelated, but is of one kindred
with Olympus, and Ida, and Delphi, and Hymettus, and
all the famous Hellenic mountains—^famous for thirty
centuries, and all the world over, for so far there is no land
so famous as Greece. And Slievenaman may, yet
all depends on our poets—be more famous than ever
was Olympus, or Delphi, or Ida. And it is our own
looking for ever, eastward, over the plain of the Three
Waters, westwards, where the men of Ormond held the
Tipperaries, North and South.
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