Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

Idol-Worship.
as Domnach Crumdnibh, or Siinda)- of IHack Crom
;
afterwards changed to St. Patrick's Sunday.
j^,
it uas
O'Beirne Crowe thinks it absurd to suppose that the
golden idol of Mag Slecht was only a stone pillar
; but
"that the most ancient
Irish idols, however, were of wt.od
and stone is most probable, and that some of these
ancient idols would be continued through pure veneration,
even after the introduction of metallurgy, is also not
improbable."
In Richardson's Folly of Pilgrimage is the record of a
wooden image, carved and painted like a woman, kept in
the house of the O'Herlebys, in Ballyvourney, Cork Co.
The sick sent for it as a means of cure, and sometimes
sheep were offered to it with peculiar ceremonies.
The Gentleman s Magazine for 1742, notes "two silver
images found under the ruins of an old tower." They
were described as being three inches high, in armour, with
an Osirian helmet and neck coverincr o
Hindoo-like images of brass have been several times
dug up. They appear in Oriental garb, or in a short
petticoat or kilt, Avith the fingers touching a forked beard.
One of such, now in the Dublin Museum, was taken from
beneath the root of a large tree in Roscommon. In that
instance, the arms were crossed. The height of this
brazen idol was five inches. It had once been gilt. A
metal idol, weighing twenty-four lbs., and fifteen inches
high, was recovered from the soil at Clonmcl, near t!ic
spot where another was seen, with a similar exprcssi(jn of
face, and the hand holding something round.
A letter written to Pownall by the Rev. Mr. .Armstrong,
about 1750, has the story of an image found si.xty years
previously, in the bog of Cullen, Tipperary. It was a
large wooden image. Mention is made that "little pins or
pegs were stuck in different parts of it ;
and lliat Mr.