Author Lorcán Ó Tuathail suggests Dún Aonghasa, in Co Galway's Aran Islands, may have been deliberately constructed under the migratory path of cranes
Lorcán is well known to many for his work as manager of the Golden Eagle Trust and, in particular, for his pioneering reintroduction programmes for the Golden Eagle, White-tailed Eagle and Red Kite in Ireland.
During the past eight years, he has also been indulging his passion for another long lost bird of Ireland, the Eurasian Crane, Grus grus, researching its relationship with our ancient ancestors and the possible influences it had on their early societies, work now published in his book Corr Scéal – Crane Notions.
In this substantial book, Ó Tuathail probes deeply into the archaeology, language and ancient cultural beliefs of our Atlantic islands in search of footprints left by this once common bird, footprints which point to the existence of a vibrant pre-Christian, animist and pacifist culture in which the ‘heavenly' crane played a vital role.
The crane was a familiar part of the Irish and British avifauna up until the 16th century when it became extinct as a breeding species, probably through human persecution or an avian disease. A small flock of vagrant cranes, blown off course by severe weather, visited Ireland in 2011 when they turned up in Cork, dispersed to various wetlands and stayed most of the winter.
Ó Tuathail suggests that the interpretation of many Cor/Corr placenames throughout Ireland as references solely to local round hills is "not validated when GIS is used for toponymic verification'' and that in many instances there is "little evidence to support the presence of a hill'' at these sites.
More at
https://www.irishnews.com/lifestyle/2017/03/25/news/take-on-nature-corr-sce-al-takes-notions-about-our-ancestors-relationship-with-cranes-972044/
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