The Seat of Cú Chulainn
A Journey To Free An Ancient Soul
There are days when the veil between worlds grows so thin that I can no longer tell where vision ends and waking life begins. Today was one of those days.
The Journey Begins: A Vision Of The Castle
In the depths of my shamanic journey this morning, I was visited by the most radiant light beings. Their tall energy bodies quickly became visible as my second sight opened. They encircled my body and I immediately recognised them as The Tuath Dé Danann.
My first encounter with these supernatural Irish beings (that I can remember in this lifetime) was when I was guided into meditation by a Shaman at the age of 16. Sitting on a dusty old couch with two friends in a small South Dublin home, I descended into a deep dream world as a Tibetan bowl sang beside me. I found myself standing in a forest clearing at the time, as the Tuath Dé emerged from the trees in their full radiant splendour. Their bodies glimmered with golden energy that looked like a combination of honey and sunlight. At the time I didn’t realise the significance of this first meeting, or remembering I should say, and how much the Tuath Dé would shape my future healing work.
Today, however, they arrived with intention and their message was clear and purposeful - I was to seek out The Seat of Cú Chulainn. As the message was delivered, a castle came clearly into my vision, perched on top of a hill. It felt like I was viewing myself from a distance, as I walked up the large stone steps that lead to the castle entrance and moved through the grand castle door that stood ajar. I watched myself move with knowing within the castle walls, navigating to a large window at the back of the castle that overlooked a walled garden. Standing at the very end of the garden, perfectly centred in my line of sight, was a hawthorn tree with heavy branches bursting with beautiful pink and white flowers.
Cú Chulainn: The Hound Of Ulster
For those unfamiliar with Irish mythology, Cú Chulainn is regarded as one of the most powerful and beloved figures in the Ulster Cycle; a series of ancient Irish epic tales comparable in scope and grandeur to the Homeric myths of Greece.
Originally born and known as Sétanta, he earned the name Cú Chulainn, meaning "Hound of Culann", after slaying the fierce guard dog of the smith Culann and offering to take its place until a replacement could be trained. He was said to be the son of the God Lugh (King of the Tuatha Dé), and was endowed with extraordinary strength, speed, and the fearsome battle-rage known as the ríastrad; a kind of berserker transformation that made him almost unrecognisable and utterly unstoppable in combat.
He is the great defender of Ulster, a warrior of almost impossible courage, and a figure whose story ends in tragedy…one which I was ultimately guided to learn about on this journey!
Finding The Castle
I emerged from my journey with my mission clearly in mind. I had never heard of The Seat of Cú Chulainn before, so I turned to Google for some guidance. “Cú Chulainn’s Castle” popped immediately onto my screen so I knew I was being guided in the right direction. To my astonishment, the site, also known as Dún Dealgan Motte, was only a short drive from my home. So I set off, excited to see what adventures lay ahead.
I whizzed up the M1 towards Dundalk in County Louth. I parked outside the boundary walls of the land and made my way on foot through the forest, following a path that curved up a hill towards the stone walls of the castle ruin. I ascended the stone steps I had seen in my vision and emerged amongst a grove of extraordinary beauty; hawthorn trees, oak, ash, and hazel, all standing together in a natural cathedral of branches. The light filtered through in shafts as the wind began to rise around me. And at the heart of it all stood the castle ruins, ancient and dignified, completely at peace with being reclaimed by the living world around it.
I walked around the grove slowly, with the castle at its centre. It mapped out perfectly with what I had seen in my earlier vision. As I circled around to the back of the castle, the remnants of the walled garden I had seen blew me away. I traced the walls, now knee-high, to the lone and radiant hawthorn tree that stood in full bloom.
The Hawthorn Tree: A Portal To Another World
In Irish and Celtic tradition, the hawthorn (sceach gheal as Gaeilge), is one of the most sacred and potent trees in existence. It is a threshold tree, one that stands between this world and others. It is associated with the fairy mounds, the sídhe, and is said to be deeply connected to the Otherworld. To sit beneath a hawthorn tree was to court the attention of forces beyond the veil.
With this wisdom in mind, I nestled beneath the hawthorn in the old ruins of Cú Chulainn’s Castle and dropped into deep meditation and connection once more. However, as my second sight came into awareness, the figure that now stood before me was Cú Chulainn himself! I was startled by the gentleness of his spirit after reading about the ferocity of his strength in battle. I gazed at him, almost awestruck by his presence. I noted the gentle dirty blond curls that rested on his muscular shoulders as he asked for my help.
He beckoned me to the standing stone at which he took his last breath, and asked me to free his soul that was still bound to the stone.
The Standing Stone: Where A Hero Died
Less than 10 minutes drive from the castle, I pulled to the side of the road directly across from a field where a menhir (standing stone) stood. Google Maps had directed me to Clochafarmore, also known as Cú Chulainn's Stone. As I stepped out of my car I noted the carcass of a dead crow lying on the ground at the entrance to the field, a sign that the ancient Morrigan was near and an omen of what I was there to witness.
I navigated up some steps that broke the seamless hedgerow lining the busy road, gaining me access to the field that lay on the other side. As I moved through the hedgerow, I felt like I was moving through a portal into another world. My second sight kicked in almost immediately. I saw waves of warriors standing amongst dead bodies scattered across the countryside. I scanned the field and my gaze narrowed on a tall and ancient stone that rose from the earth in the centre. Standing strapped to the stone, was the body of the man who had visited me at the castle, the great Cú Chulainn.
I only learned of the relevance of my vision later that evening. In Irish mythology, Cú Chulainn was believed to have been mortally wounded in his final battle against the armies of Queen Medb (Maeve) of Connacht; the great queen whose long rivalry with Ulster had driven so much of the violence in the Ulster Cycle. Too proud to fall to the ground, and too fierce to be taken on his knees, Cú Chulainn bound himself to a standing stone with his own belt so that he would die on his feet, facing his enemies. It was only when a crow, the Goddess Morrígan in one of her forms, landed on his shoulder that his enemies knew, at last, that the great warrior had passed. The crow is her symbol: the shape-shifting goddess of fate, battle, and death, who had long circled Cú Chulainn's story like a dark wing at the edge of a fire.
Releasing The Soul
As I focussed my vision on his failing body, he beckoned me towards the stone to which he was strapped. He closed his eyes as I approached the stone and I intuitively reached my hand towards the cold and weathered rock. In the exact moment of contact I could see the light of his soul escape between his lips. I breathed it in and held it for a moment, feeling the weight of everything it carried: the courage, the grief, the long years of a soul tethered to this cold stone in a quiet Irish field. I then tilted my head to the sky and blew his soul back to the cosmos. Finally setting his soul free.
As I stood there in the stillness that followed, I looked to the base of the stone, and right at my feet lay a single crow's feather.
A Dance Between The Realms
I drove home pondering the unexpected day I had just had. I marvelled at how simply everything had unfolded. In the quiet of my morning journey, in the space between thought and vision, I had allowed my monkey mind to find enough peace to permit my soul to be guided by something greater than me. And that is precisely when the magic unfolded.
The hawthorn tree in the vision. The hawthorn tree in the garden. The crow at the stone. The feather at my feet. None of it forced or controlled. Every step revealed only when I was ready to take it.
This is the great lesson that the path of the shaman and druid returns to, again and again: we do not need to control the outcome. We do not need to know the destination before we set out. When we release that need and soften our grip on how things should unfold and simply say yes to what is being shown, it creates space for something ancient and intelligent to rise up to meet us.
The path finds our feet. Not the other way around.
Cú Chulainn waited a long time. And when the moment was right, not a moment sooner, his release came on an ordinary Sunday afternoon, in a quiet field in Dundalk, when the right hand touched his cold stone.
May this story give you the courage to listen. And the trust to follow.