Ath Luain

Overview

Ath Luain is a ford, and Kinsella's route list gives it as Athlone, in County Westmeath. It is the last place named on the route of the Táin, and it comes up only in the final chapter, in two scenes. In both of them somebody stops there.

The first is Cúchulainn. The battle is lost and Medb has asked Fergus to guard the rear of the army while she relieves herself. The place where she does it is called Fual Medba, Medb's Foul Place, ever since. Cúchulainn finds her like that and holds his hand, since he would not strike her from behind. She asks him to spare her. He says it would only be right to kill her, and he spares her anyway, not being a killer of women. Then he watches the whole army go west until they have passed Ath Luain, and there he stops.

He has one thing left to do. He strikes three blows of his sword at the stone hills near the ford. They are the Bald-topped Hills at Ath Luain now, in answer to the three bald-topped hills of Meath that Fergus had levelled with his sword in the battle. Then the text says that the battle is over.

The second scene is the Brown Bull of Cuailnge, after his fight with Finnbennach. He comes westward past Cruachan with the White-Horned bull's remains on his horns and then heads for his own land. He stops to drink at Finnlethe and leaves the shoulderblade. He drinks again at Ath Luain and leaves the loins, and so the place is Ath Luain, the Ford of the Loins. Then he bellows at Iraird Cuillenn so that the whole province hears him, drops the liver at Tromma, and goes on until he falls dead at Druim Tairb.