89. The Gathering Of The Armies, by Louis Le Broquy

Being one of the lithographic illustrations for Thomas Kinsella's translation of The Táin. Pages 236-7. I read the book in Ireland, then began seeking out the places where the mythology of The Cattle Raid were played out, and planned a driving trip around Ireland to visit them. From the hill fort at Cruachan where Medh and Aillil had the pillow talk that began it all (the nearest town to the hill fort is Rathcrogan, being about 2 miles West of Tulsk, in County Roscommon), the fields where the armies gathered, to where the brown and white bulls tore up the earth, to the stream where Cúchulainn slew Ferdia with the deadly Gae Bolga which finished their three day one-on-one combat (on the River Dee, just to the west of the town of Ardee, in County Louth), to the standing stone to which Cúchulainn was tied as he died (in Knockbridge, County Louth, about 2 miles west of Dundalk), but it is not the stone that's conveniently placed next to a main road, which tourist buses now only have to slow down for, it's the standing stone in the farmer's field just up the road, that one needs to commit trespass to visit, and yes, I did.

Then discovered, one morning on my walk to work, that the Taylor Galleries in Kildare Street were exhibiting Le Broquy's original Táin illustrations. The originals don't have the page crease down the centre, obviously.