The Legend
Many years ago in ancient Ireland lived King Lir, ruler of the sea, his beautiful wife, Eva, & their 4 children; Aodh, Fionnula, and twins Fiachra and Conn. Sadly Eva died in childbirth & Lir, wanting his children to have a loving mother, married Eva’s sister, Aoife, who was said to possess magical powers.
Aoife loved the children at first but soon she became very jealous of the King’s devotion to them; One hot day she took them to a lake to swim and when the children took to the water Aoife used her powers to cast a spell over them, turning them all into beautiful swans.
She knew that if she killed the children that their ghosts would haunt her forever, so instead her spell forced them to live as swans for 900 years - 300 on Lake Derravaragh (Loch Dairbhreach), 300 on the Straits of Moyle (Sruth na Maoile in both Irish & Scottish Gaelic & the Sheuch in Scots), and 300 more on the isle of Inishglora (Inis Gluaire). The spell would only be broken when the children heard the ringing of a church bell, and the arrival of St. Patrick in Ireland.
But Aoife’s spell did not take away the children’s voices and so it was that these four enchanted swans could sing beautiful songs and were able to tell their father what had happened to them. Enraged, he banished Aoife into the mist and she was never seen again.
Although saddened by his children’s fate Lir remained a good father and spent his days by the lake listening to their singing. Their 300 years on Lake Derravaragh were filled with joy, but at end of this first part of their spell, the children had to say goodbye to their father forever.
They travelled to the Straits of Moyle (the sea between N-E Northern Ireland & S-W Scotland) where they spent 300 years enduring fierce storms and were often separated from each other. But they survived and, reunited, they travelled onward to a small lake on isle of Inish Glora.
One day, they heard the distant ringing of a bell – one of the first Christian bells in all of Ireland – and they followed the sound to the house of a holy man, Caomhog, who cared for them. One day a man dressed in armour appeared at the house saying he was the King of Connacht and he had come for the mystical swans with the beautiful singing voices. He threatened to tear down and ruin Caomhog’s house if the swans did not come with him but, just as he was laying his hands on them, the bell tolled again and mists of the lake came and enveloped the swans, turning them back into the children they were 900 years before.
The frightened King fled immediately and the children, in their human form, started to age rapidly. Caomhog knew that they soon would die, so he christened them before their human bodies passed away ensuring that their legend and their names would live on forever…for these were Children of Lir.
To claim this cache:
Take a photo of yourself, your crew, your caching name or your gps or anything personal to you with the Children of Lir sculpture in the background (from here or closer to it) & add it to your log. The sculpture must be visible. DO NOT send photo to the CO - we will see it on your log.
Virtual Rewards 3.0 - 2022-2023
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between March 1, 2022 and March 1, 2023. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 3.0 on the Geocaching Blog.