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Queen Maeve's March
NPR's Jacki Lyden Follows the Footsteps of an Irish Legend
 Listen to Jacki Lyden's report.
 View a multimedia slideshow featuring more photos of Lyden's trek and traditional bagpipe music.
Aug. 30, 2002 -- NPR's Jacki Lyden, currently serving as guest host for All Things Considered, has traveled the globe in search of stories. But on a recent trip to Ireland, she became part of the story itself. She recently embarked on a six-day, 165-mile-long trek through the Irish countryside, from County Roscommon to County Louth, in a quest to bring a true Irish folk tale to life.
While working on a novel about Ireland's mythological Queen Maeve, Lyden met a group of Irish building an "army" to re-enact her war on the Kingdom of Ulster and ultimate battle with the Irish hero Cuchulain.
According to an ancient folk tale, Maeve, the great queen of Connacht, lived in western Ireland. She was chided by her husband, King Ailil, that she was not as rich as he was, because she had one less bull than the king. Maeve started a war against Ulster to steal its prize -- the Brown Bull of Cooley.
The ensuing Cattle Raid of Cooley is called, in Irish, the Tain Bo Cuailnge, and was first written down by monks in the 8th century.
"We comprised the first-ever citizen army to follow Maeve's ancient route, wandering over hundreds of miles of Irish countryside," Lyden says. "The auteur and leader of our march was one John Gilroy, a man with a deep passion for myth. He'd planned this for two years."
Lyden accepted the role as Queen Maeve, and the quest began. On a rainy day in June 2002, Lyden, Gilroy and an "army" of 35 volunteers began their re-enactment of Maeve's journey, which winds from the center of Ireland's midlands to the Cooley Mountains of the North, the stronghold of the Ulstermen. The motley group was "armed" with plywood spears and decked out in war paint and capes made from drapes and bed sheets.
The group walked an average of 10 miles a day, often through bogs. "Marching across Ireland as Queen Maeve, I had a lot of duties we called 'Pillage the Village,'" Lyden says. There was very little pillaging, however -- she was called on to judge a baby contest for an ice cream company and open a heritage festival in the historic village of Kells.
At a place called Ardee in County Louth, Queen Maeve's soldiers met their nemesis Cuchulain. "I don't want to give away the ending of the Tain Bo Cualinge -- but this story was set down by a bunch of 8th century misogynistic monks, who were not about to let Maeve dominate on the field of battle," Lyden says.
"It was a journey within a journey -- a single-minded quest that had nothing to do with the vagaries of the real world, and everything to do with the valor of legend," she says. "And whatever the legend's outcome, one thing I learned is that you can never really conquer a queen."
Browse more NPR stories and interviews by Jacki Lyden.
Other Resources
• John Gilroy's Tain Bo Cualinge Web site has maps, photo galleries and other information about the legend and the march.
• More of Will O'Leary's photos of the march can be seen on the photographer's Web site.
• Irish Museum of Modern Art
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