If you've ever read the “Cattle Raid of Cooley,” also known as the “Tain,” you know that Emain Macha was the capitol of the ancient kingdom of Ulster, home of the Red Branch Knights and the warrior Cuchullain. The Tain is the great epic of ancient Ireland, the central story of the Ulster Cycle of myths and legends, all of which center around Emain Macha.

The warriors of Emain Macha were known as the Red Branch Knights, and the greatest of the Red Branch was the hero Cuchullain, who was actually the son or avatar of the Celtic god Lugh. When the Red Branch warriors were incapacitated due to a magical curse, Cuchullain single-handedly held off the entire army of the province of Connacht and all its allies, who had come on a cattle-raid to steal the Brown Bull of Cooley.

If you're traveling in Ireland, it might interest you to know that Emain Macha is a real place. It's an ancient hill-fort in County Armagh, now known as “Navan Fort,” and archeologists believe it to have been a sacred site in ancient times. The men of Ulster seem to have built a hill-fort, destroyed it deliberately and then covered it with a man-made hill. After this strange ritual, the site was used as a symbol of royal power and a place for the inauguration of local kings, although it does not seem to have ever been a political capitol as in the legends. In later centuries, it was still seen as a “fairy hill” by the local people, and it still looks like a fairy hill even now.