Nor is it warranted by the "History of the
Cemeteries" itself, which always speaks of the burials having been "_at_
Brugh."[86]
One other statement, however, must be referred to. In another verse of
Dorban's poem, mentioned above, it is said that "the host of Meath" are
buried "_ar lar in Broga tuathaig_." This is rendered by Petrie, "in the
middle of the lordly Brugh." The translation is no doubt good; and it is
open to any one to deduce therefrom that the chamber shown in the plan
contained at one time the skeletons of the host of Meath. In that case,
the "host" must have been very limited in number; and anyone who has
crawled along the sixty-foot passage into the Brugh, and who adopts this
view, must wonder a little as to how the corpses were conveyed along
that passage, and as to the reasons which must have induced some people
(prior to 1699, when the chamber was almost, if not altogether, void of
such relics)[87] to drag all those bones out again, at much personal
inconvenience. But "_ar lar in Broga_" may also mean "in the [burying-]
ground of the Brugh"; and the descriptions quoted above from the
_Dinnsenchus_ show quite clearly that the ground in which "the host of
Meath" were buried embraced a considerable tract of land, dotted over
with mounds and monuments, differing only in degree from those of a
modern cemetery.
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