Macha is the Goddess associated with Emain Macha, the great Dun of the Red branch knights. Emain Macha means 'the Brooch of Macha and she is said to have been used the circular design of the wheel as the plan and using the pin to scratch out the foundations of Emain Macha.

Macha was the daughter of Red Hugh and she had two brothers Dithor and Kimbay and between them they agreed to share the sovereignty of Ireland, but after her father's turn, Macha refused to give up her right to rule, she defeated her brother Dithor and forced Kimbay to marry her.

The Curse of Macha

Crundchu a wealthy Ulster farmer, who is widowed but finds a beautiful young women in his house, who undertakes all the household chores and and night she sleeps with him. So Crundchu marries her and this is Macha, in a new guise. There is a great feast held at Emain Macha, but Macha begs her husband not to go, but he insists. So she tells him that he must not mention her, because she can only stay with him as long as she is not talked off.

But at the feast, when the prize horses of the king, which had won all the races, where toasted as the fleetest of foot of anything in Ireland. Crundchua forgetting his promise to Macha, boasted that his wife could out run all of them. Connor Mac Nessa, demanded his arrest, until his wife was brought to Emain to prove the boast of Crundchu by racing the horses of the King.

When she was brought before the king, it was seen by all, that she was great with child, and she pleaded with them to allow her time to give birth before being made to race. But Connor was with out mercy and said that if she did not race, Crundchu would be hacked to pieces.

Macha in desperation turned to all the men assembly and begged for help, saying that 'A mother has born each of you' asking for a delay long enough to be delivered of her child, but by now the king and all his men just wanted their sport and laughed at her.

So Macha cried,' Bring up the horses, but because you have no pity so shall you suffer the pangs.

So she raced the horses and she outran them, but as she came to the winning post, she gave bent double and with a terrible scream of pain, she gave birth to twins. At this dreadful screech, silence fell over the crowd and the men of Emain where seized with pangs of birth like the ones she had just suffered and where helpless as in women in labour.

And Macha cried 'From this hour, the shame you have wrought on me, will fall upon each man of Ulster. In the hour of Ulster's need ye shall be weak and helpless and suffer as a women in childbed and this will last five days and five nights- until the ninth generation shall you suffer this