¹Wilde, William Robert. The Beauties of the Boyne, and Its Tributary, the Blackwater. Dublin: J. McGlashan, 1849, 180.

²Seaver, Matthew and Conor Brady. Heritage Guide 55: Hill of Slane. Dublin: Archaeology Ireland, 2011.
The authors suggest that some stones for the Brú na Bóinne tombs may have come from the Hill of Slane.
Another of the Brú na Bóinne sites featured on Voices from the Dawn is Dowth.

³“Part 77 of The Metrical Dindshenchas.” CELT (Corpus of Electronic Texts), distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland. celt.ucc.ie/published/T106500D/text077.html.

⁴Trench, C.E.F. Slane: Slane Town Trail, Newgrange. Slane: An Taisce, 1995, 14-23.
It should be noted that the motte is not part of the public monument. It is on private land belonging to the Slane estate. According to the author, “If you want to visit it, go down the northwest face of the hill and through the gate at the bottom of the slope."

⁵Brady, Conor, et. al. “Recent geophysical investigations and LiDAR analysis at the Hill of Slane, Co. Meath.” Ríocht na Midhe, Meath Archaeological & Historical Society, XXIV (2013): 134–55.
According to the authors, "It is interesting that le Fleming followed a deliberate strategy in the construction of his stronghold at Knowth in appropriating an existing mound and modifying it. The reference to the Dumhach S láine suggests that he may have followed the same strategy for the construction of his centre at Slane. Thus, it seems certain that the first castle at Slane, le Fleming’s motte, was built overlying an important prehistoric site close to the medieval parish church."

⁶Westropp, Thomas J. “Slane in Bregia, County Meath: Its Friary and Hermitage.” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Fifth Series, Vol. 31, No. 4, (Dec. 31, 1901): 406.
As for the Dindshenchas and its folklore tying the monastery at Slane to themes of kingship and judgement, Conor Brady notes that "the folklore related in the Dindsenchas may not be very ancient. The text itself is 12th century but records earlier (or contemporary?) stories/traditions. It is possible that the folklore there is a reinforcement of the existing status of the monastery on the Hill of Slane as a legal centre." (Brady, Conor. Email to the author, Jan. 2, 2020.)

⁷Brady, Conor, and Matthew Seaver. “The Motte.” The Hill of Slane Archaeological Project, 8 June 2015, hillofslane.wordpress.com/the-site/the-motte/.
The geophysical studies undertaken in 2010-11 were inconclusive regarding the potential barrow and other features surrounding the motte. (Brady, Conor, et. al. “Recent geophysical investigations and LiDAR analysis at the Hill of Slane, Co. Meath.” Ríocht na Midhe, Meath Archaeological & Historical Society, XXIV (2013): 134–55.)
The quoted phrase from The Song of Dermot and the Earl, "harrass the enemies," is taken from the text below. The Song of Dermot and the Earl may be read in its entirety here.
Richard the Fleming was his name —
Twenty fiefs he gave him of a truth,
If the geste does not deceive you.
A fortress this man erected
In order to harass his enemies,
Knights and a goodly force he kept there
Archers, Sergeants, likewise.
In order to destroy his enemies;

⁸Seaver, Matthew. “Practice, Spaces and Places:an Archaeology of Boroughs as Manorial Centres in the Barony of Slane.” The Manor in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland, by James Lyttleton and Tadhg O'Keeffe, Dublin: Four Courts, 2005, 77.

⁹Seaver, “Practice, Spaces and Places", 89-91.
In an email from Seaver to Conor Brady, following a query from this author, Seaver wrote: "The confusion came from Cogan who suggests that this new building was on the hill of Slane (Cogan 1862 Dioc I:284-5). There is no other evidence to back this suggestion and all the evidence including the dissolution documents for the Friary indicate that this building was the Hermitage of St Erc."

¹⁰Seaver, “Practice, Spaces and Places", 78.

¹¹Eogan, George, and Eoin Grogan. "Prehistoric and Early Historic Culture Change at Brugh Na Bóinne." Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 91C (1991): 119.
"...the Annals of the Four Masters under the year 948 record that 'the cloictech [round tower] of Slane was burned by Foreigners with its full relics and distinguished persons together with Caineachair, Lector of Slane, and the crozier of the patron saint, and a bell, the best of bells.'"

¹²Westropp, 416-18.
"A flight of sixty-eight steps, eleven running straight from the pointed door leading into the church up to a small slit, whence the staircase is round and the steps spiral without any newel. We pass, at the twenty sixth and forty-seventh steps, two doors into two rooms above the porch, which had only wooden floors, and were under a vaulting; the latter was, before 1896, in a great state of decay, and had partly collapsed; fortunately the repairs by the Board of Works, judiciously carried out in this case,, have secured this interesting building without any disfigurement to the ruins. In the top room above this vaulting, at the fifty-third step, are large pointed double lights to each side, which are (externally) in oblong depressions, with corbels above supporting the water-tables and battlements. At each angle are high battlemented turrets supported internally on massive corbelling. The roof of the bell loft, judging from the weather ledges, must have been very steep, if not an actual spire."
C.E.F. French wrote, "Near the top of the tower, on each side will be seen small projecting corbels three on each side. Look up on the south side and between two of these corbels you will see a small head looking down at you." (Trench, C.E.F. 1995. Slane: Slane Town Trail, Newgrange. Slane: An Taisce. 14-23.)
According to Matthew Seaver, "The church is documented from 1286 onwards but was almost certainly in existence at the time of the invasion (Cai. doc. Ire. ii, 292). " (Seaver, Matthew. “Practice, Spaces and Places:an Archaeology of Boroughs as Manorial Centres in the Barony of Slane.” The Manor in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland, by James Lyttleton and Tadhg O'Keeffe, Dublin: Four Courts, 2005, 84-7.)

¹³Wilde, 179-80.
Below is the author's full introduction to the Hill of Slane. You can read or download the complete volume here.
"Here, pilgrim, stop; rest on yonder monumental slab, be­neath the shadow of that tall, ivy-mantled tower, the belfry of the cathedral–it once was gorgeous with the shrines of Fathers, and illumed by many a flickering taper, though now the hemlock fills its aisles, and the purple foxglove waves its lonely banneret. The ground whereon we stand is sacred,–consecrated by the foot-prints of our patron saint, hallowed by the dust of kings. Look abroad over the wide, undulating plains of Meath, or to the green hills of Louth: where, in the broad landscapes of Britain, find we a scene more fruitful and varied, or one more full of interesting, heart-stirring associations? Climb this tower and cast your eye along the river. Look from the tall, pillar-like form of the Yellow Steeple at Trim, which rises in the distance, to where yon bright line marks the meeting of the sea and sky below the Maiden Tower at Drogheda, and trace the clear blue waters of the Boyne, winding through this lovely, highly cultivated landscape, so rich in all that can charm the eye and awaken the imagination; take into view the hills of Skreen and Tara; pass in review the woods of Hayes, Ardmulchan, Beauparc; look down into the green mounds and broad pastures of Slane; follow the Boyne below you, as it dances by each ford and rapid, to where the great pyramids of western Europe, Knowth, New Grange, and Dowth, rise on its left bank; see you not the groves of Townley Hall and Old Bridge, marking the battle-field of 1690, with the ill-fated hill of Donore, where the sceptre passed for ever from the royal line of Stuart, obtruding its long-remembered tale of civil strife upon us? Duleek stands in the distance. Beyond those hills that border Louth lie Monasterboice, and Mellifont, the last resting-place of the faithless Bride of Brefney. Those steeples and turrets which rise in the lower distance were shattered by the balls of Cromwell; and that knoll which juts above them is the Mill Mount of Drogheda.
What a picture have we here, from this Richmond Hill of Irish scenery! What an extensive page of our country's history does it unfold to us! What recollections gush upon us as we stand on the abbey walls of Slane, and take in this noble prospect at a glance! The records and the footprints of two thousand years are all before us; the solemn procession of the simple shepherd to the early Pagan mound; the rude slinger standing on the earthen circle; the Druid fires, paling before the bright sun of Christianity; the cadence of the round tower's bell; the matin and the vesper hymn swelling from the hermit's cell, or early missionary church; the proud galleys and glancing swords of fierce northern hordes; the smoking ruins of church and tower; the shout of rival clans in civil feuds; the lances and banners of Norman soldiers; the moat, and fosse, and draw­ bridge of the keep, still echoing back the strife of hostile ranks,-the native for his soil, the stranger for his hire; the ford defended, and the castle won; the pilgrim's cross, the stately abbey, and the baron's hall; in church, the stole ejected for the surplice; the town besieged, the city sacked; and then the rattle, and the roar, and smoke of recent battle; –have, one and all, their epochs, ruins, sites, or history, legibly inscribed upon this picture."

¹⁴Wilde, 183.

¹⁵Brady, 134–55.
One of Brady's co-authors, Matthew Seaver, elsewhere wrote, "Any earlier rectory would clearly have been destroyed through the construction of this building in the fifteenth century." (Seaver, Matthew. “Practice, Spaces and Places:an Archaeology of Boroughs as Manorial Centres in the Barony of Slane.” The Manor in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland, by James Lyttleton and Tadhg O'Keeffe, Dublin: Four Courts, 2005, 87-9.)

¹⁶Westropp, 421-24.
The author writes of the gateway, "...it was formerly roofed and had an outer arch now fallen, and a side staircase up its southern jamb."

¹⁷Trench, 14-23.
According to Matthew Seaver, "The large numbers of gargoyles, heraldry and carved heads in contemporary dress communicated an unconscious code of loyalties and morals." (Seaver, Matthew. “Practice, Spaces and Places:an Archaeology of Boroughs as Manorial Centres in the Barony of Slane.” The Manor in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland, by James Lyttleton and Tadhg O'Keeffe, Dublin: Four Courts, 2005, 87-9.)

¹⁸McLaughlin, Barney. “Meath Crosses.” Irish High Crosses, irishhighcrosses.com/meath-crosses.html.

¹⁹Lewis, A.L. Notes on Some Irish Antiquities. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 9 (1880): 141-2.
The author considers the suggestions that the stones mark a pagan burial: "The burial of a pagan as such in a Christian cemetery would be another circumstance which would require explanation, but such a shrine as I have imagined might well, after the building of the abbey, have fallen into ruin, and its remains have preserved only such a tradition of their origin as is conveyed in the idea of their marking a pagan's grave; this, however, is at best mere hypothesis, and the stones may not be of great antiquity, but may have derived their name from their unworked condition."
Westropp referred to the structure as a "bone box." (Westropp, Thomas J. “Slane in Bregia, County Meath: Its Friary and Hermitage.” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Fifth Series, Vol. 31, No. 4, (Dec. 31, 1901): 418.)
The stones are also called the “Bishop’s Tomb." (Trench, C.E.F. Slane: Slane Town Trail, Newgrange. Slane: An Taisce, 1995, 14-23.)

²⁰Seaver, Heritage Guide 55.

²¹Wilde, 182-3.

²²Westropp, 406.

²³Adomnán. “Saint Erc's Well, Slane.” Ireland's Holy Wells, irelandsholywells.blogspot.com/2012/02/saint-ercs-well-slane.html.
The story of St. Patrick and St. Erc is from the 7th century Life of St. Patrick, by Muirchú moccu Machtheni.
The author includes this prayer to St. Erc: "O God who granted the blessed Saint Erc a deep understanding of justice and a wise councel, grant us who benefit from his faithfulness a sound judgement in all things, a stillness of body, mind and soul and a faithfulness of heart that in all things we may honour your name and proclaim your glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen."

²⁴Westropp, 406.
In the 12th century tale, The Banquet of Dun na n-Gedh, St. Erc has a role: "...a wonder-working saint of God's people dwells here, namely, Bishop Erc, of Slaine,• and his custom is to remain immersed in the Boinn, up to his two arm-pits, from morning till evening, having his Psalter before him on the strand, constantly engaged in prayer; and his dinner every evening on returning hither is an egg and a half, and three sprigs of the cresse of the Boinn..." This text is available here.

²⁵Johnson, Walter. Byways in British Archeology. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1912, 25.
Remarking on the lighting of the Paschal Fire, D.L.T. Bethell wrote (crediting Anton Baumstark) that "This lighting of the Easter Fire received so much emphasis from the Irish and the Anglo-Saxons they converted that an older generation of liturgical historians actually thought it was invented in Ireland. That...is not so; it goes back to ancient Jewish lighting of the lamps for the Sabbath, it was...originally a utilitarian lighting for the long Easter vigil. But is was certainly the Irish who laid a special emphasis on its symbolism." (Bethell, D.L.T. “The Originality of the Early Irish Church.” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 111 (1981): 36- 49.)

²⁶Turpin, John. "Irish History Painting." The GPA Irish Arts Review Yearbook, (1989/1990). Dublin: Irish Arts Review, 233-247.
The author describes Vincent Waldré's ceiling fresco in Dublin Castle: "Accompanying the central circle are two rectangular narrative subjects, “St. Patrick lighting the Paschal Fire at the Hill of Slane,” showing discredited Irish druids and indicating how native Ireland was being improved by outside Christianity. 'Henry II meeting the Irish chiefs and receiving the Surrender of Dublin' is the clearest possible political statement of the power of England over Ireland, particularly in the 1790s, when this connection was coming increasingly into question by the Anglo-Irish Parliment and by more radical voices in the United Irishmen, stemming from the French Revolution."

²⁷Mulcahy, T.I. “The Saint of Irish Patriotism.” The Irish Monthly, Vol. 50, No. 586 (Apr., 1922): 143-150.
The author provides context for the Paschal Fire event: "The Visigoths have camped at Toulouse. Attila has reached the Rhine. Rome is doomed and the future of the Church shot with gloom. But at that hour, in the uncertain twilight of Easter Eve in the year of Our Lord 433, St. Patrick kindled the Paschal Fire at Tara, by whose light a whole nation were led to the Kingdom of Truth, and whose rays heralded the dawning of a glorious day, whose noon time is not yet at an end in the history of the Church."

²⁸Herity, Michael. "A Survey of the Royal Site of Cruachain in Connacht: 1. Introduction, the Monuments and Topography." The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 113 (1983): 125.
The king's daughters' baptisms also marked their deaths. According to Herity, "The story goes on to tell how they were baptised by Patrick, received the Eucharist and then died. When the days of mourning came to an end, they were buried by the well of Clebach within a circular fosse like a ferta (L. tumulus), in the manner of those made by the Irish and the Heathens. The story ends: 'and in that place he made an earthen church' (ecclesiam terrenum)."

²⁹Eogan, 119.
Here is the authors' argument for positioning the Paschal Fire event at Brú na Bóinn rather than the Hill of Slane:
"Slane is not specifically mentioned in the early lives of the saint, although it appears that on his return to Ireland Patrick landed on the east coast. Muirchu, in his Life of the saint, states that the landing place was Inver Colpa, the mouth of the Boyne, and that from there he moved inland and in the evening arrived at the 'burial place of the men of Fiacc' where he and his companions pitched their tents and celebrated Easter (Bieler 1979, 85). Could this have been Brugh na Boinne? It is, indeed, possible because of the reference to a burial place and also from the political point of view. There is no archaeological or historical evidence that the Hill of Slane was then an important site, but there is evidence, as already mentioned, that Brugh na Boinne was. One could then speculate that it was at Brugh na Boinne, not the Hill of Slane, that St Patrick celebrated his first missionary Easter in Ireland. Amongst the sites in Brugh na Boinne, Knowth has the best proven evidence for settlement, possibly as the home of a prominent family. As is known from historical and anthropological sources, it was usual for a missionary to approach a local chieftain and, if such existed, Knowth is the best candidate as the site of his residence. It is likely that Slane only came to prominence as a result of the establishment of Christianity, as a counterbalance to pagan Brugh na Boinne, as an attempt to minimise its importance, even to replace it, or at least to provide a Christian alternative to paganism. This could have led to the decline of Knowth and a corresponding growth in the importance of Slane which became not only an ecclesiastical site-St Patrick appointed Erc as first bishop-but likely a political one also."
The Heritage Guide to the Hill of Slane seems to come to a similar conclusion: "Cathy Swift has shown that the antiquarian James Ware linked Fertae Fer Feic with the hilltop, although sources suggest that this place may have been elsewhere along the Boyne Valley. Swift stresses, however, that early medieval mounds, churches and forts were often connected with legal centres. The Hill of Slane contains both an enclosed mound and an important church site documented as an important legal centre from the eighth century AD, with links to French monastic sites. Therefore, while Slane is unlikely to have been the site of the legendary paschal fire, it has important links to the Patrician story." ( Seaver, Matthew and Conor Brady. Heritage Guide 55: Hill of Slane. Dublin: Archaeology Ireland, 2011.)

³⁰Bethell, D.L.T. “The Originality of the Early Irish Church.” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 111 (1981): 43.