⁹Slavin, Michael. The Ancient Books of Ireland. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005, p. 35.

While this often-repeated claim regarding Tara's "142 kings" cannot be readily confirmed with purely historical evidence, Conor Newman provides a sense of the longevity of the site's importance: "... Tara, [is] considered by some to be the premier site of 'Celtic' Ireland...Though heretofore this belief may have been founded more on its mythological and historical status than on a detailed knowledge of the date and function of its monuments, it will be argued below that it can be substantiated archaeologically. There is good archaeological evidence that Tara was of considerable importance during the Iron Age and this no doubt contributed in no small measure to its historic importance." (Newman, Conor. Tara: An Archaeological Survey. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy for the Discovery Programme, 1997, pp. 145-48.)