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Irish and Celtic myths and legends, Irish folklore, Irish fairy tales and More Irish Tales and Legends
All of the many magical places in Ireland
There have been people in Ireland for at least fourteen thousand years, after the great ice receded, and while some have vanished and others have stayed to this very day, most of them have left some mark on the hills, plains, forests and fields of this land.
Even today we are still discovering monuments and mysterious dwelling places, ruins and artifacts of clans long-past, those whose names are but whispers in our oldest mythology if they are known at all!
Often it has been said that beneath every stone and leaf in Ireland is a story, a myth, a legend, and that is never more true than when we catch glimpses of the very ancient past in these magical monuments. From the most elder times through to the mesolithic, the neolithic, the chalcolithic or copper age, then the bronze and iron ages, and finally into the Irish classical age, the medieval and then the early modern, like a flower of many petals each has its own beautiful secrets to share if we but ask the right questions.
Come and explore these realms of wonder long past - and who knows, yet to come! - with us and together we will explore ways forgotten by all but the oldest stones, and hear voices speak which have been silent for millennia.
Your guide to ancient Irish history
From about 26,000 years ago to almost 14,000 years ago, Ireland was covered by vast sheets of ice, some more than three kilometers in thickness. They sometimes reached well beyond the southern coast, until the ice bridge between Ireland and the rest of Europe finally melted around 14,000 years ago, around the date of the first evidence we have for human habitation here. The last and worst of the ice had vanished by 12,000 years ago, although it left Ireland as an arctic tundra landscape.
The earliest evidence for people being in Ireland dates back an astonishing 14,000 years, as we learned upon the discovery of a butchered brown bear bone found in in Alice and Gwendoline Cave in the Burren in county Clare. We know little about the inhabitants of the area at the time but they probably would have been hunter-gatherers who lived in small nomadic groups, travelling from place to place looking for food and resources, and they used a long flint blade to make their dinner.
The Mesolithic
The next group of Irish people began to emerge in the Mesolithic, starting around ten thousand years ago. They were excellent craftspeople, making high quality fish traps and cremating their dead on funeral pyres, and they ate well from the richness of the land, storing nuts for later by roasting them.
The earliest known human burial in Ireland dates from the early Mesolithic, discovered near the Shannon river in County Limerick. The earliest known polished axe found in Europe was buried in the same place. People started to move from smaller flake tools to larger flint tools as their skills developed, and they tended to live along the coasts, lakshores and rivers in temporary camps that changed with the seasons. There's no evidence to suggest they lived inland away from water.
They ate a wide variety of foods like salmon, eels, periwinkles, oysters, limpets, and boar. There were no deer, elk or cattle in Ireland at this time. It's probable that Ireland was fairly isolated and home to one people for thousands of years since Mesolithic tools show no regional variation in design - they were all constructed in the same way, by hard hammer percussion.
That's about all we can say on the Mesolithic adventurers who roamed green Éire in days long gone, since rising sea levels and acid peat bogs have removed any other evidence they might have left behind!
The Great Civilisations of the Neolithic
It was during the Neolithic, or New Stone Age, that great civilisations began to flourish across Europe, and Ireland was no different. Widespread farming, domesticated livestock and advanced forms of pottery spread quickly, with red deer, sheep, goats and cattle being introduced, presumably being towed across the Irish sea on skin boats or rafts. An extensive Neolithic field layout growing wheat and barley, at the Céide Fields in County Mayo, was uncovered from beneath a peat bog. The field were separated by drystone walls. Many other such fields have since been discovered.
These new farming practices provided a surplus of food to be traded and allowed leisure to develop skills like carving and masonry, but were also reliant on a few types of crops and animals. If those failed, the Neolithic communities were in big trouble! This is why many of the monuments they erected are aligned to the seasons and certain times of year.
Neolithic technology wasn't adopted by the earlier hunter-gatherers of Ireland, they were displaced to the peripheries or assimilated to be replaced by the farmers, who cleared upland forests, since it was thinner than lowland forests, and built larger houses from wattle-and-daub house made from wood and thatched with reeds, and long-term farms in their place. After many centuries those farms were abandoned and became upland peat bogs as the land stagnated and acidified.
Axes made in Ireland were found as far away as southern England, so the Neolithic people of Ireland were trading far and wide.
Perhaps their most famous hallmarks are the great megalithic monuments, famous around the world. These can be found in many other part of Europe besides Ireland of course, but here they are particularly concentrated. Peope didn't begin to erect them until several centuries after the first farming settlers arrived, and they fall into three broad types, with many of them in the north of Ireland. This isn't surprising since the only place flint can be found in Ireland is in the north - however the rest of Ireland was also populated.
Court tombs or long barrows were among the first structures built, stone chambers covered by an earthen mound, with an eastward-facing court entrance to catch the rising sun, or possibly moon. The earth coverings on these tombs have mostly long since fallen away due to erosion leaving the stone "skeletbons" exposed. They may also, or even mainly, have served as temples.
Portal tombs or dolmens are found in most places except the south of Ireland. They are generally three or more standing stones topped with one or more enormous capstones leaning away to one side, so that one end of the tomb is wide open. Human remains would have been deposited within and the tomb sealed with smaller stones.
Passage tombs were the last of the great Neolithic tombs to have been built, and seem to have originated with a new wave of arrivals from Europe. Newgrange is by far the most famous example of these tombs in Ireland, a circular earth mound with a central chamber and a passage leading to it. The roof of the chamber is a beehive shaped cone going upwards, and there are sometimes other chambers leading away from the central one. The stones lining the walls are often heavily carved and decorated.
It is from this time that many of the earliest myths and legends of Ireland originate, stories which speak of a hunter-gatherer race being invaded by a pastoral people, waves of invasions and wars, friendship, tribute, reversals and triumphs. This was the age of mystery and magic, when the druids or their forerunners watched the stars, moon and sun carefully for portents of troubles or blessings to come, the age when strange darknesses haunted the lowlands and ever-encroaching bogs of our ancient land.
Some estimates of the population of Ireland at the height of the Neolithic suggest there were a quarter of a million people living here, but the population collapsed around 2500 BC as a fresh wave of invaders began to arrive, bearing magical new tools and weapons of reddish-golden bronze and copper.
The Chalcolithic and Bronze Age:
Spanning a full two thousand years, the Bronze age arrived with fire and flashing metal, bringing wonders never before seen or imagined! The first part of the Bronze age was called the Chalcolithic, or copper age, since copper was the main metal in use before the secrets of alloying bronze were discovered, first by mixing copper with deadly arsenic, then later, with much safer tin.
Some would coincide the beginning of the Bronze age with the arrival of the Tuatha Dé Danann, that mystical and legended race of sorcerous wanderers. They returned to Ireland from exile in Greece or the Middle East after a ruinous war with an older race who had remained here, following closely their once-brothers and kin, the Fir Bolg. Famed beyond fame was the magical sword of the sun wielded by Lugh, and what else could it have been but a bronze sword seen for the first time by Neolithic people?
The people of Bronze age Ireland were very likely to have been closely related to the modern Irish people, since the Irish language finds its roots in the Bronze age along with the wider Celtic culture, as well as mingling with the preceding Neolithic peoples who seemed to remain in the highlands, perhaps becoming known as the Sí.
There were three parts to the Irish Bronze age, during which the people of the country were well organised and lived in a structured society. The production of bronze needed far-reaching trade routes and specialised skills, so Irish culture needed many specialised craftspeople.
The early Bronze age saw the introduction of metalworking and a powerful ruling caste who laid claim to these new riches of gold and bronze, although flint tools such as scrapers and axe heads remained in common use throughout the period.
During the middle Bronze age, the skills of Irish metalworkers exceeded those of any other land, producing breathtaking and delicate pieces in bronze, silver and gold. Ireland seems to have been largely peaceful during this time, and the hall of Tara was built to be the seat of kings.
The end of the Bronze age saw the construction of mighty hill forts, strongly defended stone fortresses like Dún Aonghasa on Inis Mór, Co. Galway, and many more weapons and varieties of weapons being deposited in sacrificial hoards. The climate began to grow colder during the late Bronze age, so communities may have engaged in raiding and warfare on one another as food grew scarce and the bogs expanded, swallowing up low-lying farmsteads, followed by the deep, dark forests. Strange things stirred from the deepest unlit places and walked abroad, that had not been seen for a thousand years and more.
Smaller houses and homes also took on a defensive character during the late Bronze age, either being built on or next to water, or being surrounded by wooden palisades and ditches.
Ritual activity during the Bronze age was sophisticated, although they still used many of the old sacred sites, the passage and court tombs of the Neolithic. They also developed wedge tombs, which were in use for over a thousand years, until eventually cremation and burial in stone-lined cist tombs became common, usually in inverted food vessels, along with pottery and tools to accompany the deceased into the afterlife. Older tombs and sacred sites continued in occasional use well into the iron age.
Sacred places such as pools, waterways, caves and tunnels, coastal shallows, bogs, river fords and the tops of mountains were the main locations for ritual and religious activities. People of the time would often bury golden hoards, jewels and tools in offerings to the water - or perhaps something in the water - along with bog bodies and valued items like weapons.
The Iron Age
Then came the time of iron, iron and blood, when fierce heroes battled in thundering chariots across the ancient landscape of Ireland and the world beyond her shores bowed to the might of Rome. The Iron age had arrived! But not, as it turns out, with a single invasion, but rather knowledge of working this new type of metal spread slowly, with the earliest pieces found around 800 BC. It would take four centuries for iron to completely replace bronze as the preferred metal of use for the Gaels.
The Iron age Irish constructed wooden trackways called toghers across the bogs, to facilitate trade on wheeled carts trundling through landscapes dominated by ancient, mysterious monuments. Trade was brisk with Britain and Europe. Over fifty thousand "ring forts", which were more likely tall tower halls similar to Scottish Brochs, were built over the thousand years of the Iron age, scattered all over the country. These would have served as clan strongholds and fastnesses.
The old certainties crumbled and new ways were followed as the former aristocratic clans of the Irish lost power - the new metal was far more abundant than bronze, more versatile, and could even be found in bogs! There were few new constructions on the scale of the hill forts or great megalithic monuments, but the old sacred places continued to be used, repurposed and renewed.
The Royal Sites of Ireland continued to serve as great centres of Iron age power, and in places huge winding walls of earth and ditches were constructed to hinder cattle raids, such as the Black Pig's Dyke and Cliadh Dubh. These defensive boundary walls were named after creatures from Gaelic folklore, such as an enormous black boar whose mighty tusks ripped up the countryside, or a terrible wyrm who burrowed beneath.
Many of the rich artifacts recovered from this time were found in bogs in the 19th century after being left in what were then rivers and lakes, and these items tended to be adorned with the rich, flowing distinctive La Tène style. Rarely if ever have hoards been found in Iron age burials, settlements or tombs. This style of artwork has been found across Europe, and demonstrates that Ireland had vibrant trade connections with many parts of the world. The European influence remained strong up until about 150 BC, when it was superseded by the influences British Celtic culture, such as can be seen in the Keshcarrigan Bowl.
The La Tène style of design seemed to revive around the fourth century AD and quickly developed into the astonishing Celtic knotwork that is so justly famed, independent of Roman influences.
Although the Roman Empire never conquered Ireland, there are signs of trading or perhaps raiding in artifacts found around the country, including hacked-up silver tableware in Limerick, coins, weapons, cloak pins and neck ornaments.
The end of the Iron age was even stranger and grimmer than the twilight of the Bronze age - this was known as the Irish Dark Age!
It was a time of cultural and economic collapse and stagnation, dating from 100 BC to 300 AD. Nothing was built across these centuries and many places were abandoned, lost, perhaps forever. Pollen data extracted from Irish bogs tells of a decrease in human impact on plant life in the bogs in the third century, and specifically that "the impact of human activity upon the flora around the bogs from which the pollen came was less between 200 BC and 300 AD than either before or after."
Nobody knows why such a time of decay fell upon Ireland, when gaunt lords of ancient lineages brooded over shattered demesnes and cold winds howled around gapped halls, but by the fourth century AD it had passed and the medieval, Christian age had arrived.
- Irish Royal Sites
- Irish Bullaun Stones
- Irish Megalithic Structures
- Irish Court Tombs
- Irish Passage Tombs
- Irish Portal Tombs
- Irish Unclassified Tombs
- Irish Wedge Tombs
- Irish Standing Stones
- Irish Stone Circles
- Irish Cup Marked Stones
- Irish Rock Art
- Irish Crannógs
- Irish Stone Heads
- Irish Hill Forts and Earthworks
- Ogham Stones
- Irish Ring Forts
Legendary Places in Ireland
The extraordinary Ballintubber Abbey, known as Tobar Padraic in the Annals of the Four Mastersm is almost a thousand years old, having been built by King Cathal Crobdearg Ua Conchobair - whose father commissioned the beautiful Cross of Cong - in 1216. It has survived ages and centuries of persecution and fire, providing a place for people to visit ... [more]
One of the rarest and most beautiful woods in the world is Irish bog oak. This very ancient kind of wood can be found across Ireland, but is most often recovered from deep peat bogs in the midlands, and can be anywhere from three thousand to eight thousand years old or more. These trees grew, lived and fell in times of legend, witnessing the rise o ... [more]
One of the most imposing legacies of the last of the mighty megalith-builders of the Neolithic and Bronze ages, the Dolmen of the Four Maols, considered by some to be a cist tomb rather than a dolmen or portal tomb. An enormous capstone sits above three other stones, while the entry stone lies not far off. It was once covered by a cairn of smaller ... [more]
Alone in County Louth rises a tall standing stone, its only company the ravens overhead and the whispering wind given voice by nearby trees. This is Clochafarmore, which means "the stone of the great man". It was first raised during the bronze age and rises to ove three meters in height, in a place whose name means The Field of Slaughter, ... [more]
The Boheh stone in the deepest west of Ireland is one of the finest examples of Neolithic rock art in Europe, over two hundred and fifty petroglyphs wrought by unknown hands on a natural outcrop of rock flecked with quartz stones, on the west side of a hill, facing the setting sun, around 3800 BC. Twice a year at sowing and harvest times this produ ... [more]
Cashel of the Kings, the mighty Rock of Cashel was in olden times known as the Royal Site of the Kings of Mumu, a place we today call Munster. It is a great uplifting of raw limestone from the surrounding grassy plains, which old tales tell was hurled from a mountain called the Devil's Bit, in County Tipperary. It is said to have been where ... [more]
The great northern fastness of Emain Macha means "Macha's twins" or "Macha's pair", and its tale is bound tightly with the local goddess Macha, after whom is also named Armagh, Ard Macha. The ancient Greek philosopher Ptolemy drew a map of the world, upon which he marked a place called Isamnion in southern Ulster, which ... [more]
The spiritual and geographical heart of Ireland is the Hill of Uisneach overlooking a wide plain in view of twenty counties, where the borders of all five kingdoms met, where great decisions were made and assemblies were held, the mórdáil Uisnig, and home to Ail na Mireann, or the Stone of Divisions. On the hill all around this strang ... [more]
The seat of the High Kings of Ireland stretching back to the Tuatha and the Fir Bolg, Tara or Temair as it was known then, is said to have been the seat of a hundred and forty two kings, kingships won by battle, contest and merit, not passed down father to son as in more primitive cultures. It is also known as Teamhair na Rí, 'Tar ... [more]
Dún Ailinne is one of the great Royal Sites of Ireland, "a place of assemblies, a Rath with royal roads, a Grianan or palace, and a Royal Dún", where great ceremonies, rituals and gatherings took place, seat and crowning-place of the Gaelic Kings of Leinster. All that remains of it now is a large circular embankment a ... [more]
The glorious stronghold of Rathcrogan, or Ráth Cruachan, was the Royal Site of the great Kings and Queens of the Western lands for thousands of years. Within its sacred embrace were held the thronging ceremonial assemblies or óenach, and people of every station would gather from all corners of Ireland to reach out and touch, if on ... [more]
The gift of the gab, as it’s known, is a common thing among the Irish – being able to talk all day about anything and everything, and do it in a way that would have you listen as well. It’s as Irish as red hair and freckles. But what if you didn’t have the gift of the gab, or felt a deficiency of gabbiness? Never fear, al ... [more]
The Spring equinox was a very important time for the people of ancient Ireland, heralding as it did the end of the dark season with all of its dangers and want, and signalling the dawn of a new year of plenty. The day and night, the light and the dark side of the year were in equal balance, neither stronger than the other, and it is easy to ... [more]
Ireland is a land of many treasures – some are well known while others are known only to a few, like the mysterious stone circles of Beaghmore! In the north of County Tyrone they can be found, at the edge of the Sperrin mountains looking out over the wide countryside below, dating back to the bronze age and earlier, to the time when the Tuath ... [more]
The royal ringfort of Grianán Ailigh was known as the father of every building in Ireland by the Annals of the Four Masters, who also claimed it was first built in the year 1500 BC, in the time of the Tuatha Dé Danann! A mighty place of strength it is and was and may always be, one of the few locations in Ireland correctly marked on a ... [more]
Knockma of the mists is a place wreathed in secrets and myth where they say sleeps the greatest king of the Sidhe, he whose name was Finnbheara! Should you go for a walk around Knockma Hill, pay close attention to that which you cannot see – a warm breeze meant a good fairy was passing by, and a sudden shiver meant an evil one was close! J ... [more]
Nine is a mystical number in Irish folklore, being thrice three, itself known from ancient times as a mysterious symbol, and so should you happen across nine stones, you would do well to be extra careful! For who knows what might lie sleeping just below the surface. And such a place can be found on the saddle between Sliabh Bán, the White ... [more]
Once upon a time there were many kingdoms in Ireland, and many kings, or perhaps they would have been better known as chieftains, but kings they were for all that. As time went by each of these kingdoms fell and were joined one into the other, but yet a single kingdom still remains in the farthest north and farthest west of the country, and this is ... [more]
Ireland's bones are made of stories, you can hardly step over a rock or walk past an old mound but if it could speak, it would tell you tales you could hardly imagine. But of all the legended glens and fields misty with memory in this ancient nation, there are few with as many secrets hidden in their depths as Lough Gur in county Limerick. S ... [more]
There are tens of thousands of round stone forts in Ireland, some say as many as fifty thousand, if you can believe it, and one of the finest examples we have is at Kilcashel in County Mayo, which comes from the Irish Coill an Chaisil, the woods of the stone fort. Almost perfectly circular in construction, with thick walls two broad men could walk ... [more]
Scattered throughout the Irish countryside are hundreds if not thousands of holy wells, almost all of great antiquity, even predating Christianity. They can take almost any form and show up in any place, shimmering in the shadow of engraved stone monuments, in lapping sea caves where the fresh and salt waters mingle twice a day, as natural springs ... [more]
In county Roscommon there's a place of great antiquity called Oweynagat, which some have mistakenly thought to mean the Cave of Cats, although it has nothing to do with cats - “cath” being the Irish word for “battle” and so it should rightfully be called the battle cave. Indeed it has a long association with the Morrigan ... [more]
The Burren is one of the wonders of Ireland. A rolling rocky landscape of limestone hills and plains, it is marked with history stretching back thousands of years. Nestled in between the limestone slabs are herbs and plants you'd be hard pressed to find elsewhere, hailing from places as far afield as the Arctic and the Mediterranean, kept warm ... [more]
Older than Stonehenge and the great pyramids of Giza stands Newgrange, the heart of legends and mysteries stretching back five thousand years. Situated along the river Boyne near to numerous other such places like Knowth and Dowth, that very same river where Fionn Mac Cumhaill was said to have first found and tasted the salmon of knowledge, and the ... [more]
Dun Aengus means "the Fort of Aenghus", and remains one of the most impressive ancient monuments in Ireland, Europe or the world. Perched on the edge of a high and jagged cliff with the grey-green waters of the Atlantic battering below, it gained its name from its original builders, who were called the Fir Bolg, some of the first to arriv ... [more]
Croagh Patrick or Patrick's Stack is an important place of pilgrimage for Christians throughout Ireland and the world today, some even walking the ascent in their bare feet as penance for their sins. However it was considered a holy place long before St Patrick came to visit, even though it is said he banished the snakes from Ireland while stan ... [more]
Rising from the ocean a short distance off the coast of county Kerry in southern Ireland, Skellig Michael and its smaller brother rear up out of the Atlantic ocean like jagged grey teeth. Famous poet George Bernard Shaw who visited the place in 1910, called it an "incredible, impossible, mad place" and "part of our dream world". ... [more]