The Irish Year
The old Irish year turned on four festivals, Samhain, Imbolc, Bealtaine and Lughnasadh, dividing it into a bright summer half and a dark winter half. The wheel marks all eight points of the calendar; the four festivals each open onto their own entry.
The old Irish year
Now: Summer solstice. Next: Lughnasadh.
- Festival Samhain Samhain is the Gaelic seasonal festival of summer's end and winter's onset, observed from sunset on 31 October through 1 November, the oldest and best documented of the four Irish quarter-days and the ancestor of Halloween.
- Festival Imbolc / St Brigid's Day Imbolc is the Irish spring quarter-day on 1 February, festival of returning light and the start of lambing, bound to the goddess Brigid and to St Brigid of Kildare.
- Festival Bealtaine Bealtaine is the Gaelic festival of summer's beginning, celebrated on 1 May, whose earliest record describes druids driving cattle between two fires against disease, a rite centred on the Hill of Uisneach and still documented in Irish folklore a thousand years later.
- Festival Lughnasadh Lughnasadh is the Gaelic harvest festival at the start of August, founded in Irish myth by the god Lugh as funeral games for his foster-mother Tailtiu.
- Calendar The Two Halves of the Irish Year In the old Irish reckoning the year turned on two hinge-nights, Bealtaine and Samhain, dividing it into a bright summer half and a dark winter half whose thresholds let the Otherworld through.