Myths of Ireland

Ériu: the map of the island

Every entry with a fixed place on the land, pinned where its tradition sits. The map is named for Ériu, who has an entry of her own. Each pin opens a small card; everything the map shows is also listed below it, in plain links.

Each type carries its own colour.

Map data: Natural Earth. The map runs entirely in your browser; nothing you do on it leaves your device.

The pins, listed

Everything the map shows, as plain links: 26 entries with a place on the island, each with the locality its tradition names.

Stories 9

Beings 10

Places 7

Places on no map

Some of the library cannot be pinned.

Places

  • Connla's Well / Tobar Segais Connla's Well (Tipra Chonnlai) is the Otherworld well of wisdom in Irish mythology, lying at the mythical source of the Shannon, ringed by nine hazels whose nuts feed its salmon and release the bubbles of poetic inspiration.
  • Fairy Forts Fairy forts are the earthen and stone ringforts of early medieval Ireland, up to 60,000 of which survive, held in folk tradition to be dwellings of the Sídhe and guarded by some of the most enduring prohibitions in Irish culture.
  • Holy Wells and Rag Trees Holy wells are sacred springs venerated across Ireland for healing, visited on pattern days for sunwise rounds, and typically paired with a rag tree hung with votive cloth.
  • Royal Inauguration Trees and Assembly Sites Royal inauguration trees, each called a bile, stood at Gaelic assembly sites where kings were made; felling a rival's sacred tree was a supreme act of political desecration.
  • The Lone Hawthorn and Fairy Paths The lone hawthorn, or fairy thorn, is a solitary whitethorn left uncut in Irish fields because tradition holds it belongs to the fairies, whose invisible paths run between forts, hills and lone trees.
  • Tír na nÓg Tír na nÓg, the Land of Youth, is the great Irish Otherworld: a realm beyond the western sea, beneath the waves or inside the hollow hills, where time runs differently, no one ages or dies, and abundance never ends.

Beings

  • Bile The bile was the ancient venerated tree at the centre of an Irish tribal territory: sovereignty emblem, assembly point and inauguration site, whose deliberate felling by a rival was recorded in the annals as an act of war.
  • Crann Bethadh Crann bethadh, usually rendered Celtic Tree of Life, is largely a modern popularisation: the genuine medieval Irish evidence behind it is the bile tradition of sacred tribal trees, and the familiar knotwork symbol has no medieval precedent.
  • Lugh Lugh is the warrior-god of the Tuatha Dé Danann who mastered every art at once, slew his Fomorian grandfather Balor, and gave his name to the harvest festival Lughnasadh.
  • Manannán mac Lir Manannán mac Lir is the pre-eminent sea-god and Otherworld king of Irish mythology, lord of Emain Ablach and the Land of Promise, and the great magical armourer of the Tuatha Dé Danann.
  • Ogham and the Tree Alphabet Ogham is the earliest Irish writing system, an alphabet of strokes and notches carved on standing stones from roughly the fourth to seventh centuries AD.
  • The Aos Sí The Aos Sí, the people of the mounds, are the supernatural race at the heart of Irish folk-belief: descendants of the Tuatha Dé Danann who retreated into Ireland's ancient mounds after defeat by the Milesians, and the 'Good People' of living west-of-Ireland tradition.
  • The Bean Sí The bean sí, anglicised banshee, is the supernatural female death-messenger of Irish tradition: a woman of the síd who keens before the death of a member of the old Gaelic families, especially those with Ó and Mac surnames.
  • The Cailleach The Cailleach is the divine hag of Gaelic tradition in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, the winter and sovereignty figure said to have shaped the landscape itself.
  • The Changeling The changeling is the wizened substitute the fairies of Irish folklore leave behind when they steal a healthy child or a new mother, known in Irish as an iarlais or síofra.
  • The Merrow The merrow is the Irish mermaid and merman of folklore, a dweller in Tír fo Thuinn, the Land Beneath the Waves, who crosses between worlds by means of a magical cap, the cohuleen druith.
  • The Nine Hazels of Wisdom The nine hazels of wisdom are Otherworld trees whose nuts feed the Salmon of Knowledge and carry imbas, poetic inspiration, into Ireland's rivers.
  • The Púca The púca, anglicised pooka, is Ireland's shapeshifting night-spirit: a trickster of November and Samhain that appears as a dark horse with fiery eyes, a goat, an eagle or a bull, speaks with a human voice, and carries unwary travellers on terrifying wild rides.

Stories

  • Oisín i dTír na nÓg Oisín, son of Fionn mac Cumhaill, is carried by Niamh of the Golden Hair to Tír na nÓg, the Land of Youth, and returns three hundred years later to an Ireland where a broken saddle-girth costs him his youth in a single fall.
  • Táin Bó Cúailnge Táin Bó Cúailnge, the Cattle Raid of Cooley, is the central epic of the Ulster Cycle: Queen Medb of Connacht's great raid to seize the Brown Bull of Cooley, resisted almost single-handedly by the young hero Cú Chulainn.
  • The Fate of the Children of Tuireann Oidheadh Chlainne Tuireann (The Fate of the Children of Tuireann) is one of the Three Sorrows of Storytelling: the sons of Tuireann murder Lugh's father and are sent on a blood-fine quest that wins every treasure and costs them their lives.
  • The Wooing of Étaín Tochmarc Étaíne (The Wooing of Étaín) is the principal tale of the Irish Mythological Cycle: the Otherworld king Midir loses his wife Étaín to jealous magic and wins her back at Tara a thousand years later.
  • Tóraigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne Tóraigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne (The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne) is the great elopement tale of the Fenian Cycle: Gráinne binds Diarmuid Ua Duibhne with geasa to flee Tara with her on the eve of her wedding to Fionn mac Cumhaill.