THE INVASION MYTHS

IRE, or Ireland, is named after the Celtic goddess, Eriu. Irish mythology describes a series of invasions which led to the establishment of Celtic Ireland, summarized in the mediaeval Lebor Gabala Erenn (‘Book of Invasions of Ireland’). The invading tribes were, in succession, the Cessair, the Partholon, the Nemed, the Fir Bolg, the Tuatha de Danann and, lastly, the sons of Mil Espane, or Milesians. Eriu was a goddess of the divine race of the Tuatha de Danann, or People of the Goddess Danu. She and two other goddesses, Banbha and Fodla, each extracted a promise from the conquering Milesians that Ireland would henceforth take its name from her and her alone. The fill (‘poet’ or ‘visionary’) Amhairghin (Amergin) reassured Eriu that Ireland would be named after her; in return, she promised that the sons of Mil Espane would rule Ireland for all time. The Tuatha de Danann retreated to the dark and secret places, caves, forests, burial chambers, under the waves of the sea, beneath the hillsides, under the streams, where they still live to this day as faery folk.

Many of Ireland’s provincial towns and capitals also took their names from goddesses. Tara, seat of the High Kings, is named after the goddess Tea; Tailtiu is the eponymous goddess of Tailtiu or Teltown, the site of a famous traditional fair; and Emhain Macha, the capital of Ulster, was named after the war-goddess Macha. We can reasonably suppose that most deities of the land, local, regional or national, were also female.

Eriu, like Sulis in Britain, was a solar deity. Her husband was the Tuatha god Mac Grene (‘son of the Sun’). But every mortal king of Ireland was also her husband, at least for the period of his reign. The king was the physical embodiment of a divine concept, and acted as intermediary between the goddess and the land; behind every successful harvest, indeed behind every natural act of procreation within his kingdom, lay a deep, mystical union, a marriage between the mundane and the eternal. One of the reasons that Ireland, which is a tiny country geographically and in terms of population, has such a clear and distinctive identity on the world stage is that this sense of the numinous, the miraculous, the eternal and the perfect lying just behind the drabness of the mundane world has been part of Irish culture for century upon century. Tir n’an Og, the Land of the Ever Young, lies just beyond the western shore, and once in a rare while it may be seen as a summer’s eve sunset shimmers on the waves. Even in the grimmer streets of Dublin, and there are several such streets, or in troubled Belfast, this numinous character and sense of timelessness invests and enhances the Irish identity, and its origins are to be found in the intense association between religion and authority. It is not surprising that modern Ireland is staunchly Christian (Catholic or Protestant - in the grand scale of things, the distinction is hardly material), since ancient Ireland was staunchly devout to its gods, goddesses, demi-gods, heroes, ogres, druids, magicians and faery folk. In ancient Ireland, the profound faith was extended also to the king or queen who ruled the land; the mortal monarch, by marriage to the land, became a temporal channel or conduit for the timeless forces which make life happen, which propel the seasons and their harvests. For that reason, the distinction between mythical kings and actual historical kings is extremely blurred in early Irish history. This blurring is not the result of romanticism or deliberate obfuscation; it is rather a reflection of the Celtic world view, which has survived more powerfully in Ireland than anywhere else. In this view, the gateways between this world and the next are many, and it is a simple matter to pass through them.

My wife and I once spent a magical day on the tiny island of Innisfallen, which lies in one of the great lakes near Killarney. The island, so small that one could walk its circumference in less than half an hour, can be reached by a rowing-boat hired from the lake shore. On it are the remains of a monastery. Legend has it that a former abbot of the monastery was awakened early one morning by the most exquisite bird song he had ever heard in his life. He was so enchanted by the beautiful melody that he pursued the bird around the island, never quite catching sight of it, but following it until the sun was setting. When he returned to the monastery, he was astonished to discover that he did not recognize any of the monks, and even their way of speech was strange to him. Little by little, the monks managed to convey to him that once, three centuries previously, a former abbot had mysteriously disappeared, following, so the legend said, a singing bird; he had been presumed drowned. With humility, it dawned on the abbot that his day had, in the mortal world, been over three hundred years, and that he had been granted a foretaste of eternal paradise. With fitting prayers, he yielded his soul to God, and, as he died, a shining bird appeared and hovered over his body, singing its heavenly music for all the monks to hear.