THE TUATHA DE DANANN
Such a great people were the De Danann, and so uncommonly skilled in the few arts of the
time, that they dazzled even their conquerors and successors, the Milesians, into
regarding them as mighty magicians. Later generations of the Milesians to whom were handed
down the wonderful traditions of the wonderful people they had conquered, lifted them into
amystic realm, their greatest ones becoming gods and goddesses, who supplied to their
successors a beautiful mythology. Over the island, which was now indisputably De Danann,
reigned the hero, Lugh, famous in mythology. And after Lugh, the still greater Dagda -
whose three grandsons, succeeding him in the sovereignty, were reigning, says the story,
when the Milesians came. The Dagda, was the greatest of the De Danann. He was styled Lord
of Knowledge and Sun of all the Sciences. His daughter, Brigit, was a woman of wisdom, and
goddess of poetry. The Dagda was a great and beneficent ruler for eighty years.
THE MILESIANS
The sixteenth century scholar, O’Flaherty, fixes the Milesian invasion of Ireland at
about 1000 B.C. - the time of Solomon. It is proven that the Celts whenceover they came,
had, before the dawn of history, subjugated the German people and established themselves
in Central Europe. At about the date we have mentioned, a great celtic wave, breaking
westward over the Rhine, penetrated into England, Scotland, and Ireland. Subsequently a
wave swept over the Pyrenees into the Spanish Peninsula. Other waves came westward still
later.
A celtic cemetery discovered at Hallstatt in upper Austria proves them to have been
skilled in art and industries as far back as 900 B.C. - shows them as miners and
agriculturists, and blessed with the use of iron instruments. They invaded Italy twice, in
the seventh and in the fourth centuries before Christ. In the latter tie they were at the
climax of their power. They stormed Rome itself, 300 B.C. The rising up of the oppressed
Germans against them, nearly three centuries before Christ, was the beginning of the end
of the Continental power of the celt. After that they were beaten and buffeted by Greek
and by Roman, and even by despised races - broken, and blown like the surf in al
directions, North and South, and East and West. A fugitive colony of these people, that
had settled in Asia Minor, in the territory which from them (the Gaels) was called
Galatia, and among whom Paul worked, was found to be still speaking a Celtic language in
the days of St. Jerome, five or six hundred years later. Eoin MacNeill and other
scientific enquirers hold that it was only in the fifth century before Christ that they
reached Spain - and that it was not via Spain but via northern France and Britain that
they, crushed out from Germany, eventually reached Ireland. In Caesar’s day the Celts
(Gauls) who dominated France used Greek writing in almost all their business, public or
private.
Of the Milesians, Eber and Eremon divided the land between them - Eremon getting the
Northern half of the Island, and Eber the Southern. The Northeastern corner was accorded
to the children of their lost brother, Ir, and the Southwestern corner to their cousin
Lughaid, the son of Ith. The oft-told story says that when Eber and Eremon had divided
their followers, each taking an equal number of soldiers and an equal number of the men of
every craft, there remained a harper and a poet. Drawing lots for these, the harper fell
to Eremon and the poet to Eber - which explains why, ever since, that the North of Ireland
has been celebrated for music, and the South for song.
The peace fell upon the land then, and the happiness of the Milesians, was only broken,
when, after a year, Eber’s wife discovered that she must be possessed of the three
pleasantest hills in Eirinn, else she could not remain one other night in the Island. Now
the pleasantest of all the Irish hills was Tara, which lay in Eremon’s half. And
Eremon’s wife would not have the covetousness of the other woman satisfied at her
expense. So, because of the quarrel of the women, the beautiful peace of the Island was
broken by battle. Eber was beaten, and the high sovereignty settled upon Eremon.
THE CELTS
Long, long ago beyond the misty space
of twice a thousand years,
In Erin old there dwelt a mighty race,
Taller than Roman spears,
Like oaks and towers they had a giant grace,
Were fleet as deers
With winds and waves they made their ‘biding place,
These western shepherd seers.
Their ocean god was Mannanan MacLir,
whose angry lips,
In their white foam, full often would inter
Whole fleets of ships;
Crom was their day god, and their thunderer,
Made morning and eclipse,
Bride was their queen of song, and unto her
They prayed with fire-touched lips.
Great were their deeds, their passions, and their sports;
With clay and stone
They piled on strath and shore those mystic forts,
Not yet over thrown
On cairn-crowned hills they held their council courts
While youths alone,
With giant dogs, explored the elks’ resorts,
And brought them down.