no evidence for sun worship among the Irish[1] (in face of its severe denunciation by St. Patrick in the Confessio and the unmistakable worship of Lug as sun god) may be passed by as unnecessary to refute. Perhaps we have, as I ventured to suggest early in this paper, an ancient hymn to Lug—“Master of all the sciences, Lug, like the sun is the splendour of his face. He rides on Manannán’s steed (the waves), swift as the wind of spring. What else than the Sun is it? This is the radiance of Lug Lamhfada.”[2] Perhaps it was sung by the druids at the very Lugnasad of Tailltiu. The god was probably the most dangerous opponent of Christ in the days of Patrick, and well might the Apostle of the Irish write: “the Sun shall not reign for ever nor shall its splendours continue, and woe to its unhappy worshippers.”[3]
After the “Servile Revolt,”[4] probably where the first faint dawn of historic legend begins in Ireland, King Tuathal Techtmhar, in his restoration of the Celtic monarchy and its chief sanctuaries, re-established the fire festival of Lugnasad and its sacred fire at Tailltiu. We may pass over the euhemerist attempt to discredit the Celtic pantheon by “giving gods to the gods” and making the Milesians defeat and slay the gods of the Tuatha Dé (their own gods) MacGreine, MacCuill and MacCethoir at Tailltiu.[5] The
- ↑ Social Hist. of Ancient Ir. i. pp. 239, 252; Irish Names of Places, ser. ii. chap. xiv. It is based, most uncritically, on the mere silence of the Annals and late Lives.
- ↑ “Fate of Children of Tuireann” Atlantis, iv. p. 161.
- ↑ App. to Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, ed. Stokes, p. 374.
- ↑ Prof. MacNeill’s interesting study is in New Ireland Rev. xxv. p. 5, xxvi. pp. 8, 131. There is much evidence that the beginning of historic tradition and genealogies and the first “draft” of the Tain bo Cualnge date from the close of the first century. The tradition that Emania fort dates from the fourth century B.C. seems confirmed by several La Tene brooches of that period found in its ambit. See also Celtic Review, iii. p. 65, and Brit. Acad. 1905, p. 135.
- ↑ Probably a polemical version of some old war tale of the gods. The attack of the Athenians on the Tuatha Dé! in the time of Bress (Metr. Dind S. x. p. 5), and the extermination of the god race by the Fiana (Feis tighe Chonaiu) seem of similar design.
