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The Irish were previously pagans who had many gods, venerated their ancestors and believed in an Otherworld. Their four yearly festivals – Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasa – continued to be celebrated into modern times. The Gaels have a strong oral tradition, traditionally maintained by shanachies.
Ancient Celtic religion, commonly known as Celtic paganism, [1] [2] [3] was the religion of the ancient Celtic peoples of Europe. Because there are no extant native records of their beliefs, evidence about their religion is gleaned from archaeology, Greco-Roman accounts (some of them hostile and probably not well-informed), and literature from ...
More tentatively, links can be made between ancient Celtic deities and figures in early medieval Irish and Welsh literature, although all these works were produced well after Christianization. The locus classicus for the Celtic gods of Gaul is the passage in Julius Caesar 's Commentarii de Bello Gallico ( The Gallic War , 52–51 BC) in which ...
The Celtic god Sucellus. Though the Celtic world at its height covered much of western and central Europe, it was not politically unified, nor was there any substantial central source of cultural influence or homogeneity; as a result, there was a great deal of variation in local practices of Celtic religion (although certain motifs, for example, the god Lugh, appear to have diffused throughout ...
The supernatural race called the Tuatha Dé Danann are believed to represent the main Celtic gods of Ireland. Their traditional rivals are the Fomóire, whom they defeat in the Battle of Mag Tuired. [199] Barry Cunliffe says the underlying structure in Irish myth was a dualism between the male tribal god and the female goddess of the land. [188]
The Tuatha Dé Danann as depicted in John Duncan's Riders of the Sidhe (1911). The Tuatha Dé Danann (Irish: [ˈt̪ˠuə(hə) dʲeː ˈd̪ˠan̪ˠən̪ˠ], meaning "the folk of the goddess Danu"), also known by the earlier name Tuath Dé ("tribe of the gods"), [1] are a supernatural race in Irish mythology.
Other pan-regional deities include the horned god Cernunnos, the horse and fertility goddess Epona, Ogmios, Sucellos [31] [32] and his companion Nantosuelta. Caesar says the Gauls believed they all descended from a god of the dead and underworld, whom he likened to Dīs Pater. [31] Some deities were seen as threefold, [34] like the Three ...
Irish goddesses or Otherworldly women are usually connected to the land, the waters, and sovereignty, and are often seen as the oldest ancestors of the people in the region or nation. They are maternal figures caring for the earth itself as well as their descendants, but also fierce defenders, teachers and warriors.