The oldest layer: the Tuatha Dé Danann, who are Ireland's pagan gods wearing the clothes of a conquered people, and the six invasions that brought them and then took the island from them.
This is the cycle of the gods, though the medieval scribes who wrote it down could not say so. Their solution was to make the Tuatha Dé Danann, the folk of the goddess Danu, one people among six who took Ireland in turn: Cessair's people, Partholón's, Nemed's, the Fir Bolg, the Tuatha Dé, and finally the Milesians, who are the Gaels, who are us. That scheme is the Lebor Gabála Érenn, the Book of Invasions, compiled in the eleventh century to give Ireland a history that could stand beside Rome's and Israel's. Scholars now read it as myth rather than history; it was taken as history by poets and scholars until the nineteenth century.
Underneath the scheme, the gods are unmistakable. The Dagda, the great god, with his cauldron that never empties. Lugh Samildánach, skilled in every art, who is cognate with the Gaulish Lugus and gives his name to Lughnasa. Brigid, who becomes a saint. The Morrígan, the phantom queen, who appears as a crow over battlefields and washes the clothes of men about to die. Manannán of the sea. Nuada of the silver arm, who lost his kingship with his hand because a blemished king could not rule.
Their great story is the second battle of Mag Tuired, Moytura, where the Tuatha Dé face the Fomorians, and Lugh kills his own grandfather Balor of the Evil Eye with a sling-stone through the eye, fulfilling the prophecy Balor had locked his daughter in a tower to prevent. And their end is the best thing in the cycle: beaten by the Milesians, the Tuatha Dé do not die or leave. They go under the ground, into the sídhe, the burial mounds that were already ancient when the stories were told. The gods of Ireland became the fairies of Ireland, living in Newgrange and every green hill, and that is why an Irish farmer would not cut a lone thorn tree well into the twentieth century.
13 places on the atlas belong to this cycle. They are real: you can stand in every one of them.
Ireland's pagan gods, written down by Christian monks as one of six peoples who invaded Ireland in turn. Many are cognate with known Celtic deities — Lugh with the Gaulish Lugus, Brigid with Brigantia, Nuada with Nodons. After their defeat by the Milesians they went into the sídhe, the ancient burial mounds, and became the fairies of later folklore.
Lebor Gabála Érenn, an eleventh-century compilation telling the history of Ireland from the creation of the world through six takings of the island. It was written to give Ireland a pedigree comparable to Rome's or Israel's, was accepted as history until the nineteenth century, and is now read as myth.
That is exactly what the medieval texts say. Beaten by the Gaels, the Tuatha Dé Danann retreated into the sídhe, the burial mounds, and became the aos sí, the people of the mounds. The respect shown to fairy forts and lone thorn trees into living memory is the tail end of that idea.
Christian monks, from about the eighth century onward — the only literate class in early medieval Ireland. They were recording an oral tradition that was already old and pagan, and they revised it to fit Christian learning, which is why the gods appear as an ancient people rather than as gods.
Is there a version your family tells? Half of this survived because somebody kept saying it out loud. If the story is different where you are from — a different ending, a different hill — we would like to hear it.
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