Sir William Orpen called her �Old Ireland, that Romantic Lady who slumbered and dreamt her way along to the music of the laughter and tears of her people� (Bladey 1). William Allingham said, �History of Ireland � lawlessness and turbulency, robbery and oppression, hatred and revenge, blind selfishness everywhere � no principle, no heroism� (Bladey 1). These two contradictory opinions of Ireland illustrate the contentious history of a country that has been torn apart by invasion, conquest, war, religious conflicts, starvation, and massive emigration; yet Ireland�s culture has been kept alive by the colossal efforts of those who love it. Traditional language, music, and dance are taught not only in Ireland, but also in Australia, Canada, and the United States (countries with many residents of Irish descent). A tremendous array of mythology, folk lore and fairy tales provide crystalline windows into Irish life, history, imagination, humor, and traditions - the trademarks of culture itself.
The earliest known written book of Irish myths and legends was the Book of Invasions, �a collection�gathered together by Christian historians around A.D. 1100, although it is clearly part of a much earlier tradition� (Mac Annaidh 18). This collection includes stories of the Milesians (reputedly, the ancestors of the people now called Irish) conquering and banishing earlier tribes known as the Fir Bolg and Tuatha de Danaan. An interesting feature of these early folk tales is dinnseanchas, �lore of place,� in which �the storyteller tries to explain how a particular place received its name or how a certain geographical feature was formed� (Mac Annaidh 18). One well-known dinnseanchas concerns the creation of the Isle of Man and Lough Neagh by the legendary Irish giant, Fionn mac Cumhail (Finn McCool). According to the story, Fionn, while fighting a Scottish giant, threw a clod of earth into the sea, which became the Isle of Man; the hole left by the clod filled with water, and became Lough Neagh.
The Book of Invasions is the earliest collection, but many tales were recorded (chiefly through interviewing Gaelic-speaking peasants) in the late 1800�s-early 1900�s by tireless Anglo-Irish writers, linguists, and historians working to preserve a fading culture: Jeremiah Curtin, W.B. Yeats, Lady Isabella Augusta Gregory, Douglas Hyde, Lady Wilde (Oscar Wilde�s mother), Samuel Ferguson, William Allingham, William Carleton, George Moore, J.M. Synge, AE (George Russell), T. Crofton Croker, Letitia MacLintock, and Ellen O�Leary are some of these literary saviors. Some historians credit this literature, and the subsequent re-awakening of interest in Irish culture, as the path leading to the difficult and bloody fight for Irish Independence in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Yeats himself wondered if a patriotic play written in collaboration with Lady Gregory, Cathleen ni Hoolihan, was responsible for the death of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rebellion in Dublin. The rise of cultural nationalism was strongly aided by the founding of the Gaelic League in 1893, by Douglas Hyde and Eoin MacNeill, which aimed to promote the Irish language. Knowledge of Irish Gaelic was in sharp decline due to the emigration of one and a half million people following the deaths of more than one million more in An Gorta Mor (The Great Famine of 1845-1850). �The census of 1851 showed 319,602 persons whose sole language was Gaelic, and 1,204,684 who spoke some Gaelic (perhaps only a few words) in addition to English; by 1891, the respective figures were 38,192 and 642,053� (Mac Annaidh 209). Douglas Hyde, a prominent Irish scholar, was elected President of the Gaelic League, and held the position for 22 years. �The League�s original aims were: the preservation of Irish as the national language of the country and the extension of its use as the spoken tongue; the study and publication of existing Gaelic literature, and the cultivation of a modern literature in Irish� (Mac Annaidh 209). The recording and publishing of folklore, fairy tales, and mythology reached its peak during this time, largely due to the willingness of Hyde, Curtin, Synge, Lady Gregory, and others to translate Gaelic stories into English.
Many tales are told of Fionn mac Cumhail and his men (called the Fianna or the Fenians); taken together, they form the �Fenian Cycle� of Irish folk tales. Jeremiah Curtin, a renowned folklorist and linguist from the late 1800�s, tells an interesting story from this cycle about Fionn�s son, Oisin. Pagan and Christian Ireland merge in the telling of Oisin�s marriage, his residence in Tir na n-Og (the Land of Youth), and his return to Erin. In this story, the King of Tir na n-Og is told by a druid that he will �keep the chair [throne] and the crown forever, unless your own son-in-law takes them from you� (Curtin 230). The king then takes a rod of druidic spells, strikes his daughter, Niamh, and casts a spell that puts the head of a pig on her, telling the druid, �There is no man that will marry her now� (Curtin 231). The druid, feeling sorry for having told the king such information, goes to see Niamh and tells her that the spell will be broken if she marries a son of Fionn mac Cumhail. She travels to Erin (Ireland), sees Oisin, and decides that he is the one. She follows him one day when he goes out hunting, and offers to help carry the game. After awhile, they rest, as it is very hot. Niamh opens her dress to cool herself; Oisin �looked at her and saw her beautiful form and her white bosom. � Oh, then,� said he, �it�s a pity you have the pig�s head on you; for I have never seen such an appearance on a woman in all my life before�� (Curtin 232). Niamh proceeds to tell him the whole story, from the king�s spell to the point of her choosing Oisin from among Fionn�s sons; she then tells him she �followed you to see would you marry me and set me free� (Curtin 232). He responds to this forthright proposal by saying, �If that is the state you are in, and if marriage with me will free you from the spell, I�ll not leave the pig�s head on you long� (Curtin 233). The tale states that they married before taking the game any further (one can infer, from this, what marriage entailed in pagan Ireland), and went directly to Tir na n-Og, Oisin not even stopping to say good-bye to his father or his son. Oisin does indeed become the next king of Tir na n-Og, and rules happily, for what he believes to be three years. Eventually, however, he misses his father, his son, and the Fianna, and tells his wife that he must return to Erin to see them. Niamh informs him that three years in Tir na n-Og is three hundred years in Erin, and if he returns to Erin, he will become a blind old man and never return to her. He doesn�t quite believe her about the three hundred years, and she eventually lets him go, with the proviso that he stay on his horse and not set one foot upon the soil of Erin. Oisin reaches Erin, but sets a foot on the ground while trying to reach the horn of borabu, which will call the Fianna together. Instantly, his horse disappears and Oisin is rendered a blind old man. A herdsman, who has witnessed this, runs to St. Patrick (who lives nearby) and tells him the story. St. Patrick then takes Oisin in and cares for him. At this time, St. Patrick is trying to erect a great building, but the work done during the day is always undone at night. Oisin, upon hearing this, says that if he had his sight and his strength, he could put a stop to the damage. St. Patrick �prayed to the Lord, and the sight and strength came back to Oisin� (Curtin 236). Oisin kills the beast responsible, after which St. Patrick takes the strength and sight away from Oisin again: �it�s better to knock the strength out of him again; for he�ll kill us all if he gets vexed� (Curtin 236). St. Patrick restores and removes Oisin�s strength and sight several more times, and Oisin performs several additional Herculean tasks for St. Patrick. This tale traces the transfer of power from pagan beliefs to the belief in the Christian church.
