Site Visits – Drumlohan Ogham Stones

It’s 2 years since myself and my sister set off on my first Patreon site visit, and I thought I’d share a version of the report for the anniversary!

Before the Visit

Why This Site?

I’ve been aware of the site, peripherally at least, since I saw a picture in Daragh Smyth’s ‘A Guide to Irish Mythology’ (1996 edition), in the entry on Druids – where he makes reference to Druid divination “by means of ogam, carved on wands of yew”, and then on the next page is a drawing tagged – “Cave entrance at  Drumloghan, Co. Waterford, showing ogam stones in place.” Mysterious, eh?!

Obviously not mysterious enough to warrant further investigation at the time though, because I didn’t.

When I moved to Waterford in March 2016, I missed my cave terribly (the Cave of the Cats, at Rathcroghan, Co. Roscommon). I had a vague recall of the ogham being interesting, so I googled ‘ogham cave’, and found it. Pretty sure I posted a link to my author page round that time, but I was in the throes of book jail and couldn’t afford to give it much time. Even so, I determined to visit.

The Information I Had

The site I looked at around that time simply said: “Located 3.5km north of  the village of Stradbally, this is one of Waterford’s most interesting sites. Known locally as the ‘Ogham Cave’, it was discovered by a farmer in 1867. Ten Ogham stones  were found built into the walls and roof of a souterrain measuring 3.5 m long, 1.5m wide and 1.2 meters in height.

In 1936 five of the stones were erected each side of the now exposed souterrain with just three remaining as roof stones. It is thought that the stones were pilleged from local cemeteries for the construction of the souterrain which could have been used for storage or defence from invasion around 800-900AD.

The site, which is enclosed by a wooden fence, is located out in the middle of a field normally used for cattle grazing.” http://www.prehistoricwaterford.com/products/drumlohan/

Directions I Worked From

Myself and my sister Jay set out on this adventure one rainy Saturday morning in July. I had Google Maps directing on the phone (it’s a marked site you can get directions to, by road) and she’d found these ones:

“From Kilmacthomas, Co Waterford, take the N25 west, at the first crossroads take a left for Stradbally at the second crossroads take a right then the next right, about 300 metres down this road you will come to a gate with a house next to it. Go through this gate and follow the path the stones are about 200 metres down this path in a field on your left hand side.”

http://www.megalithicireland.com/Drumlohan%20Ogham%20Stones.html

I refused to look at the site info from where she’d got the directions, wanting to go in cold, as it were.

All seemed well.

We were in fine form, and had even the use of a posh and luxurious Lexus for our adventure, as my cousin Catherine (who’s like a sister to us as well sure… and also Jay’s actual work boss, by the by) was away for a few weeks and definitely wouldn’t be using it that day.

The Visit

We were driving happily along that main road there (the N25) when Google informed us we had reached our destination. Eh, no. Obviously we hadn’t.

Realising Google was a little confused by the lack of actual roads or pathways to the site, we abandoned that and looked again at the written directions.

Getting awful confused by talk of crossroads and farm tracks, we found what we figured must be the closest farm yard, based on the Google ‘You Have Reached Your Destination’ marking point, and drove up that lane.

It was obviously a working farmyard, so we did the respectful thing and pulled in off the lane so we could go in and ask directions, and possibly permission to access the land, if that was required. Local knowledge and respect are always the way to go when accessing Irish sites, as most of them are based on private (and often working farm) land. I mean, I have social anxiety issues and I still went and knocked on a stranger’s door… that’s how important this is!

We were directed to the forest track down the road by a smiling Saturday farmer, with assurances it was ‘just down there’, and got back in the car to drive off on our merry way. Um…

  oops   

The Lexus is heavy! With slick road tyres! It was raining, a lot!

Luckily, the farmer had a 4×4 and some straps for towing, so he came outside and hauled us out. We were mortified of course, but it was all very good natured. We got turned around and back on the road.

Found the forest track. Examined the car for damage (none, phew). Walked the forest track.

My first proper pic of the day was the solitary Foxglove we encountered in a drainage ditch along this lane. The Fairy Fingers (digitalis) were enchanting me all day, but this one for some reason was waving to me (physically moving, as well as energetically waving) to get my attention as we walked, so I stopped to say hi, and take a picture (below).

Continuing along the lane, we were awful confused to reach the dead end there.

There was some rubbish dumped, including somewhat bizarrely, a broken beehive. But no track or trail or gods forbid a finger post sign, to tell us where the site was.

There were large red overhead barriers at the end, something to do with forestry machinery I believe… but nothing else. I was feeling drawn to a place that MIGHT have been a way through, but Jay pointed out that a particular tree wasn’t just one season’s growth, and likely indicated that there was no use pushing our way through brambles to try and get to the other side… the direction I felt the site to be in.

Frustrating.

We walked back up the lane, and figured we could find the site from the original written directions, but we’d need to start from the farmyard where we’d got the car stuck.

Leaving the car parked safely where it was, we walked along the main road (google maps helpfully telling us we’d reached our destination somewhere round the middle again, thank you very much). We were hoping to spot a way in from the road, but it was pretty dense forestry and undergrowth, so it looked like a return to the farmyard was inevitable.

Embarrassing though. So, we walked a bit up their lane, but hopped a stone wall into the fields beyond, and crouch ran across the open space to a point we recognized, a large erratic boulder that was mentioned on some directions she’d seen that I can’t actually find now… it’s all a little hazy.

Talk about stepping on a stray sod somewhere along the way and begin turned around? We wandered those fields for the guts of 2 hours in the rain and wind, I kid you not.

Eventually, I hit on the brain wave of taking out google maps again, and turning on the satellite view to get some idea of the terrain, and although the data wasn’t quite up to date, that at least gave us the general direction to be hitting for. Thankfully her map reading skills and spatial orientation abilities are on point, as mine as severely challenged, I will admit.

And we found it!

And it was wonderful!

We recorded the first video (under the thorn tree in the ‘fairy cave’ once we had it in sight, but before we approached. Then we went over, wandered around a while, sat down into it, examined the ogham and talked. It was very still and quiet down in it, and I don’t think that was just due to the relief of being out of the bluff and bluster of the windy hillside fields. I got a feel of burial, which didn’t make sense.

Jay recorded another video, inside the cave. Then she graciously departed and went and sat on the hillside by the hedge, while I lay down in the space and Journeyed to the Otherworld location of that site.

When I came back to this world, I recorded a quick extra video that unfortunately lost the sound… that may or may not have been technical difficulties. Well, it was definitely technical difficulties, but whether it was a random glitch or Otherworld interference is anyone’s guess. Then it was time to leave.

The Journey

The Otherworld Journey was a little odd, but not uncomfortable.

I lay down, closed my eyes, and went through my usual process – going inside myself, through the blackness, path to the beach, out across the ocean… and I landed on the Otherworld Ireland. From here I travelled ‘as the crow flies’ to the location of this site, and set down to visit.

The ‘locals’ there were very much unused to visitors. Such a kerfuffle! I sat, and waited for things to calm down and natural curiosity to take the place of that initial ‘wtf is this?’ It did, in little time. The stones were originally all laid across the hollowed souterrain, and this was the case in the Otherworld too. But there was a mirror/shadow of the stones stretching out along a boundary a little distant, at the same time. There was a definite burial energy showing up on that side too, for me.

As I lay there under the originals, I got a strong sense of ‘Protection’ – but it was very unclear, shifting,  and confused to me as to whether the stones were meant for protection of something inside the ‘cave’, or protection of those across the landscape from something within. I got a sense that the thing being protected from, in either case, was something very different, with an ‘alien’ feel to it (unusual, not extra-terrestrial) – i.e. so vastly different as to be almost incomprehensible to the locals.

I said thank you, and left the Otherworld. Returning to this world, I found a large lump of moss lain across my chest, with no easy or obvious way it could have gotten there.

Academic Research

Archaeological Record

When I was home, I visited the SMR Database (always my first port of call) at www.archaeology.ie, to see what is available in the known record.

On their map, we can see the red dots representing points of interest in the area. The top dot on right hand side is the Ogham Cave, which is helpfully marked ‘ogham’.

The note reads:

“The souterrain (WA024-033004-) associated with the perimeter of ecclesiastical enclosure (WA024-033003-) at N contained ten ogham stones which are now preserved at the site. This is on the fourth lining stone on the W side which Macalister (1945, vol. 1, No. 281) read as: DEAGOS MAQI MUCO[I……]NAI.” – ‘Archaeological Inventory of County Waterford’. In this instance the entry has been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

This stone has been studied as part of the ‘Ogham in 3D’ project undertaken by the School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. To access details go to the following website: http://ogham.celt.dias.ie/search.php?ciic=281

The line of three dots underneath is the mentioned ecclesiastical site (bottom, centre circle) which I hadn’t been aware was there before our visit, with an unknown artefact previously classified as a millstone in the grounds, and a bullán stone near the boundary edge.

The ecclesiastic/church site entry is as follows:

Situated on a gentle S and SE-facing slope overlooking a river basin to the S and E. This is an early ecclesiastical site, but there are no known historical references. Subcircular grass-covered area (dims. 40m E-W; 35m N-S) defined by an overgrown stone field bank (Wth 2m; int. H 1m; ext. H 1m) which is truncated at SE by a NE-SW field bank. There is no evidence of a church or that the enclosure was used for burial (WA024-033002-), but this is very likely. There is a cairn (diam. 4m; H 0.5m) (WA024-033019-) in the centre, and a millstone and subrectangular bullaun stone (WA024-033005-) of Old Red Sandstone (dims. c. 1m x 0.7m) with a single basin (diam. 0.4m; D 0.18m) are also at the site. An outer boundary of an ecclesiastical enclosure (WA024-033004-) is visible as an eroded bank (Wth c. 6m; H 0.2m) with traces of an outer fosse (Wth 4m; D 0.2m) SW-NE (diam. c. 130m). Traces of field banks (WA024-033020-) connecting the inner and outer enclosures were present c. 1980 (SMR file). There is a souterrain (WA024-033004-) with associated ogham stones (WA024-033006- to WA024-033015-) on the outer boundary at NW. (Kirwan 1985; 1987)

As you can see – the ‘church’ assignment is not definitive. But there is a cairn, and a hollowed stone.

History

You will see in the Report folder a file you can download, which is a copy of the article from the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland by William Williams, entitled “On an Ogham Chamber at Drumloghan, in the County of Waterford”.

[Source: The Journal of the Historical and Archaeological Association of Ireland, ThirdSeries, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1868), pp. 35-39]

In this, he speaks of local knowledge at the time (1868), claiming the church site to be:

“an ancient cemetery, if not actually of Pagan origin, at least long disused, except for the interment of unbaptized children, suicides, and any others not considered entitled to burial in consecrated ground.”

He describes the discovery of the Ogham Cave, only a year or so before he wrote the paper:

“Mr. William Quealy, a very intelligent and obliging young man, on whose land the cemetery is situated, and who, too, gave practical proof that he is no stranger to the exercise of the national virtue of hospitality, directed his men, a few weeks since, to demolish the remains of the external fence above referred to. In the progress of the work they came upon a long stone which crossed the foundation of the fence; and having noticed some earth to fall into the ground by its side, they removed it, and found underneath a moderately large chamber, which contained nothing but loose earth and a few small stones. Having failed to turn up the much-coveted hoard of gold, they proceeded with the work of demolition, and took little further notice of the matter. Intelligence of this important discovery having been brought me a few days later, I visited the spot in the month of August last, and was agreeably surprised at finding that the chamber thus accidentally broken into was an ogham cave”.

Also in your Report folder is another research article, published by the Old Waterford Society publication ‘Decies’, issue XXVIII, Spring 1985; this is entitled “The Ogham Stones at Drumlohan, Reconsidered”, by E.M. Kirwan.

On the Ogham stones, they write:

“When the ogham stones were discovered at Drumlohan, it was evident immediately that they had been used primarily as building materials in the construction of the underground chamber in which they were set. There are ten stones that have been inscribed with ogham and the question of the actual origin of these stones remains open. It is quite certain that they had been inscribed long before being used as supports and roofing stones, and it is supposed that they came from the immediate vicinity. The exact age of both underground chamber (souterrain) and ogham stones is uncertain.”

There is a detailed look at the Ogham inscriptions and translation opinions too.

(Williams, 1868)

Kirwan wrote:

“The readings of the Drumlohan oghams show little consistency. The main difficulties have been due to parts of the stones being missing; not reading the whole length of the stones; but more frequently, the difficulty has been in interpreting the forms of the ogham genitive case. A shortened account of the various readings should be of help in trying to put these ogham stones into historical perspective.”

Not all of the Lintel or passage Lining stones have Ogham inscriptions on them, hence the gaps.

Folklore

“Passing out of the old cemetery to the west, the eye is at once attracted by the remains of a broad circular rampart. This external ring appears to have been con centric with the cemetery, and of about thrice its diameter. It can be easily traced from N. to S. E.; and although the remainder is now quite obliterated, I have no doubt that originally it surrounded the cemetery. Nay, more, fortified by the presence of the ogham cave, shortly to be described, and of a fine rock-basin which lies at a few yards distance from the cemetery, I have no hesitation in stating that this great external ring was an open-air Pagan temple.”  (Williams)

Conclusions and Takeaways

The Way Out

It was easier to orientate ourselves off the road way from that point, and we figured out which direction the car was parked in and tried to make for that, but came to a boundary that we couldn’t cross. We ended up standing by the boundary ditch and fence across from that particular tree that wasn’t just one season’s growth, having spotted those large red barrier things for the forest machinery… that way through was indeed unpassable, so thank you Jay for saving me from the bramble push and pull, but it was heartening to realise that while my spatial awareness and road negotiation leaves a lot to be desired, my internal ‘magic stuff is this way’ compass is absolutely spot on.

We decided to go up and around, to try and hit the road from the other side and further down, as neither of us relished the idea of the crouching run back across that farmer’s land. And so we did, and we found a laneway, leading to a gap in the hedge, and ended up at the top of the hill again, in the field behind someone’s back garden, with the road running in front of their house.

As we were about to swing out that way, and back along the road, when Jay noticed a gap in the hedge on the other side of their house, in what looked like forestry, and wondered if that, possibly, was the forest we’d parked in, and if the gap might lead us back onto the forest path?

Lo and behold, it was and it did.

Looking back up the hill…

And back on the forest path laneway, where did we end up?

Coming through a gap and over the drainage ditch to be greeted by my first little foxglove friend.

I shit you not, that energy waving at the start was about trying to show me the right way in.

Opinion – Summary

All in all, the research to attempt to explain (or even confirm) my personal gnosis on site showed up some interesting academic analysis and opinion. There is no consensus there, of course, but the ancestral boundaries are certainly indicative of protection, while the local folklore points to burial tradition.

I would propose that my uncertainty between protecting within from without, or without from within, may be rooted in the re-purposing and re-locating of the stones. Boundaries were strong. I have no doubt that there was a sacred or even magical element to these carvings, and the placement at these sites.

This was an important place to our ancestors, and that can still be felt in the stone bones and echoes.

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Is the Mórrígan Recruiting?

As part of our annual 6 month Intensive Programme, I answer questions from students who want to know more about the Irish Goddess Mórrígan, with whom I have had a solid working relationship for about 15 years now… and the last 13 of them as Her priest.

8 of those years were spent in daily service (and professional employment), managing Her primary sacred site at Rathcroghan, Co. Roscommon, and guiding visitors in (and safely back out) of the cave known as ‘her fit abode’; Uaimh na gCait, Oweynagat – the Cave of the Cats.

I’m going to occasionally share some of those answers through this blog. [Find them tagged with ‘Morrigan’, or ‘Class Questions’]

Iníon Preacháin asked: “Why do you feel She is showing such an interest in “recruiting” devotees (for lack of better terms) at this time?”

Okay, well, the short answer to that is: look around. The world needs Mórrígan devotees, or people who are doing the work for humanity and for communities.

The longer answer is, that it isn’t just at this time. She has been doing this for a long time, and she’s been preparing for a long time, and again, that’s my experience of it, but it also plays out in the lore.

Everybody talks about the Mórrígan as a battle goddess, and she absolutely is involved in battles because battles shape history and battles shape communities and wars are fought, the outcome of which is part of a much bigger picture, and it’s the bigger picture stuff that the Mórrígan is in charge of. In my experience.

And I think, though that is my experience, the lore plays that out, and her role as a prophet or goddess of prophecy is very much an integral part of that, but also her… I was gonna say ‘meddling,’ meddling is the wrong word, but her involvement in seemingly small things and small stories which end up playing a very big role in battles to come or in the outcome of certain battles or wars that are being fought, and changes.

She is a goddess of change.

At this time, we need somebody who knows what’s going on, absolutely, and she needs people on the ground doing the work that – y’know, she can lead the horse to water, but she can’t directly interfere with… I mean, she does directly interfere with people, with individuals, but she can’t shape things on a bigger scale herself. She has to do it through individuals. And I think that’s where the recruitment drive is coming from, but actually the recruitment drive has been going on for a long time. I think that it has become global, now, but this is not new.

This poem, it was one of my first calls from her. (Click to Read Poem)

It was written at Bealtaine of 2004. It’s from the Irish Witchcraft book, which was my first book, but actually she had been calling for a long time before that. I was tattooed with crows, for example, before this poem was written or that book was written. She’s been calling since, I would say, since the turn of the millennium. Since about 2000, there has been a very specific gathering of the forces in Ireland, on the ground in Ireland, around her sites, and the work that she has had me doing here has been to disseminate real information and education because that wasn’t happening back then. At all.

All through the 90s, there was a lot of shite about Irish traditions and Irish culture specifically, and very little that was real. Everybody was shit-scared of her, but really very little about her and certainly nothing of value about her was available to the general public – there wasn’t even the interest and the understanding that the source lore and the literature we have is so important to us now as modern pagans working with her. I mean, that just wasn’t there in the 90s.

Your average pagan now is, believe it or not, much better read and much more versed in the lore than your average pagan was back then. Just from the sheer availability, I think of it, with the coming of the Internet and the raised standards in publishing – and yes, they are raised, believe it or not again, you might not appreciate just how bad things used to be. There was a huge gap between academic research and the access that people could have to academia. Scholarship was very much far removed from the standard pagan community, except in small pockets and some individuals. And that was the teachers, never mind students.

So the work that she’s had me doing since she got her hooks in me is to try and bring some of that to the wider communities, and to teach people the importance of it. Now I’m not academic, I mean, I’ve studied psychology, but that was me going back as a mature student. The only other college learning I have is in art college, so that’s fuck-all useful to anybody, unless you’re artistic, which I am, or was at least, but…yes, so, I’m not an academic, but one of the things that she had me do was get my head around the literature and try and find ways to translate it. I don’t mean translate it from Old Irish – thankfully that work is being done but that is not my work, thank the gods, I’ve never had to learn Old Irish. Morgan Daimler is doing excellent work in that, poor Morgan, we’ll have her worked to death before she has the entire Ulster Cycle translated by the time I’m finished with her. And Isolde Carmody, who is one half of the Story Archaeology team, who you will hear lots and lots and lots about from me, has been doing sterling translation work too.

None of that work was being done at the time though, and the recruitment that we’re seeing now is just a step above that. It’s just where that has reached a kind of a critical mass where it’s spilling over into the wider world and really my feeling is that she was consolidating her base ground for the last decade and in the last five or so years things have kind of stepped up and moved on from that.

As ever, I’m wary of projecting my own stuff because that above has been very much my experience, but then as I started to travel away from my beloved isle and get out and about in the world, rather than everybody coming to me at the Cave and through Rathcroghan Heritage Centre – which is lovely and I much prefer, I have to say, I hate leaving Ireland, moan moan whine whine… Since I’ve started getting out and about in the world, I have noticed there is a mirroring of many people’s experience in that it’s not just my experience, it’s that now is the time.

There’s been a couple of organizations started up in recent years. The Coru Priesthood, for example, and I know some of our course members have started priesthoods in Texas and Connecticut, and eventually I will have to start one here in Ireland. I don’t want to be doing any of this work, to be honest. If I could get away with doing none of this work I would be totally getting away with that and living a much easier life, but my next project is going to be is a priesthood here in Ireland and I’m not sure what that’s going to look like, yet, but before of that I have a serious initiation I have to do, which again, I’ve been putting off because it’s scary.

A lot of that is going on here, and it is very much mirrored out in the world, and I think that the answer to it, to the question ‘why do I feel that there’s such an interest’, is because she’s so concerned with the bigger picture, and the bigger picture is fucked right now. Absolutely fucked.

Anybody in class (or reading this blog) who is not aware of just how fucked the bigger picture is on so many different levels – if you’re going to be on my Facebook, so you’ll find out very quickly if you’re not aware already… and awareness is the first key. It’s through educating ourselves that we understand the work that needs to be done on a big scale, but also on our doorstep and on ourselves.

Part of taking this course, I hope, is doing that work on yourself so that you’re ready then to do whatever work is needed of you out in the world.

[Author’s Note: this class was recorded pre Brexit, and pre Trump. And before Ireland had begun to step up and lead the free world with such fantastic examples of social justice and people power as the Marriage Equality Referendum, the Transgender Identity Bill, and our Referendum to Repeal the 8th Amendment. FYI.]

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The Stolen Child

Clochar na Trócaire, Ceapach Chuinn
Location: Cappoquin, Co. Waterford

In the center of Waterford there lies a place which long ago was the stronghold of the ‘Fir Bolgs’. This place is a large Lios descending into the ground for about two feet, and then in underneath for about four yards. At the end of this a round room is entered.

This room is built around with brick on either side. In the left hand side there is a trap door and a long dismal passage going down for about three feet and then there is heard the soft lapping of the river. About three miles down is the river. The Lios is surrounded by a deep trench going all around it. There is a legend told about the Lios, true or not.

There was a widow who had her house not very far from the Lios. This poor woman had only one child, a little girl. The child, when young used to spend her time picking flowers.

So, one May evening, she was picking a bunch of flowers as usual when she heard strange music in the direction of the Lios. The girl was young and had no sense and went to examine the matter. When she came near the Lios she saw a strange sight, a band of fairy people dancing, singing and playing music.

But, to the girls amazement, they advanced towards her and laid a magic spell over her and changed her into a fairy. Then they went back to the Lios with their comrades and all was over until morning.

In the morning the child thought of home, in spite of the magic spell that had bewitched her. She succeeded in arriving at the Lios when she found herself in the most admirable land of dolls, boys, dresses and everything that could attract one. She began to play with her new toys and forgot all about home. Soon the Queen took her by the hand and brought into a room.

She was made sit on a stool and was handed a bottle of milk and a whitethorne branch. She drank it and she was changed into a Princess.

When the Queen died she became Queen of Fairyland and was over all the fairies.

ARCHIVAL REFERENCE

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0637, Page 129

Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.

The Mórrígan and Her Sisters

As part of our annual 6 month Intensive Programme, I answer questions from students who want to know more about our Irish Goddess The Mórrígan, with whom I have had a solid working relationship for about 15 years now… and the last 13 of them as Her priest.

8 of those years were spent in daily service (and professional employment), managing Her primary sacred site at Rathcroghan, Co. Roscommon, and guiding visitors in (and safely back out) of the cave known as ‘her fit abode’; Uaimh na gCait, Oweynagat – the Cave of the Cats.

I’m going to occasionally share some of those answers through this blog. [Find them tagged with ‘Morrigan’, or ‘Class Questions’]

Iníon Preacháin asked: “Of Badb, Macha, Anu/Anand, Nemain, Fea, and some list Danu as well… do you feel they are all aspects of the Morrigna?”

Okay, so, ‘the Morrigna’ represents the plural, so yes, they are all aspects of Na Morrigna, as in the Great Queens – that’s what Morrigna written like that means.  I always make a distinction between na Morrigna, as in the plural, or the Mórrígan, ‘an Morrighan,’ the Great Queen, so that would be my feeling on it.

Like I said — in a previous blog post, see it here — aspects is not a term that I would use specifically.  I would see them as sisters, and some more closely related than others. In my experience.

Macha is, I feel, is the closest to her, and I have an interest and kind of perspective, I suppose, in Mórrígan and Medb, that’s — Queen Medb of Connacht —, and working with both of those very, very powerful figures at Rathcroghan for so many years. They very much work together in my experience and both of them feed into the sovereignty of Connacht, of the western province, in Ireland.

Macha is the sovereignty of, or represents the sovereignty of, the Ulster province in the north of Ireland, and Connacht and Ulster have a somewhat troubled relationship in the mythology. I mean, anybody who’s read the — Tain Bó Cúailnge —, “The Cattle Raid of Cooley,” will be aware, Ulster and Connacht have been enemies for a very long time.  So there’s kind of a lot going on there, and of all of those sisters Macha, to me, has alwas been the most, kind of fully formed and distinct from the Morrígan.  

Nemain, I think, is an ancestor, and I think that all of those deities that are there… and again, we will look at this in more detail over the course, but all of those deities, in a sense they may be aspects in the literal understanding of that word. BUT, they are all beings and deities in their own right as well.  So them being aspects of the Great Queen, I think that kind of feeds together and weaves together, but I think they’re working on different levels, if that makes sense.

So you’ve got this kind of top tier of being able to interact with all of those beings individually. You go down a little bit deeper into the root system and they start to blend a little bit closer together and you don’t get those kind of distinctive, individual personalities.  You go down deeper and they’re all kind of part of that same root, and then you go deeper again and you’re still in the ‘Irish zone’ at that level… but then the level below that would be the universal archetypal level, the level of the collective unconscious common to all humanity, that kind of ‘dark goddess’ level.

All of the names which we connect to the Mórrígan, under the banner of ‘Great Queen’, are connected at a deep level so, but we can (and do) also interact with them individually in the day to day. I definitely wouldn’t be a fan of – or allowed to, I’d get my arse kicked – lump them all together or just swap out one for another.

Yeah, don’t try that one at home kids.

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Don’t be a ‘Celtic’ Racist…

This blog has a lot of new visitors, and I’m really glad to see that! But I also don’t want to be fooling anyone into being a part of a community with me if the fit isn’t right either, you know?

So, I figured I’d give ye a little dose of who I really am, like right down to the core. And if you don’t like that for any reason, and are actually a racist (whether you call yourself that or not) just jog on. Simple!

First off, I use a lot of sweary words. My son (12yo) got a bit scandalised a while back hearing me chatting with Eilís on a ‘Your Irish Connection’ — Check it Here —  interview on my Youtube Channel, because I was cursing – “That’s not very professional Mam!”, says he. Well… it is what it is.

Second off, it’s not just my personal belief and lived experience that all people are equal and deserve the same human rights and safe community and care… it’s a fundamental part of the Irish experience. There’s a whole lot of bullshit floating around in the European Heritage communities that’s basically, and sometimes overtly (I’m looking at you Carolyn Emerick, mega shitehawk and peddler of appropriative racist codswallop), white supremacy, fascism, and neo nazi nonsense.

That’s not who the Irish are, or ever were.

Look, we’re not perfect. Modern Ireland can be really ignorant at times, and our lack of exposure to other cultures can be painfully obvious in the unthinking attitudes and beliefs of the people – but as a nation we truly, genuinely care for our fellow people all over the globe. We’re ranked the ninth most generous country in the world, and given the economic climate of the last few years, that’s pretty fucking cool.

It goes back further than modern charitable donations though. Even back to a time when we were on the brink of another famine, severely under the thumb of english rule and SUFFERING… we were still aware and working to support the civil rights movement in America.

Consider a quote from Daniel O’Connell, in 1843:

“How can the generous, the charitable, the humane, and the noble emotions of the Irish heart have become extinct amongst you? How can your nature be so totally changed as that you should become the apologists and advocates of the execrable system which makes man the property of his fellow man – destroys the foundation of all moral and social virtues – condemns to ignorance, immorality and irreligion, millions of our fellow creatures …? It was not in Ireland that you learned this cruelty…Over the broad Atlantic I pour forth my voice saying come out of such a land you Irishmen, or if you remain and dare continue to countenance the system of slavery that is supported there, we will recognize you as Irishmen no longer!”
– Daniel O’Connell. (irishamerica.com/2011/08/the-irish-abolitio…)

Daniel O’Connell upon American slavery : with other Irish testimonies.

(by O’Connell, Daniel, 1775-1847. Publication date 1860. Topics Slavery — United States)

Frederick Douglass’s Irish Odyssey

Tom Chaffin, writing for the Irish Times, assesses the influence of his time in poverty-ridden and religiously divided Ireland, on the anti-slavery campaigner Frederick Douglass. To the end of his life, he fondly remembered his 1840s lecture tour of Ireland and the welcoming reception he had been accorded. And though many Irish-Americans often opposed his civil rights efforts, he also viewed the Irish, in both Ireland and America, as a persecuted people.

Here’s all of His Work on the “Irish slaves” meme (2015–’18)

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Faces of the Mórrígan – a Perception of Deity

As part of our annual 6 month Intensive Programme, I answer questions from students who want to know more about the Irish Goddess Mórrígan, with whom I have had a solid working relationship for about 15 years now… and the last 13 of them as Her priest.

8 of those years were spent in daily service (and professional employment), managing Her primary sacred site at Rathcroghan, Co. Roscommon, and guiding visitors in (and safely back out) of the cave known as ‘her fit abode’; Uaimh na gCait, Oweynagat – the Cave of the Cats.

I’m going to occasionally share some of those answers through this blog. [Find them tagged with ‘Morrigan’, or ‘Class Questions’]

Marjorie asked: “We all experience our gods differently, to some degree. Some of us experience Her as Many and some of us as One with multiple faces. Do you think one is more accurate than the other or, more importantly, is either perception more respectful than the other? To what extent do you think it matters?”

That’s a really good question, and we will go into some of this in the coursework that’s to follow, but my view is that… I personally deal with the Mórrígan, and the Mórrígan for me is a very distinct entity. I mean distinct as in distinct from Macha or Nemhain or Badbh, and those beings and goddesses seem more like sisters than a part of Her. To me.

Now, I completely agree, we all do experience our gods differently, and I also feel that the gods themselves can do whatever the fuck they like and appear however they like. I think that there is a certain amount of (human relational) shaping that has gone into the Mórrígan. So there is a particular form – or rather formlessness – that she takes with that specific guise that has been interacted with by humans.

My theory on gods is that, well…okay, so to go back a bit: I studied psychology in some depth and particularly Jungian psychology as every feckin’ amateur psychologist pagan has done. The reason for that is because it makes a lot of sense and it makes a lot of sense for our spirituality and Jung had a very kind of tuned-in attitude, certainly for his time, and a lot of the stuff that he was conceptualizing has become common parlance. So we often don’t even recognize how much of a contribution Jung has made to psychology and the study of the human mind and the human spirit as well, I think.

I work a lot with archetypes, and I was called a blasphemer for dealing with archetypal god energies on a panel last year. I was very, very bothered (furious actually) by this at the time, but I really didn’t understand that the American culture that the accusation was coming from had a very different understanding of archetypes than I would’ve had.

To me, an archetype is huge, and it’s complex, and obviously I’m not going to be able to just settle it down in just a few sentences. The crux of it is that there are roots and essential sources that I feel are part of the collective unconscious, as in the unconsciousness that is common to all humanity, and those sources are the archetypes, to a certain extent. Each deity stems in some way from an archetypal form, but it’s like they’re all from the same root, maybe, but when they grow in different cultures with different food sources and different light sources and different energy that’s fed to them and different care and cultivation, they grow into very different deities.

Each of those deities are plants, to use that analogy. Each of those plants or trees or whatever grows from the roots is different from each other, but when you trace them right down to the bottom of those roots, you get to the same source. So that’s a very simplified version of how I have always understood ‘deity.’

I think a good example of this the Mórrígan. Na Mórrigna – that is, all of the Mórrígans – but when you take the Mórrígan Herself and you look at Her as a ‘dark deity’ – again, for want of a better description – and you put that in the context of, say, other ‘dark’ deities like Cerridwen or Kali or Hekate, and, y’know, all of those goddesses I would say stem from the same kind of ‘dark goddess’ root or archetype or source, but they have obviously developed very, very differently in very different cultures, and they’ve all ended up being female. Make of that what you will.

Re gender and form… My experience of the Mórrígan is that she’s kind of nominally female. Her form is formlessness, as I’ve said, and she can take any form and does take any form. I think I coined the phrase ‘gender irrelevant’ in relation to Her – she can and does appear in any of them.

The general physical form that she appears to have in modern culture has become black hair, but actually the only description of her apart from her shapeshifting, the only real description of her – showing her essence, I believe – that we have in the lore is as a warrior woman who is carrying two spears and has red hair and red eyebrows and is wearing a red cloak and has a very strange horse, and kind of a chariot that she’s standing on. (See the Táin Bó Regamna video on YouTube.) That’s her base aspect, as far as I can tell.

But generally she just appears, if she appears to me at all, she appears kind of hooded, and like I said, formless, generally human-shaped unless she’s as a crow. But anyway, sorry, I’m wandering off a little bit. We will examine this in more detail through the course and through the content (and check the — Available Classes — for individual class downloads!).

So, I experience her as one being or entity specifically, with or without a face, and I have always interacted with her as the Great Queen. I don’t feel that that’s specifically more accurate than any other interaction or relationship with her, as long as that’s based on a relationship. I feel that if somebody has put the same amount or similar amount of time and effort into building a relationship with that deity as I have, and their perception is different than my perception, then I’m not going to say that mine is right or more accurate and theirs is wrong. I think, ultimately the gods, and our perception of them is often going to be different because we’re all different, and I don’t think that they have a genuine kind of physical, corporeal form in this world anyway. We are experiencing them through the collective unconscious, through ourselves and our connection to our own subconscious and our own unconscious with the collective unconscious. I know I’m kind of throwing a lot – I’m trying to encapsulate, like, literally years’ worth of theory on my part into a couple of minutes.

“Is either perception more respectful than the other?”

I feel that it’s disrespectful to swap her out, if that makes sense. So if you’re going to be dealing with the Mórrígan, and we will through the course – when we’re talking about the Mórrígan, I’m not talking about Macha, I’m not talking about Badbh, I’m not talking about Nemhain. I’m talking about the Morrígan, the Great Queen – and like I said, YMMV on that, and that’s fine, but when I say ‘the Mórrígan,’ that’s who I mean.

What I don’t think is okay is swapping out the Mórrígan, say in the lore, or in how we’re dealing with her or how we’re working with her, and just slotting in any of them into whatever kind of floats your boat at the time. I think that if she’s dealing with you, you’ll know whether it’s the Great Queen or whether it’s Macha or Badbh or Nemhain or Fea or Anu. Nemhain is a different thing, and Badbh is a different thing again, and Macha is definitely her own thing. But again, that’s my perception.

“To what extent do you think it matters?”

I’ve probably covered that? Build your relationship and you’ll see how much it matters because if you disrespect her… [laughter]

Sorry, that’s probably not very helpful, but that has been my experience.

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