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.
I enjoyed this answer to the above question. The last part is very true. I’d get a severe kick in the rear if I ever tried to say all of them were the same.
Severe kicks in the rear are the order of the day, I sometimes feel. Sometimes I worry I’m too dense to work for Her. My poor arse, from all the kicking.
Oh dear my comment went astray as I did not follow the correct format so I will just briefly comment, I found the article very informative mainly because I am not Irish, well I don’t know of my ancestors yet, coming more from the English side and German, yet there has always been an interest there. It was a meditation that I did the other day that I did on this subject that convinced me I was and thus I am here. However, as I am unfamiliar with the language, the history, as a native would be, and its geography, apart from a few areas, etc I come in before the eight ball as they say. I am familiar with the term of a Great Queen, and that the other Queens are aspects of and also in their own right fully fledged on a day to day basis due to my Isis studies so on that note I have some experience. The Collective Unconscious is interesting and going deep, deep down to connect from that level. Thank you.
Hi Lori! greatings from El Salvador, I wonder if you had any source about one of The Morrigans sisters…Anu, TBH…Yelp! Been reading that she is related to The Morrigan and that´s how I bumped into your channel in YouTube, and I liked it ( is helping me a lot not be afriad of the Great Queen , by listening and learning ). Thank you for your efforts and for putting great content about The Morrigan. Blessed be!