Mythical Ireland embodies the search for a soul among Ireland's ancient ruins, and is an attempt to retrieve something of deeper import from 5,000-year-old megalithic monuments and their associated myths. The book represents a fascinating and engaging journey through time, landscape and the human spirit. Dealing with archaeology, interpretive mythography, cosmology and cosmogony, the book attempts to grapple with a core meaning, something beyond the functional interpretations of academia. In this revised and expanded edition, Anthony Murphy delves further into the many enthralling aspects of this journey. Just how much knowledge did locals have of the secrets of Newgrange before it was excavated? Who is the Cailleach, the ancient hag goddess whose image is ubiquitous in the ancient landscape? What happened to make Ireland's Stonehenge disappear from the landscape? Who were the first kings of Tara? What were the indigenous Irish myths about the Milky Way? Did someone try to steal the Tara Brooch? Why are there myths in Ireland about flooded towns and cities? Lavishly illustrated with exquisite photographs of the Irish landscape and ancient monuments, Mythical Ireland represents a personal and yet universal journey, a quest to reimagine the shrines as empowering and transformative sacred places. Murphy invokes the druids and poets of the Boyne and thus the sídhe of the ancient texts are reawakened for a modern and turbulent world.

First written down in the eighth century AD, these early Irish stories depict a far older world - part myth, part legend and part history. Rich with magic and achingly beautiful, they speak of a land of heroic battles, intense love and warrior ideals, in which the otherworld is explored and men mingle freely with the gods. From the vivid adventures of the great Celtic hero Cu Chulaind, to the stunning 'Exile of the Sons of Uisliu' - a tale of treachery, honour and romance - these are masterpieces of passion and vitality, and form the foundation for the Irish literary tradition: a mythic legacy that was a powerful influence on the work of Yeats, Synge and Joyce.

Nowhere in the nineteenth century did interest in folklore and mythology have a more thorough revival than in Ireland. There, in 1887, Lady Francesca Speranza Wilde, Oscar Wilde's mother and a well-known author in her own right, compiled this collection of charming, authentic folk tales. Collected from among the peasantry and retaining their original simplicity, the myths and legends reveal delightfully the Irish people's relationship with a spiritual and invisible world populated by fairies, elves, and evil beings. Included in Lady Wilde's collection, among others, are eerie tales of "The Horned Women," "The Holy Well and the Murderer," and "The Bride's Death-Song," as well as beguiling accounts of superstitions concerning the dead, celebrations and rites, animal legends, and ancient charms. The first book to link Irish folklore with nationalism, Legends illustrates the mythic underpinnings of the Irish character and signals the country's cultural reemergence. It remains, said the Evening Mail, "an important contribution to the literature of Ireland and the world's stock of folklore."

A sweeping history of Ireland's native gods, from Iron Age cult and medieval saga to the Celtic Revival and contemporary fiction Ireland’s Immortals tells the story of one of the world’s great mythologies. The first account of the gods of Irish myth to take in the whole sweep of Irish literature in both the nation’s languages, the book describes how Ireland’s pagan divinities were transformed into literary characters in the medieval Christian era—and how they were recast again during the Celtic Revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A lively narrative of supernatural beings and their fascinating and sometimes bizarre stories, Mark Williams’s comprehensive history traces how these gods—known as the Túatha Dé Danann—have shifted shape across the centuries. We meet the Morrígan, crow goddess of battle; the fire goddess Brigit, who moonlights as a Christian saint; the fairies who inspired J.R.R. Tolkien’s elves; and many others. Ireland’s Immortals illuminates why these mythical beings have loomed so large in the world’s imagination for so long.

This beautiful book visits twenty-eight richly atmospheric sites and tells the mythological stories associated with them. Woven into these landscapes are tales of love and betrayal, greed and courage, passion and revenge, featuring the famous characters of Celtic lore, such as Cú Chulainn, the children of Lír and Queen Maeve. The historical and archaeological facts and the folk traditions of each ancient site are explored. Some are famous, such as Tara and Newgrange; others are less well known but equally captivating such as the Béara Peninsula in Cork. In a world where many have lost touch with the land and their past, the legendary Irish landscape still survives and the stories are never quite over as long as there are people to tell them.

Discusses the mythological heritage of Ireland that lives on in folk tales, literature, place-names, language, ceremonies, and monuments, and surveys the mythic and sacred sites in Ireland's four provinces