The Tuatha Dé Danann, the “People of the Goddess Danu” or “Tribes of the Goddess Danu,” are the most important and most colorful of all the supernatural races of the medieval Irish mythological tradition, a race of semi-divine beings who came to Ireland from a far-off land, who defeated their enemies in a series of epic battles, who ruled Ireland for a time as its gods and heroes, and who eventually retreated into the sídhe, the ancient burial mounds of the Irish landscape, where they became the fairy folk of later Irish and Scottish folklore. To examine who the Tuatha Dé Danann were is to enter the heart of the Celtic cosmology and the Otherworld, and to follow one of the most important and most fully developed of all the mythological traditions of the Celtic world. As part of the broader Celtic religion, mythology, and spirituality of the Celtic peoples, the Tuatha Dé Danann are central to the Irish tradition and to the wider Celtic imagination.
The Coming of the Tuatha Dé Danann
According to the Lebor Gabála Érenn (The Book of Invasions), the principal medieval Irish account of the origins of the Irish people, the Tuatha Dé Danann arrived in Ireland from a far-off land, often identified in the medieval sources as the northern islands of the world or as a place called Falias, Gorias, Finias, and Murias, the four cities of the Tuatha Dé Danann in the north. The date of their arrival is variously given in the medieval sources, but the Lebor Gabála places it before the arrival of the Milesians, the mythological ancestors of the Irish people, and after the arrival of the Fir Bolg and the Fomoiri, the earlier races of Irish mythology.
The Tuatha Dé Danann brought with them four magical treasures, each from one of their four cities. From Falias they brought the Lia Fáil (the Stone of Destiny), the great stone that roared under the rightful king of Ireland. From Gorias they brought the spear of Lugh, the spear that never missed its target and that never needed to be sharpened. From Finias they brought the sword of Nuada, the sword that no one could escape from. From Murias they brought the cauldron of the Dagda, the cauldron that never emptied, and from which no one ever went away unsatisfied. The four treasures, taken together, gave the Tuatha Dé Danann a magical and political advantage that was central to their conquest of Ireland.
The First Battle of Moytura
The first major event in the story of the Tuatha Dé Danann, after their arrival in Ireland, was the First Battle of Moytura (Cath Maige Tuired), fought against the Fir Bolg, the race that had ruled Ireland before their arrival. The battle, fought on the plain of Moytura in County Sligo, was a long and bloody conflict, and the Tuatha Dé Danann, although they were victorious, paid a heavy price. Nuada, the king of the Tuatha Dé Danann, lost his right hand in the battle, and since a king with a physical blemish could not rule Ireland, he was replaced by Bres, a half-Fomorian who was married to Brigid, the daughter of the Dagda. The reign of Bres, however, was a tyranny: the Fomorians oppressed the Tuatha Dé Danann, and the people suffered under heavy tribute.
The Tuatha Dé Danann endured the tyranny of Bres for seven years, and at the end of that time a new leader emerged: Lugh, the many-skilled son of Cian of the Tuatha Dé Danann and Ethniu, the daughter of the Fomorian king Balor of the Evil Eye. Lugh, as described in the Celtic gods and goddesses tradition, came to the gates of Tara and demanded to be admitted to the company of the gods, and when the doorkeeper refused, on the grounds that the gods already had a craftsman for every art, Lugh replied that he was a master of every art. He was admitted, and he led the Tuatha Dé Danann in the Second Battle of Moytura against the Fomorians, the climactic battle of the mythological cycle.
The Second Battle of Moytura
The Second Battle of Moytura (Cath Maige Tuired), the most famous of the early Irish mythological battles, is described in detail in the medieval Irish sources. The Tuatha Dé Danann, led by Lugh, faced the Fomorians led by Balor of the Evil Eye, and the battle raged for many days. Lugh’s magical spear, the sword of Nuada, and the cauldron of the Dagda were all brought into play, and the magical and physical prowess of the heroes on both sides is celebrated in the medieval texts. The turning point of the battle was the single combat between Lugh and Balor. Balor’s evil eye, when he opened it, could destroy whatever it looked upon, but Lugh, with the help of his magical spear, killed Balor by hurling a sling-stone through his eye, the eye that destroyed the eye.
The Tuatha Dé Danann won the battle, and the Fomorians were driven from Ireland or reduced to a marginal presence in the mythological tradition. Lugh, the hero of the battle, did not become king: Nuada, who had been healed of his lost hand by the physician Dian Cécht and given a silver prosthesis by the craftsman Credne, was restored to the kingship. The Tuatha Dé Danann ruled Ireland, according to the medieval tradition, for a long and prosperous period, during which they were attended by the magical harp of the Dagda, which could command the seasons, and by the various other magical objects that they had brought with them from their northern cities.
The Coming of the Milesians
The Tuatha Dé Danann ruled Ireland, according to the Lebor Gabála, until the arrival of the Milesians, the mythological ancestors of the Irish people, who came from the Iberian peninsula and who defeated the Tuatha Dé Danann in a series of battles. The decisive battle, according to the Lebor Gabála, was fought at Tailtiu in County Meath, and the Tuatha Dé Danann were defeated and forced to retreat. The tradition reports that the Tuatha Dé Danann divided into two groups: the airig or leaders, who retreated into the sídhe or fairy mounds, and the amhra or wild folk, who retreated into the hills and became the Daoine Sídhe or fairy folk of the later tradition.
The Lebor Gabála preserves the tradition in a careful, even-handed way, presenting the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Milesians as two successive waves of invaders who shared the island between them. The Tuatha Dé Danann, although they were defeated in battle, were not destroyed, and they continued to live in the sídhe, in the hollow hills, in the lakes, and in the remote places of the Irish landscape. The tradition of the Tuatha Dé Danann as the inhabitants of the sídhe became, in the centuries that followed, one of the most distinctive features of Irish folklore, and it is the source of many of the stories and beliefs about the fairy folk that have persisted in Ireland and Scotland into the present.
The Sídhe and the Fairy Folk
The sídhe (singular síd) of the medieval Irish tradition are the ancient burial mounds of the Irish landscape, the great earthen or stone tumuli that dot the countryside and that were already ancient in the medieval period. The identification of the sídhe as the dwelling places of the Tuatha Dé Danann distinctive features of Irish mythology, and it is a tradition that has persisted in the folklore of the modern era. The most famous of the sídhe include Sí an Bhrú (Newgrange) in the Boyne valley, Sí Dhairbhre in County Louth, Sí Muirgheas in County Tyrone, and Cruachain in County Roscommon, the traditional dwelling of Medb and the Dagda and the entrance to the Otherworld.
The inhabitants of the sídhe in the medieval and early modern tradition were the Daoine Sídhe (the people of the sídhe) or, in the later anglicized form, the fairy folk. They were believed to be beautiful, powerful, and dangerous, and they were often associated with the older gods of the Irish tradition. Aine, the goddess of love and of the sun, was said to dwell in Cnoc Áine (Knockainey) in County Limerick, and the inhabitants of the hill were believed to be her people. Midir of Bri Léith was the lord of the sídhe of that name, and the Tlachtga of the Mág Tuired was a sacred hill in County Meath where the Samhain fires were kindled. The association of particular hills and sídhe with particular members of the Tuatha Dé Danann distinctive features of the Irish folk tradition.
The Tuatha Dé Danann as Gods
The Tuatha Dé Danann in the medieval Irish sources are clearly the older gods of the Irish people, transformed and historicized by the medieval Christian authors who wrote the surviving tales. The most important of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the Dagda, Lugh, Brigid, Nuada, Manannán mac Lir, Morrígan, and Ogma, are all the principal deities of the older Irish pantheon, and the Lebor Gabála and the Cath Maige Tuired, while they are presented as historical narratives, are clearly mythological in character. The transformation of the Tuatha Dé Danann from gods to mythological ancestors to inhabitants of the sídhe to fairy folk striking examples of the kind of religious transformation that accompanied the Christianization of the Celtic-speaking regions, and it parallels the similar transformation of the Welsh Plant Rhys Ddwfn and the Breton Korrigan in the other Celtic traditions.
The continuity between the Tuatha Dé Danann of the medieval sources and the Daoine Sídhe of the later Irish and Scottish folk tradition is clear. The fairy queen Aine is the older sun goddess of the same name. The fairy king Midir is the older divine figure of the same name. The bean sídhe or banshee, the wailing woman whose cry foretells a death in a noble family, is a survival of the older Morrígan, the war goddess whose appearance foretold doom. The leprechaun or lobaircín, the small, solitary fairy who mends the shoes of the otherworldly folk and who is the keeper of the pot of gold, is a survival of the older Lúgh Lámhfhada and his magical equipment. The continuity between the older religion and the later folk tradition distinctive features of the Irish cultural inheritance.
The Legacy of the Tuatha Dé Danann
The Tuatha Dé Danann, today, have become one of the most popular and most evocative of all the elements of the older Irish tradition. The tales of the Tuatha Dé Danann have been the subject of retellings, adaptations, and reimaginings by writers, artists, and musicians from the late nineteenth century to the present, and the figures of the Dagda, Lugh, Brigid, and the Morrígan have entered the popular culture of Ireland and the wider Celtic diaspora as figures of power, of magic, and of cultural identity. The revival of interest in the Tuatha Dé Danann in the context of the modern Pagan, Celtic Revival, and Irish literary movements has been particularly strong, and the older mythology has been studied as extensive scholarly and popular study.
The Tuatha Dé Danann, in short, are one of the central elements of the Irish mythological tradition, and they are central to the broader Celtic heritage. Their story, from their arrival in Ireland through their battles with the Fir Bolg and the Fomorians, their reign over Ireland, their defeat by the Milesians, and their retreat into the sídhe, is one of the great mythological narratives of European literature. The persistence of the Tuatha Dé Danann in the folklore of the modern Celtic-speaking regions, in the popular imagination of the modern Celtic diaspora, and in the academic study of the older Celtic religion, is one of the clearest examples of the lasting hold of one of the most distinctive mythological traditions of the Celtic world.