An Chraobh Airgid
At Tailtiu on a hazy August afternoon, chiefs in bright cloaks watch from a grassy slope as horses race along a green course past a vast crowd and round houses.

Fire festival · 1 August

Lughnasadh

The start of autumn

Say it: LOO-nuh-suh Lúnasa /ˈl̪ˠuːn̪ˠəsˠə/

Lugh’s assembly, and the first of the harvest.

Open it on the full site There the Wheel of the Year starts from today, and counts the nights to the next festival.

Lugh held games and a lament for his foster-mother Tailtiu, who died clearing the plain of Coill Cuan; the Book of Invasions says the games ran a fortnight before Lughnasadh and a fortnight after. Máire MacNeill traced the festival’s survival in Irish hill-top gatherings in The Festival of Lughnasa (1962).

The word

Lúnasa is the modern Irish for August.

Customs

Reek Sunday on Croagh Patrick, Garland Sunday, and bilberry picking on the hills at the end of July.

In the tales

  • The Colloquy of the Ancients The last two of the Fianna part in tears. One goes into a hill to his mother; the other finds Patrick blessing Fionn’s old fort, and tells him the story of every hill.

See also

  • Eilean Arainn The Isle of Arran. The island of many stags, where the Fianna had the best hunting they ever had.
  • Lugh The god of many skills.
  • Tailtiu Lugh’s foster-mother, who cleared a forest into a plain.

Sources

Each tale above lists the sources it is retold from. Every source the site draws on is listed on the full site.