An Chraobh Airgid
The great fair of Tailtin on a hazy August afternoon: crowds in bright cloaks round hide booths below a huge palisaded ring-fort, horsemen racing along the grass.

Mide · Meath

Tailtin

Teltown · Co. Meath

Where the sons of Míl beat the Tuatha Dé, and the old gods lost Ireland.

Open it on the full site There it is marked on the map of the five fifths, where the road of a tale can be traced.

A townland near Kells, named for Tailtiu, Lugh’s foster-mother. A great fair was held here in the Middle Ages, and it was revived in the twentieth century as the Tailteann Games; old earthworks still lie in its fields. In the Book of Invasions it is the field of the last battle between the sons of Míl and the Tuatha Dé Danann: Keating says the three kings and the three queens of Ireland fell here.

In the tales

  • The Song of Amairgen A poet sets his right foot on Ireland and sings that he is the wind on the sea. Three queens of the old gods meet him, and each asks for the island’s name.

See also

  • Amairgen The poet of the sons of Míl.
  • Banba The first of the three queens who asked that Ireland bear her name.
  • Fódla The second of the three queens who asked that Ireland bear her name.
  • The sons of Cermait The three kings of the Tuatha Dé who ruled Ireland when the sons of Míl came.
  • The sons of Míl The last invaders in the Book of Invasions: the Gaels.
  • Tailtiu Lugh’s foster-mother, who cleared a forest into a plain.
  • Tuatha Dé Danann The old gods of Ireland.

Sources

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