Mythical Beasts of Ireland

With more Folklore and Mythology than your divorced Uncle has power ballad CDs, Ireland is an absolute cultural behemoth.

Ireland's cultural contributions are felt the world over, and this relatively small island has made a huge contribution to the arts globally, with Joyce, Stoker, Wilde, Rice, The Cranberries, Thin Lizzy, Stiff Little Fingers, The Undertones, Moran et al. That's just my list, and it's the short version. We eagerly await Blindboy's amazing podcast each week, we could listen to Eddie Lenihan share his stories indefinitely, and when in need of some classic comfort viewing, Father Ted is top of the list. We all have our lists, and we are all in some small or great way changed by the cultural impact of Ireland.

After creating the Scotland map a follow-up Ireland map had to be done. During our initial release, we had so much love and support from Ireland, we hoped one day we'd be creating Ireland its very own map. It's always a joy to revisit the Irish myths that are so Iconic around the world, you realise how familiar some of the stories are, and how warped some of the others have become. It is one of the few remaining places where myth still feels close to the surface. The aforementioned Eddie Lenihan made global news when he stopped a whitethorn tree being cut down to make way for a new road, the tree itself was said to be sacred to the Aos Sí. Unlike the modern chocolate tin images of tinkerbellesque sparkly homunculi, the fair folk are prone to a bit of revenge, trickery, and abduction. They do not suffer an offense quietly, sites, where forts have been removed, are often blamed for an inordinate amount of road "accidents". There is so much more to Irish mythology than Leprechauns, Banshees, and Fairies, come dive into the map with us and hear about a handful of the many creatures we learned about.

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Update- I’m working on book proposals at the moment, so I’ve kept some stories offline to save them for the books (and to stop anyone pinching all the hard work before they’re published!). If you’d like to know when the books are ready, just pop your name on the mailing list.

In the meantime, here are a few of my favourite beasties and legends -

Aughisky

"Why is its back adhesive? Why is it running towards the water? Why is it hoof stomping me? And why is it chewing my face?" Some very relevant questions from a former-person who thought it was a good idea to climb onto that gnarly-looking horse. We say it time and time again, if you see a random horse, best not climb on it, just don't do it. Like the Each-Usige, Kelpie, Mourioche, Ech Goblin, and pretty much every mythical horse ever, it is gonna mess you up, and use you to dye the water a pleasing red colour. Having said all that. If you manage to capture a male and breed it with a standard edition less murdery horse, you will create the finest horses in all the land *cue harp sound*. The only slight downside is that they need to be fed a constant diet of raw meat, which is probably going to turn your stables into a house of horrors, as well as running up quite a bill with your local butcher.

Cathach

Offspring of the all-devouring sow, who guards the gates of hell, and nursed by the red demon of the west, Cathach never stood a chance. I mean, what do you do with an upbringing like that? She wasn't a looker either - A scaly back, a boar bristle mane, a big gaping mouth which you could see down to her entrails, one eye, her belly a furnace, iron claws that sparked, a whales tail tipped with iron that plowed furrows wherever she went. I mean what do you do with that? The chances of developing into a fully functioning, well-adjusted member of society are slim to none. Oh, and her siblings were slain, the receipt from the therapist just gets longer and longer. So Cathach did what any large horrendous she-dragon/beast with a worrying upbringing and a pretty rubbish present would do, destroy everything you possibly can. Notably, she decided to go full Godzilla around the Shannon estuary smashing up ships, buildings, and just about anything else that looked breakable. An added cheeky bonus for Cathach was when the 3 brothers who had killed her siblings returned, they saw the carnage unleashed and threw themselves into the sea in despair. It's all coming up Cathach. This is the most male response ever from our 3 heroes, kill a couple of unearthly terrifying beasts - no worries, have a tidy up, and invest some time to rebuild something - Nah, group suicide sounds much more preferable. If only someone had told them defeating Cathach was easy peasy. As usual at this point with any dragon type, a saint shows up, this time Saint Senan, who asked the Cathach to leave in peace and harm no one anymore, then made the sign of the cross right up in the beast's grill. Amazingly, this worked. Was she baptised, born again, found comfort in forgiveness, just glad to call it a day? who knows, but this was the anti-climactic end of Cathach.

Clíodhna

I mean the title "queen of the banshees" is enough isn't it? You S.O.B. I'm in! I mean in terms of finding things to include on a map, this is a home run, an auto-include. Apart from the Leprechaun (getting to that soon), Banshees have to be the most famous Irish legend. You could say fairies, but they are far more universal. Clíodhna is a complex figure; if being the queen of the banshees wasn't enough, she has so many stories and details about her that are fascinating. We'll get into one as it's a goodie and can be touched on briefly. The Blarney Stone. We've all heard of the Blarney Stone, right? The stone that you kiss and you receive the ability to deceive without offending. Super useful, superfamous, catnip to tourists, and I'm sure not an easy way of contracting herpes. When McCarthy was building his castle in Cork he ran up against some legal troubles, what these are, who knows, the planning regulations regarding the construction of castles are unknown to me, and it could have easily been something totally unrelated, like murder or a speeding ticket. Anyway, Clíodhna appears to him in a dream and tells him to kiss the first rock he sees in the morning. I mean everyone has got their thing, and if that's what you're into fair enough I guess. He does so and finds he manages to silver-tongue his way out of trouble the next day in court. To honor Clíodhna, and because you don't just give up a bit of rock that gets you out of legal trouble, he had it built into the castle.

Luchorpán

It's your boy, the OG, the reigning champion of exported Irish mythology, the one, and only, Leprechaun. Despite their popularity, they are only a tiny part of Irish folklore. Leprechauns are rarely mentioned throughout Irelands mythos, and what we think of when we think of a leprechaun is usually wrong. Traditionally, they wore red, green being the colour of the trouping fairies. The earliest mention of a Leprechaun is in Medieval times when they are dragging Fergus mac Léti into the sea, he then captures them and is granted 3 wishes in exchange for their release. Fergus should have chosen his words better, as far as I can tell his 3 wishes could have been made into 1. He wished to be able to breathe underwater in seas, pools, and lakes, I mean come on Fergus, if you had just shut up after the word "underwater" you'd have 2 more wishes in the bank. It wouldn't do him much good anyway, making wishes with mythical beings has a tendency to blow up in your face. They gave him only 1 place this ability shouldn't be used, and inevitably Fergus munched down on that forbidden fruit like a scurvy-ridden dying sailor. This is when he encounters another beast from the map - Muirdris. There are elements of truth in what we believe about Leprechauns though these came later, they may be in possession of gold and could cobble the living daylights out of some fancy-ass brogues.

Paiste

Ireland is famous for its serpent myths, and do you think it was flimsy little snakes that St Patrick was driving out? Sweet child, Ireland had much bigger serpent problems than that. They are the Irish dragons, often associated with waters or bogs, and like a lot of truly old dragon motifs were more often associated with venom than fire, though some could do both, and I'm sure they felt very special because of it. A couple of noteworthy dragons are the Oilliphéist who was initially pretty chill, but lost her chill significantly when she heard about some saint going round offing her sisters, Oilliphéist decided to swallow a piper, rather irritatingly the piper kept playing, she spat him back out and just got out of Ireland carving the Shannon estuary on her way. Another of note is Lig-na-Paiste, the last of the great reptiles of Ireland, who even managed to outlast St Patrick, and that fellow was tenacious. Unfortunately, when it comes to dragons there seems to be a never-ending supply of clerical cannon fodder to throw at them, this time it was St Murrough. Lig-na-Paiste was nowhere near as mellow as the Oilliphéist and just loved smashing stuff up, eating whole herds of cattle, scorching villages, and generally keeping it 100 (by dragon standards). Anyway, through various trickery involving turning reeds into iron through prayer, St Murrough traps Lig-na-Paiste and banishes him to the bottom of Lough Foyle where he is to this day. There are other great dragon stories from Ireland and it is well worth a bit of your time having a dig.

petticoat loose

Mary Hannigan was her name, and being an absolute unit was her game. Mary was over 6ft tall and well built, she could out labour any guy on the farm by day and outdrink them at night. She also loved to dance and there was no match here either, except for one man, whom she married. One day after a wedding there was drinking and dancing and Mary was cheered on to dance, she obliged but as she was twirling around the dance floor her dress got snagged and came off, earning her the nickname 'petticoat loose', as you can imagine she wasn't a fan of this and would lay a good wallop on the head of anyone brave or stupid enough to say it within her earshot. One year, and one suspiciously vanished husband later Mary was getting her drink on with the other workmen when she was challenged to show off her drinking prowess (a gallon should do it) she downed the gallon, began to gloat, then dropped dead. Years later she began to be spotted around the village, and people believed she had become a witch. Her most famous escapade was when she tried to hitch a ride in a cart, the driver wanting none of that, tried ignoring her, but she jumped on anyway. To punish the chap she said "I have one tonne in this hand", the cart slowed, she raised her other hand "I have one tonne in this hand", the horse slowed more, repeat this process for both legs and once more for the belly and what you are left with is a dead horse, a shocked man, and a laughing Mary. Sick of her nonsense the villagers got a priest involved and he banished her to Bay Lough until she could empty it with a thimble. That should give her time to calm down.

Other beasts featured on the map:

Abhartach

Clurichaun

Children of Lir

Ellén Trechend

Amadán Dubh

Cailleach

Dearg Due

Dobhar Chu

Dullahan

Fáelad

Far Liath

Fetch

Fomorian

Lí Ban

Merrow

Muirdris

One-eyed hare

Onchú

Rostons sea serpent

Selkie

Saint Colmans Ducks

Salmon of Knowledge

Suileach