Honoring the Irish Gods

One of the first questions people ask when they develop an interest in this spirituality is how to get started. This is a difficult question to answer, and indeed specific spiritual approaches will have their own guidelines. What follows here is just a rough outline and suggestions that may be applied, hopefully, to any spiritual path seeking to honor or connect to the Irish Gods. As such it is somewhat broad and general, but ideally will offer a place to start for people seeking a place to begin.

The absolute first step, truly, is to read. Read the mythology, the folklore, and the stories both old and modern to become familiar with the Gods and Spirits (aos sidhe aka Good Neighbors, or fairies) of Ireland. There is often a fine line at best between the Tuatha Dé Danann as Gods and the Aos Sidhe as fairies as could be seen by many of the entries in previous sections where a member of the Gods was later described as being a king or queen of fairy. Use this to get to know these Powers and to start to understand the worldview and cosmology. You can’t read too much of this stuff, ever; however, never lose sight of the fact that many translations are older and suffer from the bias of the times they were written in. Try to read a variety of different versions of any one story to help you get the best perspective on it. It also helps to read not only the mythology and folklore, but also books about the culture of the pagan Irish to help provide a context for the stories. We can’t read them and apply our modern standards and expectations to a world that existed hundreds or thousands of years ago and expect to fully understand the deeper meanings of the story. Use what you learn to build a framework of belief and practice in your own life.

Learn about the history of a specific deity that interest you. Honoring the Irish Gods Many of the Irish Gods have undergone interesting shifts and changes over time, as the new religion came in and the old was subsumed. Áine went from one of the Tuatha Dé Danann to a Fairy Queen to a mortal girl as her stories passed through time. Brighid went from a Goddess to a saint. Manannán was taken from an outside culture into the Tuatha Dé Danann, and then appeared in many stories as magician and trickster. Looking at any Irish deity usually shows a long and fascinating history, often including a journey through folk belief into modern times as a fairy or mortal. Although we often prefer to think of our Gods as strictly Gods it can provide a great deal of insight to study their places outside of divine roles as well. Learn about the specific locations associated with the different Gods. One thing that is particularly true of the Irish Gods is that they are profoundly location based. The stories and folklore of the Gods include an array of sites and places that are intrinsically tied to the deities. It is far more difficult, perhaps even impossible on some level, to truly understand a deity without having some understanding of the locations that they lay claim to or that they give their name to. If possible, travel to the locations you’ve learned about. Touch the places that the Gods themselves were said to have touched still touch. See for yourself what the land looks like, what it feels like. Reading and studying about the places of the Gods is good, but actually going there and experiencing them yourself is better. It is impossible to fully imagine the scope and scale of sacred sites unless you are actually there.

Offer to the Gods to create reciprocity with these Powers. Offer in thanks and celebration, for blessing and protection. Offerings create a relationship between us and the Powers we honor that is important in our spirituality.

Connect to your spirituality regularly by celebrating holidays, reading, and essentially living your faith. Paganism of any kind isn’t an occasional religion that you practice once in a while or a hobby, it’s a way of life. If you want to connect to any deity it requires time and effort because it is a matter of building a relationship. To follow the Irish paganism in any sense one needs to first build a relationship with the Gods and then incorporate that into whatever religious or spiritual framework you use.

Try to set aside some space, no matter how small, in your home as a place for the Gods. Think about who and what the Gods are to you, and what part they play in your life. Why do you want to honor them? What is a God to you? Which Gods do you connect most strongly to and why? Who do you honor most often? While there are many Gods within the Irish pantheon there will be a selection of deities – perhaps as few as two or three, perhaps as many as a half dozen or more – that you are particularly drawn to for a variety of reasons. Over time these Gods will be the ones who you form the strongest connections to, much as each historic community had specific Gods within the wider pantheon that they honored.

Another important way to connect to the Gods is to connect to Irish culture; this can be done through language, music, food, studying social history, art, and literature. Being an Irish pagan is about more than just honoring the Irish Gods, it’s also about a love of the culture those Gods come from. Although many people balk at the idea of learning the language even something as simple as learning a few words, or making the effort to learn how to properly pronounce the deities’ names, can be helpful and make a person feel more connected. It’s also much easier to understand the Gods when you understand the culture that they come from and are part of.

And there you have it. You can add seeking community in real life or online as well, but I think that the heart of honoring or connecting to the Irish Gods starts with you and your own life. If you aren’t making the Irish Gods a part of your life in different ways then all the community participation in the world won’t really help you. That isn’t to downplay the importance of community, which is a wonderful source of support, but if you can’t connect to the Gods without a community then you are missing the point altogether.

Morgan Daimler teaches classes on Irish myth and magical practices, fairies, and related subjects in the United States and internationally. She has been published in multiple anthologies as well as articles in various magazines, and she is one of the world’s foremost experts on all things Fairy. Besides the titles available through Moon Books Morgan has a high fantasy novel ‘Into Shadow’ through Cosmic Egg and has an urban fantasy/paranormal romance series called Between the Worlds. Morgan has also presented papers on fairies and on fairies and witches at several university conferences.

For more details: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/authors/morgan-daimler