Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

Irish Magic, and Tuatha do D,anaa}is. i o
of their kings, poets, and poetesses, or female philosophers,
of highest repute for wisdom and learning, is still preserved
with reverential regret in some of our old manuscripts
of the best authority."
Referring to these persons,
as Kings Dagad, Agamon and Dalboeth, to Brig, daughter
of Dagad, to Edina and Danana, he exclaimed, " Such arc
the lights that burst through the gloom of ages." The
Tuatha, G. W. Atkinson supposes, " must be the highly
intellectual race that imported into Ireland our Oghams,
round towers, architecture, metal work, and, above all, the
exquisite art which has come down to us in our wonderful
illuminated Irish MSS." The polished Tuatha were
certainly contrasted with the rude Celts. Arthur Clive
declares
that civilization came in with an earlier race than
the Celts, and retired with their conquest by the latter.
"The bards and Seanachies," remarks R. J.
Duff\',
" fancifully attributed to each of the Tuath-de-Danaan
chiefs some particular art or department over which they
held him to preside ;
" as, Abhortach, to music. The author
of Old Celtic Romances writes— " By the ]\Iilesians and
their descendants they were regarded as gods, and ultimately,
in the imagination of the people, they became
what are now in Ireland called * Fairies.'" They conquered
the Firbolgs, an Iberian or a Belgic people, at the battle
of Moytura.
There is a strong suspicion of their connection with the
old idolatry. Their last King was J\Iac-o;rcuc, which bears
a verbal relation to the Sun. The Rev. R. Smiddy assumes
them descendants of Dia-tenc-ion, the Fire-god or Sun.
In the Chronicles of Cobimba we read of a priest who
built in
Tyrconnel a temple of great beauty, with an aUar
of fine glass, adorned with the representation of the sun
and moon. Under their King Dagda the Great, the Sungod,
and his wife, the goddess Boann, the Tuaths were once