Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

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Old Irish
Religions.
worship within the mound of earth, the underground
sanctuary. The Babylonian temple of Bit-Saggdhu was
in the gate of the deep. The TuaiU or portal of Ptah's
temple faced the north wind, and the Irish Tievetory is
the hill-side north. The Tuaut entrance is also glossed
by the English Tivat. The Egyptian Tnantii are the
people of the lower hemisphere, the north, which was the
type of the earth-temple. The Tuatha are still known in
Ireland by the name of the Divine Folk ;
an equivalent
to Tuantii for the worshippers."
The Rev. R. S middy fancies the people, as Denan or
Dene-ion, were descendants of Dene, the fire-god. An old
MS. calls them the people of the god Dana. Clive, therefore,
asks,
if they were simply the old gods of the country.
Joyce, in Irish Names says, ' This mysterious race, having
undergone a gradual deification, became confounded and
identified with the original local gods, and ultimately superseded
them altogether." He recalls the Kerry mountain's
name of Da-chich-Danainne. He considers the Tuatha ** a
people of superior intelligence and artistic skill, and that
they were conquered, and driven into remote districts, by
the less intelligent but more warlike Milesian tribes who
succeeded them."
Lady Ferguson, in her Story of the Irish before the
Conquest, has the idea of the Danaans being kinsmen to
the Firbolgs, that they came from the region of the Don
and Vistula, under Nuad of the Silver Hand, defeating
Eochaid, King of the Firbolgs, at Moytura, and ruling
Ireland two hundred years.
They were certainly workers in metal, and have therefore
been confounded by monkish writers with smiths.
St. Patrick's prayer against smiths, and the traditional
connection between smiths and magic, can thus be understood.
They—according to the Book of Invasions—