Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

Irish Gods, 12
daughters.
Occasionally they made improper acquaintance
with darker beings, and were led into trouble thcrcb}-.
Grian was the appellation of the sun, and Carncach for
the priest of the solar deity. Strabo mentions a temple in
Cappadocia to Apollo Gryiiceiis. Ovid notes a goddess
called by the ancients Graiie. The Phrygians had a god
GryncEus. Gram and Baal both refer to the sun. J,
T. O'Flaherty regarded the Irish word Griaii as jjure
Phoenician. The Four blasters inform their readers that
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the monarch Laogaire had sworn ratha-Grcine agus
Gavithe"; that is, by the sun and wind. Breaking his
oath, he was killed by those divinities.
Eusebius held that
Usous, King of Tyre, erected two pillars for worship to the
sun and wind.
It has been affirmed by an Erse scholar, that the Irish
Cote worshipped the sun under forty different names.
Dal-greine^ or stin standard^ was the banner of the
reputed
Fingal. Dag/uia wsls ^n Apollo, or the sun. He was also
the god of fire.
The Phoenicians have been credited as the introducers of
Irish solar deities. Sir S. Rush Meyrick held their origin
in these Islands from Arkite sun-worship: T\(lain was
the Arkite god, the Lord of Mystery. II. O'Brien, in
Phoenician Ireland, Dublin, 1822, spoke of the Irish word
Sibbol as " a name by which the Irish, as well as almost all
other nations, designated and worshipped Cybele
;
an ear of corn, being a symbol of Ceres and
Phoenicians.
" sibola,
C\bclc of the
Several supposed Phoenician relics, especially
swords, have been discovered in Ireland.
The Gaulish Belemis was known over these Islands. In
his temples at Bayeux and at Bath there were images of
the Solar god. He was adored, too, at Mont St. Michel.
A remnant of his worship is seen in the custom of maids
washing their faces in May-morn dew, and then mounting