Earthing the Myths: The Myths, Legends and Early History of Ireland

by Daragh Smyth

In Ireland, the link between place and myth is strong, and there is no more enlightening way to understand the rich tapestry of Irish mythology, and its relationship to our true history, than by reading the landscape. Earthing the Myths is an engaging and exhaustive county-by-county guide to the vast number of fascinating places in Ireland connected to myth, folklore, and early history. Covering the period 800 BC to AD 650, this book spans the Late Bronze Age, the Iron Age, and the early Christian period, and explores the ways in which the land evolved, and with it our catalogue of myths and legends. Smyth chronicles sites the length and breadth of the country, where druids, fairies, goddesses, warriors, and kings all left their mark, in tales both real and imagined. With over one thousand locations recorded, from Rathlin Island to the Beara Peninsula, Earthing the Myths breathes life into places throughout Ireland that find their origins in our pre-Christian and pre-Gaelic past, and shows that they still possess unique wisdom and vibrant energy.

392 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2021

Reviews

[Shane Broderick]

Avoid!
I was looking forward to this on the back of it being "The first all Ireland, county by county guide". I made it 157 pages out of 366 before I had to put it down because of page after page of errors. This is one of those books that puts the scholarship of the material back decades, and something that will no doubt sell well and the errors will be reproduced as fact for years to come on blogs and websites and people will think it is trustworthy because it is published by "Irish Academic Press". This book barely qualifies as academic due to the presence of a bibliography, but Daragh's "Scholarship" in this subject would have him laughed out of the room by any read academics in this field.

So, to the errors:
Throughout the book there is over speculation as to places that "may" have been used as ritual sites, "may" have been used for fertility rites and "may" have been used as inauguration sites, nothing to back these claims up though.

Questionable translations throughout such as rendering "Bealtaine" as the "fires of Balor".

He states pagan worship of a middle eastern god as fact in Ireland. He states on multiple occasions that worship of the god Baal was widespread and that "the fires of Baal were lit throughout Ireland on certain days". This is utter nonsense and is mostly the fabrication of the 18th and 19th Century antiquarians who misinterpreted and mistranslated. This notion has been well and truly discredited by actual scholars in the field (of which Daragh Smyth certainly is not and his penchant for using outdated resources/research is a problem in his other books also).

Despite being published by "Irish Academic Press", this is not an "academic" book, or barely qualifies as one due to the presence of a bibliography. The bibliography is a solid one but due to the lack of in text citation, it is hard for the general reader to know what he is pulling from the sources and what he is badly interpreting or even worse, what he is pulling from his own head (and this happens A LOT).

Mentions the Ellén Trechend as a bird first (correct) but then starts referring to it as a triple headed goddess. He later claims that it was worshipped by a singular tribe. This is utter nonsense and there is nothing to suggest that this creature even took human form, let alone that it was worshiped as a deity.

He keeps using the term "deas sol" instead of "deiseal"

Calls the saint Colmcille "Colm O Neill". The Saint's real name was believed to be Crimthann and his fathers was Feidlimid, so his real name would have been "Crimthann Mac Feidlimid" or at a stretch "Crimthann Uí Neill" since he was descended (great-great grandson) of Niall Naoíghíollach. His ecclesiastical name "Colmcille" (Irish) or "Columba" (Latin) meant "Dove of the Church" and would not have rendered his name as "colm"

Says that Balor was Blinded by Goibniú, I am unaware of any source for this but glad to be corrected.

Mistranslates another saints name, Mo Ling, as "My Flight". It actually means "My Leap" and he got the name from leaping from a round tower. Every single derivative of "Ling" in eDil is related to jumping /leaping not flight.

Says that Manannán Mac Lir, a god whose entire name related to the ocean (Mac Lir meaning "son of the sea"), is both a sea god AND a sun god. In fact Daragh on numerous occasions throughout the book says that multiple deities were sun gods when they weren't. We were apparently falling over sun gods here in Ireland according to Mr Smyth.

So, unless you are very well versed in the lore, or want to use this as a very basic reference book (before triple checking every single word of it), save your money. This book doesn't even belong in the bargain bin.

[Deaglán Ó Briain]

Packed full of myth, history, lore and snippets (including poetry) from the annals, and anecdotes from more recent times. Discussion of pre-history and the (possible) ethnic and linguistic mosaic in Ireland prior to and contemporaneous with the Roman invasion of Britain is necessarily speculative and other scholars will speculate differently, but here we have a compedium from myth and annals that brings together a wealth of material and references in an accessible format.

Two small quibbles: a good editor would have tightened up the repetition and occasional inconsistency in titles and definitions; a proofreader should have spotted production errors such as autocapitalization of Irish 'i' and other irritants in the Irish text.