Irish Druids And Old Irish Religions

Druidic residue, after you have stripped all that is mediæval and Biblical from the poems of Taliesin. The same with Merlin." And others will echo that sentiment in relation to Irish Druidism, notwithstanding the wild assumptions of some writers, and the cynical unbelief of others. After all eliminations, there is still a substantial residue.

One may learn a lesson from the story told of Tom Moore. When first shown old Irish MSS., he was much moved, and exclaimed, "These could not have been written by fools. I never knew anything about them before, and I had no right to have undertaken the History of Ireland."

An old Irish poem runs:--

"Seven years your right, under a flagstone in a quagmire,
Without food, without taste, but the thirst you ever torturing,
The law of the judges your lesson, and prayer your language;
And if you like to return
You will be, for a time, a Druid, perhaps."

Druid Houses, like those of St. Kilda, Borera Isle, &c., have become in more modern days Oratories of Christian hermits. They are arched, conical, stone structures, with a hole at the top for smoke escape. Toland calls them "little arch'd, round, stone buildings, capable only of holding one person." They were known as Tighthe nan Druidhneach. There is generally in many no cement. The so-called Oratory of St. Kevin, 23 ft. by 10 and 16 high, has its door to the west. The writer was supported by the Guide at Glendalough, in the opinion of the great antiquity of St. Kevin's Kitchen. The house at Dundalk is still a place of pilgrimage.

The one at Gallerus, Kerry, has a semi-circular window. Of these oratories, so called, Wise observes, "They were not Christian, but were erected in connection with this early, let us call it, Celtic religion. If they had been Christian, they would have had an altar and other Christian emblems, of which, however, they show no trace. If they had been

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