Irish Druids And Old Irish Religions

The lion's face he regarded as "the symbolic image of Mithras, as used by the Gadetani (of Spain), for which I will refer to the Saturnalia of Macrobius, when he quotes a historical passage to show that the Hercules of Gades (Cadiz) and of the sun were one and the same numen, represented by biform figures with heads of lions, radiating like the sun." As Pownall found the sword, recovered from the same bog, to be of Carthaginian work, he was disposed, as he says, to refer the image "to this line of later theology, rather than to the Celtic Druid theology of the more ancient Irish." He means that of the Carthaginian colony of Spain, which he thought held commerce with Ireland. The idol might be that of the foreign visitors. "I feel persuaded," he added, "to refer the idol, and the various vessels and instruments of religious ceremonies, found in the same part, to the ritual of this later idolatry used in these particular settlements, but never in general use amongst the people of Ireland at large."

An image was found on Innis Mura, Sligo, being called after St. Molas,--known as the Bal fargha, a Phallic emblem. It has a singular likeness to the Phallic Mahoody of the Isle of Elephanta. It is an erect stone in a sort of basin (masculine and feminine emblems), and being, like the Mahoody, enclosed by a wall. The like symbol is still an object of worship in India.

Two rude stones were discovered in Neale Park, Mayo Co. One had the appearance of a goat, and the other of a lion. There was the inscription of Dié na feile.

Jean Reynaud held that the Gauls had no image of any sort. Henri Martin affirmed that "no idols recovered upon our soil belong to the age of independence "--that is, before the Roman Conquest. Herodotus bears testimony to one ancient people free from idols. The Persians

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