The Celtic Pagan Gods worshipped the Sun, Water, Fire, Spirit, Air and Earth.

The four seasons Imbolc, Bealtane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain mark the season changes. The four remaining quarters are two equinoxes and two solstices.

Imbolc: St. Brigid’s Day, this quarter day marks the beginning of spring, February 1st. Translates to “in milk” or “in the belly”, a reference to cows that have started lactating after giving birth. Imbolc is a fertility festival with reverence for light, referencing the impregnating of Brigid, Goddess of health and fertility, by the seed of the rising Sun.

Bealtane: May Day. Beginning of Summer. Marking the season of light, during which the days are longer than nights and hopes of bountiful crops and harvests. Another of the fire festivals where people sang and danced around fires believing these to ward off the fairies that were now visiting from the underworld in an attempt to capture a Changeling to take with them to strengthen their fairy stock. Irish mothers were very protective at this time of the year. Uisneach in the centre of Ireland is the most significant of these Celtic festivals.

Lughnasadh: The Harvest season, Autumn. Lugh the God of Skills, can be the ruination or the saviour of a harvest. Watch out how your devotion to the elements behave during the growing season. Lugh is watching and listening. Too much rain or sun, the balance has to be correct. This fire festival is in hope for a bountiful harvest. 

Singing, storytelling, dancers jumping through the flames, couples with their hands intertwined dance while a spiritual leader fastens their hands together with a crios or traditional woven belt, a practice from which the phrase “tying the knot” is derived. Matchmaking going on, introducing the eligible of both sexes together. 

The last weekend in July is known as Reek or Pilgrimage Sunday, where thousands gather to climb Croagh Patrick in Co. Mayo in honour of Ireland’s patron saint who fasted for 40 days. This is also part of the Lughnasadh festival. 

Halloween or Samhain. Now we have the dark days of Winter. Days are shorter, nights are longer and weather is getting colder. This is the most significant of all the Fire festivals. October 31st is Halloween, the eve of All Saints’ Day in the Catholic calendar November 1st and November 2nd is the feast of All Souls.

This is the time of year when the veil between the world as we know it and the other world is at its thinnest, allowing the fairy folks and the souls of the dead to walk freely and with ease among the living. Souls are restless, having died unexpectedly, no goodbyes and no preparations. Now they visit their loved ones for that brief moment.

Halloween has been celebrated in Ireland for the past 2,000 years. The living dressed up in rags and costumes so that the spirits could not differentiate between each other.

With the mass migration of the mid 1800 hundreds the festival is now a worldwide phenomenon.

These are the seasons as we know them but there are also the other sacred days of the Celtic calendar. The Summer Solstice, Litha, the 21st of June marking the longest day of the year. Druids, the pagan Gods of yesteryear, a powerhouse of wickedness and witchcraft, the demons of Christianity. Fires were lit to protect homes and communities.

Going back to early Christianity Midsummer’s Eve was known as St John’s night, remembering the feast of John the Baptist on the 24th June.

The Winter Solstice, Yule, the longest and darkest night of the year. At New Grange in Co. Meath crowds would gather as the sun continued to set and sink lower into the earth. Fires were lit, processions continued around the mound, which has been carbon dated to 5,000 plus years.

The Megalithic tomb is aligned with the Winter Solstice. The sun rising on the mornings of the 19th to the 23rd of December light up the entrance to the inner chamber casting a shaft of light 30 feet inwards, then after 15 minutes it retracts leaving the chamber as it was, in total darkness. What had happened here? My belief is that the higher echelons within this society that had died during the past year had their remains placed within this monument, whether cremated or their bones, their souls had now travelled along this shaft of light to join with the souls of their ancestors.

The Equinoxes, March 20th and June 21st are the dates of equal day and night. The successful progression of the year rely heavily on the sacred rituals observed on these days. A time to sow and a time to reap. When planting the seeds depends on how one’s harvest will be.

Where did these Celts come from? In ancient Europe, the Romans were building up an Empire. The Celts were better known back then as Gauls. Having been defeated by the Romans they were forced to retreat westwards. Ireland on the periphery of Europe was the end of the world in pre-Christian times. The Celts settled in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. They may have moved further out, however during these times they believed the world was flat.

Joe Fahy.