Filíocht Fridays: Fairy forts as the last vestiges of dúchas na nGael

No matter what happens above ground in the mere material world of Ireland, beidh anam na tíre sna liosacháin.

Apr 11, 2025

Fairy mounds and our ancestral consciousness

‘A nation’s history is made for it by circumstances, and the irresistible progress of events; but their legends, they make for themselves. In that dim twilight region, where day meets night, the intellect of man, tired by contact with the vulgarity of actual things, goes back for rest and recuperation, and there sleeping, projects its dreams against the waning night and before the rising sun.’ (Standish O’Grady, History of Ireland, i: The Heroic Period, p. 22)

This week for Filíocht Fridays I’ve decided to celebrate a poem by lesser known poet Brian Ó Flaitheartaigh, called Binn Lisin Aorach An Bhrogha.

Here we have a classic aisling poem, wherein the poet has a transcendental dream vision upon visiting a secret fairy mound, in his native Bruff, County Limerick. Similar to the ancient nature poems of Ireland’s solitary monks, the poet frolics in the peaceful tranquillity of an untamed forest, as ‘the flowers bloomed bright on my path’.

Resting, he faces a ‘silvery stream’ by ‘Bruff’s old Fairy Rath’. Here he is visited by a perplexing, but imminently intoxicating creature, who identifies herself as a Fairy Queen ‘from yonder green mound’. While of course referring to the ethereal realm of the sídhe, to me the ambiguity of her origin here reflects the famous seanfhocail, often translated as ‘The faraway hills are green’ (Bíonn adharca fada ar na ba thar lear).

The fairy says she heard the poet mourning over de-enchanted state of the world, now that his native home is ‘elf-haunted land’. She came to soothe him in his sorrow, and to rekindle his dream that ‘Éire’s green land shall be freed’. As in the harrowing aura which surrounds angels depiction in the Bible, the otherworldly nature of fairies does contain a capitating, entrancing quality, as the Yeats found out:

‘But it was also a theory that had found a territory, the territory of Yeats’s childhood, of his nationality, and of his class. His fascination in Mythologies with stories of the stealing of humans by the fairies, integrated in these tales into the Irish population, is part of his desire to belong to a community in which there is no to and fro of loyalty or conviction, where love and hate are separate and perfect in themselves’ (Seamus Deane, Strange Country, p. 112).

Despite the fact that the elf was visiting in concern, she struck him as ‘awakened from sleep’ in a stultifying manner, ushering in a rush of subconscious feelings. In many ways, echoing the aisling format of the poem, the fairy’s entry into the poet’s plane of perception rushed to the surface ‘why [his] heart had been breaking for years’. In all her ancient serenity, the poet is reminded of how he yearns for his craobh’s freedom, why he resents the base material world of alienation. A modern age which wants to forget us as it did the realm of the fairies, leaving both pillars of salt in its destructive wake:

‘Note, likewise, the fierce rhetoric of indignation, as when the Irish race is likened to the sluagh sithe, or fairy host, a term traditionally applied to the eddies of dust which the wind whirls down the roads.’ (Aodh de Blácam, Gaelic Literature Surveyed, p. 127).

Perhaps we should all listen to the fairies once more, lest we forget who we really are—our true spirit as Gaels which ripples throughout our soul-embedded landscape.

I nGaeilge: Cnocáin sí agus ár gcomhfhios sinseartha

‘A nation’s history is made for it by circumstances, and the irresistible progress of events; but their legends, they make for themselves. In that dim twilight region, where day meets night, the intellect of man, tired by contact with the vulgarity of actual things, goes back for rest and recuperation, and there sleeping, projects its dreams against the waning night and before the rising sun.’ (Standish O’Grady, History of Ireland, i: The Heroic Period, p. 22)

Don tseachtain seo le haghaidh Filíocht Fridays, roghnaigh mé dán le file nach bhfuil chomh cáiliúil, Brian Ó Flaitheartaigh, dar teideal Binn Lisín Aorach an Bhrogha, a cheiliúradh.

Seo againn aisling chlasaiceach, ina bhfaigheann an file fís tharcheannach taibhriúil agus é ar cuairt ag cnocán sí rúnda ina dhúiche féin, Brú, Contae Luimnigh. Cosúil le dánta dúlra ársa na manach aonair in Éirinn, bíonn an file ag spraoi i suaimhneas foraoise fiáine, agus ‘Ag eisdiocht le bínn-ghuth na n-éan’.

Ag scíth a ligean dó, tá sé os comhair ‘cois dian t-srúill na séad’ le ‘ lisín aorach an Bhroghadh’. Tagann créatúr aisteach ach thar a bheith mealltach chuige, a shainaithníonn í féin mar ‘síth-bhean ó'n d-tréan-lios úd tall’. Cé go bhfuil sí ag tagairt go soiléir do shaol neamhshaoilta na sí, measaim go léiríonn an doiléire faoina tír dhúchais an seanfhocal clúiteach: ‘Bíonn adharca fada ar na ba thar lear’. Mar atá san ‘aura’ scanrúil a bhíonn timpeall ar aingeal sa Bhíobla, tá cáilíocht draíochtúil, meallacach ag baint le neamhshaolacht na sí, mar a fuair an Yeatsach amach:

‘But it was also a theory that had found a territory, the territory of Yeats’s childhood, of his nationality, and of his class. His fascination in Mythologies with stories of the stealing of humans by the fairies, integrated in these tales into the Irish population, is part of his desire to belong to a community in which there is no to and fro of loyalty or conviction, where love and hate are separate and perfect in themselves’ (Seamus Deane, Strange Country, p. 112).

Deir an sí go bhfaca sí an file ag caoineadh staid dhiamhrach an domhain, nuair atá a thír dhúchais ‘traochta ag neart Gall!’. Tháinig sí chun sólás a thabhairt dó ina bhrón, agus a dhóchas a athbheochan i ‘ngach críoch 'na bh-faghair Gaoidheil’.

Cé gur tháinig an sí i gcomhairle leis, bhí an chuma uirthi gur ‘d'éirgios do léim’ ar bhealach a chuir tuairt mhothúchán neamhfhiosach faoi shmaoineamh an fhile. Ar bhealach, ag leanúint foirm na haislinge, thug teacht na sí chun cinn an chúis gur ‘Bíodhgan mo chroidhe stig le léan’. Ina suaimhneas ársa, cuimhnítear don fhile ar an tsaoirse atá á siúl aige, agus ar an domhan ábhartha eachtrannach atá á fhulaingt aige. Aois nua-aimseartha atá ag iarraidh dearmad a dhéanamh orainn mar a rinne sí de réim na sí, ag fágáil an dá cholún salainn ina diaidh scriosta:

‘Note, likewise, the fierce rhetoric of indignation, as when the Irish race is likened to the sluagh sithe, or fairy host, a term traditionally applied to the eddies of dust which the wind whirls down the roads.’ (Aodh de Blácam, Gaelic Literature Surveyed, p. 127).

B’fhéidir gur chóir dúinn uile éisteacht leis na síofraí arís, nó seans go ndéanfaimis dearmad ar ár bhfíorspiorad—an spiorad Gaelach sin atá fite fuaite inár dtírdhreach anama.