Talk Series: The Gods of Ireland: Ireland’s native pantheon in literature and lore

Irish Gods – The Túatha Dé Danann – Sun 13 Feb 2022

This second talk takes listeners through a magnificent saga from the ninth century, The Second Battle of Moytura, in which the Irish gods—the Túatha Dé Danann—fight to reclaim Ireland from a race of oppressive enemies, the Fomorians. This may be a reflection of a genuinely ancient myth, but it features a lively cast of characters, including the war-goddess, the Morrígan, and the pot-bellied father of the Irish gods, the Dagda, who is nearly forced to gorge himself to death on porridge. It has one of the most sordid sex scenes in all medieval literature.

Dr Mark Williams is Fellow and Tutor in English at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford. He is a specialist in the medieval languages and literatures of Wales and Ireland, and the author of Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth (Princeton, 2016), and The Celtic Myths that Shaped the Way We Think (Thames & Hudson, 2021). He is in training as a Jungian psychoanalyst

Further ReadingMark Williams, Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth (2016), Ch 3 http://www.carrowkeel.com/sites/moytura/moyturatale.html

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Talk Series: The Gods of Ireland: Ireland’s native pantheon in literature and lore

Pagan Ireland – From Cult to Conversion – Mon 17 Jan 2022

Irish Gods – The Túatha Dé Danann – Sun 13 Feb 2022

Occult Nationalism and the Irish Revival – Mon 14 March 2022