Irish Afterlife Beliefs
Explores the spiritual beliefs and customs of Irish history.
Location: Ireland
Pre-Christian Spirituality in Ireland
The pre-Christian Irish worshipped the Tuatha-De-Danann. According to myth, these gods were the previous rulers of Ireland. Upon their defeat by the Milesians, they retreated underground through fairy mounds to the Otherworld. The souls of the dead went to Tech Duinn, the House of Donn. Donn was a Milesian who drowned during the landing. In death, he gathered the souls of all his kin to his home off the southwest coast of Ireland.[1][2]
Irish Penance and Christian Spirituality
The Irish are now majority Catholic. In Catholic belief, every human being possesses a spirit, or soul, that persists after death. The soul is stained from birth by sin. The soul can be redeemed by repenting and accepting Jesus Christ as the son of God. Souls that have undergone the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation gain entry into a paradise, Heaven, after death. Sinful souls are instead cast into fiery Hell.
In the early days of Christianity, penance took a much different form. Canonical penance could only be completed once and required public displays of humility and contrition. Because of this, most attempted to complete their penance on their deathbeds. This proved to be a risky choice at a time when plagues and raids could devastate whole towns. Irish monks from the 6th century introduced the concept of private penance to the rest of Europe. In this system, a believer discusses his or her sins with a member of the clergy and receives forgiveness on an ongoing basis.[3]
Spirits and Ghosts in Modern Ireland
It is likely that the lords of Ireland converted to Christianity long before the peasants. Elements of Ireland's earlier faith have survived as folklore to the present day. The international holiday Halloween, for example, began as Samhain, a harvest festival and major night of worship for the pre-Christian Irish. According to popular legend, every year, the night before November 1st, "all the fairy hills were thrown wide open." Both the beautiful and monstrous spirits of the Otherworld roamed free. Lights placed within carved turnips were thought to frighten them away from homes. They later evolved into pumpkin jack-o'-lanterns in the United States.[4]
Bibliography
Dáithí Ó HÓgáin, The Sacred Isle: Belief and Religion in Pre-Christian Ireland (Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 1999), 58.
Nennius, The Irish Version of the Historia Britonum of Nennius, eds. Algernon Herbert and James Henthorn Todd (Dublin: Printed for The Irish Archaeological Society, 1848), 221-270.
Bradley C. Hanson, Introduction to Christian Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1997).
Jack Santino, Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2000), xiv-xv.
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