Ériu

I wish to introduce our readers to Ériu; the national personification of Ireland. Ériu was one of the queens of Ireland at the time of the coming of the Milesians (Goidelic Celts). She made a deal with the poet Amairgin that her name would be remembered as the principle name for Ireland.

Non-folk and Nationality

Online Etymology Dictionary: Nation c.1300, from O.Fr. nacion, from L. nationem (nom. natio) "nation, stock, race," lit. "that which has been born," from natus, pp. of nasci "be born" (Old L. gnasci; see genus). Political sense has gradually taken over from racial meaning "large group of people with common ancestry." Older sense preserved in application to N.Amer. Indian peoples (1640s). Nation-building first attested 1907 (implied in nation-builder). Source: http://www.etymonline....

Lughnasadh: ‘The Commemoration of Lugh’, god of the Light

The Eric-Fine of Lugh THE chiefs of the Tuatha De Danaan thronged round Lugh on the Hill of Usna. Lugh stood on the summit, and the Sword of Light was bare in his hand: all the hill below him shone with a radiance like white silver. "Chiefs," cried Lugh, "behold the Sword! Ye should have three great jewels to match it. Where are the Spear of Victory, the Cauldron of Plenty, and the Stone of Destiny?" The Tuatha De Danaan bowed their heads and veiled their faces before Lugh, and answer...

A Nationalist Principle

FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS Personal Rights Article 40 1. All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law. This shall not be held to mean that the State shall not in its enactments have due regard to differences of capacity, physical and moral, and of social function. This principle codified in our Constitution is a Nationalist principle, a common sense and just principle, and it is one which runs somewhat contrary to liberalism which, while seeking to espouse the noble goal...

Unreasonable Demonisation of Hitler?

We are inundated with anti-Hitler propaganda in the Western media; Hitler, Nazism, it is suggested, is the most evil frenzy that ever griped humans. However, there has been worse if we are measuring evil by death toll. For example, from 1945 - 1991 the U.S.S.R killed 22,400,000 people; those people were "class enemies", repatriated Soviet nationals, dissidents, and national minorities [1]. Let's compare the death toll of the Communist Soviet Union to that which was totted up during Hitler's pe...

Oswald Spengler – Prophet of Western Decline

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zVpKwDxpAI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx6M2IKYAE4 Oswald Spengler in IF library.

Irish High Crosses

July 2010: The High Crosses are some of the greatest examples of how powerful religious communities supported and encouraged art in Early Christian Ireland. An Irish art form was developed, with artists working in metal, velum and wood as well as stone. This period is now looked on as The Golden Age of Irish art. Irish High Crosses Exhibition - National Museum of Ireland (Collins Barracks, Dublin)

Bilingual road signage

(2) The following provisions shall apply to a sign in the Irish and English languages placed at any location by a public body: (a) the text in the Irish language shall appear first, (b) the text in the Irish language shall not be less prominent, visible, or legible than the text in the English language, (c) the lettering of the text in the Irish language shall not be smaller in size than the lettering of the text in the English language, (d) the text in the Irish language shall communica...

National Library of Ireland

Cú Chulainn in the GPO: The Mythic Imagination of Patrick Pearse

‘But where can we draw water,’Said Pearse to Connolly,‘When all the wells are parched away?O plain as plain can be There’s nothing but our own red blood Can make a right Rose Tree.’ —W. B. Yeats On Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, while all Europe was mobilized for the first of its terrible civil wars, Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, and several hundred “militia men” from the Irish Citizen Army and the Nationalist Volunteers commandeered the General Post Office on Dublin’s O’Connell (then S...