Who Are the Tuatha Dé Danann? Demystifying the “God-Folk” of Irish Mythology

Imagine, if you will, the following:

A fun-loving father figure with an enchanted harp, a bottomless cauldron, and a giant staff that can slay nine enemies at a time…

A morbid matron of death who, appearing in (at least) three distinct forms, including that of a crow or raven, curses warriors on the battlefield, in addition to being a warrior in her own right…

A literally otherworldly ruler with a self-driving (self-sailing?) boat and an enchanted sword… 

A sword that is given to a shiny young upstart polymath who also has an enchanted spear and a slingshot ball made from human brains, the latter of which he uses to kill his grandfather (a marauding monster that shoots fire out of his giant eyeball)…

And add to this motley crue a healer, a smith, a one-handed king who is given a silver replacement hand courtesy of the aforementioned healer and smith, a lover-boy who has birds flying around his head, a champion-level warrior who also finds time to invent an alphabet, and a radiantly beautiful protector of domesticated animals whose pets, the king of boars and the king of wethers (wethers being castrated rams), would cry out anytime plundering occurred in Ireland, aaand yeah…

I think it’s safe to say what I’m describing here is a pantheon of deities.

(Pssst. You can watch the video version of this essay right here. Text continues below.)

These are the Tuatha Dé Danann, the so-called gods and goddesses of Irish mythology.

I say so-called—and this is the interesting bit—because in the medieval Irish manuscripts in which the myths of ancient Ireland are preserved, the Tuatha Dé Danann are very rarely referred to as gods.

What’s more, in the myths, the Tuatha Dé Danann are just one of several races or tribes that settle in Ireland, and they certainly aren’t the only race capable of performing supernatural feats. 

It makes you wonder:

Are the Dagda, the Morrigan, Manannán mac Lir, Lugh, Dian Cecht, Goibniu, Nuada Airgetlam, Aengus Og, Ogma, Brigid, and all of the other members of the Tuatha Dé Danann (there are a lot of them) actual divine beings, or are they just common people who have been thrust into uncommon situations?

Let’s take a closer look.

Who Are the Tuatha Dé Danann?

As detailed in the Lebor Gabála Érenn (the Book of the Taking of Ireland, commonly known as the Book of Invasions), the Tuatha Dé Danann are the fifth race of beings to invade Ireland, arriving after the Fir Bolg (or “bag men”) who come from Greece and before the Milesians (or sons of Míl) who come from Spain.

Traveling in dark clouds, which blot out the sun for three days, the Tuatha Dé Danann land in the mountains of Connacht. Not wasting any time, they demand that the Fir Bolg do a big battle with them to determine who will rule Ireland.

This is the first battle of Mag Tuired, in which the king of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Nuada, famously loses his arm (or hand, in other iterations of the story) to the Fir Bolg champion Sreng and thus must give up the kingship.

On the bright side (depending on which side you’re on, I suppose), the Tuatha Dé Danann win the battle, slaying one hundred thousand Fir Bolg in the process (yeesh), and they go on to win the battle’s sequel, the second battle of Mag Tuired, which is fought against the Fomorians, a race of giant, monstrous beings from beneath the earth who raid Ireland repeatedly and demand taxes from its inhabitants but never settle there permanently.

The second battle of Mag Tuired is where we see Lugh a.k.a. Lugh Lamhfada (of the long arm or long throw), who had been raised in Tír na nÓg (the Land of Promise) by Manannán mac Lir (son of the sea), makes his triumphant return to Ireland to lead the Tuatha Dé Danann against the Fomorians and kill their champion, Balor of the Evil Eye, who also happens to be his grandfather. 

Anyway, after defeating the Fir Bolg and the Fomorians, the Tuatha Dé Danann themselves are defeated by the last race to invade Ireland, the Milesians, who are thought to be representations of the decidedly human Gaelic-speaking Celts.

The Tuatha Dé Danann are driven underground, taking up residence beneath their former palaces, which includes the Newgrange monument at Brú na Bóinne, a site associated with Boann, the Irish goddess of the River Boyne, as well as the Dagda, Boann’s one-time lover, and their son the love-god Aengus.

Now, if the Annals of the Four Masters is to believed, which, in this case, it isn’t, all of this happens—the cloud-travel, the crossing over from the Otherworld, the monster-bashing, the subterranean exile—between 1897 and 1700 BCE, so, roughly, about a thousand years after the construction of the Great Pyramid at Giza and about a thousand years before the reign of Alexander the Great.

Yes, the implication here is that the Four Masters considered the Tuatha Dé Danann to be historical. And they weren’t entirely without cause—there are hints that the Tuatha Dé Danann are more human than divine.

For example, in a recension (or revised version) of the Lebor Gabála Érenn, the author clarifies that the Tuatha Dé Danann travel to Ireland in ships, which are merely accompanied by a dark mist. They didn’t fly there.

What’s more, the author gets more specific about where the Tuatha Dé Danann are from: the northern island cities of Falias, Gorias, Murias, and Findias. These are the cities where the Tuatha Dé Danann allegedly learn “lore and science and diabolical arts.”

However, it’s important to remember that specificity does not equal historicity. 

Case in point: in this seemingly more grounded version of the story, perhaps the most fantastical element—or elements, I should say—of the Tuatha Dé Danann are introduced: their four supernatural treasures or jewels, which they bring with them to Ireland from the four cities. And I quote:

“Out of Falias was brought the Stone of Fál, which was in Tara. It used to roar under every king that would take the realm of Ireland.

Out of Gorias was brought the Spear that Lugh had. No battle was ever won against it or him who held it in his hand.

Out of Findias was brought the Sword of Nuada. When it was drawn from its deadly sheath, no one ever escaped from it, and it was irresistible.

Out of Murias was brought the Dagdae’s Caldron. No company ever went from it unthankful.”

It’s hard not to interpret these four treasures or jewels of the Tuatha Dé Danann as mythical items. Then again, there is a stone on the Hill of Tara that some identify as the Lia Fáil, or Stone of Destiny, but I digress. 

When we couple the supernatural aspects of the Tuatha Dé Danann with the fact that there is little to no historical or archaeological evidence supporting their existence, it becomes clear that we’re dealing with a mythical race—perhaps a mythical race that was inspired by a pre-Celtic Irish people, like the Bell Beaker culture, but a mythical race nonetheless.

Furthermore, the parallels we find between certain members of the Tuatha Dé Danann and certain deities from Gaulish and Brittonic mythology hint at a common Celtic or proto-Celtic mythology, from which Irish mythology is descended.

FYI: I explore those parallels in greater detail in my video on the differences between Irish and Celtic mythology.

Are the Tuatha Dé Danann gods?

Accepting that the Tuatha Dé Danann are indeed a mythical race of beings, the question still remains: 

Within Irish mythology, are the Tuatha Dé Danann portrayed as gods, or are they portrayed as humans?

And the answer is…yes.

At least in the original version of the Lebor Gabála Érenn, the author makes clear there are two distinct classes of beings within the Tuatha Dé Danann: the “gods,” who are “their men of arts,” and the “non-gods,” who are ”their husbandmen,” a.k.a. their farmers or fieldworkers.

However, modern definitions of the Tuatha Dé Danann almost exclusively focus on the divine contingent of the tribe.

For example, here’s how historian Peter Berresford Ellis defines the Tuatha Dé Danann in his Dictionary of Irish Mythology. And I quote:

“The gods of the pre-Christian Irish who inhabited the land before the coming of the Milesians. When Christian monks started to write down the sagas, these gods and goddesses were demoted into heroes and heroines, although much remained to demonstrate their godlike abilities.”

The Celticist John Carey, for his part, argues that labeling the Tuatha Dé Danann “gods” is reductionist. Instead, they are their own unique thing, or sui generis—of their own kind.

And while the term “immortals” has been bandied about, I personally don’t love it because some of the Tuatha Dé Danann, like Nuada, do eventually die.

Granted, others, like Manannán mac Lir live supernaturally long lives that stretch across all four cycles of Irish mythology—the Mythological cycle, Ulster (or Red Branch) cycle, Fenian cycle, and King cycle.

There’s also the theory that the Tuatha Dé Danann are meant to be former angels from the land of Canaan. And according to famed Irish poet W. B. Yeats, “there is much evidence to prove them fallen angels.”

Specifically, in his book Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, Yeats points to: “the nature of the creatures, their caprice, their way of being good to the good and evil to the evil, having every charm but conscience.”

That is a great description of how the Tuatha Dé Danann behave in the myths. But such behavior rings more human to me than angelic. 

And while those human qualities are what help make the Tuatha Dé Danann such compelling characters, their humanity also makes it harder for us to classify them fully as “gods.” There’s too much cross pollination going on. 

Here, Ellis can explain this better than I can:

“The Irish do appear to have made their heroes into gods and their gods into heroes. In the lives of these gods and heroes, the lives of the people and the essence of their religious traditions are mirrored.”

P.S. You can read part 2 here: “The Etymology of Tuatha Dé Danann.”

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Want to learn about the darker side of Irish mythology? Check out…

Samhain in Your Pocket

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Irish Monsters in Your Pocket

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Neon Druid: An Anthology of Urban Celtic Fantasy

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More the listenin’ type?

I recommend the audiobook Celtic Mythology: Tales of Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes by Philip Freeman (narrated by Gerard Doyle). Use my link to get 3 free months of Audible Premium Plus and you can listen to the full 7.5-hour audiobook for free.

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