What Is the Celtic Otherworld? Tír na nÓg (and Other Fairy Realms) Explained

“In Ireland this world and the world we go to after death are not far apart… Indeed there are times when the worlds are so near together that it seems as if our earthly chattels were no more than the shadows of things beyond.”

No, I didn’t write that. It was this Irish fella, W. B. Yeats. And I gotta say, I think this guy’s got a bright future ahead of him.

Or at least in one of the Celtic Otherworlds he does.

Because here’s the thing: Yeats is dead.

And here’s another thing: There is more than one Celtic Otherworld, at least according to the Irish myths.

Specifically, in the medieval Irish manuscripts in which said myths were first recorded, we find references to:

• Tír na nÓg (the Land of Youth),
• Tir Tairngire (the Land of Promise),
• Tir na tSamhraidh (the Land of Summer),
• Tir na mBeo (the Land of the Living)
• Tír N-aill (the Other Land),
• Tir fo Thuinn (the Land under the Waves),
• Mag Mell (the Plain of Delights, a.k.a. the Plain of Happiness or the Plain of Honey),
• Magh Ildathach (the Plain of Many Colors),
• Magh Mór (the Great Plain),
• Magh Da Cheo (the Plain of the Two Mists),
• Emain Ablach (Emhain of the Apples),
• Hy-Brasil (Breasal’s Island),
• Hy-Falga (Falga’s Island),
• Dun Scaith (Fortress of Shadows),
• and Tech Duinn (the House of Donn).

Now, the question is: are all of these names synonyms for the same Celtic Otherworld?

The short answer is…sometimes, but not always.

The longer answer? While some of these Otherworlds are decidedly different from one another, many serve the same thematic purpose in the myths.

This led scholar J. A. MacCulloch to divide the various Celtic Otherworlds from Irish mythology into four categories: 

1. Underground Otherworlds, which MacCulloch called “the síd Elysium”
2. Island Otherworlds, which he called “the island Elysium”
3. Underwater Otherworlds, or what he called “Land under Waves,” and
4. Otherworlds that are “Co-extensive with this world.”

We’ll explore each of these categories in more depth in a minute.

But first, we need to take a big step back and figure out what exactly it is we’re talking about when we talk about the Otherworld.

Pssst. You can watch a video adaptation of this essay right here:

The Definition of Celtic Otherworld

Anthropologist Walter Evans-Wentz offered the following definition:

“The Celtic Otherworld is like that hidden realm of subjectivity lying just beyond the horizon of mortal existence, which we cannot behold when we would, save with the mystic vision of the Irish seer,” (source: The Fairy-faith in Celtic Countries).

To his credit, Evans-Wentz actually interviewed one of these alleged seers, who had this to say about the concept of the Celtic Otherworld:

“[T]here are many Otherworlds. The Tír-na-nog of the ancient Irish, in which the races of the Sidhe exist, may be described as a radiant archetype of this world, though this definition does not at all express its psychic nature. In Tír-na-nog one sees nothing save harmony and beautiful forms. There are other worlds in which we can see horrible shapes.”

For a more, shall we say, academic definition of Celtic Otherworld, let us turn to historian Peter Berresford Ellis. But as you’ll likely notice, his definition lines up quite nicely with the seer’s. And I quote:

“[Otherworld is a] general term for the various lands of the gods, both good and evil, and for the place where one was reborn after death…A constant exchange of souls was always taking place between the two worlds; death in this world brought a soul to the Otherworld and death in the Otherworld brought a soul to this world,” (source: A Dictionary of Irish Mythology).

And here we’ve touched on the underlying religious doctrine, the immortality of the soul, which, at least in the context of the ancient Celtic religion, i.e., Celtic paganism, makes the existence of the Otherworld possible.

The Celtic Approach to Immortality and Reincarnation

Now, thus far I’ve been focusing on the ancient Gaelic or Goidelic-speaking Celts of Ireland, but it was in Continental Europe, amongst the Gaulish-speaking Celts, where the Celtic concept of immortality was first documented, courtesy of Classical writers.

For example, Julius Caesar noted in his first-hand account of the Gallic Wars that “[t]he principal point of their [the Druids’] teaching is that the soul does not perish, and that after death it passes from one body into another.” 

Writing around that same time, the first century BCE, the Greek historian Diodorus noted that “[a]mong them [the Gaulish Celts] the doctrine of Pythagoras prevails, according to which the souls of men are immortal, and after a fixed term recommence to live, taking upon themselves a new body.”

And while many have debated and continue to debate who came up with the doctrine of the immortal soul first (i.e., did the Celtic druids borrow it from the Greek Pythagoras or, as Sotion of Alexandria and Clement of Alexandria have suggested, did Pythagoras borrow it from the druids?), I’d argue that given how different their conceptualizations of immortality and reincarnation are, the ancient Celts and the ancient Greeks likely arose at these ideas independently. Or there was a common, more generalized Proto-Indo-European concept that preceded them. 

As MacCulloch noted:

“It is not improbable that some Pythagorean doctrines may have reached Gaul, but when we examine the point at which the two systems were supposed to meet, namely, the doctrine of metempsychosis and immortality, upon which the whole idea of this relationship was founded, there is no real resemblance. There are Celtic myths regarding the rebirth of gods and heroes, but the eschatological teaching was apparently this, that the soul was clothed with a body in the other-world. There was no doctrine of a series of rebirths on this earth as a punishment for sin,” (source: The Religion of the Ancient Celts).

Or, as writer and translator T. W. Rolleston put it:

“[T]he evidence on the whole shows that the Celts did not hold this doctrine at all in the same way as Pythagoras…did. Transmigration was not, with them, part of the order of things. It might happen, but in general it did not; the new body assumed by the dead clothed them in another, not in this world, and so far as we can learn from any ancient authority, there does not appear to have been any idea of moral retribution connected with this form of the future life. It was not so much an article of faith as an idea which haunted the imagination, and which, as Mongan’s caution indicates, ought not to be brought into clear light,” (source: Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race).

The “Mongan” being referenced here is Mongán mac Fíachnai, a character who famously quarrels with poet Forgoll, the latter of whom claims to know how a legendary Irish High King kicked the bucket. Mongán disputes this account, so Forgall threatens him with satire and with taking his wife, lest Mongán can prove that his version of events is correct. 

A stranger appears offering the precise location of the High King’s tomb along with a description of the contents of said tomb, validating Mongán’s claim. The stranger, despite Mongán’s attempts to shush him, reveals himself to be none other than Caílte mac Rónáin, a warrior of the Fianna and slayer of the High King in question. He’s crossed over from the Otherworld to help his old pal, Mongán, who, it turns out, is actually a reincarnation of the legendary hero Fionn mac Cumhaill, leader of the Fianna, who was with Caílte when the kingslaying took place. 

To Rolleston’s point, this is a pretty unique example of reincarnation within the context of Irish mythology. 

It’s actually much more common for folks to be reborn as animals, as is the case with Tuan mac Cairill, who, according to the Lebor Gabála Érenn, the Book of the Taking of Ireland, commonly known as the Book of Invasions, is the sole survivor of the Partholonians, the second of six mythical races to invade Ireland. As a human, Tuan witnesses the arrival of the Nemedians. Then he’s reborn as a stag and sees the Nemedians perish. He’s a boar by the time the Fir Bolg arrive. The king of the boars, actually. He then witnesses the subsequent invasions of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Milesians as a hawk. Finally, he’s reborn as a salmon and gets eaten by a woman who becomes pregnant and then (bop) out pops Tuan, once again in human form.

None of these reincarnations, however, are positioned as punishments within the context of the story. They’re just things that happen.

And that same apathy toward morality, if you will, can be found in the Irish myths that deal more directly with the Otherworlds:

“Good” people don’t get sent to “good” Otherworlds and “bad” people to “bad” Otherworlds. When people die, they just go to an Otherworld. 

What’s more, if the dead happen to return from the Otherworld, as was the case with the aforementioned Caílte mac Rónáin, they do not appear as ghosts in the traditional sense, but as flesh-and-blood people.

Another example of this phenomenon—known as bodily immortality—can be found in the story The Phantom Chariot of Cu Chulainn (featured in my video/article on Irish chariots), in which St. Patrick brings the famed Ulster hero Cú Chulainn back from the dead. The hero shows up in his usual garb, with his usual weapons, and even brings his chariot and charioteer Laeg along with him. It’s as if he’d been going about living his life…after death. 

Which makes sense, given what we know about the ancient Celtic religion.

To quote MacCulloch:

“The world of the dead was in all respects a replica of this world, but it was happier. In existing Breton and Irish belief—a survival of the older conception of the bodily state of the dead—they resume their tools, crafts, and occupations, and they preserve their old feelings. Hence, when they appear on earth, it is in bodily form and in their customary dress. Like the pagan Gauls, the Breton remembers unpaid debts, and cannot rest till they are paid, and in Brittany, Ireland, and the Highlands the food and clothes given to the poor after a death, feed and clothe the dead in the other world.”

Of course, at this point, it would serve us well to acknowledge that in the myths, not all Otherworlds are lands of the dead. And by extension, death is not only the means by which one can enter an Otherworld.

Which leads us back to the first of MacCulloch’s Celtic Otherworld categories: Underground Otherworlds, or the síd Elysium.

Underground Otherworlds

First things first: the original meaning of sídhe was a mound or hill. When the Tuatha Dé Danann, the Irish gods, are driven underground by the invading Milesians, who represent the arrival of Ireland’s modern human population, each god is allotted sídhe. The most famous of which is the Newgrange monument at Brú na Bóinne, a sídhe that the Dagda, the father of the Irish gods, wants for himself, but ultimately his son, the love god Aengus Óg, tricks him out of it.

Now, over time, as the Tuatha Dé Danann grew smaller, both literally and figuratively, in the popular imagination, they became the aes sídhe, the people of the hills, otherwise known as fairies. And included amongst their ranks is the bean sídhe, anglicized as banshee, whose name means “woman of the hills.”

Viewed through this lens, the Otherworld is in essence an underworld. Or as Evans-Wentz put it, it is a “subterranean world entered through caverns, or hills, or mountains, and inhabited by many races and orders of invisible beings, such as demons, shades, fairies, or even gods. And the underground world of the Sidhe-folk, which cannot be separated from it, was divided into districts or kingdoms under different fairy kings and queens, just as the upper world of mortals.”

In the tale The Wooing of Étaín, which, it should be noted, sees the titular princess transformed into a pool of water, then a worm, and then a fly before being reborn as a human after someone eats said fly (don’t you just love Irish mythology?), the god Midir the Proud whisks Étaín away to a land of eternal youth and blameless love and music and warm streams and top tier wine and mead—the whole nine yards. Étaín’s husband, the High King of Ireland, is none-too-happy about this turn of events and sends his druid to Midir’s sídhe, Brí Léith, and, after nine years of digging, they’re able to excavate it.

Thus, in this iteration of the Otherworld, it is an earthbound place that can be entered, in theory, through shear force. 

And at the same time, things (re: monsters) can come out of it. Most notably via the Cave of Cruachan, known as Ireland’s Gate to Hell, a “gate” that tends to open during Samhain. 

But by far the most popular iteration of the Otherworld in the Irish myths is what MacCulloch calls the island Elysium. 

Island Otherworlds

Whether it’s Bran heading out to sea, silver branch in hand, in search of Emain Ablach, a likely inspiration for Avalon from Arthurian legend; or Connla, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles, boarding a crystal boat, apple in hand, to venture to Tír na mBeo; or Oisin, son of Fionn mac Cumhaill, mounting a magical, seafaring steed to travel to Tír na nÓg, or Tir Tairngire, depending the telling; the story of a man being lured to an otherworldly island paradise, usually at the behest of a mysterious, beautiful woman, is a common one. 

And oftentimes it is the sea-god Manannán mac Lir who is described as the ruler of said paradise. 

It should also be noted that in some stories, including the The Sick-Bed of Cú Chulainn,  Manannán mac Lir’s paradisiacal domain is called Mag Mell, while in others Mag Mell refers to the path one must take across the sea in order to reach Emain Ablach or Tír na mBeo or Tír na nÓg or whichever synonym is being used. And yes, in this instance, these names are effectively synonyms.

That being said, not all island Otherworlds fall into this category.

Tech Duinn, for example, which is often identified with Bull Rock off of Ireland’s southwestern coast, is described as a meeting place of the dead, and has much more in common with Greco-Roman conceptions of Hades and the River Styx than with the aforementioned Otherworlds. The island is presided over by Donn, whom you can learn more about in my video/article on Irish death gods.

Then there’s Hy-Brasil, former abode of Breasal, the so-called High King of the World. The legendary Atlantic island, which may or may not have inspired the name of the country of Brazil (probably not, it turns out), is perpetually shrouded in mist except for one day every seven years when it becomes visible. Unfortunately, anyone who happens to look upon Hy-Brasil dies. 

This is a far cry from island paradises like Tír na nÓg, where, it is said, the smith-god Goibhniu presides over a feast, the Fledh Ghoibhnenn, where magical ale is served that makes people immortal.

Similarly gloomy are the “dark, brooding purgatories of the Fomorii islands such as Hy-Falga and Dun Scaith,” as Ellis described them. However, these Fomorian outposts probably fall into the same category as Tech Duinn, in that they were only conceived of as purgatories retroactively, perhaps as a result of Greco-Roman influence. To quote Rolleston: 

“The fact is that the Celtic conception of the realm of death differed altogether from that of the Greeks and Romans…The Other-world was not a place of gloom and suffering, but of light and liberation…Evil, pain, and gloom there were, no doubt, and no doubt these principles were embodied by the Irish Celts in their myths of Balor and the Fomorians…but that they were particularly associated with the idea of death is, I think, a false supposition founded on misleading analogies drawn from the ideas of the classical nations.”

Underwater Otherworlds

Just a stone’s throw away from island Otherworlds, one can find underwater Otherworlds, or “land under waves” as MacCulloch calls them.

For example, in the story Laegaire Mac Crimthann’s Visit to Fairyland, the title character reaches this so-called fairyland, where there’s beautiful music and it rains ale, by diving into a loch. 

In another tale, Diarmuid of the Love Spot, son of the aforementioned Donn and foster-son of the aforementioned Aengus Og, is enticed by a beautiful, mysterious woman to board an enchanted ship (sound familiar?), which takes him to the underwater realm of Tir fo Thuinn, where he eventually comes into possession of a magical cup that can cure illnesses. 

This underwater Otherworld has a likely parallel in Annwn, a.k.a. Caer Sidi, from Arthurian legend, a land/fortress that is surrounded by ocean streams and that is home to a magical cauldron and whose inhabitants are free from death and disease.

Otherworlds Coextensive With This World

Finally, we’re ready to discuss MacCulloch’s fourth category of Celtic Otherworld, ones that are co-extensive with this world, i.e., Otherworlds that come to you rather than you having to go to them.

This type of Otherworld is said to be all around us, all the time, but hidden behind some kind of supernatural veil, a veil that only thins during Samhain—or when a supernatural being is stirring up mischief.

Case in point: In the story Cormac’s Adventure in the Land of Promise, a mysterious visitor makes a trade with the High King Cormac mac Airt: a silver branch of golden apples for three wishes that Cormac will have to grant sometime in the future. A year later, the visitor collects, and Cormac is forced to hand over his daughter, his son, and his wife. Displeased with this arrangement, to say the least, Cormac pursues the mystery man across the countryside and is soon enveloped in a magical fog. Coming out of the fog, Cormac finds himself at the castle of Manannán mac Lir, whose plan all along had been to bring the High King to Tír Tairngiri. For his troubles, the king is gifted the silver branch and an enchanted cup.

In a similar tale, titled The Phantom’s Frenzy, a mysterious horseman—who will eventually reveal himself to be the god of many talents, Lugh—rides out of a magical mist and leads Conn of the Hundred Battles to an otherworldly palace, complete with golden tree and huge vat of ale and enchanted cup.

Final Thought: The Origins of the Celtic Otherworld

Ultimately, while the ports of entry may vary, the actual descriptions of Otherworlds in the Irish myths are quite consistent. A guide is usually required to reach them, as is a passport, which often takes the form of a branch. Time tends to pass more slowly—if at all. And the booze flows freely. 

As for the magical mists, there appears to be a straightforward connection between them and the islands where Celtic Otherworlds are commonly situated. Just listen to this passage from author Charles Squire:

“Such identification of a mere mortal country with the other world seems strange enough to us, but to our Celtic ancestors it was a quite natural thought. All islands—and peninsulas, which, viewed from an opposite coast, probably seemed to them islands—were deemed to be pre-eminently homes of the dark Powers of Hades. Difficult of access, protected by the turbulent and dangerous sea, sometimes rendered quite invisible by fogs and mists and, at other times, looming up ghostily on the horizon…they gained a mystery and a sanctity from the law of the human mind which has always held the unknown to be the terrible,” (source: Celtic Myth and Legend).

The only thing Squire gets wrong here is that most of the Otherworlds described in the myths are not terrible places—they’re pretty freakin’ awesome. Thus, it seems the ancient Celts weren’t so much afraid of the unknown as they were in awe of it. And this awe is what helped inspire the creation of these Otherworlds in their storytelling traditions.

To quote MacCulloch:

“Many races have imagined a happy Other-world, but no other race has so filled it with magic beauty, or so persistently recurred to it as the Celts. They stood on the cliffs which faced the west, and as the pageant of sunset passed before them, or as at midday the light shimmered on the far horizon and on shadowy islands, they gazed with wistful eyes as if to catch a glimpse of Elysium beyond the fountains of the deep and the halls of the setting sun. In all this we see the Celtic version of a primitive and instinctive human belief. Man refuses to think that the misery and disappointment and strife and pain of life must always be his. He hopes and believes that there is reserved for him, somewhere and at some time, eternal happiness and eternal love.”

Now that would have been a super nice sentiment to end on. However, the cynic in me feels it is necessary to explain an ulterior motive for propagating such a belief. 

But first, a quick caveat: I don’t always agree with everything Julius Caesar said about the Celts, given his ulterior motives, but I do think he got this following point right, which is that the ruling class, of which the druids were a part, promoted the doctrines of an immortal soul and a happy Otherworld not only for religious reasons, but also because they made their soldiers more effective on the battlefield. To quote Caesar:

“They [the druids] wish to inculcate this as one of their leading tenets, that souls do not become extinct, but pass after death from one body to another, and they think that men by this tenet are in a great degree excited to valor, the fear of death being disregarded.”

This is a trend that, unfortunately, continues to this very day: rulers and religious leaders weaponizing faith—and specifically, weaponizing a belief in a glorious life after death—to their own earthly ends.

As MacCulloch himself put it: 

“An intense Other-world faith, such as that held by the Celts, is certainly one of the mightiest of agencies in the hands of a priesthood who hold the keys of that world.”

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