Tuatha Dé Danann: Who Were Ireland's Divine Race?

The god-like people of Irish legend who arrived in dark clouds, carrying four treasures, and later withdrew into the hills.

The Tuatha Dé Danann, "the peoples of the goddess Danu", are the divine race of Irish myth, recast by medieval monks as settlers who arrived in dark clouds and later withdrew into the hills.

The Tuatha Dé Danann, "the peoples of the goddess Danu", are the divine race of Irish myth. Medieval monks recast them as one of the waves of settlers who occupied Ireland before the ancestors of the Irish, and it is in that form that the Lebor Gabála Érenn, the Book of Invasions, tells their story.

They came from four cities in the north of the world, Falias, Gorias, Murias and Findias, where they learned magic and crafts. The Book of Invasions says they arrived in dark clouds and landed on a mountain in Connacht, bringing a darkness over the sun for three days. They carried four treasures: the Stone of Fál, which cried out under the rightful king; the spear of Lugh, which never missed; the sword of Nuadu, which no one escaped; and the cauldron of the Dagda, which left no one hungry.

They defeated the Fir Bolg at the First Battle of Mag Tuired, where their king Nuadu lost his arm and was given a silver one by the physician Dian Cécht. In the Second Battle they overcame the Fomorians. When the Milesians, the ancestors of the Gaels, finally arrived, the Tuatha Dé withdrew into the sídhe, the mounds and hills, and became the fairy folk of later Irish folklore.

Scholars see them as the old gods of pre-Christian Ireland, euhemerized into a people by Christian historians. Their arrival in clouds, their advanced gear and their retreat underground have made them a favorite of ancient-visitor writers. Figures such as Lugh, the Dagda, Brigid and the Morrígan are among them, and several appear as gods in other Celtic lands. The idea that they still live inside the hills survived in Irish folklore into modern times.