Mooney.] ^'^^ [April 15, 



THE MEDICAL MYTHOLOGY OF IRELAND. 



, By James Mooney, Washington, D. C. 



{Bead before tlie American Philosophical Society, April 15, 1887.) 



Note.— The information contained in the following paper has Deen obtained by 

 the writer's personal investigation among the people who believe and practice the 

 things described, and has not been obtained from books, although numerous works 

 bearing on the subject have been consulted. Every belief and custom described is 

 still in vogue in some part of Ireland, especially in the west. They have even been 

 transplanted to this country, and some of the charms mentioned have been used by 

 Irish men and women for the relief of children at the request of tairly intelligent 

 American parents, while the accidental death of a young man at Holyoke, Mass., some 

 years ago, is attributed ))y his friends to the evil eye of a Mearnan who was near him at 

 the time. Where inquiry among people of diflFerent sections has shown a custom to be 

 general, the lact has been stated, and most of the charms described as local would prob- 

 ably prove to be generally known on further investigation. — The Author. 



For several reasons the mytbologic theory of disease has probably 

 reached its highest development and retained most of its original strength 

 among the people of Ireland. Her national life was crushed into the 

 ground by an alien tyrant while still the gloom of the Dark Ages hovered 

 over Europe, and when the Irish nation itself had hardly emerged from 

 the tribal condition. The island which had been the home and the refuge 

 of scholars during the troubled centuries which followed the fall of the 

 Roman empire was given over to desolation, and the fire kindled upon 

 the altar of learning went out in blood and tears. Laws were enacted 

 against the dress, the language, the very names of the people, and it was 

 held no crime to kill an Irishman. Schools and monasteries were despoiled 

 and their inmates hunted down like wild beasts or banished from the 

 country — the same price was offered for the head of a priest and for the 

 head ot a wolf — and for nearly seven hundred years teaching was a trea- 

 son and education a crime. When at last, within the present century, 

 the laws became at least human, and schools were established throughout 

 the country, the same landlord system against which tlie Irish people are 

 now fighting fastened them down with a weight of poverty which their 

 utmost exertions were not sufficient to throw off. The people had no time 

 or money to go to school, and therefore remained in a great measure uned- 

 ucated. In addition to all this must be considered the peculiarly spiritual 

 temper of the Kelt, and especially of the Gael, which inclines him to a 

 strong faith in the things of the invisible world, and renders the Irish 

 nation an eminently religious people. The same qualities, when not 

 properly directed by education, lead naturally to superstition, the religion 

 of ignorance. 



If a line three hundred miles long be drawn through the greatest extent 

 of the island, from Inishowen in the north to Cape Clear in the south, it 

 will divide the country into two parts, of nearly equal size. The eastern 



