Lady friend for the Orcs

ÉRIU was a goddess during the Milesian occupation of Ireland, from about 400BC to around 400AD. Her name was the basis of the name of this island in both English and Irish.

The Milesians started Celtic civilisation in Ireland and were the fifth wave of invaders to come to Ireland after the Ice Age. The first people arrived in Ireland about 7,000 years ago, about 5,000 years after the end of the ice age.

As for the Milesians, they had arrived in Ireland from Galicia in north-western Spain, but they weren’t Spanish. They originated in Asia and they made their way west to fulfill a prophecy of one of their ancestors, Gadelius.

He had promised that his tribe would find a fertile island by which his name would be remembered and when the Milesians discovered Ireland, they decided that Enslaved: One of Tolkien’s orcs from the film The Two Towers this was the island they were looking for. Apart from initiating Celtic culture here, the Milesians also brought the skills of ironworking to Ireland.

Ériu was the daughter of Fiachna mac Delbaeth and Ernmas of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the mythical race who inhabited Ireland before the Milesians. Her husband was Mac Gréine (Son of the Sun) and they had a son called Bres Mac Elatha, which indicated that Ériu also had a relationship with a prince called Elatha.

Bres later became high king of Ireland, but he was soon found to be unfit to hold high office, so he was replaced by Lugh, who in turn was a lover of Ériu.

She and her two sisters, Banba and Fodhla, met up with one of the Milesian bards, Amergin, and made a pact with him that coincided with the beginning of the Milesian occupation of Ireland. Ériu’s deal with Amergin was that her name would always be associated with Ireland, while her two sisters’ names were of lesser importance. But today, Banba and Fódla are still sometimes used as poetic names for Ireland.

Ériu, the goddess of Ireland’s sovereignty, had a number of meanings for her name, all of which denoted the fruitful island that the Milesians occupied. Her name means ‘plentiful’ , ‘fat land’ or ‘land of abundance’ .

Some 1,500 years after Ériu had become the standard bearer for the name of Ireland, the English derived their name for Ireland from her name and the Germanic word land. Although Ériu is the older Irish version of the name for Ireland, her name in more recent times became modified to Éire or alternatively, in English, Erin.

Ériu is such a venerable name that in 1904, when the scholarly journal named after her was launched, it became an eminent publication dealing with Irish philology and literature. It’s going strong today, published annually by the Royal Irish Academy.

David Walker, Co. Meath.