Irish mythology in popular culture


Elements of Irish mythology have appeared many times in popular culture.

Deities and supernatural characters

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Banshee behaviour in American popular culture

"Banshee" originally meant "woman of the fairies". The banshees in old Irish folklore were often presented as grieving women who were keening for the dead. This appears in the Darby O'Gill and the Little People DVD extra I Captured the King of the Leprechauns, in which the banshee is "keening for the young O'Brien" and is in no way a pernicious or threatening character, but merely seen as a dark or sad omen because she appears before people die. She does not cause deaths, she mourns for the dead. The banshee in American popular culture is typically a threatening and/or menacing figure who causes death and/or destruction.

Animation

Placenames
Novels
Poetry
Comics
Television
Film
Games
Games
Literature
Literature
Song
Games
Film
Television
Literature

Bricriu

Bricriu is the name of a mischievous will-o'-the-wisp in three episodes of the Disney Channel Original Series So Weird. Bricriu is believed to be a mischievous evil spirit, a troublemaker, and also Irish; he may have been based on the character from Irish mythology.

Caladbolg

appears as a sword in a number of video games, including Final Fantasy X, ', ', Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst, Mabinogi, Guild Wars 2, Adventure Quest Worlds, the remake of The Bard's Tale, and Soulcalibur V and VI. In Fate/Stay Night, Archer uses an imperfect copy of Caladbolg, known as Caladbolg II. Caladbolg also appears in the mobile game Fate/Grand Order in the hands of Fergus mac Róich.

Cathbad

In Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway series of novels, Michael Malone - the godfather of Ruth's daughter - is a druid who goes by the name Cathbad. He is also an active member of the Elginists who, in A Room Full of Bones, describe themselves as an organization "dedicated to the return of cultural artefacts to their countries of origin. There is a bit about the Elgin Marbles".

Cú Chulainn

Animation
;Comics
Music
Novels
  • In Henry H. Neff's series The Tapestry, Max MacDaniels is believed to be Cúchulainn reborn. He is later discovered to be a half brother.
Sport
Scouting
Video Games
;Other
Novelisations
Music inspired by the Táin

Diarmuid Ua Duibhne

's son, Oisín, is referenced by the grandfather in the film Into the West as he tells his grandsons the story of Oisín's journey to Tir na nOg from the point of view of the Travellers or "Gypsies" of Ireland. The grandfather gives a mysterious white horse the name "Tir na nOg" in homage to the story, and the boys proceed to have an extended adventure travelling from Dublin to the west coast of Ireland. Oisin appears in a story told by Michael Mulligan in Michael Corrigan's nove Mulligan.
Oisín is also featured in Fairies an animated short loosely based on Oisín's adventure in Tír na nÓg. The short was directed by Lee Mishkin and is mainly inspired by the illustrations of Brian Froud and Alan Lee in their book Faeries.

Salmon of Knowledge

Hy-Brasil

Literature
Film
Music
Games
  • In the game Shadowrun, Ireland is renamed Tír na nÓg. Babies born in Tír na nÓg have an unusually high chance of being elves, and it boasts one of the highest elven populations of any nation in the world. While Tír na nÓg is nominally a democracy, it is essentially ruled by a group of powerful elven aristocratic families.
  • Tír na nÓg is the capital city of the realm of Hibernia based on ancient Celtic mythology in the 2001 MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot.
  • The first part of the MMORPG Mabinogi revolves around locating Tír na nÓg to save the Goddess Morrighan. It is later revealed that you were in Tír na nÓg from the beginning.
  • Tír na nÓg is the name of one of the moves the Highlander character can perform in the 2017 fighting game For Honor.
  • Tir Na Nog is a game from Gargoyle Games Published in 1984 for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum & Amstrad CPC.
Television
  • Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog was a 1998 live-action series modelled after Japanese sentai shows such as Power Rangers. The premise involved a team of adolescent heroes from the land of Kells enlisting the aid of the fey folk of Tir na nÓg in their quest to obtain Mystic Armour, tame the fire dragon Pyre, and vanquish the evil queen and her dark fairy ally.
  • In Winx Club, Tír na nÓg appears as a location that debut in the fourth season, where is portrayed as the kingdom of the earth fairies.
  • In the anime The Ancient Magus' Bride titled in Japan as Mahoutsukai no Yome the fairy kingdom is referred to as Tír na nÓg.
  • The Amazon series Carnival Row centers around fey refugees from a human invasion of Tir na nÓg.
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Lughnasadh

Geas/Geis