The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1910-04-09
THE ANCIE EMIT CELTs
Their Belief in Immortality, by Rev.

Their Belief in Immortality, by Rev.
Dr.. Turner.
The following is taken from an ar
ticle which recently appeared in the
Catholic World from the pen of Dr.
William Turner of the Catholic Uni
versity:
With regard to the Celts of ancient
Ireland, we are in q peculiar condition
of uncertainty concerning their notion
of Immortality Owing to the whole
sale destruction of the books of ancient
ireland, we have comparatively little
left us in the way of hand infor-
nation. This much, however. is GER
tain. The pagan Irish, like their kins-
men in Gaul, believed that death does
not destroy the soul. King Laegaire,
declining to accept the message of
Christianity as preached by St. Pat
rick, declared that he preferred to be
buried pagan fashion, standing in his
grave with his armor on his back, so
as to be ready to meet the day of Err
dathe (doomsday) in the company of
the Druids. Perhaps, as DR.. Joyce
suggests, this tale has Christian COL
oring. Nevertheless, the custom to
which it refers-the pagan mode of
burial-must have been a long estab-
lished one, and must have been based
on some kind of belief in the survival
of the personality of the warrior In
point of fact, legends, poems and
myths, which are essentially pagan in
conception, though possibly influenced
in detail by Christian ideas, have. for
| their chief incident the return of dead
| heroes from the other world. But
| again, the "other world" itself was so
vivid, so definite and consequently so
| real to the minds of the ancient Irish
| that no matter how vague their ide,
of the soul was, they must have held
the survival of the soul to be mat
ter of certainty. They called that 9TH
or world by various names: Tt. ma.
nog (the land of the ever young). Tir-
nam-beo (the land Of the living); Hy-
Brazil (Brazil's island); and Mag
Nell (the plain of pleasure). It is de-
scribed as "a land wherein there is
naught save truth, where there is nei-
Their age nor decay, nor gloom, nor
sadness, nor envy, nor jealousy, nor
hatred, nor haughtiness." 1t is the
land where everything is life and there
is no old-age lis not this sufficient
ly clear conception of immortality?)
| and if it is called 1.-THE Plain CT Plea
sure,' the pleasures there are not gross
and sinful, but pure and noble, such
as bef1tted world of heroic warriors.
So true is this that after the introduce
ton of Christianity the BELIEF in this
land OF The ever-young" as the abode
of the fairies continued to exis. side by
side, with the Christian idea of heaven
But the most curious characteristic of
| the ancient irish belief in a world to
come was the tendency to iocalize it
in definite way. Sometimes it was
| said to be on an island in the Western
Ocean; sometimes. it was said to be
| inside of some hill, like Slievnamon, in
Tipperary. If we are to believe an
! author quoted by both Plutarch end
Procopius, this land of the ever-young
was believed by the whole Celtic
world to be the western portion of
Great Britain, which was supposed 10
by an insurmountable wall. Usually,
in the legends and epics, the entrance
| to this land is through some lake, and
| in the one instance of Cuchullin it is
said to be IAN island which one
I reaches nv haat from Irel nd