#gaelpol

it all comes down to a lack of understanding of what it means to revive these religions? like they are living faiths. polytheists aren't just cosplay or historical reenactors. and its especially wild when we are talking about faiths that had such diversity over thousands of years, over various different communities, over millions of different individuals.

im not talking about correcting misinformation or providing a new historical perspective. its the attitude of "your faith is illegitimate, or less legitimate, to me because its not just a recreation of what this religion looked like (to me) over 2000 years ago in a completely different time and social context!" that gets to me.

and because of how history works, what ends up happening is whatever wealthy land owning literate men in whatever period of time is most well-known practiced becomes the definition of the entire religion. so queer people and women and people of color get condescended to because their faith is more anti-patriarchal and anti-imperialist. again, in faiths KNOWN to be extremely diverse in thought and practice, with SO MANY practitioners who undoubtedly had much different perspectives than the mainstream one that just didn't get recorded.

Áine, Rowan Kal, 2026, digital painting

Theistic Satanists, Luciferians and other people who work with demons when they're trying to do actual research on their guides but keep getting stuff for Helluva Boss:

Norse Pagans and Heathens when they have to sift through 5 different layers of Nazi bullshit just to find a single credible source that isn't bigoted:

Celtic Pagans who are trying to research their deities but keep just finding repackaged Wiccan traditions that aren't historical at fucking all:

Kemetic Pagans trying to find actual quality historically accurate information about Ancient Egyptian Religion but just keep running into stuff that Victorian "scholars" just made the fuck up:

Roman Pagans watching people treat their religion like it's basically just Hellenic Polytheism but slightly to the left when it's so much more complex than that:

Slavic Pagans trying to find a single fucking credible source on their religion and find another person who also practices it:

Completely inspired by @khaire-traveler ‘s subtle worship series!

➤ Light candles in your home

- (bonus points if the scent matches her associations)

➤ Read poetry books and blogs

➤ Build lego sets

➤ Clean your house or space + keep up with repairs

➤ Have bonfires with your community

➤ Swim in lakes or rivers

➤ Write poetry or creative writing

➤ Keep a grief journal

➤ Visit farms/care for livestock

➤ Donate or volunteer at animal shelters

➤ Have a picnic at sunrise

➤ Make your house a home with decor you love

➤ Share a warm drink with her

➤ Make your phone wallpaper something associated with her/art of her

➤ Sit around a fire

➤ Take regenerative baths or showers

➤ Create jewelry or sculptures

➤ Wear clothes or jewelry that suit her energy

➤ Learn a home craft like knitting, crochet or embroidery

➤ Make and mend your clothes

➤ Hang a Brigid’s cross by your door or kitchen

➤ Bake or Cook and share the meal with others

➤ Simmer pots with associated herbs

➤ Volunteer with domestic violence or queer shelters

➤ Work towards and embrace self love

➤ Help mothers & new parents in your community

➤ Grow your own food

➤ Sing songs that make you happy outloud

➤ Show hospitality wherever you can

➤ Have confidence in yourself and your worth

➤ Take care of your body and mind

➤ Go to therapy

➤ Aide the grieving and the dying

➤ Volunteer at a children’s hospital

➤ Do small acts of kindness

➤ Have honeyed or cinnamon toast

➤ Tell folktales, especially to the next generation

➤ Share stories of ancestors, not just those who are blood related

➤ Light a match

➤ Keep a stuffed sheep, cow, ox or other livestock in your home

➤ Wear perfume that reminds your of her

➤ Research Irish history & culture / Gaeilge

➤ Keep artwork of her by your door or kitchen

➤ Keep iron around your space especially your kitchen

➤ Wear iron jewelry

➤ Learn to Blacksmith or Invent something

➤ Create a community either online or irl

➤ Take care of your hair

➤ Go to a cooking or baking class

➤ Take a pottery or quilting class

➤ Foster animals

➤ Befriend your neighbors

➤ Smile and embrace life

➤ Cry and embrace death/grief when it comes into your life (more then just physical death)

➤ Read books and educate yourself

➤ Keep first aide in your home

➤ Get CPR/AED/First Aid certifications

➤ Learn herbalism

➤ Go on walks outside, especially during spring

➤ Make a wish at a well

➤ Embrace your authentic self

➤ Be an ally of or attend LGBTQIA+ events

➤ Eat fruits like apples and blackberries

➤ Learn self defense

➤ Research your ancestors, not just those related by blood

➤ Play ttrpgs or larp

➤ Keep a journal or a commonplace notebook

➤ Support small business and artists

➤ Plant native yellow flowers around your house

➤ Wear shawls, especially when you’re sick

➤ Learn grounding techniques

➤ Washing your face

➤ Eating / Drinking dairy

➤ Create collages

➤ Paint your nails with associated colors or symbols

More to be added later!

Lúnasa (pronounced LOO-nuh-suh) is the Irish harvest festival that is now celebrated on August 1, and was considered the first day of autumn in the ancient Irish year.1 It opens the grain harvest, the point where the hungry weeks of late summer give way to the first food from the new crop.1 The name comes from the god Lugh; the older spelling is Lughnasadh. It's one of the four festivals of the Irish year, with Samhain, Imbolc, and Bealtaine.2 You'll also see it in the folk record as Garland Sunday, Reek Sunday and Crom Dubh's Sunday.

This article is meant to give an overview of the festival. Each part below has a fuller article behind it: the festival's pre-Christian origins, the dark harvest figure Crom Dubh, and the folk customs that lasted into living memory.

Lammas vs Lughnasadh

You will sometimes see Lughnasadh and Lammas used interchangeably, however they are two different traditions. Lammas comes from the Old English hlāfmæsse, "loaf-mass": it is an Anglo-Saxon Christian rite in which a loaf baked from the first ripe grain was carried to church and blessed.3

Lammas was a church observance built around that blessed loaf; Lughnasadh was a public assembly with horse-racing and trade.45 What they share is the first-fruits moment, the same turn in the harvest year, which is why English speakers in Ireland sometimes used "Lammas" as a label for the native festival and the two ran together.

Modern Wicca adds a third sense, treating "Lammas" and "Lughnasadh" as interchangeable names for a single August 1 sabbat in a Wheel of the Year assembled in the 1950s.6

This guide follows the older Irish festival.

What Lughnasadh meant

Lúnasa was the threshold of plenty. The weeks before it were often the hungriest time of the year, when last year's stores ran low and there was little paid work until the cutting began.1 The festival opened the harvest; cutting corn or digging potatoes before it was considered improper, a mark of bad husbandry.1 The first food from the new harvest went into a festive meal, and people climbed the hills to pick the first ripe bilberries.1 The day marked the turn from scarcity to plenty.

The god Lugh and the assembly at Tailtiu

The festival is named for Lugh, one of the major Irish gods, who was also known across the Continental and British Celtic world as Lugus.27 The medieval tradition makes Lúnasa the funeral games that Lugh founded for his foster-mother Tailtiu, who died clearing a forest into farmland,8 and it places the great assembly at Tailtiu (Teltown, Co. Meath).5

How much of that reaches back to real pagan practice is uncertain. It's unclear how old the origin story is, and by the time we can see the festival clearly it was a Christian-era institution, with a church on the assembly ground.5 The roots are pagan; most of the visible history is Christian. The origins article spends some time going over the major theories and evidence.

Crom Dubh's Sunday

Across much of Irish-speaking Ireland the day carries a different name: Crom Dubh's. The name pairs crom, "bent or crooked," with dubh, "dark" or "black."9 In the folk legends, Crom Dubh is a pagan chieftain whose fierce bull submits tamely to St. Patrick before the chieftain himself converts.10 Recent scholarship traces this figure back through the written record to a medieval idol, Cenn Cruaich, rather than an ancient god of the harvest.9 The full story is in the Crom Dubh article.

How Lughnasadh was celebrated

The folk customs are the most durable part of the festival, recorded across Ireland into the twentieth century.1 People dug the first potatoes and ate them in a first-fruits meal, climbed hills to pick bilberries on "Garland Sunday," did rounds at holy wells, and swam their cattle and horses for protection.1 The biggest surviving tradition is the Croagh Patrick pilgrimage on Reek Sunday, the last Sunday of July.1 The folk traditions of Lúnasa covers the customs and how to mark the day now.

The Year in Ireland by Kevin Danaher ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

The Sacred Isle: Belief and Religion in Pre-Christian Ireland by Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, ↩︎ ↩︎

Lammas ↩︎

Lammas ↩︎

Ireland's Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth by Mark Williams ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

Wheel of the Year ↩︎

Early Irish Myths and Sagas by Jeffrey Gantz ↩︎

Celtic Gods and Heroes by Marie-Louise Sjoestedt ↩︎

"On the Origins and Development of Crom Dubh" by Claire Collins ↩︎ ↩︎