#lughnasa

My beloved altar on this hot Lammas 2026

happy lughnasa 🌽🌾🧺

Art Credit - Familiar_flower

I did manage to make a new corn doll this year because last years became weather damaged from rain. And I had some Lughnasadh incense left over from last year so that really added to this changing of my altar.

The festival is named for the Irish God Lugh and it is said that the festival started as a funeral feast and athletic competition to honor his mother or foster-mother Tailtiu who had died of exhaustion after clearing the plains of Ireland for agriculture.

"The book is an exhaustive study of the festival of Lughnasa (lst August)," "The book uncovers the importance of Lughnasa in the traditional calendar - an importance evidenced by the 195 known sites throughout the country bearing witness to the survival of this feast. Survivals of the feast celebrating the Celtic god Lugh are not readily identifiable to the casual contemporary observer. Due to the introduction of the Gregorian calendar the date of the celebration has often shifted from 1st August, and furthermore, since 1st August was not a Church holiday, the feast often came to be celebrated on the preceding or following Sunday, thus occasioning some of its more popular contemporary appellations - Domhnach Chrom Dubh, Garland, Bilberry or Mountain Sunday. Although a number of scholars had previously pointed out individual instances of survivals of the feast, it was not until this book was published that the widspread nature of the survivals became evident and the totality of the festival pattern was unfolded. Welcoming the harvest and savouring the first of its produce formed the basis of this celebration, and consequently, the first cutting and eating of the corn, and (later) the first digging and eating of the potatoes, were central to the feast. The form of the festivities varied according to the location of the assembly site. Sites on mountains or eminences were especially favoured, and on these the picking of bilberries was a constant feature of the festival. On these sites also, flowers were gathered and strewn on the summit, or were worn as garlands by girls. Dancing on heights is mentioned in most of the accounts, and courtship and flirtation were a further feature of the festival. On lake or river sites the swimming of horses formed an important part of the festivities. The myth underlying the feast of Lughnasa is investigated and is shown to celebrate a struggle between two gods, in which the victor Lugh - later replaced by St. Patrick - vanquishes the wicked Crom Dubh and so makes available the bounty of the harvest." -Ó Héalaí, Pádraig. Review of The Festival of Lughnasa: A Study of the Survival of the Celtic Festival of the Beginning of the Harvest, by Máire Mac Neill. Béaloideas, iml. 51, 1983, pp. 145–147.