Tailtiu

Tailtiu, Tailltiu, Tailte. Name for one of the three great fairs of early Ireland and the Fir Bolg queen there commemorated. Although much of Tailtiu's character is fixed in the pseudo-history Lebor Gabála [Book of Invasions], she is apparently a much older figure and may be of divine origin. She is sometimes described as being the daughter of the ‘king of Spain’, but she may also be the child of the earth, e.g. Mag Mór [great plain]. Married to the last great Fir Bolg king, Eochaid mac Eirc, who named his palace after her, she was also the foster-mother of the great hero Lug Lámfhota. She led her people in the clearing of the forest, which by implication becomes all of Brega or what is today Co. Meath, some of Ireland's best farmland. Some commentators see in this identification evidence that she was originally a kind of earth goddess. But the work of clearing proves so onerous as to break her heart, in the words of the text. On her deathbed she asks that funeral games be held annually on the cleared ground. Lug leads the first games of horse-racing and martial arts at the time of Lughnasa (1 August), singing a lamentation.

Coextensive with the modern hamlet of Teltown, between Navan and Kells, the Tailtiu assembly or fair [OIr. Óenach Tailten; ModIr. Aonach Tailteann] was celebrated intermittently from ancient times, and continued to be held even as late as about 1770; it was revived in the 20th century but then fell into abeyance again. In its early form Tailtiu was the principal assembly of the Uí Néill federation, but presiding at the fair became the prerogative of the king of Tara. Participants came from all parts of Ireland and also from Scotland, making Tailtiu the equal of Tara, Tlachtga, and Uisnech. The Tailtiu óenach was thought an optimal time to be married. The fair also was the occasion of the ‘Teltown marriage’, a chance espousal for a year and a day that could be ended simply by having the couple stand back to back, one facing north, the other south, and walk away from one another.

Important events taking place at Tailtiu unrelated to the óenach include Éremón and the Milesians' victory over the Tuatha Dé Danann, and the deaths of Banba, Ériu, and Fódla. It was also described as the burial-place of the Ulaid.

Bibliography

See Máire Mac Neill , The Festival of Lughnasa (Oxford, 1962), 311–38;
Daniel A. Binchy , ‘The Fair at Tailtiu and the Feast of Tara’, Ériu, 18 (1958), 113–38; Thomas H. Nally , The Aonach Tailteann and the Tailteann Games (Dublin, 1922); T. J. Westropp , ‘Marriages of the Gods and the Sanctuary of Tailltiu’, Folk-Lore, 31 (1920), 109–41.