*** There are many places in our world where the value of myth or mythical practices is entirely dismissed as fictitious and irrelevant in the modern worldview. Ireland is not one of those places. On the second weekend in May, Irish people gathered on the Hill of Uisneach [“ish-knock”] in the county of Westmeath and celebrated the ancient holiday of Bealtaine by lighting a great fire at the highest point of the hill.
The holiday, which dates to at least Neolithic times, celebrates the end of winter and the arrival of spring. Each year, the fire lite at Uisneach sent a signal to communities on hills across Ireland that marked the beginning of spring — a new year and a celebration of rebirth. In turn, those communities lit their own fires, and the message spread across the island.
Denis Brennan For agricultural peoples during the Neolithic Age, in Ireland and in other parts of the world, the annual cycle of seasons mimicked the mysteries and struggles of life and death. Growing food was not casual or simple; it required physical hard labor and the good fortune (soil, sun and rain) provided by Mother Earth. Ritual mythical celebrations of the cycles of life and death did not explain either reality, but did acknowledge their existence.
Life was and always would be fragile; however, the life of spring that followed the death of winter suggested that, for man and woman as well, death was not final. In April my wife and I had the good fortune of spending four weeks traveling I.