Hi i am interested in learning about Irish Witchcraft, im finding it hard to find reliable resources for the traditions and history!! wondering if any body has some suggestions on links or books !! would appreciate any help :) thanks in advance.
There's a medieval text (which means the copyright is expired and it could be available online) known as The Cauldron Of Poesy that could provide hints to a sort of tradition of bardic mysticism. I read this one book that cross-referenced the Cauldron of Poesy with "The Song of Amergin" from The Book of Leinster / Lebor Gabala Erenn, and "The Invocation of Graces" from the Carmina Gadelica by Alexander Carmichael. (The Welsh bardic traditions seem to me to have been better-documented or at least more prolifically published.)
If you mean working with the fair folk, then those are usually learned directly from the fair folk.
In "The Celtic Twilight" W.B. Yeats (the same as the poet) wrote an essay about the sorcery that was done in Ireland, beginning it with how there isn't a lot of sorcery done there (and back then, when Yeats wrote it.) Then he adds this hilarious footnote about there being so much more sorcery in Ireland than he could ever have dreamed of when he first wrote that essay, but there's not nearly as much as in Scotland. I only thought it was funny because first I'm not Scottish and second in everything I've read by Yeats about the paranormal he cannot resist having at the Scots and sometimes the French and I don't know what his problem even is. So I don't know if that's reliable, but it's definitely entertaining!
Many of the traditons are preserved in folklore and myths. There aren't many documentations about the practices of witchcraft or sorcerry in Ireland due to many of their traditions and stories being preserved by word of mouth, and so the best windows we have are the magickal aspects of the mythologies and tales from around the land.
You can also see the way that pre-Celtic Irish lived reflected in the lands around them.
I suggest reading up on as much folklore as you can, and you will definitely see glimpses of recorded interpretations of magick across the land.
Also keep in mind that the ancient people of Ireland may have had a concept of magick or world view that we can't understand simply because it is lost to us, and so the way that we come to reconstruct their magick is almost definitely not going to be the way they actually performed their rites and spells. The most reliably reconstructed parts of the Irish faith are mythologies, aspects of their deity worship, and yearly observations (such as holidays).
yes this is what i have come to find and agree the best way is what you explained ive already found some great folklore and poetry and other maniscripts documented of this through other religions and some i remember through my own family maternal side, which i guess are great points to look at,plently of tales growing up, i guess it will be research where to read between the lines and draw up my own conclusions in the celtic history of what it means to me, I also found a forum called ITW, which im still waiing for a reply and judging from their apperance are quite picky and set in their ways and do not like being compared to wicca as such and stress that it is not a religion it is a art !! anyway thank you so very much for taking time to reply im sure the suggestions ive had here will be very helpful indeed, so i thank you both kindly :) Blessings.
Though not specifically "witchcraft" you might find looking at Celtic Recon websites to be helpful. http://paganachd.com is particularly good and they have a helpful FAQ http://paganachd.com/faq/index.html
