The Children of Lir

This is the transcript for the special st. Patrick’s day episode of the We’re All Stories podcast. Be sure to give it a listen! https://www.buzzsprout.com/1685008/8161847

Dia dhuit, Beannachtaí na feíle Pádraig oraibh! (Dia dwit, BAN-uck-tee nah FAY-la PAW-drig ur-iv) Hello and the blessings of St. Patrick be with you! Tune in next week for our episode on St. Patrick, the man himself, today is just a quick story from Ireland in honour of the day to tide you over until then! Enjoy!

This is the tale of Oidheadh Chloinne Lir, (oh-ah kh-LOW-nah leer) the children of Lir.

Long, long ago, when the world was young and much different from that which we now know. The land was greener, cleaner, there were fewer Starbucks and people didn’t walk around in masks unless they wanted to. Magic was wild and the Tuatha dé Danann (two-AH-ha day DAN-anne) still walked in secret. Some say they are still there, living unseen among us, others that they are living under the hills in the land of youth Tír na Nóg, (tier nah no-g) waiting to claim Ireland as their own once again. One of these magical people was called Lir.

After their defeat at the hands of the Milesians at the battle of Tailtiu (tal-two) instead of giving up their land, the Tuatha dé Danann vanished into their secret realm where they could not be seen but they still retained their ownership of the land, the hills and the rivers.

In the course of this fierce battle, the three kings of the Tuatha dé Danann and their wives were all slain. A vote is taken and it is decided Badb Dearg (BAH-v de-ARgh)

should be their king. The people are all made happy by this, all except Lir who thought he had been cheated out of the position. Badb was grieved when Lir wouldn’t offer his fealty and wanted to make amends so the people could be united. Badb was fostering the beautiful daughters of Ailill (ALL-yill) and he offered Lir his choice of these foster daughters. Lir chose Aoibh (Eve) the eldest and most noble of the sisters. Soon after the couple were married. Lir and Aodb are enormously happy together and they have two Children, a daughter Fionnghuala (Fin-OO-la) and a son Aodh. (Ay(Rhymes with day)) Misfortune falls upon them when Aoibh becomes pregnant again. When her time comes, she gives birth to twin boys, Conn and Fiachra. (fEE- KHRAH) But she does not survive the difficult birth.

Lir and his children are shattered. Badb Dearg doesn’t like to see his son in law and grandchildren despondent (and he likely didn’t want Lir to decide he was upset about the kingship after all) so he gives Lir another foster daughter. Aoibh’ s sister Aoife. (EE-fah)

Aoife loves Lir and his children and for their part this love is returned. The children love their Aunt Mom and Lir loves her as well. But the bond between him and his children, coupled with their shared grief was powerful and could not be denied. He dotes on his children and adores them.

Soon Aoife becomes jealous of the closeness of this relationship between Lir and his children, with her on the outside looking in. Though she loved her new family and her family loved her, she would always be an outsider.

Aoife even feigns severe illness for a year to try and garner attention for herself but though Lir is attentive in caring for her, he still spends all his time with his children. Seeing she could not gain the entirety of Lir’s love in this way, she thinks the only way she could ever be fully in LIr’s heart was if the children were out of the picture.

Aoife tries to have the children murdered by the servants but the servants all love the sweet, innocent children and refuse her. So Aoife decides to take matters into her own hands. At first she decides she would kill them with a sword taken from one of the staff but though she wanted them gone, she did not want their blood on her hands. So she decides to drown them and make it look like an accident.

While Lir is away, seeing to his lands, Aoife tells the children they are going to spend the day at the lake. She gathers the guileless children and takes them to Loch Dairbhreach (Lock dairv-brock) for the day. As she watches the children playing in the water, she is playing in her head how best to murder them. She determines that she does not want their spirits haunting her for their death. Yet she has to get them out of the picture.

Having an idea, she takes out her Druidic Ogham (Owm) wand and turns the beautiful children of Lir into the most beautiful swans the world has yet or will ever see. Some say she felt remorse for this act, others that Fionnghuala rebuked her, saying she had powerful friends who would easily undo the spell. So Aoife puts parameters on it. They would not be swans forever, but they would spend the next nine hundred years in that form. She pronounced that the children would live for three hundred years there at Loch Dairbhreach, now modern Lough Derravaragh, (lah (guttural) dare-a-vra) then three hundred at Sruth na Maoilé,(sruh nah mwheela) that is the sea or straits of Moyle or the northern channel. This is the part of the Irish sea between northeast Ireland and Western Scotland, and a final three hundred at Inis Gluairé (Inish GLUE-ra) now inishglora an island off the west coast of Ireland in county Mayo.

They would know the time had come for the. To return to their original forms when a king of the north would marry the daughter of a king of the south and a bell would toll out the arrival of a new religion across the land. And though they took the form of swans, they would retain their minds and their voices. Most versions use either the bell or the wedding but some use both as I have done.

The deed done, Aoife flees back to the lands of her foster father. Badb Dearg is happy to see his foster daughter coming to visit him but asks where his grandchildren are and why they hadn’t come along. Aoife told him that Lir did not trust him and that he would not send his children for fear that Badb would keep them for himself. Instead he forbade her from leaving with his precious children and told her she must travel alone. This made Badb suspicious but he thought no more of it.

As Aoife was returning to the home of her foster father, Lir was returning home. When his children do not greet him, he begins to worry. Lir sends a message to his father in law inquiring as to their whereabouts. Badb Dearg replies that he has not seen them and wasn’t it Lir himself who forbade them from coming? They were home with him. Lir tells him that the children are missing and both begin to search in vain for the lost children.

Lir searches the area with no luck until, despondent, he sits down beside the waters of Loch Dairbhreach. Seeing their father sad, the swans fly over and sing to him. They sing to him the most beautiful music the world has ever heard, the music of the Sidhe. (She) The astonished Lir recognizes the voices of his lost children and asks how this came to be. They tell him the story of Aoife's treachery. Lir sends word to Badb Dearg. Angry, Badb summons his foster daughter and turns her into an air spirit that is immediately torn and scattered by the wind. Some say that when the wind blows, you can still hear her screams and sobs. In other versions she is turned into sea foam which is scattered across the ocean. In others, a bird, but a bird that was not permitted to keep its human mind and voice. She may still be wandering today. When you see a bird flying overhead, it could be Aoife, unaware of who she is.

Lir leaves his home to live out his days with his children on the shores of Loch Dairbhreach where, while it is not quite the same, at least they have each other. Some say Badb Dearg comes and stays with Lir and his children as well. It is declared throughout the land that no one was to harm a swan in Ireland for fear that it may be one of Lir’s children.

As all good things come to an end, so did the Childrens’ time with their father on the shores of the Loch. They spend the next 300 years miserable and buffeted by the winds of Sruth na Maoile. After this time they go west to the rocky island of Inis Gluairé.

On their way across the country, they stop at the home of their father, as well as the home of their Grandfather. While the children had been swans much had changed. Their beloved father and grandfather had long since died, their castles crumbled to ruin. Only empty ruins welcomed them home.

They arrive at Inis Gluairé. It is a sad, cold and lonely time they have there. With their family gone they do not even have thoughts of home to keep them. THey spend their days wandering the islands but by the bounds of the curse they must return to Inis Gluairé every night.

On one of these forays, they meet a man named Aibric. (Eye-brick) They tell him their sad tale and he spreads word of the sad fate of the Children of Lir.

During their time on the island a man named Patricius, whom the people called Pádraig had arrived from from Britain sharing his faith with the people and making converts. One of these was a man named Mochaomhog, (Mo-kweev-og) a student of Padraig’s who had come to build a church on the island. In some versions he chose this location because he had heard the story of Aibric and was coming to give them sanctuary and to minister to them.

One night, the swans heard the sound of the bell at Mochaomhog's church tolling matins.

As he was at his prayers that night, he heard the most beautiful singing he had ever heard. In some versions he heard the singing in a dream. Either way he follows the Fay music to its source and finds the swans, knowing them to be Lir’s lost children. Though some versions do not have Aibric, rather they tells their story to Mochaomhog who records it.

Mochaomhog takes the children in and cares for them, body and soul. He helps them chain themselves together so they would never be separated again.

In this time, Loirgneán (lOOre-ig-NAN) king of Connacht was set to marry Déarc (dyARk) daughter of the king of the south, Munster. The king of the north and the daughter of the king of the south were marrying.

Déarc tells Loirgneán that she wants the swans that sing so prettily which she has heard Mochaomhog has at his church. Wanting to please his new wife, he sends men to get the swans.

They ask Mochaomhog for the swans. When he refuses they try to take them. As one of the men's hands touches a swan, the bell tolls and the children are instantly transformed back to their old bodies.

As everyone marvels at the transformation, they perceive a change coming over the children. The 900 years they were trapped in the form of swans, outside of time, was finally catching up to them. Before the eyes of the astonished onlookers, the fresh, bright children wither and turn old. Sensing their death approaching, Fionnghuala gathers her younger brothers in her arms. She asks Mochaomhog to baptise them and hear their confessions. This done, the siblings lay, wrapped together in each other's arms and with their last breath ask for a Christian burial together, so that even in death they would never be apart.

That is the story of the sad fate of the children of Lir. Some tellers of this tale say that Mochaomhog did not know the true identities of the swans, only that they sang the most beautiful music he had ever heard. When they transform he is astonished and calls for his teacher, St Patrick to come see this miracle. While they are waiting for Pádraig their age sets in. Pádraig arrives just before the end to hear their story, setting it to paper. He baptises them and buries them together, still in their chains, bound in this life and the next.

I hope you all are having a grand St. Patrick’s day! In Ireland, St. Patrick’s day is celebrated very differently than it is here. In Ireland, St. Patrick's day, rather than a drinking holiday, is a Holy day of obligation. On holy days of obligation, believers are called to go to mass. They are to refrain from work and entertainment. These days are to be treated like the sabbath. It is a day to spend at home with family. Over time, most holy days have been reduced to only going to mass and special services in the evening or even the night before have arisen so it can be squeezed in around people’s work schedules. Which days and to what extent they are celebrated differs depending on location and denomination. In Ireland there are only two full days of obligation, Christmas and St. Patrick’s day. That should tell you just how important Patrick, or Pádraig is to them.

I hope you enjoyed this and if you are celebrating tonight, at home or out with friends, new and old, raise a glass for me. Slainté! Go raibh maith agat, (guh rah mah hag-gut) thank you for listening and I hope to see you for our St Patrick episode next week!