Who was Lú?

The name Lú, also spelt Lugh, pops up in different aspects of Irish culture. Of course, it’s there in the word Lúnasa (Lughnasa), the name of the festival and month at the beginning of the harvest season, but it’s in the name of a county and in other placenames, both in Ireland and beyond, as well as featuring in stories and traditions from ancient myths and legends. So who or what was Lú?

The stuff of legend

The simplest answer is that Lú is a character from Irish mythology, a great hero who came to the Tuatha Dé Danann at their hour of need, and was later the father of another famous hero, Cú Chulainn.

The oldest Irish myths are traditionally divided into four groups, known as the Mythological, Ulster, Fenian and Historical cycles. The very fact that Lú, a character from the Mythological cycle, was said to have a blood relation to the main heroes of both the Ulster and Fenian cycles, may be an indicator of just how significant a figure he was in old Irish culture.

How Lú joined the Tuatha Dé Danann

Below is a short account of how Lú went to Teamhair, the ancient seat of High Kings of Ireland, to join the Tuatha Dé Danann,

How Lú came to Teamhair

Lú had grown up in fosterage, but as a young man went to join his father’s people the Tuatha Dé Danann at Teamhair. When he arrived there were two door-keepers guarding the entry. He told them his name and lineage but they asked what he was skilled in, for no one was allowed to enter if they were not master of a particular art.

“I am a carpenter,” said Lú.

“We do not need you, we have a carpenter already,” answered the doorkeepers.

“In that case, I am also a smith,” said Lú, but there was already a smith at Teamhair.

From then Lú listed all the skills he had, in warfare, poetry, music, magic, healing and more, but for every art he mentioned the doorkeepers replied that they already had a master of that skill inside in Teamhair.

“Ah,” said Lú, “Then I bid you go and ask King Nuada if he has a man who is a master of all of these arts.” The Tuatha Dé Danann realised that a very special young man had presented himself to them, and Lú was admitted and given the sobriquet of Ildánach, meaning “of the many arts”. He would soon become one of their most important heroes, and, in the end, their king.

If you’re looking for a full retelling of the stories of Lú, one great source is Gods and Fighting Men, a version of the Mythological and Fenian cycles by Lady Gregory, who was later one of the founders of the famous Abbey Theatre, alongside William Butler Yeats, George Moore and Edward Martyn.

A Celtic deity?

It has long been speculated, therefore, that the earlier, more supernatural tales, may be renderings of stories that belonged to a still yet more ancient religion. Were the Tuatha Dé Danann themselves divine? Could Lú have been one of the most important gods in the pre-Christian pantheon?

A fair answer might be: probably. The name Lugus appears in Celtic inscriptions across the west of the European mainland, and Lleu in Welsh mythology. He was associated with the sun, with skills and arts, was said to have invented ficheall, an old Irish boardgame comparable to chess, and a comment from no less a source than Julius Caesar himself that ‘Mercury’ was the chief of the Celtic gods has been taken as a reference to Lugus rather than any other known figure in Celtic mythology.

The trouble with the oldest Irish myths is that they were written down and transcribed by Christian monks, people who were clearly invested in recording aspects of the earlier culture but could not be trusted to honestly depict religious practices that contradicted the mores of the now-dominant Christianity. Some ancient figures are even depicted as having survived just long enough to hear the good news and be converted, in Agallamh na Seanórach and Clann Lir, for instance.

Modern traces

It’s well known that Lú’s name survives in the word Lúnasa, the ancient festival that celebrated the beginning of the harvest season in Ireland, but it’s also there in the placename Lú, or Louth, a village and county on the border between Ulster and Leinster. Fascinatingly, Lú was also said to be the father of Cú Chulainn, who is strongly associated with Dún Dealgan and Muirtheimhne, both in the modern county of Louth.

But these place references are not contained to Ireland. Several placenames in Britain, France and Iberia have also been associated with Lú, including Lothian in Scotland, Carlisle in England, Lyon in France and Lugo in Spain.

Making sense of it all

You could be forgiven for feeling a little frustrated with the absence of any core document that sets down clearly what role the figure of Lú had in early Irish society. When all we have is a number of seemingly unconnected references to the name in placenames, folklore and mythology, it is hard to get a clear image of what Lú meant to the people who came before us.

What might once have been a sophisticated belief system could be reduced to a set of fanciful stories, many of which survived and mutated as folk tales. If a community was aware of a legendary figure called Lú, they might easily have attributed some of the anomalies of the natural landscape to him: This rock was left here by Lú. One example is the village and lake of Dún Lúiche in County Donegal. It may be that the word Lúiche is an ancient reference to Lú, but other derivations are possible.

Similarly, Lú’s grandfather – and nemesis – Balor na Súile Nimhe was said to have lived in the dramatically craggy eastern end of Oileán Thoraí, off the north coast of Donegal, in what is known as Dún Bhalor today. But what came first, the story or the exotic and forbidding topography? Often mythology and folklore were ways to interpret and explain phenomena of the natural world – and you could argue that it still happens today.

The mystical, when defanged and displaced by the dominant new religion, becomes relegated to the quaint and whimsical: a mere children’s story. It has also been suggested that the traditions surrounding Naomh Pádraig and Crom Dubh around the time of Lúnasa may be adaptations of earlier customs more directly relating to Lú himself.

Reek Sunday, for example, when people climb Cruach Phádraig in pilgrimage, takes place every year on the last Sunday in July, suspiciously close to the festival of Lúnasa.

In conclusion, it’s very hard to say for certain who Lú was, given that pre-Christian peoples of Ireland left no written account of their own beliefs and traditions, but at the same time, from the evidence we have in Ireland and across western Europe, it feels fairly safe to say that Lú (or Lugh or Lugus) was a very significant cultural and/or religious figure in Celtic culture before the spread of Christianity. And it is testament to his significance that his name is still known to us thousands of years later.

N.B. This article features AI-generated imagery for decorative purposes, and should not be interpreted as historically accurate.

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