Tír na nÓg: Oisín in the Land of the Young

Before you read

The western sea, and Ireland three hundred years later

Tír na nÓg (“the Land of the Young”) is one of the names of the Otherworld in Irish tradition, a land beyond the western sea where there is no sickness, old age or death. The story of Oisín and Niamh is told in the poem Laoi Oisín i dTír na nÓg (“The Lay of Oisín in the Land of the Young”), written down in the 18th century by the poet Mícheál Coimín, but based on much older tales of the Fianna. In 1889 W. B. Yeats published his long poem The Wanderings of Oisin.

Oisín was the son of Fionn mac Cumhaill and the greatest poet of the Fianna. Niamh Chinn Óir, Niamh of the Golden Hair, daughter of the king of Tír na nÓg, chose him as her husband, and he rode away with her on her white horse across the waves. They lived happily, and had children. But Oisín began to miss Ireland. Niamh lent him her horse, and warned him: whatever happens, you must not get down from the horse and touch the soil of Ireland.

In Ireland, everything had changed. The Fianna were gone; their great fort was in ruins; the people were small and weak, and spoke of Fionn as a hero of long ago. Three hundred years had passed. Seeing some men struggling to lift a stone, Oisín leaned down to help them; the saddle strap broke, he fell to the ground, and at once he became a very old, blind man. The horse galloped back to the sea. In later tales, the old Oisín meets Saint Patrick, and the two argue about the old world of the Fianna and the new Christian Ireland, in a long work called the Acallam na Senórach, “The Colloquy of the Ancients”.

We can never go back to the past; we can only carry it with us.

The story

Retold for this lesson from Laoi Oisín i dTír na nÓg by Mícheál Coimín and the older tales of the Fianna.

One misty morning, Fionn mac Cumhaill and the Fianna were hunting by the shores of Loch Léin, when they saw a rider coming towards them over the sea. It was a young woman on a white horse, dressed in silk, with a crown on her head and golden hair down to her waist. “I am Niamh of the Golden Hair,” she said, “daughter of the king of Tír na nÓg, the Land of the Young. I have come for Oisín, the son of Fionn, the poet whose fame has reached even my country.” Oisín looked at her and loved her at once. He kissed his father goodbye, got up behind her on the white horse, and they rode away across the waves.

Tír na nÓg was more beautiful than anything Oisín had imagined. No one there was ever ill or sad or old. There was music and feasting every day, and the fruit on the trees never ran out. Oisín married Niamh, and they had three children, and he was happy. But after what felt like three years, he began to dream of Ireland, of his father and the Fianna, of the hunt and the songs around the fire. “Let me go home, just for a visit,” he said.

Niamh was afraid. “Take my white horse,” she said at last, “and he will bring you back to me. But whatever happens, you must not get down from his back. If your foot touches the soil of Ireland, you will never return.” Oisín promised, and rode away across the sea.

When he reached Ireland, nothing was as he remembered it. The great fort of the Fianna on the Hill of Allen was covered in grass and nettles. The people were small and thin, and they looked at the giant on the white horse as if he were a creature from a dream. When he asked about Fionn mac Cumhaill, an old man said: “Fionn? He lived three hundred years ago. There are many stories about him.” It turned out that every year in Tír na nÓg had been a hundred years in Ireland.

Sad and lost, Oisín rode through a valley where some men had been trying for hours to lift a great stone. He leaned down from the saddle and threw the stone aside with one hand, but the saddle strap broke, and he fell to the ground. As soon as he touched the soil of Ireland, three hundred years fell on him at once. His hair turned white, his skin wrinkled, his eyes went blind. The white horse neighed and galloped away over the sea, and Oisín, the last of the Fianna, lay on the ground, an old, old man.

Talk and write

Discussion and writing

Return after many years. In pairs, imagine you come back to your town after a hundred years. Describe what has changed, using the past perfect continuous and as if.

Discuss. 1. Would you go to Tír na nÓg? What would you miss? 2. Why do so many cultures imagine a land without old age? 3. Is it better to live for ever or to have a life that ends?

Write (150–180 words). Oisín’s return. Tell the story of Oisín’s return to Ireland in the first person, using the past perfect continuous, as if / as though and it turned out that.