DeDanaan

Early Irish Astrology: An Historical Argument
by Peter Berresford Ellis

In all histories of western astrology there is a curious omission. There are no references to early Irish, nor - indeed - ancient Celtic, astrological practices. In fact, the only serious scholarly study on Celtic astrology was published in a French academic journal in 1902. [1] This dissertation, in the light of modem research, is open to debate.

The major reason for this neglect of the subject, at least during the last fifty years, has undoubtedly been the insidious influence of Robert Graves’ The White Goddess (1949). This book has done singular disservice to those who seek to study the realities of Celtic cosmology and, especially, the practice of astrology. Graves was not a Celtic scholar. His highly imaginative inventions of the so-called ‘tree calendar’ and ‘tree zodiac’ inspired an outpouring of books purporting to be on ‘Celtic astrology’. Graves and his acolytes have, unfortunately, seized the popular imagination but their ‘tree zodiac’ has nothing at all to do with the realities of the ancient Celtic world.
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