So, today on a different forum, I had some men try to say that Ireland had druids. The fact is, we dont know. Druid is a very mistletoe-loaded word, and as an archaeo I'd tend to say that druidic traditions were Gaulish and British. Simply because we've not a scooby what folks

on the island of Ireland, during later prehistory, actually believed. Surely, there's a few hints _ Patrick doesnt like the scary pagan 'god' Crom Dubh( which sounds like some kind of hengiform veneration to me, but hey, who knows?); We know water and trees were important

and they may well have been sacrificing people into bogs every now and then ( transgressors? bribes to the gods? again, we dont know , but unlikely that one answer fits all), but this stuff was happening all over north western Europe from the Bronze Age onwards.

But Ireland, despite similarities with other places, **is** different. There obviously would have been people who were considered wise, or special who could interpret portents and perhaps tell what 'the gods' wanted of humans. Maybe they emulated Eurodruids, we've no idea,

as all the pseudo-histories were written first in the early medieval period by young clerics, who had heads full of God and Classical stories, as well as trying to put down a good story or 50. They add little twiddly bits to those texts which says more about them +their lives

than it does about the original stories. And yet, if you have an idea where to look in those ancient texts, tiny whispers of later prehistory will speak to you for a moment, before falling asleep again and letting the Tain and Leabhar na hUidre do the talking for the early med.

Past few days, we've all seen the big eejt in a buffalo hat, who calls himself shaman. His beliefs have nowt to do with what real shaman does, in remote places where old ways still cling to the rocks and trees, despite the waves of the 21st century. He's made up his own version

You can call yourself what you want, it doesnt mean that's what you are. Which is my point about druids. We've no idea what's going on in Ireland a lot of the Iron Age. That's kinda my job rn ;) We've even only got Roman propaganda for Britain and France too. Archaeology is fussy

about words, and descriptions because sometimes that is all we've got to differentiate thngs until we learn more. And we do learn more. But then? there's something else we need to know which pops up!