Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions is a book by James Bonwick, first published in 1894. Drawing on nineteenth-century scholarship, Irish manuscripts, and folklore, Bonwick offers a readable survey of pre-Christian religion in Ireland, the role and office of the druids, and the rites, festivals, and popular beliefs that shaped ancient Irish life.

The work ranges from druidic dress and sacred places to the ways law, poetry, and religion interwove in the early Irish world. Written by an industrious historian and archivist, it reflects both the strengths and limitations of Victorian antiquarianism: it gathers a wide spread of sources for general readers, while sometimes filtering material through contemporary Christian and nineteenth-century interpretive lenses.

For students of Irish mythology, Celtic religion, and the history of druidic studies, Bonwick’s book remains a useful snapshot of how the druids and pagan Ireland were understood at the end of the nineteenth century. It also helped circulate ideas about Irish Druidism and Celtic folklore that later influenced popular and neo-pagan reconstructions of Celtic spirituality.