The Feast Day of Michaelmas in Tipperary

"In the long ago it was a Custom with the people of this district to kill the first goose of the season on St Michael's Eve, 28th September.
It was eaten on St. Michael's Day, 29th September and for that reason was always called the "Michaelmas Goose".
http://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922260/4865099/5022402

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Hag Stones, are they an example of authentic Irish folklore or a neo-pagan import?

By Darkone CC BY-SA 2.0 The first time I ever heard of Hag-stones was this year. They are more commonly known as Adder stones and described on wikipedia as follows: " An adder stone is a type of stone, usually glassy, with a naturally occurring hole through it. Such stones have been discovered by archaeologists in both Britain and Egypt ." In Britain they are also called hag stones , [1] witch stones , serpent's eggs , snake's eggs , or Glain Neidr in Wales , milpreve in Cornwall , adderstanes in the south of Scotland and Gloine nan Druidh ("Druids' glass" in Scottish Gaelic ) in the north. In Germany they are called Hühnergötter ("chicken gods"). In Egypt they are called aggry or aggri . Adder stones were believed to have magical powers such as protection against eye diseases or evil charms, preventing nightmares , curing whooping cough , the ability to see through fairy or witch disguises and traps if looked at ...

The Origins of the surname Ryan

NOTE: This is currently a work in progress and I ask for any feedback on what I have written. Ryan is one of the top ten surnames by population / number of people in Ireland. It would be nice if there was a simple explanation as to the meaning of the surname Ryan, unfortunately to my knowledge there isn't. The most likely explanation is that it goes back to a King or Chief of Idrone circa 900AD named Rian or Rien. It was around this time that the Irish began taking on surnames and it may be that it was after him his descendants began to be called, O or descendent of Rian. We are not sure how or when exactly the O'Mulryan name came about. It is likely that it means "descendent of the followers of Rian". However, this is not certain. We will see further down in this article that the genealogies suggest they are both descended from the same ancestor circa 900AD. Although other evidence does contradict this. Just what Rian means is not known for sure. Explana...

The Tara Prince, the Egyptian Princess and other alleged links between Ireland and Egypt in ancient times

I think most of us have heard the stories that originate in the Lebor Gabala Erenn linking Scota or Scotia with Ireland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scota It is a great story but the problem is when it used as fact. I few years back I first heard of the claim relating to the Tara Prince and the faience beads that are claimed to originate in Egypt. "The Tara Prince" aka Tara Boy An excavation of the Mound of the Hostages in 1955 by Sean O'Riordain uncovered a number of items within the mound (which turned out to be a passage tomb). One was a set of faience beads now on display in the National Museum of Ireland. They were associated with a skeleton that in pseudoarchaeology has been dubbed "The Tara Prince". Copyright National Museum of Ireland When I read about the claim linking him back to Egypt curiosity got to the better of me and I had to see if there was any basis in it. You can see where the claim arose in O'Riordain's paper ...

The Tipperary Antiquarian

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