Angela Puca AP: Hello everyone. I’m Angela and welcome back to my channel. Today, I’m very honoured to have here with me Dr Jenny Butler, lecturer in the Study of Religions at the University College Cork. Particularly happy to have Jenny on my YouTube channel because, as I mentioned to her, basically, thanks to one of her Youtube videos, which I’m going to link in the infobox, I actually realized that it was possible to study Paganism and witchcraft from an academic point of view when I was still undertaking my university degrees in Italy. So at the time, it seemed impossible. So it’s basically thanks to her and her video that I realized that it was actually possible and then I did undertake that kind of route. So yeah I’m really happy and grateful to Jenny to be here and doing this interview together.
Jenny Butler JB: I’m happy to be here.
AP: So my first question is: can you tell us something about Irish Paganism and that would be all Irish Paganism?
JB: Yes there are many different types of Paganism in Ireland. And, for the purposes of my research, I chose the ones that are most prevalent, the most visible. So those would be Druidry and Wicca. So there are different forms of Wicca and there are also other forms of pagan witchcraft in Ireland, so I include that in my research, also. And people who identify, generically, just as pagan. So there are other forms, like shamanism, heathenism, you know, the various forms of the Nordic religions, and different types of Celtic shamanism. So there would be an overlap of, sorry, different types of Celtic spiritualities. So there’s an overlap between those and Paganism. So I just narrowed it down to Paganism, as a generic term, and Wicca, and witchcraft, and Druidry.
AP: Do they also share belief systems or like an idea of the deity, like polytheism, the idea of God embedded in nature, these kinds of things?
JB: Yes, so there are probably more similarities and the types of Paganism that I look at. That would include the general belief systems and worldviews, as you mentioned, polytheism, things like animism, the sacred of the numinous, whatever you want to call it, being found in nature or being able to access or communicate with deities, via nature. Whether that’s going to a sacred site or just being out in nature and meditating. So there are many shared beliefs, whether it’s about the nature of the deities and the spiritual world, the other world, or whether it’s to do with the method of ritual and how you actually express those beliefs.
AP: Hmm and what is the most prevalent form of Paganism in Ireland?
JB: I would say, it seems to be on a par with Druidry and Wicca. I mentioned other forms of witchcraft like traditional witchcraft and hereditary witchcraft. They are there in Ireland but they’re a minority compared to Wicca. There are a lot more practitioners of Wicca and Druidry. There aren’t any statistics for the Irish context so there hasn’t yet been academic research in a quantitative sense.
AP: Not even in Italy. I would be surprised if anywhere they have got statistics.
JB: And there are various issues with that as well. I think if you’re looking at something like the census data, a lot of pagans don’t want to fill in a government form, they don’t think it has anything to do with religion or they might not want to self-identify because of their family.
AP: So, out of curiosity, you said that the most prevalent form of Paganism is Wicca. Is it a traditional form of Wicca, like a Gardnerian Wicca or an Alexandrian Wicca or it’s a more eclectic form of Wicca?
JB: Well, it really depends on the group or the individual as to what type of Wicca they practice. Because Wicca is not a global religion, you have Gardnerian and Alexandrian being described as British traditional witchcraft. So Wicca came from Britain into the Irish context and for some groups, they have modified Wicca because it’s viewed as an English religion. They have modified it…
AP: That’s very interesting, so they have ‘Irishised’ Wicca…
JB: or they have ‘Celticised’ it to adapt it to the land and the different energies and the deities and local spirits of place. Also, connecting with them, what’s called the Ban Feasa – the wise woman of Irish tradition. So, kind of like a local witch figure though the word witch isn’t found in old Irish. So there’s also connecting with older alternatives.
AP: So there is no word in old Irish for a witch?
JB: No only a word for magic, which is Draíocht so Druí means Druid, so literally Druidry is magic.
AP: Oh that’s really interesting. I had no idea. I would say, for example, that in Italy the most prevalent form of Wicca is an eclectic one. So that’s why I was asking whether that might be the case in Ireland as well or maybe in the Irish context, they tend to be more towards the ceremonial, traditional Wicca.
JB: And, as I mentioned Wicca has been modified to suit the local environment but it might be worth mentioning that Ireland has a whole history of ceremonial magic. The very famous poet, William Butler Yeats, was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Maud Gone, a revolutionary, and contemporary of Yates was also in the Golden Dawn for a time and artists, of that time period, like George Russell, were into Theosophy. So we have a whole occult history there as a backdrop for it things that are more later, like Wicca and modern forms of Druidry and so long…
AP: So that went into the Irish adaptation of Wicca as well?
JB: So you’d still have, maybe, a connection with ceremonial magic in a more direct way than that somewhere like Italy and at least with Wicca which I described and coming by America.
AP: Okay so, although it is still eclectic, it is more leaning towards ceremonial magic but in a different way. More linked to the Irish tradition of their local magic. Is there an example, in terms of rituals, that they perform in a more ceremonial way?
JB: I think yes. It depends on what the ritual is being done for. So something like a healing ritual might be more ceremonial, in the sense that it’s more formulaic. It’s more, as in, having a lot of props, if you will, having a lot of colours that represent something. I’m thinking of a particular ritual to do with a traumatic period in someone’s life where there was a ritual done for healing; lots of things were used, different coloured candles and things representing issues in the person’s life that we used in a more ceremonial way – more elaborate rituals and some other ones might be.
AP: And what role does magic play in Irish Paganism?
JB: I think magic is important for many different pagans and, I think in general, it’s again to do it like the local environment. So people where they’re practising ritual – I mentioned before about going out on the landscape, so there are sites that are sacred sites for pagans in Ireland that are also sacred to global Paganism such as the Hill of Tara, in County Meath, and other sites in what was the sacred centre of Ireland called Mide or Midhe which was the fifth province of Ireland. So now, in Ireland, we have four provinces; Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connacht but there was a fifth sacred centre of the country and the ancient hills that are associated with the pagan kings and the Druids. There are lots of legends of Druids attached to these places. Those are all important for modern pagans as places to practice rituals and to go to festivals, especially.
AP: And language.
JB: And language and I mentioned fairies as well. So there are many different interpretations of what fairies are. So in the Irish mythology, old religion and the ‘an sluagh sidhe’ or the fairy host, that’s how it’s translated into English. They may be synonymous with Gods, so there are different ideas and interpretations of that. So we have what are called fairy forts, or ring forts, scattered all around the Irish landscape, so they’re also significant places for the practice of magic.
AP: Is the belief in fairies very widespread among Irish Pagans?
JB: Yes, for most of the Pagans that I’ve spoken to about fairies they see them as one kind of spirit of place, the genie loci out in nature in an animistic sense and what the belief, or at least the awareness of fairy traditions, legends, and customs. It’s quite prevalent today, among the Irish population in general. So most people are aware at least of stories or places, what at what fairy fort is, a fairy tree, the Hawthorn tree, so that’s another way that the contemporary Pagan practices and beliefs connect up with Irish history and the culture surrounding it.
AP: Let’s end with a question: what do you think would be the biggest misconception about Paganism in Ireland?
JB: I think the biggest misconception is that Paganism is the same as devil worship. So in the Irish context, the Catholic clergy, in particular, also the Protestant clergy but it was more so Catholic Priests, whether in schools as a school system was run by the Catholic, predominantly by Catholic clergy and also from the pulpit of mass they would use the word pagan or heathen to mean somebody who is a devil worshipper or maybe antagonistic to Christianity or to mean somebody who has no religion. So especially when I talk to older generations they have that kind of reaction that it’s a very negative word – pagan, that it’s something bad. So if I’m talking to an older person, I usually start off talking about Druids because that’s a less loaded term in the Irish context. People have different images in their minds and I usually explain about the sacred sites on the landscape and nature, nature religion, Celtic spirituality – those kinds of ideas and then introduced where it’s like witch and Pagan, as a reclaimed words. People usually understand but I think that’s the biggest confusion. That it’s something anti-Christian rather than something that’s connected to something that predates Christianity. So in a sense, really, Christianity is irrelevant for many contemporary Pagans because they’re connecting with a religion that’s older.
AP: So once again I really, really thank Jenny Butler for being here on my YouTube channel and I will leave all the links to her channel, to the video I mentioned, and some of her publications in the infobox.
JB: Thank you.
AP: So hopefully, I will see you in the next video so stay tuned for all the academic fun.
Bye for now.
JENNY’S CONTACT DETAILS
Email: j.butler@ucc.ie
Website: www.drjennybutler.com
YouTube video mentioned: https://youtu.be/pVYyWwBHzVs