Eire, Banba (or Banva) and Fiola (spelled Fodhla)

In any study, research or reading about fairies, one inevitably ends up with that discussion or study bringing up a number of interlaced themes – magic, the aesthetics, the Tuatha Dé Danann, Celtic influences and Ireland, and more.

The name Ireland is also sometimes spelled by an older spelling ‘Eire’. Referring to the richly understanding quote at the bottom of this site by J. R. Tolkien, note the spelling of the word he uses – Faërie, referring to the realm of the fae. Take off the ‘Fa’ and you end up with ‘ërie’, or capitalized, Ërie. The two dots are referred to by the word diaeresis, which is a mark placed over a vowel to indicate that the vowel is pronounced in a separate syllable such as in the names Zoë or Chloë, or a word such as ‘reëlect. Without the diaeresis in the word Ërie, you end up with just Erie, one of the older names of Ireland and still in use today.

Perhaps you can see where this is going now?

The story goes like this.

The name of Ireland can be traced directly back to it’s earliest history, around 3000 bc when the last ice age was retreating and revealing the earth beneath the frozen landscape. Before the rule of the Tuatha de Danaan (circa 1800 bc) the Island was called ‘Inis na bhfiodhbhadh,’ that is to say ‘Island of the woods’; then ‘Crioch na bhfuineadhach,’ basically meaning ‘End of the world’, then ‘Inis Ealga,’ or the, ‘Noble island’.

Around 1800 bc, the three last High Kings of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Mac Cuil, Mac Cecht and Mac Greine, who shared rule by rotating the sovereignty between them a year at a time for some thirty years, each had a wife and queen named in order Eire, Banba (or Banva) and Fiola (spelled Fodhla). As each of the brothers acted as the main King in their turn, the Island would be called after the Queen’s name, and the names became somewhat interchangeable depending on subtle underlying colorings as Eskimoes describe the various states of snow, but all which basically meant Goddess of the Earth. After that, though the invading influences of the  Milesians, and after them the Greeks, then Romans all called the Emerald Isle by their own callings (Scotia, Ogygia, Hibernia), the name Eire (representing the three Sister Queens), continued to resonate in the hearts of the people and remained as the primary linguistic undercurrent and remains today as the favored older name for the present day spelling of Ireland.

Etomologically speaking, the origin of this most commonly used name is the Gaelic word Éire. It evolved from the Old Irish word Ériu, which was the name of a Gaelic or Celtic goddess. Ériu is generally believed to have been the matron goddess of Ireland, a goddess of sovereignty, or simply a goddess protector of the land – and combined today to make Eriu – land, thus spelled and spoken as Ireland, and with it the carrying the underlying meaning, ‘Goddessland’. In plain speaking, Ireland simply means Goddessland.