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This is a music video. If you want to hear it, please unmute the song…
Journey through myth and memory in this re-imagining of the Tuatha Dé Danann’s arrival – the luminous people of Irish legend. Following the Southern Tradition, the music traces their path across a sacred landscape I’ve studied for years – and once, under the Galway sky, even glimpsed a ship upon.

From Poulnabrone Dolmen to Galway Bay, through Moycullen, Lough Corrib, Knockma, and Cong, each site echoes like a note in an ancient song – alive with story, stone, and the shimmer of something beyond time.

This article is part of a series, all related to an unexplained sighting I had in 1986 in Ireland:

What began as a fleeting, personal encounter over the Claddagh soon unfolded onto a much larger canvas. That Sunday morning UFO sighting – a silent, hovering craft above Galway Bay – did not dissolve into forgetfulness; it seemed instead to point backward and forward at once – into the oldest invasion stories of Ireland, and into future echoes of cosmic alignment.

The Southern Route Reimagined

The Salthill sighting felt uncannily like a verification of the old southern tradition: the “Shining Ones,” the Tuatha Dé Danann, arriving in flying ships at Galway Bay, advancing up the River Corrib, and assembling at Cong for the First Battle of Moytura. Each landmark on their route resonated with my own memory of that morning: the Claddagh as chosen beachhead, Maigh Cuilinn as the navigator’s plain, Lough Corrib consecrated to Manannán, Knockma as beacon-hill, and Cong as ritual battlefield. My sighting seemed to re-illuminate the myth: otherworldly vessels descending in controlled formation, their presence etched into cairns, circles, and place-names.

The Arrival of the Tuatha Dé Danann: imagination, melody and song.

Ancient Echoes, Modern Forms: The Arrival of the Tuatha Dé Danann

Almost a decade later, the Claddagh beach became stage once more. The Solas Atlantis project (1993–94) inscribed medicine wheels and planetary symbols into the sand, geoglyphs oriented like ancient monuments. Where my sighting had opened a personal portal, these art-rituals made the connection communal.

The largest wheel, dedicated to Jupiter, became the emblem of the 1995 Galway Arts Festival, echoing both the Tuatha’s cosmic treasures and the skies I had watched in 1986.

The Comet and the Gods

At that very time, fragments of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 collided with Jupiter. For six days the world’s astronomers watched fire bloom in the giant planet’s atmosphere.

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, taken on May 17, 1994, NASA, ESA, and H. Weaver and E. Smith (STScI)

The synchronicity was breathtaking: as Galway artists marked Jupiter on the Claddagh, the real Jupiter bore scars from a cosmic bombardment unseen in human history. Myth, memory, and astronomy aligned: my sighting of an unknown craft, the Tuatha’s descent in cloud-ships, the comet’s fall on Jupiter – all variations of the same story: beings and bodies arriving from beyond, leaving marks on land and sky.

Credit: NASA, ESA, E. Karkoschka (University of Arizona), and G. Bacon (STScI)

A Living Continuum

The southern route of the Tuatha Dé Danann, my 1986 encounter, the Solas Atlantis geoglyphs, and the Shoemaker–Levy comet together form a living continuum. Galway Bay is not just a backdrop, but a threshold: a place where past and future, earth and cosmos, myth and event all intersect.

The manuscripts describe the Tuatha Dé Danann arriving in “ships that flew through the air,” a phrase that resonates uncannily with modern visions of spacecraft. They brought with them shining artifacts of immense power – tools or technologies that early chroniclers could only describe as magical treasures. Their arrival story functions as a mythic technology-transfer: beings descending from above, demonstrating feats of construction and energy beyond the scope of any human community of the time.

The Arrival of the Tuatha Dé Danann – Southern Tradition (Galway → Cong)

(Interactive map)

✣☘︎ A Mythic Itinerary ☘︎✣

1. Poulnabrone Dolmen – Portal of the Ancestors | 53.0426, –9.1373

While not strictly part of the route, the great portal tomb of Poulnabrone on the Burren anchors the Tuatha’s arrival in deep time. Such monuments were seen as doorways to the Otherworld – a hidden continuum adjacent to known spacetime – fitting symbols for a people said to descend from the sky.

Dating to around 4200–3800 BC, Poulnabrone housed collective burials, linking the Tuatha tradition with Ireland’s oldest monuments.

2. Galway Bay / Claddagh – Landing Site | 53.269037, –9.056382

The fleet of the Tuatha Dé Danann made a controlled descent into Galway Bay, with the Claddagh serving as their chosen beachhead.

Then they performed the ritual burning of their ships, symbolically severing ties to the Otherworld and marking their irrevocable settlement.
From this vantage one can see both the cairn-dotted landscape of the Burren and the ancient stone forts of the Aran Islands, a symbolic bridge connecting the urban present with the monumental past.

The Tuatha Dé Danann then advanced inland in formation, following the River Corrib.

3. Maigh Cuilinn / Moycullen – The Navigator’s Plain | 53.3389, –9.1792

The plain honors Cuileann, star‑reader and pathfinder, who guided the newcomers inland. Cairns and tombs along the route memorialize this act of celestial navigation, each monument a waypoint that anchored their passage in both earth and sky.

By following the rivers and lakes, the Tuatha Dé Danann secured mobility, supply lines, and defensible positions.

4. The Passage Inland – River Corrib and Lough Oirbsean | ~53.45, –9.33

The fleet advanced inland into the lake Oirbsean (Lough Corrib), consecrated to Manannán mac Lir.

Their voyage was a strategic military advance, marking their transformation from otherworldly invaders into a sovereign power claiming the very arteries of the land.
The shores of Lough Corrib are dotted with cairns, crannogs, and megaliths – prehistoric staging points.

Knockma (Cnoc Meadha) as Signal Hill | 53.48186, –8.96054

The imposing limestone mass of Knockma rises along their route, crowned with ancient cairns that mark it as a natural command post – a hilltop beacon and observation point.

In later folklore it became the seat of Fionnbharr, king of the fairies, yet in the ancient astronaut perspective it evokes an elevated station from which the newcomers might have surveyed or directed their activities.

5. Cong – Plains of Moytura (First Battlefield) | 53.555384, –9.289087

The culmination of the Tuatha Dé Danann’s advance is at Cong, the narrow neck between Lough Corrib and Lough Mask, remembered as the battlefield of Moytura. Here they met the Fir Bolg, and legend situates their great war upon these plains.

According to tradition, the First Battle of Moytura unfolded here: Nuada lost his arm, and King Eochaid of the Fir Bolg was slain, sealing the Tuatha Dé Danann’s victory and their claim upon the land.

Archaeological echoes at Cong

Glebe Stone Circles (~53.538, –9.296): a rare cluster of Bronze Age rings west of Cong, echoing assembly and ritual space in the mythic battlefield zone.
Ballymacgibbon Cairn (~53.530, –9.280): vast unopened passage grave, linked to the slain of Moytura.
Ecohy’s Cairn (Carn Eochaid) (~53.568, –9.270): said to be the burial mound of King Eochaid.

A Landscape Reforged

What emerges is a cognitive map transformed into a sacred grid. Galway Bay, Corrib, Knockma, and Cong become stages in a procession of beings from beyond. Their story sanctifies the land, but it also encodes memory of technology and power beyond ordinary human means. Whether remembered as gods, fairies, or ancestors, the Tuatha Dé Danann fit within the wider pattern of ancient astronaut lore: those who descended from the skies, forged landscapes into symbols, and left behind monuments too great to forget.

⤓ Download a high-res version of the map

Myth and Mystery: The Arrival of the Tuatha Dé Danann

The story of the Tuatha Dé Danann arriving in ships that landed on a mountain is most prominently featured in the Lebor Gabála Érenn (The Book of the Taking of Ireland). This collection of poems and prose recounts the mythical origins of the Irish people.

According to these accounts, the Tuatha Dé Danann – a race of god-like beings with mastery over magic and craftsmanship – arrived in Ireland under a shroud of mystery. The texts describe them coming in “dark clouds” or “flying ships,” which enveloped the land in shadow for three days. The striking image of a people making their initial appearance on a mountaintop enhances the mythical nature of their arrival.

Reclamation, Not Refuge

Their journey is best understood as a reclamation of ancestral lands rather than a flight to asylum. Some scholarly interpretations draw parallels between the story of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the biblical narrative of the Israelites returning from exile.

Epilogue — The Prophecy of Return

The lasting folklore of the Tuatha Dé Danann is that they will return. Folk prophecy even speaks of a final battle – an apocalyptic confrontation in which they will emerge victorious.

Whether seen as gods, fairies, or cosmic visitors, the Tuatha remain figures of both memory and anticipation: messengers from beyond, whose story continues to shape the land and imagination.