Banba

What it is

Banba, written Banbha today, belongs to Irish myth as a goddess who stands for the island itself. Storytellers place her among the Tuatha Dé Danann, the supernatural people of the early tales, and call her a matron or mother goddess tied to fertility. Her parents are named as Delbáeth and Ernmas, her husband as Mac Cuill, a grandson of the Dagda. She forms a trio with two sisters, Fódla and Ériu, and the three meet the same band of incomers one after another. In verse her name can also stand for the country.

Where it comes from

Her story comes down through legend rather than through any record of worship, so its beginnings are told as myth. Seathrún Céitinn, an Irish historian who retold the old tales, preserved a claim that Banbha reached Ireland first, ahead of the flood, in a version of the Cessair story. The same writer says she honoured Macha, a figure sometimes also given as a daughter of Ernmas. A separate tale of the Milesians coming from Spain to Ireland and the battle at Tailten sets her on Senna Mountain, the stony mountain of Mes.

How it is done

The tales stage one scene three times over. Each sister meets the Milesians as they enter the country, and each makes the same bargain: the land will carry her name, and in return the newcomers will have happiness and wealth. Banba speaks first, and they move past her without granting the request. Some tellings add that they drove her away with spells that were sung aloud. The repeated pattern turns the naming of Ireland into a contest between three claimants.

Tools and materials

The pig is the animal attached to her. Old Irish banb means a young pig, a word close in shape to her name, and pigs carried a strong sense of plenty in Ireland, so the beast suits the prosperity she promises. Landscape serves as her other sign. People near Malin Head in Ulster call that headland Banba's Crown, which binds the goddess to a real coast, and Slieve Mish in County Kerry is identified as the place where the Milesians came upon her.

What it is for

In the narrative her offer is prosperity, held out to the Milesians in exchange for the naming of the country. Because she is described as a matron or fertility goddess, she is also bound up with the fruitfulness of the land. Beyond that, her name works as a way of speaking about Ireland itself, so the figure is a personification of the country more than a power that people petition in ritual.

Who does it

She appears in story as a leader. In the tale of the Milesians she is met at the head of a company described as faery magic hosts, which gives her command over supernatural beings rather than a cult with officers. Seathrún Céitinn is the one writer who gives her an act of devotion, saying that Banbha honoured Macha, a figure also named in some accounts as a daughter of Ernmas.

Peoples and places

The goddess is Irish, and her name is fastened to the whole island. Regional links pull in different directions: she is connected with Munster and with Leinster, and most strongly with Malin Head at the northern tip of Ulster, known locally as Banba's Crown. Her counterparts in the cycle are her sisters Fódla and Ériu, and the three together stand for the land. The Milesians are the incomers she greets.

What people believe

Behind the figure lies a world of powerful non-human peoples. The Tuatha Dé Danann are the story's own race of such beings, and Banba is placed among them; her company in one text is called faery magic hosts. Words carry force too, since a version has the Milesians clear her away with sung charms, treating a spell as something that can push a goddess out of a country. Time is marked by legendary events, and Céitinn sets her before the flood.

How scholars and sceptics see it

Two learned voices shape how she is read. Seathrún Céitinn, an Irish historian, stands behind the variant traditions: her reverence for Macha and her arrival ahead of the flood. A footnote in the tale of the Milesians coming from Spain to Ireland fixes Senna Mountain, the stony mountain of Mes, at Slieve Mish in County Kerry, which ties a scene in the narrative to a known range of hills.

Compare and confuse

Banba belongs to a trio, and the three are easily mixed: Fódla and Ériu stand beside her, and each makes the same bargain with the Milesians. She is often treated as another word for Ireland, since poets used the name that way. Current Irish spelling is Banbha.

Today

The name travels outside myth. A ship of the Irish Naval Service, LÉ Banba (CM11), carries it, and people living near Malin Head in Ulster know the headland as Banba's Crown. Writers have long used Banba as a word for the island in verse, so the figure persists in the language as a way of naming the country. Current spelling is Banbha.

Questions people ask about Banba

Good reading and sources

• Banba on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data