Reddit mentions of The Year in Ireland

Okay so:

Read our FAQ first if you haven't. This will help orient you to our site here.

Read through Seeking. While you already have an interest on a cultural background, it is useful to explore more information for someone getting into Pagan religious practice.

I really recommend picking up a copy of John Michael Greer's A World Full of Gods: An Inquiry Into Polytheism, where you can find it used cheaply. If you're coming from a non-polytheistic background it helps orient you towards that.

Now, the next question is: which Celtic religion? This is a lot more nuanced than people think. What I'm going to do is assume that you mean Gaelic/Irish Celtic, because that's what most people who aren't in relevant fields of study think of when they think of Celtic. Assuming you meant Irish, the following are useful sources that are all pretty standard and good:

• Tairis Gaelic polytheism site
  
  
• Gaol Naofa's site
  
  
• Mythic Ireland by Michael Dames
  
  
• The Year in Ireland by Kevin Danaher
  
  
• Celtic Goddesses by Miranda Green
  
  
• Gods of the Celts by Miranda Green
  
  
• Celtic Mythology by Proinsias MacCana
  
  All of these are pretty standard for initial inquiry.
  
  If I assumed wrong, and you're interested in the other two big Celtic traditions that are out there (Brythonic and Gaulish), I'll dig sources up for those, too.
  

Yes! Bonfires figure prominently in many Irish calendrical observances, though particularly with the midsummer fires of St John's Eve (the centrality of fire-customs being well-illustrated by the Irish nomenclature: Oiche an teine chnáimh or Teine Féil' Eóin). A fine resource on the subject would be Kevin Danaher's The Year in Ireland, which features an extensive chapter on Midsummer, from which I can briefly excerpt:

>The midsummer ceremonies were almost all connected with the Midsummer fire, and in the greater part of Ireland were observed on 23 June, the eve of the feast of St John the Baptist.

>It is clear that a distinction can be made between two fire traditions. On the one hand a large communal fire lit by the inhabitants of the whole townland or village, or of several townlands or even of the whole parish. Such communal fires were lit, in the past, in places in every county in Ireland.

>On the other hand there were small fires lit by the members of each household, or on each farm at which ceremonies, to be describe below, were performed for the benefit of that particular household or farm. These, two, were lit in most parts of Ireland, but were, at least in recent tradition, not as widely known as the large communal fires...

>...In general it may be said that the large communal fires were mainly celebrated noisily by music, dancing, singing and similar merrymaking, with other ceremonies as a preliminary or a sequel, while the family fire was a quiet affair in which the protective ceremonies were the main concern of those present, and the only merrymaking was the playing of the younger children about the small fire.^1

There is also material from the National Folklore Collection regarding Midsummer, Bonfire Night, and St John's Eve available on Duchas. With Lá Fhéile Eoin approaching there is also likely to be material on the subject posted on the NFC Twitter so I recommend following them in the days to come.

**

^^1 ^(Kevin Danaher. The Year in Ireland: Irish Calendar Customs*. Dublin: Mercier Press, 1972. pp.137-139)

From my experience one of the best ways to proceed with books is to actually leave behind the new age section. That could be because I'm focusing a lot of personal research on reconstructionism, but I am finding some amazing resources that come from more academic and historical works. The two I just got are The Year in Ireland and Healing Theads after seeing them recommended from a site I've found to be very reliable. Neither are meant specifically for the pagan crowd and both authors have a good amount of research to back up their books.

If there is something in particular you are interested in, it's best to get more specific. There are books and historical accounts of specific pantheons, herbalism, folklore, etc.