Mad Sweeny is an Irish figure who has received a lot of attention from his contribution to the
novel in the TV show American Gods. He's described in the show by a character called Mr Ibis
as someone who was a god King, a God of the Sun, of luck, of craft, art,
of everything valuable to a civilization, the shiny one, they used to call you, he said,
but it's also referred to as a giant leprechaun.
So he has a number of attributes, but which ones are the best representation of Mad Sweeney? Well,
the story of Sweeney is a tricky one, as like all myths, it has changed with time, with parts
added and taken away. They the Christians came to Ireland and stories disappeared, separated,
merged. And so there's no one correct story. So what I present is an overview of his main
myth in a version that makes most sense to me. And I'll explain why. And so then let's journey
to ancient Ireland. And welcome to the story of Mad Sweeney, and welcome to Crecganford.
So let's get to the bottom line first. There was no God named Mad Sweeney. Not in Irish
folklore Anyway, there may be elsewhere in the world. However, we can infer from the
American Gods storyline that the person the story is trying to represent is the Sweeney
of Irish mediaeval myth and folklore. And this Irish myth was called the frenzy of Sweeney.
A story is known as Buile Suibhne in Irish, with Buile meaning frenzy and Suibhne being
translated as an English name, Sweeney. So Buile Suibhne is a legendary figure in myth.
But he was no God. And Suibhne his actual name was said to be Suibhne mac Colmain. And he was
sometimes referred to as Suibhne Geilt. So some also say he was the king of Dal
Araidhe and a member of clan Colmain. So let's look at a myth and see what that tells us.
And, to start off, we have to go back to 637. When Suibhne hears that there is a cleric on his land,
looking to build a church, and he rushes to confront him and stop him. Suibhne his wife
tries to stop Suibhne, running out and grabs his cloak swiftly ignores her, and the consequence of
that is his cloak is ripped off. And that leaves him naked as he runs to the clerk.
The clerk in question was St. Ronan. And when Suibhne confronts him, he grabs the clerics Book
of Psalms and he follows them in a nearby lake. And then it goes to move the clerk from his land.
But whilst he's doing this, a messenger survives and says that the Battle of Mac Grath
is about to take place and swiftly has to rush off to that, leaving St Ronan to curse him, saying
that Suibhne will forever be naked, wandering and flying throughout the world. And it may be death
from a spear point that carries him off. The eve of the Battle of Mac Rath comes and Suibhne and
St Ronin’s paths cross once more. So Ronan's there blessing his men with songs before the battle, and
Suibhne takes this as an insult, if you like, and so he kills one of st Ronan's men with a spear,
and then he takes another spear and throws it at St. Ronan. The cleric deflects it and spear flies
in the air. And that gives him time to curse swiftly once again, saying, may you fly like a
bird made a death which you have incited on my main be that that carries you off, and that is
death from a spear point. The battle commenced, but the noise of the battle drove swiftly mad,
and into a frenzy. He felt deep uncertainty of where he was or where he had ever been.
And he began to wander hiding in trees until found, and then he will wander more, always naked,
and ended up in trees. And he wandered around Ireland and Scotland, and a lot of Europe. But
as he wandered people would notice his footsteps was so light, it appeared as though he was flying.
And some say he took the form of a bird, and through his wandering or flying, he found his
way to Teach Molling, which means the house of St Molling and there St Molling allows Suibhne
to have a small meal left out by serving lady every night, and she also gave Suibhne milk.
But this was in a hole, a hole made by the serving lady's foot digging into some cow dung. But over
time, rumours been started that there was an affair between Suibhne and the serving lady.
And these types of tales have a habit of eventually arriving where they are not welcome,
and this was in the serving lady's husband's ear, without waiting for an explanation the
husband saw that Suibhne was drinking his milk, and so killed Suibhne with a spear to his chest.
And so the curse from St. Ronan of Suibhne has been fulfilled. But the story doesn't end there.
Or I should say, it doesn't start where it started. As a figure of Suibhne has
been around longer than the seventh century is believed this Suibhne was originally king Lugh
of the Tuatha De Danann. And so the High King of Ireland from 1870 to 1830 BCE. And as the king,
he would have fought against the Fomorians, who will lead by his grandfather Balour and Suibhne
kill Balour by throwing a spear through his eye. And this is a store which has some parallels to
the Old Norse myth of Bauldr. But we need to put some perspectives of time around this.
The Irish myths aren't as old as the Old Norse. And so they may well have evolved from stories
when the Vikings came to Ireland, which would have been at the end of the eighth century.
And this story wasn't written down the story Suibhne until around the ninth century,
so some time after, and there was also no way Suibhne was an historical figure,
if he was alive in the seventh century and two and a half thousand years earlier. However, there's
more to this due to the uncertainty of where the history ends and the myth starts. You see,
some historical manuscripts say that Suibhne is the son of Colman Cuar, who was a pagan king of
the Dal nAraidi, which was an historical Kingdom across County Down and Antrim. Now, Colman Cuar
was an historical figure and noted in the book, the Annals of Tigernach, which was written in
the 12th century by first historical periods going back to as far go as the fifth century.
And the book of Lismore also states similar facts, and this is written in the 15th century.
Now, it's not known how accurate these books are, is only written hundreds of years after the events
which were interested in. But it's an intriguing prospect to know that in the annals of Tigernach
where they mention Suibhne as the son of Colman, that they actually note him dying in the Battle
of Mac Grath thus making Buile Suibhne seem like the imagining of a character based on an
historical but now dead warrior. However, there's no mention that Colman Cuar’s son
Suibhne was ever King, though, although some researchers still believe this is
in the bounds of possibility, perhaps achieving this position through being an elected Regent.
However, American Gods has tried to infer to people that Suibhne was Lugh, and was associated
with the sun and was a leprechaun, or went mad looking after stone. But we have no solid academic
evidence of this. And I'm sure these thoughts have been influenced by other stories in the history of
Ireland. And this is exactly how myths develop how they change. With people believing and repeating
these tales. I do like to book American Gods as a decent piece of escapism based on some well known
myths, although Mad Sweeney only appears in a book for two chapters, but it gets good the airtime on
a TV show seems as good as luck from somewhere. So there may be some leprechaun blood in him. Who
knows. But muscle sweat that trying to understand the most authentic tell us really is difficult,
it's decent translations of the Irish books are few and far between making the task very much
more challenging than it would normally be. And certainly, I would recommend to anyone taking
this journey to seek to translations Heany’s of 1983 and O'Keeffe's of 1913. And then you can
at least try and walk a path between the two to give you some balance.
So there we have it a tale that has no doubt been influenced by Christianity to make a
pagan legend suffer the power of Christ. Mad Sweeney is primarily based on Buile Suibhnee,
a character who may have been influenced by an historical figure, who was said by some to change
into a bird to fly around, and he did take food or milk that was left out for him before finding
death by spearpoint, but he was never God. And he was certainly no giant leprechaun.
And with that is my story as Suibhne or Mad Sweeney. Hope you stay safe and stay well.
Take care and this was Crecganford.