Hello. My name is Rachel Nic Aoidh and welcome to the first part of our six part series on Life and Death. In this series, we will be looking at some legendary heroes in Irish mythology, and we’ll learn all about how, and why they died. This week we will be looking into the death of Oisín.
As many of you may know, the story of Oisín and Niamh í dTír na nÓg is one of the most well-known stories in Irish Mythology. But if some of you are here to learn, here’s some information about Oisín.
Oisín Mac Fionn was the son of the legendary Fionn Mac Cumaill, the leader of the Fianna. Oisín grew up to be the most beautiful man, with the purest heart and the bravest deeds. Within time, he passed the tests to join the Fianna, which included things like to be buried up to the waist and fending off all of the Fianna, or to learn off eight books of poetry and to be able to sing them with such beauty that would bring everyone to tears.
Oisín soon became a leader of one of the clans in the Fianna, and everyone thought of him as a match to his father. They all loved him, and his fame was sung throughout the land.
One day, Oisín was watching the sunrise on a beach. He watched as the sunlight turned into a vision of a woman riding a white horse down the golden path of the sea. The closer she came, he saw that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
The woman approached him and told him that her name was Niamh Cinn Óir from Tír na nÓg. She had heard the tales of his bravery and pure heart, and she desired him. She told him about Tír na nÓg, and how it was a land of no sorrow or despair, where time didn’t exist and a hero could remain strong forever. She asked him to move there with her and to become her husband.
With his heart full of love for Niamh and a love of adventure, Oisín jumped onto the back of the white horse and they both rode across the waves to Tír na nÓg. There, he married Niamh and became her loving husband. They had three children together and loved each other very much.
Oftentimes, Oisín would begin to miss home and his family, but Niamh would come up with some hunt or entertainment to distract him from his homesickness. After what seemed like three years, he could not ignore his ache anymore. He missed his Fianna, and he missed his father.
One day, he asked Niamh if he could visit Ireland again. Niamh told him of how time passed slowly and differently in Tír na nÓg, and how the land he once loved didn’t exist anymore. Oisín was upset to hear this, but he needed to see it himself before he could move on. So Niamh sent him on her white horse, and told him no matter what, that he could not step foot off the horse and onto the land of Ireland or he may never return to her and their children.
And so he left Tír na nÓg, and came all the way back to a land that he could not recognise. All the forests he once roamed with the Fianna were chopped down, and turned into pasture. As he travelled, the only people he saw were small, weak and grey. All stone forts were overgrown by weeds and grass. There was nothing left of the Ireland he once knew.
When he asked the people about Fionn and the Fianna, they laughed in his face for believing in silly stories, as if they were ever true. His heart was broken, and so he turned on his horse and made his way back to Niamh and his children.
As he was leaving, he came across three hundred men on a hill who were trying to move a boulder with a lever, but it was too big for all of them. With his pure heart and bravery, Oisín told them to stand out of the way, and he leaned over on the horse and lifted the stone with one hand. But once he threw the stone, the saddle on the horse snapped and he fell from the horse and touched the ground.
The moment he landed, the centuries that he had been gone began to catch up with him and he quickly grew into an old man. The horse ran away and rode back across the sea. Oisín’s hair whitened, his muscles withered and his teeth fell out. Slowly, he was dying. The people around him were in shock at the sight of this strong, beautiful man turning into an ancient man right in front of them. At this time, St. Patrick was in Ireland. St. Patrick found Oisín, and so Oisín told him every account of the Fianna, which is everything we know today, from Fionn to Oisín. With his story complete, Oisín died there on the ground, leaving behind his wife and children.
Oisín is one of the most known and legendary warriors in Irish Mythology, and his death is one of the saddest. Oisín died for a country that did not recognise him anymore, and he did so with the kindness of his heart. The stories of Niamh and Oisín have lived on through the ages and the legend of Tír na nÓg still remains.
This is the story of the Death of Oisín. Join us next week for our next story.
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