The Cycles of Irish Mythology

Irish Myth revolves around its four mythological cycles, Mythological, Ulster, Fenian, and Historical. The Mythological cycle consists of the Lore of Places and the Book of invasions. This cycle has the mythological history of the Irish people all the way back to Noah. The Book of invasions tells of many invasions of the Irish people on the fairy people. The Ulster cycle deals with a few Irish heroes and the mythological king, Conchobar mac Nessa, king of Ulster. The Fenian cycle also focuses on many Irish heroes, but instead of being stories from Ulster they are primarily about the province of Leinster and Munster. The Historical cycle consists of court bards writing about the kings they serve. Mixing fiction and truth grand poems were made about that the kings of Ireland. These many cycles form a pseudo history of Ireland, combining actually history with false accounts of mythological beings and invasions. Though many of the poems involve fairies and other beings that do not exist, many people believe that these accounts did happen just with other humans. 

One interesting thing about the texts, of these cycles, do not have known authors.  However, the general consentience is that the Ollamh, or Chief poets, were the authors. These highly trained poets were given the task of recording the “history” of the land and those in it. Naturally these poets were influenced by the religion of the time. Not many poems were written solely about the religious beliefs of the time; they were just incorporated into these tales of the Irish “history”.