Last High King of the Fir Bolg
Eochaid mac Eirc was the last and greatest High King of the Fir Bolg, and the reign the tradition remembers as a golden time. No rain fell during his kingship — only gentle dew. Every year brought a harvest. No man killed another in Ireland while he ruled. A just king meant a blessed land, and Eochaid was the most just king the Fir Bolg ever had.
It ended at the First Battle of Mag Tuired, when the Tuatha Dé Danann arrived to take Ireland from his people. Eochaid was killed in the fighting. His grave — Carn Conaill — was marked on the battlefield where the Fir Bolg age ended.
His wife was Tailtiu, daughter of the king of Spain in the mythological account. She survived the defeat. The Tuatha Dé took her into their community, and she spent the rest of her life clearing the great forest of the central plain of Meath to make farmland for the new people. She died from the effort. Lugh — the greatest champion the Tuatha Dé Danann ever produced — was her foster-son, and he established the harvest festival of Lughnasadh in her memory.
The last Fir Bolg king’s wife raised the new age’s defining hero. The defeated people’s queen made Ireland fertile for those who had defeated them.
Key facts about Eochaid mac Eirc
- Names: Eochaid mac Eirc
- Rules over: All Ireland; last High King of the Fir Bolg
- Weapons: Not recorded
- Animals: Not recorded
- Other Symbols: The golden age of his reign; Carn Conaill (his burial mound at Mag Tuired)
- Parents: Erc (father)
- Siblings: Not recorded
- Spouse: Tailtiu (foster-mother of Lugh)
- Children: Not prominently recorded
- Killed at: First Battle of Mag Tuired (by the Tuatha Dé Danann)
- Greek equivalent: Cronus in his golden-age dimension (ruler of the good time before the new divine order); Priam (the last noble king overcome by a new power)
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