Cailleach Bhéara

The Cailleach Bhéarra — the Hag of Beara — is one of the most ancient and powerful figures of Irish mythology, the Irish kin of the Scottish Cailleach. A divine hag of the Beara Peninsula in the south-west, she is a goddess of the land, of winter and of sovereignty, said to have lived seven lifetimes and outlasted seven husbands, watching generations and even mountains rise and pass away. She is credited with shaping the country, letting stones fall from her apron to raise hills and cairns.

Her most celebrated expression is the medieval poem 'The Lament of the Hag of Beara', in which the once-young queen, now aged and newly Christian, mourns her lost beauty and the passing of the old pagan world — among the great poems in the Irish language. On the Beara Peninsula a weathered rock above the sea, An Chailleach, is said to be the Hag herself, turned to stone and gazing out across the water as she awaits her return. She embodies the deep Irish identification of the goddess with the enduring land itself.