Tolkien tells us how 'nazg' - the word for 'ring' in the Black Speech, is most probably derived from the Irish word 'nasc'.

Tolkien's 126th birthday anniversary this year.

Flaming eyes are widely found in Celtic artwork - hidden faces with staring eyes that magically guard & watch, or that envelop enemies in fire.

Did Celtic flaming-eye artwork inspire Tolkien's Middle Earth?

There are striking similarities in literature and imagery:

Poll na gollum ('Hole of Gollum') in the Burren, Ireland.

The cave may well be the source of inspiration for Tolkien's character.

J.R.R. Tolkien's first visit to Ireland was in 1949 as an Examiner at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Though very fond of the West of Ireland, he wrote: "I find both Gaelic and the air of Ireland wholly alien – though the latter (not the language) is attractive."

"He [Tolkien] described Ireland as a country naturally evil.."

It's believed that Tolkien imagined the Irish landscape as being filled with the glamour & ferocious weirdness that permeates Irish myth - He much preferred the sober morality found in Old English tales.

Desmond Fennell Irish Liberalism is just "second hand Englishness"

23 April 1014: "The great war between High King Brian Boru and the Foreigners of Dublin." - Irish forces defeat the Vikings at Clontarf.

Brian Boru's alliance against the Vikings was vast - dozens of Irish and Scottish kings fought and died for him at the Battle of Clontarf.

"I have been where warriors wrestled / High in Erin sang the sword."

The Battle of Clontarf through the eyes of an Icelandic Viking.