"To me, to my house, you shall come after your death." - Donn, Lord of the Dead, ruler of Samhain - 9th century Irish manunoscript.

Donn, 'the dark one', was the ancestor deity of the pre-Christian Gaels - On Samhain he summons the dead to his fortress at Bull Rock.

On Samhain Eve in the Irish Annals: "High King Tigernmas and three quarters of his army died while worshiping Crom Cruach", a wizened god, hidden by mists. Crom's worship ceased when St Patrick destroyed his stone idol with a blow from his staff.

The Fear Dorcha ('the dark man') is a mysterious, malignant fairy in Irish lore. Perhaps the most feared entity in the myths, he is 'the predator of the weak and enemy of the strong.' Servant of the Queen of the Dead, he is the chief agent of mortal abduction.

Teine Sídhe are the Irish version of the Will O' The Wisp. The name translates as "Fairy Fire". These fairies were fond of darting about in peat bogs, leading those hypnotised by their flickering flames to a marshy grave.

St Patrick, St Brigid, St Colmcille,

Protector Saints of the Irish

Who are in Heaven,

Protect & pray for us.

The swearing of oaths on a saint's relic was common practice in early Ireland. The dead ancestor or saint acted as a witness to the promise, so if broken, they would incur the fury of the dead!

Old Irish for relic, minn, became modern Irish for oath, mionn.

Under Brehon law, dead ancestors could be called upon to judge in property disputes. One law describes how a claimant to the land must walk over the family burial mound without injury or death. The dead would repel outsiders, but support their own descendants.

"The ancient Irish believed the dead were repositories of wisdom and lore [and] would return to speak to their descendants."

Etymology of Fianna: derives from 'wēd-nā', related to OIr. fíad 'wild, game, wood', OEng. wāð 'hunt' and OBret. guoid 'wild'. The ancient roving band of warriors functioned as sovereigns of pre-agrarian Celtic society, thus the connection to forests & the hunt.

The Instructions of King Cormac states: "everyone is a fían(na) until he becomes a property owner" - This points to a rite of passage in medieval Ireland where a young man crossed from one community to another, from a member of a fighting band, to a settled farmer.

Cernunnos on the Gundestrup Cauldron (Jutland, 150 BC).

Seated between a deer and a wolf this horned figure is thought to be a totem god of the Celtic war-bands. The Stag god, as lord of wild animals, provided the royal hunter with prey and guaranteed his authority.

The Yew tree in the cloisters of Muckross Abbey near Killarney.

Thought to be Ireland's oldest tree at 670 years old.

The intellectual caste always carried a long staff, much like Merlin the wizard, going back to Sumeria. A medieval Irish priest carried a staff, bell and holy book. The cane showed the power entrusted to him to guide the flock. The bell was used to call prayers & curse evildoers.

To add - I don't doubt that these staffs were used as weapons by priests etc. But the staff was meant to show him as a type of sovereign, akin to the rod of kingship or Zeus' scepter of Argos. The sage used his staff (knowledge) to beat alien spirits/idols away from his people.

The Irish poet was almost certainly a descendant class of the druid (filidh); both used a poetic style of rhymed verses to retain knowledge.