When empires fall, their gods usually vanish. In pre-Christian Ireland they moved into the basement instead. This deep dive follows the Tuatha Dé Danann, the weather-controlling deities of Irish myth, from their sky-darkening arrival to their retreat beneath the mounds. We start with the name itself: the oldest texts call them simply the tribe of the gods, and the later addition of Danann may point to the goddess Danu or to the word for skill and craft, which fits a society where Lugh had to prove mastery of every art before the royal guard would let him through the door. Their names also connect to a pan-European pantheon, linking Lugh to Lugus, Brigid to Brigantia, and Nuada to Nodens.

The episode then explains how Christian monks preserved a pagan pantheon without committing heresy: appending Danann to separate them from the biblical Isr ...