Milesians

Irish mythology

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Article History

Milesians, in Irish mythical history, name for the people who drove the race of gods, the Tuatha Dé Danann, below ground. The Milesians are thus the ancestors of the Celtic population of Ireland and it is stressed that they had an ancient right to the island when they came. According to the Medieval Irish historians the gods were driven from the surface and into the old burial mounds, where they were supposed to live on. The word for burial mound is “side,” pronounced “shee,” and this word is used for the otherworld in Irish tales up to the present. Thus, a banshee means a “woman from the burial mound.”