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The Tuatha Dé Danann fought two great battles that determined Ireland’s fate.
The First Battle of Mag Tuired was against the Fir Bolg, Ireland’s current inhabitants. It was brutal, honorable, and ultimately decisive. The Fir Bolg were brave but outmatched. The Tuatha Dé Danann wielded magic the Fir Bolg could not counter—druids calling fog and confusion, warriors fighting with enchanted weapons that never missed.
But victory came at cost. Nuada, the king, lost his right hand to a Fir Bolg champion’s sword. The wound was clean, the strike honorable, but Irish law was absolute: a blemished king could not rule. Nuada was deposed, and Bres—half-Tuatha Dé Danann, half-Fomorian—took the throne.
Bres was disaster. He was miserly where kings should be generous, hostile where they should be welcoming, cruel where they should be just. Under his rule, the Tuatha Dé Danann suffered. The poets composed satires so cutting that Bres broke out in boils. Shamed, he fled to his Fomorian kin and returned with an army of sea-demons.
The Second Battle of Mag Tuired pitted the Tuatha Dé Danann against the Fomorians—monstrous beings of chaos and ocean, enemies of order. This battle was apocalyptic. The Dagda wielded his club, which could kill nine men with one end and resurrect them with the other. Lugh, newly arrived and shining like the sun itself, took command and turned the tide. The Morrigan, triple goddess of war, flew over the battlefield as raven, inspiring terror in Fomorian hearts.
When the dust settled, the Fomorians were broken. Bres was captured but spared (he taught the Tuatha Dé Danann agricultural secrets in exchange for his life). Nuada was dead, slain by Balor of the Evil Eye. And Lugh—Lugh the Many-Skilled, Lugh the Shining One—became king.
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