Tír na nÓg

Tír na nÓg is the best-known name for the Irish Otherworld paradise, a land of lasting youth, beauty and abundance somewhere beyond the western sea. It is one of several names for such places, along with Mag Mell, the "Plain of Delights", Emain Ablach, the "Isle of Apple Trees", and Tír Tairngire, the "Land of Promise".

The most famous story is that of Oisín, son of Fionn mac Cumhaill. Niamh of the Golden Hair, daughter of the sea god Manannán, called him to her land on a white horse. He lived there for what seemed like three years, but when he returned to Ireland three hundred years had passed and the Fianna were long gone. When he touched the ground he aged at once. In the usual versions he then meets Saint Patrick. This form of the tale is mostly known from the 18th-century poem by Michael Comyn, though earlier Fenian ballads tell of Oisín and Niamh too.

Older sources show the same idea. The 8th-century voyage tale Immram Brain, "The Voyage of Bran", describes an island of women across the sea, and Echtrae Chonnlai tells of a fairy woman who lures the prince Connla away. In these tales the Otherworld is near and far at once, reached by sea, by mist or through the sídhe mounds.