The ortho-types aren't sure where the Danaan part of "Tuatha De Danaan" comes from. "Tuatha De" is recognised as "people of". Danaan can mean teachers just as well as the supposed superior beings or gods.
Thus spake Borry
And Zarathustra did also spake.
In English, an adherent of the faith is commonly called a Zoroastrian or a Zarathustrian. An older expression still used today is Behdin, meaning "follower of Daena", for which "Good Religion" is one translation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism
The beliefs of Zoroastrianism are extremely similar to Christianity, especially as preached by Jesus himself, and perhaps Pelagius. Even his life bears some similarities in that he had jealous enemies during his lifetime and he spent seven years in the wilderness in a cave on a mountain top.
Fire plays an important part in ritual and the adherents pray before a fire that should not be extinguished. In old Gaelic society the house fire was kept on all year round until it was to be renewed at which point a flame was taken from the fire and used to light the newly made one.
http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Religions ... uction.htm
That stick looks familiar with the horns on the top.
Zarathushtra called the religion he founded the "Daena Vanuhi" (Good religion). A person, when initiated as a Zarathushtrian and thereafter when praying, declares:
"I, with my appreciation and convictions choose for myself to be a worshipper of Omniscient God and a Zarathushtrian. I appreciate Good Thoughts, Good Words and Good Deeds. I appreciate the Good Religion of worshipping Omniscient God, which overthrow yokes yet sheaths swords, teaches self-reliance and is righteous."
The religion spread as far as northern China and later to India when islam arrived and forced people out.
Could it be possible that this religion also spread west and was already in Ireland when Christianity arrived?