The Irish fondness for
phallic pillars
suggests something about Irish (indeed, almost universal)
attitudes to fertility and male power,
but nothing about Celtic sexual tastes or preferences.
For these, the only source is the first century BC Greek historian and commentator
Diodorus Siculus
,
who, amplifying Aristotle's comments on Celtic male-on-male practices within the warrior class, wrote:-
'The men are much more sexually interested in each other than in women;
they lie around on animal skins and have full pleasure with a lover on either side of them.
The extraordinary thing is that they haven't the smallest regard for their personal dignity or self-respect;
they offer themselves to other men without the least compunction.
Moreover, this isn't looked down upon or regarded as in any way disgraceful:
on the contrary, if one is rejected by another to whom he has offered himself, he takes offence.'
Such philadelphic practices are also suggested in the Irish saga
Táin Bó Cuailgne
('The Cattle-Raid of Cooley'), in which the hero Cú Chulainn explains that he does not want to fight
his foster-brother and former buddy Ferdia:
Firm friends,
companions in the forest,
we made one bed and slept one sleep
in enemy lands after the fight.
