The Christian propoganda bit is very true and must be weedled out of the rest. Luckily it is easy to spot.

We have to be thankful for the folklore, no matter how sketchy it is. Without the oral traditions of the Irish 'peasants' that were transcribed by the early monks here noone would have been able to say that Newgrange was the Bru na Dagda, nor would any of the monuments upon Tara have their names, as these were only re-assigned after careful translations of 7th century manuscripts by the great John O'Donovan in 1836.

It is also to be noted that many of the clerics that wrote down the old sagas and histories were (at first) very sympathetic to the 'old ways' and the initial writings were very different from later ones that suffered from the censors hand.

The Irish tales of the Fir-Bolg and Da Danaans, being a pre-celtic super race of demi-gods, does tally with the now agreed invasion/settlement cycle in Ireland.

There is a root behind all these tales. Yes, many of them are distorted by thousands of years of Chinese Whispers, but there are echoes in there of the orders of events or a superceded mythos/religion that is lost forever.

My problem with all this is: I know 70% of it is clap-trap, but which 70%?