The Astrology Chart of Modern Ireland
by Anne Barr

The bad news and the better news.

Modern Ireland was born in 1916 on the 24th of April. Records say it was “just after midday” on Easter Monday when Pádraig Pearse read the Proclamation outside the GPO in O Connell St. Dublin.

The positions of the planets and stars at this fate-filled moment continue to have a great influence on our national psyche and events. This star-map will be with us until a United Ireland is declared when a new national chart will supersede this one.

Many people take the Ireland Act of 1948 as the birth moment of modern Ireland. Perhaps that sounds more official and formal to some, being a British Act of Parliament. I consider that event to symbolise the birth of the present territory of the UK, without most of Ireland. That act describes British resignation and recognition that they were significantly defeated by the events that started in 1916, the beginning of the end of the British empire.

If you ask any Irish person anywhere in the world when Ireland was born they’ll say Easter Monday 1916. That moment of bravery and self sacrifice is seared into our DNA.

That timing was in no way accidental. Easter and the midday position of the Sun were deliberately chosen by the Catholic rebels to symbolise the Resurrection and a bright light shining upon Ireland, a sovereign nation amongst nations.

There were astrologers amongst the intellectuals who supported the rebels, such as AE and Yeats, but no sign that astrology played any role in choosing the moment of our rebirth.

We are privileged to have such an inspiring birth moment, rather than a cold contract, between elites and for elites. You could say this was a natural home-birth, born of love, sacrifice and passion!

The poetry and depth of the Proclamation still echoes today. It’s worth a read now and then to remind us of our roots and our destiny.

What is a birth chart? A quick explanation for non-astrologers.

A birth chart is a simplified map of the heavens, frozen at a certain moment in time and from the perspective of a specific location on Earth, where you or I might have been born. Or where a country was born. Or where the cornerstone of a house was laid.

Every one and every thing whose birth time can be roughly defined can have a birth chart. The foundation stones of some great cities such as Baghdad and Cairo were laid at exact moments chosen by astrologers.

You can often find the answers to an important question by calculating a birth chart for the moment it was asked. Astrology has developed endless applications through its thousands of years in existence.

Your birth chart is not you. It merely shows the planetary influences that were present at your birth. It doesn’t define your soul or your consciousness or whatever you want to call it. You only have to look at the differences between twins or 2 people who were born at the exact same time to see that the stars don’t have all the answers, because people with identical birth charts may have quite different lives. Anyone who has spent time in a birthing room will tell you that newborns are not small blank slates. Their individuality is palpable even before they draw their first breath.

Astrology works on the assumption that everything is born in its own time, so the fact that the Uprising was planned for the day before, Easter Sunday, has no bearing on the charts’ validity, just like an induced or cesaerean-delivered child is born at the exact right time for that baby.

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Back to the astrology chart of Ireland.

Let’s start with the bad news:

When the present State of Ireland was born on Easter Monday 1916, the Moon was at 28 degrees of the constellation of Capricorn (each of the 12 constellations of the Zodiac is divided up into 30 degrees) and it had just set below the western horizon.

(As the Moon zips around the Earth she visits each of the zodiac signs every month.)

In the chart of a country the Moon represents the People, and most especially the Women, in this case Mná na hÉireann. The theory behind this astrological symbolism is very traditional and possibly annoying to some people - the Moon i.e. the People passively receive light from their leaders who are represented by the Sun, the Lord of our solar system and we women receive our light from our menfolk who are also represented by the Sun. Remember, astrology is several thousands of years old! And we do still mostly outsource our political responsibilities to our leaders, pay them excessively well and don’t even expect them to do a good job any more! And men do still mainly occupy the top jobs in the public worlds of business and politics.

Symbolically the Moon guards our cultural and family traditions, our mothers, our comfort food, our kitchens and all the things that give us a sense of home and clan. These are values we absorb with our mothers milk so they are instinctive rather than intellectual.

Capricorn is a tough place for our Moon. It is the Zodiac sign of deep winter, of thriftiness in scarcity, and the hard work of survival. So it gives us grit and perseverance and the ability to live on hard work and the bare minimum. A good example would be the women who kept the family farms running while the men had to go away to make money in England or Scotland.

This tough old Moon (and it was a waning i.e. an old Moon) holds the memories of the Famine whose horrors spurred the Uprising. As Capricorn is the sign that takes its duty seriously and has great respect for the wisdom of old age the Moon here represents the Irish Matriarchy. The archetype of the Cailleach has always been with us, and the Irish Mammy.

Our Moons’ position just below the Western horizon was in a section of the sky known as the 6th House. This position has connotations of poverty, ill health, drudgery and servitude especially for women. We have only to think of the mother-and-baby homes to see the truth of that.

You might be asking by now if the astrological depiction of the people of Ireland could be any worse? Well it could and it is!

(I repeat, our chart has a fabulous side as well but we’re looking at the dark side of the Moon first).

On that Easter Monday in 1916 our Moon was opposite the planet Neptune. Neptune was in the very last days of its 12 years meandering through the constellation of Cancer. Neptune is the symbol of sacrificing oneself for the greater good. This period (1901 to 1916) gave rise to idealism and sacrifice for the homeland and family (Cancer). Like the Moon, Neptune depicts powerful emotions beyond the control of the logical mind. The heroic rebels who were sure Ireland was worth dying for were typical of the idealistic, self-sacrificing patriotism of this era. As was the tragic mythos of WW1 that killed a whole generation of young European men.

Sacrifice means someone or something is sacrificed. Neptune rules Pisces, the sign of the two fish, which is also the ancient sign for Christianity. The horrific story of the self-sacrifice of Jesus has been one of the dominating stories of the Age of Pisces. The age of Pisces started around the time of Jesus’ birth and is ending now as we gradually enter the age of Aquarius. Each age lasts just over 2,000 years and is defined astronomically by the Precession of the Equinoxes, caused by the long, slow, circular wobble of the Earths axis.

The high ideals of Neptune are often coupled with naivety and gullibility. Our Moon opposite our Neptune shows our naive tendency to be easily deceived because we just love those rose-coloured glasses. We want to believe the best of ourselves and of others, that we are nice and that others are nice too. This national addiction to seeing ourselves as very nice and very kind has become a kind of tyranny. And it is an easy trait to manipulate through guilt trips.

You only have to look at the hopeless-victim version of Irish history we have been taught in our schools to see how this poor-us version of ourselves has been officially encouraged. Were you taught to be proud of our independent fighting spirit in your history lessons? I bet not unless you had a rare history teacher.

But before you go off to drown your sorrows in despair (that’s another meaning of our Moon and Neptune positions – unhealthy escapism) this is only one part, the most difficult part, of our amazing birth chart and it really is amazing. Of course it is, it had to be, we were the first country to defeat the British empire. (except for USA which had the advantage of being surrounded by much more water than we were). The Rising reverberated around the world amongst the many nations terrorised by British colonialism and it inspired people in ways we can hardly imagine today.

But still we need to carry on looking at the disaster areas of our chart as we are in difficult times.

Back to our Moon and Neptune.

In the last few years from early 2022 till late 2024 Pluto has been passing through the part of the sky where our natal national Moon was in 1916 and opposite the position of our natal Neptune.

When I first saw this upcoming event and talked about it, in January 2020 at an astrology club in Dublin, I thought to myself, Oh dear there’s going to be an ever bigger crash than 2008 that will radically reduce our living standards. I recommended people take their money out of banks, invest in land and begin grow food in community. But instead of a banking crisis a la 2008, in 2020 we got a managed crash through the pandemic policies.

This allowed for the greatest upward movement of wealth and resources ever seen in world history.

Not to mention an extremely dodgy “medicine” that has caused and will cause more deaths than the disease it was meant to cure.

Pluto means radical change, deep transformation, death, and eventually, when you least hope for it, rebirth. When Pluto passes over the Moon in the 6th house of a national chart an astrologer would expect several results.

1) Drastic change (Pluto) in the Peoples (Moon) health (6th house). That has happened: lockdowns and dangerous, untested, medical interventions have taken a tragic toll in many peoples lives. And they will continue to do so.

2) Whether you agree with, disagree with or are neutral about mass immigration it has permanently changed the composition of the population of Ireland over the past few years.

Although official figures are somewhat vague, from 2015 to early 2024 a lot of new people came into this country looking for a better life. We don’t really know by how much our population has increased during that time but you only have to walk through the bigger towns and cities and even many small towns and villages to see that the change is substantial.

Whether you object to or accept this change is irrelevant at this point. Ireland has a considerable new mix of ethnicities. It’s a done deal now and it is up to all of us how we handle the new situation and the secretive policies behind it.

The greatest extent and clear intentionality of this transformation of Irish life took place during the years that Pluto transited over our Moon. According to astrology something in the population of Ireland had to change radically during that time.

The 6th house and the sign of Capricorn where our Moon is, as stated already, signify scarcity, even poverty. Most of the new people coming in have little or no resources and need considerable help to start new lives. This puts great pressure on social services and housing. All of this is in line with our Capricorn Moon in the 6th house.

Pluto is the god of the fabulous riches found under the earth. He gives us the word Plutocracy, the unelected people who are rich beyond our understanding and who control our governments.

When Pluto transits natal planets it often signifies a change that is manipulated by great forces from the outside.

The powerful interests who control housing and food for the immigrants are laughing all the way to the bank, whilst ordinary Irish people and refugees alike compete for scant resources and waste time in mutual resentment rather than confront the architects of this situation.

Pluto signifies the process of death and rebirth; can we say that the previous ethnic mix of the peoples who call themselves Irish has died and is, hopefully, being reborn.

Our attitudes to ourselves as a people is changing. "Céad míle fáilte" (a hundred thousand welcomes) rings hollowly these days for many people whose communities are changing too rapidly and with no consultation. At the same time the newly arrived people have left old lives irrevocably behind and are starting entirely new lives. That is also a death-and-rebirth.

Death and rebirth are not processes we feel that we have control over. So they often are frightening and feel even more frightening than they are.

Does astrology offer any advice or clarity on this?
- Let’s see if it does:

It was necessary to concentrate on the difficult aspects of our Capricorn Moon first because when transiting Pluto passes over the Moon it draws out the poison and the fear first. Only then is real healing possible.

Now let’s look at the strengths of our Moon.

The Moon represents our culture and Capricorn represents traditions. Culture and tradition we have in spades. Importantly, our culture does not belong to the elites but to the ordinary people. This is so normal to us that we don’t realize how unusual it is, how deeply democratic our culture is. Anyone who has attended a few Irish music sessions knows how true this is!

Somehow, through all the invasions, the essence of Irishness has stayed. Capricorn is known for its ability to stick it out through hard times. And for it’s respect for ancient knowledge.

I don’t mean to imply that teaching migrants a few tunes or cúpla focail is going to solve the tensions. Not at all. We have been landed with a serious country-wide problem that will need multiple solutions.

If the art of astrology can be of any help in a situation like this – and maybe it can’t – perhaps it can give us the inkling of an objective viewpoint. The stars don’t take sides. They show us the energies available at a particular time and place and it is up to us to use them as we see fit.

The position of our national Moon, signifying the People and our Culture and Homeland, was set at 28 degrees Capricorn on midday 24th April 1916. There’s not much we can do to change that without access to a time-travel machine! Pluto was always set to pass over our national Moon position between 2022 and 2024. So according to astrology we were destined or pre-programmed to go through this death-and-rebirth process as a nation in those years. It was unavoidable. However, we have some choice in how we react.

To demonstrate with a tragic but admirable example of another country going through a similar Pluto-Moon transit: Palestine was born (15th October 1988 in Algiers just after midnight) with the Moon exactly where our Moon is. In spite of unbelievable televised genocide and inhumane cruelty these people will not be moved from their homeland.

We can’t compare our situation to that of Palestine. No one is bombing us. We have food. Our bellicose neighbour is better behaved these days. Even at Britains most bloodthirsty times it could not be compared to Zionist Israel. And we are fortunate that we are not situated on one of the worlds most important trade routes nor in a major oil-producing area.

Nonetheless the similarities are strong enough to be noteworthy. They always have been. The violent British military and politicians who began the destruction of Palestine were trained in Ireland first. Balfour was chief secretary of Ireland, a hardline and successful defender of landlordism before he enacted the heinous Balfour Declaration in 1917. That marked the official beginning of this long genocide. Many Black-and-Tans went to Palestine after their murderous adventures in the Irish War of Independence.

The positive aspects of our 6th house

The 6th house, besides being the house of hard times, is also the house of service, when we help others just for the sake of it rather than for praise or money. Irish people are known by charities world-wide for their generous giving.

I bet that the present unrest about the flood of migrants stems partly from our frustration that the Irish sacredness of hospitality cannot be fulfilled like it used to be. The floods of new people have caused serious imbalances in health services and housing that impede our natural delight in welcoming people. And of course the gombeen men and the cute hoors raking in the euros from legalised human trafficking are delighted that we are fighting each other rather than themselves, the real culprits, and holding them to account.

The myth of Pluto, the god of the underworld, provides clear directions where to find the agents of the social chaos and pandemic pandemonium of the last few years. Pluto was the invisible god of the fabulous riches found under the earth. He gives us the word Plutocracy – invisible rule by the super wealthy for their own interests.

It was probably unavoidable that when Pluto passed over the Moon we felt our sense of home and security and our connection to our mother land was threatened. But after descending into the depths of feeling homeless, and in too many cases suffering real, actual homelessness, we are emerging with a much stronger and fearless sense of where we belong and what belongs to us. That is how Pluto operates. He makes us lose fear through confronting us with what we most fear.

Pluto wants us to own our Power. Pluto transiting the Moon/People is quite simply:

Power to the People!

We are just beginning to realise how much we have.

Closing remarks

My apologies if this has been long-winded, but informing ourselves of the long view of current geopolitical changes might be almost as important as knowing where our next pot of spuds and cabbage is going to come from.

This is just a fraction of our national chart. I’ll add more over the coming months.

A more in-depth study of our chart shows that radical changes to our country were planned around 1989 to 1995 and took a big step forward in 2008... That’s for another article. This one is already too long.