this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026

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Mildly Interesting

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End of Life Symbol - Irish hospital (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by aeronmelon@lemmy.world to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world

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This is posted in the waiting room of an Irish hospital. Interesting glimpse into their culture.

The full text of the poster

This symbol has been developed by the Hospice Friendly Hospitals Programme to respectfully identify the End of Life.

This symbol is inspired by ancient Irish history; it is not associated with any one religion or denomination.

The white spiral represents the interconnected cycle of life, birth, life and death.

The white outer circle represents continuity, infinity and completion.

Purple has been chosen as the background colour as it is associated with nobility, solemnity and spirituality.

In this hospital the symbol may be displayed on a ward to add respect and solemnity during end of life or following the death of one of our patients.

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[–] eyesonthetoad@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 days ago

Isn’t this one of the items you get in Zelda, Skyword Sword? Or maybe OoT?

[–] Hisse@programming.dev 1 points 6 days ago

is that Trisquel GNU/Linux?

[–] illi@piefed.social 115 points 1 week ago (2 children)

not associated with any one religion

Celtic pagans beg to differ I imagine

[–] velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 56 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Yeah I was a bit surprised at that line since I had always understood it to be a Celtic pagan symbol.

Can’t upset the Christians I guess -_-

[–] GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

Ireland has a sizeable Catholic population, and Catholicism has a habit of subsuming local pagan traditions and gods and reworking them as their own.

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 25 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It’s possible they meant their symbol and its use isn’t tied to any single belief. The symbol’s original meaning might be why they went out of the way to say so.

[–] velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This symbol has been in religious use for a long ass time.

They're just rebranding it.

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It has been in general use across loads of areas of Europe - not just Celtic ones, even accounting for how widespread Celtic cultures used to be - and also since thousands of years before Celtic cultures emerged as a distinguishable group. I don't think it'd be reasonable for any one group to claim ownership of it at this point

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 points 6 days ago

No, no, you see, it was designed by the Trisquel Project as the logo for their Linux distribution based on a deblobbed kernel /s

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[–] SarahValentine@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Ah yes, "pagan", that famously singular religion.

[–] velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 33 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (21 children)

Celtic Paganism does in fact refer to a particular pagan religion and set of beliefs/roots of those beliefs.

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[–] illi@piefed.social 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Paganism is incredibly diverse, I will give you that. "Pagan" is more of an umbrella term for many different beliefs with some common elements.

But christianity for example is also an umbrella term - you have catholicism (whis then has the many different orders and stuff under it), evanjelical christianity (with its many denominations) and orthodox church (which may or may not have different groups under it, I don't really know). And even two different people within one denomination of the larger group of christianity may hold a slightly different set of beliefs.

Paganism is just a larger umbrella. I also went with Celtic paganism as it narrows it down a little more, that's why I went for that rather than simply saying "paganism".

Now I get what the hospital tried to go for. But saying it is not tied to a religion is I think a little unfortunate.

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[–] velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 35 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The Celtic Triskele! My mom had a bunch of these in her jewelry and house decorations. We always honored it as a symbol for the maiden, mother, and crone.

If you visit Boyne Valley, one of the cultural highlights in ‘Ireland’s Ancient East’, you're likely to find the Celtic Triskele symbol at the entrance of the 5,000-year-old Newgrange Passage Tomb. It dates back to the Neolithic era, and boasts true beauty in a serene location. However, that's not the only place it can be found.

Markings and artifacts have been located in various ancient sites, which also show us that the Celtic Triskele became popular with the Celtic culture from 500 B.C. onwards. These artifacts can be discovered in Ireland, as well as Europe, and across America.

The Celtic Triskele was a symbol that had various meanings for the early Pagans. One of them was linked to the sun, triadic Gods, and the three domains of land, sea, and sky. As we mentioned above, the Triple Spiral was also believed to represent the cycles of life, as well as the Triple Goddess -the maiden, mother, and wise woman.

[–] Deconceptualist@leminal.space 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I got to see that in person! Newgrange is fascinating.

I know folks here are arguing about Celtic pagan culture but the spirals actually come from neolithic peoples from 5,000 years ago that we know very little about. They predate the Celts and the Picts and even the pyramid builders of ancient Egypt. We don't know their language, religion, or much of anything except that they were pretty good engineers, moved enormous stones tens or hundreds of kilometers, and had a thing for spiral motifs!

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[–] Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 29 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Looks like the Airbender symbol.

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[–] teft@piefed.social 27 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Ran by air benders?

I thought water benders were more likely to be healers.

[–] buffalobuffalo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

oh cool it's a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triskelion

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[–] dragnucs@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I came here to say it looks like the trisquel gnu Linux logo https://trisquel.info/. But found out from your comments it is the Celtic trisquel symbol. Confidence? I think not.

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[–] Dr_Nik@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

The hospitals I have been in recently in the US use a purple butterfly for the same purpose...it's really sad to see when walking around.

[–] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 week ago

I learned that in children's hospital's, the symbol is a butterfly. I could never look at a butterfly quite the same way after that.

[–] Mutterwitz@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Does anybody else get upset because it is not centered?

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[–] lian_drake@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

A triskel... odd choice

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

isn't this Brigid's symbol?

[–] It_Is1_24PM@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That woild be St Brigid's cross https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigid%27s_cross

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

Ah, thank you. For some reason I had the goddess Brigid associated with the triskele and maiden/mother/crone but there's so much overlap nowadays between goddess and saint that it's hard to find reliable sources on what was who.

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