Fionn mac Cumhaill is arguably the most important figure in Irish mythology, and he and his company – Na Fianna – are the subject of several thousand narratives collected in written and oral form across Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man (a collection known collectively as the Fenian Cycle). Because of its wide-spread origins,… Read more »
There’s quite an amusing story in the Guardian Newspaper site about an ‘ancient’ Scottish stone circle that actually turned out to be built in the 1990s (you can find it here: Stone Circle Story). It’s also a good example of how disconnected people from the “Celtic” countries can be from their own cultural heritage (and… Read more »
This is a picture of Labhraidh Loingseach, the mythological king/ancestor of the Leinster people (the Laighin) who’s probably most known in Ireland as the “King with Horses Ears”. The Irish version of the story (written in the 10th century) goes like this: “Labhraidh Loingseach was said to have had horse’s ears. He kept this secret… Read more »
I regularly get asked two questions related to the portrayal of 2nd century Ireland in my fiction works (particularly those based on the Fenian Cycle – the Fionn mac Cumhaill Series/ the Irish Woman Warrior Series). These are: Why do the Irish mythological characters never use bows? Why don’t they have any chariots? The reasons… Read more »
This is the hill known as Suí Finn – Fionn’s Seat (sadly anglicized to ‘Seefin’), a coastal view point on the beautiful Sheep’s Head peninsula in Cork (and the highest point on the peninsula). One of at least ten sites around the country with this name (or some derivative), most of them tend to be… Read more »
Because we specialize in culturally accurate Irish ‘mythology’, we come across a lot of examples where our culture is misrepresented (or manipulated to be something it’s not) but one of my absolute favourites of this whole “Oirish” genre is the following trailer for a film called “Finn MacCool” (they couldn’t even get the name right!).… Read more »
In the mid-eighteenth century, an English detective working in Dublin was assigned to investigate the disappearance of a missing Irishman. On travelling to the up-market suburb where this individual had lived in a tiny hovel amongst the splendid Georgian architecture, the detective questioned the various individuals that lived nearby. What the detective found surprised him.… Read more »
If you get a chance over the Christmas period, you might want to wallow in your “Irishnessness” with the animated satire of Flann O’Brien’s 1941 novel ‘An Béal Bocht’ (The Poor Mouth) which premiered last year at the Galway Film Fleadh. Flann O’Brien’s original tale was actually a fond piss-take of Irish autobiographies like Peig… Read more »
It’s been a hectic few weeks but the next tale in the Fionn mac Cumhaill Series is finally available. FIONN: THE TWISTED TALE is a short story set four years after the events in the last book in the series (FIONN: The Adversary). This story is only available in Kindle form (mobi) or in ePUB… Read more »
One of the things I love about Ireland is how the thin film of that present we inhabit is so often perforated by the reality of previous millennia. Many people believe that time travels in a linear fashion from past to present to future but of course that conceptual model doesn’t work in reality. The… Read more »
QUEEN MAEVE’S VULVA AND OTHER MATTERS This article in the Irish Times gives a very nice rundown on the astounding work carried out by the Placenames Branch of the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. In a sense, this particular group carries out a similar kind of preservation/conservation work to the very effective Irish… Read more »
I was lucky enough to catch up with Doireann Ní Ghríofa in the city this weekend where we met up for a brief interview at Capital Irish Radio. Doireann was in Wellington City as part of the Lit Crawl (a kind of literature festival taking place in Wellington this weekend that’s based on a pub… Read more »
A few years ago, a New Zealand friend asked if we were going to host another Sam Hayne party in November. The question actually threw me a bit at first (I thought he was referring to some traditional Irish musician I hadn’t heard of) until I realised he was actually talking about Samhain, the ancient festival… Read more »
The accepted view is that you can never go back to the past and of course, to a degree, that’s true. Personal experiences aren’t something you can really replicate, particularly the more intense ones, the formative ones that influence or create the core of your character and make you who you are. I managed to… Read more »
I’m always a bit wary when new films, books or games that use Ireland or Irish culture as a core part of their story are released. Many of these tend to target the “Oirish” market (the overly romantic Irish-identity market that flows from the Irish diaspora) or the “Celtic fantasy” market, which joyfully whips key… Read more »
[Photo by Alexander Csontala] Back in 2014, we came up with the idea for running a short story competition based on the cultural mythology of Ireland, Scotland and Wales (the ‘Celtic’ countries). They key aim of this project was to produce a number of free resources to help counter the huge volume of misinformation and… Read more »
It’s Te Wiki O Te Reo (Maori Language Week) here in New Zealand, a week when the general population are encouraged to speak Te Reo (meaning, literally, “the language”), attend classes or special events in Te Reo. As someone who works in the conservation and revival of Irish culture, I watch Te Wiki O Te… Read more »
Back in 2007, when I published my first collection of short stories, I called it “Leannán Sidhe – The Irish Muse”. I chose that title, not only because it was the title of the first story in that collection but because I believed (at the time) that it was a relevant Irish mythological concept to use.… Read more »
