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Liath Luachra 1 on Sale for the rest of December

To celebrate a decidedly good end to a pretty exhausting year!

The first Liath Luachra book – the first one adapted for the screen – is going onsale everywhere until the end of the year. You can find it here: https://irishimbasbooks.com/book/liath-luachra-the-grey-one/

Or in the ‘Books’ section.

Oirish Wargames!

I came across some interesting ‘Fianna’ warriors on the website of ‘Gripping Breast’ (an English ‘Wargames miniatures’ manufacturer) yesterday which made me smile. They’re currently selling ‘Oirish’ figurines for Wargamers and, for sure, it’s meant to be a bit of fun, but you’d think they’d at least try to get some of the basics right.

What struck me as particularly bizarre was ‘Griping Bleat’s’ translation of ‘fianna’ as “hearth guards” (er…?!).

Even more strange was their inclusion of “Irish mounted Fianna hearth guards” (do they really think people in 1st and 2nd century Ireland were using horses for large scale battles?).

My personal favourite, however, was the ‘Irish Fianna with Danish axes’ (the Danish axes turning up several hundred years after the Fianna were meant to be around).

Gripping Beats’ also seem to have a bit of a fascination with the ‘Irish Dark Ages’ (which is something I’ve not come across before).

Anyway, if you’re a Wargamer and you want ‘Oirish’ figurines, clearly ‘Gritty Bream’ looks like the place to supply you!   

Update On Liath Luachra 4

I’m currently working full blast on the remaining two chapters (and epilogue) for ‘Liath Luachra: The Metal Men’ but the book is now available for pre-order at Amazon and Kobo and soon thourgh the other major ebook stores. You can find the details here: Liath Luachra: The Metal Men Availability

At this stage, it looks as though at least two (earlier) chapters will need to be removed and reworked for use in a separate book in the series (Liath Luachra 5). Unfortunately, I won’t have a title or any kind of release date for that for several months (as I want to complete Fionn: Stranger at Mullán Bán for a June 2022 release).

Some other good news is that interest in the potential television series seems to have raised its head again. That doesn’t mean, of course, that it’ll actually go to green light. There are always at least a dozen or more other variables on those kinds of decisions.

I guess, like Book 5, we’ll just have to wait and see.

The Problem with Series

I was trying to explain to someone yesterday about how I ended up having four different book series on the go at the same time.

Beara Dark Legends (first book in the Beara Trilogy) was my first book but it’s the type of book that takes ages to write (the plot isn’t linear and it actually consists of two different – but interlinked – stories). As a result, I started the Fionn mac Cumhaill Series.

After two of those, I wrote the first Liath Luachra book as a prequel to that series but it ended up being more popular so I wrote a second one. When Hollywood showed an interest I had to write two more as they wanted enough content for three seasons if it got off the ground. As a result, I currently have three Liath Luachra (Irish Woman Warrior Series) books out and a fourth in the works.

Needless to say, I get at least one email every month from readers demanding the 2nd Beara, the 4th Fionn, the 4th Liath Luachra etc.

Sheesh!

Do not do what I did.

A find in the Bog Down in the Valley-oh!

A very good article here on the Fadden More Psalter (a copy of the biblical Psalms) which was miraculously discovered in an Irish bog (at Fadden More) back in 2006. It was pure chance the operator of a peat-harvesting machine noticed it in his machine bucket and had the nous to contact the National Museum.


The Psalter itself holds 150 psalm (the opening letter in each, marked by a capital letter) and comprises sixty vellum sheets in total. Testing revealed that the text was written with iron gall ink, and a number of other decorative pigments. It’s estimated to be 1200 years old. It’s not the oldest writing material in Ireland but it’s certainly the most important literary find of the last few decades


I did quite a lot of research on Irish paleography (the study of ancient and medieval scripts) and codicology (the study of ancient and medieval books) while writing Beara: Dark Legends. That was one of the reasons it took me over two and a half years to complete the novel. To be honets, I was just completely fascinated by the technical side of it and it amazed me how much you could glean from both an analysis of the text as well as the book itself as a physical object.
It’s a bit of a shame but many of the ancient Irish manuscripts (or the remaining fragments of them) are held in overseas universities – often for very relevant reasons.


But that’s another story.

You can find the link HERE

The Irish Imbas Patreon Page

Last month, after some extended consideration, we decided to open up an Irish Imbas Patreon page. We did this primarily for two reasons:

  • A lot of the content from the Irish Imbas website and our monthly newsletter (Vóg) was being plagiarised and used (usually inappropriately) by individuals for their own commercial purposes
  • My personal dislike of the monopolistic tech companies (Facebook. Amazon, Google etc.) and a desire to separate my work from them

For a while, we’d been considering options to allow a more targeted mechanism for providing increase outputs to those people who support what we do. Given all the above, we’ve decided to trial Patreon for the next year or so.


You can find the IRISH IMBAS PATREON page HERE:
 
There you’ll discover that you can sign up to two different membership levels:

  1. ‘Tuath’ (tribe – level) – $1/month. This is designed for people who are primarily interested in aspects of Irish culture (as well as my writing).
  2. ‘Fénnid’ (fian member – level) – $2/month. This is designed for people who are primarily interested in my writing and the other topics as well

The full Vóg newsletter (10-11 issues/year) will go out to those who’ve signed up for the ‘Tuath’ and the ‘Fennid’ level. This will resemble the newsletter we’ve been putting out over the last 2/3 years, although there will be a slightly stronger return to areas such as Irish mythology which I’ve had to stop writing about (due to the aforementioned plagiarism issues).

Obviously, there’s absolutely no obligation to sign up. This is really only for those who’d like to receive more content/products from us directly

An Irish Imbas Books newsletter will continue to go to those already on the Irish Imbas mailing list although, from this point on, that will focus primarily on books


At a later date, I’ll also be setting up a third membership level (Mythology level) for those who are interested in learning about Irish (and other) mythology.  I’m still in the process of designing this to make sure it works, so it probably won’t be available for a few months at least.

Thanks to those of you who’ve already supported Irish Imbas through Patreon. We’re looking forward to sending some exclusive goodies your way soon.

Here a link to the sign-up form again: Irish Imbas Patreon

Liath Luachra and Red Sonya

I get an email every now and again where people ask if the Liath Luachra character is based on the Red Sonya character. She isn’t, of course, but the development of the Red Sonya character is actually quite interesting in itself.

The original Red Sonya was ‘Red Sonya if Rogatino’, a red-haired woman warrior from the book ‘The Shadow of the Vulture’, which was written by Robert E. Howard (creator of the famed ‘Conan the Barbarian’ books). Published in the 1930s, it was more historical fiction than the pure fantasy of his better known works and set during the Ottoman invasion of 16th century Europe (and more specifically around the first Siege of Vienna). In the book, Red Sonya is actually a lesser character to the main protagonist – Gottfried von Kalmbach – who she helps in the defence of the city.

The Red Sonya character also drew a lot from one of Howard’s other characters called Dark Agnes de Chastillon, a red-haired woman who turned up in a trio of stories set in 16th Century France: ‘Sword Woman’, ‘Blades for France’ and ‘Mistress of Death’ (you can probably get these online but I’ve not read them so I’ve no idea if they’re any good or not).  

Much later (sometime in the 1970s), Marvel Comics picked up some rights to the Howard characters and used them to develop a new sword and sorcery character to “attract the lady fans” to their ‘Conan the Barbarian’ line of comics (which is still running today). The character apparently pulled in some readers, although given the signature (and misogynistic) metallic bikini armour she wears, I suspect they were predominantly male.

A number of books were published over the 1980s and in 1985, a film called Red Sonja was released (again, hoping to ride on the coat-tails of the Arnold Schwarzenegger ‘Conan The Barbarian’ movie released the year before). That movie stared Brigette Nielsen and I can vaguely remember seeing it back in the day. I have the sense that it was ‘not great’ but to be honest, I can’t really recall.

Actually, now that I think about it, I do seem to remember Nielsen being a terrible actor … but I may be doing her an injustice. There are talks of a new film in development with the character and given the #metoo and heightened awareness on diversity, I suspect this will be very different (if it goes ahead).

I first came across the character about ten years ago as the Marvel comic did some lazy cultural theft by bringing a goddess called Scáthach into the story (sigh!). In that version it’s the …. cough … Goddess Scáthach who gives Red Sonya her heightened fighting skills.

Because of my own culture and background, the Liath Luachra character I developed is very much a character of mythological fiction, an done based on a very strong cultural basis. The Red Sonya character however rests deep within the fantasy genre. That’s a place I’ve increasingly avoided over the last few years as so many people don’t seem to understand the difference between ‘fantasy’ and ‘mythology’.

That’s something, of course, I’ll be working on over the next few years.

Irish Fires on Facebook

There’s an old adage that goes something along the lines of ‘we mostly make friends with those who agree with us’. Some of the truth behind that adage is subtly evident in modern social media but it tends to be particularly interesting from an Irish viewpoint.

Observing social media patterns – particularly in the Irish-related Facebook Groups – it quickly becomes evident that there’s a tangible cultural divide between native Irish people and the descendants of Irish people from overseas, an interesting development in ‘Groups’ supposedly built for a common interest. Many of the ‘Irish’ Facebook Groups (sometimes referred to as ‘Oirish’ Groups by native Irish) are established by (and populated by) the descendants of Irish people who have a slightly outdated and ‘rose-tinted spectacles’ view of Ireland and its people. As a result, when native Irish members point out the erroneous beliefs and outright untruths that are posted, online engagement quickly descends into open conflict – helpfully aided by provocative Facebook algorithms that toss petrol on the ‘conversational flames’. Add in the Celtic Recreationists, White Supremacist Celts, Profit-Driven Pagans and others using Facebook Groups to drive their own agenda and you quickly end up with a toxic environment where there’s simply no point in engagement.

One of the reasons behind that disparity of engagement is that although people come to such Groups out of a relatively common interest, they also come with different purposes and, more importantly, bearing very different cultural values, something that has become starkly visible in the most recent ‘Global Trends Survey.’

Irish journalist Fintan O’Toole has an explanatory article on the results of that Survey from an Irish perspective and the huge difference between Irish, American, English (and other) cultural values makes fascinating reading. If you want to understand the war between Oirish and Irish, you can find O’Toole’s article here.

The Metal Men

I’m deep into writing the last 3-4 chapters of Liath Luachra: The Metal Men at the moment – which concludes the adventure commenced in the previous book (Liath Luachra: The Seeking).

At this stage, I’m hoping to have a close to final draft ready by Christmas but the upcoming holiday season means the final draft won’t be ready until the end of January 2022.

This particular book is a turning point in the series in that it brings a number of the plotlines to a close but there are still several others that need another book to tie up (and some, of course, that continue into the subsequent Fionn mac Cumhaill Series. As a result, it’s taking a bit of time to get the balance of plot and theme the way I want them.

I’m looking forward to getting this out there and seeing if I’ve got it right or not.

‘Michael’ Colins is 25 years old!

“Before I’d finished the final draft there were items on TV, and historians commenting… it was almost like I’d been commissioned to make a national monument.”

A very interesting and insightful article on the making of ‘Michael Colins’ … now one of Ireland’s digital national monuments.

It woul have been interesting to see what Kevin Costner’s vision looked like but I’d have to agree … It probably wouldn’t have been as good.

You can find the link here: Michael Collins

Out Drinking with the Witches

This piece (below) was actally the introduction to a Facebook post from six years ago which I’d linked back to the Irish Imbas website. I’ve since made the original article private but it’s probably a timely reminder to revisit the issue given the gradual decline of Wicca and its displacement by a more ‘Oirish’ branded Paganism.

Generic, ‘spiritually-themed’ religions tend to come and go with relative frequency. Often, this is because the commercial drivers behind them eventually reveal the lack of cultural authenticity and the lack the ‘resonance’ or ‘staying power’ of larger /mainstream religions (i.e. which you can probably inteprete as having been introduced with the force of a government or other power base behind them).

I’ll probably do a post on that soon through Patreon and the website.


Years ago, while waiting to be served at a bar in Glandore, I met a pair of witches over on holiday from England. After they told me that, they both kind of stood there waiting, clearly expecting a bit more of a reaction.

What they couldn’t have known, of course, was that over the years in West Cork, we’ve seen waves of foreign new-agers, alternative life-stylers, hippies and artists come and go, all with different belief systems and claims. Having someone tell me they were a witch wasn’t really that shocking. Once, someone in Bellydehobb insisted he was a robot. Another person I went fishing with was convinced he was half-rock. It gets a bit weird down there sometimes.