Sometimes it’s best to kill a man fast.
Other times it makes sense to take it slow, to work the movements and the killing strokes in advance.
This is such a time.”
Ireland: First/Second Century
In the isolated valley of Gleann Ceoch, a dying warrior is assigned to defend the isolated settlement of Ráth Bládhma (future home of Fionn mac Cumhaill) from an incursion of enemy scouts.
This experimental format story in Irish and English will be released in May 2021 – final date yet to be confirmed.
Galway’s Macnas are probably Ireland’s most innovative live ‘theatre’ group – they’re certainly one of the most visually spectacular.
As an alternative to the plastic 2021 St Paddy’s experience (Covid-19 version) therefore, you might want to consider checking out their Galway 2020 commission – Gilgamesh.
As mythological epics go, this one is an interesting narrative and Macnas do their usual magic on visuals and mood.
You can find the site here: Gilgamesh
It’s always nice when a box of books arrives at the door, a delivery I tend to limit to once a year. Usually, this occurs only when I’m releasing one of my own books (Liath Luachra: The Seeking, in this case) or printing off a small number of books for presents/reviews, or treating myself to a rare book gift from home.
This year however, given the Covid-19 pandemic, there’s a particular poignancy to the annual ritual. I’m currently based in New Zealand (something I’m very grateful for every day) – an isolated island at the edge of the planet. It’s very difficult to make or to receive deliveries here due to the international mail disruption and the reduced number of aircraft carrying goods to this part of the world. To send a book to America from here, can currently take up to four weeks. To Australia (just “across the ditch”) it can take three.
And just last week (early March), I recieved a whole bunch of Christmas mail from Ireland.
This year, I couldn’t get the books I wanted to order from lreland so I focussed instead on updating my own stock. In the scheme of things, of course, I’ve nothing to complain about.
I’m more than happy with that.
With the ‘soft’ release of Liath Luachra: The Seeking, I now have a slight breather where I can mull over future works in the pipeline and consider what’s coming up next.
In terms of “Definitely Coming Soon”, I can confirm priority on the following projects:
(1) Camhaoir Fuilsmeartha/ Dark Dawn
This Irish/English language project will be released in May/June 2021. You can find a little more information on this at: HERE.
(2) Liath Luachra: The Metal Men
Given that this completes the story in ‘The Seeking’ I’m keen to get this finished and released as soon as possible. I’m feeling pretty confident about getting this out as five chapters are already in ‘close to final’ draft (i.e. they’re written but haven’t yet been touched by the red pens of partner K (my first ‘rough’ reader) and editor Madame Palamino Blackwing.
(3) Fionn: Stranger from Mullán Bán This novel has been sitting patiently in my drawer for well over a year now. The first six chapters are done and dusted so this will be the immediate priority after ‘The Metal Men’. As usual though, its completion will depend on the intensity of my freelance work and how much publishing time I have available. The first chapter/short story can be found here on the Irish Imbas website (Fionn: The Twisted Trail)
New and Potential Projects
From past experience, I know it’s just impossible to foresee what I’ll be prioritising once these initial three projects are completed. Every year for the past five years, some major event has unexpectedly slammed in from the side and thrown all my well-laid plans to the winds. At present, these are the projects on my work table. Hopefully by the end of the year, I’ll have a better idea which ones I’ll be working on.
(1) Irish Mythology Project
This is a substantial non-fiction project I’ve been working for over two years. Basically, it’ll explain – in a practical manner – how Irish mythology works, how you can use it apporpriatey and effectively and how you can make it personally relevant (or not).
(2) Smaller Irish Mythology Project
This is a fiction-based mythology project. Possibly another Short Story Collection – I’m not entirely sure yet.
(3) A Liath Luachra novella
A prequel-novella based on an event in Liath Lauchra’s life during her first year with Na Cinéaltaí.
(4) Beara 2 and Beara 3
This is a substantial piece of work given the size of the existing book but I’m keen to get this story finished.
(5) An Irish Battle Series
This is a short, three-book series based on on the events leading up to a major Irish battle and the people who took part in it.
(6) Cú Chulainn
I’ve also recently been thinking of doing a series on Cú Chulainn (i.e. from an Irish/Gaelic perspective as opposed to the anglicized fantasy stuff that’s usually served up). The Cú Chulainn story is actually one that’ll be very difficult to adapt for a contemporary audience while keeping it culturally authentic. I suspect this will probably take a lot of commitment in terms of time (for research, scoping and actual writing).
Please feel free to let me know if any of these projects sound of interest to you.
I had a bit of fun with ‘Facebook Shops’ recently.
A recent attempt by the social media company to break into the eCommerce market, I’d generally avoided Facebook Shops in the past as it was simply too difficult to load products onto it. Remarkably complicated and driven by a clunky algorithm, it always seemed to come up with some amusingly obscure reason for rejecting my books. After loading the few books it would accept, I left the others and promptly forgot about it.
A few days ago when I was launching another book (called ‘Liath Luacra: The Seeking’) I decided to try Facebook Shops again for visiblity reasons but ended up with an even more surreal response than ususal. An adventure series dealing with the experiences of a young woman warrior in 1st century Ireland (and linked to the Fenian Cycle), the book cover depicts the protagonist – a very feral character – in a scene where she’s adorned in black and white war paint. This is the cover:
When I submitted the book cover to Facebook Shops, this was the response I received. Note the policy that Facebooks says I’ve violated!
Apparently, the Facebook algorithm thinks she’s a zebra!!
As promised, Liath Luachra: The Seeking is finally being released today. It’s something of a ‘soft’ launch however (in that you wont see much fanfare) as the book will only be available in digital form through the Irish Imbas Books website (and in paperback form through Amazon) for the next month or two. After that, it’l lbe relased wider.
Part of the reason for this apporach is that the story’s a two-parter to be completed in Liath Luachra: The Metal Men, which I’m hoping to finish and release in the next 4-5 months or so. I’m not overly comfortable putting out a completely unfinished story but people were demanding something be released and this seemed like a good medium.
It’ll be interesting to see the reaction the cover gets when it’s released wider than this website. As covers go, it’s a bit confrontational and controversial (given the naked – albeit desexualised – woman on it). Those who know the character or who’ve read the book will ‘get it’, of course.
Brian Mahy – an artist who I really enjoy working with – was given the task of designing a cover that represents a scene from the book where the character is naked. To do this, I asked him to make the protagonist clearly recognisable as feminine while also ensuring it wasn’t sexualised. I think he did an excellent job of that and also in reflecting the ferla nature of the character. You can find more of Bryan’s work at Bryan Mahy Artstation or Bryan Mahy Behance.
Where Can I Get IT?
You can get the digital version HERE.
The paperback version on Amazon is available HERE but note that this link may change depending on which country you’re living in. If you search for it, it’ll probably only appear if you look it up in the ‘Books’ section as oposed to the ‘Kindle’ section. If you’re based in Great Britian – the whole Brexit mess menas a lot of books don’t appear on Amazon UK.
I have to admit, it’s not my preference to make the paperback available uniquely on Amazon, unfortunately most other paperback distributers have made it too expensive to go through them at the moment.
By the way, you should also be aware that there appear to be delays with the shipping of paperback products from Amazon. I ordered several paperback copies recently for review purposes and probably won’t get them until mid- to end- March. If you’re downloading through the Bookfunnel system meanwhile, remember that it can take up to two hours (admittedly rare) to receive the file and if you have a gmail address the email may end up in one of the more obscure folders.
Recently, the Cherokee Nation in the United States gave notice to Stellantic – the company making ‘Cherokee Jeeps’ – that it was time to stop using their name and culture for commercial branding purposes. This followed actions by other American tribes (e.g. pressures on the Washington Redskins football team to change their name, the Navaho tribe taking J.K. Rowling to account for her use of their cultural belief systems for her ‘fantasy magic’ stories etc. etc.) and indigenous peoples in other countries to prevent the misuse and misrepresntation of their culture by commerical entities.
Ireland’s in an interesting place in that regard. We’re not an indigenous people like native Americans – except perhaps in Ireland (or parts of it!) – yet our history means that we’ve ended up one of the few countries in the western world where individuals and commercial entities from other countries feel completely free to come in and ‘cherry pick’ aspects from it, for their own commerical purposes.
That’s a very simplistic summary of course. There are many different aspects to this and very many layers which first need to be looked at before we can even start to understand how we got to where we are.
Still, it’s an interesting parallel and I’m seeing an increased levels of anger amongst Irish people at the way in which ‘Irishness’ is transformed to ‘Oirishness’ for commercial and branding reasons.
‘Wild Mountain Thyme’ anyone?
You can find a link to a Guardian article on the Cherokee situation here:
Attached is a short but interesting video on Brian Boru from an old television series called ‘Ancient Warriors‘.
This being an American series, much of the pronunuciation of Irish names and terms is pretty dodgy and the producers seem to have got their locations badly mixed up. That said, they do cover the inter-tribal discord and Brian Boru’s early years fighting the Danes quite well.
For several years, when Brian Boru was in his early twenties, he waged a guerilla war against the Danes around Limerick and other parts of western Munster. Although records of the time are sparse, he seems to have created some serious disruption for them over that period. Living a tenuous existence with his fian, his shortage of men, tribal support and resources menat that he coudl never do more than carry out ambushes and surprise attacks before quickly retreating to the relatively safety of marshes and hidden caves.
This and violent lifestyle inevitably led to attrition over time and many of Brian’s followers were either killed or deserted him. It wasn’t until his tribe – the Dal gCais – finally committed some resource, that Brian was able to move on to bigger and better things.
Unlike many of the Irish heroes described as warriors, Brian Boru did appear to deserve that description and the ‘up close and personal’ battle experiences would have helped his later – far more strategic – battle planning.
Over those early two to three years however, Brian and his men lived a life very much like Na Fianna as described in some detail in my own books on the topic.
You can find the link to the video here: Brian Boru
It’s interesting when you use different languages for what’s supposed to be the same thing or the same word defining the ‘thing’. The problem, of course, is that langauge is culturally-based and, often, a word cannot be directly translated or even explained without a good understanding of the culture in question.
In English, the word ‘druid’ has really taken on a kind of ‘magic’ or ‘fantasy’ element in contemporary times. In Irish (Gaelic), because it’s quite a different culture (and a different way ot thinking), the word has a somewhat different context. That’s pretty much the reason I mostly use the Irish term instead of the English term in my books.
Either way, like all people who want to tell you what to believe in – draoi, druids, priests, bishops, gurus, swamis etc. – you should never truly trust what they tell you.
You can’t really understand mythology if you don’t have the culture and the historical context – one of the reasons Western-based “internet mythology” remains an ‘entertainment’ rather than actual ‘knowledge’.
When it comes to mythology, one of the biggest mistakes people tend to make is an enthusiatic and frenzied focus on individual events and records rather than the longer term patterns. It’s a basic scientific principle that nothing makes sense unless it’s repeated (ie. it’s reproducible) and that truth holds just as well for mythology.
Attached is a link to a recent NYT article on an ancient Roman pandemic which gives a good example of this kind of thinking (although related to historical events rather than mythological). Obviously, you can’t compare apples with oranges but there are certaily clear patterns to be found if you look closely enough.
Attached are some conceptual images we used during the development of the Dark Dawn project.
Here’s a bit of the draft media release:
The latest product from IRISH IMBAS is ‘Caomhaoir Fuilsmeartha/ Dark Dawn’. An experimental narrative project, told in both Irish and English, it relates the story of a dying warrior’s attempts to protect the isolated settlement of Ráth Bládhma – future home of Fionn mac Cumhaill – from a potential attack. Brian O’Sullivan describes the project as follows:
“Essentially, it’s the story of a sick warrior who’s convinced – against his better judgement – to try and save a tiny settlement. Over the course of the story, that warrior must make a number of decisions – all influenced by significant events in his own life – that can change the outcome of the story. It’s a very simple story. A very human story.’
We’re now looking at a release date in late April /early May 2021.
In terms of plot patterns, ‘Peaky Blinders’ is probably one of the best shows on television at the moment and I’ve had a lot of respect for the writer Stephen Knight ever since seeing his startlingly innovative series ‘Taboo’ with Tom Hardy.
This interesting interesting post from the Irish Times shows some of the links on which the ‘Peaky Blinders’ scripts related to Irish gunrunning were based.
