Fionn the Poet

Posted on February 12, 2023 by - Blog

A lot of people tend to forget that Fionn mac Cumhaill also held a reputation as a talented poet (which has a whole bunch of relevant associations) and the Fenian narratives are strongly linked with what’s generally referred to as ‘nature poetry’.

A number of ‘nature poems’ are actually attributed to Fionn (and I’ve a bridge to sell you if you believe that). This one is a 9th century poem (in Irish and English) which was translated by the German philology scholar, Kuno Meyer, back in the early 1900s.

Note, this was written in 9th century Irish, so it’s quite different to modern Irish. I have to say, though, Meyer did a superb job of the translation.

Scél lem duíb

Dordaid dam

Snigid gaim

Ro-faíth sam

Gàeth ard uar

ísel grian

gair a rith

ruirthech rían

—————

Here’s a song

stags give tongue

winter snows

summer goes

high cold blow

sun is low

brief his day

seas give spray.

BLATHER DAY

Posted on May 27, 2020 by - Blog, My Writing

One of the problems with writing independently is that it’s hard to do marketing or advertising unless you have the time/energy to commit to it yourself.

Given that I usually have neither (and I’m essentially useless at all forms of marketing), I generally let it up to other people to spread word about my books, through’ word of mouth’, reviews at the various bookstores (Amazon, Kobo, Apple etc.) or on the Goodreads site.

Hence … ‘Blather Day’.

On the 27th of each month, I post a few reviews for one of my books, essentially letting other people describe their thoughts about that particular book instead of blathering on about it myself (we all miss a bullet, that way!).

Today’s ‘Blather Day’ choice is FIONN: THE STALKING SILENCE – the free short-story prequel to the Fionn mac Cumhaill Series (and which actually started the whole series). The reviews I’ve chosen were really just randomly copied off an Amazon page. Hence, some are short, some are more in-depth but at least they’re all from people who actually read the book.

As always, I’m very grateful for those who made the effort of leaving a review.

Go raibh maith agaibh!

IRISH IMBAS PROJECTS IN PRODUCTION

Posted on April 3, 2020 by - Blog, Folklore/Mythology, My Writing

It may be hard to see but there’s a lot of work going on in the background at the moment, most of which won’t become evident until later this year (or early next year). The sheer volume of work has significantly impacted on progress with a number of other projects I’m champing at the bit to complete.
 
Anyway, here’s a quick summary of where things are at with the more immediate projects:

LIATH LUACHRA III
Currently half-way through chapter 8 of Liath Luachra III which introduces Bodhmhall from the Fionn mac Cumhaill Series. This is the point at which the Liath Luachra Series starts to overlap with the Fionn mac Cumhaill Series. Although to date, the Liath Luachra books have been very much stand-alone, this book introduces the first aspects of a longer-term plot/mystery that eventually gets resolved towards the end of the Fionn mac Cumhaill Series. That said, this book can still be read and enjoyed as a stand-alone too. Its only people following both series who’ll really pick up on what’s happening.

LIATH LUACHRA IV
I had intended to finish the Liath Luachra Series with the third book but after four chapters in, it quickly became apparent I’d need a 4th to complete the story the way I wanted. I’ve done an initial – very skimpy – outline for this but I won’t be anywhere near writing it until next year. This book will cover some pretty dramatic elements that haven’t been covered by Irish writers before (at least to my knowledge, but I’ve researched it quite a bit). I’m very much looking forward to this one!
 
DARK DAWN
I had two days set aside to complete the final elements of the Dark Dawn project and prepare it for launch but then our Covid-19 lock-down happened. As a result, I now have no idea when I can get this back on track. I must admit, I pull this out and look at it from time to time and, for something that will actually look very simple in its finished form, it’s been devilishly complex.

FIONN IV (Fionn: Stranger at Mullán Bán
This is the book I had to put aside in order to focus on Liath Luachra III. Seven chapters have already been completed and edited. It’s my intention to finish the book once LL III has been released.
 
Probably best to keep an eye on the website or the newsletter for announcements on the release dates. When they’re ready, they’ll be available here for a few weeks before they’re released to the ebookstores.

FIONN: Defence of Ráth Bládhma Sale and Background Notes

Posted on March 16, 2020 by - Blog, My Writing

To celebrate St Patrick’s Week (apparently it’s no longer a day!), FIONN: Defence of Ráth Bládhma – the first book in the Fionn mac Cumhaill Series – is going to be on sale for 99c/99p until next Saturday.
 
I wrote FIONN: Defence of Ráth Bládhma immediately after I’d finished BEARA: Dark Legends (which probably took me over two years to write). After BDL’s complex double-narrative structure, I think my mind was just desperate for the simplicity of a linear story and, if I remember correctly, I wrote the initial three chapters of FDRB in a single month. At the time,I had no real structure in mind (apart from the very basic mythological tale – of which this story only covers a small part).
 
Liath Luachra, Fiacail and Bodhmhall really came out of an empty space at the back of my head and, basically, because they were such strong characters, took over the entire book, driving it towards its fateful, twisted conclusion before I had a chance to overlay it with a pre-planned plot structure.
 
Which, to be honest, worked out fine.

The Challenge of Cultural Integrity in Writing

Posted on March 5, 2017 by - Blog, My Writing, Uncategorized

When I first started writing the Fionn mac Cumhaill Series over two years ago, I was keen to create a realistic, culturally authentic version of the famous Fenian Cycle that was recognisable to Irish readers but also accessible to non-Irish readers. As part of my overall goal with Irish Imbas Books however, I was also keen to use the series as a way of reintroducing lost Gaelic/Irish concepts (that is words, expressions and – more importantly – ways of thinking) that have been lost from common parlance as a result of colonization but which still have significance at a societal level.

This is why throughout the series, you’ll find a constant smattering of words like ‘fian‘, ‘rí‘, draoi, ‘ráth‘, and some others, words that by themselves mean little, but which in the context of Irish/Gaelic culture have a major resonance.

The word ‘Fianna‘ is a classic example of how much was lost. This word – the basis for the contemporary word ‘Fenian’ – is believed by most people (including many Irish people who’ve never been taught any better) to be the name of Fionn mac Cumhaill’s war band. In fact, ‘Fianna’ was simply nothing more than the plural of the ‘fian‘ (which meant ‘war party’). This means that Fionn’s fian was one of a number of such war parties and that they were a recognised dynamic in the society of the time. It’s a little thing, but when you take the downstream consequences of that new knowledge into account you can see how it changes the interpretation of the story.

Trying to balance those competing goals (the requirements of cultural integrity and the requirement to deliver an accessible and enjoyable story to an international audience) can actually be quite a challenge at times. The truth is that any decision you make with one can have a huge consequence with the other.

One of my earliest decisions, for example, was to retain the original Gaelic spelling for the character names (Fionn, Liath Luachra, Bodhmhall, Fiacail etc.) and place names (Seiscenn Uarbhaoil etc.). This demonstration of cultural accuracy – naturally – clashed bigtime with the accessibility goal. For non-Gaelic speakers, Irish names can be the equivalent of having a broken stick in your mouth – whatever comes out is going to come out mangled! Anyone used to thinking in English – understandably – struggles with the unfamiliar combination of vowels and consonants.

Naturally, the advice I received from everyone was to use an anglicization of the names to make the reader more comfortable. After all, that’s why in the early days Fionn mac Cumhaill’s name was anglicized to the meaningless ‘Finn Mac Cool’. Sure, the latter is easier to say for an English speaker but the English name doesn’t carry the strong cultural associations of the Irish one (Fionn means ‘fair-headed’ but also has related connotations of ‘insightfulness’ etc.). ‘Finn’ is a meaningless term that includes no such depth or resonance (and, here, I’ll have to apologise in advance to those parents who’ve gone and named their kids, Finn!).

If you’ve read any of the Fionn mac Cumhaill Series books, you’ll already know I went with my heart rather than my head on this particular issue (although I did soften the challenge for readers by providing an audio pronunciation guide). In some respects that actually seems to have paid off in that readers predominantly respect what I’m trying to achieve and have demonstrated immense patience and willingness to overcome the temporary pronunciation challenge. At the end of the day, I guess what my experience has really demonstrated is that if you produce something that’s good enough/intriguing enough/interesting enough for people to enjoy, they’ll put up with your whims and even support you.

As an aside, here’s a question I once held up at Irish cultural/heritage class I was running:
How would you pronounce the following?

  • Zach Galifianakis
  • Michelle Pfieffer
  • Arnold Schwarzenegger
  • Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
  • Chiwetel Ejiofor

Everyone in that group of attendees (about 18) was able to pronounce at least four of those names and where they couldn’t they knew exactly what that person had achieved as part of their creative career.

Basically, culture is not a barrier to success unless you let it be.
And, seriously! If an English speaker can manage to pronounce Schwarzenegger, Fionn is never going to be a problem.

Update on Forthcoming Productions: Irish Imbas Books

Posted on February 28, 2016 by - Blog, My Writing

It’s always difficult writing these particular updates. I sometimes feel a bit like a minute cork on the ocean, floating around at the whim of waves and tides that can change direction at a moment’s notice (and generally drag me along with them). As a result, despite the best of intentions laid out here, circumstances can often force us to amend the programme.

The Celtic Mythology Collection:
Keep an eye out as this book will be released in digital form at some stage over the next 2-3 weeks. The initial book will probably be available here and then in the other major ebookstores. Its an anthology of Celtic Mythology short stories but with a difference in that each of the five stories is accompanied with a cultural context explaining where the mythological concept originates. Its essentially our first book that attempts to balance and counteract all the misinformation about Celtic mythology that’s out there on the internet these days.

Fionn 3: The Adversary: I had hoped to finish an initial draft of this over the Christmas holidays but unfortunately, given the fact that we actually took a real holiday, I’m still only on Chapter 8. Because of all the work going on with the Celtic Mythology Collection at the moment, completion of this particular book looks like it will be delayed by 3-4 months and won’t be out until mid-2016. Once completed, I’m going to lay the Fionn mac Cumhaill Series aside for the rest of the year to focus on other projects. I love writing the series and it allows me to research a number of historical concepts I wouldn’t otherwise get to but I just need a short break from it to keep it fresh. In the meantime, here’s an alternative picture of the cover for this particular book. We didn’t go for it in the end as it was a bit “too fantasy” for what we wanted.

The Adversary small

Project Tobar: This is a non-named, non-fiction book related to Irish culture that I’m hoping to release later this year. It’s based on about ten years of thinking and observation and although I haven’t written a word yet I have quiet a lot of unpublished work which will make up most of the content. Later this year, I’ll be taking a weekend away by myself to scope it out and design the final structure. I won’t give a date at this stage but we’re relatively confident of releasing it later this year. Expect a more detailed outline and a final title in about 3-4 months.

Beara 2: Cry of the Banshee
I’ve been dying to get back to Beara for a while as various ideas and scenes have been fermenting at the back of my head, repressed while I work on other projects. We won’t get this published this year but I do want to get a substantial part of it written by next Christmas. There is a bit of research I need to do back in Ireland for this so that’s a good excuse to go home!

Short Stories
I’ve been writing short stories less and less as the larger projects tend to take up most of my creative energy and there’s only so many plots you can hold together in your head at one time. I have a book of short stories in process (The Kinsale Trilogy) of which two are almost complete but one (the longest remains to be written). This will remain on the ‘to be completed’ pile for a while. I also have a new short story for the 1916 celebrations (The Fenian) which I would love to finish before Easter. I suspect I’ll have to lock myself away for another weekend to find the time to do this. Alternatively, I suppose, I could lock the family downstairs in the office. Hmmmm.

Project Nua: This is an intellectually based tool that I’m hoping to convert into something that be used in a much more practical sense. I’m still mulling around how to do this effectively and I’ve decided to hold off and use the learnings from ‘The Celtic Mythology Collection’ and ‘Project Tobar’ before I do so. There’s a lot of subconscious thought going into this (pre-sleep analysis and post-waking reflection) but until I manage to formulate an approach I think will work, this remains to one side.

Audiobooks
We’re currently in the process of cleaning up two short stories (The Morning After and Sleepwalking in Irish). Both of these will be available on this site in a month or so. The next audiobook will probably be ‘The Irish Muse’ and, if a suitable narrator is identified, Defence of Ráth Bládhma.