There was no sound from outside the cottage though, at this hour even the night creatures usually heard shuffling along on their business were abed. He had sat through the long, empty darkness all alone, again, since he had banished her from the house. He couldn’t have accepted what she had to offer. The price was too high, the cost too great to bear. Many had warned him through long years of training, of the possibility that she might appear. Or one like her, for there were many who sought the likes of him in this land, many who would pull and call and tempt and offer the worlds to a poet’s soul. His Masters had gone through it with each apprentice, and when it came his time to teach he had issued the same dire warnings, extolled the same ghastly consequences.

Out of the mounds they came, the Leanán Sidhe. Fairy Lovers: bright was their light, their gifts, their love. Strong burned the creative fires that they stoked and tended in a poet’s soul; his musical, magical, poetic inspiration, but with the gifts were balanced the ties that bind, for once a Fairy Lover gained entry to a man’s body and soul, she did not ever give them back. Their love was a deadly delight.

She had come to him first on a night just like this. A fire burning in the hearth of his small cottage on the hillside, a long and lonely night awash in the void of mundanity, with not a trickle or a spark of creative inspiration to be found. The gentle tap tap tapping on a window, thought at first to be a branch or twig, but persistent enough to breach the miasma surrounding his heavy head.  When he opened the door, she stood a little out of the light that spilled into the night, back from the threshold, and she spoke to him quickly, offering all the things they had said she would, in a voice as soft as the velvet nub on a new calf’s horns. He listened, and was tempted, and resisted; refusing to invite her inside, refusing to accept the offers… but knowing that his refusal bound her to him as surely as he would be bound to her if he had accepted.

That was three moons ago now, and she had never left.

Constantly calling, she haunted his dreams, and shadowed the windows of his house as she circled each night. Her voice came to him awake or asleep, whispering dreams when he had no defences, tapping at his attention when he would try and concentrate, or create. Useless, pointless exercises that served no purpose other than to frustrate him. She stayed beyond his reach, impossible to banish, although the Rowan and cold iron charm his old Master had recommended for the threshold served the purpose of ensuring that she could not cross, no matter the weakened state she found him in. He was safe inside.

As he stared again at the plain white sheet that signalled his failure, his lack of resource, he realised that he’d had enough. In a dream, he rose from the table in the centre of his room, and walked to pull open the door. Reaching up, he ripped the charm from the lintel, raised his arm, and threw his protection out into the blackness beyond. Then he waited.

When she came, it was with a sigh of silk that instantly calmed his mind and balmed his spirit. His eyes drank her beauty, as she touched his flesh and entered his home. She would drink of his love, and give in return, and his pages would fill with bounty… until she took all that he was.

That wasn’t the first or last of the Sidhe ever to take a man… but sure, they are all stories for another day.

Wikipedia says:
“The River Saile (known also as Weile Weile Waile) is a children’s nursery rhyme from Ireland.”

That’s true like, it is a song I heard as a kid, they taught it to us in primary school, so we would have sung it from about the age of 5 or 6 years old.

I got all nostalgic a week or two ago, and stuck a ‘Dubliners’ CD in the car, for solo journeys where nobody could judge me. Don’t judge me.

Seriously, stop that shit, I can feel you judging me.

And I had a complete throwback when the Weile Weile Waile song came on. Ronny Drew’s kinda cheery sounding Dublin rasp, and the banjo player plucking away in the background… and I was right back in the midst of the childhood incomprehension of trying to figure out what the hell was going on when I heard the song for the first time. See for yourselves.

There were 13 different versions of this song recorded by Francis Child, before he died in 1896. Known as a ‘murder ballad’, the versions catalogue a variety of infanticide – from the stabbing knife, to strangling, to burying bound children alive.

So, what are they about?

Besides the obvious like, I know it’s about a woman killing her baby. I mean though, why would people sing about such gruesome acts? Is it a version of ‘warning about the boogeyman’; a mother killing her child as the most frightening thing possible, used to scare kids into line?

Is it, as my friend Janet suggested, a social commentary on post-natal depression? Or a warning method for new parents, a way of passing information on things to watch out for when you have a new baby, without having to discuss it?

Or do kids (humans) just love being gross and frightening each other?

Perhaps, since you already work in this realm, you could look at the three realms (land, sea and sky) from the Tain and the three worlds of the shaman? Either from scholarship or practice. Formal is by no means necessary, though some reference to sources is appreciated.  In fact, with so much commentary and research I would be quite open to more subjective work…

Communication from Frater Docet Umbra, 2012

It’s a long time since I thought of my work in a Thelemic context.  Unsurprisingly, to me at least, not a lot changes when that shift does take place.  It didn’t take much to change my perspective to the concepts and practices of Thelema – different words, different names, different rituals, but the essence is the same as I had always believed and experienced.

I started through the Man of Earth initiation cycle as a personal journey, a challenge to myself that is one in a long series of such challenges.  A lifetime’s worth, or more, one might say.  I came from a firm family grounding in Irish heritage and nature exploration, exceedingly boring to the child I was, but ever appreciated since.  From personal Gnosis in my teens, I found training and connection in a Traditional Wiccan coven, working through their triple degree system and learning a whole lot.  Moving from there I found myself in Roscommon.  Not quite knowing how or why that had happened, I set to explore, and found I had landed in Cruachan.  Ancient Royal Capital, perhaps one of the first sites in Ireland of consistent ritual and ceremonial use.

Connection to the land became about more than just local entities and legends, as I had previously experienced.  A small group, just four of us, remained of our previous working group, and we were three intensely dedicated sisters and one male; who was learning a lot, but in some ways along for the ride.  And we began working through the worlds.

I remain wary of Carmichael’s work, I must admit, but no more so than I am wary of many of the other folklorists of his time.  I find it difficult to reconcile how a person from another culture entirely – particularly when the language from which they are hoping to collect has so much in the way of tenuous and liminal associations and inflection (as is the case in Scots Gaelic and Irish) – can accurately capture or convey the ‘true’ meanings of the original.  However, the same can be said for nearly every single piece of literary material we have to work from, starting with the Christian Monks who faithfully transcribed the Irish myths, legends and even historical accounts (albeit changing the timelines on occasion to fit in the Christian worldview), and on up to certain more recent ‘Celtic’ explorers.  We must do what we can with what we have.

There is value to be had, even if at times it might only be useful in an inspirational sense, from the literature that is available.  As modern seekers, we can study the source material available, understand what we can from that, review and share experiences and theories with other seekers, and work consistently on developing our own connection from this point; the only place we have from which to work.

And so, that is what we did.  Looking at the Táin, an integral tale to this complex of sites, as well as it’s broader value in Irish Literature, we developed the idea of the Earth, Sea, and Sky model, the three worlds.  How would we learn this, experience this, with no one to teach it?  How could it be taught?  What would the journey of an initiation cycle look like when based around this core concept?  How could we make that work?

There were many late night conversations, many heated debates, and even a few all round arguments.  A loose plan was formed to work through each world on an annual basis, with a programme of rituals and exercises for each, culminating in an intense practical initiatory experience of the particular elements of that world.  We put ourselves through the wringer – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  We survived Earth, we survived Sea, we survived Sky.

Then everything blew apart, in quite a spectacular fashion.  The small sparks suddenly exploded out of all proportion.  Family relationships, careers, friendships, even a marriage, all burned up in the unplanned extra, the middle of the triple spiral that touches all three worlds, the sacred centre of every circle.  The world of Fire.

We survived Fire, but we did it as individuals.  Our work exploded and imploded, and, speaking for myself at least, evened out (eventually) into a steady, burning core of power and connection that touches all the worlds.  And it is that connection that has been my most important lesson.  Nothing stands alone.  There are stories within stories, sites within sites, people within people.  Inter-linking circles, spirals, which join place to place, people to people, and one time to another.  None of our sacred sites is just one thing, at one time.  None of our deities or archetypal characters stand alone, none are confined to one location, one function, one relationship.  None of the Daoine Eile are restricted to one role, one aspect, one place.  Recognising and studying the layers, the overlap, the bridging points, is essential.  Working between worlds can be a key to understanding Irish traditions.

Phoney Mahoney. Fake Irish. Plastic Paddy.

Not terms you’d want to be used about you if you’re serious about your Irish heritage.

Well, more serious at least than a green leprechaun hat and getting pissed as a fart on Paddy’s Day.

So, how do we avoid such labels?

How do you know if you are making a tit of yourself when you tell people you’re Irish? How do you know if you make the grade?

I don’t believe it’s all about being born here, but ya gotta understand the culture. Walk it as well as talk it like. Irish American is a different thing to being Irish – not better or worse, but definitively different.

And while I’m not claiming to be the boss of who gets to call themselves Irish or not, there’s so many times I’m raising my eyebrows at folk who are claiming to be Irish and know literally NOTHING about Ireland.

Daily. It’s painful like.

1. You have ever, as an adult, dressed up like a leprechaun. Or even worn one of those ginger novelty wig and cap things. Yes, even if it was ‘just a joke’.
2. You can’t pronounce place-names like Mullingar, Ballaghaderreen, or Graiguenamanagh.
3. You have no concept of the inherent danger in leaving on the immersion.
4. You would not know how to correctly address a Siobhán, a Derbhla, or a Caoimhe.
5. The wooden spoon holds no fear for you.
6. You have ever argued about Irish culture with a person born/raised in Ireland, as in, told them they must be mistaken because you know better.
7. Your best friend spends the evening goading and mocking you, and you get really upset.
8. You have no idea of the magical healing properties of flat 7up.
9. When you say something is ‘grand’, it’s to indicate size, or higher levels of posh.

How did ya do?!

If you’d like to get sorted away from the plastic paddyness, and hook into some authentic Irish culture, and explore your heritage for real… Join the Mailing List below for your weekly Irish Resources email.

It’s not that hard, really.

Us Irish actually have the toughest time of it, with our outdated dinosaur curriculum forced-by-nuns-and-christian-brothers system of learning the Irish or Gaeilge, from the age of 4 or 5 until we leave school at 17 or 18.  There’s many an Irish person who’s done over 13 years of schooling here, with Irish lessons most days, only to firmly believe that they can’t speak a damn word of it past ‘how are ya’, and the ubiquitous ‘póg mo thóin’.

But see if we could spend that much time learning it like any other language is taught? We’d be a nation of Gaeilgeoirí once more.

Learning to speak Irish is no more difficult than learning any other language, with the right tools and tricks up your sleeve. That’s where this blog post comes in!

When a friend (check her out, she’s awesome) asked me for some tips and tricks recently, this is what shot off the top of my head…

• These graphic novels are awesome, and the kid’s books make it suitable for all levels (seriously like, who wouldn’t want to learn Irish through the medium of COMIC BOOK?) – Cló Mhaigh Eo Foilsitheoirí / Book Publishers 
• I’m sure you know the site Comhaltas – promotes traditional Irish music and culture around the world. Best known for teaching Irish traditional music through a global network of branches and for running the Fleadh Cheoil music competitions, but good for the oul Gaeilge too.
• And there’s an extensive list of resources here – Foras na Gaeilge or Gaeilge.ie, it’s a great resource for anyone interested in any aspect of the Irish language. The aim of this new website from Foras na Gaeilge is to create a central point on the internet for everything to do with the Irish language, classes, course, events, and the likes.
• And this is good for saturation, even if they don’t translate it’s really useful to just have it going in the background so your mind learns the patterns – Radionalife.ie
• Western Radio Station IRadio do a good show here which mingles pop stuff with Irish and English, it’s really good for confidence building because you’re not lost ALL the time like a full on Irish programme, and they have podcasts too.

Then Kass returned the favour by showing me this: List of Resources for Learning Irish.

A Beginner’s Guide?Eh…. how far back should I go? Because what you’ve heard about ‘The Troubles’ is only the tip of the iceberg, really.

The Normans, perhaps? ​Strongbow was a Norman lord from Wales who started the Norman conquest of Ireland, around 1170. Though some of them ‘went native’ and were absorbed into Gaelic (Irish) culture, that was maybe the start of the disparagement and racism against the Irish in our own land.

The Tudor Conquest began with Henry VIII in 1536, and he’d declared himself King of Ireland by 1541. That continued through Elizabeth, and James I, and ended (officially) with the ‘Flight of the Earls‘ in 1607.

We were firmly under the English boot by then. Through the 1500s and 1600s CE we’d been subjected to the Plantations, where ownership of our land was forcibly stripped by the English crown, and re-settled with citizens from England. This officially ended in the 1650s with thousands of Parliamentarian soldiers settled in Ireland under the direction of Oliver Cromwell. Ulster was a hotspot for plantation settlement, and this created large strongholds of communities with British and Protestant identity.

English settlers in Ireland did not think highly of our native Gaelic, and by that time firmly Catholic, culture…

They kept us poor, and beholden to our overlords.Like all clever abusers they fostered mistrust and betrayal among neighbours and communities, taught us over the course of hundreds of years to hate our own culture, our language, our customs – to see ourselves as less than them.

They took our natural resources, the strength of our labour, and grew rich off the skin of our backs, ate well and drank merry while our people drowned in blood, sweat, and tears. They fed us slave food – this, the Irish potato, and when it failed us they refused to allow us to eat of anything else fed from our own lands, grown from our own rich soil.

You’ve all heard of “the Famine” I’m sure, but first the Irish Famine of 1740 killed at least 38% of our 2.4 million population; proportionally, a greater loss than during the worst years of the Great Famine of 1845–1852. In that time, we lost more than a million people to starvation, and a million more to forced emigration, and they said it was our fault.

We fought them though.Weak, and poor, and downtrodden – we fought them.

​The United Irishmen (and women) Rebellion in 1798 was perhaps the beginning of the first organised attempts to overthrow the oppressors in hundreds of years, and it officially started in Belfast in 1791 (read my post about Vinegar Hill). A counter campaign of martial law used tactics such as house burnings, torture of captives, pitch-capping and murder, particularly in Ulster where large numbers of Catholics and Protestants had joined in common cause. That just couldn’t stand.

The Act of Union in 1801 was a betrayal, and highlighted a particularly Catholic vs Protestant struggle for Catholic emancipation, and following from that the ​​The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB; in Irish: Bráithreachas Phoblacht na hÉireann) began in 1858 – it was a secret oath-bound fraternal organisation dedicated to the establishment of an “independent democratic republic” in Ireland.

And then, my dear Readers, our Troubles became focused in ‘the North’.

Tensions were rising and we seemed on the brink of civil war from 1912, with opposition to ‘Home Rule‘ from Ulster Unionists, who formed the ‘Ulster Volunteers’, which led to Irish Nationalists forming the ‘Irish Volunteers’. World War 1 averted some of the crisis, but it didn’t go away anywhere.

Of course the famed Easter Rising didn’t happen in a vacuum, and we’ve just celebrated the 100 year anniversary of that these last few months, so we’re very much into recent history now after a run down of what… nearly 750 years of English rule? The history of that is well know, I guess, though the depth and breadth of it is often glossed over and washed green instead of red, swathed in beer and rebel ballads.

The Partition of Ireland was the division of the island of Ireland which created two distinct political territories – Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, as it was called at the time, on the 3rd of May in 1921, under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. Today we still call the 6 counties ‘Northern Ireland’, and it is a self governing part of the larger ‘United Kingdom’, with Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and England. The rest of the island is a sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland, or just called Ireland.

To refer to us now as ‘Southern Ireland’ is offensive. To say we are part of “Great Britain” will get you verbally slapped at least, and even though technically and geographically our island can be classed as part of the ‘British Isles’, if you’ve read this far you may now have an inkling of why it might rankle and burn to be proprietorially inferred as owned by Britain in such a way.

I’ve brought you this far, through 800 years of systematic oppression and genocide, shown you the seeds that were planted on our island that were cultivated and grew to be ‘the North’.

I didn’t grow up there. I’m reluctant to talk about the horrors that direct immersion in ‘the Troubles’ has brought for the people who did.

My great grandparents, my grandparents and their siblings were directly involved, and maybe even my parents or their siblings, I don’t know. We don’t talk about the more recent loyalties and actions in the same way as we tell stories which are a generation or two removed. I can tell you the stories I’ve heard of the Black and Tans that make me want to scream when I see a product named this way in ignorance, my awareness and fears through the long years of Bombings in the North, and the Republic, and in the heart of England too – and if you ever order an ‘Irish Car Bomb’ drink in my presence you will not be in my presence for much longer, of that you can be sure.

I can share memories of crossing into the North, across the border, maybe once or twice… and the soldiers aiming guns at us frightened kids in the back of the car, their harsh questions and suspicious peering, poking, prodding with the tip of a machine gun.

I can tell you of the confusion and anger I felt when I first learned of the Hunger Strikes, at the age of 4 or 5 years old, and later on when I understood the dirty protests, and the stark reality of a person starving themselves to death for what they believed. Of how the energy of hunger has seeped so thoroughly into this land that it seems forever stained with the raw, gnawing, hollowed out fear and pain of starvation, and how teenage me was tormented by that before I even knew what it was, or how to manage it and protect myself from the ravenous pockets of it that are a part of our landscape. And maybe even begin to heal some of that, in time.

And I can tell you of the sweet, cautious, dawning of hope with the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998, two weeks before my 20th birthday. That unsteady peace has grown, and things have stabilised in the North for the first time any of us can remember.

Nearly one year ago now (24th June 2016), we woke to the news that Britain had voted to exit the EU – Brexit – and still nobody knows what that means for Northern Ireland. I’m not going to speculate on that… but about the only good I saw from the last year’s news and social media chatter is the idea that both Unionists and Nationalists in the North may be agreed that leaving the United Kingdom is the way forward for Northern Ireland.

Borders have always been a problem for us, as you can perhaps imagine.

And now? Theresa May getting in bed with the DUP?

Those of us who know the DUP of old, are very, very certain… this will not end well.

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Note: Throughout the article are clickable direct links to further resources… which I’ve kept to general Wikipedia articles to aim for as much source neutrality as possible. Please do educate yourself further, as this article is only scratching the surface.

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