Sadly Magan, much moreso than in the previous book, far too often turns his attention away from deepening our understanding of Ireland's past and its traditions and towards making barbed polemical remarks. Over and over again he repeats strange laments for the loss of Pagan rituals in favour of Christianity (despite admitting, albeit hesitantly and begrudgingly, how plainly violent, unpleasant and superstitious many of them were). It's one thing to be saddened by the widespread ignorance of Ireland's pre-Christian history and folklore, and another thing to raise them up as the only valid element of Irish culture, and everything else as a foreign-born 'oppression' of some kind or another. Magan runs through the usual recycled finger-pointing at the British for everything wrong with Ireland and the Irish psyche today, and makes the usual errors of referring to pre-20th Century Ireland as 'colonised' and 'occupied,' neither of which is accurate no matter how badly brutalised the population was, nor how many of their old traditions lost. Having done this, he can then lazily borrow the tropes of 'postcolonial' literature and apply them clumsily to modern Ireland, no matter how much of a stretch this becomes. Every criticism rightly directed against successive Irish governments concerning the preservation of the nation's heritage is instead chalked up to the 'legacy of oppression,' whether religious, political, or cultural, and the inevitable effect that has on the blameless autonoma who are left behind once the evil colonial masters have left. This analysis is selectively applied, completely ignoring how Catholicism, supposedly the original 'oppressor,' was itself suppressed by the English for centuries. Magan fails to say anything original in this regard beyond slapping postmodernist and feminist ideas on the ancient past, as if our distant ancestors were just modern people with simpler technology and strange clothes.

Listen to the Land Speak: A Journey into the wisdom of what

Magan gives the land beneath our feet a voice and a meaning, helping to understand its power and influence.

€19.99

Ireland's ancestors developed a uniquely nature-focused society, centred on esteemed poets, seers, monks, healers and wise women who were deeply connected to the land. They used this connection to the cycles of the natural world – from which we are increasingly dissociated – as an animating force in their lives.

Listen to the Land Speak by Manchán Magan - Dublog Listen to the Land Speak by Manchán Magan - Dublog

In this illuminating new book, Manchán Magan sets out on a journey, through bogs, across rivers and over mountains, to trace these ancestor's footsteps. He uncovers the ancient myths that have shaped Ireland's national identity and are embedded in the strata of land that have endured through millennia – from ice ages through to famines and floods.Our servers are getting hit pretty hard right now. To continue shopping, enter the characters as they are shown Magan interestingly weaves Irish mythology, local stories, personal experience, archaeology, geography and more together in a delightful narrative about our spiritual and cultural history. Our ancestors developed a uniquely nature-focused society, centred on esteemed poets, seers, monks, healers and wise women who were immersed in the land. They used this deep connection to the cycles of the natural world – from which we are increasingly dissociated – as an animating force in their lives.

Listen to the Land Speak by Manchán Magan | Open Library Listen to the Land Speak by Manchán Magan | Open Library

Low the sun; short its course”: Tracing the Celtic ritual cycle through music, manuscript and performance Writer and broadcaster Manchán Magan, joined Kieran to discuss his new book, ‘Listen to the Land Speak’, a book that sets out to trace our ancestors, uncovering myths that have defined the Irish identity... Speaking about why rivers and important places were often feminine nouns despite surviving in a patriarchal society, Manchán suggests that when he scratched the surface of Irish myths and legends that he found women were often in a place of power. Magan is a magician with words and has a way of presenting even the most seemingly mundane information in a captivating way. I found his chapters on Ireland’s bogs, trees and roads particularly fascinating and frequently had to pause reading to do a deep dive online into some of the landmarks and stories he mentions, which is exactly the kind of curiosity that Magan set out to evoke in his readers. Our ancestors developed a uniquely nature-focused society, centred on esteemed poets, seers, monks, healers and wise women who were deeply connected to the land. They used this connection to the cycles of the natural world - from which we are increasingly dissociated - as an animating force in their lives.

Only criticism is that it can be a bit much at times, and without some basic prior knowledge of certain mythological aspects/places it can make you lost. As I have a deep kinship with Ireland this book certainly touched me on many levels. The author has a way of opening your mind and heart to the beauties of the land and deeper still, to what lies beneath. If there were more people like Magan around Ireland, and for that matter the world would be a better place. In this illuminating new book, Manchan Magan sets out on a journey, through bogs, across rivers and over mountains, to trace these ancestor's footsteps. He uncovers the ancient myths that have shaped our national identity and are embedded in the strata of land that have endured through millennia - from ice ages through to famines and floods. In this illuminating new book, roaming through bogs, rivers, mountains and shorelines, Manchán Magan sets out on a journey in their footsteps to uncover the ancient myths and stories that have shaped our national identity, as revealed by the gnarled, layered strata of land that have endured through millennia – from ice ages through to famines and floods.

land, land, land, hear the word of the LORD! Jeremiah 22:29 O land, land, land, hear the word of the LORD!

Bestselling writer and documentary-maker Manchán Magan presents a lecture entitled “ Listen to the Land Speak: Lost Wisdom of the Land and Language of Ireland,” based on his recently published book of the same title. Inspired by language, landscape and mythology, Magan explores the insight and hidden wisdom native Irish culture offers to the people of Ireland and the world. Introduced by Visiting Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Professor in Irish Letters and Chair of the Fund for Irish Studies Fintan O’Toole. Photo courtesy Manchán Magan Manchán Magan has become a credit to the documentation of Irish life, history and literature over the years. Taking on the mantle of author, travel writer and documentary producer, he has left his mark as an Irishman in the wide world. Returning to issues of home, his works explore the complexity of Irish to English etymology in Thirty-Two Words for Field while his most recent success, Listen to the Land Speak: A Journey into the Wisdom of What Lies Lies Beneath Us opens up the chasm of largely forgotten Irish mythology and history to the masses. His work in this field has garnered him acclaim for feeding the inferno that burns behind the Irish person’s want for connection to their past. As one of the most highly anticipated titles from Gill Publishers in 2022, Listen to the Land Speak was shortlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards 2022 for Non-Fiction and won the Waterstones Irish Book of the Year 2022, garnering much acclaim across the board. Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it. The best parts of this book are Magan's brief encounters with the fascinating and understudied fields of geomythology and archaeomythology - the study of myths as possible records of real geological and historical events, such as comet impacts, the end of the Ice Age, or the disappearance of landmasses and even civilisations (perhaps the most famous example of which is Atlantis). For example, he establishes that the archaeological evidence pointing to the date of Lough Neagh's flooding closely matches the date given in the lake's mythological origin story down through the oral tradition. Unfortunately, he makes only cursory references to these ideas and explores none of them in any detail. He explicitly chooses to ignore the discovery of a 33,000-year-old carved reindeer bone in Ireland, which demolishes the accepted theory that the island has only been inhabited for 6,000 years, because he does not know what to make of it. He also makes no reference whatsoever to the extraordinary fact, mentioned in his previous book, that the people who built Newgrange have been found to be genetically discontinuous with the modern Irish population, strongly suggesting that not only is the structure much older than previously thought but that there may have been waves of settlers as yet unaccounted for in the historical record. The potential implications of these and other findings are enormous and there was a much more interesting book which could have (and still should be) written about these things, offering us a new understanding of our past and a new significance to our present. Here, the River Shannon is a goddess, and trees and their life-sustaining root systems are hallowed. See the world in a new light in this magical exploration into the life-sustaining wisdom of what lies beneath us.I thoroughly enjoyed Thirty-Two Words for Field, which is a fascinating glimpse into the ancient knowledge and forgotten connotations of a language intimately tied up with folklore, mythology, and pre-history. My biggest complaint about that book is that it is woefully short and touched only fleetingly on so many facts and topics that I hoped would be explored in more detail in Listen to the Land Speak. In this book, Magan appears to set out on a related exercise, which is to tie elements of the Irish landscape, rather than the Irish language, to ancient mythology, religion, custom, and life. This had the potential to be just as if not even more interesting than his first book, but unfortunately it falls flat. His latest book, Listen to the Land Speak, Manchán Magan takes a look at the Irish landscape and what it can tell us about who we are and were as a people. He says his childhood, some of which he spent in the West Kerry Gaeltacht, allowed him to meet with those who lived on the islands and witness their connection not only with the land but with the mythic elements of our culture. In this illuminating new book, Manchán Magan sets out on a journey, through bogs, across rivers and over mountains, to trace these ancestor’s footsteps. He uncovers the ancient myths that have shaped our national identity and are embedded in the strata of land that have endured through millennia – from ice ages through to famines and floods. Listen to the Land Speak: A Journey into the Wisdom of What Lies Beneath Us by Manchan Magan – eBook Details