we love our stories in Ireland any
decent conversation usually begins with
a story so I’m going to begin this talk
with the story – and this is one I’ve
come across in a number of different
cultural settings but today I’m going to
place it in the realm of Irish mythology
as I believe it’s relevant to my message
and the story goes once there was a
warrior called Kanaan and Kanaan had
been sent on a mission into the wild and
unfamiliar territory of the land of Down
and his mission was to collect a chest
full of wonderful jewels gold silver
rubies and the like and as soon as this
chest was full he was to return with it
immediately back home to his king in
Ireland and so Kanaan went about his
duty and he gathered and collected these
treasures and eventually he filled the
chests and believe it or not a chest
full of treasure can be a surprisingly
heavy thing so canal now needed to find
some help to carry it home and he knew
he needed to find not just brave and
strong individuals but people who were
happy and content within themselves
because this was going to be a
particularly long and hard journey back
home to his king in Ireland and so
Kanaan went about his duty and these
people happily assumed their roles and
off they went singing their songs and
these were a happy people a group of
people from a local tribe and every day
they went and they ate and off they went
about their roles in the second day they
ate and off they went about their
journey the third morning the fourth
morning the fifth morning the same and
by now these group of people had left
their own tribal land and had entered
into new lands that were geologically
different where the vegetation was
different where the topography was
different for even the
or different but these people were still
singing their songs and their ancestors
were coming with them because their
ancestors were in their songs and after
two and a half moons they had made great
progress but then one morning having
eaten they didn’t happily assume their
roles instead they seemed to sink into
some kind of a tremendous trance state
within themselves and Kanaan began to
get impatient and finally he got angry
and he pulled out his sword but this
made no impression whatsoever on these
people as they had fallen deep into this
trance state and so eventually Kanaan
wised up and he sat down beside an elder
from the group whose name was aagama and
he candidly said Eggman look what’s
going on we were making such great
progress now what’s happening and it
took a long long long time for agua
to come into a sense of his own hands
his own feet his own identity but
finally he did emerge into a sense of
who he was and he turned to Kanaan and
he said we have moved so far so fast
during these last two and a half moons
that we must now sit down and wait for
our souls to catch up and I guess in a
sense that might be what we’re just
doing here today in Berkeley each one of
us here has traveled great distances in
our own lives physically culturally
intellectually and it’s only in events
such as this one that we get an
opportunity to sit down and reflect and
maybe just maybe connect with that
deeper part of ourselves that part which
allows us to distinguish what’s really
important
it took me 30 years to figure out one
thing that was very important to me I
grew up in Connemara in the West of
Ireland Gaelic or as we call it Irish is
my native language I like to think of
Irish as my soul’s language there’s no
denying that the Gaelic language today
is an endangered tongue with just
approximately 2% of the population who
speak it on a daily basis and given the
the relative absence of an economic need
for it in this global commercial world
some academics have stated that barring
exceptional measure Gaelic as a
community language may not survive
beyond the next two generations and this
is something that saddens me and I’ve
been thinking about this and in my
thinking of the potential loss of this
language I’ve thought about how my
relationship with it has changed over
the years you see as a teenager this
language sometimes caused me a good deal
of shame amongst my non Gaelic speaking
friends at times it made me feel
different and and weird to give you an
example if my parents would call me most
of the time I would only answer them
like in monosyllabic words like yeah and
no and if it was absolutely necessary to
engage in conversation at times so so
none of my peers would hear me speak
today I think of how crazy that was here
was my teenage self in the West of
Ireland ashamed to speak his own native
Irish language I guess you could say the
displacement of indigenous culture that
had been going on under colonial rule
for centuries has taken its toll on the
Irish psyche that isn’t what I want to
focus on today sometimes in life you
have
to leave home to come home living in
another country affords you the
opportunity to take a step back and look
at your own cultural inheritance from a
new perspective I experienced what it
was like to live in a community without
this language its songs and stories and
in doing so I realized that this ancient
tongue is a real gift that’s been passed
on to me you see for me personally
Irish allows me to see the world through
somewhat of a different lens it allows
my imagination to flourish and it has
this extraordinary capacity to make
things that could sometimes be otherwise
dull and bland graceful and personal to
give you an example the Irish word for a
wolf is mock cedar
mock cedar which means the son of the
land the Irish word for a ladybug is
Boeing Day which means God’s little cow
and growing up in Connemara you’d be
greeted each morning by the Atlantic
Ocean and I’m looking out on a choppy
rough sea we might say tabla BOM air
Hari in the Escada the fisherman’s
garden is under white flour this
language connects me with my landscape
an environment in a way that transcends
that which is visual and obvious and
allows me to set forth into what the
Irish writer John O’Donoghue called the
invisible world – December’s ago I was
back home in Ireland and my dad and I
were chatting about the state of the
language as we often do and as this
conversation was coming to a close and
the flow was finding its own natural end
I asked him one last question what would
be the real tragedy of losing this
language beyond communication beyond
politics and just like the elder aagama
in the story it took him a while to
answer but finally he did and he said
the real tragedy of losing this language
would be boss muhuali Arthur the death
of beauty pure and simple and as soon as
he said it it made sense to me and a
song came to my mind and this song
epitomized the beauty he spoke of and
the song was called Queen a lady moita
the lament of the three Mary’s and it’s
a song about the crucifixion but the
song focuses on the humanity of this
story a desperate mother looking for her
son and so within this song we go on a
journey with Mary and in the first first
she asks Peter the Apostle have you seen
my true love Peter responds I saw him
earlier being beaten by the guard in
another verse she sees a young man and
the cross and she asks a woman in the
crowd
who’s that fine man in the cross the
woman responds Mary
do you not recognize your own son and
finally in the last first
she makes her way to his body and she
sees the blunt nails and spear that have
pierced through him killing him now this
is about as graphic and harrowing of a
retelling of this experience gets and
yet somehow when I first heard a shallow
singer called Joe Heaney
sing this song I realized something and
that was that I had never heard grief
sounds so beautiful now growing up not
particularly used to singing in public I
heard a little bit of advice never
volunteer to sing a song always wait
until you’ve been asked and and then
kindly decline upon first request now
usually what will happen is the person
or the people who are asking you they’ll
ask you again this time with with a lot
more encouragement and this is this is
what it’s really important
this is what is really important you
stick to you plan you kindly decline
once more and you’re almost guaranteed
to be met with a third and final request
with a lot of encouragement this is when
you say yes and the beauty about saying
yes at this stage is that you can sing
any which way out of tune and so long as
you sing from your heart
everyone is just delighted with the fact
that they got you to sing in the first
place so with that in mind we’ll all
pretend here know that I’ve been asked
three times and I’ll sing you those
verses from that song Queenie misery
murder ha ha ha ha
um vodka – oh-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho
huh Soho
Oh lick my hairball
oh here so a canard ah hohoho
ha ho ho Soho
Oh miss Kay hey far brushing ahead ha ha
share Oh hunger so homo
Oh oh man I am told
oh oh oh
ha ha ha
oh no song kudu tarney my love
clean the hassanis lava oh uh uh Soho No
Oh mister could you want love
in a row
oh-ho-ho-ho
oh-ho-ho-ho
Oh
and so it’s it’s because of these trans
figurative properties in this language
that make magic of the seemingly banal
and that expose the lies in the thick of
darkness that in January 2018 I decided
to start an initiative called Celtic
consciousness the focus of this
initiative is to share the beauty
enshrined in the Irish language with a
wider audience to create experiences
like our tour in Ireland that use the
songs and stories of this ancient tongue
as a medium to connect with that deeper
part of yourself I suppose you could say
we we kind of create a comfortable space
for you to sit down while your soul
catches up and so with that now I’ll
bring this talk to a close but before I
go I’ll leave you all with the question
and that question is is there a language
within you that isn’t being shared that
isn’t being claimed and most importantly
that isn’t being celebrated kora milla
milla mahaki thank you all very very
much
you
decent conversation usually begins with
a story so I’m going to begin this talk
with the story – and this is one I’ve
come across in a number of different
cultural settings but today I’m going to
place it in the realm of Irish mythology
as I believe it’s relevant to my message
and the story goes once there was a
warrior called Kanaan and Kanaan had
been sent on a mission into the wild and
unfamiliar territory of the land of Down
and his mission was to collect a chest
full of wonderful jewels gold silver
rubies and the like and as soon as this
chest was full he was to return with it
immediately back home to his king in
Ireland and so Kanaan went about his
duty and he gathered and collected these
treasures and eventually he filled the
chests and believe it or not a chest
full of treasure can be a surprisingly
heavy thing so canal now needed to find
some help to carry it home and he knew
he needed to find not just brave and
strong individuals but people who were
happy and content within themselves
because this was going to be a
particularly long and hard journey back
home to his king in Ireland and so
Kanaan went about his duty and these
people happily assumed their roles and
off they went singing their songs and
these were a happy people a group of
people from a local tribe and every day
they went and they ate and off they went
about their roles in the second day they
ate and off they went about their
journey the third morning the fourth
morning the fifth morning the same and
by now these group of people had left
their own tribal land and had entered
into new lands that were geologically
different where the vegetation was
different where the topography was
different for even the
or different but these people were still
singing their songs and their ancestors
were coming with them because their
ancestors were in their songs and after
two and a half moons they had made great
progress but then one morning having
eaten they didn’t happily assume their
roles instead they seemed to sink into
some kind of a tremendous trance state
within themselves and Kanaan began to
get impatient and finally he got angry
and he pulled out his sword but this
made no impression whatsoever on these
people as they had fallen deep into this
trance state and so eventually Kanaan
wised up and he sat down beside an elder
from the group whose name was aagama and
he candidly said Eggman look what’s
going on we were making such great
progress now what’s happening and it
took a long long long time for agua
to come into a sense of his own hands
his own feet his own identity but
finally he did emerge into a sense of
who he was and he turned to Kanaan and
he said we have moved so far so fast
during these last two and a half moons
that we must now sit down and wait for
our souls to catch up and I guess in a
sense that might be what we’re just
doing here today in Berkeley each one of
us here has traveled great distances in
our own lives physically culturally
intellectually and it’s only in events
such as this one that we get an
opportunity to sit down and reflect and
maybe just maybe connect with that
deeper part of ourselves that part which
allows us to distinguish what’s really
important
it took me 30 years to figure out one
thing that was very important to me I
grew up in Connemara in the West of
Ireland Gaelic or as we call it Irish is
my native language I like to think of
Irish as my soul’s language there’s no
denying that the Gaelic language today
is an endangered tongue with just
approximately 2% of the population who
speak it on a daily basis and given the
the relative absence of an economic need
for it in this global commercial world
some academics have stated that barring
exceptional measure Gaelic as a
community language may not survive
beyond the next two generations and this
is something that saddens me and I’ve
been thinking about this and in my
thinking of the potential loss of this
language I’ve thought about how my
relationship with it has changed over
the years you see as a teenager this
language sometimes caused me a good deal
of shame amongst my non Gaelic speaking
friends at times it made me feel
different and and weird to give you an
example if my parents would call me most
of the time I would only answer them
like in monosyllabic words like yeah and
no and if it was absolutely necessary to
engage in conversation at times so so
none of my peers would hear me speak
today I think of how crazy that was here
was my teenage self in the West of
Ireland ashamed to speak his own native
Irish language I guess you could say the
displacement of indigenous culture that
had been going on under colonial rule
for centuries has taken its toll on the
Irish psyche that isn’t what I want to
focus on today sometimes in life you
have
to leave home to come home living in
another country affords you the
opportunity to take a step back and look
at your own cultural inheritance from a
new perspective I experienced what it
was like to live in a community without
this language its songs and stories and
in doing so I realized that this ancient
tongue is a real gift that’s been passed
on to me you see for me personally
Irish allows me to see the world through
somewhat of a different lens it allows
my imagination to flourish and it has
this extraordinary capacity to make
things that could sometimes be otherwise
dull and bland graceful and personal to
give you an example the Irish word for a
wolf is mock cedar
mock cedar which means the son of the
land the Irish word for a ladybug is
Boeing Day which means God’s little cow
and growing up in Connemara you’d be
greeted each morning by the Atlantic
Ocean and I’m looking out on a choppy
rough sea we might say tabla BOM air
Hari in the Escada the fisherman’s
garden is under white flour this
language connects me with my landscape
an environment in a way that transcends
that which is visual and obvious and
allows me to set forth into what the
Irish writer John O’Donoghue called the
invisible world – December’s ago I was
back home in Ireland and my dad and I
were chatting about the state of the
language as we often do and as this
conversation was coming to a close and
the flow was finding its own natural end
I asked him one last question what would
be the real tragedy of losing this
language beyond communication beyond
politics and just like the elder aagama
in the story it took him a while to
answer but finally he did and he said
the real tragedy of losing this language
would be boss muhuali Arthur the death
of beauty pure and simple and as soon as
he said it it made sense to me and a
song came to my mind and this song
epitomized the beauty he spoke of and
the song was called Queen a lady moita
the lament of the three Mary’s and it’s
a song about the crucifixion but the
song focuses on the humanity of this
story a desperate mother looking for her
son and so within this song we go on a
journey with Mary and in the first first
she asks Peter the Apostle have you seen
my true love Peter responds I saw him
earlier being beaten by the guard in
another verse she sees a young man and
the cross and she asks a woman in the
crowd
who’s that fine man in the cross the
woman responds Mary
do you not recognize your own son and
finally in the last first
she makes her way to his body and she
sees the blunt nails and spear that have
pierced through him killing him now this
is about as graphic and harrowing of a
retelling of this experience gets and
yet somehow when I first heard a shallow
singer called Joe Heaney
sing this song I realized something and
that was that I had never heard grief
sounds so beautiful now growing up not
particularly used to singing in public I
heard a little bit of advice never
volunteer to sing a song always wait
until you’ve been asked and and then
kindly decline upon first request now
usually what will happen is the person
or the people who are asking you they’ll
ask you again this time with with a lot
more encouragement and this is this is
what it’s really important
this is what is really important you
stick to you plan you kindly decline
once more and you’re almost guaranteed
to be met with a third and final request
with a lot of encouragement this is when
you say yes and the beauty about saying
yes at this stage is that you can sing
any which way out of tune and so long as
you sing from your heart
everyone is just delighted with the fact
that they got you to sing in the first
place so with that in mind we’ll all
pretend here know that I’ve been asked
three times and I’ll sing you those
verses from that song Queenie misery
murder ha ha ha ha
um vodka – oh-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho
huh Soho
Oh lick my hairball
oh here so a canard ah hohoho
ha ho ho Soho
Oh miss Kay hey far brushing ahead ha ha
share Oh hunger so homo
Oh oh man I am told
oh oh oh
ha ha ha
oh no song kudu tarney my love
clean the hassanis lava oh uh uh Soho No
Oh mister could you want love
in a row
oh-ho-ho-ho
oh-ho-ho-ho
Oh
and so it’s it’s because of these trans
figurative properties in this language
that make magic of the seemingly banal
and that expose the lies in the thick of
darkness that in January 2018 I decided
to start an initiative called Celtic
consciousness the focus of this
initiative is to share the beauty
enshrined in the Irish language with a
wider audience to create experiences
like our tour in Ireland that use the
songs and stories of this ancient tongue
as a medium to connect with that deeper
part of yourself I suppose you could say
we we kind of create a comfortable space
for you to sit down while your soul
catches up and so with that now I’ll
bring this talk to a close but before I
go I’ll leave you all with the question
and that question is is there a language
within you that isn’t being shared that
isn’t being claimed and most importantly
that isn’t being celebrated kora milla
milla mahaki thank you all very very
much
you
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