Dúisigh do dhúchas – Awaken your heritage
We’re going to the Great Blasket Island. We’re going to create a space there, a space where people can break through the initial awkwardness of trying to communicate in a language that has become dormant in them. We will substitute teachers for experiences that teach. We will invite the Irish language to come to life inside of us again, bring it back to the forefront our collective minds and allow it to describe our experience of the world around us. We will leave behind the language of efficiency and we will search for the connection to that within us which carries a great source of natural energy.
I felt a certain shame towards our native culture as a child growing up here. It felt as though things were better elsewhere, on the beaches of Summer Bay or in the movies of Hollywood. But in seeing the world from a clearer standpoint as an adult, this shame has been replaced with a strong affinity towards our culture and our shared past. In a time where we are looking for answers, economically, ecologically, culturally and spiritually, I revel in the fact that once we allow it, our rich heritage can help us. It can help us to connect to the world around us. The world inside of us. That’s the nature of our language. In a time of disconnection it represents a great opportunity.
I was told while training to be a teacher that I would fail my course if I didn’t improve my Irish. I was unable to allow my experiences to communicate themselves through the language. Instead I thought in English and translated to Irish. This took a couple of seconds and was socially painful. I knew the answer to ‘Conas atá tú’, but it was the stock answer in my brain.
But the brain isn’t where Irish lives. Irish is a soul language, the blueprint, or the coding, of our collective psyche. It is the language that grew here in response to our surroundings, to our experiences, to the way we viewed life as people living on an island on the fringes of Europe. When we say ‘tá brón orm’ we are saying more than ‘I am sorry’. We are saying ‘there is sadness on me’ for whatever it is I am sorry about. We are communicating what the experience feels like.
So I was destined to fail my course until I came west, to Feothanach, Co. Kerry. Just three days in to making a concerted effort to speak the language, I had my first dream in Irish. I stopped thinking in English and translating to Irish and instead started, automatically, to bypass my brain and speak from my experiences using the store of dormant Irish from my school days. The language came to life inside of me.
To join us on the retreat we are creating there is no standard of Irish required, just an experience of the basics. We will go the Blasket Islands and we will ground our retreat in the spiritual practices of yoga and meditation. We will take Saileóg from the mainland and build a sweatlodge. We will walk the island and take in the wild flora with a plant identification expert who specialises in the natural medicines of the wild. We will collect wild food, rich in all of its natural nutrients and learn to forage mindfully, to prepare and eat food in gratitude. We will engage our creative spirit with music and poetry. There will be physical activities on the Trá Bán, home of a 1000 strong Seal colony, and we will engage muscle and bone in playing hurling. No previous experience is necessary and all activities are optional.
And we will do all of this through Irish. Away from the classroom and into the wild.
We’re bringing Irish back to Peig and we intend to heal the trauma of the Leaving Cert. We will rediscover parts of ourselves we’ve neglected for too long. And we hope to unlock sources of energy that may be lying dormant, waiting to be set free.
For more information find us here or get in touch at wildirishretreat@gmail.com
The retreat will take place from September 8th – 11th on The Great Blasket Island, Co. Kerry and will be facilitated by;
Diarmuid Lyng is a well-being facilitator, motivational speaker and a former Wexford hurling star. He has spent time living on the Blasket Islands for the last three years.
Siobhan de Paor is a performance artist, poet, writer, activist and photographer.
Cearbhuil Ni Fhionnghusa is a wild food forager and chef, a herbalist, a permaculturist and craftsperson.
Check out Diarmuid’s TED X Wexford talk – The Revolution is Internal
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