Irish Media

Fabulous Beast - an introduction to the company and its outlook

2008-02-17T15:16:00.001-08:00

FABULOUS BEAST DANCE THEATRE
An introduction to the company, its outlook and way of working
Commissioned by Barbican for Flowerbed, 2005
by Manchán Magan

For the neophyte the Fabulous Beast world may seem intimidating. Certainly it is hard to find suitable parallels in our world. A performance can consist of tragedy, slapstick, opera, yoga, ballet, footlight revue and contemporary dance all moulded into a dynamic format which is tender, gruesome, raucous. In short it is a series of exquisitely posed cartoons built around a taut but multi-tangential narrative that shears through the cloak of convention to expose a frequently scabrous underbelly.
Finding oneself submitted to this animalistic honesty, this determination to express can be unsettling at first. There is a rawness here that is increasingly rare in our world of compromise and mediocrity. You can be sure that a Fabulous Beast performance will be as intimidating as it is entertaining.
Does that make it any clearer? I fear not. The performance is sort of like a composting chamber – the performers being insects and bacterial organisms that create nourishment from the dung heap of the human condition. The narrative extracts entertainment and insight from the extremes of our experience. Fabulous Beast frequently wallow in the unseemly aspects of the human psyche – revelling in the murk of our lives. It is gruesome, yet gripping. At its core there’s an honesty and a simplicity that, although shocking, is very reassuring in this sanitised world. It’s sort of a purgative; nourishment for the soul. At the risk of sounding pretentious, (something that would make any Fabulous Beast member gag involuntarily) the determination with which the company operates reminds me of a working party of, let’s say, dam-builders or reapers or turf-cutters - the simple, skilful timelessness of labourers from any era and any place.
Is that any clearer? Perhaps I should try breaking the performance into its constituent parts: themes explored, narrative style, language, characters, performing style and idiosyncrasies of the development process.
Let’s start with the themes. They tend to loiter around the areas of rage and fear, the wastelands in which sexual and spiritual ecstasy bleed into one another. There is often a tendency towards darkness, a focus on the veniality of society. The storylines are cut and pasted from tired old myths, classical literary sources or simply the imagination of the director/choreographer Michael Keegan Dolan. Their primary purpose seems to be as scalpels, which are then used to eviscerate a culture. Keegan Dolan carefully severs the tendons joining sex and violence, compassion and depravity, insanity and genius. As I say, it can be gory, but it is in the freshness, the new-minted ingenuity, with which these staid old themes are ripped apart and remoulded that makes one prepared to endure the, at times, unedifying spectacle being played out on stage. Storylines in a Fabulous Beast performance are so idiosyncratic and anarchic that they prove difficult to summarise; yet somehow, despite their contortions, they manage to knit the dance, theatre and song into a driving force that hurtles forward. Narration and dialogue are largely absent from early Fabulous Beast works – the later pieces use language in a playful, loose and irresponsible way; punctuating it with exclamations, obscenities and the odd clamorous bout of popular song. The savage simplicity of the words lend them an air which is both contemporary and ancient. It helps to anchor the far-fetched narrative in an almost credible world. Overall the stories can be read as quirky parables that constitute the internal logic of the Fabulous Beast mind. The company are multicultural, coming from four continents and speaking in a mix of global accents which heightens the universality of the themes explored. Most of them are veterans of previous Fabulous Beast shows - they return to the fold each time the call goes out. While their appearance and style may be too idiosyncratic to describe them all as traditional dancers, each displays a marked charisma and stamina, and possesses an array of skills that become apparent throughout the performance.
The characters that they play are invariably compromised. Most reveal a sense of thwarted ambition or festering hurt; lives starved of mercy, twisted by circumstance. Their unsavouriness would make for unpalatable theatre but for their sheer eccentricity – ranging from, a bi-polar nymphomaniac nurse, a catamite butcher, a Glaswegian Kendo dojo master, a bisexual Slovakian line-dancer, a naked pianist with a double life as a Chihuahua, a golf-obsessed patsy, a tiresome, wheelchairbound gimp and a father who lives up a telegraph pole. No matter how gruesome the character, each is expressed with such vitality and grace that one cannot fail to warm to them. Their movements have an integrity that gives even the most ugly actions a contorted elegance. At some point in the story each is given a chance to redeem him or herself through dance – as if the body is the ultimate and only source of healing. This notion that the body can heal itself through motion and breadth is carried through from the development process. The performers undergo hours of yoga discipline each day in Shawbrook studios, the converted milking parlour in the Irish midlands, which they use as their base. The practise unites the company, who vary in age and skills training as much as they do in nationality, and creates a harmony, which allows for a style of movement that is beyond the personal, that aspires towards the timelessness of folklore. It is this element perhaps most of all that keeps the audience rapt through the chicaning speedway of the narrative. There is an edginess, a trance-like focus from the performers that locks one to the stage. As the tone and style swerve unpredictably, one finds oneself in a state of heightened expectation. It’s almost oppressive. One dare not look away.
As a final note, it is worth looking at the issue of the term genius, which a number of reviewers have resorted to in describing the work of Fabulous Beast. They use it in a somewhat tentative way - ‘a brush against genius,’ ‘a bit of a genius.’ One wonders if it is appropriate. It is certainly true that creating something so profound, yet anarchic - such avant garde physical theatre - requires a gift that is beyond the norm, but it is perhaps unhelpful to burden it with such a lofty label. Fabulous Beast thrives on its insecurity, its fallibility – it does not appear to aim for the perfection that genius implies. Either way, the company director/choreographer Michael Keegan Dolan is clearly a brave new voice in European dance, able to excel in many different disciplines at the same time, to scramble them up and throw them back at our faces.
This brazen reinterpretation of Gautier's classic romantic ballet, Giselle, which Fabulous Beast is bringing to New Zealand is like nothing that has come out of Ireland before. It offers a perspective on contemporary Irish society that might leave you horrified or deeply moved, but one thing is certain, you will be riveted for the entire performance.

ALTERNATIVE ENDING FOR Dublin Festival:
It is precisely this reason that, despite all my earlier posturing, none of us has any idea really what to expect of James son of James until we have sat down and the lights have dimmed. This is a brand new work for the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival, The Barbican and Dance Touring Partnership, and as such it is a volatile entity that could very well tear up the rule book of what Fabulous Beast is all about and redefine it. Everything I’ve written might well be redundant . . .

Fabulous Beast - an overview of the Midlands Trilogy

2008-02-17T15:12:00.000-08:00

Fabulous Beast - an overview of the Midlands Trilogy,
Commissioned by Barbican Centre for James Son of James Brochure December 2007
by Manchán Magan

Who are Fabulous Beast? They are a dance theatre company, which can mean anything from the play-thing of an ego-maniacal director, to a way of branding uneven work under a saleable name, or a haven of relative stability for wandering dancers. In the case of Fabulous Beast the dance theatre company is a way of being in the world, an ethos that infuses the minds and bodies of the members in the company. They are a community of diverse performers from five continents who are based all around the world, but who gather together in a converted cowshed in the Irish midlands to develop performances under the guidance of Michael Keegan-Dolan, a pure-hearted, fearless and visionary theatrical choreographer.
The work they produce is theatrical in that it is rich in dialogue and involves complex plots and subplots. The dance element of their work is two-fold: firstly, their performances involve fully choreographed dances, both skilfully arranged duets and occasional ensemble works, secondly the whole movement and staging of each production is choreographed as one large dance performance - whether the performers are acting, singing or clowning, they do so with the grace, intensity and integrity of physically-trained, body-aware performers. The meld of the two juxtaposing concepts of dance and theatre is more fully realised in Fabulous Beast’s work than in most dance theatre productions.
For the last five years the company has been working on the Midlands Trilogy, a series of works written by Michael Keegan Dolan in conjunction with the company. The trilogy is loosely set in the Irish midlands, and while the primary concern of all three productions are the strains and struggles of the human condition, a secondary theme running through them is the radical social upheaval being experienced in the dour, bog-covered Irish midlands as a result of new prosperity, foreign inward migration, shifting sexual mores, erosion of religion and increasing reliance on medicine. The trilogy treats these concerns as universal themes which underscore the primary stories being told. The works offer a bleak, though cathartic, take on the hypocrisy of modern society; yet there is always a hint of redemption, most apparently in James Son of James, this final instalment of the trilogy.
The first in the series was Giselle (2003), a brazen reinterpretation of Gautier's classic romantic ballet, set in a fictional town in the Irish midlands, in which the character of Hilarion takes on the role of Giselle’s mentally disturbed brother who literally treats her as a farm animal and Albrecht becomes a Bratislavan line-dancer. It's a darkly comic, anarchic tale of betrayal, abuse and disaster, cauterised by an impossibly beautiful final act involving androgynous Wilis dancing in a bogland setting. Moments of terrible depravity are leavened by occasional bouts of hilarious slapstick, seaside-postcard farce and a memorable Slovak-Italian version of an Irish ballad. Giselle offers a raw exposition of the harsh, inbred nature of rural life, which surprisingly, because of the beauty of the dance scenes, leaves one feeling sanctified - or at least somewhat less traumatised.
The second instalment of the Midlands Trilogy was the Bull (2005). It too was a co-commission by the Barbican International Theatre Events and the Dublin Theatre Festival. It involves a sensational and expletive-ridden retelling of the ancient Irish myth, An Táin Bó Cúailnge (The cattle raid of Cooley), written again by Michael Keegan-Dolan. This radically modernised version is played out in a ramshackle, roller-coaster spectacle of greed, deception and venality between two vying families: grasping, urban land developers versus traditional, stubborn farmers. It is again set in a fictitious midland village, which is contrasted with the booming metropolis nearby. Both families display the classic Irish obsession with land and it drives them and the rest of the unsavoury cast of deviants and ne’er-do-wells to a series of massacres. The violence and profanity is both in keeping with previous Fabulous Beast works and the style of the mythological source material. The themes of greed, abuse, violence and debauchery appear again. It is even more violent than Giselle, though again, sweetened by moments of great sensitivity.
It would be natural, having read the above, to be concerned about what awaits in this third and final instalment of the trilogy. Thankfully, it is a calmer, more tender piece. The glimpses of redemption revealed in the earlier works are more prominent. James Son of James, while occasionally caustic and hyperactive, and frequently uproarious, is a more sensitive piece, offering an almost compassionate view of society. This final work in the trilogy explores the parameters of true love and goodness; echoing themes that were touched upon in Fabulous Beast’s earlier Flowerbed (2000) piece (re-staged by the Barbican in 2006). The piece is in parts a musical, in that the sporadic use of popular song which played a minor role in the earlier works has been brought to the fore. James serves as both a great introduction to the work and mindset of the company, and a fitting conclusion to an exhilarating triumvirate of productions
One of the most interesting facets of the trilogy is the location in which it is set. While Dublin, the western seaboard and the north of Ireland have all been the settings for great works of theatre, poetry and literature, the Irish midlands have long been regarded as an artistic Siberia of lakes and boglands, ignored by everyone, apart from the novelist John McGahern. Keegan-Dolan, who’s father hails from the area and who now lives there himself skilfully uses it as a lens through which to examine both the changing nature of modern Ireland and the timeless yearning of the human soul. He and his company manage to incorporate the blocked physical energy of its people and the rhythmic harmony of their daily yoga and breathing (cut this, don't need it) practise to give a performance that is both brutal and beautiful.
In conclusion, a good way of regarding Fabulous Beast is as the Van Gogh of the dance world: bright, garish, brutal, honest - somewhat tortured - and with an intense central integrity. Their work has the vitality and immediacy of his brave, broad brushstrokes. Performances are moulded through improvisation, often focused on breath-work. Keegan-Dolan describes his dancers as energy-based rather than technique-based. The choreography is as pure and intense as mineral pigments poured straight from the tube. There is no artifice. The work is elemental and true, often unsavourily so. Those seeking the subtly and veneer of Manet or Matisse should look elsewhere, but if you’re after the edginess, integrity and unsullied purity that Van Gogh strived for, then this is the place to be.

Manchán Magan is an author and travel documentary maker.

MAD FOR THE ROAD - Clare People

2008-02-17T15:10:00.000-08:00

Mad for the Road
From Urine-drinking to battling rabies, travel writer Mancháan Magan has lots of incredible stories to tell, writes Christine Breen.

‘I just want to express myself,’ saying Manchán Magan sitting across from me in Kiltumper on a perfectly blue autumn morning. We’re discussing writing in general and in particular his new book on India in the series of Manchán’s Travels published by Brandon in September. It is the morning after the night before when 15 members of the Clare People Book Club interviewed Manchán for a couple of hours. As one member said, ‘I could listen to him all night!’ I think he looks a little weary but he assures me he slept well. ‘Must be the wide walls of this old cottage. It feels like a cave.’ I tell him that’s exactly what we refer to it as, and many a visitor has slept well and long there. He is only the second writer the book group has had the good fortune of interviewing. I admit to him in the morning that I had been anxious, that often out group can be very vocal in their opinion and that rarely have we all agreed on a book. ‘Well I think they let me off easy then,’ he says with a self-deprecating smile that is part waife and part sage. He admitted that being interviewed by the group was intense but also stimulating. ‘It was invigorating,’ he says. ‘You usually know after half an hour what the interviewer is about. What angle they are coming in at. So this was fresh and latent with different energies, each from a different part. Like mind candy. They didn’t just ask me about my whacky past.’
It’s his whacky past or his whacky way of looking at the world that does grab everyone’s attention, especially interviewers. But we were a full hour into the interview the night before when somebody finally asked him, ‘How do you feel about urine-drinking now?’ It’s inevitable that this subject will come up as Manchán has made no secret of having used this ancient form of self-healing and he answers unabashedly.
‘I’m glad I’m open enough to it,’ he says. ‘it’s called ‘shivambu kalpa’ in India and has been a principle of ayurvedic medicine for 2,000 years.’ That’s the thing that is most striking about Manchán. It’s his way of looking at the world and his knowledge of it. I am reminded of Mark Twain’s An Innocent Abroad. He’s game for anything. He wants to experience as much of the world as possible and he is unafraid of it. If you’re happy to live inside your own head for weeks, even months at a time, and if you believe as he and the Hindus do that reality is an illusion, then there is no reason to be afraid.
The other striking thing about Manchán is his curious mix of ego and non-ego. As he says himself, he’s a bit of a go-between. He lives in the world but at times one does wonder is he of the world – I mean the world we ordinary folks live in. He’s built himself two houses – the original one, made of straw bale and plaster, needing to be replaced as it was cracking, as they do – and he now lives in the second one, with a grass roof and plenty of light surrounded by the 36,000 trees he has planted on his 10-acre stronghold in the midlands. You could spend an hour just talking about building construction and the environment. He nearly suffered a life-threatening disease, schistosomiasis, which he got from the blood flukes (nasty worms) and another time needed to find a quick remedy for rabies having been bitten for a rabid dog. You could spend another hour just on healthy traveling, healing and urine therapy. He’s written several books, done 30 television documentaries, and he’s not yet 40. Although he is happy enough to talk about himself and admits to being somewhat self-obsessed, he says he isn’t all that comfortable in social situations. Or, more accurately, he will retreat into his grassed roof abode in Westmeath and re-gather his energy. One thinks of a cheetah, admired for its exuberant agility but respectful of its need for rest after burning too much energy. The image of the cheetah has been likened to that of gifted children, and I imagine that was what Manchán was, or rather, still is.
No doubt about it, he has boundless energy. ‘Will there be another book?’ (I should have presumed the answer.) ‘Just finished the one on Africa, in fact,’ he says.’It’s the next book in the series, the third.’ It’s been 10 years since he was in India but even longer since he was in Africa. He explains that he kept diaries and they were the source of his material, as well as his memory. He believes he needed that much time and distance in order to write what he felt. ‘It’s a condensation of everything that happened to me. I wanted to write impressionistically. There are so many concepts that overwhelmed me at the time. SO many ideas in my head. It’s like finding a myth or a fable to express it, which is what I’ve done with the character of Tara in this last book.
And, I wanted to write, in a way, for the mainstream. Something that was easy to read. I wanted something on every page to engage with. I didn’t want to just write about what I saw in India, I wanted to get my feelings about it across.’
With so many ideas in his head, his projects are many, with his radio show ‘The big Adventure’ continuing on Monday nights, and presently filming the next series of ‘No Bearla’ which airs in January. He is currently writing a love story in Irish, but on the horizon he would very much like to take a group of teenagers to Africa and witness the experience of it through their eyes, believing that we adults are a bit too deadened to be trustworthy interpreters. He wants to work with young people because of their fresh, unadulterated take on things and is currently doing writing workshops with a group in the midlands.
There is no end in sight for this lad who is mad for the road as we say in these parts, but he’s staying put . . . for the moment.’
© C Breen/Clare People.

IN A WORLD GONE MAD - Sunday Tribune

2008-02-17T15:07:00.000-08:00

IN A WORLD GONE MAD
Sunday Tribune, 2 Sept 2007
by Padraig Kenny.

Pioneering nomad or plain mad? Whatever people think of the globetrotting gaeilgeoir Manchán Magan, Padraig Kenny find it hard not to be impressed by his fearlessness and self-possession.
If you were to listen to other people's opinions, Manchan Magan is either an irritating intellectual twerp who is all "lentils and tweed" or the strident gaeilgeoir fascist of No Bearla with no regard for people's sensitivities. In private, however, Manchan Magan is a lot more personable and grounded than some people give him credit for.
Talking to him reminds you of the lost persona of his new travel book on his time in India. It's a story which details his "rescue" by his brother Ruan, who arrives with a camera to convince him that making a travel documentary for a fledgling Irish-language station would be a good idea. The documentary became the first of many critically acclaimed pieces for what was then Teililfis na Gaeilge, and an unlikely TV star was born.
As Magan sees it, Telifis na Gaeilge and the Irish language saved him. When we first encounter him in the book he is skirting the realms of insanity in a hut halfway up a mountain. Looking back now he realizes how important Ruán’s intervention was. ‘If that hadn’t come at that point I don’t know what would have happened. I was completely unemployable. All I had is what I call a useless degree in cretinhood. I was determined not to use it and not to get any other job.’
India was probably the final chapter in a personal trilogy which had taken him straight from the Leaving Cert to Africa, the Americas and finally to working in a leper station by day and dangerously descending into the self in his hut – where he transcribed ‘angelic messages’ and had the frightening ‘early stirrings of a messianic complex’ – by night.
But what becomes obvious is that he was different from the great mass of backpackers in the early to mid-90’s, a lot of whom were motivated more by personal vanity and a sense of being hip, rather than the urge to explore and understand other cultures.
‘It wasn’t a sense of wanderlust that sent me traveling, I was basically fleeing. The reason I went traveling initially was because I was just so disillusioned with life growing up in Donnybrook. And all these expectations of a mortgage and a nice job in some sort of consultancy just had no interest for me. I just couldn’t identify with any aspect of it.’
Others paid lip-service to this urge to escape the middle-class confines of society only to return to the job, the mortgage, the suit and tie – but Magan realised his own mortgage-free idyll by first building a straw bale house in Westmeath in 1997. This has since been replaced by another self-built house on a piece of land which he calls ‘my own little world.’
He describes his first year in college as ‘disillusioning’. Fully expecting the world to open up he found it restrictive and stifling. Fortunately it provided just the spur he needed to go traveling. “‘Severely disillusioned with life and depressed, I went to Africa. I saw things no kid ever should, getting so near death, facing appalling things, and I came out just thinking: ‘this is actually the most ecstatic moment of my life,’ so it informed everything, I thought, ‘if I’m not Afraid of death, then let’s just live life.’”
What he calls this ‘child man, Peter Pan sort of thing,’ of being open to experience led him down some very strange paths. On arriving in India he was given a book on urine-therapy, an essential component of ayuvedic medicine. Needless to say he took to it with gusto. He confesses in a low voice at one point that he is ‘afraid to admit to it it’ but this doesn’t stop him discussing its positive advantages with the kind of unaffected enthusiasm that has made his travelogues such compelling viewing.
He also describes a typically spontaneous moment in the book where he allowed a man put a wire into his ear, in a mesmeric feat that convinced him it was traveling into his brain. ‘Itls like when you’re faced with ice cubes in a foreign country, normal tourists will not drink the ice cubes. If you see someone wanting to put a wire into your brain in India you just say no. But I don’t.’ It makes for an interesting experience but probably a more dangerous one.’
His bookish appearance hides a tremendous fearlessness which has brought him to the edge on many occasions. All of this stems from a desire to oppose the ‘conditioning’ of society and a resistance to being labeled. He doesn’t care what people think of him, going so far as to present himself even further outside the mainstream when I bring up the subject of how close he came to insanity in India. He makes no excuses for his freeform moments of metaphysical introspection and postulating the kinds of theories about existence that might make others nervous.
‘I am mad. According to every convention set in the western world we’ve got to accept that I am mad. But if I choose to see that the Western world is mad, the conditioning and conventions of our society, that’s my choice. But it does mean that it put me at odds with the rest of the world so it makes me by definition mad.’
He believes offering himself up in such a way prevents him from going down the route of being a guru-like figure. For him it’s a mechanism, a means of making sure he resists both glib expressions of absolutism and becoming a tiresome, preaching, proselytizing type. ‘It’s so much better to present is as the ravings of a fool.’
He believes the line between really using your imagination and insanity is very thin. ‘There’s a different type of insanity, very often insanity in the west is considered as fear and deep depression. But one of the reasons I went to India was because I wanted to face the whole depression thing, and the whole fear we have of being alone and of trusting our minds. It was something I always wanted to do. I didn’t know what would happen, would I just go deep into a spiraling of negativity and depression or would I just come out the other side.’
He came out the other side and now seems to have a great degree of self-possession and a freedom from many of the tics and neuroses which can afflict other creative people. If anything the contradictions of being both a reclusive global traveler and an intellectual ready to push the boundaries of sanity have contributed to his fearlessness and his ability to immerse himself freely in any culture. So much so that it’s hard to imagine anyone else who would have had the nerve to continuously speak Irish in a Loyalist bar as he did in an episode of last year’s No Béarla.
On the surface he is calm and rational, and yet there is an urge to explore both physically and spiritually, which might express itself as unease in others. But there it is again, that sense of self-possession and self-knowledge, as he talks about this need ‘to see beyond the conditioning and have new horizons;, with a real sincerity that allows him to side-step the old backpacking ‘searching for myself’ clichés that can so easily become a default position.
As far as his preference for isolation, it seems to stem from an early age. He describes being a happy baby and remarks on his ‘good fortune’ to have been born with this tendency towards being positive. For a man who once described himself as an ‘isolated loser’ forever on the edge of things, he is remarkably well-balanced.
Neither was he a typically miserable teenager. ‘I went through my teenage years as an isolated outsider, but actually more or less confident and happy in that.’ Now, he feels well-qualified to comment on the ‘sad miserable existence’ of all those bachelors living on the sides of mountains in our past. He describes them as people who were hiding. Magan, on the other hand, at least has some contact with the outside world through the internet which he claims is ‘almost creating tiny utopias the whole time.’
‘In the past you had to be a citizen of Ireland, and so you had to share all the ideas that Irish people had, the interests like going to the pub and being interested in the latest hurling game, and now weirdos, isolated people on the margins of society, can form their own societies online. Even if it’s just people obsessed with Paul Auster novels and rare types of apple trees. They gel, and meet up if necessary, but nobody feels isolated anymore. And yet you don’t even need to, by definition, throw yourself into the dominant community outside your door.’
He sees this as being more selective and it appears he is now practicing what he preaches, as he describes himself ‘just taking different elements of what I want from the world and ignoring the rest, and basically living this almost hermit life in Westmeath where I have a huge lock on my gate and plant thousands of trees around me.’
But choosing to lock himself away from the outside world doesn’t mean he has to stop engaging it with it altogether. In fact he has a huge interest in Ireland and the latent promise of the Celtic Tiger years. ‘I’m really excited about our potential and how we might define ourselves in the future, rather than defining ourselves as a culture under hardship and repression.’
He is pragmatic in regard to our consumer culture, particularly after seeing the effects of Western consumerism in India. ‘Every country that went through hardship and suffering is going to have to go through a period of conspicuous spending. And it looks garish, the nouveau riche thing, but we need to be able to buy as much Coca Cola and as much bling as we want to for a while. Again it’s probably rosy-eyed and optimistic but I hope that it’s a natural pure stage and that something evolves beyond that.’
He hasn’t been traveling for two years and now writes every day. The next book will be about his travels in Africa. He has no television, just his books, his music and the internet. He’s hoping to do a follow up to No Béarla, and redress the ‘car crash television’ nature of the first series with something much more constructive. The idea of having such a unique special language as Irish, and the idea of throwing it way with ‘absolute foolishness’ is something which breaks his heart. ‘If as a nation we want to throw it away then we should come and say it openly and just stop the hypocrisy.’
Although he doesn’t say it outright he seems happy and content in his little world of his own. All the travel has been about celebrating cultures and changing his perspective. He was particularly taken with Indian spirituality and its emphasis on oneness and unity, and the idea of it’s liberating quality, which he says ‘allows you to free yourself from this small box, the limited view, the frame of the body that you’re given, back to this oneness and realizing that it’s all an illusion.’
But for all his received wisdom he still can’t bring himself to preach. ‘the one thing I’ve realised is that I’ve no idea what anyone should do.’ He laughs, ‘I barely have an idea of what I should do from day to day.’
Manchán’s Travels: a Journey through India (Brandon Books)
©Sunday Tribune

Back to Basics - Irish Times profile, August 2007

2007-10-19T13:06:00.000-07:00

Back to basics
Saturday, August 25, 2007

Travelling the world has left Manchán Magan with a better idea of how to find contentment, the writer and broadcaster tells Róisín Ingle .

Having a conversation with Manchán Magan is like conversing with several volumes of a disturbingly youthful-looking encyclopedia. A walking Wikipedia, with fewer errors, the man can talk about anything. He can tell you about the DNA of an onion, recount the legend of immortal Indian yogis or banter about the challenge of putting a power shower into his grass-roofed house. He can talk about these things in French, German, Chinese and Irish as well as in English. So it's no surprise, when I broach the subject of happiness, to find that he has already given it considerable thought.
Much of this thinking occurred when he was living a hermit-like existence in a hovel, drinking his urine - it kept his skin clear, among other benefits - and occasionally monitoring a leper station high in the Himalayas, in a small village called Almora. His adventures with his brother Ruán, who in 1996 dragged him out of his cave and on to the screens of the then fledgling Irish-language station TnaG, were to become fodder for his latest book, Manchán's Travels: A Journey through India. He was in India for only six months, but during that time, Magan being Magan, he befriended a gay leper, got lost in the desert and became caught up with the Nepalese secret service.
Apart from these adventures, and honing his skills as a TV presenter, what made Magan happy in India was "being on my own, bathing in the pool of spring water amidst the pine trees and walking in hills". He realised quite quickly that being around other people didn't necessarily bring happiness.
Now a full-time writer, broadcaster and occasional TV presenter - a recent series was the acclaimed No Béarla, which involved getting shouted at a lot while he insisted on speaking Irish to people he met - the 36-year-old still spends plenty of time on his own. These days his refuge is a self-built house beside a self-planted forest in Co Westmeath. A large gate that appears firmly padlocked but actually isn't, warns off casual visitors. He reckons he has been successful as a loner and is more productive and happier that way. "The main lesson I learned in India was that in the long term only I could make myself happy. I wanted to strip my life of all non-necessities and just see if I could find that happiness by myself and in myself," he says. "I thought it would be a great basis for life. I would no longer be pulling parasitically out of other people but instead coming to them when I had something to offer to make them happy. That was the lofty ambition, anyway."
Lofty ambitions have been a motivation for much of Magan's life adventure. As the great-grandnephew of The O'Rahilly, who died in 1916, he grew up in Donnybrook, in south Dublin, intimately acquainted with his family's revolutionary tradition. He was speaking Irish before he could speak English.
"Irish was handed down to me as a weapon against the oppressors," he says. But despite the republican grooming of his mother and his maternal grandmother, he came initially to reject both the language and the country where he grew up.
As a teenager attending Gonzaga College, his original thinking and idealism were positively encouraged. "Being born into Donnybrook, Dublin 4, your mind is full of conditioning. I had 20,000 assumptions that had been handed to me, and I wanted to examine each one and get rid of every one I didn't like," he says. He says he had - perhaps still has - a blind spot when it comes to Ireland. "People look at places like the west of Ireland and see a peaceful idyll. I saw misogyny and abuse and violence and lack of opportunity and alcohol. Perhaps it is an adolescent immaturity in me. I'm like the teenager saying 'I hate my parents' when I say I hate my country," he says.
In what could have been a reaction to his environment and to life in the west generally, there was a period of "almost manic depression" in his late teenage years. "If I hadn't left the country when I did my head would have exploded," he says. "I would have ended up one of those lonely, drugged-up, depressed people."
But he escaped to Africa, where his extraordinary experiences - being left for dead on a roadside in Zaire, for example - will make his next book. "It taught me that life is about simple food, simple choices, about people just surviving day to day," he says.
His previous travel book, Angels and Rabies: A Journey through the Americas, was well received critically, and since his India-based television debut he and his brother have made more than 30 Global Nomad programmes for TG4, including programmes in China, the Middle East and Greenland.
When Ruán called him, he was so out of it in the Himalayas that "I really did believe I was communicating with angels or spirits. I went to incredible places in my imagination."
The carrot dangled in front of the blissed-out drop-out by his brother was television and the chance to proselytise to an Irish audience. To Magan it "seemed like fun", and there was much he wanted to communicate about India.
The brothers went to Varanasi and Rajasthan and Delhi with entertaining results. A thread running through the book is the bizarre story of Tara, the gay leper from Almora who joins up with a hermaphrodite community called the hijras. "We've lost touch," says Magan, who would still like to tell Tara's story through film.
Apart from losing his heart to an unnamed Hollywood B-lister some years ago, Magan has "very rarely" had a partner, because of the limitations a relationship would place on his highly prized freedom. "At some time I do want to set up a wife and kids," he says, and he laughs when I suggest that they could live in a separate house in his Westmeath hermitage, where his 12.30pm coffee-and-homemade-cookies ritual marks his favourite time of the day.
Magan will appear at the Electric Picnic festival next weekend, doing a reading accompanied by a troupe of dancers. On his website he asks visitors: "Book reading and dance, a wise or stupid idea?" You suspect he doesn't really care about the answer. Wise or stupid, he'll do it anyway. And, weirdly, from a snippet I watched on YouTube about the time his brother was stung by a scorpion carrying 12 babies that Magan then had to kill, it just might work.
The key to being happy is to find out how best to express oneself, "then find an avenue to do this", he says. "It was in India that the thought first dawned on me that I adored writing in my diary and loved thinking weird and wonderful thoughts." He tried to write a book in his cave 10 years ago, but it was "truly terrible". With encouragement, he started to make more sense in his writing - with the result that this second book is mad and brilliant and often hilarious. Just like Manchán Magan.
Manchán's Travels: A Journey through India is published by Brandon, €14.99
© 2007 The Irish Times

Around the World for Lazarus, Irish Times, 25th Oct 2006

2007-02-11T14:52:00.000-08:00

Around the world for Lazarus
by Manchán Magan,
The Irish Times, 25th October 2006

TG4 celebrates its 10th birthday next week. Manchán Magan recalls his first attempts at filming in Irish, at a time when he thought they might all be flogging a dead horse.

I had been living on my own in the Himalayas for months, hiding out in a remote hovel, lost in the realms of angelic voices that were trumpeting through my head, when Khim Singh screamed down the mountain at me, saying I had a phone call. I hurried up to the chai shop and grabbed the receiver to hear my brother, Ruán, asking me had I heard of TnaG - a new television channel which within nine months would be broadcasting eight hours of programmes in Irish a day. He said he was going to make the first Irish travel series and I was going to present it.
I should have warned him off there and then; admitted to the bouts of euphoria; the early stirrings of a Messianic complex, but the whole thing was so farcical that it seemed oddly appropriate. Fated almost. The superannuated carcass of the Irish language, which I had carried as a dead weight all my life, was reaching its arm around the world to rescue me. The least I could do was play along with it.
I had presumed, like most people, that the language was long past resuscitation. I had studied it in college - watched it breathing its last gasps, and then when I had my degree I turned away to allow it the dignity of coughing its death rattle in private. Ireland was strutting intrepidly forth into the future and we didn't need it any more; we didn't want to be reminded of this last vestige of our peasant past.
Yet, according to my brother, everything had now changed. The government, the Soldiers of Destiny, descendants of the Republican martyrs who had been snipered, hung, guillotined for the Cause, didn't have the heart to watch it flatline, and they had come up with a plan to assuage their guilt. They had paid out £12 million for a brand new TV station. TnaG (now called TG4) was to be a sort of Mayo Clinic for the language. it would stem the galloping cancer; somehow making our barbaric tongue suitable for the 21st century.
Two weeks later my brother arrived in Delhi with a digital camera - a revolutionary new device which had not until then been used for television. I still don't know how he had convinced TnaG to let him come, although his assurances that they didn't have to pay us unless they liked the programmes must have helped.
At the back of their minds would have been the knowledge that we were great-grandnephews of the O'Rahilly - founder of the Irish Volunteers, who exactly 90 years before had spearheaded the resurrection of the Irish language, had written a new alphabet for it and convinced banks, businesses and even the Royal Mail to accept it as an official language. TnaG must have hoped that his passion had been passed down the line to us.
At the hotel my brother began unpacking the gear - aluminium boxes full of chrome lead connectors, chain-mail microphones, a titanium-tipped tripod; the surgical equipment with which we would go to work on the language. Another bag was full of bottles of whiskey which he explained were for bribing officials, as he hadn't had time to arrange film permits. He had brought me brand new copies of Ó Dónaill and de Bhaldraithe's dictionaries, as well as a dog-eared copy of the Christian Brothers' Grammar. Unfortunately, he had forgotten to pack the clothes I had asked for, and I would have to present the programmes in my old T-shirts and tracksuit.
It didn't really matter. I couldn't imagine anyone would be watching anyway. It was reckoned that only 5 per cent of the population spoke Irish with sufficient fluency and of those, how many had the slightest interest in India? These were fishermen, farmers, grant administrators and such like, they had better things to be doing with their evenings than watching me and my deluded wanderings.
And of the tiny minority of them who might possibly give a damn, how many of them spoke my dialect? The slurpy, slurried tones of Munster Irish, which for me were soulful and sweet, to them would sound remedial, as though I were suffering from a verbal impediment or wasn't entirely sober.
The elongated vowels and idiosyncratic stress patterns would grate on their ears like static until they were forced to switch it off. And unfortunately these non-Munster Irish speakers were in the majority; they were the Connaught and Donegal speakers and the Dublin crowd who spoke that officially-sanctioned, castrated mutant, An Caighdeán. Eunuch Irish.
The first few days were torturous: every time I caught sight of my fish-eyed face glaring back at me from the petroleum orb of the camera lens I froze like a badger in headlights. I literally couldn't think of anything cogent to say. The idea of using this language in so foreign a setting seemed farcical - like a bad comedy sketch. But my brother was patient with me, allowing me to do take after take until I got it right.
Over time I began to get used to the whole thing and to actually enjoy it - dragging this Lazarus language into new and unexpected places. I felt I was giving it a whole new incarnation. I imagined how proud my grandmother would be. It was she who had taught us Irish - bribing us with sweets and money to learn a new word or phrase each day. The more Irish we spoke the more we earned. It was a currency, plain and simple. And if TnaG liked our programmes, it would become so again.
I made sure to focus on the maharajas in the series, thinking that the audience would identify with another once-great culture now breathing its last. I sought out the remnants of the maharajas - their last tiger hunts, last purdahed women and fading princes. While filming their ostentatious architecture, I was struck by how they had sought immortality through their architecture, their essence captured in bricks and mortar. I wondered was that what TnaG was about, too. Trapping our bardic tongue on tape so that when it did finally splutter and die they would be able to root out the tapes again and show people how this awkward old matrix of sounds and syntax had once been used to communicate - to actually talk and joke and sing in; and not only that, but at the point of its extinction it had been used for the quixotic purpose of making a series of television programmes in faraway places. The language would seem as exotic then as witchcraft or Sufi dancing.
The more I thought about it the more I realised that in truth my role was as a sort of last surviving dodo. I was to be the personification of the myth that the language was still a viable organism, still in use in odd corners of the world.
The experience of filming the maharajahs made a big impression on me. I realised we were witnessing the leave-taking of an evolutionary dead end. Not all species or cultures require a comet or a global catastrophe to become extinct; some are wiped out simply because their time has come. The golden era of the maharajas had much in common with other pivotal periods of excess - the Italian Renaissance, early Christianity, the Pythagorean period in Croton, 1960s California - all involved a temporary resurgence of Orphic ideals where people abandoned themselves to a mutant expression of their true feelings; to Chaos, to Eros, to the delights of the Garden of Eden. They were all short-lived.
The same could be said for the Celtic Revival that had brought back Irish in the early 20th century. It, and the uprising that accompanied it, might have been just a temporary bout of hysteria, that we were now recovering from. Like the maharajahs willing to ride out into battle in the face of certain death for the sake of honour, we had become drunk for a few decades on the concept of blood sacrifice and the need to speak our own language.
It was what had inspired the O'Rahilly to polish his boots, wax his moustache and kiss his pregnant wife goodbye before riding out to certain death in the Easter Rising. All that was left now of that delirium was the language and we were at a loss as to what to do with it.
I wanted to know what it wanted. Was it crying out for intervention - a radium treatment beamed out across the airwaves, or would it sign a Do Not Resuscitate form if it could? I worried that our programmes were just prolonging its pain. Was TnaG like an inexperienced paramedic sucking the face off a flat-lined corpse? Were we like relatives refusing to unplug the support machine? I still don't know, but I'm still making programmes, still windmill-jousting for TG4.
Manchán Magan has made more than 30 documentaries for TG4, many of which have been sold in over 25 different territories worldwide. His latest book is a South American travelogue, Angels and Rabies, published by Brandon
© The Irish Times

No Béarla Reviews - Sunday Times, Business Post, Tribune

2007-02-11T12:50:00.000-08:00

NO BÉARLA REVIEWS – Sunday Times, Business Post, Tribune.

MORE IRISH THAN THE IRISH.
TELEVISION BY LIAM FAY
January 21 2007

Don’t make him angry; you really wouldn’t like him when he’s angry. Like Dr David Banner, the scientist who turns into the Incredible Hulk when provoked, the normally mild-mannered Manchán Magan has a grotesque alter ego: a fanatical Gaelgoir.
Magan’s inner green monster is given free rein in No Béarla (TG4, Sun), a simultaneously light-hearted and serious travel series in which he attempts to traverse Ireland using, as the programme title suggests, no English. Not surprisingly, he soon finds himself lost in translation.
Just as the sight of the rampaging Hulk cause mass consternation, the spectacle of an Irish-language zealot in full flight terrifies most ordinary citizens, encouraging many to run for their lives. Most of the shop assistants and hospitality staff that Magan approaches with is queries as Gaeilge back away and shake their heads, in disbelief as much as incomprehension.
This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be, if one believes the lip service paid to our mother tongue by government mouthpieces. Gaelic is Ireland’s first official language and after much political lobbying, has been formally recognised as such by the European Union. In the lsat census, a quarter of the population claimed to speak Irish regularly. As Magan quickly discovered, however, it’s difficult to find anyone who can speak the language even irregularly on the country’s streets.
In some quarters, in fact, a phrase of Irish is liable to be greeted with an expression of hostility. Magan began his odyssey in city-centre Dublin, where he stopped passers-by to ask, in Irish, for directions. With the refreshing directness for which the capital is famous, most Dubliners informed him that his best bet would be to drop dead.
It was the makers of No Bearla who drew parallels between Magan’s predicament and the plight of Dr Banner, a forlorn outcast forced to wander endlessly in a world that doesn’t understand him.
When Magan’s antique Jaguar seized up, he sought a mechanic through directory enquiries, in Irish of couse. Having listened carefully to every word, the operator burst out laughing, apparently convinced it was a crank call.
As Magan set off on foot in search of help, the musical accompaniment was Joseph Harnell’s The Lonely Man – the poignant piano piece used in the closing moments of the Incredible Hulk. Magan, it seems, had been rendered friendless through contamination by the linguistic equivalent of gamma radiation.
The hint of self-mockery is the saving grace of No Bearla. The show could easily have been a smug TG4 invoke, a snear at the expense of the east-coast West Brits who don’t know their Erse from their bellows. Despite the programme’s paltry budget, however, its producers have grander ambitions.
No Bearla works primarily because of Magan, a human Ardnacrusha of energy cleverly disguised as a wistful hippie. A multilingual globetrotter, who has presented several TG4 travel series, he seems more bemused that angered by the death of his native language, and is eager to assign reasons rather than blame for its demise.
Spouting Irish at non-speakers until they snap would be a flimsy premise for what is a four-part series, not least because anyone who uses language as a battering ram rather than a form of communication deserves to be barked at. Fortunately, Magan is interested in eliciting a wider and more subtle range of responses.
The visit to Dundalk was particularly illuminating. Many of the inhabitants of this so-called republican stronghold were dumbfounded by Magan’s use of Irish and a few even demanded that he speak the invader tongue. By contrast, he was treated more civilly by some loyalists on Belfast’s Shankill Road, who lamented their unfamiliarity with the island’s only indigenous language.
For all its eye-opening merits, however, No Bearla has one glaring weakness. The programme’s English subtitles are littered with misspellings. Its producers clearly need to brush up on their Béarla.
©Sunday Times

Sunday Tribute. 14 January 2007 Gavin Corbett
No Béarla had a very good joke right at the start. It’s a travel show with a twist – presenter Manchán Magan (who seems to be everywhere suddenly, which is his job, I suppose) tries to get around Ireland, speaking only Irish to people. Anyway, the joke was that a caption came up at the start saying, in English, ‘We apologise for the loss of subtitles.’ Great – if you’re like me, you’d have been totally lost from that point, grappling to understand Magan as he quizzed tourist-industry workers and public officials as gaeilge. Still, nice programme- Dublin looked fantastic, on whatever gloriously sunny day they managed to catch it on. Next week, Magan’s off to Belfast, although it could easily be Sligo for all I understood.
© Sunday Tribune

A shot to the heart for cupla focail 14 January 2007 By Emmanuel Kehoe I’ve heard Japanese people speak Irish. Americans too. German, French and Italian scholars during the Gaelic revival launched themselves at its literature and philology.I’ve heard Japanese people speak Irish. Americans too.German, French and Italian scholars during the Gaelic revival launched themselves at its literature and philology.
Now, as Ireland’s population shifts, the dilemma that is the Irish language could find an anthem in that old Cole Porter song: ‘‘Lithuanians and Letts do it . . .’’ Learn Irish, that is.But whatever about the ability and willingness of the children of new arrivals to learn Irish in our schools, the language seems to have stuck in our own craw. Gaelscoileanna, TG4 and the new position of Irish as a working language of the EU aside, the stupefying and unavoidable fact is that we spend ten to 12 years learning a language in school and most people can barely utter a sentence in Irish, much less read or write one.
Are we the thickies of Europe, of the world? Or is the Irish language a sort of embarrassing hand-me-down that we are slightly ashamed to wear?A St Patrick’s Day badge to be worn by children but not by adults?I quite liked Manchan Magan’s explanation as a sort of linguistic torpor: ‘‘Irish is this ancient language.“It’s served us for thousands of years. I just think it’s got tired. I don’t think it’s got a place in the modern world.”Well of course it’s nonsense, but I like the fanciful notion of a language that has just become worn out. Something, anything, has to explain our miserable inability to speak it.In the first episode of No Bearla (TG4), a four-part series in which Magan tries to make his way about the country speaking no English, he found an almost unbelievable unwillingness and inability among Dubliners to engage with him in Irish.On the most basic level, you might expect ten-year veterans of Irish classrooms to know the meaning of ‘beo’ and ‘marbh’. But the question ‘‘An bhfuil an Gaeiluinn beo no marbh?” elicited at best a mumbled response, mostly of incomprehension.A piece written by Magan in the Guardian earlier this month suggested rather more hostility towards his efforts than was apparent in the programme. Being suddenly confronted by Magan’s wide eyed figure on a city street attempting to engage them in Irish may simply render people speechless.Are they likely to treat him as just another forager from the city’s standing army of charity chancers and cadgers?Very. An age ago, as a schoolboy in short pants, I was sent out from school selling flags for Coiste na Teangan on the streets. We never seemed to do particularly well in that city of tenements and tough times and the collection box usually was filled by relatives sent by God for the purpose of preserving small boys from zealous teachers.Magan found Irish in Kilmainham Gaol where he was shown the cell in which his grandmother Sighle Humphreys (‘‘society belle and crack-shot Irish rebel’’, Magan called her in a dramatised documentary some years ago) was locked up.Magan’s credentials in the nationalist aristocracy are top notch: he is also related to The O’Rahilly. But he was unable to get an Irish language bus tour of Dublin or, seasoned traveller that he is, to buy decent maps and guidebooks in Irish.In Temple Bar he appealed to the crowds, offering money to anyone who would have a conversation with him in the first national language.This was an utter and quite unbelievable failure. Clearly there wasn’t a single old-style Christian Brothers’ boy playing the flaneur that day, or a single product of a gaelscoil within earshot.Everyone who chooses to live the Life Gaelic is faced with compromise.Every government agency parades itself under an Irish title, but trying to do business with them in Irish is almost impossible. Even in Gaeltacht areas, attempts to buy a newspaper or groceries through Irish often requires the visitor to force the issue. Conversations in Irish in pubs die the moment one is joined by a non-Irish speaker, out of pure politeness.‘‘We were taught Irish as a weapon against the British,’’ Magan has said elsewhere. ‘‘Every word I spoke was supposed to be a bullet into the imperialist’s heart.”The lingering infection that has troubled the wider adoption of Irish may owe something to this historic, proscriptive attitude. We speak Irish because it’s not English, even if all most of us can manage, it seems, is ‘‘slainte’’ or ‘‘pog mo thon’’.It may be dogged by dialect variations that can impede comprehension, bedevilled by language fascists and cranks, tinkered with by reformers, mangled and abused by cynical politicians, but surely there is more Irish out there than the first episode of Magan’s series suggests. Maybe the poor tired language of his description needs his series as a sort of linguistic defibrillator, a shot to the heart.
© SUNDAY BUSINESS POST

Smaointe Mhancháin faoin dteanga

2007-02-11T12:47:00.000-08:00

Manchán's thoughts on Irish for Lá Newspaper:

Cén fáth Gaeilge?
17ú Eanáir 2007

Cad iad mo thuairimí faoin nGaeilge? Osclaíonn mo bhéal agus tá an oiread sin smaointe réidh le stealladh amach gur deacair ceann amháin a roghnú. Táim i ngrá léi, táim bréan di, tá amhras orm fúithi, tá trua agam di, tá dóchas lag agam aisti. Is dócha gurb í an phríomhthuairim a ritheann liom ná go bhfuilim réidh anois, ar deireadh thiar thall, glacadh lena cinniúint, cuma maith nó olc í. Glacfaidh mé léi go toilteanach stuama más deireadh ré féin atá in ann di. (Ní chreidim go bhfuil a mhalairt de rogha agam ach glacadh leis.) Ach cinnte, ní hé sin atá uaim. Chaith mo mháthair chríonna, Síghle Humphreys, a saol ag troid ar son na teanga, agus nfheadar ar deireadh an ndearna sí aon pioc difríochta. Braithim go gcaithfear cloí le toil an phobail i gcásanna den sórt. Ar chúis amháin nó cúis eile, tá an pobal ag casadh a ndroim ar an dteanga. Is amhlaidh go bhfuil gné shíceolaíoch éigin go smior ionainn a chuireann brú orainn an teanga a dhiúltú ar scoil. Cuirtear an milleán ar an gcóras oideachais go minic, ach ní fheicim conas a d'fhéadfadh sé a bheith ciontach ar fad. Gach seans go bhfuil modhanna beagán níos fearr le í a mhúineadh ach conas a bheadh na modhanna a úsáidtear anois chomh holc sin go dteipeann ar formhór daoine teacht ar aon sórt líofachta in aon chor tar éis deich mbliana ag staidéar?Sílim gurb í an phríomhchúis go dteipeann orainn í a fhoghlaim ná nach dteastaíonn uainn. Rud síceolaíoch atá i gceist. Rud éigin bain-teach le cuimhneamh fo-chomhfhiosach na tíre, bfhéidir. Tá an Ghaeilge bainteach le gnéithe diúltacha cruatan, anró, éagóir, achrann. Ní haon ionadh nach bhfáiscimid chuig ár gcroíthe í.An bhfuil aon dul as seo? Sílim nach raibh go dtí le gairid. Chomh fada is a bhí an clú ar Éirinn gur tír bhocht í, ní raibh mórán a mheallfadh duine ar ais chuig an dteanga. Bhí an dúil ionainn gluaiseacht chun cinn róláidir le haird a thabhairt ar nithe gan tábhacht. Bhí cuimhneamh na milliúin duine a chailleamar sa Ghorta róchumhachtach ionainn chun ligean dúinn ár n-aird a chasadh ar aon rud nach raibh bainteach go smior leis an sracadh chun maireachtála. Seasamh na dtréan a bhí i gceist agus ba é an Béarla a bhí uachtarach. Mar sin, ní go dtí deich mbliana ó shin a bhí aon seans ar bith go dtosódh an athbheochan.An rud eile a bhí ag cur sriain ar an bpróiseas, i mo thuairim, ná an bhaint a nascadh idir an teanga agus achrann sa Tuaisceart. Tugadh le fios go raibh ceangal idir caint na Gaeilge lasmuigh den nGaeltacht agus feachtas an IRA, nó ar a laghad, polaitíocht Shinn Féin. Thruailligh sé an teanga i súile áirithe. Lasmuigh den Tuaisceart, bhí leisce ar daoine í a fhoghlaim ar eagla go mbeadh míthuiscint faoi na cúiseanna a bhí leis. Agus mar sin, chomh fada is a lean an troid, ba bheag seans go n athnuafaí an teanga. Ní fhaca mé go raibh aon dul as ach glacadh lena bás. Chruaigh mé mo chroí chuici mar chosaint ón imní.Anois, den chéad uair le fada, tá seans go n-athróidh rudaí. B’fhéidir go bhfuilimid ag tógaint na gcéad chéimeanna i dtreo na hathbheochana. Má tá, caithfidh mé athbhreithniú a dhéanamh ar mo thuairimí go léir.Ní hé go raibh mé riamh ina coinne ach tháinig amhras orm fúithi agus stop mé á labhairt, toisc, leis an fhírinne a insint, nach raibh éinne ann ar theastaigh uaim í a labhairt leis. Níor chas mé mo dhroim riamh ar an dteanga go hiomlán - cé gur stop mé ag labhairt Gaeilge lasmuigh den Ghaeltacht, níor stop mé riamh ag scríobh. Tá dhá leabhar taistil de mo chuid foilsithe ag Coiscéim agus beidh leabhar eile á scríobh i mbliana agam úrscéal. Ach ba dheacair dom míniú do éinne cén fáth a ndéanaim é. Chomh fada agus is eol dom, níor léigh ach timpeall deichniúr an chéad dá leabhar. Bhuail mé le ceathrar acusan bean an fhoilsitheora agus a mac beirt acu. I slí amháin, is díomhaointeas atá i gceist a bheith ag scríobh as Gaeilge, ach fós ní féidir liom é a stop. Tá dúil agam ann. Bfhéidir gur feachtas cogaidh pearsanta de mo chuid féin atá i gceist - go bhfuilim ag leanúint troid mo sheanmháthar. Os rud é go raibh sí sásta trí bliana dá saol a chur ar ceal i bpríosún ar son na cúise, ní fheicim go bhfuil de rogha agam ach cúpla mí a chaitheamh gach bliain ag scríobh leabhair nach léifear. Braithim go mb’fhéidir gur sórt cothú anama don teanga atá ann i slí éigin.Ach an cheist is mó a bhíonn de shíor do mo chiapadh ná an dteastaíonn an teanga maireachtáil in aon chor? B’fhéidir go bhfuil sí tagtha go deireadh a saoil, agus gur cheart dúinne glacadh leis seo go cróga. Tá sí tar éis feidhmiú leis na mílte bliain i bhfad níos faide ná formhór teangacha bfhéidir go bhfuil sí spíonta, traochta anois, ag teacht go nádúrtha go deireadh a saoil. Níl uaithi ach go scaoilfear saor í. Cruthaíodh agus múnlaíodh í do shochaí iomlán difriúil sochaí atá imithe anois, buíochas leis na déithe. Tá ré iontach, oscailte, nua romhainn anois, lán dfhéidearthachtaí nár samhlaíodh riamh cheana. Tá turas úr romhainn, agus ní féidir linn ár gcuid giuirléidí seanchaite go léir a thabhairt linn. Tá teanga freacnarcach, aclaí, acmhainneach, óg againn sa Bhéarla, agus ní féidir liomsa a bheith cinnte nach bhfuil sé in am dúinn ár ndílseacht a chasadh ina threo.
© Lá www.nuacht.com

THE FILTHIEST IRISH SONG IN THE WORLD

2006-11-04T15:58:00.000-08:00

In the summer of 2006 Manchán Magan travelled around Ireland seeing could he make himself understood through Irish. As part of his journey he went busking on the streets of Galway singing the filthiest lyrics he could think of to see if anyone would understand.
Here below is a translation of the lyrics. Apologies if they cause offence, fortunately no one was able to understand them in Galway and thus no offense was caused.

THE FILTHIEST IRISH SONG IN THE WORLD
Show me your cunt, young girl. Show me your breasts.
Show me your tits, here on the street.
Let’s fuck here on the street just like dogs.
Oh, let’s fuck just like dogs.
I feel horny. Feel like screwing, feel like riding.
Oh let’s fuck here on the street.

Just like dogs, just like dogs.
Let me rub you, let me ride you,
Let me fuck you here on the street.
Let me fist fuck you.
Let me fuck you here on the street.
To stroke you and ride you, to beat our skin together, here on the street.

Let’s fuck, I say. Like the dogs
Let’s fuck here on the street.

The Sound Within by Kate Fennell

2006-11-04T15:51:00.000-08:00

The Sound Within
Kate Fennell

I don’t know how old I was when I realised that it wasn’t only people with brown eyes that spoke that other strange language which I didn’t understand. I must have been around 7 because it was at that point that we left Maoinis Island, Conamara and moved to the metropolis of Galway. There I noticed that even the people with grey, blue and green eyes, the same as my friends’ and family’s, spoke this language. The two brown-eyed brothers in Maoinis school, known as the ‘come-day-go-days’ because of their frequent excursions to a faraway country called Thurles, had been the only children I had known until then who spoke and understood fluent English. I was soon to be immersed in this language and my family home was to become an island of Irish. Well, not entirely because my new city school had a rule where we were not allowed to speak English. Yet they had difficulty understanding my Irish.

The language police would circulate in the clós during break-times noting down the names of people who were singing the skipping rhyme “Vote, vote, vote for De Valera” in English. I couldn’t win. I was proud now to be beginning to converse in this new language but already it was a crime. While, at the same time, my Irish was the cause of much mirth since I pronounced guttural ‘ch’ with much more of an ‘ach’ sound than they. While their ‘chs’ were rendered as ‘ks’, mine were softer and more like the ‘ch’ in the Scottish ‘Loch Ness’. Teachers would not hesitate to make me stand up in class and speak to my new classmates in my native tongue so that they could hear this beautiful Irish. I didn’t know what they found beautiful about my rough accent, as I saw it. The language I was learning was a lot cleaner and less wild. All I knew was I never had any difficulty with those ‘agam, agat, aiges’ and spelling tests were easy. What did cause me confusion though was madra, tonnta, ag dul, páistí, ag cur fearthainne, tar anseo! and other phrases and verbs. My equivalents were gadhar, maidhmeanna, ag gabháil, gasúir, ag screachadh (báistí) and gabh i leith! respectively. I started to get the feeling that my Irish was wrong. I should be saying these words that were in the book. Their pronunciation of my language was totally different too. A slight feeling of shame and embarassment began to creep into my psyche. Why do I speak this language so differently from them? No child wants to be different but as soon as I would open my mouth in class the difference would be as plain as day.

Language is sound. It is the first sound that reverberates in the human body. The mouth and the vocal chords are shaped by these words that we utter. It is not grammar, syntax, or old, middle or modern. It doesn’t know borders, religions and it has no sense of time. It is the coming together of the mind, heart, and physical body to communicate with the world around us which since time immemorial has been inhabited my humans. Therefore it is the most common tool that humans use to communicate with one another. Apparently language was not always there. As cavemen we grunted and made noises to suit our intentions. Our way of communication now is the same but more sophisticated. It is still a basic expression of the human being.

Songs seem to carry these expressions most effectively over generations and geographical distances. Each tribe has dirges, each tribe has songs of victory, of pure joy, of love, of longing and so on. Song is a translation of feeling and thought into sound so as to communicate more directly with the heart and soul of others. When this is successful we often get the meaning without understanding the words. The sound suffices to close the gap between language and understanding.

When I was uprooted from Conamara, the world of sounds that I knew vanished almost completely. I started to make new sounds. They were crisper, sharper, harder and varied less in tone than my native tongue. There were a handful of people that I knew who spoke native Irish like me. Each time we would converse I felt that we were excluding others because very often they would be left with blank faces. With English it was the contrary. Everybody understood me when I spoke. It was inclusive. It could be a beautiful language in poetry and prose. But the sound of it never became my sound, I felt. It felt alien to me.

In my life today these are the sounds I have to make to be understood in the main. But they don’t make me feel whole. I feel I am speaking from my head. When I speak Irish I feel I am speaking from my heart. It is not surprising, therefore, that I was drawn to the Slavic languages to find the sounds that I missed. Russian has those ‘shhs’ and ‘chs’ and ‘nyas’ and thick consonants that I was used to mouthing from a young age. It is an old, rich and very poetic language. I fell in love with this language, learnt it, lived in Russia and felt that a hole had been considerably filled. After all, you can live there and everyone speaks it, not just in a pocket somewhere where there is little employment and a dependence on grants, but everywhere and, importantly, they are proud of it. Yet the gnawing feeling of lacking something was to return later and 20 years after leaving Conamara I returned for my fix. I wanted to live in a world where my original sounds were understood not by a select few but by everyone from the postman to the county councillor. I didn’t want to be seen as a freak for speaking this ‘dead language’ as I had often felt while studying and living in Dublin. I wanted to hear the same sounds returned. Now my heart was singing in earnest. I had needed to be reconnected. The fact that it was an emotional experience as much as a linguistic one was not lost on me.

In Ireland Irish is more of an emotional question than a linguistic one. The sound of Irish seems to be lodged in the sub-conscious mind of our people. That might explain why discussions about Irish are more of an emotional nature than about the intricacies of the language itself. If I had a service which gave a listening ear to those who wanted to vent their frustration, disappointment and anger at the way Irish was taught to them in school I would be able to retire now on the profits. If, on the other hand, each payment was withdrawn when someone told me how they loved Irish and how they wished they could speak it or were attending nightclasses or were foreign but had learnt it like a native, well I’m afraid I would then be back where I started. It is such an emotionally-charged subject in Ireland it nearly ceases to be seen as a European language with a culture and a history as unique as Spanish or Portuguese. The fact that Irish is the third written European language after Greek and Latin or that it was Irish monks who first separated words seldom arises as part of a discussion about Irish. It’s the longing to know it or the very hate of it. Rarely is there apathy towards it. Never is there as much emotion expressed in relation to the other languages they failed to learn at school or didn’t enjoy. And even less knowledge about them. The sounds that I made as a child are still ringing in our ears and pounding in our hearts waiting to be released.

This was highlighted for me recently when I was asked to say a Prayer of the Faithful in Irish at a friend’s wedding. The congregation was reading from their pamphlets in English and when I uttered the short prayer in Irish there was some surprise. Nothing could have prepared me for what happened afterwards. If I ever felt what it was like to be a popstar, well I had my moment. The amount of congratulations and gushing praise that I received could have been equal to that of an MTV award winner. There were outbursts such as “Oh it’s so beautiful to hear the Irish spoken; such a beautiful sound! Oh your Irish is beautiful! Oh I wish I could speak it! I’ve forgotten it all. I used to love it at school!” or “My teacher was terrible at school.” and so on. Barely thirty seconds of Irish had eclipsed two hours of English. I wished I could have given them more or waved a wand so that their Irish would come flooding effortlessly back and this barrier from ourselves would be lifted. These are the moments when being an Irish speaker is a warm feeling. Yet it is not always so.

I fear there are many misperceptions about native Irish speakers in Ireland today. Broadly speaking, this seems to arise out of a misunderstanding between those who live in the Gaeltacht and those, to use an Irish-language term, who live in the Galltacht, i.e those who have been brought up in an English-speaking area and speak English in the home. This gap is rapidly being reduced because of the proliferation of gaelscoileanna, the popularity of TG4, our growing confidence and improved economic climate. The end result of this is that the stigma of speaking Irish has lessened but confusion between the camps still remains.

I’ve witnessed many people in the Galltacht expressing the belief that Gaeltacht people have a real sense of pride about their language and would prefer to keep the ‘blow-ins’ out. This may be true of some but the truth is that a feeling of inferiority is rampant among native Irish speakers and has been for centuries. If, as I have previously alluded to, hundreds of years of its existence has penetrated our psyche and and continues to draw us towards it, equally the hundreds of years of persecution and suffering linked with it have left their indelible mark on Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht today. Many instances have made this plain to me.

For example, several years ago, I was a wandering spectator at an outdoor event during an Irish language festival, Pléaraca Chonamara, in the heart of Conamara. A local woman, within earshot of me, was reprimanding her young child. It may be surprising to know that the language she used with her child was English even though she normally spoke Irish. You could tell by her quite broken English that she rarely had reason to speak it. I got the impression that she used English because, I, a stranger whom she mistook for an English-speaking ‘blow-in’, was standing nearby. Instead of feeling proud that her mother tongue and everyday language was Irish she appeared to feel ashamed of it. I approached her and made chit-chat about the weather in Irish. She was taken aback but smiled and answered me in Irish.

English is felt to be the ‘better’ language by many in the Gaeltacht. The teenagers speak English while they are eating their sandwiches outside the local shop at lunchtime in Carraroe. They speak English when they are playing in the yard. On saluting a stranger in Conamara, English is more often than not the language used. There is a shyness about using the language unless we are sure the other person converses in it comfortably. Amongst the younger generation English is considered cool, Irish not. In the past English meant being educated and getting on in life. Understandably, it is hard to shake off those shackles.

Usually, in a circle of Irish speakers, if one person joins who doesn’t speak the language the conversation will turn to English. This, of course, changes the dynamic. It feels strange for me to speak English to my siblings or to close friends whose native language is Irish. But because we are bilingual and communication is the key the minority language gets dropped sooner. It is the lesser of the two in practical life and so has a very fragile existence even on a daily basis. For a language to thrive there has to be a feeling of it to be equal to any other language around it.

The bridge between the Gaeltacht and the Galltacht is a wide one and Irish has often been looked upon as the poor cousin. Certainly when I was on the receiving end of the comment recently at a party “You speak Irish and you’re not a geek?!” I realised the gulf between the two worlds was far too wide for any Bille Teanga or well-meaning Minister for the Gaeltacht to narrow. In brief, Irish comes with baggage. And so there was only one thing for the ugly duckling to do.

I still had my blas when I returned to live in Conamara for a few years which meant that after the preliminary round of questioning to ascertain my stock I was treated like one of their own. I don’t think I would have had the same experience if I had been a non-native speaker from, let’s say, Tipperary. That is natural. A language is not simply the words you say to someone else to convey a message. There is a whole attitude and way of expressing yourself that is unique to that language. Each language has its own nuances from particular words to body language to the type of humour that belongs to that language. Similarly with Irish, our points of reference are different to that in the English-speaking world. We have different heroes, different connections and a different vocabulary. Words themselves and how they are used is something that the ordinary person pays attention to everyday when speaking. They are the tools we use to construct the image of ourselves that we would like reflected for others. As a result, I think it’s true to say that we feel and express ourselves differently when speaking different languages.

Interestingly, when I am in England or in central Europe even though I speak and understand their languages I don’t feel that connection with them that I feel when I travel to countries further East. The Eastern outlook on life sits more comfortably with me than that of the continent or Northern Europe. I always feel that the people further east are more like people from Irish-speaking Conamara. Equally, I feel more at home in Mediterranean countries than in English-speaking ones. I have pondered this and tried to work out why this is so. As we know, the roots of our language are not Germanic or Nordic nor even descended from Latin. If it is true that Irish is a Celtic language, a tribe that is believed to have had origins near Czech and up as far as the Black Sea, then it seems that a language carries with it more than sounds. The language reflects the way the people think, feel and see their place in the world. Generations of shaping the language means generations of people sharing a simliar worldview which their language serves to put across. English cannot express us in the same way because it has been shaped by different peoples who adored different gods. We have undoubtedly shaped the English that was brought here and everyday I hear expressions which are direct translations from the Irish.

Yet, on more than one occasion, I have met people who feel cheated because their native language is English and not Irish. Deep down they feel Irish is their language but they do not speak it. English doesn’t seem to serve its purpose for them when they try to express who they are. It seems our native tongue has a grasp on us that even we cannot comprehend.

Personally, I often wish I only had one native language. It would simplify my internal and external worlds. As it is, I feel I am living in two cultures. If I would like to participate in the world that understands sean-nós, tradition, turns-of-phrase in Irish, lyrical descriptions of the landscape I grew up in, well then I would be living in the Irish-speaking world, which means the Gaeltacht. If on the other hand I would like to be a part of a lively, young, modern, fast-changing city-life then I would be living in an English-speaking world or abroad where Irish is not the everyday sound. To live in either culture involves a decisive geographical choice which leaves me feeling split in two.

I sometimes try to join the two by attending Irish-language events in the city or going to places where the music and traditions are alive but I’m afraid it doesn’t fulfill me. It exaggerates that feeling of being a dinosaur in an oasis. Along with that the Irish that is learnt in the Galltacht, an Caighdeán Oifigiúil differs considerably from my native tongue. It differs in terms of sound and vocabulary. It’s rare that someone has the same richness and fluency if they haven’t had the opportunity to spend time in a Gaeltacht. Sometimes I feel that it impedes real deep communication in Irish because I am aware that our sounds are different and there are grammar mistakes to overlook and so on. I cannot fully relax in the conversation because I am aware I could use an expression that they may not know and then it turns into a language class when all I want to do is converse with my fellow countrymen!

Native Irish also has its own inherent music which is mostly missing from the Caighdeán Oifigiúil. English sounds are much thinner than the Irish so it is often difficult for an English speaker to make them. My great sadness is that the music and the richness of the language is dying with the native speakers and the new language pronounces its ‘chs’ as ‘ks’. Noone is to blame, it is simply the way things are.

I am aware that as I write the above, Irish could be substituted with Konkani or Ruthenian or any of the minority languages in the world which are dying off faster than species of insects if you believe the newspapers and the linguists. It is not unique to Ireland. In fact what is unique these days compared to the ancient past is that most of us are monolingual. The rich tapestry of accents and dialects in Ireland tells of a much more varied linguistic plateau in times gone by. In many countries this is true today. Although we now only have two, the language question in Ireland is still a complex one. I watch the Nuacht sometimes and wonder how it must feel not to be able to understand the reader who is purportedly speaking the first official language of the country. I am sure many English speakers feel let down by the way Irish was taught to them in school. Personally, I feel privileged to know Irish from my birth and for it to have been shaped by the rocks and rough seas of Conamara. It has certainly made my world richer.

It is also strange to be living in a time when the language of my birth is by all appearances dying, a culture dying with it. One may ask, why bother to save this language which is perhaps for many nothing more than a nostalgic vestige of the past? Maybe because Irish is our sound. Passed on from our ancestors, it is ingrained in the crevices of the monastery walls, Viking ports, Norman castles, thatched cottages and even the luxury duplexes. All we have to do is look at our placenames and know that every hillock was baptised by the people who lived and worked the land for hundreds of years. They had an intimate knowledge of and a communion with their surroundings. Just as our ecosystem changes when another species dies so does our conscious world when a language, which is a key to an entire culture, dies. The effect of losing our language is a subtle shift in our harmony with ourselves. It will not make headlines but its survival is necessary for our fundamental feeling of belonging and our understanding of who we really are.

This article was published in the Irish Times, March 2004.

It is extracted from the book 'Who Needs Irish? Reflections on the Importance of the Irish Language Today'

Murchaidh, Ciaran Mac (ed.)Publisher Veritas PublicationsISBN 1853907774

For more information: kate@libertyfilms.ie

Westmeath Examiner, Saturday June 24th 2006

2006-08-23T12:28:00.000-07:00

Globetrotter . . .

Westmeath Examiner Saturday June 24th 2006

Documentary-maker Manchán Magan has travelled the world. But the place he calls 'home' is Castlepollard. With his brother, Ruán, who lives in Coole, he made the 'Global Nomad' travel series, and is currently busy answering questions about the book 'Angles and Rabies' which details his South American and Canadian travels, which has just been published. Deputy editor Eilís Ryan reports.

Manchán Magan doesn’t like television.
And that’s a bit strange considering that he, together with his brother Ruán, is behind the hugely-acclaimed “Global Nomad” travel series, which has been shown in 25 different countries.
But then again, having no television, while holed up in a straw-bale house in Castlepollard, did leave Manchán with plenty of time to study Chinese, something which came in extremely useful - as one might imagine - when China became the focus of the “global nomads”. He also learned Arabic, sitting at home in Castlepollard.
It also gave him plenty of time to make some sense of the experiences he had on one of his earliest travel adventures, in South America and Canada, and the result of this musing is a book, “Angels and Rabies”, which has just been published by Brandon Press.
Manchán is not from Castlepollard originally, but he’s been living there for some time now, while close by, in Coole, lives his brother, Ruán, who is co-producer and cameraman on the Global Nomad series.
“I was brought up in Dublin, but my father’s family came from Killashee,” he says.
As a result, he has oodles of relations around: his cousin, Julie, is proprietor of the restaurant and delicatessen businesses, “Ilia” in Mullingar; another cousin, Catherine, was manager of Belvedere House for a time; and Mike Magan is chairman of Lakeland Dairies.
The other side of Manchán’s family tree springs from Kerry, and his great grandfather was The O’Rahilly, who died in 1916.
Through that O’Rahilly heritage came the great love which he and his siblings have for the Irish language.
“It was an Irish-speaking household, and I only got English when I was about four or five,” he says.
“So I was brought up in a very Republican, and revolutionary atmosphere, and it’s only recently that I have been connecting with the Longford side,” he says.
It’s about 15 years ago now since Manchán began travelling. Not long after leaving school, he went off, on the back of a truck, to Africa.
“I did a year in college first, and then I just thought I couldn’t face this any more.”
He joined twenty other travellers heading off to cross Africa by truck, but things did not go at all smoothly.
“I experienced things that no young man should,” he says. “I faced some life-and-death things, things that marked me for life.”
In African, the group of twenty headed off themselves one day, having arranged to meet up later with the truck; but in a robbery, half of them lost their money and passports; and those who hadn’t lost their money more or less abandoned those who had.
Manchán as it happens, hadn’t lost his money, but the group failed to find the truck, and they wound up stranded. “I went without any water for three days, and without food for five and a half days. It became a really severe situation.”
Arising out of it, Manchán contracted bilharzia, and was facing death. There had up until then been no real cure, but something had just come on the market, though it was still very expensive. Happily, Manchán was saved.
“The Irish Government paid for me to have the new treatment.”
That whole African trip was life-changing.
“”I realised life was completely different from what I’d understood from that sheltered Donnybrook society. It was about survival, and I wanted to live as freely as I could.”
When Manchán returned home, he went back to college, but hated the “claustrophobia” of what he terms “that concrete wasteland” that is UCD.
Straight afterwards, he headed to Wicklow, to work on an organic farm, where he remained for as long as it took him to earn the money he needed to get away to South America.
It is that trip, and a subsequent move upwards to Canada, that gave him the material he has now turned into his new book “Angels and Rabies”.
“It does take you that long almost to digest things,” says Manchán, who is himself quite amazed now at some of the experiences he had.
“It was only when I thought back that it was interesting: I’d never put myself in any of those situations now. But I had wanted to test life to the absolute fullest,” he says.
His travels took him firstly to a commune run by the Screamers, who had set up in Colombia after fleeing Donegal when the powers-that-be began taking an interest in their activities, and the welfare of the children living in the commune.
At another point he ended up getting bitten by a rabid dog, and there was a nightmarish bid to secure the vaccine he needed to counter the effects.
But along the way, too, he fell in love.
“I was looking for love,” he says at an early stage in the book.
And since the book has been published, the question everyone has asked him is, “Who’s that girl?”
In the book, the Hollywood actress with whom he fell deeply in love, is called Eve, although that is not her real name, and he is not going to name her.
Ultimately, the relationship did not last, but they are still in contact.
“Eve likes the book. If she told me it would be OK to say who it was, then I would. But it would be cashing in on someone famous,” he says.
In the initial draft, there were some hints that could have enabled the diligent to work out who she was.
“There were more clues, and Brandon Books said: ‘There are far too many’, and I had to remove a few of them,” he says. All he will says is that she was what might be termed a B-movie star, and he chose the pseudonym Eve for her almost as it represented the “prototype” of a woman.
In British Colombia, Manchán found himself employed as a childminder. Llael was the niece of Hugo, who was dealing in organic cannabis.
Manchán insists his role was purely childminding, and his involvement in the drugs business that kept many in the alternative community around there going, was “purely incidental”.
While living in Canada, Manchán gained his first experience at straw-bale house-building. About 1996/1997, he bought a plot of land in Castlepollard, and decided he would build a straw-bale house on it.
“Westmeath County Council gave full planning permission for a straw house, which was very enlightened of them,” he says.
“But while they were deciding this, I said I would throw up a little straw house. It was just 10 feet by 20 feet - the size of a garage - with my bed in the loft. I lived in it for five years, but the walls would shake. The Council turned a blind eye, but then after five years, I decided I was going to build a proper house, but I chickened out of using straw, and put concrete block in the core. But then I put a grass roof on it.”
On his land, he grows trees. He has something of a love affair going on with trees, and in “Angels and Rabies”, in a brief paragraph describing the loneliness of his childhood, he recounts how he came to prefer being alone: “I started sensing things - trees mainly - hearing and feeling them, and I preferred their company”, he says.
“Aithníonn ciaróg ciaróg eile,” the Irish proverb says, and in Canada, Manchán found himself in the company of tree campaigners, opposing the logging going on in that area.
“The reason I bought the land in Westmeath was to plant trees. The first thing I did was plant an acre of trees,” he says.
“I can have the lousiest week ever, and I know if I plant a tree I will feel much better.”
Another priority in Castlepollard was to get broadband internet access, so while he doesn’t have a television, he has at least access to all the information he wants.
And as a documentary-maker, Manchán needs to be able to do serious amounts of research. The travel programmes he makes with his brother are not about where the best hotel is, or where the nicest local pottery markets are located. These are works which go into a country, and explore its heart, soul and history.
The series has principally been seen on TG4 in this country, with English subtitling. But while filming, Manchán and Ruán double up, by retaking all the clips in English. This has enabled them to sell the documentaries on. However, it hasn’t made them rich: making documentaries as independents, is a costly process.
He is currently making a documentary, almost a “reality-TV” show, which is to go out on RTÉ in the autumn.
Some of the major series he’s done before have been about China and the Middle East.
“The story of China had to be told, and the story of the Middle East has to be told,” he says.
He hasn’t done a travel documentary for two years, but his ambition is to “do” Africa.
“I started making the TV programmes in 1996, so I had been travelling for about six years before that. I have been trying to get various documentaries done for the last few years, but I desperately want to do a big series on Africa.”
He wants to look beyond the stories that always come out of Africa, about AIDS and poverty.
“There are new companies set up, there’s a new middle class. We tend to be slightly more positive than others, and we try and look beyond, and look at the potential of the country.
“My favourite thing is looking at where the traditional culture is meeting the modern world.”
He is not a purist. He does not believe in preserving traditional cultures at all costs, and says, in an Irish context, that if, as we evolve, we were to lose our native language, he could live with that. He believes that things must evolve, and the changes that happen should happen. “A part of me regrets all that, but I can see it as part of a bigger plan,” he says.
Manchán reckons that countries like China and India and Africa need to progress; that people need to have a range of options on a par to those which the west enjoys.
“Everyone in the world needs to be able to have the choice to buy a bottle of Coca Cola,” he summarises.
He is not sure that what is traditional is always good.
“I hate the misogyny, and the lack of opportunity, and the small-mindedness of rural communities either in Ireland or abroad, and what most excites me is that people now have an opportunity to grow and to learn and see beyond their village. They have to have the right to choose.”
Manchán enjoys travelling with his brother, although, he admits they do fight. The Global Nomad team is completed by music composer Ronan Coleman, who has composed all Global Nomad music, and who is the chief sound recordist on the documentaries.
Among his responsibilities is interceding when the Magans have a stand-off!
While “Angels and Rabies” is Manchán’s first English-language book, he has another ready, about India.
And no, he hasn’t yet found anyone to replace Eve in his heart.

Sunday Independent, 13th August 2006

2006-08-23T12:18:00.000-07:00

Incredible journey of a soul survivor

Sunday Independent, 13th August 2006 by John Masterson

MANCHAN Magan is a delightful one-off. A shy man who is a great conversationalist. Almost a hermit, by choice."I burnt down my straw house and now I live in a concrete house with a grass roof in Westmeath. I even have central heating and a power shower!"
Magan is also a TV personality through his Global Nomad programmes on TG4, by accident. Now in his mid-30s, he is still seeking and searching, never having compromised when almost everyone else did. He is the real deal.
Serious, yet full of whimsy, he is sitting in front of me, the living example of what the human race might be like after a few hundred more years of ethical evolution. Or as he sees himself . . . : "An isolated loser being forced out of his own culture and trying to find somewhere where he fits in."
He grew up in Donnybrook, Dublin. His family has a strong political tradition; his grandmother was an active republican, and something of a hero.
"I spoke Irish and only learned English when I was three. But this book is dedicated to the other side: my father's brother, a Longford Fine Gael farmer. My father was a radiologist, a strong Redmondite and a very peaceful man who loved walking and always wore sandals. He was a unique man, very eccentric, and lived in his own world . . . the kind of person I wouldn't mind emulating."
He speaks fondly of his local education in Gonzaga where, despite "my oddball ways - I had a herb garden when I was five - I was never teased or bullied or even had a nickname. The Jesuits definitely recognised that I did have a sense of idealism,"
His father died at the time of his Leaving Cert, and by then Manchan was ready to let loose without a parachute. He describes it as a time of almost manic depression, partly brought on by the disillusionment common in adolescents when they realise they are about to get stuck into the system. Manchan went to Africa, where a combination of stupidity, idealism and naivety almost killed him on more than one occasion.
"I was straight out of school with 20 people going overland on a flatbed truck. I thought I would find enlightened people, but everyone was running away from the world. Many were damaged, harmed people, individuals with no hope in their lives."
In the end, the group split and, abandoned by their driver, he settled downto die with a few peo-ple in a remote village."We lived on crocodile and banana and eventually got a canoe. We drank the river water and all got a combination of bilharzia, amoebic dysentery and malaria. I realised I didn't fear death."
After that it is not surprising that UCD seemed a bit tame. And Magan had no interest in sex, drugs and the rock and roll road to enlightenment. He smoked some dope but realised that "it wasn't opening any doors. The Jesuits make you think. UCD Arts was a total waste of time . . . such a disillusioning place . . . I thought it was going to be like Harvard, or Educating Rita . I thought I would find open minds. It was so dull and dreary".
And so with nothing but two shopping bags of possessions he was on the road again, this time to the Americas, where the answers might lie in the sweetness of Rica and the soul of Ame.
Why there? Well it started with the Late Late Show, as so many things did. As a young child, he had been enraptured by the Screamers, a group of quasi-Jungian idealists who were pushing their psyches to the limits in Donegal. And they had moved to Colombia. He went to see them.
"You can see why they happened in a culture that was completely staid. And I was always looking for alternative stuff. These people would have the answers. I had to check them out. I didn't know that if you continue that line of thought for 10 or 15 years it ends up rotting you to the core. But in that post-adolescent thing you want to set yourself extremes. I was about 23. I wanted to test myself.
"They attacked me, and if you are someone who is not completely macho they are going to find your weakness. Now, I wouldn't endure it for an hour. I don't need that any more. I am out the door. That is the beauty about youth. You are so open."
He found himself being offered sex from underage and overage alike. It was of no interest to him.
"I suppose it came initially from fear. Every Irish thought about sex is ingrained with fear. Any connection with humans I find hard, but the connection of sex is so close. There needs to be love before there is sex."
It is this trip that forms the subject matter of this engaging book. It documents a young man searching for the truth, while discarding most of the safety nets provided by family and education. Though he does concede, happily, that there was some kind of common sense protecting him.
He falls in love with a young Hollywood mover and shaker having no idea who she is, finds himself running a small hostel ("I connected with people and they liked me and that was important"), meets drug smugglers and mescal drinkers and oddballs of every description, including those who can tell by your odour whether or not you have had your colon irrigated - and of course gets rabies, as you do.
"I saw the dog frothing, his eyes were big, there was no other reason why he would bite me and disappear."
His wanderlust continued and Manchan ended up "living in a hermitage in the Himalayas drinking my own piss. It was insanity, way beyond the borders of reason. I had an incredible time but it was dangerous stuff."
His brother Ruan, who had been location manager on the film Far and Away , arrived with a camera and they began making programmes for TG4.
"He lured me back to some sort of reality. I was a messed-up, bedraggled wast- er and Ruan is extremely pragmatic. He took me in hand and said, 'There is something you have to say if you can clean yourself up and try and find the right words,' and so we were a wonderful balance in Global Nomad ."
Today Manchan has cut down on the travelling.
"I don't run away. I need very little money. I am very flush when I have done a TV programme but I haven't done one for about two years. I like the thought of me and a computer. By writing you can get the message across with much more subtlety."
'Angels and Rabies: a Journey through the Americas' by Manchan Magan is published by Brandon, €15.99

Irish Times, 24 August 2002

2005-07-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

Taking the road less traveled
Irish Timess, 24 August 2002

The programmes Manchán and Ruán Magan produce for TG4 are definitely not 'holiday shows'. They tell Olivia Kelly about their brotherly approach to life and their love of other cultures

There's something very comforting and quite nest-like about being inside Manchán Magan's little straw house on the edge of Lough Lene in Co Westmeath. The busy provincial town of Mullingar, Co Westmeath, is no more than 15 miles away, but it may as well be a million miles or a lifetime for all the influence it has on this rural retreat.
Manchán built his straw house himself with the help of his older brother Ruán and a few friends. It's been standing for almost five years now and, unlike the abode of the first little pig, it looks sturdy enough to last at least another five.
The walls are made from 120 bales, stacked together "just like lego" and sandwiched between a thin concrete foundation and a timber roof. It took just two days to put the bale bricks together and another four to five months to persuade the lime and sand plaster to stick to the straw. It's basic, but it has most of the necessary home comforts; running water, a stove, even electricity. Regrettably, there is no bathroom or toilet. "Storms kept blowing it away in the winter, so in the end I just let it go," Manchán says.
Manchán is incredibly self-sufficient. He installed his own plumbing and electricity, learning as he went from a library book. He bakes bread, gets his vegetables from an organic farmer up the road and, every so often, ventures as far as the local shop to buy milk. He admits to being "a bit of a hermit", only going to Mullingar once every 10 days or so - and rarely any further. He seems entirely content in his own peaceful world. He doesn't get lonely, he simply doesn't have it in him.
It's hard to imagine this man tearing across the deserts of the Middle East in a black BMW with the top down, sitting in on a pow-wow with a Native American tribe in Idaho or providing a running commentary on the graphic, bloody slaughter of a goat in Bedouin territories. But that's the sort of thing he likes to do. Manchán and his brother Ruán make travel documentaries, filmed in the most remote corners of the earth, seeking out cultures and people, "who live beyond our own daily experience" and bringing them "as Gaeilge" to TG4 viewers.
The Magan brothers have travelled a total of 28,000 miles across India, the Middle East, South America, North America and Europe to make their Global Nomad series of documentaries. Next month they set off for China to make their next batch of programmes, which are due to be aired on TG4 in January 2003.
Their association with the station dates back to 1996, but the origins of their epic journeys began some years earlier. Manchán, now 32 caught the travelling bug at 19. He had just completed his first year of an Irish and history degree at UCD and found himself disillusioned, both with college and life in the Western world. "Nothing of the Western world attracted me, so I worked in a supermarket for six months to make some money, then I headed off to Africa on the back of a truck," Manchán says.
He spent six months travelling through Morocco and the Sahara to Tanzania and Nairobi before returning to finish his degree. He didn't hang around more than a few months before heading off again, this time to South America to spend another six months in Ecuador, Peru and Colombia.
"I ended up managing this organic health farm on the border of Ecuador and Peru," he says. "They were building stunning houses out of bamboo and that was the first place I heard about straw-bale housing," he explains.
Manchán continued his nomadic existence for the next couple of years, eventually ending up in India, where he took a house in the Himalayas.
Meanwhile, back in Ireland, Ruán had also decided to take a less than conventional path in life. The older brother by two years, Ruán had left college in his first year to start training as an assistant director in the film industry. He worked his way up through the grades of the industry, eventually becoming location manager for Neil Jordan's 1996 film Michael Collins. He then made the transition from film to television and decided it was time to track down his brother.
"TG4 had just started up and it crossed my mind that we could do some kind of video diary on the life Manchán was living in India - and Manchán very kindly let me into his life," says Ruán. "I wrote this wonderfully naive letter to TG4, who were still a couple of months from their first broadcast and they gave us €14,000 to make two half-hour programmes."
The two-man crew, Manchán presenting and Ruán operating the digital camera, headed across northern India for a month. The results were better than expected and the video diaries were repackaged as travel documentaries.
The brothers had never before discussed working with each other, but Ruán says, he knew they shared broadly the same perspectives on life. "I'm definitely more commercial and mainstream and Manchán is more left of field, but we both share this idea that in the Western world we seem to have blinkered ourselves to the value of life and what it really means to be alive."
The programmes, Ruán stresses, are "definitely not holiday shows". As if to prove the point, the Magans were arrested 14 times during the making of the series. Manchán says he has been arrested "hundreds of times" over the course of his travels. The brothers seem to see brushes with the law as no more than an occupational hazard. "It's not all like Midnight Express," Magan says. "Usually they just want you to sit and talk with them. They're very bored and a Westerner is fascinating."
The Magans are preparing to embark on their Chinese adventure. This three-month trip, covering 6,000 miles, will be "their most epic journey yet," they say, encompassing everything from the Shanghai stock markets to the sterilisation clinics of the Gobi desert. "I want to find out what daily life is like for the Chinese," Manchán says.
The search for a greater understanding of life is the principal tenet behind all their travel shows. "It's us learning about the world and we just happened to bring a video with us and document it," Ruán says. "It's about discovering the world with a non-Western attitude," Manchán continues, "an attempt to see things through fresh eyes."
Manchán claims to have no antipathy towards the developed world, in fact he considers it "wonderful". His ideal is to combine the best of East and West. Back in his Ecuadorian-style straw house with its printed Indian sheets layering the ceiling, there are touches of the modern world. A PC, with Internet connection, sits in the darkest end of the house, painted a discreet blue to fit in with the woodwork.
Sturdy and homely as Manchán's little house is, it's not long for this world. The brothers plan to set it alight, the week before their new series goes on air. Again they have managed to draw East and West together by likening their bale-burning to a Tibetan sky burial - a ritual in which, Ruán explains, the body of a deceased loved one is "hacked into small bird-sized pieces" and left for the vultures to take skywards. A fitting end, Manchán thinks.
"I'm really fond of this house; the burning will be a wonderful ceremony."
© The Irish Times

Sunday Times, 16 Feb 2003

2005-07-20T11:29:00.000-07:00

Down a long and winding road

Liam Fay, Sunday Times, February 16, 2003

Manchan Magan’s desire to escape Ireland and broaden himself took him all over the world. But it also led him into a career as TG4’s thoughtful travel presenter — not bad for someone who hated Gaelic, writes Liam Fay
Seven years ago, Manchan Magan was slowly losing his mind in a hut in rural India when he heard glad tidings from a distant west. An Irish-language television station was to be launched in his home country, offering new opportunities for young Irish speakers with broadcasting aspirations.
As he surveyed the squalor of his primitive hovel, where he had lived for months without electricity or sanitation, Magan decided he could develop a mutually beneficial relationship with the nascent channel. All he’d have to do was overcome two slight impediments: his aversion to Ireland and contempt for its native tongue.
In time, Magan’s highly idiosyncratic travel programmes would become one of the mainstays of the TG4 schedules, his starry eyed reverence the perfect complement to the winking mischievousness of the station’s more famous globetrotter. Hector O hEochagain.
Despite their over earnestness, Magan’s shows have done almost as much to redefine Irish travel television as O hEochagain’s, offering yet another alternative to the staid conventions of tourist industry puffs such as RTE’s No Frontiers. Magan is more pilgrim than holidaymaker. A self-styled dropout from western society, he sees himself as a student of foreign civilisations, the older and more remote the better.
His passion for other cultures was inspired by disdain for the one into which he was born. Now 32, Magan was a son of Erin, so indoctrinated with fatherland piety that he grew to despise the old sod. A scion of what he laughingly refers to as republican aristocracy, he was raised in the salubrious tranquillity of Dublin 4, yet his formative years were saturated with tales of patriotic gore.
Magan’s maternal great-grandfather was Michael Joseph O’Rahilly aka The O’Rahilly, the revered 1916 rebel whose death at the hands of the British was eulogised in verse by William Butler Yeats. His maternal grandmother was Sighle Humphreys, a one-time leader of Cumann na mBan.
Though Magan’s father, a Longford farmer, wasn’t especially political, his mother inherited much of her ancestral zeal and fervent republicanism was the dominant ideology of his childhood home, one which, even into the 1970s, saw language as a means of combat as much as communication.
“We were taught Irish as a weapon against the British,” recalls Magan. “Every word I spoke was supposed to be a bullet into the imperialist’s heart.”
As a teenager he became increasingly uncomfortable with this world view. “You’re born with this mythology and it seems perfectly normal because it’s all you know. Only gradually do you find out what it means. You discover your grandmother, who taught you Irish and tucked you up, had the blood of a poor innocent Scottish soldier on her hands.
“By 15 or 16 I was desperate to look beyond Ireland, so I was turning to British newspapers and the BBC, I learned about my world from the British. I owed them a massive debt of gratitude, so it was difficult to pretend I felt animosity towards Britain.”
After a fleeting and unhappy stint at university, Magan could take no more. “I wanted nothing to do with Ireland,” he says. “It was just a hole. Everything about the place dismayed me. That’s why I fled. I started travelling and realised I immediately identified with any culture I was in. I wanted to live there rather than in my own.”
With hindsight, Magan sees his alienation as classic adolescent angst. As his disenchantment with Ireland grew into disgust with the West in general, he became an itinerant hippie, financing worldwide travels with intensive bouts of work in German hypermarkets. His first odyssey was a six-month trip across Africa with 19 Britons crammed into an old army truck. After a dispute, Magan and three others were effectively left to die by the roadside in Zaire.
“We were without water for three days and food for 12,” he says. “It was the worst of several near-death experiences. But when I survived that I realised I could survive anything. You lose the fear.”
Unlike most of his backpacking peers who travelled primarily in search of a good time, Magan was on a quest for nothing less than eternal truth. Easily impressed but even more easily bored, he lived for varying periods with new age communes in Europe, the United States and Canada, and in peasant villages in Africa, India and the Middle East.
“I have a habit of becoming overexcited when I find something new,” he says. “But, after a year of living in Africa or with American Indians, you realise there’s problems there as well. I started to see that the place where I was born is where the solutions are, more or less.”
Magan reached this conclusion just as his brother Ruan tracked him down in India with news of the imminent birth of Telefis na Gaeilge. Ruan, a trainee film director, was convinced that together they could sell a travel series proposal to the fledgling station.
“I was verging on insanity in that little hut,” says Magan. “Working with Ruan was exactly what I needed because he’s far more rational and knows how to deal with my airy fairy tendencies. If it wasn’t for him, I’d still be up a tree somewhere hugging myself.”
The Magan brothers have since made 33 travel shows for TG4 — covering India, North and South America and the Middle East. While the quality of the programmes has steadily improved, they’ve been marked by the host’s breathless enthusiasm and commitment to what he calls “a non-western-centric perspective”.
Ironically, the makers of O hEochagain’s more populist shows initially pitched them to TG4 as an antidote to the Magan style. The latter insists, however, that he feels no resentment towards his more celebrated colleague.
“I think he’s the best thing to happen to TG4,” he says. “I’d just love it if he had better producers and directors. He needs more investment behind him. I’d love it if the series looked as good as he is in it.”
As his repertoire of languages grew (he now speaks seven), Magan shed much of his antipathy towards his mother tongue. “Irish is a beautifully earthy language,” he says. “I love looking at other cultures through Irish. It’s also toned down my tendency to over-celebrate things. There are almost no words about being happy or enthusiastic.”
Magan’s latest television offering is a six-part exploration of China recorded over 12 weeks last autumn. Undoubtedly the slickest yet of the Magan productions, the series offers a timely and intriguing glimpse of a still largely unknown continent at a hinge moment in its delicate transition from communism to capitalism.
Between journeys, Magan has been living in Ireland as he has attempted to condense what he has learned on his travels into a coherent philosophy. He plans to write books but is unsure what he wants to say. Thus far his only conviction is a determination to avoid what he sees as the life-sapping burdens of a mortgage and a regular job.
Five years ago he purchased 11 acres of woodland in Westmeath and built a house on the property. The house was constructed from bales of straw, with Magan installing his own plumbing and wiring. While he insists the house was habitable, he has recently been forced to knock it down; it didn’t have any planning permission. In its place he’s building a dwelling from blocks, mud and straw. Already, though, he’s itching to hit the road again. When his current bank loan is paid, he plans to resume his travels, starting with a trip to the American west coast.
“It’s about availing myself of the planet and everything it has to offer,” he says. “Maybe we are here for a series of lives — I reckon we are. But, even if this is my only life, I want to have tasted and learned everything I possibly can. When it’s finished, I want my life to be a work of art.”