Irish Media

James Jameson in the Congo - Magan's World, Oct 2009

2011-08-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

Sat 10 Oct 2009
A grisly drop of history

MAGAN'S WORLD:THE FLAUNTING by Guinness of the memory of auld Arthur so prominently last month brought to mind the ancestor of another of our great alcohol dynasties, James Sligo Jameson, grandson of the man whose signature appears on the whiskey bottles. James Sligo was Henry Morton Stanley’s only Irish officer on his ill-fated expedition up the Congo River, the first to penetrate the heart of Africa, in 1887.

I had his diaries with me while on a trip following in his footsteps in 1990, and was surprised by how similar our experiences were. We both paid £1,000 to a British company for our respective journeys, and both found ourselves completely out of our depth.

‘The last six months have been the most miserable and useless I have ever spent anywhere,’ Jameson wrote. ‘Ever since my childhood I have dreamt of doing some good in this world, and making a name which was more than an idle one.’

Both of us ended up haunted by remorse at some of the things we did on the trip. In my book Truck Fever, I admit to buying up all the food in poor villages, while Jameson writes candidly about a forced march he led, ‘one of the most disgusting pieces of work I have ever had to do . . . a lot of slave drivers of the old school would have done it much better, for that – slave-driving – is what it often resolved itself into.’

Africa in its wisdom managed to exact its revenge on both of us in the exact same location. We found ourselves abounded within two miles of each other on the Congo river, 103 years apart. Both became ill and faced starvation, and had to resort to inhumane behaviour just to stay alive. I won’t rehash my own travails here, but what happened to Jameson is an incident that is so unsavoury that it’s unlikely Jameson Distillers will ever seek to promote their intrepid ancestor in the same way as Guinness appropriated Antarctic explorer Tom Creen.

The story goes that Jameson, while in conversation about cannibalism with a local chief, offered 6 white handkerchiefs to see someone being killed and eaten so that he could sketch the scene. In a letter home to his wife he claimed it was all a misunderstanding: ‘I sent my boy for six handkerchiefs, thinking it was all a joke, and that they were not in earnest, but presently a man appeared, leading a young girl of about ten years old by the hand, and then I witnessed the most horribly sickening sight I am ever likely to see in my life. He plunged a knife quickly into her breast twice, and she fell on her face, turning over on her side. Three men then ran forward, and began to cut up the body of the girl; finally her head was cut off, and not a particle remained, each man taking his piece away down to the river to wash it. The most extraordinary thing was that the girl never muttered a sound, nor struggled, until she fell.’

Jameson claims he only started sketching after they had begun to chop her up. He then decided to make the best of a bad lot and got out his pen. Unfortunately, news of his actions had reached the Times of London before he could set the record straight and he died of fever a few months later without ever clearing his name.

Having made my own mistakes in Africa, including being responsible for young boys being battered over the head with a machine gun butt until they bled, I think we ought to look with compassion upon Jameson, and if I do raise a pint to Uncle Arthur, I’ll definitely follow it with a chaser in memory of poor James Jameson.

Truffle Pig of Travel - Magan's World, Jan 2010

2011-08-01T15:26:00.000-07:00

Sat 01 Jan 2010

Truffle pig of travel

MAGAN'S WORLD:I USED TO BE a truffle pig of travel, I think to myself as I accept yet another business card from a weary travel executive who has just flown in from Manchester that morning.

“My first time in Éire,” he says, his face etched with the suspicion that we might at any moment bundle him blindfolded into a blacked-out van and whisk him off to a lonely bog for an interrogation involving the snapping of fingers for unsatisfactory answers.

I try to feign interest as he tells me that the chain of motels he represents now offer free croissants and jam to all guests on check-in. I dutifully jot down the terms and conditions - the fact that the croissants can be substituted for oaten cakes for those with gluten allergies. No sooner has he gone than someone offering cycle tours around Lourdes approaches me, and I think to myself, how did it ever get to this - from wandering the world to circling a claustrophobic function room filled with eager and slightly desperate travel marketing managers? From truffle pig to caged swine?

What started out for me as a desire to explore the world moved naturally to a wish to record my travel in books and television documentaries, then newspapers. I just never imagined I’d end up taking notes on single supplement tariffs on American fly-drive holidays. I could walk out, of course, but it wouldn’t seem right. The travel industry has paid for my lunch, and having eaten their sea bass and drank their fine wines the least I can do is hang around and listen to their pitches.

I notice the rest of my journalist colleagues are huddled together at a corner table swapping gossip. The Big Kahuna of travel writing is holding court as usual with everyone listening attentively, even the eminent travel editor who does the weekly morning radio slot. We all show deference to the B K because of his ability to re-sell the same article so many times in different markets around the world – we want to know his secret; we want him to introduce us to his agent. I, in particular envy his contract to supply podcasts to an elite online magazine – having flogged his article a dozen times, he then reads it into a microphone and gets paid almost as much again. The few young freelancers who still remain in the business after a harrowing year are bunched together like nervous foals, glancing back and forth between Mr Radio Slot and the B K, in the hopes that either one of them might throw them a lead. Only the couple who have secured their own TV show can afford to remain aloof. They stand conspicuously apart, although even they reveal a trace of desperation as they try to wrangle a sponsorship deal from the head of a Far Eastern airline – without such deals their show will whither and they’ll be backing scrumming around the trough like the rest of us.

Overall, I’m enjoying the new leaner times, the fact that we can no longer expect our expenses to be covered by the travel company or by our editors. We now dip into our own pockets occasionally, like normal people. It was disturbing to see how quickly I got used to having my laundry bill paid for and having someone else pick up my tab. But I’d be fooling myself if I claimed that this entitles me to call myself a real traveller again. No amount of press junkets can match even one trip that I’ve chosen and paid for myself.

I may now visit more places than ever before but the truth is that from being a truffle pig of travel I am not far from turning into a porcine concubine to the PR industry.

African Cat-calls - Magan's World, Jul 2010

2011-08-01T15:24:00.000-07:00

Sat 07 Jul 2010

Colourful terms for the white man on African catcalls

MAGAN'S WORLD:I’M JUST BACK from four weeks travel. Real travel, by which I mean endless bone-juddering, coccyx-splintering journeys through the bush in the back of pickups and nights camped out on the roofs of hostels. The sort of travel that I grew up on, but now at age 40, seems more and more unbecoming, inappropriate, delinquent.

I was in Mozambique, and it was the first time in a long while that I didn’t speak the language, or at least have a guide with me who could translate. I was reminded again of the sweet, terrifying sense of alienation that comes from not being able to communicate.

The heightened sensation it brings to every encounter – every meal one negotiates, every bus ticket one buys. In such situations each activity relies on a degree of trust, of intuition, and, most of all, on the willingness of some local to help out. I’d love to be able to calculate how much of people’s time I wasted over the course of the month. What was the cumulative effect of all those encounters with people explaining the phone system to me, showing me where to buy water at midnight, where to transfer from one bus to another, or how to prepare the smoked fish I bought at the market.

White people in Africa complain about the constant attention they get, the chorus of catcalls that follow them, but it is this attention, this outsider status, that ensures people are so patient with us; that no matter how weary, annoyed, resentful they are they still take the time to convey whatever needs to be communicated to our thick heads.

The most common catcall in Africa is the local name for ‘white person’ - mzungu, ferengi, baturai, mundele or yovo. Mzungu is probably the best known, it’s found in most Bantu-speaking countries in East and Southern Africa. The derivation is thought to be from ‘the people who travel’, or ‘the people who walk in circles,’ which some claim stems from the fact that the early colonisers all looked the same to Africans, so they thought it might be the same few albinos going around in circles. Each term reveals something about how we’re perceived by locals. The Nigerian word baturai, means ‘man with no skin,’ making it clear why our appearance in remote villages can still lead to such consternation – we are ghoulish, ghostly figures, like half-formed larval humans. Yovo is the word commonly heard throughout Benin and Togo, often chanted as part of a song "Yovo, yovo, Bon soir. It’s an old term that linguists say originally meant ‘cunning dog’ - an appropriate term for the first colonists who were bent on hood-winking and exploiting the locals, and still remarkably apt centuries later in a place like West Africa where the French were using people as slaves long after the Russians had sent a man into space. The Congolese word Mundele is connected to their boogie man character known as Mundele ya Mwinda, the White Man with the Lantern, which stems from the time when Belgian slave traders would sneak into a village at night with lanterns and round up the men for forced labour. The locals regarded them as demons carrying a light that hypnotised them into surrender.

The catcalls can range from being a warm pleasantry to a barbed insult depending on the context, and one’s reaction to them depends on how one is feeling at the time. Often, it’s delightful to be welcomed into a village with your own personal chorus, but when you’re feverish and exhausted the sound of twenty children screaming mzungu can drive one demented. How to reply depends on the situation: if the term is meant in a benignly descriptive way one can provoke a laugh by replying ‘Hello, Ethiopian’ or ‘Hello Kenyan Person,’ if it’s pejorative or mocking better get the hell away from there as quickly as possible.

Canvassing for Obama - Magan's World, Nov 2008

2011-08-01T15:20:00.000-07:00

Sat 11 Nov 2008

Barack Obama and me

MAGAN'S WORLD: Manchán Magan'stales of a travel addict

The city itself has enough tourist highlights to keep one enthralled for days - voluptuously proportioned mud and timber buildings, like something out of Timbuktu, and magnificent 17th-century Spanish churches - but my attention kept being drawn back to the Obama election office downtown, a hive of frenetic energy, not unlike the scenes from Cybill Shepherd's campaign HQ in Taxi Driver.

The posters in the window warned about how precariously balanced the American Dream was in this pivotal swing-state, and I was reminded of what I had learnt earlier at the ‘Old Santa Fe Trail’ museum, about how this region had been a vital conduit for early settlers searching for their own American Dream. It triggered something in me and I found myself pushing through the bunting and flyers of the Obama office and signing up to help. It seemed like now was a time for something other than sightseeing.

And so, I spent five days knocking on the battered screen-doors of down-at-heel adobe homes, asking people for their support. At first I felt uncomfortable about intruding on the democratic process of a foreign country, but then I considered how freely America imposes its will on other countries and lay aside my qualms.

Canvassing offered a cultural insight more profound than any tourist activity ever could. People were surprised, and even moved, to find an Irishman on their doorsteps and they shared their feelings with disconcerting frankness - telling me of their financial worries and their disgust at Washington’s bale-out of the super-rich while leaving ordinary folk facing foreclosure. One old man came to the door hooked up to an oxygen tank and was almost in tears at the inequities of Medicare; a Mexican woman shook her head in agitation and pointed to her Dodge Ram pickup which was due to be repossessed. I reassured them all that Obama would offer change, but it was with a somewhat hollow heart. I wanted them to see him as their saviour, their knight in shining armour, but it was with more hope than certainty.

On Sunday I canvassed with a school teacher, worn-out from the strain of teaching Shakespeare to Mexicans. She assured me that every middle-aged white man we would meet would likely be voting for McCain: ‘It’s a matter of self-confidence,’ she said. ‘White men have always regarded themselves as sexually inferior. They don’t want someone more virile then them in office.’ I explained to her about the concept of Sacral Kingship in pre-Christian Ireland - how the king had to be fully-fertile in order to properly impregnate the land and assure bounty. She laughed and said it was probably best if I didn’t point this out to people. ‘They haven’t exactly acknowledged their inferiority yet.’ And so I let her do most of the talking and I just kept an eye out for the attack dogs that lurked behind so many picket fences and tried my charm on the women occasionally, particularly the ones who still had a candy bowl in the hall from trick-or-treating on Friday. I’d always ask them for some - not for myself you understand, but to bring back to the campaign office. I thought if I wasn’t up to the subtleties of local canvassing, I could at least fuel others with a sugar rush to go out and do their part. And, as I stood in the polling office on Tuesday watching the anxious faces of economically-challenged people who had come to support a candidate who just might provide the hope they so desperately needed, I wondered whether my words, or at least my candy, may have made some tiny difference.

Sante Fe, Pueblo Indians - Magan's World, Jan 2009

2011-08-01T15:18:00.000-07:00

Sat 01 Jan 2009Credit to the natives

Manchan Magan'stales of a travel addict

IN SANTA FE, New Mexico, people seem inordinately proud of the various Native American tribes in the surrounding pueblos - at least on first impressions. At weekends they come into the city from the reservations and pueblos and take over the glorious mud-plastered plaza. There, they hold a market selling silver jewellery, turquoise pendants and bits of pottery to eager white Americans who crowd around reverentially enquiring about the meaning of various symbols and the provenance of precious stones, snapping up what they can without ever questioning the inflated prices.

The native artists themselves remain stony faced - true to character, or at least, to what is expected of them. They squat resolutely on low stools, making occasional surly comments in lugubrious tones, ‘The bear is a symbol of strength and power. I take Visa card - not Amex.’

Surrounding the plaza are shops full of yet more native pottery, weavings and beadwork at even higher prices with leggy blond saleswomen who gush about the spiritual integrity of the individual artists at the first flash of a credit card. The reverential attitude to Native American culture in these shops is contrasted somewhat by the reality of Indian life just down the road at the Indian Hospital. The Indian Health Service (IHS) receives only 60% of its annual funding needs and it struggles to provide for the nine pueblos in the area. ‘The aim of the IHS is to keep us healthy enough so disease won’t spread beyond the reservation into white folk,’ a Navajo elder said to me, hunkered over his daughter’s silver pendants in the plaza. ‘This whole market is a lie – Indians never made jewellery to sell. We’re doing it because it’s what is expected. You guys are still pulling the strings.’

At night when the artisans go home, the plaza becomes haunted by the occasional drunken Indian, wandering waveringly between the pine colonnades of the magnificent 17^th century adobe Palace of the Governors – where the Spanish hid out during the Pueblo Revolt in 1680 when the native tribes joined together and revolted against Spanish rule. Dressed in black puffer jackets or ponchos they stagger up to you looking for the price of a cheese burger or the stub of your cinema ticket so they can get some rest in the local movie theatre. Most of them come from towns further north where the old Teddy Roosevelt remark "I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every 10 are, and I shouldn't inquire too closely into the case of the 10th," still has some currency. Attacks on Native Americans still occur there – a Navajo man was beaten to a pulp by three youths shouting "Die nigger! Just die!" two years ago, while a Navajo woman had her skull crushed with a sledgehammer by a group calling themselves KKK - for "Krazy Kowboy Killers," in a town called Farmington, known as the "Selma, Alabama” of the Southwest.

I asked the Navajo elder in the plaza did he feel resentment at having to sell his daughter’s wares and to pretend to infuse them with spiritual blessings by blowing on them in the very same location where his ancestors had come to beg during times of drought after their lands had been taken from them. He looked hard at me and shrugged, then pulled out a book on the subject of ‘Survivance,’ the mutually compromising relationship between a dominant tribe and its victims. He said it was by his professor at university, a post-modern, anthropologist from Albuquerque, but it’s conclusions were so complex that he could barely understand them and certainly couldn’t explain them to me. He urged me to buy myself a copy. I promised I would, thinking how would I ever get anyone to believe this had actually happened. But it did, it really did.

Dervla Murphy column 3 - Who is Dervla Murphy? Jan 2011

2011-08-01T15:15:00.000-07:00

The Irish Times - Saturday, January 8, 2011

Our world wanderer's tales of a travel addict

MAGAN'S WORLD: IF YOU MISSED Who is Dervla Murphy? on TG4 last Sunday, let it be a lesson to you to watch more TG4; not to be one of the many who praise the channel for its innovation, but rarely watch it.

Each time I mention Dervla Murphy I feel the need to re- introduce her, although it’s unimaginable to me how anyone could not be familiar with Ireland’s greatest travelling icon, our courageous, eloquent world wanderer, whose seminal works of travel literature over five decades and four continents count as one of Ireland’s great literary achievements.

For anyone stymied by the claustrophobia of Ireland in the 1960s to early 1990s Murphy was our lodestar. Her character is exemplified by her description of the thought process that set in train her first Herculean journey from Lismore, Co Waterford, across Iran and Afghanistan to India in 1963: “I was looking down at my legs thinking if you did this for long enough you could get to India.”

Such simple determination has been at the core of her travel writing ever since. Her books about journeys through India, Africa, South America, the Balkans, Siberia, Cuba and Eastern Europe shine with ruthless honesty, charm and razor-sharp perception – attributes that the Who is Dervla Murphy? documentary fortunately shared. The documentary maker, Garret Daly, spent three years getting to know Murphy and her daughter Rachel, and as a result we get an insight into the make-up of one of Ireland’s most remarkable figures. A woman who savours, as she says about Ethiopia in In Ethiopia With A Mule , “this Neolithic world where money is unimportant and all the objects in daily use have been made of mud, wood, stone, hides or horn”.

In a series of interviews, Murphy talks about the years before travelling, spent caring for her mother, which she survived by “living on whiskey and nicotine”, and explains how it was her mother “who first suggested that I travel on my bike. She thought it would be substitute for education that I missed because I had left school at 14 to look after her.”

Murphy’s candidness is shared by her daughter Rachel, who readers would know from their travels together in On a Shoestring to Coorg: An Experience of Southern India, Eight Feet in the Andes: Travels With a Mule in Unknown Peru and Cameroon With Egbert .

Discussing her mother’s decision to give birth to her out of marriage in 1968, Rachel says: “It’s not something I forgive my mother easily for. I think it was outrageous to have a child in those circumstances.” And yet a few harrowing moments of tape later, as 40 years of hurt and confusion pass across her face, she adds: “I mean, actually this time I should try and talk to her a bit about it, because I am actually ready to forgive her, in fact.” In that single sentence, Rachel manages to vocalise the inner thoughts of every thirty- something and fortysomething in the developed world with the same clarity as her mother sums up entire countries in the pages of her books.

Ireland is fortunate to have had Dervla Murphy as our peripatetic representative amongst the furthest reaches of the world for half a century, and to have had her books to explain those far flung lands to us. For many, she was the introduction to India, to Ethiopia, to Peru, and as her 80th birthday approaches in November of this year, it’s time we made our gratitude felt. Watch out for the documentary during the year. Meantime, her latest book, The Island That Dared: Journeys in Cuba (Eland) , is a captivating work based on her travels with Rachel and her grandchildren.

Samantha Power and Sacred Heart nuns - Magan's World, Sept 2008

2011-08-01T15:08:00.000-07:00

Sat 09 Sep 2008

Those vagabond nuns

MAGAN'S WORLD:RECENTLY, WHILE doing interviews for my book about a journey I made through Africa 18 years ago, I've been asked where my interest in travel came from. At first I thought there was no single factor I could point to: no intrepid explorers are hiding in the family closet. I come from a line of fervent revolutionaries on one side and placid dairy farmers on the other.

My revolutionary relations made occasional gun-running trips to Europe and fund-raising tours of the US, and they proudly traced their lineage back to a nomadic Gaelic poet of the 17th century, but other than that we were relatively sedentary- except for the few missionaries that every Irish family has.

So, up until April of this year I would have said there was no obvious motivating factor for my wanderlust, but then something weird happened at the Cúirt Literary Festival. I was due to give a reading from my book on India and while glancing through the festival brochure, I noticed that in the same venue, at the same time, the day before me, was the American academic, Samantha Power - senior foreign policy adviser to Senator Barack Obama until she made an off-record remark about the monstrousness of Hilary Clinton. The brochure listed her as Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist and Professor of Practice of Global Leadership at Harvard, and when I googled her I found she was educated in Dublin until age nine.

I stared hard at the screen and gulped. My brain was trying to compute the words: ‘educated in Dublin until age nine.’ My very best friend between the ages of four to eight in Mount Anville, Montessori School at the Sacred Heart convent in Dublin had been called Samantha Power. We had spent every free moment together, gossiping and playing make-believe in our special den under a bush beside the tennis courts.

The photo of her in the brochure had the same long, red hair and freckles. It had to be her. Turning to Google, I found that she had spent the intervening years wandering the world’s war zones – Bosnia, Serbia, Sudan, Armenia, Kosovo. In one interview she even said, "If you really want to know how I got interested in war zones you'd have to go back to that first day of school in the Mount Anville uniform."

That got me thinking, was there something in the air at Mount Anville that had set us off wandering? The writer Kate O’Brien always maintained that convents were the most international of places, with sister houses all over the world, constantly passing missives and directives back and forth between them, and frequently housing nuns from far-flung destinations for extended periods. One was as likely to hear French, Spanish or Italian being spoken in the polished, parqued halls as English.

The foundress, of the Society of the Sacred Heart, Madeleine Sophie Barat, had managed to establish 99 communities throughout Europe, America and Africa by the time of her death in 1865. In comparison to hers my life has been positvely parochial. When I attended Mount Anville in the Seventies the Sacred Heart had schools all around the world from Argentina to Indonesia, Cuba to Korea. The nuns had acquaintances in many of them. I remember one ancient nun showing me a Pieta carved from a tropical nut that she had been given by an El Salvadorian friend – it seemed impossibly exotic.

It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly sets one off wandering – the writer Bruce Chathwin talked of a cellular impulse deep within us from our nomadic ancestry. My life of self-absorbed nomadism, interspersed with occasional efforts to document what I see in books and documentaries, can hardly be equated to Samantha Power’s agenda-setting exploration of genocide, tribal conflict, Aids in developing countries, etc. Yet, it’s worth questioning whether the pervasive sense of weltanschauung and internationalism picked up from a convent pre-school education might have played a part in focusing our gaze beyond the insularity of 1970s Ireland.

Congo Holiday Column - Magan's World Aug 2008

2011-08-01T15:06:00.000-07:00

Sat 08 Aug 2008 Why I love the Congo

MAGAN'S WORLD: Manchán Magan's tales of a travel addict

WHO'LL JOIN ME on a trip to Congo? I'm serious: I want to organise a holiday, to reclaim this beleaguered place from the grips of the pessimists and cynical African doomsayers.

. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been abused for too long – by H. M. Stanley, Belgian’s King Leopold II, slave traders, rubber barons and the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko amongst others. In 2006 the Congolese finally managed to hold the first democratic elections in the country’s history, and what has our main response been? Not to set up cultural links or start arranging holidays there, but instead to rush to the bookshops in droves to buy the latest patronising, self-serving account of the darkness and depravity of the place. Tim Butcher’s Blood River (Vintage, 2007), an account of his journey through the Congo, has been on the bestseller lists for months. From the moment I heard it was written by a Telegraph correspondent I was suspicious. This was the newspaper after all who funded Stanley’s destructive, duplicitous journey a hundred year ago and who first popularised the notion of deepest, darkest Africa.

Admittedly, Butcher’s book is a gripping read, but at significant points, in my opinion, he heavily over-emphasises the desolation and the dangers he encounters for the sake of his story. It is exactly what Stanley did in his accounts of the Congo, giving the reader a riveting, sensationalistic read, but providing an unfair impression about just how bad things are there.

So, what can we do about it? I’m suggesting we take a bold step and swap our usual summer holiday in Tuscany or Torremolinos for a two week vacation in the Congo - just to show the bigoted, small-minded naysayers that it can be done. I’m not saying it’ll be easy, or even completely safe – and neither Madame Editor nor this august publication are backing my proposal in any way, (and nor, most probably, will your insurance company); but how else can we begin to turn people’s perspectives on the heart of Africa around? The likelihood is we might get robbed, and it’s inevitable that will be asked for bribes and will have to face significant delays occasionally, but these will be as nothing compared to the welcome we receive from the people and the absolute beauty of the landscape we’ll encounter. It’s been 18 years since I’ve been to the DRC (it was still Zaire at the time), but in all my travels since I haven’t encountered anything to compare. I’ll never forget my first sight of the jungle stretching out towards the equator – the bottle-thick vines, sepulchral trees, cathedralesque canopies and coiling waterways, the very energy centre from which all human life first emerged.

As the roads have mostly been wiped out it’s probably best that we stick to the river on this trip – maybe fly into Kinshasa and take a boat or a local flight upriver to Kisangani (formerly Stanleyville). We’ll rent some pirogues (dugout canoes) there and take to the water – the Congo River - this strip of sliver-blue ribbon that flows through massive swathes of undulant greenness. If you’re brave and don’t mind risking the odd water-borne disease we can ask the helmsman to steer us out into mid-river, away from the crocodiles and hippos that congregate along the banks, and go for a swim. It’s well worth the risk: to become part of this great mass of water is an unforgettable experience, the same river that brought the slaves to the coast, and also the gold and the ivory and Kalashnikovs and mahogany. This ‘immense snake uncoiled,’ as Conrad described it. Perhaps we’ll visit some pygmy villages when we’re there and how about staying in a crumbling colonial mansion slowly rotting in the jungle? Maybe a side-trip too to see where the Irish UN Forces made their heroic stand against the Balubas in 1961. Are you with me or what?

Dervla Murphy, Our Greatest Traveller - Magan's World, Oct 2008

2011-08-01T15:03:00.000-07:00

Sat 10 Oct 2008 Our greatest traveller

MAGAN'S WORLD:Is it okay to have a crush on a 76-year-old? Because I had a serious one on Dervla Murphy, Ireland's most extraordinary and intrepid voyager since Saint Brendan, writes Manchán Magan

I dreamed about her for many years. I tried not to, but I couldn't help myself. She's come riding across the bleak Afghan wasteland towards me on her trusty old bike, or on a mule over the Andes. I wanted to think of something devastatingly clever to top say that would make her dismount and join me over by the campfire, so that we could talk and share ideas all night.

In the Ireland that I grew up in Dervla was the lode star for anyone dreaming of exploring the world. She made is seem so easy. For her tenth birthday she received an atlas and a bicycle and decided to cycle to India. The trip had to wait 22 years, but when she finally made it she wrote a fantastic account, Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle, (1963). Every year after that she’d make another journey and write another book - In Ethiopia with a Mule, On a Shoestring through Coorg, Where the Indus is Young.

I had heard it was next to impossible to get to see her; either she was off wandering far away or else holed up in her medieval market compound in the heart of Lismore writing the next book. Yet, through a wonderful stroke of fortune I managed to arrange a meeting last summer. I was terribly excited, especially about getting to see her home which is like a caravanserai you might find along the Spice Route – although I regretted having to bring a radio producer and researcher along to record our interview as it somewhat compromised the intimacy. I wanted to gush about the effect that reading her books had on me at age 16 and how I had devoured all of them, especially the ones with her daughter, Rachel. I felt I sort of knew them both at this stage, having followed Rachel from her first trip to Southern India at age six, right up to the madcap journey through the Andes with a mule when she was 15. I was amazed to hear that Rachel is now married with children of her own, and, of course, is still travelling. Occasionally the three generations, set off together; last year they went to Cuba to research Dervla’s latest book.

The visit passed all too quickly and before I knew it I was back on the road again driving over the Knockmealdowns, purring at the memory of Dervla’s humility and hospitality, and the wonderful earthy soup she made us with vegetables from her own garden. It was only later that night as I was listening back to the tape that I finally began to take onboard what she had been trying to tell me all afternoon. She wanted us to know that as far as she could see it the world was going steadily downhill. ‘As long as this corporate capitalism prevails there is very little to celebrate in the world,’ she said. ‘It’s very sad.’

This wasn’t something I wanted to hear from Ireland’s greatest adventurer. Instead, I was hoping to hear her waxing about the multitudinous expressions of humanity she had encountered and the awe-inspiring realms that are described so evocatively in her books. I tried, with the crassest of interviewing techniques, to steer her away from her gloom, but after a lifetime dealing with cantankerous militias and tribesmen she wasn’t going to be put off by the likes of me. The truth was that a lifetime of travel had left her feeling more alienated than ever. ‘I am getting more and more pessimistic,’ she said. ‘. . . (I have) deep, deep concern; great anxiety that the young wont be allowed to see what is happening.’

Congo, it's our war - Magan's World, Jan 2009

2011-08-01T15:00:00.000-07:00

Sat 01 Jan 2009
Congo: it's our war

MAGAN'S WORLD:Manchán Magan's tales of a travel addict

IWROTE RECENTLY about arranging an outing to Congo for Go readers – a way for us to circumvent the fearmongers and doomsayers who claim this beautiful country will always be too chaotic and cut-throat for tourists.

I argued that although it might be a bit risky, the rewards of experiencing this astounding country would more than make up for any trouble. Its untrammelled fecundity is what’s most intoxicating – the whole country reeks of a heady lushness, a massive display of vaunting virility, with trees soaring into the sky to spread their seed as far as possible and flowers swelling to the size of umbrellas to ensure pollination.

The tone of my initial article and my suggestion of a holiday wavered between wide-eyed optimism and well-meaning intent. But within weeks of publication the Congo was at war once again, as if to prove the naivety of my suggestion. Nonetheless, I insist that the plan has merit and that it is inaccurate to portray the country as a snake’s nest of warring tribes. The truth of the matter is that the tribes are at war largely because of us – not just Europe’s past colonial misdeeds, but our current avaricious plundering of the Congo's resources. As aspiring world travellers we have a duty to inform ourselves about such things.

Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees revealed in the Financial Times last year that multinational corporations are inextricably linked to the deaths and rapes in the Congo. ‘The international community has systematically looted the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and we should not forget that."

The country has the misfortune of being the greatest source of minerals in the world - cobalt, coltan, tin, chromium, germanium, nickel, and uranium – most of which are needed in the production of cell phones, computers, children's video games, cars, airplanes, etc. This abundance should be the key to their success, but unfortunately the multinationals that extract these find it more profitable to do so in a war-torn country than a stable one which could impose taxes and oversee correct mining practises. From an accounting point of view funding warlords to keep the country in turmoil makes sense. King Leopold of Belgium realised the same when he was bleeding the place of ivory and rubber. It’s nothing personal, it’s just accounting.

Not only is the Congo teaming with these minerals, but it also has traditional resources such as gold, copper, silver and tropical hardwood which attract the mineral-poor neighbouring countries, Rwanda and Uganda, who send in their own militias to the Congo to carve out an area of control for themselves. These militias are indirectly funded by their governments who in turn receive funding from foreign governments. Ireland gave Uganda €44mil last year. So, in fact you and I are partly responsible for the tribal wars in Eastern Congo, wars that have killed 5 million people since 1998 (7 times that of the Rwandan genocide and equal to the deaths in the Jewish holocaust) and the rape of hundreds of thousands of women and children.

I’m not a politician or an economist, but as a traveller who’d like to visit the mountain gorillas in the Parc National des Virungas in Eastern Congo again, and to climb the brooding, sulphurous Nyiragongo volcano as I did just after my Leaving Cert, it’s worth being aware of these facts – that 1,200 people a day are dying there partly because of us.

And, there’s little point in looking to the UN for help. Their $1 billion annual budget for the region is pittance compared to what the mining and extraction companies can pay. These companies have direct links to governments in London, Washington and Pretoria, and they will always ensure the UN remain under-funded.

Tourism shouldn’t be so complicated, and yet . . .

SAINT SIMEON OF STYLITES

2011-08-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

Sat 02 Feb 2009
A true cause celebre

MAGAN'S WORLD:IT’S HARD to avoid finding oneself on a celebrity trail nowadays. Every wall you look at seems to have a plaque saying who did what there when. But why? What’s the point? Are we really supposed to experience a euphoric jolt every time we stand where someone famous stood a year, a century, a millennium ago?

I’ve found myself at the rock where Adonis sat in Crete, the spot Joyce mistakenly got off the train in Ljubljana, the bars Hemingway frequented in Havana and the In Bruges sites in Bruges and haven’t felt even a twitter.

Only once did I ever experience the genuine thrill of contiguity and that was at the site of St Simeon of Stylites’ pillar outside Aleppo in Northern Syria. Simeon was a celebrity’s celebrity - famous for doing absolutely nothing, except climbing on top of a pillar in 423AD and sitting there for 37 years. Long before Nicole Richie, he figured out a way of earning worldwide fame without ever working or even moving beyond his metre sq platform. The idea didn’t come at all easily to him: he started out on a tortuous career path as a Christian ascetic – subjecting himself to ever-increasing bodily austerities from wearing spiked girdles which drew blood, to burying himself up to his neck for a few months and chaining himself to a rock in the desert. But it was when he came up with the pillar idea that he got true fame. This concept drove his fans wild and he ended up having to build a higher column to get away from them, but the higher he went the greater his reputation rose and eventually he had pilgrims and celebrity-gazers coming from all over Europe – even Britain and France - to see him and shout up questions. And this was all despite alienating 50% of his potential audience by forbidding women to come. Even his mother, Saint Martha wasn’t allowed to come until she was dead and he permitted her body to be brought. One woman who tried to come see him dressed as a man was turned to stone.

Standing at his site in Syria, looking up into empty space above the butt of the pillar (which is all that remain after centuries of pilgrims chipping bits off to take home), one can’t help but marvel at his achievement at becoming internationally renowned during his own life time a thousand years before the printing press was invented. He had to deal with all the problems that still taunt megastars today, such as what to do all day other than greet the fans who turned up each afternoon for sermons on subjects like the evils of a nice hot meal or clean sheets. ‘Clean sheets! Clean sheets. I’ll give you clean sheets. Did Jesus have clean sheets on the cross?’

Like all celebrities, a large part of the day was spent on a fitness regime – an early form of aerobics involving bending forward to touch his toes repeatedly - one witness stopped counting after 1,244 times bows. Other than the fitness/prayer regime, Simeon just stood praying for the 37 years – possibly thinking of how great it would be if there was such a thing as a Guinness Book of Records. He spent the nights either, sleeping standing up tied to a pole, or if he was feeling indulgent he’d curl up on the ground, chained to the balustrade in case he rolled over or a storm arose.

Like all celebrities he had a vast entourage to control the crowds, arrange access for VIPs (kings and emperors could climb a ladder to consult with him), and bring him the occasional meal. (His PR people managed to hush up details of how he dealt with bodily waste). A basilica was built around the pillar after his death - the largest in the world at the time – not even Britney or the Beatles managed that. Respect.

Simon Cumbers column - May 2009

2011-08-01T14:56:00.000-07:00

Sat 05 May 2009 Tourism as self-help

MAGAN'S WORLD: Manchán Magan's tales of a travel addict

LAST MAY I found myself visiting a local community project in Zambia run by a safari lodge. Two open-topped safari jeeps full of tourists pulled up outside the community school to see the results of the funding provided by the guests and the lodge. It was impressive to see how the school had been able to employ extra teachers, add classes and buy equipment. We handed over the crayons, paints, books and balls that we had been encouraged to bring from home and by way of thanks the teachers and children launched into an hour-long display of ebullient singing, dancing and storytelling for us.It was a moving experience.

As our jeeps roared out of the school grounds again, I asked the armed wildlife ranger who had accompanied us whether such tourist visits were frequent. ‘Just a few times a week,’ he replied. I was dumbstruck. He told me that the children got a chance to study in the morning, then went home for lunch and in the afternoon they made the long journey back again to perform for their white donors.

It was worth it, he claimed, for the abundance of books, balls and donations the school received. Meanwhile, just down the road the next school was in penury, as were schools right across Zambia. The initiative was definitely well-meaning, but these things always become so much more complicated in Africa.

It got me thinking about community tourism, and whether there was anywhere local communities were equitably and tangibly benefiting from tourism, or if communities were running their own development-focused tourism projects. After some research, it became apparent that white investors had cornered the market in the prime locations of Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and my only hope of finding authentic grassroots initiatives was in poorer, more forgotten countries.

I needed to do some fieldwork, but right away I faced the issue of how to fund it. That was when I heard about a man from Navan named Simon Cumbers. He had had a passion for documenting the world, and had filmed all over the planet from the Amazon to Indonesia, to India and Africa, until 2004, when he was murdered by terrorist gunmen while filming a report for BBC News in Saudi Arabia. He was only 36 years of age. A little over a year after his death, the Department of Foreign Affairs established the Simon Cumbers Media Challenge Fund in his memory. It’s a grant scheme aimed at assisting and promoting more and better quality media coverage of development issues in the Irish media. Already it has paid for Irish Times journalists and photographers to report and research stories in Saudi Arabia, Bolivia, Mauritania, East Timor, Angola and Zambia.

I applied and received a grant from the fund and as a result was able to travel to Uganda and Ethiopia earlier this year. I came across some truly inspiring community tourism projects which left me brimming with enthusiasm about their potential: lodges, camps, hiking trails, tribal ceremony tours, swamp walks, craft initiatives - all run directly by communities for the benefit of the locality. Together they make up an impressive range of tourism opportunities that are accessible, affordable and enable one to get deeper into a culture than any white-run project could ever hope for.

Unfortunately, we rarely get to hear about these projects because they are small-scale and lack international promotion. Over the next few months it’s my intention to sing about them from the highest tree tops – primarily here in the pages of Go, but also on RTE Radio and in Foinse and anywhere else that’ll have me. Getting a grant from the Simon Cumbers Fund invariably brings with it the legacy of the passion, resolve and ambition of the man who inspired it. There’s an onus to live up to the conviction and curiosity that he displayed in his own short life.

Dervla Murphy column 2 - Magan's World June 2009

2011-08-01T14:53:00.000-07:00

Sat 06 Jun 2009Manchán Magan's tales of a travel addict

True traveller's tales

MANCHÁN'S WORLD:I WROTE RECENTLY about an interview I did with Dervla Murphy, Ireland’s most distinguished adventurer and travel writer, and in particular about her sense of disenchantment with the world she has spent her life travelling through. “As long as this corporate capitalism prevails there is very little to celebrate in the world,” she says. “It’s very sad.”

But what I failed to capture was the indefatigable passion for travel that still animates and propels her across the world – she published her latest book about Cuba just last year at the age of 77.

But what I failed to capture was the indefatigable passion for travel that still animates her and propels her across the world – she published her latest book about Cuba just last year at the age of 77. Following on from her comment above, she said, ‘I wish the younger generation could be much more aware of it, as you lot can change it.’

She is still a fervent advocate of travel, particularly as a way for young people to explore their world and inform themselves about what is really going on. ‘It’s in the interest of the people who run our world to prevent the average citizen of the affluent world from knowing how the majority of human beings live and why they have to live in such poverty,’ she says.

It pleases her that more people than ever are travelling, but, ‘backpackers have to be careful not to become too much of a herd - all going to the same place and staying in the same doss house and eating in the same restaurant. I think they would be far better if they went off on their own and visited fewer countries.’

At a time where our youth all too often tend to head sheep-like to Australia, with perhaps a stop off at a bungee-jumping spot in Thailand on the way, the example Dervla set by setting off on her bicycle from Lismore to Delhi through Afghanistan and Persia in the Sixties ought still to be a lesson to us all. ‘I don’t see the point of travelling above bicycle speed,’ she says. ‘I don’t think you get the feel of anything, whizzing along in a bus or a motor car or taxi - might as well stay at home, as far as I’m concerned.’

She feels today’s backpackers travel too quickly. ‘They decide to go backpacking around the world for 6 months and by the time they come home, having visited 12 countries, they don’t know t’other from which. They haven’t been there long enough, or quietly enough, to really take in the essence of the culture. They haven’t read enough about the places before they’ve been there.’

That said, Dervla still believes in the potential of travel to open minds and bridge cultures, ‘I think the one’s who go in couples or individuals, and travel slowly, achieve an awful lot in countering the more blatant, flashy capitalism, but I’m not sure that the packs achieve much.’

She explains that what she is most in search of is the feel of a place, ‘it entails being alone with the landscape, with the countryside, the actual physical territory. I don’t spend very long in cities. I arrive and then get out of them as fast as possible.’ Although she is always open to seeing the positive in a country, she will not shy away from the negative, if that is what she finds.

It’s hard to underestimate the esteem, bordering on love, with which Dervla is held among a whole generation of Irish people. After every public reading and lecture I give there is always a question about what I think of her and the influence she has had on me. The lustre in the eye of the questioner says it all. After my earlier column on Dervla I was upbraided by her fans for not providing details of where her interview can be found, and lest I attract further opprobrium - www.rte.ie/radio1/bigadventure

Greenland, Magan's World - Irish Times, Aug 2009

2011-08-01T14:50:00.000-07:00

Sat 08 Aug 2009Thawing to tourism

MAGAN'S WORLD:THE MAN climbing the cliff was carrying a sack of seabirds. A clear plastic bin liner stuffed with the mis-shapen carcasses of large gulls and gannets, their feathers awry, leaden eyes pressed against the plastic and beaks poking through.

The sight had a sordid beauty – the egg-blue Arctic sky running into the even paler-blue waters of Baffin Bay bathed everything in the light of a Northern Renaissance still life.

Less than forty metres away was a prefabricated timber building selling the full array of brushed aluminium and lacquered Bang & Olufsen gear. I was in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, and considering the town lacked a proper youth club or low-cost supermarket, the presence of so much extortionately-priced Danish electronics was a surprise. Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark and its 88% Inuit subjects are finding it hard to adapt to modern life - 20% of 15 to 17 year-old girls on the island attempt suicide at least once. Alcoholism is high, educational levels are low, and the collapse of fishing has increased unemployment. Thus, the idea that space-age headphones was something these people might need had an element of ‘Let Them Eat Cake’ about it. They made the local sod-roofed houses and driftwood dog-sleds look all the more primitive; as though reinforcing the idea that the Inuit might not be quite ready to govern themselves - the equivalent of the Eno tablets that British colonialists use to drop into water to bamboozle African tribes.

Tourism is Greenland’s new hope. Although the country is ferociously expensive it offers sights and experiences that will brand themselves into you forever. From the moment you land in Kangerlussuaq airport, just north of the arctic circle it becomes clear this is an entirely new realm of experience. The airport itself looks like a prefabricated, arctic research station and is set in a vast stony wilderness at the head of a fjord. Since there are no national roadways one needs to either take a boat or plane from the airport to anywhere else.

Alternatively one could just stay at the airport: the button-nosed, soapstone-skinned girls in the tourist office can organise dog-sledding, caribou hunting and kayaking in the area, as well as musk-ox safaris and trips to camp and stunt drive on the arctic ice sheet. One can even shop for most of the local crafts at the airport; they have a good range of seal-skin clothing, caribou antler and walrus ivory carvings. But, considering you’ve paid over €750 for your flight from Dublin via Copenhagen or Reykjavik you might as well blow the budget and head out into the rest of the country.

One economical and memorable way is to hike from the airport to the glorious town of Sisimiut on the coast, which has many original 18^th and 19^th century prefabricated timber buildings and a huge whale-jawbone arch as an entryway into the old town. The 150km trek from Kangerlussuaq to Sisimiut takes about 10 days across the tundra, along rivers, around lakes and through marshes, sleeping in huts along the way. The route is relatively easy and well signposted, although keep in mind that compasses deviate close to the North Pole and the rate of deviation changes every few years. The walk is only possible in summer, but for the rest of the year you can do it by dogsled or snowmobile, and springtime opens up the possibility of some serious cross-country skiing, including a renowned 160km route where you camp out for 2 nights and your bags are carried by dogsled.

If you’re lucky there might be some icebergs floating off Sisimiut, but if not, it’s worth taking a passenger ship north to Ilulissat because icebergs are the real wonder of this area – looming ice ghosts, cantankerous creeking solidified clouds. You owe yourself a look at them.

Walking Safari, Zambia - Irish Times , Aug 2008

2011-08-01T14:39:00.000-07:00

Sat 08 Aug 2008Dangerously close to nature

After the initial nerves, Manchán Magan grew to love hiking in blissful isolation through a Zambian safari paradise teeming with animals - while all the time being fully aware that he was slower, fatter and probably tastier than any other animal out there

I'M GLAD I watch Who Wants to be a Millionaire?It taught me that hippos kill more people in Africa than any other animal and that they can run up to 30km an hour. This may have saved my life when I arrived at Tafika bush camp in northeast Zambia, and saw the two hippos standing on the lawn. I knew to stay inside the jeep. The camp's owner, John Coppinger, seemed to know otherwise.

He came out to greet me and even tried opening the door, but there was no away I was getting out. I pressed down the lock and pointed in the direction of the hippos. He seemed completely unfazed, and all he said was, ‘Hippos!’ with a shrug, in the tone that others use for wasps.

‘They’re dangerous!’ I called through the window. He nodded agreeably, saying, ‘Most things are around here.’

I was beginning to reconsider this whole trip to Zambia. I had heard that the country provided a more intimate safari experience than was available in other parts of Africa, but this all seemed a bit too . . .

My attention was suddenly drawn to a team of waiters carrying platters of freshly baked bread, elaborate salads and flame-grilled kebabs to a large thatched patio overlooking the river and in the end hunger got the better of me. I decided to face down the danger, and after carefully opening the door, I crept along the bamboo fence towards the food. John, who is Zambian, but of Irish descent, introduced me to his South African wife, Carol, and we sat down to my first incredible bush-camp meal – vegetables and salads from their own garden, meat from a German supplier in Lusaka and fresh cakes and breads baked in a traditional hole-in-the-ground oven. (It was like having the Avoca Handweavers food counter beamed down into the African bush.)

‘Crocs!’ John said, looking out towards the bank of the Luangwa River. I glanced up from my French beans and roast potatoes, and saw three long corrugated blue-green bodies pulling themselves out of the water up onto the bank – one with its jaws menacingly open.

It wasn’t as if I was unaccustomed to safaris, just not this type where you and the animals occupied the same space. I was used to the proscenium arch variety, where only upon stepping through the gates of the national park did one see wildlife. Here in the Luangwa region of Zambia there seemed to be no neat borders. The animals were everywhere. Already on the drive from Mfuwe airport I had seen high-nelly bikes, fully-laden with maize and palm oil, abandoned on the track where their owners had encountered a hippo or elephant and fled.

John explained to me about the walking safaris he ran - a less-intrusive, more intimate, way of being in the bush. I had read that you mightn’t get to see as much wildlife as you would from a jeep, but you learn about their tracks, their faeces and the plants and insects of the bush.

‘I wouldn’t bet on not seeing wildlife,’ John said when I mentioned this. ‘The park is teeming with it. Your main problem will be keeping out of their way. But, I recommend a game-drive first. Get a sense of what the place is like from a jeep, then you’ll know what you’re letting yourself in for if you decide to go out hiking.’

Memories of previous safaris came to me: seven jeeps all congregating around the same injured lioness in Kenya, and crowds of photographers jostling each other around a watering hole.

‘You won’t see any other jeeps here,’ John assured me. ‘We’re the only people who use this section of the park.’

After a siesta, a New Zealand guide and a local scout brought me out in the jeep and within a short distance of the camp they were already pointing out giraffe, elephants, buffalo, impala, bush bucks and warthogs. John was certainly right about their abundance. At dusk we stopped for sundowners – gin & tonics and freshly roasted popcorn - at a ford on the river where a family of elephants were crossing from the safety of the National Park to the riskier, but food-rich farmland on the far side. As the sky blackened, the game scout plugged in a floodlight and we drove on, fanning the light back and forth across the landscape, revealing night creatures - mongooses, civets, nightjars, owls and hyenas. I was trying to find words to describe the sweet, musky, minestrone-like smell of the bush at night when suddenly the screeching of baboons alerted us to danger to our left and as the jeep swung down a bank towards it we heard the shriek of a terrified impala. The floodlight revealed two lions bent over the stricken animal, its jugular still throbbing, spewing out blood. The lions threw a quick glance our way, but were too caught up in the kill to give us much attention and they allowed us drive right up beside them and watch as they tore the animal to pieces. It was eerie to be so near them and yet be ignored so completely. I kept having to reassurance myself that I really was there. Even a spider or an ant would have reacted more to our presence.

It was 7pm when we got back to camp. The patio was festooned with candles and waiters were carrying in casseroles and more fresh salads and bread to a group of Americans who had just come back from a cycling safari and were giddy with the fact of spotting a leopard stalking a waterbuck. After dinner an armed watchman walked me carefully through the camp to my bamboo and timber-pole chalet, pointing out various amorphous forms that could have been either hippos or elephants along the way. Directly outside my chalet a lone male hippo stood with its enormous head bent deferentially to the grass. I hoped I might be able to slide past it, but the watchman grabbed hold of me and pulled me back. He stamped and rattled his gun for a while before the animal eventually decided to waddle on a bit towards the river.

Inside my chalet I surveyed the beautifully-made, but undeniably flimsy, grass and bamboo walls, realising there was no way they could withstand even an angry hare, let alone a hippo or elephant. Still, I couldn’t but admire their artistry. The whole chalet, including the bed, the shelves and sink-stand was made of twisted grass and split bamboo tied to a frame of rough-hewn poles. It was like living inside a basket, and once I had crawled under my mosquito net and put out the storm lantern, I felt as snug and safe as a kitten in its basket.

Next morning at breakfast John said he had a surprise for me. He led me to the edge of the camp where a tiny micro-light was parked on a rough strip of cleared ground, and asked me did I want to see the park the way birds did. I looked warily at the contraption - two go-cart seats bolted to an aluminium witches broom with a lawnmower engine at the back and a flimsy yellow canopy - but I knew this was too unique an opportunity to pass up. He gave me a helmet and headset and strapped me into the seat and we went bumping off over the ground until suddenly we were airborne and below us was the chaotically coiling river with a herd of hippos wallowing in it, arranged head to tail in a weird chain-mail pattern that I would never had noticed from the ground. We flew right over a baobab tree on which a fish-eagle was nesting, and then swept gracefully down through a family of elephants who showed no sign of concern at our appearance. It was wonderful to see wildlife without causing them anxiety – so different from my previous experiences of taking photos of the retreating posteriors of frightened animals. We were just a large, loud bird passing overhead. John pointed to a lone crocodile sunning itself on the bank and with a glint in his eye he suddenly revved the engine and dived straight for it, sending it fleeing for its life. As we rose back up into the sky, he said into my headset, ‘I hate bothering any animal, but crocs are different.’

The Americans were still munching through their poppy-seed muffins and papaya when we got back. They were about to go on a game drive and asked me did I want to come, but John thought it was time for me to immerse myself more deeply in the bush. He told me to pack up my gear and then had someone lead me to a canoe and paddle me across the river to the far side where three men were waiting for me – a rotund, middle-aged man in a khaki shirt and shorts with binoculars around his neck, was clearly the leader. He introduced himself as Isaac. ‘My job is to keep you alive,’ he said. ‘I have been guiding 35 years and never lost a man. But you must listen and obey me, okay?’ I nodded. He pointed to the next man in line – a gangly scout dressed in military fatigues and carrying a .375 Brno rifle. ‘This is Batwell. He’s from the State National Park. His job is to protect the animals. If we are attacked, you must ignore him and follow me. He will be fine – it’s what he’s trained for.’ The third man, dressed in a beige jumpsuit was Justin. His job was to carry the tea and cake and make us a fire when we rested.

Isaac lined us up in the order we were to walk: Batwell first, then Isaac, then me followed by Justin. We set off through the bush – an area of perfect wilderness with no roads or villages, just beautiful lost lagoons, ebony forests, open grassland and dry, sandy riverbeds. It’s where I spent the next three day. Hiking in blissful isolation through a natural paradise teeming with animals. At first I was constantly on edge, fearful that every patch of long grass could conceal a prowling lion, or that a leopard might spring from every tree. I had seen on the night-drive how numerous the carnivorous predators were and how vicious they could be, and I had now placed myself directly onto the food chain. I was slower, fatter, and (although I say so myself) probably tastier than every other animal out there. I was an ideal meal, but Isaac told me I ought to be more wary of the large grazers - the hippos, buffalo and elephants - these were the ones most likely to charge if we startled them. It was up to us to make sure we never did. He taught me to listen out for the ox-pickers, the birds that sit on their backs and warn of approaching predators. If we heard their call we had to stand stock-still until we worked out where exactly the animal was, and then retreat, making as long a loop around it as was necessary.

Once I settled into the rhythm of things, it made for an idyllic few days. Each morning we’d set off at 7am and hike through the bush for four hours until we arrived at either one of two bush camps that seemed to appear as if by magic out of the wilderness. A team of cooks and porters permanently stationed there would have prepared lunch for us – the same great food as in the main camp - all the ingredients hiked in by a team of porters (who had no armed guard to protect them!). After lunch we’d have a siesta and then head out again mid-afternoon until dusk. I adored the walks. There were different animals to be seen at different times of the day and the light filtering through the trees and flickering on the grasses was constantly changing. There was always some visual treat up ahead to make it special – a glimpse of a giraffe’s neck between two trunks, a Scott’s owl in a tamarind tree, a bushbuck leaping from behind an acacia, an elephant flapping its ears in gentle, but determined defiance. By the time we had returned to camp the porters would have hot water heated for our showers and dinner prepared. Depending in which camp I was in, I slept in either a luxurious grass-made chalet, or a tree house. Bamboo shutters were put up around the grass room to stop hyenas coming in, but the tree house was open, and in theory a giraffe could stick his head right in – and occasionally it did, according to Isaac.

It’s what I miss most about being back home now, the fact that a giraffe is unlikely to stick its head through my window. That said, I am enjoying the fact that I can walk to the shops without encountering hippos. I just wish the nights smelt a bit more like minestrone.

(2195)

Manchán travelled with Native Escapes Ltd, 8 Walpole Crescent, Teddington, Middlesex TW11 8PH

T/F: +44 208 977 7034, e: sharon@nativeescapes.com.

An 8 night trip, departing Dublin costs from €3,200 pps. Cost includes international and domestic flights, transfers, 2 nights at Tafika Camp, 4 nights at the Chikoko Trails camps, and one night at the Holiday Inn in Lusaka. All activates, meals, drinks and National Park fees included.

Community Tourism, Ethiopia, Irish Times - Nov 2009

2011-08-01T14:34:00.000-07:00

Sat 11 Nov 2009An adventure that gives back to the community

Ethiopia’s highlanders live in a stunning basalt landscape of endless canyons and soaring volcanic peaks. It’s a destination that even family-holiday-averse teenagers will fall for. And an Irish Aid project means that staying here benefits locals directly, writes MANCHÁN MAGAN

I MAY HAVE inadvertently unearthed the perfect holiday: affordable, unforgettable and in one of the most awesome, exotic and unexplored parts of the world. This is a trip that will enrich your life and that you will likely look back on from your deathbed with a smile.

Forgive my effusiveness, but this is something special – a holiday in an undiscovered region that is entirely safe and utterly sensational, and will directly and tangibly benefit some of the poorest people on earth. What’s more it costs only a fraction of normal holidays and is suitable for everyone, from adventure-nuts, to honeymooners, to families, large or small - even the most family-holiday-averse teenager will grudgingly admit delight.

The destination is Ethiopia - the spectacular basalt escarpments of the Ethiopian highlands around Lalibela to be precise, one of the world's richest cultural treasure chests, set in a mountain range along the Great Rift Valley where the Blue Nile rises. The holiday involves a series of gentle hikes through the hills, staying with local communities at night in clean, elegant traditional lodges. The cost is €26 per night - that includes all your food, accommodation, your guide, your porters and donkeys. It might not seem like much money to us, but to the local communities, who receive 60% of it directly, it’s the difference between thriving and bare survival.

Now, that I’ve laid out my stall, let me backtrack a little to a man called Mark Chapman who visited Lalibela a decade ago and saw the potential of this elysian landscape of rolling hills, endless canyons, lush valleys and soaring volcanic peaks, as a prime tourist destination. Since there were no tarred roads or any other type of infrastructure in the area he knew that the usual rich white investors from South Africa or Europe could not be enticed in, and this provided an ideal opportunity to develop a genuine network of community tourism sites in which the communities themselves could benefit in a tangible way, rather than the half-hearted, bungling attempts that are often the case.

He hiked out to what he considered was the most beautiful spot in the entire region, a fertile meadow right at the edge of a plummeting black basalt escarpment, and explained to the local community that if they built a few tukuls (traditional circular homes with huge conical thatched roofs) he would bring tourists to them and he’d give them 60% of what the tourists paid, the remainder being distributed to other local groups and used for promotional work and support offices. They were initially sceptical, wondering where the catch was, but they grudgingly agreed, and in 2003 the first lodges were built on the very edge of a sheer precipice at Mequat Mariam overlooking a tawny-coloured stretch of undulating paradise.

The first tourists arrived and of course they were blown away by the mountains and the hospitality and the opportunity to get so close to a culture as ancient and intriguing as this. It’s hard not to be. Their isolation in the highlands have preserved traditional life here to a remarkable extent. It’s like Dervla Murphy wrote way back in 1968 in ‘In Ethiopia with a Mule’: ‘Travelling in Ethiopia gives one the Orlando-like illusion of living through different centuries.’ Getting so close to a culture while still enjoying near-Western levels of comfort, food and organisation is exceptionally rare.

So, what does the holiday entail? You start the trail at various points depending on whether you are coming from Lalibela in the east, or Bahir Dar in the west. Either way, you and your guide get dropped at the trailhead, where porters from the community are waiting with donkeys, and you set off walking the first 8km along a tree-lined path up towards the escarpment, through a pastoral landscape of grain fields, terraced vegetable plots and soaring stony upland meadows, with clusters of mud and thatch farms here and there. It’s a magical land of olive groves, shepherd boys and women scrubbing cloths at acacia-lined streams; of hidden Orthodox churches made from stone and wood, and processions of garlanded priests with gold-tasselled sun umbrellas. Although the land looks arid, it’s remarkably bountiful and everywhere there are men ploughing with oxen and wooden ploughs and winnowing with forks cut from tree branches.

Most people’s reaction upon reaching the first camp is one of awe. The majesty of the location is hard to convey – mountains running on to the ends of the earth and surging outcrops of hexagonal basalt columns rising up beneath you, with just the smoke from cooking fires hinting at possible habitation. Above you are a profusion of raptors (auger buzzards, falcons, vultures, black and white eagles) soaring on the thermals. You are served tea and a freshly-baked snack as you take in the view. Then, while dinner is cooking you head out to an over-hanging rock-ledge for a sunset beer with Gelada baboons scrambling along the cliff face beneath you. Dinner is served around an open fire in one of the tukuls and since there is no electricity one goes to sleep early.

The days continue more or less like this – one can trek for between one and six nights - the landscape and people becoming ever more alluring the deeper one goes. Each trek between the various camps is beautiful for its own reason, but perhaps the most spectacular and challenging of all is the walk up into the remote highland sanctuary of Abuna Yoseph. This newly opened route leads you up through a forest of giant heather to a community-run camp at 3,500metres and onwards the next day over a highland plateau farmed by resilient mountain people, to a 4,300 meter peak in an Afro-Alpine ecosystem of giant Lobelias (massive cabbage-like trees) and rare Ethiopian wolves.

It’s hard to overstate the sheer otherworldliness of the Ethiopian highlands. The mountain light heightens colour, so that the hand-dyed, hand-woven skirts and jumpers worn by the women and the scarves of the men seem to dance with colour. Everything is more vivid: the lime-green patches of sugar peas at the valley bottoms, the umber-walled cottages and the biscuit-coloured tonsured threshing circuits of the wheat fields.

The highlight for me was being invited into people’s homes – ushered into tall, airy circular mud and thatch buildings and offered a cup of milk or fermented barley beer and a break from the sun. Chickens and goats are shooed aside as you are offered a perch by the fire and a handful of freshly toasted grain kernels. There is something indescribably rejuvenating about spending time in such areas – where light is provided by candle or oil lamp and water is fetched from a well, where Christianity is still practised much as it was when it first arrived here straight from Jerusalem 2000 years ago.

The highland terrain has helped shelter this part of Ethiopia from foreign influence, and as a result it is now one of the best preserved and culturally distinct regions left on the planet. The fact that one can experience it directly while tangibly benefiting the local communities is genuinely exciting.

Mark Chapman is aware that a true community tourism project would ideally have no European involvement and he is busily working to extricate himself from the organisation, which is called TESFA. Already, the manager and all of the staff are Ethiopian. Mark’s presence up until now has helped attract vital funding from organisations such as the British Embassy, Save the Children and most importantly, Irish Aid, the Department of Foreign Affair’s development arm. We, as Irish taxpayers, have played a pivotal part in helping to develop this organisation and now as tourists we can reap the benefits.

Since the people here have never been colonised and have a heritage far older and richer than ours, they possess a sensibility that is almost aristocratic and ensures there is none of the awkwardness one occasionally feels in community encounters, no sense of having to smile through difficult situations. Nor is there any hint of artifice in the relationship between the tourists and the communities – if they sing for you it is only because they are in the mood for singing; the food they cook for you at dinner is local fare adapted to Western tastes, while at lunch you eat genuine highland food. You get to experience life as they live it, albeit with a comfortable bed in a beautiful tukul to sleep in at night and camp showers overlooking the mountains.

It is a rare pleasure to holiday in a developing country where there is no sense of exploiting the less well-off. The local communities involved in this project are thriving - they will show you the grain-stores and wheat-mills that they have been able to pay for through the scheme. It means that their food supply is guaranteed even during the lean times. There is no sense of ‘charity’ to this project; the locals work for the money and then cooperatively decide what the community should do with it. TESFA recognises that it takes relatively few tourist-nights for the communities to earn significant income, and as result they are constantly extending their network of camps so that the income gets spread over as wide an area as possible and that no community is inundated with tourists.

In an ideal world, this would be the model for all community tourism, but whether it would really work in an area less isolated and economically disadvantage is uncertain. Either way, we ought to celebrate the fact that is exists at all and try to support it. On top of the €26 per day, the flight from Ireland to Lalibela (via Addis Ababa) will cost €550 from London on Ethiopian Airlines, and while you’re there you ought to definitely include a few extra days in Lalibela, a former capital of Ethiopia, containing some of Christianity's most important sites - a series of 13th century churches carved out of rock, some carved straight into cliff-faces, others excavated from the base rock. Gary Quinn wrote about it in Go, 24 Jan 2009.

So, does it sound like something special or have I over-egged the pudding? The only fact that I can’t vouch for is whether you will actually look back upon it from your deathbed with a smile - but I’d be interested to know.

This article was supported with a grant from Irish Aid’s Simon Cumbers Media Challenge Fund

Go:

TESFA (Tourism in Ethiopia for Sustainable Future Alternatives) PO Box 3211, Code 1250, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 00-251-11-1225024 www.community-tourism-ethiopia.com tesfacbt@ethionet.et

Go there:

www.ethiopianairlines.com

Ethiopian Airlines Irish agent: ethiopian@premair.ie 01-6633938

Guesthouses in Lalibela:

Jersusalem Guest House, 0333-360047 lastajerusalem@ethionet.et approx €30 a night -

Tukul Village 0333-360564, messay_2005@yahoo.co.uk, approx €30

Alief Paradise, 0333-360023, alparahotel@yahoo.com Approx €15

Lalibela 0333-360036, no email, TESFA can help with reservations, approx €10

Community Tourism, Tanzania - 19 Feb 2011

2011-08-01T14:32:00.000-07:00

The Irish Times - Saturday, February 19, 2011

Beyond the tourist traps of Tanzania

GO AFRICA: MANCHÁN MAGAN ventures off the beaten track to discover community tourism, an affordable and ethical way to have the holiday of a lifetime

THE SERENGETI, the Ngorongoro Crater, Mount Kilimanjaro. There you go, I’ve mentioned them. Now, can we move on and look at the real Tanzania beyond the tourist traps? I want to bring you to the highlands: the Usambara and Uluguru Mountains, to show you some examples of community tourism projects that offer affordable, ethical ways to have the holiday of a lifetime – ones that not only bring you places few people get to see, but that connect you to locals in a natural, enjoyable way, and benefit the most vulnerable communities.

First, some geography. The tourist traps mentioned above are all in the north of Tanzania, along the Kenyan border. They offer some of the best (or, at least the most accessible) wildlife and hiking opportunities in Africa, and I don’t mean to denigrate them, it’s just that they attract as many touts and hawkers as they do tourists. The same could be said for Zanzibar – a picturesque, but touristy island off the coast. I’ll lead you back to these at the end, but allow me show you some fragile, beautiful, places along the way.

Community tourism is a precious, utopian thing, that brings you on the road less travelled. It can’t survive in cut-throat tourist hot spots where money talks and idealistic community ventures simply get bought out or corrupted. It often involves taking public transport – in this case, comfortable, modern coaches on the well-maintained highway that leads north from Dar es Salaam to Arusha.

Let’s start with Lushoto, about six hours north of Dar, a richly-forested, highland town founded by German colonialists as an idyllic summer refuge from the heat. It’s a comparatively affluent and tranquil town with elegant old lodges set in the hills where you can stay for about €15 in retro splendour. It has become a base for hikers and botanists, with three separate community tourism agencies offering hikes, village tours, flora and fauna hunts and forest picnics for roughly €12 a day – about a third of which goes to community development programmes.

The gentle hill walks along eucalyptus-shaded trails through cornfields, coffee plantations, pine woods, tropical forest, fruit farms and even vineyards are enchanting. The best known trails lead one along the precipice of a high escarpment overlooking the sweeping Maasai plains that run northwards to Kenya and beyond. One can walk for days in the gently-sloped hills staying in local guesthouses. It’s one of the few places in Africa where it’s safe and easy enough to walk without a guide, although having one with you invariably enriches the experience. Lushoto is a place you will want to spend longer in than planned.

Staying in Lushoto town is most practical, but to get the real flavour of the place it’s worth lodging in one of the surrounding farms. Irente Biodiversity Reserve is run by the Swedish Lutheran Church, with a range of fruit farming and dairy projects to aid the local community, and cottage accommodation for guests, including wonderful meals based around their home-made jams, juices, rye bread, vegetables, yoghurt and cheese. Other nearby lodges include MamboViewPoint Ecolodge (mamboviewpoint.org), Maweni Farm, Lushoto (maweni.com/lodge) and Mullers Mountain Lodge (mullers mountainlodge.co.tz). One could spend a blissful holiday hiking from one to the other.

FROM LUSHOTO, head to Amani Nature Reserve, which is not far as the crow flies (in fact one can arrange multi-day hikes to it), but one needs to get a bus down to the Maasai plains and right around the Usambara Mountains to access it. It is a vast tract of mountainous wilderness that was set aside by the Germans a century ago and is now protected from hunters and loggers.

Like the Galapagos up a mountain, it’s an exotic realm of pristine old-growth high-montane forest, with a quarter of the species rare and endemic. For walking and mountain biking, it’s pretty close to heaven: vines draping down like streamers from soaring, prehistoric trees, orchids and bromeliads clinging to branches and weird-looking proto-trees with roots sprouting from their trunks like flying buttresses.

A rocky river roars through the forest giving the air an amphetamine rush. Guided walks and night safaris reveal a range of monkeys, sunbirds, eagle owls, chameleons and tree frogs. A day-long walk costs about €16 – with 20 per cent going to the community, 20 per cent to conservation and the rest to the guide. The area has been preserved primarily by the 18 surrounding villages, and your fees help support them. Accommodation is in government lodges, nestled deep in the forest – cosy places with clean sheets and hot showers for €12 a night, including meals of home-grown vegetables, chicken and lentils.

There are regular buses to the nearby town of Muheza from the big cities, but getting from there to the forest lodge requires some resourcefulness – either hiring a jeep or hopping in the back of a pickup. The trip up into the mountains along red earth tracks through tiny lost villages is an adrenalin buzz in itself.

While you’re near the Amani Reserve, consider heading out to the beach at Pangani. If this is you’re first trip to Tanzania, you’ll want to visit Zanzibar, but if you’ve already seen it, try Pangani instead, a dilapidated Swahili dhow port with great snorkelling and few tourists. Stay in the seaside chalets of Peponi Holiday Resort (peponiresort.com), and, again, if you want guided tours or dhow trips which benefit local community projects, contact the Pangani Cultural Tourism Programme.

From here, the famous tourist towns of Moshi and Arusha, are just a few hours north on the main highway. By all means, visit the Serengeti, the Ngorongoro Crater and Mount Kilimanjaro while there, but take time too to call into the headquarters of the Tanzanian Community Tourism programme in the Arusha Tourist Office to find out about community projects in the area. Two I’d recommend are Ng’iresi village on the slopes of Mount Meru, and the Maasai market at Oldonyo Sambu.

FINALLY, I WANT to take a short detour south to Morogoro, about four hours from Dar es Salaam, at the gateway to the Uluguru Mountains. It’s another prime hiking, strolling, rock-climbing area with a pleasant temporal climate, and trails through verdant, pastoral landscape and richly-forested mountains.

Chilunga Cultural Tourism can organise visits to local tribes, dance ceremonies, cooking demonstrations and multi-day hikes, again with a percentage of their profits going to the community. I did their 10-hour hike to Lupanga Peak and a visit to a village where locals spend their days making biscuits from clay which are eaten by pregnant women. Morogoro was used by European colonials as a refuge from the summer heat, and there are still some wonderful creaky old hotels and verandahed restaurants in lush gardens run by doughty old Greeks and Italians who have “gone native”.

Regarding transport in Tanzania, it’s hard to overemphasise how simple and efficient the bus system is. The places mentioned above are all about six hours apart. Buses depart on time and you can book your seat in advance. Granted, the bus stations are a bit chaotic, but within minutes you’ll find yourself being steered helpfully towards wherever it is you’re going, and once you’ve mastered the African bus system the entire continent opens up for you.

My advice would be to fly into Dar es Salaam and out of Nairobi. There are luxury coaches going from Arusha, Tanzania to Nairobi, Kenya (downtown and airport) a few times each day. Again, it takes about five hours. While in Dar, stay in either the YMCA downtown or any of the five-star hotels. Likewise, in Nairobi stay in either the Wildebeest Camp or a five star.

While Nairobi can be intimidating, Dar es Salaam is a great introduction to African cities, with all the chaos and vibrancy one expects, but without the hassle, and one can easily hop on a ferry out to Zanzibar. Africa awaits.

This article was supported by Irish Aid’s Simon Cumbers Media Challenge Fund

Tanzania where to . . .

Stay

Irente Farm, Lushoto, 00-255-788-503002 anette.murless@svenskakyrkan.se. BB €15.

YMCA, Upanga Road, Dar es Salaam, 00-255-22-213-5457. BB €10.

Wildebeest Camp, Nairobi, 00-254-734-770733, wildebeest camp.com. Rooms €20.

Octagon Safari Lodge, 00-255-27-253-4525, octagonlodge.com. Irish-run lodge just beside the Ngorongoro Crater, two hours from Arusha. BB €45.

Guides and tours in Lushoto: Friends of Usambara Mountains. 00-255-787-094725, usambaratravels.com.

Guides and tours in Morogoro: Chilunga Community Tourism, 00-255-23-2613323, chilunga.or.tz.

Guides, tours and accommodation at Amani Nature Reserve: Amani Conservation Centre 00-255-27-2640313, amaninature.org. Visitor centre, guides and Butterfly Research Centre, featuring hundreds of live butterflies.

Guesthouses in Amani and Zigi – try both. Food lodgings: €10. Park entry €22.

Information on community tourism programmes at Pangani and throughout Tanzania, tanzaniaculturaltourism.com.

Get there

Kenya Airways (kenya-airways. com) flies to Dar es Salaam and Nairobi via London Heathrow. Ethiopian Airlines (ethiopian airlines.com) flies to Dar es Salaam via London Heathrow.

Entrepreneurial Africa - Irish Times, May 2011

2011-08-01T14:31:00.000-07:00

The Irish Times - Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Out of Africa: A continent of entrepreneurs

We’re used to seeing Africa as poor and helpless, and it certainly has its problems. However, it’s also a hotbed of entrepreneurship, where phone-fixers, DVD hawkers, clothes sellers and internet start-ups are thriving. MANCHÁN MAGAN visits Mozambique and finds a country more suited to investment than pity

IT WAS the scene where Leonardo DiCaprio walks through a bustling African market in the movie Blood Diamond that finally opened my eyes to the surge of entrepreneurial spirit that is sweeping through Africa. I had been seeing evidence of micro-business in Africa for years – bright-patterned mamas selling everything from sunglasses to samosas, phone-fixers poking soldering irons at mobile phones, scribes standing by laminating machines – but I tended to edit them out in favour of more predictable images of children begging, women fetching water or men ploughing.

It suits our tendency towards simple categorisation, as well as the agendas of aid agencies, to see Africa as poor and helpless. The truth is far more complex.

The continent is in fact in the throes of an entrepreneurial revolution. Eight African countries are in the top 20 fastest-expanding economies of 2010. Every village, town and city I visited in Uganda, Zambia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania over the past two years is humming with entrepreneurial zeal to a degree that wasn’t even imaginable on my previous prolonged journey across the continent 20 years ago.

To examine the issue more closely I travelled to Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest countries with a per capita income of only $350 a year and a ranking of 175th out of 179 countries in the Human Development Index. It’s considered one of the 10 worst countries in the world for doing business in, having emerged from a disastrous Marxist dictatorship and the ravages of 16 vicious years of civil war with a largely uneducated population and virtually no infrastructure.

First impressions were not encouraging. It was a Sunday and Maputo, the capital, was abandoned; no traffic, no shops open and nobody on the streets. The buildings were dilapidated, the pavements crumbling, the post-boxes had their fronts smashed open and there were few cars visible.

I began to doubt my initial rosy optimism; but, at dawn, a transformation occurred – the shuttered windows and caged-in doors morphed into an array of travel agents, restaurants, banks, supermarkets, internet cafes and clothes shops. Buses choked with workers clogged every street. Pavement-sellers draped from head to toe in sandals, scarves, silks, etc were singing and shouting. Men pushing fruit carts and women carrying buckets of samosas were offering breakfast to be-suited commuters. Children were selling plastic brooms, buckets, pirated DVDs and mobile phone credit. The businesses didn’t look glamorous, but they were thriving.

Beyond the worn-out staircase and tangle of electrical wires in each building was a jumble of new enterprises, most consisting of simply a desk and a mobile phone, with perhaps a second-hand computer. They look less imposing than the white-marbled offices of the multinationals, but they are far more in tune with the market and, often, more profitable too. While the scanners, shredders, printers and air-conditioners of the multinationals lie idle during power cuts and surges, the lean African businesses keep going.

They are teaching us a new form of entrepreneurship suited to a world of dwindling resources, where it’s all about service rather than facade.

THE REASONS FOR THIS swell of commerce are numerous, but principally it is because there is profit to be made. The socialist regimes that spread throughout the continent after independence have given way to market economies and the growing network of micro-loan banks and government initiatives to support private sector enterprise are enabling people to set up in business for themselves.

Non-government organisations (NGOs) are moving away from crisis management and towards supporting private-sector initiatives and helping entrepreneurial education programmes. The Mozambique government, with support from Norway and the UN, has introduced an entrepreneurship curriculum at schools to teach children how to help themselves to generate income.

Ireland has been working with Mozambique to overhaul its stifflingly bureaucratic system for issuing business licences, which are compulsory for every start-up. Irish Aid, the State development agency, has teamed up with Technoserve, a pro-business NGO, to fund small factories and businesses and to move away from the large-scale projects such as dams and industry that we focused on in the past.

Technoserve believes that by helping an entrepreneur to create a business with a social consciousness, the surrounding community benefits directly, rather than trying to change an entire government or country.

Frank Sheridan, the Irish ambassador to Mozambique, notices a marked improvement in living standards in the area surrounding a cashew nut-processing factory supported by Irish Aid in Inhambane. Attendance at the local school has increased dramatically, as families can afford books and uniforms, and mothers use the school as daycare while at work.

Assessing the true extent of entrepreneurship in Africa is difficult. Governments tell you what you want to hear, and NGOs often push their own agenda. I decided to go on a journey around the country to see what locals would tell me. My first epiphany was at the bus station – a seething mass of business with everybody selling something and money changing hands so quickly and so often that it was impossible to keep track.

In the space of 10 minutes, an entire mobile shopping mall passed me by – men, women and children with trays, buckets, platters, bags and baskets balanced on their heads, tied to their arms, strapped around their foreheads, offering everything and anything for sale, from things that I might need on the bone-juddering trip ahead (food, drink, fans, cushions, sleeping tablets, raincoats), to things that I might have forgotten to buy at the market (fire-irons, bras, sugar, washing-up liquid). It was one of the most concentrated displays of micro-business I’ve witnessed.

Over the following fortnight, I wandered around the country from the eastern villages abutting the Limpopo National Park to the southern coastal border with Swaziland, talking with everyone I met: internet pioneers, tribal fisherwomen, chili farmers, necklace makers, hip-hop clothing merchants and South African property tycoons. They all agreed that Africa was in the grips of an economic surge and there were fortunes to be made, but they stressed that there remained vast hurdles to overcome – principally, the lack of proper transport and communication infrastructure; inept bureaucracy; corruption; high inflation; unskilled labour force and difficulties accessing capital.

In a country where bank interest rates are a crippling 20 to 30 per cent and the bureaucratic framework displays the worst elements of Portuguese inefficacy, socialist inertia and African prevarication, it’s amazing that any business succeeds at all.

That’s what is most striking about burgeoning market towns such as Xiexie, Mozambique, or Fort Portal, Uganda, or Morogoro, Tanzania – that their transformation is happening with at least one hand tied behind their backs. A generation of young, savvy entrepreneurs is imbuing them with the excitement that Vancouver or San Francisco must have had a century ago. The lure of virgin markets with little or no competition, cheap labour and minuscule rents trumps the drawbacks.

To see this in a democratic country such as Mozambique – where even 10 years ago a functioning telephone would have been hard to find and a bank loan required powerful connections or payment of a large bribe – is unprecedented. This is a country that never had the indigenous entrepreneurial expertise Kenya, Tanzania or Togo got from their educated and wealthy colonial masters. Mozambique was colonised predominantly by illiterate Portuguese peasant farmers, and their exodus after independence left behind no emerging entrepreneurial class.

It would be wrong to downplay the obvious difficulties facing Mozambique or Africa at present, but it may be time to update the image of poor starving children that our parents shamed us with over unfinished plates when we were young.

Hunger and poverty are all too common in certain areas, but what is equally common is future Rockefellers, Macys, and Sainsburys busily staking their claim. Rather than polishing off our dinners to help Africa, perhaps it is time to invest our savings there.

This article was supported with a grant from Irish Aid’s Simon Cumbers Media Challenge Fund

Joyce as Travel writer - Magan's World, June 2011

2011-08-01T14:29:00.000-07:00

The Irish Times - Saturday, June 11, 2011

Joyce - frustrated travel writer

MAGAN'S WORLD: MANCHÁN MAGAN’S tales of a travel addict

I HAVE SPENT the first half of this year crisscrossing our underused motorways listening to James Joyce riffing on the washing practices of prostitutes, the cannibalism of Holy Communion, Plumtree’s potted meat and the shame of shoneens who can’t speak their own language. I got Ulysses on tape from the library and as my only cassette player is in the car, I’ve found myself looking for excuses to make road trips. Invitations to give readings, attend events and talk to groups were accepted based on how far away they were.

Buck Mulligan’s bluster in the Martello tower lulled me along the N3 to a writers’ evening at the Droichead Arts Centre in Drogheda. Stephen Dedalus’ self-absorbed wanderings on Sandymount strand brought me to the gorgeous Linenhall Arts Centre in Castlebar. Leopold Bloom’s trip to a funeral shortened my drive to the Dingle Film Festival in March and Gerty MacDowell exposing her nether regions to an indecently aroused Bloom had me racing to Belfast in April.

It feels as though Bloom and Dedalus have taken up residence in my head. On a foggy February afternoon at Lough Boora Parklands in Offaly, their interior monologues whispered out at me from the bulrushes, birch and the bog-oak stumps. In fact, Lough Boora, with its charcoal swathes of bogland, smudged pigments, and wan washes of oily-toned water chimed perfectly with Joyce’s turgid brilliance.

It was while driving to the Delvin Book Fair at Easter that I suddenly came upon the realisation that Joyce was a frustrated travel writer at heart.

Had Go existed a century ago, he may well have found constructive use for his abilities, writing travel pieces rather than frittering away his talents on senseless shaggy-dog stories and smutty innuendo.

Ulysses comes alive once it turns to travel in chapter 16 with able-bodied seaman WB Murphy describing: “I was in the Red Sea. I was in China and North America and South America. I seen icebergs plenty, growlers. I was in Stockholm and the Black Sea, the Dardanelles . . . I seen a crocodile bite the fluke of an anchor same as I chew that quid.”

Finally, something other than prostitutes, pubs and scented soap. Murphy reveals a postcard of Peruvian man-eaters who eat corpses and horse livers, “a group of savage women in striped loincloths, squatted, blinking, suckling, frowning, sleeping, amid a swarm of infants outside some primitive shanties of osier”.

Now, there’s reportage as gritty as any written by Theroux, Thesiger or Thubron. The stories spark Bloom’s thoughts on tourism and, in his moseying diarrhoeic way, he muses on “opening up new routes to keep pace with the times apropos of the Fishguard-Rosslare route . . . A great opportunity there certainly was for push and enterprise to meet the travelling needs of the public at large.”

His eye for opportunities in the travel industry, chimes with another Mullingar-associated figure, Michael O’Leary. Both share a keen interest in the power of advertising, as well as strong feelings on the advisability of constructing certain tram routes.

Mullingar, after a period of being embarrassed by its smutty-tongued vacationer, has now officially embraced Joyce and on Bloomsday will hold a series of events focusing on the many references to the town and its “beef to the heels” in Ulysses. Watch out for pop-up readings in Mullingar cafes by playwright and “displaced” columnist, Michael Harding.

It’s worth following Joyce on a mini-holiday to Mullingar, although, Ulysses is like a holiday in itself, exhausting and stressful at times, with long tedious journeys through grim landscape rewarded by the occasional glimpse of (scrotumtightening) sea views, interesting local bars and memorable encounters with unusual characters. One returns home yearning to revisit.

Caomhan Keane's article on Irish Language theatre, Irish Times, June 2011

2011-08-01T14:27:00.000-07:00

The Irish Times - Monday, June 13, 2011

Irish language theatre - is it time to stage a revival?

While spoken Irish is encouraged in many sectors of society, theatre seems to be lagging behind in staging Irish language productions, but there are hopeful signs for the future, writes CAOMHAN KEANE

NO ONE could accuse us of passing up on a little self-flagellation when our mother tongue is involved. And it’s easy to tut and nod along with the naysayers when looking specifically at theatre “tri ghaeilge”. In 2007 An Taibhearc, the State’s national Irish language theatre, burned to the ground, and since the present government reneged on an agreement made by the previous one (to split the refurbishment costs three ways) it remains closed.

The Abbey Theatre, or Amharclann na Mainistreach, has mounted just one full-length Irish-language production in the past 15 years (Aodh Ó Dómhnaill’s Idir an Dá Shúil in December), and you’d have to go back to the 1960s to discover the last in-house Irish-language production that graced its main stage.

Although the Arts Council says that it is in no way unwelcoming of Irish-speaking applications, Foras Na Gaeilge’s 2007 calculations revealed that they gave a pitiful 0.001 per cent of their total budget (€216.56 million) to theatre practioners working through the language.

Figures like these would make you think that, just like poor old Peig Sayers at the start of her poisoned tome, theatre through the Irish language “has one foot in the grave and the other on its edge”. Yet ask the artists themselves and they’ll tell you it’s never been healthier. The person with the most important theatrical post in the country, Fiach Mac Conghail, the Director of the Abbey Theatre, is a vehement and passionate Irish speaker; there are more companies operating through the language than there have been in many long years and, most importantly, there are people already working within the industry who are looking at new ways of presenting plays through Irish.

So what do they believe are the problems facing them? “You see the real state of the Irish language when you try and perform through it in front of a general audience,” says the playwright Manchán Magan, who won the Stewart Parker Irish Language Award in 2009 for his bilingual production, Broken Croí/Heart Briste . “You are faced with these blank, zonked faces. To see the guilt, silence and incomprehension in their eyes, it’s just so disheartening.” Added to the audiences limited vocabulary is the issue of dialect – the different canúintí – which confuses an already hesitant audience, who then become less willing to fork out for a ticket for something they fear they should, yet don’t, understand.

Magan believes that we need to simplify, to purify the speech to give the audience the confidence to go with the work. “There is an undercurrent of up to around 800 words that every Irish person knows, but might not be aware they know. Play a game with their self-confidence and see where you can take them,” he suggests.

“We need to see it less as a barrier and more as a challenge,” agrees Maireád Ní Chróinín, the Co-Director of Moonfish, a Galway-based bilingual theatre company. “If you are speaking a language of motion and image, rather than just the spoken word, it’s easier to travel over boundaries, to speak to a larger audience than just those who understand the words.”

European audiences are a lot more open to modes of translation, be it through audio (in which audience members listen to a simultaneous reading of the play on headphones) or surtitles, which Moonfish opted for in their 2009 production of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People (Namhaid don Phobal ), using PowerPoint to allow those with little or no Irish to read along during the play.

Surtitles don’t work for small children, so for companies working with young audiences such as Fíbín, Branar and Graffiti, the physical expression – song, movement, puppetry, shadowplay – become important.

“What we found was that children were fluent in the emotional language of a story,” says Marc Mac Lochlainn, the director of Branar. “Yet they weren’t able to express themselves in Irish.” Since children have a natural ability to pick up on emotions, and are closer to body language than they are to actual words, Branar sticks to a mix of movement, script and puppetry “so that they will be able to look at the story and understand the feelings and the essence of it”.

Mac Lochlainn believes that if theatre for adults was based less on the information that was being put across and more on how it was going across, it would benifit the sector as a whole. “But it’s quite hard to get adults to come see shows like that.Children will be more accepting of something that is new and imaginative as they are more attuned to their imagination. Text-based theatre is all we’ve ever known as adults.”

In 2009 Meitheal Na mBeag was formed to act as an umbrella body for those who work in the performing arts as gaeilge for young people. They held their first conference, Ag Tógáil an Tí, last year to see who and what was being done in the sector. “Everyone was on the same page as to why they were working through Irish,” says Mac Lochlainn. “The agenda was artistic more than anything else. People just wanted to create work for children. There was no undercurrent of promoting the language tagged on.”

David Parnell, the Head of Theatre at the Arts Council, says they don’t hold Irish language groups above or below their English-speaking counterparts. “We support high-quality art, irrespective of language,” he says. Yet there is a belief among some who work through Irish that the Council practices a policy of cultural apartheid, by which it funds English language theatre and leaves it to a number of other bodies to pick up the Irish language slack.

Deirdre Davitt, the manager of Arts and Culture at Foras na Gaeilge, has been a key player in the development of Irish language work. “The Arts council wants to see a finished idea,” says Mac Lochlainn. “Deirdre is willing to go, ‘Okay, I’m going to give you a chance on this and you have to prove yourself.’”

Davitt ventured into the area of funding out of necessity. “Companies were going from Billy to Jack, getting nowhere,” she says. When Bord Na Gaeilge was turned into Foras Na Gaeilge in 1999 she had a far bigger budget to pursue it, dishing out grants to 10 groups or venues a year. “They were small grants in comparison to the Arts Council. But they are really very well spent,” she says. This funding allowed Branar and Graffiti to pioneer work for toddlers that is lauded at an international level while Fíbín are invited all over the world (most recently to Malawi) to stage their shows, using giant, life-sized puppets. “Their productions are in Irish but they are accessible on an artistic level,” says Davitt. “They are fearless in the decisions they make and look abroad for expertise and for training.”

As the National Theatre, the Abbey is understandably expected to lead the way when it comes to commissioning and developing new work. And while the history of Irish language work on both the Abbey stages has been slight, in the past two years things have looked very good indeed.

First there was a series of short play readings, directed by Paul Mercier, called Gach Áit Eile , in which three 20-minute pieces were commissioned by three separate writers in three separate canúintí. “This was an interesting process for us,” says Aideen Howard, the Literary Director of the Abbey Theatre, “as it allowed us to connect with the writers that were out there already and to reconnect with an audience who we haven’t been engaged with for seven years.”

The Abbey then approached writers who were writing in the language, but not necessarily for the stage, through a workshop led by Mercier called Bí ag Scríobh. “It was amplifying our regular, unsolicited script process,” says Howard. “Ramping it up and saying, ‘We are genuinely interested in engaging with Irish language playwriting, come show us what you have got.’”

Theatre is a minority art form, and Irish theatre language is a minority of a minority, so new writing is something Howard has to foster and develop so that in the next few years they don’t just have one writer they can turn to but a number of writers.

“It isn’t adequate to push one play out into the world unless you are able to sustain this activity with another one at least every two years.” She believes that this is a key part of what the Abbey Theatre should be developing and supporting. “We need to literally create the tradition and that is what we are trying to do.”

To that end the Abbey has a number of projects under commission and wants to repeat the Bí Ag Scríobh process. “My ambition is that, in next year’s new playwright programme, at least one writer will be an Irish-language writer.”

Magan believes that it is make-or-break time for theatre through Irish. “It was going to die. We needed a boom and we got people putting resources into it. All it needs is one innovator. One Michael Keegan Dolan, one Mikel Murfi, to come up with a dynamic, innovative story and the whole thing could really take off.”

But for that to happen the Arts Council needs to look more seriously at what is going on through the language. “The whole area is blossoming but it is happening against the odds,” says Davitt. “Young companies starting out need more support from the Arts Council so that their ideas come as far as a production. They have an obligation to the Irish language as much as they do to the English language and their support gives artists a status and a weight in the industry that I just can’t give them.”

Travelling in Africa with Children, Irish Times, July 9 2011

2011-08-01T14:25:00.000-07:00

Florida or Uganda for the kids?

MAGAN'S WORLD: MANCHÁN MAGAN 's tales of a travel addict

WHICH DO YOU think would make the greatest long-term impression on your children, a fortnight in Florida or the same period in Uganda? Is a family holiday in a remote region of eastern Africa even feasible?

Of course, there is the issue of vaccinations and malaria protection to consider, and on top of that there is the anxiety of the unknown. Something within us makes us wary of Africa; resistant to its allure.

I wish I could convey quite how safe and simple travel in Uganda is nowadays. The people are so hospitable that it appears as though the entire country is committed to making life as enjoyable as possible for the few tourists who make the effort to visit. There is always someone nearby willing to help, although if you don’t require their help they will leave you completely alone.

The capital, Kampala, is admittedly a bit chaotic and intimidating for first-timers, and so staying overnight near the airport in Entebbe (a charming colonial resort town on the shores of Lake Victoria) is an option.

This has the advantage of allowing a visit to the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre, a vast park for animals rescued from poachers, illegal trade or accidents. It includes an island chimp sanctuary. It’s a great opportunity to get up close to rhinos, lions, hyenas and chimps in large, open-air enclosures that look identical to their natural habitat.

The community tourism projects I visited were all in the southwest of the country – the area surrounding the Queen Elizabeth National Park, the Semliki National Park, the Rwenzori National Park and the Kibali National Park – considered one of the most beautiful parts of Africa and the best area to go tracking chimpanzees and mountain gorillas.

Ucota (Uganda Community Tourism Association) has projects throughout Uganda, all designed to empower poor communities, to help them deal with the challenges of the modern world and facilitate meaningful dialogue between cultures.

The southwest region, as well as being the most beautiful, is also easiest to get to. Ucota can arrange a car for you, but much more enjoyable is to take a bus from Kampala’s central station, where buses to the two major towns, Kasese and Fort Portal, leave every 30 minutes.

It’s a fascinating four-hour journey along a good road through mud villages, papyrus swamps and tea plantations, with a feast of food and drink available right outside your window at every village you stop in – you just stick out a hand and choose from the freshest mangos, hot chapattis, roasted bananas and cold drinks.

To please your children, and as an antidote to the worthiness of community tourism, you could always make a detour to Jinja, 80km east of Kampala. It is the new centre for adventure tourism in east Africa and offers some of the best white-water rafting on the continent, as well as quad-bike safaris, zip-wire adventures over the White Nile, a bungee jump straight into the river, canoe trips on Lake Victoria and riding safaris to the source of the Nile. (See atadventures.com.)

For accommodation, even if you would never normally consider a hostel or campsite, Africa is the place to do so. There is a shortage of mid-range hotels. Most tourists are overlanders and over the years a fantastic network of hostel/campsites has developed to cater for them; many in elegant colonial homes with extensive gardens. They offer private rooms, dormitories and full camping facilities.

The best such place in Entebbe is the Backpackers Place, set in a nice 1930s colonial bungalow, and if you choose to stay in Kampala, then Backpackers is a fine choice – a large old house in beautifully landscaped gardens, with a bar and restaurant that pulses at night with young ex-pats and aid workers.

A holiday in Uganda can be everything you’d wish for – everything, that is, except Florida.

Community Tourism, Uganda - Irish Times, July 9 2011

2011-08-01T14:22:00.000-07:00

The Irish Times - Saturday, July 9, 2011

Living with the locals in Uganda

It’s friendly, affordable and a way to see some of the most beautiful places on earth. Community tourism is win-win, writes MANCHÁN MAGAN after a trip to Africa

THE TAXI drops you at the end of an umber-hued mud track. Ahead are the soaring interlocking spurs of the Rwenzori Mountains, the myth-shrouded Mountains of the Moon. All you can see are their massive blue bellies and shoulders soaring up into a veil of grey mist. They are called Mountains of the Moon because only at night do they reveal themselves, like great vampires baring themselves to the stars. Steam rises from the lush undergrowth that covers every inch of the valley in a rococo profusion of tropical verdancy. The Irish should be accustomed to greenness, but foliage of this diversity and fecundity is intimidating.

A woman carrying a clay pot of water on her head points you in the direction of the Ruboni Community Camp, her face, to your surprise, breaks into a beam of gratitude. What’s she so happy about? It turns out that her sister works there, and her sons benefit from the school sponsorship programme that the camp funds, while other members of her community are reaping rewards from the tree nursery project and the animal husbandry scheme.

The woman repositions the water on her head and leads you up through the mess of mossy hardwoods and bromeliad fronds to a long wooden lodge with a large balcony overlooking the mountains. She introduces you to the staff who bring passion fruit juice and a bowl of pineapple for you as you sit back into a cushioned bench on the veranda to hear about the various services they offer. Guest cabins with views across the mountains cost €8.50 per night, while elegant safari tents with even better views go for €5. Home-grown meals are around €2.50 and there are guided hikes available for €6.70. Suddenly you realise you’re going to be happy here. It’s one of those places that will be hard to leave. This is the beauty of community tourism – affordable, friendly and offering access to areas that would otherwise be off-limits.

Ruboni Community Camp is a guesthouse, restaurant and trekking enterprise situated in the most beautiful spot of a hidden valley that leads into the Rwenzori National Park. In marked contrast to most other tourist enterprises in Uganda which are run by white ex-pats, or rich black entrepreneurs from the cities, Ruboni camp is run by the Bakonzo tribe who have inhabited the region for over 300 years having been chased from their original jungle home by a more bellicose tribe. The food is all grown locally by friends and family. The walking trails are through hilly rainforest that these people have known all their lives. They can tell you the multiple uses of each flower, leaf and bark, the flight path of each bird and grunts of each animal.

Their territory runs up to Rwenzori National Park, allowing access to a landscape that is as rich in wildlife and vegetation as the park, but does not require the payment of $70-a-day (€48) park fees.

This is what community tourism is all about. A win-win situation, where you get to visit some of the most beautiful places on earth and eat the best food for a fraction of what you’d pay in a normal hotel, while the community gets to benefit far more than they ever would from a foreign-run enterprise.

The various development schemes that the camp funds have been selected by the community themselves to focus on their greatest needs – their child-sponsorship scheme is funding 37 of the brightest Bakonzo children to attend private school. With teacher-pupil ratios in government schools of one teacher per 120 children, a private secondary education is vital for a real chance at advancement. And what a formerly hunter-gatherer tribe like the Bakonzo need is educated young people capable of leading them through the many challenges ahead.

Just down the road from Ruboni on the valley floor is a bland, concrete hotel charging €70 for a room with no view. I could have stayed there and been served badly-made approximations of Western food by uninterested staff who were desperate to extract tips from me to supplement their meagre wage. Their website and e-mail address would have been far easier to find than Ruboni’s. And, in fact most people who do come to the area stay there. It’s why the reputation of tourist facilities in Africa is often so poor; apart that is, from the few snazzy five-star developments.

I signed up for a village tour at €6.80, and spent the afternoon wandering around the homes of the local blacksmith, herbal healer and basket weaver, guided by a Bakonzo youth.

By far my most interesting encounter was with the village seanchaí – an octogenarian former warrior who shared with me his frustration with the government’s policy that was converting his old hunting ground into a national park. He claimed to have grown weak from the lack of wild animal meat in his diet, but nevertheless was proud to think that this land would be preserved for future generations. Brandishing his spear, he recalled with fondness, the lions, monkeys and enemy tribesmen it had killed, and went on to explain the death and marriage rituals of his people and the great tribal war that first sent his ancestors fleeing here centuries ago. I spent four wonderful days getting to know the Bakonzo people and exploring their stretch of paradise.

Although I was right at the gates of Rwenzori National Park, a unique mountainous bogland ecosystem stretching over the highest mountain range in Africa, I never went trekking into them – the chance of seeing rare heathers, orchids and high-montane forests wasn’t alluring enough to face wading through thigh-deep bog in constant rain or fog.

Leaving the camp to visit other community tourism projects might have proved a logistical problem in other countries, but public transport is so extensive and ubiquitous in Uganda that even in the most remote areas all one ever needs to do is stick out one’s thumb and within minutes a scooter, minivan or bus will pick you up. I walked down the track from Ruboni and hopped on a scooter which brought me the 7km to the nearest tarmac road, from where I got a minibus to Fort Portal, the nearest town, and onwards into the gorgeous Crater Lakes area – a lushly forested region of emerald blue volcanic lakes surrounded by tea plantations and wild mango, papaya, banana and ebony trees.

I was heading to John Tinka’s Homestay – a type of BB where you stay in the family compound, getting as involved with the daily chores of grain milling, manioc pounding, fruit collecting as you wish. The owner, John Tinka, was at a community tourism meeting in Kampala, but his extensive family were extraordinarily hospitable and spoke perfect English which immediately circumvented the awkwardness that occasionally accompanies such things. The family were intelligent, insightful, but most especially humorous. I spent most of my two days there laughing with them.

While John Tinka’s wife and daughters spent their days concocting and cooking wonderful meals in a kitchen that was little more than a piece of reed matting on the baked earth, I spent time with the two youngest sons who escorted me around the village, filling me in on all the local gossip: who had which magic talismans and where they hid them when the priest came calling, what rituals were necessary before a man could sleep with his friend’s wife (it involved smearing blood from both men on a coffee bean and chewing it), and the secrets to how a teenager living in a one-room shack could manage to sneak out to all-night parties without letting their parents know.

Although, I am as partial to luxury travel as anyone, this for me was a dream holiday. I’ve always been entranced by African life, and regretted having to occasionally experience it from behind the tinted glass of an air-conditioned jeep. This was an opportunity to really connect with a humorous, intelligent, open-minded family, and to gorge myself on the food they typically eat – a mix of spinach, peanuts, mangos, chickpeas, corn, chillies and various herbs.

After dinner each evening, the family gathered around the fire to sing and dance until late in the night. I got to experience all of this for €14 a night – a proportion of which went to local community projects.

Lying directly between Tinka’s farm and the Kibale Forest National Park is an intensely bio-diverse and beautiful stretch of wilderness called the Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary which was set up by a visionary Peace Corps volunteer as a way of helping to conserve ecology and cultural heritage through ecotourism. Early in the morning an armed wildlife ranger led me out across narrow boardwalks into the swamp which was teaming with parrots, cranes, turacos and most especially monkeys – red colobus, grey-cheeked mangabeys, olive baboons, blue, velvet and red-tailed monkeys. The entry fee I paid supports the local secondary school and helps compensate families for crop raiding by monkeys and other wild animals.

Uganda Community Tourism Association (UCOTA) has projects such as those listed above throughout all of the most picturesque areas of the country. These may not offer the retro-colonial splendour of the best safari lodges but they cost a fraction of the price and provide a far more authentic experience. Not only are people not being exploited in pursuit of your Out of Africa fantasy, but you are directly helping to break down barriers between cultures, and connecting with some of the world’s most forgotten people.

Uganda where to . . .

Stay

All the places Manchán Magan stayed in can be contacted though UCOTA (Uganda Community Tourism Association) P.O.Box 27159, Kampala, Uganda. Tel: +256-414501866, ucota.or.ug

Felex Kamalha, the efficient and honest head of UCOTA, has his own tour company: Rainforest Community Tours at PO Box 320, Kases. Tel: 00-256-774-195859 or see rainforestuganda.org.

Backpackers Kampala, a campsite and hostel in beautiful gardens in Kampala. Nice private rooms for €16. Provides a unique life experience for the non-backpacker! See backpackers.co.ug.

The Backpackers Place, Entebbe, elegant colonial guesthouse in lush gardens, rooms from €10. See entebbebackpackers.com.

Ruwenzori View, Fort Portal. A Dutch-run guesthouse. Great breakfasts. BB €18. See ruwenzoriview.com.

Get there

Dublin to Entebbe, Uganda from €700 on Ethiopian Airlines (ethiopianairlines.com) or on Kenya Airways (kenya-airways.com). Ethiopian Airlines’ Irish agent can be contacted at ethiopian@premair.ie or tel 01-6633938.

* This article was supported with a grant from Irish Aid’s Simon Cumbers Media Challenge Fund. For more on community tourism in Africa see Magan’s World this week.

Huff, puff and build your house, Irish Times, 03 Mar 2009,

2011-08-01T14:17:00.000-07:00

Huff, puff and build your house,
The Irish Times, Tues 03 March 2009,

Building your own house is a straightforward and cheap affair, especially when it’s made out of straw, mud and pure hard work, writes MANCHAN MAGAN

MY FIRST house, built in 1997, cost me €6,000. My second, larger and more luxurious house cost €26,000 in 2002. Until the property crash this would have marked me out as a freak, a sort of dumpster-diving refusenik, the sort social services keep an eye on. Now, people are suddenly listening. At the time, I didn’t consider I was doing anything odd; I had travelled widely and seen that most people in the world built houses out of what was around them – mud, straw, wood, stone – just as we use to do in Ireland. I couldn’t understand why houses were getting bigger while families got smaller, or why people would spend their whole lives working in a job they hated to pay for a house that didn’t even suit them. I had no wish to shackle myself to a bank for thirty years, and so, I dug out a copy of the Yellow Pages and rang every estate agent in the country until I finally found some cheap land - in Westmeath, as it happens.

I signed the deeds on the 7^th July and went straight to the library to learn everything I could about roofing, plumbing and electricity. Six weeks later the house was built. It cost, as I say, €6,000. (I could probably build it for €10,000 today.) The walls were made of bales of oaten straw, laid like Lego blocks onto a thin band of concrete. I squashed the bales down tight with bands of wire looped from the foundations and up over the wall-plate, then I built a roof on top. Everything wobbled a bit at first, but I kept tightening the wires until it firmed up, and then plastered the walls with lime and sand. Erecting the walls took five friends and I a day, and another four days for the roof, then we left it all to settle for a while before I began plastering.

Building a basic house should be no more complex or expensive than this. Unfortunately a lot of vested interests ensure that it is. Governments, banks and employers all benefit from having a society yoked under mortgages - it ensures control, compliance and vast profits through taxes and interest payments. Now might be a time to reconsider all this. A house should, and can, cost the price of a car – something you repay over a year or two, instead of your life. Building an ecological, mortgage-free home requires a change of perspective, a reassessment of priorities. Houses need to be smaller, as small means cheap and easier to heat. If your children demand more space as they grow-up, buy them a trailer-load of mud or straw bales and send them on a course to learn how to build their own extension or garden cottage.

I can’t claim that straw bale is an ideal material for our damp climate, but rammed-earth or cob has been used as a building material throughout Ireland for centuries and there are some great examples of it in the Hollies sustainable village in West Cork. The beauty of it, is its simplicity. It just requires mixing mud and straw and laying it on a strong stone foundation. It is literally child’s play. But, it’s laborious and time consuming. There are quicker methods. Peter Cowman in Leitrim has developed the EconoSpace concept, teaching people to build small, well-insulated, timber-frame buildings on minimal budgets which are below the 25sqm area necessitating planning permission.

My ideal building would be of hemp plaster, which is a combination of lime, water and chopped hemp fibre (the leaves and stalk of cannabis) all mixed together in a large mortar mixer and poured straight into shuttering to form thick, fibrous, super-warm walls. There is no heavy work involved, the cake-batter-like material can be pumped up straight into the shuttering and left to dry naturally. Then the building can be roofed with plywood, butyl rubber and a few inches of soil. Hey, presto there’s the house. Total cost for a small place would be around €40,000, and fortunately one of the leading pioneers of this technique, Steve Allin, author of the book, Building with Hemp, happens to live in Kenmare and runs regular courses. Likewise, the Hollies sustainable village runs cob-building courses.

I didn’t get into self-building out of any ideological standpoint - I just liked the idea of crafting my own living space, and I spent five happy years in my little straw house. It was basic, but cosy – a 30sq-metres room with my granny’s 1930s cooker and a fridge in one corner and my computer in another. The bed was upstairs in the rafters, cosily situated above the wood-burning stove. It sounds primitive now, but it’s how most people lived until a generation ago, and it’s how people still live in the various alternative communities I have spent time in around the world. I had an outside compost loo, and inside a kitchen sink with hot water from the stove, but I didn’t trust my plumbing skills enough to install a shower in a house of straw, so I did what the travellers did and made use of Mullingar swimming pool for my weekly wash.

Eventually the lack of an inside bathroom and the fact that both the walls and my bed shook in winter made me want something more stable. It was the 21^st century, after all, I thought I deserved an inside lavatory and central heating. This time around I went for planning permission - the planners knew about the first house, but as it was a temporary structure, designed as a prototype, they looked the other way. The second house was also meant to have been made of straw bales but at the last minute I chickened out and replaced the bales with concrete blocks which made for a structurally solid, but horribly sharp-angled house. I found its appearance so distasteful that I ended up renting a concrete saw and cutting all the edges off, then smothering the walls in a mix of lime, mud, straw, sand and cement to give it the gorgeous curvaceous quality of my previous house. The roof was made of grass laid on plywood and rubber as it was cheaper and simpler than tiles, and helped it blend in with the hill behind. This house is 90sq metres – a large open-plan space with a small bathroom and a quirky, handmade kitchen. It looks a bit like a studio in San Francisco. It has a long row of six south-facing windows which capture a spectacular amount of heat when there is even the merest signs of sunshine.

I have since applied for planning permission for an underground tyre house, (which I budgeted would cost me €30,000) but Westmeath County Council, in their wisdom refused me, and in hindsight I’m grateful to have been saved the arduous task of filing 800 tyres with soil and stacking them like blocks. I was also grateful when they threatened to fine me €100,000 if I didn’t knock my first straw house. I was sick of it by that stage and was worried when An Taisce began to defend the house and insist it be maintained. It was easy for them - they didn’t have to endure the mice and rats in the walls, or the frogs that lived in the piping because I had forgotten to install u-bends. Fortunately, the council prevailed and when I knocked it the bales were in such good condition I was able to sell them on to a farmer.

Realistically, how practical is it to build a mortgage-free home? Very, although there are three main hurdles – the first is having to educate county engineers about the technical specifications of alternative housing materials. Scientific reports of the strength, durability and combustibility of straw bale, hemp-lime and cob/rammed-earth are all available on the internet and will answer most questions an engineer may have. The second hurdle is the price of land. It is now gradually dropping to a more realistic level, and already huge savings can be made if a few people group together to buy a site and apply for planning for a group scheme. In this way a site may cost €20,000 instead of €100,000, and planners will look far more favourably on a cluster of homes than a one-off. The third hurdle is fear. We have been conned into thinking that building is rocket science and we daren’t attempt it. The truth is that while car mechanics has become a science, building has developed little since Neolithic times. It is laborious but basic, and a good book can easily guide you through. The trick is to find a sympathetic ear in your local hardware shop, then just trust yourself and when the fears mount focus instead on a life free of mortgage repayments.

COURSES

· Cultivate Living and Learning Centre, Temple Bar, sells books and runs courses on self-building: www.cultivate.ie/learning

· The Hollies Centre for Practical Sustainability, Co Cork, for Cob/rammed-earth building courses. www.theholliesonline.com

· Steve Allin, author of Building with Hemp, based in Kenmare www.hempbuilding.com

· Carrig Dúlra, Wicklow, running mortgage-free housing course by Peter Cowman. www.dulra.ie

· More info on Peter Cowman’s EconoSpace concept at:www.livingarchitecturecentre.com/talks

BOOKS

· Cob Buildings- a practical guide by Jane Schofield and Jill Smallcombe (Black Dog Press, 2004)

· Building with Straw Bales by Barbara Jones (Green Books, 2002

· Building with Hemp – Steve Allin (Seed Press, 2005)

· Earthship, How to Build your own by Michael Reynolds (Solar Survival, 1990)

You can browse these books at the Enfo library in Dublin: www.enfo.ie or order them online at www.walnutbooks.com

From Theatre Virgin to Grumbling Veteran, Irish Times 4 Sept 2010

2010-09-27T15:41:00.000-07:00

From theatre virgin to grumbling veteran

by Manchán Magan, The Irish Times - Saturday, September 4, 2010

. . . and in only a year. Until last year’s fringe, Manchán Magan knew nothing about acting, selling tickets, awards or envy. But he learned fast

MY WHOLE LIFE changed at 5am on May 15th last year, with the bing of an e-mail to my rented house in Tucson, Arizona. I’d been accepted to put on a production for the 2009 Dublin fringe festival.

This must be some mistake, I thought: I don’t have a production, just the vaguest kernel of an idea I suggested the festival might consider for future years. I ignored the e-mail for two days; it’s implications were too vast. If I accepted I would be propelled into the world of theatre, populated, I suspected, by egocentric actors, pretentious directors and grant-dependent lackeys.

I earn my living in the cut-throat world of television, where payment is based on ability to rack up ratings in as stylish, informative and entertaining a way as possible, rather than inflicting self-indulgent, airy-fairy notions on tiny theatre audiences. If I accepted I would have to find a director, lighting designer, set designer and costume designer – and, presumably, pay for them all myself. It was lunacy, and yet . . .

I took a plane home, went to meet Róise Goan, director of the fringe, and came clean about my complete lack of theatrical experience. She seemed to relish the news, and took me step by step through the fundamentals of theatre: the hourly rate of lighting designers, the cost of public liability insurance, how to negotiate with a production manager, how to run a marketing campaign, how to estimate ticket yield, and more.

Most of it went over my head, but one thing stuck: if I was to have any chance of not bankrupting myself I needed a sell-out show. The fringe would pay for the venue and Foras na Gaeilge offered some funding; I needed to pay for everything else. Attracting a crowd requires publicity, and the only way I knew of guaranteeing that is exposure – and by exposure I mean self-humiliation. Hence the photograph (right).

There was no going back: I would be writing, producing and performing my first play. So far what I had was more a linguistic conundrum than a script: could a play be presented in one language that was understandable in another?

It would be set in an Irish lesson that goes badly wrong, in which the teacher reveals too much through the words he teaches. I hoped the audience would learn enough Irish in the course of the show to understand the narrative.

I’d play the teacher, as I couldn’t afford a real actor, but I needed someone to play the student. A young dancer named Eva O’Connor, who was revising for her Leaving Cert, obliged, replying to my text with: “Yeah, yeah, yeah! Oh god yeah!”

Next step was a director. After sending a panicked letter to anyone I even vaguely know in the arts, Gerry Stembridge and Olwen Fouéré sent wonderfully encouraging replies within a day, mentioning people to contact and sharing other invaluable advice.

There followed two months of frenzy, during which the most promising director of his generation, Tom Creed, miraculously agreed to offer his services, embarking on six weeks of intense script editing, wrestling a story from my ramblings. He brought with him a set and a costume designer and a lighting designer.

Suddenly it was mid-September. The show, Broken Croí/ Heart Briste , opened to full houses, good reviews and two award nominations. I was swallowed whole into the theatre world, with offers of support and encouragement from every side. Project Arts Centre agreed to restage the show and commission a new work. Fishamble Theatre Company offered me a place on a writing course and any other support I might need.

I immediately regretted my previous misgivings about the theatre, and became smitten for a full six months – until the play got nominated for two Irish Times theatre awards, one for best new play, another for best supporting actress. Then things turned frosty: our nominations provoking envy in certain quarters. The judges were accused of pandering to immature upstarts in favour of more polished, serious work.

Two months later, at the awards ceremony, the atmosphere was so fevered I was relieved when we didn’t win. The level of inebriation reminded me of cross-channel ferry trips in the 1980s. At one point, after wine was thrown at a distinguished artistic administrator, I worried for the safety of my teenage co-actor. Passions were fuelled as much by the recent Arts Council cuts to subsidies as by alcohol or the awards themselves, but it made for a grave night.

A few weeks later I was able to share in the frustration of my thespian brethren when my first Arts Council grant application was turned down. Considering how I’d always scorned artistic scroungers going cap in hand to fund their personal indulgences, it was hypocritical to have applied in the first place, but at least the refusal marked me out as a true artist, and I joined the rest of my cohort bitching about the narrow-minded, soulless automatons in the Arts Council who had no appreciation for artistic innovation.

Then three weeks later I was invited to be on an Arts Council funding assessment panel. I was spellbound by the integrity, idealism and selfless commitment of the organisation. I’ve since been told the department I dealt with, youth arts, was the shining star of the Arts Council, but if other departments have even a fraction of their integrity, this is the model on which all quangos should be based.

Despite the refusal of my grant, things turned positive again with an offer to bring the play to Cork Midsummer Festival, and an award from the Steward Parker Trust, including an invitation to attend a week’s writing course with a legendary dramaturge. I also got commissions from BBC Ulster and the Abbey Theatre, and spent a week playing a transvestite in Lotus Eaters , a feature film about London’s bright young things by Alexandra McGuinness, who spotted that photo in the newspapers.

All in all it has been a wild year – let it never be said that neophyte playwrights are not encouraged in this country. But what excites me most is the thought that in a week’s time this year’s Dublin fringe festival will have catapulted another inexperienced young individual or company into the spotlight – and they, too, will embark on a similar year of attention and encouragement. Good luck to them all, and thanks for the memories.

Manchán Magan’s first novel, Oddballs: A Novel of Affections , is about to be published by Brandon. See fringefest.com for this year’s Absolut Fringe line-up

Survival tips for fringe newcomers

Woo the box-office staff with whatever it takes: charm, frankincense, barbecued swan. They are your sales team; scores of undecided theatre-goers are influenced by their recommendations.
Shamelessly gayify your work. A ridiculous proportion of fringe audiences are young, gay men. Play up to them. And learn, as I did to my cost, that they do not like the sight of sandals on men.
Over 100 works are on stage: see as many as you can, if only to reassure yourself that you’re not the only one getting half-empty houses. Ask other performers and production crews for their highlights.

John Waters on the Irish Language, Irish Times 26/06/2006

2010-09-27T15:31:00.000-07:00

New Irish may save language

John Waters 26/06/2006

The surely unsurprising news that the standard of spoken Irish is, as one newspaper headline puts it, “in freefall” may represent the most critical moment for generations in the story of the “first official language”.

The news is indeed bad: one in six pupils failed all Irish-speaking tests; a roughly similar proportion could not converse successfully about any of a range of specified subjects; even in Gaeltacht schools, the standard of spoken Irish has declined significantly. One interesting finding of a study by a number of TCD academics under Dr John Harris relates to the disillusionment of teachers, who feel they bear a disproportionate share of society’s responsibility for preserving the language. It appears that even parents who want their children to learn Irish are unwilling to do much that is practical to support this. The reasons include, predictably, the belief that Irish is of little “use” in the modern world and the consequent communication to children of a lukewarm attitude to it.

We have a tendency to see such phenomena as consequences of mere apathy and neglect, but really they are the scheduled outcomes of a systematic programme of suppression. We are not simply indifferent to the language, but have a programmed antipathy to it that expresses itself as much in our elaborate shows of tokenistic esteem for Irish as in our repeated failure to make it part of our active culture. The language is not simply dying - it is the victim of an attempted assassination.

But two developments offer hope. The first is the much-denigrated but rapidly growing Gaelscoil movement. (The Harris survey found that more than 90 per cent of Gaelscoil pupils are reaching high standards in spoken Irish.) The second is the largely unreported fact that there is now in existence an organisation for foreign nationals who wish to become fluent in Irish. This body, iMeasc, already has over 40 members, all of whom have a high degree of fluency. Established last year by Dutch journalist Alex Hijmans and Australian translator Ariel Killick, iMeasc has already established itself as an informal network and lobby group for immigrants with an interest in speaking Irish. The group is currently lobbying for State-funded Irish classes for immigrant children living in Gaeltacht areas or close to Gaelscoileanna, as well as the collation and distribution of trilingual phrasebooks (Polish-Irish-English, etc). The range of activities iMeasc offers includes bellydancing, yoga and African drumming - all through the medium of Irish.

About one-third of the group’s members come from non-English-speaking backgrounds, most having learnt Irish before coming here. Some are able to make their living using a language they learned from scratch without any element of compulsion, patriotism or cultural piety. By its very existence, iMeasc confronts one of the central tenets of our ideology of modernity: that “progress” ineluctably means the standing-down or dilution of native cultural values. Much media comment in recent years has centred on the idea that, in order to be “welcoming” to immigrants, we must put aside elements of the surviving indigenous culture that may create “discrimination” against outsiders. This is an utterly spurious idea, based not on openness towards outsiders but on hatred or ourselves.

Writing to the Minister for Justice last year as part of its campaign against a proposal to exclude immigrants from the Irish-language dimension of the entrance examination to An Garda Síochána, iMeasc stated: “It is an entirely dangerous and short-sighted approach to indicate, from an official level, that it is reasonable for immigrants to completely disregard an important aspect of Irish culture.”

It could result in immigrants being scapecoated for dissipating native culture.

Racism, long before being directed outward, is honed and refined in the processes of self-loathing which have been hardwired into the post-colonial consciousness. Speaking recently with iMeasc members, it struck me how simple would be the rehabilitation of the language if we could first of all convince ourselves that speaking it was not a mark of backwardness or insularity but an emblem of our belonging to the diversity of world cultures. This, if we can state the issue above the babble of post-colonial pseudo-progressivism, could be the defining idea in our attempt to integrate large numbers of people from outside. But we first of all need to see that our attitudes towards Irish are not rational responses to true facts but ancient antagonisms instilled for a political purpose.

Intellectually, we know it already, but the problem has little to do with intellect, being deeply ingrained in the society’s unconscious. And since shame was the main instrument of that process of self-obliteration, it is appropriate now that immigrants have taken to themselves the responsibility for shaming us in the other direction.

Extract on Gaelscoileanna from David McWilliams’ The Pope’s Children

2010-09-27T15:23:00.000-07:00

Extract on Gaelscoileanna from David McWilliams’ The Pope’s Children

By David McWilliams

From Irish Times, 13 Dec 2005

We are outside the gates of two Gaelscoileanna on Oakley Road in Ranelagh – the hypotenuse of the D6 elite triangle. Minister for Justice Michael McDowell joins the ranks of other accomplished folk – the HiCos (Hibernian Cosmopolitans) as I call them – dropping their bilingual kids off at Scoil Bhríde and Lios na nÓg.

Scoil Bhríde is the grand old dame of Gaelscoileanna, having been set up in 1917 by Louise Gavan Duffy in St Stephen’s Green. It moved to the grounds of Cullenswood House in Ranelagh in the 1960s and has, for years, been catering to the traditionally modest demand for Irish language education in the area.

Traditionally, children in Gaelscoileanna came from three broad sources. They were the sons and daughters of the Irish-speaking aristocracy – a tiny minority of over-achievers, many of whom, like the Minister for Justice, can trace their roots back to the revolutionary movements of 1916. They are umbilically linked to the language revival movement and have always been conspicuous in the civil service, the law, academia and the arts. These Gaeilgeoirí aristocrats constituted a small, highly educated, cultural elite which emerged after the foundation of the State.

Or they were the children of Gaeltacht people who moved to Dublin.

Or they were the leanaí of fáinne-wearing Gaeilgeoirí zealots, who can be termed the cigire class – the foot soldiers of de Valera’s Ireland

Together, these three groups of people formed the core of the Gaelscoil movement up until the late 1970s.

For most people, Gaelscoileanna were out of bounds, in the same way as reservations were out of bounds for white non-Indian Americans. Rightly or wrongly there was a perception that the Gaelscoileanna were not particularly interested in embracing the gnáth duine nor was the gnáth duine particularly interested in what was going on inside. Over the past 10 years in particular, the demand for Gaelscoileanna broke out of this reasonably narrow core group and extended quite dramatically into the mainstream middle classes.

As well as the general HiCo quest for authenticity, there were other factors that made people aware of and comfortable with their Irish heritage.

Riverdance in 1994, the IRA ceasefire and the hip programming of TG4 combined to make Irish more fashionable. It also allowed the new elite to be comfortable with their Irish cultural heritage.

For many of the sophisticated elite, who are acutely aware of what their peers are doing, there was something different going on in the Gaelscoileanna. The fact that the Irish-speaking secondary schools, which are free, send more pupils to university than many fee-paying schools, indicates that there is something going on in Gaelscoileanna that money just cannot buy.

That something is participation. Parents in Gaelscoileanna get involved; they tend to be agitators rather than passive spectators. They are consulted, they are responsible, they feel ownership. And, it is as close as the HiCo parent can get to teaching without swapping their massive salaries for the modest teacher’s one.

More than anything else, it is that middle-class sense of ownership that drives them into the arms of the Gaelscoileanna. (The same is true in that other HiCo educational growth area, the multi-denominational sector, which places such stress on being parent controlled. In many cases multi-denominational schools are also parent founded.)

The Gaelscoileanna are a risk-free venture for HiCo parents. They can opt into the State sector, with all the psychological upside that has for the socially concerned world view, without jeopardising the educational prospects of their little darlings.

The aim of the HiCos is not to turn themselves into Gaeilgeoirí but to get the best for their family. As with everything they do, Gaelscoileanna allows them to pick the best bit from what the Hibernian menu has to offer and move on. It is an economic free lunch, spiced with the virtue of authenticity.

Gaelscoileanna are hip and much in demand. Gaelscoileanna and the multi-denominationals are the fastest growing sub-sector of schools in the country. From being perceived by many as being too nationalist, too Catholic and too atavistic, as they were years ago, Gaelscoileanna are now the pinnacle of educated sophistication. People who send their children to Gaelscoileanna display great taste. They are erudite, refined and concerned. Twenty-first-century Gaelscoil parents are in a class of their own. They are both cosmopolitan and Hibernian.

The growth has been phenomenal. When the “Pope’s Children” were born there were only 25 Gaelscoileanna in Ireland. There are more than 200 today.

Lios na nÓg, one of the new breed of Gaelscoileanna, opened just when the HiCo spirit was emerging 10 years ago. It is a project school, non-denominational and liberal. In short, its proposition is a perfect HiCo fusion of language, old culture and tolerance – a sort of Countess Markievicz meets Greenpeace offering. What HiCo in his right mind could turn down such an authentic proposal?

Back in 1996, just when the economy was beginning to motor properly, the demand for places at Scoil Bhríde went through the roof, with the result that many parents could not get their children into the school. They decided to set up their own in Cullenswood House itself which was just over the wall from Scoil Bhríde.

Cullenswood House is the cradle of the revolution. This is where Pádraig Pearse set up St Enda’s – one of the first bilingual schools in the country – at the height of the first Gaelic Renaissance.

For the HiCo, Lios na nÓg in Cullenswood House has it all. It is a restored old Georgian building yet it is the birthplace of the Republic; it is a project school, tolerant, cosmopolitan, non-denominational, yet, as everything is taught through Irish, it is pure Hibernian; it is suburban Ranelagh within a stone’s throw of the HiCos’ food emporium, Mortons.

Lios na nÓg opened its doors to its first students in 1997. There were 25 in its first year and now there are 187 children. Lios na nÓg runs intercultural projects and has children from seven different countries. The experience is a world music melody played with a bodhrán and tin whistle. How more HiCo can you get?

This morning, the kids are playing football in the yard, speaking in Irish to each other. The parents are arriving now.

Bizarrely, Irish is not heard. Not one parent speaks a full sentence to their child in Irish at the gate, but there are lots of gratuitous sláns, dia duits and the like. The dia duit sorority is a sight to behold – lots of mummies dia duiting each other in the same way as black teenagers high-five each other in the ghetto.

As soon as their kids are safely in the doras or through the geata, they then break into red-brick Ranelagh’s finest nasal tones. But they are making a statement, and in this society authentic statements are crucial.

The difference between Scoil Bhríde and Lios na nÓg is significant. Scoil Bhríde mummies arrive in Range Rover Freelander jeeps as opposed to bikes and by foot. They have perfectly groomed hair, Riverview memberships and the whole vibe is upper professional.

Scoil Bhríde is senior counsel, partners in law-firms, advertising executives and Mercs territory. You might be forgiven for thinking that the Leaving Cert points benefit of Irish alone is what is driving these parents. If so it is an acceptable, culturally far-sighted form of the Attainometer.

Lios na nÓg is different. Pearse’s direct descendants wear scarves, beads, wristbands, and cycle or drive 96D Mitsubishis.

While Lios na nÓg wears sandals; Scoil Bhríde docksiders. Scoil Bhríde is Minister for Justice territory; Lios na nÓg is non-conformist. Scoil Bhríde is Catholic and comes under the authority of the Archbishop of Dublin. Lios na nÓg isnon-denominational and is run by a patrons’ trust.

Despite their differences, both schools are part of a greater movement: they are both Hibernian and Cosmopolitan.

The Lios na nÓg children all have little sweatshirts with happy suns smiling out from them and they skip into class. The atmosphere is calm. Everything is good taste, far seeing and right on. The school has its own compost heap, all paper is recycled and a fatwa has been declared on Capri-suns and fizzy drinks. The greener lunch guidelines are enforced. Everyone is tolerant and well-educated.

This is where the HiCos send their children to school. It is the breeding ground for the new sophisticated elite.

Tuesday 13th December 2005.

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.”