My stories are written as monologues or poems from the perspectives of the women in Irish myth.
It is my belief that myth is bottomless and will forever yield fresh wisdom. My retellings are fundamentally true to the Irish myths. Each telling is recreated through interaction with my own imagination.
WOMEN AND POWER SERIES at Bard Mythologies : bardmythologies.com
Last week we talked about the dark feminine in the sorceress, Fuamnach. She was married to Prince Midir of Brí Leith (A hill in Co Longford). Together they had fostered the beautiful Aengus Óg who was son of Bóinn the river goddess and the Daghda, one of the principle gods of the Tuathe Dé Danann (People of the goddess Danú).
When Aengus had grown he left them to claim his inheritance which was Brú na Bóinne (Newgrange County Meath). Alas the couple missed Aengus terribly but when Midir went to visit him he left his wife behind, and while away he met the beautiful Étaín. Then since it was the way of the times that a man could have more than one wife, he brought her home. However Fuamnach’s jealousy didn’t bow to the way of the times and so her jealousy went very very far……
….. so far that she changed her rival into a fly. But a fly will never let you forget its presence.
From SÍDH : Stories from the Women in Irish Mythology. Illustration by Kathy Tynan : kathytynan.net
Wednesday 13th November at the Bard Mythologis Event: Women and Power
see bardmythologies.com
Along with me, the author of SÍDH : Stories from the Women Irish Mythology, Bard Mythologies will explore these stories and the matter of power. Maybe to find and highlight a whole new interpretation of power in today’s world.
Beginning Wednesday 6th November 6.30 – 8.30 for six weeks.
Along with me, the author of SÍDH : Stories from the Women Irish Mythology, Bard Mythologies will explore these stories and the matter of power. Maybe to find and highlight a whole new interpretation of power in today’s world.
From Wednesday 6th November and every Wednesday for six weeks until November 11th from 6.30pm until 8.30pm https://bardmythologies.com
The Classicist, Mary Beard, in her powerful recent book, Women and Power points to the inherent misogyny in many of the classical myths, and the matter of mute women and brutal men. She asks how can women be heard, and suggests that women ‘not only need to be re-situated on the inside of power’ but ‘power itself has to be re-defined.’ Bard Mytholoiges intents to use this Nine Waves Series to explore how power might be re-defined perhaps with a ‘harrowing’ of the Myths from the cultural foundations of modernity.
My second book SÍDH : Stories from the Women in Irish Mythology, brings to life the Irish Myths from the perspective of the female characters. This is an opportunity to explore the stories and the matter of power and influence of women in the world.
The WOMEN and POWER Series will look at the myths of Cessair, Neice of Noah who sailed all the way from Meroë in Sudan with fifty women and three men, Dealgnat wife of the Partholón who came from Greece and were the leaders of the second people to come to Ireland. We will also look at Saint Brigid, who was also an Irish goddess from the Tuatha Dé Danann (People of the goddess Danú), the ancient lesser known story of Midir and Étaín, and Sadhbh, mother to Oisín, the one to follow the beautiful Niamh Chinn Óir to Tír na nÓg, also Diarmaid and Grainne, an epic tale of pursuit and exile and the mother of Cormac mac Áirt, the mythical king who reigned during the time of Fionn mac Cumhaill and the Fianna of Ireland. All the while we will be exploring these wonderful tales from the perspectives of the women in the myths to redefine what power means in today’s very troubled world.
Saturday 21st September 2024, Terenure Sports Club, Dublin, Ireland 8pm
For Irish Culture Night, that has become, for Eigse Terenure (County Dublin, Ireland) Culture Weekend, I will be reading the story of Cessair called, Shaping the Clay from my second book SÍDH : Stories from the Women in Irish Mythology.
It is said that Cessair was the granddaughter of Noah who sailed all the way from Meroë in Sudan with forty nine women and three men to become the first woman to set foot on Irish soil.
Join us for a wonderful evening to see artist, Paul Joyce’s (10 years in the making, and still a work in progress) painting of Cessair ,and all the wonderful women who sailed with her who are now the faces of the present day Irish goddesses or women in action today, and still becoming, as is the huge, absolute stunning painting.
at the Bard Summer School, Clare Island, County Mayo, Ireland
What a wonderful time we had at the Bard Summer School. This year the theme was the Chosen People. We explored this by looking at the tribes / invaders who came to Ireland before the Celts. Firstly there were Cessair’s people, then the Partholonians, followed by the Nemedians, who were all wiped out by floods or plagues or indeed defeats at the hands of the Fomhóire (Formorians). After, it is said some of the people returned. This time they were called the Fir Bolg who divided Ireland into five provinces; the fifth being the sacred centre. They also returned as the Tuatha Dé Danann (the People of the Goddess Danú) who brought with them their great gifts and great gods and goddesses. Theirs was Brigid goddess and saint, and the Daghda, and Lugh and many more.
However this year at the summer school we worked with the Fomhóire who it would seem were always there, ghostly phantoms dripping with skullduggery and bad blood from the haunted hem of the sea*, or maybe that’s just bad press, who knows? Along with the Fomhóire we worked with the Fir Bolg and the Tuatha Dé Danann; contrasting ideologies, aesthetics and in evolutionary terms very different.
How did we get on? Well with the way the world is at the moment it was certainly a mirror, but the difference was, a mirror with peaceful ideas within it. We didn’t solve it all but we certainty sat in the pains that live within negotiation. Hopeful.
*from SÍDH : Stories from the Women in Irish Mythology by Karina Tynan
The Sidhe (Singular Sídh) are mounds of earth said to be the underground dwelling places of the People of the Sidhe, the Tuatha Dé Danann or People of the Goddess Danú. They came to Ireland from four mythical cities, Falias, Gorias, Murias and Finias. Danú is an Irish goddess with many appellations. Sometimes she is linked to the Vedic water goddess Danú and to the river Danube that flows through ten European countries. She has no singular story to personify her. That makes her difficult to capture in the mind, which might mean that indefinability is the best description for her. Maybe she is the same goddess that is relevant to the whole of our beautiful planet, the wellspring of our creativity, strength and consistency, through dearth and deluge, destructive fires that scorch the earth, to then produce a flower in the aftermath.
Danú in Irish mythology has many appellations and personifications. For example from my last collection, TÁIN : The Women’s Stories, from the great Irish epic Táin Bó Cúailnge, Mór Ríoghain whose stories are like callings, or warnings, has not been personified apart from what she stands for – taking sides in battles, shape changing, sometimes into the form of a crow, foreboding and taunting. Then Macha, connected to horses, torn by her yearning for human touch. Could Macha’s story be evidence of how our collective imaginations tried to reduce her? Is that an attempt to personify and be relieved of her indefinability? Is it possible that the day we personified the goddess was the day we made her less? Earth as she represented it, became something to own – an idea that First Nation Peoples laughed at before they, like The Tuatha Dé Danann’s way of living, went to the underground of society as we know it. They were the people who knew that the only way to walk is earth’s way, but as they continued to live with awe and respect for what sustained and inspired them, prosperity as it is called, discarded their wisdom. And so, those who knew how to interpret the “cup of healing from the plain of wonder,” the loathly ladies who must be kissed, the silver branches and golden apples are ‘almost’ lost.
In my last collection, TÁIN : The Women’s Stories I tried, in my own way to reclaim Queen Meadhbh. I wanted to afford her more than mere personification, to show her similarity to Mother Nature herself, who is also destructive, promiscuous and intoxicating.
In my second collection, SÍDH : Stories form the Women in Irish Mythology the goddess is present throughout the different myth cycles. Mysterious stories like Midir and Étaín, where it feels like walking through a mist of butterflies to experience the transformations within it, holds both the exaltation and abuse of the feminine. Achtan, who gave up on the joys of mothering her own child to make sure her son, Cormac mac Airt would have his rightful inheritance. Then Muirne mother to Fionn mac Cumhaill leader of the Fianna, also made a great sacrifice by giving her infant to the warrior woman Liath Luchra so that he would be safe throughout his childhood.
The Fianna were a band of mythical warriors who could live in tune with the natural world, while maintaining a valuable place in the halls of queens and kings. Poets valued for their special prowess’, closer to the wild as opposed to those loyal to the measurements of land and coin. Fionn who was infused with wisdom through his encounter with the Salmon of Knowledge married Sadhbh, who was changed into the shape of a deer, and even in that shape gave birth to Oisín who went in the end to Tír na nÓg with the beautiful Niamh Chinn Óir.
Also in this collection is the story of Cessair, the first woman to come to Ireland, said to be the granddaughter of Noah who when refused passage on his Ark went on to make an Ark of her own. Then Brigid, goddess and saint whose stories join the world of magic together with the world of miracles. Of late Brigid has made a wonderful resurgence. So much so, that her feast day has become a national holiday in Ireland.
These books about the women in the myths gently expose psychological content through the medium of storytelling, while remaining loyal to the myths themselves. Confusing chronologies ask for surrender to the many contradictions within each woman’s story. Though maybe it is only within a contradiction that our senses and intuitions are put to their best work. The dark, the light and the strength of the feminine is evident on the roads these women walk; mythic roads with no beginning and no end, where the goddess appears in her many guises. Virgin, mother and crone thread connectivity, without linearity like rivers and streams, that forge links all the same.
It might be that Irish mythology is the reason for the Irish passion for making art. These stories never encountered the Roman invasions throughout Europe, and so have an untouched quality about them. Stories like these for whoever inhabits them are indeed places to go, other worlds, journeys to realms within ourselves that hold the potential for us to come back changed.
It is important to note that this collection does not work with any great sequence of events that lead on to a climax as it does in Táin Bó Cúailnge, nor does it cover the full Irish pantheon. From my imagination the stories I have chosen to tell are linked only by the mysterious ways in which the goddess is present, having come from the wonderful world of the collective Irish imagination that has been the spirit guide to art and literature for centuries.
Both books are illustrated by my daughter, the acclaimed visual artist, Kathy Tynan who has worked intuitively with the stories to produce impactful drawings that resonate with the text.
