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