Wave 4 – The Settling of the Manor of Tara

A foundational political structure: distributed power and the fifth province

The tradition was that the High King of Tara had to throw a feast for all the people of Ireland every three years.  It lasted seven days and seven nights.  What a way to ensure friendship and cultural unity?

One year King Diarmuid mentioned that he was considering reappointing “The Manor of Tara” – today we might call it a reorganisation.  The people said they would not eat until this matter was decided.

Diarmuid wanted advice and sent out for the wisest man he could think of, Fiachra.  He deferred to someone wiser, who also deferred, who also deferred.  Finally Fintan MacBochra was called.  Fintan though known had become marginal.

Fintan arrived to a great welcome to spell out the ‘settlement’ based on the idea of ‘cuige’  provinces.  This was the four (Munster, Leinster, Connacht and Ulster) that is five (the fifth province).  He also spelt out the qualities and gifts of each province. (See the diagram below).

Here is a mythology of distributed power and the idea of the sacred centre – the fifth province.  It is a political structure with global resonances, especially in India and other parts of Asia.

The Connections and insights from Participants

Here are some of the most significant connections and insights from participants and collected by the Bard team in the breakout groups and the large group discussions.

Connection 1 – Nothing has changed!
When the ancient model and framework was shared, along with the various qualities of each of the provinces and their attributes (Munster – Music, Ulster – toughness/wars, Leinster – elegance/prosperity, Connacht – wisdom) there was a collective feeling that the scheme and the qualities have not changed despite the passage of thousands of years.  In modern parlance, the operating system remains the same.   The Ancients had set something in place that was to last.

Connection 2 – A Mythology of Power – And its Right Use

The Five Provinces model can be seen as a Mythology of Power, in which real power is vested in the people, in the local, supported by the fifth province idea but led and inspired by those with the greatest wisdom and memory.  Precedent, tradition and memory seen as very central.  Reference was made to the Citizens Assembly and its role in the recent successful referenda as an example of a fifth province thinking and approach in action in modernity.


Connection 3 – The Centre’s Balancing Role
The image of the two kidneys from a beast as a chosen body part for Tara and Uisneach had strong resonances for participants especially in its ‘balancing’ role in the body.  It felt very significant that it was not the head -r the heart – the usual suspect!  The fifth province/centre’s role in this context is not command and control but rather balance and coordination, not power over in a hierarchical sense but ‘power with’.  Insight from participants was that in a present day context, the banking crisis, climate change and Covid 19 were seen as a consequence of going against the natural state of the world and violating the ‘Fifth Province’ for private gain.

Connection 4 – Global Echoes
Symbolic numerology and compass directions have parallels in the thinking and cosmology of other cultures.  For example in the Nature American tradition compass points reflects different qualities, in China certain numbers are assigned qualities.  This places this ancient Irish thinking within a global context with echoes from indigenous cultures around the world.


Connection 5 – Ollamhship, Wisdom and the Law
Wisdom was seen as central but it was a result of having a depository of information, a compendium of story/myth and that it was held by the Ollamh (highest rank of fili) and included a shared legal system of laws.  Each person knew where they stood in regards to the laws and each had rights and responsibilities.  These principles were felt as very relevant and interesting.

Connection 6 – The Attributes of Ulster
One of the areas of contention that has come up in these discussions of the Five Province Framework is the attributes associated with Ulster.  Firstly the main descriptor is battle followed by contentions, rough places, strikes, captures, assaults, hardiness, war, conflicts.  These are not descriptors that would be called “good” in modernity.  Some participants felt that these, while maybe having some truth, were overly harsh on Ulster.  That in Ancient Ireland that these were not necessarily negative or that fighting was an escapable part of human existence did not address the overall concern regarding the portrayal of Ulster.

Connection 7 – A Vision of Leadership and The Fifth ProvinceWhat is laid out in this framework was felt to be a unique description of leadership/kingship as convening power and a facilitative style of Kingship.  The idea being that the Fifth Province is a view from a height over all the provinces at once, with the fifth reaching openly in and out of all with no hard boundaries.  Importantly the view from a height did not mean superior, rather different.  The collection of judgements, history, story, science from all the provinces to collaboratively bring people together and distributing this out to the benefit and dignity of all was what was understood, and positively understood.  The contrast between Ireland’s handling of Covid 19 as a marked contrast to how England had handled the virus was pointed out.

The Primary Sources

The main source used in this retelling is that of RI Best in Ériu 4 121 – 137.  Emmet’s adaptations are outlined above.

Sandy Dunlop
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Wave 3 – Fintan and the Hawk of Achill

Shapeshifting and the Shamanic

In the colloquy of Fintan and the Hawk of Achill we have a dialogue between a wonderful shamanic figure who has lived for 5500 years and a hawk who has lived as long!  The dialogue takes place just before they die.  These two, human and bird have seen it all.

In this story we hear of two more of the “Three Wisdoms of the Irish”.  If Cesair brought the synchronic perspective of knowing all the mythologies of the world, Fintan brought diachronic second wisdom having lived for so many years.  The final foundational wisdom is the ability to shapeshift, an important shamanic gift.

We learn that Fintan had been variously salmon, eagle and hawk.  This third wisdom, shapeshifting, means an ability to see the world from anothers perspective.  In this story it is the perspective of the animal kingdom.  But someone with this skill can surely apply it to the human world – and shapeshift to understand others, understand enemies.

This story gets closest to offering echoes of a Mesolithic (2000 BC – 4000 BC) before the emergence of a Neolithic culture.

We also had a powerful presentation from Chaobang Ai, on his experiences with Shamans in Guyana and the Philippines and the connections between this story and the stories/myths of indigenous peoples around the world.

The Connections and insights from Participants

Here are some of the most significant connections and insight from participants which were collected by the Bard team in the breakout meetings and the big group sessions at the event:

Connection 1 – Mythic History from the Hawk’s Perspective
There was clearly an impersonal, detached quality in the hawk’s reflections in the dialogue with Fintan.  Was the hawk being sadistic, or bureaucratic and simply doing what a hawk does?  Was the hawk relishing in the bloodiness of a battlefield or simply fulfilling what a bird of prey does in its cosmic and transcendental role in recycling the dead (warriors on the battlefield) and reintegrating them into nature.  Hawks, it seems, don’t do compassion or sentiment!  Fintan on the other hand did bring some compassion to his telling!  The contrast was very clear.

Connection 2 – The Ecological Role of Birds
From the perspective of the narrative it was easy to see the ecological importance of birds, especially birds of prey in playing an important role as recycler.  The hawk was detached from the personal or tribal sentiments.  From here it was possible to appreciate their role in the greater good in regard to nature and the natural world.  So what we as humans might see as a cruel detachment could also be framed as ecologically positive.


Connection 3 – The Ecological Role of Birds
In the colloquy both the hawk and Fintan have lived for thousands of years.  They have seen the entire ‘mythic history’ of Ireland.  What this clearly spoke to was an extraordinary wisdom and insight.  But as listeners we were left with a feeling of the loneliness that goes with an extremely long life.  It means the guaranteed and repeated loss of everyone one knows. This sense of loneliness also had strong resonances with people in the Covid 19 context with people having to deal with the deaths of people close to us and also large numbers of people dying alone in care homes and hospitals.  That shared loneliness acted to bring Fintan and the Hawk together at the end despite prior antagonisms in a deep understanding and companionship.

Connection 4 – The Fighting and Bloodshed
There was, it seems, considerable amounts of fight and bloodshed in the two shared stories.  Or is it that these are the stand out moments in a mythic history?  Were the Irish always fighting?

Connection 5 – Shapeshifting and Oneness with Nature
The shapeshifting of Fintan who told of his time as salmon, hawk and eagle was felt as a meditative journey but also in a current context, was felt to be relevant to how lockdown gave rise to new rituals and ceremonies (including the Bard sessions) that help us to remember how it is to be human.


Connection 6 – Circularity of Life
Connections made to the circularity of life being from death to life to death whether it was for Fintan or the Hawk or individuals or communities or even Ireland as a whole.  Unlike the linear rational thought of Greco Roman culture this world view is far more circular.

Connection 7 – Encounters with Shamans
The pursuit of shamanic energy and experience was valued but how could it be the real thing as opposed to New Age type stuff which misuse language and symbols.  Discussion took place on the impact of the Catholic Church and modernity on the shamanic values.  In Irish myth the connection with the Cailleach and the negative branding of shamanic elements as “witches” etc.  Reflection on the loss of the shamanic experiences and indigenous communities around the world was expressed especially in relation to Chaobang Ai’s recounting of meeting shamans with indigenous people in Guyana and the Philippines.

Sandy Dunlop
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Blog, Through Nine Waves

Wave 2 – The Cesair Journey

An epic journey and a foundation myth of Ireland

In regard to the beliefs of the ancient Irish about their origins what we know is that we don’t know.  Whatever nature origin legends there may have been did not survive the arrival of Christianity.  What we do know, however,  is that these origin questions were important to them.

What does emerge from literary and historical sources is a series of settlements of “people who come from somewhere else” often fleeing hardship, wars, floods.  This foundation mythology is captured in a collection of stories put together in the late eleventh century, Lebor Gabála Érenn, “The Book of the Taking of Ireland”.

The first arrivee was Cesair, fifty women and three men including her partner, Fintan MacBochra.  She arrived after an epic journey that started in East Africa, in Meroe and travelled all the known world.  In some versions she was refused a place in the Ark.  In a sense the first arrivee was an outcast, and her myth was that of a “Not Chosen” people.   We also told a version in which Cesair and her people were the ‘great founders’ of Ireland – its first people.     


The first arrivee brought a formidable woman and the ‘mothers of the world’.  Imagine that she was informed by the wisdom of knowing the Myths of all the Known World in the various cultures she passed through on her epic journey.

The Connections and insights from Participants

Here are some of the most significant connections and insight from participants collected by the Bard team after the storytelling:

Connection 1 – The Flood as a Primal Mythic Moment
Myths have frequent recourse to a primal moment .  These are events or happenings that affects everyone in the society and which they remember for a very long time.  In the case of Cesair and her people it was floods as their primal moment.  Today it is a ‘virus – Covid 19’ but both are primal world shaping moments and times.  A war whether external or a civil is another typical primal moment.

Connection 2 – Difference between the Versions
The participants observed how little you have to do to oral story to fundamentally change its meaning fundamentally.  In one version Cesair and her folk are the ‘great founders’ of Ireland as its first arrivees.  In another version (based on old texts) the Cesair party are essentially ‘outcasts’ in that they are not allowed on Noah’s Ark.  Each version has very different meanings and identity value.  Which do you prefer to tell and believe is an important question.

Connection 3 – Why do we not know this story?
Every time the Bard team tell the Cesair story we find there is little knowledge among the public of the story.  The Bard Global Survey confirmed this lack of knowledge.  Participants ask why?  Was this founding myth of a strong woman and her accompanying 50 ‘mothers of the world’ effectively written out of history?  Did the monks or other Christians seek to marginalise it

Connection 4 – An Irish Dreamtime
The aborigines have the idea of ‘dreamtime’ where they essentially imagine (dream) a world into existence.  Given, as outlined, there is little knowledge of this story.  It obviously offers itself as an alternative creation myth – perhaps of a people who came from somewhere else?  To embrace this epic story could mean a people changing the story/myth they tell about themselves.
Myths, if they are implicit or unconscious drive us though we don’t know it.  To become conscious of the myths we live by is to gain agency.  It is about an individual or a people owning the myths it lives by.  A people can change its identity and its myths.  And to do so is to create a dreamtime – an Irish dreamtime.

Connection 5 – The Gendered Aspect – Women/Goddess
One of the connections and insights made was that this is a ‘women led’ venture and one in which women are dominant.  The new religion, Christianity had its own ‘myth of origins’ to propagate, an intention to repudiate the old gods.  It was also a patriarchal religion.  The Bard participants were of course acutely aware of the gendered aspects of this story.  And many inspired by the obvious gender of the key protagonists!

Connection 6 – Parallels with Greek Mythology
There is an obvious parallel in Greek Myth with the great sea journey of Odysseus and his companions back to Ithaca from Troy.  The obvious differences being the sheer length of Cesair’s Journey (is it ten times as long?) and the face of it being a new start rather than a journey home as in the Odyssey.

Connection 7 – Archetype of the Mother

Cesair as the archetype of the mother as creator, founder, protector, nurturer and source of strength was noted.  At the same time Cesair is not a typical ‘maternal’ mother but rather one with a very strong sense of agency, independence and purpose.

Sandy Dunlop
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Through Nine Waves

Wave 1: The Voyage Of Bran

A different encounter with the Divine

Along with a culture’s creation myth there can be few more central moments than when that peoples encounters the divine.  That moment fundamentally shapes the relationship with a transcendent force and imagined god.

In the case of the Jewish people it was that meeting of Moses as leader of the Israelites with Yahweh on the top of Mount Sinai.  Yahweh having induced fear with fire and thunder gives Moses a gift, a tablet of stone on which are inscribed the ten commandments.

As John Moriarty, the late Kerry poet and mystic pointed out the contrast with the Irish encounter could not be more stark.  Here the king/hero Bran whose life was upended by a ‘longing’ ends up meeting the Irish Sea god, Manannan MacLir.  His gift, a silver branch.  This Moriarty saw as a way of perceiving the world – silver branch perception.

Here we have a contrast between a God whose elements are fire and stone and one whose elements are air and water; one whose gift is a tablet of commandments and another whose gift is “silver branch perception” – a way of perceiving the world.

The Connections and insights from Participants

Here are some of the most significant connections and insight from participants and collected by the Bard team:

Connection 1 – A Time out of Time
In the way that Bran’s voyage to the otherworld was a ‘time out of time’ so this corona virus lock down is also a time out of time.   This lock down can be seen perhaps as a time of opportunity and possibility what the Greeks called “Kairos” time.   Other comments were that it was of time slowed down and this gave people an opportunity to assess what is really important.

Connection 2 – The Gift of Silver Branch Perception – A Way of Perceiving
The silver branch gift as being part of the encounter with Manannan was an experience where the divine gave Bran a very different way of perceiving the world.  In this regard the gift was seen as an enhancement of one’s awareness of the world.  The point made was that this was about the oneness and the connection between all things and an aspiration to know one’s fuller known ness (evoking Aristotlean potentiality).

Connection 3 – A Time of Planting Seeds to germinate a new normal
The germination theme came up in another connection in a comment that ‘we are locked away to germinate like seeds’.  This was captured in a Mexican proverb ‘they tried to bury me but didn’t know that I’m a seed’.

Taken together the idea of taking the time out of time and also a new way of perceiving there was discussion of this time being about the germination of a new normal.  In this regard the silver branch suggest critical thinking about what is going on at this time.  This critical thought is not just about access to knowledge nor is it about looking to authority figures.  For some this new normal was exciting leaving open the new and the possible generated from the bottom up.

Connection 4 – The Paradox of the Silver Branch
The question here was is the branch of this world (but seen differently) or is this a separate otherworld from which there is no return.  In the story as told the branch occupies both of these options.  We are left with the paradox.  Perhaps it is not one or the other but both/neither and perhaps a cognisance of and comfort with that ambiguity and this is at the heart of silver branch perception.

Connection 5 – The Image of the Golden Thread
In the story, Bran catches a ball of thread, and is pulled back to the Island of Joy he is seeking to leave.  Is this, one participant commented, to be seen as Covid 19 a golden threat pulling us into a perceptive mode of thought whether we want to go there or not.

Connection 6 – The Power of Longing – a “Call to Adventure”
Many were struck by how a strong man, Bran, who was secure as warrior and king and apparently impervious to all challenges, yet is suddenly brought low by a totally different form of power.  As Moriarty put it “Bran Mac Feabhal laid low not by a sword but by longing’.  In the language of myth this is typically the ‘call to adventure’ that begins the Hero Journey, as we find we are pulled into a journey into the unknown, after that longing.  In Bran’s case perhaps this was the King Journey rather than the Hero Journey.

Connection 7 – The Return Journey from a world upside down Being an exile and removed from life as you knew it not only changes your perception of the world but other people’s perceptions of you as you return.  Could this return be difficult or even, as in Bran’s case, impossible!   One feature of the world of Bran (and Covid 19) is how it turned things upside down and how the low paid front liners (often women and immigrants) were now heroes.  This is world upside down!  But surely out challenge is to make the return journey.  In the myth Manannan comes ashore but not Bran.  Do we need a different ending?

The Story of the Story

The story of Bran mac Feabhail is one of a fictional character, originally written with much in verse. Though written at a time when Christianity was well established the story is based on pre Christian ideas of the otherworld. The writer was a Christian he was working within the structure of an international folklore motif of a man who returns from the timeless other world. The text was written in northern Ulster in the early eighth century.

Sandy Dunlop
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Wave 9 – Niall of the Nine Hostages

The Embracing of the Shadow (Kissing the Crone)

Niall is a King of Tara.  This is a story of a moment where mythology meets history.  The precise date of his death is felt to have been around 450 AD. His name Noígíallach means nine hostages which meant that he had hostages from nine septs in the kingdom.  He was the first of a long dynasty of kings, the Uí Néill as we move into the historical period.

Niall’s father was Eochaid by Caireann.  But the legal wife was Mongfind who had four more sons by the King.  Mongfind treated Caireann like a slave and in the pattern of ‘hero’ stories the baby Niall was born in the open and then abandoned.  The poet Torna, picked him up and reared him.  He could see Niall’s future role as a great King.

Torna brought Niall to Tara when the time was right.  Niall saw to it that Caireann, his mother, was treated honourably.  He clothed her in a purple robe.  From slave to queen was what he ensured happened!


The Niall story is highlighted by two tests.  One is the fire at the forge of the druid smith, Sithchenn.   He sets the place on fire.  The four brothers emerge with what they could grab.  But it is Niall who emerges with the anvil – an object on which many other objects can be made.  He then is proclaimed the greatest.  The second dramatic test is the encounter with the ugly hag/crone as the brothers seek water.  It is only Niall who is willing to kiss the hag, embace her and be with her.  She is sovereignty and transforms into a beautiful girl.  This again reaffirms the Kingship ideology of King sleeping with sovereignty – the land.

The Connections and insights from Participants

The Bard team collected some of the most significant connections and insights from participants at the immersion.  They are from the breakout groups and the large group discussions.

Connection 1 – Eochaid’s Passivity

Niall’s father is extremely passive in the light of Mongfind’s treatment of Caireann.  She treats her like a slave!  The comments made were in the context that with her vicious behaviour of which he could not have been ignorant.  But he did nothing!  Did he feel guilty on his encounter with Caireann.

Connection 2 – The Test at the Forge

The symbolism of the fire at the forge was a source of rich debate.  Clearly the anvil represented the King as a creator of things with an enduring prosperity.  In contrast the kindling from the forge (representing fire) represented the impotence of the transient.  The other items selected were human made instruments whereas the kindling was not.  Was this a penalty for seizing that which is property gifted by the land.  This has echoes in the Cormac MacAirt story with the thatched cottage where the roof is blown away by the wind.

Connection 3 – The Beer and its Symbolism
One of the items/objects selected by one of the brothers was  beer.   Participants speculated on the symbolism and meaning of beer from the forge.  Did it symbolise science, beauty or fun and relaxation?    It was suggested that there was as broader, deeper and more complex relationship with beer than in the present day (health and hygiene, economy and artisanship, a mead/beer hall!).


Connection 4 – Symbolism of Water
Water plays a very important symbolic role in the story.   Niall’s mother Caireann, is tasked with carrying water, and then later water is what the brothers are searching for when they encounter the hag/crone and it becomes a symbol and medium of choice of Niall as the King.  The water symbolism is contrasted with the fire symbolism – the fire at the forge.

Connection 5 – Kissing the Hag
The encounter with the hag in the pursuit of water is a central moment in the story.  This reflected, for the group, the concept of sovereignty as “marrying the land”.  The hag as a Triple Goddess figure and Kingship as being a contract with the other world.  Niall’s engagement with the hag suggesting he fully grasps this role in its wholeness.

Also important in this story is the idea of “journeying through the shadow” with echoes of the psychology of Jung and Freud and of the writings of Dante.  The shadow for Jung was those aspects of ourselves that we deny and then project out on to others.  Individualism for Jung was in part about re-owning the shadow.

Connection 6 – Kingship – Treating People Well
One of the notable characteristics of Niall is how he treats the marginalised, the rejected, the outcast.  This is firstly in the case of his mother, Caireann, who Mongfind has treated as a slave.

But it is also in regard to the old hag/crone.  He is the only one of the five sons willing to kiss her.

Connection 7 – The Substance of Kingship
The contrast was made between the present day dominance of appearances and stereotypes in politics.  The qualities of Niall are looking beyond to more complex and subtle truths.  The depths of King wisdom suggested here, were to provide the political justification for the power of the Uí Néill kings who were to last into the next six centuries.

 

Finally the comment was made that myth as something that never actually happened yet is always happening!

Sandy Dunlop
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