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There are four Bard Programs:

Nine Waves Series:
An Immersion in the Irish Myths

At its core, the Bard Nine Waves Experience is an immersion in the vast compendium of stories’ that is the myths and legends of ancient and medieval Ireland.  This is a re-connect with the Oral Storytelling tradition in which these myths were once embedded, The Series is organized in to Nine Eight Week Events that take place on Zoom with a Global Group of Participants.  Initially the Series follows the Four Cycles of Irish Myth. We then add a Fifth, Voyages and Adventures.

The Nine Waves, Immersion VI  then picks up the extraordinary Cesair Story and explores the Creation Myths of the Cultures travelled on her Journey. Given that Ireland has no Creation Myth this leaves an empty space to be filled. We imagine here what she would have made of what she saw. Immersion VII looks at Women and Power in the Myths using the wonderful re-tellings of the women in the Myths by Karina Tynan. Immersion VIII is the Story of the Story and explores the history of the body of Irish Myth through thousands of years, Finally Immersion IX The 10 Wisdoms pulls out the principle wisdoms of the Irish Myth tradition.

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Mythic Voices Mythic Times.

This exciting new Bard Mythologies Program looks at the Mythic Roots of a hugely significant and often traumatic time in the History of Ireland from 1850 and 1960. As always with Bard we will use storytelling and we will look at the role of storytelling in its many shapes and guises during this 100 + years. Stories, oral stories shape emotions and emotions shape behaviour. And as we learn from neuroscience, “people feel before they think”. A Mythic History/Herstory is shaped by emotion as much as fact.

We will also particularly  be looking at the role of trauma, individual and collective. The accompanying Mythic Minds inputs will include inputs from experts in Trauma, intergenerational Trauma, Memory,  the associated deep emotions, and stories told and, importantly, not told. 

As well as looking  at the big stories (myths) that were told by different stakeholders, powerful and less powerful. This program will look  at the perspectives of the marginalised and rejected – the stories of the “not chosen”. 

Finally we have been inspired by Gimbattista Vico and his thinking that “All nations begin by fantasia, the power of imagination and the age of gods which are needed to comprehend the world”. Inspired by Vico (the inspiration for Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake) we are proposing using some of the participants  fantasia, imagination in how we work together on the program.

This program has an affinity with two of the Nine Waves Programs:

The Immersion VI Cesair & Creation Myths and Immersion VIII The Story of the Stories are very backgrounds in understanding the Mythic History of Ireland in all the centuries and millenia leading up to 1850.

Global Mythologies Programmes

There are a number of reasons as to why Ireland might be a suitable hosting venue for an Oral Archive of Global Mythologies. In brief these reasons are embedded with the first Cultural Book, Lebor Gabála, The Book of Invasions. The Irish have come from somewhere else and gone to somewhere else. See global mythologies for more detail on the “why’.

We are finalising our first offerings to be available to all subscribers free on the Bard Mythologies Web Site Site. These are the German Nibelung and the Mayan Popol Wuj. During 2023 we plan to offer our first Programs on Global Mythologies. We ill announce these on our regular Newsletter. 

There is some previous Irish imaginings to build on with these Global Programmes. The writer, poet, critic of the Irish Literary Revival, James Cousins was searching for potential global cultural synthesis of myth and legend. Specifically the Hermetic Philosophy he worked with hypothesised that there was a cultural unity between India and Ireland because both were untouched by Roman civilisation. Another important figure of the period, James Stephens was focussed on ways two colonised countries, Ireland and India, might be ‘yoked together’.
We will be looking at these matters from our perspective of Oral Tellings.

Our plans include collecting and producing Tellings of Greek, Grail, Brazilian, AmerIndian, African (Zambian) and Asian Myths, Indian, Japanese and Chinese. But this will be as time and funds permit. 

We do hope our subscribers will consider becoming Bard Patron to help support our efforts to build a bigger Oral Archive of the Oral Traditions of the Mythologies of the Globe.

Bard Summer School

The Bard  Summer School has been ever present offering since 1995. It became a special week on Clare Island year after year. The opportunity to immerse in a myth and to work through all the stages of the Mythic Method meant it was a ‘deep immersion’. The welcome of the Islanders and their very special “Island Storytelling Night:” was also much appreciated. The annual trip to Clare Island seemed to live up to the Eliade promise that “the crossing of water is always a change of state and a change of status”.  See picture from the 2019 Summer School.

Over the years the Summer School have included:

Diarmuid and Grainne – Was Fionn culpable for the death of Diarmuid; Deirdre of the Sorrows – the Goddess world meets the Warrior; Midir and Etain – can restorative justice of a Brehon Court address Fuamnach and Etain’s suffering; 

The Tain – what do we say at the Funeral Wake of Ferdia and Cu Chulainn; Return of the King – who can occupy the High King’s place and why?; Return of the Goddess – and what about the Tuatha De returning from the Otherworld and much more.

We will continue running the Summer School. Because the School is so popular (2022 booked out in 3 days) we will give priority to the Friends of the Bard who have participated in recent programs. We will also consider a Dublin Summer School, hopefully hosted at the iconic Pearse Museum Dublin.

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