fuinn
Wild Irish was born of our mutual desire to guide people in the rediscovery of our beautiful land and language. It is part of the movement to reclaim our native language, wild food, rituals and practices . The work is done in collaboration with Nature and in places of incredible natural beauty.
Our Mission
Our mission is to preserve and grow our indigenous language, knowledge and skills as a remedy to environmental and community degradation.
In the past 40 years, the Irish rivers, soils and airways have been systematically degenerated. Our biodiversity has been descimated by industrial interests and we the people have failed to call halt.
We believe this degradation has been permitted by a people suffering a rupture from the ecologically sound conciousness of its ancestors.
We recognise the nessecity of the Irish language to come alive in us again, for if it does, the embers of the language will spark a memory of how to live ecologically, increasing the land and resources as our ancestors before did, rather than depleting them.
In the past 40 years, the Irish rivers, soils and airways have been systematically degenerated. Our biodiversity has been descimated by industrial interests and we the people have failed to call halt.
We believe this degradation has been permitted by a people suffering a rupture from the ecologically sound conciousness of its ancestors.
We recognise the nessecity of the Irish language to come alive in us again, for if it does, the embers of the language will spark a memory of how to live ecologically, increasing the land and resources as our ancestors before did, rather than depleting them.
Wild Irish was founded by Diarmuid Lyng and Siobhán de Paor, the hurler and the poet, who met in Corca Dhuibhne in 2017, and reaslised they were both on a journey of healing with the language and the land. At 33, they were both encountering the depth of their culture for the first time; Siobhán having lived abroad for many years and Diarmuid having been absorbed in a successful hurling career.
Diarmuid Lyng
Diarmuid Lyng's became known for his love of language and country following the RTE broadcast of Gizzy: The Geansaí. In it, he talked of how aversion tranformed to grá after a three day immersion in the West Kerry Gaeltacht in his twenties. Diarmuid then moved to that Gaeltacht where he met Siobhán and started a family. He is founder of Nature of Man, a healing retreat with sweatlodge for men. He is a former captain of the Wexford hurling team and works as a sports analyst for TG4, Newstalk and other media. He is an outspoken critic of the co-opting of culture by technology and began an initiative called facebook free february. He is also one of the founders of GAA activist group Gaelic Voices for Change, fundraising and lobbying for the homeless.
Siobhán de Paor
Siobhán de Paor is an artist, wordsmith and mother. She creates experiential shows weaving ritual and theatre as a bard. She is exploring the anatomy of the Irish language incorporating movement with spoken word. She works as a creative tutor of poetry and theatre and expressive arts for children and adults. She is a facilitator of ceremony for the eight fire festivals of the Celtic Wheel, rites of passage and women's circles. Although originally from the Ring Gaeltacht in Waterford, it wasn't until she landed in the West Kerry Gaeltacht seven years ago that she began to write in Irish. She is being supported by Ealaíon na Gaeltachta to continue her art through Irish.
Cearbhuil Ní Fhionnghusa
Cearbhuil Ni Fhionnghusa is wild food forager, cook, trench digger and home schooler. She forages wild food and makes herbal cosmetics from her small holding in the Burren. Her workshops over the past 10 years have inspired hundreds of people to integrate wild food and time in the wild into their daily lives. Her work was featured on RTE's Garraí Glas.
Her latest undertaking is the Burren Wilderness Project; a vision for 3 and a half acres of the unique limestone plateau which includes foraging and plant medicine workshops as Gaeilge. She lived with indigenous minorities in Bolivia and Colombia for five years where she learned of local medicines. She also lived and worked as a teacher and gardener in the Kerry and Connemara Gaeltachts. She has a degree in Irish from the University of Limerick and listens to RnG everyday! She is mad for trad and plays tin whistle.
eTHOS
Nuair a cailltear teanga, déantar réab san aigne náisiúnta. Cailltear eolas an timpealleacht is eolas charntha ár sinsir romhainn. Gan cruinneas ar ár stair, ní fhéadfaimís an aimsir láithreach a thuiscint i gceart. Mar sin de tá leigheas ag teastáil uainn.
Creidimíd go bhfuil beocht agus fuinneamh sa teanga, agus chun í a dhúísiú ná chun an fuinneamh sin a scaoileadh. Is é an bheocht inti ná cuimhní na sinsir agus an nádúr fiáin ag dhuisiú, ár ndúchas ag teacht chun cinn ionainn.
Is chuige sin a cothóimid an spás agus na gníomhaí, chun deis a thabhairt duit dul i dteagmháíl leis an fuinneamh agus fiántas lasmuigh agus laistigh.
éITEAS
When a language is lost it creates a rupture in the national psyche. To lose a language is to lose the knowledge of the environment and the accumulated wisdom of our ancestors, for without knowing our history, we cannot understand our present. We are in need of a cure.
We believe that by awakening the language within, we awaken ancestral memories and the wild nature that is our heritage.
To that end, we create a space and the activities for a person to connect with the wildness within and without.
Our Mother Tongue
le Siobhán de Paor
​
See her there, our mother tongue
cut out, bleeding, her orphaned young
mewling blind to what was done
fed on worms they should have shun
Would you save her, if you could
Would you stave her mortal wound
to change the lines and make the effort
to shake the mime and break the tether
One by one, her places fell
to foreign forces, an English hell
six hundred years to the furthest reaches
beaten back to the western beaches
But look she stirs, the mother tongue
Inside my mouth, inside the young
In times like these the dead will walk
in ways like this the dead can talk
