Sweet Kingwilliamstown -Séamus MacMathúna  (Joe O'Connor)

Scaip An Puiteach

What would Hamlet be like if we didn't already know what was going to happen? What would the play look like if we only knew what Hamlet knew? Neema talks to Amir Khan (Missouri State University) whose book Shakespeare in Hindsight: Counterfactual Thinking and Shakespearean Tragedy helps us think about exactly these sorts of questions.

Amir Khan's Shakespeare in Hindsight (2015):  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shakespeare-Hindsight-Counterfactual-Shakespearean-Philosophy/dp/1474409458

Links to panels from the Shakspeare Association of America's Annual Meeting 2017: 

Queer Natures: Bodies, Sexualities, Environments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVgx9-6wTOE
 
The Color of Membership: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f8_sOAucWw

Shakespeare and Contemporary Theory

SCT #36: Shakespeare and Counterfactual Thinking with Amir Khan

According to Njal's Saga, on the morning of the Battle of Clontarf, a Caithness man, named Dörruðr (Daurrud), watched the "choosers of the slain" - the Valkyries - as they worked on a grisly loom, on which they controlled the fates of the armies in far off Ireland.

The following recording is from Lorcán Mac Mathúna's "Clontarf the accounts of Njal and Brian" A cycle based on the medieval Gaelic and Norse accounts of the battle in which he used Njal's Saga and the Cogadh Gael re Gallaibh to compose a number of songs about the famous battle of Clontarf which occurred in 1014 AD

From Njal's Saga 
"On Good-Friday that event happened in Caithness that a man whose name was Daurrud went out.

He saw folk riding twelve together to a bower, and there they were all lost to his sight.

He went to that bower and looked in through a window slit that was in it, and saw that there were women inside, and they had set up a loom.

Men's heads were the weights, but men's entrails were the warp and weft, a sword was the shuttle, and the reels were arrows. They sang these songs, and he learnt them by heart:

"See! warp is stretched
For warriors' fall,
Lo! weft in loom

'Tis wet with blood;
Now fight foreboding,
'Neath friends' swift fingers,
Our grey woof waxeth
With war's alarms,
Our warp bloodred,
Our weft corseblue.

"This woof is y-woven
With entrails of men,
This warp is hardweighted
With heads of the slain,
Spears blood-besprinkled
For spindles we use,
Our loom ironbound,
And arrows our reels;
With swords for our shuttles
This war-woof we work;
So weave we, weird sisters,
Our warwinning woof.

"Now Warwinner walketh
To weave in her turn,
Now Swordswinger steppeth,
Now Swiftstroke, now Storm;
When they speed the shuttle
How spearheads shall flash!
Shields crash, and helmgnawer
On harness bite hard!

"Wind we, wind swiftly
Our warwinning woof
Woof erst for king youthful
Foredoomed as his own,
Forth now we will ride,
Then through the ranks rushing
Be busy where friends
Blows blithe give and take.

"Wind we, wind swiftly
Our warwinning woof,
After that let us steadfastly
Stand by the brave king;
Then men shall mark mournful
Their shields red with gore,
How Swordstroke and Spearthrust
Stood stout by the prince.

"Wind we, wind swiftly
Our warwinning woof.
When sword-bearing rovers
To banners rush on,
Mind, maidens, we spare not
One life in the fray!
We corse-choosing sisters
Have charge of the slain.

"Now new-coming nations
That island shall rule,
Who on outlying headlands
Abode ere the fight;
I say that King mighty
To death now is done,
Now low before spearpoint
That Earl bows his head.

"Soon over all Ersemen
Sharp sorrow shall fall,
That woe to those warriors
Shall wane nevermore;
Our woof now is woven.
Now battlefield waste,
O'er land and o'er water
War tidings shall leap.

"Now surely 'tis gruesome
To gaze all around.
When bloodred through heaven
Drives cloudrack o'er head;
Air soon shall be deep hued
With dying men's blood
When this our spaedom
Comes speedy to pass.

"So cheerily chant we
Charms for the young king,
Come maidens lift loudly
His warwinning lay;
Let him who now listens
Learn well with his ears
And gladden brave swordsmen
With bursts of war's song.

"Now mount we our horses,
Now bare we our brands,
Now haste we hard, maidens,
Hence far, far, away."

Then they plucked down the woof and tore it asunder, and each kept what she had hold of.

Now Daurrud goes away from the slit, and home; but they got on their steeds and rode six to the south, and the other six to the north. A like event befell Brand Gneisti's son in the Faroe Isles."

Warp Of Fate  Darraðarljoð - The Battle Song of the Valkyries

Movement 9 from the album An Táin, by Deep End of The Ford.

09-The cries of Sualtaim's head

In the final act of An Táin the Brown Bull and White Bull finally meet and gore and slay each other in a furious and frenzied, slaughter which shakes and tramples the entire country. The Brown bull  emerges the gore-spattered victor but his great fury proves too much and his heart cracks like a nut in his chest.

10-The rut and carnage

a song about ageing and the beauty of wisdom and serenity

Love And Passing Orkney

An eerie and spine-tingling sounscape combining two songs of loss from Ireland and Scandinavia. The rich atmosphere is added to with a variety of overtones.  From the album Dubh agus Geal by Northern Lights

The Frozen North segment

Some taster tracks from Fiona's forthcoming solo album. Due for release September 2013

Fiona Hunter - Cruel Mother

My guest for this edition of Bluiríní Béaloidis is writer and documentary maker Manchán Magan, whose recent book 'Thirty-Two Words For Field' is a meditation on old Irish words and the nuances of a way of life that is vanishing with them. The book considers the 'richness of a language closely tied to the natural landscape' which 'offered our ancestors a more magical way of seeing the world'. It considers the 'sublime beauty and profound oddness of the ancient tongue that has been spoken on this island for over 2,000 years'. In this discussion, we consider how language and tradition binds us to the landscape, expolore the role of tradition in modernity and speculate on the ancient connections between Ireland and India.
Manchán's book 'Thirty-Two Words For Field' has been nominated for numerous awards, and (as of December 2020) is already in its fourth printing. 

Copies can be purchased from directly from the author here: http://manchan.com/32-words-for-field 

Or at all good independent book shops: 
https://www.easons.com/thirty-two-words-for-field-manchan-magan-9780717187973
https://www.dubraybooks.ie/thirty-two-words-for-field_9780717187973

Blúiriní Bealoidis 28 - Land & Language (with Manchán Magan)

Recorded by Tom Davis in Cushens Pub, Tagoat, Co. Wexford during the annual singing weekend of the Co. Wexford Traditional Singers February 1995. Sadly Séamus passed away on the 9th of March 2022, may he rest in peace. 
Photo Credit: Niamh Uí Bhriain.

Field Recordings

Rosín Dubh (Séamus MacMathúna)

LORCÁN MAC MATHÚNA is an improvising singer and composer with a special interest in the nature of vocal music. His many projects investigate and elaborate on the improvising nature of the human voice in solo and collaborative settings. This includes A Cappella Sean-Nós singing, contemporary compositions of an improvised nature, music composition theory based on syllabic poetic metrics, and much more. 

His resume includes commissions such as: ‘Tásc is Tuairisc’ a descriptive depiction of the descent into madness and isolation which was co-written with Simon O Conor; and ‘An Táin from the Book of Leinster’ for the William Kennedy Piping Festival 2010; and 'From Derry to the Sea', a special commission by the city of Derry for the 2013 Fleadh, and The Battle of Clontarf in 2014.

An Táin was recorded in 2011 and released in 2012.

Lorcán has studied extended technique, phonetic polyrhythm and syncopation of select traditional vocal dance music, and has developed compositional and performance approaches from his observations. One of the results of this is a compositional project based on classical Celtic syllabic poetry, Preab Meadar, with traditional fiddler, Daire Ó Breacáin;