14/10/2025
In Memory of Manchán Magan 🌿
Ireland has lost one of its gentlest visionaries.
On the 2nd of October, Manchán Magan — writer, filmmaker, linguist, and guardian of ancestral wisdom — passed from this world. Yet his voice still hums in the wind over bog and hill, calling us to listen more deeply.
In his work, he showed us that language is not only a tool for expression, but a way of perceiving — a bridge between soul and soil. Through Thirty-Two Words for Field, he revealed how Irish holds within it the heartbeat of the land. Words like glas — the living, blue-green of moss, grass, and water — or rua, the warm reddish-brown of fox fur and autumn fern, each one a thread tying people and place together.
He once wrote:
“May we remember the old ways of listening:
to the stories of the land, to each other,
and to our deepest spirits.
Let gratitude be our compass, unity our path,
and love our constant return.”
That message feels even more poignant now.
His words remind us that the old ways — of gratitude, unity, and love — are not lost. They live on in how we speak, how we walk the land, and how we honour those who came before.
Manchán Magan leaves behind not silence, but resonance — a reminder that the Irish language itself is a landscape, and that every word is a field worth tending. 🌾
📸 Irish Roots
