22/01/2026
🌿 Listening, as Ireland once taught it.
In his writing and work, Manchán Magan has spent years reminding us that language is not just something we speak, but something we live inside.
Through Thirty-Two Words for Field, he showed how Irish holds the land within it. Words like glas, the living blue green of grass, water, and growth, or rua, the warm red brown of fox fur, fern, and autumn soil. Each one binds people to place, memory, and belonging.
He 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.”
Those words endure because they describe something Ireland has always known. The old ways are not lost. They live on in how we speak, how we walk the land, and how we pay attention.
Language is not separate from place. It is part of it. And every word is something worth tending.
📸 Irish Roots
