07/11/2025
CAOINEADH NA TENAGA
Teanga - tongue, language of the land.
Severed, cut, forbidden.
Beaten out of the mouths of our great-grandmothers
Teanga - tongue, language of the land.
Torn from the safe and cosy bossom
Swallowed back with the burning tears of separation
Teanga - tongue, language of the land.
Here to be remembered through the gol (cry) of our wombs and loins
To be kissed back into being by the winter song of a robin
💚
How do we deal with the grief that ricochets through the barren landscapes of our bodies, with no language to express what has been buried deep for generations?
How do we transmute the swallowed rage of the language of the land being beaten out of our ancestors who knew no other way.
How do we make peace with all that has been forgotten, and settle into a still enough place to truly listen to the land speak? For the remembrance to bubble up through the springs and wells of our own waters and bones?
Bígí le agus mé féin, in Kilkenny for a day of tending to the sacred sounds that long to grace our lips and be gifted back to the landscape as she awakens to our tears and our words.
Booking through wildirish.ie