Our native language gets a bad rap. Utter the name Peig to a certain cohort and you’ll be sure to hear a chorus of groans. But there is much, much more to our native language than the manner in which it has been taught, something of which Manchán Magan is acutely aware.

The writer and broadcaster has made it a mission to delve into our complex relationship with Irish, and open our minds to its wonderful possibilities and potential. Magan made an impact on the public consciousness more than a decade ago with his TV series No Béarla, in which he travelled around Ireland speaking only Irish.

Now, he is attempting to bring home to people the richness and beauty of the language through two ingenious art projects, Gaeilge Tamagotchi and Arán agus Im.

In the former, people are invited to wind their way through a labyrinth of linen, at the end of which Magan bestows on them an Irish word, which they can print or paint on stone, oak-wood or linen. Magan hopes that this opportunity to adopt an endangered Irish word will help people to appreciate the value of the language.

“I see something really potent and valuable about the language and I wanted to find a way of focusing on that,” he says.

“When I am reading old books and manuscripts, I come across these words and they are so beautiful. I thought to myself how could I create a little device, or a little sort of ritual, that would help people focus on these.”

LINEN HALL

Magan teamed up with the acclaimed architect Tom De Paor, who designed an installation fashioned from 30m of raw Irish linen.

“I just knew that I wanted to take people out of the norm, which is what theatre does. But I didn’t want all the conventions and trappings of theatre, of a three-act play. We said ‘let’s create this little sanctuary, that people can just go inside; I’ll stand in the middle of it and if anyone turns up, I’ll give them a word’.

"We were wondering would it be a dark box or a blackened space. Then, somehow, we decided, no, let us try and make it out of Irishness, out of Irish linen, and it really works.”

Arán & Im is coming to @THTG Galway 14th & 15th Sept... then @CorkOperaHouse 21st & 22nd Sept... then to Fumbally Stables Dublin, 13th Oct https://t.co/xTpn21uW4d Come along to eat some sourdough, churn some butter and talk about the Irish language (in English, mostly) pic.twitter.com/wJfkZVrXNi

— Manchán Magan (@ManchanMagan) August 31, 2018

Their creative collaboration made its debut at the Project Arts Centre, as part of the 2015 Dublin Fringe Festival. Magan said they were overwhelmed by the response.

“Hordes came. My niece volunteered to help me, because I’m inside the structure, so I don’t get to see anything. People were taking buses from Sligo and Galway; it just seemed to get under people’s skin, the idea that we have all these gorgeous words that are part of our culture and heritage and, now, they no longer have a place in the world.”

Magan sees Gaeilge Tamagotchi as a ritualistic covenant, that sparks a folk memory, rather than an educational endeavour.

“Obviously, there is nothing practical about Gaeilge Tamagotchi. You are not going to revive a language by bestowing words. But what is lovely is that it is not just about the Irish language. When I did it in Dublin, there were Koreans coming in, and you’d also see people from around Europe and realise that we all have words and languages that we are losing.”

The labyrinthine quality of the installation also reflects how we have somehow lost our way in our relationship with the Irish language, which often verges on the antagonistic.

“Yes, that [antagonism] is not logical. It’s a wound. During the Famine, we had this massive trauma, which we still don’t talk about. Irish was our block. It meant we couldn’t

escape and when we did get to another country, we had this huge hindrance. Irish was the language of poverty, despair, of starvation. It is only natural that, when we had the option to learn English, we embraced it.”

According to Magan, that mindset continued until the ‘boom’ of the mid-1990s.

“At that time, the Irish pound was worth more than sterling. We were able to buy up property in London. That idea of us being a poor country, whose people had to emigrate, ended. Then in 1996 TG4 was established and suddenly you have Scooby Doo and Spongebob Squarepants in Irish.

“So, I do believe that next generation doesn’t have that same mindset as us. They have inherited a lot of our anger at the language, but they probably don’t have that psychological feeling that it is a language of poverty, despair, and starvation.

"I think, at some stage, either we will destroy ourselves and destroy our language or we will become proud enough in our own food, culture, clothing and language. It takes generations.”

FRESHEN UP

Magan welcomes the fresh approach being taken by the likes of Darach Ó Séaghada, whose Twitter account, ‘The Irish For’, takes an irreverent look at the language, and also spawned the bestselling book, Motherfoclóir.

“They are phenomenal and so much fun. These are people doing really positive, creative things and that is all we need,” says Magan.

This changing Ireland, and how it may prove to be the saviour of the language, is one of the themes of Magan’s theatrical performance, Arán agus Im, in which he bakes sourdough bread, while exploring the potency of our linguistic heritage with the audience.

“That younger generation are embracing our traditions, but they also speak Irish easily; they have no agenda. I wondered if I could take that kind of hipster world, and that love of going back to our natural bread, a grain grown and risen from the land, and combine it with the Irish language and just have it as a vehicle that we could discuss it. So, I bake my bread and people can share their ideas about the language,” he says.

Magan also delves into the otherworldly nature of Irish.

“There is this other, invisible realm of the Irish language... so many words are connected with the fairies — for example, the word ‘scim’ means a dusting of flour, but it also means succumbing to the other world in sleep or ‘púicín’, which is a word for blindfold, but is also a supernatural cloak that allows otherworldly beings appear invisible in our world.

"Until we take account of this other dimension that is encoded in the Irish language, we can’t really understand Irish.

“I get deep into that in Arán agus Im and sourdough is the perfect metaphor to discuss it all, because in one teaspoon of sourdough, there are five billion different bacteria and 50m different wild yeasts, all having this process on the flour, invisible to the naked eye. People get to hear these daft ideas and get to taste lovely fresh bread and churn their own butter.”

Magan says three years after he first did Gaeilge Tamagotchi, he still gets people approaching him about the show. “I have been in New York and London and people have taken out their word from their wallet and shown me they are still minding it,” Magan says.

To complement the upcoming performances of Jimmy’s Hall at Cork Opera House, Manchán Magan will perform Gaeilge Tamagotchi and Arán agus Im at the venue on Friday and Saturday, at 1pm and 6pm. Admission is free, but booking is necessary, at Cork Opera House.