By Claire Corrigan
Princess Diana was known as the People’s Princess and it seems that both her son and daughter-in-law, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, also possess the ability to connect meaningfully with communities and individuals, as was demonstrated during their royal visit last week.
Prince William and Kate Middleton were in Ireland last week from Tuesday to Thursday where they visited parts of Dublin, Galway, Meath and Kildare as part of the trip to our shores.
In Galway they were provided with a preview of some of the arts and entertainment being featured during Galway’s year as the European Capital of Culture at the restaurant Tribeton which is where they met Westmeath man Manchan Magan, a well known Irish writer and television programme maker who has over 30 travel documentaries to his name. “I had been told by the ambassador, the people from the British Embassy and people from Kensington Palace that they were so relaxed and low-key and they really were. We expect maybe a bit of aloofness when it comes to the Royal Family- what we see in Downton Abbey- but every day they are going out to meet local people and are totally relaxed and easily steer the conversation.”
He explained that the Duke and Duchess had requested to meet as few dignitaries as possible instead opting to talk to people from the community. “When in Galway they wanted to celebrate the fact that it is Europe’s Culture Capital and wanted to meet those involved in local and community projects.”
Manchán provided the royals with two endangered Irish maritime words as part of his Sea Tamagotchi project for Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture. “I explained my project to them and they seemed genuinely interested. So often you will have people’s eyes glaze over and they will be looking somewhere else but I just felt that I was genuinely in the presence of ordinary people who were interested in what I was saying. One of the words that I collected was dorn which is Irish for fist and also Scots-Gaelic for fist. I told them how Scots fishermen say that if you put a closed first up to the horizon and another fist on top and so on, the amount of fists between the horizon and sun is the amount of hours until sunset. The Duchess said that she had come across something similar where fingers were placed between the sun and land. They seemed interested and appreciative of it as well which was nice.”
Manchán said he was “thoroughly surprised” that he was selected to speak with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. “It is a small project and you can see how the Westmeath Fields Name project has really taken off all around the country with people becoming interested in local words and terms. Otherwise, these kinds of heritage projects don’t have a big profile.”
Manchán is visiting various coves around the country, talking to members of the older generation and gathering the names of rocks and fishing implement etc for the project. “To have something like that highlighted and selected really delighted me.”
The project grew from a previous venture of Manchán’s called Gaeilge Tamagotchi in 2015. “I found that there were 4,300 words just to describe someone’s character in Irish, most of which are forgotten. I set up this little stage show called Gaeilge Tamagotchi and went around the country with these words. So when Galway 2020 were making their bid for the European City of Culture, they asked me if I’d come up with a version of that. Each word gives such an insight into how we traded long ago and how we fished as well as the process of emigration. You find the same words in the Scottish Hebrides as in Ireland as the communities in Donegal and Achill were constantly going back and forth.”
Manchán selected two words for the royals that were both interesting and easily pronounced. “One was caibleadh (otherworldly voices heard in the distance on sea at night)and stopóg (rocky seabed near shore where lobsters thrive). Another word we spoke about which the Duchess liked was mada gaoithe, which is a partial element of a rainbow predicting bad weather. I got that word in Arranmore Island Donegal last week. In Irish, there are so many different words for wind and snow from each different region. What they were interested in was that this project is collecting words in not just Donegal, Galway, Sligo and Mayo but also in two of the Scottish Hebrides, in the Isle of Lewis and the Isle of Skye.
Next week, Manchán is heading to Sligo and will then make his way to Galway way for four days at the end of March. “I will collect all these words and record everyone as I am going so I’m making audio files for a podcast that I will put on the website. Then I’ll set up using two big stretches of raw Irish linen in the form of sails and all the words will be attached. I will bring that set to the various places I’ve been around the country and on 26 September this year which is the European Day of Languages, there will be a big event in Galway celebrating these words. The fishermen, community groups and folklore people will gather for that to talk about the richness that is hidden and encoded in all these words.”
Visit www.manchan.com where a podcast of all the recordings will be available later in the year. A publication is set for in 2021.
