As one of the most highly anticipated titles from Gill Publishers in 2022, Listen to the Land Speak was shortlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards 2022 for Non-Fiction and won the Waterstones Irish Book of the Year 2022, garnering much acclaim across the board. Gregory was a founder of the Irish Literary Revival, as she turned from her Anglo-Irish roots towards Irish language and culture, and nationalism. It goes in depth in how these are all hidden in plain site within the Irish language, and the landscape. These moments of personal observation are of interest but are not always as well presented as other aspects of the novel.

Listen to the Land Speak: A Journey into the Wisdom of What

The conflict between the traditions of the Irish people and the oppressive cultures of Britain and the Vikings play out on the page as the landmarks and centers of the Irish religion are forever changed by colonization. As Manchán says, ‘ there are hardly any places in Ireland where you are not in close proximity to a site associated with a particular deity or hero and the stories connected with them. Manchán[’s] … got some theories about the roots of the Irish language that are going to blow your head off … an incredible storyteller. I found this most enthralling when Manchán examines how patriarchal the monotheist religion is compared to the more matriarchal polytheism of paganism (and even with references to Hinduism in the earlier chapters), for example, how in paganism Sionainn was said to have acquired the wisdom of Connla’s Well to become the River Shannon, whereas in Christianity she was said to have drowned for wanting more than what is expected of women. However, while these decayed people and constructs will most likely never be found, the land still remembers their shape, and what it was like when all was new.

Luckily for us, many of our Irish myths and legends, folktales and fairytales have survived and have the attention of scholars and readers all over the world. Funny, the one place where he undeniably feels a presence and power, in the Kerry backkitchen, he just walks away from it. Bodies rise from under the spongy peat—the likes of which resemble the present as well as our most ancient past.

Listen to the Land Speak – An Siopa Leabhar Listen to the Land Speak – An Siopa Leabhar

His work in this field has garnered him acclaim for feeding the inferno that burns behind the Irish person’s want for connection to their past.It is his aim then, to bring us back to a point in time where the people were as connected to the land and the murmurs of the past as those that lived generations before them. His reference to the psychological scarring of the Irish people caused by An Gorta Mor probably deserves another book. His books Thirty-Two Words For Field (2020) and Tree Dogs, Banshee Fingers and Other Words For Nature (2021) are acclaimed bestsellers. Most of the information in this book was unknown to me before reading, although I recently finished Ireland’s Forgotten Past by Turtle Bunbury. However, its slight defects are inconsequential to what the book as a whole brings to the literary space.