CD Title: Mac an Iascaire
Permissions: “Ní féidir scéal a choimeád gan an scéal a thabhairt.”
As the old saying has it, you can’t keep a story without giving it away.
Pour garder le conte, il faut le donner.
Disc 1, 2, 3:
When my friend, Tony Montague, first heard me tell this twenty years ago, he said it threw him back to the Paleolithic and the cave paintings of France. Lord knows how old it is. May it live twice as long into the future.
I have always especially loved shape shifting and transformation stories. They speak to me of how magical and mutable this world is, full of strange possibilities.
This is my favorite one, in its original language- Munster Irish, in the English of South Kerry, and in my broken Quebec French.
Scéalaí ón gcliabhán, le caoga bliana anois tá sean-scéalta Ciarraí Theas á insint agam. Im chónaí i gCanada le triocha bliana, bím ag insint i dteach tábhairne Hurleys i Montreal an Domhnach deireanach de gach míosa.
Je vit un pied au Québec et une âme en Irlande. Mon père et ma grand-mère m’ont légué plusieurs centaines de contes traditionnels irlandais. Depuis près de 50 ans, je transmet ces récits, issus de la tradition orale la plus pure.
I have been telling stories for nigh on 50 years and I have the feeling I may yet come good at it. I got a lazy start, not having to leave the fireplace in my father’s house to hear stories and “seanchas.” My stories are the stories of Iveragh (South Kerry). I tell regularly at Hurley’s Irish Pub in Montreal, the longest ongoing storytelling event in Quebec.