We need to find a way of talking about the Irish language - about the sublime beauty and profound oddness of this ancient tongue that has been spoken on the island for 2,500 to 3,000 years, and is now slipping slowly from our grasp.
What can the word for the lonesomeness of a cow bereft of her calf, diadhánach, teach us about our current methods of food production?
Why does one need to orientate oneself to the sun to give directions in Irish?
Arán & Im is a theatrical performance in which Manchán Magan bakes sourdough bread for 70 minutes while offering insights into the wonders of the Irish language – exploring potent words of landscape, terms of intuition and insight, and the many phrases that bring to life the mysterious glory of our natural world.
The show is a celebration of language, land and local Irish food, with freshly-baked traditional sourdough bread for the audience to slice and spread with butter they churn themselves from Irish cream. (Knowledge of Irish is not required.)
To what degree is the Otherworld embedded in words for cancer?
What’s the word for the sound horses make when they meet after an absence?
"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. I imagined creating this little sanctuary on stage in which flour from Irish fields and water from Irish rivers could be transformed into a potent metaphor for our connecting to language, landscape and life." - Manchán Magan
