Countdown to Song of Ireland

Ten days from today, my novel Song of Ireland releases to bookstores!  To celebrate, I have decided to launch ten days of  "Tips and Tales from Ireland." Each day I will post either a story or a travel tip, culminating in a book giveaway and an additional surprise on day ten.  So here we go:

Megaliths abound in Ireland; often you will find a dolmen or sarsen circle in a random location - a field punctuated with wildflowers, for example, or right in the middle of a herd of cattle.  But did you know that many Irish sites, like the tombs at Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth on the Boyne River may actually pre-date the pyramids of Egypt.  Newgrange, for example, was built somewhere around 3200 B.C.  We know that such sites were often used as tombs, or as calendrical markers for the passage of the seasons and years.  But who put them there and why?  That we do not know.

The dolmen featured on my book cover, below, is the Poulnabrone, sometimes translated as Hole of the Sorrows (or grief).  This stone passage was once used as a grave, probably surrounded by heaped up dirt and stones.  Indeed, excavations discovered the bones of some 22 people in its depths, some of them children, some with arthritis. The dolmen stands on the Burren in County Clare where the wild wind has scoured a doorway between this world and the next.

A Field Guide to Rome

I lived and taught in Rome this year.  Bellissimo!  But, for an American, the city can be overwhelming at first.  Traffic, both foot and wheeled, hurtles at you; language pulses around you, a living thing; multi-colored laundry flutters like flags over every alley and balcony. To make the situation even more overwhelming, you are surrounded by ghosts; the shadows of ancient emperors and fearsome gladiators lurk on every corner.

For those of you planning to live (or just meander) in the Eternal City, here are ten tips to help you acclimate.

·      Life in Italy is lived loud.  Shouted phone conversations take place beneath your window.  Old men stop in the middle of the sidewalk to argue, gesticulating all the while.  Randomly and for no particular reason, men will burst into song.  Young Romans opt for PDA (public displays of affection) on trains, buses and street corners.  Miniscule cars honk and laughter always occurs at belly-up volume.

·      The modern Roman chariot is the scooter (Vespa is a brand name). The winding streets of the most ancient Roman neighborhoods, such as Trastevere, were designed for two chariots to pass side by side.  However, you don’t need a scooter to get around in Rome  - or around Italy for that matter.  Italy has a world-class mass transport system.  Inexpensive trains will take you efficiently from city to city, while in Rome, the bus and metro system can take you anywhere in the city and to most locations in the Roman suburbs.  You can buy a Metro pass for one day, one week or one month and it will cover all city trains, all buses and all metro stations. 

·      In warm weather, trattorias blossom on every street in Rome.  Romans set up an awning and some collapsible tables, choose delightful checkered tablecloths, enlist the best cook in their family and voila! una ristorante is born, complete with pasta specialties, fine wines and water “naturale”  - uncarbonated - or  “acqua gassata,” bubbly water.  Romans swear by the bubbly, saying that it contains more vitamins and minerals.

·      Should you not want to order water at all, however, Roma provides you with another option.  All over the city are open spigots that bring in water from the ancient Roman aqueducts.  This water spills onto the ground in cold abundance and Romans refill their water bottles from that source or simply tip their heads under the icy stream.  For most Americans, it takes a while to get accustomed to this idea, but the water, when the visitor works up the courage to try it, tastes icy cold and clean.

·      Cats and dogs have the life in Rome.  Most Romans own dogs and the dogs accompany them everywhere  -  into the grocery story, onto the train, seated beside them at the restaurant.  From blue tick hounds to purse-sized Yorkies, il cane  - the dog - is a well-respected friend.  Cats, feral but open to affection, abound.  They sleep on the saddles of scooters when the owners are away and curl up in flower pots beside your door. In the ancient Roman ruins of Torre Argentina, hundreds of feral cats are fed and given shelter.

·      Romans listen to American music.  Everywhere.  All the time.  Even a Roman who cannot speak a word of English will opt for American music.  Ask them why and they will answer with a philosophical shrug, “Perché è bello,” “Because it is beautiful.”  In general, Romans are friendly and very open to American travelers.  Give them a “Grazie,” or reply to their thanks with a quick “Prego” and Romans will work hard to give you their best English. 

·      Street performers are the order of the day in gathering places like Trastevere, but these buskers are rarely amateurs.  A middle-aged woman plays classical cello by the fountain of Piazza Santa Maria.  Two tap dancers in full costume and make-up hoof their way across the cobblestones.  Meanwhile, beggars and priests pass by while young people cuddle up to watch from the fountain steps.  The whole experience has the flavor of a medieval street festival.

·      Many sites in Rome are free.  The Vatican, for example, home of Michelangelo’s Pieta and Bernini’s marble statues, is free.  If you are willing to stand in a long queue in the hot sun, you can spend as much free time as you wish with dead popes and the great artists of the Renaissance.  Churches in Rome are often cheek by jowl with ruins from the first or second century B.C. and the visitor is simply welcome to wander.  Climb the Janiculum hill (site of American University of Rome) and walk along ancient sycamore paths in golden light.  Wild green parakeets will sweep and dance above your head.  At the top of the hill, all of Rome, ancient and modern, will spread before you like a golden buffet.  None of that will cost so much as a Euro.

·      Renowned ruins (like the Colosseum) will cost the visitor an entrance fee, but once inside, surprises abound.  Leave the Colosseum for the Forum and you will see the precise spot where Mark Antony delivered his “Friends, Romans, countrymen” speech.  Down a side road, you can find the entrance to the Cloaca Maxima, the oldest sewage system in the world. Or climb to the top of the Palatine hill and you will have the park-like summit to yourself as you wander through the ruins of the massive palace of Domitian. Wild purple flowers bloom in what was once the emperor’s fountain and invaluable ancient marble statues stand beside an ancient wall, abandoned in the high grass.

·      In Rome you will walk  - and you should.  The historical center of ancient Rome is compact and very calpestabile - walkable. Turn a corner and you will encounter a baroque church, turn another and a gelato stand will catch your interest, turn again and a chariot driven by a winged angel will arise from the roof of the Capitoline Museum.  On average you will put four to five miles a day on your walking shoes, absolutely necessary when you consider all the pasta you will eat.

When in Rome is the order of the day for the visitor to the Eternal City.  Immerse yourself in food and culture, hoof it through history, allow yourself to be dazzled and delighted by the sights and sounds of this surprising city of la dolce vita. Rome is a literal, visual and historical feast.

Food for Thought in The Hunger Games

My literary agent called to issue a challenge.  To be fair, she didn’t intend it as a challenge.  My ears just heard it that way.

“I’ve been reading The Hunger Games,” she said, “and the characters feel so alive to me.  I can’t stop thinking about them. I’m going to try to figure out how she does it.”

Red flag.  Literary bull.  (Should be funny on two levels.)

I immediately immersed myself in the novels, read them in rapid succession, then passed them to my daughter who read them in equally rapid succession, after which we discussed, argued, agreed, disagreed, dissected and spent a great deal of time trying to figure out “how she does it.”  She, of course, being Suzanne Collins.

For those who haven’t yet read the books, I promise not to include any spoilers.

The technical answer to “how she does it” emerged as I “pie-mapped” the books. Collins writes in first person present tense inside the completely limited viewpoint of her primary female character Katniss Everdeen.  We readers live the book inside the mind of Katniss; what she experiences or thinks, we experience or think in the present moment.

Collins also writes in very short sentences. Fragments. Lots of fragments. The book reads like texting or tweeting.  Linguistically, this brevity gives the book a headlong, immediate pace.  Given her intended audience, I see this as a stylistic stroke of genius on Collins’ part.

The English professor in me, however, can’t resist pointing out that many of these fragments begin with dependent clauses.

Which, as a professor, drives me absolutely batty. (Did you catch both errors here?)

Beyond pov, language and pacing, it is also obvious that Collins has written for stage and screen.  She costumes the characters and places them in elaborate set pieces.  Katniss sometimes lights up, sometimes, quite literally, catches on fire.  In the forest garb of her hometown, Katniss is Robin Hood, complete with quiver of arrows and game bag of food for the needy.  Characters in the Capitol are equally visual.  Some are tattooed; many have undergone cosmetic surgery to dye their skin or remake their faces into something resembling a character from Cats. In the arena, Collins gives the reader multiple “sets” – a giant cornucopia, caves dripping with rain, electric force fields that sputter and pop, leafy, many-limbed trees full of tracker-jacker nests.

The Technicolor visuals of the books bring to mind that first view of Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz, with its colorful horses and denizens. Beyond the visuals, however, even the witch of Oz with her flying monkeys seems benign compared to the worldview in Collins’ books.

Here, we depart the structural and elemental assessment of the novels to assess a much more difficult set of questions. What worldview is at the heart of these novels? Why? How will that worldview resonate with young readers? (They might be the intended audience, although everyone I know in my demographic is reading the books even as I write).

It’s obvious that Collins begins with a historical allusion  -  Rome in the era of the brutal gladiatorial games, the era of panem et circenses - bread and circuses - in which Rome appeased its populace with staged combat using gladiators and slaves fighting with weapons or against wild animals.  The strategy is obvious:  keep the silly masses entertained, fed and clothed and they will not attend to civic responsibilities or to political shenanigans. The government can decide for and without them. Hmmmm.

In Collins’ “Panem” the games sacrifice children in order to remind the districts that they could all be just as easily sacrificed.  At the same time, the Hunger Games serve to entertain the fashionable, vapid, cosmetically enhanced populace of the wealthy Capitol district.  Collins milks her Roman metaphor for all it is worth, giving characters names like Metallus and Cinna, using weapons such as arrows and tridents, even creating a vomitorium at one party so that guests can gorge, vomit and gorge again, a lovely custom that was indeed used in ancient Rome.

Paired with Collins’ historical references is the thoroughly repugnant modern trend of “reality” television, which Collins obviously finds anathema (hear, hear).  The young people to be sacrificed in the books are taken to “beauty base zero,” then primped, coiffed, clipped and costumed so that their competitive death games can be followed on national television. Viewing is required. These gladiatorial games are a horrific evolution  of Survivor and Real World in which surly, overwrought teens fight CGI effects and each other to brutal, grisly deaths.  A Wrinkle in Time or Under the Lilacs this is not. Even such dystopian teen classics such as Fahrenheit 451 or Brave New World seem tame by comparison.

Sadly, however, given television and the movies, modern young adults are as inured to violence as they are to the mean teen culture.  Those are not truly the most disturbing aspects of the books. Rather the sense of global and personal isolation is what chills the heart of these novels. Panem seems to be America after global warming has completely destroyed both coasts.  The Capitol is highly technological and very powerful, the districts are poor and practically pre-industrial, and all the rest of the world seems to have disappeared.  If Europe, Canada or South America still exist, they are not in communication with Panem.  Panem is an empire in isolation.

Additionally, the Districts of Panem have no communication with each other and even the district that eventually rebels (I can’t; I promised no spoilers) proves another bleak and alienating point: all governments are dangerous, all politicians are power-hungry, venal and violent. With the exception of individual acts of compassion, no human endeavor is pure.

But from the point of view of this storyteller, the truest isolation in the books is the absence of myth and archetype, the complete disappearance of the spiritual. There are no churches and no religions, no mention of God or gods. Even in a repressive regime, there would be memories, rumors, secret societies. The books are not anti-religious or anti-spiritual; they are simply a-religious, a-spiritual. Where did all that accumulated human experience go?

There are also no origin myths, no myths of redemption or direction, no prophecies.  Because I am a folklorist and storyteller, I know that all cultures through all of time dwell in myth, pass it down, feed on stories, take sustenance from them, fear them, hope for them, expect them (witness, as one silly example, the current paranoia over the Mayan calendar). A culture cannot live without its myths.  Carl Jung would tell us that a human being cannot live without “story,” without being tapped into the collective unconscious of the human experience. As writer Barry Lopez says in his journey myth Crow and Weasel,  “Sometimes you need a story more than food to stay alive.” But Panem exists in a mythic void; its only stories consist of the seventy-five years of televised murder games.

Eventually, academics, because we need to write about something, will begin to make the inevitable Rowling comparisons  -  books that grow progressively darker, an adolescent hero forced to take on a corrupt adult world.  But although JK Rowling has been quite forthright in her discussion of her struggles with faith and hope, her books are replete with archetypes of light and darkness, myth and prophecy, of the struggles of good and moral people in a world in which evil tries to dominate, but eventually fails. Harry Potter follows the archetypal hero’s journey.

Katniss Everdeen is an incredibly tough and sometimes compassionate young woman who is alternately used as a government and media darling, sacrifice, and pawn. In the three books of The Hunger Games series, evil – or perhaps its more banal offspring, moral relativism and expedience – win after all, every time.

Katniss Everdeen can take solace in only two things: her love of the natural world and her love of her family and friends.  Should either of those vanish (again no spoilers), she would be left in complete psychological isolation, an existentialist heroine in a nihilist world.



Juilene Osborne-McKnight teaches creative writing and is the author of four Irish historical novels: I am of Irelaunde, Daughter of Ireland, Bright Sword of Ireland and Song of Ireland, all four of which will soon be re-released in e-book form.

Mythic Ireland

The early morning fog lifts off the sea at the south of Ireland. From their ships, the Milesian Celts of the Galician coast of Spain see their new homeland for the first time. Inisfail, they call it, fabled Land of Destiny. Among them stands a poet. His name is Amergin (pronounced Ah ver geen). He looks farther, sees farther than his warrior brothers. At the headland high above the beach, he sees that the land is already occupied. There, ranged against the wild sky, are little people five feet tall, dressed all in white, surrounded, or so it seems by dawnlight, in shining auroras of light.

Perhaps Irish history begins here.

Perhaps what begins is the intersection - the place and time in Ireland when the real began to fold into the unreal, when the line between the two first grew blurry, then formed itself into the curling ribbon of Irish mythohistory.

The Milesians of Spain were real. Legend has it that they came to Ireland in a huge fleet of ships somewhere around 500 B.C. Evidence indicates a much smaller “invasion” - perhaps of a clan group or family.

But, as you know if you’ve ever visited Ireland, there were dwellers on the land long before that time. The dolmens and passage graves, the mysterious wood and stone henges are much much older than the Milesians, many contemporaneous with the pyramids of Egypt from around 3000 B.C.E.

So who were these ancient people? Legend says that there were successive races in Ireland - the architectural Partholon, the fearful Nemed, the warlike Fomorii with their baleful one-eyed leader, the boggy and backward Fir Bolg. Last in the mythical list, but oh so certainly not least, came the Tuatha de Danaan, the people of the mother goddess Danu, the magical little people of the light.

Myth tells us that the Milesians engaged these little people in battle on those fateful first encounter days in 500 B.C. Myth says that although they were defeated, Amergin the Poet allowed the little Tuatha de Danaan to stay, to inhabit the hollow hills and thus keep the magic in Ireland.

And what do you say?

As for me, having spent time in Ireland, I am with Irish poet Nuala ni Dhomhnaill, who says that “Even the dogs in West Kerry know that the Otherworld exists and that to be in and out of it constantly is the most natural thing in the world.”

What I hope to do in this blog is to open a portal for you - a door that will take you in and out of the Celtic world constantly - through myth and history, through quirks and miracles, through that most beautiful of all gifts from the Creator - storytelling.

I invite you to join me on the journey.