I think I could turn and live with animals,
they are so placid and self-contained,
I stand and look at them long and long….
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, or to his kind that lived thousands of years ago
(Whitman, 1855/2006)
Know that Macha, sovereignty goddess of Ulster, had considerable impact on that province. Nobody may think so, but it is true. I had a friend called Michael Morris, who (told me he) went up to Stormont to tell them to ask Macha to remove the curse she put on the men of Ulster. If they failed, he said, they would ever fail to bring peace, prosperity and well being to Ulster, which has had much strife, as we know. I know I’m repeating myself from my previous blog Don’t Mess with a Horse Goddess but the story of Macha needs to be told again, especially in light of the Lovestock Festival which is coming up soon, 29th-31st July in Tuamgraney, Co. Clare on a lands of a man who is devoted to horses.
Anyway, Macha’s curses were called The Pangs of Ulster. Every year for five days, the men of Ulster were incapacitated by the same pain felt by women in labour. They were cursed in this way after they treated Macha, the horse goddess faery woman of the Tuatha de Danann, unfairly at an assembly of Ulster men. In Irish mythology, Macha was the wife of Crunchu ...
There was once a man of Ulster named Crunchu, a farmer who had a terrible misfortune. His wife had died, leaving him with three young children and no way to take care of them. Every day he had to get up and leave his young children to go and work in the fields, knowing that this was no way for them to be raised. When he came home one day, his house was immaculate, the children were clean and a beautiful women sat by the fire cooking dinner.
Who was she, anyway? She was Macha. Crunchu had, it was said, taken a fancy to her on a hillside one afternoon. Or this version goes that she just appeared in his house and acted as his wife, without announcing herself. His house was neat as a pin, the children all clean and quiet. The woman announced that her name was Macha, and that she had decided to be his wife. Just like that. He couldn’t argue really, so Crunchu settled in to married life. She got pregnant, and Crunchu’s wealth grew. Just as happens when you wed a faery woman. She makes him swear, as the faery wife does, not to tell the King of Ulster, or anyone about her existence.
A horse, and she not broken, standing shoulder deep
In his door every morning
A horse, and she not broken, standing hip deep
In his door every evening.
-Dreamtime, John Moriarty
He knew she was a woman of the otherworld by the way she moved: she could run so swiftly that her feet barely touched the ground, but she never made any fuss over this, only going about her business as a wife and mother.
One day, the king of Ulster summoned all his people together for a feast, to celebrate his purchase of a fine new team of chariot-horses. Crunchu was excited to go, but Macha warned him again not to speak of her, not to boast about her, or he would bring disaster down upon them. Crunchu promised he would not, and away to the king’s feast he went.
The new horses were beautiful, grey and swift and perfectly matched, and the feast was a great one, a display of King Connor’s generosity. Crunchu ate and drank, but he remembered Macha’s warning, and when the other men began boasting about the beauty of their wives, he kept his mouth shut. When the other men started boasting about their wive’s cooking, Crunchu bit his tongue. But when the king boasted that no creature in Ireland was faster than his new horses, Crunchu could not keep quiet any longer and began to brag without holding back that his wife was so swift she could beat the king’s horses in a race.
King Connor ordered his men to seize the boastful farmer, demanding that Crunchu send for his wife, and if she did not come to prove the truth of his statement, Crunchu would pay for his lie with his life. Men were sent to Crunchu’s house, but when Macha opened the door, they could see that she was heavily pregnant. Nonetheless, they told her what her husband had said, and that if she did not make good his boast, he would pay for it with his life. Macha agreed to go with them, resentfully.
When she came before the king, Macha begged him to consider her condition, to postpone the race until after she had given birth. She felt heavy and laden. But the king had been brooding over the insult Crunchu had given him, and he refused her plea. Then Macha turned to all the warriors of Ulster, the Craobh Rua, or Red Branch, assembled there, and asked them to protect her. She reminded them that each one of them was born of a woman, and that it was not right for them to put her in this position. But none of them stepped forward for her. They were drunk and they wanted the thrill of the the race and they wanted to see their king put the boastful farmer in his place.
Something about Macha must have given King Connor pause, because before the race, he had his charioteer strip back all the decorations on his chariot, all the cushions and cloths that made the ride easier, till the king’s chariot was barely a plank of wood with wheels, as light as it could possibly be. He then stripped off his armour and heavy cloak till he stood in his lightest linen tunic, and dismissed his sister Deichtre, who was his charioteer, and took the reins of the chariot himself. Macha waited.
The race was held on the grass outside of the king’s fort, where there were no stones or uneven ground to trip the horses or foul the wheels. All the men of Ulster gathered there to watch, as the king and Macha raced.
The king raced his matched horses, and they ran as swift as the wind, in unison, pulling him so fast he felt he was flying. But if the king raced as fast as the wind, Macha ran faster. She outpaced the wind itself. Her feet seemed barely to touch the ground. But as she ran, the birth pains came on Macha, and she began to scream.
Screaming in agony, Macha ran the course, crossed the finish line with her belly protruding in front of the noses of Connor’s horses. She won the race, collapsed on the grass, and in a rush of blood, her twins were born, still and dead. She gathered them into her arms, and put a curse on all the warriors of Ulster for failing to use their strength to defend her in her time of need. Macha declared that their strength would become useless to them. Whenever they needed it most, their strength would desert them, and for nine days and nine nights, they would endure the pains of a woman in childbirth. This curse would last for nine generations: each fighting-man of Ulster, as soon as he was old enough to grow a beard, would come under the curse. But we know it lasted longer than that.
King Connor had broken order by the cruelty of his demands, by disrespecting a pregnant woman and by allowing his ego to supersede his oath of sovereignty to the land and his people. For Macha is a goddess of sovereignty, and to violate her was to violate the land. That is why the land was cursed.
With that, Macha gathered her dead twins, leaped over the heads of those watching, and ran off, never to be seen again. And from that day forth, the fort of the King of Ulster was known as Emain Macha; the Twins of Macha, a boy named Fír ("True") and a girl named Fial ("Modest").
On a very different note, and one related to horses, I suggest that perhaps the curse of Macha should be put on the authorities who ruined, or attempted to ruin the business of Seán Kilkenny, a native of Clare, who was operating a successful horse and carriage, horse and pony trekking business from Dromoland Castle in Co Clare.
Until three years ago, Seán had had four businesses that turned over a quarter of a million in 2019 and he employed 10 people. When the ‘crisis’ hit in 2020, Seán, caring for 40 horses, was forced into a PUP (Covid Payment) of 350 euro to take care of his family, run his business and provide for his 40 horses. An impossible feat. The curse, in this case was the lockdowns, the bane of every small business in Ireland and across the world. The prison term ‘lockdown’ was the blunt instrument employed (thanks to Neil Ferguson’s inaccurate calculator) regardless of its illogical contradictions, to curtail the strange Covid 19 disease. Seán’s entire income was decimated. A father-of-two, like Crunchu (who had three children, of course) Seán was cornered into poverty in very little time. Unlike Crunchu, he did not have the fortune to have Macha find him and give him the blessings that she brought our Crunnchu. But she might, yet. Seán wondered and despaired at who would be able to provide food, diesel, medicines for his horses? Because his hands were tied. He could, in the absurd circumstances he was now in.
Lockdowns left Seán penniless and homeless. There was no proper shelter, no running water without electricity nor heating on their land, now. The family were without a toilet for two years, without a shower, without a fridge. “We do not want a handout; we want to be lifted up a little bit. The only way we want to be lifted up is to be able to pay our rent and insurance and care for our animals the way we used to.” It is not possible for two people, he and his wife, to mind forty horses.
They were evicted during a lockdown from the place they devoted 13 years of their lives. They returned to the estate six months later, to buy out the place where their equipment was still housed, where the Forgotten Horses were. Not a bale of hay was given to his horses by what Seán sees as a corrupt agricultural and animal welfare system. ‘They all turned their backs on the Forgotten horses.”
Out of desperation, Sean created a GoFund Me page with an aim to raise €50,000, to restore his family home and the future of the horses. It is the story of love for his family, and for a family of forty horses. In the future, he envisions an education and training programme for horses which will preserve “our past to the present and for the future of all our children, together with mental health and wellbeing around the fire of hope where I can provide a space for people to learn and develop their understanding of the ancient relationship between man and horse. I know they [the horses] have the capacity to ground and connect people in a way that most therapies struggle. I want to demonstrate the power of this connection, to give hope and healing for those who were left behind in recent years.”
He also wants to build a rambling house to preserve and celebrate our indigenous heritage and culture. In this house, music, poetry and storytelling will be reinvigorated, returning us to our ancient Irish oral traditions.
“My horses will be treated to the standard they were used to when I was working at Dromoland Castle. I want to nurture their care and seek assistance in providing to their every need. Following on from that, and with a successful campaign my aim is to build and develop an equine healing centre to create a space in which the poor and vulnerable can access proper mental health care and a community of support and assistance. Having faced my own challenging mental health through this journey, I can relate and empathise greatly with the suffering that has emerged in the past three years.”
“endless nights they [the horses] stood in silence where I watched tears fall from their eyes like rain drops and i promised them i will shake the entire world to save them and create the greatest healing centre ever ever known to them. They have the most gentlest souls you will ever come to know and anyone who ever comes to see them are moved by them and how gentle, peaceful and calm they are. This is the story of a broken man who will not break’
Part 2
It is on Sean Kilkenny’s land in Tuamgraney that the Lovestock Festival will take place at the end of this month 29th-31st July. This is part of his evolving vision of a revival of traditional Irish arts, and of the Equine centre he dreams of. The Lovestock Festival is the lovechild of Sabrina, a therapist and passionate lover of the arts, born out of the desperate need for care and attention to mental health in the last three years. It is in some ways a new version of Woodstock, something that seemed an impossible dream during lockdowns. Sabrina saw people rapidly deteriorate during the Covid era, reminding her of wartime and its companion, despair. People need love and connection, and the remedy came through her brainchild. It took place last year in Dún na Sí in Co. West Meath (The Fort of the Fairys). listen to this podcast by Colman POwer of Organic Ireland here:
A meeting between the singer Siobhán O’Brien, (one of the cheif organisers of the Lovestock Festival) and Seán Kilkenny last year, through a series of serendipitous events, made it apparent that the gods, the universe or the sídhe themselves were orchestrating the Lovestock Festival to come to be hosted in Seán Kilkenny’s land in Tuamgraney, Co, Clare. “I prayed for the healers to come to the land, and they came.” said Seán, about how all of it came about.
Lovestock is Ireland’s first grassroots festival. Ireland is the only country in the world that has the emblem of a musical instrument. Lovestock gives a space to heal and unite people on the land of Éire, through the Irish arts- music, poetry, comedy, storytelling as well as our most ancient healing tools and recipes from across the island. Its mission is to restore harmony, peace and joy on this land. Sabrina, whose brainchild this is, is part of a growing community of artists, mental health professionals, alternative therapists and food/medicine experts who have come together to support and develop our individual and community needs, through the art of love and connection.
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Buy tickets here.
I have to bring Mary Berkery into this piece, for all the incredible work she does with horses. She will be presenting on the Landscape Temple and will share how horses and nature can bring us (or humans) home to their own sovereignty and spaciousness. She performs on Saturday 29th July at Lovestock. Mary was a dear friend of my dear departed sister, Kristin. I spent a day with Mary in 2022 doing Equine Assisted therapy. Her care for the horses, her understanding of their senstivity (far greater than ours) and their evolution (far longer than ours) gave me a day of coming to know myself a little better through our gentle working with the horses. A study of human and horse heart rates shows that spending time with a horse can lead to the synchronisation of your heartbeat with theirs. Horses are hypervigilant. They can detect the slightest sound, smell, or movement, any of which might indicate the presence of a life-threatening predator. Their ability to read with flawless accuracy not just the behavior of others but their silent intentions is what gives the horse the psychological mirroring expertise of the most gifted human therapist. Since this hypervigilance is also commonly observed in those with PTSD, it makes horses the perfect therapy animal for helping them.“To promote social harmony and keep the herd together, horses possess a number of evolutionary hardwired qualities. These include: being accepting, tolerant, kind, respectful, honest, fair, nonjudgmental, compassionate, and forgiving. All of these innate equine qualities are also utilized when a horse interacts with a human.”
To read more about Mary’s work, read here.
There are plenty of wonderful poets, musicians, comedians… at Lovestock this year. There is Isabel Quigley, Mega Trad, Tracey Dawn, Kieran Cullen, Edward Durand, Siobhan O’Brien, Stephen Murphy, Siobhan De Paor, Aiden Killian, and my hero of the Otherworld, Eddie Lenihan, the great Seannchaí of Clare. And many, many more! There will be Cacao ceremonies, frequency healings (by Gabby Punch), Biodiversity and organic farming à la Colman Power of Organic Fitness.
I will be reading a Quartet of poems about the Tuatha de Danann on Sunday 30th July. Specifically about Macha in the third Canto. She’s our sovereignty goddess associated with Ulster, especially Navan Fort (Eamhain Mhacha) and Armagh (Ard Mhacha) which are named after her.
More about the new (revised book) here. https://siofraodonovan.com/pema-and-the-yak/
In this poem, after I read John Moriarty’s prompt, I write about the breaking of Macha by her husband Cruinnchu (there are different spellings so dont be hard on me! and the curse she put on the men of Ulster.
It’s all because John Moriarty, a close friend of Michael Morris (who told me he stormed Stormont to tell them to cop on and talk to Macha about the Curse) appeared to me in a dream, by a pile of stones in Ireland. I asked him, how can I find the Gods? He said, pointing over ‘there’, “That way.” He has always pointed me to the Gods. I find him a custodian of the Gods, a man who dedicated his life to walking the land, and conversing with the Gods of that land. In an Irish Dreamtime. With each poem in the Quartet I start with an invitation from John Moriarty.
The invitation (From Dreamtime, John Moriarty)
A horse, and she not broken, standing shoulder deep
In his door every morning
A horse, and she not broken, standing hip deep
In his door every evening.
The response (mine):
Macha is a fury that riots
She revels among the slain.
Cruinnchu she met on the high moors,
By the standing stone.
Macha is my name, she said.
Walking the high moors by the standing stone.
He stared at her.
He promised not to bridle the horses, not to break them.
They are Macha and they, unbroken, belong to her.
He promised.
Macha is a fury,
A thing that can’t be broken.
She revels among the slain.
Her head never bridled.
Her hooves never tethered.
No saddle strapped on her back.
For Macha I leave my door open.
Because Macha is a fury, a thing that can’t be broken
She revels among the slain.
Because Cruinnchu tethered her,
Because he boasted of her speed,
And pushed her to a wild race
She cursed him.
She cursed the men of Ulster,
They’d fight each other,
Brother against brother
On the battlefield.
She cursed them.
And she left Cruinnchu
And when he heard the horses neighing on the high moors
He knew it was Macha.
Macha is a fury, a thing that can’t be broken
She revels among the slain.
Siofra O’Donovan © 2023
The invitation (From Dreamtime, John Moriarty)
A horse, and she not broken, standing shoulder deep
In his door every morning
A horse, and she not broken, standing hip deep
In his door every evening.
The response:
Macha is a fury that riots
She revels among the slain.
Cruinnchu she met on the high moors,
By the standing stone.
Macha is my name, she said.
Walking the high moors by the standing stone.
He stared at her.
He promised not to bridle the horses, not to break them.
They are Macha and they, unbroken, belong to her.
He promised.
Macha is a fury,
A thing that can’t be broken.
She revels among the slain.
Her head never bridled.
Her hooves never tethered.
No saddle strapped on her back.
For Macha I leave my door open.
Because Macha is a fury, a thing that can’t be broken
She revels among the slain.
Because Cruinnchu tethered her,
Because he boasted of her speed,
And pushed her to a wild race
She cursed him.
She cursed the men of Ulster,
They’d fight each other,
Brother against brother
On the battlefield.
She cursed them.
And she left Cruinnchu
And when he heard the horses neighing on the high moors
He knew it was Macha.
Macha is a fury, a thing that can’t be broken
She revels among the slain.
Siofra O’Donovan © 2023