We present an extract from Where The Water Flows, the new book by Eithne Massey
Flowing from source to sea, our rivers are the life-blood of Ireland. They have shaped the landscape, history, folkore and mythology of the island. Beginning with the Liffey in the east, then travelling clockwise around the country, follow the four directions of the compass as you learn the stories of our rivers.
A river runs through us, no matter where in Ireland we may be. There will always be a stream, a river, a ditch nearby, leading to a larger channel of water and finally to the sea. These local watercourses are sometimes quiet and undramatic and are often ignored by those who pass by them every day.
Look at a map of Ireland. You will see a fine network of lines covering its surface, like blue capillaries, connecting each part of the country, the lifeblood of the island. Rivers are the great connectors. They were the path taken by the first settlers as they ventured upstream from the coast, into the heart of Ireland. They were also the route adventurers took downstream towards the coast when they wanted to travel beyond the sea that surrounds us. For humans, like the salmon, rivers are both the call of home and the call to adventure. In the past they have been used as a protection from attack, acting as the frontier line between opposing tribes. This role can still be seen in the rivers that act as the dividing lines between counties. Rivers were also used as an access route by Gaelic and Viking raiders and by later invaders. There are many contradictions inherent in rivers, the source of life and healing that also carries the threat of death, the cradle of civilisation that can annihilate human life and our works.
Irish folklore tells us how some rivers take a toll of a human life every year, and how others have drawn back their waters so that a man seeking a drink dies of thirst. Often seen as a route to the Otherworld, sometimes the voyage there is not a voluntary one. Rivers carry the symbolism of the earth they rise out of and the sea they flow into. Throughout Celtic Europe, many water deities were placated with offerings to rivers and lakes, and they were sometimes used for gruesome divinatory purposes.
Rivers were the place where kings and heroes were conceived and born. The Mórrigán straddled the banks of the river where the Dagda mated with her. It was in a river that Nessa gave birth to King Conchobar. Rivers have mourned with those who have lost their loved ones and provided inspiration and knowledge to those who walked their banks.
Although they cannot speak in human terms, it would not be true to say that rivers do not have a voice – nothing is more alive and various. The rippling, whispering, gurgling, bubbling, sighing – and sometimes roaring – they make as they flow has its own story to tell. To be on or in a river brings us out of our normal modes of being. Simply walking along a riverbank, watching the light on its water and listening to its music, can lead us to a place where we lose our sense of individual consciousness and become part of its flow. Even urban rivers, bounded by stone or concrete, can take us out of our everyday selves, as we look at the light reflected from the water under ancient stone bridges or watch the water transformed by the ripples of rain falling. That is one of the great gifts they give us. For rivers are the great givers, endlessly patient with creatures whose lifespan is not even a drop in their endless flow, their youthful rushing and falling, their turning back on themselves, their last meanderings.
Rivers pull us in. In Irish myth there is a strong connection between the music of water and the bubbles that can be seen on the surface of rivers with the deepest form of poetic inspiration, or indeed revelation. Stories describe the hypnotic state that is familiar to those who spend time listening to the voice of the river and watching its light-filled flow.
In these myths, the music of the water is sometimes identified as the sound of the Sídh, Ireland's fairies, or of mermaids. Women and women’s voices are closely linked to rivers, from the Washer at the Ford to the drowned girls who sought knowledge at forbidden wells and were swept away, becoming the water itself. The writer Manchán Magan points out that almost every river is gendered as feminine in the Irish language, and the vast majority of Irish stories relating to the birth of rivers are connected to a female.
Irish folklore abounds with stories of the Sídh linked to rivers. Fairies, though they cannot cross running water, often lure humans to the other bank of the river, where they do things differently and where time ceases to matter. There is an interesting connection between the hypnotic effect of rivers, the connection with the Other Crowd (as the Sídh are often referred to) and what is called the state of 'flow’. ‘The Flow’ is described by neurologists as the condition when one is deeply engaged in an activity, concentrating hard, fully immersed. There may be difficulty involved in the activity, but when we are ‘in the flow’ we feel not stress but pleasure. In this state time passes and we have no idea whether it’s been ten minutes or half an hour since we started the task. We have been taken by the fairies of the central nervous system to another world where time works differently. Interruption of this state can feel like a sharp and painful loss.
Perhaps a river feels a loss when its flow is blocked and diverted by weirs and dams and mill streams. Or perhaps it just shrugs and gets on with the job as water does, taking the path of least resistance, while over time making channels through rock and moulding entire landscapes. The message of the river is constant renewal and the capacity to keep changing (we never step in the same river twice) while remaining inherently the same.
Rivers have mouths, like humans. They have sources, like stories. In the stories which follow (in Where The Water Flows) I hope that the rivers will speak to you.
From Where The Water Flows is published by The O’Brien Press
