When Manchán Magan received a cancer diagnosis, his neighbour in Westmeath thought it was important to tell the bees about it. This is, the writer and broadcaster told Brendan O'Connor, an ancient tradition in Ireland and England:
"You inform the bees if someone dies, but even if there’s someone sick, or, you know, who’s not going to be there. They’re concerned for you."
Magan has been living with prostate cancer for the past year and a half and is currently undergoing treatment after the disease "took a turn," as he put it, and began to spread to his bones and vital organs:
"It’s only prostate cancer. It’s like the easiest cancer. But there’s some rare, particular type of prostate cancer that’ll just devour you."
Magan’s fortitude in the face of his illness is striking – at times he almost sounds cheerful talking to Brendan in the studio. His treatment has included radiation therapy for the pain caused by his cancer progressing into his bones. Many people in his position would be forgiven for feeling anger or fear or despair, but Magan has somehow avoided the 'Why me?’ of it all and instead seems driven by what he wants to do with the time he has left:
"Mostly I’m focused on thinking, ‘Jesus, there’s books, there’s films, there’s things I want to do and, well, I can’t do very much from a hospital bed, but there’s a surprising amount I can get done."
Having literally come from St James’s Hospital to the studio, Manchán puts a surprising positivity on what most people would consider the very worst news to get:
"It’s a lovely thing to know that I can plan my last few – is it months or years? We don’t know [...] We might get a year or two and we’ll definitely get another few months."
It might seem cruel and unusual to take a cancer patient from his hospital for a chat on the radio, but Manchán insists that he really wanted to come into studio to talk to Brendan – and he has two good reasons for wanting to get behind the mic:
"First, to beg people not to send me blessings and letters and weird mystery hopes or cures and things."
The last five years for Magan have been, he says, like a "cancer of creativity," as he’s produced books and TV shows at a remarkable rate. But, he says, there’s been a book that he’s been wanting to write – and this brings us to the second reason he wanted to join Brendan in studio – a book about the Irish language and the weather. Which makes a lot of sense, given our climate. Citing the oft-quoted, but according to Manchán incorrect, factoid of the Inuit people having a hundred words for snow, he wanted to find out if the Irish people had more than ninety-nine words for rain:
"I set myself a challenge – are there ninety-nine words for rain? And I found actually there was way more than that."
In the days before Gore-Tex, Manchán says, Irish people were dealing with rain at such a level that they had to come up so many words for it in order to keep things descriptive and interesting and to keep connecting with each other. Connection is one of the main themes running through Magan’s work and it’s one he’s particularly energised by:
"Spirit is the basis. We are in nature and then, we are humans in nature, connected. So, it’s those three things. And the beautiful thing about mythology or folklore is that it amasses all those things."
Spiritualism has long been an interest for Magan and Brendan wondered how that fascination informs his views on death – the answer seems to be that it lends a kind of upside to someone facing a terminal illness:
"It’s made it a lot easier, a huge amount easier. Now, I can’t say it’s a ride in the park. I can’t say there’s, you know, not times where waves of tears come over me, me and my partner, who I never talk about much, but obviously it’s so hard. She’s slightly younger than me and when I think about her being left, that’s what saddens me, that’s what breaks my heart."
Is he scared?
"No. For some reason I’m not scared, no. There’s the sadness. The sadness of thinking about my partner being alone. Luckily I don’t have kids, that’s a huge blessing. I’ve no fear of death."
You can hear Brendan’s full conversation with Manchán by tapping or clicking the image above.
Ninety-Nine Words for Rain (and One for Sun) by Manchán Magan is published by Gill Books.
