Charlotte Ryan speaks to Ciaran Gaffney, the founder of storytelling series Seanchoíche, about empathy, reconnection and getting a second chance at saying the unsaid.
When asked about a memory of storytelling that stands out to him, Ciaran Gaffney lists a few: his mother, his sister relaying stories of London after she emigrated, and Roddy Doyle's evocative Facebook posts. But one sounds particularly visceral, a presentation he heard as a Transition Year student in Limerick.
"I'll never forget, we had this one guy, he was a gay man", he says. "This guy just came in and his whole entire presentation to a Transition Year class was about growing up in Limerick in the 1970s as a gay man and moving to New York in the '80s when all of his friends were dying from the AIDS epidemic.
"I'm not going to lie, it also did at the time feel quite damning because I was gay and I am gay. And I was like, Jesus, is this what my life is going to be like?"
Years later, Gaffney has become the brains behind Seanchoíche, a beloved storytelling night where people of all backgrounds, races, sexualities and more can share stories, from uplifting depictions of life, love and relationships to affecting stories of loss and hardship, and plenty of craic in between.
Founded four years ago, in the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic and the glut of "generic, heavily-sponsored" public events that offered people a potentially lacklustre chance to gather and reconnect, Seanchoíche has since grown into a global phenomenon.
Combining the words 'seanchaí' and 'oíche', they are intimate events that bring the spirit of our ancient storytellers into the modern age, "to bring people together, to disconnect, to listen to the elders speak, who share their wisdom and pass it down through the generations", Gaffney says.
At each event, those who wish to share a story submit a blurb to the team, who then whittle them down to a select few who go on to present their pieces to an always-sold-out room. Each night has a theme, from love to fear to strangers and embarrassment.
Gaffney and his team have held events around the world, from London and Amsterdam to Australia and Denmark. This Saturday, 18 October, the team will host one in Ghana.
The series was, Gaffney says, a way of bringing people together to rediscover one of the ways that we had always connected with one another. "The one thing I really realised during the pandemic was how much people started really valuing, looking towards the past to think of a better future", he says.
"And also this new wave of magic emerged from the mundane, where you'd be out for a walk and you'd run into a neighbour, and suddenly that catch-up you had with the neighbour, you had a very tenuous relationship prior to the pandemic, with suddenly, the most valuable interaction to you that week."
Empathy is at the heart of the series, Gaffney says. "It's an oath to empathy. By attending the event, you are committing an oath to empathy.
"You're not necessarily signing up to be entertained for the night. There's no actual impetus for the spectators. That speaker could be getting up and telling a story that maybe only five people in the room find entertaining, but it's their chance to tell it. And the audience members should still rally with the speakers and show support to those that are getting up and telling the story."
For Irish audiences, however, there may be one all-unifying topic, a theme that presents endless inspiration for stories: death.
"Irish people have such a refreshing way about discussing death and dealing with death", Gaffney says. "I'd say we've had around 9,000 speakers. I'd say maybe a thousand have been about death in some way, shape, or form. And most of those people have been Irish."
Seanchoíche will be running an event as part of the Bram Stoker Festival this year, taking 'stories from the shadows' as its theme for the night. Although tickets for attendees are sold out, the team still has some spots for storytellers available.
"There's so many different ways you can angle that", Gaffney says of the theme. "And it being Bram Stoker, it would be pretty cool to have some stories that are speaking to the idea of the spookiness of that time of year.
"We're not just looking for spooky, haunty stories that speak to the parallel. We also would love to have stories about an encounter. A disturbing encounter could be, you decide to go to a spa the week after you just got fired. Who do you see in the communal showers, but the boss had fired you the week before!"
It can also be a chance to speak about the loss of a loved one, Gaffney says, especially if "you didn't have the voice or you didn't have the words to do it in the immediate aftermath of said passing".
"I think a lot of people who have come through our doors actually have just basically got to say something that they never got the chance to say when the person that they loved passed. And I think that that can be a really lovely way of seeking closure."
