Cillian Murphy

Today, I paused on my bóithrín to consider the cultural power emanating from this unique little island that has always been my home.

Across the Atlantic, Irishness was centre stage at the Oscars.

Storytelling has been a part of our lives for millennia, and the seanchaí was a revered figure in Gaelic Ireland.

That ability to tell, re-tell and connect is something we Irish do naturally.

Moreover, it has found its expression on the page, the stage, and the screen.

When the brilliant Cillian Murphy clutched his Oscar for Best Actor in Oppenheimer, he signed off with “Go raibh míle maith agaibh.”

I’m sure that his thousand thanks to the assembled crowd were heartfelt.

In the backstage interview, he quickly told everyone he was “proud to be Irish”.

A treat awaits you if you haven’t seen the three-hour epic that won Murphy the Oscar.

No spoilers, but the Corkman is hypotonic as the brilliantly troubled physicist who led the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos.

Robert Oppenheimer was undoubtedly “the father of the bomb”.

Telling that story with three hours of screen time was, as a creative project, a high-risk venture.

Consequently, the authenticity of the central performance was critical to the movie’s success.

In my opinion, Christopher Nolan’s film with the Irishman in the lead role is right up there with Citizen Kane.

Before Murphy became known to British viewers as Thomas Shelby in Peaky Blinders, he starred in Ken Loach’s film The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

Playing Damien, the young doctor who becomes an IRA Volunteer in a flying column, the film captures the courageous sacrifice and tragedy of my grandparents’ generation.

It is impossible to disentangle the Irish revolutionary tradition from our literary community.

Pádraig Pearse famously observed that the proposed rebellion would at least “rid Ireland of three bad poets” as he, MacDonagh, and Plunkett were already published.

Of course, storytelling can also be in the form of a novel or a personal memoir.

I’m currently dandering through this gem.

It’s just wonderful storytelling of the kind that draws you in as the soft day runs down the window pane outside.

A republican seanchaí.

Full disclosure: we’ve been friends and colleagues for more decades than we would care to confess.

Sadly, according to the author,  All the Dead Voices is out of print, and I was lucky to get a previously owned copy.

I can’t believe that it passed me by when it first came out in 2001.

Danny said it might not even have been reviewed in An Phoblacht, a publication he once edited.

I said that was very bad form from whoever was in charge of the reviews at the paper when it was published.

Then I remembered.

Your humble correspondent was the reviews fella back then.

Ah well, that’s a scéal eile!

So to the Corkman, a mighty comhghairdeas!

Thoroughly deserved.