Ilghnéitheacht an ghrá: an scannán ‘Paris je t’aime’ sa Kino i gCorcaigh.

Cuireann sé isteach orm i gcónaí nuair a luaitear go bhfuil Páras ina chathair an ghrá a chiallódh go mbeadh substaint áirithe ag na Francaigh maidir le mothucháin, gean agus eros. Shil mé i gcónaí go raibh dóthain románsaíochta le fáil i mbeagnach gach tír, go mbraitheann sé ar an gcás ar leith. Mar sin, bhíos beagánín amhrasach faoin scannán nua ón bhFrainc ar na mallaibh darb ainm ‘Paris je t’aime’. Bhíos amhrasach nach mbeadh ach an cliché ceannean ceanna i gceist anseo arís. Mar i mo thuairim féin agus dar mó thaithi féin, níl na Francaigh románsúil ar chor ar bith. Ligeann siad orthu go bhfuil ach níl ann ach sotal agus bromuabhair i ndáiríre. É sin ráite, d’athraigh an scánnán seo mo mheon go han éasca. Is cnuasach gearscannáin atá i gceist anseo ó roinnt stiúrthóirí agus tá beagnach gach eagsúlacht, gach taobh den choincheap ghrá á taiscealadh acu. Is iad Walter Salles, Alfonso Cuaron, Tom Tykwer, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven, Alexander Payne, Gurinder Chadhla agus Joel agus Ethan Coel na stiúrthóíri Tá gach gearscannán lonnaithe sa arrondissement éigin, le ocht déag in iomlán .Tagann an éagsúlacht chultúrtha agus éitneach sa bPáras amach go han éifeachtach chomh maith; feiceann tú lánúin de bhunadh aifreach; moslamaigh, chomh maith le daoine atá ag tabhairt cuairt i bPáras ar feadh tamaillín. Is petites vignettes simplí iad an chuid is mó de na gearrscanáin seo agus taiscealann siad na bealaí éagsúla a chuireann muid forrán ar a chéile sna mórchaithair, na eachraí neamhghnách a tharlaíonn go minic, mion-eachtraí agus timpistí uaireanta a athraíonn ár saol nuair a bhuaileann an coup de foudre muid agus titeann muid i ngrá.

Tá idir ghreann agus tragóid ins na scéaltaí seo agus caithfidh mé a adhmháil go raibh deoraí ag teacht orm níos mó ná uair amháin agus ní tharlaíonn sé sin go minic dom. An scéal faoi Aifriceánach a thiteann i ngrá le cailín a fheiceann sé i gcarchlos; is ceoldhráma beag tubaisteach álainn atá ann. Tá scéal eile faoi lánúin atá i ndólás tar éis bháis a mhic. Baineann an stiúrthóir usáid as an genre réalachais draíochta chun meascán mearaí samhlaíochta a mhic agus a n-intinn suaite féin a chur in iúl dúinn go truamhéalach.

Rud a thaitin go mór liom faoina scannáin seo ná go mbuaileann daoine le chéile ar na sráideanna an cuid is mó; ní chasann siad ar a chéile sna pubanna nó dioscós, nil aon alcól i gceist cosúil leis an tír seo. Oibríonn na scannáin go han-éifeachtach gan aon radharc gnéis freisin! Mar sin, tá macántacht dhaonúil ar leith sa scannán seo, rud a chuir i bhfeidhm orm; ach ar an taobh eile, taispeánann sé chomh maith cé chomh deacair is atá sé uaireanta chun casadh le daoine sa ville celibataire!

Bhí stiúrthóirí as na Stáit Aontaithe chomh maith le stiúrthóirí briontanacha a rinne chuid de na scannáin seo, agus bíonn béarla á labhairt go minic da bharr. Mar sin, is dócha go mbeadh suim in sna scannáin seo ar an dá thaobh na mara atlantaigh. Ní bheidh na Meiricánaigh róshásta lena láitheoireacht i roinnt scannáin áfach: feictear turasóirí ramhar ag dul timpeall le T-léine a rá ‘We are the World.’ Ach déanann gach stiúrthóir iarracht ilghnéitheacht an duine daonna a chur in iúl. Mar sin, bhraitheas níos mó bá ná scigaithris sa scannán deireannach faoi bhean ó na Stáit Aontaithe a thagann go Páras chun saol nua a bhaint amach tar éis bhriseadh a caidrimh le fear sa Denver. Tá an scannán sin lonnaithe sa Rive Gauche.Is Meiricánach tipicúil í; caitheann sí brógaí spóirt agus bríste gear agus mar sin de. Cloiseann muid í mar tráchtaire agus insíonn sí a scéal dúinn in bhFraincis le foclóir agus gramadach réasúnta maith ach le cánúint mheiricánach. Cé go bhfuair alán daoine é sin an-ghreannmhar, measaim féin go raibh na stiúrthóirí ag iarraidh a mhalairt a thaispeáint chomh maith. Céard atá mícheart le cánúint mheiricánach? Bhí a teanga an-sholéir; nach labhraíonn chuid is mó de na Francaigh béarla le cánúint uafásach? Ar ndóigh, labhraíonn na Francaigh béarla léi agus sin an fhadhb sa domhan faoi láthair go ndúiltíonn an-chuid daoine sa Mhór-Roinn a dteangacha a labhairt linn; bfhearr leo a gcuid Béarla a chleachtadh agus ansin deireann siad go sotalach nach féidir linn a dteangacha a labhairt in aon chor! Níl aon amhras ach go bhfuair siad aisteoir den scoth don ról sa ghearrscannán seo. Tagann a daonnacht álainn, a fulaingt amach ach a brionglóidí agus a jeu d’espris freisin, ionas go chuireann sé gréim ar do chroí. Cé nach bhfuil grá ina saol deireann an bhean gur thit sí i ngrá le Páras agus gur thit Páras i ngrá léi. Do nóiméad bheag sa camera oscura thit mise i ngrá leis an bhean sin freisin mar chomhartha de uile-bhean a fhulaingíonn ar an domhan aonar seo. Ní fheicfidh muid scannán mar sin arís sar i bhfad.

Gluais / Glossary

• Luaitear - it is mentioned
• Amhrasach - suspicious
• sotal agus bromuabhair - arrogance and haughtiness
• taiscealadh - to explore
• titeann muid i ngrá- we fall in love
• macántacht dhaonúil - humane honesty
• ilghnéitheacht- multi-faceted
• scigaithris - satire, lampoon
• mar chomhartha de uile-bhean a fhulaingíonn – as a symbol of every woman who suffers

Gearóid Ó Colmáin on Pornography, European Culture and the Irish Language

Jean-Léon Gérôme, Phryne vor dem Areopag 1861, Hamburger Kunsthalle

I recently read an article on the Irish language weekly Foinse about a new porn film being made in the Irish language. The idea of sex in Irish seems quite exotic at first. Instead of” yes, yes, yes”, one would have “sea, sea, sea, “and so on. One could imagine many other translations of sexual performance clichés that might appeal to one’s restless perversions but what exactly is the point of pornography? To be sure, if one were not certain as to what really happens when two people take off all their clothes and go to bed together, porn films might have some educational value. Of course, you would have to point out to those you were instructing that most people don’t have bodies that look like they were carved out of marble and that it is important to wear condoms, unlike the idiots in the porn film.

The problem with pornography is that it is just so profoundly boring and utterly pointless. I am reminded of the famous essay by the French theorist Roland Barthes, who wrote about the way in which the act of a strip-tease is a process of de-sexualisation. The more we see the less our expectation. The performance of taking off one’s clothes destroys its intimacy and instead we are left with an image devoid of content.

Modern European culture is saturated with sex. The joy of looking and breaking taboos is paradigmatic of the Western mind in general; we want to see and experience everything, and the egotistical ideology that subtends capitalist societies encourages this. The history of western art is replete with nudity, and, unlike the Moslems, we take great joy in seeing the naked, bruised body of our mythological saviour- figure. The problem, however, is that pornography’s logic is the logic of transgression and this transgression can continue ad infinitum, leading in some cases to violence and pedophilic abuse. How we control pornography is going to be one of the biggest challenges facing western societies in this century. It also raises troubling questions about the validity of the nuclear family as a basic unit of society. Is the monogamous family with the father as its head the only valid way to construct society? Is pornography a symptom of our anxiety about this?

In capitalist society sex has become an enormous industry; it drives most forms of advertising. However, behind most of this, is the prurient male gaze. Most of the world’s pornography industry is driven by male desire, male voyeurism. This is because capitalist society is predominantly patriarchal in structure. In such a context, women become objects of exchange or facilitators of exchange in the case of advertising. Even in the history of art, one sees this fascination with viewing the female body in its entirety, while the male genital organ is always covered. Even in the sixteenth century paintings of Lucas Cranach we see the vagina of Venus covered with a diaphanous veil, which only serves to focus our attention on what is beneath. But there is no such revelation in his portrait of Adam. The same rules apply to contemporary pornography: it is ok to show all the female body but not that of the male.

One could argue that the sexual impulse, as the primal life-force of the world, dominates the human psyche more than any other force. Even in societies where nudity is taboo, this ban on sexual expression is pursued with frenetic zeal. I remember the first book of the Greek historian Herodotus’s histories where he describes the rise and fall of the ancient Lydian Empire, which was in modern day Turkey. He tells the story of the lineage of King Croesus. The downfall of Croesus and his line occurred due to a sexual trangression by his ancestor Gyges, who was the servant of King Candaules. Candaules tells his servant Gyges that his wife is the fairest in the world and that if he does not believe him, he should sneak a look at her when she is undressing in her boudoir. Gyges, though reluctant at first, agrees but is caught be the wife of King Candaules, who encourages him to kill her husband and elope with her, usurping the regal line. Herodotus tells us that nudity was taboo for the Lydians, whereas the Greeks had little trouble with it. Here we see what is, perhaps, the first schism between the thinking of east and west in our attitudes to sex. We in the west still aspire to the aesthetic dimensions of the male and female nude as conceived by Greek sculptors such as Apelles and Praxiteles. The physical dimensions aspired to by most women and displayed obsessively across the mass media of the West approximate to those of the Greek statue of Venus de Milo in the Louvre in Paris. However, the inheritors of Ancient Lydia, today’s Middle Eastern countries, vehemently reject such corporeal worship. But in mankind’s obsessive uncovering and covering up of the human body, there is the same insuperable force at work, the life-force, the sexual instinct dominating human consciousness.

There is no doubt that the ‘sexyness’ is now an ubiquitous concept in Europe. Everything aspires to the conditions of ‘sexyness’. Even decisions to go to war are said to be on the basis of mendacious ‘sexed-up’ dossiers. For a language to appeal to young people it has to be ‘sexy’. To be sure, TG4 have inspired a whole generation of Gaelgeoirí with a keen interest in meteorology with their voluptuous weather-girls. The sad fact is that many of the men who watch the weather on TG4 can never remember the forecast! But would they appeal to us as much if they appeared completely naked in front of the camera? Probably not as much; there would be nothing left to imagine and we would eventually become bored. That is why the idea of Gaelporn is infinitely more exciting than its realization on screen. However, I could, of course, be wrong about this. We’ll have to wait and see. Coinnigí súil amach!

Tá an réabhlóid ag teacht

Every year it’s the same, droves of obstreperous kids bundled hastily into the car and dispatched forthwith to the Gaeltacht for the annual intake of culture and language. It’s part and parcel of being Irish and middle class. “We’re sending them off to the Gaeltacht” “Off to the Gaeltacht with ye, ye bloody nuisance” Nowadays its all about keeping those kids busy. Everything is organized, the life of man has become an infinite course.

As soon as a child can sit up straight he or she is consigned to some form of institute. Playschool; pre-school; primary school; summer school etc etc. There is no end to our society’s craving for institutional education. I should point out that I do not believe there is anything wrong with ‘sending them to the Gaeltacht’, just that, well, it does smack a little of Cromwell’s infamous ‘to hell or to Connaught!’ I approve of sending people to the Gaeltacht but the problem is that we need to think more about sending the Gaeltacht to our children and not just once a year. The Gaeltacht and Irish language and culture are not the sacred possession of certain parts of the country. Irish culture belongs to whoever participates in it. Most of the parents who send their children to the Gaeltacht make no effort to learn or speak the language to their children themselves. For them, it is comforting to think that there is a ‘place’, a kind of parallel world where Gaelic culture thrives, and that they can ‘send’ them there to imbibe this cultural elixir.

That is not to say that the education in Gaelic is not good. In many cases it is outstanding. Take Coláiste Lurgan in An Spidéal, Contae na Gaillimhe, for example; this summer college is run by Micheál Ó Foghail who has developed his own pedagogical methodologies using the latest computer software. This is one college where Béarla is taboo and one thing I noticed when I visited there last year is the satisfaction experienced by the students at their ability to speak the language. I remember Trevor Sargent making a speech to them as Gaeilge about the importance of our heritage, and thinking what a shame that the skills these kids learn here, this new way of expressing themselves, this other way of being, is abandoned for another year as soon as they leave for home. It is as though they feel that the language only exists if you are in the Gaeltacht, that it is impossible to speak it anywhere else. And for most of them this is the case. The fault lies with the parents who are too busy working to pay for the teach mór (big house) to attend Irish classes or teach themselves the language. Of course, one can’t just blame the parents, it is the ensemble of socio-economic conditions in this country which saps the creative energy out of our population.

The Gaeltacht is a wonderful place but we must stop viewing it as topography, as a particular place or location; we must make it a kind of psychography; this is one of my latest neologisms. What I mean by psychography is one’s own mental map. The language must become part of our state of mind again; it is not a question of where the physical boundaries of the Gaeltacht are; it is a question of when the language is spoken and how often. For in reality the language is spoken in little pockets of Gaeltacht all over the island every day from classrooms in Oileán Tóraigh to government departments, cafés and pubs in Dublin.

I often wear a T-shirt that says ‘Tá an réabhlóid ag teacht’, the revolution is coming. I know it sounds like pseudo-socialist posturing but people notice and they stop and ask me what ‘reabhlóid’ means. I say reabhlóid is when someone goes out wearing an Irish language T-shirt and everyone wants to know what it means. That moment is revolutionary because the language itself is saying “I am revolutionary, I exist, I am coming not going”. Marx spoke of the spectre of socialism haunting Europe; Gaeilge too is a spectre but we must invoke it. That is what I mean by réabhlóid. For me these moments are microcosmic epiphanies of the move from Gaelic topography to Gaelic psychography, from Irish as a physical space to a mental event. Socio-cultural change always begins in our minds; it is about making the Gaeltacht a state of mind.

The Gaeltacht is ceasing to be spatial; it is becoming temporal and mobile. The internet is buzzing with new Irish language blogs, web-sites chat-rooms and international networks all the time. Gaeilge is online and ubiquitous; it is a signal coruscating throughout the world-wide web, and of all the Indo-European languages it has the most impressive linguistic resources to translate the terminology of this new cyberworld. Last week had more lugubrious news about a school in Mayo with just one ‘native’ Irish speaker. Again it is the ‘send them to the Gaelscoil’ syndrome where the parents believe that the language is simply a place, a kind of magical Tir na N-Óg making proper Gaels out of their young Óisín or Caoimhe, but this will only happen if the language is part of the home environment. I say it is time to send the parents to the Gaeltacht or even better, send the Gaeltacht to the parents. Maybe then they could stop mindlessly sending their kids hither and thither and allow them to express themselves in a different language. Now that would be child psychology in the best Gaelic tradition.

Gearóid Ó Colmáin on the roots of Ireland's Celtic heritage, and its Sanskrit origins

When the sun rises on the 21st day of June every year, throngs of new-age Celtic enthusiasts gather near the Hill of Tara for the summer solstice. They are no doubt motivated by a well- intentioned desire to revive ancient Druidic practices and ‘re-connect’ with our Celtic past. But the real significance of our Celtic heritage is only beginning to become clear to us, and it involves a journey which is not only historical but geographical as well; a journey which takes us across Europe and the Middle East into India and parts of China.

We are in the trail of one of the world’s great civilisations, which probably had its origins in the Caucasus or Anatolia (what is now modern Turkey), spreading eastward into India and westward throughout the European continent till it reached Ireland. I am talking about what scholars refer to as ‘Indo-European’, the parent language from which most European languages are derived.

The word ‘druid’ is comprised of two elements: ‘dru’, cognate with ‘drus’ in Classical Greek (both words used to name the oak tree), and ‘vid’, meaning ‘to see or to know’, comparable to the Latin ‘videre’ (both derived from the Sanskrit ‘vid’, which has a similar meaning). Therefore, someone who is a druid is an oak-seer, or oak-knower; in other words, someone capable of divining the innermost secrets of the universe.

The ancient texts of India are called the Vedic texts, from the same root ‘vid’. The interpreters of these texts were called Brahmins, and their occult knowledge was called ‘Vedas’, or wisdom. All the evidence suggests that the Brahmins of India and the druids of Eireann are cousins, and this is borne out by the astonishing similarities of Old Irish with the old language of India, Sanskrit. In fact, no other language in the Indo-European family shows such a close relationship. Just some examples will suffice to demonstrate this extraordinary affinity: naib (good in Old Irish) to noeib (holy in Sanskrit); badhire (deaf) to bodhar (deaf); names (respect) to nemed (respect) – there are many more.

But to come back to the cosmic divination I mentioned above, it is important to bear in mind that at the time, Europe was covered in forests, and that the oak tree was significant for many Indo-European cultures. I have written about this before, as I have about Danu, our great mother goddess whose breasts protrude from the hills of West Cork and whose waters flow where ever her name is known: the Danube, the Rhone, the Don, etc. She is also found in India. Rivers played a central role in divination and ritual, votive offerings and burials.

Perhaps an authentic reconstruction of druidic ritual in Tara this coming solstice might involve successive readings from the Rig Veda in Sanskrit, and perhaps the Song of Amghairghin the Druid in Old Irish – a song that, according to the scholar Peter Beresford Ellis, parallels the declaration of Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita:

Am gaeth im muir
Am tond trethan
Am fuaim mara
Am dam secht ndrenn

(I am the wind in the sea / I am the sea-wave upon the land / I am the roar of the sea / I am the stag of the seven fights)

That would be a ceremony worthy of respect.

And yet, even aside from the Hindu parallels, there is also a Buddhist connection. In an Old Irish manuscript found in Würzburg, Germany, the word ‘budh’ was given as ‘ point of fire’ and the ‘planet Mercury’ in the glossary. The basic meaning of the word ‘budh’ in all Celtic languages is ‘all victorious’ – ‘Buachaint’ in modern Irish means ‘ to win’. The name of the British warrior queen Boudicaa, who revolted against Roman rule in 60AD, is also derived from this root. The word occurs again in Sanskrit and means ‘to know’ or ‘to be enlightened’, giving us the term ‘Buddism’, while the name for the planet Mercury in the Vedas is also ‘Budh’.

I have to conclude that any ceremonies on the Hill of Tara which do not include Buddhist or Hindu incantations are little more than vacuous twaddle, for it is only through our encounter with these traditions, still very much alive, that we can begin to discover the possible meaning of our own. Perhaps then, as the sun descends on Tara, we can raise our heads to the skies and sing with Krishna – in Irish, croi (heart):

Among the Adiyas Vishnu I am/Among lights the radiant sun/Among the Maruts Marici I am/Among the stars I am the moon

Perhaps then, one could come down from Tara as, in the winged-words of the late John Moriarty, “a sage who comes back speaking Upanishads among us”.

For an archaeology of Irish and Hindi visit www.gaeltacht.eu

Gearóid Ó Colmáin on Ireland’s crisis of identity

When the week’s work is completed and the country is gripped by a Saharan thirst, bar stools shake all over the country as animated drinkers try to come to terms with themselves and their world through communal intoxication. In most countries this is referred to as a drink-problem or as anti-social behaviour; in Ireland it is called ‘culture’. But although there is much harmless good-will and mirth to be perceived in Irish pubs, there is an ineluctable truth in the old adage ‘in vino veritas’, there is truth in wine, or beer as the case may be, and this truth is not always palatable. Nevertheless, it spills out among certain circles when pints are poured; that is, the vexed question of the ‘effing foreigners’. One often hears phrases like “ there are too many fucking foreigners in this country or those bleedin foreigners are destroying our culture”.

But there were many aspects of the Irish education system in the past that laid the foundations for xenophobia. The prevailing ideology of the early Free State was that foreign influences were dangerous and corrupting. This conservatism is deeply ingrained in Irish culture. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Catholic Church encouraged cooperation with the British Imperial State and began to say mass in English to a populace who could not speak this language. This was one of the main reasons why the language died out in many parts of the country. However, as soon as the Free State was formed, the Church promoted the Irish language as it was perceived as a bulwark against ‘foreignness’. In both cases, the highjacking of Irish identity by a conservative institution hampered any attempts to escape from the nightmare of history. Thus, Ireland entered the post-modern world, the world of mass communication, the global village, without having had the chance to come to terms with modernity or its place within it. We have gone from an agrarian society under the yoke of a medieval church to a post-modern society under the yoke of mass media. In a multicultural Ireland with reactionary racist elements, the Irish language could be used as an emblem of pure-blooded celticity distinguishing us from the foreign intruders. It could then become an instrument of a racist nationalism.

But the reality is that the immigrants have shown more of an interest in the Irish language than the ethnic Irish themselves. Where they differ is that while they may learn English and embrace Anglophone culture, they do not abandon their own languages as our ancestors did. It is perfectly conceivable, then, that the future of Irish will be safer and more vibrant in the hands of the ‘New Irish’ than the Irish of the past. They might become yet become ‘hibernensis hiberniores’ more Irish than the Irish themselves, as the 11th century Norman invaders were called.

It is worth bearing this in mind as we approach one of Ireland’s great cultural events: Bloomsday. Bloomsday is celebrated on the 16th of June every year to mark that day in the Dublin of 1904 which Joyce immortalized in his book Ulysses. Leopold Bloom is a Dubliner of ethnic Jewish extraction, an outsider in his own city. He is attacked in a pub by such characters as ‘The Citizen’ whose dog speaks Irish! The Citizen scolds Bloom for not being ‘really Irish’. Joyce lampooned what he saw as the closed reactionary elements of the Gaelic Revival. His own view of the Irish predicament at the time is poignantly depicted in the opening chapter where an old woman representing Ireland (the Sean Bhean bhocht- the poor old woman) delivers milk to the students in the Martello Tower. She is addressed in Irish by an English man called Haines( la Haine is French for ‘hate’). She does not understand him and asks:

“is that French you are talking sir?”

When she is told that the gentleman is English and believes we ought to speak Irish in Ireland, she replies;

“sure we ought to…. And I’m ashamed I don’t speak the language myself. I’m told it’s a grand language by them that knows”.

No other chapter in Anglo-Irish literature reveals more profoundly, more incisively the paradoxical nature of the Irish psyche and the trauma of colonization. Although Joyce himself had little Irish, (he was apparently taught some Gaeilge by none other than Padraig Pearse), his Italian writings spoke favourably about the language revival in Ireland. Unfortunately, the magnum opus in Irish comparable to Ulysses in scale and profundity has yet to be composed. Joyce’s work is an attempt to take the temperature of his time and place, to capture the essence of his people in all their complexity. Even though it is set in Dublin, the work is uniquely cosmopolitan, almost prescient of today’s multicultural city. It is an odyssey of the mind probing the collective consciousness and perhaps our collective unconscious(although Joyce disagreed with Freud on these matters). His aim as set out in his previous work was to ‘ forge in the smithy of my soul, the uncreated conscience of my race’. The challenge for the artist of today is how to forge the uncreated conscience of the many races; many ethnicities, many languages that constitute our country and our world.

Gearóid Ó Colmáin on the Spectacle of the Bull and its Symbolism

If there is one thing that is synonymous with Spanish culture that distinguishes it from the other nations of Europe, it has to be bullfighting. Corrida de Torros or bullfighting is unique to Spain but the spectacle of the bull and its symbolism is not. The symbolism of the bull runs throughout Indo-European history and is probably pre-Indo-European, going back to the very origins of human civilization in the nebulous past known to us today as the Neolithic period around 9000 BCE when agriculture was developed but probably stretching back to the origins of symbol-making around 25000 BCE. The depictions of bulls in the caves of Lascaux in France are proof of the centrality and symbolism of the bull in pre-historic societies. In ancient societies the bull was perceived as a symbol of fertility and regeneration; it was also associated with the moon, its horns representing the crescent moon. It stands to reason in an agricultural society that the bull or ox would be revered as the key to the survival of the group, as it was used to till the land and provided meat and clothing for the tribe.

In ancient Egypt a black bull known as the Apis bull was kept for special ceremonies. It was associated with the fertility and creator god Apis; it was also identified with the sky-god Amon and Osiris the god of death. Osiris was said to be borne on the back of the black Apis bull, being ritually slaughtered and resurrected according to the seasons. The horns of the bull were often associated with the crecent moon while the its fiery temper invoked the regenerative power of the sun. The sacrifice of the bull was common in ancient societies such as Sumeria 3000BCE. Previously, primitive societies had sacrificed their king in order to fertilize and regenerate the earth. The sacrifice of ritual regicide was common throughout the ancient world. The king was ritually slane and his body-parts either eaten or strewn throughout the land .It is quite possible that the story of Christ, the sacrificial lamb, is drawn from the same tradition, as many key elements of this story are drawn from previous ancient religions such as Zoroastrianism. This would explain why people symbolically ‘eat’ the body and blood of this god- king at mass. The king as sacrificial victim was subsequently replaced by an animal such as a bull or horse. There is still a movement in Bullfighting today known as the ‘Veronica Pass’, which mimicks the wiping of Christ’s brow said to have been performed by Veronica as he made his way to Golgotha. The Persian god Mithras, a precursor of Christ, was also worshiped in the form of a bull. In Isreal the Canannaite Baal and his consort Astarte were incarnated as bulls. In Babalonia the gods Hadad and Enil were also bull-gods. Israelites often referred to God as the ‘bull of heaven’.

Ireland’s famous megalithic site is known in English as Newgrange. But the Irish name is ‘brú na bóinne’ which means the Boyne Valley. The word ‘boyne’ comes from the Irish ‘bó’meaning bull or cow; this is cognate with the Latin Bos whence ‘bovine’ and the Greek ‘bous’. Linguists claim that the root of this word approximates to the Sanskrit ‘gauh’ which mutated into ‘cow’, ‘Kuh’ and ‘krowa’ in Germanic and Slavic languages, while the ‘gu’ was replaced by ‘bo’ in the Celtic and Italic languages. In pre-historic Ireland the bull also played a major role in society. The great Irish epic An Táin Bó Chuailigne, or the Cattle Raid of Cooley, was said to have been caused by the desire of Queen Maeve of Connaught for the beautiful brown bull of Cooley, precipitating conflict with the province of Ulster. It is likely that the symbolism of the bull in Irish mythology is pre-Celtic but that our name for it is Celtic or Indo-European.

In India the bull is identified with fertility and fire. In the Rig-Veda Rudra the celestial bull fertilizes the earth with his sperm, while Agni, the god of fire is also incarnated as a bull. Shiva the destroyer rides a white bull called Nandin. Indra, too, is described as a bull god and there is the bull-god Vrishabha who spins the cosmic wheel. The very Urmyth of Europe itself begins with an encounter with a bull in the form of a god. Europa is abducted and impregnated by Zeus,(from the Sanskrit ‘dyu’ meaning ‘to shine’) in the form of a white bull; and, of course, there is the story of King Minos of Crete whose wife Pasphae copulates with a bull creating the infamous Minotaur. It is clear that Queen Maeve of Connaught and Pasiphae of Crete were overcome by a mysterious, sexual and ritual-symbolic taurophilia, whose origins probably preceded the formation of the Celtic and Minoan civilizations by thousands of years.

I recently attended a bullfight in Toledo. Spanish bullfighting stretches back to Celtic Iberia, whence the Irish are said to have been descended from the line of King Milesius. The ritual of bull slaughter was made into a spectacle by the Romans, who loved watching blood-shed. Animal rights activists regularly express their disgust at this ritual slaughter of our fellow animals. They certainly have a point, for the moral question with respect to animals other than ourselves is not whether they can think or speak but whether they can suffer. But I have to admit I enjoyed it. My mind looped from Brú na Bóinne, through Egypt across to India and back via Crete to a stadium in Spain, where the mysteries of light and darkness, life and death, the sky and the earth, in other words, the fundamental components of the human imagination were being enacted before me. In contemplation of the antiquity of this practice and its primordial relationship with man, my sympathy for the suffering animal was overcome by a visceral and primitive sense of the world-historical, the terrifying ecstasy of mythic ritual, the cold, dark, ineffable wonder of it all.