Thirty-Two Words for Field (Eagrán idirnáisiúnta) – Lost words of the Irish landscape

Rediscover the lost words of an ancient land in this new and updated edition of an international bestseller.

Most people associate Britain and Ireland with the English language, a vast, sprawling linguistic tree with roots in Latin, French, and German, and branches spanning the world, from Australia and India to North America.

But these islands are also home to older, richer languages that tell a tale of an ancient world – including Irish.

In Thirty-Two Words explores the enchantment sublime beauty of sheer oddness of a 3000-year-old lexicon. Imbuing the natural world with meaning and magic, it evokes a time-honoured way of life, from its 32 separate words for a field, to terms like loisideach (a place with a lot of kneading troughs), bróis (whiskey for a horseman at a wedding), and iarmhaireacht (the loneliness you feel when you are the only person awake at cockcrow).

Told through stories collected from Magan’s own life and travels, Thirty-Two Words for Field is an enthralling celebration of Irish words, and a testament to the indelible relationship between landscape, culture and language.