The Amergin Step

The Amergin Step is named after the famous poem that Leabhar Gabhála Éireann tells us was recited by the poet and lawmaker of the Gaelic Milesian people, as he stepped ashore in Kerry after their voyage from Galicia.

Contemporary and historical literature, folklore, myth, archaeology and placenames are explored by the author at the same time as he explores the mountains, sea and islands of the tip of the Iveragh peninsula to uncover the stories that have animated them from earliest to present times. The Milesians, Skellig Michael and other early Christian sites, as well as the literary voice of the Derrynane O’Connells, are among the stories discovered in this spectacular landscape.

The Amergin Step is also a call for an imaginative step into the places we inhabit so that, like Amergins’s poem, we can try to identify with our places rather than own them. Our survival, the book argues, depends on taking this step.

Clár:

• lc Tabhairt a Choisse Desi in hÉrinn – Milesian Footprints
• Lines of Vision and a Stone Butterfly – The Monastic Site at Cill Ó Buaine
• Fionán Locha Luíoch, mo Naomh-sa – Sanctifying the Landscape
• Most Fantastic and Impossible – Skellig Michael as an Island of the Mind
• An Glór Conallach – The Poetic Voice of the O’Connells of Iveragh
• The Woman who Danced on the Shore – A Coda
• Appendix – ‘Caoineadh Art Uí Laoghaire’ by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, translated by Paddy Bushe