BLOGPOST SPECIAL: THE NA MAGHA SUITE

Na Magha Legacy Project Concert 9.5.2015

The Na Magha Suite

Music © Donal O'Connor and John McSherry

Words © Dave Duggan

Narrator's text:

We gather now, families and friends, in this venerable hall.

To celebrate our ancient games of sturdy stick and blazing ball.

With musicians, composers, singers, children; players all,

Who run and leap and catch and swing, by the swirling waves of Foyle.

We swing the shinny, hurl the hurl, collide and crash the curt camán,

In hardy deeds, full of cheery passion's fire, we exert our breadth and brawn,

As ancient Conall Gulban claimed the ash, by his own sword was sawn,

To run and leap and catch and swing, by the swirling waves of Foyle.

On a grave stone at Clonca, north of Moville, in fairest Inishowen,

You'll see Magnus' camán and sliotar etched upon a sculpted stone.

Mac Orriston the hurler now rests eternal, under grass delicately mown.

No more he'll run and leap and catch and swing, by the swirling waves of Foyle.

Easter is a time of hope, when Spring fires up the dormant blood.

The hurlers sense the sap astir and gather to form clubs.

They clash in Patricks' season to gain for them the cup,

Who run and leap and catch and swing, by the swirling waves of Foyle.

When churlish clerics chant their surly 'nos' aloft from pulpits bleak,

To ban the pleasant players from the Sunday fields at the end of the working week,

The hurlers, camogs, supporters, hurls aloft, players all, in one warm voice they speak,

'We will run and leap and catch and swing, by the swirling waves of Foyle'.

We players that compete today know just how blessed we are

To have a place to play on grass, in air, in doors and not on glar.

Praise Francis Carlin, Sean Dolan, heroic men and women, who now watch us from afar,

As we run and leap and catch and swing, by the swirling waves of Foyle.

When troubles anxious stunned our shattered streets

And doubters cast their bile at our numbers sore deplete

We held our hurls and passions strong, foregoing all defeat,

To run and leap and catch and swing, by the swirling waves of Foyle.

We talk about our history, as we ready to depart,

Because tomorrow calls us, to build with bricks of sport.

Let's smile and wish each other well, as we go in happy heart,

To run and leap and catch and swing, by the swirling waves of Foyle.

Song: We're all in Na Magha

Helmets strapped on tightly

Hurleys in our joyful hands

Sliotars fly before us

Crowds shout in the stands

We're happy to be hurling

Running with our many friends

Hurlers, camogs sporting

The playing never ends

We're all in Na Magha

Come see us, you hear us call

Bring your kids and join in

Welcome one and all

For hurling is for heroes

The very likes of me and you

Grasp the ash and swing it

You're in Na Magha too

Refrain:

Run and leap now

Lift and strike now

Over the bar then

Na Magha, Na Magha, Na Magha abú

Hook and block now

First time pull now

Back of the net then

Na Magha, Na Magha, Na Magha abú

Repeat verse 1 and refrain

© Dave Duggan 2015

BLOGPOST SPECIAL: HOW 'EUROPE' IS THIS!

HOW 'EUROPE' IS THIS!         ©Dave Duggan

I leave Ireland to go in search of 'Europe'. In Amsterdam, I see French actress and film star, Juliette Binoche, play Antigone in an ancient Greek tragedy by Sophocles, opposite Belfast actor, Patrick O'Kane, playing Creon the King. The production is a London, Paris and Amsterdam co-operative venture. I sit high in The Gods, the third balcony, between an English woman, an actress friend of one of the cast and a young Turkish woman. How 'Europe' is this!

The English actress' husband is exploring for oil on the Black Sea. The young Turkish woman says that residents of Turkey beside the Black Sea are perceived as country-bumpkins. She tells of a man who invented a lock that is openable by any key, because he knows how often all of us lose our keys. Instead of thinking the inventor may have a screw loose, I'm inclined to consider he is on to something. He strikes me as the sort of fellow I would enjoy meeting. The young woman tells us that her father is a retired Turkish naval officer, who didn't like working on the Black Sea. He preferred the Mediterranean.

The current tragedies on Mare Nostrum, as the Romans called it – our sea - draws European nations together to plan gun-boat activity against human traffickers, who ply an ancient trade of moving people from poor and/or war-ravaged countries to richer and/or more stable countries. It is a market, driven by push/pull factors and, like all such trading, there are massive casualties, ghastly forms of economic collateral damage.

There are historical precedents. The coffin ships that left Ireland, in the days of raging famine to plough the stormy Atlantic, were well-named for the cargoes of dead they delivered to the shores of America. The ships carrying kidnapped peoples from various coasts of the continent of Africa, in vessels owing allegiance to businesses based in Holland, Spain, Portugal and Britain – how 'Europe' is that! - were trading in a marketable commodity; human labour. Today's traffickers are in the business of meeting the desires of desperate people impelled by their desire to reach 'Europe'.

The morning after seeing the play, I am upstairs in a train – I feel so 'European'! - and witness a Die Bahn ICE train cruise by, which causes me to reflect on the tremendous endeavours of science, social organisation, engineering, financing, international co-operation, skilled and unskilled labour, precision mathematics, design aesthetics and sheer grease-gun-toting effort that led to such a moment. The inter-city train I am travelling upon travels smoothly beside a broad and serene canal, on which cargo-laden barges aim for the Rhine. I note that the canal, filled to the brim with racing waves, is higher than the train line. I feel vulnerable, an Irishman from the distant edge of the continent, yet also safely 'European'.

My carriage is packed with twenty somethings. They share the febrile cross-conversations of university students. This status is confirmed by the young man opposite me, in a conversation that reveals he is a post-graduate philosophy student, who recognises most of the other occupants of the carriage. He is confident that they, like him, are heading to Utrecht to hear a lecture by the French philosopher, Bruno Latour. Such has been the demand for tickets to this lecture that the organisers moved it, three times, to a larger venue. Bruno Latour is a member of a wine-making family in Burgundy. He won the Holberg Prize in 2013, when the citation read “Bruno Latour has undertaken an ambitious analysis and reinterpretation of modernity, and has challenged fundamental concepts such as the distinction between modern and pre-modern, nature and society, human and non-human.” The title of his lecture is “How to sort out the many ambiguities in the concept of Anthropocene.” The Dutch graduate student says the lecture will range across the philosophy of science, the relationship between Man (sic) and Nature and our experience of modernity. I am stunned and exhilarated. Surely this is 'Europe'?

On board the traffickers' ships, that cross the ancient Mare Nostrum, the actuality of modernity must stretch the analysis and imaginations of Bruno Latour and his acolytes. There are reports of babies being thrown into the sea by ships' captains, of women giving birth amidst the flotsam and jetsam. Fishermen from Lampedusa often pull up skulls and bones in their nets, the remains of the desperate who search for 'Europe'.

I visit the Hanseatic city of Doesburg, part of an early form of European union. It is the 70^th anniversary of the liberation of the city by Allied Forces in World War 2. The Stars and Stripes flies gamely above a vintage truck. A performance by three singers in GI period outfits is underway. They sing and dance in chilly Spring sunshine, headset microphones wrapped round their cheeks like plump tadpoles. The buildings around us, gothic russet-bricked marvels, dating from 1447 yet looking very much part of today's urban landscape, connect us with trading along the great rivers Rhine and Issel and the way the current 'Europe' came to be.

Suddenly a marching band is heard and into the tiny square process Scottish bag-pipers, in kilts and vintage World War 2 tunics. They are the Seaforth Highlanders of Holland and are warmly greeted by the crowd, who cheer and clap. The crowd is exclusively white and manifestly 'European'. There is no irony here. Dutch men and women dress up in traditional Scottish clothes and British Army uniforms, play Scottish-Irish marches and are thoroughly modern.

Paul Simon (American) and Sting (English) are international rock superstars. The last concert of their year long tour is in the Ziggo Dome, in the Arena zone of Amsterdam. It is a triumph of popular music and technology, enjoyed by 17, 000 people who sing along and dance in the aisles. I am once more in The Gods. The view is good, the sound superb and the band magnificent, as they play extracts from the soundtrack of my life, including Sting's mawkish lyric, “For all those born beneath an angry star, lest we forget how fragile we are.”

Paul Simon and Sting, and their marvellous band, play zydeco, reggae, Cape Town jazz, ballads, hi-life, three-chord blues, rock and roll, rai and chaabi. All the music of the world is the sound of 'Europe'.

It is no wonder the ramshackle boats keep crossing 'our' sea.

Juliette Binoche will play Antigone at The Edinburgh International Festival in August, in a modern translation is by Anne Carson. The tragedies in 'Europe' continue, ancient and contemporary.

Wish I could say I did not see the stones shrieking

Dave Duggan is a dramatist and novelist, living in Derry, Northern Ireland. His most recent play, DENIZEN, a speech from the dock by the last dissident republican, written as a verse drama, with on-stage visuals, toured court houses.

www.facebook.com/DaveDugganWriter

Shakespeare's UK Labour Blues

Post-UK election analysis by characters from Shakespeare: 

Macbeth, Brutus, Lord Scroop, Prince of Morocco, Edgar, Autolycus

Thou losest labour

Night hangs upon mine eyes; my bones would rest, 
That have but labour'd to attain this hour.

Age, thou hast lost thy labour.

Fare you well; your suit is cold.
Cold, indeed; and labour lost:
Then, farewell, heat, and welcome, frost!
Portia, adieu. I have too grieved a heart
To take a tedious leave: thus losers part.

You do climb up it now. Look how we labour.

So service shall with steeled sinews toil,
And labour shall refresh itself with hope

www.facebook.com/DaveDugganWriter

BLOGPOST SPECIAL: A UNIVERSITY FOR DERRY

THE UNIVERSITY OF DERRY? A MODEST PROPOSAL ©Dave Duggan

I attended the recent public meeting in St. Columb's Hall, calling for a university for Derry. A wit quipped that there were more people on the panel than there were in the audience. A number of speakers, as well as audience members, remarked that the hall was far from full.

As ever with our historic city, executive power rests elsewhere and leaves us all - the Regional Council, the Trades Council, the Chamber of Commerce, the Churches and other religious groupings, the business community, the industrialists, the sports people, the educators, the community and voluntary sector, the medics and the artists - presenting our open palms eastwards in a gesture of pleading. When we add the phrase 'we deserve it' to this gesture we are easily fobbed off with 'there is no money' (arguably the greatest lie thus far in the 21^st century) and told, by the powerful, to stop whingeing.

All the speakers spoke well, offering a range of insights and opinions. To a man and one woman they advocated continuing to lobby the government in Stormont for money and resources to expand the Magee Campus of the University of Ulster (UU) and to support a new university. They counselled vigilance in the face of moves by UU to downgrade the Magee Campus by course closures and staff losses.

Afterwards I wondered just how hot an issue this is for people in the city. If people really wanted a university would it not be made to happen? I support the efforts and actions proposed by the panel at the meeting and, in various forms, by others. Perhaps there is indeed a link between a full-on city university and a boost to the local economy that will mean jobs for local people. So, while efforts in that direction continue, I make this modest proposal for the University of Derry.

I propose we open a university, to be called The University of Derry, as soon as possible, say September 2015. I take a lead from another major institution in the city, The Apprentice Boys of Derry, in the naming.

Questions arise immediately. 'Where will it be?' for starters. The University of Derry will be everywhere, across the city and region. Estate agents will reveal where they hold empty offices and make them available to the University of Derry, as, being such a good idea, it is worth the support of local landlords. The community and voluntary sector has premises, already well used, that will, where possible, be available. Seminars will be held in training rooms at Du Pont and other industrial sites. There are many empty shops that will accommodate students and faculty. The Health Trust, and other government bodies, have premises, some underused, that will be available. The current third level institutions, the University of Ulster at Magee and the North West Regional College will support the University of Derry with teaching and learning accommodation and expertise. The University of the Third Age (U3A) will co-operate with and support the new University of Derry.

Who will teach in this new University of Derry? Where will the faculty be found? Right here in the city and region. A law course will be taught by practicing lawyers and solicitors. There are many in the city. Engineers and technicians from Du Pont, Seagate, Perfecseal, Diamond Corrugated, the Civil Service and other industrial settings will run STEM courses. GPs and nurses will lead courses in their specialisms. The same model will apply to other areas of the university's curriculum.

That curriculum will be student-focussed and deliver life-long learning, emphasising values current in contemporary educational practice. Courses will run on demand and be as theoretical or vocational as students determine and faculty wish to deliver. Much of the learning and teaching will occur in focussed, seminar-type tutorials.

Initially, course validation will be by certificates of attendance, which, over time, will develop into awards of vocational and professional merit. This is how the awarding bodies we now know as the Oxford and Cambridge colleges began their work. And how a body such as City and Guilds set up its activities. Who will oversee and run it? We will, with a form of Steering Group that represents, in the main, people who have children coming to university entry age.

Who will pay for all this? We will, and not by cash but in kind. The assertion that a university for the city is good can be brought to life by the resolve of people to bring their knowledge and experience to bear and to make them available in pro bono efforts. This will, of course, be a small endeavour, initially. The 'little acorns' model will apply.

The people who run the courses will do so on a small scale, over short periods of time in the first instance, to be replaced by others with knowledge and skills in the same specialism. The city and region is full of engineers, accountants, teachers, nurses, doctors, architects, builders, graphic designers, solicitors, animators, educators, digital games' developers, social workers, child-care specialists, entrepreneurs, community activists, agriculturalists, artists and others who will form faculties and deliver courses in the new University of Derry.

If such a university is to be the boon to the local economy, as many assert, then everybody will win. The University of Derry will be self-sustaining and self-perpetuating. Within a period of time, courses from The University of Derry will find recognition as access and foundation courses, satisfying entry-level requirements in other institutions with which The University of Derry will build relationships. Students will go on to other institutions if they wish and/or become seminar leaders and tutors in The University of Derry.

We will not be alone in developing a university in this way. Have a look at Temple University in Philadelphia and the work of Ralph Young and others.

http://www.cla.temple.edu/history/dissent-in-america-teach-ins/

The great European universities that emerged following the so-called Dark Ages, very often inspired by scholars from this island, in places such as Bologna, Freiburg and Leuven are rooted in this style of university. Each one, as described by Stefan Collini, is “a corporation for the cultivation and care of the communities' highest aspirations and ideals.” (What are Universities for?, Penguin, 2012).

I throw my own hat into the university ring. I have some expertise and experience of playwrighting, novel writing and theatre making. I have delivered workshops in The University of Ulster at Magee and at The North West Regional College. I look forward to contributing to The University of Derry. I will gladly lead seminars in such a new institution.

So let's keep lobbying and advocating, yes. And maybe simply start? Roll on September?

Dave Duggan is a dramatist and novelist, living in Derry.

www.facebook.com/DaveDugganWriter