Irish Roots and Radical Hope with Manchán Magan and Shirley Anne McMillan

Dwight Dunston brings listeners into a reflective discussion with two Irish writers, Manchán Magan and Shirley Anne McMillan, as they explore Ireland's divided history, cultural resilience, and visions for a more harmonious future.

Manchán Magan, a writer and documentarian from the Republic of Ireland, speaks about his family’s legacy of preserving the Irish language and culture. “We were isolated,” he says, reflecting on Ireland’s history of being on “the very edge of Europe.” He describes how colonial forces tried to erase Irish culture and language and how his ancestors fought to keep them alive. Now, he feels called to reconnect Irish people to this heritage and the land, bridging the ancient and modern worlds in his work: “For me, world-building is trying to manifest little glimpses… of living in a more harmonious way.” Manchan’s LinkTree.

Shirley Anne McMillan, a children’s author and the Seamus Heaney Writing Fellow at Queen’s University, Belfast, shares her experience of growing up in a Protestant community in Northern Ireland. She recalls her father’s life as a soldier in the British army, a role that brought complexity and danger into their home life. “I knew he checked his car for bombs every morning,” she reveals, underscoring the tension and risk her family faced. Now, Shirley strives to help young people make sense of these complex histories through her writing, creating stories that offer understanding and resilience: “I want them to feel that they can do something good… you can always add to the goodness.”

As Manchán and Shirley explore their different experiences growing up in Ireland, they find common ground in their hopes for a peaceful future that honors Ireland's cultural roots and builds a more connected, ecologically balanced society. Their conversations with Dwight reflect visions of Ireland where historical wounds are acknowledged, and diverse identities and histories are woven into a shared, harmonious future.

Guest Introductions:

• Manchán Magan
  • Irish author, documentarian, and host of The Almanac of Ireland podcast, Manchán is known for books like Thirty-Two Words for Field and Listen to the Land Speak, whi

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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Transcript

Shirley Anne McMillan: 0:07

I don't expect people to understand the complexities of being born on the side of the colonizer and then growing up to see a broader truth of what happens in Northern Ireland.

Manchán Magan: 0:19

I decided I want to take back the Irish language and my connection with my surroundings, but not have it about violence.

Dwight Dunston: 0:30

You're listening to The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope, a Pendle Hill podcast where Quakers and other seekers come together to explore visions of the world growing through the cracks of our broken systems. I'm your host, Dwight Dunstan. This season, we're focusing our attention on world building. It is easy to point out all that is wrong today, but what is the world we long to see and inhabit? What models from the past inspire us as we consider new ways of organizing society in the future, and how can we begin to live in that new reality right now? On today's show, we're joined by two Irish writers, Manchán Magan, and Shirley Anne McMillan. They come from different parts of a deeply divided Ireland. Manchán grew up in the Republic of Ireland, where his family embraced the Irish language, mythology and a deep love for the land. For him, this was a way to keep his culture alive, a culture colonialism tried to erase. Shirley Anne grew up in Northern Ireland, which is sometimes called the north of Ireland, or just the North. She comes from a Protestant family and community tied to the British state. Irish culture felt threatening and foreign in her world, something to keep at arm's length. These opposite childhoods reflect the split history of their homeland. For 30 years, the troubles brought violence and division, while the conflict affected the North and the Republic of Ireland. It was most intense in the north. In 1998 the Good Friday Agreement ended this era of conflict. It wasn't just a cease fire. It created a new path forward. The agreement established a power sharing structure, allowing nationalists and Unionists to work together. It also included language about a potential reunification of Ireland, specifying that this would only happen if a majority in both Northern Ireland and the Republic supported it. While Irish unification remains complex and uncertain, the agreement laid the groundwork for a shared future where people in Northern Ireland could live and work together across the vines, but peace is more than just ending violence. Genuine peace means the hard work of healing, remembering and reconciling. Today, both Manchán and Shirley Anne are building toward that shared future, each in their own way. Our first guest, Manchán Magan will take us deeper into this theme of world building. Manchán is a writer, documentary maker and podcaster. He brings Ireland's ancient language and stories to life in books like 32 Words Fulfilled and Listen to the Land Speak. Manchán's work is rooted in Ireland's landscapes, its old stories and its ancestral wisdom. He bridges past and future through his connection to the land. Today, he'll share how this heritage shapes his vision of a harmonious world, one that blends cultural memory with ecological balance. Manchán, it's so good, so good to see you again. I want to start by saying happy birthday, and thank you for joining us on The Seed today.

Manchán Magan: 3:59

Thank you, Dwight, it's so nice to be here. For me, I'm never a big person to celebrate my birthday. So in fact, I--knowing that my brothers and my sister and my mom might be sending me wishes today--instead, I sent them a, on the WhatsApp group, I sent them a WhatsApp message telling them about the extent of my cancer. So I've had cancer for about eight months. I'm in the media a lot at the moment, in Ireland this week, because I have a new TV series about train holidays, in other words, about taking holidays without flying. So there were a load of articles, and all the articles were asking me, so how's your health? Because, there had been a major TV program had asked me about my cancer about like, six months ago, and I told them about my cancer. So then I told everyone in the last week, in all the media, oh no, my cancer is fine now, and it sort of is, in one way. It's prostate cancer, which is very easy to deal with, but actually the cancer is also in the lymph and the bone, and I hadn't really emphasized that. So today, to ward off people wishing me happy birthday and all my mom and all my families, I decided to say this is the situation. You know, with this type of cancer, it's incurable. By taking hormone tablets, you definitely get four years of life, definitely and probably loads, loads more. But that's where I am.

Dwight Dunston: 5:11

I think a lot about the physical body as being natural. I have had my own health journey over the last two years that has put me really in touch with the fact that I'm a spiritual being, having a human experience when my body doesn't feel good in a specific day. It don't matter how much I dream or want to do. You know, there's really a slowing down that I'm I'm forced to do, or of recalibrating my day that I'm forced to do, yeah, holding with a lot of tenderness. And I also heard levity in your voice around your own cancer journey. I'm imagining just there have been many lessons over the over the months where you've been in treatment or been facing the truth of your cancer journey.

Manchán Magan: 6:02

Yeah, so some people are listening to this won't have seen me, but if you've seen me ever, if you got a picture, you immediately have a sense that, if there are incarnations, if humans incarnate in bodies numbers of time--a number of times, then every probably previous incarnation I have, I probably was a priest or a monk or some sort of, some sort of missionary or some sort of Christian figure. I just have that whiff about me. Do you know? That I was never fully in my body, that I'm constantly in my head. And that's beautiful, in a way, because it allows you a certain perspective on the world, and this sort of, yeah, this this philosophical, objective observer perspective, but you're not truly living life. You're not in the body. I think it's hilarious that this illness, I've got a prostate illness, and, like, I had to have a catheter for eight months. So it was just showing "No Manchán, there's life beneath your groin, you know. And actually not only life, but there's wars, there's illnesses, there's things growing, there's tumors, there's new forces growing." So it's all trying to tell me, "Yeah, it's good when you're in your brain, and when you can connect, when you can zone out entirely of the human experience and just be in that spirit world with the beings and with the energies beyond, but if you're not going to really root yourself in the land and your body in the surroundings, if it's, if you're going to do it in this ephemeral way, then we're gonna, we're gonna force you to it." At the moment, in Ireland, you know, a lot of people are reading my books or listening to my talks. I have a book called Listen to the Land Speak. They're looking to me to say, "How can we reconnect in a more deep way to the land?" And I'm saying, "Look at me. I'm so disconnected from the land." I can think it, I can see it spiritually, but I am not like my partner. She's really good reconnecting to the land. If I did learn those lessons of actually getting rooted from, let's say we'd use the word the Root Chakra, to use an Indian idea, into the land in that immersive, visceral, gooey way. I think I could probably get rid of the cancer, you know, just like that. But I still see myself playing with both the spirit world and the intellectual world. That's what I've done for eons of time. That is just who my energy is. But it's nice that I've been forced to get more gooey and more visceral and more earthy and also more humble, to be turning up at all of these cancer clinics or urinary clinics or whatever, you know, blood and guts and gore and surgery clinics, and realizing that that is also a me. That there's that, there's a me beyond the spirit and beyond the intellect. Yeah, that's my taking from that. And I'm not quite there yet. I'm still, I can escape into spirit and into brain so easily. We are incarnated in the world. At the moment, it's so easy for us, either with computerized devices or meditating or yoga, or whatever it is, to zone out of all that. But it's actually only once we really root ourselves and connect to the rocks, to sea, the water, the trees--once we realize that's what's being inhaled into ourselves at every moment. That is what is giving the bones and the muscles, sinew and strength. That's the lesson I need to learn, and I'm hoping I'm slowly, I think, opening up to that day by day.

Dwight Dunston: 9:25

And I'm so grateful that you're willing to be in that learning in public Manchán, because it really supports myself and I'm sure our listeners to also take up that task. I'll let you know in this moment, you're not alone in that journey. I'm grateful to be, in whatever way feels most supportive, to be alongside you in that. And thank you for being as, I don't know if you'd describe it as brave or wild or forced to, you know, however you would describe it, but just to do that learning, yeah. Here on your birthday, as you may or may not be scanning different times in your life. What is something from your past that you would like to see endure into the

Manchán Magan: 10:10

I was the oddest child. I was a child who just future? adored old stories, and I was lucky, born in 1970 particularly in the west of Ireland, in the southwest of Ireland, where we used to spend a lot of time there, I would be hearing stories. There was such a connection. And all the people around me were still using horse and cart to go across to the creamery. They would have had four or five, or maximum 10 cows, and they would have been sything or sickling, sything, a field, you know, without any machinery, just a horse and the cart, and using a hand sythe or a sickle to cut. And I was so curious about the world they were living in, and I was asking the whole time. And in the evening time, I would just look up dictionaries for old words. I'm so glad that I've always been an oddball. I mightn't have any friends, I mightn't have been any good on a football pitch, but I was just curious about these old ways. And even back then, I was sucking in the old things and ways of life that I was seeing. So what I would love is that that continues, that hunger to understand the old traditions that surround us at all times

Dwight Dunston: 11:24

I'm holding in this young, curious weirdo, you know. I was an oddball, nerdy, and thinking about the work that you do today and what you're being called to do.

Manchán Magan: 11:40

When you're an oddball, that you and I both understand, right? There's something that got you through those difficult times when you were young. It's nice when we're older to say "we're an oddball," but that means that there was a time where we felt utterly isolated, utterly, we just did not connect. There was a huge loneliness, a lonesomeness, a sadness, a disconnect. Connected about that time, and what for me, got me through was this herb garden at the bottom of my garden. We lived in Dublin at the time, my mom and dad had a long garden at the back, at the back of the house, and they just gave me a section of it and allowed me plant herbs. And when I used to go down to the bottom of the garden and plant those herbs, the sage and the thyme and the rosemary and the savory and the tarragon, I would be able to connect to spirit. Immediately, these voices would come to me, this loving, guided voices. I suppose I was, given that her garden, maybe first when I was seven or eight. You know, before that, you can just be blissfully on your own. You can be happy, but at some point in your childhood, people expect you to have friends and to socialize and to play football or something, and that's when the anxiety came. And that's when they realized, "okay, we'll give him something he likes, like gardening, we'll give him some some space." And there to guide, these spirit voices came in, and they've helped me the whole way through, and they've stayed with me. And sometimes I'll be in a room, a hall of people telling them, and they think, "Oh, you mean you had mental problems or you had schizophrenia?" No, no, there was just, there was spirit. Who was, they were guiding me. All I wanted to do since is, because they helped me so much, I wanted to find a way of communicating that to other people. But of course, it's really hard to find a way that doesn't alienate people. I decided, rather than talking about spirit or guides or gods, I know because I connected to them through the land, through growing, I wanted to talk to people about land, about connecting to land, because I think when people do go out and walk or swim or plant a tree, they feel that. So I don't need to go talk about the whole God aspect if I just get them out onto the land, and that's what I've been doing. But there was a second element, you know. My grandmother and my great grand uncle and my great grand aunt and my grandfather, they all realized that they had a legacy. They all had this Gaelic culture, first with this Gaelic language, this Irish language that we kept alive on the island for two and a half or 3000 years, but also a mythology that goes way further back. At some point, 3000 years ago, we took on a language, but actually we kept the mythology that we'd had going back like four or five, maybe 6000 years. Somehow, because we were on the very margins, the edge of Europe, we were able to keep this ancient culture alive. We were isolated. No one bothered us, until along came St Patrick in the fifth century. So 1500 years ago, then along comes the Vikings, and again, they weren't going to bother our culture. They just wanted to take some women and whatever gold we had. But then came the Normans and the English, and the English eventually decided, no, we want to control the Irish. And they realized the way to control us was to take our language, to take our culture, to break us, basically, so that we would become minions. And so they would come become good workers. And so they made Ireland like an Ag farm for the for England. And that continued, you know, for a few 100 years. But it was at some point at the beginning of the 20th century that my granny and my great grand uncle, my great grandmother, decided,"Okay, now is the moment, if we don't make a stand now that language and the law and the culture and all the wisdom and knowledge that is encoded within our stories, within our language, that is actually encoded within the land, because that's where we hid the knowledge and wisdom in case anything happened with it, we connected all of our knowledge with places in the landscape." And so it was all, it was all there, tied up, and they realized we could be in danger of losing all of that, unless we make a stand. So my great grand uncle founded the the Irish Volunteers, this first army, the IRA, basically stood up against Britain. He was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916. He healed some money, so he bought all the guns for the for the rising, for the revolution that happened in 1916 and he knew that meant sacrifice. He meant, he knew he was going to be massacred. They knew that if you go up against it, you are going to be wiped out. So for my granny, there was this pivotal moment where, in Easter Monday of 1916 the first day of the revolution, of the rising, my granny watches her uncle, her beloved uncle, my great grand uncle, saying goodbye to his four kids and his pregnant wife, knowing he's never going to see them again. But he needed to do this. He needed to sacrifice himself so that the language and the law and the country could keep its wisdom alive and could move forward. And that's what happened. And my grandmother devoted her life to the same cause. And so then I came along in 1970, as we know this day, 1970. And for her, it was just another step from that Easter Monday in 1916. I was another foot soldier in all of that. There's two things going on here. One is me as a spirit being in a physical body, trying to find his way, having to deal with these things in 1976/77/78 and binding to plants. But then realizing there was a bigger reason that I was on the earth. My granny, my great grandmother, my great grand uncle, they also had a role for me. They wanted me as a keeper of this language and lore. And in fact, the reason that the Ó Rathaille, that was his name, my great grand uncle, was called. He was a Gaelic chief so he was called The Ó Rathaille. The reason that he did all of this because of his great grand uncle, who was called Aogán Ó Rathaille. And Aogán Ó Rathaille was the last poet of the old Bardic school. In other words, he was the last representative of the old druidic school that would have preceded St Patrick. You know, there was the druids in Ireland with these keepers of wisdom, of magic, of lore, of connection to the seasons, geology, to the stars. The first St Patrick and Christianity tried to grind that out and wipe it down in the fifth century AD. Then, as I said, you know, came the Vikings, the Normans, the English. But Aogán Ó Rathaille was the last of the old great poets, and he was born maybe about 1670 died 1740 and with him was a whole realm of knowledge going. My great grand uncle, Michael Ó Rathaille, realized, if he's going to honor his great grand uncle, Aogán Ó Rathaille, then he needed to fight the revolution. And I'm born in 1970 and there's no revolution that for me to fight. It was done by my granny. She was kicked down the stairs. She was beaten up. She was thrown in prison for three years on and off. She had to do 33 days on hunger strike. She had to suffer so that I would then live a charmed life and be free to actually bring back elements of the culture and explore the elements that we'd forgotten. So we haven't lost these old ways. But it's a real, it's a real time of danger. It's a time where we need to stand up and make sure that we do keep all of these aspects of our culture alive so that we can recognize them in every other culture in the world, so that we can then move forward in that harmonious, sustainable way.

Dwight Dunston: 19:05

I found myself very tender and inspired from just your sharing about the family history and how you feel like your life, what it's made of, what you're being called to do. Both is connected to these experiences you've had in your life as a "young nerds unite!" and just really holding the experience of the isolation or what it means to be to be outside, right? You talked about the margins at the, at the very beginning. It's not an easy path to be on, the margins, when the world is saying, "What do we do with you?" You actually don't fit into these spaces or blocks. I just heard what I would describe as some world building happening and being embodied in your sharing. And I want to just make some space for you to share when you hear that word world building, or those words world building. See what comes to mind for you.

Manchán Magan: 20:04

There's such a strong sense within me of the world that I want to see manifested around me, and that I believe wants to manifest. It's a physical manifestation of that existence that I felt when I'd be talking to my herbs as a child. It's this idea where there's absolute communion, absolute communication, absolute resonance. You know, at the moment, we're having to use words, and words are such a limited medium, like music or dance or art or color, it's just so much more expressive. The human beings use words. And in fact, a lot of my work uses words. I'm a writer, and a writer particularly focused on language, so I celebrate language, but I realize how limited it is, because when I was communing with my spirit, my guides through the herbs, I just saw this world of harmony clearly. Whenever we manifest something like that in the physical world, the physical world won't do justice, won't do the beautiful harmony of our imaginations, but it's to get as much of it as possible. And as I said, as I look at the window today with this fecundity, there is harmony. I mean, you wouldn't believe the amount of different wild plants and insects and and herbs and trees that are growing in my land. Nature knows how to grow, how to work in this harmonious way. Nature seems to be just, seems to delight in it, and we do too. Humans do too in the rare moments that we allow ourselves have that harmonious blending, this idea of just working together. So for me, world building is trying to manifest little glimpses of this, of living in a more harmonious way. Again. That's so grand and so vast. And you think, "Okay, what step would I like to take?" Because I do believe that my ancestors wanted to connect with something like that. But then at some point, they brought in as one of the tools they were going to bring to help achieve this, is violence. My great grand uncle went out and bought an entire ship worth of guns. Now he had no violence within him whatsoever. And there's great stories during the revolution against Britain, of someone saying, "Look, there's an English soldier. Kill him." And he just said, "What the hell is that gonna do? You know, what use Is that gonna do? You're gonna miss anyway." But then my granny, she got the bug of violence, and she used it. And my then my language that I was using this Irish language, Gaelic, for my granny, it was a weapon of war aimed at Britain. I had to realize, okay, my lineage is keeping alive an old way of, a harmonious way of being in the world, but then we had to bring in violence to free ourselves from our oppressors, and that polluted us a little bit. I decided I want to take back the Irish language and my connection with my surroundings, but not have it about violence. That took a few years to do. That took a long time. So in terms of world building for me, I want to build a world for me. But then also see, is there a way of making it attractive or aspiring other people in Ireland to remember this world that was in harmony. A world where they knew they existed only by making sure the rivers and the wells were clean and pure, because if that was clean and pure, then they had nutritious water, but also the land was pure and clean. So it meant that their souls, their minds, their bodies were thriving and healthy, and once they're thriving and healthy, it gives them the confidence and the sense to really combine as people, not to compete, because the land is giving enough food. When I'm thinking of world building, I'm thinking of we need to go back into that mindset of reconnecting with the land, of reconnecting with the stories that told us how to reconnect with the land and to move forward in this harmonious relationship with nature. And if we have a harmonious relationship with nature, where nature is providing abundance, then humans have the space to start trusting each other and having more harmony between ourselves.

Dwight Dunston: 24:23

Thank you. As we close, I want to just hold space for any last words or things you want to share during our time together.

Manchán Magan: 24:32

You create a really remarkable space. I've enjoyed it. I am so aware, this tiny little island Ireland, it's so tiny and infinitesimal compared to the world, and yet it has had an impact on the world. And what's so interesting is that there has been this Quaker line playing a remarkable role in Ireland every step of the way. There's only about maybe 20 or 30 families, really significant Quaker families that have held almost a resonance, a different way of being in the world, whether it was in 1916 during a rising, whether it was in the 19th century, the 18th century, still the 20th century. If you're looking at who were the people who were saying,"There's a way of having woodland, of keeping forest alive, of respecting our own foods, of making industry and products out of the food that we're good at doing, of living in a way where one can profit and thrive, but also work with the community." Most of Ireland was a peasants community because we were impoverished by Britain, so we didn't have the opportunity to ever show a model society. We were living hand to mouth for centuries, since the 12th century, since the Norman English arrived in the 12th century. But there was this one linear group, the Quakers, who they were British. They came over, but they lived in an entirely different way from the colonizing English, British, who just wanted to control us. So it's always and still today, is this model of a different society in Ireland, of a way we could live. At the time, we weren't able to do it because we didn't have access to our own land, our own money, our own resources. We now have it, and it's wonderful to see those examples there, those beacons of a way that we could, once we reconnect to our culture, our land, our self confidence, once we get over the trauma of having been colonized and traumatized for so long, that we could actually live in a harmonious way with strong communities and respect for nature.

Dwight Dunston: 26:38

Well, thank you so much Manchán, for your time, for your experience sharing, for your ancestral wisdom and knowledge that you brought to our time together. And I look forward to being in space with you again, physical space, I'm grateful for the virtual space, and I'm excited for another chance to be in physical space, but until then, I want to say thank you, thank you for this time, and happy birthday.

Manchán Magan: 27:18

Thank you Dwight, and thank you for opening up these channels of communication. We will definitely continue it. It's been great.

Dwight Dunston: 27:44

That was Manchán Magan. Through his stories and his life, Manchán helps us glimpse Ireland's deep cultural roots, connected to the land, the language and generations of resilience. For Manchán, this heritage has been a source of strength and pride passed down through his family in the Republic of Ireland. Learn more about Manchán by visiting his website, Manchán.com. Manchán is spelled M, A, A, C, H, A N, Manchán.com. You can see our complete show notes with a transcript and links at Pendlehill.org/podcast. Our next guest, Shirley Anne McMillan, grew up in a very different world just across the border in Northern Ireland. British culture and loyalty to the Union ran deep in her Protestant community, shaping her sense of identity. Expressions of Irish culture, like the language and music that Manchán celebrates, were often seen with suspicion and could feel like a challenge or even a threat to the stability of her world. Shirley Ann's early years unfolded in this divided landscape, one where both cultural and political divides marked everyday life today. Shirley Anne is the Seamus Heaney Children's Writing Fellow at Queen's University in Belfast. Seamus Heaney was a poet whose work spoke to people on both sides of Ireland's border. His poetry captured the beauty, pain and complexity of Irish life in a way that resonated deeply across political lines. Shirley Anne continues in this spirit, writing stories for young people in Northern Ireland who are finding their voices in a landscape still shaped by history and identity. Shirley Anne, welcome to The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope. So grateful to have you as a guest this day, November 6. What's it like being Shirley Anne today?

Shirley Anne McMillan: 30:36

Thank you so much Dwight, I'm really grateful to for the opportunity to talk to you as well. Today, I feel quite anxious. It's election in the states, like far away from from me, but at the same time, it's been a strange

sort of morning. It's 4: 30:56

30pm here, so all day I've been doing what you should not do, and scrolling through Facebook and Twitter and reading everyone's upset and anger. Yeah, probably wasn't a great idea, but, yeah, it's, it's very strange. I mean, I feel like I can hardly believe Trump was the president the first time around, still. So I'm really staggered that it just happened again. But here we are.

Dwight Dunston: 31:28

Do you remember what it felt like the first time eight years ago, or where you were? And, yeah, just bring us a little bit into into the the first time.

Shirley Anne McMillan: 31:41

It was shocking. I mean, I'm from a place where, I mean, we have had right wing governments very often here. We have, as a country, voted in people who were against women's rights and against gay rights and all those things as well. So I don't know why I continually find it shocking that people do this to themselves, but I did feel like that the first time around. One of the first things I did was to join the Green Party in Northern Ireland. I am a political person. I'm not a party political person normally, but I just really felt if there's badness that is coming into democracy and tainting the democratic process like that, then I should try and do something to balance that out. So I joined the Green Party just to the thoughts of, "I will support these people who are trying to do something good." Today, I joined Amnesty International this morning for same reason. I just, that has to be my reaction to things like, just to try and do something good, what else could you do? You know?

Dwight Dunston: 32:46

Yeah, yeah. No, I--listen, right? I was about to say there's a pattern. Something wild happens in the political realm. Let me join something, and it's really beautiful. I've been having lots of conversations with folks about being a part of community, you know, remembering we're connected in times where there's a sense of hopelessness or despair, that's another thing I hear, Really what's at the core of what I hear you sharing is like being with others, being together, being in community, yeah.

Shirley Anne McMillan: 33:18

And supporting the people who are already really striving to make the world better.

Dwight Dunston: 33:26

And I just think about you, particularly writing with young people, with children in mind and curious, sort of the journey of that, and also in times like these, where it's your own desire to be really connected and in community with others. How you think about the young people in times of despair or confusion, and yeah, how it influenced--a time like this might influence your writing even?

Shirley Anne McMillan: 33:53

Absolutely, it really does, because I have two children as well, but I've worked with young people for a long time. Something that you get to know is that, because they haven't just lived as many years as you have, you know, they haven't been through times where terrible things have happened and then got over, you know, like the cycle kind of continues, and so it can feel, I think, even worse for them. And even more shocking, with all that doom scrolling. You know, I think we do need to be careful about the way that we talk to people and what we put out into the world, because they're listening and picking up on that. I don't want them to feel that they have to despair over this kind of thing. It just does happen in the world. But there are things that we can do and there are good things that we can put out there as well. A friend of mine once said, like,"You can't always do something about the bad things that happen, but you can always put something good into the world. You can always add to the goodness." That definitely is one of the reasons why I write for young people. I mean, it's for myself, really, so that I don't feel despair like, so that I feel like I'm doing something even like something very tiny and small, but it's what I can do. And I hope that does come across in the stories as well.

Dwight Dunston: 35:16

Yeah, it reminds me of a James Baldwin quote, black gay, writer, philosopher, activist, so many things. He once said that "Young people have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they've never failed to imitate them." They're watching. Young people are watching how the adults react, listening to what they say or don't say, and how they talk about the heavy things or feel the heavy things or don't, or how they manage their stress. And yeah, the imitation is there. And I know you see this, whether it's with your own children or with the young people that your stories reach and impact. There's something really powerful about holding out a different vision or different way of being, knowing that with that awareness that young people are watching

Shirley Anne McMillan: 36:06

Absolutely

Dwight Dunston: 36:07

I want to pass the microphone to you. I know you brought some reflections to share today and to add to our conversation, and just so grateful the floor is yours Shirley Anne.

Shirley Anne McMillan: 36:19

Thank you so much, Dwight. I sometimes feel like Seamus Heaney when I think about how different my life has been from my dad's."I've no spade to follow men like them," Heaney wrote, reflecting on his father, cutting turf, tending to the land. My career hasn't been anything like my dad. I was a youth worker, a teacher and now a writer. I don't expect people to understand the complexities of being born on the side of the colonizer and then growing up to see a broader truth of what happened in Northern Ireland, truths that were hidden from us as children now laid bare in books and films or by people who couldn't be our friends then, but who feel like family now. But my dad shaped me, and that truth was closer than facts. My dad was a soldier in the British Army, a munitions expert. He met my mother here in Northern Ireland during the Army's occupation in the 1970s and he never left. He's still here. While some saw him as an invader, working for the British state against Irish nationalists, I vaguely knew that his daily job involved dismantling bombs meant to destroy people and tear apart the land. He was in the bomb squad, the part of the army that walked towards danger to protect civilians. Once he swapped shifts with a friend so he could take my mother on a date. His friend was killed that night while trying to defuse an IRA bomb. I knew that my dad checked his car for bombs every morning. But I was an adult before I learnt that he had slept with a gun under his pillow. After the army, he joined the police, working as a forensic expert and testifying in court against paramilitary gunmen. Sometimes I marvel that he's still alive. So many of my friends' dads aren't. Later, he became a wildlife inspector for the civil service, a conservationist. His knowledge of weaponry became useful for identifying poaching techniques, and he loved this land from the moment he set food on it. The shift from saving it from bombs to protecting it from illegal poachers was perhaps not so far removed. For me, loving this place became something else. I was a young person away from home in England training to be a Christian youth worker when I first felt that pull. There was a time in evangelical circles called the Toronto Blessing, a movement where the Holy Spirit was said to anoint people in an outpouring of wild joy, crying, even laughter. But my own experience of it was tied up in home sickness and grief. I'd left Northern Ireland during a moment of tentative peace. The first cease fires had just been announced. It was the beginning of the end of the troubles, and although there was hope, we all felt so very vulnerable. At a worship meeting in Kidderminster, I began to cry, and I couldn't stop. In my mind, I saw an image of a baby alone in a war zone. That baby I understood was the land, Northern Ireland itself. I felt in my own understanding at the time the heart of God for this place that I was far from. I knew then that I would work for Northern Ireland, that whatever I did had to involve intentional care for it. At the time, this meant working for the church. Now, 30 years later, it means a few different things, one of which is writing. Growing up in a contested land meant everyone telling you what you were and were not. In state schools, which were mainly Protestant, we learned that the Irish language, traditional music and Gaelic games weren't for us. We were expected to distance ourselves from the culture of our own people. So much of what I used to read from Northern Irish writers felt vaguely British, not quite settling on an identity that I recognized and I knew why. Here we were ashamed of ourselves, believing perhaps, that we weren't worth much. We were told that our dialect was lesser. We were taught that news, the craik, and how you're wished were wrong. Who would want to read about our place? After all, beyond the troubles, did we even have any stories worth telling? But we still had the place, the people, the dialect, the names, and as a writer, those elements became the ink of my stories. It starts with place, the Mourne Mountain, the forgotten urban buildings of Belfast, the cliffs of Castle Rock, the empty prison H blocks. These are places people have grown out of, built on and are buried in. My characters come from this land. They are necessary golems bringing forth stories that I only begin to tell. I want people who know this place to read my stories and feel a familiarity, a recognition. I want young people to see their home in the language and landscape of it, just as my English father taught me to see it in different species of Irish birds and bats. As writers, we can induct our readers into shared worlds, places they already know, but rediscover with joy through someone else's eyes, and there is joy too in saying it again, in the words we write ourselves.

Dwight Dunston: 42:55

Thank you. Shirley, Anne, I'm curious, just as you read those words today, if anything is arising, if you noticed any feelings or emotions images coming to you?

Shirley Anne McMillan: 43:14

I just remember that time so well of feeling so sad for what we had done to our own place. And obviously hope that things will get better, but not quite believing it. Yeah, like, I'm sure that there must be people in America who feel that as well. Well, I know there are. I've had messages from them today, but it can be a thing that connects you to your place as well, as you said earlier, like to each other. You know that can be the beginning of something good as well.

Dwight Dunston: 43:47

And what I hear in your reflections is, yeah, the land being such a essential character to who you are, to who to how you understand your dad, his life, how you understand the troubles, the physical places, is a character just as much as the people.

Shirley Anne McMillan: 44:08

Yeah, absolutely. I really feel that way about stories from here. It's so important that we get that right. It has been totally fascinating to listen to Manchán's reflection as well.

Dwight Dunston: 44:20

Yeah, thank you, Shirley Anne, for this time and for being generous enough to share more of you and who you are and your people in order to not only connect us with you in that place, but as a, in service of building this, this world that is growing up through the cracks of our broken systems and the things that haven't worked for us, you know, as a people, as a species, you know, sharing pieces of ourselves as whole or as broken as they come, is a part of helping to build that new world. So thank you so much.

Shirley Anne McMillan: 45:03

Thank you.

Dwight Dunston: 45:14

That was Shirley Anne McMillan. You can explore more of her work at ShirleyAnneMcmillan.com. Shirley's writing gives voice to young people navigating life in Northern Ireland, sometimes called the north of Ireland, or just the North. It is a place where history and identity are always close to the surface. Through her stories, she invites readers to see Northern Ireland in a new way, with all its complexity and possibility. Shirley Anne and Manchán carry rich cultural legacies, each rooted in a different part of Ireland. While Manchán celebrates the land and language of the Republic, Shirley Anne draws from the experiences of those raised on the other side of the border. They are building bridges between past and present, opening new worlds for those coming after them. You can learn more about Manchán's work at Manchán.com and Shirley Anne's at ShirleyAnneMcmillan.com. Wow, friends, we are recording this episode on the morning of November 6, 2024 which here in the United States of America, we are waking up this morning with news of Donald Trump's re-election to the presidency. As I root into Manchán's sharings and reflections and the conversation we had, putting that alongside Shirley Anne's reflections, connecting to the ways that division and separation and conflict shaped both of their lives and how they view themselves, the land that they live on, the people that they grew up with. I'm given a beautiful mirror today as a US citizen of the land, the people I'm surrounded by, the folks I'm in community with, and the history of this place of the United States. I am feeling angry and confused, tender, and also hopeful and connected and committed this morning, and I truly feel a surprising sense of peace. So much of this podcast is around the world that's growing up through the cracks of our broken systems, has called me these last two years to think about the places where I feel in myself a desire to build walls and separate from others at times, and at other times, a desire to build a bridge towards understanding and curiosity. All of this points me back to spirit, the ways that spirit is calling me to be love, to be a light, to be present to that of God and those around me. My invitation for those listening is for you to think about what God's Spirit love is calling you to be faithful to as you look around and see division, tension, separation, the desire for that separation, perhaps in yourself even. What is God's Spirit love calling you to be faithful to? Where are the places in your life that you're being asked to build a bridge rather than a wall, and what are the places you're being called to build a wall in order to come back to yourself, to be able to listen more intentionally to what God is calling you to do in your life at this moment, so that you may be able to step into that role of bridge builder with more honesty and integrity and care? Sending deep breaths and lots of ease and care as you turn away from this episode. And thank you again to Manchán and Shirley Anne for providing some guidance and wisdom into building bridges where they were once walled. Thank you for spending this time with me. The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit led learning, retreat, and community. We're located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenne Lenape people. Pendle Hill hosts retreats, workshops and lectures throughout the year. You can find our upcoming offerings at PendleHill.org/learn. This episode was produced and edited by Peterson Toscano, with assistance from Lucas Meyer Lee. Our theme music, I Rise, is by Reverend Rhetta Morgan and Bennett Kuhn, and is produced by Astronautical Records. Additional music comes from Epidemic Sound. The Seed podcast is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H and Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund. Thank you. To stay connected, follow us@PendleHillSeed on social media, or email us at podcast@PendleHill.org. You can see our show notes and more by visiting PendleHill.org/podcast. If these conversations are meaningful to you, consider supporting us financially at PendleHill.org/Donate. You can also help by sharing the podcast with friends and family. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review us on your podcast platform. We're grateful to be growing these seeds with you. Shirley's writing gives voice to young people navigating life. Life. It's happening. The wheels start to come off. What's that? Oh.