Credits:

An Lucht Siúil (The Walking People) (2020) 12 minutes 2 seconds.

Concept: Mark Garry.

Cinematography: Padraig Cunningham.

Script: Mark Garry 

Translation: Jack Delaney

Sound: Mark Garry and Sean Carpio. Featuring Nina Hynes and Max Carpio.

Editing: Mark Garry and Padraig Cunningham.

Commissioned as part of percent for art scheme by Roscommon Arts Office. 

An Lucht Siúil (The Walking People) was part of an exhibition entitled Songs and the Soil at The MAC Belfast.

An Lucht Siúil (The Walking People)

Prologue:

An ancient people formed of land.

Skilled with horse and skilled of hand

A wind of progress blew down our roads,

Values not the ways of those,

A shifting of the country side

Wagons they would no longer ride

There values that were different than

The values of the country man.

For two peoples living hand in hand

No space was left upon this Land

Guardians of our culture old,

A modern system would be sold

Parode (Entrance Ode):

For people of the horse and nail

A modern system it would fail

Bards and poets of Honeysuckle

Stained of name and stained of knuckle

Episode:

The girth and traces the grass and the rush.

The hawthorn the brambles, the wren and thrush.

The withers the flank the muzzle and hoof.

The hammer and anvil the spokes and the roof

The willow and ash the robin the crow.

The Iron and stays the sun and the snow

The Forearm and fetlocks the gutter and vent.

The jig and the snips and the blanket and tent

The Mollicroft, gutter the brasses and reins

The dove the blackbird the sweat and the veins

The Blackthorne and holly the sticks and the smoke.

The forehead the flank the willow and oak

The Collar and crupper the spring and the clamp

The goldfinch the plover the fire and Lamp

The hoof and the shoe the spruce and the larch

The pine and the chestnut September and March

The jack the shackles the elm and the yew

The sparrow and magpie the stove and the flue

The bits and the bridles the footboard and spreader

The mane and the muzzle, the rope and the tether

The kestrel the moorhen the bay and the grey

The punch and the iron the grain and the hay

The loin and the barrel the labor and shoulder

The tarmac and gravel the foxglove and clover.

The pheasant and fox the cloth and the table

The chestnut the Dun, the fragile and stable

The plough and the scythe, the leaf and the green

The snowdrop and daisy the subtle and lean.

The Barrel and cannon the shafts and the perch

The cuckoo and curlew , the beach and the birch

The hogweed and hazel the carriage and bellows

The martingale, blinkers the shadows and echoes

The rook and the skylark , the tin and the pipe.

        The wren and the jackdaw the young and the ripe.

The wood and the bark the wind and the cloud.

        The butterfly the moth the proud and the bowed.

Stasimon

The race for progress was happening so fast we didn’t notice a profound narrowing of customs and values. We engaged in a paradox of moral priority. Each Sunday we sang the psalms but were silent to the imprisonment of the poor. We were silent to a loss of innocence, silent to the theft of the children of the nomads by the people of cloth. Suspicion was encouraged and the narrative of the labourer, the horse dealer, the tinsmith, the fiddler and the bard, was replaced with the fighter the beggar, the gaudy, the knacker, the tramps of the road. Languages were lost or hidden from sight and traditions were diluted or erased. Our forced assimilation and absorption failed, it compelled these people to close in on themselves to the security and strength of a family unit, who we are comfortable to engage with, only through the distance of a camera lens. It forced an existence on the margins and for many an imprisonment of reliance.

Exode (Exit Ode):

For people of the horse and nail

A modern system it would fail

Bards and poets of Honeysuckle

Stained of name and stained of knuckle