Boggerwood Carving
Buile Shuibhne agus Naomh Moling / Mad Suibhne and St Moling (1)
“Until lions have their historians, tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter” goes an African proverb. This is also true of mythology based on fact; the story is told from the view of the teller who can besmirch and put down their subject at will.
Our extensive researches over a number of years have led us to radically reinterpret the ancient Irish myth of Mad Sweeney (Buile Shuibhne) – if you don’t know the story an online word search will throw it up. Possibly the best known modern rendering of the tale is by Seamus Heaney, “Sweeney Astray”, in English. However it is also well known through Flann O’Brien incorporating some of the story into his comic epic “At Swim-Two-Birds”.
We have established that there was without doubt a real person of this name, Suibhne, and it is now clearly understood that he was not mad at all but rather a precursor of a green and peaceful political activist. Our research is fully reported in Miotas, The Irish Journal of Mythology and Pre-History, Vol. 17 (2015 – it is an annual). It is based on extensive document searches and comparison, detailed linguistic and etymological analysis, and sheer detective work.
The ‘madness’ which was depicted was through a mixture of inability by contemporaries to understand what he was really about – difficult in the context of the times – as well as a wilful desire to depict him in the worst possible light. Thus Sweeney has come down to us as mad, tormented and strange.
The real Suibhne/Sweeney was actually anything but mad. The story of him fleeing from the battlefield to go up a tree is true however. The madness was in people trying to kill each other on the battlefield and he saw that clearly during the heat of battle. You can imagine him having this revelation as he was trying to kill and avoid being killed – this is a crazy way to behave. The madness was not his at all, the madness was in the circumstances he found himself in, and in those who believed in violence. The only rational thing to do was to flee, so he fled and climbed a tree.
This was where he had a second revelation and developed an affinity for trees and nature. The first revelation awoke thought processes in him which led directly to this second one; nature and the beauty of nature was the antidote to violence and evil, to brutal behaviour and subjugation. This is why he took to living up trees. So far from being a symptom of madness it was actually a symbol of his humanity and sanity. His rejection of violence also meant a rejection of his authority and regal status. But his enemies, and indeed some of his friends and family, could not understand his change of heart and so the myth developed – or was purposefully developed - which has come down to us today of ‘mad’ Sweeney.
We are also convinced there is more than a grain of truth in the telling about his death in that he may really have died in the company of St Moling, although we believe he died of old age and not violently as portrayed in the myth. St Moling was probably one of the very few people to fully understand what Sweeney was about and to appreciate him for it. This is why it looks like Sweeney came to spend his last days with him, and we believe he was at peace with the world, and with himself, when he died.
So Suibhne or Sweeney is really a potent symbol for our times, of rejection of violence and an understanding of the beauty and importance of nature. He also persisted in his beliefs to the end, at considerable cost to himself.
- The piece of bog pine here is an anthropomorphic* depiction of the tree that Sweeney lived in with Sweeney and St Moling depicted as part of the tree. *giving human characteristics to an animal or thing. Given that Flann O’Brien (mentioned earlier for his use of the Mad Sweeney story, but in this case in “The Third Policeman”) details cyclist and bicycle molecules swapping, and the cyclist becoming half bicycle, and vice versa, this perhaps has an obtuse appropriateness.
- Bog pine (the end of a root, 3,500 years old or more) from Co Mayo on a modern oak base. 45 cm tall. Oiled (except for the two faces to make them stand out more) and finished with acrylic varnish.
Buile Shuibhne agus Naomh Moling / Mad Suibhne and St Moling (1)
“Until lions have their historians, tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter” goes an African proverb. This is also true of mythology based on fact; the story is told from the view of the teller who can besmirch and put down their subject at will.
Our extensive researches over a number of years have led us to radically reinterpret the ancient Irish myth of Mad Sweeney (Buile Shuibhne) – if you don’t know the story an online word search will throw it up. Possibly the best known modern rendering of the tale is by Seamus Heaney, “Sweeney Astray”, in English. However it is also well known through Flann O’Brien incorporating some of the story into his comic epic “At Swim-Two-Birds”.
We have established that there was without doubt a real person of this name, Suibhne, and it is now clearly understood that he was not mad at all but rather a precursor of a green and peaceful political activist. Our research is fully reported in Miotas, The Irish Journal of Mythology and Pre-History, Vol. 17 (2015 – it is an annual). It is based on extensive document searches and comparison, detailed linguistic and etymological analysis, and sheer detective work.
The ‘madness’ which was depicted was through a mixture of inability by contemporaries to understand what he was really about – difficult in the context of the times – as well as a wilful desire to depict him in the worst possible light. Thus Sweeney has come down to us as mad, tormented and strange.
The real Suibhne/Sweeney was actually anything but mad. The story of him fleeing from the battlefield to go up a tree is true however. The madness was in people trying to kill each other on the battlefield and he saw that clearly during the heat of battle. You can imagine him having this revelation as he was trying to kill and avoid being killed – this is a crazy way to behave. The madness was not his at all, the madness was in the circumstances he found himself in, and in those who believed in violence. The only rational thing to do was to flee, so he fled and climbed a tree.
This was where he had a second revelation and developed an affinity for trees and nature. The first revelation awoke thought processes in him which led directly to this second one; nature and the beauty of nature was the antidote to violence and evil, to brutal behaviour and subjugation. This is why he took to living up trees. So far from being a symptom of madness it was actually a symbol of his humanity and sanity. His rejection of violence also meant a rejection of his authority and regal status. But his enemies, and indeed some of his friends and family, could not understand his change of heart and so the myth developed – or was purposefully developed - which has come down to us today of ‘mad’ Sweeney.
We are also convinced there is more than a grain of truth in the telling about his death in that he may really have died in the company of St Moling, although we believe he died of old age and not violently as portrayed in the myth. St Moling was probably one of the very few people to fully understand what Sweeney was about and to appreciate him for it. This is why it looks like Sweeney came to spend his last days with him, and we believe he was at peace with the world, and with himself, when he died.
So Suibhne or Sweeney is really a potent symbol for our times, of rejection of violence and an understanding of the beauty and importance of nature. He also persisted in his beliefs to the end, at considerable cost to himself.
- The piece of bog pine here is an anthropomorphic* depiction of the tree that Sweeney lived in with Sweeney and St Moling depicted as part of the tree. *giving human characteristics to an animal or thing. Given that Flann O’Brien (mentioned earlier for his use of the Mad Sweeney story, but in this case in “The Third Policeman”) details cyclist and bicycle molecules swapping, and the cyclist becoming half bicycle, and vice versa, this perhaps has an obtuse appropriateness.
- Bog pine (the end of a root, 3,500 years old or more) from Co Mayo on a modern oak base. 45 cm tall. Oiled (except for the two faces to make them stand out more) and finished with acrylic varnish.