Ancient Irish Strength Rituals You’ve Never Heard Of | David Keohan

In this episode of The Irish Snug Podcast, I’m joined by David Keohan, widely known as Indiana Stones, a man on a singular mission to revive the lost Irish tradition of stone lifting.

For centuries, these massive boulders—scattered across the Irish landscape in fields, graveyards, and coastal villages—served as rites of passage, tests of strength for jobs like stonemasonry, and even ways to honor the dead at funeral games. David discusses how this deep-rooted cultural practice was nearly erased by history and how he used archival research to track down these "stones of strength," some of which haven't been lifted in generations. We dive into the intersection of folklore, physical strength, and the spiritual connection to the land that comes with "getting the wind under the stone."

KEY TOPICS

• The Rediscovery: How David transitioned from a world-champion kettlebell lifter to a "cultural archaeologist" of Irish stone lifting.
• The Schools’ Collection: Using 1930s folklore archives to locate forgotten stones through the stories of schoolchildren.
• The Mythology of Strength: Understanding the legends attached to stones like the Fianna stone and the "manhood stones" of the Aran Islands.
• A Cultural Revival: How stone lifting is reawakening national pride and connecting people with their ancestry today.

LINKS & RESOURCES 

• Follow David Keohan (Indiana Stones) on Instagram: 
• Dúchas.ie: Explore the National Folklore Collection and the Schools' Collection David uses for his research.
• David’s Upcoming Book: The Wind Beneath the Stone: My Quest to Unearth a Piece of Ireland's Folklore (Available for pre-order/release in 2026): 
  • Pre-order via Bloomsbury (Ireland & UK) 
  • Pre-order via Penguin (US & Canada)
• Documentary: Made of Stone – Available on the RTÉ Player 
• Film Inspiration: Fullsterkur (Icelandic Stones), Levantadores (Basque Stones), and Stoneland (Scottish Stones) by Rogue Fitness 

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow The Irish Snug to get notified as new episodes are released. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Nemo Flamerty wrote a story called The Stone. And it was the greatest day in this old man's life. This old man was reminiscing, but the greatest day in his life was lifting this particular stone on a wedding day in front of all the islanders. He lifted it the highest. He could lift the stone up to his chest, kissed it three times, said he can still hear the resounding shouts of the islanders in his head 50, 60 years later in his daughters. He can still hear it. He remembers the lifting a stone was the greatest day in his life. The story that Lemo Flaherty wrote about is not fiction, it's a reality. It's based on an actual practice here on this island. And not only is it based on an actual practice, he wrote about a particular stone that was lifted on the island for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Welcome to the Irish Snug Podcast. All right, so welcome back to the Irish Snug Podcast. Um, in my 25-year career in the FDNY, I've seen what happens when people are tested by weight, not just the weight that they carry, but the weight of the tradition they uphold. Today's guest understands that better than anyone. He's traveling the backroads of Ireland, uncovering ancient rites of passage that haven't been touched since before the great hunger. He's not lifting boulders, he's lifting a culture. We're talking about the bones of the earth, the power of mythology, and why all humans need a mountain to climb or a stone to lift. Indiana Stones, welcome to the Irish Snug. So excited to have you here.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Yeah, sorry. It's been it's been an incredible journey, man. It's been it's been the most amazing, incredible three or four years of my life. I can't I kind of can't grasp some things what's after happening with this over the past couple of years.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Let me just say one thing. So stone lifting, uh, from the time I was a kid, I just want to give you a little background here. From the time that I was a kid up until 2017, which is pretty recent, my family, we we have always gone to this Celtic festival in upstate New York. It was held at a ski area, a ski resort up there, Hunter Mountain. And I tell you, it was one of the my favorite weekends of the entire year. It was three days of music, you know, partying. It was such a great, great time. But they had they always had these two events there, and one of them was the caber toss, and the other one was stone lifting. So I was a kid when I first got exposed to this thing with stone lifting. Now, I will say this I never seen one person budge the stone. It was just massive rock. And I never seen anybody budge the thing, but um, you don't know what you don't know. And I had no idea on the history behind stone lifting. And I was looking at it kind of like it was, you know, like arm wrestling, your buddy in the bar or something, uh, who's got the stronger arm? Um, and this one was who who could budge the stone, you know. So when did when did you discover this ancient activity?

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Oh, I think the main the main driver for me was was the COVID lockdowns. I think it was 2020 or 2021. Before that, I was representing Ireland in a sport called kettlebelt sport, which is like a strength endurance sport. So I represented Ireland for for six years in that and traveled the world and had some amazing experiences, became European champion, world champion in that. Um, had an amazing time over those couple of years. But then the COVID lockdown happened, and it was like all my access to gym equipment was gone because it was like if all we couldn't go outside the two kilometres from our house. It was like a fucking just this weird lockdown that you couldn't do anything. I was like, okay, what am I going to do? I mean, training is a part of my life now, it's a huge part of my life. It's my mental health, you know? What am I going to do? I've no, I've no I've no equipment here. I had a couple of two or three kettlebells, but like I was used to training heavy and hard. So it's like, what's the heaviest thing that I can get my hands on? So there's a couple of stones at my backyard. And just as a bored human being over lockdown, I started lifting these stones just as a weight to lift to keep myself, I suppose, physically and mentally healthy over those crazy couple of years. Little did I know that that small act of just trying to keep myself in an even keel would open up this whole world of stone lifting to me because through the process of actually lifting those stones, putting that online and having a bit of crack with it, people put me in contact with these documentaries made by Rogue Fitness about 10 years ago on stone lifting, which if you haven't seen, I highly recommend to anybody. They're free on YouTube. One is called Full Sturker about the Icelandic lifting stones, one is called Levantador's about the Basque lifting stones, and one is called Stone Land about the Scottish Lifting Stones. And it wasn't just picking up a rock, it was the whole culture attached to the lifting of these stones. They were rights of passage from Bible to manhood, they were rights of passage from manhood to warrior. They were a way of denoting what air the catcher got in the fishing boat. They were a way of testing a prospective farmhand's strength, how much money could he earn? So like your strength was your work.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

It was a test fit. It was a test fit for certain jobs.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Exactly. It was like your strength was your worth, you know, back in the day. So I I just fell in love with this idea. And it was like, hold on a second, there's a whole culture of stone lifting in Scotland, which are our Celtic brothers just across the water. So I was like, I gotta go and see these manhood stones in Scotland. I gotta see, can I lift these things, you know? So I trained over COVID. I knew a lot of the stones around 110 kilos, which is about 230, you know, 240 pounds weighed. So I was like, okay, I've got to train hard for this. I had a couple of lighter stones at the back. I ended up going to my local beach, picking some heavier stones, weighing them, lifting them, and travelled to Scotland to lift some of the lifting stones in Scotland just when COVID lockdowns um went away. So I heard about this stone tent called the Fina Stone in Scotland, which blew my mind wide open. It was like there's a stone that the Fina warriors used to lift as a test of strength to become a member of the FINA. Now, anybody who's aware of the FINA, if you're Celtic, you'll know what the Fina are. If you're not, the Fina were probably like the best group of warriors ever to run the lands in Ireland. They were like the Navy SEALs of probably 2,000 years ago. So they're part anthology, part reality. You know, and it's like I heard that there was a FINA testing school in Scotland. It was like someone saying, you know, Thor's hammer is sitting out in the field in in Trondheim, and go pick it up, you know. You know, it's like it's the Fina Artos is kind of like what the Arthurian tale is about the art of the English, you know, what uh what Achilles is to the Greeks, you know, it's he's he's that important to us here. We still speak about him in schools. He's still the phenotype is still taught in schools here. I was taught them as a child. So like part of my lore and part of my history was wrapped up in this phena tales. And then I heard there's a phenot stone. I said, Are you fucking real? So I I I had to go and so I was like, I gotta see this thing. You know, I gotta practice to lift this thing. So I went over, lifted about ten stones in one day over there with a friend of mine in Scotland who took me around, and the last thing of the day was a phenotyp. And I picked that stone up, and it was just the most amazing mythology meets reality moment that you could possibly imagine. It was like I could consider myself now a member of the Fina tribe, and then you think to yourself, how many people have put their hands on this? How many people have picked this up over the past a thousand, two thousand years?

SPEAKER_01 7:45

How many people tried and didn't do it?

SPEAKER_00 7:47

How many people have tried? How many people have failed? How many hands have come on it? What do they look like? What was their day-to-day like? What was life like a thousand years ago? People were lifting the stone then. So, like the effort remains the same through the years, but the people change, you know, physically you might change, and the way you dress and the way you talk might change, but the effort is the same. So, like, you're putting your hands back through the stone to tease people, you know, a couple of thousand years ago, and that blows your mind when you think about it. So I lifted that stone, and then I was like, right, if there's a phoenix stone in Scotland, there has to be a culture in Ireland, and that's when I began my my research for that lost culture over here.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

So the first stone you picked up was the phoenix stone. Yeah. And how many stones have you picked up since then, since you started this? In in Scotland or in Ireland, or in general? In general.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Yeah, yeah. So let's say in Scotland, I think I lifted 16 of the mantle stones. I lifted eight to ten on day one, with the pheny stone being last, and I lifted another six on day two, so sixteen in two days um in Scotland. And I have found and lifted multiple times 54 lifting stones in Ireland now over the past four years. Um and multiple lifts of those, multiple lifts. Like I trained twice a week on stones, so you're probably talking thousands and thousands of lifts over the past couple of years, and it's not even just about the lifts to me, it's about the raising of the culture from the earth. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 9:14

You're not just yeah, that that's what I was gonna ask you. Is you you're standing there in front of this stone. Yeah. What what are you what's the thoughts go into your head? Like you there's the sheer weight of the stone, but then there's the presence of the the lore. Cha. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

There's um there's the cultural weight of it too, which is Well which is is huge. It's a massive article. I mean I suppose the biggest one, the first one that I found here, and it's it's still my favourite, it's the Lemo Flatherty story. So it's the um when I found out there was a fiend stone and I came back and I started looking for Irish lifting stones. So I just typed into Google Irish lifting stones got nothing. Um but one story by a man called Connor Hifner, who spoke about stone lifting being definitely being a thing in the past in Ireland, and he spoke about a short story written by a very famous Irish writer and essayist, a man called Liam O'Flaherty. So Liam O'Flarti wrote a story called The Stone, and it was the greatest day in this old man's life. This old man was reminiscing, but the greatest day in his life was lifting this particular stone on a wedding day in front of all the islanders. He lifted it the highest, he could lift the stone up to his chest, kissed it three times, and said he could still hear the resounding shouts of the islanders in his head 50, 60 years later in his daughter. He can still hear he remembers that lifting the stone was the greatest day in his life. That's such a cool story, you know. So I went-I I typed in Lemo Flarty stone and all that kind of stuff. I ended up getting a Reddit thread by a man called Peter Martin, who kind of single-handedly brought back the culture in Scotland. He was talking to an islander on Innish Moor where Lemo Flarty was born, and the islander, or named a woman named Fiona, said, The story that Lemo Flarty wrote about is not fiction, it's a reality. It's based on an actual practice here on this island. And not only is it based on an actual practice, he wrote about a particular stone that was lifted on the island for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Um, it's on a small pathway down by Port Vale on Dune, which is a small little harbour in the village of Kurt McCopper. But the stone is still there, and I hope this helps somebody. So that was written on a Reddit train about 12 years ago. So I was like, are you are you telling me that this isn't just a piece of fiction, you know, a beautiful story written by one of the most famous writers? It's an actual practice, you know, and an actual stone that was written about. So I made it my business to follow that lead and to go see if I find the stone from the story, the stone. That weekend I went up to Galway and got a ferry across to the Iron Islands, which is 40 minutes out off the west coast of Ireland. Got a bike cycle 25 minutes to get to this place because you can't have cars on the island, and went looking for this stone. Now, if you haven't been to the Arond Islands, the Arond Islands are just rocks. It's just stones. It's just like an island, it's like a rock covered in rocks. You know what I mean? It's like, how am I gonna know which rock is the fucking rock? You know, but it was like it's an island of stones. So I I get to this particular pathway that they said I was on. I'm going down towards an old harbour, and I'm walking down this pathway, and there's just a hundred thousand stones of all different shapes everywhere, but they're all grey, it's all grey limestone. So I'm like, how am I gonna know which one is the one? You know, there's just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds all over the place on this pathway. But I go down, and in the story, Liam describes this stone as being it was a round block of gravit, and it sparkled as the sunshine shone upon the particles of meat ended surface. And on the ground where it laid it was a little hollow, and all around it were bruised stones, bruised to a powder. And I was like, that sounds pretty specific. So I was thinking granite might be a different colour. So sure enough, I'm 50 yards down from the the harbour of uh Port Vale and Dune. And then a little hollow in a patch of grass, grass is at a premium because it's very little grass, it's all rocks. In a little patch of grass with bruised stones all around it, is a round pink grand boulder standing out like a beacon in the field of grey limestone. And I'm like, that's it, you know. That no, I'm not sure, but that has to be it. You know, it has to be it. Makes sense. It's round, it's pink, it stands out, it's about to say it's the right size. So I find it. I try and lift it, I can't lift it at all. I can't break the ground with it. It's huge, it's massive. I mean, I lifted some of the lifting stones in Scotland, some I couldn't lift because they were too big. I was only at the start of my journey then. I was coming from like an endurance background, I was about 76 kilos of endurance athletes, trying to lift this huge stone. Couldn't do it. But I was like, that has to be it. And I come back a few weeks later with a friend of mine from Scotland to go, now we try to lift a stone again. And on the way back, I meet an islander, a man walking down giving a walking tour. And I was like, You've got molecular cara. Yeah, I say, excuse me, my friend, do you know anything about the lifting stone down there? And he was like, Sha, the Mulan, Port Bayland Dune. He said, Yeah, the pink one. And I was like, Yeah, the pink one, he said, Yeah, the pink one down there in the patch of grass. They can call it the Malone, Port Baylon Dune. So the stone had a name and everything. The Malone. Malone means round granite boulder in um Iron Islands, Irish. Like the Iron Islanders have like 50 names for stones, because there's just stones over there. So Malone, Moulin, Maulair, Olaon, Lapluck, all these words for stones. But this one is the round granite boulder at the mouth of the port of the fort. And that's what it means. And the fort is Dunangus, which is the second oldest fort in Europe, and that sits up on the hill. And that was meant to be um built by the Fir Boloch, which are with the um the ancient Irish race that lived here thousands of years ago, written at the Lower Commander, the um the Irish Book of Invasions, written in the 15th century by the monks. So, like this is mythology and reality and everything combined with the stones. And like it's named after the fort of Dunegus, which is three and a half thousand BC, you know. So I'm thinking, how long has this thing been lifted for? In the story, it says it's been lifted since time immemorial. Time immemorial. Like you tell me how long ago that was. It could be thousands and thousands of years. So I was then I got verification from an island, that's it. That's the stone. That's the one that was lifted. That's the testing zone of the air of the island. So then I made it my business to see could I A find out some more of these stories and B train to lift that stone? Because when we went over there with my friend from Scotland, we weighed the stone at 171.2 kilograms, which is just a touch under 400 pounds, which is a big, big stone, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

And it's just been sitting there for time.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

It's been sitting there since it was moved, probably with the glacial, the British ice ice sheets, you know. So you're probably talking, I don't know how many tens of thousands of years ago. That stone has been has been there. It's been and it's been there and it's been lifted by the islanders for a long, long, long time. So I mean, you can't tell but when you put your hands on these things to think about all that, you know? To think about, you know, where did it come from? Even with stone, like where did it come from? Like, was it the did it come from the north, you know, north of Ireland, the Moor Mountains, maybe, and it was brought over by the glacier and dropped there, you know, a couple of hundred thousand years ago, and then someone spotted it and saw the beauty of it and the shape of it and said, like, did we I'll try and lift that. And then you have a flarty writing about it, saying, like, then he had the three levels of of the lift. So you had level one, which is go away fui, which is the wind under it. So we could just get it off the ground. It said it was a great day in any young man's life. It was a great day in any young man's life if he could raise that stone from the ground. Then you had level two, which was if you could get it to your lap, all the way up and into your lap, sit it on your knees in the squaw. They said you were a champion, equal of the best. But if you could stand that stone up to your chest and and kiss it, you're to show control and put it back down again, you were a phenomenon of strength to be spoken about for generations. And everybody knew you, you know? So there's the three levels of of the lift, the three levels of man would I suppose with the lift as well. So it was just the coolest story ever. I can't just still can't believe that. That's an actual thing, and that I found it, you know. I found to find that stone and to bring this story back to life again. And I think my name has kind of been carved into the the history of that stone now. Not figuratively, you know, but I think emotionally there's a piece of my soul always gonna be wrapped around that beautiful pink boulder, you know. And then I've had some amazing moments with it ever since. Um we'll get into that in a minute. I'll give you a chance to talk, and I talk all day long.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Oh no, listen, I I'm really excited, I'm really excited to hear because I did see a video on it. Um and it's very emotional when you were there uh with Molly Gadera, who was there with uh her her Irish with Molly doing like a uh like I think she calls it Molly Fest, where they're in the Aaron Islands and they're speaking the Irish language. It's kind of like a little uh I don't know if you call it a pilgrimage or a retreat. Um but they were there when you actually lifted that stone. So tell just tell that story. It's absolutely so from from the start, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

So like I've I've visited that stone seven times. Um and it's a pilgrimage, like I said, pilgrimage is a great one because that's the way I described. It's a pilgrimage to get there. It's a four-hour, four and a half hour drive, followed by a 45-minute ferry, followed by a 25-minute cycle, followed by a 10-minute walk, and then you get to the stone. So it's it's a it's a tough one to get to. So by the time you get there, you're already pretty damn tired, you know, because you're traveling all day. But I've traveled there seven times and I've gradually got better at lifting it all seven times. But I never had gotten it up to my chest. My my main goal since the start, four years of training, has been to see can I stand that stone up to my chest, to do the same as the story, to aft meets life, you know, to make that full circle moment for myself. And I'm 46 years old now, so it's like, you know, time is against you. Um, can you do this and be as strong as this extremely strong man in the Iron Islands, you know, who got renowned forever, but it's his famous strength. So I trained him. I trained like a demon, I trained and just built it up and built it up and ate more and ate more. I went from being 75 kilos to 105 kilos. And I was invited over six months ago, or sorry, almost 12 months ago now, by Molly. She said, I love what you're doing, and bringing back this culture. Could you come over and maybe give a talk and a demonstration of the lift? I said, I will. Um, and at this stage, at the start, nobody cared about what I did. I was just on this journey by myself and no one cared. At this stage, it had grown so much legs, the culture is back. It's alive. Ton art to rash, the strength is back, and called to over rash, the culture is back, and it's alive and thriving again. So a lot of people were aware of it too, you know. So I go over on the ferry and I come off the ferry and I met my Molly and Hogan and you know, comes to talk to you, and you know, we're all speaking Irish as much as we possibly could on the island. It was it was this reclamation of culture. Because we had so much strip to take away from us over the years, that just to see everybody over there trying their best, you know, to be a kind that's going to get to be speaking Irish, no matter how pigeon it was, no matter how many few words you had, you'd used them. So it was like there was a whole vibe of good energy and cultural reclamation. We're bringing something back, we're bringing it back, we're bringing our language back, we're bringing our pride back. So I get off and I met by about 70, 80 people on bikes, because it's a bikes only on the island. And they're all cheering, and you know, what are you cheering for? They're cheering for you. What do you mean? You know, they're all proud of you, they're all proud of what you've done, you know. So we cycled to the place, um, which is down actually right down by Limbo Flatherty's house. It's only about 200 yards away from his house where he lived. And there's a memorial statue to him there. And at the memorial statue, there's about another 100 people there because they called me in by bus. They were a little bit older. So, all in all, there's probably about 200 people down to what marching me. Lift this. Lift the stone and give a talk about it. So we tried, we walked down to the stone. It was a most beautiful day at a beautiful sky. And we walk down to the stone, and I'm I'm standing there looking at it. And every time you go there, you forget how big the damn thing is. It's like it's it's huge. I mean, it's uh as a lump of granite goes, it's big, it's round, it comes just above over my knees, and I'm standing over it. It's a big stone, you know. I mean it's a it's a big effort to lift this thing. But I was standing there and I was talking, I was giving my talk about it, telling about the Lima Flarity story. This was the first stone found. I've never lifted it higher than my knees before, but I'm gonna try my best. So I was getting nervous. I was like, there's 200 people around you, you know, 200 people standing in a big circle around you, you know. So I was like, lads, can someone put on some music or something? Gotta give me a fucking bit of a G up here, you know what I mean? Um I'm nervous, you know. And then everybody started singing. O Roshia the Vahuaya. You know, everybody. There's two people started singing it, then ten people started singing it, and then everybody started singing it. And Ocean of Ahawaia is an old Irish song, and it's O Royo.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Let me tell you, I'm um when I watch the video of it and we're gonna put the video on.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

I'm I'm gonna put this video on so that many others maybe something put on the cable three levels up the lift, so you had the level one took away for you, which is the wind under it. So we could just get it off the ground. So it was a great day in any young man's life. It's a great day in any young man's life if you could raise that stomach from the ground. Then you had level two, which was if you could get it to your lap, all the way up and into your lap, sitting on your knees in the squawk. They said you were a champion, equal of the best. But if you could stand that stone up to your chest and kiss it, you have to show control and put it back down again. You were a phenomenon of strength and spoken about for generations.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Right, man. My first, I'm gonna tell you a quick little story. My first time ever going to Ireland was with a very, very good friend of mine. It was a group, a group of us, but a very good friend of mine, his family's from Ireland. Uh, fireman, uh big six foot four, massive, massive strength this guy has, right? We're over in Ireland and we're uh we're driving around and we went to his mother's hometown, and there was an old timer in in one of the pubs we went to, and he sang Oro Shadova Hawaii. That's the first time I ever heard that song. And it just I was I was very intrigued because it's it was in Galway, it's it's the Galtech, it's it's this guy, it's his number one language is speaking Irish, and here he is singing this song. And I it just it really, you know, it got me. It's very, very good. And I always said, I gotta learn how to sing that song. First, I have to learn the Irish language, which I am working on. But so that was that was one thing. In that same trip, uh, we took a uh a trip to his father's homeland where his father grew up. And uh the name of the town is Letter Mullen. You know where Letter Mullen is? It's right off from where Inishmoor is. But when we were driving through Letter Mullen, he says, Hey guys, what what do you notice around here? And uh we look around, we're like, it's all rock. It's just rock everywhere, rock everywhere. And this is right off the coast of Inish Moore, right? Where Letter Mullen is. So uh now I'm gonna tell you what my friend's name is. His name is Liam Flarity. Oh man, that's amazing. Liam Flarity. And he and it was O'Flarity, his father had dropped the O. His his father's brother, he kept the O. So he had Liam had a cousin, Rory O'Flarity, but you know, his name is Flarity, but Liam Flarity, yes. And when you started telling me about when I started hearing about this Liam Flarity stone, I'm like, what? You gotta go see this thing now.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Yeah, I gotta do it. Oh, yeah. So look, we were there. So look, but they're just but people just start and they started singing this. So when you're singing a song, you know, that's about 500 years old in a place, like that's there's a fort there that's 5,000 years old. And you know the language was stripped, it was taken from us, but everyone there is bringing it back, you know, everyone there singing in the language, and they're welcoming you back to your language, to your culture, you know. Oh man. So it was like all ocean of a hahawal guy, and it was like this energy was just coming fucking in, it was just coming in. I'm in the middle, and they're all singing this around me. And I'm in the middle, and this fucking energy is coming in, and I I stood over that stone and I picked it up like I was picking up a football. 171.2 kilos and up into my lap. And I was like, I can't believe how fucking easy that was. So the hard part then is to get it from your lap, dude, to be able to stand up with that thing. So I turn it, I turn it, I get a good right hand over, left hand under, and I just push my hips through and up it comes all the way up to my chest. Give it the three kisses like the man does in the story, put it down again. And just fucking broke, broke me. You know, overwhelmed, just overwhelmed with the fact that I'd done it. I mean, I I mean I was four years training for it, but it wasn't just that, it was like the fact that the culture is alive, it's back again, you know? Yeah, and these people I can't do bringing that energy, you know what all of that. So I go, I go down, I'm overwhelmed, I stand up and I get a hug, and then people come in in a fucking tribal hug around me, like about 30 or 40 people just in, and everyone putting their hands in on top of your head, and they're around you in a big circle, and no one is saying, Well done, or congratulations. Everybody is saying, you know, Guramah would thank you. Everyone's just saying thank you, you know. And it's like it's one of those moments that you're like, it was perfect. You don't get many.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

I I can't even imagine how that felt for you. But it w especially with the music, the song, the language.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Just it was the whole vibe of the whole vibe. The culture was dead and now it's back, the language was dead, and now it's back. We're celebrating everything together, we're here together in this moment, and it was a perfect day, the sky was blue, and I got the best lift of my life, all combined in one day, one perfect moment. And I'll never forget it as long as I live. And look the man of the story said that he it was the greatest day in his life. And I will go to my grave and I can that is probably the greatest day in my life, you know. So art becomes life. Becomes art, becomes life, and kind of a Celtic knot. And I walked into the pub that night, we went back to the pub, we had a few drinks. But as I walked in, um I was like, you know, Tom Tae Shock, you know, you know, Tom Tae Shock or that, you know, the chieftain has come, you know. So I was called the cheat the Tae Shock for the whole rest of the whole thing, that the chieftain, you know, it's called the chieftain. I was like, Yeah, man, that's pretty fucking cool. You know what I mean? That's really so we just with this wonderful, wonderful occasion. And Molly still talks about it, she still texts me every now and again, and she'll say, you know, I just wanted to say thanks again because that was just what an experience. Like I don't think I'll ever do it again. I don't think I need to lift that stone ever again. I had my perfect moment with it, you know. Sure. I take people there, I take people there, show them it, and show them the area because there's absolutely three act that is magic. But just I had my time with it, and now it's time to pass it on. You know, that was the first one. That was the first stone found, you know?

unknown 28:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

What a story that is. And I've spoken about it on podcasts, it's on beyond the national TV. They're spoken about it on like interview shows. We've had nationwide, we've done a documentary for our TM one hour documentary for our national broadcaster called Made of Stone. Um and that stone featured Harry in it, too. And it was just it's now people know it's become almost like an iconic strength place that people can go visit, you know? Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Now tell me uh how you're how you're finding stones and doing research to uh you know to where where the next stone is going to be.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Yeah, so I mean, like I said, that was the first one, you know. Stone won. So I got a couple of calls after that, like where I put it back, I put that on the map. It was the first oil sheet in Stone found. So a lot of people are kind of calling and saying, oh, that's amazing. But I got in contact with a man called Johnny Dillon, and Johnny Dillon works for the National Folklore Collection, which is the best thing that was ever done by the Irish government. So there was a back in 1937, 38, and 39, the Irish government put folklore on the national curriculum for children. So they said, Right, kids, our country has just been formed. You know, we've just become a republic. We're losing a lot of our old stories. Here's a copy book. Go back to your mothers and fathers, your grandfathers and uncles and aunts, and ask them about the local traditions in their area. Anything, it could be anything from cooking to cures to battles to supernatural stuff.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

What was the time frame of this? What was the time frame?

SPEAKER_00 30:10

1937 to 1939. Okay. So they were like, right, go back, here's a list of topics, and every Friday we do folklore instead of doing fucking English or Irish or maths or whatever, you know. So the whole folklore of the nation was collected by these children, put together, collated, sent to Dublin, and is now available to go see in the National Folklore Collection. But in the last couple of years, what they're doing is they're digitizing this now and they're putting it online. So you can just type in. Yeah, so you can just type in the uh it's called Ducas, D-U-C-H-A-S. Ducas is the Irish or birthright. So Ducas, you can type in the Ducas into Google and you get into the National Folklore Collection for free. And you can type in a keyword. So you can type in your surname, where your family is from, anything at all as a keyword, and you get all the stories from all over Ireland with that keyword. So, of course, what did I type in? Stone. And I typed in Stone, and I got 25,000 references to Stone. 25,000 references. Wow. That's a lot of references. Like we tell me Nadina. Nadina Clear, you know, we were the people of Stone. But a lot of those were like say marking stones or or giants throwing stones or dolmens or cromlicks or standing stones or standing circles or whatever it was. But every now and again you get a story about somebody lifting a stone at a crossroads or at a funeral practice. Funeral games were a big thing here. Or um after mass or before mass on a Sunday, which was a huge thing. So I ended up finding a load of stories from Ducas about stone lifting. And I started to gradually kind of gather the stone lifting culture throughout Ireland. First of all, I thought it was just on the West. Then first of all, I thought it was just on the islands after West. Then Galway was very, very big for it. Mayo um Claire. But then there's stories from every county in Ireland about stone lifting. It was obviously a practice that was done. But pre-famine times, pre-1840s, let's say. This was a huge cultural practice. People would meet at the crossroads on a Sunday, there'd be dancing and singing and matchmaking, you know? But there'd also be feats of strengths, there'd be um stone lifting or stone throwing. And pretty much every crossroads would have its own set of stones, lifting stones at it. Um they're also practiced after funerals um or after mass on Sundays in graveyards. A lot of graveyards have specific lifting stones in them that were lifted as funeral games which are held for prominent people in the area. That the funeral might last three days. So there'd be tests of strength and endurance and all these crazy games that people used to practice back in the day to pass the day, you know. And it's probably the only time that people would get together, you know, because I mean you're talking pre, obviously pre-internet and perhaps pre-fo, pre-phones, pre-everything. You know what I mean? So people would only get together in large gatherings at these things, and then people and being men would say, look, there's a lifting stone, let's try it. Big social status thing, maybe lifting stones. If you can, if you were the best in the day, you got you know, you got huge social status, you know, the women might find you more attractive, the men would talk about you, you'd be a better chance of getting a job. So, I mean, all of these things, but they were a very important part of who we were. So, like, I just kept finding this culture as I dove through Ducas. And the more I found, I just drive to the place then. You know, they'd like they're very generic. If you say, like, a man lifted a stone in a graveyard in the village of uh Claheen in Tipperary, and he he was a very strong man, and he was the only man who could do all the men used to come on a Sunday, but the only man could do was this man. So you're like there could be 30 graveyards in you know around that area. So you then you just have to go to a couple of them and look. And Irish people being innately fucking curious and nosy, if they see you wandering on a graveyard, they can ask you, you know, you're looking for something in particular, and then you'd say, I'm looking for a stone, then all of a sudden someone's like, Oh yeah, I don't know about it. But Jesus, I know there's a man who might know. He'll send you down the road, you're gonna knock on a guy's door you've never met before. Um I was sent down here to talk about this. Oh yeah, the stone, yeah, I remember that. My grandfather lifted that. And come in and tell you all about it. And then you're sitting at someone's table you never met before. They're giving you tea and biscuits, they're telling you all about the story of someone who lifted this stone, and then they're bringing it up to show you where it is. There it is, there. Like I the last man to lift it was my own grandfather, or the last man to lift it was my great-great-uncle or something. You know what I mean? And then it's like there it's alive again. So, like, there it is. So then you go, you lift it, or you don't lift it, and then you're the next person in that link in that chain, and the story's back alive again. And that's what it's been. It's been just travel to the places, meet the people, get the stories, find the stone, lift the stone.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Have you noticed, have you noticed any of those people who who led you to the stone uh after let's say you lifted the stone? Is there any kind of do they feel any kind of revival in their own ancestry or happiness about that?

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Like Oh my god, there's a stone I went to up in uh Karna, up in West Galway, and it was called Klucknarkine. So Arkane would be a cove, would be an open cove, Arkane, where it's like a crump pond would be a closed cove, you know, a closed cove. So this is a beautiful open cove. So Klucknar Kane. And this stone was lifted for hundreds of years as a fisherman's testing stone. It's right beside the sea, um, right up against a beautiful old stone ball, you know. So I was told this by a man who lived in the area. I said, the last man who lifted that stone was still alive. Now he lifted it 50 years ago, but he's still alive. Um, do you want to come up and see it? You know, because people get windy. You're the stone lifting guy. You get stories, you get people sending you messages online. So we go up to this place and I meet this man, Mihaw. And he's only living about 100 yards from where the stone is. And he he comes down to meet me, you know. I pull in on my car, I'm after driving five hours to get here because it's right in the west of Gaway in the middle of the north, and right up by the coastline, and then this man comes down, he's like, Don't lift the chest, I want to tell all my friends. So he's on phone, all his friends. And then now the the wives are coming out, the kids are coming out, the dogs are coming out, and then there could be maybe 20 people there watching you, and then like I saw there's a guard car, police car came up, and I was like, Oh shit, they're gonna tell me to stop it. I was like, No, that was his friends, the guardino coming out to watch, everyone's coming out to watch. And they're all standing around the snow and then they're all talking about the last man who lifted it. And he third, then they're talking about, oh yeah, but didn't your father lift it? He did, he did, JJ's. That was a great lift. They're reminiscing about all the area and the lifts that were done. And then you go to lift it. So like I weighed that one at 190 kilos, but the lift on this one was just to get the goafi. So that's like about 420, 420 pounds. But what you have to do with this one is just to get the wind under it. So you have to grab it by the underneath and it's shaped like a whale's back. So it's kind of like large at the top and then it comes down. It's like a whale going under the water, which is beautiful because it's right beside the coal. So you have to just find the balance point and it's and just drive to the floor and pick that thing up. Now picking up a stone, people are kind of saying, like, you know, especially strong men are kind of saying, like, 190 kilos, that's that's relatively easy on a on a deadlift, you know. And it is, I mean, geez, I can lift up no problem. Because like the difference between lifting a stone and lifting a barbell, it's 100% different. Much more difficult because a barbell is made to be lifted. It's ergonomic, it's equally weighted, it's got a fucking handle. You're inside, you're in a gym, and it's made to be lifted. A stone isn't. A stone is outside. You're dealing with texture, you're dealing with trying to get hand holds on it. Grip is a huge factor. It's raining, it's the West of Ireland. You know, you're trying to get a grip on this thing, you're going down lower, and you're trying to push the ground away from you and lift a rock that doesn't want to be lifted. It's quite happy where it is. So it's quite happy. You know what I mean? It's been there very long time. It doesn't, it doesn't like being picked up too much. It's comfortable. It's very comfortable on the ground there. You know, it's quite pleased where it is. Yeah. So I get I sent me so where it's not lift it. And the fucking the cheers, man, the happiness it gives people. I can't believe how such a simple thing makes people so happy, you know? Because I mean you get a buzz off when you're doing it. But you see the people reacting and cheering and hooting and hollering and coming over and hugging you and slapping you on the back and come up anytime and just fucking call into the house, don't even knock. You know, you're you're always welcome here. You've continued on the story.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

There's something to be said about that right there. The simple things in life.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

That's what it is, man. It's a simple thing. It's the simplest thing in the world. It's the easiest thing in the world, in theory, to go out and just pick up a stone. But I said you're not just lifting the stone, you're in the story. And that's what I love about it. These aren't just stones, they're stories, you know?

SPEAKER_02 38:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

They're part of the local culture. And you're continuing that local culture, and people really, really, really appreciate that, you know, because like my dad, my granddad lifted it, I lifted it, and now you lift it, man. You know what I mean? So you're lifting like what you're part of the family almost now.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

You know what I mean? Let me ask you this. If if I'm walking through a field, like I go if I go back to my grandmother's cottage in in Bangor Aris, if I'm walking through the field there and there's like some big rock there that's like way out of place, could that be maybe a lifting stone that was used to be? Potentially.

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Potentially. And every to for it to be a lifting stone means it has to have a story attached to it. So whether someone had lifted it before or it'll be lifted by the people in the area, it's all about the story. Or not it's just a stone figure. But I always think to people, too, that the stone story starts when you lift it. You know, because I started lifting these stones on the beach in Benville, where I'm from here in Waterford, the southeast of Ireland. I started lifting these stones just because they stood out because they were beautiful. But now people are coming from all over the world to lift these stones because I've named them away. And I sent one of those stones over to Boston as a gift to the stone lifters in America. And that stone is now sitting in Boston and it's been brought around to all the Irish festivals and lifted as the Irish lifting stone. Clockborn, the white stone. And that stone has been lifted by about 300 people in America and by about 150 people here in Ireland, you know?

unknown 40:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

And that stone's just started with mean picket four years ago and saying that looks beautiful. But now the story is alive with it, and people are adding their own stories to it, will gather stories, you know? So the story is everything. Once it has a story, it's it's a lifting stone. But once you lift it, you start the story yourself, you know.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

There's nothing wrong with that. Has there been any stones ever written about or discovered that might have the Ohm language on it? No.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

Um no, I have gone to a lot of these ohm sites and found them. Um but those would be more like archaeological stones. You'd not be messing with that kind of stuff, you know. Um anything like that would be more of an archaeological balloon stone is the same way, you know. They're storied archaeological pieces. I wouldn't want to go messing with them. A lot of these lifting stones are just picked up because of their beauty, their shape, their colour. And it's amazing that that stands out, especially in the West. Most of the lifting stones on the west of Ireland are pink granite because they stand out against the the grey line stone, you know. All of the all of the lifting stones on the islands are pink granite.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

I've been following this guy on uh Facebook or Instagram, I forget which one. He he has uh some reels that go out and he's teach he teaches little phrases of Irish. He's a guy from Donegal. I I don't I don't even know what his name is, but uh one of the words that I saw this week, it just so happened. You know, I know you were coming on the show, but one of the words he had was um carrick war, large rock or big rock.

SPEAKER_00 41:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

Large rock. So maybe I thought that was interesting that that that just showed up.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

But yeah, I mean, like it's amazing that there's a lot, like a lot of Irish place names would have carrig or clock in it as well, you know, which would be stone. Clock in, clock or clockmore. Then you have carrick, like carrick on shore. I lived about 20 minutes from carrick on shore. That's a carrig on shore, like you know, stone in the river shore, or the rock in the river shore. So korrig or cluck are in a lot of our places because there's so much stone here, you know. So it's a prefix to a lot of our names.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Is that um I like my my family is from Belmullet, my my grandfather's from Belmullet, my grandmother's from Bangor Aris, but I know if you go out towards uh towards Black Sod, there's an area called Clahar. Is that is that stone? Yeah, that's a stone. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. You know, so like yeah, I mean, Irish place names are awesome because once you delve into that too, you figure out that the Irish place names don't mean something. The the English kind of pasteurizations of them, like the anglicizations of them, don't mean anything. So, like, say where I'm from is um where I lift with the sun, it's got a place called Ben Vie in English. But in Irish it's on benvui. And on benvui means the melodious yellow. And it's called the melodious yellow because the cliffs are yellow, and the melody of the sea hit the cliffs. You know what I mean? So like the melodious yellow means everything, because benvi means nothing. Fennor on Fionur, up the road from Mary Ann. Fennor on Fionur means the white side of the hill, you know? The white side of the hill because it's white indigenous plant life on that side of the hill. So that's the white side of the hills. You know what? Fionour, that means everything. Fennor means nothing. So what happened was the English came in and just bastardised the names. They just kind of wrote out English personal names, which means nothing, but at least we retained those Irish names and now we're kind of reclaiming them, you know. My favourite one is what he said, Clon Mell, which is only a couple of minutes from me here, too. On Clun Mallet, which means the Meadow of Honey, you know, because it's an hour of the land that's full of bees. So on Clun Mallor, the Meadow of Honey, like isn't that beautiful, you know? Clon Mell means nothing, but on Clun Mallow means everything. So yeah, so the Irish names, it's like there's a whole reclamation going on over here now. We're all proud again to be who we are. Um because we had that kind of post colonial shame for a long time here. We were ashamed to be Irish. We were ashamed to know Irish or practice Irish cultures or songs or music, but there's just ridiculous. Been this telluric resonant from the earth kind of upswelling of love for our culture and our history and heritage and language. Again, over the last five years, you can feel it in the earth here, you feel the bones.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

And I think this is why it just landed so hard. This is why it is it became so popular so quick. Because it just landed on fair time side, because people are just like, Oh, this is awesome. This is a part of who we are, part of who we wore. We'd lost it or it was taken from us, but now it's back, you know? So yeah, man, it's been it's just been the most amazing couple of years. I mean, fucking hell. I mean, going on to TV, doing a one-hour special, like 18 months shooting this. It's available to watch on the RT player, but hopefully we'll be sending it to America in the next couple of months. And um doing that, like you know, being on TV as an invited guest and fucking being on every podcast you can imagine, meeting all these cultural ambassadors after writing a book that's coming out next month. The book is coming out with Bloomsbury, it's coming out with Penguin in the States, too.

SPEAKER_02 44:53

What's the name of the book gonna be?

SPEAKER_00 44:54

It's called The Wind Beneath the Stone. And um it'll be out in September in the States. So um just all this stuff is happening in such a short space of time. You can't you kind of feel like I'm living this double life. It's like, is it actually happening? You know how let me ask you this.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

How what's the age, like how old do you think you can do this until to lift them? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:18

Well, I suppose it all depends on what part of the world you're in the Irish Lift Stones are some of the heaviest in the world. I won't say they're the heaviest, but there's uh the Irish Lift Stones, the average is about 170 kilos.

SPEAKER_01 45:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

So I mean that's average, like there's a just a lot heavier. You know, just a lot lighter, but it's also a lot heavier. So I mean, realistically I'm 45, I probably have a couple of years left. You know, not many. Your strength is on the on the way. But uh but I will say that I like I've never felt stronger in my life than I do now. Um I'm lifting these stones, like to be able to lift a 171 kilo stone to the chest is a big lift. It's a big lift. I mean, they have a thing called full start, which means full strong in Iceland. Full strong. And it's like the best stone lifting moniker you can get in Iceland. Those were always the heaviest in the world. And a lot of the full strong stones around 150, 160 kilos. This is 171, man. You know, it's another it's another step again. So like the Irish ones are big, they're heavy. Generally, the Irish ones are like the strongest man in the parish, lifted this stone. So as a test, as a show of his power, he lifted this particular stone. So you could you're putting yourself up against some of the strongest men who ever lived around the area. So yeah, so like you you haven't got too long to be able to do it. I'll I'll give him some probably maybe another two years. And I'm starting to.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Well, you seem to be you seem to be the gatekeeper of this this activity now. So are you mentoring anybody like to be the next? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

Oh, God. Oh, I mean, there's people the good thing about it now, Tim, is there's people coming from all over the world too. I mean, if you have a load of Irish men doing it now. Um, men and women, don't get me wrong, because women's lifting stones here too, and they're they're very famous and they're beautiful. Um, but you have people coming from all over around to do it, I'm getting it every week, every week in the summertime. Multiple times a week, I'm getting videos and photographs of people going to these stones and continuing the story on. And you have people traveling from all over the world to lift them. You know, people come from every part of the world, you can imagine, to lift these stones because they might have come from an Irish family, they might have had to travel through before the famine or during the famine. They've had them might have had to move to the east coast of America or Canada or you know, Southern America, and they're coming back to get in contact with their roots and they're lifting these things, and they're like, fuck yes, you know what I mean. This is brilliant. I'm back. I I've I've put my hands in these stones and I've proved myself and I'm back, getting reattached to my my ribs here again, you know. So to be able to give the world something like that back through the simple act of just going looking for them is the greatest honor that I could possibly ever imagine. And it's something I don't take lightly. So, like I said, I I'm pushing this as much as I can, promoting as much as I can, talking about it as much as I can, and just trying to keep the thing alive for as long as possible. But I do feel it's undeniable now, you know. It's in the public consciousness again, you know, Ton Nar Dogs and Cultura Rash.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

The same thing with the Irish language. Like it it this whole revival is happening. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:01

Yeah, and it's wonderful to see because like I'm thinking about the likes of my own dad and peop men of that age, a lot of men of that age, had that colonial shame that that that you know, I don't want to know on about the Irish language, you know, I don't know about what's it's no use. I don't want to know about it. I I don't like the music. Like he doesn't, he doesn't like the Irish music, he doesn't like the Irish language. And they just had that bet out of them at schools, you know, um back in the 50s and 60s. There was a showish stigma and shame attached to being Irish, you know. People are leaving in droves because of depression and lack of money and lack of opportunities. People are just leaving in droves and leaving the language and the culture behind. But it's you know, people are bringing it back, yeah. They're they're bringing it back. People are coming back, they're bringing it back. And to be at the tip of the spear, be able to do that in in in my own, you know, small way is uh it's huge.

unknown 48:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:52

You know, I had um I had paperwork to get my Irish citizenship years ago. And I just dragged my feet, I just never did it, I never did it. I finally, I finally did it. And I finally, you know, yeah. And um my friends ask me, like, what the benefit of it is, you know, what what what's the benefit or of why you should have your citizenship? And I tell them the main reason is the more I learn about Irish culture, especially doing this podcast, I'm learning just even sitting here with you, the more I learn about the the culture and everything, the more I realize the importance of my heritage and and and being part of these customs is also in my bones. And that, you know, just just two generations. My my family has probably been in Ireland for thousands of years. You know, they're all from the west of Ireland, and that's that's in my bones. You know, like I my the last names of my family are Taher, uh Winters, the the Winters side, they're from Bang, they live in Bangor Aris now. You know, I have cousins there, but the name Winters actually comes from Clare Island, and it's said that we uh we might even have been related to Grace O'Malley. You know, who I don't think we'll ever know that true story. But I mean, the the point is that my the DNA of me has been in Ireland probably for thousands of years. And it it I'm only two generations off. So why should I not have that shouldn't separate me from wanting that?

SPEAKER_00 50:31

It doesn't. It doesn't separate you at all. But the way and I speak about this a lot, and I speak about the people who left Ireland didn't want to leave Ireland. They had to leave Ireland, you know?

SPEAKER_01 50:40

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

And anyone who left over the last 150 years had to leave. They had no option. Your root is deep here, you know. You're just separated by a couple of generations. But you to me, and I'm preaching this in every podcast and everywhere, to me, you were as Irish as I am. You know what I mean? You're the exact same as me. You had to leave here, but you're still Irish. You retain your Irishness, you retain that blood and marrow doesn't go away, man. You know what I mean? That's who you are. That's that's the root of you. That's the marrow your bones. Like, and that's who you are, and you should be proud of your Iris, because you retained it through the separation, you know. But it's just it's just a physical separation. In your heart, you're still the same. So I say to all these people, come back to, come back to Ireland and and you'll drive around and get back in contact with your reeks again. But to me, the people who had to leave Ireland are always Irish and they always, always will be, you know.

SPEAKER_01 51:30

Yeah. Uh I've I've always loved the music, and uh the the language now is really I guess you know, as I get I've always loved the music since I was a kid. But I didn't play Irish music. I love it. Yeah. The the the language though, that's something that I'm really intrigued with now. And uh because I remember when I first heard people, I could tell you the first time was that time when I was with my buddy Liam Flarity when we went to his uh his grandmother's house in in Galway, and she didn't really speak English. She's you know, it was mostly Irish, and it was yeah, um, it was tough to understand her, but I couldn't imagine at that time. This is the first time I'm hearing the language, I couldn't imagine myself being able to learn the language because it was definitely something you hadn't heard before, you know. But now talking like with Molly and and just watching some a lot of different things online and with the internet now, things are so much easier. I'm really giving it, I'm giving it a whirl.

SPEAKER_00 52:35

Well, Mahu, you know what I mean? Tashe ghahi Tasha Reus, I mean, it's Brahma Changa, like Tashe Kriyagas Anam, Natira, you know, it's the heart and soul of the land. Like with the old phrase like Tirgon Changa, Tirgan Anam. You know, a land, a land without a language is a land without a soul. And we had our souls stripped away from this, you know, a long time. But I mean, now the language is back, and when you get in contact with the Irish language and you delve into it, you see how closely related it is to spirituality, to the land itself, and to the mythologies, you know. And it attaches you more to where you're from more than anything I can possibly imagine. I've delved into over the past couple of years through the process of looking for these storms. I've gotten back in contact with my language as well, and the Irish music, you know. Um, and it's it's rooted me in a way that I can't describe, but it's just you see the spirituality and the beauty of the language and you appreciate where you're from a hell of a lot more. I want to play you a song before we go. Um, yeah, definitely. I play I play I play the Irish trad all the time.

SPEAKER_01 54:03

Very good.

SPEAKER_00 54:03

I've just come tried mad, you know. I've just come Irish music mad, Irish language mad, Irish culture mad in the last couple of years. And it's been the most amazing revelation of my whole life, you know, and I'm just glad I can share that with people. I'm just glad I can share with people now, too.

SPEAKER_01 54:18

Great. Well, David, uh Gora Mahagit, did I say that right? You didn't read, right? Gora Mahagat.

SPEAKER_00 54:27

Jackie Jackara Gora Mahagot Fresh. You know, Thomas and Tony.

SPEAKER_01 54:32

I really appreciate you. I really I got a long way to go. I got a long way to go. But uh I really appreciate you being on the show. And it's this is just it's been great. Maybe um maybe we'll have you again when you're when you got a couple other rocks under your belt and we have another story to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 54:51

Sure, like I said, we can maybe get the book, the book, uh, get a promo for the book on the talk of interview comes over to America. We talked maybe in the next 12 months or 18 months. Please cut. I'll go on away.

SPEAKER_01 55:00

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and we'll we'll put your your link to your Instagram on here and the notes and uh and all the other stuff that we talked about. So um great talking to you. Uh enjoy the rest of the day. Slon. Slong before o'clock.