thy house will be famous 'til doom (2024) 10min HD stereo** (Discretion: brief images of roadkill)

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'til doom documents a pilgrimage to the ruins of Tullynakill/Tulaigh na Cille, an old church on the shore of Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland. There had been a church at Tullynakill since the 9th century, which at one point served in stead of the abandoned Nendrum monastery on nearby Mahee Island in the 15th century. Nendrum/Naondroim itself was founded in the 5th century by Mo Chaoí (St. Mahee), of whom Fionnán (St. Finnian), founder of Movilla Abbey/Maigh Bhile, was a pupil.

According to Leabhar Gabhála Éireann ('the book of the taking of Ireland'), Fionnán once conversed with a hermit named Tuán mac Cairill, who claimed to be a 2000 year-old being. Tuán told Fionnán that, as a follower of Partholón, he was one of the second group of settlers to Ireland. By his own account, Tuán was the lone survivor of many atrocities and reincarnated into the form of many wild beasts to witness each wave of settlers to Ireland until the coming of St. Patrick.

If Fionnán was indeed the last to speak to Tuán, we could have it that Tuán has once again resumed his process of renewal. As an ancient observer of the shifting compositions of Ireland, Tuán symbolises a necessary compliance to the unfolding of history. Where the perpetual observance of the present, without attachment to the past or anticipation of the future, allows us to appreciate the totality of the current moment without predilection. Tuán is thus an icon of unforgetting.

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** 'til doom features a reading of The Transformations of Tuán mac Cairill as told by Alfred Nutt in The Celtic Doctrine of Re-birth (1897), translated by Kuno Meyer. Freely available to read as Gaeilge and in English.

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'til doom (2024) is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0