It's timely that I finished reading Frank Delaney's book, Ireland, the night before St. Patrick's Day. I could read it again!
Ireland is a novel about a young boy who spends his life searching for a storyteller that comes to his home one evening. Woven into the plot of the boy's search and his coming-of-age are beautiful stories of Ireland's lore. Delaney's writing sings with the myths and legends that make up Ireland's history. I actually learned a lot about Ireland through the stories he included in the book.
In the author's note at the beginning of the book, Delaney writes that the country's oral tradition "took great care to say that imagination and emotion insist on playing their parts in every history, and therefore, to understand the Irish, mere facts can never be enough..." I believe that this is the truth of every nation, every tribe, every person; "we merge our myths with our facts according to our feelings, we tell ourselves our own story. And no matter what we are told, we choose what we believe. All 'truths' are only our truths, because we bring to the 'facts' our feelings, our experiences, our wishes. Thus, storytelling--from wherever it comes--forms a layer in the foundation of the world..." (Frank Delaney)
This idea of the foundational layer of storytelling is certainly true in the Catholic faith. The Bible is a collection of stories first told and heard aloud around fires of food and warmth. The Church's Tradition is a passing on of the experiences of events through the centuries and an understanding of those experiences. One's own individual faith is tapestry of stories and experiences shared with family, community, and within one's own heart and soul.
Storytelling, whether it's Irish history, Church history, or personal history, is a foundational component of human life.
Whether or not you are Irish, I encourage you to read Ireland by Frank Delaney (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005) if only for the wonderful stories that it contains.
