Rediscover Language Rooted in Land

How deeply can we truly know a landscape if we don’t have the words for it?

In Thirty-Two Words for Field, writer and traveller Manchán Magan leads us into the heart of Irish tradition and language - where the land isn’t an abstract backdrop, but a living companion shaped by thousands of years of human experience.

Magan explores a rich Gaelic lexicon that once gave voice to the land’s shapes, textures and seasons. Here, a “field” isn’t a single idea, but a collection of distinct places and purposes - each named with care. Through stories gathered from his own life, conversations and wanderings, he reveals terms that carry the magic of pasture, harvest and human emotion - words that open a new way of seeing bog, hill, meadow and ridge as more than terrain, but as memory and meaning.

This is a book about how language can reconnect us with the natural world and with the rhythms of life that shaped Irish culture. In these pages, forgotten words are gifts - tools of attention, wonder and belonging.

Why You’ll Love It

• Reveals the intimate relationship between language and landscape

• Uncovers forgotten Gaelic words rooted in nature and daily life

• Blends memoir, travel and linguistic heritage

• Invites deeper noticing of place, seasonality and culture

Thirty-Two Words for Field is a celebration of language as a way of seeing - and a reminder that the places we walk carry stories worth learning.