Sound Works

Remains of civilisations as old as the Pyramids have been found in Ireland and Mexico. Our knowledge of these civilisations is pieced together from artifacts, burial grounds and calligraphic representations on stone, baked clay and papyrus. Hieroglyphics, cuneiform texts and alphabets so long a mystery up until this century have now been deciphered. We still can only guess as to how religion was practiced and what "life was really like". All we can do is examine the dust left behind by the stampede.

As we approach the second millennium and the possibility of space travel, I am inspired by what may lie beyond our world-what civilisations we may yet encounter. Imagine the discovery of an alphabet of a civilisation unknown to us in the future. What would that be like? This looking backwards and forward at the same time, feeling the breadth of the time-space continuum, is unique to our time, and gives us the possibility of being archaeologists of the future.

But what of the here and now? Here is Ireland. I am Irish. On becoming a composer, my early pieces sounded so different from each other they might all have been composed by different composers. Instead of finding my mature style, this musical schizophrenia has continued unabated. There are 100 composers inside my head living in non-hierarchical happiness, inventing exotic imaginary cultures, poking good humoured fun at known formats, cross-breeding musical species, creating disturbing new worlds, playing with syntax, etc. This inclination was always there-new technology encourages it.

The Irish are offsprings of many cultural and political rapings and love-makings, and have suffered and assimilated much. Who are we? Among the 100 composers in my head, there is not one that thinks of himself as "Irish". The multiplicity of language makes this impossible. In the Book of Ballymote, which dates from the seventh century, is a section in old Irish called "Auraicept na n-Eces," the primary textbook of poets, who took twelve years to learn their craft. In it, it states that the Irish language was the chosen language because it was culled out of every hyperdark sound in every language . . . it was so large that it was more extensive than any language. Part of the chosen language was the "Iron Language," which students had to master in their sixth year. The Iron language was filled with slang words from other languages and words crushed together making new words. Iron language poems employ on the surface an arcane vocabulary that was used in making a second continuous meaning.

I immediately think of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, and at the same time think of the Iron language as something that has slipped into my veins.

Dublin, March 1995