IN Irish culture, the seanchaí was revered. This keeper of tradition told stories – fabulous tales which took us into the spaces between our world and the world of Aos Sí (the term ‘fairy people’ does not do them justice).

These were stories of ancient battles and ill-fated love; and the history of our land, including tales passed down from ancestors who lived before history as we know it began. The tradition is hanging on by its fingertips, but hanging on it is.

Our need for stories is universal. Fact or fiction, they help us understand the world and to engage with one another.

Sometimes the stories which touch us are formed from facts assembled by a journalist and expressed in language shorn of linguistic decoration.

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As for fiction, it is often anything but that. Many of the greats of literature revealed hidden truths: Joyce eviscerated an Ireland – ‘the old sow that eats her farrow’ - dominated by the Catholic Church; Edna O’Brien spoke up for women whose sense of being had been taken from them; like her, Colm Tóibin gets under the skin of Irish society.

Night-time stories are often a subtle way of teaching children life-lessons; and many stick in the memory.

As the horrors........

© The Irish News