Seeing What's Hidden : Uncovering Ireland's Ancient Ways of Knowing

Celebrated international bestselling author Manchán Magan takes readers on a fresh, eye-opening journey as he re-examines old Irish ways, finding links between ancient Irish beliefs and other Indigenous cultures around the world.

With a foreword by Robert Macfarlane and a contribution by Merlin Sheldrake.

Ireland may be a modern European country, but its old traditions, folktales, and mythologies reveal a relationship to the natural world that closely resembles global Indigenous traditions of reciprocity, respect, and reverence.

In "Seeing What's Hidden", Manchán Magan takes readers along as he re-examines the old Irish ways, finding many links between ancient Irish beliefs and other Indigenous cultures around the world.

Manchán explains that before Ireland was colonized, first by the Vikings and later by England, it was an island shrouded in fog and mystery, bordered by coastline and covered in green, damp forest.

In this book, Manchán returns to that pre-colonial Ireland. From the inherent reciprocity of the Irish language to retellings of ancient Irish folktales, Manchán reminds readers that Ireland was once a culture with a deeply spiritual relationship to the Earth and the sea, and that its people are still connected to the old ways and stories.

By remembering what they once knew, the Irish, and all of us, can create a renewed relationship to land, tradition, and each other.

"Seeing What's Hidden" is Manchán's last book. In October 2025, he passed away at age 55 from cancer while working on these pages. The project was completed by his close friends and colleagues.