Thirty-Two Words for Field : Lost Words of the Irish Landscape

NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER

"What a joyful, profound, passionate revelry of a book this is—an illumination of how words make worlds; a reminder of what is lost when a language is lost; an act of salvage for ways of being and seeing which are fast vanishing."—Robert Macfarlane, author of Is a River Alive?

In this lyrical exploration of the Irish language's deep-rooted connection to nature, myth and memory, bestselling Irish author Manchán Magan offers readers a fresh way of seeing the world through words shaped by wind, water, ancestors, and the ancient rhythms of the land.

The Irish language has thirty-two words for field. Among them are: Geamhar – a field of corn-grass • Tuar – a field for cattle at night • Reidhlean – a field for games or dancing • Cathairin – a field with a fairy-dwelling in it.

The richness of the Irish language is closely tied to the natural landscape and offers a more magical way of seeing the world. 

Most people associate Britain and Ireland with the English language, a vast, sprawling linguistic tree with roots in Latin, French, and German. But the inhabitants of these islands originally spoke another tongue. Look closely enough and English contains traces of the Celtic soil from which it sprung, found in words like bog, loch, cairn, and crag. Today, this heritage can be found nowhere more powerfully than in modern-day Gaelic. 

In Thirty-Two Words for Field, Manchán explores how Gaelic, a three-thousand-year-old lexicon, has imbued the natural world with meaning and magic, evoking a time-honored way of life, from its thirty-two separate words for a field to terms like bróis (whiskey for a horseman at a wedding), iarmhaireacht (the loneliness you feel when you are the only person awake at dawn), and bladhmann (steam rising from a fermented haystack or idle boasting). 

Manchán urges readers to consider the sublime beauty and profound oddness of this ancient tongue that has been spoken in close connection to the land for thousands of years. Told through stories collected from his own life and travels, Thirty-Two Words for Field is an enthralling celebration of Irish words and a testament to the indelible relationship between landscape, culture, and language.

"This is a remarkable work that deepened my feeling of connection to a living world and expanded my sense of the possible.”—Merlin Sheldrake, author of Entangled Life

Manchán Magan was an Irish writer, podcaster, and documentary maker. He wrote for the Irish Times on culture and travel, was presenter on the RTÉ podcast The Almanac of Ireland, and the author of the award-winning, best-selling Listen to the Land Speak (Gill, 2022). His illustrated books include Tree Dogs, Banshees Fingers, and Other Irish Words for Nature (Gill, 2021) and Wolf-Men and Water Hounds (Gill, 2023).  

He made dozens of documentaries on issues of world culture for TG4, RTÉ, and the Travel Channel, was on the board of Hometree, a native woodland and land regeneration charity, and Common Knowledge, a non-profit social enterprise teaching skills for a sustainable homelife. He was also an ambassador for The Rivers Trust and lived for a quarter-century in an oak wood, with bees, hens, and, occasionally, pigs in a grass-roofed house near Lough Lene, Co Westmeath.

On October 2nd, 2025 Manchán died at the age of 55 of cancer. Considered a national treasure for his work bringing attention to the Irish language, Ireland’s President Michael D. Higgins said of Magan and his passing: “Manchán truly lived an inspirational life and helped so many people to find a deeper meaning in their lives. . . Manchán’s vision and understanding were not limited to Ireland or the Irish language, but to what we share and are connected to with all forms of life that live within native and indigenous cultures, languages and communities across the globe. . . He will be deeply missed."