Listening for the Óran Mór
THE ART OF THE WELLBEING ECONOMY
A WEAll Ireland ‘Cultural Creatives’ Deep Dive
With John Spillane, Nóirín Ní Riain, Liam Ó’Maonlaí, Cáit Ní Riain, Dr John D’Arcy and the Hive Choir from Queen’s University Belfast
Part of Blas International Summer School of Irish Music and Dance
🗓️ Tuesday 24th June 2025 | 10:00–18:00
📍 Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick
Cost: There will be a 50 Euro charge for those who are only attending the WEAll event. Payable at the registration desk on arrival*.
Entry is free to those who have signed up for the Blas Festival.
An Invitation to Restore Our Connection with the Living World Through Song and Story
The Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll) hub on the island of Ireland recognises the vital role of culture, the arts, and the imagination in catalysing a shift from an unequal and extractive economy to one rooted in care, kinship, and collective wellbeing.
This deep dive gathering – Listening for the Óran Mór – calls together musicians, artists, activists, and academics to explore the deeper cultural resonances of music, story, and performance in reawakening our ecological awareness and re-enchanting our relationship with nature.
At the heart of our inquiry is the Óran Mór—the Great Song—an ancient Irish concept of the sound that moves through and connects all life.
Drawing from Irish myth and imagination, and inspired by thinkers such as John Moriarty, John O’Donohue, and Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, we will explore:
Can music and story help us hear the voices of our rivers, bogs, mountains—and trees—again?
How can a reawakening of our senses and the enchantment of the living world support our work to re-imagine new economic and social imaginaries in the service of wellbeing?
Can performance itself serve as a sacred practice of tuning into the more-than-human world – where the island, her communities are invited to be present to us?
In a time of overlapping crises—ecological degradation, cultural disconnection, economic inequality—this gathering offers a space for collective listening, remembering, and imagining. It is both a call to recover the ancient songs and stories that carry ecological insight and a provocation to co-create new ones that help us respond to today’s challenges with rooted wisdom and hope.
The Cultural Creatives Community of Practice (CoP)
This event is part of the work of WEAll Ireland’s ‘Cultural Creatives’ Community of Practice—a network of artists, researchers, and changemakers working to reimagine the cultural foundations of a wellbeing economy.
Through shared learning, collaboration, and creative exploration, we seek to:
- Catalyse new artistic and activist initiatives
- Reconnect culture with ecological and mythic imagination
- Shift dominant narratives that alienate us from place, people, and the more-than-human world
Registration
We invite you to be part of this space of transformation and encounter. Come ready to listen—deeply—to land and language, to trees and rivers, to each other, and to the Óran Mór as it passes through us and sets the pluriverse to song and music. Let us reawaken our collective imagination and co-create the cultural foundations of a new economy rooted in wellbeing, belonging, and reverence for life.
→ Register your interest / Get involved / Spread the word
Subscribe to the Cultural Creatives Community of Practice Newsletter
Lady Gregory translates “The Song of Amergin” as:
I am the wind on the sea;
I am the wave of the sea;
I am the stag of seven battles;
I am the eagle on the rock
I am a flash from the sun;
I am the most beautiful of plants;
I am a strong wild boar;
I am a salmon in the water;
I am a lake in the plain;
I am the word of knowledge;
I am the head of the spear in battle;
I am the god that puts fire in the head;
Who spreads light in the gathering on the hills?
Who can tell the ages of the moon?
Who can tell the place where the sun rests?
Watch the video of our February 26 2025 webinar, “Bearing Witness to Ecological Signs of the Times”
During this webinar we examined and bore witness to the work across the island of a new generation of diverse writers, poets, musicians and all who are bringing forth new ‘imaginaries’ and possibilities for lives and livelihoods that meet the ecological and justice demands of our times, in a spirit of inclusivity.
*Payments can be made in cash or by electronic bank transfer, if you have mobile banking
the discussion?
Let us know what
you would like
to write about!