Seeing What's Hidden: Uncovering Irelands 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 much more closely resemble global indigenous traditions of reciprocity, respect, and reverence.

In Seeing What's Hidden Manchán Magan takes the reader along as he re-examines the old Irish ways, finding many a link 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 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 of 2025 he passed away at age 55 of cancer while working on these pages. The project was completed by his close friends and colleagues.