Preserving the Living Past: An Evening with Dublin’s Seanchaí

I never set out to be a digital nomad obsessed only with Wi‑Fi speeds and packing lists. What draws me deeper into Dublin—even as I type from a quiet corner of The Library Project—is the realization that some of the world’s most vital connections happen not through fibre‑optic cables, but through the quiet, endangered art of storytelling.

This evening, I wasn’t hunched over a laptop in a co‑working hub. Instead, I slipped into the back room of The Cobblestone, a pub where firelight flickers on whiskey glasses and the hum of conversation makes you lean in. There, surrounded by strangers, I listened as a seanchaí—keeper of Ireland’s oral tradition—spun tales of Viking marauders and restless ghosts. No microphone, no stage, no PowerPoint. Just a voice and our attention, looping together past and present.

Why This Matters Now

Oral storytelling in Ireland isn’t nostalgia; it’s a thread connecting generations in a world where attention is measured in seconds. Once common across villages, seanchaí sessions now survive in a handful of pubs and festivals. For a nomad like me, it’s a reminder that the internet’s connectivity, for all its brilliance, can’t replicate the electricity of shared stories told by firelight.

How to Experience a Seanchaí Session

If you find yourself in Dublin, here’s how to seek out this tradition:

• Seek out the venues – Pubs like The Cobblestone, The Brazen Head and O’Donoghue’s host seanchaí evenings. Their social feeds often announce sessions.
• Arrive early and settle in – Seating is limited and the atmosphere intimate. Order a drink, listen, ask questions if invited.
• Respect the space – These gatherings are conversations, not shows. Don’t photograph without permission. Afterwards, linger and share your own stories over a pint.

A Reflection

Stepping out into the night, the Liffey’s salt in the air and the tram’s rattle fading, I thought about how digital nomadism skews toward the future and the global. Yet here, in a city of Viking ghosts and rebel poets, the challenge is to slow down—not just to pass through, but to let a place pass through you. As an old Irish saying goes, “A story is told not for what it tells, but for what it gathers.” Tonight, for a few hours, I was part of a fragile tradition that has survived empires and invasions and now resists the quiet erasure of the digital age. If you want to know the spirit of a city, don’t just map its Wi‑Fi hotspots. Find its living myths. You’ll carry them with you, silent, for years to come.

“Every city is made of stone, but its soul is made of stories.”
— An Irish seanchaí, as near as I can remember.