A storytelling night founded in Dublin is expanding across the world.
Two Seanchoíche events are running in Sydney, Australia, this week, after coming to Berlin for the first time last week.
Seanchoíche – pronounced ‘shanna-key-huh’ – invites people to come to listen and engage with spoken stories, ranging from personal anecdotes to poetry pieces.
Founder Ciaran Gaffney said: “Over the past two years, we have run events in four continents. Six countries, I think, and counting. And we’ve had over a thousand people share their stories.”
Seanchaí is the Irish word for a storyteller, and the plural is seanchaithe. Oíche is the Irish word for night. Together, seanchaí and oíche create Seanchoíche – or storytellers’ night.
“Seanchoíche kind of has two missions,” Mr Gaffney explained. “One of them is to bring to life the storytelling within all of us. The other is to connect the Irish diaspora with their communities in various countries through something that we are known for, but that’s also really accessible and ubiquitous.”
Further international Seanchoíche events are scheduled to take place in London and Brisbane this month.
“Everyone is able to tell a story. So it’s nice to be able to champion that as Irish people, but to also invite other people to share their story too,” Gaffney said.