Cuinneagáin, Eoin Ó (2025). Songing Dúchas: Amhránaíocht as Decolonial Epistemic Disobedience, Linnaeus University Dissertations No 561/2025

Abstract

This thesis proceeds from the fundamental position that indigenous concepts should be used in academic studies on indigenous matters. Orientating itself around this necessity, the thesis formulates a diverse set of concepts that can be invoked in academic studies that concern Gaelic epistemologies. To achieve this, it considers how amhránaíocht, the Irish word for singing a song, functions as a disobedient practice which can resist and stay opaque to epistemic colonialism-coloniality. The author’s awareness of the methodological concepts and worldview of amhránaíocht emerges out of his own engagement in the oral practice as a link in the reproduction of indigenous knowledge. 

By situating amhránaíocht and its attendant worldview within an inter-cosmological, non-hierarchical dialogue with other autonomously voiced indigenous methodologies, it moves towards an epistemic break in the academic study of amhránaíocht from anglicizing-westernizing research methods towards a Gaelic research paradigm. Oideas, the Irish word for ‘oral education’ or ‘prescription’, is advanced as a healing-based methodology which empowers the centering of indigenous perception. It shows that despite Anglo-modern intervention into the worlds of the Irish-speaking colonized, oideas has always been capable of reproducing its own methods, preserving its own mechanics of self-representation and remaining opaque to Anglo-modern methodologies of conquest.  Dúchas,a holistic indigenous concept which may be translated as ‘nature’, ‘right’ or ‘ancestral patrimony’ was reformulated during the Anglo-modern settler-colonial plantation system as a means of protecting indigenous sovereignty over land and knowledge.                

Drawing on the centrality of the long-established concepts of dúchas and oideas, the thesis formulates songing as a decolonizing methodology designed for entering into Anglo-modern domains of epistemic power. As a direct translation of amhránaíocht into English, songing disrupts Anglo-modern epistemic violence and its grammars of supremacy.Six oral Irish songs are invoked to show how songing may function as a juxtapositionary tool to sense Anglo-modern colonialism’s secondary violences reproduced in electronic archives, English literature, anthropological discourse, the logics of stage performance, music anthologies, Romanticist painting and eyewitness accounts of An Drochshaol. Songing sounds the unheard violences concealed within Anglo-modern epistemology through the reparative vocal intone. The thesis concludes by discussing how amhránaíocht and decoloniality can mutually support each other.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2023) The darker side of Jonathan Swift: on the coloniality of being in A Modest Proposal (1729), Estudios Irlandeses, 18(2), pp. 11–27.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2026) On doing (Anglo-)Irish Studies across the colonial difference: epistemic harm, secondary violence and the re-victimization of the cosmhuintir, VICTIMS – 25th Anniversary Conference of the Spanish Association for Irish Studies (AEDEI), University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Vitoria-Gasteiz, 27–29 May.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2026) (Mis)communicating decolonial Irishness across epistemic difference: meitheal as relational being, Research Symposium jointly hosted by the Department of Communication Science, University of South Africa (UNISA), and the Department of Communication Studies, University of Professional Studies, Accra, Ghana (UPSA), Pretoria, 13 May.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2024) How Amhránaíocht contests the non-ethics of Anglicizing/Westernizing epistemology, Spanish Association for Irish Studies (AEDEI) 22nd Session, University of Alcalá, 31 May.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2023) On decolonial-Gaelic methodologies, Decolonisation: Language, Culture and Community, Queen’s University and Glór na Móna, Belfast, 5 May. [Invited]

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2023) On the darker side of Jonathan Swift, Legacies of Enlightenment Symposium, University of Ulster, 5 March. [Invited]

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2022) Decolonial meditations on a Free Derry pluriversity, 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday Event, University of Free Derry, 10 January. [Invited]

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2021) Essentialism and anti-essentialism in the study of Gaelic ontologies, EFACIS Conference, Prague, 1–4 September. [Withdrawn]

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2021) The birth of Irish Studies: epistemological and ontological extractivism in the early 19th century, International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures Conference, Łódź (online), 20–24 July.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2021) Casadh an amhráin (Turning the song): (Re)performance towards decolonial/Gaelic aesthesis, American Conference for Irish Studies, Derry (online), 5 June.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2021) What does it mean to practice a decolonial/Gaelic attitude? Gaelic epistemologies as decoloniality, Towards Decolonial Futures Conference, St Mary’s University, London (online), 27 May.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2021) Denying relationality: white innocence in the Swedish settler-colonial state, Nordic Migration Research Conference, Turku (online), 12 January.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2021) Irish migration: the first line of defense in the white settler-colonial project?, Nordic Migration Research Conference, Turku (online), 13 January.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2021) Decolonial/Gaelic reflections on method from an Irish immigrant in the Swedish settler-colonial state, Nordic Migration Research Conference, Turku (online), 12 January.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2020) William Wilde, the coloniality of folklore and the Swedish settler-colonial state, Societas Celtalogica (70th Anniversary), Uppsala, 7–9 May. [Invited; cancelled]

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2019) Whiteness in the Nordic university, Roundtable at Third Nordic Decolonial Workshop, University of Helsinki, 14 October. [Invited]

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2019) Decolonial aesthetics, Panel discussion at Third Nordic Decolonial Workshop, University of Helsinki, 13 October. [Invited]

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2019) Towards decolonial aesthesis: delinking from the coloniality of perception in Ireland, Galway Irish Studies Conference, NUI Galway, 10 June.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2019) Decolonizing Irish postcolonial studies, AEDEI Conference, Palma de Mallorca, 2 June.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2019) Tearing away from the coloniality of Irish aesthetics: reflections on two hunger memorials on Turtle Island, American Conference for Irish Studies, Boston, 20 March.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2018) Reclaiming Cathleen? Shattering Western Enlightenment and disengaging from the coloniality of knowledge in Ireland, IASIL Conference, Radboud University, Nijmegen, 13 July.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2018) (Un)sensing and (dis)believing Anglo-Irish Romanticism from exteriority, PhD Forum, International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures, Radboud University, Nijmegen, 12 July.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2018) Irish Studies and the decolonial turn: awakening the giant of Gaelic epistemology, American Conference for Irish Studies, UCC, Cork, 18 June.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2018) Decolonizing Irish diasporic politics: on the coloniality of knowledge and white epistemology in Ireland, Philosophical Perspectives on Contemporary Ireland, UCD, Dublin, 8 March.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2017) Coloniality of being in Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, Swift Today Conference, Sofia University, 30 November.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2017) Decoloniality in the social sciences textbook convergence, Decolonial International Network & IIS Research, The Hague, 15 March.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2026) The land is sung…by whom? Assessment and the making of the epistemic subject: songing against detachment, Symposium: Whither Assessment in Academia? Towards a Future-Facing Idea of Assessment, University of South Africa, 19 March. [Invited]

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2026) A decolonial history of the Anglo-modern university project in Ireland: linguisticide and the coloniality of knowledge across Orange epistemic orders, International Mother Language Day Celebration, University of Fort Hare, 26 February. [Keynote]

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2025) Colonialismo, lengua y metodologías indígenas en Irlanda, Licenciatura en Pedagogía de la Madre Tierra, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, 1 October. [Invited]

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2025) Cancionar desobediencias epistémicas: la metodología decolonizadora gaélica de Irlanda, Licenciatura en Pedagogía de la Madre Tierra, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, 24 September. [Invited]

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2023) Response to Peadar Kirby: negotiating paradigm change: idir dhá chultúr, Wellbeing Economy Alliance, 12 June.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2023) Seanchas: (de)coloniality of knowledge and the case of indigenous Irish ‘songing’ practices, UNISA School of Humanities and Decolonial African Network, Pretoria, 25 January. [Invited]

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2023) A bheith ann: (de)coloniality of being and the case of indigenous Irish ‘songing’ practices, UNISA School of Humanities and Decolonial African Network, Pretoria, 24 January. [Invited]

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2023) (Re)constituting indigenous ethics: the case of oidhreacht, dúil, cumadh and casadh in Irish Gaelic, Afrocentric, Decolonial and Knowledges Otherwise Summer School, University of South Africa, Pretoria, 16–20 January. [Invited]

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2023) (De)coloniality and Ireland: the case of amhránaíocht, Afrocentric, Decolonial and Knowledges Otherwise Summer School, University of South Africa, Pretoria, 16–20 January. [Invited]

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2022) Amhránaíocht as epistemic disobedience, Discussion seminar with Dr Vuyolwethu Seti, Higher Literature Seminar, Linnaeus University, 16 December.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2022) Cancionar como desobediencia epistémica-decolonial, Thesis candidature presentation, Universidad Distrital José Francisco de Caldas, Bogotá, 6 June.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2022) Interview, Laud FMUFJC Radio, Bogotá, 5 March.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2021) Responding to the coloniality of audibility with decolonial/Gaelic sonorities, Thema G Seminar, Linköping University, 15 April. [Invited]

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2019) What does it mean to sense/believe Irish aesthetics?, Higher Literature Seminar, Linnaeus University, 2 March.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2018) Linnaeus must fall: Swedish epistemology as based in the justification for wealth extracted from the diachronic and collective participation of the Nordic colonial states in chattel slavery, European Researchers’ Night, Café Deluxe, Växjö, 10 September.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2025) Songing dúchas: amhránaíocht as decolonial epistemic disobedience, PhD dissertation, Linnaeus University Dissertations No. 561/2025.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2018) Awakening decoloniality in Irish Studies: confrontations, contradictions, possibilities, Master’s thesis (First Class), Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam. Supervisors: Dr Murat Aydemir; Dr Rolando Vázquez.

Ó Cuinneagáin, E. (2017) The ancestral is the epistemic: an investigation into the positionalities of white Dutch researchers of migration in the Netherlands, Master’s thesis (cum laude), Graduate School of Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam. Supervisors: Dr Yannis Tzaninis; Dr Paul Mepschen.