Milk and Cookies

By Sinead Hultman

Storytelling has always played an important role in my family’s gatherings. I was lucky enough to grow up with four of my great-grandparents, and their long lives provided rich source material. They certainly had no shortage of stories—I have heard everything from my great-grandfather Philip’s time in Pearl Harbor as a sergeant to my great-grandmother Helen’s mischievous childhood.

Her husband, Vern, had a deep baritone voice and his tales usually transitioned into songs. My elders were always the center of our get-togethers and I always looked forward to being regaled with descriptions of pre-Depression era life in America.

To me, storytelling is a grand way to pass down traditions and heritage from one generation to the next. Unfortunately, it seems as though the spoken word suffering at the hands of new technology. So, the idea of the Milk and Cookies storytelling night really appealed to me.

Milk and Cookies is a monthly event, so the timing was perfect. We went on Tuesday, the 14. It started at 6:30 p.m., but it was so crowded we had to wait until intermission to get seats. We nabbed a few chairs towards the back, behind the futons and couches piled with pillows and blankets.

The event was held in a collective arts center called The Exchange, which is located in Temple Bar. We were provided with free milk, tea and cookies, as well as entertainment. Some of the stories were fact and some were fiction but they all allowed the speakers to share a bit of themselves with us.

As Kyle, one of the storytellers, says, voice is important. I think that is true, whether it is your physical voice or the voice that you have in your writing. Your voice is part of who you are, and hopefully we won’t let technology take that away from us. However, technology can help us spread our voice, as this blog is allowing me to share my stories about Ireland. I suppose we just have to adapt and hope technology will help us make our voices stronger.