Cillian Murphy’s book about empathy is essential reading for everyone

“This book is dedicated to all those past, present and future who show empathy, kindness and compassion to others. May we all aspire to this.”

So begins the opening pages of IONBHÁ: The Empathy Book for Ireland, published in 2022 by Mercier Press. Co-edited by Cillian Murphy – who is a patron for the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre – and Professor Pat Dolan of the University of Galway, the book features a collection of poems, essays, thoughts and stories from 89 prominent Irish figures, including Hozier, Tolü Makay, Louise O’Neill, Rachael Blackmore, and The Edge, to name but a few.

Supported by The Irish American Partnership, this book of empathy was made available in schools across Ireland as part of a programme on activating compassion in post-primary students. All proceeds from the book go directly to delivering the Activating Social Empathy education programme in Irish schools and youth work organisations.

A core element of wisdom and a universal language of the soul, empathy brings joy to the everyday, so sowing these seeds in schools is crucial in bringing more joy and compassion to the world around us.

Earlier this year, it was confirmed that teenagers will get to develop and practise empathy in their day-to-day lives as a result of the research carried out by Professor Dolan. This redevelopment of the Transition Year curriculum comes as part of a wider reform of the senior cycle, which is due to place a greater emphasis on personal development, and the development of skills required for academic study, project work, life skills, managing relationships and student wellbeing.

Though it may be being integrated into schools to aid in the development of a more empathetic generation of people, Cillian Murphy is hoping for an ‘empathy revolution’, and this book is essential reading for everyone.

Read on for an abridged extract from Cillian Murphy’s essay on connection…

On Connection, by Cillian Murphy

The trick seems to be to work on it. To activate it. To make a connection. To listen. Like learning an instrument, or writing a story … like a good meditation. All of these things can be taught and can be learnt, and the same is true of empathy.

One of the phrases that you hear over and over as a young actor is ‘acting is listening’. This essentially means that you are not truly in a scene unless you are listening and involved and available to everything that your partner in that scene is saying and doing. It sounds easy, but believe me it is not. I speak from experience. As a young actor you are so concentrated on what your character is feeling or experiencing, that you can fail to listen to what other characters are feeling or experiencing.

This is not acting, because there is no connection.

There are many corollaries of this in modern life I guess; the solipsism of social media, the absence of time for others, the echo chamber of the media and politics.

Listening, truly listening, is an empathetic act. Onstage or in film, a banal scene can be elevated to something special when the characters are really listening to each other. The audience feel it.

This must be where the phrase ‘a good listener’ derives from. We all know instinctively what that means. To be truly heard, to be truly listened to.

So as I continued to work with Pat and everybody at the centre in the University of Galway, I began to learn new things about empathy. That it is different from sympathy … advice is the enemy of empathy.

Empathy is about connection.

I have two sons. Raising boys in this world is difficult. You do everything in your power to avoid raising proto-bullies, to avoid raising proto-misogynists, to avoid all the evil tropes of masculinity we are confronted by every day.

But I believe kids are naturally empathetic, they might not yet know what that word means, but they have access to it more instinctually than we do as adults. I see this in my own children.

Anything that can encourage this instinct in children is crucial, particularly when they live a good proportion of their lives online, in a competitive and combative atmosphere, where connection is fleeting.

IONBHÁ: The Empathy Book for Ireland (€24.99) was published by Mercier Press.

This article was originally published in April 2024.