If you could un-invent something, what would it be?

If I were to un-invent something, as a Celt connected to the shared heritage of our nations, it would be the enclosure of the commons. Few events in history have done more to sever the bond between people and the land, and few have caused as much lasting harm to the spirit of community that defines us as a people.

For centuries, the commons were at the heart of our way of life. The land was not something to be owned by one, but something to be shared by all. It provided food, pasture, fuel, and a deep sense of connection to nature and to each other. To walk those open fields was to tread the path of our ancestors, to feel the pulse of the earth underfoot, and to live in balance with what it gave us. But the enclosure movement was spearheaded by landlords and legitimized by centralized powers that robbed us of this. Fences went up, fields were stolen, and families were driven from their homes. What was once ours became theirs.

If the enclosures had never happened, perhaps we would still live with the land as a partner, not a possession. The industrial age might have come less violently, and the relentless march toward exploitation might have been tempered by a greater respect for the earth. Communities would have remained rooted, rather than fractured and scattered in search of survival.

Un-inventing enclosure would mean more than tearing down borders, it would be reclaiming the soul of our people. It would restore the harmony that once existed between the land and its stewards, and revive the communal spirit that lies at the heart of our heritage. We belong to the land, not the other way around. I dream of a world where we remember that truth. Especially in our world today.