d’arcy mcgee chair of irish studies saint mary’s university … · d’arcy mcgee chair of...

Volume 16, Summer 2004

D’Arcy McGee Chair of Irish StudiesSaint Mary’s University

Halifax, Nova Scotia

The Canadian Association for Irish Studies Conference 2004An interview with Irish poet Rody Gorman

“Donnchadh Ruadh Mac Conmara:Poet at the end of the Old Gaelic world and at the edge of the New World”

In this issue:

Editors: Pádraig Ó SiadhailCyril J. Byrne

Layout & Design:

Michael J. Miller

AN NASC was established as a link between the Chair of Irish Studies and those whoare involved or interested in promoting Irish Studies and heritage in Canada and abroad.It also seeks to develop awareness of the shared culture of Ireland, Gaelic Scotlandand those of Irish and Gaelic descent in Canada

AN NASC is provided free of charge. However, we welcome financial contributionswhich will allow us to extend the activities of the Chair of Irish Studies. A tax receipt willbe issued for all contributions over $10.00.

We welcome letters and comments from our readers.

If you would like to receive AN NASC, please write to:

AN NASC

D’Arcy McGee Chair of Irish StudiesSaint Mary’s UniversityHalifax, Nova Scotia,

Canada, B3H 3C3

Telephone: (902) 420-5519Facsimile: (902) 420-5110

[email protected]/irishstudies

An Nasc, Volume 16, Summer 2004

The Canadian Association for Irish Studies (CAIS)2004 Conference, “Mother Tongues: TheLanguages of Ireland”, hosted by Saint Mary’sUniversity May 26-29, 2004, successfullygathered into one long weekend the roots andshoots and tendrils of Ireland’s linguisticdiversity, from medieval literature to modernglobalism. Presenter Aodh Ó Coileáin citedglobalism’s challenging of “the historic, binaryopposition of Irish and English,” and indeed thevariegated nature of language in Ireland’s past,present and future highlighted at this conferencewould gladden the hearts of linguists whilerattling the narrow perceptions of publichostilities and archaic debates. Beyond the topically wide scope of papers, thegreatest thrills of the conference lay in the calibreof the presenters (many leaders in their fields),and in the intimacy of the atmosphere thatallowed for the interaction of graduate studentsand non-academics with renowned literary artistsand scholars. Halifax’s Bookmark bookstorerepresentatives were on hand, providingattendees with a selection of presenters’publications — a welcome opportunity for NorthAmerican residents. Implicitly illustrated in this conference’sdeconstruction of Irish communicative media isthe perception that language is descriptive ofnot just the structure and impulses of humanspeech and silence, but the interactions ofactions and images themselves, prior even tothe interpretation thereof. Thus, language is thedescriptive alpha and omega of topography,genres, cultural imports and exports, socialprogression and stasis, historic interpretationsand the revisiting thereof, and of personal,community and cultural negotiation. As we can sometimes forget in Canada thatlinguistic presence extends beyond French andEnglish, there is the analogous situation in

Ireland (already referred to) of more to thelinguistic picture than straightforward Irish andEnglish. Both national languages have regionaland social dialects within ever-shiftingboundaries; some have traveled far with theiremigrant speakers; there is Ulster Scots andShelta; there is the influx of newcomers’ mothertongues; there are past influences such as Nordiclanguages. Questions raised varied from theproblem of translating dialects, the potentialinadequacies of second language acquisitionprograms, perennial debates over authenticity,efforts to use language to legitimize rather thanantagonize distinctness, and how to reshapeperceptions through the imaginative revisitingof traditional boundaries and inequalities. The following is but a selection of presenters,with humble apologies to those not included: Michael B. Montgomery, from the Universityof South Carolina, spoke about Ulster Scots, aregional dialect stemming from the LowlandScots, which currently aspires to the status oflanguage. He separated the linguistic issuesfrom the political, aside from the mention of itsrecognition in the Good Friday agreement,focusing more on the cultural and linguisticstrengths and handicaps. One is struck by theapparent situational similarity of marginalizationbetween Ulster Scots and the local North Prestondialect, long derided as “broken English.” Writer Éilís Ní Dhuibhne explored writing inand about Irish and how the language informsher subject matter and literary form. She asks

Céad Míle Teanga / A Hundred Thousand LanguagesSandra Dyan Murdock


and answers the question “Why write in Irish?”with a refreshing laissez-faire. Noting the agreedupon greater practicality of writing in English,she dexterously upends the matter with therejoinder “What has practicality to do with it?”Ní Dhuibhne is a writer who combines academiccuriosity with artistic wonder. Reading from herOrange Prize 2000 shortlist novel, The DancersDancing, she compares the amorphous boundariesof adolescent identity with the notion thatlinguistic identity shifts according to perceptions. Michael Cronin, Director of the Centre forTranslation and Textual Studies at Dublin CityUniversity, tackled the language kaleidoscope ofmodern Dublin, showing that immigration is theslipstream of language movement. His talkreminded both Irish and Canadians that blinkeredengagement in dual official language debateignores the ever-increasing multilingualismalready present in our urban centres. In fact,the presence of sixty-three mother tongues inDublin seems shocking; one wonders the tallyfor Montreal or Toronto. That the new World RadioOne in Dublin currently offers limited broadcastingin twelve languages is nothing short of inspiring.Alternatively, while Irish second languageacquisition is available to newcomers (at leastin Galway), English acquisition is based onLondon TEFL texts, their cultural context veeringoff to the wildly irrelevant in terms of Irishsocialization. Ken Nilsen, our neighbour in Celtic Studies atSt. Francis Xavier University, followed theemigrant journey of the Irish language intoCanada, which culminated in a near-completeintegration. Because literary evidence isrelatively scarce, the detective work pushesfarther afield where clues to the language’spresence can be gleaned from historicalreferences to communities and their activities.One such string he is currently pursuing is theevidence of the Gaelic League in Canada. Addressing the sustainability of the Irishlanguage in Ireland was Peadar Ó Flatharta ofDublin City University, VP of the European Bureau

for Lesser Used Languages. He spoke of thedebatable successes of the Irish languagerevival, prompting the question of whether ornot language maintenance is truly amenable togovernment policy. From Halifax’s Mount Saint VincentUniversity, Katherine Side related the clearersuccess of a women’s group in a rural NorthernIrish community. This group used photographyto initiate a unifying dialogue over thetraditional religious boundaries of the locality. Following on the themes of translation andtransplantation, conference attendees receivedoptional tickets to the first Canadian productionof Martin McDonagh’s The Lonesome West byHalifax theatre company Angels & Heroes. Duein part to the pendular variability of directorialinterpretation, performance reception in Irelandhas, in turn, been much varied. Tonalpossibilities range from the tragic to theabsurdly comedic. With typical Maritimeaplomb, this performance energeticallystretched the gallows humour just shy of fraying. Regarded as on the cutting edge of modernIrish poetry is Belfast poet Gearóid MacLochlainn. Reading from his 2002 bilingualcollection Sruth Teangacha/ Stream of Tongues,the impact of his performance was palpable.His gift for sound and rhythm redoubles thestrength of his word craft, allowing his art tomost fully explore language as the combinationof sound and meaning. Our three days hit a comfortable climax withthe performance of highly regarded traditionalsingers Len Graham and Pádraigín NíUallacháin. Later that evening, conferenceparticipants assembled at a local pub whichserendipity had pre-stocked with a group of localyouths informally gathered in song withtraditional Irish instruments. Before the singersbid final farewells, Len took up a song, quicklyhushing the chatty atmosphere. We were leftto wonder had the musicians any inkling thatthe strange man in their midst was one ofIreland’s greatest folksingers.


Because language can more frequentlyseparate communities, we may forget that it isthe primary unifying trait among humans. Theconference addressed the regional and culturaldivisiveness of language and types of language,but also how the schisms we create can be bridgedby this unique trait. Through language we createa multitude of accessibilities, whatever themedium, whatever the subject. It is the marker

Shown here at the opening of CAIS 2004 (l to r): Pádraig Ó Siadhail, Chairholder,D’Arcy McGee Chair of Irish Studies, Dr. Cyril J. Byrne, C.M., Coordinator,D’Arcy McGee Chair of Irish Studies, The Right Honourable Jamie Muir, Ministerof Education for Nova Scotia, and Dr. Terrence Murphy, Vice-President, Academicand Research, Saint Mary’s University.

of meaning, the means by which we negotiateour identities and explore our personal and publicdistinctness within our increasingly overlappingcommunities, beginning with the self, on to thehome, to our towns and cities, our nations andbeyond. Through sound and silence wecommunicate; by listening we understand.Thanks, then, to all conference speakers, andthanks to all who listened.


History and Our StoryPádraig Ó Siadhail

Charitable Irish Society of Halifax St. Patrick’s Day Banquet, 2004

“History is more or less bunk.” So declared HenryFord, American automobile maker and the sonof Cork immigrants. Ford was not alone incasting doubts on either the accuracy or theefficacy of an official or accepted version of thepast. One could pull together from varioussources, and not just Books of Quotations, quitea range of cynical comments about this wordhistory. Ambrose Bierce, the American satiricalwriter, defined history as “An account mostlyfalse, of events mostly unimportant, which arebrought about by rulers mostly knaves, andsoldiers mostly fools.” The American Catholicchurchman, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, notedthat in regards to history: “The British neverremember it; the Irish never forget it; theRussians never make it and the Americans neverlearn from it.” My own favorite quote about thisword history comes from an anonymous Irishmonk from the twelfth century. While taking abreak from transcribing Táin Bó Cuailgne (TheCattle Raid of Cooley), the greatest saga in theIrish tradition, the monk doodled on the side ofthe manuscript: “But I, who have written thishistory or rather fable, do not give credit tomuch of it,” he declared. “For some things in itare the tricks of demons and others the figmentsof poets; some things are plausible, others not;and some are there for the entertainment offools.”

Traditionally, the emphasis has been onmilitary and political histories but there havealways been other forms: such as hagiography,the lives of the saints, which was less concernedwith historical accuracy than in promoting thecult of and veneration to the saint. As such,plagiarism and copyright were non-issues andthere was widespread borrowing of material from

one saint’s life to the next. It is the case thatone of the stories most closely associated withSt. Patrick, that of the banishing of snakes fromIreland, was in fact lifted from the biography ofa continental European saint and adapted to thelife history of Patrick. It is St. Brighid, in manyways the female equal of St. Patrick in the Irishtradition, who provides the best example ofhagiography as make-it-up-as-you-go-alonghistory. It is a matter of record that St. Brigid’sbiography is the oldest extant life of an Irishsaint. Unfortunately St. Brighid never existedand was in fact the Celtic pagan goddess, Brighid,who with the arrival of Christianity into Ireland,was promptly repackaged in a sanitized form andvenerated as a Christian saint.

Closely linked into hagiography is folkhistory: stories of dubious historical accuracy,which attached themselves to real historicalcharacters. The St. Patrick whom we honourtoday is likely the synthesis of two differenthistorical non-Irish born missionaries: Palladius,sent to Ireland in 431 AD, and Patrick the Britonwho arrived somewhat later. Many of the storiesin the folk tradition deal with St. Patrick’sconflicts with the Druids, representatives of theold pre-Christian religion, and we see Patrickmiraculously drawing on the power of God todefeat the diabolical doings of the Druids. In theIrish tradition, the saint comes equipped not justwith crozier, Bible, bell and vestments but alsowith the power, conveniently borrowed from theDruids, to put curses on his or her opponents.Whatever about such worthy adversaries as theDruids themselves, a not infrequent target ofthese saintly curses were the tavern keepers ofIreland who watered down the drinks that theysold.


Daniel O’Connell, the famous Irish politicianfrom the first half of the nineteenth centuryclosely associated with the successful campaignfor Catholic Emancipation and the failedcampaign to Repeal the Act of Union betweenthe United Kingdom and Ireland, providesprobably the most entertaining example of a realhistorical figure about whom a vast array of folkhistory developed in his own life time. It wassaid that one could not throw a rock over a stonewall in his native Kerry without hitting one ofO’Connell’s illegitimate offspring. In reality, thereis little historical basis for such a story: what wehave here are traits of attractiveness to womanand virility of immense proportions beingattached to a hero figure. I should add, just incase I offend anyone here — and, more to thepoint, get hit by a curse from St. Patrick — thatthere is no evidence in the Irish tradition of atransferal of these specific traits from the saintlyPatrick to the secular Dan O’Connell.

While we immediately equate history withthe past, David A. Wilson’s recent wonderfulbook, The History of the Future, charts the beliefsof — and please excuse the clinical terminology— the kooks and crackpots who announcedpublicly that they could foretell the future,especially the exact moment when the worldwould come to a screeching stop. Amongst thecast are various Irish characters, including the6th century saint, Colm Cille or Columba, to whomcopious numbers of dodgy prophecies are falselyattributed. While it is comfortingly redundantto note that all the kooks and crackpots havebeen wrong so far, it is a sobering thought thatjust one of them needs to be right. The law ofaverages favours the kooks and the crackpots.

In our own time, we have seen theemergence of social and cultural histories, ofattempts to be inclusive and to fill in the Hummer-wide gaps left by traditional narratives. Onemanifestation of this change is the challenge evento the use of the word history, viewing it as aloaded agenda-driven term and suggesting as areplacement the term ‘herstory.’ Personally, I

have no objections to such a replacement.Everyone deserves a turn at marginalising andvictimising others. (I just pray, by the way, thatyou all can see how firmly my tongue is embeddedin my cheek. Otherwise, I prophesize that mylucrative career as an after-dinner speaker willcome to a screeching stop tonight!)

It is not his-story or her-story or their-storythat I wish to focus on here tonight but our-story,that of the Irish in Nova Scotia. When TerryDonahoe, President of the Charitable IrishSociety, contacted me several months ago aboutaddressing you on this special occasion, hementioned that he had noticed on the Chair ofIrish Studies’ website that we are working on adata base of Irish immigrants into AtlanticCanada and a history of the Irish in Nova Scotiaand that I might wish to use this opportunity tobring you up to date with the progress of theseprojects. The immigration database is thebrainchild of my colleague, Cyril Byrne. It is amassive and ambitious undertaking and I’ll letCyril talk to you about it on another occasion.But Terry’s query about the history of the Irish inNova Scotia got me thinking about the wholesubject of history and explains if not excusesmy musings so far tonight which are in the wayof an introduction to what I really want to say —which, you’ll be glad to hear, will only take a fewminutes. (I promised Terry that if I went on formore than 20 minutes, he was free to call security— or set off the fire alarm. I hear that they arestill trying to catch the culprit from last year.)

The news that I have to relate to you aboutthe history of the Irish in Nova Scotia is bothnegative and positive. Let’s take the negativebit first. Apart from the trojan pioneering workdone by a few figures — there are always dangersin naming names but Terry Punch’s contributionson Irish Catholics in Halifax and Brian Cuthbertsonbiographical studies of Richard James Uniackeand Bishop Charles Inglis are prime examples ofthe good work completed so far — the fact isthat we, the Irish in Nova Scotia, have singularlyfailed to initiate a project which would culminate


in a history of the Irish in this province. Thisfailure is especially galling when you considerthe work that has been done in the other AtlanticProvinces: two histories of the Irish inNewfoundland, one in English, the other in Irish,published in the last five years; the Peter Toneredited volume of essays on the Irish in NewBrunswick; and the soon to be published historyof the Irish on Prince Edward Island by BrendanO’Grady. I am not here to point fingers — for nobetter reason than the fact is I’d have to pointit at myself first — but it is surely time that theChair of Irish Studies, The Charitable Irish Societyand An Cumann/The Irish Association of NovaScotia with other interested bodies andindividuals rectified this situation.

Talk is both easy and cheap: as is obviousfrom the fact that we list this project on ourweb site but have never managed to get it offthe ground. I could list a whole slate of reasonscum excuses why we have not managed to do so— ranging from the fact that I’m not a historianby training and my own interests are primarilylanguage and literature-oriented to that Cyril hasspent years of his life fund-raising for ourprogramme — but the single most important oneis, I believe, that there is no one around eitherwithin the university or without who is willing totake on and to coordinate this project. For sucha project to happen, one or two people muststep forward and dedicate their time and energyto sussing out who is out there in Nova Scotia orbeyond — from university professors to graduatestudents and from amateur genealogists toliterature buffs — who have done, could do, orwould do work on some aspect of the Irish inNova Scotia, to contacting these people, topiquing their interest in the project andarranging to bringing these people together at aconference or symposium. The aim would beeventually to produce a book on the Irish in NovaScotia. This book could never claim to be anexhaustive history for as my introductorycomments suggest no history can ever be morethan a version of what might have happened.

History is only bunk if you buy into the argumentthat it tells the truth. Instead what I envisagewould be a volume of essays featuring topics asvaried as: studies of immigration patterns;biographical sketches of important figures fromthe likes of the Uniackes and O’Connor Doyle toAileen Meagher; discussion of literary works witha Nova Scotian Irish connection; an outline ofthe contributions by members of the differentChristian denominations and other religions inareas such as education and healthcare; andaccounts of Irish communities and organizations.

The range of possible topics is quite long.And it is in that fact that the good news lies.There is no shortage of areas to explore. Thefield is wide open. And I would like to illustratethis point by referring quickly to three examplesthat have piqued my own interest.

The first is the Self-Determination for IrelandLeague of Canada and Newfoundland. This wasthe umbrella organization established during thesummer of 1920 to rally support for the cause ofIrish political independence, a cause not favouredby the political establishment of the time inCanada. Branches of the League were set up inHalifax, Antigonish, and Sydney. One of themeetings organized by the branch in Halifax inSeptember 1920 drew more than two thousandpeople. Over 275 applied to join the Leaguebranch in Antigonish, that well-known bastion ofthe Irish. Over 300 applied to join the Leaguebranch in that other well-known Irish-bastion,Sydney, where it was reported that the League’sinitial meeting drew not just the Irish but Scots.In order words, in the summer of 1920, with warraging in Ireland, people in Nova Scotia wereboth keenly aware of events in Ireland andsufficiently motivated to organize. No seriouswork has been done on the Nova Scotia Leaguebranches, on profiling its membership, on theoverlap, for example, between its members herein Halifax and those of the Charitable IrishSociety and the other big Irish organization atthe time, the Ancient Order of Hibernians; onthe growth of the League during the period


1920-21 and its demise once the Truce andTreaty came in Ireland in the second half of 1921.The local papers of the time contain a fair amountof information but the local branch here produceda regular newsletter and someone out there mayhave a full run of it and the League’s minutes.There is a grand little project out there forsomeone to take on.

The second example I wish to use to illustratethe work that could be undertaken relates to theAOH, the Irish Catholic benevolent society, theAncient Order of Hibernians. Over the years Ihave come across elderly people here in Halifaxwho mentioned family connections with suchbranches as the Emmett Division that had roomson Quinpool Road. But when I was in theProvincial Archives a few years ago and waspoking around as is my wont, I came across afile of material which relates to the RedmondBranch of the AOH which was active from around1913 to 1926 in New Glasgow. It is no doubt asign of my own ignorance but I always presumedthat New Glasgow was full of ScottishPresbyterians. They are lovely people in their ownright of course but don’t seem to be naturalrecruits for an Irish Catholic organization. Thequestions start flowing then. Who founded thebranch in New Glasgow? Who were its members?How does the New Glasgow branch fit into thebroader history of the AOH in Nova Scotia,including Halifax? To the best of my knowledge,no one has worked or is working on a history ofthe AOH in Nova Scotia.

The final example I have is that of the Ulster-Scots Presbyterians in Nova Scotia, the ones whoplanted the townships of Londonderry, Truro andOnslow in the 1760s after the expulsion of theAcadians and whose arrival is outlined in J. M.Murphy’s book The Londonderry Heirs. The majorfigure behind this new colony was ColonelAlexander McNutt, who was described by onehistorian somewhat uncharitably as “a highlypersuasive, distinctly untrustworthy Ulsterimmigrant to North America ... a fertile liar.”Others have questioned McNutt’s very sanity,

suggesting, to use the sort of analogy favouredin our own times, that he was one nut short of afull cluster! Recently I have become quiteinterested in McNutt’s exploits, achievementsand failures for two reasons. One is personal.McNutt drew quite a number of the members ofthis new Nova Scotia colony from the Laganregion, just west of my native Derry, on theborders with Tyrone and Donegal, a good farmingdistrict which had been heavily planted by LowlandScots a century or so earlier. My father died lastsummer and it was just in the final months ofhis life that he confirmed something that I hadonly suspected in the last few years, that hisown mother was a Presbyterian who had roots inthe Lagan district. As such, I may well have lotsof long lost distant, and preferably wealthy,cousins up around Truro.

The second reason I am interested in theUlster-Scots is their peculiar position in thehistory of this province. While Nova Scotia likesto present itself as a second Scotland on thisside of the Great Pond and a whole industry hassprung up around the arrival of the ‘Hector’ atPictou in 1773 signalling the arrival of the Scotsin Nova Scotia, this was ten years after McNutt’sUlster Scots landed here. However, the UlsterScots barely get a mention in the history ofScottish migration to Nova Scotia. The first linkin that chain of migration is now the missinglink. And that gives us the opportunity toreconnect these Ulster Scots planters with our-story, that of groups from Ireland from a widerange of different backgrounds and experienceswho have enriched and continue to enrich NovaScotia by our presence and our contributions.

I throw out these three examples as oneswhich, I believe, are worthy of further study. Ofcourse, I’m conscious that when I start headingfor the exit presently I may well be button-holedby people who will tell me that such and such aperson has just completed the definitive workon one or all of my three examples. I will standcorrected. However, my main point will still bevalid: there is so much to be done to tell the


story of the Irish in Nova Scotia.In conclusion, let me make one further point.

It is said that St. Patrick earned a specialdispensation from God that on the Day ofJudgement it would be St. Patrick and not theGood Lord Himself who would pass judgementon the Irish people. The implication is thatPatrick would be more favorably disposed to usthan would be the Almighty. And no doubt, ourpatron saint will forgive us a lot. But as heprepares to welcome us in through the PearlyGates, he might just stop one of the Nova Scotiacontingent. “One small final question,” he’d say.“What exactly did you do to tell the story of yourpeople … of our people?” Keeping in mind thesaint’s armaments, especially his bag of curses,I’d recommend that one should at all costs avoidblandly spouting the quote attributed to theFrench jurist and political philosopher, BaronMontesquieu: “Happy the people whose annalsare blank in history-books.” It would probablybe wise to have with you the insurance policy ofa volume of essays about the Irish in Nova Scotia.And it would make great reading too up above.

Change of Address?Would Like to Subscribe?

Contact us:

The D’Arcy McGee Chair of Irish Studies

Saint Mary’s University923 Robie Street

Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 3C3

Telephone: (902) 420-5519

Facsimile: (902) 420-5110

Email: [email protected]

On the web: arts.smu.ca/irishstudies

Sandra Dyan MurdockWins Multiple Awards

Sandra Dyan Murdock, pictured above withJohn G. Riley of the Charitable Irish Societyof Halifax. Sandra graduated with a Major inIrish Studies from Saint Mary’s University inMay 2004. She has been the recipient of anumber of recent awards: the Larry LynchMemorial Scholarship sponsored by theCharitable Irish Society of Halifax inNovember 2003; the O’Brien Medal for IrishStudies from Saint Mary’s University atSpring 2004 Convocation; the Ireland Fundof Canada’s Graduate Scholarship, August2004; and a graduate studies scholarship fromQueen’s University of Belfast. Sandra will bebeginning her M.A. in Irish Studies at QUB inOctober 2004.


If God is in the details, then Michael Cronin’sTime Tracks (2003) describes a modern Irishpantheon. Underscored as “scenes from the Irisheveryday,” its ten short chapters span the stuffof day-to-day from childhood to adulthood, all inthe context of the Irish life. Cronin digs beneaththe headlines and tourist traps of public Irelandto pay poetic tribute to the overlookedidiosyncrasies of the real, secret Ireland. Leaveoff the day trip to Blarney, the seminar on politicalconflict resolution, and do not, under anycircumstances, look for the leprechaun. The book opens with the anecdote of a visitorto Dublin at lunch with his Irish hosts andcolleagues. He is bewildered to discover that theconversation had detoured to a gleefuldeconstruction of Irish biscuits (cookies, to manyof us). From here, the reader is off, ridingshotgun down memory lane, hugging the cornersof props, subplots and backdrops. Michael Cronin the academic knows his wayaround culture(s) and translation. Director of theCentre for Translation and Textual Studies atDublin City University, he has authored suchinfluential works as Translating Ireland (1996)and Translation and Globalisation (2003). WhileTime Tracks eschews the scholastic suitcase andtravels light with a backpack of reminiscenses,its reflections — of a particularly urban everyday,it must be noted — result in an inspiring andinformative translation of Irish life into thevernacular of modern culture. Chapters crossover such deceptively mundanedetails as telephones, buses and haircuts, to theweightier matters of biscuits, books, pubs, andthe perennial vying between tea and coffee.Cronin’s poetic prose (for how else shall I describea book with the phrase “the Brownian motion ofchickpeas”?) combines careful wordings and

critical reflections descriptive of the subtleimpacts of these accessories to life on ouridentities and interactions. The tone invites asympathetic delight in nuance. Combined with amasterful use of the second person, the readeris spun into an easy trance of memory. The cultural context that could bar theuninitiated (read: not Irish) reader becomesinstead a game tackled with childhood aplombof matching memories and translating nouns(“bicycles with stabilisers”? — Oh, I get it!Training wheels). The conjuring of parallel experience is wherethe translation most effectively commends thecollective sharing of multiculturalism. For eachIrish tribute, the reader summons from his/herown background a comparable offering. Thechapter traversing the Irish Ice Age, wherecentral heating serves as cruel misnomer, willfind, for instance, a sympathetic reader in anyCanadian who grew up with economically-mindedparents, and engender the wry sharing of thesecret truth that Hell, in fact, is freezing cold. Oral fixations become the tokens of proprietyand social mobility: family and personal productchoices the totems of personal mythologies. Thereader simultaneously experiences the Irishparallels of his/her own life. Cronin’s Mariettaand digestive biscuits recall images of grahamcrackers and Saltines. Down another side road,a guest’s seemingly casual appraisal of her host’sbiscuit selection summons the sleepover’sfreedom from Mom’s ascetic breakfast menu,the sweet-tooth let loose in a world whereHoneycombs and Froot Loops reign supreme, andCheerios and Corn Flakes cower in the dark backof the pantry. Approaching the poignant worldview of TheHockey Sweater is a scene in the first chapter,

Cultural CartographySandra Dyan Murdock


(still biscuits, yes, but as Cronin on page onewrites: “Sweet dreams are our key to memory.”)

A friend in school had an aunt whoworked in the Jacob’s factory in Tallaghtand he seemed possessed of a specialgrace, an infant llama, the cover of hisTupperware lunchbox pulled away toreveal the secret treasure of CoconutCreams, Lemon Puffs and Club Milks.Like mendicants scurrying after thesahib’s taxi, we courted him andflattered his interest in racing cars(Yeah! Jackie Stewart! Yeah!) in thehope that some of his family fortunemight make its way into our ownlunchboxes. He had, however, all thecanniness of a Renaissance prelate andthough we heard many tales about theopulence of the court of W. and R.Jacobs, we remained obstinatelyoutside, cursing our parents’ careerchoices and fingering with disdain theCalvita-filled triangles of white breadand the greasy surface of the GrannySmith.

Time Tracks does not hunker down to thecomforts of childhood nostalgia, but like a hare,zigzags across chronologies, as the titlesuggests. There is more than the productplacement effect of watching a movie filmed ina city you once lived. Just as important as thesedetails are the author’s reflections on the humannegotiations around the props of the everydaythat complete the picture. The chapter on pubstranscends the stereotypical tour and touchesthe pulse of personal progressions within thesesettings. From the tipsy youth’s hero’s journeydown the barstool, to the toilets and back again,to the necessarily two-dimensional pub friend,to the lull of the single beer on a holiday pitstopinto bygone days before it was your kids at thenext table wolfing their crisps and Cokes, Croninis the empathetic chronicler of life’s little

pleasures and pangs. While definitely recommended reading ifdating an Irish national, this little book’s triumphis its evocation of multiculturalism’s richest hue,the delight in the sharing of cultural momentosof individual lives. It is a raucous game of DoYou Remember…? accolades bestowed on the mostarcane, most almost forgotten detail; it is theintimacy of a late night conversation with a newromantic interest. The initiated may object to the Dublin-centricity of the book, but that would be tomistake the content for the message. A Canadianequivalent by a Toronto author could spark somegrumblings about exclusivity over homage paidto the Spadina bus. There is no regional orcultural snobbery, however, just the simple factthat in the exploration of collective experiencesomeone must speak first. Cronin cleverly provesthat while our greater differences may separateus, it is in the scenes of the everyday that weare united. In the details we find ourselves andone another.

Time Tracks: Scenes from the Irish EverydayMichael Cronin (Dublin: New Island, 2003)


The subject of this talk Donnchadh Ruadh MacConmara, an Irish poet who lived between 1716and 1810, nicely links together Ireland, Italy andNewfoundland in a number of interesting ways.Born in Cratloe, Co. Clare, Mac Conmara’s lifestretched through the whole of what has beencalled in Ireland “the bad century” when GaelicIreland became virtually invisible to those whocontrolled her political and public life. So invisiblein fact that Lecky, in his voluminous history ofIreland in that century, makes no mention ofthose whom Elizabeth I in her time referred toas “the mere Irish.” Jonah Barrington, Ireland’sChief Justice at the end of the 18th century, isreported as saying that he expected by the endof the century that an Irish papist i.e., RomanCatholic would become as rare as a nativeAmerican on the banks of the Potomac. Thus, ayoung Irishman such as Donnchadh had noprospects for civil advancement or a career. ThePenal Laws against Roman Catholics made itseem possible that Barrington’s expectationalluded to above would be achieved. Donnchadh and many hundreds of youngIrishmen in that century saw the continent ofEurope as the place where their ambitions mighthave some possibility of fulfillment with a careerin one of the many army brigades established bythe “Wild Geese,” Irishmen who had fled fromIreland in the aftermath of the defeat of theStuart King James at the Boyne, at Aughrim andLimerick. The other possible career was in theChurch, which managed to survive in Ireland byvirtue of educational opportunities available onthe European Continent to young Irish aspirantsto the Priesthood. The Irish Continental Collegeswere established in the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries by various Europeancrowned heads. At these seminaries withlocations from Lisbon to Prague young men weretrained as priests to go back to Ireland tomaintain the religion, which now served as therallying point for the suppressed Irish nation. It is believed that Donnchadh made his wayto the Irish College in Rome — at least that iswhat tradition in Ireland maintains. Part of thattradition suggests that he was expelled for someunnamed malfeasance which we can guess atfrom what we know of his behaviour from hisown account of himself in one of his poems —“drinking, raking and playing cards!” In anycase, he made his way back to Ireland andestablished himself as a schoolmaster in SliabhgCua, in the Comeragh Mountains of WestWaterford commonly referred to as “the Powers’Country.” It was while there that he became apractitioner in the new popular vein of Irishverse. The most important part of the cultural declineof Gaeldom, which had begun as early as the16th century, was the destruction of the Gaelicorder’s reliance on poets as the glue which boundIrish tribal units together. These poets claimedan almost godlike status equal to that of theking or chief — the Ollamh or chief poetmaintained the various rituals associated withthe king’s or chief’s sovereignty. They craftedpraise poetry for the aristocracy and maintainedthe tribal lore and genealogies. In that sensethey were superior to the sovereign, claimingthe power to deprive the extant chief of his ruleif he should rule badly. Descendants of theancient Druids they were a power to be fearedand reckoned with, and it may have been the

Cyril J. Byrne, C.M.

Donnchadh Ruadh Mac ConmaraPoet at the end of the Old Gaelic world and at the edge of the New World

A paper presented in the lecture series Seminario Annuale di StoriaAtlantica, University of Genova, 2 April, 2004.


very thing which led to their demise once theinvaders from Britain created the circumstancesfor the Gaelic aristocracy to opt out of the olderorder for the new one where poets had no power.

The verses these poets made for the tribesand for the chiefs were sophisticated andintricate in their construction — something elsewhich leant itself to the poet’s mystique andpower. It is speculated that when the decline ofthe poetic order began, especially in 17th centuryIreland, the language and poetic forms werearchaic and not well appreciated by the ordinarypeople. “The Plain People of Ireland” as MylesNa Gopaleen called them had probably turnedaway from or were never familiar with theantique world of the Gaelic aristocracy and thepoetic basis on which it existed. The poets whoformerly were patronized with gifts of land andmoney as well as pride of place now foundthemselves sharing the bleakness of the newGaelic world, having to work with their handsfor a living instead of sharing the wealth andprestige of their patrons.

In this world Donnchadh Ruadh and his fellowfilí found themselves needing to make a livingfor themselves and their families but marked bysome of the mystique of the older makers. Theycould still make up a mocking line or a sharpbelittling jibe, which made them feared byanyone of the newer ranks of the Gaels — thestrong farmers and merchants who had replacedin some fashion the former aristocratic order.These poets would hold courts of poetry —gatherings of poets who would display their artand songs in a more down at heels version ofthe earlier poetic schools. The subject matterof these poems came from the world they livedin; although they would quite often throw offsome well trinked out lines in Irish or Latin tooutshine the efforts of one of their fellow poets.

Donnchadh worked as a schoolmaster, atwhich trade his biographer John Flemingsuggested he was not particularly well suitedbecause parents frequently chose other mastersin preference to Donnchadh. He appears to have

gotten on quite well with the gentry in the areabetween Dungarvan and Carrick-on-Suir. Someof the gentry, the Duckett family, for example,although of English descent and Protestant inreligion had married into the older Gaelic families— the Powers of Corraghmore and the MacGrathsof Sliabh gCua — and had become stronglyattached to the Gaelic language and Irishtradition. To one of the Ducketts, James,Donnchadh addressed a set of begging versesdated 1759 when Donnchadh had gotten himselfin trouble with all his neighbours and supporters.The poem parallels the older aristocraticattitudes, praising James Duckett in this fashion:

“A uasail dil shuairc den mhír as aoirdeÓ’s dual duit is tú as uaisle ’sas aoibhne.”. . .“Ad’ choimirce téidhimse, a S[h]éamuis uasail

aoird’S gur libhse gach céim, gach réim, ’s gachbuaidh

san tír,Acht cuiridh i g-céill nach craobh gan chuaille

sínnAs cuideachta Ghaedhilge bhéar mar dhualgas

díbh!”

“O dear pleasant chief of the highest raceAs is natural for thee, thou art the noblest andthe fairest.” —...“To thy protection I come, O noble, exalted JamesSeeing that thou hast every grade, every power,every virtue in the country;But make it known I am not a branch without astockAnd Irish amusement I will give thee in return!”

The attitude is not at all dissimilar to thattaken in a poem written many centuries earlierin 1316 by the poet Muireadhach Albanach ÓDálaigh to the young Norman Lord Richard MacWilliam de Burgo from whom the poet wasseeking protection against a charge of murdermade against him.

Donnchadh may not have had murder chargesmade against him but his participation in lesslethal but socially unacceptable behaviour gothim in trouble. When he was living in the Decies


a number of the young bloods including Donnchadhdrew lots as to which of them would attempt toelope with a local beauty named Mary Hogan.

The lot fell to Donnchadh and he succeededin his scheme and eventually married MaryHogan. Fleming his biographer got some of thedetails of Donnchadh’s domesticity from agrandson of the marriage, so there was a leastsome fruit from the marriage. It is suggestedhe left her for a while and that her family gavehim money to go beyond the seas. It may havebeen about this time, 1745, that Donnchadhwent off to Newfoundland. The period between1745, the year of the Jacobite rising in Scotland,and 1759 marks an hiatus in information abouthim in Ireland. Indeed, the holograph manuscriptof his macaronic poem “As I was walking oneevening fair” is dated 1745 and the poem’sinternal reference to the Young Pretender inFrance further bolsters 1745 as the beginning ofthe period Donnchadh was in Newfoundland.

The Newfoundland fishery was a veritable eldorado for the thousands of young Irishmen whowent annually to work in Talamh an Éisc, thefishing ground, a name by which Newfoundlandwas designated in Irish. A young man who workedthe season in Newfoundland would go out in thespring of one year, work through the summerand winter over to work the following summerand then go home with the fleet in the fall. Hecould carry home with him more than three timesthe earnings he could get as a farm labourer inIreland. Indeed, many cases are on record ofIrish young men spending as many as ten andmore years in Newfoundland, and who returnedto Ireland quite wealthy. One such was RichardWelsh of Ross in Wexford who started in Placentia,Newfoundland about 1746 and when he died therein 1774 is reputed to have left a fortune of$100,000. We can be assured that no such wealthaccrued to Donnchadh.

Donnchadh’s poetic records contain threesets of verse whose subject matter was hissojourn in Newfoundland. There is the long poemEachtra Ghiolla an Amaráin (the Adventures of

a Luckless Fellow), which describes an abortive,voyage out to Talamh an Éisc. The language ofthe second part of this poem is full of echoes ofAeneas’s voyage to the underworld using amixture of figures from Virgil’s work and onesfrom the Irish Dream Vision poems popular inIreland in the 18th century. One of these is QueenEavul of the Grey Rocks, a mysterious andshadowy female sovereignty figure localized inthe Province of Munster. Two other poems, onecalled Aodh Ó Ceallaigh written in support of amaligned friend of the poet’s Hugh Kelly, andthe other the macaronic English/Irish piece calledAs I was walking one evening fair which describesthe roistering life Donnchadh lived inNewfoundland “drinking, raking and playingcards.” There is a fourth poem BánchnoicÉireann óigh, “The Fair Hills of Holy Ireland” areworking of a traditional County Waterford song.The speaking voice in the poem is longing to beback in Ireland — indeed at the start of the poemthe speaker says:”Alas! Alas! Why pine I athousand miles away from the Hills of HolyIreland” and later on he says of Ireland “Herbarest rock is greener to me than this rude land”— a lament frequently uttered by those takingtheir first look at Newfoundland, popularlyreferred to as “the Rock”! It is quite arguablethat Donnchadh wrote this poem of longing forIreland somewhat more than the conventionalthousand miles from home.

Donnchadh’s Newfoundland verse makes aninteresting travelogue of the voyage undertakenannually by thousands of young men from withina fifty-mile radius of Waterford city. In theEachtra the speaker starts by complaining of hischronic penury and seeing as his only economichope going overseas. He describes how hisneighbours supplied him with the goods requiredfor the sea voyage and for some period after hisarrival. This is taken from Tomás Ó Flannghaile’stranslation of John Fleming’s life of Donnchadh:

Do thug an pobul i bhfochair a chéiléChum mo chothuighthe i g-cogadh nó i spéirlinn—


Stór nach g-caillfeadh suim de laethibh,As cófra doimhin a d-toillfinn féin ann;Do bhí seacht bh-fichid ubh circe gus eunla annLe h-aghaidh a n-ithte chomh minic ’s badh mhéinliom —Cróca ime do dingeadh le saotharAs spólla soille ba throime ’ná déarfainn,Bhí tuilleadh as naoi g-clocha de mhin choirce

ghlain-chréitheartha annRe dríodar ná loisde ’s iad croithte le chéile,Lán an bharaille do b’fhearra bhí in ÉirinnDe phrátaoibh dearga air eagla geur-bhruid’ —Do thugas cag leanna ann do lasfadh le séideadh’S do chuirfeadh na mairbh ’na mbeatha dá mb’fhéidir —Do bhí agam jackets chomh gasta le h-aen-neachAgur léinteacha breaca go barraibh mo mheura,Leaba ’gus clúda i g-ciumhais a chéileCeangailte ar dhróm mo thrónc le teudaibh—Bhí bróga istigh ann, bhí wig as béabharAgus stór mar sin anois nach ndéarfad!

The people brought me, gathered together, Tosupport me in war or battle — A store that anumber of days would not affect, And a deepchest in which I myself could fit — There wereseven score hens eggs and (eggs) of other fowls init, to be eaten as often as I should like. A crock ofbutter that was packed with exertion, and a pieceof bacon that was heavier than I could say — Therewas more than nine stone of oaten meal clean siftedwith the scrapings of the kneading-trough allshaken together. A barrelful of the best inIreland of red potatoes for fear of hard times— I brought a keg of ale that would brightenwith the blowing, and that would put life intothe dead if that were possible — I had jacketsas neat as anyone (could wish), and check shirtsto the tips of my fingers, bed and bedclothesbound (up) together(and) tied on the top of mytrunk with cords. There were shoes within it,a wig and a beaver, and (other) store like that.

The huge chest the poem speaks of apparentlystayed with Donnchadh the rest of his life. Hisgrandson told the biographer Fleming that in lateryears he slept in this trunk and it was ultimatelyused as his coffin when he died.

The speaker in the poem strikes theconventional heroic posture, describing himselfas being like one of the ancient Fenian warriorscoming in to Waterford. Arrived in the town,Donnchadh took lodgings in a house where the

daughter of the house danced service to his everyneed whilst he awaited the arrival of a personcalled Captain Allen. Interestingly, Captain Allenis doubtless a reference to an actual historicalfigure Captain Higgate Allen who took a ship,The Ross Trader, annually to Newfoundland fromNew Ross in the 1740s. This ship and her Captainwould have had to call in at Waterford on its wayout to the New World. The poem records in detailthe activities of Donnchadh and his fellowadventurers on the voyage to Newfoundland: theircard playing, seasickness and loneliness forhome. The family names of those on boardauthentically reflect their local Irish andNewfoundland provenance: Dower, Trehy, O’Learyand Flynn being names from Donnchadh’s areawhich still have a strong presence inNewfoundland.

Donnchadh says he signed on as a clerk, andhe may indeed have earned his living in this way.Certainly the macaronic poem As I walked outone evening fair tells us he was useless in a boatand calls to witness another Irishman Costellowho was a boat’s master in the fishery. IndeedDonnchadh’s high jinks described in the poemhas Donnchadh playing cards with a group ofEnglish soldiers whom he hoodwinks into thinkinghe is favourably disposed to them by praisingthe English king George in the English lines whilecursing the same king in the lines in Irish andtoasting Prince Charles Edward Stuart in exile inFrance.

The poem, which centres most on the actualprocess of fishing in Newfoundland, is called AodhÓ Ceallaigh. It is a defence of Hugh O’Kellywhom the poem represents as having beendefamed back in Ireland while he was out inNewfoundland. The defamation of O’Kellyconsists of his being represented as a virtualslave in the fishery

… ’na mhangaire smáil —Lag, marbh san stage gan tapa ’na ghéig

Ó tharraing an éisc ’san t-salainn de ghnáthAs Sagsanach méath d’á lascadh ar a thaobhÓ bháthas go feur …


a filthy pedlar, exhausted ...weak and lifeless onthe stage, his limbs inert, from constantly draggingthe fish through the salt, and a fat Englishman thelashing his body from the top of his head down tothe ground...

However, the poem suggest a much moreheroic standing for Hugh O’Kelly:

Is tapa do théidheann in shallop de léimAs na flaithisag séideadh seachtmhain nó lá —As go mb’fhearra leis craosmhuir, gailshíon as gaothAs cranna d’á reubadh ná tarraing an rámha:A ghlaca ba threun ar halyard an mainsail taca asteuddá stracadh go clár —...’Se an faraire súgach do chaitheadh na púintDo scaipfeadh an lionn; ’s do lagfadh an clár,Do chnagfadh san t-súil aon t-Sagsanach ramhar...

“He goes into a shallop with a vigorous leap whilethe heavens are blowing a week or a day ... hishands were strong on the halyard of themainsail...He is the merry champion who wouldspend the pounds, who would distribute theale...who would punch in the eye any fatEnglishman”

The picture that arises is of an heroic figure,a fighter modeled on that conventionallydescribed in the praise poetry of the earlierheroic age.

A very interesting aspect of the diction ofthis poem is the large number of technical termsfrom the process of making dried salt cod, oncethe staple sold in southern European ports suchas Genoa, Leghorne and Naples. Words such as“stage,” “barrow,” “flake,” “shallop” were allpart of the jargon familiar to the Irish workingin the eighteenth century fishery: however, whenFleming translated the poem nearly one hundredand fifty years later they had all disappeared fromcurrency. For example, the word “flake” refersto a raised platform made of long pieces of woodcrossed over each other and covered withevergreen boughs on top of which the wet saltedfish were laid out to dry in the sun. Flemingsupplied an absurd gloss for the word: “of the

As far as I know, these Newfoundland poemsof Donnchadh’s are among the first poems totreat the work culture in which Irish poets nowexisted. Although the poems deal with the cultureof work, work is not regarded as an activitybecoming a poet. Donnchadh depicts himselfas, at best, mildly bemused by the possibility ofworking for a living and if he is to work atanything it will be at an appropriate bourgeoisjob of being a clerk. In the Aodh Ó Ceallaighpoem, Donnchadh defends Aodh from everdescending to the slave-like work of treating andcuring fish. This was not activity appropriatefor a hero. This attitude is one of the clearhangovers from the earlier aristocratic traditionwhere the poet lived as socially equal or evenspiritually superior to his patron. However muchDonnchadh and his fellow poets may havedisdained working with their hands, the tactileand visual imagery of these poems suggests thatDonnchadh may indeed have suffered from thegalling of hands with the salting of fish and thebackbreaking labour of turning fish on the flake.The earlier world of easeful living for the poetwas as much a dream as was the world of thedream vision poem which suggested a return topower of the Catholic Stuarts from exile in Franceand the restoration of Gaels to a position ofpower and influence.

Donnchadh lived quite a long time after hisreturn from Newfoundland. Fleming says that hespent the latter part of his life as a tutor to thechildren of his old patron James Ban Power inthe parish of Kill. Fleming says that he collectedaccounts of Donnchadh from a grandchild of oneof James Ban’s children and was told that hismother’s dowry was used to pay Donnchadh hisstipend. Donnchadh had gotten his living fromvarious sources including emoluments hecollected from the Protestant church atKilmacthomas. He was able to do this byconforming for a time to the Established Church,i.e., he became a Protestant to gain his livelihood

flake or floe: a piece of ice detached from theice flow.”


Sources:

Eachtra Ghiolla an Amaráin or The Adventures ofa Luckless Fellow and other poems by DonnchadhRuadh MacConmara ed. Tomás Ó Flannghaile withThe Life of the Poet by The Late John Fleming.Dublin: Sealy, Bryers and Walker,1897.

The Gaelic Journal/Irisleabhar na Gaedhilge,Vol 2 (July-Dec. 1884)

Adventures of Donnchadh RuadhMac Con-mara: a slave of adversity/ written byhimself; now for the first time edited, from anoriginal Irish manuscript, with metricaltranslation notes and a biographical sketch of theauthor by S. Hayes [Standish Hayes O’Grady].Dublin: J.Daly, 1853

John Fleming, Notes to Aod Ó Cellaig [sic],The Gaelic Journal, 2, No.19 (1884), 298.

Richard Foley, “Notes on the life of DonnchadhRuadh Macnamara [sic]” Journal of the Waterfordand South East of Ireland Archaeological Society,10 (1907), 214-45.

Unpublished Ms. Translation of“Aodh Ó Ceallaigh” by the lateDr. Richard Walsh of University College, Dublin.

as a clerk. Whether it is a pius legend or not,Fleming records the tradition from James,youngest son of James Ban Power, thatDonnchadh wept bitter tears of repentance forhis apostacy. And that even though he is reputedas saying he would not bow to any priest afterbeing expelled from the Irish College in Rome,James Power recalled that Donnchadh hadreconciled himself with the church and made hisconfession to a young priest Fr. Roger Power, arelative of the Bishop of Waterford. Donnchadh’slatter years were spent with his family in a stateof blindness, appropriate for all poets sinceHomer, sleeping in his great deep seaman’s chesthe carried out to Newfoundland. He died in 1810,and as Fleming relates, he is buried in thechurchyard of Newtown, near Kilmacthomaswithout even a stone to mark his grave. On theone hundredth anniversary of his death amonument to Donnchadh with an inscription inIrish and Latin was erected in the cemetery atKilmacthomas. The consensus of his life and workfrom Fleming is that he was a great Latinist,and a Gaelic scholar who left the seed of Gaeliclearning in County Waterford and on the bordersof Cork and Kilkenny where later scholars suchas James Scurry, William Williams and JohnO’Mahoney derived their Gaelic learning fromthose whom Donnchadh had taught.

Celtic Languages and Celtic PeoplesCeltic Languages and Celtic PeoplesCeltic Languages and Celtic PeoplesCeltic Languages and Celtic PeoplesCeltic Languages and Celtic PeoplesProceedings of the Second North American Congress of Celtic Studies

Edited by: Cyril J. Byrne, C.M., Margaret Harry & Pádraig Ó Siadhail

Published by: D’Arcy McGee Chair of Irish Studies, Saint Mary’s University ISBN 0-9696252-0-0

Forty-four papers dealing with Early Religion, Literacy and Literature; Folk Culture; Dialectology,

Linguistics and Lexicography; Medieval Literature; Modern Literature; The Celtic Homelands and

The Celts in the New World.

To order your copy, complete the following and mail to: D’Arcy McGee Chair of Irish Studies,Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 3C3 Tel: (902) 420-5519 Fax: (902) 420-5110Please send me ____ copy at a cost of $15 per copy (+ $5 shipping & handling)

Name ______________________Mailing Address: _______________________________________


Rody Gorman is a wordsmith. To be an artisanrequires both delight in and proficiency withone’s choice of medium, and these traits areones which Rody has in abundance. He is a poetin Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and English, and hasworked with expanding Scottish Gaelicterminology to keep the language up to date withglobally advancing technology. Born in Dublin in1960, currently residing on the Isle of Skye, Rodyis fluent in three languages, a typically Europeanachievement that inevitably impresses those ofus who struggle with our own nation’s two officiallanguages. A bursary from the Scottish ArtsCouncil delivered this writer into our midst inNovember 2003, as part of a Maritimes’ readingtour.

Hoping to squeeze a few minutes of his timebetween interviews, I met up with him at SaintMary’s University’s Irish Studies Department. Iwas more successful than I had dared to hope,managing to abscond with two hours of his timeduring which we discussed his work in the Celticlanguages, his career as a poet, and the triadicrelationship between individual, poetry andminority language.

I wanted to talk about the poet’s relationshipwith language in the broader context of minorityand majority languages following on thecommonly demanded apologias by the Englishspeaking community of those writing in Celticlanguages. Irish poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill wrotean essay for the New York Times Book Review,on her choice to write in Irish, wryly citing herown mother’s bafflement over her daughter’slanguage choice (which seems an improvementover the more common skepticism towards poetryas a career move). The choice is inherently oneof identity. For a poet, that identification canbe intensely personal, for his/her use of languageis far more visceral than the function ofcommunication, which can tend to be more

Interview with a Poet: Rody Gorman visits Saint Mary’s UniversitySandra Dyan Murdock

political.Rody readily

admits that his useof the Celticlanguages is bornof necessity, ratherthan choice. “Idon’t see it as achoice,” he says,and describes his poetry’s languages as an“organic” response to functioning in a Celticlanguage environment. Working in a linguisticenvironment that he describes as both “natural”,referring to the Gaelic speaking community onSkye, and “unnatural”, referring to theprofessional creation of a database of Gaelictechnical terminology, was an experience thathe feels “coalesced” with a longstanding interestin poetry, leading inevitably to poeticexperimentation in the Celtic languages. Heclaims a freedom of movement between Irishand Scottish Gaelic that is enviable, eschews anyneed to dedicate himself to a specific language,and instead embraces the languages in his innatelove of words. His dabbling in the Manx languageillustrates his literary motivations: as a personalchallenge, he undertook the construction of aManx haiku.

Inevitably, however, politics becomeentangled in the Celtic writer’s pursuits, and he/she must face the realities of the publishingworld. In Ireland, there are publishing housesthat do publish exclusively in Irish, but they haveno counterparts in Scotland, where Scottish Gaelicliterature must be translated into English. Thisis entirely due to national politics. Though hetranslates his own work where necessary, Rodymaintains an apolitical stance as much aspossible, a stance that is perhaps belied by someof his poetry, wherein the topic of languagestatus and ideology is sometimes implicitly

Rody Gorman


explored, for instance with “Do Phercy ’s IainMac a’Phearsain/For Percy and Iain Macpherson”,in part a lament for the passing of two nativeGaelic speakers (http://www.hi-arts.co.uk/dec03_feature1d.htm). The bilingual content inmuch of his work carries its own message ofcommunicative necessity. It matters a great dealhow one perceives the relationship betweenpersonal ideology and political stance, but itmatters even more how others perceive thepolitics of your personal ideology. Douglas Hyde,too, maintained political apathy, yet his work inthe Gaelic League is credited by Patrick Pearseas the genesis of the Irish Revolution.Nonetheless, the relationship between the writerand his work, and the relationship between thework and its audience is critically distinct. Rody’sclaim of being “almost apathetic to Gaelic as apolitical subject” is not a dismissal of its politicalrelevance, but rather a necessary focus on hispersonal relationship with the crafting of hiswork. Let the politics follow where they will. He is rather more involved with thenegotiation of his identity as a poet than as apoet of Celtic languages, and is not yet entirelycomfortable with the professional epithet.Recounting several humorous exchanges,including a conversation with an officer ofCanadian Immigration—an event few of us tendto find humorous—he is clearly far more at easewith his linguistic identity than with hisprofessional identity. When asked his businessin Canada, he is obliged to explain the conceptof a reading tour. I can only imagine declaringoneself a poet to the impassive face of CanadianImmigration as no small feat of courage. Withself-effacing grandeur Rody produces his Irishpassport to me, defying me to find the word poetin any of its pages, in contrast to a certain poethe mentions as having proudly inscribed hisprofession on his own passport. Rody describes his writing as the play ofwords and images, and denies that his workinvolves “making pronouncements” or“propounding ideologies.” This is perhaps

indicative of naivete, but if so, it is refreshinglycharming. Writing without an agenda is writingfor the sake of writing. There is a purity ofpurpose here that is admirable, and if politicsmust attend on it, then it can only serve tohearten the cause of minority languages. Duringthe Gaelic Revival, it was often espoused thatone person’s effort to learn the Irish languagewould do a far greater service to the languageand culture than any dozen token Irishsalutations. Today, when artistic achievement canbe as beleaguered as any minority language, evenone poet whose minority language writing isinstinctive is a laud to the work of the GaelicRevivalists and the linguistic/literary domainwhich they endeavoured to create. For everynaysayer of poetry and of Celtic languagesuccess, there is one such as Rody Gorman. Ithas been achieved that a writer may take forgranted his/her minority language of choice, andwork from the heart with the same instinctivefreedom as one writing in English, French, orSpanish, with no need to apologize or explain. Thanks, in conclusion, to Rody Gorman forhis time, and for using his resources to keep upthe connections between the Celtic languagecommunities and literary communities on bothsides of the Atlantic. As a postscript, I would like to mention therecent publication of An Guth, an Irish andScottish Gaelic poetry anthology edited andcompiled by Rody Gorman. In an interview byPeter Urpeth in the Highlands & Islands ArtsJournal website, (http://www.hi-arts.co.uk/mar04_interview.htm). Rody describes theanthology as a much-needed outlet for Gaelicpoetry. A second edition is already in the works.Perhaps it is appropriate to express here the hopethat we can look forward to finding An Guth inthe Saint Mary’s University library?


BàbagRody Gorman

Dh’fhairich mi nam fhallas an corp na h-oidhche.Thug e ùine mus tàinigE steach orm dè bh’ agam ann am fìrinn.

Dè bho DhiaThug air BàbagNach do thog duine bho chionn fhadaGlaodh a-mach mar sin

Gu h-ìseal am broinn a ciste?

Barbie

I woke up in a sweat in the middle of the night.

It was a while beforeI realised what was actually taking place.

What in the name of God could make Barbiethat nobodyhad picked up for a long timestart to crylike that from the bottom of her chest?


Poor Ignorant ChildrenIrish Famine Orphans in Saint John, New Brunswick

Peter D. Murphy

Published April 1999 8.5” x 11” Includes bibliographical references, illustrations, and maps. ISBN 0-9696252-1-9

“Peter Murphy’s scrupulous edition of the Saint John Emigrant Orphan Asylum admittance ledger is a model and may possibly spur theIrish to give comparable treatment and respect to their passenger lists and workhouse records for the period of the Great Famine.”

-- Brian Trainor, Research Director, Ulster Historical Foundation, Belfast

“This imaginative work dramatically improves our understanding of the plight of youthful Irish famine immigrants in nineteenth-century New Brunswick....Through the use of formerly unexplored primary souces, the author manages to put a poignant and humanface on a previously ill-defined group that experienced the traumatic famine migration to North America.”

-- Scott W. See, Libra Professor of History, University of Maine

Beautifully produced and imaginatively designed, this book is a fitting memorial gesture to anevent which had a huge impact on the social and political history of both Ireland and Canada.

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

North American Orders: please send me ___________________ copies of Poor Ignorant Children @Canadian $20 (All applicable taxes, shipping and handling included) Totalling $______________

Outside North America: please send me ___________________ copies of Poor Ignorant Children @Canadian $25 (All applicable taxes, shipping and handling included) Totalling $______________

Name___________________________________________________________________________Address _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I enclose a cheque for Canadian $___________ payable to Irish Studies, Saint Mary’s University.

Please charge my Visa number _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Please charge my Mastercard _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

“Bad and all as we were we often wished we never seen St. John,” lamented an Irish Famine survivor. Fifteen

thousand Irish refugees arrived in Saint John, New Brunswick, in 1847 alone. In Poor Ignorant Children, Peter

Murphy charts the fate of Irish orphans in a strange unwelcoming land.

Peter D. Murphy, a Halifax-based historian and genealogist, is the author of Together in Exile (1990).

Card Expiry Date _ _ /_ _

Cardholder’s Signature

Cardholder will pay to the issuer of the charge card presented herewith the amount stated hereon in accordance with the Issuer’s Agreement with the Cardholder.

A publication of the D’Arcy McGee Chair of Irish Studies,

Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 3C3

Tel (902) 420-5519 Fax (902) 420-5110 [email protected]


AN NASC, the Newsletter of the D’Arcy McGee Chair of Irish Studies,Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, is provided free of charge.

We welcome financial contributions which will allow us to extend theactivities of the Chair of Irish Studies.

Name:____________________________________________________________________________

Address:_________________________________________________________________________

Phone:_________________________________________________________________________

I enclose $ ________ as a contribution to the work of the Chair of Irish Studies.(A tax receipt will be issued for all contributions over $10.00)

Comments and Suggestions:


An N

ascThe D

’Arcy M

cGee C

hair of Irish StudiesSaint M

ary’ s University

923 R obie Street,H

alifax, Nova Scotia

B3H 3C

3

d’arcy mcgee chair of irish studies saint mary’s university … · d’arcy mcgee chair of...

Documents