Our literature? What are we missing?

I recently visited the incredible Charlie Byrne treasure trove on Middle Street in Galway. It is truly a remarkable place and there as yet many undiscovered treasures hidden in a Labyrinth of passages, rooms and annexes.

(People say there is no need to look of cases or forms of English - I found that I had to search for the plural form of "Annex!" But I'm drifting away from what I initially wanted to say! In one section I found a selection of books in Irish and it set me thinking.)

Irish literature in Charlie Byrnes Bookshop 6 September 2019

While there browsing I came across a section with books written in Irish and this started me thinking. What IS Irish literature? Surely this collection should be regarded as Irish Literature in the true sense.

Is literature regarded as the nationality of the writer or that of the language? I remember the great German writer and Nobel Laureate, Heinrich Böll was interviewed on British television. He was asked why he did not write in English and his reply was interesting. "If I wrote in English I would be more English than the Prime Minister!" He appeared therefore to regard writing in English as an English thing.

Perhaps we might say that writings on Irish subjects or topics are Irish Literature. If that is the criteria then perhaps the famous book of the same German author, Irisches Tagesbuch, could be classed as Irish Literature? Or conversly one of the most entertaining books I have read in recent times, "An Tionscadal" by Tomás Mac Síomóin (Coiscéim) could be classed as Catalan Literature? I understand the French regard Samuel Becket's work as French literature.

Irish, Dutch or Brazilian?

Can the short story collection "Gonta" written by Netherlands native, Alex Hijmans (Cois Life) about people in Bahia be Dutch or Brazilain literature? Recognised  as the best collection of short stories since 2000 by the critical journal Comhair in 2013. Can literature be multinational then?

Recently Iris Murdoch has been called an Irish writer and like Elizabeth Bowen she may be described as such by birth. But can their work be described as Irish Literature? Their topics can hardly be described as Irish.

Looking at the literature publications in Ireland few acknowledge, except in a passing reference, to the literature in the National Language. Full of references to Yeats, Joyce, O'Casey, Wilde or more recent authors. Yes, these and the more modern authors in English are worth reading. Study of them can be enriching. They do display a certain aspect of life in Ireland in the last two hundred years but they build almost exclusively on the giants of English literature. But if you look book reviews in the English language media in Ireland, these are almost exclusively what they regard as "Irish Literature." (An honourable exception is Children's Book Ireland who place both Irish and English publications together on their own merit as literature rather than place them in a linguistic ghetto!)

So what am I saying.

There is a hidden treasure in our country. It is a thriving rich literary tradition in Ireland in our National Language. Rich not materially, as Máirtín Ó Cadhain adverred but in tradition going back not 200 years but nearly two thousand years (if not more). It is in fact the oldest written language in Europe which is still a spoken language too. It has perhaps been enriched with its contact with European literature especially pre 1700 and by English literature since that time. But drop into any book shop  - I exclude specialist shops here* - and you would be hard pressed to find any of this uniquely and indisputably Irish literature.

I remember seeing another author, Alan Titley, address a meeting in the Oireachtas (The parliament not the festival) on the lack of true understanding that ignorance of literature written in Irish hinders. How many histories of the period, the centenery of which we are celebrating in these days, have been written with out reference or even knowledge of the works published in Irish? How many of our historians have read the three volume autobiography of Ernest Blyth or the works of Pádraic Ó Conaire?

Does not this ignorance render our nation so much the poorer? There is a real lacuna in how the literary establishment treat Irish authors. Awards, when they acknowledge works in Irish ghettoise it - "The Irish Language award!" They appear never to judge it on equal terms with the works in English as the "Best poetry Award, " or best work in fiction.

Surely we should commemorate and support it for what it is - true Irish literature.

* Such as An Siopa Leabhair on Harcourt Street in Dublin or Cló Iarchonnacht's Shop behind the Ceardlann in An Spidéal.

"...the Irish language is not worth knowing..." the real and present danger!

Several things stirred me during the Christmas period. Two interviews with poets, an article in the Irish Times and a blog article from the prolific keyboard of journalist Concubhar Ó Liatháin.

Irish fiction?

The first was a television interview conducted by Morning Ireland's Cathal Mac Coille with the vetern poet and writer, still happily with us, Máire Mhac an tSaoi. This was a delightful hour or so where both writer and interviewer truly understood each other and where, as far as one could see there a genuine but not restrictive respect, affection and understanding between the interviewer and interviewee. Difficult questions were asked and answered and there were some beautiful moments where this over eighty year old poet recited some of her poems as part of the programme.

The second interview was one of the late Nobel Lauriate, Séamus Heaney by Olivia O'Leary. Again this was a wonderful piece of radio this time in front of an audience and again the interviewer showed her knowledge and respect for the poet. One of her questions however pulled me up short. She was asking if he ever felt drawn into the English "niceness" (I think was the word she used!). This is the way in which she felt that the English tried to "own one." She then said that when she was a broadcaster with the BBC long ago, she was very conscious of the possiblity of loosing her "Irishness" which she identified as her accent. That she always insisted in pronouncing the "R" in "Arthur Scargill" the Irish way.

It struck me as sad that this intelligent woman would not have had this problem in asserting her Irishness had she been in full possession of that most identifiable and unique attribute of Irishness, the language. She would perhaps never have feared this sublimation into Englishness and been like, say the brodcaster from Llanelli's Hew Edwards, a stalwart of BBC News. I cannot imagine this would have occured to Máire Mhac an tSaoi in all her international appointments or to her interviewer.

Irish fiction?

An article in this weekend's Irish Times was on a visit to the Dublin Writers' Museum by Rosita Boland. She mentons that it is twenty years since she last visited the museum. She was puzzeled by one of the display cases. "There is the same seemingly random pairing of featured writers in certain display cases. Samuel Beckett and Máirtín Ó Cadhain share one such space. At first, I think it’s because they were both born in 1906, as the text panels note, but the audio guide informs me it’s because they both “chose not to write in English”.

That immediately struck a chord as Concuubhar Ó Liatháin in his iGaeilge blog, recently commented on a new laureate (Irish), which includes a payment of €150,000, to be be awarded to "what the Arts Council describes as “an outstanding fiction writer”, writing in the English language." I must say his somwhat acerbic comment expresses a view with which I wholeheartedly agree! Should the Irish taxpayers' money be spent in promoting English language fiction or is it possible that Irish fiction and fiction in Irish are not the same?

In a recent (and unique) hour-long interview on Raidío na Life (Irish) our Taoiseach stated that he asked the English Queen Elizabeth II, during her historic visit to Ireland, what she thought the greatest gift England had given Ireland. She replied, "The English language." The Taoiseach agreed with her and indeed, incredulously, admitted this in the broadcast. One wonders if he ever read the address delivered by Douglas Hyde, later first President of Ireland, in 1893. (Arguably without this address he would not be Taoiseach at all!) "I have often heard people thank God that if the English gave us nothing else they gave us at least their language. In this way they put a bold face upon the matter, and pretend that the Irish language is not worth knowing, and has no literature. But the Irish language is worth knowing, or why would the greatest philologists of Germany, France, and Italy be emulously studying it, and it does possess a literature, or why would a German savant have made the calculation that the books written in Irish between the eleventh and seventeenth centuries, and still extant, would fill a thousand octavo volumes."

Maybe we could all do with reading his short address to realise that "in Anglicising ourselves wholesale we have thrown away with a light heart the best claim which we have upon the world's recognition of us as a separate nationality."

Indeed the words of the Coimisinéir Teanga to the Oireachtas Committee last December (2013) could well be regarded as an echo: "As we begin to regain our economic sovereignty, it would be a travesty if we were to lose our linguistic sovereignty – a cornerstone of our cultural identity, heritage and soul as a nation. I believe this to be a clear and present danger." (Translation)

New documentary on Pearse launched

Ó PHEANN AN PHIARSAIGH launched in Dublin
Alan Gilsenan's visual film-poem on Pearse's writings.

A visually compelling major new film for TG4 on one of the most enigmatic and controversial leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising was launched this evening at the newly restored Pearse family home in Dublin by the Chairman of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, Bob Collins.

Ó Pheann an Phiarsaigh is an hour-long dramatic montage from award-winning director Alan Gilsenan that draws solely on Pearse's own writings as it attempts to weave an artistic vision of the national icon's life and death and reflect on this divisive, controversial figure. The film will be broadcast on the Irish language channel on Wednesday 5 May at 9.30pm. Extensive use is made of archive film from the Irish Film Archive, IFI Irish Film Archive, Iarsmalann an Phiarsaigh, Fáilte Ireland, Gael Linn, Bailiúchán Clarke, NASA and the U.S. Library of Congress.

Pearse has become a somewhat divisive figure. For some, he is a towering hero of Irish independence, a major literary figure and educational theorist but for many others he's an out-moded totem, his character tainted by a dangerous love of blood sacrifice, a naive narcissism and unanswered questions about his sexuality and suitability as a role model.

This release in Irish (with live links)