Ireland is different, and not only because the Tourist Board tries really very hard to convince foreigners to spend a lot of money there chasing the magic or the craic or the chance to be on a mountain when the mist comes down or the casual attitude or the rain or whatever.
Many Irish public intellectuals were not many years ago very publicly concerned that Ireland was much too different, in fact, and not at all the respectable dignified serious European society that it should be; ie. not enough like the English or French or Germans and other nations that the world takes very serious indeed. If the Irish would only pay attention, stand up straight and jettison all the unnecessary cultural baggage they'd accumulated, everything would be much better.
That has happened in the last 25 years, and Ireland is not what it was. It persists in being unhappily unlike England, France and Germany, though. Those societies manage, for example, to provide ways for the majority of their people to make a living at home. It's still a society that, at heart, is very unsure of itself.
What the feck is wrong? Are the English right in thinking the Irish are too immature or hot-headed or unrealistic to manage their own affairs? Are they simply mystical Celts who'll always be better in the pub or the bog than in business?
Not really.
Ireland since the 16th century has been one of the odd bits of peripheral Europe that were absorbed by other seriously expanding states and economies, and become colonies. For centuries, Ireland produced raw materials for British industry; food for the British Army and Navy or for Caribbean slave plantations; linen and cloth and stockings, and then food for industrial populations in Britain. Irish society was structured in order to most efficiently produce those goods, administered by a very numerous class of British colonial personnel. It's true that Ireland was becoming closer and closer to British society in many ways, and the administrators more different from those in the homeland. If the British government hadn't introduced conscription during World War I, and then shot the leaders of the Easter Rising, Ireland might be just a slightly disorganized, but undistinguished part of Great Britain today, with churches.
But it isn't.
Before the 16th century, Ireland was still odd.
What we consider Europe was created by the Roman Empire, and by the Roman Catholic church that succeeded it; by the holy Roman Empire, the Normans, and all the rest. Most of the villages of France grew out of Roman estates. None of the native languages of France, Spain, Italy and Belgium, etc. survived. Society was completely remade over the centuries of Empire. In the medieval period, official Latin culture dominated, and though most villagers did not share the official version, they also did not have opportunity to write down their own literature, and their social forms could only go so far before the Church or the authorities called them to heel. Over the centuries, people's lives were molded more and more into one likeness.
Ireland was never conquered by the Romans. The Vikings made a mess later, but they were eventually contained within the Dublin area. The Normans and English blew through the place and almost burned the whole house down, but by the early 16th century, they too were contained within a few areas. If it hadn't been for the expansion of the extremely efficient, manic and violent Tudor state, Ireland would probably eventually have worked itself back toward balance again.
So like Lithuania and then west Norway/Faroes/Iceland, Irish culture is a culture that developed on its own lines (more or less) rather than on the common European pattern. Its literature is a voice from pre-Roman Europe, developing in dialogue with, rather than in subservience to, official Latin-based literature and culture. Only in Ireland did hereditary secular learned families continue right alongside the Church. Poets, historians, lawmen, doctors and so forth continued to cultivate native learning until the 16th century. Literature developed pretty much uninterruptedly from pre-everything time, both in oral and manuscript form. Irish people didn't build palaces or massive cathedrals. They didn't possess privy councils or much of a state of any sort--nothing to convince the English that the Irish weren't savages--but they were intensely civilized in a very ancient way that's difficult to imagine now, unless you immerse yourself in the manuscripts that survive.
(The same goes for the Scottish Gaels, who, as I pointed out earlier, are really just Irish with boats. The Welsh are similar, but slightly different. They were always the embattled remnant of the Britons, and their very identity is bound up in opposition to the Anglo-Saxon invaders. 'Cymru', the Welsh word for 'Wales', is related to the word for "Welsh people' (Cymry), which means 'comrades.' 'Wales' is a back-formation from the Welsh people. whereas Ireland ('Eire-land' as the English say) always had a primeval, almost sacred, unity as a separate place, a whole, an island.)
So Ireland is different. Different in that, even though the Irish pass for 'white' and speak English, it's a post-colonial place like Lithuania or Peru or Occitania or the Phillipines, with post-colonial problems and opportunities. There's something else too, though--a faint touch of another ancient world fading in the air; an odd sense that there's another world altogether will tap you on the shoulder when you're not looking (in some places anyway), like Bradbury's Martians. Even understanding the places names will tell you that there was once another world. Instead of "Mallow" (or "Malla"!) there was once Maigh Ealla, the plain of Ealla among the forests.
So here's to what was which will never be again; to lost worlds.
The Lithuanians and Icelanders didn't write all that much down. Fortunately for us, the Irish did, and just enough survived later centuries of colonial wars to show us what we lost.
Here’s a 12th century medieval poem related to the story of Diarmuid and Grainne. In this poem, they have eloped and are fleeing in the wild. Grainne mentions the name of heroes and heroines from Gaelic tradition who had once been in similar situations. I translate from the text in Early Irish Lyrics, ed, Gerard Murphy, Oxford/Clarendon Press, 1956. The poem survives only, as far as I know, in one manuscript written in Belgium in the 17th century for an Irish nobleman in exile.
Early Irish (Gaelic) literature is vast, and hints of even more survives as mere citations or mentions. Most of the stories mentioned in the poem below are lost.
Grainne:
Sleep just a little, just a little,
for there is nothing at all to fear,
lad to whom I have given my love,
descendent of Duibne, Diarmait.
Sleep there, quietly, quietly,
descendent of Duibne, dear Diarmait;
I will watch over you,
handsome son of Ua Duibne.
Sleep a little ( a blessing on you),
by the water of the spring of Trengort,
you who are like the foam of the lake’s top,
from the borders of the Land of Promise.
May it be like the sleep, south there
of fair Fidhaig of the high poets,
when he brought the daughter of great Morann
away, despite Conall from the Red Branch.
May it be like the sleep, north there,
of Finnchaid Fhinnchaim of Essa Ruaidh,
when he brought Slaine, happy fate,
away, despite Failbhe Chotatchinn.
May it be like the sleep, west there,
of Aine daughter of Gailian,
when she traveled by torchlight
with Dubthach from Dairinis.
May it be like the sleep, east there,
of proud brave Dedad,
when he brought Coinchinn, daughter of Benn
away, despite vehement Dechell Duibrinn.
Wall of courage of the west of Greece,
I myself will wait and guard you;
my own heart would almost break
unless I can look upon you always.
To part the two of us from one another
is like parting the children of one steading,
it is parting the soul from the body,
warrior from bright Loch Carman.
A spell of invisibility will be put over your trail
(there’s no harm will come from Cailte’s pursuit,)
to fend off both death and sorrow,
that would leave you in endless sleep.
Diarmait:
The stag does not sleep, eastwards there,
he doesn’t cease from his calling;
though he’s by the blackbirds’ oak grove;
in his mind he has no thought of sleep.
The bare-headed doe does not sleep;
she calls out to her speckled fawn;
she leaps over the tops of the bushes;
she doesn’t sleep in her resting place.
The nimble linnet does not sleep,
above the boughs of the fair tangled trees;
they make a great clamor there;
not one of the thrushes sleeps.
The graceful duck does not sleep,
it puts its strength into graceful swimming;
it neither rests nor pauses there;
in its resting place it does not sleep.
Tonight the curlew does not sleep;
high over the sound of the storm’s anger,
the sound of its fair voice is sweet;
between the streams it does not sleep.
It’s been suggested that the following poem also relates to the tale of Diarmuid and Grainne. Diarmuid is addressed as “Lom Laine”, and Grainne as “Tethna”. The poem occurs in only one medieval manuscript.
Uar in Lathe do Lum Laine
The day is a cold one for Lom Laine
competing in splendid horse racing;
the day is a cold one also for Conn’s daughter,
while she’s washing her heavy hair in a full vessel.
Lom Laine seems to me
like the Yew of Rath Baile;
you seem to me, Tethna,
like the apple tree of Aile.
The glorious apple tree of Aile,
the yew of Rath Baile; an insignificant holding;
though they were to be put in a poem,
unlearned people do not understand (them).
Lom Laine seems to me like
the fierce stag of Drigriu;
you seem to me, Tethna,
like the doe of Druimm Drigrend.
Lom Laine seems to me like
the branches of the Whitebeam of Aille;
Tethna seems to me like
the sheen on the top of the milk.
Lom Laine, did you get as far (come from?)
as Lecc Da Berg at Srub Brain?
I got as far (came from?) as Ferta Maigin
to the east of Suide Laigen.
Lom Laine, don’t arouse me;
don’t let the eyes of a jealous man look on me;
were it not for Leca Luigdech Lis
the little birds of Baile would (unclear in manuscript)...
Beloved in my own dear mind
are the girls of the folk of Temair;
Beloved in my mind
are the lads of cold Almu.
Lom Laine, don’t arouse me,
fierce hero, champion of a war-host,
if this is to be our road,
it will one day be the cause of our deaths.
I used the text published in Celtic Studies Presented in Memory of Angus Matheson, ed. James Carney and David Greene, Barnes and Noble, 1968.
Below, a Lithuanian song from the group Obelija from southwestern Lithuania, Lithuanians were also peasants for many centuries after they were conquered, and modern identity is bound up with both peasant and ancient culture.
An Bhanab o’n gCarraig Leith
There was a day when Murchadh mac Bhriain
was in Dublin of a pleasant morning;
he saw a little curragh on the ocean,
coming out of the west, headed into land.
He hurried over quickly to meet it,
the curragh, as it was coming into land;
what he found there was a young woman in it,
she had a golden apple in her hand.
She tossed the apple to his chest
when she was had come close into the anchorage;
she thrust away from land again all at once,
until she was the length of nine waves out from the shore.
He found that it was written on the golden apple
that the woman was in love with him;
and further, to complete the tale,
that she was the daughter of the King of Greece.
The tale of the doings of Murchadh and his woman,
those are not the things that are on my mind here;
I’m thinking of the maiden from Carraig Liath,
and it’s for her sake that I speak of the tale.
Just as the daughter of the King of Greece
came to meet Murchadh (who was generous to poets),
unless she comes to meet me very soon,
there’s no doubt at all that my days will be numbered.
The Muaide river, in county Mayo, is called “Moy” in English today. I used the text published in Early Irish Literature by Myles Dillon, University of Chicago Press, 1948.
Mac Rig Muaide
The son of the King of Muaide, in the midsummer,
found a girl in the green wood;
She gave him black fruit from the blackthorn tree;
she gave him a handful of strawberries on rushes.
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