Learn, speak and read Irish. Effects guaranteed.
There are many reasons.
Irish literature is uniquely interesting, the oldest surviving European literature after Greek and Latin. It is very different from them--a voice from ancient Europe, a voice from beyond the town walls, vessel of at least 2500 years of human experience in the island of Ireland (and in the Highlands).Yeah, there are a lot of translations these days, but even the best are chloroformed butterflies. Much of the ‘meaning’ of a piece of literature is embedded in language itself and its patterns. English can’t ‘do’ some of the things Irish does, so what you get in translations from Irish is English language literature inspired by Irish. Some butterflies look impressive in a glass case, but a live one flying past in the garden is a different experience.
In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Irish society underwent a traumatic extended violent break with all that had gone before. In order to find a place in the new economic and social order, people needed to jettison Irish was poverty, powerlessness, ignorance, dirt and darkness.The social structure that resulted from the break in many areas was an unbalanced neurotic one; communities that, for the most part, could not afford to pay attention to anything except respectability and getting ahead. People who were not able to get ahead descended into poverty and either emigrated, if they could, or eventually died out. Yes, that was long ago, but the world view and social structures that ‘long ago’ engendered are still with us in a mutated form. In the silence when the power is switched off, ghosts still walk. People learn Irish to try to reconnect to the main line of the development of Irish culture; before.
Irish is a complex, apparently unnecessary language. It’s a language in which there are deep groves of silent trees still, places into which explorers from Google and Apple Corp will never come. It’s a language formed by seasons and weather, by the human mind in face-to-face community, by the necessities of physical existence. It is part of the Wild.
(Well, yes, it is possible to speak a flattened, denatured, impoverished Irish that is molded on English, but that is still, barely, in the minority)
And Irish is beautiful and interesting.
And Irish is beautiful and interesting.
On to the songs.
This first song I've taken from D.J. O'Sullivan's edition of the Bunting Collection Of Irish Folk Music and Songs, published in the Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society, vol. xxvii, about 1927.
After the famous Belfast Harp Festivals, County Down Irish scholar O Loinsigh was dispatched on a journey through Leitrim and Mayo to procure words to the tunes Bunting had collected from the last traditional harpers. The result was and is great, especially in the form of these volumes--words, tunes, and hundreds of notes and explanations and fascinating diversions. There is no note on who the words of this song were obtained from.
An Triucha is a barony in the north of Monaghan--a county and people, as everyone knows, as romantic as can be.
Coillte Glasa
You with the lovely soft hair in curling strands,
with eyes so fine and beautiful,
my heart has been twisted like a willow rope,
a whole great year in longing for you.
If I could by right stretch out beside you,
my step would be light and merry;
and it's my thousand sorrows that you and I are not together, my love,
in the green woods of Triucha.
A chúl alainn tais a bhfainni gcas,
A chúl alainn tais a bhfainni gcas,
Is brea a's is deas do shúile,
a's go bhfuil mo chroi á shlad mar a
sniomhfai gad
le blian mhór fhada ag súil leat.
Dá bhfaighinnse i gceart cead síneadh leat,
is eadtrom brea gasta a shúilfinn,
a's sé mo mhile chreach, gan mé a's tú, a shearc,
faoi choillte brea glasa an Triúcha.
Ah, God, I wish that I and my love of the soft white breasts were together,
and no other person awake in the land of Ireland;
all men and women sleeping peacefully
while my dear and I made love.
Bright tree of beauty, loveliest of women,
star of knowledge placed before me,
I’ll never believe what priests and brothers say,
that it’s a sin for us to sleep together.
A Dhia, gan mise a's mo ghrá go bhfuil a brollach min, bán,
A Dhia, gan mise a's mo ghrá go bhfuil a brollach min, bán,
a's gan neach i gCrioch Fáil ine ndúsgadh,
fir a's mná ina gcodladh
go sámh,
ach mise a's mo ghrá ag súgradh.
A gheig cailce an áigh, is deise
de na mná,
a realt eolas a thóighear domhsa,
ni chreidfinn-se go brath ó shagart nó óbhrathair,
go bhfuil peaca insan an pháirt á dhúbladh.
My love and my dear, let us go now
to the fine green woods of Triucha,
where we’ll find drink and pleasure without doubt,
and plenty of our proper foods there:
rowan berries and holly, bunches of cress,
sweet apples and nuts;
great waves of foliage will be under and around us,
and herbs and grass growing to our knees.
My secret and my dear, make ready and let us go
and we’ll leave our native land;
come to the west where the blackbird is in the woods,
where the apples grow two by two;
grass that’s greenest, bird that is sweetest,
the cuckoo at the top of the green yew tree.
And never, never will death come near us
at the heart of the fragrant wood.
There are three other songs that invite the beloved to run away to Triucha. Before an Bord Failte starts scheming about a new honeymoon destination, I should point out that the old forests are long gone. The Triucha songs all come from the south Armagh/Louth/south Monaghan area, a place packed with poets up to the mid-19th century. Triucha was seperated from it by a large area that had been planted with English and Scottish settlers, so it could be that An Triucha stood in the minds of south Armagh and Louth and south Monaghan people for simply the unknown and the Otherworld, a place where, by definition, tour buses and rental cars cannot go.
The other 'Triucha' songs are in Einri O Muireasa's Cead de Cheoltaibh Uladh, 1915 and 1983, pp. 138-144.
Ulstermen are always trying to go somewhere else, it seems.
There are three other songs that invite the beloved to run away to Triucha. Before an Bord Failte starts scheming about a new honeymoon destination, I should point out that the old forests are long gone. The Triucha songs all come from the south Armagh/Louth/south Monaghan area, a place packed with poets up to the mid-19th century. Triucha was seperated from it by a large area that had been planted with English and Scottish settlers, so it could be that An Triucha stood in the minds of south Armagh and Louth and south Monaghan people for simply the unknown and the Otherworld, a place where, by definition, tour buses and rental cars cannot go.
The other 'Triucha' songs are in Einri O Muireasa's Cead de Cheoltaibh Uladh, 1915 and 1983, pp. 138-144.
Ulstermen are always trying to go somewhere else, it seems.
Here is an eighteenth century song by the south Ulster poet Peadar O Doirnin, Ur-Chnoc Chein Mhic Cainte (The Green Hill of Cian mac Cainte),
(I humbly plead forgiveness for the lack of fadas below. The only way I can smuggle them in here involves a huge amount of work. A poor excuse, I know...)
A phluir na maghdean is uire gne,
thug clu le sceimh on Adamhchlainn.
A chul na bpearlai, a run na heigse,
dhublaois feile is failte.
A ghnuis mar ghrein i dtus gach lae ghil,
a mhuchas lean le gaire,
Is e mo chumha gan me is tu a shiur, linn fein
san dun sin Chein Mhic Cainte
Taim bruite i bpein gan suan gan neal,
de do chumha, a gheag is aille;
Is gur tu mo roghain i gCuigibh Eireann--
cuis nach seanaim as de.
Da siulfa, a realt gan smud, liom fein,
ba shugach saor mo shlainte.
Geobhair plur ia mead is cnuasach craobh
san dun sin Chein Mhic Cainte.
A phluir na maghdean is uire gne,
thug clu le sceimh on Adamhchlainn.
A chul na bpearlai, a run na heigse,
dhublaois feile is failte.
A ghnuis mar ghrein i dtus gach lae ghil,
a mhuchas lean le gaire,
Is e mo chumha gan me is tu a shiur, linn fein
san dun sin Chein Mhic Cainte
Taim bruite i bpein gan suan gan neal,
de do chumha, a gheag is aille;
Is gur tu mo roghain i gCuigibh Eireann--
cuis nach seanaim as de.
Da siulfa, a realt gan smud, liom fein,
ba shugach saor mo shlainte.
Geobhair plur ia mead is cnuasach craobh
san dun sin Chein Mhic Cainte.
A shuaircbhean tseimh na gcuachfholt pearlach,
gluais liom fein ar ball beag,trath is buailte cleir is tuata i nealtaibh
suan faoi eadai bana;
O thuaidh go mbeam i bhfad uathu araon
teacht nua chruth greine amarach,
gan ghuais le cheile in uaigneas aerach
san uaimh sin Chein Mhic Cainte.
Cluinfir uaill na ngadhar ar luas i ndeidh
Bhriain luaimnigh bhearnaigh mhasaigh,
is fuaim guth beilbhinn cuach is smolach suairc ar gheaga in altaibh'
I bhfuarlinn tseimh chifir sluabhuion eisc
ag ruagadh a cheile ar snamh ann,
is an cuan gur leir dhuit uaid i gcein
o'n Ur-Chnoc Chein Mhic Cainte.
The translation below is rushed and awkward. The poet would not be happy with it, and no insult to him is intended.
Flower of girls, of shining countenance,
known as most beautiful of the Children of Adam;
shining hair, desire of poets,
you who are most generous and kind.
Face like the sun of every bright morning,
You who extinguish sorrow with your laughter,
it is my sorrow, friend, that you and I are not alone together
in that dun of Ciam Mac Cainte.
I am battered in pain, unable to sleep or to rest,
missing you, oh beautiful branch,
and you are my choice in all the provinces of Ireland,
and that is a thing I will not deny.
If you would walk beside me, oh flawless star,
we would be merry and flourish in health.
You will get flour and mead, fruits and nuts
in that dun of Ciam Mac Cainte.
Cheerful gentle girl with bright winding tresses,
go with me now in a little while
when lay and clergy will both be sound
asleep under white sheets.
Two of us together, far to the north we'll be
when the new sun rises tomorrow,
together without sorrow, cheerfully alone
in that cave of Cian Mac Cainte.
The cry of the hounds will be heard
chasing after the agile handsome fox;
the sound of the sweet-voiced cuckoo and blackbird on branches.
In quiet cold pools, there you'll see
schools of fish swimming through one another,
and the ocean you'll see far away
from the bright hill of Cian Mac Cainte.
(The final verses, in which the girl answers, as it were:)
Get away from me with your plamas, though you've told of a hundred things,
(something that many might be convinced by).
The best thing by far are heaps of jewels;
something you didn't mention at all.
Lands at good rent, cows and sheep,
and stacks of pearls in a mansion.
As a price, I would not accept them from you
in the night-time when children are made.
He was a love poet who presents himself as almost a Charlie Chaplin Little Tramp, lyrically and enthusiastically courting a succession of young women who have a tendency, in the lines attributed to them in his songs, to point out his faults, in particular his poverty and unrealistic ideas about the invincibility of love and lovers. O Doirnin is the author of a song that's become well-known (well-known in some places, anyway) today in Sean O Riada's setting of it: Mna na hEireann, translated as The Women of Ireland.
In this poem, O Doirnin invites a young woman to leave the ordinary world of work, spinning wheels and carding wool behind, and to live with him among the sights and sounds of the natural world at the top of what's now called Killen Hill, near the town of Dundalk. There was then a megalithic tomb at the top of the hill, to which he refers as 'an uaimh sin Chein Mhic Cainte,' and this was associated with Cian, the father of the god Lugh in old stories. The poem then is not only an invitation to go dwell in the "Wild", but in the Otherworld.
O Doirnin's work is best collected in Peadar O Doirnin: Amhrain, edited by Breandan O Buachalla, an Clochomhar, 1969, and that's where I took the original words from. Information about this song can also be found in A Hidden Ulster: People, Songs and Traditions of Oriel, by Padraigin Ni hUallachain, Four Courts Press, 2003.
Here's a song from the same area, a song celebrating the coming of Summer, traditionally sung by groups of girls carrying a symbol of the summer, whether a May branch or a sort of doll adorned with ribbons, on May Day. Versions were collected from neighboring counties Monaghan and Armagh at the beginning of the 20th century.
The singer is Eithne Ni hUallachan, sister of Padraigin who edited the Hidden Ulster book, and I suppose you could say she was the second-to-last native speaker of the dialect, (her sister being the last). They were raised in Irish by their father who learned Irish earlier in the 20th-century from older native Irish-speakers in the area. Gerry O'Connor, Eithne's husband and a great fiddler, plays.
And now on to Connacht....and a translation of a tiny love song
Is Leat
You have my eternal desire, my prayer, my creed,
you have the rule of my heart, until I go into the earth,
you have all that my mouth will ever utter,
you have this poor wandering fool of Corra-Sratha until his death.
A quatrain I found in Burduin Bheaga (O Rathaile) on page 35. Corr Sratha is a place in Leitrim.
“The Tormented Brother” below was Tomas O Caiside whose Rabelesian adventures on the continent of Europe he recounted in the tale “Eachtra Thomáis Uí Chaiside.” A number of other songs by this 18th-century county Roscommon man also entered the folk song tradition. He was once a religious brother, but was defrocked "for a foolish marriage," as he said himself.
It's a version of the song An Casaideach Ban which is an even better song, or at least more sexy. This one is also spoiled by a lack of fadas.
It's a version of the song An Casaideach Ban which is an even better song, or at least more sexy. This one is also spoiled by a lack of fadas.
112) An Braithrin Buartha
In this perverse world, the laws are too narrow,
and even the Pope wouldn’t let me marry you;
but if you’ll come with me back behind the garden,
it's there we’ll take permission to make love.
Ta an saol seo crosta, ta an dli ro-laidir,
a's ni bhfuighinn o'n bPapa tu a phosadh liom
ach da dtagta liomsa ar chuil a ghairdin,
no go bhfaighimis fail ann cead sugartha a's grinn
There she is passing me, the shining white swan,
and it's my sorrow that she ever was born,
for the night she was conceived in her mother’s womb,
she was destined to be my death.
Siud i tharm i, an eala glegeal,
agus se mo lean gear mar rugadh i
mar an oiche a geineadh i i mbruinn a mathar,
gur le haighaidh mo bhais a cumadh i.
I never baptized an infant, nor a little child;
only that lovely woman who’s troubled my heart,
and, One Son of Mary, and King of Grace,
isn’t it a wretched thing that I’m in love with a woman?
Nior bhaist me leanbh o, ar bith ariamh na paistin,
ach an peirlin ban ud a cradh mo chroi,
agus, a aoin-Mhic Mhuire agus a Ri na nGrasta,
nach claoite an cas me a bheith i ngra le mnaoi?
A beguiling dream came to me last night
while I was there in my sleep.
The sky-woman came and stretched out beside me
and her eyes and her gaze were fine to see.
An bhiongloidigh bhreagach a thainig areir o,
agam fein agus me in mo shuan;
go dtainig an speirbhean a's gur shin si taobh liom,
ba dheise a feachaint agus a leagan sul.
Her body was more radiant than the leaping candle-flame,
her hair was every bit as beautiful, thick and long;
her breast was whiter than the snow on the side of the mountain,
and her face was as lovely as the flower of the apple.
I’ll make a journey to do the pilgrimage at Cruach Phadraig,
and I’ll return again back to Sliabh Bághna,
searching everywhere for my wonderful girl
who made black coal of the heart in my breast.
Alas, my shoulders have swollen up to my ears
and I’ve received an unequivocal notice from Death.
There’s no person who heard of my plight
who wouldn’t admit things were bad for Fairhaired Casaide.
If I was a boatman, it's skillfully I’d sail
to any place where my love might be.
I’d sail after her through the pounding tides,
on and on, from wave to wave.
I would embrace her in her shift,
and hold her in my two arms, however long the night;
The only request I have from the King of Grace
is a single kiss from my dear beloved.
I translated from Na Caisidigh agus a gCuid Filiochta, edited by Maighread Nic Philibin many years ago for Oifig an tSolathair. She got this version from Padraig O Neill, a singer from Baile An Chlair which is next to, should I mention, Abbeyknockmoy, and also Galway town. You can hear him sing it, if you go to the Doegen records site.
Darach O Cathain also recorded the song, and I can't find it online. Sorry.
Maire Ni Scolai (video above) was a Dublin woman who lived most of her life in Galway town, and whose recordings introduced many listeners to sean nos singing, though she sang in a European art-music style, really.
Here's a translation of the first little bit of Eachtra Thomais Ui Chaiside.
"Reader, I beseech you not to pass hasty judgement on this feeble composition. It's no wonder it's poorly put together because ever since a burning itch for travel came into my head (and it was't
long until the same ailment took possession of my feet), my mind has never been tranquil or at rest. Please do not therefore weigh my words too studiously or ponder over them. Instead, follow me
on my ceaseless travel over the roads I journeyed.After a long excursion through this hamfisted composition, I will wager that you will sleep soundly. At any rate, I leave my best wishes to my friends and relatives for health and long life....
There's not a land or an island or a bit of a fairy fort or village within the circuit of the lovely fruitful island of Ireland that I didn't seek out and search, looking for my dog, though I didn't know what
color he was. I finally stole away over the sea and I was sold to a French officer and forced to be a soldier...."
He served, always as briefly as possible, in several European armies into which he was pressed. He finally escaped, was shipwrecked in southwestern England and in the end. returned to Ireland.
He served, always as briefly as possible, in several European armies into which he was pressed. He finally escaped, was shipwrecked in southwestern England and in the end. returned to Ireland.
Munster
So I said there aren't many good love songs from 19th/20th century County Cork. Here's one. The point of it is that instead of hitting on an ordinary young woman, the poet meets a woman from the Otherworld, the fairy lios or bruidhean; or he lets on that he things he has, in order to plamas her.
(No fadas below....You see, to enter them, I need to go to Insert (in Word) which is very very slow on this computer, then select a vowel with a fada, then wait while Word reluctantly mails it to the place I had selected in the document. I did a whole novel that way, and am still traumatized by that experience.)
Reidh-Chnoc Mna Duibhe
Its long I’ve been wandering, searching for my love,
through dark lonely glens, as I’m driven along,
I’ve never found her equal, though I’ve searched far and wide,
from the streams of An Tuath to the shining banks of the Maigh.
I happened all alone onto the noble mountain of the Fairy Woman,
and there I met the long-haired woman, sitting down;
her hair was waving, thick and beautiful, flowing down in waves,
down around her shoulders, while the wind it was stirring it.
I met my love and I thought it polite to sit down with her,
I put my hand on her chest and on her breast,
and she said to me “Leave me! I am not for the likes of you,
I’m a sad woman from this place who happened into the lios.”
He: “What is your land, your place, or are you a native of Ireland?
Sit down with me if you’re troubled, and defy every enemy.
Are you the bright woman Blaithnaid who’s sent this arrow through my heart,
or the fair beautiful maiden that Paris stole to Troy?”
She: “I’m indeed not one of those people,” she said,
“only a gentle country girl from the other side of the land,
who has never yet stretched out her right side by any man in the world.
Take your hands away from me, for I’m late to the Bruidheann.”
He: “It's my sorrow and my grief, my dear heart and my first love,
you with cheeks like the rowan berry, that you are lashed by the storm;
it's the fairy host of Cnoc Greine that took you in their nets,
swept you from your people, away to Reidh Chnoc Mna Sí.”
I’d press you to my heart inside, my lovely hero of a woman,
and put my arms around you, there’d be nothing more fine;
her slender pretty black eyebrows were beautiful to see,
like the moon at night, when its just a day old.
I put my arms around her slender waist and I held her tight,
I caressed her from there down to the toes of her feet;
its my desire to stretch out with her, to lie down by her side,
but she leaped away from me like a bird on the branch.
Not to leave you in sorrow, here's a Breton dance, a gavotten, from the Pourlet area--the villages around the small town of Guemene. Yes, it's a performance in folk costume, but it's authentic. People dressed like that up into the 1930s in many parts of western Breton-speaking Brittany, and people still dance like that there.
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