There was a specific Irish (Gaelic) voice characteristic of
the older society, and it was dominant in the literature produced both by the
traditional learned families and in the monasteries. It characterizes “folk”
song as well. The voice is clear-eyed, precise, and lyrical, and though totally unsentimental, often communicates
great passion.
Sounds very serious, doesn’t it? At least dry and
uninteresting. Tedious.
Depends on one’s perspective, I suppose.
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The voice is not as easily accessible as all the things in print and online today designed to draw in anyone who wanders by with a Euro/dollar to spend, but then very few worthwhile things are immediately accessible. Worthwhile things require you pay attention. They require you to be quiet enough in yourself to be able to actually hear/see/feel. They require that you care about things outside yourself.
This literature makes demands on readers/listeners, but even greater demands on its practitioners.No one simply finds a set of uillean pipes or a viola, picks it up and starts to play. They need to learn the instrument in order to be able to express themselves through its voice, and learning takes passion, time and discipline…But what a voice! The people who composed this literature often put in a long apprenticeship mastering technical skills and traditional learning: learning the instrument, as it were.
They also absorbing an understanding of the world that still speaks to some of us.
What I'm on about today is another of the group who received something of a traditional "bardic" education, but were never bards. Ceitinn, O Bruadair, O Raithile, and Haicead are best known examples. They produced poetry with all the compressed tensile strength and depth of the tradition of traditional "bardic" poetry, but since Irish society was being torn to pieces in the 17th century, their poems deal with new issues more accessible to us today...Though not accessible if you are moving at contemporary speeds and accustomed to immediate gratification.
Tadhg Rua Ớ Conchobhair is a not-very-well known Irish poet who was probably related to the old royal family of north Ciarraí. It’s thought he died in the 1690s or maybe in the 1670, The first possibility is based on something in an O Longáin manuscript (I think), and their information about place and time is often inaccurate. “1670s” is based on the fact that a Cork poet who answered one of Tadhg’s poems was alive in 1675. So no one really knows anything.
Tadhg Rua may have lived near Castleisland.
The index to the manuscripts
in the Royal Irish Academy (often a good rough guide to the extent of the literature)
lists about ten poems attributed to him known. Only two of them have ever been printed, as
far as I know.
The (I think) O Longáin manuscript says Tadhg was dancing
once, noticed that the harper was making fun of him, and composed a poem in
response. Whether that’s true or not, he really didn’t think much of the
musician, who was an Ulsterman, by the way.
Saoi le searbhas Eóin mac Eóin, Eoin mac Eoin is a
master of sour discord
Daoi le’r dearbhadh cóir ‘na locht: a clod whose cloddishness is
well proved
Mar chráin ag crónán dá cluinn like a sow grunting
to her brood
Fuinn a lámh, dordán a dhocht. The tunes from his
hands, the hum of his ornamentation
Is mó do-gheibhtear i nguaillibh Eóin You’ll find more musical pleasure
in Eoin’s
Do shult ceóil ná i luas a lámh: shoulders
than in his hands’ agility
Alpa a dhá amhchrobh ina bhfeidhm His two hunks of
paws produce sounds
Mar chreim dá chlamchon ar chnámh. Like
a mangy dog chewing on a bone.
Mar bhíos céis ag coin ar chluais Like a young pig whose
ear a dog’s got hold of,
I nguais ag ceisneamh a cáis, in
terror and outrage broadcasting his situation,
Ó n-a chlos is céasta cluas, Hearing
(Eoin), the ear is tormented:
Crobh gan luas ag pléasgadh
práis. A
turgid claw bursting brass (strings)
Ní aithneann aon a phort féin, No
one recognizes the tune he composed
An tan théid i gcaschrobh Eóin; after
Eoin’s crooked hands get hold of it
Tuar tuirse tafann a lámh. A foreboding of sorrow, the outcry of his hands:
Blas na gcrann gafann ‘na ngeóin… the musical
equivalent of the taste of henbane.
(There are five more verses.)
Well, reading the translation, it sounds like a man well gone in drink being tossed out of a late night session.
There are three reasons this is not so:
1) My translation was done in two minutes at work and doesn't even try to be good. It is intended merely as a crib.
2) My translation does not attempt to communicate the form or style of the original. Someone once said the unfailing sign of a great soul is a sense of style. Not "sense of fashion", but an unfailing sense for the appropriate/right way to do (in this case, say) things that, in itself, expresses depth of understanding. Tadhg Rua has it, but you really do have to read Irish to get three-quarters of what's going on in these poems.
3) The poem, in word choice, metre, imagery etc refers out to other things in the literature and draws power and resonance from these references and echoes that are, for one who knows the literature, almost unconscious. Such things cannot make it through into English. (And neither can they from Flemish, Urdu or what have you.)
Or so it seems to me. In Irish, at any rate, it is a very funny, pleasing piece.
Muiris Mac Dáibhí Dubh Mac Gearailt, a slightly earlier poet (died 1630s??) from the same (Mac Gearailt) cultural area (Dingle to be specific) composed a poem, Mór idir na haimsearaibh, that’s fairly common in later manuscripts. In it, he calls out the Irish as gullible idiots for borrowing money for festivities and all from the newly arrived English merchants and landowners who somehow always seemed to end up owning the Irishmen’s land when the Irish couldn’t repay the loan. (In the new post-Conquest society, you needed money a lot more than you used to…)
Mór idir na haimseraraibh, The
times have changed greatly
Más fíor dá dtáinig romhainn: according
to those who came before us.
Barr óilc agus aimhgliocais A crop of evil and stupidity
Ag fás gach aonlá orainn. Growing
up among us stronger every day.
Tadhg Rua also suffered from the destruction of Irish society, and found out that a man without money is invisible. (It’s worth mentioning that traditionally, kin were kin, in sickness and in health and all that, even if they’re poor.)
‘S do chleasaibh an tsaoghail tslim From the tricks of this fair world
D’fhear saibhir nách baoghal táir the
rich man need fear no insult
Más doibhir, atá gan chéill,-- but
the poor man is but a fool
Fáth nách téid an ceart ‘na chair. And
so justice never approaches him(or he is never right)
Damhsa do fíoradh an sgéal: My
own case proves the tale true
An tan do b’aoibhinn mo sheól, When
things were going great for me
Ba mhór mo chairdeas ‘as mo ghaol: Everyone
was my friend or relative
Ós bocht, ní thig aon do’m choir. Now
I am poor, no one comes near me
Cé chím iad, ní fhacaid mé, Though
they see me, they don’t see me
‘s má chíd mé, ní fhaicid mé: And
if they do see me, they don’t.
Saoilid said, ar ndul dom spréidh, They
think, now my goods are gone
Ciodh mise mé, nach mé mé. Though
I am me, this “Me” is not “me.”
…
Isé meas an tsaoghail mhóir Respectable people think
Ó bhraithis mo stór go gann, now that they see my goods are scarce
Dá dtagrainn an ceart ‘s an choir, that
though I was to speak what is right and true
Nách fuil acht glóir amaide ann. It’s
nothing but an idiot speaking.
(Four more verses)
(I took these from O’Rahilly’s Measgra Dánta, Cuid 1, Cork
University Press, 1927/Longman’s. Browne ands Nolan, 1969). The second poem is
also in Nua-Dhuainare, Cuid 1, eag P. De Brún, 1975. “Is Mór” is from Dánta Mhuiris Mhic Dháibhí
Dhuibh Mhic Gearailt, eag N. Williams, 1979.
Why bother with any of this when there's TikTok?
An open question, I suppose, though one I think we all need to consider as we continue our slide into dystopia.
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