Why
would someone take an interest in Irish and Scots Gaelic?
Well,
as I wrote some time ago, "I
There is quite a bit of wooden leg Irish in the world today, though, It’s not always easy to find the good shit. I thought I’d mention a few books that might help.
Early Irish Lyrics, Eighth to Twelfth
Century,
edited and translated by Gerard Murphy, Oxford, 1956 (315 pages) is wonderful. Why? It provides texts of 58
poems, 33 of them religious, the rest not. The secular poems are lyrics drawn
from miscellaneous sources and they are great. When the contemporary scene is
just too unbelievably insane, they are an oasis.
Murphy’s
translations are very very good, not only in themselves, but in bringing out
aspects of the Irish that, I expect would have been obvious to contemporary
Irish people, but are not obvious at all to us. There are good textual notes
and discussions of the sources. There is a full vocabulary that is in itself a
lesson in Old and Middle Irish language.
Nua-Dhuanaire, Cuid I, ed. De Brún, P,
Breanndán Ó Buachalla and Tomás Ó Concheanainn, (Institiúd Ardléinn Bhaile Atha
Cliath, 1975,) is good too, though I would choose Murphy if I was stuck on a
desert island. It gives 66 poems of the 17th century and then 20
probably later folk songs. There’s a full vocabulary and some linguistic notes,
though no translations.
The
choice of 17th century poetry is good, reflecting two of the editors
knowledgeable eclectic tastes, though there is no Ó Rathaille. It’s important
to note that the syntax of Bardic and 17th century poetry does not
plod along according to the instruction manuals, and a variety of forms and
spellings are admitted. This means it can be a puzzle initially, if one is used
to contemporary language, but there is a particular peculiar exhilaration in
the poetry and in exploring its wave length.
Cuid
II and III were respectively, folksongs of Ulster, and Connacht/Munster, and
are good, though maybe without the 17th century fireworks
An Duanaire 1600-1900: Poems of the
Dispossessed, ed. Seán Ó Tuama, translations by Thomas Kinsella, Dolmen Press (and
later University of Pennsylvania?) 1981 is a good complement to An Duanaire. It
gives lots of Ó Rathaille (Ó Tuama wrote a study of his poetry) and other
interesting poems, and a good selection of folk songs and prayers. The
translations are solid (Kinsella was a very important Anglo-Irish poet of the
1960s and 1970s), and though, as he himself says, they don’t even try to carry
over the word music etc of the original, they find a good middle way between
literalism and good English poetry.
(It
is not easy to translate Irish, for this reason. Micheal Hartnett did a book of
translations of Haicéad that despite his own love of the poetry and his own
great English and Irish poetry is literal but horrible. Partly this is because Kinsella was a literate urbane man, a middle class Dubliner, and Hartnett was a west Limerick farm boy who took as his model here the Anglo-Irish folk songs he knew growing up.
An
Duanaire was intended as a “modern” presentation of Irish poetry and was a big
deal in it’s day.
Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the
British Library, Vol I, ed. Standish Hayes O’ Grady, 1926 and 1995, 707 pages: Vol II,
ed Robin Flower, 1926 and 1995 (634 pages)
There
are many catalogs of Irish manuscripts, ranging from the absolutely
execrable (Trinity) to the good (some
of the Royal Irish academy depending on the editor: some National Library: Cambridge: Oxford) to the non-existant (University College, Dublin: Belfast: Galway), These two volumes are splendid, unique treasures. No one has even tried to do what they did here.
O’Grady
was a fascinating man: son of an old noble family in far east Limerick who
learned Irish with the last traditional country poets of that area in the 1830s
and 1840s, went to Rugby School, became a civil engineer, ran a coastal steamer
in California, and then in the 1880s, reappeared as an Irish scholar. His work
(like Eugene O’Curry’s of Clare and John O'Daly of Waterford) is an indispensable link between traditional
Irish learning and modern scholarship. His knowledge of Irish was, as they say,
unrivaled and ran rings around the big gun pedantic scholars of the day. He knew traditional Irish culture in his bones, had common sense and a sense of humor.
(He is not Standish James O'Grady, his cousin, who though he wrote on Irish topics, knew no Irish and almost nothing about Irish tradition.)
His
volume is great because he gives long extracts and translations of a lot of the
poems in the manuscripts he did, and provides remarkable insight into them. It
is, as someone said, a master class in Bardic poetry. Unfortunately, O’Grady’s
portion of the Catalog was mostly Law and Bardic poetry manuscripts, so the range is limited. He does also give long extracts from relevant 16th and 17th century
English historical documents, explaining people and events mentioned in the
manuscripts.
A
bit at random:
Mòr
còir cháich ar chríoch Laighen...
“Great
are the charges that all others have against the land of Leinster: precinct
fair that was never reduced to straits: Never do any indulge expectations (to
have aught) of her, though every man have a charge to bring against her. Charges
against her all Ireland’s nobles have : that beneath the salmon-abounding
Leinster country’s soil –region of foamy rivers foamy-waved – there is many a
grave of their kings and their heirs apparent.
(ie because other provinces attacked Leinster and lost battles there.)
(From
a poem to Fiacha Mac Aodha Ó Broin, taken from his own duanaire (poem book).
Well,
this is actually a very boring extract – please take my word for it – but there
is an enormous jade plant sitting in the window between me and the light of the
sun and I have things to do outside and I don’t want to delete this above and go back and choose an more interesting extract not
at random.
Volume
II is great for another reason. Flower was an Englishman who spent long periods
on the Great Blasket and learned Irish there. He was originally a scholar of
Medieval Latin and English, and his enormous learning in Irish literature comes
through wonderfully here. He puts the tales and poetry he is cataloging in
context, discusses sources and variants and gives information on authors. He
writes well and clearly, and his direct enthusiasm (dare I say love?) for the
material comes through in a way that is unfortunately rare since. His portion
of the Catalog is generally later poetry and tales. For myself, I love this stuff, but the book
is an education in later Irish literature, even if you don’t. He does not do extracts.
I should also mention Silva Gadelica, two volumes of texts and translations of medieval Irish tales that O’Grady did around 1900 – 1910. The selection is specific (mostly from the Book of Lismore/Mac Carthaigh Riach's Book) so it is not a cross section, but they are great.
(It appears to be available as a pdf on Internet Archive.)
His translations are uniquely
“Irish” and entertaining, and are the closest thing to traditional Irish in
English. I suspect James Stephens modeled his later versions and much of his writing on O’Grady's English, and Ó
Cadhain later commented that Stephens’
writings (in English) are “more Irish than the Irish language itself.”
As is the song below.
