Graveyard Clay- Cré Na Cille
Page 2
Ó Cadhain had parted company with An Gúm since it had refused to publish some of his best writing, including Cré na Cille. Luckily for him and his readers, Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, together with his wife, Bríghid Ní Mhaoileoin, had founded Sáirséal agus Dill in 1947 to cater for a new generation of Irish-language writers whose work An Gúm refused to publish. Ó Cadhain said in Páipéir Bhána agus Páipéir Bhreaca (translated from the Irish): “Around the time I was writing Cré na Cille I got to know Seán Sáirséal Ó hÉigeartaigh…. I am certain that I would have stopped writing altogether, or at least stopped writing in Irish, were it not for Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh. Were it not for him I would not have been entered for Duais an Bhuitléaraigh [the Butler Award].10 It was he who brought news of the Award to me in the Mater [Hospital] in Dublin. He used to come in to me for a while every evening, correcting proofs of a script of mine on modern Irish literature and proofs of An tSraith ar Lár…. He came in the day he died.”11
When Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh died suddenly in the Sáirséal agus Dill office on 14 June 1967, Ó Cadhain rose from his hospital bed to deliver a moving graveside oration in Templeogue cemetery in Dublin, where he told the mourners (translated from the Irish): “If there is an Irish language literature since 1940 it is because Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh saw to it that it would be so.”12
Three years later, Máirtín Ó Cadhain died in the Mater Hospital in Dublin, on 18 October 1970. Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh’s son, Cian Sáirséal Ó hÉigeartaigh, in his graveside oration in Mount Jerome cemetery in Dublin, spoke for many when he said (translated from the Irish): “He [Máirtín Ó Cadhain] was the greatest man to emerge from the Gaeltacht since the whole of Ireland was a Gaeltacht.”13
Tomás de Bhaldraithe, professor of Irish at University College Dublin and editor of the 1959 English-Irish Dictionary, wrote in an obituary after the death of Ó Cadhain: “When many a learned academic will be forgotten, Máirtín Ó Cadhain will be remembered for his contribution to Irish life in general, and in particular for his efforts, both literary and political, which put new heart into the young people of Conamara, and for his creative writing which has given such pleasure and encouragement to readers of Irish.”
The Publication History of Cré na Cille
The history of the text is intricate and unusually so for a work of the modern period. Cré na Cille was written during the period 1945–1947 and then submitted to the annual Oireachtas literary competition in 1947. This entailed the production of multiple copies by hand.14 The novel was then serialised between February and September 1949 in the Irish Press (Scéala Éireann, in Irish), which enjoyed a wide urban and rural circulation. The newspaper had close associations with Éamon de Valera and the Fianna Fáil party and was also a literary platform of some significance in the postwar period.
Following serialised publication to considerable acclaim, the manuscript was submitted to the state publications agency, An Gúm. Faced with such a radical departure from established literary convention as having corpses squabbling in their graves, An Gúm gave it a lukewarm reception. The text, and author, ultimately found a champion in Sáirséal agus Dill, the small publishing house in Dublin owned and managed by Seán Sáirséal Ó hÉigeartaigh (1917–1967) and his wife, Bríghid (1920–2006). Established in 1947, Sáirséal agus Dill had already gained a reputation for publishing quality contemporary fiction of literary merit. For a fledgling enterprise, its standards of design and production were also of the highest calibre.
The publication of Cré na Cille in book format was flagged by Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge as early as March 1948 in a publicity blurb about Máirtín Ó Cadhain in the literary journal Comhar. Despite a printed publication date of 1949 in the first edition, the book did not actually appear until 10 March 1950.15 It must be said that this has not been generally taken into account in the assessment of the earliest published reviews. The first edition was published in hardback, with black publisher’s cloth boards, in octavo format, with a grey dust jacket carrying a depiction of a graveyard by Charles Lamb, an associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy. The text runs to 364 pages. Lamb also provided uncluttered, nuanced portraits of the text’s primary characters: Caitríona Pháidín, Tomás Inside, the Big Master, the priest’s sister, Big Brian, and Nell Pháidín. The biographical notes in Irish, unmistakably written by the author himself, are noteworthy for both their brevity and their content, especially from a writer who has been criticised for being excessive with words:
Máirtín Ó Cadhain
Gaillimheach a bhfuil an saol feicthe aige. Seal ina mhúinteoir, seal ina thimire teangan agus muirthéachta, seal ag cruachadh móna i bPáirc an Fhionnuisce agus seal ag tógáil tithe. Chúig bhliana ina ghéibheannach ar an gCurrach.
(A Galwayman who has seen the world. Spent a while as a teacher, a while as an organiser of language and of revolution, a while stacking turf in the Phoenix Park, and a while building houses. Five years in captivity in the Curragh.)
Charles Lamb
Ultach a tháinig go Baile Átha Cliath agus a lonnaigh i gConamara. Ag léiriú saol an Iarthair ó shoin, agus clú fhada leitheadach air dá bharr.
(An Ulsterman who came to Dublin and settled in Conamara. Depicting life in the West since, and is famous for it far and wide.)
The book was reprinted with no apparent textual changes in 1965. The original dust jacket designed by Lamb was now featured on a grey publisher’s cloth hardback. The publisher had also provided copious extracts from a selection of the reviews of the work in minuscule font on the inside front and back covers. As was common practice with many Sáirséal agus Dill publications, the hardback was sold in a clear, transparent plastic dust cover. Reprints were also issued in 1970 and 1979. The reprints of 1965 and 1970 were slightly reduced compared to the first edition, but the 1979 reprint reprised the size of the original publication and also carried an international standard book number (ISBN 0 901374 01 6).
The publisher Caoimhín Ó Marcaigh (1933–2014) acquired Sáirséal agus Dill in 1981. Cré na Cille remained out of print for a considerable period, and controversially so. A second edition in hard and soft covers was published in 1996, the text running to 321 pages. The text of this edition was the subject of considerable comment and criticism on publication. It appeared that a deliberate policy of normalisation had been attempted, of both orthography and accidence, but the sheer scale of typographical errors in the edition rendered the text unreliable. The publication is thought to be the last book designed by Liam Miller (1924–1996) and retains all of the original drawings by Charles Lamb, though the frontispiece portrait of Tomás Inside (Tomás Taobh Istigh) surveying the graveyard has been transposed to the book’s interior.
The third edition of Cré na Cille was prepared by Professor Cathal Ó Háinle and published by Sáirséal Ó Marcaigh in 2007 in hard and soft covers. This text, running to 347 pages, was substantially revised and heavily amended. The editorial principles by which these revisions were implemented are enumerated in a brief paragraph on the dust jacket. We are told that the original manuscript is no longer available but that a copy of the first edition, amended by the author’s own hand in 1950, appears to have formed the basis for many changes to the second edition’s punctuation and orthography. Reference is also made to syntactical and word changes, and the basis for normalisation implemented in the second edition appears to have been adopted as well. It is understood that the rationale for such departures from the text as originally published relates to accessibility, ease of reference, and the desire to facilitate a new generation of readers whose capacity to read non-standardised Irish may be diminished. The dust jacket and soft cover carry a line drawing of Máirtín Ó Cadhain, by Caoimhín Ó Marcaigh.
In 2009, following the acquisition of Sáirséal Ó Marcaigh by Cló Iar-Chonnacht, the 1965 reprint was used as the basis for a soft-cover print run. The first edition contains a colophon in Irish on the end page:
Arna chur i gcló do Sháirséal agus Dill Teo. ag Foilseachái
n Náisiúnta Teo., Cathair na Mart, idir Lá Fhéile Muire sa bhFómhar agus Lá Nollag, 1949.
(Printed for Sáirséal agus Dill Teo. by Foilseacháin Náisiúnta Teo., Westport, between 15th August and 25th December 1949.)
This text also appears in the second, third, and fourth reprints, with the additional information that the book was being printed by Dill agus Sáirséal Teoranta in Dublin, with a minor amendment to the wording of the formula in the third and fourth reprints. In a nod to publishing history, the 2009 reprint, under the imprint of Cló Iar-Chonnachta (sic) and designated generically as An Cló Seo (This Print), contains a colophon on the end page, which replicates the formula:
Arna chur i gcló do Chló Iar-Chonnachta Teo., ag Clódóirí Lurgan, Indreabhán, idir Lá Fhéile Muire sa bhFómhar agus Lá Nollag, 2009.
(Printed for Cló Iar-Chonnachta Teo. by Clódóirí Lurgan, Indreabhán, between 15th August and 25th December 2009.)
Translations of Cré na Cille
Cré na Cille was translated in full by Joan Trodden Keefe (1931–2013), and the translation formed the basis for a doctoral degree granted by the University of California, Berkeley, in 1984. As part of the dissertation, Trodden Keefe provided an introduction and notes to the translation. The graduate research was supervised by Professor Daniel Melia, and the dissertation was examined by Brendan P. O Hehir and Robert Tracey. This translation has been available for consultation in university libraries on microfiche but has not been in general circulation. Trodden Keefe proceeded to publish an extended literary analysis of Cré na Cille in the journal World Literature Today in 1985.16
Another translation of the text was undertaken by Eibhlín Ní Allúráin (1922–2010) and Maitiú Ó Néill (1921–1992),17 who were closely associated with Máirtín Ó Cadhain. The translation was substantially completed but has not been published. An extract of this translation was published in the literary journal Krino 11,18 and also appeared in the Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing.19 Sections of the text have been translated by literary scholars for the purposes of explication or pedagogy, as in the case of Alfred Bammesberger, who included extracts from twentieth-century writers, including an extract from Cré na Cille, in a language teaching manual published in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1984.20 Philip O’Leary, Robert Welch, Declan Kiberd, and Brian Ó Broin have all provided their own versions of extracts in the course of scholarly commentary in English on aspects of the narrative.21 By their very nature, these extracts are relatively brief and serve primarily to cater for a non-Irish-speaking readership.
The Dirty Dust is Alan Titley’s version of Cré na Cille, published by Yale University Press in 2015 in the Margellos World Republic of Letters series, which treats especially of previously overlooked works of cultural and artistic significance. Initial enthusiasm regarding access to the narrative may ultimately be tempered by a more guarded analysis of the translation’s “free-wheeling” nature in general and a markedly creative interpretation of the text’s “rich and savage demotic base” in particular.22
Translation of Ó Cadhain’s other works has been sporadic, but versions of Cré na Cille have been made available in Norwegian23 and Danish,24 offering interesting challenges for the translators in choosing suitably responsive target registers for their readership. A relatively limited number of Ó Cadhain’s short stories have been translated. Eoghan Ó Tuairisc (1919–1982) made a study of stories from the earlier corpus, the collection An Braon Broghach in particular.25 Some twenty-five years later, in 2006, a further two stories were translated by Louis de Paor, Mike McCormack, and Lochlainn Ó Tuairisg and published by the Cúirt International Festival of Literature.26 Ó Cadhain’s novella An Eochair, a study of a minor civil servant and his literal and metaphoric entrapment, from the narrative collection An tSraith ar Lár, was translated by Louis de Paor and Lochlainn Ó Tuairisg and published by Dalkey Archive Press in 2015.27
Michael Cronin made an impassioned plea for “Cré na Cille in English” in the Irish Times in 2001: “Translation excites desire, it does not cancel it. The better the translation, the more compelling the case for going to the original.”28 The relative paucity of translations can be ascribed to a reluctance to embroil oneself in copyright difficulties, and to the notion held by many critics that Ó Cadhain’s Irish and use of language is “difficult.” There is also a sense of linguistic piety or cultural decorum that has served to warn off potential translators. A translator may very well take the view that one tampers with canonical texts at one’s peril; however, Tim and I took Michael Cronin’s plea to heart and committed ourselves to producing this English-language translation of Cré na Cille.
The Language
When it was established that folk or popular idiom, “caint na ndaoine,” would be the medium of modern literary Irish, emerging authors and critics became keenly aware of the importance of mastery of the registers of Irish as spoken in the Gaeltacht, the regions where primarily Irish is used. The extent of dialectal variation in Irish, the slow development of Irish language literacy in post-independent Ireland, the absence of a standardised orthography, and the inadequacy of available dictionaries meant that for many readers texts from authors such as Máirtín Ó Cadhain and Séamas Ó Grianna were cherished as lexical treasure troves, to be revered as regionalised glossaries as much as literary masterpieces. The Irish-English Dictionary of the Reverend Patrick S. Dinneen (1927) was regarded as a superb work of scholarship, and, while it is probably more representative of Munster Irish than other dialects, Ó Cadhain praised it profusely, advising all writers of Irish that there is no better bedfellow than Dinneen’s dictionary.29
The appearance of Cré na Cille, whose narrative consists entirely of dialogue, was bound to present challenges for ordinary readers and literary critics with only a scant familiarity with Connacht, much less Conamara, Irish. It is also worth noting that the seminal monograph series on Irish phonetics and accidence published by the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies began appearing during the 1940s. All these factors served to emphasise a lexical, as opposed to a literary, analysis of the text in the first instance.
Reception and Interpretation
In the early reviews by Tomás Ó Floinn, Daniel Corkery, and David Greene in 1950 we are told that the author has excelled in the crafting of his medium, that this medium is heavily indebted to the speech of his native Conamara Gaeltacht, and that, while this is a criterion of excellence in itself, the text is difficult.30 This has been challenged by Róisín Ní Ghairbhí, who states that syntactical structures are relatively straightforward, and while individual words or phrases may be rare or unusual, their significance and meaning are not beyond the resources of a reasonably alert reader.31 Other critics have pointed out that Cré na Cille “is not simply a tour de force of conversational Irish,”32 and that “Ó Cadhain has been criticised unjustly by critics who didn’t understand what he was saying.”33 An Aran Islander and native Irish speaker himself, Breandán Ó hEithir went on to say: “Cré na Cille is a great comic work and by far and away the funniest in modern Irish, as Ciarán Ó Nualláin [brother of Myles na gCopaleen] pointed out when it was published. Apart from Evelyn Waugh and Jaroslav Hašek no author makes me laugh as heartily and as regularly as Máirtín Ó Cadhain in Cré na Cille.”34
The initial reaction to Cré na Cille must be measured carefully, however, against the constraints of literary and periodical journalism of the day. Several analyses exist, in English and in Irish, of critical responses to the publication in book format of the text.35 As the publication was only made generally available in March 1950, the considered reviews of critics such as Tomás Ó Floinn (April 1950), Daniel Corkery (May 1950), and David Greene (May 1950) must be regarded as relatively rapid responses to editorial demands. In that light, the quality of insight demonstrated by all three of these critics stands the test of time, by and large, although it is fair to say that all three reviews tell us as much about the critical culture of the time as they do about the actual text. Gearóid Denvir,
of a younger generation of critics, suggests that the text is “an acerbic, satiric and darkly comic depiction of some of the rather less pleasant side of human nature, told with earthy, Rabelaisian humour.”36
The temptation to read Cré na Cille as a faithful record and authentic representation of contemporary Gaeltacht life still features in criticism now, as it did then. Breandán Ó Doibhlin, however, in his reappraisal of the novel in 1974, makes a particular study of the comedic aspects of the text. He downplays the role of satire and any sense that the purpose of the novel is a realistic depiction of Gaeltacht communities, and sees Cré na Cille as a general statement about the human condition, enabled by laughter and filtered through humour (translated from the Irish): “To tell the truth, this novel is a prime example of the comedic genre. Máirtín Ó Cadhain chose his subject so meticulously that he has been accused of sordidness (suarachas); his characters can only talk about parish gossip, futile disputes about the GAA [Gaelic Athletic Association] and the Treaty, backbiting and petty jealousy of the meanest kind…. The author avoids any kind of subject—pity, affection, idealism—that would interfere with laughter, because the reader must not have any empathy with the character.”37
The Graveyard
The geographic location of Cré na Cille is fixed very much in the author’s own Cois Fharraige in south Conamara during the Second World War, a generation after partition and independence, during the Emergency, as World War II was called in Ireland. The characters are a motley collection of locals, including some who were in real life killed by a German mine that drifted ashore in Cois Fharraige in June 1917, and some victims of a typhus epidemic in the Spiddal area in the winter of 1942. There are also a couple of stray corpses like Dotie, the woman from East Galway who moans longingly for the lush green plains where she wished to be buried, and the French pilot whose plane came down in Galway Bay and who is now learning Irish from the local corpses.