Graveyard Clay- Cré Na Cille
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Ó Murchú, Seosamh. 1982. “An Chill agus a Cré: Scrúdú ar an nGreann in Cré na Cille.” In Irisleabhar Mhá Nuad 1982, 5–20.
Ó Neachtain, Joe Steve. 2013. Ag Caint Linn Féin. Indreabhán, Conamara: Cló Iar-Chonnacht.
Ó Tuama, Seán. 1955. “Cré na Cille agus Séadna.” Comhar 14, no. 2 (February): 7–8, 29.
———. 1980. “Tiomna Roimh Bhás.” Comhar 39, no. 10 (October): 55–57.
Ó hUiginn, Ruairí. 2006. “Litreacha: Máirtín Ó Cadhain chuig Seosamh Daibhéid, 19 Meán Fómhair 1951.” In Bliainiris 6:256–70.
Prút, Liam (ed.). 1997. Cion Fir: Aistí Thomáis Uí Fhloinn in Comhar. Dublin: Comhar Teoranta.
Riggs, Pádraigín, and Norman Vance. 2004. “Irish Prose Fiction.” In The Cambridge Companion to Modern Irish Culture, edited by Joe Cleary and Claire Connolly, 245–66. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Titley, Alan. 1975. Máirtín Ó Cadhain: Clár Saothair. Dublin: An Clóchomhar.
———. 1981. “Contemporary Irish Literature.” In Crane Bag 5, no. 2:890–96.
———. 1991. An tÚrscéal Gaeilge. Dublin: An Clóchomhar.
———. 1996. Chun Doirne: Rogha Aistí. Belfast: Lagan Press.
———. 2006. “The Novel in Irish.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Irish Novel, edited by John Wilson Foster, 171–88. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2010. Scríbhneoirí faoi Chaibidil. Dublin: Cois Life.
Trodden Keefe, Joan. 1985. “The Graves of Connemara: Ireland’s Máirtín Ó Cadhain.” World Literature Today 59, no. 3 (Summer): 363–73.
Vance, Norman. 2002. Irish Literature since 1800. London: Longman.
Welch, Robert. 1993. Changing States: Transformations in Modern Irish Writing. London: Routledge.
Welch, Robert, and Bruce Stewart (eds.). 1996. “Cré na Cille” and “Máirtín Ó Cadhain.” In The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature, edited by Robert Welch, 119, 405–6. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Selected Audio-Visual Materials
1967. Ó Cadhain ar an gCnocán Glas, produced and directed by Aindreas Ó Gallchóir. Dublin: RTÉ.
1980. There Goes Cré na Cille, directed by Seán Ó Mórdha and scripted by Breandán Ó hEithir. Dublin: RTÉ.
2006. Cré na Cille: Leagan Drámatúil a Réitigh Johnny Chóil Mhaidhc Ó Coisdealbha (CDs). Dublin: RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta and Indreabhán: Cló Iar-Chonnacht.
2006. Is Mise Stoc na Cille, directed by Macdara Ó Curraidhín, produced by ROSG. Conamara: TG4.
2007. Cré na Cille, directed by Robert Quinn, produced by ROSG. Conamara: TG4.
2010. Cré na Cille: 60 Bliain Os Cionn Talún, RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta, produced by Dónall Ó Braonáin. Casla: RTÉ.
MÁIRTÍN Ó CADHAIN was born in 1906 and spent his formative years in An Cnocán Glas, An Spidéal (Spiddal), Conamara, County Galway. He won a scholarship to St. Patrick’s College in Dublin (1924–1926), after which he returned to the Galway Gaeltacht and taught in various schools there. In 1936 his membership of the proscribed Irish Republican Army led to his dismissal from Carnmore National School in East Galway. He was interned in the Curragh camp in County Kildare during the Second World War and on his release was appointed to the Translation Staff in Dáil Éireann. He was appointed lecturer in Irish at Trinity College Dublin in 1956, becoming associate professor in 1967, professor in 1969, and fellow of Trinity College Dublin (FTCD) in 1970, the year he died. Best known for his novel Cré na Cille (1950), he also published several collections of short stories, including Idir Shúgradh agus Dáiríre (1939), An Braon Broghach (1948), Cois Caoláire (1953), An tSraith ar Lár (1967), An tSraith Dhá Tógáil (1970), and, posthumously, An tSraith Tógtha (1977). Two other novels, Athnuachan (1997) and Barbed Wire (2002), were published posthumously.
LIAM MAC CON IOMAIRE was born in 1937 in Casla, Conamara, County Galway. A teacher by profession, he was director of the Modern Irish Language Laboratory at University College Dublin between 1979 and 1996. He is the author of two biographies of key cultural figures, Breandán Ó hEithir: Iomramh Aonair (Cló Iar-Chonnacht, 2000) and Seosamh Ó hÉanaí: Nár Fhágha mé Bás Choíche (Cló Iar-Chonnacht, 2009). He has produced biographies of traditional singers in A Companion to Irish Traditional Music (Cambridge University Press, 1999 and 2011), and his Conamara: An Tír Aineoil (Cló Iar-Chonnacht, 1997) is a celebratory portrait series of tradition-bearers from Conamara and Árainn. He was awarded an honorary degree by National University of Ireland Galway in 2013.
TIM ROBINSON was born in 1935 and brought up in Yorkshire. He graduated in mathematics from Cambridge and worked in Vienna and London as a visual artist. In 1972 he moved to the Aran Islands, of which he produced a map and the two volumes of Stones of Aran. Elected to Aosdána, the affiliation of Irish artists, in 1996, he was awarded an honorary degree by National University of Ireland Galway in 1997 and made a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2011. He was Visiting Parnell Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 2011 and writer in residence at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, in 2012. The publication by Penguin of his Conamara trilogy (Listening to the Wind, 2006; The Last Pool of Darkness, 2008; and A Little Gaelic Kingdom, 2011) brought to a close a three-decade project of cartography and topographical writing.
1. Ó Cadhain 1969, 15. The full titles of works cited in the footnotes may be found in our bibliography at the end of the book, which lists texts written by Ó Cadhain, editions of Cré na Cille, translations, secondary literature, and selected audio-visual materials.
2. Ó Cadhain 1969, 26.
3. Ó Cadhain 1969, 27.
4. Ó Cadhain 1973, 46.
5. Ó Tuairisc 1981, 8.
6. Ó Cadhain 1969, 28.
7. In Ó Cadhain 1995, xv and back cover.
8. In Ó Cadhain 1995, x.
9. Ó Cadhain 1969, 29.
10. The Butler Literary Awards are given by the Irish American Cultural Institute in support of works in the Irish language.
11. Ó Cadhain 1969, 29.
12. I heard Ó Cadhain speak these words at the graveside.
13. I heard Cian Ó hÉigeartaigh speak these words at the graveside.
14. Costigan and Ó Curraoin 1987, 73.
15. Ó Cathasaigh 2002, 118; Ó Háinle 2006, 22; Cló Iar-Chonnacht 2009, 11.
16. Trodden Keefe 1985.
17. Ó hÉigeartaigh and Nic Gearailt 2014, 186.
18. Mac Póilín (ed.) 1991.
19. Deane (ed.) 1991.
20. Bammesberger 1984.
21. O’Leary 2010; Welch 1993; Kiberd 2000 and 2005; Ó Broin 2006 and 2008.
22. See Alan Titley in the Irish Times, 30 March 2015.
23. Rekdal (trans.) 1995.
24. Munch-Pedersen (trans.) 2000.
25. Ó Tuairisc 1981.
26. de Paor, McCormack, and Ó Tuairisg 2006.
27. Máirtín Ó Cadhain, The Key/An Eochair, Dual Language Edition, translated by Louis de Paor and Lochlainn Ó Tuairisg. Dublin: Dalkey Archive Press.
28. Cronin 2001, B13.
29. Ó Cadhain 1969, 17.
30. Ó Floinn 1950, also in Prút (ed.) 1997; Ó Corcora 1950; Greene 1950.
31. Ní Ghairbhí 2008, 49.
32. Ó Corráin 1988, 143.
33. Ó hEithir 1977, 74.
34. Ó hEithir 1977, 75.
35. O’Leary 2010; Welch 1993; Kiberd 2000; Titley 1991; Denvir 2007.
36. Denvir 2007, 222.
37. Ó Doibhlin 1974, 48.
38. Kilfeather 2006, 93.
39. Ó Briain 2013, 281.
40. Ó Cadhain 1969, 30–31.
41. Ó Cadhain 1969, 33.
42. Ó Corcora 1950, 14.
43. Ó hEithir 1977, 83.
44. Ó Dochartaigh 1975, 14.
45. Ó Murchú 1982, 19.
46. Nic Pháidín 1978, 22.
47. Denvir 2007, 50.
48. Nic Eoin 1981, 49.
49. Ó Doibhlin 1974, 47.
50. Ó Corrái
n 1988, 144–45.
51. Ní Ghairbhí 2008, 50.
52. Kiberd 2000, 583, 584.
53. Trodden Keefe 1985, 371.
54. Irish Times, 24 February 1996 and 1 March 1996.
55. Denvir 2008, 222.
56. In Caerwyn Williams, JEC (ed.), Literature in Celtic Countries (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1971), 151.
1. Two small squares of cloth attached by two strings and worn over the shoulders around the neck as a pious practice.
2. A long strip of cloth with an opening for the head, worn hanging before and behind over the habit on a corpse.
3. Knock is a village in Co. Mayo where the Virgin Mary and other sacred personages are said to have appeared in 1879. It has long been an important Catholic place of pilgrimage.
4. Poitín, illicitly brewed barley spirits.
5. In Conamara “mountain” (sliabh) means rough uncultivated land, not necessarily elevated. Poitín was and is secretly made in such areas.
6. A church collection for the priest after a funeral Mass. A shilling coin was the most common contribution among the poor. The custom has been largely abandoned.
7. Anglicisation of caoineadh, to lament aloud over a corpse. Certain women were highly regarded for their abilities in this ancient and now extinct Gaelic form of mournful chant.
8. A walled enclosure beside a farmhouse, where the hay and corn were stacked for winter fodder for the animals.
9. The limestone of the Aran Islands, some ten miles off the south Conamara coast, was highly prized for tombstones in south Conamara, which is largely underlain by rocks harder to carve, such as granite.
10. “Eleanor of the Secrets,” a well-known Irish love song.
11. Caitríona’s personal expression of surprise or consternation.
12. Mártan (son of) Big Seán. The opening line of a bawdy rhyme.
13. The explosion of a German mine that drifted ashore in June 1917, killing nine local men, is still remembered in Cois Fharraige in Conamara. Mine appeared in English in the original Irish text. We use italic for all words that were not in Irish in the original text.
14. Mare with a white front to the head.
15. Such tasks as collecting seaweed as manure for the fields, and collecting limpets, cockles, mussels, and periwinkles for food.
16. The translation of Gealchathair, Ó Cadhain’s name for Galway, introduced by Eoghan Ó Tuairisc in The Road to Brightcity (1981), in his English version of selected short stories from Ó Cadhain’s earliest collections.
17. The official who distributed seed potatoes supplied by the Department of Agriculture.
18. The Government (Irish Language) Publications Scheme. Many Irish-language writers including Ó Cadhain earned a pittance writing or translating works for An Gúm (“the Scheme”).
19. A snippet of an impromptu satirical song of the kind still composed in Conamara. The book is the Bible.
20. The word can mean scholar, manservant, farmer, a yeoman; scológ cheoil, snatches of song. See the Introductory Note.
21. Thus in the original; a local mishearing of the American-English phrase “Honest Injun.”
22. The last few drops milked from a cow, considered to be the best for cream and butter.
23. An implement like a pad with bristles on one side, used in carding raw wool, i.e., aligning the fibres in preparation for spinning. Two cards are needed, pulling one against the other, with the wool in between.
24. The reference here is to World War I (1914–1918).
25. Slí na Firínne, the way of truth, is a common phrase for the afterlife.
26. Presumably the Frenchman says “merde,” meaning “crap,” which is misheard as meirdreach, prostitute.
1. East of Galway the underlying limestone gives rise to fertile and hospitable plains, unlike the harsh Conamara terrain of granite and metamorphic rocks.
2. The offspring of a female donkey and a horse.
3. The listed political and historical figures are here all regarded as heroes of the age-long struggle for Irish independence.
4. The Irish Republican Army of the War of Independence and the Civil War, as opposed to the IRA of more recent “Troubles.”
5. A brand of Irish whiskey.
6. Off the coast of Kerry.
7. At the western end of the Aran Islands.
8. A guinea was a coin worth one pound one shilling.
9. A phrase from a love song.
10. Lord Kilannin’s big house and grounds in An Spidéal (Spiddal) were major features of the neighbourhood.
11. Rationalisation of the tangled holdings of little fields characteristic of the ancient “rundale” system, so that each tenant had his or her holding in one piece, often in the form of a strip running inland from the shore to the beginning of bog or commonage land.
12. The 1st of February. Marks the beginning of spring.
13. Thus in the original, with some inconsistencies later on.
14. When Mass was celebrated in a private house the priest had to be entertained to breakfast afterwards.
1. Poetic or archaic word for “trumpet,” as in “last trump” or “trump of doom.”
2. It used to be the custom to distribute clay pipes and tobacco to the mourners at a wake or a funeral.
3. Muise, a common exclamation in Irish and in Hiberno-English: Muise! Muise! Well, well!
4. Fionn, Fianna, Niamh, Gráinne: Fionn Mac Cumhaill (Finn Mac Cool) was the mythical leader of a band of warriors, the Fianna; Niamh and Gráinne figure in legends about the Fianna.
5. Mythical satiric poet in stories of the Ulster Cycle who caused dissension and strife among the warriors of Ulster at drinking feasts, one of which is known as the Feast of Bricriú.
6. The Irish Catholic political leader Daniel O’Connell (1775–1847) is the subject of much folklore. Biddy Early (d. 1874, Co. Clare) was a widely known herbal healer reputed to be gifted with second sight.
7. Unidentified place.
8. Cigarettes.
9. Two workmen carrying stones on a wooden hand-barrow, one in front and one behind.
10. Boicíní, rakish young men of money.
11. “Ave Maria,” Hail Mary, a prayer to the Virgin Mary.
12. Ancient Greek for the common people.
13. Ill-fated lovers in one of the best-known of Irish myths, Oidhe Chlainne Uisnigh (the Fate of the Sons of Uisneach).
1. A common exclamation of delight in someone else’s misfortune.
2. The Well at the End of the World is a medieval folktale motif, which suggested to William Morris his fantasy novel, The Well at the World’s End.
3. Leabhar Eoin (John’s book) in the original. The opening words of the poetic prologue to St. John’s Gospel, written by a priest in Latin on a piece of paper, folded and wrapped in scapular form about the neck or concealed in clothing, came to be used in Christian devotion throughout the Middle Ages as a protective and healing charm. In later Irish tradition, a verse quatrain composed extempore on request by a priest could also function as such a charm text and was known as Leabhar Eoin (John’s Book). The incorrect use of the Leabhar Eoin was regarded as involving possible misfortune to the priest who provided it and could even lead to “transferred” death in cases where it was used to save the life of an otherwise mortally stricken individual (as is the case in this text).
4. A serious disease of cattle caused by a bacterium.
5. A wooden saddle for a horse or donkey, from which turf-creels and so on could be suspended on either side.
6. Amhráinín síodraimín siosúram seó in the original, a nonsense refrain from a children’s song.
7. Bríd Thoirdhealbhaigh in the original. The name Toirdhealbhach is customarily shortened to Terry in the Gaeltacht.
8. Seán Péin in the original; a comic mishearing for champagne.
9. The rope whip with nine knotted lashes that would figuratively await her; i.e., she would be most unwelcome.
10. Fictional woman of great
beauty in one of the great Celtic romantic legends.
11. The “battle” in which nearly all of the Fianna were killed by the sheaves of corn they were busily binding and throwing back over their heads, inadvertently killing one another in the process. A little fellow of the underworld called Tufty Mouth (Cab an Dosáin) was the sole reaper!
12. One who goes from fair to fair and from farm to farm buying up cattle in small lots, to sell to bigger dealers.
1. Nelson’s Pillar, blown up by an Irish republican faction in 1966.
2. A garbled and parodic version of widely known folklore about Oliver Cromwell.
3. What looks like a typing error is in fact a play on words. Seilg (Shellig) means “pursuit,” and Seilg Mhichíl (Shellig Michael) means Pursuit of Michael. As St. Michael is being pursued by the Devil between Conamara and the Aran Islands the author invents his own island, Seilg Mhichíl (Shellig Michael), which looks like and sounds like the real Skellig Michael (Sceilg Mhichíl) off the Kerry coast, famous for its ancient monastic settlement of beehive huts. Sceilg means a steep rock.
4. Poill Tí Lábáin in the original. The caves are actually north of Oughterard.
5. Abhainn Ruibhe in Oughterard, east Conamara.
6. One of the very low tides that occur once a fortnight, exposing a wide area of the shore.
7. Feamainn ghaoithe, loose floating seaweed brought to land by an onshore wind.
8. Seaweed, timbers, and other goods thrown up on the shore would be claimed by tying a string to them or putting a stone on them.
9. Sharpened sticks used to pin down thatch on a roof.
10. Thin stems of pollarded willows, cultivated for basket-making.
11. An undisciplined force of British soldiers, named from their mixed uniforms, that terrorised parts of Ireland during the War of Independence.
1. Ní dhearna luí fada riamh bréag (a long time laid up never lied) is an old saying, meaning that a long spell of being confined to bed ends in death.
2. Under his arm; ascaill is the Irish for armpit.