Pat Walsh's "A Rebel Act": Book Review

This biography covers all of this Irish poet's life and career. The subtitle may lead one to believe it's only about the period roughly from 1975-84 when Michael Hartnett's decision to no longer publish his poetry in English gained attention among Ireland's poetry, literary, and critical circles. But the tenth of the book devoted to this phase shows its importance and duration within the poet's 58 years.

Pat Walsh must have read everything ever mentioning Hartnett. His documentation records his consultation of the poet's manuscripts and notebooks, interviews, and press coverage down to quite rare small press publications or ephemeral journalism. He lets the poetry, the poet, and his contemporaries tell as much of the story as possible. Generous excerpts from Hartnett's verses, his own writings beyond poems, and his radio broadcasts also deepen any reader's appreciation of his work. Furthermore, while Walsh tends to stay in the background more as diligent compiler than as a critic with his own take on this difficult-to-categorize man, he judiciously includes criticism which calls Hartnett to task when warranted. For not all of his verses are up to the high standards of his best.

Complementing literary criticism produced on Hartnett, this fuller depiction of a dapper, erudite, coruscating, and forthright poet and presence during the 60s through some of the 80s reveals a deep care for the state of Ireland, regarding its heritage, its commitment or lack of to its long-denigrated "first official language," and Hartnett's determination to demonstrate by his own action his nuanced understanding of not only a language but a way of life and a manner of living and thinking which, for many in his Dublin audiences hearing him declaim his poems, must have been received with a mixture of reactions. Today when national identity, ethnic roots, international treaties, and corporate domination have markedly increased since Hartnett's era, this 2012 study is timely and trenchant. (Amazon Britain + US 7/30/17)

Michael McCaughan's "Coming Home": Book Review

Facing his mid-life crisis, Michael McCaughan explores his reunion with the Irish language he'd abandoned, along with most students in the 26 Counties during nearly the past hundred years. He begins his memoir as resigned as Ireland's majority: 'We have acquired a prayer, permission to go to the bathroom and an empty slogan.' (13) Sé do bheatha a Mhuire, an bhfuil cead agam dul amach go dtí an leithreas and tiochfaidh ár lá. Throughout his career as a Spanish translator abroad, he'd regale Latin Americans who'd begged him to "say something in Irish" with a hodgepodge recited from rote.

Coming Home is a generic phrase itself. The book's subtitle: 'one man's return to the Irish language', situates him within a small shelf of similar stories, some cited, others not. Lonely Planet co-founder Brian Fallon left Boston on the same quest, a bit fictionalised as Home With Alice (2002). The fact this was published only in Australia may reflect the presumed limited appeal of this trope. That same year, Darerca Ní Chartúir in her overview-guide to the language appended testimonies from four Americans attending summer schools in Gaeltachtaí. Two years on, Ciarán MacMurchaidh edited 'Who Needs Irish?' A few learners answered why in the affirmative alongside acclaim by natives. and from a schooled minority who embraced the speech that McCaughan and many of his peers spurned.

I contributed to the 2007 issue of Estudios Irlandeses an examination of 'Making the Case for Irish Through English: Eco-critical Politics of Language by Learners' emphasising the perceived benefit of learning Irish in its natural setting. Brian Ó Conchubhair summed up in A New View of the Irish Language his 2008 chapter on 'The Global Diaspora and the "New" Irish (Language)'. He charted a 'hyper-Gaeltacht' (238) as Gaeilge entered its 'transnational' phase, sustained rather than attenuated by a combination of recent emigrants and the descendants of such, joined by other ethnicities connecting via Irish. Added to this in the decade since would be social media, video chat, and instant messaging.

Ó Conchubhair considers 'Hanson's law of third-generation return' first propounded in 1938: 'what the immigrant's son wishes to forget, the immigrant's grandson wishes to remember'. (New View 245) McCaughan, as one who has lived far from Ireland for much of his five decades, wonders why he took his Spanish from basics to fluency, while Irish languished. He puzzles over his surname and the silence from his Co Antrim-born father, who never revealed his side regarding sectarian origins, and the tug that pulls this son back. Dwelling in the Burren circa 2014, he takes advantage of Raidió na Gaeltachta online in caring for the 'fever' which inexplicably had consumed him to tackle, this time almost from scratch, another tongue. Union with this common resource unlocking centuries of lore past and present motivates his quest, rather than nationalism, Leaving Cert scores, or atavistic pride.

One wonders: within a multilingual Irish society, why Gaeilge shares craic in many a high street less often than, say, Polish? True, the exceptions of the immigrant, young or mature, who masters Irish gain publicity. But as one Irish wag mused, few of America's new arrivals hastened to study Cherokee or Seminole. If casual Irish does enter conversations, it's more likely within a congenial pub rather than a stern shop, (This is the reviewer's query; a minor flaw of this book is its too passing a coverage of this persistent social shame. Next to a continent where many citizens may communicate between four languages easily, the default refusal of most Irish to choose their native option continues to vex not only McCaughan and those he interviews and quotes. Compulsory lessons can't bear all the customary blame. And while a short glossary of Gaeilge terms and a brief list of sources consulted appear, the lack of an index thwarts recall of names, places and materials within this data-rich text.)

McCaughan wants to link in. Like learners can on the Net in the 'hyper-Gaeltacht', he keeps the radio on, plunging into 'the deep end' rather than rely on the English subtitles for TG4. Not far from the remnants of coastal districts where everyday Irish has been spoken, he considers the trauma of An Gorta Mór and the trace elements of guilt which weakened survivors. Remorse generated either a 'fierce, aggressive' attachment or rejection of the language, (22) He alludes to Animal Farm for the post-1922 'language bosses' who held on to their version of the tally stick, an bata scóir, emulating their hated English masters in beating on miscreants who lapsed into a forbidden but habitual tongue.

Either language was replaced with deliberate effort. McCaughan reasons that if Irish 'disappeared out of our families one word at a time', its erosion may be reversed by phrases enriching conversation. This as with much of the content assumes an Irish audience. Gill Books markets this to them, from the author's own birthplace of south Dublin. McCaughan therefore shares hints, resources, and strategies for those with the benefits of an Ireland residence to 'put on a second coat we've grown used to' (adapting composer Peadar Ó Riada's metaphor). McCaughan regards Irish as a 'second skin,' or even as what lingers in the 'marrow'. (64; readers may want to look up Peadar's father Seán's story.)

Exemplars such as Peadar, travel writer Manchán Magan, comedian Des Bishop, poets Paul Durcan, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, and Michael Hartnett encourage him to distinguish his mother tongue, an Béarla, from his native one, an Ghaeilge. The fate of Hartnett, who tried to revert to Irish-only for his work, sobers him. McCaughan realises that the call to the mystic within will fall on many deaf ears around him, but he dismisses any practicality. As Spanish enraptured him as a teen, so now does Irish, at last. As well as tips for learners, this book's added value shows in the language policies from the Americas McCaughan uses to integrate his critique of the Dublin governments' hapless schemes.

Echoing Magan's Hartnett-like 'No Béarla' TG4 attempts in 2007 to conduct affairs in Ireland's 'first official language', the author tries to buy via Irish a ticket from Doolin to Inis Mór. He's told; 'you know, your Irish is very hard to understand.' Galwegians scold that he has 'no dialect'. Within the heartland, he considers a Buddhist analogue. Right Speech renders as 'what you say and how you say it is a reflection of a deeper truth'. (136) This illuminates his path. He ignores idealism; like many sojourners to these redoubts, he confronts a common impasse. Weary locals rebuff learners' attempts.

As this demonstrates, in the Gaeltacht, its public language becomes English; parents revert to Irish as a private medium; meanwhile children brought up as native speakers find themselves weakened by the influx of those relocating there with little or no Irish. At school, the classes may stay in public Irish, but McCaughan suspects children revert to English on their own watch, This imbalance presents a conundrum. To assist with their ancestral language the Irish people, who needs it most? Should entities support native communities or learners in urban centres, queuing at Gaelscoileannaí?

Contrasting the decision of most Irish to pay no more than lip service to Gaeilge, McCaughan credits the Zapatista movement, celebrating its indigenous and 'unbroken link to their ancestors' who use Tzeltal. The U'wa of Colombia choose their own too, rather than capitulate to the colonial imposition of Spanish. Proximity need not result in subservience or expediency; Central Europe and Scandinavia revived their local languages in the same period that millions of the Irish lost their own. McCaughan admits key revival differences historically and economically. Yet he seeks out a lively inspiration,

He strengthens his familial tie to the North of Ireland. The selfless attitude and volunteer spirit in Bóthar Seoighe infuses revival. State-designated enclaves mean simply places where Irish is spoken, But "the growth of Gaeilge in Belfast carries the mystique of a forbidden language spoken against the odds, and with a hint of subversive mischief'. (160) On the Falls Road, he sees more evidence of living Irish than in all of Dublin, Cork and Galway cities. Republican activists Michaél Mac Giolla Gunna, Féilim Ó hAdhmaill and Anthony McIntyre agree that their acquired Irish as crafted and transmitted in lessons 'behind the wire' conveyed a generosity imbued with true freedom. Their children, whether in class or at home, are growing up with both languages, with spontaneous poise.

This open-hearted reaction to Irish among those dubbed Nordies cheers this Ulsterman-once-removed.. Adults seek out Irish too, within not only West Belfast communities which welcome what was long persecuted. Ulster-Scots advocate Linda Ervine at the East Belfast mission started from far less than scratch. She conceives of her Irish-language endeavour as a 'vocation, an activity that needs to happen regardless of money'. (177) Their provincial roots tangle in garbled, anglicised place names and natural landmarks. West of Maghera, in south Derry, Gaeilge resurrects from this fresh soil, 'present yet invisible.' (198) At Carn Tóchair, this 'post-colonial option' cultivates a 'critical mass' of learners-to-speakers; what began with half a dozen in 1992 has grown to 180, young and old, fluent.

Niall Ó Catháin champions this líofacht enclave of those reuniting with this subterranean presence. For the Irish language 'was taken from us, and if we want it back we have to use it'. This bold grip reminds the writer of other surprising connections. Peadar Ó Riada tells McCaughan that in the tuneful townland of Cúil Aodha near Cork, a local, Lizzie O'Brien, was godmother to Sid Vicious.

McCaughan misses his chance here to nod to John Lydon's childhood visits to his own maternal domain in that very county. Derided then for his north London accent, he may today travel under an Irish passport, but he still bristles at being mocked for his tone. Lydon became infamous for rejecting many English symbols, as well as Catholic pieties. Ó Riada swirls Irish lyrics into world sounds. In their own ways, both play off a rebellious streak against clerics, some long supposed a Gaelic ally.

He seeks a decentralised Celtic Christian tradition, and as Lydon might accept, 'an atheist god if you like'. (209) If the North reveals the refusal at last to treat the accents in Irish as sectarian shibboleths, so Cúil Aodha suggests the native speaker's home advantage. Lydon and Ó Riada might concur that one born to the language applies his tongue unconsciously, as natural. This ease can never be totally gained by tutelage. It may single one out, depending on the setting, but it also anchors born speakers.

Concluding this journey around Ireland, McCaughan repeats the experience of others who have sought to find themselves through Irish. Native or learner, both find 'this is no country for Irish speakers'. (251) Relegated to the formulaic cúpla focal from a politician, a Republican and/or an Aer Lingus flight attendant, Gaeilge reveals its second-place status. The battle over Irish-only signage for An Daighean/ Dingle and the resentment from the tourist industry, second-home dwellers and visitors to Gaeilge amháin sa Ghaeltacht confirms the truth of McCaughan's charge. Yet he brandishes one cheery sign himself. The 'can-do philosophy' in the Six Counties epitomizes its 'brass nerve'. South of the border, this courage dwindles. Enlivened, McCaughan ends with a hope that one focal at a time, an Irish polity committed to diversity will sustain and nourish its native language, as its daily reality.

Dublin: Gill Books. 6 June 2017. ₤7.99/ € 14.99. 256 pp.

Clann-ish

A friend of Irish and Greek descent living in Germany told me today how "we need to rally together and be the keepers of all that knowledge, skills and wisdom that is needed." In a precarious economy, on a weakening planet, and within political change and cultural clashes, I look within for support. Parties fail us, "leaders" betray, and ideologies writhe. Consider the late Fidel. As his rule over Cuba consolidated as opponents were eliminated and dissent crushed, his citizens learned that saying his surname was judged disloyal. So, his first name was used, or instead, a sly gesture of stroking a chin.

So, the outpouring of grief among my leftist friends leaves me unmoved. Hearing stories of flight from that island by classmates and students, the recognition of the health and literacy reforms the Communists brought are tempered with the cruelty exercised against his foes, and innocent people such as gays, a factor little covered in the media now, as are the 500 executed by firing squad soon after the rebels became the rulers. Of course, justifications for these deeds, the broken eggs for the omelette recipe, emit as pro forma replies by the convinced and committed progressives. Fidelity.

This faithfulness joined Cubans despite their privations and losses of freedom against their foes, conjured or real. The strength of the tribe for and against what Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens calls "imagined fictions" enabled our ancestors to break out of their territorial and mental bonds. Then, by religion, trade, and money, ancient peoples formed nations and expanded their hold over others, too.

Imperialism has a bad name, sure. But Harari, balancing the accounts of humanity's gains and losses well in his book, warns us against too arrogant a reaction to our past. He shows the benefits of reason, while warning in his new Homo Deus against the rush to trans-human and algorithmic domination. The cost, he argues, of transferring our humanity into information systems rub by corporations caring only about data, and not consciousness, threatens to count out the irrational, the intangible, our ideas.

Reflecting on this, I opened an aging NYT Sunday Review. While the recent coverage of Facebook decries its "fake news" and its implicit blame that the election was lost for Her by His minions in Macedonia planting false sites and misleading memes, the reaction from way back last May by Frank Bruni betrays a deeper concern. In "How Facebook Warps Our Worlds" he begins: "But unseen puppet masters on Mark Zuckerberg’s payroll aren’t to blame. We’re the real culprits. When it comes to elevating one perspective above all others and herding people into culturally and ideologically inflexible tribes, nothing that Facebook does to us comes close to what we do to ourselves." While not a new phenomenon, this technology tracks us and reinforces our own prejudices and priorities.

After delineating the echo chamber and referring to how we distrust institutions and so retreat to our communities of the like-minded for security, risking their scorn and aligning ourselves with their trust, Bruni decries this self-perpetuating safe space. Therefore, he concludes: "It’s not about some sorcerer’s algorithm. It’s about a tribalism that has existed for as long as humankind has and is now rooted in the fertile soil of the Internet, which is coaxing it toward a full and insidious flower."

But the blooms from FB can brighten our outlook. Today I also found in my feed from five years ago this Salon essay from a Rutgers sociologist. Eviatar Zerubavel asks "Why Do We Care About Our Ancestors?" Like many pieces on Salon, it's lifted from a book so it does not read that well in part.

Still, he sums up useful perspectives that align with my own investigation of the yearning for the tribal in alternative religions claiming to remake or remodel native European spiritual traditions.

He wraps up his argument: "long before we even knew about organic evolution (or about genetics, for that matter), we were already envisioning our genealogical ties to our ancestors as well as relatives in terms of blood, thereby making them seem more natural. As a result, we also tend to regard the essentially genealogical communities that are based on them (families, ethnic groups) as natural, organically delineated communities." He notes how this "blood tie" is rooted in evolution itself.

He concludes: "Yet nature is only one component of our genealogical landscape. Culture, too, plays a critical role in the way we theorize as well as measure genealogical relatedness. Not only is the unmistakably social logic of reckoning such relatedness quite distinct from the biological reality it supposedly reflects, it oft en overrides it, as when certain ancestors obviously count more than others in the way we determine kinship and ethnicity. Relatedness, therefore, is not a biological given but a social construct. Not only are genealogies more than mere reflections of nature, they are also more than mere records of history. Rather than simply passively documenting who our ancestors were, they are the narratives we construct to actually make them our ancestors." This ties to the yearning for us to find a famous forebear (for me, all the way back to Conchobar mac Nessa in the Táin) at the expense of the less-heralded. But for me, that ends in 1797, as no Irish records survive before then.

This search for origins I find comforting in this chaotic world reducing us to data-mined digital data. I realize it's a romanticized quest, but not all of us find satisfaction in being reduced to Caucasian-this or white-that. Ever since I used to half-jest in school "I'm not an Anglo, I'm Irish!" I suppose I stood for this impulse. In Irish, there's more than one word for family. Tomás De Bhaldraithe (whose name shows how the Normans with Germanic nomenclature turned Gaelic in their own monikers after they invaded the island and supposedly turned more Irish than...) in his English-Irish dictionary defines:

family, s. 1 (Members of household) Líon m tí, teaghlach m. Family life, saol (an)teaghlaigh. 2 (Parents, children, relations) Muintir f. 3 (Children) Clann f. She is in the family way, tá sí ag iompar clainne. How is your family? cén chaoi bhfuil do chúram? What family have they? cé mhéad duine clainne atá orthu? A family man, fear tí agus urláir. 4 (Descendants) Sliocht m (g. sleachta), síol m. Family tree, craobha fpl ginealaigh. 5 (Race) Cine m, treibh f. 6 Aicme f (rudaí); Biol: fine f. 7 Mth: Number families, uimhirfhinte fpl. Family of sets, cnuasach m tacar.

So, related by blood and members of household appear to overlap, if distinguishable. Children occupy a third category, moving the clan forward in time. Descendants down the line have their own niche, and that of the race, a term we don't carry over as neatly into English, another. The term mórtas cine or pride-in-heritage expresses this well, a reminder of the positive associations in Irish kinfolk.

"Her Exiled Children": The Irish in Montana

A month ago, I attended this gathering of scholars and supporters in Missoula. The American Conference of Irish Studies-West regional meeting coincided with the exhibit "Her Exiled Children". In turn, to my surprise, these events dovetailed with a visit to Big Sky Country from the Irish Ambassador to the U.S., and the Governor of the state. The locals were out to welcome us delegates.

Professor David M. Emmons, Irish West expert and retired historian at the U. of Montana, guided our bus tour. We rode past the Clark Fork named after the explorer, and then the back way on Highway 1 to skirt more riparian valleys. The weather forecast was for rain, so I dressed the part, but I did not need to, as the climate was brisk but clear. Recent snowfalls speckled peaks. Far away from 90· L.A.

We stopped after an hour and a half in Anaconda, a copper mining town that stood out not only for its stack (my seatmate compared it to Sauron's tower) but its hardscrabble endurance as an Irish-managed production hub for that mineral much of the past century. It was a bustling region where the bosses were Catholic, as well as the workingmen and women. Little cabins attested to the life of the miners and their families, who walked out to the mines and back, by the railroad, self-contained.

The steadfast Corkonian, Dr. Traolach Ó Riordáin, told me that the children of Seámus Moriarty only spoke Irish at home back then, but that such fidelity to Gaeilge was the exception. But I never heard such an amount of an teanga beo in America before, for he and others chatted away in it, naturally. My two halting attempts failed to rouse responses. When I complimented his young son on his tweed hat, or when I warned him to be careful as he lugged a concrete block in the cemetery, both attempts at conversation were ignored by him. Will nobody ever understand my bleats, as exiled Gaeilgeoir?

You can see me in this snapshot at the AOH breakfast hosted for us at the Anaconda branch, one of the few west of the Mississippi, and one still, I am happy to report, thriving today after decades on. I never expected such a reception and it testified to unapologetic pride I felt during my too-brief visit. This mortás cine is perpetuated by the Friends of Irish Studies in the West, which I've happily joined.

Butte dramatically perches on the side of a massive pit. So much so that neighborhoods of Italians and Eastern Europeans were dug into, for the resources beneath outweighed the value of those on the top. The memorial to hundreds who died in one of many accidents is moving, with flags of many nations around to commemorate the losses of those from around the world driven to that far corner.

I heard the daughter of the famed poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill exclaim "there's Turkey!": land of her father, as we all entered the marker area. Sure enough, the lists of the dead were diverse, although mainly Irish. Back then, almost 100,000 lived there. Now as in Anaconda, far fewer: a third of that.

Montana boasts even today at 27% the highest percentage of Irish-identified U.S. residents. That cheered me. I knew historically there'd been many miners, but I did not realize how many stayed.

Vowing to return, to the Mining Museum, the town excited me. The downtown again struggles, but its buildings preserved from that boom era could entice the bold and brave today, to restore and care for them a mile high. Up by Walkerville, dwellings stretched out in precarious, attenuated, thinning lines, presumably to avoid the subsidence that would swallow them up from those voracious excavations.

The archives there attracted me. I wanted to scrabble in them, especially for Fr. Michael Hannan's diary where he lamented his stay among the squabbling clergy and all those non-recalcitrants from Hibernia not sharing his belief in a particular brand of Fenian payback. Professor Emmons showed me the scrawl of photocopies of the priest's diary: not easy to decipher. But he published his findings in The American Journal of Irish Studies (2012 issue; abstract only, alas, online for we the curious).

The cemetery walk in Butte also alerted me to the many graves from the Spanish American War, next to a Mass Rock memorial. I wondered why the amount. The number seemed disproportionate for the city. I suppose to me, any death toll is more than it should be, going to fight in such dubious battles. A lesson for all who labor to resurrect the names and deeds of those rallied to a cause, and with arms.

Slán a fhágáil ag Harry

Bím ag scriobh seo inniu, 2ú Marta. Chaith muid ag fáil ár piscín, Harry, ag codhladh. Tá leoicéime aige.

Bhí sé ina stríoc bán ar a driomh dubh. Bhí sé cosúil le scúnc. D'iarr muid air "scúncín."

Bhí sé an-chíuín. Mar sin féin, "purred" sé. Ar maidin, tháinig Harry chun suí agamsa.

"Purred" sé is airde. Bhí Léna ábalta chloisteáil dó ar fud an tseomra. Is é mo chuimhne air.

Bhí sé féin agus a dheartháir Jerry ach ceithre mhí d'aois. Tá brón orainn anseo. Deanfaimid chailleain Harry.

Goodbye to Harry.

I am writing this today, March 2nd. We has to put our kitten, Harry, to sleep. He had leukemia.

He had a white stripe on his black back. It was like a skunk. We called him "little skunk."

He was very quiet. Nevertheless, he purred. This morning, Harry came to sit with me.

He purred very loud. Layne was able to hear him across the room. It is my memory of him.

He himself and his brother Jerry were but four months old. We are sorry here. We will miss Harry.

Image/íomha

Fiosracht faoi na Gearmáine Thoir

Le déanaí, bhreatnaigh mé an scannán "Victoria." Tarlaíonn sé i mBeirlin inniu. Bhi chuimhne liom go raibh mé fiosracht faoi an hOirthear na Gearmáine ar feadh i bhfad.

Thósaigh mé a léamh úrscéalaí agus neamh-fhicsean faoi na DDR. Ach, níl sé leabhair go leor áistriú ag Béarla. Mar sin féin, fuair mé sinn roinnt sa leabharlann.

Nuair bhí mé óg, le linn an Chogadh Fuar, bhailigh mé stampaí. Bhí maith liom ag foghlaim faoi áiteannaí i gcéin. Chónaic mé an séala na Germáine Thoir lena casúr agus compás.

Machnaimh mé a thromchúisi. Bhí mé ar eolas faoi na daoine a bhí ina gcónaí ann. An raibh siad i ndáiríre cosúil le Stalin agus na cummainaithe, mar Gearmánaigh iad féin?

Ina theannta sin, rinne na Seápaine agus Germánaigh mhaith linn, áititheorí Mheiriceá? Thuig mé ag duine mar a bhí in usaid dom go stampa. Maith nó olc, bhí mé cosuil leis ó léi.

Curious about East Germany.

Recently, I watched the film "Victoria." It happens in Berlin today. It reminded me I have had a curiosity about East Germany for a long time.

I started to read novels and non-fiction about the DDR. But, there's not many books translated into English. Nevertheless, I found some in the library.

When I was young during the Cold War, I collected stamps. I liked learning about faraway places. I saw the seal of East Germany with its hammer and compass.

I pondered its severity. I wanted to know more about the people who lived there. Did they really like Stalin and the Communists, as Germans? 

Furthermore, did the Japanese and Germans like us, American occupiers? I realized a person like me had used that stamp. Good or bad, I was like him or her.

Slan leat, Gary-cat

Fuair Gary bás an tseachtaine seo caite. D'fhán ár cat go dtí go fhill ó ár turas. Ach, chaith sé an h-ám. 

Scríobhím seo leis brón. Ní raibh mé ag iarraidh a clóscríobh na focail seo. Mar sin féin, bíonn mé ag insint orthú anois. 

Bhí dúil mhór agam air. Shuigh sé liom. Chódail sé ar dom. 

Ós rud é go luath i 2002, chúram againn le haghaidh dó agus a dheirfiúr, Maire. Chuaigh ar shiúl a ndeartháir Larry. Ach d'fhán Maire agus Gary le breis agus dosaen bliain ar chéile. 

Tá súil agam go bhfuil ar neamh i n-spéir, dó agus ár peataí atá caite. Is fada liom uaim iad. Is mian liom iad go léir tsíocháin.
 

Goodbye to you, Gary-cat.
 
Gary met his death a week ago. Our cat waited until we returned from our trip. But, it must be the time. 

I write this with sadness. I did not want to type these words. All the same, I am telling you now.  

I loved him. He sat on me. He slept on me. 

Since early in 2002, we cared for him and his sister, Mary. Their brother Larry went away. But Mary and Gary stayed for more than a dozen years together. 

I hope that he and our past pets are in their heaven. I miss them. I wish them all peace.

From the Ring of Kerry to Cork City

Waking up early, we left Dun Chaoin. I said farewell to the hosts' dog Rua as Gaeilge. So his mistress remarked that I was Irish, given my brief chat in the native language. I silently wondered, as her husband had a Scots name and an English accent, if she was one of the many who had left for Britain after the war and one of the few who had returned to retire in such a lovely setting, rewarded by the scene that opened up below of the ocean and the Blaskets. Although the b+ b  we'd stayed had prominently on its business card an Irish-language name, I feared that Gaeilge was not long for this corner of a globalized nation that we all loved so much that our English onslaught, as the lingua franca of the EU too, drowned the voices. Still, a few of us try to practice it.

Past a long stone wall overlooking the waters, as the sun shone in rays through the clouds towards Iveragh, we headed back through An Daingean, past signs for beehive huts at Fahan I figured were closed for the season, and glanced down at a lovely stretch of rare sandy beach at Inch where Ryan's Daughter was filmed. We set out to traverse the Ring of Kerry. We had to take advantage of the relatively sunny day, for night crept up rapidly on the ocean's edge late in the year. The road swung towards a series of market towns half-heard long from maps and songs, sights new to me and Layne. This region was unfamiliar to us both, so this time, it was our turn to see it. The weather had held out, lucky for us.

We veered towards Castlemaine and then Killorglin, bypassing Killarney The roads were narrow again, but we sped, as we had to keep up with traffic. Irish radio played the same stories, hour after hour. A drunk man's sentencing for a child's death on the road. A molester with a sordid record caught after abducting a girl; her brother hanging onto the vehicle long enough to get a partial plate number that led to the rapid apprehension of the culprit. Many callers and texters wanted the man put away for far more than the actual misdeed legally warranted, but even his past could not be admitted in court. A Dublin homeless couple "tortured while in their sleeping bags" as the radio put it, from what seemed nothing much more than a muttered threat and a tossed firecracker. These headlines droned on, with subtle twists in their repetition to keep listeners alert or intrigued as the day passed.

The towns were picturesque, and the road meant, in the old style, we'd have to pass through each one. No Puck Fair, but Killorglin bustled. By the time we got to Caherciveen, we stopped for a break. I walked the narrow sidewalk, past many shops gone under, and across a fair share of a place that seemed to be suffering from the "downturn." Christian charity shop, tiny grocery sellers, a C of I church lichened and dampened on its dull brown walls, turned into a pottery or craft seller's niche. But the air enlivened me, and I needed the walk of a half-hour up and down the main road, mid-day.

Bridie had told us about Valentia Island beating out her husband's family's Dingle for beauty, and it looked enticing. But it was a one-way road into it, and it was already late in the afternoon. I feared as in Dun Chaoin or Co Monaghan getting caught after nightfall searching boreens for our dim b+b. So, on we went, past the tiny and shrinking Gaeltacht of Iveragh's peninsula. Charlie Chaplin's statue featured in Waterville/ An Coiréan, and I later looked up that he and his family loved spending time there at its large hotel facing the shore. A crowd of Italian sightseers took photos of the statue. We curved back at Derrynane and soon hit An Snaidhm, or the knot where of all people the first president of Israel, Chaim Herzog, was born, his father being the Chief Rabbi of Ireland, an easy job I guessed.

The road sped us on, past meadows and through trees, into Kenmare, down to Co. Cork. But we never saw the sign welcoming us to the Rebel County. Our GPS detoured us into Priest's Leap at our peril, as you can read in my Irish-English blog post here. That harrowing ride was one neither I nor Layne will never forget. You hear hyperbole about jarring roads, and sudden drops, but this was true.

That over, we descended back onto the main road, 10km on and perhaps a few hundred feet cut off the Glengarriff route, our hearts in our mouths. Around Cobduff and a school letting out, we were glad to stumble out of the Tibetan-like landscape, all sheared earth slopes and barren heights between precipitous canyons, akin to the Badlands or a Tanzanian section of a primordial Great Rift Valley.

Woods sheltered us, and the scenery of autumn, even if the radio bore no new tale to tell. Bantry looked big as we wound around its sudden roundabouts and by sheer intuition I kept to the main road. We kept going, Ballydehob and Skibbereen, where I imagined flocks of German artists painting landscapes of sheep and not of the Léim na tSagart's deadly drops and terrifying Badlands panoramas. I wondered where David Mitchell lived around here for he places Cape Clear Island in his novels, and certainly the handsome storefronts we passed in this area spoke of prosperity, as did the splendid if hidden Parknasilla "resort" which had entertained the affluent since Victorian days.

Leap was full of funny figures costumed around its signs and shops, out to grab some Halloween prize. Rosscarbery looked handsome, and we then found our way to our last big metropolis, Clonakilty. It was clogged with construction and one-way streets and barriers. So, I nearly lost it here, so tired of driving as I was, but after we stocked up on food at the Dunnes and the checker, an elderly lady, told us that she was the only one of eight children not to emigrate to America, we got directions at a gas station (the first clerk did not know; I suspected she was German) for Ardfield. My sense generally guided us right. But I made a wrong left turn, ending up in a deadend at dusk in the middle of a farm full of muck on Inchydowney Island. The causeway stunk of algae, the fields of manure.

A woman walking her dog briskly told us where to turn, and we made it. The host of the b+b waited at the local pub, where he'd had at least some of its wares, and we settled into the last of our Irish rural haunts, a refurbished farm shed made into a homey cabin. There, as rain finally settled us in, Layne cooked the smallest portion from the honor-payment organic farm down the lane, a giant mess of carrots, into soup. We watched British (not Irish oddly on the satellite feed, but again we had an elderly Irish woman and her English husband as hosts) tv and I kept changing channels as Layne's beloved "Judge Judy" was on a lot in the afternoon, drifting from one station to another, however.

The rooms were so small that I could not stretch out full length to do my exercise. But it was comfy. We left for Cork city our last day in Ireland, and I liked seeing Harry Clarke's illustrations for Keats and Poe in the Crawford Art Gallery. I enjoyed many of the "Irish school" of paintings from a century ago and more, while more contemporary ones appeared often far duller and less engaging. The painting above is by Sir Gerald Festus Kelly (grand name, that) of anarchist Peter Kropotkin's daughter, Sasha. He painted it in 1924; her husband was a Soviet revolutionary, Boris Lebedev. I had just read Kropotkin's The Conquest of Bread last month; but I did not know he raised a family. Sasha in this portrait captures for me a whiff of Cork women, with their grace and confidence, on the street.

Kelly was an English painter in oil of portraits and landscapes. During his travels he painted some of his most characteristic and charming figure studies. He became famous for his portraits of elegant women, his technical brilliance and colourful, wide-ranging subject matter.
The woman in this painting is Sasha Kropotkin, daughter of the anarchist, Prince Peter Kropotkin, and wife of the Russian revolutionary Boris Lebedev. - See more at: http://www.crawfordartgallery.ie/pages/paintings/GeraldFestusKelly.html#sthash.Lbys830F.dpuf=

Kelly was an English painter in oil of portraits and landscapes. During his travels he painted some of his most characteristic and charming figure studies. He became famous for his portraits of elegant women, his technical brilliance and colourful, wide-ranging subject matter.
The woman in this painting is Sasha Kropotkin, daughter of the anarchist, Prince Peter Kropotkin, and wife of the Russian revolutionary Boris Lebedev. - See more at: http://www.crawfordartgallery.ie/pages/paintings/GeraldFestusKelly.html#sthash.Lbys830F.dpuf

Kelly was an English painter in oil of portraits and landscapes. During his travels he painted some of his most characteristic and charming figure studies. He became famous for his portraits of elegant women, his technical brilliance and colourful, wide-ranging subject matter.
The woman in this painting is Sasha Kropotkin, daughter of the anarchist, Prince Peter Kropotkin, and wife of the Russian revolutionary Boris Lebedev. - See more at: http://www.crawfordartgallery.ie/pages/paintings/GeraldFestusKelly.html#sthash.Lbys830F.dpuf

Kelly was an English painter in oil of portraits and landscapes. During his travels he painted some of his most characteristic and charming figure studies. He became famous for his portraits of elegant women, his technical brilliance and colourful, wide-ranging subject matter.
The woman in this painting is Sasha Kropotkin, daughter of the anarchist, Prince Peter Kropotkin, and wife of the Russian revolutionary Boris Lebedev. - See more at: http://www.crawfordartgallery.ie/pages/paintings/GeraldFestusKelly.html#sthash.Lbys830F.dpuf

I ferret out odd links as that, however tenuous, to my interests. Cork has a history of lots of subversive mutterings and a proud defiance. Layne shopped for plane fare at a sandwich stall at the English Market, which on the Irish-language sign I noted was rendered as "the old" market as well. Yet there I heard Irish spoken again, to my joy, as an older man ordered from a butcher. I passed him twice to be sure it was that, and not, say Polish, and it was, for once, the once and former language.

Cork felt a bit more posh. Its strollers and shoppers seemed slightly more cosmopolitan. The women often dressed up better. Even if a young clerk, in a smart short woollen outfit, marched up in front of me as we climbed Easons' escalator, her raw rank odor at odds with her groomed exterior. Could that be a millennial Sasha? Or would a daughter with an aristocratic pedigree scent herself? I would have stayed long in the bookstore of Liam Russell Teo., but we had to get on the motorway to Dublin. More radio, more roundabouts slowing the pace of the fastest car every few miles for miles on end.

The countryside looked identical all the way through Tipperary until night took over. At Naas, we filled up, far enough from the airport to get our euro's worth and keep the gauge at F. Rush hour clogged its streets, and from then on, it was a crawl. But we made it and the rental car shuttle driver even took us not to the hotel's lagging shuttle, but all the way down and around, back on the motorway, to the deceptively close Hilton. We tipped him accordingly, took our humble fare in from Dunnes made into sandwiches and beer,, and ate and readied for our 4:30 wake-up. A long walk to the terminal through a plastic tube. Off again, and after an uneventful wait, we boarded for Rome.

To Adare then to Dun Chaoin

On the guest bathroom's basket above the toilet upstairs, nestled a Penguin Black Classic. Nietzsche's Aphorisms of Love and Hate. I leafed through it, and it was well worth our hosts' Tony and Sinéad's pound sterling. If I was not so in need of sleep, I'd have stayed up reading it.

The next morning, we talked until Tony had to leave Corduff for work, so our long drive from Co Monaghan to our next friends in the perennial Tidy Town award-winning Adare, south of Limerick city. was delayed. However, after we had to say goodbye to him and Sinéad, our GPS itinerary detoured us across many stunning autumnal scenes as we slowly traversed via Eden Road the Kilmainham Woods of Co Meath. I thought of Brinsley McNamara's melodramatic "tell-all" tattletale on my Kindle from a century ago, The Valley of the Squinting Windows as we passed a sign for Delvin in Westmeath. Vivid leaves shone in the late afternoon and gradually we headed into sunset over Birr, mentioned by Joyce surely somewhere.

The radio featured, in slim pickings, Gay Byrne hosting a mixture of classics and reverie on RT'E Lyric. Continually rankled by the miserable fare sung on either BBC or Eire's wavelengths, I supposed I showed my age, relegating myself to near the dreaded 55-and-up demographic, sometimes that which lacks any number on the right side of that classification. Two locals in Co Monaghan had glared at us from the upper ranks of that cohort, with their little dog, as we halted at a crossroads. A bit down the road, a hardened redhead lass with a stroller, for whom we stopped to let her and her larger dog pass by. pushed past our smiles with undisguised contempt. Was it our Dublin plates?

By the time we made it to Adare, it was dark. Traffic jammed the picturesque village, but not for its charms. A drunk driver, we later found out from our host (who knew by repute and custom the culprit in question), had crashed and blocked the main highway. I felt sorry for the drivers caught for hours.  This is the major thoroughfare between Limerick and the South-West, and there's no easy diversion.

To our surprise, as the last time we were here, the motorway being built bypassing other local towns, it ran straight down the middle of Adare. I was baffled, but it did mean that the town profited from the constant hum all day into the night. So, our rental car had to maneuver to get the space in front of Seán Collins & Sons pub. We had a nice chat with him and his wife, Bridie, about the pressures of the business he continued from his father in that town, and about the small hotel we stayed in that they had bought since we'd last visited. The pubkeeper's trade is a patient one, requiring constant surveillance of the staff, chatting up patrons, and dealing with exorbitant fees for such as the "rights" to play a radio or TV channel in the place. It filled mostly with locals, who greeted and paid farewell to each other in that spirit of bemused camaraderie presumably deepened by decades of proximity.

After a night at their hotel, and then a happy breakfast with Seán and Bridie, we departed for Kerry. Our first time there, the Kingdom beckoned us for its breadth. Tralee bustled with corporate parks and upscale hotels, then Blennerhassett's giant windmill. In Camp/An Com, a pit stop. In the petrol station's cafe, lunch drew in many hunched over their soups and coffees. The wind blew off the Atlantic, as we perched up just out of sight of it, and we could feel the change in the blustery air. We were nearing the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht, one of the last redoubts where (a bit of) Irish survived.

Layne pointed out a fort overlooking the highway as we left the village, and I later wondered if this had any association with the legendary landing of the Milesians on the hidden shores below, and of the healing of maddened maiden Mís made memorable in Austin Clarke's elegant, even erotic, poem.

Séan had shown us his photos of the one-way, dramatic Conors Pass road, and this tempted us. But construction was afoot there, so we had to go the safer if still hairpin route into the rolling hills down into little Anascaul, busily promoting Tom Crean, a local who found fame for his Antarctic expeditions with Scott and Shackleton. Now a brewery hustled a lager named in his honor. Nearby, a rebel who fought in the Rising and later died of force-feeding while imprisoned, Thomas Ashe, had been born in Lios Póil, received only a modest road sign indicated the townland where he began. In today's market-targeted Ireland, you can see which of two local Toms, without a doubt, gets lauded.

The day was overcast, so colors of green and brown were more muted, and glimpses of the strait between the Dingle and Iveragh peninsulas were infrequent. But the weather held and we felt lucky.
Famously, some mercantile-minded locals of An Daingean cross out the signs (I saw one outside Ventry/ Fionntrá) indicating nowadays in the Gaeltachtaí the non-anglicized location names. But entering Dingle town, the tourists seem to have found the home of Fungi the Dolphin nevertheless.

Off-season, a lot was closed, so we figured that it'd be no-go to voyage into the harbor in a search for that noted citizen of the town. Tour buses gravitate here, and as one who'd been patiently driving on narrow roads, and often had only the windshield's view as my own as I passed many marvelous vistas, I could not naysay those who had the comfort of a vehicle from which they could gaze out.

We walked the seaside road past tracts you could find in suburban Tallaght or Swords, catering to the summer's rush of visitors. They faced rows of colorful older houses, dated to 1909 and all numbered. The contrast summed up much. Reading Peig Sayers or the other Blasket Island writers, you can conjure up the past, when that as a market town attracted the peasants on foot or cart, and where the garrisons of the Crown fought during the war for independence on the same road that brought us in.

After we climbed up Goat Street, past more housing estates and an stately but abandoned-seeming school, we descended back into the lively core, where we purchased a few gifts at the bookstore. Both Seán, whose grandparents were from the town, and Tony, who knew such treasure-troves well, recommended that I (and Layne, who had long learned to drag me away from these dens of iniquity), stop in. Its owner was markedly taciturn, but we figured he could use our euros. The single book (although I could have spent 300 euro--the singular as the Irish say--easily on my itinerary on such) I took back was Daragh McDonagh's Tochar, about a secularized Catholic from Derry taking the old pilgrimage routes. I felt it was a path I followed, and I will review and report on it in due time here.

The Catholic church also on Green Street was enormous, built on wealth from Peig's peasants, and those emigrants who may have made good from their trade or their own capitalist endeavor. Now the Díseart Centre of Irish Spirituality run by Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, the Sacred Heart chapel featured Harry Clarke's stained glass. I had seen his fluid craft in the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin and I admire its clear lines. Layne rightly recalled a resemblance to another artist we like, Eric Gill, from this same period when the medieval and the guild appealed against capitalist frenzy.

I thought of our fervently non-theist friends in Drogheda. In their bathroom, a few copies of  The New Humanist lay waiting. I found Tim Minchin's interview in a 2010 issue. He remarked that he saw no harm in "magical thinking" unless it caused harm, and I contemplated as often in my European travels the fate of the Church, its sanctuaries so spacious, as its congregants dwindled and died off.

Later on this Grand Tour, Layne noted my Pavlovian instinct towards any open church door. Surely this attests to my early imprinting, and I confess that I enjoy peering into any Catholic sanctuary. I've lost belief in the visions and doctrines it memorializes and inculcates, but I retain fascination for the cultural impacts and artistic legacies left by the Church over so many centuries, for better and worse. And, I suppose part of this calls up yearning, a return to safety, a quiet space enclosed and restorative.

We needed to get to our next room, so we drove north, the long way around so we'd in my hazy recollection go counterclockwise, the way I estimated best to see an ocean view. I guess I confused in my travel blur the Ring of Kerry (that next peninsula down) from the Dingle, but this took us to the iconic Gallurus Oratory. In my mind, this stone chapel, so modest next to the one of the Sacred Heart, endured fourteen centuries wind and sea on a barren outcrop overlooking stormy ocean tides. Instead, it nestled in a field, safe from view as it was closed off-season, and we barely glimpsed it over the fields and horses, from a gravelled parking lot of the empty carpark and luncheon spot for tour buses.

The number of new construction of subdivisions around An Clochan astounded me. I suppose while many decry the loss of Irish as a community language, they look to the schools. But as in my own study at Oideas Gael Uladh in Glencolmcille in Donegal a few years ago, the inward turn of the native speakers, who cannot be bothered to deal with the hesitant inquiries of wave after wave of students and daytrippers, leaves those trying to practice it left to struggle among themselves in class.

Also, I doubted that these largely second homes or vacation spots, given the massive distance even by cozy Irish standards from any commerce, were crammed with post-Tiger Gaeilgoirí eager to revive an teanga beo. We progressed at a horse's pace sometimes over gravelled byways, past farms or past McMansions. For all I imagined, Germans, English, and/or Dubliners might ease their BMWs into the asphalt driveways on weekends. The stark fact that the most prominent eatery and b+b in our next destination bore a German surname stood as testimony to me of who had moved into the homes the farmers or fisherman left behind. Surely, it's a primary reason why Irish fades from our hearing.

But I too am complicit. Lured by beauty and detachment from the city, I pass EU hikers on the winding roads, walking the designated route, and buying pottery and scones, from whomever remains, for these residents need to make a living. Here, survival of Irish matters far less than their own, in an economy perched at the far end of an island battered by austerity cuts and weak currency.

The next place of any size, Baile an Fheirtearaigh, was a remote holdout for pirates resisting Cromwell. It draws language learners to its center, similar to Oideas Gael in the northwest or An Ceathrú Rua in Connacht. Its museum was closed. Although as we crawled through the village, I noticed the door open. I was hopeful, but it was a cleaning lady. Three pubs in a row, one titled to me as a talisman Ó Murchú, loomed as the only thriving eateries for many a mile. We were hungry, too.

We finally found the next place. Asking at a very well-stocked cafe-gift shop, the owner failed to recognize the host. It turned out she went not by her name but a nickname known to her neighbors. But we had no indication of this with our correspondence, with her, and she kept insisting as we tried to find the "stone cottage" that any GPS could find it easily. Reduced to looking for that architecture, in a bucolic landscape that as Peter O'Doherty's photo above shows, has been speckled since Peig's death with many more structures, whitewashed or unvarnished, we despaired. Darkness on the edge of the Atlantic, next stop Boston, comes quickly in early November, and when we at last located the b+b brown sign at a junction and up a lane, we were exhausted. The tea was bagged, the loaf dry, so we went over the Camras road Peig describes often, into Fionntrá. We'd found online two restaurants that garnered rave reviews, one saying it was open all year on its website, but of course it was not.

Neither the first nor the last time on this trip, but this was Ireland. I liked that huddled townland, which I think is Baile na Ratha, and that blue house on the road with a for sale sign. We all can dream, even if I'd wake up to French trekkers or Japanese tourists with selfie sticks out my window. No matter how worn out the roads there make me, the breezes and the briskness boost my spirits.

Dun Chaoin fills a lovely series of fields. It slopes down to the shores facing the now-deserted Blaskets, and they loom like mounds from bygone civilizations from the Atlantic. Peig had been famous as a chronicler of life on the Great Blasket, but she grew up in the townland she called Vicarstown, as well as closer to An Daingean by the way of her school and her parish both in Fionntrá. She only moved to the Blaskets after she married. There is no center of her natal settlement, and Dun Chaoin instead spreads out as smaller hamlets on and off the twisting, if now paved, lanes.

The summit that opened up Ventry's vista must have been appealing in the day, but it was pitch black now, and oncoming cars roared past us, blinding me. Dingle was in the distance, but its lights discouraged us from another night of pub grub. So, a few miles from where the surviving soldiers from the shipwrecks of the Armada were slaughtered, we settled for take out: Spanish wine, sandwiches, and fruit from the local seller. I heard him chatting in animated Irish with customers. When I left, I shyly tried my thanks and my valediction with the correct grammar. He replied "Slán" and I could sense in farewell his sly bemusement. As Seán Collins had predicted of my attempts to hush, look native, and blend in  (as he had years ago teased my being a "professional Irishman, come to teach us what we did not know,") wait until they hear you speak Irish with an American accent.

Eric Cross' "The Tailor and Ansty": Book Review

While Eamon de Valera famously judged |"in its general tendency" this 1941 account as ''indecent," years later, the tone of these stories as told by the titular couple from Muskerry in West Cork feels quaint, conveyed from these believers in the fair folk. I found Eric Cross's editorial voice slightly patronizing, as if he was guiding us to a pair of animatronic figures programmed to speak on command their scripted recital. Still, the content, if you can handle the now-antiquated air of the tales told by Tom Buckley and his wife, Anastasia (Ansty).

In Gougane Barra, the earthy life is recounted, whether of people or of animals. Thus Dev's squeamishness. Ansty plays the more curdled to the less ruffled Tailor her partner. Originally published in the well-known The Bell, as fellow Corkman Frank O'Connor reminisces in his 1964 introduction, this take on the imagined and idealized benefits of rural Irish life resulted in the couple being boycotted while Cross' book was debated and denounced by many in the Irish government.

O'Connor also reminds us that the Tailor had a wider range in his native Irish of expression, and that the English is narrower, if still indicative second-hand of his wide-ranging mind and temperament. I'd say it's livelier for readers now than Peig Sayers' tales of woe, halfway to those parodied by Flann O'Brian in his The Poor Mouth, translated from his own Irish, sending-up such rustic ruminations and raw exaggerations. Classified as a biography "as told to," it stirs up blurred fact and lots of fiction.
(Amazon US 11-4-15)

Máirtín Ó Cadhain's "The Dirty Dust": Book Review

The most important prose work in Modern Irish, Máirtín Ó Cadhain's Cré na Cille has never before been published in English. This 1949 novel, as Alan Titley introduces his blunt, bold rendering into our language, carries the flow of chatter "you might hear outside a door when everyone inside is tearing themselves apart; or in a country churchyard in the light of day". The title resists easy equivalence, although "churchyard clay" has long served as as its English echo for critics. Titley, a skilled writer and critic in Irish, prefers the biblical resonance of ashes and soil, for this narrative takes place entirely in a Connemara cemetery, as its interred bicker and boast among themselves.

It was inspired by a report in the author's native West of Ireland where a woman was buried inadvertently atop her rival one day too rainy for the gravediggers to bother with niceties. An onlooker mourned: "Oh holy cow, there's going to be one almighty gabble!" Ó Cadhain set his novel, akin to what Titley calls switching channels between various conversations on a radio, in townlands he knew well in County Galway, near the Atlantic shore among its Irish-speaking community. Then, that language was still connected to those in the nineteenth century who had spoken no other. The author did not hear English until the age of six. Rich in imagery, curt in tone, this dialect of Irish can be difficult for those who encounter it today. Titley prefers a conversational, casual tide of chat, cursing, and reverie to wash over Ó Cadhain's characters. This eases the reader's challenge. The author plunges us immediately into a fictional tale told in dialogue and interruption.

Yet, even if Caítríona Paudeen's new arrival among the dead makes her by default the protagonist, the buried characters surrounding her six feet under crowd her out. Many of her neighbors resent her airs. It is best to let this rattling narrative roll on, rather than resist its banter or weary of its nagging. As a downed French pilot now and then complains in his own native tongue (untranslated): these scolds bore him. He had hoped to find peace in death, but the tomb seems not to be dead at all. Rather, the foreigner, struggling to figure out the meaning of the babble around him, finds it betrays the same old ennui. Sympathizing with his plight, I found myself drifting along as the voices resounded and receded. It's not hard to give way to them as background noise rather than scintillating exchanges.

The liveliest portions open most chapters. The "Trumpet of the Graveyard" summons souls to a reckoning. Ó Cadhain contrasts the joys of the living with the dread of the dead. He also here evokes the intricacy of Irish-language verse by departed bards: "But the flakes of foam on the fringe of a surge of a stream are slurping in towards the shallows of the river where they slobber on the rough sand." The alliteration and end-rhyme give way as they ebb into brutal phrases, and a sudden stop.

Meanwhile, without fresh news to filter into the soil, insults and laments repeat. No effort at organization lasts long; a Rotary Club, an election, a cultural society all flounder. Jonathan Swift's prediction of "a road on every track and English in every shack" threatens the isolation of the village. Its cadaverous inhabitants debate a medieval prophecy attributed to St. Colmcille about the signs of the world's end. This sense of doom deepens in the novel's vague duration during the middle of the Second World War. The corpses debate, as did their real-life counterparts, the comparative merits of the Germans and the British as allies for officially neutral Ireland. The Antichrist's return is rumored.

The talking dead are uncertain if D-Day has occurred. Only with the internment of the newest arrival, Billy the Postman, do the rest learn that none of their graveside crosses are made of Connemara marble. The dead had asserted this, each trying to put down the others, so as to boost their own status. That incident concludes this novel. Its recurring themes of discontent and rivalry dominate whatever  moments of tenderness and solidarity remain after village life has given way to common death. In this sobering depiction of a determined counter to the stereotypes of Irish rural relationships, native son Maírtín Ó Cadhain in his native language sought to correct myth with truth. As ably translated by Alan Titley, the results recall Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Martin McDonagh's play, both of which feature this same milieu, as they include too the telling phrase of "a skull in Connemara".
(PopMatters 2-24-15; Amazon US 3-12-15)

Péig Sayers' "Péig": Book Review

While this well-known account has sat on my shelf for decades, I read this only after staying in the author's native village of Dun Chaoin (Dunquin) in the West Kerry/Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht. Its prescribed reading for generations of schoolchildren subjected to compulsory Irish has weakened its reputation. I noted when travelling around the Dingle area and her 1873 birthplace that nothing I could see revealed Péig Sayers' presence, although my stay there was too brief, and half at night, to allow me to investigate further. Her book and that of her son are still in print and in local shops, and surely the study of the Blaskets accounts for the bulk of local commemoration, or the scholarship given to her memoir and those of her fellow islanders.

What surprised me was how much of her autobiography took place in her youth, not only in Dun Chaoin but in her Irish-speaking schooldays in the family's new residence An Ceann Trá (Ventry) nearer to Dingle, where she went to work for a household while in her teens. Most of this book are stories, naturally, told by her, with frequent invocations to the holy presences that once filled many an Irish person's mind and mouth, whether they knew the Irish or had given over to the English tongue.

After marriage takes her across the strait to the Blasket Island home where she raises a family, the years compress. The last third or so of the narrative, as with many a teller's life, is more weighted down by sorrow and lament. The frequency of these woes has led to Flann O'Brian's parody translated as The Poor Mouth by Myles na gCopaleen, to the detriment of this original inspiration. 

These tales, a century later, are frankly not that arresting. Bryan MacMahon's translation came too late for many a cribbing child's lessons, but it conveys the air of the Irish for we English-speaking readers. This may or may not be a strength for today's audiences, but the value of this historical record remains. It's not the most gripping account, but visitors to these shores today may give it a go.
(Amazon US 11-4-15)

Léim na tSagart

Thiomaint muidsa go Cill na Líos in aice leis An Muinchille go dtí an ionad eile ag imeall ansin. Thaisceadh linn ansin i gContae Monaghan leis ár chairde Tony agus Sinéad i Líos an Fidléir in aice leis An Carraig Mhachaire Róis ar fheadh an Féile Shamhna. A thóg siad duinn a fheiceaíl Inis Caoin leis an uaigh na Pádraic Ó Caomhánach, agus Chairlinn. Thar a teach an oíche sin, chonaic muid le chéile an geall leathach thar an cheo thar an réimhse

Labhair muid go lán, ach ar maidín dar gcíonn, chaith muid ag dul go hÁth Dara i Luimhneach. Chonaic muid an coill níos alainn i gCill Mhainaim ag imeall An Ceannanas. Tá fómhar fós anseo.

Bhuail muid chugainn ár chairde Brídín agus Seán go a n-teach tábhairne cairdiúl in Áth Dara. D'fhan muid i n-óstán béal dorais freisin. Ansin, chuaigh muid go Dún Chaoin i gCorca Dhuibhne.

Chuala mé na duine áitiúlaí ag ra as Gaeilge ina siopa i gCeann Tra. Bhi athas orm. Mar sin, labhairt mé cúpla focail ag an siopadóir. Dá bhrí sin, tá mé ag úsáidtear 'an teanga beo' sna trí Gaeltachtaí beagán.

Thiomaint muid go An Mórchuaird Chiarraí riamh. Gan amhras, bhí sé déas, ach is maith liom is fearr an bóthar is scannrúil triu an GPS. D'inis sin duinn ag dul an bealach taobh, Léim na tSagart. 

Tá sé anseo. Tú ábalta foghlaim faoi le Victoria Glendenning agus Gerard Lyne. Aimseagh athbreithnithe níos le lucht síuíl scanraithe!

Anois, bím i nArd Ó bhFicheallaigh in aice leis Cloich na Coillte. Amárach, beidh muid ag dul triu an cathair na gCorcaigh go dtí mBaile Ätha Cliath ar ais. Agus seo chugainn, feicfeimid an Iodail go luath.

Priest's Leap

We drove from Killyliss near Cootehill to another location near then. We stayed then in Co Monaghan with our friends Tony and Sinéad in Lisnafedeely near Carrickmacross during the feast of Samhain. They took us to see Inniskean with the grave of Patrick Kavanagh, and Carlingford. At their house that night, together we saw the half moon over their house, above the advancing mist in the fields. 

We spoke a lot, but that next morning, we had to go to Adare in Limerick. We saw a very lovely wood in Kilmainham around Kells. It is still autumn here. 

We met next our friends Bridie and Sean at their friendly pub in Adare. We stayed at their hotel next door too. Then, we went to Dunquin in West Kerry. 

I heard the local people talking in Irish in the shop in Ventry. I was happy. So, I spoke 'a bit of Irish' to the shopkeeper. Therefore, I've used 'the living language' in all three Irish-speaking regions now.

We drove the Ring of Kerry after. Sure, it is pretty, but I liked more the terrifying road via GPS. That told us to go a side road, Priest's Leap. 

Here it is. You can learn about it from Victoria Glendenning and Gerard Lyne. See more reviews  from terrified travellers !

Now, I'm in Ardfield near Clonakilty. Tomorrow, we will be going through the city of Cork to Dublin again. And then, we will see Italy soon. (Photo/grianghraf)

"Flann O'Brien & Modernism": Book Review

The Irish writer born as Brian Ó Nualláin and best known under one of his many assumed names as Flann O'Brien has long been championed as a harbinger of post-modernism. Literary scholars scrutinized his life as a Dublin newspaperman and his relatively few fictional publications as proof of his eccentric genius, if as a talent overshadowed by a predecessor he both cultivated and resented, James Joyce. Their conventional wisdom lamented Brian O'Nolan the journalist/ O'Brien the fabulist as succumbing to ennui, drink, and hackwork, squandering subversive skills premiered in the novels At Swim-Two-Birds and The Third Policeman at the end of the 1930s. His modernist credentials, by contrast, have often been diminished.

So claim the fourteen participants from a University of New South Wales seminar commemorating the 2011 centenary of O'Brien's birth. Choosing not to focus on his life as Brian O'Nolan but on his works under many names, usually that of Flann O'Brien, professors expand their papers into academic essays. As with Maebh Long's "Assembling Flann O'Brien" (reviewed by me as "Making Sense of Nonsense", 14 April 2014) from the same publisher earlier this year, a reader may wonder what the author, who so gleefully and bitterly lampooned scholarship, would make of so many studious, posthumous tributes.

As co-editor Rónán McDonald explains, Brian O'Nolan's works elude genre conventions. O'Nolan's refusal to stay pinned down transcends his career as a civil servant in Dublin during the middle of the last century. His occupation impelled his taking on other names to disguise his mockery of the Irish government, its bureaucracy, and their mission to make the Irish language one that English-speaking natives would be compelled to learn. Furthermore, O'Brien, who as Myles na gCopaleen also penned witty columns for the Irish Times, ridiculed his nation's clerical and lay authorities, the humbugs and scolds around him, and the dull "Plain People of Ireland". He refined this raw material by savage wit.

McDonald introduces his essay on The Third Policeman's nihilism by summing him up: "His views and attitudes are shrouded in irony, ambiguity, linguistic play, ingenious obfuscation. There is abundant satire in his novels, as in his journalism, though the po-faced scholasticism of Flann contrasts with the populist posture of Myles. He lampoons patriotic Gaels in An Béal Bocht, the mythologies of the Irish Revival in At Swim-Two-Birds, finicky academicians in The Third Policeman." He loved to put down pretentiousness but he shied away from confrontation. Flann was more bold than Myles; his various personae masked his eccentricities even as they encouraged them.

Certainly, as contributors emphasize, O'Brien's disguises allowed him to sidle into arcane and odd controversies which he incorporated into his experimental fiction. Sean Pryor examines the influence of St. Augustine, and how good needs evil so God's creations can appreciate better their happy times; John Attridge compliments this approach with a study of O'Brien's use of Augustine of Hippo. He is a central character as is James Joyce, both in altered form, in O'Brien's last novel, The Dalkey Archive, published two years before O'Nolan's death in 1966. Augustinian notions of "sociable lies" reveal a slippery quality, in ethics as well as characterization, which warps scholastic satire into twisted plots.

Instability inspires the next three essays. Stefan Solomon investigates the relative failure of O'Brien's theatrical efforts to convey what in At Swim-Two-Birds succeeded as a subversive revolt of its tetchy characters against their scheming author. Solomon and Stephen Abbitt, regarding Flann's tribute to and travesty of James Joyce, agree that O'Brien emerges as a "reluctant modernist", contrary to most academic predecessors who have preferred to situate him among post-modernist literary pioneers.

However, as David Kelly insists, O'Nolan's many guises shared an "innate faculty for finding things funny", anticipating the post-modernist, mid-twentieth century "literature of exhaustion". Flann's repetition of his material attests to his living late enough to deal with the trauma of the past century in a more detached, obsessive, and playful manner. After all, he did not have to relive the difficulties of the early century, Kelly avers. In his ludicrous and bizarre creations, Flann is instead a harbinger of his century's "generational shift" away from recreating torment. Instead, post-modernist authors tend to mock, invert, and tease the pain of isolation and the power of obsession, through parody or irony.

These selections examine certain works from O'Nolan's varieties of names and works, but they bypass many others. The three novels cited above by McDonald garner most attention, but The Hard Life: An Exegesis of Squalor (1961), considered his weakest novel, gets two asides. As with Myles' prolific newspaper columns, under-examined here, a study of the strained attempts at satire in O'Nolan's later career, writing as Flann, might have balanced the general acclaim granted by contributors to his successful works. One needs to know where and how O'Nolan lost the plot.

The next set of entries roam into the linguistic methods employed by Flann O'Brien. Maebh Long  repeats some material from her recent book. She focuses here upon An Béal Bocht, to show how Flann's use of the Irish language addresses, or subverts, vexing preoccupations of naming and identity among conflicting Irish-speaking cohorts. Long compares Patrick Powers' 1973 translation as The Poor Mouth of this novel, by Myles na gCopaleen; her essay ends a bit eccentrically, if fittingly for this material, which evades cohesion even for the Irish-fluent reader, undoubtedly as its intention.

A peer of O'Nolan's, the poet Patrick Kavanagh, also jeered at the Irish government's propaganda about the doughty Gaelic peasant. Joseph Brooker compares Kavanagh's approach with O'Brien's.   Kavanagh and O'Brien's predecessors, Samuel Beckett and Joyce, connect via O'Nolan's marginalia in his copies of their works, as Dirk Van Hulle explains. These authors share an interest in parallax, "Chinese boxes" as nested narratives, and regression in theme and structure in their literary creations.

Regression and mathematical patterns via numerology in At Swim-Two-Birds, as Baylee Brits demonstrates, document O'Brien's scientific and technological interests, in the next section of essays. The coupling of mechanical devices and eerie inventions within The Third Policeman, as McDonald shows, represents darker corners of O'Brien's textual labyrinths, which continue to disorient readers.
The pull into infinity and regression reveals the abysmal and the dismal; co-editor Julian Murphet charts the tension between Myles the journalist and Flann the fabulist as he conjures up pataphysics and other esoteric send-ups of rational analysis, within O'Brien's fictions exposing a psychic death drive. The compulsions many of his characters exhibit pushes their pursuits beyond entertainment.

This aspect, the haunted quality within this troubled writer, does not earn the biographical context which Anthony Cronin's 1989 biography, No Laughing Matter, treated with compassion and insight. But, readers familiar with O'Brien's life and works already (a prerequisite, as little more than a nod to this background is given by the contributors or editors) will learn from Sam Dickson about Flann's propensity for fictions full of "hard drink". This compliments co-editor Sascha Morrell's congenial foray, as she aligns O'Brien's treatment of alcohol with the Australian writer Frank Moorhouse's The Electrical Experience: A Discontinuous Narrative (1974), about a soft drink maker Down Under. Culture and commodity feature here and in the final two, atypically off-beat (even by O'Nolan's standards) essays revealing Flann's range and curiosity. 

Mark Steven examines "aestho-autonomy" through At Swim-Two-Birds' Dermot Trellis. Trellis seeks solitude, to pursue masturbation. Steven frames this ambition as a "formal and narrative act", thus indicative of the political and economic stagnation in the new Irish Free State for which O'Nolan labored. Physical exertion, onanism, gender roles, and male potency also seeped into none other than the bicycle seat, as that machine and its rider merged, in O'Brien's The Third Policeman in forms that this short review cannot elucidate. Suffice to say that these learned essays may encourage the reader to take down O'Brien from the bookshelf. After perusing the ruminations of a coterie of his critics, why not enter, for the first time or another time, into the fictions of Flann O'Brien, Myles na gCopaleen, and various odd characters his writer wrote as, and about? The Irish labyrinth awaits you. (10-1-14 to  PopMatters)

Chapter 1 Making Evil, with Flann O’Brien
Sean Pryor, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 2 Mythomaniac modernism: lying and bullshit in Flann O’Brien
John Attridge, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 3 ‘The outward accidents of illusion’: O’Brien and the Theatrical
Stefan Solomon, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 4 The Ghost of ‘Poor Jimmy Joyce’: A Portrait of the Artist as a Reluctant Modernist
Stephen Abblitt, La Trobe University, Australia

Chapter 5 ‘Do You Know What I’m Going to Tell You?’: Flann O’Brien, Risibility and the Anxiety of Influence
David Kelly, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 6 An Béal Bocht, Translation and the Proper Name
Maebh Long, University of the South Pacific, Fiji

Chapter 7 Ploughmen Without Land: Flann O’Brien and Patrick Kavanagh
Joseph Brooker, University of London, United Kingdom

Chapter 8 Flann O’Brien’s Ulysses: Marginalia and the Modernist Mind
Dirk Van Hulle, University of Antwerp, Belgium


Chapter 9 ‘Truth is an Odd Number’: Flann O’Brien and Infinite Imperfection
Baylee Brits, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 10 ‘An astonishing parade of nullity’: Nihilism in The Third Policeman
Rónán McDonald, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 11 Flann O’Brien and Modern Character
Julian Murphet, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 12 ‘No unauthorized boozing’: Flann O’Brien and the Thirsty Muse
Sam Dickson

Chapter 13 Soft drink, hard drink, and literary (re)production in Flann O’Brien and Frank Moorhouse
Sascha Morrell, University of New England, Australia

Chapter 14 Flann O’Brien’s Aestho-Autogamy
Mark Steven, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 15 Modernist Wheelmen
Mark Byron, University of Sydney, Australia - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/flann-obrien-modernism-9781623568504/#sthash.Z1ncj15a.dpu

Chapter 1 Making Evil, with Flann O’Brien
Sean Pryor, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 2 Mythomaniac modernism: lying and bullshit in Flann O’Brien
John Attridge, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 3 ‘The outward accidents of illusion’: O’Brien and the Theatrical
Stefan Solomon, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 4 The Ghost of ‘Poor Jimmy Joyce’: A Portrait of the Artist as a Reluctant Modernist
Stephen Abblitt, La Trobe University, Australia

Chapter 5 ‘Do You Know What I’m Going to Tell You?’: Flann O’Brien, Risibility and the Anxiety of Influence
David Kelly, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 6 An Béal Bocht, Translation and the Proper Name
Maebh Long, University of the South Pacific, Fiji

Chapter 7 Ploughmen Without Land: Flann O’Brien and Patrick Kavanagh
Joseph Brooker, University of London, United Kingdom

Chapter 8 Flann O’Brien’s Ulysses: Marginalia and the Modernist Mind
Dirk Van Hulle, University of Antwerp, Belgium


Chapter 9 ‘Truth is an Odd Number’: Flann O’Brien and Infinite Imperfection
Baylee Brits, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 10 ‘An astonishing parade of nullity’: Nihilism in The Third Policeman
Rónán McDonald, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 11 Flann O’Brien and Modern Character
Julian Murphet, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 12 ‘No unauthorized boozing’: Flann O’Brien and the Thirsty Muse
Sam Dickson

Chapter 13 Soft drink, hard drink, and literary (re)production in Flann O’Brien and Frank Moorhouse
Sascha Morrell, University of New England, Australia

Chapter 14 Flann O’Brien’s Aestho-Autogamy
Mark Steven, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 15 Modernist Wheelmen
Mark Byron, University of Sydney, Australia - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/flann-obrien-modernism-9781623568504/#sthash.Z1ncj15a.dpuf

Chapter 1 Making Evil, with Flann O’Brien
Sean Pryor, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 2 Mythomaniac modernism: lying and bullshit in Flann O’Brien
John Attridge, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 3 ‘The outward accidents of illusion’: O’Brien and the Theatrical
Stefan Solomon, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 4 The Ghost of ‘Poor Jimmy Joyce’: A Portrait of the Artist as a Reluctant Modernist
Stephen Abblitt, La Trobe University, Australia

Chapter 5 ‘Do You Know What I’m Going to Tell You?’: Flann O’Brien, Risibility and the Anxiety of Influence
David Kelly, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 6 An Béal Bocht, Translation and the Proper Name
Maebh Long, University of the South Pacific, Fiji

Chapter 7 Ploughmen Without Land: Flann O’Brien and Patrick Kavanagh
Joseph Brooker, University of London, United Kingdom

Chapter 8 Flann O’Brien’s Ulysses: Marginalia and the Modernist Mind
Dirk Van Hulle, University of Antwerp, Belgium


Chapter 9 ‘Truth is an Odd Number’: Flann O’Brien and Infinite Imperfection
Baylee Brits, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 10 ‘An astonishing parade of nullity’: Nihilism in The Third Policeman
Rónán McDonald, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 11 Flann O’Brien and Modern Character
Julian Murphet, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 12 ‘No unauthorized boozing’: Flann O’Brien and the Thirsty Muse
Sam Dickson

Chapter 13 Soft drink, hard drink, and literary (re)production in Flann O’Brien and Frank Moorhouse
Sascha Morrell, University of New England, Australia

Chapter 14 Flann O’Brien’s Aestho-Autogamy
Mark Steven, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 15 Modernist Wheelmen
Mark Byron, University of Sydney, Australia - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/flann-obrien-modernism-9781623568504/#sthash.Z1ncj15a.dpuf

Chapter 1 Making Evil, with Flann O’Brien
Sean Pryor, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 2 Mythomaniac modernism: lying and bullshit in Flann O’Brien
John Attridge, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 3 ‘The outward accidents of illusion’: O’Brien and the Theatrical
Stefan Solomon, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 4 The Ghost of ‘Poor Jimmy Joyce’: A Portrait of the Artist as a Reluctant Modernist
Stephen Abblitt, La Trobe University, Australia

Chapter 5 ‘Do You Know What I’m Going to Tell You?’: Flann O’Brien, Risibility and the Anxiety of Influence
David Kelly, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 6 An Béal Bocht, Translation and the Proper Name
Maebh Long, University of the South Pacific, Fiji

Chapter 7 Ploughmen Without Land: Flann O’Brien and Patrick Kavanagh
Joseph Brooker, University of London, United Kingdom

Chapter 8 Flann O’Brien’s Ulysses: Marginalia and the Modernist Mind
Dirk Van Hulle, University of Antwerp, Belgium


Chapter 9 ‘Truth is an Odd Number’: Flann O’Brien and Infinite Imperfection
Baylee Brits, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 10 ‘An astonishing parade of nullity’: Nihilism in The Third Policeman
Rónán McDonald, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 11 Flann O’Brien and Modern Character
Julian Murphet, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 12 ‘No unauthorized boozing’: Flann O’Brien and the Thirsty Muse
Sam Dickson

Chapter 13 Soft drink, hard drink, and literary (re)production in Flann O’Brien and Frank Moorhouse
Sascha Morrell, University of New England, Australia

Chapter 14 Flann O’Brien’s Aestho-Autogamy
Mark Steven, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 15 Modernist Wheelmen
Mark Byron, University of Sydney, Australia - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/flann-obrien-modernism-9781623568504/#sthash.Z1ncj15a.dpuf

Chapter 1 Making Evil, with Flann O’Brien
Sean Pryor, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 2 Mythomaniac modernism: lying and bullshit in Flann O’Brien
John Attridge, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 3 ‘The outward accidents of illusion’: O’Brien and the Theatrical
Stefan Solomon, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 4 The Ghost of ‘Poor Jimmy Joyce’: A Portrait of the Artist as a Reluctant Modernist
Stephen Abblitt, La Trobe University, Australia

Chapter 5 ‘Do You Know What I’m Going to Tell You?’: Flann O’Brien, Risibility and the Anxiety of Influence
David Kelly, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 6 An Béal Bocht, Translation and the Proper Name
Maebh Long, University of the South Pacific, Fiji

Chapter 7 Ploughmen Without Land: Flann O’Brien and Patrick Kavanagh
Joseph Brooker, University of London, United Kingdom

Chapter 8 Flann O’Brien’s Ulysses: Marginalia and the Modernist Mind
Dirk Van Hulle, University of Antwerp, Belgium


Chapter 9 ‘Truth is an Odd Number’: Flann O’Brien and Infinite Imperfection
Baylee Brits, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 10 ‘An astonishing parade of nullity’: Nihilism in The Third Policeman
Rónán McDonald, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 11 Flann O’Brien and Modern Character
Julian Murphet, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 12 ‘No unauthorized boozing’: Flann O’Brien and the Thirsty Muse
Sam Dickson

Chapter 13 Soft drink, hard drink, and literary (re)production in Flann O’Brien and Frank Moorhouse
Sascha Morrell, University of New England, Australia

Chapter 14 Flann O’Brien’s Aestho-Autogamy
Mark Steven, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 15 Modernist Wheelmen
Mark Byron, University of Sydney, Australia - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/flann-obrien-modernism-9781623568504/#sthash.58blLTNi.dpuf

Chapter 1 Making Evil, with Flann O’Brien
Sean Pryor, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 2 Mythomaniac modernism: lying and bullshit in Flann O’Brien
John Attridge, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 3 ‘The outward accidents of illusion’: O’Brien and the Theatrical
Stefan Solomon, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 4 The Ghost of ‘Poor Jimmy Joyce’: A Portrait of the Artist as a Reluctant Modernist
Stephen Abblitt, La Trobe University, Australia

Chapter 5 ‘Do You Know What I’m Going to Tell You?’: Flann O’Brien, Risibility and the Anxiety of Influence
David Kelly, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 6 An Béal Bocht, Translation and the Proper Name
Maebh Long, University of the South Pacific, Fiji

Chapter 7 Ploughmen Without Land: Flann O’Brien and Patrick Kavanagh
Joseph Brooker, University of London, United Kingdom

Chapter 8 Flann O’Brien’s Ulysses: Marginalia and the Modernist Mind
Dirk Van Hulle, University of Antwerp, Belgium


Chapter 9 ‘Truth is an Odd Number’: Flann O’Brien and Infinite Imperfection
Baylee Brits, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 10 ‘An astonishing parade of nullity’: Nihilism in The Third Policeman
Rónán McDonald, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 11 Flann O’Brien and Modern Character
Julian Murphet, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 12 ‘No unauthorized boozing’: Flann O’Brien and the Thirsty Muse
Sam Dickson

Chapter 13 Soft drink, hard drink, and literary (re)production in Flann O’Brien and Frank Moorhouse
Sascha Morrell, University of New England, Australia

Chapter 14 Flann O’Brien’s Aestho-Autogamy
Mark Steven, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 15 Modernist Wheelmen
Mark Byron, University of Sydney, Australia - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/flann-obrien-modernism-9781623568504/#sthash.58blLTNi.dpuf