The Death of Imagination

Tá an cúrsa Pimsleur críochnaithe agam fé dheireadh. Anois tá a fhios agam conas cailíní a fháil sa Daingean. Níl aon tuairim agam cathain a bhead ábalta feidhm a bhuint as an gcleas nua so.

Ar déanamh spaisteoireacht dom tráthnóna aniubh do bhíos ag iarraidh abairtí a cheapadh agus cuireadh léan orm leis an moille a bhí orm. Do gheóbhadh an comhráití níos foighní go deo an bás fadálach ag feitheamh le m'fhreagartha.

Tá an méid sin tuirse i gcónaí orm sna laethanta deireanacha so ná fuil aon rud suimiúil a rá agam. Cad é atá le déanamh? Deinim iarracht ar dea-roghanna a dhéanamh agus is cuma sa diabhal é. D'itheas bia tláith iné agus daigh chroí mhillteanach orm dá ainneaoin sin. Tá dóchas tabhairt suas agam.

Cheannaíos nua-phéire bróg aniogh. Do bhí an seana-phéire ag titim as a chéile. Bhí na boinn leathscartha agus d'fhéad uisce gbháil isteach ann gur dhíoscadar ar bheith ag siúl dom. Chuas an uair seo go siopa bróg ceart is díoltóirí go bhfuil an taithí acu ann in ionad shiopa lacáiste, ach gan an iomarca airgid a chaitheamh. (Tharla gur shaorchonradh é an péire b'fhearr liom--agus táid siad díonach ar uisce thairis sin!)

Fiú! Tá an DVD i gcuideachta Speaking Irish aimsithe agam fé dheireadh. Ba chuimhin liom go bhfaca mé ar sheilf san oifig é, ach gan chuimhne ar cioca seilf. Ach bhí an t-ádh orm agus ní fada gur ghá dhom é a lorg. Táim t'réis féachaint air agus cuireann brón orm a laghad a thuigim ann.

I just counted up the chapter subsections in Dialann deoraí and found that I've read nine out of eighty-eight. So keeping with my original plan of reading one on each leg of my daily commute, it will take me until the end of October to read them all. Hopefully I'll be able to knock off some bigger chunks on weekends and I'll be reading at a faster rate as I near the end. What gives me hope is that, like most authors, Mac Amhlaigh has a lot of consecrated phrases he falls back on frequently. Some of these were baffling to me at first (I don't think I've ever seen a dhath [lit. "its colour"] used to mean "nothing" before), but now I only need to pause and recall them. Hopefully I'll soon be passing over them without a second thought.

Another thing which helps is that the setting could not be more straightforward: Ordinary Irish bloke goes to England to find work in the 50s. This avoids one of the issues I've been having with Ó Flaitheartaigh's short stories, which is that each one concerns a different set of actors (sometimes none of them human) in a different context. Combine that with his somewhat laconic descriptions and it can be a struggle sometimes to determine just what the hell is going on. The downside, of course, is that unless your man has some hella interesting stories to tell from his various building sites and what-not, I might be getting bored sooner rather than later.

Chuas go dtí an tráigh aniogh. Do bhí an aimsir ar fheabhas: do bhí grian ann agus brothall ar an lá ach beochan lách gaoithe leis. Agus gach éinne ansan. Ar éigean dob'fhéidir teacht suas le héinne. Dúradh liom go raibh na Doirigh ansan achnní bhfuaireas amharc orthu.

Tá an t-Earrach i láthair, ar feadh lae amháin ar a laghad. Tá mo chuid dinéir ite agam ar imeall an mhurlaigh agus na lonta dubha ag caint ina gcuid timpeall orm. Luigh faoileán ar lampa sráide ar m'aghaidh agus thosnaigh sé ag leogaint grág. Ag iarraidh a choda bhí sé? Nú ní raibh ar intinn aige ach é féin a chur in iúl? Ní raibh pioc agam le tabhairt do, ar aon chuma.

Only fifty pages of Famine left, so soon I'll be in the position to post a final review. For the nonce, I'd like to comment on O'Flaherty's use of language. At the time the Famine, Irish-speakers were still the majority in Ireland. The percentage varied, but it was highest in Connacht, where the action of the novel is set. (Even though all local placenames in the story are invented, geographical references place it in Connemara. Ireland's central plain begins just to the east of the "Black Valley" inhabited by the protagonists while the shore is less than a day's walk away and County Mayo lies less than three day's walk to the north.)

The proportion of Irish-speaking monoglots in the rural West was still rather high, but curiously there's no reference to any communication difficulties between any of the characters and various English-speaking outsiders, such as the landlord's representative or the Quakers who seek to organise a relief effort. Language is never explicitly mentioned at all, which is particularly surprising given what an emotive issue it is in Ireland generally. Perhaps this in itself is reason to avoid it in order not to distract from the central tragedy, but the author doesn't shy away from addressing other volatile political issues in the text.

But even though English is used throughout, it's not the same sort of English, which leads me to believe that O'Flaherty may be signalling which conversations take place in Irish by rendering them in Hiberno-English (the form of Irish English historically used by those whose native language was Irish). O'Flaherty himself was a fluent native speaker of Irish and also produced prose in it, so it would've been possible for him to compose these dialogues in Irish and then translate them semi-literally into English.

Of course, forms of Hiberno-English continued to be spoken by the less-educated even after Irish ceased to be the language of daily life. O'Flaherty has his peasant characters say, "The hunger is upon us!" (i.e. "Tá an t-ocras orainn!") both in the presence of their neighbours and when appealing to the kindness of foreigners. And he writes asthore (a phonetic rendering of a stór "my treasure", a common term of endearment) in contexts where one would expect the vernacular to be Irish rather than English.

Despite the apparent inconsistencies, I still find this the most satisfying explanation. It's not without its problems, though, as it exoticises the speech of the peasants to a degree which can be comic. Perhaps I should blame John Synge, who made extensive use of Hiberno-English in his works, for that association. But it's there and plays right into common stereotypes which prevent the reader from perceiving the the full humanity of the characters.

It's also a barrier to comprehension for the non-Irish reader. With the knowledge of Irish that is at me, small it be, it's little the trouble I have with the unusual syntactic constructions in it. But even I would be lost at times if not for Dolan's trusty dictionary to explain such relics as "kish" (cis "wicker basket"), "pookaun" (púcán "small open boat"), and "sorra" (alteration of sorrow, apparently corresponding in usage to Irish tubaiste).

Tá fonn orm cuntas a thabhairt ar an dtráthnóna a chaitheas ag an Irish-American Heritage Center i Mayfair, ach táim ciaptha leis an bhfíocas i láthair na huaire. Is féidir go mbead in ann amáireach, t'réis greasa mathaithe nó dhá cheann.