Translating Contemporary Irish Language Poetry

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Notes

1. Seamus Heaney (b. Mossbawn, Co. Derry, 1939), Nobel prize-winning poet, critic, dramatist and translator. Brian Friel (b.Omagh, Co. Tyrone, 1929), award-winning dramatist. Ciaran Carson (b. Belfast 1948), poet and translator, Professor of Poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre in Queen's University Belfast. Frank McGuinness (b. Buncrana, Co. Donegal, 1953), dramatist and academic.

2. Dermot Bolger (b. Finglas, Dublin 1959), dramatist, novelist, poet, anthologist, publisher, founder of the Raven Arts Press. Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill (b. 1952), poet born in Lancashire, she moved to Ireland at the age of five and was brought up in the Kerry Gaeltacht; a graduate of UCC, she was Ireland Professor of Poetry from 2001 to 2003. Louis de Paor (b. Cork, 1961), UCC graduate, poet and currently Director of the Centre for Irish Studies at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

3. Seán Ó Tuama (1926–2006), Professor of Irish at UCC, poet, dramatist, critic; co-editor with Thomas Kinsella of the remarkable bilingual anthology An Duanaire Poems of the Dispossed; Ó Tuama also lobbied in the public sphere for the rights of the Irish language. Seán Ó Ríordáin (1917-1977), born in Gaeltacht Mhuscraí in West Cork; Ó Ríordáin wrote poetry in Irish and is considered to be one of the finest modern Irish poets. His poetry is characterised by existentialist themes. In 1967 he was appointed to a part-time lecturing position in UCC.

4. Michael Davitt (1950–2005) Poet and broadcaster. Gabriel Rosenstock (b. Kilfinane, Co. Limerick, 1949). Studied at UCC. Poet, translator, editor.

5. Liam Ó Muirthile, (b. Cork 1950), UCC graduate, poet, dramatist, broadcaster.

6. Biddy Jenkinson is the pseudonym of a poet who writes in Irish and who prefers to keep her identity private. Several award-winning collections of hers have been published by Coiscéim, Dublin. In a famous open letter to the editor of The Irish University Review she explained her reasons for not wanting to be translated into English: ‘I prefer not to be translated into English in Ireland. It is a small rude gesture to those who think that everything can be harvested and stored without loss in an English-speaking Ireland’. Performance poet Gearóid Mac Lochlainn has expressed his annoyance in verse with Irish people who wait for things to be translated.

7. I am grateful to Aodhán Mac Póilín for drawing my attention to this fact.