“Éistear le mo ghlór!”: Máirtín Ó Cadhain’s Cré na Cille and postcolonial modernisms

ABSTRACT

Since 2015, there have been two English language translations of Máirtín Ó Cadhain’s most acclaimed novel, Cré na Cille. Now that his work is available to a larger readership than ever before, it is an opportune moment to revaluate Ó Cadhain’s position within Irish literary space, and to investigate how his work is received in contexts outside of Ireland. His most celebrated novel is deeply rooted in the Irish language literary tradition, while also containing transnational modernist elements; indeed, it extends the remit of what constitutes modernist literary production, while concurrently problematising traditional definitions of modernist writing. Considering the postcolonial and minority language contexts in which Ó Cadhain was operating, a more nuanced critical terminology is needed to negotiate between the specific cultural and linguistic origins of his work and its interaction with the broader transnational modernist canon. A concept like “postcolonial modernism” can enhance understandings of modernist literary production in general, and literary production during Ireland’s postcolonial moment in particular.

KEYWORDS:

• Cré na Cille
• Máirtín Ó Cadhain
• Irish language
• world literature
• postcolonialism

Notes

1. Cf. The Dirty Dust, translated by Alan Titley in 2015; and Graveyard Clay, translated by Liam Mac Con Iomaire and Tim Robinson in 2016. For the sake of consistency, translations will be provided from Graveyard Clay.

2. Mao and Walkowitz, “The New Modernist Studies,” 738.

3. Kiberd, “Joyce’s Ellmann, Ellmann’s Joyce,” 247.

4. Mac an tSaoir, “Cré na Cille,” 7.

5. Greene, Writing in Irish Today, 44.

6. Ó Tuama, “The Other Tradition,” 43.

7. Ó Tuairisc, The Road to Brightcity, 12.

8. See Ó Tuama, “Samuel Beckett, Éireannach,” 37–41; Kiberd, “Ó Cadhain agus Beckett,” 234–52; “All the Dead Voices,” 574–89; and Ó Háinle, “Ó Cadhain, An Rí Séamas II,” 7–37.

9. Pádraigín Riggs, “Irish Prose Fiction,” 247.

10. De Paor, “Irish Language Modernisms,” 161.

11. Ó Cadhain, Páipéir Bhána, 40.

12. McCrea, Languages of the Night, 17.

13. Ibid., 17–18.

14. See Ó Háinle, “An tÚrscéal nár Tháinig,” 74–98; and Titley, An tÚrscéal Gaeilge, 39–63.

15. Ó Cadhain, “Irish Prose in the Twentieth Century,” 144.

16. Mac Piarais, “About Literature” (26 May 1906).

17. See O’Leary, The Prose Literature of the Gaelic Revival, 19–90.

18. De hIndeberg, “Revival Irish” (6 February 1909).

19. See O’Brien, Filíocht Ghaeilge na Linne Seo, 36.

20. Ó Cadhain, Páipéir Bhána, 41.

21. Ó Cadhain, Páipéir Bhána, passim.

22. Ó hEithir, “Cré na Cille,” 72.

23. Kiberd, “Ó Cadhain agus Beckett,” 252.

24. Dobbins, Lazy Idle Schemers, 5.

25. Titley, “An Teanga Eile Leath-Leis,” 64.

26. For further biographical details, see: Ó Cathasaigh, Ag Samhlú Troda; Costigan and Ó Curraoin, De Ghlaschloich an Oileáin.

27. Ó Cadhain, Páipéir Bhána, 7.

28. Ibid., 30.

29. Ó Cadhain, Gluaiseacht na Gaeilge, 10.

30. Ó hÉigeartaigh, “Politics and Literature,” 29.

31. See Ó Tuama, “A Writer’s Testament,” 212–18; and De Paor, “Riastradh na Scéalaíochta,” 51–4.

32. In the preface to his 2008 translation of Pedro Páramo, Tomás Mac Síomóin draws a direct comparison to Cré na Cille (3). For more comparisons between Ó Cadhain and Rulfo, see Finnegan, “Voice, Authority, and the Destruction of Community.”

33. Ó Cadhain, Páipéir Bhána, 26.

34. Ó Broin, “A Narratalogical Approach,” 288.

35. Ó Cadhain, Cré na Cille, 163.

36. Ó Cadhain, Graveyard Clay, 137.

37. Ó Broin, “A Narratological Approach,” 284.

38. Denvir, “Béal Beo nó Béal Marbh,” 51–3.

39. Ó Cadhain, Cré na Cille, 81.

40. Ó Cadhain, Graveyard Clay, 65.

41. Ó Cadhain, Cré na Cille, 82.

42. Ó Cadhain, Graveyard Clay, 66.

43. See note 40 above.

44. See note 41 above.

45. Corkery, “Cré na Cille,” 14.

46. Kiberd, “All the Dead Voices,” 584.

47. Ní Gháirbhí, “‘Deacracht’ Cré na Cille,” 51.

48. Ibid., 50–1.

49. Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 79.

50. Dobbins, Lazy Idly Schemers, 201.

51. Cf. McMullen’s examination of the politics of form in At Swim-Two-Birds in “Culture as Colloquy,” 75.

52. Quigley, Empire’s Wake, 8.

53. Ibid., 9.

54. Kundera, “Die Weltliteratur,” 293.

55. A timely and curious text for comparison with Cré na Cille would be George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo, which was awarded the 2017 Man Booker Prize. Like Cré na Cille, all the characters are dead and the text is presented as fragments of dialogue from a chorus of voices.

56. Ó Cadhain, “Irish Prose in the Twentieth Century,” 151.