Seosamh Mac Grianna (1901-90)

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Commentary
Roibeard Ó Faracháin, ‘Seosamh Mac Grianna’, review of Mo Bhealach Fein, in The Bell, 1, 2 (Nov. 1940), p.64: ‘There have not been many Gaelic writers since Ó Conaire, if by wrter we mean someone with sensibility, imagination, word-gift, control of a medium, fertility. [... A]ll those gifts I required above in a writer Mac Grianna has in abundance. Apply them to rich adventures and audacious escapades, and if the book is not translated the loss will be that of the rest of the world.’ Comments: on author’s description of travels in Wales: ‘Father Denis O’Flynn has written graphically of the miserable condition of the dispossessed Irishman who has no native measure to lay upon the things he sees in strange countries. Mac Grianna was no such man in Wales. It is most striking to see how his integral Gaelic world interprets this new land and people to him. / Another sense must be added to those above mentioned. It is explicit in this book as it is in another – Pádraic Ó Conaire agus aisti eile. I mean the sense of comparative isolation from contemporary Ireland, the double isolation, indeed, of the man born to the language of the minority, and born as well to artistic endeavour in that language. Those senses gave him stability: this gives him the ferment within the stability. (p.66.) ‘[Mac Grianna’s first book, Eoghan Ruadh] showed he had an open ear and eye for the methods of writers outside, as well as inside Ireland , particularly for those things in their technique which harmonised with traditional Gaelic writing and yet was contemporary.’ Further, ‘Mac Grianna has here achieved a style in Ulster Irish which preserves its vigour and at the same time smooths, refines, and subtilizes it.’ (p.67.) Critiquing Dá mbiodh ruball ar éan [novel], Ó Faracháin writes: ‘In mood and texture it reminded me constantly of French novelists, now of Mauriac’s Noeud de Vipères, again of Duchamel. This style, with all the substance which has made it and for which it has been made, I take to be one of the indisputable achievements of modern Gaelic letters.’ (Text supplied by Kelly Matthews, UU DPhil. preparations, 2006.)

Alan Titley, review of Brendán Delap, Úrscealte Stairiúla na Gaeilge (Baile Átha Cliath: An Clóchomhar 1994), in Irish Times (1 Oct. 1994), [q.p.]; cites the author’s remark that ‘indulged his passions in the wars of the 17th century’ in his novel on Eoghan Rua Ó Néill.

Alan Titley, ‘Unfavourite Son’, review of Pól Ó Muirí, A Flight from Shadow: The Life and Works of Seosamh Mac Grianna, in Books Ireland (March 2000): ‘Pól Ó Muirí has done the courageous and unusual thing in this book of attempting to explain the life and times of one of the most important Irish prose writers of the last century, and of doing this in English. [...] There are, of course, problems with Seosamh Mac Grianna himself which this book does not shirk. He was a modernist who wanted to stay in a time-warp of the seventeenth century. He was a passionate romantic who teetered over into individualistic anarchism. He believed in state intervention in literary projects but hated An Gúm. He earned a lot of money from his writings but played the poor mouth. He was generous but cantankerous. He loved his own dialect but sought to expand and reinvent it. He was clearheaded and motivated but was a mad as the day is long. / It is difficult to disentange all these threads. Mac Grianna didn’t make it easy for his critics. At his best his prose is wild and imaginative and thrilling, at his worst he just misses the mark and plays a plonker. In between, he makes noises about the importance of the artist and the place of the artist and the role of the artist, but like the recently-deceased Francis Stuart never quite tells us or reveals to us what that importance is. But he comes very close. There are passages in Mo Bhealach Féin which are illuminating, and something big was about to happen in his unfinished novel Dá mbíodh ruball ar an éan. He was developing a style which nobody had ever done before in Irish, a [65] style which was native, idiomatic, hard, urban, flexible, imaginative and personal. Máirtín Ó Cadhain (who had more to say) came close some years later, but not as spot-on as Mac Grianna. [...] / One of the main strengths of the book is its clear explication of the cultural/literary debates of the time, and of Mac Grianna’s part in them. These debates had to do with the politics of the Irish language and the Irish literature in which Mac Grianna was deeply involved. They tell us of the lively and sometimes vituperative discussions that took place between the modernists and the traditionalists, while Mac Grianna bestrode his own independent line between the two. The book, therefore, is a work of cultural history as much as a critical biography [...] [Ó Muirí] describes Mac Grianna’s life using the known and lesser-known sources. His was a tragic life, if by tragic we mean a life that was artistically unfulfilled and obviously personally troubled. He took on the mantle of the bohemian and lived it out to its bitter conclusion. There was certainly nothing romantic about his months of wandering or his years of living in a disused house and picking discarded cigarette-butts from the street.’ (p.66.)

Fionntán de Brún, review of A Flight from Shadow: Life and Work of Seosamh Mac Grianna (Lagan 1999), in Fortnight [Belfast] (April 2000), pp.29-30; refers to Mac Grianna’s unfinished novel, Dá mBíodh Ruball ar an Éan [If the Brid had a Tail] (1991), which he abandoned as his mental health deteriorated, writing, ‘The well ran dry in the summer of 1935. I will write no more. I did my best and I don’t care’; remarks that the novel is ironically his best, and that MacGrianna claimed to have finished it in St. Connall’s hospital, but that the whereabouts of the MS are unknown. (p.30.)

Caitríona MacKernan, review of The Big Drum, trans. by A. J. Hughes (2009), in Books Ireland (Summer 2010), p.133: ‘[...] In this true-to-life tragic-comic novel, the competing bands, drummers and musicians practised marching and music for weeks before St Patrick’s Day. The musical instruments were collectively known as “the Drum”. Allocating these instruments was not easy, as each man thought the flute, triangle or drum another man got was better than his. Gold-braided uniforms with green sashes and epaulettes and ornate banners vied for attention. In the first St Patrick’s day parade described by Mac Grianna, a huge banner with St Patrick on one side and Daniel O’Connell on the otherwas carried aloft, the choice of the Redmondite Ancient Order of Hibernians. A few years later, the banner still bore Patrick, but with Pddraic Pearse on the other side, the choice of the ascendant Sons of St Patrick. / The spite, cuteness and intrigue of Proinnsios Bheadóige, the main character of the novel, made or unmade the bands, the local participants and eventually Proinnsios Bhead6ige himself. He had an unfortunate childhood. Like other poor children in the area, he was hired out in the ‘Cagan’ for three years after the death of his father. He failed to catch up later on at school, was beaten so much by his teacher and teased by other boys because of a gammy leg that he returned to the Cagan, and later on went to Scotland. / On his return home, determined to better himself, his efforts at self-instruction and aggrandisement drew more mockery. His malapropisms such as “That’s the geometrical situation,” or “The Church is down on them. Wasn’t a papal encyclopaedia issued?” earned him the nickname of ‘Proinnsios of the convoluted English’. He bounced back, speaking Irish to the parish priest, not a gaeilgoir. This advantaged him when seeking the school for a St Patrick’s night dance for his Sons of St Patrick thereby retaliating against the AOH, who had pointedly refused membership to him, despite its strong drive for recruits. He became the ringleader of the “Sons” “organising a nocturnal grab of a drum from the Friendly Sons, and sponsoring an eighteen year-old to become the best drummer of all. / At the same time, he mastered speaking “pleasantly to everyone and ... was so measured that that no one could fault him ... a true politician ... appear[ing] knowledgeable without being over-talkative”. But a new opportunity to mock him was around the corner ...’ (p.133.) MacKernan has praise for ‘this stylish and faithful translation’, regrets that the novel was so long coming into English and considers it ‘well worth waiting for’.

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Quotations
Really Irish: ‘Joyce, O’Casey, O’Flaherty, &c., are, it must be admitted, really Irish. They could have been writers of value to Irish literature. But there is no such hope that Shaw can ever mean anything to us … Shaw is a complete alien, like his intellectual forebears, Wilde, Goldsmith, Sheridan, Burke, [41], Steele and Swift. They are the writers of the West Britons. Their writings mean no more to Ireland’s literary history than the campaigns of the Duke of Wellington and the campaigns of Kitchener and French mean to Ireland’s military and political history.’ (‘West British and Anglo-Irish Literature’, in An Phoblacht, 18 June 1916; cited in Gearóid O’Flaherty, ‘George Bernard Shaw and the Irish Literary Revival’, in P. J. Mathews, ed., New Voices in Irish Criticism, ed. P. J. Mathews Four Courts Press 2000, pp.33-42; p.41-42.)

The bitter sea: ‘[N]o literature in Irish is worth reading [...] no Gaelic writer [is] worthy of being called a writer. Everything of any value is across the Irish Sea.’ (Quoted in Philip O’Leary, Gaelic Prose in the Irish Free State, 1922-1939 , UCD Press, 2004; quoted by Kevin Kiely, review, in Books Ireland, Nov. 2004, p.263.)

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References
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 3, selects “Ar an Trá Fhoilimh/On the Empty Shore”, from An Grá agus an Ghruaim [845-49]; REMS, 816; BIOG. 933.

British Library holds An Bhreatain Beag (Dublin: Oifig Díolta Foillseacáin Ríaltais 1937), 153pp.; Mo Bhealach Féin, Seosamh Mac Grianna (Oifig an tSoláthair 1940; 1941, 1945, 1968), 173pp.; Eogan Rua O’Neill [?by Sean O’Faolain] (Oifig Díolta Foillseacáin Ríaltais 1931), 212pp.; A Grádh agus a Ghruaim (Oifig an tSoláthair, Muinntir C. S. Ó Fallamhain 1929), 124pp. [9 pieces]; another ed. (Dublin: Browne & Nolan 1942); Na Lochlannaigh (Oifig an tSoláthair 1938), 140pp.; Mo Bhealac Féin agus mBíod Ruball ar an Eán (Oifig Díolta Foillseacáin Ríaltais 1939 [sic]); Padraic Ó Conaire agus Aistí Eile (1936), 352pp. TRANSLATIONS, Eadarbhaile [Peadar O’Donnell, Adrigoole] (1953); Teac an Crochadóra, of Donn Byrne [Hangman’s House] (1935); Conrad, Céille Almayer (1936); Conrad, An Máirneálach Dubh (1933); Conrad, Séideán Bruithe agus Amy Foster (1935); Helen B. Reeves [formerly Mathers], Teacht Fríd an sEagal [Coming Thru’ the Rye]; Peadar O’Donnell, Eadabaile [Adrigoole] (1953); trans. Peadar O’Donnell, Muinntir an Oilean [Islanders] (1936); Lennox Robinson, An Pastín Fionn [Whiteheated Boy]; trans Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe (1937); Edward J. Trelawney, Imteachtaí Dhear Dheireadh Geaglaigh [1939]; Wallace Lewis, Ben Hur [1933].

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Notes
Máirín Nic Eoin: Nic Eoin notices English manuscript work [lámhscríbhinn de shaothar Béarla], The Miracle at Cashelmore, in NUU, Coleraine [see An Litríocht Réigiúnach (Baile Átha Cliath: An Clóchomhar Tta 1982)]

Thomas Kinsella: Kinsella cites Mac Grianna is in The Dual Tradition: ‘In a correspondence thirty years ago about the compulsory inclusion of Irish in the school curriculum, Seamus Mac Grianna - a notable writer in modern Irish - wrote that he “could not utter one sentence in Irish about the Common Market, or Free Trade, or Protection, or nuclear tests or radio-activity, or commercial treaties, or Human Rights, or the Principles of Democracy ... or any of the things that occupy (and must occupy) the thoughts of legislators today all over the world”, because “the Battle of Kinsale was lost, and with it the possibility of the Irish language becoming the vernacular of this nation.”’ (The Irish Times, 10 June 1966; quoted in Kinsella, op. cit., extract in contrib. short piece in ‘The State of Poetry’ special issue, Gerald Dawe & Jonathan Williams, eds., Krino, Winter 1993, pp.30-33; p.30.)

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