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Life
1931- [occas. Monsignor Brendan Devlin]; b. Rooskey, Co. Tyrone; ed. St. Colum’s College, Derry, Maynooth, and Pontifical College, Rome; appt. Prof. of Modern Languages [var. French], Maynooth, 1958; ed. Irisleabhar Mhá Nuad; pioneered critical methods in modern Irish criticism; Néal Maidne agus Tine Oíche (1964), a story collection and winner of the Oireachtas Fiction Prize, as well as the Club Leabhar choice; issued Amhráin Dóchais (1970), poetry; Litríocht agus Léitheoiracht (1973), a mile-stone for Irish-language criticism, followed by Aistí Critice agus Cultúir (Dublin 1974) [essays]; Iseáia (Dublin 1975), later integrated in An Bíobla Naofa (1981); issued An Branar gan Cur (1979), a novel; also Pascal (1993); issued Aistí Critice agus Cuitúir II (1999); latterly acted as rector of the Irish College in Paris and received the Legion d’Honneur in Nov. 2001; he celebrated the requiem mass for Seamus Heaney, Donnybrook, 7 Sept. 2013.DIW
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Works| Poetry |
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Bibliographical detailsCriticism
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Alan Titley, ‘Turning Inside and out: Translating and Irish 1950-2000’, in Yearbook in English Studies (2005): ‘[...]A man in the same mould as Padraig de Brun is Breandan Ó Doibhlin. Both priest and scholar and former professor of French in St Patric’s College, Maynooth he has worked in a similarly unstinting way in his efforts to make Irish a modern and a thinking literature. He has written several novels of thought and reflection and worked out a style of his own which is both poetic and cerebral. He has produced a prodigious amount of critical commentary and technical literary work, which includes dictionary of Irish. In recent years his main focus has been on translation, particularly from the French which includes versions of La Fontaine’s Fables, Alain de St Exupery’s Little Prince, and much poetry. Perhaps his most important work of translation is, however, his Smaointe or Pensees of Pascal.
Pascal himself left about a thousand separate notes scattered around after his death, some very brief, and others longer. Editors have argued constantly about how to organize this material, and the first task of any translator is to knock it into some kind of shape. Ó Doibhlin does not follow any previous edition in its entirety but while making his own of the mess that is Pascal’s random jottings, acknowledges the order laid out by Jacques Chevalier. He then has to provide a language in Irish to suit these thoughts. This has its own difficulty, since Irish had not really been used as a language of philosophic discourse in any sustained way since the great rout of the seventeenth century. There, is of course, a mass of wealthy material from that earlier period, but it can hardly be transposed holus bolus bolus; into the twentieth century without the dangers of incomprehensibility and some absurdity. There is the added difficulty that Pascal, for all his clarity, often used words in his own especial way, and this personal ideolect has to be similarly negotiated.
Ó Doibhlin manages this by initially explaining what the most salient of Pascal’s terminology is, and then provides us with a brief French-Irish vocabulary. He also, with a wicked sense of humour, gives us a selection of Pascal’s most famous thoughts for those who are too lazy to read the whole book. After that, we can plunge into it any way we like. His Irish is clear and uncluttered and brings a stylishness to the language that is logical and even cold. It is a language that is the opposite of De Brun’s warm embrace with his Kerry Homeric talk and heroic flourishes. Ó Doibhlin’s Pascal cuts to the quick, and though he is unfailingly courteous, you always feel that his words mean something. The purpose of a translation is not just to provide a style so that we can admire it, but to carry the message of the original. There is something calculating about much of Pascal’s philosophy, especially his famous ‘wager’ which surely must be the most spurious and mean-spirited reason for adopting Christianity ever invented. But there is also an honesty which springs from his own lack of guile and search for meaning. These traits are perfectly captured in Ó Doibhlin’s work. His selection of Montaigne’s essay is also a cool (in the non-American sense) mogrification of that classy introspector. While there is no such thing as stylistic equivalence in any real sense, you suspect that Ó Doibhlin has Gallified Irish and made it into a scalpel that can be wielded with some kind of accuracy as against the loquacity of the Irish mind which likes to show off rather than show.’ (Available at The Free Library - online.)
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References
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 3, p.816; cited among recent experimenters in the modern Irish novel, in editorial essay by Eoghan Ó hAnluain [No bibl.].
Notes
Iníon Mhaor an Uachta (1994) is a three-act play is set during the Plantation of Ulster, just before the 1641 Rising, telling how one of the nation’s national treasures, St Patrick’s Bell, was kept safe during the conflict. It won the Abbey Theatre award for plays in Irish in 1993.