Seán Ó Riordáin (1916-77)

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Commentary
Theo Dorgan, ‘Twentieth-century Irish Language Poetry’ [essay], in An leabhar mór/The Great Book of Gaelic: ‘Apart from [Máirtín] Ó Direáin, no poetry of true value would appear in the Irish language until Seán Ó Ríordáin published Eireaball Spideoige in 1952. Consumptive, lonely and unillusioned, Ó Ríordáin was a kind of alienated pietist whose work strikes the first truly modern note in Gaelic poetry. Refusing the succour of sentimental loyalty to the forms and tropes of the high Gaelic tradition, his agonised soul-searching is a local version of the doubt and existential anguish which now seems so characteristic of the European mid-century. But Ó Direáin’s reluctant, even angry abandoning of the Arcadian peasant dream does not quite make him modern, in the sense that Eoghan Ó Tuarisc, say, writing self-consciously under the shadow of the Bomb, is modern. [...]’ (Rep. in Archipelago [link].)

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Louis de Paor, ‘“Adhlacadh mo Mhathar” by Seán Ó Ríordáin’, in Irish University Review, Special Poetry Issue (Sept. 2009: ‘[...] It was that amalgam of native and non-native elements that drew the most severe reaction from critics when Eireaball Spideoige was first published, provoking heated debate in Irish and in English, and vehement exchanges that extended beyond the usual literary and language journals to enliven the letters pages of The Irish Times. Writing under the pseudonym “Thersites”, Thomas Woods questioned Ó Ríordáin’s linguistic credentials, arguing that he was not a native speaker of Irish and could never, therefore, ‘comprehend that instinctive feel for the connotations of words and phrases that only a native speaker can have’. Brendan Behan responded by pointing to the achievements of Samuel Beckett: “I don’t see however that Seán Ó Ríordáin, born in Baile Mhuirne, is not as well entitled to write in Irish as Samuel Beckett, born in Dublin, is to write in French. Both are friends of mine, and bedamned if I’ll make fish of one and flesh of the other”. Patrick Kavanagh defended his right to speak of Ó Ríordáin without having read him by claiming that it was generally understood that poetry in Irish was no more than “the doodling and phrase-making of mediocrities”, before dismissing out of hand the arguments of Ó Ríordáin’s publisher Seán Ó hEigeartaigh: “As Gertrude Stein would say: A poet is a poet even in his walking down a street. And judging by what Whitehead calls ‘the act of negative prehension’, I would be inclined to think that anyone Mr Ó hEigeartaigh thought a poet would be surely the opposite”. Ó hEigeartaigh’s response was both ad rem and ad hominem : “This is extremely embarrassing for both of us, because I have always thought Mr Kavanagh a poet - and not merely from having seen him walk down a street”.’ (Citing Seán Ó Coileáin, Seán Ó Ríordáin: Beatha agus Saothar, Baile Atha Cliath: An Clochomhar, 1982, pp.247-49; see full-text version in RICORSO Library, “Criticism > Journals > IUR”, via index, or direct.)

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Quotations
Scáthán Véarsaí: ‘Remove from your mind / The surfaces of English civilisation, / Shelley, Keats, and Shakespeare: / Return again to your kind […]. / Make confession and make Pease with your own family tree.’ (Quoted with trans. in Declan Kiberd, ‘Anglo-Celtic Literature: Sean O Riordain’, in Irish Classics, London: Granta 2000, pp.606-16, p.615; quoted in Callum Boyle, ‘Tradition and Transgression in the Poetry of Michael Hartnett’, MA Diss., UUC, 2005, p.52.)

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‘[Daniel] Corkery told me once not to write a single line that wasn’t based on a line of the old [Irish language] poetry. But what can one do when things outside the tradition have gone into you - when the person is wider than the tradition? It’s okay staying within the understanding of Irish but it’s something else to leave some of yourself out of the equation. Nativeness [“an dúchas”] must be broadened however danger that is.] / Dúirt Ó Corcora liom uair gan aon line a scríobh ná beadh bunaithe ar line as an seanfhilíocht. Ac cad tá le déaneamh nuair a bhíonn nithe lasmuigh den dtraidisiún dulta i nduine - nuair a bhionn an duine níos fairsinge ná an traidisiún ... Tá sé ceart go leor fanuint laistigh de thuiscint na Gaeilge ach rude eile is ea cide díot féin a fhágaint as an áireamh. Ní foláir an dúchas d’fhairsingiu da dhainséaraí é’ (Quoted in Seán Ó Coilean, Seán Ó Riordáin: Beatha agus Saor, 1982, p.210; cited in Frank Sewell, ‘James Joyce’s Influence on Writers in Irish’, in Geert Lernout, et al., eds., The Reception of James Joyce in Europe, Thoemmes/Continuum 2004, p.477.) [See also note on Daniel Corkery, infra.]

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James Joyce: ‘Mé ag léamh “Ulysses” le Joyce. Dúirt Corkery gur bhain filí na hochtú aoise déag ceol as an dteangain nár baineadh riamh roimis aisti. D’imríodh cleasanna le ceol na teangan agus do thit cith ceoil anuas orthu. Ní miste dúinne imirt le brí na bhfocal again titfidh cith bri anuas orainn. Imrimis le bri na bhfocal. Imirt focal. Joyce. [I’m reading Joyce’s Ulysses. Corkery once said that eighteenth-century [Irish] poets wrung a music out of the [Irish] language that had never been wrung out of it before. They played tricks with the music and the language and a shower of music fell down on them. As for us [modern poets in Irish], we ought to play with the meaning of words and a shower of meaning will fall on us. So let’s play with the meaning of words. Wordplay.]’ (Quoted [in English] in Ó Coilean, op. cit. , 1982, p.222; cited in Sewell, op. cit., 2004, p.478.)

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References
Grattan Freyer, ed., Modern Irish Writing (1979), selects “Frozen Sea”.

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 3 selects from Eireaball Spideoíge; Brosna, ‘Adhlacadh Mo Mháthar’/‘My Mother’s Burial’; ‘Cúl an Tí’/‘Behind the House’; ‘Cnoc Mellerí/‘Mount Melleray’; ‘Reo’/‘Freeze; ‘Fiabhras’/‘Fever’; ‘Na Leamhain’/‘The Moths’; ‘Claustrophia’.

Patrick Crotty, ed., Modern Irish Poetry: An Anthology (Belfast: Blackstaff Press 1995), selects “Adhlacadh Mo Mháthar ” [114], trans. as “My Mother’s Burial ” [115]; “Malairt ” [116]; trans. as “Switch ” [117]; “Cnoc Melleri ” [118], trans. as “Mount Melleray ” [119]; “Siollabadh ” [124]; trans. as “Syllabling ” [125]; “Claustrophobia ” [124], trans. as “Claustrophobia ” [125]; “Reo ” [126], trans. as “Frozen Stiff ” [127]; “Fiabhras ” [126]; trans. as “Fever ” [127]. (All translations by Crotty.)

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Notes
Daniel Corkery: Ó Riordain was encouraged as an Irish writer by Daniel Corkery and wrote a moving homage to him as ‘Do Dhomhall Ó Corcora’, c.1950 (printed in Eireaball Spideoige), but later recorded sense of bitterness towards him in a diary-entry, ‘Bhiodh fíliocht a scríobh sa ghaeilge go dti gur leag Donall Ó Corcora a lamh mharbh uirthi’ [Seán Ó Riordain, Beatha agus Saothar, le Sean Ó Coileain, p.259; cited in Patrick Walsh, UUC MA thesis, 1993, p.70].

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Women poets? His line ‘Ní file ac filíocht í an bhean’ [not poet but the subject of poetry is woman]’ is the subject of criticism by Nuala Ó Dhomhnaill in a contribution to Irish Poetry Since Kavanagh, ed. Theo Dorgan (Dublin: Four Courts 1996)

John Montague calls Seán Ó Riordáin ‘the hermit crab of / a receding language’, in Smashing the Piano (1999). See review by Bernard O’Donoghue, in The Irish Times (15 Jan. 2000).

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