Life
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[ top ] Commentary [ top ] Nuala Ní Dhomnaill explains who she picked, and why (feature-article Watching the River Flow: A Century of Irish Poetry, ed. in Noel Duffy &Theo Dorgan, eds. [anthology], in The Irish Times, Weekend, 27 Nov. 1999): On Cathal Ó Searchaigh: speaking of the Field of Bones, which first appeared in Na Buachaillí Bana (1996), which was among many other things Cathals testament of coming out in terms which could not by a long shot be called uncertain. Nevertheless, the poem in the book that casued the most commotion was not about homosexuality at all, but rather description of the dire straights of a young woman who had been violated by her father, who had to suffocate and bury her newborn child in the eponymous Field of Bones. / This poem caused an absolute furore in Cathals home place and caused him, among other things, to be read from the altar; in other words a sermon was preached against him, a social punishment which in my innocence I had thought had gone out with the proverbial Flood. I heard him subsequently defending himself on Radio na Gaeltachta with both dignithy and aplomb, and it seems from all appearances that he came off the winner in this particular verbal duel. [ ] Still, that the very attempt esw made to pillory Cathal over this poem is to me actually a great sign, proof positive that poetry in Ireland is still taken with a seriousness that it has lost out on in most Western societies, and maybe most especially in America. [ top ] Alan Titley, Cathal O Searchaighs intensely lyrical celebration of place fuses ancient concerns with a range of styles that shows that he is not only a poet but an artist also. (The Bright Wave, p.22; quoted in Malachi ONeill, UG Diss. on Ó Searchaigh, UUC, 2001.) [ top ] Lillis Ó Laoire, Dearg Cobhoghta Cháin/The Indelible Mark of Cain, in Sex, Nation and Dissent in Irish Writing, ed. Eibhear Walshe (Cork UP 1997):
[ top ] Peter Sirr, Irish Times (5 July 1997) considers that Sewells translations in Out in the Open are accurate and plain, substituting a rough and ready demotic for Ó Searcaighs direct Irish but rarely providing memorable poems in themselves; Selected Poems available from the same publisher. See also harsher review in Books Ireland. [ top ] Brian Ó Conchubhair, Cathal Ó Searcaigh: Teip agus Téagar na Teangan/Falling Down and Falling Back on Language (2003): The home Ó Searcaigh makes for himself in Donegal, or the smithy of human existence in which he forges a conscience, is an environment where he connects with the land and its people. Later poems such as Cuisle an Chaordin and Súile Shuibhne display the ease and naturalness which the poet feels in this locality. Suibhne in the Irish tradition is the madman, an outcast to all, exiled to live in the trees as a result of a dispute with a cleric. There is a sense of home and belonging in these poems which is alien to the London poems. An Díbheartach makes clear that (Ó Searcaigh will never be an inner member of the community, but to exist on the fringes of a community is to have a community to which one belongs, even if the relationship is of a marginal and ostracising nature. In response, Ó Searcaigh writes celebratory poems of other éin chorr (eccentrics) from the locality; poems such as Bean an tSléibhe and Cró na Cuimthne These poems serve to populate the poetic and imaginary landscape with individual people to whom, and of whom, Ó Searcaigh can relate. Mirroring the hobos and down-and-outs on park benches in London, the rural eccentrics of Dún na nGall/Donegal represent for Ó Searcaigh fountains of humanity in a desert otherwise parched of human concern. These individuals, despite their adherence to community values, fail to provide heirs for the land which they spent their lives cultivating, heirs who in turn would work the land and bequeath it to the next generation. Similar to the homosexual, these people are disgraced in the eyes of the rural tradition which places pren-dum value on land and inheritance. It is these marginalised members of society that Ó Searcaigh befriends and with whom he empathises. He sees value and humanity in them and, above all else, they act as examples of survival in a society often hostile to those on the fringes, those who fail a rural societys requirements. (In James Doan & Frank Sewell, eds., On the Side of Light: The Poetry of Cathal Ó Searchaigh, Galway: Arlen House 2003, pp.166-204; p.187.) [ top ] Frank Sewell, Extending the Alhambra: Four Modern Irish Poets (OUP 1998): His rewriting of traditional love-poetry from the viewpoint of the homosexual, and in Irish, reminds one that conventions cramp in art because they cramp in society, in life, and that art slowly democratises, expands outwards following the pattern of the universe itself, exploding the canon[,] transgressing and surpassing the reductive limits in a gesture towards infinity itself. ( p.136; quoted in Malachi ONeill, UG Diss. on Ó Searchaigh, UUC, 2001.) [ top ] Frank Sewell, James Joyces Influence on Writers in Irish, in The Reception of James Joyce in Europe, ed. Geert Lernout, et al., Thoemmes/Continuum 2004): Above all, Ó Searcaigh has become, in his poetry, a “celebrant” of life and nature. Celebrating (in the bardic and religious sense of the word) earthly life and nature, including landscape, love and sex, Ó Searcaigh has frequently resorted to the same religious (Catholic) vocabulary as Joyce, to the same powerful mixture of pious and “profane” language: “On the altar of the bed / I celebrate your body tonight, my love, / with the rites of my desire.” The tendency to approach or discuss the earthly, mortal, even the [480] sensual or sexual, with religious or spiritual intensity, has brought Ó Searcaigh (an openly gay writer) into conflict with the Church. As a secular artist, Ó Searcaigh, therefore, arms himself with church language to conduct his verbal battles with a church authority which he, like many Irish people, believes to have been, at times, hypocritical and unjust, a Joycean “net” flung at the soul of men and women born in this country. / In his youth, Ó Searcaigh found the nets of home, fatherland and Church to be closing in too tightly around him. Like the “braddy cow” of his poem “Bó Bhradach”, he “high-tailed it” away from boundary fields and, temporarily, became a “farsoonerite”. Unlike Joyce, however, Ó Searcaigh was compelled by the “geasa” (the bond) of language to return and try to “learn what is meant by home”. Since his return, he has transformed the “nets” of language (Irish and English) and of “religion” (Christian and Buddhist) into stringed instruments on which he plays, as did joyce, his own macaronic, trans-spiritual, international music. [ ] (p.480-81; ftn. omitted here.) [ top ] Quotations [ top ] On Irish nature lyrics (in comparison with Japanese haiku): Like the haiku, these poems are usually brief. They are small luminous moments of insight. They taught me, I hope, a lesson in compactness; that it was possible to evoke by suggestion; to be emotive without being sentimental and gushy. I think it was Dorothy Parker who quipped about some over-eager artist, who didnt know to economise with his paints, that when he painted a snake, he couldnt refrain from adding feet. Keats, if my memory serves me right, said something similar about Coleridge; something to the effect that he would write one beautiful mysterious line and then write twenty more trying to explain it. So the lesson to be had from the Haiku and the early Irish lyric is that a wise man doesnt overblow his knows [sic]. Likewise with Japanese painting, it has a minimalist approach to subject matter. Less rather than more. A few brushstrokes and a whole scene is evoked by suggestion. And Iam a fervent admirer of Hokusais Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. They are stunning impressions of the sacred mountain from a multiciplicity of viewpoints. Ihave my own Fuji, of course. Mount Errigal seems to me to have the same contours, the same character as Fuji. Its equally as elusive as Fuji. Its a shapeshifter. Sometimes its casually elegant in a cashmere of cloud or shimmeringly sexy in a negligée of snow. At other times, its a Cailleach, ashen grey and hag-like in its ferocious scowl. But whatever its moods, its my beloved Mount Errigal. It has cast its shadow across my life; my lifelines. Ihave never been able to entice it In its entirety into my poem. My approach has to be more alluring. (In Mitsuko Ohno, Hokusai, Basho, Zen and More: Japanese Influences on Irish Poets, in Journal of Irish Studies [IASIL-Japan], XVII, 2002, p.27). [ top ] References Patrick Crotty, ed., Modern Irish Poetry: An Anthology (Belfast: Blackstaff Press 1995), selects “Bó Bhradach” [408], trans. by Patrick Crotty as “A Runaway Cow” [409]; “Na Píopaí Créafóige” [408], trans. by Seamus Heaney as “The Clay Pipes” [409]; “Caoineadh” [412], trans. by Seamus Heaney as “The Clay Pipes” [413]. Books in Print (1994): An Bealach na Bhaile (Cló Iar-Chonnachta) 64 pp £2 pb. Dec 91; Homecoming/An Bealach na Bhaile (Cló Iar-Chonnachta). 212 pp £7.50 pb 1-874700-55-9. May 93 [NO ISBNs]. [ top ] Notes [ top ] Fairy tale (2): A film made on DVD by friends of Ó Searcaigh featuring some of the boys thought to have been abused was distributed by his media adviser, Liam Gaskin, in March 2008. This revealed that one of the boys who had professed himself to have been bought by Ó Searcaigh had actually been angry with him on hearing from the film crew that he had returned to Ireland without saying goodbye. [ top ] Fairy tale (3): The Sunday Business Post (30 March 2003) reported that Neasa Ní Chianáin had suggested making a film which would explore the harem of young men befriended by Cathal Ó Searcaigh in a proposal made to the Film Board two years before filming the controversial Fairytale of Kathmandu documentary. [ top ] Fairy tale (4): Analysis of Ó Searcaigh affair was supplied for The Independent (7 May 2008) by Anthony Cronin and Colum Kenny - the former finding Ó Searcaigh naive and self-deceiving, and the film a shallow betrayal of a former friend; the latter finding it a well-made programme that appeared to be fair to those participating in it, and castigating David Norris for his defence of same in the Seanad. [ top ] Pianó Mhín na bPréachán (2011) - Máthair shingil óg í Mags, le mac deich mbliana d'aois, Danny, iad beirt ina gcónaí le máthair Mhags, Nancy, i mbaile beag Mhín na bPréachán. Tá Danny meidhreach, croíúil, gealgháireach, agus baineann Nancy a sáith taitnimh as an saol. Ach tá Mags dorcha, gruma, fiú confach. Agus tá imní ag teacht ar Nancy agus ar Danny fúithi. Lá amháin feiceann siad go bhfuil pianó ar díol. B'fhéidir go dtaitneodh ceol an phianó le Mags, agus go gcuirfeadh sé ag gáire arís í. Ach tá a cuid cuimhní féin ag Mags ar cheol agus ar cheol pianó go háirithe. (See Cló Iar-Chonnachta website - online; accessed 9.12.2011.) [ top ] |