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BACK TO : PROJECTS - Irish Diaspora Studies
The Irish Language Literature of America
Patrick O'Sullivan
An Anthology of the Irish Language Literature of America
A Discussion Paper
by Patrick O'Sullivan
A. Origins of the project
B. Background to the project
C. Where to start?
D. Steps 1 to 4 - the creation of an anthology of the Irish language
literature of America.
E. Funding
F. Circulation of this Discussion Paper
A. Origins of the project
1. This Discussion Paper reports on informal dialogues between...
Patrick O'Sullivan, Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit, University
of Bradford, England
Karen P. Corrigan, Department of English Literary and Linguistic
Studies, University of Newcastle, England
Kenneth E. Nilsen, Celtic Studies, Saint Francis Xavier University, Nova
Scotia, Canada.
Werner Sollors, Longfellow Institute, University of Harvard, USA.
2. The Discussion Paper is thus in itself an example of the ways in
which the Irish Diaspora Research Unit at the University of Bradford
works - acting as go-between and 'honest broker', ready to get projects
off the ground, manage them if need be, or bow out at the right time.
3. Karen P. Corrigan has a special interest in the history of the Irish
language throughout the Irish Diaspora, and in language survival - she
has published on those themes, including a chapter in Patrick
O'Sullivan, ed., The Irish in the New Communities, Volume 2 of The Irish
World Wide.
4. Kenneth E. Nilsen has published numerous articles on the modern
Celtic languages, and has made a special study of language survival and
use in North America - see, for example, his important chapter in Bayor
& Meagher, eds, The New York Irish.
5. Werner Sollors and the Longfellow Institute have a special interest
in 'the non-English language literatures of the United States', as a
neglected part of the American heritage, and an untapped literary and
historical source. The Longfellow Institute maintains an important
collection and has published articles, anthologies and complete texts.
B. Background to the project
1. In February 1995, in her speech to both houses of the Oireachtas,
the Parliament of the Republic of Ireland, President Mary Robinson said:
'The more I have travelled the more I have seen that the Irish language
since the famine has endured in the accents of New York and Toronto and
Sydney, not to mention Camden Town. As such it is an interesting record
of survival and adaption.'
2. The theme of this Discussion Paper is, then, that the focus on the
Irish language as (to quote the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland)
'the national language' and 'the first official language' has distracted
attention from Irish as an international language, with an international
presence and an international literature.
I will here give some obvious examples, which arose in informal
discussion...
3. There is a fragmentary ninth century manuscript belonging to the
monastery of St. Paul, Unterdrauberg (in southern Austria). Preserved
in that manuscript, along with a Virgil commentary and some Greek
paradigms, are Irish language poems - including the little poem about
the scholar and his cat, Pangur Ban - perhaps noted down by a bored
monkish copyist. That poem had no readership, and no influence, for one
thousand years - until it was published by Stokes and Strachan in 1902.
It is now the most famous poem in the Irish language, and one of the
best known and the best loved poems in the world - the various
translations have been much anthologised, and practically every Irish
poet has made her or his version.
(I have made my own version, about my cat, Clover. Desmond O'Grady has
his version, about his dog. The Robin Flower translation was chosen by
Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes for their successful children's anthology
The Rattle Bag. A new translation, by Sean Hutton, Chair of the British
Association for Irish Studies, will be found in Shaun Traynor, The
Poolbeg Book of Irish Poetry for Children. In fact, in these days of
the Internet, a simple way of discovering Irish language enthusiasts
throughout the world is to start a Web search for 'Pangur Ban'.)
4. In the eighteenth century a young recruit to the Irish regiments in
France reported that he heard there, for the first time, the Irish
language spoken. While the Irish language was disappearing in his part
of Ireland the language remained the language of command in the Irish
regiments in the service of France. This part of the history of the
Irish Diaspora has for the most part been left to the military
historians - yet there is much here that would reward the linguists, and
add to the international history of the Irish language.
5. There is another famous and much loved Irish poem - 'Mise
Raifterai...' ('I am Raftery, the poet...), one of 'the songs ascribed
to Raftery'. Again, this poem has extraordinary resonances within Irish
literature and culture. For Yeats and Augusta Gregory the poem summed
up the suffering poet, the poet of the people. (At this point people
with Republic of Ireland currency in their pockets should take out the
Irish five pound note. On one side of the note is a classroom scene -
look at the poem chalked up on the blackboard.)
In fact, the poem first appeared in print in the New York journal An
Gaodhal, The Gael - sent in to that journal by Sean O Ceallaigh, a poet
in the Irish language who lived in Oswego, New York State. The poem
must thus carry a weight of Irish Diaspora resonances too. How far O
Ceallaigh was simply drawing on the accretions of folk poetry and folk
memory is, at this stage, unclear - and the work of O Ceallaigh and
other Irish language poets of America remain unstudied and uncollected.
6. Rotha Mór an tSaoil, by Micí Mac Gabhann, (1959) translated by
Valentin Iremonger as Michael Mac Gowan, The Hard Road to Klondike
(1962) has become a classic of Irish language literature. It deserves
to be a classic of American literature, dealing as it does with Mac
Gabhann's experiences in Butte, Montana, and in the Klondyke. Yet the
book is hardly known in America outside specialist Irish language
circles - for example, it was not used as a source by David Emmons, the
excellent historian of the Irish in Butte.
C. Where to start?
1. So, how many undiscovered Pangur Bans remain still to be discovered?
The suggestion is, then, that there remains an Irish language literature
to be discovered, and numerous examples of the Irish language in action
in unusual 'domains'. This literature will have historical, literary
and linguistic significance.
2. Where to start? Whilst wanting to retain all the Irish Diaspora
resonances, and wanting to draw on all the world-wide interest and
expertise, we need a flag-ship project, which will put our networks and
our methods in place, and which will act as a model for future
developments. And this project needs to be substantial, worth-while and
important in its own right.
3. The obvious place to start is in the United States of America and
Canada, where there has long been an interest in the details of the
history of the Irish experience, and where there is a burgeoning
interest in the Irish language. Where the pioneering, and much-valued
work of Kenneth Nilsen is already in place. Where the interests of
Werner Sollors and the Longfellow Institute already provide a structure
and an interest.
4. Our discussions so far have also given us a concrete proposal - the
creation of an anthology of the Irish language literature of the
America.
D. Steps 1 to 4 - the creation of an anthology of the Irish language
literature of America.
Step 1. A survey of the available material - and a scholarly report on
that survey, which should be published.
The way forward here is, of course, to make sensible use of the Internet
and the Web, and to harness the energies of Irish language enthusiasts
and scholars. We are keen to maintain this as a trans-Atlantic project
- but it is hard to envisage, at this stage, how realistic that aim is.
It may be that, through Step 1, the importance of an Irish and British
dimension will emerge. For example, we expect that - through the
earlier work of scholars like Douglas Hyde - we will find much relevant
material on the European side of the Atlantic.
In any case we would expect that Steps 2 and 3, below, will draw on the
skills and knowledge of scholars and poets based in Ireland and in
Britain.
Step 2. A more focussed process, identifying complete texts or
extracts, within material discovered and located by that survey, which
might be suitable for the anthology.
Our aim should be to find items of literary and/or historical and/or
linguistic interest. This then is a process involving literature
experts, historians, linguists and poets.
Again, a scholarly report on this process will be of interest to the
wider Irish Diaspora Studies, Irish Studies and scholarly communities.
Step 3. The preparation of texts for publication. Each text will
require a historical and linguistic commentary. And each text must be
accompanied by an excellent translation into the English language.
Works already produced by the Longfellow Institute, in other languages,
can provide a model - though we would expect our project to pay special
attention to Irish language issues.
Whilst this will not be an anthology only of poetry, our expectation is,
of course, is that we can locate and publish new, beautiful poems in the
Irish language - and put them alongside beautiful translations in
English.
This, then, is very much an inter-disciplinary, cross-disciplinary
project, and the input of the poets will be as valuable as the input of
the scholars. Again, we would hope to maintain the trans-Atlantic
impetus.
Our hope, too, is that somewhere along the line there will emerge an
appropriate name, in the Irish language and in the English, for this
anthology.
Step 4. The publication of an Anthology of the Irish language
literature of America, perhaps in association with the Longfellow
Institute at the University of Harvard. Other publishing routes can be
considered, as the project firms up.
It should be noted that we should use Steps 1, 2 and 3 to create an
interest, and to create a climate of expectation. For example, we can
place selected items with translations in appropriate newspapers and
journals.
E. Funding
1. This is a project that might well attract funding, from a government
agency, an institutional body or a commercial sponsor. We can begin to
develop Step 1, in an informal way - as possible sources of funding are
sounded out.
2. There is the possibility of a prestigious and exciting outcome - an
anthology of the Irish language literature of America that every Irish-
American family will want to own.
F. Circulation of this Discussion Paper
3. Earlier drafts of this Discussion Paper were sent, for comment and
discussion, to Karen P. Corrigan, Kenneth E. Nilsen and Werner Sollors.
Now, the Third Draft of this Discussion Paper will be distributed to a
number of interested individuals and organisations. Further comments
should be sent to
Patrick O'Sullivan <P.OSullivan@bradford.ac.uk>
for collation.
Patrick O'Sullivan
This Discussion Paper was first displayed on irishdiaspora.net in May 2001, and draws on discussions over a number of years.
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Irish Diaspora Studies 
Irish Diaspora Net Archive
Personal Fax National 0870 284 1580
Fax International +44 870 284 1580
Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Interdisciplinary Human Studies
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England
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