The Language of Irish Writing

Before the advent of writing in the English language there was Gaelic poetry. Gaelic culture was a predominantly oral one. That is to say, its literature was not written down but, rather, transmitted by word of mouth. Poets or 'File' had an important role in Gaelic society. Poetry was a means of communicating historical events, as well as celebrating family and race. Poets thus wielded much power and influence and, certainly, the continuing importance placed on the artist in our own time, is borne out of this Gaelic past. However, as times changed and Gaelic traditions and culture came under threat from English invasion and colonisation, the tone of the poetry shifted to one of lament and sorrow for a culture and a way of life that was rapidly disappearing. A poet such as Aogan Ó Rathaille (c.1675-1729) in 'Cabhair ni Ghairfeadh (No Help I'll Call)' powerfully articulates his own loss of privilege but also the dispossession of the Gaels in general. It is a tone and a theme that can be observed to continue on into 19th Century Irish poetry written in the English language.

Though the Irish language did not fully disappear, it is fair to say that a major element of an Irish writer's experience in the last 200 years has been concerned with making the English language his or her own, of using it to express Irish themes and Irish realties. This is an act of appropriation, of taking the tool that once was used to oppress and using it, in turn, to express, and powerfully so. Words, then, and their application take on a certain resonance in an Irish context. A writer like J.M Synge (1871-1907), for instance, uses English in such a way that it seems to be Irish: he captures the syntax and the rhythms of the Irish language through the medium of English. He is being true to the Irish language and, as a consequence, reenergizing and revitalising the English language so that it can become a means of articulating Irish concerns.

But there can also be a continuing residue of distrust and anxiety concerning the English language, even in more recent times. The dramatist Brian Friel (1929-), in his play Translations (1979), recognises the power that language possesses in shaping the world we live in. He at once mourns the loss of the Irish language but understands, too, the reality of the English language's presence and pervasiveness in Ireland. He realises that in the act of translation from one language into another, there are gains and losses. In an Irish context, this has many reverberations.