Louis de Paor

Transcription

I think you could say that "An Béal Bocht" ... is one of the greatest works of prose that we have in all of Modern Irish. It's a satire, a parody of the Irish language autobiographies, the autobiographies of the Blasket Islanders, and especially the autobiographies of Donegal. It's based ... as regards language and structure for the most part ... on Tomás Ó Criomhthain's great book, "An tOileánach" ("The Islander"), a book for which Brian Ó Nualláin had a great regard, "the superbest of all books I've ever read", he said. It's obvious, then, that even though it's a parody, and a humorous book ... and a satire, he wasn't focussing on Tomás Ó Criomhthain alone, but on Irish language speakers and the readers who were dealing with the autobiographies of the Blaskets in the first place and who misunderstood those books, in his opinion. I think what's involved for the most part is that he shows us the violence of poverty ... and maybe readers of Irish too often skim over the poverty ... that's at the heart of all the autobiographies. It's wasn't a controversial book, even though you would think that the subject matter was very controversial. Irish language readers really accepted it when it was published in 1941. It was republished within two months and 2,000 copies of the book were sold ... within quite a short period of time ... so that you could say it was Brian Ó Nualláin's most successful novel when it was first published. "At Swim-Two-Birds" wasn't that successful, for example, when it was published in 1940 ... and ... in 1939, excuse me ... and, of course, "The Third Policeman" wasn't published until after his death. Therefore, those people who you’d think think he was making most fun of, really accepted it ... that's the Irish language community and activists. I think his biggest intention when he wrote "An Béal Bocht" ... was to pay homage to a book for which he had a great regard ... that's "An tOileánach" by Tomás Ó Criomhthain ... and to compel people to go back to that original book. Now, why would he be driving them back to "An tOileánach"? I think the answer to that is he thought it had been misread ... "the majestic book on which 'An Béal Bocht' is based" - that's the term he has for it, that's it's "a majestic book" ... but I think that we still have a tendency ... a tendency towards romanticism ... which prevents us from seeing the poverty and the violence of poverty in the original book ... and above all, I think that "An Béal Bocht" is a fairly gloomy book ... despite the humour. You'd be embarrassed, sometimes, to laugh out loud while people are dying from hunger, for example. People being physically abused so that they're barely able to swim back to Árann, he says, in the evening. There's nothing funny about children being beaten ... about women being beaten... about terrible violence of that sort, but we laugh out loud ... and that's, I think, the gift he has ... to make us laugh, but there's an uncomfortableness and a despondency and ... a kind of gloominess interwoven with the laughter, I think, in "An Béal Bocht". It's an extremely gloomy book; you'd be in a bad humour after reading it, you'd be morose. Brian Ó Nualláin was a very complicated person in many ways ... and he was very complicated when it came to language as well. He was a man between two languages, like Seán Ó Ríordáin ... you could say, in that he spoke both languages while growing up. But Irish was a family language and a private language for the most part ... even though he often visited the Gaeltacht and there were native speakers around him: there were maids, for example, working in the house when he was growing up ... and they were native speakers from the Donegal Gaeltacht. You couldn't say that he was part of a community where Irish was commonly used ... which meant that Irish was a bit peripheral to the life he was leading. That being said, it's obvious that he had a great interest in Irish and that his heart was in the language. He praised the language effusively, especially the qualities of the old literature. He had an MA based on a thesis he did on Old Irish nature poetry ... and it's obvious that he read most of the old literature. On the other hand, he definitely wasn't blind to the weaknesses of the Irish language revival, the hypocrisy that was associated with a lot of it - "the baby brain dawn burst brigade, the most nauseating phenomenon in Europe" he called those involved in the Irish language revival. Therefore, he had opposing attitudes towards the Irish language. One of the reasons, in my opinion, that he gave up writing in Irish ... was that he understood there was a limit to the language ... as it was being written and spoken by himself, that it was a limited language ... that Irish was a language he only half-grasped ... to quote what Ó Ríordáin said about the Irish he himself spoke. Brian Ó Nualláin was a man, I think, who desired the stage ... who desired an extensive readership from the time he first put pen to paper. Even when he was in university, he was writing and editing and publishing things ... and it was obvious that he always had an eye on, if he wasn't completely focused on, readers. Back in the Forties, when he was at his peak ... remember that he published three excellent novels ... not that he published them, but he wrote three excellent novels within four years: "At Swim-Two-Birds", 1939 ... "The Third Policeman" was written by 1940 but it wasn't published until after his death ... and, then, "An Béal Bocht". Now, they're some of the best novels that were written in English or in Irish ... in the last century in this country. But they didn't provide him with the community of readers that he expected them to provide. Therefore, he turned to journalism and it's from the middle of the Sixties on, really, that people started going back to the novels. "At Swim-Two-Birds" was republished and it did really well, it was a kind of cult classic. There was alway a demand for "An Béal Bocht" and three or four editions of "An Béal Bocht" have been printed now ... and, of course, maybe the most praised of his works now ... by reviewers and readers is "The Third Policeman", which is one of the classics ... of post-modern literature and one of the greatest books in Ireland in the twentieth century. It's worth mentioning, by the way, that the book Brian Ó Nualláin liked most towards the end of his life was "An Béal Bocht". He turned strongly against "At Swim-Two-Birds" and he didn't speak out loud even to his own friends about "The Third Policeman" ... but it was enough, say his friends, just to mention "An Béal Bocht" to make him laugh. He liked it until the end of his life. I'm not sure if he has had any great impact on the Irish language writers who have come after him, in any kind of obvious way. Certain traits are contained in a subtle way in the work of other writers ... that you would think they got from Myles na gCopaleen or Brian Ó Nualláin. There are certain traits in Seán Ó Ríordáin's prose, for example, and Ó Ríordáin himself recognises that it was from Myles that he got those things. In the same way, I would say his mark is to be seen subtlily ... and under the surface, I think, in the telling of some of the later stories of Máirtín Ó Cadhain. But maybe it's the comedians of our own time who have given him the most homage. Tommy Tiernan, for example, has said that he reads Flann O'Brien every day ... every night before he goes on stage. I believe Dylan Moran is a big fan of his ... and maybe it's they who most show the continuous effect that Flann O'Brien has on the imagination of Ireland. I've been working for years now on a book of criticism on the work of Brian Ó Nualláin. I think, in the end, that it'll be written in Irish. If it was written in English, it wouldn't be the same book, because you'd be focusing on a different community of readers. I think the core thing I'd like to say in the book ... is that Irish is central in everything he wrote, even though he spent most of his life writing in English. I think that the uncertainty and the distrust of words is central not only in Brian Ó Nualláin's work .... but central in the experience of the average Irish person for the past few hundred years. We're all between two languages, and the person who is between two languages can't completely rely on either of the two languages. Now, I’m not the only one saying that about Brian Ó Nualláin – most the reviewers who deal with his English language work say that that’s the most basic thing in the centre of his work: the distrust of the link between words and the understanding of what they mean. I think, in the end, that any great writer is a one-off ... Flann O'Brien, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Seán Ó Ríordáin and Tomás Ó Criomhthain are all one-offs. You’d expect, after the masters, to see their mark on those who come after them .... but, in a way, there's only, in that kind of situation, a stylistic device... among many stylistic devices that people have learned from the work of the great writers. I think, in the end, you'd have to go looking outside of literature ... as we understand literature traditionally, to look at the sense of humour, that we see on stage from comedians these days, especially Tommy Tiernan. People who have an interest in the absurdity of life. Maybe that aspect of his work is stronger, as regards heritage ... whatever heritage he left behind, than the other side of it, the sharp, ferocious satire. I don't see anyone today who is so ferocious ... so authoritative, in opposing authority in the world around us. I don't think anyone is comparable to him.