"Ní cathair mar a tuairisg í": (Mis)Representing the American City in the Literature of the Gaelic Revival?

Abstract

the appropriately named "Fear na Cathrach" (the City Man) professed his belief that the success of a modern literature in Irish depended on its capacity to engage with the buzz of city life: Ní féidir do theanga na hÉireann stad go mbéarfaidh lucht na tuaithe ar éirimíbh agus ar intinníbh brostuighthe na gcathrach, agus ní fuláir dúinn iad sain do bheith againn i litridheacht na haimsire seo. Más mian linn aon litridheacht do bheith againn feasda, caithfear brigh agus neart agus fuinneamh nua do chur inti. Ní has an dtuaith a thiocfas an spiorad nua so. . . . Is mire agus is buirbe go mór tonn-tuile beathadh na cathrach 'ná sruthlán mall meirbhshiubhlach na beathadh tuatha. [1] (The language of Ireland cannot cease to exist until country folk possess the hasty aptitudes and spirits of the cities, and we must funnel this into the literature of today. If we want to have any type of literature henceforth, we must add life and strength and energy to it. This new spirit will not come from the countryside. . . . The tidal wave of city life is far quicker and fiercer than the languid slothful streamlet of country living.) [2] The proposal of "Fear na Cathrach" was swiftly called into question by "Fear na Tuatha" (the Country Man), who argued that the Irish language belonged to the rural populations and "was not compatible with the indifference and the lethargy of city men." [3] This spirited commitment to rural culture was shared by most authors writing in both English and Irish during the period-with notable exceptions. Founded in 1893, the Gaelic League strove to reestablish the spoken language and also to cultivate "a modern literature in Irish."[4] Yet despite heated debates regarding the form, dialect, and font that this new literature should adopt, the possibility of the urban milieu as an appropriate subject matter was not readily entertained. Gaelic Leaguers viewed the Irish language as inextricably linked to the Gaeltacht regions and looked to the west as a blueprint for an authentic national identity: Irish-speaking, Catholic, rural, and traditional. That this belief took root is clear. Writing over fifty years later, the modernist poet Máirtín Ó Direáin commented that his native tongue was not adequately furnished to tackle the social mores of city life: "Caithfear gortghlanadh is forbairt a dhéanamh uirthi fós sula mbeidh sí i ngleic leis [an saol cathartha]" (The language still must be overhauled and developed before it can come to grips with it [city life]). [5]