Synge and the Irish Language

Ireland in translation

“…To do this he would have to abandon the artifice of fluency and allow the target language, the language of the coloniser, to be colonised in its turn by the language of the colonised. This Synge felt was now possible for the first time in centuries, ‘the linguistic atmosphere of Ireland has become definitely English enough, for the first time, to allow work to be done in English that is perfectly Irish in essence’ (cited in Kiberd, 1993: 384). In 1892 Yeats had argued that translation not (language) revival would be the way forward for a new national cultural movement: Can we not keep the continuity of the nation's life, not by trying to do what Dr. Hyde has practically pronounced impossible, (i.e.…”

When Druid went to jail: returned migrants, Irish prisoners, and Tom Murphy's Conversations on a Homecoming

“…". 46 Thus, although the properties were "authentic", the way in which Druid staged its version of Synge's characters was in opposition to the traditional enactment found at Dublin's Abbey Theatre.…”

Irish Revivalism: Critical Trends and New Directions

“…Others, like Daniel Corkery, combated the hegemony of Anglo‐Irish Revivalism, in part by championing a native cultural elite, the bards of the 18th century, but also by arguing, in Synge and Anglo‐Irish Literature (1931), that English could not articulate central Irish themes and values without being overwhelmed by British culture. Corkery’s analysis is followed and challenged by Declan Kiberd, who argues, in Synge and the Irish Language (1979), that Synge’s Irish was better than it was given credit for being. Kiberd makes note of the playwright’s ‘clear‐eyed assessment of the real predicament of the Irish language’ and his ability to celebrate ‘the “magnificent” language spoken by the peasantry’ even as he admitted ‘that even these varieties of Irish were in decay, replete with “many barbarisms”.’ The irony is two‐fold: on the one hand, the Gaelic League failed to see that ‘the language they sought to revive was already half‐dead’; on the other hand, there is the spectacle of an Ascendancy playwright with a ‘superior knowledge of the native tradition’ (223).…”