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Copyright © 2010 by the contributors and Field Day Publications www.fieldday.ieField Day Review is published annually by Field Day Publications in association with the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

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Field Day Review Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies 86 St. Stephen’s Green Dublin 2 Ireland

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www.fielddaybooks.com FIELD DAY REVIEW 2010

Essays

Kevin Whelan 7 Between: The Politics of Culture in Friel’s Translations

Michael Cronin 29 Kate O’Brien and the Erotics of Liberal Catholic Dissent

Emer Nolan 53 Sinéad O’Connor: The story of a voice

Paul A. Bové 71 Misprisions of Utopia: Messianism, Apocalypse, and Allegory

Luke Gibbons 95 The Addressivity of the Eye: James Coleman’s Connemara Landscape

Breandán Ó Buachalla

Alan Titley 105 Uamhnach Ultach ag moladh Muimhnigh

Cathal Goan 109 Flaith na nÉigeas

Thomas Bartlett 113 The Pursuit of Helen Landreth: www.fieldday.ieRobert Emmet, Gender and Historical Scholarship in Mid-Twentieth-Century Ireland

Catherine Morris 133 Alice Milligan: Republican Tableaux and the Revival

Terry Eagleton 167 Culture, Atheism and the War on Terror

REVIEWS

Seamus Deane 179 ‘To See Again The Stars’ Dictionary of Irish Biography: From the Earliest Times to the Year 2002 www.fieldday.ie www.fieldday.ieEssays Field Day review

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Triangulation point and cairn. © Getty Images

6 Between: The Politics of Culture in Friel’s 1 ‘Light troubles speak: the weighty strike you dumb’; Seneca, Phaedra Translations or Hippolytus. 2 Ironically, Friel moved Kevin Whelan ‘south’ by moving north geographically: although belonging to the South Curae leves loquuntur ingentes (i.e. the Republic of stupent.1 Ireland), the Inishowen peninsula in Donegal, to which he moved and in which his play is [This is the second of two essays saluting set, is actually further Brian Friel on his 80th birthday and north than any point in acknowledging the 30th anniversary of his Northern Ireland. He has lived for many years play Translations. The first essay, ‘Brian in Greencastle, opposite Friel’s Translations: The Origins of a Magilligan in Derry, Cultural Experiment’, by Ciarán Deane, where the base camp of appeared in Field Day Review 5.] the Ordnance Survey was located, and where its triangulation began. Brian Friel was born in 1929 3 Frank Curran, Derry: Countdown to Disaster at Kilclogher, near Omagh (Dublin, 1986), 37. 4 www.fieldday.iePartition created in County Tyrone, Northern marooned minorities on both sides of the Ireland, the son of a Derry border: substantial schoolmaster and a Donegal poor Protestant communities were exiled postmistress, a child of in Monaghan, Cavan, and especially Donegal. partitioned Ireland. He later They too were silenced post-partition. The moved just across the border into favoured trope in fiction and drama for the County Donegal in the Republic plight of the Protestant of Ireland.2 He belonged to landed class was the Big House as doomed the generation of northern remnant of culture and civility; the plight nationalists famously described of poorer Protestants found no comparable by the Derry MP Eddie McAteer representation. Friel (1914–86) as ‘the bastard has written ‘Big House’ plays, Aristocrats children of the Republic’.3 After (1979), with the twist that the proprietors the trauma of partition,4 and the are Catholics, and The Home Place (2005). brutal suppression of initial

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opposition to it in the 1920s, Northern state projects were being introduced: the 5 Cited from a 1973 Irish Catholics were cowed into silence. standardized mapping of the country by interview by Friel, in Tony Corbett, Brian Abandoned by both the British and Irish the Ordnance Survey, and the national Friel: Decoding the states, they became a subdued, silent, system of education to replace the existing Language of the Tribe watchful generation, internalizing their informal system of hedge-schools. Both (Dublin, 2002), 107. sense of historic betrayal. Friel taught had implications for the Irish language; 6 Paul Delaney, ed., Brian Friel in Conversation for many years in Derry, and he has the national schools were to be rigorously (Ann Arbor, 2000), 159. described ‘the personal, traditional and English-speaking, while the new maps 7 Christopher Murray, acquired knowledge that cocooned me: an would render the old place names in English ed., Brian Friel: Essays, Irish Catholic teacher with a nationalist orthography. Friel combines both of these Diaries, Interviews: 1964–1999 (London, background, living in a schizophrenic anglicizing projects in the setting for his play. 1999), 106. 5 community’. He diagnosed the Catholic Colonialism is never just a political and 8 Murray, ed., Brian Friel, population there as ‘a dispossessed people economic condition but also a psychic one. 106. living in a state they never subscribed to, Translations probes the psychodynamic 9 Brian Friel to K. Whelan. Sep. 10, 2010. with Donegal lying just across the bay. effects of colonialism as they play out in 10 On Field Day, see Janus-like, they had one head looking to the the linguistic realm, where the private and Marilynn Richtarik, north and one looking to the south.’6 Friel the public spheres meet. Masquerading Acting between the considered northern nationalists as being ‘at as a version of universalism, colonialism Lines: The Field Day Theatre Company and home but in exile’,7 and talked of them (and presented the acquisition of English as a Irish Cultural Politics himself) feeling like ‘an exile in your home’, liberation, the golden bridge that carried 1980–1984, 2nd edn. their birthright more a disinheritance than the native beyond localism into the world (Oxford, 2001). an inheritance.8 And yet lurking somewhere at large, rescuing him from provincialism 11 The most complete treatment of the in the Northern Catholic imagination at this by awarding full participation in British context of the original time was what Friel has called ‘the secret civic life. The toll required was the production is Ciarán notion we nurtured that in some ridiculous relinquishment of the native language, Deane, ‘Brian Friel’s way we were the true keepers of some true disavowal of native history, severance from Translations: The Origins of a Cultural notion of what being Irish meant. The Free native culture. Edward Said’s memoir Out Experiment’, Field Day Statewww.fieldday.ie squandered and abused that idea. We of Place probes the meaning of a displaced Review, 5 (2009), 7–47. guarded it in suffering silence.’ 9 linguistic identity: 12 Edward Said, Out of Translations was the foundational play Place (New York, 1999), 15–16. of the Field Day Theatre Company, 10 The basic split in my life was the one 13 George Steiner, established in 1980 by Friel and Stephen Rea. between Arabic, my native language, and After Babel: Aspects Friel finished writing it at the height of the English, the language of my education of Language and northern conflict on 5 November 1979, and and subsequent expression as a scholar Translation (Oxford, 1975). Likewise, Friel’s it was first produced on 23 September 1980 and teacher, and so trying to produce a Molly Sweeney (1993) is 11 in the Guildhall, Derry. The play can be narrative of one in the language of the inspired by a case study read as both a parable about, and a diagnosis other — to say nothing of the numerous in Oliver Sacks, ‘To See of, the conditions of the post-partition ways in which the languages were and Not See’ in the New Yorker, 10 May 1993, Catholic community in Northern Ireland. mixed up for me and crossed over from 59–73. Field Day sought to deploy the communal one realm to the other — has been a effects of theatre to release Northern Ireland complicated task.12 in particular from its numbing violence and stasis. Friel identified his involvement in the The master text for Translations is George enterprise as stemming from dúchas/pietas— Steiner’s After Babel.13 Steiner emphasized ‘a sense of loyalty and dutifulness towards that a language constitutes a community one’s own home’. of shared history and aspirations, and The play is set in a Donegal hedge-school that, accordingly, each language remains in 1833, before the devastating Famine of incommensurable and opaque to translation: the 1840s, at a time when two controversial

8 Between: The Politics of Culture in Friel’s Translations

Etching. Thomas Frederick Colby (1784-1852). Director of the Ordnance Survey from 1820 to 1847. © Science and Society Picture Library

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14 Steiner, After Babel, They are the instruments of storage and Friel’s borrowings from Steiner include 300. transmission of legacies of experience some of the best-known lines in the play: and imaginative construction particular ‘Uncertainty of meaning is incipient poetry’; to a given community ... Languages ‘a syntax opulent with tomorrows’; ‘Often communicate inwards to the native cultures seem to expend on their vocabularies speaker with a density and pressure of and syntax acquisitive energies and shared intimation which are only partly, ostentations entirely lacking in their material grudgingly yielded to the outsider. A lives’; ‘All communication “interprets” major portion of language is enclosure between privacies’; ‘Confusion is not an and willed opaqueness.14 ignoble condition’; ‘It is not the lived past, the

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“facts” of history that shape us but images of of the survey are emphasized: weapons- 15 These were first the past embodied in language’; ‘The fixity carrying sappers, army searches, ‘prodding carefully tracked by F. C. McGrath, ‘Irish of a linguistic contour ... which matches every inch of the ground with bayonets’ and Babel: Brian Friel’s only at certain, ritual, arbitrary points the (in a significant pun) ‘levelling the whole Translations and George changing landscape of fact’.15 Friel’s adroit land’. The stolen theodolite16 is wielded as Steiner’s After Babel’, manipulation of quotation and of intertextual if it were a weapon. Similarly, the ominous Comparative Drama, 23, 1 (1989), 31–49. echo is a rhetorical strategy, enhancing the Donnelly twins carry the resonance and 16 Friel is drawn to visually central action of the play in its rehearsal of threat of the modern Provos. Friel therefore striking instruments the oscillation between the historical and has argued that questions of historical and the technical the interpretative. Deliberate anachronisms, accuracy are fundamentally beside the point. vocabularies that identify them and their like the use of the word ‘cartographer’ (first Translations is ultimately a language play not functions. The Home used in 1839) or ‘contour’ (from c.1860), a history play, an emphasis that Friel himself Place (2005) makes extend this strategy and allow for the constantly stressed: ‘The play has to do and extensive use of the interpolation of the contemporary conflict only to do with language.’ 17 He wished exotic instrumentation of ethnographic calibration. in Northern Ireland. The military aspects to understand what it means to become a

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10 Between: The Politics of Culture in Friel’s Translations

17 Brian Friel, ‘Extracts people having to use a language ‘that isn’t our Thomas Colby’s Memoir;19 J. H. from a Sporadic Diary’, own’ and how Irish people today respond to Andrews’s, A Paper Landscape;20 Patrick J. in Tim Pat Coogan, ‘having to handle a language that is not native Dowling’s The Hedge Schools of Ireland;21 ed., Ireland and the 18 Arts: A Special Issue to them’. Consider Friel’s own mastery of and William Carleton’s vivid treatment in of the Literary Review the language as in a deceptively simple phrase Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry.22 (London, 1986), 58. like ‘English cannot express us’: this has at A Paper Landscape provided Friel with 18 Murray, ed., Brian Friel, least three mutually enriching meanings in ‘a perfect metaphor’ for the trauma of 80. this context — to hurry us up, to squeeze us the linguistic lesion in nineteenth-century out, to describe us. Ireland, although his expansive treatment moves far beyond that of the austerely The Language of Landscape scholarly cartographic historian. Mick Lally and Ann Hasson in rehearsal for Brian Friel’s The mapping of Ireland had been a Translations at the Gulidhall, Friel’s programme notes list other sources long-standing colonial ambition. The native Derry, 1980. Photo Rod Tuach. that he used — John O’Donovan’s Irish tradition of dind seanchas (place © Field Day Ordnance Survey Letters: Donegal; lore) relied on a narrative rather than a technical mode of surveying the landscape. It produced a cultural landscape23 that coded a reciprocal, vernacular relationship between a community and its environment, not imposed from outside or above but developed cumulatively, spontaneously, organically. The material practices and associated symbolic forms that comprised this cultural landscape had a dual function. The first was secular, pragmatic, social; the second was symbolic, cultural, associational. The lived landscape provided www.fieldday.iea locus for human affection, imprinted as remembered forms, ways of being, ways of living, ways of seeing, ways of knowing. This version of landscape connected its outer contours with an inner vision: in place names the landscape and the imagination meet. Place names are an accumulated repertoire of historical knowing, a narrative sediment deposited by the continuous flow of history. The sense of place fuses a material environment, a historical experience and a lived reality, and is encapsulated in the Irish word dúchas.24 This version of landscape is embedded in the Irish tradition — the place lore of the dind seanchas, a liber locorum, lieux de mémoire, in which each place name bears a specific density of meaning. In Translations, Friel draws on this tradition. As the phrase la France profonde is widely used to indicate, even evoke, deeply enduring (or still surviving) aspects of French culture,

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Mick O’Dea, b.1958 Portrait of Brian Friel, 2009 Oil on canvas Unframed: 60.5 × 50.5cm Photo © National Gallery of Ireland

19 John O’Donovan, Ordnance Survey Letters: Donegal. Letters Containing Information Relative to the Antiquities of the County of Donegal Collected During the Progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1835, edited and with an Introduction by Michael Herity, Preface by Brian Friel (Dublin, 2000); Thomas Colby, Ordnance Survey of the County of Londonderry, Volume the first: Memoir of the City and Northwestern Liberties of Londonderry, Parish of Templemore (Dublin, 1837). Friel’s diary described the latter as ‘a very rich and wonderful book’ www.fieldday.ieand acknowledged that the Captain Lancey of the play is modelled on Colby. 20 J. H. Andrews, A Paper Landscape: The Ordnance Survey in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (Oxford, 1975). For Andrews’s work, see Kevin Whelan, ‘Beyond a Paper Landscape: John Andrews and Irish Historical Geography’, in F. H. A. Aalen and Kevin Whelan, eds., Dublin City and County: Prehistory to Present (Dublin, 1992), 379–424. so a ‘Deep Ireland’ is evoked by place Gaeltacht ... anyone brought up in it 21 Patrick J. Dowling, names, a pre-colonial history still legible in has already absorbed a great deal of The Hedge Schools of them. Friel’s contemporary, the poet John the language. And to return to my Ireland (London, 1935). 22 William Carleton, Montague, makes the point: Knockmany poem; when I wrote those Traits and Stories of the lines about the hills burning with ‘golden Irish Peasantry, 5 vols. The Irish landscape is a kind of primal light’, did I realize that I was crossing the (Dublin, 1830–33).

12 Between: The Politics of Culture in Friel’s Translations

23 In historical geography, Bealtaine, the ridge of the god of fire? The humanist scientist, like his predecessor, the term ‘cultural racial aspect of a poet’s inheritance should the great poet Edmund Spenser, advocated landscape’ denotes the be unconscious as breathing. Where I was genocide as a necessary prelude to a new landscape as it is altered by human occupance: brought up, Irish is no longer a spoken beginning in Ireland. Maps did not only fields, farms, roads, language, but it is still very much alive in record, they also obliterated. towns, houses, place the place-names and the local idiom ... I names: see F. H. A. must tap tradition where I find it, in my The Hedge-School Setting Aalen, Kevin Whelan 25 and Matthew Stout, part of the landscape. eds., Atlas of the Irish The patriot Henry Grattan brusquely Rural Landscape (Cork, The Ordnance Survey project became observed in 1811: 1997). for Friel a dramatic metaphor of both 24 See the pioneering treatment of the concept colonialism and the linguistic issue in One great object of national education of dúchas by Peter Ireland. The 1830s mapping sought to should be to unite the inhabitants of McQuillan in his Key give definitive shape to a long-standing the island and such an event cannot Words of the Irish project that went back to the seventeenth be well accomplished except they are Language: Essays in the Irish Ideas of Identity century. This cartographic transition from taught one common language. I think and Freedom (Cork, the Irish dind seanchas to the new colonial that the diversity of language, and not 2002). language and landscape of fact reached the diversity of religion, constitutes a 25 John Montague, ‘A an early culmination in the pioneering diversity of people. I should be very Primal Gaeltacht’, in his The Figure in the work of William Petty (1623–87). Petty’s sorry that the Irish language should Cave and Other Essays ‘political arithmetic’ (the origin of the be forgotten but glad that the English (Dublin, 1989), 42–44, discipline of economics) was itself a language would be generally understood 44. Montague was born response to the upheavals consequent ... A real political division is founded on in 1929, the same year 27 as Friel, in Brooklyn. on the Reformation: he sought to rescue the diversity of language. In 1933 he was sent ‘facts’ from the murderous anarchy of to live with his aunts theological disputation, which threatened His utilitarian-Benthamite stance was at Garvaghey, County to tear Britain apart in the mid-seventeenth matched by Daniel O’Connell in 1833: Tyrone, the same www.fieldday.iecounty where Friel was century. By rescuing ‘facts’ (generated by born. His The Rough mathematical and technical protocols) from I am sufficiently utilitarian not to Field (Dublin, 1972) is the partisan wrangling of theologians and regret its [the Irish language’s] gradual structured around an politicians, Petty sought a common ground abandonment. A diversity of tongues extended meditation 26 on the meaning of of reason. Rhetorically, he promoted is no benefit; it was first imposed on Garvaghey/Garbh the ‘plain’ style, shorn of baroque excess, mankind as a curse, at the building of Achaidh/the Rough inviting the consent of common experience Babel. It would be a vast advantage Field, as a metaphor and of a rationality based on observation to mankind if all the inhabitants of for understanding the modern conflict. and measurement. Facts in such a discursive the earth spoke the same language. 26 I am indebted here to regime were as far as possible divested of Therefore, although the Irish language is Mary Poovey, A History historical memory; indeed, their claim to connected with many recollections that of the Modern Fact: obdurate, scientific reality depended on twine around the hearts of Irishmen, Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of their repudiation of cultural ramification yet the superior utility of the English Wealth and Society as a significant dimension of knowledge. tongue, as the medium of all modern (Chicago, 1998), 92– Petty’s Down Survey (so-called because the communication, is so great, that I can 143. results for the first time were systematically witness without a sigh the gradual disuse 27 Cited in Thomas 28 Blayney, Narrative of a set down on paper) was based on of the Irish. Forced Journey through innovations in mathematical mensuration, Spain and France, as a precise instrumentation and bureaucratic The determined effort by state and Church Prisoner of War, in the efficiency. It should also be regarded as an to regain control of popular education years 1810 to 1814, 2 vols. (London, 1814), effort to strip the inherited Irish landscape via a national system stemmed from the vol. 1, 340–41. of meaning and narrative. This great conviction that the 1790s had exposed the

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political danger of allowing an informal quietly absorbed into the national system.32 28 Cited in Dermot education sector (the ‘hedge-schools’) But the curriculum and the organization Gleeson, ‘Peter O’Connell: Scholar to flourish with minimal supervision by of the schools themselves came under and Scribe 1755–1826’, Church and state. For conservatives, the sustained attack. Opponents of the hedge- Studies, 33 (1944), dominant role of schoolmasters in the schools regularly assembled lists of the 342–48. United Irish organization at local level had texts (primarily chapbooks) they used, to 29 [James Dunn?] Essay on the Present State of been one of the most disturbing aspects demonstrate how dissolute and archaic these Manners and Education 33 of that decade. Masterless men, hedge- establishments were. The Catholic bishop, among the Lower schoolteachers were to be feared as agents James Doyle (known as JKL), for example, Class of the People of of sedition. Outside the reach of Church disapproved of the mixed education of the Ireland and the Means of Improving Them and state, they had a foot — and a tongue informal schools: ‘the children are piled (Dublin, 1799), 7. — in both worlds: ‘From this it follows then on each other and the sexes promiscuously 30 Blayney, Narrative, vol. that education is your only resource; ’tis jumble together’.34 Educational historians 1, 344. this alone can open to you all channels of have been hasty in endorsing these partisan 31 L. M. Cullen, ‘Patrons, Teachers and Literacy instruction, and this will enable you to meet attacks. Yet the most striking feature of in Irish 1700–1850’, in the enemy, who has secretly got possession, the hedge-schools was their pragmatism Mary Daly and David not only on equal terms, but with superior and success. How, for instance, was the Dickson, eds., The advantage.’29 Richard Lovell Edgeworth astonishing language transition in Ireland Origins of Popular Literacy in Ireland (father of the novelist Maria) observed: in the hedge-school period achieved or (Dublin, 1990), 15–44. ‘It is fresh in our memories that in the how did Ireland become English-speaking, 32 Mary Daly, ‘The progress of the last rebellion in this country, if not through the medium of the hedge- Development of the those who could read or write were at first school? The most effective anglicizing National School System 1831–40’, in employed to influence and direct the rest.’30 influence in eighteenth-century Ireland, Art Cosgrove and It suited both Church and state that these the hedge-schools were not an archaizing, James McGuire, eds., schoolmasters be demonized as a prelude to but a modernizing force. Their wholesale Studies in Irish History gaining control over them, hence the post- absorption into the new system shows that Presented to R. Dudley Edwards (Dublin, rebellion surge of polemical writing that what occurred was a takeover, not a radical 1979), 157. emphasizedwww.fieldday.ie the luridly inappropriate school reform, by the state. 33 Rolf Loeber and texts, their anomalous emphasis on Latin The very term ‘hedge-school’ was a Magda Stouthamer and Greek and, ultimately, the character semantic deformation. It originated in the Loeber, ‘Fictions Available to and Written defects of the pedagogues themselves. common English usage of ‘hedge’ as ‘an for Cottagers’, in But this is all part of a propaganda attribute expressing contempt’ (OED), Bernadette Cunningham campaign that successfully obscured the for example, hedge-doctor, hedge-lawyer, and Máire Kennedy, reality that the national school project was hedge-alehouse, etc. Because of the informal eds., The Experience of Reading: Irish in essence a response to the success, not the nature of popular, especially Catholic, Historical Perspectives 31 failure, of the hedge-schools. The 1798 education and the lack of accredited (Dublin, 1999), 124–72. rebellion had shocked both Church and training for schoolteachers under the 34 Cited in W. Vaughan, state by demonstrating their lack of control Penal Laws, the term ‘hedge-school’ was ed., A New History of Ireland, Volume V: in this crucial area; part of the response increasingly applied in this pejorative sense Ireland under the Union in the post-Union period was a campaign as the education debate intensified in the 1801–1870 (Oxford, of increasingly vituperative attacks on the early nineteenth century when the word 1990), 582. hedge-schools’ allegedly baneful influence. was popularized. The application of the 35 Arthur Young, A Tour in Ireland, 2 vols. Here the Catholic Church and the British term to mean schools held in the open air, (London, 1780), vol. 2, state shared a moral and political aim, or in the side of a ditch, is adventitious: 147. to control education. Their co-operation the original derivation has simply been was necessary for the success of the new occluded. The English traveller Arthur national school system. Control rather Young was one of the first to use the term than reform was the central issue; after all, ‘hedge school’.35 The first literary use 85 per cent of hedge-schoolmasters were occurs in John O’Keefe’s play The Wicklow

14 Between: The Politics of Culture in Friel’s Translations

Commercial illustration depicting the 12-inch coast survey theodolite, no. 13, for primary triangulation. Undated engraving. © Bettmann/CORBIS

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Goldmines (1796). Matt Frayne, the hedge- and his school as a site for a picturesque 36 Flanagan’s close friend Seamus Heaney was schoolmaster in Carleton’s popular Traits ‘Gaelic’ cultural dilapidation. Thomas the model for the and Stories of the Irish Peasantry (1830– Flanagan’s novel The Year of the French poet/teacher Cormac 33), became the model for future literary (1979) offers a modern example.36 The McCarthy. versions, in which the ‘master’ was regularly overblown romanticization of this figure represented as the epitome of Gaelic Ireland, conceals the English-speaking mundanity

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Building the Tower of Babel, from Bedford Book of Hours 1423. © The Art Archive / British Library

37 Thaddaeus [Thady] Connellan (1780–1854), a native of Skreen in County Sligo, received a ‘fair classical education’, started his own small school and became ‘a thorough Irish scholar’. He converted to Protestantism c.1808, and like many other ‘manuscript men’, he ran an evangelical Bible school dedicated to converting the native Irish through the medium of the Irish language. His An Irish and English www.fieldday.ieSpelling Book reached a nineteenth edition by 1848, and he also produced An English– Irish dictionary, Intended for the Use of Schools (1814) and The Proverbs of Solomon (1823), containing English, Irish, and Hebrew versions. He died in great poverty in Sligo, and his funeral provoked bitter sectarian scenes. All previous accounts are superseded by the magisterial treatment in Pádraig de Brún, Scriptural Instruction in the Vernacular: The 37 Irish Society and Its of the actual Irish popular education system Connellan in her Patriotic Sketches of Teachers 1818–1827 that worked so effectively. 1807.38 Although Friel never refers to (Dublin, 2009), 14–39. The locus classicus of the description it, his hedge-schoolmaster Hugh seems 38 Sydney Owenson, of a hedge-schoolmaster is Lady Morgan’s closely modelled on it. He was later Patriotic Sketches in Ireland (London, 1807), (Sydney Owenson’s) chapter on Thady drawn to the reminiscences of Charles 131–50.

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39 Charles McGlinchey, McGlinchey (1861–1954), a weaver and binding versions of place names in the The Last of the Name, tailor of Meentiagh glen in the Inishowen modern Republic of Ireland. edited and with an peninsula of County Donegal (the setting of This little man (five feet, two inches) was Introduction by Brian Friel (Belfast, 1986). Translations). Friel edited and introduced a giant of nineteenth-century scholarship, McGlinchey’s tales the book The Last of the Name.39 He the greatest-ever scholar of the Irish had been transcribed presents the old man, as he does Hugh language. His exemplary edition, including by Patrick Kavanagh, in the play, as a Janus figure, inhabiting text, translation and notes, of Annála the local teacher, in the 1940s and 1950s. both ‘a rural community in the process Ríoghachta Éireann/Annals of the Kingdom For the chapter on of shedding the last vestiges of a Gaelic of Ireland, appearing in six volumes education, see 107–11. past and of an old Christianity that still from 1848 to 1851, established new and 40 Friel, Introduction, The cohabited with an older paganism’, and formidable scholarly standards for Irish- Last of the Name, 2. 47 41 Murray, ed., Brian Friel, an emerging community coming to an language material. His translations opened 108. uneasy accommodation with the modern to English speakers the hitherto sealed 42 Murray, ed., Brian Friel, world, ‘the buses, the cars, the silk casket of the Irish literary tradition. In that 116. Friel lived for many stockings’.40 In forming this figure, Friel sense, O’Donovan was an indispensable years about a mile from 48 Burnfoot, a key location also had in mind his Irish-speaking and precursor of the Literary Revival, which in the play. illiterate grandparents,41 and a great-great- sought, in the aftermath of the linguistic 43 John O’Donovan/ grandfather McCabe, a hedge-schoolmaster shift from an Irish-speaking to an English- Seán Ó Donnabháin from Mayo who settled in Donegal and who speaking Ireland, to establish a version of (1806–61) was born in the parish of Slieverue, was remembered as being ‘fond of a drop’. English sufficiently distinctive to anchor County Kilkenny, to a This world was not at all remote in any an Irish aesthetic. The Revival could be Catholic farming family. sense — ‘It’s very close, you know’.42 regarded as an extravagant discourse in He was employed as the English language about dumbness in a scribe to copy Irish 49 manuscripts and legal John O’Donovan the Irish language. It craved access to the documents in 1827, world of a vanished or vanishing Gaelic prepared an analytic Friel has confirmed that the character civilization, whose ambiguous absence must catalogue of Irish Owen in the play is a version of be brought to renewed presence in English- manuscripts at Trinity 43 www.fieldday.ieCollege, Dublin, and John O’Donovan. O’Donovan, the language forms. Hence the Revival featured was co-founder of the indispensable Irish-language adviser to strenuous efforts to invent a new English- Irish Archaeological the Ordnance Survey, was appointed based but distinctive language capable of Society in 1840. He ‘orthographer and etymologist’ to the that task. The experiments include W. B. wrote topographical 44 and historical essays survey in 1830. He quickly acquired Yeats’s occult dialect in A Vision, James for the Dublin Penny a pivotal role in the new topographical Joyce’s molten English in Finnegans Wake, Journal and the Irish department, investigating the derivation of Lady Gregory’s Kiltartanese, heavily Penny Journal. His Irish place names.45 In 1834, he commenced influenced by the sounds and grammatical serviceable Grammar of the Irish Language on his heroic fieldwork, travelling on foot forms of Hiberno-English, J. M. Synge’s appeared in 1845. across Ireland to study the vast array of variations on folk-dialect, and Samuel Appointed professor of place names, sending back an inexhaustible Beckett’s experiments in escaping ‘the Celtic Studies at Queen’s flow of correspondence, at once witty, Anglo-Irish exuberance and automatisms’ by University, Belfast, in 1849, he continued irascible and erudite (the justly celebrated writing in French and then back-translating to live in Dublin. The ‘Ordnance Survey Letters’)46 from 1834 to into an almost comically austere English. last decade of his life 1841. He personally sourced 140,000 Irish Yet despite O’Donovan’s eminence as was preoccupied with place names in the field, and established an Irish-language scholar, none of his six his editorial work on 50 the ancient Irish laws the authorized versions in anglicized surviving sons was an Irish speaker. He (the so-called Brehon orthography, chosen to mimic the sound himself believed that the language did not laws), the Seanchas of the Irish-language names, which were merit a future role in the public sphere: Mór: See R. B. Walsh, subsequently inscribed on the Ordnance ‘John O’Donovan: The Man and the Survey maps, and which are still the legally I respect it as a great influence that has Scholar’, in Cyril

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Mick Lally and Ann Hasson in rehearsal for Brian Friel’s Translations at the Gulidhall, Derry, 1980. Photo: Rod Tuach. © Field Day

Byrne and Margaret Harry, eds., Talamh an Éisc: Canadian and Irish essays (Halifax, NS, 1986), 119–39; Éamonn de hÓir, Seán Ó Donnabháin agus Eoghan Ó Comhraí (Dublin, 1962); Nollaig Ó Muraíle, ‘John O’Donovan’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). 44 Patricia Boyne, John O’Donovan, 1806– 1861 (Aberystwyth, 1987). 45 Art Ó Maolfabhail, ‘An tSuirbhéireacht Ordanáis agus logainmneacha na hÉireann 1824–34’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 89C (1989), 37–66; Art Ó www.fieldday.ieMaolfabhail, ‘Éadbhard Ó Raghallaigh, Seán Ó Donnabháin agus an tSuirbhéireacht Ordanáis 1830–4’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 91C (1991), 73–103. 46 These survive in manuscript (Ordnance Survey Archives, Phoenix Park, Dublin), in typescript volumes been and no longer is or can be. It fed the and imaginative people to a truly noble edited by Fr Michael O’Flanagan from poetical flame within the people’s mind, standard among the civilised nations of 1924 to1932 (National and was the parent of true poetry in the modern Europe: but its office has been Library of Ireland), more cultivated: it nourished the latent, fulfilled: it is no longer necessary to the and in a modern series instinctive aspirations of the Irish race, exigencies of modern society, with which published by Four Masters Press. Friel gave them aliment, and directed their the Irish race must either amalgamate or contributed the Preface movements, and rescued their ancestors perish. The only interest it can have is a to the Donegal volume: from the dominion of brutish ignorance, historical or poetical one. 51 John O’Donovan, stirred them with insatiable thirst for Ordnance Survey Letters: Donegal. true knowledge, which, when established Owen in Translations is ‘a city man’, Letters Containing on a right basis, will raise this ancient ‘wealthy’, who ‘got out in time’: he shrugs Information Relative

18 Between: The Politics of Culture in Friel’s Translations

to the Antiquities of off his dual identity as Owen/Roland — ‘it’s was held at the end of the nineteenth the County of Donegal the same me’, ‘a mistake’. He works for century. Consider the contribution of Collected During the benefit of the colonists, he is on their John Pentland Mahaffy (1839–1919),55 the Progress of the Ordnance Survey in payroll, he is a go-between, and he is faintly provost of Trinity College, prolific, if 1835, edited and with soiled by the taint of being an informer. In erratic, classical scholar, leading Anglo- an Introduction by the context of Northern Ireland in 1980, at Irishman, and brilliant conversationalist.56 Michael Herity, Preface the height of its dirty war, the long-standing Mahaffy, a quintessential Trinity man, gave by Brian Friel (Dublin, 2000). Irish paranoia about informers had reached six decades of service as student, tutor, 47 Nollaig Ó Muraíle, another culmination, driven to it by the new professor, senior fellow, vice-provost and ‘Seán Ó Donnabháin, British tactic of employing ‘supergrasses’ provost: he was accordingly taken to speak “An Cúigiú Máistir”’, — informers whose uncorroborated as the official voice of Anglo-Ireland. He in R. Ó hUiginn, ed., Scoláirí Gaeilge XXVII: testimony jailed large numbers of their dismissed cultural nationalism as a diseased Léachtaí Cholm Cille former colleagues. Friel’s own comments version of provincialism, and vigorously (Magh Nuad, 1997), are that O’Donovan could be seen both resisted efforts to have Irish taught as a 11–82. to have performed ‘the actions and the subject at any level in the Irish education 48 Vivian Mercier, Modern Irish Literature: Sources perfidy of a quisling’ but also to have system. He disparaged Gaelic literature on and Founders (Oxford, embarked on a ‘task of honour’.52 (We are the grounds that it was impossible to find 1994), 10–11. Joyce’s reminded of the long-standing joke among a text in the language that was not ‘either gleeful parodies of the translators: traduttore/traditore, translator/ religious, silly or indecent’.57 In his 1896 mellifluously alliterative O’Donovan translations traitor, as in the mocking nickname ‘the essay ‘A Modern Babel’, directed at a British pepper both Ulysses and Translator’ given by Barcelona fans to José audience, Mahaffy distinguished between Finnegans Wake. Mourinho.)53 William Hazlitt claimed in advancing and receding civilizations: one 49 This argument is made 1814 that ‘He who speaks two languages spoke a universal imperial language; the at greater length in Kevin Whelan, ‘The has no country’ — but adds: ‘The French, other a local ‘tongue’. A common language Memories of “The when they made their language the common like Latin or its modern successor English Dead”’, Yale Journal of language of the courts of Europe, gained was ‘a lever of civilisation’: ‘The British Criticism, 15, 1 (2002), more than by all their other conquests put tongue, like British gold, will probably 59–97. 54 50www.fieldday.ie Four of them joined together.’ Here again in Translations a pervade the world’ — ‘the great object the Irish revolutionary question is posed but not resolved: should which every promoter of imperial Britain group the Fenians, we admire or condemn Owen/O’Donovan? interests should have in view’. He dismissed including the flamboyant And here, too, we can see a recurrent Irish as a ‘miserable remnant of barbarism’, Edmund, a pioneering ‘war correspondent’ pattern in Friel’s work; his plays often ‘a most difficult and useless tongue, not in Spain, Bosnia and feature an outsider figure whose comments only useless, but a mischievous obstacle to Afghanistan, whose on the action of the drama constitute civilisation’ and sneered that Irish-language final fatal posting was to a translation that is both a rational enthusiasts ‘might also turn their attention cover the Mahdi revolt in the Sudan in 1883. account of it and yet is suspect in virtue to the dying language of the Maories [sic] 51 John O’Donovan, ‘On of its detachment, a distance that seems and the natives of Australia’.58 Thus the the Traditions of the scandalous, as, for example, Tom Hoffnung entire Revival project was a retrograde County of Kilkenny’, in Aristocrats or Mabel Bagenal in Making step, a retreat to the Dark Ages, a futile Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries History. Their ancestry ultimately extends scrabbling in the ruins of Babel. of Ireland, 1 (1849–51), to Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town 369. (1938), whose Grover’s Corner is an obvious The Hidden Ireland 52 See Delaney, ed., Brian antecedent of Friel’s Ballybeg. Friel in Conversation, 118; in another The most considered riposte to such revealing comment, The Irish Language: ‘The Modern Babel’ dismissals came from Daniel Corkery.59 Friel agreed that the His cultural criticism was established on Owen/O’Donovan We cannot properly weigh the language a Ruskinian basis of contempt for neo- character could be regarded as ‘a typical issue in Friel’s play unless we understand classical ‘egotism’. From John Ruskin, he SDLP man’ (86). The the contempt in which the Irish language learned to value the integration of art and

19 Field Day review

Ray Hanlon in rehearsal for Brian Friel’s Translations at the Gulidhall, Derry, 1980. Photo: Rod Tuach. © Field Day

Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) repudiated the use of violence as a political weapon and pursued moderate constitutional nationalist goals. Hard-line republicans regarded the party as too craven (the ‘Stoop Down Low Party’) in its response to the British presence. Its leader, and later Nobel Peace Prize winner, John Hume, was a Derry man, so an overtly political reading of the play would have resonated with the play’s first audience in the Guildhall in Derry, including Hume himself. 53 Mourinho worked at the Camp Nou, the Barcelona football stadium, in the 1990s translating for the www.fieldday.ieEnglish manager Bobby Robson— thus earning him the taunting nickname from Barcelona fans. 54 William Hazlitt, ‘Illustrations of Vetus’, in The Complete Works of William Hazlitt, 21 vols., ed. P. Howe (London, 1930–34), vol. 7, 374–75. life as an expression of cultural unity that antidote to the pallor and disconnectedness 55 R. B. McDowell and W. B. Stanford, Mahaffy, A sustained social harmony. Yet it took him of modern urban life. Because these Biography of an Anglo- some time to realize that he was himself communities had never been severed from Irishman (London, 1975 living in such a polity. When he had first their ancient attachments, they did not [1971]). seen Gaelic script in Cork shop signs, he suffer the dissociation of sensibility that 56 Mahaffy was a sparkling if malicious thought that it was Chinese. Although the Ruskin before him and T. S. Eliot after conversationalist and Cork city hinterland had vibrant Irish- him diagnosed as a morbid symptom of epigrammatist: ‘An speaking communities, he was incredulous modernity.60 In an Irish context, Yeats Irish bull, Madam, is that people still lived their lives through the had striven, unconvincingly, to promote always pregnant.’ His The Principles of the language. Gradually, as his awareness of the Anglo-Irish Big House as an achieved Art of Conversation the language deepened, he came to regard culture, a serene remnant of the ancient (1887) was reviewed by living Irish-language communities as an unity: now Corkery transposed the his pupil Oscar Wilde,

20 Between: The Politics of Culture in Friel’s Translations

who was influenced and Yeatsian version into a Gaelic setting. The town, the cabin, the person, the gear, fascinated by it. surviving Gaelic poetry was not a ‘folk’ the landscape. Civic life was not only 57 Final report of the but a displaced ‘high’ medieval poetry; the broken, but wiped away. Institutions, Commissoners on Intermediate Gaelic tradition had successfully avoided and the public edifices, ceremonies, arts Education(Ireland) the negative effects of the Renaissance, into which the institutional blossoms in (Palles),1899 C 9511, neo-classicism and the Enlightenment. home-centred countries, had ceased to XXII, 129. Douglas Corkery is accordingly scathing about exist. Life did no more than just crawl Hyde’s carefully argued rebuttal is reprinted Mahaffy, and the leading late nineteenth- along, without enough to eat, unclothed, in Áine Hyland and century historians William Hartpole Lecky fever-stricken, slow.64 Kenneth Milne, (1838–1903) and James Anthony Froude Irish Educational (1818–94), for their scandalous neglect of This essentially literary-cultural concept Documents. Volume One (Dublin, 1987), Irish-language sources, most particularly of outer ruin and inner resource has been 214–17. of the poetry that Corkery believed most transposed into the historical domain 58 J. P. Mahaffy, ‘The accurately mirrored the inner life of the and also given a geographical location Modern Babel’, ordinary people. Literature was the key among the bogs, hills and mountains of the Nineteenth Century, xl, 782–84. cultural expression; when all else was Atlantic coast, the territory of ‘the Gaels, 59 Daniel Corkery denied the Irish-speaking Catholics, they whose only portion was rock and bog (1878–1964) was born still retained their poetry, which introduces and wind’. Translations is set precisely in in Cork, the son of a us to what Edmund Burke had in a similar this ‘Hidden Ireland’. Friel identifies Urris carpenter and active trade unionist. As a context called the ‘interior history of in Inishowen as ‘the setting of the hedge child, he did not know Ireland’.61 school in the play’.65 In a sense, the play that the Irish language The first modern scholarly editor of is set in the ‘once upon a time’ timeless existed, and he initially these poets was Pádraig Ó Dúinnín (P. space of the fairytale and folklore, ‘a dense regarded the Gaelic 62 66 League as misguided; S. Dinneen). Corkery emphasized the and fragrant time, like honey’, a Gaelic later he combined Gaelic cultural ‘inwardness’ of their poems: chronotope, to use Mikhail Bakhtin’s League philosophy with term.67 At the play’s beginning, place and Ruskinian cultural The poems in question, though barren time merge in a prelapsarian world: a brutal criticism. The Hidden www.fieldday.ieIreland (Dublin, as regards formal fact, tell us the history eruption from the external world disrupts 1924) earned him an of the inner life of the people as no the ancient peace.68 In his classic Time and honorary doctorate other documents can. State papers, the Other, the anthropologist Johannes from University College, photographs, paintings, wills, deeds, Fabian demonstrated how anthropological Cork; he persistently argued that the choice private letters of public personages, discourse constructed a different time for was either ‘to express such records as these have their value its objects, framed around the binary of Ireland or to exploit in interpreting for us the character of a tradition and modernity, which suppressed her’. He taught Sean people at a given period of their historical the possibility of cultural coevality.69 O’Faolain and Frank O’Connor, but later development, but they have not the power From the onset of modern colonialism in berated them as being of introducing us to the inner sanctum of the sixteenth century, the Irish language part of ‘the literature the people’s life where their emotions well has been relegated to this realm of the of collapse’. Synge forth in all their native vigour.63 outmoded, archaic, primitive, traditional. and Anglo-Irish Literature (1931) Denying simultaneity, this discourse vigorously contested Outwardly, the eighteenth-century Gaelic regarded each society as trapped in its own the Irishness of Yeats world was ruined — economically, socially, time zone, demonstrated by recourse to and other ‘tribeless’ culturally: taxonomic binaries (civilized/savage, here/ writers of the Literary Revival, offering only there, now/then, text/orality, subject/object, a partial exemption Such, then, was in general the face of mechanical/organic, rational/irrational). to Synge. See Patrick Ireland, such, more particularly, the These taxonomies, arrayed hierarchically Maume, ‘Life that is face of Irish Ireland — that hidden land between categories, always functioned Exile’: Daniel Corkery and the Search for whose story has never been told. Poverty as instruments of power. The capacity to Irish Ireland (Belfast, was its only wear — poverty in the impose and act upon these constructions

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Ian Bannen in rehearsal for the London production of Translations, 1981. Photo: Rod Tuach. © Field Day

1993); Seán Ó Tuama, ‘Daniel Corkery’, in Repossessions: Selected Essays on Irish Literary Heritage (Cork, 1995), 234–47; L. M. Cullen, The Hidden Ireland: Reassessment of a Concept (Dublin, 1988). 60 This also offers a parallel commentary on the disruptive effects of the Reformation on English culture. The unbroken Catholic tradition in Ireland was regarded by Corkery as another vector of continuity. 61 ‘But there is an interior history of Ireland, the genuine voice of its records and monuments, which speaks a very different language from these histories, www.fieldday.iefrom Temple and from Clarendon ...’ This appears in Burke’s Tracts Relating to Popery Laws (1765). 62 Filidhe na Máige (Dublin, 1906). Pádraig Ó Dúinnín/Patrick S. Dinneen (1860–1934) was born in Sliabh Luachra in County Kerry, and joined the Jesuit order in 1880. After his ordination in 1894, he taught unhappily for some constituted power, a power principally cultural time. Osip Mandelstam refuted years before leaving the vested in the state. In this sense, power had the idea that ‘Russia has no history, that is, Jesuits (who considered a temporal, as well as a spatial, inscription. that Russian belongs to the unorganized, him eccentric) in 1900 to study Irish Time was crucial to the construction of unhistorical world’ by stressing the role of full-time. He lived in the cultural other, and its deployment in the Russian language itself in history: abject poverty in a making the other was always a form of caravan in Malahide making itself. Cultures with a long literary So highly organized, so organic a and frequented the National Library: ‘Every tradition in the vernacular, like Irish and language is not merely a door into user of the National Russian, have resisted that conception of history, but is history itself. For Russia, Library in the 20s &

22 Between: The Politics of Culture in Friel’s Translations

30s remembers the defection from history, excommunication the genius loci, wither as the translation gentle, shabby, old man from the kingdom of historical necessity migrates? Or does the living spirit die, to chewing apples and and continuity, from freedom and be replaced by the letter — the formal, raw carrots with a pile of books around him teleology, would have been defection administrative dead letter — of the law? like a rampart.’ His from its language. Reduction to a state of While the play exploits the pathos of that Lectures on the Irish ‘dumbness’ for two or three generations fate, it also leaves open the conclusion that Language Movement could have brought Russia to historical that which is lost is well lost — the sense (1904) deplored the English influence on death. Excommunication from language is that a minority or antiquated language can Irish culture. He edited the equivalent for us to excommunication stifle, rather than facilitate, communication, standard editions of from history. For that reason, it is as revealed, for instance, by the fact that the Munster poets certainly true that Russian history travels Baile Beag/Ballybeg is a cul-de-sac for Aogán Ó Rathaille (1900), Eoghan along the brink, along a ledge, over an young women, and by the diseased life it Rua Ó Súilleabháin abyss, and is on the verge of falling into offers to the sexually and socially isolated (1901), Seán Clárach nihilism at any moment, that is, of being Jimmy Jack. Translations circles around the Mac Dómhnaill excommunicated from the world.70 question of whether the culture is fatally (1902), Seafraidh Ó Donnchadha (1902), flawed internally and therefore vulnerable Tadhg Gaelach Ó Forgetting in language terms is never to outside pressure or assault. The play is Súilleabháin (1903), and about the end of things but rather about full of damaged characters — dumb Sarah, Piaras Feritéir (1903). their mutability. The common capacity of alcoholic Hugh, lame Manus (damaged His incomparable Foclóir Gaedhilge agus languages is to change — or more accurately when his drunken father fell asleep across Béarla/Irish–English to be changed by us — while bearing the him).74 The laming,75 according to Dictionary appeared in traces of its earlier incarnations. The changed Friel, was ‘a physical maiming which is three editions, in 1904, language secretes traces of the old, the a public representation of their spiritual 1927 and 1934. 71 76 63 Corkery, The Hidden remnant that always remembers the loss. deprivation’. It ends with the displaced Ireland, 22. Manus ‘limping along the coast’—a 64 Corkery, The Hidden The Language Question prolepsis of the precarious state of the Ireland, 23. Irish language itself? Sarah in the play is 65 Friel, ‘Extracts from a www.fieldday.ieSporadic Diary’, 57. Translations also addresses the hoary childlike—infans, literally unspeaking; only 66 Mikhail Bakhtin, linguistic question: how does the sound when she is taught to speak—‘My name is ‘Forms of Time and of a word relate to its meaning? In 1911, Sarah’—does she enter adult identity. The of the Chronotope in Ferdinand de Saussure had demonstrated pathetic figure of Jimmy Jack suggests yet the Novel’, in his The Dialogic Imagination that there was no inevitable or natural another form of incommunication—the (Austin, 1981), 103. relationship between the sound of a word world of fantasy. 67 Bakhtin, ‘Forms of and the thing that it represents: ‘The So the ethical question becomes this: Time’, 84–258. connection between the signifier and must the local genuflect before what it 68 Friel also encourages the 72 audience, through other the signified is arbitrary.’ Language knows will render it at best provincial, deliberate anachronisms, is effective because its sound system at worst recessive, irrelevant, inaudible, to think about the becomes a habitual structure. Languages invisible? The shadow of that anxiety impending Great Irish therefore are brilliantly artificial structures. lies athwart the threshold of translation, Famine (1845–52) that was to visit such Authenticity and intrinsic meaning are and that ambiguous troubled moment of devastation on the Irish- illusions.73 Has ‘Bun na hAbhann’ an transition is the space and time that this speaking communities intrinsic meaning, some secret essence, that play inhabits. Translations simultaneously of the Atlantic coast. ‘Burnfoot’ lacks? Is there an autonomous accepts and refuses the idea of an authentic ‘The sweet smell’ (the sickly sweet stench of spiritual integrity, from which we are being language. Friel situates his play at the potatoes suffering from educated — led forth? Translations sets seemingly tragic moment of linguistic the potato blight, which about attuning the audience’s ear to the displacement, and yet discovers that all first struck in 1845) is altered acoustic when a language changes, forms of apparent authenticity are equally one example, but the entire play is shadowed querying if everything suffers a seismic shift fictitious. Every effort to escape one form by the dramatic irony during the sonic transition. Does the spirit, of binary collision merely generates more

23 Field Day review

— old/new, traditional/modern, Irish/ found yet another theatrical possibility of by which the audience British, colonized/colonizer, indigenous/ going beyond language: knows, as the characters cannot, that the Famine cosmopolitan, local/universal — and is looming. a vertiginous gap opens in the action, Dancing as if language had surrendered 69 Johannes Fabian, Time through which, and yet also into which, the to movement — as if this ritual, this and the Other: How weight of its politics falls. Ultimately, at its wordless ceremony, was now the Anthropology Makes Its Objects (New York, dramatic high point, the play magnificently way to speak, to whisper private and 1983). stages linguistic incomprehension as a sacred things, to be in touch with some 70 Osip Mandelstam, means of communication in the Máire/ otherness. Dancing as if the very heart of ‘Conversation about Yolland scene: they cannot understand each life and all its hopes might be found in Dante’ [1933], in Mandelstam: The other but communicate perfectly. At the those assuaging notes and those hushed Complete Critical heart of Translations is its own denial — at rhythms and in those silent and hypnotic Prose and Letters, ed. this crucial moment, Friel absconds from movements. Dancing as if language no Jane Gray Harris (Ann the identity and linguistic politics of the longer existed because words were no Arbor, 1979), 408. 71 Daniel Heller-Roazen, play by showing that love can dispense with longer necessary.81 Echolalias: On the words (but not with signs) and bridge the Forgetting of Language multiple divisions between the lovers. The limits of communication were also (New York, 2005). At this moment of linguistic political: the Friel space is also that of the 72 Ferdinand de Saussure, Saussure’s Third Course weightlessness, the play turns on itself northern Catholic population whence he of Lectures on General and questions whether language has any originated; the warp in communication is Linguistics (1910– genuine representative function at all, and a constitutive feature of that space; it can 1911), Komatsu and especially whether it can ‘interpret between only disappear with the dissolution of that Harris, eds. (Oxford, 1993). privacies’. Friel tends at these moments to contrived space.82 The strident assertion 73 Stephen Pinker, The suggest that the space beyond language of difference that it provokes will never Language Instinct: is less contaminated: ‘Maybe silence is permit re-entry into a lost world — itself How the Mind Creates the perfect discourse.’77 Music is another an illusion, but inescapably part of the Language (New York, 1998). For the neuro- potentially perfect discourse for Friel: ‘And whole apparatus. It is equally an illusion biologist Pinker, the thatwww.fieldday.ie is what music can provide in the theatre: to believe that it is possible to evade a language instinct is a another way of talking, a language without defining political and cultural force field by language of thought words ... and because it’s wordless, it can burrowing deep into the past or the local. that precedes words: ‘People do not think in hit straight and unmediated into the veins A process of introversion offers no mode English or Chinese or 78 of a deep emotion.’ Language is only one of separation, except the nihilistic one of Apache: they think in route from the interior to the exterior, from rendering oneself and one’s culture invisible a language of thought’ the private to the public. Another is touch, and inaudible, or of seeking to obliterate the (82). He assails Edward Sapir’s culturalist thesis physical contact; yet another is violence. oppressive through terror — the speech act that different languages As is appropriate for a dramatist, Friel is of the politically inarticulate: in the words encoded different supremely alert to the para-linguistic world of Nadine Gordimer in 1969: ‘They [ANC phenomenologies, like of touch, gesture, waving, eye contact, blush activists] felt useless as they were and so Hopi tenses for time, or Inuit words for snow: and stammer. He always remains interested became what they were not.’83 ‘There is no scientific in the limits of communication, while A further illusion is the escape into evidence that languages retaining a belief in its possibilities. Most domesticity, much coveted, despite Theodor dramatically shape obviously, in Faith Healer (1979), the play Adorno’s weary warning: ‘The illusory their speakers’ way of thinking’ (58). written before Translations, the thaumaturge importance and autonomy of private life 74 Friel has been stands in for the dilemma of the writer: ‘a conceals the fact that private life drags justifiably cross with metaphor for the art, the craft of writing’.79 on only as an appendage of the social careless critics, usually The Communication Cord (1982), the farce process.’84 No domain of privacy, immune historians, who claim that the play represents that followed Translations, is also a language and insulated from the political process, ‘a Gaelic idyll’: he 80 play, concerning ‘reading with your ears’. can exist. This is the contaminated space stresses that the play’s And in Dancing at Lughnasa (1990), Friel of Friel, of the play, of Field Day Theatre setting is ‘not idyllic’,

24 Between: The Politics of Culture in Friel’s Translations

Stephen Rea in rehearsal for Brian Friel’s Translations at the Gulidhall, Derry, 1980. Photo: Rod Tuach. © Field Day

and that of its principal characters, ‘one is dumb, one lame, one alcoholic’ (Delaney, ed., Brian Friel in Conversation, 148). 75 The Philoctetes figure since the eighteenth century has become a symbol of Catholic Ireland, amputated from the body politic by the Penal Laws, which deprived them of political participation from the Glorious Revolution (1688) until Catholic emancipation (1829). The most sustained recent treatment is Seamus Heaney’s Cure at Troy — an adaptation of Sophocles’ Philoctetes, produced by Field Day in 1991. As with Friel, Heaney explores the www.fieldday.ieappropriate ‘ethical balance of the private and the public life’ (a quotation from Edmund Wilson, The Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature (Oxford, 1941), cited in the Company, of Northern Ireland, of Ireland, the ethics of Field Day, founded in the grim programme notes for the Field Day production). of any colonized country. Friel’s play days of the early 1980s as it sought to ‘find 76 Murray, ed., Brian Friel, at its best does not just reproduce the some kind of generosity that can embrace 87. conventional either/or; it explores the more the whole island’.85 For Friel, his Field Day 77 Brian Friel, The fundamental issue of why the question is plays were imaginative cultural experiments Communication Cord (London, 1982), 103. formulated as an either/or, and in so doing, that would provide ‘stepping stones to 78 Murray, ed., Brian Friel, it poses the political question of whether the other side’: ‘out of the cultural state, 177. Thomas Moore’s and how it is possible to move beyond it. a possibility of a political state follows’.86 melody ‘Oft in the Stilly The terms of the question ultimately betray Culture should be transformative, not Night’ features in three of Friel’s plays. His the anxiety of the questioner. Translations something inert and effete. father taught it to his seeks a paradigm that does not collapse Language shift may be understood school choir, including into the drearily reductive zero-sum game and/or felt as a breach of memory, a the young Brian, and it of existing Northern Ireland politics. The breach of temporal continuity and spatial has always remained a haunting and haunted aspiration is honourable, the anxiety is connectedness, a rift from the estranged past. ‘distant music’ for him. palpable, the resolution is displaced. That Is there any viable space between assimilation The presence of Moore’s would also be a reasonable description of and otherness? Is it a spectrum? Translations

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Roy Hanlon and Brenda Scallon in rehearsal for Brian Friel’s Translations at the Gulidhall, Derry, 1980. Photo: Rod Tuach. © Field Day

melodies in Sebastian Barry’s Andersen’s English (2010) can be heard as a homage to Friel. 79 Murray, ed., Brian Friel, 111. 80 Murray, ed., Brian Friel, 174. 81 Brian Friel, Dancing at Lughnasa (London, 1990), 71. 82 Seamus Deane, ‘Brian Friel’s Translations’, a lecture delivered on 3 May 2006 at the Keough-Naughton Notre Dame Centre, Dublin. 83 Nadine Gordimer, ‘The Price of a White Man’s Country’, in her The Black Interpreters: Notes on African Writing (Johannesburg, 1973). www.fieldday.ie84 Theodor Adorno, The Adorno Reader, ed. Brian O’Connor (London, 2000), 206. 85 Delaney, ed., Brian Friel in Conversation, 143. 86 Murray, ed., Brian Friel, 113. 87 Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London, 1994). 88 Murray, ed., Brian Friel, 87. 89 Tynan proceeds: ‘And in Brendan Behan’s new play, language is out on a spree, ribald, dauntless and spoiling for a fight’: ultimately leaves fluid the question of resistance:87 could we then regard translation review of The Quare Fellow, Observer, 27 hybridity: can a shared space be opened by as duplication with a difference — is that May 1956. Behan was translation, a space within which hybridized difference an enhancement of our cultural ‘maimed’ by having artistic, cultural and political forms might repertoire or merely a damaged form of to pitch his voice in incubate? Famously, Homi Bhabha has duplicity through which we deceive ourselves an English accent for ‘English acceptance and refigured hybridity, not as a contamination of as much as others? This was classic Field recognition’; Delaney, purer essences, but as a sly staging ground for Day territory — in the form of its anthology, ed., Brian Friel in

26 Between: The Politics of Culture in Friel’s Translations

Conversation, 141, 146. its adaptations of world literature from the condemned to understand one another 90 Friel has produced Russian and the classics into specifically Irish in language. And while it is immediate, versions of Anton versions, its proposed dictionary of Anglo- language is also mediated and conditioned Chekhov’s Three Sisters (1981), Uncle Vanya Irish speech. English-language forms required by history. Through the force of historical (1998), and The Yalta vigorous rereading. In the words of Hugh in transmission, history and language acquire Game (2001) and Ivan Translations, ‘we must make them our own’. their terrible intimacy. There is no Adamic Turgenev’s A Month The problem of Irish theatre was to make language, no speech that conveys nothing in the Country (1992). Their premonitory the English language definitively Irish: ‘We but itself, in which spiritual essence and sense of impending must make English identifiably our own linguistic essence coincide. No language catastrophe amidst language.’88 Friel has often quoted as a can be perfectly transparent to itself — the a stifled society cautionary tale comments on Brendan Behan fly cannot become the glass. Original sin also offered him an opportunity for oblique by Kenneth Tynan, the London theatre entails the fall into language, into signifying political commentary on critic: ‘The English hoard words like misers: speech as external communication. The fall Ireland. the Irish spend them like sailors.’89 The into history is also a fall into the plurality 91 Seamus Deane, ‘Field prevalence and the power of this apparently of languages, the Babelian fall, but it can Day’s Greeks (and Russians)’, in Marianne benign stereotype of theatre-reviewing and also be regarded as the fortunate fall (felix McDonald and J. commentary encouraged Friel to become, culpa) that permitted human cultures to Michael Walton, eds., almost as a reaction, a highly disciplined proliferate and individuate themselves. Amid Our Troubles: and restrained writer with a consummate The historical fate of Irish as a minority Irish Versions of Greek Tragedy (London, technical mastery of stagecraft. It also language has, if anything, become 2002), 148–64. contextualizes his Russian translations/ more generally emblematic in an era 92 Irish writers who have adaptations,90 and Field Day’s productions of intensifying globalization. Of 6,800 offered translations of Greek and Roman dramas,91 with their known distinct languages, 400 are close to or adaptations from the Greek and Latin emphasis on bringing these classics into extinction, while 3,000 are endangered, as classics include Marina the Irish theatre free of such ready-made defined by the fact that children no longer Carr, Peter Fallon, English assumptions.92 In that sense, Friel learn them. A language dies somewhere in Seamus Heaney, has worked the productive seam opened by the world every fortnight.95 Six languages Brendan Kennelly, www.fieldday.ieMichael Longley, Frank ‘the disquiet between two aesthetics’, while account for half of global use and the top McGuinness, Derek retaining the ambition of generating ‘an ten languages accounted for 85 per cent Mahon and Tom Paulin. independent Irish aesthetic structured by of Internet use in 2009. In the Republic of 93 Delaney, ed., Brian Friel difference but not grounded in divisions’.93 Ireland, recent immigration has carried with in Conversation, 136. 94 Giorgio Agamben, it a linguistic cornucopia: 167 languages Potentialities: Collected Conclusion are now used in the state, ranging from Essays in Philosophy, Acholi and Amharic, to Zaghawa and edited and translated Ontologically, language necessarily Zulu.96 Alongside English and Irish, there with an Introduction by Daniel Heller- presupposes itself: language cannot be are now significant linguistic communities Roazen (Stanford, explained without recourse to language.94 of Arabic, Chinese, Polish, Russian, French 1999). The following So if there is no pure event of language, and Spanish users. These changes have the passage draws on the how can we ever escape out of language? potential to release the capacity of Irish as a chapter ‘Language and History: Linguistic and Are we doomed to be the Wittgensteinian minority language to be the exemplary case Historical Categories in fly imprisoned in the glass, gloomily aware for the new languages of Ireland, rather than Benjamin’s Thought’, of the inevitability of its imprisoning being the perennially junior partner in the 48–61. glass? While the fly can never leave the binary of English and Irish. Is Translations 95 Nicholas Ostler, Empires of the Word: A glass, it must begin by seeing the glass the same play in 2010 that it was 1980? Language History of the in which it is enclosed; for the fly, the World (London, 2005). glass is not an object but, rather, that 96 Irish Times, 25 March through which it sees objects. Language 2006. for human beings mediates all things and all knowledge. Human beings are

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www.fieldday.ie

28 Title page of first edition of The Land of Spices, by Kate O’Brien (Doubleday and Doran, New Kate O’Brien and York, 1941) the Erotics of Liberal Catholic Dissent Michael Cronin

1

In November 1942 Kate O’Brien’s novel The Land of Spices, which had been banned on publication by the Irish Censorship Board the previous year, was the subject of a debate in the Irish Seanad. It had been banned on the basis of one line, www.fieldday.ie‘she saw Etienne and her father, in the embrace of love’. This action re-ignited opposition to literary censorship.1 The Board had also banned Eric Cross’s The Tailor and Ansty (1942), a quasi-anthropological biography of two West Cork ‘characters’, and a book on birth control, Haley Sutherland’s Laws of Life (1936), which had been approved for publication by the Catholic hierarchy in England. 1 Kate O’Brien, The Land In the Seanad debate, Sir John of Spices (London, 1970 [1941]), 157. Keane, a director of the Bank of Ireland and member of the

Field Day Review 6 2010 29 Field Day review

Kate Thompson as Marie Rose (left) and Fidelma Murphy as Agnes, in a scene from the RTÉ Television adaptation of Kate O’Brien’s novel The Ante Room, during filming in Studio 1 in 1979. © RTÉ Stills Library

2 For an account of the Seanad since 1923, presented the banning while the ribald sexual frankness of the Seanad debate in 1942, of these two books and of O’Brien’s novel eponymous Tailor and his elderly wife, its historical context as evidence that the Censorship Board Ansty, had brought the same judgement and its aftermath, had lost the confidence of the public and down on Cross’s book.4 The Censorship see Michael Adams, Censorship: The Irish should be reconstituted. After a four- Board judged that Laws of Life had broken Experience (Dublin, daywww.fieldday.ie debate, in which Keane and Senator the interdiction on the promotion of birth 1968), 84–95. See also William Magennis, professor of metaphysics control, another element of the censorship Terence Brown, Ireland: at University College, Dublin, and a legislation. However, the crucial feature A Social and Cultural History 1922–2002 member of the Censorship Board, were of the public morality position was not a (London, 2004 [1981]), the chief protagonists, Keane’s motion of puritanical aversion to sexuality as such, 184–86, and Caleb no confidence in the Board was defeated. but the political claim that there is a link Richardson, ‘“They However, the controversy initiated a more between sexuality and social order. As the are not Worthy of Themselves”: The Tailor sustained and organized anti-censorship historian Alan Hunt demonstrates, moral and Ansty Debates of campaign, which led to the limited reform politics has been a recurring feature of 1942’, Éire-Ireland, 42 of the censorship process in 1946.2 modern Western society since the eighteenth (2007), 148–72. The literary censorship apparatus set up century, and continues to be so.5 Through 3 Peter Martin, Censorship in the Two in 1929 was a product of the intense public the operations of such politics, the anxiety Irelands 1922–1939 morality campaigns of the first decade of that is endemic to capitalism, due to its (Dublin, 2006), 60–91. the Free State.3 The basic tenet of those structural instability, is transformed into On various aspects of campaigns — that human sexuality and concern about individual behaviour and the Irish public morality campaigns, see Maria information on sexual matters needed to be the mobilization of campaigns to control Luddy, Prostitution tightly regulated by the state — was clearly this. Moral politics comes to the fore during and Irish Society in evidence in the events that led to the periods of crisis, when the contract between 1800–1940 (Cambridge, Seanad debate. O’Brien’s novel had been the individual and society that underpins 2007), 214–219; Sandra L. McAvoy, deemed obscene because of what Senator liberal capitalism is perceived to be an ‘The Regulation of Keane termed a ‘commendably short’ inadequate basis for social order. Viewed Sexuality in the Irish and oblique reference to homosexuality, in this light, the eruption of public morality Free State 1929–1935’,

30 Kate O’Brien and the Erotics of Liberal Catholic Dissent

in Greta Jones and campaigns and the consequent passing of regulated by collective action, since it is far Elizabeth Malcolm, legislation in the Irish Free State represented too important to be left to individuals alone. eds., Medicine, Disease less a quest for sexual purity than a quest O’Brien’s work counters by asserting that and the State in Ireland, 1650–1940 for hegemony. After the 1922 settlement the collective good can only be guaranteed (Cork, 1999), 253–66; and the subsequent civil war, the social if it is resolutely founded in the freedom of James M. Smith, order was in a state of flux. The morality the individual subject to regulate his or her Ireland’s Magdalen campaigns served to construct and cement own moral conduct. Where sexuality, for the Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture new class identities and to consolidate adherents of public morality, is the ground of Containment the hegemony of the newly empowered on which the ideal of liberal individualism (Manchester, 2007), Catholic middle class. This regulatory ideal fails, for O’Brien, sexuality is the testing fire 5–20; Diarmaid Ferriter, of sexuality allowed the middle classes to in which the ideal of liberal individualism is Occasions of Sin: Sex and Society in Modern define themselves as bearers of stability and forged and has its mettle proven. Ireland (London, 2009), order in a new moral economy, while also But this was not how O’Brien’s 100–05; Maryann producing an ideological framework for supporters in 1942 understood her position. Gialanella Valiulis, defining the manifest class divisions of the In an editorial in The Bell, Sean O’Faolain ‘Virtuous Mothers and Dutiful Wives: The new state in terms of social delinquency and contrasted the reviews of The Land of Politics of Sexuality in moral incompetence, rather than in political Spices in the Irish daily newspapers, the Irish Free State’, in and economic terms. which had praised the book for the depth Maryann Gialanella O’Brien’s real challenge to the public and accuracy of its portrayal of Catholic Valiulis, ed., Gender and Power in Irish morality discourses did not lie in the religious life, with the view of the five- History (Dublin, 2009), explicit depiction of sex in her novels but person Censorship Board that it was ‘in 100–14. in her adherence to the idea that sexuality its general tendency indecent’.7 This was 4 Keane’s comments on had inescapable moral consequences for also the strategy adopted by Senator Keane The Land of Spices from his Seanad speech the individual and for the social order. in the Seanad — by highlighting how a are quoted by Eibhear Her fiction clearly shares a modernist book largely in sympathy with the Catholic Walshe, Kate O’Brien: vision of sexuality as a vital force with perspective of the Censorship Board could A Writing Life (Dublin, the potential radically to transform the be banned for one reference to sexuality 2006), 90. 5 www.fieldday.ieAlan Hunt, Governing self and revolutionize society, one most exposed the absurdity of the Board’s Morals: A Social notably associated with D. H. Lawrence decisions. Thus, for O’Brien’s supporters, History of Moral and James Joyce in English literature and, the problem presented by the Censorship Regulation (Cambridge, in later decades, with the political thought Board was not essentially that a political 1999). See also, Lucy 6 Bland, Banishing the of Herbert Marcuse. But O’Brien’s work ideology had to be confronted but that a Beast: Feminism, Sex also entertains a distinct suspicion of the strain of irrationality and dysfunction in and Morality, 2nd edn. uncontrollable, disruptive and irrational the national project had to be exposed. For (London, 2001 [1995]). quality of the libido. More significantly, O’Faolain, the stark divergence of views, 6 On modernist literary erotics, see Ian Hunter she retains a pre-Freudian, theological between the newspaper reviewers and the et al., On Pornography: notion of sexuality as a moral problem in Censorship Board, represented a failure Literature, Sexuality her fiction, and she uses this problematic to of cultural authority in the new state. It and Obscenity Law structure her plots. Her heroines’ responses demonstrated that ‘standards and tastes’ (London, 1993), 96– 102. to the moral problem sexuality confronts were not properly established in Ireland; 7 The Editor, ‘Standards them with is the defining, and potentially this created a cultural situation in which and Tastes’, The Bell, 2, transformative, experience of their ‘one man’s opinion is as good as another’s, 3 (1941), 5–11, 8. development and the pivotal point in an and the Censors, certainly, cannot be taken 8 ‘Standards and Tastes’. O’Brien plot. Thus, she refuses to cede the as authorities’.8 ground of sexual morality to the proponents In his article ‘Sex, Censorship and the of the public morality discourses. According Church’, which appeared in a subsequent to them, the control of sexuality had issue of the The Bell, C. B. Murphy focused implications for the collective good and the his attention on the irrational, retrograde social order, and sexuality must therefore be puritanism and dysfunctional sexual culture

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that sustained the apparatus of censorship. ethical and collective dimension provided 9 C. B. Murphy, ‘Sex, In Murphy’s view, the perverse decisions by a ‘European’ Catholicism. This helps to Censorship and the Church’, The Bell, 2, 6 of the Censorship Board were not the explain why the banning of her novel relit (1941), 65–75, 73. See consequence of its members’ Catholicism the censorship debate and why her work also his ‘Censorship: but were ‘the attempt of Victorianism to took on such totemic value for her fellow Principle and Practice’, survive in Ireland long after the English Irish intellectuals. The Bell, 3, 4 (1942), 293–301. people, including the English Catholics, Oddly, this misidentification of the 10 ‘Sex, Censorship and the 9 have very sensibly dropped it’. The only political and historical significance Church’, 73. convincing argument Murphy can find for of O’Brien’s fiction continues among 11 ‘Sex, Censorship and the this grim situation is that ‘the average Irish contemporary critics. Typical of this is Church’, 75. 12 Walshe, Kate O’Brien, mind has not, and perhaps never had, a the opening assertion by her most recent 2. properly balanced outlook upon sex. Either biographer, Eibhear Walshe, that, 13 Ailbhe Smyth, it runs away from sex, or it runs after it: ‘Counterpoints: A Note it never seems able to stand and look at it in her fiction, Kate O’Brien was a (or Two) on Feminism and Kate O’Brien’, objectively.’10 Arrayed against this lack subversive. She created novels that were in Eibhear Walshe, of objectivity on the part of the ‘average deceptively traditional in form but ed., Ordinary People Irish mind’ is the ‘sane’ force of writers like radical in content — each novel a Trojan Dancing: Essays on Kate O’Brien. In Murphy’s view, O’Brien horse smuggling in forbidden topics, Kate O’Brien (Cork, 1993), 24–35, 33. writes of life ‘in a sane and noble tradition such as adultery, lesbianism and venereal 14 Walshe, Kate O’Brien, of thought and speech’ but he worries that disease through the medium of her 72–75. ‘there are yet unfortunately too few like civilised, graceful narratives.12 her for us to feel sure it is a native Irish tradition’.11 An even stronger claim for O’Brien’s Interestingly, the other potential source radicalism was made by Ailbhe Smyth when of ‘objectivity’ that Murphy identifies in she declared of O’Brien, ‘to write this, of relation to Irish sexuality is Catholicism or, this, like this — to refuse the solutions more specifically, ‘Roman’ Catholicism. Irish of the system — is a radically subversive Catholicism,www.fieldday.ie according to Murphy, needed act which undermines the bases of the to look outward to European Catholic Establishment, its values and practices’.13 culture to avoid being co-opted by ‘the The evidence for these assertions about Victorians’. The contrast between ‘Irish’ and the political radicalism of O’Brien’s work ‘European’ Catholicism was a characteristic is partly biographical and partly literary. trope used by mid-century Irish intellectuals, O’Brien was a lesbian, and illicit sexuality especially O’Faolain, for whom a is a salient theme in her fiction. On that democratic Catholic European worldview account, her novels were banned in Ireland. offered a sustaining alternative both to an She was also unquestionably courageous Irish Catholic nationalism, in which the as a writer; her indictment of Franco and individual is suffocated by the imperatives the Falangists in her travel book Farewell of collective development, and to an Anglo- Spain (1937) led to her exclusion from American secular liberalism, in which the that country for over twenty years.14 But individual is rootless and alienated without to describe O’Brien’s politics as radical or the co-ordinates of a collective, historical subversive is seriously to underestimate tradition. The political and cultural the strength of her commitment to cartography of ‘Ireland’ and ‘Europe’ is also bourgeois liberalism. What she offered a crucial trope in O’Brien’s fiction, although to Irish society in her Bildungsromane she worries less about the limiting and was an ideal of liberal individualism, disabling effects of ‘Victorianism’ than of and a model of historical development as Irish nationalism. Her novels symbolically gradual, progressive change, that could be reconcile liberal individualism with an productively fused with a commitment to a

32 Kate O’Brien and the Erotics of Liberal Catholic Dissent

15 Gerardine Meaney, Catholic worldview. Clearly, the meaning on the politics of O’Brien’s fiction, one is ‘Territory and of this political position has altered with reminded of Terry Eagleton’s argument, that Transgression: time. O’Brien was writing at a time when ‘what is wrong with middle-class liberalism History, Nationality and Sexuality in Kate European politics was dominated by is not on the whole its values, most of which O’Brien’s Fiction’, Irish totalitarianism and the struggle against are entirely admirable, but the fact that Journal of Feminist it, and her attachment to an essentially it obtusely refuses to recognise the depth Studies, 2 (1997), 77– nineteenth-century model of ethical liberal of social transformation which would be 92, 81. 16 Terry Eagleton, individualism was, in those circumstances, necessary for those values to be realised in ‘Revisionism Revisited’, pertinent but also nostalgic. But in the universal form’.16 in his Crazy John and late twentieth and early twenty-first the Bishop and Other century, when the neo-liberal ideology of 2 Essays on Irish Culture (Cork, 1998), 320. individualism was and is now dominant, 17 Kate O’Brien, Mary the political significance of O’Brien’s model O’Brien’s Mary Lavelle begins and ends Lavelle (London, 1984 needs to be understood in a historically with Mary alone on a train. In the opening [1936]), xix–xxii. considered manner rather than merely pages the young Irish woman is crossing 18 Mary Lavelle, 34. 19 Mary Lavelle, 344. applauded and seconded as politically the border into Spain. It is 1922, and she 20 Mary Lavelle, 285. correct for the present moment. is on her way to take up her post as a I wish neither to dismiss O’Brien as a governess, or ‘Miss’, to the three daughters conservative nor to construct her, in the of the Areavaga family.17 The novel ends manner of most recent commentary on her with Mary leaving Spain a few months work, as a radical subversive. Instead, I later. Though our last image is of Mary in hope to locate O’Brien’s narrative aesthetic, anguished tears for the recently dead father and the conception of sexuality that of her charges, and for her married lover informs it, within the broader historical and the friends whom she is leaving behind, context of the 1930s and 1940s. In we also learn that she now has an entirely many respects, O’Brien’s fiction offered new plan for her life. When she arrived a courageous challenge to the prevailing there, her year in Spain was intended to be a www.fieldday.iepolitical orthodoxies of Ireland. But ‘tiny hiatus between her life’s two accepted assertions such as Gerardine Meaney’s, that phases. To cease being a daughter without O’Brien’s ‘marginality is almost excessive’, immediately becoming a wife.’18 Her underplay the degree to which her fiction intention as she leaves Spain is to return only was entirely in step with the gradualist, temporarily to Ireland. She will stay long counter-revolutionary value-system enough to break off her engagement to be shared by many liberal and conservative married, collect a small inheritance and then intellectuals at that time.15 O’Brien, in this leave again.19 What happens to Mary during view, cannot be conceived of as a twenty- her months in Spain that transforms her first century secular lesbian feminist avant projected ‘tiny hiatus’ into this permanent la lettre, nor even as an entirely dissident breach between how her life was meant to be anti-establishment figure. Instead, I seek and how it will be? To put it simply, love — to understand her as a writer who, both love that is either unrequited or impossible in her commitment to the realist aesthetic in some other way. One of the other Irish and to the ethical agon of public morality ‘Misses’, Agatha Conlon, declares that discourses, is deeply committed to and she loves Mary, ‘the way a man would’.20 enmeshed in the value-systems of her epoch. Meanwhile, Mary has met Juanito, the Any comprehensive assessment of her liberal married brother of the girls in her charge, politics needs to register the attractiveness and they have fallen for each other. and strengths of her model of self-formation As Ann Fogarty has observed of this and historical development, while also novel, ‘by bringing the bildungsroman, acknowledging its limitations. Reflecting a literary genre which is a product of

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high culture, into contact with women’s overcome or separation and loss if they are 21 Ann Fogarty, romance, a form of popular fiction, O’Brien not, is less significant than the vividness ‘“The Business of Attachment”: Romance creates an idiosyncratic literary space of the representation of the obstacles. It and Desire in the Novels 21 of her own’. Choosing the romance as is the clash between the desires of the of Kate O’Brien’, in the generic raw material out of which to protagonists and the demands of social Walshe, ed., Ordinary produce a distinctively woman-centred regulation that drives the romance plot. People, 101–19, 104. 22 Diana Holmes, narrative of subject formation was a As Holmes argues, ‘romance provides a Romance and propitious choice on O’Brien’s part. At narrative form in which to address the Readership in its most practical, this enabled her to join difficult reconciliation of personal desire Twentieth-Century in a well-established tradition of women with social imperatives, and the particular France (Oxford, 2006), 9–14. The complex novelists and to find a place for her novels form that this takes for women’.23 relationship between the in the literary marketplace. In her analysis Thus, the formal aesthetics of modern ascendancy of bourgeois of the romance in twentieth-century French popular romance allowed O’Brien to gender ideology and literature, Diana Holmes offers a succinct situate her narratives of self-formation the history of the English novel is notably history of the emergence of the popular in relation to the history and politics of analyzed in Nancy romance in the late nineteenth century gender, and to foreground the specific Armstrong, Desire as a denigrated genre, characterized as dimensions of a woman’s narrative of and Domestic Fiction a feminine form of writing. This history development. At the same time, O’Brien (Oxford, 1987). 23 Holmes, Romance and was shaped through the interaction of the was also drawing on an older, pre-modern Readership, 16. ascendant bourgeois ideology of gender form of the romance. One of O’Brien’s 24 Vivian Mercier, ‘Kate — the radical separation between a public earliest critics, Vivian Mercier, argues that O’Brien’, Irish Writing, sphere, gendered as male, and a ‘feminine’ her scrupulous elaboration of ‘the conflict 1 (1946), 86–100, 87. domestic sphere — with technological between love and Christian duty’ made and economic developments in publishing O’Brien ‘in our day, the ablest practitioner and the literary marketplace.22 The of Romance in the English language’.24 romance genre offered a writer of O’Brien’s Mercier drew on Denis de Rougement’s generation an ambiguous inheritance: the 1939 work L’Amour et L’Occident opportunitieswww.fieldday.ie of an achieved and ready (Love in the Western World) to locate readership for a particular type of women’s O’Brien’s fiction in the long history of the writing; but also the constraints imposed romance form, with its medieval origins by established conventions and the cultural in the archetypal ‘Tristan and Isolde’ politics of literary differentiation. legend. A salient structural feature of Though the romance and the this romance tradition is the moral test, Bildungsroman can be separated into which the hero or heroine must undergo. ‘low’ and ‘high’literary modes, they also Using this formal device allowed O’Brien share significant conceptual ground. In to introduce an ethical and spiritual particular, the popular romance rehearses dimension to the formation narrative, one of the crucial symbolic operations and to the problematic relationship of the Bildungsroman. Both genres give between individual desire and social imaginative shape to the problematic conformity that is the crux of the secular relationship between the individual and Bildungsroman and popular romance. In modern society. The crux of the romance O’Brien’s novels this ethical dimension is plot is the question of whether and how invariably framed by Catholicism. the lovers can overcome the obstacles to If we take this notion of a moral test their union. In this view a happy or tragic as structuring O’Brien’s plots, we can ending are equally pleasurable for the identify three such in Mary Lavelle. One reader and of equal weight to the balance of Mary’s tests is her response to being of the plot. The actual dénouement of each loved by Agatha Conlon. Agatha is one story, a joyful union if the obstacles are of the older Irish ‘Misses’, and has been

34 Kate O’Brien and the Erotics of Liberal Catholic Dissent

25 Emma Donoghue, living in Spain for twenty years. As Emma hardly one that would help her to forget or ‘“Out of Order”: Kate Donoghue and Katherine O’Donnell have abjure her desires.28 O’Brien’s Lesbian shown, O’Brien drew on the expanding The crucial factor within Mary’s Bildung Fictions’, in Walshe, ed., Ordinary People, range of historically available lesbian narrative is not whether she does or does 36–58, 41–47. Katherine imagery when shaping her portrayal of not reciprocate Agatha’s feelings, but rather O’Donnell, ‘“But Greek Agatha.25 Agatha’s ‘queerness’ in the eyes her realization of the essential similarity ... Usually Knows of the other ‘Misses’, her mannishness between Agatha’s position and her own. Greek”: Recognising Queer Sexuality in and her ascetic, nun-like quality would As the love between her and Juanito is Kate O’Brien’s Mary have registered with a 1930s readership impossible because he is married, so is Lavelle’, in Patricia conversant with the popular versions Agatha’s because it is unrequited. Mary Boyle-Haberstroh and of sexology, and more especially with realizes this as she and Agatha sit together Christine St Peter, eds., Opening the Field: Irish the lesbian figure that was becoming outside a church, just after Agatha has Women, Texts and increasingly common in literature. The declared her feelings. Watching ‘the baize Contexts (Cork, 2007), best-known contemporary example of the door swing and swing again in the porch of 74–91, 84–85. literary lesbian was Stephen Gordon, the San Geronimo’, Mary thinks of the people 26 On the historical significance of The Well self-styled ‘invert’ heroine of Radclyffe ‘going in incessantly to pray, as Agatha did of Loneliness trial in the Hall’s The Well of Loneliness. Hall’s book so often, as she did, as Juanito too, perhaps. evolution of twentieth- had been tried for indecency in England on Seeking strength against the perversions century lesbian cultural its publication in 1928 and subsequently of their hearts and escape from fantastic identity, see Laura 29 Doan, Fashioning banned. This had brought the novel to longings.’ As the rhythm of O’Brien’s Sapphism: The Origins popular notice.26 Agatha’s expressions of sentence establishes an equivalence between of a Modern English guilt about her sexual feelings should also the three characters, the meaning of their Lesbian Culture (New confirm her status as an example of the common ‘perversion’ is clearly no longer York, 2001), 1–30. 27 Mary Lavelle, 285. anguished and tortured literary lesbian. defined by the logic of heterosexual and 28 Mary Lavelle, 297. However, Agatha describes her own guilt homosexual, or natural and unnatural. 29 Mary Lavelle, 297. with a cool detachment. Having declared Instead their desires are perverse in their 30 Fredric Jameson, The that she likes Mary, ‘the way a man would waywardness, their divergence from, and Political Unconscious: www.fieldday.ieNarrative as a Socially ... I can never see you without — without incompatibility with, reality. It is this Symbolic Act (London, wanting to touch you’, she observes that perversity that also makes their longings 2002 [1981]), 91. ‘it’s a sin to feel like that’.27 She goes ‘fantastic’, quixotic and utopian. As Fredric 31 On the history of the on to explain that ‘lately I’ve been told Jameson observes, it is precisely romance’s concept of perversion, see Jonathan Dollimore, explicitly about it in confession. It’s a very intimation of the fantastical, ‘the possibility Sexual Dissidence: ancient and terrible vice.’ That she laughs of sensing other historical rhythms, and of Augustine to Wilde, ‘softly’ while recounting this judgement demonic and Utopian transformations of Freud to Foucault emphasizes her awareness of the ironic a real now unshakably set in place’, that (Oxford, 1991), 30 103–228, and Arnold juxtaposition between the delicate, humane distinguishes this form. I. Davidson, The scale of her feelings for Mary and the To describe Agatha’s, Mary’s and Emergence of Sexuality: ponderous melodrama of this ascription. Juanito’s desires as perverse because they Historical Epistemology Agatha, in other words, draws a subtle are in conflict with reality is, of course, and the Formation of Concepts (London, distinction between her desires as such to invoke the Freudian agon of libido and 2001) 35. and the theological nomination of them as the reality principle. Strikingly, O’Brien sinful. She acquiesces in this theological elects not to employ this episteme. She model for framing her feelings, while draws instead on a much older theological simultaneously holding fast to them, and conception of perversity, not as a actively keeping them aflame. When Mary psychological or physiological category but is about to leave for Ireland, Agatha insists as an ethical orientation.31 Illicit sexual that Mary send her back a photograph of desire is perverse and potentially utopian herself — a poignantly stoic gesture, yet because it is conceptualized within a moral paradigm, which such desire disrupts and

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transcends. But while sexual desire so women is their complex negotiation of 32 Mary Lavelle, 308. understood imagines the subversion of this sexual morality. In her relationship with 33 Mary Lavelle, 308. 34 Patricia Coughlan, moral framework — hence the utopian Juanito, Mary performs a sort of mental ‘Kate O’Brien: Feminine potential — it simultaneously affirms that acrobatics that allows her inherited moral Beauty, Feminist framework. In Mary Lavelle this moral framework to be placed to one side. As Writing and Sexual framework is specifically denominated Juanito is making love to her, she Role’, in Walshe, ed., Ordinary People, 59– as Catholic. Hence, the identification 84, 68. Meaney disputes of Mary, Agatha and Juanito is struck thought of school and home, of John, this reading, arguing through Mary’s image of each of them of God’s law and of sin, and did not that ‘the text’s emphasis praying. Mary’s perception of their ‘tangled let herself discard such thoughts. They on the wilful nature of Mary’s passion and her longings’ as a moral problem is framed existed, as real and true as ever, with all insistence on taking by her Catholic religion, just as her view their traditional claims on her — but this the sexual initiative of the candlelit interior of the church is one claim was his, and she would answer makes this impossible framed by the doorway. But while a frame it, taking the consequences.32 to characterise as masochistic surrender’. shapes perspective, it does not entirely Meaney, ‘Territory and determine the meaning of what it holds. Like Agatha, Mary wilfully adheres to a Transgression’, 90. Agatha’s, Mary’s and Juanito’s longings religious notion of morality that situates may be perverse because they are disruptive, sexual transgression as socially disruptive, disorderly and will cause pain to each of the while simultaneously recognizing the three, as well as to others. But the perversity inadequacy of that framework. For O’Brien, of their desires is not limited or contained illicit sexual desire is perverse because it by this negative quality; the perversity may overflows the boundaries imposed by that simultaneously contain some positive, as framework and casts those caught up in it Mary perceives it, ‘fantastical’ potential. out into an uncharted moral territory, where Since Agatha’s characterization involves they must, by the exercise of conscience, a complex oscillation between the categories find their co-ordinates. of ‘type’ and ‘character’, she stands as a Feminist critics have been troubled by figurewww.fieldday.ie for this doubleness. Her isolation, Mary’s characterization of her decision irascible misanthropy and ‘queerness’ as a response to Juanito’s ‘claim’ rather stem from her figuration as an instance than as the pursuit of her own desires and of the literary lesbian ‘type’. But it is also pleasure. If Mary’s (not Juanito’s) decision her difference from the other ‘Misses’ to consummate their relationship is to be that makes her a distinctive character. read as a mark of her developing autonomy, In comparison with these deracinated what is the reader to make of this idea expatriates living in a country they hate of her fulfilling a duty owed to a man? and refuse to engage with, Agatha has This troubling ambiguity is intensified learned the language, knows Spanish by O’Brien’s description of Mary during history and is passionate about the sex, ‘flung back against the moss ... her landscape and, especially, the bullfight. set teeth and quivering nostrils, beating Thus, while Agatha’s declaration of love eyelids, flowing, flowing tears’.33 As Patricia for her produces an opportunity for Mary Coughlan argues, this description ‘dwells to develop morally, Agatha also provides in an undeniably sado-masochistic way Mary with an example of a cultured and on images of Mary’s specifically feminine sturdy individualism. Hence, Mary too vulnerability and pain as themselves erotic demonstrates an idiosyncratic curiosity and constitutive of Juanito’s pleasure’.34 about Spain, its language and culture, As a result, O’Brien, Coughlan contends, and is open to being transformed by her ‘gives far more imaginative energy to the experience of the country. But perhaps the relinquishing of agency to which Mary is most striking similarity between the two moved by her awakened passion for Juanito,

36 Kate O’Brien and the Erotics of Liberal Catholic Dissent

Bakst, Leon (Lev Rosenberg): 1866–1924. Ida Rubinstein, 1885–1960 Russian ballerina, as Saint Sebastian. 1911 drawing illustrating the ballet by Claude Debussy, 1862–1918, after the verse play The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian by Gabriele d’Annunzio, 1863–1938. © The Art Archive / Bibliothèque des Arts Décoratifs, Paris

www.fieldday.ie

than to the representation of Mary’s making is what she terms, ‘the recognition, after of her own life that is the larger concern Freud, Havelock Ellis and D. H. Lawrence, of the novel’. In Coughlan’s view, we can of the central importance of sexuality in see two kinds of liberationist imperatives personality and the determination to speak colliding in this episode of the novel. One it, not to let it go unrepresented in novelistic

37 Field Day review

discourse’. The other is a narrative of arise from sensuality and to descend from 35 Coughlan, ‘Kate specifically female self-development, which, elsewhere to assist and glorify it’.38 Notably, O’Brien’, 70. 36 Mary Lavelle, 308. as Coughlan points out, ‘comes off worse O’Brien characterizes physical pleasure, 37 Mary Lavelle, 309. 35 than the other’. the ‘errant senses’, as an unreliable means 38 Mary Lavelle, 309–10. However, it is not entirely obvious that of achieving intimacy, and this suspicion 39 Mary Lavelle, 309. O’Brien is as wholly invested in the post- of sexual pleasure is manifest throughout Freudian model of sexuality, subjectivity the episode. As he looks at Mary in pain and freedom as Coughlan claims. Clearly, while they make love, Juanito thinks ‘how sexuality in her fiction is a libidinal energy grotesquely we are made ... how terrible and rather than a reproductive instinct. And, insane are our delights and urgencies’.39 as in Joyce, sexuality is expected to be Desire and the pursuit of sexual pleasure productive in the sense that it is expected to are irrational and disruptive. Rather than generate development and transformation leading us to the fullest expression of in the individual subject. However, our individual personality, as sexuality is in O’Brien’s fiction this experience imagined to do in the Lawrentian mode, of transformation through sexual O’Brien suggests that sexuality threatens to pleasure is not mapped according to the rob us of our humanity and transform us psychoanalytical model of an agon between into monstrous, driven monads. desire and repression, but according to a To redeem the errant and always theological model of an ethical challenge. potentially destructive dimensions of sexual It is not so much that O’Brien denies or experience, it has to be converted into a repudiates Freud’s concept of libidinal secular form of religious transcendence. sexuality, as that she is less convinced than Hence the romantic excess of a moment of her male modernist literary contemporaries orgasm is written as something analogous of the liberationist implications of this to a Christian sacrament when a ‘brilliant concept for the individual. light of sympathy’ is felt to ‘descend’ Most obviously, O’Brien uses a pre- from ‘elsewhere’, just as some Christians Freudianwww.fieldday.ie grammar to give imaginative shape believe the body of Jesus descends into to this experience of transformation and bread and wine during the Eucharistic she draws this grammar from the realms service and the Holy Spirit descends on to of classicism, aesthetics and Catholicism. the married couple during the Christian Thus, classical antiquity, aesthetics and the wedding ceremony. In other words, the erotic are entwined when Juanito compares merely physical experience of pleasure is Mary’s naked beauty to Greek statuary: invested with a metaphysical and spiritual ‘“Aphrodite!” he said, when she gleamed import. Crucially, the effect of this is to white and shivered in the moonlight.’36 redirect one from the monadic, libidinal Soon the narrator is describing Mary as ‘no pursuit of pleasure towards the attainment longer Aphrodite, but a broken, tortured of relational connection and solidarity Christian, a wounded Saint Sebastian’.37 — the achievement of ‘sympathy’ with Here the sexual masochism of Mary’s another human being. This, for O’Brien, is physical pain at Juanito’s hands is overlaid the decisive question to demand of sexual with a notion of violence and pain as experience — to what degree does this purposeful and transformative as in the experience further our moral development? Christian notion of martyrdom. As they Emma Donoghue has observed that reach the climax of their love-making the O’Brien’s characters can be divided into two lovers are described as ‘emotionally those ‘who take moral responsibility and welded, not by their errant senses which step back from sin and ... those who are might or might not play in unison, but by a equally morally responsible and walk into brilliant light of sympathy which seemed to sin from motives of love’.40 She goes on

38 Kate O’Brien and the Erotics of Liberal Catholic Dissent

40 Donoghue, ‘“Out of to note that there is no great difference person and the development of her own Order”’, 37. between these two types of characters. The moral capacity. As she explains her decision 41 Kate O’Brien, The Ante- point is not whether they commit the sin to Juanito, she places it within those other Room (Dublin, 1980 [1934]), 258–73. or not, rather ‘but the responsibility and changes she has experienced in herself 42 Mary Lavelle, 307. integrity they show in the choice’. In this during her time in Spain. She tells him: 43 Mary Lavelle, 305–06. regard Agnes Mulqueen in O’Brien’s The 44 Sean O’Faolain, A Ante-Room (1934) and Mary Lavelle may It’s been fantastic, my time in Spain, it’s Summer in Italy (London, 1949) and An be thought of as mirror images. By refusing been a mad, impossible thing dropped Autumn in Italy (New to elope with her sister’s husband, with into my ordinary life. Tomorrow it will York, 1953). whom she is in love, Agnes makes a decision be over, and although it has changed all that is ultimately tragic but for reasons that my plans, life will have to be ordinary are scrupulously morally commendable again, in some way that I know nothing — she does not want to cause pain to her about yet. So before it’s over — finish it sister. Our sense of her at the novel’s end for me, Juanito.43 is that she is deeply unhappy but morally strengthened.41 Conversely, by choosing Mary’s final demand of Juanito is to make love to the married Juanito, Mary ambiguous. Does ‘finish’ mean bring to a takes an important step on her path to conclusion or bring to completion? Will achieving autonomy. There is no question making love to Juanito, submitting to his of reading Agnes’s choice as an effect of ‘claim’, reinsert Mary into patriarchal repression, and of Mary’s choice as a victory subordination and negate the small measure over such repression. Moreover, Mary’s of autonomy she has achieved in the last few decision to embrace sexual desire does months? Or will this act of transgression not mean she rejects her inherited moral round off and make complete Mary’s phase framework, any more than Agnes’s refusal of accelerated self-growth? As O’Brien’s of such desire involves an endorsement description of their actual love-making of that framework. Rather, that system demonstrates, and as Coughlan has argued, www.fieldday.ieis placed to one side as insufficient to the this ambiguity is never resolved. ethical task at hand. Interestingly, Mary describes her time The content of Mary’s choice when in Spain in similar terms to her earlier confronted with sexual desire is of less description of the ‘perversions of the heart’: significance than how she makes it. She it has been ‘fantastic’ and a ‘mad impossible cannot reciprocate Agatha’s desire for her, thing’. The equivalence between Mary’s but Agatha’s declaration of love elicits from experience of Spain and her experience of Mary solidarity, an empathetic insight into sexual desire is reiterated throughout the the perverse and utopian quality of desire. ensuing episode of her love-making with With Juanito, her own desires meet with Juanito. This connection is mainly created his, but her decision to consummate their through the echoes and parallels with the relationship is not cast as the impetuous earlier bullfight episode, since the bullfight pursuit of sexual pleasure. It is, instead, a stands as a synecdoche for Spain — or carefully considered decision to take a ‘risk’, more accurately ‘Spain’, the constellation as Mary describes it.42 She is consciously of ideas and values that O’Brien affixes placing herself outside the bounds of what to that word, as O’Faolain, in a similar she knows to be the parameters of her vein, was to do with ‘Italy’.44 The bullfight inherited morality, parameters that she still gets recalled explicitly by the narrator believes in even as she transgresses them, during the love-making episode. But it is because of what she hopes such an act of most vividly present metaphorically, and estrangement will achieve — namely, that in a particularly troubling form, when experience of ‘sympathy’ with another the description of Mary’s physical pain

39 Field Day review

invokes the earlier bloody image of the episode to elaborate her concept of Bildung 45 Mary Lavelle, 114. violent death of the bull. The episodes are as a narrative of ethical development. As 46 Mary Lavelle, 116–17. 47 Mary Lavelle, 105–06 further linked through O’Brien’s use of the she enters the bullring before the fight, 48 Mary Lavelle, 106. same combination of aesthetics, classicism Mary ‘had never felt so much ashamed of 49 Mary Lavelle, 102. and eroticism in each. The bullfight is, in herself as she was feeling now’.49 When they 50 Mary Lavelle, 119. O’Brien’s version, an aesthetic ritual of are leaving afterwards, Agatha comments 51 Lorna Reynolds, Kate O’Brien: A Literary cathartic violence that gives expression to that she wonders why ‘the Church doesn’t Portrait (Gerrards the human encounter with mortality. She make it a sin to go to the bullfight’. Mary Cross, 1987), 112. describes a man slowly killing a bull as an replies, ‘I think it is a sin’.50 The references elaborate and darkly sensuous dance, and to ‘shame’ and ‘sin’ indicate that similarity unmistakably erotic: between the bullfight and illicit sexual desire that O’Brien seeks to create. Mary’s the matador drew his enemy to his nomination of the bullfight as sinful, breast, and past it, on the gentle lure; although it is not technically so, is a brought him back along his thigh as if rhetorical equivalent to her original decision for sheer love; let him go and drew him to go to the bullfight. It is an assertion that home again ¼the sword sank where the the ultimate arbiter of her moral actions, stud ribbons fluttered, in to the hilt, as the authority to nominate what is moral bravely driven as if the dealer believed or not, must be Mary herself. It is only himself to have been dipped in Achilles’ through placing herself directly in the midst river.45 of potentially sinful or immoral experience that she can reach such decisions. As in her For Mary, the bullfight is ‘more full of encounters with Agatha and Juanito, the news of life’s possible pain and senselessness content of Mary’s experiences — whether and quixotry and barbarism and glory of unrequited or fulfilled sexual desire, or than anything ever before encountered by her intense if rather opaque emotional and this girl ... more symbolic, more dramatic, intellectual response to the bullfight — is awww.fieldday.ie more personal and searching arrow to less crucial to her development than the the heart than she had ever dreamt of’.46 moral decisions that she makes around O’Brien’s resort to these rather baroque those experiences. effusions indicates her attempt to convey The bullfight is therefore one of the a sense of the bullfight as a metaphysical three moral tests that structure Mary’s and transcendent experience for Mary. formation. It is also the first and sets the More concretely, there is much emphasis pattern for those two erotic tests that are in this section of the novel on how Mary the more familiar and conventional material is ‘growing up fast in this foreign soil’.47 of the romance. The narrative significance By the end of the chapter she is in tears, ascribed to the bullfight, combined with due to her growing awareness of the gulf its uniquely Hispanic cultural location, that is opening up between herself and her inevitably draws our attention to O’Brien’s fiancé back in Ireland. Clearly, this growing setting of her novel. As her friend and estrangement from John helps to push early critic, Lorna Reynolds, points out, forward the romance plot as it prepares O’Brien ‘never uses a foreign setting for the ground for Mary’s first meeting with mere decoration or trimming: it always Juanito, while also contributing to the plays an organic part in the total design’.51 plot of woman-centred formation, since The Spanish setting of Mary Lavelle it emphasizes how Mary’s attainment of has its origins in biography, and in Irish autonomy can only take place away from social history. O’Brien had made a similar the ‘dominating authority’ of John and her journey to Mary’s when she worked as a father.48 O’Brien also uses the bullfight ‘Miss’ and an English literature tutor to

40 Kate O’Brien and the Erotics of Liberal Catholic Dissent

52 Walshe, Kate O’Brien, the son and daughter of a wealthy family opposed to all war. Thus she draws back 29. near the Basque city of Bilbao in 1922 from making any direct commitment to the 53 The cookery writer and and 1923.52 As the Prologue to the novel beleaguered Spanish left. She also opens novelist Maura Laverty also went to work in suggests, it was a journey made by many the book by lamenting the end of, what she Spain as a governess young Irish Catholic women of her class terms, ‘two thousand years of individualism’. and as a journalist and generation.53 Perhaps because of this In her view, both right and left in the 1930s later in the 1920s, encounter with the country in her formative were creating a routinized world; the best and she also wrote a novel, No More Than years, Spain is the country outside of that could be hoped for after the current Human (1944), based Ireland that O’Brien returned to most often crisis in Europe was that the future would be on those experiences. in her writing. Besides Mary Lavelle and ‘uniform and monotonous. That is what the In her work on the Irish That Lady (1946), which are set there, she maddened world must now seek, the justice magazine Women’s 55 Life in the 1930s and also wrote a biography of the sixteenth- of decent uniformity’. While accepting that 1940s, Caitriona Clear century Spanish mystic, Saint Teresa of this future is ‘elementarily necessary’, she also notes a fiction Avila (1951), and a travelogue, Farewell confesses to having no ‘personal desire to see serial about an Irish Spain (1937). it’. O’Brien’s reference to ‘two thousand years’ girl working in Spain. The serial, ‘Girl on The choice of Spain as the setting for sketches an interesting alignment between Her Own’ by Deirdre a novel by an Irish writer in 1936 could Christianity and liberal individualism. O’Brien, appeared in the not be a politically neutral or innocent Moreover, her sense of the individual as being magazine during 1938. decision. O’Brien responded more directly crippled rather than empowered by the forces See Catriona Clear, Women of the House: to the Spanish Civil War in Farewell of modernity — whether of the right or the Women’s Household Spain, an entertaining and idiosyncratic left, capitalism or communism — was shared Work in Ireland 1922– account of her travels in Spain in the by those other Irish intellectuals, such as 1961 (Dublin, 2000), 1930s. It combines architectural and O’Faolain, who were striving after an ideal of 85. 54 Kate O’Brien, Farewell political history with art criticism and liberal Catholicism. Spain (London, 1985 personal reminiscences. But there is also For O’Brien, then, the crucial issue at [1937]), 221. a pervasive regret that such travel is no stake in the Spanish war appears to be 55 Farewell Spain, 2. longer possible and a bitter sorrow at what this larger civilizational struggle between 56 Mary Lavelle, xxi. www.fieldday.ieSpain and its people are going through. ‘individualism’ and modern political She expresses her dismay at the attack systems of whatever hue. In Mary Lavelle, on the democratically elected Republican the central journey is into a symbolic rather government and her fierce opposition to than a geographical or political ‘Spain’. Franco and the Falangists. The book ends From the outset it is clear that Mary’s with a pungent denunciation of Fascism and primary objective in going to Spain to be a striking defence of democracy. O’Brien a governess is not merely to make a living. distinguishes a war waged ‘on the clear Her job is described as an ‘expedient’ that, insistence that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish however enforced-seeming, reveals her as from the earth’ from an individualist ... capable of dream and unfit to march in the column of female a war such as General Franco’s, openly breadwinners, or indeed in any column aimed at the murder of every democratic at all. She becomes a miss because not principle, and for the setting up of his her wits but her intuitional antennae tell little self as yet another Mussolini — her that it is an occupation which will let such a war strikes not merely for the her personality be.56 death of Spain, but at every decent dream or effort for humanity everywhere.54 The distinct note of social disdain and hauteur in the reference to the ‘column of Nevertheless, O’Brien repeatedly emphasizes female breadwinners’ indicates a significant that she is not a communist but a pacifist feature of O’Brien’s individualist ideal.

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Kate O’Brien (1897–1974), by Mary O’Neill. Oil on canvas, 1936. © National Portrait Gallery, London

57 It is also worth noting that O’Brien’s representation of Spain indicates the absorption of other modes of writing, notably the travelogue, into her fiction. The novel bears the hallmark of Mediterranean orientalism, a mode in which the European www.fieldday.ie‘South’ masquerades as the site of desire, Despite its highly developed capacity for political demands of nation-building. In the exotic landscape that the European ethical conduct and the attainment of the novel, Spain is more ‘real’ than Ireland, ‘North’ fantasies as ‘sympathy’ with others, political or social since it is the elaborately realized ground its opposite. There solidarity is no part of it. In the travelogue, on which Mary’s accelerated narrative are many examples, O’Brien interprets the Spanish Civil War of formation takes shape. But it is also including André Gide’s The Immoralist (1902), as symptomatic of this conflict between more symbolically fertile. ‘Spain’ comes E. M. Forster’s A Room sympathy and political partisanship at a to stand as a geo-political representation with a View (1908) historical level. In Mary Lavelle, Spain is of a synthesis of self-fulfilment and ethical and Thomas Mann’s contrasted with Ireland, where political choice, autonomy and sympathy, liberal Death in Venice (1913). 57 Likewise, O’Brien’s and familial commitments make the individualism and Catholicism. fascinated account of development of ethical individualism the bullfight recalls both impossible. The novel draws a geo-moral 3 Ernest Hemingway and division between those spaces that are D. H. Lawrence, whose The Plumed Serpent fertile for Bildung, and those that are not — In The Land of Spices O’Brien’s major (1926) opens with an and the newly independent Irish state comes formal innovation was to construct extended description out the worse in the comparison. The novel a double narrative of Bildung that is of a Mexican bullfight. opens with Mary leaving Ireland in 1922 dependent on a complex temporal plotting. See John Premble, The Mediterranean and O’Brien’s historical setting suggests The novel’s setting is an expensive Irish Passion: Victorians and that Mary must not only escape the confines convent boarding school in 1904 to 1914, Edwardians in the South of family and gender ideology but also the where we follow the younger of the two (Oxford, 1987).

42 Kate O’Brien and the Erotics of Liberal Catholic Dissent

58 The Land of Spices, main protagonists, Anna Murphy, from ‘in the embrace of love’ with another man. 266. her arrival at the age of six to when she Thereafter, she had ‘turned her back upon 59 The Land of Spices, 18. is about to leave for university. Anna herself, upon talents, dreams, emotions — 60 These terms are drawn from Peter Brook, undergoes a number of crucial experiences, and undertaken the impersonal and active Reading for the Plot ‘Some Lessons’ — as the title of one of the service of God’.59 (New York, 1985), 12. chapters has it. These include being unfairly To use the terms developed by the punished at the hands of one of the senior Russian Formalists, we can say that nuns, Mother Mary Andrew; witnessing Anna’s narrative of development is plotted one of her schoolfellows humiliated consistently with the fabula of the narrative, because of her social background; watching the chronological order in which events her parent’s deeply unhappy marriage unfold, while Helen’s is revealed within the disintegrate; and losing her beloved younger sujzet, the order of events as narrated.60 brother, Charlie, in a drowning accident. So, for instance, Helen’s memories of her Anna learns some of her most important early years as a nun in her twenties appear lessons from the other chief protagonist at an earlier point than the memories of her of the novel, Helen Archer, the Reverend childhood, or her memories of the crucial Mother of the convent. She intervenes to incident with her father. Thus there are help Anna overcome her family’s opposition various references to some trauma that lies to her attending university, and her ‘slow, behind Helen’s decision to become a nun, unhurrying help about Charlie’ is the but the narrative itself is well advanced grieving Anna’s best support.58 Along before that traumatic formative episode with this practical and emotional help, is disclosed to the reader. We also get an the Reverend Mother also offers Anna a interesting contrast between two types model of a strong, independent woman of Bildung narrative. In Anna’s case we exercizing authority, and also that of a see the young protagonist undergoing her just, fair-minded liberalism that stands formative experiences blindly, as it were, in stark contrast to the narrow-minded and groping emotionally and intellectually www.fieldday.ievindictiveness of Mother Mary Andrew to discern the meaning of events as they — the latter is also a passionate advocate unfold. With Helen, we see the protagonist’s of Irish cultural nationalism. Woven older self retrospectively organizing her through the story of Anna’s development formative experiences into a narrative, are the Reverend Mother’s ongoing clashes while observing and commenting on her with zealous Irish nationalists like Mary younger self. The juxtaposition of the Andrew, and also incidents from her earlier younger woman struggling towards her life. These are framed as Helen’s memories, future and towards maturity with the older mainly of her girlhood in Brussels in the woman reflecting maturely on her past 1870s and 1880s and, in particular, her allows O’Brien to convey a temporally and relationship with her father, the most emotionally complex sense of the process significant figure in her early emotional of female self-definition. Therefore, a and intellectual formation. From Helen’s significant effect of this temporal plotting memories we learn that in the 1860s Henry is the transmission of educative experiences Archer had suddenly left England, and across generations, as Helen passes on to abandoned his promising academic career Anna the lessons she has learned from her to move to the Continent with his wife relationship with Henry. and baby daughter. It becomes clear that a On one level, this transmission of scandal concerning his sexual relationship experience is pedagogical. Anna first comes with another man may have led to this to the Reverend Mother’s notice when the move. In a pivotal episode, the eighteen- newly arrived six-year-old recites a poem by year-old Helen accidentally sees her father Henry Vaughan at a school gathering. Since

43 Field Day review

Henry Archer was a scholar of seventeenth- nearby to bring back some roses from his 61 The Land of Spices, 226. century English poetry, the poem evokes in garden. As she passes the window of her 62 The Land of Spices, 142. 63 The Land of Spices, 151. Helen memories of her father. Anna, we are father’s study she sees that ‘two people 64 The Land of Spices, 157. told, ‘quickened something of her father’ in were there. But neither saw her; neither felt 65 The Land of Spices, 159. Helen, ‘something erratic, speculative and her shadow as it froze across the sun ... she 66 The Land of Spices, quick on the wing’.61 Under the Reverend saw Etienne and her father, in the embrace 21–22. Mother’s tutelage, little Anna recites a poem of love.’64 Helen’s reaction is to run away, for the school every other Sunday night both immediately by running back to the during her first year. In this pedagogical convent and more permanently by deciding relationship Helen re-creates one of Henry’s in the following weeks to become a nun. salient virtues, since he had taught her with She chooses the highly disciplined and ‘an exacting vigour, method and love which regulated life of a nun over the world of a she received from no other teacher ... he cultured, free-thinking intellectual offered poured imaginative knowledge all about by her father, because she now sees, or her; he gave her an individualistic, sunny believes she sees, ‘the sort of thing the most access into life, and so, as she thought, graceful life could hide ... in her father, in into herself’.62 With her father’s lessons the best person she had known or hoped on literature and history, Helen had also to know’.65 As well as rejecting Henry’s imbibed his values, and especially his values and worldview in her decision to ‘obsession’ with ‘the beauty of personal become a nun, she also makes a more freedom, and the human obligation of non- fundamental rejection of his prized ideals interference’.63 Helen’s encounter with Anna of ‘personal freedom’ and ‘non-interference’ not only reconnects her with a nurturing by judging him for his sinfulness and, parent, it also forces her to reconsider her as she painfully realizes, by hating him. future. On the day when Helen first meets She punishes him further by never telling Anna, she had decided to resign her post as him what she saw on that afternoon or Reverend Mother. Weary of her position as explaining fully her decision to become a thewww.fieldday.ie English-born head of an Irish convent, nun. Even on his deathbed, years later, he is Helen is depressed by what she sees as the left still wondering about her reasons. Like inward-looking parochialism of the narrow her shadow, which ‘froze across the sun’ on cultural nationalism displayed by those that day, Helen’s mind and soul freeze and around her and feels harassed by the bishop, this ‘hardness’ remained with her for the the chaplain and the other nuns who want next few years as she trained to be a nun in to modify the school’s ‘European’ style of France and worked as a teacher in various education so as to bring it into line with local convents around Europe. needs. But the urge to watch over Anna, and After eleven years she returns to the to protect her from her hopeless parents and convent in Brussels and spends time with the cruelty of Mary Andrew, prompts Helen her father again. Seeing her father ‘visibly to destroy her letter of resignation. happy, guiltless and good — who was However, Helen also passes on to Anna guilty and evil, theology said’ — poses a the other legacy of those lessons learned challenge to Helen. This challenge ‘roused painfully in the years after the incident of all the Protestant in her — she was a seeing her father with his lover. Helen was grandchild of English rectories’ — and lead in her last term at school in Brussels, where her to understand that ‘a soul should not the Archers finally settled, and she and her take upon itself the impertinence of being father had plans for her to go to university frightened for another soul; that God is in the coming autumn. While helping a alone with each creature’.66 Thus Helen nun to prepare the altar for a feast-day, returns to that ideal position of liberal Helen offers to run to her father’s house detachment that was her inheritance from

44 Kate O’Brien and the Erotics of Liberal Catholic Dissent

67 The Land of Spices, 20. Henry. The crucial difference is that in in the moral test presented by her discovery 68 The Land of Spices, 267. the process of having her liberalism so of Henry’s sexuality. One conclusion would acutely tested, she has learned about the be that she is ultimately successful in pain, which even the most scrupulously achieving moral development, and another kind and sensitive, such as Henry, can is that this incident is a deeply traumatic cause to others. She realizes this not only experience from which she never fully through being aware of the pain which recovers and which would ‘always leave he is ignorant of having caused her, but her limping, no matter how she strove with through retrospectively understanding that wisdom’.67 The novel is taking a gamble the source of her late mother’s pervasive here and it is uncertain which conjecture melancholy was her marriage to Henry. the reader will find more compelling; Helen improves on Henry’s liberalism a difficult and testing but ultimately through her development of a more refined constructive formation of an ethical liberal ethical understanding of the individual’s subject, or a more dramatic descent into relationship with, and obligations to, others. moralizing hatred to which a liberal subject There is, however, a significant can easily succumb when confronted by ambiguity about the novel’s presentation taboo sexuality. of this process through which an ethical The climax of Anna’s formation liberal subject is formed. Its complex narrative, an epiphanic moment about temporal plotting means that in the fabula her future vocation, serves as a crucial of the novel we see the second stage of the counterpoint to the climactic point of process happening first. That part of the Helen’s narrative. Anna is preparing for a narrative framed as Helen’s memories of series of exams that will guarantee her entry her return to Brussels in her late twenties into university and the scholarship that will and her reconciliation with her father maintain her. Her maternal grandmother, occupies the second of fourteen chapters. who has financial control over the family Her memories of her childhood and because of Anna’s father’s alcoholism and www.fieldday.ieadolescence, and of the crucial incident who uses this power to bully her daughter of discovering her father’s homosexuality and granddaughter, is opposed to Anna’s and its aftermath, are narrated in the plans. However, the Reverend Mother eighth chapter, about two-thirds of the manipulates the older woman’s vanity, her way through the novel. We read this latter ambitions for her brother who is a priest incident, and Helen’s subsequent descent and the enthusiasm of the local bishop into a hateful illiberalism, already knowing about Anna’s educational career, to defuse that she will, as it were, come out the this opposition successfully. This crisis has other side. Moreover, the recounting of come to a head in the preceding chapter and this incident is followed directly by the now Anna is looking forward securely to very moving and loving last letter from the the challenge of the exams and the life at dying Henry to Helen. All of this works university that awaits her. to frame and structure our reading of this As she sits in the garden, ostensibly incident in Helen’s life as being traumatic reading, Anna is reflecting on the tussle but ultimately morally strengthening. with her grandmother and particularly Nevertheless, the incident of Helen’s on the character of the Reverend Mother. discovery is given a particular vividness Anna acknowledges that the common and forcefulness that comes not only from perception of the Reverend Mother as a how it is written but also by being withheld ‘cold fish, dark horse and queer one’ has from us until this late stage in the narrative. some small element of truth in it. But Anna There are, therefore, two competing had also ‘noticed originalities which were interpretations available of how Helen fares more interesting than queer’.68 She observes

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13th July 1926: Kate O’Brien (1897–1974). © Photo by Sasha/Getty Images

that the Reverend Mother, unlike the other — delightedly, but without surprise in 69 The Land of Spices, nuns, never snubbed or lectured the girls fact, and as if she had been waiting for 271–72. and never meted out punishment. She is the lead it was to give. She saw her, it alsowww.fieldday.ie capable of unexpected indulgences seemed, in isolation and in a new sphere, and kindnesses. Thus we can see the yet one made up of broken symbols from more subtle impact that Helen is having their common life ... So Anna beheld on Anna. This goes beyond the practical her; something that life can be about, help of overcoming family opposition something with power to make life and extends implicitly to providing a compose around it. She stared at her in model of behaviour. Anna’s reflections are wonder, hardly seeing her any more, but interrupted by one of her less assiduous realising her lustrous potentiality, and fellow pupils, Pilar, asking for help with feeling that for her, the watcher, this her school work. Pilar is reading Milton’s moment was a long-awaited, blessed gift; Lycidas, and struggling to understand it. As that in seeing this transience, this grace, they talk about the elegy, which Anna who this volatility, flung in a sweet summer is still grieving for her brother finds painful hour against great ilex-trees, against the to read, Anna experiences what O’Brien evening star, she was encountering, alone describes as a ‘translation of the ordinary’. and in terms of her secret need, a passage Anna sees Pilar of beauty as revelatory and true as any verse of the great elegy.69 in a new way. She became aware of her and of the moment on a plane of Before this, Anna’s ambitions for her future perception which was strange to her, have been either glamorously unrealistic or and which during its visitation she did vague and undefined. Through her response not understand but could only receive to Pilar’s ‘lustrous potentiality’, Anna

46 Kate O’Brien and the Erotics of Liberal Catholic Dissent

70 The Land of Spices, finds her vocation, ‘something that life merged in the narration of Anna’s epiphany, 273. can be about’. Her capacity to transform Helen’s double identity likewise provides 71 Terry Eagleton, Pilar’s beauty into a symbol indicates that her with a dual, merging role. As ‘Helen The Ideology of the Aesthetic (London, this vocation is artistic, and since Anna Archer’, she is the offspring and pupil of the 1990), 13–30. has been deeply interested in words and prototypically Arnoldian figure of Henry. 72 On O’Brien’s writings language since she was six, we can assume But as ‘Reverend Mother’, and a member on Teresa and another this means a life as a writer. Her response of a French Catholic order of nuns, she Spanish Catholic mystic, Saint Francis Xavier, see to Pilar’s beauty and her ‘new way’ of is immersed in a historical tradition of Walshe, Kate O’Brien, seeing is also cathartic, since it leaves her Catholic religious life. 118–19. feeling ‘emptied of grief’.70 Anna’s epiphany is the lynchpin of In Anna’s eyes, Pilar becomes a her own formation, but this episode also ‘symbol as complicated as any imaginative gives structural cohesion to the story of struggle in verse ... as a motive in art’. In Helen and Henry. Anna’s musings on an awkwardly constructed passage, the the Reverend Mother directly before she narrator acknowledges that Anna at this is interrupted by Pilar and the strategic age is wholly unfamiliar with art history, place of the Milton poem mean that the but that if she were to know these things, presence of father and daughter hover over she would be reminded by reading Lycidas her transformative experience. Inevitably, of Mantegna’s paintings, and of Giorgione’s this suggests that Anna’s capacity to by the summer light in the garden. Above respond imaginatively to Pilar’s beauty, all, she would see the beautiful young Pilar, and her emergent creative powers that are who is from South America, as the girl signalled by this, are due to the influence in Goya’s La Vida Española. But Anna’s of Helen and, through her, of Henry. Anna experience is also an annuciatory ‘visitation’ is the flower of all that is best about the and ‘revelatory’. She ‘receives’ her vocation cultured bourgeois life embodied by Helen without rationally understanding it; her and Henry. But Anna’s response to Pilar’s experience of seeing Pilar’s beauty in a eroticism also signals an improvement on www.fieldday.ienew light and the glimpse into her future the moral capacity of the Archers. Helen’s as an artist this vision offers is a ‘blessed encounter with sexual desire precipitated a gift’ and a ‘grace’. By combining these moral and emotional collapse. The moral two types of rhetoric, O’Brien is also test provided by this painful experience invoking two distinct models of individual ultimately strengthened Helen’s liberalism development. One is a secular concept of and gave it an ethical dimension. But the art as ‘improving’, which is central to the novel suggests that the real beneficiary liberal theory of culture, and which can be of this experience was Anna, rather than traced back through figures like Matthew Helen herself, and the most compelling Arnold in the nineteenth century to the evidence for this is that electrifying spark related origins of Bildung and aesthetics that erotic desire gives to Anna’s creativity in eighteenth-century Enlightenment and and ambition. The aesthetico-spiritual Romantic thought.71 The second is a notion and vocational quality of Anna’s erotic of spiritual transformation occasioned by encounter also stands in contrast to violence or ecstasy drawn from the Catholic Henry’s relationship with Etienne. Henry’s tradition of martyrology and mysticism. absorption in his sexual relationship, O’Brien’s fascination with this tradition oblivious to his daughter outside the is manifest throughout her work; we will window, wreaks painful havoc in both his recall the image of Mary Lavelle as Saint and Helen’s lives. Thus Anna’s exhilarated Sebastian and also O’Brien’s biography of transformation by an erotic encounter Saint Teresa.72 While these distinct models demonstrates that she can successfully are being rhetorically and conceptually evade the polar extremes of Henry’s

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unthinkingly selfish sensuality and Helen’s of the narrative within the parameters 73 Adele M. Dalsimer, Kate damaging recoil from human sexuality. of the Freudian model of psycho-sexual O’Brien: A Critical Study (Dublin, 1990), development. This casts history as a trauma 59–72, and James As O’Brien’s critics have observed, The to be resolved rather than a set of conditions M. Cahalan, Double Land of Spices can be read as a portrait with which to engage dynamically. Visions: Women and of the artist as a young woman.73 Anna O’Brien’s formation narrative in The Land Men in Modern and Contemporary Irish Murphy, like Stephen Dedalus, is from the of Spices suggests a more Whiggish model Fiction (Syracuse, 1999), Irish Catholic bourgeoisie and is formed in of historical development. Through her 105–08. the same social, religious and educational painful experiences, and her ability to learn 74 Cahalan, Double milieu. These are also similarities shared from them, Helen Archer improves on the Visions, 106. 75 Double Visions, 108. by their respective creators. James Cahalan model of the ideal liberal subject offered 76 The Land of Spices, 21. has identified gender as the key difference by her father. In her shock at discovering between what he considers to be the two his homosexuality, Helen rejects both foremost Bildungsromane in twentieth- Henry and the valuable, cultured, liberal century Irish literature. He contrasts Joyce’s inheritance she has received from him. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, a Learning to see him in a more forgiving ‘glorification of separation and individuality and appreciative light involves more than — ideals which are peculiarly Western and reconciliation between daughter and father. male, but which are taken to be normative It is a story of how liberal subjectivity can and universal’, with the ‘attention to how be placed in peril by illicit sexual desire, but Anna and Helen depend on each other for can then be reassembled in a more ethically their mutual growth’ in O’Brien’s The Land robust manner by having undergone, but of Spices.74 He concludes that the two then worked through, that near-shattering novels ‘provide bipolar models for coming experience. By the novel’s end, we are left of age: male versus female’.75 One clear with the impression that Anna, absorbing problem here is that an interpretation like by example and osmosis those lessons Cahalan’s that starts from a fairly solid learned by Helen, will be an even further feministwww.fieldday.ie base, starts to veer perilously close improved liberal subject. Anna takes into to essentialism. There is rather a fine line the future all that is best of the Archers’ between arguing that the two novels capture liberalism, but her liberalism is refined something specific about the experience and made ethically stronger by the lessons of growing up male or female, and the drawn from their mistakes. idea that the authors’ gender in some way That the Archers happen to be English determined the type of narratives they and Anna, the soil on which their lessons created. The implication that mutuality and in how to be a civilized liberal subject nurturing are significant features in novels bear fruit, happens to be Irish means that by and about women because these are in geography and history are at play here. some way innately female characteristics is Helen’s attainment of an ethical liberalism equally problematic. in the wake of the crisis precipitated An alternative is to see these novels by Henry’s sexuality is mapped as the as employing two ways of narrating fusion of nineteenth-century English history. The temporality of Bildung in liberalism, with its Protestant roots, and Portrait appears to be analogous to that the purposeful collectivism offered by of revolution. It requires a wholesale the Catholic faith, and especially by the rejection of the existing state of things religious life. It is the merger of rectory and of the pervading social and political and convent that, paradoxically, makes formations. However, this is ultimately Helen such a good nun.76 As the plot of illusory, as the revolutionary impulse in the Reverend Mother’s ongoing clashes the novel is defused by Joyce’s structuring with her Irish nuns and the local bishop

48 Kate O’Brien and the Erotics of Liberal Catholic Dissent

77 The Land of Spices, reiterates, this ‘European’ Catholicism is nuns who are of more stoutly bourgeois 75. O’Brien’s critics not the Catholicism of the Irish. Unlike her or Catholic gentry stock. Mary Andrew’s have been entirely defender in The Bell, C. B. Murphy, O’Brien ‘erratic and cruel’ behaviour is explicitly sympathetic and unquestioning in their does not believe that Irish Catholicism linked to her ‘status-uneasiness’ within the reading of O’Brien’s has been corrupted by ‘Victorianism’ convent.79 This suggests that the origins of critique of Irish (on the contrary, her characterization of post-independence failure lie in the earlier nationalism. Adele Henry Archer suggests a very positive eclipsing of the Catholic bourgeoisie, either Dalsimer, for instance, describes Helen’s valuation of a certain kind of ‘Victorian’ Unionist or Irish Parliamentary Party in position thus: ‘in her liberalism) but by Irish nationalism. It is their politics, by the arriviste lower middle- confrontations with her opponents’ commitment to the politics class supporters of Sinn Féin. Interestingly, the Irish, she loses the of cultural nationalism, to introducing the Mary Andrew is also from Tyrone — generosity of spirit she felt for her father. Irish language into the curriculum of the which suggests that southern Irish liberal Her soul withers, her school, for instance, that Helen finds so repugnance at the innate ‘extremism’ of humanity dissolves, objectionable. She can find a productive northerners pre-dated 1968. and having known reconciliation between her commitment to the fullness of human acceptance, she cannot the liberal values of personal freedom and 4 tolerate losing it again’. ‘detachment’, inherited from Henry, and Dalsimer, Kate O’Brien: the collective commitment of being part O’Brien’s fiction is enlivened and energized A Critical Study, 67. of a religious order. Yet she finds the idea by those divergent currents of utopianism, 78 The Land of Spices, 75. 79 The Land of Spices, 74. of commitment to a project of national liberalism and conservatism that run 80 Terry Eagleton, ‘Home development entirely anathema to her liberal through it. For her, it is not sensual and and Away: Internal values. For the Irish, ‘about Ireland there emotional pleasure that makes sexual Émigrés in the Irish was no appeal to the comparative method; desire so thrilling and exciting but that Novel’, in Crazy John and the Bishop, 242. no detachment was regarded as just’. But such desire is ‘fantastical’. Desire disrupts for Helen this is intolerable, since she could and confounds those parameters that order ‘no more forgo the latter in her thought as the world as one finds it. As Eagleton undertake to live without sleep’.77 observes of O’Brien, ‘sexual love for her www.fieldday.ieAfter writing her letter of resignation is a kind of delicious insanity, a wayward, in a mood of frustration with the clerical unmanageable, implacable force which supporters of cultural nationalism around disrupts all settlement and involves an her, Helen considers that she has ‘given ecstatic casting loose of one’s moorings’.80 them up to that narrowing future of In O’Brien’s fiction, sexuality is so disruptive their own’.78 This ‘narrowing future’ because it throws us onto an ethical plane prophesized in the novel’s narrative is where our inherited criteria prove of only clearly the ‘narrowed present’ of the novel’s limited use. The only adequate resource publication. As in Mary Lavelle, O’Brien available is one’s own conscience, and one uses her historical setting to articulate the must draw on this to adjudicate between radical counter-revolutionary position that competing desires, demands and obligations. the roots of Ireland’s failures in the 1930s A potential reward for plunging bravely and 1940s do not lie in a ‘wrong turning’ into this uncharted space full of challenges sometime after 1922, but were inherent and risks is the attainment of ‘sympathy’. in cultural nationalism from the outset. Wrestling with the demanding ethical The characterization of Mary Andrew challenges of sexual desire generates bonds indicates more precisely the class dimension of understanding, attachment and solidarity. of this historical error. Along with her These bonds may be erotic, as they are with commitment to cultural nationalism and Mary and Juanito and with Anna’s response the Irish language, Mary Andrew’s other to Pilar, but are not necessarily so, as with distinguishing feature is that she is the Mary’s feelings towards Agatha, or the daughter of a shopkeeper, unlike the other relationships between Helen and Henry,

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and Helen and Anna. The other potential narrative of the Archers and Anna Murphy 81 The Land of Spices, reward for such ethical risk-taking is expands the scope of such development 284. 82 The Land of Spices, growth, development, and new, exhilarating beyond the span of the individual subject, 210. Ironically, this possibilities: Mary leaves Spain with her and suggests a trajectory of continual phrase is coined by future transformed; Anna has attained a improvement that lends itself to being read Miss Robertson, the vocation that will fulfil her talents. as an allegory of history as progress. But if English suffragist whom Anna meets on Sexual desire is utopian in O’Brien’s O’Brien’s narration of how an ideal liberal holiday. It comes up in fiction, then, since it suggests the possibility individualism can be cultivated suggests her conversation with of ordering the world differently — if that historical change is possible and the bishop, when Miss morality can be remade anew, why not welcome, this narrative is simultaneously Robertson criticizes Irish nationalism political and economic systems as well? predicated on the impossibility of achieving for being inimical to Sexual desire is a means by which more such change. Her novels contrast two this spirit. When the sustaining and less atomized relationships kinds of relationship. There are those bishop retorts that are made possible, and better futures are relationships of ‘sympathy’ — composed she has not displayed that spirit in her own glimpsed. But O’Brien draws back from of love, of nurturing and of understanding political activism, Miss these radical suggestions as soon as she — that can unite lovers, but can equally Robertson describes her raises them. The utopian potential of sexual unite friends, parents and children, politics as ‘an accident desire is simultaneously revealed and then siblings, mentor and pupil, and so on. The of time and place’. Some critics, such as Elizabeth contained within the milder limits of liberal quality of such relationships is evidence of Cullingford, read this pluralism. Mary glimpses the ‘fantastical’ one’s capacity to attain an ethically well- set-piece dialogue quality of the ‘perversions’ she, Agatha and formed individualism. But then there are between an Irish Juanito share. But this is then dissipated those relationships based on the bonds of nationalist bishop and an English suffragist by the lesson she takes from this insight, solidarity that have the potential to become as O’Brien contrasting which is an understanding of the common the fuel of political commitment, such as the narrow limitations humanity that subtends their apparent anti-colonial nationalism, socialism or of nationalism with the differences. Directly after the narration feminism. By contrast, these relationships broader, internationalist scope of feminism. of Anna’s encounter with Pilar, The Land are toxic to the ethical individual ideal, However, Miss ofwww.fieldday.ie Spices concludes with a conversation in since they make it impossible to achieve Robertson’s belief in which Helen advises Anna to ‘be the judge that ‘detachment of spirit’ that is so crucial the ‘accidental’ quality of your own soul; but never for a second, to its attainment.82 Hence, Mary’s moral of her politics would appear to undermine I implore you, set up as judge of another. development in the course of the narrative feminist as much as Commentator, annotator, if you like, but is predicated on maintaining her distance anti-colonial nationalist never judge.’81 There is a striking contrast from that bleakly homogenizing column politics, since both between the exhilaration and exuberance of female breadwinners mentioned at the are emancipatory interventions to change of Anna’s eroticized epiphany and this beginning. From a feminist perspective, history rather than elegantly phrased reiteration of the gospel this fissure between the ideal of ethical accept its ‘accidents’. injunction about throwing the first stone. individualism and solidarity based on Elizabeth Butler O’Brien’s fiction exhibits a paradoxical gender is deeply problematic. Cullingford, ‘“Our Nuns are not a Nation”: drive to give birth to radical suggestions just In addition, O’Brien’s plots invariably Politicizing the Convent before cloaking them in liberal aspirations. distribute the desire for Bildung and in Irish Literature and O’Brien believes in the possibility of autonomy unevenly across class lines among Film’, Eire-Ireland, 41 historical change and progress. Her plots her female characters. Her central female (2006), 9–39, 26. are driven by her heroines’ search for and middle-class characters are usually moral growth and autonomy, as well as surrounded by lower-class women, whose for cultural refinement and educational physical labour sustains these women accomplishment. These different forms materially and whose emotional labour of development are distinct but entwined sustains them psychologically. These women with each other and with the heroines’ are represented as unfailingly devoted sexual experiences. The trans-generational to their mistresses and their employing

50 Kate O’Brien and the Erotics of Liberal Catholic Dissent

83 Murphy, ‘Sex, families, and to the hierarchical structure fiction just as Europe was in the depths Censorship and the of the convent in the case of the lay sisters. of an unprecedented barbarity, to which Church’, The Bell, 2, 6 Neither they, nor the narrative voice of many members of the European bourgeoisie (1941), 65–75; Murphy, ‘Censorship: Principle the novels, questions their role and place actively contributed. O’Brien’s construction and Practice’, The Bell, within a highly stratified social order. is also structurally unsound since it is 3, 4 (1942), 293–301; Paradoxically then, while the attainment not entirely clear if her liberal bourgeois Walshe, Kate O’Brien, of O’Brien’s ideal of ethical individualism ideal is actually ‘European’ or ‘Catholic’ 77. 84 John Jordan, ‘Kate is imperilled by commitments of gender, at all. In a review of O’Brien’s The Flower O’Brien — A Note on class and nation, achieving the ideal is of May (1953), John Jordan argued that Her Themes’, The Bell, equally impossible without belonging to ‘however Catholic may be the world in 19, 2 (1954), 53–59, 57. a quite narrowly defined class formation. which they move, Miss O’Brien’s heroines, [Original emphasis.] The values of tolerant detachment and without exception, may more easily be ethical courage always coexist with an described as protestants’.84 O’Brien takes aesthetic sensibility that is dependent on great delight in evoking textually the being immersed in a specific type of cultural sensual experience of Catholic religious knowledge and value-system. Being an practice, and was especially interested in ethical liberal individual in the O’Brien the potential empowerment and fulfilment mode requires the prior accumulation of that religious life offered to women. Her extensive quantities of cultural capital. Bildung narratives are fundamentally If O’Brien’s model of Bildung suggests shaped by the conception of sexuality as a that historical progress is desirable moral problem, and her characters view this but impossible to achieve, her post- problem through the prism of Catholicism. independence Ireland suffers particularly Nevertheless, the resolution of these moral acutely from this condition. O’Brien problems, and the ethical individualist launches an assault from within on the ideal projected in the narrative through this prevailing public morality discourses with resolution, is fundamentally underpinned by her narratives of sexual moral tests and nineteenth-century bourgeois liberalism. As www.fieldday.ieher ideal of ethical liberal individualism. the characters of Henry and Helen Archer The historical setting and geo-moral particularly illustrate, O’Brien primarily cartography of the novels locate the public associates this political position with morality discourses within the larger Protestantism and with the cultured English project of anti-colonial nationalism. Public middle classes. O’Brien’s vision of Irish morality is a symptom of how the prevailing modernization involves looking outwards to model of national development has failed a narrowly defined sphere of metropolitan and, crucially, was always constitutionally culture. But along with going outwards, destined to fail. But if this model of the culture must also go backwards. national development is a failure, what are The ‘wrong turn’ of independence must the alternatives? From C. B. Murphy to somehow be undone and the hegemony Eibhear Walshe, it has been a shibboleth of an idealized bourgeoisie — Catholic in of O’Brien criticism that her fiction posited formal religious adherence but politically a sophisticated, enlightened European and philosophically liberal and Protestant Catholicism as an ideal contrast to the — must be restored. Since the gracefully insularity of the Irish Free State.83 The elegiac tone of O’Brien’s fiction admits that deference shown to O’Brien’s imaginative this return is impossible, Irish culture is construction of an idealized European stuck fast — incapable of reversing so that it Catholic bourgeoisie has occluded a number can go forward. of flaws in that construction. The most banal of these flaws is timing. O’Brien was articulating this European ideal in her

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52 Sinéad O’Connor: The story of a voice Emer Nolan

‘There’s a blaze of light In every word It doesn’t matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah’

Leonard Cohen, ‘Hallelujah’ (1984)

Sinéad O’Connor is surely Ireland’s best-known woman artist. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, her startling appearance and the extraordinary vocal www.fieldday.ieperformances on her first two albums brought her huge fame as an international rock star. From the beginning, she combined an ambiguous sexual appeal, a distinctive clarity of voice and an aura of intense personal anguish. Although she became an early icon of the Celtic Tiger era, her attitudes towards Ireland, Catholicism and the music business were at odds with many aspects of the upbeat, commercialized Sinead O’Connor sings on televisions at Topp’s Appliance ‘Irishness’ so prevalent in the City, Secaucus, NJ, USA, Feb 15, 1995. © Mark Peterson/Corbis popular culture of the time. In

Field Day Review 6 2010 53 Field Day review

various ways, O’Connor has been associated the more introspective Universal Mother 1 O’Connor continues to with ‘trouble’: dealing with a difficult (1994) and Faith and Courage (2000). perform and in 2007 released an album, private life in public, drawing attention Arguably, it reaches full definition in her Theology, which to female sexuality in its emotional and album of Irish traditional songs, Sean-nós featured a good deal reproductive complexities rather than in Nua (2002), where the solo voice becomes, of original material its commodified forms, and retaining a by a sleight of genius, the collective voice.1 mainly inspired by Old Testament sources. stubborn attachment to an Irish identity This process harbours the promise that, While her music has that is always perilously close to stereotype. while trauma admits of no easy resolution, retained both a sense of Media discussion of O’Connor has been it can nevertheless be faced or even dissatisfied restlessness dominated by a long-standing fascination outfaced. O’Connor’s career raises questions and a political edge, I would suggest that the with her image and by criticism of her about musical ‘femininity’, especially in vocal performances on continuing engagement with the publicity pop music and in Irish music. She is blessed the most recent album industry of which she is also in many ways with a voice that has all the potential for the are not marked by the a casualty. But the main focus here will be erotic and the ethereal so readily associated same kinds of traumatic conflict that I am most on her astonishing singing voice. O’Connor with solo female performance. She fully concerned to trace in is quintessentially a solo performer. She explores these dimensions, but she also this essay. has never played the role of a member of seeks quite different effects, refusing to 2 For an account of a family group such as Clannad or The limit herself to celebrating romantic love or O’Connor’s childhood, see Dermott Hayes, Corrs or of the female singer in front of purveying serene ‘wisdom’. In the process, Sinéad O’Connor: So a band. At the outset, that solo voice, in she raises key questions concerning both Different (London, combination with her arresting beauty and the possibilities for women’s or feminist 1991), especially 12–17. considerable songwriting talents, created art in Ireland and also, more generally, 3 Quoted by John Waters, ‘Sinéad the Keener’, The a career — pop music stardom. But even about the critical potential of Irish art in Irish Times, Weekend, her best-selling work involved an unstable contemporary conditions. 28 January 1995. compound of the coolly commercial and the O’Connor’s exploration of trauma nakedly confessional. Within a few years, through the medium of the human voice the commercial dimension had been largely is especially suggestive and compelling destroyed,www.fieldday.ie mainly by the outrage caused by for a number of reasons. Among these are her ripping up a photograph of Pope John her own understanding of her childhood Paul II on the American TV chat show experience. After her parents separated Saturday Night Live in 1992 in protest when she was a young child, she and her against Vatican collusion in child sexual siblings spent several years in the custody abuse. After this, the entertainment business of their mother, who was depressed and itself became a contributor to O’Connor’s addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs.2 ongoing experience of trauma. However, her O’Connor claims that she was subjected voice was not silenced. Its stark loneliness to humiliating and sadistic abuse at her intensified but she took this lyric quality mother’s hands. She has said of this period that had always been natural to her voice in her life that she ‘was born and was and nurtured it to see how it would ramify murdered in that house’. She prayed to God and evolve; the development of her voice for help and believed that she was in return became an enterprise, an experiment. As granted ‘a voice and a chance to be heard’; a solo artist, she dwelt on the possibility and yet she states that ‘there was always a of emotional autonomy, even autarky, but sound that I was trying to get from myself, then embarked on a long voyage to discover which is the sound I made as a child … a route towards communal feeling. This The howling. That was the sound that I’d describes the contour of O’Connor’s artistic blocked off.’3 The more adult, articulate project from the debut album The Lion and voice promised self-expression and the The Cobra (1987) and its follow-up, I Do opportunity to become an artist, while the Not Want What I Haven’t Got (1990), to

54 Sinéad O’Connor: the story of a voice

Sinead O’Connor on ‘The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson’, October 5, 2005. © Getty. Photo by Jesse Grant/ WireImage

www.fieldday.ie

immature, inarticulate voice represents the or screaming. This second voice, it could inchoate cry of the abused child. easily be assumed, is her way of recreating O’Connor’s voice, especially in her the pain of her childhood. While the first early work, typically modulates between voice is dematerialized or transcendent, the pure, soaring power and angry yelping second corresponds more closely to what

55 Field Day review

Roland Barthes has described as a ‘grained’ ‘defies and demands our witness’, for the 4 Roland Barthes, ‘The voice — one that sounds as if it has victim is haunted not just by the reality of a Grain of the Voice’, Image — Music — Text, come from ‘the cavities, the muscles, the violent event in the past, but by ‘the reality trans. Stephen Heath membranes, the cartilages’ deep within the of the way in which its violence has not (London, 1977), 181 body of the singer.4 Moreover, we can hear yet been fully known’.8 O’Connor’s voice 5 See Waters, ‘Sinéad the more clearly the characteristic traces of an registers such violence everywhere — in Keener’. 6 For example, see individual personality in this ‘bodily’ voice. the relationship between mother and child, Richard Haslam’s In O’Connor’s case, it more closely reflects man and woman, the artist and the music remarks on O’Connor the well-known qualities of her speaking industry, the individual and the institutional in ‘“A race bashed in the voice, with its combination of a rather Church. In Caruth’s terms, O’Connor’s face”: Imagining Ireland as a Damaged Child.’ nonchalant suburban Dublin accent and singing testifies to the inescapability of the Jouvert: A Journal of a supposedly over-emotional ‘stridency’. belated impact of trauma, in its persistent Postcolonial Studies 4.1 But it would be too simple to suggest witness to the voice that ‘cries out from (Fall 1999) [electronic that the beautiful, impersonal voice ever the wound’. The modulations of her voice journal; can be found at http://english.chass. fully absorbs the angry, personal one. She between purity and anger do not conform ncsu.edu/jouvert/v4i1/ has herself advanced this interpretation, to any predictable pattern. Its ‘stridency’ is hasla.htm]. In addition, indicating that the historical or political never far removed from its lyric or spiritual Stuart McLean takes the importance of her work lies in her capacity qualities. Even in its soaring mode, the voice example of O’Connor’s 1994 rap ‘Famine’ as to transform grief into the aesthetic form has a ‘catch’ or flaw in its purity which illustrative of the pitfalls of the lament or ‘keen’ — to give voice comes not from any sense of muscular of the ‘trauma and to and so to assuage not only her own effort or strain, but from a refusal of the recovery’ reading of the pain but that of others as well. Through emancipatory seductions that a clearly Great Famine that came to the fore with renewed remembering personal and collective struck high note, with its shine and finish, popular attention to the suffering, her audience — and especially seems to offer. It is as if her voice finds the cultural legacies of the Irish people dealing with the legacies of traumatic moments in the songs that she Famine around the time colonialism, famine and an oppressive sings, but then searches behind or beyond of the commemoration of its 150th anniversary; Church — will be ‘healed’.5 Such remarks the sometimes banal lyrics of her pop or see Stuart McLean, havewww.fieldday.ie been met with some condescension traditional material for something more (Stanford, 2004), The from most of the academic critics who have answerable to its desire. This lends a quality Event and its Terrors: given any serious attention to her work.6 of restless, dissatisfied intelligence to almost Famine, Modernity 154–55. David Lloyd But an examination of her music leads us to all of her recorded work. also criticizes a the conclusion that matters are in any event The Lion and the Cobra in 1987 ‘redemptive’ view of the considerably more complicated. announced the arrival of a major new retrieval of historical Cathy Caruth argues: talent in Irish popular music. While the memory, as opposed to a ‘melancholic’ view Irish identity of some earlier rock stars of Irish modernity Trauma seems to be much more than such as Phil Lynott or Bob Geldof had as characterized by a pathology, or the simple illness of a depended more on their projection of a a constitutive and wounded psyche: it is always the story soulful or rebellious masculinity than unresolved loss. See ‘The Memory of Hunger’, of a wound that cries out, that addresses on particularly ‘Irish’ sounds, O’Connor in The Irish Hunger: us in the attempt to tell us of a reality sang in an unmistakably Irish accent and Personal Reflections or truth that is not otherwise available. in styles that often evoked traditional or on the Legacy of the This truth, in its delayed appearance folk modes. With its elements of rock, Famine, ed. Tom Hayden (Boulder, and its belated address, cannot be linked punk and hip-hop and arrangements 1997), 32–47. However, only to what is known, but also to what involving a huge variety of instruments Lloyd discusses the remains unknown in our very actions including acoustic guitars and Irish fiddles, sound of the howling and our language.7 her music offered a novel conjugation dog at the beginning of ‘Famine’ and of traditional and international musical mentions O’Connor’s Because trauma is an experience that forms to set beside experiments by bands understanding of herself cannot be assimilated as it occurs, it both such as The Horslips or The Pogues.9 as a keener as ‘entirely

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apposite’, but perhaps Yet there is little sense of camaraderie or bleached of any stereotypical suggestion because this track ‘craic’ about O’Connor’s version of Irish of Irishness; despite this, her fans — Irish features O’Connor’s rock. The layering of her voice produces and non-Irish, male and female — seem speaking voice only and apparently endorses an eerie polyphony; the echoes of Irish to have embraced her as a startling new ‘remembering’ as ballads and laments in many of the songs icon of modern Irish femininity. But a ‘healing’, he does not are spooky rather than sentimental. Other woman’s bald head also recalls the horrible address the phenomenon Irish elements, such as the quotations spectacle of communal punishment meted of her music more generally; see Lloyd, from W. B. Yeats or the recitation of a out to someone who has been guilty of 32–33. Joe Cleary Biblical verse in Irish by Enya (Eithne sexual contact with the enemy. Such images alludes in a more overtly Ní Bhraonáin), are defamiliarized by recall photographs of shaven women who sympathetic way to the slick, ultramodern production. This had consorted with Nazis being paraded O’Connor’s attempts to ‘work through’ attitude of cool detachment seemed unlike through the streets in post-Liberation her personal version anything in the folk tradition. But there France, or of outcast Catholic women in of collective cultural is a dissonance in her early work between Northern Ireland, accused of ‘going out’ trauma; see Outrageous such confident self-assertion and an angry, with British soldiers, who were bound, Fortune: Capital and Culture in Modern tortured self-consciousness. An impression shaved, tarred and feathered. In such Ireland (Dublin, 2007), of incongruity is created by the modish, images, the woman’s bald head is a mark of 185. minimalist packaging of music that is belonging that reflects the brutality of the 7 Cathy Caruth, characterized by the anguished sense of oppressed community itself. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and personal loss, itself haunted by the ghostly In the songs on The Lion and the Cobra, History (Baltimore, echoes of national tradition. the experience of rejection and isolation is 1996), 4 This clash was perhaps duplicated in explored in the fairly conventional format 8 Caruth, Unclaimed the most recognizable and ‘iconic’ feature of songs about unhappy love affairs. While Experience, 5–6 of O’Connor’s appearance — her baldness. there are some raunchy or upbeat dance In many photographs, the starkness of her tracks such as ‘I Want Your Hands (On naked skull only serves to emphasize her Me)’ and the hit single ‘Mandinka’, several large, pale eyes and the classical, sculptural other songs point more clearly towards www.fieldday.iebeauty of her face. Any woman who O’Connor’s future development. ‘Jackie’, shaves her head seems to announce her the first track on the album, is a lament indifference to the dictates of fashion and for a lover lost at sea. It opens quietly her contentment with her own unadorned enough in the style of a folk ballad, but looks. Yet baldness can also suggest self- reaches a climax in anguished, blood- mutilation, cancer or helpless infancy. For curdling screaming. Here we first encounter example, the cover of The Lion and the O’Connor’s characteristic blend of rage, Cobra features an image of O’Connor sorrow and defiance. The song ‘Troy’ is in which her mouth is open and her face six minutes long and full of daring vocal screwed up in a snarl of rage; in a softer but pauses and swoops. The title is borrowed more melancholy version of the image used from Yeats’s sonnet ‘No Second Troy’, for the US release of the album, her mouth and in quoting from the poem, the singer is a perfect Cupid’s bow but her expression, identifies herself with Yeats’s beloved with eyes downcast, is one of complete Maud Gonne, the republican and feminist dejection. In these head-and-shoulders activist (‘There was no other Troy for me shots, she is dressed in a blue undershirt, to burn’). The song begins in a fairly muted redolent of the garb of an inmate of a prison nostalgic register — recalling ‘Dublin in or a concentration camp. Her thin arms a rainstorm / Sitting in the long grass in are crossed defensively across her chest and summer/ Keeping warm’ — but culminates her head and face are a chalky, spectral in protracted howls of pain and fury. From white. The visual presentation of O’Connor the outset, she continuously challenges (videos, album covers, publicity shots) was her voice’s innate musicality, achieving a

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particularly appealing chromatic effect, leave Ireland by the severe recession of the 9 For an analysis of only immediately to cancel or annul it. It is 1980s, including many graduates or people O’Connor’s music in the context of the clear from such early tracks that O’Connor from middle-class, urban backgrounds ‘hybrid’ forms of Irish is exploring not just rage, but a range of like her own. This was a generation that popular music, see Noel angered feeling. Anger has the peculiar at home had enjoyed membership of a McLaughlin and Martin effect of opening up her voice, stimulating relatively liberal and privileged elite, but McLoone, ‘Hybridity and National Musics: a new sonar range in which different shades which found that abroad it had much in the Case of Irish Rock of emotion unfurl like bands of colour. common with an earlier Irish diaspora. Music’, Popular Music, The cover of I Do Not Want What In England, the young Irish took menial 19, 2 (2000), 181–99 I Haven’t Got also features a close-up jobs or signed on the dole; many had their (195–96). 10 See the contrast drawn photograph of O’Connor’s face. But first encounter with anti-Irish prejudice, by some young Irish here, the dark background softens the which had been greatly inflamed by the women emigrants impact of the bald head; her large pale IRA bombing campaigns in Britain. Her between Mary Robinson eyes are spot-lit as she gazes ardently into song became a kind of anthem for this new — Ireland’s first female president, elected in the distance. The album opens with a group of emigrants, which had little reason 1990 — and O’Connor. recitation of a prayer for serenity and is to be grateful to Ireland but was not ready It is arguable that full of references to the artist’s supposed unconditionally to celebrate its new home Robinson was the only new-found maturity. The sound of her either. The album also extends O’Connor’s Irish woman with a higher international voice is generally softer and more closely affective range to include what appear to profile than O’Connor’s miked than on the first album. Nonetheless be enigmatic and disturbing addresses to in the early 1990s. But any sense of contentment is to some her late mother (who had died in a car Breda Gray reports that degree undercut by the music. Her biggest crash when O’Connor was eighteen years for several women she interviewed, ‘unlike hit, a cover of the Prince song ‘Nothing old) and strikingly unconventional songs Mary Robinson, who Compares 2 U’, is a desolate song about about maternal feeling as such. ‘You Cause becomes a redemptive being abandoned by a lover. Its famous as Much Sorrow’ contains a refrain that national figure in the accompanying video depends for its might sound like an adolescent tantrum women’s accounts, Sinéad O’Connor dramatic effect on the shadings of grief — ‘You’ve done nothing so far / Except is represented as a andwww.fieldday.ie sorrow that pass over O’Connor’s destroy my life / You cause as much sorrow figure of pathological face as she sings; towards the end of dead / As you did when you were alive’ — Irish femininity’. the song, as her eyes meet the camera were it not for the soaring beauty of the While Robinson is a stoical figure who directly for the first time, she begins to vocal delivery. O’Connor here carries off ‘kept up appearances’ cry. ‘I Am Stretched On Your Grave’ is an one of her characteristic feats of managing in presenting Irish experiment with Irish traditional singing to appear both bitter and indifferent at modernity on a global and hip-hop rhythm; the track is based the same time: at such moments, she sings stage, O’Connor unpatriotically on a translation by Frank O’Connor of as if she were as snarlingly dismissive of exposed her hurt and an Irish poem, ‘Táim sínte ar do thuama’, her own lyrics and her own vocal effects vulnerability, thus set to a melody by Philip King. This as she is of the person who has betrayed letting the country version has been recorded previously, her. The ferocity of O’Connor’s attacks down. See Gray, Women and the Irish Diaspora including a fine version by Sonny Condell on her mother were taboo-breaking, but (London, 2004), 56–58. of Scullion, but O’Connor’s treatment so too were aspects of her account of her is even more shockingly elemental and own motherhood. ‘Three Babies’ has been shatters established folk conventions. interpreted as an address to infants who ‘Black Boys on Mopeds’ offers a spare, had been aborted. It seemed incongruous autobiographical version of a traditional that someone like O’Connor, who had emigrant’s lament. O’Connor lived in always been a strong supporter of abortion England during the Thatcher era. She had rights, should express these sentiments gone to London to pursue her musical about the ‘cold bodies’ of the babies career, sharing this journey with many who will be ‘returned’ to her. But in its thousands of young Irish people forced to attempt to portray a state of confused

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11 Elizabeth Cullingford maternal distress (the singer refers to dealing explicitly with her personal trauma. details the furore that herself as ‘this thing that I have chosen to Despite its title, Universal Mother is about followed the Saturday be’), the song presents motherhood as a the necessity of separating from the mother Night Live appearance in a pioneering essay realm of ambiguity and conflict. This is and also about the notion of sisterhood devoted in large part not just because of the prevailing mores — not primarily in the sense of feminist to O’Connor. The of a patriarchal society, but also because solidarity, but of sibling relationships, network, NBC, received of the primal passions maternity in itself including males as well as females. In a torrent of protest calls and O’Connor involves. In this regard, the song neither this regard, the remark by Germaine was booed at a Bob sanitizes nor repudiates abortion. Against Greer which opens the album, that ‘the Dylan tribute concert in a backing track of acoustic guitar and lush opposite of patriarchy is not matriarchy but Madison Square Garden strings, O’Connor begins in a soft and fraternity’, has tremendous significance; a few weeks later; even the notably irreverent lyrical register. As the song progresses, the it seems that the configuration and shared singer Madonna tone of tender devotion is interrupted by ordeals of her family of origin have had a joined in the chorus of moments of sudden yearning hoarseness. permanent effect on her sense of political criticism. Cullingford These suggest a struggle with violent, and national community as well. The album goes on to suggest that ‘the hysterical derision self-abnegating desire. For example, on opens with a fierce and nightmarish vision that regularly greets their second occurrence, the stark lines of her childhood home, ‘Fire on Babylon’; O’Connor’s actions, ‘The face on you, / The smell of you’ this is followed by the tender ‘John, I Love especially from Irish are tackled in a powerful, emphatic You’, which gives another account of the journalists (one of whom describes her as ‘a few and unnerving style which expresses as same disturbing story in a completely wafers short of a mass’), much despair as affection. Yet, on this different register. Using fairytale imagery seems out of proportion occasion, the clamant note surrenders to and a waltzing rhythm, the song encourages to her offences and the melodic line and the song ends quietly ‘John’ — apparently O’Connor’s brother suggests that she unfailingly hits a raw with a sense of resolve or perhaps merely — to believe that ‘there’s life beyond your nerve’. See ‘Seamus and of resignation. ‘Three Babies’ is neither mother’s garden’. There is some uneven Sinéad: From “Limbo” a Gothic lament (of which O’Connor material on Universal Mother, including to Saturday Night Live had already produced some disturbing the rap ‘Famine’ and the short track sung by way of Hush-a-bye www.fieldday.iebaby’, in Ireland’s examples) nor a touching celebration of by O’Connor’s own son, but also several Others: Gender and a fulfilled, loving relationship; rather, it of her most exquisite love songs, including Ethnicity in Irish oscillates between the two possibilities. ‘A Perfect Indian’ and ‘Thank You For Literature and Popular O’Connor’s confessional impulse is at its Hearing Me’. The former contains allusions Culture (Cork, 2001) 234–57 (248–50, 256). most powerful in such work. This kind of to the legend of the Children of Lir, an Irish See also William Leith’s material aroused some distaste and even story about four royal children who are account of the Saturday derision.10 For this and other reasons, her placed under a spell and transformed into Night Live incident and fame began to mutate into notoriety in the swans by their wicked stepmother. They some of O’Connor’s 11 other statements, ‘The early 1990s. After the incident involving are condemned to wander the sea between Life of Saint Sinéad’, the Pope’s photograph, she began to spend Ireland and Scotland for 900 years until The Independent more of her time in Ireland and gradually they hear the bell of St. Patrick, announcing [London] (29 November shed most of the conventionally ‘sexy’ the arrival of Christianity in Ireland. At 1992). Leith writes: ‘Mostly, her music is aspects of her image. But she continued that moment, they are changed back into abstruse and doomy … to talk incessantly to journalists and their human forms, only to wither with O’Connor just says and interviewers, assuming not just the right age and die. O’Connor has spoken of the does headline-grabbing to defend herself against attacks, but also significance of the story to her; in the song, things, and this may or may not be a ploy to sell always seeking to appropriate a kind of she declares ‘Too long have I been feeling her records. But if it is, it cultural or political authority to which, as like Lir’s children / And there’s only one doesn’t work very well.’ a young, female pop performer, she had no way to be free’.12 The central character obvious access or claim. in the legend is Fionnuala, the sister who O’Connor’s next two albums represent sings to comfort her three younger brothers. the culmination of that phase of her work In implicitly associating herself with this

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Sinéad O’Connor and Gay Byrne on RTÉ’s ‘The Late Late Show’, 30 April 1999. O’Connor had just been ordained a priest, Mother Bernadette, in a Latin Tridentine ceremony when she appeared on this edition of the programme. © RTÉ Stills Library

figure (although O’Connor was in fact with that of the singer herself. In this song, 12 O’Connor also refers thewww.fieldday.ie third child and second daughter of O’Connor counterpoints a soothing, slow- to the significance of the story as national five children), she assumes not the role of paced lyric against momentary exposures allegory when she states: powerful mother, but of a sympathetic yet of dramatic anguish. For example, in the ‘I have a friend who I relatively helpless sibling. The image of line ‘I’m sailing on this terrible ocean’, argue with about this. the wronged child as a kind of childish, the voice swerves on the syllables ‘-ing’ And I say to him, “I am Ireland”. I was born and surrogate mother (or friend) is in fact more and ‘terr-’ as though losing control of the live here. I’ve seeped in central to O’Connor’s music as it evolves melody that seems for those seconds to be all these feelings that than any mythical image of matriarchal no more than a mask for hidden feelings. come from generations power — or ‘the goddess’ — to which she Although the song ends with the firmly and generations. I watch what’s going on and also occasionally refers. But before any emphasized word ‘free’ and a resounding I see how it mirrors happy relationship is possible, it is first piano chord, the final impression is not what’s going on in my necessary to become ‘free’ by achieving of reconciliation or resolution. The singer own life. I grew up in solitude (‘And real love requires you, give longs for release or emancipation, but this is that house, which was Ireland. There were up those loves / Whom you think you still merely an aspiration. ‘Thank You For four children there. love best’, as she puts it in ‘What Doesn’t Hearing Me’, the final song on Universal I feel a connection Belong to Me’ from Faith and Courage — Mother, appears to be a gentle, prayer-like with the story of the one of her final and most poignant songs love song, but modulates in the final verses Children of Lir, which also represents the four about her mother). ‘A Perfect Indian’ opens into a valediction: ‘Thank you for breaking provinces of Ireland.’ with tender words about a man but then my heart / Thank you for tearing me apart See Waters, ‘Sinéad the drifts away from the scene of sexual love. / Now I’ve a strong, strong heart / Thank Keener’. The lyrics dwell instead on a ‘beautiful you for breaking my heart’. There are no daughter’ whose identity appears to merge verbal or musical clichés here about the

60 Sinéad O’Connor: the story of a voice

13 See Cullingford, power of love: such easy sentiments are remained too close to damaging fantasies ‘Seamus and Sinéad’, undercut by O’Connor’s fidelity to the scene about idealized Irish or Catholic mothers. 251. In this essay, of her own trauma. When all the drama From this point of view, the Virgin and Cullingford defends O’Connor’s ‘critical of accusation and entreaty on Universal the colleen are far from being agents of Catholicism’, Mother is exhausted, we are left with the sexual liberation and cannot represent comparing her stance lonely voice which, finally withdrawing true alternatives to the boy’s brutal, on religion to that of all its treacherous consolations, dissolves alcoholic father or to the priests who other contemporary Irish figures such as into a soundtrack of waves breaking on the punish and abuse him. Because they are Seamus Heaney and seashore. symbols of ‘the utopian, ergo impossible, Neil Jordan, for whom There was a six-year interval between national vision’, these phantasmal women Catholicism was a Universal Mother and O’Connor’s next merely create further pain and trauma formative influence: 15 despite their criticism full-length solo album, Faith and Courage for Francie. Only Cullingford argues of the Church they (2000). The latter marked several new that Jordan and O’Connor are drawing cannot simply ignore or developments in her music, including a more on powerful qualities of the Virgin as a repudiate Catholic or explicit emphasis on religion. Elizabeth traditional religious image. As Cullingford religious images. 14 Colin MacCabe, The Cullingford notes that O’Connor kept ‘her describes the role, the Virgin is beautiful Butcher Boy (Cork, intense and paradoxical involvement with and consoling even as she proves to be a 2007), 68–69 Catholicism in full public view’ during the useless advisor to the child: ‘O’Connor’s 15 Emer Rockett and Kevin late 1990s.13 However, the earnest spiritual gentle performance establishes that, while Rockett, Neil Jordan: Exploring Boundaries quest of O’Connor’s music seems in many all mothers are fallible, even the Mother of (Dublin, 2003), 184 ways at odds with the attitude to religion God, they are vastly preferable to fathers, 16 Cullingford, ‘Seamus reflected in some of her other artistic lay or clerical’.16 However we interpret and Sinéad’, 256 ventures around this time. In particular, O’Connor’s Virgin, it is noteworthy that her cameo role as the Virgin Mary in Neil her appearance in The Butcher Boy was Jordan’s film, The Butcher Boy (1997), more warmly received by Irish audiences seemed to be a playfully irreverent and than were either her media ‘stunts’ or her provocative gesture. Her participation records: perhaps women performers are www.fieldday.iein the film has generated a good deal of regarded more positively if they seem to be debate. For instance, Colin MacCabe flirtatious or ironic. praises O’Connor’s ‘erotic’ performance In some respects, Faith and Courage and suggests that she embodies attitudes represented a return to O’Connor’s spiky towards sexuality and the body which spelt but debonair rock persona, with the death to the ‘masculine theocracy’ that buoyant, self-assertive ‘No Man’s Woman’ held sway in Ireland between the middle of or ‘Daddy I’m Fine’ and possibly the the nineteenth century and the final years happiest love song in her oeuvre, ‘Dancing of the twentieth.14 In other words, this is Lessons’. But religious themes are certainly a thoroughly subversive and anti-Catholic prominent. Curiously, given that she representation of the Virgin. However, continues to identify herself as a Catholic, it is hard to see how O’Connor’s Virgin, her songs make virtually no reference to played in a blonde wig and voluminous Mary, Jesus or the Church. Instead, she blue and white robes, is deliberately sexual dwells mainly on a mixture of ancient at all; even her profanity (‘For fuck’s sake, Celtic spirituality and Rastafarianism on Francie!’) is no more than an echo of the this album. The Celtic spirituality which language of the unhappy young boy to O’Connor ascribes to the Irish is ‘lost’: it whom she appears. Even though the style is not some immutable feature or easily of Jordan’s film was upbeat and zany, available current resource.17 When religion for some, O’Connor — who also made appears, it comes in a political mode, as a a further brief appearance as a harp- form of spirituality that has been repressed playing Irish colleen — had nevertheless or marginalized. Celtic spirituality is itself

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such a construct, musically given to the Holy Communion dress, displayed inside a 17 See Waters, ‘Sinéad the effects of ethereality and the disembodied Celtic border decorated in the Rastafarian Keener’, for O’Connor’s view that the Irish have echo of the solo voice, which indicates an colours of red, green and gold. For anyone experienced a ‘massive unworldly or metaphysical space. Similarly, familiar with O’Connor’s biography, this loss of contact with any she has experimented with the ‘celestial’ doe-eyed child looking shyly at the camera, spirituality’. In an open effects of Christian plainchant, as in ‘Kyrié her fingertips pressed together in a gauche letter written shortly after the notorious Eléison’ on this album. But O’Connor is attempt at a prayerful pose, represents a Saturday Night Live also drawn to forms of religion that are disturbing image of Irish Catholic identity. appearance, O’Connor militant, apocalyptic and millenarian. O’Connor had already associated child blamed the suffering Reggae or Rastafarian music is not only a abuse with black historical experience of the Irish and her own abuse on British vibrant strand in West Indian and Western when she sang a version of Marley’s ‘War’, colonization, which popular culture, but also an expression substituting the words ‘child abuse’ for occurred with the of political protest on behalf of wretched ‘racism’ in several of the lines, just before collusion of the Papacy: people looking forward to deliverance from she ripped up the picture of the Pope. She ‘The cause of my abuse is the history of my ‘Babylon’. It offers the mournful solo voice reprises ‘War’ on the final track on Throw people, whose identity a means of experimenting with a group or Down Your Arms. Yet what relationship and culture were taken national style of singing. Faith and Courage exists between O’Connor’s unhappy story away from them by has a similar interest in relation to Irish and these powerful performances of well- the British with full permission from The traditional music. For example, on the track known songs from a completely different “Holy” Roman Empire.’ ‘In This Heart’, O’Connor harmonizes with musical culture? (Although it is notable See Leith, ‘The Life of a group of traditional singers, producing that she avoids covering any of Marley’s Saint Sinéad’. quite ravishing effects that are, nevertheless, commercial hits.) On this album, O’Connor 18 R. F. Foster deplores this tendency in Irish familiar in that context. However, this neither radically changes the arrangements popular music in Luck is not an experiment in ensemble vocal of the songs nor tries to imitate reggae-style and the Irish: A Brief performance that she repeats in her solo singing. Her singing does not attempt to History of Change, work. In the cover albums which follow ‘adapt’ the songs to different conditions, 1970–2000 (London, 2007), 149. Faith and Courage, she essays group but seems designed to display a respect styleswww.fieldday.ie in more subtle and ultimately more or reverence through recreating them in compelling ways. The juxtaposition of a just-slightly different style. However, the Celtic note with Rastafarianism is an few things generate more consternation instance of combining the lonely voice of among commentators hostile to the colonial the lost and dispossessed with the choric interpretation of Irish history than the voice of popular protest. I will glance briefly notion that the Irish believe themselves to at the reggae album, Throw Down Your be ‘virtually black’: the fear is that Irish Arms (2005), before considering the earlier nationalists may associate Irish historical Sean-nós Nua in more detail: O’Connor’s experience with the history of black encounter with Rastafarian music raised slavery or oppression in an opportunistic issues about authority, appropriation and and self-indulgent fashion.18 But Michael mimicry, which are also relevant to the Malouf asserts that O’Connor does not national and gender politics of her turn to attempt to merge these discrete histories. traditional Irish material. He suggests that, on such reggae-influenced Why would a white Irish woman tracks as ‘The Lamb’s Book of Life’ on singer record an album of reggae songs Faith and Courage, O’Connor restrains associated with male Jamaican artists such the ‘ethereal and inspirational’ sound of as Bob Marley or Burning Spear (Winston her voice: she enters into dialogue with Rodney)? The apparent incongruity of the the reggae sounds, rather than dominating project is emphasized by the cover art for or being subordinated to them. This is the album, which features a photograph consistent with her general insistence of O’Connor as a young girl wearing her on emphasizing what the Irish have to

62 Sinéad O’Connor: the story of a voice

Sinéad O’Connor rips up a picture of Pope John Paul II, October 3, 1992 on the TV show ‘Saturday Night Live’. © Yvonne Hemsey/Getty Images

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19 See Michael Malouf, learn from Rastafarianism and from between Irish popular music and American ‘Feeling Éire(y): On African culture, as part of what Malouf culture. In songs such as ‘Marcus Garvey’ Irish-Caribbean Popular describes as her attempt to situate Ireland from Throw Down Your Arms, there is a Culture’ in The Irish In Us: Irishness, as part of a ‘radical cosmopolitanism gesture of modesty in not departing too Performativity, and from below’.19 Certainly, there is a strong dramatically from Burning Spear’s original Popular Culture, ed. contrast between O’Connor’s interest in interpretation. The song laments a betrayed Diane Negra (Durham, reggae and the much greater influence of leader and predicts that he will return to 2006), 344–46; Malouf also quotes O’Connor’s African-American musical forms on most bring vengeance. With a hypnotic, ecstatic denunciation of Irish popular musicians, including major saxophone and horns backing, the singer is prejudice against recent figures such as Van Morrison and Bono. by turns tender and admonishing. Although black immigrants in O’Connor resists the Gospel-influenced he has ‘no food to eat’ and ‘no money to Ireland, 353. line of American evangelical spirituality to spend’, he entreats: ‘Come, little one and let which Irish musicians have accommodated me do what I can for you / And you and you themselves so readily. This is of a piece alone’. Then he threatens that with her rejection of the easy relationship

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He who knows the right thing masculine identity (although Beauvoir 20 See Simone de Beauvoir, And do it not believed that very few women artists in The Second Sex, trans. H. M. Parshley Shall be spanked with many stripes patriarchal society had in fact achieved this (London, 1997), 711– Weeping and wailing and moaning freedom or transcendence through their 24. You’ve got yourself to blame, I tell you. art).20 In that light, O’Connor’s retreat 21 For example, see from songwriting after Faith and Courage Gerardine Meaney, Gender, Ireland and The song ends with the triumphant could be interpreted as a loss of creative Cultural Change incantation ‘Catch them Garvey, catch them nerve. In addition, her adoption of the role (London, 2010); for an … / Hold them Marcus, hold them’. But in of traditional Irish female singer may have analysis of the disputes some senses, in taking on the prophetic role seemed to confirm what some would have about nationalism in Irish feminist theory, originally performed by the male singer as described as her predilection for presenting see Emer Nolan, spokesman for his people, O’Connor places herself as an allegorical representation of ‘Postcolonial Literary herself in the position of the representative the suffering nation. For various reasons, Studies, Nationalism, ‘speaker’. She also evokes a strong second-wave Irish feminism has proven and Feminist Critique in Contemporary Ireland’, millenarian strain in Irish culture that goes particularly hostile to the identification Éire-Ireland, 42.1 & 2 back to the Jacobite political ideology of of femininity with Irishness in nationalist (Spring/Summer 2007), the ‘aisling’ poems of the seventeenth and discourse — and indeed to Irish nationalism 336–61. eighteenth centuries. Such songs were often itself in any form.21 O’Connor was far more 22 During the early years of her career, O’Connor about a dream or vision of a sorrowful sympathetic to republicanism (as well as made some notorious woman who tells the male poet of how to Catholicism) than most major cultural statements expressing she has been wronged and abandoned. It figures in late twentieth-century southern sympathy with the could be argued that in her reggae persona, Ireland.22 So, despite the misogynistic aims of the Provisional IRA; in 1989, she sang O’Connor combines versions of both roles in treatment that she has often received in the nationalist ballad, the aisling. She is a beautiful woman whose the media and her consistent protests on ‘Irish Ways and Irish voice can dramatize loss and yearning, but behalf of the victims of abuse (including her Laws’, with the folk she avoids the passivity associated with the participation in demonstrations concerning singer Christy Moore at a ‘Troops Out’ rally traditional allegory by bringing a strong the so-called ‘X’ case in 1992, when the in Dublin. See Hayes, sensewww.fieldday.ie of her militant anger and her notorious High Court granted an injunction against Sinéad O’Connor, 94. ‘outspokenness’ to ‘Marcus Garvey’, ‘War’ a fourteen-year-old rape victim to prevent 23 Although in the major or ‘Downpressor Man’. Liberated from her travelling to the UK for an abortion), Irish feminist scholarly work to date, The Field the melancholy undertow of so much Irish feminists in Ireland have paid scant Day Anthology of Irish 23 traditional music, she explores a new kind attention to her career. Instead, it has Writing: Irish Women’s of rebellious feeling. Throughout the album, fallen to critics of popular music to consider Writing and Traditions, the voice takes an obvious delight in its O’Connor’s relationship with feminism. Vols IV–V, O’Connor is represented by an discovery of solidarity. International rock is a heavily male- extract from a hostile O’Connor’s interest in covering other dominated and routinely misogynistic interview in Time artists’ songs and her embrace of an Irish cultural form, its rebelliousness often magazine, in which traditional repertoire evidently did little bound up with an aggressive assertion of she defends herself against the charge that to enhance the appreciation of her work male sexual freedom. There have been few she is exaggerating the either among Irish feminist critics or opportunities for female performers to extent of her own abuse academic commentators on Irish popular ‘infuse rock with “feminine” qualities’.24 and thus being unfair music. Simone de Beauvoir drew a contrast In Ireland, the counter-cultural appeal of ‘to the very real pain that is suffered by the between ‘expressive’ women artists such rock’s hedonistic energy was especially child who is regularly as singers or actresses and those who attractive to young people who felt stifled by slapped around’. See attempted to become truly ‘creative’ social and religious orthodoxies, north and Sinéad O’Connor, artists. Only the latter seemed to offer south of the border. In addition, the fusion ‘People need a short sharp shock’, The women the possibility of overcoming their of rock with Irish influences produced Field Day Anthology entrapment in femininity — the latter hybrid forms of popular music, which were of Irish Writing, V, ed. being defined as ‘other’ to a normative among modern Ireland’s most important Angela Bourke et al.

64 Sinéad O’Connor: the story of a voice

(Cork, 2002), 1618–19. cultural achievements. Hence, there was ‘traditional narratives’ is opposition. The anthology also an understandable tendency to assume that But even in O’Connor’s early work we includes an extract from the rock element in Irish popular musical get a subtler composite of repudiation Cullingford’s essay ‘Seamus and Sinéad’; hybrids was unquestionably positive and and retrieval of a notion of Ireland than this essay represents ‘modern’ — significantly so in the realm of can be found in the cruder reflections the only extended sexual politics. While the Irish element also of previous Irish rock émigrés, such as feminist engagement had value as a mark of local or regional Geldof. O’Connor’s attitudes reflect not so with O’Connor in Irish Studies, although creativity and resistance to Anglo-American much an inherited traditionalism as a self- it concentrates on cultural homogeneity, it could also suggest conscious and provocative departure from O’Connor’s TV and film a regressive attachment to romantic the pervasive ‘revisionism’ of Irish youth appearances rather than stereotypes of Irishness that most young culture and of urban culture in the Republic her music. 24 Simon Reynolds and Joy people in particular were anxious to escape. at that time — hers, we might say, is a Press, The Sex Revolts: So any evidence of aggression or sexual species of anti–anti-nationalism. In general, Gender, Rebellion and candour from Irish women performers her response to Irishness and Catholicism Rock ’n’ Roll (London, was regarded as a welcome contrast to involves uncompromising critique but 1995), 233 25 McLaughlin and the asexual passivity of nationalist and not disaffiliation. This is epitomized in McLoone, ‘Hybridity Catholic stereotypes of femininity. Thus, her decision not to repudiate the Church and National Musics’, the argument goes, O’Connor is most in pursuit of her anti-Vatican campaign. 196 progressive when she is loud, angry and Rather, in a sensational appearance on 26 Gerry Smyth, Noisy Island: A Short History irate; most regressive when she is too RTÉ’s Late Late Show in 1999, she declared of Irish Popular Music indulgent of her ‘soft’ side or of nationalism herself to be a Catholic priest — complete (Cork, 2005), 109 and religion. In such accounts, she may play with soutane, clerical collar and crucifix. with inherited images of Catholic or Irish Since the Church is ‘universal’, in being womanhood, but only in order to ‘subvert’ a priest she is claiming to inhabit the them. According to some critics, her fans universal dimension which the Church itself were always in danger of misrecognizing provincializes into its male, celibate form. this project, especially as so many of them As a woman and feminist, singing such www.fieldday.ieoutside Ireland might be indifferent to standard Irish schoolroom songs as ‘Óró, the pitfalls of Irish nationalism. As Noel Sé Do Bheatha ’Bhaile’ — and performing McLaughlin and Martin McLoone argue: them in a remarkable style which somehow ‘As a performer and a star [O’Connor] is manages both to reproduce and yet best understood as caught in a dialectic transcend the bawling, rather masculine between unsettling pre-existing national enthusiasm of the conventional renditions imaginings and then reworking them on the — she emancipates and universalizes this one hand, while on the other she is critically musical material. It is even arguable that a praised for the manner in which she is woman artist is best placed to achieve this, seen to consolidate just such traditional especially given O’Connor’s reputation in imaginings’.25 Responding to O’Connor’s speaking up for the suffering of Irish women later work, Gerry Smyth writes that over and children. And while she had invited the course of her career ‘the radical force the singer Enya to contribute lines in Irish of her original “bolshy” identity began to to The Lion and The Cobra, she now lays be lost as she was increasingly co-opted for new claim to the language herself and sings a traditional narrative of Irish femininity’; several tracks in Irish. in particular, Sean-nós Nua ‘represented Yet the charge might persist that for a further (and perhaps final) stage in O’Connor to celebrate Irish nationalist O’Connor’s negotiation of an Irish female heroes is to be ‘male-identified’. Feminists musical identity’.26 have long debated the place of gender Such assessments as Smyth’s assume solidarity in relation to other bonds based that the only progressive attitude towards on ethnic or class identities.27 But we

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could perhaps further consider this issue While Beauvoir was strongly critical of with reference to Toril Moi’s account of feminine ‘mysticism’ and would scarcely 27 See for example Elleke Beauvoir’s theory of women’s freedom. have been impressed by O’Connor’s Boehmer, Stories of Women: Gender The latter sheds light on the question of religious commitments, she might perhaps and Narrative in the what it means for a woman artist such as have been sympathetic to her resolute quest Postcolonial Nation O’Connor to speak (or sing) ‘as a woman’. for independence. Beauvoir wrote that ‘it (Manchester, 2005). In O’Connor’s work up to the late 1990s, is very seldom that woman fully assumes 28 Toril Moi, What is a Woman? And Other we hear the solo ‘aria’ voice of spectacular the anguished tête-à-tête with the given Essays (Oxford, 1999), 8 purity and her violations of this in sounds world’, but that this was essential if the 29 Beauvoir, The Second that seem to express primal emotions in female artist was fully to contest the human Sex, 721 an uncensored fashion: on the one hand, situation.29 In the world of pop, O’Connor femininity as an idealization; on the other, was obviously a sexualized commodity. a highly charged representation of the So she adopted loose shirts and robes, experience of being a daughter, a lover, a flinched away from the camera, sang with sister or a mother. Her negotiation between downcast eyes and at times subdued some of these voices is both a private drama and a her voice’s angelic effects in order to avoid public achievement. However, to confine being heard only ‘as a woman’. Hence the O’Connor to this is to risk reducing her perceived asexuality of religious women also artistic identity to sexual difference: indeed, becomes to some extent an attraction for Beauvoir suggests that every generalization her, rather than something she inevitably about ‘femininity’ will inevitably produce wishes to subvert. However, attention to a reified and clichéd view of women. It Sean-nós Nua will demonstrate that the is clearly sexist and oppressive to reduce turn to the communal is neither a defeat nor women to their ‘general humanity’ in a way a surrender to ‘tradition’. that takes no account of their female bodies The album presents some extremely or social experiences as women. But Moi accomplished versions of well-known songs argues that, by the same token, feminism from the repertoire of Irish traditional www.fieldday.iemusic. For example, O’Connor’s version of does not have to be committed to the ‘The Parting Glass’ is distinguished by the belief that sex and/or gender differences characteristic intensity and decisive clarity always manifest themselves in all of her singing. The young female voice is at cultural and personal activities, or that odds with the bibulous conviviality evoked whenever they do, then they are always by the lyrics, creating a striking dissonance the most important features of a person between the vocal personality associated or a practice. Women’s bodies are human with ‘Sinéad O’Connor’ and the male as well as female. Women have interests, persona of the song. In such recordings, the capacities, and ambitions that reach far singer is an actor who respectfully follows beyond the realm of sexual differences, a script familiar to the audience. To a however one defines these. Investigations degree, this is conventional — the audience of the meaning of femininity in specific can accommodate some distance between historical and theoretical contexts are the singer and the story. In the case of indispensable to the feminist project of O’Connor, the dissonant effect is enhanced understanding and transforming sexist by her celebrity status and serves to remind cultural practices and traditions. Yet any us that she is not a ‘natural’ in this musical given woman will transcend the category milieu. But when she sings material more of femininity, however it is defined. A in keeping with the styles typical of women feminism that reduces women to their traditional singers (as for instance in sexual difference can only ever be the ‘Her Mantle So Green’), her vigour and negative mirror image of sexism.28 the emphatic charge of the singing are in

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marked contrast to the gentler delivery of ‘America’; the heavy stress on ‘war’; of a folk-influenced singer such as Mary the almost imperceptible hesitation before Black. (O’Connor’s style is in fact far closer the voice softens into ‘Dublin’, itself to Luke Kelly’s, although his working- pronounced neither in the mid-Atlantic class Dublin tones would have sounded accents of Bono nor in the folksy ‘Dub-i-lin’ more ‘authentic’ to most traditional-music of Ronnie Drew. The sound of helicopters audiences than her more middle-class, in the background evokes the Vietnam ‘southside’ accent.) Thus, in many ways, this War and reinforces the message that the album highlights the singularity of her voice United States is itself an imperial oppressor. and the uniqueness of her musical approach A nineteenth-century traditional idiom to the traditional repertoire. However, in accommodates a contemporary political some of the numbers, O’Connor achieves agenda: we should not over-idealize the something remarkable. Sean-nós Nua was US, nor renounce allegiance to home in a anticipated by her collaboration with The ‘globalized’ age. ‘The Foggy Dew’ strikes a Chieftains on their album The Long Black balance between guttural contempt (as in Veil (1995). There, on the track ‘The Foggy the final syllables of the lines ‘Britannia’s Dew’, as later in ‘Paddy’s Lament’ from Huns / with their long-range guns’) and Sean-nós Nua, she intensifies the desolation clear-voiced reverence (‘But the Angelus and rage of her voice so that everything at bells o’er the Liffey swell / Rang out in the risk of becoming hackneyed in the songs is foggy dew’). This is not a song of triumph, revived as pain. Thus O’Connor shocks the but an elegy for the dead of the Easter expectation of ready-made feeling, precisely 1916 Rebellion. During the first three by reviving it within its traditional frame. In stanzas, the singer is carried along by the such instances, the solo voice is supported energy of the rebellion; in the fourth, she by the presence of the collective, choric mourns its failure. On The Long Black voice — the voice of political protest in the Veil, the transition is marked by the return songs — and for this reason, the effect is of O’Connor’s voice after an instrumental www.fieldday.ieexhilarating rather than desolating, despite interlude with The Chieftains playing pipes, the generic weight of lamentation. bodhrán and fiddles. The opening phrase ‘Paddy’s Lament’ tells of an Irish of the last stanza is stretched across three emigrant recruited by Lincoln’s army to fight wailing, ascending notes but punctuated in the American Civil War. The refrain goes: by a deliberate exhalation before the last and highest of them—isolating it by this Here’s you boys gesture of anguish. It is as if language is Now take my advice consumed in the energy of the voice and To America I’ll have ye’s not be going we apprehend the trauma that is masked, There is nothing here but war not enunciated, by the words. The sound Where the murderin’ cannons roar O’Connor produces at this pivotal moment And I wish I was at home in dear old expresses the piercing pain of violation Dublin. and the loss of the utopian possibility that had animated the previous verses and the The sentiments are conventional enough: joyous concert of the instrumental sequence. many songs warn against emigration and But then the lapse into the final lines is the perils of becoming cannon fodder delicately cadenced so that the spear-sharp for foreign states. But in O’Connor’s moment is not so much extinguished as declamatory performance, the words escorted back into the choric dimension. carry the weight of a personal as well as The singer-witness has survived, rides of a national history—the disdainfully ‘back through the glen’ and prays for the articulated enunciation of the four syllables fallen; the recording ends with her voice

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unaccompanied, but not isolated in privacy. Irish spirit or character, and capable of 30 See Sinéad O’Connor, Protest and aspiration have also survived, being exported and of selling well elsewhere ‘To Sinéad O’Connor, the Pope’s apology for although in a quieter register. The realm of — especially in America. But O’Connor’s sex abuse in Ireland shared memory and recognition to which name has not been mentioned on the roll seems hollow’, The the genre of the political ballad appeals call of distinguished artists who might help Washington Post, is here enriched by the intensity of the out the government-led drive for economic Sunday 28 March, 2010. 31 See http://www. subjective feeling of traumatic loss which recovery by contributing to the renewal of eoinbutler.com/home/ O’Connor explores. The song now gleams ‘brand Ireland’. This is presumably because isnt-sinead-oconnor- again with the pain of loss and the thrill of she is regarded as a maverick who has an overdue-a-massive- the strength that flows from overcoming it. uneasy relationship with her commercial grovelling-apology- from-absolutely- audience. In any case, most pop music everybody and recent *** careers are of relatively short duration. New comments on her videos musicians or other artists must respond on YouTube. Many Irish artists are considered to have to twenty-first-century Ireland—although stood up for liberal values and sexual artists of O’Connor’s stature have been slow enlightenment throughout their careers. But to emerge. But while some argue that she none since the days of official censorship never entirely fulfilled the immense promise has suffered so intensely as O’Connor for of her early albums, it was nevertheless an exposing Ireland’s secrets, although her enormous achievement for her to survive persecution came from TV and tabloid as a musician and to produce her equally newspapers rather than from the Church or impressive if less commercially successful state authorities. Since the 2009 publication later work. In her memorable voice we can of the Ryan and Murphy reports into hear a subtly rendered history; if we have child abuse, O’Connor’s ‘insult’ to the the ears to hear, we can long listen to the Pope has seemed even more insightful and modulations of both. courageous. She has made a number of new statements about the issue of clerical sexualwww.fieldday.ie abuse.30 In the changed conditions of today’s internet and blogosphere culture, this has been an opportunity both for some familiar charges against her to be revived and for more sympathetic commentators to insist that she is owed an apology for the treatment she received in 1992.31 In the wake of the most recent revelations, traditional Ireland has never looked worse. But modern Ireland has lost its bearings too. The current banking and fiscal crises represent the discrediting of the project of economic liberalization or globalization that has inspired Irish modernizers since the 1960s. During the country’s latest economic bust, a good deal of attention has been paid to the significance of the arts in Irish society. Much of this discussion perpetuates the notion of Irish culture that prevailed during the boom years: Irish cinema, literature, music or theatre can be expressive of an

68 Sinéad O’Connor: the story of a voice

Sinead O’Connor (1966–), Toned bromide print, May 1988. © Andrew Catlin / National Portrait Gallery, London.

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70 Misprisions of Utopia: Messianism, Apocalypse, and Allegory Paul A. Bové

History is the sternest critic of utopias. Lewis Mumford (1922)

The allegorist is countered by the scornful laughter of hell. Walter Benjamin (1924, 1928) www.fieldday.ieThe young are not able to discern what is and what is not allegory. Socrates , The Republic,

Not ideas about the thing but the thing Itself . Wallace Stevens (1954)

1

My title points to a productive intersection of concepts, figures, and theories at the centre of the best and most influential literary criticism of the last eighty years. I mean productive in two senses: Stylish Ruins, by Paul Klee. © Geoffrey Clements/CORBIS an increasing mass of writing

Field Day Review 6 2010 71 Field Day review

and an intense development and elaboration early 1970s, Harold Bloom made misprision 1 Benedict Anderson, of questions and practices essential to a familiar problem again. In The Anxiety Imagined Communities: Reflections on the especially Western thought and writing of Influence, he theorized that each poetic Origin and Spread of for two thousand years. Among the most successor survives and achieves creative Nationalism (London, influential critics who have written on these authority by misreading the predecessor 1983). Once Anderson elements are Walter Benjamin, Paul de Man, figures whose imaginative power summoned ruled that nations are created as cultural William Empson, Angus Fletcher, Northrop the successor to poetic life. In this artefacts and so brought Frye, Fredric Jameson and C. S. Lewis. theory, misprision is creative defence, a into being on the On the margins of literary study sit such misunderstanding that veils the disabling basis of imagination’s writers as Benedict Anderson1 and nearer power of a poet’s priority from the youthful processes, he opened the door on a long vestibule neighbours among the psychoanalysts. imagination emboldened but also threatened of closely placed 4 While the non-literary critics whose by that power. In a more mundane doorways, each of which writings make allegory central to their sense, a misprision is a crime at law, the in turn opens a space for thinking draw on recent and classical hiding of, or failure to report, a felony or hermeneutic activity that reads almost all cultural critical theories, academic critics have, in greater offence. A misprision is a result of production as allegorical turn, added these non-literary developments judgement, normally in error, and so my of nation-formation to their own practices.2 Especially in the title suggests the dual possibilities that I and imagination. For United States, it has become unusual to am not only indicting those preoccupied a clear example of this conjunction, see ‘“A find academic critical writing without with utopia within the larger nexus of New Canadian National elements of this cluster playing a role in its my subtitle — ‘Messianism, Apocalypse, Spirit”: Allegorical organization and authority.3 The sheer mass and Allegory’ — but my scornful self for Miss Canada and and near dominance of this writing as a failing to appreciate a value everyone but the Occult Canadian State’, Robyn Fowler, critical norm is ideologically symptomatic I can see.5 My task should be to do some University of Alberta at and reflects secular change within the justice to these ambiguities. But the central the URL http://www. academy and the society it serves. Such charge here is that the absolute effect of arts.ualberta.ca/cms/ contemporary repetition depends upon an allegorical utopianism that creates the fowler.pdf as of 30 May 2009. See also Partha an earlier inventive deepening of the key hope and faith that distrusts politics and Chatterjee’s review conceptswww.fieldday.ie and figures that came to modern realism is apolitical status quo-ism; it is the essay, ‘Anderson’s criticism from well-developed traditions preservation of what is, even as it declares Utopia’, Diacritics, 29, 4 of thought, technique, and writing. Such the critical work of real analysis and (1999), 128–34. 2 See for example Barbara figures as Empson, Benjamin, and de Man, possible imagination invalid and co-opted. Johnson, ‘Allegory and for example, provided for generations of Modern criticism added enormously Psychoanalysis’, Journal less traditionally formed minds, words to the traditional theories and accounts of African American and ideas that in turn enabled important of allegory, with the result that allegory History, 88, 11 (2003), 66–71. For a sense secondary and less interesting tertiary has become a disproportionately used of how recent critics work. The conjunction I designate in my category for describing and treating have brought together title is a historical structural link between literary and cultural texts of all kinds. In the psychoanalytic the present moment (and recent past) and fact, following especially on the work of and social historical interest in allegory, the long tradition of Western criticism Benjamin, recent criticism believes that see Rita A. Faulkner, and literature, especially as these include allegory is a historically inescapable mode ‘Psychoanalysis and subservient verbal formations such as of writing both criticism and literature, Anamnesis in the religious writing, belief, and popular or albeit with the necessary exception of National Allegory of Nawal El Saadawi and mass cultural genres. some intense lyrical poetry. This belief Assia Djebar’, L’Esprit The most important word in that title has blurred the necessary, if difficult, Créateur, 48, 4 (2008), is, of course, ‘misprisions’, since it allows a distinction between allegorical literature 69–80. focus both on and through ‘utopia’, while and critical allegorization.6 In the tradition 3 The Library of Congress catalogues twenty indicating my paper’s sedition against this of Frye, Maureen Quilligan has argued that book titles under academic constellation and the political allegorizing readings derive their content the subject heading interests it serves in society. Writing in the and authority from extra-literary sources, ‘allegory’ between

72 Misprisions of Utopia: Messianism, Apocalypse, and Allegory

the 1936 publication whether they are philosophy, politics, or allegory historically inescapable now, in of C. S. Lewis, The other discourses of the human sciences.7 support of his strongly held belief that it is Allegory of Love: A Simply put, allegorization is an interpretive politically and intellectually unacceptable Study in Medieval Tradition (New York, act that treats a text as if it were an allegory, to be anti-utopian, a post-modernized 1936) and Angus asserting its right to do so because of an conviction that leaves him and those he Fletcher’s Allegory: The implied understanding among professional influences embracing an anti-anti-utopian Theory of a Symbolic readers that allegorizing will open up a position. As this conjunction of allegory Mode (Ithaca, 1964), while placing more consensus of agreed issues. If allegory once and utopia comes to us from Benjamin, than 200 titles in the existed to mask from dangerous readers it brings the history of messianism and period from 1964 to the expression of unauthorized ideas and apocalypse, particularly from within the rough present. The if allegorization often worked to uncover various Jewish traditions of reflection. MLA International Bibliography lists 207 the unrecognized against a consensus, His failed Habilitationschrift, known in items treating allegory now allegorization is an act of double English as The Origin of the German Tragic anywhere in their legitimation that creates a self-confirming Drama,10 has made it impossible for serious text between 1936 process. Even if allegorization engages the critics interested in allegory not to treat and 1964, whereas it lists over 4,300 items text ‘historically’, at a meta-theoretical and the matter as part of the long traditions in the period since political level, it does so ahistorically, that of European and Judaic thought, bringing 1964. Similar numbers is with insufficient scepticism about the with it profound questions of secularism, occur for ‘utopia’ and sources of allegorization’s seeming necessity divinity, and language. Despite efforts by ‘apocalypse’ as search terms. Even allowing and with an inadequate consideration, not some of those influenced by Benjamin to for the expansion of the only of its long-standing genre problems, turn his work to their own purposes, the American and world but also of the dangers inherent in any religious and messianic sources of his theory academies during the consensus-formation. Often when critical constrain them. Heirs are never free of their period from the 1960s, the extraordinary theorists and practical critics speak of predecessors’ struggles. growth in attention to allegory they are, in fact, defining textuality topics such as allegory as that which they can allegorize. As a 2 and utopia suggest result, boundaries blur and under the sign, a nearly obsessive, www.fieldday.iecertainly a highly ‘allegory’, critics really speak of their own Jameson’s Political Unconscious is the repetitive and normative practice and intent. They call texts or last classical text of Western criticism. fascination with the textual processes ‘allegories’. This naming Despite its emphases on difference, on topics. allows for allegoresis, which, in turn, places transcoding, on Marxism as the necessary 4 Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A those texts and processes in the service of countermeasure to the emergent neo-liberal Theory of Poetry (New non-literary, extra-textual programmes market — despite this and the injunction York, 1983). that displace debate onto the terrain of always to historicize within a political 5 According to the non-literary, often ideological, grounds horizon — The Political Unconscious is OED, a misprision is ‘A wrongful act — with the result that the specific identity an heir to the great modern critics (such or omission; spec. of literary and critical scholarship is often as Burke and Frye) and the traditional a misdemeanour or subsumed within domains of desire that Western problems of interpretation and failure of duty by a hide themselves from critical investigation.8 representation, of realism and romance. public official’ or ‘Now usually: the crime of I will try to make those hidden domains Students of Frye will have noted the family (deliberately) concealing available for critical discussion by analysing resemblance with Jameson’s taxonomies and one’s knowledge of a how utopian desire has deployed allegoresis. his reliance upon Euro-American theory treasonable act or of a In the work of Jameson especially,9 and criticism. They might have wondered felony’. For the OED, these meanings produce ‘utopia’ is almost always linked to at the fitness of Deleuze and Guattari in the more general usage, allegory. Jameson’s theory of allegory a text that discusses Dante and Balzac, ‘the mistaking of one has had considerable influence because while relying on Frye’s readings of Blake thing for another; a of his success in transforming allegoresis and of Lukács’s theory of the novel to misunderstanding; a mistake’. The active into allegory by theory and practice. read Joseph Conrad’s narratives, but they but implied work of Theoretically, his arguments claim to make would have recognized their cousin. Indeed,

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Jameson’s traditional erudition allowed him — itself an ideological gesture.13 Against judgement in all these to adapt the medieval fourfold model of Frye’s wishes, Jameson takes his insight as usages emerges in the second definition: interpretation to his own programme in a the basis of a historically and politically ‘Contempt, scorn; way that many of today’s critics would find programmatic criticism’s right to define failure to appreciate or unacceptably Eurocentric, high-cultural and itself as always allegoresis. In various forms, recognize the value of perhaps even elitist.11 Jameson’s position has been the West’s something. Usu. with of.’ Despite such potential judgements, traditional position on allegorization, 6 For a history of The Political Unconscious has played an although rarely have previous critics so this distinction, see important role in changing the discourse easily eluded the problems caused by Gerald L. Bruns, and concepts of contemporary criticism, blurring the distinctions between allegory ‘The Hermeneutics of Allegory and the History often with its conclusions and terms and interpretation. Jameson cleverly of Interpretation’, mattering more than its considerable evaded the problem by accepting and Comparative Literature, scholarship in traditions that its ephebes inverting Frye’s unhappy warning against 40, 4 (1988), 384–95. have found unproductive. The Political commentary. Yet attempts at such mastery, 7 Maureen Quilligan, The Language of Allegory: Unconscious is a turning point in the or if you prefer, at such overcoming, never Defining the Genre recent history of criticism, re-legitimating succeed. It is the essence of dialectical (Ithaca, 1979), 14–15. interpretation as the dominant mode of thinking that elevation to another level 8 See for example Zhang reading — a move that found allies in often produces new truths and instruments — Longxi, Allegoresis: Reading Canonical unlikely places among the anti-theory presumed free of burdensome traces and Literature East and critics, such as Walter Benn Michaels, genealogies. Post-structuralism, however, West (Ithaca, 2005); and New Historicists, such as Stephen never welcomed by Jameson, taught that I take this example Greenblatt. It puts Jameson’s considerable genealogical traces remained at work to show two things: first, the influence of interpretive powers in the service of despite the dialecticians’ confidence in their Jameson’s thinking allegoresis, a move that his anti-interpretive own trick and in the movement of history. about ‘national allegory’ predecessor, Frye, might well have scorned. Jameson is never so crudely Hegelian with its own example In The Anatomy of Criticism, Frye or Marxist as to believe in a movement of Lu Xun; and second, how allegorization famously wrote: in which history and truth coincide. In becomes the basis in www.fieldday.ieeffect, as a practical critic, this left him concept and practice It is not often realized that all in the situation of a powerful improviser, for reorganizing commentary is allegorical interpretation, searching culture for modalities that, when comparatism and perhaps world literature. an attaching of ideas to the structure properly interpreted, legitimated new These are signs of of poetic imagery. The instant that any academic ways of speaking, which both academic practical critic permits himself to make a genuine justified the necessity of certain theoretical power. comment about a poem ... he has begun positions and also asserted the truth of 9 Fredric Jameson, ‘Reification and Utopia to allegorize. Commentary thus looks certain extra-literary, indeed, extra-cultural in Mass Culture’, at literature as, in its formal phase, a political and economic ambitions and Social Text, 1 (1979), potential allegory of events and ideas.12 beliefs. In other words, even improvisation 13–148; ‘Conclusion: has goals and Jameson’s career suggests two The Dialectic of Utopia and Ideology’, in his The Jameson might agree with Frye’s conclusion words for his — hope and allegory. Political Unconscious: that all textual readings are allegorical, Even though his early works on Sartre Narrative as a Socially but his value scheme is not Frye’s. Frye and the existential writers and their Third Symbolic Act (Ithaca, did not value commentary. He understood World sympathies establish Jameson’s 1981), 281–99; ‘Utopianism after the that allegoresis made imaginative verbal hope for alternatives to capital, empire, End of Utopia’, in his expression into a servant of favoured the West, etc., it is not until the great Postmodernism, or, ideological discourses. theoretical uprisings of the 1970s that The Cultural Logic of Frye’s detractors accuse him of he embraces allegory as the mechanism Late Capital (Durham, NC, 1991), 154–80 and preserving literary purity from historical essential to his hopeful aspirations. In passim, esp. 334–40; contamination, of appropriating imaginative his mature works, Jameson gives the ‘The Politics of Utopia’, expression to the category of literature name ‘Utopia’ to this conjunction at the New Left Review, 25

74 Misprisions of Utopia: Messianism, Apocalypse, and Allegory

Mnemonic device by Giordano Bruno (1548–1600), the Italian philosopher and scientist whose views on astronomy brought him into conflict with the Inquisition. This woodcut illustration is from his Cantus Circaeus, published in Paris in 1582. In the spandrels are the four classical elements: earth, air fire, water

(2004), 35–54; and Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (London, 2005). 10 Walter Benjamin, The Origin of the German Tragic Drama, trans. John Osborne (London, 1977). This text appeared first in an edition of 1928, based on the thesis written in the year roughly from May 1924. The standard edition was established in German as Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels, eds. Theodor Adorno, et al. (Frankfurt, 1963). 11www.fieldday.ie I refer in general terms here to the rhetoric of the so-called culture wars that often maligned such traditional knowledge as the domain of what used to be called ‘Dead White European Males’. For some sense of the ubiquity of this common sense within the academy, see Edward Said’s objections to what he called the rhetoric of blame in Culture and Imperialism (New York, 1993), passim. 12 Northrop Frye, The Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton, centre of his project and work habits. claims this fact as a ‘symptom’ of our age, 1957), 89. In his influential essay, ‘Utopianism of the time of late capital, which future 13 See Bruns, ‘The Hermeneutics of after the End of Utopia’, published in historians will recognize as characteristic Allegory and the History Postmodernism, Jameson inscribes and worth speculative analysis.14 He asserts of Interpretation’, 384. allegory as the historically inescapable more than demonstrates that his reading 14 Jameson, mode of reading in our period. Jameson of certain utopian texts, particularly Postmodernism, 167.

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Bellamy’s Looking Backward, points to issue is not politics per se or even the value 15 Jameson, a new culture, far beyond the reaches of of competing codes on which allegorization Postmodernism, 167. 16 Postmodernism, 167. modernism’s vanguardism, ideology of style, might rest. Jameson’s struggle with de Man 17 Postmodernism, 237. and individualized utopian aspirations. In is allegorization’s struggle against irony. 18 Gordon Teskey, their place, almost because of socialization As Gordon Teskey shows in fine detail, ‘Irony, Allegory, and within industrial capital, comes a new the relation between irony and allegory Metaphysical Decay’, PMLA, 109, 3 (1994), aesthetics of collaboration: ‘Collective work has been theoretically ambiguous from the 398. is ... affirmed as something other than mere time of Quintilian, who demonstrated their 19 ‘Irony, Allegory, and period likeness or the anecdotal meeting common foundation on a structuring use of Metaphysical Decay’, of the minds between individual painters ‘grammatical metaphor’.18 From classic to 399. or architects’.15 The ‘ultimate meaning’ modern, theory understands that irony and of this social aesthetic phenomenon is an allegoresis are antipodes, that irony harasses ‘enigma’, according to Jameson, and while always the never-extinguished desires of the a reader cannot find a final expression latter. As Teskey puts it: of that meaning, a theorist will see the essential reading cognate to the enigma In the classical account of tropology itself. That cognate is ‘the reinvention as deviation it is possible to imagine in some unexpected form, of allegory as getting back, by interpretive correction, such’.16 Scholars familiar with the history of to the upright position of a linguistically criticism and hermeneutics recognize each omnipotent self, one that both intends step of Jameson’s progress through these and deflects its intentions in a language pages, but they will ask what he imagines it ‘uses’. Irony upsets this account as the basis for his illegitimate conclusion because it speaks not from an angular that because he can conduct an act of but from an opposite position, where allegorization, the materials under hand are the continuity of the circle is broken: ‘I’ in fact allegories. Jameson is too learned a and ‘Not I’. Every ironic statement says scholar to commit this error unintentionally. both of these things, and says that it says Itwww.fieldday.ie is fair to say that his aims are political them ... Out of that abyss of the infinitely and his tactics rhetorical. He is also in possible is generated every possibility of a competitive situation. Not only is late figurative language.19 capital the opponent of his desires, but other academic critics, especially de Man, pose Two points here: first, allegoresis obstacles to his authority. never rids itself of irony — they are joint The two most sustained discussions of expressions of the same tropological system allegory in Postmodernism are the one I of creativity and expression. In fact, they have just cited and a later attempt to encircle are inseparable elements in the creation de Man’s theory of allegory within an and expression of affect. Love, we might alliance with the capitalist money project. say, is more than allegoresis or irony. Jameson presents his critique of de Man as Second, when allegorizing critics attempt a choice that critics should make between to suppress irony’s troubling enrichment of two codes — the Marxist code of value and merely positive assertions of extra-literary the de Manian code of rhetoric — based on and presumably extra-verbal ‘concepts’ and the kinds of work each code allows. In sum, ‘beliefs’, their pragmatics reduce the human Jameson asserts that de Man’s code requires to an impoverished creature whose range ‘some prior fantasy about “truth”’, 17which of species possibility is confined to those the Marxian code of value prohibits within what we take to be the irony-safe in advance. In terms of allegory and belief systems of the extra-verbal. Given allegorization, Jameson makes a very simple these truths, Jameson’s attempt to supersede and, in fact, reductive move. The critical the authority of irony and tropes with the

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20 Postmodernism, 167. demonstrated truths of Marxist concepts of the longer curve he needs, extending from 21 De Man’s essay money and value is an act of self-solidifying Coleridge to the New Critics and beyond. originally appeared in double violence: hurl the Marxist belief He presents the symbol as securing the 1969. See ‘The Rhetoric of Temporality’, in his against the verbal system and ignore the ‘formal and linguistic values’ of the ‘older Blindness and Insight: verbal, tropological, and literary qualities aesthetic’ strategically deployed in those Essays in the Rhetoric of the writing in which that Marxist ‘belief’ projects that canonized high modernism’s of Contemporary inheres. Human creativity, established assimilation of culture and art ‘to various Criticism, rev. edn. 22 (Minneapolis, 1983), upon the infinite possibilities of ‘figurative organic conceptions’. This is an early 187–228. language’, disappears within the gleeful self- mark of Jameson’s antagonism to ‘high 22 Postmodernism, 167. confident ‘victory’ of extra-linguistic belief culture’ and its powerful establishment in 23 Postmodernism, 167. systems, the legitimate authority of which the International Style of high modernism. 24 Postmodernism, 167– 68. depends upon the relatively thoughtless (As we will see, Jameson will assert, applause of a pre-formed consensus among without much evidence, that educational those who accept such pragmatics. formation in high modernism is a suburban In his earlier book, The Political modality that disqualifies readers to deal Unconscious, Jameson repeated the with what he calls Third World national medieval framework of interpretation, allegory.) Jameson criticizes the organic according to which allegory is only one version of the Romantic symbols because mode. In ‘Utopianism after the End he knows his readers and allies will accept of Utopia’, however, allegory came to its link to Fascism. This alliance positions occupy a more privileged position for two literature in the symbolic tradition as not reasons: first and more important, Jameson only modernist and hegemonic, but fatally allegorized the texts he comments on in tinged with the extreme political forms the essay; and second, in doing this, he of capitalist predation. The post-modern came to assert the belief that the allegorical displacement of modernism releases all that as an unexpected form is a symptom the symbolist hegemony controlled and of the time. This is a dédoublement, or allegoresis is liberated to meet the demands www.fieldday.iesplit doubling. As I suggest about his of a competing and equally expansive militarizing of Marxist writing as ‘belief’, project — albeit one that subsumes the this dédoublement is the perfect rhetorical literary as verbal expression. figure of the historical interpretive necessity Jameson aligns psychic-cultural and Jameson assigns to ‘allegory’ under the sign interpretive motives in a new account of of which he carried out his anti-imaginative post-modern displacement. With the demise processes of allegorization. of the symbolic, the repressed returns Like de Man and Benjamin before him, as its very opposite, producing in a flare Jameson’s defence of allegory sets out from of emancipation ‘a whole range of overt a critique of Romantic affection for ‘the or covert theories of the allegorical’.23 Symbol’.20 De Man had produced a version These stand as ‘sensitive ... in our time, of this critique in his great essay ‘The to breaks and discontinuities, to the Rhetoric of Temporality’, in which he subtly heterogeneous (not merely in works of art), reprised the Goethean objection to allegory to Difference rather than Identity, to gaps (which Benjamin also considers) in the and wholes rather than seamless webs and guise of criticizing institutionalized studies triumphant narrative progressions, to social of Romanticism by American professors differentiation rather than to Society as in particular.21 Jameson rehearses and such in its “totality”’.24 Jameson’s influence resituates de Man’s concerns in political- is sourced in his skills in pragmatics; these cultural as well as in institutional terms. are at their richest in the moulding and Whereas de Man left the symbol in the organization of the narratives of beliefs Romantic era, Jameson extends it to fit he shares with his cadres. As in this

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instance, moving from Goethe25 to Stanley frightened by the prospect of an uncertain 25 Johann Wolfgang von Burnshaw,26 Jameson works by allusion future. He argues that, logically, the Goethe, Maximen und Reflektionen, that positions and defines his beliefs’ wary should be on his side. He invokes ed. Günther Müller superior difference. Sartre’s advice to the fellow travellers of (Stuttgart, 1943), 104f. The openness of his engagement with the Communist Party, urging the wary 26 Stanley Burnshaw, The critical tradition contrasts with his equally to become anti-anti-utopians, as their Seamless Web (New York, 1970). This book energetic but often secretive engagement predecessors might have become anti- had a considerable with anonymous contemporaries, near anti-Communists. Just as the new social status at its time and contemporaries, and rivals — as in this movements of the 1980s appeared in was reprinted as late as instance with the yet-unannounced de Man Jameson’s narrative of the emergence of a 1991. 27 Jameson, Archaeologies and Benjamin. revised allegory in Postmodernism — he of the Future, xi-xii. Jameson’s pragmatics often succeed by writes his own allegory, calling it history assertion, unharmed by the lack of detail — so in parallel, the anti-globalization or demonstrative argument. His rhetoric movement of the neo-liberal era appears in serves an aspiring vision, not of perfection, his account of utopian writings, especially as in classicism or liberalism, or progressive science fiction. As a student of Lukács as equity, as in traditional socialism, but of well as of Marx, Jameson usually finds the ascetic narrowing of human imagination trace of real social action in moments of to a regime of specific, if often abstract capital’s strengths as well as weaknesses — and unstated, aspirations. Jamesonian for that, after all, is the logic of holding that allegorization culminates in the emptied- capital is always in crisis. out utopian possibilities he offers as the Jameson is bold in 2005: ‘The alternative future that ‘hope’ will produce relationship between Utopia and the — a claim based on his own allegorization political, as well as questions about the of the pulp genre of science fiction. practical-political value of Utopian thinking Recognizably Jamesonian in theme and and the identification between socialism mode is his Introduction to Archaeologies and Utopia, very much continue to be ofwww.fieldday.ie the Future, subtitled ‘Utopia Now’. unresolved topics today, when Utopia Here, Jameson associates criticism of seems to have recovered its vitality as a the allegorical utopian imagination with political slogan and a politically energizing conservative politics, especially in the form perspective.’27 Older Marxism decried of pessimism or despair. The injunction, the utopian as right wing, idealist, and ‘always historicize’, is not only the counter- ineffective. After 1989 and 1991, when symbolic ‘value’ in the name of which Actually Existing Socialism came to its allegoresis thrives, but it gains its authority end, liberals and conservatives alike — on a weak claim: that current social and this might include European post- arrangements are not fixed, that the orders Communists as well — attached the utopian of power are not inflexible, that we should to totalitarianism, tracking deaths under not treat the social as natural rather than as Stalin and Mao as the result of utopian human. Typical Jameson pragmatics follow: thinking and political terror. Whatever he improvises across what many would see energy or desire escapes repression, as the evidence of cultural incapacity in the resists and acts against the dystopia that face of capital’s arrangements, to transcode is capitalism in its neo-liberal and neo- them into evidence of, and reason for, hope. conservative forms, with its ubiquitous Jameson asserts that critics of utopia traces in political organization and cultural come in essentially two kinds, those who production. Once uncovered, these resistant serve the interests of the status quo and energies and hopes reinforce each other those wary of utopia’s ambiguities as form and, allegorically, provide the claimed and practice — which is to say, those historical ground for the massive narrative

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Oxyrhynchus papyrus 2327. Fragment of Simonides’ fifth century BC elegy on the Battle of Plataea, written on the occasion of the victory and in memory of those who fought and fell. © The Imaging Papyri Project, University of Oxford.

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of Jameson’s expansive Archaeologies of great and now overlooked medievalist, made the Future, which is the fullest, if not most this point. Having edited the American complex, expression of his ‘hope’. Academy of Arts and Sciences collection Allegorizers and utopians practise Theory in Humanistic Study, Bloomfield complex hermeneutics, since their primary wrote two great essays on allegory at task is to see and express what others can the time he was chair at Harvard. In and do not. Morton W. Bloomfield, the ‘Allegory as Interpretation’, he wrote

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that ‘The problem of interpretation is the human action can keep the future alive as 28 Morton W. Bloomfield, problem of allegory whether historical an alternative to the present. Two moments ‘Allegory as Interpretation’, New or ahistorical. ... allegory is that which in Jameson’s Introduction to Archaeologies Literary History, 3, 2 is established by interpretation, or the of the Future show how he and his many (1972), 301. interpretative process itself.’28 Summarizing followers cobble action in political space 29 ‘Allegory as his research, Bloomfield writes: ‘Allegory with interpretive allegory in imaginative Interpretation’, 302. 30 Archaeologies of the is ... that which conquers time, that which space. He finds the active forms of desire and Future, xii. perpetually renews the written word.’29 hope in direct politics and collective practice: Allegory asks what the relation is between renewal and return. Return is nostos, Indeed, a whole new generation of the while renewal is a turn in a seemingly post-globalization Left — one which different direction. Yet both are gestures subsumes remnants of the old Left and of anxiety, even when the latter transpires the New Left, along with those of a under the sign of ‘hope’. Nostoi are tales radical wing of social democracy, and of of compulsive return, tales of rescue and First World cultural minorities and Third rebirth, as Odysseus cleans the hall with World proletarianized peasants and ritual bloodlettings and renews himself landless or structurally unemployable with yet another mandated wandering masses — has more and more frequently away, only then to return later once more. been willing to adopt this [utopian] Renewals are actions within a field of slogan, in a situation in which the failure and disconnection, of loss and the discrediting of communist and socialist need to restore, even if only that which the parties alike, and the skepticism about original act aspired to accomplish. The first traditional conceptions of revolution, act fails, or time passes and circumstances have cleared the discursive field.30 change, and a second act follows, gesturing toward a future, often unseeable, but This is a characteristic Jameson moment. compelled equally by a necessity to leave an Frequently in his major statements he undesirablewww.fieldday.ie present. articulates a set of social and intellectual The motives for allegory and nostalgia locations that testify to the logical outcome coalesce in the seemingly barren and of capital’s development — here, for unbearable order of the present and the example, the emergence of ‘new forms of ruined residues of past human actions. political agency’.31 In the past, Jameson ‘Hope’ surfaces as the name under which found such possibilities in the decolonizing these actions transpire. Under this sign, the Third World as he had found it even earlier past is ‘perpetually renewed’ and the future among Marxists, existentialists, and various perpetually imagined as the temporal locus fellow travellers. where meaning inheres as evidence of desire All those alienated from capital’s at work to transcend or overcome a ruined horrifying practices and differentiated as and unjust present. Time and utopia cross to well from its totalizing modalities into produce a nexus of ‘meaning potentiality’, segments and processes of willed emergence in which the anxiety crises of anomie and might well find themselves mirrored in this disjunction assure the progressive ambitions new form of political agency. In part, as of a species that can turn its desiring Jameson concedes, this is true because there energies into imagined forms of alternative is nowhere else to look: ‘late capitalism communities and life practices. seems to have no natural enemies’. What All readers of The Political Unconscious most worries Jameson is that capital is near know that Jameson’s is an interpretive acquiring status as the inescapable form of project. To allegorize is the politically life to which we can imagine no alternative. fit mode for the interpreter hopeful that It is, as he writes, ‘not only the invincible

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31 Archaeologies of the universalism of capitalism which is at exhaustion of all alternatives in reality and Future, xii. issue’, but the belief that ‘this tendency is imagination — when it has seemingly become 32 Archaeologies of the irreversible ... that no other socio-economic a fact of nature, science fiction takes on the Future, xii. 33 Archaeologies of the system is conceivable, let alone practically utopian project. How so? It is essential that Future, xii. available’.32 From within this gloom, what Jameson identifies science fiction with a 34 See Fredric Jameson, rises dialectically is the utopian, precisely movement from below, and to achieve this, he ‘“End of Art” or because we can imagine no alternative to insists, following Darko Suvin, that science “End of History”?’, in The Cultural Turn: the present tendencies ‘which has not first fiction is a subgenre of pulp fiction. This Selected Writings thrown off Utopian visions like so many move, which is consistent with Jameson’s on the Postmodern, sparks from the a comet’. ‘Utopians’ serve repetitive assault on high modernism and 1983–1998 (London, the species and history by ‘offering to the high style, especially as educational 1998), 73–92; Francis Fukuyama, The End of conceive of such alternate systems’. And modalities, is rhetorically effective. It aligns History and the Last in language that echoes Postmodernism’s resistance with popular cultures, pulp fiction Man (New York, 1992); comments on identity and difference, as an expression from below — as if it were Lutz Niethammer, Jameson finds in utopian writing the same not an element of the culture industry! — and Posthistoire (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1989), pragmatics that he earlier found in allegory: permits Jameson both to attract the support trans. Patrick Camiller, ‘Utopian form is itself a representational of those who believe in the popular nature Posthistoire: Has meditation on radical difference, radical of resistance and to provide a foundation History Come to an otherness, and on the systemic nature of the to his utopian allegorizations. At first, this End? (London, 1994); 33 and Paul A. Bové, social totality’. mass and popular culture genre seems to The End of Thinking: Anti-utopians remember previous join hands perfectly with the victory of late Intellectual Failure attempts to link anti-capitalist economic capital. Utopian science fiction seems to be, in the New World movements with utopian form. Jameson’s Jameson tells us, itself an end-of-history Order, Eutopías, 61.2a época (Universidad de rhetoric would seduce the wary to the project. In its formal and representational València, 1994). anti-anti-utopian camp by promising hope elements, utopian science fiction seems to and change as permanent potentials of the offer absolutely nothing but a repetition of human and by reinterpreting what seems the ruling ideological satisfaction or despair www.fieldday.ieto most to be the evidence of capital’s that there are no alternatives and there need invincible universalism. The same historical be none. This subgenre erases sex from its moment that saw the end of Actually stories; often removes the species itself; and Existing Socialism saw the triumphant cannot imagine alternatives except quite cry of neo-liberal capitalism, especially as precisely on the other side of the historical intellectuals embodied this in the famous divide, accomplishing fully in imagination the ‘end of history’ debates associated with flight from history, hope, desire, and action Francis Fukuyama and Lutz Niethammer that the neo-liberal consensus encourages. — all at the moment of American triumph Bloomfield and other scholars of the history as the hyperpower.34 Jameson habitually of allegoresis emphasize the allegorizers’ writes at length about intellectual figures internment within complex hermeneutics. whom readers imagine to be his political In Postmodernism, Jameson proposed and ideological opposite. His wit in this the idea that new realities present act, as in his reading of Fukuyama, turns themselves in the form of allegory as their these antagonists into resources for his own cultural expression. The task of interpreting account of the present, in which he locates those new realities fell to allegoresis but reserves to advance his argument against the not because allegory best elucidates hidden grain of his antagonist. meanings; rather, the new realities emerge Let us summarize Jameson’s story: in as an enigma, and allegoresis, always neo-liberalism’s seeming victory, the moment available for restorative interpretation, when late capital has apparently achieved serves as the corollary to that enigma. This its vantage point as the end of history — the is a very old insight in the historical account

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‘Man as ape of nature at centre of earth with arts of prophecy geomancy memory astrology physiognomy palmistry’, from Utriusque Cosmi Historia 4, by Robert Fludd, 1574–1637. © The Art Archive / Alfredo Dagli Orti

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of rhetorical allegorization. For example, understood unless they are interpreted’.35 in Book 8, Chapter 6 of his Institutes of Quintilian defines allegory and enigma in Oratory, Quintilian describes how enigmas exactly the same way — ‘a too frequent result from rhetorical figures that so extend introduction of [metaphors] obscures their main idea that they close it off from [language] and renders the perusal of it lucidity. As a result, enigmas ‘cannot be fatiguing’.36 In his exposition, Quintilian

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35 Quintilian, Institutes of shows how enigma and allegory collapse and cultural construction, always Oratory, 8.6.53 at URL into each other, creating an interpretive agonistically against both modern criticism http://www2.iastate. opportunity for the allegorizer to seize and his contemporary critical rivals in edu/honeyl/quintilian/8/ chapter6.html#44 as of textual expression and put it in the service deconstruction and post-structuralism. 2 June 2009. of an extra-textual set of beliefs. Modern criticism knew how difficult a 36 Institutes of Oratory, Jameson’s writings on utopian science topic allegory could be and understood its 8.6.14. fiction are the pre-eminent example of entanglements with the Romantic symbol. 37 Institutes of Oratory, 8.6.44 such work in our time. As we will see, The New Criticism often attempted to 38 Archaeologies of the Jameson evacuates utopian science fiction achieve the aesthetic outcome of the symbol Future, xiv. — since it has not yet been written — of all through a controlled understanding of 39 A danger inheres in substantive historical content, reducing it to ironic form. The long-standing relationship this effort, one noted by Quintilian. When the pure abstract concept of hope. At first, of ironic reading and the literary symbol, the allegory expresses his gesture seems bold, but it is both old and as signified by such titles as The Verbal or allegorist uncovers a sign of his continual struggle against the Icon,40 invited a critical counter-attack on something quite authority of irony and the critic who at that the symbol, as on irony. Edmund Wilson contrary to what is meant, there is irony, time most powerfully represented irony’s wrote a powerful attack on that modern ‘which our rhetoricians effects, Paul de Man. Jameson’s rhetorical conjunction, proposing something like call illusion’. Institutes move is one of simple inversion. Quintilian a historicist humanist alternative to the of Oratory, 8.6.54 showed that Latin writers translated the symbolic arrest of time.41 Wilson extended 40 W. K. Wimsatt, The Verbal Icon: Studies in Greek Αλληγορία, by the Latin inversio, a critical historical dissatisfaction with a the Meaning of Poetry the same word Latin sometimes used to simplified version of Coleridgean thinking (Lexington, 1954); translate ‘irony’. As inversio, for Quintilian, about the symbol,42 indicting its aesthetic essays collected in this allegory ‘presents one thing in words and influence for producing a literature pushed volume date from the late 1940s. another in sense, or sometimes a sense quite to such a rarefied limit that ‘lungs find the 41 See Edmund Wilson, contrary to the words’.37 Here is Jameson at air unbreathable’ and the works ‘reduce Axel’s Castle: A Study some length doing just this simple thing but them[selves] to absurdity’.43 Academic in the Imaginative to his own conceptual purpose: critics, including Joseph Frank and Literature of 1870– www.fieldday.ie1930 (New York, 1931). William V. Spanos, extended this critique See also To the Finland All these formal and representational differently in a series of important papers Station: A Study in the questions lead back to the political that defined the modern symbolist project Writing and Acting of one with which we began: but now as intentionally anti-human, with no History (New York, 1940). With these two the latter has been sharpened into the interest in human temporality; indeed, as books, Wilson bracketed formal dilemma of how works that posit disgusted with history itself.44 In the 1969 the 1930s with an initial the end of history can offer any usable essay, ‘Rhetoric of Temporality’, de Man critique of the symbolic historical impulses, how works which joined this ongoing and expanding critique aesthetic as historically and humanly inadequate aim to resolve all political differences can of the atemporality of symbolic form and to human life and continue to be in any sense political, how language-desire by calling on allegory as action. He closed the texts designed to overcome the needs of the alternative to the constraints imposed decade with an assertion the body can remain materialistic, and on the human by the symbolic alignment of of Vichian historicism as a proper model for how visions of the ‘epoch of rest’ (Morris) timelessness and complexity. acting and imagining can energize and compel us to action.38 At first glance, it would seem de Man at a time when Eliot’s and Jameson should be allies rather than ironic religious influence The answer of course is in the substitutive competitors, but as is always the case was at its height. 42 Wilson, Axel’s Castle, allegorizing he calls ‘transcoding’, which is with allegorizers, the issue is not allegory 17: ‘One must go the rest of the book — an encyclopedic effort itself, but the concept or belief system back to Coleridge that history itself would seem to demand.39 of the allegorizer and the potential clash to find in English a Jameson’s extra-textual beliefs motivate of interests between the two. Given this figure comparable to the Symbolist leader, his professional reassertion of allegory as truth, critical work becomes debate Stéphane Mallarmé.’ the dominant mode of literary expression over the pragmatic consequences of the

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two competing belief systems for which helped create the now normative priority of 43 Wilson, Axel’s Castle, allegoresis does its work. Teskey has helped allegoresis as academic critical pragmatics. 24. 44 Joseph Frank, ‘Spatial us see some of the rhetorical and verbal Since de Man’s moment has passed with Form in Modern difficulties Jameson faces in his struggle the allure of deconstruction, Jameson’s Literature’, Sewanee against de Manian allegoresis that returns romance, which marries allegory and Review, 53 (spring/ irony to its place as the enabling disabler utopia, interpretation and history, desire summer/autumn, 1945), 221–40, 433–45, of rhetoric. We understand why Jameson and hope, seems more authoritative. For 643–65, and William has to move to allegorize the de Manian various reasons — some academic, some V. Spanos, ‘Modern allegorizer within a presumably stable and historical, and some professional — Literary Criticism and extra-textual ‘Marxian’ system of value Jameson’s victory is also a victory over the Spatialization of Time: An Existential and exchange. Pressed by de Man in turn, the ‘no’ of irony, and even though the Critique’, Journal of the agonistics established could continue ad allegory has widespread support and deep Aesthetics and Art infinitum, with each allegorizer challenging intellectual resources, its costs should now Criticism, 29 (1970), the unsuitable consequence of the other’s worry us. 87–104 . 45 John Brenkman, (groundless) beliefs as a basis of reading. No critic’s writings on allegory have ‘Passions of the The outcome would have been prolific, more merit and influence than those of Signifier: Paul de Man productive, and boring. Walter Benjamin.46 His early analysis and Rousseau’, an as John Brenkman unpacks de Man’s effort of allegory linked it irrevocably to the yet unpublished paper delivered at the English simply and directly. Brenkman places de messianic through the recession of the Department, University Man’s breakthrough in ‘The Rhetoric of divine into a background, perhaps even over of Pittsburgh, 23 March Temporality’, and its deconstruction of the horizon. The merely human appears 2009. the symbol: ‘de Man found a way to see a as a landscape of ruin, so that ‘ruins have 46 Among the many excellent treatments temporal structure in such fundamental always stood out clearly as formal elements of this subject, see 47 instances of figurative language as allegory, in the preserved work of art’. Bloomfield’s Bainard Cowan, ‘Walter irony, and metaphor’. This was a revolution linguistic approach to allegory similarly Benjamin’s Theory of against a theory of the symbol’s victory claimed that allegory always confronted Allegory’, New German Critique, Special Issue over finitude. De Man’s overthrow of the what had become a ruin and was able to on Modernism’, 22 symbolicwww.fieldday.ie mode occurred in an attack on return meaning to it by its rehistoricization, (1981), 109–22. professors of Romanticism who adumbrated a movement that made the work of art 47 Benjamin, The Origin the symbolic mode. He substituted a always capable of universal value. ‘Allegory of the German Tragic Drama, 182 renewed theory of allegory. Brenkman is’, he writes, ‘that which conquers time, 48 Bloomfield, ‘Allegory as briefly gives a sense of what allegory that which perpetually renews the written Interpretation’, 302. meant for de Man: ‘a text which represents word’.48 Ruination summons allegory for 49 Benjamin, The Origin some set of complexly related, co-existing its own purposes and yet, as Benjamin of the German Tragic Drama, 182. elements by projecting those elements as shows, allegorization contributes to the successive moments in a story unfolding very process of ruination upon which in time’.45 If de Man restored temporality its own authority and necessity depend. to reading by claiming the universality of Allegory is like philosophical criticism when allegory, Jameson made a counterclaim it transforms the material content of the that allegory always already had returned work into ‘truth content’, for in so doing, reading to the history from which allegory it ‘makes the decrease in effectiveness, emerged and which it served. Irony within whereby the attraction of earlier charms allegoresis made it impossible, de Man diminishes decade by decade, into the would say, for allegorization to stabilize basis for a rebirth, in which all ephemeral temporality within a grounding narrative of beauty is completely stripped off, and the history, for no narrative stands apart from work stands as a ruin’.49 This complicity irony’s ‘no’ to its claim of conceptual belief. of allegory in creating ruins of the human Despite their profound differences, world, leaving it as nature chock-full of however, de Man and Jameson together ruins, has its technical literary-critical

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3 Holbein, Ambrosius (1494– 1519). Thomas More’s island of Utopia. Engraving, 1518. © The Art Archive

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counterpart in a moment of de Man’s the language undermines and obscures research that Bloomfield cites approvingly: the specific literal meaning of a representation open to understanding. Paul de Man has written, ‘All But allegorical poetry must contain a representational poetry is always also representational element that invites allegorical, whether it be aware of it and allows for understanding, only or not, and the allegorical power of to discover that the understanding it

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reaches is necessarily in error.’50 His work shows that these notions arose in 50 Bloomfield, ‘Allegory the European Renaissance and rested on a as Interpretation’, 302, citing de Man, De Man had produced a new allegorical sort of Gnosticism, a belief in ‘an ancient, ‘Lyric and Modernity’, reading of Mallarmé, diabolically restricted body of knowledge accessible reprinted in Blindness reversing that symbolist ideal that had only to an élite’, whose aim is to reveal and Insight: Essays worried Wilson for its atemporality. De lost, forgotten, or obscured meaning.53 in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism Man concluded that this reading taught He points out that Leo Strauss and (New York, [1971], rev. criticism an important lesson, namely that Maimonides thought this was true and a ed. Minnesota, 1983), all allegory had a representational element necessity. In fact, especially in Maimonides, 185. about it but that element, when it guided Bloomfield saw that when allegorists, 51 ‘Allegory as Interpretation’, 302. reading on the basis of understanding, proceeding on the basis of secret knowledge 52 ‘Allegory as always resulted in error. This conclusion or its technical equivalent, preternatural Interpretation’, 303. reinforces the allegorist’s assumption interpretive techniques, worked to revive 53 ‘Allegory as that allegory deals with ruins, but it also the historicality of ruined texts with an eye Interpretation’, 306. 54 ‘Allegory as confirms the active role allegorical criticism towards the future, they produced what he Interpretation’, 308. 54 plays in the despoiling of literature and calls ‘prophetic or horizontal allegory’. 55 Michael Löwy, ‘Jewish reading into ruin. Bloomfield’s rigorous Jameson entitled his study of utopia Messianism and research into allegory led him to postulate Archaeologies of the Future because he Libertarian Utopia in Central Europe (1900– and demonstrate that ‘In this view of adapted the post-structuralist account of 1933)’, trans. Renée B. allegory, which does not set it against a origins and the trace to a simultaneous Larrier, New German representational or mimetic reading, and double vision. First, he adopted a point Critique, vol. 20 which sees it as the mode of understanding of view that allowed the apparently end- (Spring/Summer 1980), 106. the significance of texts, most scholars and of-history mode of contemporary utopian 56 Löwy, ‘Jewish 51 literary critics are allegorists.’ Taking a science fiction to appear as a historical Messianism, 105, different direction from de Man, Bloomfield future in the emergence of alternative translated from offers a civic justification of allegory’s futures and, second, he employed a critical Lucien Goldmann, ‘La Démocratie économique necessary resurgence in contemporary methodology that read these emergent et la création culturelle’, criticism:www.fieldday.ie ‘A society cannot exist without possibilities as if they were genealogical Epistémologie et criticism and its use of allegorization.’52 traces deposited now but apparent only Philosophie Politique Does Jameson’s theory justify for futures that are currently unthinkable (Paris, 1978), 217. 57 Goldmann, ‘La Bloomfield’s conclusion? While Jameson but would in fact come to exist. Although Démocratie acknowledges that post-modern theory Jameson rarely makes demonstrative économique’, 223. and culture, with their emphases on arguments about the texts he indexes and 58 Goldmann’s difference and differentiation, pre-empt the beliefs he asserts, his technical ability formulations suggest a link to American the possibility of speaking of society as to muster a range of rhetorically familiar pragmatism that more a totality and would, thus, seem not to gestures that belong to a range of critical complete research support Bloomfield’s conclusions, his practices reduced to the mere concept should explicate. See decision to turn to the activities of ‘a post- results in revelations about a body of texts James Livingston’s as-yet unpublished globalizing left’ to ground the restoration of that to impartial readers would appear presentation to the hope in the face of late capital’s dominance elite and hidden. The new knowledge is a Columbia University does support the notion that civilized seductive invitation to join a community of Seminar in Literary society requires allegory, even if Bloomfield initiates, the end result of which is academic Theory, ‘Pragmatism, Nihilism, and does not define the terms. Bloomfield and repetition and normalization. Democracy: What is Jameson both assert the historical and As Michael Löwy says, Gershom Called Thinking at the social necessity of allegory. Scholem is ‘universally recognized as the End of Modernity?’, Bloomfield’s study of allegory takes greatest authority in this area’, that is, the 4 December 2008. Not only are there careful note of how allegory is often study of Jewish messianism. Löwy makes conceptual links attached to the notion of secrecy, hidden this claim while examining the ‘thesis between pragmatism’s knowledge, and elite skills of interpretation. that socialism is only a secularized form relentless commitments

86 Misprisions of Utopia: Messianism, Apocalypse, and Allegory

to hope, coping, and of Jewish messianism.’55 Löwy notes that to a collective messiah’.59 While recognizing making the truth by few Marxists have seriously considered the historical precedents helps us to understand human action and belief, relationship he has researched; he offers Jameson’s and the academy’s faith in but a common sense that utopianism and Lucien Goldmann as a rare exception and allegorized utopia in the crisis moments pragmatism alike must cites a key sentence from Goldmann’s of late capital, more important to our embrace the nihilism important study of ‘Economic Democracy conclusions are the genealogical burdens of the moment, a belief and Cultural Creation’: that limit and enable that faith and hope. that casts doubt on the merit of such practices Facing the unutterable dominance of late as electoral politics as Lucien Goldmann is one of the rare capital, Jameson and the school of hopeful short of the rupture Marxists who was ready to assume this utopians who believe in the value of desire needed in the face of the possible heritage in positive terms: ‘It and agency always assume that the socialist current configuration of the commodity fetishism is representations like the coming of alternative can be only after a coupure in within late capital. the Messiah, the Kingdom of Heaven, time. Allegorical utopians do not embrace 59 Löwy, ‘Jewish etc., which are found devoid of any evolutionary political or social development; Messianism’, 105. transcendent or supernatural element in mostly, they are the enemies of political 60 For the beginning of an argument against this immanent religion called socialism, in slow time, or gradualism. Jameson’s Lukács along these which they take the form of hope and faith research differentiates between utopian lines, see Paul A. Bové, in an immanent historical future that men claims and dismisses some as inauthentic. Intellectuals in Power: must realize by their own action.’56 He calls such things as the achievement A Genealogy of Critical Humanism (New York, of universal health-care part of late 1986), 257. Jameson’s theory has revised his utopia capitalism’s ‘protean investment in a host away from an immanent future precisely of suspicious and equivocal matters: liberal because late capital makes the deferral reforms and commercial pipedreams, the of alternatives inescapable. Yet his deceptive yet tempting swindles of the here archaeological project of allegorization and how, where Utopia serves as the mere justifies the hope that grounds it by an lure and bait for ideology’. (One feels in the act of faith that interpretive rhetoric can back of this claim, the strong presence of www.fieldday.ieconvince the desiring that there is reason the Leninist Lukács, insisting on the special for faith not only in future alternatives, knowledge of the vanguard elite intellectuals but in hope, the basis of which is nearby with their special scientific knowledge. One in the traces deposited in the present. also feels a distrust, not much elaborated, Goldmann drew another conclusion in 1961 of that key term and force, desire, that is that he repeated in 1978: ‘Le socialisme so important as Jameson’s postulation of est precisément l’espoir de créer un jour the universal form of human desires to leap une culture authentique dont la structure past the dystopia of capital.)60 Jameson catégoriale soit suffisament vaste pour follows these lines against liberal reformism comprendre et intégrer toutes les creations and false utopia with what is, even for culturelles du passé.’57 This sounds like the him, a sloppy and disconnected transition. critical programme that links allegory and Suddenly, he moves from the enemy within, utopia, or interpretation and hope, in the that is the seductive abusers of utopia, to faith of advanced left criticism, especially its avowed enemy, those he calls ‘realists’, in the academy.58 While Jameson’s project who eschew ‘everything Utopian’. The great is consciously secular and collective, it critical opponents of utopian theory and echoes, as Löwy points out, early twentieth- desire are the realists (his own word from century expressions of desire on the part above). It is characteristic and dissatisfying of intellectuals in the workers’ councils of that Jameson buries his most powerful Bavaria and Hungary, who ‘were convinced critics, those who represent the deepest of being called to carry out the mission of challenge to his visionary project, in a the redemption of the world and belonging clause suspended between examples of

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Improvements brought by the Russian Revolution, before (November 25, 1917) and after (October 25, 1920). Soviet political poster, 1920, USSR. © The Art Archive / Private Collection / Marc Charmet

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bad utopians — he goes on immediately to Rather than lament this as simple lament those other false utopians, ‘social sloppiness, let us assume that Jameson has democratic’ reformers. abandoned careful study because linking realists and seducers creates another

88 Misprisions of Utopia: Messianism, Apocalypse, and Allegory

61 Benjamin, The Origin rhetorical dualism, this time between those Whereas the Incarnation made God always of the German Tragic whom he makes stand for, and as apologists and everywhere immanent and central Drama, 182 of, the status quo and those who understand to history, Benjamin’s enormous critical 62 The Origin of German Tragic Drama, 166. through careful reading of hidden meanings genius saw at work the dialectical potential the need for catastrophic rupture, what in which the ultimate symbol, Divine and French-influenced academics especially Human as One, served as the basis for its might call a coupure, believing it means a own demolition and restoration — ruin and rupture. When we recall the well-established redemption, this time of the Redeemer. Marxist belief that the crises of capitalism If Augustine had established with will end either in revolution or catastrophe finality the Christian narrative of imitatio — a bang, not a whimper — then we see Christi as the public and private fact the relevance of Scholem to understanding that all history and all experience are this body of material. According to Christocentric, the baroque did something Benjamin’s study of the Trauerspiel and quite different, submitting the Augustinian the Protestant baroque, divinity retreated story — with what irony! — to allegorical over the horizon or into the background interpretation: ‘Even the story of the life of art that foregrounded not merely the of Christ supported the movement from human, but the human in the scenery of history to nature which is the basis of ruin. Unlike the aesthetic humanism of the allegory’.61 It is hard to specify the exact Italian Renaissance, for example, where the relations involved between the work of human, the subject, and the beauty of art Benjamin and Bloomfield, or indeed Angus restored the classicism recovered through Fletcher, but Benjamin certainly anticipated the Arabs, the baroque demystifies the Bloomfield’s point that allegorical combine of the subject, humanism, and historicization recovered the ahistorical beauty, substituting the ruinous finitude of universality and even beauty of what came the human in sceneries that left the divine to the allegorist only as ruin. present, but looming, distant, not quite In The Origin of German Tragic www.fieldday.iebeyond recall. Of course, in a complex Drama, Benjamin provides one of his most set of still poorly understood interpretive influential formulations of this nexus, one manoeuvers, Benjamin had the allegorical result of which is the seeming desirability baroque recover beauty in and as, if not and inescapability of allegoresis and after, the formations of ruin. Benjamin’s allegory. In this instance, Benjamin makes work, to put the matter reductively, left explicit that the baroque shows allegory the human positioned in a profane world as a response to everything unsatisfying in to which divinity might return, redeeming history and to the ultimate disappointment past and future, together. Benjamin of nature, that is, death. The Romantics, in changed our thinking of history in advance differentiating allegory from the symbol, from unidirectionality to reversibility and contributed the dialectic to understanding produced an important theory of the event the concept, and so, what Benjamin calls, as a redemptive intrusion into and outside ‘the violence’ of allegory appears as always time. Almost a parody of the Incarnation, already present ‘as the earliest history of congruent no doubt with the weakness of signifying or intention’.62 In one complex Catholicism that accompanied the weakness paragraph, Benjamin intertwines the of the Catholic European empires, the concepts of ‘time’ and ‘history’ within his event became, after his work, the name analysis and theory of allegory. ‘Time’ is for a potential intervention of divinity that ‘the decisive category ... the introduction might redeem history from the seemingly of which into this field of semiotics ruinous situation that seemed natural was the great romantic achievement as the result of human historical action. of these thinkers’. ‘Time’ allowed a

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sharp demarcation between symbol and its resentment at the failures of history, 63 Benjamin, The Origin allegory, according to which the symbolic which, as Bloomfield suggests, allegory of the German Tragic Drama, 166. idealizes destruction and redeems it and always attempts to overcome by conquering 64 The Origin of German nature within ‘the light of redemption’. time, nostalgia becomes the hidden name Tragic Drama, 166. (Furthermore, this distinction aligns the of the regrettably impossible to which no 65 The Origin of the symbolic with the human and places both return is possible, precisely because all German Tragic Drama, 166. of them in the Renaissance.) By contrast, such return is always already denigrated ‘in allegory the observer is confronted with as human and symbolic. Benjamin is the facies hippocratica [the face of near quite explicit on these matters: ‘Although death] of history as a petrified, primordial such a thing [the death’s head] lacks all landscape’.63 Although Benjamin regularly “symbolic” freedom of expression, all notes that the baroque discovers allegory classical proportion, all humanity — with a new visionary rigour, augmented nevertheless, this is the form in which man’s by the work of the Romantics in dialectics subjection to nature is most obvious.’64 and comparison, he does not present Habitually, criticism rests on this distinction this historicism as a weak perspectivism, between the associated tropes of allegory contextualism, or relativism. The movement and symbol, just as it might stumble on from antiquity, to Renaissance, to baroque, the relation between allegory and irony. to Romantic, and then to modernity is a Given Benjamin’s dialectical historicism, dialectical disclosure that both places the no alternative emerges to this paired allegorical within a movement of historical oppositional hierarchy between symbol emergence and also preserves the results of and allegory and their associated clusters. that emergence as an instrumental truth- What Benjamin offers as a continuation claim for knowing about history, nature, of this line of analysis, however, we might meaning, etc., beyond classical, symbolic, equally well read as motives for his efforts: and humanistic modes of knowing, acting, ‘and it significantly gives rise not only to and creating. the enigmatic question of the nature of www.fieldday.ieIf we hold this passage of Benjamin’s human existence as such, but also to the speculations up close, we see that he biographical historicity of the individual’.65 describes the emergence of the truth of Dialectics always elicit the charge of allegory in a baroque icon: ‘Everything metaphysics and that is appropriate to the about history that, from the very beginning, phrase, ‘the nature of human existence as has been untimely, sorrowful, unsuccessful, such’. Allegory presumably would redeem is expressed in a face — or rather in a this metaphysics by its interpretive nature — death’s head’. Allegory’s truth has two a claim Nietzsche would mock — and this components: first, what this icon represents, is the conclusion Adorno, whom Benjamin and second, the iconicity itself. As I will influenced on this issue, certainly draws. suggest, no matter whether the allegory is ‘Enigma’ is a complex sign in Benjamin’s baroque or Baudelairean, part of its truth writings, but Adorno stabilizes it in his is the formal and technical production of Aesthetic Theory: the iconic image of historical ruination. The icon is the opening movement in the The need of artworks for interpretation, emergence of the dominant dialectical their need for the production of their image so closely associated with modernity truth content is the stigma of their and it is the palimpsestic displacement of constitutive deficiency. Artworks do the human, which allegory cannot tolerate, not achieve what is objectively sought create, embrace, or protect. It is in this in them. The zone of indeterminacy last fact about allegory that its nostalgia between the unreachable and what has affects its reappearance as motive. Given been realized constitutes their enigma.

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66 Theodor Adorno, They have truth content and they do its works. This would in itself be a mere ‘Enigmaticalness, Truth not have it.66 weakness of culture and a mark of crisis Content, Metaphysics’, in Benjamin’s imagination were critics in his Aesthetic Theory, trans. Robert Hullot- The historicality that constrains not claiming for it also the disclosure of a Kentor (Minneapolis, artworks to the necessary dialectically inescapable limit of historical 1997), 128. complementariness of conceptual possibility, rather than the projected 67 The Origin of the hermeneutics is at first baroque and vision of nostalgic loss. The supersession German Tragic Drama, 166. secondly allegorical — no matter the of the symbolic/human by the allegorical/ 68 The Origin of the historical period. ‘This is the heart of iconic image has about it nothing more German Tragic Drama, the allegorical way of seeing’, Benjamin convincing or necessary than the habitual 166. continues, ‘of the baroque, secular rhetorical construction this opposition 69 Scholem’s writings had a great influence on explanation of history as the Passion of repeats. Troubling as it is within the long Edward Said, who first the world; its importance resides solely traditions of Western writing, it is not the strongly recommended in the stations of its decline’.67 ‘Stations only such construction, and the existence to me as a young scholar of decline’ refers of course to ‘stations of of alternatives mocks its demands as that I should study Scholem very carefully. the cross’, or the Via Dolorosa of Christ’s inescapable, indeed, as a secularized and Said’s differences crucifixion, which takes iconic form in dialectical substitution for a sacred and from Jameson on various media from bas-relief to paint or permanent truth. While the stations of matters of history glass. While allegory’s importance resides decline along the Via Dolorosa in their and experience clarify in light of Scholem’s solely in the secularizing explanation of secular form seem to strip the Passion of scholarship and his history consequent upon this movement of its redemptive outcome, the fact is that concern that Jewish decline, from arrest through torture and choosing the stations as the iconic imagery messianism, even when hanging death to entombment, Benjamin’s of allegorical hermeneutical necessity secularized in Zionism, produced horrendous dialectical account leaves open the final does nothing less than draw insistently consequences, along movement in the secularized Passion, which into consciousness the open possibility with important national is the movement that redeems history by of messianic redemption achieved by achievements for Jews conquering death, time, and sin. The greater resurrection. We understand that allegory after the Holocaust. www.fieldday.iethe significance, the greater the subjection does not make this error of faith and to death, because death digs most deeply the resignedly accepts the historical damnation jagged line of demarcation between physical of the Sisyphus-like project of permanent nature and significance. But if nature ruination. However, the critics of secularism has always been subject to the power of might be right to see the inescapable traces death, it is also true that it has always been of an enabling sacred belief at the very basis allegorical. Significance and death both of even demonic allegory. come to fruition in historical development, In his essential essay, ‘Toward an just as they are closely linked as seeds in the Understanding of the Messianic Idea’, creature’s graceless state of sin.68 Scholem brings into clarity the essential, The symbol not only belongs to the past, indeed inescapable, combination of allegory, especially to the Renaissance and the time utopia, messianism, and catastrophe. His of the human, but it is also a historical and work also helps us hypothesize why theories metaphysical error. Allegorical truth is the of ‘the event’ have been winsome in the truth of continual ruination of historical time of late capital’s naturalism and why culture and fallen nature and depends upon even catastrophic utopianism is a movement ruination for its own repetitive victories away from real secular politics.69 Scholem’s over time. Immersed in the permanent essay rewards the very deepest study, for the struggle to remake ruins for already implications of his historical interpretive ruined immediate purposes, this process survey resonate in many important areas does not so much disclose the death of the of humane letters. His essay makes an human as generate it conditionally within important differentiation between two

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distinct forms of Jewish messianism, often that its adherent practitioners forget was 70 Gerschom Scholem, tracing their borders where they intersect one of Benjamin’s established hypotheses. ‘Toward an Understanding of the and entangle. These different strains of Messianic Idea’, in his thought have a common origin and I If, however, we alter our memories to The Messianic Idea quote Scholem summing this up: ‘Jewish include tropes other than those that oppose in Judaism and Other Messianism is in its origins and by its nature allegory and symbol, we find alternatives Essays on Jewish Spirituality, trans. — this cannot be sufficiently emphasized — that afford assurance that the human can Michael A. Meyer, et a theory of catastrophe. This theory stresses manage relations to nature, time, and al. (New York, 1971), the revolutionary, cataclysmic element in death other than those inhering within the 7. Scholem originally the transition from every historical present inverted nostalgia of amor fati. What does presented this essay as a talk in 1959 and to the Messianic future.’ Löwy himself this mean? In simple terms, it means moving published it in Eranos quotes Scholem this far.) ‘This transition the imagination to create affectionate Jahrbuch, 28 (1959), itself becomes a problem in that ... the responses to and within human historicality 193–239. really non-transitional character of it is not besmirched by the metaphysical embrace 71 Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory pointed up and emphasized.’70 Jameson’s of repetitive fatalism within ruination. (Chicago, 1966), 1–4 71 arguments proceed from the analytic Frances Yates, among others, has and passim. See also claim that the present socio-economic written about the Greek poet Simonides as Jonathan D. Spence, structure, which he calls late capital, the mythic originator of the arts of memory. The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (New affords no way forward as a transition His story is a simple one: drawn to the York, 1985) for a to a utopian future. The ‘how’ of moving house of a rich man who promised to pay discussion of the from where we are to the imagined for verses celebrating a victory in wrestling, memory palace’s power future(s), emergent in the differentiated Simonides, cheated of his pay, steps out of as a device of cultural identification and collectivities of post-globalization leftism the house just as it collapses. Saved by the extension. The memory and end-of-history utopianism, is a belated gods, Simonides remembers the position of palace trope recurs in form of the problematic transition. The all the men at the table and identifies them, modern writings as only possibility, even for a retrospective recovering their biographical historicity well. Henry Adams, Mont-Saint-Michel and allegorical futural reading of the trace, from within and under the ruins that in Chartres (1905), is an iswww.fieldday.ie a rupture that is catastrophic, that is, burying them seem also to erase their instance of the creative other than transitional, a move to the now individuality. The corpses were so mangled, possibility of this trope. unimaginable, to that place where there is Yates tells us, that their relatives could not no way forward. Scholem’s research and identify them, but Simonides could ‘place’ his interpretation of its results allow for them. Such a successful troping upon death the clear conclusion that catastrophism is and ruin is not metaphysical or dialectical. always already messianic. History awaits It stands completely free of the binarism redemption, faintly echoed in the allegorical of secularized messianic nostalgia and placement of the divine over the horizon the mechanized ruination better called in a profanation that ironically restores allegoresis. This triumph of memory sets and preserves the god-head. What is this in in motion the development of an important secular language? It is the event, or, if you trope, the ‘memory palace’, that offers a will, more mundanely, it is the Pauline once- non-interpretive, creative, spatial, rather and-for-all conversion. The absolute effect than sequential, act of imagination as of this allegorical utopianism, which creates the human response to loss, death, and the hope and faith that distrusts politics and injustice. In other words, it points to an realism, is apolitical status quo-ism; it is the entirely different ethos of imagination’s preservation of what is, even as it declares relation to life. It is easy for critics to keep the critical work of real analysis and their focus purely on the technical and possible imagination invalid and co-opted. rhetorical instrumentalities of Simonides’ Utopian allegorists do not recognize their accomplishments. Cicero’s recovery of own evil. This is an insight into allegory Simonides pointed in just such a direction.

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As we see in Yates’s version of this story, innovation, continuity and break, self and however, Simonides’ motives for recalling other. Such a demanding and rigorous and repositioning the dead is service to discipline, so much more difficult than the the other — the families and friends of relatively facile repetitive deployments of the dead, that is, to the biographical and allegoresis, opens the question of its own genealogical specificities of those only motives and the sources of its energies. recently mangled and disfigured. That those Allegorists are and must be catastrophic aesthetic technical capacities of creative messianists. They cannot believe in history, in memory serve such interests shows both experience, in their entanglement. They must that the tradition contains alternatives to legitimate their practice in the confidence the symbol/allegory binary and that they of their superior preternatural scientific persist in active practice across those very knowledge. They speak to each other and periods the baroque and modern assign to praise collectivities. They refashion popular the domains of allegoresis. Fully developed and mass subgenres into the obscure texts as an alternative to the allegorical nature of of new Gnosticisms. They leave the present memoir writing, the memory palace rests to its dystopic fate. And in the United States, upon learning, ordering — in this case itself especially, they leave us all to the world an act of high creation — and selecting. of faith, the real forms of which we find In place, it enables individual, group, and everywhere in and outside religions, including cultural creations that life experience the hopeful ambitions of the utopian provokes and it affords a creative response allegorists themselves and their compulsive to the problem of relating tradition and insistence on allegory everywhere. www.fieldday.ie

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94 The Addressivity of the Eye: James Coleman’s Connemara Landscape Luke Gibbons

In 1930, in one of his notebooks, Ludwig Wittgenstein drew attention to a common experience in attempting to capture landscape in a photograph:

I am always reminded of one of those insipid photographs www.fieldday.ieof a piece of scenery which is interesting to the person who took it because he was there himself, experiencing something, but which a third party looks at with justifiable Figure 1: James Coleman, Slide coldness; insofar as it is even Piece, 1972-73. Courtesy of the artist justifiable to look at something with coldness.1

This experience is familiar to anyone who has had to sit through a display of holiday snaps by relatives whom one 1 Ludwig Wittgenstein, hardly knows — not to mention Culture and Value, trans. Peter Winch nodding acquaintances. (Oxford, 1980), 4e–5e.

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Wittgenstein’s anecdote allows for the questions about representation itself, and 2 For a discussion of the possibility that where friends are concerned, the nature of perception as a distinctively addressivity of the eye within a Bakhtinian or those to whom we are well disposed, the human way of responding to the landscape framework, see photographs are eagerly viewed, as if in a of our lives. Esther Peeren, ‘The desire to share the experience. ‘Wish we Wittgenstein’s example focuses on an Intersubjective Eye: The were there!’ is the appropriate response, issue central to the work of James Coleman: Look versus the Gaze’, in her Intersubjectivities but in this case, he adds, prejudice and what might be termed ‘the addressivity of and Popular Culture: friendship are doing the work. We should the eye’, the sense in which the image, no Bakhtin and Beyond be under no illusion that the photograph less than the word, solicits a beholder, no (Stanford, 2008), 73– ‘objectively’ captures the experience of the matter how complex or attenuated the mode 98. 3 Martin Heidegger, scene in a way that would be compelling of address. That vision has its basis in the ‘The Age of the World to a ‘third party’, or a stranger not already dialogical imagination is not by any means Picture’ [1938], in The implicated in the situation. a universally held position. Conventionally, Question Concerning What is missing for the disinterested language is understood as based on Technology and Other Essays, trans. William observer in the ‘insipid photograph’? dialogue, since it would be hard to imagine Lovitt (New York, Precisely the sense of being there, the desire the need to speak without a listener, or 1977), 115–54. to share the experience. Anyone can grasp an interlocutor.2 One of the far-reaching 4 Lynne Cooke, ‘A the content, the ‘information’, on display: effects of the Renaissance — signalled by Tempered Agnosia’, in James Coleman what eludes the third party operates at the what Martin Heidegger referred to as the (Lyons, 1992), reprinted level of form, the organization, style and emergence of the ‘modern world picture’, in George Baker, orientation of the work. In an attempt to the representation of the world as a picture ed., James Coleman make holiday snaps more amenable to all, — was the severing of vision from a relay (Cambridge, Mass., 2003), 115. there is a temptation to re-create them in of ‘looks’, and its transformation into the the image of postcards, thus intercepting gaze, directed primarily towards objects.3 even our own experience in the act of Perspective played an important role in representation. This is one of the framing this shift in perception: projected onto the perspectives behind James Coleman’s material world, it modelled vision on a gaze Connemarawww.fieldday.ie Landscape, first exhibited at in which there was no looking back. Under Galway in 1980, and a central feature of this new optical regime, perception had no the major retrospective of his work at the equivalent of dialogue: its relationship was Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), primarily to objects and space, rather than the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), and to other observers or points of view. the Project Theatre in Dublin, March–June It is striking that in James Coleman’s 2009. For many Irish people growing up in work, landscape, even the image itself, the formative decades of the new Irish state, appears to look back, if only by implicating the title of Coleman’s work alone would the spectator in the field of vision. There is be sufficient to summon up images of Paul no trace of the anthropomorphic, though Henry’s paintings of ‘Romantic Ireland’ there is a viewer moving around the (Fig. 2), as popularized in successive gallery. In a section of Charon (1989), re- campaigns by tourist boards to bring staged at the RHA, comprising fourteen holiday-makers to the West. photographic vignettes, a baby gazes This is perhaps one of the initial intently at the camera, and hence, as Lynne reasons Coleman’s enigmatic installation Cooke suggests, at ‘the photographer dispenses with the need for photographic who seems to be both father of the child reproduction; on hearing the title, viewers and allegorical father of the image’.4 In already have an image in their mind. guaiRE, a masque staged in Guaire Castle, Coleman’s projected image goes further, Kinvara, in 1985, a curved two-way mirror however, than an engagement with its acts as a video screen behind the ‘throne’ immediate Irish resonances: it also raises of the performer/‘King’, providing the

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Figure 2: ‘Ireland this Year’, LMS poster, 1923–47. Poster produced by London, Midland & Scottish Railway to promote rail travel to Connemara in Ireland Artwork by Paul Henry (1876–1958). © Science and Society Picture Library

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Figure 3: James Coleman, still from guaiRE: An Allegory, 1985. Courtesy of the artist

viewers with a panning shot of the room A key question here is, when, if ever, do 5 Ludwig Wittgenstein, and audience from the performer’s point we simply see, as against seeing something Philosophical of view — simulating the birth of the as such-and-such, bringing our perceptions Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe viewer through the eyes of the King, as in of the world under a description, or within (Oxford, 1963 [1952]), the ‘sovereign subject’ of Velázquez’s Las a frame of reference? For the philosopher 193e–229e. Meninas. Coleman’s mirror-stage questions Stephen Mulhall, all seeing is bound up 6 Stephen Mulhall, On the extent to which the sovereignty of sight with ‘seeing-as’, but for Wittgenstein this Being in the World: Wittgenstein and inwww.fieldday.ie Western aesthetics is structured by a is not always true: we see a human face, Heidegger on Seeing politics of vision, the all-seeing eye of the not something as a face.6 It is not that Aspects (London, 1991). sovereign himself (Figs. 3 & 4). we first perceive a receptacle of flesh and 7 For Wittgenstein, a In much of Coleman’s early practice, this bone, and then interpret it as a face: rather, face is subject not so much to knowledge as enquiry into the power of the visible took we see a face immediately, and have to acknowledgement. We the form of what it was to see something as work hard to see it in terms of viscera and require no evidence to a picture in the first place, based on, among muscle — unless, that is, we are Francis recognize a face: rather, other investigations, a series of sustained Bacon.7 It is notable that in this case of we acknowledge it immediately as such. reflections on Wittgenstein’s concept of seeing simpliciter, there is no objective gaze, For this aspect of ‘seeing-as’.5 What is it, these works ask, for, as Wittgenstein reminds us, it not just Wittgenstein, see Stanley to see a picture as something, to bring an that we observe a face: it also observes us.8 Cavell, ‘Knowing and image under a description, whether a pail This again forms part of Charon (1989): Acknowledging’, in his Must We Mean What filling with water which we end up viewing the witness to the crime, who claims he can We Say? A Book of as an empty still-life (Pump, 1972), a street impersonate the face of the criminal in front Essays (Cambridge, scene in Milan subject to endless verbal of the camera, eventually comes to resemble 1969), 238–66. descriptions in voice-over, which never the photographer himself. Perhaps the 8 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel, trans. G. E. M. seem to exhaust what is seen (Slide Piece, sole recognizable elements in Connemara Anscombe (Berkeley, (1972–73)) (Fig. 1), or the switching gestalts Landscape are windows, and what is true of 1970), 40e. of Joseph Jastrow’s famous ‘duck/rabbit’ eyes is also true of windows: we do not see figure Playback( of a Dream, 1974) that them, they are also used to look back at us. provided the basis of Wittgenstein’s initial In the case of the material world, discussion of ‘seeing-as’? perception, no matter how objective,

98 The Addressivity of the Eye: James Coleman’s Connemara Landscape

Figure 4: James Coleman, still from guaiRE: An Allegory, 1985. Courtesy of the artist.

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always carries with it with the possibility work with what might be considered the that things could be seen otherwise. Linear uncertainty principle haunting scientific perspective constituted an attempt to project accounts of perspective: the phenomenon scientific stability onto the pictorial plane, of anamorphosis, the possibility that but for Coleman, perspective is precisely distortion is inherent in the projected image a projection (Fig. 5) in more ways than unless viewed from a specific position. one. Hence the abiding fascination in his In perspective, the spectator is removed

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Figure 5: Abraham Bosse, Les other possible viewing points (particularly Perspecteurs, 1647–48. Eau those excluded from the scene). Forte, Bibliothèque Nationale It is in this sense that gallery space de France, Paris in Connemara Landscape implicates spectators in the scene of projection, thereby contesting the powerful strand in the modernist criticism that contends that the art object should stand alone, replete in its integrity. This position, identified with the writings of Clement Greenberg and Michael Fried, sees the self-sufficiency of artwork as aspiring to the condition of ‘objecthood’, oblivious to either spectators or its surroundings.10 For Fried, anything less than the ‘absorption’ of a visual work unto itself amounts to what he terms ‘theatricality’, a series of postures derived from another medium that violates the opticality of art.11 It is not that Coleman sets out to contradict this principle; rather, he refuses the terms of the opposition in the first place. As Rosalind Krauss has noted, Coleman’s practice can be seen as a sustained investigation into precisely the specificity of the medium — of the various from the pictorial field: in anamorphosis, media forms he has worked in, whether 9 Leo Steinberg, the addressivity of the image is retained, film, photography, slide projection, the ‘Observations in the solicitingwww.fieldday.ie the presence of the spectator in photo-novel, or other forms.12 Unlike Cerasi Chapel’, Art this position. Greenberg, the distinctiveness of a medium Bulletin, 41, 2 (1959), 183–90. It is for this reason that faced (in a more is not considered in fixed or essentialist 10 See Clement Greenberg, precise sense than usual) with Coleman’s terms but is negotiated in terms of its limits, ‘Towards a New projected Connemara Landscape, the transfers and crossovers, the intervals, as Laocoon’, in his Art and viewer tends to move around, looking for it were, between one medium and another. Culture: Critical Essays (New York, 1992); the vantage point that will reveal what we The image is thus on an uneven continuum Michael Fried, Art and have come to expect from the romantic with the single frame shot, the studio Objecthood: Essays promise of the title. Such emplotting of still, the jump-cuts of the photo-novel, the and Reviews (Chicago, the spectator was central, as Leo Steinberg sequential images of the slide-show, and the 1998); Jonathan Harris, Writing Back to Modern has shown, to some of the most powerful moving image of film — all that happens in Art: After Greenberg, interrogations of pictorial representation in the interim between one frame and another. Fried, and Clark Renaissance art, most notably Caravaggios’s More recently, Michael Fried has turned (London, 2005). extraordinary paintings of St. Peter and his attention to photography and, in 11 Michael Fried, Absorption and St. Paul in the Cerasi Chapel in Rome particular, the monumental photographic Theatricality: Painting (Figs. 6 & 7) and Leonardo’s famous installations of Jeff Wall. Wall’s work is and the Beholder in Last Supper in Milan.9 In these works, cited in support of his contention that it is the Age of Diderot pictorial space extends beyond the ‘frame’ only by turning its back on the spectator (Chicago, 1986 [1980]) 12 Rosalind Krauss, to the architectural setting of the picture, and ignoring gallery space that pictorial ‘Reinventing the the physical embodiment of the spectator representation can capture the most elusive Medium: Introduction raising questions of who is viewing what, aspects of everyday life: precisely its to Photography’, in from what position, and in relation to what spontaneity and uncontrived appearance. Baker, ed., James Coleman, 185–210.

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Figure 6: Caravaggio (Merisi, Michelangelo da (1571–1610): Conversion of Saint Paul. 1600, Rome, Church of Santa Maria del Popolo. Oil on canvas. © 2010. Photo Scala, Florence/ Fondo Edifici di Culto – Min. dell’Interno

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13 Michael Fried, ‘Jeff Wall’s ‘near documentary mode’ involves, of his own philosophy, ‘as it is’.14 For Wall, Wittgenstein, and in the artist’s own words, depicting ‘what Fried, awareness of the spectator, or the Everyday’, Critical Enquiry, 33, 3 (2007), the events ... are like, or were like, when acknowledgement that one is being looked 496–526. they passed without being photographed’ at, can only lead to a lack of spontaneity, 14 Wittgenstein, Culture (Fig. 8).13 Certainly there are strands in reality, as Walter Benjamin might say, and Value, 5e. Wittgenstein that lend themselves to such an posing for its picture.15 Hence the belief 15 Walter Benjamin, ‘A Short History of ontology of art, most notably his imagining that the integrity of the object, or the Photography’, in One- of a mode of artistic representation that medium, is the first casualty of the active, Way Street (London, would render a scene without interfering participant observer. 1979), 248 with it, leaving everything, as he said

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Figure 7: Caravaggio (Merisi, Michelangelo da (1571–1610): Crucifixion of Saint Peter, 1600–01. Rome, Church of Santa Maria del Popolo. Oil on canvas. © 2010. Photo Scala, Florence/Fondo Edifici di Culto – Min. dell’Interno

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But is detachment, standing outside the leads to incomprehension, the cold eye of 16 Nicholas Bourriaud, picture, the only means of accessing the the passer-by.16 Aesthetic form negotiates Relational Aesthetics (Paris, 1998). ordinary, the unscripted acts of everyday this deficit by addressing the stranger as a life? Wittgenstein’s own example of the participant, drawing him or her not into the detached ‘third party’ looking at the work but into a relationship with the work, postcard would seem to suggest otherwise, opening vistas on what would otherwise since it is precisely lack of participation, be indifferent experiences, or inscrutable the absence of a relational aesthetics, that lives. In marked contrast to Fried’s stepping

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Figure 8: Jeff Wall, ‘Morning Cleaning’, Mies van der Rohe Foundation, Barcelona 1999, Courtesy of the artist.

17 Walter Benjamin, back to stop and stare, intent on catching to art in an age of new information ‘On Some Motifs reality off-guard, Walter Benjamin argued technologies. Jacques Rancière has in Baudelaire’, in that it is precisely such self-consciousness identified a recurrent concern with justice Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn (London. on the part of the spectator that screens — the rule of law, the exercise of authority 1974), 162–163. out the most elusive aspects of reality: and power — in Coleman’s work, and its 18 Diarmuid Costello, ‘[O]nly what has not been experienced deep relationship to regimes of the visible: ‘Aura, Face, explicitly and consciously, what has not justice must not only be done but be seen to Photography: Re- 19 reading Benjamin happened to the subject as an experience, be done. In much of Coleman’s practice, Today’, in Andrew can become a component of mémoire it is as if these terms have been reversed and www.fieldday.ieBenjamin, ed., Walter involontaire [involuntary memory].’17 Or, the task of the image itself is to do justice Benjamin and Art as Diarmuid Costello has summarized this to a world in which aesthetics, the lure of (London, 2005), 179. 19 Jacques Rancière, aspect of Benjamin: ‘only what bypasses beauty, is itself often used to cover up the ‘From the Poetics of the our conscious defences and thereby leaves a scene of a crime. Walter Benjamin famously Image to the Tragedy memory trace amounts to experience in the argued that ‘there is no facsimile of the of Justice’, in James full sense’, experience that escapes through aura’, meaning by ‘aura’ the addressivity Coleman (Dublin, 2009), 11–35. the nets of surveillance, whether of the of the image that is endangered by the 20 Walter Benjamin, ‘The sovereign self or the gaze of detached, all- technological medium in an age of mass Work of Art in the Age seeing third parties.18 reproduction.20 By resisting reproduction of its Technological It is in this light that we should view itself, even in the pages of a catalogue, Reproducibility: Third Version’, in Walter Coleman’s recourse to the meandering lines the projection of Connemara Landscape Benjamin: Selected of the doodle in Connemara Landscape, retrieves the medium, the ‘facsimile’, from a Writings, 1938–1940, the involuntary traces that open up the fallen condition, as much as resists the urge ed. Howard Eiland and experience of landscape to its excluded to return to a primordial state of innocence Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge, MA), 260 histories, the off-screen space beyond the before the Fall. official images of Romantic Ireland. This mode of spontaneity does not leave the world as it is but throws into question the framing narratives that often enclose, rather than expand, the frames of everyday experience. What is at stake here is an ethical as well as an aesthetic dimension

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104 Breandán Ó Buachalla Uamhnach Ultach ag moladh Muimhnigh Alan Titley

Speech at the launch of Aistí ar an Nua-Ghaeilge in ómós do Bhreandán Ó Buachalla, edited by Aidan Doyle and Siobhan Ní Laoire (Cois Life: Dublin, 2006), a festschrift for Breandán Ó Buachalla’s 70th birthday, 8 February, 2007, at Keough– www.fieldday.ieNaughton Centre, O’Connell House, Merrion Square, Dublin.

Is mór an onóir agus an phribhléid dom gur hiarradh orm an leabhar seo ‘Aistí ar an Nua- Ghaeilge in ómós do Bhreandán Ó Buachalla’ a sheoladh anseo anocht. Is mór an onóir dom é mar tugann sé caoi dhom, mar atá déanta ag eagarthóirí agus ag scríbhneoirí scolártha an leabhair seo, an meas atá againne, pobal scoláirí na Gaeilge agus an léinn Breandán O Buachalla dhúchais agus na hÉireann agus (1936–2010). Courtesy of the Ó Buachalla family

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na dtíortha eile ina bhfuil aithne air, Feirste Cois Cuain,’ agus ní miste a rá gur go dtugann sé caoi dhom an meas sin leabhar réabhlóideach a bhí ann a d’oscail a nochtadh anseo. Is fada mé féin go doirse sa léann ar ghaibh mórán tríd ina pearsanta, agus is fada sinn go léir ar dhiaidh. Agus b’fhéidir, i bhfoirm, go bhfuil shlí amháin nó eile, féna chomaoine mar síolta mórán gach aon ní eile dar dhein scoláire, mar scríbhneoir, mar threoraí, mar sé sa leabhar seo – an léann, an dúil sna mhachnóir, mar ollamh is mar dhuine. Is láimhscríbhinní, an cúram den litríocht, an fada sinn féna chomaoine mar is saothraí dúil mhallaithe an stair a thuiscint ar shlí gan stad é i ngort an léinn, saothraí a mbeadh ciall léi do dhaoine a chaith a bunúil, tionscantach, ceannródaíoch agus saol laistigh de dhioscúrsa na Gaeilge. Agus neamhspleách. is cuimhin liom – níl anseo ach smut atá Tá ráite ag eagarthóirí an leabhair bhreá greamaithe dem chuimhne féin – tuairisc seo, Aidan Doyle agus Siobhán Ní Laoire, nuachtáin (ní a bhíonn contúirteach, tá ráite acu sa réamhrá – agus ní hiontas admhaím) ar chaint a thug sé ag Éigse nó linn gurb é seo an chéad rud adéarfaí: ‘Ba Comóradh Airt Mhic Bhionaid ina ndúirt mhinic an port seo a leanas le cloisteáil sé maidir leis an stair mhór a bhreac an againn’ adeir siad nuair a chuir siad chun scríobhaí agus an file sin – ‘go bhfuil cead, an leabhair a thiomsú – “Níl anseo ach agus an ceart ag gach náisiún nó dream píosa an-bheag d’iomlán na n-ábhar léinn daoine a leagan féin dá stair a bheith acu.’ ar chuir Breandán suim iontu. Céard faoin Agus ar shlite eile, ba neamhchoitianta, litríocht, céard faoi chúrsaí láimhscríbhinní, i saol seo léann na Gaeilge, ba céard faoin staireolaíocht, céard faoi stair neamhchoitianta é do Mhuimhneach a na teanga féin?” Agus sin againn go comair bheith ag cur a dhá mhuinchille go deimhin é. Is mó san Breandán Ó Buachalla atá ann. i léann Chúige Uladh. Níor cheart gurb ait An chuid againn a bheadh ag plé le cúinne san, ach is rómhaith is léir dúinn go léir amháin den léann, bhí sé ansan romhainn. go mbíonn clathacha móra arda go minic An chuid eile againn a bheadh ag plé le timpeall ar chúigí na Gaeilge. Is dual don cúinnewww.fieldday.ie eile fós, bhí sé ansan rompu, leis. Mhuimhneach cloí le Corcaigh agus le Agus an chuid eile fós a bhí ag saothrú leo i Ciarraí, agus má ghabhann chomh fada leis mball eile ina dhiaidh sin de léann fairsing na Déise, tá amhras air. Ní leomhfadh Ultach na Gaeilge, bhí Breandán Ó Buachalla nóta a scríobh ar scríbhneoir ó Chiarraí; roimis gan bhréig. agus is le muintir an Iarthair Raiftearaí agus Agus sin é is scanrúla mar gheall air. Máirtín Ó Cadhain. Ba le hÉirinn uile go Mar níl aon ghné de léann na Gaeilge ar léir, agus Alba ina dhiaidh sin, scóip suime leag sé a lámh air nár fhág sé a lorg go agus leathantas scrúdaithe Bhreandáin. daingean uirthi. Níl aon ghné di ná féadfá Mura bhfuil breall orm, is mó atá scríte aige, a rá ina thaobh nár athraigh sé í, agus maidir le scrúdú teangeolaíochta amháin ar is minic, mar a chífimid, gur athraigh sé Ghaeilge Uladh – ‘Nótaí ar Ghaeilge Dhoire tuiscintí áirithe seanbhunaithe ó bhonn is Thír Eoghain’ in Éigse, ‘Nótaí ar Ghaeilge aníos, agus tóin thar ceann, agus droim an Tuaiscirt’ in Éigse arís, ‘Muinn, we, in ar ais. Ba mhionfhile deas ceolmhar caoin South East Ulster’ agus mar sin de, ná ar é Peadar Ó Doirnín go dtí gur léirigh sé i an mball tíre a bhfuil sé ina shaineolaí air, gceann de na leabhair thosaigh a scríbh sé Oileán Chléire. Gan trácht ar na dréachtaí go raibh doircheacht laistiar den bhinneas sin a chuimsíonn gach uile chúinne den san. Ba chaol é ár léargas, má shíleamar Ghaeilge atá, nó, a bhí beo, agus a bhfuil an go raibh a leithéid ann in aon chor, ba trácht a dhéin sé ar an ‘F-future in Modern chaol é ár léargas ar an ndlúthbhaint a Irish – a re-assessment’ a foilsíodh san bhí ag protastúnaigh Uladh le léann na Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy mar Gaeilge go dtí leabhar Bhreandáin ‘I mBéal sholaoid ghléineach amháin air. Ní cúrsaí

106 Breandán Ó Buachalla Uamhnach Ultach ag moladh Muimhnigh

iontais é gur spreag sé agus gur threoraigh is cuimhin liom, agus b’fheidir ná raibh gach sé oiread sin de ghlúin nua teangeolaithe, duine i gCorca Dhuibhne buíoch dó dá bharr. agus is de shuimiúlacht é gur iar-mhic léinn Níor leasc leis, ach oiread, agus ní leasc leis dá chuid seisear den deichniúr scoláirí a scríobh d’irisí agus do nuachtáin an phobail, sholáthraigh ábhar don leabhar seo, gan mar atá, cuir i gcás Comhar agus Foinse. Is é trácht ar an mbeirt eagarthóirí. sin, is scoláire é a thuigeann go maith gurbh Mar is fuiriste, leis, dearmad a dhéanamh ar éigean gurbh fhiú léann na Gaeilge a bheith ar phríomhchúram ollamh ollscoile agus ann, mura mbeadh pobal éigin, pobal lag ar léachtóir choláiste ar bith. Is é sin, mic léinn uairibh, pobal fé léigear ar uairibh, ach mura a theagasc, a spreagadh, a mhisniú agus mbeadh pobal na Gaeilge, pobal foghlamtha iad a chur ar pé bóthar is oiriúnaí dóibh. fásta na Gaeilge ann, lena shealbhú. Agus ba chuma ar mhic léinn fochéime, Dá éagmais sin go léir, áfach, i nó ar mhic léinn iarchéime dochtúireachta gcaitheamh an ama go raibh na gnóthaí iad, chaith Breandán Ó Buachalla iomlán tromchúiseacha riaracháin á gcur de, agus a chuid dúthrachta leo. Tá a fhios agamsa. é ag labhairt go rialta ag éigsí agus ag Bhí mé ann. B’aonaid fáiscthe teagaisc gach scoileanna léinn agus ag comhdhálacha léacht dá dtugadh sé dá chuid fochéimithe. náisiúnta agus idirnáisiúnta, bhí sé ag Go minic gan aon nótaí, nó le nótaí scáinte. obair i gcaitheamh an ama go léir sin ar Agus ba léir air go raibh an t-ullmhúchán ba an magnum opus, ar an saothar ollmhór, a mhine déanta aige i gcomhair na hócáide, bhfuil eolas anois againn air, mar Aisling ba chuma ar rang chéad bhliana oíche a bhí Ghéar. Cad is féidir liomsa a rá mar gheall ann, nó rang céime le honóracha. Thuig ar Aisling Ghéar? Cad is féidir le haon sé go feilmeanta nach ócáid dáilthe eolais duine againn a rá mar gheall air, mar amháin a bhí sa léacht, ach ócáid spreagtha ní heol dom gur deineadh oiread is aon agus gríosaithe. Is é sin le rá, bhí meas aige léirmheas ceart fós air. Agus b’fhéidir gur ar a chuid mac léinn, agus ba mhór aige iad. fada go ndéanfaidh. Mar is dóigh liom go Tá treise áirithe á cur agam leis seo, mar is dtógfaidh sé tamall fada de bhlianaigh fós www.fieldday.iemar scoláire foilsithe is mó atá aithne ag sara mbeidh scoláire ar bith in ann dul pobal na Gaeilge air, seachas na daoine sin ar a bhruach, ní áirím aon ní fódúil ná go raibh sé mar phribhléid acu teacht faoina criticiúil ná cabhraitheach a rá ina thaobh. stiúir. Agus b’fhéidir gurb ionadh le daoine Ní hamháin gur ríleabhar de chuid na go bhféadfadh duine a bhí chomh saothrach Gaeilge atá ann, ní hamháin go bhfuil sé broidiúil sin i ngort an léinn, go bhféadfadh ar cheann de na leabhair is tábhachtaí ar sé oiread sin duaidh a chaitheamh le cúraimí fad dar foilsíodh inár dteanga (agus níl ar bheag é meas daoine eile orthu go minic. i gceist agam dul amach ar aon chluiche Agus bhí a shainiúlacht féin ag baint comparáide anso), ach is leabhar é a leis mar stiúrthóir iarchéime. Bhí sé dian, athraíonn ó bhonn ár dtuiscint ar stair na dícheallach nuair ba ghá, agus ní scaoilfeadh hÉireann sa tseachtú agus san ochtú haois sé aon ní liopaisteach ná sleamchúiseach déag. Is beag leabhar in aon teanga ar thairis, mar is ceart. Ach nuair a bhí muinín féidir é sin a rá ina thaobh. Athraíonn sé aige as an mac léinn, lig sé don duine dul ar ár dtuiscint ar na Stíobhartaigh, ar an aos aghaidh as a stuaim féin, ach an tsúil ghrinn léinn, ar an aisling, ar cad chuige a bhíomar léir a bheith tamall ar shiúl i gcónaí. Agus tá sa tseachtú agus san ochtú haois déag. a fhios agam féin, mar ollamh ollscoile, gur Agus mar is dual don stair is fearr, mar chosain sé an Ghaeilge laistigh agus lasmuigh is gné den litríocht, leis, í an stair, tá sé den chóras, mar is beag uain dá dtagann scríte i stíl shainiúil shoiléir Bhreandáin nach mbíonn bagairt éigin fénár ndéin. Ar an Uí Bhuachalla, stíl láidir, stíl ghreanta, gcuma chéanna, bhí sé gníomhach ag cur in stíl sheolta, stíl atá lánchothromúil leis an aghaidh dhúnadh Scoil Dhún Chaoin, fé mar ábhar atá idir chamáin phléite aige. Stíl

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í a scuabann léi tú nuair is ceart, agus a arís orm, ach tá cuimhne lag arís agam bhuaileann buille nuair is gá. Stíl í, leis — ar agallamh a cuireadh ar Bhreandán, is agus tá an-chathú orm é seo a tharraingt dóigh liom, sa nuachtán Inniu, ina ndúirt anuas — stíl í atá fileata nuair is gá, mar, sé gur bheag rud a thug oiread pléisiúir agus n’fheadar b’fhéidir gur mhaith le dó seachas a bheith ina shuí ag bord agus Breandán féin ná luafainn é seo, mar file é timpeallaithe ag lámhscríbhinní. Sé ba ea é tráth. Na chéad dréachtaí riamh a chéad dán a ceadaíodh le haghaidh Aisling d’fhoilsigh sé, ba dhánta iad, agus mura Ghéar! Ní beag de ransú lámhscríbhinní bhfuil breall arís orm, in áit éigin i gcúl mo an méid sin, ní áirím na leabhair agus an chloiginn, tá meathchuimhne theimhneach leathanach de nótaí atá ar chúl an tsaothair. éigin agam gur bhain sé duaiseanna Mar níl aon ní a scríobhann Breandán ná orthu. Cuimhnímis mar sin ar an íobairt a fuil bunaithe go suite is go daingean ar dhein sé an fhilíocht a thréigint ar son na an bhfianaise. An leabhar beag úd – voil, scoláireachta! Agus má tá an stíl seo fileata, leabhar beag i gcomparáid leis an gceann mar adeirim, is cuma nó sleachta as úrscéal so, abair – an leabhar beag ar an gcaoine codanna eile den leabhar. Na tuarascálacha agus an chaointeoireacht gabhann siar ar ar fheachtais na Stíobhartach in Albain, thuiscintí go raibh talamh slán déanta orthu mar shampla, nó Ball Dearg Ó Dónaill ag Rosc ... etc. Ní ghlacann sé go bhfuil ceist ar teacht chun tíre i gCionn tSáile. Agus ós ag bith socraithe, ní ghlacann sé leis an bhfocal caint ar an teanga fós atáim, mar is dual is údarásaí amuigh, mura bhfuil fianaise á don leabhar atá réabhlóideach agus ceann thacú. Agus ina chás féin is tonn fianaise a ródaíoch, ní foláir dó an friotal a dhealbhú sholáthraíonn sé, má tá fáil uirthi, nó tonna dó féin, go fiú ar leibhéal an fhoclóra. fianaise féin, má tá an ponc le bualadh Má tá gluais ag dul leis an leabhar, ní hé abhaile thar amhras anonn. nach dtuigfimis an teanga, ach mar áis le Agus tá cloiste againn go léir, an téarmaíocht bheacht chruinn a leagadh monabhar sa chúinne, agus b’fhéidir go ar fhoclóir coitianta atá dulta seasc nó minic inár gcroí istigh, canathaobh in ainm stálaithe,www.fieldday.ie agus le craobhú agus míniú agus na ndéithe go léir nár scríobh sé leabhar fíniú a dhéanamh ar an nGaeilge féin, gairid. Ná féadfadh sé an argóint chéanna dualgas ba dhóigh leat a bheith ar gach a chruthú, an téis chéanna a shuíomh, i scoláire. An teanga a fhágaint beagáinín leath na leathanach, nó a dtrian díobh, nó níos fearr ina dhiaidh seachas mar a bhí sé an ceathrú cuid. Níorbh é sin a chuir sé roimhe, mar adúirt Máirtín Ó Cadhain, ach chuige a dhéanamh. Chuir sé chuige, fara a amháin nach cuid an bheagáin í seo. bhfuil ráite agam, chuir sé chuige ráiteas i Is mar ghaisce scoláireachta, ar ndóigh, dtaoibh na Gaeilge agus léann na Gaeilge a is fearr a chuimhneoimid air, gan amhras, dhéanamh. Chuir sé chuige a léiriú gurbh í an t-athscríobh seo atá déanta aige ar an Ghaeilge foinse cheart na staire, foinse an stair. Revisionist den chéad scoth é cheart an léinn Éireannaigh, ár bhforas Breandán, ach is mar théarma molta a feasa orainn féin, agus gurbh fhuar agus bhainim leas as anseo, seachas sa chéill a gurbh fholamh an staraí nó an tráchtaire a bhíonn againn de ghnáth. Dúirt cheana, bheadh ag obair sa ghort seo againn féin, á agus mé ag trácht ar Art Mac Bionaid gur ceal. Bíodh a theist sin an t-ardmheas atá ag chuimhin liom, ceapaim, Breandán a rá go staraithe air — agus dream iad na staraithe bhfuil gach náisiún i dteideal a leagan féin a dheineann cosaint go fíochmhar ar a den stair a bheith acu. Ní hionann san, ar mbranar féin den léann – bíodh gur beag ndóigh, agus ceapadóireacht nó finscéalta duine díobh a thuigeann i gceart an leabhar nó bréaga. Is ionann é agus scrúdú a a chuir sé de. Seodchomhartha beo don dhéanamh ar na foinsí agus an fhírinne léann agus den Ghaeilge é Aisling Ghéar. a thaighde dá réir. Mura bhfuil dul amú

108 Breandán Ó Buachalla Flaith na nÉigeas

gcaoinfimís a imeacht antráthach i Flaith na nÉigeas gcuideachta a mhuintire Aingeal, Brídóg Clíona, Traolach agus na garchlainne, Cathal Goan Marcus, Cuán agus Seán Óg chomh maith lena chuid deartháireacha agus deirfiúr agus a chuid daoine muinteartha, cairde agus Spoken at the funeral service for Breandán comhleacaithe ar fad. Ó Buachalla, Unitarian Church, St. Is iomaí duine agaibh ar fearr agus ar Stephen’s Green, Dublin, May 22, 2010. faide an aithne a bhí agaibh air ná agamsa agus beidh bhur gcloch féin agaibh le cur Má bhíonn a leithéid de rud lena charn ach cuirfidh mé tús leis an ómós seo ag meabhrú siar ar shaol an mhic léinn ann agus ceart agus cóir, tá corradh mór agus deich mbliain agus fiche sé tuigthe againn uilig nach ó shin. An chéad ghlinnchuimhne atá agam air mar mhac léinn chéadbhliana bhfuil sé ceart ná cóir gur ag ná an róba dubh acadúil ar foluain ina cur feartlaoi le Breandán Ó dhiaidh aniar aige agus é ag siúl gan stad Buachalla a bheadh muid inniu siar is aniar ag barr an tseomra léachta i mBelfield. Fear aclaí aigeanta a raibh ach bhí sé sa chinniúint gur mar líofacht, údarás agus tábhacht ag baint sin a bheadh, faraor. Ba fear lena raibh le rá aige chonaictheas domh, ach go raibh de mhíbhuntáiste agam nár é Breandán a chuirfeadh troid thuig mé focal óna bhéal óir ba é an chéad mhaith suas i gcoinne an chlaoin fhear le Gaeilge na Mumhan a casadh i mo bealach orm. Níorbh fhada gur agus a thabharfadh faoi shnámh mhéadaigh mo thuiscint ar na focail a bhí i gcoinne an tsrutha le croí agus á rá aige, mo mheas dá réir ar an ealaíon, www.fieldday.iean ghéarchúis agus saothar a bhain lena anam ach is é féin ba thúisce a dtiomsú agus mo chion ar an duine croíúil d’aithneodh nárbh fhéidir an ceart a bhí dár spreagadhna mar mhic léinn chinniúint - dá ghránna ná dá tríd an mháistreacht íontach teanga sin i dtreo na fiosrachta agus an hurraime don éagóraí ná dá thobainne - a léann leathan a chleacht sé féin ar feadh chloí. An saothraí dothuirsithe a shaoil. Bíodh is nárbh é an saol acadúil a samhlaíodh dúinn a leanfadh a bhí in ann domhsa, ná do na céadta eile mac léinn dá chuid nach mé, choinnigh air i mbun pinn agus staidéir go Breandán i dteagmháil i gcónaí, ag tabhairt deo, an scoláire a choinneodh misnigh agus dúshláin agus é ag léiriú spéise ionainne agus sna gairmeacha éagsúla air gan staonadh ag cothú an beatha a bhí leagtha amach dúinn. Ba leasc léinn in Éirinn agus thar lear, tá leis an tsamhail, déarfainn, ach ba cineál treoraí againn é. sé ceannsaithe ag na Dúile agus Mar fhear léinn, is i mo i chathair tógtha ar ais chucu féin acu. Tá dhúchais féin a d’fhág sé a lorg den cheád sé dlite dó, Flaith na nÉigeas, uair, Corcaíoch óg a chuir comaoin orainn mar léachtóir agus mar thaighdeoir ar shaol go ndéanfaimid a chuid dán na seandachta agus na scríbhneoireachta iomadúla a cheiliúradh agus go in Ultaibh ag deireadh an ochtú céad déag. Nuair a foilsíodh I mBeál Feirste Cois Cuain

109 Field Day review

Breandán O Buachalla (1936–2010). Courtesy of the Ó Buachalla family

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faoi dheireadh na seascaidí, bhí scríbhneoir leith go dtí le fíordheireanaí. Faoi shéala An oilte agus stílí cruthanta i ndiaidh theacht os Chlóchomhair arís d’fhoilsigh sé eagráin de comhair an tsaoil mhóir. Níor lagaigh suim shaothar Pheadair Uí Dhoirnín agus Chathail s’aige i gcúrsaí Ultacha ariamh idir theanga, Bhuí Mhic Giolla Gunna sa tréimhse stair agus litríocht agus ba mhinic a thriall ó chéanna agus bhí sé ina chomh-eagarthóir ar thuaidh i mbun cainte agus taighde ó shin i imleabharthaí 1&11 de Nua Dhuanaire.

110 Breandán Ó Buachalla Flaith na nÉigeas

Ba tearc scoláire lena linn a thug leo é ar an iliomad clár. Níl ann ach bliain ó chomh ceannasach sin léargas ar shaíocht na rinne sé sraith raidió le mo chomhleacaí Gaeilge idir theanga agus litríocht. Is i réimse Cathal Poirtéir agus gan ann ach seachtain na teangeolaíochta a bhain sé dochtúireacht ó chonaic mé é ar chlár ar TG4 faoi na amach le staideár ar Ghaeilge Chléire agus Bailitheoirí Ceoil. is iomaí sin alt in irisí éagsúla inar fhoilsigh Cad é na suáilcí mar sin a shamhlaím le sé toradh a chuid taighde agus anailíse ar Flaith seo na nÉigeas atá faoi chlár inniu? ghnéithe de dheilbhíocht agus de chomhréir Fiosracht shíoraí agus cíocras léinn; san na Gaeilge. Ach is é an saothar is mó a d’fhág oispidéal dó, trí lá ó shin, bhí leabharthaí sé againn le huadhacht ná Aisling Ghéar: lena thaobh agus na cártaí innéacsa faoina Na Stiobhartaigh agus an tAos Léinn. láimh. Anailís uileghabhálach é seo ar fhilíocht Fís mar gur aisling gheár a taibhríodh pholaitiúil na Gaeilge le linn an tseachtú dó féin go mbeadh glacadh coiteanta le agus an ochtú céad déag agus staidéar Gaeilge mar theanga labhartha náisiúnta in nuálach cuimsitheach idirdhisciplíneach ar Éirinn; ní de thaisme a chruthaigh sé corpus an tSeacaibíteachas agus go deimhin ar an ollmhór taighde agus foilseachán trí mheán tseicteachas a mhúnlaigh traidisiún liteartha na teanga sin. na nGael roimhe agus i ndiaidh briseadh Faobhar mar nár spáráil sé é féin ná aon Shéamas an Chaca. duine eile san anailís agus sa ransú a rinné Ba fear é ar mhór leis cúis agus nár sé ar gach ábhar ar chuir sé spéis ann. sheachain conspóid. Déarfá gur thug sé Ach thar aon rud samhlaím féile leis mar toighis áirithe don chonspóid ina chuid gur roinn sé go fial lenár thainig ina dháil. scríbhinní agus tráth den tsaol ina chuid I mo chás féin, is cuimhin liom cúpla bliain litreacha chuig irisí agus nuachtáin áirithe. ó shin gur thug Breandán cuireadh anonn Níor umhlaigh sé don tuairim choitianta go hollscoil Notre Dame i South Bend domh agus d’fháiltigh sé roimh athléamh ar féin agus do mo bhean chéile Maighread an tuiscint a raibh glacadh forleathan áit ar chaith sé chomh fial agus chomh www.fieldday.ieleis – ní mar bhall d’aon dream faiseanta flaithiúil sin linn gurbh aoibhinn linn ar fad aithbhreithnithe a d’fheidhmigh sé ach mar an seal goirid sin ina chuideachta. Ba mhar inleacht ghéar fhiosrach neamhspleách an gcéanna an fhéile a léirigh Breandán dá – agus smaoiním sa chomhthéacs sin lucht léite, éisteachta agus féachana in gach ar an leabhar s’aige An Caoine agus an réimse saoil dár thug sé faoi. Chaointeoireacht inár thug sé dúshlán Labhair an tAthair Micheál MacCraith scoláireacht Thorna agus Uí Thuama le cheana féin ar an alt a scríobh Breandán malairt léimh ar mheadaracht agus ar san Irish Times ar ócáid bhás an Athar chruthú an Chaoine agus Caoineadh Airt Cholmáin Uí Uallacháin. Cuirfidh mé Uí Laoghaire go háirithe.. deireadh le mo chuidse cainte inniu le Sular thuig an chuid is mó againn go gabháil eile ar fhocail Bhreandáin féin faoin raibh a leithéid de rud agus daonchairdeas Athair Ó hUallacháin: nó philanthropy ann, bhí cúrsaí Gaeilge Nár luí cré na hÉireann róthrom ort a ag teacht i dtir air de thairbhe cur chuige Bhreandáin chaoin an chroí mhóir. Bhreandáin in UCD ar dtús agus in Notre Dame ina dhiaidh. I mo réimse féin den tsaol thuig sé tábhacht agus fiúntas an tráchtaire acadúil neamhchlaonta i gcláracha teilifíse agus raidió. Chomh fada siar le Telefís Scoile agus cláracha ar fhilí Oirdheisceart Uladh ba aoinchainteoir agus rannpháirtí rialta

111 Field Day review

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112 The Pursuit of Helen Landreth: Robert Emmet, Gender and Historical Scholarship in Mid-Twentieth- Century Ireland Thomas Bartlett

1

Helen Landreth had two careers: www.fieldday.ieher second, and better known, was as cataloguer, and then curator, of the Irish Collection at the Burns Library, Boston College, from 1948 until 1979. She was accorded the title of consultant to the Irish Collection when she retired aged eighty- seven. During the later years of her tenure at Boston College she was awarded many honours — a gold medal from the Éire Society of Boston in 1964 and a

The Castle Steps, Dublin. Photo: Bicentennial Medal from Boston Nevill Johnson, 1953–54. © RTÉ College among them — and Johnson Collection

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shortly before her retirement she was came to Boston College: it was in effect her 1 Landreth Papers, Burns acclaimed as ‘one of the special people first as well as her last position. Library, Boston College Box 2, 1-29: Fr Charles of Boston College’.1 She died in 1981. Things did not at all work out as she F. Donovan, SJ, to Helen But her earlier career as historical writer, might have hoped in her new appointment. Landreth [hereafter, from 1925 to 1949, is not nearly so well Fr James Maxwell, SJ, was elected president HL], 15 January 1976. known. During this period she published of Boston College in 1951 and quickly made The Landreth Papers [hereafter, LP], housed two books, Dear Dark Head, an Intimate it clear that he had no interest whatsoever in in the Burns Library, Story of Ireland (1936) and The Pursuit, matters Irish. Landreth later recalled that Fr Boston College, are of Robert Emmet (1949), both published Connolly was abruptly ordered to ‘close the divided into eight series: by Whittesley-McGraw Hill, New [Irish] collection and to fire me’. However, series 1 contains her correspondence from York. Dear Dark Head failed to secure Fr Connolly retained her in the library in 1927 to 1978, set out an Irish publisher, but the Dublin firm charge of Overnight Books, a position that, in strict chronological Browne and Nolan published Pursuit, though it kept her in touch with the Irish order. Unless otherwise also in 1949.2 It was then by far the most Collection, also brought with it a drop stated, all further references to HL’s thoroughly researched volume on Emmet, in status — she was now a ‘Clerk grade correspondence are to and represented the fruit of eight years’ 1’ — and a cut in salary. Nothing could this series. Series 2–4 work, from 1938 to 1946, principally in be done until the departure of Maxwell in contain her published Dublin archives, but also in the Public 1958: even then there were obstacles, for works, reviews, manuscripts and Record Offices of Belfast and London the world of the librarian was changing research notes. Series 5 in the immediate post-war period. Her rapidly and appropriate qualifications were contains photographs achievement in producing such an archivally required for employment and promotion. relating to HL’s life. dense volume is all the more impressive When Landreth sought to have her position Series 6 contains her scrapbooks filled with because her researches were carried out upgraded in 1959, the administration newspaper clippings and during the difficult years of the Second rejected her application because she had reviews of her work. World War, or ‘the Emergency’ as it was left Teachers College, Columbia University, Series 7 contains her known in independent Ireland. During without completing her degree and thus legal papers and series 8 contains miscellaneous these wartime years, Landreth lived lacked appropriate ‘professional standing’. family and personal frugallywww.fieldday.ie in Dublin, surviving precariously She pointed to her work in cataloguing the material. on an advance of 1,500 dollars from her Irish Collection as ‘testimony not only to my 2 Landreth proposed a American publisher, on capital from her late competence in library technique but to my translation of Dear Dark Head into Irish father’s estate, on occasional journalism, expert knowledge in the field of Irish history but this was turned principally for the Irish Press, and on fees and culture’. She described her humiliation down by An Gúm for genealogical research.3 when she discovered that her name was left in 1938, and while Landreth returned to the United States off the college catalogue. It was as late as Browne and Nolan expressed some interest in 1946, and spent the next two years 1967, when Landreth was seventy-five years in publishing it in seeing Pursuit through the press. In 1948, old and nearly twenty years into the job, that 1940, nothing came she readily accepted an invitation from a modest boost in annual salary from 5,122 of it. Almost certainly, Fr Terence Connolly, SJ, the librarian dollars to 5,800 dollars was recommended: wartime scarcities explain why it was never at Boston College, to catalogue the only then was her position as cataloguer published in Ireland. college’s Irish Collection. Connolly was (and later curator) of the Irish Collection LP, Ms 01-45, Box 1, an enthusiastic admirer of Landreth’s regularized and recognized.5 Correspondence, 1-28 Dear Dark Head. They met through the The rather dispiriting story of Landreth’s (1927–65). 3 LP, series 2: published good offices of the widow of the executed quest for recognition in Boston College works; Payment to HL Erskine Childers, Mary (‘Molly’) Childers, is a necessary corrective to the rosy, even of 3 gns from a Mrs who had returned home to Boston for saccharine, picture presented in various Burgoyne, 13 May medical treatment in 1946. Landreth noted profiles published towards the end of her 1942. Her 1,500 dollars would have been worth candidly years later: ‘I was in Brooklyn, career: ‘The grand lady who presided for about £300 in 1938. with no money and no work, ... I needed a years over the Irish Collection [and whose] 4 ‘An Informal History job.’4 She was fifty-six years old when she publications, scholarship and encyclopedic of the Special Irish

114 The Pursuit of Helen Landreth

Collection’, a typescript written by HL in 1974, and available in the reading room of Burns Library. 5 Memorandum from Fr Brendan Connolly, Librarian, to Richard Leonard, Financial Controller, Boston College, 16 February 1967.

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Dust jacket cover of original edition of The Pursuit of Robert Emmet (Browne and Nolan, Dublin, 1949).

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knowledge of all things Irish commanded republican movement ... and with survivors 6 C. F. Donovan, SJ, D. R. the respect of scholars on both sides of of past struggles for freedom’. In the words Dunigan, SJ, and P. A. FitzGerald, SJ, History the Atlantic Ocean.’6 There is also a bitter (presumably) of its inveterate republican of Boston College, from irony here. Just as Landreth struggled for editor Brian Ó hUiginn, ‘of Ireland’s future, the Beginnings to 1990 recognition in Boston College, with her lack Miss Landreth is hopeful: the struggle (New York, 1990), of academic qualifications being held against for freedom will go on’.10 For a time, she 463. Boston College Magazine, 41, 1 (1978). her, so too in her Irish historical writings aligned herself openly with those Irish 7 Evi Gkotzaridis, Trials she encountered stiff criticism because of her republicans who had launched a bombing of Irish History: lack of professional training. The librarians campaign in Britain in January 1939, and Genesis and Evolution looked askance at anyone who lacked even a who claimed that Irish legislation against of a Reappraisal, 1938– 2000 (Abingdon, 2006). certificate in library science presuming to be them proved that ‘England is governing 8 Nadia Clare Smith, treated (and paid) as a library professional; Ireland by remote control’. From a public A ‘Manly Study’? as a result of the Irish historiographical platform in Dublin, where she was flanked Irish Women revolution usually dated to 1938 and the by Máire Brugha, whose militantly anti- Historians, 1868–1949 (Basingstoke, 2006). founding of the journal Irish Historical Treatyite husband Cathal Brugha had been 9 An early example of Studies, historians insisted that anyone shot in one of the opening gun battles of the Landreth’s robust style writing on Irish history should possess an Irish Civil War, Landreth had proclaimed: was revealed when advanced degree.7 On both counts, in both Seamus MacManus, author of The Story of her careers, she was isolated. it is not right for Irish men and women of the Irish Race There were also gender and nationality to be murdered and imprisoned to help (Connecticut, 1922), issues surrounding Landreth’s foray into and comfort and secure the British complained bitterly Irish history. Put bluntly, one of the features Empire ... the first Irishman who dies a that she had not acknowledged his work of its new ‘professionalization’ was that the martyr to the Treason Bill of 1939 takes in her Dear Dark Head. practice of Irish history was masculinized his place with Pearse and MacDonagh Landreth retorted in the 1940s; women were discouraged and Plunkett and Connolly and Rory that her book went from proceeding with what was increasingly O’Connor and Liam Mellowes and far beyond his and that his book had not regarded solely as a ‘manly study’.8 In Cathal Brugha ... inspired her — ‘Ireland thewww.fieldday.ie restricted circumstances of Free State itself did that’. Seamus Ireland in the decade after the Emergency, According to the Irish Republic, she MacManus to HL, 16 there was also a certain anti-foreigner, reportedly added, ‘and I envy him his January 1937, and reply, 29 January 1937. even anti-American, animus to Irish life, a death’.11 10 LP, issue of Wolfe Tone product of wartime hardship, isolationism Weekly, 12 November and censorship. Landreth fell foul of both 2 1938. these developments. To these circumstances, 11 Irish Republic, 2, 10 (1940), under we might add the matter of her prickly Landreth was born into a Methodist the headline, ‘Helen personality: sensitive, quick to take offence, family at Nashville, Tennessee, on 15 Landreth Attacks “Free” often paranoid, and always combative, she December 1892. Her father was head of State Dictatorship’ [my unleashed counterblasts at any reviewer the Engineering Department at Vanderbilt emphasis]. who offered even mild criticism of her University, and assumed a similar position work.9 Such attributes, while acceptable or at Union College, Schenectady, New York, even welcome in a man, were not deemed in 1894. There were four children; Helen seemly in a woman in de Valera’s Ireland. had an older brother and sister, and a Finally, Landreth’s work was questioned younger brother died in childhood. She was in post-war Ireland because of the never close to her sister, and her brother controversial political position she had broke off all contact with her when she adopted during the Emergency. Even before converted to Catholicism in 1938. Her the outbreak of war, according to the Wolfe numerous biographical notes pointedly Tone Weekly in November 1938, Landreth never mention her mother. Landreth had ‘already met many of the leaders of the attended Teachers College, Columbia

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12 Biographical data on HL University, in 1915, where she studied Ireland on her return to the United States. by John Larner, director fine arts, chemistry, and philosophy. She This was eventually published in 1936 as of public relations at left abruptly in February 1918 before Dear Dark Head.15 Boston College, c.1976. 12 13 Grant Overlord to HL, completing the requirements for a degree. The volume was, as she explained, an 22 April 1927, enclosing As with so much else concerning Landreth’s ‘informal history, from legendary days to a glowing testimonial career, I can offer no explanation either for the first meeting of the Dáil ... [and offered] about HL’s work and her rather late start in third-level education ... a combination of legend, history, social judgement; Arthur S. Hoffman to editor of (she was twenty-three years old when she history and history of literature, and so Cosmopolitan, 3 July entered Columbia) or for her failure to covered many aspects of Irish life’. Eight 1930. graduate. She never married. thousand copies were published and the 14 ‘Ireland had seldom By 1927, she was working as an editorial book sold well. Early reviews were generally figured in my thoughts. I knew nothing about assistant at Collier’s magazine, and by positive; some were enthusiastic. Michael the country. I knew few 1930 had moved on to McClure’s, where MacWhite, an Irish diplomat in the United Irish people. One of she was, according to the editor, Arthur S. States, acclaimed it as ‘one of the best books my great grandmothers Hoffman, ‘my right hand man’.13 However, that has been published in recent years’. had been Irish but that had been so long ago — by this date, Landreth’s destiny was already He continued, ‘the merit of this work will, nearly a hundred years. determined. Despite her almost complete I am sure, place [Helen Landreth’s] name She was never spoken lack of any Irish background — a distant beside those of Mrs Stopford Green and of by the family now, great-grandparent, an Irish cook and an Lady Gregory, her brilliant forerunners in and I had no heritage 16 of Irish tradition’: Irish gardener in her home in Schenectady the field of Irish history’. George Creel, Helen Landreth, ‘Irish hardly qualify — she had determined Woodrow Wilson’s wartime director of Panorama of People to make Ireland her career. Her Irish propaganda, concurred; he hailed the and Places’ in the Irish- epiphany occurred in 1925 when she took book as ‘the hagiography of a race’, and American magazine The Advocate, n.d. [1936]. leave of absence from her magazine job commended its author for appreciating 15 Her title Dear Dark to accompany her father to Poland, where that personages like the Earl of Tyrone, Head (A dhruimfhionn he had business interests. Her ship, the Theobald Wolfe Tone or Robert Emmet donn dílis) derived from RMS Caronia, called into Cóbh, formerly ‘are not intelligible until linked with the custom of Gaelic www.fieldday.iepoets who used this Queenstown, near Cork, and as Landreth the half-Gods, High Kings and warrior endearment as a code gazed at the windswept coastline, she felt a princes who strode so proudly through the for Ireland, to which stirring within. Some years later she recalled dark centuries before the written record’. they rarely referred the moment: Landreth’s book, he added, would have directly. 16 Michael MacWhite to been all the poorer if she had omitted ‘the B. Greenwald, secretary As a general thing, Irish people did many chapters dealing with times when to the Columbia Celtic not stand very high in my estimation. wizards communed with the gods and Society, 12 December And I was not proud of having some demons, when druids lighted Sam[h]ain 1936. MacWhite may have been the publisher’s Irish blood. But this Irish blood, as fires and the Fir Bolg and Tuatha de Danaan reader for the volume. the Caronia steamed into Queenstown waged chivalric battle’. Much of this was 17 George Creel to T. Beck harbour, began to assert itself. ... A necessarily ‘fable and fantasy’, but that (publisher), 1 September faintly stirring curiosity drew me out [on did not matter, for it was ‘better by far to 1936. deck], a vague sense of being at home cherish legends that strengthen, ennoble and kept me there. Why did I feel so drawn inspire than some sordid truth’.17 to this land about which I knew nothing. Other reviewers were more critical. ... Before the ship had finished unloading The New York Herald Tribune noted its at Queenstown, I had resolved to know ‘emotional’ and ‘passionate’ tone, and more about Ireland.14 advised its readers ‘not [to] expect the cool objectivity of the ideal historian’, while the With breathtaking audacity and utter New York Sun reviewer commented that single-mindedness, Landreth pitched herself ‘it is a sympathetic, accurate if rather too headlong into researching a history of sentimental a treatment of Irish history’

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Studio portrait of Helen Landreth c. 1912. Landreth Papers, Burns Library, Boston College.

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and added that ‘her indignation burns legend makers ... [but] ... it is not history’. through the texture of her narrative’. Colum conceded that she had consulted Padraic Colum’s review in the Saturday many original source materials but he Review of Literature was the most severe. pointed out that ‘to comprehend what these He took issue with her title, Dear Dark documents mean requires a long training’, Head (of recent, not medieval provenance, which Landreth clearly lacked. And he he claimed), questioned her use of sources rather cruelly advised his readers that if and wrote that her book was merely ‘history they wanted a proper history of Ireland, as it became reflected in the minds of

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18 Saturday Review of they should turn to the recently published — Myles Vincent Ronan, Richard Francis Literature 14 (1936), volume by Edmund Curtis.18 Hayes, P. S. O’Hegarty — but mostly 11; Edmund Curtis, Landreth’s work was unfortunate in women (Alice Stopford Green, Dorothy A History of Ireland (1936). Curtis was its timing. To bring passion, emotion MacArdle, Rosamond Jacob), who had professor of history at and indignation to the writing of Irish never attended university or who had no Trinity College, Dublin. history was out of fashion by the late formal training in historical research, were 19 Gkotzaridis, Trials 1930s. T. W. Moody (Ph.D., University of rebuked for their scholarly shortcomings, of Irish History; see also the excellent London, 1934) and Robin Dudley Edwards their emotional identification with their biographies of Robin (Ph.D., University of London, 1935) were subjects and, by and large, excluded or even Dudley Edwards (by prominent in the founding of the Ulster expelled from the academy.21 Aidan Clarke) and Society for Irish Historical Studies and On the publication of Dear Dark Head, T. W. Moody (by Vincent Comerford), the Irish Historical Society (both 1936). Landreth was sometimes compared to in Dictionary of Their avowed aim was to impose what they the feisty Stopford Green who had never Irish Biography conceived of as scientific, objective and attended university but whose researches [hereafter, DIB], 9 vols. impartial standards on research into Irish in Irish history had led her to claim that (Cambridge, 2009). 20 Mary O’Dowd, ‘From history, to make it ‘professional’, as defined Irish history had been falsified for political Morgan to MacCurtain: by the practice of history in London.19 Irish reasons by English historians. She had not Women Historians historical writing now required scholarly hesitated to engage in a furious debate in Ireland from the detachment, exhaustive and meticulously with Robert Dunlop from the University 1790s to the 1990s’, in Maryann Gialanella documented work in primary sources, of Manchester, ‘an orthodox gatekeeper of Valiulis and Mary detailed footnotes, calm conclusions coolly history’.22 But by the time that Stopford O’Dowd, eds., Women arrived at, and an adamant rejection of Green died in 1929, when Landreth began and Irish History fable, myth and legend, no matter how to publish, the academy had decisively (Dublin ,1997), 38–58. 21 All of these, except heart-warming, venerable or inspiring. On slammed the door in the face of the for Síle Ní Chinnéide, just about every count, Landreth’s work talented, untrained, non-academic — and are accorded entries failed to pass muster with the stern male female — historian. in DIB. Ní Chinnéide guardians of the portals of Irish history. produced a very useful www.fieldday.ieedition of the notebooks There was a further problem: Helen 3 of Charles-Etienne Landreth was a woman. The key attributes Coquebert de Montbret, of the new professional history — scientific, In February 1936 Landreth sailed to Ireland French consul to impartial, objective – were associated on the SS Manhattan to research the last Ireland. Ronan was a Catholic priest, Hayes principally with men, while those chapter of Dear Dark Head , which dealt was a medical doctor. indelibly linked to the earlier writing of with the period from Easter Week 1916 22 Smith, A ‘Manly Study’, Irish history — emotive, sentimental and to the meeting of the first Dáil. On her 49. partisan — were considered as essentially arrival, she had a fortunate encounter with 23 Eoin MacNéill to HL, 12 February 1936. female qualities. One result of the Richard Best, director of the National ‘historiographical revolution’ in Irish history Library of Ireland, who not only gave her was to ensure that men dominated the field, a permit to undertake research there, but and the university positions. In the early also invited her to lunch in his home on 1920s and 1930s, there had been many Upper Leeson Street the following Saturday. outstanding female history professors — There she met scholars, notably the famous Mary Hayden at University College, Dublin UCD Professor of Early Irish History (UCD), Mary Donovan O’Sullivan and Síle Eoin MacNéill, who, Landreth recalled, Ní Chinnéide at University College, Galway, asked ‘to hear about your project of an Constantia Maxwell at Trinity College, Irish history’, as well as a lecturer in Irish Dublin (TCD), and Maud Clarke at Queen’s at the same university, Gerard Murphy, University, Belfast — but as the ‘revolution’ whose work she would cite in Dear Dark advanced, men came to dominate and fill Head.23 The invitation to Best’s house was the top jobs.20 Gifted amateurs, some men followed by others of a similar nature. At

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Sarah Purser’s house — daughter of a late Ireland, this time on the SS Franconia. She 24 In December 1936 to provost of TCD ‘and an artist of repute and hoped to support herself on money received January 1937, The Advocate published a a famous hostess’ — Landreth met Elizabeth from her late father’s estate, and she had series of articles by HL Yeats, the poet’s sister, his brother Jack, secured the 1,500-dollar advance from her under the title ‘Irish and Oliver St. John Gogarty. Later she was publisher. Eight years were to elapse before Panorama of People and introduced to Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington, she returned to the United States with over Places’, in which she described her visit to who arranged for her to meet ‘many of the a million words of research notes and the Ireland and the people women connected with the Easter Rising draft of a book, not on modern Ireland, but she met there. See also of 1916’. Maud Gonne MacBride (‘tall, a very different volume entitled The Pursuit the letter from Hannah slim and dramatic in her long black gown’) of Robert Emmet. Sheehy-Skeffington to HL, n.d. [c. March came to the ensuing soirée; also there were 1936], inviting HL to go James Connolly’s daughter, Nora Connolly 4 with her to the Abbey O’Brien, Thomas MacDonagh’s sister-in- Theatre, explaining that law, Sidney Gifford, Easter Week eyewitness, Without question, Landreth performed she writes ‘critiques of plays for various papers Patricia Lynch, and former republican prodigies of research during her time in Dublin’, and adding prisoners and historians Rosamond Jacob in Ireland. We know this because she ‘I enjoyed very much and Dorothy MacArdle. MacArdle later retained her research notes and these can having you last night introduced Landreth to Molly Childers be inspected and indeed checked against and linking up with some of the Republican and a friendship and correspondence began the originals. She filled eighty-five exercise women of 1916’. between the two women that lasted until books with detailed notes on documents, 25 LP, box 2/1-29, July Childers’s death in 1964. and she made numerous transcripts and 1965–1980. Landreth was delighted with the lengthy typescripts of manuscripts relating 26 LP, series 3, 1–3 and series 4, 1–3. She generous reception she was accorded. She to the Irish revolutionary movement planned a biography of 26 had feared that she would experience a at the end of the eighteenth century. Tone, but nothing came prejudice against outsiders like herself She conducted extensive research in the of it; she may also have who had the presumption to write about National Library of Ireland and in Trinity contemplated a restored edition of Tone’s Life, Ireland, and was reassured that her worry College, especially among the Wolfe Tone, edited by his son, 2 onwww.fieldday.ie this score appeared groundless. The R. R. Madden, Thomas Russell and Major vols. (Washington, DC, republican women, in particular, made Henry C. Sirr Papers. However, her primary 1826). She worked on a huge impression on her; she recalled research was conducted in the Rebellion the Tone MSS at TCD and identified some of later: ‘writers themselves, some of them, Papers, then housed in the Bermingham the omissions from the they showed no professional jealousy. Tower in Dublin Castle. These sixty-seven published volumes. She What concerned them was the fact that I large cartons of documents dealt mainly passed on her notes to P. loved Ireland and wanted to help others with the progress and suppression of the S. O’Hegarty. love her too.’24 (Thirty years later, when 1798 and 1803 United Irish rebellions. asked at a symposium of ‘Living Biography These manuscripts had been deemed Interviews’ hosted by Brandeis University, highly sensitive by the Irish administration, what question she would like to put to principally because numerous informers Eamon de Valera, then president of Ireland, from the 1790s were identified by name Landreth replied that she would like to ask in them. Luckily in retrospect, given the him about the help ‘given him in his career incineration of records in 1922, they were by some of the many women who took part separated in the 1870s from the regular in the independence movement from 1916 office files kept in the Irish State Paper on’).25 Presumably it was during this brief Office in the Four Courts complex and visit to Dublin that she conceived the idea placed under lock and key across the of writing a history of modern Ireland. Two Liffey in Dublin Castle, where they were to years later, in June 1938, having signed a remain until the opening of the National contract from her publisher, Whittesley- Archives in Bishop Street, Dublin, in 1990. McGraw Hill, she sailed once again for Known about from the late 1870s, they

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27 W. J. Fitzpatrick, were not generally available for inspection Marsden, undersecretary in Dublin Secret Service under by researchers, although W. J. Fitzpatrick Castle, that showed conclusively through Pitt (London, 1892); and W. E. H. Lecky were granted privileged ‘an unbroken chain of evidence’ that Pitt W. E. H. Lecky, A History of Ireland in the access to them, presumably as a result of had directed Marsden to foment another Eighteenth Century, 5 their elevated social status.27 insurrection in Ireland and that Robert vols. (London 1892). Landreth later claimed that she changed Emmet, then in Paris, was to be approached 28 Landreth, The Pursuit her research topic from modern Ireland by a trusted person for that purpose. On a of Robert Emmet (Dublin, 1949), vii: ‘I to the Emmet rebellion of 1803 only after subsequent research trip to Ireland, Thomas was in Dublin in 1939 her arrival in Ireland and because of the Emmet had sought to locate this letter, only when the Second World outbreak of the Second World War.28 There to be told that it and other incriminating War broke out. I had are, however, strong grounds for believing documents had disappeared and were gone there the year before to write a book that even before Landreth had left the presumed destroyed. When he persisted, he on modern Ireland. United States, she had determined on an was visited by the Royal Irish Constabulary What happened on the investigation into what she called the Irish and ordered to leave the country within continent outdated that democratic movement. Already in autumn twenty-four hours. work almost overnight.’ 29 Unfinished article 1938, she had begun research into the life Thomas Emmet’s claim that Pitt and entitled ‘A Resumé of Tone, determined to prove that he had Marsden had had full knowledge of the of the Circumstances not died by his own hand in 1798, but had rebellion of 1803, and that the Emmet Surrounding the Death in fact been murdered, probably by his plot was really ‘the ministers’ conspiracy’, of Wolfe Tone’ by HL; Landreth remained gaoler. In November 1938, at Landreth’s manufactured in London for British convinced that Tone prompting, an ultraviolet lamp was brought political purposes, was not at all new. was murdered: HL to into the Bermingham Tower in an attempt Shortly before his execution in 1803, Diarmaid Coffey, 16 to decipher a scored-out passage in a letter Russell, Emmet’s co-conspirator, had May 1939. 30 Quoted by Patrick written by Sir George Hill, the man who alleged that ‘this conspiracy originated Geoghegan, Robert had identified Tone to the authorities in with the enemy’,30 and James Hope, one of Emmet, a Life (Dublin, 1798. Landreth believed that the obliterated the few chiefs to survive the insurrection, 2003), 40. lines contained the name of Tone’s had passed on Russell’s suspicions to 31 For a review of the www.fieldday.ieclaim’s provenance, see murderer. Richard Best, his deputy at the Madden, the historian of the United Michael Durey, William National Library Richard James Hayes, Irishmen.31 However, Burke’s insistence Wickham, Master Spy: and Diarmaid Coffey from the State Paper that an incriminating letter from Pitt to The Secret War against Office duly assembled, ‘in an atmosphere of Marsden proved that they masterminded the French Revolution (London, 2009), 170– subdued excitement’, in a suitably sepulchral the rebellion, and his coy remarks about 71. Wickham was chief room for the experiment: however, the additional documentation that had to be secretary at the time of results were disappointingly inconclusive, kept secret, offered further — explosive Emmet’s rebellion. and the ‘mystery’ remained unresolved.29 — confirmation that Pitt (‘a demon’, 32 J. J. Reynold’s The Footprints of Robert The episode was an early indication of according to Thomas Emmet) and certain Emmet (London, Landreth’s penchant for the discovery of Dublin Castle officials were well aware of 1903) restated Thomas new documents and the unravelling of long- the plot from the beginning and that for Emmet’s claims. See standing mysteries. their own purposes they had allowed it to Geoghegan, Robert 32 Emmet, 39. Raymond Landreth undertook other investigations mature. The revelation by Thomas Emmet Postgate in his Robert into the Emmet insurrection and these that the documents in question had since Emmet (London, quickly eclipsed her researches into Tone. disappeared, almost certainly destroyed, 1931), after a judicious She was well aware of the sensational claim appeared to render any satisfactory discussion, rejected the view that Emmet’s made in 1898 by the New York-based resolution to the Burke–Emmet allegations rebellion could be traced Thomas Addis Emmet, Robert Emmet’s altogether remote, and perhaps out of the back to William Pitt. grand-nephew. On a visit to Dublin Castle question entirely. HL dismissed Postgate’s in 1880, Sir Bernard Burke, keeper of the At this point enter Helen Landreth: she work as ‘too full of inaccuracies’ to merit State Papers, told him that he had seen an would later recall her early days among the consideration. 1802 letter from William Pitt to Alexander Rebellion Papers: ‘As I turned the pages of

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old letters housed ... most of all in the Irish Burke’s historical and genealogical 33 Landreth, Pursuit, State Paper Office ... I realised that I had scholarship was constantly assailed for his viii–ix; Houghton Library, Harvard, AM stumbled upon a great mystery’, that ‘the ‘uncritical acceptance of doubtful pedigrees, 1730 (137), HL to J. P. 34 true story’ of Robert Emmet repeated inaccuracies and absurdities’, Marquand, 30 August while the excitable Emmet had become 1947. HL was keen for had never been told and for generations obsessively devoted to his thesis that his her book on Emmet to be considered as a efforts had been made to keep it a secret. forebear was ‘the innocent victim of a Book of the Month ... It was an exciting moment for me British plot’. Emmet was independently Club choice, for which when, sitting in the Search Room of the wealthy from his distinguished career as Marquand was a State Paper Office at Dublin, I realised a gynaecologist to upper-class New York, selector and in this letter she outlined the thesis of that the papers I was then turning over and thus could pursue his genealogical her book. were some of the very ones Dr Emmet and historical researches into the Emmet 34 On Sir Bernard Burke, had thought destroyed. family. He turned his New York house into see the entry by Helen a ‘veritable shrine filled with sacred relics of Andrews in DIB. 35 See Marianne Elliott, So far from being a contemptible affair, the martyred dead’, including ‘the original Robert Emmet: The involving a handful of incompetents and death mask of Robert Emmet standing out Making of a Legend the riff-raff of Dublin, Emmet’s rebellion from the dark velvet background, fixing (London, 2003), 164– and Emmet himself had been the victim of itself on the vision with ghastly reality’.35 65. 36 His Memoir of a ‘political intrigue of great importance’, He also commissioned transcripts of Thomas Addis and with Pitt as the prime mover and with documents and hired a small army of Robert Emmet with Marsden as his accomplice. There and then, researchers to pursue the faintest of leads Their Ancestors and Landreth determined to tell the ‘true story concerning Robert Emmet — in the process Immediate Family, 2vols. (New York, of Emmet’s rising’, to vindicate Emmet’s doing later historians a favour by preserving 1915) is a cornucopia honour and his integrity — all of which documents that otherwise would have been of primary documents, had been ruthlessly ‘pursued’ by the British lost.36 In the normal run of things, neither many from private government in its own self-interest in the Burke nor Dr Emmet should have inspired collections, all meticulously transcribed aftermath of his rebellion.33 anyone to have confidence in their historical in full, and still very www.fieldday.ieObvious problems existed with the judgement. And yet, undaunted by any useful, although Burke–Emmet thesis. Burke had forgotten of this, and convinced that she had been accompanied by the that at the time ‘Prime Minister’ Pitt the first to uncover secrets that had been author’s rather lurid commentary. allegedly wrote his letter to Marsden deliberately concealed for decades, Landreth 37 Houghton Library, urging him to foment an insurrection diligently pursued her research into Robert Harvard, AM 1730 ‘at all hazards’ in Ireland, Pitt was not Emmet throughout her war years in Ireland, (137): HL to J. P. even in office. Nor can a credible motive when, as she put it, ‘living conditions Marquand, 30 August 1947. Landreth was be unearthed for Pitt seeking another were far from easy’.37 It is to Landreth’s ill in Ireland in 1942 insurrection in Ireland. He had no need to experiences in Ireland during the Emergency and appealed to the discredit the Addington administration — it that we now turn. Irish Red Cross for an was doing that well enough by itself — and award from a fund it was administering to as for seeking another rebellion in order 5 assist ‘alien Catholics to suspend habeas corpus — as Landreth in Ireland distressed contended — British governments rarely On the outbreak of the Second World War because of the war’. She needed compelling arguments for bringing in September 1939, Free State Ireland had, received two sums of £50 each. The fund had in repressive legislation. Similarly, her like many other countries, immediately been set up by Pope Pius claim that Pitt, a distant relative of Emmet, declared itself neutral and had set about XII. enjoyed a ‘malicious joke’ and therefore defending that position during the coming 38 See J. J. Lee, Ireland, roped his kinsman into the plot is risible. Emergency. Historians agree that de Valera’s 1912-85 (Cambridge, 1989), 236, and 258–59, Lastly, the principal exponents of the government had no credible policy option for a full discussion 38 ‘ministers’ conspiracy’ thesis, Burke and save neutrality. Joining in on Britain’s of its implications and Thomas Emmet, were unreliable witnesses. side would have compromised the state’s effects.

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39 On the conscription hard-won independence, brought little aid the segregation of the Rebellion Papers question in Northern to Britain, incited German attacks, and from the rest of the Irish administration’s Ireland in 1941, see could easily have re-ignited the fires of the records in the late nineteenth century, and Joseph L. Rosenberg, ‘Irish Conscription: Irish Civil War. De Valera’s prompt action that sensitivity was still very much alive 1941’, Éire-Ireland, 14, in interning IRA suspects for the duration in the Republic of Ireland. To obtain a 1, (1979), 16–25. of hostilities as well as the imposition of a licence to research in the Irish State Paper 40 Landreth, Pursuit, 119, draconian censorship were both designed to Office an undertaking had to be given 120, 121. 41 Thomas Bartlett, ‘The underpin Ireland’s neutrality. Landreth had not to bring the name of an informer into Life and Opinions of aligned herself with those republicans who the public domain unless — to use the Leonard MacNally accused de Valera of abjectly capitulating to modern jargon — his cover had already (1752–1820): the British through his government’s drive been blown. Researchers were accordingly Playwright, Barrister, United Irishman against the IRA, and she opposed Franklin required periodically to submit their notes and Informer’, in D. Roosevelt’s pursuit of a neutrality that for inspection to the supervisor of the Hiram Morgan, ed., benefited Britain through the ‘lend-lease’ of Reading Room. In Landreth’s case, this Information, Media and American warships. After the war, Landreth was Diarmaid Coffey. Coffey generally Power through the Ages (Dublin, 2001), 113–36. protested that she had never been in contact returned Landreth’s notes with a laconic Landreth planned an with what historian Joseph Rosenberg ‘there is nothing in them which may not edition of MacNally’s called ‘anglophobic, anti-Roosevelt Irish- be used at your discretion’, but by early letters but, after Americans [or] the American Friends of 1941, he was increasingly anxious at what producing a typescript of most of them, she did Irish Neutrality’. In a letter to Rosenberg, Landreth purported to have uncovered. not pursue the matter. she stoutly maintained that she had ‘What a mass of treachery you have been approved of Irish neutrality — ‘Mr de reading!’ he wrote in February 1941, and Valera could not have done other than he by September he was warning her not to did’ — and she claimed that she had taken divulge the name of any informer who ‘no part in the politics of either Ireland or might have ‘descendants who might be the United States’.39 injured by publication of their names’. By Her denial can be accepted. Her 1942, Landreth had fingered as probable www.fieldday.ieassociation with Máire Brugha and other informers and betrayers such hitherto republican women ceased quite early on. unimpeachable radicals or liberals as Throughout the war years, she remained an Arthur O’Connor, Edmund Burke’s son object of suspicion to the authorities, and Richard, Malachy Delaney, Emmet’s right- she may have been under surveillance. As a hand man, William Putnam McCabe, single American woman in neutral Ireland a serial escaper from Irish prisons, and with no visible sources of income and with John Keogh, a revered pioneer in the early questionable high-profile contacts, it would struggle for Catholic emancipation.40 have been surprising if she had not come There was nothing inherently implausible to the attention of the Irish authorities. In about these claims: after all, soon after addition, she was engaged in controversial his death in 1820, Leonard MacNally, research, the outcome of which, she firmly a leading United Irishman and lawyer believed, had the capacity to damage Anglo- to Emmet, and a man whose radical Irish relations. credentials had appeared impeccable, had As Landreth continued her research been shown to have been a spy in Castle she became ever more convinced that pay for over twenty years.41 And W. J. she had unmasked Pitt as the originator Fitzpatrick created a sensation in 1892 by of the Emmet conspiracy and she was ‘outing’ Francis Magan as the betrayer also confident that she had identified of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, while J. T. other individuals who had betrayed Gilbert had published an annotated copy Emmet. Official sensitivity concerning of Dublin Castle’s spy payments. However, the identification of informers had led to for these new exposures by Landreth to be

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accepted, positive proof — not just surmise a supervisor at the Reading Room in the 42 For all this, see HL to or circumstantial evidence — would be Irish State Paper Office and ‘a holdover from Eoin McKiernan, 30 June 1968: letter marked required. the British days’, as Landreth described ‘Strictly confidential. As Landreth was becoming more him, ‘attempted to have my licence to work Material not to be used excited at her discoveries — ‘I’m sure one there revoked. ... He told the officials there during my lifetime’. reason I find things is because I pray to first that I was only killing time there, 43 Untitled manuscript memorandum by HL, have Tone and Father Quigley and Pearse second that I was not the sort of person to n.d. [c.1947], cover and MacDonagh help me ... I’m sure they be allowed to work there, and third that I page missing. Landreth are working with me now’ — she was also was not there to do research but for some sought and got another growing more aware that she was an object other reason’. Happily for Landreth, Coffey, interview with de Valera, because, as of interest both to the Irish authorities Hughes’s boss, came out in her support and she put it, ‘I needed 42 and to the British. She who had unmasked the threat was seen off. protection from British the informers surrounding Emmet now Soon after the dinner at which Landreth agents’: HL to P. S. found herself the prey of a man who, she had divulged her findings on Emmet to Ó Muireadhaigh, 16 October 1943: later was persuaded, was an informer for the ‘Billy’, his business was broken into. He annotation by HL. The British. This man, identified by Landreth thought that the IRA was behind the break- second interview took only by the letter ‘B’, sometimes by ‘X’ in, that Landreth had told the IRA that place on 29 October and occasionally by the name ‘Billy’, was he was an informer and he now feared 1943, but I have found no account of what a northerner who had been in the IRA in for his safety. Meanwhile, Landreth was transpired at it. 1922 and had become an informer for the convinced that she was being followed 44 Charles Dickson Royal Ulster Constabulary. On the outbreak ‘by a plainclothes man and sometimes by published Life of of the war, he was living in Dublin, married a Guard’, that her apartment had been Michael Dwyer (Dublin, 1944), The Wexford to an American, and managing a clothing searched, and her notes ransacked. The Rising (Dublin, 1955) factory. Landreth believed that he was also home of a friend that she visited each week and Revolt in the North either an agent of the British or a double was raided. Concerned for her own safety, (Dublin, 1960). The agent and that he was out to make serious Landreth determined on direct action. As entry by C. J. Woods in DIB describes his trouble for her. she put it: research as ‘solidly www.fieldday.ie‘Billy’ had his wife invite Landreth to based’. dinner on a number of occasions during [I realised] an attempt was being made 45 For Hayes’s historical 1943 and then sought information about to make me out as having German writings, see Thomas Bartlett, ‘Ormuzd the IRA (‘his whold [sic] attitude was that sympathies. As that would completely Abroad ... Ahriman I was connected with the present IRA’), discredit my work in America I decided at Home: Some Early and he would ‘pump me at every meal as something must be done. I already knew Historians of the Wild to what I had discovered that day’ in the that attempts were being made to connect Geese in French Service, 1840–50’, in Jane archives. ‘When I told him about the Emmet me with the IRA. I decided to see Mr de Conroy, ed., Franco- letters, he went into action.’ Landreth Valera about the matter as it concerned Irish Connections: believed that ‘the British government was the Irish police and he would have to be Essays, Memoirs, and dismayed to find that I had unearthed told eventually and I preferred to do it Poems in Honour of Pierre Joannon (Dublin, their old secret regarding Emmet and was myself. Also I wanted to make him see 2009), 15–30; and see planning to publish a book telling it to all what the whole thing was about — the the entry by Patrick the world’, and that this was the reason for devaluing of all my historical work by Long in DIB. ‘Billy’s’ questioning. When Landreth told painting me as pro-German. 46 M. V. Ronan published The Reformation in him that her forthcoming work on Emmet Dublin, 1536–58 would present Ireland in a good light and Landreth met de Valera on 8 October 1943 (Dublin,1926) and counteract British propaganda, he had said and she The Reformation in ‘slyly … maybe you won’t be allowed to Ireland under Elizabeth, 1558–1580 (London, write it, to which I retorted that there was told him of the book I had written [Dear 1930). He was a prolific no way to stop me’. However, there was a Dark Head], of its influence in America, contributor to the Irish way. Some time later, Captain J. L. Hughes, and the probable use the projected book Ecclesiastical Record,

124 The Pursuit of Helen Landreth

and had a special on Emmet would be in gaining sympathy the cause of the whole thing is the value interest in the role of for Ireland in America. ... He asked me of my notes and my knowledge of Irish priests in the 1798 what I wanted done. I said I was afraid history. The British undoubtedly think I rebellion. See DIB entry by Andrew O’Brien. my papers might be stolen and that I shall bring out all the notes in one mass 47 See inter alia, J. W. wanted something done to clear up the and will so influence American thought Hammond, ‘Behind matter of my loyalties. That I was not that it will interfere with [British] plans the Scenes of the pro-German in any sense. That I was an to recover Ireland after the war. Emmet Insurrection: Extracts from hitherto American with Irish sympathies. That Unpublished State these sympathies arose from my love Landreth’s wartime experiences are Papers’, Dublin of justice and democracy. ... That I had crucial to understanding her reaction when Historical Record, 6, no connection with any organisation her book met with a rough reception on 3–4 (1944), 91–106, 153–54. He is not and was carrying on no activity but its publication in Ireland in 1949. For her, noticed in DIB. the very demanding one of my book. such criticism was merely the continuation Mr de Valera made suggestions about of a dastardly plot, as she put it, ‘to get safeguarding my notes and said he would the story of Emmet’s rising back to the give the Irish police a warning that old basis of a little bloody street riot’ and, [‘Billy’] might be a British agent ... [and as she saw it, to discredit her thesis by that] ... he might be playing a double impugning her integrity.43 game. One further point needs to be made about her stay in Ireland during the Next, Landreth went to the American Emergency, and this is her relationship consulate. There she discovered from the with her fellow researchers in the Irish consul general, who State Paper Office. For the most part this was a convivial one. She met a youthful had always been very kind and friendly R. B. McDowell, then researching the ... that he had heard rumours about United Irishmen, and he lent her a copy me and implied that they had been of his typescript of Russell’s diaries and www.fieldday.ieoriginated by an American married to memoirs, documents written in such an an Irishman. I explained the situation execrable hand as to have been hitherto and that I had gone to see Mr de Valera considered illegible. Other friends included which he seemed to think was the best ’98 historians, Charles Dickson, medical thing I could have done. doctor and amateur historian,44 and Richard Francis Hayes, medical doctor, Finally, Landreth summed up as follows: she film censor and historian of the Irish in was suspected of pro-German sympathies, France.45 Her closest relationship was and she believed that ‘Billy’ ‘was trying to with the Wicklow parish priest, Myles make a case that I have somehow given or Vincent Ronan, a gifted historian who had transmitted information [possibly about already published important work on the ‘troop movements’ in Northern Ireland]’. Reformation in Ireland under Elizabeth She went on: I, and who was to remain her principal Irish confidant until his death in 1959.46 Mr de Valera had evidently been Matters were less harmonious with Joseph antagonised towards me but is now W. Hammond, a stalwart of the Dublin reassured that while I may differ Historical Society who had written useful from him on details I am nevertheless articles on Emmet for its journal.47 wholeheartedly anxious to have my work Initially, relations were good, but once do good for Ireland in the future even Landreth began to supplement her income though this is not the time to publish by publishing, mostly in the Irish Press, a anything. It should be remembered that series of articles supposedly casting new

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light on Emmet, his love, Sarah Curran, the going on behind the scenes in Ireland are 48 Landreth’s press articles patriot Wolfe Tone and others, Hammond’s rooting for you’,50 while Ronan welcomed included, ‘Robert Emmet’s Last Letter’, smouldering resentment against her ‘now- the imminent appearance of her ‘magnum Irish Press, 19 January for-the-first-time-revealed’ articles boiled opus’, which will leave her critics ‘on their 1942; ‘Tone’s Wife over.48 In February 1945, he accused her beam end’.51 Immediate reaction to the and Son’, Irish Press, of ‘[descending] to a course of literary publication of the American edition was 5 February 1942; ‘To Burying Robert Emmet, activity beneath the dignity of all other wholly favourable. Ronan described it as £1.10s’, Irish Press, research workers [in the Irish State Paper ‘a unique contribution to Irish history ... 20 March 1942; ‘An Office] in the last ten years. It may appear beyond all praise ... it leaves me gasping ... Unpublished Letter of to you as being smart American journalism, a most sensational book ... a revelation’. Robert Emmet’, Irish Press, 23 July 1942; but we slow Irish regard such free-lance It was a ‘thriller out of the dusty scraps ‘New Light on Wolfe contributions here as “pot-boilers”.’ After of the ISPO’ and he forecast that it Tone ... from Hitherto lambasting her ‘vain egotism’, he went on: would cause Irish historians ‘to rub their Unpublished Sources’, eyes and wonder where they have been’ Irish Press, 15 June 1943. we are not so slow or dull in this country and they ‘will envy her for discovering 49 J. W. Hammond to HL, 52 as you may think and are more qualified what they had missed’. Others were 3 February 1945. to deal with its historical episodes and no less complimentary: Robert Emmet 50 Eoin McKiernan to HL, personages than any stranger in our Sherwood in the New York Herald Tribune 12 March 1947; see also his letter of 6 May midst. We are also more competent to pronounced the book to be ‘a remarkable 1947, where he exclaims interpret Irish State Papers than any piece of work’. The reviewer in the Boston ‘we need more Helen foreigner — even though he or she hails Post wrote that she was the first to tell ‘the Landreths’. from the Land of the Almighty Dollar. true story’ of Emmet, that her book had 51 M. V. Ronan to HL, 2 September 1947; 12 You followed in my footsteps in the been acclaimed by scholars everywhere, February 1948. 49 Tower, not I in yours. that it would make a great ‘costume 52 Unless stated otherwise, drama’, and that Landreth sought no the reviews of HL’s Landreth’s forthcoming book could be monetary reward for her work: ‘She says work are collected in LP, series 6, 3–5. guaranteed a lively reception on several she will not be paid in full until Éire is in fronts.www.fieldday.iefull possession of her island from coast to coast without division.’ The Irish Times 6 had Charles Dickson review the American edition and he wrote that it was ‘a relief Following a research trip to Belfast and and a pleasure ... to welcome a work which London at the war’s end, Landreth flew is likely to be regarded as a pattern of back to the United States in April 1946: its kind ... It would hardly be possible to most of her baggage allowance was taken exaggerate its importance and authenticity.’ up with her research notes and her draft of Unusually, the Irish Press reviewed the her Emmet book. She had also taken the American edition and pronounced it to precaution of leaving a copy of her draft be ‘an almost incredible story’, although with Molly Childers in Dublin. Landreth Roger McHugh, the reviewer, did hint then spent the next two years completely at the coming storm by declaring that rewriting her work and seeing it through the the allegation that John Keogh was an press. informer was ‘startling in its casualness; There was undoubtedly an air of this is a case where some documentation expectancy about the publication of would seem to be called for’.53 The her book. Eoin McKiernan, then just reviewer in the Christian Science Monitor emerging in Irish-American scholarly dismissed the claim that Pitt was behind circles, looked forward to its appearance, the Emmet rebellion, a central argument of writing mysteriously to her that, ‘those of her book, because it ‘depends on hearsay us who know and fully realise just what is and is quite inconclusive’.54

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53 Roger McHugh, However, Landreth’s hour — or fifteen rebellion. Douglas Savory in the Belfast ‘New Light on the minutes of fame — had arrived. Her book Newsletter found the book readable but Emmet Rising’, Irish was under consideration for the American regarded the account of Pitt’s role as Press, 5 April, 1948; see McHugh’s letter Book of the Month Club. Further, she was ‘incredible’. The Listener criticized the to HL, 5 October accorded recognition as a writer. Maeve lack of documentation, and Landreth’s 1949, expressed in Brennan in her New Yorker column listed ‘violently anti-English outlook’. Then, nearly identical terms. Landreth with other distinguished Irish on 28 July 1949, Fr Francis Finnegan, SJ, McHugh, of the English Department in UCD, writers, such as Mary Colum, Mary Lavin, wrote to Landreth to inform her that he published an edition Lennox Robinson, Michael McLaverty, Sean was reviewing Pursuit for the Jesuit journal of the memoir of the O’Faolain and Benedict Kiely, who were all Studies and to ask for her evidence that Carlow United Irishman in New York in 1949.55 Further recognition John Keogh was a long-standing informer. (and probable informer) William Farrell in 1949. came with an offer from Browne and Nolan Landreth replied that she could no longer He also wrote a play on in Dublin to bring out her book in Ireland. find the receipt for government pay that Emmet, Trial at Green They suggested a fee of £75 and a 10 per incriminated Keogh but that she was certain Street Courthouse (first cent royalty on the first 2,000 copies. A deal she had seen it, even though it was not produced at the Abbey Theatre, 6 January was quickly concluded and the book duly listed in the short catalogue of Irish State 1941), and was interned appeared in 1949 with a number of minor Paper Office documents.56 When Finnegan’s in 1941. One of the few corrections, Browne and Nolan honouring it review duly appeared it was hard-hitting, explicit republicans in with a window display replete with Emmet for it focused on the single question: ‘Was a college dominated by Fine Gael sympathizers, memorabilia at its offices. John Keogh an informer?’ Finnegan had he was a thorn in the It would be tedious to discuss the many not found any receipt for money paid over side of its president reviews that Pursuit received in Ireland; to John Keogh of Mount Jerome among Michael Tierney. See Landreth carefully cut them out and the Secret Service payments, and he could his entry in DIB by Lawrence William pasted them into scrapbooks. The Irish not be taken to be the ‘Keogh’ or ‘J. Keogh’ White. Press complimented her on her ‘immense listed as receiving payments. Finnegan 54 Christian Science research’ and her ‘masterly book’; the Irish wrote that ‘this capital blunder has been Monitor, 19 April 1948. Catholic acclaimed it as ‘an authoritative accepted as proved history in various 55 Angela Bourke, Maeve www.fieldday.ieBrennan, Homesick and definitive account’; the review by Shane reviews’ and he accused Landreth again of at the New Yorker Leslie in the Irish Library Bulletin was having made ‘a blunder’ in falling for ‘a case (London, 2004), also enthusiastic but he felt it would not of mistaken identity’.57 160. Brennan was appeal to ‘the young generation of Ireland, Landreth, stung by this criticism, the daughter of an important figure in the devoted to thrillers, sweepstakes, racing immediately prepared a lengthy defence of 1916 Rising, Robert news and comic cuts’; the Irish Times notice her position and demanded that Studies Brennan, a diplomat by Charles Dickson acclaimed it as the publish it in its next issue. Ronan undertook in New York at the ‘standard work on the historical events in to conduct a search in the State Paper Office time. See DIB entry by Michael Kennedy. Ireland which reached their crisis on July 23 for the incriminating receipts on Landreth’s 56 Fr Francis Finnegan to 1803’. Stephen Rynne, reviewing Pursuit on behalf. From an early date, however, he HL, 28 July 1949, and Radio Éireann, pronounced that ‘nothing and others of her correspondents were HL’s reply 30 November on Emmet will ever surpass this book ... convinced that ‘a hidden hand’ was at work 1949. 57 Fr Francis Finnegan, from the pen of a stranger’. Finally, S. Ó to destroy Landreth’s reputation and that ‘Was John Keogh an Floinn, who railed in The Nationalist at the Finnegan was ‘simply a stooge for a third Informer?’, Studies, 39 number of informers in Emmet’s Ireland, party’. Discouragingly, Ronan reported (1950), 75–86. praised the book as ‘a notable event in Irish that he could find no receipts with Keogh’s 58 M. V. Ronan to HL, 27 April 1950. bookcraft in paper, print and binding’. signature. Apparently, he had berated Coffey Certainly it was a handsome volume, with a and his staff in the State Paper Office, striking dust jacket. accusing them of having misplaced the Some reviews were critical of Landreth’s documents but, when writing to Landreth, central thesis that Pitt, for his own devious he suggested that they might have been political purposes, had masterminded the destroyed deliberately, as part of a plot.58

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Cover of Studies, September 1950, listing Landreth’s reply to Francis Finegan and his reply to her. Landreth Papers, Burns Library, Boston College.

59 Fr Patrick Connolly to HL, 25 May 1950. In a letter to her publisher in Dublin, Landreth commented that her friends in America, academics among them, were aghast at her treatment. ‘When I tell them of [Connolly’s] argument that the Keoghs in England are related to someone called Roosevelt, they invariably say “so what?”.’ 60 Elliott, Emmet, 215, 262. 61 P. S. O’Hegarty, A History of Ireland under the Union 1801– 1929 (London, 1952); www.fieldday.iesee entry in DIB by Tom Garvin. 62 M. V. Ronan to HL, 2 September 1950. 63 R. B. McDowell reviewed Pursuit in Irish Historical Studies, 7, 28 (September 1951), 303–05. He commended HL for her ‘devotion and industry’ and for assembling ‘immense quantities of material hewn from the Rebellion Papers and other archival sources’, but he faulted her for the book’s structure, its derogatory tone, By May 1950, Landreth’s reply to receipt of Landreth’s lengthy reply, Fr her evident prejudices Finnegan ran to over 14,000 words. Patrick Connolly, the editor, sent it to two and her ‘occasional Moreover, she had instructed her solicitors university professors for their assessment ineptitudes’. The basis in Dublin, Brennan and Brennan, to insist of the matter. These were both medieval for her thesis was, he felt, flimsy. Curiously, that her reply be published in full and specialists, and both were based in UCD: Fr Landreth kept no copy that the editor of Studies and Finnegan John Ryan and Fr Aubrey Gwynn. In their of this review among print a public apology to her. Following report they wrote that they had followed her papers, and appears

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to have made no reply the controversy ‘with great interest’, had the case before Our Lady and she will speak to it. Despite the given concluded that Landreth was entitled to a something like this to you: date, this volume of the reply in Studies, but that her reply had not journal may not have appeared until 1952. proved her case. She had signally failed ‘Helen, my dear child, go home and have 64 M. V. Ronan to HL, to furnish the crucial Keogh receipts and sense. John Keogh did great service in 25 June 1950. Dudley she had ‘broken with the ordinary usage his day to the Catholic church. Don’t Edwards had published of historical research work and failed try to blacken his character. I have other Church and State in Modern Ireland to print exact references to her sources’. more urgent work for you to do — work (London, 1935). Ronan However, there was ‘no question here of her more worthy of your great talents. Read wrote that Dudley integrity’. Finnegan received a mild rebuke my Son’s parable of the Talents and ask Edwards ‘was always for neglecting to mention in his review that yourself if you are making the best use jealous of me for having searched the P.R.O.L. Landreth had been in correspondence with of your talents. Also recall what my Son [sic] on the Reformation him in an attempt to resolve the matter. said about turning the other cheek.’59 and [because] he was Connolly now attempted to smooth only playing second matters over. Landreth was, he felt, taking This combination of ‘cajolary [sic], flattery, fiddle [to me] on the Tudor policy. He did the matter far too seriously. There was no sentimentality and threats’ along with the no research work on it attempt to besmirch her reputation, or to ‘most horrifying and sacrilegious use of except to compare my discredit her as a historian. The criticism Our Lady for unworthy ends’ (as Landreth documents with those in of Fr Finnegan was fair and to the point put it) served only to stiffen her resolve the P.R.O.L. and when a reviewer of his book in and did not reflect on her scholarship. and to insist on having her reply published. the Irish Press pointed The matter of John Keogh was only She also sought to enlist the support of the out that it was I who did one small item in a big book. She must taoiseach, John A. Costello, whom she had the spade work he called remember that John Keogh was a revered met in Boston College, but he declined to at the I.P. and abused 60 the editor for allowing figure in Irish history because of his work become involved. his name to take second on behalf of Catholic emancipation. Landreth’s reply was duly published, place. Of course he Moreover, Keogh had descendants still Finnegan responded and there the matter knows nothing about living. Connolly suggested that Landreth rested so far as Studies was concerned. [the] ’98 period but he www.fieldday.ieis ready to ride on the consult the Catholic Who’s Who for 1939 However, in September 1950, there was a same horse as his betters under Edward Joseph Keogh, whom she further attack on the book, and this time and to gain notoriety by would find to be the great-grandson of the target was Landreth’s central thesis. P. dethroning those who John Keogh, and a noted artist living S. O’Hegarty, then at work on his History have done the research 61 work.’ in England who had married into the of Ireland under the Union, wrote a 65 None of the recent Roosevelt family of New York. Connolly lengthy review in the Dublin Magazine writers on Emmet — then offered Landreth 6,000 words for her in which he attacked her argument that Elliott, Geoghegan, reply, but warned her that Finnegan would Pitt and Marsden were behind the Emmet Durey, Ruan O’Donnell (Robert Emmet and reply to her reply: ‘We are determined that plot from the beginning. ‘The Pitt story, the Rebellion of 1803 your attempt to brand John Keogh as an it seems to me, is in the highest degree (Dublin, 2003) — informer shall not pass unchallenged.’ And impossible’, he wrote, and Landreth’s view accord Landreth’s he reminded her that by blackening Keogh’s that Dublin Castle was well aware of the thesis any validity but most acknowledge the name she might be ‘violating the condition plans for a rising was ‘equally untenable’. thoroughness of her on which you were allowed to search in the He added that ‘the least satisfactory part research. Public Record Office’. He offered her some of Ms Landreth’s book is the freedom with 66 An t-Athair Proinsias ‘friendly advice ... let sleeping dogs lie’. ‘If which the word informer is thrown at Ó Fionnagáin, SJ (as Fr Finnegan now is you proceed with this matter,’ he wrote people’. Landreth dispatched another angry known), reached the age ‘you will stir up a storm of indignation’ and restatement of her position to the Dublin of 101 on 18 February others would attack her ‘with less delicacy Magazine, even though Ronan advised her 2010. He politely and on other issues than John Keogh’. that it would be wiser to ignore O’Hegarty: declined to share with me his ‘memories of the Connolly concluded by advising Landreth ‘nobody considers him a historian. He is Landreth controversy to go the nearest Catholic church and ‘put simply a flippant journalist.’62

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of sixty years ago’. (An To Landreth, it was an article of faith line-up of clergy and Jesuits who took her t-Athair Ó Fionnagáin that those who impugned her now were ‘the part and who accepted both her take on to the author, 15 same faction ... [that] tried to get me thrown Keogh and her thesis. That thesis — that November 2009). out of the State Paper Office, [using] a smear Pitt and Marsden stage-managed the 67 Mary Hayden and Síle Ní Chinnéide wrote campaign which did make things difficult Emmet rebellion — was simply untenable: textbooks, while for me but not to the extent they hoped’. She no further documentation has come to Constantia Maxwell was convinced that a ‘cabal’ was promoting light in the last sixty years to support it; if wrote works on such the attacks on her book. But who were its anything, the consensus has hardened that topics as Dublin under the Georges (Dublin, members? At one time Ronan believed that Dublin Castle was taken by surprise on 23 1936). Landreth’s old adversary Joseph Hammond July 1803.65 Nor, for that matter, has any 68 The review by H. G. was behind the whole thing, but after material appeared that incriminates John Richardson of Mary speaking to him, he revised his opinion Keogh: Fr Finnegan won that contest.66 Donovan O’Sullivan’s Italian Merchant and admitted they would have to look for Nonetheless, Landreth’s book had Bankers in Ireland in ‘another nigger in the woodpile’. For a time an unusually torrid reception and, as a the Thirteenth Century: his suspicions centred on Denis Gwynn, the result, it largely disappeared from Irish A Study in the Social classic ‘Castle Catholic’ who had published historiography. Certainly, her book lacked and Economic History of Medieval Ireland a book on John Keogh in 1920, but then proper footnotes, and that had become (Dublin, 1962) in Irish he targeted a non-Irish ‘clique of goody- unacceptable, but Richard Hayes and Historical Studies — goody writers with a bias [against Ireland]’, Leon Ó Broin, for instance, were equally the first review of a and among their number he included those remiss in this respect, and they incurred monograph by a female historian in that journal whom he styled ‘the precise historians’ who few critical rebukes on that account. In the — was very hostile. See opposed Landreth’s book because it was 1950s, with the emergence of ‘professional Smith, A ‘Manly Study’, poorly referenced. They were enraged, he history’ in Ireland, Landreth, a non- 87. claimed, by Landreth’s discovery of things academic, a woman and a feisty foreigner, 69 Helen Landreth, The Mind and Heart of that they should have uncovered themselves. was going to have her work cut out to Mary Childers (Boston, Her ‘unforgivable sin was [to have] upset the break into the ranks of Irish historians. 1965). She wrote pre-conceived notions of those who thought Her wartime associations with disaffected some articles on poet, theywww.fieldday.ie were the masters in Israel’. Chief republicans were no help either. But perhaps novelist, editor and revolutionary John among this group was none other than it was her temerity in offering a thesis that Boyle O’Reilly (1844– Robin Dudley Edwards, then spearheading moved her work decisively into the firing 90) whose papers were the Irish historiographical revolution, and line? In the new historical dispensation, in the Burns Library. editor of Irish Historical Studies.63 Ronan female historians were by and large to be had had a run-in with Edwards before, an restricted to writing textbooks, syntheses exemplary instance of the amateur versus or ‘colourful’ volumes on life in the past;67 the professional, over the Elizabethan monographs and the expounding of theses Reformation in Ireland; he suspected that were reserved for male historians alone.68 Dudley Edwards, ‘a real ignorant bounder’, Landreth wrote no more history books, was the hidden hand behind the whole and planned volumes on Tone and even affair.64 As for Landreth, she pointed the on Pitt came to nothing. Apart from a few finger of suspicion at those historians who short articles on Burns Library holdings, her ‘have worked for some time in the ISPO only other publication was a brief memoir without realising the importance of the of Molly Childers.69 She devoted the rest of Emmet papers. They might like to attack her life to the Irish Collection in the Burns my book in vindication of their own lack of Library. To her dying day, she believed foresight.’ that just as Robert Emmet had been In reality, there was no plot. Dudley hounded through the nineteenth century Edwards was not involved in the matter, and his integrity traduced and his honour nor were Irish government agencies; and questioned, so too had she been the victim Landreth had, after all, an impressive of a plot to discredit her and her central

130 The Pursuit of Helen Landreth

Publicity photograph of HL to accompany publication of Dear Dark Head, 1936. Landreth Papers, Burns Library, Boston College.

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thesis. The pursuit of Helen Landreth was library director, Dr Robert O’Neill, and the just as real to her as was the pursuit of library staff, particularly David Horn and Robert Emmet. Shelley Barber, for their assistance with the Landreth Papers held in the Burns Library. Acknowledgement I am also grateful to Kevin Whelan, Margaret Ó hÓgartaigh, Christopher J. The research for this paper was undertaken Woods, and Sylvie Kleinman for their while I was Burns Library Fellow in Irish comments on this paper. Studies at Boston College. My thanks to the

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www.fieldday.ie

132 Alice Milligan: Republican Tableaux and the Revival Catherine Morris

Alice Milligan (1866–1953) was a cultural and political activist who rejected the unionist politics that sustained Ireland’s place within empire to become an internationalist republican. She was a key figure in the formation of the anti-colonial movement from the 1890s and a founding member of the www.fieldday.ieAnti-Partition Council from the 1930s. A prolific writer for over six decades, she published her work in a range of genres (including poetry, short stories, novels, plays, journalism, letters and memoirs). From 1891 to the 1940s, she founded a series of cultural, feminist and political organizations that not only put the North on the map of the Irish Literary Revival but also gave a new resonance to Irish Wood engraving: Cluithcheoirí na hÉireann, Postcard, 1907. visual culture. Her work shows Holloway Collection, National Library of Ireland. her commitment to the human

Field Day Review 6 2010 133 Field Day review

Alice Milligan. 1896. Photo: Seamus MacManus. Courtesy of Moya Cannon

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rights of political prisoners and of women. northern Protestant who had relinquished She used visual and performance arts to the unionism of her background, her create the cultural conditions that would give identity was never easy to ‘translate’ the Irish language contemporary meaning. within a sectarian society. Her legacy was Everything Milligan wrote was not celebrated by the Northern Ireland published in the unindexed pages of state, nor was it accorded an important now obscure national newspapers. As a part in the official narrative of the

134 Alice Milligan: Republican Tableaux and the RevivaL

1 Ireland: Weekly Bulletin Irish Literary Revival. After her death, Declan Kiberd has called ‘an attempt to of the Department of one obituary noted: ‘the radius of her release the still-unused potential buried in External Affairs No. friendship was an index of her quality. past moments’.3 183, Dublin, 20 April 1953, 7. W. B. Yeats, Standish O’Grady, Arthur Tableau vivant is a hybrid of theatre 2 Death notice of Angela Griffith, John O’Leary — these are only and pictorial art; its political implications Doyle (1907–25), a handful of the names which add up to a can only be fully recognized in relation (who died of anorexia roll call of modern Irish history’.1 to other pictorial representations. The nervosa), Cumann na mBan, September 1925 1923 performance enabled the confined 3 University College *** prisoners to transform themselves into Dublin: Visual Cultures a community. This was characteristic of postdoctoral fellowships Those who were in B Wing, the Irish Revival in general; its aim was proposal outline, 2006. Kilmainham, during the summer of 1923 to produce a communal consciousness by will ever remember Angela Doyle as creating the ‘past’ through street parades, Robert Emmet ... Angela chose Robert collecting folklore, staging and publishing Emmet and to all of us who had ever Irish legends and histories, initiating art visioned Emmet, Angela seemed to and museum exhibitions, by travelling with embody every idea of ours. Young, pale, theatre productions and magic lantern fair, tall, with an earnest sad expression shows. Milligan was concerned essentially in her eyes, she seemed the ghost of the with how this emergent nationalist culture hero of 1803.2 depicted itself in public space as both an act of, and a search for, self-representation. In 1923 Irish women prisoners on hunger In particular, her theatre work explored strike in A Wing of Kilmainham Jail staged how the body itself became the subject of for their comrades in B Wing a series of repressed history in nationalist iconography costumed tableaux vivants that evoked and commemoration. Visual culture in this their republican heroes Robert Emmet and period of radical transformation offered a Anne Devlin. With its roots in English site for the rehearsal and performance of www.fieldday.ieand French state-censorship of spoken possible identities. Irish public space was language in theatre, the voiceless form reclaimed and redefined in print culture, of tableau vivant also proved, because of in performances enacted on official and the suppression of Irish, to have a special unofficial stages, in the opening up of potency in the colonial (and immediately theatres, galleries and cinemas. The post-colonial) context of Ireland. The unwritten story of Milligan’s political women who staged these tableaux in mobilization of visual culture is located in 1923 were responding to their memory of a wide range of archival materials, such as how ‘living pictures’ had been radicalized photographs (nicknamed ‘the mirror with a during the Irish Literary Revival by Alice memory’ in the 1890s), magic lantern slides Milligan. In fact, many of the prisoners had and travelling lantern shows, illustrated been trained in the making of tableaux by fiction, theatre posters, newspapers and Milligan through her association with the journals, tableaux vivants (also known as Gaelic League and Inghinidhe na hÉireann ‘living pictures’ and ‘poses plastiques’), (Daughters of Ireland). ‘Living pictures’ was representing scenes from well-known Irish a particularly appropriate theatrical mode melodramas, public commemorations, for these women prisoners to display their costumed pageants, banners carried at allegiance to historical forebears whose public demonstrations, murals, paintings legacy was, like their own experience, one and public monuments, street theatre, of disempowerment, bodily torture and sculpture and film reels. silence. Their enactment of these tableaux In this essay I want to investigate a in such circumstances is an example of what whole series of questions and contexts that

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will help us better understand the latent explains how it would have appealed so 4 Adrian Frazier, Yeats, visual community dynamics that fired directly to Ireland’s ruling elite: Horniman, and the Struggle for the Abbey Ireland’s national theatre and Irish language Theatre (Berkeley, movement. What were tableaux? Where did The picture of the countess was so 1990), 1. this silent form of drama come from? What flattering, and that of the peasants so 5 Pamela Hinkson, made it so popular in Europe, America amusing, that the ladies of the Chief Seventy Years Young: Memories of Elizabeth and England at the turn of the twentieth Secretary’s Lodge — Lady Balfour, the Countess of Fingall century? Milligan’s first tableau show was countess of Fingall, and others — begged (London, 1937), 235. actually planned with the help of members Yeats to let them perform the work 6 Cited in Peter of the Anglo-Irish colonial establishment as nine tableaux vivants six months Somerville Large, The Irish Country House for performance at the Chicago World Fair before the performance scheduled for (London, 1995), 355. in 1893. It is worth asking how she began the Ancient Concert Rooms ... Their to transform this theatrical genre into a performance was a complete success: it powerful expression of the Revival’s most was such fun for the gentry to act the radical ideas. peasants, who must have seemed like fabulous talking beasts out of Grimm The Irish Village and the Chicago World Fair ... Certainly, the chief virtue in the ethical scheme of the play is generosity, Look how well we’ve captured these a quality most accessible to the rich. unhappy ridiculous people aching for The main virtue to which the poor may an impossible escape! We feel we have a aspire is gratitude.5 special hold upon them because we have had, for what it is worth, possession of In her autobiography, Lady Fingall observed the future for which they yearn. that the Anglo-Irish lived in ‘a world of their own with Ireland outside the gates’.6 Thomas Kilroy, The Seagull: after This is a useful description of how the Chekhov (1993) ‘Countess Cathleen’ tableau (and other www.fieldday.ieunionist appropriations of this dramatic Six months before it became ‘the Irish mode) functioned in Ireland before 1916. cultural event of the decade’,4 Yeats’s play As a private entertainment, the tableau The Countess Cathleen was performed offered Ireland’s ruling elite an opportunity as a series of living pictures at the Chief to rescript themselves as benevolent heroes Secretary’s Lodge in Phoenix Park on 24 of the Great Famine. The rightness of and 25 January 1899. It is a piquant irony empire, with its reliance upon rigid class that the lords and ladies of the British distinctions, was reconfirmed in the frozen establishment in Ireland first enacted pictures mounted at the Lodge: ‘The this particular story, for its dramatized chief secretary, Arthur Balfour ... found a version would soon launch the Irish pleasant satisfaction in the graceful way the Literary Theatre. Nicknamed ‘the pet of countess of Fingall, as Countess Cathleen, the Castle’ by Edward Martyn for this died to save the peasants who could not initiative, Yeats nevertheless agreed not save themselves.’7 Despite the fact that the only to the production of his play at the play was set during a famine, the Chief chief secretary’s official residence, but also Secretary’s wife spared no expense on the to rehearsing a cast that included Lady lavish costumes, designed from sketches Balfour, Lady Fingall, George Coffey and commissioned from George Russell (Æ); she members of Margaret Stokes’s family. In pulled rank to decorate her pictures with the play, an aristocratic heroine sacrifices authentic ‘Celtic’ jewels and ornaments her soul to the devil in order to save the borrowed from Ireland’s National Museum. Irish peasantry from famine. Adrian Frazier John Kelly notes that although Yeats

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‘Scenes In The Irish Village. On the Midway Plaisance’. Color plate by Charles S. Graham from ‘The World’s Fair in Water Colors’, June 1, 1893. Photo: © Field Museum Library / Getty Images

7 Frazier, Yeats, rehearsed the show at the Chief Secretary’s photograph] ... to give a picture of the Horniman, and the Lodge, he could not be seen on the opening average Irishman’,9 these descriptions are in Struggle for the Abbey www.fieldday.ieTheatre, 10. night: ‘No self-respecting nationalist themselves a kind of tableau: they are still 8 The programme for could go to the Chief Secretary’s Lodge, pictures that the English reader as potential the Countess Cathleen the locus of English rule, and WBY did tourist is invited to view. Tableaux were tableau was republished not attend the tableaux.’8 Milligan’s early often designed as a shop-window display in Warwick Gould, John Kelly, eds., Collected involvement in the tableau form developed to sell goods, and Milligan first designed Letters of W. B. Yeats within her own early unionist familial scenes of Irish tableaux for the Chicago II: 1896–1900 (Oxford, connections to the colonial administration. World Fair in 1893. She became involved in 1998), 327. In a chapter entitled ‘Sketches of Country the Irish exhibit through working with Lady 9 Seaton Forrest Milligan and Alice Life’, published in Glimpses of Erin, the Aberdeen in the Irish Industries Association Milligan, Glimpses political travelogue she wrote with her that same year. Seaton Milligan was on the of Erin: Containing father, Seaton Forrest Milligan, in 1888, board; he arranged Lady Aberdeen’s first an Account of the there is an attempt to capture the flavour meeting with Alice. Extensive records of the Ancient Civilisation, Manners, Customs, and of native Ireland for English readers: ‘Here Chicago World Fair and of Lady Aberdeen’s Antiquities of Ireland an old woman presides, comforting herself, trip around Ireland are stored in numerous (Belfast, 1888), 19, 183. as she waits for customers, with a short volumes of press cuttings. These documents cutty pipe which she puffs vigorously.’ In help us to understand the extreme departure the milliner’s shop, the reader is invited Milligan made in the mid 1890s when she to ‘look on’ as ‘Biddy is trying on a hat began to use tableaux as a key element before a glass, turning her head this way in the cultural repertoire of the emergent and that, whilst the smart shop girl induces independence movement. her to buy’. Although the reader is told The poet Alfred Percival Graves that ‘It would be impossible [in a single praised Milligan’s intriguing plans for a

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Milligan: Cover of Glimpses of Erin, 1888. Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

www.fieldday.ie

tableau show, because they fitted in so admirable letter on the subject of suitable completely with those of the London- entertainments at the Irish Village at based literary committee that was part Chicago promoted by Lady Aberdeen of the Irish Industries Association: ‘Your has been before our committee.’ In the

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10 Alice Milligan Papers, same letter Graves informed Milligan that what they want and experiences only Brother Allen Library, the tableau was a genre that could both pleasure and happiness. Baum tapped O’Connell School, enlighten audiences and re-enact scenes into this myth. Indeed, he too was deeply Richmond Road, Dublin 12 (hereafter, Milligan from Irish history: ‘We favour a costume influenced by the Chicago exposition.’ Papers, Allen Library). concert or rather Tableaux concert ... to Transformed into ‘a neo-classical 11 Barbara Kirshenblatt- illuminate three periods 1. The Ancient wonderland’, Jackson Park was Gimble, Destination Irish 2. The Elizabethan & Jacobite 3. The appropriately renamed the ‘White City’ — Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage Modern period before the Famine.’ Graves for, according to contemporary reports, (Berkeley and London, promoted images of a pre-Famine era as the exposition was designed on the basis 1998), 96–97. appropriate for contemporary Ireland. Like of ‘racial compartmentalism’.13 At the 12 William R. Leach, The Milligan, he also recognized the practical centre stood grand palaces and mansions Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum advantage of staging early histories or to display art masterpieces, advanced (Belmont, CA, 1991), scenes from rural life because they required technologies, transport systems and 163–64. less technically achieved costumes: ‘Songs of architectural splendours; these had been 13 Robert W. Rydell, All life, sport and occupation such as Lullabies, erected by the French, American and British the World’s a Fair: Visions of Empire at loobeens, smith spinning wheel, fishing, as a showcase of colonial power, wealth and American International hunting songs etc. would be suitable to modernity. The ‘savage races’ (non-white Expositions, 1876–1916 the modern village and would not need peoples, and the Irish) were situated on the (London, 1984), 39, such elaborate costume as the ancient Midway, at a distance from the exposition’s 64. It was ‘white’ also because it was period requires.’ When Lady Aberdeen imperial splendour. Robert Rydell argues illuminated by electric unexpectedly visited Derry in November that the reason for this racial classification light. See also the 1892, Milligan gave her a preview of her was to prove how close the American dream description of the ‘living picture show’, even though Aberdeen was to completion: ‘The Midway made the Chicago World Fair in Thomas Pynchon’s had been sceptical about Milligan’s ability dream of the future seem all the brighter Against the Day (2006). to organize a preview of this ‘semi-dramatic and the present civilisation all the more 14 Rydell, All the World’s a performance’ at such short notice.10 progressive.’14 The Midway also hosted Fair, 67. The Chicago World Fair was a ‘curious exhibitions’ of ‘peasant life’, like 15 Julius Ralph, Harper’s 15 www.fieldday.ieChicago and the World commercial exposition in which countries Ireland’s two ‘villages’. James Gilbert Fair (New York, 1893), competed for international markets by argues that ‘these ersatz communities 187. promoting national produce. It aimed were touristic dioramas, a pageantry of 16 James Gilbert, Perfect to surpass the Paris Exposition of 1889 verisimilitude’ that offered ‘romanticised Cities: Chicago’s Utopias of 1893 by more successfully commodifying versions’ of home for, among others, the (Chicago, 1991), 78. ‘authenticity’, linking commercial products Irish, one of the largest groups of foreign- with their place of origin. The directors born immigrants in the city.16 The first created a theme park that included Turkish, village was a simulation of a working Persian, Egyptian, Algerian, Moroccan Donegal village, devised by the American and Tunisian ‘villages’. ‘Live ethnographic Mrs. Ernest Hart. The other, more displays were a featured attraction at extravagant village was built under the international expositions in Europe and tutelage of Lady Aberdeen, and was located America where entire environments were near the fairground. re-created complete with inhabitants.’11 L. With its ornate reproductions of Irish Frank Baum was there; his Wizard of Oz costume and native life, Lady Aberdeen’s (1900), remade as a film in 1939, reflected Irish village operated as a large scale the commercial fantasies activated by this tableau vivant. Her plans were reported in new type of urban commerce. Writing detail by the Chicago Sunday Post: about Baum, William Leach commented: ‘These urban fairs ... helped form in the The village is to be quadrangular in form, popular mind a sanitised myth of complete to be entered by a doorway taken from urban abundance in which everyone gets Cashel, through the cloisters to Muckross.

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In all we shall have seventeen cottages. an allusion to the writer Jane Barlow, who 17 Chicago Sunday Post, We shall have weaving from Donegal had accompanied Lady Aberdeen on her 12 March 1893. 18 Marjorie Pentland, A and spinning from the north, and we 1893 tour of the country. Even Graves’s Bonnie Fechter: The Life shall have a dairy with some Kerry cows costume design, an important feature of the of Ishbel Marjoribanks — and better still, some pretty Munster village tableau, drew extensively upon an Marchioness of dairy girls to milk them ... We shall have earlier textual source; he acknowledged his Aberdeen and Temair 1857–1939 (London, an Irish piper [Torlach MacSuibhne of prime influence to be a 1788 essay by Joseph 1952), 98–99. Donegal] and an Irish songster, Irish jigs Walker entitled ‘Ancient and Modern 19 Pentland, A Bonnie will be danced and Irish entertainments Dress of the Irish’.22 Graves recommended Fechter, 98. of all sorts given every night. In Blarney this book to Milligan as a source of Irish 20 Quoted in Neil Harris, ‘Selling National castle our girls will be lodged so as to costume design suitable for tableaux Culture: Ireland at the make them more Irish than they were vivants because it provided rare visual World’s Columbian when they went out.17 documentation about early Irish social life. Exposition’, in T. As in the Milligans’ earlier Glimpses J. Edelstein, ed., Imagining an Irish Lady Aberdeen took responsibility for of Erin, the Irish ‘village’ was a touristic Past: The Celtic Revival organizing the ‘official’ Irish contribution to advertisement. In the midst of the 1840–1940 (Chicago, the World Fair. In the early months of 1893, aggressively mercantile centre of American 1992), 96. she conducted a tour of Ireland in search of modernism, the patrons of the World Fair 21 Daily Free Press, 5 March 1893. genuine Irish peasants who could personify could witness traditional folk crafts of 22 Milligan Papers, Allen 18 her ‘cabin idea’. She then transplanted Ireland and then purchase the wares they Library. these workers more or less as commercial saw manufactured. Gilbert describes the products. According to her daughter, Lady status of Chicago in the early 1890s as ‘a Aberdeen ‘visited workers in the farthest commercial centre of unbounded energy. corners of Kerry, Connemara and Donegal, This was the grandest city in the Midwest, chose the girls who were to spin, sing, make the second in the nation, and the seventh in butter and dance jigs; promised parents to the world.’23 Mindful of the marketability take care of them’.19 The journalist Teresa of rural nostalgia, Lady Aberdeen promised Deanwww.fieldday.ie collected criticism of Lady Aberdeen’s readers of the Chicago Sunday Post that Irish village from workers in the ‘Donegal she would ‘make one cottage a thoroughly Village’: home cottage, and by the fireside have an old woman knitting’.24 In this theme-park A Donegal villager, asked the difference experience of simulated hyper-Irishness, the between Mrs Hart’s enterprise and Irish-American delighted at how audiences Lady Aberdeen’s, replied succinctly could walk into cottages in which ‘half that the difference was ‘the divilish a dozen pretty Irish girls in cool-looking poor imitation they aire ov us’. ‘Lady prints were busied with embroidery and Aberdeen may be a bonny lady, and knitting’.25 The framing of Irish identity may want to help the poor of Ireland,’ within a commercial enterprise moved commented another, ‘but it’s not the true Andrew Carnegie to describe the central industries of Ireland, the real workers, exhibition piece as ‘a facsimile cottage’;26 that she has here’.20 Carnegie, one of the village’s main sponsors, attempted to dissuade Lady Aberdeen from Standard ‘aesthetic’ representations rather investing her own money in a scheme to than practical knowledge informed Lady reconstruct Irish cottages. Aberdeen’s conception of Ireland. The The main opposition to the Daily Free Press, for example, praised the representation of the Irish at the Chicago way her ‘touching reference to the life of World Fair came from the north of Ireland the Irish peasant ... had been so faithfully and from the extremes of Protestant mirrored in Miss Barlow’s Irish Idylls’,21 unionism. Although Lady Aberdeen’s trip

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23 Gilbert, Perfect Cities, was well accepted in the south of Ireland, exploited tableaux of peasant life to support 26. the Orange Order prevented a visit she had a colonial myth of Irish backwardness, 24 Chicago Sunday Post, planned to Belfast. Describing her Irish Milligan and her comrades produced living 12 March 1893. 27 25 Irish-American village as ‘sentimental charity’, the Order pictures of a dynamic culture. Newspaper, 6 May1893. objected to the way Ireland was depicted Brenna Katz Clarke suggests that the 26 Lady Aberdeen Papers, as the ‘beggar nation of the world’.28 This ceilidh staged by Milligan and Inghinidhe Haddo House Estate. was exactly the political line that Milligan na hÉireann at the turn of the century 27 Evening News (Belfast), 4 August 1893. herself would later take against the colonial provided the inspiration for the influential 28 A ‘Rev. Kane’, in Belfast administration in Ireland, after she became ‘peasant plays’ of James Cousins, Pádraic Newsletter, 3 August a radical nationalist. However, unlike the Colum and John Millington Synge. 1893. Orange Order or other northern unionists She claimed that these tableaux scenes 29 Shan Van Vocht, 7 June 1897. (such as her own father), ultimately believed offered a kind of cathartic recognition 30 Shan Van Vocht, 7 June that Ireland would not be strengthened for the urban bourgeoisie: ‘Dubliners, a 1898. within the Union. After 1894, she began to generation removed from the land, took 31 United Irishman, 13 argue that Ireland should empower itself great delight in viewing a slice of rural April 1901. from within and that culture was a crucial life, the exact replicas of western cottages, decolonizing agency. In the Chicago village, and the traditional singing and dancing the Irish women were merely stereotypes. of their parents’ generation.’32 Synge Yet, while Milligan later came to reject worked very hard to replicate on stage, in Lady Aberdeen’s work in Ireland as a plays such as Riders to the Sea (1904), the dangerous example of English philanthropy costume as well as the vocal intonations acting ‘under royal, vice-regal, and of the people he had lived with (and aristocratic patronage’,29 she often used the photographed) on the Aran Islands. Such same conventional images of Ireland and the physical ‘realism’ disconcerted audiences, Irish to her own different purposes. who were expecting and seeking social The iconography of the nationalist and psychological realism, but not in that tableaux Milligan produced after 1898 setting. Neil Corcoran argues that these www.fieldday.ieis strikingly reminiscent of that of the theatrical productions ‘providing an image World Fair she had contributed to five of rural life — particularly of life in the years earlier. But the difference was that West’, were a crucial project of the Irish these tableaux were performed in Irish Literary Revival: ‘The rural image would communities by Irish people as part of a represent a tested, endured solitude and movement to regenerate national theatre the generous supportiveness of community; and national language. The show Milligan the patient effort of labour and the nobility devised at Belfast’s Exhibition Hall in of suffering; the ideal of dedication and May 1898, for example, deployed ‘scenes the reward of courage.’33 According to the from peasant life’ and ‘lovely red-cloaked United Irishman, the highlight of the April colleens’.30 Similarly, the poses plastiques 1901 show in Dublin was ‘the introduction she mounted in conjunction with Inghinidhe for the first time in the metropolis of a na hÉireann in April 1901 drew upon the cottage céilidh scene representing the familiar repertoire of domesticated female actual everyday life — the amusements images that Lady Aberdeen had also staged and occupations of the people of the Irish- in Chicago; in one scene, an ‘old woman speaking districts’.34 The response to the working the spinning wheel’ was juxtaposed scene by theatre critic and architect Joseph with ‘the young one rocking her baby’.31 Holloway in his famous diary reveals the These examples imply that the process of radical nature of the new Irish theatre cultural revivalism relied not so much on in which the rural worker and the urban the replacement as on the redeployment of a bourgeoisie sat side by side. The man sitting unionist iconography. Where Lady Aberdeen next to Holloway, for instance, was so

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engaged with the theatrical performance of for the first time as national. Milligan also 32 Brenna Katz Clarke, a scene from rural life that he commented helped to introduce the language movement The Emergence of the Irish Peasant Play at upon minor discrepancies in its realism: as radical anti-illusionist theatre. In 1901 the Abbey Theatre she arranged for a special appearance of (Michigan, 1982), 17. The céilidh (caly) or Irish social the Gaelic League’s co-founder, Douglas 33 Neil Corcoran, After gathering round the fireside in the Hyde, on the stage where a tableau was Yeats and Joyce: Reading Modern Irish cabin was well carried out, (though a being performed. Hyde was ‘recognised’ Literature (London, countryman beside me said that the in the audience by the ‘cottagers’ on stage. 1997), 57. woman who rocked the cradle should His movement from one space (in the 34 United Irishman, 13 have done so with the foot instead of her theatre audience) into the imagined cottage April 1901. 35 National Library of hand if she were an industrious girl & scene (on stage) connected both: ‘As the Ireland (hereafter, NLI), also that countrymen never light their man of the house looked out through his Holloway Diaries, MS. pipe with matches but with a lighted coal door who did he see coming up the road 1798/1799; April 1901; or bit of turf).35 but An Craoibhin, and when Douglas Microfilm: P 8517 Reel 4, 103. Hyde appeared on the stage with his big 36 A. P. Graves, Songs It was precisely these aspects of Irish Irish frieze coat and with a fine Irish of Old Ireland: A public and private social life, which would blackthorn in his fist the audience cheered Collection of Fifty Irish have been excluded from the ‘facsimile’ him enthusiastically.’37 In May 1905 Melodies Unknown in England (London, cottages built by Lady Aberdeen, that were Milligan depicted the significant role taken 1882), 1. given a prominent visual part in the new by women in the language movement in a 37 United Irishman, 13 Irish national theatre. In his introduction tableau, ‘The Gaelic League (Miss Hanna April 1901. to Songs of Old Ireland, Graves argued Cotter) instructing the youth of Ireland’, in 38 Cork Examiner, 20 May 1905. that Irish music represents the ‘various St. Mary’s Hall, Cork.38 The relationship 39 United Irishman, 13 characteristics of the people, from which between the actualities of Irish life and the April 1901. they sprung. Thus, glimpses into the stylized rituals of the tableau was being lives of the Irish peasant, fisherman, and reconfigured. mechanic are given through the Lullabies, thewww.fieldday.ie Love Songs, the Lays of Sport and *** Occupation, and the Lamentation for the Dead.’36 A tableau reconstruction of the Community Drama, the most killing of Brian Boru provided Milligan immediately powerful form of literature, with the opportunity to stage the first actual the most vivid image of life. performance of the caoine, or keen, the W. B. Yeats, United Ireland (1903) collective female vocal lament for the dead. The United Irishman reported: Milligan and her associates seized upon the popular tableau form to re-animate The rendering by the choir of that a history that had been buried and beautiful old Irish tune, ‘The Return suppressed. Their tableaux offered a from Fingall’, in which the fierce cry of counter-narrative to officially sanctioned victory and the wild wail of sorrow for cultural entertainment. ‘England is the slain monarch so wonderfully mingle, monopolising the eye of our public’, claimed was excellent ... The mournful strains of the United Irishman, and it was only by the Irish caoine, which followed the death taking control of visual culture that ‘the of Brian, was weirdly impressive. character of the country will be altered’.39 As early as 1843, Thomas Davis had The tableaux performed scenes not usually stressed the importance of visual culture witnessed in public; events that were for the formation of national identity in familiar and domestic yet culturally hidden Ireland. He believed that the pictorial arts aspects of Ireland were shared collectively had an instructional and commemorative

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40 Thomas Davis, ‘Hints duty: ‘art is biography, history, and wicked step-mother scene had a light of from Irish Historical topography, taught through the eye’.40 Like poetry and legend about it.44 Painting’, reprinted Davis, Milligan stressed the capacity of the from The Nation (July 1843) in Thomas Davis: pictorial arts to re-imagine the ‘illustrated A member of the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Essays and Poems with history’41of a people whose contested Club and the Antiquarian Society from a Centenary Memoir past was not officially recorded or taught. the 1880s, Milligan photographed many 1845–1945 (Dublin, Milligan’s complaint in 1901 that ‘there Irish historical sites. She then transferred 1945). 42 41 Shan Van Vocht , 4 was no Irish art worth speaking of’ echoed these images onto glass slides, which were September 1898. an appeal she had made some years earlier projected onto a wall by a magic lantern. 42 United Irishman, 7 July for Irish artists to depict and popularize Under the auspices of the Gaelic League, 1901. Ireland’s nationalist history in painting.43 which she joined in 1895, she presented 43 Irish Weekly Independent, 6 For its part, the colonial administration numerous lantern lectures in Ireland and December 1894. organised tableaux as part of the Lord Britain. Initially, she relied on a hired 44 ‘Cois Na Tineadh’, in Lieutenant’s public parades, in which the gas lantern and operator; in 1898 she ‘Newspaper Cuttings of streets were taken over and militarized complained that her lecture tour of Donegal Alice Milligan’, Francis Joseph Biggar Papers, in official public commemorations and had been seriously impeded by the lack of a Belfast Central Library, affirmations of the Empire and the mobile magic lantern: MS. A86. Union. Unionist tableaux vivants were disseminated in print form through It is not possible to get a lantern for a magazines such as The Illustograph, which lecture in Donegal without entailing showed images of the Irish as bucolic, non- the expense of hiring one and paying political creatures. In fact, these pictures an operator from a distance. Lecturing were, in their attempts to depoliticize, in Letterkenny in January I met with deeply political. Milligan was consistently this difficulty. A man had actually to be drawn towards visual forms of cultural brought from Belfast to operate it. I would production — magic lantern shows, like to establish a good lecture lantern photography, tableaux and melodrama — and set of slides in the control of some www.fieldday.iebecause they enabled her to reach a wide energetic Gaelic worker in Donegal. The range of audiences, while sidestepping explanation of the slides could be supplied the thorny issue of spoken language. Her in Irish, and it would not take an orator commitment to the educational efficacy or a Gaelic linguist to give an interesting of tableaux vivants was encouraged by Gaelic lecture. You would attract the her earlier experiences of delivering magic young people in crowds to such an lantern slide lectures; indeed, lantern slides entertainment. The sum of £3 10s. would, and tableaux were combined on many I understand, purchase a first class lantern occasions. For example, in April 1901 she working by oil light, an instrument which used lanterns to generate atmosphere and in the average schoolroom would show lighting for a tableau: slides as well as needs be.45

I returned from Dublin where Ethna In 1898, she convinced an American Carbery ... Anna Johnston ... and I had sponsor to donate a portable oil lantern been helping at the historical tableaux to the Gaelic League, which was itself in the Ancient Concert Rooms, with sometimes called ‘the Shan Van Vocht’ as Brendan Rogers conducting a grand a salute to Milligan and Anna Johnston’s choir befitting the scenes, and a limelight newspaper of that name. The Derry Journal operator throwing blue and white and reported how Gaelic League workers red radiance from in front ... My most donated magic lantern slides that could be successful tableaux in Dublin had told used for educational lectures, as well as for the story of the children of Lir, and the local fund-raising events. The mobility and

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independence of the lecturers was a critical the United Irishman in 1900, Milligan 45 Shan Van Vocht, 6 June factor in Milligan’s plan to do away with made a forthright case for the suitability of 1898. 46 Derry Journal, 12 the type of magic lanterns that depended on magic lantern and tableaux shows for the September 1898. hired gas cylinders: advancement of the Revival’s educational 47 United Irishman, 7 July and nationalist agenda. She stressed the 1900. At Mountcharles that evening a case necessity of entertaining in order to instruct was opened containing a splendid magic audiences. Moreover, she argued, theatrical lantern, presented by a friend of the and lantern images could be used effectively cause to the Shan Van Vocht, Belfast. to draw in revenue for the language This lantern is to be used at meetings and movement: entertainments through Donegal, where the lecture and description of slides is Magic lanterns and tableaux could given in Irish. Mr Patrick McManus be pressed into service for teaching presented a beautiful collection of slides, history, and even if these attractions collected during his travels round the cost something, they will be found to be world and these include views of Rome, self-supporting and frequently profitable, Paris, India and Japan, as well as views whereas the lecture on the ordinary lines of Ireland. Miss Milligan presented a is purely a source of expense. People are set of historical slides dealing with the rarely charged for entrance, and in some lives of Red Hugh O’Donnell and Hugh cases it would look as if they expected to O’Neill. It had been intended to use the be paid for coming.47 lamp in Glenties the following evening, but as the case was only opened now for After the April 1901 performances in the first time no one had time to learn to Dublin, Arthur Griffith acknowledged operate with sufficient dexterity. It has, how useful the tableaux were in conveying however, been promised to that town narrative without language. The bilingual for an early date to be exhibited at an programme and offstage orator meant www.fieldday.ieentertainment on behalf of the Cathedral that it was possible for people to have an building fund.46 experience of Irish and be inspired to learn more: ‘The performances this week have When she was officially employed as a done splendid service to the national cause. travelling lecturer by the Gaelic League in People who never studied a line of Ireland’s October 1904, Milligan began to travel history in their lives and who thought across Ireland with her own portable magic nothing about their native language went lantern and a camera that she used to away from the Ancient Concert Rooms collect pictures for slides. These pictures determined to study both.’48 Holloway’s were both projected and accompanied by commentary on one particularly poor storytelling, public talks or music. Milligan performance at the April 1901 show in also then worked with local communities Dublin indicates how central the orator was to re-embody the pictures as theatre and to the success of Milligan’s magic lantern devise new pictures for the stage from local and tableaux entertainments: folklore, the cultural life of the community and from Irish songs and legends. Her Mr Wyse Power in the character of formal appointment as a lecturer indicated a ‘showman’ was a hopeless failure recognition by the League of the structural as he barked out his remarks in an reality of the local economic and cultural unintelligible way which could not be practices (such as magic lantern and theatre followed, he might as well have spoken shows) that she had already been developing in Chinese for all I understood of his unofficially for over a decade. Writing in subject matter relative to the tableaux.

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48 United Irishman, 13 Certainly he takes the cake for indistinct country, old seats of piety, power and April 1901. public speaking!49 learning, were flashed on the screen, each 49 NLI, Holloway Diaries, being appropriately referred to, and the April 1901 MS. 1798/1799. In the 1890s, Milligan took photographs of whole so skilfully blended and interwoven 50 Milligan was asked by Gaelic League workers and projected them as to make the subject interesting to all, the IRB activist Mark as magic lantern slides to Irish communities and to bring the members of the league Ryan to give a talk abroad. She displayed and further enriched in London into still closer touch with entitled ‘In the Gaelic Speaking Country’ at the new context of the Revival by connecting their friends in the movement at home. the Bloomsbury Hall. emigrant Irish communities (most often Each picture on being recognised was An Claidheamh Soluis in places such as Scotland, Liverpool and greeted with enthusiasm, and often published a report of the London) with those involved in the revival with an Irish blessing ... A picture of ‘illustrated’ lecture, 10 February 1900. of language and culture ‘at home’. It was Thomas Concannon received a very essential that the audience recognized the hearty greeting ... The vote of thanks figures they saw on screen. The power of to the lecturer was proposed by Father the image was critically important in the O’Sullivan of Hounslow, seconded by formation of a community that was based W. B. Yeats, and supported by F. Hugh on the complex dynamics of recognition. O’Donnell. After Miss Milligan had The Gaelic League paper An Claidheamh suitably replied a selection of Irish airs Soluis (The Sword of Light) published was exquisitely played ... Miss Charlotte a report of one of Milligan’s lectures, Milligan Fox next played on the piano her delivered in London, called ‘In the Gaelic own beautiful arrangement of the grand Speaking Country’. The magic lantern old war song, ‘Cath Ceim an Fheidh’ and show was very similar to the structure of a also of a charming Jacobite ballad.50 tableau performance: the images that were projected onto a screen for people to see Fund-raising was a key part of this cultural were accompanied by stories provided by project. In October 1904, Milligan herself an offstage narrator (in this case Milligan was appointed by the League to present www.fieldday.ieherself). Live Irish music was also an slides and living pictures of ‘Irish historic important component of these shows. On and literary subjects’ in order to ‘propagate this occasion, Milligan’s sister, Charlotte the cause and get in funds’.51 Michael Milligan Fox (founder of the London Irish Booth notes that the ‘sheer spectacular Folk Song Society), provided post–slide-show effect’ exhibited by many of the British music, but live music and singing from the living pictures relied upon copious financial audience also often accompanied the pictures resources: ‘A great deal of money could as they were projected from the magic be and frequently was spent on costumes lantern or performed as tableaux on stage: and properties for the tableau vivant.’52 Whereas tableaux in America and Britain Every available seat was occupied, and were often extremely expensive, Milligan’s many were unfortunately unable to living pictures were performed as fund- obtain admission. ... Miss Milligan, who raisers for Irish cultural and political received a great ovation, immediately groups with limited resources. For example, began her lecture, which she delivered in some of the money raised by Inghinidhe a chatty, pleasant, and very interesting na hÉireann’s tableaux show in April manner. She had a magnificent set of 1901 funded the publication of Poems and views shown by the magic lantern as Ballads (1902) by their comrade William the groundwork of the lecture ... Photos Rooney (1873–1901). Money collected by of Gaelic League gatherings, groups of Milligan on her touring tableaux shows Irish speaking people and of prominent was ‘sent forward to the language fund’.53 Gaelic workers, beauty spots in the Gaelic Milligan organized the Gaelic League in

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and around Cork with Thomas MacDonagh from Ireland’s pre-colonial past were at 51 The Leader (San and helped set up League branches and raise that time already a common feature of Francisco), 10 January 1905. funds in the North with Roger Casement. the historical Irish stage. For example, 52 Michael Booth, With Ada MacNeill, she toured Donegal processional stage displays that ‘appealed Victorian Spectacular and the Glens of Antrim in 1906 to raise to the incipient nationalism’ of some theatre Theatre 1850–1910 money for the establishment of an Irish spectators achieved great popularity in (London, 1981), 18. 53 An Claidheamh Soluis, college in County Donegal.54 The college late eighteenth-century Ireland. Richard 15 April 1905. was opened in October of the same year. Sheridan’s farce St. Patrick’s Day was 54 An Claidheamh Soluis, At this occasion it was reported that ‘Eilis introduced and concluded by the first 31 March 1906. Ni Mhaeleagain [Alice Milligan] delights ‘patriotic extravaganzas’ to resemble a 55 An Claidheamh Soluis, 6 October 1906. students, visitors and country people with series of Gaelic tableaux vivants. Staged in 56 NLI, Mary Hutton 55 tableaux vivants illustrating Irish history’. Cork in August 1776, ‘colourful pageantry’ Papers, MS. 8611 (13). As late as 1910 Milligan informed Mary framed the drama: 57 William Smith Clark, Hutton that she had once again assisted in The Irish Stage in the County Towns 1720– the production of tableaux vivants to raise A long and motley procession of 1800 (Oxford, 1965), 56 ‘some money for the building fund’. ‘Hibernians’, including ‘Irish Kings, 105. Milesians, druids, bards, Dermot Living Pictures, Living History Roderick O’Connor, Bryan Borro, Sitric O’Neill, Strongbow, O’Neal, Earl of Fintan O’Toole: Doesn’t the whole Field Pembroke’, opened the performance, Day project then depend on political and a musical number ‘Carolan the Irish nationalism and on the achievement of a Bard’ by ‘the full grand chorus of all the united Ireland? characters’ concluded it.57 Brian Friel: I don’t think it should be read in those terms. I think it should lead Robert Owenson’s 1777 entertainment, to a cultural state, not a political state. The Shamrock; or, St. Patrick’s Day, has And I think out of that cultural state, a been described by Luke Gibbons as a ‘Celtic www.fieldday.iepossibility of a political state follows. Disneyland’ that similarly resembled living picture shows.58 Owenson (1744–1812) Interview with Brian Friel, In Dublin, was the father of the novelist Lady Morgan. 28 October 1982 His production of Sheridan was of a piece with those of the ‘National Theatre’ he Milligan radicalized Thomas Davis’s ideas later opened in Ireland. The performances about visual culture in her work with a included music that drew the audience in for broad range of Irish cultural activists in the stage productions: Ireland and abroad and in making theatre in local communities. Her theatrical In 1784 he leased the Fishamble Theatre pictures were not just about teaching in Dublin ... to mount a ‘National ‘through the eye’; they were participatory, Theatre’ with the support of the patriot communitarian and localized. By creating aristocracy ... Besides the anthem of for the stage pictures in which people the Irish Volunteers, songs in Irish embodied representations of Irish history, were regularly sung in his theatre, with she helped to release this history from the harp accompaniment by his daughter frozen official narrative. Milligan was aware Sydney, who deemed it ‘very Irish’ in her of the broad contemporary international Memoirs.59 context for the tableau form, but she was also looking back to the late eighteenth Milligan’s own ideas about tableaux seemed century when a re-animated Irish national to have developed from her participation in identity was contesting public space. Scenes the unofficial cultural activities conducted

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58 Luke Gibbons, for the 1798 centenary. Street parades and paraded through the streets of Dublin.62 ‘From Ossian to other public events constituted a form of In 1907, An Claidheamh Soluis reported O’Carolan’, in Fiona radicalized commemorative art. She declared how the festival was an integral part of Stafford and Howard Gaskill, eds., From in the Shan Van Vocht that decorated developing the revival of the language as a Gaelic to Romantic: banners were infinitely more effective for living movement. Costumed representations Ossianic Translations young people in conveying national history of Ireland’s historical and mythical past (Amsterdam, 1998), and forging anti-colonial resistance than were an intrinsic part of this project. 229. 59 Robert Welch and any textbook. In a report on the Wolfe Tone Groups participating in the language parade Bruce Stewart, eds., The procession held in Dublin, she commended were invited to choose a scene and perform Oxford Companion participants from the north for their this as a tableau on the day, while moving to Irish Literature ‘magnificent banners’ portraying the United through the city streets: (Oxford, 1996), 463; Sydney Owenson, Lady Irishmen. She asserted that the pictures Morgan’s Memoirs; of ‘Wolfe Tone and his comrades on Cave The results of the activity of the Autobiography, Diaries, Hill; McCracken at Antrim’s fight; Tone’s Tableaux sub-committee promise to be and Correspondence, interview with Napoleon; McCracken’s of the happiest. A list of the incidents 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1863), vol. 1, 17. execution’ would act as ‘illustrated history illustrative of the Irish history from the 60 Shan Van Vocht, 2 lessons to the young people in the black beginning, and divided into periods, was September 1898. north’.60 As a member of the Gaelic League’s drawn up and from this each Craobh 61 Timothy G. McMahon, Tableaux Committee from 1902, Milligan [branch] was invited to select one or Grand Opportunity: The Gaelic Revival and also co-ordinated costume pageants of Irish more tableaux already selected: (1) Irish Society 1893–1910 history for the annual Irish Language Week Mythological or Tuatha Dé Danann (Syracuse, 2008), 210. parades in Dublin’s city centre. Timothy Period — Mananan Mac Lir bringing 62 Irish News, 17 March McMahon describes the appeal of these the Arts back to Eire (2) Red Branch or 1902. pageants and processions: Cuchulainn Period — Oilioll and Meadh comparing their possessions (3) Fenian As long as they remained a viable or Ossianic Period — Oisin and Niamh means of public appeal, the language in Tír na nÓg (4) Christian Period — www.fieldday.ieprocessions provided revivalists with dialogue between Oisin and St. Patrick a unique way to bring their cause into (5) Danish Period — Brian of Banba the streets of the capital. By drawing meets Mathghamhain, his brother (6) on traditions of civic pageantry, the Norman Period — Lorcán Ó Tuathail League addressed Dubliners through appealing to the chiefs for unity against a familiar medium that allowed foreign invader; Marriage of Eva to unions and trade societies, temperance Strongbow (7) O’Neill and O’Donnell organisations, friendly societies, Period — Reception of Red Hugh at and other advocacy groups to align Gleann Maoiliughra (8) Confederation themselves opportunistically with the Period.63 language cause. In practice, therefore, pre-existing associational networks, Image, Vision, Culture the socioeconomic conditions of the city, the condition of the League as an My notion of an Irish National Theatre organisation, and the spectacle of the is that it ought to be the nursery of an processions themselves all combined Irish dramatic literature which, while to affect how people interpreted and making a worldwide appeal, would see internalised the League’s linguistic life through Irish eyes. For myself, I must nationalism.61 say that I cannot conceive it possible to achieve this except through the medium The 1902 language demonstration included of the Irish language ... English as spoken ‘picturesque’ and ‘emblematic tableaux’ by educated Englishmen differs from that

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spoken by Irishmen ... the subtle Gaelic appealing Deirdre, a frowning King and 63 An Claidheamh Soluis, mind struggling for expression through stalwart young heroes who would stand 17 May 1907. 64 Derry Journal, 27 May an unsympathetic medium. for no betrayals. I was in an audience 1938. of some hall devoted to nationalism 65 Pádraic Colum, ‘The Frank Fay, United Irishman, and Gaelicism when I saw the tableau Early Days of the 1 May, 1901 of ‘Silent O’Moyle be the Roar of thy Irish Theatre’, Dublin Magazine (October/ Waters’ and watched the enchantment of December 1949), 14. In 1938 Milligan was invited to judge the children of Lir.65 the tableaux presented at the feis in Omagh, County Tyrone. She readily accepted the Milligan staged ‘Avenging and Bright’ offer because of her extensive ‘experience in several times as a tableau vivant. Writing in organising tableaux in places as far apart 1938, she described the disasters that had as Carndonagh and Skibbereen, in Dublin befallen the League when it held a feis in and in Belfast, in spacious premises like Carnlough, County Antrim, in 1904: the Antient Concert Rooms and the Ulster Hall and often in tents at Feiseanna and Tableaux were shown at a hall and little country school-houses’.64 In the late Deirdre was very ambitiously proposed 1890s and early 1900s, tableaux had been to me as a subject of local interest. crucial to her political activities. Following We were to show her with the sons a highly successful exhibition of living of Uisineach riding in the chariot and pictures in Belfast in May 1898, staged in pointing towards the red cloud of ill conjunction with the city’s Gaelic League omen over Emania, while a choir sang and Arts Society, she was inspired to mount ‘Avenging and Bright. ... We just gave the further shows in Derry (1899), Belfast hindquarters of the horse, suggested by a (1900) and Dublin (April and August 1901). deerskin flung over a bolster which was She subsequently took poses plastiques to lashed to a high music stand. A brown schools and Gaelic League branches across sweeping horse tail projected between Ireland,www.fieldday.ie tailoring her visualizations of the chariot shafts and Naoisi leaned national history to suit the demands of local forward holding the reins ... Alas, before constituencies. Tableaux were accessible the curtain rose the music stand began in two senses; they readily engaged their to lower itself; our horse was sinking to audiences and they could be produced by diminutive proportions. ‘Never mind,’ groups with limited funding and modest said Louis Walsh consolingly, ‘they are dramatic skills. Thus local communities, used to Cushendal ponies here.’66 language groups and small scale political and cultural organizations were able The actress Maíre Nic Shiubhlaigh also to participate directly in the theatrical remembered living pictures directed by memorialization of national identity. Milligan that re-enacted scenes from history Accounts written by those who witnessed or legend: ‘William Rooney’s “Dear Dark the tableaux shows include Pádraic Head”, or, perhaps, something out of Colum, who recalled that the April 1901 Moore’s “Rich and Rare” in which would show, organized by Milligan in Dublin, appear a lady, richly bejewelled and garbed included scenes from Thomas Moore’s Irish in silks, wooed by a glittering Sir Knight to Melodies, which he defined as the accompaniment of appropriate choral music’.67 living pictures that were carried along In 1949, Colum recalled more precisely by the music ... [for instance] ‘Avenging how the living picture shows were a hybrid and Bright Falls the Swift Sword of Erin’ of music and narrative in which ‘statuesque in which the audience would see an groups [were] introduced by some familiar

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66 Derry Journal, 27 May piece of music ... holding their pose for some accompanied by Irish airs, many composed 1938. minutes — an elementary show in which by her sister Charlotte. An unseen chorus 67 Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh, costume, music, and striking appearance sang along with the tableaux from behind The Splendid Years: 68 Recollections as Told to were ingredients’. Thomas Moore was the stage curtain. The United Irishman Edward Kenny (Dublin, integral to Milligan’s own project because noted that the invisible source of the music 1955), 2–3. he was taken to be one of the principal during tableaux in Dublin added to its 68 Colum, ‘The Early Days advocates of the United Irishmen in popular ethereal presence: ‘strains of melody’ from of the Irish Theatre’, 14. 69 J. L. Molloy, Songs Irish culture. His Irish Melodies were based an ‘unseen harpist ... accorded perfectly of Ireland: Including on airs transcribed at the Belfast Harp with the pictures’.72 the Most Favourite of Festival in 1792 by the musician Edward Milligan herself expressly conceived of Moore’s Irish Melodies Bunting (1773–1843), who lived with the the tableau vivant as a vehicle for communal (London, 1873), 1. 70 Irish News, 7 May McCracken family in Belfast. In 1911 and national unification. Her recollection 1898. Charlotte Milligan Fox and Alice Milligan in 1913 of a show that she had helped to 71 Irish News, 28 April wrote a history of the Harp Festival, organize in west Cork underscores the 1909. Annals of the Irish Harpers, based on lost collective nature of the enterprise: 72 United Irishman, 15 March 1913. Bunting manuscripts that had been found by Charlotte and which Alice bequeathed to Some nine or ten years ago I visited Queen’s University, Belfast, in 1916. Music Macroom as envoy of the Gaelic League, operated as a key part of the tableau show and organised a historical tableau in the in the same way as it did in the late plays Market House. I found myself supported of Sean O’Casey: in both contexts, Irish on all sides by the clan O’Leary. One music and song evoke a strong connection stalwart Gael of that name impersonated between audience and players. As with the Brian Boru in his death struggle with the instance of Douglas Hyde walking onto the Danes; another gave in Irish a recital, stage out of the audience, music that was describing the pictures as the uprolling both familiar and revered could break the curtain disclosed them to view, whilst a separation between those who watched and third O’Leary manipulated the lighting www.fieldday.iethose who performed. apparatus — and there were, I know not In his collection Songs of Ireland (1873), how many, juveniles of the name among J. L. Molloy had suggested that music was the dramatis personae, singers and the key to the Irish ‘national character’ and dancers.73 that songs were the surest representation of the ‘popular mind’.69 The connection Milligan and Ada McNeill worked together between pictures and music was overtly during the 1906 feis in Cushendall, County introduced in May 1898 when a series of Antrim. This was the occasion when ‘legendary and historic tableaux’ were Casement took the initiative to clear a considered an appropriate conclusion to the disused overgrown field after a unionist Gaelic League’s week-long music festival, landowner refused the League access to a held in Belfast. In order to make sure people site on his land. Milligan choreographed from different communities could attend, ‘The Mask of the Nine Glens’, which was the League negotiated with the railways both a tableau vivant and a procession to put on extra services. The Irish News that formed ‘a unique open-air spectacle ... carried a report that ‘in May 1898, the Feis headed by the Irish War Pipes and by the Ceoil held its meeting in Belfast, and the artistic banners’. The music was provided by local Gaelic League determined to have an Francis Joseph Bigger’s Belfast Pipe Band. innings’.70 In 1909 Milligan recalled how The ceremonial, processional pageantry, the Gaelic League orchestrated the show which involved music and Irish language ‘with the assistance of members of the Art recitation, became Milligan’s trademark in Society’.71 Milligan’s tableaux vivants were the Gaelic League movement.74

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Tableaux vivants became the central robbery’. The manuscript indicates how the 73 Quoted in Seamus focus of her work with amateur groups visual action of the various tableaux should Clarke, Feis na nGleann: A History of because they were easier to stage than be staged. The numbers in the following the Festival of the Glens dramas; as Kirsten Gram Holstrom extract indicate key moments announced to (Holywood, 1990), 17. observes, living pictures did not make the audience, rather than to the number of 74 Clarke, Feis na ‘excessive claims on the talents of the tableaux performed: nGleann, 18. 75 Kirsten Gram Holstrom, participants’.75 An especially illuminating Monodrama, Attitudes, insight into Milligan’s nurturing role for 8. The Danes were at last routed. Tableaux Vivants: amateur theatre groups is provided by the Though Murrogh fell in the front of Studies on some Trends letters she received in 1899 from Mary the fight the power of the foreigner was of Theatrical Fashion 1770–1815 (Stockholm, Spring Rice (1880–1924), president of the broken forever. As Brian knelt at evening 1967), 229. Foynes Branch of the Gaelic League. Spring prayer there came two Danes that were 76 Milligan Papers, Allen Rice later organized the Howth gunrunning flying from the battle & they looked at Library. in 1914. She was heavily involved in the him through the trees — (curtain rises) Gaelic League movement and Milligan’s It is the king said one — no said the theatre practice seemed to her vital in other it is only the priest. No said the creating and stimulating the language other it is Brian the high king himself let community. Because her language group us kill him as he kneels. was eager to stage living pictures, Spring 9. They fell upon Brian and a great Rice wrote to Milligan requesting assistance struggle followed. with costumes and scenery: He seized his sword — fought them bravely. I think they would hardly be up to acting 10. And though they killed him his The Last Feast of the Fianna but we had soldiers returning found him lying thought of having tableaux [drawn] from victorious in death upon the bodies of the Fianna, one of the murder of Brian the foreign foemen. Boru, one of Malachi and the collar of www.fieldday.iegold, the last two the same as the ones In response, Spring Rice explained: they had in Belfast in May. I wonder could you lend us any of the costumes I do quite agree that Brian Boru would for these? It would be a great help if be so much better in a series than you could, and we would, of course, isolated and we all think your plan take great care of them. The people here most effective. But I’m afraid we have are getting so keen about the Irish that no one good enough for Brian and we they would be very much interested in should like to see your plan for Oisin anything of the kind.76 before deciding. You say Oisin is simpler. Perhaps we could attempt Brian next Milligan suggested that it would be possible year ... of course I see it would be so to devise a coherent series of tableaux much better to have several tableaux centred upon the Brian Boru narrative. on the same subject, just changing the This manuscript is the only surviving pose and position; besides being more example of a tableau vivant script by her. historically instructive to the audience She redesigned his death scene to include a than several of different ages and periods retrospect of his successful reign in Ireland. altogether.77 The first scene is based on the story from which Moore’s poem ‘Rich and Rare’ is The overarching consideration, as Spring derived; a ‘young maiden of great beauty Rice makes clear, was to ensure that the adorned with jewels’ walks alone ‘from end presentation was ‘historically instructive’. to end of Erin without fear of danger and

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Women and Nation with leading cultural activists such as Anna 77 Milligan Papers, Allen Library. Johnston, Mary Hutton, Edith McCann and 78 Katherine Mullen, Katherine Mullen explores the (un)conscious Rosamund Praeger taking part. Yet a major ‘“Typhoid Turnips and presence of sexual visual culture in James cultural genre that was led by and included Crooked Cucumbers”: Joyce’s Ireland: ‘Joyce places on show what so many women has been ignored in the Theosophy in Ulysses’, Modernism/Modernity, commonly issued from the spirit cabinet; standard histories of Ireland’s anti-colonial 8, 1 (2001), 77–97. 77. scantily clad “ghosts”, who disconcertingly struggle. 79 Mary Chapman, resembled the smutty postcards, indecent The silence of these shows was important ‘“Living Pictures”: stereoscopes, and tableaux vivants of in opening up a radical inclusive space, Women and Tableaux 78 Vivants in Nineteenth- popular erotic entertainments.’ Milligan, particularly in contested areas such as Century American in contrast, accorded Irish women more Belfast. Women could work together Fiction and Culture’, dynamic roles, in public space, on stage and on the production of tableaux despite Wide Angle, 18 (1996), behind the scenes. Mary Chapman observes holding (and indeed, sometimes, because 22-50, 29–30. 80 Shan Van Vocht, 4 that women in America gravitated towards they held) opposing political views. October 1897. staging tableaux because of the genre’s Tableaux made it possible for a radical elements of participatory democracy: nationalist such as Anna Johnston to work alongside the staunch unionist sculptor The performers and producers of Rosamund Praeger. Praeger designed tableaux vivants were predominantly the sets for the 1898 show that Johnston women ... In Wharton’s The House of performed in and Milligan directed. Mirth and Alcott’s Behind the Mask, Women contributed to such events without for example, young unmarried women defined titles as ‘director’ and ‘stage perform lead roles, while men observe. designer’; they produced and performed in Married women serve as hostesses or unscripted shows in which they remained stage managers. The manuals support largely unnamed, where their roles were this division of roles. There are on contributions to a whole. It was, in essence, average more than fifty percent more a collective ‘event’. At issue in the debates www.fieldday.ieroles for adult women than for adult men about native language and national theatre in all the manuals I examined.79 was the question of who had the right to speak for the Irish nation and how that Women in Milligan’s tableaux were not nation could be spoken for. The Gaelic identified by their sexual relationship to League was not just about reinstating the men. It is important that these shows were Irish language; it was part of the Revival performed in public space rather than in project to create the cultural conditions that elite drawing rooms and by women who would give the Irish language and national often identified themselves as part of a theatre meaning. In this context, the tableau cultural or political collective. The silence of was a symbol of the national body awaiting the tableaux was in itself a politics. Women, speech. At the turn of the century these Milligan had complained, ‘were not called living picture shows were crucial for the upon to have any opinion whatsoever in huge numbers of people who did not have constitutional politics’.80 Their silence, Irish but who wanted to participate in the when staged, became a form of speaking formation of ‘national’ theatre. Tableaux back. Milligan produced tableaux with were vital in forging communities, for women who were artists, educators, women in gaining space in the public life of community, cultural and political activists. the nation, for connecting people in difficult The Gaelic League included many women. political contexts, for learners at different The very first major show of tableaux levels of Irish-language training, for the Milligan helped produce in Belfast took inclusion of northern Protestants, like Alice place in 1898 at Belfast’s Exhibition Hall, Milligan herself, whose upbringing led them

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Weekly Freeman cartoon: ‘Rejoice Oh! Greatly’: Free supplement with Weekly Freeman, 4 June 1887. Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

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152 Alice Milligan: Republican Tableaux and the RevivaL

81 United Irishman, 4 to believe that Irish was not their native Without your help we feel very much January 1902. language or part of their national culture. afraid of trying them as none of us have 82 12 July 1901; Clontarf Silence represented a halfway house, a had much experience in tableaux. I branch: C[rime] S[pecial] B[ranch]. 1901 space, a means of crossing borders and feel sure in as far as attracting a large 24060/S. transgressing the barriers erected by years audience they are quite sure to be 83 NLI, Alice Milligan of colonial occupation. successful, everyone in Dublin seems Papers, MS. 5048 (36). In addition, tableau vivant shows anxious for them ... you are so clever and were clearly significant in providing a have such a genius for dramatic effects cultural platform for women, who were that if you came we are certain of a often banned from nationalist political magnificent success.83 organizations. Milligan aligned her work with Irish feminist organizations such as Milligan and Johnston joined Inghinidhe na hÉireann, which had been Inghinidhe na hÉireann and helped with founded by Maud Gonne in April 1900. the organization’s drama classes. In 1901, Griffith declared: ‘The starting of Cumann along with the Fay brothers, they staged na nGaedheal called into existence another two shows: the first took place in April, body, composed of Irishwomen, called the second, as a protest during Horse Inghinidhe na hÉireann, and whatever the Show Week in August. The performances men might do in forming the Irish national included short plays by Milligan, as well character it rested principally with the as several different ‘types’ of tableau: some women of Ireland to form it.’81 The Crime conveyed stories, others enacted narratives Special Branch reports reveal how the from music; pictures were enacted by colonial administration in Ireland viewed the women almost like the pageants that this organization: would characterize the later Gaelic League language demonstrations. The construction This society was formed in Dublin of the tableau shows exemplified the towards the end of the year 1900, material skills of local production. Great www.fieldday.ieand has its offices at Lower Abbey care and attention were devoted to making Street. It consists of a central branch the clothes, to the designs for the costumes, in Dublin with as many branches as and to sourcing the materials in Ireland. can be promoted in the different other The United Irishman commended the counties of Ireland & Gt. Britain. The organization’s work: ‘We have heard central branch has Miss Maud Gonne nothing but praise on every side of the for President ... It will be observed that tableaux, and the Inghinidhe na hÉireann this Society and the Confederation of are deserving of all praise.’84 Despite the the Gael Society are almost similar in popularity of the event, however, Holloway their constitution, Rules and Objectives, felt that an atmosphere of ‘funereal gloom and that the distinction between these & melancholy’ marred the tableaux: consists almost entirely in the fact that the one society is composed entirely by Can’t one be cheerful & Irish at the same women, whilst the other is composed of time? ... The scenes of tableaux illustrative nearly all men.82 of the events in the story of ‘The Pursuit of Diarmuid & Grainne’ were sometimes The tableau had already proved a major effective & the choral music — though attraction for the Irish Women’s Association ever doleful — was capitally sung by the in Belfast. After witnessing the 1900 series invisible choir. This part of the show was of tableaux in Belfast, Maud Gonne sought drearily produced ... The tableaux of ‘The Milligan’s aid for a show she was planning Children of Lir’ was effective & pretty, for Dublin with Inghinidhe na hÉireann: but I did not think much of the ‘Red Hugh

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Weekly Freeman cartoon: ‘At Their Mercy’: Free supplement with Weekly Freeman, 8 April 1882. Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

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O’Donnell’ series.85 Maud Gonne described how the children’s matinée in August 1901, staged by Milligan One of the most often performed and Inghinidhe na hÉireann, repeated the tableaux in pre- and post-partition Ireland tableau of Ireland as a woman eventually was that of ‘Erin Fettered, Erin Free’. liberated:

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84 United Irishman, 3 As the curtain rose on the last tableaux or saying’. They are very similar to the April 1901. of Erin Fettered and Erin Free, and Erin tableaux that Milligan staged, in which 85 NLI, Holloway Diaries, as a beautiful girl with broken chains the physical body was also a symbolic April 1901 MS. 1798/1799. falling from her and a drawn sword in representation that generated broader 86 United Irishman, 7 her hand appeared, the little children political and cultural meaning. In tableaux, September 1901. rose to their feet and their voices joined then, Milligan reactivated familiar codes 87 Derry Journal, 27 May sweetly and shrilly in the chorus of ‘A that were already in circulation in Irish 1938. 86 88 Chapman, ‘“Living Nation Once Again’. melodrama, costumes pageants and street Pictures”’, 26. parades, in theatre posters and in the Milligan witnessed an identical living illustrations in the nationalist press. picture during a post-partition tableau show In the American women’s movement, held in the grounds of the Loreto Convent similar living pictures were used as part of in Omagh. She reported the event for the public processions. In 1913, for example, press. People, she declared, did not need members of the National American to hear the orator because ‘everyone knew Women’s Suffrage Association marched to what the pictures meant’: the Treasury Building in Washington, DC, ‘to present a series of tableaux representing At the outset three figures faced the Justice, Plenty, Columbia, Peace, Charity, attentive multitude at the front of the and Liberty to campaign for the woman’s platform. Pale, downcast, mournful, vote’.88 The 1925 International Council a figure in white, veiled to the knee in of Women was also held in Washington transparent black, wearing heavy fetters. and opened with an ‘Allegorical tableau’ Behind her at the back of the stage an that portrayed an image of the conference’s empty throne. Every individual in the agenda.89 The Inghinidhe na hÉireann event audience knows at a glance it is Eire, of April 1901 concluded with a tableau that our Motherland ... Justice at length ‘represented the Boer fight for freedom’, advances, the fetters are removed and an anti-colonial struggle that served as a www.fieldday.iefall with a clang. The Green and gold rallying point for Irish nationalists.90 The cloak is placed around Eire. She is led United Irishman reported how the audience to the empty throne to the air of ‘A at this show appealed for the women to re- Nation Once Again’ and the white-robed enact the series of tableaux several times. figure, symbolising the faith she has Indeed, it was in this very show that many defended, sets the crown of independent of the later prisoners of 1923 gained their nationhood on her brow.87 first experience of performing tableaux:

People were familiar with the images and Maeve, greatest of Ireland’s heroines, knew how to interpret them, largely because Grania Mhaol visiting Elizabeth they had appeared regularly in the Irish and pulverising the virgin monarch, nationalist presses since the late nineteenth who strove to impress the splendid century. Both the Weekly Freeman and Irishwomen; St. Brigid, the Inghean United Ireland carried a regular, glossy, Dubh, Red Hugh’s mother; Sarah pull-out, colour supplement illustrating Curran, and Anne Devlin, the betrothed images (usually female) of Ireland struggling and faithful servant of Emmet. Ireland against her colonial oppressor. Her ankles fettered and crouching over her unstrung or wrists are chained; sometimes she is harp at the base of the Celtic cross, and gagged, usually depicted in a doorway, then Ireland Free, erect against the cross, entering or pointing to a prison cell. Such her harp now strung at her feet, her sketches were always accompanied by green robe flowing round her, the cap captions relating what ‘Erin’ was thinking of liberty on her head, and in her hand

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a shining sword. This tableau evoked a might be found in those assuaging notes 89 Leila J. Rupp, Worlds tremendous outburst of enthusiasm and and those hushed rhythms and in those of Women: The Making of an International shouts of ‘Aris! aris!’ caused its repetition silent and hypnotic movements. Dancing Women’s Movement 91 again and again. as if language no longer existed because (New Jersey, 1997), 56. words were no longer necessary ... 90 United Irishman, 13 Gibbons writes of Anne Devlin’s April 1901. 91 United Irishman, 13 unwillingness to betray Robert Emmet Brian Friel, Dancing at Lughnasa (1991) April 1901. to the British in the face of torture as 92 Luke Gibbons, ‘The an ‘act of intransigence’, suggesting that Milligan’s dramas relied on a kind of Politics of Silence: ‘Anne’s silence is similar to her domestic performance practice that makes their value Anne Devlin, Women and Irish Cinema’, in or maternal persona. It is not a submissive and meaning almost inaccessible to us now; Transformations in Irish silence, standing outside signification it is as though they are written in a language Culture (Cork, 1996), and, by extension, language, power and that is not English or Irish, but something 114. representation.’92 The pictorial stillness in between. Can what was released to of Pat Murphy’s 1984 film Anne Devlin audiences then, be rereleased to us now? is visually similar to the tableau versions Anna Johnston, as the waiting maid, forever performed by Irish women earlier in the pours the sleeping potion into a silver pot century. It was the memory of this silence held by Princess Grania, who was played by as an act of resistance that the women Edith McCann in 1898 in the Ulster Hall prisoners of 1923 re-animated when they at the Gaelic League music festival. Queen restaged Devlin and Emmet. Such silence Maeve looks out at us directly, clasping her under torture was protest. Silence after spear and shield. This is the only known death was power. Just as Emmet’s speech image of Elise McGown. No records in the from the dock projected the republican official archives chart her life. Resting on struggle into the future, the pictures by her shoulder, in a white gown, hands clasped the women hunger strikers of 1923 also together, hair falling around a half secret projected, through silence, a future beyond smile, is ‘Miss Davidson’, alias Finbarr, thewww.fieldday.ie moment of their production. Alice daughter of Maeve. Milligan played a key part in finding and These are two of four surviving developing the form for this utopian vision. photographic images of Milligan’s theatre practice. Three of them were probably not The Radical Modernism of Ireland’s taken in context. The lighting suggests Cultural Revival that they were restaged under the glass roof of photographic studios in Belfast MICHAEL: But there is one memory of and Letterkenny. Writing in 1931 of such that Lughnasa time that visits me most nineteenth-century studio photographs, often; and what fascinates me about Walter Benjamin observed: ‘Everything that memory is that it owes nothing about these early pictures was built to last to fact. In that memory atmosphere is ... the very creases in people’s clothes have more real than incident and everything an air of permanence.’93 Yet although is simultaneously actual and illusory ... these pictures are taken in a studio, they Dancing with eyes half-closed because to are meant to represent and convey ‘live’ open them would be to break the spell. performance. The theatre show is a display Dancing as if language had surrendered of stillness, yet the photograph cannot to movement — as if ritual, this wordless capture the ‘aura’ of that stillness. These ceremony, was now the way to speak, to pictures do not have the same unification, whisper private and sacred things, to be the same confidence in ‘permanence’. in touch with some otherness. Dancing as They are part of a cultural movement if the very heart of life and all its hopes to transform the static, to alter the un-

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‘Maeve of Connaught and her Daughter Finbarr (Miss Elise McGown and Miss Davidson). Gaelic Tableaux at Belfast’, June 1898. The Gentlewoman (London). Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

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democracy that has been permanent. These within a movement. Writing of the French are anonymous costumed performers. They photographer Eugène Atget (1857–1927), are not people photographed for themselves Benjamin observed that he had achieved or because of who they are. They are ‘the emancipation of the image from aura’. photographed for the roles they perform. Atget ‘looked for what was unremarkable, The women photographed in 1898 perform forgotten, cast adrift’.94

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It is perhaps in Benjamin’s description of devaluation of Ireland under British 93 Walter Benjamin, ‘Little Atget that we get close to the significance colonial rule. These were people intent on History of Photography’, in Selected Writings, of the tableaux images and the community exploring utopia. For Milligan, ‘Freedom Volume 2, 1927–1934 theatre practice they played a crucial role is as yet to all appearances a far off thing; (London, 1999), 514. in forming. These extraordinary pictures yet must we who desire it work for it as 94 Benjamin, ‘Little are from The Gentlewoman, a London ardently and as joyously as if we had good History of Photography’, 518. magazine devoted to illustrated images hope that our own eyes should behold 95 The trilogy published 96 of empire — the travels of the English it.’ These women developed a powerful in the Daily Express monarchy, the decadent pastimes of the theatrical genre that was able to generate in 1899 — The Last aristocracy. The Irish tableaux in June a communal sense in a country (and in a Feast of the Fianna (September), Oisín in 1898 were an amusing addition to their city) where community was sectarianized, Tír na nÓg (October) column about the successful music festivals where women were denied votes, jobs and and Oisín and of the ‘Celtic fringe’. In this journal, these education and where Irish national history Pádraic (November) costumed images of ‘yesteryear’, from the and language were outlawed. — organized Oisín’s exploits as a linear and loyalist bastion of Belfast, were of nothing The silence of the tableau was not a chronological narrative: more than quaint ‘gentle’ women doing silence of submission. It was political. Oisín leaves the Fianna, their bit to celebrate traditions that did not Tableaux operated through code. The travels to Tír na nÓg threaten empire, but instead enhanced its women prisoners in A Wing of Kilmainham and returns to Ireland after four hundred cultural texture. They were performing in 1923 did not need to tell the prisoners years. In contrast, local, familiar, parlour games in ambitious in B Wing what they were performing. The tableaux enabled home-made native costume. people at the back of the field in Omagh in Milligan to produce a But the potion that Johnston was 1938 did not need to hear an orator describe more complex narrative on stage — one in which pouring in 1898 was anything but a drug the tableaux on stage. They recognized memory and identity to induce sleep. This was not the moment what they were seeing; they understood the are visually present. It is at which Oisín was about to leave Ireland context and the iconography. What these through an inner stage for the land of forgetfulness. Milligan’s audiences were seeing was not simply what of performed living pictures that Oisín Ossianic trilogy, staged by the Irish Literary was being performed in front of their eyes. reviews, remembers and Theatrewww.fieldday.ie in 1900, explored the moment The ‘captions’ to the images are implied and re-envisions Ireland’s of his return.95 In her plays, audiences therefore endlessly ‘open’. A photograph heritage and his own witness the moment that Oisín wakes up such as that of Milligan’s tableau of Oisín past. The trilogy was first performed as and touches a new Ireland, reactivating leaving Tír na nÓg is perhaps an example of tableaux in 1898 by its political consciousness. The audience what Andrew MacNamara calls a ‘contra Gaelic League branches and St. Patrick watch as Oisín’s refound picture’, in which primitivism and modernity in Belfast, Derry and memories are enacted as tableaux on an are fused.97 Tableaux were modernist Letterkenny. 96 Alice Milligan, inner stage; the personal is shared as the because they displayed a hyper-primitivism: Editorial, Shan Van historically national. The caoine enacted they were a very self-aware part of a highly Vocht, 7 February 1896. at the end of the ‘Brian of Banba tableaux sophisticated visual culture. Their stillness series’ demonstrated how the living in and costumed reference to legend and pre- 1901 were alive to the possibilities of the colonial Ireland (even in photographs) were undead; Queen Maeve and Elise McGown not antiquated or anti-modern. In a period simultaneously look out at us in battle when Ireland was considered ‘visually gear. A picture of a mythical struggle, it is illiterate’,98 visual culture was vital in also a struggle taking shape in Belfast in reclaiming public space and in capturing 1898. These pictures remain a memory of the public imagination. The idea that the beginning of re-memory. They depict modernism was something that happened radical cultural and language activists abroad (such as the Chicago World Fair) who were concerned with all that had been ignores the radical modern technologies and ‘unremarked, forgotten, cast adrift’ by the culturally nuanced activism that was at the economic, social, political and cultural heart of the Revival.

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97 Andrew MacNamara], The communities Milligan was involved work ... the reason ... they find drama ‘Early Photographs with had formed numerous organizations: the easiest way of reaching the public in Ireland’; talk people were members of more than one of ... It is far easier to induce 300 people delivered at Roundtable ‘Modernism, Visual these various groups and alliances, such to come to a hall and witness a play Culture and Ireland’, as the local co-operative societies, Gaelic in Irish than it is to induce 300 people NLI, 25 September League branches, women’s associations, to purchase and read a book in Irish. 2009. socialist republican party branches, and Even persons who do not understand a 98 MacNamara, ‘Early Photographs in Ireland’. literary societies that were being formed in word of Irish can come to a play in that 99 NLI, Piaras Béaslaí Irish communities in and outside Ireland. language ... while those large numbers of Papers, 33, 952 (15). The image we have now is not ‘the’ event, English speakers who cannot read their no more than is the posed gesture of a own language can only be reached by the tableau. This is what makes Milligan’s plays medium of drama.99 and tableaux so difficult to comprehend. They cannot be reproduced. Archival traces, As Béaslaí suggests, the audience could such as the photographs reproduced here, follow the action and understand the Irish give a glimpse of a national theatre practice through interpreting the staged gestures and that was linked with the movement to tableaux. The pictures illustrate the words regenerate the Irish language. Community in the same way as the personified body of was at the heart of this project. Ireland often expressed meaning in the pull- A photograph of ‘St Patrick at Tara’ was out colour illustrations of the nationalist sent by Milligan to An Claidheamh Soluis newspapers. These illustrations were in 1913. She wanted it to be published accompanied by text: both dialogue with as a reminder that the north had been an each other in much the same way as graphic integral part of the early national theatre novels use images to communicate narrative. movement and to remind readers that the The photograph Milligan published Irish language had been a priority for the in 1913 gives us a rare opportunity to see earliest cultural activists. Photographs the faces of key figures of the language www.fieldday.ieand newspapers were critical aids in movement in the North, including Anna disseminating that memory. St Patrick at Johnston, her sister Maggie, and the short- Tara was the first recorded example of a story writer Pádraic O’Shea (alias ‘Conan drama performed in the Irish language Maol’). The cast wear the costumes and and was a mixture of tableaux and spoken headdress of the ancient Irish; one character drama. As such, the show was a forerunner strums an Irish harp; another carries the of the way in which the Ossianic trilogy was weapons that Queen Maeve (Elise McGown) theatrically realized as a fusion of dramatic held in Belfast a couple of months previously. form. Staged on 23 November 1898 at Her shield made its way to the Gaiety in Letterkenny by members of the local Dublin for the old Fenian John O’Leary to Donegal and Belfast Gaelic League, the play hold when he played a warrior in Milligan’s was in part performed in Irish and in part Last Feast of the Fianna in February through tableaux. Milligan helped organize 1900.100 Prisoners wrote to Milligan after cultural events for the Gaelic League in a 1916 saying that their moment of political number of Irish communities, including consciousness came when they participated Liverpool, where she worked with Piaras with her in forging local theatrical and Béaslaí. He agreed with her that drama cultural events. A letter from one Irish helped to create a cultural community: Volunteer in 1917 concluded: ‘If we ever write the history of [the language movement Since the inception of the language in Castlecomer] we can tell of how you came movement more plays have been written to the rescue in the days when every man’s in Irish than any other kinds of creative hand was against us.’101

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Weekly Freeman cartoon: ‘To the Rescue!’ Free supplement with Weekly Freeman, 4 April 1891. Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

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100 It hung on the walls Cultural activists understood (in the of an Irish national theatre was to make of the Lyric Theatre in midst of civil war and after partition) the ‘literary drama permanent in Ireland during Belfast until 1989; it was political resonance of Milligan’s theatre our time, and give the Irish nation a new then stored in the garage 105 of Mary O’Malley, the practice. In 1926, four years after she left method of expression’. He placed the theatre’s co-founder, in Dublin to become a full-time carer in the emphasis of this ‘new method of expression’ Dublin. north (for her brother and his family) and on language. He told readers of Samhain in 101 Milligan Papers, Allen a founder of the Anti-Partition Council, 1903 that a national theatre must ‘restore Library. 102 George Russell, Irish Russell recalled her as ‘a girl of genius’, who, words to their sovereignty ... we must Statesman, 2 January in the 1890s, ‘began to have premonitions of make speech even more important than 1926. a dramatic movement’. Milligan, he argued, gesture upon the stage ... We must get rid 103 Susan Mitchell, The wrote and produced ‘little plays’ specifically of everything that is restless, everything Shamrock, 22 February, 1919. ‘to help the infant Gaelic League’. Her ‘bag that draws the attention away from the 104 John Berger, Ways of crammed with fragments of tapestry’ was, sound of the voice.’106 Yeats fined his Abbey Seeing (London, 1972), Russell explained, ‘used on the actors in actors for moving too much and for letting 3. order to create the illusion of a richly-robed the books fall from their heads during 105 W. B. Yeats, ‘Plans and 102 Methods’, Beltaine, 2 ancient Irish romance’. Susan Mitchell rehearsal. (February, 1900), 5. had argued in 1919 that Milligan was ‘the The Irish National Theatre movement 106 W. B. Yeats, ‘The most successful producer of plays before the is famous for its reliance on language to Reform of the Theatre’, Abbey Theatre started on its triumphant provoke a communal consciousness.107 But Samhain, (September, 1903). way’. Even though she made ancient Irish for Milligan, gesture was perhaps even more chariots out of rocking chairs or Gaelic important than the spoken word. Yet a sense crosses out of brown paper, Mitchell of communal identity was hard to achieve recalled that ‘so great is the power of mind, with people who did not share language and her audiences saw the plays as she intended traditions, in a colonized country where them’.103 John Berger wrote that ‘Images words were censored, the experience of were first made to conjure up the appearance women suppressed, private letters blacked of something that was absent.’104 What was out, flags banned, meetings infiltrated; www.fieldday.ieabsent in Ireland was an empowered public where sexuality was forced to operate in visual art that portrayed national history coded gesture; and where, as the vast archive and Irish life. It was these images that of police records shows, spoken words Milligan wanted to conjure up. in public were recorded by government colonial officials in disguise. It was out of There was a lasting structural legacy the unofficial codes of visual culture that too in the monologue, the storytelling Milligan first became aware of ‘otherness’, and the musical performance that often of what defined her as a northern Protestant accompanied the living picture. Its most from a unionist tradition: striking features — the frozen moment, the suspension of action, the strangeness of The first time the words ‘Home Rule’ breathing bodies held motionless, waiting, came under my notice, I was a small girl being heard in voices articulated by others in the county Tyrone, riding a shaggy offstage — had a profound impact on pony along a country road. A hired boy Irish theatre. Theatrical silence was key who rejoiced in the name ‘Roddy’ held to the development of the Irish modernist the rein. He was the first native Irishman aesthetic. Milligan’s influential early I remember to have conversed with, and tableaux shows were watched and admired he was a veritable Rory of the Hills. As by Yeats and by many others who went we went along he discoursed treason in on to participate in Irish theatre. Yeats’s fascinating style, and when we came to a ‘Abbey style’ was defined by stillness. In quiet and suitable corner, he danced jig- 1900, he argued in Beltaine that the aim steps to his own whistling. It was he who

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From Shan Van Vocht, ‘Notes and News’ page, with line drawings of Finn Mac Cumhaill and Diarmuid by Alice Milligan, June 1898. Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

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interpreted for me the words ‘Home Rule This is Milligan’s earliest recorded memory 107 Bernadette Sweeney, for Ireland’, which appeared in white in which she identifies her own otherness, Performing the Body in Irish Theatre (London, painted letters on a grey stone wall, and her sense of not belonging as a true ‘native’ 2008), 194–95. why the harp rudely shaped was there in the country of her birth. without a crown.108 In August 1898, she and her comrades transported ‘the foundation stone’ for Wolfe

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108 Milligan Papers, Allen Tone’s statue from Cave Hill in Belfast to ideas of national theatre and the cultural Library. Dublin. For her, there was no boundary regeneration of the Irish language as a 109 Weekly Freeman, 18 between disseminating ideas and protest spoken medium. But they had other elective March 1905. The new machines used on streets and performing images from affinities too. Theatre, photography and the for sorting mail at the Irish history and culture on official stages. magic lantern were the most immediately GPO cannot recognize Nor was there any ‘official’ Irish theatre obvious of these; but cinema and art or ‘read’ Irish script. stage until the Revivalists opened their installation are by now also recognizably Irish-language mail has to be taken out of own Irish National Theatre in 1904. The among them. the machine, read by a tableaux produced on formal stages (such The moving cinematic image is in fact person (who hopefully as the Gaiety, the Rotunda and the Father a series of still pictures speeded up to give can read Irish) and then Mathew Hall) often resembled public the effect of movement. But even in the placed in the correct sorting slot. All this demonstrations and the heavily costumed era of the early silent film, directors often has to take place within pageants orchestrated for the Gaelic League. suspended action to jolt the viewer into fifteen seconds. If there Tableaux took multiple forms. A good another interpretative realm. During the is not someone present example of their agitprop mode of theatre 1897 royal visit to Dublin, James Connolly who can read Irish, the mail is delayed. I took place in front of the General Post and Maud Gonne used a magic lantern to am thankful to Angus Office on Sackville Street (now O’Connell project onto Dublin’s city walls photographs Laverty of the GPO for Street), Dublin, in 1905. The Gaelic League of famine that they had witnessed in the this fascinating insight Committee, headed by Milligan, used living west of Ireland . The Land League in the into how Irish was not just impeded by a pictures to protest against the Civil Service 1880s similarly photographed scenes of colonial system, but is boycott of Irish language postal addresses. Irish distress and evictions; they often also not accommodated At this time the Irish language was under restaged evictions in cities and towns where by the modern increasing official pressure to disappear. they also projected photographs to rally technology of the Post Office in the Irish Gaelic League bank accounts were being support and raise funds. Republic. closed down by the British government; As silent films became more popular in anyone who displayed public commercial Ireland in the early years of the twentieth signs in Irish was arrested; and post that was century they were called ‘living pictures’, www.fieldday.iewritten in Irish to Irish-language addresses the name also used to describe tableaux. was systematically destroyed. The Weekly The Rotunda was showing living pictures Freeman reported how crowds gathered to the day that Parnell’s statue was finally watch a silent mime of this dispute when unveiled in 1910. Parnell, the figure who the parade reached the General Post Office. had haunted the Irish public consciousness The crowd was invited to bear witness to the is here about to be given a public body colonial state’s discrimination: — a lasting tableau — a voiceless bronze effigy in the middle of the street. In the The platform itself represented in a same street in the 1890s, seven years after concentrated form the G.P.O. with all its Parnell’s death, Áine Ceannt (then Áine works and pomp. There is a counter — O’Brennan) first waved across to Alice the inevitable counter. At one side stood Milligan who was then a stranger to her. By an Irishman in typical Gaelic costume the 1930s Milligan considered Áine Ceannt offering a parcel addressed in Irish to the and Lily O’Brennan’s Dublin house her affable clerk at the other side ... but as ‘political headquarters’; the three women the packages were handed over to him, forged intimate cultural and political he, in the most deprecatory way, firmly, friendships that lasted their whole lives. but surely sent them back.109 In a 1939 unpublished memoir, Ceannt remembered her affection for Milligan as In a correspondence, such as that between initially inspired by their mutual veneration Milligan and Spring Rice, it becomes clearer for tableaux: how tableaux operated as a link between

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164 Alice Milligan: Republican Tableaux and the RevivaL

Jack B. Yeats, ‘Communicating When did I first meet her? I was coming with Prisoners’ c. 1924. Oil on down O’Connell Street near the pillar ... canvas, 46 × 21cm. Courtesy of we had been to a Gaelic League class — a The Model, home of the Niland Collection. © Estate of Jack B. young woman with bright red hair, a hat Yeats. All rights reserved, DACS ... was in a hurry going towards Henry 2010. Street. My companion said excitedly: There is Alice Milligan. I looked towards the gleaming head with interest — I had heard of her wonderful Gaelic pageants — I had never seen them. I was not long out of school. But I loved pageants. They had fascinated me during my schooldays — those readings from Tennyson with the coloured magic lantern slides. Well, to me they were just exquisite. And this Alice Milligan loved similar scenes. She had done them for the Gaelic League — So across the bustle of the streets a sympathetic wave from me swept towards her. Yet it was not until 1916 that she and I were to know each other well, and to begin a friendship which never broke. Her dreams, her poems, her intimate thoughts, her worries, her beliefs, she poured them out to me, and I say with truth she loved me.110 www.fieldday.ieCeannt’s sister Lily O’Brennan was one of the women who staged tableaux while incarcerated in Kilmainham in the early 1920s. Jack B. Yeats’s 1923 painting Communicating with Prisoners depicts women on the outside waving across to the women prisoners inside. By staging tableaux of Emmet and Devlin to their comrades in Kilmainham, the women hunger strikers of 1923 made symbols of their bodies. Discussing the hunger strike of 1981, Maud Ellmann suggests: ‘By hungering, the protestors transform their bodies into the “quotations” of their forebears and reinscribe the cause of Irish nationalism in the spectacle of starving flesh.’111 The 1923 110 NLI, Áine Ceannt tableaux performance demonstrates how Papers, MS 41, 492 (4). the meaning of these theatrical pictures 111 Maud Ellmann, could not be confined within the moment The Hunger Artists: of their production. By embodying the past Starving, Writing and Imprisonment (London, in living pictures, the prisoners were able 1993), 14. simultaneously to envision a future.

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166 Culture, Atheism and the War on Terror Terry Eagleton

One of the most remarkable aspects of the century from which we have just emerged was a dramatic inflation of the idea of culture. As long as that idea had been confined to such figures as Bach and Balzac, it could have little impact on social existence as a whole. It was both too specialist a pursuit and too minority an affair. There are www.fieldday.iesimply too few men and women involved in the production, circulation and consumption of culture (contrast the millions involved in that form of spiritual production, circulation and consumption known as religion) for the arts to sustain the kinds of grandiose humanistic claims that, faute de mieux, have so often Afghanistan. Dust/front winds in the upper Amu Darya Valley, been invested in them. The bleak September 11, 2000. © NASA– truth is that far from exerting digital version copyright/Science Faction/Corbis much social influence, culture’s role was increasingly to provide a precarious refuge from modernity for those who found that whole

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form of civilization spiritually bankrupt. a retreat to the pre-modern. It was 1 The phrase was first From the early Thomas Mann to the later autonomous art that now looked like a used by Theodor W. Adorno and Max F. R. Leavis, the European lineage of so- historical aberration. Horkheimer, Dialektik called Kulturkritik represented just such In the epoch of modernity, the symbolic der Aufklärung (New an embattled retreat. Culture signified a sphere may have lacked any well-defined York, 1944); Dialectic world of absolute value, which could only social purpose, but it was precisely this of Enlightenment (New York, 1972). be degraded by entering upon the sphere of superfluity that helped to shield it from politics or economics. It was thus locked the depredations of power. Sexuality in self-contradiction from the onset, since might now be a politically trivial affair, to materialize its values was by the same nobody’s business but your own, akin to token to subvert them. This is one of several breeding hamsters or collecting porcelain, reasons why its stance to the world was but at least this meant that the state was fundamentally ironic. unlikely to break down your bedroom However, with the growth in the door. Protestantism locked religious faith early twentieth century of what Theodor into solitary private space, but in doing so, Adorno named the culture industry,1 this registered a momentous advance in human situation was drastically altered. For the liberty. It is with Martin Luther that the first time, culture was just another branch history of modern subjectivity begins. The of general commodity production. As such, arts were no longer official instruments its influence was to be felt everywhere one of political power, but could turn this looked. Modernism, in retrospect, looked marginal status to fruitful ends by fostering like a doomed, eleventh-hour attempt to dissidence, critique and utopian imaginings. salvage an autonomous space for culture in The price culture paid for this new- a society that was shrinking it apace. It was found functionality, however, was now the incessant din of culture, not just the formidably steep. Culture could no longer bear pit of politics, from which we sought act as critique, as it had in the era of high refuge. Culture, once a cloistered private modernism. For one thing, there was now pastimewww.fieldday.ie along with sexuality and religion, no longer enough daylight between it and had become a pervasive social phenomenon. other social practices to allow for critique. With the advent of the great currents of Much the same problem confronted sexual emancipation, sexuality was about to the revolutionary avant-gardes of early follow it on to the public stage, and religion, twentieth-century Europe, whose aim was as we shall see a little later, was poised to to dismantle the barriers between culture re-enter the public realm hard on the heels and everyday life and to dissolve art into of the aesthetic and the sexual. All three social existence rather than to hold that components of the traditional ‘symbolic’ existence at a critical distance. Nor could sphere (art, religion and sexuality) were culture any longer offer its own glorious being taken into public ownership. Culture pointlessness in high-modernist manner was once more bound up with public as a negatively political image, prefiguring institutions — in this case, with fashion, a social order in which autotelism, life design, advertising, public relations, the exercised purely for its own self-originating, commodity, the media, political spectacle self-grounding, self-delighting sake, would — just as it had been in a different way in be the order of the day in a political society the days of the tribal bards, court musicians that had struggled free from the straitjacket and state-sponsored playwrights. As culture of exchange-value and instrumental reason. itself became progressively commodified, There was another sense, too, in which politics and economics became increasingly culture loomed large in the first half of the aestheticized. The post-modern appeared twentieth century. This was culture, not as to have turned in its tracks and beaten the arts, but as a form of life in common,

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2 In a letter (written in which proved crucial to the most powerful mid-twentieth century. Now, in a world Latin) of 1666 to Peter international movement of time. Its name, of clashing ethnic groups, religious sects Heimbach. Milton is ironically, was nationalism. National and emerging national identities, culture citing Cicero, ‘Patria est, ubicunque est liberation movements proved to be by far had become part of the problem rather bene’ (‘Where we find the most successful revolutionary current of than of the solution. It was what people happiness, that is our the modern age, as one client nation after were prepared to kill for. Nobody, apart country’). another shook itself loose from colonial perhaps from a few paranoid professors, power. In this militant milieu, culture was had thought of it like that in the age of no longer the antagonist of politics, as with innocence when it meant Bach and Balzac. the Olympian, anti-political aloofness of the However intolerably privileged such an idea Kulturkritik heritage, but the very syntax of of culture might be, it was at least unlikely it. Place, roots, custom, tradition, kinship, to dismember human bodies. language, symbol, collective identity: How did all this affect the political culture in this (impossibly) wide-ranging left? In the days when politics meant class sense of the term was, from Herder to struggle and industrial conflict, culture Hitler, Fichte to Fanon, the very language was little more than an agreeable bonus. in which political demands were framed If some aspiring workers and left-wing and articulated. It constituted the inner militants could aspire to reading Rimbaud substance of political action. The aesthetic or admiring Rembrandt, so much the better. and political, scrupulously distinguished But it was scarcely politically indispensable. from each other by a Kantian modernity, Nor did the broader sense of culture — were now being rapidly de-differentiated, a culture as a specific way of life — seem process that was to reach its apogee in the that relevant to the left. Socialism was an wholesale conflations of the post-modern. internationalist affair, scornful of what it Culture in its ‘high’ or minority saw as parochial allegiances and provincial sense had sought to embody the most pieties. ‘A man’s patria,’ wrote John Milton, fundamental of human values. In doing so, ‘is where it is well with him’,2and that www.fieldday.ieit offered to cut beneath social and political elusive location may be a polity just as much differences and offer a common ground as a country. Local fidelities were more an on which we could meet in our simple obstacle to the left’s universalist goals than humanity. If the notion of a simple common an aid to them. Marx knew in his Hegelian humanity could be a potent mystification, way that universality had to pass through it also reflected a generous universalist difference and sensuous particularity — vision — one characteristic of the ‘use-value’, as he calls it in the economic progressive-revolutionary middle class and sphere — if it was to come into its own. profoundly repugnant to the hierarchy and Indeed, the persuasiveness of his work particularism of the ancien régime. To this springs from exactly such a unity of extent, culture in the era of modernity was a Enlightenment universalism and Romantic force for reconciliation in both utopian and particularism. Marx is both a good old- ideological ways. If literature and the arts fashioned rationalist and a passionate mattered so profoundly in an egregiously Romantic humanist, a combination that philistine age, it was because they were is hard to beat. But the socialist current tangible, conveniently portable versions of he helped to set in train — the greatest this vital consensus. Why else should almost emancipatory movement in history, as one every major European philosopher from of its antagonists once described it — never Hegel to Habermas have engaged so intently knew quite what to do with culture, nation, with this increasingly peripheral practice? difference and locality. Ironically, it proved This brand of bourgeois humanism, considerably more at home with culture in however, was scarcely to survive into the

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W. B. Wollen (1857–1936). Last stand of the 44th Foot at Gandamak, January 13, 1842, during the disastrous retreat of British garrison and refugees under Major General William Elphinstone, from which only handful survived. Known as the ‘Retreat from Kabul’. © The Art Archive

its minority sense, as in the mighty aesthetic entities, must pay sedulous attention to the pedigree of Western Marxism. peculiar way things are done in Colombo Marxism, in other words, sided by- or Chittagong at the very moment that their and-large with civilization against culture. operations are busily undermining such The former, in this egregiously ideological local practices. conception, suggests autonomy, rationality, Marxism’s casualness about culture universality, individuality and critical was not true of the women’s movement, self-reflection;www.fieldday.ie the latter signifies all those or of identity politics in general, for which existential, unreflective loyalties and language, history, affinity, and identity spontaneous affinities that apparently are as were paramount. The relatively easy step built into us as our liver or pancreas. In our in the late twentieth century from an own time, the traditional antithesis between exhilarating new unity of politics and civilization and culture (which can also culture (nationalism) quickly became a slide be coded as one between the sophisticated from the one to the other (post-modernism). French and the spiritual Germans, Gallic Class, state, property and exploitation now savoir-faire versus Teutonic depth) has mattered less, so it seemed, than customs, become an ominous new translation of beliefs, identities and traditions. This was the well-thumbed opposition between one symptom of a complex transition from civilization and barbarism, a contrast that modernity to post-modernity. Culture had carves the world up on a new West–East grown too big for its boots and, having axis. Yet ‘civilization’ needs ‘culture’ in the failed with a certain pathos in the age of very act of spurning it. For culture is where Schiller, Arnold, Wagner and Hofmannsthal power beds itself down, as the medium of to substitute itself for religion, was now lived experience in which the otherwise too- imprudently seeking to stand in for politics. abstract imperatives of civilized authority There was another reason for the early may flesh themselves out as habit and twentieth-century salience of culture, instinctive reflex. This is why transnational which belongs to the history of imperialism corporations, which are themselves entirely and anthropology. Between them, the ‘cultureless’, purely abstract, unlocalized incongruous trinity of revolutionary

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3 T. E. Hulme, nationalism, anthropology and the culture of historical crisis, culture and ideology Speculations (London, industry lent culture a significance in the would seem to demand some metaphysical 2000 [1924]), 118: twentieth century that it had not enjoyed backing. Pragmatism and conventionalism ‘Romanticism ... is spilt religion’. since Romanticism had seized upon it as are simply not enough. This, no doubt, an ersatz form of religion. Indeed, it was is one of several reasons why, in our own the failure of religion in a secularized, supposedly post-metaphysical era, religion rationalized modern age that was the has staged a dramatic re-appearance on the fourth most significant reason for the historical scene. It has done so just as the modern-day centrality of the cultural. Almighty, no doubt bitterly regretful at ever Culture would serve as a displaced form of having perpetrated the most trifling particle transcendence, just as it would figure all the of matter, seemed set to make his final exit way from Romanticism to post-modernism from that scene for a well-earned retirement. as a displaced form of politics. This — culture as ‘spilt religion’, in T. E. Hulme’s *** phrase3 — was not as implausible an enterprise as it might appear, since religion It may be, then, that with the advent of itself blends the aesthetic sense of culture religious fundamentalism and the so-called (cult, ritual, symbol, mystery, wholeness, New Atheism, the Culture project has intuition, spontaneity, sensuous rationality, finally run its course. But it is not quite transcendent value, and the like) with the that God has risen again in the West to institutional anthropological sense of the challenge the reign of culture. It is rather term. Romantic nationalism would repeat than he has emerged as a front runner in this displacing project in its own fashion, the East. We shall see in a moment that with the nation (sacred, unified, eternal, this is partly because of the West’s own foundational, all-nourishing, self-authoring, actions; but meanwhile it is worth noting without end or origin, worthy of human that Islamic fundamentalism confronts the sacrifice) standing in for an increasingly West not only with blood and fire, but with www.fieldday.iediscredited divinity. But the unique power the embarrassing contradiction between its of religion, in contrast to the purely own will to believe and the West’s chronic aesthetic sense of culture, had been to link incapacity to do so. This incapacity has such transcendent inwardness with mass, little enough to do with Darwin, scientific institutional, ‘anthropological’ practice; and materialism or clerical child abuse, and though culture signified both unshakable everything to do with the nature of spiritual values and a shared material form capitalist social orders, which are inherently of life, it proved incapable, unlike religion, sceptical, relativist, rationalist, pragmatic, of bringing these two meanings into routine provisional, mutable and anti-foundational. interrelation. That religion can mediate Market societies spawn agnosticism as the one to the other so effectively, linking spontaneously as they breed poverty, partly everyday behaviour to transcendent value, because they tend to rely less on belief to has been one vital reason for its persistence. regulate their citizens than on what Marx Culture, by contrast, was to bifurcate called the ‘dull compulsion’ of economic between Bizet on the one hand and beer necessity. Liberal capitalism is not the kind mats on the other. This is one of several of life-form that requires too much by way reasons why it proved a poor alternative to of spiritual commitment from its underlings. the Almighty. As long as they roll into work, pay their Culture, in short, would turn out to be taxes and refrain from assaulting the police, no substitute at all for the most potent, they can believe more or less what they like. resourceful, enduring, symbolic regime It is not faith or doctrine that keeps such humanity has ever known. At moments social orders ticking over.

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Such societies tend to skate by on as itself divided between those who believe little in the way of formal belief as they far too little and those who believe far too can decently get away with — partly much. Moreover, the former has a hand because such allegiances are intrinsically in fashioning the latter. Fundamentalism, contestable and thus a potential source of whether Texan or Taliban, is for the most social conflict, but largely because liberal part a reaction on the part of the fearful social orders do not so much hold beliefs and insecure to a global capitalism that as believe that people should be allowed to cares nothing for their traditional values hold beliefs. They practise a certain creative or settled forms of life. It has its source in indifference to the whole business of what anxiety, which in turn breeds hatred. A their citizens actually believe, as long as shallow, purely technological rationality they are allowed to get on with believing that shoves all the deeper questions it. And — crucially — as long as they are disdainfully to one side accordingly leaves so allowed, they do not act on (as opposed them open to being monopolized by bigots. to entertaining) beliefs that are hostile to The flip side of a two-dimensional reason is this very principle of allowing people to a faith-based politics. get on unhindered with their believing. The ‘war on terror’ is replete with ironies. Nothing could be further from the ideology Consider the following brief narrative of Islamism — not only because Islamism outline of it. First, the West announces practises an ugly form of intolerance, but that History or ‘grand narratives’ are because it also clings to the anti-materialist now at an end, meaning that capitalism is case that belief is what is paramount. the only game in town. The irony here is George Bush saw the war on terror as a that the supposed end of grand narratives clash of values and cultural life-forms, in fact signals the current victory of a rather than a matter of oil, neo-colonialism, particular grand narrative — that of liberal geopolitics and Israel, and so, ironically capitalism—which only fails to recognize enough, does Osama Bin Laden. One might itself as such because, having routed its addwww.fieldday.ie that perhaps the only common feature political antagonists for the time being, it between Islamism and post-modernism is is so pervasive as to be effectively invisible this falsely idealist emphasis on belief. as a specific historical tale. To know that The upshot of liberal toleration, as Isaiah you are a narrative, you need another to Berlin recognized, is potential tragedy. For bounce off against. A further irony here the result is bound to be at best one long, is that grand narratives (straitjacketing, unruly, eternally inconclusive argument, in steamrollering, totalitarian) are thought to which (for example) almost everyone agrees have yielded ground to a host of pragmatic that roasting babies over fires is wrong, but mini-narratives (flexible, provisional, cannot agree on why they agree on this; or, inclusivist) at precisely the moment when at worst, serious political unrest. For most the capitalist system is more ‘total’, more of the time, such diversity can be cherished globally integrated and all-sovereign, than at as precious and touted as appealingly any previous point in its history. pragmatic in contrast to the stiff-necked But the ironies extend further. absolutism of one’s political enemies. But Announcing the Death of History was it can prove a source of vulnerability when a reflection in the ideological field of liberal societies find themselves confronting the brutal American triumphalism that full-bloodedly metaphysical regimes for followed the collapse of the Soviet bloc. which absolute values and irrefragable This hubristic confidence caused the foundations pose no problem whatsoever United States to ride roughshod over other (would that they did!). When such set-ups nations, not least in the Middle East, and arise, as with radical Islam, the world finds thus to trigger a radical Islamic backlash.

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Battle between Crusaders and Moslems (manuscript). French School. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France. © The Bridgeman Art Library / Getty

What happened, in other words, was Christopher Hitchens, Martin Amis, that promulgating the end of History A. C. Grayling and Richard Dawkins revert, succeeded only in opening it up again. in their Islamophobic panic, to a painfully www.fieldday.ieDeclaring that the end of grand narratives simple-minded faith in the ideals of an meant the launching of yet another, that earlier, more buoyant and sanguine Western of radical Islam and the ‘war on terror’. bourgeoisie. It is Reason versus Religion, Yet the ironies do not end here. Faced the light of the liberal elite versus the with this particular grand narrative, some darkness of the masses, all over again, as Western thinkers decided that common or though nothing had happened since the days garden liberalism and pragmatism were of D’Alembert and Diderot. too feeble a form of ideological defence. Yet the vertiginous spiral of ironies does Accordingly, they reached back in culturally not come to rest here. For the final twist is supremacist style to some of the discarded that in deploying secular rationality against grand narratives of Western history religious superstition, the New Atheists itself — to notions of Progress, Science, succeed only in re-duplicating the very Reason and Enlightenment, all of them religious myths they are out to discredit. uncritically rolled out, refurbished and What, after all, is the idea of Progress stridently reaffirmed at just the historical (in contrast with some more modest and moment when other Western (post-modern) feasible notion of political improvement) ideologues were declaring these versions than a modern-day version of cultic of historical evolution to be no more than sacrifice, as the past and present are ritually a set of tall tales and Just-So stories. This, slaughtered on the altar of the future? The surely, is one of the more intriguing political Light shining bravely in a darkness that aspects of the so-called New Atheism, as fails to comprehend it refers to St John as sophisticated, up-to-date liberals such as

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Turkish and Islamic Art Museum Istanbul Fighting at gates of Jerusalem, Muslims defeat infidels and send them fleeing from city, from The Fine Flower of Histories, or Zubdat al-Tawarikh, a work of political and religious world history by Ottoman historiographer Seyyid Loqman Ashuri, 1583. This copy is dedicated to Sultan Murad II. © The Art Archive / Turkish and Islamic Art Museum Istanbul / Alfredo Dagli Orti

www.fieldday.ie

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4 Quoted by Richard Seymour, The Liberal much as to the ideologues of eighteenth- critic of popular democracy, an admirer of Defence of Murder century Paris. Plato, Heidegger and the Nazi philosopher (London, 2008), 155. Carl Schmitt, lurks somewhere behind the *** atrocities of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. A US neo-conservatism that first saw It is worth noting, finally, that culture the light as an academic, rather eccentric was never the preserve of radicals. The far cause, ridiculed and rejected by a good right wing, too, has been much taken with many mainstream political scientists, seized the idea. Roots, soil, homeland, symbol, its moment of historic destiny with the tradition, spectacle, intuition, ethnic identity: election of George W. Bush, and became in the wake of the Nazis, we have no need a barbarous political reality. Such a direct to be reminded of how such notions can tear translation of abstruse theory into political men and women to pieces as well as inspiring strategy is remarkably rare. It was as them to throw off political oppression. though Scientologists had seized control Culture in this sense is the enemy of all that of the White House, or neo-Hegelians had the liberal holds dear: reason, universal taken over London’s Downing Street. Bush rights, personal liberty, free inquiry, himself has probably never even heard of cosmopolitanism, critical reflection — in a Johann Strauss, let alone read a page of Leo; word, civilization. The victory of the Allies but his policies were nonetheless shaped by over the Third Reich could be seen as the his thought. triumph of civilization over culture. Neo-conservatism of the Strauss variety The German political philosopher has a profound belief in culture. Like post- Leo Strauss is one example of such right- modernism, it is a brand of culturalism, wing cultural ideology. As a Jew, Strauss believing in its anti-materialist way that was forced to flee from the Third Reich; culture goes all the way down. Indeed, it but though he was critical of the regime, sees culture in Burkean style as a precious he adhered at the time to Fascist and antidote to political reason — one might www.fieldday.ieimperialist principles. In a letter written even claim, to the political as such. Even in the 1930s during his exile in the United when social institutions appear to be States, Strauss observes that irrational, they embody for the Straussians a traditional wisdom and should be preserved the fact that the new right-wing Germany as such. (For neo-conservatives, one might does not tolerate us (Jews) says nothing note, this applies more to US institutions against the principles of the right. To the than to Iraqi or Afghan ones.) You cannot contrary: only from the principles of the really reason for or against a culture, so right, that is from fascist, authoritarian they maintain, because culture cuts deeper and imperial principles, is it possible to than mere rationality. protest ... against the shabby abomination Like many right-wing thinkers, [of the Nazi regime].4 Straussians take a dim view of human nature. They and their disciples are What is the relevance of this document pessimistic about how much politics (as to today’s global politics? It is simply that opposed to culture) can achieve. Violence Strauss, during his distinguished career they see as a permanent feature of the in an academic chair in Chicago, became relations between states, and only spineless the guru of what is now known as US neo- liberals, like Barack Obama, refuse to conservatism. Several of the architects of acknowledge the fact. Seduced by the false the ‘war on terror’ — Paul Wolfowitz, for gods of liberal tolerance and pluralism, example — came under his magisterial Western civilization is in rapid decline. The influence. The presence of this high-minded true determinants of human behaviour are

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Leo Strauss (1899–1973). Photo: New York Times

www.fieldday.ie

not political but moral. There are children precedence over politics, so do their mortal of light and children of darkness, and the enemies. Bin Laden, too, as we have seen, latter generally have the upper hand. Politics believes that it is values, ideals and beliefs is about cultural values, both ethical and that govern the course of history. He, too, religious, not about power or economics. inflates the importance of culture. For Where has one heard this before? The radical Islamists, imperialism is primarily a answer is surely from Al-Qaida. If the neo- matter of cultural dominion, not of military conservatives believe that culture takes power or economic sovereignty. It is the

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5 Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of atheism and moral permissiveness of the actions, the West must now settle for a Civilizations and the West they object to most virulently, not more modest kind of self-legitimation. Yet Remaking of World its affluence or technology. This is why it this is not as great a setback as it might Order (New York, is grotesque to argue, as some Americans seem. For in Huntington’s view, the West is 1996), 21. do, that they attack the United States entitled to carry on claiming superiority for because they are envious of its civil liberties. itself over other cultures, even if it can no Islamists are about as envious of American longer validate that claim by old-fashioned freedom as they are of its beefburgers. In appeals to some universal civility. In this their view, the war in Iraq is not primarily way, realism, supremacism, or culture and about material resources and geopolitical civilization, can be conveniently combined. conflict, any more than it is for Tony Blair. Huntington still believes that the West As far as Blair and his supporters go, it is can launch a rational defence of its way about democracy and freedom. For Bin of life, even if this rationality must be Laden and his disciples, it is about religion somewhat scaled down. But it is only and morality. (One might note, incidentally, a short step from here to claiming, like that the view that the Iraq war was about the late American philosopher Richard freedom and democracy was not shared Rorty, that no such defence is guaranteed by the US State Department before the to convince those from other cultures. invasion. In one of its internal documents, Why not? Because what counts as a it argued that the Iraqi ‘towel heads’, rational argument in the first place is itself as it contemptuously called them, were determined by the norms of your culture. incapable of self-government, and called for On this view, there may simply be no a Saddam-like strongman to ensure stability common rational ground between ourselves in the country.) and, say, radical Islamists. If that is so, then In his influential work, The Clash the West is in the deeply unenviable position of Civilizations, the American political of seeking to defend itself against those who theorist Samuel P. Huntington argues that wish to destroy it at the very moment that it www.fieldday.iethe ‘universalist pretensions’ of the West has cut the ideological ground from under are bringing it increasingly into conflict its own feet. with other societies. What Westerners need to do, he concludes, is to accept their own form of life as ‘unique not universal’, while continuing to defend it against non-Western cultures. We should stop imagining that we represent the very essence of civilization, and accept instead that we are one culture among many. ‘In the post-Cold War world,’ Huntingdon comments, lining up with the neo-cons and Al-Qaida, ‘the most important distinctions among peoples are not ideological, political, or economic. They are cultural ...’.5 This is a momentous claim. If accepted, it would mean the end of the ‘Enlightenment’ epoch of the West — the era in which it was prepared to defend its way of life by an appeal to rational foundations and universal values. It is as though, having helped to discredit those values by its own

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178 ‘To See Again The Stars’ Seamus Deane

Dictionary of Irish Biography: From the Earliest Times to the Year 2002 edited by James McGuire and James Quinn, 9 Volume Set (Royal Irish Academy and Cambridge University Press, 2009), ISBN 978-0-521-63314

€700. Additional resources at http://dib.cambridge.org

Scale is important. The 63 www.fieldday.ievolumes of the first edition of the British Dictionary of National Biography (DNB), initially under the editorship of Leslie Stephen and then of Sidney Lee, appeared quarterly and punctually between 1885 and 1900—an amazing achievement. The updated and revised Oxford DNB was published in 60 volumes and

Marcel Duchamp installation, online in 2004 and has 55,000 Mile of String, Whitelaw Reid entries. Obviously, with online Mansion, Madison Avenue, New York, 1942. Part of an exhibition publication there is no longer entitled ‘First Papers of Surrealism.’ Duchamp threaded any need for supplementary a mile of string throughout the exhibition space. volumes every five or ten years;

Field Day Review 6 2010 179 Field Day review

Definition of ‘Excise’. Excerpt from Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (London, 1755)

updating can be done much more swiftly, as Rolf and Magda Loeber—who, at different can corrections and other adjustments. So levels, provided and provide general perhaps the Dictionary of Irish Biography information that still retained or retains the (DIB) is the last, or among the last, printed odour of the esoteric. But as knowledge is multi-volume works of reference we will converted to information, no matter that have. Its 700 contributors provide 9700 a core of it remains intransitive, this kind lives in 9000 entries that vary in length of inkhorn scholarship appears so old- from 200 to 15,000 words. It’s strange to fashioned that it becomes almost endearing, see, in the online version, the new names even if those who dare take that view of it on the updated list already appearing, would be regarded askance, to put it mildly, all those faces, most well-known in so by its former practitioners. However, a great small a country, already gliding up on the change has happened and this magnificent escalator for 2003; it’s almost as if they work, the DIB, in its print and online had died twice, when they pass with such versions, is a worthy embodiment and relative speed from the obituary pages to the emblem of the transition. historical record; or even odder, when you Still, biographical dictionaries are realize someone you expected to find hasn’t strange amalgams—palaces of memory, yet arrived, having died too recently to be collections of epitaphs, anthologies of included. Rather than dying twice, they people, monuments to the memory of the have not yet managed fully to die once. Such dead, elaborate acts of piety. The art of sensations light up the strangeness of a work memory—‘All, all are gone, but still lives ofwww.fieldday.ie this kind, much more pronounced now on/ The fame of those who died’—is related because of the online dimension that looms to its function. Ever since Simonides of Ceos out like a promontory over the dictionary’s is said to have created the art of memory— always-outdated future. All those earlier in his case by remembering who had been biographical guides and dictionaries, sitting where at dinner in a building that because they were the work usually of one collapsed—memory has been understood person, wore their rue with a difference. as an act of piety towards the past and our They were more obviously selections, ancestors, the innumerable armies of the their editors were more like authors, they dead, and as a technique, as a mnemonic had more opportunity to be fastidious, art usually associated with place. But eccentric or more self-consciously learned, since the Romantic era, it has also become or partisan, than the DIB editors can be. a faculty for the recovery of community These individual editors eventually gained or human solidarity via solitude—this a kind of group reputation, the famous also involves specific techniques, as in ensemble of biographers and bibliographers, psychoanalysis or in literature. Memory librarians, connoisseurs of book-bindings— was credited with being a distinct mode of Crone, Boylan, Webb, O’Donoghue, Craig, cognition opposed to other modes—like Strickland, Eager, Hayes, Pollard, Madden, the distinction between a ‘mathematical’ Fitzgerald, Black, Sweeney, Munter, and an ‘imaginative’ intelligence, between McDonnell, Ní Sheaghdha, Dix, Benson, de the political imaginaries of tradition Brún, Colman, Brown, Hogan, Brady and (collections of folklore and the like) and Cleeve, McRedmond, de Breffny, Welch, those of bureaucratic administration, of

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technocracy. These historically traceable There is a kind of style that is produced by distinctions are sometimes said also to be a methodology and, allied with that, by the fundamental, ‘natural’. A dictionary such range and scale of a shared ambition; these as this combines the amassing of neutral are not so much features of an individual facts with acts of judgement, which begin as they are of an organized group engaged with the very act of selection, the estimate on what it regards as a worthy project. of importance (2000 or 15,000 words for ‘Worthy’, in this context, more often than this entry?), and then are composed into not, means ‘national’ or ‘patriotic’; the the account of the person chosen. Isn’t funding, the generational effort and prestige, data collection ideally judgement-free? the canonizing of a language or a history, Or is it itself a mode of interpretation? is a governmental project, ‘national’ in Much depends on what records were the classic nineteenth-century sense that kept and preserved, or destroyed, and by survived so powerfully into the twentieth whom. These questions are ancient, but century. The DNB and the OED are among deserve asking again because of the nature the national monuments of the British of biographical dictionaries as such and state, begun in one century, completed and because of the monotonous and polemical revised, and under endless revision, in the form they have taken in the revisionist next. In Germany the Grimm brothers’ writing of Irish history with its rudimentary Deutches Wörterbuch, started in 1838 and dichotomy between myth and fact and its completed in 1961, and their fairy tales almost total and perhaps willed refusal or (1812–57), could be said to represent two incapacity to consider the philosophical dimensions of the German intellectual dimensions and the menacing incoherence world—Wissenschaft and Philologie on the of that distinction. one hand, Volk and Heimat culture on the other. Is this contrast also native to Ireland, NATIONAL EPICS, NATIONAL STYLES or has it become a cultural phenomenon here because of the impress of Germanic www.fieldday.ieAn allied question is this: can a dictionary scholarship and attitudes on Celtic or an encyclopedia (say the Encyclopédie scholarship? To speculate that there might or the famous eleventh edition of the be a presiding national style might seem Encyclopaedia Britannica) or even a an odd thing to do in the face of a work of database such as ECCO (Eighteenth reference that aims at a scientific status. But Century Collections Online) or any of there are indications that it might possibly the Gale Series, have a style or a central, be there. Some preliminary features, of no characteristic feature? With dictionaries probative quality in themselves, nudge at the one can immediately turn to Fr. Dinneen issue. Ireland’s colonial history and semi- or Dr. Johnson and say, with some wonder, detached status is reflected in a title like that yes, a dictionary can indeed have the Oxford Companion to Irish Literature a personal style, but the more it has the (1996) and is only part-hidden by the title less is it likely to be scientific. Then there of the DIB which is a joint production of are other dictionaries that take decades, the Royal Irish Academy and of Cambridge more than a century, to complete, have University Press, its publisher. If a national had several editors or editorial committees style exists at all, it may be one of those working on them, and would therefore entities known to exist but not susceptible seem to have no possibility of securing a to proof—a sort of Riemann hypothesis recognizable style. (This need not apply of culture. Perhaps one could approach only to dictionaries; think of the RIA/ it by way of a kind of Weberian ‘elective Oxford New History of Ireland, where the affinity’—like the one he proposed between epithet in the title eventually became a joke). protestantism and capitalism—which could

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analyse the mutualities of ‘structures of still audible in almost any formal listings feeling’ in history and claim that these of or monuments to the dead, all its ritual, consistently display the physiognomy of such colour, sentiment and cathedral-like a style. After all, it has been claimed that, architecture have been changed into a much according to Weber, the very possibility of more demotic register. Ireland’s prose epic, social science rests on the logic of elective Ulysses, is the closest modern companion, affinity. Thus a work like theDIB, which with its heterogeneity, its simultaneous could be said either to wash the question appeal to totality and acknowledgement away in wave after wave of detail or to show of unfinishedness, the thirst for how it amazingly survives the drenching, is interconnecting detail that arrives again the even more clearly moulded by it. moment after it has been slaked. But then, The ODNB and the DIB are formally as Flann O’Brien, through his narrator congruent, historically interlaced; do in At Swim-two-Birds remarked, ‘The they have a perceptible (not necessarily modern novel should largely be a work of describable) stylistic difference? reference’. It’s not really possible to return Like their cognates in other languages, the compliment and allow that the modern they seem to be a cross-breed of the work of reference should be like a modern national epic and the encyclopedia. The novel of the Joycean or O’Brienite class, but enyclopedic spirit of the twentieth century it’s a relief to be able to acknowledge that is perhaps best exemplified in Theodore a connection, even this thinly smiling one, Besterman (1904–76) the author of The still exists. Further, it might open an avenue World Bibilography of Bibliographies to that question of national style. (1964–74), to which he added a decennial supplement, the founder of The Journal of NATIONAL DICTIONARIES Documentation, the publisher of Voltaire’s Correspondence in 107 volumes, and— Indeed, the title of this work echoes not least—an investigating officer for that question. It is not a dictionary of thewww.fieldday.ie Society of Psychical Research. In his National but of Irish biography. The work we clearly see how the authoritative distinction may have been made simply to organization of mass information could differentiate it from the DNB/ODNB, and still be a heroic individual achievement; all the Anglophone offshoots in the USA, and how, since the monumental work of Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, German philology in the nineteenth century, Canada. Or it may have a subtler purpose the building of information systems could and with that a subtler intended (or be regarded as both a humane and scientific unintended) effect—to remind us that the discipline, adorned by many who were word national is fundamentally protean, simultaneously great bibliographers, men although unavoidable; oddly, to call it an of letters and editors or critics—Roman Irish biographical dictionary seems more Jakobson, A. N. L. Munby or Herbert easily to allow the inclusion of many people Davis. The arrival of the computer changed who were not Irish although they had a that world so irrevocably that much of it has more marked effect on the island’s history— all but disappeared from view; large tracts alas, in most cases—than many who were. remain to be digitized but the intellectual Still, however simply or cunningly titled, heroism that was once associated with these 9 printed volumes that bring us up the idea of the reference book as a printed to the year 2002, and the online version, object has been much reduced—although which has already added (in June and it does survive here in the general editors November 2010) the first supplements for of the DIB or the ODNB. As for the epic, 2003 (36 names in each), is a treasure—a even though the roll of the epic poem is research tool, a database, a mine of

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A biographical dictionary of the living authors of Great Britain and Ireland... (London, 1816). Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

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information. But no photos, not even of judgement based on imperfect information passport or commemorative stamp size! Was is of its nature suspect. But information is this a matter of expense or is it a deliberate endless and judgement is often no more than refusal of the visual icon? It’s a pity in many a calculated gamble. Besides, there are times ways, because the visual is one aspect that when information is withheld—for reasons could be improved here. The lower case in of ‘state security’—for example. What you titles and denominational identities, dashes don’t know can be for your own good, or that look like hyphens, short italicized for the good for the state—especially if the bibliographies, a slightly cramped font, state knows what you don’t know. Access were all insisted upon perhaps in the name is always limited in fact, even when the of austerity, of an elegant minimalism. But principle of access is conceded. Censorship the effect is a little impoverished. The scale is often most successful when the pretension of such a work demands a design that is is that it does not exist, especially if it is appropriate to its range, rather than the generally held that it should not exist— neat, somewhat airless design of a learned although very few people believe that tout journal that we have here. court. As in all great works of reference, The house style too (editorial and there has to be an operative fiction that we discursive) has to discourage eccentricity now have here, collected and impartially and yet not produce a monochromatic disposed, all we need to know for the dullness. But there also has to be a sake of secure judgement. But what kind counterflow. The first of all such modern of judgements are being made, openly or works (there were predecessors, such unobtrusively, and what is their basis? as Bayle’s Dictionnaire Historique et Is there a counterflow of propaganda, so Critique (1697)) is the eighteenth-century woven in with the informational current, Encyclopédie (1751–72) of Diderot and that could, if identified, show this to be a d’Alembert, which is a great work of telling feature of the DIB, not necessarily reference and of propaganda. Part of suspect, but inarguably a presence? thewww.fieldday.ie miracle of that work—produced For instance, Christopher Murray in the in the straitened circumstances of entry on Lennox Robinson mentions two state-censorship—is that the element plays Robinson wrote about ‘the plight of of propaganda does not weaken, but unionists in southern Ireland’, one dated strengthens, its authority, for the 1926, the other 1937, although there was propaganda is largely on behalf of the no polity called ‘southern Ireland’ on either claims of a universal science against the date. Murray goes on, ‘Regrettably, neither local interests of factions. Such a concordia … was as popular as the lighter comedies’. discors is not an integral effect of the work Regrettably? On what grounds? No in question here, although it is occasionally aesthetic reason is within shouting distance. audible. Vast and intricate works of It is implied, though, that the audiences reference are no longer published as threats who preferred The Whiteheaded Boy should to an established order that believes in, have been more worried about the plight or even depends upon, the restriction of of unionists in ‘southern’ Ireland—if plight knowledge; the internet is now the site for you could call it. All we need to know, those collisions. Rather, the ideology of surely, in a work of reference is the basic information, which by now has a feverish information about the plays. ‘Regrettably’ cast, is central to the whole democratic skews it; the purblind audience for the imaginary. To have access to information is ‘lighter comedies’ stands rebuked. Another a ‘right’; it is by now a common assumption example of insinuated bias is to be found that having all the information possible in Patrick Maume’s otherwise excellent leads to better judgement and that any account of Anna Maria Haslam (1829–

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1922)—a long life between two historic rhetorically, fully justifies its opening dates—and Thomas Haslam (1825–1917), ‘sportsman/taoiseach’ tag, since the who have a bench in their memory projection of Lynch as a big man physically on Stephen’s Green. They were both and as a formidable defender on the hurling campaigners for women’s rights, Quakers pitch is the most effective (only?) way of and untiring advocates for various reforms; registering him as a big man politically. The they joined the liberal unionists in 1886. transfer is not exactly subtle; ‘He had the The entry closes: ‘The Haslams represent a reputation of being hard but fair on both tradition of middle-class unionist reformism hurling and football fields; tall, strong and whose contributions to later developments energetic (a civil servant who later knew has been overshadowed by the triumph him as taoiseach recalled a big man who of populist nationalism’. Is nationalism filled the door in Government Buildings)…’ always populist now? Is it designed here And on the question of Lynch’s having sold to make the triumph regrettable, of a the country he had saved from Haughey dull mass movement over individualist and Blaney to the international financiers radicalism? This is a recurrent insinuation for the sake of a big majority in 1977, of the kind that identifies at least large that wasn’t really him, that was Martin parts of the work as partisan, stealthily so. O’Donoghue, who is described as having Liberal unionists had, we might remember, become Lynch’s eminence grise. That’s a not a qualified attitude towards what reform quite accurate use of the French phrase; the could do in Ireland. Their leader, Joseph eminence grise wields real but not titular Chamberlain declared, ‘But it is sufficient to power; you can’t be promoted to such a know that we cannot change the race, and position by the titular leader. But the simple the only question that remains is whether rhetorical structure doggedly persists; we can change the conditions’. No populism transpose Lynch’s sporting virtues to the there, thank heaven. political realm, and his failings and vices to These are by no means the most somebody else. Fanning’s general view, that www.fieldday.ieobtrusive examples, but for that very independent Ireland’s great achievement reason it is interesting to see how they tint was to survive as a stable, democratic state and tilt their information. They might be (but with some economic hiccups) is much unintentional colourings, which would more serenely manifest in his entry on de make them even more significant, but Valera—although it’s the first time I’ve seen there is no way to tell for sure. In the more the word ‘historicism’ (Dev’s) used as the egregious instances, the degree of bias is opposite of ‘pragmatism’ (Lemass’s). unwittingly comic. Ronan Fanning’s entry Adrian Hardiman’s entry on the great on Jack Lynch (1917–99), ‘sportsman and lawyer and judge, Niall McCarthy (1925– taoiseach’ (that’s chronologically correct, 92), tragically killed with his wife in a car of course, but, initially, one might ask do accident, has no such flaws, perhaps because even six all-Ireland medals warrant that it requires no special pleading. Rather, it sequencing, unless we are to take it that has a degree of fastidious pedantry that he was a better sportsman than he was seems right for its subject; McCarthy a taoiseach?) tells us that his leadership hated ‘obtusity’, he gave the impression of was the biggest obstacle to the Provisional ‘massivity’. These are abstract nouns that IRA’s recruitment in the south (again, have as much physical actuality as can lower-case ‘s’) ‘of those who liked to think be, perfectly right for someone who had of themselves both as republican and as a powerful intelligence, physical presence respectable’. Although impartiality is a and an astonishing power of articulation. distant memory in this full-length entry, The only thing I regret is that Hardiman it is a bright example of a eulogy that, does not tell us McCarthy’s nickname at

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Definition of ‘Lexicographer’. Excerpt from Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (London, 1755)

the bar, only that it was ‘short’, ‘suggestive he observed at a Munster hurling final in of omnipotence’. What could it possibly Thurles’, the phrasing of Robert Welch’s be? By contrast, the pedantry of John A. entry in the Oxford Companion to Irish Murphy on John B. Keane (1928–2002) Literature. (Corkery, by the way, wrote A is painful, although finally to the point (not The) Munster Twilight ). of delight. The prose is Edwardian, the Still, we are no nearer to a ‘national pose provincial. ‘Proceeding from an style’ and may be well-advised to abandon unfashionably happy childhood, he [Keane] the pursuit. But it is one of the charms of found contentment and fulfilment in his this work that its fairly lax attitude towards wife Mary ...’ ‘Proceeding’ is a deliciously stylistic discipline allows some sudden maladroit participle here, with Mary yokings (maybe the result of a revision entering finally to gratify the hero’s strange not fully completed) to brighten a solemn grammatical progress. And the question paragraph. Thus, William Murphy, in the of the fashionable vexes throughout; entry on Desmond FitzGerald: ‘France Keane, who ‘cannot be classified as a [his brother] was killed in an explosion modernwww.fieldday.ie or post-modern playwright of in 1941. More pleasing to him was [his contemporary Ireland … did not deal with wife] Mabel’s conversion to Catholicism in the then fashionable aspects of the Irish 1943.’ Or Patrick Maume on the final days human condition—alienation or identity of O’Donovan Rossa (1831–1915) in St. crisis.’ The placing of ‘Irish’ here surely Vincent’s hospital, Staten Island: ‘At times deserves by itself a prizewinner’s rosette he spoke Irish and at others he tried to of some kind, apart from the breathtaking escape through the hospital windows.’ Then dismissal of all that other high-falutin’ stuff. there are a couple of stylistic shimmers in There are unwittingly comic flourishes of the accounts of the strange Lees family learning—‘He was literally (my emphasis) led by the fierce Orange propagandist the genius loci …’ . Above all, we have ‘the and deeply corrupt father, Sir Harcourt. plain people of Ireland’ and their proper Desmond McCabe says of Sir John Lees dislike for those international, cosmopolitan (1731–1811), that he ‘took a particularly guilt-wracked, identity-puzzled fashionable grim attitude to the prosecution of the persons (Samuel Beckett is the unspoken campaign against the rebels in 1798’. name) who cannot articulate the culture’s That could mean he disapproved of the ‘perennial larger themes’ and its ‘timeless campaign’s ferocity, when the intention is humanity’. I thought John A. might be to say the opposite. No ambiguity, however, just as entertaining on the Daniel Corkery surrounds the achievement of Sir Edward version of the plain people of Ireland, aka Smith Lees (1783–1846), who ‘can be ‘the Irish people’, but he simply says that credited with little except determination Corkery defined them ‘in terms of the crowd to perpetuate the complex system of

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Page 895 of Foclóir Gaeilge agus Béarla: An Irish-English Dictionary, Patrick S. Dinneen, ed. (Dublin, 1927)

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peculation put in place for family benefit by his time, ‘His work was always cheerful but his father’. But in the following sentence, rarely interesting …’ it would be interesting from the entry by Patrick M. Geoghegan on to know what ‘cheerful’ could mean. William Nassau Lees (1825–89), son of Sir In other entries, alas, there are sentences, Harcourt, and a well-known orientalist in whole paragraphs even, that suffer from

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the creeping, circumlocutory disease of IRISH AND ENGLISH not wanting or daring to speak outright of dreadful behaviour. Patrick M. Geoghegan If An Gúm were still going, we could maybe says of the intensely bigoted Anglican envision an Irish-language version of the Bishop Thomas Elrington (1766–1835) DIB translated by some contemporary that ‘he was perhaps too narrow-minded equivalent of Seosamh Mac Grianna and absolute in his beliefs to be considered (1900–90), who translated a million words wise’. Perhaps. But the ‘solitary, unique and, from English to Irish between 1926 and if I may so call it, recherché biscuit’ has to 1934, striking a top rate of 29,000 words in go to J. S. Morrill writing on Cromwell’s a week, while translating Scott’s Ivanhoe— genocidal behaviour. ‘In general, one such futility!—although it’s mildly would like to conclude that Drogheda was frustrating that Lesa Ní Mhunghaile does Cromwell’s Hiroshima, and Wexford his not tell us, in her excellent account, how Nagasaki, but these massacres did not bring much he got per 100 or per 1,000 words. an end to the war—only to atrocity.’ Why The policy of An Gúm, in translating would one like to conclude that? Because English classics or best-sellers into Irish, then the massacres could be excused as a which is like a hilarious idea from a strategic decision that actually saved lives Myles na Gopaleen column, produced a in the long run? And for a moment that language that was neither English nor Irish, claim hovers, as ‘Resistance elsewhere led just a bulging wordpack that by its very to a more selective enforcement of the rules deformity made one hope that there was, of war.’ (The rules of war were different in must be, some natural grace, obdurate and Ireland and England; so Cromwell played fragile, belonging to the essential nature by the Irish ‘rules’ when in Ireland and vice- of each language that survived such brutal versa?) ‘One would like to conclude that’ repackaging of one into the other. The the slippery structure of these sentences is noise of a language that has been banned, one of several symptoms of a sumptuous abandoned or killed, reduced or traduced, hypocrisy.www.fieldday.ie The effect is only enhanced when must hang in the air (or in the ear) for a the Cromwell entry is compared, even if long time. It certainly does in Ireland. It’s only on the issue of official slaughter, with hard to imagine now what the noise was Patricia Coughlan’s consummately balanced like when Latin was banned completely as and assured account of a similar policy and it was after the battle of Soissons in 486, subsequent interpretations of it in her gem when Clovis defeated the last Roman king of an essay on the poet Edmund Spenser Syagrius. The noise heard then at least in (1552–99). On a wider estimate, Coughlan’s part dissolved into the conquering French entry is among the best of the half-dozen language; it is one of those occasions, we notable entries on literary figures, a category are told, that represents the triumph of not well-served in general, but brilliantly writing over speech. In Ireland, such a illuminated in this particular instance— triumph allowed the figure of the ‘native sufficiently so to remind me of the almost speaker’ to emerge in a peculiar, obscuring lasciviously ironic pronouncement on limelight; the Irish language lives at its Spenser by Edward Dowden (1843–1913), fullest only in his or her mouth, rather the Trinity College Professor of English, in than in its written form where it appears in his Shakespeare and his Art (1875): ‘With somewhat mottled school or gaeltacht or measureless dominion in Faery Land he yet jailtacht versions. (This is the basic trope did not disdain a slice of the forfeited estate for discussion of the language, the pure of the Earl of Desmond’. becoming sullied, speech first, written word second, the natural spoiled by the artificial.) This non- or pre-Derridean position is

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the most cherished of all Irish cultural its achievement depends precisely on the axioms. It carries with it the mystique of realization in writing to an unprecedented the uninvestigable, which keeps it secure, degree of the richness of ‘native speech’, especially in literary discourse. History then the question raised is not the quality writing tends to be the obverse of that. of any translation into English but the very Together they form a glum conundrum, act, not of translation itself, but precisely leadenly anti-intellectual.) The speech that—of translation into English. To of the people, caint na ndaoine, and the translate it into English is to concede it power of the written word to approximate to the fatality of the cultural condition of it, is a persistent allure and ambition for which the novel (and Ó Cadhain’s career) the written work in Irish, most famously is an epitome. If a work written in Irish is exemplified, as John A. Murphy reminds us, believed only to exist in a full sense after in An tAthair Peadar Ó Laoghaire’s (1839– it has been translated into English, then 1920) celebrated Séadna (1904) and Mo what is true of that work is, by extension, sgéal féin (1915). It is also said that the Irish true of the language as a whole—that the in Máirtín Ó Cadhain’s Cré na Cille (1953) Irish language only exists fully when it has is as close as you can get to that of the been translated into the English language; native speaker; this is always the ultimate to resist that situation is considered to praise. Ailbhe Ó Corráin, for instance, be an act of folly or even of irredeemable praises the style of Seamus Ó Grianna provincialism, chauvinism, retardation. (1889–1969) for being ‘reminiscent of the That belief, wholly recognisable and spoken medium’. The obvious ironies of Cré widespread, derives from the universe of na Cille being set underground in the world consumer culture, against which several of the dead makes this graveyard epic seem vain defences have been raised—vain at so resolutely an emblem of the condition of times because they were themselves flawed, the language, that it might come across as or because the impetus of the consumer the most schematic of masterpieces. culture has been too great to be deflected www.fieldday.ieÓ Cadhain could not have anticipated by any analysis of its alarming velocity. how his novel’s allegorical status would be Consumer culture (especially in its flaunted so consolidated by his executors, who have post-modernist guise) is unapologetic refused to permit the publication in English about its so-called defects or drawbacks. of any translation. Some have regarded Its vulgarity, shallowness, addictiveness, this as an act of iron stupidity, a deliberate violence, relativism, materialism all have sabotaging of the novel’s possible career in a sybaritic dimension or consequence that English in the name of some unfathomable is irresistible. Part of the reason that its purity which would apparently be violated critics, profound like Theodor Adorno or by its translation into English—maybe only absurd like Allan Bloom, are so hostile by its translation into English, rather than is that consumer culture has replaced an any other language, since it is English that is elite system of which they are or were the threat. An underlying assumption in this the beneficiaries. Indeed, their fame as dispute is that Cré na Cille can only survive critics is itself a characteristic product and be appreciated when it is in an English of that culture. Modernism’s refusal of version; without that, it has no audience mass culture—its countering appeal to an other than the inner circle of those fluent in elite audience, its indulgence in esoteric Irish, or even the inner, inner circle of those references, its shattering of popular forms of who are fluent in Irish and are interested in narration—is also the parade of a boastfully so difficult a work. But then, if the novel’s rich civilization against an indiscriminate, preoccupation is with the death of an Irish- uneducated, brainwashed and over- speaking community, and the quality of stimulated populace created and governed

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by the market. The preciousness of this summer in the churchyard’), the shudder contrast is much derided by now, especially of loss and self-contempt is deep. There is by the market for which ‘culture’ is a always now, in addition to this psychodramatic a choice item on the menu. Modernity has element, an ethical edge to the Irish/ been so triumphant that modernism now English dispute, tangible not only in the looks and sounds ancient and grumpy, Ó Cadhain case, but also, for example, in muttering from within the belly of the beast the refusal of Biddy Jenkinson to have her that ate it with relish. poetry translated into English or in the In Ireland, the embattled position of refusal of the late Breandán Ó Buachalla Irish in the English-speaking world gained a to allow his master work Aisling Ghéar certain prestige from modernism’s contempt (1996) to be translated into English. Ó for mass culture. Initially, the two languages Buachalla’s is an especially interesting case, had one governing aim in their otherwise because we are not talking in this instance different programmes in the 1890s. Revival of poetry or fiction, of art works that can had no rival. That first fond embrace always call to their aid all the intransitive produced the first classic work in English qualities in virtue of which art claims an published in Irish before it was published unique status. The specific argument here in the language it was written in—George would be that historians who want to have Moore’s (1852–1933) An tÚr-Ghort (1902), the work translated so that they can read The Untilled Field (1903). Moore realized about the historical-cultural development that, for his purposes, it would take two of Jacobitism in 17th/18th – century languages to tango, English and French Ireland thereby disqualify themselves as when he lived out of Ireland, English and historians—for who could have any serious Irish when he lived in it. Robert Welch’s professional claim to understand the topic exhilarating account of him reminds us of who could not read its core language in the scale of Moore’s achievement, so much the first place? Therefore, if they wanted to the better appreciated since Adrian Frazier’s read the book, the least they could do was biographywww.fieldday.ie of 2000. In more recent times, it at last to learn Irish. Why accommodate was Michael Hartnett’s deep absorption in them by a translation, encourage their the poetry of Dáibhidh Ó Bruadair (c.1625– ignorance of Irish? (There was, though, the 98)—on whom Margo Griffin-Wilson issue of the larger non-professional audience provides a marvellous entry here— that that would be unable to read this book in provided a test-case; the affiliation seemed Irish and therefore would have a stunted natural, since Ó Bruadair’s contempt for understanding of Jacobitism.) But the the coarseness of the new Cromwellian wider argument is still the Ó Cadhain one; settlers provided so sweet an analogue for by conceding that one must be translated Hartnett’s own crusade against degradation, into English in order fully to exist, one for which Ó Bruadair too had had to forge dissolves the reasons and the rationale for a new vocabulary. (But the ‘Legacy’ section writing in Irish in the first place and with in the Ó Bruadair entry should at least that dissolves the basis for the language’s mention the importance of Ó Bruadair for continued existence. Michael Hartnett’s Thomas Kinsella, manifest in the famous Farewell to English (1975) eventually Kinsella and Ó Tuama anthology, An became also a farewell to Irish, or at least to Duanaire (1981).) The analogy extends the commitment to write exclusively in Irish further; we see in Hartnett and Ó Bruadair for his own fulfillment as an artist, or to act the self-blame of those whose civilization in support of the language, by insisting on has been swamped. In the refrain, cited writing in it. Was that act of support part by Griffin-Wilson, ‘cuiramar féin, an of his fulfillment, or was it an inescapable samhradh i gcill’ (‘we ourselves buried the thwarting of it? Hartnett’s work was

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continuously sapped by that question. The say. The language seemed to have found late, lamented Michael Davitt (1950–2005) its last refuge in a mode of philological was one of those who attempted to refuse scholarship that dismisses the literary and guardianship of the language as part of his in a literature that is entirely separated from responsibility or rationale as a poet. ‘I don’t the world of scholarship. This is an example agree to champion/ my people’s language.’ of the decisive triumph of the written word, But he is refusing a demand that simply will yet it’s a pyrrhic victory—indeed, there are not go away. The model writerly mediation no other kinds of victory in such battles. We between the languages for the moment have the memoirs about the Blaskets, but would seem to be that between Nuala Ní the islands are empty and silent. There is no Dhomhnaill and Paul Muldoon. And even comparable equivalent in English-language though it may be at heart an example of writing in Ireland to the contrast between a special affinity between the two, such a what has famously been described as ‘the sustained and mutual exchange as theirs can disenchanted world’ of modernity (Celtic hardly avoid gaining exemplary status. philology) and the enchanted world from One of the wonders of recent Irish which it grew (as in that of the Blaskets). civilization is the monumental philological By far the most famous dramatization research into the language in the mid- of the collision between these is Brian nineteenth century and twentieth Friel’s Translations (1980), although the century—all the more because it rose rich melancholies of that play should be as the living language crumbled. To list counterpointed, as Friel showed himself, in some of the names chronologically gives his subsequent play, The Communication at least some impression of the overlap Cord (1982). First time as tragedy, second between the loss of the spoken language, time as farce. its reconstitution as a key language in Latin is now a written language, no the Indo-European system, its vicinity mouths (or hardly any) left to speak it since to the Irish Revival, the Gaelic League the Catholic church abandoned it. Some www.fieldday.ieand other late, brief flowerings, as in the gloomy French commentators wonder if Blasket Islands—O’Curry (1794–1862), French will join with the Latin it silenced. O’Donovan (1806–61), Zeuss (1806–56), And Irish, like scores of other languages, Windisch (1844–1918), Zimmer (1851– awaits too the moment of its inclusion in 1910), Thurneysen (1857–1940), Meyer the legions of the dead, even as it runs (1858–1919), Bergin (1873–1950), Flower vigorously down the up-escalator in short (1881–1940), T. F. O’Rahilly (1882–1953), revivalist bursts. Odd that a culture so Eleanor Knott (1886–1975), Marstrander given to those elaborate genealogies that (1883–1965), Pokorny (1887–1970), and stretched back so determinedly to the then, born between 1900 and 1903, Myles origins of culture, should have had to Dillon, Marie-Louise Sjoestedt and George battle so hard for so long against oblivion. Thomson. All of these are commemorated The melancholy achievements and careers here. And via their careers another set of of Hartnett, well-summarized here by strangely conjoined worlds appear—the Bridget Hourican, and of MacGrianna world of Celtic philology, Germanic, are exemplary. Most memorable novels in scientific and forbidding, frosty towards Irish (not a lot) or short stories (more of literature and littérateurs and, as its cousin them) or poems (abundant) are about the and contrast, the lyric-liturgical memoir- Irish language, about the woefully stricken world of the we’ll-never-see-the-like-again enduring in the world of the triumphant, of Celtic or Gaelic civilizations of the Aran the loss of full speech and the recession into and Blasket Islands, elemental, definitively the second-rate. ‘Writing’, Derrida reminds not of the modern—immemorial, as they us, ‘can never be totally inhabited by the

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voice’. Writing in the Irish language seems Canfora’s Democracy in Europe: A History to believe either that it can or that it should (2006)—all of which has some pertinence be so inhabited. to his position as a scholar/adminstrator who had a reputation for authority on OMISSIONS AND REDUCTIONS Irish affairs—as did his father, Sir Thomas Frankland Lewis (1780–1855), whose Here is a short, random list of people avowed authority was also questioned. As in whose names surprisingly do not appear Cornewall Lewis’s case, such ‘authorities’, in the Dictionary. John O’Driscol (?), the however questionable, were often English Cork historian, author of Views of Ireland, and influential. It seems surprising that Moral, Political and Religious (1823) Albert Venn Dicey (1835–1922), the English and History of Ireland (1827); John Boyd jurist and unionist ideologue, should not be (1912–2002), writer and dramatist from included here. In his pamphlets and in his Belfast, closely associated with the Lyric general writings—particularly in England’s Theatre, whose best known play is The Case Against Home Rule (1886), Letters Flats (1971); Richard O’Gorman Anderson, on Unionist Delusions (1887), A Leap from Waterford, father of the famous in the Dark (1893) and A Fool’s Paradise brothers, Benedict and Perry Anderson; (1913), Dicey made a much better case for Bernard Lonergan, the Jesuit theologian and unionism than any of the Irish unionists intellectual, who has an Institute named of the 1890s, James Bryce (1838–1922) after him in Milltown Park in Dublin, and W. E. H. Lecky (1838–1903) among where he visited to give a week-long seminar them. Dicey’s defence of the supremacy of in August 1971 on his famous book Method the law in the British system, particularly in Theology; John Oulton Wisdom (1908– habeas corpus, ‘the Great Writ of Liberty’, 93), the Dublin-born philosopher, author of was for him vindicated in the case of Wolfe The Metamorphosis of Philosophy (1947) Tone, to whom the writ was granted on to whom Tom Duddy devotes a subsection the ground that he was not subject to the inwww.fieldday.ie his A History of Irish Thought (2002); proceedings or decision of a court martial. Brian Desmond Hurst (1895–1986), the Although Tone was already fatally injured distinguished film director; Moya Llewelyn by then, this was immaterial to the display Davies (1881–1943), activist, scholar, spy, of obedience to the law by judges hostile mentioned in the entry on her father, the to Tone. None of Dicey’s Irish unionist Fenian James O’Connor. contemporaries would have had the nerve to cite that particular case in an overall There are omissions within entries. defence of the Liberty unionism professed Bridget Hourican, for instance, in her to defend—certainly not in 1902, four essay on Sir George Cornewall Lewis years after the 1798 centenary celebrations (1806–63) does not mention his serious and in the year of the Boer War. Even so, disagreement in 1848 with John Stuart Lecky, who receives an admirable short Mill on Irish affairs, nor the damage entry from Donal McCartney, really should done to his scholarly career as a classical have been given a much longer one. Joseph scholar because he accepted as genuine Spence has a first-rate essay on him in the manuscipts that were probably forgeries, ODNB, where he rightly says that there or that later he played an important role ‘has been little attempt to gauge [Lecky’s] in keeping Britain from intervening in the importance as a historian of ideas…[and American Civil War, nor that his Dialogue though he was] among the leading Irish on the best form of Government of 1863 unionists in the 1890s, no other historian has found a new left-wing readership in had contributed so much to the concept contemporary Europe—as in Luciano of the moral and constitutional invalidity

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of the union’. Certainly Lecky, as a major as ‘triumphalist’) overcoming of its 800 historian, deserves more space than (or 600 or 700) years of unprecedented Francis Ledwidge, a minor poet with a cult oppression and the realization of its always- attached— the difference is notable, yes, immanent destiny in the creation of the new because of the alphabetical closeness of Irish state. Even though Butterfield—always the two. Bryce, chief secretary for Ireland immensely influenced by Edmund Burke 1905–07, well-served by James Quinn’s and Lord Acton, and specifically by Burke’s entry, reveals another strand of unionism admission (even in his late role as a new in his belief in ‘the unity of the Scottish Whig) that if history had a providential race on both sides of the channel’ (i.e. the plan, it was forever mysterious to the human sea of Moyle)—a rather terrifying notion. agents involved in it—ultimately admitted Dicey developed a view about an issue that ‘the impossibility of history’, he often forgot involved Ireland that was not fully available his own career-cancelling conviction, and to an Irish insider. Similarly, the comte de his followers in Ireland seem never to have Montalembert (1802–70), in his 1831 essays noticed it. Instead, they proclaimed the end on Ireland, articulated a relation between of Whig or nationalist history in Ireland Irish catholicism and liberalism, epitomised and attempted to replace it with variously for him and his generation in Daniel supple apologias for unionism. Butterfield’s O’Connell, that no one in 1830s Ireland scepticism about reconciling ‘technical or England could (or did). He too deserves history’ with a large-scale synoptic history inclusion. has been replaced by the new British history Another person I would include is the that has won enduring intellectual status in English historian Sir Herbert Butterfield the work of Colin Kidd and, ultimately, in (1900–79). In the excellent ODNB entry that of a truly great philosophic historian, on Butterfield, Brendan Simms says that the New Zealander, J. G. A. Pocock—a ‘perhaps his most lasting institutional former pupil of Butterfield. influence was in the Republic of Ireland’ The key figure in Dublin for the www.fieldday.iewhere he was for years External Examiner consolidation of the link between UCD in History to the National University of and Peterhouse was Desmond Williams Ireland and a member of the O’Dalaigh (1921–87), professor of modern history Commission on Higher Education. In (1949–83), Dean of the UCD Faculty of addition, he played a crucial role in the Arts (1969–75) and a member of the NUI development of the long relationship Senate (1971–82). Michael Laffan writes, between UCD History and Peterhouse in successive sentences, that Williams was College, Cambridge, of which he was ‘a legendary figure in Dublin, Cambridge Master (1955–68). Butterfield was perhaps and certain London circles’; and that he the most popular of modern English ‘was a figure of legend’. It’s surprising how historians, especially with his The Whig susceptible ‘professional’ historians are Interpretation of History (1931) and The to legend, especially of this sort, about a Englishman and his History (1944). The brilliant, influential historian who never fact that the thesis of the second book published anything to warrant or confirm contradicts that of the first damaged his reputation, but who is described as the influence of neither. The ‘Whig’ having, in the 1950s and 1960s, ‘made a Butterfield is important in Ireland because significant contribution to Irish intellectual he was credited with having launched a and educational life’. Perhaps that was true devastating critique of the idea of a national for those decades, certainly not for the next teleology—which in Ireland was promptly two. To the contrary. Williams transferred translated as a critique of Irish nationalism the destructive habits of intrigue, corrupt and its triumphant (more often recoded machination and intellectual torpidity that

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made Peterhouse notorious, even among them beneficiaries of that old world. But Cambridge colleges, to UCD. One of the whatever its deficiencies, it is a miracle of acute ironies of the Peterhouse connection, transparency compared to the system it is that Williams seemed to fancy himself as replaced and which Williams exemplified. the Irish equivalent of the Peterhouse ‘Prince Fully to understand that world, we should of Darkness’, the historian Maurice Cowling really have an entry for Herbert Butterfield. (1926–2005); and yet, for all the energy he spent on collegiate intrigue, Cowling did BIBLE STORIES manage to produce a book on Hitler (The Impact of Hitler, 1933–1940 (1975)), which The internal history of a Belfast unionist- was notoriously what Williams threatened christian world is beautifully caught in to do but never did over the length of his Patrick Maume’s fascinating, wonderfully professorial career—34 years. Rather compressed, detailed account of C. S. weirdly, Hugh Trevor-Roper, who became Lewis’s career as writer of children’s stories, Master of Peterhouse in 1967, largely as literary critic and, above all, apologist for a consequence of Cowling’s intrigues, religion and the now hopelessly dated set wrote The Last Days of Hitler (1947) and of social and political conventions that then, in 1983, irrevocably damaged his then surrounded it. But generally, unionism reputation by authenticating the forged as a possible political philosophy, rather Hitler diaries. Then, to compound the than a ragbag of violent bigotries, shame strange resemblances, Trevor-Roper never and resentments, is ill-served. There are published what was to be his magnum opus moments when past alliances uncannily on the English Civil War; a ‘big book’ on seem to prefigure the more recent past. the Irish Civil War was widely rumoured to For instance, the Boal-Paisley pairing be under preparation by Williams. (Can’t was, according to Patrick Maume, in the typescripts of these phantom books some respects anticipated by that between be published by someone; they would be Lindsay Crawford (1868–1945) and Thomas betterwww.fieldday.ie than the nothing we have now— Henry Sloan (1870–1941), ‘Orange populist or would they?) In fact, that world of and independent Unionist MP’, with Cowling, Butterfield, John Vincent, Michael Paisley as Sloan. Pauric J. Dempsey and Oakeshott (of Caius) or of Peregrine Shaun Boylan tag Crawford as ‘journalist, Worsthorne of the Daily Telegraph, the Orangeman and diplomat’, when the most right-wing English world of what has been remarkable feature of his stormy career (as called the lumpenbourgeoisie, was never here described) is his passage from unionism successfully transplanted into Ireland, to republicanism. Both these entries are despite considerable efforts, supported fascinating, although their accounts are not one would imagine, by Butterfield (whose entirely reconcilable one with the other. son taught in the History department at The interweave between these careers is UCD). It was probably too high-powered such that, to appreciate it in any degree, and energetic. The only successful most readers would need or wish for a transplant that ‘took’ in Williams’s UCD, closer general knowledge of Independent was systemic intrigue for its own sake, Orangeism and its irruptive history. (‘…at times’, writes Laffan, ‘he gave the But the wild Biblical strain that so impression of plotting for its own sake’) informs almost all of the lives from unionist with no intellectual content but with backgrounds deeply affects even those best- bright career prospects for the successful known for their scientific contributions intriguers, and no public accountability to the body of secular knowledge. The whatsoever. The new world of the Irish physicist, William Thomson (1824–1907), university is unattractive to some, many of Lord Kelvin, has his name enshrined in

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the Kelvin unit of temperature and is not deemed to be members of chosen races, famous for his many contributions to blessed remnants and the like. thermodynamics and submarine telegraphy. Yet he is also known, according to Dennis BERNAL Weaire, for his staunch unionism and his ‘oft-cited mistaken estimate of the age of It’s a tonic relief to turn from crazed the earth’. This last item was news to me; biblical apocalypses to scientific utopia I had to look it up because the estimate by reading the entry for John Desmond (20–40 million years) is not given here. Bernal (1901–71) of Nenagh, Tipperary, Kelvin was certainly a Bible-influenced by Vincent Morley. It has only one—but a ‘creationist’. (And is there any particular serious—defect. It is far too short. Bernal is reason he called his yacht the Lallah a person of such stature that he should have Rookh, presumably after Thomas Moore’s been given the greatest possible provision. famous poem?) The efforts of biblical His The Social Function of Science (1939; literalists to combat evolutionary theory reprinted in 1999 with a Preface by produced some astonishingly successful Eric Hobsbawm) is certainly one of the best-sellers which would still find a ready outstanding works by an Irish person in the audience in Republican America. Dominick twentieth century, although for a work of McCausland (1806–73), on whom Patrick such scope and prescience, that seems a far Maume contributes yet another of his many too provincial characterization. It seems an outstanding entries, does not put a figure especially glaring irony that a dictionary, on his estimate of the age of the earth in a work of information, should have given Sermons in Stones, or Scripture confirmed such limited treatment to the pioneer by Geology (1856). McCausland read investigator of the central problems of the Revelations and foretold the coming of the information age—information overload Rapture with that painstaking literalism and information pollution. For Bernal (and, that seems such a waste of human effort; among those who have been most influenced www.fieldday.ieyet such ‘prophecies’ still pose a threat to by him, Christopher Freeman (1921­–2010), human survival, stirring up the Christian the economist and social scientist) it was fundamentalism that again darkens the a political as well as a technical and even world horizon. The ‘synthetical chronology’ philosophical question, how data and of archbishop James Ussher (1581–1656) other forms of raw information could be has indeed had many offspring, although converted into useful knowledge. His great none matches his precision for the date book’s theme is the development of science of creation—23 October, 4004 B.C. The in the service of humankind. For a time, ‘Irish Rebellion’ of 1641 began on 23 after the Second World War, it seemed that October, 1641, well west of Eden—a day science was indeed accelerating a movement remembered indeed, as no other day in towards social justice—especially in Britain, Irish history has been commemorated. where Bernal did his work, at Cambridge Still, John McCafferty reminds us in his and at Birkbeck College. Now, in the longer important entry on Ussher, the creation restrospect, that certainly does seem like a date was widely believed in until the middle false dawn, since the vast transformations of the eighteenth century, and it will be of economies by information technologies well past the middle of the twenty-first has led to a spectacular worldwide increase century before belief in an equally plausible in inequality, exclusion and human suffering apocalyptic end-date might show any sign of every kind. Bernal—examining what of disappearing. Such forecasts and datings had happened in, for instance, German are part of an elaborate system for justifying chemistry in the late nineteenth century— the extermination or subjugation of those saw that science had become an enormous

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John Desmond Bernal. Photo by Wolfgang Suschitzky. Bromide print, 1949. © Wolfgang Suschitzky / National Portrait Gallery, London.

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industry that needed the techniques of what the war-mongering Blair and New Labour. we now call research and development Bernal began by supporting the specific and a policy of funding by the state (via claims of Irish independence and ended in taxation) for the general welfare — and that support for Marxism and a global science. its sponsorship and development should (He and Sean MacBride (1904–88) are not be left to the predatory instincts of the only two Irish winners of the Lenin bankers and entrepreneurs. This dimension Peace Prize.) His specifically scientific of Bernal’s worldview was then widely achievements are in molecular biology and admired; it is now recognizably the part crystallography; but his contribution to the of the great civilizing mission of British idea of a humane social science is integral to socialism that has been extinguished by his status as a visionary. Yet in his anxiety

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The ‘Bernal Picasso’, or Bernal 12–11–1950, drawn by Pablo Picasso on the wall of the apartment of John Desmond Bernal in Birkbeck College, London, 1950. Wellcome Collection, London. © Succession Picasso/DACS, London, 2010.

to promote the Marxist cause, which he of errors and by rather clumsy writing. came to identify with the Soviet experiment, He ‘caused consternation in Locke with he blinded himself to the calamitous his roguish behaviour …’; one might pseudo-science of Lysenko’s work on cause consternation in Locke’s circle, but genetics. By the time he produced his second in the man himself? The Dublin clerical great general work, Science in History opposition to his book Christianity not (1954), the visionary strain seemed to have mysterious was surely just as determined www.fieldday.iebegun to overwhelm, not the possibilities (not ‘resilient’) as that in London. ‘The book of science, but the capacity of any also offers a sociological understanding of political system—communist, socialist or the churches as power brokers based on capitalist—to realize them peacefully. The obfuscation and secrecy, a characteristic space given him in this dictionary should be Toland denoted “priestcraft”.’ It was James greatly expanded, so that the work cannot Harrington who coined the word, but he be accused of suffering from what Bernal defined it more elegantly and clearly than called ‘phobosophy’—the fear of abstract that. ‘He personified the limits to which thinking that, for him, had limited what early eighteenth-century thought could the Enlightenment could have achieved. be taken.’ I can’t find any meaning in that Certainly, it is a fear that has stalked Irish statement. The entry is written in the past culture for far too long. tense, as you might expect, but with more than half-a-dozen neck-cranings into the EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY GLANCES narrative future. Toland ‘was to’ do this and that until finally, we learn, he ‘was to Whatever else may be said of him, John die’. This is a sad waste of an opportunity Toland (1670–1722) was not a victim of to focus and stabilize Toland’s achievement, phobosophy. If Bernal is the last great figure especially the relationship between to date of the European Enlightenment in commonwealth republicanism and sectarian Irish history, Toland could be said to be allegiance, so important in the next the first. Unfortunately, the Toland entry, century; not until Tone was that particular by Michael Brown, is flawed by a series relationship revised.

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In the fine and precise entry on Edmund Irish dramatists. The range of Macklin’s Burke (1730–97), Eamon O’Flaherty’s ambition is not mentioned. He wanted to final paragraph, ‘Assessment’, seems rather write a quartet of plays on the four nations, hobbled by the restrictions on space. Burke England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, all is another example of a writer and thinker of them satirical, making political and of extraordinary quality and importance cultural analyses via national stereotypes. who is granted the same or less attention His use of stereotype as a satirical ploy is than much lesser lights. It would have been refined by both Goldsmith and Sheridan interesting to hear something about his and indicates how comic and difficult the influence and reputation beyond the British- idea of making or becoming a Briton was, Irish world of internal and imperial struggle. especially to those who felt like outsiders, In France and in Germany, Burke had very even aliens, in the general consensus. different and contentious heritages, not Macklin wrote only two of these ‘national’ to mention his role in American political plays, The True-Born Irishman (1762) and, discourse in the twentieth century. Not more famously, The Man of the World only does there seem to be no space for such (1770), initially The True-Born Scotchman. considerations, there is, it would seem, a The best-known characters in this last very niggardly attitude in general towards play are Sir Archy MacSarcasm (not what might be included in the bibliographies Macsarcasm) and Pertinax MacSycophant attached to each entry—not just in Burke’s (not Macsycophant). I don’t know if the case. The most basic demands are usually names have been misspelt thus by the met, but it’s rare to find a bibliography that contributors Frances Clarke and Sinéad gives any sense of the changing fortunes Sturgeon, or have fallen victim to the policy of reputation that form part of an author’s of lower-casing everything in a title or history. Perhaps there should be a special proper name after the first capital. Also, dispensation for those, like Burke or Bernal, it would have been worth saying that The Joyce, Beckett, Moore, O’Connell or Parnell, Man of the World is unique for having whosewww.fieldday.ie impact has travelled ‘out far and in been suppressed twice, in 1770 and 1779, deep’. They could be given longer essays and before finally making it past the censorship space for truly functional bibliographies. to the boards in 1781. Or that Macklin’s There is an occasional shoddiness Love a-la-mode (no accent on the ‘a’) was in some of the entries for eighteenth- an afterpiece to his reappearance in his century dramatists. In the latter half of famous role as Shylock in 1759. Arthur that century, Irish playwrights, actors, Murphy’s memorable essays on drama in actresses and managers were prominent the London Chronicle in 1757–59 and his in the London theatre and the Dublin The Life of David Garrick (1801)—with theatrical world was more vibrant than its great gossip and intelligent commentary in any period before the Irish Revival of on the theatre—might have received the late nineteenth and early twentieth more attention from Frances Clarke and century. Not only indisputably important Sylvie Kleinman. The titles of plays and figures like Farquhar (1677–1707), in an their adaptations from novels and into earlier generation, Goldsmith (1730–74) musicals is a maze, and eighteenth-century or, among the various Sheridans, Richard texts—newspapers and advertisements, Brinsley (1751–1816), but also lesser prologues and afterpieces—can give several (although once as popular) figures such variations. Marriage a-la-mode is a title as John O’Keeffe (1747–1833), Hugh for the famous Hogarth series of prints, for Kelly (1739–77), Charles Macklin (d. a Dryden play and for at least three other 1797) and Arthur Murphy (1727–1805) plays—all with minute differences of accent illuminate the specific preoccupations of and hyphen. In Murphy’s case, though,

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we can be sure that Three Weeks after Cockburn’s humour had just that blend Marriage (not the Marriage) is the 1776 of noir elements and rococo wickedness musical version of the play. that gave the spoof its edge—only some of which was lost in the translation to script. CINEMA Cockburn married Patricia Arbuthnot of Rosscarbery, Co. Cork (she has an entry John Ford (1894–1973), John Huston here, by Pauric J. Dempsey and Bridget (1906–87), Robert Flaherty (1884–1951)— Hourican), moved to Ireland in 1947 and these are the three dominant figures from had a regular weekly column in the Irish the cinema who are rightly commemorated Times. The three gifted sons, Alexander, here; it is the first time they have been Andrew and Patrick are known the world included in an Irish biographical dictionary, over; their father was ‘the greatest radical although their influence and importance journalist of his age’ as Alexander, with in and for Ireland’s self-conception in the filial (but only faint) exaggeration has twentieth century is beyond dispute. The claimed. There is every reason to have a filming of Man of Aran was, as Bridget long entry to record his many achievements, Hourican says in her outstanding account no good reason to exclude him. of Flaherty, ‘a national event’; de Valera, The Dead, his final work, is one of Yeats and Eoin MacNeill all attended Huston’s masterpieces, but so too is the premiere in 1934. The film won the The Misfits (1961), not mentioned here, Venice film award that year, was for the although it should be, for its sense of next quarter of a century regarded as doom, of a world disappearing into the a national treasure of the foundational night, returns again in his work with a national romantic realism encountered comparable intensity only in the adaptation in Blasket Island memoirs and in Synge of Joyce’s story. The titles could be swapped and has remained a pioneer version of the around; that would let us see how aspects ‘documentary’ genre, although its political of one film appear in the other—especially www.fieldday.ieimplications and its studied artifice of the Huston’s black and white palette, with all ‘natural’ have long been contentious issues. those threatened and threatening, inward, Patrick M. Geoghegan’s entry on Huston dreaming greys. Also, imagine Montgomery indicates clearly how influential Huston Clift as Freddie Malins! Clark Gable as was in the creation of an Irish Film Board, Gabriel, and Marilyn Monroe as Gretta in although I had not known that among his that aching scene on the staircase! constructive contributions to the nation It would hardly be possible to talk of was the notion of rebuilding Nelson’s Pillar these directors, John Ford above all, had for a proposed movie on 1916. Geoghegan we not learned how to think of them as mentions the director’s ‘cult classic’ Beat the great artists, perhaps the most durable Devil of 1953 (not 1954). This alerted me to lesson taught to everyone by the great the fact that the author of the novel of that French journal Cahiers du Cinéma’s title, on which the film was loosely based, ‘politique des auteurs’. (It is surprising that was Claud Cockburn (1904–81), who no recognized specialist on Irish cinema surely should be included in the DIB. He is among the contributors.) Ford began published the novel under the pseudonym shooting The Informer in 1934, the year James Helvick; Huston and Truman Capote Flaherty’s Man of Aran was released—also scripted it, and it’s a cult classic, partly the year of Beckett’s More Pricks than because it stars Humphrey Bogart, Gina Kicks, the polar opposite of the Irish- Lollobrigida, Peter Lorre and others, partly American version of Ireland that became because it is a spoof of Huston’s own great so ensconced in cinema, along with the film noir of 1941, The Maltese Falcon. immemorial Flaherty image of the West.

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The almost aggressively, intransitively the outbreak of the northern Troubles. literary nature of the Beckett of that decade, This is the kind of entry that stimulates an his utter refusal of those or any Irelands, eagerness to know more about the artist jumps out in that contrasting context. and to see again the shorts that won so Certainly Ford’s caméra-stylo (cinema-pen, much admiration in the decade 1965–75. in Alexandre Astruc’s neologism), especially It’s surprising though to find that another in his ‘Irish’ movies, most spectacularly in Irish film director besides Brian Desmond The Quiet Man (1952, not 1954)—filmed Hurst—there aren’t so many that we can at Cong and Ashford Castle in 1951 (not afford to ignore them—has been omitted: 1952)—could not be more distant from William Desmond Taylor (aka William Beckett’s rhetoric of hilarious depression Deane-Tanner) (1872–1922). He was and anxiety. It still remains difficult to see born in Carlow, emigrated to America or describe the ways in which Ford’s almost in 1890, and was shot dead in his Los parodically crude stereotypes, so dependent Angeles apartment on February 1, 1922. on a kind of racism that could aim for The murder caused a sensation; Taylor apotheosis as well as for degradation, can was a successful director of silent movies dissolve ultimately into a subtle, powerfully and a glamorous figure in Hollywood, sentimental, patriarchal humanism—as in surrounded by all sorts of sexual whisper. The Searchers (1956). John Wayne is, of He is apparently a source figure for the course, the actor in whom Ford (sometimes) story of Sunset Boulevard (1950). What made the transition visible. The issues more can he do to be included here? of racism (or sectarianism) and of a self- In Ireland the language of film criticism, consciously displayed ethical humanism in so much of it initially derived from literary Ford’s movies produced some of the most criticism (like auteur theory), has not famous debates in Cahiers du Cinéma, fed back into the literary world. As a and they retain their prominence in the consequence, literary criticism can appear Irish cinema’s limited repertoire. It was to be hopelessly, if aggressively, quaint, still Cahierswww.fieldday.ie that taught us to ‘see’ Ford as one decrying all contaminating connection with of their great auteur-directors, along with the dread world of ‘theory’, or of politics, Hitchcock, Renoir and Godard. That status and confining itself to the shuttlecock still endures, despite the feeling that the last discussion of how works of literature line of The Man who Shot Liberty Valance ‘reflect’ the conditions of their time and (1962) might apply to the French mythology then again transcend them to reach the high of Ford himself—‘When the legend becomes level of ‘human nature’, the universal appeal fact, print the legend’. But perhaps in an we can all hear and by which we are all entry in an Irish biography we might add consensually gratified—an appeal audible the preceding sentence, ‘This is the West, only because of the work’s ‘autonomy’. sir’. Robert Flaherty would appreciate that. The Kafka parable of the priests in the It’s good to see the considerable temple applies. These priests attended to achievement of Irish ‘shorts’ acknowledged traditional forms and rituals. But then in Pauric J. Dempsey’s account of Patrick panthers broke in and ransacked the temple. Carey (1916­–94), best known for the Despite every effort to stop then, this kept beautiful Yeats Country (1965)—a happening. Finally, the priests made the government commission to mark the panthers part of the ritual. Some literary centenary—Mists of Time (1968), Errigal critics, astonishingly some of them young, (1970, not 1968) and several others. would probably ask, ‘What panthers?’ If Carey worked on the Irish Film Industry ‘human nature’ is the last court of appeal, Committee, chaired by John Huston. In where is the standpoint from which it can Dempsey’s account, his career faltered with be known? Do we spontaneously intuit it,

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even when an author fails to do justice to Rouse and a few other contributors to the it? Do we in such cases blame the author or sporting areas of this work would restore the form? The important fact about such one’s faith in the possibilities for this form dull questions is that they are historical and of writing. Sport as mass entertainment, when we see them constantly reappearing constantly cranked up to mock and mask in the company of the ‘eternal’, ‘universal’, political and economic realities, forever the ‘timeless’—in effect, the ahistorical, then contemporary site of human endeavour, that is a sure sign that it is the category of spirit, will-to-win, national glory and all the historical itself that is being avoided. the rest of it, is an ethics as well as a politics There is a conjuncture between this and by other means and therefore deserves the historian’s fetish of impartiality and attention as the strongest narcotic of the objectivity. Again, from what standpoint, past century. other than that of God, does one achieve Jim Shanahan gives a brilliant account the impersonal, objective, impartial vision? of Denis (‘Count’) O’Kelly (c. 1728–87) ‘That noble dream’, in Peter Novick’s and his famous bet on the most famous phrase, can be put to very ignoble purposes. horse of the eighteenth century—‘Eclipse Maybe when film criticism finally repays first and the rest nowhere’. Apart from its debt to literary criticism, the latter will having the perfect name for a champion start operating effectively again in Irish horse that regularly wiped out its rivals (it discourse. Human nature holds its breath. started one race at odds of 1/70), O’Kelly Even it, like the final version of any ‘artifice here produced a technical phrase that is of eternity’, has a predecessor. John Crone, precise in its meaning: that is Eclipse had to in his A Concise Dictionary of Irish win by 240 yards or more for the rest to be Biography (1928) has a marvellous remark ‘nowhere’—and yet is generally understood on the 1808 version of Patrick O’Kelly’s to be what—polemically vague? Shanahan (1746–1835) Lays of Doneraile, which I also introduced me to Cornelius Leslie would recommend to Bridget Hourican, O’Callaghan (1880–1943), croquet player, www.fieldday.iethe author of the entry on him here, both and I’m pleased to have the extent of my for its own sake and as a nice example of ignorance thereby reduced, but it does not at the comic pedantry that literary criticism all console or illuminate me on the absence and early sportswriting used to make of Charlie Tully, of Belfast Celtic and of their own—and that still survives. It’s a Glasgow Celtic, the George Best of his preferable idiom to what prevails now. day, and a figure of much greater cultural Crone says there was an earlier version of importance (besides being a better player) the poem; thus, as it is now, it ‘is founded than many of those included. The story of on an anterior effusion’. Belfast Celtic’s being forced out of the Irish League is a characteristic sectarian tale SPORT of Northern Ireland as it was (is), and the transfer of support to Glasgow Celtic is also The days when the Cavan goalkeeper was part of the history of the violent divisions ‘the Breffni custodian’ and could play well that Northern Ireland and Scotland share in ‘the premier moiety’ of a football game to this day. Back to James Bryce’s ‘unity are long gone; sportswriting in newspapers of the Scottish race on both sides of the is generally dominated by the aliterate— channel’! Nor has space been found for excepting Mary Hannigan and, on horse Tommy Eglinton of Everton and Ireland, racing, Brian O’Connor and before him, one of the few good left wingers the country of course, the great Tony Sweeney, who has produced, although the exclusion of left knows everything about horses and books wingers and the general shortage of them and much else. But Jim Shanahan, Paul is not exclusive to Irish soccer. The soccer

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team I can compose from those included over so many different careers spanning the here—although I have almost certainly past century is awe-inspiring. missed some—is perfect for the phantasmal Sometimes an opportunity for cross- world of sport, where the chemical action referencing is missed. In the entry on Francis of actuality and fantasy produces addiction. MacManus (1909–65), Maureen Murphy It’s a compact illustration of the despotism mentions that his novel, The Greatest of of the event in journalism, even when the These (1943), like Thomas Kilroy’s novel event has not taken and cannot take place, of 1971, The Big Chapel, is based on the as with fantasy teams. Marketability is all. story of Fr. Robert O’Keeffe’s battle with I suppose now it’s called selling dreams— the Church in nineteenth-century Kilkenny; although the poor word ‘dream’ should but C. J. Woods in his entry on O’Keeffe be declared defunct, a victim of endless (1814–81) does not mention the MacManus, assault and battery. One of the reasons I only the Kilroy. Brendan Bracken (1901–58), admire Danny Blanchflower (1925–93) of by Charles Lysaght does not mention Kilroy’s Glentoran and Spurs—again apart from play Double Cross (1986) which focusses his wonderfully intelligent control of the on Bracken and William Joyce (1906–46), game as a lucid pattern of movement sewn whereas Patrick Maume’s entry on Joyce does. tightly into the rectangle of the pitch—is There was an opportunity here with that he was the first person to refuse to the Roger Casement (1864–1916) entry appear on Eamon Andrews’ (1922­–87) TV to compensate for the weird ODNB programme, ‘This is your Life’ in 1961. entry by D. George Boyce, with its jejune (Who else did?) It makes his later hounding references to his ‘Anglo-Irish nature’ by the tabloids all the more painful to read and the antagonistic Catholic and about. Paul Rouse’s account of Blanchflower Protestant elements within it. Michael could not be bettered unless it is by his entry Laffan, mercifully, steers away from all on the cyclist Shay Elliott (1934–71), whose that stereotyping, although he seems not brilliant and tragic career still reverberates, to hear the sound of Casement’s ghost notwww.fieldday.ie just in cycling circles. knocking on the door again. He does briefly mention the connection with Conrad, SPOT-READINGS but says nothing of Yeats’s development of Casement as one of his heroic figures Some entries are sublimely good, models and does not notice the renewal of the of clarity and compression. Among those I Conrad and Casement connection in W. would mention Nicholas Allen on George G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn (trans. Russell (1867–1935) and on Liam Miller 1998). Now Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian (1924–87), Colin Kenny on Michael novelist and 2010 Nobel Prize winner, has Littleton (1938–2002), Kevin Whelan written a novel about him (El Sueno del on Lord Edward FitzGerald (1763–98), Celta)—although Laffan obviously could Gearoid Ó Tuathaigh on O’Connell (1775– not have had this information. But Yeats 1847), Joe Lee on Pearse (1879–1916) and and Sebald by themselves make for as Patrick Maume on Eilis Dillon (1920–94). distinguished a literary heritage as Parnell’s These are obviously spot checks on my (Yeats and Joyce), which Frank Callanan part over only a fragment of the historical does dwell upon. There is an imbalance record, largely the past two centuries. Yet, here that should be addressed. Nor is there even with that reservation, I would say any recording of the plentiful images of that Patrick Maume has so many entries Casement—especially the Sarah Purser here of the highest quality that it’s a pity portrait, whereas almost every other major his achievement could not be recognized in figure has this information attached. Also, some formal way; certainly his expertise there has been, to my knowledge, at least

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Portrait of Sir Roger Casement 1864–1916, by Sara Purser (1848–1943). © Visual & Written / SuperStock

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one notable BBC programme on Casement black-bordered orange butterfly Casement (mentioned by Sebald in his book). And collected in South America c.1911. Casement has left much material to Ireland, ‘There is no antidote against the opium most of it from his South American journey. of time’ wrote Sir Thomas Browne in 1658. I have only ever seen one item from it Now and then it’s possible to glimpse that perhaps Llosa might use as an image someone in these page just before disaster on the jacket of his forthcoming book, happens. Ellen Duncan (1850–1937) the from the Natural History Museum—a journalist, for instance, spoke to Sir Hugh

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Liam De Paor, historian and archeologist, August 1, 1977. © RTÉ Stills Library

Lane (1875–1915) about his famous bequest Captain Francis O’Neill (1848–1936), of modern paintings just prior to his the great collector of Irish music,whose departure on the Lusitania from Liverpool library is housed at the University of Notre to New York, on 12 February, 1915, less Dame, never played music at home after than three months before he died on the 1904, we learn from Lawrence William same ship on its return journey, torpedoed White, in deference to his wife’s grief as offwww.fieldday.ie the shore of County Cork. Joseph the serial deaths of their children from J. Ryan tells of Thomas O’Brien Butler illness emptied the house. It seems like some (1861–1915), the composer, whose real, terrible recurrence of a historical tragedy less glamorously ‘Irish’ name was Thomas at the personal level. O’Neill left Ireland as Whitwell, and who died in the same disaster a child during the Famine, as the country as he returned from a concert performance became silent as his own house and the land of his opera Muirgheis, which had earlier of song—which he was in part to revive— been billed in Dublin as the ‘First Irish died. We can come back thence to the other Grand Opera’. It is easy, in the light of silence, that of the language, via the career twentieth-century violence, to sympathize of John Jordan (1930–88), touchingly with Kate O’Brien (1897–1974), when she memorialized by a former student Hugh writes in Farewell Spain (1937), that she McFadden and another of Jordan’s students, ‘is glad to have lived before and not in the Michael Hartnett (1941–99) who kept the millennium’. (And, alas, the late Lorna eleven-year distance between them both the Reynolds and Bridget Hourican in the entry whole way, dying at the same age of 58. on Kate O’Brien, state that ‘her omission Then, in any spot reading, you can from the Field Day Anthology was a quickly come on a series of our recent serious oversight’. There are in fact thirteen grotesques—William McGrath (1916–91), double-column pages devoted to her in the ‘Loyalist and paedophile’, Sean Fortune Anthology, Vol.II. 1154–67, and the date (1953–99) and Brendan Smyth (1927–97), of publication is 1991 not 1990. Hard to each ‘a catholic priest and paedophile’, get much more wrong in one sentence). Smyth buried at night by his family and

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the grave covered in concrete against vandalism; John McKeague (1930–82), the loyalist torturer and killer, himself killed to protect the rapists in the still-uninvestigated Kincora boys’ home scandal—so that the glimpse becomes an over-the-edge sighting into the depths of the Inferno. But then your eye catches another name, that of someone who immeasurably brightened the world he lived in—say that of Liam de Paor (1926–98), commemorated by Michael Ryan, and then—‘uscimmo a riveder le stelle’, ‘we issue forth to see again the stars’. This is a great shadow- filled edifice of which its builders can be justifiably proud. www.fieldday.ie

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Contributors

Thomas Bartlett is Professor of History Michael G. Cronin teaches in the at the University of Aberdeen, formerly Department of English at NUI Maynooth. Professor of Modern Irish History at His Impure Thoughts: Sexuality, University College Dublin (1995–2006), Catholicism and Literature in Twentieth- and lecturer at University College Galway. Century Ireland is forthcoming from He has taught widely in the USA; was the Manchester University Press in 2011. first Naughton Fellow in Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame in 1999; Seamus Deane is Keough Emeritus Chair Parnell Fellow in Irish Studies at Magdalene of Irish Studies at the University of Notre College, Cambridge, 2002; and Burns Dame. Library Fellow in Irish Studies at Boston College, 2009–10. He has written The Fall Terry Eagleton is Distinguished Visiting and Rise of the Irish Nation: the Catholic Professor at the University of Lancaster, the Question, 1690–1830 (1992); and co- University of Notre Dame and NUI Galway. edited/co-authored Penal Era and Golden His most recent books, from a remarkable Age: Essays in Irish History, 1690–1800 list of more than forty, are Reason, Faith (1979); Irish Studies: a general introduction and Revolution: Reflections on the God (1988); A Military History of Ireland Debate (2009) and On Evil (2010). (1996); The Irish Rebellion of 1798: a bicentenary perspective (2003). His most Cathal Goan recently announced he recent work is Ireland: A History (2010). was stepping down from the position of Director-General of RTÉ on completion of Paul Bové is Distinguished Professor his seven-year term that began in October ofwww.fieldday.ie English at University of Pittsburgh 2003. He is a native of Belfast and a and editor of the journal boundary 2. graduate of University College Dublin; he Among his publications are Intellectuals writes and lectures on Irish traditional song. in Power: A Genealogy of Critical He joined RTÉ in 1979, initially working Humanism (1986); Mastering Discourse: with RTÉ Radio as a Producer and Senior the Politics of Intellectual Culture (1992); Producer before moving to RTÉ TV in and In the Wake of Theory (1992). He 1988. He worked in Current Affairs and as has edited collections of essays including Editor of Cúrsaí, the Irish language current Early Postmodernism: Foundational affairs and arts programme. In 1990, he Essays (1995); (with Silvestra Mariniello) was appointed Editor, Irish Language Gendered Agents: Women and Institutional Programming, then Ceannasaí of Teilifís Knowledge (1998); and Edward Said and na Gaeilge in August 1994, Director of the Work of the Critic: speaking truth to RTÉ Television and a member of the RTÉ power (2000). His most recent book is Executive Board in March 2000. Poetry against Torture: Criticism, History and the Human (2008).

206 Contributors

Luke Gibbons is Professor of Irish Literary Kevin Whelan is Director of the Keough and Cultural Studies at the School of Naughton Centre of the University of English, Drama and Media Studies at Notre Dame in Dublin. He has authored or NUI Maynooth, formerly holder of the edited fifteen books and over one hundred Keough Family Chair of Irish Studies at the articles, and he has lectured on Irish University of Notre Dame. His publications topics in over a dozen countries. Among include Edmund Burke and Ireland (2004) his books are The Tree of Liberty (1996), and Gaelic Gothic (2006). Fellowship of Freedom (1998), Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape (second edition, Catherine Morris was recently a post- 2011), and The Green Atlantic: Ireland doctoral research fellow at University and the wider world in the long eighteenth College Dublin and is now Cultural century (forthcoming). Coordinator at Trinity College Dublin and the National Library of Ireland. She is completing a book on Alice Milligan and is organizer and curator of the exhibition on the ‘Life and Times of Alice Milligan’ at the National Library.

Emer Nolan teaches in the Department of English at NUI Maynooth. She is the author of James Joyce and Nationalism (1995) and Catholic Emancipations: Irish Fiction from www.fieldday.ieThomas Moore to James Joyce (2007). Her edition of Thomas Moore’s The Memoirs of Captain Rock was published by Field Day in 2008. Her essay on Sinéad O’Connor is one of a series on modern Irish women artists and writers.

Alan Titley Head of Irish Department in St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, 1981– 2006, when he was appointed Professor of Modern Irish at University College Cork. He writes a weekly Irish-language column in the Irish Times. Among his many works in different modes, for which he has received several awards, are Feola (1980) and Eiriceachtaí agus Scéalta Eile (1987); Tagann Godot (1991); An tÚrscéal Gaeilge (1991), An Fear Dána (1993) Fabhalscéalta (1995); Chun Doirne (1997); Leabhar Nóra Ní Anluain (1998).

207 www.fieldday.ie www.fieldday.ie Cultural History/Irish Studies History/Irish Cultural 896755493 780946 9 UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME NOTRE OF UNIVERSITY – PUBLICATIONS DAY FIELD

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6. 2010 © The Congress. of Art Library Archive/ market,catch,‘Bull’ investorsto haplessof for bubbles value’ blowing ‘inflated cover:Inside ‘WallBubbles:Street 1837–1913,Same’;Morgan Alwaysfinancier,the Pierpont JohnAmerican of caricature a of personification the as College,Birkbeck London, 1950. WellcomeCollection, London.Picasso/DACS, Succession © London, 2010. Cover:the of Picasso’,Detail ‘Bernal or , drawn by Pablo Picasso on the wall of the apartment of John Desmond Bernal in Bernal Desmond John of apartment the of wall the 12–11–1950,on Bernal Picasso Pablo drawnby magazine,May 1901.Puck 22 Artist:Keppler,Joseph Jr. (1872–1956).