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Études irlandaises
39-1 | 2014 Varia
Édition électronique URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/3699 DOI : 10.4000/etudesirlandaises.3699 ISSN : 2259-8863
Éditeur Presses universitaires de Caen
Édition imprimée Date de publication : 30 juin 2014 ISBN : 978-2-7535-3449-0 ISSN : 0183-973X
Référence électronique Études irlandaises, 39-1 | 2014 [En ligne], mis en ligne le 30 juin 2016, consulté le 23 septembre 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/3699 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ etudesirlandaises.3699
Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 23 septembre 2020.
Études irlandaises est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d’Utilisation Commerciale - Partage dans les Mêmes Conditions 4.0 International. 1
SOMMAIRE
Études d'histoire et de civilisation
Northern Ireland and the Euro: Changing Attitudes (2003-2013) Carine Berberi
Joseph O’Kelly (1828-1885) and the “Slings and Arrows of Fortune” Axel Klein
“Listening for landfall”: how silence and fear marginalized the music of the Aran Islands Deirdre Ní Chonghaile
“Daringly, yet with Reverence”: Pearse, Mickiewicz and the Theology of National Messianism Maciej Ruczaj
“Damning Men’s Souls”: The Evolution of Irish Prostitution Memoirs Catherine McGurren
Le Mouvement d’occupation d’espaces publics : Occupy Dame Street et Occupy Galway Frederic Royall et Clément Desbos
An Eviction in Kinnitty: Republican Social Agitation and the New Fianna Fáil Government, 1932-1933 Timothy O’Neill
Entre guerre et paix: les murals de Belfast Pascal Pragnère
Art et images
Suppressed Voices: The Suffering and Silencing of Irish Institutional Abuse Survivors in Áine Phillips’s Redress Performances Kate Antosik-Parsons
Études littéraires
Death – a source in Seamus Heaney’s early autobiographical poetry Jessica Stephens
Une jeunesse à Paris : le melting-pot à l’irlandaise de George Moore Fabienne Gaspari
The familiar and the foreign: Finnish landscapes in contemporary Irish poetry Anne Karhio
Once the Terror of His Flock – Now the Laughing Stock: Rise and Decay of the Clerical Master Narrative in Modern Irish Literature and Beyond Peter Lenz
Études irlandaises, 39-1 | 2014 2
History and Memory in Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin's « Autun » – An Irish Poet in Burgundy Maguy Pernot-Deschamps
Comptes rendus de lecture
Liam Ó Muirthile, An Fuíoll Feá – Rogha Dánta/Wood Cuttings – New and Selected Poems Clíona Ní Ríordáin
Derek Mahon, La Mer hivernale et autres poèmes Claude Fierobe
Karine Deslandes, Regards français sur le conflit nord-irlandais Wesley Hutchinson
Harry White & Barra Boydell (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland Erick Falc'her-Poyroux
Études irlandaises, 39-1 | 2014 3
Études d'histoire et de civilisation Studies in History and Civilisation
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Northern Ireland and the Euro: Changing Attitudes (2003-2013)
Carine Berberi
1 Between 2003 and 2013 Britain has adopted an increasingly Eurosceptic attitude towards the euro and the eurozone crisis. In 2003 – under the Blair governments – the United Kingdom seemed almost ready to join the single currency. The official policy was that the government was in favour of joining the euro if the five tests1 set by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown were passed and the British gave their approval in a referendum. These conditions were never met and the Blair governments never decided to adhere to the euro. Yet, despite this cautious attitude, the Blair governments (between May 1997 and June 2007) as well as the Brown government (between June 2007 and May 2010) maintained a positive discourse, insisting on the need to meet the five economic tests and doing their best to help the eurozone countries to solve their economic problems. Since May 2010 the new Cameron-Clegg government has adopted quite a different policy, working less and less constructively with the European Union (EU) and clearly behaving as an “awkward partner” at European summits.
2 This change in policy has affected Northern Ireland over the past few years insofar as international relations/European issues remain reserved to Westminster (“excepted matters”) and continue to be determined by the British government. Besides, Northern Ireland seems to be influenced by the increasingly Eurosceptic discourse of the coalition government, as exemplified by Sinn Féin which decided to support Britain joining the euro in 2003 but only grudgingly accepts the euro today.
3 This paper will consequently analyze the evolution of attitudes in Northern Ireland since 2003, focusing on the policies adopted by its main parties, i. e., Sinn Féin, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the Democratic and Unionist Party (DUP), regarding the single currency and the euro crisis. We will also examine the viewpoint of the population as well as that of the companies of Northern Ireland to analyze the impact of the coalition government’s policy upon its society.
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The SDLP: the most consistent advocate of euro membership
4 Until 2003 the SDLP was the only party – among the four above-mentioned political parties – to support Britain joining the euro and to call for the immediate introduction of the single currency in Northern Ireland. This viewpoint was justified by economic reasons: early entry into the euro would put an end to costly financial transactions, promote growth, maintain low inflation, provide lower interest rates, ensure a more stable financial system, attract investors and guard against currency speculation – which were all the more importan, to the SDLP, as nearly 60% of Northern Ireland’s exports went to other EU member states2. A single currency would also allow the unification of the whole of the island: It is particularly important for us in Ireland that the whole of the island should be part of the single currency. Indeed if we look south of the border, we see proof that Euro membership really does pay. The average income in the Republic is now higher than in the UK3. The EU has been vital in promoting closer relations between the two parts of the island and crucially between these islands. We have already abolished the economic border. We hope soon that we will also eliminate the monetary frontier by succeeding in bringing Northern Ireland into the single currency. The SDLP believes firmly that the UK should be part of the eurozone. The long-term benefits of euro membership are clear and substantial4.
5 Even though the SDLP later became a bit more silent on this issue – because of the cautious attitude of the Blair and Brown governments –, it has continued to support and to campaign for euro entry5. Thus, in 2009 – in the context of the economic and financial crisis – the SDLP used the same arguments in favour of the euro repeatedly, insisting on the stability the single currency would provide: In Europe the SDLP will: […] In the face of currency fluctuations, look for measures to promote currency stability and in the long term, campaign for the introduction of the Euro. Only an all-island approach to the economy, including the use of a single currency, will attract investors and enable Ireland North and South to seriously compete on the global stage6.
6 In spite of its criticism of the austerity approach of some European leaders the SDLP has called for policies aimed at stimulating economic growth since 2010, it has tried to reassure people, telling them over and over again that they should not be worried about the possibility of a eurozone break-up – following the eurozone crisis7: Some of us see the euro as a problem and some of us do not. Being in the euro has been an advantage to Ireland for many years. It has become a handicap at present because of the restrictions and constraints, but the eurozone works and has worked very well for many years. In the present crisis it has its handicaps and limitations. Some people are predicting that the eurozone will collapse shortly; I do not accept that, and that is not the view of everybody8.
7 More generally, the SDLP has firmly criticized David Cameron’s Eurosceptic policies. In December 2011 SDLP South Down MP Margaret Ritchie, who was the leader of the SDLP between February 2010 and November 2011, accused the government of marginalizing the UK within the EU following David Cameron’s veto9: In walking away from the deal on the table at Brussels, David Cameron may be satisfying the Eurosceptic mob in his own party, but he is not necessarily getting the best deal for the UK, much less for the North of Ireland.
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This move by the Prime Minister can only serve to harm our relationship with the EU and create a two-speed, two-tier Europe with those on the inside of the stabilisation deal sorting out the mess, and those on the outside, looking on10.
8 The SDLP has also condemned David Cameron’s promise to organize an EU referendum11 if the Tories were reelected in 2015, as exemplified by SDLP leader Alasdair McDonnell who explained in January 2013 that such a referendum was not in the interests of Northern Ireland and would threaten “a significant sector of [its] economy12”.
Sinn Féin: to join or not to join?
9 Like the SDLP, Sinn Féin is a nationalist party which favours a united Ireland (North and South). As already mentioned, it had opposed joining the euro until 2003. Not only had it opposed this project because of the loss of sovereignty it involved – by transferring control over domestic monetary policy to an unelected European Central Bank (ECB) – and the impact it would have on the economy of Northern Ireland, but it had also criticized the new obstacles which had been created between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland: The key policy objective of EMU is wholly dictated by tight deflationary fiscal criteria without any consideration of the impact of such policies on questions of unemployment, income and wage levels and social welfare protection. […] Because the Six Counties has remained outside EMU and the 26 Counties inside it, another tier of obstacles have been placed in the way of creating a truly all Ireland economy. For Sinn Féin, which believes that such harmonization is essential for the development and regeneration of the economy as a whole, such a situation is more bad news13.
10 Yet, from 2002 onwards Sinn Féin became aware that it was increasingly difficult to be opposed to a project which was a reality in Ireland and could not be removed easily14.
11 Consequently, in 2003 Sinn Féin made a U-turn on this issue and abandoned its policy of opposition to the single currency. This change was made official in the discussion document “Sinn Féin and the European Union” which was brought to the Annual Party Conference (Ard Fheis) in March 2003. In this document, Sinn Féin explained that the launch of the euro had increased economic differences between Northern Ireland and Ireland. Since asking the Republic of Ireland to withdraw from the eurozone was not a viable option in the medium term, Sinn Féin now called for the adoption of the euro in Northern Ireland. The main purpose of this change in attitude was to advocate a single currency for the whole island. This was made easier by the fact that Northern Ireland, in any case, was tied to the Bank of England over which it had no control: The adoption of a single currency throughout the island is a crucial part of the process of economic unification. […] Sinn Féin has long opposed the undemocratic control of part of the Irish economy by British financial institutions. The adoption of the euro in the Six Counties would not involve a loss of democratic control, given that there is currently no control over the Bank of England. Indeed, entry of the Six Counties into the euro zone will strengthen our demands for greater Irish participation in the decision-making processes of the ECB. Sinn Féin will, therefore, support the adoption of the euro in the Six Counties in any future referendum on the issue15.
12 From then on the two nationalist parties of Northern Ireland, the SDLP and Sinn Féin, supported Britain joining the single currency. From 2007 onwards Sinn Féin confirmed
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the new policy it had adopted on the euro. More precisely, it tried to define an economic strategy aimed at unifying the whole Irish economy. One of the key elements of this strategy included: “Begin an open debate on the benefits of one currency for the whole island16.” It was obvious here that Sinn Féin was making concessions in this field so as to get the support of the EU, as exemplified by the 2009 European Election Manifesto which clearly stated that Sinn Féin wanted to “step up the campaign for the EU to support Irish reunification17”. The EU was henceforth considered as a means to put an end to partition and to reunify Ireland thanks to a series of measures which included the introduction of the euro in the North.
13 Like the SDLP, Sinn Féin has become a little more cautious on the single currency since 2010. Today Sinn Féin grudgingly accepts the euro because of the eurozone crisis and an increasing Euroscepticism in its ranks18. Thus, at the 2011 Ard Fheis in Belfast a motion called for a debate on the Republic of Ireland’s continued membership of the euro. Cork Sinn Féin particularly criticized the austerity policies which were imposed on Ireland by the EU and strangled economic growth – the motion was not passed19. At the 2012 Ard Fheis Limerick City Sinn Féin repeated the same arguments insisting on the impact of the euro crisis on Britain’s economy – the motion also failed: This Ard Fheis believes that it is only through direct state management of the economy that we can bring to an early end our disgraceful levels of unemployment and debt and the first step to this end is control of our own currency. We therefore call on Sinn Féin to work with other like-minded individuals and groups towards an efficient and rapid dropping of the euro currency and the establishment of a state currency20.
14 In this unfavourable context, the call for the introduction of the euro in the North is no longer mentioned in official documents. Nevertheless, Sinn Féin has tried to adopt a precise policy on the European initiatives aimed at solving the eurozone crisis. This was exemplified by its stance in the run-up to the referendum on the EU Fiscal Treaty which was held in the Republic of Ireland on 31 May 201221. Sinn Féin called for a series of measures – investment in jobs and growth, a write-down of toxic debt, and for the ECB to recapitalize the banks – so as to put an end to austerity policies which contracted eurozone economies: The policies of austerity are strangling growth, not only in Ireland but across the Eurozone. EU unemployment is at an all-time high. The Troika programmes are not working because they are ignoring the real causes of the currency crisis. There is an urgent need for a change of direction away from austerity and towards policies focused on stimulating growth. Any solution to the Eurozone crisis must follow a series of interrelated steps. […] We need to invest in economic growth, primarily in the form of jobs. The European banking system must be cleansed of its toxic debts. There is also a need to reduce debt levels across the Eurozone through debt restructuring22.
15 Over the past few years, Sinn Féin’s policy has also focused on the impact the decisions taken by European leaders could have on Ireland. Consequently, in December 2011 it did not condemn Cameron’s veto and did not adopt the same attitude as other nationalist parties such as the Scottish National Party or Plaid Cymru23. In fact, Sinn Féin decided to criticize the Irish government which had opposed neither the austerity policies nor further integration which implied a transfer of more powers to Brussels: The deal struck by 26 EU leaders on Friday, 9 December, in Brussels will not solve the eurozone crisis. In my opinion it will make matters worse. The agreement is not a fiscal compact. It is an austerity compact. It seeks to impose right-wing austerity
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policies in perpetuity. The difficulty for all of us is that the Taoiseach agrees with this. […] the agreement last Friday also seeks to undermine member states’ democracy24.
16 One of the motions passed at the 2013 Ard Fheis also accused the Irish Government of failing to protect Irish interests – both political and economic – in the context of austerity25.
The two main unionist parties: a consistent opposition to the Euro
17 Contrary to the two most popular nationalist parties which have supported Britain joining the euro since 2003, the two main unionist parties – the DUP and the UUP – are opposed to the single currency and support the retention of the pound Sterling.
18 The DUP and the UUP are against the euro for the same reasons as those mentioned by Sinn Féin before 2003, i. e., economic and political reasons linked to the loss of sovereignty involved by such a scheme. More precisely, they consider that the single currency would mean the loss of economic control to an undemocratic ECB, as mentioned by Jim Allister, a member of the DUP and MEP for Northern Ireland between 2004 and 2007, or by Jim Nicholson, a UUP politician and MEP for Northern Ireland since 1989: Giving up our own currency would impact adversely on Northern Ireland and our economy. Key economic decisions would be handed over to faceless, unelected and unaccountable bankers and bureaucrats in Europe. The DUP is committed to accountable government. Accountable elected UK politicians are better placed to take economic decisions on our behalf26. Jim Nicholson believes it is in the UK’s national interest to retain Sterling and control over interest rates, exchange rates and tax policy. To surrender them would threaten our basic concept of democracy – that we are governed and taxed by those we elect and can dismiss27.
19 In their 2010 election manifesto the DUP kept repeating the same ideas: The DUP opposes the UK entering the Euro zone. Giving up our national currency would mean surrendering a vital tool for running the British economy and an unacceptable loss of independence28.
20 In fact, the DUP and the UUP have always supported cooperation between European states and opposed the creation of a “European Super-State” which would include monetary union, economic integration, political union, a harmonized tax-policy… Their main purpose is to retain national control of their economy.
21 The two unionist parties also fear the impact joining the euro could have on Britain’s and Northern Ireland’s economy – particularly on wages and employment29. In 2003/2004 they mostly criticized the convergence criteria defined by the Maastricht Treaty – the latter were considered as deflationary fiscal criteria because they focused on the fight against inflation. This argument was rather justified since high unemployment and low economic growth were noticeable in many countries of the eurozone at the beginning of the 21st century. The DUP and the UUP were all the more worried as they were quite aware that the ECB would never protect Northern Ireland’s interests: “Some countries in the Euro zone are already experiencing problems as the ECB puts the priorities of the likes of Germany and France above theirs30.”
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22 Today the DUP and the UUP mostly bring to the fore the economic difficulties faced by some members of the eurozone, like Greece, the Republic of Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Italy – owing to the euro crisis31. The UUP, above all, has strongly condemned the inability of eurozone countries to take the right measures to solve the crisis, calling into question the validity of the eurozone: I [Jim Nicholson] have always voiced my concern that the entire Eurozone was conceived too fast, too soon. Greece, along with others, was admitted into an ill- conceived idea at a time when their economies were not strong enough. As a result, they are now paying the price during this economic crisis where they face further budget cuts […]. The inability of Greece and other Eurozone nations to put concrete plans in action and push forward previously agreed actions is causing the UK, and the Northern Ireland economy, considerable harm. […] I appeal to the Eurozone leaders to put a stop to the continuing uncertainty and sort out the problems that their premature ‘one currency, one continent’ vision has created32.
23 The two unionist parties have also welcomed David Cameron’s promise to organize a referendum on Britain’s EU membership33. In their 2010 general election manifesto the DUP had already called for a referendum on major constitutional issues, such as the Lisbon Treaty, considering that “too many powers have been ceded by our national Government to the European Union34”.
24 In fact, the UUP seems to be rather less Eurosceptic than the DUP. Thus, it has consistently promoted a more competitive and flexible EU as well as an objective debate on Britain and Europe: I [Jim Nicholson] believe a focused and comprehensive debate concerning the on- going relationship between the UK and the EU is essential. This must be an informed debate based on the facts. A debate that clearly outlines the impact of all aspects of EU membership both positive and negative including our financial contributions and gains, the impact of the single market on jobs and trade, European funding and the costs and benefits derived from European legislation35.
25 On the contrary, in its 2010 manifesto, the DUP criticized “the continual power-grab exercised by the European Commission” – which should be more strongly opposed by the British government – and wanted Britain to look beyond Europe for greater cooperation: “Northern Ireland already has many industrial and trading links with India, and it will be vital for maximizing the UK’s influence in the world to deepen relations with China and India36.”
Society: mixed views
26 As far as the population of Northern Ireland is concerned, it sends out mixed messages. In fact, the euro has created tensions within the country, particularly in the early 2000s. Indeed, a survey carried out in June 2003 showed that the public remained hostile to the euro but the gap between the Yes and No votes was rather narrow: 48% opposed joining the single currency, 39% supported it and 14% said they did not know. Nevertheless, it was clear that the level of public opposition to the euro was much higher in Britain, reaching about 57%, if we compared the above-mentioned figures with the outcome of polls carried out in the UK as a whole in 200337.
27 Since 2003 few polls have been carried out to analyze the opinion of the people of Northern Ireland on the single currency – which is logical considering the policies
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which have been implemented by the British governments and the eurozone crisis. It is consequently very difficult to precisely assess what proportion of the population would still be favourable to joining this scheme. However, the gap between the Yes and No votes in Northern Ireland seems to reflect the viewpoints of the two communities. The 2011 Census showed that 42% of the population of Northern Ireland were protestant (46% in 2001) whereas 41% were catholic (40% in 2001)38. Generally speaking, the Republicans, most of whom are catholic, support euro membership because such a step would allow Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to share a common currency. On the contrary, Unionists, most of whom are protestant, fear that euro membership could be a step towards the reunification of Ireland (North and South)39.
28 As far as business leaders in Northern Ireland are concerned, most of them support joining the euro. According to a poll conducted by business advisors, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), in May 2003, almost two-thirds (63%) of Northern Ireland companies favoured euro membership (24% against40, 13% remaining undecided) because it could be beneficial for their business, removing currency transaction costs, ensuring greater price transparency and creating increased competitiveness. The support was particularly strong in the west and north west of the Province, i. e., near the border, owing to the trade links with the Republic of Ireland41. Indeed, to a large extent, the enthusiasm of businesses in Northern Ireland can be explained by their export activity, as exemplified by PwC chief economist Philip McDonagh in 2003: Slow economic recovery and low-cost competition is hurting local exporters. Despite the strengthening Euro, exporters to Ireland and other parts of the Eurozone perceive currency volatility as yet another barrier to trade. In border areas and amongst retailers, where dual currency has become a way of life, the euro is already accepted. As customers in the Republic and the EU align their supply chains to the euro, local suppliers and exporters are feeling isolated. This is not a surprising result 42.
29 This attitude was confirmed in 2006 in a survey carried out by Grant Thornton, a global network of independent assurance, tax and advisory firms. This new research which focused on British medium-sized companies revealed that within the UK, support for euro entry was the strongest in Northern Ireland, reaching 58%, compared with 35% in the UK. It seems that the trade links with the Republic of Ireland explained the enthusiastic viewpoint of businesses in Northern Ireland43. Nevertheless, this assertion should be somewhat qualified today insofar as Northern Ireland has been increasingly exporting to countries outside the eurozone since 2007. The figures published by the Department of Finance and Personnel of Northern Ireland (DFPNI) in March 2013 even showed that Northern Ireland exported more services to these countries than it did with eurozone members and the Republic of Ireland44.
30 Since 2010 businesses in Northern Ireland have been concerned about the impact of the eurozone crisis on their export market. In January 2012 Francis Martin, Managing Partner at business advisory firm BDO, made it quite clear: For Northern Ireland, the pathway out of economic uncertainty is expanding our export market so it becomes increasingly diverse, sustainable and able to generate significant levels of employment. We have much in our favour – highly educated and skilled staff, relatively low labour costs, proximity to both the US and Europe. But the crisis mode of euro governance does little or nothing to engender business confidence45.
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31 They have also criticized David Cameron’s promise to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, considering it would not be in Northern Ireland’s interests and would create much uncertainty. Philip Gilliland, President of the Londonderry Chamber of Commerce, brought to the fore the trading links between Ulster, the Republic of Ireland and the EU in January 2013: European Union membership is especially important for Northern Ireland, given our land border and close trading connections with the Republic. This is even more true for Derry as a border city. If the Prime Minister's negotiations with EU colleagues go badly, there is presumably a risk that the UK would leave the EU. While that would be damaging to international trade conducted by British companies, it would be potentially disastrous for businesses in Northern Ireland. If Northern Ireland were no longer part of the same trading group as the Republic, the repercussions could be severe46.
32 Even though the business leaders of Northern Ireland are more enthusiastic about joining the euro, their viewpoint broadly reflects that of most British business leaders. The latter have tended to remain silent on the euro issue and on Europe more generally since 2010 but they remain pro-euro and pro-Europe because the EU is Britain’s biggest trading partner47. Most business leaders in the UK would consequently like Britain to remain a part of the EU, considering that exiting it would hurt investment and damage British trade48.
Conclusion
33 Between 2003 and 2013 attitudes in Northern Ireland towards the euro have somewhat changed, but not as much as those in Britain as a whole – even if the Province has become more silent on this issue because of the eurozone crisis and the policy of the coalition government. In fact, the mixed messages Northern Ireland sends out on the single currency reflect the divisions in its society.
34 The main republican parties, the SDLP and Sinn Féin, have both supported Britain joining the euro since 2003, a step which would, above all, allow them to unify the island (North and South). Even though they have tended to be more cautious since 2010, they have tried to find solutions to the euro crisis, encouraging eurozone countries to put an end to their austerity approach and to adopt policies aimed at stimulating growth. One should note that unlike the SDLP which has always favoured the single currency, Sinn Féin seems to hesitate over the stance it should adopt on this issue today. It seems obvious though that it will stick to the same policy as long as the Republic of Ireland is part of the eurozone.
35 The two main unionist parties, the DUP and UUP, have been rather consistent in their opposition to the euro owing to the loss of sovereignty it would involve and the impact it could have on Northern Ireland’s economy. Contrary to the two main republican parties, they have thus welcomed David Cameron’s decision to organize an EU referendum and seem to support the repatriation of powers from Brussels to the UK.
36 This republican/unionist divide enables us to explain the viewpoint of the population of Northern Ireland on the single currency. Indeed, opinions are mixed because generally speaking, Unionists, most of whom are protestant, are opposed to the euro which, they believe, would lead to the reunification of Ireland (North and South) whereas Republicans, most of whom are catholic, support this scheme which would
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allow them to establish a single currency for the whole island. Nevertheless, it is quite difficult to know the proportion of people who still support the UK joining the euro today because few polls have been carried out recently on this issue.
37 Similarly ,few polls have been conducted among business leaders over the past few years. Yet, it appears that Northern Ireland businesses, particularly those in border areas, are the most enthusiastic in the UK because of their trade links with the Republic of Ireland. These trade links explain why companies in Northern Ireland are still in favour of the euro today and are concerned about the impact of the eurozone crisis on their export market – even if they increasingly export to countries outside the eurozone. As long as the Republic of Ireland is part of the euro area, this viewpoint is unlikely to change.
38 The evolution of Northern Ireland’s attitude towards the euro in the medium term will consequently depend on the future of the eurozone and the continued membership of the Republic of Ireland in the EU. Yet, the results of the EU referendum which will be organized by David Cameron in 2017 will also influence Northern Ireland. If Britain decides to leave the EU, Northern Ireland will have to make a decision about its future within the EU and tensions will certainly arise as a result of the republican/unionist divide on this issue.
NOTES
1. There should be sustainable convergence between the business cycles and economic structures of the UK and the rest of the eurozone countries, there should be sufficient flexibility in the UK and in continental Europe to adapt to change and other unexpected events, joining EMU should create better conditions for businesses to make long-term decisions to invest in Britain, it should have a beneficial effect upon Britain’s financial services industry and it should promote higher growth, stability, and a lasting increase in jobs. 2. SDLP, “A Europe of the Future”, European Election Manifesto, 1999. [http:// www.sdlp.ie/]. 3. SDLP, “SDLP’s Rodgers challenges parties to support early membership of euro”, 16 May 2001 [http://www.sdlp.ie/]. 4. SDLP, “SDLP leader warns Ireland against Euroscepticism”, 21 March 2002 [http:// www.sdlp.ie/]. 5. SDLP, “SDLP for Europe, Best Record, Best Agenda”, SDLP European Election Manifesto 2004, p. 5. SDLP,”A Better Way to a Better Ireland”, SDLP Manifesto 2005, p. 14. 6. SDLP, “A Vision for Europe, Ambition for You”, European Election Manifesto 2009, p. 9. 7. SDLP, “Hanna: Wilson’s comments about possible Eurozone break-up ‘scary’”, 11 November 2011. [http://www.sdlp.ie/index.php/newsroom_media/newsarticle/ hanna_wilsons_comments_about_possible_eurozone_break-up_scary/].
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8. Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 15 December 2010, col. 963 (Alasdair McDonnell). 9. At the EU summit in Brussels in early December 2011 the British Prime Minister decided to use his veto to block treaty changes so as to protect Britain’s financial services. Although the 26 other member states of the EU had agreed to enforce new austerity measures and tougher budget rules across Europe to solve their economic difficulties, David Cameron blocked these changes because his demands for greater protection of the City of London had been rejected. 10. UTV Live News, “Mixed NI reaction to Eurozone snub”, 9 December 2011 [http:// www.u.tv/News/Mixed-NI-reaction-to-Eurozone-snub/ace5321c-2465-4f19-9f90- b591a58cb716]. 11. On January 23, 2013 David Cameron promised he would hold an in/out referendum on membership of the European Union during the next parliament. Thus, British people would be able to decide whether Britain should remain in the EU by the end of 2017 if the Tories won the 2015 General Election. 12. SDLP, “McDonnell: EU referendum not in NI’s interests”, 23 January 2013 [http:// www.sdlp.ie/index.php/newsroom_media/newsarticle/ mcdonnell_eu_referendum_not_in_nis_interests/]. 13. Sinn Féin, “Sinn Féin opposes Euro Monetary Union”, An Phoblacht, 22 April 1999 [http://republican-news.org/archive/1999/April22/22emu.html]. 14. Sinn Féin, “A critical engagement with Europe”, An Phoblacht, 16 January 2003 [http://www.anphoblacht.com/contents/9625]. 15. Sinn Féin, “Sinn Féin and the European Union – a discussion document brought to the party’s Ard Fheis in March 2003”, 9 March 2003 [www.sinnfein.org]. 16. Sinn Féin, “Others Promise, We Deliver”, 26 County General Election Manifesto 2007, p. 34. 17. Sinn Féin, European Election Manifesto 2009, p. 7. 18. See, for example: Sinn Féin, “Presidential Speech by Gerry Adams TD at Sinn Féin Ard Fheis, Waterfront Hall, Belfast”, September 15, 2011 [http://www.sinnfein.ie/ contents/21492]. 19. Sinn Féin, “Economy Motions”, Ard Fheis, 2011. [www.sinnfein.ie/ard-fheis-2011- motions]. 20. Sinn Féin, “Economy Motions”, Ard Fheis, 2012 [www.sinnfein.ie/ard-fheis-2012- motions]. 21. The EU Fiscal Treaty was approved by referendum on 31 May 2012, by 60.3% to 39.7%, on a turnout of 50%. It was designed to safeguard and stabilize the euro currency. 22. Sinn Féin, “Budget 2013 European Impact”, March 2013 [http://www.sinnfein.ie/ budget-2013-european-impact#.UnT5rPlLNe4]. Sinn Féin, “EU leaders must change tack to deal with mounting Euro crisis – Doherty”, 23 July, 2012. 23. Following Cameron’s decision to veto the EU Treaty on the eurozone debt crisis at the EU summit of December 2011, Alex Salmond (SNP) and Ieuan Wyn Jones (PC), for example, accused the British government of marginalizing the UK within the EU.
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24. Sinn Féin, “Adams challenges Taoiseach on Euro Summit outcome”, 14 December 2011 [http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/22213]. 25. Sinn Féin, “European Union and International Affairs – Motions”, Ard Fheis, 2013. [www.sinnfein.ie/ard-fheis-2013-motions]. 26. DUP, “Leading for Ulster – European Election 2004”, Manifesto Magazine, p. 19. 27. UUP, Ulster Unionists Manifesto, 2004, p. 2. 28. DUP, “Let’s Keep Northern Ireland Moving Forward”, Manifesto 2010, p. 65. 29. UUP, Ulster Unionists Manifesto, 2004, p. 2. 30. DUP, “Allowing Business to Prosper”, The Democratic Unionist Party’s Policy on Business and Economic Development, 2003, p. 22. 31. UUP, “Ulster Unionist Leader Elliott challenges DUP propaganda”, 21 January 2011 [http://www.uup.org/]. 32. UUP, “Nicholson urges Eurozone to take further action”, 15 February 2012 [http:// uup.org/news/554/Nicholson-urges-Eurozone-to-take-further-action#.UnT9GPlLNe4]. 33. UUP, “Nicholson comments on David Cameron’s speech on the EU”, 23 January 2013 [http://uup.org/news/1481/Nicholson-comments-on-David-Cameron-s-speech-on-the- EU#.UnT9Q_lLNe4]. 34. DUP, “Let’s Keep Northern Ireland Moving Forward”, Manifesto 2010, p. 65. 35. UUP, “Nicholson comments on David Cameron’s speech on the EU”, 23 January 2013 [http://uup.org/news/1481/Nicholson-comments-on-David-Cameron-s-speech-on-the- EU#.UnT9Q_lLNe4]. 36. DUP, “Let’s Keep Northern Ireland Moving Forward”, Manifesto 2010, p. 65. 37. IPSOS MORI, “Joining the Euro – Trends since 1991”, 8 March 2007 [ http:// www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx? oItemId=78&view=wide]. 38. NISRA, “Census 2011: Detailed Characteristics for Northern Ireland on Health, Religion and National Identity”, Statistics Bulletin, 16 May 2013, p. 27. 39. Maurice Neill, “Ulster opposes entry to the euro”, Belfast Telegraph, 27 June 2003 [http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/imported/ulster-opposes-entry-to-the- euro-28151337.html]. 40. The businesses who opposed any move to join the single currency at the time said they feared higher taxes, a loss of control over the economy, with interest rates being set by the ECB. They also claimed that the UK did more business with countries outside the eurozone. 41. “Northern Ireland businesses favour the euro”, Northern Ireland on the Internet, 19 May 2003 [http://www.4ni.co.uk/northern_ireland_news.asp?id=16546]. 42. “Northern Ireland businesses favour the euro”, Northern Ireland on the Internet, 19 May 2003 [http://www.4ni.co.uk/northern_ireland_news.asp?id=16546]. 43. “Support for euro entry among mid-sized UK companies at all-time low – survey”, AFX News, 27 June 2006 [http://www.lse.co.uk/FinanceNews.asp? ArticleCode=5srwm0lt75iqa1t&ArticleHeadline=Support_for_euro_entry_among_midsized_UK_companies_at_all_time_low__survey 44. DFPNI, “Exporting Northern Ireland Services Study 2011”, Statistics Bulletin, 29 May 2013, p. 6, p. 14.
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45. Gavin Walker, “Northern Ireland business recovery could be as simple as 1, 2, 3”, Businessfirstonline, 9 January 2012 [ http://www.businessfirstonline.co.uk/our-guest- bloggers/northern-ireland-business-recovery-could-be-as-simple-as-1-2-3/]. 46. Philip Gilliland, “EU Referendum”, The Londonderry Chamber of Commerce, 23 January 2013 [http://www.londonderrychamber.co.uk/news/eu-referendum---philip- gilliland.html]. 47. Karen Kiernan, “Business leaders say Britain should still join euro”, BBC, 14 July 2010 [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10642064]. Stephen Castle, “British Business Leaders Stay Silent on E. U. Exit”, New York Times, 3 December 2012 [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/business/global/uk-backers-of- europe-want-business-to-speak-up]. 48. Charles Forelle, “U.K. Businesses Say Yes to EU, No to Its Rules”, Wall Street Journal, 23 January 2013 [http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/ SB10001424127887323539804578259882086765390].
ABSTRACTS
Between 2003 and 2013 Northern Ireland has become more silent on the euro because of the eurozone crisis and the Eurosceptic discourse of the Cameron-Clegg government. Nevertheless, it has not become Eurosceptic and sends out mixed messages on this issue. While the viewpoint of the main parties and the population can mainly be explained by the republican/unionist divide, business leaders – particularly those in border areas – remain the most enthusiastic owing to their trade links with Ireland.
De 2003 à 2013 l’attitude de l’Irlande du Nord à l’égard de l’euro a été de plus en plus prudente à cause de la crise de la zone euro et de la politique du gouvernement Cameron. Toutefois, elle n’est pas devenue eurosceptique, les opinions étant très partagées. Alors que le point de vue des partis et de la population dépend essentiellement du clivage entre unionistes et républicains, les entreprises demeurent plutôt favorables à l’euro en raison de leurs liens commerciaux avec l’Irlande.
INDEX
Mots-clés: crise financière, entreprises et monde du travail, monnaie, Irlande - relations nord/ sud, Union Européenne / CEE, Irlande du Nord - questions économiques et sociales, débat public, Irlande du Nord - partis politiques, politiques d’austérité Keywords: business and labour, currency, financial crisis, Ireland - cross-border relations, European Union / EEC, Northern Ireland - political parties, public debate, Northern Ireland - economic and social issues, austerity policies
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AUTHOR
CARINE BERBERI University of Tours, France
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Joseph O’Kelly (1828-1885) and the “Slings and Arrows of Fortune”
Axel Klein
Introduction
1 The presence and activities of Irish musical composers in nineteenth-century France have attracted some measure of academic attention in recent years1 Whereas previously the focus of interest was mainly on England and parts of the United States as destinations for the emigration of musical talent from Ireland, the educational and performance opportunities and the resulting compositional influences of France are now coming more into focus, in particular with regard to the careers of George Alexander Osborne (1806-1893), Michael William Balfe (1808-1870) and William Vincent Wallace (1812-1865) during the first half of the century, and of Hope Temple (1859-1938) and Adela Maddison (1863-1929) in later decades. The career of Augusta Holmès (1847-1903), France’s first significant female composer (and of Irish extraction), may already be regarded as sufficiently well-known. The increasing interest is also reflected in a number of recent releases of music by these composers on CD2, which not only demonstrate the obvious French influences but also open up new paths for appreciating their achievements outside the academic world..
2 The members of the O’Kelly family are arguably the most interesting musicians in terms of Franco-Irish cultural relations, yet the least well-known today. Four generations of musicians were indeed active for a hundred years between the 1820s and the 1920s. The first member of this family to set foot in France, where descendants still live, was an émigré from Dublin, a piano teacher called Joseph Kelly (1804-1856; note: not ‘O’Kelly’). He arrived in Boulogne-sur-Mer, via London, around 1823. In November 1826 he married a Frenchwoman from the neighbouring town of Desvres and the couple had four sons in quick succession, all born in Boulogne: the composer and pianist Joseph O’Kelly (1828-1885) who became the best-known member of the family, the music publisher Auguste O’Kelly (1829-1900)3, the businessman Charles O’Kelly (1830-1897) who became managing director of Blanzy-Poure, then the best-known
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producer of steel pen nibs4, and the pianist and composer George O’Kelly (1831-1914), the composer notably of an Irish opera, Le Lutin de Galway, performed in 1878 in Boulogne5. The third generation consisted of Henri O’Kelly (1859-1938), a son of Joseph’s, a fellow student of Claude Debussy at the Paris Conservatoire with whom he shared many academic distinctions and who was active as a pianist, organist, choir director and composer, and of Gustave O’Kelly (1872-1937), a son of Auguste’s, who was a piano maker and trader with a large shop at 93 rue Richelieu in Paris, across the street from the Bibliothèque Nationale, between 1898 and 1917. The fourth generation was represented by Henri O’Kelly junior (1881-1922), a son of Henri senior, who was a double bass player in the orchestras of the Opéra Comique and the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire and the editor of a volume of studies for bass clef instruments (such as double bass, violoncello, tuba, and many others)6 which is dedicated, with permission, to Gabriel Fauré.
3 Although Boulogne-sur-Mer was frequently included in the activities of the O’Kellys, they spent their life and career mainly in Paris where the family moved to around 1835. After the premature death of their father, the brothers changed their name to O’Kelly, a change they justified as a correction when they collectively appeared at the État Civil in Boulogne in January 1859. By then, they had already used the name O’Kelly for about twelve years. The change of name is significant evidence of a reassertion of their Irish identity. It may have been calculated to smooth relationships in French society where being English could have been considered a disadvantage. Also, in British-occupied Ireland, the Anglicisation of Irish names was common practice in the 18th and 19th centuries. It therefore seems very likely that the Kellys had anglicized their name many years before in Ireland. InFrance however, there was no need for it, on the contrary. As O’Kelly it probably was easier to build positive relationships and thereby to distinguish oneself from the historic enemy. Thus, in the 1859 document at the État Civil, the change of name is described as a “rectification”. Their Irish consciousness is further underlined by the fact that the second and some members of the third generation remained Irish (i.e. in the days before Irish independence they had a British passport). Of course, another reason, apart from Irish consciousness, could have been that they avoided compulsory military service and being drafted into the various military conflicts of the period in question.
4 This paper concentrates on Joseph O’Kelly, the best-known member of the family and without doubt the most talented and prolific composer. There are many ways of drawing a sketch of someone’s biography and for the present purpose I chose to concentrate on newspaper articles and reviews. Their advantage is that they usually reflect contemporary attitudes and assessments of printed music and public performances. And while most are focusing on Paris I am also including some Irish papers in case of any significant articles.
A brief outline of Joseph O’Kelly’s life
5 Joseph O’Kelly was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer on 29 January 1828 as the first son of Joseph Kelly, a piano teacher from Dublin, and Marie Duval. From about 1835, he grew up in Paris where his family lived in the Faubourg Poissonnière area of the 9th arrondissement7. Records at the Collège des Irlandais, which don’t give a Christian name, indicate that he may have been a student there from late 1837 to early 18398. He would
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have received his first piano lessons from his father but moved on to quite prominent teachers of the time. They included the German-born Frédéric Kalkbrenner and his Irish compatriot George Alexander Osborne for the piano and Fromental Halévy and Victor Dourlen for composition. With the exception of Osborne, all were teachers at the Paris Conservatoire, but there are no records at this institution of a Kelly or O’Kelly among their pupils. Indeed, it is rather unlikely that O’Kelly studied there, because in that period the Conservatoire didn’t accept foreign students. So most likely, those were private studies that would have taken place during the mid-1840s.
6 His first published compositions dated from 1847, and by the mid-1850s he had established a reputation as a fluent writer of fashionable romances and virtuoso piano music in the style of Chopin or early Berlioz. But although he most frequently composed piano music and songs, he evidently had higher aims. Starting from 1849, Joseph wrote nine operas, four of which were published, and most of them performed9. He also completed four cantatas for soloists, choir and orchestra10 and some choral works. The list of his published compositions reached more than 230 and included a wide range of established publishers such as Chabal, Choudens, Gambogi, Gérard, Girod, Grus, Heugel, Lemoine, Mayaud, Meissonnier, and of course his brother Auguste (who traded as ‘Magasin de Musique du Conservatoire – A. O’Kelly’ between 1872 and 1888). From about 1862, O’Kelly was employed by the famous piano firm Pleyel and represented it during the major international exhibitions of the following two decades. He was decorated with the national orders of merit of Brazil (1859) and Portugal (1865) and became a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur (1881). He married twice (1856, 1879) and had five children, but only two of them reached old age, one of them being the composer Henri.
7 O’Kelly clearly identified with his Irish heritage. He was a long-standing member of the Irish community in Paris known as the ‘Anciens Irlandais’, which was convened by John Patrick Leonard and which, among other activities, held an annual Saint Patrick’s Dinner for many years at the restaurant Véfour (still extant at the Grand Palais). Probably his only journey to Ireland took place in August 1875 for the O’Connell Centenary where a cantata by O’Kelly was performed to words by the Viscount O’Neill de Tyrone, another prominent member of the ‘Anciens Irlandais’ (see below). Among his piano works, there is an Air irlandais op. 58 (1877), with variations on the tune of ‘The Wearing of the Green’. A number of his printed pieces have dedications to members of the Irish community in France. Despite all this, according to J.P. Leonard, O’Kelly “did not know a word of English11”.
8 Joseph O’Kelly died on 9 January 1885, aged almost 57, of bowel cancer. At the funeral mass at Saint Ferdinand’s (17th arr.), the eminent composer Camille Saint-Saëns played the organ, with further music being performed by representatives of the Conservatoire and by the Orphéon Pleyel-Wolff. He was buried in the Cimetière de Passy12.
9 Although his music was widely performed and published, although he evidently mixed with both the musical world and the Irish community of Paris, and although he received a number of public awards, Joseph O’Kelly (not to speak of the rest of his family) has faded completely from today’s perception. He is neither included in any of the major international musical encyclopaedias, nor in Fauquet’s voluminous dictionary of 19th-century French music13. There has never been an academic study that included his name14. His music has never been commercially recorded and probably not even been performed during the past one hundred years.
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Early public reception
10 The first time someone took public notice of Joseph O’Kelly was in August 1847 when Théophile Gautier commented on a vocal duo written by him which was performed in the ‘Chateau des Fleurs’, a large temporary tent that had been built for various kinds of artistic performances during the summer months in the Jardin Beaujon on Champs Élysées. O’Kelly’s duo, he noted, “a produit beaucoup d’effet15”.
11 Apart from public announcements of performances that included his music, his name came up next in the course of a conflict in 1849 between Monsieur Bocage, the director of the Théatre de l’Odéon, and Jules de Premaray, the feuilleton editor of the newspaper La Patrie16. O’Kelly was only mentioned once in connection with an un-named comic opera to a libretto by Théodore Labourieu which appears to have been refused at the Odéon. This refers to the opera La Chasse du roi, which was later offered to the Théâtre de la Gaîté. A letter by O’Kelly, is kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France17, suggests that Labourieu also played a part in the unsuccessful first attempt at a performance because he wasn’t able to complete his text. In his letter, O’Kelly sounds quite impatient.
12 Because Labourieu was also active as a music critic, the following 1853 eulogy of O’Kelly in Le Tintamarre may be a kind of atonement or recompense for his previous failure. This related to O’Kelly’s own performance of his opus 7, which is a piano fantasy on Schubert’s famous ‘Trout’ song:
Rien de faux, de prétentieux, de psalmodique dans son jeu; ce n’est plus là le pianiste lymphatique, l’eunuque de l’harmonie à l’eau de rose, c’est l’homme de talent qui simplement s’inspire de là verité, sans emphase et sans contorsion18.
13 But even without this ‘recompensating’ aspect, O’Kelly received positive reviews in his early years, and this included Hector Berlioz in the Journal des débats where he reviewed the publication of O’Kelly’s Album de la Légion d’Honneur, a collection of six songs to texts by Jules Montini, which were dedicated to the superintendent of the school of the Légion d’Honneur at Saint-Denis. In his own inimitable way he wonders whether the music would be fit for its target group, the teen-age girls at the school:
Les demoiselles de la maison de Saint-Denis ne sont ni des héroïnes de roman, ni de jeunes philosophes, ni des couturières, ni des sœurs de charité, ni des religieuses. Il s’agissait de trouver une poésie de seize ans, une musique de seize ans pour ces jeunes cantatrices de seize ans. MM. Montini et O’Kelly ont résolu le problème sans effort et même avec beaucoup de bonheur. Plusieurs morceaux de leur album charmeraient même des cantatrices de trente-deux ans. [...] Les accompagnements de ces six petites pièces sont en outre (et c’est un point important) d’une facilité telle que les jeunes pianistes de la maison de Saint-Denis elles-mêmes peuvent les exécuter sans hésitation19.
14 Of course, a certain irony is unmistakable here, but Berlioz certainly acknowledged that O’Kelly’s unpretentious Album has its own inherent value.
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15 Gustave Héquet, writing in L’Illustration, agreed when he said “M. O’Kelly est un harmoniste élégant, et sa mélodie a beaucoup de grâce”. In the same short article20, the author already referred to the upcoming performance of O’Kelly’s ‘poème lyrique’, Paraguassú:
On nous annonce de lui pour le 2 août prochain un poème lyrique qui aura nom : Paraguassù, et qui sera exécuté au Théâtre Lyrique au bénéfice de l’Association des musiciens. Paraguassù est un titre passablement bizarre : mais nous offrons de parier que la musique de M. O’Kelly sera correcte, facile, et pleine de naturel.
Operas and cantatas
16 In his Les Voies de l’Opéra français au XIXe siècle, Hervé Lacombe has pointed out how difficult it was for young composers to have major operatic works performed in Paris in the mid-19th century. For all aspiring young composers, the Théâtre Lyrique was the place in which they put all their hopes21.
17 O’Kelly played a smart move in getting a performance there in August 1855 with his work Paraguassú. He chose a time when the theatre was actually closed for the summer and arranged the performance as a benefit for the Association des Artistes Musiciens. The disadvantage of this procedure, of course, was that he couldn’t get more than a single performance outside the regular programme, but the advantage was that he could justifiably claim to have a major work performed at the Théâtre Lyrique by the regular professional staff of the house, including a publication of the score with Choudens, altogether not a bad thing to have for an unknown 27-year-old composer.
18 Paraguassú is a musical collaboration with the librettist, Jules de Villeneuve, who had spent several years in Brazil and who probably suggested the plot, an historical legend of 16th-century Brazil combined, of course, with a love story involving the heroine of the title and a Portuguese invader. Described as a ‘poème lyrique’, the work was more like a cantata, involving a speaker who explained the story, also with stage design and costumes, but no acting as in an opera. The work was dedicated to the Brazilian emperor Dom Pedro II, which resulted in O’Kelly getting the national order of merit from Brazil four years later.
19 Honours of this kind do not necessarily say anything about the quality of the music performed on that occasion. As it was, the musical press was critical, but polite, commending a few well-made melodies, but limiting any negative criticism with a reference to the beneficial character of the performance. There were four reviews, which may be summed up in the following excerpt from Le Ménestrel, written by the critic Jules Lovy:
Quant à la musique, elle renferme quelques motifs agréables, notamment la barcarolle chantée par Dulaurens et Mme Deligne- Lauters. Nous ne relèverons pas les insuffisances musicales de cette oeuvre, que les auteurs ont exhibée dans de fort louables intentions, puisqu’elle a été représentée au profit de l’Association des artistes- musiciens22.
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20 Louis Dubreuilh in the Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris explained these shortcomings by wishing for more originality and local colour:
La troisième partie contenait encore quelques passages dignes d’être remarqués ; mais en général on aurait désiré dans les morceaux assez nombreux qui composent cette œuvre plus d’originalité, et, puisque la scène se passe au bord de la rivière des Amazones, un peu plus de couleur locale23.
21 The harshest criticism came from L. Girard in the Revue de Paris who applauded the quality of the performance, but explicitly exempted the music from this assessment in quite direct language:
L’exécution de Paraguassú a donc été remarquable. Nous voudrions pouvoir en dire autant de l’œuvre-même, malheureusement la vérité nous oblige à dire que cette musique nous a paru banale, incolore, absolument dépourvue d’originalité24.
22 When Dom Pedro II returned to France (and Monaco) many years later, he wished to hear it again. So, on 20 January 1888, three years after O’Kelly’s death, it was performed at the Casino in Monte Carlo. Now the press reception was quite different. According to a critic writing in Gil Blas, “Paraguassu est en réalité une œuvre forte et bien conçue25”. Le Gaulois reported that the performance was a great success and the work itself “pleine de couleur26”.
23 Nevertheless, from the mid-1850s we can observe a kind of split perception of O’Kelly’s qualities as a composer. While reviews of his piano music and songs are usually positive, often very positive (see examples further below), he frequently met with severe negative criticism of his beloved genre, opera.
24 And it must have been a beloved genre. Why else would he again and again write an opera in the face of the kind of criticism above (and below)? To be fair, there were favourable reviews of his operas as well, such as that of his 1859 operetta Stella which had first been performed in the course of a benefit concert for himself in an unnamed salon. Gustave Héquet wrote of this work in L’Illustration that it was not a bad way to start a career in the difficult area of dramatic music:
M. O’Kelly n’en est encore qu’aux premiers pas dans cette difficile carrière de la composition dramatique : mais on ne saurait commencer mieux27.
25 Frequently the critics simply seemed to forget that O’Kelly had written operas since 1849, such as in an announcement of a performance of L’Arracheuse de dents in January 1869 which was described as an operatic début:
Le théâtre des Folies-Dramatiques va mettre prochainement en répétition un opéra-bouffe, que l’on dit de la plus excentrique originalité. Il est intitulé : L’arracheuse de dents. Le poëme est de M. Bernard Lopez, et la partition sera le début, au théâtre, d’un musicien avantageusement connu dans les concerts et les salons, M. Joseph O’Kelly28.
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26 His fifth opera Le Mariage de Martine of 1874 was well received by Le Ménestrel as “ musique vraiment charmante”, with “melodies claires et spirituelles”, and pointing out “une romance et un madrigal pleins de sentiments et de fraîcheur29”.
27 Meanwhile, in Dublin, excerpts from O’Kelly’s third cantata received their first performance. The occasion was the O’Connell Centenary in August 1875. O’Kelly’s friend, the Viscount O’Neill de Tyrone (who also wrote the words to the cantata), had suggested the work to the organisers of the festivities in a letter reproduced in the Dublin newspaper The Nation of 26 June 1875. Probably, this came at rather short notice, as preparations for the musical part of the festivities were already well under way. According to the letter, the Cantate des Irlandais de France au Centenaire d’O’Connell was in four movements, approximately 20 minutes in length, in French language, and scored for tenor and bass solo voice, four-part (mixed) chorus and orchestra. Despite the short notice the cantata was indeed accepted and performed in Dublin, albeit as ‘selections’ only, and along with the cantata St Patrick at Tara by the Irish composer and conductor John William Glover30. The score seems to have been circulated to the press, as an advance article in the Irish Times, signed by ‘Faust’, suggests, which was published two weeks before the event: There is a prospect of some good music in connection with the celebration of the O’Connell Centenary. […] I note that a cantata specially written for the O’Connell Centenary by the Comte O’Neill de Tyrone, the music furnished by another Frenchman, by name “O’Kelly,” is to be performed at the Exhibition Palace on Saturday night, under the direction of Professor Glover. I have been looking over some of its numbers, and the music strikes me as being of a bright and tuneful character, which is pretty certain to catch the ordinary ear31.
28 Unfortunately, the papers were not very eloquent about the musical celebration, compared to the social side, which took place on 7 August 1875. The Nation even quoted from another newspaper: This concert, under the conductorship of Professor Glover, took place in the large concert hall of the Exhibition Palace, on Saturday night, and was attended by at least 3,000 persons, including the distinguished foreign guests. The number of performers was 500. The Daily Express says of it: – The grand national concert was held in the large concert hall of the Exhibition Palace, on Saturday evening. The hall was crowded, and the concert passed off with much success. The performance opened with a grand chorus, followed by selections from Professor Glover’s oratorio “Tara,” in which the principal characters were sustained by Mr. Richard Smith, Mr. B. McGuckin, Madame Gedge, and Mrs. Scott Fennell. […] Selections from the Centenary cantata composed by Viscount O’Neill de Tyrone were also given. Mr. Levey acted as leader, and Mr. Horan presided at the organ. The concert, which commenced at half-past seven o’clock, was not over until eleven o’clock, but notwithstanding its unusual length every one appeared to enjoy it very much.
29 A review in the Irish Times named the (two) selections and their singers: “Mr Barton McGuckin sang ‘Me Souvenir de toi’ and Mr R Smith ‘Reunis sous la Tente’ from Viscomte O’Neill’s Cantata.” O’Kelly was mentioned briefly in a previous paragraph, but unfortunately the article is silent on the work itself except summing up the whole event in the words “The musical arrangement of the Centenary Celebration must be acknowledged to have been conspicuously successful32.”
30 In France, the majority of reviews of his operas remained negative. A particularly bad example related to a work that probably had the widest exposure by being staged in the regular programme of the Opéra Comique in February 1879. It’s his sixth opera, called La
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Zingarella, to a libretto by Jules Adenis and Jules Montini. Of this work I found 23 reviews, with 17 from France, two each from Britain and the United States, and one each from Germany and Spain. Several of them again claimed that this opera was O’Kelly’s operatic debut. Looking at the character of the reviews, eight can be considered as positive, ten as negative, and the remaining five as more or less neutral by balancing positive and negative aspects.
31 La Zingarella is an opera about an opera, describing the process through which the (historically real) composer Antonio Salieri came to writing the (totally fictitious) opera La Zingarella by finding inspiration in the singing of his beautiful and musical housemaid. Interesting though this concept may be, it failed to win the audience’s general approval and was taken off the schedule after but four performances.
32 Some of the reviews could be described as outright polemical or, at least, intentionally negative. See, for example, Arnold Mortier’s ‘introduction’ of O’Kelly in Les Soirées Parisiennes, in which he alleged that his music was generally ignored by the public, that he was already an old man (at age 40!) and that hitherto he had composed nothing but songs:
M. O’Kelly, est le type du musicien modeste qui dépense son talent dans une foule de morceaux de piano et de compositions estimables connus des dilettanti, mais ignorés du public. C’est un élève d’Halévy; inutile d’ajouter que ce n’est plus un jeune homme. Professeur distingué, il donne des leçons de piano et d’harmonie et est, en outre, attaché à la maison Pleyel. Ses œuvres consistent surtout en albums de chant33.
33 Some of the press comments clearly indicated that O’Kelly’s music was regarded as old- fashioned. For instance, Léon Kerst wrote in La Presse: “Oh ! non ! Ce musicien pianiste est de la vieille école34”.
34 ‘Bénédict’, writing in Le Figaro, agreed and suggested that O’Kelly should have resisted writing music to the libretto (by Jules Adenis and Jules Montini), which was probably deemed embarrassing by the author: “M. O’Kelly n’a pas su résister à la tentation d’écrire la musique de la Zingarella, et il en a été puni – en compagnie du public” – because he seemed to consider the music better than its text. But he, too, considered O’Kelly’s music old- fashioned:
A la lecture au piano, la partition de M. O’Kelly peut avoir les qualités estimables et correctes d’un homme qui a réfléchi sur son art et étudié l’art d’écrire auprès d’un maître. Il y a très certainement, dans les sept morceaux de ce petit acte qui a fait si prodigieusement bâiller, du savoir, de l’élégance, des phrases bien faites; mais il manque à tout cela la vie et le mouvement de l’art contemporain : il semble que le compositeur se soit endormi dans la bibliothèque du Conservatoire […]35.
35 Among the more balanced ones, a review by Henri Heugel (writing as ‘H. Moreno’) described O’Kelly’s achievements quite fairly and was thoughtful about his talents as an operatic composer:
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De la musique de la Zingarella, j’aurai peu de chose à dire, n’en ayant entendu que la dernière moitié, écrite par un musicien, cela est incontestable, mais sans relief suffisant pour la scène. M. O’Kelly, élève distingué d’Halévy, a publié de bonnes mélodies et c’est de plus, je crois, un excellent professeur de piano. Son talent n’est donc pas en cause, mais pour aborder le théâtre, lors même qu’on est parfait musicien, il faut avoir ce que l’on appelle « la vocation ». Or, le compositeur de la petite partition de la Zingarella est-il né pour le théâtre ? Nous n’oserions l’affirmer36.
36 Finally, there were positive voices as well, although they represent a minority view, showing that what appeared in the press is to a great extent influenced by the personal taste of the writer in question. Thus, Lucien Debroas in Le Petit Parisien thought: “ M. O’Kelly a fait une musique fine et agréable37.” “Gérôme”, writing in L’Univers illustré, pointed out that “M. Joseph O’Kelly a écrit sur cette donnée une courte partition, où j’ai remarqué un cantique d’une bonne facture et une romance pleine de charme et de tendresse38.” The eminent critic (and composer) Ernest Reyer acknowledged in the Journal des débats the opera’s small format and the public applause: “La Zingarella de M. O’Kelly n’est, à vrai dire, qu’un opéra de salon à deux personnages. On l’a écoutée avec plaisir et on a applaudi les deux interprètes, […]39.”
37 Despite the general public failure of La Zingarella, O’Kelly continued to write operas, and his ninth, La Barbière improvisée of 1882, was, for instance, successfully performed for three years, including, in 1884, a run of 31 performances at Jacques Offenbach’s Bouffes- Parisiennes, and the score was published40. Among the several positive reviews the following assessment published in Le Parnasse may be cited here: “Etant donné le genre, les habitudes, le voulu de ce milieu, ce petit acte est supérieur à ce qu’on est accoutumé d’y entendre41.” Unfortunately, it did little to change the overall impression planted into the musical memory of Paris by a work so intensively discussed because of its performance in the Opéra Comique.
Positive reviews of piano music and songs
38 In contrast to the mixed reception of his operas, O’Kelly’s piano music and songs were generally applauded in the press. Apart from early (i.e. c.1847-55) romances which were clearly written to please public taste and to provide an income, many of his later mélodies were evidently treasured, especially his settings of poems by Victor Hugo. His 1861 song Vieille chanson du jeune temps was repeatedly praised by critics as “une très- heureuse inspiration”42 and “une mélodie à la fois empreinte de poésie, d’amour et de candeur […] c’est une oeuvre distinguée et qui offre de grandes ressources au chanteur43”. Another Victor Hugo setting, Tristesse d’Olympio of c.1866, has been described as a “morceau de la meilleure facture et plein de charme44”. And about yet another, Faisons un rêve, Ernest Reyer appears to have been quite enthusiastic:
Si le rêve de M. O’Kelly est d’entendre dire aux artistes que ses mélodies sont l’oeuvre d’un musicien instruit et toujours bien inspiré, je ne demande pas mieux que d’aider, pour ma part, à la réalisation de ce rêve45.
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39 Further, his song Sous les branches (1870) was described as “une ravissante mélodie46”; his Stances à l’immortalité have been called a “maître-morceau47”. A performance of Hosannah (the first of his Trois Mélodies of 1876) ended with the words “Ce morceau, appelé à un grand succès, est fort bien conçu ; il est à la fois mélodique et tragique48”.
40 Likewise, his piano music enjoyed positive criticism. For example, his La Bruyère op. 22 has been commended for “beaucoup de clarté et surtout d’élégance49”; his simple arrangements, for students’ purposes, of popular classical pieces under the title of Les Soirées enfantines (1865) were summed up as being “formé avec tant de soin, de goût et de solicitude50”; his Les Castagnettes op. 33 were praised as “original, agréable à entendre et à exécuter51”. A review of O’Kelly’s piano piece Après la tempête op. 53, which he dedicated to Sarah Bernhardt, ended with this assessment:
Ce sont cinq pages en tout, mais cinq pages suffisamment remplies, puis qu’elles sont d’un sentiment juste et que le développement y est conséquent avec la donnée52.
Obituaries and late assessments
41 As a composer of piano music and songs as well as operas of a mixed reputation, Joseph O’Kelly did not belong to the most prominent composers of his time. Thus it cannot be expected that many papers devoted much time to his passing away. As it happened, we have many short notices of his death (in French, British and German papers), but only two that can be described as obituaries. As if to round off his Franco-Irish career, one appeared in France and the other in Ireland.
42 The French obituary appeared in Le Ménestrel, written by the paper’s editor Henri Heugel – himself a publisher of some of O’Kelly’s songs. He summed up O’Kelly’s legacy by pointing both to his many popular song compositions and to his remarkable commitment to opera:
C’était un musicien distingué, qui laisse après lui un petit bagage de mélodies dont plusieurs eurent de la vogue. Nous en avons offert tout dernièrement à nos abonnés plusieurs d’un tour véritablement heureux. M. O’Kelly avait aussi tenté du théâtre, où il aurait pu à la longue réussir tout comme un autre. Mais on sait comme il est difficile aujourd’hui pour un compositeur d’enfoncer les portes de nos théâtres lyriques et d’apprendre la scène en s’y essayant53.
43 Connected through their publishing partnership for a number of years, Heugel also knew O’Kelly personally and offered a glimpse into his personality:
C’était un homme doux et de mœurs aimables, qui ne laissera après lui que des regrets.
44 O’Kelly’s long-time Irish friend in Paris, John Patrick Leonard, was the author of the obituary in the Irish newspaper The Nation. As mentioned before, Leonard managed the ‘Anciens Irlandais’ group of Irishmen in Paris; he was also the driving force behind O’Kelly’s membership in the Légion d’Honneur and had accompanied him to the O’Connell Centenary celebrations in Dublin in 1875. Their friendship allowed for a rare
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insight into O’Kelly’s private life, which was not without its tragic aspects. Whether these related to family fates or to backlashes in his musical career is not entirely clear from the following; indeed it could be a mixture of both. While musical failures can be deducted from the press excerpts quoted above (relating, in particular, to his opera La Zingarella), family-related aspects could include the loss of his first wife (1877), the death of his daughter at age 23 (1881) and that of his first son with his second wife just before his fourth birthday (1884). […] a more gentle and warm-hearted being never lived. […] [O’Kelly] was greatly esteemed by everyone. Modest and retiring, he won his way by real talent. Sensitive and kind-hearted, he was ill calculated to buffet the storms of life, of which he had his share. Like his great master Chopin, of whom he spoke to me with enthusiasm on his deathbed, he succumbed in the battle of life from feeling too deeply the “slings and arrows” of fortune. If the fond affection of those who surrounded his deathbed and the tender love of a mother could console him, they, with religion, must have made his last hours less sad and given him resignation to leave a world where sorrow dwells54.
45 Perhaps this is, too, what Arthur Pougin meant when he spoke of “pauvre O’Kelly55”, a term that seems to include more than polite regret about someone’s passing.
Afterword
46 Now, what are we to make of all this? Nearly every composer has had his ups and downs, had successes and failures, had to endure negative criticism even if a piece of work was in reality not as bad as it seemed to some critics. But why was Joseph O’Kelly so quickly and so completely forgotten? The study of contemporary newspaper criticism reveals that O’Kelly generally appears to have succeeded in the smaller forms of piano music and song and to have failed in larger works such as the majority of his operas. But there is more than the difference between handling large and small forms. Reasons must also be sought in the fierce competition between the very large number of composers active in Paris at the time, and for stylistic reasons. On the one hand, O’Kelly was sufficiently well known to have enjoyed regular performances of almost everything he wrote. He had a circle of performers who obviously liked his music. He doesn’t seem to have had any difficulty in finding publishers. And he was also acknowledged enough to be awarded the Légion d’Honneur.
47 On the other hand however, competition wasn’t only fierce because of the quantity of composers, but also in terms of stylistic development. Contrary to today, in the 19th century music was marked by a strong belief in progress in terms of style, harmony, and expression. Particularly during O’Kelly’s lifetime, these shifts in style and public taste were so strong that, although his music had followers, it was not regarded as progressive. With regard to his opera La zingarella of 1879 some writers pointed out that he was of the “vieille école”. A year later he was included in Arthur Pougin’s edition of Fétis’s Biographie universelle, and seemingly under the impression of that infamous opera, he wrote:
[…] il a publié […] un assez grand nombre de compositions qui sont écrites non sans goût, mais dans une forme qui est loin de cadrer avec les idées larges, la libre allure et le souffle nouveau qui distinguent la jeune école française56.
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48 It is a judgement that comes across as somewhat unfair with regard to his work as a whole. Besides, Pougin’s article is full of mistakes pertaining to biographical details as much as to O’Kelly’s list of works. Neither Pougin nor the majority of critics seemed to be really familiar with O’Kelly’s oeuvre, and no-one seemed to have bothered to talk to him and ask before publishing potentially damaging criticism. So we are left with reviews that are highly selective and coloured by personal opinion. But these reviews, including Pougin’s dictionary article, were carved in stone for posterity, certainly for the twentieth century which laid O’Kelly at rest.
49 Today we are in a position that allows us to have a fresh look at the achievements of the O’Kellys in France. With an objective eye, it will be found that, although some of Joseph O’Kelly’s music is derivative and outmoded by the standards of their time, it is always tastefully written, melodious, and rewarding for both pianists and singers. Our modern understanding of the evanescence of style and taste can explain O’Kelly’s early neglect, but at the same time it also enables us to form a fresh assessment today.
NOTES
1. The Franco-Irish connection is developed, inter alia, in Una Hunt, George Alexander Osborne. A Nineteenth-Century Irish Pianist-Composer, Ph.D. thesis, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 2006; Basil Walsh, Michael W. Balfe – A Unique Victorian Composer, Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2008; Una Hunt, “The Harpers’ Legacy: Irish National Airs and Pianoforte Composers”, Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland 6 (2010-11), p. 3-53; and, by the present writer, in White, Harry & Boydell, Barra (dir.), Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, Dublin, UCD Press, 2013, article “Ireland: ideas and influences abroad”, p. 523-526; and “Qualité d’Irlandais: The O’Kelly Family in Nineteenth-Century French Musical Life”, in Eamon Maher and Catherine Maignant (dir.), Franco-Irish Connections in Space and Time, Bern, Peter Lang, 2012, p. 133-154. 2. For example, Shower of Pearls: The Music of George Alexander Osborne, perf. by Una Hunt (piano), Justin Pearson (cello) and the Triantán Piano Trio (RTÉ lyric fm CD 103, 2005); Songs of Forgotten Women (incl. seven songs by Adela Maddison), perf. by Julie Cross (mezzo) and Susan McDaniel (piano) (Beatritz Records, 2009); Adela Maddison’s piano quintet is one of three pieces recorded by the ensemble Fibonacci Sequence (Dutton Epoch CDLX 7220, 2009); William Vincent Wallace: Opera Fantasies and Paraphrases, perf. by Rosemary Tuck and Richard Bonynge (pianos) (Naxos 8.572774; 2011); William Vincent Wallace: Chopinesque, perf. by Rosemary Tuck and Richard Bonynge (pianos) and the Tait Chamber Orchestra (Naxos 8.572776, 2012). 3. See Devriès, Anik & Lesure, François, Dictionnaire des éditeurs de musique français, tome 2: De 1820 à 1914, Genève: Minkoff, 1988, p. 330-331. 4. Poure, Georges, À la memoire de M. Charles-Frédéric O’Kelly, gérant de l’usine Blanzy Poure & Cie., Boulogne-sur-Mer, 1897.
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5. The music to this opera remained unpublished and appears to be lost, but the libretto was printed in Boulogne-sur-mer and a copy may be found in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. 6. Polyorgane: 160 Pièces pour les ‘Clés de fa’, Paris, M. Sénart, 1920. 7. Before the restructuring of the Paris arrondissements in 1860 it was the 3rd. 8. Registre de paiement des élèves et des professeurs et grand livre du Collège des Irlandais à Paris commencé en août 1837 (manuscript in the library of the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, call number A2.d7). 9. La Chasse du roi (1849, probably not performed; unpub.); Stella (Paris, salon performance, 1 March 1859; unpub.); L’Arracheuse de dents (Paris, Théâtre des Folies Dramatiques, Jan. 1869; unpub.); Ruse contre ruse (intended for performances in boarding schools; Paris, Magasin des demoiselles, 1873); Le Mariage de Martine (Paris, salon performance, 2 May 1874; unpub.); La Zingarella (Paris, Opéra Comique, 26 Feb. 1879; Paris, A. O’Kelly); Les Secondes noces du bourgmestre (Paris, Théâtre des Folies Dramatiques, c1881; unpub.); La Barbière improvisée (Paris, Salon Herz, 10 Dec. 1882; Paris, A. O’Kelly, 1884); Bibi-tapin (Châtel Guyon, Casino, 29 Aug. 1882; unpub.). 10. Paraguassú (“Poème lyrique en trois parties”) (Paris, Théâtre Lyrique, 2 Aug. 1855; Paris, Choudens, 1855); Cantate pour le fête de S. M. l’Impératrice (Amiens, Théâtre, 15 Nov. 1867; unpub.); Cantate des Irlandais de France au Centenaire d’O’Connell (Dublin, Exhibition Palace, 7 Aug. 1875; unpub.); Justice et Charité (Versailles, Chapelle du Château, 13 June 1878; unpub.). 11. John Patrick Leonard, “Death of an Eminent Franco-Irish Composer”, The Nation, 31 Dec. 1885, p. 5. 12. Since about the year 2000 this grave is no longer extant. It was in Division 12 of the cemetery. 13. Joël-Marie Fauquet (ed.), Dictionnaire de la musique en France au XIXe siècle, Paris, Fayard, 2003. The O’Kelly family now has an entry, by the present author, in the Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, p. 770-773 (see fn. 1). 14. The present author is currently completing a book with the working title O’Kelly – An Irish Musical Family in 19th-Century France, due to appear in 2014. 15. In a note dated 2 Aug. 1847, in Théophile Gautier, L’Histoire de l’art dramatique en France depuis vingt-cinq ans, vol. 5, Paris: Édition Hetzel, 1859, p. 127. 16. Short note in La Presse, 4 Aug. 1850, p. 3, refering to an event in Nov. 1849. 17. Letter at BnF dated “Dimanche matin”, addressed to “Mon cher Monsieur”, shelf mark BNF-LA-81 212, which I interpret as being addressed to Théodore Labourieu and written between 1850 and 1853. 18. In La Tintamarre, 9 January 1853. O’Kelly’s Fantaisie brillante sur une mélodie (La Truite) de Fr. Schubert op. 6 was published in 1852 by Richault. 19. Hector Berlioz in Journal des débats, 17 April 1855, p. 3. 20. “Chronique musicale”, in L’Illustration, 4 August 1855, p. 82. 21. Paraphrased from the English edition, The Keys to French Opera in the Nineteenth Century, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001 (French original published in 1997), p. 211. 22. Le Ménestrel, 5 August 1855, p. 3.
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23. Revue et Gazette Musicale de Paris, 5 August 1855, p. 247. 24. Revue de Paris, 1 October 1855, p. 156. 25. Fernand Bourgeat, “Echo théâtral de Monaco”, Gil Blas, 21 January 1888, p. 4. 26. Nicolet, “Courrier de Monaco”, Le Gaulois, 21 January 1888, p. 4. ‘Nicolet’ was a pseudonym which was used by two writers in this newspaper, Edouard Noël and Lionel Meyer. 27. L’Illustration, 6 August 1855, p. 126. 28. Le Ménestrel, 27 December 1868, p. 30. 29. Le Ménestrel, 3 May 1874, p. 175. 30. The Nation, 14 Aug. 1875, p. 13. 31. The Irish Times, 2 Aug. 1875, p. 3. 32. The Irish Times, 10 August 1875, p. 6. 33. Les Soirées Parisiennes de 1879, par un monsieur de l’orchestre (Arnold Mortier), Paris, E. Dentu, 1880, p. 93-4. 34. La Presse, 4 March 1879, p. 2. 35. This, and the foregoing quote by: Bénédict,“Opéra-Comique”, Le Figaro, 28 February 1879, p. 3. 36. Le Ménestrel, 2 March 1879, p. 107. 37. In Le Petit Parisien, 1 March 1879, p. 3. 38. “Gerome”, L’Univers illustré, 8 March 1879, p. 148. 39. Ernest Reyer, ‘Revue musicale’, in: Journal des débats, 11 March 1879, p. 2. 40. Paris, A. O’Kelly, 1884 (plate no. A.O.K. 1159). 41. Le Parnasse, 1 January 1885, p. 4. 42. Revue et gazette musicale, 10 March 1861, p. 76. 43. Les Beaux-arts, 1862-63, p. 287. 44. Revue et gazette musicale, 17 February 1867, p. 53. 45. Journal des débats, 11 May 1869, p. 2. 46. L’Abeille musicale, 1-15 February 1870, p. 3. 47. Le Ménestrel, 31 March 1872, p. 144. 48. Le Monde Artiste, 9 December 1876, p. 6. 49. Revue et gazette musicale, 9 March 1862, p. 80. 50. Hébert, in Les Beaux-Arts, issue of 1 January to 15 June 1865, p. 95. 51. G. Stradina, in Le Moniteur des Pianistes, 20 February 1868, p. 11. 52. Revue et gazette musicale de Paris, 2 July 1876, p. 214. 53. Henri Heugel, “Nécrologie”, Le Ménestrel, 11 January 1885, p. 47. The next short quote is from the same source. 54. John Patrick Leonard, “Death of an Eminent Franco-Irish Composer”, The Nation, 31 Dec. 1885, p. 5. 55. In Le Guide musical, January 1885, p. 32. 56. François-Joseph Fétis, Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique. Supplément et complément, Arthur Pougin (ed.), Paris, 1880, p. 286-287.
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ABSTRACTS
As the most prominent member of a family of four generations of Irish musicians in France, Joseph O’Kelly was part of the Irish community in 19th-century France. However, despite the presence of an active network of eminent musicians and prominent Irish exiles during his lifetime, and although he produced a prolific oeuvre of published compositions and received a number of public honours, his name was quickly forgotten after his early death. Today, his place in the histories of French or Irish music is less than prominent. Yet, the study of his music through press coverage of his performances reveals fascinating insights into a Franco-Irish biography, his astonishing perseverance in opera, his successes and failures, and possible reasons for his early neglect.
Membre le plus éminent d’une famille de quatre générations de musiciens irlandais en France, Joseph O’Kelly faisait partie de la communauté irlandaise en France au XIXe siècle. Cependant, malgré la présence d’un réseau actif d’éminents musiciens et d’exilés célèbres d’Irlande, et bien qu’il ait laissé une œuvre prolifique de compositions publiées et se soit vu décerner un certain nombre de récompenses publiques, son nom fut vite oublié après sa mort prématurée. Aujourd’hui, les histoires de la musique française et irlandaise lui font peu de place. Pourtant, l’étude de sa musique à travers les articles de presse qui relatent ses concerts révèle un aperçu fascinant d’une vie franco-irlandaise, une persévérance étonnante dans l’opéra, ses succès et échecs, et les raisons possibles de l’oubli dans lequel il est tombé si rapidement.
INDEX
Mots-clés: musique, opéra, relations franco-irlandaises, diaspora, O'Kelly Joseph Keywords: music, Franco-Irish relations, opera, diaspora, O'Kelly Joseph
AUTHOR
AXEL KLEIN University of Hildesheim
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“Listening for landfall”: how silence and fear marginalized the music of the Aran Islands
Deirdre Ní Chonghaile
1 Patrick Sheeran called the Aran Islands “a much-traversed erogenous zone”, “a place of enchantment” hosting a “recurrent human need for romance, for magic and providential mystery’ and yielding to ‘the necessity to ground such desires in a specific locale” (1994, 302). Aran is a palimpsest bearing layers of representations in a myriad of forms – including literature, film, television, radio, photography, and art – that create a canon of work about or relating to Aran (Korff et al 1994, Ó hEithir 1991). Tim Robinson described this canon in his review of Andrew McNeillie’s An Aran Keening: “We will all just have to move up, like cormorants on a rock when another arrives with widespread wings, and, without graceless squawking and pecking, make room for a worthy addition to the canon” (2001). In the resulting Aran canon, which is dominated by visiting authors instead of local authors, the music of the Aran Islands has been marginalized: only a handful of music collectors have visited the islands (including George Petrie and Eugene O’Curry, Fr. Eoghan Ó Gramhnaigh, Holger Pedersen, Fr. Luke Donnellan, Séamus Ennis, Jean Ritchie, Diane Hamilton, and Sidney Robertson Cowell), there are only a few commercial releases of the music of Aran (Cowell 1957, Ronan 1983, Ní Mhiolláin 1989, Comharchumann Árann 1995, Ceol na dTonn 2001, Ní Chonaola 2002, 2005, Ó Conaola 2006, Various 2006), and local musicians rarely travel far afield. This marginalization is surprising because both Irish traditional music and Aran itself are often cast independently of each other as entities that depict Irishness, entities that are, in fact, for many observers, exemplars of Irishness.
2 The marginalisation of the music of Aran has prompted some observations I would like to share here. The ultimate purpose of this article is not simply to test the veracity of the claims I am making; it is to dwell, for a time at least, on some of the questions they raise. These are questions that remind us that music is, for most of us, a sound or a “humanly organized sound” (Blacking 1973). We are moved by music, physically and emotionally, we feel it, we dance it, we play it, we create it; but, first and foremost, we
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listen to it. I would like to dwell for a moment on the uniquely visceral experience of listening and to ask: how and why, through the choices we make when we are listening, we perform notions of authenticity, musicality and identity?
3 The biggest factors in the marginalisation of the music of Aran are: the historically limited capabilities of portable recording technology before mainline electricity was made available in the islands; and the impracticalities of island life – including bad weather, unreliable transport links, the lack of efficient communications, and the lack of electricity. Time, tide, and technology have conspired again and again to challenge the capabilities of those who might otherwise have documented and disseminated the music of Aran. Here, however, I would like to draw your attention to two other factors: the treatment of sound and the treatment of music in the Aran canon. To do this within the present confines of space, I will enlist the help of just a few authors whose works will be familiar to many who read about Aran, including John Millington Synge, Andrew McNeillie, Máirtín Ó Direáin, and some others.
An Appetite for Silence
4 The Aran canon is dominated by the perspective of the visitor, whose relationship with Aran and with the sights and sounds of Aran is different to that of the islander. The canon features sound and music sometimes in vivid ways (Synge 1907, Mason 1936, MacConghail 1988) but silence, or the absence of human sound or of humanly organised sound, is often identified as an essential, and therefore more valuable, element of Aran (Synge 1907, Robinson 1986, McNeillie 2001). In 1900, John Millington Synge made this identification when he described an instance in which relative silence – certainly the absence of human sound – appeared to him to characterise life in Aran, the people there, and the experience of being there: I have been down sitting on the pier till it was quite dark. I am only beginning to understand the nights of Inishmaan and the influence they have had in giving distinction to these men who do most of their work after nightfall. I could hear nothing but a few curlews and other wild-fowl whistling and shrieking in the seaweed, and the low rustling of the waves. It was one of the dark sultry nights peculiar to September, with no light anywhere except the phosphorescence of the sea, and an occasional rift in the clouds that showed the stars behind them. The sense of solitude was immense. I could not see or realize my own body, and I seemed to exist merely in my perception of the waves and of the crying birds, and of the smell of seaweed. When I tried to come home I lost myself among the sandhills, and the night seemed to grow unutterably cold and dejected, as I groped among slimy masses of seaweed and wet crumbling walls. After a while I heard a movement in the sand, and two grey shadows appeared beside me. They were two men who were going home from fishing. I spoke to them and knew their voices, and we went home together (1907, 82).
5 Andrew McNeillie had a similarly disorienting experience in Aran in 1969, one that helped him to define the place in which he had located himself and his relationship with it in terms of sound and silence; he wrote: The island’s winter storm-wakes sometimes brought fog, and then solitude seemed to intensify in the attendant muffled silence that amplified the crash and back-roar of the sea. You heard the sea as clear as crystal but heard much more the silence that enveloped it and enveloped you. Enormous silence carried you on straining ears, stumbling at the end of the world, listening for landfall, dreaming of the
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tolling bell. It was like the end of the world when fog came down. Your mind becalmed seemed to creak and echo hollowly under its oppression (2001, 87).
6 Some visitors express a desire for silence in Aran: in The Aran Islands, for example, Synge sometimes distances himself from human sounds, including music, by hearing them as a distant sound (107, 26) or through the floor of his upstairs room (1907, 136); and, in An Aran Keening, McNeillie walks circuitously towards the less densely populated western end of Árainn, ‘bypassing’ villages because he “craved the empty seaborne world as if it were a heaven” (2001, 103). McNeillie is, in fact, one of many visitors whose search for silence is what has brought them to Aran; his ascetic reason for coming to Aran in 1969 was to draw “as near to matter as I might, to the stones and the weather” (2001, 103): What was I doing there? It sometimes needed to be asked. Ostensibly I had come to see what it was like and how the people lived upon the island, not in the easy tourist season but at the worst time of the year. I’d come for more obscure reasons too, to put the world behind me and the glib hot-air talk of educated work, to test myself against solitude and hardship. I had not come believing I might stay forever, though now and then I wondered how I might contrive to (2001, 99).
7 By locating in Aran their desires for silence, for peace and, ultimately, for escape from the noise of more densely populated and urban places, these visitors have disassociated Aran from noise and from sound. They associate the islands, instead, with silence, with quietness, or with the absence of human sound. A well-known example of this association of Aran with silence as escape and relief is the dream sequence from The Aran Islands (1907, 54-55), in which Synge awakens from a tumultuous, noisy, music- filled dream to find respite in the silence of Aran: At last with a moment of uncontrollable frenzy I broke back to consciousness and awoke. I dragged myself trembling to the window of the cottage and looked out. The moon was glittering across the bay, and there was no sound anywhere on the island (1907, 55).
An Appetite for Spectacle
8 The presence or absence of sound in Aran is clearly an important element in the conceptualization and the realization of the place, but it is the tangible and visible aspects of life there – which, by their physicality, become images of Aran – that are valued most in the Aran canon. Indeed, in photography, in film, and even in literature, images dominate sound in the Aran canon (Synge 1907, Flaherty 1934, Bill Doyle 1999, Colman Doyle 2004). The canon reveals that many visitors seek spectacle in Aran. Although its material culture – including currachs and woollen jumpers – is equally iconic, it is the natural environment of Aran in particular – the visually striking physical landscape – that attracts the most attention. Some of the works produced thus far in the twenty-first century, including An Aran Keening by McNeillie (2001) and Window on Aran by Seán Spellissey (2003), demonstrate how Aran has become what Orvar Löfgren termed a “landscape of consumption” (cited in Ó Giolláin 2000, 77).
9 We can gain some insight into this concept, its nature and its implications, by looking for a moment at another landscape of consumption, Yosemite National Park in California, which inspires rhetoric that echoes that of the Aran canon. Simon Schama describes the “hallowing visitations” to Yosemite by preachers, photographers, artists, and writers who created “the holy park of the West; the site of a new birth; a
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redemption for the national agony; an American re-creation” (1995, 7) – visitors who contributed to an image of Yosemite that is typically unpeopled and, consequently, silent: “we still imagine Yosemite … with no trace of human presence” (1995, 7). The beauty of the place cultivated a longing for the mystery of an untouched wilderness and the institution of a national park in the valley in 1890 eventually legislated for that understanding of the place. The archdiocese of sacred wilderness created a new cathedral, a spiritual refuge that resonates with heavenly silence and from which sound, profane and earth-bound – human sound in particular – is banished. This cathedral profers a peaceful solace that is located, fixed, preserved yet accessible, quiet, and still. Interestingly, if not paradoxically, this vision of the valley was criticized in 1992 by Ansel Adams, the famous photographer who immortalized Yosemite, in a letter he wrote in 1956 to David Brower of the Sierra Club: The wilderness is not wilderness unless it is reasonably pure: unfortunately, in order to keep it pure we have to occupy it (even in a negative sense). I fear a lot of the wilderness reaction is one of specific personal escapism – but we really do not escape from the realities of life and civilization. We enjoy the wilderness because of the advantages of civilization (Adams 1992: 117).
10 Adams recognized the tension between the sacred, mute vision of the American West and the hurtful historical truth of the Ahwahneechee, those Native Americans who were driven from Yosemite by the Gold Rush and are since dispossessed, those who have endured the real and negative impact of the vision. Adams also recognized where control of the vision and of the place itself still lies. Of course, the history of Aran is nowhere near as bloody as that of Yosemite, but the tension that Adams observes exists in both places.
11 Both of these landscapes – Yosemite and Aran – inspire and feed an appetite for spectacle and silence that ultimately marginalises sound and music in the Aran canon1. For islanders, however, music is a vital part of life, performed and experienced in times of joy and in times of sorrow, as this local saying indicates: “Gaibhtear fonn le fonn agus fonn le mífhonn” [Songs are sung in joy and songs are sung in sorrow] (T. O’Flaherty 1934, 131). Islanders value music more than silence. This is well illustrated in the poem “Árainn 1947” by Máirtín Ó Direáin, which appears in Appendix I (Ó Direáin 1984b, 16; Ó hEithir 1991, 162-163). In it, he describes a dreadful encounter with silence. On a return visit to his island home, Ó Direáin misses hearing whistling or a song that would have been used to pass the time, to ease a journey, to lighten the mood, or to express oneself. The structure of the poem highlights the dichotomy between sound and silence. Each verse begins with a short, evocative description of sound, each an announcement or fanfare (the translations are my own): “Feadaíl san oíche”, “Amhrán aerach”, and “Liú áthais ná aitis” – “Whistling at night”, “A lively song”, “A cry of joy or excitement” – and each verse finishes with the same refrain, a contrasting and echoing evocation of deafening silence, absence, and loss: “An tráth seo thiar/Níor chualas” – “This time in the West/I heard not”. Having equated sound and, in particular, music with life, Ó Direáin concludes that silence in Árainn means death for the island: “Ní don óige feasta/An sceirdoileán cúng úd” – “No longer for the young/That narrow windswept island”. This interpretation of what sound and silence mean for Aran, which is echoed in at least two other of Ó Direáin’s poems – An tEarrach Thiar [The Western Spring] (Ó hAnluain 2002, 27-28) and Dán an Tí [The Poem of the House] (2002, 121-124) – differs radically from that of visitors. But, as long as the contributions of visitors
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outnumber those of islanders, the appetite for silence will continue to marginalise sound and music in the Aran canon.
The Silencing of Music
12 This dynamic between sound and silence in the Aran canon suggests the other factor that contributes to the marginalisation of music in Aran; that is, the silencing of music. To explain this factor, I draw here on the theory presented by Jacques Attali in his book Bruits: essai sur l’économie politique de la musique, wherein he argues that music is a herald of change: “Elle annonce, car elle est prophétique” (1977, 8). In the Aran canon, the heraldic power of music is muted by the majority of contributors. Two contrasting reports on the music performed in Inis Meáin in the autumn of 1889 illustrate how this occurs; the reports were written by the German linguist Kuno Meyer and the Irish-language enthusiast Fr. Eoghan Ó Gramhnaigh who both happened to be holidaying there to improve their Irish. In a letter to his friend Whitley Stokes, Meyer indicates how modernity, he believes, has changed the local song repertoire; his romantic understanding of modernity in Aran as constituting that which belongs to the world beyond Aran (the evidence of which includes commercialism and mass communication) – an understanding he shares with Ó Gramhnaigh – is typical: I wish we could write down the tunes they sing here. But neither my sister [Antonie] or I are able to do it. I am afraid they are not as numerous now as they were when you were here [in 1857]. Too many modern songs have come in and crowded them out2.
13 Ó Gramhnaigh shares Meyer’s regret at the loss of Irish-language songs in Inis Meáin but he feels a need to temper his regret with the hope that the integrity of the local song tradition is still intact: “Is dócha gur cailleadh cuid de na h-abhránaibh so ó shoin, acht tá cuid mhór le fagháil fós, go mór-mhór aig na mnáibh” [It is likely that most of these songs were lost since, but there are many still to be found, especially with the women.] (Ó Gramhnaigh 1889-1890, 55). At no point does Ó Gramhnaigh describe an influx of “modern songs” – meaning English-language songs – as Meyer does, for to do so would undermine the idyll of unadulterated Gaelic Inis Meáin, which was then growing in reputation year by year and which Ó Gramhnaigh held in the highest regard: Do bhidheas in Árainn trí h-uaire. Bhí aithmheula orm, air imtheacht dam, gach uile uair. Aig an nGaedhilge, aig an aer úr, folláin, aig na daoinibh cáirdeamhail, bhidheadh an lá lán d’aoibhneas ó ghlasadh na maidne go ceo na h-oidhche. Gheobhaidh tú fáilte a’s sláinte, na fir is laghaighe, an Ghaedhilge is feárr, ins na h-oileánaibh. Bidhim-se féin ag breathnughadh romham, agus is fada liom go rachfad ann air cuairt arís. ‘San am romhainn, is dócha go d-tiocfaidh biseach saoghalta air Árainn; nach m-beidh sí chomh bochtuighthe agus chidhmid anois í; acht go g-congbhuighidh a daoine go deo an intinn agus an t-anam glé, simplidhe, an croidhe cáirdeamhail, teith, atá aca andiu (Ó Gramhnaigh 1889-1890, 55). I was in Aran three times. I was sorry each time I left. With the Irish [language], with the fresh, healthy air, with the friendly people, the day was full of delight from the dawning of morning to the dimming of night. You will get a welcome and good health, the gentlest of men, the best of Irish [language], in the islands. I myself look ahead, and I long to visit there again. One supposes that, in the future, Aran will improve materially and will not be so impoverished as is now evident; but may its people always retain the intellect, the clear simple soul, the warm kind heart that is theirs today.
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14 He tacitly acknowledges that modernity will bring further changes to Inis Meáin but he does not even infer the assimilation of English songs and other musics that he must have known would inevitably occur if he had not already witnessed it: “Má leanann an saoghal do’n lorg air a bhfuil sé anois, ní mhairfidh na hionmhusa so i bh-fad – gach uile lá tá na seandaoine aig a bh-fuil siad ag fághail bháis, agus muna m-bailimid na sgeulta, na habhráin, na sean-ráidhte, na paidreacha, etc., go tráthamhail, beidh siad air iarraidh gan mhoill” [If life follows the path it is on now, this wealth won’t last – every day the old people, who have this wealth, are dying, and if the stories, songs, old sayings, prayers, etc., are not collected in time, they will soon be lost]3. With the exception of his proposal that ‘good English-language songs’ ought to be translated into Irish to bolster the local song repertoire, Ó Gramhnaigh writes about local traditions, including music, in terms of loss and not gain4. Therefore, we see that both reports align themselves with the contemporary and commonly-held negative attitude to modernisation in Aran, but that one of them effectively silences the music that heralds change.
15 It seems that Ó Gramhnaigh’s conservatism not only encouraged him to censor the music he heard in Aran; it appears also to have led him to alter the text of one of the songs he collected there. The song A Bhean an Tighe na Páirte, which he collected in September 1889 and published in May 1890, was probably known in Inis Meáin by its more common and part-English title, A Landlady na Páirte [Dear Landlady]. 5Assuming that he did, indeed, translate the title and the first line of the song, then Ó Gramhnaigh admitted his acceptance of the power of music to herald change. He also revealed his concern for the integrity of local culture in Aran, which was – he and his contemporaries and compatriots, the Gaelic Revivalists, believed – under threat from the encroachment of modern, English-speaking culture. At a deeper level lay their collective concern for the popular conception of Aran as a storehouse or stronghold of native Irish culture and, therefore, of Ireland itself. For the sake of the future of native Irish culture, Ó Gramhnaigh and his compatriots believed that both the existence of that culture in Aran and the concept of Aran as the protector of that culture were imperative; as Breandán and Ruairí Ó hEithir observed: “The Aran Islands became an outpost of Irish tradition, a simple, primitive place embodying all that was good of Irish culture and language, a place to be revered and preserved. This picture, of course, owed much to the personal views and motives of those who painted it” (Ó hEithir 1991, 61). By censoring and, in all probability, altering his representations of the music of Aran, Ó Gramhnaigh acted in the hope that Aran would be saved from becoming yet another sepulchre of Gaelic Ireland.
16 Ó Gramhnaigh’s efforts to temper his observations of music in Inis Meáin between 1885 and 1889 suggest that the general lack of focus on music in Aran may very well be the result of a focus away from music in Aran because of the ability of music to undermine the integrity of the image of Aran as a storehouse of tradition, culture, and language. There is at least one instance where a contributor recognised the subversive power of music to herald change and chose to exploit it. Unlike his nationalist contemporaries, whose accounts of song in Aran feature only Irish-language songs,6 in The Aran Islands, Synge is keen not only to give evidence of English songs in Aran but also to highlight that music, more than other elements of local culture, is a herald of the change that is coming to Aran, the change towards increasing bilingualism and modernisation, as witnessed in Árainn – “in general, I was surprised at the abundance and fluency of the
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foreign tongue” (1907: 6) – and in Inis Meáin – “as these men are bilingual they have a fair notion of what it means to speak and think in many different idioms” (1907: 15). In Inis Oírr in 1901, he wrote: “I am in the south island again, and I have come upon some old men with a wonderful variety of stories and songs, the last, fairly often, both in English and Irish” (1907, 118). Among the songs Synge collected in Aran, there is at least one song in English entitled The White Horse, which he described as “an extraordinary English doggerel rhyme” (1907, 120): “Grotesque as this long rhyme appears, it has, as I said, a sort of existence when it is crooned by the old man at his fireside, and it has great fame in the island” (1907, 122). However, instances such as this are so rare as to render them ineffectual in the wider discourse on music in Aran, which, it appears, favoured silence on the elements of musical life in Aran that were antithetical to, and thus had the power to undermine, the celebrated ideal7. Ó Gramhnaigh’s representation is, in fact, just one example of how music that heralds change is sometimes marginalised in the Aran canon8.
17 I present here four other instances of such marginalisation as they occur in the work of different contributors who were commentators and collectors of music. The first two examples comment directly on music and the last two examples feature indirect comment.
18 (1) In 1945, Séamus Ennis chose not to transcribe an Irish-language song he heard in Inis Meáin because he believed it was a local translation from an English original brought to the island by visitors: “ní mé beó anois céard é fhéin, mar níorbh” fhiú liom cuimhne a choinneáil air’ [I have no idea now what it was, because I could not be bothered to remember it] (NFC 1297: 63-4).
19 (2) While the American ethnographer Sidney Robertson Cowell (1903-95) was busy collecting the “Songs of Aran” during her 1955 visit to Árainn (Cowell 1957), she omitted locally-composed songs in Irish – including Amhrán an Chogaidh [The War Song] by Sr Benan alias Mary Sheáinín Aindí Ní Ghoill (d.1994) from Sruthán, Árainn – because they were offered by a singer whose operatic tone sounded untraditional to her ears: Mrs. Kate Faherty, Schrawn, Aran, sings another song I did not want! About the war and the bombs falling (to an old tune) text by her sister who is a nun at St. Louis (in Ireland) [the St Louis order], and must not be mentioned. I did successfully evade another song by a priest, a eulogy, lament on his own loneliness written upon the death of his brother priest on Aran (I probably missed something!) (Cowell 1955).
20 (3) In 1952, the American folk musician Jane Ritchie (1922-) decided not to bring her recording machine to Aran; instead, her photographer husband George Pickow (1922-2010) took over 300 photographs there for a photo-journal article that would earn them some additional funds to support their year-long tour of Ireland and Britain. When I visited them in Long Island, New York, in 2001, they explained to me that it was probably the lack of electricity that had dissuaded them from bringing the apparatus with them. However, it is worth noting here that they used batteries in the other locations where they recorded in Ireland, so there is still some ambiguity about their motives for not bringing the machine to Aran.
21 (4) Finally, whilst in Árainn in 1932-3, the American director Robert Flaherty (1884-1952) filmed a local wedding; my grandmother Máire Gill (1913-1999) recalled watching the rushes being projected on the white wall of the house in which she cooked for Flaherty and his family. Though it surely depicted music and dance, the footage was not included in Flaherty’s Man of Aran. Clearly, he wanted to protect the
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ascetic image he was creating for the silver screen from any dilution. Indeed, on his one and only return visit to Aran in September 1949, Flaherty burned some reels of outtake footage that he found in the attic of the Man of Aran cottage (Hay 1949, 23), but not all of them (Stoney 1978), a fact that speaks doubly to the question of representation.
Conclusion
22 In conclusion, what these examples I have given demonstrate is that the representation of music depends very much on the commentator’s relationship, not only with the music itself, but also with the place and with the people to which it belongs; that music and place are inextricably linked. The examples demonstrate how notions of what is authentic to the sonic world of Aran have affected the representation of the music of Aran and of the musicality of Aran, as well as the representation of Aran itself. They remind us to listen as well as look at the world around us as we endeavour to make sense of it. Sound and silence, or the absence of sound, are clearly very important in representations of Irishness. This fact needs to inform studies of Irish music and studies of traditional music in particular because it is, of all our musics, the one most closely allied to our landscape and to our identity. It is clear that, for Irish studies, music can certainly be a valuable historical source – its ability to be subversive means it can be wonderfully revealing – but it may also hold the answers to some of our questions about what it means to be Irish.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Attali, Jacques, Bruits: essai sur l’économie politique de la musique, Paris, PUF, 1977.
Blacking, John, How Musical Is Man? (The John Danz Lectures), Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1973.
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Cowell, Sidney Robertson (ed.), Songs of Aran, Ethnic Folkways Library FE4002, 1957.
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Cowell, Sidney Robertson, Notes, Reel 11, 18 June 1955, FW-ASCH-RR-5257, Sidney Robertson Cowell Collection, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Washington D.C.
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Doyle, Bill, The Aran Islands: Another World, Dublin, Lilliput Press, 1999.
Doyle, Colman, All Changed: Fifty Years of Photographing Ireland, Dublin, O’Brien Press, 2004.
Flaherty, Robert, Man of Aran, Gainsborough Pictures, 1934.
Hay, Lorna, “Flaherty returns to Aran”, Picture Post (10 September 1949), 21-3, p. 45.
MacConghail, Muiris, Mórchuid cloch agus gannchuid cré. Script by Breandán Ó hEithir; Music by Raymond Deane; Scannán Chéad Snámha Teo. & RTÉ, First Run Films, 1988.
Mac Piarais, Pádraig, “Cuairt ar Árainn na Naomh”, Fáinne an Lae, 12 Samhain [November] 1898.
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APPENDIXES
Feadaíl san oíche Mar dhíon ar uaigneas, Mar fhál idir croí is aigne Ar bhuairt seal, Ag giorrú an bhealaigh Abhaile ó chuartaíocht, An tráth seo thiar Níor chualas. Amhrán aerach, Scaradh oíche is lae, Ó ghroífhear súgach, Gaisce ard is goití dúshláin Is gach uaill mhaíte Ag scoilteadh clár an chiúnais, Tráth a mbíodh gníomha gaile a shinsear Á n-aithris do dhúile an uaignis, An tráth seo thiar Níor chualas. Liú áthais ná aitis Ó chroí na hóige Ag caitheamh ‘cloch neart’ Mar ba dhual tráthnóna Domhnaigh, Nó ag cur liathróid san aer Le fuinneamh an bhuailte, An tráth seo thiar Níor chualas. Ní don óige feasta An sceirdoileán cúng úd. Aran 1947 Whistling at night As a defence against the eeriness, A barrier between heart and brain In a time of disquiet, Shortening the road Home from late visiting, This time in the West I heard not. A lively song, When day left night behind, From a tipsy stalwart, Loud boasts and defiant gestures And many an arrogant yell Splitting the length of the silence While the brave deeds of their forefathers Were named to the spirits of solitude, This time in the West I heard not. A shout of joy or pleasure From the heart of the young As they tossed the great stone, Their Sunday evening custom, Or shot a ball in the air With force behind the stroke, This time in the West I heard not. Not for the young any more, That narrow windswept island. Máirtín Ó Direáin, Selected Poems: Tacar Dánta, selected and translated by Tomás Mac Síomóin & Douglas Sealy (Newbridge, Co. Kildare: The Goldsmith Press, 1984), 16-17.
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NOTES
1. See also Luke Clancy’s radio series, Sound Stories, in which Bob Quinn discussed different representations of Conamara through the medium of sound (RTÉ Radio One, 11 October 2007). 2. Meyer to Stokes, TCD MS10085 (25), cited in Ó Lúing 1991, p. 7. Meyer was himself a singer: “Kuno returned one evening to their camp-fire near Bala, with a Gypsy harper for company, to enliven their proceedings with Welsh melodies, or with the harmonies of penillion singing at which Meyer himself excelled” (“John Sampson (1862-1931)” by Andreas in Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society (XI) 1932, p. 3-4, cited in Ó Lúing 1991, p. 10). 3. Eoghan Ó Gramhnaigh, “More Gleanings from the Islands”, Tuam News/Western Advertiser 11 July 1890, p. 4. 4. “Ba mhór an gar d’áitibh mar so dá n-déantaoi abhráin maithe Beurla d’aistriughadh go Gaedhilge” [It would be of great benefit to places like this if good English-language songs were translated into Gaelic] (Ó Gramhnaigh 1890a, 55n). In this, Ó Gramhnaigh may also be suggesting that the English songs that were performed in Inis Meáin in 1889 were of dubious quality, a complaint expressed in 1901 by Synge in relation to The White Horse (1907, p. 120-122). 5. See: Ní Uallacháin 2003, p. 215-216; Ní Fhlathartaigh 1976, 51 (#73b) “Trua ‘gan mé’s mo stóirín ‘s teach mór againn i Meiriocá!”; Ní Fhlathartaigh 1976, p. 98-99 (#143) “Lean Leadaí na Páirte”. 6. Music collections created by contemporary visitors – including Eoghan Ó Gramhnaigh (1889-1890), Pádraig Pearse (1898), and, to the best of my knowledge, Holger Pedersen (Munch-Pedersen 1994) – consist entirely of songs in Irish, except for one of Pedersen’s transcriptions, which features a verse in English. Úna Ní Fhaircheallaigh’s book Smuainte ar Árainn contains many descriptions of musical activities in Árainn and Inis Meáin during the fin-de-siècle period (1902). Finally, secretaries of the local branches of the Gaelic League sometimes described in their minutes the music performed at weekly meetings. Keen to attract as many members as possible with the promise of fun for all, the League liked to encourage and to emphasise musical activities. 7. Consider Norris Davidson’s effort to counter the mythologising effect of Man of Aran in his short 1934 film Dancers of Aran / Aran Dance, the rationale for which he gave in a letter to the Connacht Tribune newspaper on 5 October 1935: “A chara, I should like to venture a protest against the criticism of my picture, Damhsa Arann [sic], in the Annsoo agus Annsud column of the ‘Connacht Tribune’. Certainly I did not use the best dancers in the island, and certainly I might have used other music, say, “The Blackbird”. But had I gathered the best dancers in the island and used this music the whole thing would have looked staged and false and not in the least like what it is intended to be, a ‘bit of a dance’. It would have fallen in line with a recent picture, ‘Irish Hearts’, and become just another example of how not to make an Irish film. Instead, I made a film showing Inishmór as it is normally – not as it was eighty years ago, and not as it is on a special day of dancing like the 29th of June, but just showing a phase in the life of a village. I could do everything your correspondent suggests, but the film would cease to be Damhsa Arann, the film of a village which I know intimately. Had the best possible dancing been in question, I would have filmed Feis medalists on their platforms. Seamus Davidson. Donard, Co. Wicklow” (Saturday 12 October 1935, p. 9).
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Unfortunately, it is not yet known whether or not the film survives so, for now, this subversive effort continues to be muted. 8. In his edition of Scéalta Mháirtín Neile (1994), a collection of stories collected in Árainn by Holger Pedersen over a period of nearly four and a half months from 1895 to 1896, Ole Munch-Pedersen neglected to include the songs that Pedersen transcribed from Marcuisín Mhicil Siúinéara Ó Flaithbheartaigh and others because he did not consider them to be authoritative versions. He was afraid that the inclusion of these songs alongside the better-quality stories would compromise the integrity of the collection of stories. It is important, however, to temper this judgment with two points: the scope of Munch-Pedersen’s book was limited by questions of time and space and he was, therefore, prevented from considering the ways in which Pedersen’s collection of songs heralded the changes that modernity was bringing to Aran; and he was simply more interested in the stories than in the songs (In conversation with the author, 29 August 2009).
ABSTRACTS
The Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland are a palimpsest bearing layers of representations in a myriad of forms including literature, film, television, radio, photography, and art, representations created by islanders and visitors. In the resulting Aran canon, which is dominated by visiting authors instead of local authors, the music of the Aran Islands – which is classified here as Irish traditional or folk music – has, however, been marginalised. This is surprising because both Irish traditional music and Aran itself are often cast independently of each other as entities that depict Irishness, entities that are, in fact, for many observers, exemplars of that identity. This article questions how the visitor’s experience of listening in Aran, which differs radically from that of locals, has contributed to the marginalisation of local music in the wider discourse and practice of Irish traditional music and Irish culture. It focuses on two of the forces at work in the marginalisation of the music of Aran. They are an appetite for silence and the silencing of music. Referencing the work of John Millington Synge, Kuno Meyer, Fr. Eoghan Ó Gramhnaigh and Andrew McNeillie, and that of the local poet Máirtín Ó Direáin, it considers the motives and fears that led visitors and islanders to treat the music of Aran as they did. This article is ultimately about how the act of listening to the world around us has a fundamental impact on how we represent islands and their cultures. Acknowledging the strong association between music and place that permeates the discourse of Irish traditional music and how, through the uniquely visceral experience of listening, that association has come to be so pervasive, it questions how and why, through the choices we make when we are listening, we perform notions of authenticity, musicality, and identity.
Les Îles d’Aran, sur la côte ouest de l’Irlande sont un palimpseste à travers lequel on distingue de multiples niveaux de représentation sous une myriade de formes dont la littérature, le cinéma, la télévision, la radio, la photographie et les arts plastiques, représentations crées autant par les habitants que les visiteurs. Dans le canon artistique qui en résulte, et qui est dominé plutôt par les auteurs visiteurs que les auteurs résidents, la musique des Îles d’Aran – qui est qualifiée ici de
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musique traditionnelle ou populaire – a été marginalisée. Ceci est surprenant dans la mesure où les musiques traditionnelles irlandaise et de l’Île d'Aran elle-même sont souvent considérées en tant qu’entités indépendantes, alors que l’une comme l’autre caractérisent l’Irlande pour beaucoup d’observateurs. Cet article interroge en quoi l’expérience d’écoute par les visiteurs des Îles d’Aran, qui est radicalement distincte de celle des habitants, a contribué à marginaliser la musique locale dans la considération et la pratique plus large de la musique traditionnelle et la culture irlandaise. Il se concentre sur les deux forces à l’œuvre dans la marginalisation de la musique d’Aran: l’appétit pour le silence et la mise en sourdine de la musique. En s'appuyant sur les travaux de John Millington Synge, Kuno Meyer, Fr. Eoghan Ó Gramhnaigh et Andrew McNeillie, et sur ceux du poète local Máirtín Ó Direáin, cet article considère les motifs et les peurs qui ont conduit les visiteurs et les insulaires à traiter la musique d’Aran comme ils l’ont fait. Cet article observe, en essence, comment l’acte d’écouter le monde qui nous entoure a une influence fondamentale sur la façon dont nous représentons les iles et leurs cultures. En reconnaissant l’association forte entre la musique et le lieu, qui imprègne le discours sur la musique traditionnelle irlandaise, et comment, à travers l’expérience viscérale de l’écoute, cette association est devenue aussi prévalente; cet article interroge comment et pourquoi à travers les choix que nous faisons quand nous écoutons, nous mettons en forme des notions d’authenticité, de musicalité et d’identité.
INDEX
Keywords: Synge John Millington , history of representations, music, Aran islands, West of Ireland Mots-clés: Synge John Millington , histoire des représentations, musique, îles d’Aran, Ouest de l'Irlande
AUTHOR
DEIRDRE NÍ CHONGHAILE National University of Ireland, Galway
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“Daringly, yet with Reverence”: Pearse, Mickiewicz and the Theology of National Messianism
Maciej Ruczaj
This article was written thanks to the support of the Grant Agency of Charles University in Prague.
1 Quoting the notorious ending of Patrick Pearse’s play The Singer – widely understood as a dramatic summary of the ideology of messianic blood sacrifice that motivated the leader of the Dublin Easter Rising of 1916 – Augustine Martin comments with apparent relief: “[F]ortunately, I am not required, in the context, to examine the theological implications of these strange lines1.”
2 Although De Valera’s Ireland upholds the image of Pearse as an unproclaimed Catholic saint and a “holy martyr of Irish freedom”, those “strange lines” stating that “one man can free a people as one Man redeemed the world2” remained deeply problematic – and tacitly omitted – for the Catholic audience. The attention of the readers and authors, from the post-Rising issues of The Catholic Bulletin through Pearse’s hagiography by Louis Le Roux right up to the commemorative celebrations of 1966 when Augustine Martin’s article was written, consequently centred on the personal devotion and moral virtues of the main ideologist of the insurrection rather than the theological conundrums of his texts.
3 Only a few years after the 50th anniversary of the Rising did Studies publish Fr. Francis Shaw’s denunciation of Pearse’s “national heresy”, confronting nationalist with Christian orthodoxy and declaring their antithetical character. Shaw stated that Pearse’s “equation of the patriot with Christ is in conflict with the whole Christian tradition” and classified his “gospel of Irish nationalism” as “essentially a gospel of hate3”.
4 Shaw’s text opened the debate about the theological dimension of Pearse’s thought and its uneasy relation to the Catholic doctrine. Pearse’s fascination with the redemptive sacrifice of Christ, visible in the above-quoted ending of The Singer, naturally directed
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the attention towards the messianic quality of his thinking. “Messianism” has become one of the key-words of Pearsean scholarship. To mention only some of the prominent early voices in Irish Studies, F.S.L. Lyons described Pearse’s ideas as a culmination of the “messianic strain” in Irish writing and Patrick O’Farrell spoke of Pearse as “the first Irish rebel to have made explicit and substantial use of the messiah concept4”. It seems, however, that the term “messianism” is generally taken for granted and the Pearsean variety of this universal phenomenon has rarely been located within any comparative or theoretical context. Among the exceptions we must mention Patrick O’Farrell and Sean Farrell Moran who for the first time spoke about the Irish Catholic nationalism in the context of millenarianism – a historical phenomenon defined by such scholars as Norman Cohn5. O’Farrell points out that the Easter Rising was the first Irish rebellion directly related by its speakers to the “Christian concepts and imagery” and links this phenomenon to the legacy of the devotional revolution of the second half of the previous century (in accordance with Cohn’s precept that the emergence of millenarian attitudes is always preceded by a wave of “new piety” and strengthening of lay participation in devotional practices).Sean Farrell Moran also locates Pearse’s discourse of a martyr’s death for Irish freedom in the millenarian context. According to Moran, the “archetypal Irish patriot”, as created by Pearse, “re-enacts a redemptive myth”, combining in his Christ-like act the role of the sacrificer and the offering.The argument is based on a comparison between Pearse’s “political theology” and the millenarian suicidal concept of martyrdom of the donatist sect from the late Roman period6. This very distant point of reference – though proving a firm position of the revolutionary messianism within the Christian mindset – may be, however, exchanged for a much closer one.
5 Pearse’s first critical biographer, Ruth Dudley Edwards, claims that he “owed more to the Romantics than to Christianity, in whose institutional theology he had little interest7”. In the following paragraphs, I would like to show that a comparative and theoretical context for Pearse’s ideology may be provided by the Romantic Polish messianism of Adam Mickiewicz. Poland claims the status of “the homeland of the 19th century messianism” just as “France is home of the Enlightenment” and “Germany of romantic conservatism8” and due to the centrality of the theme in Polish intellectual history, Polish humanities have managed to generate specific definitions and tools for analysing this notoriously elusive phenomenon. Most importantly, however, Polish messianism provides a fertile comparative ground due to its deep engagement with Catholic theology and symbolism, in many respects prefiguring the controversies created by Pearse’s heterodox employment of Christian sanctities to serve the national cause. My discussion of Pearse in this context is going to start with an outline of the modern variety of Catholic millenarianism as represented by Mickiewicz. Subsequently, it addresses the discovery of Mickiewicz’s writings in pre-Rising Ireland in order to test Pearse’s ideas against Mickiewicz’s “ideal type” of revolutionary messianism – at once national and deeply Catholic.
Christ of Nations
6 The upheaval of the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars triggered the “general messianistic atmosphere across Europe”. It was the “expectation of universal regeneration” that was a driving force for individuals, social movements and nations in
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the first half of the nineteenth century. At the same time, the universalist elements in Romantic messianism (secularised versions of medieval millenarian movements) were concomitant with the exaltation of the specific national communities conceived as bearers of the messianic mission, in analogy to the biblical motif of the “elected nation9 ”.
7 Jacob Talmon – the major Western historian of modern political messianism (probably not incidentally a Polish Jew by birth) lists Adam Mickiewicz, the greatest poet of Polish Romanticism, among three major European prophets of national messianism, along with Jules Michlet and Giuseppe Mazzini10. Following the brutal suppression of the November Rising (1830-1831) by Imperial Russia which annihilated the last remnants of the autonomy of what was once a mighty kingdom, Mickiewicz formulates a new concept of “Polishness” fit for a nation of exiles, tying it to the idea rather than the territory and attempting to substitute despair with the hope for regeneration. In his poetic drama Forefathers’ Eve, he invokes for the first time the concept of the redemptive power of sacrifice by patriots as well as a vision of the Messianic leader – “Freedom’s viceroy on earth incarnated”. A year later, in the mystical prose Books of the Polish Nation and Pilgrimage, Mickiewicz’s vision acquires a clearer outline, with its central idea of Poland as the “Christ of nations” destined to bring universal freedom through its suffering: And the Polish nation was crucified, and brought into its tomb. And the kings shouted: “We have killed freedom – we have buried it.” And their shouting was but folly […] [F]or the Polish nation is not dead! Its body, indeed, is in the tomb, but its soul has ascended from the surface of the earth; that is, from public life to the abyss, or domestic life – to the homes and hearths of those who endure distress and oppression in their country, and far from their country, in order to be the witness there of their suffering, and of their misery. And on the third day, the soul shall return to its body; and the nation shall rise from the dead; and shall free all the nations of Europe from slavery11.
8 Taking Mickiewicz as an “ideal case” of Romantic messianism, Polish scholars attempted to identify some key features of the concept. Firstly, like its Christian millenarian predecessors, Mickiewicz’s messianism is based on the belief in the decisive transformation leading to the state of social or moral perfection of mankind. It is a quest “for total, imminent, ultimate, this-worldly, collective salvation12”. Special emphasis is to be placed on the words “this-worldly” and “collective”, both contradicting the orthodox Christian view of history and instead referring back to the heretical millenarian movements which elaborated upon the visionary image of the earthly Thousand Year Kingdom of Christ and His Saints mentioned in Apocalypse. Secondly, the transformation is to be mediated through the elected nation or group or individual, the bearer of the messianic mission. Finally, the election is conditioned in most cases by undergoing a period of trial and sufferingcomparable to the Passion of Christ. Millenium, mission and passion thus form three pillars of the messianic vision13.
9 Romantic messianism is a phenomenon residing on the interface between religious and political consciousness: it naturally arises from the Bible, with its Old Testament concept of the elected nation and of the personal messiah of the Gospel, yet its attitude towards religion remains ambiguous at best. Jacob Talmon argues that “all Messianic trends considered Christianity, at times religion as such, always the historic form of Christianity, as the arch-enemy. Indeed they triumphantly proclaimed themselves substitutes for it14”. From the perspective of Polish Romanticism, however it is not
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possible to make such a definitive statement. Although most scholars would agree that messianic tendencies can be viewed as challenging the authority of the Church, at the same time Mickiewicz’s writing remains deeply rooted in Catholic symbolism and vocabulary and he attempts to balance its heretical potential and orthodox background15.
Mickiewicz and Ireland
10 The fact that Mickiewicz received quite considerable attention in the Irish nationalist press in the years and months preceding the Easter Rising has been hardly ever mentioned in the analyses of the Irish intellectual milieu of the time. “Translations from Mickiewicz” appeared first in the separatist monthly Irish Freedom in August 1914, signed by GiollaEireann, a pen-name for young nationalist activist Aodh de Blácam. A year later, de Blácam published a lengthier text on Mickiewicz in Arthur Griffith’s paper Nationality. De Blácam further provided a few short English translations from The Books of the Polish Nation and his articles inspired Liam Ó Rinn to begin translating The Books into Irish 16. The first fragments of his translation appeared in Nationality on a weekly basis from February to April 191617.
11 The main reasons for such an interest were obvious: “The two countries are alike in manners, in ideas, in faith, and in misfortune. The same methods of oppression have been used against each” – says de Blácam in his article dated July 191518. In march 1916, he even calls Poland – “Ireland of the East”. Nevertheless, the community of fate was in this case rooted in the intimations of a deeper relation between two nationalisms.
12 De Blácam’s article is fittingly entitled (if we keep Pearse in mind) “Poland’s Resurrection and its Prophet”. Attempting to introduce Mickiewicz’s ideas to the Irish public, de Blácam quotes the above-mentioned excerpt of The Books and adds: What may be called the eschatology of Messianism was this dream of Mickiewicz that Poland was a nation chosen by God to be slain as victim for liberty, her resurrection would bring the end of tyranny throughout Europe. Daringly, yet with reverence, the drama of Poland’s destruction by the Powers is compared […] to the drama of Calvary19.
13 De Blácam’s summary highlights the crucial features of Mickiewicz’s messianism: the eschatological character, the centrality of the sacrificial theme set in the context of Christ’s death and resurrection and the overall uneasy relation to Catholic orthodoxy, alluded to in the words “daringly, yet with reverence”.
14 Obviously, a very similar set of key motifs can be found in the writing of Patrick Pearse. This article does not aim at proving a direct influence of the Polish poet on “the mind behind the Easter Rising”. Still, it is highly improbable that in the rather limited microcosm of the Dublin separatist press Pearse would not have come across Mickiewicz’s texts. On the other hand, he neither mentioned the name in his writings nor quoted any of the above-mentioned articles. Nevertheless, the chronological coincidence, as well as the deeply reaching parallels, justify the comparison of the respective authors. Setting Mickiewicz alongside Pearse helps to solve the oft-invoked but rarely explained issue of Pearsan messianism and provides us with a comparative framework of the relation of mystical revolutionary nationalism and Catholic orthodoxy, which proved so disturbing to both Catholic and non-Catholic commentators of his writings.
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Anatomy of messianism
15 Romantic philosophy provided a fertile ground for the evolution of various modes of national messianism. Pearse shared with Mickiewicz its basic ethical, ontological and epistemological precepts, as well as its vision of history and of individual acting in history, which altogether formed a set of necessary preconditions for the emergence of a messianic attitude.
16 First of all is ethical radicalism confronted with the conformism of the majority: the attitude described by Pearse as “wise foolishness of the saints20”, disrespectful of what he calls “the commandments of Respectable Society21” – a bourgeois version of the Decalogue, the first of which is “you shall not be extreme in anything”. Secondly, it is the repudiation of rationalism, connected in their thinking with the soulless, the mechanical and the commercial and juxtaposed with “feeling and faith”, is – as Mickiewicz’s poem testifies – superior to the “savant’s glass and eye”. “The spiritual always triumph over the actual (for the spiritual, being the true actual, is stronger than the forms and bulks of the actual)” – adds Pearse22. Those antithetical pairs that define their ethics and epistemology are transposed, brought onto a higher, collective and political, level in the form of a juxtaposition of freedom and despotism (Mickiewicz) and nation and empire (Pearse). The nation is – quite understandably when taking into consideration the history of Poland and Ireland – conceived primarily as a spiritual idea, alive even if temporarily devoid of its “body” (i.e. the state), and bound together by “natural ties, ties mystic and spiritual, and ties human and kindly”. Its antithesis is “the rule without love” (Mickiewicz), “held together by ties of mutual interest” or “brute force” (Pearse23). To serve the cause of this holy fellowship requires – finally – moral perfection (or at least striving for it) and evangelical virtues, as summed up in O’Rossa’s graveside oration (“Splendid and holy causes are served by men who are themselves splendid and holy”) or in Mickiewicz’s Books: “You shall be risen from the tomb, because you have faith and love and because hope lives in you24.”
17 The messianic concept – although rooted in a specific ontology and epistemology – is primarily a vision of time and history. Andrzej Walicki distinguishes with reference to Mickiewicz between the romanticism of tradition (exemplified in the nineteenth century by, for example, Russian slavophiles and – it might be added – in the Irish context by the Catholic mainstream of Irish Ireland) and the messianic romanticism of charisma. Both share contempt for the rationalism of bourgeois society, yet whereas the former holds the position of the guardian of the past, aiming to protect or restore it, the latter starts off by glorifying the past yet finally turns into a future-oriented, creative and revolutionary force. This vision of history follows the theological paradigm which is deeply dynamic: primordial bliss, the fall, suffering endured by the community and expected redemption. Romanticism of charisma bridges the past and the future, paradise lost and paradise regained (skipping with contempt the present moment), “giving new meanings to old elements and clothing the new ones with traditional connotations25”. In Pearse’s case, this convoluted relation to tradition may be exemplified at every stage of his activity, from his attitude to the heritage of Irish literature – he struggles with antiquarians arguing for the need to rise simultaneously “the banner of the Ancients” and “the banner of Liberty26”, i.e. to combine the respect for the past with the response to the individuality of the author and the dilemmas of
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the modern age, to modernize Ireland but “on our native terms”, to the progressive educational methods he implemented at St. Enda’s school, disguised however by the ethos of the mythical “boy corps of Emain Macha” derived from the medieval epic.
18 Simultaneously nostalgic and futuristic, the logic of the romanticism of charisma which joins the past and the future of the community into a dynamic and synthesising whole, finds its realization in the vision of the hero of the nation.To unfold itself in time, the messianic vision requires a bearer and agent. The Romantic thought generally inclines towards the exaltation of outstanding individuals who – as both Carlyle and Mickiewicz claim – are the founders of communities, moving principles of history and, through their cult, provide the glue that holds society together. As the great theoretician of hero-worship Stefan Czarnowski claims, a heroic figure is an incarnation of the idea of collectivity27. Thus, his role is revelatory (awakening and incarnating the hidden essence) and synthetic28 (representing the community as a whole). Pearse’s œuvre is inevitably centred on different heroic figures, both historical – such as the revolutionary leaders Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmett – and legendary, like the warrior Cú Chulainn from the Ulster Cycle. Crucially, he presents these individuals as emanating the spirit of the nation, attempting to incorporate within their cult sometimes very distant traditions, pairing bloodthirsty Cú Chulainn with Christ or agnostic Jacobin Wolfe Tone with the holy patron of the island – St Patrick. Mickiewicz undertook a similar task in his writings, claiming that the messianic leader is to combine “the spirit of Christ” with “the spirit of Napoleon”. His description of the messianic figure – bridging different and often antithetical traditions by means of his charismatic power, can easily be ascribed to Pearse as well: This man will have the zeal of the apostles, the devotion of the martyrs, the simplicity of the monks, the audacity of the men of 1793, the firm unshakeable and overwhelming valour of the soldiers of the Grande Armée, and the genius of their leader29.
19 The concept of a great man re-presenting (in the original sense of the Latin repraesentatio) or incarnating the whole community in himself, points to the crucial tension of Romantic messianism. Mazzini and Michelet ascribed messianic qualities to people as a whole: “Messiah will be a whole people, free, great and bound together by a single thought and great love30.” Pearse himself only uses the word “Messiah” in his essays once – almost echoing Mazzini: The Gaelic League was no reed shaken by the wind, no mere vox clamantis: it was a prophet and more than a prophet. But it was not the Messiah. I do not know if the Messiah has yet come, and I am not sure that there will be any visible and personal Messiah in this redemption: the people itself will perhaps be its own Messiah, the people labouring, scourged, crowned with thorns, agonising and dying, to rise again immortal and impassable31.
20 Nevertheless, as mentioned above, Pearse’s works are centred on specific messianic figures, from Cú Chulainn to Tone and from Emmett to MacDara – the protagonist of The Singer. Again, it seems that among three “great messianists”, Mickiewicz remains the closest to Pearse’s thinking, as he directly opposes Michelet and Mazzini, claiming that “the essence of Messianism points to a single man, Polish Messianism ascribes to its nation a mission that is however represented by a single person32”. Even if divine qualities are repeatedly ascribed to the people as a whole, Pearse’s writings remain focused on charismatic individuals who perform basic messianic functions: revealing and realising, preaching and acting, and who receive their power simultaneously from
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above and below. Such a leader is an individual lifted above the multitude: “the Man- Word, the organ of God’s revelation” whose mission is “to lead the lesser and weaker brethren”, as Talmon describes Mickiewicz’s concept33. In a similar vein, the speaker from Pearse’s poem Rebel posits himself “in between” the people and the divine, being the One who is “of the people” and “understand[s] the people” but was also chosen to speak “with God on the top of His holy hill34”. In Forefathers’ Eve, the famous vision announcing the revelation of the Messiah ends with his cryptic mystical name – “Forty and Four”. As some critics argue, here Mickiewicz uses “Christ’s number”, i.e. thirty- three, yet multiplies it because the Messiah absorbs the people into himself; he is at once one and multitude35. He absorbs into his own self the sufferings of the multitude live the protagonist of Forefathers’ Eve who exclaims: “My name is million/because for millions do I love/and suffer agonies” and Pearse’s Rebel claiming: “My heart has been heavy with the sorrow of mothers, my eyes have been wet with the tears of the children36.”
Messianism of “the little world in itself”
21 Seamus Deane called Pearse “the last romantic in Irish politics37” and – undoubtedly – ethical radicalism, anti-rationalism, an eschatological vision of history and an inclination towards hero-worship provide the common ground for the prophets of Irish and Polish national messianism. Nevertheless, when we attempt to apply to Pearse’s writings three central features of Mickiewicz’s messianism (millennium, mission and passion), we are confronted with considerable differences.
22 Mickiewicz’s messianism is a which consciously transcends national boundaries and aiming at universal significance. Poland is the “Christ of nations” due to the fact that its sacrifice is to trigger a general Pan-European movement towards regeneration. In the case of Pearse, the only traces of messianism in its universal sense, ascribing a special spiritual mission to the Irish, may be detected in Pearse’s earliest essay, where he claims: The Gael is not like other men; the spade, and the loom, and the sword are not for him. But a destiny more glorious than that of Rome, more glorious than that of Britain awaits him: to become the saviour of idealism in modern intellectual and social life, the regenerator and rejuvenator of the literature of the world, the instructor of the nations, the preacher of the gospel of nature-worship, hero- worship, God-worship – such … is the destiny of the Gael38.
23 In Pearse’s later works, the focus on the Irish struggle for cultural and political sovereignty erases even those rare ventures into the zone of “missionism”, undoubtedly influenced by a contemporary mixture of “Celtic twilight” (Yeats’s “house of ancient idealism”) and “mainstream” Catholicism (Ireland as the most faithful member of the Church) creating a common rhetoric of Irish “exceptionalism”. Conversely, Pearse’s vision has a decisively national character. The drama of the fall, sacrifice and redemption is staged within the microcosm of the nation, without any attempt to widen its message. Instead, the notion and vocabulary of a divinely inspired mission is transposed to the chosen group or to a single individual within the nation. Pearse’s thought may be summed up by a quote from Geoffrey Keating which he repeatedly invokes: it describes Ireland as a “domhan beag intti féin” – “a little world in itself39”.
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24 The perspective of the “little world in itself” also shapes Pearse’s position in the context of messianic eschatology. The mission of the elected individual or nation is underlined by the all-pervasive notion of the “ripeness of time”, the expectation of the decisive moment which in the Gospel is highlighted by the linguistic shift from chronos to kairos. Whereas Mickiewicz’s is a mystical vision of the reign of Freedom across Europe resulting from Poland’s redemptive sacrifice, Pearse remains rather modest as far as the “Thousand Year Kingdom” of regained Irish freedom is concerned40. On the other hand, there is a definite and growing inclination towards apocalyptic language in Pearse’s essays as the Rising is approaching. Pearse demonises the British Empire as the worst tyranny in history, attempting to turn the imminent conflict into a battle between the forces of light and darkness. He escalates his accusations against the Ireland of the time, stressing that the nation faces the ultimate chance to preserve its very existence as a separate entity. Finally, he points to the approaching decisive moment, the intersection between the divine and historical time. In “Peace and the Gael”, the language of the apocalypse provides metaphorical cover for the message of the imminent revolution and national deliverance: Christ’s peace is lovely in its coming, beautiful are its feet on the mountains. But it is heralded by terrific messengers; seraphim and cherubim blow trumpets of war before it. We must not flinch when we are passing through that uproar; we must not faint at the sight of blood. Winning through it, we (or those of us who survive) shall come unto great joy41.
25 His final essay ends in a similar apocalyptic vein – with a call: “The day of the Lord is here”.
26 Nevertheless, compared to the mystical exaltation of Mickiewicz, Pearse seems to employ apocalyptic vocabulary simply as a rhetorical device. On the other hand, he creates an analogy between the universal Christian story and the “little world” of Ireland so consistently, from the community of the nation based on the same principles as the community of the Church (“Ghosts”) to “one man saving the nation” as one Man redeemed the world (The Singer), that it is difficult not to discern a kind of “mystical subsidiarity” between two levels, universal and national. In order to attempt to gain an understanding of their relation, we must turn to the final and most prominent feature of Mickiewicz’s and Pearse’s thought: the idea of self-sacrifice.
Redemptive sacrifice: between metaphor and figura
27 “The Poles revealed to the world the idea of messianic sacrifice” – wrote Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdaiev42. It was the oppression of Poland under imperial rule that triggered the growth of Mickiewicz’s messianism and it was around the image of Calvary and its collective repetition that the idea was clarified in Forefathers’ Eve and in The Books. His primary aim was to give meaning to the suffering and defeat by connecting the sacrifice of Poland and the sacrifice of Christ. The nature of this connection, the meaning of the image of the “Christ of nations”, remains one of the most disputed themes of Polish intellectual history. Is it only a metaphor, treating the Polish nation as a collective subject whose fate resembles the fate of Christ and draws the spiritual power of endurance from this mystical parallel, thus being a perfectly orthodox, albeit collective, form of imitatio Christi? Or is it, on the contrary, a blasphemous usurping of the messianic status which actually reverses the logic of the
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figural understanding of history and turns Christ’s death and resurrection into a mere type (figura) of future happenings?
28 Drawing analogies between the fate of Ireland and the story of Calvary is almost commonplace in the nationalist press of the period. In The Catholic Bulletin (January 1916), Mary Butler speaks of the “martyred” Irish nation: “It has trod the road to Calvary, and will surely emerge into the glory of the resurrection43.” We may also invoke Desmond Ryan’s comment of the staging of Pearse’s Passion Play in the Abbey a few years earlier: Some of us, too, thought, though to many it may seem an irreverence, that our national and individual struggle was in ways a faint reflection of the Great One just enacted. Is it not so? The Man is crucified as the Nation, and the Soul moves slowly, falteringly towards the Redemption.44
29 The Calvary metaphor is used here and in countless other places – as de Blácam has it – “daringly yet with reverence”. Pearse also always presented his ideas as perfectly in tune with the doctrine, attempting to be “daring” and “reverent” at the same time.
30 Nonetheless, both Mickiewicz and Pearse also differ from the common nationalist discourse of their time, exemplified here by de Blácam or Butler. The tension between the metaphor and figura seems intensified to the highest possible degree, suggesting that we may be dealing with the relation of identification (substitution, complementation) rather than a mere comparison of events. The final lines of The Singer, mentioned at the beginning of this essay, may be on a par with the ambiguity of Mickiewicz’s vision of Poland’s crucifixion by the emperors. As Augustine Martin sums up, Pearse’s achievement was that he transferred the concept from the region of metaphor to the region of actuality: the patriot’s cause WAS a holy one; the revolution he foresaw was to be IN FACT a holy war; the spilling of the patriot’s blood was to be IN FACT redemptive.45
31 In Forefathers’ Eve, the vision of Priest Peter of the coming of the messianic leader ends with the angelic choir singing an “Easter chant” and, of course, the symbolism of Easter also provides a framework for the coda of Pearse’s writings. In their works, both Mickiewicz and Pearse consistently employ not only the story of Calvary but also the transformative symbolism of the Eucharist, there by strengthening the identification of the sacrifice of Christ with the national hero. Sheridan Gilley may thus claim – echoing Fr. Shaw’s accusations – that “Pearse’s sacrifice was magnificent, but hardly Christian46 ”. The protagonist of The Singer is a charismatic messianic leader, prophet, revolutionary and saviour in a single person, whose character is closely modelled on Christ, yet whose sacrifice is conducted in the very specific, “tribal” context of the struggle between the Gael and the Gall. Thus it may illustrate the transformation towards “national Messianism” in a more “Talmonian” sense of a substitute for Christianity.
32 Talmon’s strict juxtaposition of Christianity and national does not provide an adequate explanation for countries like Ireland or Poland, in which religion was a natural ally rather than an opponent of the nationalist movement. At least in the initial phase of its development, revolutionary national messianism is bound to draw inspiration and adopt to its own aims the discourse intimately known to the majority of the members of the nation. Mickiewicz in his Books and Pearse may both be considered to be representatives of the early phase of this development. The overwhelming
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inspirational power behind their conceptualisation of the national struggle is derived and firmly rooted in the specifically Catholic imagery and symbolism. They both consider themselves to be members of the Church and attempt to work with the religious discourse “daringly, yet with reverence”. Their drive to identify the cause of the nation with the “cause of Christ” is constantly checked by the orthodox urging to relativise this identification: Mickiewicz comes abruptly from the heights of the eschatological vision to remind the reader very clearly that the “Polish nation is not divine as Christ, so its soul wandering through wilderness may go astray47”. In “The Coming Revolution”, Pearse claims: “peoples are divine and are the only things that can properly be spoken of under figures drawn from the divine epos” – at once prophesying heresy (divine nature of a nation) and disclosing the metaphorical nature of this relation48.
33 A major relativising factor in Pearse’s writing is, however, the conscious limitation to the microcosm of “the little world in itself”, the principle of “mystical subsidiarity” which does not attempt to replace or deny the higher level of universal Christian history. When Mac Dara rises to perform his messianic sacrifice, his words are “One man can free a people as one Man redeemed the world”. His act is thus not a cancellation of the universal Christ’s sacrifice but its repetition on the “lower ontological level” (“a people” versus “the world”).
34 In Andrzej Walicki’s words, messianism is a gradable quality49. Pearse cannot be ranked alongside the major figures of Romantic national messianism – Michelet, Mazzini or Mickiewicz– because his vision remains enclosed in the exclusively Irish context. It is highly improbable that Pearse did not come across Mickiewicz’s texts published in the nationalist press of the period preceding the Rising, though there are no references to this author in his oeuvre. He shares with Mickiewicz a basic inclination towards a particular vision of man, nation and history. Moreover, Pearse is linked to Mickiewicz through both their uneasy relationship to Catholic orthodoxy, and their attempt (however unsuccessful) to inscribe their revolutionary narrative into the framework set by the Catholic doctrine. Therefore, our testing Pearse’s variety of national messianism against the ideal type represented by the Polish poet, provides illuminating insights into the combination of daring and reverence towards the Catholic dogma that became a characteristic feature of radical Irish nationalism in the following century.
NOTES
1. Augustine Martin, “To make a right rose tree. Reflections on the poetry of 1916”,Studies, Spring 1966, p. 38-50. 2. Patrick Pearse, “The Singer”, The Literary Writings of Patrick Pearse, ed. Séamas Ó Buachalla, Dublin, Mercier Press, 1979, p. 125. 3. Francis Shaw SJ, “The Canon of Irish History – a Challenge”,Studies, Summer 1972, p. 115-153.
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4. F.S.L. Lyons, Culture and Anarchy in Ireland, 1890-1939, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1979, p. 88; Patrick O’Farrell, “Millenialism, Messianism & Utopianism in Irish History”, Anglo- Irish Studies n° 2, 1976, p. 45-68. 5. Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millenium. Revolutionary messianism in medieval and Reformation Europe and its Bering on modern totalitarianism, New York, Harper & Row, 1961. 6. Sean Farrell Moran, “Patrick Pearse and Patriotic Soteriology”, Irish Terrorism Experience, ed. Y. Alexander and A. O’Day, Dartmouth, Aldershot, 1991, p. 9-28. 7. Ruth Dudley Edwards, Patrick Pearse. The Triumph of Failure, Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2006, p. 201. 8. Andrzej Walicki, Mesjanizm Adama Mickiewicza w perspektywie porównawczej,Warszawa, IBL, 2006, p. 31. 9. Jacob Talmon, Political Messianism.The Romantic Phase, New York, F.A. Praeger, 1961, p. 15; Andrzej Walicki, Filozofia a mesjanizm, Warszawa, PIW, 1970, p. 16. 10. Talmon, op. cit., p. 266-268. 11. Adam Mickiewicz, “Księgi narodu i pielgrzymstwa polskiego”, Dzieła 2, Warszwa, Czytelnik, 1983, p. 223. 12. Andrzej Walicki, Filozofia i mesjanizm, p. 10. 13. Paweł Rojek, “Mesjanizm integralny”, Pressje, n° 28, 2012, p. 20-49. 14. Talmon, op. cit., 25. 15. In this article I am concerned with the so-called “national” phase of Mickiewicz’s messianism, connected with The Books and Forefathers Eve. According to Walicki and other commentators, Mickiewicz’s views drifted towards a more heterodox (and at the same time more universalistic) vision of history in the later period of his life (from around 1840). 16. In fact, both de Blácam’s and Ó Rinn’s translations were made from the French translation, not the Polish original. 17. The story of Mickiewicz’s reception in the nationalist press of the time is recounted in detail in the introduction to the unpublished doctoral thesis by Mark Ó Fionnain from the Catholic University of Lublin (Translating in Times of Political Turmoil: Liam Ó Rinn’s Irish Language Translations of Adam Mickiewicz’s Księgi Narodu Polskiego i Pielgrzymstwa Polskiego, Lublin 2010) dedicated primarily to the linguistic and comparative analysis of Ó Rinn’s translation. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only work dealing with the subject to date. 18. Aodh de Blácam, “Poland’s Resurrection and its Prophet”, Nationality, July 24, 1915, p. 6-7. 19. De Blácam, op. cit. 20. Pearse wrote in 1913 and 1914 a series of essays entitles “From the Hermitage” where he assumes the pose of a hermit juxtaposing the false wisdom of “the world” and the real knowledge of the “holy fool”. 21. Patrick Pearse, An Macaomh 2, 2 May 1913, p. 8. 22. Patrick Pearse, “By Way of Comment”, A Significant Irish Educationalist: The Educational Writings of P.H. Pearse, Dublin, Mercier Press, 1980, p. 335.
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23. Patrick Pearse, “O’Donovan Rossa: Graveside Panegyric”, Political Writings and Speeches, Dublin, Maunsel & Roberts, 1922, p. 136. 24. Patrick Pearse, “The Sovereign Nation”, op. cit., p. 343; Adam Mickiewicz, op. cit. 25. Andrzej Walicki, Filozofia i mesjanizm, p. 292. 26. Patrick Pearse, “In My Garden”, An Claideamh Soluis, August 4, 1906. 27. Stefan Czarnowski, Kult bohaterów i jego społeczne podłoże. Św. Patryk jako bohater narodowy Irlandii, trans. A. Glinczanka, Warszawa, PWN, 1956, p. 16-17. 28. Significantly, Pearse’s last essay, “The Sovereign Nation” ends by describing his writings as “the necessary synthesis” of the various strains of Irish nationalist thought. 29. Walicki, op. cit., p. 54. 30. Talmon, op. cit., p. 265. 31. Pearse, op. cit., p. 91. 32. Rojek, op. cit., p. 39. 33. Talmon, op. cit., p. 273. 34. Séamas Ó Buachalla (ed.), The Literary Writings of Patrick Pearse, Dublin, Mercier Press, 1979; Adam Mickiewicz, Dziady. Część Trzecia, Warszawa, Czytelnik 1983. 35. Jacek Salij, “Biblijna idea męczeństwa w III części”, Dziadów, Rozpacz pokonana, Poznań, W drodze, 1983, p.155-172. 36. Patrick Pearse, “The Rebel”, The Literary Writings..., p. 25-27. 37. Seamus Deane, “Heroic Styles. The Tradition of an Idea”, Theorizing Ireland, Ed. Claire Connolly, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 14-26. 38. Patrick Pearse, “Intellectual Future of the Gael”, Collected Works of Padraic H. Pearse III, Dublin, Phoenix, 1919, p. 231. 39. Patrick Pearse, “Ghosts”, Political Writings..., p. 228. 40. Especially if we do not take too seriously his tongue-in-cheek vision of “Ireland in 2006” from one of his articles in An Claideamh Soluis, with Irish acquiring the status of one of the major world languages and Dublin humming with outdoor cafés due to the “mediterraneanisation” of the climate (Patrick Pearse, “In My Garden”, An Claideamh Soluis / Builleachánan Oireachtais, August 1906, p. 1-2.) 41. Pearse, “Peace and the Gael”, Political Writings…, p. 218. 42. Rojek, op. cit., p. 40. 43. Mary Butler, “Some Traits of the Catholic Gael”, The Catholic Bulletin VI, n° 1, p. 103. 44. Desmond Ryan, The Story of a Success, Dublin, Phoenix, 1919, p. 108. 45. Martin, op. cit., p. 39. 46. Sheridan Gilley, “Pearse’s Sacrifice. Christ and Cuchulain Crucified and Risen in Easter Rising”. Sacrifice and Redemption. Durham Essays in Theology, Ed. S.W. Sykes, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 218-234. 47. Mickiewicz, Księgi narodu..., p. 224. 48. Patrick Pearse, op. cit., p. 92. 49. Walicki, Filozofia i mesjanizm, p. 17.
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ABSTRACTS
The article attempts to apply the elaborate theory of Polish romantic messianism to the rhetoric of Patrick Pearse, frequently – yet without further specifications – characterized as “messianistic”. Pearse’s writings are analyzed alongside those of the central figure of Polish nationalist messianism – poet Adam Mickiewicz – whose texts were discovered by the Irish nationalist press in the years preceding the Easter Rising. The argument focuses mainly on the theme of the redemptive sacrifice and the attempts of both authors to balance its theological roots and revolutionary, “heretical”, potential.
Cet article essaie d’appliquer la théorie élaborée du messianisme romantique polonais à celle de Patrick Pearse qui est fréquemment – mais sans spécifications précises – caractérisée comme « messianiste ». L’écriture de Pearse est analysée à côté de l’écriture de la figure centrale du messianisme national polonais – Adam Mickiewicz. Les textes de ce dernier ont été découverts par la presse nationaliste irlandaise dans les années qui ont prédédé l’Insurrection de Pâques. Les arguments se concentrent notamment sur le sujet du sacrifice rédempteur et les efforts des deux auteurs d’équilibrer ses racines théologiques et son potentiel révolutionnaire et « hérétique ».
INDEX
Keywords: influences/intertextuality, Pearse Patrick, Mickiewicz Adam, Easter Rising (1916), Irish nationalism Mots-clés: influences/intertextualité, Pearse Patrick, Mickiewicz Adam, soulèvement de Pâques (1916), nationalisme irlandais
AUTHOR
MACIEJ RUCZAJ Centre for Irish Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague
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“Damning Men’s Souls”: The Evolution of Irish Prostitution Memoirs
Catherine McGurren
1 The last twenty years has seen a worldwide proliferation of prostitute1 “confession” memoirs, exemplified by the success of texts boasting titles such as The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl (2006) and Confessions of a Working Girl (2008) 2. These memoirs focus on an explicitly sexualised female identity, with women gaining pleasure from their work as prostitutes and emphasising the elements of choice and financial rewards available to them. These glossy, postfeminist narratives have been replicated in Ireland through the recent publication of Scarlett O’Kelly’s Between the Sheets (2012), which is in marked contrast to the gritty prostitute memoirs that have emerged from Ireland since the 1980s, documenting personal experiences of the violence of the sex trade and pervasive drug addiction. Whilst largely overlooked by critics, this sub-genre of Irish life-writing offers illuminating insights into prostitution in Dublin by the women who were involved in the sex industry. The development of this genre was underlined by the re-publication of The Memoirs of Mrs Leeson: Madam (originally 1798) by Mary Lyons in 1995. Leeson’s colourful account of prostitution in eighteenth century Dublin establishes a long history of Irish women speaking about the sex trade and re-appropriating official versions of history. These books have yet to be situated within a tradition of Irish life-writing, as they map a peripheral history of female experience. Each of the memoirs share a preoccupation with the violence inflicted on the bodies of prostitutes, and a pervasive sense of anger that Irish law permits such brutality against women. The history of prostitution in Ireland is a history of intolerance and suppression. On one hand, prostitutes were seen as fallen women, victims of their own moral weakness3. On the other hand, they have been portrayed throughout Irish culture as disease carriers, symbolising crime and deviance4. In cultural representations, the prostitute is rarely a sexual agent in charge of her own identity, and there has been little opportunity for Irish prostitutes to give voice to their own lived experience. Taura S. Napier notes that the few well-known autobiographies
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of Irish women have been by “figures that are seen as exceptional rather than ‘representative’ in society” (2001: 2). The relative obscurity of some of these memoirs, and their failure to be recognised and discussed by feminist scholars, suggests an unwillingness to engage in debates about the regulation and legalisation of selling sex. It is only through reading Irish prostitute memoirs that one can trace the evolution and difficulties within the world of prostitution. Financial need and escape from abusive home situations define the earlier prostitution narratives, whilst financial opportunity categorised Celtic Tiger memoirs. In recent months, the publication of Rachel Moran’s Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution (2013) illustrates a renewed social concern around prostitution issues and a return to conservative constructions of prostitution as sexual slavery. By tracing the socio-cultural and legal evolution of the modern Irish sex industry through the experiences of sex workers, it is possible to provide new contexts and alternative perceptions of the period of rapid change in Ireland towards the end of the twentieth century.
Early Memoirs and Street Prostitution
2 Lyn: A Story of a Prostitute (1987) by Lyn Madden, written in conjunction with radical Irish feminist June Levine, is the first modern account of prostitution in the second half of the twentieth century. The memoir caused a sensation upon publication because of its account of the terrorism and murder of ex-prostitute Dolores Lynch by the brutal pimp John Cullen, which Madden witnessed5. Madden entered prostitution in 1967 and spent almost twenty years selling herself on the Grand Canal, though her narrative does not speak explicitly of these experiences. The ethos of radical feminism is evident in the text, which categorises prostitution as exploitative and degrading to all women. The preface states that “prostitution is the inevitable outcome of universal patriarchy” (Madden, 1987: 5), and the memoir forcefully expounds the “plight of the women on the streets” (1987: 6). This text is an excellent example of second wave feminist writing in Ireland. Levine is vehemently anti-prostitution, to the extent that her opinions make Madden feel humiliated in her profession: Once Lyn and I were discussing prostitution and I snapped: “Nonsense. Prostitutes are used like public lavatories.” She did not look me in the eye for days. (Lyn, 1987: 8)
3 This policing of Madden within her own narrative illustrates how Levine’s politics shape the tone of Madden’s memoir. This kind of mediated autobiography is problematic, but illustrates the heavy influence of the ideology of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement and the Legion of Mary upon the ex-prostitute. Madden’s memoir works as an item of propaganda for the anti-prostitution lobby, as she renounces her previous campaigning to legalise prostitution: I did numerous interviews in the past where I justified prostitution, believing everything I said at the time. Through therapy and the love of friends, I’ve learned that there can be no justification for that life. It is no way for people to relate to one another, and every single woman is too precious to be wasted on the “game”. (Lyn 1987: 270)
4 Quoting from Emma Goldman’s essay “The Traffic in Women”, this text clearly aligns prostitution with white slavery6. However, Madden’s account of the friendships and camaraderie on the Dublin Canal suggest that there were moments of enjoyment during her time as a prostitute. Martina Keogh’s memoir, Survivor: Memoirs of a Prostitute
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(2003), documenting forty years of prostitution in Dublin, is a more subjective example of the genre. She explicitly condemns the police and the abusive attitudes of the public towards women in the sex industry. Keogh has experienced all types of sex work, from streetwalking to brothels and managing a massage parlour, and this memoir is an incisive account of the violence she witnessed against women in Ireland. It is a critique of the public discourses that sanction the policing of women’s bodies, and an invective against the treatment of prostitute bodies as dehumanised. Brought up in poverty in a tenement and abused by her stepfather, by the time Keogh was eight she had already earned money in the local park giving men hand jobs. She recognises such an early sexual awareness as a key reason for her involvement in the sex industry. Poverty and a lack of child protection services created the working conditions of Keogh’s life. Constantly hungry and often on the streets, selling sex was a means of survival for Keogh: No woman grows up wanting to work as a prostitute. It is a choice that we make when options are limited; when it appears there is no other option. It is a way of making a living that doesn’t hurt anyone, except the woman herself (Keogh 2003:22)
5 Her lack of pleasure in sex work is emphasised throughout her narrative. For Keogh, the sex industry stole her sense of self: “From the night I started working as a prostitute, I stopped living and merely existed” (2003: 101). Each author struggles against being defined by prostitution. The sexual act becomes a vaguely defined action, never directly approached. For Keogh and Madden the monotony of selling sex every night is emphasised and nowhere is the trade eroticised. Distancing and rituals of separation are important, and in Survivor and Lyn there is a strong sense of frustration over the stereotypical representation of the whore. Each author constructs an identity that is oppositional to the traditional picture of the fallen woman. Linda Anderson terms this an “active appropriation of identity” (1997: 3). These memoirs present a feminised world in which men are rarely present. The clients are given little description, and the narratives often focus more on mother-daughter relationships or the experiences of other prostitutes. They are exclusionary to men, who exist peripherally in their experiences. The discussion of violence is particularly depicted as a female experience and a collective problem for women: Sometimes a couple of us used to venture along the canal bank, to investigate what we thought was a man’s elbow sticking out from behind a tree, only to find a misshapen branch, and we’d giggle in relief. You never knew who was lurking in the shadows waiting to hurt you in some way. (Madden 1987:264)
6 Violence was commonly perpetrated against street prostitutes, and became almost a normalised pattern of behaviour: Throughout my many years as a prostitute, I sustained several broken noses, bruises, and numerous black eyes. They became a mundane reality of life after a few months. Prostitutes often have bruises and cuts from being attacked, but they learn how to cover them up and hide the pain from onlookers. (Keogh 2003:129)
7 This concealment of injuries and abuse is used to maintain control over her life and present a façade that is unaffected by this treatment. Keogh’s narrative however, is an invective against cultural acceptance of this treatment of women in vulnerable positions. Her anger builds throughout the memoir, as she points out more and more occasions of society turning a blind eye to vicious treatment of sex workers. Prostitute behaviour was regulated and controlled in ways that fail to safeguard the women
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involved. The women working on the canal were often forced to flee whenever a Gardaí car is spotted. For Martina Keogh, this policing was always one-sided: Part of my job as a prostitute involved clashing with the police over and over again. We skirted around the edge of the law and some members of the police really had a thing against women. I was arrested and charged countless times over the years, but the police never charged a punter caught having sex with me. (Keogh 2003:121)
8 The memoirs repeatedly return to gendered double standards of behaviour and police intolerance of women in sex work. Up until the Supreme Court ruling in 1981, it was legal for Gardaí to arrest women loitering on the street with the intention of committing a criminal act. There was no need to present evidence of the person’s intent to solicit, and both Madden and Keogh were victims of this law in the 1970s. Another significant moment in the “policing” of prostitution in these narratives was the so-called “turf wars” of the 1970s. Madden gives an explicit account of this in her memoir, as her common law husband, Craig Grey, played a key part in events. The violence broke out at a time when foreign prostitutes began to work on the streets of Dublin. The Irish women working on the canal felt threatened by the growing numbers of overseas women, and fights broke out between Irish and non-Irish prostitutes. Dave Mullins, in his sensationalist account of prostitution, Ladies of the Kasbah, asserts that the attacks were racially motivated because the interlopers were “a Jamaican pimp gang led by the notorious Tyrone Fletcher who regularly flew scores of his black prostitutes into Dublin backed up by heavy black muscle”. (Mullins, 1995: 71) According to Madden, The foreign pimps did not like their women flying back to Derby sporting black eyes instead of money. A carload of them arrived on the square and spread about, threatening the Irish women’. (Lyn, 1987:110)
9 This fracas highlights a number of features of prostitution in the 1970s and 1980s. Prostitution in Ireland was almost exclusively undertaken by Irish women until the 1970s, when cheaper transportation and Ireland’s slow move towards globalisation and an opening of its borders created a more diverse industry. Street prostitution was controlled by pimps, and violence was commonplace. The reception of the foreign women was driven by the Irish prostitutes’ fear of losing their livelihoods and being undercut by cheaper and more exotic migrant labour. The slow trickle of foreign sex workers to Ireland heralded the beginnings of change to the sex industry. In the twenty-first century the Immigrant Council of Ireland claims that up to 97% of prostitutes in Ireland are migrant women7. A memoir of migrant experiences of prostitution in Ireland is yet to be published, and this does constitute a large gap in the genre8, but what is clear is that prostitution, like most other aspects of society, was transformed in the last decades of the twentieth century.
Celtic Tiger and the Transition of Sex Work
10 The end of the Troubles in the North and the booming Celtic Tiger economy in the Irish Republic created a period of rapid social change in the 1990s, marked by heavy industrialisation and investment in Ireland, whilst the thriving economy attracted mass immigration for the first time. Essential to these changes was the growing wealth that fuelled new demand for sexual services and more luxurious prostitution experiences. This evolution of the sex industry is discussed in Marise O’Shea’s The True Story of the Vice Queen (1997). For O’Shea, prostitution was “just something I did for ten
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quid” (O’Shea, 1997: 25). Born into a middle class family, O’Shea chose prostitution for the easy money and flexible hours. Her narrative declares that she “changed the face of prostitution in Ireland” by modernising the industry and creating one of the earliest escort agencies, Exclusive Escorts. Her eighteen years in Irish prostitution is a narrative of a rapidly changing industry and the growing availability of drugs. She endorses the legalisation of the industry and suggests that the “sense of being admired and constantly complimented” kept her in prostitution (O’Shea, 1997: 78). O’Shea breaks taboos in Irish society by daring to suggest that she enjoyed the work. This unapologetic approach, matched fifteen years later by Scarlett O’Kelly’s sex positive narrative, opens prostitution up to the possibility that it can be a rewarding profession for women. However, there is still an acknowledgement of the possibilities for violence: A lot of them are harder types; so many women messed up, coming out of poverty, totally abusing themselves, not using protection, having no control over their lives. I met women having babies and they didn’t even know which customer it was. They’d be saying, “I hope it isn’t Chinese or black”. Sometimes I found it hard to believe what was going on around me. (O’Shea 1997:36) I saw some of the women deteriorating in front of my eyes. The streets ate their souls away, but I wouldn’t let it eat mine. (Keogh 2003:209)
11 The memoirs of Martina Keogh, Marise O’Shea and Lyn Madden all describe the nightly danger of working on the streets in Dublin. Prostitution was characterised by violent customers and pimps, abusive Gardaí, and paramilitary involvement. The high profile murders of prostitute Dolores Lynch, and the unsolved murders of other prostitutes haunt these narratives. There is a sense of fear and injustice surrounding these deaths. The list of prostitute murders is growing in Ireland. From the murder of Peggy Flynn in 1966, there has been a steady stream of names to add to the category of murdered prostitutes: Teresa Maguire (1978); Dolores Lynch (1983); Belinda Periera (1996); Sinead Kelly (1996); Paiche Onyemaechi (2004); Lynette McKeown (2004). As Canter, Iannou and Young (2009:4) have observed, prostitute murders are often unsolved because of the low public opinion of the victim, unwillingness of other prostitutes to speak to the police, and a lack of credible witnesses9. The brutal murder of Teresa Maguire in particular is an iconic example in these memoirs of how society ignores prostitute murders. In an attempt to reform the industry, the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act of 1993 criminalised soliciting and the public practise of prostitution. The women in these memoirs condemn this ‘hiding’ of the sex industry. In Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution, Rachel Moran has recently described this legislation as harmful to women: The Sexual Offences Act of 1993 robbed me and many others of the right to have some level of control over our already disempowered lives, while not only allowing brothel prostitution to persist, but encouraging it to expand’ (Moran 2013:254).
12 Martina Keogh also decided to move towards indoor prostitution in the 1990s: [I] decided to start working indoors to get away from the streets. Things were getting more dangerous than ever and I was constantly on the watch for perilous pimps or punters. I set up a massage parlour […] it transpired that it wasn’t that much safer than the streets, because the punters still beat us and raped us occasionally, but we were out of the pimps’ sight. One night the police raided it and the Sunday World exposed it (Keogh 2003:118)
13 Keogh feels not only under attack by pimps, but also by clients and journalists who endanger prostitutes by exposing them in national newspapers. For the writers, this is clearly a betrayal that is seen as another form of violence. Autobiography here becomes a mode of writing that enables these women to give voice to the betrayals inflicted by a
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censorial media. Marise O’Shea devotes an entire chapter to the devastation she felt at having her name in print and being publicly exposed as a prostitute after being called as a state witness. She notes with bitterness that the identities of the clients caught in the Bay Tree brothel were protected. As a result of the court case, the pimp received a £50 fine. The case had a huge effect on O’Shea, forcing her family to move house, and driving her to become addicted to heroin. I did it because I knew the papers were coming out and I dreaded the disgrace on my family and myself. Because of the way the case had been handled in court, I was totally destroyed, ripped apart: I just wanted to get away from it all. (O’Shea: 40)
14 By situating this account of her own devastation and addiction within a larger context of societal injustice, O’Shea critiques the media and the court system that view prostitutes as criminals unworthy of the same rights as the men who purchase them. What all these narratives have in common is a critique of conservative Ireland, or in the more recent texts, a critique of a hypocritical country of double standards. The True Story of a Vice Queen and Survivor: Memoirs of a Prostitute demonstrate the growing interest of the media in the prostitute industry as well as the growing visibility of sex workers.
Recent Memoirs
15 Scarlett O’Kelly’s recent memoir, Between the Sheets (2012) advances a liberal and somewhat postfeminist view of prostitution. Her book is self-labelled a “recession” memoir, in which the economic downturn drove her into the sex industry in order to pay her mortgage. This book provides an important comparison to earlier memoirs. O’Kelly writes as an independent middle-class escort, running a sophisticated high- class business from the internet. This is far on the spectrum from street prostitution, and marks an important change in the way prostitution is conducted in modern Ireland. The increasing use of the internet as a space for the purchase of sex has revolutionised the industry, allowing women to work discreetly without attracting attention from law enforcement. O’Kelly encounters little violence from her clients, and speaks frankly about some of her sexual encounters. This is much more explicit than the street prostitutes, who avoid the details of transactions in favour of stories about other women working the streets. O’Kelly’s account argues that the selling of sex has become accepted by society, and she encourages the reader’s sexual voyeurism in order to declare herself liberated from the discursive conservatism of “old” Ireland. However, the author also writes under a pseudonym, denying her readers the objectifying gaze of exposing her “real” self. Her memoir is being marketed as the true story of an “escort”, a deliberately vague sobriquet that disguises sexual activity behind an alias of respectability. O’Kelly embraces her identity and the terminology that is associated with it: “I am a hooker, a prostitute, a whore or an escort – whatever you like to call me, I’m it.” (2012) However, she goes on to point out “I’m also an ordinary mum” in an attempt to normalise her situation.
16 In Between the Sheets, O’Kelly baldly states that financial necessity was her motivation for joining the sex industry. She depicts herself as a victim of the recession, having lost her job, divorced her husband, and when she is burdened with a house with negative equity, the escort business seems like the natural solution:
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I enjoyed sex, I had a strong sense of my own identity, and surely I could use some kind of screening process to weed out the gobshites and protect myself. It’s money for old rope after all, and the oldest profession in the world. (O’Kelly 2012:8)
17 For O’Kelly, her high-end escort service enables her to continue living her comfortable middle-class life. She objectifies her own sexuality, describing herself as a “product” and an “enterprise”. She personifies Tasker and Negra’s definition of postfeminism as “white and middle-class by default, anchored in consumption as a strategy (and leisure as a site) for the production of the self” (2007: 2). O’Kelly emphasises the freedom involved in her choice and celebrates her own commodification. As an educated and empowered woman, she can charge a higher price for her product. Her experience is vastly different from the street prostitution of the previous generation. She addresses this aspect of prostitution with distaste and horror: Let’s face it, no one relishes the idea of standing on a cold pavement waiting for a total stranger to stop his car and call her over. The women who are engaged in that sort of prostitution are motivated by other things, and if those factors were removed, you can be sure they wouldn’t choose that life willingly. (O’Kelly 2012:59)
18 O’Kelly attempts to disassociate herself from street prostitutes, but the motivation of money attracts women of all classes. Whilst she charges more (€400 in comparison to the £30 charged by Martina Keogh) these women essentially provide the same service. O’Kelly has no interaction at all with other prostitutes, working as an independent escort, and her experiences are vastly different to the other women writing in this genre. Her lived experience is also much more internal and reflective. It is more of a confession than a traditional autobiography. Rita Felski has outlined the sexual confession narrative as “a female subject writing a non-fiction work about her own sexuality and her emergence as a subject” (Felski, 1989: 113). O’Kelly’s memoir focuses exclusively on her two years in the escort industry, wilfully blurring the facts of her background in order to protect her identity. She fears media discovery and consequent unmasking of her identity. This paranoia fills her work: I had a Plan B – maybe it was a C or D – that if I ever got found out, my mini nest egg would get me and my children out of Ireland immediately (O’Kelly, 156)
19 Whilst privately she is not ashamed of her profession, O’Kelly understands that society would condemn her. If discovered, “my life here would be over” because of the notoriety the publicity would cause (v). She voices subversive possibilities, suggesting that if prostitution was legalised, “it could possibly have been my occupation of choice” (O’Kelly: 62). Scarlett O’Kelly is hyper-aware of her image and other people’s perceptions. She constructs an identity for herself as a modern devoted mother embroiled in domestic tasks, yet sexually confident and intelligent. She denies the victim status, or at least only accepts being a victim of the recession. O’Kelly’s book further fits Irene Gammel’s definition of the confession: Many readers and spectators feel uneasy about the genre’s characteristics: its transgressive sexual nature, its sometimes scandalous excess, and its breaking of the boundaries of normality’ (Gammel 1999:10).
20 One of the main differences between this memoir and the older auto/biographies of prostitutes is the sexual explicitness of descriptions of experiences with clients. In the accounts of Madden, Keogh and O’Shea, the sexual act itself is avoided as much as possible. There is a conscious fear that they will be defined by the sexual act rather than their narratives. O’Kelly, perhaps aided by her nom de plume, describes appointments and her own sexual enjoyment in detail. She discusses the sexual taboo
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in normal bourgeois Irish society, instructing her readers on issues such as how to perform anal sex. This is also perhaps a result of the postfeminist moment. O’Kelly’s narrative is more comparable to other recent escort memoirs such as Claire Gee’s Confessions of a London Call Girl (2011) rather than drawing any inspiration from the earlier Irish auto/biographies. Her preoccupation with the correct outfits, sex toys and her own orgasms makes this memoir at times read more like a modern chick lit novel. The main event of this narrative is the upheaval of an economic downturn, and the shock value of the fact that a middle class woman would turn to prostitution to enable her middle class spending habits rather than make some spending cuts in her lifestyle. I was making up to twelve hundred euro per week, but with the mortgage, household bills, school demands and extra-curricular activities, I was only just breaking even. (O’Kelly 2012:110)
21 The popularity of this memoir suggests an overwhelming change in the perception of modern prostitution in Ireland. It has become a discreet industry, and O’Kelly asserts that it is now an industry based on choice. This view is not shared by Rachel Moran in her recent expose of the sex industry, Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution (2013). Her memoir is exceedingly anti-prostitution, utilising Kathleen Barry’s language of “prostituted women” to emphasise the victimisation of women in sex work, as well as quoting Andrea Dworkin’s radical feminist polemic. Moran’s account of prostitution denies the possibility of choice, and openly urges readers to support Ireland’s Turn off The Red Light campaign: Prostitution, to me, is like slavery with a mask on, just as it is like rape with a mask on, and we are no more recompensed for the abuse of our bodies by our punters’ cash than slaves were recompensed by the food and lodgings provided by their slave masters.’ (Moran 2013:471)
22 Moran’s opinion of prostitution undoubtedly is formed by the fact that she entered the industry out of desperation at fifteen, when she was homeless, whilst O’Kelly’s privileged attitude fits the sexually liberated discourse of postfeminism, and suggests the possibility of prostitution as normalised work: I think of it as a normal job where you have your professional self and then your weekend self. If I’d been any other committed responsible professional from Monday to Friday, would you have expected me to feel guilt if on Saturday, I wore a mini dress, drank ten cocktails and had a one night stand with a stranger? (O’Kelly 2012:158)
23 The radically different points of view promoted by O’Kelly and Moran provide a useful binary for the arguments currently surrounding prostitution in Ireland. The Turn off the Red Light campaign in recent years has utilised the discourse of victimisation and sex trafficking in order to further their agenda of criminalising prostitution for male clients, emphasising the abhorrent practice of forced prostitution. Their campaign has taken on the aspect of a Victorian moral crusade, where the evil of the traffickers and the men who use prostitutes is only matched by the untainted innocence of the female victims. This argument returns to the radical feminism espoused by Sheila Jeffries and Kathleen Barry in the 1970s, where all women are forced into prostitution, and are victims of “sexual terrorism” (Barry 1984: 43). In Ireland, this anti-prostitution discourse has been largely successful in conflating sex work and sex trafficking as two versions of female exploitation, where the women involved can only be passive dupes. This attitude is now mainstream, and is evident in advertising campaigns in the Republic of Ireland. Increasingly, the discourse of sex trafficking is utilised in Irish
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cultural forms as a coded metaphor for the anxieties surrounding inward migration and the xenophobic response to this by Irish society. Meanwhile, Diane Negra has argued that one of the remarkable elements of the postfeminist sensibility is the removal of the stigma that once came from participating in the sex industry. She has critiqued the “new respectability” of the female sex worker and society’s acceptance of sex work as a legitimate industry (2008: 100). This relates directly to what Feona Attwood has termed “the mainstreaming of sex” (Atwood 2009), and the new visibility of the sex industry within Irish society. Despite prostitution moving indoors, sex is now visible everywhere in culture, and television productions such as Secret Diary of a Call Girl10 promote the possibility of middle-class, liberated women joining the sex industry out of choice rather than financial need. The globalisation of Celtic Tiger Ireland has irretrievably changed the expectations of sex work, with the market creating greater demand for more exotic sexual experiences in more luxurious surroundings. The experience of prostitutes as related in their memoirs helps us to trace the history and evolution of sex work in modern Ireland, and to come to judgements based on the lived experiences of Irish prostitutes.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Works Cited
Attwood, Feona, Mainstreaming Sex: The Sexualization of Western Culture, London, I.B. Tauris, 2009.
Anderson, Linda R., Women and Autobiography in the Twentieth Century: Remembered Futures, London, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1997.
Barry, Kathleen, Female Sexual Slavery, New York University Press, New York and London, 1984, New Ed.
Belle de Jour, The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl, London, Phoenix Paperbacks, 2007.
Canter, David V. Dr. Maria Iannou, and Donna Youngs, eds. Safer Sex in the City: The Experience and Management of Street Prostitution, Franham, Surrey, Ashgate, 2009.
Felski, Rita, Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change, London, Hutchinson Radius, 1989.
Gammel, Irene (ed.), Confessional Politics: Women’s Sexual Self-Representation in Life Writing and Popular Media, Carbondale, IL, Southern Illinois University Press, 1999.
Gee, Claire, Hooked: Confessions of a London Call Girl, Edinburgh, Mainstream, 2011.
Jeffreys, Sheila, The Idea of Prostitution, North Melbourne, Spinifix Press, 1997.
Keogh, Martina with Jean Harrington. Survivor: Memoirs of a Prostitute, Dublin, Maverick House, 2003.
Levine, June and Lyn Madden, Lyn: A Story of Prostitution, Dublin, Attic, 1987.
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Lyons, Mary, ed. and Margaret Leeson, The Memoirs of Mrs Leeson: Madam, Dublin, The Lilliput Press, 1995.
McKeganey, Neil and Marina Barnard, Sex Work on the Streets: Prostitutes and their Clients, Buckingham, Open University Press, 1996.
Miss S, Confessions of a Working Girl, London, Penguin, 2007.
Moran, Rachel, Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 2013.
Mullins, Dave, Ladies of the Kasbah, London, Little, Brown and Co, 1995.
Negra, Diane and Yvonne Tasker eds. Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture, Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 2007.
Negra, Diane, What a girl wants? Fantasizing the Reclamation of Self in Postfeminism. Oxford, Routledge, 2008.
Napier, Taura S., Seeking a Country: Literary Autobiographies of Twentieth-Century Irishwomen, Maryland, University Press of America, 2001.
O’Kelly, Scarlett, Between the Sheets, Dublin, Penguin Ireland, 2012.
O’Shea, Marise, The True Story of the Vice Queen, Dublin, Marino, 1997.
NOTES
1. For the purposes of this discussion the terms ‘prostitute’ and ‘sex worker’ are used interchangeably in order to reflect how the authors of these memoirs categorise themselves. 2. An Amazon search for “prostitution memoir” currently produces a list of 96 memoirs. Some of the most notable books in this genre include Pauline’s: Memoirs of the Madam on Clay Street, Pauline Tabor (1971); Miss Bankok: Memoirs of a Thai Prostitute, Bua Boonme (2007); Escort Girl, Melodie Nelson (2009); Hooked: Confessions of a London Call Girl, Claire Gee (2011). 3. A useful discussion of the fallen woman stereotype can be found in Frances Finnegan, Do Penance or Perish: Magdalen Asylums in Ireland, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001. 4. The definitive history of prostitution in the nineteenth century in Ireland can be found in Maria Luddy, Prostitution and Irish Society 1800 - 1940, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007. Literary examples of Irish prostitutes as deviant include Rosie Redmond in Sean O’Casey, ‘The Plough and the Stars’ in Three Dublin Plays, London, Faber and Faber, 1998; Teresa Burke in Liam O’Flaherty, The Puritan, London, Jonathan Cape, 1932; Nan Harding in Maurice Leitch, Silver’s City, London, Minerva, 1971. 5. Cullen murdered Dolores Lynch in her home, along with Lynch’s mother and aunt, in 1983. The case attracted much media attention because of the brutality of the act, and because of John Cullen’s links to prostitution. 6. Emma Goldman, ‘The Traffic of Women’ in Anarchism and Other Essays, New York, Cosimo Classics 2006 (1913). 7. The Immigrant Council of Ireland claim that ‘between 3 and 13 per cent of the women in indoor prostitution
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are Irish, which means that up to 97 per cent are migrant women’ in their 2009 Report Globalisation, Sex Trafficking and Prostitution: The Experiences of Migrant Women in Ireland, Monica O’Connor and Jane Pillinger, Immigrant Council of Ireland, 2009. 8. The escorting website Escort Ireland hosts a number of blogs by international workers, which detail their experiences of sex work in Ireland. 9. ‘Operation Enigma’ was set up by Scotland Yard in 2006 to investigate links between 207 murders of sex workers and other vulnerable women in the UK since 1986. Whilst homicide figures in Ireland are relatively low by comparison, over 50% of prostitute murders remain unsolved. 10. Secret Diary of a Call Girl (Lucy Prebble, ITV2 2007-2011) starred Billy Piper as a high- class escort who enjoyed her work. The series was based on the blog and memoirs of Belle de Jour (Brooke Magnanti), which describe a positive experience of life as an escort in London.
ABSTRACTS
Starting from memories of a trip through Burgundy, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin focuses on the figure of Lazarus, and his strong connection to Autun – the historic town which inspires the title of her poem. Through her words, Lazarus becomes a thread interweaving history and memory, both to celebrate a poet’s craft and to produce a work of art through a process involving life and death, birth and rebirth or resurrection.
C’est la figure de Lazare que choisit Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin comme point de départ de son poème « Autun », dont le titre évoque le souvenir d’un passage dans cette petite ville de Bourgogne au riche passé historique. Histoire et mémoire tissent une trame mêlant vie et mort, naissance et renaissance ou résurrection, aboutissant finalement à une œuvre d’art.
INDEX
Mots-clés: féminisme et post-féminisme, sexualité, femmes - représentations littéraires, prostitution, corps Keywords: sexuality, feminism and post-feminism, women - literary representations, prostitution, body
AUTHOR
CATHERINE MCGURREN Université de Bourgogne
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Le Mouvement d’occupation d’espaces publics : Occupy Dame Street et Occupy Galway
Frederic Royall et Clément Desbos
Introduction
1 Cet article revient sur le sens et la valeur de deux épisodes protestataires en Irlande entre 2011 et 2012 : Occupy Galway et Occupy Dame Street (ODS) à Dublin 1. Ces deux épisodes font référence à des protestations collectives au cœur de ces deux villes par des personnes dont la grande majorité était, jusque-là, peu ou pas politisée. Ces protestataires ont occupé des espaces publics d’octobre 2011 à février 2012 dans le cas de Dublin et d’octobre 2011 à mai 2012 dans celui de Galway. Dans leur volonté d’aller « jusqu’au bout », ces militants proclamaient ainsi leur désespoir face au marasme économique ambiant et leur colère quant à la dégradation de leurs conditions de vie. En effet, depuis 2008 le pays est aux prises avec une profonde récession économique et les pouvoirs publics, se déclarant impuissants, mettent rapidement en place des politiques d’austérité. Encouragés par la montée d’une contestation de pans entiers de la société et frustrés par les mesures économiques restrictives, les principaux protestataires du mouvement Occupy s’inscrivent dans cette logique.
2 Pourtant en peu de temps, et malgré un début d’occupation prometteur, le spectacle de ces occupants émeut de moins en moins et finit même par lasser les sympathisants de la première heure. Ce mouvement ne réussit pas non plus à susciter un engouement au Sinn du grand public surtout si l’on compare l’ampleur des manifestations en République d’Irlande à celui d’autres pays en crise comme l’Espagne ou la Grèce2. La volonté de ces militants d’occuper des espaces publics – qui ailleurs pourrait passer pour du courage – rencontre l’incompréhension du grand public qui considère les occupations comme un entêtement absurde et qui semble n’offrir aucune solution alternative pour sortir de la crise. De plus, alors que les principaux médias nationaux se sont relativement intéressés aux Indignados en Espagne, aux manifestants du printemps
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arabe, ou aux occupants newyorkais, les actions de ces militants du cru les émeuvent peu. Les médias renvoient d’ailleurs l’image d’un groupe d’irréductibles opposés à tout dialogue et résolus à défendre bec et ongles ce que beaucoup de gens considèrent comme une utopie3. Loin des espoirs des tout premiers jours d’occupations, ODS et Occupy Galway n’arrivent jamais à élargir la mobilisation ni à sensibiliser l’opinion publique comme certains militants ont su le faire dans d’autres pays4. Le mouvement irlandais se caractérise donc essentiellement par sa très forte marginalisation même s’il voit le jour dans un contexte de crise économique exceptionnelle, un contexte sans doute favorable, objectivement, à des protestations collectives telles que celles d’Occupy5.
3 Cet article revient donc sur le sens et la valeur de ces occupations et les analyse à l’aune d’une certaine spécificité irlandaise. Nous examinons les raisons de l’émergence du mouvement, nous analysons ses caractéristiques, et nous décrivons les raisons de sa faible capacité à mobiliser et de son impact limité. Pour nous, l’échec relatif de ces épisodes protestataires est à la fois le résultat de l’influence de la culture politique du pays6 et, plus important encore, des caractéristiques propres au mouvement : la sociologie des militants, la dynamique entre ces militants, et la mise en place de choix stratégiques qui se sont révélés malgré tout nuisibles aux occupations. L’article se divise de la façon suivante : la première section décrit brièvement le contexte social et économique du pays et situe le mouvement par rapport à la logique protestataire en vigueur. La seconde section analyse Occupy Galway et Occupy Dame Street.
Contexte et logique protestataire
Contexte
4 Peu de temps après le début de mouvements de protestations et d’occupations d’espaces publics dans de nombreuses villes du monde – Londres, Los Angeles, Madrid, New York, Oakland, ou Tel Aviv –, des militants irlandais organisent des manifestations et des occupations dans plusieurs villes du pays – Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, et Waterford – pour exprimer leur colère et leur frustration. En effet, le bien-être apparent et l’optimisme supposé des années du « Tigre celtique »7, impulsés par une croissance économique moyenne de près de 10 % par an, cèdent brusquement la place à la sinistrose. Forts des statistiques positives durant ces années de croissance et stimulés par des recettes fiscales extraordinaires, les divers gouvernements de coalition avaient dépensé sans compter. D’ailleurs, le premier ministre8 et le ministre de l’économie9 – hypnotisés par le crédit facile et assujettis au crédo de l’idéologie néolibérale – répondent souvent avec arrogance aux rares cassandres qui osent remettre en question le modèle de croissance adopté10. Plus encore, alors que la croissance bat son plein durant ces années de Tigre celtique, l’État se désengage peu à peu de ses obligations sociales et adopte des pratiques néolibérales de privatisations. Mais à partir de 2008, le « Tigre celtique » n’existe plus. La bulle immobilière – le socle de ces années de croissance – a volé en éclats peu de temps après l’effondrement de la Bourse à Wall Street11. Dos au mur et face à la perspective d’une faillite spectaculaire, le gouvernement se voit contraint de donner le feu vert à des garanties sur tout dépôt dans les six principales banques privées du pays au bord de la faillite : Allied Irish Bank, Bank of Ireland, Anglo Irish Bank, Irish Life & Permanent, Irish Nationwide Building Society, et Educational Building Society. Mais ces garanties n’ayant pas freiné
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l’infernale spirale négative, tous les indicateurs économiques sont au rouge quelques mois plus tard. En novembre 2010, la marge de manœuvre étant extrêmement limitée et la faillite économique pointant à l’horizon, le gouvernement se voit à nouveau obligé de prendre une décision lourde de conséquences : accepter une aide exceptionnelle de 85 milliards d’euros d’une troïka composée de la Commission européenne, de la Banque centrale européenne, et du Fonds monétaire international et donc renoncer à son pouvoir de décision politico-économique. C’est dans ce contexte économique particulièrement difficile que les pouvoirs publics sont contraints de mettre en place une série de mesures d’austérité : réduction des dépenses publiques, coupes salariales dans la fonction publique, non remplacement des départs à la retraite, ponctions sur les revenus, restrictions de diverses allocations familiales, plafonnement des prestations sociales, durcissement de l’attribution de l’allocation pour les handicapés, etc. Selon certains critiques, les crises bancaires, fiscales, et financières sont le résultat direct de l’asservissement des pouvoirs publics irlandais au capital international pendant ces années du « Tigre celtique12 ».
Logique protestataire
5 Les réactions aux dégradations des conditions de vie ne tardent pas. Le mouvement syndical organise une série de manifestations à Dublin dans lesquelles défilent près de 120 000 personnes le 21 février 200913 et plus de 100 000 personnes le 27 novembre 201014. De nombreuses autres manifestations, organisées indépendamment du mouvement syndical, voient aussi le jour. Ces protestataires regroupent tous les secteurs de la société et toutes les tranches d’âge : étudiants, retraités, enseignants, gardiens de prison, parents de famille monoparentale, paysans, aspirants infirmiers, etc. À Dublin par exemple, 25 000 étudiants manifestent contre l’austérité le 3 novembre 201015 ; 2 000 personnes protestent le 27 novembre 201116 ; et 10 000 descendent dans la rue un an plus tard17. L’ampleur des manifestations contre l’austérité est sans doute moins importante de ce qui se produit à la même époque dans d’autres pays en crise de la zone euro – l’Italie, la Grèce, le Portugal ou l’Espagne.18 Pourtant, le nombre des manifestants est considérable à l’échelle de l’Irlande où les manifestations de très grande ampleur sur des questions socio-économiques étaient rares ces vingt dernières années. À partir de 2011, les manifestants irlandais cherchent donc à faire entendre leur colère et leur frustration, à rejeter les plans d’austérité, et à s’opposer à ce qu’ils considèrent comme l’abandon de la souveraineté du pays.
6 Le mouvement Occupy s’inscrit dans la foulée des mobilisations anti-austérité, ce qui démontre qu’un changement sensible dans la culture de la protestation est bien en cours. Pour autant, les actions des nombreux protestataires – et ceux d’Occupy en particulier – ne se démarquent pas radicalement d’une certaine logique protestataire du pays. Ainsi, les mots d’ordre du mouvement Occupy, comme ceux de la très grande majorité des autres mobilisations, ne sont pas forcément l’aboutissement d’un discours longuement réfléchi et doté d’une structure théorique construite. De nombreux militants d’Occupy n’adhèrent pas non plus forcément à une dialectique de « résistance de classe » ou à celle d’une « résistance antilibérale ». En fait, la grande majorité d’entre eux refusent de rattacher leurs actions à ces cadres parce qu’ils pourraient diluer ou compromettre le sens de leurs actions qu’ils estiment devoir être clair pour ne pas tourner le dos aux médias et, par extension, au grand public. De sorte que, même si beaucoup de militants d’Occupy s’engagent dans une lutte à caractère relativement
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exceptionnel pour le pays, la plupart d’entre eux s’efforcent sans cesse de rejeter tout marquage identitaire et/ou politique qui pourrait les assimiler à des radicaux puisque ce qualificatif serait dommageable à leur engagement. Voyons pourquoi.
7 Pour nous, le mouvement Occupy en République d’Irlande n’a de sens que si on le rapporte à l’héritage de la contestation sociale du pays qui est, elle, liée aux traditions sociopolitiques, aux facteurs conjoncturels, et aux rapports de force. De sorte que la plupart des protestataires irlandais, dont ceux d’Occupy, n’agissent pas forcément ou principalement en fonction de normes ou d’orientations politiques et/ou idéologiques communément repérables et/ou admises dans d’autres pays européens et en France notamment. En effet, la culture partisane de la République d’Irlande ne se caractérise pas traditionnellement par un clivage classique droite/gauche mais par une rivalité historique entre les deux principales forces politiques sur la question du statut d’indépendance du pays vis-à-vis de la Grande Bretagne19. Les clivages traditionnels ne s’articulent donc pas autour de modèles doctrinaires de société ou de visions fortement contrastées du développement socio-économique (droite/gauche). Les campagnes électorales sont avant tout liées aux conditions économiques et sociales du pays et s’accommodent mal à une rhétorique « révolutionnaire » qui entendrait rompre avec le capitalisme. La culture politique ne s’y prête pas et toute tentative en ce sens tend à décrédibiliser ceux qui en usent. La vie politique irlandaise contemporaine et les débats qu’elle suscite sont essentiellement pragmatiques dans le sens où les orientations économiques proposées par les deux partis majoritaires (Fianna Fáil et Fine Gael) qui se relaient au pouvoir depuis les années 1920 misent sur des ajustements et des réformes crédibles. En l’absence d’affrontements politiques privilégiant un modèle de société face à un autre, l’histoire politique irlandaise récente se caractérise par des combinaisons d’alliances politiques où des partis minoritaires affranchis d’un carcan idéologique strict ont pu participer à différentes formations de gouvernement, sans que ces types de montages politiques ne paraissent incongrus20. Par ailleurs, le clientélisme règne, ce qui favorise le dialogue entre interlocuteurs privilégiés et la recherche du consensus plutôt que le recours au conflit social21.
8 Inscrite dans ce contexte politico-culturel, la protestation collective en République d’Irlande met donc habituellement en scène des personnes qui s’expriment ou s’identifient peu souvent en termes de gauche ou de droite étant donné que les notions de classe sociale et d’appartenance de classe ont beaucoup de mal à s’imposer dans ce pays22, même si des changements importants se précisent ces dernières années23. Un de ces changements s’est concrétisé dans la belle performance du Sinn Fein lors de l’élection législative de 2011. Mais même s’il profite de la montée du mouvement anti- austérité, le Sinn Fein est soucieux de prendre ses distances avec le qualificatif de « parti de gauche » qui lui est parfois attribué. En effet, le Sinn Fein, ainsi que d’autres mouvements dits républicains, cherchent à occuper ou à monopoliser le terrain des questions sociales depuis les années 1960, terrain traditionnellement occupé par Fianna Fáil, décrit souvent comme le parti le plus soucieux des intérêts de la classe ouvrière ou des classes moyennes. Mais, Fianna Fáil – au pouvoir de manière presqu’ininterrompue depuis 1987 dans différentes coalitions et le grand perdant en 2011 – a cédé beaucoup de terrain au Sinn Féin ces dernières années. La défaite de Fianna Fáil en 2011 représentait d’ailleurs le pire échec d’un gouvernement sortant depuis la création de l’État en 192224. En remportant 14 sièges de députés sur 166, dont celui de Gerry Adams dans le comté de Louth, contre quatre dans la précédente mandature, le Sinn Féin semble ainsi avoir réussi à s’affirmer aux yeux d’un nombre important d'électeurs
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comme étant le principal parti républicain opposé à l’austérité et à prendre le relais politique de la « gauche » aux expressions de colères populaires. Pourtant, la proximité du Sinn Féin avec la violence politique est un facteur non-négligeable du peu de sympathie d’une bonne partie de la société irlandaise à son endroit comme pour d’autres partis de « gauche ». Dans cet esprit, les militants d’Occupy à Galway et à Dublin se sont, eux aussi, fortement opposés aux conceptions politiques et sociales des partis qui se réclament de la « gauche », dont celles du Sinn Féin.
9 En gros, cette « exception irlandaise » tend à influer sur le comportement des principaux militants d’Occupy. Ainsi, ceux-ci ont-ils largement suivi des procédés spécifiques – discussions avec des partenaires privilégiés pour trouver des solutions à l’amiable par exemple – pour essayer de ne pas sortir du lot commun négocié et pacifié. De ce point de vue, de nombreux militants d’Occupy en République d’Irlande ont vite reconnu que l’intransigeance ou que certaines formes de protestations radicales (destructions symboliques, etc.) ne paient pas25. En ce sens, si parfois les procédés de médiation politique ne fonctionnent pas et si certaines protestations peuvent paraître comme le résultat ou l’expression d’un désespoir, le recours à des formes ostentatoires pour exprimer un mécontentement est plutôt évité et, le plus souvent, unanimement condamné26. Mais même si ces normes ont sans doute beaucoup évolué ces quinze dernières années, le contexte discursif reste toujours défavorable aux expressions ostentatoires de la contestation sociale27.
10 D’ailleurs, les acteurs ne rendraient pas leur cause plus valide en la politisant mais ils tendraient au contraire à enfermer leur mobilisation dans un cadre inintelligible pour leurs adversaires alors peu à même d’entrevoir un compromis possible ou les termes clairs d’une potentielle négociation. De fait, le répertoire d’actions collectives auquel ont recours les acteurs mobilisés dont ceux d’Occupy en particulier se doit avant tout d’être porteur de sens. Le sens attaché à l’action ne peut être la simple expression d’une frustration élémentaire (aussi justifiée soit-elle) face à une situation perçue comme injuste. De nombreux mouvements récents tout comme ceux d’Occupy sont dans l’obligation de simplifier les objectifs de la lutte et de rester lisibles à la fois pour les médias, qui pourraient relayer ou porter leur cause, et pour le grand public qui, s’il y est sensible, peut influer considérablement sur l’issue de la cause défendue. Pour y parvenir, les mouvement sociaux, et donc ceux des militants d’Occupy, se doivent de démontrer que leur cause est « juste » ou qu’elle doit être perçue comme telle, et que les méthodes utilisées pour la défendre ne peuvent se réduire à l’expression d’une provocation, ne serait-ce que pour susciter une émotion ou une sensibilisation à la cause.
11 Ceci dit, il convient d’être prudent vis-à-vis de la contestation sociale en République d’Irlande. Deux études majeures notent bien qu’il y a eu une hausse assez importante de la contestation sociale dans ce pays depuis ces dernières années et donc que la culture politique évolue28. Selon ces auteurs, les mouvements sociaux contemporains seraient inédits et cela démontrerait que les exigences portées par ces « nouveaux » mouvements sociaux sont plutôt d’ordre qualitatif (qualité de la vie) que quantitatif (matérialiste) dans cette société en évolution. La nouveauté de la contestation sociale dans ce pays ou le contraste affirmé entre enjeux matériels et enjeux post matérialistes nous paraît hautement contestable. C’est pourquoi, dans le cas précis d’Occupy en République d’Irlande, nous préférons faire appel à l’interprétation du changement culturel ou de l’expression des cadres de l’expérience29. Selon ces paradigmes, des
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individus ordinaires cherchent à comprendre et à donner un sens aux situations d’injustice devant l’arbitraire ou la discrimination qu’ils rencontrent et qui les conduisent à envisager de se mobiliser30. Pour les militants d’Occupy il y aurait donc une sorte d’alignement des cadres dans le sens où une relation s’établit entre les façons dont les individus et les organisations des mouvements sociaux interprètent les situations. De sorte que des intérêts, valeurs, croyances des individus, activités, et buts de ces mouvements deviennent complémentaires31. Le passage à l’action collective dépend aussi de la disponibilité de ressources pour construire le mouvement et pour diffuser les revendications dans l’espace public. Le désespoir des acteurs et le répertoire des mobilisations qui dictent les actions sont fortement attachés à l’idée que des opposants œuvrent ensemble contre un système tout autant que contre des agents politiques identifiables. Cet isolement et ce dénuement dans la mobilisation (faible soutien populaire, peu de soutien de personnages publics/élites, faibles ressources) donnent à la cause et aux formes de ces épisodes l’image d’un mouvement où les acteurs n’ont plus rien à perdre. C’est cette image d’acteurs sociaux à la fois déterminés et désespérés qui a notamment caractérisé le mouvement Occupy en République d’Irlande, et peut-être plus encore, c’est ainsi qu’il était souvent perçu. En effet, les acteurs mobilisés étaient déterminés à se faire entendre et à être vus même en ayant recours à un répertoire radical dont ils savaient qu’il était négativement connoté aux yeux du grand public. Cependant, aux dires des militants eux-mêmes, le mouvement s’imposait presque de lui-même, car personne ne souhaitait précisément donner une voix aux victimes réelles de la crise qui les frappait de plein fouet32.
12 D’autre part, le caractère perturbateur des actions entreprises par Occupy en République d’Irlande est aussi le résultat d’un certain amateurisme de l’action collective (ce qui est peu surprenant compte tenu de l’importante proportion de primo- militants), ajouté à un refus d’être de près ou de loin associé à des acteurs ou à des organisations susceptibles de détourner le mouvement de sa voie. De sorte qu’il est apparu très tôt que le mouvement ne se donnait pas d’horizon de changement spécifique et n’avait pas établi de stratégies précises pour mener à bien des actions collectives efficaces et concertées. Pour autant, il nous apparaît que cette faiblesse stratégique du mouvement et l’image négative qu’il a rapidement renvoyée dans l’opinion publique n’étaient pas une fatalité. L’analyse du mouvement Occupy en République d’Irlande, au travers des campements d’ODS et d’Occupy Galway va nous permettre de montrer en quoi la culture politique et les choix stratégiques des acteurs mobilisés ont joué un rôle déterminant dans l’échec du mouvement en termes d’écho et d’audience populaire.
Occupy Dame Street et Occupy Galway
13 Comme nous l’avons indiqué plus haut, le mouvement Occupy en République d’Irlande voit le jour dans les remous des mouvements qui ont émergé quelques mois plus tôt en Espagne et aux États-Unis. Tout se déclenche le 8 octobre 2011 à Dublin. Ce jour-là, le grand public est invité par réseaux sociaux interposés à manifester devant la Banque centrale (située à Dame Street) et à poursuivre la protestation en restant sur place : « Yes, we camp ». Les premières tentes installées, le mouvement se structure rapidement. Une semaine plus tard d’autres campements voient le jour dans les plus grandes villes
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du pays et notamment à Galway où les manifestants décident de s’installer à Eyre Square, la place centrale de la ville.
Profil sociologique
14 Il convient avant tout de s’arrêter (brièvement) sur le profil sociologique des manifestants qui s’engagent dans le mouvement. Au travers d’entretiens menés sur place, il nous est clairement apparu que le profil des protestataires a été déterminant dans la conduite du mouvement à Dublin comme à Galway. De sorte que les militants ont façonné des pratiques et utilisé des références qui, si elles entendaient s’inscrire dans un mouvement international de protestation, n’en demeuraient pas moins propres aux ressources des acteurs mobilisés et aux contextes politique, économique et social dans lesquels ils évoluaient.
15 Aux premiers jours du mouvement Occupy en République d’Irlande, il apparaît que la très grande majorité des protestataires d’ODS et d’Occupy Galway ne se connaissent pas. À ce moment-là, leur nombre est très restreint : une douzaine à Galway, plusieurs dizaines à Dublin. À Galway, la représentation homme-femme est assez équilibrée et la moyenne d’âge reste basse du fait du nombre important d’étudiants assez assidus au Sinn du camp. Mais on y repère aussi des militants plus chevronnés qui ont notamment été engagés (et pour certains le sont alors toujours) dans des collectifs environnementaux ou qui ont participé à des campagnes de protestation et de résistance locale. D’autres encore sont ou ont été membres de partis politiques ou de syndicats. On y trouve enfin une proportion importante de protestataires plus âgés qui se trouvent souvent dans des situations sociales et professionnelles précaires.
16 Pour les plus jeunes occupants, l’établissement du camp est l’occasion d’un premier véritable engagement dans l’action collective. Par conséquent, la notion d’apprentissage et le caractère pédagogique d’une telle expérience sont souvent mis en exergue par ces primo-militants. Il est ainsi question d’un apprentissage pratique pour construire et maintenir un camp viable (face aux contraintes de sécurité, d’hygiène, ou même de la météo) mais aussi théorique par le partage d’expériences et la confrontation d’idées au contact d’autres militants plus chevronnés. Si le caractère international du mouvement irlandais ne doit pas être surestimé, il convient d’indiquer néanmoins que les camps de Dublin et de Galway servent également de lieu de rencontre pour des militants de passage, notamment étrangers. Certains activistes espagnols et français séjournent ainsi dans les camps pour de courtes durées33.
Structuration
17 Dès les premières semaines, les campements se structurent et la diversité des effectifs s’enrichit. La présence de plusieurs générations de militants aux expériences et aux valeurs très diverses dans un périmètre restreint contribue assez tôt à voir naître des oppositions franches notamment quant aux priorités à donner au mouvement ou à l’identité que certains souhaitent lui donner et, plus largement, au niveau d’ouverture du mouvement vis-à-vis d’autres acteurs politiques et sociaux34.
18 En s’engageant dans l’aventure du mouvement Occupy, un certain nombre de facteurs échappent à l’origine largement aux protagonistes, puisqu’ils ignorent qui se joindra à eux et dans quelle proportion, mais aussi parce qu’ils ne savent pas combien de temps il
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leur sera permis de protester. À Galway, cette expérience de longue durée n’a pas de précédent et voit ainsi s’opposer les militants du camp et les autorités locales quant à la légalité d’occuper un endroit public qui, par définition « appartient à tous et n’est la propriété de personne35 ». En se retrouvant sur le site d’un lieu précis pour faire entendre leur colère et leur frustration, les militants d’Occupy Galway et d’ODS, qui pour la plupart se rencontrent pour la première fois, semblent vivre cette expérience au jour le jour. De fait, cela contribue à réduire les capacités d’organisation et de planification d’actions collectives d’envergure. Il apparaît assez tôt que le campement lui-même est la forme principale de protestation du mouvement, ce qui, incidemment, pousse certainement les militants à privilégier la sécurité et la continuité du campement plutôt que de se projeter à l’extérieur de celui-ci. Cela rejoint une certaine pénurie de ressources pour mener effectivement à bien des actions hors du camp. C’est notamment le cas du point de vue de la très faible coordination et communication des différents campements entre eux. L’indépendance du camp est ainsi liée à la faible portée du mouvement et à la réticence de ses membres à se projeter hors du périmètre physique de protestation.
19 À Dublin surtout, le camp est un lieu de rencontres et de débats où se retrouvent des syndicalistes, des universitaires, des artistes, et des militants politiques aux parcours multiples. Nombre d’entre eux ne séjournent pas dans le camp mais y passent régulièrement quelques heures pour écouter et prendre part aux débats. Cependant la relation avec les partis politiques ou les syndicats institués est assez difficile. À Dublin, sans doute plus qu’à Galway, certains représentants politiques et syndicaux ne sont pas les bienvenus et ils ne leur est pas permis de s’exprimer tant une minorité intransigeante craint que certaines formations/organisations infiltrent et instrumentalisent le mouvement. À Dublin, ODS est particulièrement soucieux de ne pas être infiltré par le Socialist Workers’ Party. À Galway, les membres des organisations politiques et syndicales ne sont pas interdits mais ils n’ont pas le droit de tracter au Sinn du camp notamment, ni de parler publiquement au nom du mouvement. Pour autant, de nombreux intervenants viennent s’y exprimer et le public est parfois nombreux pour venir les entendre. Mais le caractère éducatif et pédagogique de cette expérience ne conduit pas à une volonté de coordonner des actions collectives unitaires ou à envisager des discussions sérieuses quant à des alternatives à proposer. Si les responsables du marasme que traverse le pays sont facilement identifiés, les acteurs du mouvement ne sont pas en mesure de s’engager dans l’élaboration d’une stratégie d’actions collectives pour porter des solutions alternatives ou pour élaborer un projet.
20 Les militants que nous avons interviewés confirment qu’à Dublin, et sans doute bien plus qu’à Galway, le partage des expériences et des idées ne se fait pas sans heurts. L’important capital militant des plus âgés s’oppose parfois frontalement à l’idéalisme des primo-militants soucieux de préserver le caractère inédit et, à leur sens, apolitique du mouvement. Aux affrontements verbaux s’ajoutent une remise en cause du droit de certains à prendre la parole : pour certains des occupants les plus intransigeants, seuls ceux qui résident dans le camp ont une véritable légitimité à s’y exprimer. Plus encore, du fait des conditions matérielles souvent très difficiles (les camps de Dame Street et de Galway sont établis au début de l’hiver), un très grand nombre de militants ne sont pas en mesure de séjourner dans le camp (en raison de leur âge, de leur situation professionnelle ou familiale, etc.). La diversité sociale originelle revendiquée s’en trouve progressivement affaiblie. Ainsi, l’image d’un mouvement ouvert à un large
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public et représentatif des frustrations de l’opinion du grand public dans sa diversité souffrante tourne court, et après quelques mois le camp semble progressivement s’enfermer sur lui-même. Dans de telles conditions, la composition du camp évolue. À Dublin, le camp sert progressivement d’abri à une portion croissante de très jeunes gens sans domicile fixe et en rupture sociale et familiale. Les conditions d’insalubrité provoquent aussi la frustration, voire la colère, chez les commerçants ou chez les riverains qui avaient été pourtant parmi les premiers à offrir de l’aide matérielle (des vivres) aux occupants. La présence dans le camp des jeunes sans-abris est alors bien plus le résultat d’une recherche de solidarité morale ou matérielle qu’un véritable engagement militant, voulu et réfléchi, ou une adhésion aux idées du mouvement36. Leur intégration est d’autant plus aisée que le mouvement est dépourvu d’un agenda d’actions collectives précis et contraignant.
21 Il est ainsi intéressant de noter que, sur la durée, le mouvement en République d’Irlande, ou plus précisément son émanation à travers les campements, se soit progressivement affaibli par l’arrivée de ces personnes en marge qui contribuent très peu au rayonnement d’Occupy. Le mouvement aurait pu à l’inverse se radicaliser en accentuant, par exemple, sa capacité de nuisance par une plus grande implication de militants plus expérimentés et plus motivés que les militants originaux. Il n’en a rien été. Cette dilution progressive a contribué à détourner rapidement une frange importante de la classe moyenne – ou des occupants au profil sociologique diversifié – pourtant a priori en résonnance avec le mouvement et donc potentiellement mobilisable. Au fil des semaines, le mouvement s’échoue dans des conflits internes et s’épuise dans un quotidien matériel difficile qui laisse peu de place à l’action collective effective. L’affaiblissement de sa diversité et de sa représentativité réduisent son attractivité vis-à-vis du public (et des médias) ce qui à son tour contribue progressivement à renforcer son caractère marginal.
Engagement et choix stratégiques
22 Ce constat renvoie aussi à la notion même d’engagement politique au Sinn d’Occupy en République d’Irlande. Dans des campements de Dame Street à Dublin et d'Eyre Square à Galway, les participants sont très partagés quant à la nature même du mouvement. Beaucoup considèrent ainsi que le mouvement n’est pas politique en soi, mais vise simplement à exprimer une frustration vis-à-vis d’une situation socio-économique catastrophique et de la pertinence des mesures prises pour en sortir. On touche ici à la dynamique du mouvement proprement dit. En République d’Irlande comme ailleurs, les militants ne cherchent pas à faire aboutir des revendications précises par tous les moyens. Même si elles sont effectivement propres au mouvement irlandais et à la situation socio-économique catastrophique que traverse le pays, les revendications font figure de vœux pieux et permettent surtout de consolider l’identité collective des acteurs mobilisés37. L’isolement progressif du mouvement en République d’Irlande est accentué par la réticence des acteurs mobilisés à traduire la dynamique du mouvement en une participation politique effective (par exemple en présentant des candidats à des élections locales, en s’appuyant sur des formations politiques en phase avec les valeurs du mouvement, etc.). On touche ici à deux caractéristiques qui, même si elles ne sont pas forcément spécifiques au contexte politique irlandais, ont une forte influence sur lui. D’une part, comme on l’a vu, l’offre politique partisane dans le pays reste très marquée par le clivage entre les deux principaux partis. Si des alternatives politiques
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existent effectivement, elles demeurent minoritaires : en termes de poids politique les petites formations politiques et les candidats indépendants contribuent à faire l’appoint lorsqu’un des deux partis ne parvient pas à obtenir une majorité absolue au Parlement. Les coalitions sont alors circonstancielles et propres à des accords internes qui sont bien plus pragmatiques qu’idéologiques. Pour autant, ces dix dernières années ont vu l’émergence de mouvements alternatifs très minoritaires mais nettement marqués à gauche (Drop the Debt, People Before Profit, Anti-Eviction Taskforce, Debt Justice Network, etc.), dont certains sont nés à la suite d’importantes campagnes de protestation. Mais la transition de l’action collective structurée à l’engagement politique formel ne va pas de soi et l’émergence de nouveaux acteurs – tels que la United Left Alliance – ou de nouvelles dynamiques dans le débat politique modifient finalement peu le choix et la représentation politique nationale. Les habitudes historiques, familiales et géographiques qui influencent le vote sont toujours très profondes en République d’Irlande. Cela est d’autant plus paradoxal que les circonstances et le contexte politique et économique ont considérablement changé ces quinze dernières années. Dans le contexte d’une très profonde récession économique aux conséquences sociales sans précédent, on aurait pu s’attendre à voir émerger une force alternative puissante dans les urnes. Il n’en a rien été malgré la percée du Sinn Féin. De ce point de vue, une certaine apathie générale de la rue, une très forte récurrence de l’émigration depuis 2008 et, surtout, l’impotence de l’action collective dans un tel contexte rejoint, en République d’Irlande, le faible renouvellement des forces politiques dans le pays.
Conclusions
23 La faible prise du mouvement Occupy en République d’Irlande dans un contexte a priori favorable à la mobilisation collective est source d’interrogations. La colère latente et la frustration des victimes de la crise ne se sont pas traduites par un engagement massif au Sinn du mouvement Occupy comme ce fut le cas dans d’autres pays comme en Espagne par exemple. Parmi les militants du mouvement la sympathie passive de la population vis-à-vis d’Occupy a longtemps généré de l’incompréhension pour nourrir à terme un certain découragement38.
24 Le peu d’appétit à vouloir construire des alliances avec d’autres acteurs ou organisations idéologiquement proches du mouvement Occupy en République d’Irlande, ajouté à une crainte, profonde chez certains, de voir le mouvement instrumentalisé par d’autres formations, a conduit assez tôt à ce que les campements se replient sur eux-mêmes, ce qui est somme toute paradoxal pour un mouvement qui se voulait large et rassembleur (« We are the 99% ») de tous les profils des victimes de la crise et des plans d’austérité. De sorte que les campements sont finalement devenus la seule expression protestataire du mouvement : les actions collectives extérieures au camp (marches, manifestations, universités populaires, etc.) se sont considérablement raréfiées après l’effervescence des premières semaines.
25 La culture politique irlandaise, les spécificités historiques qui ont façonné le paysage électoral, et la rhétorique des partis politiques ne sont pas étrangères au peu de considération dont les mouvements sociaux sont généralement l’objet en République d’Irlande. La nature pragmatique de l’offre politique traditionnelle contraste nettement avec les revendications perçues comme simplistes voire utopiques de militants que l’opinion peine à identifier. Au-delà d’une certaine bienveillance vis-à-vis des victimes
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de la crise qui cherchent à se faire entendre, il ressort de nos recherches que le public ne parvient pas à comprendre ce que veulent ces gens et ce qu’ils proposent pour remédier à la crise. Cette difficile lecture du mouvement n’est pas simplement imputable aux médias qu’ils soient locaux ou nationaux39. Par ailleurs, la faiblesse organisationnelle et propositionnelle du mouvement en République d’Irlande a considérablement compromis les chances de « succès » d’un mouvement particulièrement soucieux de préserver son identité naissante. Les relations complexes entre différents groupes (d’âge, de classe, mais aussi de culture politique) au Sinn même d’ODS ont mis en exergue les difficultés à consolider tôt le mouvement en lui offrant des passerelles (associatives, syndicales, partisanes). Pour autant, la représentation politique d’une certaine « gauche radicale », bien que très minoritaire, existe bel et bien en République d’Irlande. Depuis une quinzaine d’années, des regroupements d’organisations politiques et d’alliances ont vu le jour, souvent au terme de mouvements sociaux ou pour en soutenir les revendications et s’en faire l’écho à l’échelle nationale (dans le débat démocratique à l’assemblée, au travers de médias nationaux). C’est notamment le cas de la United Left Alliance qui regroupe des représentants de People Before Profit, et du Workers and Unemployed Action Group qui défend les droits des chômeurs. Ces regroupements de militants sont parvenus, parfois de façon chaotique, à faire élire certains de leurs représentants au niveau national. Dans le détail de leurs revendications et de leur ligne politique, on ne peut que souligner l’extrême proximité de ces acteurs politiques avec les valeurs mises en avant par les activistes d’Occupy. Les militants d’Occupy ne sont donc pas apparus sur un terrain vierge de toutes revendications concrètes. Mais leur volonté de tenir cette « gauche » à distance a certainement contribué à isoler un mouvement déjà marqué par les dissensions internes et érodé par la difficulté à maintenir un campement dans des conditions matérielles pénibles. Déterminé à jouer tout son rôle au Sinn d’une vague internationale de protestations, le mouvement Occupy en République d’Irlande a mis en exergue, malgré sa longévité, les limites d’un mouvement à faibles ressources à exister localement.
NOTES
1. Cet article repose sur une enquête sociologique et d’une analyse de type qualitatif. Entre octobre 2012 et mars 2013, nous avons effectué une trentaine d’entretiens ouverts et semi-ouverts auprès d’anciens militants d’Occupy (à Limerick, à Galway, et à Dublin) et une vingtaine auprès de syndicalistes et de militants associatifs et politiques. Nous avons aussi procédé à des observations participantes lors de manifestations en novembre 2012 organisées par des groupes issus d’Occupy Galway. Enfin, nous avons analysé systématiquement divers documents imprimés et électroniques provenant des mouvements Occupy. 2. Eduardo Romanos, « Collective learning processes within social movements: Some insights into the Spanish 15M/ Indignados movement », in Cristina Flesher Fominaya et
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Laurence Cox (dir.), Understanding European Movements, Londres, Routledge, 2013 ; Nikos Sotirakopoulos, et George Sotiropoulos, « “Direct democracy now!”: The Greek Indignados and the present cycle of struggles », Current Sociology, n° 61(4), 2013, p. 443-456. 3. Voir [ http://www.thejournal.ie/occupy-dame-street-camp-is-killing-temple-bar- businesses-335948-Jan2012/], consulté le 7 novembre 2013. 4. Tova Benski, Lauren Langman, Ignacia Perugorría, et Benjamín Tejerina, « From the streets and squares to social movement studies: What have we learned? », Current Sociology, 2013, n° 61(4), p. 541-561 ; Kathleen Khatib, Margaret Killjoy et Mile McGuire, We Are Many: Reflections on Movement Strategy from Occupation to Liberation. Oakland: AK Press, 2012 ; Jenny Pickerill et John Krinsky, « Why does occupy matter? », Social Movement Studies, 2012, n° 11(3-4), p. 279-287. 5. Sur la critique des conditions objectives à la mobilisation de personnes précarisées, voir Simone Baglioni, Britta Baumgarten, Didier Chabanet et Christian Lahusen, « Transcending marginalization : The mobilization of the unemployed in France, Germany and Italy in comparative perspective », Mobilization, 2008, n° 13(3), p. 323-336. 6. Nous ne nions pas l’importance du rôle d’une certaine « culture » de l’émigration comme « soupape de sécurité », ce qui pourrait permettre de réduire le risque d’effervescence sociale. 7. Essentiellement, les années 1990 et la première partie des années 2000. Pour des analyses radicalement différentes sur le bien-être présumé des années du « Tigre celtique », voir Kieran Allen, The Celtic Tiger : The Myth of Social Partnership in Ireland, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2000 ; Peadar Kirby, Celtic Tiger in Collapse : Explaining the Weaknesses of the Irish Model, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 8. À l’occasion du congrès de l’Irish Congress of Trade Unions à Bundoran, le 4 juillet 2007, le premier ministre, Bertie Ahern, déclare : « My message to you this morning is about confidence for the future. Confidence, in the strength of the economy that we have created together over recent decades. […] Confidence, in our own judgement in the face of commentators and others who regularly cast doubt, not only on our future, but even on the reality of our past achievements […] There are those who believe that our recent successes are an illusion. That they will disappear and we will be back to the natural order, an Ireland of unemployment and under-achievement. Some of these voices were telling us, not so long ago, that our approach was all wrong […] They were wrong then, and they are still wrong […] Sitting on the sidelines, cribbing and moaning is a lost opportunity. I don’t know how people who engage in that don’t commit suicide. » Lors de la campagne législative le premier ministre annonce : « Their vision [that of the so-called alternative “rainbow” government of Fine Gael, Labour, and the Greens] is back to the bad old days. The bad old days called the 1980s. Their formula is to raise taxes! Raise taxes, reduce revenue, deter investment and destroy jobs. That Rainbow idea is not acceptable and would bring a dark cloud over the entire Irish economy. » (Cité dans Sean Phelan, « The discourses of neoliberal hegemony : The case of the Irish Republic », Critical Discourse Studies, 2007, n° 4(1), p. 38-39. 9. Interviewé à la télévision nationale en 2000, le ministre de l’économie, Charlie McCreevy indique : « People work and earn an extra 20 pounds a week. It is that person’s money. There seems to be a kind of belief in some quarters in the country that that money belongs to the state. It does not! It belongs to Joe or Mary, who’s earned it by, through their work or through their business or whatever. I think it’s a philosophy much to be admired, not to be decried by some of these left wing pinkos. The underlying philosophy that some people aspire to
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here and write a lot about is based on a redundant, type left wing socialist [unclear] which has failed. » (cité dans Sean Phelan, Ibid., p. 41). 10. Le premier ministre, Bertie Ahern, se délectait à traiter certains de ses opposants – mêmes les plus conservateurs – de « pinko leftists » (des extrémistes de gauche) parce qu’il savait bien que l’estocade ferait mouche et serait bien appréciée du grand public. De sorte, il soulignait que ses opposants soutenaient des valeurs marginales, dépassées et fondamentalement contraires à l’esprit des Irlandais. 11. Donal Donovan et Antoin Murphy, The Fall of the Celtic Tiger: Ireland and the Euro Debt Crisis, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013. 12. Rob Kitchin, Cian O’Callaghan, Mark Boyle, Justin Gleeson, et Karen Keaveney, « Placing neoliberalism. The rise and fall of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger », Environment and Planning A, 2012, n° 44(6), p. 1302–1326. 13. « Up to 120,000 protest in recession-hit Ireland », Agence France Presse, [http:// www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h-2YAiEAC9OSrsNnMxYl0ZbagLrw], consulté le 10 novembre 2013. 14. Henry McDonald, « Thousands protest against Irish bailout », The Observer du 27 novembre 2010. 15. Sean Flynn, « 25,000 Protest against fees increase », Irish Times du 4 novembre 2010. 16. « Thousands rally against Govt austerity plans », RTÉ News du 28 novembre 2011, [http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/1124/354577-anti-austerity-protest-to-take-place-in- dublin/], consulté le 11 novembre 2013. 17. « Numbers marching revised to 10,000 in anti-austerity protest », RTÉ News du 24 novembre 2012, [http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1126/309173-demonstration/], consulté le 11 novembre 2013. 18. Raphael Minder, “Workers across Europe synchronize protests”, New York Times du 14 novembre 2012. Voir aussi, Lorenzo Zamponi, « Why don’t Italians occupy? Hypothesis on a failed mobilization », Social Movement Studies, 2012, n° 11(3-4), p. 416– 26. 19. Peadar Kirby, « Civil society, social movements and the Irish state », Irish Journal of Sociology, 2010, n° 18(2), p. 1-22. 20. John Coakley, « Society and political culture », in John Coakley et Michael Gallagher (dir.), Politics in the Republic of Ireland, (5e édition), Londres, Routledge, 2010, p. 37-71. 21. Cette « culture » de la contestation sociale se retrouve dans la manière dont des militants écologistes, par exemple, mènent campagne. Dans ce cas précis, alors que les organisations allemandes, françaises, hollandaises ou anglaises ont eu des trajectoires assez similaires – développement rapide et radical au cours des années 1970, institutionnalisation dans les années 1980 et 1990, et fragmentation depuis la fin des années 1990 –, les trajectoires des organisations irlandaises sont beaucoup moins mouvementées (voir Chris Rootes [dir.], Environmental Movements: Local, National and Global, Londres, Frank Cass, 1999). En effet, les organisations irlandaises ont privilégié le recours à la coopération avec les spécialistes de l’économie et de l’environnement et elles ont évité scrupuleusement tout recours au conflit avec les pouvoirs publics (voir Hilary Tovey, Environmentalism in Ireland : Movement and Activists, Dublin, Institute of Public Administration, 2007, p. 17-32). Pour elles, comme plus généralement chez la plupart des organisations de mouvements sociaux en Irlande, le conflit est considéré comme contre-productif et leur ferait courir le risque d’être marginalisées sur des
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dossiers importants. Ces organisations irlandaises se sont donc conformées au dialogue, ce qui s’accorde avec la culture politique du pays. 22. « La prédominance du “dogme républicain” sur la question nationale a obscurci les relations de domination de classe […] Dans ce contexte, il était extrêmement difficile de mettre sur pied des actions collectives [et] toute mobilisation [protestataire] était le plus souvent vouée à l’échec. » Frédéric Royall, Mobilisations de chômeurs en Irlande (1985-1995), Paris, L’Harmattan, 2005, p. 59. 23. Peter Mair et Liam Weeks, « The party system », in John Coakley et Michael Gallagher (dir.), Politics in the Republic of Ireland, (4e édition), Londres, Routledge, 2005, p. 148 ; Voir aussi Michel Peillon, « The constitution of protest as sign in contemporary Ireland”, Irish Political Studies, 2001, n° 16(1), p. 95-110. 24. Peter Mair, « The election in context », in Michael Gallagher et Michael Marsh, How Ireland Voted 2011 : The Full Story of Ireland’s Earthquake Election, Londres, Palgrave, 2011, p. 283-297. 25. Par exemple, les organisateurs d’une manifestation à Dublin pour protester contre des diminutions des aides aux enfants handicapés ont tenu à faire savoir que leur étape suivante ne serait pas une escalade protestataire. Ils envisageaient plutôt la tenue de discussions avec les responsables des services de santé pour trouver un accord à l’amiable, Irish Times du 28 novembre 2011. 26. À titre d’exemple, la flambée de violence lors de la manifestation « Reclaim the streets » (réapproprions-nous la rue) à Dublin en 2002 a été universellement condamnée. La critique a déferlé autant sur les forces de l’ordre pour leur manque de maîtrise que sur les groupes qui avaient organisé la manifestation pour avoir terni l’image du pays. Voir Eleanor Burnhill, « “Reclaim the Streets” jury sees video footage ». Irish Independent, du 29 juin 2004. Voir également, Tom Brady et Clare Louise Cullen, « Special Garda team set up to investigate violent clashes during Dublin protest », Irish Independent, du 20 septembre 2013. 27. Frédéric Royall, « Assessing the level of the political mobilization of the unemployed in Ireland from 1991 to 2005 », Irish Political Studies, 2007, n° 22(3), p. 287-301. 28. Tovey, op. cit. ; Linda Connolly et Niamh Hourigan (dir.), Social Movements and Ireland, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2006. 29. Marco Giugni, [http://mobilizingideas.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/the-outcomes- of-the-occupy-movement-which-lessons-can-we-draw-from-the-social-movement- literature], Permalink to The Outcomes of the Occupy Movement: Which Lessons Can We Draw from the Social Movement Literature?, [http:// mobilizingideas.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/the-outcomes-of-the-occupy-movement- which-lessons-can-we-draw-from-the-social-movement-literature], consulté le 13 novembre 2013. 30. William Gamson, The Strategy of Social Protest, Homewood, Dorsey, 1975. 31. David Snow, « Framing processes, ideology, and discursive fields », in David Snow, Sarah Soule et Hanspeter Kriesi, (dir.), Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, Oxford, Blackwell, 2004, p. 380–412. 32. Interview, Ch…, homme, chômeur, 25+, Galway, 17 novembre 2012.
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33. C’est l’occasion pour certains de laisser une trace de leur passage dans le camp. Ainsi à Galway un poster en français exprime sa solidarité avec les militants irlandais. 34. Helena Sheehan, « Occupying Dublin: Considerations at the crossroads », Irish Left Review, [http://www.irishleftreview.org/2012/01/19/occupying-dublin-considerations- crossroads/], consulté le 25 juin 2013. 35. Plusieurs lettres adressées aux militants d’Occupy Galway mettent en évidence la difficulté de la municipalité à mettre fin au campement par des voies légales. La municipalité pointe notamment les risques sanitaires et de sécurité qu’occasionne le campement et ordonne une inspection qui a lieu le 14 février 2012. Les occupants du camp s’empressent de trouver des solutions pratiques aux différents problèmes soulevés. La municipalité fait par la suite entendre que d’autres moyens existent pour mettre fin à cette occupation, tout en restant très évasive. Occupy Galway rétorque que l’illégalité de l’occupation d’Eyre Square n’a toujours pas été prouvée et que toute tentative d’expulsion des lieux serait donc contraire à la loi (et notamment à l’article 40 de la Constitution irlandaise relative au droit à manifester). Ce type d’échange met surtout en exergue la difficulté des autorités locales à résoudre une situation inédite dans un contexte complexe du point de vue du droit. 36. « Il y avait un public assez large et plutôt bienveillant à l’égard du mouvement Occupy. S’il ne l’avait pas été, le camp n’aurait jamais duré aussi longtemps. Le fait que ce ne soit pas devenu un mouvement de masse est lié au fait que les gens se disaient : “Qu’est ce que je peux faire ? J’ai un travail ! Je ne peux pas rester dans le camp.” Et, au fil du temps, c’est vrai que l’endroit a commencé à attirer des gens qui n’avaient rien à voir avec le mouvement. Juste des gens qui pensaient que c’était un bon endroit pour faire la manche […] On y retrouve les mendiants professionnels. Ça arrive toujours. Ça n’est pas spécifique au mouvement Occupy. Tous les mouvements politiques finissent par être infiltrés par des parasites. De ce point de vue, le mouvement Occupy n’y fait pas exception » (notre traduction). Interview, Da…, homme, réalisateur de documentaires, 35+, Dublin, 19 février 2013. 37. La liste des revendications du mouvement Occupy en Irlande est axée sur quatre grands thèmes : le retrait immédiat du Fonds monétaire international et de la Banque centrale européenne des affaires publiques, la levée du fardeau de la dette privée qui porte sur les épaules du peuple irlandais ; la nationalisation des réserves de gaz et de pétrole du pays ; et la mise en place d’une réelle démocratie participative en Irlande. 38. « Currently in Ireland I see those, once in the Workers Party or Labour Left, with whom I once stood, now in government, standing against us, instruments of the global elite, in our lives here. I am standing up against this power and wealth, no longer because I feel confident that we can prevail against it. I keep doing it only so as that they cannot rule uncontested » (Helena Sheehan, op. cit.). 39. La plupart des militants rencontrés considèrent que les médias locaux comme nationaux (presse, radio, télévision) avaient tous dépeint négativement le mouvement ou caricaturé son message et ses membres. Pour certains militants le fond du différend est que le mouvement donnait une image négative du pays à l’étranger au moment même où celui-ci avait cruellement besoin d’investissements étrangers. À ce titre, il n’est pas surprenant que le campement d’Occupy Galway ait finalement été démantelé quelques semaines avant que la ville n’accueille la finale d’une régate de renommée internationale (la Volvo Ocean Race) susceptible d’attirer les médias du monde entier.
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RÉSUMÉS
Cet article revient sur des épisodes contestataires inédits en République d’Irlande : des occupations d’espaces publics entre 2001 et 2012 qui se veulent, à l’origine, une critique des conséquences du néolibéralisme rampant sur le pays. Malgré une occupation de plusieurs mois, ces protestataires ont eu beaucoup de mal à susciter un engouement chez le grand public et à dépasser le cadre extrêmement réduit des campements eux-mêmes. Cet article revient sur le sens et la valeur de ces occupations et les analyse à l’aune d’une certaine spécificité irlandaise.
This article considers a number of unique protest events that took place in the Republic of Ireland between 2011 and 2012 – the occupation of public spaces to protest against the effects of rampant neo-liberal policies on the country. Although the occupations lasted several months, the occupiers found it very difficult to gain public support and to have an impact beyond the limited scope of the camps themselves. This article looks at the symbolic significance of the camps and analyzes Occupy in Ireland in light of some of the country’s characteristics.
INDEX
Keywords : Ireland - socio-economic issues, activism, financial crisis, public debate Mots-clés : débat public, Irlande - questions économiques et sociales, crise financière, militantisme
AUTEURS
FREDERIC ROYALL University of Limerick
CLÉMENT DESBOS University of Limerick
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An Eviction in Kinnitty: Republican Social Agitation and the New Fianna Fáil Government, 1932-1933
Timothy O’Neill
1 On the morning of July 19, 1932 a bailiff approached the Craven home in Kinnitty, Co. Offaly to serve a routine eviction notice. His first indication that this was not to be a routine eviction was probably when he saw the 1916 Easter Proclamation nailed to the door with an attached statement which in part read: “If a change of Government means a continued freedom for the bailiff-vulture and the house-wreckers, well, then, goodbye to liberty. No tribute to Britain1.” More problematic for the bailiff and the new Fianna Fáil Government was that the home was also occupied by thirty-five men of the local IRA unit who told the bailiff they would not surrender the house. The Kinnitty Fianna Fáil Club not only supported the IRA’s actions to prevent the eviction, it demanded that their two Fianna Fáil TDs return from Dublin to join the agitation and called upon the new Fianna Fáil Minister for Justice to stay the eviction2. Four months earlier Eamon de Valera and his Fianna Fáil party had been brought to power on the electoral strength of the local Fianna Fáil Clubs and local IRA units, which, at the local level in places such as Kinnitty, often shared a common membership3.
2 On the surface, the Kinnitty eviction appeared to represent a socially radical republican base directly challenging the government it had recently elected. Internal IRA and Fianna documents, however, reveal a somewhat more complex story of the Kinnitty eviction, that is, a story of internal politics within the IRA and Fianna Fáil. This article will use the eviction in Kinnitty to examine the interaction between national and local republican politics. These politics revolved around the internal tensions within the IRA as it attempted to develop a strategy to counter the new Fianna Fáil Government, and that Government’s attempt to consolidate state power, which necessitated resisting the nearly universal desire among local republicans to settle ten-year old local scores from the Irish Civil War, while simultaneously consolidating the republican base at the expense of the IRA.
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3 Before examining the eviction in Kinnitty, however, some historical context is required. During the late 1920s and early 1930s the IRA leadership divided over the question of strategy. A group of social, or left, republicans within the IRA leadership, led by Peadar O’Donnell, argued that the IRA needed to lead the masses in social agitation which would in turn launch a social revolution and smash the Free State. O’Donnell attempted to use the issue of land annuities, which the Cosgrave Government continued to collect and pass on to Britain, as the means to rally the masses. Fianna Fáil, however, successfully transformed the anti-Annuities Campaign, and its revolutionary potential, into an electoral issue and rode the issue to power in 19324. Militarists within the IRA leadership opposed using the Army for social agitation. Tom Barry often spoke for this group, arguing that social agitation was mere politics, which was beneath the IRA, and that the IRA needed to focus on rebuilding the Army’s military capabilities and preparing for the day when it would be in a position to resume the Civil War.
4 The task of balancing these two views within the leadership rested with Moss Twomey, the IRA’s leader. Twomey himself was a revolutionary socialist and further to the left than most social republicans5, but preserving Army unity took precedence over his own politics. Twomey believed that the IRA was the Irish Republic and as such Army unity was paramount: “I’m if you like a fanatic in this matter [unity] – that I believe nothing in the country matters to Republicanism but the IRA6.” Against the protests of the militarists within the IRA leadership, Twomey permitted the Army to move toward Left politics, but refused to establish an IRA political organization, which the social republicans within the IRA leadership desired. Nonetheless, during the late 1920s the IRA affiliated with the Communist International in Moscow and joined with Irish communists in establishing numerous Comintern front organizations in Ireland7. Such moves, however, failed to satisfy the social republicans who continued to agitate for an open IRA political organization. At the 1931 Army Convention, Twomey brokered a compromise that permitted the social republicans to launch an IRA – sponsored political program known as Saor Eire (Free Ireland).
5 By 1931 the Free State began to buckle under the pressure of a general republican resurgence and the global economic crisis. In October the Cosgrave Government responded to this threat with a two – pronged offensive. First, it secured a pastoral from the Church hierarchy that denounced Saor Eire and by implication the IRA, as communistic and then by enacting legislation that gave it the same emergency powers that it had enjoyed during the Civil War. The attack against the IRA forced its leadership on the run while the Free State rounded up and imprisoned rank-and-file Volunteers. Coinciding with its offensive against the IRA, the Cosgrave Government called a snap election and attempted to portray its parliamentary opposition, that is, its Civil War republican opponents de Valera and Fianna Fáil, as part of the communist conspiracy. Although many within the IRA leadership retained their deep suspicion of politics in general, and de Valera in particular, the government offensive forced a change in IRA electoral policy. In January 1932, the IRA leadership suspended a previous order that had prohibited Volunteers from either working for campaigns of from voting for candidates for the “illegal Free State Assembly”. The following month, with the important electoral support of the IRA and the land annuities issue, de Valera and Fianna Fáil won the election and assumed state power.
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6 Upon entering office, de Valera ordered the release of all IRA prisoners and withheld the land annuities payments to Britain, while still collecting them from Irish farmers and retaining them for the Free State. Britain responded with a tariff on Irish goods and thus began the Economic War. While Fianna Fáil’s actions proved wildly popular with the republican base, de Valera did not, of course, re-proclaim the Republic, which placed the IRA in a difficult position; as Twomey put it: “nobody had visualised a Free State which Republicans were not supposed to attack.8” De Valera’s position towards the IRA was that once Fianna Fáil had retained the land annuities and removed the Oath of Allegiance to the British Crown, the IRA needed to accept the principle of majority rule, hand over its arms and give allegiance to the Free State9. Needless to say, anything short of reestablishing the Irish Republic was unacceptable to the IRA.
7 A week after Fianna Fáil assumed power, the IRA leadership produced an internal document which asked and answered two essential questions: 1) can Fianna Fáil’s methods and policies achieve the Republic, to which it answered no, and 2) can the IRA launch a successful revolution against the Fianna Fáil Government, to which it also answered no, placing the IRA’s dilemma in sharp focus. What then was to be done? The document reasonably concluded that the new situation required a political response and asked, but did not answer, the question: should the IRA use its military capacity in domestic issues such as supporting workers in strikes or preventing the eviction of small farmers10? Answering that question, of course, was bound to once again divide the social republicans and the militarists within the IRA leadership.
8 In May 1932, Tom Barry informed Twomey that he could no longer accept the IRA’s social program, Saor Eire, explaining: “the Army is a body with a moral right to make war and kill when necessary to achieve this country’s freedom, but I cannot accept the right of any organisation to make war to make effective their social programme against the wishes of the majority of the people11.” Barry added that any social program made it difficult for a person of his mentality to go all out for the Army12. Twomey replied to Barry that the IRA needed to organize the people behind the Army and to achieve that objective, a social program was essential, adding that the IRA social program did indeed represente the views of the vast majority of the Irish people13. Two months later, Barry again wrote Twomey to inform him that he and de Valera had held a two-hour meeting to discuss republican unity and during that meeting de Valera had offered to create a new national defense organization which would include the IRA14. Barry told Twomey that he was very much impressed by the offer and the IRA leadership should consider it. Twomey rejected the idea out of hand and believed that he had convinced Barry that advocating the IRA’s co-option into the Free State was very bad idea15. What remained unclear to Twomey regarding the Fianna Fáil-Barry meetings was the extent to which Barry was freelancing or representing the militarists in the IRA leadership. Given Barry’s impulsiveness and narcissism, Twomey believed it was the former16.
9 It was in the midst of dealing with Barry’s unauthorized rapprochement with Fianna Fáil, that Twomey learned that Sean McGuinness, a social republican within the IRA leadership, had deployed Volunteers of the Offaly Battalion to prevent the eviction in Kinnitty. McGuinness had an impressive republican service record and was the stalwart of the IRA in Offaly during the Civil War17. He had a long history of social agitation and in 1924 wrote a memo to the IRA leadership arguing that the republican movement needed to be reconstructed on the issue of land agitation and redistribution. His memo also pointed out that in his area, the Irish Land Commission was only giving land to the
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supporters of the Cosgrave Government, that is members of the Cumann na nGaedheal political party18. McGuinness was elected as a republican TD for Leix-Offaly in 1923, only to be given the distinction in 1925 of being the only republican TD ever stripped of their seat, which resulted from his conviction for physically assaulting a member of the Garda Síochána19. He was sentenced to 18 months' hard labor but escaped and went to America20. By 1930 he had returned to Ireland, resumed his republican activities, and was elected to the Saor Eire executive only to be re-imprisoned in April 1931. When released by the Fianna Fáil Government in March 1932, McGuinness addressed a victory celebration to welcome home republican prisoners in Dublin’s College Green, telling the crowd that the members of the former Cosgrave Government were “a menace to society and the independence of Ireland, and it behooved all Republicans to unite and wipe that menace out at all costs21.”
10 In May 1932 McGuinness sought Army Council authorization for his plan to prevent government land seizures for the nonpayment of land annuities22. To have authorized such a plan, of course, meant challenging Fianna Fáil. Given the general republican euphoria over the election of Fianna Fáil and the popularity of the policy to retain the land annuities, Twomey believed that at this juncture it was dangerous to even criticize Fianna Fáil23. McGuinness and other social republicans, however, disagreed with Twomey and wanted the IRA to confront Fianna Fáil by demanding a moratorium on the payment of annuities by farmers to the Free State. Twomey contended that as long as Fianna Fáil was fighting the British for retention of annuities, the IRA should not “complicate the issue by advocating a ‘no rent’ campaign24.” The Army Council responded to McGuinness’ request by reminding him that he attended the meeting of the executive where his plan was discussed at length and rejected and then reproached him for continuing to advocated such a policy in the Labour paper Workers Voice after it had been rejected by his comrades on the IRA executive25.
11 Explicitly denied Army Council permission to prevent government land seizures for the nonpayment of annuities, McGuinness decided to challenge Fianna Fáil by preventing the eviction of 76-year-old Patrick Craven and his family in Kinnitty. Craven had lived in the gate house of the Biddulph estate for 19 years where he worked as the caretaker. The Land Commission took control of the estate and sold it to Captain Joseph Nugent, an ex-Free State Army officer. Nugent now sought the eviction of the Craven family from the gatehouse which was located on the roads which led to Nugent’s mansion26. McGuinness had warned Nugent not to proceed with the eviction27, while the president of the Kinnitty Fianna Fáil Club, Sean’s brother Patrick McGuinness28, had wired both the Minister for Lands and the Minister for Justice demanding that they to stop the eviction in Kinnitty. He received no reply29.
12 When Sean McGuinness learned that the eviction was to take place on morning of July 19, he dispatched Volunteers of the IRA’s Offaly Battalion to occupy and barricade the home in order to prevent the eviction30. Patrick McGuinness wired both of Offaly’s Fianna Fáil TDs, Patrick Boland and Patrick Gorry, demanding that they come to Kinnitty immediately and join the protest31. Both Boland and Gorry did arrive that morning, but not to join the agitation. Boland visited nearby Fianna Fáil Clubs and attempted to persuade them not to become involved in the Kinnitty agitation, arguing that the eviction was not the business of the Fianna Fáil organization32. He told a meeting of a nearby Fianna Fáil Club in Tullamore, that the Government was “up against bigger things than an eviction33.” The implication of the “bigger things” was
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confronting the British in the Economic War and their “imperialist agents” in Ireland – Cumann na nGaedheal. Minister of Justice Geoghegan replied to Patrick McGuinness that he had no power to stay the eviction34. TD Patrick Gorry meet with Sean McGuinness at the Craven home and told him that the land belonged to Nugent, but that he had the sheriff agree to stay the eviction for two days so that he could negotiate with Nugent35. With this assurance, Sean McGuinness agreed to have the IRA temporarily vacate the house. Gorry returned to Dublin and meet with the Minister of Justice who, according to Gorry, assured him that the eviction would not take place. The following morning, however, the Craven family was evicted and sent to the poor house36.
13 Moss Twomey was less than pleased with the events in Kinnitty. Not only had McGuinness acted without consulting the Army Council, his decision to withdraw the IRA from the house permitted Craven’s eviction and thus had embarrassed the IRA and damaged its reputation. Twomey asked McGuinness why he had trusted a Fianna Fáil TD and pointed out the obvious: Gorry had “deliberately misled you37”. Regarding Towmey’s contention that his actions had damaged IRA’s reputation, McGuinness disagreed and argued that Craven’s eviction had shown the people that there was no difference between Fianna Fáil and the Cosgrave government and the countryside was now with the IRA38. McGuinness launched a boycott against Captain Nugent and planned to hold weekly Sunday demonstrations until Craven was reinstated. He wanted Twomey to send speakers from Dublin for the agitation, especially Peadar O’Donnell – the greatest agitator of his generation39. Twomey denied the request, telling McGuinness that it sounded like the agitation had a good following and it would be more effective if the speakers were local men, not men from Dublin40.
14 Peadar O’Donnell, of course, found his way to Kinnitty and he and the McGuinness brothers led the agitation. Sean McGuinness told a protest meeting that “[I]n evicting Craven the Government has issued a direct challenge to the people, and this challenge the people are prepared to meet41.” While Patrick McGuinness condemned the Fianna Fáil government, the other speakers, who were mostly other Fianna Fáil club presidents or county councilors, had no intention of challenging the Fianna Fáil Government. In fact, most of the local republican speakers refused to even criticize the Fianna Fáil Government. According to James Garvin of the Co. Offaly Council, “he did not come here to criticize the Fianna Fáil Government. He was a ‘wholehogger’ for its policy but if there was a law which permitted the eviction of Craven and his family it should be changed42.” John Finn, another Fianna Fáil county councilor, went even further, explaining that “the law which permitted the eviction had not been made by the present government. This government has been obstructed and has not got a chance to work43”. Such statements, of course, conflicted with Sean McGuinness’ reports to the Army Council that the eviction had shown the people of Offaly that there was no difference between Fianna Fáil and the Cosgrave government. Indeed, nearly all of the local republican speakers dissociated the eviction from the Fianna Fáil Government, instead focusing on Joseph Nugent, the man who had evicted the Cravens, denouncing him as the ex-Free State Army officer who had been rewarded by Cumann na nGaedheal for his treason against the Irish Republic – a man, as it was frequently mentioned, who was from the County Clare44. This inference, perhaps, was that Nugent was not native to Offaly and therefore in addition to his treason, he was a “land grabber” who had no ancestral right to the land.
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15 According to newspaper accounts, the demonstrations in Kinnitty drew large crowds from surrounding counties but failed to reinstate the Craven family. The demonstrations did, however, raise enough money to build a wooden hut for the Cravens, with a kitchen and two rooms, on property near their former home45. During the agitation, Twomey repeatedly asked McGuinness on what terms did Craven hold the house and what was the reason for his eviction46? McGuinness never answered those questions and it appears that Craven had no legal right to the house. It also appears that the attempt to prevent the eviction and the agitation that followed had far more to do with his evictor, Captain Nugent, than with Craven’s claim to the house, or even Craven himself. As McGuinness put it, “Craven – an old man – was never much of an asset to the independence movement. It was not so much in his favour [we acted] as it was to get a crack at Nugent and the system he represents47”. It was also rumored that Nugent had executed republican prisoners during the Civil War. The IRA’s C/O for East Clare, however, could not confirm that accusation, only that while drunk Nugent had beaten and threatened to shoot republican prisoners during the Civil War48.
16 The statement that McGuinness nailed to the door of the Craven home described the evictor as: “A ex-Free State Army Captain named Joe Nugent, who was presented with a large farm and mansion thereon by the Cosgrave Murder gang for service rendered with the King’s Irish mercenaries during the 1922-3 struggle that was created by the British with a backing renegade and traitor Irishmen49.” While Craven appears to have held no legal claim to the property, in the minds of the McGuinness brothers and many local republicans in Kinnitty, Nugent’s claim to the property was based on his treason to the Irish Republic. As Sean McGuinness put it, they were acting against “Nugent and the system he represents50”. That system was translated at the local level with the material rewards of state power as the victors of the Civil War, Cumann na nGaedheal, used the Irish Land Commission to reward its supporters with land. Indeed, under the Cosgrave Government it was rare for someone to receive land if he was not a member of a local Cumann na nGaedheal Club51.
17 All politics is local, of course, and in Ireland even more so. Offaly had long been contested space between Republicans and the supporters of Cumann na nGaedheal. The five-seat constituency of Leix-Offaly repeatedly split between the anti-Treaty and pro- Treaty parties with Labour taking the fifth seat. It had been the home constituency of Kevin O’Higgins, the man in the Cosgrave Government whom republicans detested the most and held mainly responsible for the execution of Republican prisoners during the Civil War and considered the strongman behind the Cosgrave Government. After his unauthorized assassination by members of the IRA in 1927, his brother Thomas O’Higgins took one of the Cumann na nGaedheal seats in Leix-Offaly. Thomas O’Higgins founded the Blueshirts, Ireland’s proto-fascist movement, and in doing so cited the IRA’s prevention of the Kinnitty eviction as one of the reasons why such a movement was necessary52.
18 Twomey’s strategy to counter Fianna Fáil did not rest with land agitation, because he believed de Valera, unlike the Cosgrave government, would use the resources of the state to purchase the agitators. In Twomey’s words, “Fianna Fáil can buy off most of the farmers who are agitating today; they are in a position to make concessions, including moratoriums53.” Twomey’s position on land agitation during this period is best illustrated by his response to contemporary events in Co. Tipperary, where local republicans reported that “as a result of the failure to divide the land and give it to
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Republicans […] a very strong anti-Fianna Fáil feeling has developed54.” This report, of course, mirrored McGuinness’s reports from Kinnitty. Volunteer Ned O’Reilly argued that these aggrieved republicans would join the IRA if it established an organization to lead the agitation55. The IRA’s Tipperary O/C, however, did not share O’Reilly’s opinion56. Twomey was cautious believing that such agitation could be seen as anti- Fianna Fáil, and asserted: “Our [IRA] position is that while we cannot very well put ourselves at the head of the agitation for the distribution of land, we certainly should not oppose it. On the contrary we should do everything we can to have as many of our people as possible fixed up57.” When ex-Volunteers, who were also members of Fianna Fáil launched such an organization and claimed to have done so to support the IRA, the IRA put an end to it, telling them that while the IRA had no objections to local agitation on the part of active Volunteers or ex-Volunteers to secure land, it would not tolerate the formation of an organization to conduct the agitation58.
19 While Twomey rejected land agitation as the IRA’s strategy to counter Fianna Fáil, he clearly was “in favour of Volunteers, and even ex-Volunteers, getting jobs and land in preference to the enemies of the Republic59.” This was a ten-year-old objective of all republicans. He warned, however, that Fianna Fáil would give a preference to ex- Volunteers, not active Volunteers and that de Valera would use land distribution in his effort to co-opt active Volunteers into the Free State60. Thus, Twomey’s opposition to agrarian agitation, in addition to his fears that it would divide the IRA leadership, was also rooted in his fear that Fianna Fáil would use its state power to numerically weaken the IRA with the reward of land. His response to the agitation in Tipperary, although no IRA units were involved as was the case in Kinnitty, is instructive. He once again demonstrated his aversion to directly challenging Fianna Fáil, which he believed would be seen by the republican base as weakening Fianna Fáil and by implication assisting the “Cosgrave Murder Gang.” During this period, the IRA outlined its position regarding Fianna Fáil in a dispatch to the United States: “We cannot afford to be put in a position of appearing to help the Imperialists [Cumann na nGaedheal], or of weakening Fianna Fáil against them61.”
20 Rank-and-file Fianna Fáil TDs, behind closed doors, challenged their Government’s position regarding the IRA, land distribution and its failure to punish their Civil War enemies. The Minutes of the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party reveal that many of the party’s supporters and backbenchers wanted the supporters of Cumann na nGaedheal punished and republicans rewarded – especially IRA Volunteers. During a weekly meeting of Fianna Fáil TDs in July of 1932, John Flynn moved to give IRA men preference on public works, but withdrew his motion on the instance of de Valera who asserted that Volunteers would receive “all possible consideration62”. Even though Fianna Fáil had secured an absolute majority in the January 1933 General Election, many TDs contended that the majority would have been even larger if it was not for the Land Commission’s unjust treatment of local republicans in the distribution of land63. As such, “a complete revolution of the Land Commission was demanded and that special attention should be given to the IRA in the distribution of land64”. De Valera rejected this demand, as well as demands to establish a tribunal to try individuals for crimes against republicans during the Civil War, by arguing for “the necessity of closing finally the chapter of the Civil War in Ireland65”. While de Valera successfully resisted demands from his republican base to settle ten-year old scores against their Civil War enemies, he was forced to accept the principle that his Government needed to consult the party before enacting policy that would change the “economic outlook” of the
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Fianna Fáil movement66. When Fianna Fáil consolidated state power, the Land Commission became an instrument to reward loyal party supporters with land, just as Cumann na nGaedheal had used it to reward its supporters67. De Valera used state employment, pensions and land distribution to convert active Volunteers into ex- Volunteers, just as Twomey had warned. Republican Marie Comerford later described such largess as “Fianna Fáil bribery68”.
21 Even though de Valera and his Fianna Fáil Government resisted the demands from the republican base to punish individual members of Cumann na nGaedheal, their retention of the land annuities and the ensuing Economic War and protectionism exacted a collective punishment as the price of cattle was nearly cut in half between 1932 and 193569. This reduction hit large ranchers the hardest, that is to say, the supporters of Cumann na nGaedheal. When de Valera refused to punish individual opponents, such as Joseph Nugent, it was challenged by many republicans; both within the IRA and Fianna Fáil, but the overwhelming majority of republicans had no other option than Fianna Fáil. The deep social, political, cultural and economic division within Irish society produced by the Civil War created an environment that by 1932 even the most radical republican hesitated to criticize Fianna Fáil, fearing that to do so would be tantamount to giving aid and comfort to the enemy, that is, to Cumann na nGaedheal. This was evident in Kinnitty. During the agitation, the McGuinness brothers had warned Fianna Fáil that it would be punished by republicans for its failure to support Craven70. When a General Election arrived six months later in January 1933, their threats proved empty. In the constituency of Leix-Offaly, Fianna Fáil increased its share of polls by 3% and while TD Patrick Gorry failed to win reelection, another Fianna Fáil TD took his seat71.
22 While the McGuinness brothers and O’Donnell led demonstrations of a few hundred in Kinnitty, de Valera addressed a rally that numbered 30,000 in Dublin as the Economic War with Britain intensified72. As the republican base became increasing radicalized by the anti-British rhetoric, and as Fianna Fáil successfully framed a financial and tariff dispute as an “Economic War”, Twomey saw an opportunity for the IRA to challenge Fianna Fáil’s leadership in the new struggle with Britain. In the autumn of 1932, the IRA launched the Boycott British League which attempted to convince people in Ireland to stop purchasing British made goods. When this failed, apparently people in Ireland actually liked some British goods, the League attempted to enforce the boycott which quickly degenerated into a series of stunts as IRA units traveled the country smashing bottles of Bass Ale and boxes of Cadbury Chocolates. Such campaigns, of course, could not rebuild the revolutionary republican movement nor challenge Fianna Fáil for the hearts and minds of the republican base. Unlike the agrarian agitation of the Kinnitty eviction, however, the Boycott British League did assist Twomey in his main goal of maintaining Army unity as it was supported by both the social republicans and the militarists; indeed, both Sean McGuinness and Tom Barry eagerly joined the campaign.
23 In September 1932, George Gilmore, perhaps the deepest thinker among the social republicans within the IRA leadership, wrote to Twomey: I do not agree with Peadar O’Donnell in his belief that there is a revolutionary situation in the country only waiting for someone to assume leadership. On the contrary, I believe that particularly all the republican and anti Free State feeling in the country is hopelessly pro-Dev., and that Fianna Fail are going to hold the field for a very long time to come, and I do not see how anything we could have done for the past 6 months would have altered that73.
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24 Gilmore’s analysis proved prophetic, although one suspects that Gilmore did not imagine that Fianna Fáil would remain Ireland’s largest political party for nearly 80 years. Fianna Fáil’s ascension to state power presented the IRA leadership with a problem for which it never found an answer; perhaps it never really understood the question, perhaps there was no answer as Gilmore suggested. Twomey and others within the IRA wondered if their hatred of the “Cosgrave Murder Gang” would lead to their demise at the hands of Fianna Fáil: “Some of us have a feeling that Fianna Fáil know we are so much opposed to the late Imperial gang that we would go a long way to end their power for all time. They wonder could they exploit that opposition to the point of abolishing ourselves74!” The evidence suggests yes. Their mutual defeat in Civil War and the resulting deep mutual hated of the Cosgrave regime and its supporters had bound all republicans together. From Fianna Fáil’s formation in 1926 to its ascension to state power in 1932, most republicans saw no inconsistency in supporting both the IRA and Fianna Fáil. Once in power, of course, the former “slightly constitutional party” became fully constitutional and republicans, such as those in Kinnitty, were now forced to choose between the IRA and its revolutionary republicanism or Fianna Fáil’s constitutional republicanism, which was now sweetened with the material and psychological rewards of state power, that is, a republicanism that could cut your land annuity payments in half and control the Land Commission’s distribution of land. Subsequent election results suggest that for the overwhelming majority of republicans this was not a difficult choice.
NOTES
1. Irish Independent, 20 July 1932, 7. 2. Irish Press, 20 July 1932, 1. 3. For larger treatment of the IRA during this period see: Brian Hanley, The IRA 1926-1936 (Dublin), 2002; for Fianna Fáil, see: Richard Dunphy, The Making of Fianna Fail Power in Ireland, 1923-1948 (Oxford, 1995). 4. See: Timothy M. O’Neil, “Handing away the Trump Card? Peadar O’Donnell, Fianna Fáil and the Non-Payment of Land Annuities Campaign, 1926-1932”, New Hibernia Review, 12, 1 (Spring 2008), p. 19-41. 5. Uinseann MacEoin, The IRA in the Twilight, Years,1923-1948, (Dublin: Argenta, 1997), 843. 6. Letter from Moss Twomey to Frank Ryan, 3 March 1933, P69/185/53/177, Moss Twomey Papers University College Dublin Archives, henceforth cited as UCDA P69. 7. For a discussion of the IRA and the Comintern see: Emmet O’Connor, “Jim Larkin and the Communist Internationals, 1923-9”, Irish Historical Studies XXXI No. 123 (May 1999), p. 357-372. 8. Memorandum for IRA Envoy to Clan na nGael, 25 August 1932, UCDA P69/185/221. 9. IRA Memo, no title, 23 March1932, UCDA P69/53/377.
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10. Ibid. 11. Letter from Tom Barry to Moss Twomey, 13 May 1932, UCDA P69/52/63. 12. Ibid. 13. Copy of letter from Moss Twomey to Tom Barry, 24 May 1932, UCDA P69/52/62. 14. IRA, Confidential Report of Tom Barry’s meeting with Fianna Fáil, 17 July 1932, UCDA P69/52/55. 15. Ibid. 16. Letter from Moss Twomey to IRA O/C Cork No. 1 Brigade, 19 July 1932, UCDA P69/157/32/54. 17. Philip McConway, “The Civil War in Offaly”, Tribune (Clara, Co. Offaly), 2 January 2008, 1. 18. Memo from IRA O/C Leix, 8 January 1924, UCDA P69/144/89. 19. Irish Independent, 30 October 1931, p. 8. 20. Ibid., 10 August 1929, p. 11. 21. Irish Times, 14 March 1932, p. 1. 22. Copy of letter from IRA A/G to IRA O/C Offaly Battalion, 19 May 1932, UCDA P69/157/32. 23. Copy of letter from Moss Twomey to G.N. Count Plunkett, 9 April 1932, UCDA P69/52/239. 24. Memorandum for IRA Envoy to Clan na nGael, 25 August 1932, UCDA P69/185/221. 25. Copy of letter from IRA A/G to IRA O/C Offaly Battalion, 19 May 1932, UCDA P69/157/32. 26. Irish Times, 23 July 1932, p. 12. 27. Letter from Sean McGuiness to IRA A/G, 20 July 1932, UCDA P69/158/251. 28. Irish Independent, 8 January 1927, p. 8. 29. Internal IRA Report “A Kinnitty Eviction”, July 1932, UCDA P69/158/243. 30. Letter from Sean McGuiness to IRA A/G, 20 July 1932, UCDA P69/158/251. 31. Internal IRA Report “A Kinnitty Eviction”, July 1932, UCDA P69/158/243. 32. Irish Times, 20 July 1932, p. 5. 33. Brian Hanley, The IRA 1926-1936, p. 140. 34. Irish Independent, 20 July 1932, p. 7. 35. Letter from Sean McGuiness to IRA A/G, 20 July 1932, UCDA P69/158/251. 36. Internal IRA Report “A Kinnitty Eviction”, July 1932, UCDA P69/158/243. 37. Memo RE: Kinnitty Eviction from Moss Twomey to IRA O/C Offaly Battalion, 27 July 1932, UCDA P69/158/245. 38. Letter from Sean McGuiness to IRA A/G, 25 July 1932, UCDA P69/158/246. 39. Ibid. 40. Copy of memo from IRA A/G to IRA O/C Offaly Battalion, 28 July 1932, UCDA P69/158/243. 41. Irish Times, 23 July 1932, p. 7. 42. Ibid., 26 July 1932, 5.
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43. Ibid. 44. Irish Times, 23 July 1932, p. 12 45. Irish Independent, 1 August 1932, p. 10. 46. Memo RE: Kinnitty Eviction from Moss Twomey to IRA O/C Offaly Battalion, 27 July 1932, UCDA P69/158/245. 47. Letter from Sean McGuiness to IRA A/G, 20 July 1932, UCDA P69/158/251. 48. Copy of memo from IRA D/I to IRA O/C Offaly Battalion, 28 July 1932, UCDA P69/158/244. 49. Copy of proclamation of those occupying Craven house, ca. 19 July 1932, UCDA P69/158/257. 50. Letter from Sean McGuiness to IRA A/G, 20 July 1932, UCDA P69/158/251. 51. Terence Dooley, “Land and politics in independent Ireland, 1923-1948: the case for reappraisal”, Irish Historical Studies, XXXIV, n° 134 (november 2004), p. 185. 52. Meath Chronicle, 27 August 1932, 8. 53. Letter from Moss Twomey to Sean Lennon, 6 August 1932, UCDA P69/52/2. 54. Letter from Moss Twomey to Jack Jones, 1 October 1932, UCDA P69/54/34. 55. Ibid. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid. 58. Letter from IRA A/G to O/C Limerick City Battalion, 18 October 1932, UCDA P69/54/34. 59. Letter from Moss Twomey to O/C Limerick City Battalion, 14 December 1932, UCDA P69/54/28. 60. Ibid. 61. Army Council Dispatch No. 198 to Clan [na Gael], 15 September 1932, UCDA P69/185 62. Minutes of the Fianna Fail Parliamentary Party, 14 July 1932, Records of the Fianna Fail Party (P176) 444, UCDA. 63. Ibid., 30 March 1933. 64. Ibid., 6 April 1933. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid. 67. Terence Dooley, “Land and politics in independent Ireland, 1923-1948: the case for reappraisal”, Irish Historical Studies, XXXIV, n° 134 (November 2004), p. 185. 68. Uinseann MacEoin, Survivors, (Dublin, Argenta, 1980), p. 32. 69. J. Peter Neary and Cormac O’Grada, “Protectionism, Economic War, and Structural Change: the 1930s in Ireland”, Irish Historical Studies XXVII, n° 107 (May 1991), p. 250. 70. Irish Times, 23 July 1932, p. 7. 71. Irish Press, 27 January 1933, p. 1. 72. Ibid., 29 July 1932, p. 1. 73. Letter from George Gilmore to Chairman, Army Council [IRA], 16 September 1932, UCDA P69/53/368.
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74. Unsigned letter from [IRA Army Council] to Brother [Joseph] McGarrity, 25 August 1932, UCDA P69/185/217.
ABSTRACTS
This article uses an eviction in Co. Offaly to examine the interaction between national and local republican politics during the first year of Fianna Fáil in power. These politics revolved around and revealed the internal tensions within the IRA as it attempted to develop a strategy to counter the new Government, and that Government’s attempt to consolidate state power, which necessitated resisting the desire among local republicans to settle ten-year old local scores from the Irish Civil War, while simultaneously consolidating the republican base at the expense of the IRA.
Cet article prend l’exemple d’une expulsion dans le comté d’Offaly pour étudier les interactions entre les politiques locales et nationales des républicains lors de la première année au pouvoir de Fianna Fáil. Ces politiques révèlent les tensions internes au sein de l’IRA, qui cherchait alors à mettre en place une stratégie de résistance au nouveau gouvernement. Elles montrent également la volonté du gouvernement d’affermir le pouvoir de l’État ce qui avait pour implication de ne pas céder au désir des militants locaux de solder dix années de querelles locales issues de la guerre civile- tout en consolidant le soutien républicain dont il pouvait bénéficier au détriment de l’IRA.
INDEX
Mots-clés: républicanisme irlandais, IRA, État irlandais (État libre) , question agraire, ordre public Keywords: Irish republicanism, land question, IRA, Irish State (Free State), law and order
AUTHOR
TIMOTHY O’NEILL Department of History – Central Michigan University
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Entre guerre et paix: les murals de Belfast
Pascal Pragnère
1 L’Irlande du Nord possède l’ensemble de peintures murales de type politique le plus important d’Europe. Cet article propose donc d’effectuer une analyse de ces murals1 et d’en définir les caractéristiques principales à travers l’exemple de Belfast2 à un moment précis de l’histoire. L’observation de ces peintures murales a été réalisée en 2011 et 2012, en parcourant systématiquement toutes les rues de Belfast. 399 peintures murales ont été inventoriées à Belfast. Faute de moyens et de temps l’ensemble du territoire d’Irlande du Nord n’a pas pu être inventorié. Des peintures sont présentes dans d’autres localités mais l’essentiel de cet ensemble est concentré dans les deux villes principales de la région, Belfast et Derry3. Afin de saisir au mieux l’organisation interne de cet univers pictural, cet article se base sur le corpus des 399 murals de Belfast. Le nombre de peintures à Belfast – sept fois supérieur à celui de Derry – rend ces données particulièrement intéressantes.
2 Certains travaux se sont évidemment penchés sur ces peintures4, mais les fonctions politiques des murals dans le conflit restent encore peu étudiées, en particulier de façon systématique ou quantitative5. L’analyse du contexte géographique, historique et politique permet d’expliquer les fonctions de cette iconographie dans la dynamique du conflit nationaliste, dans la tentative de résolution contemporaine ou dans les difficultés actuelles à dépasser l’affrontement communautaire qui subsiste alors même que des accords de paix6 ont semblé régler définitivement la question nord irlandaise aux yeux de l’opinion internationale. Une analyse de la perception locale de cet ensemble pictural, à travers le traitement d’un questionnaire et d’une enquête d’opinion permet d’évaluer son impact au-delà de son statut de curiosité médiatique et touristique7.
3 Les murals d’Irlande du Nord sont des fresques occupant souvent un pignon ou un mur entier de maison, et qui contiennent des images, du texte et des représentations symboliques ou héraldiques. 99,4 % de ces peintures ont une très bonne visibilité, et leur réalisation est extrêmement soignée. Seulement 12 graffiti politiques ont été répertoriés ; ceci indique que l’expression politique urbaine est monopolisée par les
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murals et que leurs commanditaires contrôlent efficacement les modes d’expression politique. Certains murals consistent en des supports plaqués aux murs (15,5 %), d’autres figurent au-dessus de mémoriaux (3,5 %).
4 En 2011-2012, 9,5 % des peintures ne sont pas politiques et concernent les thèmes de la sécurité routière, la lutte contre les drogues8 et le suicide, ou la décoration de bureaux de poste, de supérettes ou de pharmacies. L’impact des murals sur la société nord- irlandaise a contribué à populariser cette pratique en technique de décoration.
Photo 1 : Bureau de poste, Strandburn Drive, East Belfast
5 D’autres thèmes apolitiques au premier abord tels que les droits des femmes, les sports, la danse, l’histoire des pubs ou la paix se sont multipliés pendant le processus de paix – encouragés par des politiques publiques de transformation des peintures partisanes9 – mais certains comme les sports ou la danse restent affiliés à une tradition culturelle britannique ou irlandaise, contribuant à déguiser une revendication politique en revendication culturelle. Les murals sont un mode d’expression exclusivement nationaliste et unioniste. Aucun ne contient un message politique différent. Pour l’instant, les organisations politiques défendant d’autres axes de structuration de l’espace public nord-irlandais10 n’utilisent pas ce mode d’expression. Les murals politiques appartiennent donc exclusivement au champ du conflit sur la représentation institutionnelle de l’Irlande du Nord. Ainsi, Lyman Chaffee expliquait que l’on trouve une densité particulière de street art en zones de conflits sociaux et politiques11. Les fonctions politiques de ces peintures dans le conflit sont analysées après le contexte de leur apparition.
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Le contexte de l’apparition des murals
Origines au début du XXe siècle
6 En Irlande du Nord, les peintures murales apparurent entre 1908 et 1912 lors de la résistance unioniste au Home Rule. Elles étaient alors exclusivement loyalistes : représentations orangistes12 du roi Guillaume III (King Billy), victorieux des armées catholiques de Jacques II lors de la Bataille de la Boyne, le 12 juillet 1690, ainsi que des représentations des symboles d’allégeance à la couronne britannique. Ces peintures étaient déjà symbole de contrôle de l’espace public ainsi qu’expression de la domination protestante. Elles marquaient un territoire « britannique » ou « protestant », bien plus qu’un territoire « habité en majorité par des britanniques / protestants13 ».
Photo 2 : King Billy (Guillaume d’Orange) à la Bataille de la Boyne 1690. North West Belfast
7 Cette domination fut d’ailleurs traduite par le développement d’une législation sur le plan de l’expression identitaire, à travers le Flags and Emblems Act de 1954, qui interdisait le déploiement de drapeaux et symboles irlandais en Irlande du Nord, et donc de peintures murales républicaines. Une des premières explosions de violence et d’émeutes furent les Tricolour Riots, en 1964, au tout début de la Campaign for Social Justice, lorsqu’à l’occasion des élections à Westminster, le RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary, la police d’Irlande du Nord) intervint violemment pour faire retirer un drapeau irlandais déployé sur un local nationaliste, provoquant ainsi des émeutes.
8 Jusqu’au développement violent du conflit dans les années 1970-1980, les murals républicains ou nationalistes (irlandais) demeurèrent rares. Un des premiers est le fameux « you are now entering free Derry14 » peint à l’entrée du Bogside, quartier érigé en no man’s land qui connut les premières émeutes du conflit en 1969. Cette peinture
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traduisit le rééquilibrage des rapports de forces, et constitua une réponse symbolique à la domination protestante par la sanctuarisation d’un espace et sa soustraction au contrôle de l’État protestant d’Irlande du Nord. Lorsqu’elles furent produites en nombre, stimulées par des modèles internationaux15, les peintures murales devinrent un enjeu politique majeur.
Développement dans les années 1980
9 La multiplication à grande échelle des murals se situe à la charnière des années 1979-198116, lorsque le conflit entra dans une nouvelle phase : à l’occasion de leur lutte pour le maintien du statut de prisonniers politiques (1976-1981), les prisonniers républicains furent confrontés à la criminalisation du conflit par Margaret Thatcher qui laissa dix prisonniers, réclamant la reconnaissance d’un statut politique, mourir de faim en prison (dont Bobby Sands, élu député à Westminster pendant sa grève de la faim). L’intransigeance de l’État britannique renforça la polarisation des deux communautés et laissait le conflit dans l’impasse alors que 2 200 personnes avaient déjà été tuées en dix ans17. Les républicains recherchèrent de nouvelles ressources et stratégies pour renforcer la mobilisation, trouver des soutiens complémentaires et continuer à justifier la violence alors que le conflit s’enlisait. C’est à ce moment que des militants plus politiques comme Gerry Adams ou Martin McGuinness18 prirent le contrôle du mouvement en théorisant la perspective d’un conflit long sans issue immédiate19. La stratégie mise en œuvre allia dès lors « l’urne et la mitraillette20 » sur le plan local avec l’internationalisation du conflit. Le développement rapide des peintures murales républicaines s’inscrivit dans cette double dynamique, et simultanément, par effet miroir, les murals loyalistes renforcèrent leur présence.
Réalisation : des militants convertis en artistes
10 Ces peintures murales furent – et sont actuellement – essentiellement effectuées par des artistes autodidactes sans formation artistique, plutôt militants républicains ou loyalistes ayant une appétence particulière pour l’art de rue. Les murals étant toujours situés à l’intérieur des ghettos, ceux qui les ont réalisés étaient relativement protégés lors de leur conception. Des témoignages relatent cependant quelques agressions de peintres sur leur échafaudage dans certaines zones d’interface21. Ces œuvres ne furent donc pas créées par des rituels initiatiques comme Jeremy MacClancy l’explique pour les peintures ou graffiti du Pays Basque où le risque est beaucoup plus grand22. Il s’agit plutôt d’œuvres destinées à durer et revêtant d’autres fonctions, notamment en raison de leur impact visuel et de leur permanence23. Les artistes n’agissent actuellement que rarement de leur propre chef, mais exécutent des commandes d’organisations paramilitaires, de partis politiques ou d’habitants du quartier environnant qui souhaitent célébrer un héros local ou dénoncer un évènement particulier24.
11 Les institutions britanniques ont généralement toléré ces expressions murales pendant le conflit car elles étaient situées à l’intérieur des communautés qui toutes deux utilisaient l’iconographie publique comme forme de propagande. Intervenir sur ces sujets ayant trait à l’identité nationale aurait également provoqué des réactions violentes. En revanche, dans le cadre du processus de paix, des politiques publiques encouragent la transformation des murals au contenu partisan ou violent pour en faire
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des œuvres neutres ou favorables à la paix, pour faciliter la réconciliation intercommunautaire. De plus, ils sont devenus un des principaux attraits touristiques dans les villes de Belfast ou Derry. Des visites des peintures murales sont organisées par différents opérateurs, les touristes étant souvent guidés par d’anciens prisonniers en reconversion. Le Re-Imagining Communities Programme alloua ainsi en 2006 la somme de 3,3 millions de livres Sterling pour la transformation de peintures en messages apolitiques, pacifiques, ou culturels sans connotation partisane25. Selon le témoignage de deux peintres de Derry, certains ont reçu jusqu’à 30 000 livres de l’Office de Tourisme d’Irlande du Nord pour transformer un mural26. De plus, sous des thèmes apparemment non politiques (par exemple la célébration de joueurs de football ou de hurling)27, l’affiliation communautaire demeure et vient souligner la fonction essentiellement identitaire de ces peintures.
Photo 3 : Titanic, Newtownwards Road, East Belfast, mural célébrant la construction du Titanic, gloire Britannique.
12 [Image non convertie]
Belfast en 2012 : une transformation de façade…
Localisation : les murals dans les ghettos
13 399 murals ont été répertoriés à Belfast au cours de cette recherche conduite pendant un an28. Contrairement à ce que pourrait laisser croire l’impact médiatique des inscriptions murales républicaines, les fresques loyalistes sont plus nombreuses, 54 % contre 46 %.
14 La ville de Belfast est divisée en quartiers républicains catholiques ou loyalistes protestants, véritables ghettos ethniquement homogènes. Certains sont séparés par des murs de sécurité29. Les quartiers mixtes et neutres sont essentiellement le centre ville commercial, le quartier de l’université ainsi que les quartiers résidentiels au sud de la ville. Cette mixité se recoupe souvent avec les quartiers les plus favorisés socialement.
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Graphique 1 : Localisation géographique des murals à Belfast en 2012 (N = 399)
15 Les peintures murales sont situées à l’intérieur des ghettos, là où le soutien aux partis radicaux est le plus fort et où les conditions socio-économiques sont les moins favorables : à l’ouest, au nord-est et à l’est de la ville. Dans ces quartiers, les peintures se situent parfois sur les interfaces, ou sur les peace lines, mais sont orientées vers l’intérieur de la communauté non pas pour défier l’ennemi, mais bien davantage pour renforcer le sentiment d’appartenance intracommunautaire et les dynamiques de mobilisation30. Elles contribuent également à revendiquer l’appartenance de certains symboles comme Cuchulainn, héros mythologique dans les deux traditions31.
16 En procédant à l’inventaire systématique des fresques, il est apparu que ces transformations sont essentiellement effectuées à la périphérie des quartiers dans les lieux visibles par les touristes ou les personnes extérieures à la communauté, le long des artères les plus fréquentées comme Falls Road. Lorsque l’on pénètre à l’intérieur des quartiers, comme par exemple Ballymurphy ou Short Strand, les anciennes peintures et les thèmes violents ou agressifs demeurent, ce qui signifie que le processus de paix et les dynamiques de réconciliation n’atteignent pas encore le cœur identitaire des communautés comme l’expliquent fort justement des observateurs du processus de paix et des nouvelles institutions nord irlandaises de partage du pouvoir32.
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Photo 4 : Au cœur du ghetto, images violentes célébrant les héros de l’IRA, Belfast South East, The Markets Area, proche du centre.
17 Dans le centre ville ou les quartiers mixtes où le soutien aux modérés nationalistes et unionistes est le plus fort, les peintures murales sont absentes. Ceci atteste que ce moyen de communication n’est pas utilisé par les modérés qui se satisfont des medias classiques, mais aussi en raison d’une expérience du conflit qui ne nécessite pas autant de mobilisation identitaire et de renforcement communautaire33. Cela souligne aussi les différentes perspectives intracommunautaires : les radicaux expriment la nécessité de sanctuariser un territoire, contrairement aux modérés qui ne politisent pas l’espace de façon similaire. Ainsi, les peintures murales définissent un territoire où les rapports de forces intra-communautaires sont favorables aux radicaux, et signalent le contrôle de ces zones par les paramilitaires de l’IRA ou de l’UVF34.
18 La totalité des peintures murales politiques sont nationalistes35 : ceci montre que leur puissance visuelle et mobilisatrice est entièrement consacrée à la thématique nationale, et que les radicaux des deux bords contrôlent la structuration de l’espace public en écartant d’autres questions de sociétés majeures comme les enjeux de classe ou de genre.
Thèmes : priorité à l’identité
19 Dès le début des années 1980, des thèmes récurrents s’imposent. Ils sont illustrés en détail dans les travaux de Bill Rolston36 ou d’Alain Miossec37 et analysés par rapport aux fonctions qu’ils soutiennent38. Les principaux thèmes se répartissent selon une grille de lecture identitaire développant des références historiques, mythologiques, symboliques, héraldiques ; une grille de lecture mémorielle incluant la célébration de martyrs, de massacres et l’historicisation d’évènements contemporains et une ultime grille culturelle comprenant des références à la culture la langue, la religion et les
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sports spécifiques à chaque communauté. Les questions relatives à la justice sont également fréquentes, ainsi que les références internationales dans les quartiers républicains. Enfin, le thème de la paix est apparu dans le cadre du processus de paix. Plus épisodiquement, ces murals servent également de support politicien dans le cadre de campagnes électorales.
Gaphique 2 : Contenus thématiques des Murals à Belfast en 2012 (N = 649, 399 murals)39
20 Le graphique 2 confirme clairement la fonction essentiellement identitaire des murals40. Si les usages politiciens, les comparaisons internationales, les revendications de justice ou de paix sont fortement minoritaires, la thématique identitaire est en revanche présente dans la quasi totalité des fresques.
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Graphique 3 : Occurrences thématiques par communauté, Belfast 2012 (N=399 murals ; 649 occurrences thématiques)
21 Le graphique 3 montre que les murals loyalistes ont plus fréquemment un contenu identitaire que les fresques républicaines. Les républicains les utilisent en revanche plus fréquemment pour des mémoriaux, le culte des héros et l’historicisation d’évènements, ce qui leur permet de se positionner davantage à travers un statut de victime. Ils utilisent aussi plus systématiquement les références culturelles comme la langue, la danse ou les sports. Ce graphique confirme également que les références internationales sont uniquement utilisées par les républicains41, de même que les fonctions électoralistes. Les républicains ont ainsi un usage multifonctionnel des peintures murales, alors que les loyalistes ont tendance à y recourir essentiellement pour mettre en avant des revendications identitaires. La revendication identitaire moins intense dans les murals républicains corrobore les résultats de certaines recherches qui expliquent une diminution des identifications nationales irlandaises au sein de la population catholique nationaliste42.
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Photo 5 : Cuchulainn, héros mythologique, lutte armée et appel au vote pour le Sinn Féin, Ballymurphy, West Belfast.
Au cœur de la dynamique du conflit
22 Au-delà des fonctions d’éducation populaire ou de propagande qu’explique Bill Rolston43, de communication alternative de masse comme le défend Lyman Chaffee dans le cas de pays hispaniques44, ou de marquage et de contrôle territorial45, les références contenues dans ces murals font partie de processus de mobilisation qui activent l’identité nationale et l’érigent comme axe central et vital de structuration de l’espace public. Ainsi les premières fonctions des murals dans les années 1979-81 furent de contrer la criminalisation en politisant l’espace public. Elles projetèrent dans cet espace public un système – ou un nuage – de références identificatoires culturelles, historiques ou symboliques qui devenaient immédiatement et durablement disponibles pour la population de ces quartiers. De plus, la profondeur temporelle de ces références inscrit la lutte des parties en conflit (républicains ou loyalistes) dans une continuité historique qui la légitime. La population est donc appelée à poursuivre la lutte de ses prédécesseurs et toute défection sera présentée comme une trahison. En diffusant des références anciennes (insurrection de Pâques 1916 pour les républicains ; Guillaume d’Orange et la Bataille de la Boyne en 1690, ou le sacrifice de la Somme en 1916 pour les loyalistes) aux côtés de références récentes internes au conflit (Bloody Sunday, massacres réciproques), les murals contribuent à actualiser le passé aussi bien qu’à historiciser le présent. Le passé légitime la lutte présente et l’historicisation de cette lutte lui donne une légitimité contemporaine. Ces processus de mobilisation identitaires contribuent aux dynamiques du conflit46.
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Photo 6 : Mémorial à la 36e division décimée à la bataille de la Somme en 1916, Castlereagh, East Belfast.
23 Les républicains, qui identifièrent leur lutte à celle de tous les peuples opprimés, réussirent à trouver des soutiens et relais internationaux47. En revanche, les loyalistes, davantage dans une position de dominant peu mobilisable dans une lecture binaire du conflit, n’utilisèrent pas les références internationales dans leurs fresques48. La dynamique d’internationalisation du côté républicain trouva d’autant plus d’écho qu’elle se produisit parallèlement à des actions similaires au Pays Basque ou en Palestine49. Ceci explique que l’on trouve des références internationales dans les quartiers républicains (3 %) et aucune dans les quartiers loyalistes.
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Photo 7 : Solidarité avec les prisonniers palestiniens, sur la « peaceline », Falls Road, West Belfast.
24 Dès les années 1980, les commanditaires des murals réussirent à les imposer aux médias audiovisuels comme arrière plan habituel des reportages sur le conflit ; les journalistes propageaient ainsi des stratégies de communication et de mobilisation qui les dépassaient, présentant les protagonistes comme des figures arriérés d’une guerre d’un autre temps. You are now entering Free Derry50 ou You are now entering Loyalist Sandy Row51 étaient devenus des lieux de point presse et obtinrent une diffusion internationale – tout de même moins fréquente pour les loyalistes.
25 L’état des lieux en 2011-12 ne fait que confirmer que les stratégies mises en place au cours du conflit sont toujours actives : 9,5 % des peintures ne sont pas partisanes. La nécessité de renforcer la conscience et les identités nationales comme éléments dominants de la structuration de l’espace public est toujours vivace pour les commanditaires des peintures qui étouffent toute autre représentation de la vie sociale.
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Photo 8 : Parodie loyaliste du célèbre « you are now entering free Derry », Sandy Row, West Belfast.
26 Les peintures murales participent ainsi activement à la dynamique du conflit car elles sont un outil de légitimation de la lutte, et recherchent la mobilisation. Il s’agit maintenant de comprendre si ces fresques produisent un effet sur la population en fournissant une grille de lecture politique de la société ou en construisant un contexte de socialisation comme cela a été expliqué pour les identités nationales52, ou par une routinisation de l’activation identitaire53.
Effets et perceptions : une communication de classe
27 Les commanditaires eux-mêmes jugent les peintures murales très efficaces en termes de mobilisation électorale54. Les résultats électoraux des partis radicaux dans les quartiers où elles sont implantées sont élevés mais aucune donnée ne permet de comparer les sentiments d’appartenance nationale ou la mobilisation nationaliste avant et après l’installation d’une peinture murale et de juger dès lors de leur impact sur le vote. En l’absence de telles données, un questionnaire a été élaboré et distribué à des étudiants de l’Université d’Ulster afin de connaître leur appréhension du phénomène. Ce questionnaire a produit des résultats inexploitables car il a été rempli de façon absolument négative : trop de questions furent laissées sans réponse, ou traitées avec dérision. Le public étudiant, du fait de son niveau social au Royaume Uni, n’est pas confronté à la réalité sociale de ces quartiers et considère de toute évidence les peintures murales et le conflit qu’elles incarnent avec dédain. Seulement 5,8 % des sondés sont parvenus à identifier les appartenances des peintures murales, ce qui révèle une totale méconnaissance de la question des « troubles ». Il est également envisageable que des jeunes issus de quartiers « ouvriers » et accédant à un niveau culturel plus élevé se détournent à la fois de la culture politique dans laquelle a baigné leur enfance et des murals qui est un rappel permanent de cette culture.
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28 Un sondage d’opinion réalisé plus sérieusement en tête à tête permet toutefois d’appréhender la question de la perception55. 20,4 % des personnes interrogées ont été « dérangés » par les peintures murales républicaines, alors que 24,3 % l’ont été par les peintures loyalistes. Cet écart ne reflète pas de différence significative dans la perception de ces peintures dans la population en général.
Tableau 1 : Personnes affectées par les murals selon le niveau de qualification et le genre (%) (Source : Northern Irish and Times Survey 2010)
Qualification Sans qualification Homme Femme
universitaire (%) (%) (%) (%)
oui 28,4 18,4 20,9 20,1 Dérangés par murals républicains non 70,6 81,4 78,7 79,5
oui 35,0 16,2 25,5 23,3 Dérangés par murals loyalistes non 63,5 83,5 74,3 75,8
N N= 1196 N= 1203
29 Les catégories d’âge n’ont pas été retenues car elles ne présentaient que d’infimes variations. Le tableau 1 montre que le genre n’influe pas non plus sur la perception des peintures murales. En revanche, le niveau de qualification agit sur leur perception. Ainsi, plus le niveau de qualification est élevé, plus les personnes se déclarent « dérangées » par les peintures murales. Plus il est bas, moins elles sont affectées. Cette variation suggère que les personnes les plus exposées aux fresques sont moins perturbées, parce que plus habituées, puisque les murals se situent essentiellement dans les ghettos socialement défavorisés. Elle confirme aussi que ces peintures sont un mode de communication davantage utilisé par les classes populaires qui leur portent un regard plus favorable. Il convient également de noter que les peintures loyalistes produisent en général un effet plus négatif sur les échantillons que les peintures républicaines.
Tableau 2 : Personnes affectées par les murals selon l’identité nationale (%) (Source : Northern Irish and Times Survey 2010)
Britannique Irlandaise Ulster Irlande du Nord identité nationale (%) (%) (%) (%)
oui 22,6 20,3 17 19,5 Dérangés par murals républicains non 77,4 79,7 78,7 80,5
oui 20,5 31,2 19,1 25,5 Dérangés par murals loyalistes non 79,2 68,5 78,7 74,2
N= 1201
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30 De façon assez inattendue, il n’y a pas de gros écart entre la perception des peintures murales républicaines ou loyalistes en fonction des identifications nationales. Les personnes s’identifiant comme Britanniques, d’Ulster ou Irlandaises du Nord, sont affectées de façon relativement similaire par les peintures murales qu’elles soient républicaines ou loyalistes. Les personnes s’identifiant comme irlandaises sont en revanche nettement plus affectées par les peintures loyalistes (31,2 %), ce qui suggère une relation plus conflictuelle.
Tableau 3 : Personnes affectées par les murals selon l’orientation électorale (%) (Source : Northern Irish and Times Survey 2010)
vote DUP (%) Sinn Féin (%) UUP (%) SDLP (%) Alliance (%)
oui 23,8 12,9 23,8 26,1 20,2 Dérangés par murals républicains non 76,2 87,1 76,2 72,9 78,9
oui 16,8 26,5 28,6 31,7 36,8 Dérangés par murals loyalistes non 83,2 73,5 71,4 67,3 63,2
N= 1181
31 Finalement, le tableau 3 révèle que le Sinn Féin est le parti dont les électeurs sont logiquement les plus favorables aux peintures murales républicaines. Mais il révèle surtout que le SDLP56 y est le moins favorable. Ceci confirme la familiarité des radicaux et des classes les moins favorisées avec ce mode de communication, et illustre également le conflit interne entre radicaux et modérés quant aux modes de communication et de mobilisation politique. Ainsi le SDLP est plus négatif à l’égard des murals de son propre camp que ne le sont ses rivaux du DUP et UUP 57. Ses supporters ont également une perception moins favorable des murals loyalistes que les supporters du Sinn Féin, pourtant habituellement jugés plus radicaux et dans une relation plus intransigeante. Ces derniers sont les plus favorables, après le DUP, aux expressions murales loyalistes. Alliance, parti modéré, aconfessionnel et soutenu par les classes supérieures développe la perception la moins favorable des murals. Ces données montrent finalement que le mode d’expression et de mobilisation par la peinture murale appartient à une culture militante populaire radicale qui parvient à aiguillonner la légitimité des modérés. La socialisation de la majorité des supporters des organisations radicales dans un milieu où les fresques sont omniprésentes contribue à leur donner une perception plus positive de ces œuvres qu’aux personnes extérieures plus facilement déstabilisées.
32 Cet état des lieux des peintures murales nationalistes en Irlande du Nord et en particulier dans la ville de Belfast fait apparaitre qu’elles ont pour fonction essentielle d’activer et de pérenniser les processus d’identification nationale. Les politiques publiques de transformation des murals ne parviennent à enrayer ces dynamiques conflictuelles que superficiellement, et les nouvelles institutions ne génèrent pas de processus de transformation identitaire. Les questionnaires et données quantitatives soulignent une perception négative – voire un rejet – des peintures murales plus
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fréquents au sein des organisations modérées et parmi la population la plus qualifiée. À l’inverse, les supporters des partis radicaux sont plus familiers avec les murals et les appréhendent plus positivement. Les radicaux des deux communautés ont ainsi une culture populaire et militante commune – et semble-t-il un respect réciproque pour ces œuvres – sur lesquels ils essayent parfois de construire des rapprochements intercommunautaires. Ainsi des peintures souhaitant la paix, identiques dans chaque communauté, ont été élaborées dans le cadre de projets de réconciliation dans l’est de Belfast. De même, la première peinture murale conjointe a été réalisée sur Falls Road en 2009 par des peintres loyalistes et républicains58. Les peintures murales, longtemps parties prenantes de dynamiques de conflit, peuvent ainsi parfois contribuer à relancer le processus de paix.
Photo 9 : Guernica réalisé par des peintres républicains et loyalistes, Falls Road, West Belfast.
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Jenkins, Richard, Social Identity. 3rd ed., New York, Routledge, 2008.
MacClancy, Jeremy, Expressing Identities in the Basque Arena, Oxford, Santa Fe, James Currey, School for Advanced Research Press, 2007.
MC DONALD, Julie, MC CAVANA, Declan, « The walls of Belfast speak louder than words », in HÄHNEL- MESNARD, Marie, MARINAS, Cristina (dir.), Représentations contemporaines de la mémoire dans les espaces mémoriels, les arts du visuel, la littérature et le théâtre, Paris, Éditions de l'École Polytechnique, 2008.
MIOSSEC, Alain, Murals d’Irlande du Nord. Quel avenir après 100 années de pratique communautaire?, Rennes, CRBC, 2011.
PEATLING, G. K., « Unionist identity, external perceptions of Northern Ireland, and the problem of Unionist legitimacy », Éire-Ireland 39 (1&2), 2004, p. 215-236.
PRAGNÈRE, Pascal, « Peintures murales en Irlande du Nord et au Pays Basque : mobilisation et création d’identité nationale », in YÈCHE, Hélène (dir.), Cahiers du MIMMOC 5, 2010.
PRAGNÈRE, Pascal, « Exporter la guerre – importer la paix. Dimensions transnationales de deux conflits nationalistes. Irlande du Nord, Pays Basque » in MAIGNANT C. (dir.), La France et l'Irlande: destins croisés, 16e-21e siècle, Lille, Presses du Septentrion, 2013.
PRAGNÈRE, Pascal, GARCÍA LÁZARO, Néstor, « Evoluciones del “arte callejero” nacionalista de la dictadura a la democracia en Canarias y País Vasco », in LOFF M., MOLINERO C. (dir.), Sociedades en cambio: España y Portugal en los años setenta, Barcelona, CEFID-UAB/IHC, 2012.
PRAGNÈRE, Pascal, « Les peintures murales: instrument politique et patrimoine historique », Euskonews 608, janvier 2012.
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ROLSTON, Bill, Politics and Painting: Murals and Conflict in Northern Ireland, Cranbury, NJ, Associated University Presses, 1991.
ROLSTON, Bill, Drawing Support: Murals in the North of Ireland, Belfast, Beyond the Pale Publications, 1994.
ROLSTON, Bill, Drawing Support 2: Murals of War and Peace, Belfast, Beyond the Pale Publications, 1995.
ROLSTON, Bill, « The Brothers on the Walls », Journal of Black Studies 39 (3), 2009, p. 446-470.
SHIRLOW, Peter and BRENDAN, Murtagh, Belfast, Segregation, Violence and the City, London, Pluto Press, 2006.
TAYLOR, Rupert, « Northern Ireland: consociation or social transformation?», in MCGARRY, J. (dir.), Northern Ireland and the Divided World. The Northern Ireland Conflict and the Good Friday Agreement in Comparative Perspective, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001.
TAYLOR, Rupert, « The Belfast Agreement and the limits of consociationalism », in FARRINGTON C. (dir.), Global Change, Civil Society and the Northern Ireland Peace Process. Implementing the Political Settlement, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
TRÉGUER, Annick, Chicanos. Murs peints des États-Unis, Paris, Presses de la Sorbonne nouvelle, 2000.
URTEAGA, Eguzki, Le Vote Nationaliste Basque, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2007.
WOODS, Oona, Seeing Is Believing? Murals in Derry, Derry, Guildhall Press, 1995.
NOTES
1. Le terme anglo-saxon est également utilisé dans cet article car il définit justement cette spécificité nord-irlandaise. 2. Au cœur du conflit nord irlandais, Belfast est la ville où le phénomène des peintures murales est le plus présent. 3. À titre indicatif, 57 ont été également inventoriées à Derry pendant cette même période. 4. Dès 1991 avec l’ouvrage de Bill Rolston, Politics and Painting: Murals and Conflict in Northern Ireland, Cranbury, NJ, Associated University Presses, 1991, puis ses autres ouvrages (voir bibliographie), ou Jean Guiffan avec le recueil Irlande du Nord, les murs parlent, revue Skol Vreizh nº 41, Morlaix, Skol Vreizh, 1998. 5. Les études de ces murals restent généralement descriptifs ; les travaux de Chaffee sur l’Amérique Latine et l’Espagne (1988, 1993), Jarman (1998), Miossec (2011) et Rolston (1991) sont les plus approfondis. 6. L’accord du Vendredi Saint 1998 (Good Friday Agreement) et Accord de Saint Andrews, 2005. 7. Il n’y a pas à ce jour d’étude de l’impact des peintures murales sur la population en Irlande du Nord, ni ailleurs. 8. Il s’agit ici de campagnes de santé publique organisées par des associations caritatives ou les pouvoirs publics qui utilisent ce support de communication. Ces campagnes sont considérées comme non politiques. En revanche, des organisations paramilitaires, en particulier des dissidents de l’IRA, se disputent le contrôle de réseaux
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clandestins sous couvert d’action contre la drogue comme le DAAD (Direct Action Against Drugs). 9. Andrew Hill et Andrew White, « Painting Peace? Murals and the Northern Ireland Peace Process», Irish Political Studies, n° 27, 2012. 10. Par exemple Alliance Party, les partis communistes ou les syndicats. 11. Lyman G. Chaffee, Political Protest and Street Art. Popular Tools for Democratization in Hispanic Countries, Westport, London, Greenwood Press, 1993, Introduction. 12. L’Ordre d’Orange est une organisation para politique qui milite pour la défense de l’Irlande du Nord au sein du Royaume Uni. 13. Julie Mc Donald, Declan Mc Cavana, «The walls of Belfast speak louder than words», in Marie Hähnel-Mesnard et Cristina Marinas, (dir.), Représentations contemporaines de la mémoire dans les espaces mémoriels, les arts du visuel, la littérature et le théâtre, Paris: Editions de l'Ecole Polytechnique, 2008. 14. « Vous entrez ici dans Derry libre ». 15. En particulier en référence à des productions aux États-Unis et en Amérique latine, voir par exemple Annick Tréguer,Chicanos. Murs peints des États-Unis, Paris, Presses de la Sorbonne nouvelle, 2000. 16. Oona Woods, Seeing Is Believing? Murals in Derry Derry, Guildhall Press, 1995, p. 14-15. 17. Pour une population d’un million et demi d’habitants. À l’échelle de la France, cela représenterait environ 90 000 personnes. 18. Actuellement Gerry Adams est Président du Sinn Féin et Martin McGuinness Vice- Premier Ministre d’Irlande du Nord. 19. Concept connu sous le terme de « long war strategy », incluant la nécessité de maintenir la mobilisation populaire. 20. « Armalite and ballot box strategy », concept popularisé par Danny Morrison – stratège en communication du Sinn Féin – lors du congrès du Sinn Féin en 1981. 21. Lieux de contact ou de séparation entre les deux communautés (par un mur, un grillage, une rivière, une rue ou un bâtiment). 22. Jeremy MacClancy, Expressing Identities in the Basque Arena, Oxford, Santa Fe, New Mexico, James Currey, School for Advanced Research Press, 2007, Ch.7. 23. Lyman G. Chaffee, 1993, op.cit. p. 36-43; Bill Rolston, Politics and Painting: Murals and Conflict in Northern Ireland, Cranbury, NJ, Associated University Presses,1991, p. 122-123. 24. Ces éléments proviennent d’entretiens réalisés avec des peintres nord-irlandais dans le cadre d’un projet en cours sur la circulation des peintres, des sujets, des modèles ou des images – copies ou imitations – entre le Pays Basque et l’Irlande du Nord. Six entretiens ont été réalisés avec des peintres nord-irlandais, six avec des basques. Étude à paraître dans la revue Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos en 2014. 25. « £3.3 million going to replace murals », Belfast Telegraph, 10 juillet 2006. 26. Sous couvert d’anonymat, ils m’ont affirmé avoir récemment peint une scène particulièrement violente afin de percevoir, après négociations, une somme très importante pour la remplacer par un contenu culturel. 27. Comme la danse ou la culture, les sports sont étroitement liés aux traditions communautaires : ainsi les loyalistes pratiquent ou sont supporters de football, alors
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que les républicains pratiquent ou sont supporters de sports traditionnels irlandais comme le hurling ou le football gaélique. 28. Entre le printemps 2011 et le printemps 2012. 29. Appelés « peace lines » en Irlande du Nord. Sur ces divisions de la ville, voir Ballif, Florine, « Murs de sécurité et politique de maintien de l'ordre à Belfast », Les Cahiers du MIMMOC, 5, 2009, (), ou Shirlow, Peter and Brendan Murtagh, Belfast, Segregation, Violence and the City, Londres, Pluto Press, 2006. 30. Voir paragraphe « fonctions ». 31. Les républicains expliquent qu’il aurait défendu l’Irlande contre les envahisseurs, alors que les loyalistes prétendent qu’il défendit l’Ulster face aux irlandais. 32. Ils expliquent par exemple que les institutions de partage du pouvoir instaurées par les accords de 1998 (Good Friday Agreement) et 2005 (Saint Andrews Agreement) figent la représentation des communautés et empêchent le dépassement du conflit identitaire. Voir par exemple Rupert Taylor, « Northern Ireland: consociation or social transformation? », in J. McGarry (dir.) Northern Ireland and the Divided World. The Northern Ireland Conflict and the Good Friday Agreement in Comparative Perspective, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, ou: Rupert Taylor, «The Belfast Agreement and the Politics of Consociationalism: A Critique », 2006, The Political Quarterly 77 (2), p. 217-226. 33. Les modérés vivent en majorité dans les quartiers mixtes ou neutres et n’ont pas le même vécu de la violence, de la vie dans les ghettos ou de l’injustice. 34. Les deux principales organisations paramilitaires: Irish Republican Army, organisation combattante républicaine irlandaise, et Ulster Volunteer Force, paramilitaires loyalistes britanniques. D’autres existent, notamment l’Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) républicaine, ou l’Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) faisant partie de l’ Ulster Defence Association (UDA). Les murals portent souvent la signature de certains de leurs bataillons ou de certaines de leurs branches, parfois en compétition pour la domination territoriale. A cette date, la majorité des peintures est l’œuvre de l’UVF et de ses organisations satellites. 35. Le terme « nationaliste » s’applique également aux républicains – nationalistes irlandais – et aux loyalistes – nationalistes britanniques. 36. Bill Rolston 1991, op.cit., ou Rolston, Drawing Support: Murals in the North of Ireland, Belfast, Beyond the Pale Publications, 1994, et Drawing Support 2: Murals of War and Peace, Belfast, Beyond the Pale Publications,1995. 37. Alain Miossec, Murals d’Irlande du Nord. Quel avenir après 100 années de pratique communautaire? Rennes, CRBC, 2011. 38. Pascal Pragnère, « Peintures murales en Irlande du Nord et au Pays Basque : mobilisation et création d’identité nationale », Cahiers du MIMMOC 5, Hélène Yèche (dir.), 2010, http://mimmoc.revues.org/405. 39. Les peinture murales contiennent souvent plusieurs référents thématiques. 40. Compte tenu de la richesse sémantique et de la composition des murals, il est impossible de réduire chaque mural à une seule thématique. Certains contiennent donc deux thèmes. Les pourcentages sont donc établis avec 649 thèmes répartis en 399 murals. 41. G.K. Peatling, «Unionist identity, external perceptions of Northern Ireland, and the problem of Unionist legitimacy», Éire-Ireland 39 (1&2), 2004, p. 215-236.
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42. John Coakley, « Comparing Ethnic Conflicts: Common Patterns, Shared Challenges », in J. Coackley (dir.), Pathways From Ethnic Conflict. Institutional Redesign in Divided Societies, London, New York, Routledge, 2010, p. 1-20; ou John Coakley, « National Identity in Northern Ireland: Stability or Change? » Nations and Nationalism 13 (4), 2007, p. 573-597. 43. Bill Rolston, Drawing Support: Murals in the North of Ireland, Belfast, Beyond the Pale Publications, 1994, p. vii-viii, et Drawing Support 2: Murals of War and Peace, Belfast, Beyond the Pale Publications, 1995, p. ii-v. 44. Lyman Chaffee, op.cit., p. 5-17. 45. Neill Jarman, « Painting Landscapes: The Place of Murals in the Symbolic Construction of Urban Space », in A. Buckley (dir.), Symbols in Northern Ireland, Belfast, Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University, 1998, Ch.5; voir aussi Neil Jarman, Material Conflicts. Parades and Visual Displays in Northern Ireland. Oxford, New York, Berg, 1997, p. 220-239; 253-261. 46. Cette approche a été développée dans le cadre du groupe de recherche « Peinture murale, enjeux et perspectives » de l’EHESS ainsi que dans de précédents articles, notamment Pascal Pragnère, « Peintures murales en Irlande du Nord et au Pays Basque : mobilisation et création d’identité nationale », in Hélène Yèche (dir.), Cahiers du MIMMOC 5, 2010 ; voir également Pascal Pragnère et Néstor García Lázaro, . « Evoluciones del 'arte callejero' nacionalista de la dictadura a la democracia en Canarias y País Vasco », in M. Loff et C. Molinero (dir.), Sociedades en cambio: España y Portugal en los años setenta (CD-ROM), 2012, Barcelona, CEFID-UAB/IHC ; Pascal Pragnère, « Les peintures murales: instrument politique et patrimoine historique», Euskonews 608, janvier 2012. 47. En particulier auprès des basques, des palestiniens, ou des afro-américains. 48. Bill Rolston, « The Brothers on the Walls ». Journal of Black Studies, 39 (3), 2009, p. 446-470. 49. Pascal Pragnère, «Exporter la guerre - importer la paix. Dimensions transnationales de deux conflits nationalistes. Irlande du Nord, Pays Basque», in C. Maignant (dir.), Les irlandais en France et les français en Irlande, Lille, Presses du Septentrion, 2012. 50. Inscription qui marque l’accès au Bogside, quartier républicain de Derry. 51. À l’entrée de Sandy Row, quartier loyaliste proche du centre de Belfast ; parodie- miroir du célèbre mural de Derry. 52. Richard Jenkins, Rethinking Ethnicity: Arguments and Explorations, 2ème edition, London, Los Angeles, Sage Publications, 2008, p. 60-69. 53. Voir Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism, London, Sage, 1995. 54. Bill Rolston, 1995, op.cit., p.iv. 55. Northern Irish Life and Times Survey 2010. Sondage réalisé sur un échantillon de 1205 personnes entre le 1er octobre et le 18 décembre 2010 par la Queens University, Belfast et l’University of Ulster, pour étudier les valeurs, croyances et attitudes de la population d’Irlande du Nord. Les questions sur les murals ont été introduites récemment. Questionnaire et données accessibles sur le site Northern Ireland Life and Times (http://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/datasets/). 56. Social Democratic Labour Party, parti nationaliste modéré, soutenu par les classes plus aisées.
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57. Democratic Unionist Party, parti radical loyaliste, et Ulster Unionist Party, parti unioniste plus modéré. 58. Il s’agit d’une représentation du Gernika de Picasso.
RÉSUMÉS
Cet article procède à un état des lieux des peintures murales nationalistes dans la ville de Belfast. Leur fonction essentielle est d’activer et de pérenniser les processus d’identification nationale. Les politiques publiques de transformation des murals n’enrayent que superficiellement ces dynamiques conflictuelles. Les questionnaires et données quantitatives soulignent une perception négative – voire un rejet – des peintures murales plus fréquents au sein des organisations modérées et parmi la population la plus qualifiée. À l’inverse, les supporters des partis radicaux appréhendent les murals plus positivement. Les radicaux des deux communautés ont ainsi une culture populaire et militante commune – et semble-t-il un respect réciproque pour ces œuvres – sur lesquels ils essayent parfois de construire des rapprochements intercommunautaires. Bien plus qu’un instrument de communication de masse, ces peintures sont des outils de communication de classe.
This article analyses nationalist mural paintings in the Northern Irish city of Belfast. The main function of the murals is to activate and sustain national identification processes. Public policies of transformation of the murals only superficially affect conflict dynamics. Questionnaires and quantitative data from surveys emphasize the fact that negative perceptions –and even dismissal– of mural paintings are more frequent among moderate political organizations and among the most qualified population. On the contrary, radical parties’ supporters consider them more positively. Radicals from both communities thus share a common popular and militant culture –and also apparently a common respect for these murals–, a culture on which they sometimes try to build intercommunity relationships. Beyond being an instrument of mass communication, these murals are tools of class communication.
INDEX
Keywords : mural paintings, Northern Ireland - conflict, Northern Ireland - post-conflict, social classes, social role of the artist, national identity, Irish nationalism, history of representations, collective identity Mots-clés : peintures murales, Irlande du Nord - conflit, Irlande du Nord - post-conflit, classes sociales, identité collective, nationalisme irlandais, rôle social de l'artiste, histoire des représentations, identité nationale
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AUTEUR
PASCAL PRAGNÈRE Université Paris 3-Sorbonne Nouvelle
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Art et images Art and Images
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Suppressed Voices: The Suffering and Silencing of Irish Institutional Abuse Survivors in Áine Phillips’s Redress Performances
Kate Antosik-Parsons
1 The performance art of Irish women artists politicised by feminism renders visible the pervasive nature of hegemonic ideologies by interrogating the historical circumstances and contemporary issues dictating the realities of Irish women’s lives. Irish performance art imbues the body as a site of negotiation for gendered representations to undermine conservative political, religious and cultural ideologies that seek to maintain control over women’s sexual and bodily autonomy. A number of recent live and recorded performances extend these critiques to address the legacy of the physical, sexual and psychological abuse of those within Catholic-run residential institutions throughout Ireland. Works like Amanda Coogan’s Medea (2001) and Yellow (2009), and Helena Walsh’s Invisible Stains (2008) have dealt specifically with the impact of these violations and the repeated marginalisation of survivor experiences1. Performance art is an ephemeral, process-based medium that enables Irish artists to respond to the gaps, omissions and deliberate silences in hegemonic narratives thereby allowing for marginalised memories to arise.
2 This essay focuses on the recent performance series, Redress (2010-2012), by Irish performance artist Áine Phillips (b. 1965, Dublin). Developed over a period of two years, Redress was composed of live and recorded performances that question the cultural stigma of abuse, its traumatic memories and the continuing silencing of survivors2. Phillips was educated at the National College of Art and Design (BFA, 1984-88), Limerick School of Art and Design (MA, 1999-2001) and completed a practiced-based PhD at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin (2006-2009) on the subject of autobiography. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Live Art Development Agency (London) and the prestigious National Review of Live Art (UK). Her feminist artistic practice is characterised by performative embodiments that
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attempt to unravel ideas about representation and spectatorship in Irish culture. This essay argues that through a series of haunting bodily gestures, the Redress performances negotiate the injustices of abuse and the suppression and silencing of the most vulnerable in Irish society to critique how dominant Irish narratives remember and forget.
3 As the prevailing moral authority in twentieth century Ireland, the Catholic Church wielded power over many aspects of political and cultural life while fostering a climate of sexual repression. The Irish Constitution (1937) even went so far as to state: “The State recognises the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of the citizens3”. The collective organisation was largely responsible for providing services for the vulnerable including education and maintaining orphanages and homes for single mothers. In the 1980s, there were increasing calls for secularization of Irish society facilitated by the demand for greater bodily autonomy with regard to contraception, abortion, divorce and homosexuality. Irish feminist activists, artists and writers working during this time focused their efforts on excavating the historical and contemporary positions of women and others marginalised in society to challenge the oppressive conservatism of the reigning political, social and religious ideologies4.
4 The scandals involving Bishop Eamonn Casey and Father Michael Cleary, both of whom fathered children despite vocally preaching chaste morals and values, contributed to the growing disquiet amongst Irish Catholics5. The sheer number of reports of clerical sexual abuse and calculated cover-ups by Church authorities eroded its unquestioned position. Mary Raftery’s probing documentary States of Fear (1999) revealed the shocking widespread abuse committed by Catholic religious orders in Ireland and led to public awareness of the endemic abuse of children in the care of the State. The resulting Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (The Ryan Commission) (1999) enacted the Residential Institutions Redress Act (2002) establishing a grievance board to redress the systematic and sustained physical, sexual and emotional abuse committed against children in care of the State by various religious-run residential institutions such as industrial or reformatory schools, yet it did not prosecute or sanction the individuals involved. The comprehensive Ryan Report (2009) identified a total of one hundred and twenty-nine offending residential institutions including orphanages, homes for the visually and hearing impaired, industrial schools and children’s orthopedic hospitals. It asserted that the various levels of abuse led to a permeating climate of fear where children lived in terror6. The compensation offered under the Redress Act is based on a number of factors including the severity of the abuse, the extent of physical and mental injuries, psycho-social affects of the treatment and the loss of opportunity resulting from the abuse. Under Section 13.6 any claimant in receipt of reparation is prohibited from disclosing details of the abuse inflicted under a penalty of up to but not exceeding €25,000, a term of imprisonment not exceeding two years, or both7. The Redress performances directly address the Redress Act and its “gagging” of compensated abuse survivors while also responding to the exclusion from these restitution proceedings of women incarcerated in the religious- run Magdalene Laundries, work homes for women who endured appalling violations of human rights. The Channel 4 documentary Sex in a Cold Climate (1997) shed light on the subject. Until recently, the glaring omission of these forgotten women was due to lack of official government recognition on the nature of the offenses committed against individuals in these facilities8. The invisibility and different types of silencing of these
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victims and the pervading climate of oppression in these institutions inform these powerful performances.
5 Redress (2010) (Fig. 1) was a four-hour durational performance initially developed for Right Here, Right Now, a live performance event co-curated by Dominic Thorpe, Niamh Murphy and Amanda Coogan9. For the performance Phillips was locked in a stark cell as she struggled to repeatedly dress herself in an ill-fitting white dress. Her body covered entirely in white make-up, she appeared like an apparition. Her white underwear was exposed when she raised her arms suspending the dress overhead. The white wool blanket with a pink border on the wooden floor was reminiscent of a blanket found in a hospital or institution. A bright light angled from the door of the cell lit her body projecting its clearly defined shadow against the rear wall. This visible split between the physical body and its darkened Other suggested the purpose of this performance was to traverse the division between the visible, tangible and the shadowy repression of silence. Her pale, spectral presence underscored the possibility of the re-emergence of the past. The location of this performance in Kilmainham Gaol drew parallels with Dorothy Cross’s Caught in a State (1991), Rita Duffy’s Belfast Pieta (1991) and Louise Walsh’s In-laws/Outlaws (1991), previous installations in this location that used Irish history and memory to address pressing issues of gender and sexuality in Irish society. Nineteen years later, the performance of Redress in this same space resonated with haunting familiarity, signalling the necessity of ongoing feminist interventions in Irish culture.
Figure 1 : Áine Phillips, Redress (2010), Performance Still.
Photo: © Áine Phillips
6 The positioning of Phillips’s body on the blanket and her captivity in the cell tangentially recalled the protest actions of Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoners held
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in HM Maze Prison, Belfast and HM Armagh Prison. The term “on the blanket” denoted the refusal of the incarcerated to wear the supplied prison uniforms when their own IRA military dress was taken from them, opting instead to cover their bodies with prison issued bedding. The lack of the identifiable military uniform for IRA prisoners undercut their status as political prisoners, meaning that they were no different than common criminals. In defying authorities and remaining dressed in the blankets, or later entirely naked when denied the blankets, they struggled to maintain bodily autonomy despite their compromised positions. The physicality of Phillips’s struggle between her body and the dress established this connection. However, her submissive positions when she knelt down and sprawled out on the blanket lacked the empowerment present in the actions of the Republican prisoners. The repeated physical acts of dressing and undressing also evoked the resulting psychological distress of the abuse against the vulnerable. Her white dress, styled like an old- fashioned nightgown was a stark reminder of the unspeakable transgressions committed against children in residential care. Phillips’s earlier works Red Wedding (2005), Red Weight (2006) and Botany of Dresses (2009) used clothing to communicate the weight of the past. The Ryan Report highlighted that the sustained and constant fear experienced by witnesses of various levels of abuse led to psychological damage that “continued into adulthood for many witnesses10”. The continuous exposure of the lower half of her body reminded the viewer of the lingering disgrace of abuse, a shame that maintains its power long after the offense is committed. The concealment of Phillips’s face by the dress was a suffocating gag; a reminder that the social stigma attached to abuse victims is further compounded by the censoring of those “compensated”.
7 The role of spectatorship and the pleasure of looking, integral to the making of meaning in this performance, can be assessed from a feminist perspective. Phillips remained isolated in the cell throughout the performance while her actions were voyeuristically viewed through the peephole of the closed door (Fig. 2)11. This provided an intimate experience of the work as only a singular spectator could observe her. The power implicit in the act of this surveillance was reminiscent of a peep show, in which a display of erotic objects or photographs, or a sex show or pornographic film is accessed through a small round hole, viewing slot or magnifying glass. The circular peephole mimicked an ocular shape stimulating the association between the act of surveillance and the desire to look at Phillips’s body. Peep shows employed conventions established in the early mutoscope softcore pornographic films generically titled What the Butler Saw (c. 1895), in which a Butler spies on his mistress in various states of undress through the keyhole of her door12. As the shape of the peephole embedded in the cell door essentially narrowed the field of vision, Phillips’s body was not always visible in its entirety, at times mimicking hardcore pornographic conventions that represent visually dismembered body parts. However, instead of presenting the viewer with the implied class structure of the servant spying upon the employer, Redress rendered visible the hierarchal structure of the gaze upon the female body, as originally theorised in John Berger’s feminist inflected text Ways of Seeing (1971) when he asserted: “Men act, women appear13.” The one-way mechanism of the peephole, literally a magnifying lens, ensured that viewers could peer into the cell observing her body at their leisure. On the other side of the door Phillips spent four hours uncertain as to if or when her body went unobserved, maintaining the illusion of the woman as constantly surveyed. This functioned in the same way as the panopticon, a prison
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surveillance mechanism discussed in Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punishment (1979). The design of the panopticon ensured that the presumed presence of the authoritative, controlling gaze acted as a constant regulator over the incarcerated. In this performance this implicit power was coupled with the voyeuristic gaze upon the female body, assuring that the power and pleasure experienced by the viewer provoked awareness of Irish society’s complicity in the isolation of victims.
Figure 2 : Áine Phillips, Redress (2010), Performance Still.
Photo: © Áine Phillips
8 Redress (2010) is indebted to Eadweard Muybridge’s (1830-1904) Miscellaneous phases of the toilet (Woman Dressing) (1887, Plate 494). In a series of photographic studies entitled Animal Locomotion: an electro-photographic investigation of consecutive phases of animal movements (1872-1885) Muybridge detailed the movements of humans and animals through freeze-frame photography underpinned by a sense of detached observation. The correlation to Woman Dressing was evident in the repeated dressing and undressing actions mirroring the thirty-frame composition of Muybridge’s photographic plate. In the intimately-sized video work Redress (2010, 5 minutes looped) Phillips’s actions were recorded against a grid backdrop recalling the scientific screen that served to capture the exact movements of Muybridge’s subjects (Fig. 3)14. The cage-like arrangement of the grid lines acted as an enclosure containing and restricting Phillips’s movements. Juxtaposing Woman Dressing and Redress, essentially a freezing and unfreezing of time, reveals the power of an image to construct and unravel an idea. If Muybridge’s images splice through time and space to freeze a moment, then performance art unfixes that moment, splaying it open through its reliance on temporality15. The fleeting moments of Redress, with its transient visibility and the awareness it affords, communicated the power of performance to
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activate marginalised memories. The projection of the video through a muslin cloth, softening the focus of the camera’s lens, diffused the image of Phillips’s body with a distinct bleeding or seeping effect, indicating that the legacy of abuse in twentieth century Ireland cannot be quietly sequestered.
Figure 3 : Áine Phillips, Redress (2010), Video installation.
Photo: Declan Sheridan, © Áine Phillips
9 Redress: Emotional Labour (2012) (Fig. 4), an eight-hour durational performance compellingly framed by ideas of visibility and embodiment in relation to the legacies of abuse. It was performed on three separate occasions as part of Labour, a live exhibition of concurrent durational performances by eleven Irish women artists16. Extending the concerns of the first two performances, Redress: Emotional Labour responded to the incarceration of women in the Magdalene Laundries. Its development coincided with the United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) recommendation (May 2011) that the Irish government investigate the abuse and inhumane treatment of women incarcerated in the Magdalene Laundry Institutions from 1922 to 1996 in line with UN Convention Number Fourteen. It was divided into three main actions described as “staining (what is hidden is seeping out), crawling (to transform supplication into intimacy) and netting (entanglement and escape)”17. The performance aped the opening and closing times of the gallery meaning that Phillips actions appeared endless.
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Figure 4 : Áine Phillips, Redress: Emotional Labour (2012), Performance Still.
Photo: Sally Anne Kelly, © Áine Phillips
10 It was developed in collaboration with artist Evelyn Glynn, who recently completed Breaking the Rule of Silence (2011) on the Good Sheppard Magdalene Laundry (1850-1993), Limerick. Glynn’s work was a series of drawings, sound and video installations, archival materials and photographs and oral testimonies of those incarcerated at the laundry as well as relatives and patrons who experienced the facility that demonstrated the chillingly deliberate forgetting and silencing of the traumatic histories of the Magdalene inmates18. Named for Mary Magdalene, a companion of Jesus traditionally labeled as a reformed prostitute, the Magdalene Asylums or Magdalene Laundries as they were more commonly known were residential institutions where originally women such as prostitutes and unmarried mothers were sent. In the twentieth century ten institutions throughout Ireland continued to house these women, while also taking in those who suffered mental disabilities, those referred by their families and women previously cared for in industrial schools. They were expected to repent for their alleged sins by maintaining silence throughout the day, engaging in frequent prayer and working without pay in the laundries. Barred windows and doors prevented these women from leaving the premises. If they did manage to escape, Gardaí returned them to the institutions where many spent the remainder of their lives19. Many who died in the confines of the Good Sheppard Laundry were buried in unmarked mass graves at the Mount St. Laurence Cemetery, Limerick20. Glynn became painfully aware of the lack of recognition by the college that occupied Laundry’s former premises and attempted to counter the suppression of this dark past. Motivated by her own interest in the historically subordinate position of women in Irish society, Phillips collaborated with Glynn to record nine stories from the oral testimonies for the performance Redress:
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Emotional Labour that were played continuously during the first two actions over a period of six hours.
11 In the first action Phillips wore a white lace shift dress that referenced the Limerick Lace produced by women at the Good Sheppard Laundry, a long sleeve shirt, leggings and shoes. Taking small steps, she moved slowly and silently around the space. As she haltingly and repeatedly rubbed her hands against her dress, a viscous black liquid seeped out from her sides. The fresh stains on her hands suggested the unexplained Catholic occurrence of stigmata, a bodily manifestation of suffering that mimics the five wounds inflicted upon Christ during the crucifixion. A large number of reported stigmatics are women and the Dominican Order, in particular, viewed the spiritual gift of stigmata, in addition to other forms of penitence like self-flagellation and bodily prayer poses, as a preparation for “the greater gifts of glory” associated with the resurrection21. Yet the black substance in this performance functioned not as a holy mark of Christ, but rather a mark of disgrace22. Next she held her offending hands in front of her, deliberately chaffing them together trying to remove the offending fluid. Used for drawing or writing, the purpose of ink is to inscribe, document or record. The use of the ink refers to the absence of official recognition of the women who toiled in the Magdalene laundries. The shame associated with these women meant that they were not even afforded the dignity of having their full names recorded in the official Irish census. Often buried in unmarked graves, their existence was not only unacknowledged but deliberately erased. The grimy, messy nature of the ink on Phillips’s body imbues the performance with an embodied aspect beyond what can be conveyed linguistically. The artist’s inability to remove these permeating stains emphasised the impossibility of cleansing Irish history from these offenses.
12 The corporeal association of the black ink smeared on the body as Phillips continued to wipe her hands on her white dress highlighted the assumed impurity of the women of the Magdalene Laundries. This dark staining can be understood as a marker of the social and moral stigma that promiscuity or sexual relations outside of marriage brought to those women who were deemed as transgressive in their sexual behavior. The location of the seeping, staining fluid around the artist’s hips and thighs alluded to menstruation and post-partum vaginal bleeding known as lochia. The abject nature of these visceral bodily secretions, literally crossing over the corporeal boundaries of the body, rendered visible the association of these women who violated conservative societal norms. The oral testimonies, sewn discretely into the dress, meant that Phillips literally embedded the memories of the Other onto her body. In order to clearly hear the testimonies it was necessary for the viewer to stand in close proximity to Phillips establishing an uneasy intimacy between the bodies of the viewer and the artist. Intimacy in performance art can be difficult to negotiate depending on the nature of the actions performed as it may leave one vulnerable. Although it was desirable to stand close to the artist to hear to the testimonies, approaching her while she rubbed her hands in the trance-like state was akin to a violation of her personal space. This reflected the realities of life for the incarcerated women, as neither possessions nor space belonged to them; the assault on their autonomy was constant. The juxtaposed intimacy and invasion of this bodily relationship between artist and spectator presented one with a palpable sense of injustice.
13 Phillips crawled painstakingly through gallery space wearing black shoes embedded with shards of glass; the constant pressure of her knees against the hard ground
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appeared to bear the burden of remembering [Fig. 5]. Her exertions became mentally and physically taxing, indicative of the suffering body. The ink smeared traces on the ground served as blemished marks of her existence providing visual evidence of the space that her body once occupied. Hope occasionally surfaced when Phillips initiated bodily contact with a few spectators. As she reached out with one hand to lightly touch the foot of a seated viewer, she momentarily connected artist and viewer through a humbling somatic gesture. Bodily connections in performance encompass transformative potential, according to Rebecca Sachs Norris: “The body […] recognizes and receives communication directly from other bodies, allowingposture, gesture, and imagery to develop as alternative means of transmitting knowledge and feeling of various states of being23”. In this moment, the softly spoken testimonies took on a powerful quality; the words of those who suffered enabled a bodily transference from victim to spectator that essentially functioned as a type of bodily witnessing. Tim Etchells argues “to witness an event is to be present at it in some fundamental way, to feel the weight of things and one’s own place in them, even if that place is simply, for the moment, as an onlooker24”. The entreaties of Phillips’s actions, likened to supplications, humble prayers or petitions that reference the legacy of Catholicism, begged the audience for acknowledgement and mercy. Transferred onto the body of the viewer or witness via the somatic gesture, the supplication was transformed into a plea for forgiveness. The glass shards on the soles of her feet, though suggestive of enforced penance or atonement, glittered like brittle crystallised tears in an outward manifestation of shared sorrow. The shifting possibility of a physical bodily hierarchy, dependant on the position of the viewer’s body, either standing over Phillips or seated on the ground signified the potential complicity of the audience in the act of silencing. As these interactions continued throughout the performance, the balance of power continually fluctuated between witness and unwilling participant, an indication that the quest acknowledgement and empowerment is not straightforward.
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Figure 5 : Áine Phillips, Redress: Emotional Labour (2012), Performance Still.
Photo: Sally Anne Kelly, © Áine Phillips
14 For the last two hours of the performance, Phillips, dressed in black, struggled to free herself from a large black net while gripping a ball of black string [Fig 6]. Like the earlier Redress performance her movements were conveyed with a palpable urgency. Rolling on the floor, she appeared ensnared in the legacy of sexual repression and oppression in Irish culture. The darkened string was another reference to Limerick Lace, a luxury item first produced as a result of poverty, dating back to the time of the Great Famine (c.1850). The women in the Good Sheppard Laundry created these delicate, intricate patterns by darning on netting or mesh before tiny stitches were applied to embroider a design25. Although Phillips actions did not express the delicacy of the lace making, her body inserted into the middle of the snarling mess embodied the intricacies of the craft, suggesting the complex nature of these silenced histories.
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Figure 6 : Áine Phillips, Redress: Emotional Labour (2012), Performance Still.
Photo: Jordan Hutchings, © Áine Phillips
15 It is necessary to unpack the potential feminist ethical concerns posed by the Redress performances particularly around abuse survivors, their right to speak and the sensitive nature of the subject. Expressing outrage on the silencing of survivors Phillips remarked: “It is extraordinary that our society doesn’t speak out against this26”. Following standard ethical protocols Evelyn Glynn gave interviewees participating in Breaking the Rule of Silence the option of anonymity while consenting that any audio, video recordings and photographs made during the project could be used by researchers, future students, and the public for educational purposes including publications, exhibitions, World Wide Web and presentations. This means that informed consent was not required for usage in Phillips’s performance. However, an ethical dilemma arises from the artist recording the direct words of an interviewee for use in a live art event. Phillips writes: “It was important for me to use their words because their words are the truth - not a received knowledge or understanding, but their own expressions of authentic lived experience27”. Other feminist performances have addressed these issues like Karen Finlay’s We Keep Our Victims Ready (1990), a stream of consciousness performance that schizophrenically detailed her personal experience of abuse. Yet Phillips’s testimonies differ from the provocative vocalizations of Finlay. In re-recording testimonies instead of using the actual interview recordings, Phillips speaks for those who cannot. This may rest uneasily with some observers and raises questions as to the ethical obligations of a feminist performance practice in light of anthropologist Victor Turner’s assertions of “performance as making not faking28”. The purpose of the performance was not to empower abuse survivors therefore the inclusion of spoken testimonies was not to claim authenticity. Instead their incorporation acted as a lens through which Phillips negotiated and exposed the complex issues of shame and stigmatisation that arise from abuse. According to Vikki Bell: “Feminist politics responds to the sufferings of women, and seeks to remedy those sufferings by rooting out injustices on every level29”. Phillips sought to address the
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disempowerment experienced by abuse survivors by projecting the experiences of complicity and shame onto the audience. It was impossible to remain impassive observers for the silence maintained by artist and audience demanded an awareness that one was actively listening for the gaps and the silences in the broken narratives.
16 The visible embodiment of shame communicated in both performances denotes the potential for bodily witnessing in the Redress series. In Redress (2010), bodily witnessing occurs in the artist’s tiring struggle with her garment. In Redress: Emotional Labour the embedding of oral testimonies directly onto the body of the performer and the process of their translation from survivor to written documentation to Phillips’s re-recordings transform into a visual witnessing activated by the shame communicated through her actions. The role of the spectator is also critical for understanding how performance can subvert mechanisms of unacknowledged power through witnessing. The gaze rendered visible these power structures by making the viewer aware of the transgression of looking in Redress (2010) evident through the observation of Phillips imprisoned in her cell in Kilmainhaim Gaol. In Redress: Emotional Labour, hierarchal power structures were revealed through the spectator’s experience of their own bodily relationship to the artist, indicated by the desire to transgress the boundaries of personal space to hear the testimonies and through the position of dominance occupied in contrast to Phillips’s submissive body. Critically Redress (2010) reinforced the viewer’s role as a helpless observer while Redress: Emotional Labour collapsed the distance between performance and viewer.
17 The collective title of this series, Redress, functions on several different levels. It indicates the attempts to make financial restitution to survivors while also signaling the importance of attempting to address these on-going issues in Irish society. In the context of the embodied performances the title refers to the repeating or duplication of actions. In both performances discussed, Phillips utilised simple bodily repetitions; continually dressing and undressing, ceaselessly rubbing her hands together, crawling on the ground and struggling to free herself from the net. Repetition in live performance, particularly in durational performances, signals a slowing of time, a hindering of “progress” by constantly returning to the scene of some previous experience. In Redress (2010), the repetition of dressing and undressing evoked frustration in the spectator who desired a resolution to her struggle with the garment. The repetitive movement of the artist’s hands in Redress: Emotional Labour (2012) conveyed the endless shame and humiliation. The unceasing bodily motions in both performances revealed the permeating nature abuse and how its legacy and memory continues to violate. Most importantly, the reiterations of specific actions throughout the performances were a reminder that these transgressions against the most vulnerable in Irish society were numerous and widespread.
18 Importantly, Redress engenders awareness that the past is not stagnant but continues to haunt the present. Phillips’s body acts as a conduit for marginalised memories by simultaneously channelling discourses of feminism, spectatorship and embodiment. Performance art is reliant upon a reciprocal subject-object relationship meaning the work is dependent upon specific interactions with viewers in time and space. In performance, the key aspect of time, as a measurement of fixed duration and a notion of temporality, serves to temporarily render visible processes of remembering and forgetting in the construction of cultural narratives. The emphasis placed on process, as something that encourages the viewer to intuitively grasp the embodiment of an
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idea, rather than to passively view to a resulting material object, suggests that feminist performances like Redress hold enormous potential to engage with the gaps and silences of cultural narratives. In particular, the possibility of performance to act as a visual form of witnessing by drawing attention to the potent affects of individual and collective traumas may begin to alleviate the burden of secrecy, isolation and shame that characterises experiences of abuse. Redress urgently calls for recognition of how the forced silencing of survivors contributes to a lingering cultural stigma. These performances demand that respect and dignity are restored to the disempowered within Irish society.
NOTES
1. Dominic Thorpe’s Redress State – Questions Imagined (2010) and Due Process 2 (2011) (in collaboration with Sandra Johnston) can be included in this group. For a detailed analysis of Yellow see Kate Antosik-Parsons, “Bodily Remembrances: The Performance of Memory in Recent Works by Amanda Coogan”, Artefact: The Journal of the Irish Association of Art Historians, 3, 2009, p. 6-20. 2. This series includes three live performances and two video works created between 2010-2012. This article focuses specifically on the first and third works that address abuse within residential institutions. The second live performance entitled Redress State (2011) was a two-hour durational work commented on capitalism, economic recession and the banking crisis. 3. Bunreacht na hÉireann (1937) Article 44:1.2 revoked by Fifth Amendment (1972). 4. Noted examples can be found in the writing of Ailbhe Smyth, Eavan Boland, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Nuala Ní Dhomnaill, Medbh McGuckian and in the artwork of Pauline Cummins, Alanna O’Kelly and Mary Duffy. See Eavan Boland, A Kind of Scar: The Woman Poet in National Tradition, Dublin, Attic Press, 1989. 5. See Diarmaid Ferriter, Occasions of Sin: Sex and Society in Modern Ireland, London, Profile Books, 2009, 528-531. 6. The Ryan Report (2009) Executive Summary http:// www.childabusecommission.com/rpt/ExecSummary.php Accessed June 27, 2012. 7. Section 34, Residential Institutions Redress Act, 2002, [http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ pdf/2002/en.act.2002.0013.pdf] Accessed May 31, 2012. 8. On February 5, 2013 the government released the Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries. On February 19, 2013 an Taoiseach Enda Kenny issued a full and unreserved apology for the suffering of these women. The means of compensating these women is still unclear. 9. The title of the exhibition referenced the Jesus Jones song by the same name referring to the fall of Eastern European governments in the late 1980s and it contextualized the event as an intervention in Irish history and contemporary issues in Irish society.
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10. The Ryan Report (2009) Volume IV, Section 6.41, [ http:// www.childabusecommission.com/rpt/04-06.php], accessed June 27, 2012. 11. This also references Cross’s Caught in a State (1991) installation of a stillborn foetal pig and a calendar tacked to the wall with images of a sow viewed through the peephole. 12. The mutoscope designed by William Kennedy-Laurie Dickinson was a cheaper version of Thomas Edison’s motion picture kinetoscope that functioned like a flip-book. See Katherine Mullin, James Joyce, Sexuality and Social Purity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 145 and Sheila McClear, Last of the Live Nude Girls: A Memoir, Berkeley, Soft Skull Press, 2011, p. 230. 13. John Berger, Ways of Seeing, London, British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Group, 1972, p. 45-46. 14. It was filmed in collaboration with Irish filmmaker Vivienne Dick (b. 1950) and exhibited at Live@8 (Occupy Space, Limerick, 2011). 15. Joanna Lowry, “Performing vision in the theatre of the gaze: the work of Douglas Gordon”, Performing the Body, Performing the Text, eds. Amelia Jones and Andrew Stephenson, London, Routledge, 1999, p. 259. 16. The exhibition was curated by Chrissie Cadman, Amanda Coogan and Helena Walsh. It was held in Performance Space (London), The Void (Derry) and The Lab (Dublin). Several of the participating artists including Michelle Brown (The Grace of God), Chrissie Cadman (Finding a Balance), Áine O’Dwyer (The Cradle Rocks the Land) and Helena Walsh (Untitled) focused explicitly on gender, sexuality and religion in contemporary Irish society. 17. Áine Phillips, “Áine Phillips”, Labour: A Live Exhibition, exhibition guide, eds. Sheena Barrett and Amanda Coogan, Dublin, Dublin City Arts Office/the Lab, 2012, unpaginated. 18. Fintan O’Toole, “We should be recovering our Magdalen history, not burying it”, Irish Times, October 29, 2011. 19. “Justice for Magdalenes helps organise survivor meeting with Senator McAleese”, Press Release, Justice for Magdalenes, June 6, 2012, [http:// www.magdalenelaundries.com/press/JFM%20PR%2007-06-12.pdf], Accessed June 7, 2012. 20. The Magdalene Name Project (2004) named the women buried there, [ http:// www.magdalenelaundries.com/name.htm], Accessed June 7, 2012. 21. Maiju Lehmijoki-Gardner, Dominican Penitent Women, Mahwah, New Jersey, Paulist Press, 2005, p. 17. 22. The word stigmata is also the plural for stigma, indicating a mark of disgrace or disease. 23. Rebecca Sachs Norris, “Embodiment and Community”, Western Folklore 60, 2&3, 2001, p. 117. 24. Tim Etchells, Certain Fragments: Contemporary Performance and Forced Entertainment, London, Routledge, 1999, p. 17. 25. Marian Powys, Lace and Lacemaking, Mineola, Courier Dover Publications, 2002, p. 35. 26. Live Art Symposium, Áine Phillips and Evelyn Glynn, March 9, 2012. [ http:// vimeo.com/38499317], accessed May 28, 2012.
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27. Email to the author, January 29, 2013. 28. Victor Turner quoted in Dwight Conquergood, “Of Caravans and Carnivals: Performance Studies in Motion”, TDR, 39, 4 (Autumn, 1995), p. 138. 29. Vikki Bell, Culture and Performance: The Challenge of Ethics, Politics and Feminist Theory, Oxford, Berg, 2007, p. 50.
RÉSUMÉS
Cette étude concerne Redress (2010-2012), une récente série de performances de l’artiste irlandaise Áine Phillips. Ces performances analysent l’histoire des sévices et des maltraitances perpétrées dans les instituts et foyers publics dirigés par des religieux au XXe siècle ainsi que les démarches officielles entreprises envers les victimes qui ont survécu à ces abus. Très intenses, ces performances sont caractérisées par un langage corporel simple mais fascinant qui fusionne public, mémoire et représentation. Redress défend la mémoire de ces victimes, en montrant les lacunes et les silences de leur histoire au sein d’un dicours hégémonique irlandais.
This essay examines Redress (2010-2012), a recent series of performances by Irish artist Áine Phillips that interrogate the legacy of abuse perpetrated in Irish residential institutions in the 20th century and the official efforts to compensate abuse survivors. These powerful performances are imbued with simple, yet compelling bodily gestures informed by spectatorship, memory and representation. Redress embodies the marginalised memories of abuse survivors, revealing the deliberate gaps and silences in Irish hegemonic narratives.
INDEX
Keywords : women - artistic representations, visual arts, society and religion, history and memory, institutional abuse, trauma, women, body Mots-clés : femmes - représentations artistiques, histoire et mémoire, arts visuels, société et religion, maltraitance institutionnelle, trauma, femmes, corps
AUTEUR
KATE ANTOSIK-PARSONS School of Art History, University College Dublin
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Études littéraires Literary Studies
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Death – a source in Seamus Heaney’s early autobiographical poetry
Jessica Stephens
1 Death informs most of the evocations of daily life at Mossbawn, the farm where Seamus Heaney spent his early childhood. It is the poet’s "elixir1", the source of his inspiration which, as in Baudelaire’s poem "La mort des artistes", "planant comme un soleil nouveau,/ Fera s’épanouir les fleurs de (son) cerveau2". Death in its various guises - decay, loss, the sense of mortality - underlies Heaney’s first autobiographical book of poems, Death of a Naturalist3; but in what way is death central to Heaney’s autobiographical preoccupations and to the relationship that, as a poet, he establishes with the rural community he grew up in? In the sequence of sonnets entitled "Clearances4" which Heaney wrote much later, at the age of fifty, after the demise of his mother, death is portrayed very differently, as a field of force, a source of energy where the poet can be "renewed5". Does the poet finally come to terms with a reality that cannot be expressed through language?
2 Heaney’s autobiographical venture leads him to explore the very recesses of his community. The far-reaching influence of ancestors is suggested in "Ancestral Photograph" where the poet gazes at the photograph of a great-uncle on the wall; this photograph, which has to be removed and stored away in the attic, nonetheless leaves an imprint on the wall, a "faded patch6". Does not this trace convey the long-lasting, yet after a while inconspicuous influence of his/our predecessors however far removed?
3 In the poem "At a Potato Digging", Heaney, himself the son of an Irish farmer, depicts the potato famine of 1845; and its horrific consequences on the rural population of Ireland at that time are presented in a bleak and uncompromising way: "Live skulls, blind-eyed, balanced on/ wild higgledy skeletons/ scoured the land in ‘forty-five,/ wolfed the blighted root and died7". Here Heaney’s portrayal of the living dead seems to draw on Baudelaire’s "Le squelette laboureur8", a poem that he translated later on in North9. The combining of antithetical words such as "live skulls" but also the irregular
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rhythmic pattern especially point to the withering and the brittleness of the human body when starved of food and suggest a contradictory state: these men and women, who, in desperation, wolf down the putrid roots, have shed their human identity and have, in a way, already endured their death.
4 Other poems deal with death within the rural community – the autobiographical Mossbawn poems teem with references to farmers, turf-cutters, ploughmen, hunters, fishermen, cattle dealers and local craftsmen such as blacksmiths, thatchers, diviners… However, here again, the poet is describing a dying world: he refers to these workers by their names in the first poems but, gradually, these men are equated with their trade, their function within the community and then they seem to vanish altogether - such is the case of the servant boy and the mummer who leave behind them a "trail10" ("Servant Boy") and "dark tracks11" ("The Last Mummer").
5 The poet also focuses on his own ancestors. In Death of a Naturalist, Heaney’s grandfather is turned into a legendary figure - in the opening poem "Digging", he proudly towers above all other turf-cutters: "My grandfather cut more turf in a day/ Than any other man on Toner’s bog12"; but mention is also made of the poet’s great- uncle, a cattle dealer, in "Ancestral Photograph": "Uncle and nephew, fifty years ago,/ Heckled and herded through the fair days too13". Both the great uncle and his nephew - that is to say Heaney’s father - are presented as belonging and testifying to a carefree perhaps idealized golden age of prosperity and emotional bonding as the twofold meaning of the word "fair" and the possible play on the word "too" suggest. The more remote the past, the more powerful and thriving the paternal figure. In this particular light, the poet’s relationship with the dead is very similar to the one that African tribes evolve with their own ancestors. A process of entropy is however at work in the poet’s family: in "Ancestral Photograph", Heaney acknowledges this fact and the photograph is seen as an "Empty plaque to a house’s rise and fall14"; the decline affecting the poet’s tribe is further emphasized when, later in the poem, the farmers’ power is undermined - they are compared to housewives and the great uncle’s stick, a phallic symbol of authority and know-how, is at last relinquished and "parked behind a door15".
6 In "Mid-Term Break", the poet remembers the death of his brother, Christopher, run over by a car. When the poem begins, the young boy has already received the terrible news which may explain why he focuses on sounds so much – crying, angry sighs, whispers, the baby’s cooing –, sounds that are juxtaposed yet unrelated and jarring, just as his world has been disrupted. In the aftermath of the shock, the young boy is also deeply aware of the slow passage of time : "I sat all morning in the college sick bay,/ Counting bells knelling classes to a close16." The repetitions of the /k/ and of the /e/ sounds, together with the fairly regular trochaic rhythm do convey the oppressive atmosphere as the school bells ring out what amounts to a knell. The only emotion he acknowledges is embarrassment when old men stand up to shake his hand. And the reserve - or could it be the numbness – that follows the shock can also be explained by what Heaney, the eldest of the children, was told at the time : "Stop now. If you cry, all the others will too17."
7 An interview dating back to 1979 gives the reader a few clues as to the reasons behind the omnipresence of death in Heaney’s early poems but also in much of his subsequent work. This is what the poet tells John Haffenden: "Very strange, but it’s very familiar, that face, I’ve seen it in coffins so often in my adolescence, I used to go to a lot of
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funerals […] part of the ritual […] going to wakes and kneeling beside the coffins at eye level with aged rigor mortis heads18."
8 However, as the complex title Death of a Naturalist suggests, most of the autobiographical poems hinge on the author’s attempt at circumscribing and mastering the fear of a perilous danger to the self. In "The Barn" for instance, the young boy plays at being frightened as he scuttles in and out of the shed: at every try he ventures deeper, but he is fully aware that he may be trapped in this confined space which harbours danger and where his breathing is laboured: "the one door19" – and here the use of the article combined with the adjective "one" is telling – suggests that escape may not be easy; the farmyard tools are invested with a dangerous potency ("the armoury of farmyard implements20"), and the prongs of the pitchfork and the blades of the scythe gleam menacingly in the dark. The daytime fears – the fear of being stifled, burnt, pricked and of disappearing into an abyss – culminate at night, in dreams in which the boy’s sense of space and of his own self is warped: he becomes "chaff/To be pecked up by birds", and sacks come alive and attack him like "great blind rats". In the poem "Death of a Naturalist", the fear of death is expressed in a similar way: like the rats, the frogs have also grown to monstrous proportion (“The great slime kings/Were gathered there for vengeance21"); the child feels revulsion but is also clearly fascinated by the obscene creatures that stand for his repressed sensuality. This ambiguous relationship with primitive animals can be further explained if we turn to the definition Julia Kristeva gives of abjection in her essay Pouvoirs de l’horreur : "Un pôle d’appel et de répulsion [qui] met celui qui en est habité littéralement hors de lui 22." The frogs are invested with an aggressive sexual life force that is vital but also morbid for it disrupts the child’s world:
Ce n’est donc pas l’absence de propreté ou de santé qui rend abject, mais ce qui perturbe une identité, un système, un ordre. Ce qui ne respecte pas les limites, les places, les règles.23
9 They are clearly deeply hostile and ready to wage war against the interloper who fears retribution: "Some sat/ Poised like mud grenades24" and the very complex last lines: "I knew/ That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it25" do testify to his fear of losing a limb, a member – but not of his family – as the fear of death applies to his own self.
10 In Death of a Naturalist, Nature regularly surges against the little boy in the shape of a bird ("The Barn"), a toad ("Death of a Naturalist"), or a rat ("The Barn", "An Advancement in Learning"); what the boy fears is this uncontrollable, unpredictable force that is bodied forth in the hitherto familiar animals of the farm. Nature is invested with life and a dark, alien will of its own.
11 Throughout his early poems, Heaney evokes the process of decay and death within nature in order to circumscribe Loss: the loss of a rural way of life, the loss of loved ones. A poem like "Blackberry-Picking" symbolizes this unfruitful quest for something that will ultimately always evade his grasp; the little boy exclaims: Once off the bush, The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour. I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot. Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not26.
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12 No amount of willpower will ever make the blackberries remain fresh and red. Each year the little boy can only resign himself to this law of Nature over which he has no control – and this conflict is aptly suggested by the twofold meaning of the modal "would".
13 Ultimately, what evades the poet’s grasp is the natural world, explicitly evoked once only at the very beginning of "Death of a Naturalist" The very sensuous portrayal of nature, the use of synaesthesia – "bluebottles/ Wove a strong gauze of sound around smell27" –, the stillness and the heat but also the heightened perception of the senses suggest that the child is totally attuned to Nature, deeply ensconced in this luxuriant organic world which offers a womb-like protection. In an essay on photography written after the demise of his mother, Barthes quotes Freud and stresses the close link welding together childhood landscapes and the mother’s body:
Or Freud dit du corps maternel qu’il n’est point d’autre lieu dont on puisse dire avec autant de certitude qu’on y a déjà été. Telle serait l’essence du paysage (choisi par le désir) : heimlich, réveillant en moi la Mère (nullement inquiétante)28.
14 The young poet’s golden infancy within Nature comes to a brutal end; like a small animal suddenly turned away by its mother once it is ready to fend for itself, he is cast out of what amounts to an earthly state of paradise29. Heaney’s early poetry focuses on this transitional stage when one of Nature’s laws is being enacted. And the title of the book Death of a Naturalist can also be read in an analytical way as the transitional phase when a small child dies to a first feminine world only to be integrated into the "society" of men, a world dominated by the figure of the father. Indeed in these early poems, as in much of Heaney’s poetry, the land is feminine, it yields, and is worked by the farmers’ masculine ploughing implements30. One of the aims of these autobiographical poems is, precisely, to trace the hoped-for reconciliation with the "society" of the fathers.
15 Nonetheless, the poet’s nostalgia for a pastoral Eden of sorts31 underlies his autobiographical poetry as if the other evocations of Mossbawn were only a poor reflection of the world that was before and is irrevocably denied to him… Or is it? Here and there the essence of this pastoral world is captured. Pleasant sounds, usually liquids (/kl/ and /sl/), but also the happy tinkling of the cans carried by the children in "Blackberry-Picking" fleetingly suggest this lost – perhaps imagined – world32 where the self was wholly integrated in Nature. The loss of the "first world" and the subsequent yearning it gives rise to would account at least for images which evoke the warmth and the protection provided by the feminine/maternal body of the landscape and which crop up in his autobiographical essays and prose poems - the reference to the soothing effect that "wet corners […] rushy bottoms33" has on him, the memory of a ritual initiation in a "moss-hole34" and also perhaps the reference to "a caul of shadows35" which he uses to relate a founding experience he underwent as a young boy – a trance-like state which marked the receipt of his poetic gift.
16 Heaney’s recollections thus prove to be ambiguous: the poet commemorates rural life on the farm but all the while contributes to its disappearance by immobilizing it through language, by setting it down in writing. His refusal to perpetuate the tradition, his wish to substitute "the pen" for "the spade36" ("Digging") are also the death warrants of the rural world that he describes in Death of a Naturalist and to a lesser
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extent in Door into the Dark37, his second collection of poems. These autobiographical poems can be read as the poet’s work of mourning. Paradoxically then, the very poems which celebrate his early childhood on the family farm, Mossbawn, stand for a betrayal or a casting off.
17 "They trip/ To fall into themselves unknowingly38". These lines taken from "The Play Way", a poem on Heaney’s experience as a teacher, could also very well apply to his own learning process throughout Death of a Naturalist – the young poet’s fall into mortality is the pivot of his learning process. The awareness of his mortality and the discovery of his self are concomitant. The word "to turn", which is recurrent in both volumes and which can also apply to the on-going process inside the child, gradually "turning" into a young boy, combined with the use of the verb "to know", marks this apprenticeship.
18 In the poem "Death of a Naturalist", the frogs’ anger is read as a sign of retribution by the child. The fear of losing his hand to the vengeful spawn is an expression of the fear of castration. It also expresses the return of the repressed, a kind of poetic justice since the young naturalist has sinned against life (through storing the spawn in jampots in order to observe it clinically) and against Nature’s secrets (through his unhealthy, sanitized vision of sexuality greatly encouraged by a teacher called Miss Walls). The reference to the "dam39" is also very telling in this respect. In "Blackberry-Picking", the pleasure of the outing is sullied by guilt – fear of punishment lurks in the reference to the deadly Bluebeard; the young boy’s desire to control reality against his better judgement shows that he is still in thrall to childhood and his pride is punished at the end of the poem when the berries turn into a fungus that is rat-grey. In "The Early Purges" he is reluctant to accept death as necessary on "a well-run farm40", so that integration in the world of men – who, in this poem, are named – is a slow process. In "An Advancement of Learning" however, the young poet is finally able to overcome his fear of death as he wins the battle against his arch-enemy, the rat: The tapered tail that followed him, The raindrop eye, the old snout: One by one I took all in. He trained on me. I stared him out41.
19 The caesura in the very middle of the last line confirms this upheaval. Indeed the battle is won when the boy is finally able to outstare the rat and the association of the eye – as in vision –, the I – as in the self – and death is a recurrent feature in the telling of the young poet’s apprenticeship, as if the self (the I) were imperilled by the young boy’s distorted perception of his surroundings – in fact a projection of his own fears on Nature. Another instance of this interplay occurs in "The Barn" where the reference to the "bright eyes" that "stare42" at the boy is followed by the personification of the two sacks, which move in for the kill.
20 Death of a Naturalist and Door into the Dark are autobiographical pieces in which the poet’s childhood is reconstructed. However the representations of death are too smoothly worked out and prove both paradoxical and misleading. Paradoxical because the crises during which the young boy is confronted with a sense of mortality are literary constructs, attempts by the poet to control death by representing it to the reader… and the young poet’s main lesson has been precisely that of his own limits in the face of death. Misleading because the poet’s grappling with death is probably located elsewhere. Indeed the figure of death never appears in Death of a Naturalist, –
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neither does the word itself. In "Storm on the Island", the very last line could also be applied to the young poet’s disproportionate fear of death and to the technique of the poet, grown older, who is able to make something out of nothing through language, through thematization: "it is a huge nothing that we fear43". The ultimate reality cannnot be represented but the poet’s conception of death, of its attributes and characteristics, can perhaps be inferred from the poetic language. As Nathalie Barberger explains very perceptively in her book on the French poet, Michel Leiris:
Gagner sur des terres inhabitables, conquérir un espace inconnu, éclairer ce qui est caché, telle serait l’exigence de l’autobiographe […]. Le lieu véritable du sujet n’est pas la maison d’enfance qu’il suffirait de donner à voir par un effort de mémoire, il n’est pas le paysage autorisé, le panorama de surface, mais ce qui est derrière, au loin, ou au fond44.
21 When the boy experiences a sense of mortality, he usually becomes aware of noise: in "Death of a Naturalist" for instance, the emergence of time and the "bass chorus" are juxtaposed: "I ducked through hedges/ To a coarse croaking that I had not heard / Before45". In "The Early Purges", he mentions the "tiny din46" the kittens make before they are slung under the snout of the pump. These three themes – the fall into mortality, noise and the passing of time – are gathered in "Follower" where the young boy describes himself thus: "I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,/ Yapping always. But today it is my father who keeps stumbling/ Behind me and will not go away47." The son grows up to take his father’s place and this basic law of nature marks the father’s decline. The word "nuisance" refers to the boy’s awkwardness, but the paronomasia "nuisance"/ "noise" is particularly striking.
22 Death is often associated with disorder in Nature and opposed to the child’s futile attempts at control: "I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied/ Specks to range on window- sills at home48". In this sentence, the use of the modal "would" which testifies to the would-be naturalist’s methodical care is opposed to the wrath of Nature and, stylistically, to the staccato rhythm at the end of the poem, the fragmentation of the sentences and even the fragmentation of the poetical line: "Gross-bellied frogs were cocked/ On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped49". Indeed if the break between an idyllic existence within Nature with no hint of death and a new mode of being within time is often suggested by recurrent adverbs, such as "Before", or "Then", or again conjunctions ("until"/ "until"), death mostly makes its presence felt in the blanks of the page: in the dashes ("Ancestral Photograph"/ "The Barn"), the pauses ("Death of a Naturalist"/"Blackberry-Picking"). We could quote and slightly modify Martine Broda’s analysis of a fairly common stylistic sleight: "Le vide de la page vient figurer le vide de la (mort)50, auquel il se substitue […]51".
23 Finally, the recurrent use of the word "turn" is particularly interesting since it links the turning points of the young boy’s inner growth to the effects of death: for instance the physical transformation of the kittens whose bodies "Turn mealy and crisp52". Death is a transforming process which "goes on"; and the nature of this reality is well conveyed in "An Advancement of Learning" where the rat which the little boy believes is threatening him "clockworks aimlessy53". The mechanical otherness of death in Heaney’s early poetry could again be associated with Baudelaire’s description of the blind in "Les aveugles":
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ils sont vraiment affreux Pareils aux mannequins; vaguement ridicules; Terribles,singuliers comme les somnambules54
24 Life and death, eros and thanatos are also closely intertwined in one particularly striking line from the poem "The Early Purges": "Still, living displaces false sentiments55". Life requires that one not brood over the necessary putting down of "pests" – that is kittens – on "well-run farms"; however if one were to read this sentence without the comma (and after all poetry is meant to be read out loud): "Still living displaces false sentiments", the phrase "still living" could in fact apply to the unaccountable process of death in the face of which our emotions, our own sense of self can only be heightened.
25 What strikes the reader is also the repetitiveness of these autobiographical poems – the recurrence of words, the variations on the same types of encounters with a repulsive animal, etc. The repetitive nature of the poetic text can be read as a sign of unresolved tension, a sign of anxiety in the face of death but also as a sign that the poet is "working-through56" this same anxiety. Indeed, the literary constructions are meaningful and testify to an aesthetic effort to counteract the deleterious effect of death on the self but also on language, by binding words in such a way as to confer added meaning to them. Thus the last lines usually provide a coda to the event depicted in the poem, as for instance in "Death of a Naturalist". In "The Barn" however, the enigmatic comparison "The dark gulfed like a roof-space57" makes more sense if we consider that the other meaning of the word "gulf" refers to the motion a bird makes when it swoops down on a prey. In Death of a Naturalist, language conveys the unease generated by death while trying to circumscribe this very unease.
26 When the young naturalist dies, he is born again as a writer, which, in turn, tears him away from his tribe. Heaney’s early autobiographical poetry rests upon the following contradiction: the young poet’s access to language marks his entrance into society, as he relinquishes an idyllic relationship with a feminine nature, but the access to the world of his forefathers is ultimately closed to him as a poet. The poet can pay his debt to his community by being its “story-teller” and making it live through his poetry. Heaney’s autobiographical poems do stem from a "dream of loss and origins58" ("Hercules and Antaeus"), the loss of a rural community already on the wane, the loss of Eden… and yet the "Clearances59" sonnets provide him with the opportunity of bridging the divide through language.
27 In The Haw Lantern, Heaney dedicates a sequence of sonnets, "Clearances", to his deceased mother. The figure of the mother rarely appears in Heaney’s poetry but in "Churning Day" (Death of a Naturalist), she is the alchemist, able to deal in the mysteries of creation, gestation as she transforms milk into butter; she is also the one who "sets up the rhythm60" and creates order. As opposed to the tepid Miss Walls61, she is a true initiator – indeed the poet’s perception of death is shaped and rendered vivid through his mother’s death. In "Clearances II", Heaney pictures his mother’s soul’s "homing62" journey – always a sound impulse in Heaney’s poetry – back to a “rich space, brimming with light63", where her own smiling father stands up to greet her and which seems to be an inverted image of a real-life kitchen, possibly that of Mossbawn. She is actually settling in her new and last abode: "Number 5, New Row, Land of the Dead64". The divide between the land of the living and that of the dead is clearly embedded in the blank space in-between the two stanzas. Gaps are often present when Heaney portrays
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death: an expanse of water, a canal or a blank space here. Could not the poet’s topographical rendering of death be connected to his cultural background since the Celts believed in a netherworld that souls reached after crossing a sea and from which they would depart again? The presence of light could in turn be linked to Heaney’s Catholic upbringing and the belief in an afterlife that he describes in these terms: "There’s a sense of profoundnesss, a sense that the universe can be ashimmer with something, and Catholicism – even if I don’t like sentimentalizing it – was the backdrop to that whole thing. The world I grew up in offered me a sense that I was a citizen of the empyrean – the crystalline elsewhere of the world65."
28 However the poet’s mother’s precious gift to her son is an insight into death, death as a source of energy. In "Clearances VII", the family gathers round her bed and the poet tells us: The space we stood around had been emptied Into us to keep, it penetrated Clearances that suddenly stood open High cries were felled and a pure change happened66
29 A transfer of energy occurs from one to the other: the mother’s gift also brings about life since a new, unsuspected space opens up in all those who welcome the incoming energy, a space which corresponds to Heidegger’s definition of the word "raum":
Un espace (raum) est quelque chose qui est "ménagé", rendu libre, à savoir l’intérieur d’une limite ... La limite n’est pas ce où quelque chose cesse, mais bien comme les Grecs l’avaient observé, ce à partir de quoi quelque chose commence à être67.
30 The word "clearances" refers to a circular space in a forest, an emptied space it also evokes light, brightness. So can this experiencing of death through another be what Heidegger calls the ekphanestaton – "cet éclat éblouissant où se marque aussi, selon Lacan, le rapport de l’homme à sa propre mort68"?
31 This experience is the starting point of the poet’s quest for what he calls "some transparent, yet indigenous afterlife69", an energizing field of force, a quest which leads him to probe other objects since, as Theodore Roethke reminds us in his poem, "The Far Field", "all finite things reveal infinitude70". In "Clearances VIII", the poet focuses on the chestnut tree planted at Mossbawn when he was born and then cut down by the following owners. However, the poet is able to perceive the presence of the tree, his organic alter ego ("my coeval/ Chestnut71") even if it is no longer living: "A soul ramifying and forever/ Silent, beyond silence listened for72". The use of the “-ing” and the soft alliteration of the /h/ sound in the following lines: "Its heft and hush become a bright nowhere" tend to suggest that the tree palpitates still. In The Government of the Tongue, Heaney goes on to explain that with time: "I began to think of the space where the tree had been or would have been. In my mind’s eye I saw it as a kind of luminous emptiness, a warp and waver of light73". Intense brightness, energy, a sacral presence hardly felt or heard that persists, such are the characteristics of the "otherworld", an intangible world both perceptible and yet invisible, a presence and an absence.
32 "A writer cannot dwell completely in origin – Origin is almost Eden, you know. You have to leave Eden and get the division: the loss of Eden, the memory, is one of the ways writing occurs74". "Origin" – "Eden" – "Death" are perhaps one and the same – not the beginning and the end of a chronological sequence but a sacral space that is
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revealed to the poet. "Human kind cannot bear very much reality75"; the poet can only yearn to recreate this fleeting vision of reality "glimpsed once and imagined for a lifetime76" – through language.
33 In his article drawn from the book, Lacan avec les philosophes, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthes defines art and the effect of art in these terms:
l’art serait la katharsis de l’objet, son épuration, d’où s’indiquerait, dans le battement de la présentification et de l’absentification, dans l’éclair éblouissant de l’éclat, la Chose en son cerne77.
34 Presence, absence, the circling78 of the Object, the real that cannot be symbolized but only approached, such are the characteristics of the "Clearances" sonnets, cathartic in many ways. In Heaney’s autobiographical poems, death – and ultimately life – stem from separation: separation from the living body of nature – a possible substitute for the maternal body. The reality of death echoes the reality of the M/Other. However what remains in "Clearances" is not a mere trace as in the early poems but a vivid, stronger link, because the real has been so closely approached and because the memory of the experience is an enduring one.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Heaney, Seamus, Death of a Naturalist, London/Boston, Faber and Faber, 1966.
Heaney, Seamus, Door into the Dark, London/Boston, Faber and Faber, 1969.
Heaney, Seamus, The Government of the Tongue, London/Boston, Faber and Faber, 1988.
Heaney, Seamus, North, London/Boston, Faber and Faber, 1975.
Heaney, Seamus, Preoccupation: Selected Prose 1968-1978, London/Boston, Faber and Faber, 1980.
Heaney, Stations, Belfast, Ulsterman Publications, 1975.
Heaney, Seamus, The Haw Lantern, London/Boston, Faber and Faber, 1987.
Heaney, Seamus, Wintering Out, London/Boston, Faber and Faber, 1972.
Nathalie Barberger, Michel Leiris,L’écriture du deuil, Villeneuve-d’Ascq, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 1998.
Baudelaire, Charles, Les fleurs du mal, France, Gallimard, 1972.
Broda, Martine, L’amour du nom, Paris, José Corti, 1997, p. 33.
Barthes, Roland, La chambre claire, Gallimard, Paris, 1980.
Deane, Seamus, "The Famous Seamus", The New Yorker, March 20, 2000.
Durand, Gilbert, Les structures anthropologiques de l’imaginaire, Paris/Bruxelles, Bordas, 1969.
Eliot, T.S., Four Quartets, London/Boston, Faber and Faber, 1944.
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Foster, Thomas, C., Seamus Heaney, Dublin, O’Brien Press, 1989.
Freud, Sigmund, "Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through", The Complete Psychologicall Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. XII, London, The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1958, p. 147
Haffenden, John, "Meeting Seamus Heaney", London Magazine, June 1979.
Harty, Patricia, "Patricia Harty talks to Seamus Heaney", online.
Heidegger, Martin, Essais et conférences, trans. André Préau, Paris, Gallimard, 1958.
Kristeva, Julia, Pouvoirs de l’horreur, Paris, Seuil, 1980.
Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe, Lacan avec les philosophes, Paris, Albin Michel, 1991.
Roethke, Theodore, The Collected Poems, London, Faber and Faber, 1968.
NOTES
1. Charles Baudelaire, Les fleurs du mal, France, Gallimard, 1972, p. 165. 2. Baudelaire, p. 165. 3. Seamus Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, London, Boston, Faber and Faber, 1966. 4. Seamus Heaney, The Haw Lantern, London, Boston, Faber and Faber, 1987, pp. 24-32. 5. Theodore Roethke, The Collected Poems, London, Faber and Faber, 1968, p. 201. 6. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p.13. 7. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p.18. 8. Charles Baudelaire, p. 128 : "Ces mystérieuses horreurs (…) / Des écorchés et des Squelettes (…) Forçats arrachés au charnier." 9. Seamus Heaney, North, London, Boston, Faber and Faber, 1975, p. 17. 10. Seamus Heaney, Wintering Out, London, Boston, Faber and Faber, 1972, p. 7. 11. Heaney, Wintering Out, p. 10. 12. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 1. 13. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, pp. 13-14. 14. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 13. 15. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 14. 16. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p.15. 17. John Haffenden, "Meeting Seamus Heaney", London Magazine, June 1979, p. 8. 18. Haffenden, p. 8. 19. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 5. 20. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 5. 21. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p.4. 22. Julia Kristeva, Pouvoirs de l’horreur, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1980, p. 9. 23. Kristeva, p.12. 24. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 4. 25. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 4.
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26. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 8. 27. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 3. 28. Roland Barthes, La chambre claire, Gallimard, Paris, 1980, p. 68. "Chez Lacan, la perte est perte de rien, il n’y a pas d’expérience de satisfaction originaire, et la Chose est un pur manque, à la différence de Freud et de Mélanie Klein qui construisent en ce lieu un mythe, soit le corps perdu de la mère." quoted in Martine Broda, L’amour du nom, Paris, José Corti, 1997, p. 33. 29. In the poem "Death of a Naturalist", the little boy’s "fall" from paradise is presented as having been brought about by Nature; however the frogs are only the projection of his own repressed sensuality; so here again Kristeva’s perceptive analysis of the abject could also be quoted: "L’abject nous confronte, d’autre part, et cette fois dans notre archéologie personnelle, à nos tentatives les plus anciennes de nous démarquer de l’entité maternelle avant même que d’ex-ister en dehors d’elle grâce à l’autonomie du langage." Kristeva, p. 20. 30. Gilbert Durand, Les structures anthropologiques de l’imaginaire, Paris, Bruxelles, Bordas, 1969, pp. 179-180 : "la sexualité mâle ... est symbole du sentiment de puissance ... C’est en ce sens que se rejoignent en une espèce de technologie sexuelle les armes tranchantes ou pointues et les outils aratoires ... le même mot signifie phallus et bêche." 31. Seamus Heaney, Preoccupation: Selected Prose 1968-1978, London, Boston : Faber and Faber, 1980, p. 175 : "the Eden myth which, together with the classical dream of the Golden Age lies behind most versions of pastoral. Eden was a garden, an image of harmony between man and nature; it was a place where the owner of the land were the workers of the land, for whom the land itself worked." 32. As Martine Broda points out in her book, L’amour du nom, poets such as Nerval seem to have believed in paradise lost, and she goes on to quote a few lines from Aurélia : "je me mis à pleurer à chaudes larmes, comme au souvenir d’un paradis perdu." Broda, p. 116. 33. Heaney, Preoccupations, p.19: "To this day, green, wet corners, flooded wastes, soft rushy bottoms, any place with the invitation of watery ground and tundra vegetation ... possess an immediate and deeply peaceful attraction." 34. Heaney, Preoccupations, p.19: "thirty years ago ... another boy and myself stripped to the white country skin and bathed in a moss-hole, treading the liver-thick mud, unsettling a smoky muck off the bottom and coming out smeared and weedy and darkened." 35. Heaney, Stations, Belfast, Ulsterman Publications, 1975, p. 4: "Green air trawled over his arms and legs, the pods and stalks wore a fuzz of light ... Little tendrils unsprung, new veins lit in the shifting leaves, a caul of shadows stretched and netted round his head again." 36. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, pp. 1-2. 37. Seamus Heaney, Door into the Dark, London, Boston, Faber and Faber, 1969. 38. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 43. 39. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 3. 40. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 11.
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41. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 7. This image which is at the crux of the young boy’s apprenticeship will be taken up again in North p. 32 when the poet addresses the "Strange Fruit", a girl’s head exhumed from the Jutland bog and displayed in a museum: "Beheaded girl, outstaring axe/ And beatification, outstaring/ What had begun to feel like reverence." The girl’s stare challenges the poet and his aesthetic and morbid interest in her - so he turns away. 42. Ibid., p. 5. 43. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 38. 44. Nathalie Barberger, Michel Leiris, L’écriture du deuil, Villeneuve-d’Ascq : Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 1998, p. 125. 45. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 3. 46. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 11. 47. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 12. 48. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 3. 49. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, pp. 3-4. 50. The word used by Martine de Broda is "la Chose". 51. Broda, p. 97. 52. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p.11. 53. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 6. 54. Baudelaire, p. 126. There are several references to eyes in Death of a Naturalist: in "The Barn", p. 5, the rats are blind; in "Blackberry-Picking" the blobs are also compared to" a plate of eyes", p. 8. 55. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p.11. 56. Sigmund Freud, "Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through", The Complete Psychologicall Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. XII, London, The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1958, p. 147. 57. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p.5. 58. Heaney, North, p. 46. 59. Heaney, The Haw Lantern, pp. 24-32. 60. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 9. 61. Heaney, Death of a Naturalist, p. 3. 62. Heaney, The Haw Lantern, p. 26. 63. Seamus Deane, "The Famous Seamus", The New Yorker, March 20, 2000, p. 66. 64. Heaney, The Haw Lantern, p. 26. 65. Patricia Harty talks to Seamus Heaney. Online. 66. Heaney, The Haw Lantern, p. 31. 67. Martin Heidegger, Essais et conférences, trans. André Préau, Paris : Gallimard, 1958, p. 183. 68. Broda, p. 12. 69. Heaney, The Government of the Tongue, London/Boston, Faber and Faber, 1989, p. 4. 70. Roethke, p. 201. 71. Heaney, The Haw Lantern, p. 32.
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72. Heaney, The Haw Lantern, p. 32. 73. Heaney, The Government of the Tongue, p. 3. 74. Quoted in Thomas C. Foster, Seamus Heaney, Dublin, O’Brien Press, 1989, p. 139. 75. T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, London/Boston Faber and Faber, 1944, p. 14. 76. Heaney, The Haw Lantern, p. 21. 77. Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Lacan avec les philosophes, Paris, Albin Michel, 1991, p. 34. 78. "I thought of walking round and round a space/ Utterly empty, utterly a source." ("Clearances VIII") The Haw Lantern, p. 32.
ABSTRACTS
Seamus Heaney’s first poetry books teem with evocations of life on a farm. In the wake of Wordsworth’s Prelude, the Irish poet traces turning points in his childhood – highly charged moments when he observed the cycle of life at work in the natural world around him and when he experienced and learned to master deep fears. How can the dawning sense of mortality perceptible in these early poems be related to his apprenticeship, to his access to the society of men but also to his poetic gift? The perception of death portrayed in the early poems is later revisited in “Clearances”, the series of sonnets he devotes to his mother where the otherworldly dimension of the world is associated with a field of force.
Dans ses premiers recueils, Seamus Heaney se penche sur son enfance: il évoque les activités agricoles ponctuant les saisons et retrace les moments saillants de la vie à la ferme. S’inscrivant dans le sillage de Wordsworth, il se remémore son apprentissage à travers des saynètes de la vie quotidienne, et, plus particulièrement, lors de moments charnières durant lesquels, enfant, il a pu éprouver de grandes peurs, moments durant lesquels il a, aussi, pris conscience du cycle de la vie et de la mort perceptible dans la nature environnante. Comment s’articule cette prise de conscience de la mortalité avec son apprentissage, avec l’accès à la communauté des hommes, mais aussi avec l’accès à l’écriture? Plus tard dans sa carrière, dans « The Haw Lantern », le poète irlandais consacre plusieurs sonnets à mère; il revisite en quelque sorte la perception de la mort, esquissée dans les premiers poèmes, perception qui se renouvelle, s’enrichit et qui fait de l’au- delà un champ de force.
INDEX
Mots-clés: poésie, influences/intertextualité, Heaney Seamus, autobiographie Keywords: poetry, influences/intertextuality, Heaney Seamus, autobiography
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AUTHOR
JESSICA STEPHENS Paris 3 Sorbonne-Nouvelle
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Une jeunesse à Paris : le melting-pot à l’irlandaise de George Moore
Fabienne Gaspari
« Genius is merely the power of assimilation1 »
1 L’écrivain anglo-irlandais George Moore (1852-1933) illustre le dynamisme produit par les échanges culturels et son héritage littéraire révèle par ailleurs la force des influences européennes, plus particulièrement françaises, qui ont façonné son œuvre. Son séjour à Paris entre 1873 et 1879 est à ce titre exemplaire du franchissement des frontières géographiques, culturelles et de la création, à partir de cette expérience, d’un imaginaire riche et multiforme reflétant la mixité. Moore a joué le rôle de pionnier et de passeur en exportant, en quelque sorte, le naturalisme de Zola et la peinture impressionniste2. Cette « exportation », en direction des terres britanniques, des ferments de la littérature fin de siècle et de l’avant-garde artistique françaises figure comme une réponse à ce que bien des artistes victoriens percevaient alors comme une censure puritaine, chape de plomb pesant sur le champ artistique anglais3. La première œuvre autobiographique de Moore, Confessions of a Young Man (1886) (Moore a publié deux œuvres de fiction, A Modern Lover en 1883 et A Mummer’s Wife en 1885), peut être envisagée comme un texte fondateur, portrait de l’artiste en jeune homme refusant un héritage biologique et culturel pour s’immerger dans une autre culture. Cette autobiographie4 bouscule une série de frontières, tout d’abord géographiques, mais relevant également de la tradition littéraire et de ses codes, sans oublier ce que l’on pourrait qualifier de frontières du Moi, un Moi réinventé dans l’écriture. Le concept de « déterritorialisation »5, emprunté à Gilles Deleuze, guide ici nos analyses ; il est en outre envisagé en regard de la transmission, facteur essentiel dans cette métamorphose artistique.
2 Après une étude des métaphores employées pour décrire ce qui s’apparente à un processus d’autocréation (à partir des diverses influences artistiques françaises s’exerçant sur ce jeune Anglo-Irlandais), il s’agira de montrer la nature des relations intertextuelles et les jeux de réécritures proposés par Moore dans ses confessions. L’élaboration d’un corps fantasmatique, rêvé à travers un ensemble d’images assimilant
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l’acquisition d’un nouvel héritage culturel à un processus organique, entraîne une construction du texte proche du patchwork de citations et de références littéraires et picturales. S’il est évident que les filiations retracées dans cet écrit autobiographique posent les fondements de l’œuvre naturaliste, puis symboliste et décadente de l’écrivain, nous nous interrogerons sur la manière dont elles ont façonné la part irlandaise de sa production, plus spécifiquement le recueil de nouvelles The Untilled Field et le roman The Lake. Ou comment ces Confessions d’un jeune anglais (titre sous lequel ce texte a été publié dans La Revue indépendante), récit d’apprentissage au cœur de l’avant-garde parisienne, ont ouvert la voie à un rejet puis à une réappropriation d’une culture et d’une terre, l’Irlande, réinventée dans la fiction. Au cœur de cette réflexion se dessine alors en filigrane la figure de James Joyce, autre « Irlandais en colère6 », pour reprendre une expression d’Hélène Cixous.
Corps de cire et « estomac artistique »
3 L’objectif du voyage de Moore à Paris en 1873 est affiché dans les Confessions ; la mort de son père, émancipatrice au niveau financier, coïncide avec le départ d’Irlande et ses premiers pas en tant qu’artiste :
My father’s death freed me, and I sprang like a loosened bough to the light. His death gave me power to create myself – that is to say, to create a complete and absolute self out of the partial self which was all that the restraint of home had permitted; this future self, this ideal George Moore, beckoned me, lured like a ghost […]7.
4 La migration géographique semble être déclenchée par cette rupture fondamentale due à la mort du père et se trouve rehaussée par un autre voyage, métaphorique. La géographie occupe une place prépondérante et fait office de principe structurant dans cette œuvre autobiographique articulée autour de trois lieux, l’Irlande, Paris, puis Londres. On peut particulièrement relever le contraste culturel que le déplacement d’un territoire à un autre permet, la mise en regard de la scène artistique française et de ses innovations d’un côté et, de l’autre, le rigorisme et la censure de l’ère victorienne. Au-delà de ces oppositions, l’arrivée dans un nouveau territoire vise à l’accomplissement de soi, aboutissement d’une quête identitaire entravée par les pesanteurs de la terre d’origine. Moore rejette en bloc le carcan familial et religieux, la religion catholique représentant, au même titre que la figure paternelle, une forme d’autorité aliénante. Il fréquente à Paris les ateliers de peinture, le cercle d’artistes réunis au café La Nouvelle Athènes, et rencontre entre autres Manet, Degas, Catulle Mendès et Paul Alexis.
5 La fonction séminale de cet écrit autobiographique, histoire d’une genèse et livre fondateur, est affirmée dans la préface : « The book is a sort of genesis: the seed of everything I have written since will be found herein » (p. XI). On peut le définir comme un récit des origines et un récit-origine, car il constitue le point de départ de la création d’un corpus autobiographique et d’un nouvel être, avènement et passage du jeune Anglo-Irlandais dilettante au statut d’auteur et de créateur. Le parcours artistique, les apprentissages et initiations qui le sous-tendent conduisent à une naissance, celle de l’écrivain dont elles esquissent la figure ou plutôt le corps, comme en attestent les métaphores construisant un corps fantasmé et fantasmatique. Ses frontières floues,
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labiles, indiquent son aptitude à la métamorphose et illustrent une forme de déterritorialisation qui accompagne, dans le registre de l’imaginaire et de l’écriture, le mouvement géographique et l’immersion dans un nouveau milieu linguistique et culturel8. Ce milieu est rêvé comme un espace matriciel, « the womb of a new nationality » (p. 124), où il devient possible de se recréer.
6 Le recours à des images figurant un corps imaginaire dont elles esquissent les contours, nécessairement flous pour permettre ces transformations, constitue une façon de représenter l’action du milieu parisien et des influences culturelles françaises. En l’ancrant dans des processus organiques, il donne aussi de l’idée d’autogenèse, centrale dans la pratique autobiographique, une version littérale. La rupture de la filiation familiale ouvre la voie à cette autogenèse exprimée dans les métaphores corporelles décrivant des processus de transmission et d’assimilation d’un nouvel héritage acquis par le biais de lectures multiples, de rencontres et de débats avec des artistes. Le récit des Confessions s’élabore sur ces événements d’ordre culturel plutôt que sur les menus incidents du quotidien, les rencontres amoureuses, ce qui tiendrait du récit de vie. C’est bien un parcours artistique que ce récit tend à retracer, au fil duquel le « corps » artistique en gestation dans le texte autobiographique subit, tel un morceau de cire, des mutations successives liées aux variations de ses goûts et appétits. Moore s’identifie à un homme presque vierge, « an almost virgin man » (p. 15), ouvert à toutes les influences qui tour à tour le font et le défont. Les premières phrases des Confessions introduisent un être protéiforme, fait d’une substance déformable à souhait :
My soul, so far as I understand it, has very kindly taken colour and form from the many various modes of life that self-will and an impetuous temperament have forced me to indulge in. Therefore I may say that I am free from original qualities, defects, tastes, etc. What is mine, I have acquired, or to speak more exactly, chance bestowed, and still bestows upon me. I came into the world apparently with a nature like a smooth sheet of wax, bearing no impress, but capable of receiving any; of being moulded into all shapes. (p. 2)
7 La métaphore du morceau de cire, substance infiniment malléable et surface d’impression, sert l’évocation du psychisme de l’artiste, matériau modelable et protéiforme9. Le contact avec l’univers artistique parisien est pensé sur le mode de l’empreinte et du modelage, et surtout sur celui de la métamorphose.
8 La description des processus façonnant l’être de l’artiste s’ancre dans un imaginaire de la passivité et de l’inconscient, du hasard et de l’inexpliqué. Désacralisant les images de l’inspiration, Moore suggère une création qui serait le produit de mécanismes viscéraux, sans flamme ni étincelle, obéissant au contraire à des mouvements organiques obscurs : « this parallel of the intellect to the blind unconsciousness of the lower organs » (p. 28). Il développe donc une autre métaphore, plus organique que celle de la cire, celle de l’estomac artistique, « artistic stomach » (p. 104), associant corps et esprit ou plus exactement assimilant l’esprit à un organe caractérisé par le besoin, l’absorption, la circulation. La transmission et l’acquisition, au fondement de son développement artistique, sont alors pensées en termes d’ingestion, excrétion, et assimilation, de toutes sortes d’aliments spirituels :
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Never could I interest myself in a book if it were not the exact diet my mind required at the time, or in the very immediate future. The mind asked, received, and digested. So much was assimilated, so much expelled; then, after a season, similar demands were made, the same processes were repeated out of sight, below consciousness, as is the case in a well-ordered stomach. (p. 27)
9 Doté d’un appareil digestif fonctionnant, selon lui, à merveille, Moore ne démystifie pas totalement les processus créatifs. S’il s’amuse ici des codes de représentation de l’invention et de la création, ceci ne l’empêche toutefois pas de relier ce travail des viscères à une activité mystérieuse et presque magique tenant aussi de l’incarnation. Ainsi la découverte de Gautier et les phénomènes concomitants d’absorption et d’assimilation sont-ils évoqués comme une incarnation, « that part of Gautier which is now incarnate in me » (p. 28).
10 Il faut surtout retenir de ces références à des mécanismes biologiques l’expression de la fluidité, de la métamorphose et la mise en exergue d’une identité artistique fondée sur une nature malléable et polymorphe. Les lectures, rencontres et débats au sein d’un milieu artistique riche et nouveau, permettent la constitution d’un héritage dont la transmission est pensée sous forme d’assimilation contribuant à une genèse : processus que l’écriture autobiographique met en scène et que, dans le même temps, elle accomplit. Moore se plaît à relater certaines rencontres avec ses « maîtres », Zola, Manet, ou encore Mallarmé, se donnant ainsi une série de pères spirituels qu’il n’hésite pas à renier par la suite. S’il dépasse certains engouements vifs mais passagers pour remettre en question, l’une après l’autre, les filiations, il ne s’agit cependant pas de simples coups de foudre artistiques. En effet, il demeure marqué par ces influences successives qui, comme il l’exprime lui-même à travers l’image de la cire, laissent leurs marques et empreintes sur son psychisme, voire le pétrissent. Abandonnées, critiquées, les œuvres un temps vénérées restent pourtant, à l’état de traces.
Éloge de la déterritorialisation
11 Les Confessions apparaissent, en fin de compte, comme le portrait de l’auteur en lecteur ou, plus précisément, du jeune apprenti artiste anglais en lecteur de littérature française. Si la peinture y occupe une place également importante, elle semble être quelque peu éclipsée par les références à la littérature. Ce texte devient alors le lieu où la lecture s’écrit et s’inscrit, lieu de naissance d’une conscience émergeant de son immersion dans une autre culture, un autre territoire, une autre langue. Chaque lecture est découverte et révélation, étape essentielle dans la formation de l’artiste, mais chaque lecture doit être absorbée et dépassée, selon un cycle incessant que la métaphore de l’estomac, aussi triviale soit-elle, illustre bien. Moore épouse le refus de la tradition10 exprimé par nombre d’artistes à la fin du XIXe siècle. Il reçoit en héritage une culture contemporaine autre, mais s’inscrit avec elle dans un rapport impliquant la rupture permanente et répétée propre à l’avant-garde, rapport défini par Antoine Compagnon comme « glissement de la négation de la tradition vers une tradition de la négation » : « ce n’est plus seulement avec le passé qu’il s’agit de rompre, mais du présent même qu’il faut faire table rase si l’on ne veut pas être dépassé avant même de se produire11 ». Ce dépassement, en conformité avec les principes d’audace et de
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provocation, s’effectue par la pratique de la citation, l’enchâssement et l’autoréférentialité, entre pastiche et parodie. Il pose également la question de l’intertextualité.
12 L’incipit, on l’a vu, trace les contours d’un être protéiforme, en perpétuelle métamorphose, et ouvre le texte sur une multitude de devenirs suggérés par la métaphore de la cire. Il apparaît comme un tribut payé à Walter Pater (cité dans la préface) et à son éloge de la fluidité qui, intégrant les avancées de la psychologie préfreudienne et les théories de Darwin, se fonde sur l’idée d’une mouvance et d’une multiplicité au cœur de l’être. On trouve ce même éloge chez Wilde (influencé lui aussi par les écrits de Pater), où il participe de l’éthique et de l’esthétique du Dandy :
He used to wonder at the shallow psychology of those who conceived the Ego in man as a thing simple, reliable, and of one essence. To him, man was a being with myriad lives and myriad sensations, a complex multiform creature that bore within itself strange legacies of thought and passion, and whose very flesh was tainted with the monstrous maladies of the dead […]12.
13 Que les pensées de Dorian soient formulées alors qu’il se trouve sous l’emprise de la lecture du fameux livre jaune (À rebours de Huysmans) illustre à merveille le phénomène d’échange entre l’Angleterre et la France. Si elles rappellent bien évidemment le lien entre l’héritage et l’hérédité pensée comme « revenance13 » et prenant une résonance gothique au XIXe siècle (le retour d’un passé biologique réincarné dans la descendance), ces réflexions font de l’être humain un palimpseste.
14 Complexité, fluidité, multiplicité sont trois éléments essentiels sur lesquels se trouve articulée l’identité artistique dans Confessions of a Young Man. Or, les phénomènes de mutation et de déterritorialisation caractérisent non seulement le sujet, représenté comme protéiforme, mais aussi le récit, se démarquant de la tradition de la littérature psychologique religieuse fondée par les confessions de St Augustin. Reprenant à son compte la rupture initiée par Rousseau (que Moore n’aurait toutefois lu qu’après la rédaction de sa première version), l’auteur prend ses distances avec un texte fondateur : « St Augustine’s Confessions are the story of a God-tortured, mine of an art- tortured, soul » (p. 185). L’idée de l’art comme nouvelle forme de religion apparaît de manière implicite dans le parallélisme des formules se faisant écho et effectuant la substitution de l’art à Dieu. Nous l’avons déjà dit, le récit fait la part belle aux événements relevant de l’apprentissage artistique, effaçant d’autres détails biographiques pour donner l’impression d’un parcours dans une bibliothèque ou un musée imaginaires. Dans sa reconstitution des filiations françaises tissées par le jeune anglais, le discours autobiographique se construit sur des bris de peinture et, avant tout, d’écriture et forme une sorte de bric-à-brac de fragments d’œuvres littéraires et picturales citées, imitées, ou commentées.
15 L’héritage « digéré », selon ses propres dires, par le jeune écrivain est présenté comme un collage, un montage, au cœur d’un texte qui se fait mosaïque, image convoquée par Julia Kristeva pour définir l’intertextualité : « Tout texte se construit comme mosaïque de citations, tout texte est absorption et transformation d’un autre texte14. » Absorption et transformation : ces deux termes rappellent bien sûr le fonctionnement de « l’estomac artistique » moorien. Histoire de filiation, les Confessions n’épousent cependant pas l’architecture d’un arbre généalogique mais elles suivent une structure
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en rhizome, un ensemble de « lignes de fuite » ou « lignes d’erre ». Le récit, tenant de la « carte » et non du « calque15 », dessine bel et bien une carte des influences, se veine d’un réseau de références aux ramifications multiples, fonds littéraire où Moore vient puiser son inspiration.
16 Épousant le principe de remise en question des normes établies, l’auteur prend soin de se démarquer de ces références, avec lesquelles il établit des relations complexes, d’où un texte fondé sur des principes d’écart et de dépassement. Imiter implique de pratiquer le décalage et l’ironie. Les excès rhétoriques de l’autobiographe s’inscrivent en regard des excès du jeune esthète qu’il était alors, tous deux adoptant des poses : celle de l’écrivain décadent s’amusant par exemple à se déclarer « efféminé, maladif, pervers », « feminine, morbid, perverse » (p. 48) ; celle du jeune Anglais, dandy se prélassant en kimono à la lueur des cierges, parmi les lys, les tentures écarlates, le parfum des gardénias, avec son python et son chat persan. Ce décor évoque, comme le montre Adrian Frazier, la demeure de Des Esseintes dans À Rebours de Huysmans : « When Moore came to describe the interior for the 1888 Confessions of a Young Man, he clearly added to its appointments some elements that he derived from Huysmans’s À Rebours (1884)16.” Il s’agit certes de prendre ses distances avec son moi passé, distances inévitablement creusées par le temps17, mais surtout de déconstruire, dans le même temps, le discours imité.
17 Dans un article sur les miniatures dans le texte de Moore, Pascale Guillot-Mac Garry étudie la dimension satirique des effets intertextuels. Les multiples poèmes insérés sont soit empruntés à des auteurs chers à Moore, soit écrits par lui-même dans une veine similaire, ce qui fait de ce jeu citationnel une forme d’exploration de l’écriture poétique ainsi mise en abyme et des Confessions « un brouillon de son œuvre à venir18 ». Guillot- Mac Garry va plus loin en montrant que, par exemple, les deux pages consacrées à un commentaire sur le crépuscule de Verlaine (p. 64-65) sont en fait une reprise, sous forme de pastiche, d’un passage d’À Rebours proposant une rêverie sur le même sujet. Moore reproduit les stratégies employées par les poètes du Cercle Zutique, créé en 1871 et rassemblé autour de la figure de Cabaner dont Moore fait l’éloge sur 4 pages (p. 91-95)19. Si l’on reprend ce qu’écrit Antoine Compagnon au sujet du travail de la citation, il apparaît que l’entreprise de Moore relève de « l’appropriation ou la reprise, c'est-à-dire le produit de la force qui saisit la citation par le déplacement qu’elle lui fait subir20 ». Cette pratique, qui produit une forme d’auto-référentialité parodique, a pour effet une déstabilisation et une réinterprétation permanentes du discours.
18 Refusant les formes fixes pour privilégier le mouvement et la métamorphose, l’autobiographie moorienne ne serait-elle pas alors une « hétérotopie », espace autre et contestataire dont Foucault montre qu’il se construit sur une rupture ? Le déplacement opéré par et dans l’écrit autobiographique permettrait alors de redéfinir le sujet et de le recréer21. Ce déplacement est effectué, comme nous l’avons montré, de diverses manières : par le voyage géographique, entraînant la découverte d’une autre langue et d’un autre milieu, social et culturel ; par l’élaboration d’une forme littéraire, assimilée à une autogenèse, et la déconstruction systématique (métaphores organiques et jeu avec les références et citations) de toute forme codifiée, perçue comme carcan, possible entrave à la création.
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Retour en terre d’Irlande
19 Une telle déconstruction, élaborée sur la rupture avec ses origines, semble paradoxalement conduire Moore à un retour. Après l’exil parisien, l’écrivain renoue avec ses racines, avec une culture gaélique dont il sent bien vite à nouveau les pesanteurs, et participe, pour un temps, au mouvement de renouveau culturel mené par Yeats et Edward Martyn. Il écrit des pièces de théâtre pour la scène irlandaise (The Bending of the Bough, Diarmuid and Grania) et surtout trois ouvrages de fiction s’ancrant dans sa terre d’origine, A Drama in Muslin, The Untilled Field et The Lake. Au fondement de la création moorienne et joycienne, la rébellion et l’exil, indissociables d’une fascination pour l’Irlande, sont les instruments employés pour forger une vision singulière, promise par Joyce à la fin de A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (« I go […] to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race22 »), le narrateur, Stephen, jurant d’utiliser pour seules armes le silence, la ruse et l’exil. Cette « irlandicité » est finalement, chez George Moore comme chez James Joyce, « le produit de [leur] Irlande intérieure23 » : Joyce dans Dubliners et Moore dans The Untilled Field ont pour projet une œuvre inédite, inspirée de leurs influences européennes ; tous deux se réclament de Flaubert, Zola, Maupassant, Ibsen, Tourgueniev, ce dernier constituant la référence majeure pour l’écriture de la nouvelle. En terme d’influence stylistique, le lien avec Édouard Dujardin s’impose et nous y reviendrons. Fondées sur des détails géographiques, biographiques, historiques, et culturels, les nouvelles de Moore, comme celles de Joyce, deviennent le lieu de dramatisation des conflits entre l’écrivain et l’objet de l’écriture, l’Irlande.
20 Le choix du titre du recueil, The Untilled Field (publié en 1903), révèle la nature de l’entreprise de Moore, l’exploration d’un nouveau champ qu’il s’agit pour lui de défricher : une vision réaliste de la paysannerie irlandaise actuelle, débarrassée des caractéristiques mythologiques et passéistes imposées par le courant de renouveau culturel engagé par Yeats. Le champ en friche désigne le sujet littéraire original, neuf, ainsi que les terres stériles d’Irlande, désert matériel et spirituel24. Moore veut à son tour initier une tradition, transmettre un héritage et, s’il écrit ces nouvelles, c’est afin de fournir un modèle aux futurs jeunes écrivains irlandais », « in the hope of furnishing the young Irish of the future with models25 ». Avec Dubliners, Joyce, lui, veut présenter Dublin au monde, pour que la ville redevienne capitale européenne. Il apparaît que Moore avait lu Dubliners avant de publier une version revue et corrigée de The Untilled Field et que Joyce connaissait les nouvelles de Moore. Au titre de la discussion sur la notion d’influence, il est bon de préciser que, malgré les critiques formulées par l’un et l’autre écrivains26, ces deux recueils constituent une illustration assez complexe de la question de l’intertextualité. Tous deux sont sous-tendus par une tension vers un ailleurs géographique, existentiel, artistique et mettent en scène l’insularité et ses avatars, enfermement, claustrophobie, paralysie. Les ruines encombrant le paysage dans The Untilled Field, « these signs of ancient Ireland » (« Home Sickness » p. 28), renvoient à une culture gaélique moribonde. Ce qui pourrait à première vue s’apparenter à une méditation poétique sur les ruines ne renvoie au final qu’au vide au cœur d’un paysage en décomposition et au cauchemar de l’histoire présente (famine, émigration, agitation sociale, entre autres maux). Cette plongée des personnages dans un passé mythique, mise en abyme de celle de Moore, se solde par un échec et un désir d’exil ; constat désabusé partagé par Joyce, qui voyait dans le mouvement de renouveau
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irlandais une croyance naïve en un âge d’or irrémédiablement perdu. Selon Hélène Cixous, le gaélique est, pour Joyce, « la langue d’une civilisation morte. Même, elle est mortelle ; émanent d’elle les charmes paralysants d’un passé légendaire et irréel, hanté de fées et de héros primitifs et superstitieux27 ».
21 Refusant la tradition considérée comme un repli autarcique sur une culture insulaire stérile, épousant de nouveaux modèles littéraires européens, Moore et Joyce n’en sont toutefois pas de pâles imitateurs. Leur œuvre irlandaise apparaît comme un véritable creuset, melting pot dans lequel viennent fusionner leurs sources d’inspiration et modèles divers. Cette image est d’ailleurs devenue, aux yeux de Moore, la meilleure façon de définir la création, l’ouverture permanente à de nouvelles formes d’art, le détachement de tout dogme, tout code, toute règle : « The artist must arrive at a new estimate of things; all must go into the melting-pot in the hope that out of the pot may emerge a new consummation of himself28. » Cette fusion trouve peut-être sa plus belle illustration dans l’adaptation par Moore du monologue intérieur découvert dans Les lauriers sont coupés de Dujardin : cette forme narrative expérimentale, permettant également d’exprimer l’exil intérieur vécu par les personnages, vient se fondre avec le motif fondateur de l’insularité. L’adoption du personnage comme conscience focale, le développement du monologue intérieur, reflètent cet état existentiel, l’écriture reproduisant alors dans ses formes l’insularité de la conscience d’êtres isolés ou, pour reprendre le terme employé par Richard Ellmann, « insularisés » (« islanded29 »). Sous couvert d’une narration omnisciente à la troisième personne du singulier, discours intérieur rapporté au style indirect libre, les récits laissent deviner l’enfermement du personnage dans un désert linguistique et spirituel.
22 Dans The Lake (1905), cette forme expérimentale trouve pleinement sa réalisation. Elle associe la ligne mélodique ou « melodic line » et les trouvailles de Dujardin30 qui, dans leur correspondance, conseille également Moore en matière de technique musicale, notamment sur le leitmotif wagnérien31. Texte hybride, roman par lettres entrecoupé d’un récit, cette œuvre est une réflexion sur l’écriture, l’identité, le corps et le désir, un livre-paysage (« landscape book », écrivait Moore à Lady Cunard32). Elle décrit un processus d’affranchissement vécu par un prêtre, grâce à un échange épistolaire avec une jeune femme, mère célibataire qu’il a chassée de sa paroisse, échange associé à un contact renouvelé avec les espaces naturels33. La ligne mélodique restitue le flux de la vie sub-consciente du personnage ou, pour citer Moore, « the essential rather than the daily life of the priest », tissant une histoire à partir de la substance de l’âme, « the weaving of a story out of the soul’s substance34 ». À travers l’immersion du prêtre dans le paysage, le récit parcourt un ensemble de lieux (île, lac, jardin, forêt) qui, devenus des sites privilégiés où s’exprime le désir tour à tour libéré ou refoulé, forment une constellation.
23 Le parcours géographique et culturel de la correspondante du prêtre, tout particulièrement sa découverte de Wagner, reflète les nombreuses incursions culturelles de Moore dans d’autres territoires. Ce voyage, effectué en compagnie d’un intellectuel rebaptisé Mr. Poole dans la dernière version du roman et donc explicitement associé à une forme de stagnation, apparaît cependant comme vain et stérile en regard du parcours du prêtre au cœur du paysage irlandais, espace où le sens est éclipsé et aboli. Ces errances-ci redessinent dans la diégèse un ailleurs du corps et de l’être, tandis que la ligne mélodique renvoie à un ailleurs de l’écriture cherchant à figurer le corps et le désir, tout en demeurant tendue vers cette expression idéale que
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serait la musique : Moore, grand admirateur de Pater, suit ici le précepte formulé dans The Renaissance. L’excipit, montrant le prêtre abandonnant ses vêtements pour se jeter dans l’eau du lac et nager, prélude à un départ vers les États-Unis, illustre l’issue de la crise relatée dans ce roman. Cette crise peut d’ailleurs être envisagée comme une illustration de ce tournant dans le roman britannique au début XXe siècle, conduisant, selon Philip Weinstein, à une redéfinition du personnage, « less a figure defined by semantics, signification, cultural value, and more one defined by desire, force, natural impulse » : à l’être immaculé « the immaculate self – self-withholding and self-aware », est substitué l’être incarné, « the incarnate self – sexualized and immersed beyond self-knowing in experience35 ».
24 Dans Confessions of a Young Man, texte fondateur d’une production autobiographique riche, dans laquelle l’artiste refuse une filiation imposée pour se recréer à partir d’influences choisies, Moore situe le lac du domaine de Moore Hall au cœur du processus de recréation de son identité :
before me the crystal lake, the distant mountains, the swaying woods, said but one word, and that word was – self; not the self that was then mine, but the self on whose creation I was enthusiastically determined. (p. 8)
25 Il semble que le lac, élément essentiel d’une géographie imaginaire élaborée sur une tension entre rejet et célébration, permette d’établir, sur un plan symbolique, le lien entre ce premier écrit et l’œuvre romanesque The Lake. Selon Pierre Jourde, les géographies imaginaires, fondées sur une contradiction entre présence et absence, renvoient à l’écriture même, en illustrant la recherche d’un centre absent où se produirait la coïncidence de l’être à soi : C’est parce qu’elles représentent spatialement cette tension que les géographies imaginaires nous parlent de l’œuvre. L’écriture, séparation d’avec soi, est le rêve de la coïncidence avec soi, dans ce centre enfin retrouvé, au terme de ce parcours de « l’espace littéraire ». La géographie imaginaire nous installe au cœur de l’inexistant, elle multiplie les signes (verbaux, iconographiques) d’une présence absente, mais qui ne fait qu’exacerber et rendre plus sensible la contradiction inhérente au cœur même de l’écriture [...]36.
26 On sait que la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle a vu apparaître une redéfinition radicale de l’espace, du temps et de l’identité. Qu’il soit biologique ou culturel, l’héritage est repensé à l’aune du darwinisme et de la psychologie pré-freudienne. La notion de transmission est profondément modifiée, dans la mesure où le désir de modernité instaure une relation complexe à la tradition et génère une tradition de la rupture, tout en mettant en exergue l’image du palimpseste. Moore propose son interprétation de ce « devenir autre37 », processus déclenché par la déterritorialisation géographique et culturelle vécue par le jeune Anglo-Irlandais en exil. Ses Confessions, où il se rêve comme un morceau de cire, font l’éloge du déplacement, de la fluidité, de la métamorphose. Son œuvre irlandaise offre, elle, un creuset dans lequel viennent se fondre les influences européennes et où se crée une géographie imaginaire. Bien que cet écrivain se soit vu reléguer, selon Jean-Claude Noël, auteur d’une biographie parue en 1966, « dans le purgatoire des réputations littéraires38 », cette œuvre constitue une ébauche de la littérature moderniste anglaise et annonce le flux de conscience qui traverse les romans de James Joyce et de Virginia Woolf.
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NOTES
1. George Moore, Evelyn Innes (1898), London, Ernest Benn, 1929, p. 137. 2. On pourrait dire que Moore a introduit l’œuvre de Zola en contrebande, car l’éditeur Vizetelly a été, en 1888, condamné à la prison pour avoir fait paraître en anglais Nana, The Soil ( La Terre) et Piping-Hot! ( Pot-Bouille). Ses articles sur les expositions impressionnistes à Paris ont été publiés dans The Bat et ont été suivis par trois ouvrages sur ce mouvement, Impressions and Opinions (1891), Modern Painting (1893) et Reminiscences of the Impressionist Painters (1906). 3. Voir notamment le pamphlet rédigé par George Moore contre la censure exercée à l’encontre des écrivains anglais et dont le titre, Literature at Nurse or Circulating Morals, évoque les cabinets de lecture ou « circulating libraries » (Literature at Nurse or Circulating Morals : A Polemic on Victorian Censorship (1885), Sussex, The Harvester Press Limited, 1976). 4. Il est bon de préciser ici que le récit, initialement écrit à la troisième personne, relatait les aventures d’un certain Edward Dayne, persona endossée par Moore, et que c’est au cours du travail de traduction par Édouard Dujardin, en vue d’une publication dans la Revue indépendante en 1888, que Moore opta pour la première personne, assumant ainsi le mode autobiographique. 5. Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Mille plateaux, Paris, Éditions de Minuit, 1980, p. 19. 6. Hélène Cixous, L’exil de James Joyce ou l’art du remplacement, Paris, Grasset, 1968, p. 208. 7. George Moore, Confessions of a Young Man (1886), London, William Heinemann, 1928, p. 8. Toutes les références de page dans les citations renvoient à cette édition. 8. Moore insiste peu sur l’acquisition d’une langue totalement nouvelle mais remarque, après avoir quitté la France, que l’anglais aurait pu devenir, s’il avait prolongé son séjour, une langue étrangère : « if I had remained two more years in France I should never have been able to identify my thoughts with the language I am now writing in, and I should have written it as an alien. » (p. 124) Henry James, lisant son premier roman A Mummer’s Wife, inspiré par l’œuvre de Zola, a souligné qu’il semblait être avoir été traduit imparfaitement en anglais à partir du français : « [it] seemed to have been thought in French and inadequately translated » (cité par Adrian Frazier, George Moore 1852-1933, New Haven, London, Yale University Press, 2000, p. 108). 9. Cette image du cerveau vu comme une cire molle sur laquelle la sensation imprimerait son cachet rappelle les théories des philosophes sensualistes, notamment Condillac, et était plus généralement utilisée par les philosophes matérialistes du XVIIIe siècle, en lien avec le concept de tabula rasa. 10. Dans Les cinq paradoxes de la modernité, Antoine Compagnon rappelle que la tradition est, selon l’étymologie, « la transmission d’un modèle ou d’une croyance, d’une génération à la suivante et d’un siècle à l’autre : elle suppose l’allégeance à l’autorité et la fidélité à une origine » (Paris, Seuil, 1990, p. 7). À la lueur de cette analyse, il est clair que Moore s’inscrit dans la rupture. 11. Ibid., p. 54. 12. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, New York, London, Norton, 2007, p. 119.
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13. Terme emprunté au titre de l’ouvrage de Jean-François Hamel, Revenances de l’histoire, Paris, Éditions de Minuit, 2006. 14. Julia Kristeva, Séméiôtiké, Paris, Seuil, 1969, p. 85. 15. « Tout autre est le rhizome, carte et non pas calque » (Deleuze et Guattari, op. cit., p. 20) 16. Adrian Frazier, op. cit., p. 42. 17. Adrian Frazier montre l’effet ironique que produit un tel décalage, par ailleurs au fondement de toute entreprise autobiographique : « That youthful being emerges as a figment of the ironic relationship between the unactualised self or the boy in the process of becoming and the ever more assured incarnations of the endlessly reminiscent fictionaliser “George Moore”. “Myself was the goal I was making for”, as he himself states the paradox of identity, and the self on show is all mirrors on mirrors. » (ibid., p. 35) 18. Pascale Guillot-Mac Garry, « Les miniatures dans Confessions of a Young Man », Cahiers irlandais, no 8, 1983, p. 11. 19. L’Album Zutique contenait des parodies visant essentiellement les poètes du Parnasse. Elles étaient signées du nom de l’auteur imité, suivi du monogramme des vrais auteurs. On trouve dans Confessions of a Young Man un poème clairement dérivé de la veine scatologique et obscène développée par les zutiques : « La ballade d’Alfred, Alfred aux belles dents », « un très grand macq’illustre dans le square… » (205-206). 20. Antoine Compagnon, La seconde main ou le travail de la citation, Paris, Seuil, 1979, p. 9. 21. Ces propos sont inspirés par l’article de Frédéric Regard qui emprunte à Foucault la notion d’hétérotopie pour définir les liens entre autobiographie, espace et déplacement (« L’Auteur remis en place : topologie et tropologie du sujet autobiographique », Jacques-Lefèvre N. (dir.) avec la collaboration de Frédéric Regard, Une histoire de la « fonction-auteur » est-elle possible ?, St Étienne, Publications de l’Université de St Étienne, 2001, p. 33-47). 22. James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1970, p. 253. 23. Hélène Cixous, op.cit., p. 15. 24. On retrouve cette association entre l’Irlande et un champ en friche dans les maximes rédigées par Joyce alors qu’il enseignait : « Ireland is a great country. It is called the Emerald Isle. The metropolitan government, after centuries of strangling it, has laid it waste. It’s now an untilled field. » (cité par Richard Ellmann, James Joyce, London, Oxford University Press, 1959, p. 225) 25. George Moore, Preface, The Untilled Field (1903), Dublin, Gill and MacMillan, 1990, p. XIX. Écrit en anglais par Moore, le recueil a été traduit en gaélique. Selon Moore, toujours dans la préface, il ne devait être publié que dans cette langue : « As soon as his [Tiagh Donoghue’s] translations were finished, my manuscripts were to be burnt. » (p. XIX). 26. S’il admirait « The Dead », Moore trouvait certaines des nouvelles de Dubliners triviales et désagréables, « trivial and disagreeable » (cité par Richard Ellmann, op. cit., p. 418). On sait, par une lettre à Stanislaus, que Joyce avait lu The Untilled Field et qu’il n’appréciait guère cette œuvre : « I read that silly, wretched book of Moore’s The Untilled Field which the Americans found so remarkable for its “craftsmanship”. O, dear me! It is very dull and flat indeed: and ill-written. » (Lettre à Stanislaus, 24 Septembre 1905). Moore avait déjà été critiqué en 1901 par Joyce dans The Day of the Rabblement, écrit contre la culture officielle en Irlande.
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27. Hélène Cixous, op. cit., p. 208. 28. George Moore, Hail and Farewell, Vale (1914), London, Heinemann, 1937, p. 103-104. 29. Richard Ellmann, op. cit., p. 368. 30. Richard Allen Cave établit clairement l’influence de Dujardin sur Moore. Selon lui, Dujardin, éditeur de La Revue wagnérienne, cherchait à introduire dans le roman poésie et musique, et à adapter les principes de Wagner au récit : « but none were as avid as Dujardin in exploring ways of compelling language in poetry and the novel to yield effects analogous with Wagner’s use of leitmotival musical phrases for psychological penetration and emotional intensity in his music dramas. […] Dujardin’s seminal role first lay in offering detailed thematic interpretations of the operas for Moore, thereby defining Wagner’s recurring preoccupations with the conflicts of sensuality with interest, of passion with religion, of Pagan with Christian ideals, of the life-force with renunciation, which Moore was to make the central subjects of his own late novels.» (A Study of the Novels of George Moore, Gerrards Cross, Colin Smythe, 1978, p. 137) 31. Sur cette correspondance, voir Michel Brunet, « “Mais qui voudrait me lire en français ?” : Reading George Moore’s Letters to Édouard Dujardin », Dabrigeon-Garcier F. et Huguet C. (dir.), George Moore, Across Borders, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2013, p. 125-136. 32. George Moore, « Letter to Lady Cunard », cité par Max E. Cordonnier, « Siegfried in Ireland : A Study of Moore’s The Lake », Welsh R. (dir.), The Way Back : George Moore’s The Untilled Field and The Lake, Dublin, Wolfhound Press, 1982, p. 93. 33. Sur le lien entre écriture épistolaire, corps et paysage, voir Fabienne Gaspari, Contraintes et pesanteurs du corps dans les romans de George Moore, Thèse de Doctorat, Bordeaux III, 1998, p. 381-429. Voir également l’article de Fabienne Dabrigeon-Garcier sur le rapport dialogique entre lettres et monologue intérieur, « “A Letter came into his mind”: Fictional Correspondence in The Lake », Dabrigeon-Garcier F. et Huguet C. (dir.), George Moore, Across Borders, op. cit., p. 239-253. 34. George Moore, Preface, The Lake (1905), Gerrards Cross, Colin Smythe, 1980, p. X. 35. Philip Weinstein, The Semantics of Desire, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1984, p. VII. 36. Pierre Jourde, Géographies imaginaires, Paris, José Corti, 1991, p. 314. 37. Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, op. cit., p. 291. 38. Jean-Claude Noël, George Moore : l’homme et l’œuvre (1852-1933), Paris, Didier, 1966, p. 551.
RÉSUMÉS
George Moore débute sa carrière par un exil géographique et culturel générant un processus de déterritorialisation que sa première œuvre autobiographique décrit. Confessions of a Young Man recrée un être en perpétuel flux façonné par toutes ses rencontres avec des artistes parisiens. Cette autobiographie s’élabore sur l’intertextualité, dessine une filiation, et montre que la
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création se constitue en référence à un héritage absorbé et réinventé. Sa fiction, même celle dont l’« irlandicité » a été soulignée, illustre ce processus d’assimilation, avec l’utilisation de la « ligne mélodique » inspirée par Wagner et Dujardin.
George Moore started his career with a cultural and geographic exile which resulted in a process of deterritorialisation described in his first autobiographic work. “Confessions of a Young Man” recreates a self in perpetual flux, shaped by all his encounters with Parisian artists. This autobiography is built on intertextuality, traces a lineage, and shows how creation has its basis in an inheritance which is absorbed and reinvented. His fiction, even when its “Irishness” has been underlined, also illustrates this process of assimilation, with its use of the “melodic line” coming from Wagner and Dujardin.
INDEX
Mots-clés : autobiographie, corps, Moore George , héritage culturel, influences/intertextualité Keywords : autobiography, cultural heritage, body, influences/intertextuality, Moore George
AUTEUR
FABIENNE GASPARI CRPHL, Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour
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The familiar and the foreign: Finnish landscapes in contemporary Irish poetry
Anne Karhio
1 In her essay "Irish Poetry and ‘Internationalism’", Edna Longley interrogates the perceptions of increasing openness to the outside world apparent in recent Irish poetry. Not only does she remind us that various transnational crosscurrents were already constitutive of much of the writings of Yeats’s and Beckett’s poetry. She also highlights how the "question of Abroad in Irish literature has been only patchily explored" due to the routes determined by the popularity of concepts and paradigms of "exile", "emigration" and "colonialism".1 This essay adds to the patchwork of "international" perspectives on Irish poetry in its discussion of Irish poets’ engagement with Finland and representations of its landscape in visual arts, music and autobiographical writing. What it seeks to do is to approach one particular aspect of «abroad» as a series of not quite isolated but more subtly interrelated occurrences of Finland in three poems: Michael Hartnett’s "Sibelius in Silence", Seamus Heaney’s "Known World" (Electric Light, 2001) and Tom Paulin’s "Trotsky in Finland" (The Strange Museum, 1980). In other words, the focus will be on cross-cultural exchanges or displacements which allow poets to de- and re-contextualise their themes and subject matter and thus question the premises underlying their familiar personal and cultural contexts. Longley quotes Pierre Bourdieu, for whom, in the process of certain type of "internationalization", "texts circulate without context…they don’t bring with them the field of production of which they are a product, and the fact that the recipients, who are themselves in a different field of production, re-interpret the texts in accordance with the structure of the field of reception…generates some formidable misunderstandings."2 Such misunderstandings can be liberating in a literary culture where any reference to the domestic landscape is immediately conditioned by the densely layered narratives of the native terrain, and where, as Seamus Heaney puts it in "Bogland", "Every layer… seems camped on before3". At the same time, as Longley notes, "any poet seizes on the familiar in the foreign […] to elaborate a pre-existing
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myth or trope4". The importance of understanding exchanges across national borders less in terms of internationalism or the "coercive categories like ‘exile’, ‘emigration’ and ‘colonialism'5" (though these categories need not necessarily be "coercive") and more through the aleatory ways in which "poetry…smuggles strangeness across frontiers6” directs the following discussion on the appropriation of Finnish landscape and its aesthetic representation by contemporary Irish poets. The interplay between the familiar and the strange or foreign can thus be seen as a variable of the processes of estrangement, Skhlovsky’s ostranenie, whereby poetry as a verbal art acts to "make objects ‘unfamiliar’7”. The habitual links between narrative and landscape in one personal or cultural context are severed and questioned through the introduction of a new topography.
2 The three poems discussed below are by no means the only instances where Finland has left a mark on Ireland’s literary terrain. Heaney’s "Known World" is preceded by "Audenesque", in which the recollections of icy north are counterbalanced against a memory of a summer train trip with the fellow poet Joseph Brodsky in Finland; like Heaney, Paul Durcan draws on Simberg’s "Wounded Angel" to frame a personal narrative in "The Children of Lir – After Hugo Simberg"; Dorothy Molloy’s "Ice Maiden" opens with the speaker imagining herself "walk[ing] in [her] night-dress and slippers/ along winter beaches in Finland". And, in a characteristically oblique manner, Finnish topography smuggles its way into Medbh McGuckian’s "The Man with Two Women", which quotes, almost word for word, Ann and Samuel Charters’ biography of Vladimir Mayakovsky, and an account of the Russian poet’s stay in Finland, but leaves out the specific markers of geographical location; the original "Kuokkala was a country resort in the sparse pine woods on the shores of Finland, with a gritty beach that had huge stones protruding irregularly from the water” is condensed to an image of “a gritty beach/With huge stones,/where I could sit". Perhaps the most notable single instance of a Finnish-Irish exchange not discussed here, one which negotiates the permeable borders of the personal and the cultural, the familiar and the foreign or strange, is Peter Sirr’s long poem "A Journal", an account of the end of an affair with a Finnish lover. The context of Sirr’s poem is highly personal, and a perfect example of how individual circumstances may circumvent any wider cultural frameworks. The poet goes as far as to never name the cities, one in Finland, one in Ireland, which provide the two geographical poles for the two individuals’ experiences. Rather than any specific place, the poem attempts to orientate itself in a "huge space, unmappable", and focuses on spatial imagery (rooms and streets, inside and outside) constantly resisting contextualization, and the slipperiness of memory is further illustrated through the imagery of water. Sirr’s lines consists of "words without landscape", a topography too private to comfortably settle in any specific places and experiences8.
3 All of the poems listed above have their spatial contexts, of course, and also, no matter how fleetingly, form brief attachments with Finnish landscapes. The present essay will, however, focus on the three poems by Hartnett, Heaney and Paulin as examples that perhaps best illustrate the tensions between the familiar and foreign in the Finnish- Irish encounters in contemporary Irish poetry in their respective representations of landscape. Their connections with Finnish culture, arts and aesthetics also share a certain historical framework. Finnish symbolist painter Hugo Simberg’s "The Wounded Angel" that inspired Heaney’s poem "Known World" was finished in 1903, and Paulin’s lyric narration of Leon Trotsky’s stay in Finland, titled simply "Trotsky in Finland"
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draws on events in the winter of 1905. While Hartnett’s long poem "Sibelius in Silence" is set in a later period, one of the composer’s creative silence from 1926 onwards, the poem repeatedly returns to issues topical in the first years of the 20th century in Finland, including the struggle under the Russian rule and the cultural construction of the nation. The period was one of intense artistic production in the country, during which the forging of national art and literature was counterbalanced by cosmopolitanism and nascent modernism. At the same time, the rising class- consciousness among the Finnish rural labourers and industrial working class would draw on the more international cross-currents of the rise of socialism, eventually leading to the Finnish civil war in 1918, in the aftermath of the Russian revolution and Finnish independence in 1917.
4 However, national and cultural identity is in no way an overarching theme in the three poems discussed here; only in "Sibelius in Silence" is cultural nationalism interrogated in any more extensive manner, and even that poem balances its considerations of a national-cultural community against individual predicaments not easily summarized under any single critical paradigm. What all three poems, and all three works they engage with share, however, is an engagement with and representation of a landscape which may be recognizable as "Finnish" but which, more importantly, provides a setting for concerns of less easily definable geographical origins. The change of context outlined by Bourdieu in the quotation above, in other words the circulation of motifs or texts from one context to another, here leads to the emergence of literary topographies which draw on landscapes on the opposite side of Europe to rewrite those closer to home.
5 Oona Frawley has suggested that representations of landscape in 19th and 20th century Irish literature are frequently characterized by nostalgia, and are thus marked by both continuity and loss. She notes that "nostalgia serves […] as a safety mechanism designed to bridge past and present for cultures as they experience change9". Frawley is here commenting on Irish culture and literature, but similarly in Finland, especially in the early 20th century, landscape in the arts was used to forge legitimacy for the emerging national consciousness; the often romanticized ideal of the national landscape, tinged with nostalgia, persists until today, as it does in Ireland.10 But the poems examined here do not neatly fall under such a paradigm. Rather, I argue that the constructions of landscape in these poems provide their respective authors with spatial allegories that allow them to investigate preoccupations specific to their respective poetic endeavours. The poets engage with depictions of landscape as encountered in visual arts, music or autobiographical writing, and in their reading of these landscapes they also rewrite them from more familiar personal and cultural coordinates. Or, as J. Hillis Miller formulates it, the emergence of their respective textual topographies are simultaneous acts of "creating" and "revealing"11.
6 For Michael Hartnett, the arduous relationship between life and art, and the struggle of the artist with a divided heritage and his decline into alcoholism made him turn to Sibelius, the Finnish symphonist for whom the creative process was similarly marked by darker impulses. Seamus Heaney, whose poetry has repeatedly returned to the author’s domestic landscape in county Derry, explores an encounter with atrocities evoking familiarity and strangeness in the Balkans through a painting from a different extreme of Europe, as he contemplates the relationship between art, violence and suffering through the work of Hugo Simberg. Finally, I will look at a poem by Tom
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Paulin, the controversially political Ulster Protestant whose polemic insistence on the interrelationship between poetry and politics turns to one of the most famous revolutionary figures of the 20th century, namely Leon Trotsky, and his journey through the Finnish countryside as depicted in his memoir; in Paulin’s poem, Finland emerges as a liminal zone between the West and the East.
7 The musical theme of Hartnett’s "Sibelius in Silence" binds Sibelius’s ailing creative powers to Hartnett’s similar struggle: Hartnett also spent the final years of his life in relative artistic silence12. It also links with Hartnett’s relationship to the Irish musical tradition: as Seamus Deane has noted, the emerging Irish poetry in English in the 19th century, from Thomas Moore to James Clarence Mangan, would find an audience through allying itself with Irish music, an "indigenous" cultural practice, to legitimize a literature produced in the language of the colonizer13. As a result, concludes Dillon Johnston, for contemporary Irish poets an “enthusiasm for traditional Irish music seems as pervasive […] as their interest in Gaelic14". A parallel can be drawn between the importance of music to the Irish poetic tradition and the significance of Sibelius’s music to the rising Finnish national consciousness, as well as his use of the folk motifs from Finnish mythology in his work. Eoin Flannery has noted how Hartnett’s poetry is not only sustained by a conscious genealogical and formal attachment to the eighteenth-century Munster bardic poets,15 his work is also close to the cultural and physical landscape out of which it emanates. In a poem such as "Sibelius in Silence", in which Hartnett the poet is brought to a form of creative, linguistic crisis, we can locate a joining of these twin artistic and historical concerns16.
8 The motif of landscape is particularly prominent in Hartnett’s troubled hommage to the Finnish composer, and the simultaneous attachment to and alienation from the landscape sustaining the poet and the composer is a crucial preoccupation in the poem: the complexities of belonging and estrangement are in both cases linked to the historical rifts between people, land and language in the homelands of the two artists. Hartnett’s concerns and anxieties over the fate of the language and tradition of Irish poetry eventually led the poet to abandon the idiom of the colonizers, "the perfect language to sell pigs in".17 For his Sibelius, the struggle with language and identity is of a more complex kind, as the composer came from a Swedish-speaking family and only learned the Finnish language at the age of eight.18 The composer sought to affirm his allegiances to the nation, perhaps most famously through the composition of Finlandia in the final years of the 19th century. However a comfortable sense of belonging is, in Hartnett’s poem, seen to be denied to Sibelius who stood up against the oppressive measures of Nikolai II’s Czarist Russia, though himself speaking the language of previous colonizers19.
9 Hartnett opens his poem with an evocation of the arrival of Finns to the land released from under the burden of the ice age: To have intricacies of lakes and forests, harbours, hills and inlets given – and none of these with a name; then to have posited nomads straggling from the barricading Urals, bearing on their backs and horses children, language and utensils, gods and legends; then to have brought all these together,
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yeast to the thawing mud – this was to make in the Green Gold of the North an ethnic and enduring bread20.
10 The land is imagined almost virginal, as void of human presence, while at the same time a ground for growing roots. Or rather, the imagined fertility of the landscape is described as a fermenting process, where the coming together of "yeast" and "mud" will create "enduring bread": the forging of a nation is a result not of spontaneous birth but of arduous labour (one also illustrated by the sound patterns of the lines), and the claim to land by its people based on toil and struggle after their arrival – not as growing naturally from the soil. But it is specifically this claim that leads to a struggle of another kind by the composer, as he seeks to align himself with the emerging national consciousness. After the land is first immersed in language, gods and legends, sown with blood and bodies, whatever strangers come and conquer and stand upon the hills at evening (for we, the planters, tend to meditation), they will sense they are not wanted here.21
11 The "planters" are also called "mapping strangers" in the poem, and the vocabulary betrays Hartnett’s Irish preoccupations; the processes of “planting” and “mapping” are rarely evoked in the Finnish popular consciousness, when it comes to the occupying of the country by Swedish or Russian rulers. (As Kuortti, Lehtonen and Löytty have observed, the understanding of Finland as a “postcolonial” nation has yet to establish itself as a popular or scholarly paradigm22.)
12 But if security as belonging due to a linguistic background was something unavailable to Sibelius, Hartnett’s composer finds a way forward, if not, as the poem puts it, “a way home”, in music. Blacker than the blackest swans are, all my life their mythic figures clothed in insistent rhythms have pursued me and made me anxious, called my name and demanded answers: and I listened. And I answered. Music was my language, so I gave them my music; and the land drank in my music23.
13 Sibelius drew repeatedly on the oral tradition and mythology that inspired Elias Lönnrot’s Kalevala, for example in his "Swan of Tuonela", a part of the Lemminkäinen Suite (a project apparently started in the final years of the 19 th century but first performed in its entirety in 1935). The association of the swan with "blackness" also comes from Kalevala, where the swan, a sacred bird in eastern Finnish mythology, would swim in the river of death. Here the use of mythology offers a way to connect, through music, to a tradition the composer feels he cannot quite claim as his own, and consequently become an inseparable part of Finnish cultural heritage and identity; as Paul Durcan points out, Sibelius’s "Finlandia", for example, "was and […] remains Finland’s unofficial national anthem. [It] is to Finns what Ó Riada’s Mise Eire used to be to many Irish people24". The evocation of mythology through music enables the Irish poet’s Sibelius to engage in the same process of "the craft of the bard" which Flannery considers pivotal to Hartnett’s own pursuits25. Music here signifies a path to a tribal
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landscape which cannot be accessed through language in a linguistically ruptured or fragmented culture, a means to express the "non-verbal communication between the tribe and the landscape which preoccupies Hartnett26". The poem’s speaker "wed the land and dreamed her freedom/somehow coalesced and marched maestoso / out through the hatchings of my music-sheets27". Hartnett’s engagement with language, landscape and music in "Sibelius in Silence" thus seeks to access through poetry a close relationship between person, community and landscape in a cultural moment of historical and linguistic crisis. In other words, the evocation, even in verbal utterance, of the non-verbal registers of music enables the poet to imagine continuities through artistic expression even when such continuities have been fractured by historical processes. For Sibelius, music was a language of its own which did not always yield to verbal constraints. In 1919, he defended in an interview his decision not to give a title to his fifth symphony in saying that the work was "pure music" and "musical thoughts" and could not, therefore, have a name. For the composer there were ideas that could only be expressed through music.28 For the poet Hartnett, however, the translation of landscape into language, and the transcription of place-names into the idiom of the coloniser has to be addressed verbally: it watches rivers wash its labels from their banks contemptuously to sea, watches names it put on hills detach themselves doggedly slide down a valley of unwanted nouns29.
14 Landscape, in "Sibelius in Silence", does not yield to the kind of power exercised through mapping and naming, as carried out in Ireland by the British ordnance survey; For Paul Durcan, the lines evoke Friel’s Translations, and he notes how "[f]rom the landscape of Finland Hartnett transports the Sibelian voice to the hinterland of his native town Newcastle West in County Limerick30".
15 It is towards the end of the poem that the description of physical landscape yields to a landscape of the mind as expressed through music, and Hartnett’s Sibelius is envisioned as conducting the fourth symphony, which has been said to be stripped of all unnecessary "pretence"31: They say my music weeps for the days when my people ate the bark from trees because all crops had failed. Music disdains such theories: I offer you here cold pure water as against the ten-course tone-poems, the indigestible Mahlerian feasts; as against the cocktails' many hues, – all liquors crammed in one glass – pure cold water is what I offer. Composed, I am conducting. It is my fourth symphony, thrid [sic] movement and, as my baton tries to make the music keep to the key of C sharp minor, vodka ebbs in tremors from my hand32 and at the ravaged corner of my eye a raven flies through the concert hall and I find a self saying to my self "it was the deer that stripped the trees
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not the people at all." Two flutes grapple with an ice-cold note until the ‘cello takes command. As the audience's hiss escapes splinters of birch-bark stick in my throat.33
16 Here, Hartnett’s Sibelius echoes the historical one, for whom music could not have a similar referential relationship to the world as words; this would make the entire art pointless. "Music, pure music, cannot have a literal content34." In the poem, pure fluidity of music takes over from the solidity of bark and "ten course" feasts, even alcohol35. From the "enduring bread" which emerges from the landscape, the poem has now moved to the clarity of water, until the verse’s final line where "birch-bark stick[s]" in the speaker’s throat, signalling the fall into ultimate silence (though not quite biographically, as Sibelius was to compose altogether seven symphonies). Instead of a constructed physical landscape, the "rise" and "ebb" of the music, and the movement of sound now create a topography of their own. According to Durcan, Hartnett in his poem […] contrives to convince us that his language is music through the medium of the language of poetry; more subtly, we know that Hartnett’s language is poetry and yet by his doubling of Sibelius, he is able to convince us that his language is music36.
17 At the very end of the poem, Sibelius, now surrendering to the quietude of his final years, returns back in time while listening to the radio: "I shuffle to the radio, switch on the set/and pluck, as I did before, Finlandia out of the air37." But silence, here, is not merely a failure of creativity, but the aim of music; or as Sibelius wrote in his diaries, expanding on Walter Pater’s famous maxim: "What happens when music ceases? Silence. All the other arts aspire to the condition of music. What does music aspire to? Silence." (Durcan, "Hartnett’s Farewell", 222.) The landscape forged with such great struggle earlier on in the poem has to disperse into silence, out of which music may grow again; in the end, the poem forms a circle, though with a slight sense of unease – Finlandia, after all, is closely tied to the Finnish national romanticist movement, and its perceived union between art, the people, and their national terrain. Land and air, historical commitment and artistic inspiration, intertwine, but their relationship is never entirely resolved by Hartnett.
18 The uprooting of Sibelius and his personal and artistic preoccupations from late 19th century and early 20th century Finland, and the working of the poetic landscape of Ireland and Hartnett’s Newcastle West exemplify a dynamic of home and away, "the familiar and the foreign38" in Irish poetry in a way which avoids the pitfalls of national versus international categorization concerning Longley. The emerging landscape of the poem cannot in any straightforward terms be reduced to that of either geographical location, and the complex interplay between musical, literary and physical landscapes reflects the equally complex dialogue between artists separated in time and space, but simultaneously sharing predicaments not reducible to national or cultural paradigms – what preoccupies the artist of "Sibelius in Silence" is the anchoring of his work to culture, land and landscape, and his simultaneous commitment to the aesthetic and artistic process itself.
19 For Seamus Heaney, an evoking of the non-verbal forms of communication to poetically access a moment of violent crisis is enabled by an ekphrastic engagement with the Finnish symbolist painter Hugo Simberg’s "The Wounded Angel", completed in 1903. The painting depicts two boys carrying a blindfolded angel on a stretcher through a
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desolate lake- or seashore landscape. At the time of painting "The Wounded Angel", the artist was recovering from a serious illness, which may have contributed to his depiction of the frail figure of the angel, as well as to the bleak backdrop to the figures in the foreground. The painting has been a repeated source of inspiration for poets and other artists, in Ireland and elsewhere39.
20 According to Edna Longley, "[p]oetry’s consciousness of painting inevitably highlights and measures its aesthetic self-consciousness, tilts the see-saw away from history". As Shane Murphy has stressed, however, "[t]he act of looking in Northern Irish poetry is not always innocent, especially when there are socio-political forces involved40". While "Known World" is not primarily concerned with Northern Ireland or the Troubles, the function of painting in the poem certainly serves to highlight rather than to sidestep historical circumstances, albeit that the use of the painting allows for the poet to step back from any particular crisis examined to reveal the human propensity for suffering from a more universal perspective. Rather than tensions between cultural and historical context, and aesthetic expression in Hartnett, Heaney’s poem focuses on the possibility of addressing the shared human experiences of pain and loss through art and poetry.
21 To which degree Simberg’s, and subsequently Heaney’s, landscape is Finnish, is open to question: while it has been suggested that the painter was inspired by the shores of the bay of Töölönlahti in central Helsinki (it was in this landscape the artist was treated for his illness), Simberg himself insisted on the ambiguity of its precise geographical or historical context. The work completed during what has been called the Golden Age of Finnish Art (1880-1910), a period marked by national romantic emphasis in the arts gradually making way for the more frequent exchanges by Finnish artists with their peers in Europe, and the emerging of symbolist and early modernist undercurrents of their work. As Pekka Vähänkangas has noted, symbolism and early modernism turned many Finnish artists away from the panoramic sceneries of lakes and forests, and to more symbolic and ambiguous, subjective landscapes of the mind41. Simberg’s work, for example, was heavily influenced by European symbolism and later impressionism, though the painter was also highly original in his combination of naivistic dream imagery and rural Finnish landscapes, and studied under the tutelage of Akseli Gallen- Kallela.
22 Heaney’s poem refers to the later of the two versions of the painting produced by Simberg: the original oil on canvas was completed in 1903, but in 1905-1906, the artist painted a second version as a fresco on the walls of the Tampere Cathedral. While the two images are nearly identical, the latter includes the two "factory chimneys" that Heaney mentions in his poem in the background, missing from the first version. As mentioned earlier, Paul Durcan has similarly used it in his poem "The Children of Lir – after Hugo Simberg", which also draws on Irish mythology and is set in contemporary Dublin42. Unlike Durcan’s more personal poem, however, Heaney’s "Known World" focuses on the relationship between poetry and the visual arts, and violent conflict and crisis. The poem is set in the Balkans, in the Struga poetry festival in what is now known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. It examines the responses of artists and poets to suffering in a geographical setting of one of the worst nightmares in post-World War II Europe, but also establishes a Finnish context early on as it mentions the contemporary Finnish-Swedish poet Caj Westerberg, "A Finnish Hamlet in black corduroy43". After introducing its contemporary setting, the poem returns "On
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the short and sweetening mud-slide of a coffee" to what, one presumes, is the poet’s childhood home in Northern Ireland, only to move on to the landscape of Simberg’s painting.
23 In his introduction to an exhibition of works selected by the poet himself from the holdings of the Ulster Museum, Heaney noted how he chose "paintings, photographs and objects that housed some charge of primal energy or embodied some remembered feeling44". That "charge" from a "remembered feeling" aptly describes the numerous poems which focus around his childhood home in Derry, that focus which has energized so much of his work; as Daniel Tobin puts it, "the image of the sacred center stands as a governing trope within [Heaney’s] growing body of work45". In "Known World", too, the passage from Struga to Simberg’s landscape needs to pass through the childhood kitchen: At the still centre of the cardinal points The flypaper hung from our kitchen ceiling, Honey-strip and death-trap, a barley sugar twist Of glut and loathing … In a nineteen-fifties Of iron stoves and kin groups still in place, Congregations blackening the length And breadth of summer roads.46
24 The childhood home is described in bitter-sweet terms: the "honey-trap" signals delight and death in equal terms. There is no place or time that would retain its innocence, as the poet is questioning the causes and purposes of suffering spatially from the double coordinates between Northern Ireland and the Balkans, and temporally between the 1950s and the 1990s. It is through paintings, however, that the poem can access a geographically nonspecific framework, which is also less conditioned by specific moments in history, and concerned with the universal fragility of the human condition.
25 The introduction of Simberg’s painting is in Heaney’s poem preceded by a reference to Breughel’s "Fall of Icarus" and Auden’s discussion of it in his "Musée des Beaux Arts" (1938): "That old sense of tragedy going on/Uncomprehended, at the very edge / of the usual, it never left me once47." Auden’s poem famously locates hurt and suffering in the margins of a larger landscape canvas: "About suffering they were never wrong,/The Old Masters: how well they understood/Its human position; how it takes place/While someone else is eating or opening a window or just/walking dully along48." But the two paintings that the poem refers to differ drastically in their positioning of tragedy. If Breughel’s depiction of the misfortune of the falling Icarus takes place in the periphery of vision, in a corner where one merely sees "white legs disappearing into the green", Simberg’s landscape is merely a desolate backdrop for the characters at the centre of the image, and invites the viewer to fill it with familiar markers. For Hartnett’s haunted Sibelius, music offers an access to the nonverbal realm where art can help address, if not quite obliterate, cultural divides demarcated by language. In Heaney’s reading of Simberg, however, the painting can help address hurts which may have been caused by such divides, but are in the end too deep or complex for words. Heaney refers to "The Wounded Angel" as "Hygo [sic] Simberg’s allegory of Finland", though the allegory is one that purposely steers clear of any national(ist) contextualisation. Heaney’s poem describes the painting as
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The one where the wounded angel’s being carried By two farm youngsters across an open field: Marshland, estuary light, a farther shore With factory chimneys. Is it the socialist thirties Or the shale and slag and the sloblands of great hurt? A first communion angel with big white wings, White bandage round her brow, white flowers in hand, Holds herself in place on a makeshift stretcher Between manchild number one in round soft hat And manchild number two in a bumfreezer And what could be his father’s Wellingtons. Allegory, I say, but who’s to know How to read sorrow rightly, or at all 49?
26 Heaney is unsure whether to read the painting through a historical and social or a personal lens, as a depiction of "the socialist thirties" or "the sloblands of great hurt". He then proceeds to a lengthy description of the painting and its characters, and answers his own question with another: "Allegory, I say, but who’s to know / How to read sorrow rightly, or at all?" The sorrow and pain which in "The Wounded Angel" are decontextualized and embedded in an undefined landscape can, the poet contends, be only interpreted in the form of a question.
27 In "Sibelius in Silence" music is evoked as a landscape of its own, and painting here serves a similar purpose: the non-referential (or at least the referent is an emotion rather than any specific moment or place outside the painting) topography of Simberg does not seek to place its subject-matter into an explanatory context. The language Heaney uses to describe the painting, however, depicts its objects in a way which link it to a place and landscape closer to home: "the first communion angel" and the boy "in his father’s wellingtons" fill the barren lakeshore with familiar points of reference, as the poet maps, through the Finnish artist’s ambiguous terrain, a "passage to the center" (as Tobin titles his study on Heaney) which so strongly characterizes his work.
28 For Heaney, the ekphrastic potential of Simberg’s painting lies not solely in aesthetic and formal distancing (Longley) or social/historical commentary (Murphy) but somewhere between the two. The positioning of the figures in the landscapes of Breughel and Simberg allows the poet to interrogate the positioning of suffering not only geographically, but also in relation to poetry and artistic practice: the poets gathered in the Struga festival enjoy the privilege of escaping their more domestic crises, which nevertheless haunt Heaney as the memory of his childhood home leads him to consider atrocities which would take place in the 1990s Balkans. The more exalted, or even detached, aspirations of the poetic profession are questioned as the festival delegates finally soar above the troubled landscape in the jets that carry them home: the final line of the poem reads "Nema problema. Ja. All systems go", and the lines are suspended between the placeless comfort of international aviation and the embodiment of hurt in Simberg’s landscape of the mind.
29 Music and painting have thus provided Hartnett and Heaney with frameworks for interrogating questions of personal and cultural crisis and continuity on the one hand, and, on the other, for exploring the limits of poetry as a verbal art. For Tom Paulin, however, the Finnish landscape provides a possibility for questioning the relationship between bourgeois aestheticism and political agency, or "stillness" and "history". Paulin’s concern is the art of poetry in particular, specifically the tradition of lyric poetry and its position between societal engagement and more inward-looking
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aesthetic reflection, or what Elmer Andrews has described as "frozen… unalterable inertness50". Paulin’s "Trotsky in Finland" draws from Leon Trotsky’s memoir My Life, and the period that the revolutionary leader spent in exile in the central Finnish countryside in 1905 after his wife’s arrest in Russia. The poem closely follows the autobiographical text to describe a moment in time characterized, as Shane Murphy puts it, by "art and stasis51". Paulin accesses the landscape through Trotsky’s text, a context which has already politicized it, but pushes the text and its representation of the Finnish scenery further in order to interrogate the political dimensions of poetry specifically. Murphy contends, in his analysis of the use of intertextuality in Paulin’s poem, that "the act of appropriation" of Trotsky’s text is in itself a political act for Paulin, and "bricolage can be a transformative praxis52". As opposed to the two previous poems, in which specific works of art, including their representations of landscape, were recontextualized in the lines of Hartnett and Heaney respectively, in "Trotsky in Finland" landscape is already represented verbally in Trotsky’s account. As Paulin rewrites Trotsky’s memoir in his poem (as Hartnett does with the biography of Sibelius), the Finnish landscape, going through a poetic metamorphosis of estrangement, remains its visual focus.
30 The name of the pension where Trotsky stayed was "Rauha", the Finnish for peace, and the surrounding terrain tempts the poem’s revolutionary third person protagonist with images "recollected in tranquility": The air is transparent, perfecting the pine trees and lakes. He finds himself admiring the stillness of a pure landscape. He consumes it. A bourgeois moment. It might be somewhere Swiss, The wooden cuckoos calling to an uneventful Absence, their polyglot puns Melting in Trieste and Zürich.53
31 Through imaginary displacement, Finland becomes, in the mind of the speaker, Switzerland, the quintessential geographical locus for conservative wealth and scenic beauty – the comparison strikes one as oddly, perhaps purposely inaccurate, as southern and central Finland would completely lack the dramatic contours of Swiss mountains. The Finnish landscape is thus doubly displaced in the poem; not only does it implicitly comment on the poetry-politics dialectic in Paulin’s native Northern Ireland54, but again within the narrative of the poem the scenery reminds the speaker of a landscape more appropriate to that dialectic, as the Swiss setting can be seen as the complete symbolic opposite to the desired outcome of revolutionary Russia. The bourgeois decadence may extend to poetic craft, the speaker implies, and rest on a false ideology of meaningless aesthetic practice that the Finnish pine woods inspire: "The Swedish writer/Adds another sonnet to his cycle55". The poet’s mistress, too, is caught in the perfection of her own face "bloomed in the smooth lake", and "At night her giggles and frills dismay/The strictness of minor art56"; she is vain and self-absorbed, as is the sonnet-writer’s "minor art" (the rather overstated assonance or "bloom"-"smooth" and "night"-"giggles"-"frill" further underlines the idea of a rather purposeless aesthetic). The sonnet here seems to stand for the ultimate expression of a first-person bourgeois and romantic lyric: in the traditional writer/speaker of a sonnet, as Marjorie Perloff has noted of the continuities between romantic and modernist lyric, "the isolated speaker […], located in a specific landscape, meditates or ruminates on some aspect of his or her relationship to the external world, coming finally to some
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sort of epiphany57". But for Paulin, "there are no imaginative exits from history58", no comforting escapism to a transcendent domain. In "Trotsky in Finland", therefore, no epiphany is forthcoming, and the poet and his mistress "leave without paying their bill": do their aesthetic preoccupations result in nothing but financial failure, a failure even to sell their "minor art" within the system of bourgeois market capitalism? The flimsy Englishwoman’s futile vanity is paralleled by the pension proprietor’s dying wife, who is drinking champagne, of all things, "to keep her heart beating": similarly, however, as with the frivolous aesthetics of the Swedish-English couple, the luxuries available to her class fail to offer meaningful solutions for life, and she dies "While her husband screams for money". Wealth and cultural status become, in Paulin’s poem, signs of death and decay.
32 That the pension is "insanely traditional" is not something mentioned in Trotsky’s original text. Paulin sets these words immediately after the description of the dead calm of the landscape with falling snow, which draws attention to the "Swiss" (bourgeois capitalist) qualities of the setting. Here, too, the dead calm of the scenery is emphasized in both texts: "A thick snow is falling, the house/Is a dead monument", drawing from Trotsky’s "Her body was in a room above me. The head waiter went to Helsingfors to look for her husband… A heavy snow fell59." The loneliness of the pension, the winter woods, and the deceased woman’s body upstairs mark a dead calm before a storm, before Trotsky "crosses the frontier and speaks/to a massed force at the institute". Finland is thus here a temporary location between bourgeois west and revolutionary east, almost a non-place before frontier-crossing, symbolically as well as geographically. It is a place from which Trotsky can "[plunge] from stillness into history60". The stillness of rural Finland is similarly evoked in "A Partial State", also published in A Strange Museum, where the surrounding landscape is "Intractable and northern" and in which a silence or stagnation of a much brooding kind prevails: "Stillness, without history;/until leviathan spouts,/bursting through manhole covers61." Thus, in a (Northern) Irish poem written during the Troubles by perhaps the most openly political of poets, a geopolitical location marked by stagnation and the proximity of border evoke another region altogether62. The death-like beauty of its landscape thus becomes, for Paulin, an embodiment of the Irish political stalemate.
33 But while Paulin’s poem can be seen to portray an awareness of romantic lyric transcendence, he sees the landscape as described by Trotsky more in terms of […] one of those moments in Tolstoy which come across with an intense freshness. We know that Trotsky read Schopenhauer, and these visionary descriptions of landscape are moments that Schopenhauer calls Vorstellung. Now if you’re a Marxist you say that the admiration of landscape is a form of bourgeois consumption, but that’s rubbish because the way in which Tolstoy conveys landscape goes beyond that. And so, too, with this moment in Trotsky. His description of the guest-house, the writer and his mistress, evokes a kind of Chekovian flimsiness […]63.
34 Schopenhauer’s Vorstellung, the subjectivity-in-object of representation or any element in observed reality, makes the landscape of the poem an intersection of the speaker’s contemplation and phenomenal perception. Paulin’s Trotsky, the poet suggests, is "self- conscious and ironic" in the re-written passage in his description of "a private moment outside the process of history64" – an awareness of such ironic distance is, perhaps, also echoed in the use of third person, rather than first, in the poem’s narrative.
35 The poem also interrogates poetry’s role as an embodiment of bourgeois aesthetics on the one hand, and, on the other, as a means of revolutionary action through the arts in
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its evocation of Lord Byron, the romantic poet who here exemplifies hereditary privilege and the revolutionary impulse at the same time, through his background in English nobility and his fight in the Greek War of Independence. Paulin’s Trotsky moves between the stillness of the bourgeois setting and the prospect of action as the postman carries newspapers reporting on the spreading strike in St. Petersburg. He contemplates: "If this were a fiction, it would be Byron/Riding out of the Tivoli Gardens, his rank/And name set aside. Forced by more than himself65." The poem links the bourgeois contemplation of a landscape with the art of sonnet-writing, drawing on the romantic tradition where the poem seeks to capture the essence of a moment, or "the ideal instant" as Jennifer Ann Wagner notes on Wordsworth’s sonnets66.
36 But the opposition in the poem is not a simple contrast between art and politics; as Shane Alcobia-Murphy rightly suggests, Paulin does not aim to create "a strict binary opposition between artistic creation and political action67". Instead, the lines examine poetry as suspended between social and political motives (and motifs), and pure aesthetics, imagined outside history. Perhaps the term "outside history" should be understood less as an actual possibility of entirely apolitical verse (as Paul Muldoon notes through the voice of Louis MacNeice in "7, Middagh Street", "the very painting of [an] oyster/is in itself a political gesture", certainly in late 20th century Northern Ireland), than as Paulin’s desire, as Elmer Andrews has stressed, to challenge the Arnoldian view of poetry’s "capacity for neutrality by which ‘culture stands apart from a world of passions’ and achieves ‘an eminence outside history’". For Paulin, this is the flawed premise that poems "exist in a timeless vacuum of a soundproof museum, and that poets are gifted with the ability to hold themselves above history, rather like skylarks or weather satellites68".
37 In their own ways, all of the three poems discussed above address the possibility of finding a position which would subvert the limitations of a single historical or geographical context, something "outside history" in another sense, the shared ground, the familiar in the foreign: Sibelius’s desire for the "cold pure water" of music, Heaney’s fascination with the non-specificity of Simberg’s landscape as a depiction of universal human condition, and Paulin’s Finland as a poetic borderland between the Western bourgeois aesthetic and the ideologies of revolutionary Russia. Indeed, the approaches of Hartnett and Heaney might be seen to offer an alternative to Paulin’s dynamics of social engagement versus aesthetic detachment, as they address the possibility of perspectives beyond the immediate demands of their historical situations in music and painting respectively. Rather than bourgeois detachment, this underlines art and poetry’s potential to question the boundaries of any specific personal, political, cultural, linguistic and historical context.
38 As Longley points out in her essay, "mobility [is] now routine" in the lives of Irish poets in a way which makes it easy to find poems drawing on poets’ experiences in the European continent, America or Japan69. But while a certain amount of "routine mobility" may be behind the engagement of poets with Finland (Heaney, for example, encountered Simberg’s painting during a poetry reading visit to Finland and his visit to the Tampere Cathedral)70, the encounters behind the poems discussed above are situated in the "complex mesh of internal and external, physical and intellectual contexts" that doesn’t constitute an orderly or coherent critical narrative71. The poems and their Finnish contexts do not exactly result from a need of addressing personal experiences of travel in lyric poetry, but rather from poets finding shared
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preoccupations in works from another historical era and geographical setting. Perhaps it might be less accurate to speak of "texts circulat[ing] without contexts", than of contexts being too easily imagined solely within the framework of national- geographical boundaries. Instead, the particular circumstances of writers and artists in themselves constitute contexts which draw on experiences shared regardless of one’s place or time of origin. Hartnett, after all, had, as Paul Durcan notes, "a lifelong preoccupation with the music and person of the Finnish composer72", one which included the Irish poet seeing a kindred spirit in an artist haunted by alcoholism. Durcan himself ended up listening to Sibelius due to his admiration of Hartnett73, and has also, like Heaney, engaged with Simberg’s painting by choosing it as the cover illustration of his collection Daddy, Daddy (1990), and as the framework for "The Children of Lir – After Hugo Simberg". The location of Tom Paulin’s poem draws on his interest in Russia and its revolution, and the points of comparison with his own revolutionary impulses as a poet from the North of Ireland, perhaps more so than on any particular fascination with Russia’s small Northwestern neighbour. In as much as "any poet seizes on the familiar in the foreign", for Hartnett, Heaney and Paulin, the engagement with Finnish artists and landscapes has less to do with Finnish-Irish relations or "internationalism" than with elements encountered in particular artworks or texts, appropriate to their concerns and preoccupations. Hartnett’s Sibelius inhabits a landscape populated, colonized and reclaimed, which yields to an interrogation of artistic responsibility to a similar process undergone by the territory of Ireland; the barren landscape of Simberg’s painting yields to Heaney’s exploration of shared experiences of hurt in late 20th century Balkans and Ireland; Paulin’s Trotsky retreats to rural Finnish landscape which becomes an allegory for concerns of a similar retreat to aesthetic isolation in Irish literature and the arts during the Troubles. The works encountered in the poetic texts discussed in this essay thus provide the three poets with symbolic landscapes through which to familiarize the strange, make strange the familiar, and to re-contextualize personal and historical moments of crisis.
NOTES
1. Edna Longley, "Irish Poetry and ‘Internationalism’: Variations on a Critical Theme", The Irish Review, n° 30 (Spring-Summer, 2003), p. 48-49. 2. Bourdieu in Longley, "Internationalism", p. 53-54. 3. Seamus Heaney, Door Into the Dark, London, Faber and Faber, 1969, p. 56. 4. Longley, "Internationalism", p. 53. 5. Ibid., 49. 6. Ibid., 53. 7. Viktor Skhlovsky, "Art as Technique", in Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis (eds.), Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays, Lincoln (NE), University of Nebraska Press, 1965, p. 12.
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8. Seamus Heaney, Electric Light, London, Faber and Faber, 2001, p. 77; Paul Durcan, Daddy, Daddy, Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1990, p. 171-172; Dorothy Molloy, Hare Soup, London, Faber and Faber, 2004, p. 10; Medbh McGuckian, Marconi’s Cottage, Oldcastle, County Meath, Gallery Press, 1991, p. 14 (Charters’ monograph quoted in Shane Alcobia-Murphy, Sympathetic Ink: Intertextual Relations in Northern Irish Poetry, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2006, 64) ; Peter Sirr, The Ledger of Fruitful Exchange, Oldcastle, Country Meath, Gallery Press, 1995, p. 57-90. 9. Oona Frawley, Irish Pastoral: Nostalgia and Twentieth-Century Irish Literature, Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2005, p. 3. 10. See for example Pekka Vähäkangas, "Paikallisuus ja kansallisuus suomalaisessa kuvataiteessa" ("Locality and nationality in Finnish arts"), lecture at the University of Jyväskylä, 1 January 1999. [http://www.finnica.fi/luennot/99syys/vahakangas.htm, date accessed 28 January 2012]. 11. J. Hillis Miller, Topographies, Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1995, p. 6. 12. Hartnett, as Durcan notes, "after the publication of Sibelius in silence was to write no more serious original poetry until his death in 1999". See Paul Durcan, "Hartnett’s Farewell", The Poet’s Chair: The First Nine Years of the Ireland Chair of Poetry, John Montague, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Paul Durcan (eds.) , Dublin, The Lilliput Press, 2008, p. 200. 13. Deane quoted in Seán Crosson, The Given Note: Traditional Music and Modern Irish Poetry, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholar's Publishing, 2008, p. 76. While Mangan’s engagement with the Irish musical tradition may not have been as extensive or explicit as Moore’s, the role of the song tradition fulfilled an important function in his work, as is did in the work of the other poets associated with the nationalist newspaper The Nation. As Crosson outlines, Mangan’s translations from Gaelic, Poets and Poetry of Munster, was accompanied by music to which they were to be sung while his first contribution to The Nation was meant to be sung to the music of "Rory O’More". In addition, Mangan’s free translation of the Gaelic song "Róisín Dubh" [as “Dark Rosaleen”] has been described as the "most widely known nationalist poem" of the nineteenth century (p. 76). 14. Dillon Johnston, Irish Poetry After Joyce, Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 1997, p. 47. Of the poets discussed in this essay, the views of Tom Paulin on the purported union of music, language and cultural identity draw from a very different kind of narrative of Irish culture and history; while Paulin has envisioned an Ireland where Irish, Ulster Scots and Hiberno – English would contribute to the cultural and linguistic tapestry of the nation, his enthusiasm for bringing together music and poetry in cultural politics would be somewhat more reserved; he has, for example, accused Thomas Moore for reducing the political aspirations of Irish poetry "into lilting anapests" (see Paulin, Field Day Theatre Company, Ireland’s Field Day, The University of Notre Dame Press, 1986, p. 15 and Paulin quoted in Harry White, Music and the Irish Literary Imagination, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 41.) 15. In "A Farewell to English", for example, Hartnett speaks of Croom, County Limerick, which, he writes in a footnote, was his birthplace as well as the "seat of the last ‘courts’ of Gaelic poetry", and lists it alongside place names associated with the great bardic
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poets Aodhagán Ó Rathaille and Dáithí Ó Bruadair (Michael Hartnett, A Farewell to English, Peter Fallon [ed.], Dublin, Gallery Press, 1978, p. 63). 16. Eoin Flannery, "Landscape, language and cultural memory in the poetry of Michael Hartnett", Remembering Michael Hartnett, Stephen Newman and John McDonagh (eds.) , Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2006, p. 163. 17. A Farewell to English, p. 67. 18. While there are parallels between Finnish and Irish history and ideas of language as a marker of national identity, it is also important to keep in mind that in Finland the language question was markedly different in the sense that Finnish never suffered of a similar near-eradication as Irish did; furthermore, the Swedish-speaking intelligentsia (including figures like Elias Lönnrot, J. V. Snellman and Sakari Topelius) of Finland were, ironically, the main supporters of Finnish language education and cultural production in the country (on Sibelius, Finnish language and nationalism see for example Glenda Dawn Goss, Sibelius: A Composer's Life and the Awakening of Finland, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2009). Consequently, Hartnett may be projecting on Sibelius a sense of cultural guilt and self-consciousness over the language question which more accurately reflects his own attitudes towards the language of the "colonizer". 19. In the still-autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, struggling under the oppressive measures of Nikolai II and his governor Bobrikov, it was, however, Russian which was considered the language of the foreign rule, threatening the role of "national languages", in the plural, as Erik Tawastjerna puts it. See Erik Tawaststjerna, Sibelius. Suuri suomalainen kirjakerho, Helsinki, p. 143. As a poem displacing personal and cultural sense of crisis into a foreign landscape, "Sibelius in Silence" aligns itself with that of another Irish poet with an awareness of the cultural complexities inscribed in material and literal landscapes, namely John Hewitt’s "The Colony". Hewitt’s poem, the poet himself contends, "allegorize[s] the regional circumstance [of Northern Ireland] as that of a Roman Colony" (John Hewitt, "No Rootless Colonist", Ancestral Voices: The Selected Prose of John Hewitt, Tom Clyde [ed.], Belfast, Blackstaff Press, 1987, p. 146-157). The method or "evasive technique", as Sam Robertson has observed, similarly gives the poet a certain liberty to address conflict and crisis in one specific location and landscape through displacing it into another ( "John Hewitt’s allegorical imagination", Irish Studies Review, Vol. 17, n° 2, May 2009, p. 174-175). 20. Michael Hartnett, "Sibelius in Silence", Poetry Ireland Review, No. 37, Winter, 1992/1993, p. 25. 21. Hartnett, "Sibelius in Silence", p. 25-26 22. Joel Kuortti, Mikko Lehtonen & Olli Löytty in their recent volume of essays Kolonialismin jäljet, (The Traces of Colonialism) state that their work is one of the relatively few to examine Finnish history as colonial, and modern Finland as a postcolonial society. See Kuortti, Lehtonen and Löytty, Kolonialismin Jäljet, Helsinki, Gaudeamus, 2007. 23. Hartnett, "Sibelius in Silence", p. 27-28. 24. Durcan, "Hartnett’s Farewell", p. 199, síneadh fada missing in the original. 25. Flannery, p. 161. 26. Ibid., p. 167.
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27. Hartnett, "Sibelius", p. 28. 28. Tawaststjerna, p. 319. 29. Hartnett, "Sibelius", p. 26. 30. Durcan, "Hartnett’s Farewell", p. 210. 31. For a more detailed description and analysis of the symphony, see for example Sibelius, "Sinfonia IV op. 63 (1911)", [http://www.sibelius.fi/suomi/musiikki/ ork_sinf_04.htm], date accessed 14 January, 2014. 32. Though Sibelius himself believed his tremors were caused by the nerves, and alcohol has been seen as one explanation, most recent medical research indicates that the composer’s shaking hands were a result of a genetic medical condition. See Vesa Sirén, "Sibeliuksen ja kymmenientuhansien suomalaisten vapinaan löytyi syy", Helsingin Sanomat, 28 January 2012, [http://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/ Sibeliuksen+ja+kymmenientuhansien+suomalaisten+vapinaan+l%C3%B6ytyi+syy/ a1305554379014], date accessed 28 January 2012. 33. Hartnett, "Sibelius", p. 29. 34. Tawaststjerna, p. 319, my translation from the original Finnish. 35. Hartnett here, as in numerous other passages of the poem, relies on the composer’s diary entries, partially published in his biography. See Tawastjerna and Durcan, "Hartnett’s Farewell". 36. Durcan, "Hartnett’s Farewell", p. 213. 37. Hartnett, "Sibelius", p. 30. Sibelius himself contended, when considering the surprising popularity of his tone poem (a piece he considered inferior to his symphonic pieces), that it was the "plein air" quality of the piece which appealed to the audiences, that the piece was "given from above", "pure inspiration" (Tawaststjerna, 140). It is also difficult to read these lines without linking them with an earlier Irish poem on musical inspiration, namely Seamus Heaney’s "The Given Note", in which a tune is said to have emerged "out of the night", "[o]ut of wind off mid-Atlantic / Still he maintains, from nowhere./It comes off the bow gravely,/Rephrases itself into the air" (Seamus Heaney, Opened Ground, Poems 1966-1996, London, Faber and Faber, 1998, p. 36). 38. Longley, "Internationalism", p. 53. 39. In Ireland, see, for example Rosalin Blue’s, ‘Blasphemy’ (The Irish Examiner (USA), 19 August 2009, [http://www.irishexaminerusa.com/mt/2009/08/19/ ronnie_mcginns_poetry_page_121.html], date accessed 14 February 2011), and cover illustration for John Spillane’s The Gaelic Hit Factory (John Spillane with Louis de Paor, The Gaelic Hit Factory, released 13 October 2006, EMI). For other responses, see for example John Burnside, "The Wounded Angel – After Hugo Simberg" (Irish Pages, vol. 1, n° 1, Spring, 2002, p. 212-213); Lance Olsen, "The Wounded Angel" (The Iowa Review, vol. 33, n° 1, Spring, 2003, p. 109-121). For references in popular culture, see for example Finnish rock group Nightwish’s video “Amaranth” ([http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=O54nxxntI40], date accessed 28 February 2011). 40. Shane Murphy, "The Eye that Scanned It: The Picture Poems of Heaney, Muldoon, and McGuckian", The New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua, Issue 4, Vol. 4 (Winter 2000), p. 90. 41. Pekka Vähäkangas, "Paikallisuus ja kansallisuus suomalaisessa kuvataiteessa" ("Locality and nationality in Finnish visual arts"), a lecture at the University of
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Jyväskylä, 1 November 1999, [http://www.finnica.fi/luennot/99syys/vahakangas.htm], date accessed 14 January 2014. 42. I have previously discussed Heaney’s poem in the context of Irish responses to Simberg’s painting in "Seamus Heaney, Paul Durcan and Hugo Simberg's Wounded Angel", see Anne Karhio, "Seamus Heaney, Paul Durcan and Hugo Simberg’s ‘Wounded Angel’", Nordic Irish Studies, Vol. 11, n° 1, 2012, p. 27-38. 43. Seamus Heaney, Electric Light, London, Faber and Faber, 2001, p. 19. 44. Quoted in Longley, "Poems about Paintings", p. 237. 45. Daniel Tobin, A Passage to the Center: Imagination and the Sacred in the Poetry of Seamus Heaney, Lexington, Kentucky, The University Press of Kentucky, 1998, p. 2. 46. Heaney, Electric Light, p. 20. 47. Ibid., p. 21. 48. W. H. Auden, Collected Shorter Poems, 1930-1944, London, Faber and Faber, 1950, p. 19. 49. Heaney, Electric Light, p. 21. 50. Elmer Andrews, "Tom Paulin: Underground Resistance Fighter", Poetry in Contemporary Irish Literature, Michael Kennelly (ed.), Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, Colin Smythe, 1995, p. 329. 51. Murphy, p. 196. 52. Ibid., p. 197. 53. Paulin, Strange Museum, p. 29. The passage that Paulin draws on in Trotsky’s memoir goes as follows: The environment in which I lived in Finland, with its hills, pine-trees and lakes, its transparent autumn air, and its peace, was scarcely a reminder of a permanent revolution. At the end of September I moved still farther into the Finnish interior and took up my quarters in the woods on the shore of a lake, in an isolated pension, Rauha. This name in Finnish means "peace". The huge pension was almost empty in the autumn. A Swedish writer was staying there during these last days with an English actress, and they left without paying their bill. The proprietor rushed after them to Helsingfors. His wife was very ill; they could only keep her heart beating by means of champagne. I never saw her. She died while the proprietor was still away. Her body was in a room above me. The head waiter went to Helsingfors to look for her husband. There was only a young boy left for service. A heavy snow fell. The pine-trees were wrapped in a white shroud. The pension was like death. See Leon Trotsky, My Life, [http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/mylife/ch13.htm], date accessed 29 June 2013, n. pag. 54. See Murphy, p. 195. 55. Paulin, The Strange Museum, p. 29. 56. Ibid., p. 29. 57. See Marjorie Perloff, The Dance of the Intellect: Studies in the Poetry of the Pound Tradition. Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois, 1996, p. 156-157. The tradition of the modernist/romantic lyric has frequently, as Perloff has often stressed, placed a certain emphasis on inward-looking reflection by the poet/speaker, at the cost of opening up to the less individualistic energies of language as a shared medium. It should be noted, however, that despite the "retreat into a mental sanctuary" in the work of many of the best known Romantic poets, the Romantic sonnet, too, emerged in a poetic culture closely linked with the social circumstances of the time. Or as Stuart
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Curran puts it, "if we robe all Romanticism in the priestly vestments in which Keats imagined himself garbed in one poem, judging the period uniformly as characterized by a profound isolation or interiority, we do so only by blinding ourselves to the social and political manifestations of literature of during the age", "Romantic poetry: why and wherefore?", The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010 (1993), p. 211. 58. Tom Paulin, Minotaur, London, Faber and Faber, 1992, 5. 59. Trotsky, n.pag. 60. Paulin, Strange Museum, p. 30. 61. Ibid., p. 18. 62. In an interview, Paulin has also acknowledged that there is a certain symbolic significance in the North-South dichotomies in poetry. To John Brown’s question on "a chain of associations with the ‘hyperborean north’ (Finland, Russia, Belfast, Iceland) which starkly contrasts with the … warmer south", Paulin lists a number of poets drawing on the north-south division and notes, "It’s certainly one of the big themes in many writers’ work … So many have written so seriously on the matter that I’m not sure there is much to add". (John Brown, "An Interview with Tom Paulin", In the Chair: Interviews with Poets from the North of Ireland, Salmon Publishing, Cliffs of Moher, Co. Clare, 2002, p. 158.) 63. John Haffenden, Viewpoints: Poets in Conversation, London, Faber and Faber, 1981, p. 168. 64. Ibid., p. 169. 65. Paulin, Strange Museum, p. 30. 66. Jennifer Ann Wagner, A Moment’s Monument: Revisionary Poetics and the Nineteenth- Century English Sonnet, London, Associated University Presses, 1996, p. 16. 67. Ibid., p. 197. 68. Quoted in Andrews, p. 329-330. 69. Longley, "Internationalism", p. 49. 70. Personal conversation with the poet in Vienna, 1 September 2008. 71. Ibid. 72. Durcan, "Hartnett’s Farewell", p. 198. 73. Ibid., p. 199.
ABSTRACTS
This essay focuses on contemporary Irish poets’ engagement with Finnish landscapes, more specifically on poems drawing on Finnish art, culture and history. It examines how Irish poets negotiate between the “familiar and the foreign”, as Edna Longley has phrased it, in adapting Finnish material to address cultural and personal crises in new contexts. Three poems by Michael Hartnett, Seamus Heaney and Tom Paulin are discussed as instances of de- and re-contextualising
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recognisably Finnish motifs and art works, often in order to rise above the social and political pressures of specific cultural frameworks.
Cet essai examine l’engagement des poètes irlandais contemporains avec le paysage finlandais, et plus particulièrement les poèmes inspirés des paysages, de l’art, de la culture et de l’histoire finlandaise. Il analyse comment les poètes irlandais négocient entre « le familier et l’étranger”, pour reprendre la formulation d’Edna Longley, en adaptant des textes finlandais afin de replacer les crises culturelles et personnelles dans de nouveaux contextes. Les poèmes de Michael Hartnett, Seamus Heaney et Tom Paulin sont considérés comme des exemples de décontextualisation et recontextualisation d’œuvres et motifs typiquement finlandais, souvent dans le but de s’élever au-dessus des pressions sociales et culturelles des cadres culturels spécifiques.
INDEX
Keywords: poetry, Hartnett Michael , Heaney Seamus, Finland, Paulin Tom Mots-clés: Hartnett Michael , Heaney Seamus, Paulin Tom, poésie, Finlande
AUTHOR
ANNE KARHIO University of Stavanger
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Once the Terror of His Flock – Now the Laughing Stock: Rise and Decay of the Clerical Master Narrative in Modern Irish Literature and Beyond
Peter Lenz
1 As early as in the mid-fourteenth century, when the Irish clergy started cementing their role as their people’s true guides because of their commitment to alleviating the yoke which the Statutes of Kilkenny (1366) had laid also upon the natives, i.e. the non- Anglo-Norman part of the population, a new master narrative developed in Irish society. In it, the Catholic priest and his Church respectively featured as the impersonation of the essence upon which the native Irish were supposed to model their public and private lives. As a consequence of the historical process of replacing the Gaelic tradition and its master narrative with the Christian one, the Catholic clergy had thus not only become the new spiritual lords but also the personification of both the love of the nation and the land: The Church was […] the only permanent form of national organization, or indeed true representation, the peasantry had. In Ireland […] the priests occupied towards the people the role of a gentry or local aristocracy. They were the only educated class who truly sympathized with the people, and thus the only class to whom the poor Catholic farmer could turn for advice or guidance on matters temporal as well as spiritual1.
2 This resulted in a triple impact upon Irish private and communal life. Firstly, the parish priest as the superior of his flock set up a codex of ethical norms, with a rigorous definition of sexuality and traditional gender roles modelled on stern Catholic ethics. Secondly, the priest’s superiority in worldly and spiritual matters remained unquestioned by his parishioners because, as the druid’s successor, he was believed to have almost magical powers. Thirdly, the Catholic clergy’s pioneering impact on the shaping of the post-Treaty society from 1922 enabled them to deploy absolutist criteria in the definition of what was spiritually and culturally conducive or detrimental. By and by, life in the Irish Free State and later Irish Republic was cut off from what was
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going on in Europe and the rest of the world. The Catholic clergy were supported in their policy by the nationalists, and from this cooperation emerged a new national philosophy which President Eamon de Valera summed up as follows: That Ireland which we dreamed of would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as the basis of right living, of a people who were satisfied with frugal comfort and devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit […] It would, in a word, be the home of a people living the life that God desires that man should live2.
3 De Valera’s fairy-land conception echoed both the nationalist Irish Revival ideal of Ireland and Cardinal Paul Cullen’s policy of eradicating all English (i.e. Protestant) influences upon Irish life. This meant that the priest became the first instance in supervising the realisation of that specifically Irish philosophy of life in both the social and private spheres of his parish. It was therefore not surprising that the Irish Constitution of 1937 stated in Article 44: “The State recognizes the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of the citizens3.” For the critical intellectuals, the Church’s special position as the guardian of the faith and the ethical norms to be acknowledged in society found its most striking expression in the foundation of the “Committee of Inquiry into Evil Literature” (1926) and the “Censorship Board” (1929), which prevented some 85 % of (non-conformist) Irish writers from having their books published at home. At the same time, in the public opinion dominated by the then prevalent master narrative, writers whose works were censored were regarded as immoral. One adult’s representative statement outs it thus: “I grew up thinking of Frank O’Connor as a dirty old man. […] When I finally read his books, I was mortified4.” The restrictive measures initiated under the aegis of the Church, and Cardinal Cullen’s claim that “literature [was] a vehicle of sin and infidelity fit to taint the purity of believers through the charms of poetic pleasure5”, were fuel to the fire and made the Catholic clergy the main target of analytically critical Irish writers of the first half of the 20th century and beyond. They defined their literature as education to life in Ireland, while at the same time demanding it became international to break Ireland’s seclusion from the world.
4 As a consequence of the majority of the population’s meekness, and their being prepared to internalise the moral norms propagated by the clergy, the Catholic priest was attributed the role of a representative individual whose personal actions and interactions with his parishioners reflected the social life of a community and pointed at the status quo of society as a whole6. Accordingly, the protagonist in George Moore’s short story “The Way Back” claims: [T]here is no free thought, and when there is no free thought there is no intellectual life. The priests take their ideas from Rome cut and dried like tobacco and the people take their ideas from the priests cut and dried like tobacco. Ireland is a terrifying example of what becomes of a country when it accepts prejudices and conventions and ceases to inquire out the truth7.
5 Seán O’Faoláin distinguishes between three types of the Irish priest: “[…] the jovial, hunting, hearty priest, who is really a ‘good fellow’ in clerical garb; or the rigorous, unbending, saintly and generally rather inhuman ascetic – the patriarch of his flock; or the man whose life is one long psychological problem8.” Type two is of central importance in George Moore’s and Liam O’Flaherty’s narrative works, and partly also in James Joyce’s. He is essentially responsible for his parishioners’ moral cowardice and represents the executive authority to drive those into exile who have failed to comply
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with the social and ethical norms that were expected to be observed in the communal and private life. The great majority of the clerics in George Moore’s prose claim to be the unquestionable and absolute instances of authority in their parishes, traditionally endowed with both the right and the challenge to control their flock’s private and social activities. Thus, for instance, the parish priest in “Home Sickness” ruthlessly interferes in the gradually developing love affair between Margaret and the Irish- American visitor Bryden by suddenly showing up at a dance in a private home to scatter the couples with his threats. Bryden, to whom the priest’s discourse and its impact upon the community are alien, and thus unintelligible, feels intuitively tempted to defy the priest but is kept from it for “if he said anything to the priest, the priest would speak against them from the altar, and they would be shunned by the neighbours9”. Anyone refusing to submit to the priest’s authority runs the risk of being expelled from the community. An exemplary case for this is the one of Julia Cahill in Moore’s “Julia Cahill’s Curse”. Julia repudiates the wealthy Moran, whom the priest chose for her as her future husband. In a hitherto unprecedented effort of emancipation, she remains stubborn even when the priest confronts her, shouting “I’ll have no more of that. I’ll have you out of my parish, or I’ll have you married10”. So, at the next mass, the priest attacks her verbally from the pulpit and frightens the audience by saying that “a disobedient daughter would have the worst devil in hell to attend on her11”. The parishioners internalise the priest’s threat, which has a devastating effect upon Julia and her family. From then on “the people when they saw Julia crossed themselves, and even the boys who were most mad after Julia were afraid to speak to her. Cahill had to put her out. […] Julia went to America, so some do be saying […] whilst others do be saying that she joined the fairies12”. In either case, according to the then valid Catholic Irish master narrative, Julia’s soul was lost.
6 Similar to Julia Cahill’s fate is the one of a nameless young mother of an illegitimate child in Liam O’Flaherty’s short story “The Outcast13”. In spite of his awareness that refusing to grant the young woman an act of mercy would make it impossible for her to remain integrated in the village community, the priest curses the mother and her child, thus driving her indirectly into suicide. In O’Flaherty’s narrative works, clerics, and the ethical norms they established, are sources of friction in the lives of the common people in the Irish west, who, at their roots, are determined by tradition and instinctive social behaviour. In “The Fairy Goose” the priest spreads fear and terror among the villagers, paradoxically accompanying his action with the Christian motto “Fear God and love your neighbours14”. He pushes an old woman to the ground after she had successfully improved her desolate financial situation with her goose, which was allegedly bestowed with magical powers. Officially, he accuses her of cheating the villagers by performing heathen rites, but in reality he considers her a threat to his boundless power15. In the same way as in “Julia Cahill’s Curse”, the parishioners submit to the priest’s authority: they kill the fairy goose and drive the old woman out of the village. This swing of attitude happened less from their inner convictions but rather from panic as the community believe that the priest’s magical powers exceed those of the fairy goose. In this story, the synthesis of Christian faith and superstition as exhibited by the villagers becomes palpable16. When the priest is scolding the villagers for their credulity and their being attracted by pagan superstitious belief, he shouts “I wonder the ground doesn’t open up and swallow you all. Idolaters!” In response, an old woman cries “Spare us, father17” to avert by incantation the danger of perishing evoked by the priest’s curse. The story concludes with the narrator laconically stating that
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“from that day the natives of that village are quarrelsome drunkards, who fear God but do not love one another […] [T]he only time in the history of their generation that there was peace and harmony in the village was during the time when the fairy goose was loved by the people18” – an indirect praise of the old Gaelic order of communal life which was abolished and replaced by the clerical master narrative.
7 The representatives of the clergy in O’Flaherty’s fiction share the contempt of the plain people, whose lives are still unconsciously governed by tradition and intuition. In A Tourist’s Guide to Ireland O’Flaherty is savage in his critique of the Irish priesthood: “The parish priest regards himself as the commander of his parish, which he is heading for His Majesty the Pope […] As far as the Civil power is concerned, it seems a semi-hostile force which must be kept in check, kept in tow, intrigued against and exploited19.” From O’Flaherty’s point of view, the only way for Ireland to return to her former innate harmony, which was distorted by clerical dominance, will be to rid herself of the “black rash20”: “[W]e have grown so tired of priestly cant and hypocrisy that we have turned against the wisdom which their avarice has corrupted by use as a cover for their evil- doing; but we must return to its simple beauty if we wish to save ourselves21.” This conviction is partly paralleled in Joyce’s and Moore’s writings, but there is no hymn sung in praise of the old Gaelic order. Instead, the artist is declared as the new priest as he celebrates life whereas the priest blasphemes in his hatred of life. In a talk with his mate Cranley, Stephen justifies his decision: “I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church22.”
8 There are parallels to Stephen Dedalus’s process of abandoning the master narrative that has dominated his life until his maturity in the autobiographical novel Father Ralph by the ex-priest Gerald O’Donovan. Ralph, the protagonist, is driven into becoming a priest by his fanatically religious mother and his nurse. In the course of the different stages of his clerical career he realises that the asceticism his fellow-priests preach to their parishioners is reduced to absurdity by their own hedonistic lives. Not prepared to accept the inconsistency of appearance and reality, Ralph finally takes the decision to have himself unfrocked: “I am probably leaving […] [a]nywhere […] where I can breathe and live […] I was dead and now I live23.” Realising this, Ralph defies the warning by his friend, the clerical critic Boyle: “My dear [Ralph] O’Brien, we are only a coterie. The moment you take off that Roman collar you will be branded as a heretic. Publicly ignored, perhaps, but privately hounded down in a hundred subtle ways24.” Ralph’s step is paralleled by that of the clerical protagonist’s in George Moore’s The Lake, who also abandons his parish, saying: “I can’t stay here, so why should I trouble to discover a reason for my going? In America I shall be living a life in agreement with God’s instincts. My quest is life25.” As for O’Connor and O’Faoláin, the Irish artist is challenged to contribute with his writing to the educative shaping of society: “Education is preparation for life, and the only suitable preparation for Irish life is Irish literature26.” This had to happen in an analytically descriptive way, in the sense of a writing which combines the writer’s love of his compatriots with his insight into their weaknesses and follies27. Despite their common goal, their writing reflects their individually different attitudes towards their subject: “O’Faoláin has accepted Ireland as a castaway accepts a coral island, while Frank O’Connor can be as outrageously at home with his people as a country parish priest skelping the courting couples out of the ditches28.” Although both writers also include in their fiction the character of the priest as a moral policeman as fashioned by Moore, their works, similar to O’Donovan’s, unmistakably emphasize the thesis that it is not exclusively the clergy who are to
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blame for the desolate status quo of Irish society. For a great part it is the people’s own fault as their often unnatural behaviour and their willingness to slavishly follow authority both foster and cement the clerical master narrative and its paralysing impact on the country. Hence, in complying with their educative literary approach, they contrast the priest of the moral policeman type with positive clerical characters, human beings of flesh and blood, to whose own inner selves their parishioners’ innate human problems, wishes and drives are not alien.
9 In Frank O’Connor’s short stories jovial priests such as, for instance, Bishop Dr Gallogly and Father Foggarty are representative individuals who already outline the possibility of a natural and open-minded relationship between the clergy and the people. Seán O’Faoláin does not deny it but is more cautious towards the probability of its coming true. In his short story “A Broken World”, the narrator reflects upon the status quo of life in Ireland, using the metaphor snow: “[…] under that white shroud, covering the whole of Ireland, life was lying broken and hardly breathing29”. In both O’Connor’s and O’Faoláin’s clerical narratives the focus is not primarily put on the question whether or not the priests themselves strictly observe the dogmatic and moral principles they preach. Rather, the two writers are interested in the impact clerics have on their environment, i.e. whether they integrate into it and the traditions their parishioners adhere to, or whether they oppose them. Methodically, it is especially O’Connor who develops the clerical characters in his fiction against the backdrop of what his contemporary O’Faoláin once stated about the nature of the priest as such: The key to the nature of the priest is that he is elusively twofold. His secret is that of all the arcane professions. It is impossible to isolate, in any of his acts, his personal from his professional elements. […] [H]is human personality is dedicated but not suppressed. But neither can we see him exclusively as a man: he has risen superior to normal human values, intercourse and sympathies. And he is cut off from the lay world by celibacy30.
10 To verify that a natural interrelation between the clergy and the people is possible, O’Connor developed the anti-moral policeman type of priest Father Foggarty, who remains faithful to both his vocation and to his parishioners, whom he treats with respect, and for whom he is always a ready and sympathetic listener, with a deep understanding for their innate drives and human follies, which are not alien to him either. As a representative individual, and as a new, open minded type of cleric with a convincing popular touch, Foggarty proves, with his personal example, that there is a middle way for Irish critical and individualistic persons between outer exile and meek subordination under the prevalent national and clerical master narrative. In the short story “The Mass Island”, the authoritarian and lofty priest Father Jackson muses about the scene with which he is confronted at Foggarty’s funeral: He had thought when he was here with Foggarty that those people had not respected Foggarty as they respected him and the local parish priest, but he knew that for him, or even for their own parish priest, they would never turn out in midwinter, across the treacherous mountain bogs and wicked rocks. He and the parish priest would never earn more from the people of the mountains than respect; what they gave to the fat, unclerical young man who had served them with pints in the bar and egged them on to tell their old stories and bullied and ragged and even fought them was something infinitely greater31.
11 Until the end of the 1970s, the bulk of Irish literature continued to be focused on the local rather than the international. From then on new voices demanded a new and broader scope for Irish writers to model their literary works upon, with Sebastian
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Barry, Frank McGuinness, Joseph O'Connor, Colm Tóibín, and Robert McLiam Wilson being among the most prominent ones32. Joseph O'Connor sees Irish writing turn international as a consequence of Ireland's society abandoning the hitherto characteristic insularity step by step33. Taking the same line, Fintan O'Toole states: "[W]hat we are dealing with in contemporary Irish literature is a series of variations on Ireland, a series of individual responses to discontinuity, disruption and disunity34." Nevertheless, authors such as Brian Friel, Tom Murphy, Dermot Bolger and Patrick McCabe have continued with their merciless analyses of the remnants of nativism in Irish society. Others, especially representatives of the recent generation of writers, alienate the local to make it universal, with clerical characters still featuring as representative individuals who mirror what the present status quo of society is like.
12 In the 1980s and 90s, when the Celtic Tiger boom catapulted Ireland from an economically under-developed country on the sleepy western edge of Europe to a global player that climbed the heights of economic growth rates at an incredible pace, the hitherto clerical master narrative started to decay rapidly. Cardinal Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland Dr Seán Brady has equated the spiritual loss which came in the wake of this economic and social change with Ireland’s being bled white by centuries of emigration: “[W]e may be witnessing another lost generation – a generation of young people who, instead of emigrating abroad, are leaving the shores of moderation, responsibility and spirituality35.” Emily O’Reilly, the government’s ombudsman and information commissioner, complained in 2004 that “[…] released from the handcuff of mass religious obedience, we are Dionysian in our revelry, in our testing of what we call freedom […]36” Similarly, President Mary McAleese critically stated on her second-term inauguration in 2003 that “[…] we are busier than before, harder to please, less heedful of the traditional voices of moral guidance and almost giddy with greater freedom and choice37.” Finally, writer and critic Joseph O’Connor put his finger on the problem when he laconically observed that “[t]here are some of us who worship Versace the way our grandmothers worshiped the Virgin Mary38”. Shockingly paralleling the rapid loss of ethical and spiritual maxims in the society, the Irish Catholic Church entered a hitherto unprecedented rapid decline in moral and cultural authority when, in 2009, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and the Murphy Report revealed thousands of child abuse crimes committed by clerics and other persons professionally involved in Catholic institutions. Years before, the making public of other cases in which clerical appearance and reality had clashed had already cast doubt on the clergy’s claim to be the unquestionable authority in moral affairs. The one which caused enormous uproar with the public was surely the confession of the former moral hardliner, the ex-bishop of Galway, Eamonn Casey, of having a child with an American woman. [T]he 1992 sex scandal centring on Bishop Eamonn Casey of Galway riveted the country. The Irish Times disclosed that almost two decades earlier, when he was Bishop of Kerry, Casey had fathered a son by Annie Murphy, an American woman seeking refuge in Ireland from a broken marriage, and that he had used diocesan funds to make payments to her. In human terms Casey came off badly as the scandal unfolded, not so much because of his repeated violations of his priestly vow of celibacy but because of other deeds or omissions: his indecent pressure on Annie Murphy to give up the child for adoption; his failure to develop any significant relationship with the son whom he had fathered, and the deceptions which he had practised to keep what had happened from disclosure, including the diversion of diocesan funds.39
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13 As a consequence of the ongoing decline of the Church’s influence upon Irish private and social life since the late 1980s, the figure of the priest has become fair game for writers and the media. Thus, for instance, Paul, the protagonist in Eamonn Sweeney’s novel Waiting for the Healer, who after an absence of ten years returns to Ireland for his brother’s funeral, sees the decay of authenticity in Irish life mirrored in the person of the priest who is reading mass: The priest was one of those performing fuckers. The deep voice. The meaningful pause. And the come-to-me-all-who-labour hand gestures […] The priest's voice boomed around the shop. So did the voices of the folk choir. Fuck me backwards […] If I'd wanted the Mamas and the Papas playing at my brother's funeral I'd have booked them myself. There was something to be said for the oul Faith of Our Fathers all the same. But I couldn't think what it was40.
14 The priest is a colourless nobody who merely does his job. To Paul, however, in the contradiction between clerical pretension and secular attitude, he personifies the disintegration process which the Church has been suffering for more than two decades.
15 The works of dramatists such as John B. Keane, Tom Murphy, Michael Harding, Dermot Bolger, Marina Carr and Martin McDonagh also reflect the change of the set of social and ethical circumstances in Ireland over the last forty years. Keane’s Moll (1971) is a harsh critique of the clergy: they are depicted as selfish and materialistic, lacking any interest in the problems and needs of the people. In The Chastitute (1981), Catholic sexual morals are sarcastically explored, an approach which is even topped by the ex- priest Michael Harding’s Una Pooka, in which a supernatural being in the guise of Father Simeon personifies the hard-to-control sexual drive. “In […] Una Pooka (1989) […] Harding has continued to use folklore materials together with images of Catholic liturgy and belief […] [H]e appears to use the theatre to vent his pro-feminist and anti- clerical views41 […].”
16 Tom Murphy’s The Sanctuary Lamp (1975) features a monsignor who is interested far more in reading Hermann Hesse than in his official clerical duties. He has the same doubts about essentials of Catholicism as the intruders in his church have. When one of them, Harry, rhetorically asks whether the sanctuary lamp was a mystery, he answers, “I suppose it is42”. Similarly, he signals indifference towards a basic Catholic dogma in his reply to Harry’s question about the truth of the Pope’s infallibility: “Well, the last one was, the next one will be, but we’re not sure about the present fella43.” But the monsignor is not depicted as a negative type of priest in the play. He seems to have chosen inner emigration as a consequence of the Church’s turning into a worldly enterprise, with many in the clergy being cold egoists who only fake spirituality. To Francisco, one of the three men, who symbolically carries the name of the church innovator St Francis of Assisi, priests are predators that have been mass-produced out of the loneliness and isolation of people, with standard collars stamped on […] [s]elling their product: Jesus. Weaving their theological cobwebs, doing their theological sums! Black on the outside but, underneath, their bodies swathed in bandages […] half mummified torsos like great thick bandaged pricks44!
17 Dermot Bolger’s plays integrate surrealist elements, as is the case in Blinded by the Light (1990), in order to mercilessly ridicule the blend of fanatic Catholic and nationalist attitudes in Irish society. His dramatic art depicts a society in which the clergy have become superfluous, a society without God which is, however, not irreligious. In Leenane-Trilogy, Martin McDonagh, enfant terrible and one of the most successful
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playwrights of recent Irish drama, presents a rural community of the Irish west in which all traditional ethical maxims, and even the authority of the parish priest, have been levelled and consequently replaced with an attitude of eudemonism and materialistic bargaining. The three plays The Beauty Queen of Leenane, A Skull in Connemara and The Lonesome West evoke an ethical endgame which has resulted from a rural community’s replacing religion and communal spirit with the gospel of consumption and leisure.
18 Father Welsh mirrors the rottenness of the dead society for whose spiritual charge he is responsible. He is the very opposite of the clerical characters that feature in traditional Irish literature. Welsh is absolutely ineffective, uses the same abusive language as the others; he is an isolated individual who has lost all human – let alone – clerical dignity, an alcoholic and utterly depressive man: Welsh — […] It seems like God has no jurisdiction in this town. No jurisdiction at all. [...] I’m a terrible priest, so I am. I can never be defending God when people go saying things agin him [...] Coleman — Ah there be a lot worse priests than you, Father. The only thing with you is you’re a bit too weedy and you’re a terror for the drink and you have doubts about Catholicism. Apart from that you’re a fine priest. Number one you don’t go abusing five-year olds so, sure, doesn’t that give you a head-start over half the priests in Ireland45?
19 He finally considers his whole life and vocation a complete failure. The same as policeman Tom Hanlon had done some time before, Father Welsh finally drowns himself although, shortly before, he called this kind of suicide “a horrible way to die” (150) and argued: “You can kill a dozen fellas, you can kill two dozen fellas. So long as you´re sorry after you can still get into heaven. But if it’s yourself you go murdering, no. Straight to hell” (154). In Leenane Trilogy, the policeman’s suicide marks the death of the traditional system of social order, and Father Welsh, deprived of spiritual leadership, signifies with his suicide the death of the clerical master narrative in Post- Celtic Tiger society.
20 Whereas there were at least faint echoes of the traditional clerical master narrative in the minds of the characters in McDonagh’s Leenane-Trilogy–albeit without any effect on their lives and finally doomed to perish in the personification of Father Welsh–they have been lost completely with the community of the Craggy Island parish, which is the location of Father Ted, one of the most popular sitcoms in British television history. When its creators offered it to RTE, the Republic of Ireland’s terrestrial TV station, it was turned down on the grounds that the clerical characters acting in it and the topics dealt with were too sensitive for an Irish audience at a time in which the Church had already entered the phase of turmoil. After Father Ted was offered to British TV and became a sweeping success on Channel 4, RTE bought it back in 1997. In the same year, Father Ted became the most watched TV programme in Éire46. The sitcom is centred on the three priests Father Ted Crilly, Father Dougal Maguire, and Father Jack Hackett, who were banished to Craggy Island in the Irish west by their local bishop for their involvement in a fraud case. The three clerics are a chaotic bunch of fools, characterized by alcoholism and scatological language (Father Jack), dumb naiveté (Father Dougal), and pseudo self-assurance (Father Ted). First and foremost, the latter’s permanent but vain attempts to achieve order by means of mechanical action following given patterns such as repetition, inversion, incongruity and interference of chains of events creates utterly comical and grotesque situations. The clerics’ acting and
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interacting with each other and others is no longer defined by conformity or nonconformity with the principles of their vocation or with notions of Christian ethics but has adopted the nature of playing, a consequence of the traditional religious discourse and the clerical master narrative having become alien to the people. If Father Ted, for instance, tries to deploy traditional priestly patterns of action, they immediately fail, and it is this immediacy of an action and its failure which brings about the comedy or grotesque character of the situation. This is, among many other scenes, evident in the opening of the episode “Cigarettes and Alcohol and Rollerblading”: Mrs Doyle, the clerics’ cranky housekeeper, addresses Father Ted: Mrs Doyle — I see you put the old cross up, Father. What’s that about? Ted — Oh, I thought people might have been sort of getting confused about where the parochial house is. So I thought [sic!] I’ll put a big cross up in the middle of the garden. I just hope people know it means that I’m a priest and not just some madman47.
21 This dialogue is immediately followed by a short scene in which a young couple walk by the parochial house. They see the cross: “Man: Look at that. Some madman’s put up a cross48.” A similar scene following this pattern presents Ted insisting that Jack, Dougal and he observe Lent and renounce smoking (Ted), drink (Jack) and rollerblading (Dougal). A second later they are shown hallucinating, shaking with withdrawal symptoms, and shortly after this they come up with the idea to secretly give in to their addictions49. Not only are the three priests anything but role models for their parishioners – which would be useless anyway as the Catholic practice of life is no longer intelligible to the people; they (except, to some degree, Ted), too, have lost all knowledge about rudimentary religious rules, rites and practices. This becomes evident, for instance, when Ted rings up a nun and is welcomed with “Ave Maria” he asks “[…] why do nuns always have the most awful music when you’re on hold50”. The priests follow a wanton lifestyle (Jack: “I’m off for a wank” […] Dougal: “I’ve never see [sic!] a clock at five a.m. before51.”) and are either unfamiliar with basics of Irish Catholic life or indifferent to them: Mrs Doyle — I’ll be off now, Fathers. Ted — Oh, right. Off to Croagh Fiachra. Dougal — Where’s that, Ted? Ted — It’s a big mountain. You have to climb up it with no socks on, and then when you’re up there, they chase you back down with big planks. Great fun52.
22 Both the priests and the people consider forms of religious practice, if at all, as leisure activities (Mrs Doyle, before leaving for Croagh Fiachra: “I want a good miserable time” […]53) or some sort of game: [Sister] Assumpta — FATHERS! […] Finish your breakfast and come outside for your daily punishment […] Matty Hislop’s ten-step programme to rid yourself of your pride […] Ted (unsure) — Well, that sounds great […]54.
23 In contrast with the clerical master narrative and its enormous influence upon 19th and 20th century Irish writing and beyond, the clerics acting in Father Ted still present the Irish priest as a representative individual who mirrors the status quo of society. But he is no longer the former terror of his flock but rather the laughing stock, which signifies the death of the Irish clerical master narrative and its replacement with an international and purely materialistic one: Ireland has mutated from the island of saints and scholars to the island of saints and silicon, as Fintan O’Toole calls it to circumscribe Ireland’s mystical past and her arrival in the presence of globalization55.
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NOTES
1. Frederic Lucas, The Tablet. Quoted in J.H. Whyte, The Independent Irish Party 1850-1859, London/New York, OUP, 1958, p. 80. 2. Eamon de Valera, "The Ireland That We Dreamed of", Speeches and Statements by Eamon de Valera 1917-1973, ed. Maurice Moynihan, Dublin, Gill & Macmillan, 1980, pp. 466-469, at 466. 3. Quoted in Donald S. Connery , The Irish, Falkenham, Readers Union/Eyre and Spotiswoode, p. 133. 4. Ibid., p. 190. 5. Quoted in Malcolm Brown, The Politics of Irish Literature. From Thomas Davis to W.B. Yeats, London, Allen and Unwin, 1972, p. 126. 6. Officially, Daniel O’Connell had made the Catholic priest a representative national figure (cf. Seán O’Faoláin, The Irish, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1969; repr. 1972; first publ. 1947, p. 106). 7. George Moore, "The Way Back", The Untilled Field. With a Foreword by R.T. Henn, Gerrards Cross, Colin Smythe, 1976, first publ. 1903, p. 345. 8. George Moore, "The Way Back", op. cit., p. 108-109. 9. George Moore, "Home Sickness", The Untilled Field, op. cit., p. 43. 10. George Moore, "Julia Cahill’s Curse", The Untilled Field, op. cit., p. 169. 11. Ibid., p. 170. 12. Ibid., p. 170-171. 13. Liam O’Flaherty, "The Outcast", Irish Portraits. 14 Short Stories, London, Sphere Books, 1970, p. 89-94. 14. Liam O’Flaherty, "The Fairy Goose", Liam O’Flaherty’s Short Stories, Volume 2, London, New English Library, 1970, repr. 1980; first publ. 1937, p. 89. 15. In Moore’s "The Wedding Feast ", The Untilled Field, op. cit., p. 91, one of the characters says: “Don’t we like to believe the priest can do all things?” 16. The relationship between pagan superstition and Christian faith and its impact upon the development of Irish literature is dealt with in David Krause’s article "The Death of a Tradition", Studies 63, 1974, p. 219-230. 17. Liam O’Flaherty, "The Fairy Goose", op. cit., p. 88. Similarly, in Moore’s "The Wedding Feast", op. cit., p. 90, it is said that “there is plenty in the parish who believe [the priest] could turn them into rabbits if he liked […]”. 18. Liam O’Flaherty, "The Fairy Goose" 19. Liam O’Flaherty, A Tourist’s Guide to Ireland, London, The Mandrake Press, 1929, p. 34-35. 20. Ibid., p. 56. 21. Liam O’Flaherty, Shame the Devil, London, Grayson & Grayson, 1934, p. 228. 22. James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, London, Penguin, 1996; first published 1916, p. 281.
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23. Gerald O’Donovan, Father Ralph, London, Macmillan, 1914, p. 468-469. 24. Ibid., p. 459. 25. George Moore, The Lake, Gerrards Cross, Colin Smythe, 1980; first publ. 1905, p. 176. 26. Frank O’Connor, “To Any Would-be Writer”, The Bell, 1:5, 1941, p. 87-88. 27. Cf. Paul A. Doyle, Seán O’Faoláin, New York, Twayne Publishers, 1968, p. 73. 28. Benedict Kiely, Modern Irish Fiction: A Critique, Dublin, Golden Eagle Books, 1950, p. 128. 29. Seán O’Faoláin, "A Broken World", Stories of Seán O’Faoláin, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1977; first published 1932, p. 95. 30. Seán O’Faoláin, The Irish, op. cit., p. 109. 31. Frank O’Connor, "The Mass Island", Masculine Protest and Other Stories, London, Pan Books, 1977; first published 1969, p. 160-161. 32. Roddy Doyle’s turning away from the traditional Irish literary realism is rather an implicit than an explicit one. 33. Cf. Joseph O'Connor, "Warum mir Joyce und Konsorten Wurscht sind", ZEITmagazin 41.4, Oktober 1996, p. 28. 34. Fintan O'Toole, "Island of Saints and Silicon: Literature and Social Change in Contemporary Ireland", Cultural Contexts and Literary Idioms in Contemporary Irish Literature, ed. Michael Kenneally, Gerrards Cross, Colin Smythe, 1988, p. 15. 35. Cardinal Dr Seán Brady quoted in Brendan Bartley and Rob Kitchin, eds., Understanding Contemporary Ireland, London/Dublin/Ann Arbor, Pluto Press, 2007, p. 293. 36. Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly quoted in Brendan Bartley and Rob Kitchin (eds.), Understanding Contemporary Ireland, op. cit., p. 292. 37. President Mary McAleese quoted in Brendan Bartley and Rob Kitchin (eds.), Understanding Contemporary Ireland, op. cit., p. 292. 38. Joseph O’Connor quoted in Lizette Alvarez, The New York Times, February 2, 2005, quoted in Brendan Bartley and Rob Kitchin, eds., Understanding Contemporary Ireland, op. cit., p. 292. 39. James S. Donnelly, “A Church in Crisis”, History Ireland, [http:// www.historyireland.com/category/volume-8/issue-3-autumn-2000/], [http:// www.historyireland.com/category/volume-8/]. Viewed 10. Jan. 2014 [http:// www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/a-church-in-crisis]. 40. Eamonn Sweeney, Waiting for the Healer, London, Picador, 1997, p. 87, 89. 41. Christopher Murray, Twentieth-Century Irish Drama: Mirror Up to Nation, Irish Studies, New York, Syracuse, 2000, p. 234. 42. Tom Murphy, The Sanctuary Lamp, Plays 3, Introduced by Fintan O’Toole, London, Methuen, 1994, p. 106-107. 43. Ibid., p. 125-126. 44. Ibid., p. 154. 45. Martin McDonagh, The Lonesome West, Plays: 1, London, Methuen, 1999, p. 134-135. 46. Cf. Paul Simpson, "Satirical Humour and Cultural Context: With a Note on the Curious Case of Father Todd Unctuous", Contextualized Stylistics, eds. Tony Bex, Michael
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Burke, and Peter Stockwell, Studies in Literature 29, Amsterdam and Atlanta, Rodopi, 2000, p. 253. 47. "Cigarettes and Alcohol and Rollerblading”, Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews, Father Ted: The Complete Episodes, London, Boxtree/Macmillan, 1999, p. 191. 48. Linehan and Matthews, p. 191. 49. Ibid., p. 193-195. 50. Ibid., p. 195. 51. Ibid., p. 199. 52. Ibid., 197-198. 53. Ibid., p. 198. 54. Ibid., p. 200. 55. Cf. Fintan O’Toole, "Islands of Saints and Silicon: Literature and Social Change in Contemporary Ireland", in Michael Kenneally, Gerrards Cross, Colin Smythe (ed.), Cultural Contexts and Literary Idioms in Contemporary Irish Literature, 1988, p. 306-327.
ABSTRACTS
Since the 5th century Christian monks and (later) Catholic priests gradually adopted the leading positions within Irish society, thereby initially replacing the Celts’ heathen spiritual rites, the ethical codex and societal norms as propagated and preserved by the lawyer, druid, and seanchaí with their own master narrative. The cleric’s leadership in worldly and spiritual matters within Irish private and social life has rendered him the pivotal role in a master narrative in which the status quo of Irish Society at different times is mirrored. This master narrative has been of central importance to Irish literature but has undergone a massive change in recent times.
Depuis le V e siècle jusqu'à une période récente les moines chrétiens et, ensuite, les prêtres catholiques ont occupé une position dominante dans la société irlandaise. Ils substituèrent aux rituels religieux des Celtes païens, à l'éthique et aux normes sociales propagées et préservées par les juristes, les druides et les seanchaí (les conteurs celtiques traditionnels), leur propre métarécit. La prééminence du prêtre dans les questions profanes et spirituelles de la vie privée et sociale des Irlandais lui assura un rôle clé dans un métarécit qui refléta, à touts les époques, l'immobilisme de la société irlandaise. Ce métarécit a eu une grande importance pour la littérature irlandaise, mais a récemment connu des changements considérables.
INDEX
Keywords: literature, society and religion, religion - artistic representations, laughter, spirituality Mots-clés: littérature, société et religion, religion - représentations artistiques, spiritualité, rire
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AUTHOR
PETER LENZ University of Regensburg
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History and Memory in Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin's « Autun » – An Irish Poet in Burgundy
Maguy Pernot-Deschamps
1 In 2001, a collection of poems by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin came out, published by Gallery Books. It is entitled The Girl who Married the Reindeer1 and, among the many titles, two stood out at once when I first opened the book, and still stand out now because they refer to place names in this country. They are "Crossing the Loire" (p. 34-35) and "Autun" (p. 32-33). The Loire, and particularly the Loire valley, is wellknown, but what about Autun ? It is, after all, only a small market town of 16,500 inhabitants in the Morvan area. And yet it boasts a very ancient history, over two thousand years old, since it was founded by the Roman emperor Augustus in the last century B.C., and a huge amphitheatre and a temple are still there to be seen. It is also steeped in the Romanesque tradition, with a cathedral, built in the 12th century, and a statuary, also dating back to the 12th century.
2 Therefore, simply with the title of her poem, the Irish poet makes an immediate connection with history, setting the lines of her poem within the strong historic tradition of the place. At the same time, the poem starts with reminiscence, memories of that particular trip to and from Autun, which is the starting point for the poem. History and memory soon appear deeply intertwined in the poem "Autun". The historical tradition of the French town, combined with the Irish poet's memory and craft lead to the creation of a work of art. The memories evoked in the first stanza, against the historical background to the town, act as an introduction to the main themes, which will then be developed in the other stanzas: death, through a musical motif, in the second and fourth stanzas; death and rebirth or resurrection, through a biblical motif, in the third and fourth stanzas. What is more, there is not just one voice but a multiplicity of voices, since "I " ("I drove away", line 1) becomes "we" ("we have travelled", line 6) and then "I " again ("was I taken apart", line 15), and also "she" ("She fills the ground", line 30).
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Death
3 The very first line of the poem sets the tone and immediately draws the reader's attention to both history and memory. It reads "As I drove away from the sepulchre of Lazarus". Alongside the Roman remains in Autun, there is a cathedral called Cathédrale Saint Lazare. What is more, the museum, or Musée Rolin, houses a collection of Romanesque statues, including "Le Tombeau de Saint Lazare" or the sepulchre of Lazarus. The historical significance of the place is linked with the memories of a trip through Burgundy and, if the historical tradition of the town is awe-inspiring, the memories of that day are quite mundane − a car, with the radio on, and the simple landscape of the countryside, with cows sheltering under some trees. The scene seems suffused with peace and tranquility, and yet a number of elements disturb the apparent calm and point to a double thread which will be woven through the fabric of the poem − death, with "the sepulchre" (line 1), the cows which "looked sadly out" (line 2) and "voices drowning" (line 4) the tune on the radio; but there is also life, with the rhythm of Chopin's "Grande Polonaise" (line 5), life fighting against the forces of annihilation present in the memories of that day.
4 In the second stanza, the musical motif is superimposed on the theme of death, death seen as a universal condition with the words "remember us" (line 6). Countless pilgrims have followed the same path – "we have travelled as far as Lazarus to Autun" (lines 6-7) – which refers to the same journey through life towards the ineluctable ending, death ("dead and in the grave", line 8). The vibrant music associated with the memories of that trip through Burgundy is lost in the history of the countless deaths occurring over centuries ("dead and in the grave / many times", lines 8-9). The "Grande Polonaise" has been muted by the voices of the dead : they have had "no music" (line 10). Death has annihilated the triumphant rhythm of Chopin's tune and turned it into a requiem song. It has become a sort of ghost music, linked to the ancient history of humanity and also paralyzing the memories of that day. It is a "skeleton tune" (line 10) played by "bones" and "knuckles" (line 11), in a way that is compared to the heaviness of a "headstone" (line 14). Music has lost out, it has become the ghost of its former self since only the bones can play the tune.
5 And yet the poem ends on a more lively musical note, with "I stammer out music that echoes like hammers" (line 33). The person has changed – it is no longer "we" but "I" – and the tense has changed too, from the perfect to the present. What was a sort of endless repetition of the same fate – "dead and in the grave / many times now" (lines 8-9) – has turned into a solitary action, a unique artistic declaration It is tentative at first ("I stammer") but strong and determined ("like hammers"), and deeply creative since the music "echoes", instead of being "drowned" as in the first stanza. The "other voices" (line 4), those of countless dead people since the dawn of history, are a collective memory for the poet. They have kept the tune ("the pause and then the long low note / the second and third fingers of the left hand", lines 12-13) only to pass it on forever. The poet becomes the recipient, and the music she inherits she then turns into her own, and the reader has witnessed the birth of a piece of poetry.
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Death and rebirth or resurrection
6 In the third and fourth stanzas, death and birth, or rebirth, are combined through the other set of images, which is biblical, and clearly related to the trip through Burgundy, and to the sepulchre of Lazarus and also to a painting in the museum in Autun, called Nativity. Death is seen again through the collective memories of countless dead people in the history of humanity, suggested by "how often" (line 15), "how often" (line 19), "for decades" (line 17), but also through a first person – "I", "my shoulders" (line 17), "my hair" (line 18), "my flesh" (line 20) – who becomes another Jesus Christ or another Lazarus. The history of Christianity is part of her inheritance and she shares in the human condition through the symbolic biblical figures. Like Christ, she is 'taken apart, / the ribs opened like a liquor press' (lines 15-16). Like Christ and Lazarus, she is put into grave clothes and kept in a tomb : "reconstructed / wrapped… rolled up and put away" (lines 19-20). Just like the "skeleton tune" (line 10) of the second stanza, associated with a "headstone" (line 14), the "flesh" (line 20) is part of the dying process and its finality. The tomb is "for ever" (line 22).
7 And yet, death is not the only presence, and a new element is introduced in what is suggested about the hair : "my hair flying, at large like a comet" (line 18). Beyond the finality of death, there is a form of movement, of activity, if not life, that will not rest still. The memory of Jesus and Lazarus, and of all the dead who have been buried through the centuries, stays alive and is passed on again and again. And it is this very memory which can be reborn through poetry. Just like Christ and Lazarus, the poet rises from the dead and a new condition is made possible. The solemn history of the French town, allied to the wistful memories of that day, has led to a production that goes far beyond the traditional dichotomy between life and death or death and life.
8 What had been shared, death, the common fate in the history of humanity, has now been transcended and turned into a victory over death, with "my risings" (line 23) or "I arise" (line 25) in the fourth stanza. It is a form of resurrection which, in fact, has more to do with birth than rebirth as it is associated with the birth of a child : "in the steam" (line 24), "I arise like the infant / that dances out of the womb" (lines 25-26). The grave clothes have been dispersed. They are the "ranked and shaken banners" (line 31) of the last few lines, and resurrection has been replaced by nativity, one of the paintings in the museum in Autun. When the poet rises from the dead, from the memory of all the dead, there is creation, jubilation in the creative process: "bursting with script, / the copious long lines" (lines 27-28). Like Lazarus, she has triumphed over the burden of death. Like Christ in the religious tradition, she creates a new world through birth, death and rebirth. Poetry rises from death and life, from what the poet calls "the scrolls of her nativity" (line 32), and it becomes a distant object, with the mixture of "she" – "she fills the ground and the sky" (line 30) − and "I" − "I stammer out music" (line 33) – at the end of the poem. Through the pangs of history and memory, a work of art has been released, which belongs to both the poet and the world.
9 In the poem « Autun », Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin reveals what, to her, is at the heart of poetry writing. Both history and memory are part of the process and closely connected. History is the past of humanity, with ancient figures cast in stone, as in the town called Autun. Memory is part of personal experience, like the trip through Burgundy, and it triggers the collective memory conjured up by the stone figures. History and memory
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are woven into the very fabric of poetry, and this particular poem, "Autun", sounds like a hymn to poetic craft.
NOTES
1. Ní Chuilleanáin, Eiléan, The Girl who Married the Reindeer, Oldcastle (Co. Meath, Ireland), The Gallery Press, 2001. All future references to pages or lines in the body of the text will refer to this edition.
ABSTRACTS
Starting from memories of a trip through Burgundy, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin focuses on the figure of Lazarus, and his strong connection to Autun – the historic town which inspires the title of her poem. Through her words, Lazarus becomes a thread interweaving history and memory, both to celebrate a poet's craft and to produce a work of art through a process involving life and death, birth and rebirth or resurrection.
C'est la figure de Lazare que choisit Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin comme point de départ de son poème « Autun », dont le titre évoque le souvenir d'un passage dans cette petite ville de Bourgogne au riche passé historique vieux de plusieurs siècles. Histoire et mémoire tissent une trame mêlant vie et mort, naissance et renaissance ou résurrection, aboutissant finalement à une œuvre d'art.
INDEX
Mots-clés: Ní Chuilleanáin Eiléan, poésie, histoire et mémoire Keywords: Ní Chuilleanáin Eiléan, poetry, history and memory
AUTHOR
MAGUY PERNOT-DESCHAMPS Université de Bourgogne
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Comptes rendus de lecture Book Reviews
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Liam Ó Muirthile, An Fuíoll Feá – Rogha Dánta/Wood Cuttings – New and Selected Poems
Clíona Ní Ríordáin
REFERENCES
Liam Ó MUIRTHILE, An Fuíoll Feá – Rogha Dánta/Wood Cuttings – New and Selected Poems, Baile Átha Cliath, Cois Life, 2013, 557 pages & CD, ISBN 978-1-907 494-35-2, €20.
The Shaky Bridge An droichead crochta a bhainimis amach chun é a chroitheadh le spleodar óige amháin.
Samhail gan meirg gan mairg idir bruacha dhá theanga ag croitheadh i mbun dáin : Droichead Uí Ríordáin.
1 The dedicatory poem of Liam Ó Muirthile’s volume of New and Selected Poems refers to a legendry Cork bridge that crosses the River Lee, connecting Fitzgerald’s Park to Sunday’s Well. Located in a public amenity close to University College Cork, it is a suspension bridge constructed in 1927, one of four suspension bridges in Ireland. Known as “the Shaky Bridge” or “Daly’s Bridge” and renamed by Ó Muirthile after the poet Seán Ó Ríordáin. Ó Muirthile also uses it as a metaphor for the connection between the two languages that he has moved between Irish and English: “Ireland, or that part of the island I call home, is a country of two languages historically, Irish and English. My life’s work has been defined by the relationship between those two languages.” (xxxix). The second verse of the poem implies that it is the tension between these two languages that has led to the creative impulse:
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2 The suspension bridge we sought it out only to give it a right shake with the gusto of youth.
Symbol without rust without regret between the banks of two languages shaking with the frenzy of poetry Ó Ríordáin Bridge.
3 In the case of this volume, the translator who primarily helps Ó Muirthile to span the divide between the two languages and who shares his passion, his frenzy for poetry, is Gabriel Rosenstock. Ó Muirthile acknowledges his debt to his old comrade in his Author’s Note as he outlines the task undertaken by his friend: I would no longer have to provide literal translations, often glossed word for word. He would translate from Irish, and I could focus on my primary task without feeling that I was merely journeying deeper into the tangled undergrowth. This, in itself, released a huge surge of creative energy. (xl)
4 The phrase is revealing, indicative of the burden felt by Irish language poets since the move to producing bilingual editions of contemporary Irish language poetry occurred in the 1980s in the wake of Dermot Bolger’s Raven Arts publication of An Tonn Gheal/The Bright Wave (1986). Ó Muirthile himself reveals that he was initially hostile to such an impulse, resisting translation as a solution to the problem of writing in a minority language (xl). The present volume has enabled Ó Muirthile to write without worrying about the other language and, the danger of his poetry being smothered (to borrow Louis de Paor’s image) by the sheer weight of the majority language, freeing him to plough into the opened ground of the unconscious. This, he reminds us in his author’s preface, is the only translation he cares about: “[…] the only translation that really matters for a poet is translation in depth, in the unconscious.” (xl)
5 The result is a volume of great scope and beauty, moving from Ó Muirthile’s new poems back to the poems published in his initial collection Tine Chnámh (1984). It allows the reader to grasp the varied palette and multiple preoccupations of the poet, ranging from the engaged political poems like “Guilford Four”, to one of awkward dialogue at Bealnablath with a Northern Nationalist: “‘Daoine boga sibhse theas, ‘arsa cara,/‘Muidne thuaidh cruaidh.’”[‘You in the South are soft,’ a friend says,/‘We’re of tougher mettle up north.’] (552/3). The poem is entitled “Thuaidh” (North) and the diction captures something of the bleb of the icicle that is to be found in Heaney’s collection of the same name.
6 There are poems too of locale, ceol cheanntair the music of place as Seán Ó Ríordáin put it. Though Ó Muirthile long ago left “cocún Chorcaí” [the cocoon of Cork) (80/81), it remains visible in his poetry, in his dialect, in the long roll-call of his poet comrades whose names dot the pages of the book-Gerry Murphy, Louis de Paor, Greg Delanty, Michael Davitt, Colm Breathnach. His displacement to Dublin is an exile acknowledged in the poem “Deoraithe” [Exiles]. It describes an encounter between two Corkmen on an annual pilgrimage to Croke Park and celebrates the power of the hurling fields of Cork. Elsewhere the townlands, villages and poetic ancestors of Munster, Cork and Kerry in particular, are celebrated in the ode dedicated to poet Máire Bhuí Ní Laoighre (474-477) and the short sharp poems that resume the poetic art of Ó Rathaille, Ó
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Bruadair and Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin. It is in these poems, with their sensual, fricative diction that the power of the attraction of writing in Irish is at its most tactile, its most convincing. In four short lines Ó Muirthile manages to distil the essence of each poet – rendering their work down into a potent brew that we can taste on the tongue: Ó Bruadair An gabha geal ag greanadh friotail, bocóidí focal á dteilgean ina stiallacha líofa miotail.
7 Rosenstock provides an accomplished translation: Silversmith with polished friction casting the studs into flowing diction. (46/7)
8 The translation, in this particular instance, acts as a commentary on the original “polished friction”, and describes both Ó Muirthile’s poem and Ó Bruadair’s oeuvre, perilously placed amidst the debris of the declining ancient Gaelic order.
9 As is fitting to one negotiating between two languages, one can also trace the influences of the major poets of those languages. Seán Ó Ríordáin is the voice with whom Ó Muirthile dialogues most frequently. In a prose poem, “Meáchan Rudaí” [The Weight of Things] (20-25) the central image of the weight of the son in his mother’s womb “Mo mheáchan is tú dom iompar ar feadh naoi mhí” (20) sends us back to Ó Ríordáin’s poem “Adhlacadh mo Mháthair”: “Anois adhlacfad sa chroí a deineadh ionraic/Cuimhne na mná d’iompair me trí ráithe ina broinn.” [And now I will bury in the heart made whole/The memory of the mother who carried me for nine months in her womb.] (Eireball Spideoige, 56). Seán Ó Tuama in Filí Faoi Sceimhle compared the impact this poem had on Irish language poetry to the influence of Baudelaire on nineteenth century French poetry. It is fitting that the very Francophile and Francophone Ó Muirthile should seek in Baudelaire’s Poèmes en prose a response to the death of his own mother. The final line “Éadroime d’anama a luigh orainn ar nós braillín síoda i do leaba tar éis tú a adhlacadh”. [The lightness of your soul that covered us like a silk sheet in your bed after we buried you.](24/5) reminds us of the electrifying opening verse of Ó Ríordáin’s poem: Grian an Mheithimh in úllghort, Is siosarnach i síoda an tráthnóna, Beach mhallaithe ag portaireacht Mar screadstracadh ar an nóinbhrat.
June sun in an orchard, And a rustling in the silk of evening, A cursed bee humming Is a screamtear in the eveningshroud
10 The silk sheet is thus also that of “Adhlacadh mo Mháthair”, wrapping both poet-sons in the mourning shroud.
11 Ó Muirthile’s dialogue is not restricted to a monolingual experience. These poems of filial piety and shriving mark an exchange too with the poetry of Seamus Heaney. It is the case especially in the poem “Torramh” [Wake](16-19). The image of the poet’s
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family gathered at the mother’s bedside, the emptiness left at the close of the poem, echo that of Heaney’s “Clearances” sequence in The Haw Lantern (1987). An echo that is amplified by Rosenstock’s translation where the final lines of the poem are rendered: “I went out/walking on air.” (19), a plundering of Heaney’s line “So walk on air against your better judgement” in “The Gravel Walk”.
12 Ó Muirthile was aware of the playfulness of Rosenstock his translator, who can be compared to an Irish language Muldoon. It must be said that in this exercise Rosenstock has exercised a most unMuldoon-like restraint throughout the numerous translations he has made. Occasionally, as in this instance, there is the mischievous borrowing for the translation; sometimes Rosenstock chooses to cut a line in two and so ends up with a longer poem as in the case with “Faoin mBráca” [Under the Harrow] (38-42). Nowhere however does he cannibalise Ó Muirthile’s work, as Muldoon has done with the poetry of Ní Dhomhnaill. These are accomplished translations that give access to the original. Rosenstock deserves the anglophone reader’s thanks in making this exceptional body of work available. This accessibility is augmented by the presence of a CD that contains readings by both Ó Muirthile and Rosenstock. Cois Life is to be commended for making this handsome ensemble available for only €20.
13 The title poem, “Fuíoll Feá” [Woodshavings] (114/5) is not perhaps the most captivating poem of the collection in poetic terms. However the poem is central to the poet’s identity (he is after all a carpenter’s son) and his enterprise. In the poem “Ailm” [Elm] (116/7) addressed to his fellow poet Tomás MacSiomóin the intertext is clearly “Cill Chais” the great poem of lament for the end of the Gaelic Age where the felled trees are symbolic also of the thinning out of the language. Images of replanting and trees abound in Ó Muirthile’s work. He describes the poetic life in the following terms: Throimaigh ár mbeo thriomaigh ár nguí: imíonn ár n-arán laethúil ina bhrus smiota ar na liopaí.
[Our life has come to dust, our prayers: our daily bread falls from our lips in shattered crumbs.]
14 The paronomasia at play between “ár ndán” (our poem) in the following verse and “ár n-arán” (our bread) in this verse leaves us no illusions as to the loneliness and frustration of Ó Muirthile and his fellow Irish language poets (an explanation perhaps of the earlier paronomasia of the initial poem between “meirg” and “mairg”, rust and regret); they are frequently castigated in the Irish media as both irrelevant and inferior. This wonderful book proves those naysayers wrong on both counts.
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AUTHORS
CLÍONA NÍ RÍORDÁIN Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3
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Derek Mahon, La Mer hivernale et autres poèmes
Claude Fierobe
REFERENCES
Derek MAHON, La Mer hivernale et autres poèmes, traduit de l’anglais (Irlande) et préfacé par Jacques Chuto, Édition bilingue, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, Cheyne éditeur, coll. « D’une voix l’autre », 2013, 172 p., ISBN 978-2-84116-193-5, 24 €.
1 Ce recueil rassemble des textes choisis dans les Collected Poems de 1999, mais les révisions opérées pour les New Collected Poemsde 2011 ont été prises en compte par le traducteur : quarante-huit poèmes choisis de manière à refléter les préoccupations majeures d’un homme qui « n’aime guère son époque » et s’en prend aux travers du monde contemporain. Il dénonce la défiguration de l’Irlande, depuis le massacre du milieu naturel (déforestation de l’Ulster au XVIIe siècle dans « Going Home »), jusqu’à l’invasion tonitruante des cars de touristes « grotesques en casquette de baseball et survêt en nylon » (« Night Thoughts », extrait d’une suite justement nommée « Decadence »). Le poids du passé, Pompéi, Treblinka, des « Troubles » ou encore de la guerre civile ne peut être évacué, et c’est la tâche du poète que de parler au nom de tous « les suppliants sans voix » (« A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford »). Il fustige un mode de vie où le heavy metal le rend « fou de rage » tandis qu’il s’accroche à ses livres, « ces trucs périmés » (« Rock Music »), ou à la beauté de la nature. L’uniformité sans âme a tout envahi. Avec « les Dieux bannis » Mahon rêve d’un monde « sans ordinateurs ni voitures/Ni cieux nucléaires,/Où la pensée, c’est caresser des pierres,/Et la sagesse, un moment de silence quand se lève la lune. » On le voit se raidir pour dépasser l’amertume, la nostalgie et le désespoir (l’émouvant « Dawn at St Patrick’s »), et s’en remettre aux « Consolations de la philosophie » pour « vivre la vie que nous aurions pu vivre » sans exclure qu’un jour l’humanité prenne un nouveau départ. Jacques Chuto sait ce que traduire veut dire : il a déjà traduit Mahon (traducteur lui-même) en 1991, et fréquenté longuement un certain J.-C. Mangan expert en la matière… Décidé à s’en
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tenir « à la fidélité sans renoncer à la beauté », entouré des nombreux conseils de l’auteur auquel il rend hommage, il s’y entend à maintenir une forme strophique virtuose (« The Hunt by Night » ), à trouver des rimes en écho à l’original sans forcer le sens (« Derry Morning »), et surtout à imprimer à ses traductions le rythme qui serre au plus près celui de la voix du poète : « La Mer hivernale », credo poétique de Mahon, heureusement choisi pour donner son titre au recueil, est à cet égard une belle réussite où la « litanie des toponymes » chère à John Montague, en mêlant l’Irlande et la Grèce, invite à « Repartir à zéro, de l’ancien faire/Un renouveau. » Ce recueil est bilingue : en comparant l’original et la version française, le lecteur pourra saisir par quels procédés délicats est rendue la complexité de l’œuvre. Mahon rend hommage aux écrivains chers à son cœur, cités nommément ou perçus en filigrane dans la trame des textes : Ovide, Pindare, Swift, J.G. Farrell, McNeice, Heaney, Baudelaire, Camus, et beaucoup d’autres. Les notes suffisantes et précises éclairent les points obscurs. Ce livre élégant est un bel objet qui ajoute au plaisir de la double lecture. Qu’on ne se méprenne pas : la critique véhémente de Mahon à l’égard du monde qui l’entoure est avant tout celle d’un poète de première grandeur. Ici, il a trouvé son traducteur.
AUTHORS
CLAUDE FIEROBE Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne
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Karine Deslandes, Regards français sur le conflit nord-irlandais
Wesley Hutchinson
REFERENCES
Karine Deslandes, Regards français sur le conflit nord-irlandais, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 2013. ISBN 978-3-631-64593-2.
1 This book, which is the fifth volume in the “Studies in Franco-Irish Relations” series edited by Eamon Maher, is an extremely interesting and useful examination of the coverage of the Northern Ireland conflict in the French press over the period running from 1969 to the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1998. The text is based on research carried out at the University of Ulster (Coleraine). It looks at the way the French papers approach the Northern Ireland issue within four principal frames: the representations of the origins of the conflict; British policy initiatives; paramilitary violence; and the search for peace.
2 Broadly speaking, Deslandes identifies a series of areas and a number of events that attracted the attention of the French press on the Northern Ireland conflict. After showing the various shades of bias in the French press’s framing of specific events through a detailed and convincing presentation of extracts from her primary source material, she then goes on to challenge those readings through an exploration of her secondary sources and personal comment. The text will be of particular interest to a French public as it successfully decodes the ways in which French attitudes to the North have been formed (some would argue, deformed) over the years, while at the same time interfacing with on-going preoccupations inside France itself.
3 The book is the result of very wide-ranging and yet detailed research, the density of the work on primary sources being evident from the comprehensive footnotes that back up the text. The corpus chosen is broad in terms both of the period covered – some thirty years – and the political spread. Deslandes looks systematically at all the main papers: Le Monde, Le Figaro, Libération, L’Humanité, Le Nouvel Observateur, Le Point, L’Express, La
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Croix, etc. but also brings in other sources such as the French Protestant weekly, Réforme, whose readership would have particular reasons for being interested in Northern Ireland.
4 In the course of the book, Deslandes illustrates a close understanding of the complexities involved in decoding the Northern Ireland situation. But the most interesting feature of the work is the way she demonstrates her ability to explore how the history and contemporary preoccupations of the French audience colour their understanding of and interest in events there.
5 Thus, Deslandes shows how, at the beginning of the Troubles, French journalists often lacked the necessary frames with which to decode what has happening on the ground. The inevitable reflex was to identify sources for analogy in French history and in the political orthodoxies of the moment that would give them – and their readers – handles on an otherwise opaque situation. The result, inevitably, was oversimplification and distortion. Thus, the general situation was looked at – with considerable intellectual condescension – as a latter-day “guerre de religion”. Although the French have since been led to review their position, at the time they found it quite unimaginable that religion might influence, indeed motivate, political action in the contemporary world. Another frame that was called on was that of decolonisation, especially Algeria which was used as a template to “explain” the North: according to this analogy, a model which for many had the advantage of terminating in (British) withdrawal, all that was needed was for a new de Gaulle to sort out the Protestant Pieds-Noirs and, presumably, pack them back off to… England? Similarly, Stormont’s policies like internment were translated in terms of the rafles by the Vichy authorities in “occupied” France; this was to be a frame that was to be picked up again in the early 1980s and pushed into the readings of the H-Blocks as concentration camps – much to the disgust of the Jewish community. Such initial framing was to have a deep impact on the way the French public was to interpret events in the North on an on-going basis.
6 Deslandes also shows how readings of events in the North are coloured by the “conjuncture française”, i.e. when political events in the North actually coincide with on-going events inside France (cf. the hunger strikes and the presidential elections of 1981), thus adding a supplementary layer to the supposed historical parallels (wars of religion, Nazi occupation, collaboration, Algeria). When such a blurring of issues takes place, it is often difficult to see what the focus of attention really is - the situation in the North or the internal French debate. At other times, the realities of the North impinge directly on France in a less abstract manner as when “les Irlandais de Vincennes” (1982) are accused of involvement in an international terror network (cf. the attack on the rue des Rosiers) and many in the French press take advantage of the situation to remind their readers solemnly that “le combat des nationalistes irlandais n’est nullement assimilable au terrorisme” (151); or again in the Eksund incident (1987), involving arms shipments from Libya, which, Deslandes argues, illustrates a clear left- right split in terms of the treatment of republican violence, papers like Le Figaro highlighting IRA links to Libya and papers like Le Monde or Libération preferring to look the other way.
7 Indeed, a reading of the subtext of the book raises fundamental questions about the significant ellipses in the story, whether this involves (lack of) coverage of specific incidents that fail to correspond to the line a given journalist or paper wishes to sell, or entire periods, for example 1975-1978, when the normalisation of violence in the North
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is insufficiently high-profile to attract significant media attention for a French audience. As always, a study of the gaps in publication is very instructive about those who supply us with information. In many ways, it is indeed as interesting as what they choose not to tell us when they do decide to write.
8 Inevitably, the French press’s readings of British policy, political violence and the peace process reflect the underlying ideologies of the various papers. However, those readings can be given a particular colouring thanks to the voice, the “signature” of a particular journalist. Here an obvious example is someone like Sorj Chalendon who pushes Libération’s idealisation of the republican cause on to the level of a personal crusade. Another example would be René Fréchet, the well-known Irish Studies specialist who lectured at Paris 3 and who covered Northern Ireland for the French Protestant weekly, Réforme. Fréchet is worth mentioning in that he was often a lone voice on the North choosing as he did to go against received wisdom and the dominant prêts-à-penser to look at the concerns of the unionist community in a more balanced, less caricatural light than many of his colleagues.
9 Thus, Deslandes’ attention to political and cultural subtexts, her sensitivity to the multiplicity of possible readings of a given situation and her ability to work on the interface between two evolving political realities make the book a most valuable contribution to work in French on the Northern Ireland conflict. It is certain to stimulate further research in an area which has not received sufficient attention.
AUTHORS
WESLEY HUTCHINSON Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3
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Harry White & Barra Boydell (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland
Erick Falc'her-Poyroux
REFERENCES
Harry White & Barra Boydell (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, Dublin, UCD Press, 2013, 1152 p., ISBN 978-1-90635-978-2.
1 Over ten years in the making, the Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland ( EMIR), is one of the many projects made possible by the Irish-American businessman Chuck Feeney, and notably co-funded by the Irish Research Council. Inspired by the 1980 New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and the 1981 Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, it aims at being “the first comprehensive attempt to chart Irish musical life across recorded history”, and was edited by two of the most distinguished professors of music in Ireland, Harry White and Barra Boydell.
2 With 2000 articles written by 240 contributors for two volumes, printed on quality paper and presented in a splendid hard case, EMIR has been several times described by the authors themselves as a “map of Irish musical experience”, albeit “not an exhaustive index or directory”: the selection process was thus a challenging and lengthy one, completed by a board of editors chaired by Gerard Gillen, another distinguished professor of Music in Ireland, on the basis of “musical significance rather than fame”, as summed up by Harry White.
3 One of the great ideas on which this Encyclopaedia was built is indeed the inclusion, not only of names of people, places and institutions, but also of the most important concepts at work in the field of music in Ireland. We thus find very instructive and readable entries on “education” (three pages), “identity” (two pages), “tourism” (one page), etc. The choice of headwords, however, curiously results in the presence of a nine-page section on “Traditional music and song”, a two-page section on “Jazz”, a one- page section on “Rock music and Rock’n’roll”, but forgets to mention “Classical music” as a separate entry, and this leaves the critic genuinely wondering why? Not that the genre
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is absent from the Encyclopaedia, on the contrary: it has been calculated (by F. Vallely) that 65% of the material is of “Classical, Church and Musicology” while 25% is devoted to Traditional Irish music, and 6% to modern Popular and Rock music.
4 A minor quarrel has thus erupted regarding the possible bias of the editors of EMIR in favour of Classical Music, with the rather intriguing omissions of entries on Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann’s Director Labhrás Ó Murchú, on the ecumenical but incisive Journal of Music, on Hot Press editor Niall Stokes, or on Antrim trad band “Déanta”, certainly as influential as “Nomos”, but not emanating from a famous music department in the Republic. It is true that Traditional music and Popular music are under-represented in this set of two volumes, but probably also true that the editors are consciously trying to redress the international imbalance in favour of classical music from Ireland, whether one approves of or opposes the choices made.
5 Overall, this book represents a monumental sum of knowledge by the most authoritative voices in the field of music in Ireland, from Ann Buckley and Nicolas Carolan to Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, Joseph Ryan and Gerry Smyth, spanning both the entire history of the country and the entire spectrum of musical genres. One would be hard pressed to find fault with the first edition of such a landmark book in the musical history of Ireland, and it should be remembered that Harry White himself was fully aware that “an encyclopaedia, the moment it appears, is prone for revision, or subsequent editions”. It is thus hoped that, like for its predecessor, the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, the editors of this extraordinary new Encyclopaedia will quickly realise they need to offer free online access to EMIR and regularly update it.
6 What we have in our hands here is not only an outstanding description and analysis of a country’s musical life, it is a landmark contribution to the understanding of Ireland.
AUTHORS
ERICK FALC'HER-POYROUX Université de Nantes
Études irlandaises, 39-1 | 2014