PAGE 4 IRISH LITERARY SUPPLEMENT • SPRING 2021 Who Speaks for the Irish in the Courts?

BY TONY CROWLEY Lee’s succinct formulation), this raises the a means through which Irish speakers could rather than switching between two lang- important question with which Phelan’s access justice, the policy became an uages, with the ideal of equal proficiency in ARY PHELAN ’S Irish Speakers, research engages. Which is this: If the instrument of Anglicization. Indeed, one of one or both, multilingual speakers have MInterpreters and the Courts, 1754- British state was so unremittingly hostile to the most compelling elements of this book variable levels of linguistic competence that 1921 , presents an illuminating and signifi- the Irish language (which it was), why and is the way in which it illustrates the means they apply according to context? Evidently, cant story based on voluminous research in how were interpreters used in Irish courts through which this goal was achieved in the the binary either/or of, for example, census a wide range of materials ranging from from the first record of a salaried interpreter law. For as the evidence shows, Irish returns, could not measure this practice, nor newspaper articles to parliamentary papers, in 1754 through to the establishment of the speakers were constantly bullied, ridiculed could a legal system which makes provision county archives, grand jury presentment Irish Free State? The answers to that ques- and humiliated in the courts as the state for interpretation only if a speaker is mono- books, correspondence with Dublin Castle, tion, as it turns out, are surprising in some reinforced the message about the legitimacy lingual Irish. Yet as Phelan’s detailed find- and an impressive number of cultural his- respects, predictable, if revealingly so, in of English with measures ranging from ings show repeatedly, the overwhelming tories from Ireland’s long nineteenth cen- others, and of general significance for the straightforward refusal of evidence in Irish pressure to use English in the courts, and tury. The dry and slightly forbidding title of ways in which we think about linguistic to the use of summons servers, civil bill the reluctance to provide interpretation, the work conceals what is by any standards history not just in Ireland but more broadly. officers or even policemen as interpreters combined to make justice inaccessible pre- a fascinating account of one aspect of the The stipulation that all participants in (all of whom hardly attracted the trust of cisely because participants did not fit the process by which English became the domi- the legal process be given free and fair Irish speakers). Which is not to say that the either/or model of monolingualism/biling- nant language in Ireland. This is a detailed access to the proceedings, through interpre- state did not engage fully with Irish ualism. A cúpla focal of English sufficed and important study which raises questions tation if necessary, seems commonsensical speakers when it suited its purpose; for for the courts to deem the speaker com- beyond its specific remit and illuminates to a contemporary audience. But in fact this interpretation in relation to the census, petent in the language and thus not in need central issues of language and power past principle was not settled in British law until governmental commissions, or the right to of the services of an interpreter, even if the and present. 1916 ( The King v. Lee Kun ), though it had an old age pension, the state appears to have competence was understood to be weak— if been invoked by the Secretary of the Gaelic been happy to pay. you can speak bad English it will do us,” League in a letter to the Chief Secretary of And yet, even given the parsimony of Mary Malone was advised at Ballinrobe Mary Phelan . Ireland 1897: central state provision, and the institutional petty sessions in 1870 (“is fearr Béarla IRISH SPEAKERS , INTERPRETERS AND THE COURTS , hostility towards Irish, one of the significant briste ná Gaeilge cliste”). But if, as case 1754-1921. Every person has a perfectly legal right and perhaps surprising points that Phelan’s after case suggests, people did have some FOUR COURTS PRESS IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE to be examined in the language he research indicates is the geographic and English, which they used in specific, limit- IRISH LEGAL HISTORY SOCIETY , 2019. €55. knows best, it being held that it would historical extent of interpretation in Irish ed, contexts, but not sufficient to sustain be unfair to submit a man to exami- courts. For example, focusing on grand jury them during a potentially difficult legal As early as 1613, State Papers reported nation and cross-examination by a hos- reports, a commission of enquiry, and gov- process, then how are we to categorize them that in the assizes, it was “very inconvenient tile advocate in a language with which ernmental papers for 1807, 1841-43, and in terms of the monolingual/bilingual that the judges are unacquainted with the he was but imperfectly acquainted. 1898-1901, Phelan demonstrates that in- model? Maps, censuses and statistics tend to Irish language, and cannot understand the terpretation practice was much more exten- portray language users in Ireland in black or witnesses that speak no English, whereby The dangers of linguistic injustice were sive than previous work has suggested. This white terms, but what if the reality was they cannot so well judge the case.” We clear, as Edward O’Reilly noted in the is an important finding since if the use of more complex? know little of the means by which such preface to his Sanas Gaoidhilge Sags- interpretation is a measure of the survival of This question is hardly developed in difficulties were addressed, though the beurla: An Irish English Dictionary (1817): Irish, then it may be that earlier conceptions Phelan’s study, and there are a couple of remedy was presumably a set of ad hoc “the mistake of a single word in the evi- about the “disappearance” of the language other issues that detract from the work. For arrangements put in place according to local dence, may cause the acquittal of a mur- in specific areas of the country are over- example, it bears the mark of its origins in circumstances. The situation changed with derer, or the murder of an innocent.” For stated. On the other hand, it may raise a doctoral research, and, more problemati- the introduction of The Administration of some victims of the British legal system, broader issue that Phelan’s work touches on cally, the theoretical approach to language Justice (Language) Act (Ireland) in 1737, that danger was fully realized; Myles Joyce, in passing but doesn’t explore directly. and power (largely consisting of an adapta- formally entitled “An Act that all pro- wrongly executed for his alleged role in the The issue arises from an apparent con- tion of Bourdieu’s stance) is confined to a ceedings in courts of justice within this Maamtrasna murders, is but the most tradiction: Traditional accounts of the late chapter rather than being up front and kingdom shall be in the English language.” egregious example. “death” of the Irish language paint a bleak central. But those caveats aside, Irish The act followed similar legislation in Eng- It is likely, as Phelan demonstrates, that picture of overwhelming decline, and yet Speakers, Interpreters and the Courts 1754- land (1731) and Wales (1733) and although the origins of paid interpretation in the legal Phelan’s evidence appears to indicate that 1921 is a rich, detailed and often fascinating ostensibly directed towards the proscription process in eighteenth-century Ireland began even in the courts, with all the difficulties account of the topic; it marshals a prodi- of Latin and French in the legal process, the at a relatively low level. And the unlikely that they imposed on Irish speakers, gious volume of evidence in support of an consequences for Irish were clear and long- agent of progressive practice in this respect interpretation was still required to a sur- argument that remains pertinent. For as lasting; the Act remains on the Statute book was the much maligned (rightly so for the prising degree at the turn of the twentieth Supreme Court Justice Hardiman noted in in Northern Ireland. most part) grand jury system. It was the century. But what if the linguistic situation 2001, “only a person of unusual indepen- The 1737 Act was part of the general locally constituted grand juries, dealing in Ireland in the long nineteenth century is dence of mind and pertinacity will attempt process by which the English language was with Irish speakers on a day to day basis, not best characterized through the tra- to conduct his or her legal business through elevated above Irish over a considerable that introduced provision for salaried ditional framework of the either/or model of the medium of Irish.” In Northern Ireland, period of time and through a variety of interpreters in criminal cases at the assize monolingualism/bilingualism? What if ling- of course, they wouldn’t, as yet, get the means (economic, political, and cultural). and quarter session courts (litigants in civil uistic practice in this period is better framed chance. • But given that “the whole state apparatus cases always had to pay their own interpre- in terms of the relatively recent concept of —University of Leeds was an agency of anglicisation” (in Joe tation costs). Minimal state provision translanguaging, specifically the idea that followed later, though rather than acting as The Public Life of Dorothy Macardle

BY DONAL HALL 1959, as the memory of her faded, her from Dundalk, her mother, Minnie, was an member of Cumann na mBan is repeated in books went out of print and her reputation imperialist from England; Macardle herself this book. The radicalization of Dorothy’s OROTHY MACARDLE was a historian waned. The last decade has seen a growth of maintained that her initial interest in the politics is fundamental to Leeann Lane’s Dwhose best-known work, The Irish interest in Macardle: three of her novels nationalist cause was influenced by the account of her rejection of her parents’ Republic , an account of the Irish War of have been republished, conferences and poetry of W. B. Yeats and the plays of the political beliefs and her estrangement from Independence and Civil War, is now exhibitions on her life have been held in Abbey Theatre. When exactly Dorothy’s her family. Writer Peter Beresford-Ellis, disregarded in academia because of its pro- Dublin and in her home town of Dundalk, conversion to republicanism occurred in not who has yet to produce his own long- Éamon de Valera bias. She was a founder County Louth. clear—it was a gradual process, and we are promised biography of Macardle, is em- member of Fianna Fáil and a critic of de informed that it was influenced by her phatic that Dorothy was not in Cumann na Valera’s social legislation; a republican who friendships with Countess Markievicz and mBan (Evening Echo , 1 September, 2007), broadcast pro-British propaganda during Leeann Lane. Maude Gonne MacBride, whom she first and as her name does not appear on the World War II; a Shakespearean scholar; a DOROTHY MACARDLE met in Dublin’s theatrical circles in 1917. nominal rolls of Cumann na mBan held in pamphleteer, poet, propagandist, journalist, DUBLIN : UCD PRESS , 2019. €25. An assertion in a 2007 biography of Ma- the Military Archives, there must be some socialist, internationalist, feminist, Gothic cardle by Nadia Clare Smith, and also in the doubt over her membership of that novelist; the list goes on. After her death in Dorothy Macardle’s father, Thomas, Dictionary of Irish Biography , that in late organization. was a respected nationalist businessman 1918 or early 1919 Dorothy became a According to Dr. Lane, the family IRISH LITERARY SUPPLEMENT • SPRING 2021 PAGE 5 estrangement intensified when Macardle delegation to examine the conditions under Nobody’s life is entirely consistent, and familiarity with Macardle’s fiction. There is took the anti-Treaty side during the Irish which republican prisoners were held (101). one example of inconsistency in Macardle’s a missed opportunity to compare and con- Civil War and was arrested and imprisoned. Lane does not record that the Red Cross was that she was a member of the Inter- trast the artistic career of her brother Thomas and Winnie made repeated repre- gave the Irish government a clean bill of national PEN Club, founded to foster Donald, who was a successful producer, sentations, much to the Dorothy’s morti- health, declined to look into women prison- intellectual exchange among writers world- director and actor, on stage and screen, and fication, to the Irish government, pressing ers’ conditions, and firmly repulsed a repub- wide, yet in 1926 she was among a group of whose debut novel, Thursday’s Child which for her release. This does not suggest per- lican delegation which landed at their door women who disrupted performances of was published in the same year as The sonal or total estrangement on both sides. in Geneva to protest. In 1924 Macardle Seán O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars Uninvited (1941) was also made into a Dr. Lane argues unconvincingly and at published a short monograph: Tragedies of in the Abbey Theatre. Historian Maria successful feature film. some length that their representations were Kerry , an examination of National Army Luddy considered that the play’s realistic This biography is essentially an exami- by turn, submissive and patriarchal, missing atrocities in Kerry during the Civil War. depiction of the slums of Dublin was too nation of the public Dorothy Macardle, her the point that underplaying the seriousness According to Dr. Lane many of the brutal for the middle-class protestors (Pros- private and family life remains opaque, of Dorothy’s political opinions was tacti- accounts were sensationalized and fictional- titution and Irish Society 1800-1940 ). As which is in part due to the destruction of her cally the only card that Thomas and Minnie ized, and concludes that Macardle was a Lane points out, while the feminist cam- personal papers by her brother Donald after Macardle could play. Her release was hard- politician and propagandist before she was a paign in the 1930s against legislative and her death in 1958, Dr. Lane’s close reading ly going to be secured if they confirmed she historian— a pointer to the later criticism of constitutional changes was voluble, the poor of Macardle’s reportage, plays, fiction, was a strident republican. her major work, The Irish Republic. polling results for feminist candidates in the poetry and what is known of her life pro- Dr. Lane is more sure-footed in her Appointed director of publicity on the 1938 and 1943 general elections showed duces a rounded examination of the exploitation of a jail journal kept by foundation of the Fianna Fáil party in early that the concerns of this small coterie did development of her political and social Macardle which was uncovered while re- 1926, she soon resigned that position on not resonate with the public. intellect set in the context of the revolution searching the de Valera papers in the UCD health grounds and then left the party Although she was a harsh critic of and the lean years that followed, and is a Archives. She kept this journal while in executive when Fianna Fáil TDs took the British imperialism, Macardle campaigned welcome addition to the growing historio- prison in 1922-23, and in a skillful inter- oath of allegiance and entered the Dáil in against fascism in the 1930s, and during the graphy on female activists and feminist weaving of this and other primary material, August 1927. Macardle, nevertheless, re- Second World War she decamped to Lon- politics in the early years of the state. There Dr. Lane constructs a convincing narrative mained an enthusiastic supporter and friend don to disseminate pro-British propaganda is no doubt that Dorothy Macardle was, to of Macardle’s experiences of the inhuman of de Valera while being critical of the on the BBC . How this well-known repub- quote Lane, a “political propagandist, social conditions that women republican prisoners constitutional and legislative changes intro- lican propagandist actually managed to commentator and feminist,” but how great endured in captivity during the Civil War, duced in the 1930s that diminished the secure this appointment is not discussed. was her influence? A number of pressure undermined by their own priggishness that status of women in society. Lane asserts While in London Macardle published a groups that Macardle was active in are made personal relationships fraught. that Macardle’s superior education and ex- popular gothic novel, Uneasy Freehold mentioned, but there is little analysis of the Macardle was convinced of her own posure to culture, left her better able than (1941), later renamed The Uninvited , which role she played in them or of the influence intellectual superiority over most of her others to deal with state engendered dis- was made into a Hollywood film, and these organizations had, if any, on the fellow inmates, considering them to be “less crimination against women (13)—that the another novel set at the time of the Munich development of societal conscience in rela- interesting, less rich than my English resilience of the overwhelming mass of crises, The Seed was Kind (1944), which tion to the vulnerable and deprived, conse- friends” (38), and in return, they strongly Irish women should be dismissed in such a wasn’t. Retrofitting interpretations of her quently raises the question of whether disliked her (37). Released in May 1923, manner is surprising. According to Dr Lane, fiction to fit with known events or opinions Macardle’s influence was confined solely to due to ill-health, according to Macardle one occasion when her access to de Valera can be a hazardous occupation but Dr. Lane an arguably ineffectual intellectual elite. herself, and virtually friendless, her jail might have paid dividends was during the approaches it with confidence. A third Whatever the answer to that question, this sojourn strengthened her republican creden- controversy over proposals in the draft 1937 novel, Dark Enchantment (1953) is dis- study serves as a timely reminder of how tials, at least to her own satisfaction, beset Constitution which emphasized the import- cussed in some detail in the context of the equality promised to all citizens in the as she was with self-criticism that she was a ance of the domestic role of women. Macardle’s views on the future of humanity. 1916 Proclamation or the 1919 Democratic relatively late convert to the cause. Macardle, while publicly associating with In a chapter on critiquing gender roles, The Programme was sacrificed on the altar of Reinvigorated, Macardle became a feminist criticism, soft-pedaled in private Uninvited, The Seed was Kind and The economic and social conservatism in the salaried employee of Sinn Féin, churning correspondence with de Valera, aware that Unforeseen (1945) are examined in even Irish state that emerged after 1922. • out, with others, republican propaganda his obduracy would not lead to any substan- greater detail and in these passages, the —Independent Scholar which, Dr. Lane reveals, prompted the tive reconsideration. reader would benefit from having some International Red Cross to send in 1923 a Reintroducing Douglas Hyde

BY TIMOTHY G. MC MAHON Parnell, de Valera, Lemass). Even when we present writer heard the Kenyan intellectual first President of Ireland. Little wonder that focus on culture, however, we often Ngugi wa Thiong’o, author of Decolonising Gareth and Janet Egelson Dunleavy titled OUGLAS HYDE ’S My American Jour- privilege those whose achievements are the Mind: the Politics of Language in Afri- their biography of him Douglas Hyde: A Dney is both a beautiful book and a recognized for their genius and impact can Literature , discussing the profound Maker of Modern Ireland . That work came profoundly important one. Published origi- (Joyce, Yeats, Beckett, Ní Dhomhnaill, legacy of Hyde’s insight in 2018 at a sym- out some thirty years ago, but it is a mark of nally in Irish as Mo Thurus Go hAmerice in Heaney, Boland). Rarely do any of these posium at Mary Immaculate College in the still-marginal view of Hyde that so few 1937, its audience was limited to readers of named individuals fit neatly into a particular Limerick.) books have focused on him since, and that Irish who sought out information on Hyde box. To claim otherwise would be ahis- one of them, the excellent study by Brian or on his most widely known endeavor as torical, but as President Michael D. Higgins Murphy, is itself titled Forgotten Patriot: President of the Gaelic League (Conradh na notes in his Foreword to the present work, Douglas Hyde . Douglas Hyde and the Foundation of the Gaeilge). Now, a team of experts from Ire- Hyde shaped so many spheres of modern MY AMERICAN JOURNEY Irish Presidency (2017). land, Northern Ireland, and the United Irish life (“an idealist, visionary, and FOREWORD BY PRESIDENT MICHAEL D. HIGGINS . Forgotten no more. To begin with, States reintroduces this text in stunning scholar”) that he does not get the study that EDITED BY LIAM MAC MATHÚNA , BRIAN Ó Murphy’s work appeared as events asso- fashion. Building on new research into he deserves. CONCHUBHAIR , NIALL COMER , CUAN Ó ciated with the Decade of Centenaries raised Hyde’s life and career—expertly rendered To be sure, Hyde’s name resonates with SEIREADÁIN , AND MÁIRE NIC AN BHAIRD . awareness about the Gaelic revival’s impact in the introduction by Liam Mac Mathú- many, perhaps because his inaugural speech DUBLIN : UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN PRESS , on the revolutionary generation. Further, na—they provide the first translation into to the National Literary Society in 1892 2019. Irish-language scholars in Ireland, including English, as well as an updated Irish-lang- (“The Necessity for De-Anglicising Ire- Mac Mathúna (Professor Emeritus at UCD ) uage text, copious footnotes that contextu- land”) is cited frequently in general studies Over the course of his adult years, he and Nic an Bhaird (from Maynooth Uni- alize Hyde’s narrative of his travels, and of the late-nineteenth and twentieth cen- affected so many aspects of modern Ireland versity), as well as American-based scholars dozens of illustrations, most of which come turies, though its text is far less frequently that one might be tempted to wonder such as the University of Notre Dame’s Ó from postcards sent home to the Hyde analyzed carefully. Its call to reinvigorate whether he was fictional or real: prize- Conchubhair, have benefitted from new and children during their parents’ eight-month the Irish language and the use of Irish sur- winning student; poet, folklorist, and play- newly recovered materials from the Gaelic tour of the United States and Canada in names and placenames was not a mere wright; president of the National Literary League, of which Comer—a lecturer in Irish 1905-1906. kneejerk response to imposed norms from Society and later a guarantor of the Irish at Ulster University—is president and Ó Few giants of Irish history have been as the government of the day, but a funda- Literary Theatre and vice president of the Seireadáin is Curator. Together they reintro- underestimated as Hyde (1860-1949). That mental call for Irish people themselves to Irish National Theatre Society; founding duce Hyde to present-day readers, demon- claim rests primarily on a tendency in Irish consider who they were and whether they president of the Gaelic League; Senator of strating some of what made him the fourth historiography to give primacy to political saw themselves and their place in the world the National University of Ireland and most popular man in Ireland in 1905, narratives and party leaders when dis- only or primarily through their relationship professor of Irish at University College according to a poll of 15,000 readers of the cussing different eras (Tone, O’Connell, to their near neighbor in Britain. (The Dublin; Senator of the Irish Free State; and Irish Independent . (Only John Redmond,