University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 1954-2016 University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 2005 Islandman translated: Tomas O'Crohan, autobiography and the politics of culture Irene M. Lucchitti University of Wollongong, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/theses University of Wollongong Copyright Warning You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorise you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. You are reminded of the following: This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this work may be reproduced by any process, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without the permission of the author. 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For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] Islandman Translated: Tomás O’Crohan, Autobiography and the Politics of Culture A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree Doctor of Philosophy from University of Wollongong by Irene Lucchitti, BA (Hons) Faculty of Arts 2005 CERTIFICATION I, Irene Lucchitti, declare that this thesis, submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty of Arts, University of Wollongong, is wholly my own work unless otherwise referenced or acknowledged. The document has not been submitted for qualifications at any other academic institution. IRENE LUCCHITTI 11 November 2005 ABSTRACT The writings of Tomas O’Crohan in the early twentieth century were celebrated upon publication as icons of Irishness and the voice of the mysterious Gaeltacht expressing itself at last and just in time. Appearing at a sensitive time in Irish history, the reading of these texts as relics of an heroic Irish past nourished hopes of a brave Irish future. Their English translations, though received no less enthusiastically, have often been dismissed as imperfect and undesirable conduits to the author. Informed by the basic theme of dialogue, this thesis examines the politics of culture that brought the Islandman, man and book, into being, and that have surrounded the texts since they first appeared. It considers both the autobiography itself and the translation in terms of cultural process as well as product. It identifies the desire to control the reading of the texts as a legacy of the Gaelic League desire to wall the Irish culture in and examines it from several points of view – most notably from the points of view of translation theory, autobiography theory and, to a lesser extent, post-colonial theory. These modes of enquiry show that the sites of constraint imposed upon the texts reflect a cultural anxiety about what is revealed about this community that was made to represent Ireland. They demonstrate that the conventional reading of the texts, which privileges Tomás’ fisherman identity, has veiled the writer protagonist inscribed in the texts, subordinating his identity as a writer to his identity as a peasant. The thesis contests the reading of Tomás’ work as “representative” and “authentic” with a recognition of the personal aspects of the individual self that Tomás inscribed in his work. KEYWORDS Autobiography Blasket Islands Gaelic Revival Ireland Islandman O’Crohan ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my gratitude to those who have accompanied me and assisted me in so many ways on my long journey through the writings of Tomás O’Crohan. I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Anne Collett, whose enthusiasm, quiet wisdom and intellectual generosity always made it possible to take the next step. With her encouragement, I entered the life of the Academy through participation in the life of our own university and through membership of IASIL, whose members have nourished and extended my love of Irish Studies over the past few years. I am thankful too to Áine De Paor for her lessons in Irish language and her translations of several critical articles that were most useful to the thesis. A debt of thanks is owed to Micheál de Mordha and Ruth Uí hOg’ain who opened the archive of the Blasket Heritage Centre, Dunquin, to me, and to the staff of Dingle Public Library for allowing the use of their records. I wish also to thank Carol Woolley of the University of Wollongong Library for the many documents she retrieved from places far away and from times long ago. Thanks also to Robyn Foster for her help with the preparation of this document and to Stephen Kuhn for technical support. I wish also to acknowledge the love and support of my husband and family. I thank Pasquale for the chance to live out this dream and for sharing the adventure, for dropping everything to go to conferences in far-flung places, and developing a love for the art of AE. Thank you to my sister, Joanne Harris for the opportunity to study in places of unique tranquillity. I thank my children, Rachel and Stephen Woollard, Ben, Sam and Paul Lucchitti, and my grandchildren, Abby, Chloe and Brooke Woollard, for the many graces they have brought to my life. For Pasquale TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter One Wild Things and Western Men: Impressions of the People, Culture and Language of the Blaskets 16 Chapter Two “Illiterate Natives of A Wet Rock”? Oral Tradition and Literacy on the Blasket 50 Chapter Three “The Lap of the Lost Mother”: The Gaeltacht and Revival 84 Chapter Four “The Song We Made Together”: Cultural Production and Translation in the Blaskets 127 Chapter Five “Each With His Own Tune”: The Personal Voice of Tomás O’Crohan 178 Chapter Six “Sé Seo Mo Scéalsa”: Tomás O’Crohan and Autobiography 209 Conclusion “All that Seaboard a Silent Land”: Echoes of Voices Still 237 Bibliography 241 INTRODUCTION Tomás O’Crohan’s autobiography, The Islandman1 (O'Crohan, 1937), came into my hands on the day that I first saw the Great Blasket Island, impressive, forbidding and shrouded in mist on the other side of a hostile sea. It was not the first time I had travelled the road past Slea Head and on to Dunquin, but on the previous occasion, the sea mist and fog had been so thick and heavy that there was nothing to suggest the presence of an Island out there to a stranger such as myself. Even on a fine day, as a stranger, you are not really sure what you are looking at through the windscreen as you travel that twisting, turning road, where there so often appears to be wild ocean between yourself and the road ahead. One promontory after another raises its head as you take each bend, with the result that, when the Great Blasket finally hoves into view, it is hard to be sure that you are looking at an island. Of course, the wild variations in the light, mist and weather that colour the ocean between the mainland and the Great Blasket compromise the perception even more, with the result that no two journeys along this road prompt the same response in the traveller. The uncertainty of my perceptions, aroused by these early glimpses of the Great Blasket Island, stayed with me as I read The Islandman, Robin Flower’s long-awaited translation of the original Irish text, An tOileánach (Ó Criomhthain, 1929)2. I could not help but wonder if this story about such a seemingly inhospitable place could really be true, as the tales of sea-beasts and diving for treasure reminded me vaguely of old adventure stories I had 1 Originally written in Irish, it appeared as An tOileánach in 1929. It was translated into English by Robin Flower, appearing as The Islandman in 1937. The English text has been republished several times. The edition referred to throughout this study is the 1951 edition. 2 There are differences between Irish names and their anglicised forms. When this author is referred to in relation to the Irish texts he wrote, his name is written as “Tomás Ó Criomhthain”. When he is referred to in relation to the English translations of his work, his name is written as “Tomás O’Crohan”. This form of his name is used in accordance with “the common practice of combining the Gaelic form of the first name with the anglicised form of the surname” (Thomson, 1998: 11). 1 read at school, stories I knew to be fiction. I remembered the impossibly heroic protagonists of these stories and saw something similar in the heroism of the Islandman. And yet, as the story reached its close, my wondering was dispelled by the Islandman’s final paragraphs, so persuasive of sincerity, in which he expresses the depth of the loss he has known throughout his long life and confesses the most human of sentiments -- the unhappy awareness of the approach of death and the desire to avoid it.