Seacht Mbua an Éirí Amach Seven Virtues of the Rising
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S EACHT M B UA AN É IRÍ A MACH S EVEN V IRTUES OF THE R ISING 2 Pádraic Ó Conaire S EACHT M B UA AN É IRÍ A MACH S EVEN V IRTU ES OF THE R ISING aistrithe ag/t ranslated by Diarmuid de Faoite r éamhrá le/ i ntroduction by Brendan McGowan 3 Seacht mBua an Éirí Amach Seven Virtu es of the Rising is published in 2016 by/Foilsithe i 2 016 ag A RLEN H OUSE in association with C LÓ I AR - C HONNACHT 42 Grange Abbey Road Baldoyle , Dublin 13 , Ireland Fón/Facs: 00 353 86 8207617 Ríomhphost: [email protected] arlenho use.blogspot.com International distribution/Dáileoirí idirnáisiúnta S YRACUSE U NIVERSITY P RESS 621 Skytop Road, Suite 110 Syracuse, NY 13244 – 5290 Fón: 315 – 443 – 5534/Facs: 315 – 443 – 5545 Ríomhphost: [email protected] www. syracuseuniversitypress.syr.edu 978 – 1 – 85132 – 1 61 – 2 , paperback/bog 978 – 1 – 85132 – 1 71 – 1 , hardback/crua translation s © Cló Iar - Chonnacht , 2016 introduction © Brendan McGowan, 2016 The moral rights are asserted/Gach ceart ar cosaint Clóchur ¦ Arlen House Sao thar Ealaíne ¦ ‘ GPO in Flames II’ by Norman Teeling Tá an leabhar seo maoinithe i bpáirt ag Comhairle Cathrach na Gaillimhe mar chuid dá Clár Comórtha d’Éire 2016. This book has been part - funded by Galway City Council as part of its Ireland 2016 Centenary Programme. Tá Arlen House buíoch de Chlár na Leabhar Gaeilge agus d’Fhoras na Gaeilge 4 C LÁR 7 List of Illustrations 11 Introduction Brendan McGowan S EACHT M B UA AN É IRÍ A MACH S EVEN V IRTUES OF THE R ISING 39 Ceoltóirí 85 Musicians 129 Díoltas 143 Revenge 155 Beirt Bhan Misniúil 175 Two Courageous Women 193 Anam an Easpaig 213 The Bishop’s Soul 233 Bé an tSiopa Seandachta 251 The Antique Shop Muse 269 Rún an Fhir Mhóir 293 The Big Fellow’s Secret 315 M’Fhile Caol Dubh 341 My Dar k, Slender Poet 3 6 4 Acknowledgements ¦ Rún Buíochais 5 6 L IST OF I LLUSTRATIONS Ó Conaire’ s parents, Thomas and Kate Conroy, c. 1880s. Public house by the docks in which Ó Conaire was born on 28 February 1882. Studio photograph of the young Ó Conaire, c . 1890. Ó Conaire (centre) at Rockwell College, Co. Tipperary, 1898. Ó Conaire and Molly McManus, c. 1910. Crowds greeting returning republican prisoners at Westland Row Station (now Pearse Station), Dublin, 1917. Ó Conaire (centre) with teachers from Coláiste Mhic Phiarais , 1925. Sean - Phádraic Ó Conaire. Pádraic Ó Conaire (1882 – 1928). Sculptor Albert Power (1882 – 1945) with statue of Ó Conaire, c. 1935. Éamon de Valera (1882 – 1875) unveiling statu e of Ó Conaire in Eyre Square, Galway, 1935. Poet Máirtín Ó Direáin (1910 – 1988) and Michael D. Higgins, Mayor of Galway, unveiling a headstone over Ó Conaire's grave at Bohermore Cemetery, Galway, 1982. 7 8 I gcuimhne ar James agus Irene McGowan (née Ferguson) a gus ar Leo agus Mary Whyte (née Léime) 9 1 0 S EACHT M B UA AN É IRÍ A MACH S EVEN V IRTUES OF THE R ISING Brendan McGowan I NTRODUCTION First published in Irish by Maunsels in 1918, Seacht mBua an Éirí Amach / Seven Virtues of the Rising is a collection of seven stories by Pádraic Ó Conaire (1882 – 1928), the Galway - born writer, journalist, teacher and wandering raconteur. The Irish language edition was republished by Sáirséal agus Dill in 1967, edited by Tomás de Bhaldraithe (1916 – 1996), and reprinted by Cló Iar - Chonnacht in 2010. This, however, is the fi rst time that all seven stories have been translated into English and published together. 1 Despite the title of the collection, the stories themselves are not directly concerned with the actual events of the 1916 Rising (although there are several allusio ns to key figures and locations); instead they reflect the seismic shift 11 in public opinion in favour of those pursuing Irish independence rather than Home Rule, which culminated in the electoral success of Sinn Féin in 1918. This political realignment was largely as a result of the British government’s mishandling of the Rising and, as the Great War (1914 – 1918) dragged on, the threat to extend conscription to Ireland. Arguably the first important fictional response to the Rising, the book secured Ó Conaire ’s position as the foremost writer in modern Irish and the only one of international standing. While admitting that it was of uneven quality and not his best (or even second best) work, the Donegal writer Seosamh Mac Grianna (1900 – 1990) hailed the book as the eighth virtue of the Rising. In recognition of its literary importance, Seacht mBua an Éirí Amach was recently selected for inclusion in The Irish Times and Royal Irish Academy series Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks . 2 Ó Conaire’s parents, Thomas and Kate Conroy, c. 1880s 12 Public house by the docks in which Ó Conaire was born on 28 February 1882 B ACKGROUND Patrick Joseph Conroy (Pádraic Ó Conaire) was b orn in Galway town in 1882 to middle - class Catholic publicans . F ollowing the untimely deaths of h is parents (his father in 1887 and his mother in 1984), he was reared by extended family members in the Connemara Gaeltacht and County Clare,. 3 H e attended Rockwell College, County Tipperary, before transferring to Blackrock College in Dublin. In 1899, he finished school without completing his final exams and took a lowly position in the Civil Service in London. There, Ó Conaire joined the London Branch of the Gaelic League and flourished as an Irish - language teacher and writer, publishing his first short s tory, An t - Iascaire agus an File (‘The Fisherman and the Poet’), in An Claidheamh Soluis in 1901. Widely read and influenced by European literary models, Ó Conaire wrote in simple, direct Irish about the grim reality of life in contemporary Ireland, dealin g with themes such as poverty, emigration, isolation, vagrancy, 13 alcoholism, despair and mental illness. 4 In 1906, he won an Oireachtas award for short fiction for his stark story Nora Mhárcais Bhig (‘Nora, Daughter of Little Marcus’) about a poor Connemara girl who falls into a life of drink and prostitution when she emigrates to London, and is eventually disowned by her father. Though not a native speaker in the strict sense, he became the most innovative Irish - language writer to emerge from the Gaelic Rev ival, publishing his novella Deoraíocht (‘Exile’) in 1910 and his collection of short stories An Chéad Chloch (‘The First Stone’) in 1914 to great acclaim. Studio photograph of the young Ó Conaire, c. 1890 14 Ó Conaire (centre) at Rockwell College, Co. Tipperary, 1898 In terms of his writing style, Ó Conaire often addressed the reader in the manner of a seanchaí or storyteller . The poet Austin Clarke (1896 – 1974) observed that Ó Conaire shaped his stories by first telling ‘them casually to friends and st range rs ’. 5 Indeed, it has been claimed that Ó Conaire was the first modern Irish writer to make the transition from story teller to story writer. 6 Writer and republican activist P. S. O’Hegarty (1879 – 1955) compared his style to that of two Russian authors: In his economy of words in his best stories , and in the austerity of his style, and his ruthless ending of the story when it has been adequately told, he has resemblances to Tchekov 15 [ Anton Chekhov, 1860 – 1904] , while his general background, a background in which sinners are simply unfortunate people, is not unlike that of another great Russian writer – Dostoievski [Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1821 – 1881]. 7 Ó Conaire and Molly McManus, c. 1910 16 Ó Conaire’s work was not without its faults, however, and he had his de tractors. S ome purists criticised his ‘grammatical impurities and paucity of vocabulary’ and claimed his writing was tainted by the influence of English in phrase and idiom. 8 Others objected to his writing on purely moral grounds, accusing his work of bein g ‘indecent’. 9 Unconventional in manner and dress, Ó Conaire got to know both the sophisticated and sordid sides of life in London, mixing with Irish émigrés in the Gaelic League but also with the ‘wandering and unfortunate, tinkers and gypsies, who dwelt on the Embankment’. 10 Undoubtedly, the people he met on his frequent rambles inspired the characters in his stories. P. S. O’Hegarty recalled that, even in cosmopolitan London, Ó Co naire stood out from the crowd: Small and sturdy, the inevitable stick, pi pe, hat on the back of his head, brown suit, and then the fine head, the broad forehead and the kindly, luminous eyes. In Fleet St., and in cities generally, he looked, and he was an alien . 11 Prone to drinking and wandering, P. J. Devlin (‘Celt’, 1877 – 194 1), another acquaintance of Ó Conaire’s , recalled that ‘the waywardness of Padraic, the eccentricities of his character, rendered him a puzzle and persona non grata to many acquaintances’. 12 In his political outlook, Ó Conaire was a nationalist and social ist, and firmly believed in what he called ‘the trinity of freedom: economic, national and personal’. 13 Like many of his acquaintances in London, including the revolutionary Michael Collins (1890 – 1922), he joined the Irish Volunteers and, it seems, the Iri sh Republican Brotherhood (IRB). 14 With the threat of conscription looming, Ó Conaire returned to Ireland in 1915, leaving behind his common - law wife, Mary McManus, and their four children. 15 Back in Ireland, Ó Conaire found work as a 17 timire or organiser w ith the Gaelic League and in the spring of 1916 he undertook a tour of the country to ascertain the condition of the Irish language.