September 17, 2007 Minnesota: Will’s Class Fall '07: Cúige Uladh (1) Where, Who, & What

(P. 3 of this handout is a map that may be useful throughout the fall term)

WHERE WE'RE GOING We'll spend fall 'term' visiting the north, mostly Donegal. In particular, we'll be meeting several influential artists from one family in Rann na Feirste. (You'll also see it as Rann na Feirsde, Rinn na Feirste, and Rannafast in English.) This is a very small place, and I don't know that I have ever seen it marked on a map. Rann na Feirste is between Gaoth Dobhair (Gweedore) and the sea, in one of the strongest Irish speaking areas in . It is well known for its summer school offerings in the . The land there was originally owned by two Mac Grianna brothers, who purchased the townland there in the 1730's. On the map, you can see the outlet of the river which divides "" from the general area of Gaoth Dobhair (as opposed to the town). A census of a few years back put the population of Rann na Feirste at around 300 people. In addition to Rann na Feirste and Gaoth Dobhair, take note of the highest mountain in the region, Errigal, which gets many a mention in local lore. The region around Rann na Feirste could not support very many families, so from a young age many boys were sent east of the mountains as, basically, migrant agricultural workers, to help support their families. When they got big enough and old enough, they would go to Scotland for work in the summers

WHOM WE'LL MEET The Mac Grianna family is our main focus. I'll have more on the family later, but out of 11 children: ‹ Two, Séamus Ó Grianna and Seosamh Mac Grianna, are among the best known writers in Irish. They both wrote novels and shorter stories, and they also did a lot of translation work into Irish. ‹ Séamus also wrote lyrics for songs, and the occasional poem. ‹ Annie Bhán was famous for her command of folklore and customs. (There was also a sister Bríd who may have been quite a storyteller as well, but I can find very little about her.) ‹ Aodh Mac Grianna, or Hiúdaí, was also an excellent singer, although he died young and is not as well known as the others. ‹ The youngest, Seán Bán, was highly regarded for this singing and for the songs he composed, as well as being a good storyteller. Other Notable Citizens of the Region ‹ Maighréad Ní Mhaonaigh (Altan) and her famous musical father Proinsias, from Gaoth Dobhair. ‹ Dáithí Sproule, local master musician, is from , but many of the traditional songs he first learned came from Rannafast singers. He was also part of a group called Skara Brae that included Maighréad and Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill, well known singers in Irish, who learned much of their material around Rannafast.

Fall '07: Cúige Uladh (1) Where, Who, & What P. 1 September 17, 2007 Gaeltacht Minnesota: Will’s Class

‹ The group Clannad came out Gaoth Dobhair, including Enya (originally Eithne: some of her siblings and other relatives made up Clannad). Enya did some singing in Irish before she went in a different direction. Other Likely Ulster Literary Encounters Depending on time, we'll dabble in some additional literary arts: ‹ A good deal of folklore has been collected around Donegal, and we'll sample some of that. ‹ Cathal Ó Searcaigh is the most prominent poet from Donegal. We'll also take a look at some work from Gearóid Mac Lochlainn, an interesting young Belfast poet. ‹ And I hope to catch a snippet from Micí Mac Gabhann's life story, Rotha Mór an tSaoil, which follows him from a start in Donegal, through Montana to the Yukon, and back to Ireland.

WHAT WE'LL DO The challenge: lots of literature, little time (not to mention the limitations of fearless leader's knowledge). We can only scratch the surface, so that means we will have to build skills from content. Really, the only way we can find the time to work with the literature is if we can use it to build conversation skills, and learn grammar and vocabulary, while we are doing the cultural stuff. That's challenging, so we all have to push one another to make as much use of what we're reading as possible. I don't think we get the most out of the literature if we just translate — just come up with the English equivalents for the material. We have to talk about it, and learn from it. We can: ‹ Ask questions of one another about what we're reading. Collect expressions we can use in conversation. Point out grammar constructions that we've been struggling with. ‹ Gather dialect information. We talk about dialects in passing, but by staying in one region at a time, we have a chance to get much more familiar with the peculiarities of each one. ‹ Compare styles! Séamus and Seosamh had wildly different ideas of what to write about, and how to do it. And we can compare Seán Bán's lyrics to Séamus's. Keeping Moving We can't back up, we'll be covering more content than we have in a while. Most of it will be in shorter chunks — poems and songs, excerpts from longer works like novels, bits of lore — but we'll also try to do at least one story in full during this term.

Fall '07: Cúige Uladh (1) Where, Who, & What P. 2 September 17, 2007 Gaeltacht Minnesota: Will’s Class Rann na Feirste, Gaoth Dobhair, Cloich Cheannfhaola

You may want to keep this map handy, separate from other handouts, for easy reference.

Fall '07: Cúige Uladh (1) Rann na Feirste, Gaoth Dobhair, Cloich Cheannfhaola P. 3