MUSKERRY CRITICAL EDITIONS Vol. 2 MO SCÉAL FÉIN An tAthair Peadar Ua Laoghaire Canónach, S.P. do scríbh An tAthair Pádraic Ua Dómhnaill, D.D., Tiarna Easpag Rátha Bhoth do scríbh a cheannphort Clár na gCaibideal Preface .................................................................................................................................................. 1 Réamhrá Gaelainne ............................................................................................................................. 11 Preface to the 1915 edition ................................................................................................................. 12 I: Mo Shínsear .................................................................................................................................... 14 II: Lios Caragáin ................................................................................................................................. 17 III: Rógairí .......................................................................................................................................... 20 IV: Clampar Dlí .................................................................................................................................. 23 V: Dhá Arm Aigne .............................................................................................................................. 26 VI: An Gorta ....................................................................................................................................... 28 VII: Scoil Charraig an Ime ................................................................................................................. 33 VIII: Trí Liathróidí Dúbha .................................................................................................................. 36 IX: Scoil Magh Chromtha agus Coláiste Cholmáin ........................................................................... 39 X: Siúl na gCnuc ................................................................................................................................ 43 XI: An Mhangarta ............................................................................................................................... 46 XII: Ar Mhullach na Mangartan ......................................................................................................... 50 XIII: Mágh Nuat. ................................................................................................................................ 54 XIV: Baol ar an nGaelainn ................................................................................................................. 56 XV: Gnó Sagairt; agus Teacht na bhFíníní ......................................................................................... 59 XVI: “A Dhia, Saor Éire!” .................................................................................................................. 63 XVII: I gCíll Sheanaigh agus i gCíll Úird .......................................................................................... 65 XVIII: Séamas Fréiní, an Foghlaí ...................................................................................................... 69 XIX: An Staonadh ón Ólachán ........................................................................................................... 72 XX: Ár Scoil i Ráth Chormaic ........................................................................................................... 77 XXI: I Magh Chromtha ...................................................................................................................... 80 XXII: An Scoil sa Ráth ....................................................................................................................... 82 XXIII: An Land League ...................................................................................................................... 83 XXIV: Athrú ar an Saol ...................................................................................................................... 86 XXV: Éagóir agus Díoltas agus Smachtdlithe .................................................................................... 89 XXVI: “Barry the Rake” .................................................................................................................... 91 XXVII: Tineóntaithe agus Tiarnaí ...................................................................................................... 95 XXVIII: “Madam Anne” .................................................................................................................... 99 XXIX: Baile Mhistéala ..................................................................................................................... 101 XXX: Ó Dhún ar Aill go Caisleán Ó Liatháin ................................................................................. 105 XXXI: Obair Chosanta na Gaelainne ............................................................................................... 106 XXXII: Onóir don Obair .................................................................................................................. 108 Nótaí ................................................................................................................................................. 109 Index of Persons ............................................................................................................................... 118 Index of Places ................................................................................................................................. 124 Foclóirín ........................................................................................................................................... 129 Proverbs and sayings ........................................................................................................................ 172 Preface Preface In the early twentieth century, autobiographies by native speakers of Irish in the Gaeltacht became a noted literary genre, and a focus of study by learners of Irish. Yet one would hesitate to enumerate Peadar Ua Laoghaire’s Mo Sgéal Féin, published in 1915, among the Gaeltacht biographies. This work hardly seems to be an autobiography; it has much more of the character of a political commentary, giving much more detail on issues such as the nineteenth-century Land War and the Gaelic Revival than on the life of Ua Laoghaire himself. While the politics of land and language are discussed against a chronological framework of Ua Laoghaire’s life, there are many lacunae in Ua Laoghaire’s life that this work does not fill out. Ua Laoghaire’s mother is mentioned briefly, but not much more is said about her other than that she brought him up with good English and good Irish from the cradle. Almost nothing is said about Ua Laoghaire’s father. We don’t read a word about any brothers or sisters Ua Laoghaire may have had (although the 1911 census shows a 70-year-old parish priest, Peter O’Leary, sharing a house in Castlelyons with his 72-year-old sister, Mary; as Ua Laoghaire was born in 1839, it seems Peadar Ua Laoghaire’s age was incorrectly recorded in the census, and, if Mary was two years his senior, that she was the unnamed child whose birth was recorded in 1837). Of the many editors of Ua Laoghaire’s works (including Gearóid Ó Nualláin, Norma Borthwick, Eleanor Knott, Thomas F. O’Rahilly, Feardorcha Ó Conaill, Shán Ó Cuív, Risteárd Pléimeann, Dómhnall Ó Mathghamhna), only Osborn Bergin gets a brief mention here. More details on Ua Laoghaire’s relationships with each of these would be required for a proper biography. It may be that as one of the earliest of the Gaeltacht natives who wrote an autobiography in Irish, Ua Laoghaire did not wish to open a window on more private biographical details, or failed to realise that Irish learners would seek such information. Some of the genealogical detail given in the first chapter is of questionable accuracy. Ua Laoghaire attempts to weave his life, and the lives of his forebears, into the historical narrative of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, and claims that during the time of the Cromwellian wars his great-great-great-grandfather, Diarmuid Ua Laoghaire, was forced to abandon the castle at Carrignacura and relocate to Carrignamadry, which is how the Ua Laoghaire family came to be in Muskerry in the first place. Yet five generations do not appear to be sufficient to fill the time between that Diarmuid Óg Ua Laoghaire and Peadar Ua Laoghaire himself. It may be that the genealogy was somewhat telescoped in family traditions handed down and that two or three generations are missing from the family tree. A first-hand account of 19th-century Ireland Where this work does come into its own is in the depiction of life in the nineteenth century. As most native speakers of Irish in the nineteenth century were illiterate, most accounts of Ireland in this period are by English-speaking Irishmen (or by outsiders, including Englishmen). Mo Sgéal Féin allows the voices of the rural, Irish-speaking areas to be heard. We read how the Irish peasantry were limited in the main to potatoes and milk, while Anglo-Irish landlords took the bulk of the farm produce, and how the peasants were regularly reduced to eating nothing but cabbage in July, while waiting for maturation of the potato crop. As a young boy, Ua Laoghaire witnessed the Irish Famine, and gives a brief account of neighbours who died in the Famine period, many