Slan leat, Gary-cat

Fuair Gary bás an tseachtaine seo caite. D'fhán ár cat go dtí go fhill ó ár turas. Ach, chaith sé an h-ám. 

Scríobhím seo leis brón. Ní raibh mé ag iarraidh a clóscríobh na focail seo. Mar sin féin, bíonn mé ag insint orthú anois. 

Bhí dúil mhór agam air. Shuigh sé liom. Chódail sé ar dom. 

Ós rud é go luath i 2002, chúram againn le haghaidh dó agus a dheirfiúr, Maire. Chuaigh ar shiúl a ndeartháir Larry. Ach d'fhán Maire agus Gary le breis agus dosaen bliain ar chéile. 

Tá súil agam go bhfuil ar neamh i n-spéir, dó agus ár peataí atá caite. Is fada liom uaim iad. Is mian liom iad go léir tsíocháin.
 

Goodbye to you, Gary-cat.
 
Gary met his death a week ago. Our cat waited until we returned from our trip. But, it must be the time. 

I write this with sadness. I did not want to type these words. All the same, I am telling you now.  

I loved him. He sat on me. He slept on me. 

Since early in 2002, we cared for him and his sister, Mary. Their brother Larry went away. But Mary and Gary stayed for more than a dozen years together. 

I hope that he and our past pets are in their heaven. I miss them. I wish them all peace.

From the Ring of Kerry to Cork City

Waking up early, we left Dun Chaoin. I said farewell to the hosts' dog Rua as Gaeilge. So his mistress remarked that I was Irish, given my brief chat in the native language. I silently wondered, as her husband had a Scots name and an English accent, if she was one of the many who had left for Britain after the war and one of the few who had returned to retire in such a lovely setting, rewarded by the scene that opened up below of the ocean and the Blaskets. Although the b+ b  we'd stayed had prominently on its business card an Irish-language name, I feared that Gaeilge was not long for this corner of a globalized nation that we all loved so much that our English onslaught, as the lingua franca of the EU too, drowned the voices. Still, a few of us try to practice it.

Past a long stone wall overlooking the waters, as the sun shone in rays through the clouds towards Iveragh, we headed back through An Daingean, past signs for beehive huts at Fahan I figured were closed for the season, and glanced down at a lovely stretch of rare sandy beach at Inch where Ryan's Daughter was filmed. We set out to traverse the Ring of Kerry. We had to take advantage of the relatively sunny day, for night crept up rapidly on the ocean's edge late in the year. The road swung towards a series of market towns half-heard long from maps and songs, sights new to me and Layne. This region was unfamiliar to us both, so this time, it was our turn to see it. The weather had held out, lucky for us.

We veered towards Castlemaine and then Killorglin, bypassing Killarney The roads were narrow again, but we sped, as we had to keep up with traffic. Irish radio played the same stories, hour after hour. A drunk man's sentencing for a child's death on the road. A molester with a sordid record caught after abducting a girl; her brother hanging onto the vehicle long enough to get a partial plate number that led to the rapid apprehension of the culprit. Many callers and texters wanted the man put away for far more than the actual misdeed legally warranted, but even his past could not be admitted in court. A Dublin homeless couple "tortured while in their sleeping bags" as the radio put it, from what seemed nothing much more than a muttered threat and a tossed firecracker. These headlines droned on, with subtle twists in their repetition to keep listeners alert or intrigued as the day passed.

The towns were picturesque, and the road meant, in the old style, we'd have to pass through each one. No Puck Fair, but Killorglin bustled. By the time we got to Caherciveen, we stopped for a break. I walked the narrow sidewalk, past many shops gone under, and across a fair share of a place that seemed to be suffering from the "downturn." Christian charity shop, tiny grocery sellers, a C of I church lichened and dampened on its dull brown walls, turned into a pottery or craft seller's niche. But the air enlivened me, and I needed the walk of a half-hour up and down the main road, mid-day.

Bridie had told us about Valentia Island beating out her husband's family's Dingle for beauty, and it looked enticing. But it was a one-way road into it, and it was already late in the afternoon. I feared as in Dun Chaoin or Co Monaghan getting caught after nightfall searching boreens for our dim b+b. So, on we went, past the tiny and shrinking Gaeltacht of Iveragh's peninsula. Charlie Chaplin's statue featured in Waterville/ An Coiréan, and I later looked up that he and his family loved spending time there at its large hotel facing the shore. A crowd of Italian sightseers took photos of the statue. We curved back at Derrynane and soon hit An Snaidhm, or the knot where of all people the first president of Israel, Chaim Herzog, was born, his father being the Chief Rabbi of Ireland, an easy job I guessed.

The road sped us on, past meadows and through trees, into Kenmare, down to Co. Cork. But we never saw the sign welcoming us to the Rebel County. Our GPS detoured us into Priest's Leap at our peril, as you can read in my Irish-English blog post here. That harrowing ride was one neither I nor Layne will never forget. You hear hyperbole about jarring roads, and sudden drops, but this was true.

That over, we descended back onto the main road, 10km on and perhaps a few hundred feet cut off the Glengarriff route, our hearts in our mouths. Around Cobduff and a school letting out, we were glad to stumble out of the Tibetan-like landscape, all sheared earth slopes and barren heights between precipitous canyons, akin to the Badlands or a Tanzanian section of a primordial Great Rift Valley.

Woods sheltered us, and the scenery of autumn, even if the radio bore no new tale to tell. Bantry looked big as we wound around its sudden roundabouts and by sheer intuition I kept to the main road. We kept going, Ballydehob and Skibbereen, where I imagined flocks of German artists painting landscapes of sheep and not of the Léim na tSagart's deadly drops and terrifying Badlands panoramas. I wondered where David Mitchell lived around here for he places Cape Clear Island in his novels, and certainly the handsome storefronts we passed in this area spoke of prosperity, as did the splendid if hidden Parknasilla "resort" which had entertained the affluent since Victorian days.

Leap was full of funny figures costumed around its signs and shops, out to grab some Halloween prize. Rosscarbery looked handsome, and we then found our way to our last big metropolis, Clonakilty. It was clogged with construction and one-way streets and barriers. So, I nearly lost it here, so tired of driving as I was, but after we stocked up on food at the Dunnes and the checker, an elderly lady, told us that she was the only one of eight children not to emigrate to America, we got directions at a gas station (the first clerk did not know; I suspected she was German) for Ardfield. My sense generally guided us right. But I made a wrong left turn, ending up in a deadend at dusk in the middle of a farm full of muck on Inchydowney Island. The causeway stunk of algae, the fields of manure.

A woman walking her dog briskly told us where to turn, and we made it. The host of the b+b waited at the local pub, where he'd had at least some of its wares, and we settled into the last of our Irish rural haunts, a refurbished farm shed made into a homey cabin. There, as rain finally settled us in, Layne cooked the smallest portion from the honor-payment organic farm down the lane, a giant mess of carrots, into soup. We watched British (not Irish oddly on the satellite feed, but again we had an elderly Irish woman and her English husband as hosts) tv and I kept changing channels as Layne's beloved "Judge Judy" was on a lot in the afternoon, drifting from one station to another, however.

The rooms were so small that I could not stretch out full length to do my exercise. But it was comfy. We left for Cork city our last day in Ireland, and I liked seeing Harry Clarke's illustrations for Keats and Poe in the Crawford Art Gallery. I enjoyed many of the "Irish school" of paintings from a century ago and more, while more contemporary ones appeared often far duller and less engaging. The painting above is by Sir Gerald Festus Kelly (grand name, that) of anarchist Peter Kropotkin's daughter, Sasha. He painted it in 1924; her husband was a Soviet revolutionary, Boris Lebedev. I had just read Kropotkin's The Conquest of Bread last month; but I did not know he raised a family. Sasha in this portrait captures for me a whiff of Cork women, with their grace and confidence, on the street.

Kelly was an English painter in oil of portraits and landscapes. During his travels he painted some of his most characteristic and charming figure studies. He became famous for his portraits of elegant women, his technical brilliance and colourful, wide-ranging subject matter.
The woman in this painting is Sasha Kropotkin, daughter of the anarchist, Prince Peter Kropotkin, and wife of the Russian revolutionary Boris Lebedev. - See more at: http://www.crawfordartgallery.ie/pages/paintings/GeraldFestusKelly.html#sthash.Lbys830F.dpuf=

Kelly was an English painter in oil of portraits and landscapes. During his travels he painted some of his most characteristic and charming figure studies. He became famous for his portraits of elegant women, his technical brilliance and colourful, wide-ranging subject matter.
The woman in this painting is Sasha Kropotkin, daughter of the anarchist, Prince Peter Kropotkin, and wife of the Russian revolutionary Boris Lebedev. - See more at: http://www.crawfordartgallery.ie/pages/paintings/GeraldFestusKelly.html#sthash.Lbys830F.dpuf

Kelly was an English painter in oil of portraits and landscapes. During his travels he painted some of his most characteristic and charming figure studies. He became famous for his portraits of elegant women, his technical brilliance and colourful, wide-ranging subject matter.
The woman in this painting is Sasha Kropotkin, daughter of the anarchist, Prince Peter Kropotkin, and wife of the Russian revolutionary Boris Lebedev. - See more at: http://www.crawfordartgallery.ie/pages/paintings/GeraldFestusKelly.html#sthash.Lbys830F.dpuf

Kelly was an English painter in oil of portraits and landscapes. During his travels he painted some of his most characteristic and charming figure studies. He became famous for his portraits of elegant women, his technical brilliance and colourful, wide-ranging subject matter.
The woman in this painting is Sasha Kropotkin, daughter of the anarchist, Prince Peter Kropotkin, and wife of the Russian revolutionary Boris Lebedev. - See more at: http://www.crawfordartgallery.ie/pages/paintings/GeraldFestusKelly.html#sthash.Lbys830F.dpuf

I ferret out odd links as that, however tenuous, to my interests. Cork has a history of lots of subversive mutterings and a proud defiance. Layne shopped for plane fare at a sandwich stall at the English Market, which on the Irish-language sign I noted was rendered as "the old" market as well. Yet there I heard Irish spoken again, to my joy, as an older man ordered from a butcher. I passed him twice to be sure it was that, and not, say Polish, and it was, for once, the once and former language.

Cork felt a bit more posh. Its strollers and shoppers seemed slightly more cosmopolitan. The women often dressed up better. Even if a young clerk, in a smart short woollen outfit, marched up in front of me as we climbed Easons' escalator, her raw rank odor at odds with her groomed exterior. Could that be a millennial Sasha? Or would a daughter with an aristocratic pedigree scent herself? I would have stayed long in the bookstore of Liam Russell Teo., but we had to get on the motorway to Dublin. More radio, more roundabouts slowing the pace of the fastest car every few miles for miles on end.

The countryside looked identical all the way through Tipperary until night took over. At Naas, we filled up, far enough from the airport to get our euro's worth and keep the gauge at F. Rush hour clogged its streets, and from then on, it was a crawl. But we made it and the rental car shuttle driver even took us not to the hotel's lagging shuttle, but all the way down and around, back on the motorway, to the deceptively close Hilton. We tipped him accordingly, took our humble fare in from Dunnes made into sandwiches and beer,, and ate and readied for our 4:30 wake-up. A long walk to the terminal through a plastic tube. Off again, and after an uneventful wait, we boarded for Rome.

To Adare then to Dun Chaoin

On the guest bathroom's basket above the toilet upstairs, nestled a Penguin Black Classic. Nietzsche's Aphorisms of Love and Hate. I leafed through it, and it was well worth our hosts' Tony and Sinéad's pound sterling. If I was not so in need of sleep, I'd have stayed up reading it.

The next morning, we talked until Tony had to leave Corduff for work, so our long drive from Co Monaghan to our next friends in the perennial Tidy Town award-winning Adare, south of Limerick city. was delayed. However, after we had to say goodbye to him and Sinéad, our GPS itinerary detoured us across many stunning autumnal scenes as we slowly traversed via Eden Road the Kilmainham Woods of Co Meath. I thought of Brinsley McNamara's melodramatic "tell-all" tattletale on my Kindle from a century ago, The Valley of the Squinting Windows as we passed a sign for Delvin in Westmeath. Vivid leaves shone in the late afternoon and gradually we headed into sunset over Birr, mentioned by Joyce surely somewhere.

The radio featured, in slim pickings, Gay Byrne hosting a mixture of classics and reverie on RT'E Lyric. Continually rankled by the miserable fare sung on either BBC or Eire's wavelengths, I supposed I showed my age, relegating myself to near the dreaded 55-and-up demographic, sometimes that which lacks any number on the right side of that classification. Two locals in Co Monaghan had glared at us from the upper ranks of that cohort, with their little dog, as we halted at a crossroads. A bit down the road, a hardened redhead lass with a stroller, for whom we stopped to let her and her larger dog pass by. pushed past our smiles with undisguised contempt. Was it our Dublin plates?

By the time we made it to Adare, it was dark. Traffic jammed the picturesque village, but not for its charms. A drunk driver, we later found out from our host (who knew by repute and custom the culprit in question), had crashed and blocked the main highway. I felt sorry for the drivers caught for hours.  This is the major thoroughfare between Limerick and the South-West, and there's no easy diversion.

To our surprise, as the last time we were here, the motorway being built bypassing other local towns, it ran straight down the middle of Adare. I was baffled, but it did mean that the town profited from the constant hum all day into the night. So, our rental car had to maneuver to get the space in front of Seán Collins & Sons pub. We had a nice chat with him and his wife, Bridie, about the pressures of the business he continued from his father in that town, and about the small hotel we stayed in that they had bought since we'd last visited. The pubkeeper's trade is a patient one, requiring constant surveillance of the staff, chatting up patrons, and dealing with exorbitant fees for such as the "rights" to play a radio or TV channel in the place. It filled mostly with locals, who greeted and paid farewell to each other in that spirit of bemused camaraderie presumably deepened by decades of proximity.

After a night at their hotel, and then a happy breakfast with Seán and Bridie, we departed for Kerry. Our first time there, the Kingdom beckoned us for its breadth. Tralee bustled with corporate parks and upscale hotels, then Blennerhassett's giant windmill. In Camp/An Com, a pit stop. In the petrol station's cafe, lunch drew in many hunched over their soups and coffees. The wind blew off the Atlantic, as we perched up just out of sight of it, and we could feel the change in the blustery air. We were nearing the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht, one of the last redoubts where (a bit of) Irish survived.

Layne pointed out a fort overlooking the highway as we left the village, and I later wondered if this had any association with the legendary landing of the Milesians on the hidden shores below, and of the healing of maddened maiden Mís made memorable in Austin Clarke's elegant, even erotic, poem.

Séan had shown us his photos of the one-way, dramatic Conors Pass road, and this tempted us. But construction was afoot there, so we had to go the safer if still hairpin route into the rolling hills down into little Anascaul, busily promoting Tom Crean, a local who found fame for his Antarctic expeditions with Scott and Shackleton. Now a brewery hustled a lager named in his honor. Nearby, a rebel who fought in the Rising and later died of force-feeding while imprisoned, Thomas Ashe, had been born in Lios Póil, received only a modest road sign indicated the townland where he began. In today's market-targeted Ireland, you can see which of two local Toms, without a doubt, gets lauded.

The day was overcast, so colors of green and brown were more muted, and glimpses of the strait between the Dingle and Iveragh peninsulas were infrequent. But the weather held and we felt lucky.
Famously, some mercantile-minded locals of An Daingean cross out the signs (I saw one outside Ventry/ Fionntrá) indicating nowadays in the Gaeltachtaí the non-anglicized location names. But entering Dingle town, the tourists seem to have found the home of Fungi the Dolphin nevertheless.

Off-season, a lot was closed, so we figured that it'd be no-go to voyage into the harbor in a search for that noted citizen of the town. Tour buses gravitate here, and as one who'd been patiently driving on narrow roads, and often had only the windshield's view as my own as I passed many marvelous vistas, I could not naysay those who had the comfort of a vehicle from which they could gaze out.

We walked the seaside road past tracts you could find in suburban Tallaght or Swords, catering to the summer's rush of visitors. They faced rows of colorful older houses, dated to 1909 and all numbered. The contrast summed up much. Reading Peig Sayers or the other Blasket Island writers, you can conjure up the past, when that as a market town attracted the peasants on foot or cart, and where the garrisons of the Crown fought during the war for independence on the same road that brought us in.

After we climbed up Goat Street, past more housing estates and an stately but abandoned-seeming school, we descended back into the lively core, where we purchased a few gifts at the bookstore. Both Seán, whose grandparents were from the town, and Tony, who knew such treasure-troves well, recommended that I (and Layne, who had long learned to drag me away from these dens of iniquity), stop in. Its owner was markedly taciturn, but we figured he could use our euros. The single book (although I could have spent 300 euro--the singular as the Irish say--easily on my itinerary on such) I took back was Daragh McDonagh's Tochar, about a secularized Catholic from Derry taking the old pilgrimage routes. I felt it was a path I followed, and I will review and report on it in due time here.

The Catholic church also on Green Street was enormous, built on wealth from Peig's peasants, and those emigrants who may have made good from their trade or their own capitalist endeavor. Now the Díseart Centre of Irish Spirituality run by Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, the Sacred Heart chapel featured Harry Clarke's stained glass. I had seen his fluid craft in the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin and I admire its clear lines. Layne rightly recalled a resemblance to another artist we like, Eric Gill, from this same period when the medieval and the guild appealed against capitalist frenzy.

I thought of our fervently non-theist friends in Drogheda. In their bathroom, a few copies of  The New Humanist lay waiting. I found Tim Minchin's interview in a 2010 issue. He remarked that he saw no harm in "magical thinking" unless it caused harm, and I contemplated as often in my European travels the fate of the Church, its sanctuaries so spacious, as its congregants dwindled and died off.

Later on this Grand Tour, Layne noted my Pavlovian instinct towards any open church door. Surely this attests to my early imprinting, and I confess that I enjoy peering into any Catholic sanctuary. I've lost belief in the visions and doctrines it memorializes and inculcates, but I retain fascination for the cultural impacts and artistic legacies left by the Church over so many centuries, for better and worse. And, I suppose part of this calls up yearning, a return to safety, a quiet space enclosed and restorative.

We needed to get to our next room, so we drove north, the long way around so we'd in my hazy recollection go counterclockwise, the way I estimated best to see an ocean view. I guess I confused in my travel blur the Ring of Kerry (that next peninsula down) from the Dingle, but this took us to the iconic Gallurus Oratory. In my mind, this stone chapel, so modest next to the one of the Sacred Heart, endured fourteen centuries wind and sea on a barren outcrop overlooking stormy ocean tides. Instead, it nestled in a field, safe from view as it was closed off-season, and we barely glimpsed it over the fields and horses, from a gravelled parking lot of the empty carpark and luncheon spot for tour buses.

The number of new construction of subdivisions around An Clochan astounded me. I suppose while many decry the loss of Irish as a community language, they look to the schools. But as in my own study at Oideas Gael Uladh in Glencolmcille in Donegal a few years ago, the inward turn of the native speakers, who cannot be bothered to deal with the hesitant inquiries of wave after wave of students and daytrippers, leaves those trying to practice it left to struggle among themselves in class.

Also, I doubted that these largely second homes or vacation spots, given the massive distance even by cozy Irish standards from any commerce, were crammed with post-Tiger Gaeilgoirí eager to revive an teanga beo. We progressed at a horse's pace sometimes over gravelled byways, past farms or past McMansions. For all I imagined, Germans, English, and/or Dubliners might ease their BMWs into the asphalt driveways on weekends. The stark fact that the most prominent eatery and b+b in our next destination bore a German surname stood as testimony to me of who had moved into the homes the farmers or fisherman left behind. Surely, it's a primary reason why Irish fades from our hearing.

But I too am complicit. Lured by beauty and detachment from the city, I pass EU hikers on the winding roads, walking the designated route, and buying pottery and scones, from whomever remains, for these residents need to make a living. Here, survival of Irish matters far less than their own, in an economy perched at the far end of an island battered by austerity cuts and weak currency.

The next place of any size, Baile an Fheirtearaigh, was a remote holdout for pirates resisting Cromwell. It draws language learners to its center, similar to Oideas Gael in the northwest or An Ceathrú Rua in Connacht. Its museum was closed. Although as we crawled through the village, I noticed the door open. I was hopeful, but it was a cleaning lady. Three pubs in a row, one titled to me as a talisman Ó Murchú, loomed as the only thriving eateries for many a mile. We were hungry, too.

We finally found the next place. Asking at a very well-stocked cafe-gift shop, the owner failed to recognize the host. It turned out she went not by her name but a nickname known to her neighbors. But we had no indication of this with our correspondence, with her, and she kept insisting as we tried to find the "stone cottage" that any GPS could find it easily. Reduced to looking for that architecture, in a bucolic landscape that as Peter O'Doherty's photo above shows, has been speckled since Peig's death with many more structures, whitewashed or unvarnished, we despaired. Darkness on the edge of the Atlantic, next stop Boston, comes quickly in early November, and when we at last located the b+b brown sign at a junction and up a lane, we were exhausted. The tea was bagged, the loaf dry, so we went over the Camras road Peig describes often, into Fionntrá. We'd found online two restaurants that garnered rave reviews, one saying it was open all year on its website, but of course it was not.

Neither the first nor the last time on this trip, but this was Ireland. I liked that huddled townland, which I think is Baile na Ratha, and that blue house on the road with a for sale sign. We all can dream, even if I'd wake up to French trekkers or Japanese tourists with selfie sticks out my window. No matter how worn out the roads there make me, the breezes and the briskness boost my spirits.

Dun Chaoin fills a lovely series of fields. It slopes down to the shores facing the now-deserted Blaskets, and they loom like mounds from bygone civilizations from the Atlantic. Peig had been famous as a chronicler of life on the Great Blasket, but she grew up in the townland she called Vicarstown, as well as closer to An Daingean by the way of her school and her parish both in Fionntrá. She only moved to the Blaskets after she married. There is no center of her natal settlement, and Dun Chaoin instead spreads out as smaller hamlets on and off the twisting, if now paved, lanes.

The summit that opened up Ventry's vista must have been appealing in the day, but it was pitch black now, and oncoming cars roared past us, blinding me. Dingle was in the distance, but its lights discouraged us from another night of pub grub. So, a few miles from where the surviving soldiers from the shipwrecks of the Armada were slaughtered, we settled for take out: Spanish wine, sandwiches, and fruit from the local seller. I heard him chatting in animated Irish with customers. When I left, I shyly tried my thanks and my valediction with the correct grammar. He replied "Slán" and I could sense in farewell his sly bemusement. As Seán Collins had predicted of my attempts to hush, look native, and blend in  (as he had years ago teased my being a "professional Irishman, come to teach us what we did not know,") wait until they hear you speak Irish with an American accent.

Samhain in Monaghan

After Newgrange, the sunset hastened us up across lanes and onto dark main roads via the GPS. No idea how we'd have navigated without it. I remembered earlier trips, stopping passers-by or going to the post office to try to figure out locations. The technology had its own drawbacks, as it kept telling us the road titles in their Irish multisyllabic names we had no clue about, but eventually, after false moves and a stop at a gas station in Ballybay, followed by overshooting the drive into Cootehill, we found Killyliss Country House in blackness. A truck with German plates indicated the appeal of the local fishing, a lure this otherwise off-season. An teach mór even if it newish, owned by a horsey. genteel family. Photos of their two children filled the walls, so we could view their maturation. Prep schools in the North nearby, UCD, marriage, baby. I found the daughter's cards given her for her eighteenth birthday under a couch in the top floor attic room we stayed in. I wondered if she, now a mother I reckoned, remembered where the stash was, who sent her what when.

The house lay on a lane off a local road between the two towns. Their population was mixed between Protestants and Catholics historically, as Counties Monaghan and Cavan are very much in Ulster, partitioned only in 1922 from their affinity. With so few Presbyterians, a once-dominant faction in this area, remaining in the 26 Counties, I supposed many continued to follow the path of their forebears, looking to Britain or the Commonwealth for their future rather than the island that, at least in the South, rejected many of them. The museum in Monaghan town told their story along with many others: from the crannóg forts to medieval monks, Plantation to Partition, the Land League's demands for no rent paid to landlords to General Eoin O'Kelly's Blueshirts, the displays informed us.

Now, the market town changed. A pre-school had explanations in Chinese, Lithuanian, Russian, and Polish. The giant C of I church towered over the heavily trafficked town, while the Catholic counterpart was on a side street, looking as if it'd be the Protestant one in most Irish towns these days.

Peter's Pond lay in the middle of town, as it had on old maps in the museum. The fields were long gone around it, and we had parked on an industrial road that looked like any zone, anywhere. Many gush about the charm of Ireland, but honest observers might admit that it's also often dowdy and drab. People cannot live off scenery, and the trucks in German attested to the EU and its power now.

We had to eat out, as the b+b was that alone. Our meal in Cootehill was standard by Irish standards. We ate alone in a Frenchified brasserie in that town, where Big Pharma had a giant plant. The flax and linen industries were long gone, and the agitation that made it a Red hotbed in the Victorian era.

Our second meal was in Ballyboy. The locals knew each other. We were waited on by a young woman from Eastern Europe, but the bar pump was down. Luckily, the local Brehon red ale was tasty. But our palates, limited away from meat, meant fewer choices anywhere we went this trip.

At the next place we stayed, we had more choice as we were among friends. It was only a few miles away to Corduff, but the GPS took us a very long way. We drove in circles, the "voice" directing us to lanes and byways again, and we went three times in a loop before landing near a b+b with miniature horses outside. The elderly lady who answered our plea kindly offered us tea (we kindly declined as our friends were presumably waiting) while she guided us to the other Corduff. It turned out we were in Corduffkelly townland instead. As the crow flies, it was close. We found our way quickly-- to yet another busy crossroads of Carrickmacross. So, after spinning around it due to traffic and missed turns, we finally made it to our friend's place, a few houses spread out among fields and McMansions. There were plenty as Irish law allows anyone to build on a lot if a dwelling was there before, and many tear-downs birthed hideous houses, and many ruined cabins fell apart next to them.

One that survived its cowshed origins, converted into a handsome cottage by a family with seven children who lived around Corduff, was in Lisnafeedelly, the fort of the fiddler's townland. Our friends Tony and Sinéad bought it at a bargain price, and while their earlier choice of the house next to Patrick Kavanagh's grave in his native Inniskean would suit the poet-novelist-journalist Tony fine, the quiet of their weekend residence invited us, as it had them, to a respite from the urban hustle.

It was the first time I'd seen it, and from descriptions I expected some Famine-era, half-demolished by the peelers post-cabeen devolved from that on the Horslips' LP cover for The Unfortunate Cup of Tea.  While friends online, Layne and Sinéad had never met, so the afternoon and night and morning we spent was doubly enjoyable. You know how it is when you don't want to leave a conversation for fear of missing any of it? We talked non-stop as we were shown Kavanagh's resting place, and Tony remarked how devastated his mother had been after the priest told her that her twin babies stillborn would never be buried in consecrated ground. I agreed that the cruel scholastic logic of the Church ground down many of our ancestors, and I suppose me too in part, and we also noted that my sussing out the Presbyterian host earlier must attest to my inbred survival skills from the motherland.

Kavanagh's native townland emblazoned the headstones of his family. On some, the raw name, derived from the Irish for pig, Mucker, glowered onomatopoeically (can I ever spell that?). I felt here the feel for the rural roots that restive poet savaged as he remained stuck in them, until half into his thirties. He escaped that "fog of unknowing"--for it as much as the peasant's poverty cloaked him and his clan. His epitaph gracing that stark, humble wooden cross captures the parochial spirit that stayed with him during his years in London. Dublin, and Belfast. He drank and declined, and influenced Seamus Heaney greatly. I prefer Kavanagh, myself, to "famous Seamus," and this inscribed memorial phrase may explain why. "And pray for him who walked apart on the hills loving life's miracles."

Tony told me that there are two versions of the Collected Poems extant, due to disputes between the family who control the copyrights. This typical dissension speaks to the same battles in words and deeds which Kavanagh described in his novel Tarry Flynn and his autobiography The Green Fool. These while less heralded than his poetry, understandably, testify to the labors from one who found it impossible to romanticize what many of his colleagues in the capital had, the pain of sour isolation. How odd that the Free State censored these accounts even as his patron, the fearsome John Charles McQuaid, Archbishop of Dublin, sponsored the poet with a lifetime's sinecure on its Catholic paper.

Visiting then Carlingford, we had lunch and strolled about the medieval ruins of the Thorsel assembly and the mint in this fortress town founded by the Vikings. On its long lake, almost a fjord, it boasted a crowded antique store stuffed with wonderful bric-a-brac, deserving a peek from any in the neighborhood.  The interior of the stone mint was being draped in cotton, candles, plastic pumpkins, and skeletons. We crossed what once was a border in bandit country entering South Antrim, and Tony told me how it'd be backed up regularly. Years now, the little guard hut at the frontier sat abandoned.

After a tour of Lidl, which excited Layne as similar Aldi's coming to our country soon, we ate and chatted. Sinéad and Layne in the kitchen shared recipe tips. I suspect my wife, claiming stress, had snuck some of her hostess's smokes, not for the first time this trip. Tony and I riffed from one book or author to another. I come away from any communication with him having added to my list of what to read next. Having published two poetry collections, two novels, and a novella, Tony has a knack for esoteric lore made into enjoyable tales. You can find out about his work here. He blogs at Ecopunks.

His interests, according to Layne, parallel mine more closely than anyone else. After all, we met in person in ancient Loughcrew at Samhain '09 only after he kept finding on this very blog my reviews of shared influences: The Fall, Horslips, John Moriarty, studying Irish, NI punk, Denis Johnston, and Francis Stuart, to name a few. He can sum up issues as complex as The North itself, or at least its nuances, pithily. While he and I have an awful lot in common, Layne observed that he did yard work.

We looked over his forest-in-training. He's planted a couple hundred trees on land that will replace what Planters might have uprooted centuries ago to build ships for the Crown. After dusk, we went outside and watched the shadowy fog roll in from the south over the fields. It came towards us, but it did not overtake us. Instead, it dissipated before it met us, or else we were shrouded without knowing.

(P.S. This photo resembles what we saw on that Samhain eve. Graham McPherson, from Somerset.)

Newark to Newgrange

After the longest time I've been away from home since I turned eighteen, I return to the past month. Unlike my first stint abroad, a summer in Yorkshire the season that Unknown Pleasures by a local band just down the road and over the hills and moors in Manchester, appeared, this time, with Layne, I found myself not putting down any recollections in a journal. Rather, I chose to let the time pass by.

Recollected, lots may vanish. But as those who know me too well have advised me, this year, after much pressure, I need to get out of my head a while, and not to chase after what others think of me.

So, a more informal reconstruction of my itinerary commences. It was hurried as I left. My classes had to be inched up as the weekend previous found me in Rapid City, SD, giving a paper on Sons of Anarchy's Irish themes in its third season. I had to grade papers and presentations coming in online, and I spent more of that Irish Studies conference than I'd bargained for holed up in my room, working. Still, I got to see Mt. Rushmore and Deadwood again in a quiet space, and in very dry air.

Cold at night, but warm by day, so I liked walking around the red brick, very to me Babbitt-1920s era downtown of sprawling South Dakota's western hub. Laid out in a grid, the place felt homey. The Hotel Alex Johnson, visited by seven presidents, is haunted. My room 305, more of a maid's than a guest's room (that conference rate), and the city's presidential statues in bronze (not that bad, I admit) gave me the appropriately frontier feel. Looking for provender near the prairie, the offerings for one who eats neither stag nor steak, bison nor beast, made me dine out on a lot of grilled cheese, again.

That next week, I combined my classes' final presentations in class two nights in a row, and by the hour I was to leave before dawn the following morning for a flight from LAX to Newark, I was weary. The rental car hassle and the snagged turnpikes from there to upstate New York slowed us down. Yet, returning to the place where we've stayed in Upper Red Hook was relaxing. Our son now lives in nearby Tivoli, in a standard sub-standard off-campus house.  But I managed to finish grading in some downtime as we joined Niall's Bard College for its Parents' Weekend. Although he's not a frosh but a junior, I welcomed any chance to see his bucolic campus in splendid autumn. We took him and his girlfriend to Olana, the Frederic Church home that artist of the Hudson Valley built for his views over hundreds of riverside acreage. Its Orientalist touches delighted us, and I proved the very last on the last tour of the season to depart its doors. Although none of the Irish immigrants who worked for the Church family renewed their contracts after their domestic servitude brought them up the river from the city, and although I wondered how they lived and what their rooms were like compared to the sumptuous ones of that privileged, talented artist and his brood, sights were worthwhile; sunset on the sparkling water was memorable. Olana invites hyperbole, and it rewards it.

We also as parents sat in at mini-classes some professors taught at Bard. I opted for Medieval Death as my diss. was on purgatory, and to my surprise the class was full. In an hour, she skillfully moved past a great amount of material on the art and the assumptions of memorializing the departed and instructing the faithful, and I was impressed. I hope Niall as an art history major signs up for that professor's course on altarpieces. I envied those able to study such as what I loved in such depth.

The next course, Layne and I had agreed on; the first hour she was at a Science of Forgetting psychology lecture I figured she'd prefer, and she agreed without dissent. "The Sixties" proved to be not about a broad but narrow topic, the radical theater of Julian Beck and Judith Molina in NYC, but the young instructor kept us alert and she asked the right questions about how enduring (or not) such an attempt to engage and confront the audience remained, decades later. Some in the audience looked like grandparents rather than parents of students, and vaguely (drugs?) recalled seeing plays like that.

We did not participate in the other events, as we'd been there for those before, but Layne lobbied for us all to attend the mini-Disney Hall, also designed by Frank Gehry, to hear the campus president, Leon Botstein, conduct a student orchestra. Like many in the audience, we lasted through Beethoven and the Russian who followed, but at intermission, we bailed, quailing after 90 minutes at least another hour of another Russian. Niall had worked in the parking lot at that Fisher Center last summer as one of his three jobs. He regaled his pals who still patrolled its domain with high-five's.

Speaking of such, town meets gown often. In Tivoli, where Peter Dinklage, Liv Tyler, and other famous people I forgot live at least off-screen, we saw at a church converted into coffeehouse by the woman who owns it appears not only our son's house but half the village, Daniel Mendelson. His name and face may be less familiar to many, sadly. But Layne and I, alerted to this classics professor and New Yorker/NYTRB critic, sidled up shyly to meet him and thank him. He accepted our greeting nicely, and his green eyes (he's exactly my age, but shaven sleekly bald) were both intense and warm, like my cat Gary's, in an intelligent, warm, yet penetrating gaze. It opened up and yet it held back in reserve. I told him that I admired his phrase "do you define yourself by the thing that sets you apart?" and shared it in my own teaching. It came from his memorable essay about Mary Renault, with whom he corresponded as a teen coming to terms with his sexuality on Long Island, just as I too turned an adolescent over near the other coast. His life and mine: so different, yet here we were, for a moment.

I mused on his career, and what he must have learned from so many. I thought of the intellectuals and creative classes, either from money or now having bought into it, and their lifestyle, half-small town Hudson Valley, half-Manhattan. Niall's classmates sometimes came from similar, elegant, backgrounds. They contrasted with his, but there he was too, among also a diverse mix of friends.  

This idyll, frequented by a endless flow of city-dwellers who either weekend up here or flee to here, shows itself in Hudson. A local Halloween parade if the week before passed us as we walked town streets, half gentrified, half slum. Definite class divide. We saw an actress who even I recognized at the pizza place, and she stars typically in a series set in Silverlake, among other such folk, half of whom like her again must "divide their time between" Hollywood adjacent and somewhere in NYC.

Off to NYC ourselves, if only to drop off the rental car, we made it with no fuel to spare, justifying our purchase of a full tank. I think we had according to the dashboard gauge nothing but fumes left.  We had landed at Newark where Layne had to battle the rental car company for a late fee, which after all we did not wind up paying, as we made it within the limit with fifteen minutes to spare. And we sat in a lounge, where I dared a shower, only to find the faucet broken and the shower icy. I made up for it partially by purloining the first of a few tea bags, and by staying beyond our two hour limit.

The flight from Kennedy to Dublin on Aer Lingus fit that perpetually troubled airline, where it's like a giant bus, as our ex-pat friend notes, but the accents do get you in the mood, as well as the mediocre food and crap t.v. There are invariably about three films I see in a theater each year, and when I fly, they all seem to be the options for viewing, along with a bloated Pixar 3-D kids extravaganza, or a Disney tween franchise. I had to settle for Ant-Man, which like too many films of its ilk played into the franchise and tie-ins to other superheroes, so that it lacked much if any clout. I could barely care.

One stewardess about my age, blonde dye job, sported a giant black eye. Another, who served us herded into coach, was kind. She gave us extra rolls and trifle after our vegetarian meals were never prepared--a situation that would repeat on another, far longer, flight, on our return. No extras then.

I never sleep on an airline, but for the first time it was not an 11-hour flight to Dublin but one half that. A sign of a reviving economy may be the restoration of non-stops from LAX, but I don't see myself going back soon to the motherland, although still, parts remain that I have not yet traveled.

Same for this trip, however, so we wound up landing in Dublin and for the first time I saw the airport not as the "black hole" of the past, but disembarked into a sleek new facility for international flights. Off in the rental, and an affable and informative tutorial on directions from the Dan Dooley driver, and after a shaky start by a weary Layne, we made it to Drogheda, a few hundred yards directly away from our friends' house, even if we had to go a long way about it, in the back of a tract home in a separate, clean, tidy B+B set up. So, it was a snap to drive over to see our friends. For reasons of security, as the North is never far away, I will not name them but I assure you our visit went well.

Their son and daughter are blooming, one with the teenage bookishness and hidden changes of her age, the other with a love of not his father's Liverpool FC but the rival Man U., and gaming to boot. They share their parents' intellectual range and sharp wit (I read in some travel guide over there how the Irish "have a typically dark sense of humour") and our time out with them was a hit. Even if we all discussed the flaws of the movie we saw, Crimson Peak, over dinner, we liked our camaraderie. Knowing them and their mother even before she met their father, I can attest to their warmth, and their bold passion for justice, qualities I am sure are passed along to their Irish-speaking children.

No visit to that old city on the Boyne is complete without the sight of St. Oliver Plunkett's mummified head in the cathedral, and the commemoration of the massacre that that city endured at the hands of Cromwell's army. The streets were bustling, some shops alive, and the sounds of varied accents attested to a changing Ireland. One in six Irish have left seeking better work elsewhere, while one in five residents is from another country, usually not England, these warping, globalized decades. What a new Ireland will look like can be seen in its children, and their variety increasingly resembles that across the North, not of Ireland this time but of the world, as immigrants keep moving up.

Our hostess missed her native O.C., and was delighted by the arrival of Starbucks. We shopped in a small mall, indoors wisely given the weather on the Irish Sea nearby, but the hilly sidewalks of the older shops were also filled with locals. although quite a few storefronts were closed or derelict. Our host, despite or because he was an erudite atheist, figured politics were useless compared to helping the poor himself. So he volunteered at the local St. Vincent de Paul. On short notice, I was recruited to drive him, for the "Vincent Men" as once they were called go in pairs for security and morality, to the flat of a woman who was in need of care. Many fall between the State and charity, and need a helping hand. Drogheda is coming back slowly, but despite elegant restaurants and a boutique hotel. it's clear that many on its quaint city center streets need more than those who frequent its charm.

That made me wonder again how so many of the Poles, Nigerians, and Chinese were making a living. That shift is very evident, as I've probably lost count of the times I've seen Ireland. A dozen over the past three dozen years, the first glimpse that same summer I came of age? The fate of the language I struggle with to learn as an adult, and that in which the children of our hosts are educated within, concern me greatly, but I do hope that whatever their origin, the new generation likes learning Irish.

Our last glimpse of Drogheda was dropping off our host to buy a new washer, as we feared our added demands on it with dirty laundry had done it in. The big-box stores might have different logos, but the look and feel was no different than where his wife had grown up not far from where I now teach.

We then left our friends to visit other friends, as we moved into the past at Newgrange in the meanwhile. I drove in/from Drogheda on, so I got the hang of the roundabouts, as they give you no choice. Two days before Samhain, the tour was full, and I wondered if that conjunction played its part. Around us, we heard French and Italian, and I suppose it's always popular to see this ancient site. We could see the little mound from the museum the other side of the Boyne's bank, far off as the moon rose. While I'd been beguiled into expecting a full-size replica of the site in the "interpretive centre," all I got was a mini-mock-up of the passage. Still, I learned from the exhibits, and I was intrigued by the possibility that its pre-Celtic spiral makers might have entered altered states of mind.

The museum was informative although the staff was cranky. I found the centre's charted estimate sobering in its details that revealed nobody exhumed lasted past the age of fifty. But their bodies might be left as those of Tibetans or Parsees, atop a structure, returned to the sky as bird-feed, before the bones that give us evidence of my ancestors' lifespan were buried for us to find 5000 years later.

Eric Cross' "The Tailor and Ansty": Book Review

While Eamon de Valera famously judged |"in its general tendency" this 1941 account as ''indecent," years later, the tone of these stories as told by the titular couple from Muskerry in West Cork feels quaint, conveyed from these believers in the fair folk. I found Eric Cross's editorial voice slightly patronizing, as if he was guiding us to a pair of animatronic figures programmed to speak on command their scripted recital. Still, the content, if you can handle the now-antiquated air of the tales told by Tom Buckley and his wife, Anastasia (Ansty).

In Gougane Barra, the earthy life is recounted, whether of people or of animals. Thus Dev's squeamishness. Ansty plays the more curdled to the less ruffled Tailor her partner. Originally published in the well-known The Bell, as fellow Corkman Frank O'Connor reminisces in his 1964 introduction, this take on the imagined and idealized benefits of rural Irish life resulted in the couple being boycotted while Cross' book was debated and denounced by many in the Irish government.

O'Connor also reminds us that the Tailor had a wider range in his native Irish of expression, and that the English is narrower, if still indicative second-hand of his wide-ranging mind and temperament. I'd say it's livelier for readers now than Peig Sayers' tales of woe, halfway to those parodied by Flann O'Brian in his The Poor Mouth, translated from his own Irish, sending-up such rustic ruminations and raw exaggerations. Classified as a biography "as told to," it stirs up blurred fact and lots of fiction.
(Amazon US 11-4-15)

Máirtín Ó Cadhain's "The Dirty Dust": Book Review

The most important prose work in Modern Irish, Máirtín Ó Cadhain's Cré na Cille has never before been published in English. This 1949 novel, as Alan Titley introduces his blunt, bold rendering into our language, carries the flow of chatter "you might hear outside a door when everyone inside is tearing themselves apart; or in a country churchyard in the light of day". The title resists easy equivalence, although "churchyard clay" has long served as as its English echo for critics. Titley, a skilled writer and critic in Irish, prefers the biblical resonance of ashes and soil, for this narrative takes place entirely in a Connemara cemetery, as its interred bicker and boast among themselves.

It was inspired by a report in the author's native West of Ireland where a woman was buried inadvertently atop her rival one day too rainy for the gravediggers to bother with niceties. An onlooker mourned: "Oh holy cow, there's going to be one almighty gabble!" Ó Cadhain set his novel, akin to what Titley calls switching channels between various conversations on a radio, in townlands he knew well in County Galway, near the Atlantic shore among its Irish-speaking community. Then, that language was still connected to those in the nineteenth century who had spoken no other. The author did not hear English until the age of six. Rich in imagery, curt in tone, this dialect of Irish can be difficult for those who encounter it today. Titley prefers a conversational, casual tide of chat, cursing, and reverie to wash over Ó Cadhain's characters. This eases the reader's challenge. The author plunges us immediately into a fictional tale told in dialogue and interruption.

Yet, even if Caítríona Paudeen's new arrival among the dead makes her by default the protagonist, the buried characters surrounding her six feet under crowd her out. Many of her neighbors resent her airs. It is best to let this rattling narrative roll on, rather than resist its banter or weary of its nagging. As a downed French pilot now and then complains in his own native tongue (untranslated): these scolds bore him. He had hoped to find peace in death, but the tomb seems not to be dead at all. Rather, the foreigner, struggling to figure out the meaning of the babble around him, finds it betrays the same old ennui. Sympathizing with his plight, I found myself drifting along as the voices resounded and receded. It's not hard to give way to them as background noise rather than scintillating exchanges.

The liveliest portions open most chapters. The "Trumpet of the Graveyard" summons souls to a reckoning. Ó Cadhain contrasts the joys of the living with the dread of the dead. He also here evokes the intricacy of Irish-language verse by departed bards: "But the flakes of foam on the fringe of a surge of a stream are slurping in towards the shallows of the river where they slobber on the rough sand." The alliteration and end-rhyme give way as they ebb into brutal phrases, and a sudden stop.

Meanwhile, without fresh news to filter into the soil, insults and laments repeat. No effort at organization lasts long; a Rotary Club, an election, a cultural society all flounder. Jonathan Swift's prediction of "a road on every track and English in every shack" threatens the isolation of the village. Its cadaverous inhabitants debate a medieval prophecy attributed to St. Colmcille about the signs of the world's end. This sense of doom deepens in the novel's vague duration during the middle of the Second World War. The corpses debate, as did their real-life counterparts, the comparative merits of the Germans and the British as allies for officially neutral Ireland. The Antichrist's return is rumored.

The talking dead are uncertain if D-Day has occurred. Only with the internment of the newest arrival, Billy the Postman, do the rest learn that none of their graveside crosses are made of Connemara marble. The dead had asserted this, each trying to put down the others, so as to boost their own status. That incident concludes this novel. Its recurring themes of discontent and rivalry dominate whatever  moments of tenderness and solidarity remain after village life has given way to common death. In this sobering depiction of a determined counter to the stereotypes of Irish rural relationships, native son Maírtín Ó Cadhain in his native language sought to correct myth with truth. As ably translated by Alan Titley, the results recall Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Martin McDonagh's play, both of which feature this same milieu, as they include too the telling phrase of "a skull in Connemara".
(PopMatters 2-24-15; Amazon US 3-12-15)

Péig Sayers' "Péig": Book Review

While this well-known account has sat on my shelf for decades, I read this only after staying in the author's native village of Dun Chaoin (Dunquin) in the West Kerry/Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht. Its prescribed reading for generations of schoolchildren subjected to compulsory Irish has weakened its reputation. I noted when travelling around the Dingle area and her 1873 birthplace that nothing I could see revealed Péig Sayers' presence, although my stay there was too brief, and half at night, to allow me to investigate further. Her book and that of her son are still in print and in local shops, and surely the study of the Blaskets accounts for the bulk of local commemoration, or the scholarship given to her memoir and those of her fellow islanders.

What surprised me was how much of her autobiography took place in her youth, not only in Dun Chaoin but in her Irish-speaking schooldays in the family's new residence An Ceann Trá (Ventry) nearer to Dingle, where she went to work for a household while in her teens. Most of this book are stories, naturally, told by her, with frequent invocations to the holy presences that once filled many an Irish person's mind and mouth, whether they knew the Irish or had given over to the English tongue.

After marriage takes her across the strait to the Blasket Island home where she raises a family, the years compress. The last third or so of the narrative, as with many a teller's life, is more weighted down by sorrow and lament. The frequency of these woes has led to Flann O'Brian's parody translated as The Poor Mouth by Myles na gCopaleen, to the detriment of this original inspiration. 

These tales, a century later, are frankly not that arresting. Bryan MacMahon's translation came too late for many a cribbing child's lessons, but it conveys the air of the Irish for we English-speaking readers. This may or may not be a strength for today's audiences, but the value of this historical record remains. It's not the most gripping account, but visitors to these shores today may give it a go.
(Amazon US 11-4-15)

Léim na tSagart

Thiomaint muidsa go Cill na Líos in aice leis An Muinchille go dtí an ionad eile ag imeall ansin. Thaisceadh linn ansin i gContae Monaghan leis ár chairde Tony agus Sinéad i Líos an Fidléir in aice leis An Carraig Mhachaire Róis ar fheadh an Féile Shamhna. A thóg siad duinn a fheiceaíl Inis Caoin leis an uaigh na Pádraic Ó Caomhánach, agus Chairlinn. Thar a teach an oíche sin, chonaic muid le chéile an geall leathach thar an cheo thar an réimhse

Labhair muid go lán, ach ar maidín dar gcíonn, chaith muid ag dul go hÁth Dara i Luimhneach. Chonaic muid an coill níos alainn i gCill Mhainaim ag imeall An Ceannanas. Tá fómhar fós anseo.

Bhuail muid chugainn ár chairde Brídín agus Seán go a n-teach tábhairne cairdiúl in Áth Dara. D'fhan muid i n-óstán béal dorais freisin. Ansin, chuaigh muid go Dún Chaoin i gCorca Dhuibhne.

Chuala mé na duine áitiúlaí ag ra as Gaeilge ina siopa i gCeann Tra. Bhi athas orm. Mar sin, labhairt mé cúpla focail ag an siopadóir. Dá bhrí sin, tá mé ag úsáidtear 'an teanga beo' sna trí Gaeltachtaí beagán.

Thiomaint muid go An Mórchuaird Chiarraí riamh. Gan amhras, bhí sé déas, ach is maith liom is fearr an bóthar is scannrúil triu an GPS. D'inis sin duinn ag dul an bealach taobh, Léim na tSagart. 

Tá sé anseo. Tú ábalta foghlaim faoi le Victoria Glendenning agus Gerard Lyne. Aimseagh athbreithnithe níos le lucht síuíl scanraithe!

Anois, bím i nArd Ó bhFicheallaigh in aice leis Cloich na Coillte. Amárach, beidh muid ag dul triu an cathair na gCorcaigh go dtí mBaile Ätha Cliath ar ais. Agus seo chugainn, feicfeimid an Iodail go luath.

Priest's Leap

We drove from Killyliss near Cootehill to another location near then. We stayed then in Co Monaghan with our friends Tony and Sinéad in Lisnafedeely near Carrickmacross during the feast of Samhain. They took us to see Inniskean with the grave of Patrick Kavanagh, and Carlingford. At their house that night, together we saw the half moon over their house, above the advancing mist in the fields. 

We spoke a lot, but that next morning, we had to go to Adare in Limerick. We saw a very lovely wood in Kilmainham around Kells. It is still autumn here. 

We met next our friends Bridie and Sean at their friendly pub in Adare. We stayed at their hotel next door too. Then, we went to Dunquin in West Kerry. 

I heard the local people talking in Irish in the shop in Ventry. I was happy. So, I spoke 'a bit of Irish' to the shopkeeper. Therefore, I've used 'the living language' in all three Irish-speaking regions now.

We drove the Ring of Kerry after. Sure, it is pretty, but I liked more the terrifying road via GPS. That told us to go a side road, Priest's Leap. 

Here it is. You can learn about it from Victoria Glendenning and Gerard Lyne. See more reviews  from terrified travellers !

Now, I'm in Ardfield near Clonakilty. Tomorrow, we will be going through the city of Cork to Dublin again. And then, we will see Italy soon. (Photo/grianghraf)

Peter Somerville-Large's "Irish Voices": Book Review

This prolific chronicler's Anglo-Irish background offers a welcome vantage point from which to look back on the half-century (and more!) from the 1916 Rising. Although its subtitle makes this seem as if it ends in 1966, it looks at the cultural changes weakening the Catholic church and the social mores that for long kept many Irish men and women within the sectarian and political divisions that the Free State, Republic of Ireland, and the Northern Ireland province as bywords and manifestations for division, strife, and bitter memories lived out for millions who remained, or left, the fraught island.

Peter Somerville-Large integrates engagingly many first-person accounts into his own prose. As a veteran journalist and historian, he can blend the varied and contending testimonies of hundreds of his fellow countrymen and women (as well as visitors with their romantic or barbed reflections) into a thematic sequence of chapters. These are loosely chronological, taking you from the failure of De Valera and his rebels to their qualified, partial, and ambiguous "success" in leading the 26 Counties.

Somerville-Large, however, looks to Loyalists, dissenters, and Republicans alike, and he mixes his own aloof (by his own estimation) approach towards this small place whose allegiances loom large. He sympathizes with those who have suffered under clerical and political and economic power; while from a place of privilege himself, as somewhat of an outsider despite that advantage, in at least the post-1922 state, he offers a comprehensive panorama by a social history for the general public that is far more readable and enjoyable than a casual reader may expect. Inevitably, one may differ with some of his tone or leanings, but that too may be predictable when investigating this locale, so full of contention, controversy, and best of all despite all the ups and downs, conversation, as constant craic.
(Amazon US 11-4-15)

Mark Cunningham: "Horslips: Tall Tales": Book Review

At last, musicians played traditional tunes in a lively, innovative way that made an Irish boy feel "proud" rather than "pathetic". So Maurice Linnane recalls when he heard Horslips as a boy on the radio, in this large-format biography of this pioneering 1970s Celtic rock band. Mark Cunningham, himself a musician and producer, integrates reminiscences from each of the five members, along with archival material from photos and media. This handsome design intersperses thoughtful analyses and entertaining stories into editorial commentary on gigs, albums, critical reception, and career moves. 

Having grown up with Beatlemania, as well as an eclectic exposure to Irish music and culture, four of the five musicians first met in 1970 to mime a "suitably hairy" band for a Harp commercial. Three of them worked in advertising and promotion; the real band they then formed was determined to remain in Ireland and to retain control of not only its music but marketing and presentation. Bassist Barry Devlin defines this "funky ceilidhe" approach to "deconstruct tunes and use them as the basis for new material"; Violinist, guitarist, and concertina player Charles O'Connor agrees that the band would "transfer melodies" from traditional sources. By the end of 1971, they electrified dancehalls in more ways than one. Appealing to the emerging glam rock movement, they dressed in leather, snakeskin, and even curtains from Clery's. Suitably, they also blended a bold visual look with fresh sounds.

Horslips may have confessed no "cultural responsibility to incorporate the traditional context; it just evolved" as keyboardist, piper, and flautist Jim Lockhart avers. But it captured attention soon, as the band knew not only how to work the media but to work themselves in an intelligent, disciplined fashion. By 1972, their self-released debut, Happy to Meet, Sorry to Part made them Ireland's first home-grown rock success. Follow-up The Táin mingled Yeats' treatment of Cú Chulainn with Old Irish sources, bypassing Thomas Kinsella's translation as "too recent" for lyricist and percussionist Éamon Carr. These "indigenous" inspirations mingled with superheroes and Marvel Comics for Carr, a poet who also began to sprinkle into songs his verse patterns filtering both the Beats and Basho.

Turlough O'Carolan's life story flowed into their third album, Dancehall Sweethearts, but that and its overproduced, more mainstream if lackluster follow-up loosened the intricate fit of rock with folk which had made their first pair of LPs critically and popularly successful. An acoustic Christmas-themed album mid-decade revived their spirit, enthusiastic reception on tours at home and overseas increased, and by 1976, their arguably most consistent and most powerful record emerged. A teenaged guitarist, soon to be known as The Edge, attended his first rock concert at Skerries. He was so impressed by Horslips that he resolved to join classmates who became U2. A triple-movement "Celtic symphony", the Book of Invasions managed to slip a stanza stolen from Swinburne and what Carr calls a "Bowie-esque whiff of alienation" into a confident examination of origin myths.

The Famine and immigration continued as themes in Exiles (1977) and The Man Who Built America (1978). The latter used Mici Mac Gabhann's memoir Rotha Mór an tSaoil to ground its narrative. Reflecting this novel mix of Irish heritage and American reinvention, Devlin and O'Connor appear to have sought a polished, slick  musical delivery, in an era when arena rock and punk competed for loyalty among fans split over the merits of progressive rock's concept albums and mythic lore. The other three musicians preferred to ground a "stadium rock sheen," as guitarist Johnny Fean puts it, within a firm foundation balancing an accessible radio-friendly sound with their obvious strength, as shown best in Táin and Book, of a carefully constructed interplay of Irish narrative and trad tunes.

Devlin reminds readers of the band's lucky inheritance. They grew up exposed to both rock and Irish music, and they learned as they grew older from traditional players. Unlike their English peers, Horslips had no need to create a song-cycle about elves: "We're pinching from a culture that's alive."

Cunningham's book understandably relies on storytellers who regale us with life on the road as well as in the studio. While cultural examination is unsurprisingly understated compared to tall tales (with their Irish license plates and accents, they get mistaken for subversives in a jittery Troubles-era London and Wales, as well as for the Baader-Meinhof Gang in Germany), a reader nonetheless gains some sense of how Irish identity infused their music and lyrics, and their concerted effort to retain an image that would appeal to all in their divided homeland as well as far afield, during a tumultuous era. One senses that, as Devlin produced some of U2's early demos, those four Dubliners learned some crucial lessons about a similar ambition to stand for an island which united disparate factions.

This underlying legacy endures. Despite the band's weariness by their last studio album 1979 to reconcile its image as "conceptual rockers" into a "post-punk landscape" U2 would capitalise upon, their live act ensured their enthusiastic reception past their breakup in 1980. Cunningham documents the subsequent careers of the five men in a variety of the fine arts, their legal battle over reclaiming rights to their songs, the remasters and reissues of their twelve albums, museum exhibitions on their Irish impact, and their eventual reunions from 2009 on.

A couple of slips show: a transcription has Devlin remarking on an "alter" boy and elsewhere crediting the short story "The Trusting and the Maimed" to "Flannery O'Brien" rather than O'Connor, which nonetheless might have made Myles na gCopaleen chortle. But overall, research results in a welcome survey of the band's Irish impact. A thorough discography is appended; supplemental sources are listed (including my Estudios Irlandeses 3 [2008]: 132-142 article). The band's genial discussion, enriched by those who join them here, creates an enduring appeal. This recommends Tall Tales: The Official Biography to those who will be quite happy to meet them, and surely sorry to part.
[Estudios Irlandeses 10 (2015): 160-161] (Also on Amazon US 3-15-15)

Gerard Cappa's "Black Boat Dancing": Book Review

Con Maknazpy is an odd name, one that was explained in the intricately plotted 2012 debut of his character, "Blood from a Shadow." That anticipated Obama's re-election, full of Iranian intrigue and the current situation that continues to reveal Western (and here, Eastern) superpowers battling over control of "Pipelineistan" and where oil from not only the Middle East but Eurasia will wind up. Gerard Cappa continues the mix of subtle allusion, rapidly paced violent set-pieces, and character reflection, for Con encounters from the earliest pages the "red frenzy" inherited, and perhaps passed on, from Irish ancestors, and in turn, the Ulster Cycle and Cú Chullain's "warp spasms."

Cappa handles these references lightly, such that you may not realize the preparation he gives in both tales to their literary and mythic resonance. Here, I reckoned the plot might be calmer than the frenetic and wide-ranging mayhem of the first installment. However, very soon, we leave the Yonkers of the narrator, as he is recruited and sent off off to Lisbon, where this story takes Con and his friend Ferdy McIlhane into an international conspiracy, one that again draws in current geopolitics, along with immigrants, CIA, Russian no-good-niks, Chinese eager for cash, police from all over, an old fisherman, a whore with if not a heart of gold than a familiar tale of pain and compliance, and black hat (well, maybe gray for one key talent who is trapped in this global, sticky, darknet web) hacking.

Cora Oneale (Cappa's spelling), Jack Gallogly, and, off stage for their own reasons, Rose and Con's son return. No plot spoilers but we find Lisbon evoked lovingly, and Sintra memorably. The chapters move along efficiently, with space for reflection and self-hatred galore, before another bloody sequence sets up another chance for Con to spread the "red frenzy" all over whomever opposes him. And that number of foes adds up over the course of this noir thriller. It's not my usual genre, I confess, so my reaction may not be that of readers who subsist on this fare, but I do like the conversations his characters engage in about politics, capitalism, greed, and history, even if as one remarks (perhaps speaking for readers?) that he tires of this blather (another word is used instead).

"An outlier. Pain and isolation for him. Extreme and random. A life of heartbreak and loss for anyone who had ever loved him." Con considers his father's legacy as he tries to prevent from passing it on. "The underworld never changes." He reflects on the same old temptations that sustain sins and crime. His nemesis opines how a "propensity to exacerbate collateral damage comes wrapped up" in Con's "collective baggage." He contends against how he causes such damage, as "their awareness of the real presence of my evil seeped through their numbed heads, my own brain retreated into self-defense mode, as if the real Con Maknazpy couldn't exist or function without this ancient imposer usurped my skin." He finds "China is a civilization, America is a business," at least from one informed p-o-v.

Against that, he tries to rally the patriotic defense. While Con has some trans-Atlantic connection, and while his military service may tip the word choice to measure in meters a distance, I am not sure a Yonkers man would say "shopping trolleys" rather than "carts," or "holiday" instead of "vacation," and whether an American would identify an overheard language spoken as "Latino" rather than "Spanish or Portuguese," but these are slight slips in a fast tale that conveys a lot of plot twists. I like the breaks from the action more than the action, often, but Cappa seems at his best when he is in the thick of the brawl, and in cinematic style, you see the scenes vividly. The author's in his element here and compared to volume one, his focus on place helps plot coherence, even if it remains as complex. This may prove a transitional story in what I surmise will be a longer series, as Con labors to evolve.

A couple of crucial characters, as more than one enemy of Con reminds him, don't enter his thoughts or at least his words. Their absence from the plot, except as motivation, provides a curious tilt. While I assume this is very intentional, and portends more novels in the series, it left me feeling left out as to this emotional ballast, even if it goads Con on. There may be references hidden here to older stories, perhaps. Cappa certainly embedded many in his earlier novel that introduced us all to Con.

From this Belfast-based writer, "all mouth and no trousers" is a nice turn of phrase no matter its origin; such sentences (others I cannot repeat lest I bowdlerize) as "The bar was silent, like they were all straining to hear the drama on a misfiring radio" recall quaintly the pulp fiction idiom. "When the devils burn out you'll find your true spirit," Con is told by one who knows. I predict that future adventures, for after all, he tells this one to us, will find Con eager to spit in the face of other devils. (Amazon US 1-5-15)

Maeve Binchy's "Maeve's Times": Book Review

Maeve Binchy's many novels have gained her a wide readership in and beyond Ireland. A teacher turned writer, she wrote more prolifically than many Irish storytellers; she produced bestsellers. The U.S. book jacket for this anthology of her Irish Times columns over five decades sketches her perspective as imagined by at least some of her readers abroad: pastel colors, a cat, a cup of tea, a neatly stacked newspaper, pen and notebook, all in an orderly room overlooking an idealized (no logos, no litter, no graffiti, no rain, no cars at all) market town's high street. But the reality, as this journalism (collected by Róisín Ingle, introduced by her husband, Gordon Snell) documents, reveals Binchy's sharp ear. She conveyed clearly the inner troubles hidden and then confessed or betrayed by everyday people living behind those sunny town facades. Her eye, in turn, focuses upon the contradictions between outward propriety and intimate shame, as many of those, mostly women like herself, whom she interviews or dramatizes betray their increasingly tense frustrations with their homeland's pious submission to Church, State, and Da. 

As she explains, she writes as she speaks. In her steady prose, without fuss or fancy, I hear her peer, my own Irish mother, on the page, for both express themselves candidly. Women born as they were seventy-odd years ago in Ireland faced barriers against advancement; Binchy speaks for those who broke free of the Irish stranglehold. She began as feminism roused many, starting her stint after she returned from a kibbutz (where she lapsed from her faith), as Women's Editor for the Times in 1968.

Her entries begin with pleasant but often lightweight wit. But a few years in, she creates three vignettes titled "Women Are Fools". Each tells, as her fiction might, the tale of someone who sins. But to the women themselves, each may feel, as filtered through Binchy's sympathetic portrayal, that perhaps they are not sinners but merely flawed, not to be cast aside by the Church or abandoned in a State where divorce and contraception continued to be outlawed. An unwanted child, promiscuity, infidelity, and marital breakdown are treated without sentiment, but with insight and understanding.

She continued to analyze her homeland with the same concern for the telling detail to make her point. Although she spent much of the 1970s as the London editor for the newspaper, she returned frequently. This slight distance combined with familiarity enlivened her observations, such as of a seaside resort. "Out in Killiney I saw people walking Afghan hounds which, I feel, must be a sign of prosperity, but I am assured that's it's just the same person with the same hound that I keep seeing."

In Britain, she found contrasts. "Here the parks are filled with children, in London they are filled with the old. In Dublin you hold a supermarket door open for a mother with a pram, in London for an elderly couple with a basket on wheels." She balances her sentences neatly, and she narrates briskly. 

Her range may surprise those expecting only domestic drama or casual comments. In 1980, she meets Samuel Beckett, who by 74 still looks 54, if by then more like a Frenchman than an Irishman to her. "He has spikey hair which looks as if he had just washed it or had made an unsuccessful attempt to do a Brylcreem job on it and given up halfway through. He has long narrow fingers, and the lines around his eyes go out in a fan, from years of smiling rather than years of intense brooding." So begins her encounter, and she shares her respect and camaraderie for the playwright, examining him carefully. 

She does the same for Margaret Thatcher, fifteen years her senior, under whose administration she lived in Britain for many years. In 1986, Binchy ponders Thatcher's bid for a third term as Prime Minister. "When people praise Thatcher, and many, many do every day, they praise her not at all for anything to do with being a woman. And perhaps that is her greatest achievement. She has almost single-handedly banished the notion that it is somehow unusual or special for a woman to be able to do anything. For that, if nothing else, women in the future may thank her." This statement deploys Binchy's command of tone and control over her style masterfully, and proves her journalistic skill. 

Yet not all is somber. Being Irish, she can spin a lively tale. In an "provincial town", a man sets up his office for the day in a hotel, in the ladies' cloakroom. He has no idea where he has settled down. When Binchy tells him, we see his reaction. "He stood up like a man who had been shot in the back in a film and was about to stagger all about the set before collapsing. 'I don't believe you,' he said." 

Many who mourned her death in 2012 praised Binchy's generosity towards other writers as well as ordinary folks. Her good-natured voice, as revealed in Maeve's Times: In Her Own Words, does not shirk criticism, but manages--as the Thatcher profile demonstrates--to challenge prejudice or piety on behalf of those who have been shut out or held down. She does this without scolding or posturing, although a 1992 entry welcoming the return of dullness after Thatcher's delayed exit is more bitter. 

Some of this goes on too long. Sitting next to a garrulous teller, no matter how fluent, a listener needs a break. So with a reader. These essays may be better sampled as they originally appeared, one at a time. I would find them in The Irish Times, where I wondered how she managed to produce so many novels, stories, and articles with seeming ease. She does not tell us here the pace or the cost, but she seems to have lived happily and delighted in her career. Certain Irish authors relegated to a small press backlist or a poetry seminar's syllabus may envy her promotion through Oprah's Book Club. 

Trained as an historian, from a well-educated suburban Dublin family, Binchy found success apart from academia, and she spoke to those who saw in her writing a concern for dignity and decency. She calls out her countrymen and women for stereotyped fecklessness, and she holds them accountable. 

Avoiding euphemism while remaining polite, she encourages her readers to confront death without cant, and to support those whose weakness or failures have led them to be too harshly condemned. Abortion, heartbreak, aging, and even a tacit case of murder "before I knew that people called things by different names" occur. By the 1990s, Binchy witnesses a much-changed Ireland, one which her generation had waited for. Traffic clogs Dublin, while coffee brews everywhere. But Binchy, who has "taken charge of her life" ever since she quit teaching and began writing, enjoys holidays and counsels readers who share her "senior moments". Her energy subsides, naturally, by the 2000s. Her novels are made into films, her portrait is made for the National Gallery of Ireland, and she lists ten things never to say to someone with arthritis as one of her final submissions. One of her last entries borrows a phrase from another creative spirit in his autumnal years, Woody Allen: "I'm so mellow I'm almost rotten." While the range of her earlier entries narrows by the conclusion of this anthology, no one can chide Maeve Binchy for showing her readers how to cherish all one can from a peaceful life. (Pop Matters 11-7-14)

"National Geographic Traveller: Ireland": Book Review

 As the blurb informs, some of the value of this guidebook comes from the lovely illustrations. While Glendalough may be expected, the inclusion of Dublin's eerie Kilmainham Gaol and of the Ulster-American Folk Park near Omagh surprised me, and the flora of the Burren graces its double-page spread. For the content, this reminds me of the Lonely Planet's Discover series. That is, cutting down to the essentials for a smart traveler interested in both the usual sights and local recommendations.

There is a reflective if realistic tone to the writing, and this honesty is commendable. It does not traffic in stereotypes about Ireland. It strives to give a depiction of the island nation's progress.

It does, however, stress the cultural elements. There are a few accommodation, shopping, and restaurant suggestions around the whole island appended, but this coverage is much less than other guides, and pitched at a higher budget than, say Rough Guide. The text while informative is quite brief for the sights suggested, and this is more of a sampler than a compendium as to what Ireland offers. As a National Geographic edition might be expected to deliver, this emphasizes more the sights than practicalities.

There are a few "off the beaten path" recommendations in larger colored type in the copy, but as a whole, I wish that the font was a bit smaller and the content more in-depth. It looks nice on the page and may be designed with a mobile app or e-book in mind, on the other hand. Like the magazine, attention to graphics and photography is a feature many may appreciate, if at the reduction of some details.

I would therefore recommend this to plan, but taking it along might not be as essential, if space is premium, compared to a thicker but also more detailed guidebook. It's rather pricy compared to the competition. So, while as a lifetime lover of the magazine I admire this foray into advice, it may serve the shelf after one has consulted it for itineraries, more than the suitcase on the go.

(Amazon US 12-22-14)

"Flann O'Brien & Modernism": Book Review

The Irish writer born as Brian Ó Nualláin and best known under one of his many assumed names as Flann O'Brien has long been championed as a harbinger of post-modernism. Literary scholars scrutinized his life as a Dublin newspaperman and his relatively few fictional publications as proof of his eccentric genius, if as a talent overshadowed by a predecessor he both cultivated and resented, James Joyce. Their conventional wisdom lamented Brian O'Nolan the journalist/ O'Brien the fabulist as succumbing to ennui, drink, and hackwork, squandering subversive skills premiered in the novels At Swim-Two-Birds and The Third Policeman at the end of the 1930s. His modernist credentials, by contrast, have often been diminished.

So claim the fourteen participants from a University of New South Wales seminar commemorating the 2011 centenary of O'Brien's birth. Choosing not to focus on his life as Brian O'Nolan but on his works under many names, usually that of Flann O'Brien, professors expand their papers into academic essays. As with Maebh Long's "Assembling Flann O'Brien" (reviewed by me as "Making Sense of Nonsense", 14 April 2014) from the same publisher earlier this year, a reader may wonder what the author, who so gleefully and bitterly lampooned scholarship, would make of so many studious, posthumous tributes.

As co-editor Rónán McDonald explains, Brian O'Nolan's works elude genre conventions. O'Nolan's refusal to stay pinned down transcends his career as a civil servant in Dublin during the middle of the last century. His occupation impelled his taking on other names to disguise his mockery of the Irish government, its bureaucracy, and their mission to make the Irish language one that English-speaking natives would be compelled to learn. Furthermore, O'Brien, who as Myles na gCopaleen also penned witty columns for the Irish Times, ridiculed his nation's clerical and lay authorities, the humbugs and scolds around him, and the dull "Plain People of Ireland". He refined this raw material by savage wit.

McDonald introduces his essay on The Third Policeman's nihilism by summing him up: "His views and attitudes are shrouded in irony, ambiguity, linguistic play, ingenious obfuscation. There is abundant satire in his novels, as in his journalism, though the po-faced scholasticism of Flann contrasts with the populist posture of Myles. He lampoons patriotic Gaels in An Béal Bocht, the mythologies of the Irish Revival in At Swim-Two-Birds, finicky academicians in The Third Policeman." He loved to put down pretentiousness but he shied away from confrontation. Flann was more bold than Myles; his various personae masked his eccentricities even as they encouraged them.

Certainly, as contributors emphasize, O'Brien's disguises allowed him to sidle into arcane and odd controversies which he incorporated into his experimental fiction. Sean Pryor examines the influence of St. Augustine, and how good needs evil so God's creations can appreciate better their happy times; John Attridge compliments this approach with a study of O'Brien's use of Augustine of Hippo. He is a central character as is James Joyce, both in altered form, in O'Brien's last novel, The Dalkey Archive, published two years before O'Nolan's death in 1966. Augustinian notions of "sociable lies" reveal a slippery quality, in ethics as well as characterization, which warps scholastic satire into twisted plots.

Instability inspires the next three essays. Stefan Solomon investigates the relative failure of O'Brien's theatrical efforts to convey what in At Swim-Two-Birds succeeded as a subversive revolt of its tetchy characters against their scheming author. Solomon and Stephen Abbitt, regarding Flann's tribute to and travesty of James Joyce, agree that O'Brien emerges as a "reluctant modernist", contrary to most academic predecessors who have preferred to situate him among post-modernist literary pioneers.

However, as David Kelly insists, O'Nolan's many guises shared an "innate faculty for finding things funny", anticipating the post-modernist, mid-twentieth century "literature of exhaustion". Flann's repetition of his material attests to his living late enough to deal with the trauma of the past century in a more detached, obsessive, and playful manner. After all, he did not have to relive the difficulties of the early century, Kelly avers. In his ludicrous and bizarre creations, Flann is instead a harbinger of his century's "generational shift" away from recreating torment. Instead, post-modernist authors tend to mock, invert, and tease the pain of isolation and the power of obsession, through parody or irony.

These selections examine certain works from O'Nolan's varieties of names and works, but they bypass many others. The three novels cited above by McDonald garner most attention, but The Hard Life: An Exegesis of Squalor (1961), considered his weakest novel, gets two asides. As with Myles' prolific newspaper columns, under-examined here, a study of the strained attempts at satire in O'Nolan's later career, writing as Flann, might have balanced the general acclaim granted by contributors to his successful works. One needs to know where and how O'Nolan lost the plot.

The next set of entries roam into the linguistic methods employed by Flann O'Brien. Maebh Long  repeats some material from her recent book. She focuses here upon An Béal Bocht, to show how Flann's use of the Irish language addresses, or subverts, vexing preoccupations of naming and identity among conflicting Irish-speaking cohorts. Long compares Patrick Powers' 1973 translation as The Poor Mouth of this novel, by Myles na gCopaleen; her essay ends a bit eccentrically, if fittingly for this material, which evades cohesion even for the Irish-fluent reader, undoubtedly as its intention.

A peer of O'Nolan's, the poet Patrick Kavanagh, also jeered at the Irish government's propaganda about the doughty Gaelic peasant. Joseph Brooker compares Kavanagh's approach with O'Brien's.   Kavanagh and O'Brien's predecessors, Samuel Beckett and Joyce, connect via O'Nolan's marginalia in his copies of their works, as Dirk Van Hulle explains. These authors share an interest in parallax, "Chinese boxes" as nested narratives, and regression in theme and structure in their literary creations.

Regression and mathematical patterns via numerology in At Swim-Two-Birds, as Baylee Brits demonstrates, document O'Brien's scientific and technological interests, in the next section of essays. The coupling of mechanical devices and eerie inventions within The Third Policeman, as McDonald shows, represents darker corners of O'Brien's textual labyrinths, which continue to disorient readers.
The pull into infinity and regression reveals the abysmal and the dismal; co-editor Julian Murphet charts the tension between Myles the journalist and Flann the fabulist as he conjures up pataphysics and other esoteric send-ups of rational analysis, within O'Brien's fictions exposing a psychic death drive. The compulsions many of his characters exhibit pushes their pursuits beyond entertainment.

This aspect, the haunted quality within this troubled writer, does not earn the biographical context which Anthony Cronin's 1989 biography, No Laughing Matter, treated with compassion and insight. But, readers familiar with O'Brien's life and works already (a prerequisite, as little more than a nod to this background is given by the contributors or editors) will learn from Sam Dickson about Flann's propensity for fictions full of "hard drink". This compliments co-editor Sascha Morrell's congenial foray, as she aligns O'Brien's treatment of alcohol with the Australian writer Frank Moorhouse's The Electrical Experience: A Discontinuous Narrative (1974), about a soft drink maker Down Under. Culture and commodity feature here and in the final two, atypically off-beat (even by O'Nolan's standards) essays revealing Flann's range and curiosity. 

Mark Steven examines "aestho-autonomy" through At Swim-Two-Birds' Dermot Trellis. Trellis seeks solitude, to pursue masturbation. Steven frames this ambition as a "formal and narrative act", thus indicative of the political and economic stagnation in the new Irish Free State for which O'Nolan labored. Physical exertion, onanism, gender roles, and male potency also seeped into none other than the bicycle seat, as that machine and its rider merged, in O'Brien's The Third Policeman in forms that this short review cannot elucidate. Suffice to say that these learned essays may encourage the reader to take down O'Brien from the bookshelf. After perusing the ruminations of a coterie of his critics, why not enter, for the first time or another time, into the fictions of Flann O'Brien, Myles na gCopaleen, and various odd characters his writer wrote as, and about? The Irish labyrinth awaits you. (10-1-14 to  PopMatters)

Chapter 1 Making Evil, with Flann O’Brien
Sean Pryor, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 2 Mythomaniac modernism: lying and bullshit in Flann O’Brien
John Attridge, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 3 ‘The outward accidents of illusion’: O’Brien and the Theatrical
Stefan Solomon, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 4 The Ghost of ‘Poor Jimmy Joyce’: A Portrait of the Artist as a Reluctant Modernist
Stephen Abblitt, La Trobe University, Australia

Chapter 5 ‘Do You Know What I’m Going to Tell You?’: Flann O’Brien, Risibility and the Anxiety of Influence
David Kelly, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 6 An Béal Bocht, Translation and the Proper Name
Maebh Long, University of the South Pacific, Fiji

Chapter 7 Ploughmen Without Land: Flann O’Brien and Patrick Kavanagh
Joseph Brooker, University of London, United Kingdom

Chapter 8 Flann O’Brien’s Ulysses: Marginalia and the Modernist Mind
Dirk Van Hulle, University of Antwerp, Belgium


Chapter 9 ‘Truth is an Odd Number’: Flann O’Brien and Infinite Imperfection
Baylee Brits, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 10 ‘An astonishing parade of nullity’: Nihilism in The Third Policeman
Rónán McDonald, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 11 Flann O’Brien and Modern Character
Julian Murphet, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 12 ‘No unauthorized boozing’: Flann O’Brien and the Thirsty Muse
Sam Dickson

Chapter 13 Soft drink, hard drink, and literary (re)production in Flann O’Brien and Frank Moorhouse
Sascha Morrell, University of New England, Australia

Chapter 14 Flann O’Brien’s Aestho-Autogamy
Mark Steven, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 15 Modernist Wheelmen
Mark Byron, University of Sydney, Australia - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/flann-obrien-modernism-9781623568504/#sthash.Z1ncj15a.dpu

Chapter 1 Making Evil, with Flann O’Brien
Sean Pryor, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 2 Mythomaniac modernism: lying and bullshit in Flann O’Brien
John Attridge, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 3 ‘The outward accidents of illusion’: O’Brien and the Theatrical
Stefan Solomon, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 4 The Ghost of ‘Poor Jimmy Joyce’: A Portrait of the Artist as a Reluctant Modernist
Stephen Abblitt, La Trobe University, Australia

Chapter 5 ‘Do You Know What I’m Going to Tell You?’: Flann O’Brien, Risibility and the Anxiety of Influence
David Kelly, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 6 An Béal Bocht, Translation and the Proper Name
Maebh Long, University of the South Pacific, Fiji

Chapter 7 Ploughmen Without Land: Flann O’Brien and Patrick Kavanagh
Joseph Brooker, University of London, United Kingdom

Chapter 8 Flann O’Brien’s Ulysses: Marginalia and the Modernist Mind
Dirk Van Hulle, University of Antwerp, Belgium


Chapter 9 ‘Truth is an Odd Number’: Flann O’Brien and Infinite Imperfection
Baylee Brits, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 10 ‘An astonishing parade of nullity’: Nihilism in The Third Policeman
Rónán McDonald, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 11 Flann O’Brien and Modern Character
Julian Murphet, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 12 ‘No unauthorized boozing’: Flann O’Brien and the Thirsty Muse
Sam Dickson

Chapter 13 Soft drink, hard drink, and literary (re)production in Flann O’Brien and Frank Moorhouse
Sascha Morrell, University of New England, Australia

Chapter 14 Flann O’Brien’s Aestho-Autogamy
Mark Steven, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 15 Modernist Wheelmen
Mark Byron, University of Sydney, Australia - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/flann-obrien-modernism-9781623568504/#sthash.Z1ncj15a.dpuf

Chapter 1 Making Evil, with Flann O’Brien
Sean Pryor, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 2 Mythomaniac modernism: lying and bullshit in Flann O’Brien
John Attridge, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 3 ‘The outward accidents of illusion’: O’Brien and the Theatrical
Stefan Solomon, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 4 The Ghost of ‘Poor Jimmy Joyce’: A Portrait of the Artist as a Reluctant Modernist
Stephen Abblitt, La Trobe University, Australia

Chapter 5 ‘Do You Know What I’m Going to Tell You?’: Flann O’Brien, Risibility and the Anxiety of Influence
David Kelly, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 6 An Béal Bocht, Translation and the Proper Name
Maebh Long, University of the South Pacific, Fiji

Chapter 7 Ploughmen Without Land: Flann O’Brien and Patrick Kavanagh
Joseph Brooker, University of London, United Kingdom

Chapter 8 Flann O’Brien’s Ulysses: Marginalia and the Modernist Mind
Dirk Van Hulle, University of Antwerp, Belgium


Chapter 9 ‘Truth is an Odd Number’: Flann O’Brien and Infinite Imperfection
Baylee Brits, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 10 ‘An astonishing parade of nullity’: Nihilism in The Third Policeman
Rónán McDonald, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 11 Flann O’Brien and Modern Character
Julian Murphet, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 12 ‘No unauthorized boozing’: Flann O’Brien and the Thirsty Muse
Sam Dickson

Chapter 13 Soft drink, hard drink, and literary (re)production in Flann O’Brien and Frank Moorhouse
Sascha Morrell, University of New England, Australia

Chapter 14 Flann O’Brien’s Aestho-Autogamy
Mark Steven, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 15 Modernist Wheelmen
Mark Byron, University of Sydney, Australia - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/flann-obrien-modernism-9781623568504/#sthash.Z1ncj15a.dpuf

Chapter 1 Making Evil, with Flann O’Brien
Sean Pryor, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 2 Mythomaniac modernism: lying and bullshit in Flann O’Brien
John Attridge, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 3 ‘The outward accidents of illusion’: O’Brien and the Theatrical
Stefan Solomon, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 4 The Ghost of ‘Poor Jimmy Joyce’: A Portrait of the Artist as a Reluctant Modernist
Stephen Abblitt, La Trobe University, Australia

Chapter 5 ‘Do You Know What I’m Going to Tell You?’: Flann O’Brien, Risibility and the Anxiety of Influence
David Kelly, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 6 An Béal Bocht, Translation and the Proper Name
Maebh Long, University of the South Pacific, Fiji

Chapter 7 Ploughmen Without Land: Flann O’Brien and Patrick Kavanagh
Joseph Brooker, University of London, United Kingdom

Chapter 8 Flann O’Brien’s Ulysses: Marginalia and the Modernist Mind
Dirk Van Hulle, University of Antwerp, Belgium


Chapter 9 ‘Truth is an Odd Number’: Flann O’Brien and Infinite Imperfection
Baylee Brits, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 10 ‘An astonishing parade of nullity’: Nihilism in The Third Policeman
Rónán McDonald, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 11 Flann O’Brien and Modern Character
Julian Murphet, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 12 ‘No unauthorized boozing’: Flann O’Brien and the Thirsty Muse
Sam Dickson

Chapter 13 Soft drink, hard drink, and literary (re)production in Flann O’Brien and Frank Moorhouse
Sascha Morrell, University of New England, Australia

Chapter 14 Flann O’Brien’s Aestho-Autogamy
Mark Steven, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 15 Modernist Wheelmen
Mark Byron, University of Sydney, Australia - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/flann-obrien-modernism-9781623568504/#sthash.Z1ncj15a.dpuf

Chapter 1 Making Evil, with Flann O’Brien
Sean Pryor, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 2 Mythomaniac modernism: lying and bullshit in Flann O’Brien
John Attridge, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 3 ‘The outward accidents of illusion’: O’Brien and the Theatrical
Stefan Solomon, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 4 The Ghost of ‘Poor Jimmy Joyce’: A Portrait of the Artist as a Reluctant Modernist
Stephen Abblitt, La Trobe University, Australia

Chapter 5 ‘Do You Know What I’m Going to Tell You?’: Flann O’Brien, Risibility and the Anxiety of Influence
David Kelly, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 6 An Béal Bocht, Translation and the Proper Name
Maebh Long, University of the South Pacific, Fiji

Chapter 7 Ploughmen Without Land: Flann O’Brien and Patrick Kavanagh
Joseph Brooker, University of London, United Kingdom

Chapter 8 Flann O’Brien’s Ulysses: Marginalia and the Modernist Mind
Dirk Van Hulle, University of Antwerp, Belgium


Chapter 9 ‘Truth is an Odd Number’: Flann O’Brien and Infinite Imperfection
Baylee Brits, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 10 ‘An astonishing parade of nullity’: Nihilism in The Third Policeman
Rónán McDonald, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 11 Flann O’Brien and Modern Character
Julian Murphet, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 12 ‘No unauthorized boozing’: Flann O’Brien and the Thirsty Muse
Sam Dickson

Chapter 13 Soft drink, hard drink, and literary (re)production in Flann O’Brien and Frank Moorhouse
Sascha Morrell, University of New England, Australia

Chapter 14 Flann O’Brien’s Aestho-Autogamy
Mark Steven, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 15 Modernist Wheelmen
Mark Byron, University of Sydney, Australia - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/flann-obrien-modernism-9781623568504/#sthash.58blLTNi.dpuf

Chapter 1 Making Evil, with Flann O’Brien
Sean Pryor, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 2 Mythomaniac modernism: lying and bullshit in Flann O’Brien
John Attridge, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 3 ‘The outward accidents of illusion’: O’Brien and the Theatrical
Stefan Solomon, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 4 The Ghost of ‘Poor Jimmy Joyce’: A Portrait of the Artist as a Reluctant Modernist
Stephen Abblitt, La Trobe University, Australia

Chapter 5 ‘Do You Know What I’m Going to Tell You?’: Flann O’Brien, Risibility and the Anxiety of Influence
David Kelly, University of Sydney, Australia

Chapter 6 An Béal Bocht, Translation and the Proper Name
Maebh Long, University of the South Pacific, Fiji

Chapter 7 Ploughmen Without Land: Flann O’Brien and Patrick Kavanagh
Joseph Brooker, University of London, United Kingdom

Chapter 8 Flann O’Brien’s Ulysses: Marginalia and the Modernist Mind
Dirk Van Hulle, University of Antwerp, Belgium


Chapter 9 ‘Truth is an Odd Number’: Flann O’Brien and Infinite Imperfection
Baylee Brits, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 10 ‘An astonishing parade of nullity’: Nihilism in The Third Policeman
Rónán McDonald, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 11 Flann O’Brien and Modern Character
Julian Murphet, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 12 ‘No unauthorized boozing’: Flann O’Brien and the Thirsty Muse
Sam Dickson

Chapter 13 Soft drink, hard drink, and literary (re)production in Flann O’Brien and Frank Moorhouse
Sascha Morrell, University of New England, Australia

Chapter 14 Flann O’Brien’s Aestho-Autogamy
Mark Steven, University of New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 15 Modernist Wheelmen
Mark Byron, University of Sydney, Australia - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/flann-obrien-modernism-9781623568504/#sthash.58blLTNi.dpuf