SEARC'S WEB GUIDE - Máirtín Ó Cadhain (1907-1970)

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20th Century Ireland - Máirtín Ó Cadhain (1907-1970)

Máirtín Ó Cadhain was born and educated in Connemara, County Galway where he became a school-teacher. In the 1930's he joined the IRA and lost his teaching post because a local Catholic Bishop objected to Ó Cadhain's republicanism. He became an IRA Recruiting Officer in Dublin and is said to have recruited Brendan Behan, among others. In 1938 Ó Cadhain was appointed to the IRA Army Council and published his first collection of short stories Idir Shúgradh agus Dáiríre in 1939. Ó Cadhain was interned in the Curragh Internment Camp from 1940-1945 during which time he taught Irish and Welsh to his fellow internees, including Michael O'Riordan and Liam Brady.
In 1948 Ó Cadhain published An Braon Broghach. In 1949 Ó Cadhain published what many consider to be the greatest novel published in Irish in the 20th century, Cré na Cille. In the same year Ó Cadhain became a translator for the Oireachtas, translating European literary classics into Irish.
In 1952 Ó Cadhain published Cois Caoláire and in 1956 he joined the staff of the Department of Modern Irish at Triniy College, Dublin. Throughout the 1950's and 1960's Ó Cadhain retained his interest in politics and was a member of the Wolfe Tone Society and supported the first Republican Club in TCD. In 1967 Ó Cadhain published An tSraith an Lár and in 1969 he was appointed Professor of Modern Irish at TCD. Ó Cadhain published An tSraith Dá Tógáil and was created a Fellow of TCD shortly before his death in 1970. His Selected Poems was published posthumously in 1984. The extract below is from Ó Cadhain's pamphlet Mr.Hill: Mr.Tara (1965).©

Caravans: or should we rather say cíarraíbhain? A commercial undertaking called Hills has stated that it is going to set up a caravan park in Ballyferriter. The announcement has brought resolutions from Irish revival organisations and counter resolutions from public bodies in Kerry. Revivalists claim that it will finish off the Kerry Gaeltacht. If it does, it will mean in effect the finishing off of the Munster Gaeltacht, as there is scarcely any Irish spoken elsewhere in Munster today. In its turn this, I think, will mean the death of Irish. Not that this North Kerry Gaeltacht is either very extensive or very populous. It contains roughly a thirteenth of the native speakers of the Gaeltacht. I fear that its disappearance will mean a pathetic Munster which will convert itself after a short time into an anti-Irish Munster. With Munster against the language, or even completely disinterested, we may throw our séanna and Oileánachs with our hats at it!
Gael-Linn seems to think that the juggery-lambeggery-Comhaltas Ceoltóirí poppery, no-poppery, no popery north of the Boyne is a step in the right direction, that is southwards towards the Boyne and eventually Dolly-Braying their way into an Ath Cliath Duibhlinne.
However, this very vital element to which Donegal could be a mecca Mící Sheáin Tharlaigh have long ago thrown their sashes at it. What is one to say about the Kerryvans? For myself, coming from another Gaeltacht, saying anything may mean being scummed to Kingdom come in breakers of green and gold.
A few years ago, when it seemed that American financiers were about to take over the derelict Blaskets, and the not altogether derelict Dunquin, I ventured to point out that this would destroy the Kerry Gaeltacht. It was pointed out to me, privately, that those were only a few moneybags. In the green and golden wake of moneybags would come all sorts of services. We have all read - due perhaps to a lax censorship - of the various classes of gold diggers who constituted Klondyke.
The first question is, how justified are we to object to this caravan scheme? After all, the Commission on the Restoration of the Irish Language has recommended 'that one reasonably large industrial project should be seated in the heart of the three major Gaeltacht areas of Munster, Connaught and Ulster.' I am not dealing with the wording now. En passant, I may say that the word 'seated' conjures up pictures of constipated executives, ballasted on luxuriant upholstery, of steely porpoises in a dead sea, of well-planted, gaudy caravans on a blaring beach. An industrial project in any Gaeltacht area nowadays will kill off Irish as quickly, if not quicker than caravans.
I heard somebody else saying: 'No, if introduced in Irish...'
My reply is that it cannot be done. I refer him to Gael-Linn. They sent a lady to Carna, who supervises the processing of a local girl there. They sent experts and technologists there. In fact, some of them are there at the moment. Conferences between Gael-Linn experts and Government officials had to be conducted in English not because Government officials, but because Gael-Linn experts didn't know Irish. I think this experience with that of Glencolmcille, whose only Irish is a version of the name of the co-operative on some of the stationary, the very limited use of Irish in Gaeltarra, and even on tomatoe schemes afford proof enough that whatever may be possible, industrial projects are not going to be run in Irish.
Even a little shanty of a seaweed factory cannot be conducted in Irish. Then we have an infestation of Gael-Linn-Coiste na bPáistí-Government scholarship holders. I drew attention recently to a twelve year old boy domiciled for six months in the heart of a Connemara Gaeltacht who could not give his evidence in Irish in a simple Court case. Will someone dare to say it is not happening in Kerry?
Has a person looking for a site or a house in Kerry to submit to an oral examination? It is possible for a Gaeltacht person to dispose of a site, to extend his house, to build two houses, chalets, kraals, igloos, tents, dug-outs, 'bird's nests' in the mast of derelict boats. He can sell or let those temporarily or permanently without having to make the applicant undergo any type of oral test. Someone has stated that the chalet scheme hasn't been a success. Not altogether, from the point of view of the Gaeltacht cottier. But retired officials, people of independent means, German businessmen with high Blutdrang nach Westen, returned Yanks, men with city counting houses are getting more and more into the business. If a Connemara cottier can let a shieling, an ancient lambing grotto dating back to the Ice Age, a crannóg, a trap cave, a cailleach, or an outshot, an ancient lime kiln or a not so ancient still-house, a priest's penal hiding hole, a souterrain, barley-drying kiln, an edifice built in one night of tar barrels stolen from the County Council, a home-made coffin which he failed to sell to the museum, a disused keg-hole, why should he build a modern chalet which will be accessible for income tax purposes in any case?
One can see strangers' colonies as well as the growing nuclei of others everywhere in the Gaeltacht. Is it fair to ban caravans from Ballyferriter if one doesn't turf out the artist colony, brushes, easel, poitín and paint mixtures, beards, poseurs and all from Carraroe. © Searc's Web Guide 1997-2007

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