Every week at Oideas Gael, we have a night of filíocht — poetry. I was particularly struck by a poem that our instructor read this week called “Cainteoir Dúchais,” or “Native Speaker.” The poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh pokes fun at the number of English words that have crept into the Irish language over the years. The poem begins:
“Bhí sé flat-out, a dúirt sé
i gcaitheamh na maidine.
Rinne sé an t-árasán a hooveráil,
na boscaí bruscair a jeyes-fluideáil,
an loo a harpickáil, an bath a vimeáil.”
The rest of the poem continues in a similar fashion, inserting Gaelicized English words in nearly all of the lines. Such a poem is called a macaronic — or bilingual — poem. I heard another macaronic poem recited last night at the local pub by one of the Oideas Gael students. He began reciting the poem “Micheál Bocht” (“Poor Michael”):
“I heard this story ó mo athair (from my father)
If you haven’t Gaelic it doesn’t matter
This rural Ireland tragic tale
Narrates a sad seductive scéal (story)
Concerning lust without discretion
Agus beagnach rudaí eile freisin (and almost everything else).
These poems are witty and entertaining, and I enjoyed listening to them. But they also bring up a rather serious issue that affects many Irish speakers. The instructor who read this poem aloud at Oideas Gael explained that he has mixed feelings about the proliferation of English words in the Irish language. On the one hand, a changing language signifies a living language. English itself gains a number of new words every year, and like nearly all languages, its syntax and grammatical structures are derived from other languages, both living and dead. On the other hand, however, the influx of Anglicisms into the Irish language can be a sensitive issue. English was originally a colonial language in Ireland, and since Irish speakers constitute a minority in the country, people worry that what may seem to be harmless word-borrowing may eventually contribute to the further decline of the language.
In my class on Irish Song and Spoken Word last semester, I learned about different Irish-language poets’ attitudes toward English. Some of them choose to write macaronic poems, or to have their poems translated into English. Others refuse to allow their poems to be translated and write exclusively in Irish. Since I am not from Ireland and did not grow up speaking Irish, I am not quite sure what I think about the matter. But it is interesting to compare different Irish-language poets’ work and attitudes toward the language.
To finish off, here are a couple of pictures from the last few days:
