Liam Ó Maonlaí reflects: Bob Marley and me, as Gaeilge

LIAM Ó Maonlaí fretted it wouldn’t work. He loves Irish but, when asked to be involved in a project translating the work of Bob Marley into the language, was immediately wary. Could Marley’s distinctive marriage of the spiritual and the earthy survive conversion to an alien tongue? Ó Maonlaí was concerned the answer might be in the negative.

“I adore the language, the culture, the songs that are part of all of that. But translating [rock lyrics] into the language can be uncomfortable,” he says.

In the end, the sometime Hothouse Flowers frontman let himself be convinced. For one thing, the singer’s passion for reggae comes close to his ardour for Irish. It is a life-long relationship, going back to his youth in Dublin. “I grew up in the 1970s. The punk movement was born around then. It was brilliant — there was a great sense of freedom, absolutely zero class divide. People were playing instruments who would never have played before.”