Book review: Greg Delanty’s translation will introduce Seán O’Ríordáin to a wider audience

One poet's mastery of the tongue brought to perfection by another

Sat, 14 Aug, 2021 - 21:00

Review: Anne Lucey

THE latest anthology by the Cork poet Greg Delanty, Apathy is Out/ Ní Ceadmhach Neamhshuim is a rendering into English of much of the poetry of Seán O’Ríordáin and it is also an ambitious attempt to tackle the lack of natural accord between Irish and English.

In Filí Faoi Sceimhle, the late Seán O’Tuama drew a direct line between Aogán O’Rathaille and O’Ríordáin saying the region had produced the two best poets of the Irish language since the seventeenth century and both had lived in terror filled times.

The anguish of O’Rathaille near Killarney was to witness the end of the Gaelic way of life; a díshealbhú ( dispossession) that was literary and personal.

Two hundred years on, the new tongue has still not grafted, to paraphrase John Montague, and the anguish of O’Ríordáin is now also the modern díshealbhú in the manner of Baudelaire and Eliot.

O’ Ríordáin was born into the “Breac-Ghaeltacht” village of Ballyvourney, Delanty notes. This is an uncertain world (Baudelaire’s crepuscule comes to mind), where English and Irish collide. Alongside its strong tradition of poetry, folklore and storytelling, English is spoken and Irish is in retreat.

“The modern dilemma of identity was obviously heightened by the duality of his upbringing within such a community,” Delanty writes.

Delanty a college teacher in the US with “poor” Irish but with the advantage of being from Cork, says he sets out to capture “the music you still hear in Munster”.

He has help from the late Irish language poet Liam O’Muirthile like Delanty is a graduate of UCC, a college energised in the 1970s by O’Ríordáin and O’Riada, O’ Tuama, Montague and Lucy, and John A. Murphy, and the book is dedicated to Liam.

A veteran of a number of translations, he tells us his approach is that of altering words but not sense. No mere cribs, the translations however stick to the verse and line format of the original. Even favoured rhetorical devices are employed - an enormous challenge.

Delanty’s lack of Irish is no impediment, underlining his opening statement that poetry may be beyond any one language.

O’Ríordáin’s “Apologia” in the metaphysical tradition focuses on the ordinary churning of butter. Delany’s translation is flavoured with characteristic Muskerry self-irony:

I churned the cream into butter anxious not to waste a drop.

Though I’m no great shakes as a churner it’s seldom life gets milked- there’s demand for every grade of butter throughout the off season.

“Cold Snap” preserves the Aubade opening of “Reo” : Maidin sheaca ghabhas amach/ One Icy Morning I went out.

“The Duck,” of “An Lacha” does not duck and aims the searbhús straight at the pretentiousness of its target, like the bards of old.

O’Ríordáins overall habit of portmanteau words, as Delanty puts it, is harnessed.

The magnificent opening of “Adhalacadh mo Mháthar”:

Grian an Mheithimh in úllghort, Is siosarnach i síoda an tráthnóna, Beach Mhallaithe ag portaireacht Mar screadstracadh ar an nóinbhrat , becomes in “My Mother’s Burial”:

June sun in the orchard, the silksusurrus of afternoon, a damn bee droning, ululatearing afternoon’s gown.

“Silksusurrus” is perfection while the word coined from ululation pays homage to the keening tradition of the home of Art O’ Laoghaire and reminds us rituals in North Africa or Baile Mhic íre can be similar.

“Fill Arís” pivotal return to west Kerry for O’Riordáin, is a jaunty setting forth for the “subjunctive Skelligs”.

Most of O’Ríordáin’s opus is tackled. So the omission of the great “Oíche Nollaig na mBan” is perplexing.

Delanty confronts the challenges of translating from Irish to English. English simply cannot correspond with the rhythm or local music of the Irish , so powerful in O’Ríordáin, he says.

He feels disappointed with his own effort because of this inherent difference.

But Delanty is better at churning the Irish into English than he realises. And the work, which has taken years, will introduce O’Ríordáin to a wider audience.