After the Irish

This enjoyable anthology serves as a great starting point for further research on the relationship between Irish and English language literary relationships in Ireland. Reading these translations is a pleasure. Highly recommended to all readers. ~CHOICE current reviews for academic libraries

The assembly of a literary anthology is always attended by questions of inclusion organization and intent. Should a collection reflect shared understandings of a literary canon or seek to redefine the authors that fall under that rubric? Should chronology style or authorial features dictate the anthology s presentation? Finally what should an anthology contribute to current scholarship? With regard to the first issue Schirmer s After the Irish might be able to sidestep the question entirely: as an entry into a field English translations of Irish poetry that has been far more visible as a creative force in Irish writing than an actual subject for overarching scholarly appraisal Schirmer s subject has little in the way of a canon to either reinforce or challenge. As for the second Schirmer concedes little ground on the organizing principle behind the anthology. As in his earlier study Out of What Began: A History of Irish Poetry in English Cornell University Press 1998 Schirmer remains committed to chronology and individual authorship as an entry point for understanding this body of poetry in translation. Setting aside these first two questions for the moment then one might therefore consider the scholarly value of Schirmer s anthology on its own terms. Schirmer has gathered a formidable list of English poetic translations from Irish encompassing not just the usual suspects Charlotte Brooke James Clarence Mangan Douglas Hyde Frank O Connor Thomas Kinsella but a number of underrepresented figures as well. This includes early translators of the eighteenth century who were proficient in both English and Irish among them Charles Henry Wilson Denis Woulfe and with Dermot O Connor whose visibility has been heightened as a result of Alan Harrison s excellent study Ag Cruinni Meala published in 1988 and cited by Schirmer here ; diligent scholartranslators such as Samuel Ferguson Standish Hayes O Grady Eleanor Hull and Robin Flower; and contemporary translations by Michael Hartnett Paul Muldoon Eil an N Chuillean in and Sara Berkeley of poems by Nuala N Dhomhnaill Cathal Searcaigh and Michael Davitt. But while such a large roster has the potential to crowd out the translations themselves Schirmer keeps the biographical details brief and thereby allows the translations to hold the spotlight. Yet even with the welcome diversity of Schirmer s roster of translations the anthology still finds its central force in a story about Irish literature that has been told before. Its translations are assembled chronologically but in reality it is the familiar progression of literary styles from the reflexively unsettled Anglo Irish approaches of the eighteenth century to early nineteenth century romanticism; from literary revival to modernism s targeting of the newly independent Irish state; and finally arriving at a confident but restless present day that truly undergirds the book. This tension between chronology and literary paradigm yields some awkward decisions. Miche l g Long in who did the bulk of his scribal work in a fantastic burst in the last decades of his life at the beginning of the nineteenth century is strangely counted an eighteenth century figure here; elsewhere Thomas Kinsella whose inventive translations would seem to evoke the work of someone like Frank O Connor is placed not with the latter but with the translators of Contemporary Ireland. Such decisions hardly call into question the direction of the anthology as whole but reliance on such a familiar literary narrative does ultimately bring an assessment of this anthology back to the first two original questions regarding inclusion and organisation seemingly easily answered on first read. Why not for instance forego the traditional i.e. Anglo Irish starting point for literary criticism of the modern period Jonathan Swift in favour of figures such as Se n and Tadhg Neachtain whose arrival in Dublin at the very beginning of the eighteenth century represented a major new turn in Irish literary directions. Like Swift the Neachtains composed both original material and translations of Irish verse into English a practice that was even more prevalent among later eighteenth century contemporaries like Andrias Mac Craith An Mangaire S gach and Maurice O Gorman. The omission of someone like Tadhg Neachtain as a translator points to the results of Schirmer s exclusive focus on published translations. This decision shortchanges the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in particular since all manner of verse translations were conducted by unpublished scribes authors and scholars who needed no prompting from Anglo Irish society to translate Irish poetry into English or vice versa . Such work lies out of reach of this anthology. Nevertheless there is an argument to be made for the power of the English translations presented here and the anthology s potential usefulness as a teaching text or as a research aid. Despite his avowed intention to place the focus on the translations themselves Schirmer offers a noteworthy amount of labour in the form of full literal translations into English of the original Irish source texts a useful supplement in its own right to the anthology s poetic translations. And although Schirmer can be occasionally scanty in providing references for tantalizing biographical details readers will find sufficient information to situate lesser known translators in their historical context. Ultimately one cannot help but linger on lines such as the evocation of wanderlust from O Grady s take on Donnchadh Ruadh Mac Conmara s Eachtra Ghiolla an Ammall in : To bid my friends farewell in such haste That to wish all goodbye seem d quite a waste Of time; so with a knowing hat and band Of newest fashion and stick in hand. or marvel at George Sigerson s aptly minimalist take on the early Irish Sc l Lemm D ib List my lay: oxen roar / Winter chides Summer s o er fitting given that this anthology as it states is above all else about the artistry of translation. ~Nicholas M Wolf Australian Journal of Irish Studi