Modern Irish events in ASNC, March 2015

'Songs of Donegal and other places': A Performance by Dr. Lillis Ó Laoire

As part of the international celebration of Seachtain na Gaeilge (1-17 March), Dr. Lillis Ó Laoire, an accomplished sean-nós singer and Senior Lecturer in the School of Languages and Literatures at National University Ireland, Galway, gave a memorable lecture (4 March) and song performance (5 March) in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic.  Both events were enriched immeasurably by Ó Laoire's extensive study of sean-nós performances in his native Co. Donegal, and by scholarly research, fieldwork and insightful analysis of oral traditions in Ireland and Scotland.  Ó Laoire’s beautifully expressive voice, quiet concentration and distinctive interpretation of the nuances of each song gave added depth to his performance.

Lillis Ó Laoire

Events began with an engaging preliminary lecture on the songs of Tory Island, in which Dr. Ó Laoire described traditional life on the island and added personal recollections of his own life in the Irish-speaking village of Gort an Choirce, on the neighbouring mainland.  Selected songs from Tory were sung in the moderately ornamented or ‘plain’ style of sean-nós traditionally practiced on the island.  As Dr. Ó Laoire noted, singers in Donegal place a high value on the clear articulation of the ‘story’ (scéal) within the song.  The vivid language of such stories was evident in the images of islanders plying rough seas in Bádaí na dTrí Seoil, and French ships coursing the coast of Tory Island during the rising of 1798, an historical event recalled in Úna Bheag na hÁite.

Language and performance combine to express a song’s underlying ‘meaning’ or brí, an Irish word which, Ó Laoire noted, also has the sense ‘vigour’ and ‘life’.  The songs of Tory were certainly brought fully to life in Ó Laoire’s sean-nós performance, which echoed beautifully in a classroom full of attentive ASNC and Modern Irish language students, faculty and guests.  Pausing frequently between story and song, Dr. Ó Laoire invited his audience to raise questions.  The open discussion touched upon the importance of song within Irish-speaking community, a subject treated in Dr. Ó Laoire's monograph, On a Rock in the Middle of the Ocean: Songs and Singers in Tory Island (first published in Irish as Ar Chreag i Lár na Farraige) and his most recent book, Bright Star of the West: Joe Heaney, Irish Song Man (co-authored with Sean Williams), which was awarded the 2012 Alan P.Merriam Prize in Ethnomusicology.

On 5 March Dr. Ó Laoire gave a public performance of ‘Songs from Donegal and Other Places’, which highlighted songs in both Irish and Scottish Gaelic and ranged farther afield to Rathlin and the Isle of Skye.  A rhythmic lullaby from the Isle of Skye, Tàladh Dhomhnaill Ghoirm, reputedly composed by the foster-mother of the infant Dòmhnall Gorm Mòr (Donald ‘Gorm’ MacDonald) in the late sixteenth century, honoured the famed chieftain of Clan Mac Donald of Sleat.  Medieval themes were woven into the performance with a stirring rendition of the the Arthurian lay Am Bròn Binn (The Sweet Sorrow), and the beautifully chanted verses of the Seacht Súáilcí na Maighdine Muire 'Seven Joys of the Virgin Mary’, including the birth, the flight into Egypt and the miraculous turning water into wine (which becomes beoir 'beer' in the Irish). In a final linking of the song traditions of Ireland and Scotland, the audience joined in singing the well-known Fear an Bháta, versions of which show a linguistic mix of Scottish Gaelic and Irish and demonstrate the exchange of oral tales, poems and songs in Ireland and Scotland.

Following Dr. Ó Laoire's performance, former ASNC student Andrea Palandri, who is now pursuing a Research Masters in Modern Irish at University College Cork, made a special visit to ASNC to perform Irish music on the fiddle with fellow musicians Colm McGonigle (harp) and Conor Healy (flute).  The three performed reels and laments, and joined Lillis Ó Laoire in a performance of the well-known Connemara song, Cailleach an Airgid.  

Andrea Palandri (centre), with Colm McGonigle and Conor Healy

The Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic extends special thanks to ASNC alumna Shelby Switzer, for her generous donation to support the events relating to Modern Irish language and culture in 2014-15.  When informed of the invitation extended to Dr. Lillis Ó Laoire Shelby responded with delight:  'This is all fantastic.  Dr. Ó Laoire is a wonderful choice, and I'm glad Andrea will be able to return to Cambridge.’  Her gift made it possible for Palandri, her former classmate, to participate in the event.

Modern Irish Recordings of tales and songs from Donegal

As part of an ongoing effort to create an archive of traditional Irish tales and songs from various dialects of Irish, Dr. Lillis Ó Laoire accompanied Dr. Margo Griffin-Wilson (ASNC Teaching Associate, Modern Irish) to the Cambridge University Language Centre and recorded a selection of sean-nós songs from Donegal and Irish prose tales from fiannaíocht, which celebrate the deeds of the hero Fionn Mac Cumhail.  Students in the Modern Irish classes will have access to the recordings on the Modern Irish ‘Moodle’ site.  The recording was made with generous assistance and expertise of Saimon Clark, Media Editor, whose time and efforts on behalf of the Modern Irish classes is greatly appreciated.

Oíche Ghaelach ‘An Irish Evening’

As part of the widespread ceremonies during Seachtain na Gaeilge 2015, Irish Ambassador Daniel Mulhall (a native of Co. Waterford), warmly welcomed Irish language teachers, students and musicians from various community organizations and universities throughout the United Kingdom to the Embassy of Ireland in London for the Oíche Ghaelach on 2 March.  Dr. Margo Griffin-Wilson, who represented Cambridge University at the event, met with Ambassador Mulhall and had the unexpected pleasure of meeting fellow Irish lecturers Dr. William Mahon (University of Aberystwyth) and Dr. Kaarina Hollo (Sheffield University).  The three studied Old and Modern Irish together in the Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and now teach Modern Irish in the United Kingdom.

Dr Margo Griffin-Wilson and ambdassador Daniel Mulhall

The events of March closed with the annual H. M. Chadwick Lecture, which was delivered by Professor Catherine McKenna, the Margaret Brooks Robinson Professor of Celtic Languages and Literatures, at Harvard University.  Professor Mac Kenna presented an insightful analysis of terms for poets and poetry in the works of medieval Welsh poets and was an honoured guest at the Departmental dinner at St. John's College—a fitting finale to the variety of lectures on poetry and performance during the closing weeks of Lent Term. 

Dr Margo Griffin-Wilson

 

Undiscovered poems in the Black Book of Carmarthen?

Exciting news from the National Library of Wales, where ASNC doctoral student Myriah Williams, and her supervisor Professor Paul Russell, have been working a thirteenth-century manuscript, the Black Book of Carmarthen. By scanning the manuscript with ultraviolet light, they have revealed that its sixteenth-century custodian may have erased one or two things. The great hope is that, by using photo editing software, some of the 'vanished' text may still be recovered. For more information, read the this post on the National Library of Wales website.

A Centenary: David Jones, Y Gododdin and the Great War

When Varsity finally get round to asking me about my favourite piece of art in Cambridge, I’ll say ‘Vexilla Regis, by David Jones’. It’s on the ground floor in the house at Kettle’s Yard, just behind Jim Ede’s bedroom door. It is an easy thing to miss. There’s barely room to turn around, so you can only see the picture up close, and you get it to yourself. Also in the room: a bed, an arrangement of pebbles on a table top, and a shelf with Henry Moore’s Head (which is like something dug up by an archaeologist: or ‘first and foremost a stone’, as Ede put it). Over the bed, pictures by Alfred Wallis and Ben Nicholson. Ede’s household gods, perhaps.

There are lots of things I like about Vexilla Regis. One is the title, taken from a hymn by a Merovingian court poet:

Vexilla regis prodeunt,

fulget crucis mysterium,

quo carne carnis conditor

suspensus est patibulo.

The standards of the king come forth,

the secret of the cross revealed:

there in flesh, the flesh’s maker

by the beam is hung.

Another is that it is secretive as well as secret. It’s done with graphite and water colour, and it’s pale and knotty. Once you make out the hills and trees, it starts to feel like a map. You spot bits and pieces of ruined masonry, overgrown pillars, wildness and wreckage but also things sprouting and running. Certainly it has something to do with the end of Roman Britain, but I’ll leave it at that.[1]

Mapmaking was a skill Jones had learned on the Western Front, mostly while crawling around no man’s land at night-time.[2] He was at the front for more than two years, far longer than most of his fellow war-poets, and had arrived there in time to see what had been a relatively ‘intimate, domestic life’ turn into relentless mechanical slaughter. Conscription plugged the gaps with strangers. The loss of companionship affected Jones profoundly.

Trench map by David Jones © National Library of Wales

This year marks the centenary of Jones’ entry into the Great War. Precociously aware of his father’s Welsh origins, Jones had been desperate to join a Welsh regiment. In the end, he enlisted with a ‘London Welsh’ battalion, and crossed to France in December 1915. The previous spring, during basic training near Llandudno, Jones recalled nights spent on guard duty, watching the sea from the Great Orme and pretending he was a lookout for the king of Gwynedd. 

On the Great Orme, Llandudno

Thoughts like this shaped Jones’ war. The idealism didn’t last long, but his connection with the past only grew deeper and more real. Aware that he was fighting in a new kind of war, Jones felt that being in battle was, for the private infantryman, essentially the same experience it always had been. Distinction between past and present, at times, virtually broke down. The battle honours of the regiment liturgised Namur, Blenheim, Salamanca, Sevastapol, but ringing in Jones’ head were Brunanburh, Camlann, Catraeth, and ancient, vaguer ‘border antipathies’. Most of the soldiers around him had their own versions, the result not of propaganda or jingoism, but the simple fact of being there. 

Battle Honours of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, Jones' regiment

All through his time in the trenches, Jones carried, alternately, the Oxford Book of English Verse and Palgrave’s Golden Treasury in his pack. Reading them almost constantly, he grew frustrated that the ‘greats’ of Quiller-Couch and Palgrave now felt remote, too comfortable, for ‘they knew no calamity comparable with what we knew’. Thomas Dilworth, in his excellent David Jones in the Great War, argues that literature predating the canonised poetry of the anthologies had more resonance for Jones in this strange, particular reality.

Jones didn’t start writing In Parenthesis until the end of the 1920s. (On finishing All Quiet on the Western Front he reportedly responded with ‘Bugger it, I can do better than that. I’m going to write a book.’[3]) The poetry in In Parenthesis is intensely vivid, and allusions to Jones’ private world are integral to its sense of reality. No man’s land is recalled as a place of ‘enchantment’, like Pennant Govid or Annwn; explosive upheavals in the earth bring Twrch Trwyth to mind; men asleep in trench corners are ‘like long-barrow sleepers’. The allusions are not there to romanticise, but to present the Great War as Jones himself experienced it, and to align this catastrophe, symbolically, with other, older ones.

 

Christopher Williams, Battle at Mametz Wood (1918)

Jones furnished each of In Parenthesis’ seven parts with lines from Y Gododdin (a poetic compendium of war and disaster from medieval Wales). Y Gododdin has been praised for its realism: Gwynn Jones thought the soldier’s advance gan wyrd wawr, ‘with the green dawn’, the phrase of a man who had seen first faint morning ‘with a poet’s eye’. In Parenthesis finds matching lyrical detail amidst devastation. On the title page, Jones used what he took to be the most significant line of all: Seinnyessit e gledyf ym penn mameu, ‘his sword rang in mothers’ heads’. The deaths of Britons at Catraeth and at Mametz Wood, where Jones’ battalion suffered one hundred and eighty causalities and he himself was badly wounded, were to him rehearsals of the same ‘loveless’ defeat.  

David Jones

The author wrote simply that In Parenthesis is ‘about some things I saw, felt, and was part of’. Eliot, Auden, Greene, Yeats and Stravinsky all counted it among the greatest of any Modern poetry.

*****

Last October I met Colin Wilcockson, former ASNC and Emeritus Fellow of English at Pembroke, for lunch at his college. Colin had been friends with Jones and, like everyone else who had met him, described him as the warmest and kindest of men. Afterwards, in the SCR, Colin unsheafed a portfolio he had with him and carefully spread the contents over a table. Unexpectedly, each bundle was a handwritten letter from Jones, glossed and re-glossed, sometimes illuminated, bursting with marginalia. In one of them, I glimpsed a mischievous return address, ‘Saes Canol’. Jones had rented a room in Harrow, Middlesex, in the 1950s. It was, he said, ‘his dug-out’. He died in 1974. 

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[1] Kettle’s Yard closes for refurbishment on 21^st June 2015, and will not reopen until 2017: see it now!

[2] Jones sometimes thought of himself as ‘Walter Map’ (Walter being Jones’ rapidly-discarded Christian name, and Walter Map the name of a twelfth-century Welshman who served Henry II).

[3] Incidentally Jones writes delightfully on swearing: ‘Private X’s tirade of oaths means no more than “I do not like this Vale of Tears”… the “Bugger! Bugger!” of a man detailed, had often about it the “Fiat! Fiat!” of the Saints’.