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Irish Author Roundtable
4.
AOTW: Joyce. Yeats. Beckett. Wilde. What is it about Ireland that's produced such a disproportionate share of great writers? What Irish writers have influenced you? Who, in your opinion, are the Irish writers people should read to get a good picture of Ireland's literary heritage?
Marian Keyes: I think Ireland has produced such a high number of great writers as a direct result of being colonised by the English. At various stages during their rule, the Irish were forbidden from owning land, being educated, even eating... and very often the only way to define ourselves as Irish was with the intangible --- language. Words were all we owned. Also, a second language --- English --- was superimposed on a population speaking another language --- Irish --- and although English eventually became the first language, Irish people continued to speak and write English according to the rhythms of the older language. It's like painting over wallpaper --- in some lights you can still see the original pattern and the Irish use of the English language is quirky, colourful and textured as a result of that duality.
The Irish writers that have influenced me most are Flann O'Brien --- dark, dark humour, entertaining surrealism and gorgeous, quirky use of language. I'm also greatly influenced by Edna O'Brien --- a writer who was and is extremely courageous, a writer who was angry on behalf of Irish women and who acknowledged for the first time the sexuality of Irish woman. In a more practical way, she paved the way for the many Irish women who are being published today. Because has anyone noticed that the list of "Great Irish Writers" that is traditionally trotted out consists exclusively of dead men? I'm sure there were many talented female writers, they simply didn't get the chance to be published under the rigid Madonna/whore social order that existed until recently.
Robert Mooney: Not to mention Flann O'Brien, Sean O'Faolain, and Frank O'Connor, whom I mentioned earlier, or a score of contemporary Irish poets and writers that include Seamus Heaney and William Trevor --- arguably the finest poet and fiction writer, respectively, writing in English today. If you look way back in Irish history you will find clues as to why there exists this disproportionate proficiency in substantial literary contributions from the Irish.
I'm thinking of the triumvirate of king, brehon lawyer, and poet, who ruled Irish society in the pre-Christian era (imagine poets sharing power with "politicians" and lawyers!), and then the deep respect for the word in the monastic tradition in Ireland for centuries afterward. It is a culture that has, from its very beginnings, flourished on the word-that is to say on story, on song, on poetry. It may, in part, be one of the reasons why Catholicism took such deep root in the culture-the idea of 'word made flesh' would be, I think, especially appealing to a people already so deeply enamored with the power of language.
Even in Ireland's darkest decades of oppression, I believe it was this love of language and what language can do to the spirit that kept the culture alive, despite very concerted efforts to subjugate it completely. Look at Yeats's success at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century with his "Irish Revival." When Parnell died in 1891, and all hope for Irish political self-determination, at least for another generation, Yeats succeeded in consciously organizing the culture not around political values and power, but around literary expression. He created, in a sense, a republic of words, demonstrating the potential power of literature in a society, however politically powerless. Out of that time came the writers you mention.
Frank Gannon: That's absolutely true. For a little country, Ireland is a very powerful literary force. They deserve their status, I think. I was amazed when I first encountered Yeats. For me, he's far and away the greatest modern poet. Joyce is a genius, a difficult writer who is worth the effort to read. I think Synge is very under rated as a playwright. I think he's one of the best. Flann O'Brian is another great underrated writer. One of the funniest and best ever. I really don't know why the Irish are naturally literary, but they are. They say the oral tradition or something. It just seems to be a genetic thing with Irish people. I thought I could turn on a tape recorder many times in Ireland, and I would have an instant novel.
Bill Cullen: I believe that it is the great tapestry of Irish history plus the magnificent Irish scenery that influences the artistic writings of our literates. The talent could well be in our genes from the monks who gave us the Book of Kells, of Durrow and the other manuscripts of bygone days. Oscar Wilde epitomises Irish wit, Joyce captured the dialect and culture of Dublin, Morgan Llywelyn brought our history to a wider audience, and for me John B. Keane had an astute insight into the Irish psyche.
John Dominic Crossan: Here's a shortcut --- just for fun. Read Joyce's novel, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Then read McCourt's memoir, Angela's Ashes (or, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Boy). Now try and decide the difference between memoir and novel, fact and fiction. Welcome to blarney realism.
Shawn McBride: I will let Irish-born authors recommend books that portray Ireland honestly. The first question is too vague to answer and acts as if those four were empirically great. I have no use for Joyce or Yeats. I read their stuff and get the impression that neither had a friend or more than one conversation a year. It's all so isolated and impenetrable. I love Beckett and Wilde though. In addition I am a huge fan of Roddy Doyle, Patrick McCabe, Frank McCourt, Brendan O'Carroll, among many other Irish writers.
Brendan O'Carroll: We certainly do have more than our share of writers and I think it's our inability to shut up that's the problem. Any visitor to our lovely little island will tell you that it is impossible to ask a native the time of day, without the answer being wrapped up in a story of how we Irish invented the clock!
As far as my own influences are concerned, I cannot point to any of the above men of genius, as I departed schooling at just twelve years of age. I was influenced not by story writers but story tellers. Having said this, I am sure any of the above along with Roddy Doyle, The McCourt brothers and Brendan Behan, throw in a good helping of Maeve Binchy and Nuala O'Faolain and a pinch of O'Casey will give you at least ten different pictures of Ireland. The reader can then decide which one of us is the liar. Ha ha!
Nuala O'Faolain: I think we had no riches but words for many centuries, and no way of displaying individuality except through a display of language. People should read Edna O'Brien, the novelist, Nell McCafferty, the journalist and Marina Carr the playwright --- to name but three women --- to take the all-male look off Ireland. Also, we were Irish-speaking until a century and a half ago. Read the translations in the anthology An Duanaire, The Dispossessed.
Thomas Moran: My pet theory is that Ireland has produced so many great writers because love of language was integral to Irish culture long before English was imposed on Gaelic-speaking Ireland. Perhaps the Irish response over many generations to that imposition was to introduce traditional Gaelic modes of expression into English, creating a fresh and invigorating Anglo-Irish, and thus outdoing the English in their own tongue. No particular Irish writer has influenced me, but the rhythms and cadences of Irish writing are in my blood. Everyone should read Yeats, who surpasses all in lyricism and beautiful imagery, and Joyce, who is unrivaled in sheer inventiveness of form and construction. Writers as varied as Jonathan Swift, John Millington Synge, Sean O'Casey, Frank O'Connor, and Sean O'Faolain seem under-appreciated masters these days, but should be read. And I admire Edna O'Brien's work.
Joseph O'Connor: (a) I don't really know why Ireland has produced the quartet of literary heroes mentioned above, but I would respectfully caution against the assumptions implicit in the question. If countries may be said to "produce" writers, in the way that Switzerland produces cuckoo clocks, or Kentucky produces fried chicken, it must adamantly be noted that the Ireland which produced, say, Yeats, was a very different Ireland from the one which produced, say, Brendan Behan; and that both of those writers would find Seamus Heaney's Ireland an almost unrecognizable place. In fact, there are as many different Irelands as there are Irish writers, and each of those unique countries has produced its national celebrant.
Joyce. Yeats. Beckett. Wilde. The first was an exile for most of his adult life, as was the third, who wrote his greatest works in French. As far as I know, Wilde only rarely described himself as an Irishman. And to judge from some of his more eccentric utterances, the great Yeats was actually from a small town on Venus.
My serious point is that all the above figures are culturally mulatto, which seems to me a very good thing and the reason why each of them achieved such greatness. Irish literature has always been far more diverse than it appears at first glance. Think, for example, of Yeats's fascinating experiments with the Japanese 'Noh' theatre, George Bernard Shaw's interest in a world language, the clear influence of English music hall on Sean O'Casey and Brendan Behan, and the magnificent multi-lingual symphony that is Joyce's Finnegans Wake.
Another interesting factor has to do with ideology. As Professor Declan Kiberd has noted, despite the fact that politics in Ireland is generally a series of arguments between conservatives, every major Irish writer of the early 20th century --- except Yeats --- was a socialist of one kind or another, and thus had access to an enormous fund of internationalist and revolutionary thinking that worked against the parochialism and insularity of Irish society. For me, that process of looking outwards has helped many Irish writers to find universal appeal.
(b) I wouldn't dare to call him an influence, but the great Irish writer whose work I like best is Oscar Wilde, because (as he said himself) "behind the dandy's facade I am at heart a moralist." I think his plays, as well as being brilliantly funny, are extremely powerful and relevant ethical essays. The central questions asked by an apparently frothy comedy like The Importance of Being Earnest are some of the most important moral enquiries any of us can ever make: Who am I? Who can I be? Can I change? Should I? That such serious questions can be asked in a form that fizzes like a glass of champagne is an achievement of absolute and awe-inspiring genius.
(c) A good place for a newcomer to dip a toe into the Irish literary tradition is Dubliners, James Joyce's collection of short stories. I first read it as a young teenager and was spellbound and moved by it, and I find it hard to imagine any reader not seeing something to like in it. Beyond that, it's difficult to say in a piece of this length which Irish authors should be read; but any list aspiring to historical completeness would include, as well as the writers mentioned elsewhere in these remarks, Jonathan Swift, Edmund Burke, Lawrence Sterne, Maria Edgeworth, Frank O'Connor, Liam O'Flaherty, Sean O'Faolain, Patrick Kavanagh, Flann O'Brien, Anthony Cronin, Kate O'Brien, Edna O'Brien, Neil Jordan and Desmond Hogan. There are currently a number of quite remarkable talents writing for the theatre in Ireland; they include Brian Friel, Conor McPherson, Martin MacDonagh, Marina Carr, Mark O'Rowe, Frank McGuinness, Gary Mitchell and Conal Morrison.
The best critic to turn to for an eloquent, audacious and always questioning view of Ireland's literary heritage is the previously noted Declan Kiberd. His book Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation is nothing less than a masterpiece. Professor Roy Foster's recent collection of articles The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making It Up in Ireland is also brilliant (though of its nature less comprehensive). It is crisp, provocative and often mischievously funny.
Ann Moore: It's the weather! I live in the Pacific Northwest, so I know that there's something about the low, intense grey light that inspires both introspection and mad speculation in writers. Ireland also has its enormously strong tradition of oral storytelling. People held onto their history and mythology through songs, ballads, poetry, legends --- all of it mentally retained and handed down by mouth. As we reached the part of the century that saw more and more Irishmen able to gain education, to go beyond mere reading and writing and into the complexity and power of the written word, we began to see these old stories and ballads reworked into bold, new works.
We also see writers with a burning need to explore who they were in the world in regard to their "Irishness" --- what set them apart, what made them different, how did they fit in with the grand scheme of human design for their time? The old questions of "who are we," and "why are we here?" What is wonderful about the great Irish writers is their playfulness with language, their tongue-in-cheek examination of themselves and others, mixed slyly with sober, intelligent observation.
I am an admirer of Yeats and Wilde, and have learned a great deal from the spare writing of Edna O'Brien and William Trevor. My favorite Irish author, though, is Michael Collins whose short stories are crisp and dark, and whose last two brilliant novels are commentaries on America in the 1970s! It is perhaps the outsiders' view that makes them so compelling.
Kerry Hardie: There is great value placed on talk here. Talk is made out of words, anyone can do it, all that is needed to make it is time, a good eye, and a receptive ear. A love of language is endemic in Ireland --- I hope that that never ceases.
I have been influenced by Joyce, Yeats, Beckett, Wilde, John McGahern, Sean O'Faolain, Michael McLaverty, Bernard Maclaverty, Kate O'Brien, John Synge, Mary Lavin, Sean O'Casey, Flann O'Brien, Brendan Behan, Jennifer Johnston, Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, Michael Longley, Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, and others too numerous to list.
For a good picture of Ireland's literary heritage read all the above plus Claire Keegan, Roddy Doyle, Colm Toibin, Patrick McCabe, Nuala O'Faolain, Seamus Deane, Leland Bradwell, Sean O'Reilly, Paul Muldoon, Ciaran Carson, Sinead Morrissey.... The list is endless.
Emilie Richards: When we visited Dingle and toured the Blasket Island Center I was amazed how many significant writers had come from that tiny community --– never more than 200 people, many who could not read or write. I’m still pondering exactly how the influences of the Irish language itself, the myths, the religion, the culture, and in the case of the Blaskets, the isolation, have intertwined over the centuries to produce such a stunning body of work.
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