Historical Use of the Irish Language in Literature

From ancient myths to modern novels, the Irish language has played a significant role in the world of literature. This article explores the evolution of the Irish language in literature, from mythological heroes in Old Irish to the romanticized stories of modern Irish.

Mythological Beginnings: Old Irish

The oldest literature in Irish was typically mythological, recounting the feats of mythological heroes. These stories, known as Old Irish, were written in the seventh to ninth centuries. While Modern Irish speakers cannot read those texts without specialized study, they have been preserved through folklore and have lived on in the modern language.

Middle Irish: Around the Turn of the First Millennium

The kind of Irish written around the turn of the first millennium is known as Middle Irish. This language, however, was often disparaged in earlier terminologies, as it was said to have relatively few writers and poets, and to lack a clear standard. Nevertheless, Middle Irish had its own poetic form, such as the Acallam na Senórach, which translates to Agallamh na Seanóirí or Agallamh na Seanórach.

Classical Irish: 12th to 17th Centuries

From the 12th to the 17th centuries, literature began to take shape in what is often called Classical Irish. The mainstream of Classical Irish was strictly standardized poetry written by courtly poets. There was also some prose literature in a more colloquial variant of the language, alongside a particular historians' style that was arguably more archaic and old-fashioned.

Literary Decline and Revival: 17th to 20th Centuries

The decline of the Irish-speaking upper class in the 17th century marked the end of literary refinement in the Irish language. The last literary work in Classical Irish was Geoffrey Keating’s Forus Feasa ar éirinn, a history book mixed with mythological elements. Keating, while writing in pseudo-archaic Irish, was still a poet with modern training.

After the 19th century, the Irish language saw a revival. One of the early figures was the priest Peter O’Leary, or Peadar ó Laoghaire, who wrote the novel Séadna based on folklore and his autobiography Mo Scéal Féin. Pádraig ó Conaire also made significant contributions to modern literature, creating a literature that was both modern and realist.

20th Century Developments

The 20th century saw the development of a "literary infrastructure" for Irish. This included the works of the three greats from the Blasket Islands: Tomás ó Criomhthain, Theóir Sayers, and Muiris ó Súilleabháin. These peasant autobiographies, written in Kerry Irish, highlighted the dialectal diversity of the language. Additionally, several works of world literature were translated into Irish, including Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and Ivanhoe.

Modern Writers and Their Contributions

Two prominent modern writers in Irish were Máirtín ó Cadhain and Seosamh Mac Grianna. ó Cadhain, with his novels and short stories, was comparable to most Nobel laureates in literature. Seosamh Mac Grianna, despite his depressive psychosis, left behind a fond collection of works that influenced younger writers.

Seosamh’s elder brother, Séamus ó Grianna, was prolific in romantic stories, mainly focusing on Donegal and heavily dialectal. His works aimed to teach good Irish to his readers, and anyone who read his writings attentively would learn an Irish that is unparalleled.