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Well I looked up An Gradh agus An Ghruaim and discovered that contrary to what I had been told the author was not a priest and was a highly regarded Irish language writer. See https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10912683-an-gr-dh-agus-an-ghruaim

The accolades here notwithstanding the book was grim. There wasn't much, if any, Gra (love) but a lot of Gruaim (gloom). The stories might have been revised to simplify the language in them for us. Being all rural tales about people's herds falling off cliffs and people dying in misery etc. they didn't connect very well with us city kids. I have a copy of An Beal Bocht but haven't got around to reading it yet . . . There was an exhibition about Peig in the new Museum of Literature of Ireland (MoLI) recently. I didn't see it but I gather it gave the unexpurgated account of her life which was more racy than the version we got in school.

There has been a resurgence of interest in the Irish language in latter years. When I worked in the Parliament we needed Irish speakers in the office and the recent crop were young, bright, and enthusiastic about the language. Half of them left after a couple of years to go to better jobs in the European Commission and Courts of Justice, where there is a need for translators since Irish has been designated an official language.

I will look out for the O Conaire book you mention. Thanks!

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Fascinating stuff, Chris. Although born and bred in Ireland I knew nothing about O Conaire and never read his work in school or elsewhere! When I was learning Irish (compulsory) in the 70s we had to wade through a book of dreadful stories written by a priest as a text book. And the infamous Peig - the censored memoir of one of the last inhabitants of the Blasket Islands. The great literary heritage of Irish was closed to us because the language had been simplified to make it easier to teach! The upshot was it put most of my generation off the language. So thank you for the gift of O Conaire!

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founding

A fantastic read. And I found your comment “ Writers… can preserve the underlying humanity of people caught up in events too complex for any honest historian to narrate.” very insightful.

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