Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe greatest triumph of this book's many triumphs is its warm appreciation for family and community that emerge in the lovingly translated texts. These stories foreground the history of Ireland as experienced, remembered, and relived by oral intellectual leaders of a marginalized, and often forgotten, maritime community. . . . Indeed, if silence is the angel with which literature wrestles, these translations give voice to the memory, stories, and legacy of oral intellectuals who feature here and tell the story of history from below. Essential reading for any traveler to Connemara and the West of Ireland.
-- Brian Ó Conchubhair, University of Notre Dame
Seán Mac Giollarnáth's landmark publication of 1941 demonstrates his work in collecting traditional material and transcribing vernacular culture. It is fitting to see the work in translation, and readers seeking to step into the wondrous world of Conamara tradition would do well to begin here."
-- Ríonach uí Ógáin, University College Dublin
With the same profound and intimate sense of place and absolute command of their source's rich Conamara Irish they brought to their translation of Máirtín Ó Cadhain's Cré na Cille as Graveyard Clay, in Conamara Chronicles: Tales from Iorras Aithneach—their superb translation of traditional lore originally collected and published by Seán Mac Giollarnáth in 1941—Liam Mac Con Iomaire and Tim Robinson bring alive again the people, tales, and culture of another of Ireland's petites patries whose like is unlikely to ever be seen again.
-- Philip O'Leary, Boston College
A vivid and absorbing collection of tales that bring to life whole worlds of imagination and experience. Tim Robinson and Liam Mac Con Iomaire in their remarkable translation capture the poetic vibrancy and profound sensitivity to nature and place of a community of Conamara storytellers who see the local as the portal to the universal.
-- Michael Cronin, Trinity College Dublin
Table of ContentsA Personal Note
Acknowledgments
Nomenclature
Reading this Volume
Space, Time & Connemara, by Tim Robinson
The Brief Annals: An Introductory Note, by Liam Mac Con Iomaire
1. The Holy Men and the Islands
2. Troubled Times
3. The Year of the French (1798)
4. The Tories / Vigilantes
5. Big Men
6. Robbers and Treasures
7. Smugglers
8. Poor Scholars
9. Priests
10. People and Places
11. Boatmen and Timber
12. Food
13. Wisps of Straw
14. Custodians of Traditional Lore and Storytellers
Reading this Volume: Meet the Storytellers, by Liam Mac Con Iomaire
Bibliography
Maps
Index
