Irish Word Research Articles

The Irish traditional lament and the grieving process

“Keening” in English suggests a high-pitched, inarticulate moaning, but the Irish word caoineadh, from which it derives signifies among other things, a highly articulate tradition of women's oral poetry. The lamenting woman led the community in a public display of grief. Acting out in her appearance and behaviour the disorder brought about by death, she was often barefoot and dishevelled. Her caoineadh or lament was a series of breathless utterances of rhymed, rhythmic praise of the dead person (usually a man), and invective against his enemies. In the 20th century Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and others have identified the sequence of emotions which are the necessary components of the grieving process: notably denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and acceptance. In this paper, texts of caoineadh, mostly from the 18th century, are examined and it is suggested that they embody a disciplined and powerful expression of these stages of mourning.

Nomadry in medieval Ireland: the origins of the creaght or caoraigheacht

The Irish word caoraigheacht, Hiberno-English ‘creaght’, signified a herd of miscellaneous livestock with its attendants, grazing or passing through other people’s lands, with or without the landowners’s permission. The terms has not been noted as occurring earlier than the late fourteenth century, and from this period onwards the leaders of such herds could be members of either the Irish or the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. A creaght could be formed by the settled population of a district temporarily displaced in time of war, moving as a train of refugees, or aggressive migrants, under the leadership of their own chief. There were also certain classes within society – landless nobles, wandering poets or mercenary soldiers – who were accustomed to migrate from one landlord to another, with their band of followers and livestock. It is suggested that an increase in this class of landless noblemen and the warfare associated with the Tudor reconquest combined with an existing pattern of transhumance to bring about the situation in 1610 where society in mid-Ulster was perceived as being organised in creaghts or ‘herds’ rather than into villages.

Latin and Irish words for ‘book-satchel’

Latin and Irish words for ‘book-satchel’

An Giall and The Hostage Compared

An Giall and The Hostage Compared RICHARD WALL • RECENT EVENTS IN IRELAND have led to a revival of interest in Brendan Behan's Hostage. The accidental topicality of the play is reflected in the use of current newspaper headlines to advertise a recent presentation of the play by Theatre Calgary, Alberta. Unfortunately, the only version of the play which is widely known, the Joan Littlewood production of the late fifties when the I.R.A. was something of a joke, is now in rather bad taste. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to An Giall,l the restrained and almost forgotten tragi-comedy in Irish by Behan on which The Hostage2 is based. Early in 1957, Gael-Linn, an Irish language revival organization, commissioned Behan to write a play for its Irish-speaking theatre. On June 16, 1958, An Giall (The Hostage) had is premiere in the Darner Hall, Dublin. At the end of a successful run, Littlewood offered to stage the play in London if Behan would translate it into English. Behan accepted the offer and The Hostage was presented to the English-speaking world by Theatre Workshop on October 14, 1958 at the Theatre Royal, Stratford , London. However, a comparison of the Irish and English texts reveals that The Hostage is not a translation; it is a drastically modified version of the original play. The fact that The Hostage is more than a translation begins to emerge as soon as one examines the characters in the two versions of the play. There are ten characters in An Gia!!; there are fifteen in The Hostage. The characters of An Giall are: Patrick, who runs the establishment known as The Hole; Kate, his consort; Teresa, the servant girl; Monsur, the owner ofThe Hole; Leslie, the hostage; the I.R.A. Officer; the I.R.A. Volunteer; the Broy Harrier, a Special Branch detective; and two other I.R.A. volun165 166 RICHARD WALL teers. In The Hostage Pat's consort is named Meg and Kate is the name of an added character, the pianist. Teresa, Monsur, Leslie, the Officer and Volunteer appear in The Hostage, but the Broy Harrier, who leads the raid on The Hole at the end ofAn Giall, undergoes something of a metamorphosis . His name has its origin in the popular nickname of the Special Branch detective force in Dublin Castle. The nickname is an ironic combination of the name of the founder of the force, Colonel Bray, and that of a cross-country running club, the Bray Harriers. Since all of this would probably be lost on an English audience, his name is changed and he appears in an expanded and largely comic role as the decaying civil servant, Mr. Mulleady, who reveals himself as a secret policeman during the raid on The Hole at the end of The Hostage. The two other I.R.A. volunteers, who appear briefly at the end ofAn Giall, are eliminated from The Hostage. The effects of these changes are insignificant compared to the effects of the addition of seven characters to The Hostage: Rio Rita, a homosexual navvy; Princess Grace, his coloured boyfriend; Miss Gilchrist, a social worker; two whores, Colette and Ropeen; the Russian Sailor; and Kate, the pianist. Colette and Ropeen are mentioned in An Giall, but they do not appear. The significance of Ropeen's name is lost in translation: the Irish word ruipin means little whore. The added characters contribute nothing to the plot of The Hostage, but they contribute a great deal to its tone, which is very different from that of the original. The function of the added characters can be seen by comparing the beginning of The Hostage with the beginning of An Giall. Before the curtain rises in An Giall, one hears the beating of drums and then the pipe lament, "Flowers of the Forest." The drums cease as the curtain rises, but the lament continues and is explained to Kate by Patrick. As the curtain rises in The Hostage, the added characters are dancing "a wild Irish jig" (p. I). Pat and Meg sit and drink stout until it is over, and when the dancers leave she...

More Irish Words in Spenser

More Irish Words in Spenser

Notes on Irish Words

Notes on Irish Words

Irish Words and Their Correlatives

Irish Words and Their Correlatives

Is Iktis in Cornwall, and did Iron and Copper Precede Tin?

AT Penzance on October 19, 1883, I asserted that the invention of tin-smelting was Cornish, but disputed the claim of St. Michael's Mount to be the sole claimant to the title of Iktis, the tin-shipping port described by Diodorus Siculus 1800 years ago, and I thought the inventions of metals were in this order: (1) iron, (2) copper, (3) tin. We may consider the Romans invaded Britain purposely to obtain its metals, which were then worked extensively by the British inhabitants. I believe the Romans either adopted Celtic names of places or things, or translated their meaning. I find the Cornish district, or Land's End, described by Ptolemy the geographer in the second century as “Belerium,” that is the land of mines, “bal” being Cornish for a mine. The word is also met with in Irish. In the same manner the skin boats used by the Cornishmen, which so much astonished the Greek travellers, were described by the Greeks under the name of “coracles,” evidently a Celtic word from the Celtic root “cren” or “croen,” skin. So tin, I think, is derived from the Irish word “teine,” Welsh “tan,” teine probably also expressing brightness. Even in the Malay Peninsula, in the East Indies, a word of similar sound, “timah,” still stands for “tin,” and not the Greek term for that metal “kassiteros.”