Irish Studies: It is a generally accepted fact that the Irish Revival of the late 19th century was a west of Ireland affair synonymous with Yeats's Sligo, Gregory's Kiltartan, Pearse's Rosmuc and Synge's Aran.
This view, however, may owe more to the dominance of Yeats's account of that period and to a certain partitionist strain within Irish historiography than to the actual realities.
Feis na nGleann is an important and fascinating book which challenges some of the settled ideas about the Revival years and makes a modest, yet utterly convincing, claim for the Glens of Antrim to be recognised as an alternative cradle of the Irish Renaissance.
The Antrim Glens formed one of the last Irish-speaking areas of Ulster until the early 1900s. Irish was widely spoken there and on Rathlin Island until the opening of the Antrim coast road in the 1850s. It is not surprising, therefore, that this region would become a centre of cultural activity for Northern revivalists at the end of the 19th century. T
his book sets out to record much of that cultural endeavour and celebrates, in particular, the founding of Feis na nGleann in 1904.
The Glens Feis was, in many respects, a quintessential Revival initiative which brought ordinary people and "Big House" figures together in common cause to celebrate and promote local culture in the broadest sense. Competitions were organised in music, dancing, sport, language and literature as well as in local crafts and industries. What may surprise readers, though, is the sheer number of people associated in some way with the feis, who rank among the most influential figures within Irish cultural nationalism of this period. Among these can be included: Roger Casement, patriot and humanitarian; the poet and journalist Ethna Carbery; Eoin MacNeill, Gaelic League co-founder; playwright Alice Milligan; Bulmer Hobson, the IRB leader; folklorist and benefactor Francis Joseph Bigger; George Shiels, the Abbey playwright; and Joseph Campbell, author of My Lagan Love. Interestingly, the leading Northern revivalist, George Russell, does not seem to have been involved in the project.
Much like the phenomenon it examines, this book is eclectic and laudably democratic in its gathering together of the perspectives of professional scholars (including the noted historian Eamon Phoenix), local historians, teachers, and committee members alike. Important accounts by early activists are also usefully reprinted here. The result is a wonderfully assorted document which resists the idea of presenting a single authorised version of events in favour of a more open-ended conversation of perspectives. For this one can forgive the repetition of information one encounters at times in these pages.
The dominant presence in this book is surely the figure of Roger Casement. Although born in Sandycove, Co Dublin, he was educated in Ballymena and spent his holidays in Ballycastle. According to Stephanie Millar's illuminating essay Casement was a leading figure in the organising of the original Glens Feis in 1904. In fact this event marks a key moment in the evolution of his political thinking and stands as his "first public embrace of Irish nationalism". Among the lasting images of this book are the ones of Casement taking up a scythe to clear a field of weeds in advance of the feis and of him umpiring a hurling match on Glenariff beach. Ada McNeill's engaging and moving personal recollection of summers spent with Casement is also appropriately reprinted here.
This book is a fitting tribute to the imagination, audacity, generosity and tolerance of the founders and inheritors of Feis na nGleann which continues to this day. It is a gem of local history that will transcend its genre to make a notable contribution to national debates. It deserves to be widely read.
PJ Mathews lectures in Anglo-Irish literature at University College Dublin. He is the author of Revival (Field Day/Cork UP, 2003) and will direct the Parnell Summer School from August 14th-20th at Avondale, Co Wicklow
Feis na nGleann: A Century of Gaelic Culture in the Antrim Glens Edited by Eamon Phoenix, Pádraic Ó Cléireacháin, Eileen McAuley and Nuala McSparran Stair Uladh, 192pp. £8