Irish Language: This diary is variously described by its author as "evasive and uncertain", as giving "only one side of the story", where he is not entirely trying to be honest, nor being dishonest either, writes Alan Titley
Much of Liam Mac Cóil's published fiction and criticism is a constant debate about what it is possible for us to say, and consequently his published diaries for 1991-2001 are a fascinating exercise in his struggle with the limits of writing.
A diary should be the most unpolished and immediate of compositions, it might be raw and uncompromising, it could expose the most fraught and secret thoughts. It may be no more truthful for that, and Mac Cóil is aware of the contradictions in writing a private account for public consumption, a contradiction which both energises and cautions him. This diary arose out of a request to provide a contribution for the excellent annual journal, An Aimsir Óg, and from the author's time as writer-in-residence in NUI Maynooth. The intention was always publication in some form, but this does not take from the integrity of the writing or the acuity of the thoughts.
Like any good narrative, you are drawn in. The title translates as "notes from the centre", which is where we all are, none of us is ex-centric. There is a comfort in it, the description of everyday life, a sense of locality, of family, of simple events, a place where the outside world is often dimmed. The writing is often poetic, always crafted, and sometimes as plain, wholesome and clear as the food or the landscape. We see the author/reader dumping out old magazines, doing his garden, being involved in the local community. But it is his reflections on art, on music, on singing, on society, on this our "race of clodhoppers", on politics and literature, that give the book its reason for existing. Although always the most courteous of guides, Mac Cóil becomes most passionate on the relationship between the Irish language and nationalism. Here he is arguing with himself, with Eoghan Ó Gramhnaigh, with Máirtín Ó Cadhain. But he is in no doubt that the language, and the life that is lived through it, is bigger and richer than any political cause. To read this diary is an encounter with a lively mind which is both provocative and challenging. In the best of occasional writings, as here, it is the throw-away comment, the aside, the not-quite- hammered-home idea that is king.
Mac Cóil's wrestling with the possibilities of narrative truth seem small in comparison with the history of the partial Irish-language version of Charles McGlinchey's autobiography. Patrick Kavanagh, who was a schoolteacher in Clonmany in Inishowen, encouraged McGlinchey to tell him the story of his life. Brian Friel edited and reworked the manuscript which appeared as The Last of the Name in 1986. When this work was completed, Kavanagh encouraged him to tell his story again, this time in Irish, which was his native language. Unfortunately, the teller died before it could be completed, and what we have here is that story lovingly organised and put in context by Kavanagh's son and by Nollaig Mac Congáil. This is a roundabout way of explaining that autobiographies are never simple.
McGlinchey was one of the last native speakers of Irish in Inishowen. There is, therefore, a kind of tragic voyeuristic fascination in reading the speech of one whose tongue was being wiped from the earth. When he was young, everyone spoke Irish; when he died, virtually nobody did. It is the story of Ireland of the 19th century writ small. For social historians it is a riveting account from the inside of what life was like from somebody with a prodigious memory and a sense of language. The writing is hard and unwasted. The mind is unsentimental but kind. Life was a bed of mangles where men slaved and where women could be kidnapped into marriage. The cliché has it that life is changing rapidly now. It was always rapidly changing, and McGlinchey bore witness with clarity and strength.
Alan Titley is a scholar, novelist and dramatist. He is head of the Irish department in St Patrick's College, Drumcondra
Nótaí ón Lár: Dialann Mhantach. By Liam Mac Cóil, Leabhar Breac, 174 pp. €8.40
An Fear Deireanach den tSloinneadh. By Charles McGlinchey, Patrick Kavanagh a bhreac síos. Ed. Desmond Kavanagh and Nollaig Mac Congáil,
Arlen House, 112 pp. €14