Iad siúd in Éirinn nach maith leo an Ghaeilge, is éard a áitíonn siad orainn ná nach bhfuil ar a aird ag scríbhneoir na Gaeltachta ach cúrsaí na tuaithe agus an bhaile bhig. Ar ndóigh, níor léigh na ‘saineolaithe’ sin oiread is aon leabhar amháin as a stuaim féin sa teanga, ach murar léigh, ní hionann sin is nach mbeadh barúlacha láidire acu i dtaobh litríocht na Gaeilge – a mhalairt ar fad. Those people in Ireland who don’t like the Irish language always tell us that literature written by native speakers isn’t about anything other than country and village life. Of course, those ‘experts’ never read as much as one book in the language except when forced to, but that does not mean they wouldn’t have strong opinions on literature in Irish – quite the opposite.
Is iad na dírbheathaisnéisí Gaeltachta bunchloch na litríochta nua-aoisí sa teanga. Nuair nach raibh litríocht eile ann sa teanga chomhaimseartha, fuair ceannródaithe na scríbhneoireachta Gaeilge riachtanach caint na ndaoine a chur i míotar, le go mbeadh réamhshampla stíle ag na scríbhneoirí nárbh í an Ghaeilge a dteanga dhúchais, réamhshampla a bheadh bunaithe ar an teanga nádúrtha labhartha.
Mar sin, chuaigh siad ag cur agallaimh ar sheanchaithe agus ar scéalaithe ar an gcósta thiar, agus chuir siad torthaí na hoibre seo i gcló, ionas gur foilsíodh na scórtha leabhair inar thug seandaoine ón nGaeltacht cur síos ar a saol féin i dteanga dhúchais a muintire.
Inniu, bíonn naimhde na Gaeilge ag caitheamh anuas ar an gcineál seo litríochta, agus iad ag tathant nach bhfuil baint aici ná ag an teanga féin le saol ár linne féin, toisc go bhfuil peirspictíocht na dírbheathaisnéise Gaeltachta teoranta don tsráidbhaile bheag agus don tsaol shimplí a bhí ag na daoine ansin i ndeireadh na naoú haoise déag agus i dtús na fichiú haoise.
Is minic a luann siad Peig – dírbheathaisnéis Pheig Sayers ó Chiarraí – mar fhianaise. Ní hí Peig an t-aon leabhar amháin i stair an tseánra seo, áfach. Tá cinn eile ann, cosúil le Rotha Mór an tSaoil le Micí Mac Gabhann.
Bhí dírbheathaisnéisithe eile sa Ghaeltacht, agus peirspictíocht an-fhairsing acu, nó chaith siad tamall fada ar an gcoigríoch ag cur aithne ar na daoine agus ar an saol thar sáile. Le fírinne, cé acu is iltírí: an duine meánaicmeach nó uasaicmeach a raibh cónaí air i mBaile Átha Cliath timpeall ar chasadh an chéid, a chaitheadh an chuid ba mho dá shaol san aon áit amháin seo i gcuideachta lucht a chomhaicme féin, nó fear Gaeltachta cosúil le Micí Mac Gabhann, a rinne a bhealach trí ilchríoch Mheiriceá Thuaidh ag obair seal anseo agus seal ansiúd, go dtí gur bhain sé amach Klondike, áit a raibh ruathar óir san am, agus daoine ó gach cearn den domhan ag tarraingt ansin ar lorg an mhiotail bhuí? Mar sin féin, áitítear orainn i gcónaí gurb í an litríocht Angla-Éireannach, litríocht na meánaicme agus na huasaicme sin, an litríocht is fairsinge peirspictíochta!
Mura mbeadh an oiread sin dímheasa ag lucht labhartha na mórtheanga ar an mionteanga, bheidís ábalta breithiúnas oibiachtúil a thabhairt ar an scéal agus a admháil go bhfuil a fhios againn cheana féin cad é a shíleann scríbhneoirí uasaicmeacha nó meánaicmeacha den chineál sin den tsaol, nó cad é a shíl siad de i dtús na fichiú haoise.
Rud nua é, áfach, a fháil amach cén dearcadh a bhí ag na gnáthdhaoine ar imeachtaí a gcomhaimsire san am sin. Déarfainn gur ábhar neamhghnách ar fad iad na dírbheathaisnéisí Gaeltachta agus an léargas atá iontu ar shaoldearcadh agus ar shaoltaithí na ngnáthdhaoine ón ré sin.
Ba iad na hÉireannaigh – na cainteoirí dúchais Gaeilge ach go háirithe – an náisiún mór imirce agus deoraíochta tráth, agus is cuid lárnach dá lán dírbheathaisnéisí Gaeltachta é an dóigh a ndeachaigh an t-oileán úr thar sáile i bhfeidhm ar lucht imirce ó Éirinn. Inniu, i ré na himirce nua, is mithid do mhuintir na hÉireann agus do na hinimirceoirí in Éirinn araon súil a chaitheamh ar an taobh seo de stair nua-aimseartha na hÉireann. Agus is iad na dírbheathaisnéisí Gaeltachta an doiciméadú is fearr air dar liom.
Tá Panu Höglund scríbhneoir Fionlannach ar líne agus aistritheoir
The Gaeltacht autobiographies are the cornerstone of modern literature in Irish. When there wasn’t yet anything else available in the contemporary language, the pioneers of Irish writing found it necessary to document the way people spoke, so that such writers as didn’t speak Irish natively could have a stylistic model based on natural spoken language.
Thus, they interviewed the storytellers and tradition-keepers of the west coast and made the results of this work available in written form, so that scores of books were published in which old people from Irish-speaking villages described their life in the native language of their people.
Today, the enemies of the Irish language despise this kind of literature, suggesting that neither those books nor the language have any relevance for our modern life, because the perspective of the Gaeltacht autobiography is limited to the small village and the kind of life lived there at the turn of the 20th century.
They often mention Peig – the autobiography of Peig Sayers from Kerry – as evidence. However, Peig is not the only book in this genre. There are others, such as The Hard Road to Klondike by Micí Mac Gabhann.
There were other autobiographers in the Irish-speaking villages, people who had a very broad perspective, having spent a long time abroad getting acquainted with people and life overseas. Indeed, who is more cosmopolitan: the middle-class or upper-class person who lived in Dublin about the year 1900, who spent most of his life there with people of the same social class, or the Gaeltacht man such as Micí Mac Gabhann, who worked his way through the North American continent until he came to Klondike, where the gold rush was on at the time and where people from the whole world were coming to try their luck with the yellow metal? Yet we are still supposed to see the Anglo-Irish literature, written by those middle-to-upper-class people, as the one with broader perspectives.
If the speakers of the majority language didn’t despise the minority language so much, they would be able to deem the situation objectively and admit that we already know what such middle-to-upper-class people think of the world, or what they thought in the beginning of the twentieth century.
It is a new thing to find out about the way common people thought of the world at that time. I’d say that the Gaeltacht autobiographies are quite an extraordinary documentation of the outlook and experience of common people from those years.
Irish people – especially the native speakers of the Irish language – used to be known as the nation of wanderers and exiles, and it is central to many Gaeltacht autobiographies to show how migrants from Ireland experienced the new world overseas. In this period of new migrations, it is high time for Irish people and for the new immigrants in Ireland to find out about this aspect of the modern history of Ireland. And it is my opinion that it has been most amply documented in the Gaeltacht autobiographies.
Panu Höglund is a Finnish online writer and translator
