Reduced to the State of Otters: Aogán Ó Rathaille on Gaelic Dispossession
The following first appeared on the Substack ‘Creeve Rua’ and is syndicated with the permission of the author.
I mBéarla (Gaeilge thíos): Wild deer and otters under foreign usurpation
‘Confirming this in later episodes of the dream of an otter, who is both land animal and water animal, walks past, and the great undulating Ouroboros or Midgardsormr – him I think of as a dogfish, again a union of land creature and sea creature. The city pavements are removed revealing the land beneath. The land thus revealed proclaims the assumptions of our eighteenth-century, rational enlightenment, founded ultimately on the anthropology of stasimon and Psalm.’ (John Montague, Nostos, p. 726.)
For the first instalment of my new weekly series, I’ve decided to explore the legendary Sliabh Luachra poet Aogán Ó Rathaille’s poem, Bhailintín Brún.1
In this poem, Ó Rathaille writes a scathing attack on the Munster Plantations, seeing it as an alien obstruction and usurpation. It was against the symbiotic consciousness and stewardship of Gaelic lands and wildlife in native hands. He focuses on the chaotic neglect of the native animals and fields under the hand of the new British elite, particularly in the case of the Anglo-Catholic Browne family. The family were forced to give up their property after the 1688 revolution, as Corkery explains:
‘“Trees to the value of £20,000 were cut down, soon after the Revolution, upon the single estate of Sir Valentine Brown in Kerry.” An English lawyer named Asgill, who had married the daughter of Sir Nicholas Brown, and bought the estates of the attainted family, was responsible for this. Aodhagán Ó Rathaille, who was born not far from Killarney, sorrowed with the Browns—“ Is dith creach bhur gcoillte ar feóchadh ” (“Woe, your woods withering away”). But indeed all the poets lamented the vanishing woods: the downfall of the Gaelic or even the Gall-Gaelic nobility, the downfall of the woods—these two went together in their verses.’ (Corkery, Hidden Ireland, p. 35.)
While the Brownes were formerly patrons of Ó Rathaille, sharing both religion and having intermarried into Gaelic clans, once they had lost land—with the woods getting cut down, the wildlife neglected—the poet came to scorn them. In a sense, the Brownes were simply not part of the natural wildlife of Deasmhumhain (Kingdom of Desmond, South Munster)—and with alien rule, came alien neglect, as: ‘foreign demons have come amongst us…in Hamburg is the lord of the gentle, merry heroes’.
Instead, Ireland was protected under the loving, native care of Mac Cárthaigh Mór, prior to the British plantations. At least this was Ó Rathaille’s nostalgic vision: ‘He loved to sing of the Cárrth ’fhuil, the Carthy blood, and to depict the life of the great houses before their overthrow’ (de Blácam, p. 310). To bring in creatures, such as the Anglo-Lords, who had no natural bond to the fields, earth and critters of this island was always destined to upset the natural ecosystem of Gaeldom:
‘he tells how the bugle would sound on the plain and the heavy cry of the chase descend from the sides of the misty hills, how foxes and red bucks, hares, water-hens and pheasants would be started, and how the prince’s hounds and men would return wearied from the uplands ; and how now the voice of foreigners is loud in the golden dwelling’ (de Blácam, Gaelic Literature Surveyed, p. 311).
As this delicate cycle was disturbed by the ‘foreign raven’ of Anglicised modernity, the umbilical cord of natural life was torn apart—cattle began refusing to yield their milk to their calves, fish disappeared from streams and turrets of Mansions became ‘black-flooded’ with lost otters. Formerly, the Otter was a symbol of graceful beauty, as in the ancient nature poem of the Gael, ‘Dubhach sin, a Bheann Ghualann’: ‘ba bhinn cannrán do dhobhrán agus comhrádh do shionnach.’ (the sweet noise of your otters, and the calling of your foxes). By Ó Rathaille’s late life however, otters—like swifts, trouts and all of Killarney’s native inhabitants—became a symbol of homelessness and alienation.
Despite the poem coming from the seemingly ancient Jacobite era, these themes of becoming a stranger within one’s own home, while the modernising forces of the world seem to strike away all that is rooted and familiar, are, in my eyes, starkly relevant. Who, in their heart of hearts, does not see the expansion and alienation of today’s world, in this description of Ó Rathaille’s time:
‘Everywhere the giant woods were being cut down—the woods that like a magic cloak had sheltered the Gael in every century. The undertakers, the land pirates, not ever quite sure of their standing in so strange a country, were selling the timber on the estates at sixpence a tree—they were rifling the ship they had boarded.’ Corkery, p. 34.
In many ways, we Gaels today are like those lost otters Ó Rathaille laments.
I nGaeilge: Fia agus dobharchú faoi ionradh eachtrannach
‘Confirming this in later episodes of the dream an otter, who is both land animal and water animal, walks past, and the great undulating Ouroboros or Midgardsormr – him I think of as a dogfish, again a union of land creature and sea creature. The city pavements are removed revealing the land beneath. The land thus revealed proclaims the assumptions of our eighteenth-century, rational enlightenment, founded ultimately on the anthropology of stasimon and Psalm.’ (John Montague, Nostos, p. 726.)
Don chéad eagrán de mo shraith nua sheachtainiúil, shocraigh mé iniúchadh a dhéanamh ar dhán Aogán Uí Rathaille, Bhailintín Brún.
Sa dán seo, déanann Ó Rathaille ionsaí géar ar Phlandálacha na Mumhan, ag breathnú orthu mar bhac agus ar thoircheadh eachtrannach. Bhí sé in aghaidh an chomhfhios agus an stiúrtha a bhain le talamh agus fiadhúlra na nGael a bheith i lámha dúchais. Díríonn sé ar an tréigean caothtúil a rinneadh ar ainmhithe agus páirceanna dúchais faoi smacht na n-uaisle nua Sasanacha, go háirithe i gcás an teaghlaigh Angla-Caitlicígh Browne. B’éigean don teaghlach a gcuid maoine a thabhairt suas tar éis réabhlóid 1688, mar a mhíníonn Corkery:
‘“Trees to the value of £20,000 were cut down, soon after the Revolution, upon the single estate of Sir Valentine Brown in Kerry.” An English lawyer named Asgill, who had married the daughter of Sir Nicholas Brown, and bought the estates of the attainted family, was responsible for this. Aodhagán Ó Rathaille, who was born not far from Killarney, sorrowed with the Browns—“ Is dith creach bhur gcoillte ar feóchadh ” (“Woe, your woods withering away”). But indeed all the poets lamented the vanishing woods: the downfall of the Gaelic or even the Gall-Gaelic nobility, the downfall of the woods—these two went together in their verses.’ (Corkery, Hidden Ireland, p. 35.)
Cé gurbh patrúin iad na Brownes d’Ó Rathaille roimhe seo – comhroinnt creidimh agus cleamhnas le clanna Gael – nuair a chaill siad a gcuid talún, agus na coillte á gearradh, an fiadhúlra á thréigean, tháinig an file chun déistin a bheith aige astu. Ar bhealach, ní raibh na Brownes mar chuid d’fhíor-fhiadhúlra Dheasmhumhan, agus le riail eachtrannach, tháinig tréigean eachtrannach: ‘Ar dtaisteal na ndiabhal iasachta…I Hamburg, mo chiach! Iarla na seabhac síodhach súbhach.’
Ba é Mac Cárthaigh Mór a bhíodh i mbun cosanta na hÉireann roimh phlandálacha na Sasanach, ar a laghad sin an fhís a bhí ag Ó Rathaille: ‘He loved to sing of the Cárrth ’fhuil, the Carthy blood, and to depict the life of the great houses before their overthrow’ (de Blácam, p. 310). Nuair a tugadh isteach créatúir, mar na tiarnaí Angla-Normannacha, nach raibh aon nasc nádúrtha acu le páirceanna, talamh nó créatúir an oileáin seo, bhí sé i ndán don éiceachóras nádúrtha Gaelach a bheith scriosta:
‘he tells how the bugle would sound on the plain and the heavy cry of the chase descend from the sides of the misty hills, how foxes and red bucks, hares, water-hens and pheasants would be started, and how the prince’s hounds and men would return wearied from the uplands ; and how now the voice of foreigners is loud in the golden dwelling’ (de Blácam, Gaelic Literature Surveyed, p. 311).
De réir mar a cuireadh isteach ar an timthriall íogair seo ag an ‘an fiach iasachta’ an nua-aoiseachais Ghallta, scaoileadh an corda imleacánach a bhain leis an saol nádúrtha—thosaigh ba ag diúltú a gcuid bainne a thabhairt dá laonna, d’imigh éisc as srutháin, agus chuaigh ‘ciar-thuilte 'mhadraidhibh úisc’ gan dídean. Roimhe seo, bhí an dobharchú ina shiombail de ghlaine agus d’áilleacht, mar a léirítear sa dán ársa dúlra ‘Dubhach sin, a Bheann Ghualann’: ‘ba bhinn cannrán do dhobhrán agus comhrádh do shionnach’. Ach faoi dheireadh shaol Uí Rathaille, bhí dobharchúin—cosúil le gabhláin gaoithe, breac agus gach ball dá raibh ina gcónaí i gCill Airne—ina siombailí d’éalú agus d’eachrannú.
Cé gur tháinig an dán seo ó ré shean-aimseartha na Seacaibíteach, tá na téamaí seo – a bheith i do strainséir i do theach féin, agus fórsaí an domhain nua-aimseartha ag baint gach rud fréimheach dúchais de shiúl – fíor-ábhartha, dar liom. Cé nach bhfeiceann sé leathnú agus eachrannú an domhain inniu i gcur síos Uí Rathaille ar a ré féin?:
‘Everywhere the giant woods were being cut down—the woods that like a magic cloak had sheltered the Gael in every century. The undertakers, the land pirates, not ever quite sure of their standing in so strange a country, were selling the timber on the estates at sixpence a tree—they were rifling the ship they had boarded.’ (Corkery, p. 34.)
Ar go leor bealaí, tá muintir na nGael inniu cosúil leis na dobharchúin chaillte a bhí ag caoineadh ag Ó Rathaille.
BHAILINTÍN BRÚN le Aogán Ó Rathaille
Do leathnuigh an ciach diacrach fám sheana-chroidhe dúr
Ar dtaisteal na ndiabhal iasachta i bhfearann Chuinn chughainn;
Scamall ar ghriain iarthair dár cheartas ríoghacht Mumhan
Fá ndeara dham triall riamh ort, a Bhailintín Brún.
Caiseal gan chliar, fiailteach, ná marcraidhe ar dtúis,
Is beanna-bhruigh Bhriain ciar-thuilte 'mhadraidhibh úisc,
Ealla gan triair triaithe de mhacaibh ríogh Mumhan
Fá ndeara dham triall riamh ort, a Bhailintín Brún.
D'aistrigh fiadh an fial-chruith do chleachtadh sí ar dtúis,
Ó neaduigh an fiach iasachta i ndaingean-choill Rúis,
Seachnaid iasc grian-tsruith is caise caoin ciúin,
Fá ndeara dham triall riamh ort a Bhailintín Brún.
Dairinis tiar Iarla ní'l aici 'en chloinn úir,
I Hamburg, mo chiach! Iarla na seabhac síodhach súbhach;
Seana-rosc liath ag dian-ghol fá cheachtar dhíobh súd
Fá ndeara dham triall riamh ort a Bhailintín Brún.
Clúmh na n-ealtan meara snámhas le gaoith
Mar lúireach dealbh cait ar fásach fraoigh,
Diúltaid ceathra a lacht a thál dá laoigh,
Ó shiubhail Sir Bhail i gceart na gCárrthach gcaoin.
Do stiúruigh Pan a dhearca i n-árda críoch,
Ag tnúth cár ghaibh an Mars do bhásuigh sínn;
Músclaid athaigh ghearra lán an trír,
Ag brúghadh na marbh trasna ó sháil go rinn.
Valentine Brown (leagan James Clarence Mangan)
A distressing sorrow has spread over my old hardened heart
Since the foreign demons have come amongst us in the land of Conn,
A cloud upon the sun of the west to whom the kingship of Munster was due;
It is this which has caused me ever to have recourse to thee, Valentine Brown.
First, Cashel is without society, guest-house, or horsemen,
And the turrets of Brian’s mansion black-flooded with otters,
Ealla without a third of the chiefs descended from the kings of Munster;
It is this which has made me ever to have recourse to thee, Valentine Brown.
The wild deer has lost the noble shape that was her wont before,
Since the foreign raven nestled in the thick wood of Ross;
The fishes shun the sun-lit stream and the calm, delightful rivulet;
It is this that has caused me ever to have recourse to thee, Valentine Brown.
Dairinis in the west—it has no lord of the noble race;
Woe is me! in Hamburg is the lord of the gentle, merry heroes;
Aged, grey-browed eyes, bitterly weeping for each of these,
Have caused me ever to have recourse to thee, Valentine Brown.
The feathers of the swift flocks that fly adown the wind
Like the wretched fur of a cat on a waste of heather;
Cattle refuse to yield their milk to their calves
Since Valentine usurped the rights of the noble MacCarthy.
Pan directed his eyes high over the lands,
Wondering whither the Mars had gone whose departure brought us to death;
Dwarfish churls ply the sword of the three fates,
Hacking the dead crosswise from head to foot.