Ó Athbheochan go hAthbheochan: Lessons from the Revival
The following first appeared on the Substack ‘Ádhamh Mac Ármair’ and is syndicated with the permission of the author.
The Gaelic Revival of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a crucial expression of the Irish genius. The resurgent popularity of our national language, the emergence of a patriotic art movement, the opening of the mind to our history and national literature, were integral to the survival of our national consciousness, even excluding the Revival's crescendo — the Revolutionary Period. There are many lessons that we can and ought to take from this period of Revival. Then as now, we are a nation occupied, a half-corpse under the sharpest duress, and so we must pay close attention to the victories and defeats of Ireland at one of her darkest moments.
And yet, we cannot learn from this time of distress alone. When a house has come to ruin, the architect must look to the original plans in order to restore it. Let us prospective architects, then, consult the original plans; let us not merely aspire to the heights of our ancestors from a century ago, but to the heights which they aspired to.
What we term 'the' Gaelic Revival is more properly called the Third Gaelic Revival. The Second Revival of the 13th-16th centuries marked, in many respects, a second Golden Age in Ireland1. Nothing could undo the damage wrought by the Fionnghaill and the Dúghaill, or by the barbarians under Strongbow and his successors, nor could anything bring back the Irish souls lost in the war between High King Éadbhard and the foreigners, yet for the first time in centuries one could describe Ireland as 'flourishing' without telling a lie.
As disastrous as the Norman Invasion had been, and as dangerous for the survival of our nation was the continued Norman presence, those whose ancestors had come as Strongbownian adventurers had become not only friends of the Gael, but Gaels themselves. These half-Irishmen, products of Irish and Norman inter-mixing, had almost corporately converted to Gaelicism; adopting Irish sports and games, political structures and fashion, gossiping and fostering with Gaelic families, and speaking the language. The Geraldines, or Clann Gearailt, were the most powerful of the Irish dynasties and, in spite of their Norman origins, had been thoroughly purified (or corrupted, if you are to take the Pale’s line) by centuries of Irish intermarriage and cultural intercourse, producing, in their own time, a right slew of Irish patriots and poets. This is especially true of the junior branch of the family in Desmond, for it is a rule of life that the second child is wilder by far.
It was not only these mixed dynasties through which the radiance of the Irish nation would shine. The royal houses of native origins, though already undoubtedly Gaelic, engaged in a period of revitalisation of their Gaelic identity. The Uí Neill, kings of Ulster, were openly cultivating an extremely conscious Gaelic identity, taking inspiration from Ulster's heroic age, just as President Pearse would do half-a-millennium later. Niall Mór Ó Néill, to the consternation of the Archbishop of Armagh, sought to establish a royal palace at Eamhain Mhacha, the site upon which was built the residences of Conchúr, the legendary king of Ulster, and his Red Branch Knights. Though his plans ultimately fell through, his son, Niall Óg, succeeded in building a great house at Eamhain for the hosting and feasting of poets - poets who would laud him as the successor of the heroes of Eamhain. Similar poetical claims were presented about the King of Leinster, Art Óg Mac Murchadha Caomhánach (a contemporary of Niall Óg), of whom the poets wrote comparisons to Fearghus Mac Róich.
Ó Néill and Mac Murchadha Caomhánach boasted that they, like Cúchulainn, were knighted at the age of seven — apparently a common practice of the Gaelic royals at this time, despite the usual age of the taking-of-arms being much older, according to Brehon Law. In a similar break from pattern, we find in our records a puzzling discrepancy which, although apparently minor at first glance, speaks to the same movement of re-Gaelicisation which presented itself in this period: the absence of shoes among the Gaels. Footwear was common to the Irish upper-classes both before and after this period, yet here we see among these 14th century Irish an attempt at "preserving their own national costume which they interpreted as including bare legs and bare feet"2.
We find in this period an Ireland without peer. Though barred from the universities of England, Irish students filled the halls of their native schools and schools across all of august Europe. The great professors of Ireland were highly exalted by their stateships, edifying the nation by the aid provided to their kings and through their great assemblies and gatherings. As these students grew old, they passed their stores of knowledge to their children, along with their professions. Poets once again had fine princes to praise. But this was not merely an age of cultural victories. Native lawyers practiced native law, from Malin Head to Mizen Head. Ceithearna were being organised up and down the length and breadth of the island, with gallóglaigh and marcshluaite aiding them. When the enemy were choking on the plague, Irish nobles were marshalling; when the red rose and the white rose alike wilted, the shamrock grew in abundance. By the time that the seventh Henry took the throne in England, his kingdom’s presence in Ireland was the weakest that it had been in three-hundred years.
What lessons, then, can we take from this truly Irish age? That we should eschew shoes and trousers? That we should conduct our chiefest business at Eamhain alone? That we should organise young men into bands of ceithearnaigh to seize the opportunity, should England have another civil war or instance of the bubonic plague? As appealing as that may be, no. But lessons and commands there are. Let us draw out four.
Following the example of these Hiberno-Normans — these Palesmen — those Irishmen who have not yet done so may commit to Gaelicism for the first time. I would speak to those who consider themselves to be ‘Dublin young fellows’, successors of Silken Thomas, you Barrys and Burkes, Foxes and Furlongs. Unless you Gaelicise yourselves, you remains Irishmen by blood, but foreigners in spirit; excluding the continuity of your lineage, you have more in common with the English who pillaged this country than the Irishmen who died defending it. Blood or lineage may well be the determining factor for who can be of the nation, yet only those who engage with the other essential aspects of that nation can truly be part of it. The Irishmen without his national language is a potential Gael. Make actual that potential.
Following the example of the fíor-Ghaeil of this period, one must re-double his commitment and delve continually into the culture. There are many who fancy themselves to be truly Irish because they have the good fortune of being born into an Irish-speaking family, That is a blessing worth more than gold, but it too can be squandered. Are you really an Irishman, a Gael? Or are you, like the wolf in sheep’s clothing, an Englishman in Irish language? Your tongue is Irish, is your soul? If you can recite Shakespeare without being able to so much as paraphrase the Táin, then you have your answer. Like Ó Néill and Mac Murchadha Caomhánach, know your literature and your lore, your poems and your songs.
In accord with the spirit of the Revival, praise and encourage the intellectual. Ireland was once an island of scholars, and it can be again. If an independent Ireland is to be achieved, it cannot and must not be independent as a mere fact of international consensus or treaty; rather it must be independent because the intellectual souls of its people are indelibly marked and set apart. Without a separate intellectual identity, ‘Irish literature’ will continue to connote England literature in Ireland; ‘Irish language’ will connote the Hibernian dialect of England; ‘Irish lore’ will connote nothing more than folk memories that arose after the invasions of the barbarians. Then the Irish, though ostensibly independent from a political perspective, will be even more enslaved than when we were fettered on Cromwell’s ships. This cannot be. Though momentarily neglected, through the careful scholarly study of our histories we will discover our present identities, and though the careful application of Gaelic minds to Gaelic politics will we forge our own path into the future. This can only be done, however, if the Gaelic scholar’s efforts are not betrayed by the pusillanimous parochialists who see any attempt by the scholar to not ape the Euro-American line as a grave sin. The intellectual’s efforts, be they in philosophical, historical, architectural, or literary studies, ought not be denounced by the small-minded as ‘notions’.
Know, however, that just as a political victory is meaningless without total re-Gaelicisation, cultural victories must be accompanied by political movements. Our kingly ancestors were not content with sending their children to the great universities of the Continent or writing beautiful poems or wearing traditional dress. They mobilised. They organised. They fought. And they won, reducing the English presence in Ireland from a colony to a petty band of disaffected garrison-men. It may be that you have totally Gaelicised your life, and that is admirable, beyond admirable, yet just how good it is to have your own house in order whilst your neighbour’s burns? How admirable is it, really, to spend your life amassing a fortune and yet leave nothing to your children? It is only through the political sphere that our nation can truly be made a nation and not a quaint corner of the American Empire.
Béarfaidh muid buaidh ó Leath Choinn go Leath Mhogha, ó Áth Cliath go Gaillimh. Agus béarfaidh muid buaidh inár n-anamacha féin, le cúnamh Dé.
Beannachtaí an earraigh ar an léightheoir.
See Irish Nationality by Mrs Stopford Green, especially Chapter VII, for a discussion on many of the specifics of the Revival’s joys.
Simms, K. (2010). The Barefoot Kings: Literary Image and Reality in Later Medieval Ireland. Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, 30, 1–21. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41219649. P. 7 for the selected quote, but the entire paper is worth a read and served as an inspiration for a large portion of this article, particularly the sections on Ó Néill and Mac Murchadha Caomhánach.