Apathy Is Out: Selected Poems: Ní Ceadmhach Neamhshuim

By Seán Ó Ríordáin

Seán Ó Ríordáin (1916-77) was the most important and most influential Irish-language poet of modern times. He revitalised poetry in Irish, combining the world of Irish literature with that of modern English and European literature, thus adding to the Irish tradition from the other side. His poems ‘seek to answer fundamental questions about the nature of human existence and the place of the individual in a universe without meaning’ (Gearóid Denvir). Many of Ó Ríordáin’s poems came out of his struggle with the isolation, guilt and loneliness of life in mid-century Catholic Ireland experienced in Cork, the native locale also of the poet Greg Delanty, translator of Apathy Is Out. Ó Ríordáin’s poems have been translated by many poets, but until now no single writer has translated the majority of the poems. This collection gives a much more unified sense of Ó Ríordáin’s work, catching the poetry’s verve, playfulness and range and also ‘the music you still hear in Munster,/even in places where it has gone under’. It includes the dark, sorrowful poems Ó Ríordáin has usually represented with in anthologies but also poems of exuberance and celebration, notably ‘Tulyar’, one of the funniest satirical critiques of the Irish Church’s attitude to sex which matches any similar attack by Patrick Kavanagh or Austin Clarke. Seán Ó Ríordáin renewed poetry in Irish by writing out of the modernist sense of alienation, fragmentation and identity, but he also saw beyond Modernism’s confines to the connective matrix of our world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Release date: Mar 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781780375373

Seán Ó Ríordáin

Seán Ó Ríordáin (1916-77) was born in the Breac-Ghaeltacht village of Ballyvourney, Co. Cork and moved to Inishcarra, on the outskirts of Cork City at the age of 15, following the death of his father from TB four years earlier. Ó Ríordáin himself was diagnosed with TB in 1938, not long after he had begun working as a clerk in Cork City Hall. After resigning from his position due to illness in 1965, he contributed a regular column to the Irish Times in which he wrote critically and satirically about language, literature and culture. He also provided a sharp critique of government policies that reneged on the State’s commitment to its professed ideals, with greater vehemence as the Troubles in the six counties of Northern Ireland worsened during the 1970s. An occasional lecturer and writer in residence at University College Cork (1969-76), he had a considerable influence on the Innti poets who studied there. The diaries he kept from 1940 to a couple of days before his death provide insights into Ó Ríordáin’s working method and his anguished quest for meaning in a life frustrated by illness where poetry provided occasional access to truth and authenticity. Ó Ríordáin published three collections before his death in 1977, Eireaball spideoige (1952), Brosna (1964), and Línte Liombó (1971). A fourth collection Tar éis mo bháis was published posthumously in 1978, and his collected poems in Irish, Na dánta, in 2011. There are two substantial translations of his poetry, Selected Poems, edited by Frank Sewell (Yale University Press, 2014), and Apathy Is Out: Selected Poems, translated by Greg Delanty (Bloodaxe Books / Cló Iar-Chonnacht, 2021).

Book preview

Seán Ó Ríordáin

APATHY IS OUT

Ní Ceadmhach Neamhshuim

Selected Poems / Rogha Dánta

Irish-English dual language edition

with translations by Greg Delanty

Seán Ó Ríordáin (1916-77) was the most important and most influential Irish-language poet of modern times. He revitalised poetry in Irish, combining the world of Irish literature with that of modern English and European literature, thus adding to the Irish tradition from the other side. His poems ‘seek to answer fundamental questions about the nature of human existence and the place of the individual in a universe without meaning’ (Gearóid Denvir).

Many of Ó Ríordáin’s poems came out of his struggle with the isolation, guilt and loneliness of life in mid-century Catholic Ireland experienced in Cork, the native locale also of the poet Greg Delanty, translator of Apathy Is Out. Ó Ríordáin’s poems have been translated by many poets, but until now no single writer has translated the majority of the poems. This collection gives a much more unified sense of Ó Ríordáin’s work, catching the poetry’s verve, playfulness and range and also ‘the music you still hear in Munster,/even in places where it has gone under’. It includes the dark, sorrowful poems Ó Ríordáin has usually represented with in anthologies but also poems of exuberance and celebration, notably ‘Tulyar’, one of the funniest satirical critiques of the Irish Church’s attitude to sex which matches any similar attack by Patrick Kavanagh or Austin Clarke.

Seán Ó Ríordáin renewed poetry in Irish by writing out of the modernist sense of alienation, fragmentation and identity, but he also saw beyond Modernism’s confines to the connective matrix of our world.

Cover photograph by Kevin O’Brien. Seán Ó Ríordáin mural commissioned by Cork Mental Health Services located at 49 North Street, Skibbereen, Co. Cork. Painted by Kevin O’Brien and Alan Hurley.

Seán Ó Ríordáin

Apathy Is Out

Ní Ceadmhach Neamhshuim

SELECTED POEMS | ROGHA DÁNTA

with translations by

GREG DELANTY

In Memory of Liam Ó Muirthile, file, poet.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledgements are due to the editors of the following publications where some of these translations first appeared: Agenda, An Leabar Mór: The Great Book of Gaelic, Fulcrum, Literary Imagination, Poetry Ireland Review, PN Review, and Poetry Review.

I wish to show gratitude to Liam Ó Muirthile. These translations would not have been possible without his help. I’m also grateful to Seán Ó Coileáin and Seán Ó Mórdha – the literary executors of Seán Ó Ríordáin – for their support, advice and blessing, and to Aidan Doyle for his help.

I also want to acknowledge Joan O’Riordan, John O’Riordan and the O’Riordan family for their written support of this book.

I’m grateful to Saint Michael’s College for a grant that helped me complete this project.

GD

CLÁR | CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction(2005-2021)

as Eireaball Spideoige(1952) | from A Robin’s Tail

Apologia

Apologia

An Dall sa Studio

The Blind Man in the Studio

An Leigheas

The Cure

An Cheist

The Question

A Sheanfhilí, Múinídh dom Glao

Old Poets, Show Us the Way

Bacaigh

Beggars

An Peaca

The Sin

An Doircheacht

Darkness

An Stoirm

The Storm

Sos

Rest

Cláirseach Shean na nGnáthrud

The Old Harp of Ordinary Things

Do Dhomhnall Ó Corcora

For Daniel Corkery

Adhlacadh mo Mháthar

My Mother’s Burial

Na Fathaigh

The Giants

Cúl an Tí

Behind the House

Malairt

The Swap

Cnoc Mellerí

Mount Melleray

An Bás

Death

Ceol

Music

Oileán agus Oileán Eile

An Island and Another Island

Saoirse

Freedom

Siollabadh

Syllabling

as Brosna(1964) | from Kindling

A Ghaeilge im Pheannsa

O Irish in My Pen

Rian na gCos

Footprints

Claustrophobia

Claustrophobia

An Feairín

The Maneen

Seachtain

A Week

Reo

Cold Snap

Na Leamhain

The Moths

In Absentia

In Absentia

An Moladh

The Praise

A Theanga Seo Leath-Liom

O Language Half Mine

Fiabhras

Fever

Tost

Silence

Tulyar

Tulyar

An Lacha

The Duck

Colm

Colm

An Gealt

The Mad Woman

Bagairt na Marbh

Dread of the Dead

An Dá Ghuth

The Two Voices

Soiléireacht

Clarity

Catchollú

Catology

Daoine

People

Fill Arís

Return Again

as Línte Liombó(1971) | from Limbo Lines

Línte Liombó

Limbo Lines

Súile Donna

Brown Eyes

Ceol Ceantair

Local Music

Cloch Scáil

Quartz Stone

Aistriú

Transformation

Tar Éis Dom É Chur go Tigh na nGadhar

After Sending Him to the Dogs’ Home

Solas

Light

Bás Beo

Live Death

Obair

Work

Ní Ceadmhach Neamhshuim

Apathy Is Out

Dom Chairde

To My Friends

Mise

Me

as Tar Éis mo Bháis(1978) | from After My Death

Clónna Über Alles

Forms, Above All

Údar

Author

Barra na hAille, Dún Chaoin, Lúnasa 1970

Clifftop, Dunquin, August 1970

Gaoth Liom Leat

A Dithering Wind

About the Author

About the Translator

Copyright

PREFACE

I want to say before I discuss poetry in Irish or in English, that, for me, poetry in all languages is a kind of language unto itself. This is all the more pronounced when it comes to poetry written in Ireland. To risk appropriating the analogy of the shamrock, I see poetry in Irish and poetry in English each as an outer leaf, and the central leaf is the language of poetry. It is a given that poetry in English, since W.B. Yeats, has been influenced by poetry in Irish and is thus a continuation of the Gaelic tradition. W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory and others tapped back into the tradition of literature in the Irish language and revitalised poetry and literature in English.

This development continued in the poetry of Austin Clarke, Thomas Kinsella, John Montague, Seamus Heaney, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Eavan Boland, Ciaran Carson, Paul Muldoon, through to younger poets of the present day. A handful of poets kept writing in Irish alive before 1960, and the most important of these poets is Seán Ó Ríordáin. He combined the world of Irish literature and the world of modern English and European literature, and