1. Text 1

2. Lecture Plan What is being resisted? - Colonial legacies: ‘Celticism’ and positive Irish stereotypes And how? - Three potential Modes of Resistance: Owen - Violence? Manus - Authenticity Hugh - Hybridity 2

3. Manus: ‘I understand the Lanceys perfectly but people like you puzzle me’ (Act two, scene one, p. 37/42). 3

4. Orientalism A way of talking and thinking about the East that maintains western myths about the East (e.g. ‘the wisdom of the East’, ‘the mystery of Orient’ = Orientalist myth). 4

5. Celticism A way of talking and thinking about Ireland that sustains myths about Ireland (e.g. Romantic Ireland). Bob Quinn: 'Iberian' proposes the existence of an ancient sea-trading route skirting the Atlantic coast from North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula to regions such as Connemara. While preferring the term "The Atlantean Irish", Quinn's reference to certain phenotypical characteristics (within elements of the Irish populace and diaspora) as possible evidence of a previous Hibernian-Iberian (and possibly Berber) admixture mirrors common descriptions of the Black Irish. The term has also come to be used to refer to the African-Irish descendants of those who live on Montserrat. (A number of whom have Irish surnames, still retain part of their Irish accents and sing bilingual songs. The Irish constituted the largest proportion of the white population from the founding of the colony in 1628. Many were indentured labourers; others were merchants or plantation owners.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_people#Black_Irish 5

6. Negative Stereotype 6 An illustration from the H. Strickland Constable's Ireland from One or Two Neglected Points of View shows an alleged similarity between "Irish Iberian" and "Negro" features in contrast to the higher "Anglo-Teutonic." The accompanying caption reads "The Iberians are believed to have been originally an African race, who thousands of years ago spread themselves through Spain over Western Europe. Their remains are found in the barrows, or burying places, in sundry parts of these countries. The skulls are of low prognathous type. They came to Ireland and mixed with the natives of the South and West, who themselves are supposed to have been of low type and descendants of savages of the Stone Age, who, in consequence of isolation from the rest of the world, had never been out-competed in the healthy struggle of life, and thus made way, according to the laws of nature, for superior races."

7. Yolland: ‘I feel very foolish to – to – to be working here and not to speak your language. But I intend to rectify that’ (Act one, p. 32/35). 7

8. Yolland: I think your countryside is –is-is- is very beautiful. I’ve fallen in love with it already Owen: He is already a committed Hibernophile. (Act one, p. 35). 8

9. Owen: ‘Poll na gCaorach, Yolland repeats the names silently after him Baile Beag, Ceann Balor, Lis Maol, Machaire Buidhe, Baile na gCall, Carraig na Ri, Mullach Dearg –’ (Act two, scene one, p. 38/45). 9

10. Act two, scene one, p. 38/45 Yolland: Do you think I could live here? Owen: What are you talking about? Yolland: Settle down here – live here. […] Its really heavenly. Owen: For God’s sake! The first hot summer in fifty years and you think it’s Eden. Don’t be such a bloody romantic. You wouldn’t survive a mild winter here. 10

11. Act two, scene one, p. 45/56 Yolland: A thousand baptisms! Welcome to Eden! Owen: Eden’s right! We name a thing and – bang! – it leaps into existence! Yolland: Each name a perfect equation with its roots. Owen: a perfect congruence with its reality. 11

12. Act two, scene one, p. 40/48 Yolland: […] It was a momentary sense of discovery; no – not quite a sense of discovery – a sense of recognition, of confirmation of something I half knew instinctively; as if I had stepped … Owen: Back into ancient time? 12

13. Yolland: No, no. It wasn’t an awareness of direction being changed but of experience being of a totally different order. I had moved into a consciousness that wasn’t striving nor agitated, but at its ease and with its own conviction and assurance. And when I heard Jimmy Jack and your father swopping stories about Apollo and Cuchulainn and Paris and Ferdia – as if they lived down the road – it was then that I thought – I knew – perhaps I could live here … 13

14. ‘comely maidens dancing at the crossroads’ (Eamon de Valera - supposedly). 14

15. Owen: easy, man, easy. Owen –Roland – what the hell. It’s only a name. It’s the same me, isn’t it? Well isn’t it? (Act one, p. 33). Nominalism: No inherent relationship between a name and a thing. e.g. ‘What’s in a Name? / A rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. 15

16. Literal Translation: Lis na Muc = Swinefort (p. 42) Irish names anglicised Baile Beag becomes ballybeg. Bun na hAbhann, literally = ‘mouth of the river’ Yolland: ‘There’s no English equivalent for a sound like that’ (Act two, scene one, p. 35). 16

17. Bun na hAbhann = Burnfoot (p. 35) No logical relationship. Implicit suggestion such a name is a branding. 17

18. Roland / Yolland Owen = Anglicised spelling of Eoghan/Eoin 18

19. Act one, p. 31/33-34 Lancey: This enormous task has been embarked on so that the military authorities will be equipped with up-to-date and accurate information on every corner of this part of the Empire. Owen: The job is being done by soldiers because they are skilled in this work. 19

20. Lancey: And also so that the entire basis of land valuation can be reassessed for purposes of more equitable taxation. Owen: This new map will take the place of the estate-agent’s map so that from now on you will know exactly what is yours in law. 20

21. ‘Do your job. Translate’ (Act three, p. 61/80). ‘There is in every act of translation – and especially where it succeeds – a touch of treason’ [George Steiner, After Babel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 233 ]. 21

22. Owen: ‘[…] It’s only a catalogue of names […] A mistake – my mistake – nothing to do with us’ (Act three, p. 66/87). 22

23. Act two, scene one, p. 42/50 Yolland: […] I feel so cut off from the people here. And I was trying to explain a few minutes ago how remarkable a community this is. To meet people like yourself and Jimmy Jack who actually converse in Greek and Latin. And your place names – what was the one we came across this morning? – Termon, from Terminus, the god of boundaries. It-it- it’s really astonishing. 23

24. Hugh: We like to think we endure around truths immemorially posited. Yolland: And your Gaelic literature – you’re a poet yourself – Hugh: Only in Latin, I’m afraid. Yolland: I understand it’s enormously rich and ornate. 24

25. Act two, scene one, pp. 42-43/50-51 Hugh: […] a rich language. A rich literature. You’ll find, sir, that certain cultures expend on their vocabularies and syntax acquisitive energies and ostentations entirely lacking in their material lives. I suppose you could call us a spiritual people. […] 25

26. Hugh: Yes, it is a rich language, Lieutenant, full of the mythologies of fantasy and hope and self-deception – a syntax opulent with tomorrows. It is our response to mud cabins and a diet of potatoes; our only method of replying to …inevitabilities. […] 26

27. Hugh: ‘To return briefly to that other matter, Lieutenant. I understand your sense of exclusion, of being cut off from a life here; and I trust you will find access to us with my son’s help. But remember that words are signals, counters. They are not immortal. And it can happen – to use an image you’ll understand – it can happen that a civilisation can be imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no longer matches the landscape of … fact. 27

28. Act two, scene one, p. 43 Yolland: He’s an astute man. Owen: He’s bloody pompous. Yolland: But so astute. 28

29. Hugh ‘You’ll find sir, that certain cultures expend on their vocabularies and syntax acquisitive energies and ostentations entirely lacking in their material lives’. ‘I suppose you could call us a spiritual people.’ 29

30. Hugh ‘Yes, it is a rich language, Lieutenant, full of the mythologies of fantasy and hope and self-deception – a syntax opulent with tomorrows. It is our response to mud cabins and a diet of potatoes; our only method of replying to …inevitabilities’. 30

31. Stage direction p. 48 ‘Indeed, as the scene progresses, one has the sense that he is deliberately parodying himself’ 31

32. Hugh ‘But remember that words are signals, counters. They are not immortal. And it can happen – to use an image you’ll understand – it can happen that a civilisation can be imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no longer matches the landscape of … fact’. 32

33. Owen: Is it astute not to be able to adjust for survival? Enduring around truths immemorially posited – hah! (Act two, scene one, p. 43/52) 33

34. Act three, p. 66/87-88 Owen: A mistake – my mistake – nothing to do with us. […] Hugh: We must learn those new names. […] Hugh: We must learn where we live. We must learn to make them our own. We must make them our new home. 34

35. Owen: I know where I live. Hugh: James thinks he knows, too. I look at James and three thoughts occur to me: A – that it is not the literal past, the ‘facts’ of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language. James has ceased to make that discrimination. […] 35

36. Act three, pp. 66-67/88-89 Hugh: B – we must never cease renewing those images; because once we do, we fossilise. […] 36

37. Hugh: Take care Owen. To remember everything is a form of madness. The road to Sligo. A spring morning. 1798. going to battle. Do you remember, James? Two young gallants with pikes across their shoulders and the Aeneid in their pockets. Everything seemed to find definition that spring – a congruence, a miraculous matching of hope and past and present and possibility. Striding across the fresh green land. The rhythms of perception heightened. The whole enterprise of consciousness accelerated. 37

38. We were gods that morning, James; and I had recently married my goddess, Caitlin Dubh Nic Reactainn, may she rest in peace. And to leave her and my infant son in his cradle – that was heroic too. By God, sir, we were magnificent. We marched as far as – where was it? – Glenties! All of twenty-three miles in one day. And it was there, in Phelan’s pub, that we got homesick for Athens, just like Ulysses. 38

39. The desiderium nostrorum – the need for our own. Our pietas, James, was for older, quieter things. And that was the longest twenty-three miles back I ever made. My friend, confusion is not an ignoble condition. 39

40. Act three, p. 89 Hugh: Yes, I will teach you English, Máire Chatach. Máire: Will you, Master? I must learn it. I need to learn it. […] Hugh: […] but don’t expect too much. I will provide you with the available words and the available grammar. But will that help you to interpret between privacies? I have no idea. But it’s all we have. I have no idea at all. 40

41. Hugh: English, I suggested, couldn’t really express us (Act one, p. 25/23). V. Máire: Master, what does the English word ‘always’ mean? Hugh: Semper – per omnia saecula. The Greeks called it ‘aei’. It’s not a word I’d start with. It’s a silly word, girl. 41

42. Hugh: We tend overlook your island (Act two, scene one, p. 41/50). - an impossibility by the end of the play. 42