Irish Jesuit Province

The Diary of Humphrey O'Sullivan. Part IV by Michael McGrath; Humphrey O'SullivanReview by: A. de B.The Irish Monthly, Vol. 66, No. 778 (Apr., 1938), pp. 287-288Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20514318 .

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Book Reviews O'SULLIVAN'S JOURNAL COMPLETED.

The Diary of Humphrey O'Sullivan. Part IV. Edited with Introduction, Vocabulary and Notes by Rev. Michael McGrath, S.J. Dublin: For Irish Texts Society: Educational Company of Ireland. 16/- net.

Once again, apology is due for delay in reviewing Father, McGrath's invaluable work. With this volume, his edition of the Gaelic diary of the

Callan schoolmaster, written a hundred years ago, is complete, and some poems and sketches from the same author's pen are included. The volume does not contain many of the jewels of the Diary, but it is even more valu

able than former volumes on account of the unusual miscellaneous pieces and the admirable editorial matter.

The fifty pages of Diary cover the period January 1834 to July 1835, and describe the year's round in the same racy manner as former portions, although without conspicuous passages that we can rank with O'Sullivan's account of the hedge-school, his record of an evicted woman's lamentation, or his flights into spiritual beauty, such as we noted im reviews of other volumes. There are some dainty pieces on folk custom and fairy fancy; on games, and on nature; and a few glimpses of the party feuds.

A scension Thursday, 1834: The funeral took place to-day of Patrick O'Callaghan, who was killed coming home from Kilkenny, by failing from his own cart. The Ballingarry " Shanavests " came to the funeral and the Callan " Carawats" struck them; but the Shanavests

put the Carawats to ffight in their own town. Two-a Shanavest and a Carawat-were injured. This is bad work on a solemn Holiday.

In his Introduction, Father McGrath replies aptly to a critic who denied O'Sullivan's possession of a style. He points out that O'Sullivan was in the adjectival and alliterative tradition, and he argues that the common strictures on this manner come from the standards of an alien culture and show a lack of appreciation for devices which attained powerful effects and a " con densation of thought, equalled perhaps in no other literature." In such obiter dicta as this, Father McGrath enriches Gaelic criticism. Indeed, his illuminating translation, his notes and comments, together make this imposing four-volume work a means for the learner of Irish to arrive at an understanding of the very soul of the modern tongue, and for the native speaker to formulate native canons of criticism.

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AN 8 TIE l1lRSII MONTHLY

In support of his claim for O'Sullivan as a stylist, Father McGrath cites the sustained narratives which he binds up with the Diary. In a forner review I threw out the remark that the Diary resembled the raw mattet for a great novel, which some future writer might formulate. The Diary leaves, in fact, much the same imagery and atmosphere in the mind which linger after reading Francis MacManus's book about Donocha Rua. The

miscellaneous chapters in the present volume show us O'Sullivan actually attempting a novel. He gives us chapters which are as racy, and as truie to Gaelic prose standards, as the ursc6alta which 0 Neachtain wrote a century earlier, but are more clearly drawn, more effective. I think that the influ ence of the " Gothic " novels, the Romantic Revival, may be detected, but would like Father McGrath's authority before affirming that O'Sullivan is not working out of his own unaided genius. We are left to mourn tlat the writer worked in so lonesome a place and time: what might he not have given us had he but the encouragement of a literary society, equipped with the printing-press, and favoured like the Gaelic writers of to-day by the ruling power!

Among the verse pieces is a translation of the Veni Sancte Spiritus, beginning thus:-

'

Tar, a Chuilm 6 neamh na mbuadh Lonnruigh-se ar gcroidhthe cruaidh, Is as sin ruatg an dubh-shluagh.

The analytic vocabularies which the editor has compiled will be most helpful to writers of Fish. Most stpdents will be surprised by the richness and precision of O'Sullivan's language. Phrases and epithets abound which are worthy to be adopted or fill a need. A. DE B.

Seoidtni Cuimhne: Tomas 0 Cle6irigh. 2/-. An Bealach Achtuighthe: Gilbert Parker do sgriobh: Maire (S6amus (

Grianna) d'aistrigh. 2/-.

Seoidini Cuimhne is a collection of essays and short stories, reprinted from various periodicals, with seventeen good illustrations. In the essays is stored a good deal of pleasantly recounted information about German cities

which the author has visited and which he looked at with eyes alive alike to their beauty and any especial interest they might have for Irish people.

Another essay is concerned with the story of modern Welsh literature, and placed immediately after it in the book, possibly without design, is a short story translated from the Welsh, This story, I hope, is not representative of the craft of the short story as practised by Welsh writers, for it peters

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