Máirtín Ó Cadhain - Graveyard Clay - Cré na Cille

Translation theorists speak of the “target language.” I don’t like the aggressive term; I’d rather think of a “host language” and what variety of it might most generously welcome this demanding but rewarding text. The formal principle — a bold invention — of Ó Cadhain’s novel is that it is entirely composed of direct speech, with no explicit indication of who is speaking. So, for the reader to be able to ascribe each speech to the right speaker by its tone and vocabulary as well as its content, a dialect of English with a notable range of expressive means is called for, and of course in Ó Cadhain’s own territory a Hiberno-English that has for centuries been living next door to and borrowing household items from the Irish language offers itself. The English of the Conamara Gaeltacht can range from bardic frenzy to cocksure modernism; but it is a potent brew, to be used with discretion; it is no use translating Irish into an English that itself calls for translation or has been debased by Paddywhackery.

Finally, and despite our sense of the enormity of what we have undertaken in opening to non-Irish readers’ eyes a book so long aureoled in distant respect, I must say what a pleasure the task has been. I hope too that our partners Bairbre and M have found that their considerable contributions have been repaid in the wild humours of Ó Cadhain’s Graveyard Clay .

Tim Robinson

CAITRÍONA PHÁIDÍN Caitríona (daughter of) Páidín. Newly buried

PÁDRAIG CHAITRÍONA Pádraig (son of) Caitríona. Her only son

NÓRA SHEÁINÍN’S DAUGHTER Pádraig Chaitríona’s wife. Living in same house as Caitríona

MÁIRÍN Girl-child of Pádraig Chaitríona and Nóra Sheáinín’s daughter

NÓRA SHEÁINÍN Nóra (daughter of) Seáinín. Mother of Pádraig Chaitríona’s wife

BABA PHÁIDÍN Baba (daughter of) Páidín. Sister of Caitríona and Nell. Living in America. A legacy from her expected

NELL PHÁIDÍN Sister of Caitríona and Baba

JACK THE SCOLÓG Jack (son of) Scológ. Nell’s husband

PEADAR NELL Peadar (son of) Nell and Jack

BIG BRIAN’S MAG Daughter of Big Brian. Wife of Peadar Nell

BRIAN ÓG Young Brian. Son of Peadar Nell and Big Brian’s Mag

BIG BRIAN Father of Mag

TOMÁS INSIDE Relative of Caitríona and Nell. The two of them contending for his land

MURAED PHROINSIAIS Muraed (daughter of) Proinsias. Next-door neighbour and life-long bosom friend to Caitríona

Other Neighbours and Acquaintances

Guide to Dialogue Conventions

— Speech beginning

— … Speech in progress

… Speech omitted

Time

Eternity

Place

The Graveyard

Regimen

Interlude 1: The Black Clay

Interlude 2: The Spreading of the Clay

Interlude 3: The Teasing of the Clay

Interlude 4: The Crushing of the Clay

Interlude 5: The Bone-Fertilising of the Clay

Interlude 6: The Kneading of the Clay

Interlude 7: The Moulding of the Clay

Interlude 8: The Firing of the Clay

Interlude 9: The Smoothing of the Clay

Interlude 10: The White Clay

1

I wonder am I buried in the Pound Plot or the Fifteen-Shilling Plot? Or did the devil possess them to dump me in the Half-Guinea Plot, after all my warnings? The morning of the day I died I called Pádraig up from the kitchen: “I beseech you, Pádraig, my child,” I said. “Bury me in the Pound Plot. In the Pound Plot. Some of us are buried in the Half-Guinea Plot, but even so …”

I told them to get the best coffin in Tadhg’s. It’s a good oak coffin anyway … I have the scapular 1mantle 2on. And the winding-sheet. I had them left ready myself … There’s a spot on this sheet. It’s like a daub of soot. No it’s not. A fingermark! My son’s wife for certain. It’s like her sloppiness. If Nell saw it! I suppose she was there. She wouldn’t have been, by God, if I could have helped it …

Little Cáit made a botch of cutting out the shroud. I’ve always said not to give a drop of drink to herself or Bid Shorcha till the corpse was well away from the house. I warned Pádraig not to let them cut out the shroud if they had drink taken. But Little Cáit can’t be kept away from corpses. Her greatest delight every day of her life was to have a corpse anywhere in the two townlands. The crops could rot on the ridge once she got the whiff of a corpse …

The crucifix is on my breast, the one I bought at the mission … But where’s the black crucifix Tomáisín’s wife got blessed for me at Knock Shrine 3the last time Tomáisín had to be tied? I told them to put that one on me too. It’s much better looking than this one. The Saviour on this one is crooked since Pádraig’s children dropped it. The Saviour on the black one is gorgeous. But what’s the matter with me? I’m as forgetful as ever! There it is under my head. It’s a pity they didn’t put that one on my breast …

They should have knotted the rosary beads round my fingers better. Nell herself did that, for sure. She’d have been delighted if they’d fallen on the floor when they were putting me in the coffin. Oh Lord God, that one would keep well clear of me …

I hope they lit the eight candles over my coffin in the chapel. I had them left ready for them, in the corner of the chest under the rent papers. That’s something no corpse in that chapel ever had: eight candles. Curraoin only had four. Liam Thomáis the Tailor had six, but he has a daughter a nun in America.

Three half-barrels of porter I told them to get for my wake, and Éamonn of the Hill Field promised me personally that if there was any drop of the hard stuff 4to be had on the Mountain 5he’d bring it himself without waiting to be asked. It would all be needed, with so much altar-money. 6Fourteen or fifteen pounds at the very least. I sent someone, or a shilling, to many places I didn’t owe a funeral visit at all in the five or six years since I felt myself failing. I suppose all the Mountain crowd came. It would be a poor show if they didn’t. We went to theirs. That’s the best part of a pound for a start. And the Wood of the Lake crowd would follow the in-laws. That’s the best part of another pound. And the whole of Glen of the Pasture owed me a funeral … It wouldn’t surprise me if Sweet-talking Stiofán didn’t come. We were at every single funeral of his. But he’d say he didn’t hear about it till I was buried. And the song and dance he’d make of it then! “I assure you, Pádraig Ó Loideáin, if it cost me my life’s blood I’d have been at the funeral. I owed it to Caitríona Pháidín to come to her funeral even if it was on my two knees. But devil a word I heard about it till the night she was buried. A young lad …” A right blatherer, the same Sweet-talking Stiofán! …

I wonder was I keened 7well. No word of a lie but Bid Shorcha has a fine tearful wail, if she wasn’t too drunk. I’m sure Nell was sponging around there too. Nell crying and not a tear on her cheek, the pussface! That one wouldn’t dare come near the house while I was alive …

She’s happy now. I thought I’d live another few years and bury the bitch. She failed a lot since her son was injured. Even before that, she was going to the doctor fairly often. There’s very little wrong with her. Rheumatism. That won’t kill her for a long time. She takes good care of herself. Which I didn’t do, and it’s now I know it. I killed myself toiling and moiling … If only I’d seen to that pain before it became chronic. But once it hits you in the kidneys your goose is cooked.