Liúdaidhe Óg na Leargadh Móire

Aistriúchán ar dhráma ón mBéarla: The Lad from Largymore le Séamus Mac Maghnus

Aistritheoir: Seán Ó Ceallaigh
Foilsitheoir: Gill
Foilsíodh an léirmheas seo cheana in An Claidheamh Soluis ar an 17 Feabhra 1906.

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Seán Ó Ceallaigh has been showing his versatility of late. There was a time when we feared he was never going to soar above journalism in Irish. That were a pity; for, necessary and worthy as journalism is, it remains in the long run, well, journalism. Journalists have, of course, often produced literature; but that has only been when they ceased for the nonce to be journalists. The journalistic style – in ‘these countries’ (and in America) – is the very negation of literature: in France c’est different.

Seán Ó Ceallaigh is a writer whom one gladly sees turning to serious work in Irish. His Irish has life, vigour, movement: there is a personality behind it: and personality connotes style. Style there was in his Saothar ár Seán i gCéin; style there is in his Brian Bóirmhe which we have seen in manuscript; and style there is also in Liúdaidhe Óg na Leargadh Móire, translation though it be, and a mere transfusion of the ideas of another.

Séamus Mac Maghnuis wrote The Lad from Largymore pretty much in the mood which Mr. Yeats wrote his Pot of Broth. It is broad farce. Never a philosopher, but only a general and kindly observer, Séamus puts a deal of clever characterisation and pleasant drollery into his treatment of the somewhat threadbare situation which is the main motif of his little sketch. Seán Ó Ceallaigh’s Irish version is just as good in its way. Inevitably, of course, the subtle northern flavour is lost in the re-telling, just as picturesque Donegal English gives place to (equally picturesque) Kerry Irish.

May we, as claiming a joint proprietary interest in the world, plead for the writing of ‘dráma’ with a long ‘á’? We and another coined it, or rather borrowed it from the Greeks many years ago – long before anyone had ever written a drama in Irish, or translated one from English into Irish. ‘Dráma’ is stronger, more euphonious, and more analogical than ‘Drama’.