Máirtín Ó Cadhain
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Máirtín Ó Cadhain (1906–1970; IPA: [ˈmɑːrtʲiːnʲ oː ˈkainʲ]) was one of the most prominent Irish language writers of the twentieth century.
Born in Connemara, he studied to be a teacher, but due to his difficulties with priests and other authority figures, as well as his social and political commitment, this career turned out to be abortive. In the nineteen thirties, he participated in the land campaign of the native speakers, which led to the establishment of the Ráth Cairn neo-Gaeltacht in County Meath. Subsequently, he was arrested and interned during the Emergency years on the Curragh internment camp in County Kildare, due to his involvement in the illegal activities of the Irish Republican Army.
Ó Cadhain's politics were a common Irish nationalist mix of socialism and social radicalism tempered with a rhetorical anti-clericalism. However, in his writings concerning the future of the Irish language he was rather practical about the position of the Church as a social and societal institution, craving rather for a wholehearted commitment to the language cause even among Catholic churchmen: as the Church was there anyway, it would be better that it be a Church happy to address the believers in the national idiom.
As a writer, Ó Cadhain is universally acknowledged to be a pioneer of Irish-language modernism. His Irish was the dialect of Connemara - indeed, he is often accused of an unnecessarily dialectal usage in grammar and orthography even in contexts where realistic depiction of Connemara dialect was not called for - but he was happy to cannibalise other dialects, classical literature and even Scots Gaelic for the sake of linguistic and stylistic enrichment of his own writings. Consequently, much of what he wrote is reputedly hard to read for a non-native speaker.
He was a prolific writer of short stories. His collections of short stories include Cois Caoláire, An Braon Broghach, Idir Shúgradh agus Dháiríre, An tSraith Dhá Tógáil, An tSraith Tógtha and An tSraith ar Lár. He also wrote three novels, of which only Cré na Cille was published during his lifetime. The other two, Athnuachan and Barbed Wire, appeared in print only recently. The first two are more or less absurd depictions of Gaeltacht life; the third one is a linguistic experiment on a par with James Joyce's Ulysses. He translated Charles Kickham's novel Sally Kavanagh into Irish as Saile Chaomhánach, nó na hUaigheanna Folmha. He also wrote several political or linguo-political pamphlets. His political views can most easily be discerned in a small book about the development of Irish nationalism and radicalism since Theobald Wolfe Tone, Tone Inné agus Inniu; and in the beginning of the sixties, he wrote - partly in Irish, partly in English - a comprehensive survey of the social status and actual use of the language in the west of Ireland, published as An Ghaeilge Bheo - Destined to Pass.
Due to Máirtín Ó Cadhain's character as Gaelic Ireland's most important writer and littérateur engagé with frequent difficulties to get his work edited, new Ó Cadhain titles of hitherto unpublished writings have appeared at least every two years since the publication of Athnuachan in the mid-nineties. More is probably still forthcoming.
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