Cathal o searcaigh biography of michael
Cathal Ó Searcaigh
Irish poet (born 1956)
Cathal Ó Searcaigh | |
|---|---|
Ó Searcaigh in 2016 | |
| Born | (1956-07-12) 12 July 1956 (age 68) Gortahork (Gort a' Choirce), County Donegal, Ireland |
| Occupation | Poet |
Cathal Ó Searcaigh (born 12 July 1956), is a modern Irish language poet. His work has been widely translated, anthologised and studied. "His confident internationalism", according to Theo Dorgan, has channelled "new modes, new possibilities, into the writing of Irish language poetry in our time".
Since 1975, he has produced poetry, plays, and travelogues. His early poetry deals with place, tongue and tradition, with his late work showing a broader scope. His work includes homoerotic love poems. Jody Allen Randolph remarks "his breaking down of stereotypes and new deployment of gendered themes opened a new space in which to consider alternate sexualities within a contemporary Irish context."
The critic John McDonagh argues that "Ó Searcaigh occupies many of the spaces that stand in opposition to the traditionally dominant markers of Irish identity". In his anthology, McDonagh goes on to say "Ó Searcaigh's homoerotic poems are explicit, relishing in a sensuality that for many years rarely found explicit expression in Irish literature."
Early life
Cathal Ó Searcaigh was born and reared on a small hill-farm at the foot of Mount Errigal (An tEaragal) in the DonegalGaeltacht. He was educated locally at Caiseal na gCorr National School and then at Gortahork Vocational College (Gairmscoil Ghort a' Choirce). He describes his childhood in a remote Irish-speaking community in his memoir Light on Distant Hills.
The first poems that engaged his attention were those of Robert Burns, read to him by his father. His English teacher at the Gairmscoil in Gortahork encouraged the young Ó Searcaigh to write; he is mentioned under the pseudonym 'Mr Lally' (in Light on Distant Hills Part 3, pp 147-164). The routine was nearly always the same. The encounter with an innocent teenager on his way to college, the gift of maybe a month’s wages and Ó Searcaigh’s hotel card. “The first time he was angry with me I didn’t have sex,” explains one of the boys interviewed for the film. “The second time I didn’t complain.” It was the disgusted hotel manager who finally alerted Ní Chianáin as to the nature of the special relationship between the Irish poet and dozens of Nepalese teenagers. If people wanted to help poor Nepalese boys it should be “without terms and conditions”, he told her. “People, they just close their eyes.” I have known Neasa Ní Chianáin for years and I met her from time to time during the filming of what was set to be a celebration of one of her idols, Cathal Ó Searcaigh. When she could not deny the evidence of her eyes and ears any more, she felt she had no option but to tell the truth. She worried about the film’s potential effect on Ó Searcaigh. But I don’t think she understood how big a price she would pay herself. That she would be turned on by so many in the communities of which Ó Searcaigh is a part: The Irish language community, the arts community, the gay community. We don’t like whistle-blowers in Ireland. Neasa Ní Chianáin and her family have since experienced periods of unemployment and psychological trauma, but they are putting the post-Fairytale horror behind them. They have left their home in the Donegal Gaeltacht and this year they will celebrate Christmas elsewhere. Well, she had to learn, didn’t she? She should have played by the rules and buttoned her lip. Everyone knows that you can’t have a bad thought in the Irish language, at least not in a State-supported broadcast. What might look like sex tourism if we were talking about a businessman from the UK is, when experienced by an Irish poet, a special relationship between mystical mountain people. If you just can’t pu Cathal O Searcaigh says: '...the area is Irish speaking and I was brought up speaking Irish...Irish is the language of my soul.' '...that whole idea of home is a vitally important thing to my work. I only discovered this when I was a teenager and I went off to London. I became acutely aware then of home and became aware that I was in an alien environment...something of not being recognised, of not having a face, of not having a name, of not having a place and I realised that all of these were here.' '...a lot of my poems have become an act of re-possession. Re-possessing tongue and tradition to a large extent.' Anseo ag stáisiún Chaiseal na gCorr
by Michael Peverett
Cathal Ó Searcaigh writes popular poetry. He has no room for indirectness, is naturally extrovert, colourful, candid and lyrical. You, the reader, are invited – in fact assumed – to go along with what the poem revels in or laments. Since sometimes the popular reader may baulk at the content this has also made him unpopular in ways that a less direct poet can never be; for example, when he writes clear-eyed paeans to gay lovers or describes a father-daughter rape in the all-too-traditional rural setting of "Gort na gCnámh" / "The Field of Bones". Some of his other work, for example his plays, has also caused ripples of offence among traditionally-minded audiences.
To get something back from these poems a gesture of assent is really required in advance, like when you show up at a party. I don't find this gesture of assent comes very naturally to me; I have grown too accustomed to being piqued and seduced by unexpected turns in what I read and these poems have a different way of going about things: they generally turn out to be more or less what you thought they'd be at the outset. So rather too often I've instead been diverted into puzzling out the Irish text, a completely absorbing activity that has significantly slowed down production of this review!
What is this assent to? I think what it is is to the poem's enactment. What I mean is that the poem is not so much a discourse as an enactment of its subject. If you don't choose to join in the enactment then it never happens.
Let's approach this from a different angle. I'm too ignorant to know if this is a feature of Irish poetry generally or just the way Ó Searcaigh writes poetry, but he tends to dwell a long time on the same spiritual moment, circling around it by employing a wide variety of epithets and repetitions slightly re-cast in order to hold the poem in one place. The time taken by the lines, in other words, is not (what we are accustomed to) proportional to the amount of i A high price to pay for revealing documentary on noted poet
Anseo ag Staisiun Chaiseal Na gCorr
Do Michael Davitt
d’aimsigh mise m’oileán rúin
mo thearmann is mo shanctóir.
Anseo braithim i dtiúin
le mo chinniúint féin is mo thimpeallacht.
Anseo braithim seasmhacht
is mé ag feiceáil chríocha mo chineáil
thart faoi bhun an Eargail
mar a bhfuil siad ina gcónaí go ciúin
le breis agus trí chéad bliain
ar mhínte féaraigh an tsléibhe
ó Mhín ‘a Leá go Mín na Craoibhe.
Anseo, foscailte os mo chomhair
go díreach mar bheadh leabhar ann
tá an taobh tíre seo anois
ó Dhoire Chonaire go Prochlais.
Thíos agus thuas tím na gabháltais
a briseadh as béal an fhiántais.
Seo duanaire mo mhuintire;
an lámhscríbhinn a shaothraigh siad go teann
le dúch a gcuid allais.
Anseo tá achan chuibhreann mar bheadh rann ann
i mórdhán an mhíntíreachais.
Léim anois eipic seo na díograise
i gcanúint ghlas na ngabháltas
is tuigim nach bhfuilim ach ag comhlíonadh dualgais
is mé ag tabhairt dhúshlán an Fholúis
go díreach mar a thug mo dhaoine dúshlán an fhiántais
le dícheall agus le dúthracht
gur thuill siad an duais.
Anseo braithim go bhfuil éifeacht i bhfilíocht.
Braithim go bhfuil brí agus tábhacht liom mar dhuine
is mé ag feidhmiú mar chuisle de chroí mo chine
agus as an chinnteacht sin tagann suaimhneas aigne.
Ceansaítear mo mhianta, séimhítear mo smaointe,
cealaítear