Agnes O’Farrelly
Smaointe an Árainn / Thoughts On Aran
ISBN:
9780905223728 hardback
9781851320967 paperback
Is minic a ghlactar le The Aran Islands ó pheann John Millington Synge mar léiriú deifnídeach ar Oileáin Árann ach is beag duine atá ar an eolas faoi iníon léinn ollscoile darbh ainm Úna Ní Fhaircheallaigh a d’imigh ar cuairt go dtí na hoileáin i samhradh na bliana 1898. D’fhan sí sa teach iascaire a d’fhág Synge díreach roimpi, agus scríobh sí dialann taistil dar teideal Smaointe ar Árainn, faoin seal a chaith sí ar na hoileáin. Is cáipéis shóisialta agus chultúrtha í seo, a bhaineann le hInis Meáin ach go háirithe agus a scríobhadh i ré idir dhá chultúr: nuair a bhí cultúr nua-aoiseach na míntíre ag teacht i dtír ar chultúr ársa Gaelach Árann. Sa dialann seo, a dhíríonn ar mhná Árann go príomha, a ndéantar faillí orthu i scríbhinní eile go minic, léiríonn Ní Fhaircheallaigh modus operandi Chonradh na Gaeilge agus é ag déanamh iarrachta an cultúr Gaelach a chosaint agus a nuachóiriú ag an am céanna ag tús an fhichiú haois.
John Millington Synge’s The Aran Islands has long been considered a definitive depiction of the Aran Islands, off the Connemara coast. Less well known is that a young university student named Agnes O’Farrelly also travelled to the islands in the summer of 1898, lodged in the same fisherman’s cottage Synge had just vacated, and proceeded to write an Irish-language travelogue about her experiences on the islands. O’Farrelly’s travelogue, entitled Thoughts on Aran, is here translated into English for the first time. This is a social and cultural document which portrays a period of transition in Inis Meáin in particular, when age-old Gaelic culture was succumbing to the influence of the modern world. Focusing primarily on Aran women, much neglected in previous literature, O’Farrelly reveals the modus operandi of the Gaelic League as it simultaneously attempted to protect and to modernise the Gaelic culture of the Aran Islands at the turn of the twentieth century.