The First Word: Payback Time

The Ireland I grew up in was doubtful of its own identity. The school curriculum reflected a post-colonial lack of confidence and ignored Irish poets and prose writers in favor of English scribes.

While I’m grateful for the grounding I was given in Shakespeare and the like, I mourn the fact that the words of Yeats will never come trippingly off the tongue like say, the poems of Wordsworth. I learned one Yeats poem in my entire secondary school (high school) years.

The Irish Censorship Board contributed to the assault by banning the works of our greatest writers including James Joyce, Edna O’Brien and John McGahern, deeming their works offensive to public decency.

And so, like many Irish of my generation, it was only when I emigrated to America that I began to fully appreciate the bountiful gifts that Irish writers have given the world.

In English literature class in San Francisco State University, I finally read Joyce’s Dubliners, and Frank O’Connor’s First Confession, and I was amazed and proud that Irish writing could measure up against the best that other nations have to offer, including, yes, Shakespeare.

Of course, Ireland has changed now and our culture is seen as an asset to be marketed on the world stage. We can be grateful to those Americans who kept the candle burning during the dark ages.

My own appreciation for Yeats comes from James Flannery, professor of Theater and Film Studies at Emory University. From 1989 to 1993 Flannery ran an annual Yeats Festival in Dublin for which this magazine supplied a program supplement. I learned much from that collaboration, and Irish audiences received the great gift of their heritage. In the words of Seamus Heaney, “In Yeats’ work was the beginning of a discovery of confidence in our own ground, in our place, in our own speech, English or Irish.”

Flannery, by the way, was also an early promoter of Riverdance composer Bill Whelan, incorporating his music into the Yeats Festival productions.

In the early part of the last century (the twentieth) John Quinn, a New York lawyer from Ohio, almost singlehandedly bank-rolled the Irish literary renaissance. He supported not just Yeats, but his father John (who spent the last 15 years of his life in New York), his artist brother Jack, and the Yeats sisters, who owned and operated Cuala Press which printed much of W.B.’ s poetry.

James Joyce also benefited from Quinn’s benevolence, and not just financially. Quinn defended the publication of Ulysses in court (the original manuscript is now in Philadelphia having been purchased by Quinn). John Millington Synge and various other writers and artists also benefited from his good will.

But even Quinn had his limits. Driven to distraction by constant requests for funds, he wrote to Judge Daniel F. Cohalan, “was there ever such persistence in the world in regard to raising money from others as is shown by the Irish in Ireland?” (2/24/1913).

Irish Americans continue to support Irish causes. One leading light is Eoin McKiernan, who for many years wrote our Last Word column. Eoin’s appreciation for everything Irish became a life’s commitment. Many years ago he started the Irish Way program which brings American students to Ireland. Now he is devoting his time to Irish Education Services, which he founded to help educate Irish children.

James Flannery wants to establish a Yeats Theatre Institute in Ireland, which would include a workshop in the arts intended for gifted students from Ireland North and South. Flannery hopes to provide them with an understanding of the roots of Irish culture and foster, in the words of Yeats, “a love of Ireland so great that it transcends her bitter divisions.”

The challenge is to find philanthropists in Ireland and persuade them of the value of these worthy projects. The money is out there. There’s never been more, thanks to the new “Celtic Tiger” economy. Perhaps at last, the Irish in Ireland can stop looking to the Americans for support. Perhaps they might even consider supporting some deserving Irish American causes. Wouldn’t that be a grand turn-around?

Mortas Cine.