Tomás Ó Criomhthain
Encyclopedia
Tomás Ó Criomhthain was a native of the Irish
-speaking Great Blasket Island
3 kilometres (1.9 mi) off the coast of County Kerry
in Ireland
. He wrote two books, Allagar na h-Inise (Island Cross-Talk) written over the period 1918–23 and published in 1928, and (The Islandman), completed in 1923 and published in 1929. Both have been translated into English.
He began to write down his experiences in diary-letters in the years after World War I
following persistent encouragement by Brian Ó Ceallaigh from Killarney. Ó Ceallaigh overcame Ó Criomhthain's initial reluctance by showing him works by Maxim Gorky
and Pierre Loti
, books describing the lives of peasants and fishermen, to prove to Ó Criomhthain the interest and value of such a project. Once persuaded, Ó Criomhthain sent Ó Ceallaigh a series of daily letters for five years – a diary – which the latter forwarded to scholar and writer Pádraig "An Seabhac" Ó Siochfhradha for editing for publication. Ó Ceallaigh then convinced Ó Criomhthain to write his life story and best-known work, An t-Oileánach.
He married Máire Ní Chatháin in 1878. She bore ten children but many died before reaching adulthood: One boy fell from a cliff while hunting for a fledgling gull to keep as a pet among the chickens; others died of measles and whooping cough; their son Domhnall drowned while attempting to save a woman from the sea; others were taken by other misfortunes. Máire herself died while still relatively young. Their son Seán also wrote a book, Lá dar Saol (A Day in Our Life), describing the emigration of the remaining islanders to the mainland and America when the Great Blasket was finally abandoned in the 1940s and 50s.
bream, dogfish, ling, rockfish, wrasse, conger eel, porpoises ("sea pig" and "sea bonham" – the meat being described as "pork"), seals, crab, lobster, crayfish, limpets, winkles and mussels, as well as seaweeds such as dulse, sea lettuce, sea belt, and murlins. Many on the island relished seal meat much more than pork. One night Ó Criomhthain and colleagues caught a "huge creature" in their nets with great danger and difficulty. Perhaps it was a whale or basking shark
. Oil from the liver of this unidentified "great beast" fuelled all the lamps on the island for five years (there were about 150 people in fewer than 30 households).
Ó Criomhthain harvested turf
for home fuel from the top of the island and the sods were carried home by an ass. Often, when he set to work cutting turf he was interrupted by the island poet who distracted him by teaching him his lengthy songs. There is much comedy in Ó Criomhthain's silent exasperation at the hours wasted, yet he never snubbed the poet for fear a damaging satire would be composed against him.
In addition to fish and other "sea fruit" Ó Criomhthain's diet included potatoes, milk, lumps of butter, porridge, bread, rabbits, sea birds, eggs, and mutton. The few acres of arable land on the island were fertilised with dung and seaweed, supplemented by chimney-soot and mussel shells. The limited crops sown included potatoes and a few other vegetables, along with oats and rye. The island was alive with rabbits which were easily caught in great numbers and the hunting was sometimes assisted by dogs or a ferret. Birds hunted for their meat and eggs included gulls, puffins, gannets, petrels, shearwaters, razorbills and guillemots.
The roof of his home was made of a thatch
of rushes or reeds and his sisters would climb up to collect eggs from under the hens nesting on top. One amusing episode in An t-Oileánach describes a neighbour's family at supper when, to their bewilderment and consternation, young chickens began raining, one by one, onto the table and splashing into a mug of milk. "For God's sake," cried the woman of the house, "where are they coming from?" One of the children spied a hole scratched in the roof by a mother hen.
Ó Criomhthain lived in a cottage or stone cabin with a hearth at the kitchen end and sleeping quarters at the other. A feature of island life much remarked upon by mainland readers of his books was the keeping of animals in kitchens at night, including cows, asses, sheep, dogs, cats and hens.
He was a keen collector of old tales and described a conversation between his father and a neighbour at the hearth one night. Once when at sea his father, the neighbour and other fishermen saw a steamship sail by. They had never seen one before and naturally assumed it was on fire. They rowed after it to render assistance but failed to catch it.
The islanders' sometimes meagre existence was often supplemented by gifts from the sea when shipwrecks occurred. Timber, copper and brass were salvaged, as well as cargoes of food such as meal and wheat, which helped them to survive lean years. At one time tea was unknown on the island and when a cargo of the stuff floated ashore from a wreck it was used by one woman to dye her flannel petticoats (normally dyed with woad
). She also used it to feed pigs. A neighbour was incensed that her husband didn't bother to salvage a chest of this useful stuff for her – she too had petticoats waiting to be dyed and hungry pigs to feed. She scolded her husband so severely that he quit the island without a word, never to be seen again. Later, another application for tea leaves was discovered and it became a popular drink for the human population.
Ó Criomhthain ended An t-Oileánach with a statement whose final clause is well known and often quoted in Ireland:
Translations
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
-speaking Great Blasket Island
Great Blasket Island
Great Blasket is the principal island of the Blaskets, County Kerry, Ireland.-Geography:The island lies approximately 2 km from the mainland at Dunmore Head, and extends 6 km to the southwest, rising to 292 metres at its highest point...
3 kilometres (1.9 mi) off the coast of County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. He wrote two books, Allagar na h-Inise (Island Cross-Talk) written over the period 1918–23 and published in 1928, and (The Islandman), completed in 1923 and published in 1929. Both have been translated into English.
Writings
His books are considered classics of Irish-language literature containing portrayals of a unique way of life, now extinct, of great human, literary, linguistic, and anthropological interest. His writing is vivid, absorbing and delightful, full of incident and balance, fine observation and good sense, elegance and restraint.He began to write down his experiences in diary-letters in the years after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
following persistent encouragement by Brian Ó Ceallaigh from Killarney. Ó Ceallaigh overcame Ó Criomhthain's initial reluctance by showing him works by Maxim Gorky
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
and Pierre Loti
Pierre Loti
Pierre Loti was a French novelist and naval officer.-Biography:Loti's education began in his birthplace, Rochefort, Charente-Maritime. At the age of seventeen he entered the naval school in Brest and studied at Le Borda. He gradually rose in his profession, attaining the rank of captain in 1906...
, books describing the lives of peasants and fishermen, to prove to Ó Criomhthain the interest and value of such a project. Once persuaded, Ó Criomhthain sent Ó Ceallaigh a series of daily letters for five years – a diary – which the latter forwarded to scholar and writer Pádraig "An Seabhac" Ó Siochfhradha for editing for publication. Ó Ceallaigh then convinced Ó Criomhthain to write his life story and best-known work, An t-Oileánach.
Family
Ó Criomhthain had four sisters, Maura, Kate, Eileen and Nora, and a brother, Pats. His personality was well-grounded in intimate affection and respect for his parents who lived to a ripe old age. The only, minor, disharmony arose between himself and Nora who was five years older than he. She had been the family favourite until Tomás arrived "unexpectedly". Her jealousy of him created friction between them.He married Máire Ní Chatháin in 1878. She bore ten children but many died before reaching adulthood: One boy fell from a cliff while hunting for a fledgling gull to keep as a pet among the chickens; others died of measles and whooping cough; their son Domhnall drowned while attempting to save a woman from the sea; others were taken by other misfortunes. Máire herself died while still relatively young. Their son Seán also wrote a book, Lá dar Saol (A Day in Our Life), describing the emigration of the remaining islanders to the mainland and America when the Great Blasket was finally abandoned in the 1940s and 50s.
Education
Ó Criomhthain received an intermittent education between the ages of 10 and 18 whenever a schoolteacher from the mainland lived for a while on the island. The teachers were usually young women who returned to Ireland on receiving proposals of marriage. He had a long childhood of enviable liberty from drudgery without the constant confinements of the classroom or a grinding programme of chores from which he was spared by having five older siblings.Life and experiences
As a fisherman, Ó Criomhthain caught a wide variety of seafood, including scad, pilchard, mackerel, cod, herring, halibut, pollock,bream, dogfish, ling, rockfish, wrasse, conger eel, porpoises ("sea pig" and "sea bonham" – the meat being described as "pork"), seals, crab, lobster, crayfish, limpets, winkles and mussels, as well as seaweeds such as dulse, sea lettuce, sea belt, and murlins. Many on the island relished seal meat much more than pork. One night Ó Criomhthain and colleagues caught a "huge creature" in their nets with great danger and difficulty. Perhaps it was a whale or basking shark
Basking shark
The basking shark is the second largest living fish, after the whale shark. It is a cosmopolitan migratory species, found in all the world's temperate oceans. It is a slow moving and generally harmless filter feeder and has anatomical adaptations to filter feeding, such as a greatly enlarged...
. Oil from the liver of this unidentified "great beast" fuelled all the lamps on the island for five years (there were about 150 people in fewer than 30 households).
Ó Criomhthain harvested turf
Peat
Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter or histosol. Peat forms in wetland bogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests. Peat is harvested as an important source of fuel in certain parts of the world...
for home fuel from the top of the island and the sods were carried home by an ass. Often, when he set to work cutting turf he was interrupted by the island poet who distracted him by teaching him his lengthy songs. There is much comedy in Ó Criomhthain's silent exasperation at the hours wasted, yet he never snubbed the poet for fear a damaging satire would be composed against him.
In addition to fish and other "sea fruit" Ó Criomhthain's diet included potatoes, milk, lumps of butter, porridge, bread, rabbits, sea birds, eggs, and mutton. The few acres of arable land on the island were fertilised with dung and seaweed, supplemented by chimney-soot and mussel shells. The limited crops sown included potatoes and a few other vegetables, along with oats and rye. The island was alive with rabbits which were easily caught in great numbers and the hunting was sometimes assisted by dogs or a ferret. Birds hunted for their meat and eggs included gulls, puffins, gannets, petrels, shearwaters, razorbills and guillemots.
The roof of his home was made of a thatch
Thatching
Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge , rushes, or heather, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. It is a very old roofing method and has been used in both tropical and temperate climates...
of rushes or reeds and his sisters would climb up to collect eggs from under the hens nesting on top. One amusing episode in An t-Oileánach describes a neighbour's family at supper when, to their bewilderment and consternation, young chickens began raining, one by one, onto the table and splashing into a mug of milk. "For God's sake," cried the woman of the house, "where are they coming from?" One of the children spied a hole scratched in the roof by a mother hen.
Ó Criomhthain lived in a cottage or stone cabin with a hearth at the kitchen end and sleeping quarters at the other. A feature of island life much remarked upon by mainland readers of his books was the keeping of animals in kitchens at night, including cows, asses, sheep, dogs, cats and hens.
He was a keen collector of old tales and described a conversation between his father and a neighbour at the hearth one night. Once when at sea his father, the neighbour and other fishermen saw a steamship sail by. They had never seen one before and naturally assumed it was on fire. They rowed after it to render assistance but failed to catch it.
The islanders' sometimes meagre existence was often supplemented by gifts from the sea when shipwrecks occurred. Timber, copper and brass were salvaged, as well as cargoes of food such as meal and wheat, which helped them to survive lean years. At one time tea was unknown on the island and when a cargo of the stuff floated ashore from a wreck it was used by one woman to dye her flannel petticoats (normally dyed with woad
Woad
Isatis tinctoria, with Woad as the common name, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae. It is commonly called dyer's woad, and sometimes incorrectly listed as Isatis indigotica . It is occasionally known as Asp of Jerusalem...
). She also used it to feed pigs. A neighbour was incensed that her husband didn't bother to salvage a chest of this useful stuff for her – she too had petticoats waiting to be dyed and hungry pigs to feed. She scolded her husband so severely that he quit the island without a word, never to be seen again. Later, another application for tea leaves was discovered and it became a popular drink for the human population.
Ó Criomhthain ended An t-Oileánach with a statement whose final clause is well known and often quoted in Ireland:
—An t-Oileánach, final chapter
Works
- Allagar na hInise, ISBN 1857911318
- An tOileánach, Cló Talbóid 2002, ISBN 0-86167-956-3
Translations
- Island Cross-Talk: Pages from a Diary, translated by Tim Enright; Oxford University Press, 1987; ISBN 0-19-212252-5
- The Islandman, translated by Robin FlowerRobin FlowerRobin Ernest William Flower was an English poet and scholar, a Celticist, Anglo-Saxonist and translator from the Irish language. He is commonly known in Ireland as "Bláithín" . He married Ida Mary Streeter.-Life:...
; Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1951; ISBN 0-19-815202-7
See also
- Ó Criomhthain's Ricorso database entry
- Blasket IslandsBlasket IslandsThe Blasket Islands are a group of islands off the west coast of Ireland, forming part of County Kerry. They were inhabited until 1953 by a completely Irish-speaking population. The inhabitants were evacuated to the mainland on 17 November 1953...
- List of people on stamps of Ireland
- The Blascaod Centre in Dún Chaoin