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Authors: Robert Kanigel

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On an Irish Island (48 page)

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14. A DREAM OF YOUTH

    
1
  Maybe it will come: Thomas, p. 82. Or, as George Thomson says, in
Another:
“What has happened to the Blasket Islands has happened, or is happening, to hundreds of other small communities” around the world. The Blasket books “raise questions in the reader’s mind about the future of his
own culture.”

    
2
  Film stars:
LísLetters,
p. 56.

    
3
  A great man … great anger against civilisation: Flower to Bell, June 1, 1932, British Library.

    
4
  Neal O’Moore, Dublin medical student: Account and quoted dialogue from
Men of Ireland,
directed by Dick Bird.

    
5
  That Film is not about my father-in-law:
LísLetters,
p. 57.

    
6
  Filmed in a Dublin studio:
Scannán: The Islandman,
1937.

    
7
  Dreamy voluptuous gaiety: Synge,
The Aran Islands,
p. 76.

    
8
  Off the death … all coroners and morticians: Kiberd,
Inventing Ireland,
p. 173.

    
9
  The beauty … all precarious or dying things: Ibid.

  
10
  Tangled world of to-day: Robin Flower,
The Western Island,
p. 6.

  
11
  Only a few remaining corners: Quoted in Ó Giolláin, p. 137.

  
12
  Having acquired the doubtful blessing: Binchy, “Two Blasket Autobiographies,” p. 553.

  
13
  It was only the other day: Robin Flower,
The Western Island,
p. 70.

  
14
  Within the space … transformed by literacy: George Thomson,
Island Home,
p. 62.

  
15
  It is strangely ironical: “The Blaskets,”
Irish Times,
June 12, 1931.

  
16
  What about giving friends:
Lís, Nov. 17, 1938, vol. 1944, p. 42.

  
17
  We used to be sitting: Cited in Enright, introduction,
Cross,
p. 
6.

  
18
  Kearney’s Hotel:
LísLetters,
Oct. 14, 1932, p. 51.

  
19
  Remind you of a Nice, France: See Robert Kanigel,
High Season
(New York: Viking, 2002).

  
20
  
The Village:
McCarty and Hockings documentary.

  
21
  Literature of escape: Quoted in Ó Giolláin, p. 138.

  
22
  And the fashion of life: Robin Flower,
The Western Island,
p. 106.

  
23
  It is a strange world: Seán O’Crohan,
A Day in Our Life,
p. 47.

  
24
  Their collective narrative … haunted … the Irish imagination: O’Toole, p. 9.

  
25
  Fifty thousand visitors: Dáithi de Mórdha, e‑mail.

  
26
  It was a simple culture:
  George Thomson,
Island Home,
p. 85.

  
27
  Failed in the work: Thomson, in
Eighty.

  
28
  We were poor people: Translation from Peig Sayers,
Peig,
in O’Leary, p. 160. See also English translation by MacMahon, p. 211.

  
29
  May be a broken-down culture: Thomas Barrington, p. 120.

  
30
  It was only when he found Innismaan and the Blaskets: Yeats, “Synge and the Ireland of His Time.”

  
31
  I am greatly taken with this place: Quoted in
Celtic,
p. 113.

  
32
  Recognises neither the realities of poverty:
Hidden,
p. 
46.

  
33
  To him … dream of his youth:
Celtic,
p. 226.

  
34
  As he was speaking … got up and paced the room: Ibid., p. 166. See also interview with
  Margaret Alexiou in
Eighty:
“I can remember how in his declining years he became a different person when somebody Irish came in the room and had the Gaelic. ​. ​.
​. You would see in his face it became like it was when he was a young man.”

  
35
  They haven’t much worry about material things: McCarty and Hockings documentary.

  
36
  Spent the most wholesome part:
Lís,
vol. 1945, p. 53, March 4, 1952.

  
37
  The long years have vanished: O’Guiheen, p. 82.

  
38
  Would walk and walk … pick every bright flower: Ibid., p. 87.

  
39
  It is sad to think … Raheny will be swallowed up: Thomson to Katharine, Sept. 9, 1937, Thomson Archives.

  
40
  Whatever happens on the Island … one gifted thing:
LísLetters,
p. 88.

  
41
  The Island will be in my head: Seán Ó Guithín interview, in
Memories,
p. 174.

  
42
  It wasn’t from laziness: O’Guiheen, p. 120.

  
43
  It is as fresh as ever: Thomson to Katharine, Sept. [7?], 1937, Thomson Archives.

Selected Bibliography
SEE BELOW FOR IRISH-LANGUAGE BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aeschylus.
The Oresteia Trilogy.
Edited by Robert W. Corrigan. Translated with a special introduction by George Thomson. New York: Dell, 1965.

Agostini, René. “J. M. Synge’s ‘Celestial Peasants.’ ” In Genet, ed.,
Rural Ireland, Real Ireland?,
pp. 159–73.

Alexander, S.M.D. “The Birds of the Blasket Islands.”
Bird Study,
vol. 1, no. 4 (December 1954), begins p. 148.

Alexiou, Margaret. “Fifty Years Later ​. ​. ​.” In Ní Chéillechair, ed.,
Seoirse Mac Tomáis,
pp. 132–135.

———. “George Thomson: The Greek Dimension.” In Ní Chéillechair, ed.,
Seoirse Mac Tomáis,
pp. 52–74.

Almqvist, Bo. “The Mysterious Mícheál Ó Gaoithín, Boccaccio and the Blasket Tradition.”
Béaloideas,
vol. 58 (1990), pp. 75–140.

———. “C. W. von Sydow agus Éire: Scoláire Sualannach agus an Léann Ceilteach.”
Béaloideas,
vol. 70 (2002) (English summary, pp. 45–49).

———. “The Scholar and the Storyteller: Heinrich Wagner’s Collections from Peig Sayers.”
Béaloideas,
vol. 72 (2004), pp. 31–59.

Almqvist, Bo, and Pádraig Ó Héalái.
Peig Sayers: I Will Speak to You All.
Dublin: New Island, 2009. In English and Irish.

“An Seabhac Had to Sign Name in English.”
Irish Independent,
December 29, 1952.

Barrington, Richard M. “Report on the Flora of the Blasket Islands, Co. Kerry.”
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy,
vol. iii (1883).

Barrington, Thomas. “Telescope and Microscope.”
Bonaventura,
November 1937, pp. 114–23.

Beaslai, Pieras. “An Seabhac—A Giant of the Gaelic Movement.”
Irish Independent,
December 2, 1964.

Bell, H. I. “Robin Ernest William Flower, 1881–1946.”
Proceedings of the British Academy,
vol. 32 (1946), pp. 352–79.

Binchy, D. A. “Two Blasket Autobiographies.”
Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review,
December 1934, pp. 545–60.

———. “Norse Scholar Whose Irish Dictionary Caused a Furore,”
Sunday Independent,
January 16, 1966, p. 6.

Bird, Dick.
Men of Ireland
[also known as
Island Man
and
West of Kerry
]. Irish National Film Corporation, 1938.

Biuso, Thomas. “The Poet’s Ring.”
An Caomnhói
r, umh 26.

———. “Looking Into Blasket Island Photographs.”
Eire-Ireland,
Winter 1987, pp. 16–34.

———. “Tobar an Phuncain: A Story from the Great Blasket Island & Hungry Hill, Springfield, Massachusetts.”
Irish America Magazine,
June 1990, pp. 38–42.

———. “Blasket Islanders in Springfield.”
An Caomhnóir,
2004, pp. 4–6.

Blasket Roots, American Dreams.
Video documentary, directed by Breandán Feiritéar. Radio-Telefis Éireann, 1997.

Boyd, Ernest. “Twenty Years’ Romancing.”
The Nation,
vol. 137, no. 3555 (August 23, 1933), p. 221.

Brathnach, Ciara.
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Briody, Mícheál.
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Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2007.

Browning, Robert. “George Thomson and Modern Greek Studies in England.” Typescript of talk given at Colloquium on the Life and Work of George Thomson, January 7, 1989. Thomson Archives, Birmingham.

Burns, Maggie.
George Thomson in Birmingham and the Blaskets.
Birmingham, U.K.: Birmingham Library Services, 2000.

Carney, Mike. “From the Blaskets to Springfield.”
Irish Echo,
n.d.

Castro del Rio, Plácido. Journal of visit to the Blaskets, c. 1928. Typescript translation, Blasket Centre.

Chambers, George.
The Lovely Line and Other Verses.
Colchester, U.K.: Oyster Press, 1950.

Coleman, Michael C. “ ​‘Some Kind of Gibberish’: Irish-Speaking Children in the National Schools, 1850–1922.”
International Review of English Studies,
January 1, 1998.

Coman, B. J. “The Last of His Tribe.”
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“Conference on Galway University College: Report on the Conference, 1926.” National University of Ireland, Galway.

Corish, Patrick J.
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Crane, C. P. 
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Creedon, Ted. “The Currach—Oldest Seagoing Craft in Western Europe.”
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Christmas 1981.

Crohan, Martin J. “ ​‘The Great and the Good … The Worthless and Insignificant’: A Case Study of Tomás O’Crohan’s
The Islandman.
” In Genet, ed.,
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Cultural Committee of the Irish Workers’ League. “Culture in Ireland To-day: The Present Position and What We Should Do About It.” Typescript, August 1952, Thomson Archives, Birmingham.

Davis, Natalie Zemon. “Women and the World of the
Annales.

History Workshop Journal,
vol. 33, no. 1 (1992), pp. 121–37.

Delargy, J. H. “The Gaelic Story-Teller.”
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de Mórdha, Dáithí, ed.
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de Mórdha, Mícheál. “Bryan MacMahon, Peig Sayers, and the Publication of
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in English.” In Gabriel Fitzmaurice, ed.,
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de Mórdha, Mícheál, ed.
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———, ed.
Na Lochlannaigh.
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Diskin, Patrick M. “Professor George Thomson.” Typescript, National University of Ireland,
Galway.

Doan, James E. “Revisiting the Blasket Island Memoirs.”
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Dunnett, H. McG.
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Eastlake, John. “Orality and Agency: Reading an Irish Autobiography from the Great Blasket Island.”
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———. “The (Original)
Islandman?:
Examining the Origin in Blasket Autobiography.” In Nessa Cronin et al.,
Orality and Modern Irish Culture
(Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), pp. 241–56.

Enright, Tim. “George Thomson: A Memoir.” In George Thomson,
Island Home.

———. Introduction, Seán O’Crohan,
A Day in Our Life.

———. Introduction, Tomás O’Crohan,
Island Cross-Talk.

———. “Padraig Keane—King of the Blasket.”
Evening Echo,
February 25, 1984.

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Flower, Robin. Foreword, Tomás Ó Crohan,
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pp. v–xi.

———.
Eire and Other Poems.
London: Locke Ellis, 1910.

———. “An Irish Island: The Story of the Blaskets.”
Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion,
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———.
The Western Island.
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———.
The Irish Tradition.
Dublin: Lilliput Press,1994.

———.
Poems and Translations.
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Baile Átha Cliath: An Cló-Cumann Teóranta, 1903.

———.
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The Islandman
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———. “The Island Man: The Rise (and Fall) of the Peasant Author—Tomás Ó Crohan.” In John Wilson Foster,
Fictions of the Irish Literary Revival: A Changeling Art
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———.
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———. “A Warm and Generous Friend.”
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———. “Scéalta ón mBlascaod,”
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———. “Some Mutations in Blasket Irish.”
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———. “L’exil dans les autobiographies gaéliques des Îles Blasket.”
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BOOK: On an Irish Island
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