The second must be, to write solely in Irish is a deliberate act of political and cultural significance.

How deliberate is it? Is there a choice in the use of the language? Although she can speak six languages how many can she write poetry in? The only poetry of hers in English we do have is that of her own translations included in ‘Rogha Danta’, her first collection of translations.
And so we have this problem. Of her three books available, the first two are selections from three previously untranslated books. This is a blessing in its way, it does away with any kind of chronology for the poems, they all inhabit the same now space.

She has been very well represented by her translators, the ‘Rogha Danta’ translator Michael Hartnett keeping closer to the original than the various ‘personalities’ of ‘The Pharoah’s Daughter’. A comparison between the first stanza of ‘An Crann’ of ‘Rogha Danta’ and ‘As for the Quince’ by Paul Muldoon in the latter book, will have to suffice:

The tree
The fairy woman came
with a Black and Decker.
She cut down my tree.
I watched her like a fool
cut the branches one by one.

As for the Quince
There came this bright young thing
with a Black and Decker
and cut down my quince tree
I stood with my mouth hanging open
while one by one
she trimmed off the branches.

There is no overt reference to a quince tree in the Irish. The racy language is caught, but at what expense?

The last book, ‘The Water Horse’ is served better, in particular the translations by Medbh McGuckian stand out, capturing both the tone and richness of the language, and economy of expression.

To write solely in a minority ‘dying’ language has its modern day precedents: Sorley MacLean and Derick Thomson in Scots Gaelic. In Wales Menna Elfyn is makes a similar plea for the language.

This latter writer is particularly apposite to the case of Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill: both are politically active writers. Menna Elfyn has been imprisoned twice on Welsh Language issues, and Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill took part in the Bloody Sunday march in Derry.

This political awareness is also evident in her latest book ‘The Water
Horse’, ‘Eithne the Hun’: ‘…but the lamb must still be waiting/to be led to the altar/by the mess they’ve just made/of those three in Gibraltar.’

Born in Sutton Manor Coalfield near Burnley (“What did you do in England, Nuala?” “Watched t.v.”), she returned early with her family to the family home on the Dingle peninsula in the far west of Ireland. Here it was a matter of being “farmed off” amongst relatives for years. Her aunt became a surrogate mother.

The language-issue seems particularly tied-in with her family. It was her father’s side that kept the language alive. Her mother perhaps thinking of her daughter’s future in a predominantly English speaking world, played down the Irish. This becomes especially important when Nuala had taken the decision to write solely in Irish. At this period, the late 1960s, the very idea of basing one’s creative life on a ‘dead language’ had very little credibility.

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