Brian Ó Broin. Review of Mac Cóil, Liam, An Chláirseach Agus an Choróin. H-Albion, H-Net Reviews. September, 2012.
https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=36929Citation: Brian Ó Broin. Review of Mac C óil, Liam, An Chláirseach agus an Choróin. H-Albion, H-Net
Reviews. September, 2012.
While this book ostensibly analyzes the seven symphonies of
the Anglo-Irish composer Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924), written between
1876 and 1911 as Ireland lurched towards Home Rule and civil war, it is much
more a work of historiography, trenchantly questioning the way in which Irish
history continues to be viewed as a subset of British history.
As he did in his brilliant novel Fontenoy, Mac Cóil is writing an alternative history
of the Gael, taking that right away from the victor-colonialist. He is putting
the Gael alongside Anglophone culture and removing him as a subset of that
culture (this has yet to happen in America, where Irish studies is almost
always a subset of British studies).
Because he knows that history is fiction, and that it is used as a political
tool, he very consciously (and very rightly) proposes that the Gael rewrite
history. As he says, most profoundly, his feet firmly planted on the floor of
Club Ráth Chairn, his local community center, gineann muid ár sinsear [agus] ní
bhíonn duine gan aird i measc a phobail féin (we beget our ancestors, and
nobody is overlooked in his own community) (324). It is a thought-provoking
first step towards a reevaluation of Ireland on its own terms, not those of
anglophone colonialists or outsiders.
Labels: Brian Ó Broin, Britain, British, Charles Villiers Stanford, Colonialism, Éire, Éireannachas, English, gaeilge, Gaelachas, H-Albion, Ireland, irish, Irishness, Liam Mac Cóil, Post Colonialism
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