I am always fascinated that it was the elites of Irish Society – well-heeled Protestant families whose descendants would have been originally British – that rescued Irish language and literature and much of the history and mythology from oblivion. It is very likely these poems would have disappeared completely, if it was not for the efforts of collectors in the late nineteenth century, who were part of a cultural revival of the Irish language and Gaelic culture. Ó Raifteirí, like the poets gone before him, did not write anything down- all of the poems were composed, memorized and recited. He was one of the last of the Gaelic Irish poets, as by then, the whole traditional infrastructure that supported the poets and the musicians had collapsed, and Ireland was on the brink of catastrophe, with a rapidly increasing population who were barely surviving on poor land, struggling to pay rent, struggling to find food, and very much subject to an uncaring and absent political system. We are going to be talking about a poem called Cill Aodáin which was composed by an poet called Antoine Ó Raifteirí (1779 – 1835) a nomadic bard who wandered around the West of Ireland, reciting poetry and playing music. I’ve just managed to get February’s poem in by the skin of my teeth, posting on the last day of the month – and the poem I’ve chosen is less about analysis and more about the tradition of Irish poets and the history of poetry. Poem 26: Cill Aodáin by Antoine Ó Raifteirí
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