Mxsmanic wrote:

Padraig Breathnach writes:

A quick translation from An t-Oileánach, by Tomás O Criomhthain:
"I wrote in great detail about a lot of our doings so that there would
be a memory somewhere about them and I tried to give an account of the
mentality of the people around me so that it would be known after we
were gone, for the likes of us will never be again."

This was written about 80 years ago by an impoverished island dweller
off the west coast of Ireland who scratched a living from a small
holding and fishing from a currach, and who saw that his community was
on the road to final collapse. It was essential to his project that he
wrote in Gaelic (although he could write more easily in English)
because Gaelic was at the core of the mentality of the people that he
wished to record for posterity.

There seems to be an English translation of it now.

There is, and has been for decades. The only copy to my hand was in
Gaelic.

No need for
Gaelic any more. And one wonders what the interest of this small
island would be for anyone not on the small island.

Nobody has lived permanently on the Great Blasket since 1953. Books
written by or about the island people still sell very well.and there
is a continuing scholarly interest in the Blasket community. So while
you wonder why people might be interested, they get on with actually
being interested in a way of living that resembles our own, but
differs in enough ways to give us material for reflection.

--
PB
The return address has been MUNGED
My travel writing: http://www.iol.ie/~draoi/