The publisher Caoimhín Ó Marcaigh (1933–2014) acquired Sáirséal agus Dill in 1981. Cré na Cille remained out of print for a considerable period, and controversially so. A second edition in hard and soft covers was published in 1996, the text running to 321 pages. The text of this edition was the subject of considerable comment and criticism on publication. It appeared that a deliberate policy of normalisation had been attempted, of both orthography and accidence, but the sheer scale of typographical errors in the edition rendered the text unreliable. The publication is thought to be the last book designed by Liam Miller (1924–1996) and retains all of the original drawings by Charles Lamb, though the frontispiece portrait of Tomás Inside (Tomás Taobh Istigh) surveying the graveyard has been transposed to the book’s interior.
The third edition of Cré na Cille was prepared by Professor Cathal Ó Háinle and published by Sáirséal Ó Marcaigh in 2007 in hard and soft covers. This text, running to 347 pages, was substantially revised and heavily amended. The editorial principles by which these revisions were implemented are enumerated in a brief paragraph on the dust jacket. We are told that the original manuscript is no longer available but that a copy of the first edition, amended by the author’s own hand in 1950, appears to have formed the basis for many changes to the second edition’s punctuation and orthography. Reference is also made to syntactical and word changes, and the basis for normalisation implemented in the second edition appears to have been adopted as well. It is understood that the rationale for such departures from the text as originally published relates to accessibility, ease of reference, and the desire to facilitate a new generation of readers whose capacity to read non-standardised Irish may be diminished. The dust jacket and soft cover carry a line drawing of Máirtín Ó Cadhain, by Caoimhín Ó Marcaigh.
In 2009, following the acquisition of Sáirséal Ó Marcaigh by Cló Iar-Chonnacht, the 1965 reprint was used as the basis for a soft-cover print run. The first edition contains a colophon in Irish on the end page:
Arna chur i gcló do Sháirséal agus Dill Teo. ag Foilseacháin Náisiúnta Teo., Cathair na Mart, idir Lá Fhéile Muire sa bhFómhar agus Lá Nollag, 1949.
(Printed for Sáirséal agus Dill Teo. by Foilseacháin Náisiúnta Teo., Westport, between 15th August and 25th December 1949.)
This text also appears in the second, third, and fourth reprints, with the additional information that the book was being printed by Dill agus Sáirséal Teoranta in Dublin, with a minor amendment to the wording of the formula in the third and fourth reprints. In a nod to publishing history, the 2009 reprint, under the imprint of Cló Iar-Chonnachta (sic) and designated generically as An Cló Seo (This Print), contains a colophon on the end page, which replicates the formula:
Arna chur i gcló do Chló Iar-Chonnachta Teo., ag Clódóirí Lurgan, Indreabhán, idir Lá Fhéile Muire sa bhFómhar agus Lá Nollag, 2009.
(Printed for Cló Iar-Chonnachta Teo. by Clódóirí Lurgan, Indreabhán, between 15th August and 25th December 2009.)
Translations of Cré na Cille
Cré na Cille was translated in full by Joan Trodden Keefe (1931–2013), and the translation formed the basis for a doctoral degree granted by the University of California, Berkeley, in 1984. As part of the dissertation, Trodden Keefe provided an introduction and notes to the translation. The graduate research was supervised by Professor Daniel Melia, and the dissertation was examined by Brendan P. O Hehir and Robert Tracey. This translation has been available for consultation in university libraries on microfiche but has not been in general circulation. Trodden Keefe proceeded to publish an extended literary analysis of Cré na Cille in the journal World Literature Today in 1985.16
Another translation of the text was undertaken by Eibhlín Ní Allúráin (1922–2010) and Maitiú Ó Néill (1921–1992),17 who were closely associated with Máirtín Ó Cadhain. The translation was substantially completed but has not been published. An extract of this translation was published in the literary journal Krino 11,18 and also appeared in the Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing.19 Sections of the text have been translated by literary scholars for the purposes of explication or pedagogy, as in the case of Alfred Bammesberger, who included extracts from twentieth-century writers, including an extract from Cré na Cille, in a language teaching manual published in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1984.20 Philip O’Leary, Robert Welch, Declan Kiberd, and Brian Ó Broin have all provided their own versions of extracts in the course of scholarly commentary in English on aspects of the narrative.21 By their very nature, these extracts are relatively brief and serve primarily to cater for a non-Irish-speaking readership.
The Dirty Dust is Alan Titley’s version of Cré na Cille, published by Yale University Press in 2015 in the Margellos World Republic of Letters series, which treats especially of previously overlooked works of cultural and artistic significance. Initial enthusiasm regarding access to the narrative may ultimately be tempered by a more guarded analysis of the translation’s “free-wheeling” nature in general and a markedly creative interpretation of the text’s “rich and savage demotic base” in particular.22
Translation of Ó Cadhain’s other works has been sporadic, but versions of Cré na Cille have been made available in Norwegian23 and Danish,24 offering interesting challenges for the translators in choosing suitably responsive target registers for their readership. A relatively limited number of Ó Cadhain’s short stories have been translated. Eoghan Ó Tuairisc (1919–1982) made a study of stories from the earlier corpus, the collection An Braon Broghach in particular.25 Some twenty-five years later, in 2006, a further two stories were translated by Louis de Paor, Mike McCormack, and Lochlainn Ó Tuairisg and published by the Cúirt International Festival of Literature.26 Ó Cadhain’s novella An Eochair, a study of a minor civil servant and his literal and metaphoric entrapment, from the narrative collection An tSraith ar Lár, was translated by Louis de Paor and Lochlainn Ó Tuairisg and published by Dalkey Archive Press in 2015.27
Michael Cronin made an impassioned plea for “Cré na Cille in English” in the Irish Times in 2001: “Translation excites desire, it does not cancel it. The better the translation, the more compelling the case for going to the original.”28 The relative paucity of translations can be ascribed to a reluctance to embroil oneself in copyright difficulties, and to the notion held by many critics that Ó Cadhain’s Irish and use of language is “difficult.” There is also a sense of linguistic piety or cultural decorum that has served to warn off potential translators. A translator may very well take the view that one tampers with canonical texts at one’s peril; however, Tim and I took Michael Cronin’s plea to heart and committed ourselves to producing this English-language translation of Cré na Cille.