Cré na Cille has been the subject of a number of successful adaptations as a stage drama, primarily thanks to the intelligent and sensitive reworking of the novel by the actor and writer Macdara Ó Fátharta. The Abbey Theatre premiered an adaptation of Ó Fátharta’s in Coláiste Chonnacht, Spiddal, County Galway, on 29 February 1996. Directed by Bríd Ó Gallchóir, it was apparently the first production of Ireland’s National Theatre to open outside Dublin. Bríd Ní Neachtain (Caitríona Pháidín), Máire Ní Ghráinne (Nóra Sheáinín), Peadar Lamb (Tomás Taobh Istigh) and Breandán Ó Dúill (1935–2006) (An Máistir Mór) formed the mainstay of the cast and the well-received production toured various venues throughout the Gaeltacht in addition to Derry and Belfast.54 A further production by the Irish-language theatre company An Taibhdhearc in March and April 2002 was again based on a script by Macdara Ó Fátharta. The play was directed by Darach Mac Con Iomaire, and the set was designed by Dara McGee. Caitríona Pháidín was played by Bríd Ní Neachtain, and the cast included Joe Steve Ó Neachtain, Diarmuid Mac an Adhastair (1944–2015), and Macdara Ó Fátharta himself — all of whom would go on to feature in the film adaptation in 2006.
Cré na Cille went on to be produced as a full-length feature film by Ciarán Ó Cofaigh of ROSG productions, directed by Robert Quinn. It was first shown in Galway in December 2006 prior to its broadcast by the Irish-language public service television station, TG4, in 2007. Nominated for four Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTAs), the film was based on a script by Macdara Ó Fátharta, with photography by Tim Fleming, production design by Dara McGee, and editing by Conall de Cléir. The role of Caitríona Pháidín was played forcefully and effectively by Bríd Ní Neachtain, who has also played this role in adaptations for the stage. Gearóid Denvir, in a glowing critique of the adaptation, notes the introduction of scenes from life above ground and the absence of Stoc na Cille, and remarks that “the film remains true in the main to the original storyline and overall message of the novel, while at the same time successfully making the genre leap from page to screen to produce what is undoubtedly one of the best — perhaps even the best — film ever made in the Irish language.”55
A literary portrait of Ó Cadhain with special emphasis on Cré na Cille was the subject of a detailed and nuanced television documentary broadcast on RTÉ in October 1980 to mark the tenth anniversary of his death. There Goes Cré na Cille! was directed by filmmaker Seán Ó Mórdha and scripted by Breandán Ó hEithir (1930–1990). In the absence of a full-scale monograph on Ó Cadhain’s work at the time this film successfully interrogated many of the critical myths associated with Cré na Cille and introduced the novel to a mass audience that was primarily English-speaking. The measured assessment of the film’s contributors combined with the critical insights of both scriptwriter and director did much to introduce Ó Cadhain to mainstream Irish critical and academic culture. Ó Cadhain’s life and achievements were revisited in 2006 in Macdara Ó Curraidhín’s extended television treatment Is mise Stoc na Cille, produced by ROSG and broadcast by TG4, and in 2007 in Rí an Fhocail, an RTÉ commission that was scripted by Alan Titley and directed by Seán Ó Cualáin and Macdara O Curraidhín.
RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta marked the sixtieth anniversary of Cré na Cille’s appearance in print on 10 March 2010 with a sixty-minute radio documentary, Cré na Cille: Seasca Bliain os cionn Talún (sixty years above ground). This documentary, produced by Dónall Ó Braonáin, contains a useful synopsis of critical thinking on Ó Cadhain’s masterpiece and features contributions from Éamon Ó Ciosáin, Lochlainn Ó Tuairisg, Róisín Ní Ghairbhí, Louis de Paor, Gearóid Denvir, Alan Titley, Máire Ní Annracháin, and Cathal Ó Háinle. Another television film is worthy of particular note: Ó Cadhain ar an gCnocán Glas, which was produced and directed by Aindreas Ó Gallchóir (1929–2011) for RTÉ and broadcast on 13 February 1967. The then single-channel national television service was a relatively recent arrival (1962) to the Irish media scene, but many interesting literary documentary features were produced in the initial years of RTÉ television. Ó Cadhain ar an gCnocán Glas is a short but arresting autobiographical portrait and features a visit by Máirtín Ó Cadhain to his native village and ancestral home approximately one mile west of Spiddal. Through a series of direct confessional pieces to the camera, short reflective voice-overs and unscripted, informal conversations with his neighbours, Ó Cadhain’s playful and humorous personality reveals itself in the course of twenty-four minutes. The film was shot in black and white by Will Warham, edited by Merritt Butler, remastered and rereleased by RTÉ Archives, and published in a DVD set with Rí an Fhocail by Cló Iar-Chonnacht in 2007.
Focal Scoir/Final Word
The last word is best left to Máirtín Ó Cadhain himself. In a contribution to a symposium entitled “Literature in the Celtic Countries” in Cardiff in 1969, he told of coming into the Hogan Stand in Croke Park on All Ireland Day as the teams waited for the parade:
In passing, a man whom I did not know, said in the Queen’s English and pointing his finger at me, “There goes Cré na Cille.” In pre-television days few writers of English, if any, would have been so recognised. The man said it as if he had a claim on me, as if he felt I was one of his own, one he could kick around, as the burly Kerry full-back was kicking the football about at the same moment. And of course I was. Whether he spoke Irish or not, he felt I belonged to him in a special way, one who was beyond yea or nay his own. This is worth more than all the money and all the sales in the world. It is recognition …56
Liam Mac Con Iomaire
ON TRANSLATING CRÉ NA CILLE
More talked about than read, for over threescore years Cré na Cille has been the buried treasure of modern Irish-language literature. Our aim in this translation is modest: to give the Anglophone reader the most accurate answer we can provide to the question, What is in this book? There is ample space in the shadow of Ó Cadhain for “versions,” subjective interpretations, radical transpositions into other settings and periods, even parodies; these things will follow. But, be faithful to Ó Cadhain has been our first commandment. This of course involves much more than word-for-word equivalence. In English the words are often lacking, Ó Cadhain being a word addict with access to a world that feasted upon its verbal riches, having little else. So it has often been necessary to jump out of the footsteps of the Irish text, run round it, and fall in with it again at the next corner.
A word on our working method. My Irish was picked up in Aran and south Conamara in the middle of a busy life, when I was exploring and mapping those intricate landscapes; it was serviceable enough then for discussing states of the tide, the gossip of the townlands, and the promise of the potato crop, but nowadays it is hardly fit for public use. Hence the basis of our translation was produced by Liam, and then the two of us worked through it repeatedly, almost phrase by phrase. In searching for the English words that would most clearly convey Ó Cadhain’s meaning, we have tried to avoid flattening out his extravagances, his anarchic wit, his otherness, his sheer strangeness. At an early stage parts of our text were circulated among anonymous readers by the publisher, eliciting a wide range of comments and suggestions, for all of which we are grateful, and some of which we have adopted, while feeling that their mutual contradictoriness left us free to follow our own lights, which implies that the shortcomings of the present version are entirely our own. Nevertheless we gratefully acknowledge the guidance of Éamon Ó Ciosáin and Gearóid Ó Crualaoich in negotiating some particularly tangled corners of Ó Cadhain’s thorny masterpiece, and of Pádraig Ó Snodaigh, who read through and helpfully commented on our translation.