IRST10020 INTRODUCTION TO IRISH CULTURAL STUDIES| MID-TRIMESTER ASSESSMENT 2024-25

ASSIGNMENT:

You must choose TWO of the sections below (A, B, C), and answer the set question on each. You should focus on close reading in this exercise: engage with the text directly to provide evidence in support of your arguments.  [1000 words in total: 500 words per question]

For sections B and C, you may make passing references to other moments in the texts to illustrate your points.

A.)  The Poetry of WB Yeats

 Choose one of the following poems and examine how it seeks to mythologise Ireland’s past and/or the myth of the West of Ireland:

• Lake Isle of Innisfree
• Song of Wandering Aengus
• The Stolen Child
• Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Note: Do not rely on lecture/seminar notes for this option, but rather on your own interpretations.

You should also consider poetic technique, e.g. genre, form, imagery, meter, rhyme, etc.

  B.) John Millington Synge, Riders to the Sea.

 Examine Synge’s treatment of life on the Aran Islands in this passage — to what extent does it relate to the aims of the Irish Revival?

CATHLEEN.
Begins to keen.—It’s destroyed we are from this day. It’s destroyed, surely.

NORA.
Didn’t the young priest say the Almighty God wouldn’t leave her destitute with no son living?

MAURYA.
In a low voice, but clearly.—It’s little like of him knows of the sea. . . . Bartley will be lost now, and let you call in Eamon and make me a good coffin out of the white boards, for I won’t live after them. I’ve had a husband, and a husband’s father, and six sons in this house—six fine men, though it was a hard birth I had with every one of them and they coming to the world—and some of them were found and some of them were not found, but they’re gone now the lot of them. . . There were Stephen and Shawn, who ere lost in the great wind, and found after in the Bay of Gregory of the Golden Mouth, and carried up the two of them on the one plank, and in by that door.

[She pauses for a moment, the girls start as if they heard something through the door that is half open behind them.]

NORA.
In a whisper.—Did you hear that, Cathleen? Did you hear a noise in the north-east?

CATHLEEN.
In a whisper.—There’s some one after crying out by the seashore.

MAURYA.
Continues without hearing anything.—There was Sheamus and his father, and his own father again, were lost in a dark night, and not a stick or sign was seen of them when the sun went up. There was a Patch after which was drowned out of a curagh that turned over. I was sitting here with Bartley, and he is a baby, lying on my two knees, and I saw two women, three women, and four women coming in, and they crossed themselves, and not saying a word. I looked out then, and there were men coming after them, and they hwere olding a thing in the half of a red sail, and water dripping out of it—it was a dry day, Nora—and leaving a track to the door.

[She pauses again with her hand stretched out towards the door. It opens softly and old women begin to come in, crossing themselves on the threshold, and kneeling down in front of the stage with red petticoats over their heads.]

MAURYA.
Half in a dream, to Cathleen.—Is it Patch, or Michael, or what is it at all?

CATHLEEN.
Michael is after being found in the far north, and when he is found there, how could he be here in this place?

MAURYA.
There does be a power of young men floating round in the sea, and what way would they know if it was Michael they had, or another man like him, for when a man is nine days in the sea, and the wind blowing, it’s hard set his own mother would be to say what man was it.

CATHLEEN.
It’s Michael, God spare him, for they’re after sending us a bit of his clothes from the far north.

[She reaches out and hands Maurya the clothes that belonged to Michael. Maurya stands up slowly, and takes them into her hands. Nora looks out.]

NORA.
They’re carrying a thing among them and there’s water dripping out of it and leaving a track by the big stones.

CATHLEEN.
In a whisper to the women who have come in.—Is it Bartley It is?

ONE OF THE WOMEN.
It is surely, God rest his soul.

[Two younger women come in and pull out the table. Then men carry in the body of Bartley, laid on a plank, with a bit of a sail over it, and lay it on the table.]

CATHLEEN.
To the women, as they are doing so.—What way was he drowned?

ONE OF THE WOMEN.
The gray pony knocked him into the sea, and he was washed out where there is a great surf on the white rocks.

[Maurya has gone over and knelt down at the head of the table. The women are keening softly and swaying themselves with a slow movement. Cathleen and Nora kneel at the other end of the table. The men kneel near the door.]

MAURYA.
Raising her head and speaking as if she did not see the people around her.—They’re all gone now, and there isn’t anything more the sea can do to me…. I’ll have no call now to be up crying and praying when the wind breaks from the south, and you can hear the surf is in the east, and the surf is in the west, making a great stir with the two noises, and they hitting one on the other. I’ll have no call now to be going down and getting Holy Water in the dark nights after Samhain, and I won’t care what way the sea is when the other women will be keening. [To Nora]. Give me the Holy Water, Nora, there’s a small sup still on the dresser.

[Nora gives it to her.]

MAURYA.
Drops Michael’s clothes across Bartley’s feet, and sprinkles the Holy Water over him.—It isn’t that I haven’t prayed for you, Bartley, to the Almighty God. It isn’t that I haven’t said prayers in the dark night till you wouldn’t know what I’d be saying; but it’s a great rest I’ll have now, and it’s time surely. It’s a great rest I’ll have now, and great sleeping in the long nights after Samhain, if it’s only a bit of wet flour we do have to eat, and maybe a fish that would be stinking.

[She kneels down again, crossing herself, and saying prayers under her breath.]

CATHLEEN.
To an old man.—Maybe yourself and Eamon would make a coffin when the sun rises. We have fine white boards she bought, God help her, thinking Michael would be found, and I have a new cake you can eat while you’ll be working.

THE OLD MAN.
Looking at the boards.—Are there nails with them?

CATHLEEN.
There are not, Colum; we didn’t think of the nails.

ANOTHER MAN.
It’s a great wonder she wouldn’t think of the nails, and all the coffins she’s seen made already.

CATHLEEN.
It’s getting old she is, and broken.

[Maurya stands up again very slowly and spreads out the pieces of Michael’s clothes beside the body, sprinkling them with the last of the Holy Water.]

NORA.
In a whisper to Cathleen.—She’s quiet now and easy; but the day Michael was drowned you could hear her crying out from this to the spring well. It’s funny she was of Michael, and would anyone have thought that?

CATHLEEN.
Slowly and clearly.—An old woman will be soon tired with anything she will do, and isn’t it nine days herself is after crying and keening, and making great sorrow in the house?

MAURYA.
Puts the empty cup mouth downwards on the table, and lays her hands together on Bartley’s feet.—They’re all together this time, and the end is come. May the Almighty God have mercy on Bartley’s soul, and on Michael’s soul, and on the souls of Sheamus and Patch, and Stephen and Shawn [bending her head]; and may He have mercy on my soul, Nora, and on the soul of every one is left living in the world.

[She pauses, and the keen rises a little more loudly from the women, then sinks away.]

MAURYA.
Continuing.—Michael has a clean burial in the far north, by the grace of the Almighty God. Bartley will have a fine coffin out of the white boards, and a deep grave surely. What more can we want than that? No man at all can be living for ever, and we must be satisfied.

  C.) James Joyce, ‘The Dead’.

 Examine how Joyce critiques the Revival in the following passage:

 “Who is G. C.?” answered Miss Ivors, turning her eyes upon him.

Gabriel coloured and was about to knit his brows, as if he did not understand, when she said bluntly:

“O, innocent Amy! I have found out that you write for The Daily Express. Now, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

“Why should I be ashamed of myself?” asked Gabriel, blinking his eyes and trying to smile.

“Well, I’m ashamed of you,” said Miss Ivors frankly. “To say you’d write for a paper like that. I didn’t think you were a West Briton.”

A look of perplexity appeared on Gabriel’s face. It was true that he wrote a literary column every Wednesday in The Daily Express, for which he was paid fifteen shillings. But that did not make him a West Briton surely. The books he received for review were almost more welcome than the paltry cheque. He loved to feel the covers and turn over the pages of newly printed books. Nearly every day when his teaching in the college was ended, he used to wander down the quays to the second-hand booksellers, to Hickey’s on Bachelor’s Walk, to Webb’s or Massey’s on Aston’s Quay, or to O’Clohissey’s in the by-street. He did not know how to meet her charge. He wanted to say that literature was above politics. But they were friends of many years’ standing and their careers had been parallel, first at the university and then as teachers: he could not risk a grandiose phrase with her. He continued blinking his eyes and trying to smile and murmured lamely that he saw nothing political in writing reviews of books.

When their turn to cross had come, he was still perplexed and inattentive. Miss Ivors promptly took his hand in a warm grasp and said in a soft friendly tone:

“Of course, I was only joking. Come, we cross now.”

When they were together again she spoke of the University question and Gabriel felt more at ease. A friend of hers had shown her his review of Browning’s poems. That was how she had found out the secret: but she liked the review immensely. Then she said suddenly:

“O, Mr Conroy, will you come for an excursion to the Aran Isles this summer? We’re going to stay there a whole month. It will be splendid out in the Atlantic. You ought to come. Mr Clancy is coming, and Mr Kilkelly and Kathleen Kearney. It would be splendid for Gretta too if she’d come. She’s from Connacht, isn’t she?”

“Her people are,” said Gabriel shortly.

“But you will come, won’t you?” said Miss Ivors, laying her warm hand eagerly on his arm.

“The fact is,” said Gabriel, “I have just arranged to go——”

“Go where?” asked Miss Ivors.

“Well, you know, every year I go for a cycling tour with some fellows and so——”

“But where?” asked Miss Ivors.

“Well, we usually go to France or Belgium or perhaps Germany,” said Gabriel awkwardly.

“And why do you go to France and Belgium,” said Miss Ivors, “instead of visiting your own land?”

“Well,” said Gabriel, “it’s partly to keep in touch with the languages and partly for a change.”

“And haven’t you your own language to keep in touch with—Irish?” asked Miss Ivors.

“Well,” said Gabriel, “if it comes to that, you know, Irish is not my language.”

Their neighbours had turned to listen to the cross-examination. Gabriel glanced right and left nervously and tried to keep his good humour under the ordeal which was making a blush invade his forehead.

“And haven’t you your own land to visit,” continued Miss Ivors, “that you know nothing of, your own people, and your own country?”

“O, to tell you the truth,” retorted Gabriel suddenly, “I’m sick of my own country, sick of it!”

“Why?” asked Miss Ivors.

Gabriel did not answer for his retort had heated him.

“Why?” repeated Miss Ivors.

They had to go visiting together and, as he had not answered her, Miss Ivors said warmly:

“Of course, you’ve no answer.”

Gabriel tried to cover his agitation by taking part in the dance with great energy. He avoided her eyes for he had seen a sour expression on her face. But when they met in the long chain, he was surprised to feel his hand firmly pressed. She looked at him from under her brows for a moment quizzically until he smiled. Then, just as the chain was about to start again, she stood on tiptoe and whispered into his ear:

“West Briton!”

When the lancers were over, Gabriel went away to a remote corner of the room where Freddy Malins’ mother was sitting. She was a stout, feeble old woman with white hair. Her voice had a catch in it like her son’s and she stuttered slightly. She had been told that Freddy had come and that he was nearly all right. Gabriel asked her whether she had had a good crossing. She lived with her married daughter in Glasgow and came to Dublin on a visit once a year. She answered placidly that she had had a beautiful crossing and that the captain had been most attentive to her. She spoke also of the beautiful house her daughter kept in Glasgow, and of all the friends they had there. While her tongue rambled on, Gabriel tried to banish from his mind all memory of the unpleasant incident with Miss Ivors. Of course,e the girl or woman, or whatever she was, was an enthusiast but there was a time for all things. Perhaps he ought not to have answered her like that. But she had no right to call him a West Briton before people, even in a joke. She had tried to make him ridiculous before people, heckling him and staring at him with her rabbit’s eyes.