“In Exile from Home”: The Poems of Fionán Mac Cártha, 1886–1953

“IN EXILE FROM HOME”: THE POEMS OF FIONÁN MAC CÁRTHA, 1886–1953 GREGORY BYRNES FIONÁN MAC CÁRTHA, known also as William Carty, was born at Aughalustia , near Ballaghadereen, County Roscommon, in 1886.1 His parents were Michael Carty, a Catholic, and Maria Tyler, a Protestant. Mac Cártha may have learned some Irish from his father, perhaps in the form of songs, but his real study of the language began during his years at St. Nathy’s College , Ballaghadereen, where his subjects included Latin, Greek, French, and English. He set about teaching himself Irish and practiced conversation with the old people of the district. He was soon composing verse in the language. One of his earliest Irish poems, “Róisín Dubh an Ghleanna,” celebrates the young poet’s love for a girl he met at Tourmakeady, probably while attending the Irish College there one summer.2 The Wve eight-line stanzas reveal Mac Cártha’s skill with traditional Irish meter and assonance and a freshness of expression, as in the following lines: Ó d’fhág mo mhian mé tá mí ‘gam caithte Gan súil a leagan ar mo Róisín Dubh; “IN EXILE FROM HOME”: THE POEMS OF FIONÁN MAC CÁRTHA, 1886–1953 118 1 This article would not have been possible without the generous assistance of Denis and Alice Carty in Sydney; of Denis, Frank, and Des Carty in Queensland; and of Michael Carty of Aughalustia, Co. Roscommon. I would like also to thank Pádraig Seoighe of SBS Radio, Sydney; Diarmuid Breatnach and Máire Ní Mhurchú for information on Mac Cártha’s early years; Eibhlín Uí Dhonnchadha of Ring, Co. Waterford; Dónal Ó Conghaile, Waterford County manager; Derry O’Donnell, Roscommon County manager; Deirdre O’Gara, curator of the Douglas Hyde Interpretive Centre, Frenchpark; Helen Kilcline and the staV of the Roscommon County Library, and other too numerous to 2 An Claidheamh Soluis, June 16, 1906. Reprinted in Tacar Amhran, ed. Pádraic Ó Domhnalláin, (1923), pp. 28–29, note p. 66. Acht tá mo chroidhe ina croidhe-se i dtaisge Mar bheadh drúcht na maidne i gcroidhe nóinín úir.3 The simile expressing the union of the two hearts is striking, and it is the earliest surviving example of a metaphysical theme central to Mac Cártha’s work—distant love. In 1906, Douglas Hyde returned from his highly successful Gaelic League fund-raising tour in the United States and the twenty-year-old Mac Cártha, a member of Conradh na Gaeilge, wrote for him a welcome in Irish verse which was published in The Freeman’s Journal.4 In the same year he contributed a long Irish poem to the Wrst number of The Shanachie, alongside works by Seumas O’Sullivan, W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory and others. The only other Irish title was a prose piece by An t-Athair Peadar (Canon O’Leary). Mac Cártha’s poem, “Pósaidh Bhéil-Áth-hAmhnais,” has ten stanzas of eight lines each. The poet is sad at being separated from his beloved who is again described by means of a great variety of nature similes . An important new note here is found in the Wnal stanza where the poet regrets that his beloved did not come away with him, presumably from Ballyhaunis to Dublin where he had gone to work for the Gaelic League.5 The peak of Mac Cártha’s career as a public poet in Ireland came in 1907, when he composed the ode for the Gaelic League Oireachtas which remains his most ambitious composition—228 lines arranged in nineteen stanzas of twelve lines each. It is an aisling or vision-poem. Wandering in a natural paradise, the poet saw a well from which Xowed nine streams. Gathered there were saints, bards, and warriors. Then came a dirty, pitiless old sow with long, cold teeth which destroyed the garden and sullied the well. A war began in which many died, but under the leadership of a hero the for- “IN EXILE FROM HOME”: THE POEMS OF FIONÁN MAC CÁRTHA, 1886–1953 119 3...