The Italians used to say that all translators are traducers, and that the poetry of a language invariably gets lost in any such transaction. Yet the Irish have never shrunk from that challenge. Back in 1901, some of our greatest writers wondered how best to translate the ancient tale of Diarmuid and Grainne into the language of the modern world. Eventually, George Moore suggested he would compose a version in French, Augusta Gregory would next translate it into Hiberno-English, Tadhg O Donnchada would then convert it into Irish, and Gregory would finally put that back into English. Moore's point was that more would be gained than lost with every single version. The more "translated" the work would be, the more fully would it achieve its destined form.
That theory will be put to the test next week when Micheal O Conghaile's version of The Beauty Queen of Leenane comes to the stage of the Town Hall Theatre under the title Banrion Alainn an Lionain. The organisers of Feile 2000 - billed as "the biggest Irish-language arts festival ever" - believe that in this flagship production the speeches of Mag and Maureen will be translated back into the Irish language and cultural codes, "which were their true source". They promise that this version of Martin McDonagh's Broadway hit will go close to the bone, and to the funnybone, of Connemara.
It's an intriguing prospect and all portents are encouraging. O Conghaile understands that a successful translation is always like a good lover: faithful without seeming to be so. And he isn't afraid to recognise the bits of Bearlachas and modern international slang which have crept into the language of the Gaeltacht, as well as into McDonagh's own script.
This won't, however, be the first time that plays in Hiberno-English have made the perilous voyage back to Irish. The ease with which many of the works of J.M. Synge have been staged in Irish was one way for that Anglo-Irish playwright's admirers to defend him against charges of caricaturing the people of the west. In recent years, productions of Uaigneas an Ghleanna (The Shadow of the Glen) and Chun na Farraige Sios (Riders to the Sea) have played to a full house on Inis Meain (a full house in this very special case meaning that everyone on the island went to the production). And it's many decades since Liam O Briain wrote his version of Deirdre an Bhroin (Deirdre of the Sorrows).
McDonagh, like his predecessor, has had detractors who accuse him of being a "plastic Paddy". He may not be Anglo-Irish by social class, as Synge was, but he is Anglo-Irish in the geographical sense of having grown up in London as the child of Irish parents. Some people contend that his plays exploit rather than express the western communities depicted, by providing a rather external and cruel rendition of character.
The communities of the west have for more than a century been seen as repositories of native tradition and of pure language. It has been an awesome burden to carry. In recent years, we've begun to recognise that, far from being an answer to colonialism, the Gaeltacht may be just another of its effects. The "native quarter" in postcolonial literature and film is often a zone visited by touristic outsiders in search of a frisson.
Some critics see McDonagh as just another London-Irish lad "home" on holidays, moving into Connemara in search of the exotic: but his plays also mock previous attempts by official Ireland to fetishise the western peasantry. In the use of language, however, he remains utterly faithful to the people's speech.
Synge, for his part, tried to depict the folk as he found them at the start of the century, still thinking in Irish syntax and idioms, while using English words. He discovered (according to George Moore) that if you translated Irish word-for-word into English, the result was poetry. The deviations from standard grammar in his dialect sounded lyrical to an ear pitched to the inner acoustic of Oxford English. By disrupting standard syntax and rewriting its rules, Irish people had been releasing hidden, forgotten potentials in English. An imperial language which seemed jaded by over-use and journalese was reinvigorated by contact with Gaelic codes.
The great final speech of Old Maurya in Riders to the Sea, for instance, was sourced not in the plays of Sophocles (as many early reviewers seemed to think), but in a letter written to Synge by an Inis Meain youth reporting a death in his family. "Caithfidh muid a bheith sasta mar nach feidir le aon nduine a bheith beo go deo" became "no man at all can be living forever, and we must be satisfied".
More subtly still, Synge discovered that the key-word in a sentence in HibernoEnglish, as in Irish, is brought forward. Emphasis is achieved by location rather than tonal underlining - "Is it you that's going to town tomorrow?", "Is it tomorrow that you're going to town?", "Is it to town that you're going tomorrow?" etc.
Synge's lines went back beautifully into Irish with no trace of Bearlachas, a proof of the closeness with which he had rendered the people's own translation in the other direction. This was possible because the changeover of languages had occurred with such speed in the previous few decades: in some Galway families the parents spoke Irish while their children responded in English. When Douglas Hyde met a boy in the area he asked "Nach labhrann tu an Ghaeilge?" (Don't you speak Irish?), only to be told "Isn't it Irish I'm speaking, sir?". In a sense the boy, who didn't realise that they were communicating in two languages, was right. Some decades before that encounter, William Carleton had recorded a wedding where the bride spoke only Irish, the groom only English, and the very language of love cried out (he said) for an interpreter.
McDonagh's case is somewhat different from Synge's. He has not claimed any deep knowledge of Irish, and his distance from his source material is much greater: but then, it should be added, Galway today is itself rather distant from the county of 100 years ago through which Synge walked and talked. The English spoken in Spiddal or Leenane now is a lot less close to Irish than it would have been in the 1890s.
How well, then, does The Beauty Queen of Leenane translate? Is it really possible to use Irish to "bring it all back home"? Only the production itself will answer those questions: but the script confirms the suspicion that modern translation, far from traducing the text, has merely given it some added value. There is far less likelihood now of the play seeming to be an exercise in stage-Irishry which encourages sophisticated audiences to patronise hopeless peasants: and a far greater chance of seeing it as an auto-critique of Irish culture offered from within. In that light its true forerunner may not be Synge at all, but rather Myles na gCopaleen, who in An Beal Bocht (The Poor Mouth) produced an anti-pastoral, deglamorised version of Gaeltacht life.
Striking analogies may also be found between old Mag and Paidin Mhaire of Cre na Cille (Graveyard Clay), that other great work of debunkery in Irish which led to its author, Mairtin O Cadhain, being accused of a travesty.
In terms of pure language, O Conghaile's version works brilliantly. "Is the radio a biteen loud?" becomes "an bhfuil an raidio sin beagainin ro-ard?". And the key words are indeed brought forward in the sentences: "Isn't it you wanted it set for the oul station?" becomes "agus nach tusa a bhi ag iarraidh an raidio a chur ar an seanstaisiun sin?". But the existence of Bearlachas is honestly rendered too, in a way which would seem strange in a work of Synge. "Ta tu sean agus stupid agus nil cliu agat ceard ata tu fein a ra" is true enough to "You're ould and you're stupid and you don't know what you're talking about".
The scene from which these examples come reads like a brilliant commentary on this whole project. Mag complains of the Irish spoken on Ceili House and calls it nonsense: but her daughter Maureen demurs:
Maire: ni seafoid e ar aon nos. Nach Gaeilge ata air? Mag: Mhuise, ta se socuil le seafoid do chuid mhaith daoine. Cen fath nach bhfeadfadh siad Bearla a labhairt ar nos chuile dhuine?
Maire: It isn't nonsense anyways. Isn't it Irish? Mag: It sounds like nonsense to me. Why can't they just speak English like everybody?
In an age when there are no monoglot Irish-speakers left, some might echo Mag and question the need for this translation. Yet the exercise is vitally important in making the text even more our own.
Deepest of all is the question of language. When that earlier skit on western stereotypes, An Beal Bocht, was sent by its author to Sean O'Casey in England, the playwright congratulated Brian O'Nolan on his feat. In his letter of response, O'Casey suggested that the Irish language "supplies that unknown quantity in us that enables us to transform the English language - and this seems to hold good for people who know little or no Irish, like Joyce". Or, he might now add if he were with us, Martin McDonagh.
Declan Kiberd is professor of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at University College Dublin and author of Inventing Ireland
Banrion Alainn an Lionain opens at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway on Wednesday, October 20th. The Irish-language Arts Festival, Feile 2000, runs in Galway from October 19th to 25th and includes theatre, traditional music, exhibitions and discussions. Information and booking from: 091-569777
