Irish Language:Éilís Ní Dhuibhne is one of a very small group of authors who write creatively in both Irish and English. Many Irish-language poets and novelists rely on translators to put English on them.
They remain Irish-language writers with all that that entails but gain a second home audience. Ní Dhuibhne, however, challenges the old saying: "Ní féidir leat freastal ar an dá thrá"/ "You can't serve two masters" by doing just that. Her work in English, such as The Dancers Dancing, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, caters for one audience, while her work in Irish, an entirely independent and imaginative opus, caters for another.
Her latest novel in Irish, Hurlamaboc, is for young adult readers and will add further to her reputation among those who prefer the first official language as their literary medium. The title can be translated as "commotion, uproar; noise of chase" and deals with three Dublin teenagers as they sit their Leaving Cert and prepare to face adulthood and all its responsibilities. The voices of the three teenagers - Ruán, Emma and Colm - all sound true to this reader's ear. That is no mean achievement given that youth culture can be shallow and the danger for an adult writer lies in injuring themselves when diving in. Yet, while the culture in which these teenagers move may be shallow, they themselves are not. They are reflective beings. They appreciate that they will soon have choices to make and that those choices will affect them in the years to come. The bitchiness, petty-mindedness and class distinctions of teenage life are there, but then these young adults are often simply aping the behaviour of their parents. They did not lick it off the stones, as the saying has it.
Readers of a certain age may well remember the novels of Séamus Ó Grianna and his depiction of poverty and the mores of Donegal at the beginning of the last century. Ní Dhuibhne has replaced the peasants of rural Donegal with the patricians of urban Dublin. Her language lacks the rich idiom of Ó Grianna but she writes clearly, authentically and has a sharp eye for the small moments of doubt and fear which beset us all. She has, in her own quiet way, brought the novel in Irish into the 21st century.
Pól Ó Muirí is a poet and Irish Language Editor of The Irish Times
Hurlamaboc By Éilís Ní Dhuibhne Cois Life, 158pp. €10
