On Ó Rathaille – with Declan Kiberd & Brian O’Connor

On Friday 24 January 2025, in collaboration with The Irish Literary Society, we are delighted to present an event with Professor Declan Kiberd at the Irish Cultural Centre, who will discuss the life and poetry of Aogán Ó Rathaille (c.1670–1729) and to launch a new book by long time Irish Literary Society member Brian O’Connor, which is a selection of the poems. Conveying Ó Rathaille’s intricate rhythms and rhyme schemes are a challenge for a translator, even more so in his great laments of dispossession, O’Connor carries the work into English with admirable simplicity and fluency. 

These translations capture the fragile buoyancy of beautifully extended vowels, which give each line a magnificent dignified internal patterning, even as their endings sometimes refuse rhyme, because the world the poet faces is no longer felt to be regular: Brian O’Connor helps us also to appreciate the sheer range of Ó Rathaille’s acoustic – Declan Kiberd

The evening will feature Professor Kiberd’s discussion of the work of Ó Rathaille and the closing down of the civilisation that nurtured him. There will be music and readings from the Irish and English. In O’Connor’s new book of translations, Wave, the Irish and English are presented in parallel text – this will be available for sale on the night. The parallel text format of the publication is suited to enhancing language acquisition and effectively scaffolding reading proficiency, as such the ILS has made this event free to encourage all those studying Irish to attend.