Session I.

Women, Literature and Cinema in Ireland (20th October 2016)

Prof. Dr. Pilar Villar Argiz (pvillar@ugr.es)

WOMEN AND LITERATURE IN IRELAND

1. THE NATIONAL MUSE
Kathleen ni Houlihan, William Butler Yeats (1902)
OLD WOMAN: I have my thoughts and I have my hopes.
MICHAEL: What hopes have you to hold to?
OLD WOMAN: The hope of getting my beautiful fields back again; the hope of putting the
strangers out of my house.

They shall be remembered forever,

They shall be alive forever,
They shall be speaking forever,
The people shall hear them forever.
Dark Rosaleen, James Clarence Mangan
O MY Dark Rosaleen,
Do not sigh, do not weep!
The priests are on the ocean green,
They march along the deep.
There 's wine from the royal Pope,
Upon the ocean green;
And Spanish ale shall give you hope,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope,
Shall give you health, and help, and hope,
My Dark Rosaleen!

Woe and pain, pain and woe,

Are my lot, night and noon,
To see your bright face clouded so,
Like to the mournful moon.
But yet will I rear your throne
Again in golden sheen;
'Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
'Tis you shall have the golden throne,
'Tis you shall reign, and reign alone,
My Dark Rosaleen!

I am Ireland, Patrick Pearse

I am Ireland:
I am older than the Old Woman of Beare.

Great my shame:
my own children that sold their mother.

Great my glory
I that bore Cuchulainn the valiant.

I am Ireland:
I am lonelier than the Old Woman of Beare.

Session I. Women, Literature and Cinema in Ireland (20th October 2016)

Prof. Dr. Pilar Villar Argiz (pvillar@ugr.es)

The Mother, Patrick Pearse

I do not grudge them: Lord, I do not grudge
My two strong sons that I have seen go out
To break their strength and die, they and a few,
In bloody protest for a glorious thing,
They shall be spoken of among their people,
The generations shall remember them,
And call them blessed;
But I will speak their names to my own heart

In the long nights;

The little names that were familiar once
Round my dead hearth.
Lord, thou art hard on mothers:
We suffer in their coming and their going;
And tho I grudge them not, I weary, weary
Of the long sorrow---And yet I have my joy:
My sons were faithful, and they fought.

After Aughrim, Emily Lawless

She said, They gave me of their best,
They lived, they gave their lives for me
Article 41, 1937 Constitution
1. In particular, the State recognizes that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State
a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.
2. The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by
economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.

2. TRADITIONAL AND CONTEMPORARY IRISH MUSIC

Irish Ways and Irish Laws
(sung by Christy Moore)
Once upon a time there were
Irish Ways and Irish Laws
Villages of Irish blood
Waking to the morning
Waking to the morning
Then the Vikings came around1
Turned us up and turned us down
Started building boats and towns
They tried to change our living
tried to change our living
Cromwell and his soldiers came2
1

The first documented Viking landing took place in 795. Until the Anglo-Norman invasion in 1170 the Vikings would
play an important role in Ireland, both politically and economically. They created trade routes, founded kingdoms, and
built the first towns in Ireland, including Dublin, Cork and Limerick.
2
Oliver Cromwell landed in Ireland in August 1649 at the head of a huge army, by May 1650 he had crushed opposition
in all but the West. (By 1652 the Irish population had fallen to .7 m. In 1641 it had been 1.5 m. By 1660 .5 m cattle were

Session I. Women, Literature and Cinema in Ireland (20th October 2016)

Prof. Dr. Pilar Villar Argiz (pvillar@ugr.es)

Started centuries of shame

But they could not make us turn3
We are a river flowing
We're a river flowing
Again, again the soldiers came
Burnt our houses stole our grain
Shot the farmers in their fields
Working for livings
Working for a living
800 years we have been down4
The secret of the water sound
Has kept the spirit of a man
Above the pain descending
Above the pain descending
Today the struggle carries on
I wonder will I live so long
To see the gates being opened up5
To a people and their freedom
A people and their freedom
Once upon a time there was
Irish Ways and Irish Laws
Villages of Irish blood
Waking to the morning
Waking to the morning

This is a Rebel Song

(Sinead O'Connor, Oak Gospel, 1997)
I love you my hard Englishman
Your rage is like a fist in my womb
Can't you forgive what you think I've done
And love me - I'm your woman
And I desire you my hard Englishman
And there is no more natural thing
So why should I not get loving
Don't be cold Englishman

How come you've never said you love me

In all the time you've known me
How come you never say you're sorry
And I do
Ah, please talk to me Englishman
What good will shutting me out get done

being exported annually to England.)

3
Both Cromwell's and subsequent colonisation campaigns used the twin techniques of "planting" English and Scottish
settlers and forcing some locals to change or "Turn" their religion to the Protestant faith. So here he uses the ambiguity
of the term "turn" to echo both the image of the unbowed Irish peasant and a metaphor for Irish History flowing like a
un-turnable river.
4
Since the first English invasion in 1170.
5
"Gates" here evokes both images of the be-sieged walled cities of the 17th century and also of the present day prison
camps in the North of Ireland which at the time the song was being written (in the late 1970's early 1980's) were the
subject of much political campaigning including Hunger Strikes by the inmates.

Session I. Women, Literature and Cinema in Ireland (20th October 2016)

Prof. Dr. Pilar Villar Argiz (pvillar@ugr.es)

Meanwhile crazies are killing our sons

Oh listen - Engishman
I've honored you - hard Englishman
Now I am calling your heart to my own
Oh let glorious love be done
Be truthful - Englishman

How come you've never said you love me

In all the time you've known me
How come you never say you're sorry
And I do
I do

"Molly Malone" ("Cockles and Mussels"/ "In Dublin's Fair City")

In Dublin's fair city,
where the girls are so pretty,
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,
As she wheeled her wheel-barrow,
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive,
oh!"
"Alive, alive, oh,
Alive, alive, oh",
Crying "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive,
oh".
She was a fishmonger,
And sure 'twas no wonder,
For so were her father and mother before,

And they each wheeled their barrow,

Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive,
oh!"
(chorus)
She died of a fever,
And no one could save her,
And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone.
Now her ghost wheels her barrow,
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive,
oh!"
(chorus)

Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy (Once, 2007)

Ten years ago
I fell in love with an Irish girl
She took my heart

Oh broken hearted Hoover fixer sucker guy

Oh broken hearted Hoover fixer sucker,
sucker guy

But she went and screwed some guy she knew

and now I'm in Dublin with a broken heart

One day I'll go there and win her once again

but until then I'm just a sucker of a guy.

Session I. Women, Literature and Cinema in Ireland (20th October 2016)

Prof. Dr. Pilar Villar Argiz (pvillar@ugr.es)

3. IRISH WOMEN WRITERS IN THE 20TH CENTURY

REWRITING THE NATIONAL MUSE
Mother Ireland, Edna OBrien
Countries are either mothers or fathers, and engender the emotional bristle secretly reserved
for either sire. Ireland has always been a woman, a womb, a cave, a cow, a Rosaleen, a sow, a
bride, a harlot, and, of course, the gaunt Hag of Beare.
Mientras que los pases pueden adquirir la forma de madres o padres , Irlanda siempre ha
sido una mujer, un tero, una cueva, una vaca, una Rosaleen, una cerda, una novia, una
ramera, y, por supuesto, la gaunt Hag de Beare.
Eavan Boland
if you took the hero out of the store, what was left? What female figure was there to identify with?
There were no women in those back streets. None, at least, who were not lowly auxiliaries of the action.
The heroine, as such, was utterly passive. She was Ireland or Hibernia. She was invoked,
addressed, remembered, loved, regretted. And, most important, died for. She was a mother or a virgin.
Her flesh was wood or ink or marble. And she had no speaking part. (Boland 1996: 66)
Si eliminamos al hroe de estas narrativas, qu nos queda? Con cul figura femenina nos
podemos identificar? En efecto, con ninguna. Con ninguna que no fuera, al menos, ms que una
humilde auxiliar de la accin. La herona, como tal, era totalmente pasiva. Era Irlanda o Hibernia.
Siempre se le invocaba, recordaba, amaba y lamentaba. Y lo ms importante: siempre se mora
por ella. Era una madre o una virgen. Su carne era de madera, de mrmol o de tinta. Y nunca
hablaba por s sola. (Boland 1996: 66)
The tendency to fuse the national and the feminine, to make the image of the woman in the pretext
of a romantic nationalism these have been weaknesses in Irish poetry. In availing themselves
of the old convention, in using and reusing women as icons and figments, Irish poets were not just
dealing with emblems. They were also evading the real women of an actual past: women whose
silence their poetry should have broken. (Boland 1994: 91-92)
La tendencia de fusionar lo nacional y lo femenino, en el pretexto de un nacionalismo romntico, ha
sido la deficiencia de la poesa irlandesa. Al hacer uso de esta vieja convencin, al usar y
reutilizar a las mujeres como iconos, los poetas irlandeses no slo las han simplificado en
emblemas. Tambin las han despojado de un pasado real, sin romper el silencio que siempre ha
rodeado a la mujer. (Boland 1994: 91-92)
Hay una imagen social e histrica de la mujer, diseada por la imaginacin popular, el escultor, el
legislador, el revolucionario Pero luego existen las imgenes que dan las propias mujeres cuando
se liberan, con su propio trabajo y con sus visiones y perspectivas como artistas, del servilismo
hacia una imagen que les ha sido impuesta. La imagen creada por la propia mujer desbanca la
creada por la historia y la sociedad pero, siendo la mujer un miembro de esta sociedad, y una

Session I. Women, Literature and Cinema in Ireland (20th October 2016)

Prof. Dr. Pilar Villar Argiz (pvillar@ugr.es)

intrprete de esta historia, nunca podr separarse totalmente de la imagen tradicional de lo

femenino. (Eilan Ni Chuilleanin)
MATERNITY
Ectopic, Paula Meehan
I must summon up the will to kill
you soon before you get too strong a grip
on the black hole that occupies the void that was my heart.
That Night There Was a Full Moon, Little Cloud, Paula Meehan
She tells me I am beautiful.
That Ill never have children. No blame. No wrong.
FEMALE SEXUALITY
Women have been identified with Eve, the symbol of evil, and can only attain sanctity by
identifying with the Virgin Mary, the opposite of Eve. But this is an impossible task since we are
told that Mary herself was conceived without sin and when she gave birth to Jesus remained a
virgin. To reach full sanctity then, women have to renounce their sexuality, symbol of their role as
temptresses and the means by which they drag men from their lofty heights. [...] Sex and spirituality
have become polar opposites in Christian teaching. (Condren 1989: 5)
Las mujeres han sido identificadas con Eva, smbolo del mal, y slo pueden alcanzar la santidad a
travs de su identificacin con la Virgen Mara, polo opuesto de Eva. Pero sta es una tarea
imposible, ya que se nos dice que Mara "fue concebida sin pecado" y cuando dio a luz a Jess
permaneci virgen. Por tanto, para alcanzar santidad plena, la mujer ha de renunciar a su
sexualidad, smbolo de su funcin como tentadora que arrastra a los hombres de sus nobles alturas.
[...] El sexo y la espiritualidad se han convertido en polos opuestos en la enseanza cristiana.
(Condren 1989: 5)