Against English: The Irish Poets Who Have Refused Translation

Irish translator and scholar Ellen Corbett explores how some Irish writers have resisted or deferred the translation of their work into English — given the minoritisation of the Irish language and its 'definitely endangered' status. Unpacking the tumultuous, colonial history between the two languages, Corbett examines the varying stances of non-compliance poets like Biddy Jenkinson and Louis de Paor have taken in the past. What does this mean for Irish writers and translators today, who must tussle between greater international recognition and market reach, and preservation and authenticity?

Supported by a grant from the Open Society Foundations.

Imagine this: You’re a writer working with a relatively ‘small’ language. It has about two million speakers, only some of whom are fluent. The language next door to you, in your little archipelago, is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, with billions of fluent speakers and learners. It is regarded as prestigious – synonymous with progress, business, and greater opportunity – and, as luck would have it, you speak that language too. Would you ever consider having your work translated from that small language into the bigger one? If you did, your readership could increase exponentially. Your work could find a larger international market. Your fellow writers who have had their work translated have seen their standing in the literary world rise. You might be able to achieve that rare thing: making a living from your writing. 

So — would you do it? 

What if I told you that that other more powerful, commonly spoken language had tried to push down your small language for the better part of eight hundred years? What if I told you that due to all its efforts to devalue your language, more people in your homeplace speak that bigger language now? What if I told you that as a result, and because of your home’s complicated, colonial history, people now see your ‘smaller’ language as backward, old-fashioned, torturous to learn, politicised, and deeply associated with one particular group of people? What if I told you that they say this language, your language, is a dead one? Or might as well be?

And if you were translated, what if people never realised that your work was translated in the first place? What if your new readers ignored your work in the original language for the more familiar language on the other side of the page? What if your work was quoted more often in translation than in its original tongue? 

Would you still translate your work?  

Translating your work into a majority language is not an easy decision to make. But it is one that many Irish-language writers have to reckon with in their careers, a choice they must inevitably make. For Irish writers, it has been called a ‘Catch-22’ (Mac Lochlainn 186-187), a Faustian bargain, where they must choose between the possibility of greater opportunity and national and international success, and maintaining and preserving cultural and linguistic authenticity while writing for local audiences.

Although Irish is still visible, still spoken ... English remains the de facto vernacular

Suffice to say, the history between Irish and English is tumultuous. The Irish language is one of the oldest and most historical written languages in Europe, believed to have been spoken over 2,500 years ago. Most of our knowledge of Irish comes from much later than this, from around 500CE and the introduction of Christianity to Ireland. The new religion brought Latin and a new alphabet that, by the seventh century, Irish monks had started to use to write their own language. At the same time, Irish (or at least an older form of it) spread across the west coast of Britain, as well as to Scotland and the Isle of Man, where its closest related languages, Scottish Gaelic and Manx, can still be heard (Údarás na Gaeltachta). The Irish language’s fortunes as both a majority and community language began to decline, however, after the Anglo-Norman invasion in the twelfth century. But the shift to English accelerated during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, when efforts to colonise Ireland resulted in the confiscation of lands once held by disloyal Gaelic Earls and the endowment of those lands to loyal Protestant English and Scottish ‘planters’ during the Plantation of Ulster (Doyle 63; Mac Mathúna 154). Although Irish was still spoken by the majority of the rural population, English was now unequivocally the language of administration and the judiciary.  

The shift from Irish to English as the vernacular accelerated during the nineteenth century. The introduction of English-only National Schools in 1832 – alongside the exclusion of Irish from education until the late 1870s and early 1880s – reinforced English as the language of advancement (Dunne 10). Further impact came from the potato blight that struck Ireland in 1845, disproportionately affecting the predominantly Irish-speaking areas of Ireland in the west and south. Consecutive years of poor crops and poorer management of the disaster resulted in the deaths of at least 800,000 and the mass emigration of nearly two million more between 1845 and 1855 (Glynn; Doyle 125). During this period, Irish became increasingly associated with low social status and agrarian life, and English with social mobility and opportunity. After 1870, the decline of the Irish language continued but was slowed by the Gaelic Revival, resulting in greater interest in the Irish language and Gaelic culture, sport, and music. 

By the twentieth century, Ireland sought to distinguish itself from Britain and seek independence to create its own distinct identity with the Irish language at its core. In 1922, an Irish Free State made of twenty-six of the thirty-two counties of Ireland was formed, before the Republic of Ireland gained full independence from the United Kingdom in 1949. The six remaining counties continue to be part of the United Kingdom as Northern Ireland. 

It’s tempting to think that things have improved for Irish: it is the first official language of the Republic of Ireland and an official and working language of the European Union. In 2022, the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act gave Irish official recognition in Northern Ireland for the first time, repealing the Administration of Justice (Language) Act (Ireland) 1737, which banned Irish from courts. Yet the Irish language remains in a precarious position as a ‘definitely endangered’ language. In the 2022 census in the Republic of Ireland, 40% (approximately 1.87 million people) reported being able to speak Irish, although just 29.6% of respondents said they only used Irish in the education system, where it is a compulsory subject (An Phríomh-Oifig Staidrimh). In Northern Ireland’s 2021 census, only 12.4% (223,600 people) reported having some ability in Irish (Mac Éinrí 211-212; NISRA sec. 6). So today, although Irish is still visible, still spoken, on the island of Ireland, English remains the de facto vernacular, and the majority of Irish-language writers and poets in Ireland today have chosen to have their work translated into English. It is probable that, because of this choice, their work is even known beyond the Irish language at all.

Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill is one of the most well-known contemporary Irish-language poets working today. Her poetry has been translated by the likes of Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon, and she is, ‘in many ways, the most successful of all the [Irish-language] poets who emerged since 1970’ (Titley). To date, Ní Dhomhnaill has published seven monolingual Irish poetry collections, seven dual-language collections, and one monolingual English collection of translated poetry. She has won numerous awards for her poetry in Irish and in translation, has taught at New York University, Boston College, and Villanova University, and was Ireland’s second Professor of Poetry from 2001-2004. Although Ní Dhomhnaill’s first language is actually English, and she has written non-fiction in it, she has only ever written and published poetry in Irish. In allowing her work to then be translated from Irish to English, she has hoped to raise more awareness of Irish-language literature and change existing reductive, stereotypical attitudes towards Irish-language literature (McDiarmid and Durkin). She’s been proud to play ‘a tiny part in the growing camaraderie between peers writing in Irish and in English’ (Ní Dhomhnaill 2004, 168). As perceptions of translation in Ireland are becoming increasingly accepting, and as the world has become more interconnected – whether through the rise of the Internet, international initiatives, or growing global interest in Ireland – the Irish-language literary canon is becoming more widely available in English translation than ever before. This includes both contemporary writers and major twentieth-century figures, including Máire Mhac an tSaoi, Sean Ó Ríordáin, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Máirtín Ó Díreáin, Gabriel Rosenstock, Liam Ó Muirthile, Michael Davitt, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Louis de Paor, Celia de Fréine, Gearóid Mac Lochlainn, Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh, and Doireann Ní Ghríofa.

But there remain a notable few Irish poets who have refused to be translated into English, and others who have placed a moratorium on translated texts. One of the most infamous and forthright acts of refusal like this was carried out by poet, author, dramatist, and essayist Biddy Jenkinson in 1991. Writing to the editor of the Irish University Review, Jenkinson made the following watershed statement on the potential translation of her work: 

‘I prefer not to be translated into English in Ireland. It is a small rude gesture to those who think that everything can be harvested and stored without loss in an English-speaking Ireland. If I were a corncrake I would feel no obligation to have my skin cured, my tarsi injected with formalin so that I could fill a museum shelf in a world that saw no need for my kind’ (1991, 34).

The Irish-language literary canon is becoming more widely available in English translation than ever before 

Poets and scholars from both linguistic and literary fields and traditions in Ireland have praised Jenkinson for her stance. Ní Dhomhnaill saw the choice as ‘[a] morally impeccable policy’ (1999, 223), while Belfast poet and translator Ciaran Carson saw it as ‘[…] a necessary admonishment to those who pay lip-service to the Irish language’ (2008). In the thirty years since her statement, Jenkinson’s decision has never been countermanded. Inspired by her stance, aware of the history between Irish and English, and working within an active Irish-language literary sphere, some of the newest generation of Irish writers have also stated their preference not to be translated. Jenkinson’s quote has even been deployed against me in my work as a translator and researcher to argue for not-translating, or the non-translation, of contemporary Irish texts.  

Why exactly did Jenkinson make such a stringent choice? Some have interpreted her decision to not translate her work as a political and self-sacrificing act, intended to advance the visibility of the Irish language and challenge the people who see no place for it in modern Irish society. Jenkinson’s Irish-language poetry, presented with no en face translation, serves as an uncomfortable reminder ‘to those who [are] uneasy in their Irishness [while] there is a living Gaelic tradition to which they do not belong […]’ (Jenkinson 1989). For critic Peter Denman, however, Jenkinson’s refusal is not only a pushback against the Anglophone world, but may be viewed as a ‘… quasi-isolationist […] reversion to the intractability of the earlier part of this [20th] century’ when Ireland sought to assert an autonomous identity grounded in Gaelic culture, sport, music, and language (251). 

Still, it is likely that Jenkinson’s decision was as much personal as it was political. She has previously stated that she writes in ‘a living language for living friends’ (Jenkinson 1989, 80) — her imagined and expected audience already understand her, so there is no need for translation, or for prioritising international markets over one’s own community. ‘Notorious in her aversion to being translated into English’ (Lodge, my emphasis) and ‘renowned for her refusal’ (Ó Drisceoil 23, my emphasis), Jenkinson’s choice has, however, often been overstated. Her words are frequently reiterated or paraphrased in ways that amplify total refusal, rather than the preference she initially articulated. They also overlook the spatial dimension of that preference – not to be translated into English in Ireland – creating a much more extreme image of the poet and her practice, while solidifying her reputation as a major figurehead for Irish literary non-compliance. The reality is that Jenkinson’s work has still appeared in English (although outside of Ireland) and been translated into countless other languages, including French, German, Italian, Romanian, Slovenian, Bengali, Japanese, and Greek. 

For scholar Caitlín Nic Íomhair, Jenkinson should be better known for the irreverence and playfulness she exhibits in both her choice and use of language, rather than being seen as an altruistic poet restricted by her choice of language. Jenkinson’s ‘irreverence’ –  ‘charged by an unlikely combination of the cerebral and burlesque, pack[ing] belly laughs’ –  is found in her poetry as well as her other writings (Nic Íomhair). Drawing inspiration from her 1991  ‘Letter’ in the Irish University Review, Jenkinson’s ‘small rude gesture’ would become the title and form the central imagery of a later poem in 2005. Capturing her thoughts on monolingual perceptions of being Irish, the text further contradicts the stalwart, politicised image that has come to define her: 

Here, Jenkinson reflects on the challenges in attempting to use Irish in her daily life in a predominantly English-speaking Ireland, drawing a parallel between her own struggle and the mythological conflict between the Irish deity of the Daghda and his sworn enemies, the Formorians. But rather than responding with ‘an angry tirade in the Name of God and the Dead Generations’ (Cronin 82) and adopting the kind of pedantic behaviour you might expect from someone refusing to be translated, Jenkinson’s response is unexpectedly magnanimous, at least for her. It is still full of the frivolity and humour that should be associated with her: a small rude gesture. There is no consensus on what Jenkinson’s ‘small rude gesture’ actually is, but having read this poem, I always imagine it as two fingers, or Biddy flipping the bird. 

Translation can feel as inexorable as a rising tide

Jenkinson is not the only Irish-language poet who has refused to have their work translated into English in Ireland or who has expressed antipathy towards the expectation of translation. Louis de Paor – an Irish-language poet, writer, and scholar – has also dealt with such an expectation in several different ways throughout his forty-year career. Initially influenced by Jenkinson, he also refused to have his work translated into English in Ireland. When his poem ‘Iarlais’ was published in the Northern Ireland-based literary magazine The Honest Ulsterman with an English rendering, rather than being kept in Irish and published with a glossary, the magazine had to print an apology to the poet in the following issue because they ‘directly contradict[ed] Mr de Paor’s public stance on this issue [of translation]’ (Honest Ulsterman 4). This refusal was not just confined to de Paor’s poetry. For the published transcript of his 2008 public lecture at the Linen Hall Library in Belfast, he did not give permission for an English translation or preface to be included, stating only that ‘what is said is said fully in the essay itself’ (2008, 51). In the final chapter of his seminal essay collection on contemporary Irish literature, Ag Caint leis an Simné? Dúshlán an Traidisiúin agus Nualitríocht na Gaeilge (2018), de Paor expressed further wariness towards translation, particularly from Irish to English, and disrupted the frequent assumption that translation involves mutual and equal exchange:

‘Más láthair teagmhála é gort an aistriúcháin, adeir siad, a cheadaíonn comhrá agus malartú eolais, imirt agus súgradh agus suirí, is minic gur páirc chatha chomh maith é ...’

‘If the field of translation is a place of encounter, as they say, that allows for conversation and exchange, for play and fun and courting, then it is just as often a field of battle too …’ (de Paor 2018, 178, my translation) 

Until 2005, de Paor published exclusively in Irish in Ireland, although he did publish three self-translated dual-language Irish-English poetry collections in Australia (where he lived for nine years) between 1993 and 1999. de Paor’s attitude towards translation, however, underwent a significant shift after his return to Ireland, which eventually led to the publication of his first dual-language poetry collection there, named Ag Greadadh Bas sa Reilig/Clapping in the Cemetery (2005). This was partially in response to his dissatisfaction with his earlier self-translations, and partly due to the formation of a close collaborative and translational team of poets and writers with whom he continues to work: Kevin Anderson, Mary O’Donoghue, and our own Biddy Jenkinson. 

Yet even after this evolution in his practice, de Paor still continued to push back in some regard: he imposed a moratorium on when a translation could be allowed. This deferral was to give ‘breathing space for the original poem to speak and become itself to the full extent of which it is capable before allowing others to speak on its behalf’ (de Paor 2010, 41), and to give his Irish-speaking audience the opportunity to absorb his poems first in Irish without distraction. de Paor’s practice of temporary refusal or deferred permission for translation has become a key aspect of his career since 2005 (2014, 5). To date, he has published four dual-language collections, each drawing on and reconfiguring material from multiple earlier Irish-only collections. 

Translation can feel as inexorable as a rising tide, but Biddy Jenkinson and Louis de Paor have sought to turn it, or at least mitigate some of its power. At the same time, both remain aware that their ability to refuse or defer English translation is contingent on the work of others – the majority – and their own choice to be translated. As Jenkinson acknowledges: 

‘Tá an t-ádh liom, is dócha nach… go bhfuil an rogha sin agam. Ní bheadh an rogha sin agam dá mba rud é nach raibh duine eile ag cur Béarla ar a gcuid … dá mba rud é nach raibh aon áit i saol an Bhéarla in Éirinn dosna haistriúchán ón nGaeilge …’ 

‘I’m lucky, I suppose that … that I have that choice. I wouldn’t have that choice if someone else wasn’t translating into English … if there wasn’t a place in the English world in Ireland for translation from Irish …’ (Jenkinson qtd. in Ó hUanacháin, my translation). 

Translation will, no doubt, continue to be ‘a vexed ideological issue’ for many of us, particularly those of us working from ‘small’ languages into the ‘big’ ones (O’Connor 441). But maybe that’s as it should be. The charged movement from minority to majority language, the frustration, the contemplation that goes into the irrevocable decision to be translated, the split factions who choose to be and not to be translated in the same language community ... Perhaps the fraught nature of this dilemma shows how deeply we love our languages — despite the opinions of the majority, despite the actions of others to devalue it. If it wasn’t a hard decision, it wouldn’t be worth making.  

And what of Irish writers today? Should they refuse to be translated like their forebears? If so, where does that leave me, the Irish translator? An Irish saying and its neologism spring to mind: ní lia duine ná tuairim; ní lia file na faisean — so many people, so many opinions; so many poets, so many prerogatives (Ní Choistealbha). Like Biddy, I think there is space for us all to choose the ideal afterlives for our poetry. But like Louis, I can see the opportunities as well as the dangers that come with translation, and leave the question in the hands of those who know their work best: the poets themselves. 

Endnotes

1. This translation was created by the author. It is not an approved translation. It is solely intended for the benefit of monolingual English readers. 

2. English speakers. 

3. The father of the Tuath De Danann, the mythological early inhabitants of Ireland. A deity in Celtic mythology associated with magic, protection, fertility, and abundance, the Dagda was said 'to own a magical club with which he could wield power over life and death […] and owned a cauldron of inexhaustible abundance' (Paice MacLeod 275). 

4. Supernatural race and enemies of the Tuatha De Danann. 

Works Cited

Carson, Ciaran. 'Tracking the Words', 2008.

Cronin, Michael. 'No Dead Flowers'. Review of Oíche Bhealtaine by Biddy Jenkinson, Poetry Ireland Review, no. 87, 2008, pp. 80–83. 

Dánta, Rogha. Selected Poems: Rogha Dánta. Translated by Michael Hartnett, New Island, 2004. Originally published in 1988. 

Denman, Peter. 'Rude Gestures? Contemporary Women’s Poetry in Irish'. Colby Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 4, 1992, pp. 251–259. 

de Paor, Louis. 'Iarlais'/'Changeling'. Translated by Robert Welch. Honest Ulsterman, Spring 1997, pp. 4-5.

de Paor, Louis. Ag Greadadh Bas sa Reilig/Clapping in the Cemetery. Translated by Louis de Paor, Biddy Jenkinson, Mary O’Donoghue, Kevin Anderson. Cló Iar-Chonnacht, 2005.

de Paor, Louis. 'Léacht Phoiblí Duilleoga Éireannach 2008'. Irish Pages, vol. 5, no. 1, 2008, pp. 51.

de Paor, Louis. Agus Rud Eile de/And Another Thing. Translated by Louis de Paor, Biddy Jenkinson, Mary O’Donoghue, Kevin Anderson. Cló Iar-Chonnacht, 2010.

de Paor, Louis. Ag Caint leis an Simné? Dúshlán an Traidisiúin agus Nualitríocht na Gaeilge. Cló Iar-Chonnacht, 2018.

Doyle, Aidan. A History of the Irish Language: From the Norman Invasion to Independence. Oxford University Press, 2015. 

Duffy, Noel and Dorgan, Theo. 'Tidal Surge: 1990 – 1999', Watching the River Flow: A Century in Irish Poetry. Poetry Ireland/Éigse Éireann, 1999, pp. 219-225. 

Dunne, Claire. Learning and Teaching Irish in English-Medium Schools Part 1: 1878–1971, 2020. 

Glynn, Irial. Pre-independence Irish Emigration, University College Cork, Dec. 2012.  

Clyde, Tom. 'Apology (i)'. Honest Ulsterman, Autumn 1997, p. 4.  

Jenkinson, Biddy. 'Máire Mhac a tSaoi: The Clerisy and the Folk: A Reply'. Poetry Ireland Review, no. 25, 1989, p. 80.

Jenkinson, Biddy. 'A Letter to an Editor'. Irish University Review, vol. 21, no. 1, 1991, pp. 27–34. 

Jenkinson, Biddy. Oíche Bhealtaine. Coiscéim, 2005. 

Lodge, Patrick. 'Reviews for Spring 2017'. The High Window, 7 Mar. 2017. 

Mac Lochlainn, Gearóid. Stream of Tongues/Sruth Teangacha. Translated by Gearóid Mac Lochlainn et al. Cló Iar-Chonnacht, 2002. 

Mac Mathúna, Liam. 'From Early Modern Ireland to Great Famine', Sociolinguistics in Ireland. Edited by Raymond Hickey, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 154-175. 

McDiarmid, Lucy and Durkin, Michael. 'Q&A: Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill'. Irish Literary Supplement, vol. 6, no. 2, 1987, pp. 41-43. 

Ní Choistealbha, Laoighseach. ‘A scríbhneoirí na Gaeilge, ná bíodh sibh ina ‘showcase’ do ‘Irish-language literature’!’. Tuairisc, 2024. 

Ní Dhomhnaill, Nuala. An Dealg Droighin. Cló Mercier, 1981. 

Ní Fhrighil, Rióna. 'Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill' Filíocht Chomhaimseartha na Gaeilge. Edited by Rióna Ní Fhrighil, Cois Life Teoranta, 2010, pp. 142-166. 

Nic Íomhair, Caitlín. 'In Praise of Biddy Jenkinson'. Irish Times, 4 Aug., 2015. 

O’Connor, Laura. 'Between Two Languages'. The Sewanee Review, vol. 114, no. 3, 2006, pp. 433–442. 

Ó Drisceoil, Proinsias. 'Unsettling the World'. Review of Sceilg by Biddy Jenkinson, Poetry Ireland Review, no. 123, 2017, pp. 23-26.  

Ó hÓgáin, Dáithí. Myth, Legend & Romance: An Encyclopaedia of the Irish Folk Tradition. Prentice Hall Press, 1991. 

Ó hUanacháin, Mícheál. 'Agallamh leis an Údar Biddy Jenkinson'. Léite Pléite, 20 December 2008. 

Paice MacLeod, Sharon. 'Oenach Aimsire na mBan: Early Irish Seasonal Celebrations, Gender Roles and Mythological Cycles.' Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, vol. 23, 2003, pp. 257-283. 

Titley, Alan. Thomas Davis Lecture by Alan Titley, 1990. 

Údarás na Gaeltachta. ‘History of the Irish Language’, no date. 

Cover image: A Composition - Sea Rhythm by Mainie Jellett