rather making his song, he was writing or composing for his public. Hence he was using the every-day speech of that public, and he was using for his work the most beautiful forms and shapes of that same every-day speech. Hence the fascination it had for the every-day speakers. He was giving them the very cream of their own every-day speech. On the other hand, when he wanted to write his bit of prose, the every-day speech would not do at all. He felt he should be ‘classical.’ The result has been—turgid nonsense.
When I began to write Irish I made up my mind to go to the field in which the Irish language is to be found at its best. It is to be found at its best in the mouths of good old Irish speakers. That is, in good Irish dialogue. That is the reason why I have put the story of the Táin into a dramatic shape, or, into dialogue shape. It came out in that shape some years ago in the Cork Weekly Examiner. A good many old Irish speakers who are now dead were reading it then and writing letters to me to tell me how delighted they were with it. They were getting it “in their own talk.”
Of course it is not necessary to tell any sensible person that this drama was never intended for the stage. It is intended for readers. If the reader wishes, he can easily find for himself, in his own imagination, a far better and cheaper stage than any that the richest of theatres could built. That is the stage on which this drama of the Táin is intended to appear.
PETER O’LEARY, P.P.
