Cathal Ó Searcaigh

Cathal Ó Searcaigh

At home in Mín a' Leá
Born (1956-07-12) 12 July 1956
Gort an Choirce (Gortahork), County Donegal, Ireland
Occupation Poet

Cathal Ó Searcaigh is one of the most significant poets of modern Irish. His work has been widely translated, anthologised and studied. "His confident internationalism", according to Theo Dorgan,[1] has channelled "new modes, new possibilities, into the writing of Irish language poetry in our time".

From 1975 onwards he has produced a steady flow of books: poetry, plays, travelogues. His early acclaimed poetry celebrates place, tongue and tradition, yet his late work has a Whitmanesque expansiveness about it that connects the local to the cosmic with a sweeping imaginative élan. He is a poet who utilises the full incantatory power of the Irish language to speak with a modern bardic, even a shamanistic authority. His rhapsodic, homoerotic love poems are an integral part of the ever-growing body of his work. Jody Allen Randolph[2] remarks "his breaking down of stereotypes and new deployment of gendered themes opened a new space in which to consider alternate sexualities within a contemporary Irish context."

"Ó Searcaigh occupies many of the spaces that stand in opposition to the traditionally dominant markers of Irish identity" according to John McDonagh. In his anthology[3] McDonagh goes on to say "Ó Searcaigh's homoerotic poems are explicit, relishing in a sensuality that for many years rarely found explicit expression in Irish literature."

Upbringing

Cathal Ó Searcaigh was born and reared on a small hill-farm at the foot of An tEaragal (Mount Errigal) in the Donegal Gaeltacht. He was educated locally at Caiseal na gCorr National School and then at Gairmscoil Ghort a' Choirce. He gives a vivid account of his colourful childhood in a remote Gaelic-speaking community in his acclaimed memoir Light on Distant Hills.[4] It is a fascinating portrayal of an unconventional upbringing by a mother who went on Wonder Voyages into the Otherworld and by a migrant father who did seasonal work in Scotland and loved poetry, giving their one and only child a distinctive view of life and language.

The first poems that engaged his attention were those of Rabbie Burns. In the Memoir he remembers his father reading those poems to him when he was four or five years old. He was enthralled by these sonorous fireside readings. It was his first realisation, he says, of the hypnotic, oracular power of language. Tom Walsh, his English teacher at the Gairmscoil in Gortahork, encouraged the precocious literary talent of the young student. Later as a teenager adrift in London and meeting the exotic and the exiled, he began to explore his sexuality and his creativity.

Personal life

In the early 1970s he worked as a barman in London. Later he attended the NIHE (National Institute for Higher Education) in Limerick where he did European Studies for two years (1973–75) and followed that with one year at Maynooth University (1977–78) where he did Celtic Studies.

During the years 1978-81 he worked in Dublin with RTÉ television presenting Aisling Gheal, a highly regarded arts and music programme directed by the acclaimed musician Tony MacMahon. From the early 1980s has earned his living as a full-time writer and poet.

He is an acclaimed reader of his own poetry.

In the spring of 1995 he was elected a member of Aosdána.[5]

Travels

A distinguished poet, Cathal Ó Searcaigh has travelled widely, often representing his country at literary festivals and gatherings throughout the world. His work has been translated into numerous languages – French, German, Italian, Breton, Catalan, Polish, Danish, Serbo-Croat, Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Japanese, and Nepali.

Nepal has played an important part in his life. He visited the country for the first time in 1996. His Seal i Neipeal[6] is a beautifully-written, vivid, insightful account of that country, its people and their culture. It is generally regarded now as one of the major prose works written in Irish in the first decade of the 21st century.[7]

Since the mid 1990s he has sponsored the education of many young people in Nepal.

In February 2007 a controversial film documentary (Fairytale of Kathmandu, by Neasa Ní Chianáin) queried his relationships with some of the young men he helped, focusing on power imbalance and financial accountability. At the time it raised a storm of controversy and a tabloid media frenzy. In February 2009 Ó Searcaigh was interviewed in English by Dermod Moore for Hot Press.[8] It is a forthright, comprehensive response to the allegations made against him, both in the film and in the media coverage of the scandal.

Other literary activities

Cathal Ó Searcaigh has donated his archives, an extensive library of books and a valuable art collection to the Irish State. The Donegal Library Service administers this donation at present. His house in Mín a' Leá at the foot of Mount Errigal is often the venue for literary and musical evenings hosted by the poet himself.

By the hearth in Mín a' Leá

Along with poet and literary critic Chris Agee he edits Irish Pages, one of Ireland's most prestigious literary journals with a worldwide circulation.

"Creativity for me arises out of my deep attachment to this place, out of a reverential affection for its people", he says in his memoir Light on Distant Hills.[9] "My poems are devotional in the sense that they are prayerful celebrations of place, tongue and tradition. My work has become known because of its connectedness with this place. I have become a collector of its oral traditions, an archivist of its memories and its myths, a guardian of its Gaelic. This is, I suppose, a political act, acknowledging the local, recording and registering what is past or passing."

Colm Tóibín wrote in the Times Literary Supplement: "There is a section of landscape in Donegal in the north of Ireland near Falcarragh, overlooking Tory Island, which has been utterly transformed by the poetry of Cathal Ó Searcaigh."

Cathal Ó Searcaigh with his impish sense of humour, his openness, his transformative and at times transgressive poetry and his generosity of spirit continues to leave his indelible mark on the literature of 21st century Ireland.

Awards and honours

Selected Publications

Poetry

Bilingual Poetry Editions

Prose Works in Irish

Plays

Writing in English

History

As Editor

Collaborations: Music

Cathal has also collaborated with Altan, Brian Kennedy, Diana Cannon and many other well-known musicians.

Collaborations: Art

Books about his poetry

Critical Essays on the Work of Cathal Ó Searcaigh – a selection

Anthologies in which he is represented

Ó Searcaigh's work has been much anthologised. He is one of the few Irish language poets to be included in all the major anthologies of modern poetry from Ireland. The following is only a sample selection.

Foreign Language Anthologies

Selected Foreign Editions

Interviews with the poet

References

  1. ↑ Dorgan, Theo (1996). Irish Poetry Since Kavanagh. Four Courts Press. ISBN 9781851822393.
  2. ↑ Randolph, Jody Allen (2010). Close to the Next Moment: Interviews from a Changing Ireland. Carcanet Press. ISBN 9781847773166.
  3. ↑ McDonagh, John (2008). A Fine Statement: An Irish Poet's Anthology. Poolbeg Press. ISBN 9781842233689.
  4. ↑ O'Searcaigh, Cathal (2009). Light on Distant Hills: A Memoir. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9781847370631.
  5. ↑ "Cathal Ó Searcaigh". Aosdána.
  6. ↑ O'Searcaigh, Cathal (2004). Seal i Neipeal. Cló Iar-Chonnacht. ISBN 1902420608.
  7. ↑ Titley, Alan (2010). Scríbhneoirí faoi Chaibidil. Cois Life. ISBN 978-1-901176-44-5.
  8. ↑ Moore, Dermod. "The Case for the Defence". Hot Press. (subscription only)
  9. ↑ O'Searcaigh, Cathal (2009). Light on Distant Hills: A Memoir. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9781847370631.
  10. ↑ Preface starts page 15
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