Modern Irish - Daoine Bochta

Poor People

Liam Ó Flaithearta (1896-1984), a native speaker of Irish, was born at Gort na gCapall on Inis Mór, the largest of the Aran Islands (Árainn). Ó Flaithearta published drama, poetry, short stories in both Irish and English and novels in English. The short-story Daoine Bochta, published in 1925, typifies Ó Flaithearta’s vivid descriptions of nature and the hardships endured by those who depended upon sea and land. The descriptions of gathering of seaweed in the morning hours to fertilize meagre plots of land, and the approaching death of Pádraig Ó Direáin’s son, challenge romantic portraits of rural poverty. Ó Flaithearta nevertheless conveys the resilience and dignity of his characters, as this passage illustrates. Daoine Bochta opens with a repetitive rolling of the waves and ends with the rhythmic ‘keen’ (caoineadh) of the women. The episode is read by Dr Mícheál Ó Flaithearta (Utrecht University), who is from Leitir Mealláin, 15 kilometers west of Cois Fharraige, Connemara, Co. Galway.