integrative essay – ireland in history and memory fall 25, the evergreen state college
We open with a paradox: how could writing, the act of recording language to express via visual and social definitions, such as letters to words, words to pages, pages that hold an idea, a concept, a reality, secured permanently between borders called covers, possibly be liminal, the between here and there? But this pondering gives itself away in the act of asking. The shape of a stanza, the space between the end of a sentence punctuated and the start of the next word, the pages holding the paragraphs, bound within crafted borders, grounding the ephemeral action of speaking in permanence, all are the very in-between within which humanity occurs. Liminality is often experienced as a melting of this and that: this sound and the meaning that holds, that meaning and how this is perceived, how that perception influences this chosen behavior. Even in the eternity of the written word, there will always be the shadow shifting across a page, eagerly holding a finger to the margins, ready to turn and begin the cycle again. A culture that views the passage of time as a cyclical experience, the writing—and the use of language—by the Irish is remarkably inspiring. As a writer, the stylization and each edition it takes is home-like. The creativity feeds itself, and here are further ideas that maybe, just maybe, can confirm a theory.
To begin, we note how language emerged as communities came together. This action transforms how those within the borders of a defined social structure —whether a family unit, a village, or later monastic cities and coastal bases —are perceived. That which was birthed —organized speech —changed the bearer. Growth became a volley, resulting in apex mythologies like the Táin. With countless translations, these fabrications of, maybe, literal events are still cultural cornerstones defining a people, resulting in a need to test typography that can capture these ideas, too.
Writing didn’t arrive to the island until the migration of Christian monks in the 5th century CE. With their abbeys, they brought letters that could take on the responsibility of a society that had spent centuries using language at its most liminal: spoken, sung, and performed. Without societal roles like those served by druids, bards, and the Brehon, story-holders —each way of holding stories subtly distinct —there would not be much for remembering. Liminality lends itself to forgetfulness just as much as to memory experienced and foretold; it is through repetition that these first people preserved core concepts, experiencing each re-utterance and adopting their teller’s own liminal, centralized influence.
The trochaic rhythm of Gaelic is conveyed in fadas, indicating the pronunciation coming first, and the infamous h that silences the consonant before it, like a wall that an utterance can’t permeate. The sounds are soft and tricking compared against the grandiosity of recording them textually; you have to feel the shapes in your tongue, if not your whole body. Words like b’fhéidir (maybe), tá (there is), and níl (there is not) are key samplings of these ideas originated by sound. If asked, “maybe” in Ireland is the safest answer to give when questioned, for it mingles the ideas we have in English of yes and no into a semi-assurance. The affirmation is enough, as there is no way of actual possession in the cultural dialect, only possibility.
Script through symbolism was used well before writing arrived. We can call back to Cú Chulainn’s masterful and binding use of ogham messages carved into rocks and trees, as lectures reaffirm. Specifically, the invasion of Vikings, who also used verbal concepts captured in symbols, invited people to remain communicative, enabling the melding and blurring of two peoples. The Christians arrived three centuries before and adapted; the Anglo-Normans, descendant of Vikings, adopted five centuries later. The book In Search of Ancient Ireland demonstrates that, in addition to Christian Monks’ literacy and written words, women preserved language. Each groupage arriving on the shifting Irish shores was given the chance to regularize their ideas and perceptions into language. Even as women held this truth intimately and innately, writing words enables the craft of law in a way yet experienced, enforceable by those in power. One can sense the potential dangers posed here, just from setting paper to pen. It’s not immediate or even conscious, but it’s real. That is liminal, the implications of tools like words, used. The women learned this first.
Before knotting into the act of singing and music, mirroring beautifully and similarly to speech, dancing with the power of writing words, I must conclude in Ireland herself: street signs. Not only is the proper Irish script distinctly different, subtle, and merely a different posturing and font, but the English “pronunciation guides” printed below translate to nothing yet. These aren’t presented as sonic equivalence, as Seán shares in the language printouts; they are disguised as words proper, yet empty, for they do not hold meaning. Only the different, the other Gaelic, holds that power.
Music and singing naturally lend themselves to poetry, as they take structure and cadence to be recorded in writing. In singing, even though we have the sheet music, each time the same song sounds unique. We have the definition, and yet each one of us has morphed, resulting in the different/same liminality. For four weeks, we have been singing Here’s a Health to the Company, with various levels of pitch, remembering, and attendance being recognized in the opening lyric, “Kind friends and companions, come join me in rhyme.” This song is a poem, as it is often performed without musical accompaniment, which informs how language and pace influence actualization. Crúiscín Lán has us singing of a little full jug always being guzzled down for any and every reason. “I’ll say, begone, you knave, for great Bacchus gave me leave to fill Crúiscín Lán, Crúiscín Lán, Crúiscín Lán.” The powers of blessing and permission are used to defy death, taking the liminality of spirituality and drunkness to resist the liminal transformation of visiting the Otherworld.
From the songs, we see poetry as language organized. “Am” is an action verb. Therefore, I Am by Amergin—the Celtic Arrival poem—is a prime example to start with. Saying and writing “I am” is to claim selfhood in what follows, as he does with lines like “I am the wave of the ocean”, “I am a wild boar in valor”, and “I am the murmur of billows”. Liminality claims selfhood in the action we take, exploring, recognizing, and defining. There is more to movement, past, present, and future tense set in two letters than the two letters, one word, alone.
“And” is a linguistic bridge that builds worlds within worded worlds. Like Dolmens Round my Childhood, the Old People, “and” is used in shaping the history of each dolmen: “Mattress and money box torn and searched”, “Bag-apron and boots, she tramped the fields”, “Curate and doctor trudged to attend them”. Pangur Bán also bridges two worlds, the author’s and the cat’s namesake in the title. “And” is the linguistic mechanism allowing them to “sit and find”, be “full and fierce and sharp and sly” and share “our bliss, I have mine and he has his.”
If “and” is the liminal bridge crossed by the action of “am”, “or” is the boundary encapsulating those two words betwixt. Interestingly, there is very little use of the black and white word in the poetry or music. And yet, we still see the silent need to parallel two ideas in The Insular Celts: “we cannot yet say why or how they could not…”. “How” and “why” —the two sides of “or” — are questions that complement each other naturally, but in this framework, they are pitted against each other as options, excluding each other in choice. In The Bard of Armagh, we also have one minute, yet impactful inclusion of this two-letter word. “At a fair or a wake, I would sing my shillelagh.” These are two vast boundaries to a broad world between, one the bard is actively recording, remembering, sharing, and singing.
Poetry and songs, co-evolving, enabled prose to bloom next. This prose has become an important part of Irish sociology in plays, and more modernly, film. While not media presented as written, they are sourced from language recorded with words. The sheer idea of reader’s theater in itself melts writing into oral tradition. It is incredibly current, with our playbook, Modern and Contemporary Irish Drama, being copyrighted in its second edition circa 2009. The magic of a play is that the setting can — and often is — different from the time in which it is written. We have MollySweeney, each character a world of liminality, which is set and written in the 1990s, but the town is fictional. Cathleen Ní Houlihan beckons us back to 1798, while written in 1902. Patrick is arguably the most liminal of characters: knowing what is to come, directly connecting Catholicism with pagan mysticism, occupying windowsills and doorways. But beyond the characters or concepts, it is the very act of W.B. Yeats in writing a present story of the past that gives us the liminal circle of time happening continuously.
As technology evolved, the storytelling spiraled to a maximum in movies. Let us parse it apart a bit: a movie is a recording of action, with soundtracking, using direction and dialogue gifted by a script. In this way, the words that actualize the idea give birth to worlds we then watch to gain meaning. Words that came from speaking and sharing for thousands upon thousands of years. The power of restoring the nuance of liminality lies in the acting; if anyone else were performing the show, it would be that much different despite the sameness of what we see in words. On the inverse, the same actor playing different characters is showing “I too can be other.”
I’ve been writing for over 23 years. The agency represented in the liminal undercurrents behind documentation is my own personal resonance. The power of a period to abstain from being placed, as they often do in my poetry-style, makes me smile. I say “thank you” for the not-right-now. I ask myself why some words ask for space, when others can, could, and maybe even want to be conjoined? I see the power to create new words from those that came before. Or, as my title suggests, stretch the rules of grammar to see if we can widen the middle of understanding. Liminal spaces and concepts hold power in that you have to stop, pause, assess, and engage. By recognizing liminality in myself, my words, and my work, I grant the power to myself. I’m currently writing three books, all with varying levels of ban-ability according to the governments around and over me. In publishing my first, I am opting for a pen name —an ancient tradition in art display —that harkens back to the hedge schools. We show a mask to the oppressor while preserving the critical act of language adaptation and sharing. My identity, targeted truly across national definitions, is shed for the sake of speaking. What a worthy sacrifice, asked by the boundaries around me and the mysterious call to survive within me.
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