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Aranmen All / Tom O'Flaherty.
- Dingle : Brandon books, 1991. - 192 p. ;
20 cm.
ISBN 0-86322-123-8
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PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION :
Tom O'Flaherty, older brother of Liam (author of The Informer, Famine
and many other books) was born and reared on Inis Mór, the largest of
the Aran Islands ; he left Ireland in the early years of the century
for America.A socialist and republican, he was a comrade in the
US of James Larkin, John Reed and James Cannon. Writing fluently in
both Irish and English, he contributed newspapers, including An
tEireannach. He returned to Ireland where he died on inis Mór in 1936.His
stories bring to life the world of Aran at the turn of the century.
Almost every page is dominated by the sea, with its harvest of fish,
seaweed and the flotsam and jetsam of shipwrecks, and with its constant
threats of storm and drowning. There are stories, too, about eviction,
land war, emigration and return.
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THE SPECTATOR 3 August 1934 : “ Mr. Tom O'Flaherty avoids the extreme methods of contemporary Irish realism in his first book, Aranmen All. Many years spent in America have enabled him to appreciate more deeply the ways and customs of his native island of Aran Mor.
Like
his brother, the well-known Irish novelist, Mr. Liam O'Flaherty, he
knows the islanders thoroughly, but his sketches and stories have a
kindly note of their own. Atlantic storms, the dangers endured by the
fishermen in their frail curraghs, tales of ancient prowess or of
strange sea monsters told around the fire in winter — these
are the subjects on which he writes.
It is many years since
Synge went to the Aran Islands, but recently they have been really
" discovered ". Mr. O'Flaherty gives us intimate and
fascinating glimpses of a primitive community which as yet remains
unspoiled, despite the influx of the Gaelic language enthusiasts.
[…] ”
[en ligne]
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| EXTRAIT |
We
pass Gregory's Sound that divides Inismaan from Aran. We turn by Straw
Island in towards the little harbour of Kilronan. I am glad to be back
again ; but I am sad also. For underneath the tombstones in the
little churchyard on the sandy shore of Killeany lie the remains of
many of those who bid me a tearful farewell when I left Kilronan pier
twenty-one years ago !
I find my breath coming quicker.
There is a queer dryness on my lips as the boat slows down and crawls
the last few hundred yards. A jangling of bells, a stamping of feet, a
shout from the shore and then at last with a bump and a grunt the Dún Aonghus ties up a the pier.
Without waiting for the gangway I leap the rail. I am home ! Home in Aran !
☐ Home at last, pp. 191-192 |
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| COMPLÉMENT
BIBLIOGRAPHIQUE |
- « Aranmen all », Dublin, London : At the sign of the Three candles, Hamish Hamilton, 1934
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- « Cliffmen of the West », London : Sands & Co., 1935
- « An
Bhrachlainn Mhór » Tom O'Flaherty’s short
stories newly ed. by Éamon Ó Ciosáin,
Indreabhán (Co. Galway) : Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2020
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| mise-à-jour : 18 décembre 2020 |
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