| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 1195.1 | It's an aisling | GALVIA::HENRY | Frank Henry, IDC-Ireland, Galway | Tue Mar 16 1993 09:33 | 17 |
| � My question is, what is the origin of "Cathleen Ni Houlihan" as an
� allegorical figure representing Ireland? Did Yeats make it up, or does it
� go way back?
It's an example of an aisling (pronounced ash-ling). They originated
in the days of the Penal Laws -- people couldn't go writing poems
saying they wanted to be free or to practice Catholicism or whatever,
that's where the allegorical figure came into it.
R�is�n Dubh (My Dark Rosaleen) is an aisling where a beautiful woman
represents Ireland. There was another one we did in school called An
Droimeann Donn D�lis, where a cow had the starring role. Tommy Makem's
song Four Green Fields is a sort of modern-day aisling where the four
fields represent the four provinces.
- frank.
|
| 1195.2 | Thanks! | GLITTR::BROOKS | | Tue Mar 16 1993 10:12 | 11 |
|
.1 -
Thanks very much for that info.
Sorry to be so dense, but...do you have any idea when this one
(Cathleen Ni Houlihan) would have originated? I'm wondering if Yeats
was drawing on something that was already in the culture, or if *he*
originated it.
Dorian
|
| 1195.3 | I think he made it up | GALVIA::HENRY | Frank Henry, IDC-Ireland, Galway | Tue Mar 23 1993 06:50 | 15 |
| � Sorry to be so dense, but...do you have any idea when this one
� (Cathleen Ni Houlihan) would have originated? I'm wondering if Yeats
� was drawing on something that was already in the culture, or if *he*
� originated it.
I'm pretty sure Yeats came up with the name Caitl�n ni Houlihan
himself. He was drawing on something that was already in the culture
though because the aisling "genre" had been around for centuries before
that.
I don't think the name itself has any more significance, for example,
than the name R�is�n has in R�is�n Dubh -- it was just the name the
writer chose for the heroine.
- frank.
|
| 1195.4 | Yeats's source, maybe? | GLITTR::BROOKS | Mirth of our Mothers | Fri Apr 02 1993 14:07 | 6 |
|
A friend of mine came across a poem, "Kathleen Ny-Houlahan," from the
Irish of William Heffernan, translated by James Clarence Mangan...not
sure of the exact date, but I think it's from the 18th century.
Dorian
|