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Life
1952- ; b. North of England; raised in Irish-speaking area west of Ventry (Dingle Gaeltacht) in Co. Kerry from five; also lived in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary; attended first Merriman Summer School, held entirely in Irish, 1969, and there witnessed Seán Ó Ríordán’s ‘stunning impromtu riposte’ to Mairtín Ó Cadháin’s ‘Pápéirí Bána, Pápéirí Breaca’; entered UCC (grad. BA in Irish and English, 1972); Higher Diploma, Ed., 1973; m. geologist Dogan Leflef; lived in Netherlands and Turkey during seven years; lived in Dingle Gaelteacht during the early 1980s, and settled in Dublin with her husband and their four children; An Dealg Droighin [The Thorn of the Sloe] (1981); Féar Suithinseach [Marvellous Grass] (1984); versions in English by Michael Hartnett in Raven Introductions (1984); full collection as Selected Poems/Rogha Danta (English edn. 1985; bilingual edn. 1986); Feis (1991); American-Ireland Fund Literary Award, 1991; several major awards and a Uí Ríordáin, and a Gulbenkian Foundation bursary; member of Aosdána; libretto for The Wooing of Eadaoin, opera by Gerard Victory (National Chamber Choir, 1994); also An t-Anam Mothála (The Feeling Soul), a TV film documentary directed by Frank Stapleton (RTE1 Summer 1995); awarded D.Phil, honoris causa, DCU (Glasnevin) 1995; Cead Aighnis (1998); spent part of 1999 as the John J. Burns Library Visiting Scholars in Irish Studies at Boston College; with Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and Medbh McGuckian, The Water Horse (1999); spending Spring Semester 2001 as Heimhold Visiting Fellow in Irish Studies, Villanova Univ., Philadelphia, PA; Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill appt. to Ireland Chair of Poetry, 30th May 2001, with inaugural lecture on 6 Dec.; editor of modern Irish poetry section of Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Vols. 4 & 5 (2002), making a selection of 59.
Works
Published books, An Dealg Droighin (Cork: Mercier Press 1981); Féar Suaithinseach (Maynooth: An Sagart 1984); Selected Poems/Rogha Danta (English edn. 1985; bilingual edn. 1986), and Do. [new edn.], with afterword by Ní Dhomhnaill (2000); Pharoah’s Daughter (1990) [bilingual edn. with facing- translations by sundry Irish poets, as infra.]; Feis (Maynooth: An Sagart 1991); The Astrakhan Cloak, trans. by Paul Muldoon, [bilingual edn.] (Oldcastle: Gallery Press 1991; 1992); Cead Aighnis (Maynooth: An Sagart 1999); with Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin & Medbh McGuckian [trans.], The Water Horse (Oldcastle: Gallery Press 2000), 129pp.,
Plays for children, Jimín (Dublin: Deilt Productions 1985); An Ollphaist Ghranna (Dublin: Deilt Productions 1987); Destination Demain (Paris: GES 1993). Film scripts: An Goban Saor (Ilanna Productions 1993); An t-Anam Mothala (1995);
Miscellaneous poetry, three poems, ‘An Mhurúch San Ospideal’, ‘Ruga De Chuid na n-Amaiseach’, ‘Fleur-du-Lit, après Tom MacIntyre’, in Irish Review, 14, Autumn 1993, pp.105-07; poems from The Astrakhan Coat, trans. Paul Muldoon [‘The view from Cabintelly’; ‘Deep-Freeze’; ‘At Raven’s Rock’], rep. in The Celtic Pen, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Autumn 1993), p.8; ‘Traduction ad absurdum’ [short piece], in Gerald Dawe and Jonathan Williams, eds., Krino [‘The State of Poetry’ Issue] (Winter 1993), pp.49-50.
Miscellaneous prose, ‘What Foremothers?’, in Theresa O’Connor, The Comic Tradition in Irish Women Writers (Florida UP 1996), pp.8-20 [in Poetry Ireland Review, Autumn 1992, pp.18-31]; Greg Delanty with Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, eds., Jumping Off Shadows (Cork UP 1995); ‘An t-Anam Mothala: The Feeling Soul’, in James P. Mackey, ed., Cultures of Europe: The Irish Contribution [City of Derry’s International Meeting for the Appreciation of the Arts (QUB/IIS 1994], pp.170-83; ‘Why I Choose to Write in Irish: The Corpse that Sits Up and Talks Back’,in New York Times (8 Jan. 1995), Book Reviews [infra]; ‘On Being a Living Fossil: Writing in Irish’, in Derek Mahon, ed., Ireland of the Welcomes, ‘New Irish Writing’ [special issue] (Sept.-Oct. 1996), pp.24-28; ‘Comrá [conversation]’ with Medbh McGuckian, in The Southern Review [q.d.; cited in Times Literary Supplement, 15 March 1996, p.27]; Afterword to Jan de Fouw, Amergin (Dublin: Wolfhound Press 2000), 40pp. [foreword by Micheal O’Siadhail].
Pharoah’s Daughter (Oldcastle: Gallery Books 1990; reps. 1991, 1994, 1997), 159pp.; Poems in Irish / English: Geasa / The Bond’, translated by Medbh McGuckian [12]; ‘An Ceann / The Head’, Ciaran Carson [14]; ‘I mBaile an tSléibhe / In Baile an tSleibhe’, Michael Coady [20]; ‘In Memoriam Elly Ní Dhomhnaill (1884-1963) / In Memoriam Elly Ní Dhomhnaill (1884-1963)’, George O’Brien [24]; ‘Eirigh, a Éinín / Celebration’, Michael Hartnett [28]; ‘Féar Suaithinseach / Miraculous Grass’, Seamus Heaney [32]; ‘An Crann / As for the Quince’, Paul Muldoon [36]; ‘Oilean / Island’, John Montague [40]; ‘Caoineadh Mhoss Martin / ament for Moss Martin’, George O’Brien [44]; ‘Mo Mhíle Stór / Mo Mhíle Stór’, Seamus Heaney [48]; ‘Toircheas 1 / Ark of the Covenant’, Medbh McGuckian [50]; ‘Toircheas 2 / Gate of Heaven’, Medbh McGuckian [52]; ‘Ualach an Uaignis / This Lonely Load’, Michael Hartnett [54]; ‘Sceimhle / Paranoia’, Derek Mahon [56; ‘An Bhábóg Bhriste / The Broken Doll’, John Montague [58]; ‘An Bóithrín Caol / The Narrow Path’, Michael Coady [60]; ‘Iascach Oíche / Night Fishing’, Medbh McGuckian [64]; ‘Claoninsint / The Word on the Wind’, Peter Fallon [66]; ‘Aois na Cloiche / The Stone Age’, Derek Mahon [68]; ‘Madame / Madame’, Eilean Ni Chuilleanáin [70]; ‘Boladh na Fola / The Smell of Blood’, Ciaran Carson [74]; ‘Mac Airt / Mac Airt’, Tom Mac Intyre [76]; ‘Maidin sa Domhan Toir / Oriental Morning’, Michael Hartnett [80]; ‘Chomh Leochaileach le Sliogán / As Fragile as a Shell’, Derek Mahon [84]; ‘Gan do Chuid Éadaigh / Nude’, Paul Muldoon [90]; ‘An Rás / The Race’, Derek Mahon [94]; ‘An Fath Nar Phos Brid Riamh / Why Bridgid’, or Brid’, Never Married’, Peter Fallon [98]; ‘Hotline / Hotline’, Ciaran Carson [100]; ‘Mise ag Tiomáint / In Charge’, Tom Mac Intyre [102]; ‘An Bhean Mhídhílis / The Unfaithful Wife’, Paul Muldoon [104]; ‘Casad / Nine Little Goats Medbh McGuckian [110]; ‘An Boghaisín / Rainbow’, Tom Mac Intyre [114]; ‘Blodewedd / Blodewedd’, John Montague [116]; ‘Dún / Stronghold’, Eilean Ní Chuilleanain [120]; ‘An Taobh Tuathail / Inside Out’, Peter Fallon [124]; ‘An Fhilíocht / Poetry’, Tom Mac Intyre [126]; ‘An tSeanbhean Bhocht / The Shan Van Vocht’, Ciaran Carson [128] AgTiomáint Siar / DrivingTest’, Michael Coady [132]; ‘Cailleach / Hag’, John Montague [134]; ‘Iarúsailéim / Jerusalem’, Tom Mac Intyre [138] Fear / Looking at a Man’, Eilean Ni Chuilleanain [140]; ‘Comhairle ón mBean Leasa / The Heist’, Paul Muldoon [144]; ‘Aubade / Aubade’, Michael Longley [148]; ‘Mo Theaghlach / Household’, Eilean Ní Chuilleanáin [150]; ‘Ceist na Teangan / The Language Issue Paul Muldoon [154-55] Acknowledgements [157]; Index of translators [158].
Criticism
Michael Cronin, ‘Making the Millenium’, interview, in Graph, 1 (1986), cp.5-7.
Interview, in An Nasc, 3, 1 (1990), pp.23-28.
Rebecca E. Wilson & Gillian Somerville-Arjat, eds., Sleeping with Monsters: Conversations with Scottish and Irish women Poets (Dublin: Wolfhound Press 1990), pp.148-57 [interview, with bilingual versions of ‘Aubade’; ‘Kundalini’].
Lucy MacDiarmid, ‘From Signifump to Kierkegaard’ [review of The Astrakhan Coat], in New York Times (28 July 1991), p.14.
Seán Ó Tuama, ‘The Living and Terrible Mother in the Early Poetry of Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill’, in Repossessions: Selected Essays on the Irish Literary Heritage (Cork UP 1995), pp.34-53.
Mary O’Connor, ‘Lashings of Mother Tongue: Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill’s Anarchic Laughter’, in Theresa O’Connor, ed., The Comic Tradition in Irish Women Writers (Florida UP 1996), pp.149-70.
Pádraig de Paor, Tionscnamh Filíochta Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill (An Clóchmhar 1997), viii+303pp.
See also Alexander G. Gonzalez, ed., Contemporary Irish Women Poets: Some Male Perspectives (Westport/London: Greenwood 1999).
Mitsuko Ohno, ‘Hokusai, Basho, Zen and More: Japanese Influences on Irish Poets’, in Journal of Irish Studies (IASIL-Japan), XVII (2002), pp.15-31; p.25 [questionnaire-response]
Frank Sewell, ‘Between Two Languages: Poetry in Irish, English and Irish English’, in Matthew Campbell, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary Irish Poetry (Cambridge UP 2003), pp.149-68.
Géaroid Denvir, ‘Decolonizing the Mind: Language and Literature in Ireland’, in New Hibernia Review, 1, 1 (Spring 1997), pp.44-68.
Irish Literary Supplement (Fall 1992), review notice of Nuala ní Dhomhmnaill, Feis (Má Nuad: An Sagart 1991).
Robert Welch, Changing States: Transformations in Modern Irish Writing (London: Routledge 1993), p.4.
Bernard O’Donoghue, review of Cead Aighnuis (Sagart), in Irish Times (17 April 1999).
Patricia Boyle Haberstroh, quoting Women Creating Women: Contemporary Irish Women Poets, Syracuse UP 1996, in review of same, in Irish Literary Supplement, Fall 1996, p.12.
Catriona O’Reilly, review of The Water Horse: Poems in Irish translated into English by Medbh McGuckian and Eilean Ni Chuilleananin (Gallery), 112pp.: ‘happy merging of styles … a model of what translation should be.’ (Irish Times, 22 Jan. 2000, Weekend, p.8).
David Wheatley, review of The Waterhorse, with trans. by Eiléan Ní Chuillleanáin and Medbh McGuckian (Loughcrew: Gallery 2000), 129pp., in Times Literary Supplement (2 June 2000), p.7.
Notes
‘What Foremothers?’ in Theresa O’Connor, ed., The Comic Tradition in Irish Women Writers (Florida UP 1996), pp.8-20: “Did you see an old woman go down the path?” “I did not, but I saw a young girl, and she had the walk of a queen.” This image galvanised a whole population at the beginning of this century and is still shockingly alive in the collective psyche for all that an unholy alliance of Marxist-Freudian reductionist intellects may seek to deny it. Eavan Boland is dead right to engage polemically with this image because, as Marina Warner has shown most comprehensively in her book Monuments and Maidens, there is a psychotic splitting involved where, the more the image of woman comes to stand for abstract concepts like justice, liberty, or national sovereignty, the more real women are denigrated and consigned barefoot and pregnant to the kitchen. […] (p.16); If nothing else, the practice of poetry has taught me that there is a psycho-emotio-imagistic dimension to our being, a feeling soul, which has fallen through the interstices of the mind/body polarities of the dominant discourse so that it is become quite literally unspeakable. A whole realm of powerful images exists within us, overlooked by, and cut off from, rational consciousness. This is very dangerous because, if Freud has taught us anything, it foreshadows the inevitable return of the repressed. If these images are not engaged with in playful dialogue, if we do not take them seriously, then they will wreak a terrible revenge by manifesting somatically as illnesses or by being acted out blindly and irrationally, as we see them being acted out at this very moment in the sack of Sarajevo, as ethnic and historic tensions, long brushed under the carpet of a monolithic Marxism, explode to the surface.’ (p.17); ‘I think in the long run, though, that we are lucky that for one reason or another on this island the door between the [n]ation and this other world has never been locked tight shut. There was always someone – the bard in the hall, the seanchaí by the fireside, or the balladeer in the pub – who kept his foot in the door. Later Ong calls it our “high degree of residual orality” […] I love this aspect of our culture. It is one of the main things that drew me back to live here, after seven years on the shughrawn. It is infinitely more exciting and much more of a human challenge to live in a country that is even just intermittently in touch with the irrational than to live in one that has set its face resolutely against it./But this gift of ours is not without its inherent dangers, one of which is that in the absence of a responsible intelligentsia, this permeability [17] of the collective ego-boundaries can be manoeuvred and choreographed for very dubious purposes. The moving statues is a case in point.’ (p.17). [… &c.; including remarks on the irony of Mairead Farrell who was killed in Gibraltar on IRA active serviee denying the hold on her psyche of the ‘mother Ireland’ topos, and remarks on the X case, and the emotional bludgeoning of Annie Murphy by Bishop Casey.] [After respectful allusion to Edward Said:] ‘But enough” This postcolonial thing is getting out of hand and anyway it seems too easy: everyone is doing it.’ (p.19)
Irish Language: ‘Irish is a language of enormous elasticity and emotional sensitivity; of quick and hilarious banter and a welter of references both historical and mythological; it is an instrument of imaginative depth and scope, which has been tempered by the community for generations until it can pick up and sing out every hint of emotional modulation that can occur between people. Many international scholars rhapsodize that this speech of ragged peasants seems always on the point of bursting into poetry.’ (‘Why I Chose to Write in Irish: The Corpse That Sits Up and Talks Back’, in The New York Times, 8 Jan. 1995; quoted at US Navy Academy Irish Literature Website [link])
Basic myth: ‘Myth is a basic, fundamental structuring of our reality, a narrative that we place on the chaos of sensation to make sense of our lives […]. I feel about myth what you said about poetry, Medbh, that some level of crystallisation has occurred that is timeless. This crystallisation is, at a deep level, the Muse energy, and that’s why myth and poetry feed so wonderfully into each other.’ (See ‘Comhrá: Medbh McGuckian and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill’, foreword and afterword by Laura O’Connor, in The Southern Review: Special Issue on Irish Poetry, V, 31, 3 1995, pp.581-614; p.604.) Further, ‘I think it is downright pernicious to underestimate myth; it’s like pretending the unconscious does not exist, and that we are just composed of rationality. Myth is a basic, fundamental structuring of our reality, a narrative that we place on the chaos of sensation to make sense of our lives. The myth of the end of myth-making is the worst myth of all; it means that the unconscious has been finally cut off and is irretrievable.’ (Idem.)
Sexist poetry: ‘At the deepest level – you may say at the level of ontological underpinning – the Irish poetic tradition is sexist and masculinist to the core’ [on RTE 1, Dec. 1993; quoted in Poetry Ireland, 41 Spring 1994), p.109].
Language & history: ‘Because of a particular set of circumstances, Irish fell out of history just when the modern mentality was about to take off. So major intellectual changes like the Reformation, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Victorian prudery have never occurred in it, as they did in the major European languages. One consequence is that the attitude to the body enshrined in Irish remains extremely open and uncoy. It is almost impossible to be ‘rude’ or ‘vulgar’ in Irish. The body, with its orifices and excretions, is not treated in a prudish manner but is accepted as ‘an nádúir’ or ‘nature’ and becomes a source of repartee and laughter rather than anything to be ashamed of. Thus little old ladies of quite impeccable and unimpeachable moral character tell risqué stories with gusto and panache. Is there a word for sex in Irish, indeed! Is there an Eskimo word for snow?’ (‘Why I Choose to Write in Irish, ‘The Corpse That Sits Up and Talks Back,’ The New York Times Book Review, 8 January 1995, pp.27-8 [also printed at this date in Weekend, Irish Times; supplied by David Gardner, Loyola Univ.)
Jung & All That: ‘James Hillman and these post-Jungian psychologists […] talk about the ‘other world’ as if they had just discovered it […] like Columbus felt when he discovered America. But that doesn’t mean that America wasn’t there before, and there weren’t aboriginal Americans living here—quite happily’ (Interview, An Nasc, 3, 1, 1990, pp. 23-28m p.25; cited in Csilla Bertha, ‘That Other World’: The Mythic and the Fantastic in Contemporary Irish Drama’, in Transactions of Princess Grace Irish Library Conference, Whitsun 1998.)
Seamus Heaney: ‘[S]ometimes I think about Seamus that his great strength is that he is actually a woman – a great big benevolent mountain, standing protectively behind you, like your mother should …’ (In The Southern Review; cited in Times Literary Supplement review of same, 15 March 1996, p.27.)
Women Poets: ‘It seems to be that the hysteria with which the whole subject of women poets is attacked in Ireland has all the hallmarks of far more than the fear of loss of a privileged male vantage point. It goes much deeper than that. It basically cloaks a dep and fundamental ontological terror. If the archetypal Feminine … gerts up off her butt, and has a go writing about you, then boy oh boy have you had it.’ (Quoted by John Hildebidle, MIT; IASIL 1999.)
Hereditary Gift: ‘There was a widespread belief that if poetry which was a hereditary gift (feith no treith duchais) fell into the female line, then it was gone from that particular family for seven generations to come. There is a story about the poet Giuisti from An Leitriuch who, mindful that some such calamity had occurred, asked his daughter for a glass of ale in a spontaneous leathrann [half quatrain]. When she equally spontaneously and deftly finished the quatrain, while handing him back the beer, he knew that the poetry in the family was finished. A similar taboo existed against women telling Fenian tales; – trathaire circe no Fiannaí mna [a crowing hen or a woman telling Fenian tales], but that did not stop women being storytellers or filiúil (poetic) though a better translation for this word might perhaps be witty or quick at repartee.” (The Hidden Ireland: Womens Inheritance [q.d.]; cited on Local Web, 12 Oct. 1999.)
Watching the River: Nuala Nн Dhomhnaill, ‘explains who she picked, and why’ (feature-article on Duffy & Dorgan, eds., Watching the River Flow: A Century of Irish Poetry [anthology], in The Irish Times, Weekend, 27 Nov. 1999): “Tell the truth but tell it slant”, was Emily Dickinson’s dictum and I tink tha tone of the great strengths of Irish poerty in our time is the necessary reticence in the face of the personal, a refusal to follow the straight in-your-face confessional mode which, fuelly originally by TV sound-bites, has come to dominate most of the art forms of our time, including, sad to say, much of modern American poetry. I say unfortunatley, because, though it has its moments, ultimately its very topicality and closeness to the facts of any particular individual’s life leaves it very one-dimensional and often trite. / I know I am going against the spirit of the age, which is that of the apotheosis of the memoir, but unless the commonplace details of our lives are shot through by something of more permanence, our poems are built on sand, and on them we can build no lasting city. / This Irish preference for obliqueness and the great artistic advantages to be gained by speaking of the personal and the here and now through an “objective correlative” or a distancing lens of some kind, is best exemplified by one of the great poems of the 1990s, Michael Longley’s “Ceasefire” … its effect was dynamic, and rippled right through the community, both North and south, having a galvanising effect that can only be imagined of some lines of Yeats, perhaps, at the turn of the century – the “Did you see an old women going down the road”, of of “Kathleen Ni Houlihan” or the “terrible beauty is born” of “Easter 1916. / Trusting the words of the Odyssey to speak to us through the ages, Longley has Priam sigh: “I get down on my knees and do what must be done / And kiss Achilles’ hand, the killer of my son” – lines which have been taken to hear by many on this island and are among those most quoted in conversation or in print during this last decade. [The poets she choses are Mebdh McGuckian, Paula Meehan, Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, Michael Longley, Cathal O Searchaigh, Peter Sirr, Ciaran Carson, Derek Mahon, Paul Muldoon. (Feature article on Noel Duffy & Theo Dorgan, eds., Watching the River Flow: A Century of Irish Poetry (Dublin: Poetry Ireland/RTE 1999.)
‘Irish Writers in Conversation with Mike Murphy’: Q: ‘[…] Frank McGuinness once said to you, and you agreed with his sentiment, that “Irish is our language of humiliation and pain”’. A: ‘I think the emphasis has changed a little bit since then. What was happening that day was that I was going on about the way I saw Irish changing, and Frank said, “Ah go on, Nuala”. Then he gave that great line. I had to agree with him. Irish was part of a coercive agenda that was pouring our whole generation into vessels that were too small for us. My great advantage was that I knew another Irish, the Irish of home and of the Gaeltacht, which was different, not the official Irish, the sort of school Irish, “Gaeilge na leabhar” or “book Irish”, which was punitive and coercive. Everyone, from taxi-drivers to people I go into workshops with, is prepared to give me a harangue the length of my arm any time I talk about the nice sides of Irish. They have been through this very unpleasant system where Irish was used as a stick with which to beat small children. I would like to think the agenda that was laid on Irish, and which has actually nothing to do with the language intrinsically, has now been cleared and that people can see it without having to carry all this baggage. I would like to think this has to do with my work, that of a whole generation of people in my time, and that of the pioneering generation of Mбire Mhac an tSaoi, Mбirtнn У Direбin, Seбn У Rнordбin and of course Mбirtнn У Cadhain. Q: Do you see yourself as being an outsider? A: ‘I’ve always felt that. I remember being five years old in west Kerry and kids asking me: “What did you do in England?” And I’d say: “I’d watch television”. I’d try to explain to them what television was. They wouldn’t believe me when I’d say there was a box in the corner and you’d see white horses and things like that on it. “Nuala, tбinn tъ ag scaitseбlйithigh” – you’re a terrible liar. I thought: “They don’t believe me. I know something that they don’t know”. So I kept my mouth shut about it until television hit Ireland. I knew that I was of the Gaeltacht because everyone around me was related to me in a way that wasn’t true in England, and yet I knew I was different because I’d had this other experience.’ (RTE, 2001; see website.)
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing,(Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 3 selects from An Dealg Droighin and Féar Suaithinseach [926-31]; BIOG, 936.
Katie Donovan, A. N. Jeffares & Brendan Kennelly, eds., Ireland’s Women (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1994), selects translation by John Montague; note var. biog., grew up speaking Irish in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary.
Inaugural Lecture: “Lost in Transit: The Unrecognised Literary Landscape of Irish”, 6 Dec. 2001, Froggett Centre, QUB (Belfast.) A Reading, Irish Writers’ Centre, 15 April 2004.
