`Why am I against priests? Well, I am not against priests at all; I am only taking priests as I saw them." This phrase towards the end of Micil Chonrai's autobiography could be taken as a motto for the whole: the narrator tells his story as it was for him, without extenuation, exaggeration, or generalisation. There is no party line, no covering up or glossing over; only plain narration recorded on tape. As the editor, who meticulously transcribed and ordered the material, points out in Appendix A1, referring to the work of the hermeneutist, Walter Ong S.J.: the "oral" is not nearly as self-conscious as the "prose " narrative.
If so, then so much the better. Micheal O Conaire, to give him his due title, tells us, in matter-of-fact fashion, about his background and family in An Maimin, in west Connemara - a life so hard that a spade would be worn out in a year. He describes the migration to Rath Cairn in 1935 and what it was really like to be a young man in the Tir na nOg Gaeltacht of Co Meath. In these accounts he is assisted by his brother, Sean, who was present for some of the recordings, and interpolates, augments and sometimes carries the discourse himself.
The account gains depth and poignancy when Micil goes on to tell us about his own career, thereby casting interesting light on some major aspects of Irish life as lived in the middle of the 20th century. He tells us what it was like to be in the Irish Army during the second World War, for example: the food, the manoeuvres in Co Clare, the courting on College Road, Galway, the pox, and the lieutenant who, during parade, used to pick out the good-looking young men to clean his bunk for him.
Micil came down with tuberculosis in the 1940s and spent over two years in Peamount hospital. He was subsequently cured, due in no small measure to the introduction of streptomycin. He then went on to work in the County Home in Trim. The narration throughout these sections is grim, forthright and unsentimental. Indeed some of the incidents are told so bluntly that it is easy to miss their horribleness. Take, for example, the hospital orderly who, when a patient was crying out with pain, would raise the foot of the bed high and shout obscenities at him, telling him to shut up.
One of the most poignant parts of the book is Micil's description of how his mentally retarded son was bullied at school and how he found out about it. "I went down half way between my own house and the school; the school was only a quarter of a mile from the house . . . I saw the children coming towards me and I hid so as to find out what was going on and the next thing they were knocking him down and hitting him."
Honesty is not the same as accuracy, of course. As a resident of Rath Cairn myself and as a neighbour of both narrator and editor, I know, as they know, that the emphasis given to certain incidents varies; the implications drawn are often contrary. But that is the very essence of history. It is a tribute to this book that its value and validity stand nonetheless. Micil Chonrai gives his report cogently and forcefully and it is up to us to accept it or otherwise. Many will accept it and be grateful for it - honesty is not cheaply won.
Although eminently straightforward, this is not a simple book; its genesis and subsequent editing are almost as interesting as the content, and have many implications for the future of the genre. Like the Pompidou Centre, it wears its plumbing on the outside. There are five useful editorial appendices, including the obligatory and extremely interesting account of the editorial method. There is also an excellent introduction giving the background to the work and placing it in its historical and scholarly context. Surprisingly, however, there are no indices - which makes one wonder how much longer Irish publishers can go on publishing solid, often unique, informational material without giving us the means of consulting it easily.
Liam Mac Coil is a novelist