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Máirtín Ó Direáin - Fathach File / Reluctant Modernist

Athbhreith / Rebirth

Portráid den Direánach le Maurice MacGonigal

Newspaper clipping

Honorary degree

Athbhreith

Athbhreith (don Ollamh Breandán Ó Madagáin)

A Dhia a thug dom athbhreith
I gcorp an Oisín óig seo,
Ar theacht don áit seo athuair,
Ba doicheall uaim is dadhaic
Cur suas do do thoirtín drúchta,
Is dul ag caoineadh na gcarad
Nach bhfuil ar an talamh
A ndath fanta ná a dtuairisc.
 
Daichead bliain i ndiaidh dó an chathair a fhágáil den chéad uair, d’fhill an Direánach ar Ghaillimh i 1978 agus é ar an gcéad scríbhneoir cónaitheach riamh a ceapadh san Ollscoil. Bhronn Ollscoil na hÉireann céim dhochtúireachta oinigh air i 1977 freisin.
 
Le linn na tréimhse seo, d’oibrigh an Dr. Ó Direáin mar léachtóir lánaimseartha i Roinn na Nua-Ghaeilge agus bhí sé ar fáil chun comhairle a chur ar mhic léinn a bhí ag gabháil don fhilíocht.
 
Tugadh cuireadh dó freisin a bheith ina chathaoirleach ar Choiste Cuimhneacháin an Phiarsaigh i nGaillimh a d’eagraigh féile seachtaine in ómós an Phiarsaigh. Bhí sé gníomhach i gCeardlann na Scríbhneoirí agus d’fhill sé ar An Taibhdhearc mar aoi nuair a rinneadh comóradh caoga bliain ar an gcéad léiriú de Diarmuid agus Gráinne.

Tháinig sé ar ais arís i 1982 le leac uaighe Shean-Phádraic Uí Chonaire i reilig an Bhóthair Mhóir a nochtadh.

Thuill Ó Direáin gean an phobail agus tugadh an leasainm ceanúil ‘Fathach Filíochta na Gaillimhe’ air. Sa dán ‘Athbhreith’, luann sé gurb é an tréimhse a chaith sé i nGaillimh a thug spreagadh dó dul i mbun pinn arís, tráth a raibh sé in ísle brí i ndiaidh bhás a mhná céile Áine i 1976.

Group photograph

Ó Conaire

Rebirth

On Seeing Máirtín Ó Direáin  Strolling in Salthill

In my youth I saw Máirtín Ó Direáin
strolling in Salthill in a long black
coat and broad-brimmed hat
like Gulliver or a priest gone daft.
He ambled so smoothly he could have been
on tracks, his poet’s hands clasped
loosely behind his back, his gaze
fixed past the middle distance.
Perhaps it was the horizon he saw that day
where the islands lolled in sun and mist
against a white sheet only a realist
would take for a sky.

Anne Kennedy
 

Rebirth

Almost exactly forty years after having first left the city, Ó Direáin returned to Galway in 1978 as the first ever Writer-in-Residence at University College Galway. He was also awarded a Doctor of Letters from the National University of Ireland in 1977.

During this period, Dr. Ó Direáin worked as a full-time lecturer in the Department of Modern Irish and made himself available to give advice to students on their own poetry.

He was invited to chair the Galway Pearse Commemoration Committee which organised a week-long festival dedicated to Patrick Pearse. He was active in the Writers’ Workshop held in UCG and returned as a guest to An Taibhdhearc for the fifty year commemoration of the first performance of Diarmuid agus Gráinne.

He also came back to Galway again in 1982 to unveil the headstone over Sean-Phádraic Ó Conaire’s grave in Bohermore cemetery.

Ó Direáin earned the affection of the local community and became fondly known as Galway’s Gentle Giant. In the poem ‘Athbhreith’ [Rebirth], he attributes his restored confidence in writing to the time he spent in Galway, which helped him overcome his heartache after the death of his wife Áine in 1976.

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