Year III
March 1 to March 31
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Bryan Macmahon
County Kerry
Resources
"The Irish father was often a defeated man, whose wife frequently won the bread and usurped his domestic power, while the priest usurped his spiritual authority." Declan Kiberd
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Byron MacMahon (1909 to 1998, county Kerry) was a novelist, playwright and short story writer. One of his sons was a judge of the Irish High Court.
I see why Frank O'Connor included 'Exile's Return" by Bryan Macmahon in his Classic Irish Short Stories. It perfectly exemplifies the main tenants of O'Connor's book The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story. It centers on a lonely man, someone with no one to speak for him, an Irish man working in Birmingham England for the last six years now returned home. One my focuses this year is on Declan Kiberd's claim in Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation (if someone knows of a better or as good an overall book on Irish literature, please tell me about it) that one of the most important themes of modern Irish literature is that of the missing or weak father. The father in this story has been gone for six years, he sent home a bit of money but he largely turned over the raising of his four sons and one daughter to his wife. He has come home with the purpose of strangling his wife as he has heard she has cheated on him. He runs into an old friend and they decide to have a drink. There are few open conversations in the Irish short story that do not involve drinking as a prelude.
Another theme one often finds in Irish literature is the depiction of a culture of extreme emotional restraint. Beneath this restraint is a submerged tendency to extreme violence as seen in the intent of the returning father. With the help of his friend, who is perfectly willing to help him kill his wife, he breaks in his house and sees his four sons sleeping and his daughter. He plots how he will kill his wife.
He and the wife see each other when she comes home from the pub. She basically says, "if you are going to do something to me do it now as I don't want to play cat and mouse with you". She admits she was unfaithful while he was gone then he admits he was unfaithful also then they both seem to say, let us take up where we left were six years ago. No emotion, no tears, no screams of joy or hate, just getting the business out of the way.
When his daughter sees him, she yells out to her brothers, "wake up, the old boy is home" like he had just gone out an hour ago. The man is named Paddy, your stock stage Irish name.
These lines will allow you to get a good feel for the prose of Macmahon and illustrate exactly my points
Mel u
"The Irish father was often a defeated man, whose wife frequently won the bread and usurped his domestic power, while the priest usurped his spiritual authority." Declan Kiberd
I see why Frank O'Connor included 'Exile's Return" by Bryan Macmahon in his Classic Irish Short Stories. It perfectly exemplifies the main tenants of O'Connor's book The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story. It centers on a lonely man, someone with no one to speak for him, an Irish man working in Birmingham England for the last six years now returned home. One my focuses this year is on Declan Kiberd's claim in Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation (if someone knows of a better or as good an overall book on Irish literature, please tell me about it) that one of the most important themes of modern Irish literature is that of the missing or weak father. The father in this story has been gone for six years, he sent home a bit of money but he largely turned over the raising of his four sons and one daughter to his wife. He has come home with the purpose of strangling his wife as he has heard she has cheated on him. He runs into an old friend and they decide to have a drink. There are few open conversations in the Irish short story that do not involve drinking as a prelude.
Another theme one often finds in Irish literature is the depiction of a culture of extreme emotional restraint. Beneath this restraint is a submerged tendency to extreme violence as seen in the intent of the returning father. With the help of his friend, who is perfectly willing to help him kill his wife, he breaks in his house and sees his four sons sleeping and his daughter. He plots how he will kill his wife.
He and the wife see each other when she comes home from the pub. She basically says, "if you are going to do something to me do it now as I don't want to play cat and mouse with you". She admits she was unfaithful while he was gone then he admits he was unfaithful also then they both seem to say, let us take up where we left were six years ago. No emotion, no tears, no screams of joy or hate, just getting the business out of the way.
When his daughter sees him, she yells out to her brothers, "wake up, the old boy is home" like he had just gone out an hour ago. The man is named Paddy, your stock stage Irish name.
These lines will allow you to get a good feel for the prose of Macmahon and illustrate exactly my points
"`You're back, Paddy?' .Ay!, `Had you a good crossin'?' `Middlin!' `You hungry?' `I'll see ... soon!' There was a long silence. Her fingers restless, the woman stood in mid-kitchen. She raised her voice: `If you've anything to do or say to me, Paddy Kinsella, you'd best get it over. I'm not a one for waitin'!' He said nothing. He held his gaze on the fire. `You hear me, Paddy? I'll not live cat and dog with you. I know what I am. Small good your brandin' me when the countryside has me well branded before you. He held his silence. `Sayin' nothin' won't get you far. I left you down, Paddy. Be a man an' say it to my face!' Paddy turned: `You left me well down,' he said clearly. He turned to the fire and added, in a mutter: 'I was no angel myself !' Her trembling lips were unbelieving. 'We're quits, so?' she ventured at last. 'Quits !' `You'll not keep firin' it in my face?' 'I'11 not!' 'Before God?' `Before God 1' The woman crossed herself and knelt on the floor. 'In the presence of my God,' she said, 'because you were fair to me, Paddy Kinsella, I'll be better than three wives to you. I broke my marriage-mornin' promise, but I'll make up for it. There's my word, given before my Maker!'
Mel u
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