Ó Dhaoirse go Saoirse?: Staidéar Téacsúil Aiteach ar dhrámaí Mhichíl Uí Chonghaile

Abstract

Phillip O’Leary, in his 2017 An Underground Theatre: Major Playwrights in the Irish Language `1930-80, makes a stark summation of the current state of Irish language theatre, a genre that he warns may ‘sink into the oblivion’ (ibid.: 303). While undertaking a comprehensive reading of the plays of Mairéad Ní Ghráda, Eoghan Ó Tuairisic, and Críostóir Ó Floinn, O’Leary only touches upon one of Connemara’s most important and influential contemporary writers, Micheál Ó Conghaile, in his afterword. While recognised as a master of the short story, this paper will examine Ó Conghaile’s dramatic works, a genre he focused on during the period 2003-2009. Ó Conghaile’s plays mirror the shifting political, social, ideological, and cultural landscape of Ireland in the last thirty years. Focusing on Cúigear Chonamara (2003) [The Connemara Five], Jude (2007), and Go dTaga do Ríocht (2009) [Thy Kingdom Come], this paper will address how subversive identities interact and counteract with the Connemara landscape, with language, and with the notion of the home and family. Maintaining that space, place, and sex(uality) cannot be “decoupled” (Johnston and Longhurst 2010: 3), this paper will unearth subversive behaviours and bodies within the backdrop of contemporary Connemara.

Keywords

• queer
• aiteach
• gaeilge
• irish language
• gaelic