I am back again with another top Irish poem. Just like you, I don’t know everything there is to know about Irish poetry. But I do find going through these Irish poems week by week unravels what life was like back in the day.
This week’s Irish poem is number 43, titled Cuirt a Mhean Oíche, by Brian Merriman. Another poem was originally written in Irish. The poem Cúirt An Mheán Oíche (The Midnight Court) is often compared to the works of François Rabelais. It is widely regarded as the most significant work of comic verse in the history of Irish poetry. A funny poem that, when read through takes you on an incredible journey.
The traditional practice is to divide The Midnight Court into four parts. However, most commentators recognize that the poem naturally divides into five—an opening, a closing and a three-part debate in between. The Irish original runs to just over a thousand lines, so no short read by any account! You will find my notes and a link to the full text below.nbsp;
The Midnight Court is a story about the poet going about his regular day, only for it to be filled with mysticism and mythical characters.nbsp;
Whether you read it in Irish or in one of the good English translations, Brian Merriman will take you on a journey. Enjoy
The Midnight Court(Cuirt a Mhean Oíche)
by Brian Merriman
Ba ghnáth mé ag siúl le ciumhais na habhann
Brian Merriman, a hedge school teacher and small farmer from Feakle in County Clare, wrote Cúirt an Mheán Oíche around 1780. It runs to just over a thousand lines of lively rhyming Irish, and it is a sly parody of the aisling, the old dream vision poem in which a beautiful woman appears to the poet as a symbol of Ireland.
Here the dream turns into a courtroom. The poet dozes off by Loch Gréine and is dragged before Aoibheal, queen of the fairies, who is hearing a case about the state of marriage in Ireland. A young woman complains that the men will not marry, an old man hits back with the tale of his own unhappy marriage, and the women win the day. The poet, a bachelor himself, is about to be punished when he wakes up.
It is bawdy, funny and sharp about the church, celibacy and the lives of women, which is why Frank O’Connor’s English version was banned by the Irish censor in 1946, while the Irish original never was. It is still read as the great comic poem of the Irish language.
Read the full poem: Cúirt an Mheán Oíche by Brian Merriman at CELT, University College Cork. You will also find it in English as The Midnight Court, translated by Ciaran Carson (The Gallery Press).