bittern
Bitterns are birds belonging to the subfamily Botaurinae of the heron family Ardeidae. Bitterns tend to be shorter-necked and more secretive than other members of the family. They were called ''hæferblæte'' and various iterations of ''rared ...
") is a classic poem in Irish by the poet
Cathal Buí Mac Giolla Ghunna
Cathal Buí Mac Giolla Ghunna (c. 1680 – 1756; Anglicised as ''Yellow-haired Charles McElgunn'') was an Irish poet.
Biography
Cathal Buí Mac Giolla Ghunna is one of the four most prominent south Ulster and north Leinster poets in the sevent ...
. In addition to the conventional end-rhyme, it uses
internal rhyme
In poetry, internal rhyme, or middle rhyme, is rhyme that occurs within a single line of verse, or between internal phrases across multiple lines. By contrast, rhyme between line endings is known as end rhyme.
Internal rhyme schemes can be denote ...
("A bhonnán bh''uí'', is é mo léan do l''uí'' / Is do chnámha s''í''nte tar éis do ghr''i''nn") – in the
Irish language
Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( ), is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family. It is a member of the Goidelic languages of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous ...
all the italicised elements have the same / iː/ sound, a technique characteristic of Gaelic poetry of the era.
The poem is in the form of a lament for a bittern that died of thirst, but is also a tongue in cheek defence by the poet of his own drinking habit. It has been translated into English by, among others, James Stephens,
Thomas MacDonagh
Thomas Stanislaus MacDonagh (; 1 February 1878 – 3 May 1916) was an Irish political activist, poet, playwright, educationalist and revolutionary leader. He was one of the seven leaders of the Easter Rising of 1916, a signatory of the Proclama ...
,
Thomas Kinsella
Thomas Kinsella (4 May 1928 – 22 December 2021) was an Irish poet, translator, editor, and publisher. Born outside Dublin, Kinsella attended University College Dublin before entering the civil service. He began publishing poetry in the early ...
, and
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Justin Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish Irish poetry, poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is ''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966), his first m ...
. The Irish words have been used as lyrics by the band
Clannad
Clannad () were an Irish band formed in 1970 in Gweedore, County Donegal, by siblings , and (Moya) (in English, Brennan) and their twin uncles Noel and (Duggan). They have adopted various musical styles throughout their history. Beginn ...
on their album ''Crann Ull'' (as ''Bunan Bui'') and the English words (MacDonagh version) on Cathie Ryan's album ''The Music Of What Happens'' (1998), and also on Al O'Donnell's album "Ramble Away" (2008). Anne Brigg's song "Bonambuie", from her album ''Sing a Song for You'', is based on the MacDonagh version, though using something close to the original Irish title.
Len Graham has also recorded a version translated by
Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin
Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin is an Irish singer, songwriter, and academic writer from Ireland.Paul Muldoon
Paul Muldoon is an Irish poet. He has published more than thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. At Princeton University he has been both the Howard G. B. Clark '21 University Professor in the Humani ...
regarded as the closest to the original in translation and rhyming scheme and also the most singable.
''The Yellow Bittern'' is also the name of a 1917 play about the death of Mac Giolla Ghunna by Daniel Corkery.
The version by Thomas MacDonagh is especially notable because in addition to keeping close to the original wording, MacDonagh attempts with considerable success to replicate in English the internal rhyme technique ("His bones are thr''ow''n on a naked st''o''ne / Where he lived al''o''ne like a hermit monk."), and the surreal humour of the Irish version.
Below is the edited version published in A Hidden Ulster -people, songs and traditions of Oriel (Four Courts Press) 2003 and the most recently restored variant of the air found in Oriel. The translation is by singer
Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin
Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin is an Irish singer, songwriter, and academic writer from Ireland.Version by Thomas MacDonagh
Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin, ''A Hidden Ulster - people, songs and traditions of Oriel''. Four Courts Press 2003.
* Robert Welch (ed.), ''The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature''. Oxford: the Clarendon Press, 1996.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonnan Bui
Irish poemsIrish literature