Carrigaholt Irish College marks centenary

One of the highlights of Clare’s 2012 cultural year took place last weekend in Carrigaholt, where the all-Irish Coláiste Uí Chomhraidhe celebrated its centenary. The weekend programme included lectures, a céilí and a tour of the places of Gaelic interest on the West Clare peninsula.

 

The celebrations finished with a beautiful mass in Irish on Sunday morning in Carrigaholt Church co-celebrated by the parish priest an tAthair Pádraig Ó Colgáin and an Canónach Séamus Ó Maoláin assisted by an tAthair Micheál Ó Cathasaigh.

The lectures were a resounding success and both lecturers received warm and enthusiastic applause.

Welcoming the overflowing attendance that exceeded the committee’s expectations and included local Dáil and county council representatives, the Cathaoirleach, Proinsias de Priondargást told those present that a recent joint research programme of the University of Ulster and the University of Limerick had shown that some of the most prestigious positions in the country in terms of status and income were being filled by gaeilgeoirí who were products of gaelscoileanna and gaelcholáistí.

The Coiste of Coláiste Eoghain Uí Chomhraidhe were gratified to have contributed to that development and, to mark the importance of the occasion, had invited two Irish scholars of international repute, Professor Emeritus Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh of the National University of Ireland, Galway and former Professor Breandán Ó Madagáin, also of Galway College, to deliver keynote addresses.

The weekend’s programme was opened by an tAire Stáit i Roinn an Gaeltachta, Dinny McGinley, TD who paid a glowing tribute to the work of the coláiste over the last 100 years.

Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh outlined the political and historic context in which the Irish Colleges had been established. Conradh na Gaeilge, founded in 1893, were the main influence in the national resurgence of that period.

They were urged by Neilí Ní Bhriain (Nelly O’Brien) grand-daughter of the Young Ireland leader William Smith O’Brien of Cahermoyle House, County Limerick and who was herself a Gaelic League activist and Irish speaker, to build a coláiste in Carrigaholt, which was then a Gaeltacht area. Dr Douglas Hyde, our first president and founder of Conradh na Gaeilge, said that the purest form of spoken Irish, came from County Clare. Professor Ó Tuathaigh recalled for the audience the names of some of the noted figures in Irish life who worked as teachers in the coláiste; these included Seán Tóibín (father of Niall Tóibin); Pádraig Ó hEithir (father of Breandán Ó hEithir); Seán Ó Ceallaigh TD, Donnacha Ó Briain TD and Buadhach Tóibín, whose son, MacDara is the present Ard-mháistir of the coláiste.

Professor Ó Madagáin, who has pioneered the study of Ethnomusicology in Irish academic life, outlined the links between the oldest form of Irish music – the sean-nós – and that of other ancient cultures such as Sanskrit in India.

He outlined the central role of Keening, the sung lamentation for the dead, which was common in many other culture systems and was practiced almost to our own generation before it was prohibited by the Catholic clergy.

He delighted the audience by singing the actual Keen which was sung by Eibhlín Dhubh Ní Chonaill – an aunt of the Liberator, Daniel O Connell –  on the murder of her husband.
Undoubtedly the most important event in the whole weekend’s celebrations was the presentation to the coláiste by an Canónach Séamus Ó Maoláin, past president of St Flannan’s College of an actual cup and saucer, which had been owned by Eoghaan Ó Comhraidhe himself.

It had been presented to an Canónach Ó Maoláin by another distinguished cleric, the late Dr Alfred O’Rahilly of University College Cork, the pioneer of adult education in Ireland.
He in turn had been given the delicate cup and saucer by his mother, who was a grand-niece of Eoghan Ó Comhraidhe.

This historic presentation, which was warmly welcomed by the committee chairman, Proinsias de Priondargást, was a fitting finish to a most successful weekend.