ࡱ> DFC%` bjbjNN .0,, """""""6>>>8v<6.-------$0hn2-"-""-yyyN""-y-yy""y g>ky--0.yJ3J3yJ3"y$zry\H--'R.666 D666 666"""""" The Book of Irish Writers, Chapter 18 - Brian Merriman, 1749-1805 On Monday the 29th of July 1805 the General Advertiser and Limerick Gazette carried this brief announcement: Died. On Saturday morning, in Old Clare-street, after a few hours illness, Mr. Bryan Merryman, teacher of Mathematics, etc. This marked the death of one of the more extraordinary writers of his time: Brian Merriman, the author of the poem Cirt an Mhon Oche or The Midnight Court. This comic masterpiece unsettles many of the assumptions we might make about Irish life at the end of the eighteenth century by dealing with marriage and sex in a manner that is direct, bawdy and irreverent. Merriman was probably born near Ennistimon in co. Clare. He may well have been illegitimate - The Midnight Court is certainly unexpectedly sympathetic towards illegitimacy: The offspring of unions no clergy has blessed Have a spring in their step, and a spark, and a zest The family soon moved to Feakle and settled near Lough Graney, where the Irish-speaking Merriman was educated in English and mathematics. Alongside his formal education, Merriman also had the benefit of a lively literary culture in the area and he absorbed knowledge of literature in both Irish and English. Merriman divided his time between teaching mathematics and farming near Feakle. He married comparatively late in life when he was in his mid-thirties. As a farmer Merriman won two prizes for his flax crop from the Royal Dublin Society. He moved with his family to Limerick city early in the 1800s and again set up as a teacher of mathematics for two years before his sudden death in 1805. He would only have been in his mid-fifties. In the middle of this busy and obviously practical life, Merriman wrote one major work of poetry: Cirt an Mhon Oche, The Midnight Court. In the course of its thousand lines it criticises Irishmen for their reluctance to marry and voices the plight of young women. It pokes fun at the clergy and also reflects the robust attitude to sexual behaviour - and particularly womens sexual desires - which had been very much part of the oral and folk traditions before it was submerged under the weight of Victorian propriety and repressive Catholicism and all but disappeared from the Irish literary tradition. The opening of the poem is conventional enough - the poet takes a walk one bright morning, admires the beauties of nature and eventually lies down to sleep. He is awoken by the approach of a giant hag more than three times the size of a man - who summons him to a court. This court considers the state of Ireland, its lack of leadership and suffering at the hands of the jumped up and greedy. So far the poem appears to be an eighteenth-century political aisling where the narrator has a vision of Ireland as a woman lamenting her lot. But theres a twist - for the court is ruled over by Aoibheall, a fairy queen. She isnt a bit concerned with the political state of Ireland - but its mens reluctance to marry: Single and childless you ought to feel shame When theres women a plenty to hand on your name After this prologue, the poem consists of three speeches. A young girl complains bitterly that the women of Ireland find men a disgrace. Despite her best efforts, she cant find A go-ahead, full-blooded, good-looking bloke When she finishes an old man leaps to his feet and condemns her as a slut - he complains that he has been deceived by his own young wife who was pregnant by another man before they married. He sees this as an argument for ending marriage altogether and allowing free love! Let all of our people take partners and breed According to fancy and natural need. The young woman replies with an attack on the old mans perfomance in bed: How dare this old dirt-bird discuss womankind, When a proof of his manhood no woman can find! The poem is ironic, satiric and always has an ear open for the double entendre. Translations into English either had all the dirty bits removed or were simply banned. But, in more recent times Thomas Kinsella and Seamus Heaney have translated parts of the poem - and Ciaran Carsons full-length translation appeared in 2005. As it ends, Aoibheall, having heard all the evidence, hands down her judgement in favour of the women of Ireland. And her sentence on the poet a man? Hes to be punished and whipped - So apply yourselves freely to back, legs and bum, Cut him deep, cut him dearly and let the blood come!     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