ࡱ> 9;8%` bjbjNN .&,,.......B  B#        Q#S#S#S#S#S#S#$$h&w#.A  AAw#..  #A. . Q#AQ#..  *. "Q##0#' ''.L h J < 5   w#w#    #AAAABBBdDBBBBBB...... The Book if Irish Writers, Chapter 23 Anne Devlin, 17811851 Anne Devlin is not a writer - which might appear to disqualify her from a history of Irish literature! But the one book associated with her is so strange - and has been overlooked for so long - that to leave her out of the account again would be to reinforce an already repeated injustice. Annes Prison Journal is a rare (in every sense of the word) inside account of Robert Emmets 1803 rising. Anne was born near Aughrim in Co Wicklow. Her father and a younger brother were United Irishmen and their home was burnt in reprisal for harbouring United Irish fugitives. Her father was arrested after a cousin, Michael Dwyer - who was hiding in the Wicklow Mountains - was found responsible for attacks in the area. Annes involvement began when she carried messages and supplies to Dwyer. In 1803 Anne took work as Robert Emmets housekeeper in Dublin or, as her Prison Journal insists, she acted as Emmets housekeeper in the run up to his rising of that year. After the failure of the rising, Anne was arrested and tortured. At the same time many of her family were also arrested and imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol - where her younger brother died. Anne was held longer than the rest of her family and released only in 1806 - after a period of extreme ill treatment. Though she married and had a family after her release, she died in poverty in 1851. She was around 70 years of age. Much of this information comes from Annes only book, the origins of which are themselves strange. Shortly before her death Brother Luke Cullen - of the Carmelite Monastery in Clondalkin - interviewed Anne and transcribed her story. Cullen died eight years later and his transcription wasnt published until its serialisation in the Dublin Evening Herald in 1960. Eventually, more than a century after Cullens transcription, the prison journal was published in book form in 1968. Anne was modest about her part in Emmets rising - but she is insistent that she was not Emmets housekeeper; that was a role that she played as a disguise for her real activities - which were largely passing secret messages between the rebels. However, its also clear from her narrative that some of the rebels did see her as just a servant. And so her story gives us an understanding of how class divisions muddy the waters of that singular purpose projected by most nationalist narratives. Irish writing is full of disloyal servants, but Devlin plays the part of the faithful servant perfectly. Her real contribution came after the rebellion, when she refused to betray her colleagues - her real story is about her silence. After my liberation I frequently met some of the former state prisoners in the streets; they passed on without seeming to recognise me. I never troubled a being of them, or anyone else with my distress, although I held the lifes thread of more than fifty of the most respectable of them in my hands. But the pride of acting right consoled me - and I never took account of my incarceration, loss of health, the long and wasting confinement, and destruction of my whole family. Annes reticence seems to have been ingrained there are suggestions that she refused earlier invitations to provide her story - and told Brother Cullen only because he had befriended her. Its possible then to see her story as a metaphor for the Irish writer, particularly in the nineteenth century. With no certainty about the audience youre addressing, and with no clear idea of who might be listening friend or foe - what can or should you say? That need to speak and the necessity for silence are often in contradiction - and nowhere more so than in Anne Devlins account of herself. Also, the value of personal experience is crucial in Irish literature, especially of the past couple of centuries. W.B. Yeats asserts that personal narratives are the most significant for later generations. Theres also a lengthy tradition within Irish literature from Devlin, through John Mitchel and Oscar Wilde to Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams of prison journals, though the later versions are often far more self-conscious and self-dramatising than Devlins Annes narrative takes a lengthy and circuitous route before it eventually emerges into something like a public domain (the book of her prison journal is very difficult to come by). In other more self-conscious and confident writers this is replaced by a host of strategies of indirection and what could be called sleight of narrative - perhaps the best known strategy remains that old contradictory clich: whatever you say, say nothing. Much Irish literature from this period onwards is impelled by that need to speak while giving nothing away - which is what so often makes it so intriguing, teasing and slippery. #)6@   * 1 ",,4#2LT ӿ誔o"h-CJOJQJ^JaJmH sH $h-h-CJOJQJ^J_H aJ+h-h-6CJOJQJ^JaJmH sH (h-h-CJOJQJ^JaJmH sH &h-h-5>*CJOJQJ^JaJ(h-5>*CJOJQJ^JaJmH sH .h-h-5>*CJOJQJ^JaJmH sH +@Ad X Y M tuvSTvw7^7gd-gd-gd- jtvS$JMuvz{2Ի#h-h-6CJOJQJ^JaJ h-h-"h-CJOJQJ^JaJmH sH (h-h-CJOJQJ^JaJmH sH +h-h-6CJOJQJ^JaJmH sH  wz{56]gdojDgd-,1h. 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