―Dunarea De Jos‖ University— Galati

Faculty of Letters

Profile: Romanian — English

De-constructed Cú Chulainn

Professor:

Associate Professor Ioana Mohor-Ivan

Student:

Goleanu Florin

Galati

2011

De-constructing Heroism: Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill

In this essay we will deal with Cú Chulainn I, from Selected Poems, 1988; a mythological poem written

by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.

Before going deep into the matter of discussion, we need to give some information about the author

herself.

Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill was born in Lancashire, England, to Irish parents; she had moved to Ireland, to live

with an aunt of her in Cahiratrant, a village in the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht near Ventry.

She studied English and Irish at University College, Cork. Although she had been dealing – and still is –

with daily tasks in English, she composes or writes (as you will) poetry in Irish. For Irish speakers, she is

known as Nuala Rua or „red Nuala‖ (Maureen O’Rourke Murphy & James McKillop: 2006)

Now, this must not surprise us, because, as we find in An Irish Literature Reader. Poetry, Prose, Drama,

by Maureen O’Rourke Murphy & James McKillop (p. 401-402), she prefers Irish to English because Irish is

the ―The Corpse that Sits Up and Talks Back‖.

The reason for her accepting the Irish language in Poetry, even though she was interested in American

Beat Poetry as well, is that – we believe – she was connected in one way or another to the Irish mythological

background. She had somehow the feeling that the Irish myth is somehow a formidable spiritual resource.

Now let us give a fragment from the heroic poem Cú Chulainn I:

Small dark rigid man

Cú Chulainn

who still lacks a lump on your shoulder

who spent your first nine monthis in a cave

swimming in your mother’s fluid.

Grave hunter

who’d satisfy no woman

saying your father never went

to a small seaside town

like Ballybuion

never made arms and instruments of war

to give you

so you could leap from the womb

three minutes after the conception

your hand full of spears

holding five shields –

it is not we who injured you.

We also came my ladies, out of wombs

and the danger yet remains

morning noon and evening

that the ground will open

and opened to us all will be

Brufon na hAlmhaine

Brú na Bóinne

or Teach Da Deige

with its seven doors

and hot cauldrons.

Don’t threat us again with your youth again

small poor dark man

Cú Chulainn

What surprises us is the fact that this poem, in contradiction with what we said earlier, is a deconstructed

one. This means that the poem is composed so that it will desintegrate the matter that the poem holds within

it, as for example: ―Grave hunter/ who’d satisfy no woman/ saying your father never went/ to a small seaside

town‖. From this lines we can clearly see that the lyric voice denies what Cú Chulainn has done, or his

fahter has done. He, Cú Chulainn , is a Grave hunter who could not (or would not) satisfy any woman. He is

an impotent, he is the opposite of Cú Chulainn , he is the opposite of the hero.

The images that the poem shows us are quite apocalyptical: morning noon and evening that the ground

will open/ and opened to us all will be/ Brufon na hAlmhaine/ Brú na Bóinne/ […]/ with its seven doors and

hot cauldrons.

In our opinion, the seven doors may refer to the Seven Days when God created all that there is, or may

refer, quite the contrary, to the seven signs of destruction, the seven signs that will be shown to mankind

when the Antichrist will come and then, Judgement Day will take place. The hot cauldrons may refer to the

plagues, cataclysms as the Apocalyps after Joan tells us: that there will be seven Angels, and each Angel will

have a clarion, and to each Angel there wll be given a seal, and with that seal he will have the power to harm

and kill those who are sinners, and so on.

The first and final stanzas are very interesting from our point of view.

Why?

Because in the first stanza Cú Chulainn is named small dark rigid man/ Cú Chulainn , and in the final

stanza small poor dark man. This can mean one thing and one thing only: that the Cú Chulainn from other

heroic poems, or dramas, or proses is not the same here. He is only one, small dark man, he still has the force

to threat us with his youth again. But, nevertheless, he is a mere old man. Time has said its word, and there is

nothing he can do about it.

The metaphors used by the author (or by the lyric voice?)1 are rough, beautiful and surprisng. The poem

seems to be a some sort of dialogue between the voice and the reader. Cú Chulainn spent your first nine

months in your mother’s womb. So this seems to be a halving of someone, wether it is the voice, or the

author herself or the reader. Cú Chulainn has been halved, divided. And, worse, he his a lump on your

shoulder: this means that, actually, Cú Chulainn is either a protuberance on my or your shoulder, or… that

he is of no solid mass or shape whatsoever.

Poor Cú Chulainn – this is what we would say if it were for us to be ironic. But we are not ironic, the

poem is very disturbing (in the good sense of the word). It is of a profound and utterly importance for us, the

reader, to understand the sense, the hidden symbol that the poem carries within itself.

It is a tragic poem, the tragedy of the character who cannot fight anymore, who cannot become feared,

who cannot threat anymore

And with this we conclude our short essay about the poem: this is what de-constructivism and de-

constructing heroism is, in our opinion, about. The regressiveness of Cú Chulainn , who from hero became

nothing, a shadow, an abstract point in the real diagram of the imaginary. We hope that our arguments and

examples made it clear that this is de-constructivism, that this is the time that was spent during ―your first

nine month in a cave/ swimming in your mother’s fluid‖.

1 Roland Barthes speaks about the issue: the writer is dead, the Author is dead: only by his death can the Opera take

birth. And along the naissance of the Opera takes place the naissance of the Reader and the Critic as well.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Murphy, Maureen O’Rourke; McKillop, James (2006) – An Irish

Literature Reader. Poetry, Prose, Drama, Syracuse University Press,

Syracuse, New York;

Mohor-Ivan, Ioana (2011) – The Celtic Paradigm in Modern Irish

Writing, ―Dunarea de Jos‖ University of Galati Faculty, of Letters.

Webliography

http://www.bibliaortodoxa.ro/noul-testament/4/Apocalipsa — on the

29th

of May, 2011