of this is found in her poem ëCathleení (1991, 1992) where she
reassesses the figure of Mother Ireland. In his own poem entitled
ëAislingí, Paul Muldoon has already questioned the legitimacy of
gendering the nation.^13 It is important to consider how Muldoonís
English translation of a Gaelic poem that undermines authentic
versions of the nation or ëCathleení, further complicates questions of
authenticity since he is a male Northern poet who translates the work
of a female Southern poet, and thus changes the ëtrueí version. In
ëCathleení Muldoon translates NÌ Dhomhnaillís poem ëCaitlÌní into
English, and he plays with original versions of Cathleen NÌ Houlihan
who is presented as anyoneís ëgrannyí with a ëpermanent waveí,
selective hearing and a tendency to boast about her wild youth:
You canít take her out for a night on the town
without her either showing you up or badly letting you down:
just because she made the Twenties roar
with her Black and Tan Bottom ñ O Terpsichore ñ^14Alongside this version of Cathleen as dancing queen, floozie and
possible collaborator, the poem also presents the traditional version of
Cathleen NÌ Houlihan, ëwithout blemish or blightí, and appeals to a
nationalist and Revivalist ideal of Ireland as a pastoral utopia. Hence,
she ëhighstepsí in a stately way by the ëoceaní seeking aid from
abroad and is as pure as the driven or ëfresh fall of snowí.
The diction here can be compared with the first two stanzas of a
traditional lyric about Ireland written by the aisling poet, Aogan O
Rathaille (1675ñ1729), which is translated by Thomas Kinsella. In
this poem Ireland, as a beautiful woman, is ë[b]rightest most brightí
and her hair sweeps up ëthe dew from the grassí as she is ëcreated, in a
higher worldí and is comparable with iconography of another
idealized woman, the Virgin Mary.^15 In NÌ Dhomhnaillís poem she is
also ëbrightest of the brightí, her hair curls albeit artificially, and she is
slightly dewy as the snow falls ëon her broadest of broad browsí and
13 Cf. Paul Muldoon, ‘Immram’ from Why Brownlee Left (1980), New and
Selected Poems 1968–1994 (London: Faber, 1996), pp.54–64.
14 Ní Dhomhnaill, Astrakhan Cloak, trans., Muldoon, pp.38–41.
15 Thomas Kinsella, ed., The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse (Oxford: University
Press, 1986), pp.195–6.