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and the beginning of all-out warfare between the
two sides.
The Language
The very first examples of a language that re-
sembles the modern Irish language appear on
stones dated to around 300–400 BC; this language
is called Ogham. Though the language was adapted
through the years, it has basically stayed the same.
In the 1100s, when the Anglo-Normans from the
European mainland came to Ireland, the Irish lan-
guage remained the dominant one spoken. By the
1500s, Irish was almost exclusively spoken.
In the 1600s, wealthy English lords settled
large estates in Ireland, and they promoted laws that
would curtail the Irish language and make English
the official language spoken. A series of Penal laws
enacted in 1695 did much to suppress the Irish lan-
guage, as well as much of Irish culture, in Ireland.
By the mid-1800s, when the Irish Potato Famine
wiped out half of the farming population, the vast
majority of Irish people spoke English. Some ar-
eas in the west and northwest of Ireland, such as
West Limerick mentioned in the poem, still main-
tain a strong cultural personality and have many
Irish speakers, but they are the minority.
Critical Overview
Hartnett was already a moderately well-known
writer in Ireland by the time “A Farewell to Eng-
lish” was published in 1975: James Simmons, dis-
cussing his work in the 1974 anthology Ten Irish
Poets,made a point of mentioning that Hartnett’s
work was “well thought of in Dublin, and in the
North he is the most widely admired Southern
poet.” Since “A Farewell to English,” however, it
has been difficult for critics to discuss Hartnett’s
poetry without giving their opinions of his decision
to write in a dead language. As Denis Donoghue
explained in the Sewanee Reviewin 1976, “Irish
writers find it particularly difficult to know what
they are doing; they live on a fractured rather than
an integral tradition; they do not know what voice
is to be trusted. Most of them speak English, but
they have a sense, just barely acknowledged, that
the true voice of feeling speaks Irish, not a dead
language like Latin but a banished language, a
voice in exile.” Soon after publishing this poem,
Hartnett received several awards from Irish patri-
otic associations, serving more as recognition of his
nationalism than of his poetic ability.
Even looking beyond nationalistic sentiments,
though, Hartnett has not gained a very broad rep-
utation outside of his native country. In his review
of Hartnett’s 1996 Selected and New Poems,Ben
Howard recounts the period of time when Hartnett
only wrote in Irish, but he is also able to consider
the post-Gaelic period. Howard praised Hartnett,
but found that “his characteristic tone is one of
grievance, historical and personal”; still, he noted,
“the black clouds of Irish history sometimes lift,
revealing the freshness of the physical world.” Ea-
mon Grennan, whose relationship with Hartnett
went back to college days in the early 1960s, was
less reserved in his review for the Southern Review,
calling Selected and New Poems“a gift to Hart-
nett’s admirers, as well as to those readers ap-
proaching his work for the first time.” Grennan’s,
like most reviews, gives readers a background of
the poet’s career of over thirty years: during that
time, Grennan recognizes that Hartnett’s reputation
has not spread beyond a small audience of poetry
enthusiasts and Irish patriots.Criticism
David Kelly
Kelly is an instructor of Creative Writing and
Composition at two colleges in Illinois. In the fol-
lowing essay he examines the causes and problems
that can arise from the sort of separation that Hart-
nett proposes in “A Farewell to English.”Most of us will never know what it must be
like to be a colonized people, to have to contend
with two different histories—the official one,
which is the history of the colonizers, and also the
suppressed history of your own people. Even worse
would be the terrible responsibility of having to de-
cide how much of the pre-colonial past should be
held on to. Making it even more difficult is the fact
that much of the past in question is not even a per-
sonal matter, not the past of people living now but
of their ancestors, people who left the earth long
ago. When is the right time to stand up against the
ugly idea that history is written by the victors?
When is it time to give in and focus on the here-
and-now?
The Irish poet Hartnett took his stand with a
1975 poem entitled “A Farewell to English,” in
which he described a common incident—hearing
Old Irish, or Gaelic, spoken in a bar—that led him
to the resolution to quit writing in English and toA Farewell to English