Ó hAirtnéid go Lorca

Publication Instance Details #1722

Publication Overview

Translation	Is Multilingual	Explicit Irish Context?	Ekphrasis	Has Paratext?	Reference to News, Media or Technology
No	No	Yes	No	No	No

Details

Human Rights Issues	Gender-based violence State Violence Assassination Torture
War / Genocide Referenced	War: Spanish Civil War
Irish Context	Specific Irish place or place-name mentioned Other
Languages	Irish
Genre	Lyric Sequence
Medium	Print Collection
Notes	The speaker of the poem accounts for his discovery of the Spanish poet and dramatist, Lorca, through the Irish poet Michael Hartnett (Mícheál Ó hAirtnéide). The poem describes the character of Lorca, with emphasis on his sexuality ('aerach' = 'gay' is used twice in the poem) and his colourful, lively persona. The speaker of the poem identifies himself with Lorca, wondering if he could have stood the torture and indignity that he received. Lorca was executed by a Francoist Nationalist firing squad in the early days of the Spanish Civil War. Ó hAirtnéidem the Irish poet, is imagined as dancing in the speaker's mind with Lorca. Notably, Ó hAirtnéide was a mentor and friend of the poet, Mike Mac Domhnaill.