The adventures of three
teenagers living in the Dublin suburbs - Ruán, Emma
and Colm. All neighbours of the same age but with different
personalities, backgrounds, and social class, preparing for
the Leaving Cert. An accident turns everything on its head.
They get to know one another better and after all the hurlamaboc
have grown and developed.
Every teenager will recognise
Rúan, Emma and Colm. They will enjoy their company as they
grow through their adventures. The book offers an insight
into the social prejudices and bigotry in Ireland today. This
is a readable, inspiring and humorous novel which will be
enjoyed by all, young and old alike.
This book was also published in Gaidhlig under the title
of Ùpraid (2006)
Extracts
from interview with Ciara Dwyer, Sunday Independent, 07 May
2006 : "I've always had a secret
life under the surface" says Éilís Ní Dhuibhne. "That was the
life of books". The Dublin writer sits in the front room of
her Shankill home, gazes out at the vast sea and smiles. There
are daffodils on the mantelpiece, dreamy paintings in the wall,
and in the corner there is a piano with some sheet music. Surrounded
by the arts she seems happy; as content as the white cat outside
who swishes his tail up in the air, then rubs his head against
the window sill, while the sun shines in.
Although the author who
was shortlisted for the Orange prize she sees herself primarily
as a short story writer, she is also a novelist, a playwright
and an author of children's fiction, and then she has a whole
writing career in Irish. Her latest book, Hurlamaboc, an Irish-language
novel for teenagers is about middle-class Ross O'Carroll-Kelly
types who get tangled up in all sorts of shenanigans.
Although she went to
an all-Irish school, and even learnt Old and Middle-Irish
at UCD, she only began to write in Irish when somebody asked
her. "We weren't a Gaeilgeoir family. My mother didn't speak
Irish but she was very pro-Irish. I never heard my father
say he loved Irish but he was a native speaker from Donegal.
Some families were adamantly nationalistic and Irish was the
rule. We weren't at all like that. My father would use it
for prayers and greetings".
She attributes writing
in Irish to an emotional connection with her late father.
This fresh strand to her writing then blossomed. While Éilís
got her blas from her father, her mother reared the family
- she has a sister and a brother - with the belief that they
could do anything, which was some achievement, considering
money was tight and their daily lives full of drudgery.
Éilís Ní
Dhuibhne is one of a very small group of authors who write
creatively in both Irish and English. Many Irish-language
poets and novelists rely on translators to put English on
them.
They remain Irish-language writers with all that that entails
but gain a second home audience. Ní Dhuibhne, however,
challenges the old saying: "Ní féidir leat
freastal ar an dá thrá"/ "You can't
serve two masters" by doing just that. Her work in English,
such as The Dancers Dancing, which was shortlisted for the
Orange Prize, caters for one audience, while her work in Irish,
an entirely independent and imaginative opus, caters for another.
Her latest novel in Irish,
Hurlamaboc, is for young adult readers and will add further
to her reputation among those who prefer the first official
language as their literary medium. The title can be translated
as "commotion, uproar; noise of chase" and deals
with three Dublin teenagers as they sit their Leaving Cert
and prepare to face adulthood and all its responsibilities.
The voices of the three teenagers - Ruán, Emma and
Colm - all sound true to this reader's ear. That is no mean
achievement given that youth culture can be shallow and the
danger for an adult writer lies in injuring themselves when
diving in. Yet, while the culture in which these teenagers
move may be shallow, they themselves are not. They are reflective
beings. They appreciate that they will soon have choices to
make and that those choices will affect them in the years
to come. The bitchiness, petty-mindedness and class distinctions
of teenage life are there, but then these young adults are
often simply aping the behaviour of their parents. They did
not lick it off the stones, as the saying has it.
Readers of a certain
age may well remember the novels of Séamus Ó
Grianna and his depiction of poverty and the mores of Donegal
at the beginning of the last century. Ní Dhuibhne has
replaced the peasants of rural Donegal with the patricians
of urban Dublin. Her language lacks the rich idiom of Ó
Grianna but she writes clearly, authentically and has a sharp
eye for the small moments of doubt and fear which beset us
all. She has, in her own quiet way, brought the novel in Irish
into the 21st century. Pól Ó Muirí, The Irish Times, July 2007
The Irish-language novel,
Hurlamaboc, by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne (Cois
Life Teo), is teenage-speak as Gaeilge. It centres on three
teenagers in their Leaving Certificate year - their lives,
loves and mothers. The novel is sprinkled with English: "Agus
go tobann is stay at home housewives iad, seachas career girls."
It is wry and modern and boosts your confidence in understanding
our language whether you are heading for the Leaving Certificate
or, like me, have left it some 30 years ago. Nollaig Rowan,
The Irish Times, December 2006
Hurlamaboc is
her first outing in teenage fiction since in Irish and contains
echoes of the social commentary of Dúnmharú sa Daingean.
Ruán, Colm, and Emma are three urban teenagers. However, while
they may be from the same city, they ard not from the same
class. Emma's parents are separated and her mother has an
obnoxious new boyfriend. He lives with them in their small
flat. Ruán is from a wealthy household. His mother is a condescending
snob who has scant respect for Emma's Mum. Emma understands
this even if Ruán doesn't quite grasp it. Colm comes from
a violent home. It is Colm's house that the hurlamaboc (or
'commotion') of the title takes place. His father is a course
belligerent man. His mother is a weak woman and her weakness
causes her to let her son down badly. When Ruán's parents
are killed in a road accident in Turkey, the three are thrown
together in a way that probably wouldn't happen in the ordinary
course of events.
With regard to style
I take it that it is for the reason of realism Éilís puts
so many English words and phrases into the mouths of the teenagers.
However, I felt the technique actually took from the overall
impact of it, I couldn't quite book. While reading Hurlamaboc
I couldn't escape the feeling that the characters were in
fact speaking the English of Dublin's southside and that Éilís
was actually translating the words into Irish. Hurlamaboc
was awarded a prize in the Fiction for Young People section
of the Oireachtas Literary Awards Ruaidhrí Ó Báille - Inis,
Winter 2006, No. 18
