Aisling

Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes: An Aisling, 1883

The aisling (Irish for 'dream, vision', pronounced [ˈaʃlʲəɲ], approximately /ˈæʃlɪŋ/ ASH-ling), or vision poem, is a poetic genre that developed during the late 17th and 18th centuries in Irish language poetry. The word may have a number of variations in pronunciation, but the is of the first syllable is always realised as a [ʃ] ("sh") sound.

The aisling also features in traditional sean-nós songs.^[1]

History of the form[]

In the aisling, Ireland appears to the poet in a vision in the form of a woman from the Otherworld: sometimes young and beautiful, other times old and haggard. This female figure is generally referred to in the poems as a (pronounced [ˈsˠpʲeːɾʲvʲanˠ], 'heavenly woman'). She laments the current state of the Irish people and predicts an imminent revival of their fortunes, usually linked to the resotoration of the Roman Catholic House of Stuart to the thrones of Great Britain and Ireland.

The form developed out of an earlier, non-political genre akin to the French reverdie, in which the poet meets a beautiful, supernatural woman who symbolizes the spring season, the bounty of nature, and love. Another source was a tradition rooted in Irish mythology in which a god or goddess from the Pre-Christian pantheon is seen weeping for the recent death of a local hero.^[2]

According to Daniel Corkery, the first Aisling poems in the Irish language were composed during the early 17th century by the Roman Catholic priest, historian, and poet Geoffrey Keating. Fr. Keating's poem Mo bhrón mo cheótuirse cléibh is croidhe ("My sorrow, my gloomy weariness of breast and heart") and his elegy for the 1626 death of John Fitzgerald are both Aislingí. In the latter poem, Fr. Keating awakens from a slumber that has overtaken him along the banks of the River Slaney and is confronted by a vision of the Pre-Christian Irish goddess Cliodhna weeping for the death of John Fitzgerald.^[3]

In County Kerry in 1653, an anonymous Bard composed a lament over the recent death by hanging of local Irish clan chief and folk hero Piaras Feiritéar for leading his clan in resistance against the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. The lament begins, Do chonnac aisling are maidin an lar ghil ("I saw a vision on the morning of the bright day"). The vision was the goddess Erin bewailing the death of a man who had overthrown hundreds.^[4]

The first^[5] of the aisling poets was Aodhagán Ó Rathaille, athair na haisling ('father of the aisling'). In the hands of Ó Rathaille, the aisling tradition was bound up for the first time with the cause of the House of Stuart and of the Jacobite risings. It was Ó Rathaille who, for the first time, made the woman from the Otherworld lament the continued exile of the Stuart heir.^[6]

According to Daniel Corkery, "The Aisling proper is Jacobite poetry; and a typical example would run something like this: The poet, weak with thinking of the woe that has overtaken the Gael, falls into a deep slumber. In his dreaming a figure of radiant beauty draws near. She is so bright, so stately, the poet imagines her one of the immortals. Is she Deirdre? Is she Gearnait? Or is she Helen? Or Venus? He questions her, and learns that she is Erin; and her sorrow, he is told, is for her true mate who is in exile beyond the seas. This true mate is, according to the date of the composition, either the Old or Young Pretender; and the poem ends with a promise of speedy redemption on the return of the King's son."^[7]

Also famed for his works in the genre is Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin.

Among the most famous examples of Aisling poetry are Gile na gile by Ó Rathaille and Ceo draíochta i gcoim oíche by Ó Súilleabháin.

In later years, along with fellow Irish-language poets Diarmuid na Bolgaí Ó Sé and Máire Bhuidhe Ní Laoghaire, Pádraig Phiarais Cúndún adapted the conventions of Jacobite Aisling poetry to more recent political struggles by the Irish people. Cúndún's Aisling poems helped inspire the verse of more recent Irish-language poets such as , who adapted the Aisling tradition to the experiences of the Irish diaspora, as well as the events of the Easter Rising of 1916 and the Irish War of Independence.^[8]

Since the end of the Irish War of Independence in 1922, interest in the Aisling form and it's use by poets continues.

During the semicentennial of the Easter Rising in 1966, the Garden of Remembrance, which is dedicated to the memory of "all those who gave their lives in the cause of Irish Freedom", was formally opened by Eamon de Valera.^[9] It is located in the northern fifth of the former Rotunda Gardens in Parnell Square, a Georgian square at the northern end of O'Connell Street^[10] where the paramilitary Irish Volunteers were founded in 1913.

In 1976, a contest was held to find a poem which could express the appreciation and inspiration of the generations that fought and died in the struggle for Irish independence. The winner of the contest was Dublin-born author , whose poem An Aisling ("We Saw a Vision"), is now written in Irish, French, and English upon the stone wall of the monument.

During Queen Elizabeth II's state visit to Ireland in May 2011, Liam mac Uistín's poem was read out in Irish during the Queen's visit to the Garden of Remembrance. The Queen also laid a wreath at the Garden in honor of glúnta na haislinge ("the generation of the vision"), whom Liam mac Uistín's poem both praises and gives a voice to. The Queen's gesture was widely praised by the Irish media.

Satire[]

In 1751, Jacobite war poet Alasdair MacMhaighstir Alasdair, whose poetry remains an immortal part of Scottish Gaelic literature, poked fun at the aisling genre in his Anti-Whig and anti-Campbell satirical poem, ("The Ark"). An Airce was published for the first time in Edinburgh, as part of it's author's groundbreaking poetry collection Ais-Eiridh na Sean Chánoin Albannaich ("The Resurrection of the Old Scottish Language").

During the 1780s, County Clare poet and hedge school teacher Brian Merriman also parodied the Aisling genre in his comic masterpiece Cúirt An Mheán Oíche ("The Midnight Court").

In his poem Aisling an t-Saighdeir ("The Soldier's Dream"), Scottish Gaelic Bard and World War I veteran Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna recalls seeing a full-grown red deer stag in the rush-covered glens of North Uist and how he scrambled over rocks and banks trying to get a clear shot at the animal. Dòmhnall slowly took aim and ignited the gunpowder with a spark, only to find that the stag was gone. He had been replaced by Dòmhnall's Captain shouting retreat, as the Imperial German Army had swept behind the Cameron Highlanders and were about to cut off all opportunity to escape. Dòmhnall recalled that he had awakened not a moment too soon and that he barely escaped "the net" before the Germans "pulled it together." Some members of his unit, however, were not so lucky and were taken away to POW camps in the German Empire.^[11]

Other uses[]

• LÉ Aisling (P23) is a ship which was in the Irish Naval Service from 1980 to 2016.
• "Aisling" is a poem by Seamus Heaney from the collection North (1975).
• The acclaimed Irish author Ciaran Carson has said that much of his literature is based around the idea of the aisling, or dream vision.
• "Aisling" is a poem by Paul Muldoon from his 1983 collection Quoof.
• Aisling Ghéar by Breandán Ó Buachalla, a 20th century Aisling poet.
• Cathleen ni Houlihan, was based on the Gaelic Aisling but adapted into a theatrical written play by leading members of the Irish Literary Revival movement in 1902. Cathleen Ni Houlihan is an Old poor woman, a seemingly otherworldly figure that is the embodiment of Irish republicanism and can only be transformed back into a young woman if a young man gives his life for her Sake. She also symbolically represents the goddesses of war and Sovereignty from Irish mythology.^[12]
• Lady Hazel Lavery posed for portrait personification depictions of a number of literary Aisling figures in Irish history such as James Clarence Mangan’s Dark Rosaleen and W.B.Yeat’s Cathleen Ni Houlihan. The portraits were painted by her husband Sir John Lavery and appeared on bank notes in numerous forms during the course the 20th century in Ireland, they were commissioned by the Irish Free State.
• Some believe the tune of Danny Boy is based on the ancient song of Aisling an Oigfear, the lyrics of Danny Boy resemble the viewpoint of a message from a Mother to a Son, the son she had to let leave and become part of the Irish diaspora. The maternal lyric's in the song being a metaphor for Ireland and the land they left behind them.

In popular culture[]

• In the 2009 animated film The Secret of Kells, a main character is a woman of the Otherworld named Aisling with a cat called Pangur Bán.

See also[]

• Aisling (given name) – includes a list of people with this name

References[]

External links[]

• Irish text of Gile na Gile by Aodhagán Ó Rathaille
• Irish text of Úirchill an Chreagáin, an 18th century aisling from Ulster
• Medieval roots of the name Aisling disputed
• Video of Breandán Ó Buachalla on YouTube explaining the Aisling poetic genre.