: Dónall Mac Amhlaigh
: A Soldier's Song
: Parthian Books
: 9781914595363
: 1
: CHF 6.30
:
: Biographien, Autobiographien
: English
: 266
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
'Mac Amhlaigh sought to record every pub and dancehall, every sunset, stone wall and rainbow in his mind, to pack the city in his suitcase so that she remained with him forever, so he could all at once hear her lost voice everywhere.' - Colum McCann 'Mícheál Ó hAodha has done the literary world a huge service by translating Dónall Mac Amhlaigh's work into English.' - Gillian Mawson 'a work that exudes authenticity and immediacy.' - Liam Harte A Soldier's Song is a classic account of Irish army life by a working-class writer whose work and contribution to literary culture is only now being fully appreciated. It has the privacy and immediacy of a diary but holds the interest like a novel. It follows the adventures, trials and tribulations of Nuibin Amhlaigh who keeps getting into trouble in his good soldier's progress through army life. A lost treasure of Irish writing translated for the first time into English.

Dónall Mac Amhlaigh (1926-1989) was one of the most important Irish-language writers of the 20th century. A native of County Galway, he is best known for his novels and short stories concerning the lives of the more than half-a-million Irish people who left Ireland for post-war Britain. A prolific journalist and a committed socialist in the Christian Socialist tradition, Mac Amhlaigh, whose diaries and notebooks are held in the National Library of Ireland, was a member of the Connolly Association in Northampton and contributed regularly to newspapers such as the Irish Press and a range of journals on both sides of the water throughout the 1970s and 1980s often providing the perspectives of the Irish in Britain on issues such as class, economy, emigrant life in England, the conflict in Northern Ireland and civil rights-related issues.

Chapter 2

Maitias met me at the corner of Eyre Square the next day and we went over to the hospital to see the girls one last time. We got through the main gate without too many questions and into the laundry where the girls work. Oh little brother, but you couldn’t see your hand in front of you with the steam that was in the room and you couldn’t hear yourself think with the racket and spinning of the huge washing machines there. Once the steam cleared somewhat, we saw the giant vat of soap and water and the Connemara girls up to their elbows in water. We called over to the girls, but they just giggled and waved some old pairs of drawers in our direction. Margaret and Juleen emerged from the steam in the end, laughing and giggling at the antics of the other girls. They couldn’t talk to us for long though and we said goodbye quickly again. Believe it or not, they gave us a half-sovereign each as a parting gift! God knows, this was a very kind gesture on their part, especially when they aren’t very well off themselves at all; they only got paid one pound, one crown per month in addition to their food. I was lonelier leaving Margaret than I thought I’d be, but we’re going to write to one another every week until I’m back home again.

Maitias and I went over to Renmore again, but at the barracks gate, they told us that there’d be no doctors available for the next few days. We were better off heading down to Athlone ourselves we said, because there’d be a doctor there who could do the medical immediately. We got the three o’clock train, even if we were a bit quiet passing over the bridge at Loch an tSáile and on past Baile Locháin. When we enquired at the gate of the barracks in Athlone, the army policeman gruffly told us go away first, for some reason. It’s not as if we looked rough or untidy at all or that we were flat broke or whatever either. He let us in eventually and we followed the barracks assistant to the storeroom where we were each given a mattress, two pillows, and sheets and blankets. We were led into a long wooden cabin and told to pick where we wanted to sleep until the exam the following morning. Maitias showed me how to dress a bed the way that a soldier’s supposed to do it – (he spent a while in the Preparatory Corps so he knows these things) and then we went over to the canteen for a cup of tea. There were a good few soldiers there already, some of them drinking tea or playing billiards or just listening to the radio. I couldn’t but envy these lads who’ve their training done already, not that I’d want to be stationed in this barracks here, however. We’re lucky that we’re Irish speakers, otherwise, we wouldn’t be sent back down to Renmore again at all, once our training’s done.

We bought tea and scones and sat at the table nearest the fire, and one of the soldiers wasn’t long coming over to us, a big block of a lad with fair hair. He asked us where we were from and whether we’d been accepted for training yet and once we told him that we were joining the Irish-speakingAn Chéad Chath, what do you know but didn’t he switch to Irish! He’d good Irish too, by my soul, other than that he had a strange dialect. He was from Turbot Island out from Clifden and he’d a year done in the Army already. I got the feeling that Maitias wasn’t over the moon that this fellow had joined us. I offered him a drop of tea and a few scones, and he kicked me in the ankle under the table unknown to th