Conference "Regard sur l'Irlande" : Marie-Louise O'Connell

Marie-Louise O'Donnell

On Friday night a conference about Ireland took place at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris, by Irish reporter and senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell. I was expecting something rather standardized about Ireland's contemporary
situation – its economy and political current issues for instance: nothing new under the sun. But I have been given something else entirely.

Instead of listening to a dull explanation of facts and events, Marie-Louise spoke from her heart, from her guts even, about this country that she loves so much and could never be far away from for long. She talked fondly about the proud Irish people, their fundamental artistic character which they have somehow lost and must regain; in brief, she spoke about Irish identity as she saw it, from a cultural, human, sentimental point of view.

Beginning her speech by praising Paris's riches and beauty, she kept the public entertained with humorous notes here and there – mainly jokes about Ireland, and putting in comparison the two together. But those were not malevolent jokes, rather they were gentle pokes as one would do with a longtime, dear friend.

O'Donnell talked with sparkling eyes of her childhood in County Mayo, and when she went to visit her grandmother in a countryside village. It was there, when she was still little, that she became aware of the power of language, of words, of voices. No wonder then that she became an actor and theatre administrator, before becoming a reporter, broadcaster and politician – each of these jobs being closely related to orality.

After the first humorous and nostalgic half of her speech, she went on on a more sensitive subject for Irish people, and a more important issue: the turning point which represented the recent death (30 August of this year) of the Irish poet, senator, lecturer and playwriter Seamus Justin Heaney, who had won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. He was a proud Irish figure, fond of his country – he always emphasized that he was Irish, and not British – and knew that Ireland needed to take back her essence, take back her talent to produce, and stop copying: “The trappings of moderrnity have nothing to do with us.”

Indeed the modern bankers and the like have made the emerauld island drift away from its artistic path. Ireland was – but still is, and has to persist in this way – a country of arts, and of sound, and of writing. When Heaney died, there was a great outpour of grief in Ireland, said O'Donnell, herself repressing some tears. But not one that could be seen for a celebrity; it was the grief felt about a void inside every Irish people, that could not be fulfilled after Heaney's death. And in order “to do him justice”, and do justice to Ireland, the people must take back their country and believe in their talent again, before it is too late.

An unexpected music treat in a pub in
Miltown Malbay (Willie Clancy Festival 2012)

She also talked about how the Irish were brute and to-the-point when they spoke, but always in an honest and relevant way; how it was easy to encounter Irish writers in the street and have a chat over a pint with them if you wanted to.

When she told all her anecdotes, this made me feel like I was back there again. The Irish do have a joy of living, and an openness that you would not find in Great-Britain or in France – without either being crude or too extraverted as in the United-States or in Mediterrean countries. And the arts do take an important part of their everyday-life: it is still easy to find pubs in which small bands – traditional or not – are playing for a few hours in exchange of some pints, to the delight of all.

O'Donnell ended her speech on a poetic touch with one of Heaney's poems, "Land", before taking questions from the public.
In the end, instead of heading home with a notebook full of data, I came back with a head full of memories.

This article was written for this blog only.