The brutal murders in Maamtrasna – five members of one family killed as they slept in their own home – had shocked the nation. To many in Britain the people of Maamtrasna were what the Spectator called in its coverage “scarcely civilised beings . Kelleher demonstrates how throughout the Maamtrasna trials, “who spoke what language, and by whom they were understood, mattered significantly in determining the accused’s fates”. Kelleher shows how the lost world of bilingual Maamtrasna continued to fascinate Joyce. At his execution in 1882, Maolra Seoighe’s last words of Irish carried echoes of more than just his own murder.

Source: The Irish Times December 08, 2018 06:02 UTC