Life
1947- [Robert Anthony Welch]; b. 25 Nov., Cork; ed. Coláiste Críost
Rí and UCC; PhD at Univ. of Leeds later issued as A History of Verse Translation
from the Irish (1988); m. Angela [née O’Riordan], with whom four children, Rachel, Killian, Egan and Tiernan. lecturer at Leeds, 1971-73, 1974-84; teaching in Nigeria in interim; appt. to Chair of English at Univ. of Ulster,
1984, Head of Dept., 1984-94, and afterwards Dean of Arts; issued Muskerry (1991), poetry; issues Changing States: Transformations in Modern Irish Writing (1993), critical essays; ed. Folklore writings of W. B. Yeats (1993);
ed., The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature (1996); appt. member of Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 1996, and afterwards Vice-Chairman; issued The Kilcolman Notebook (1993), a novel on Spenser in Ireland, and Groundwork (1997), examining the experience of Irish families in key periods of colonial history, selected among “Notable Books” of 1998 (NY Times Book Review); issues Tearmann (1997), a detective novel in Irish; issues Blue Formica Table (1999), a poem-sequence; issues The Abbey Theatre, 1899-1999 (1999); appt.
Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Univ. of Ulster, 2000; estab. Academy of Irish Cultural Heritages (AICH), 2001; awarded Snr. Distinguished Research Fellowship (UU) for ‘expertise in field of interaction betweeen Gaelic and Celtic traditions and writing in English’, Dec. 2003; writes Protestants, a one-man play, premiered by Ransom Prods. at Old Museum Arts Centre (Belfast) and staged at Traverse Th. (Edinburgh), Soho Th. (London) and St. Andrew’s Lane (Dublin), to good reviews, April-Aug. 2004; participates in Munster Literature Centre translation project, with volume on Dana Prodracka, 2005. OCIL DIL2
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Works
Poetry, ‘Memoirs of a Kerry Parson [Stephen Hilliard]’, in Etudes Irlandaises,
III, (1978), pp.15-18; Muskerry (Dublin: Dedalus 1991), 51pp.;
Secret Societies (Dublin: Dedalus 1997), 88pp.; Blue Formica Table
(Dublin: Dedalus 1999), 95pp.
Novels, The Kilcolman Notebook (Dingle: Brandon 1993); Tearmann ( Baile Átha Cliath: Coiscéim 1997), 113pp.; Groundwork (Belfast: Blackstaff 1997), 210pp. [Dufour Edns. 1997, 202pp.] Qry:
Criticism, A History of Verse Translation from the Irish (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1988), 200pp.; Irish Poetry from Moore to Yeats [Irish Lit. Studies, No. 5] (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980), 248pp.; ed., The Way Back: George Moore’s ’The Untilled Field & The Lake [Appraisal: Irish and English Literature in Context, No. 1] (Dublin: Wolfhound Press 1982), 140pp.; ed., with Suheil Badi Bushrui, Literature and the Art of Creation (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe; N.J.: Barnes & Noble 1988), ix, 323pp.; Changing States: Transformations in Modern Irish Writing (London: Routledge 1993) [infra]; W. B. Yeats, Writings on Irish Folklore, Legend and Myth (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1993), 494pp.; Changing States: Transformations in Modern Irish Literature (London: Routledge 1993), 320pp.; ed., Irish Writers and Religion [Papers of IASIL Conference] (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1992), xiii, 242pp.; The Abbey Theatre 1899-1999: Form and Pressure (OUP 1999), 280pp.; The Structure Of Process: John Montague’s Poetry (Coleraine: Cranagh 1999), 17pp. [pamph.]
Miscellaneous, George Orwell: Animal Farm [York Notes] (Harlow: Longman 1980, 1983, 1987), 64pp.; Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Queen, Book 1 [York Notes] (Harlow: Longman 1985), 80pp.; A Llittle Book of Irish Myths (Belfast: Appletree Press [1996]), ill. Sara Walker, 60pp.; Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof [York Notes] (Harlow: Longman 1996) 59pp.; ed. The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature, asst. ed. Bruce Stewart (Oxford: OUP 1996), xxv, 614pp.; ed., Concise Oxford Companion to Irish Literature (Oxford: OUP 2000), 393pp.
Contributions [selected], ‘The Loutishness of Learning: The Presence of Writing’, in Writing Ulster, Nos. 2 & 3 (1991 / 92), pp.58-71; ‘Some aspects of the culture of Anglo-Irish Romanticism’, Gael, VIII (1986), pp.27-38; ‘Yeats, Myth and History’, in Gael, VIII (1986), pp.91-101.
Miscellaneous, extract from Groundwork [novel], in Krino (Summer 1996), [q.p.]; ed. with Greg Delanty, Patrick Galvin, New and Selected Poems (Cork UP 1996), 154pp. Also, A Little Book of Irish Myths [Little Irish Bookshelf Ser.] (Belfast: Appletree Press [q.d.]).
Changing States: Transformations in Modern Irish Writing (London: Routledge 1993), 307pp. Preface [ix]; Acknowledgements [xii]; Change and Stasis in Irish Writing [1]; Language and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century [11]; George Moore: ‘The Law of Change is the Law of Life’ [35]; W. B. Yeats: ‘The Wheel Where the World is Butterfly’ [55]; J. M. Synge: Transfigured Realism [80]; Joyce Cary: ‘Wondering at Difference’ [119]; Francis Stuart: ‘WE are all One Flesh’ [138]; Samuel Beckett: ‘Matrix of Surds’ [162]; Máirtín Ó Cadhain: ‘Repossessing Ireland’ [187]; Seán Ó Riordáin: ‘Renewing the Basic Pattern’ [204]; Brian Friel: ‘Isn’t this Your Job to Translate?’ [224]; Movement and Authority: ‘Suddenly You’re Through’ [270]; Coda: Seers and Dancers [285]; Notes, 290; Index, 304. (See under “Quotations”, infra.]
Criticism
David Gardner, ‘A View of Elizabeths’ Ireland(s): Robert Welch’s The Kilcolman Notebook (1994)’, in Notes on Modern Irish Literature, 10 (1998), pp.4-17.
Mary Helen Thuente, ‘The Literary Significance of the United
Irishmen’, in Michael Kenneally, ed., Irish Literature and Culture
(Colin Smythe 1992), pp. 29, 39.43.
Andrew Hadfield, ‘The Trial of Jove: Spenser’s Allegory and the Mastery of the Irish’, in Bullán: An Irish Studies Journal, 2, 2 (Spring / Summer 1996), pp.39-53.
John Dunne, review of Groundwork (1997), in Books Ireland (Dec. 1997), p.333.
Danny Morrison, reviewing of Groundwork, in Magill ([q.iss.] 1997), p.49.
Peter S. Prescott, review of Groundwork in NY Times Book Review (7 June 1998).
Ccccccritics!: Kilcolman Notebook was noticed with interest in Books Ireland [First Flush] (?Summer 1994), and treated more dismissively in John Devitt’s ‘Brief Notes’ (Irish Literary Supplement [1994]) but greeted with warmest approbation in Rüdiger Imhof’s Linen Hall Review fiction column (Winter 1994), noting especially the use of intertextuality and dreams, while Cormac Dean, reviewing finds it ‘impressive in scope’ and writes of it as ‘a foundation on which new historical thought can be built’ (The Irish Times, 10 Oct. 1998).
Kevin Kiely, ‘Signifying Something’, review of The Abbey theatre 1899-1999: Form and Pressure, in Books Ireland (March 2000), pp.62-63: ‘[T]here is a magnificence about the pacing of Welch’s text [...] Welch doesn’t shrink from the linguistic complications involved in the evolution of a bi-lingual National theatre, where Yeats had the wit to choose the actors “who would be less likely to pronounce ‘Caoilte’ as ‘Wheelchair’.” (p.62)
Michael Cronin, Translating Ireland: Translations, Languages, Cultures (Cork UP 1996), quotes: ‘All legitimate intellectual enquiry is translation [...] reveals itself more completely than ever before’ [as supra], and remarks: ‘In the Irish context, translation is not simply a historic fatality resulting from massive laguange shift in the nineteenth century, but is vital in freeing the culture from obsessive concerns with continuity and purity. [...] Translation is both the product and champion of discontinuity. If the condition of Ireland is the condition of modernity - discontinuity, fragmentation, self-doubt - then it is only to be expected that translation will emerge as a dominant feature of contemporary Irish literature.’ (p.168; see further quotations, infra.)
Naomi Doak (summarises the language-thesis of Changing States, 1993): ‘Robert Welch says that to speak of tradition in the nineteenth century is to speak of an absence due to the death of [the] Gaelic language and culture and the assimilation or imposition (depending on your opinion) of the English language of the coloniser at that time. Welch asserts that the strategy of writers - not just Moore - in the nineteenth century was to invent many “Irelands” as possible, because there was no Ireland, no unified language, no continuity, no national assembly or system of imagery in which a community could take pleasure in the common transactions and experiences of the quotidian.’ (Doak, MADip. Essay, 2002-03; ref. to Welch, Changing States: Transformation in Modern Irish Writing, Routledge 1993, p.11.)
John F. Deane, eds., Dedalus Irish Poets (Dublin: Dedalus Press 1992), pp.231-39; selects “The Fear Orchard”; “The Marie Celine”; “The ‘Pav’”; “Memoirs of a Kerry Parson”; “Upper Evergreen Road”; “Over and Over”; “November ’89, Prague’; “August ’91, Moscow”; “Iachall”.
Books in Print (1994): Muskerry. Dedalus. 51pp. £4.95 pb 0-948268-93-X; hb £7.95 -94-8. Nov 1991; Irish Writers and Religion. ed. Colin Smythe. 256pp. £22.50(?) 0-86140-112-3. Sep.1992; Changing States : transformations in modern Irish writing. Routledge. 319pp. Stg£12.99 pb. 0-415-09361-9 (hb Stg£35 -08666-3). Sept 1993; The Kilcolman Notebook. Brandon. 128pp. £6.95 pb 0-86322-180-7.April 1994; Writings on Irish Folklore, Legend and Myth. W. B. Yeats, ed. 494pp. Penguin. £7.99 pb 0-14-018001-X. Sept 1993; The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature. ed. Clarendon Press. 644pp. Stg£25 0-19-866158-4. Criticism. 69.96 Mar. 1996; New and Selected Poems of Patrick Galvin. ed. Greg Delanty and Cork University Press. 153pp. £12.95 1-85918-079-5; pb £7.95 -091-4. Nov. 1996.
Biog. entries in Oxford Companion to Irish Literature (OUP 1996) and Robert Hogan, ed., Dictionary of Irish Literature [rev. edn.] (Greenwood1996); Who's Who in Northern Ireland [2000].
EIRData: citations and quotations in 115 files, viz. (chiefly): William Allingham, William Drennan; Turlough Carolan; Thomas Sheridan; Vincent Dowling; John Montague; Richard Alfred Milligan; Letitia McClintock; Thomas Crofton Croker; W. B. Yeats; Patrick Kavanagh; Mary Balfour; Máirtín Ó Cadhain; Robert Welch; L. A. G. Strong; Joyce Cary; Michael Longley; John Windele; Teresa Deevy; Patrick Delany; Edmund Burke; Austin Clarke; Thomas Stott; William Maginn; Thomas Moore; Alan Peacock [arch.]; John O'Donovan; Samuel Keightley; Seamus Heaney; James Hardiman; Ulick de Burgh; Brian Friel; Edward Bunting; Michael J Murphy; Eugene Curry; Standish Hayes O'Grady; Francis Hutchinson; John F. Deane; Edward Walsh; J.J. Callanan; Sarah Curran; Thomas Moore; James C. Mangan; J. H. Todd; George Sigerson; Douglas Hyde; J. M.Synge; Francis Stuart; Tadhg Dall Ó hUiginn; Steve MacDonogh; Desmond Fennell; Ernest Blythe; Michael Moran; Charles J. Kickham; Giraldus Cambrensis; George Petrie; Joseph Holloway; George Moore; Patrick Galvin; Edmund Spenser; Charles Henry Wilson; James Joyce; Joseph Cooper Walker; Seán Ó Riada ; Patrick Augustine Sheehan; Aubrey Thomas de Vere; Matthew Arnold; E. Estyn Evans; William Hamilton Drummond; Samuel Ferguson; Dublin Penny Journal; The Nation; James Casey; Gerald Griffin; Charles O'Conor; Colin Smythe; Denis Devlin; Charlotte Brooke; Oliver Goldsmith; Thomas Travers Burke; Thomas Percy; Frank Sewell; Henry Brooke.
Protestants (2004), a play, a stage monologue featuring manifestations of the Protestant spirit from Elizabeth I and Martin Luther to a bigoted Glasgow Rangers fan with allusions to William Blake; prod. by Ransom Productions; premiered 28 April 2004 at Old Museum Arts Centre, with Paul Hickey in single role and and dir. by Rachel O’Riordan [née Welch]; design by Gary McCann; lighting by Conleth White; also played at Traverse (Edinburgh Fest.), Soho Theatre, and St. Andrew’s Lane (Dublin).
The Laughter of women, a motif with which Groundwork (1997) closes, may be compared Máirtín Ó Díreáin’s “Rún na mBan” in Rógha Dánta (1949): ‘D’iminn sa deireadh/M’aghaid lasta is mé gonta/Ach is mairg nach bhfanainn;/Nuair a smaoinim naois air/Cá bhfois cén rúndiamhair/Nach eol d’aon fhear beirthe/A phiocfainn ó mhná/Scartha thart ar thine/Iad ag ól tae/Is seálta ar a gcloigne? [I left in the end/Blushing and hurt/But I wish I had stayed:/ When I think of it now/Who knows what secret lore/Unknown to any man alive/I’d have snatched form the women/Ranged round a fire/Drinking tea/With their shawls on their heads?]’ (See Tomás Mac Síomáin & Douglas Sealy, eds., Tacar Dánta/Selected Poems, Newbridge: Goldsmith Press 1984, pp.10-11.)
John Arden’s novel John Bale (1988), and specifically “I Am of Ireland” [Chap. VI], shares common features with Groundwork.
Greg Delanty dedicates ‘the Lost Way’, in Hellbox (1998), prev. printed in Irish Review, to Robert Welch.
Univ. Honours: Robert Welch was awarded the Snr. Distinguished Research Fellowship of the Univ. of Ulster in Dec. 2003 for ‘expertise in field of interaction betweeen Gaelic and Celtic traditions and writing in English’.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)