To be or not to be, that is the question!

Apart from his family, the two great loves in Mullingar teacher Muiris Ó Sionóid's life are poetry, and the Irish language. That's what led him to translate 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets into Irish, in his masterpiece, "Rotha Mor an Ghra".Muiris's love of the Irish language was fostered in Coláiste Mhuire, where every lesson was taught through the medium of the Irish language: "The great tradition of Coláiste Mhuire was the Irish language. There are people walking the street who left that school, maybe up to fifty years ago some of them, and they can stop and have a conversation with me in Irish still - such was the instruction and the basics that they were taught," says Muiris.Having qualified as a Maths teacher at NUI Galway, or UCG as it was then, Muiris felt at home in Galway, where people enjoyed easy command of the Irish language, and allowed him to make friends readily:"I enjoyed greatly teaching mathematics, although the greatest satisfaction was the three years I spent in Newbridge where I could teach Irish there as well as mathematics," he explains."The Department then brought in a rule that unless one had studied Irish as a subject in university, you couldn't teach the Irish language. Everybody saw it as a joke in my case because I could speak Irish many many times better than any Irish teacher in any school that I was ever in," he continued."In Galway, I heard people speaking Irish in the shops and very quickly I got speaking with them, and I made Irish-speaking friends and I wound up in Irish-speaking digs."But that was a time when there was a great sense of community in Ireland. The greed and the non-neighbourliness today is insufferable. I grew up in the countryside, where everybody walked to each other's houses, there was no running water at the time, you had to go to the well to draw buckets of water. You weren't separate from your community as you are now."We are living in an age that is totally inconducive to the writing of poetry. In many cases, many people simply redefine what poetry is today, many people who 'can', no longer write poetry. Poetry today is like trying to figure out a cryptic crossword puzzle that has no beauty of form," criticises Muiris."I produced my first poem in Irish about Seamus O'Faolain, who was county Chairman of the GAA. It went down very well and back then I got to know some great people. I was always drawn to have a pint, this town was so full of the greatest of characters, so witty and resourceful - roguish people."For years I was a customer of Lynch's in 34 Dominick Street, and that was the greatest nest of wits and amusing and entertaining types - we didn't need any television, there used to be great singers."They weren't from the better-off half but they relied on their natural wits. There was a great camaraderie there. But that's all gone now you know. It's fifteen years since I took a jar."Muiris believes that people today spend so much time passively watching television, that they don't build in themselves the vocabulary that those acquaintances of his would have had."They made each other's entertainment, they developed the art of conversation and wit.Now, people doing honours English for Leaving Cert, all they read is the obligatory texts, their only source of language are the old American and Australian soaps on television, it is a dreadful empoverished source to be learning from. That is unfortunately was the way it is today."We have so little nowadays in our national life to inspire us. These modern best-sellers which pass into nothingness as they deserve in a very short time indeed, it's the celebrity thing.This plethora of books that are coming out now, for instance Donal O'Cusack, I would never buy anything produced in a situation like that, you would learn very little about hurling!"